Blaze of Chaos

by C. J. Strange

  Again, Duncan grunts from behind us, but thinks better of interjecting.

  “It would seem the Globe has, unfortunately, attracted the attention of the Sovereignty over the past year or so as an Anomaly hotspot. Said Anomaly hotspots have been monitored rather closely this week, given the explosive end to our last resistance pocket and how the community may decide to react.” Rhys is tickling beneath his cat’s chin as he talks, but his eyes never leave mine. I can see him out of my peripheral as I drive. “And while it’s all quiet on the western front so far, Wentworth’s growing a trifle uneasy, the Mad King that he is. He’s absolutely convinced we’ve been amassing a secret army in plain sight to strike back at them, and his plan is to nip it in the bud.”

  At least twenty questions are doing the dance for my attention at the same time. All I manage to get out is, “How?”

  “Via KING News, my darling. How else?”

  “I think the lass were looking for a wee bit more detail than that,” Duncan snorts, leaning forward to pass me a bottle of water he probably found in the backseat. It’ll help me recover; from the sound of it, I’m not done with my Magick for the day, and an impending migraine throbbing at my senses is the last thing I need.

  Rhys tuts and shakes his head, a clear sign to be patient. I think he’s relishing toying with us a bit too much, which would perhaps be aggravating me more if I weren't so focused on taking us down a country backroad at ninety.

  “Everything the Sovereignty does, everything Wentworth does, is about carefully-crafted puppetry.” Disgust or derision wrinkles Rhys’ nose, but doesn’t creep into his voice. “Manipulation. Mind-control. He wants us afraid, so much so that we are unwilling to object even to our own demise. But, unfortunately for the righteous, he’s not foolhardy enough to empower us even further by offering up more Martyrs. More Anomaly Martyrs, anyway.”

  “What other kind of Martyrs are there?” I ask, distracted as the sedan flies off the rural roadway and onto the main thoroughfare. Our entrance route is a blind corner indicated by a sharp deviation road sign, and I have to swing into the opposite lane to avoid T-boning a lorry.

  When he doesn't answer immediately, I realize he's waiting for me to glance over at him. I do; he’s wearing that shit-eating smirk again. “Why, human ones, of course.”

  This time, he needn’t wait. My head snaps over, staring at him firm and unyielding. “Human ones?”

  “Come now, Miss Penny.” Rhys' tone hardens. “You’re an intelligent woman, full of theory and guile, aren't you?”

  “We haven’t been amassing a secret army in plain sight.” My words dry my mouth as they pass on through like a breath of arid wind. “KING has.”

  “An entire unwitting army, drunk on vainglory and incapable of thinking for themselves. Sheep who think they’re wolves, dressed in sheep’s clothing. They sit in plain sight, waiting obediently, hungrily, for the command from their masters: the command to attack.”

  Fucking… shit.

  “What’s their plan.” It’s not even a request, it’s a command. A demand. I’m in full-out lieutenant mode, with a possibly active brigade member active in the field and in grave danger. Neither fact of which he is likely aware of yet.

  “You know of a reporter by the name Michael Kay?”

  “The same wanker who did that poxy propaganda special called Who Wants To Leave God’s Kingdom Anyway?, or something equally as uncreative?” I respond bluntly. I’ve no desire to hide my distaste for the many famous faces of KING News, or the entire KING Entertainment company in general. Once you’ve sold your soul to the Devil Herself, and are willing to work as one of her minions, you lose all credibility in my book.

  “That’s the chap. Wears that silly little ascot?”

  “Please get to the fucking point, I’m starting to get the urge to ram us again.”

  “We can negotiate all the ramming you want once I’m done explaining everything, darling.” Rhys winks, but for my sanity doesn’t make me wait long. “Mr. Kay, you see, is quite the golden boy of KING News at current, which is why I’m unsurprised he volunteered and was accepted for this very momentous undertaking.”

  I don’t even register either roundabout as we head into town, tearing across both of them and destroying shrubbery and flora with zero accountability. The front bumper clangs loudly as it scrapes the curb, punching a dent in one side of the bonnet. Other than my body being thrown around by the weak suspension and my thoughts being sent on the same violent track, I’m unharmed. A quick glance around tells me my comrades are about the same.

  The pieces are slotting together in my head. I’m figuring it all out.

  “To be a martyr.” I grip the wheel tighter, barrelling down the high street. We weave in and out of sleepy afternoon traffic, ignoring the honks and inaudible yells, most of which are valid. “Kay’s allowing himself to be attacked on live telly. By an Anomaly.”

  “Attacked may be phrasing it lightly, love.” Rhys’ lips form a tight, thin line. “Kay’s allowing himself to go out in a blaze of chaos. On live telly.”

  My jaw hits my knees. Duncan swears loudly, multiple times.

  The chuckle Rhys chases his statement with lacks all forms of humor. It’s a dry and bitter noise. “Quite the hype train to ensure the new laws enacted this week by the House ‘vote’,” he adds the air quotes with one hand, “will be taken well by members of the general public.”

  “Aye, or carried out by them,” Duncan interjects darkly. “Rile up your army, then give ‘em permission to attack.”

  “Not only attack, old boy,” Rhys corrects him. “As of this week, the killing of an Anomaly will no longer be treated as murder. We have the same rights as foxes in this country, it would appear. This is population culling at its most vile.”

  “How,” I’m barely able to utter, “can you know all this?”

  “I’m very good at talking to people,” the handsome stranger says flatly, honesty in his eyes. “And I’m very good at finding the right people to talk to.”

  “Is that fucking so?”

  “I found you, did I not?”

  “Yeah, and?”

  Rhys settles more upright in his seat, bracing one hand against the door and curling the other around his cat. “I would argue you may be the right person to talk to in this situation, pass on a little info? From one renegade to another?”

  I sense Duncan shift behind me. I know his reactions, and their emotional counterparts; his hackles were as ruffled by that statement as mine.

  “And what would make you think I’m the right person to talk to when it comes to some suicidal celebrity journalist?”

  Rhys sits back further, and studies me. The way his eyes pour over every inch of my body like warm honey teases my skin, leaving goose-pricked hairs erect in their wake. Ripping my gaze away from his pleasantly invasive one is a tougher task than it should be. I barely remember to make the turn-off for the campsite on time.

  “I don’t know. Something about you.”

  “Often go creeping on young lasses then, do you, sonny?” asks Duncan, his imposing presence becoming palpable all of a sudden.

  Rhys doesn’t even flinch, shifting his stare to my friend. Bizarrely, Tesla does the exact same thing.

  “Only the ones I like,” is his pointed reply, and he doesn't wait for acknowledgment or approval before turning back to me.

  “KING News have been sending plants disguised as patrons into the Globe for about two months. Some of them are Anomalies themselves, self-loathing Botches looking to get back in the Sovereignty’s good books and prove their loyalty, no doubt. Likely earn the deposit of few extra sterling on their Bits.” Rhys scoffs. “The plan is simple: disrupt the local color, poke a few buttons, and cause enough of a disturbance that a reporter from KING has reason for being nearby.

  “But, please,” he continues in a chipper tone, “you needn’t concern yourselves at all! This entire Machiavellian scheme of theirs is perched upon the brink of a fragile precipice, and
Miss Kendra knows how to control her punters. So, unless their plants can actually find an Anomaly who’s hot-headed and hot-tempered enough to put their braun before their brain, and push it over the edge for them, I doubt we’ll have anything to worry about.”

  The bright, beaming tone in which he says those words is direct contrast to the gravity of them, at least for me.

  “Give OP a ring,” I toss over my shoulder to my right-hand man, not even responding to Rhys. “Tell him to get his arse down to the Globe, and wait for us out of sight.”

  Perhaps Shields can’t think of a single person in the world idiotic enough, ignorant enough, or headstrong enough to lash out in spite of everything they hold dear.

  But I can.

  24 Alfie’s Bait

  “Hang about, hang about, look—there’s a lot of confusion over this glorious opportunity that I’m trying to offer you, so let me settle all the bullshit with this one simple question.”

  I’ve got them in the palm of my hand, all of them. I can feel it. I said it before, I’m no Starling star-child, but I can rile a pub’s worth of my own peers like nobody’s business.

  My people. My fucking blood. Their country might have forsaken them, but I’ll be damned if I ever will. With the counter beneath me as my stage, and with fifty or sixty upturned faces hanging on my every word as if I’m saying the things they’ve been unable to say for years… I’ve never been more certain of that fact.

  “How many of you lot have ever dreamed of sticking it to the Sovereignty?”

  The whoops and cheers are immediate, but I disregard them with a quick wave of my hand. “And I don’t mean graffiti or petty crime, I’m talking about proper sticking it to ‘em. Hard. Where it hurts.”

  “Where does it hurt then, mate?” someone yells from the crowd. I twist my head to make eye contact; his lime-green poly tracksuit is almost as offensive as his thick, Liverpudlian accent.

  Whether he probably supports a shite football team or not, I’m willing to answer his question.

  “Where does it hurt?” I repeat, my jaw aching at this point from grinning so broadly and for so long. “Sorry, just had to repeat it for the people in here who speak proper English, you know?”

  “Piss off,” comes the lukewarm reaction. I’m expecting it, and I laugh it off.

  “We hit ‘em in the bollocks!” I declare, to the sheer joy of my spectators. Drinks are thrust high into the air and the pub alights with noise again. Other than the mouth Scouser, the only one who doesn’t seem to be cheering is Aquilo, the coffee creep, over in his corner, and who gives two shits what that tosser thinks anyway. “We hit ‘em in the bullshit. And we hit ‘em where it hurts most, more than anywhere else—right in their poxy fucking egos!”

  A glorious wave of empowerment is close to cresting in the room. If Penny were here, as promised, she’d be grinning at me in that excitable way she always has done when we aren’t sure if we’re about to get in way over our heads. Somehow, we always made it through, standing side-by side.

  But tonight, she ain’t at my side. I feel naked doing this without her, and not in the fun way. Incomplete.

  It ain’t right. I wanted to fight this war with her, not without. It ain’t fucking right.

  My pint’s empty, but I want to make a toast. I roll my head to the side to seek out Kendra; she’s leaning on the other end of the bar, arms folded across her chest, staring at me in what I’m going to guess is awe. I don’t blame her; I’m a total badass. And this is the first time she’s discovering I’m a total badass, or at least, discovering the true lengths of my badassery. It ain’t every day you find out your new best punter is a cunting superhero.

  I jiggle my glass at her. She snaps out of her stupor, rolls her eyes, and pours me fresh one. Atlas is yanking me down by my hood to grumble something about ‘pushing it, sonny’ when Kendra approaches. I shove my big friend away, trying not to stumble on the bar top.

  Kendra’s next to seize me by the jacket, and I scoff and pull a face. “Oi, oi! Do I walk about grabbing you by the threads, or what?”

  “Diesel.” Her grip tightens and she holds me in place. “Are you sure you know what the hell you’re doing?”

  “Not a scooby," I answer, my words warped by the big grin on my face. “I usually sort of play it by ear.”

  She jerks my collar. “Seriously. Playing it by ear’s all well and good, but it’s my bloody pub on the line.” She risks a glance over my shoulder, and even through the brain fog I realize she’s right.

  “Wrap it up, would you? Before you incite something and get us all thrown in the fucking Vault. You can join Dumbledore’s Army once you’ve sobered up.”

  I snort, still smirking. “Dumbledore’s Army fought against the Magick, you spanner.”

  “What?”

  “Well, yeah, see, it ain’t the same, because—”

  “Diesel, I am not arguing the semantics of illegal children’s literature with you when you’re this plastered.” Kendra closes her eyes, heaving out a sigh. “Shut it down, mate. And I’ll cover the cost of whatever you’ve put on your slate tonight. Just take it down a notch before someone gets hurt, yeah?”

  She releases my hoodie and places my pint down next to me. I take the hint. Using Atlas’ shoulder for balance in my tipsy state, I heft myself down into a kneel and scoot off the bar. While I don’t need any help, Atlas grabs my hood up in one of his mammoth fists again, probably to keep me from stumbling over.

  “Get off me, you nob,” I’m muttering, shoving him away from me, as an insistent finger prods me from behind. I spin around with a look of total—what’s that word Oliver uses for it?—indignation to greet whichever motherfucker is responsible for said action.

  “Did you just fucking poke me?”

  It’s the Scouse geezer in the Peter Pan tracksuit. Ever since Penny’s been on my case about it, I’ve been doing my best not to stereotype people based on where they’re from. I really have. But that travesty of an outfit is so brutal it’s making it impossible for me not to judge every Liverpudlian I can think of, all four Beatles included. Except maybe Ringo.

  “So, did you mean what you said up there then, eh?” he asks around a mouthful of gum. “Or was that naught but a load of hot air?”

  “No, seriously, mate, did you just… who the fuck even pokes someone? What is this, my fucking FaceFolio profile?”

  At my side, Atlas lets his amusement be heard loud and clear. I appreciate the back-up. It’s like an audial high-five.

  “The way you were talking, seemed you were up for a bit of argy-bargy.” I can’t decide what I dislike more about him, I muse drunkenly as he talks; his fake Burberry-print snapback, or the enormous tattoo on his forearm of a tattered Union Jack swathing a weird, three-headed lion thing. “Don’t go telling me now you ain’t going to put your money where that big mush of yours is.”

  I take my time in retrieving my pint from the bar and imbibing in a couple of good, long swigs. He’s about my age, taller but thinner, and he’s wearing his government-issued Anomaly designation pin on the collar of his radioactive jacket like a good boy. That act in itself tells me all I need to know about this piece of insecure shite.

  “Someone have an issue with something I said?” I ask, cool as I can. On any old day, I’d feel confident taking this tosser on, but with Atlas and the usual crowd of locals at my back? I might as well be invincible.

  “Yeah,” he says, in a tone I presume he thinks makes him sound like a well hard nut. One hand is stuffed down the front of his tracksuit bottoms, readjusting the contents. Even I know not to do that when I’m addressing my betters, come on. “Me.”

  I laugh, both at the words and the way he says them. “You and, uh, that army over there?”

  My hand motions toward his group of mates, all young lads with about the same amount of fashion sense as a toddler between all six of them. They’ve been getting up from their table one by one, filtering in behind Neon Kermit as if I should be reacting with fear, or
something. I shake my head slowly.

  “I wouldn’t do that, son. Not here.”

  “He’s right.” The voice that interrupts is sharp and feminine, but carries no less weight than mine. More, even. Kendra is stood directly across the bar from us, her hands on her hips, a wet rag fisted in one of them.

  “Pack it in, the lot of you,” she barks. “You can behave like adults, or go down the playground and settle your differences on the fucking swings. Your call.”

  Kermit opens his mouth, but I get there first. I’m good at that.

  “No need for that, Kendra, love.” I nudge Atlas aside and perch on the edge of my stool again, leaning one elbow on the bar. Other than a mild but persistent ache beneath where one of the bullets entered and then exited again, it’s not doing too badly. “Ain’t worth the time to piss on him after I set him on fire.”

  “So, it’s true then? You being all mouth and no trousers?”

  I sip my pint. I don’t even look at him. The rage bubbles away, and I’m worried that if I take one more look at his ugly mug I’ll have to cave it in and put us all out of our visual misery. “You're not the one I want to fight, dickhead.”

  “Well, maybe I want to fight you.” Kermit snickers. “Maybe we all do. Maybe we don’t appreciate some ginger-nob mouthing off about the people actually trying to save this piece of shite country.”

  “With all due attention shown to proper insulting each other, I’m not the wanker walking about dressed like toothpaste.” I grin at him over the rim of my glass. “Know what I mean?”

  “At least I know how to dress myself,” sneers Kermit, all broken teeth and leftover acne. “Noticed you’re missing your designation there, gob-shite.”

  If he were anyone else, and this were anywhere else, he’d already be flat on his back on the gravel outside, choking on his own nasal bone. But Kendra’s had enough words with me over the past week for me to know by now how important it is to her that we don’t end up with coppers nosing about the place. According to her, there are too many things that could be found—which intrigues me way too much, by the way. But she’s proper put the fear of Nova into me and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Penny, it’s hell hath no fury like a woman who feels like she’s had to fucking tell you one too many times. I know when not to push my luck.