SMOKE AND BLADES

by D Elias Jenkins

  Then Gaunt strode straight towards Reach at a steady calm pace.

  The big man started to back off but the Vigilante moved so smoothly there was no time. He fired his pistol again and again, catching Gaunt two more times in the torso. Suddenly Gaunt was upon him, holding the back of Reach’s head and staring at him an inch from his face with wide manic eyes.

  Jonas Reach tried to speak but words failed him.

  Gaunt shoved his pistol under Reach’s chin and smiled at him. Then he blew the top of his skull clean off.

  Maeve had stood before the Dark, watching the spider web cracks appear all across its surface. As soon as she had punctured the device the steady siphon of thaumaturgy from the First Spark ceased. The artifact flickered for a few moments and then the black smoke drifted from it and faded into the air.

  Maeve nodded and smiled and then fell backwards onto the cold flagstones, hitting her head on the way down. Everything blacked out for a few moments, and when she came to, Maeve gingerly touched the bleeding cut on the back of her head and slowly rolled over and tried to get to her feet.

  Her vision was still blurred but as she looked around her she saw several things.

  The corpse of Jonas Reach lay on the flagstones beneath the Spark. He was surrounded by a pool of blood and Maeve could not make out the shape of his head. Most of it seemed to be missing. Scattered all about the floor were milky crystalline rocks of various sizes that Maeve took to be the shattered remains of the quartz elemental.

  He eyes drifted to the Wraith. It was clearly seriously injured and stray shreds of ethereal matter blew from it and crumbled to dust in the air. It was standing over something that Maeve’s concussed vision could not make out for a moment.

  Gaunt.

  Maeve dropped the war pick and crawled across the stones on her hands and knees. She reached the prone figure of the Vigilante and gasped. He was pierced with at least half a dozen holes, and a pool of blood steadily grew around him. She reached out and tried to detect a pulse but there was no life left in his body. Maeve looked up at the Wraith as it hovered over him.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Izabella.”

  The Wraith looked down at her and reached out a taloned hand. Maeve instinctively recoiled but the entity just gently brushed her hair. Its mask faded like smoke and it smiled down at her. Instead of a vengeful ghost, Maeve looked up at the face of a beautiful woman with a mass of auburn curls.

  As she looked down at Maeve with benign expression, her body ignited a bright white, causing Maeve to shield her eyes.

  Maeve suddenly realized what the Wraith was doing.

  “No. Izabella he wouldn’t want you to.”

  The ethereal creature placed Maeve’s hair delicately behind her ear and then her entire form lit up like phosphorous. Maeve turned her head from the burning creature and felt a searing heat on her cheek.

  In an instant it was gone.

  Maeve turned back and the Wraith had vanished. She watched in awe as the pool of blood around Gaunt was gradually drawn back into his body and the bullet wounds began to heal.

  The life was returning to John Gaunt’s body by the second, but Izabella Gaunt was gone forever.

  35.

  Gaunt opened his eyes and instantly knew two things; that he was no longer a man without a soul and that his wife’s ghost was gone. He sat bolt upright and looked at the blossoming pink hue that was returning to his arms.

  “No!”

  Maeve was crouched by his side and placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s all right John. She saved you. She healed you.”

  Gaunt clawed at his arm as if he could somehow release the essence of his wife from his veins.

  “No, she can’t, it uses her up, it takes everything she has to heal up a damn bullet wound, she can’t!”

  Izzy fixed his gaze and spoke gently. Gaunt was breathing heavily and staring in horror at the life returning to his body.

  “She already has. She brought you back. She used her essence to forge you a new soul. She’s gone.”

  Gaunt’s eyes were wide and his voice desperate.

  “Where? Where is she? You don’t know where I had to go to find her. I’ll go back if I have to.”

  Maeve placed a hand on his warming cheek.

  “She’s nowhere John, and she’s all through you. Dissipated, like salt in water.”

  Gaunt sat there with his back against the wall breathing heavily. As the slow realization dawned on him he sank back and closed his eyes. His face was bathed in the light from the First Spark.

  He kept repeating his wife’s name under his breath like a prayer.

  Maeve was almost as exhausted as he was. She took off her gun belt and slumped down next to him, resting her back against the wall.

  The two figures sat watching the source of the city’s power thrum gently in the vault.

  It was beautiful. For now it was safe.

  Maeve thought of Gaunt’s words to her in the warrens. That perhaps Free Reign would stand for a ten thousand years, or perhaps it would be dust. Maeve thought it would be a tragedy to allow such a light to dim in a savage world. After a long silent time, the two sitting next to each other in silence, Maeve turned her head and spoke.

  “Did you love her that much, John? To drag her back from the dark just to spend this time with her?”

  Gaunt peered into the light, his pale blue eyes reflecting the sorcery from the Spark.

  “You mean even amongst all this killing, all this blood? Was it worth it?”

  “Yes.”

  Gaunt did not answer for a long moment. He closed his eyes and searched his memory for something. Then to Maeve’s amazement when he spoke it was in verse.

  "Let tidal waves drown me, hurricanes rip the skin from my bones, earthquakes shake my body to pieces, let lightening engulf my memories and mind, and every beast of this earth make a feast of my grief, if the mote of dust that remains can spend one more second in your sight, my love."

  He turned and smiled at Maeve.

  “To spend one more second in her sight. Yes, it was worth it.”

  Maeve squeezed his shoulder.

  “Is it finished? Can you rest?”

  “I don’t know, Scurlock. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  Maeve smiled.

  “Izzy gave you life again. She gave you a soul for the one you traded. And you gave her the true death she needed.”

  Gaunt’s skin had already started to return to a healthier hue. A fine stubble of dark hair had begun on his scalp. He looked at her and for a moment seemed genuinely lost.

  “What do I do now, Scurlock? I don’t know where it goes from here.”

  Maeve smiled.

  “Let me handle that John. It’s my job. You’ve done your time, served your city, no could tell you different.”

  Gaunt raised an eyebrow at her and studied her face.

  “Your job, Scurlock? Even I can tell it’s more to you than that.”

  “I’m a warden. It’s my job to keep the city safe.”

  Gaunt looked at her properly as if for the first time.

  “Why is it so important to you?”

  Maeve smiled.

  “I’m not doing it for me. The world we make is the world we pass on. I have a daughter. Did I mention that? No, of course I didn’t. We’ve been busy.”

  Gaunt struggled to his feet. He was bruised and exhausted, but already he seemed twice the man he was. He could walk down any street in Free Reign and not turn heads. Gaunt rolled out his shoulders and looked to the long flight of steps that led back out into the city. He looked down at her and spoke.

  “You’re a regulator. It’s your job to balance the books. Shut down rogue thaumaturgy. Rogues like me. So you know what you should do if you’re following the rules. Who knows what problems it could cause down the line?”

  Maeve used the wall to help her stand. She dusted down her uniform and tried to ignore the ache throughout her body.

  “We�
�ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If you saw my office you’d know that paperwork has a habit of getting lost in the pile.”

  Gaunt stood there for a moment, seemingly unsure what to do. Maeve sympathized. She was standing before a man who never expected to have a real life again. Gaunt extended a hand to Maeve and after a moment she took it and shook.

  “You have a fresh, clean, unburdened new soul to go out and tarnish with a life. She’s given you a second chance John.”

  Gaunt looked up and squinted his eyes from the light of the Spark.

  “Chance to do what?”

  Maeve shrugged.

  “I don’t know. None of us know. We just muddle on.”

  Gaunt looked up to the edge of the higher levels and saw the small uniformed figures of wardens enter and begin to search the vault.

  “Your friends are coming.”

  Maeve looked up and saw that the ever loyal Lemuel Vark was heading the search. She felt the urge to call out but refrained. She turned to Gaunt.

  “You don’t need to continue hunting, Gaunt. The fear of you is enough. I’ll see to it that rumor is kept floating around Free Reign.”

  Gaunt gave a barely perceptible smile and looked Maeve up and down.

  “That’s not very by the book, Inspector.”

  Maeve shrugged.

  “If it helps keep people safe, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Gaunt nodded and turned to leave. At the tunnel entrance he stopped and turned back.

  “Now you’re speaking in words I understand Inspector.”

  Maeve watched as he vanished down the steps and into the darkened passage. Even a man like that could get lost in a city as strange and vast as Free Reign.

  Once he was gone, as she waited for Constable Vark to climb down the long staircase to reach her, Maeve lit a rillo and enjoyed making little smoke elementals that dissipated in moments, testing the air with wispy fingers.

  She watched the little beings form limbs and faces for fleeting seconds, granted existence by the grand ancient mystery that was the First Spark.

  Now she appreciated what the Vigilante had said.

  It was just as enjoyable as it looked.