Born of Metal: Rings of the Inconquo

by A. L. Knorr

  “Now is not the time for … for this.”

  Curiosity strained my nerves. “What am I missing?”

  Dary took a step towards Lowe, her movement that of a woman approaching a wounded animal. “James, perhaps you would like to retire to another part of the station while Ibby and I have a chat.”

  Lowe still would not look at her, but his voice was strained and beginning to slur again. “W-we need to ssstart plan-ning our nex-sst step.”

  Dary was close enough to touch him now, and one hand was upraised ready to rest on his shoulder. She never closed the distance.

  “It is going to take time to track Sark so why don’t you rest while I get Ibby comfortable. I’ll fill her in on what she needs to know. Please, before you disappear again.”

  Lowe looked like he wanted to argue the point further, but the animus drained from his face and he gave a sad smile. “You always-s knew what was b-best.”

  He walked away, his figure blended with the shadows and shapes around him. Then he vanished.

  Daria stared after Lowe, a tear rolling down her cheek, the age and fierceness of her gaze was gone. I could again believe she was a young woman trying to find her path in life, just like me.

  Daria wiped away her tears, straightened and faced me. “Years before his death, James and I were in love. I’d been posing as an expert in Far Eastern studies when we met, and as our friendship became intimate, he shared his secret research with me about the Inconquo, a subject I am, unfortunately, well acquainted with.”

  She crossed to the cot and began to gather up the remaining medical supplies and put them into her kit. “Before me, he was concerned only with the mystery of an ancient cult, but for his sake and that of his research, I pushed him to consider the more mystical aspects. I needed him to understand he wasn’t just challenging historical theories but dangerous and active entities. In the end — to convince him — I had to reveal what I am.”

  Here she came to a stop, her kit assembled, except for the small pile of broken glass.

  “So, what are you, then, exactly?”

  Dary gave a wry smile. “Are you familiar with the mythology of Mesopotamia?”

  “Not very.”

  Dary came to sit on the other end of the cot. “If you are going to be an archaeologist, you need to know such myths. Many of the stories humans have relegated to fairy tales have more truth in them than they realise. Modern man seems intent on shrinking his world to something he can look at from all angles, but that means he misses all that lies beyond his narrow scope.”

  She paused and was slow to speak again, but when she did, each word was hard, bearing the weight of years.

  “I don’t remember much of my life, but I know I was born human along the banks of the Euphrates. When I was still a child, I was given to a priestess of Tiamat. She took me, and — in newly founded Eridu — trained me in the ways of her goddess. I learned the flow of Unbound Will, what would later be called chaos and entropy. I was just being brought into the secrets of the cult, when Marduk, not yet a god, slew Tiamat. His zealots came to the temple and killed my mistress and her sisters.”

  My mind was reeling. Eridu was a city founded around the 54th century BCE, and she had been there.

  Her eyes glistened, and she flattened a palm against her chest. “I was a young woman with no family, unwelcome in a foreign city, an acolyte to a forsaken god. I had nothing and no one, so when the servants of Lamashtu, the Life-Drinker and Crib-Emptier, came to me, I joined them. What did I owe men that I should say no?”

  I didn’t know who Lamashtu was, but the terms Life-Drinker and Crib-Emptier screamed bad news. I knew how she might have felt. I had some experience being an orphan in an unfriendly place, and if someone, even someone monstrous, had come to take care of me right when my parents died, I might not have said no.

  “I became something other than human, an edimmu, a hell-hound of the gallu. Then my memories became mostly useless. Nothing more than a few flashes of thoughts and images, faces and feelings without context. But I know I’ve done terrible things. The skills I still have are evidence enough of that. It seems there is too much human in me still, and so I can’t comprehend the time I’ve walked this earth, but my body remembers.”

  She paused for a moment at the power of what she seemed to be recalling, before rocking a little. “I remember meeting Lowe, here in London.”

  A distant and tearful look came into her eyes. Then something changed, her face somehow becoming sharper, her features more gaunt. Her eyes fluttered, and when her lashes were clear, the tears were replaced by a dangerous gleam. “James is correct. I’m no longer human, but unlike true gallu, I’m not immune to falling in love, like a fool. So, there it is Ibby, the sad and woeful tale of Daria and James. Two hearts separated by demons, aeons and now death. You wouldn’t believe it if you hadn’t had the past week open your eyes, which is just as well. In this life, denial and ignorance are fatal.”

  She lapsed into silence, and the gleam left her eyes, but for some time neither of us could find much of anything to say. When I finally did have something to say, the quiet had deepened to something you find in graveyards, churches or libraries.

  “So, what happened with Professor Lowe,” I began and then cleared my throat. “Ehm, that stuttering and losing focus? That has to do with you?”

  Dary nodded, her gaze wandering in the direction Lowe had vanished.

  “The spirits of the dead are held by bonds of desire and loyalty. Lowe, like many of your shared bloodline, remains because some part of him cannot surrender his obligation to your bloodline’s destiny. This desire and loyalty have kept him from truly departing this life, but when things emerge which disrupt that desire and loyalty, his grip on this world becomes unstable.”

  I thought of the puzzle box, that last testament to the love lost, and I suddenly felt a sharp pang of sympathy tugging at my heart. After so long, he came face to face with that, and then to have me inadvertently digging up those memories by asking how to solve the puzzle? Poor man.

  “So, could your … history with him, be enough to make him disappear forever?”

  She nodded again. “The more time we spend together, the more likely that will happen. I need to part ways with both of you. You need his guidance, and he needs to know that the bloodline will not fail.”

  She rose then, drawing the strap of her kit onto her shoulder. I stood with her, fighting off a flutter of panic.

  “Isn’t there some way we could coordinate?” I asked, hoping to draw her into conversation and buy myself time to process everything. I’d been drinking from the proverbial firehose and desperately needed time to think things over.

  “Not worth the risk,” she replied, and headed for the stairs leading down to the platform. “As James was telling you, this is a long war, and you are going to need him for the duration of it. That way, he can find peace, and you can survive.”

  “No offence to you or Lowe.” I followed a step behind her. “But I think you have a lot more practical experience here. There’s no reason you couldn’t at least advise from a distance, or be there for backup.”

  Daria was shaking her head as she began down the stairs.

  “No reason besides the one I just gave, and the fact that my saving you has given you the wrong impression. I’m not the good guy here. I did what I did to screw with Sark.”

  “But you said you were here to help me,” I protested, remembering the parking lot. “Why go to so much effort to get me to trust you if all you wanted was to bugger up Dillon’s schemes?”

  “I could tell you were hurt.” She shrugged as she landed on the platform and strode for the tracks. “I needed to make sure you didn’t die. You being alive creates a perpetual problem for Dillon and the people holding his leash.”

  “You still haven’t given me anything on those gits,” I pointed out, doing my best to keep pace without stepping on her heels. “Seems like an intro to the Wintertherms is in order.”

&
nbsp; Dary gave a little bark of laughter. “Winterthür,” she corrected. “Big, rich and bad — pretty much covers it.”

  The spectral steam engine came down the tunnel in a cloud of gossamer-threaded smoke, chugging slowly to a stop at the platform. Time was slipping through my fingers.

  “At least give me a way to get a hold of you.”

  Her head shook again, and I had to fight the urge to pummel nose between those perfect, bouncing locks. Why was she in such a rush?

  “That would leave both of us exposed. No offence, Ibby, but you are going to have to step up your covert game before I trust you with anything like that. You were walking around with not one but two naked cells on you. How do you think Sark found you so easily? Oh, that reminds me.”

  She turned back, drawing my reassembled phone out of her coat.

  “I made some adjustments to your phone. It’s not perfect, and I’d think twice about using unsecured wi-fi, but you should be able to use it without drawing Winterthür goons like flies to honey.”

  “What happened to Dillon’s phone?” I asked as I took mine.

  “Safer for me to have it,” Dary replied smoothly and gave me a smile that showed her teeth. “I can use it to make the lives of Sark and a few others much more interesting.”

  I returned the smile, drawing a wink from Daria, before she turned to board the train. On reflex, I turned the phone on as an inspiration snapped through me.

  “Daria,” I called as a shiver of hesitation raced through me.

  She turned and met my stare. “Yes?” The barest hint of condescension in her tone.

  “Can’t you just admit that you are leaving because you’re sad?”

  My phone buzzed, but I ignored it. Dary didn’t move, her expression unreadable but her silence far from it.

  “Just acknowledge the reason you helped and the reason you are running now have to do with James. I know there’s no love lost with Sark, but can we stop pretending that is the only reason you showed up? And while we are at it, let’s be clear that you aren’t leaving now to keep James safe.”

  Her face twitched with something like a snarl, and those leonine teeth showed. “Didn’t I say I was leaving to protect him?”

  “You did.” I nodded, taking a step closer and ignoring another buzz from my phone. “But we both know that is bollocks. Lowe’s been strong enough to hold it together with your memory for a century. He can manage now. The real reason is that you don’t want to remember him. You want to forget so you don’t have to hurt anymore, and you are so set on that, you’ll leave James and I in a state to do it.”

  Daria’s expression remained stony for a heartbeat, before it cracked into a deprecating smile.

  “You got me, kid.” She shrugged and slid a step back into the train. “What can I say? Not a good guy.”

  My phone buzzed for a third time, and with an angry huff, I looked down.

  My heart stopped. My mouth went dry, which was just as well because I was seconds from dropping to all fours and retching brokenly on the deck of the platform.

  “What are you playing at?” Dary asked suspiciously. “You going to pretend like you still need doctoring to get me to stay?”

  Words wouldn’t come, so I held up the phone. Daria rolled her eyes and stepped forwards to take it.

  “I hope you aren’t planning something stupid,” she muttered as she raised the screen to her eyes. “Because then you really will need a doctor …”

  Dary’s eyes widened, and she looked at me and then looked back to the phone. “Who’s that?”

  “Jackie,” I managed to gasp. “He’s got my best friend.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I couldn’t stop seeing the cruel bruises on her creamy complexion, the crusted trickle of blood from her nose, the tears welling in her red-rimmed eyes. Every detail filled me with a righteous fury. I drew it in with each breath, and when I needed an ignition point for the rage, I directed my recollection to the text headlining the photo.

  FOR SALE: ONE USED SLUT, TWO RINGS PER UNIT, LIMITED TIME OFFER

  My hands curled into fists, the knuckles popped. The rings responded to my anger, stretching my sense far and wide. I became aware of every piece of metal around me for dozens of metres, and that awareness was like a tactile connection, a cord of implied command. I was a master puppeteer with a thousand strings, waiting to make tiny rivets and huge steel girders dance to my boiling whim.

  It was a heady and empowering sensation, but it was making it difficult to focus.

  “Ibby,” a voice intruded on my brooding. “Ibby, did you hear me?”

  No. No, I hadn’t. I was struggling to find a reason to care. I was going to rip the entire rotten city in two, shake it until either my friend or Dillon came loose. What more was there to discuss?

  “Ibukun Bashir!” someone else snapped, catching me like a hook.

  “What?” I snarled, crashing back to the world as my eyes opened. I hadn’t even realised I’d closed them.

  Lowe and Dary eyed me warily, still in the station commons. I was about to demand what they wanted when a bench floated past.

  Several objects had taken up a slow orbit with me as the nexus. Iron benches and brass stanchions drifted in lazy circles, responding to the storm of my emotions.

  “Sorry,” I muttered and then did my best to set the furnishings on the floor. A chorus of bumps and scrapes echoed in the station as they settled into a rough semi-circle behind me.

  “I’m listening,” I promised, pushing back the seductive thoughts of vengeance. I needed to be present, or I wasn’t going to be much use to my friend.

  Dary gave me a warning look. “Like I was saying, Sark, for all his blustering innuendo, is not going to throw away his best bargaining chip. As we can see from the text, he’s not above getting a little rough with her, but he needs to keep her alive to draw you in.”

  I felt the anger surge up inside me, and before I knew exactly what was happening, words were ripping from my tongue.

  “That bargaining chip is named Jackie Davies, and she looks absolutely terrified. We need to consider he’s being more than just a little rough with her.”

  “You’re not helping,” Daria replied, her expression throwing ice water on my smouldering temper. “Blind rage will only make you stupid. That’s why Sark sent the photo. He wants you angry and desperate. Don’t give that bastard what he wants.”

  Lowe was nodding. “Daria’s correct. As difficult as it is, we need to remember someone like this Dillon Sark is a scoundrel and preys on the feelings of others.”

  “I know,” I growled. “I know. Again, sorry. I just hate that I’ve only been at this a few days, and it’s managed to destroy every aspect of my life and those I care about.”

  “Miss Davies isn’t beyond help.” Lowe placed a hand on my shoulder. “If we plan accordingly, we can make sure she’s safe.”

  I nodded and looked at Dary, who was holding my phone, one thumb punching away. My heart caught in my chest, and I slipped out from under Lowe’s reassuring grip.

  “Has he sent anything else?”

  “No,” she replied as she finished with a final tap to the screen. “I’m asking him where he wants to make the trade. We have a minute or two while he tries to trace our position, but with the changes I made, he’ll give up on that quickly. He’s always been too impatient.”

  It was like playing chess, except in this game, I didn’t know which pieces Sark had or how many. Dary seemed to have a good grasp of how Dillon operated, but even she was only going on intuition and character judgements.

  “How long have you known Dillon?” I asked, curious at her seemingly extensive knowledge of a man who’d so quickly gone from shady best friend’s boyfriend to enemy mastermind. “Last I knew he was a student at the university.” An unpleasant thought popped into my mind. “He’s not a hell-hound, like …”

  “Like me,” Dary finished. “No, Dillon is plain old human evil, just not so young as he presents. He’s pu
t on this façade half a dozen times. An independently wealthy, handsome student of one stripe or another. He keeps it up for a few years, never more than five, gathering information and ruining lives before slinking away. Six months to a year later, he resurfaces with a new cover, often including a cosmetically altered face.”

  He was a chameleon, with all the cold-blooded ruthlessness that implied. The image of some reptilian thing peeling off a mask like Dillon’s soulful, bad boy face came to mind, and I suppressed a shudder.

  “He has to know his cover can’t last,” Lowe wondered aloud. “He’ll be caught eventually, by those who recognise him, even if he does look different.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Dary nodded. “But you’d be amazed what gets swept under the rug. Winterthür has ambitions they’ll kill for, but most institutions are less dangerous only because their ambitions are smaller. Dillon has been working this theatre for long enough, and he has enough contacts who could insulate him from accusations. But given what his goal is, I doubt he cares about that.”

  “What’s his goal, though?” I asked. “I get that Dillon wants the rings, and that it has something to do with that Kezsarak thing. But do we know anything beyond that? I mean, I don’t want to give him anything, but this is a woman’s life we are talking about. What is going to happen if I show up, toss him the rings and take Jackie?”

  Lowe shook his head sharply, dismissing the suggestion, while Dary’s eyes widened.

  “This rogue can’t be trusted to keep his word,” Lowe stated. “Once he has what he wants, you both become nothing more than loose ends he will tie off as expediently as possible. We can’t just give him the rings.”

  “Kezsarak,” Dary said carefully as though she was afraid it might burn her tongue. “How do you know this has to do with Kezsarak?”

  I pointed at Lowe. Under the spotlight, he sputtered for a moment and adjusted his spectacles.

  “W-well, I suppose I don’t know anything for a-absolute certain, at least not until one of us sees his prison, but all the s-signs are there that he is near.”