Sages of the Underpass

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  Pete grinned at his brother. “So, there he is, the next great Artist. When I heard you were going to start fighting again, I wasn’t surprised at all.”

  Niko didn’t believe him. It was a nice thing for Pete to say, which meant it was the expected thing to say, which meant it was total bullshit.

  The two drifted into the shade of the Pig. The smell of hot metal and drodes drifted across the parking lot. “I saw Wochick, and he gave me a vape. So, it looks like I have to smoke, at least for now.”

  Pete nodded. “All right. Niko, finally getting cool. And he turns to his troubled little brother for help. And I thought today was going to suck.”

  Niko shoved his brother. It started out playfully, but the end result was anything but. “You know you make us worry. Like this weekend. You bail on us Friday, and I have to take a call. Then you don’t tell us where you are until Sunday. What the hell, Pete?”

  “I’m Woda, man, you know, not tethered to the world, liquid, man. I’m liquid. I take on the shape of my surroundings.” Pete stepped backward. He had a slightly dazed smile on his face, though his eyes were hurt, and he kept his gaze down.

  “Where were you anyway?”

  Pete swept an arm dramatically to the east. “The Devil’s Edge, at the clubs, on the outskirts, playing near the Wilds. You know me, always on the Edge.”

  Niko couldn’t help but lapse into older brother. After Aleksy abandoned them, Niko had inherited the job. “I get you’re twenty-one. So move out. Find another job. We’ll figure it out. But if you stay in the apartment with us, you’re going to have to let us know where you are. You’re going to have to be accountable.”

  Pete waved his hands crazily above his head. He was smiling while he did it. “Maybe I want to be accountable. Maybe the home and the family business keep me somewhat accountable. Maybe I am counting on the familial accounts and that makes me countable. I don’t know. I do know you biked over here so I could help you. So, let’s do less fighting and more helping.”

  “So you’ll call next time? I’m fine taking on-call if I know you can’t make it.”

  Pete’s sigh turned into a frustrated grunt. “Yes, I will call. All the calls will be made. There will be so much calling, it will be amazing. I’m assuming texts will work. From here on out, I will be Count Peter Kowalczyk. Let’s see what you got.”

  Niko’s brother filled the e-cigarette’s reservoir with the batch of prepackaged eJuice, cherry-flavored nicotine. He showed Niko the basic operations and then he tried to explain how you inhaled. He hit the button and sucked in the vapor. He let it out slowly. “There’s nothing to it, Niko. You breathe in the vapor. Knowing you, you’ll do the Duodecim, and then you’ll cycle. That will get Wochick’s eJuice into you. Here. You try.”

  It took Niko a few tries but he eventually breathed in while at the same time hitting the button. This battery was run off a quarter drode, if that. The thing was meant to be disposable, but Niko could transfer a fresh bit of daemon energy into the battery.

  Niko coughed. He hated feeling that stuff in his lungs. And the nicotine made him a bit dizzy. The vapor tasted like spoiled cherry cough syrup.

  “Wanna spar?” Pete asked.

  This was an unexpected turn of events. “Spar?” Niko tucked the e-cigarette into his satchel and lowered it onto the driver’s seat through the open window. When they motored away, he’d be the one behind the wheel. Pete had various issues. Driving was one of them.

  Pete nodded and put up his fists. He was a Mercury Belt, Second Study, and he hadn’t been bad, though the minute Niko dropped out so did Pete. In Niko’s way of thinking, he had a reason, while his brother didn’t. He’d always thought it odd, though, that Pete hadn’t gone with another Study. Starting out with a strong defense was not a normal choice. Then again, Pete wasn’t normal.

  “When was the last time you cycled your prana?” Niko asked. “I don’t want you to strain anything.”

  “You just worry about taking a punch.”

  That wouldn’t be hard. Both could take a punch.

  Niko still wasn’t convinced. “If you’re mad at me about the whole accountability thing, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to get in a fight over it.”

  “Not mad.” Pete walked out into the parking lot. “Let’s just throw some jabs, practice a bit. You can show me your Twin Damage again. I haven’t seen it in a month of Sundays.”

  “No one says that anymore.”

  “Mamo does.”

  “Proves my point.” Niko moved out into the sunshine, which was bright enough and hot enough to get him sweating. He bounced up and down on his feet.

  Pete stretched. “I’m not mad. I knew when I took my mini-vacation, I’d get the lecture. That Peter, when will he ever grow up? What is that young man doing with his life, out on the Devil’s Edge, carousing?” He fell into his fighting stance.

  Niko did as well, weight lowered, feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, giving his opponent his side rather than his body. “Mind sharp? Soul strong?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Pete said. “Let the Artistry commence.” It was March 25, so Pete’s sign wasn’t at its zenith.

  Niko danced forward, jabbed, and danced back.

  “Still got your moves, Niko. Not bad.” Pete came forward and gave Niko his face. When Niko fell for the feint, Pete pulled back and kicked him in the side. Not with full force, just enough for him to know he’d been kicked.

  Niko didn’t back up. He closed with his brother. He hooked a punch into Pete’s chest. It was like punching a wall of ice—Cold Bones, his Second Study. He’d reinforced his skin with prana.

  “You’ve been fighting,” Niko said.

  Pete shoved him back. “The Devil’s Edge isn’t safe. Let’s just say I’ve been protecting myself.”

  With a flurry of punches, Niko was on the defensive, protecting his face as well as his diaphragm. Not well enough. Knuckles struck his cheek. That was going to leave a bruise. It was a numb feeling, not so much pain as annoyance. Anger flashed into him.

  Niko bent, ducked, pushed Pete back, then forced a bit of prana into his hands. He wasn’t using his First Study ability, no, just protecting his bones. He hammered a fist into his brother’s face.

  Pete stumbled back.

  The door to the machine shop was thrown open. Schraeder, another big man, and a woman in overalls came forward. “Hey, you two, what’s going on?”

  Pete turned. “Just me and my brother, sparring. This is Niko Black, don’t you know? He was a big deal back in the day.”

  “We can stop.” Niko was kicking himself. The parking lot was deserted, but he’d forgotten about the business itself. This wouldn’t look good.

  Schraeder, a man with thinning hair and a solid moustache, only smiled. “Yeah, I know about Niko Black. Your dad never stopped talking about you. Mind if we watch?”

  Pete laughed a bit too loudly. “No, watch away. My brother loves an audience.” Something about the way he said it didn’t sit right with Niko. It was a jab at him, as solid as a punch, and it hurt. Niko did like an audience.

  Pete turned back to Niko, fists raised. “Tato loved to talk about you. Maybe that’s why Aleksy left. Me? I couldn’t have cared less about all that.” His eyes told a different story.

  Niko had an audience. And he was still mad about that blow to the cheek. He came forward, showed Pete his left, and then hit with his right.

  Pete took the blow on his face. Sure, that wasn’t a problem, but he was keeping his Second Study ability fueled, burning through his prana.

  Pete lashed out with a foot. Niko dodged it, just barely. Instead of hitting Pete, he slapped him, which stung both of them, or so he hoped.

  Pete caught Niko’s wrist, spun him, and lowered a shoulder. An icy shoulder slammed into Niko’s chest. This time, he was the one who staggered back. He opened himself up, luring Pete in, and then, when his brother charged, Niko activated his First Study, Twin Damage, and two fists made of silver light joined h
is flesh knuckles. All three hands rammed into Pete.

  Niko didn’t use his full force, not like he had with Stan Howling, but it was enough to drive Pete backward. His skin seemed to waver, growing a bit indistinct, and he was out of prana. Or he’d dropped his Second Study.

  Niko leapt forward. Instead of slapping his brother, he tweaked his nose. “Got your nose, Pete. If you’re nice, I’ll give it back.”

  Both were breathing heavily, both were sweating, and yet, Niko knew, Pete was in much better shape than he was.

  Pete lifted his hands. “You win. Give me my damn nose back.”

  Schraeder and his people clapped.

  Niko wasn’t sure he’d won, exactly, and in a real fight, Pete wouldn’t have given up.

  “Nice little match, guys,” Schraeder said. “So that’s the Niko Black of legend.”

  “Not yet,” Niko muttered.

  Pete heard him. “That’s right, my brother. You better get back into shape. Or next time, I won’t go so easy on you. I’ll be the one with a pocketful of noses.” His face was flushed, and yet, Pete could’ve done another five minutes easily.

  Niko bent over and tried to get control of his breath.

  A line from The Pranad came to him. Each drop of blood is a jewel. Every bruise is a trophy. He’d collected two more of them. It was ironic. He’d lost against Stan Howling, and that felt like a victory. Here, he’d won against his brother, but damn, it felt like a defeat.

  He wondered what kind of reception he would get at the Wednesday critique group. Would it be another mixed bag of victory and humiliation, adrenaline and defeat?

  The Storage Facility

  MONIQUE WALKED ACROSS the flat asphalt of the compound. Dust covered the pavement in wind-blown patterns that collected near the high electric fences topped with rolls of razor wire. The fences were for people, surely, but also for the daemons drifting across the countryside. She’d experienced, firsthand, how deadly they could be—deadly but also valuable. Funny how often those two things were connected.

  Security offices stood in the distance as well as a small cluster of apartments, corporate housing for SoulFire employees, from executives, to security, to janitors.

  She could’ve sent her assistant, Mother Hen, down to the SoulFire storage facility on the outskirts of Carson City, Nevada. Not that Nevada was that much of a state anymore. It had been reduced to two cities. Carson City, which stretched unbroken to Reno to the north, was one. The Meadows was the other. The loneliest highway had become even lonelier.

  Vannix House had facilities along the interstate, I-15 connecting Angel City to The Meadows. The rival company was trying to scoop up any daemons who drifted near the freeway. It was a nice idea, though she thought SoulFire was doing more of a business hunting cambions in the Great Basin Preserve... most of the time. Her recent failure wasn’t normal. Which is why she wanted to see what other daemons SoulFire associates had brought into the containment unit.

  Mother Hen had harped on her about working the weekend, and though he’d offered to go out to Carson City, he hadn’t been too thrilled. She was going to have to find him another position at SoulFire, or fire him completely. That would be a task for later on in the week.

  Monday night, she wanted to check out the daemons before leaving the Nowhere. The next morning, she was due at a corporate meeting in Bay City, 8:30 a.m. She wanted to get this business done and then get home. There, she could sit on her mat and cycle in her usual place. Home was still home, at least for now. Also, she wanted to check on Logan. She got reports from the in-home care nurses, but that wasn’t the same as seeing him with her own eyes.

  A Humvee buzzed up. On the side was the SoulFire logo, three blue flames, flickering—one for the soul, one for the mind, and one for the body. The door opened and a young man came clattering out. Young, definitely under thirty, and a little too boyish to be called handsome, with a nose that wasn’t quite right. He had dark hair and brown eyes with flecks of green. He was in the normal suit and tie of a corporate guy. The tie would loosen and the shirt would wrinkle during the long hours.

  “Ms. Lamb!” He came over to her like a puppy trying not to trip over his feet. “Ms. Lamb, I’m Aleksy Kowalczyk. Bob Dunmire got in touch with my boss. He said that I should escort you down into the storage facility.”

  Monique nodded at him. “That’s great, Aleksy. If I knew who Bob Dunmire was, that would make it even greater.”

  The guy blanched. “He’s a senior VP of facilities. You wouldn’t know my boss. You wouldn’t know me. We thought that the name might mean something.”

  “Bob Dunmire? That is the vanilla ice cream of executive names.” Monique held up a hand. “That was probably unfair. No, that was definitely unfair. How much do I have to pay for your silence?”

  “I wouldn’t... it’s not... I’d never tell anyone. What you said was funny.” The guy was miles away from laughing.

  “So you were sent here for your sense of humor?” Monique asked.

  “No, I was in Bay City. I got a flight in. I was just kind of around. Not that I’m not qualified. I’m a gold-class daemon engineer. In case anything goes wrong. I can help.”

  “Gold-class?” Monique was feeling shameless. How could she not mess with this guy? “They didn’t send me a platinum? I’d feel safer if they had.”

  “But you are, no, it’s okay. I’ll protect you.” He raised his hands to his mouth. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, you are fine. You’re more than fine. You’re the Chief Battle Artist. I mean, you’d protect me, not that anything bad is going to happen.”

  “I’m short though,” Monique said. “And I’m not as young as I once was. I might need you, Mr. Kowalczyk. Come on.”

  They approached a single concrete building with a reinforced glass door and a handscanner next to it. Monique scanned them in, the device checking her prana as well as her fingerprints. The doors opened, and they moved through a lobby and came to an elevator. Another handscanner was in the elevator. Monique touched that one as well. She and the Kowalczyk kid zoomed down. Not far. Only three or four floors.

  The doors opened up. The racks of containment units stretched into the distance. Each aisle had a letter and each slot had a number. The smaller units were to the left, down Aisle A, each the size of a loaf of bread. The bigger ones were to the right, growing progressively bigger—the Aisle Z units were car-sized.

  Aleksy took out his phone and studied it. “So, you wanted to see the last cambion that was pulled in from the Great Basin?”

  “That’s why I’m here. And to refresh my memory on what all this looks like.”

  Aleksy swiped his thumb across his phone. “Okay. I found it. Slot Z4. The first three slots are empty. That’s the biggest one in the place. It was caught by a team on Thursday, near Salt Lake City. Wilcox signed it in.”

  Monique laughed. “First Dunshire and now Wilcox. There goes our diversity hiring policies.”

  “I’m Polish. My parents are immigrants.”

  That brought another laugh from Monique. “Well, good, that helps. Do you want to go first to protect me?”

  “I never should’ve said that.”

  “No, I’m glad you did. It gives me something to tease you about.” She followed him down the aisles. The place buzzed from the energy. The whoosh of air-conditioning settled cold air onto the cement floors. The slightly singed smell of daemons filling circuitry tickled her nose.

  The guy inhaled deeply. “I love how that smells. My parents had an electronics repair store, well, they still have it. I don’t work there anymore. I grew up smelling drodes. It was exciting for a long time.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, you don’t want to listen to me.”

  “It’s fine. I’m still wondering why you pulled the short straw as my escort. I figured I’d be here alone, or with the facility manager.”

  Aleksy stopped and turned. “Mr. Johnson offered to come in, but it was his daughter’s birthday today. They were going out. I said we didn’t need him.
”

  “It’s those keen decision-making skills that will take you far in this company.” She didn’t smile but let her eyes show she was joking. “All of your corporate dreams will come true. Is this what you dreamed about when you were ten? Working for SoulFire and escorting around sarcastic executives?”

  Aleksy finally found a smile. He was relaxing. “What I really wanted? What I dreamed about? Not living where I worked. Now, I have an office in Bay City, and I have an apartment near the wharf.”

  “You share an apartment.” With housing prices in the City what they were, the gold-class daemon engineer couldn’t afford his own.

  “I don’t live where I work. I have a salary, benefits, and some stability. I get to travel a little bit.”

  “Of course. Carson City, Nevada. It’s close to heaven, without a doubt.” Monique gestured with her hand. “Keep going, Mr. Kowalczyk.”

  They found the Z4 containment unit, a huge steel box, lit up.

  Monique went to the screen and pressed her palms against it. She felt the security protocols probe her core. She then reached out with her prana. She’d read Wilcox’s report. The big daemon had manifested as a long creature with broad shoulders, almost like a hyena, but with spikes jutting out of its head. Its hooves were also spiked.

  Most daemons were just blobs of energy, especially the lower class of daemons called drodes. Those were grabbed and cycled or sold for pennies. Most of the cambions didn’t have a distinct shape either. Unless they were level four or higher, like the tentacles thing she’d met in Winnemucca.

  As for the shadow man? That was something completely different. Daemons were pockets of prana that could be converted into electricity thanks to the various Whitney units, which were developed in the nineteenth century.