Twig

by wildbow

  He nodded, as if all of this was matter of fact. No argument given.

  “One thousand dollars owed for the murder of the one child and the sale of the other. Five hundred dollars owed for each of the other offenses. Four thousand and five hundred thousand dollars total, to be paid by this time tomorrow.”

  “Business is slow these days. I don’t think that’s a price I can pay,” he said, his eyes crinkling with the smile that went with the words.

  “I don’t expect you to pay it. I expect you to fail to pay it, and then I’ll have to destroy you as an example to the others.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head, and wagged his finger at me.

  “Impudent.”

  ☙

  “They call John Colby the ‘Devil of Corinth’,” Maurice told me, as I continued to puff experimentally on my first cigarette.

  I knew enough about the Devil of Corinth. I’d already done my research. Still, it was a good opportunity to get some more information and double check my details.

  “The Devil of Corinth. People don’t like to use words like that, especially in Academy cities.”

  “He deserves it. He favors a drug that doesn’t see much circulation these days. Capricorn’s kiss, mirror mirror, bloody mary, neptune. It played off of ‘fight or flight’. People took it for the rush of adrenaline, for confidence, for strength when they needed it. But there are long term effects. It destroys every part of the body, for one thing. The biggest concern, however, is how it polarizes the person’s humanity, makes them a binary person, and both sides suffer.”

  “Polarizes how?” I asked. I was genuinely interested—details had been hard to come by, and Maurice was a student.

  “Sometimes mania and depression. Sometimes passivity and aggression. Dominance and submission. Sadism and masochism. Caring and dispassionate killing. One aspect of the personality magnified under the influence of the drug, its opposite magnified in the times between doses. A man can be a sniveling baby who does nothing but cry for days at a time, then he becomes a bloodthirsty warlord after a dosage.”

  I nodded, thinking about how that worked. “And the Devil of Corinth?”

  “Gracious, soft, weak. But from what they say, every smile that John Colby gives you today is a tragedy the Devil brings you tomorrow. He’s unpredictable. Sometimes comes after people two weeks after some perceived insult they don’t even remember making. Sometimes that night. Sometimes he takes that capsule he keeps tucked between his gums and his cheek and bites into it, and then it’s seconds or minutes.”

  That would be ideal, I thought, visualizing the scenario. “Bottles the feelings up, then takes his drug and delivers the punishment?”

  “Many times more punishment than is warranted,” the mouse king told me. “Murder, mutilation, death.”

  “Noted,” I said. “The Academy doesn’t deal with him?”

  “The less said about that, the better,” Maurice said.

  “They clean up after his messes,” Noreen said.

  Maurice shot her an annoyed look. “I said the less said, the better.”

  “Is he in their pocket, or are they in his?” I asked.

  “No clue. I don’t like thinking about it too much,” Maurice said. He fidgeted, then reached out and plucked the nearly-done cigarette from Noreen’s lips. “Give over. I’m antsy now.”

  “The Devil killed one of ours,” Noreen said, in a very conversational tone, with no emotion to her words. “Disappeared another.”

  “Think about it for a minute,” I said. “Then give me as full a list as you can manage. If that’s alright?”

  She hesitated, and I wondered if I’d slighted her somehow or if she was going to turn on me as suddenly as she had earlier. She nodded, instead.

  “Meanwhile, Maurice, tell me about the other gang leaders,” I said.

  He made a face, hunching over further, his stub of a cigarette between his fingers. “The next one to watch out for is the Apostle.”

  ☙

  “Jesus fist-fucking Christ,” the Apostle said. “No.”

  The criminals of West Corinth were very irreverent, it seemed. I’d never heard so many religious epithets in a short amount of time.

  “Two thousand dollars,” I repeated. The man was big, muscular, and well-armed. He postured, making use of his height to loom over me. I didn’t move. “Two children harmed. Thirty-six hours to pay.”

  “I’ll note you gave me twenty-four hours,” Mr. Colby said.

  “I know. Either you pay and you lead the others by example, which you won’t, or you won’t pay, and I’ll make you an example,” I said.

  Mr. Colby smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The Apostle leaned over, staring me down. “Or I could grab your tongue and tear it out by the root.”

  Scale, standing behind me, took a step forward, arms folded. He was of a stature to match the Apostle, but where Scale was covered in, well, scales, the Apostle was marked with tattoos, none of which were religious, oddly enough.

  The Apostle straightened up some, facing Scale head on. There was some energy between the two. It looked as though a fight was about to happen. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but I was already thinking about what to do when it happened.

  “No fighting,” Mr. Colby said. “Not here.”

  He stood straight, but there was no energy to the words, no threat behind them. It was disconcerting that the Apostle listened, backing down.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Colby said.

  “Christ’s tits,” the Apostle said. “You give the Devil less time, but you give me a higher fee when I didn’t kill or sell anyone. Are you expecting me to refuse to pay too?”

  “You might not have killed any of the children, but you hurt them badly enough,” I said. “And no, I expect you to pay.”

  “Do you, now?”

  “You’ll have twelve hours from the time I deal with him to make up your mind,” I said.

  “Or I could pound your face in now,” the Apostle said, his temper flaring once again.

  Mr. Colby drew in a deep breath, then huffed it out. “If there was a confrontation, I would feel obliged to step in.”

  The Apostle made a fist, clenching it, as if working up the courage or considering the options, then relaxed it. He relented.

  “You realize you’re just playing into the fetus-fucker’s hands, don’t you?” the Apostle asked. “He’s saying all of this because he knows he can get away with it.”

  “I’m not concerned with that sort of thing,” Mr. Colby said. “I believe that things will work out.”

  I could tell that the Apostle was doing everything in his power to hold back from coming after me. He was close enough to the edge that I had to hold back myself, to keep from smirking at him and testing his limits.

  “Next in line, the Witch.”

  The third of the local leaders smiled. The woman was dressed in a very conservative costume, years out of date. A hood covered her hair. “No contest.”

  ☙

  “Where the Apostle is the local weapons dealer and heavy hitter,” Maurice told me. “the Witch is the second most powerful drug dealer around, after the Devil. Or she was.”

  “They all have titles,” I noted.

  “The practice started around the time of the war for the Crown States. There are other cities nearby like that. It might be an Academy city now, but it was on the fence during the war. The major players sold their services and support, sometimes with whole sections of the city backing them.”

  “I can sort of see how it unfolds, then. Names are hard to keep track of, titles are easier, especially when you’re talking about a half-dozen to a dozen figures and what they individually bring to the table.”

  “Never really thought about it,” Maurice admitted. “Maybe? I don’t know. But they started using the names back then. After the war ended, a quarter of them came home, set up shop, and maintained some of the power and clout they had. That’s changed over the years, but
the tradition remained. The name ‘the Witch’ has been around for a while. Five or six generations.”

  “She collects the students that fail out, I assume?”

  “Yep. Puts them to work producing for her. She’s not a bad doctor in her own right, I hear. Not a fantastic one either, not at professor level, but respectable.”

  “And she’s the one that,” I said, snapping my fingers as I tried to remember. “She’s getting crushed by the new arrivals.”

  “Yes,” Maurice said.

  I saw Noreen shift position. She brought her hands together, using her left hand to crack a joint on her right.

  “Is there more?” I asked.

  “More?” Maurice asked.

  “Noreen is more agitated as you talk about the Witch than I’ve seen her during this entire conversation. It’s the one time I’ve been able to get something of a read on her.”

  Maurice glanced at Noreen. “It’s nothing.”

  “If you say so,” I said. “I’m willing to move on to the next person if you are. The two visiting gangs?”

  “The first—”

  “The Witch dies,” Noreen said, ignoring what I’d said.

  “She dies?” I asked.

  Maurice sighed.

  Noreen met my eyes, staring me down. “Or we cut you more.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m just wondering what she did to deserve it.”

  Noreen didn’t volunteer an answer. Maurice looked between Noreen and I before sighing. “You won’t be upset if I say?”

  Noreen didn’t give any indicator, positive or negative.

  He reached out, fingers running through the hair at the side of her head, fixing some hair that had fallen out of the bristling ponytail.

  “The Witch took six children by our last count,” Maurice said.

  I frowned. I could draw conclusions, going by Maurice’s body language and the context. “Noreen was one of them.”

  “She dies, or we have no deal,” Noreen said.

  ☙

  “No contest?” I asked. “You’re cooperating?”

  The Witch shook her head. “Thirty-six hours might be hard to manage, but I’ll scrape together whatever I can and if you’re still standing when the deadline arrives, I’ll give it to you. I’ll have the remainder when I can get it.”

  “Three thousand,” I said. “And you’ll need to have all of it.”

  She winced. “So much?”

  “Six children, taken and used for testing. That we’re aware of.”

  “They were itinerant.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Itinerant.”

  “It means they roam. Their parents were often poor, moving from city to city where they could be given drugs or have procedures tested on them in exchange for money. The roaming groups have a way of leaving the itinerants behind. We offered them shelter, gave them food. Sent those we could on their way to places we knew they would find longer term accommodations.”

  “You tested drugs on them. For weeks or months, sometimes.”

  “Compared to dying on the street, I think it’s merciful,” the Witch said.

  “Some of the victims disagree about that mercy,” I said. “It’s already been decided. Three thousand.”

  I could see the cogs moving behind her eyes, the thoughts going a mile a minute. She wasn’t dumb, and she was in a bad position, with two groups looking to eliminate her on one side, me demanding grotesque sums on the other.

  It was a shame I had to play hardball. This would have gone a lot better if I had one of the leaders being cooperative.

  She gave me a tight smile, by way of answer to my statement, and I was left to wonder just how much she’d learned from the Devil during her tenure in West Corinth.

  I had to leave it at that.

  I turned my attention to the other two gangs.

  ☙

  “The final two gangs, then?”

  “No issue with the one. They deal from within Bergewall,” Maurice said. “Clever guys, but the only reason they’re worth talking about is they’ve banded together with the other group.”

  “Rebels,” I guessed.

  “Ex-rebels. After the sterilization drug with the leashing chemicals hit the city, they up and joined the rebellion side. They were gone for a year, only just came back.”

  “The rebellion split into two factions a ways in. Brands or Spears?”

  “Uh, they called themselves the Barren. But they worked for the woman?”

  “Cynthia. Spears.”

  “Her. Aggressive, militant, young men and women. A few came back injured, some with missing limbs, but they’ve gotten themselves patched up since.”

  “I got it,” I said. I sighed. This couldn’t be easy.

  ☙

  “No grudges against the Bergewall delinquents. But the Barren have four marks against them, when it comes to preying on the local youth. Two thousand.”

  “Fuck yourself,” the Barren leader said. It was a woman. Something about the features on her right side didn’t match the features on the left.

  “Alright,” I said. I looked at Mr. Colby. “I’ve said my piece.”

  “You have. Thank you for coming, Sylvester,” the man said, smiling at me. “I’m not one for strong words, but I must say this is a silly thing to do.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. One could question your habit of holding back today so you can lash out tomorrow. “You don’t think you’ll be paying, then?”

  “You said it yourself, Sylvester,” Mr. Colby said. “You don’t expect me to pay any more than I do. You don’t want to negotiate. Confrontation seems inevitable.”

  “It does,” I said.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, for the second time.

  My cue to leave. The groups would talk this out and work against me, devising a plan and strategy.

  I turned, and I walked up the gentle incline to the doors to the auditorium hall. The three bounty hunters, Pierre the Rabbit and Samuel followed me out the door.

  None of them spoke until the exterior doors of the auditorium had shut behind us.

  I reached into a pocket, and I withdrew an envelope with bills inside. I handed them over to Scale.

  “Thank you, sir,” Scale said. He began counting the money.

  I glanced at Magda and Agnes. “You don’t have any interest in looking after children, do you? There’s an opening at the orphanage, and from my experiences with the local kids, we need someone with a firm hand.”

  Magda scoffed. Agnes just frowned at me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It wouldn’t really work.”

  “You’re insane,” Samuel commented. “You’re badly underestimating the Devil of West Corinth.”

  “Probably,” I said. “I’m holding out hope he’s relying on a share of undeserved reputation and bluster to scare off his worst enemies.”

  “He’s really not,” Samuel said.

  “Count is good,” Scale said, cutting into the conversation. He extended a hand to shake. I shook it as he added, “Goes a long way to covering the dry patch.”

  “Hopefully the plague gets dealt with and you’ll be able to get back to your regular bounties,” I said. “There’s a position with me if you ever want it.”

  “Make it through the next two days, and I might begin to consider it,” Scale said. “A chance.”

  I nodded.

  The three walked one direction in the relatively unpopulated street. Samuel, Pierre and I walked another.

  After a block, we met up with Jamie.

  “How did it go?”

  “About as well as can be expected,” I said. “Gut feelings were right. Nobody’s biting just yet. We’ll make our move.”

  “The mice are evacuated, and we’ve spread word as best as we could.”

  Youths hung out with other youths, and sometimes social classes and boundaries crossed. Whether the weather was hot or cold, children from all the neighborhoods gathered at the lakes to cool off. They knew which doors to knock
on, and word would hopefully get out.

  I had no expectation that the Devil would stay his hand from hurting children. Just the opposite. Knowing he was easily riled, and giving him few indicators on how to come after me, I’d planted that seed.

  He was the one I’d focused on as I’d been scheming what to do here, the man I’d researched. My discussion with Maurice and Noreen had only confirmed much of what I’d already known.

  Now I had to put it in action. He would look for children, and he wouldn’t find any. There was a chance he would flounder, but I wasn’t staking much on that. He would lash out.

  “Pierre,” I said. “It’s your turn to do something. Get across town. Ten minutes from the time you see fire, you set fire to the mayor’s house.”

  Jamie handed Pierre the slip of paper with the address. Pierre already had the bag with the incendiaries.

  “The mayor. Got it.”

  “After that, the head of Corinth Crown Academy. Then the head of Bergewall—”

  Jamie handed over papers with addresses.

  I continued, “We’ll flush them out. Watch their movements, but don’t report back right away. The next step is to go to the fourth address…”

  “And burn it too. None of the fires should hurt the residents, but this one least of all. Then you come to us at the fifth location and let us know what the mayor and headmasters are doing. The faster you move, the better.”

  “I can outrun a horse,” Pierre said. Not boasting, just stating fact.

  “I know. But move as fast as you can. Timing is essential.”

  The eerily tall rabbit headed man gave me a mock salute, walking backward as he did so. Then he turned, teetering slightly as he did so, and broke into a run, dashing off into the evening.

  “How do you feel?” Jamie asked.

  “Troubled,” I said. “Even if taken in the best possible light, they’ll be disgruntled.”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said.

  “But it’s the best way to approach things. With luck, we won’t even be here for them to be disgruntled at.”

  “With luck,” he said, in a very grim way.

  The fourth address, after the mayor’s house and the headmaster’s houses, was the headquarters of the mouse king and the mouse queen.