They had a mouth though, somewhere in there. This I knew, because I could hear them breathing and smacking their invisible lips.
I was not a trained swordsman. The Grettish taught the art of such combat between the ages five and twenty-five for their civilian citizens. These were Friars—trained from birth until death. I could tell by the worn army boots and trench coats that these three Friars were not youngsters. And those scimitars—my lives across the dimensions would be nothing if they struck me hard enough and that galaxy glass hit bone.
Thought they were all apparently seasoned warriors, the two apprentices did appear younger than the master. I could taste their age, for it came off their skin like what I imagined spring blooms might be—though this moon had no true spring time. Still, their youth and its savory perfume emanated from them. They were still outmatching me at swordplay—there wasn’t any doubt there.
I decided not to even entertain the idea and threw my knife a few yards toward them. Gray moon dust puffed up around the knife as it landed on the ground. One of the apprentices immediately moved to retrieve it. He picked the weapon up in the smoldering glove of his left hand. He pointed both his scimitar as well as my own weapon at me. The other apprentice, a female, rounded her master and approached the other apprentice to assist.
I thought for a second about my knife.
And how the handle—
Wasn’t a handle—
Anymore—
How it was really—
The other end of a two bladed spear—
And then how it would shoot through the Friar’s grip, slicing off his fingers and then piercing his breastplate and traveling into the female Friar’s sternum.
Both Friars fell in jets of sizzling yellow-orange blood. The two-headed machete spear burst from the body of the female and flew for the master.
My larger opponent swung broadly and shattered the incoming spear into countless steel bits, which fell around him like homicidal rain. Blood from his students had sprayed across his right shoulder like some type of radioactive mustard. The Grettish Friar slowly considered the fallen at his feet.
“Don’t take it too hard, friend,” I told him. “I’m sure you taught them well. I just don’t follow any rules.”
The Master of Arms held his weapon high and twisted his body. I’d seen videos of Friars chopping tanks in half with those scimitars—so even if he didn’t muster the power to wipe me off all planes of Time, I wouldn’t enjoy what became of my body if he hit home.
The Friar moved with startling speed and resolve, gray eyes burning, a wicked fog shrouding malevolent suns. I chose to run straight for him, rather than retreat, and meet him body-to-body. This tactic surprised him at first, but he recovered swiftly and swiveled on his back leg to get a better angle for a killing stroke. I leapt into his chest, at once feeling the heat of the Friar’s volcanic body under the trench coat. His giant arm encircled me, pressing me down, holding me in place to take hold of my neck and hoist me into decapitation range.
But I let my molecules wander.
And I passed through the Friar’s body, just as I had the stone wall of the mayor’s manor. I walked through the Friar, tearing his body apart with my every stride. The Master of Arms fell into pieces, large and small, an eruption of molten yellow flowing out in all directions. A thunderclap let out as the scimitar dropped to the stone floor. And the tinkling of something smaller.
Keys.
I was on my knees now, vomiting, and this time it was a good four times before I recovered. When I got my presence of mind back, I glanced over to the gate keys resting there in all the saffron gore. I grabbed them and stood. I thought about taking the scimitar as well, but besides it being ridiculously long in length, I knew I wouldn’t need it. There would come a day where I could merrily eat galaxy glass just to enjoy the flavor.
Gods, true gods, need no fancy weapons.
I went to the interior gates and opened them. The area resembled a drug den with throw pillows and huddled, sleeping bodies. A blank-faced Deitii raised its head and looked at me quizzically.
I answered its question before it had the chance to ask.
“I’m here to set you free.”
Chapter 11
The car had run out of fuel less than three feet from the business district and Dean didn’t want to phone in any favors to Tasha so soon after their chat. So he walked. With much revulsion and fatigue, he swallowed another Constalife tablet, since the reminder alert had gone off on his phone. He couldn’t find anything to be positive about, even though Sandra had instilled in him that believing good things brought about good things. He’d taken that to heart, because back when he’d been a sticker in a slaughterhouse in Corona, California, there wasn’t a day that didn’t begin negatively that didn’t end the exact same way.
As he slowly made his way back to the tavern through the vacant streets of some outdoor cavern mall, he thought about calling his fiancée. He missed her more by the moment, and the choice to come here, rather than fight the brass of Limbus, Inc., looked like a colossal mistake now. At the time he’d made the choice for the exact same reason. If Limbus tossed him out on his ear or relocated him in another star system, he’d never see her again. His master plan had been to rearrange her life to fit his own. Sure, go into stasis sleep. I’m worth it. Right?
“You’re an asshole,” he muttered to himself and turned the last corner.
“Heh?” a transient said from his shadowy huddle.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“What’d you call me?”
Dean stopped and thought about telling the man he looked like a bag of shit with eyes, but stopped himself.
Pull it together, Fulsome. You aren’t exactly sending out the positive vibes here.
By the time he arrived back upstairs in the dank, foul-smelling corridor of black moss and apartment shacks, he found the Noggin asleep with his cat, Butterball, on a burlap sack. The man shivered as his eyes raced under the blemished lids. The tabby’s coat rose and fell peacefully. Dean mused that after losing his friend tonight and being assigned the suicidal task of dispatching a superhuman killer, this could be that positive imagery he sought after.
He went into his shack and grabbed the blanket off his cot. He went outside and rested his blanket on top of the brain diamond addict and his cat. He returned inside and a charcoal-gray envelope had fluttered to the ground near his cot. He absently retrieved it and tore open the envelope. A thin piece of printer paper had been folded neatly and typed in all caps in a perfect square in the middle—a signature Limbus-style communication
YOU WILL STAY HERE FOR THE NIGHT. CONTINUE TO TAKE CONSTALIFE SUPPLEMENTS ON SCHEDULE. THEY WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH NATURAL SLEEP CYCLES. YOU MUST BE RESTED FOR TOMORROW MORNING. WE WILL UPLOAD MAP COORDINATES TO YOUR PHONE FOR OUR CONTACT’S APARTMENT, WHERE YOU WILL RESIDE FOR THE DURATION OF YOUR STAY. CITY OFFICIALS WILL PROVIDE SUPPLIES AND FIELD PERSONNEL FOR YOUR PROJECT. ALL WILL BE AVAILABLE DURING MIDDLE MORNING.
They’re giving me Ricky’s apartment. Out with the old, in with the new…
The idea of how crazy that sounded made Dean go chilly inside again. He wanted that Golden Transport. He needed it badly to get back to Sandra, but in order to win it, he’d have to do what one of the most highly trained mercenaries in the galaxy had failed to do. It appeared, by the mention of supplies and other hired hands, that Tasha’s talk with the mayor’s people had gone well. Or maybe there had been no talking at all. Tasha Willings had a way of making things happen with very little effort. Dean wished she’d stick around Moon City a bit longer. He could use some of her rhetorical magic, for that he was certain.
He got down on his knees and rolled over on his cot. It was humid in the shack, so offering up his blanket hadn’t been a big sacrifice. As he stared up at the stringy black moss hanging from the ceiling, he felt somehow farther away from home than ever. He thought it strange it just hit him like that, but it did. Going through membrane transport, aside
from the horrible complications he’d gone through today, normally felt like walking through a short, overly air-conditioned hallway. It wasn’t at all like taking a cruise on a starship for several months, where you could actually feel some of the journey. For that, Moon City might as well have been an extended alleyway behind the new Limbus office building in Sherman Oaks.
But he was away.
Far away from her.
And this would likely be his last hurrah anywhere. How could he have been so stupid?
He shut his eyes and tried not to think of the stink of the small room and the stink of his predicament. It riddled him with anxiety and self-doubt. He’d faced horrible things before in his short tenure working for Limbus, but nothing that would prepare him for such a foe. What would his game plan be? How would he use the men or women the city provided him for resources? Where could he even start to track this killer, who Rick had spent a great deal of time tracking? And had not given much in the way of debriefing on any of the information he’d turned up. Had Rick left anything behind in his apartment? Documents? Clues?
He knew he couldn’t do anything about it tonight. He knew better than to go against what he’d read in the note. If he didn’t get any sleep, for however many crazy long hours that would be, his equilibrium would still be off, and he wouldn’t be able to function in this place like he did back on Earth. He had to convince himself he was going to bed a little early on a Friday night, and although he’d rather stay up, sleep was in his best interest. Because tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow, he would start fresh and go forward, stronger. So he let his mind wander to a hazy gray fog that deepened, and his consciousness soon slid under the mental gauze. He slept for a good fourteen hours. But his phone alarm was not what woke him.
He awoke to a labored, pained sound like something dying. It took a while to register the series of suffering meows. At first he ignored it, but then the cat’s painful cries became so incessant, it simply no longer could be ignored. Nearly falling over himself, he got up from his cot, went to the door, and opened it. Outside, he found Chipper Saude, wrapped in his blanket, dead.
* * *
Dean checked his phone, too shocked to form an immediate plan. He had, indeed, slept for fourteen hours, but it really wasn’t enough. Twenty was recommended on this godforsaken moon. He popped another Constalife pill, and once again considered the dead Noggin whom he had helped and whom had helped him in return. It looked like an overdose, yet, Dean couldn’t buy it. People who got as close to overdosing on brain diamonds as Chipper had yesterday, usually took at least a week or so to climb up on the horse again. The mind was too spent. It would be like asking for more sex after a week-long orgy; even if the person had the will, the body was most likely closed for business. This was what Dean had learned was called “false recovery,” for these addicts were not truly done with the drug, they were merely recuperating from its onslaught to their nervous system.
No. Somebody wanted Chipper out of the way, and Dean had a feeling he was the reason the target got put on the poor guy.
But there was something that didn’t make sense about that. He was sound asleep, less than a yard away from where Chipper came to die and that was presumably where he’d also been murdered… so if his involvement with Dean, or Limbus for that matter, had got him killed, why had Dean not been taken out as well? That was truly a dark thought because anybody could have killed Dean—he’d slept like a drunk with nine tons of bricks piled on top of him—he’d been out cold, completely vulnerable.
He lowered onto one knee and dragged his blanket over the man’s frothed-over mouth and then over his blood-blasted eye sockets. It could have also been another day in the life of an addict—these sorts of things, when drugs and money were exchanged under the worst of circumstances, could lead to deaths like this.
Dean shook his head. No, you’re rationalizing away your suspicions. No dealer or other pissed-off Noggin would force Chipper to overdose. They’d have shanked him. Shot him. Beat in his head. Strangled him. But they wouldn’t have wasted valuable drugs on him.
Just then the register of Chipper’s cat meow came through the fogginess of Dean’s thoughts. He heard it coming from around the side of his shack. The animal sounded horrible, as though it were close to the end. Dean stood and his knees crackled. He didn’t much care for cats. He was very allergic to them; he’d been bitten and scratched in the deepest part of his left thigh by his first girlfriend Amy’s cat, Tigger, who had decided Dean was a tree it needed to scale. Aside from those instances, as a child, Dean’s mother had convinced him that cats were demon serpents that had grown fur and cute faces to seduce humanity.
Well, he hadn’t subscribed to that last one, but he still would have rather avoided cats if at all possible.
But the sound of its call.
He had to see if the animal had been injured. He could take it to another person here or in the tavern. He could get it some help, at very least.
Dean slowly stepped around the shack and stopped short of the puddle of rich, red blood. Sprays of crimson decorated the base of the shack, just where some black moss had begun to make its slow ascent of dominance. Dean stepped around the pool about six inches in diameter and tracked his eyes from the bloody paw prints to a small tarp that twitched and shuttered with every labored mewling.
“Holy shit,” he mumbled and moved toward the tarp.
Dean got there and, not enjoying suspense all that much, yanked the tarp off. The cat’s eyes darted up at him from inside a leather satchel. Dean recognized it as the one Chipper had next to him when they first met. The buckle had been latched and the cat had been trapped inside when Chipper put it in there. Dean hunkered near the bag and fingered the buckle. Numerous tan and orange hairs had embedded in the cheap felt interior liner at the fringe of the opening.
The cat hid inside.
“Smart,” he said and opened the buckle and the cat burst out and ran away, meowing as it went. He wasn’t entirely sure because the thing blurred like a small orange rocket, but Dean wagered other than being frightened, the cat wasn’t injured.
The blood.
So what is that?
Dean took out his phone and brought up the apps. Tasha had already come through. He had the 3D printer and DNA sampler and connection to Limbus, Inc.’s contract lab, Borderon.
“Merry Christmas to me.” Dean went to the 3D printer and requested a sample tray. The phone’s print output device began to heat and glow soft lavender. Dean set it on the flat surface side of a bowling ball-sized rock near the shack. A squeaky meow went up from around the shack. Letting the 3D printer do its thing, he crept around the shack to have a look.
The cat sat near the blanketed form of Chipper’s corpse. It turned its head and spotted Dean, letting loose a plaintive meow for assistance.
“Hold it together,” he told the cat and went back to his phone.
The plastic sample tray had almost finished. It was about five inches in length and half as wide. Dean reached down as the printer clicked off and the element in the end of the phone ran its fan to cool down. He pulled off the slim cover and turned to the blood. He put his knee down on something hard and winced. Dean scooted away and had a look. A long, flat rock, shaped as a blade and wrapped in leather lace at the bottom, was half submerged in the gray dirt. The sharp end was caked in blood and dirt clumps.
Chipper’s weapon? Had to be.
Dean felt a twinge of excitement. If the Moon City Killer had done this, he would already have a pointer on this as soon as the results came back. If he could get a good sample.
Speaking of…
Dean got closer to the shallow pool of blood. There was hardly enough for an appropriate sample. He would only get one shot at it.
The cat meowed louder.
He leaned over and carefully tried to fill the tray with blood only. No dirt. That might screw up the photo reading.
Meow.
Meow. Meow. Meow.
“Gimme a break,
Butterdick,” he whispered.
A bead of sweat dripped from Dean’s hairline to his right eye. His hand trembled as he dipped the tray deeper. There was a small pink dash that was the fill line. The blood level rose above the line and he jerked back. The blood sloshed to the side. Dean froze.
Slowly he placed the tray on the rock and picked up his phone. He selected the molecular camera, lined up the tray in the brackets on the view finder, and started the sample image. It took ten seconds to acquire three thousand layers, which was sufficient, but Dean had run chemical and blood analysis before, and he knew that ten thousand was the sweet spot; he’d never had to run more than one sample twice with that amount of molecular imagery.
After another thirty seconds, he had the sample imagery.
Meow. Meooooooooow.
Dean sent the sample layer image to Borderon. Head buzzing, he reached over and looked in the satchel. Other than cat hair and a sliver of a wrapper from some Constalife-infused cat treats, there wasn’t anything else. Dean got up and went around the shack. Butterball, still at Chipper’s side, but now suddenly silent, glanced at him.
“Rough day,” he said.
The cat just held his gaze.
Moon City Page 12