Red Litten World

by Alexander, K. M.

  “That’s how you ended up on the board of Styer & Sons,” said Kiver with a little awe in his voice.

  Caleth grinned.

  Kiver let out a slow breath.

  “You are both a disappointment. Janus, I expected better. Spewing a bunch of trash. You were in default. The managers at First Lovat were corrupt and they needed to be forced out, and yes, I fired your brother but I had suffered his bungling for too long. But I have never killed someone. What would the Precious Families say if they knew you were doing this? What would the Golds say?”

  Gold said nothing and Kiver continued. “And you, Caleth. Ever since your father died you’ve been like a son to me.”

  “I made my own way,” said Caleth.

  “You don’t understand, do you, Kiver?” said Gold. “You’ve been so far up your own ass for so long that you don’t even see the damage you do.” He looked from Kiver to Samantha and then to me. “And you, do you really know the maero you’re protecting? Do you understand who it is you strive so hard to defend?”

  I met Gold’s crazed eyes and steeled myself. There’s no use arguing with crazy.

  Caleth sneered. “Let’s just kill them. We don’t need to waste our breath on a bunch of scrapes.”

  The maero was faster than I expected. He lifted the club and rushed towards me.

  “Caleth, wai—” began Gold, reaching out to grab ahold of the maero’s shoulder.

  Caleth didn’t seem to notice the pull. I could see the knuckles of his hand tighten, his jaw clench. His eyes, narrowed now to slits, glared at me with hatred. The club was a blur.

  The motion happened so naturally I barely registered what I was doing. Blood roared in my ears, blocking out all sound. It took fractions of a second to adjust my aim, and even less time to squeeze the trigger.

  The first bullet struck him in the chest. I fired again. The second in the shoulder. It put him off balance. The third shot went through his left eye.

  Caleth stumbled back, a spray of blood tracing his arc down. He collapsed at my feet, spitting blood, and growled a painful grunt. The three shots had sprayed his blood all over the wall, the doors of the elevator, and Gold.

  The dauger looked stunned, he just stared down at Caleth.

  I stepped back quickly, pushing Kiver and Samantha back into the kitchen. Caleth was seriously wounded but he wasn’t out. He rolled onto his belly and began to crawl forward. He lashed out, trying to catch one of my ankles, but his movements were slow and I stepped out of the way.

  I fired again, and his body convulsed. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and crawled towards us. Blood dripped from his lips in long tendrils. His remaining eye stared at me, cold and full of hatred.

  I only had one shot left, so I made it count. I took aim and pulled the trigger. The Judge boomed in my hands.

  Caleth dal Dunnel collapsed, the top of his head blown in.

  Sound began to creep back into my world. A gasp from Gold. A wail from Kiver. The distant shouting from the crowd below. I could smell the scent of gunpowder and blood on the air. My hands started to shake and I willed them to still.

  I looked over at Samantha. Caught her eye. She hated guns, and rightfully so. I expected to see a look of disdain, or in the very least pity. Instead her expression was a mix of sadness and something else. Something I couldn’t read.

  The Judge felt heavy in my hand.

  “Y–you killed him,” said Gold.

  I backed up, waving my hands to Samantha and Kiver and hoping they’d do so as well. The Judge was empty, and I didn’t think Gold would give me the chance to reload. He raised his hatchet, leveled his gaze at me and advanced.

  “Why did you do that?” His voice had grown distant and he tilted his head when he asked the question. It reminded me of the gargoyles.

  “He came after me first,” I said. I held the Judge out, hoping it’d be enough to fool him.

  “First you kill Cora and now you murder Caleth? Is this the behavior of the Guardian? Aren’t you meant to protect?”

  We kept up our slow retreat as Gold stalked toward us. We passed through the kitchen, keeping ourselves out of the reach of his hatchet.

  “Janus, stop this,” said Kiver from over my shoulder.

  Gold’s eyes were glowing, filled with fire and focused on us, the three of us. His words had grown incoherent and muffled. He chortled a laugh but his eyes never wavered.

  “You need to stop this, Janus,” said Kiver. His tone was firm.

  “Caleth was a good lad,” said Gold. “A bit headstrong, but good. Cora was a sweetheart.” He kept staring at me, at the Judge. I hoped he wasn’t counting the chambers.

  “When will that thing arrive?” I said. “Ashton.”

  The name snapped Gold out of his trance. He looked around almost absently. “He makes his own way, in his own time. I only set him on the course. He chooses how to run it.”

  We now stood in the central room of the apartment. Samantha stood to one side near the long row of windows. Kiver stood on the other, near the hallway that led to the smaller rooms. Gold stopped and just stood, watching us curiously.

  “You’re out of bullets,” he finally said. “You only have five. You used all of them on poor Caleth.”

  Damnit.

  He stared at me and I lowered the Judge, my charade over. I expected him to leap, swinging the hatchet. Instead he just stood, watching.

  There was a movement behind him. A black shadow. A pointed hood. A blank face. The gargoyle leaned around the doorway and then paused.

  More appeared outside, and I glanced out the wall of windows. Below, just one floor down, on the latticework of girders that would eventually form the floor of Level Nine, more gargoyles appeared. Dozens of blank faces stared up.

  Gargoyles began to materialize, filling the space behind Gold. Standing out of the way, in corners, near the record player. Any empty space was suddenly filled by them. First one, then two, then three, then ten.

  They didn’t advance, they didn’t move, they just watched, as if waiting for something, or... someone.

  I swallowed and looked over at Samantha, who saw them as well. Kiver stammered, clearly struggling to understand these hooded figures. I took deep breaths and tried to calm my nerves.

  Samantha’s eyes were wide and she instinctively crouched, her hands balled into fists. She looked ready to leap and attack.

  I held out a hand. It wasn’t time, not yet. She gave me a small nod and mouthed something I couldn’t understand. Everything swam around us.

  I turned and looked at Gold. The dauger still stood in the same spot, flanked by the robed figures. He now looked past me, the hatchet hanging loosely in his hand. His shoulders slumped and he drooped. Where before he looked crazed, now he seemed strangely defeated.

  Just then, a choking sound came from Kiver. Then came a voice that sent sparks running up and down my spine.

  “I told you I would always find you, Mister Bell.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  KIVER’S BODY WAS ALREADY DROPPING by the time I turned around. The elevated maero clutched at a gash in his neck, making a hurk hurk hurk sound as blood gurgled out. Janus Gold screamed, but it was obvious that Kiver was not long for this world. The long slash had come from behind and nearly beheaded him and blood was pouring down his shirt and dripping onto his slacks and the floor. Samantha looked at me, her eyes large and wide. In the brief glance I spared I could see the fear, the terror at what she was seeing. I knew that same feeling intimately.

  The mask that owned the smooth voice emerged over Kiver’s shoulder. Rising above it like a silvery moon. The eyes were the same black slits. In its simplicity the narrow gash of a mouth looked like a mocking smile. I shuddered as Rulon Argentum emerged from behind the falling body of my dying employer.

  All around us the choir of gargoyles shouted hushed screams like the crackle of static. Their blank faces were leveled at Argentum, the interloper. If he saw them at all, he didn’t show it. The whole of hi
s focus was on me.

  “Argentum,” I said, my voice carrying with it more terror than I had wanted to show. His head tilted as if he was amused.

  “Oh, no,” said Gold.

  “I warned you, Mister Bell,” said Argentum. I could tell he was smiling. The way he tilted his head forward, the way he shifted his shoulders back. He wanted to relish this, he wanted to make it hurt.

  A knot had formed in my stomach and I felt cold sweat trickle down my spine. The wound he had torn in my chest flared with pain. I remembered running for my life. Diving into the Sunk as a last resort.

  Argentum was still dressed in his dark suit, though his jacket was unbuttoned and the crisp shirt beneath was sweat-stained and rumpled. He was still stylish but more disheveled than I’d seen him before. His right arm was soaked in Kiver’s blood up to the elbow. It beaded on the sleeve of his suit jacket and dripped off the end of the wicked knife he held in an outstretched hand. Even the sharp silver nail on the end of his pinky dripped with maero blood.

  “You idiot!” shouted Gold, turning and shouting at Argentum. “You stupid silver bastard! You realize what you’ve done?”

  He leapt to his feet and charged across the space between them, hauling his hatchet back for a swing.

  The assassin was much faster. He stepped into Gold’s swing and grabbed the arm swinging the hatchet. He twisted and wrenched it, spinning the smaller dauger around. With a swift kick he sent Gold sprawling across the floor. He looked at the hatchet in his hand and shook his head and chuckled.

  “Let’s be a little careful, eh cousin? I’d rather not kill you, as well.”

  I still held the Judge, though by now I realized we all knew it wasn’t loaded. Argentum had been in the apartment. He had watched as I gunned down Caleth. I wondered how he had found Kiver’s place. Who had talked? Who else had fallen victim to that blade? A pang of worry for Hagen and Hannah shot through my heart.

  I moved for a reload, but Argentum held up his knife and flicked it, making a tsk noise.

  “Careful.”

  “You here to kill me?” I said.

  “I was always here to kill you, Mister Bell. That’s why I was hired.” I could hear the smirk in his words.

  “Then why the games?” I asked. “Why demand money? Why pretend to be a collector?”

  Argentum laughed and shook his head. “So many questions.”

  “Who hired you?” Samantha asked.

  Argentum bowed his head slightly. “Ah, the priestess.”

  “It wasn’t Shaler,” I said.

  “No, it wasn’t Shaler.” He took a small step forward. The static sound still wavered from the gargoyles though it had simmered somewhat. Samantha looked all around. Gold hadn’t gotten off the floor, he just lay there looking pitiful as Argentum spoke. “I have been scouring this city for you the past three days. Three days you have made me hunt you. Three days of wandering in this muck. I tried that religious trinket store but found it locked, and when I broke in it was empty. I even checked the Sunk. I’ll never be able to wash out that smell. Then I did some digging and put it all together. I knew you’d come here... eventually.”

  I pictured Kiver wandering around his house while Argentum watched from the shadows.

  “The bumbling fool had no idea,” he said, gesturing towards Kiver’s body. “Was so caught up in his business he didn’t even hear me put the record on. It’s amazing what a man does when he’s alone and fears for his life. Shame,” he said. Then he stepped towards me.

  “Here we are yet again,” Argentum said. He scratched the cheek of his mask with his sharp pinky nail. The tinny screech of metal on metal sang through the room.

  “So if it wasn’t Shaler, then who was it?” I said, backing up.

  “The stars are aligning, Bell. You angered some mighty powerful people.” Argentum laughed. Then he looked down at the blade in his hand as if pondering it.

  Powerful people? Who had the money to send an elevated dauger after me as an assassin?

  Together, Samantha and I backed up, pressing our backs to the glass wall. I could feel the cold leeching in, feel the vibrations from the street below.

  That feeling returned. The buzz in the back of my skull. Something was happening. The gargoyles’ movements seem to indicate as much. Far below the anger of the crowd surged and the floor under my feet vibrated.

  Gold had gotten to his feet and was glaring at the other dauger. “You don’t realize, do you?” he said. “He was marked. He was marked, you dumb bastard.”

  Gold roared and charged him again. Argentum danced back, gingerly stepping over Kiver’s lifeless body. Gold moved like a bear, throwing himself forward. The punch went wide. It took little effort on Argentum’s part to flick his knife and catch Gold on the extended arm. The dauger howled and stepped back, his other hand clutching the gash Argentum had made.

  The gargoyles’ hissing grew louder.

  “I heard everything you said, cousin. You don’t seem the type to be running with maero, even for protection.”

  “Who sent you?” Gold demanded.

  “The agent of transformation,” Argentum said. “The Herald has come. The High Priest approaches.”

  Gold roared with displeasure. I could see the spittle fly from the mouth-hole of his mask. “NO! You are dauger.”

  Argentum tilted his head, a confused gesture.

  “Why work for them?” Gold roared in frustration. “You have set plans back thousands of years. Don’t you realize? We were in control of the Herald. He could do nothing. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?”

  Who was them? I looked back and forth between the two masked men. Did Gold mean Ashton? I didn’t get any more answers to my questions.

  Around us, the gargoyles went silent.

  Gold looked around nervously.

  The building shook again and the noise from the street below swelled. I used the momentary distraction to reload the Judge from the shells in my pocket. It didn’t take long. I gripped the gun tightly in my right hand and felt Samantha take my left. She squeezed it. I squeezed back.

  “You’ve doomed us all,” Gold said to Argentum.

  Then it happened.

  A shockwave—much bigger than the roar of the crowd—shook the Shangdi. I felt the wave roll through the apartment. Heard the sound of rending metal. At first I thought a bomb had gone off, but there was no smoke. No explosion. Samantha and I crouched down. Argentum and Gold—unprepared—were thrown to the floor.

  Samantha and I clung to each other, refusing to let go. Not now. Not again.

  A second shockwave hit the tower. This one much stronger. A cold wind slammed my chest, it sucked the air from my lungs and I felt like my heart was freezing mid-beat.

  “He’s here,” said Gold.

  Behind us, the glass exploded outward.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  HE CAME STRIDING DOWN THE HALLWAY barefoot, moving like a prince among paupers. I knew where he had come from, knew what had led him to this exact spot: Adderley’s pharos. The bloody room where we found his body, the final altar that guided Ashton from the pit in which he lay and into the sun-lit reaches of the upper levels. Somehow the dead doctor had known where this would all go down. He had led his master skyward.

  Everything moved in slow motion. The glass that ran externally around the Shangdi Tower fluttered like ice crystals on the air before descending downward. As the world sped back up I could hear the sound of the glass raining down on the level below. Hear the screams of the crowd. Gunshots followed. Smoke began to billow up from below. I heard the distinct sound of sirens wailing to life.

  Ashton walked purposefully, still wearing his human visage. He held his arms out at his side, hands forward, like he was moving in for an embrace. That plain face with the slightly too-wide mouth and the bulging eyes carried a relaxed expression. He was dressed simply in slacks and a white button-up shirt. Smoke crawled around his feet, unmindful of the cold and writhing like a mass of snakes.

  Ash
ton the First grinned at us.

  We had all been thrown backwards in the blast, but Argentum was the only one of us to have gone out the shattered wall of windows. Somehow he had been able to catch the ledge and with a grunt he hauled his lanky frame back in.

  “Dweller,” said one of the gargoyles.

  “Sleeper,” said another.

  “Mizra,” hissed a third. They bowed their heads low.

  Ashton gave a smart little bow and then laughed happily. “Well, well, well...” he said, looking from Samantha and me to Gold and then Argentum. He noticed Kiver’s body bleeding out on the floor and snorted. “I have arrived, it seems, just in time for a little fun. So...” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them ferociously. “Let’s have at it. Where is the sacrifice? Where is the bonded?”

  Gold mumbled something that was hard to hear over the howling wind. Ashton grinned at him. “I didn’t catch that, Janus.”

  “He is there,” said Gold, pointing. His voice was weak and thin. Gold cowered, protecting his head with his hands. He was shaking.

  Ashton smiled and shook his head. “Yes, I know that. I could smell his blood on the wind as I approached...”

  Argentum rose and crossed the open room, lifting his knife from the floor.

  “What are we going to do?” whispered Samantha.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, and it was true. I didn’t know.

  Ashton turned, his back now to us as he squatted and examined Kiver’s cooling body.

  “This sacrifice is already dead, Janus.”

  Gold whimpered.

  Ashton looked over his shoulder and grinned his too-wide smile.

  “Herald,” said Argentum. He wiped the blade of his knife on a dirty pant leg and looked at Ashton warily.

  Ashton turned and sized him up. “What are you to me, dauger? Another abomination? Another bastard son of the yellow?”

  “I’m no Gold,” Argentum said.

  “Janus, who took my sacrifice?”

  Gold pointed at Argentum.