Cardinal Crimson

by Will McDermott

  Cardinal Crimson walked around in front of Kal. He had a gruesome, toothy smile on his lipless face. His eyes practically danced in their open sockets. The look on the Cardinal’s face was one of holy contentment. Ecstasy even.

  ‘Looks like you just had an epiphany in your pants,’ said Kal with a smirk.

  Crimson raised a bony finger in the air. Snap! The whip hit the spot again. ‘You will speak only when spoken to, heretic,’ said Crimson.

  ‘So, now would be okay, then?’ asked Kal. He was pleased his voice only cracked a little.

  Snap!

  ‘You will answer questions, Kal Jerico, and keep your heretical comments to yourself.’

  Kal kept several heretical comments to himself while he waited for the first question.

  ‘What is your interest in the heretic known as “the Prophet of the Body?”’

  Kal was so stunned by the question that he almost blurted out the truth. So, the prophet was a heretic in Crimson’s eyes as well. That was an interesting piece to add to the puzzle. Kal wondered how much more information he could get out of Crimson while the Cardinal interrogated him.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked, and was immediately sorry he hadn’t thought that out a little more.

  Snap!

  ‘I’m asking the questions, heretic,’ said Crimson. He circled back around Kal. ‘What is your interest in Jobe Francks?’

  ‘He’s a bounty, that’s all,’ said Kal.

  ‘Who’s paying you for this bounty?’

  Kal considered his options. Nemo wouldn’t be happy if Kal sold him out, but his legs were on fire and his shoulders and arms were shooting pains all the way down to his hips. Plus, the truth might actually be beneficial here. He heard the whoosh of the whip being pulled back for another strike.

  ‘Nemo!’ he cried out.

  Crimson muttered something. Kal held his breath and strained his ears to listen, but he only got fragments. ‘…lousy spy… can’t let him get… what does he know… can’t take any chances…’

  After a while, Crimson stopped muttering and walked back into view. He smiled again. Kal tried not to shiver at the sight. ‘Kal,’ he started. ‘Kal, we’ve not always seen eye-to-eye on things. But I think we can both agree that we hate Nemo more than we hate each other, right?’

  Kal considered his answer quickly and carefully. ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ said Crimson. ‘That man is a no good spy. A heretic of the first order.’ He held out his bony hand and placed it on Kal’s flexed and aching shoulder. ‘Let me burn my way to the point, shall I?’

  Kal nodded. Anything to get Crimson’s hand off his body.

  ‘I will pay you twice what Nemo is paying to bring Francks to me.’

  ‘Four times,’ said Kal automatically, and then cringed. Still, he’d have to pay Nemo at least double just to get out from underneath his thumb.

  The whip didn’t come.

  ‘Done,’ said Crimson. ‘We have a deal then?’

  ‘That’s dead or alive, right?’ asked Kal. ‘Same price either way.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Crimson, ‘just dead.’ His floating eyes bored into Kal.

  ‘No deal,’ said Kal defiantly. ‘I’m a bounty hunter. Not an assassin.’ He’d blurted the response before he could even think about it.

  The fire returned to Crimson’s eyes and his lipless smile shifted into a horrible sneer. ‘Jobe Francks must die!’ he screamed. ‘He will die and you will die beside him. Two heretics sent to fiery redemption. It is the will of the Undying Emperor.’

  ‘It’s the will of an undead lunatic,’ said Kal.

  Snap! Snap! Snap!

  It dawned on Kal that his lowest moment was still yet to come. When and if he got out of this chamber and back to Yolanda and Scabbs, he would have to admit they were right. Going to Crimson would have been a very bad idea. Probably just as bad as getting caught by Crimson.

  Snap!

  Jobe Francks’s hand flashed out and grabbed the assassin’s wrist. He opened his eyes to see a bloody blade quivering a few centimetres from his chest.

  ‘How in the…?’ said the assassin, his eyes wide with shock.

  Francks didn’t hesitate to try to understand the moment. He acted. One leg whipped up, his booted toes slapping into the assassin’s groin. He cocked the other leg and kicked the man in the gut, propelling him away from the chair where Jobe had been sleeping just moments before.

  The knife flipped into the air as the man slammed into the desk. Jobe rose to his feet and snatched the tumbling dagger in one fluid movement.

  ‘You were asleep,’ gasped the assassin. He held his stomach and tried to catch his breath. ‘How did you…?’

  Jobe levelled a cloudy-eyed glare at the killer. ‘Bad dreams,’ he said as he advanced.

  The assassin retreated around the desk as he fumbled in his billowing, dark cloak. He pulled out what looked like a gun with an attached gas canister. He snapped the trigger and Jobe dived to the side. Nothing more than a thin blue-white flame emerged from the tip. It was a welding torch. He twisted a knob and the flame lengthened, and then waved the torch back and forth in front of his body.

  Jobe moved in on the assassin again. He flipped the dagger over in his hand to be able to parry. He didn’t need it to kill, just to get past the flame. He made a feint with the knife, thrusting its tip toward the assassin’s torch hand. Instead of flinching, the assassin dropped his arm under the attack and twisted his wrist, altering the angle of the flame.

  The torch lanced across Jobe’s arm. Pain shot through his body. The smell of burnt skin and hair wafted into the air. He pushed the pain down and disregarded the urge to grab his arm and look at the wound. Time enough for that later. Jobe pulled back a step to regroup.

  It was then he happened to glance over at the desk and saw Bitten slumped in his chair. A trickle of blood leaked out of a hole in his neck. ‘Oh my Emperor,’ he exclaimed. ‘What have I wrought?’

  ‘Your own demise,’ said the assassin.

  Jobe looked back too late. The killer was on top of him. He slapped the dagger hand aside and drove Francks to the ground. With a deft move, the assassin scissored Jobe’s legs together as he lay on top of chest and hand. He held Francks’s free hand down and shoved the torch into his neck.

  Nothing happened. He could feel his neck burning, but the searing pain he expected never arrived. The assassin lifted the torch up, obviously also wondering why Francks wasn’t dead or dying, or even in pain. The torch had gone out.

  Francks wanted to laugh at his luck, but the image of his dying friend drove everything else out of his mind. He looked into the befuddled face of the killer and the pain and anger and frustration of decades in the Wastes boiled over inside.

  The killer reared back with the torch, but he never got the chance to smack him in the head. With nothing but the will of his mind, Jobe Francks tossed the assassin into the air. The killer flew up into the ceiling and stuck as if bolted through the hands and feet.

  The assassin squirmed, but Francks held him in place with his mind. Jobe rose from the floor to his feet without bending his body or using his hands. He raised one hand and clutched at the air above him. He could feel the killer’s neck in his grip even though he held nothing at all. The man gasped and choked as if unable to get his breath.

  ‘What… what are you?’ he gasped.

  ‘I am the prophet,’ replied Francks. ‘And here is my message.’ With a jerk, he twisted his wrist in the air. The assassin’s head snapped to the side and a loud crack echoed through the room. Francks let his arm drop to the side and the killer fell to the ground in a crumpled mass.

  As he looked at the dead assassin, Francks’s mind cleared and he felt himself begin breathing again. He looked over at Bitten. Through his cloudy eyes, he could see breath escaping his friend’s lips. He rushed to the chair. Hesitating for just a moment, he reached out and laid his hand on Bitten’s shoulder.

  At his touch, Bitten stirr
ed. He tried to raise his head, but apparently didn’t have the strength left for even that. ‘You’re alive,’ he said, his voice raspy and barely audible. ‘Good… idiot killed the wrong… old man.’ Bitten coughed. A gurgle of blood spat out of the hole in his neck and bubbled through his lips, moistening his mouth with red liquid.

  Jerod Bitten’s eyes fell closed and his head lolled to the side. Jobe held his head in his hands and then leaned down and kissed his old enemy on the forehead. Blood trickled down Bitten’s cheek and ran through Jobe’s fingers, staining his hand.

  Bitten’s eyes snapped open wide as if in terror or pain. ‘The truth,’ he whispered, ‘is here. Find it.’ And then he was gone. Jobe Francks sat cradling the head of his only friend in his lap and cried.

  After several hours of tramping through the lower reaches of the Underhive, Yolanda was dry, but by no means happy. ‘Scavving Jerico,’ she said. ‘This is his fault as usual.’ She kicked a loose rock, sending it skittering down the dusty tunnel.

  She’d picked up the motorcycle’s trail just inside Glory Hole. After waiting for Jerico at the rendezvous point for an hour, Yolanda followed the trail deeper and deeper into the Underhive until it ended at a blank wall in the middle of a dark tunnel. In her torch light, Yolanda saw the last few drops of oil near the wall had been smeared. Something had scraped them to the side. It took her ten minutes to find the seam in the wall and pry it open.

  Now she trudged down a corridor that had probably not seen regular traffic in decades, perhaps even centuries. Yet it bore marks of recent activity. The dust-covered walls were shored up with clean braces and the thick layer of sediment on the floor had been scuffed almost completely down the centre.

  Someone lived or worked down here, and that someone had kidnapped Scabbs. ‘And it’s all Jerico’s fault,’ she said again. ‘Him and his scavving debts. You should have been with us, Jerico.’

  As she was about to continue her tirade, Yolanda saw a light ahead. She flicked off her torch and crept forward. The tunnel ended in the normal circular hatchway of early domes. A small window at eye level let out light from within. Yolanda stepped to the side of the window and craned her head around to peer inside.

  Dozens of men and women in rags and chains worked under the watchful eyes of Orlock gangers. A burly man yelled at the gangers, who whipped a few straggling workers. It looked like the Orlocks were mining this abandoned dome for materials or tech, but she’d never known a gang to use slave labour – kidnapped slave labour at that. That was a sure way to get the Guilders after you.

  Something moved past the window and Yolanda ducked back. When she looked again, her jaw dropped open. The shadow had been a couple of Guilder guards. They paced on around the area, as if they were guarding the work site.

  What in the Spire is going on here, thought Yolanda? An abandoned dome in a deep crevice of the Underhive filled with slave labour and Orlock gangers, all being protected by Guilder guards. What had Scabbs fallen into this time?

  Whatever it was, she couldn’t barge in alone. Then she got an idea. The Orlocks all wore bandanas, one of which could easily would hide her Escher tats; and dirty shirts one of which would hide her… other Escher assets. She just might be able to infiltrate the site, if she stayed in the shadows. With Jerico missing in action – again – she just might be Scabbs’s only hope for rescue. She had to chance it.

  Yolanda ran back down the dark tunnel. She knew where she could find her disguise. She just hoped the fire and sprinklers hadn’t got to the two bodies she’d left behind.

  The day lights in Hive City flickered to life outside Jerod Bitten’s hab, sending a beam through the window onto the macabre scene inside. Jobe Francks sat on the floor behind the large desk, with Bitten’s bloody head in his lap. He’d stopped crying hours earlier, more due to his tear ducts drying up than to any sense of closure to his grief.

  The Universe had asked so much of him, and this latest death had been one cost too many. His will to push on in the name of the almighty plan had drained away with his tears. He felt empty and lost, more so than at any time during his years of wandering the Ash Wastes. He now had no friends, nowhere to turn for help, no idea where to go next.

  As he sat, the light from the street shone on his face, outlining his head in a soft, white glow. He raised his head and gazed into the light being reflected down upon him through an odd pattern of reflections from the framed paintings on the walls. He could see the path the beam traversed across the room. It bounced from an image of Dust Falls to a rendering of the Spire and then to an eerily familiar painting of the Acid Pools before shining into his eyes.

  The pools. Bitten had known then what was happening, but couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything to stop it. He’d been too afraid of Ignus. But he’d known. What did he say before he died?

  ‘The idiot killed the wrong old man.’

  Bitten had known what was coming. He had to. But he was still too afraid to act. And this time that fear cost him his life. Bitten’s last words echoed in Jobe’s mind.

  ‘The truth is here.’

  Something stirred inside Jobe Francks. A new sense of purpose. A newfound desire. Ignus was still alive, still killing his friends. It was time for the killing to end. Time for the plan to move forward.

  Francks laid Jerod Bitten’s body gently on the floor and climbed into the chair. He opened the drawers and combed through their contents, looking for something – anything – that might point to Ignus’s current whereabouts.

  The bottom drawer was filled with ledgers. He flipped through them. They contained accounts for all of Bitten’s business dealings. After a while, it became obvious that Jerod had been funding a number of Cawdor gangs in the Underhive. He pulled out the note Jerod had given him. A fat envelope fell out of his pocket as well. He opened it to find a wad of credits.

  ‘No time to wonder on that,’ he said, and laid the envelope aside. Unfolding the note, he checked the gang names against the records in the ledger. The names and places matched. Jerod had helped each of those gangs financially and took a portion of their earnings in return.

  Francks wondered if they were all like the Universal Saviours or if any of them were hardline fanatics like the Righteous Saviours. He wanted to believe that Bitten had been doing some small part in promoting truth over fear. It might be the former fanatic’s only lasting legacy.

  There was one last ledger. This one listed the names of several Guilders; investors perhaps. It seemed Bitten had become quite the manipulator of money. There was a healthy flow of funds between all of the accounts. Where it all came from and the paths it took would take weeks to follow through the books. But it didn’t matter. There was nothing here that overtly linked Bitten to his past with Ignus or to the current location of that murderer.

  He looked into the drawer again. It was empty, but images swirled in his cloudy eye. He saw a hand reach into the empty drawer and press down on the bottom close to the back corner. A small section depressed allowing the fingers to grab the bottom and pull it out.

  Then the image was gone. Francks shook his head to clear the vision and reached into the drawer. He pressed the spot and pulled out the false bottom. Inside was nothing but a small brown key, almost invisible in the dark drawer. He pulled out the key and held it up to the light to look at it.

  ‘What do you open?’ he asked. Jobe’s eye refocused from the key to the painting of the Acid Pools on the wall. Somehow he knew he was right. He walked over to the painting and pulled it off the wall. Behind it was another false panel like the one in the desk drawer. He never would have noticed it before finding the false bottom.

  A moment later, Francks located the button that freed the panel. Behind it was a wall safe. He inserted the key and unlocked it. Inside he found what looked like another ledger with some loose paper sticking out from the pages.

  He opened the ledger and pulled out the loose parchment. As he opened it up, a smaller, folded sheet fell to the floor. On the large piece was
an odd drawing full of lines and arrows and notes written in small, fine handwriting. Francks looked down at the other sheet, which had opened up when it landed. It was a wanted poster with the name and image of Jules Ignus. At the bottom, in large print, it read ‘10,000 credits – Dead or Alive’.

  He picked up the wanted poster and headed to the desk to look through the ledger. Instead of columns showing credits owed and earned, inside was a listing of dates, places and descriptions, written in the same tiny handwriting. Transactions? No. He took the ledger back to the desk and read a few of the passages at random. They were gang activities – the New Saviours’ gang activities.

  Francks scanned the entries. He found a description of the burning murder of the Wyrd girl. A few pages later he found a detailed account of the death of Syris Bowdie and the ambush and mass murder of the Saviours of Humanity. He flipped through the book. Every evil deed Jules Ignus ever performed was described in the ledger, complete with dates, places and names.

  A thought occurred to Francks. He flipped through and found what he needed. The date Ignus buried Syris’s body. As he read the sketchy account, which he’d witnessed in greater detail through his cloudy visions just that night, Francks felt his mind transported away once again.

  He stood in the dome where Ignus had left Bowdie, but it was no longer dark. Lights blazed from the tops of poles spaced throughout the small dome. Around him he saw Guilder guards and some Orlock gangers, who all seemed to be standing around watching a large group of slaves hauling stone and chunks of metal.

  Francks recognised the spot and moved his consciousness to the wall. He could feel the presence of Bowdie beneath the rubble. It was close. He extended his will into the mind of a large, hairy man who seemed to be directing the workers. The man scratched at his temple for a moment and then called to one of the gangers and pointed toward Jobe. The ganger whipped the slaves, driving them to the spot, where they began clawing at the rubble.