Blood and Tempest

by Jon Skovron

  “You know I was never good at speaking nice,” said Nettles. “And there’s no nice way to say something like this anyway. So I’ll just come out with it.” She took a slow breath. “Filler and Sadie are dead.”

  When Red had been a little boy, he found his mom dead on the couch. Her nose and mouth had been caked with dried blood, her eyes glassy, and her fingers curled in like claws. When he’d seen that, it had been like someone had put a bellows to his lips and opened them so that all the air was sucked out. It had felt like he’d been suffocating where he stood.

  It felt like that now.

  He couldn’t speak, or even breathe. He stared at Nettles, desperate for some warmth or comfort in those brown eyes. But there was nothing. Maybe that’s why she’d been acting so distant. Maybe it wasn’t just toward him. She’d taken a step back from everything. It had been too much for her. She’d strangled the part of her that hurt. She might have even killed it.

  But Red wouldn’t do that. Or couldn’t. It hardly mattered which. He’d come too far, worked through too much pain already. He wasn’t going to run from it now. So he let the shock, the confusion, and the horror wash over him. And it just kept coming in waves, over and over again.

  Filler and Sadie. Dead.

  He longed to hold on to Nettles like a sailor clings to a mast in a storm. But there was nothing in her demeanor that invited him to reach out. And when she did begin to speak again, it wasn’t to provide any words of comfort. It was only to give him the facts.

  She spoke to him about the details that led to the deaths of the two people he loved most in the world in a voice that he barely recognized as hers. In that sense, it felt like he’d lost not two people he loved, but three.

  The details did help in a way, though. They took the abstract and made it more concrete. A world without Filler and Sadie? At first, the idea simply didn’t make sense. But as Nettles continued to talk quietly about the clash with her brother, and Hope’s desperate raid on Dawn’s Light, he started to see that such a world already existed, even if he hadn’t known it yet.

  “Filler was properly avenged,” Nettles said, “I saw to that myself. I wasn’t there when Sadie rammed her ship into that imperial frigate at the Breaks, but Gavish Gray sent word of it and said she saved a lot of people that day, including Hope, Alash, and Jilly.”

  “Jilly?” It was the first thing Red had said since two people-shaped holes had been cut in his world.

  “We picked her up on an imperial frigate.” She narrowed her eyes. “Come to think of it, that’s where I’ve seen that Vaderton of yours.”

  Red nodded and took another drink. It seemed like the sort of thing he should ask more about, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  There was silence in the office for a little while, broken only by the occasional slosh of whiskey in the bottle as Red took another drink.

  “Well, that’s all there is to say, I reckon.” Nettles looked at him again, and there was still nothing in it. “I’ll have this Vaderton of yours put up for the night at Apple Grove Manor so you can, uh, have some time alone.”

  Red’s only response was to take another drink. So Nettles left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Red thought he could face the pain of it all head- on. He’d come so far, grown so strong. But this was worse than anything he’d ever experienced because it didn’t stop. Each moment brought a fresh new wave of shock and horror. A new realization of something else lost. No one to needle him into action like Sadie. No one to lean on like Filler. There was that mischievous old gleam in Sadie’s eye he’d always loved, ever since he was a boy. And the musky sandalwood smell of Filler that was as familiar and more comforting than maybe any other scent in Paradise Circle. All of that was gone forever. It no longer existed in his life. In the world. Like it had never been there at all.

  This thought unfolded endlessly, over and again, with different variations, each one causing its own special sharp spike of pain. A wag can only take so much of that, and so he kept drinking. Red was no stranger to whiskey, but that night he drank with the single-minded purpose of someone who wished to smother every burning thought that came out of his head. By the time Prin came in, he could barely focus his eyes.

  Prin sighed when she saw him. “Should be her taking care of you,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “But I reckon the Black Rose can’t be a shoulder to cry on, so I’ll have to fill in.”

  She got behind him and hauled him to his feet with the precision of someone who was accustomed to dealing with drunk people. She ducked under his arm and half carried him across the tavern and up the steps to her small bedroom.

  “You don’ godda do this,” he slurred as she helped him out of his jacket and boots, carefully placing his holstered guns on the small bedside table.

  “Hush, you,” she said and gave him a gentle push.

  He fell back onto the bed and lay there while the world began to spin very unpleasantly. He felt so heavy, it seemed possible he could sink through the mattress and fall to the floor beneath, through all the floors, and into the cold, dark earth.

  “It’s a small bed, but it’s all I got,” she said as she pulled her dress over her head. “You’ll just have to share.”

  She rolled him over on his side, then curled up behind him so her cheek was pressed against his upper back, and her legs were tucked up behind his. She reached her arm around and squeezed his hand.

  “I miss ’em, too, Red.”

  “God, Prin.” His voice cracked as he finally began to cry. “I don’t know what to do.”

  She let him sob for a while, still holding him. It was an ugly sound, throaty and raw.

  When he eventually quieted down, she said, “If you ask me, there ain’t no good left in the world. Certainly none I ever see anymore.”

  Those words echoed in his ears as he drifted off to sleep.

  The next morning, Red slumped against the bar, nursing a brutal hangover. He could feel the Shadow Demon pressing against the back of his skull. It was always there, of course. It was a part of him. But it was louder than usual, strengthened by the dark and miserable thoughts that wandered through his brain. There was a cold smugness to it that said, See, I told you the world was nothing but piss and death.

  As he stared down at the bowl of watery stew that Prin had given him to ease his hangover, Red let the Shadow Demon have its way with his mind. He let it run circles, repeating and reshaping slivers of memory it considered proof of the awfulness of life. It was like a dog chewing on a favorite bone. He could feel its hard, chilly grip creep out into his limbs. It was tempting to let it come. He could already feel his hands longing for some kind of vague retribution. That was what a true wag of the Circle did, right? Pain for pain, death for death. But to whom? And for whom? Who, exactly, would gain right now from even more death?

  As the sunlight came in through the grimy tavern windows, it struck the broth in just the right way so that he could see his own reflection on its oily surface. He leaned away from the bowl, uncomfortable with the haggard expression he found there.

  He found himself instead staring at the back wall of the tavern. It was a large, flat, blank space, stained and scraped here and there. It looked exactly the same as it had when he’d come here the first time, so many years ago, just a boy, following Sadie around like a lost, red-eyed puppy. It had been the night she lost her ear. There were so many memories in this place of Sadie. And Filler, too. All those memories would slip away and vanish forever. It wouldn’t be long before even their faces would be hard to remember.

  Unless …

  “Hey, Prin,” he said.

  “Yeah?” she called from the other end of the bar, where she was setting a fresh cask of ale to be broached.

  “Can I have that back wall?”

  She looked at him over the barrel. “Have?”

  “I want to paint it,” he said.

  “Really?” She looked at the wall as if she’d never really noticed
it before. “Yeah, I reckon it could do with a fresh coat of paint.”

  A tiny hint of a smirk curled up at the corners of Red’s mouth. She’d figure out what he meant soon enough.

  Red had to go all the way to Silverback to get the kind of paint that would last in that dirty, smoky hole of a tavern. But the walk in the chilly, fall air did him some good, and by the time he’d returned, he’d mostly shaken off his hangover. He felt alert, focused, and ready to work.

  It was early evening by then, and the tavern was full. But Nettles’s table in the back was empty. He shoved it aside, which gave him a bit more room to work.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” asked Prin as she walked by with three tankards in each hand.

  “She won’t be coming by tonight,” he assured her.

  He reckoned she was giving him some space, like she’d said. Maybe deep down she felt a little guilty, and worried that he blamed her for Filler’s death. But Red remembered when Filler got shot during the storming of the Three Cups. Red had tried to blame himself for that one, and it was one of the few times he’d ever seen Filler angry. “My choice to fight for the Circle,” he’d said. “Don’t you dare take that away from me.” Red had no doubt that Filler had chosen to stand by Nettles for the same reason. Clearly he’d believed in what she was doing, and what kind of a wag would Red be if he didn’t honor that? So he couldn’t put the blame on Nettles.

  Still, it was nice to have the space to work. That’s all he really wanted right then. First, he scrubbed the wall down. It took a while to get the buildup of smoke and grime off the surface, but he knew it would be much easier to paint if he did, and it would last longer, which was the whole point. It was nearly closing by the time he finished, and his shoulders ached. As he sat down at Nettles’s table to rest, he noticed many of the patrons glancing curiously in his direction, but none of them risking an outright stare.

  Red couldn’t quite take the temperature of the Circle since he’d gotten back. It felt strangely subdued. The storming of the Three Cups and the subsequent riot and attack by the imps, followed only a year later by what sounded like a particularly vicious gang war between Nettles and her brother. It had taken a huge toll on the people. He wasn’t the only one grappling with loss. That made what he was about to do feel all the more urgent.

  Once Prin had pushed the last of the customers out the door, Red got to work. He decided to start with a bit of distance. He would ease into the things he really wanted to paint with something a little less personal. It wanted a nice big centerpiece anyway. Someone larger than life …

  He began painting Bracers Madge from memory. Truth be told, it probably wasn’t the most accurate likeness. But there were few alive now that remembered exactly what she looked like anyway. He made her impossibly big, nearly to the ceiling, so that she loomed over everything with her stern face and massive bulk, just like he remembered from when he was a boy.

  On one side of her, he painted Sadie as she had been when he’d first met her. Vicious and rowdy and oddly joyful. He put her in the captain’s hat, coat, and boots she’d been so proud of. The ones he’d stolen for her with Filler’s help.

  On the other side of Bracers Madge, he painted Filler in the place he was always happiest. In front of the smithy forge, where he could be equal parts brute strength and careful craftsman. He painted him shirtless and pounding steel on the anvil with a hammer. He might have exaggerated Filler’s sweaty, muscled physique somewhat, but it gave him an odd pleasure to think that toms and mollies for years to come would be ogling his best wag’s biceps.

  He’d originally thought that would be it. Just the three images. But when he looked at it, he knew that it wasn’t finished, and there was plenty of wall space left. So he took an area and painted Deadface Drem, with his haunted eyes and blank face, along with Brackson, half transformed into that blob creature, and Ranking, half transformed into that bug creature. Above the three of them he painted a ghostly figure in a white hooded robe that everyone would recognize, because the fear and hatred of biomancers would never leave the Circle.

  But even that wasn’t enough. So he started over on the other side, painting everyone he remembered who was dead now: past ganglord Jix the Lift; Jilly’s mother, Jacey; Sadie’s rival Backus, who died of old age, that rarest of deaths in the Circle; and Neepman, who owned that bakery and butcher shop he and Nettles had robbed. There was still space, so he painted a whole scene of people marching on the Three Cups. He was surprised at how many faces he remembered. Faces that would always be remembered now.

  He finally ran out of wall space as the pink light of dawn came in through the windows. He collapsed into a chair at Nettles’s table, his hands sore and paint-stained, and fell asleep.

  “Red, I think it’s time you got up.” Prin’s voice was gentle, as was her hand on his shoulder.

  Red opened his eyes slowly and winced at the afternoon sun as he fumbled for the smoked glasses in his pocket.

  “Did I sleep the whole day?” He slowly sat up. His neck was stiff, and it felt like there might be an imprint of the table wood grain on his cheek.

  “You were up all night, so I thought it best to let you sleep, but uh …” She glanced nervously behind him. “I think she wants her table back.”

  Red nodded, then rubbed at his sore neck as he got to his feet and turned around. Nettles stood nearby, flanked again by Moxy Poxy and Mister Hatbox. Vaderton was nearby at the bar, drinking a tankard. Others had begun to filter in at the other tables for their first drink after a long day of work.

  “Well, now,” said Nettles. Her expression was unreadable as she stared at the mural.

  “See now, Mister H,” said Moxy Poxy in a voice that had only gotten more grating and unpleasant in the years since Red had last heard it. She walked closer to the mural, her hands on her hips. “This here is true Art, the like of which you and me don’t get to see too often.”

  “It moves the very soul,” agreed Mister Hatbox in his quiet, dead voice.

  “I tell you, Rixie.” Moxy patted Red’s shoulder good-naturedly. “I’ve never been happier that Filler wouldn’t let me kill you all them years ago. This here is nothing short of inspirational to a fellow artist.”

  Red knew that her “art” was mainly composed of the fingers of her victims, and gave a wan smile. “Thanks, Moxy.”

  Then he turned back to Nettles. Like many artists, he often acted like he didn’t care what people thought of his work. And like many artists, it was a load of balls and pricks. “What do you think?”

  Nettles didn’t speak right away. Instead she continued to stare at the mural. With so many other eyes around, Red knew that even if she loved it, she’d have to be pat about it. The ganglord of Paradise Circle couldn’t get all poncey over a bit of art, no matter who did it, or why.

  Finally, she cleared her throat and looked at him. “I reckon the Circle could use a bit of this right now.”

  It was, Red realized, the closest she could ever get to saying that she missed him and wished he could stick around. Maybe she hadn’t totally been swallowed by her own darkness after all.

  “I’ve got this thing I have to do,” he said. “I’m actually looking for Hope and Brigga Lin. You know where they are?”

  She grew guardedly more interested. “You need them both? For what?”

  “For a job, I guess you could say.”

  “Must be a big job.”

  “It is,” said Red. “And dangerous. But my employer pays well.”

  “Judging by that carriage you came in on, and the guns at your hips, I’d say you’re speaking crystal on that.” She was looking more and more interested now. Not in a friendly way, but in a businessperson sort of way. He realized that this wasn’t Nettles he was talking to now. It was truly the Black Rose.

  Red gave her a coy smile. “I’ve done alright.”

  “Join me at my table,” she told him. Then she glanced at Moxy and Hatbox. “Make sure no one comes within earshot.”

/>   “Room for him, at least?” Red asked, nodding to Vaderton.

  “If you like,” said the Black Rose. “He’s your responsibility, not mine.”

  When Moxy Poxy and Mister Hatbox took up positions between the table and the rest of the tavern, all the patrons suddenly found something else to look at.

  Once she and Vaderton sat down with Red, the Black Rose said, “So, who’s your employer?”

  “Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Pysetcha.” Red said it with exaggerated casualness.

  The Black Rose was too good to let her surprise show. “That so.”

  Vaderton, however, started choking on his ale. It took him a few moments to catch his breath. “Sorry,” he muttered to Red.

  Red continued to look at the Black Rose. “Like I said, I made some friends on the inside.”

  “So you’re what, some kind of secret imp now?” asked the Black Rose.

  “Things aren’t as simple there as we thought. It ain’t just us against the lacies and imps. They’re all fighting their own battle with the biomancers.”

  “Thought the biomancers served the emperor,” said the Black Rose.

  Red shook his head. “It’s been the other way around for at least the last twenty years or so. Or it was until Hope and Brigga Lin pissed on their plans at Dawn’s Light. Now the biomancers are starting to lose their grip on the emperor, and so the whole empire. The empress wants to take advantage of that weakness and get rid of the biomancers. She’s hoping Hope and Brigga Lin will help her do that.”

  “An empire without biomancers?” asked the Black Rose. “That what your empress is offering?”

  “See here,” said Vaderton, looking offended. “She’s your empress t—” He stopped because Red stomped hard on his foot.

  “And money, too, of course,” Red told the Black Rose. “If you know where they are.”

  “I’m not sure where Hope is these days, but I can tell you exactly where to find Brigga Lin. And she might have a better idea where Hope is, too.”