Sages of the Underpass

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Sages of the Underpass Page 26

by Aaron Michael Ritchey


  Monique agreed to meet him at the trailhead on this side of the Red Gate. They could go up there to talk, and it would at least be pretty.

  She checked in on her father in his bedroom. He was sitting up, watching the TV mounted across from him. From his eyes, he was more lucid than usual. That was good. It meant she didn’t need to get anyone to watch him.

  “I’m going to go out. Are you going to be okay?” she asked.

  Logan nodded. He opened his mouth, tried to get a word out, then closed it and scowled. Another nod, more vigorous, and just a bit frustrated.

  “I’ll have my phone. I’ll be close, so feel free to call me.”

  Another nod.

  Monique left and biked to the trailhead. Aleksy was already there, in a brand-new BMW Series 4. He stood next to it, arms crossed.

  Monique locked up her bike while he apologized. That guy. Always apologizing. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have texted you. I was at a family dinner, and well, you wanted to know about me and my brother. It’s not like we’re friends. I get that. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Apology not accepted.” Monique approached him carefully. “We are friends. United in battle. We’ll always have Tahoe.”

  Finally, Aleksy smiled. “I think it’s Paris.”

  “Or Budapest. Now that we have the movie allusions out of the way, we can talk. Come on.”

  He followed her up steps and down a path. A few homeless people watched them, sitting next to shopping carts.

  Monique nodded at them. They nodded back.

  “Sundays, family dinners at the Kowalczyk house.” Aleksy let loose. “My brother saw his apothecary, and he has Radiance prana in his core. He was born a cusp, Quintessence into Luna. Wochick can’t explain it, and of course, Wochick insulted my brother, who then tried to insult me for leaving. Pete is off being Pete, which means being a self-centered asshole. And I’m tired of it all. I had to get out. I don’t want to go back. I never want to suffer through another goddamn family dinner again. See? Complicated.”

  Monique could only piece together about half of what he said. She did know one thing for sure. “There’s no such thing as Radiance prana. It’s all just prana. It’s all just energy. We just use it differently. It’s not like there’s various kinds of water. It’s all just water—ice, steam, the ocean, just water.”

  They crossed the park and started up the steps that led to the Red Gate. “So is that why you can use Studies from all the Battle Signs?”

  “No. I can do that because I surrendered to life, in a very deep, in a very difficult way.” She’d told him about her father. She didn’t tell anyone about her father. “We’ll get to that. First, let’s talk about you.”

  They reached the top and stopped at the first viewing area. The tall towers of the bridge, the thick coils of solid iron cabling, the landmark made famous, rose above them. Below, fog boiled across the waters of the bay. Prison Island was only a smudge in the mist. The City’s lights were starting to come on. They mostly smelled the drodes of the cars, but then the ocean had a way of scenting everything.

  Aleksy turned to her. He was suffering, that was clear. “Five years ago, I left the family business. I didn’t want that to be my life. No one understood. Maybe I could’ve handled it better. I don’t know. I took off when I got the SoulFire job. I gave it everything I had. My parents didn’t give me a choice. I either had to get out, cut ties, or I would’ve died in that shop.”

  “The Fix-It Shoppe.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Right. Pete didn’t care. He doesn’t care about much. He’s the youngest, and acts like it. Mamo adjusted because she knew she had to. Tato pretended it was all okay. Niko hates me because it all fell on him. It was fine, but now he’s trying to get his Artist career going, and there’s tension, and it’s all coming back up to haunt me.”

  “That does sound complicated.” Monique leaned against the railing. “I had to leave too. I know how hard that is. For me, it was poverty, violence, and hopelessness. At least you had a loving family.”

  He went to talk. She cut him off. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. The loving makes it harder on you. I didn’t mean to say my situation was worse. It’s just different. Like how people use prana in different ways.” She stopped herself from saying more.

  “Niko is never going to forgive me. Not really. Neither will Mamo. She tries to pretend it’s okay. Sometimes it is okay. That makes it worse.” Aleksy shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. Isn’t there some HR rule against CBAs hanging out with their subordinates?”

  That made her laugh. “No, we’re fine.” She sobered, trying to think of something soothing to say. She could quote The Pranad. That seemed too pretentious for the situation. She relaxed. The words came from an unexpected place. “Did you ever read A Princess of the Changing Winds?”

  “Niko loves that book. I tried to get into it. I liked the movie.”

  That made her wince. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. That movie was terrible. Anyway, Thora Vu, the hero, right, is forced to leave her family. She had to follow the Path of the Endless Wind, though everyone thought she was insane. Of course, it’s what saves her family in the end. Not that you have to save your family. That’s usually a terrible idea, unless you’re in a book.”

  Aleksy chuckled. “I’ve tried to give Mamo money. She won’t take it. I won’t go into that conversation. I had to take a shower afterwards.”

  The guy was laughing. That was a good sign.

  “Money and family? Another terrible idea.” Monique inhaled and exhaled. “Thora Vu had to forgive herself for leaving. She had to forgive the king and queen. Just like they had to forgive her, though it took a while. Another three books. Though the series tanked after that first, brilliant book.”

  “You forgave your father, I’m assuming. Did he ever forgive you?”

  Monique knew the answer to that one. She’d just experienced one of Logan’s patented scowls. “No. But that’s none of my concern. I don’t know many great truths in life, but I do know this—what other people think of me is none of my business. Family. Friends. Co-workers. The entire executive team at SoulFire? None of my business. I can only choose how I act and who I forgive.”

  “I still feel bad.” Aleksy turned and rested his arms on the railing, looking out at the fog slowly creeping into the city. “I don’t think I’ve forgiven myself, or them, for being my family.”

  “It’s tough. Complicated.” Monique felt the desire to touch his back. That felt like crossing a boundary, so she kept still.

  Aleksy squinted at the view. “How can Niko have Radiance prana? Or whatever. He’s sure that it’s in his core.”

  “That leads us to my end of the conversation,” Monique said. “Did you have anything else you wanted to say?”

  “No, I think I unloaded enough. I feel better. Thanks.”

  “Sure.” Monique patted him on the back. That seemed safe.

  A car honked behind them. It was a welcome sound in the silence. It was her turn now. This was going to be delicate. She had to be careful.

  “Did you ever play the piano?” Monique asked.

  “Like every young American boy, I wanted to learn the guitar and become a rock star. Tato found us a secondhand guitar. I took three lessons. Then gave it up forever. No piano for me.”

  “Instead of the water metaphor, let’s go with music. You hit a key, and the sound waves resonate in a certain way, right?”

  Aleksy nodded. “Sure. At a certain wavelength.”

  “Nice physics, Kowalczyk.” Monique liked how quick he was. “So, every person resonates with prana in a certain key. It’s still music. It’s still sound. The world doesn’t change. The player, though, the piano, how it’s tuned, how tight the strings are, that all goes into what we hear.”

  “Got it.”

  She stood next to him, leaning forward on the rail. The metal was still hot from the day’s sun. “People naturally are drawn to certain Battle S
igns, even to certain Studies. We track it through birthdates, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. The way we are on the world, the turn of the galaxy, the power in the universe. Okay, now I’m getting a little bit beyond what I know. But you get the point.”

  “I do.”

  Monique continued. “Certain tinctures, certain artifacts, resonate with that energy. Both can help us resonate that energy differently.”

  “Artifacts?” Aleksy shook his head. “I know you can buy magic rings on eBay, but I thought that was all just bullshit.”

  “Poor bulls. Why do we have such a low opinion of them and their excrement? Language. So much fun. But there are artifacts out there.” She’d left both of her rings at home, her aquamarine and the wedding band. Logan had stolen them both, from somewhere. He’d given the wedding ring as a bad joke, saying something about how she’d always be his. Monique had ignored most of what Logan said back then. She’d saved the ring as a kind of savings account—if things ever got bad, she’d sell it in a heartbeat.

  “Do you have an artifact?” Aleksy asked.

  “Yes. It helps. More importantly, I trained my ass off.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Wait, not completely off. And I learned that the Arts are just as much about my feelings and my relationships as they are about fighting in an Arena. When I’m right with myself, with the world, with the people in the world, the energy flows. But back to your brother. It could be he came in contact with something that resonated with Radiance tones. And so, it became a part of his core.”

  “His accident.” Aleksy nodded. “He had this accident, right before I left, and it all went to pieces. He said it was a bad tincture. From what you’re saying, maybe it was. I kept thinking he tried to cycle a high-powered daemon he got on a containment call. He swears he didn’t.”

  Monique’s intuition tickled her. She felt that what he’d just said was important, though she wasn’t sure how. And they were here to talk about Aleksy, and not the brother, Niko Black, who also felt important. She’d file the feelings away for later.

  “I certainly can’t speak to what happened to your brother. But for me, let’s just say, I’ve been practicing the Arts now, for a long, long time. In the Underbelly, they saved me.”

  “You grew up in the Underbelly?” Aleksy’s voice betrayed his disbelief.

  She didn’t blame him. It was hard to believe that the CBA at SoulFire had muddled her way up the ladder, starting in the worst pit in California. “Yes. One of my father’s business associates gave me his copy of A Princess of the Changing Winds. I was in elementary school. It changed my life. I so wanted to be Thora Vu.” The fear, the desperation, her great sorrow of her childhood rose up in her. They were so familiar, so polished, so well handled, that the emotions slipped out of her mind.

  “Aleksy, if you do something with all your heart, day after day, that something changes you. What we think we practice, what we practice we become, and what we become has consequences. What you saw me do in Fort Tahoe, those are the happy consequences of decades of practice. And I had a master, Cheryl, and we’ll be driving up to see her at some point. You’ll meet her. You’ll understand.”

  “So anyone can do what you do?” Aleksy asked. More disbelief.

  “LJ Crown uses Harmonic Studies.” Monique figured that wasn’t going to work on this kid.

  Aleksy didn’t outright scoff at her, but he came close. “LJ Crown uses Harmonic Earth Studies. You did far more than that. You’re far more than a Jupiter Belt.”

  “Okay, fine, I’ll get fancy on you.” Monique pointed to the city. “Right now, in Bay City, we have a million people, driving buses, cleaning toilets, writing books, working at convenience stores, doing inventory, and they all have prana. They all have promise. How many will become world-class Battle Artists?”

  “A very small percentage.” Aleksy grinned. “So cleaning toilets and writing books is about the same thing?”

  “My friend, most everything in life is like cleaning toilets. It’s a task. Life is a series of tasks. Some do them. Some don’t. I got very good at cleaning toilets, one day at a time. Yes, anyone can become an amazing Battle Artist. Most won’t. For whatever reason.”

  “Some are chosen,” Aleksy whispered. “Some choose. I chose to leave the family business. It was like I couldn’t do anything but that. Niko stayed. Maybe it was the same for him.” He turned to look at her, full in the face. His eyes were soft, yet intense.

  She was attracted to this guy, she knew it, and he probably knew it too. Not that anything would come from it, but Monique filed away that piece of information like she had his brother’s mysterious resonance with the Radiance Artist Sign.

  “Why don’t you tell anyone you can fight like you do?” Aleksy asked.

  And there was the crux of the discussion. “I serve the Arts. I don’t want to serve anything or anyone else.” Now she would quote The Pranad. “The Artist follows the Art even as the Art follows the Artist. If SoulFire knew what I could do, they would want me to fight. No, they would insist I fight for them. And then, the military would come, and they would interfere with my life. Powerful people, powerful forces, would converge on me. I would be tempted with money, fame, the notion that I could be of real service as LJ Crown, or any other superstar, more than I could be as Monique Lamb. It’s why I keep it a secret. It’s why I think I felt comfortable enough to let you in on my hunt. Do you get that?”

  “I don’t. The money, Monique. And you could be a legend, Hall of Fame, one of the greats.”

  “One of the greats.” She nodded, feeling the peace in her core. “What does that mean? How many bastards, bitches, and downright assholes have been legends? A lot. Not me. I’m Monique Lamb. I’m an Artist. I am on my path, and I feel that path in me, in every part of me. As for money? I recently lost a fortune. You’ve heard the rumors. You know. I’ve let it go. In this moment, I am wealthy beyond reason. For I live in this moment, for the most part. Money begs you to consider the future, or it troubles you with the past.” She laughed. “You better be writing this down. I am on a roll. No, Aleksy, right now, I don’t want to be tempted with money or fame. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. I am at the present. I like that.”

  “What about fighting crime?”

  Was that a flirtatious glint in his eye? Maybe. Monique returned his smile. “I’d need a cape. In the movies, they’re awesome. In real life, they get in the way. No capes.”

  “No capes.”

  “Besides,” Monique said, “I’m not called to do that. At this point. I think of those homeless guys back at the park. They are walking paths I don’t understand, and I don’t want to get in their way. The world is troubled. Always has been. Always will be. I have no idea why. Crime, poverty, sickness, death, despair, that is all beyond me. I think if I tried to fix one thing, out of ego, I’d try to fix everything, and then where would we be?”

  Aleksy didn’t have an answer. That made two of them.

  They turned from the bridge and walked back to the parking lot.

  Aleksy drove off. Monique biked home.

  Logan wasn’t in her condo. That was worrisome. She got her phone, to track the GPS on his own phone. Logan wouldn’t have left without his phone.

  She checked, and he was just outside. She was on her way to get him when an emergency text lit up her screen. From Phil Lord. IT SEEMS YOUR DAEMON STRUCK AGAIN.

  There was a link to breaking news on The Bay City Mercury News’s website.

  Three deaths in the Devil’s Edge. A daemon had struck, something man-shaped, according to eye-witness accounts.

  Yes, she had to find the shadow man to save her job at SoulFire. More than that, people were dying.

  “I’d make a terrible superhero,” she muttered.

  But at least her hunt had moved closer to home.

  The Fans

  LABOR DAY WEEKEND ARRIVED, like it always did, at the tail end of summer.

  Niko wanted to be alone before the BCBA Quarterly Con fight. T
he train ride into the City reminded him of going to the Premiers. Teddy and Bonnie were driving into the City together, while Niko’s parents had to stay home to handle calls. Pete was still missing in action. His six weeks had turned into twelve and counting. Niko texted, Bonnie did as well, and they didn’t hear back. He was still alive, though. Living in the now haunted Devil’s Edge. Bonnie kept track of him through mutual friends, more broken people she liked because they filled their cracks with things other than prank, meth, or booze.

  At home, Tato would watch the event on the internet. The BCBA was live streaming the event.

  Niko had been tempted to ride with Bonnie and Teddy. Riding on the train made him more comfortable; traffic, cars, and highways remained problematic.

  Besides, Teddy and Bonnie were getting along better than ever.

  Niko had found a special corner of heaven in the last six weeks with Bonnie. That kiss in the parking lot outside the Fix-It Shoppe had led to a whole lot more. He snuck her up to his room a few times, but it was easier to go to her apartment in the Devil’s Edge. She lived there with a bandmate and the bandmate’s boyfriend. On the third floor, it was relatively safe. Daemons usually kept close to the ground, though if they got into a building, they could work their way up stairs and up through floors. Niko checked out her Whitney, and it was an older model, but it would still work on both drodes and cambions.

  Rumor had it there was another kind of daemon haunting the Devil’s Edge. Something man-shaped had murdered people near the high school back in July. Thankfully, the press had released the names, and Pete wasn’t one of them. The online gossip said the daemon was everything from an angel to an alien. Some claimed it was the ghost of Criss Blackstar, the tragic Artist who’d committed suicide in the 1990s.

  Niko didn’t like worrying about Bonnie, so he tried to stay over there as much as he could. He let his parents know. Mamo didn’t like it. Tato couldn’t be too loud in his enthusiasm. After all, he had to deal with Mamo full time, and both were on the traditional side. Sex before marriage troubled them.

 

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