When we reached the front of the line, Fela leaned in and whispered something to the doorman. He nodded and let us past the rope with a little smile.
“What did you say?” I asked as we stepped into the building.
“I reminded him of his grandmother, and how proud she would be he was doing honest work.”
“Isn’t that a lie?”
“Not really. His grandmother was a monster. She’s cooling down in the frozen Hells. This is honest work as far as she’s concerned.”
“Huh.”
We stepped from the entry into the building proper. The interior was burgundy and gold, walnut, and brass. It looked like an interior designer had shit a velour nightmare. Scantily clad women and men danced in lethargic gyrations on stages at each corner. More gambled at dice and roulette, cards snapping against wooden surfaces, and the clink of coin. A modest table on a dais dominated the center of the room, behind which sat a lean man with one milky eye and a bad haircut. He wore a satin suit the same color as the carpet, and a leer. Guards stood around him, trying to look nonchalant. When he spotted us, he smiled and opened his arms.
“Fela! So glad you’re well.”
She smirked back at him and took a seat at one of the two chairs set out. He’d been expecting us. I sat beside her.
“Yes, my sabbatical was refreshing.”
“A game, then?” he asked.
She nodded. “A game.”
He produced a pack of cards from one sleeve, and I cleared my throat. He seemed to notice me for the first time. His milky eye swept over me.
“Yes?” he asked.
“It’s just. You pulled those from your sleeve.”
“Are you suggesting I cheat?”
Fela tensed and patted my hand. “She’s new. Forgive her.” Then, holding his eyes, “Fantucci never cheats. He prides himself on it.”
His eye slid from me, and he gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Indeed.”
I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Did Fela gamble the Deadlands away? Fuck.
“The game, then?” Fela asked, interrupting that disastrous train of thought.
He shuffled the cards, and I watched a tear leak from his milky eye, spattering against the painted boards. I suppressed the shudder that followed.
“Dead Man’s Hand,” he said.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Cord had taught me Dead Man’s Hand. A particularly rainy week kept us belowdecks, and while Rek and Lux amused themselves with cats and cantrips, Cord was climbing the walls. I’d put down my book and finally fixed him with a glare.
“What?” I asked.
“Bored, Nenn. Bored and horny. Might fuck Rek’s cat.”
“You ever been keel-hulled, you stumpy fuck?” Rek called from the next berth.
I shook my head and picked the book back up. It was just getting good. Captain Jalen Rhinohorn was just about to rip a bodice. Cord peeked over the top.
“Whatcha readin’?” he asked.
“A book.”
“Is it good?”
“I can’t fuckin’ tell, since I’ve read the same sentence sixteen times. What do you want?”
“Cord bored, Nenn.”
“Go count fish.”
“What if I just shave the cats?”
“Seriously, I will split you in two and use the halves as bookends,” Rek called again.
Cord was silent for a moment. Jalen reached for Mistress Bunnywumple’s satin corset. Cord’s face reappeared over the book.
“Gret’s balls. What?” I asked.
“Wanna play a game?”
I sighed and tossed the book on my bunk. “Fine. What is it?”
“Well, first, I have to tell you a story.”
“But… I was just reading.”
He grinned. “You’ll like this story.”
“Fine,” I settled back, arms crossed. Cord pulled up a stool and produced a pack of cards, shuffling. His fingers moved with slick dexterity. I watched the pasteboard ripple between his fingers, a constant show of color and sound. His voice joined it, and I closed my eyes.
“This was just after I left Blackgate. They weren’t letting me back into the Orleght Guard. Clane was still out on campaign somewhere. My parents had passed. For the first time in my life, I was alone. And like most young men alone and bored, I racked up a debt. Men, women, drink, slipweed, if they extended credit, I took it.
“What I didn’t know is all that credit was owned. Not by petty criminals or small lenders, but by a syndicate. Now, there are two things people like that will do if you owe them money. One, they might kill you. Sure, it’s a loss, but if there’s no chance of getting it back, they’re not going to worry about that. Two, and this is the shitty one—they’ll rope you into a favor. You never know what it might be. Maybe you’re walking the local don’s dogs. Maybe you’re cleaning horseshit in a stable for a month. Maybe you’re slitting someone’s throat in a brothel when they’re in the middle of unloading their balls.
“Me, they sent a package. Inside was a painting, a note, and six cards painted with a fox. A little girl. Ten, maybe twelve. Dark skin, dark hair. She belonged to someone. No, that’s not right. Someone. And they wanted her. The note that came with the painting simply said Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt.
“I’m a little older, so the details elude me now. But the details wouldn’t change a godsdamned thing. What I do remember is the warehouse in the dock district. What I remember are the smells of fish and oil and slick cobbles. It’d taken me three weeks to find the place. Another three days of sitting in those fish stinking alleys, watching guards come and go.
“My brain wandered. I made up games. I thought of ways to fill these mens’ shoes with shit if this turned out to be a goose chase. I thought of a little girl, far from home, and wondered what they wanted with her. Both parties. Someone had taken her from someone else, and in the middle, a child. A fucking child.
“But here’s the thing. I’m a terrible soldier. I’m a passable thief. So, I didn’t charge in. I sat there, and I waited. And eventually they left. A pit grew in my stomach. And when I finally screwed up the courage to check it out…
He trailed off, and I opened my eyes. He stared at the floor, jaw clenched.
“It’s a fucked-up world, Nenn.”
He took a breath. “I found them in a den in old town. Six of them, laughing, drinking, changing coin like they hadn’t left a small body bloody and broken in that wet and stinking place.
“Like I said, I’m a shit fighter. But I have brains. I pulled up a chair. And I challenged those bastards. Now, they didn’t know the game I proposed, but I managed to bullshit them into believing they could win. I laid out the rules:
“Mons-Fris, knaves are trump, unless it’s a high tide, then it’s the six of pentacles. On Sats, it’s the Queen of Blades, and on Suns, the Wheel. Except when the first Mons falls on a full moon, then it’s the Fool.
“So, we get to playing, and I let them earn my coin. And then I pull out the last rule, making it look like I’d forgotten. If you’ve the Fox on a full-moon Mons, you win automatically. Of course, all six had the Fox. And what the Fox had, was a simple rune in the corner. I’d learned a bit of magic in the Academy, long before I was a soldier or a prisoner. I knew that rune.
“So, when they were all smiling and smug, laying down their hands, thinking each had beat the other, I spoke it. Power rippled from the cards into their flesh, and in a heartbeat, they’d all opened one another like unzipped purses. I took their red gold and skipped town.
“Small consolation. Small revenge. But I never forgot the lesson.”
I opened my eyes. “What’s that?”
“Move before the world moves you. And never leave the ones you love defenseless.”
He paused a moment, looking as if he wanted to say something else, then shook his head and went back to shuffling the cards. “Ready?”
I looked at the boards in his hands. Back to him. “No. Fuck no. Go shave
a cat.”
“Gods damn it!” Rek yelled.
The gambling den came back into focus. Fantucci’s weepy eye slid to Fela. “You have something to wager? I’m surprised you would come back after all this time. Bored with purgatory?”
Fela sneered at him, then glanced sideways at me. Fantucci’s eyebrow quirked upward. I didn’t like where this was going, and my hands strayed to the blades at my sides.
“The girl…? And if you win?”
Fela opened her mouth, and rage flooded my limbs as I realized what she’d meant to do. Sold into the graces of Our Lady of Perpetual Weeping and Moaning by my own mother was bad enough. I’d had a childhood of kneeling on hard floors, hard labor, and whips and shackles. Not the fun kind. Now she wanted to sell me again, like I was chattel. A common animal bred for labor and waste, and little more. Well, if she wanted an animal, she could have one.
Cord had his plans, and they were wheels within wheels. I knew what I was doing would snap them at the axle, but I couldn’t let this woman back into the world. Part of it was selfish, sure. But part was knowing that if there’s a fox in your henhouse, you don’t invite a wolf in to deal with it.
I snarled, and the blades were in my hands. Time slowed.
Fantucci’s guards stood, as if rooted to the spot. The man himself still held the deck, cards floating between his palms. The blade left my hand, pierced that milky eye. I watched as it split the orb, vitreous fluid spilling down his cheek, occluded in an instant by gore, and another by gray matter.
My left hand was moving too, and I turned my head to watch. I was already in motion, a clock spring wound and released. Fela’s face came into focus, in time to see my blade part the tender flesh of her neck. The skin peeled back, exposing for an instant muscle and sinew, the blue cord of her carotid. Then the edge split the vein, and blood flowed like a wellspring. She clutched her neck, staggered back.
Part of me tried to wrestle with what I’d just done. The sword of a dead man couldn’t kill her. The blade of her daughter? Maybe. Matricide? More than likely. She fell back, red streaming from her like a ribbon. Her hands clutched at me, and I stepped back. A small smirk turned up the corner of her mouth, a glint in her eye.
“What the fu—” was all I got out.
The world swirled, a sucking sound filling the space. The Deadlands cracked around me, like glass hammered with a fist. Black crept in at the edges, and I thought I heard laughter. It might have been mine, but I was in no mood to investigate. Being sucked into an eternal void will do that.
The second-to-last thought I had before the world winked out was that I’d somehow managed to fuck up Cord’s plan. The last thought was that I didn’t know if I cared. People were beginning to expect a lot from me, and I didn’t know if I liked it. My last nerve jangled and stretched, frayed at the ends. I clenched my jaw and let the dark pull me down.
Tunnel Buddies
Pain in my stomach alerted me that I was back in the world. It also served as a reminder that Lux had stabbed me in the stomach. I didn’t know how to process that, and didn’t have a chance, as another pain joined the first, a soft kick in the ribs from a boot that doubled the pain in my guts. I cracked my eyes, the interior of the tower blurry, and let a groan. Cord squatted in front of me, hands dangling between his legs.
“Wake the fuck up, Nenn. We’ve got a city to burn.”
“Aw, leave her alone,” Rek said. “Her girlfriend just stabbed her.”
I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up, hand pressed to the wound. My shirt was sticky, but nothing fresh flowed from the hole.
“Hell of a way to break up with someone,” I said. “Where is she? I want to return some things to her. Specifically, two very sharp things.”
I pushed myself to my feet. Or, rather tried. I swayed a little, and Rek pulled me up the rest of the way, hand on my shoulder. I nodded in thanks and lifted my shirt. The wound had closed at least.
“Cord thought it best she not be here when you woke up.”
“Good thinking,” I said, and ground my molars as another slow wave of pain pressed back and front.
“She healed that, didn’t she?” Cord asked. “What’s the probl—”
I glared at him. “Well, pops. I’m apparently going to bleed a little more.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck to the cycle, or fuck to the pops?”
“Which is going to get me less dead?”
I shrugged, eliciting a wince. “I’d worry more about distance than semantics.”
“Uh huh. Rek, head back to the hotel. I need to talk to Nenn.”
Rek’s head swiveled between the two of us, his expression wavering between concern and terror. I nodded at him.
“Go ahead. I might only kill him the once.”
The big man shrugged and helped me to a wall. I slid down and rested my back against it. The stone was cool, the floor not trying to pull me down anymore. He stomped off down the stairs, presumably to meet up with Lux. I waited until I was sure he was out of earshot. The truth was, I didn’t feel much like killing at the moment, but I did feel like chewing Cord a new asshole.
He gave me a look of uncertainty, his step hesitant. He took the wall across from me, fishing his pipe out. He took his time, packing it with slipweed, then slid it across the floor, along with a striker. I picked it up, lit the bowl, and took a deep breath, letting the weed do its job. When I felt like I could bear the worst of the cramps, I slid it back to him, and he took a draw on the stem. Smoke left his mouth in a thin stream. After a moment, he reached into an inside pocket, pulling out a packet. He tossed it to me, and I unwrapped it. Several kama sat inside. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just carry these myself. I have a lot of knives. Cord doesn’t. I stab things for him, he carries my stuff.
“Eyes sideways,” I said.
He turned, and I tugged my trousers loose, slipping the kama in. When I finished, I took another hit from the pipe and passed it back.
“Why?” I asked. I’d confronted Fela with the same question. I thought it only fair he answer as well.
He stared out the tall arch that looked over the countryside. The towers of Vignon stood proud in the light, and even at this distance, the small no-name town we’d managed to devastate looked serene. He looked old then, for the first time since I’d known him, the light hitting his face, exposing wrinkle and shadow. Sadness hung on every inch of his features.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “Fela disappeared. Told me later. Wouldn’t tell me where. I looked. I looked for so long, but after thirty years, gave up.” He raised a hand. “I shouldn’t have. But this world, it takes and breaks and kills, and you get cynical. And even if you know they’re out there, after so long, do they want to talk to you? Do you deserve it?
“And then I found you, and I couldn’t tell you, like a geas had been placed on me. A compulsion. Fear, mostly. Anger. At Fela. At me, my own failures. So, I did what I do. I tried to make sure you were safe.”
I felt my eyebrows raise.
“Okay, not safe. But prepared. I missed so much time, what do you teach someone who’s become their own person?” He sighed. “Okay, let me have it. Knife in the face. Tear me a new hole. Have Rek fold me into a ball and stuff me into a horse.”
“He can do that?” I asked.
“Tried once. I’ll tell you the story some time.” He paused. “If you’ll let me.”
I thought about it. Some parents didn’t want to be there. Others couldn’t. Some try and fail. But it’s the effort that counts at times. I loved Cord. I’d known him for a good part of my adult life, and that wasn’t likely to change. I sighed.
“Yeah, I’ll let you.”
A smile lit his face, and the years dropped away. “Great! Say, what happened to your mother?”
“About that…” I said.
He looked at me hard for a moment, another grin creasing his face. “Serves her right.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “It’s fine. Nothing’s set in stone. We�
��ll improvise. I’ve got a back-up plan.”
“Thought you’d be more pissed.”
“There’s nothing broken that can’t be fixed. Keep that close. Even when it’s darkest, there’s more than one way to light a flame.”
I groaned as pain washed over me again, and he came over to help me up. We descended the tower together, my arm wrapped around his shoulders. I didn’t even try to stab him.
Lux and Rek waited for us at the base of the tower, sitting outside the carriage. They’d laid a spread of food on a wide cloth and were happily munching away. Lux looked up when I approached, a small smile on her lips. Rek still wore a worried expression. I sat beside Rek, Lux and Cord across from one another.
“So, how do you know Fela, Lux?” I asked.
I popped an olive in my mouth, savoring the moment. I’d decided to stab these two idiots in a different way. They looked to one another.
“You…?” Cord said.
“You?” Lux echoed.
I laughed. “Tunnel buddies,” I snorted.
“Bleh,” they said in unison.
A small bundle of lemons sat to one side. I reached for one, and Rek slapped my hand away.
“Not for you.”
I rubbed the sting from my hand and narrowed my eyes. I thought I had maybe one more barb in me. I loved Rek, he’d let me get stabbed.
“Cord. Tell us about the horse thing.”
“Oh! That!”
“Not that story again,” Rek muttered.
“No, this is the other one,” Cord said.
“Oh gods, no!” Rek said, panic lighting his features for a moment.
I gave him an evil grin. “I think you owe me this.”
“Fuck,” he rumbled.
“Did I ever tell you about the time Rek ate a horse dick?” Cord asked.
As opening lines went, it was a hell of a start, and despite my revulsion, my curiosity was the stronger. As a bonus, it made everyone else lean in just a little bit to better hear the story. I shot a look at Rek, who’d turned a shade of brick, as much as a brown man can.
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