The Red Flux and the Wunderkind Thief

by Nicholas McConnaughay

  “You’ll have to excuse me, ladies. Our dearest Jen has taken it upon herself to stray out of my ever-so humble abode. I have to fetch her.” He followed his words with a laugh. A nasally laugh that sounded more obnoxious than joyous. Copé wondered how much the man had to pay these ladies for their company. He thought about how that wealth would soon belong to the Red Flux.

  Azlak walked deeper into the room. And then, something happened.

  The sound resembled a small twig breaking beneath the paws of a grizzly bear. Copé watched from the under the bed while Temps moved his foot. The pine-stick he had thrown down had shattered away into something like soot. He could hear the loud groan from the large-man.

  “THIEF!”

  Every bit of the fear Copé had ever felt paled in-comparison to this moment.

  It was the shock of it all that really scared him, but once more, he knew he had to react swiftly. He rolled out from beneath the bed and leapt to his feet. Other-wise, he’d be dragged out by Temps, giving him the advantage. “Look what the cat dragged in,” the mammoth-sized man yelled out. Copé assumed that was what he said, but he wasn’t for certain. There was so much blubber on him that his words sounded muffled even when he enunciated.

  Under the bed, Secrat couldn’t even have begun to appreciate the weight that Azlak Temps brought with him. The excess of flesh stood naked in-front him; except for a small pair of tan-colored clothe acting as shorts. His size was insurmountable by even all of the broads and Copé combined. Copé wondered how Temps managed not to kill them during sex. He didn’t have long to think though as Temps let out a grunt upon making a lunge in his direction.

  Copé moved out of the way. His speed would prove an advantage. He readied a blade in his hands before making a stab to Temps’ rib-cage. The knife pierced his belly like butter, and Copé felt his arm sinking into his stomach. The blood shot out fast, but Temps paid it little mind. The large-man simply threw a clubbed fist at Copé, sending the thief spiraling in a daze. Copé struggled, haplessly trying to regain his composure. If he couldn’t, the monstrous man would certainly make ends to his life. He was turned around, but behind him, Copé could hear the loud footsteps of Temps. He desperately threw a boot behind him. It connected, but whether it did much damage, Copé knew not.

  The distinctive groan from Temps told him that it did. Secrat Copé turned around as fast as he could, only to run into a wall of fat, strung out like a clothesline. Copé fell off of his feet. He felt the back of his head hit the hard, dirty ground. The view around him seemed to be fading. It was flickering like a candle at wit’s end. He fought back to a seated position. If he fell out of consciousness, everything would be over. He looked up at Temps. The knife was still stuck in his gut like a splinter.

  Copé let out a breath of air and watched the man run toward him. He rolled out of the way and shot back up to his feet. He thought Temps might have lost balance, but that was thinking too much like an optimist.

  He waited for Azlak to turn around while he took another knife from his ensemble. This one had been strapped to his left-leg. Once Temps obliged, Secrat threw the knife at him. It pierced his skin and went into his stomach the same way the other had.

  It didn’t seem to bother him. It was nothing more than an inconvenience. Copé let out a sigh. He wanted to curse, but didn’t. He wanted to flee. Beyond all else and more than anything, he wanted to escape. His eyes went over to the door.

  It was closed.

  The key was most definitely on Temps’ person, but that meant nothing.

  “Stop your running, bug!” Azlak Temps yelled. “I’ll crush your skull like nothing!”

  The pain felt unbearable beyond all else. The ache from his head felt piercing, he was surely bleeding. Copé readied another knife in his hands. This one had been strapped on his right-leg. However, before he could do anything with it, Azlak threw a fist to his stomach. Copé leaned forward at his whim only to be taken down to his knees with an elbow to his back. The knife flung itself out of his hands as Azlak towered over him.

  Copé looked in his eyes. They were eyes of ignorance and impractical strength. The look of somebody that knew he’d always be on the offensive. Azlak looked at him for a moment. There was a sadistic grin on his fat face. A grimace came to his eyes momentarily as he plucked one knife out of his stomach and threw it to the ground. He grabbed the other and pulled it out as well. He didn’t throw this one. Instead, Azlak held it by the handle and made a fist. His hand nearly swallowed the knife whole.

  Copé felt a spark of fear jolt in him. It didn’t look well for him. It didn’t look well for his legacy. Raised by Toucan Veras, and in his first solo heist, he was offed by some merchant?

  He was better than that.

  And like somebody that was better than that, like somebody with the utmost of class, he drove his head into the giant’s crotch like.

  This seemed to get his attention, Temps dropped to one-knee holding his groin. “You fuck!”

  The fuck mustered the strength to once more find his footing. His head felt like the Amisoic Seas, swishing and swashing in waves. He walked toward the door where Temps threw one of the knives. He picked that one up, the one he dropped earlier, and the one Temps had kept. He threw two of them at Temps’ stomach. They punctured two more holes for blood to let out. The last one, he kept. This one belonged in the side of Temps’ neck. Copé moved to him. As the blood left his sides, Temps seemed to understand it as his end. Copé didn’t have the energy left to smile. All that was left in him was used to watch over near him, the knife in hand. Except, before he could add the final nail, Azlak Temps fell flat … he was dead.

  Secrat Copé looked away from him. The whores were there, lying unresponsive and lifeless to everything that had happened. Beads of sweat fell down Copé’s neck. Sweat and blood. He dropped down. Under the bed, there was the box. That was where the combination numbers were. In the box was the key to all of the wealth. He slid it out weakly.

  The box opened easily.

  Inside, Copé’s eyes wandered about the contents. Vials of all different shapes and sizes, all of them contained a brown powder Copé had definitely seen before. He flipped the box over, emptied it all out and looked around. No combination code to be seen.

  He didn’t have the energy in him to be upset. He didn’t have the energy to do much of anything. The feeling of light-headedness overwhelmed all else. His fingers caressed the thigh of one of the ladies before he used her leg to pull himself up onto the bed. He crawled inside, beneath the covers, pushing and shoving between the drugged whores. That is where Secrat Copé lost consciousness.

  Chapter Two

  Copé opened his eyes to blackness. He couldn’t see anything, were his eyelids actually parted? It mattered not, the end was the same. He could see nothing. A large part of him desperately wanted to panic. Another part of him wanted to do nothing at all. That one seemed to be the deciding factor. On his back, he topped his fingers over the ground and squirmed a little. His body pivoted around like it would for a man trying to get comfortable. This definitely isn’t the bed I left myself on, thought the thief.. Fingers caressing beneath at the floor for a time, he felt something damn-near splinter into his skin.

  That was enough to know it was wood. Copé arched his back up, like a dead-man resurrected, and sat.. An aching feeling became heavily apparent. His hand cradled the back of his head. He felt a large egg-shaped bruise, but knew that was only the least of it. This was the aftereffects of a far worse head-injury he was feeling. A lot of him wanted to drop back and slumber like he had never even awoken. He’d deal with the problems when his mind sobered.

  All it took was a bump to render this thought too foolish to consider. Copé felt himself lift into the air for a second before falling back down. His head ached even more, but beside the pain was the feeling of fear. Not only was he moved out of the home of Azlak Temps, but he was still in the process of being moved. The winnie of a horse made everything else follow. He could
hear every stamp it made. The sound of the man at the front slapping at it with the reigns to make it gallop faster, Copé heard that as well.

  He felt it when the wheels hit rock. He, himself, was in the bed of the carriage. Copé felt more assured after this. If there was one thing he knew better than most, it was how to paint the scenery. Copé felt around in the dead of night. A tarp is what shielded him from the night and gave him darkness. Secrat could’ve easily thrown it off, but that would have caught the attention of whoever it was that snatched him up from the merchant’s house. Or could it have been the merchant? Copé knew damn-well he threw enough knives in the bastard to kill three men, but could Azlak Temps amount to four?

  It didn’t matter. If the merchant was still alive, Secrat would kill the last of him. Or better yet, put a knife to his throat with the combination code as the demand. Toucan Veras would never condone torture, but Toucan wasn’t there. Copé felt around his environment, the walls of the carriage were wooden planks. Large gaps were between each of them, and Copé could feel a draft of cold air from the outside. He knew what he had to do. The thief crawled slowly to the far-end of the carriage. Feeling around his waist, one of his many daggers remained strapped at his right side. Between his teeth, it went as he lifted up the left corner of the tarp. This act was done with care, so as not to attract the driver. Another big-bump happened and once more, Copé’s head felt like it was on fire. He lowered his head down for a second, but only a second. It was time for action, and at that thought, Copé climbed over to the outside of the carriage, hanging on with his feet between the wooden planks.

  The wind slapped against him. It did very little to alleviate the pain he was feeling. The chilliness of the outside air caused by the carriage's rapid-pace felt refreshing. There was no time to cringe or take enjoyment in anything, however. Instead, Copé poked his head to see if he could have a look at the driver. It was almost as dark as it was beneath the tarp, but the stars and the moon lent just enough to distinguish the figures. There was nothing else he could see, only two heads and two average-framed bodies. This definitely meant that neither were the merchant.

  Copé had one theory about who they could have been. The Red Flux wasn’t the only troupe in the unprotected wilderness. The tamest, they might have been, however. If what he thought was true, he was in-trouble, but he also had a chance at redemption. Maybe he would not leave his first outing with wealth, but he might leave with their heads on a pike. Toucan may not have liked murder, but even he would make an exception for the swine that riddled about the forests. Their deaths would mean more than coin.

  Copé shimmied more and more toward the front of the carriage. The horses galloped at such a very fast pace that he struggled to keep his footing. In-fact, at one instance, he lost it and had to rely on his arms to keep himself from falling off from the carriage. Before long, Secrat Copé was in arm’s reach of the man holding the reigns. In earshot as well, but neither of them spoke a word. Copé took a look at the scenery around him. It was too dark for him to see, but something seemed familiar about the place. At the very least, he was certain they had long-since left Acera.

  The blade sat, tightly clenched between the thief’s teeth. His eyes could vividly see the outline of the man’s neck. Everything felt clearer than ever. The adrenaline flowing through his veins. All the pain and anguish this night had given, in all ceased to matter. He plucked the knife out of his mouth and looked at it. A certain fascination with the knife, like he had never seen it before, but that left soon. In his hands, he drove the small dagger to the side of the man’s neck. It went into his skin like it was meant to be there. Two star-crossed lovers long-since separated, but now brought together; blade and flesh.

  “Ah, fuck,” were the only words that the man could utter.

  They would be his last words.

  He flinched though, and that was enough to make all the difference. His forearm rudely struck Copé in the side of the skull. Never so weak and fragile was the skull. Copé fell off of the carriage and onto the hard ground. Down and down, and down and down, Copé landed into some bushes. The scrapes and bruises stung, but they weren’t fatal. His head had just about had it though. After all of this, Copé wanted to be home at the Flux.

  It wasn’t over though, not yet. There was more to this night. Another man was in that carriage. And the element of surprise was gone.

  Secrat fought back to a vertical stance. It was something that was becoming much too hard for him to do. He felt around for a blade.

  There was none left on his person.

  Hand-to-hand wasn’t his specialty, but if he could fend off the man long enough, he would be able to pluck the knife out from the other guy’s neck and end this.

  The horse’s gallops silenced. They weren’t moving anymore.

  Copé readied himself.

  His stance was firm and his fingers tightly clenched into a fist. With everything he had overcome in this night alone, there was no way that he’d let it end now.

  “Secrat!?” the voice of the man in the carriage cried out. “Secrat!? What in the hell were you thinking? Do you realize what you have done?”

  Those all sounded more like statements than they did questions.

  Secrat Copé started to realize why this area seemed so familiar. The voice of the man belonged to Lukas Lewis, a fellow Red Flux. But, why was he in that carriage with that bad man he killed?

  Lukas and Copé came face to face. Lewis seemed terrified and anguished with fear, but Secrat struggled even to keep his head up.

  “Secrat!?” Lewis yelled for a second time.

  All Copé did was smile at him.

  After all, … he was home.

  2

  Secrat Copé sat handcuffed to a chair.

  His head still hurt, but it was better. He hadn’t the faintest clue how he had gotten himself into this predicament. Lukas Lewis tried to explain it all to him earlier, but his head ached too much to listen. Since then, he had sobered up from his stupor and was ready to hear rhyme and reason. Reason appeared to be giving him the silent treatment.

  There was no one-home for The Red Flux. They traveled as a troupe, and when they were together, that was home enough. That wasn’t where Lukas had taken Copé, however.

  This wasn’t The Red Flux, wide-open and free.

  This was a small, desolate, and dreary cabin. It smelled damp with the odor of mold and cedar, and there was fungus sealing the jamb of the door on the other side of the room. The chair Copé was shackled to rested on the wall opposite the door. The thief tilted his head, resting it some on his shoulder. A small window engulfed by moss was to his left, small crack in the top-right corner of the glass. Copé forgot about it and laid his head back against the wall. It brought a stinging sensation, but he didn’t care. It was worth being able to rest his head.

  The door to the cabin started to be cracked opened. The force it took to push it open meant there was no way it could have been done discreetly. Secrat flinched fast, rattling the handcuffs as he did so.

  He wasn’t afraid.

  It was more to say that he was caught off-guard. The man entered into the room, taking note of how grimy and smudged the walls looked. He walked with a purpose. His dark black boots damn-near worn to the sole.

  It was Father Toucan Veras.

  Toucan walked the way Copé wanted to walk. The thief had far too much ego to come to grips with that fact, but it was true. The leader of the Red Flux had presence about him like nobody he had ever seen before. When he entered the room, eyes lent themselves to him. They belonged to him, like a showman thief, stealing the attention off whoever else was in the room and putting it on himself. A bald head and a thick black-beard, a large sword sat at his side in a scabbard. Olea is what he called the blade, named after the murderer of his deceased wife. The sword was enormous, shaped and structured like a scimitar with a deep curve at the end. Gifted with an enormous blade, Toucan made the sword look like one of Copé’s knives.

&nbs
p; A hyperbole, but the statement stood. Father Veras was a hefty size.

  He was the type that was wise about concealing it as well. The rest of The Flux wore armors pillaged from either one of the five major cities, Toucan wore baggy robes. Nobody had too much of an idea how muscular he was. Concealment made him easy to underestimate.

  Toucan closed the door behind him before turning his attention over to the restrained thief. Copé wanted to rub the nape of his neck or clasp his hands over his head out of distress and discomfort, but he could do neither. Toucan’s eyes were cold and serious. The white of his eyes blood-shot and the rest looked black as night. “You’ve really outdone yourself on this one, Copé.”

  No inflection in his voice.

  Toucan’s temper and intimidation were well-noted. He rarely showed it, but when he did, it was bad enough for nobody to soon forget. Copé felt no fear, not particularly. He felt discomfort and vulnerability. Which was almost the same.

  Everything was starting to piece itself together for him. His recent traumas blocked some of it out, but he had no doubt the reason he was keyed to a chair was for the murder of a fellow Flux. Lukas Lewis brought him here after and confessed Father the sins of his adopted son, and now, Toucan was here to pass his judgment.

  “Why, Father, its fancy meeting you here, very, in-fact. I wish you would have mailed in a letter about your arrival, for, I haven’t cleaned the place in ages! Over there, you’ll notice the lovely décor, most vivaciously inscribed walls, marked and scrawled with sharp precision by fungi!” Secrat offered up a cocky smirk. His heart wasn’t in the sarcasm, but he tried his best not to let that show. For his Father's sake, of course. Even beyond all the other responsibilities Toucan had to contend with, like keeping the troupe together or being a strong leader, Copé was his son.

  The young thief was born and readied before them, poised for greatness, and Father would fight above all else to protect him. But Toucan looked at Secrat Copé with a strange look on his face, a look that signified confusion or bewilderment. Copé maintained his smile.