Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel

by Colby R Rice

  These were the Winds of Cua.

  Vassal Moss had intended for him to arrange a meeting there when he could. Xakiah hadn't expected them here so early; and on foot, it'd take a full day to get to them. But now that they were here, he'd certainly pay a little visit.

  Finally home.

  On the ground floor of the little office, Zeika popped on the old lamps and was greeted with the familiar hodgepodge of junk. High cherry-wood bookshelves lined all of the walls, and hammocks filled with trinkets hung low from the ceiling like snake bellies, making a jungle of the space. The wood and cloth cradled not only books, but other miscellany-- random jewelry, musical instruments, old electronics, even a few car engines that Manja tinkered with in her spare time.

  More sat in the hidden cellar below, their fridge and walk-in freezer besides. Dried meats, vegetables, canned and pickled foods, flour, eggs, butter, and even beer and wines. All inventory. The only things that weren't for sale were the large antique desk in the back of her office, and the books in five marked hammocks that hung high above it.

  She looked around and smiled, feeling warm and secure. The dusty little cove wasn't much, but she and Manja loved it. Sequestered away beneath the dead gardens of old, under a silent beauty.

  Zeika looked down at Manja. "Which one this time, kid?"

  "Um..." Manja put a finger to her chin in genuine thought. "Oh! The Masshinst Diary, please."

  "You mean the Machinist's Diary?" Zeika corrected her gently as she reached into one of the marked hammocks and brought it out. The diary wasn't a diary at all but a tome, as thick and nearly as heavy as Manja herself. But it was filled with information, from how to stock your own tool shop to rifling firearms to souping up engines.

  "Yeah, that one!"

  Zeika raised an eyebrow as she handed Manja the book. "You sure you don't want the Princess Diaries instead?"

  "Princesses are stupid."

  "So it's okay to act like a bratty princess, but not okay to read about them, huh?"

  "I'm not a Princess. I'm an Empress."

  "Psh, right, silly me."

  Book in hand, Manja dragged it over to the corner closest to Zeika's desk where she'd piled a heap of old pillows and blankets. She flopped down and grabbed a pair of huge, spacey-looking headphones and a decrepit cassette player from within the pile. She jammed put in an old Nina Simone tape and began to "read" the chapter on car anatomy as she listened. Zeika held back a giggle as she watched her sister stare at each page of the book with an intensity that was beyond her years. Who knew whether she actually learned anything from that thing.

  Zeika walked over to one of the bookshelves and chose one that was eye level, looking for the book she needed.

  Bingo.

  She was looking at the spine of an old how-to guide, hardback, from the 1950's. Warriors with Wings, it read. The Life and Loyalty of the Domesticated Homing Pigeon.

  She slid it, and the line of books next to it, all the way down to the book end, revealing a small door carved into the wall. She opened it, revealing the old dumbwaiter she used to move supplies up and down between the cellar, the office, and the surface. A sharp blast of frosty morning greeted her and silvery cones of light filtered down into the shaft. She flipped open the front cover of the pigeon manual, the inside of which had been gutted and filled with birdseed. She grabbed a handful threw it into the shaft.

  A flutter of wings responded, followed by pleasant coos, and a melee of feathers and feet came flying down the flume. Carrier pigeons-- one brown, one white, and one gray-- all strapped with harnesses, alighted on top of the birdseed and began to peck. Zeika reached in, locked the top of the shaft, and unhooked the notes off of each pigeon's harness. The gray one stopped its meal and hopped onto her wrist, ticking its wings and nuzzling against her fingers.

  "Hey there, Munch!" She laughed. He was the fattest one, and he ate the most, so Manja had named him in the way that made the most sense.

  Zeika creased her brow as she examined him. Some of his feathers were stained a bit, as though he had fluttered up against some red paint. Most of it had washed off, but the markings looked weird. They were splotched around his chest and back, as though he'd rolled in the paint or something.

  "You were trying to get into someone's bird feeder, you fat greedy thing!"

  She smiled and peered up the shaft, catching slivers of powdery light through the cracks of the closed wooden hatch. Her fourth pigeon, Jacqueline, was the most adventurous one, and as usual, she hadn't come back yet. Zeika had sent her deep into the Seventh Demesne to drop off a series of money requests, and she suspected that one of her clients would bring Jacqueline back when they finally met. At least she hoped so. She had heard rumors of a tornado warning near the Seventh Demesne or something like that.

  She walked back to her desk, already engrossed in the messages in her hands. As she pulled out a thick ledger and dropped it onto her desk, the pigeons followed her into the office. Crunch, the brown one, took his usual detour and alighted onto Manja's head.

  "Don't poop on me again, Crunch," Manja warned, flipping another page in her book. Crunch cooed an ambiguous response, as though he'd consider her request.

  "Two-pound sack of dried mushrooms and turnips, two dollars," Zeika muttered to herself. She thumbed through the pages of the ledger and jotted down her appraisals next to the clients' requests. If they could liquidate even half of the Forge's assets, they'd scratch off about five grand, more than enough to get out the Fifth. "Short wave radio with a bent antennae, seven dollars. The casing of a laptop, twenty."

  She went through the first two notes, balancing inventory, setting prices, planning packages. Then, she unrolled the third... rather, she resurrected the third.

  The hell? Jeez, people

  The note that had come from Munch's harness had been crushed and jammed into the holder, as though the sender had been off his meds a while--

  Zeika's thought died, mid-skitter, as she looked down at the crushed paper in her fingers.

  They've come, it said.

  Dark and drizzling fingerprints were smattered across the words, which had been scrawled frantically across the paper. Blood. Days old. Her throat tightened, and she looked at Munch, who was now waddling around on her desk. Red splotches on his feathers. She got up slowly and closed the ledger.

  Manja looked up from her book with wide eyes. "Work?"

  "Yeah. Work." Zeika replied with a weak smile. "Let's go."

  Ignoring the whirls in her mind, she pushed the desk to the far wall and lifted the rug beneath it, opening the hidden trapdoor in the floor. She went down into the darkness, and Manja, still clutching her monster truck magazine, followed closely behind. The trapdoor closed above them automatically. Only seconds passed before they came into the belly of the dank underground. Zeika flicked on the switch at the bottom of the stairs, and the cellar lit up under the swaying bulbs. A long table was laid out in the center, and Manja ran up to it, standing on her tiptoes to peer over.

  Rifles. Guns. Blades. Weapons of all different creeds lay out on the surface, each one gleaming eerily under the pale lights, ready for use. Zeika came up behind her, looking somberly at the arsenal. From years of study, she knew how to build and forge them, all of them.

  Endless nights as her father's apprentice had followed behind her studies in the sciences and field medicine, behind her ballet lessons with Mama, behind practicing Majkata. Poor as they were, no one could tell her or Manja that they weren't well-rounded kids. You two won't be the daintiest dames in the dell, Baba would often say. --but you'll be among the smartest, no doubt about that.

  "Hiya, Margaret! How are you today?" Manja gently patted a toolbox on the table like it was an old friend. It was painted pink, and plastered with flower stickers, and it sat open, showing all of Manja's favorite mechanic's tools. "Oh, did you miss me? I missed you too!"

  "Psychopath..." Zeika murmured as she reached into her robes and hande
d Manja a thick notepad. The new orders took up the first twenty-six pages.

  "Now remember, books and personals are upstairs--"

  "And other stuff's here. Don't touch anything 'cept for Margaret. I know."

  "And can you read this? Have you been practicing your words and numbers?"

  "Yes, Zeeky," Manja smiled, rocking back and forth on her heels. "You think I'm crazy and stupid?"

  "No. You're way too much of a smart ass for your own good if you ask me."

  "Better a smart ass than a dumb ass!"

  Zeika snickered. "Get outta here and get to work, kid."

  Manja smiled and scurried off, collecting large burlap bags, plastic wraps and the like from the supply closet. Zeika walked to the other end of the cellar.

  She came on a large chain link fence that stood between her and the far wall, and for a moment, she stood back and admired it. She'd tied and sewn long strips of coiled fabric together and strung up the gate herself, tying its ends to various pegs or crannies in the wall. Then she had turned the net into metal, creating the same fence that now stood before her. The masterpiece created a neat divide between the cellar and the small forge that lay on the other side of it, and no one but she or Manja could get in. When Baba had worked here with them, even he couldn't get through unless she helped him.

  She touched the bottom of the fence, focusing her power until just enough of it had turned into canvas. Lifting up the droop, she slid under, turning it back to metal once she was through. She surveyed the space, noting that everything was exactly where she'd left it. The small homemade forge, the gun swage, the propane tank, the anvil, the crude smithing tools. Years before the siege of arms, it had taken her and Baba months to build the forge from scratch. Yet, it had paid for itself with every blade and gun they had fixed and made.

  She turned and reached up behind her to feel around in the dimness, making sure to not knock over the large water barrel crammed up against the fence. She grabbed a metal knob above her and pulled, and with a lonely groan, a large square in the upper wall opened. Strips of white powder fell onto her shoulders, followed by the icy breath of winter. Manja called it the "holey gate"; the trellised flume was the only other way out of the Forge besides the front and back entrances. She'd need it open now, as a vent.

  The scattered bars of light were just enough for her to see her way around. She snatched up a pile of items sitting in the corner and adorned herself. Teflon gloves, an old welder's suit that was nearly three times too big for her, a gas mask, goggles.

  "Gas mask, Manja," she announced, slipping into her gear.

  "Okay!" In the distance, Manja took a moment to rummage through some of the cabinets, and she pulled out one of their child-sized masks from inventory. When Zeika saw that it was firmly over the girl's face, she flicked on the gas valve.

  The first piece of fabric was a long one. Zeika folded it up into a sheet, 4x13 inches. She focused, and the linen became a thick wad of metal, ready for forging.

  In and out of the forge the metal went, its dark flesh heating to nearly three thousand degrees until it glowed yellow in the dark. Zeika laid it on the anvil next to her, and then picked up her forge hammer, raising it high. On the other side of the room far beyond the fence, Manja picked through the trunk against the far wall, pulling out the first customer's order.

  Clank. Clank.

  "First order. The Lim family. Carrots!" The girl announced.

  Clank. Clank.

  "Sack of potatoes! And more carrots!"

  Clank. Clank.

  Zeika grunted as she pounded the metal into submission, stuck it into the forge, and placed it back onto the anvil. There were no orders for blades yet, but after word of the recent raids got around, there would be.

  Clank Clank.

  "Zeeky, is this thirty yards of linen?"

  Clank. Clank.

  Zeika took a moment to look through the fence. The girl was practically buried in the fabric that wrapped around her little body. "Looks like it," she replied.

  Clank. Clank.

  "Wow, this is heavy, Zeeky!"

  Clank. Clank.

  Zeika put the metal back into the forge and looked over. "Hey. Be careful with that."

  "It's okay, it's empty!"

  Manja grunted as she struggled, and with a grunt, she threw the separated stock and barrel of a Ruger 10/22, into the bag. "Big stupid thing!" She huffed, and she walked off to get the rest of the order.

  Ssss! The water hissed as the fire-red blade slaked its thirst in the cooling barrel. The water broke into steam and filled Zeika's side of the room before wisping out through the airing vent. Zeika leaned back and took a moment to rest her arms. In a while, the blade would be ready for sharpening by hand. Onto the next one. She reached into the linen box again, folded it into a thick wad, and turned it into a block of metal.

  "Wiiiintertiiiiime. And the living ain't easyyyy..."

  Zeika smiled, as Manja's lulls swept around the Forge. The duffel bag rustled as the girl packed the orders away, but her movements never cut into the silk of her little voice.

  "Bombs are jumpiiin', and the smog's so hiiiigh! Oh our Daddy's goooone, and Mama's seen better daaays--"

  Zeika snorted with laughter. "That is not is how the song goes!"

  Manja giggled and dropped four rolls of toilet paper into another duffel bag. "But, it's true!"

  Zeika shook her head, feeling a sudden rush of love for the girl. She was really too smart for her age, and somehow, in the midst of death and madness, she had picked up a sense of humor, one that was a couple sizes too big for her.

  Manja labeled and tied off the Lim order and moved on to packing another. Her sweet tones mixed with the deep strokes of Zeika's hammer, creating a familiar but unusual harmony in the belly of the Forge.

  Still, the cryptic, bloody letter bit at the back of Zeika's mind. Who was "they"? Koa, or someone else? Who sent the note? Had someone intercepted Munch mid-flight, or had this come from someone in Munch's assigned demesnes? Munch usually did his rounds between the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighteenth Demesnes. Someone had wanted that last message to get out. But why to her? Was it their last attempt at an S.O.S., or did they want to contact her specifically?

  And even if it was an S.O.S., it came too late.

  The blood on the letter looked days old. For all she knew, it'd come from one of the Civilians of Lot 12, the first lot that had gotten hit, the one Mr. Cartegena told her about.

  She shook her head, finally giving up the attempt to understand the note. There was nothing she could do about it, and her family was leaving the Protecteds anyway. No matter what happened, Manja still had to be raised. Zeika still had to work. If the world really was going to hell out there, it would have to wait. Koa had already invaded. It couldn't possibly get any worse.

  There'd been a sudden tornado warning in the Seventh, but other than the weird weather news, Caleb hadn't gotten squat from his teams. Days had passed since he'd first dropped new information on them. Either they were on a perpetual lunch break, or they had just turned off their radios altogether.

  He shook his head, fully intending to file reports of insubordination if these bastards didn't do their jobs. They could hate him all they wanted, but stopping Koan terrorism was more important than bruised egos. Even the higher-ups of the Alchemic Order would agree to that.

  Caleb sat down to go through the dossiers for anything he missed. He had compiled info from the Special Forces Tacticians in the Sixth and Seventh and combined it with his own from the raids. While he'd come up with many interesting leads, he wouldn't be able to do much else or strategize until his triads came back with their bits.

  Then again...

  There was still that dark-eyed girl from Lot 3, the one that Merconius, had been protecting. It wasn't just that he'd seen her before. There was something about her eyes. He'd seen that hard gaze somewhere before.

  "Maybe..." He got up and started ri
fling through three boxes of tapes on his desk. Two-week's worth of security recordings from the Lakeside Diner, installed at Veronica Webb's request. He'd just finished watching the first week, taking notes as he did, trying to create a timeline of events. He'd wanted to avoid researcher bias, and so he'd steered clear of starting his video analysis with the day of the bombing. In his experience, the answer was always in the smaller data points rather than in the bigger ones. But maybe now was the time to break the seal. Maybe if he worked backwards, he'd find something. He popped in the most recent tape, the one recorded on the day of the bombing.

  The video of the Lakeside Diner looked normal. Three waiters worked the floor for the customers that were filing in. Business men, construction workers, local Joes and Janes stopping in for drunken breakfast. Mostly Azures, but nothing special. When a shuffling Azure girl swayed in, however, Caleb raised an eyebrow. She had come in through the back, walked by several onlookers, and then sat on the floor, smack in the middle of the eatery. A couple of people started over to her, seeming to want to help.

  Oh wow.

  The girl was convulsing. Caleb sat back slowly as he watched a flurry of terror fly through the diner. A few customers went for their phones, most likely to call the ambulance. One man even ran over and laid the girl down, trying to hold her still as she spasmed-- and then the man leapt back at something seemingly horrific, something that Caleb didn't understand until he zoomed in.

  Sutures. At the girl's eyes and mouth. They ran from ear to ear, as though someone had completely separated the girl's lower jaw from the upper and then had sewn it back on.