“First a man tried to kill me in my home. He wore the tattoo of a group who call themselves Korax, after the raven. Then a creature attacked me in the park. I came close to bleeding to death from my wounds.”
“What creature?”
“It looked like a crow but much larger; I’ve been told it is called a Mythos.”
She closed her eyes, appearing to drift off to sleep then she blinked them open. “Do you believe, Virgin?”
“How is what I believe relevant to any of this? I just want to deal with what’s happening. People are trying to kill me.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” she said. “Belief is everything. Belief is the foundation of our reality.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I believe that my father was murdered though it was made to look like an accident. I believe somehow his death is connected with the recent attempts on my life, and a man I found murdered in my park. And I believe that you know something that can help me with these problems.”
She rested the bone feather on her lap and retrieved the pipe.
I waited while she sucked at it and her eyes grew even glassier. It took all my self-control to not tear the stem from her lips and toss it across the room. The face-chain guy stood close by though, ready to tug the rope around me tighter, and I sensed others in the shadows.
“What you’ve brought me is a varna, an object of warning. But this one is different… special, I suppose you could say.”
“How so?”
She lifted it high in the air. “The bone is a native animal. The kind that our local vodun might use. The feather is from the coastal Romany but the nano-lumes are Druze. These nicks that appear as straight lines are inscriptions by the Indigenous tribes.”She brought the feather to her nose and sniffed. “The feather has been soaked into cannabis favoured by the Rastafarians and the beads are Yoruba and Akan – African.”
“You’re sure?” I was impressed.
Her green glass eyes sparked. “I’m always sure.”
“What would one of the Korax be doing with this kind of a collective warning?”
“Are you sure he was part of this Korax group you speak about?” she asked.
My eyes widened when it dawned on me that I’d assumed he was but I’d seen no actual tattoo. “If he wasn’t Korax then who was he?”
She blinked. “You seem clever, Virgin, but maybe I am wrong.”
“And you seem to practise being obtuse, but maybe I’m wrong,” I snapped back.
The face-chain guy lifted his knife but she waved him down and passed me the talisman. “Take this, go home, Ranger, and don’t return here. Find out what it is that you believe in. That will serve you better than anything I can tell you.”
“I’m facing a murder sentence for a crime I didn’t commit. How can what I believe in affect that?”
“Talk to your companion. Perhaps he can help you understand.”
“Which companion?”
“The tall one guided by the bison.”
“Nate? But how do you know...”
She shrugged, put the pipe back to her lips and closed her eyes. Clearly, I was dismissed.
Face-chain guy pulled me to my feet by the rope and along in a different direction to the way we’d come. I brushed past rows of bead curtains, glimpsing weapon racks behind some of them and ultraviolet enclosures behind others. When we finally stopped in front of as double door, my inner compass told me I was on the other side of the building from where I’d climbed the stairs.
The doors slid open and revealed a lift.
I turned to face-chain guy. “You’re shittin’ me. You mean I…?”
He grinned and the chains tinkled. I so wanted to rip them out.
Instead we rode down in silence. When the doors opened at the bottom, he removed my lasso and pushed me out without a word.
I found myself at the back oftenement#4 looking at a landscape that stole my breath. A wide tract of bare, churned earth punctuated by mounds of burned bricks and charred remains amid glowing coals. From the choking smell, I knew at least some of them were animal or human. It was a burning ground; a body incinerator made all the more ghastly by how public it was.
I walked away quickly, heading for the nearest corner to take me down the side of the tenement and back to Sixkiller. Halfway along, I heard voices behind me. A quick glance told me that a posse of guys had rounded the corner after me, carrying spears and clubs.
My walk became a sprint past the stairs I’d climbed previously.
No Sixkiller.
I’d almost reached the front corner when the first spear thudded into the ground at my heel. I bowled around the edge of the building and collided with Sixkiller who was sitting with his legs out and his back against the wall.
“Spears…” I gasped. “Clubs!”
He sprang to his feet. “We take them.”
“Be my guest,” I said without breaking stride.
“Virgin!” He shouted after me, but I wasn’t stopping. I didn’t plan on ending up on a pyre in the burning grounds.
As I reached the other side of the street, I heard his boots on the pavement catching up with me. Thank heavens for that! It would be have been tough explain losing him in Moonee to Bull.
“Hurry,” I called over my shoulder.
We were almost at building #3 and I could see another gang emerging from the foyer. These guys had aluminum baseball bats and shivs as long as small swords.
A voice bellowed through a loudspeakerfrom above. “Ranger!”
I glanced up and saw a mini-drone with the wingspan of an albatross heading straight at my head. I ducked, still running, and it landed lightly on the pavement a few meters ahead of Sixkiller and I.
Three pistols were strapped into the carrier on its back. I broke stride just long enough to free my 9mm and toss the Marshall his Peacemakers.
“Don’t…fire… unless… you…abso… lute…ly…have… to…” I puffed at him and veered back across the street to avoid the guys with bats.
Spears rained about my feet. One nicked my shoulder and I heard Sixkiller grunt with the impact of another.
“Don’t shoot,” I said. “We’re nearly there.”
The previously quiet enclave was now rampant with screeches and cries that sounded like they might come with a free scalping.
Nearly. There. The alley way that led back to Gilgul was a tantalizing few lengths ahead but the guys with shivs had crossed as well to head us off.
Ten strides. Nine…
Whump!
Someone took me out from the side and I went down heavily, cracking my head on the pavement. The world went grainy for a second then brightened. I heard two pistol cracks followed by soft thumps. A hand touched my shoulder and rolled me over.
I lashed out, connecting a punch with Sixkiller’s jaw.
I realized what I’d done when he swore.
“Nate!”
But he’d had already sunk into a crouch, one pistol drawn.
The guy who’d tackled me lay dead on the ground, a shiv on the ground near his open palm.
The rest of his gang had fanned out around us. Lined up behind them were the spear throwers.
The two gangs exchanged some excited street dialect that I didn’t understand. The gist of it was pretty plain though. They were fighting over who had the right to claim us.
Sixkiller fired a warning shot in the air.
“Git back!” His voice was hoarse and steeped in bad intent. Enough to make my skin prickle.
“Be calm, Marshall,” I said.
“Never been calmer, Ranger. Now git into the alley.”
Only a few steps backwards and we would climb the crates – the line between death and the relative safety of Seer Parade.
I got to my feet, lifted my 9mm and stepped alongside him. “After you.”
He made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. “This ain’t the time for–”
“One step back at a time together,” I said. “On my
count…”
My sideways glance caught his brief nod.
“One…”
We stepped backward.
Three pistols against spears, shivs and bats. It seemed like we were on the winning side.
“Two…”
My sense told me three more steps would do it. I could smell the rotted fruit from the crates.
So close. “Three…”
Our pursuers surged forward, suddenly forgetting their differences as their prey appeared about to escape. Spear lifted. Shivs too.
“Four…”
Then suddenly we had a much bigger problem. Around one end of the semi-circle, stepped a guy with a bare chest. The tattoo on his breast was large an unmistakable– a circle encompassing a crow. Korax.
He lifted a semi-auto to his hip.
From nowhere, I heard a thundering noise. In the corner of my eyes I saw a buffalo galloping towards us.
A bison. Had to be.
Nothing else in my mind matched with the shaggy shoulders and fierce spray of saliva spray from its mouth.
“Ohitika!” gasped Sixkiller.
If that was his disincarnate then we were seriously–
“Five!”I yelled and fired at the guy with the semi-auto simultaneously.
Then Sixkiller and I turned in unison and dived over the barricade of fruit crates.
A fierce rain of spears and bullets pelted down after us.
I kept rolling as I hit the ground, using momentum to get me as far into the alley as possible.
The semi-auto chopped the crates to bits. Wood chips sprayed me and I glimpsed Sixkiller lying on his stomach returning fire. The sight of the buffalo standing over him, fierce and protective added to my acute adrenalin rush.
I loosed a couple more shots, more a fear reaction than anything particularly effective against an automatic weapon, and scrambled on my knees towards the blind alley and Seer Parade.
I reached the false wall, still on my knees. Sixkiller was close behind me and the guy with the semi was kicking decimated crates out of his way.
A volley of fire started, this time above my head coming from the direction I was crawling; two guys leaning against corner walls looking back at us.
One of them nodded and beckoned. I got to my feet and sprinted around the corner where I collapsed, my back up against the wall, sucking in air. Sixkiller rolled out behind me, and suddenly we were side by side again, staring out at curious passersby.
My whole bodyshook from exertion. The Marshall seemed calm other than the fact he was panting.
On the other side of the alley opening, our armed allies had slung their rifles over their shoulders and were busy sliding the metal grate across the gap. It locked into place with a thunk and they snapped a heavy bar into place.
Everything went quiet. We’d made it back across the invisible line.
“I think I shot the guy with the semi-auto,” I said.
“Not damn quick enough. He near took my head off.”He nodded at the guys securing the gate. “Hadn’t been for them though, we’d be stone cold dead.”
“Hadn’t been for your disincarnate scaring me half to death I might never have pulled the trigger at all.”
He frowned at me. “What do you mean?”
“The bison. I saw it.”
“You saw Ohitika?”
“Saw it come hell for leather at those guys. Then it was standing over you in the alley. What did you call it? Ohi…?”
“Ohi-tika. Means brave,” he said.
I nodded. “Fierce alright. Don’t think you’d want him around all the time.”
“Ohitika only reveals himself to people he chooses.”
“Oh. Right,” I said. “That’s… um… nice.”
Sixkiller shook his head and swallowed, seeming at a loss for words. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb.
One of the guys approached us. He wore shorts, a dirty singlet, boots and a satisfied smile. “Best you get up. Papa Brise wants to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sixkiller held out a blood-wet hand.I took it and we helped each other up.
“Sure,” I said to the guy. “And thanks… y’know… for that.”
He patted his rifle as if it were a pet. “Can’t have the fucking Moonees Moonies up in our place. We got business to conduct. Shit is bad for tourists.”
I felt relieved at that. Order among the disorder.
“How did you know we were there?” I asked.
“We watch their side. They watch our side. Way it’s gotta be.”
“The gate was unlocked though.”
“Yeah, we leave it like that for the most. We lock it, they get the message.”He sauntered off down Seer.
“You’re bleeding,” I said to Sixkiller as we limped after him.
“So are you. Shoulder.”
I looked down at myself. The peak of my adrenalin had begun to fade and things hurt; the shoulder that the Mythos had attacked, and now the other one, right at the top of the arm where the spear had grazed me.
The increasingly familiar sense of having been tossed around and mangled returned.
“Nate,” I croaked. “You need a hand?”
If my request surprised him he didn’t show it. He shook his head.
Together we limped along Seer towards Mason Way. Before we reached the end, Brise’s guy threaded between a real-animal-hide stall and a tarot reader, and up a set of removable stairs hooked to the awning in front of a bar called, Sage.
The stairs were a tough ask in my present condition. I gritted my way up them, drawing on the hand rail and innate stubbornness to get me through. From Sixkiller’s periodic grunt, he was feeling it too.
We passed through three pairs of guys with guns before our guy left us in a small room with two big couches and a large wall screen. The ashtrays on the armrests overflowed and the stale smell of cigar added to my woes. I stayed standing, conscious of the blood on my shoulder and hands.
Sixkiller propped against the wall next to the door we’d been brought through, not about to be ambushed again.
I estimated he had about three rounds left at most. I had two.
They hadn’t taken our guns, so I guess that was something.
“Ranger and Marshall!” boomed Brise’s voice.
He sprang to life on the screen, not in person. “Someone will fix your wounds soon. But first, explain your-fuckeen-selves.”
Medical help? I wondered if Papa Brise was looking to build allies. Might be a smart move. And somehow, for no good reason, I trusted Papa Brise a whole lot more than Kadee Matari. Not that that was much a measure.
“We went to speak to Kadee Matari. Find out more about the bone feather talisman,” I said.
“You got fuckeen front, Ranger, I give you that. What did the Stoned-fuckeen-Witch have to say?”
“That it was a collective warning from Romany, Africans, Druze and others. Then she said I should find out what it is that I believe in.”
“As clear as my fuckeen whizz in the morning,” said Papa Brise with a sneer.
“That’s all I got from her. Some gangs chased us out of Moonee with spears and shivs and clubs. But someone showing crow and circle ink joined them last with some real hardware.”
Brise’s face folded into unhappy lines. Not concern for our welfare, I guessed, but concern for his territory. The huge man, stroke an imaginary moustache on his face. “That she spoke with you at all is fuckeen mystifying. You must be fuckeen charmed, Ranger.”
“Who are the crow and circle, Papa Brise? I’ve heard they’re called Korax.”
Sixkiller stiffened and lifted his head when I said that, suggesting he had heard the name too.
“I know as much and as little as you, Ranger. They are here and fuckeen there. Selling fuckeen hardware, fuckeen shit, fuckeen everything,” Papa Brise moaned.
“They’re locals, you mean?”
“Some. We hear accents like the Marshall’s as well,” he said.
“Is it affecting you?”
“I fuckeen run Mystere. It has been that way since I took it from Lobo Smith ten fuckeen years ago. There are drugs and deals and bullshit... all fuckeen normal. But I control the flow. You fuckeen feel me?”
I stared and Sixkiller gave a slow nod.
“These Korax they’re coming and changing the fuckeen flow. They talk to Kadee Matari. Maybe planning something. This last few days already… fifteen fuckeen murders in three streets and not one is mine. The Stoned Witch is trying to take me down. I’m losing control of my own fuckeen place.”
His admission might have been either darkly humorous or personally damning at another time. Right now it was just plain frightening.
“But what’s it about?”
“That’s why I save your fuckeen life, Ranger. You find out for me andso I can stop the Stoned-fuckeen-Witch. She burns the shit of fuckeen babies in her pipe and smokes it.”
The screen went dead and Sixkiller and I were left staring at each other.
“Korax?” he said.
“I hear stuff,” I said shrugging. “What do you call them?”
“That name might fit.”He glanced away from me and I suddenly realized how truly bloody he was. And pale.
Before I could retort, the door opened and a young woman with white hair, wearing a halter top that showed off her violet tattoos, entered. She opened the case she carried, took a plastic sheet from it and spread it on the ground. Then she set the case on the coffee table and selected a short bulky object that she unfolded into a small stool with three legs.
She motioned to Sixkiller to sit on it.
“Why would I do thet?” he asked.
She opened her mouth and pointed to her tongue. Or what might have once been a tongue. Now there was a lump of tissue split into two short peaks, like the ears on a dog. They wiggled freely, independently of each other.
When he remained where he was she made an angry noise and rummaged in the case. After a moment she held up an aerosol can and a tube of antiseptic.
“For chrissakes let her fix you up before you bleed to death, Nate.” I sat down on one of the couches as I said it, suddenly tired beyond my ability to fathom.
Sixkiller’s shoulders sagged a fraction and he moved stiffly to sit on the stool.
ARC: Peacemaker Page 17