by C L Walker
“I knocked the smile off your face, at least.” I tried to smile but it hurt too much.
Trevor got a puzzled look on his face for a moment before smiling and stepping away. “I was going to stomp on your head there. Crush you, like a bug, but I have a better idea.” He raised his right hand and clicked his fingers.
A faint line of energy shot from his outstretched hand, over my head and out the window. It brought with it the beginnings of nausea in my stomach, and shaking in my hands. No one else would be able to see the energy, feel the nausea. That was something just for me, some remnant of my training that let me see the impossible and know when magic was active in the world.
Bloody magic, again.
“Okay, I'm done,” I said quickly, scrambling to my feet.
“You don't get that choice anymore, boy.”
“Leave him be,” Claire tried, a quiver in her voice. Trevor's smile just grew broader. “He doesn't deserve this.”
“The goons are coming,” Mouse said anxiously in my ear. “It's like a siren went off.”
“It did,” I said. I was on my feet, wobbly but upright. Thoughts of helping Claire or finishing the job and killing Trevor were erased. Magic changed things. It was a force I couldn't understand, let alone fight. “Kill the lights.”
“What?” Trevor said a second before the lights went out.
This was my escape plan in case the police turned up before I could run, in case, for some reason, Claire pointed the finger at me as she stood over a dying Trevor. I ran for the exit out back, dodging tables and the counter before my eyes could adjust, going off the image in my head. I made it to the back room and threw the door open, which led me to the alley behind the diner and freedom. I dashed for the road running parallel to the direction the goons would be coming from.
“Are they following?”
“No,” Mouse said. “You're clear.”
“Come and get me.”
“I'm on my way.” There was a moment of silence and then she went on. “What the hell happened? I've never seen you run like this before.”
“Yes, you have. One other time.”
A sharp intake of breath and she said, “But that means...”
“We are done here. We're getting out of town.”
Chapter 2
The motel room smelled of years of stale smoke and sadness. There were stains on the carpet, the walls, the table; everywhere they weren't required by law to clean. Even the twin beds weren't spotless but at least they tried with them.
“Just take a breath,” Mouse said, stepping out of my way as I hurried across the room with another suitcase to stack by the door. “They aren't following. We have time.”
“You don't know that. You can't know that, not with this.” I gestured at the high-tech equipment we used for surveillance. “This is all useless here.”
“Stop.” Mouse stepped in front of me and brought me to a halt. She was taller than me, taller than most people, and hard to ignore. She had dark skin and long brown hair hanging loose down her back, and even stuck in a motel room on surveillance, she was dressed in an expensive suit. In her forties, she also had the kind of confidence that came from growing up around mobsters, marrying a hitman, and holding her own. When she gave an order you obeyed, even if you didn't want to.
“We're not discussing this. We're leaving.”
“Oh? You're putting your foot down?” She crossed her arms and spread her stance so she took up more of the room.
“Where this is concerned, yes.”
“Why don't you just tell me what happened?” She gestured at the bed, telling me to sit. I obeyed and she followed, sitting beside me and taking my hand in hers. “So, tell me about the diner.”
I gave a quick rundown, hitting the high points and not sparing her from the parts where I got smacked around like child. When I got to the scary part, the magic part, my voice dropped to a whisper, as though the goons might crawl out from under the bed at any moment. For all I knew, they might.
“So you're saying this is going to be harder than we expected?” She paused, letting me prepare an objection before speaking over me. “Magic or not, we're doing this. We don't have a choice.”
“I'm not facing something like this again. It didn't exactly go well last time.” Images of Mouse's husband disintegrating ran through my imagination, and I could see that she was thinking it, too. ‘We’re not the right people for this job.’
“Somebody thinks we are.”
“Or somebody is smart enough to know they can't face it, and so they picked us for the firing squad.”
“Maybe.” She looked thoughtful, staring off into the distance as she weighed our options. She'd been affected far more than me the last time, losing a husband and her old life in one night. So when she finally spoke, she took me by surprise. “We won last time.”
“We survived last time. We managed to not all die; I wouldn't call that a win.”
“What do you think the Broker's going to say when we call him and tell him, with three days left, that we can't do this? No, don't answer; I'll tell you. He'll threaten our lives, then you'll call his bluff. Then he'll threaten our livelihood and you'll tell him to shove it, at which point he’ll make some comment about how statuesque and black I am, and it’ll piss you off even more. And then I'll have to save the day.”
“And then we'll leave,” I said softly.
“And then we won’t be able to find work ever again, let alone pay back our debts. And it’s worth keeping in mind who we owe, and how they deal with people who can’t pay their debts.” She stopped and allowed the silence to do the work for her. I had no answer, no plan that didn't end with us destitute or dead, and the longer neither of us said anything the more convincing her argument became.
The night Mouse's husband died I hadn't been worried; none of us really had been. Even able to see the magic in a way no one else could, I hadn't truly believed in it. It was a trick, a way to convince people you were more powerful than you were. We rushed in and ran into something none of us understood, and some of us had died because of our confidence and our ignorance. Now I had an idea what we were up against and I was scared.
“I could become a baker,” I said. “It's honest work, and I get up early in the morning, anyway.”
“I don't think it really fits with your skill-set. Besides, the first time a customer insulted your cakes, you'd slit their throat.”
“Just be sure this is what you want to do.”
She paused a moment before speaking, watching me and easily seeing through my façade. We’d only been doing this a few months and already she knew me better than anybody else ever had. I’d never understand why she was willing to trust me after all that had happened, but I was glad she was on my side.
“Are you scared?”
Her words were meant to be comforting, helpful, the sort of thing a friend was meant to ask. But with me they had extra weight, bringing memories of my childhood to the surface. A childhood where admitting you were scared meant a beating, or worse. A childhood that had royally messed me up. I sat up straight and pulled my hand away as I turned to glare at the only window in the room. I knew I was being stupid and I didn't want her to see it, but I couldn't stop himself.
She tried again. “I'm pretty scared, if that helps.”
“It doesn't.” I took a deep breath and held it a few seconds before slowly letting it out. “But that's because I'm a petulant child.”
“I agree.”
I turned to face her without first clearing the look off my face and she laughed at me.
“What, it's true,” she said.
“So what does that make you, my mother figure?”
She slapped my arm and shot me a fake frown. “No, more of a brilliant mentor. Wise in the ways of the world while still maintaining a youthful charm.”
“And so modest.” I smiled despite myself but all that did was remind me of the jam we were in. “So let's come up with a plan. We're faced with o
therworldly, unknowable, unstoppable power. By default I'm amazing, but that's still a pretty tall order.”
“You're amazing at jumping in and punching things. You have a problem with control.”
I started to object, but she had a point.
“Maybe this situation calls for more subtlety.”
“I can do subtlety,” I said. I could, too. I’d studied it in school. I’d even paid attention to most of it. “I assume you have something in mind?”
She rose and moved to a position across from me, leaning against the battered dresser. “I say we keep our covers running and keep our eyes open. We know who we have to kill, and we know something about the challenges we’re going to face doing it. As far as Foster is concerned, you’re just a guy he got into a fight with, so your cover is probably still fine. We've got two days before we actually have to do anything. As long as he's dead on Friday, we win.”
“So what you're saying, basically, is that you have no idea. Your plan is to keep your eyes open and hope a miracle happens.”
“My plan, dear Merikh, is to gather intel.”
“That does sound exciting.”
“No, exciting would be attacking the magic man and hoping for the best.”
“Fair point.” We’d been observing the town for a week already and we hadn't managed to see everything. But I was willing to concede that now we knew what we were looking for.
“Besides, if we haven't come up with anything by Friday we can always use a rifle from a distance. Let's see if he can magic his way out of that.”
“Something occurred to me while I was waiting for you to pick me up. How many times in your entire life have you seen something you could describe as magic? Real magic, the kind I ran into tonight. The kind from before.”
“Twice, and I think I know where you're going with this.”
“Both times were with me. Gallivanting around the world with your husband, doing what we're doing now, for years. And only while I'm around has this been happening.” I’d had the thought before, after the first time. Maybe there was a reason the clans didn't let new assassins go off on their own. Maybe there was something about my training, the same something that let me see and feel the magic in a way nobody else could, that somehow drew it to me. Maybe this was something I was going to keep running into, and keep dragging Mouse into.
“Then we'll get really good at dealing with it, won't we?” She meant it, and it scared me even as it made me more sure than ever that I needed her.
“You're pretty cool, you know that?”
“Honey, I was pretty cool before you were even born. Now I'm working on a whole other level.”
A tingling in the back of my throat gave me a moment's warning before the nausea hit. Magic, and stronger than the night before. Almost as strong as the night we lost Mouse's husband. It hit me like a truck and left the room spinning as I tried to get control of myself.
“What is it?” Her voice came from the end of a tunnel, faraway and barely loud enough for me to hear. I forced myself up and stumbled as I turned to the window. Each step was a chore but something drew me forward. I reached the window and I thought I could feel her hand on my shoulder but I wasn't sure. I tore open the curtain and took in the town.
The sun was just rising over the hills to the east but I wouldn't have needed the additional light. Energy, like a fog descending from the sky, slowly drifted down into the streets, swirling around the buildings and the early morning pedestrians. It glowed a sickly yellow and turned the town cancerous until it slowly faded away, seeping into the buildings and the people. When the last of it faded so did my nausea, leaving everything as it was before.
“Tell me what you're seeing.”
“There is something very wrong in this town. Something big.”
The Knight: Two Old Enemies
By the time the spectral knight arrived on the pier, the god was already seated on a bench. Its body today was that of a middle-aged, balding man wearing a long black coat to ward off the cold wind. It sat in silence and watched the waves pass by on their way to the beach, ignoring the rattle of the chain attached to the collar around the knight's neck.
The pier was mostly empty, with only a few chilly tourists making their way from one local art exhibit to another, the pieces arranged down each side of the weathered wooden planks. Looking around, he couldn't see anything to distinguish it from a hundred other such locations he'd been dragged to. He could be anywhere in the world; not that it mattered anymore. He knew his place, had learned his place more than a thousand years before in a radically different version of this world.
With the heavy chain weighing him down he moved beside the god, Ahn, and waited to see if anything would be needed of him. He didn't know what the purpose of the visit was, never knew what the purpose of their visits were. Ahn was mercurial, disinterested in everything even as he kept tabs on an entire planet. From the moment it rescued the knight from his descent into the nether, the god had been dragging him through the ever-changing world, allowing him to watch as it tweaked its creation, erasing old mistakes and smoothing over rough edges. Mistakes like the giants which once plagued the knight’s kingdom and rough edges like his kingdom itself. His past no longer existed and his future was unsure, tied to the winds of a being the knight could never understand.
The other god arrived. The knight hadn't seen this one in a hundred years, since the two had decided to erase the existence of a kind of weapon that would have changed the outcome of World War I. Though the gods, Ahn and Ehl, would always be enemies, when they agreed on something they could shake the world.
Ehl wore a man as well, a young black man in the tightfitting clothes commonly worn when exercising. Where Ahn was always frowning, Ehl never stopped smiling, and this time was no different. It strode over and collapsed onto the bench, beaming at the world as though this was the happiest day of its life.
“Why so glum?” Ehl said. It reached over and grabbed Ahn's arm and gave it a shake. Ahn glared at the presumptuous touch and Ehl removed the hand but kept on smiling. “The pieces are finally coming together. The world is finally behaving as it should. Soon the charade will be over and all this”—it waved its hand at the entire world—”can be left behind. I don't know about you, but that gets me hard just thinking about it.”
“You have always been too confident.” Ahn's voice, no matter who it wore, was always slow and measured. “The game is not yet over. You have not yet won.”
“Sure, but it's just a matter of time. My children rule this world now while yours are reduced to hunting for followers, praying to you for people to pray to them.”
Ahn sighed and finally turned to look at the other god. “As your children were two hundred years ago, and a thousand before that, and ten thousand before that. You always think the game is won and you are always disappointed.” Ahn went back to contemplating the sea.
“But this time things are different, aren't they? This time it feels different, doesn't it?”
“Perhaps,” Ahn conceded.
“Is that why you're cheating, in the hopes of ending the game by destroying it?”
Ahn turned to face Ehl again, a hint of confusion on its borrowed features. “What do you mean?”
The knight worked hard to keep his mind a blank so as not to give away his surprise at the sight of his master betraying an emotion.
“I know it was you. I know it was you who did it directly, who hired someone to kill one of my priests. And not just anyone, not just some hitman. No, you hired a clan assassin.”
Ahn closed its eyes and searched the world for a hint of what Ehl was talking about. It found what it was looking for in a moment. “I didn't do that.”
“One of my children traced the request. Not to one of your children, or one of your priests, or even to a human. The request seemed to come from nowhere, which means it must have come from you. I found this odd as I'm sure that's against the rules.”
“Again, I didn't do this. There is
something odd here.”
Ehl sat back with its arm along the back of the bench and looked out to sea, perhaps searching for what had so entertained Ahn. When it returned its focus to the conversation, it changed topics. “Why do you have this ghostly human with you all the time? Surely he can't be that entertaining.”
“I find it useful to understand how they see the world. He gives me perspective.”
“The perspective of an ant, perhaps. What good will his perspective be when we destroy all of this because you couldn't handle losing? Will you keep him when we create a new world? Will you elevate his mind so he can understand what we have done and will have to do?”
The wind picked up as thunder rolled in the distance. “I did not do this.”
“And yet when you inspect the situation you can see what I see. It certainly looks like one of us did it.”
“I will investigate.”
The knight pictured his home, his family, his history that they had erased. He concentrated on the only image he could recall of his youngest son's smile, in the hope, probably vain, of keeping his surprise to himself. The gods did not need to investigate, not in the way Ahn had meant. With the slightest expression of will they knew everything, from the flight of a butterfly to the inner workings of the most distant star. For one of them to suggest that they would have to investigate something was a revelation, and somehow more terrifying than when he believed them to be omnipresent.
“Do that,” Ehl said. It stood and wiped blood from its nose. “I'm curious how this was done without my knowledge. Assuming, of course, you're telling the truth.”
Ahn ignored the blood coming from its own nose and said, “I am.”
“It could be...her.” Ehl said “her” with distaste.
“It isn't. Can't be, and you know that.”
“I also know that it has to be one of us. If not you, then who?”
Ahn and Ehl moved on simultaneously. Their bodies collapsed in place, one on the bench and one on the pier. They twitched and spasmed as the last of their life left them.