New Dominion

by C. G Harris

  “At first, it was only her as a roadside attraction, but look at us now. We still use her as central entertainment on the main floor. After all, she is responsible for our success.”

  I took a step forward, but three sets of hands held me back.

  “He’s just goading you on.” Zoe’s tone sounded almost pleading now. “Don’t fall for it. If you go over there, he’ll have us all.”

  I shrugged off their hands and stared at Zoe. “I would think you of all people would understand.”

  I paused and turned to make my way toward my cousins.

  “Besides, you are forgetting one thing. They have us already. At least this way they get a taste of what they deserve.”

  I stepped toward my cousins, twisting the Whip Crack in my hand, listening to the blades hiss and whirr.

  “Let them go.”

  Franco tilted his head, peering at me with that same knowing grin. He made no move to do anything. He just stood there. Hands crossed over his chest, studying me like some sort of science experiment over Charlie’s shoulder.

  “We had a deal. Let them go.”

  I gritted my teeth, expecting them to go back on their word, but Franco finally nodded. With a casual wave of his hand, the sea of Woebegone thugs parted so Zoe, Meg, and Jazzy could leave. I didn’t take the time to make sure they would go. They were smart enough to know this was their only way out. They would take it, if for no other reason than to call in reinforcements later. Although at this point, I was not sure who those reinforcements would be. I had gotten myself into this mess. It was up to me to get out of it.

  “So, it’s just me and the skinny psycho?” I asked. “You sure you don’t want a poke at me too?”

  Franco laughed, but this time there was no mirth in it.

  “Rest assured, I will get my share of satisfaction in due time.”

  “Eww.” I twisted my face in disgust. “I’m your cousin, you sick son of a ...”

  Charlie lunged forward with his club and swung hard for my head. A sloppy move, especially for him. I slipped his attack and put some distance between us, then I went to work.

  My Whip Crack seethed in my hand, whirring to life at the flick of my wrist. It shot out, biting at the air, but Charlie dodged the attack, feinting to his left and then dodging right. I spun, recovering the whip for another slash, but he was on me like lightning. I ducked a club to the head, but he managed to come down hard on my collar bone. It felt like an I-beam had dropped on me from twenty stories. The pain was brutal, nearly causing me to drop the Whip Crack all together.

  Charlie, on the other hand, had already turned and charged in for another attack. He was too close for me to use the Whip Crack, so I did my best to evade instead. This time, he faked a shot at my skull, knowing I would protect my head and landed a perfect blow to my left knee. My world exploded with pain. I wanted to double over and retch but doing so would only offer up my head on a platter. If Charlie continued his close-in assaults, I would never get a hit on him. The Whip Crack was meant to be used at medium range. As far as I knew, it was useless close up. Charlie must have known this too. He charged in for another blow, forcing me to dive out of the way and maintain some distance. Pain wracked my body, but I managed to roll up onto my working knee and launch a perfect assault at Charlie’s midsection. No way he could slip away from this one. For all the pain he had dealt me, I had won.

  Charlie turned and lifted his club in a feeble attempt to block the attack. Then he turned the comb shaped tines to the side and caught the whip within its teeth.

  To my utter astonishment, the Whip Crack ground to a painful halt. It screeched like a dying dog and then fell silent. The whole end wrapped around Charlie’s club, tangling into the tines. Somehow, this back-alley club had rendered my perfect weapon useless. Charlie dropped his club to the dirt, grinning so I could see all his teeth, and bore down on me with the weapon he had used to kill countless men before me. His favorite weapon of all. His fists.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “How do you like our new toy?” Franco called from somewhere behind me. “We had it custom made after your little tirade at the Wax Worx. It took a few tries, but we found a way to trip up that little whip of yours.”

  I did my best to get to my feet. But I couldn’t put any weight on my left leg, and my right arm hung all but useless. I could barely hold it up, much less do anything to defend myself.

  “This isn’t even sporting.” Charlie came in, fists raised in a fighter’s stance.

  “I’d be glad to come back some other time.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Never bothered me before. No reason why it should start now.”

  I opened my mouth to shoot back another witty retort, but my words were met with an overhand left. I staggered back a few steps and then spit out blood. A quick inventory with my tongue told me all my teeth were still there, but two were loose and threatened to abandon ship.

  “Look, can’t we talk about this? We’re family after ...”

  He landed three jabs before I could blink. My face began that painful tingle which foretold a myriad of swelling bruises.

  He threw a haymaker, and I managed to duck in behind him and land a rabbit punch to the back of his neck. Judging from the expression on his face, that may not have been the brightest thing to do.

  Charlie charged in hard, throwing blow after blow. I did my best to cover, but he landed just about everything he threw. I backed up one staggered step after another until I hit something solid. The assault subsided, and I peered up out of my one open eye to see I had backed into Franco. He still stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, grinning down at me.

  I coughed and made a show of pulling myself up, using his coat pockets as makeshift handholds. He didn’t even budge.

  “Charlie, stop playing with your food and finish this. I have a bar to run.”

  Charlie charged in, seeing me barely able to hold myself up on Franco’s cheap suit. He must have figured on ending it all with one last punch. Too bad for him, I wasn’t quite as down as I pretended to be. I threw my body to the side at the last second, causing Charlie to run headlong into Franco. They collided and went down in a heap.

  I didn’t waste a single second. Stumbling to my feet, I surged for any escape I could find. Across the way, I spotted Zoe, Jazzy, and Meg all standing in a doorway, beckoning me in their direction. I headed straight for them.

  As soon as they saw me coming, Meg and Jazzy started yanking on some sort of beam. I had no time to figure out what they were doing, so I focused my one open eye in their direction and kept moving.

  I heard Franco’s angry cry behind me. “Get him!”

  I wasn’t sure if the order was meant for Charlie or the whole group of goons. Either way, I was pretty much sunk. I stumbled forward moving as fast as I could. My right arm hung limp at my side, but my left still worked, so I took an extra half second to scoop up my tangled Whip Crack. If it wasn’t ruined for good, having a weapon might come in handy if we made it out of this thing in one piece.

  Charlie’s feet stomped in behind me, but I was already to the door. He was a second too late. Meg and Jazzy pulled their beam, and the entire two-story structure we were now standing in came down on our heads.

  I had just enough time to realize we were goners when Zoe jerked me sideways into an overturned dumpster. Meg and Jazzy followed suit, and together, we rode out the titanic crash that ensued inside our makeshift bomb shelter. Dust and debris threatened to overcome us, but the walls of the industrial roll off held fast. Short of a few stray beams, nothing fell inside or collapsed on top of us. It was like riding out a train wreck inside an armored car. The noise seemed to go on forever then taper off with lingering crashes and tinkling metal here and there, then the silence was deafening.

  As the dust settled, I struggled not to cough. I knew Franco and Charlie were still out there. If they thought we had taken up residence at the local dirt farm, they might leave well enough alone.
/>   It wasn’t long before I heard voices in the distance, low and muffled.

  Gnashing Fields ... pick them up ... disposable ...tear them apart ...

  None of it sounded all that friendly. I suspected it may have had something to do with the item in my pocket.

  I pulled it out and dangled the item into a beam of light showing from above. The locket we came for in the first place. Turned out Franco still had it in his pocket when I used him as a makeshift climbing wall. He had been so entertained by my beating, he hadn’t even noticed when I lifted it.

  When Zoe saw it, she shook her head and had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing, then she got a good look at my face. Based on her expression, it looked every bit as bad as it felt. Didn’t matter. I could lick my wounds when we got back to the shop and figure out what to tell Alex in the morning.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I groaned and reached into my pocket to pull out the buzzing little denarius as I parked the Rusty Rocket outside The Judas Agency the next morning. It never ceased to amaze me how the thing managed to vibrate. It was a solid piece of silver. There was nothing inside it to make it work. Then again, the denarius could transform itself into a flaming death axe in the blink of an eye, so I guessed a little buzz shouldn’t be all that impressive.

  What was impressive was Judas’s ability to pick out the precise moments when I did not want to visit him. My face looked like it had been worked over by an old farm tractor, and my limbs operated at about fifty percent. Considering I only had one eye to see out of, it was a miracle I wasn’t running into walls. There was no way Judas would miss my billboard of injuries, and I had no desire to explain them.

  I limped among the bustle of agents outside the building and wished for any excuse to duck out of Judas’s meeting request. I didn’t own one of Alex’s fancy robot phones. Even if I did, I couldn’t be sure if Judas had an android phone as well. Besides, I doubted a phone call would suffice. I shook my head then winced as my brain jostled in my skull like a wrecking ball. I would have to ignore the page and face the music later. At least it would give me more time to come up with an excuse.

  I got ready to head into the building and cower in a cubicle somewhere when another agent passed me with the perfect solution to my problem. Well, maybe not perfect, but perfect was always subjective in The Nine.

  I hurried forward, carrying the emergency Twinkie I had stashed in the Rocket for just such an occasion. A quick barter and I was on my way up to Judas’s lair, grinning at my personal genius.

  I did my best to act casual as I walked into his office to stand behind the bone framed guest chair in front of his desk. His receptionist hadn’t been at her station to announce me, so I knocked and let myself in.

  Judas finished scrawling something on a piece of parchment with an old-style quill, a raven feather, of course, then he peered up at me. He took a breath to speak, but it caught in his throat when he laid eyes on my face.

  “What are you wearing?”

  I looked down at my AC/DC t-shirt and 501 jeans. “This is what I always wear. What’s wrong?”

  Judas pointed at my head.

  I reached up and felt my face as though I forgot all about my wardrobe addition. “Oh this? It’s a ski mask.”

  “I know what it is. Why are you wearing it?”

  I raised an eyebrow, not that he would see it underneath the canary yellow knitting. “I was cold. Besides, I thought it added something sort of, you know, secret agenty to my outfit. Sort of an anti-hero thing.”

  Judas stared at me without speaking. When I didn’t move to take it off, he gestured to Mastema, who perched in her usual spot off to his right. “Would you mind assisting our guest with his ...”

  “I don’t need any help.” My voice screeched like I’d been dropped in a vat of spiders. I jerked the thing off my head so fast I thought it might take my nose and one of my ears with it. “No need to get nasty.”

  I half expected Mastema to let out one of her lip curling giggles, but this time it was Procel who let out the low, rumbling chuckle. Glad I could be so entertaining.

  Judas never took his eyes off my face, but both his eyebrows went up in question.

  “I went out on an errand last night and sort of—tripped.”

  “Did you trip off a six-story building?”

  I tried not to look astonished. “Was that a joke? No, wait ... was that, dare I say, sarcasm?” I covered my mouth with both of my hands. “I knew you liked me. We are going to be finishing each other’s sentences before you know it.”

  “I would rather be boiled in the fat of a thousand baby seals.”

  I dropped my hands and screwed my face up in disgust. “Eww. That is definitely not what I was going to say next.”

  “Nor was it sarcasm,” he finished. “If you are through wasting my time, can we get to the issue at hand?”

  I nodded and limped around to the front of the chair to sit down, unable to get the horrible visual out of my head. When Judas wanted to make a point, he really knew how to drive it home.

  “Procel briefed me on your last meeting.” He leaned back in his big, black executive chair. “Considering the Whisper Wraiths are only a construct of The Council of Seven, we must assume your current mission is connected to their plan to release the Catastropher.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. This company, MiRACL, is full of white hats trying to save the world. I still question why The Judas agency is helping them at all ...”

  I trailed off, realizing I had made a point for Judas’s theory.

  “Precisely.” He chimed in, steepling his fingers and looking as smug as a red-carpet supervillain. “Why would the Judas Agency be assigned to ensure the success of a heroic company, unless it had more nefarious plans in mind?”

  I ran my brain ragged but could not think of the angle. “I just don’t see it. I haven’t had a chance to dig deep into Nick’s closet, but I doubt he even has a pocket-sized skeleton hiding in there. He’s clean enough to be Clark Kent’s nerdier cousin.”

  “What about others in the company?” Judas asked. “It appeared as if a Whisper Wraith tried to assassinate someone at the seminar. Who would profit if this, Nick, were to disappear?”

  I had never thought about that. All my focus had been on the president of the company up to now. I never considered the possibility that there might be someone waiting in the wings to take over.

  “The Council of Seven are an ancient sect. They are patient, ruthless, and smart. Do not underestimate their level of cunning. These might very well be the only clues you get. Do not waste them.”

  I nodded. “Thanks. I will find the number two in charge. In the meantime,” I stood, “look up pictures of baby seals. They’re adorable, and you don’t want to use... Never mind.” Judas stared at me with his emotionless black eyes.

  “On second thought,” I said,” just think happy thoughts and maybe get a massage ... with regular massage oil, not some weird, baby animal extract.” I shivered. “We’re supposed to be the good guys, remember?” And with that I walked out his torture etched door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When I got to the floor where Alex worked, I had to look out the window to be sure the agency hadn’t performed some sort of spatial hoodoo inside the building. They had taken the term cubicle hell and brought it to a whole new level. Everything on the floor was painted or upholstered in some shade of grey, and the ocean of visual suicide seemed to go on farther than the eye could see. It was as if color was a four-letter word and happiness was an infection. If office space came as a perk of the Judas Agency, then I would rather chisel out notes on a rock.

  With a gazillion work coffins to choose from, I had no idea how to find Alex. I wondered how anyone found their own desk, much less someone else’s. I was just about to give up when a young Woebegone walked over to a blacked-out window on the wall and spoke a name. I hadn’t noticed her at first because she wore cubicle cammo—a grey tweed suit with a slightly le
ss grey blouse underneath. If she had been old enough to have gray hair, she would’ve been invisible.

  She stared into the weird window-thing for a moment then turned and walked away with a purpose, melting into the labyrinth like cream in a milkshake.

  I walked over to the window myself and tried to understand how she could see through it. I squinted and cupped my hands around my eyes to block out the light. “Hello, is anyone in there?”

  I knocked on the dark glass and saw a line of script appear. So, this wasn’t a window but some sort of high-tech computer screen. I really needed to get a book on modern advancements or something. The 80s may have been the pinnacle of American culture, but all these tech upgrades were going to make me crazy. Next thing you know, televisions wouldn’t even use antennas. I chuckled at the lunacy of the thought.

  I leaned in close to the glass and shouted. “Alexandra Neveu.”

  My breath left a little cloud on the glass, and that was it.

  I rolled my eyes for being stupid. Of course, she wouldn’t use her full name.

  I cleared my throat and shouted even louder this time, “Alex Neveu!”

  I saw a letter and number designation followed by a rudimentary map which I assumed would lead me to my desired destination. “Yes!” I smiled at myself for figuring out this high-tech device all by myself.

  The route to Alex’s desk did not appear all that complicated, so I took mental note of the location and set off. After walking for about fifteen minutes, I began to wonder to what scale the map had been drawn. If one inch equaled a mile, I was going to be pissed if she was on a coffee break.

  I managed to find the correct row within the next few minutes and headed down the long line of tiny workspaces full of Woebegone worker zombies until I recognized a familiar shade of bright blue hair.

  “I don’t know what the rules are in here about color, but I am pretty sure you are breaking all of them with that do of yours.”