by David Finn
‘It’s a tradition amongst us.’
She laughed. ‘Traditions can suck.’
He looked up at her. The last fire-stones burnt high. ‘Ja. But I will not be the one to break it. We serve to the end.’
You serve past the end. You serve as undead, Demorn thought. You become vessels of demon gods and Pale Suns and far worse. You disgrace the memory of your great land and fall to the service of evil things from the void. But she said none of this, for it was not her life or even her culture.
‘Who took my place? What did you give the monster?’
Demorn’s lip curled in a cruel smile. ‘I gave him the damned soul of a rapist, one of the first I killed when I first took up my blade. I couldn’t care less what torture or imprisonment awaits him.’
The Vangarian nodded sombrely.
‘Anyway, Jon, you know the skull is worthless now.’
She slid Xalos softly across his neck, reminding him. The leather fell to the ground, the skull shattering. It held no magic, it was nothing more than a bauble. She withdrew the sword and slid it into the scabbard on her back.
‘We’re done.’
Jon looked at her with hurt, suspicious eyes. She had shamed him. She had taken the last thing he had of value and he had not passed beneath. It would never be the same for him. They both knew that. Without the soul skull to barter, no Tour would accept him. Death stalked Jon now, he was as mortal as the fans filling the Arena.
‘Just don’t fight again,’ Demorn said but Jon wasn’t listening. The Vangarian pushed through the crowd. The fire-stones gave a last flicker, then died. Demorn sheathed her blade in the scabbard upon her back.
Xalos whispered in her mind of blood debts and vengeance to wreak. Vengeance to wreak until the end of time. The blade and scabbard faded away. The spell was broken. Demorn ran a hand through her long hair, sighing. The room lightened, her vision widening, opening up into a huge tavern hall. The heightened energy of the Soul Circle fizzed down around her. A small crowd of interested hardcore voyeurs were still watching the circle, but nobody dared meet her gaze, pretending to find other things to interest them. She pushed past the convention crowd into the player’s bar.
5
* * *
Demorn’s heart was pounding. The intimate lounge was filled with an intense, quiet mix of races and factions, politely ignoring Demorn as she threw herself down on a private couch. She flexed her steel left hand, her fingers restless on the edge of the chair, waiting as it gradually became flesh again. The noise from the Arena Floor was muted to a dull murmur, no obvious video screens here.
An attractive hostess slid a pina colada across the side table. Demorn took a long sip, eyes closed. A deep breath shuddered through her. The fight had been closer than she had wanted or sought. A woman spoke in a cool, relaxed tone.
‘That was damn brave.’
Demorn opened her eyes. On a small side chair sat an elegant woman with long dark fringed hair and beguiling purple eyes. She had a friendly face in this place which was not friendly.
‘You think so?’
‘He’s a tour pro.’
Demorn looked the woman over with a cold eye. ‘He’d lost nine fights in a row.’
‘Would he have done that for you if he had won that 13th round? The Vangarian? Saved you from that Banker spirit?’
Demorn raised an eyebrow. ‘Consider me duly impressed a civilian can see the Death Banker. Most of the mooks here wouldn’t.’
The woman reclined her head with an easy grace. ‘What makes you think I’m a civilian?’
Demorn gripped the golden necklace that held the miniature sparking skulls.
‘Jon didn’t have a soul skull to spare, he was playing with his own.’
Demorn snapped, ‘Maybe I didn’t want Jon to be damned because he lost a stupid sword fight. I think they can hold off canonising me just yet.’
Demorn drained her pina colada, enjoying the sweet flavour. She was tired, her muscles ached and her hand was sore as it slowly turned back to flesh. She was angry at herself. It was all too much for too little. She didn’t know why she had shown mercy. She had killed for far less reason. Graveyards were littered with the results of her work.
‘You didn’t know him very well, did you?’ the woman said. ‘He wasn’t your friend. You don’t know why you stayed your hand.’
Demorn laughed. ‘Jon? I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that was even his name. It’s been a long night. What do you want?’
‘I want to hire you, Demorn.’
Demorn’s magic eyes burnt into the woman’s mind but Demorn could read nothing but the pleasant smile, so unlike her own clawed out insides.
‘Why?’
‘Because I just saw what you did to a top flight Vangarian.’
Demorn yawned, a mix of fake bored with the real thing. ‘That’s not top flight. Maybe he once was, but not anymore. He’d gone a few too many hard rounds. The nine losses did most of the work for me.’
The woman pressed her fingers together. A green flame flickered in her hand. Reality tore. A lizard burst from the woman’s flesh, scales rippling across her pale skin.
Spectral shapes surrounded her, aboard the deck of a ship with black sails, manned by skeletal figures. A storm-wind tore at the woman as she held aloft a shining blue gem, clinging to the railing as the ship fought the raging ocean.
Reality tore back. The elegant lady sat politely in her chair, sipping at a cup of tea. A thin golden ring shone for the briefest of moments on her finger. The woman pushed a business card across the table. Platinum script dazzled Demorn’s eyes.
Lady Josephine, Treasurer of Diamond City
Demorn’s hand trembled slightly. She glanced at Josephine sharply. Her eyes picked up the shapes of spectral lizards mingled throughout the bar. She counted fifteen at first glance. Demorn nodded in respect.
‘Lady Josephine, I am honoured. Why have you come here?’
‘To seek your help, Demorn. And because you have not come to me, I have come to you.’
A big name fight had just ended, the bar was filling up fast with players and their entourages, raising the volume. People were oblivious to Demorn and Josephine, high on death match blood, telling tall stories, trying to impress and pick each other up and distract themselves from the reasons they came to the Tournament on these late nights.
Another spell slipped and for a second Demorn saw Josephine as a tired woman, harried by pursuers, with only ghosts for protection, very far from home.
‘Will you help me?’
‘My kind of help has a special kind of price tag.’
Josephine’s light laughter tinkled. Spells covered her. Her arm was layered with thick golden bracelets for a single moment, then glistening pale skin again.
‘The Zeltra have deep pockets.’
Demorn drained her pina colada.
‘Fine, but quit pushing so hard in here. Don’t be distracted by the great table service. This room is packed with killers.’
She gestured with her fingers in an archaic thieves slang: The walls have ears
Josephine caught it, giving her a one-sided smile and the slightest of nods. Her fingers flickered in the same slang.
The courtyard is mine
Demorn glanced toward a huge curling staircase that wound up the side of the lounge. Huge men in dark suits covered it. As Josephine stood up, brushing down her thin green dress, Demorn grabbed her wrist, applying pressure. Her magic eyes burnt into Josephine’s soul, who staggered backward. Demorn caught her with her gloved hand before she fell. She saw the reflection of the Wolf in Lady Josephine’s eyes, then it suddenly fled to a mirror in a heavy hotel, Wolf floating in the air, which exploded into a string of cracked lines as he fell hard to the ground. The vision was gone. She released Josephine.
‘You’re not the Wolf or one of his meat puppets. But you work for him.’
Josephine’s expression went icy as she flung a small, high-end handbag across her shoulder.
‘Of course I did. And the skull the Banker took isn’t really a murdering rapist. It was Jenny from Pensacola.’
Demorn rapped her comic book t-shirt under which the necklace lay.
‘That skull always winds back to me on a long arc.’
‘Someone special?’
Demorn gave Josephine a light hug as they walked slowly together.
‘Just a travelling friend.’
‘Ah. I sensed something more, perhaps.’
Demorn shot her a disarming smile. Her eyes were green and steady. ‘I’m not like you, Lady Josephine. I’m not a diplomat. Nearly everybody I play with wants to kill me. Which means I must sometimes kill those I play with. It makes things all the sweeter, while they last.’
‘So cynical, my dear, and so young.’
The bodyguards parted as they walked up the sweeping spiral staircase.
Demorn flashed her a smile. ‘You’ll just have to get to know me better. It’s a long life if you play your cards just right.’
Bay City was alive and pumping with thunder. The Souls Tournament had grown much larger in the last few years she was off tour. Boutique Soul matches such as Demorn had fought were overwhelmed by the gloss and bloody glamour of huge gladiatorial battles playing out in front of millions of viewers. But Demorn knew that underneath the glamour and the glitz was the stink of desperation, the same nihilistic lurch to oblivion such as she had just fought against Jon in the circle.
It was perverse and entertaining as hell and it was no wonder Death Bankers controlled the tournament.
Demorn and Josephine ascended the winding steps which led to an elegant courtyard outside. The crowd was very thin, a couple of beautiful models, the typical smattering of guards. The cold night air exploded with silent flashes of purple light high above. It gathered upon the vast forcefields over Bay City, gathering like bruises. Flashes of light rolled over their heads. Demorn closed her eyes, feeling the cool breeze against her face.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s the Prussian fleet. Their bombers come through dimension portals. It’s what keeps Bay City vulnerable.’
Demorn could hear the screams of the crowds. But they weren’t screaming at the bombs. It was just the regular surge of the Tournament crowd. The ants never stopped screaming. Filling the casinos and the bars and the brothels. The glitter of the Tournament and the Bay City Strip continued unabated no matter what.
She said, ‘I thought Prussia and Bay City had brokered a peace.’
‘There’s “peace” and there’s peace. We lost key allies in the last few weeks. This is a feint. Prussia likes to keep reminding us we haven’t come to terms.’
There was a faint shudder as a set of laz cannons fired a mesh of bolts from underwater and strategic city points. Demorn’s eyes couldn’t pierce the forcefield, even as the purple bruises faded and the laz cannons stopped.
Demorn said, ‘Prussia and the Bay are half a world apart. What a strange war.’
Demorn could feel the ruby heart beating in her chest. The whole night felt like a dream. She could see the damn comet the longer she stared. The tail burnt across the night sky. Josephine placed a cold hand upon her.
‘You’re a long way from home, Demorn. And you’ve always got a mission, don’t you? Why did Baron Santos send you?’
Two months in the Glass Desert to outrun her pursuers. Two months on iron rations in the heat, with only Maze for company, dodging slavers and her pursuers the whole way. It took a toll that even a week of soft nights in the Jade Hotel couldn’t fix.
Demorn pointed to the crowds far below. ‘Maybe I’m just like them, I came here to escape.’
Josephine squeezed her hand. Her face had lost a layer of magic.
‘I have a confession to make. You didn’t escape everything and neither did I.’
Demorn could see the magic shuddering across her face. The reptile blood ran cold in Josephine’s veins. There was a scuffle on the staircase behind them. Demorn turned to see two of the bodyguards in black suits falling over. The stunning androgynous models that had been making out sprang up, cutting off the exit. Other crowd members encircled her and Josephine. Loose, stylish clothes hid lean fighter’s bodies. Their eyes blazed a recognisable electric white.
Demorn saw the blow darts that had taken out the guards. She swore under her breath, backing into the courtyard balcony wall. She counted six. Hive Assassins.
‘Back away or I’ll kill you all,’ Demorn said, as Xalos burst from the ruby gem inside her heart into the flaming katana in her hands. Mild despair clawed with revenge in her heart. Hive Assassins were tough. Hive Assassins were bred in vats and trained against magic. They were the top end of modern war meets big money. Hive Assassins went to the highest bidder and that wasn’t usually the same people who hired Demorn. She’d sliced a few but taken her share of cuts.
‘I can save you,’ Josephine breathed.
Demorn laugh was a sneer. ‘I’m out, babe, you’re damaged goods.’
There was a clamour on the stairwell, shots fired. A wave of men in black suits bursting up the stairwell, Josephine’s men, firing wildly at the Hive Assassins. One of her men made it a step farther before a knife lodged in his throat. Time to go.
A random bullet deflected off Xalos as Demorn flung herself onto the balcony edge, ignoring the shocked cry of the witch and the shots buzzing around her ears. Josephine burnt with an aura of pure magic, reality shifting around her, coils of madness in that shimmering maze. Demorn averted her gaze as Josephine shimmered and vanished, screaming. Typical witch, saving her own neck on her own bullshit clandestine meeting.
Two Hive Assassins leapt after Demorn, effortless on the narrow ledge. She was more conscious than ever of her fatigue, the heaviness in her combat boots and her limbs. Lean and curled into fighting stances, the Hive Assassins carried short white sticks in their hands. She could see the coordination between them, edging her along the ledge. She was conscious of the hum of the electric city below and around them. The distant howl of sirens and constant revelry of the Bay Strip, which never quieted.
The Hive Assassins wore nondescript, androgynous vanilla clothes, loose fitting. Their faces were intense and unreadable. Demorn struck first, the burning katana hissing through the air, meeting a short stick, barely dodging a wild kick that glanced her jaw. She swung with a wild left to the stomach, feeling the satisfying thud and crunch of organs hit and hurt.
Demorn brutally kicked the Assassin off the wall, the body plunging into the Bay Strip. That was one.
A stick smashed into her face as she turned, trying to weave, stinging her. No time to boast. Just time to die. Demorn dodged the second shot, backing up. Her face stung with the electric sizzle from the blow. Her magic eyes were blurred. The remaining Hive Assassin leered like some kind of personal demon summoned from nightmares. A needle hung in Demorn’s neck. She seized it, throwing it down. She could feel poison flooding her nervous system. She slashed with Xalos, missing wide. The wind blew through her coat, cold suddenly, even as her blood was catching fire. In her peripheral, she saw two more Hive Assassins leap up to the ledge.
The guards were all dead. Josephine was still screaming, not fully gone, caught in translation, a mad spell dominating the courtyard. Sometimes magic wasn’t the best option.
She had seconds. Demorn jumped off the ledge. The wind slammed into her face as she fell, Xalos falling from her grasp as the poison took savage hold, the blade losing its purple fire, tumbling into the city below.
Demorn clutched the amulet around her chest, wrenching it out from her shirt, the greedy thorn cutting her hands, invoking the power word. Mictecaciuatl! A horrific wrenching pain flooded her limbs and heart. Demorn sighed as the power of the Pain Goddess filled her, possessing her spirit, eating at her soul. Falling, Demorn’s body snapped, straightening at the last moment over the Bay Strip, and she hit the st
reet running, smashing past spectators.
Gorged on the pain power of Mictecaciuatl, filled with hyper energy, Demorn soared and skipped across a network of highways, plunging down another level of buildings, hustling for the lower levels. Demorn shuddered to a halt in a darkened alley.
She looked up to the high towers. The glamour of the Arena was now just a glittering shadow filling the cityscape. The Jade Hotel was another high-rise amongst so many others in the Bay. It felt a million miles from this stinking street. Down here, the crowd moved fast, hustling on cheap phones and fast jobs. Demorn sank into the shadows. She saw video ads for the Arena. She saw ads for girlie shows, beautiful images of virtual models beckoning her, with hypnotic perfect bodies of so many colours and shapes.
Demorn looked away. Somehow, it all made her miss Winter, and her body laced with an arc of irrepressible sadness.
Tiny bursts of colour and energy high above, almost invisible, maybe there, maybe not. It didn’t matter. She was running with at least five Hive Assassins on the trail. Assume they keep coming. Keep moving, don’t stop. Demorn pulled the soul mask across her face, letting the cold images and feelings of death slide across her as she moved into the shadows of the street.
The poison was burnt out of her. The Pain Goddess had fed. Demorn gripped the amulet and flicked the thorns back inside. The power left her. She hailed a nearby cab, pressing cash into the driver’s hand.
‘Monument Plaza, level 57.’
The cab moved fast. Demorn rapped the windows, turning them black, turning off the ads. Exhausted suddenly, Demorn called the Innocents, thinking about slender, desperate options as she waited for her brother to pick up. It all felt bad, bad, bad.
In the alley a single slender figure dropped down the line of buildings, into the same alley Demorn had left, unseen by the spare, hustling crowd that didn’t look up to the sky.
The Hive Assassin watched Demorn go, cold eyes missing nothing.