Hour of Mischief

by Aimee Hyndman

  On instinct, I tried to raise my left arm but the man released my hair, tearing a few strands out in the process, and snatched my steel wrist. With a swift jerk and twist of his arm, he pinned the arm behind my back.

  Let me stress, this is not normal. A metal arm far outclasses a flesh arm in strength. They were popular amongst the Vigilant Squad and egotistical jerks who liked beating people up for a reason. And yet this man simply grabbed my metal arm in his fleshy hand and twisted it behind my back without breaking a sweat.

  What in the Abyss was I dealing with here?

  I struggled against his grip but he only squeezed harder. A lot harder. Even though my senses in my left arm were considerably muted, my nerves tingled and buzzed as the metal of my wrist began to give. This man was crushing my arm with just one hand.

  Gods help me. Any gods. I wasn’t picky. I’d even take Meroquio at this point.

  “I suppose, given the circumstance, I thought you would be a more interesting target. Not a child. It’s a shame.” The man sighed.

  “Why are you doing this?” I hissed, even though I had a pretty good guess. Honestly, I just wanted to stall. I had to figure a way out of this. Wait! The coin! It was in the right pocket of my dress.

  “My master wishes me to protect her interests. It would be favorable for all of us if you died.” The man leaned down next to my ear and I gagged as his warm, rotting breath coasted over my face.

  My fingers fumbled with the red fabric, trying to feel for the pocket without being too noticeable.

  “How does it feel to be the key to destroying the power of a god, girl?” The knife eased away from my throat. He was seconds away from plunging the blade into me. Damn it all, where was that gear. “At least you can say your existence had some significance. Most humans can’t say that much at all.”

  He raised the weapon a fraction more. I didn’t have time to flip a coin. Instead, I closed the fingers of my free hand–my real hand–around the blade.

  I screamed as the blade cut straight through my flesh, nearly to the bone. Blood gushed immediately from my wounds, mixing with the rainwater as it flooded down my arm and soaked Laetatia’s dress. I wanted to let go. I needed to let go before the pain got worse. But if I did, I was dead.

  The man tried to pull his blade free of my hand but I tightened my grip with a hoarse scream, jerking his arm further around me. His wrist leveled with my mouth. Without thinking, I sank my teeth into the flesh.

  It was his turn to howl as my teeth ripped as deep as they could into his skin. I didn’t know if my last efforts would make a difference on this thing, but I had to try. I could have laughed out loud when the man released me, ripping his hand from my mouth to get away. I toppled forward, letting out a cry as the blade tore free of my skin. I cupped my injured fingers in the soothing cold steel of my left hand. The gashes ran so deep I could see the white of my bone peeking out between torn flesh and muscle. I stared at the mess of my hand in horror.

  “Damn humans. You never do give up, even when you’re beaten,” The man said, pulling down his sleeve to cover his still bleeding wrist. He had dropped the knife and it seemed to have skidded off somewhere into the dark. However, my relief at his lack of a weapon was short lived as he held up a hand in front of him. I watched in horror as his fingers grew into razor sharp claws.

  Could my night get any worse?

  The man started toward me, probably intent on driving said claws into my throat. His eyes gleamed especially red with malice. I was going to die. I had no other options. Not even acts of desperation. I was going to die.

  Then the man stopped, eyes wide, his vicious snarl frozen on his face. There was a ripping sound from behind him and moments later a steel tip of a blade sprouted from his chest. Itazura’s wonderful face appeared over his shoulder.

  “I find the persistence of humans quite handy if I do say so myself,” Itazura said, a dark note marring his usually light tone. “Shape shifter.”

  The God of Mischief whipped his arm, which had somehow morphed into a long steel blade–I wasn’t going to question a damn thing at this point—around and sent the “shape shifter” flying. The red-eyed man smacked against the steel wall of a building and slid into a crumpled heap on the ground.

  “Itazura.” My whole body relaxed. For once, I wanted to hug the god.

  “Hey, little human.” Itazura winked.

  I was about to say something more, but the red-eyed man started laughing. I blinked and slowly turned to look at him. I didn’t have a lot of experience with being stabbed in the chest and thrown into a steel wall with enough force to cause a small dent but I guessed that kind of injury would shut you up. Forever.

  But the red-eyed man was laughing and actually standing up.

  And the wound in his chest started knitting itself back together.

  “You know it takes more to kill a shape shifter than that,” The red-eyed man said. His head lolled to the side. “God of Mischief.”

  “I do,” Itazura said. “I’ve killed several of your kind before. And I’m about to add another to my list.”

  “Flattered, but I should be going,” the shape shifter said. He looked down at me, his red eyes gleaming with malevolence. “I’ll be seeing you soon, girl.”

  Lightning flashed through the night, and when it dimmed, a huge, dog-like creature bolted from the alleyway. The man had disappeared.

  On any other day, I probably would have tried to contemplate this strange phenomenon. Instead, I flopped back down onto the cobblestone street, exhaling with absolute relief.

  “Janet?” I looked up to see Itazura kneeling beside me.

  “You know,” I mumbled, staring up at the dark sky. “I have had a really terrible night.”

  Itazura’s mouth quirked. “You all right, little human?”

  “Oh yeah, I feel like a million gold gears, what the hell do you think?” I groaned.

  “Well, you’re fine enough to make smart remarks.” Itazura raised an eyebrow. “So I think you’ll live with a little rest.”

  “Yeah, because all this needs is a nap and it will be right as rain,” I said, raising my mangled right hand. It still gushed blood. Not as much as before, but I still couldn’t move my fingers without screaming. What if I lost this hand as well? My stomach lurched. I couldn’t lose another limb. One was bad enough.

  “Let me see,” Itazura said, taking my hand in his. I hissed in pain as his fingers brushed against my wounds but I forced myself to keep still.

  “Don’t worry,” Itazura said. “Simple fix, just stay still.”

  “How exactly is it a simple . . . fix. . . . ”

  I trailed off, watching in wonder as a blue light enveloped my hand. Then, my pain melted away, receding like the thumping of my heart against my chest. The skin of my fingers slowly knit back together, and moments later, I couldn’t see the bone anymore, or even the muscle. Within a few seconds, the pain had disappeared completely and my cuts healed. When the light faded, it looked as if nothing had happened at all.

  “What . . . the. . . .” I blinked then looked back up at Itazura. “How did you do that?”

  Itazura shrugged. “At this point you should just assume the answer to all of your questions is ‘I’m the God–”

  “–of Mischief, right.” I sighed. “Though I’m not sure how healing is very mischievous. Shape shifting, maybe. But healing?”

  “Oh, it’s not, but all of the gods have some base powers, and since we’re always getting into fights, healing abilities can come in handy,” Itazura said. “So when you try to steal Kova’s weapons or get in between Laetatia and her drinks or openly insult Axira’s domain–”

  “I’m sorry, you’ve done what?”

  “–healing abilities are quite useful.” Itazura continued without missing a beat.

  I stared at him. “Exactly how insane are you?”

  “Oh quite,” Itazura said cheerfully. “I’ve tried to steal something from nearly every god and goddess. Sometimes succe
ssfully, sometimes not so much.” He shrugged. “But you know, the mischievous never learn.”

  “That much is true.” I sighed and stared up at the sky again. The clouds had begun to the break and the rain had slowed to a barely noticeable drizzle. “Hey, Itazura?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks,” I murmured. “If you had come one second later, I would be–”

  “Dead. Yes. But then again, I was protecting my own interests as much as yours,” he said. “And if you held out on your own for a second less, neither of us would be doing well. You did all right.”

  I gave a weak grin, and tried to push myself into a sitting position. But as soon as I bore weight on my left arm the metal screeched and shuddered. I fell onto my back again. “What the. . . .” I held up my steel arm, only to see the wrist completely crushed and the hand dangling at a rather awkward angle. When I tried to move my fingers, they only twitched feebly.

  That arm had lasted me years, and this one encounter destroyed it.

  “Aw, shit,” I said. “How they hell did he manage that?”

  “That will happen when you encounter a shape shifter.”

  “Shape shifter,” I repeated. “What do you mean, shape shifter? What are they? Besides the obvious.”

  “Well, they’re–” Itazura stopped and looked around. “Tell you what. Let’s get you off the streets before another potential assassin stumbles across you. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Good idea.” I used my flesh arm to push myself to my feet, which proved to be not the best idea. Black spots danced across my vision and I swayed on the spot. Itazura caught my shoulders to keep me from falling flat on my face.

  “Easy there, little human. Take it slowly.”

  “I feel like I’ve been hit by Automated Carriage,” I mumbled.

  “No worries.” Itazura took my arm and placed it over his shoulder before I could protest. “I’ll make sure you don’t kill yourself on the concrete.”

  I lifted my chin. “I can walk on my own.”

  “Not likely,” Itazura said, holding my wrist so that I couldn’t pull my arm away. “Just accept my help, Janet. You don’t have to do everything on your own.”

  I sighed. “Fine.”

  As we walked from the alleyway, my boot kicked something and sent it skidding ahead into a crate of empty bottles. The shape shifter’s abandoned knife flashed in the darkness. My blood still coated the blade.

  “An assassin’s blade.” Itazura noted. “One of Axira’s favorite weapons. Outside of her traditional scythe of course.”

  “Hurts to high paradise when it cuts you though,” I said. “Bend over will you?”

  “That’s what cut you?” Itazura’s eyes widened, leaning down to let me pick up the blade. “That blade should have cut through your fingers. With Axira’s blessing that weapon is about as sharp as you can get.”

  “Sharp as you can get, huh?” I flipped the blade in my hand and held it up to the starlight. “It’s nice. I think I’ll keep it.” After all, the shape shifter had kicked me inches from consciousness and almost sliced my fingers off. The way I saw it, he owed me this lovely little weapon.

  e boarded up in Laetatia’s back room at the middle-class bar. She wasn’t around that night, but Itazura said she wouldn’t mind us using her back room. I was too tired to argue and I wanted to change out of Laetatia’s bloodstained dress. I hoped it wasn’t some kind of priceless artifact because blood does not come out of clothing. After several minutes of cursing as I attempted to change with one hand, I collapsed on Laetatia’s couch.

  Itazura slipped into the room with two mugs of alcohol and slid mine across the coffee table.

  “Please tell me you got the strongest stuff in the house.” I scooped up the mug.

  “Of course.” Itazura chuckled. “Not enough alcohol at that fancy middle class party, huh?”

  “No, unfortunately.” I took a huge swig of my drink, enjoying the burn of the liquor running down my throat. “Thanks.” I forced myself to sit up on the couch. “So, shape shifters? What are they?”

  “Well, they’re pretty much what the name implies.” Itazura sat down across from me, resting his head back against his arms. “They can change shape into animals and human beings.”

  “Kind of guessed that,” I said. “But I’ve never heard of any shape shifters in Fortuna, and I have a feeling something like that would be hard to miss.” I shrugged. “I mean, they talk about them sometimes in children’s stories, but other than that. . . .”

  “You’re not crazy,” Itazura assured me. “Well, all right, you are. But in a different way.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I muttered. “Insult the injured person.”

  “You’re not injured. Just bruised.”

  “You try getting punched in the stomach and kicked in the face by that guy, and then tell me how you feel.”

  “I’ll pass.” Itazura exhaled. “Anyway, the reason you haven’t heard of shape shifters is because they haven’t entered the human realms for a good thousand years. Not until recently. The last time they walked among humans, Cambiare was a thriving realm.”

  I nearly spit out my drink. “Cambiare? The empty realm?”

  Itazura’s mouth twitched in amusement and I instantly regretted giving him such a reaction. “Well, you’ve heard of that at least. That’s good.”

  “Everyone has heard of Cambiare.” I tugged at the frayed cuff of my jacket. The empty realm was the subject of many ghost stories swapped by my team on late nights in our clock tower. We tossed around theories about what had happened to the realm to make it so completely devoid of sentient life. People often said that the hours contained within each realm on the maps of Memoria were symbolic of its values. And if that was the case, fate had doomed Cambiare from the outset. It contained only one hour. Six o’clock. The Hour of Death. “It’s been empty for hundreds of years. Thousands of years!”

  “Only a couple thousand, but yes,” Itazura said. “Cambiare is the oldest of the human realms, so the shape shifters were around even during the domain of the elder gods. The incident with Cambiare occurred only a few decades after the twelve clockwork gods took over.” Itazura shrugged. “It’s not a pleasant period in our history so you don’t see a lot of records about it. The gods were always fighting over who governed over what, and we weren’t very experienced with ruling our own domains yet. That’s when we created the minor gods. They were sort of like . . . assistants in our time of confusion. They helped keep things a little bit more orderly.” Itazura frowned. “But some of the minor gods could be a bit of a nuisance. Like the God of Beasts, Cleptos.”

  “Cleptos? I don’t know him,” I said.

  “Humans in Fortuna don’t know any of the minor gods.” Itazura sighed. “Which is exactly why many of them are siding with the elder gods now. But anyway, Cleptos was a minor God for my dear, deadly sister, Axira. One of her favorites. He held dominion over all the beasts of the Abyss and he often conducted punishments on evil souls. Sadistic fellow. Greedy too, and not very good at parties.”

  “Yeah, I imagine he didn’t get a lot of invites.” My mouth quirked.

  “Not at all.” Itazura said. “When Cleptos first came into being, shape shifters were still living in Cambiare among humans. They were equals in every way and they coexisted rather nicely despite obvious differences. But the way Cleptos saw it, the shape shifters were beasts by design, suppressing their primitive urges. He believed they belonged under his rule.”

  “And did they?” I asked.

  “Well, it sent the Realm of the Gods into an uproar,” Itazura said. “Axira argued on the side of Cleptos, though I consider her a bit biased since she created him. A few others also sided with Cleptos, but most of the gods agreed shape shifters were human enough to belong to all the gods. They had the civility of humans, so we decided Cleptos did not have full control over them. I especially argued against it. Since I have shape shifting powers of my own, shape shifters could just as easily belong to me.”r />
  “So that’s how you turned your arm into a blade. You can shape shift.”

  “It does come in handy when it comes to stealing. I can change into just about anything I want. I prefer this form though. Nice and young.”

  “Nice, young, and annoying.”

  “You’re too kind.” Itazura winked. “Anyway, Axira and Cleptos are both very sore losers, unfortunately. You never want to cross them, and I don’t recommend trying to play any games with them. Much too competitive, in a very bad way.”

  “Oh damn.” I snapped my fingers. “And I was just thinking how much I wanted to play cards with the Goddess of Death. You’ve spoiled all my hopes and dreams, Itazura.”

  Itazura grinned, but the lighthearted look quickly faltered as he continued on in his story. “Cleptos and Axira decided that the only way to bring the shape shifters under their domain was to make them inhuman. They used the minor God of Diseases to introduce a parasite into Cambiare. It latched selectively onto shape shifters, lodging itself in the brain and causing psychosis.”

  “Psy- what now?” I asked. “I never went to a fancy center ring university. I don’t know these big words.”

  “It’s basically insanity of the psychotic nature,” Itazura said. “The shape shifters of Cambiare turned hungry with blood lust. They raged through the realm killing every human in their path. Within a few days, the entire human population of Cambiare had been wiped out. The other gods had been too busy arguing about the other realms to notice the incident. Cambiare turned into a wasteland filled with monstrous shape shifters right under our noses.”

  “But they punished Cleptos?” I probed, my eyes wide. Gods could do whatever they wanted for the most part but not something like that. “They couldn’t let him get away with that.”

  “Oh, they gave him a harsh reprimand,” Itazura said. “But in the end, it didn’t matter. The race of shape shifters had been spoiled. So Mother and Father gave Cleptos and Axira permission to remove the remaining shape shifters from Cambiare and store them in the Abyss for safe keeping.” Itazura leaned back in his chair. “Over time, their inherent insanity has decreased but shape shifters still maintain a psychotic, inhuman edge to them. The most skilled and sane of them are used by Axira as assassins. They’re very handy too. As you experienced firsthand–no pun intended–shape shifters are far stronger and faster than normal humans.”