Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

  “Those children could have had homes,” Rudolfo said in a quiet voice. “Who knows what their lives would have been like?” He looked away for a moment, then said, “Was I one of these children? One of the lives you stole? Could … could I have had a family?”

  Jacobi exhaled a lengthy sigh; his shoulders slumped. “I honestly don’t know, my friend. That was before my time. But if I had to guess …”

  “My brother.” Someone entered the frame on Jacira’s tablet. It was the Apprentice. She stormed toward Jacobi, shouting at the man. “They said my brother would be stuck there at that awful place if I didn’t go with the Order. Was that true? Did you snatch me away from him? If I had stayed, would I have been given a chance at a real family?”

  Jacobi stood, a look of defiance across his face. “Are you implying the Pupil’s School didn’t provide you with a family? I know for a fact that they treated you with every kindness.” He jabbed a finger. “You had friends. You had teachers, counselors. You learned more there than in any other educational institution in this hemisphere. It was a home to you whether you want to believe it or not.”

  “Answer her question,” Rudolfo said. His voice sucked the fervor out of the Member Principal.

  Jacobi’s eyes shot between the Apprentice and her Mentor. “I have no idea. It doesn’t work like that. We just give them names and they provide.” He shrugged deeply and held out his hands. “Sometimes it requires a little more incentive than usual. A little more compensation than the state will pay out. How the facility goes about meeting the request is up to them.” Jacobi straightened.

  On Jacira’s tablet screen, it appeared that the confession had taken physical weight off his shoulders.

  “You see,” Jacobi continued as he sat back down, sounding and looking calmer than before, “I couldn’t let it get out. Imagine the implications, Rudie. Imagine the repercussions. We’d never recover from it.” Jacobi buried his head in his hands.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t recover from it. Maybe the Order has reached the end of its usefulness to the world. Perhaps the Order should wither just as we do.” Rudolfo held up his right hand and removed the leather glove to reveal the deeply stained purple-black flesh. “Ours was meant to be a divine purpose. Serving the world by upholding the purity of our duties. Judging and selecting without bias, without corruption, without deceit or dishonor.” He pulled back the sleeve of his cassock revealing his equally blackened forearm. “We Members take on the stains of our terrible responsibilities so the Order itself stays clean.”

  Rudolfo reached into his pocket and removed a small glass object.

  “I have judged you, Jacobi.” He opened the vial in his left hand. “You have been selected for the Sacred Task.”

  Jacobi glanced up as Rudolfo dipped his finger into the vial. The Member Principal’s face solidified. His eyes burned with fear, never leaving the vial. Rudolfo did not relent, moving forward with his deadly finger held in front of him. Jacobi watched as the man stepped closer, his eyes locked on the Member’s finger. Then, the Member Principal’s features relaxed. He let a held breath escape and closed his eyes. As if resigning himself to the inevitable, he let his head hang, exposing the back of his neck.

  Jacobi offered no resistance.

  Rudolfo reached out with the finger that had spelled the end for so many. Now, it judged and condemned a man Rudolfo had known most of his life. A man he’d looked to for wisdom. A man he considered a friend, a brother.

  Rudolfo touched a spot at the base of Jacobi’s skull.

  Jacira and the other outcasts couldn’t see it, but they knew what happened next. The solution slid from the end of Rudolfo’s finger, pooling for the briefest of seconds on the man’s skin, like mercury on a nonmetallic surface. Then, it was absorbed by the body, deep into the tissue, the muscle, and the membrane surrounding the brain stem. All body and brain functions immediately shut off, like a light bulb winking out.

  Member Principal Jacobi, the leader of the Order of the Coppice, fell face first into the concrete floor.

  * * *

  “Damn,” Balthazar said, audibly exhaling. “Quite a show. Well, let’s go waste those two while they’re distracted.” He stalked off down the corridor toward Francesca and Rudolfo. Jacira and Oona stayed put.

  “Did you know?” Jacira asked. “Did either of you know about the orphanages and what the Order was doing?” Balthazar stopped and turned to face Jacira.

  Oona, standing beside Jacira, shook her head. “No.”

  Balthazar’s eyes darted between the two women. “I heard rumors and gossip, but nothing ever definitive.” He spread his arms wide. “Honestly, I don’t care. People end up where they end up. My parents died in a fire and now I’m here. Fate is fate. Destiny is destiny. I’m here now because I’m here now. We can’t change the past.” With one arm he pointed his rifle down the corridor. “I’m going to go shoot these assholes so we can get paid. I suggest you come with me or I’ll have to tell Sarazin to increase my share for …”

  A red crater blossomed on Balthazar’s forehead and his body fell limply to the floor. Jacira held her pistol up, still eyeing down the sights of the barrel. A movement to her right and she spun on her heel. Her weapon trained directly at Oona’s face. Oona’s gun pointed back at Jacira’s face.

  The two women stood there in an uncertain standoff for a moment. Steady hands holding weapons that, with the slightest twitch of the finger, could deliver a brain liquefying ball of lead, copper, and steel. Neither lowered their weapon. Neither fired.

  “I had a sister,” Jacira said, breaking the silence. Still holding her pistol level with Oona’s head, she continued. “A twin actually. We looked identical, but we were total opposites. That head bitch at the orphanage told me that my sister would be better off if I left with the Order. She wouldn’t want to leave with a family if I was still around.”

  Oona seemed to consider Jacira. Her eyelids twitched almost imperceptibly. “I had two brothers. Much younger. It seems we took similar paths.”

  In a show of good faith, Jacira took her finger off the trigger. She figured that Oona would have shot her by now if she really wanted to kill her.

  “I don’t care about the money at this point. I just want to leave this fucking prison. Forever.” She lowered her pistol a few inches.

  Oona followed suit. “I have enough money.” She looked at Balthazar’s corpse, then down the corridor toward their targets. “Fuck this place. Fuck Jacobi and fuck Sarazin.”

  “Go to the roof and wait for me. We’ll take Sarazin’s plane back to the city.” Jacira started walking toward Rudolfo and Francesca’s cell.

  “Where are you going?” Oona called out after her.

  “To see an old friend.”

  * * *

  Rudolfo shivered on the floor, shaking bodily. Sweat dripped in rivulets from his scalp. Francesca could feel the heat radiating through his thick cassock. His face had gone gray, his eyes bloodshot.

  “You didn’t use the Sacred Oil, did you?” Francesca knelt beside him on the floor of the cell. Jacobi’s body lay several feet away.

  “D-Didn’t think about it.” He smiled up at her. His hands clenched on his chest.

  “Will this kill you?” Francesca asked in as calm a voice as she could muster.

  “M-might wish it w-would soon,” Rudolfo stammered. “My t-time anyway. Better this w-way.” His eyes shut tight. She could tell he was fighting to hold it together. When he opened them, they looked different, more determined than before. “F-Francesca, please. You m-must. Please.” His eyes spelled out the request. Pleading with her.

  With a nod and watery eyes, she reached into Rudolfo’s front pocket and removed two glass vials. She pressed both into his left palm until their lids shot open with a slink. After gently rolling her Mentor onto his stomach, she dipped the tip of her right index finger in the Sacred Oil, coating it up to the second knuckle. Then, she dipped the same finger into the viscous, black Solution.

  * * *


  Jacira stepped into the cell but stopped just beyond the threshold. Her former Mentor lay dead on the floor next to the Member Principal who had excommunicated her. On the edge of a bed, staring blankly at the wall, sat a young woman she knew from her life at the Pupil’s School.

  Francesca didn’t notice her at first, then with a start, she scooped up a spear on the floor and shot to her feet. Jacira didn’t move. Her old friend was fighting mad for a moment, ready, it seemed, to run Jacira through. And judging by the black stain on the spear’s point, Jacira knew it wouldn’t take much more than a scratch to do the job.

  Recognition crossed Francesca’s face. A moment later, confusion.

  “It was you?” Francesca asked. “The one hunting Aubrey and Malina.”

  “Yes, and you and him.” Jacira pointed to Rudolfo. “But not anymore. I’ve … grown in the past few hours. Hell, in the last few minutes.”

  “Are you here to kill me or not?” Francesca held the spear firmly, her lead hand blanching white at the knuckles. A black discoloring on her fingertip drew Jacira’s attention.

  “Already selecting? Pretty early for an Apprentice. It took me almost a year …”

  “Are you?” Francesca spat. “Are you going to try and kill me? If so, let’s get it over with.” The spear shook. Not out of fear, Jacira guessed, but out of anger.

  “No, Frannie. I’m not going to try and kill you. I heard the old men talking and let’s just say that it’s … changed my perspective.” Jacira turned her gaze to Brother Rudolfo lying on his back, lifeless on the floor. His hands at his sides. Eyes closed.

  She moved into the cell and knelt beside him. “I’ve only come to pay my respects.”

  A pause hung in the air. “He was your Mentor?” Francesca knelt. Jacira noticed she still had one hand on the spear.

  “Yes. He was good to me. Taught me a lot and tried to help me quell my … tendencies.” Her eyes fell on Jacobi. “He was the real bastard. The reason I’m no longer welcome in the Order. Good riddance.”

  “Yet you were going to kill Rudolfo,” Francesca said.

  Jacira raised her eyes to Francesca’s. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, actually. Without hearing Jacobi’s confession first, I might have. Then again, I might not have.” Jacira stood. “But I did hear it. And now, I choose not to kill you. And even if I wanted to kill Rudolfo, you’ve beat me to it.”

  “He was suffering.” Francesca stared at Rudolfo’s body with a tight face.

  “I’m sure he was.” Jacira moved to the door. “It was good seeing you, Frannie. Truly, it was.”

  Francesca sat silent as Jacira left the cell and headed toward the west stairwell.

  30

  The Long Fall

  Aubrey and Malina jogged down the curving outer passageway toward the west stairwell. At every intersection, he waited for the all clear from Malina, but only briefly. They reached the stairwell door in the west ward. To their surprise, it was already open. Stepping into the door’s threshold, it was clear some inmates had employed welding strips to cut the door off its hinges because it laid flat on the landing in front of them.

  Straight ahead, the stairs descended to the forty-sixth floor. To their right, they went up to the forty-eighth.

  “And we don’t have any shots of the forty-eighth floor’s interior?” he asked.

  “That’s right. But I may have a trick up my hoodie.” She tapped and scrolled on her tablet for a moment. “Got it.” She showed him the screen. “No feeds from the interior of forty-eight, but the floor is mostly glass, so I can see some of it from below.”

  Examining the tablet screen, Aubrey saw an upward view from a lower floor from the inside of the Great Atrium. Through the glass, he could make out odd shapes of what looked like luggage or duffel bags. No movement and no people, however.

  “Looks clear from there.”

  “Yes, but there are rooms all around the perimeter.” She motioned to the area around the outer edge of the glass. “He could be in any of them.”

  They climbed the steps to the last door in the stairwell. Aubrey set down his axe and swung the bag off his shoulder, removing four welding strips. He began pressing one over each hinge, which were, conveniently, on their side of the door.

  He handed the last strip to Malina. “Push this into the gap between the door and the jamb right over where the deadbolt should be.”

  Once all the strips were in place, Aubrey looked at Malina who gave him a thumbs up. At the same time, she pulled the tab on the strip over the lock and he pulled the tab on the strip over the top hinge. They ran down the stairs and waited.

  A second of silence passed followed by a loud hissing intermixed with popping and crackling. The noise lasted thirty seconds. Aubrey bounded up the stairs once more, pulled the tabs on the remaining strips and ran down to wait with Malina.

  Once the hissing stopped, another second of silence passed. A loud scraping sound, and an angry groan echoed through the cavernous stairwell. A rush of air and a deafening boom washed over them as several hundred pounds of steel crashed flat with the concrete landing.

  “Stay here,” Aubrey said. “Better yet, go find an empty cell and lock yourself in there.”

  “Fuck you, Martin.”

  He feigned a confused grin. “I thought you weren’t a field operative?”

  “Can we just go catch this asshole? We can discuss the division of labor after we get out of this.” She started up the stairs, Aubrey leapt to follow.

  Each hugged the edge of the flight of steps then rushed to each side of the open door. Aubrey made eye contact with her across the opening and held up a finger. He pointed at his eyes then to the tablet around her neck. She looked down, scanned the screen, then gave him a thumbs up.

  Aubrey peeked his head around the door jamb and quickly pulled his head back, blinking away the bright spots on his retinas. The room he’d just seen was incredibly bright, the light compounded by his eyes having adjusted to the dark stairwell. He squinted and peered back into the bright space.

  Every surface reflected sunlight. If it wasn’t the glass floor acting like a mirror, it was the glossy white surfaces of the surrounding floor and walls. Soon, however, he could visually confirm what Malina had seen with the camera feed. The space was empty. Three duffel bags lay open on the floor. Articles of black clothing near the bags, but otherwise the space was empty.

  He crept through the door, axe in hand. To Malina, he held a finger to his lips. No sound.

  Down both white, shiny walls were more doors set flush. Ensuring the space was clear of threats, Aubrey raced across the white floor path and out onto the glass where the duffel bags lay. He searched them quickly but found only spare clothing, empty pistol magazines, and boxes of various sized bullets. Nothing he could use beyond a short folding knife.

  Aubrey stood and jogged back to Malina, who stood with her back toward the wall. She stared down at the glass with wide eyes.

  “I hate heights,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. That glass is strong. See those support struts? And anyway,” he handed her the knife, “I don’t plan on being out there too much.” Aubrey pointed to the first door to the right of the stairs. “Let’s start here and work our way around.”

  They took opposite sides of the door. Aubrey reached for the knob, his back pressed against the wall. He turned the knob and the door swung open toward them. He waited, listening. When he heard no sounds from inside, he peeked around the jamb. The large room was set up as living quarters. With a wide bed, several bookshelves, and even a television, it was far and away more lavish than Rudolfo’s tiny hovel.

  Two doors led off the bedroom. After a quick search of the room turned up nothing, Aubrey tried the first door which led to a lavish bathroom with standup shower, clawfoot tub, and a vanity at least fifteen feet long.

  The second door led into a long wide library unlike anything Aubrey had ever seen. He made sure the room was safe then invited Malina in to see
it. They both stood in mild awe. The books covered every wall and were sorted by color. Dark brown books at the far end melted into yellows, oranges, reds and blues as they circled the room. It was like a wave of color washing over the walls.

  “This dude has too much time on his hands,” Malina said.

  Aubrey ran to the far side of the library where a door stood amidst a sea of brown books. He opened it slowly, peered inside. It was some sort of anteroom with a table and chairs. Walls inside were as white and bright as those in the circle room. He waved to Malina to follow him.

  The only door off the anteroom led back outside to the circle room. From there they continued their search, door to door around the floor of glass. The rooms ranged from closets of different sizes to conference rooms. They found a set of stairs leading to the roof and a large kitchen with a formal eating area.

  “His plane is still here,” Malina said, checking her tablet. “He’s here somewhere.”

  The door they came to next looked identical to the others. As they did at every one before it, Aubrey stood on one side and Malina on the other. He reached for the knob, expecting it to turn like the others, and it did. He pulled it open a few inches and turkey-peeked around the jamb. It was a long dark room with no windows, and no lights on inside. The space was dimly lit by the light of several screens along the right-hand wall; a console with a myriad of buttons and touch pads stood below them. An empty rolling chair was tucked under the console.

  “Control room,” Aubrey whispered. He continued scanning the room. “This is the only exit. And … it looks empty.” He pulled the door open all the way, waited briefly, then stepped inside. “Let’s check it out. Maybe we can use the console for some recon.”

  The room was indeed empty with nothing large enough for anyone to hide behind. The two of them entered and after a quick search of the space settled their view on the screens. Four large monitors filled the wall. Each screen displayed four windows with different views from around the prison. Malina tapped on the control console and quickly began scanning through the feeds.