by IGMS
The door opened and Kato hoped, in one ludicrous moment, to see the orange robes of Li Sha. But there were only the guards.
They shoved a sack over Kato's head, thick with mildew. Panic clawed up his throat. He swallowed convulsively and nearly gagged.
They led him out again and, blind now, he listened. He counted steps. He felt for cross breezes in the corridors. He heard the clink of the guards' armor and felt the solid, round muzzle of the flintlock pistol at his back. He calculated his chances of grabbing it.
Open air hit him, cold and dry. The guards levered him up into what felt like the back of a prison wagon, the rough wood catching at his clothes as they shoved him to sit. They locked his manacles to the floor and then packed in around him. The wagon jerked into motion.
A drone began to grow over the clattering of the wagon wheels on cobbles. It was soft waves at first, and then it gained rhythm and movement and voices. The wagon lurched in a turn and then backed itself up. The wall he leaned against thrummed with the roar of the crowd.
If there was any chance of his escape, it would be here. Any change of hands left openings, and a crowd brought anonymity. Kato waited.
The sack was yanked off his head and he gulped in cleaner air. But he read the meaning in the guards' black stares -- there would be no dignity in death for one who had killed some of their own. They would give him no hood to hide his death mask.
The back doors swung inward and Kato squinted hard against the sunlight. Then the guards finished unlocking his manacles from the ring bolts.
Kato dove out and into two guards, and they all went sprawling. His body hit wood. He was on a platform. He lurched to roll over, off the side and into the crowd --
He saw the men gathered at the far end of the platform. One man in particular stood tall in his blood-stained fussy shirt and trousers, his head covered in a sack.
Johan? Kato had thought he was back at the prison.
He looked at the crowd, the shouting and jeering faces. He could fall into them, it was his best and only chance of escape.
And then he looked back to Johan.
Two guards forced Johan to his knees and bent him over the block. The axe man raised his axe, the blade edging sunlight.
A guard grabbed Kato's arm, but he ripped it free and launched himself upright, stumbling, but moving forward. What in the world was Johan doing here? Hadn't Kato left him behind? In the prison cell?
The axe came down.
Pain stabbed like a sword through Kato's chest and he staggered. His knees hit the platform. He looked down, but there was no blood, no wound. He had felt Johan die, the soul cord between them cut.
A crack split the air and punched his shoulder, shoving him down into the wood. The crowd in front of the platform blurred, then cleared, then blurred again. He saw blues and grays and browns, and two vivid streaks of gold and orange.
The orange shape of the veiled monk moved toward him. Even here in this crowd, Li Sha commanded the space around her.
Kato levered himself up as she vaulted onto the platform.
"You," he croaked. "Damn you."
The boards shuddered beneath him and the fingers of the guards dug into his arms.
Li Sha raised her hands. "I claim this man for the Monastery!"
She had to shout it again, and again, until the crowd fell into a restless silence.
The guards holding Kato stilled, but they didn't let go. He was glad of it, because he was about to add to his list of sins the killing of a monk.
"I claim this man," Li Sha shouted again. "He is the business of the Monastery. Release him to my custody!"
Guards in the bright violet uniforms of the Monastery pushed their way onto the platform.
"No!" He would not go with them. He would have nothing to do with the Monastery.
His own guards pulled him back, and then the Monastery guards surrounded him.
He fought, but they were ready for that. The last thing he saw before they pulled the sack back over his head was Li Sha, regarding Johan's body. And then she turned away.
When the sack came off, Kato was in the sitting room of his hotel lodgings. A fire crackled in the hearth. Two of the Monastery guards still held him, and he felt the presence of more behind him. A gold-robed monk lurked near the hearth chair, and to Kato's left, by the table, stood Li Sha.
"Remove his shackles," she said.
"That's not a good idea," Kato croaked.
Li Sha's eyes creased in a frown, and she poured a glass from a pitcher on the table. "Here."
One of the guards took the glass and pressed it to his lips, and despite himself, he drank. First one choking swallow, and then cool water coursed down his throat. He felt the manacle locks click and his arms come free, and then his feet.
Kato knocked the guard with the glass aside and rushed Li Sha.
"Kato, no!"
Kato froze. The monk by the hearth was fighting off his gold veil. Kato cringed away from this unmasking, even now it was blasphemy to look upon the face of a monk. But it wasn't a monk that he saw.
His eyes filled and his body trembled. He reached for his chest where he still felt the pain of the cut cord, and then he gasped in a new fire that flared in his arm. His shoulder was soaked with blood.
"Kato, you're injured." Johan rushed forward and helped him into the chair.
Kato sat, just breathing, and stared at him. He watched again in his mind's eye as the man on the platform was shoved down to the block. He felt the stinging numbness in his hands and face, and he felt the soul-pain as the cord snapped.
"But I saw you --"
Johan, his eyes red, shook his head. "After they took you, they came for me. They brought me to a room, and then she came in." He jabbed his chin at Li Sha. "She claimed me for the Monastery. I asked, and she said that she had claimed you, too. Gods, woman, what did you do to him?" He clutched at his chest. "What was that?"
"That was another of your soul, from another parallel," Li Sha said. "He requested redemption. It was his choice to come, and he did what he had to willingly. He was at peace."
The words rang empty in the room.
Li Sha reached up and unwound her veil. Kato didn't flinch this time. She watched them with her blue eyes framed by swarthy features, a sharp nose and edged cheekbones. But for the blue eyes, she could have been Kato's mother.
Johan gasped.
"No," Li Sha said. "I am not your mother." She glanced at Johan. "Or your sister. I am yourself. I am myself." She motioned to both of them. "And we, all of us, we do what we must."
She was himself? And she had still done what she'd done?
Kato stood, slowly. His legs shook, but he took a step forward, and he saw fear flash in Li Sha's eyes.
Kato spat in her face.
Johan froze. And then he began stripping out of the Monastery robes.
Li Sha wiped her face with her sleeve. "Do you know the power of a martyr, Johan Mercio? I have given you a great gift in your cause. Keep the robes, you will need them until you are ready to show yourself."
Johan's face blotched red with the heat of anger. He yanked off the last of the robes and threw the bundle at Li Sha. "I don't need your help."
And then he stood tall, shivering in his undergarments, his body mottled yellow and green with bruises. Kato had never seen a finer soldier.
Johan held Kato's gaze and there was a sense of finality, an understanding that now was the last time either of them would see the other. Johan was not quite a brother, and not quite a friend. He was himself.
Kato nodded, and Johan nodded back. Then, Johan strode for the door.
"Hey," Kato said, and moved as quickly as he could to a table chair where one of his jackets still hung. He tossed it at Johan, who caught it. Johan shrugged the jacket on and made as if to fix the lace that wasn't there. His hands stopped, and his mouth curved in a rueful smile.
"This habit will take some time to break," he said. He made a salute like a tipping hat and left
.
Kato blew out his breath and turned to Li Sha. "I'll stay here with him. He will need help if he's going to tear this place down and not get killed doing it."
"And what about your own parallel?"
"I am done with my parallel."
She leaned back against the table. "That would be easier, wouldn't it? To simply leave and let someone else clean up the messes you have made."
Anger boiled up and Kato tried to step forward again, but the room tilted and he staggered back to the chair.
Li Sha pulled a small crystal from the folds of her robe and advanced on him. "I want to heal to your wound. I must, at least, stop the bleeding."
Kato grunted, but he let her probe at his blood-soaked shoulder. The skin tingled with warmth as she held the crystal near, and the pain began to ease.
All of his career as a soldier he had healed unusually fast. That hadn't been him, had it? And he and Johan should have been much worse off after the guards' beatings.
Whatever Li Sha had done, and it was horrific and it was certainly unforgivable, he knew in his gut she had not meant him harm. She hadn't meant Johan harm, and maybe not even the other of their soul who had given his life for them.
She met his gaze. "We do what we must."
Did it matter, then, if she wanted him to return to his parallel or not? He could stay here with Johan, but this wasn't his nation to save. Yes, it would be easier to leave the mess of his wars to another, like it would be easier for Johan to deny his theories and settle back into his academic life. But that was not Johan. And that, Kato knew, was not himself.
In all of his incarnations.
Li Sha pulled back from his shoulder. There was still pain, but he saw through the tear in his sleeve that the skin had puckered into a rippling, pink scar.
"You can take my carriage to the Monastery," she said.
Kato stood, still feeling unsteady, but he was not willing to stay here with her any longer.
It was time to go home and face his king, and his men. It was time to face the choices he had to make, and he would find a way to bring peace.
Kato squared himself and marched out to a different kind of war.
The Gaunt of Dennis Mallory
by Scott M. Roberts
Artwork by Scott Altmann
* * *
Two weeks after we stole the Pearl of Great Price from Asmodeus, we got nicked.
Asmodeus's party boys caught me and Brick outside of Twila's Lounge. They didn't say nothing, them square-jawed, perfectly dressed men and women. Just flashed the guns crouching inside their jackets, and the runes that dwelt upon their eyelids. Them winking their runes at me was more disturbing than their weaponry: it meant they knowed I could see what Asmodeus had etched there.
And every one of them was human. No ghasts, ghoulies, devils, nor nothing that wasn't mortal. Which meant they'd also figured out what Brick could do. Rather, what he wouldn't do. A lot of trouble could be avoided if the boy would just use his natural-born gift for violence against flesh-and-blood people the way God intended.
I guess God don't got no say in it no more. 'Course He don't. But back when there was such a thing as Sunday School, the one lesson Brick learnt was the one 'bout turning the other cheek. He got no problem ripping apart any evil ol' spirit or whatever. But he won't so much as breathe a crossways word against a human being.
The party boys hustled us into the back of a seatless van and slid the doors closed. Out came their weapons. Ugly things -- half Hechler, half Faust. Bad for the body and soul both. They pointed all that ugliness my way as they zip-tied my feet and hands.
Didn't none of them mind Brick.
"Hello, hello," Brick said. His big, dull voice boomed against the van's bare walls. "Hello and hello! Hello, hello, hello!"
"Hi, Brick," I said, because that's what you do when someone says hello. And because Brick looked right worried -- glancing here and there, his chin trembling, his eyes wide. Demons and devils, he don't so much as blink. Bunch of well-dressed men and women with angry looks in their eyes? He gets as nervous as a little kid with a full bladder.
"Hello, Dennis!" he said. "Hello, hello, hello!"
No one else answered him, so he said it again, faster, his voice pitching higher, "Hellohellohello and hello! Please, hello!"
No response from them party boys. The van pulled away from the curb. "Easy, Brick, easy," said I. I reached over to pat his leg, comforting-like, but one of the party boys pushed against my shoulder with the barrel of his devil-gun. "He's going to keep saying hello until you greet him back," I said.
One of them hit me. A girl, and a gorgeous one at that; red lips, blonde hair, green eyes. Cute spattering of freckles 'cross her nose and cheeks. But weren't nothing cute 'bout the punch she drove into my face. My daddy'd taught me to take a punch almost soon as I could walk. This itsy bitsy party girl had more beat-down lessons in her fingers than my old man had in his fingers, palms, knuckles, and belt.
"No fighting!" Brick wailed.
But it ain't hardly fighting if there's only one person punching. I brought up my hands to defend myself. Two of her buddies held me still so she could pummel me some more.
A broken nose and a cracked ribbed later, she gave it a rest. I looked past the lump of gristle and pain that was my nose to the men and women standing over me, around me. Pointing their weapons at me. Still.
"Give it to me," the beat-down girl said.
I tried to spit on her, but mostly just dribbled blood down my chin and chest. "With all this crowd watching? I know Asmodeus is the demon of lust, honey, but I ain't no exhibitionist. Maybe we get to know each other first."
Her green eyes sparkled. Pretty as she was -- Asmodeus don't consort with no skanks -- behind her eyes was an ugliness I didn't need my second sight to see. Her personal wretchedness was uglier than any flesh-puncturing, soul-reaving gun, and written deeper than the rune on her eyelid.
Talk is that demons are wicked, but humans is the ones that got them here, and not on accident, neither.
The girl kicked me. Cracked another rib. She said, "Give me the Pearl."
I dry heaved a couple times. "Pearl? Lemme explain something --"
She didn't. She beat me with hands and feet and elbows as the van drove on, as Brick wailed my name, as the rest of Asmodeus's little fan club pointed their guns at my soul.
Unconsciousness -- God's last, best gift to humanity -- stole me away at last.
I came 'round to the feeling of the bones in my face being welded back together.
Being healed was worse than having my face smashed in the first place. Agony so intense all I could do was kind of grunt in my chest. The healing slithered over my nose and skull, wending down my throat toward my ribs. It dug broken bones out of my lungs and soldered them back proper. The healing left me feeling weak, empty, and hot. And slimy, like I'd just sneaked a look into my mama's underwear drawer.
That slimy feeling's what you get when a King of Hell does you a solid.
I opened my eyes. I was face-down on the softest carpet I'd ever bled on. And there was a lot of blood. I couldn't imagine how it all could've come from me. I looked this way and that from my spot on the floor. I was in a penthouse office. A kitchen nook was set into the wall, with an espresso maker, a massive fridge, and a fruit bowl that took up near half the counter. Next to the fridge, a big picture window overlooked the city. The desk in front of the window was a dark granite slab. Some speakers atop it played a soft, marimba jazz tune.
"I've decided to let you keep the Pearl, Dennis." The voice's undertones scratched my second sight.
I wobbled to my feet. Last I'd seen Asmodeus was in a Saint Patrick's Day parade a couple years back. He'd been wearing a young Asian man. The skin he wore now was a balding white guy, tall, with wide shoulders and hips, and a belly to match. He'd somehow squeezed all that bulk into a three-piece business suit. Demon prince of lust, was he? But wouldn't no one lust after this sack of jowls and blubber.
Maybe that was the point. The whole . . . perversity of it.
Didn't matter what flavor meat-suit he wore, my second sight picked Asmosdeus out for what he was. To my second sight, Asmodeus was a cloud of claws and tentacles, gnashing teeth, and hordes of tongues. The suit, the flesh, all his play-pretend just melted away. You can't fool second sight.
"Where's Brick?" I asked. I shaded my second sight so I didn't have to have to watch Asmodeus's tongues flapping 'round.
"He was thirsty and hungry. Apparently, you boys haven't eaten well lately." Asmodeus said. "He's in the cafeteria. You can see him after we've conversed."
I stood there, parsing through the meanings of his words, trying to steady my knees. Finally, I said, "You swear he ain't hurt?"
"He is distraught," Asmodeus said. He sat hisself on top of the desk. Had to jump a couple times to get up there. "None of my people have harmed your man."
"Lemme see him," I said.
Asmodeus crooked a smile and waved at a chair. "Dennis, sit down."
You don't never sit down in the presence of a demon. You run, or you stand and fight, or you worship. I wasn't in no condition for fighting, and I ain't no boot-licker, so I flicked my gaze at the lone door in the wall and ran for it.
In spite of his jowls and belly rolls, Asmodeus moved faster than me. He caught the back of my shirt collar and walked me to the desk.
"Sit down," he said, dropping me into a chair. "Please," he added after a moment.
I bounced out of the chair and made another run for the door. Got my hand on the knob, this time, 'fore Asmodeus throwed me across the room. He pulled a revolver out of his jacket and pointed it at me.
"Fine," said he. "Just sit there and listen, Dennis Mallory. If you move, I will shoot you. Then I will heal you."
I stayed where I was.
"You may not have heard me before," Asmodeus said. "Keep the Pearl. Consider it a token of my . . . faith in your abilities."
He laughed about that, the buttons on his shirt and vest straining as his belly and shoulders heaved. No matter how he shook and chortled, the muzzle of his weapon -- it was an ordinary .38, not one of them demon-guns -- didn't slide neither left nor right.