by Jack Delgado
***
Aaliyah’s hand fell limply to her side, her knees buckling underneath her. She stared at the spot where Dante’s body lay, silhouetted by the warm glow of a street lamp. A crowd was gathering around him, keeping a good distance away from the unmoving runner, heads turning this way and that, a few brave souls tentatively stepping forward to get a closer look.
Police cars were already pulling up to the crowd, the figures of black-clad OCPD officers shunting their way through the mass to get a look at the what had caught the crowd’s eye. The figures froze as they caught sight of Dante, their guns suddenly in their hands and pointed unwaveringly at his body.
Aaliyah simply watched, watched as one bold officer walked up to her son and bent down at his side. She held her breath, giving a mental order to the visor to zoom in on the scene.
Please. Please. Please. If there’s justice in this world, let him live.
The officer remained crouched at Dante’s side for ten seconds, keeping his hand on her son’s neck. Then he stood and waved the crowd away, his gesture dismissive and unconcerned.
Aaliyah’s heart seemed to fall out of its place, plummeting out of her like her son had plummeted out of the air. She gaped at Dante’s body, unthinking, unfeeling, just staring with a shocked, empty gaze at the piece of meat that had once been her son. The officer that had pronounced him dead turned around slowly and looked down at Dante for another lengthy moment.
Then he raised his boot in the air and stomped on Dante’s gut, jerking the body into the air and splattering blood across the ground.
Three-pane laminated glass shattered and a shadow flew out into the night, howling like a banshee as it arced through the air. The officers jumped around, their hands flying back to their weapons as the shade smashed through the terrified crowd and keened its anger, raising a shining sword.
Blood slashed out into the night in flags of crimson, painting the ground and splashing onto the horrified onlookers. One officer sagged and fell forward, his throat sliced open, mutely choking on his own life. The second whipped out his gun and screamed as his hand flew off into the night, silencing suddenly as the tip of the blade pierced his heart. The last fired a wild shot at the shadow Aaliyah had become, the bullet flying off into the night to strike a helioscraper’s window. He didn’t scream as the blade cleaved across his neck and then his gut with ungodly speed, sending his head spinning off into the night as gore jetted from his severed legs.
Aaliyah whirled around as the last officer fell and crouched over the body of her son, splashed with blood, dripping with it, a look of pure, unreasoning rage contorting her beautiful face. She gradually fell silent as she crouched there, her screams of rage fading into nothing as she looked around at the terrified faces of the crowd. She waited for a space, staring each citizen in the face as she guarded her son. Then,
“My name is Aaliyah Soldari.”
Her voice was steady, even, cold as ice. It rang through the street, echoing between the massive sunscrapers. A few faces in the crowd started as they heard her name, blanching white and running off into the dark. The rest kept their eyes fixed on Aaliyah, motionless in their dread of the old legends.
She could hear the three teardrops descending through the night sky, arming their cruel hooks with narcotic venom and training them on her neck, her legs, her wrists. She ignored them, keeping her eyes fixed on the crowd.
“My name is Aaliyah Soldari,” she repeated, “And I know there are eyecams out there, hidden in the crowd. I want you to watch me now, and remember what I tell you.”
She pointed her sword down at the ground, blood running off it in a slow drip. The darkness above her was beginning to thicken, to solidify into demons of the night.
“I want you to watch me now,” Aaliyah continued, “because you’ve brought a storm down on your heads. I know you know who I am, and I know you know what I can do.”
She pointed behind her, at Dante’s body.
“I haven’t got long for a speech, but here’s my piece and you’re going to listen to it. You owe me so this much, and so much more.”
“You’re all about to see the beginning of a new age,” she shouted angrily, looking around at the crowd, “What kind of age it’ll be, I don’t know. That decision’s not mine to make.”
She gestured broadly around, at the Core, at the helioscrapers, at the city.
“Everything is going to change. One way or another, you’re going to see change. Not little changes; the world is going to be shaken down to its core.”
“And I take comfort knowing that my death, and the death of my son, was not in vain. I take comfort in knowing that you’ve signed your own death warrant. Your arrogance, your greed, your envy, all those things that got you ahead in the first place? I take a whole lot of comfort knowing that, at long goddamn last, you’re gonna be dragged down by them.”
“I’m old,” she said resignedly, “Old and tired and hurt. The world’s too young for me now. But I used to be so much more. And if you thought I was a nightmare, a killer, an unstoppable force of nature… Well, Jahansson…”
She smiled coolly. “Well, take a look at the next generation. Because they are all better than me. Stronger. Smarter. Faster. And much, much more vengeful.”
“I want you to remember, now,” she roared abruptly at the crowd, whipping her sword up over her head, “Remember every day I ever made you feel that sting, that horrible little wound I call defeat. Remember Black Sky, remember the Battle of Three Gorges Dam, remember the hell I gave you day in and day out for nearly two centuries!”
“Remember the people you’ve killed, you son of a bitch, the friends you’ve taken from me, the soldiers that died under my command, strong men and women fighting for freedom and good in this world!”
“Remember them,” she bellowed, even as she felt the rush of air from the pod’s suspensors, “and shake in those lovely leather boots, Elric. Because your own personal hell is coming back to Earth.”
“And this time, the Devil isn’t taking offers!”