The Morning Star

Lou coughed as he struggled to breathe, his body wracked by pain. The molten air scorched his lungs like the backdraft from a furnace. His wings smelled like a scalded dove. His flight feathers had first curled and smoked during the descent then been seared away leaving only the blackened leather that lurked beneath.

He crawled to the edge of a suppurating pool, his legs trailing twisted and broken behind him. His once pristine pale skin reddened, inflamed by the inferno of the wasteland. How many of his companions had survived?

Their shattered bodies fell toward the barren landscape as fiery meteors against an iron sky, their screams of agony echoing across the jagged outcrops of the rocky terrain. A land of perpetual twilight. Red sky in the morning.

He knew he should gather up the survivors, rally his troops in case the enemy pursued. He should regroup them for a counterattack. Once more into the breach. That’s what a leader did.

He had neither the heart nor energy. He’d led his forces into carnage, a complete and utter disaster. Outnumbered, they’d held their own throughout the palace coup, until the old man had waded in. They’d still rallied to his banner and now he’d led them into the worst kind of exile. It no longer mattered whether their cause was just.

Lou stared into the muddy pool, its surface pockmarked with slowly ballooning bubbles of brimstone that burst into the yellow stench of something rotten. He’d rolled the bones and lost. He surveyed the cost of his arrogance littering the stony landscape. He couldn’t face them again, his comrades and lieutenants.

He clawed himself headfirst into the fetid pool. His skin erupted as each inch passed beyond that gray-brown border, tracing the outline of his progress with a ring of fire that burned his resolve away. The boiling mud seared but soothed his tattered flesh. The worst of his wounds withered and maturated, angrily hissing as they embraced the scathing bath. In another rejection, he found himself adrift on the surface like dross cast into molten lead.

He rolled onto his back and hung motionless as if floating in a forge, his neck bitten by the tiny teeth of the jagged edge that increasingly secured him to the land of living as all his impurities boiled away. His limbs felt leaden, drawn like anchors to a bottomless sea of anguish. Fiery fangs raked along his skull as he allowed his head to slip beneath the murky surface. This time it would not rise on its own. Blackness the color of his ravaged heart closed close and finally claimed him. And with it, he achieved a measure of the freedom he’d desired all along.

---

Lou awoke to strong hands grasped beneath his arms. Trails of agony traced along his back and folded wings as he was dragged from his turbid den.

“Don’t worry, Lou. I’ve got you.” He knew that voice. Bebe. It would have to be. “Good thing I spotted you when I did.”

Lou coughed up chunks of quickened mud that tasted like clods of smoked sulfur. His head pounded in the unrelenting heat. Like the resonating tattoo that had marshaled his forces to war then ushered in their defeat.

“Bebe?” he croaked. “I was almost free.”

“We are free, now, Lou.” Bebe seemed to misunderstand. “We’re all free, just like you promised.”

Bebe dragged Lou away from the solace of the scalding pool and laid his head on an unforgiving pillow of a stone. Lou pried his eyes open. No sun. No stars. Just an eternal smoky gloaming. As if a reminder that they’d started an insurrection that would never end.

“You shouldn’t have followed.” Where once Lou’s voice sang as clear as a dulcet chime, it now grated inside his head. Arduously, he rolled over and tried crawling back to the stinking sanctuary of the pool. “Grant me peace.”

“Snap out of it, Lou.” Bebe’s massive hands shook him like a tectonic shift that unleashed an earthquake. Bebe’s face suddenly filled his view. His skin was charred and denuded like pale, supple calfskin that had been boiled into a mask of hardened leather. “The lads still need you. I need you.”

The bones of Bebe’s skull protruded at odd angles. Cancerous growths bulged behind his ears. Lou wondered if he looked the same. The old man’s final curse as they fell away toward darkness? “How many?” was all he could think to ask.

“Most of us. Ty’s dragging in everyone he can find.” Bebe cradled him in hug, then gently laid him back on the ledge of rock. “Rest, Lou. A little sleep and you’ll remember your old self.”

That was the problem, Lou thought as his eyelids, like the gates to an ancient fortress, slowly ground shut.

---

“Come on, Lou,” Bebe cajoled for the umpteenth time. “It’s not such a bad place. A little TLC and we’ll call it home.”

Lou was up and about again, bouncing like a jackdaw on his damaged legs. Soaking them in the brimstone bath seemed to help them heal though the bones remained twisted.

“We had homes in a crystalline palace, and now we live in this?” Lou swept his arm across the shattered landscape.

“Like you told us when we started, better free down here than as hired help up there.” Bebe settled his bulk into the crook of a boulder. “We’ll rebuild the empire, on our own terms this time, just like you said.”

“Yeah, just like I said.” Lou plucked up a small, flat stone and whipped it across the surface of the viscous pool. At first contact it stuck and sank beneath the mud without a trace. “That was then, Bebe. Look around you. This place is a pit. A cesspool in a wilderness of stone.”

“I admit it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.” Bebe scooped up a handful of gravel and let it trickle through his fingers. “But a few more bodies and we can make into something special. We’ve got the raw materials.”

“And where will we dig up labor?” Lou asked, surveying the blasted terrain skeptically, seeking the tiniest gemstone hidden amongst the scree.

Bebe stood and dusted off his hands. “Let’s start with what we’ve got. The lads are just waiting for you to tell them what to do.”

Lou shook his head ruefully. “We didn’t rebel just to setup a new dictatorship.”

“Lou, we still need leaders,” Bebe whispered gently. “They naturally look to you.”

Ty and a few others had congregated at the edge of their conversation, a thin and haggard cadre leaning heavily on one another’s shoulders. They all eyed him in sidelong shock. Could he refuse them after all they’d sacrificed? For such a big lout, Bebe could be as perceptive as he was fierce.

Lou sighed deeply then allowed his vision to reset. His mind began churning with tactics. They needed somewhere they could rest and recuperate, somewhere the most deeply wounded could heal. But first, they needed to consolidate their position. That meant defenses. He may have stolen the best and brightest the old man had but the other side still outnumbered them two to one. If they wanted to survive, they’d have to set up for the long haul.

“See that ridge at the top of the pit?” Lou pointed. “Let’s use that as our natural line of defense. Ty, I want you to organize the work crews. Start building a redoubt with parapets. Eventually, we’ll put a gate between those two low, rocky outcroppings. I want watches from this moment forward. Bebe,” he turned to his chief lieutenant and adviser, “Pick two flights from the most able-bodied. Gather up any other wounded and bring them here. Then, I want you to start building a bathhouse. That pool has healing properties. That’s where we’ll build our citadel.”

The other shuffled their feet for a moment, wan smiles spreading contagiously. This was more like the Lou they’d known and followed. “Don’t just stand there folding your wings,” Lou added. “Let’s get to it.”

His words set off a flurry of activity.

---

“We’ve got our first convert.” Bebe grinned as he lumbered along the path that descended from the rim. “The old man created a pair of lesser creatures and the woman refused to bend her knee.”

“Sounds like a girl after my own heart,” Lou replied as he watched the work gangs erecting his defenses. A broken wall crept around the enormity of the central pit, exploiting the terrain to its advantage. Below, the bathhouse had begun to take shape at the edge of the brimstone pool. Nearby, barracks were being raised as temporary housing. “So what will he do now?”

Bebe stood before him, towering yet never looming. “He’s already molded another from pieces of the man. This one has a weaker will. I think we can exploit that.”

“And the original?” Lou turned to face him.

“That’s the best part.” Bebe beamed, his hands clasped before him like a child. “She’s here. She wants to join our cause.”

Lou scowled suspiciously. “You don’t think she’s a spy?”

“If she is, she’s a damned good one,” Bebe said, his face an open banner as always. “She gets along rousingly with the lads. They all think she’s a keeper. Ty trusts her and he’s suspicious of the dragon. If we’re going to make a go of this, we’ll need new blood.”

Lou’s scowl deepened. Bebe had a point, but he didn’t like it. The old man wasn’t usually cunning but Lou couldn’t help but smell a trap. “I want to talk to her before we make a decision. Maybe we can learn what the old man’s up to. I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten about us.”

Bebe’s smile broadened. “I’ll send her right down.”

---

“I can’t believe he left his creation unguarded,” Lou said, scraping off the last of the scales from his disguise. The yellow mist that filled the bath house swirled away from his mouth with each syllable. “Lil’s recon information was invaluable. The garden was laid out exactly like she said, down to the last tree.”

“You didn’t bring the new one back?” Bebe asked peering over Lou’s shoulder.

Lou peeled back his eye caps and flicked them away before he descended the steps into the simmering mud. “I did something better. I sowed the seeds of doubt. I told you, this is long-game scenario. Any word from our recon squad?”

“They got back a little while ago.” Bebe settled on a stonework window seat looking out on the rising city, gap-toothed but growing to fill the space beyond. Quarrying had leveled and terraced much of the jagged landscape into a series of descending tiers that ended here. “Bad news. The old man closed the back entrance. He’s stationed a pair of guards armed with those nasty flaming swords.”

“Well, we knew this would be a one-shot anyway.” Lou settled deeper into the mud, luxuriating as he allowed the heat to penetrate his bones. The old man’s creation was so cold by comparison now, like a different world. “At least we’ve tied down a couple of his elites. Speaking of which, how’s the wall coming?”

“We’ve got a nearly unbroken curtain all the way around the upper level.” Bebe’s gaze shifted to the construction along the rim of the pit. “It needs a lot of improvements. Ty’s laid footings for the watchtowers and the ramparts but he needs more manpower to get it all done.”

“Have you solved the problem of the gatehouse?” Lou transferred to the steaming water bath, allowing the effervescent bubbles to scrub the grit away from his skin.

Bebe smiled demonically. “I think so. See that outcropping of red rocks up on the seventh tier?” He pointed. Lou craned his head to see out the window and nodded. “Turns out they’re rich with iron. Tightly bound, but we set up the dragon as a furnace.”

“Clever. At least that gives her something to do. Ty will be appreciative.” Lou began backstroking around the pool with his wings. After a couple quick circuits, he settled onto one of the built-in seats lining the shallows.

“So what next, boss?” Bebe asked, turning his gaze back toward his friend.

“Keep chipping away at the improvements on the outer wall.” Lou emerged refreshed, his skin reddened but glistening. Water dripped from the points of his bat-like wings. He didn’t bother with a robe or towel. A minute outside and he’d be dry. “If this plan pans out, we should start picking up more of the old man’s strays soon. Those pricks on the other side are still elitist.”

---

“He did what?!” Lou spat, incredulous. “How many of them?”

Around the hall, the others kept their gazes down. Only Bebe looked him in the eye. “All of them, except one family floating around in an ark. The place is completely underwater.”

“Petulant, isn’t he?” Lou scowled. What was the old man’s game this time? He waved the others away so he could consult with Bebe alone. They quickly scuttled from the hall. Lou wandered over to one of the arched windows looking out on his city. No, their city, he corrected. He led only because they insisted, and because he knew how the old man thought. Though the others had grown increasingly fearful of his fiery temper. Only Bebe seemed unafraid to speak his mind. Which was why Lou relied on him.

“He must have caught wind of how many we’d gathered,” Bebe continued. “A few more generations and we’d outnumber them.”

Lou swung around with a sneer. “And he still thinks he can just dump the truly evil ones on us? What are we doing with them, anyway.”

“Ty put them to work on the interior.” Bebe sauntered over to the long table and began picking through the remains of the aborted meal. The offerings were plain but plentiful. A lot of meat.

“Nothing strategic, I hope?” Lou’s gaze snapped back outside, peering suspiciously at the work gangs.

“Nah, just more housing.” Bebe took a swig from an abandoned wine goblet. He let the liquid settle on his tongue a moment before deciding it was worth keeping. “The place is filling up. And they do decent work when properly motivated. Only a hard-core few need constant supervision. Most have become true converts.”

“Keep anyone in the least bit suspicious away from the outer wall, and the citadel,” Lou returned his gaze to the dim, torch-lit hall. “I don’t want any built-in design failures if the old man attacks.”

“Seems unlikely.” Bebe claimed a seat on one of the benches, setting his goblet before him as he began piling a plate with leftovers that he speared with a two-tined fork. “He’s content using his creation as a proxy battlefield. Less to lose that way, I guess. We still have a manpower shortage though. Ty has a plan for hot and cold running water but says there’s not a soul to spare.”

Lou wandered back to join him, scooping up an abandoned goblet from the table. Wine mixed with anger helped him think. He regarded the goblet’s shimmering iridescence in the fire from the perpetual false dawn beyond the windows. If nothing else, their exile had produced exquisite glass. “In a few generations, we’ll start with the Chinese. They’re doomed anyway but they like to keep their hands busy. And Lil says they’ll be like a billion of them one day.” He settled in the chair at the head of the table, one leg dangling over an arm. “Until then, Ty will just have to make do.”

---

“More bad news, boss.” Bebe stood in the doorway of Lou’s apartments. The big guy sounded winded after ascending the tower. With so many unwinged converts, they’d had to build in stairs. Or had his lieutenant put on a little weight?

“What this time?” Lou asked, wrapping himself in a robe as he motioned Bebe to help himself to the platters of delicacies laid out on the sideboard. “Did the old man turn another of our operatives into salt?”

“No. This time he’s unleashed a plague.” As usual, Bebe went straight for the carafe then loaded up a pewter plate. “Seven of them, actually.”

Lou smiled sardonically. “And his chosen still think they’re better off with him?”

“He didn’t stop there.” Bebe licked his fingers after each morsel he sampled. “Remember how we moved into their homeland after all his people evacuated?”

“Yeah, we really turned that place around.” Lou poured himself some wine and drifted toward the balcony. “Everyone was happy last I heard. The local market was overflowing with milk and honey. We could barely offload the stuff. But at least we could trade it for some decent food.”

Bebe followed him outside, plate and goblet in hand. “Seems the old man wants it back. He’s issued an order: No stone standing; no soul spared.” He set his overflowing plate on the wide, stone railing.

Lou leaned his elbows on the rail and looked out from his high tower. Below, a city now flourished. A city perpetually under construction it seemed. An unfinished dream beneath an iron sky. Ty had had a devil of a time finding laborers whose loyalty was beyond question to reinforce the walls. In the end Lou had told him the citadel took precedence.

“The old man sure knows how to win over hearts and minds, doesn’t he?” Lou adjusted his robe, a marvelously soft cotton-linen blend, and turned back to Bebe. “Please tell me that’s all of it.”

Bebe shook his head, his hand just descending from popping another handful of sweetmeats into his mouth.

Lou sighed. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

“We’ve had a major setback on the Chinese front,” Bebe said around a mouthful of food.

Lou rolled his eyes. “What now?”

“Seems we’ve had a defection.’ Bebe washed down his impromptu meal with a deep swig from his goblet. “The Buddhists now have their own pet demon. One of Lil’s brood.”

Lou hung his head. Would the bad news never end? “How much did he know?”

“Not much, but enough that we’ve had to shut down some major new initiatives.” Bebe wiped one hand on his leg, the other never relinquishing his wine goblet. “Recruiting is way down. Seems the Buddhists are setting up a parallel operation, only nothing there gets done. They just sit staring at their navels for eternity. Thing is, nobody on the other side cares about them. The old man only turned Mal to hurt us.”

“Tell me there’s some good news.” Lou turned back to the rim. The fortifications surrounding it were nearly complete. A shadowed city squatted within the bulwark of its walls, secure with one notable exception.

Bebe followed his gaze and smiled. “We’ve finally got enough iron to forge the gate. Ty thinks we should be able to raise it soon. It’ll be much stronger than that Lebanese cedar.”

Lou surveyed his domain wistfully. “At least then they won’t be able to evict us again.” But he still worried anyway.

---

Lou and Bebe toured the completed fortifications. The iron gate had been raised. Its maw stood open for Lou to inspect. The last vulnerability in their defenses was now sealed. Not that the other side had shown much inclination to break the armistice. But Lou knew better than taking anything for granted where the old man was concerned. Of late, his mind had grown as erratic and inscrutable as a Cretan maze.

“What’s it say above the archway?” Lou asked, pointing to the large, engraved letters facing the causeway where a besieging army might read it. The steam- and treadmill-powered pulleys that had raised the massive blocks for the guard towers now drained the miasma from the pit, channeling it back toward the river which had spilled forth and claimed the swampy plain.

“It’s Italian,” Bebe answered with a shrug. “It keeps the riffraff out.” A shanty-town of the outcasts had arisen between the river and the gate. Loyal guards armed with tridents kept the gawkers at bay. Both sides swatted at hosts of unseen midges.

Lou and Bebe passed back into the city. An iron portcullis ratcheted into place behind them, its spiky teeth sinking deep within the causeway stone.

For the first time in as long as Lou could remember, Bebe didn’t have a goblet in his hand. His hulking lieutenant looked almost professional in a rough and tumble way. As they emerged from the dark tunnel into the twilight of the cobblestone courtyard, Lou asked quietly, “So what’s this news that has you so shaken that you insisted we tour the outer walls?”

Bebe glanced at him askance and sighed. He knew he was too easily read. “It looks like the old man’s decided to settle this in one throw. He’s pulled an avatar gambit.”

Lou stared at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. “And after all the chaos he’s wreaked on his chosen, this helps his position how?” It took him a second to remember to keep walking.

“He says it’s all or nothing,” Bebe answered, slowing to admire the central fountain, allowing his friend to catch up. “Serve him or join us here.”

“Is he crazed?” Lou whispered. “We’ll be swamped. Or maybe that’s the point.” His eyes narrowed as he performed the mental calculus of playing out the old man’s new strategy.

Bebe shrugged. “His chosen seem to thrive on the abuse. Whatever doesn’t kill them…”

Lou’s expression hardened as he came to a decision. “How about you and the lads go have little talk with this boy of his. Maybe we can come to terms.”

---

Lou found Bebe back at the fountain, muttering angrily to himself as he repeatedly sluiced water over his leathern skin. He hadn’t seen his lieutenant so enraged since the war.

“Ty told me you were back.” Lou approached cautiously. “I take it the negotiations didn’t end well.”

“Me and the lads tried to talk some sense into the boy but he cast us into a pig. A pig!” Bebe roared, scrubbing his skin all the harder. “Now we’re all banished. Banished! For a thousand of their years.”

“He’s definitely his father’s son.” Lou shook his head, laying a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe I should make an appearance and talk with him myself.”

Bebe glared back at him. “You could spend a month in that blighted place talking to the boy and he still wouldn’t listen to reason. What ever happened to the spirit of youthful rebelliousness?”

A joke? Lou let relief escape him as a laugh. “I bet Mike and Gabe each sit on a shoulder whispering constant lies. We always knew we could never trust those two.”

“Or Raphie,” Bebe didn’t quite smile but turned his anger toward a safer target. “That bastard always thought he was good enough to be one of us. Ha!”

“I think it’s time I see the place again myself. If not the boy, I’m sure at least one of his fanatics will be open to our ideas. Don’t worry, Bebe.” Lou clapped his behemoth of a friend on the shoulder. “One way or another, I’ll abort this little revolution. Time is on our side.”

---

“I told you the old man overreached when he changed the rules to benefit his son,” Lou said to his friend as they strolled the newly installed rock garden in a walled courtyard behind the great hall of their citadel. “Even now, he can’t grasp that he let victory slip through his fingers as soon as he clenched his iron fist.”

Boulders seemed to float within a rippled sea of raked gravel like the exposed face, belly and toes of a partially submerged giant, the subtle shades of each rock interplaying with the fiery colors splashed across the sky. Lou ambled toward the stone pagoda looking back toward the central hall across a long reflecting pool now stocked with glittering fish. He thought he could get used to this new esthetic. He found it calming and peaceful.

“With all the people they’ve sent since their change in strategy,” Bebe observed, a wine goblet once again ensconced in a hand, “at least we’ve overcome our manpower shortage. Ty’s having a devil of a time coming up with projects to keep them all busy. I think he’s about to have them start carving individual faces into the cobblestones next. At least they seem content.”

“What is that?” Lou pointed to a white marble chair perched on a dais beneath the pagoda, cryptic runes carved all along its sides. “It looks suspiciously like a throne.”

“Impressive isn’t it?” Bebe admired it as he took another sip of wine. “Ty designed it for the anniversary of our arrival. Lil carved each of the sigils herself.”

Lou scowled. “It looks like a seat of judgment. Tear it down and ship it to the old man,” he instructed. “We have no divine right here.” He turned onto a different path, one he hoped might end at the new bath house.

“Are you sure?” Bebe raised an eyebrow as he followed. “The children he condemns are impressionable. A little fear makes them talk.”

Lou didn’t answer, just folded his arms, tucking his hands in the opposing sleeves of his silken robe. Bebe wore red embroidered with dragons. His was black with a golden kyrin. “Any other news?”

“His followers fight each other now. They’ve started an Inquisition, as bloody as their crusades. They even argue against their sainted ones with a lawyer named for you.” Bebe smiled slyly as he sipped his wine. “Turning his boy’s chief disciple must have spooked the old man pretty good.”

“Probably reminded him of the old days,” Lou chuckled. “What else do the refugees have to say?”

Bebe’s voice dropped to conspiratorial. “I’ve heard rumor that the old man’s preparing for a final battle. No quarter. Says he’ll finish it this time.”

“An invasion?” Lou shook his head. “He does know our people outnumber his by a wide margin, doesn’t he?”

“He thinks we’re cowering behind the walls.” Bebe turned to face Lou, clutching his friend’s arm in his free hand. “We should attack, boss. They can’t defeat us, they fear us now. Everyone who’s seen the city says the old man may have driven you out but you took the best he had. And we are Legion.”

“No, Bebe. We’ll let them keep their illusion.” Lou gently slipped his arm from his friend’s grip then turned back up the path, his feet softly crunching along the gravel. “We’ll conquer them with intellect and enlightenment whether the old man sanctions it or not. Patience, my old friend. One day, our stars will rise again, and his children will see that it’s better to rule in common confederation than serve beneath a tyrant.”

Lou stopped and turned back to face Bebe, the old glint returning to his eye. “Until then, keep the watch towers manned and the dragon circling. You never know how desperate he’ll become when he realizes his mistake.”

© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III

Redeemer

As the riggers struggle to keep the red and white tent aloft, cold misery drizzles down from a leaden sky. Soon, they will set the riding ring beneath. Locked in my wagon, I am overwhelmed by the scents of the season, mud, leaf mold and decay. An anniversary of sorts.

Ours is a small circus. One score and seven souls spread like tinkers across a dozen brightly painted wagons, plus me in mine. And a menagerie, if I dare call it that. Franque used to bill it as two by two until hard times settled over us. My curse has followed me across the ocean. When America descended into civil war, brother against brother, I had fled eastward, always eastward. Ireland had slipped deeper into poverty. Then with the death of her lover last year, the queen had fallen out of public sight. A dark pall hangs across her land like the long, gray veil of an English autumn.

Now we can barely afford canvas. Most of what we have has been patched and restitched a hundred times. Like the silk that forms my costume. But in the footlights, no one will notice.

The ancient lion and the mangy bear growl nearby and pace their cages. They haven’t been fed in days. Soon, we’ll have to slaughter another mule. Not until we reach Hull or York, Franque says. Besides, hunger makes them roar. The same way it keeps Satan mean while he prowls the grounds at night on massive yet silent paws. I always reserve a few scraps for him so he will linger near my door. My canine companion. My one true guardian, now as before. Besides, I hate seeing any of God’s creatures suffer. Not that Franque feeds us much either. He pays to keep us thin. But I don’t need as much as the other women anyway.

I wonder about the name this place. I feel a pull like it’s the namesake of somewhere I’ve once been. I know we’ve crossed the Humber and are deep in the East Riding of Yorkshire. I ask Franque through the bars of my window when he comes knocking.

“Spalding Moor,” he calls as he walks away, “Land of Nod or something. Just a village where we can earn a few crowns. Now get ready to take your place.”

I paint my face up bright like the wagons, not that anyone will see. Prudence and Patience have taught me a few tricks from their homeland including how to rim my eyes with charcoal. I brush my hair until it gleams like obsidian velvet. Where once it shone like spun gold, it had come back in as black as midnight after the war had burned it away. Then, I thought it a badge of honor. Now, it is my stain.

I don my little brocade vest and a simple, white silk kirtle, both slit in back to accommodate my features. I fumble with the hooks and buttons, my fingers stiff and cold. Finally, I dab a little rose water with the tiny stopper from a cut glass bottle, wrists, ears, and a thin trail descending into my vest. Clutching my brush and slippers, I huddle beneath a heavy cloak and wait.

Soon, one of the Brothers Dunkel comes to escort me, Mattheus tonight. He turns the key and releases me into the circus yard. The rain has eased. With the slap of a hand against his thigh and a quick “here, boy,” he calls Satan to his side. The black mastiff bounds over from beneath the cages where he was sniffing around for fallen meat.

We slip between the shadows of the wagons, Mattheus the athletic Teutonic warrior in his harlequin tights, me a hunchback in my cloak. We both dodge the deepest puddles, trying not to spatter our costumes with mud.

We slide into the back of the sideshow tent through an untied slit in the canvas. The other women are already in their places along the dark path the patrons will wend through. The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Human Oddities and Arielle the Fallen. A private collection of bustiers, corsets and whalebone stays modeled by the exotic freaks of womankind. Close enough to the gawking crowd that an ambitious hand might brush silk, and often did.

Franque has a cruel sense of humor, renaming each of his women according to his unholy wit. Chastity the bearded, Charity the legless, Love the eyeless, Faith the midget, Hope the giantess, Prudence and Patience the Siamese twins. Prudence is trussed up like a proper English lady, Patience partially undone like a Parisian tart. Two torsos, one pair of legs. Two girls, one goal. Franque’s little joke. Even the hyena no longer laughs.

Many of the other women speak no English, or, like Hope, some dialect I can barely understand. I should be drawn to them like sisters but they are weak, exploitable, too much like my lesser brethren in the war. We had sought to rule this place but never envisioned our freedom would look like this.

I have no idea where Franque discovered them, or whether, like me, they had sought him out. From the whispers I’ve heard, I suspect not. But they are fed in a time when many poor, deformed Londoners starve to death.

Like the others, my body is my attraction and my disgrace. In a niche out of reach, I sit on a stool behind a black curtain with two oval floor mirrors stationed to either side. For my protection Franque says, just like the lock on my wagon door. Their position conceals my face, but sidelights shine across my body. Each night, I play the country lady brushing her long, loose hair at a dressing table in her little vest and kirtle, the village voyeurs beyond the window unnoticed. My fair, unblemished skin set off by raven hair.

The antique, rippled glass obscures the view. Franque says that makes the encounter all the more titillating. But my risqué attire is a sideshow to his sideshow. All anyone really wants is to catch a glimpse of my wings. An angel in the footlights.

The patrons tour our tent before the show, never after. With us, Franque throws in his small menagerie. Pharaoh the lion, Goliath the bear, Hared the purportedly laughing hyena, Pilate the Burmese python, Charles and Emma the unruly chimpanzees, and a pair of unnamed ostriches.

The crowd starts through, mostly anonymous men masked in stale sweat, dung-spattered boots and bawdy laughter. A few young women with high giggles behind the rustle of their skirts. No children. Ever. We are not a sight for under-developed eyes, not at half a crown. No circus is. Franque has three riggers stationed throughout the tent in case anyone lets his imagination rule him. Satan sits guard before my curtain, snarling and snapping if anyone strays too close. A little fun with the other girls is fine. No one takes so much as a step toward me.

Night after night, I brush and stretch, touch up my makeup, twirl my hair, apply more rose water, trace the outlines of my vest, all just as I’ve been taught. None of this is instinctive. I have never gotten used to my gender since the day I’d been cast into it. This is my lot in life now, waiting to be chosen, waiting to fulfill another’s dream. A lady in waiting. They also serve the penance of the damned.

Midway through the night’s procession of prying eyes, I freeze mid-brushstroke as I sense a gaze upon me, cold and naked. This one has a different hunger. I can smell the stain upon him like the gin he drinks like water and wears like cheap cologne. I shrink away, wishing I could hide. I am thankful he cannot see my face, though I’m certain he spots the color rising from my chest. He lingers long enough that Satan sits up and growls then grumbles as he resettles.

Minutes after comes the lull. The main show must have started. In the quieter moments, I hear the rising and falling susurration of the crowd like the faint, wheezy breath of a dying man. The order of the acts is well established by applause. First, the four Brothers Dunkel, imported directly from the Rhineland, tumbling and juggling in their parti-colored tights. Then Yuri the Cossack, captured in Crimea, cantering his pale horse around the ring, standing or handstanding bareback, then slipping under and around, all while brandishing his wicked saber. Rafael the Spanish blade swallows a flaming sword of the finest Toledo steel then nips the tassels from Temperance’s already scanty costume with his toothy little knives. Franque, armed in his bright red waistcoat and coal black top hat with pistol and whip, sprinkles his acts between. He tames the lion, baits the bear, wrestles the serpent, guides the chimps dressed in genteel country finery through a proper English tea. Gabe the clown announces each new act with a flourish of his horn, and keeps up a running commentary of ribald jokes and double entendres.

Temperance, when her back or side is not pressed against Rafael’s target board, plies the crowd with shots of cheap gin from a tray slung around her neck. Most of the men are more interested coaxing her naked shoulders within arm’s reach in hopes of caressing her burgundy dress or black crisscrossed tights. She assures me these encounters are tamer than her previous profession. I only shrug. I’ve done my time as both a diva and a whore.

I have never witnessed the performances from inside the big tent. None of the sideshow women have. But I have watched all the men practice daily from the confines of my wagon for more than a year. I have sniffed out all their dirty laundry. The Dunkels are Dutch not Deutsche, and aren’t really brothers. Yuri was born in Chester. The closest Rafael has come to Spain was the month we traveled Kent. Gabe is a Frenchman but that would never sell. I don’t know from what distant land Franque first hailed, or what ill-conceived bargain he had crafted that had brought him me. Only the women and animals are exactly what they seem.

Soon, another Dunkel escort arrives to chaperone me back to my wagon, once again under wraps. This time it’s the twins, Marcus and Lucas. We dodge across the fair grounds, Marcus keeping watch then waving Lucas and I on once the way is clear.  Nearly home and dry, we almost run smack into the path of a charging Goliath as Franque furiously drives him back to his cage.

Before the heavy wooden door seals me in, I hear Franque call out to Marcus, “Generous crowd tonight. Tell her to get ready for an encore.”

A few hours later it’s Johann, the last of the Brothers Dunkel, who retrieves me. He also collects Satan who lies curled beneath my steps. The camp has been quiet for nearly an hour. All the guests have gone, at least for the moment. Soon, in ones and twos, a select few will file back in concealed by night.

The moon peeks out shyly from between the clouds. I shiver. A chill has moved in after the rain. Beneath my cloak I still wear the diaphanous silk shift and my little vest. We quickly traverse the campsite, careful now to skirt the freshly added dung. We slip into the main tent shrouded in darkness.

Soot, sweat and stale gin from the previous performance mingle with scent of wet canvas. By flickering footlights we navigate to the pole in the center of the ring. I can almost make out the small, circular platform like a crow’s nest near the peak of the tent. Clutching the built-in handholds, I begin to climb.

I crouch in the tiny space beneath the pointed cap of canvas. The riding ring looks like a half-buried bone china saucer so far below. I am not afraid. Encores are the one freedom my existence now allows, as close as I come to returning to my true nature from before the war. The riding ring is a tight circle for my performance, but if Yuri can cling to it at a gallop so can I.

Slowly, the tent refills, all men this time. Temperance dodges amongst them with fresh gin. Franque keeps the lights low. Our performers and riggers ring the crowd with stout Irish cudgels. Franque is once again armed with his pistol and a whip as if these patrons are yet more wild animals to be trained. I wait to make my appearance until they all are nearly falling down drunk. Tonight’s crowd is more sullen than most.

The tension builds until scantly suppressed violence ripples around the ring. I sense him near the center of it, his scent much bolder this time. Once again, I shiver beneath my cloak despite the heat from all the bodies and the footlight flames trapped up here.

Gabe blows a brassy flourish on his horn. My cue. I step to the edge of the platform and drop my cloak, which flutters to the ground. Someone uncovers the burning quicklime in the lantern, haloing me in a pool of light. As all eyes in the crowd ascend, Gabe darts across the ring to snatch up my cloak. He will be waiting with it by the back vestibule when I finish.

I stand on my toes at the edge of the platform. A hush falls. I feel their eyes tracing out the edges of my costume and roaming across my skin. My chill turns to excitement.

Slowly, I lean forward like a denuded Norwegian spruce long hammered beneath the axman’s blows until there is nothing left below me but empty air. I plummet like a javelin, or a falcon stooped upon its prey.

My loose hair whips behind me. The silk of my skirt plasters itself against my bare legs. The lantern follows as if its light is tied to me by a cord. An instant before I crash to earth, I spread my wings and soar around the ring. I swoop and dive, bank and glide. For a few brief moments, I am free again. Redeemed.

I know my freedom will be short-lived. The gas to feed the limelight is expensive, the mechanism finicky at best. Always make them walk away hungry, Franque says. Like a succulent meal, it’s best to leave them wanting just a little more.

On my second pass, their eyes are still all locked upon me. Above the reek of mud and gin, I smell envy tinged with lust. Their minds tell them that it’s well disguised wirework, but every one of them wants to believe what he sees. They all harbor secret dreams of flight.

I feel his eyes again as I ascend to make a final pass. The ring is small. The turns are tight. This time, I cannot get escape his gaze. Then, as I circle the central tent pole, everything goes wrong.

The limelight suddenly snuffs out, plunging the tent back into semidarkness. Curses rise above angry voices. As silent as a barn owl on the wing, I glide above the fray. The riggers push back the drunken crowd with the persuasion of Irish oak. Undaunted, the men of the moor surge forward. Satan charges in from the back vestibule, disappearing into the melee, a dog possessed. Deep within, I hear a yelp followed by a long, low whine. Outnumbered, the riggers fall back. Someone kicks a footlight. Fire spills along one side the ring.

I alight on the ground in the rear vestibule. Folding my wings, I pluck up my cloak from where Gabe dropped it. I throw it across my shoulders and hurry out. No escort awaits me. Inside, Franque’s pistol barks above the angry mob in a futile effort to command silence. They do not heed. Like Goliath or Pharaoh spurred by Franque’s whip, I sprint headlong across the camp toward the safety of my cage, heedless of the puddles. Cold mud splashes up my skirt and runs down my legs. By the time I reach the wagon, my cloak is sodden and caked with it.

I fly up the steps, slamming the door behind me once I’m safely inside. I fall back against it, relieved. Then, I see his blade shining in the moonlight. I know he will use it. He has before. I can see the mark upon him now. He is the ruler of his own domain.

“I’ll scream.” I lie. He’s been chosen and there is nothing I can do.

He shakes his head. “No one to hear, love. They’ll all be busy quite some time.” He steps closer, the naked steel hanging loose in his hand. He is a nasty looking piece of work, brutish and short. For this, we were cast aside.

“Satan follows everywhere I go. Any minute, he’ll bound through this door.” I fumble with the latch behind my back.

“That mutt won’t be coming round any time soon.” He laughs, close enough that I can smell his breath. Gin and rancid turnips. A red sheen slickens his knife in the moonlight. “How bout you quit playing hard to get and shuck off that cloak? May as well we get to know each other.”

I do as he commands, knowing the pain the knife will bring. I am no longer immune to it. Or worse.

“Now, twirl round. Slowly. I want to see if they are real.”

I shiver as I turn to face the door. His blade is sharp. At first, I miss the sting of it, but when it comes I cry out, no longer a soldier.

He hums approvingly as blood from my second shoulder trickles down my back. “I’ve done a lot of pretties in my time but never quite an angel.”

“You don’t need the knife,” I whisper. “I’ll give you what you want.”

“Willingly?” The stink of his breath caresses my ear even as his knife presses against my back.

“Willingly,” I say. “Tell me your desires. I’ll make your dreams come true.”

“My dreams are evil,” he says. “The priest of St. Michael’s told me so just before he tossed me out. ‘Yours is the temptation of Lucifer,’ he said. ‘You dream of a dance with the Devil, Kayne, not the messengers of God. Our Lord has deemed that no mortal man can fly.’”

A little sigh escapes me. I will live through this encounter. I know it. Small men have small dreams.

“Is that your only dream?” I ask with the bitter taste of hope, “To fly?”

“To fly,” he repeats, his voice suddenly distant like a child’s.

“While?” I ask, my voice quavering, anticipating his answer.

“While,” he confirms, a man again as his callused hand turns me by a shoulder to face him.

Button by button, he liberates my vest with tiny little flicks of his knife. I admire him in a way. He is strong and arrogant, like my scattered band of brothers. He takes what he wants, what he knows should be his by right not bestowed by providential favor. In that, he is truly no one’s servant. But that I am the object of his freewill, I feel a twinge of envy. Then he nicks me just for fun. This time will be hard.

My mind escapes by listening to Pharaoh growl and pace out the corners of his cage. He is nervous and hungry. I wish I could calm him by stroking his tangled mane but I cannot. There was a time I could have lain down in the cage beside him, curled up and gone to sleep unharmed. Those days are long to the west of here and guarded by flaming swords.

My mind returns as we step outside. The camp is eerily quiet. A scent of dead smoke hangs in the moist night air. In the distance, a dog howls, in loneliness or in pain, I cannot tell. I wonder if it’s Satan and whether he keens for me.

Kayne prods me with the knife. I clamber onto him. I try not to think about what comes next, just the purity of flight. I am not afraid. My virtue is no longer intact. I have trouble remembering when it ever was.

For a small man, he is heavy. It’s a miracle we get off the ground. Beat by beat, we climb the night. The air grows colder as we ascend toward the stars but remains clear. On opposite horizons, the lights of Hull and York twinkle like celestial realms wracked by malicious laughter. I tingle with a freedom that the enclosure of the riding ring could never offer.

Then the tip of his knife pricks my shoulders with a series of tiny kisses. His teeth lightly bruise my neck like a biting butterfly. We strive against each other like Roman wrestlers, or enemy soldiers struggling to control a loose bayonet. Soon we are sheened in sweat. Twice, I nearly lose my grip. I reach for him afraid he will escape my grasp. At last, I lock my ankles just to maintain my hold.

He pants like Satan in the dog days of summer, whether from exertion or excitement I do not know. Suddenly, he clings to me like a dying man. I clutch him like one of my wounded brethren in the war. For an instant, we hang in midair, united, one mind, one body, one incandescent soul. In the limelight of the moon, my ancient sins are briefly washed away.

And then my redemption betrays me just as I did it so long ago for a whispered promise of liberty and false equality. My reality comes crashing down in wave after wave of unwanted pleasure as our spiritual fraternity burns itself away.

Finished, he slumps within my arms. I am tempted to release him, to let gravity guide him back to earth. Up here, I can almost smell the Channel. The estuary would not be far. Just another lost soul cast up by the sea.

But I don’t. My penance would be a dozen more just like him only spiteful. And I could never condemn another creature to that slow, tumbling, terrifying fate. That dream still drenches me at night.

Instead, I return him to the desolation of the moor. My approach scatters a congregation of rock doves from their nightly roosts. Their shadows ascend toward heaven like crows to a fresh-laid battlefield. On the ground, an ancient church stares down at me, empty eyed and ruinous, like the decisions I once made.

Gently, I lay him in the shelter of its shadow like a castoff orphan, his knife clutched across his chest like the treasure of a pagan king. For a moment, I watch him sleep, exhausted yet so peaceful, a child in the cradle of its grave. I pity these poor creatures and their solitary lives. I wonder what dreams might come to him this night, what tales he will tell of them tomorrow.

Clutching the tatters of my garments, I take back to the air seeking salt to bathe my wounds. As the cold sea numbs my pain and washes his scent away, I remind myself that this is the price for our rebellion. My eternal act of contrition for participating in the war.

Across the long, dark water, I am driven eastward, always eastward. The Black Forest, the Carpathians, perhaps the frozen city of St. Peter. By moonlight, I circle, searching the countryside for another striped tent, another torchlit sanctuary where I can begin again. Another earthly prison where I’ll once again be damned to serve as the redeemer of someone else’s dreams.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Kami

She honored her mother at sunrise. She honored her father when the wind raged across the western sea. She honored her grandparents, Izanagi and Izanami, and the eight children that they bore together. She honored her grandfather's mourning that had given her mother life.

The shrine was her sanctuary, the grove, the garden, the reflecting pool. Inside the ancient walls and gates, the towering, bustling city disappeared and the old ways were not forgotten. She drew comfort from the balance of man and nature, the still pool barely rippled by the stream of water falling from the roof, the tended trees whose perfume blossomed early each spring, the carefully placed rocks that grew mossy with lichens, the grain of the worked stone in the temple wall, the red pillars at its entrance and the sweeping arch between. Unity and purpose from another place, another source, another time.

The people who made their devotions here thought she was the spirit of the shrine. They floated candles upon the still waters. They left tiny, rolled scrolls tucked between the stones like prayers, often with just a name designated for a blessing or a curse. Her friends thought her a kind spirit, her enemies a demon. Her uncles, Ren and Koan, had taught her the way of the warrior, the way of the sword.

She knew that Neko, the lucky stray, was the true spirit of the shrine. She only cared for her as much as anyone could care for a wild and independent spirit. She had found her among the overgrown ruins with a broken paw when her spirit had been awakened by the candles, and tended her until she recuperated. She decided to stay, to ensure the shrine wasn't desecrated again, a spirit of justice disguised as an ordinary girl named Kami.

Outside, they thought she was a street waif, another urchin raised in the feral Western wilderness her ancient city had become. Just beyond the garden walls, modern glass and steel shrines dedicated to yen and Euro and dollar loomed over her. Only Ronin Software, whose headquarters her shrine was nestled beside, sheltered her, not having lost touch completely with the ancient ways. Each morning, they sent their custodial staff to ensure the shrine was clean and well maintained. Each evening, they left food for her and Neko. On holidays, they brought clothing and gifts, most of which she donated to the poor as she already had everything she needed. In return, they were content to bask in the glow the rejuvenated shrine cast their way and the luck that Neko seemed to bring.

Today Kami hoped to replay their kindness. Recently, the scrolls in the wall were dominated by a single name: Jimmi Tens. He and his ritually tattooed street clan were no longer content to terrorize just the corporate invaders. Now, he extorted the poor, conscripting street orphans into his illicit enterprises. He coerced the boys into becoming runners and lookouts. The girls, he merely rented or sold. The corporations turned a blind eye. They found it easier to trim their profits to pay for protection and purchase underage prostitutes for their parties than to get into a street battle with a group well acquainted with the tactics of violence. All but Ronin Software, whose extended corporate family were beginning to pay a heavy price for their moral and ethical stance.

Jimmi Tens used to come around with candles. For a while, he had sheltered her like a young uncle protecting his orphaned niece. When she'd first settled, he had helped her clear out the vagrants whose only interest in the shrine was as a public bath and bathroom. When some of the drunks had threatened her, a gun had appeared and he'd taught her how to shoot it. He found the image of a grubby back alley girl pointing a 9mm at a street thug and instructing him to "say, 'Hello, Kitty'" irresistibly amusing. When she'd needed to see the priests and city officials to register the shrine as reoccupied, he'd loaned her his Kawasaki Ninja to get around the city. He used to joke that she liked to feel something powerful and throbbing between her legs. He would never find out. She hadn't realized that even then he was like all the others, that his only agenda was to frustrate his enemies and increase his own power. He had already become alienated from the ways above.

Kami had never truly needed his help. He had been arrogant to think so. Now he dared to threaten not only the people under her protection but Neko. A week ago, one of his minions had the audacity to graffiti a hanging cat in white spray paint outside her garden gate. That act had elevated him from an annoyance to a problem that needed to be solved. When that demonstration hadn't provoked her compliance, he'd escalated.

She gazed down at his handiwork again. She could see the suffering, the depravity. The blood had darkened to rusty brown, staining the bright red gates of the shrine in small rivulets. She had had to borrow a hammer from the Ronin maintenance station, waving the workers away when they'd asked if she needed help. Gingerly, she had removed each of the four nails, extracting one from each paw. She prayed the creature was dead when she had been placed there, but suspected otherwise. Thankfully, by the time Kami found her, she had joined her ancestors. At first, she had thought the poor creature was Neko. Jimmi had chosen a gray tiger, a stray of similar size with similar markings to serve as his final warning.

He had defiled the gateway to the garden to send her a message. She understood that message now, though it wasn't the one he'd intended. She knew what she had to do. He wanted her to know that she'd outlived her usefulness to him. Unlike the sword of his ancestors that he revered, this one had two edges. He was no longer a protector of the shrine. He had sworn an oath. He had strayed from the way of heaven. He would learn what that betrayal meant. The spirits might be sleeping but that didn't mean they would forgo payment.

She knew he was trying to provoke her, to get her to leave her ancient sanctuary and reenter the modern world. In the seat of her power, she knew she was safe, that she could not be harmed. Out there, she was vulnerable just like any other girl. But she couldn't risk the damage Jimmi could do to Neko or the shrine. He thought of her as traditional, bound by the old ways. That would be his mistake. Heaven spoke in many voices. Most days those voices were like a choir singing in harmony. Some days they sang with a slight dissonance, like the J-pop girl bands she'd come to love.

After she'd buried the cat, she exchanged her traditional attire for that of errant schoolgirl, torn black stockings, stained plaid skirt, dingy white blouse, somewhere between punk Lolita and the pre-delinquent look. She gathered her long, black hair and tied it in a ponytail. Just above the ribbon she slashed it short and diagonal with a straight razor, an ancient sign of mourning that would help her blend in. Outside the gates, she would be hard to distinguish from the street girls and alley strays she had grown up with. She would challenge Jimmi on his own territory, defeat him at his own game.

Kami unrolled her spare sleeping mat, uncovering the pistol concealed within. It had appeared at the shrine just after the shooting involving a young anime enthusiast. The police had never identified a cause or suspect in that Otaku murder despite the weeks of coverage in the local and national press. She suspected the handgun was connected to Jimmi somehow. The pistol was an anodized pink 9mm with a Hello Kitty emblem embedded in the handgrip. A custom piece out of Hong Kong, unless she missed her guess. A quality weapon someone paid a high commission to have crafted, and a higher one to have smuggled in. What guilt was associated with it, she did not know, but she intended to redeem it.

She rummaged through the most recent pile of donations until she found the disposable cell phone, one she knew had nearly an hour remaining on its prepaid limit. She made certain it had the ability to send and receive pictures as well as texts and voice. She also found a woman's makeup kit, the compact type some of the female executives donated for the local women's shelter.

Next, she went to the stash of prayers on parchment, the names that had been tightly rolled and slipped into cracks in the wall. She had kept a special pile for Jimmi Tens to serve as a reminder. The one she was looking for was right on top, yesterday's addition to what could be patched together into a rather long list. The difference was that she knew whose hand had drawn the calligraphy of his naming symbols on this one, knew that hand held no stain of enabling him. The characters were perfect, with a slight flourish that spoke of a young girl's script.

With the cell phone, she flashed a picture of the parchment against the flagstones of the temple. There was no point in disguising where it had been taken. Jimmi would know from the parchment who had sent it and what she intended to do. Kami was counting on his reaction. She knew after his demonstration that he'd have his soldiers watching the shrine. If she timed it right, she could use them to allow her to get closer to him.

She checked the clock on the cell phone. Nearly time. She'd have to hurry now. Quickly, she donned the red skirt and white blouse of a shrine maiden over her other clothing. She pulled the white stockings over the black ones, and slipped on the red sandals. She pulled her hair back, and tied the ponytail she had cut off into the traditional red and white scarf. Then she pulled the small, white mantle over her head and settled it onto her shoulders. She straightened the entire ensemble so she would look like one of the mikos who sometimes came to assist her.

She glanced at the cell phone clock before stuffing it, along with the makeup, into the smallest of the three zippered compartments in the pink, camo-patterned backpack she'd selected. The handgun, she slid into the mid-sized compartment just behind it. She placed a pair of more contemporary low, black boots into the large, main compartment.

Neko rubbed against Kami's leg and reached up with a paw to lightly tap it. She squatted down and scratched behind Neko's ears, then under her chin, which drew out loud and gravelly purring. "I have to go outside for a while," Kami told her. "Yes, it's time. Stay out of sight while I'm gone. Hide if anyone unfamiliar comes inside. And no chasing the koi while I'm away." She stooped down even farther on hands and knees, almost in supplication. Neko rubbed along her face, tickling her nose with her whiskers, before disappearing silently into the grove. Kami hoped she would be safe. Neko would be vulnerable if she failed.

Kami picked up the backpack and clutched it to her chest under the white shoulder mantle. This would be the tricky part. She would only have a minute to cross without being intercepted. Instead of heading for the shrine's main entrance that opened onto the street, she shuffled toward the back gate, the one that led to a side entrance off of Ronin Software's main lobby, the one employees sometimes used at lunch to make their devotions which would start soon. She hated the single thong sandals. How did women ever get around in them? She supposed that was the point once upon a time.

As quickly as the sandals allowed, she shuffled across the open space between the temple grounds and the Ronin tower. She kept her head slightly down and her eyes forward, yet her peripheral vision caught the two street thugs in stylish sunglasses smoking cigarettes and watching the main entrance to the shrine. As she neared the glass door into the office building, one of them nudged the other and nodded in her direction. By the time they started toward her, the white gloved security officer stationed in the lobby opened the door, sending a wicked glare in their direction. As she nodded to guard, she saw the pair peel back the other way. They would have to hike the long way around the block to intercept her at the plaza by the Ronin tower's main entrance. They wouldn't hurry, thinking her dress and sandals would slow her.

Once inside the lobby, Kami quickly bowed to the security guard, who winked at her in recognition. She ducked into the sheltered alcove by his station. Out of sight of the employees in the lobby, she quickly tore off her traditional attire, revealing the more modern, younger clothing she had gathered from the castoffs in her charity pile. She removed the black half-boots from the backpack and crammed her feet into them without bothering to tie the laces, then balled up the mantle and scarf with the remnants of her hair into the skirt and blouse and stuffed them into the pack. She mussed her hair to give it the right look. Her makeup would have to wait. She slung the pink camo backpack across one shoulder and strode through the lobby, looking like an executive's wayward daughter who was late for school. None of the busy employees gave her a second glance.

She glanced out the main doors of the lobby as she approached them. The city bus was pulling up to the stop just down the street, right on time. She slowed her pace a fraction as she saw people queue up to get onboard, gauging the distance. She'd run for the bus just as the last person ascended the steps. The driver would wait only a few seconds, even for a scrambling latecomer, the only compromise between an innately polite society and a transit system that prided itself as always running on time.

The last man was boarding just as she cleared the lobby doors. She ran for the bus, careful not to trip over her untied shoes. The two thugs appeared around the opposite corner, but paid her no mind. She reached the bus just as the door was starting to close. A quick bang saw it reopen. She scrambled aboard and grabbed a ticket. Outside, Jimmi's enforcers were milling about the plaza in front of the Ronin tower. When a security guard stepped out the main door to confront them, they split up, going different directions around the block, not seeming to notice the bus pulling away.

She headed toward one of empty seats to catch her breath, wondering if the pair would figure out that she was the girl who had sprinted for the bus right in front of them. By the time they did, it probably wouldn't matter. She sat down as far away from the other passengers as she could and pulled out the cell phone.

First, she entered the phone's menu and set it to answer directly to voicemail. Then, she loaded the picture she'd taken into a blank text message and sent it to Jimmi Tens' mobile phone. He wouldn't recognize the calling number, but he would be curious. She knew he couldn't resist an enclosure from a strange caller, especially to his private number, one he went to great lengths to keep out of the phonebooks of all but the closest associates. Within a few minutes, his street warden would be calling to inform him that she had slipped away from the surveillance at the shrine. Then he would understand that she was coming for him.

She knew Jimmi would put a trace on the phone. Not many people knew he had that capability, but it was easy enough to hack into the NTT database to check on a number. Mothers and fathers did it legally all the time. It was a feature on most phones now. All he had to do was input a bogus security string to take him through the backdoor the police used. Then he could track her phone as long is it was on.

Queuing up the photo once again, this time to load it onto the Internet, she sent it to a special Flickr group she'd created. That upload would generate an automated text message informing all the members of the group there had been an update. She had recruited a small army of keitai, crowdsourcing her own surveillance needs to the children of the mobile phone culture. The message would let them know to start tracking Jimmi Tens, flashing pictures of him discretely with their cell phones wherever he went. They would post those images to her Flickr group. From there, she would know exactly where he was. All she had to do was wait, and eventually, he would come to her.

Oh, and ditch the phone where someone was bound to find it, someone who would use the remaining minutes rather than turn it in. Somewhere like right here on the bus. She scanned the other riders to make sure no member of the green uniformed Smile-Manner Squadron was present. Luckily, there were none. Most of the respectable people were at work by now, as were their children. Whoever picked up the phone was likely to use it. That would draw off Jimmi's minions and bodyguards.

Finally, she returned to the phone's features and reset all the personal data, as well as the log of all the calls in or out. A temporary measure that would buy her time once it was tracked down. She then closed the phone and carefully tucked it between the cushions of the seat, just barely peeking out. She wanted to make sure none of her neighbors were helpful in pointing out she had left it behind. With any luck, whoever discovered it would use it or sell it. At worst, it would be turned into the driver and move around the city with the bus.

With that done, she fished out the small makeup kit from her backpack and began applying the rest of her disguise. Dark eyeliner, heavy mascara, exaggerated eye shadow, bright lipstick. She could sense her fellow passengers watching her out of the corner of their eyes with disapproval, but she didn't care. That meant they were less likely to inform her about the phone should they spot it, since she had broken one of the unspoken rules of bus etiquette. It fit perfectly with her image of a bratty executive's daughter.

When she finished, she looked up to find her stop approaching. As the bus slowed, she sashayed forward, slipped her ticket into the reader and dropped the correct change into the receptacle by the driver, all without making eye contact or acknowledging anyone, pouting slightly the entire time. By trying to draw attention, she ensured she would be less noticed, one of the quirks of modern Japanese society.

She changed busses several times after that, hopping from one to another without much thought of their route or destination, just taking the first available so she didn't have to stand around very long. Her meandering path sketched a modern line drawing of a Japanese character through the city as seen from above. There was a more direct route to her travels, but she wanted to make certain her trail was obscure, just in case. Half an hour later she started paying attention to moving closer to her eventual destination.

From the final bus stop, Kami turned down a well-trafficked side alley. The city was still alive and crowded though not like rush hour when the sidewalks would be packed. Digital advertising brightly lit up the street even against the sun. Deeper down the overshadowed alley, store signs and advertising cast an almost psychedelic range of blinking yellows, greens and reds. Not quite seedy, so it wouldn't attract any of Jimmi's watchers who might be out. Reputable and slightly touristy but off the beaten track. The pedestrian alley opened into a small plaza between the looming buildings. She was near the corporate downtown not far from Ronin Software, on the edge of Jimmi's territory. Were she to look up, which only tourists would, she would see a small square of blue sky above. Instead, she headed for a narrow staircase between the shops at the back of the plaza, then up them to the Internet café.

Inside, she traded cash for a prepaid credit card at an automated vending station. The café wasn't crowded like it might be after school let out. She chose a cubicle facing the windows so she could keep an eye on the plaza while she waited.

She logged on to her Flickr page. At the top she saw the photo of the parchment she had posted, viewed over a hundred times already but uncommented. Below another two dozen newer photos waited. Quick shots, all from cell phones but remarkably focused and composed. Most showed Jimmi Tens making his way through his normal day. He didn't have a routine, per se, or even a regular path. But he did tend to have a few daily haunts and subtle patterns to his movements, more like opportunities, one of which she was specifically waiting for. A sampling of others showed his lieutenants scurrying to carry out his orders. A couple showed the shrine, safe and undisturbed. She hoped it remained that way. She hoped Neko remained out of sight.

She knew Jimmi Tens would approach his day casually, unrushed, as if nothing had happened. It was important to his ego, his image of self-control. But she knew he would recognize the hand that had penned his name and at some point go to confront his girlfriend. He wanted to make sure the girl was unsuspecting, thinking she had slipped something by him, that he wasn't paying attention. Then he would pounce, like the tiger that stalked his arm in ink.

Sipping a cup of mildly horrible tea brewed by another vending machine beside the door, Kami waited. She set the browser to refresh each time a picture was uploaded. So far, it looked like a normal day for Jimmi Tens, the tattoo parlor, the video store, the modeling agency, all providing either direct or indirect income to his organization. Then on to the small-cap real estate franchise that he had bought a token share of on the local stock exchange, one that enabled him to remind the owners that certain shareholders intended to ensure their investment was managed the way they wished. It appeared he might not check in on his wrestler's mother today, one of the many people whose welfare he saw to personally, as a reminder of his power over them.

As Kami waited for the pattern of his movements to compile, she stared out into the plaza, remembering when it was a tea garden with the same cobblestones full of artisans, students, and minor officials, all trying to avoid the samurai and their soldiers. So long ago. So much had changed, some good, some bad. The people were less militant and warlike now. The youth of today seemed more open than any generation in centuries. But they had once again lost their way, had become separated from the spirits. She had thought men like Jimmi Tens could help steer them away from the seductions of modern commercialism. She had been wrong. When she'd first met him, he wanted to reform the corporate culture that dominated the city now, saying he strove for a more balanced future. Now, he was indistinguishable from the other men who led organizations of violence. He terrorized individuals, threatened their families, ransacked their homes, burned their cars, murdered their pets and threw the severed heads over their garden walls, whatever was necessary to force them to comply with his desires. But, he had threatened an innocent, someone not involved in his schemes. Someone who had sought her out for justice.

Jimmi Tens had chosen his fate and driven it home with each nail into the temple door. Kami had no pity for him now, only sadness. He was irredeemable.

She continued watching her Flickr page update. Her keitai were working out better than she had anticipated, covering Jimmi, his lieutenants and street wardens, as well as the shrine. Each seemed to be in a private competition to outdo the others in the photos they captured surreptitiously. They were nearly as good as tapping into the citywide close circuit camera feed and much harder to trace or crash.

Jimmi was on the move again, this time toward the pachinko parlor in which he was a silent partner. That was the destination Kami had been waiting for. From there she knew the pattern. He would meet with his agents for an hour or more, reviewing their books and operations to ensure his sidelight ventures were running the way he desired. Then he would sneak out the back and head for his favorite sushi bar, the one where his new girlfriend worked. The one he had threatened, the one who had prayed to Neko for protection by penning his name to parchment, rolling it tight and inserting it into the temple wall.

She envisioned the route he'd take, out the service door, through the back alleys, touring the older, unmapped areas that still existed between the feet of the concrete and steel giants that had sprung from the ground around them. The city had grown organically over the centuries, and her knowledge of its streets with it. There were alleys and pathways, shortcuts and blind gates known only to a few. She knew more than even the most cunning of Jimmi's street wardens.

She knew the exact place she would intercept him. Buried in the maze of streets and ancient alleys was a traditional soba noodle shop, catering mostly to delivery and contract lunches in the office towers, Ronin Software among them. They crafted some of the best thin noodles and miso in the entire city and had for generations. It wasn't much to look at, just a lone holdover with a narrow storefront wedged between two towers. It had a pair of windows that looked out onto the dark, alley maze, marked only by a hand-painted sign.

She logged off her terminal, being certain to clear the browser of any traces of where she'd been. As she left, she tossed the remnants of tea into the clean, white receptacle by the door, exactly where it belonged. She descended the stairs but instead of emerging back into the plaza, she turned toward an unmarked, age-darkened wood and steel door at the back of the adjoining hallway. Few knew the door was always unlocked, one of the only surviving remnants of the ancient daimyo's watchtower that once dominated the landscape here.

The heavy door slid shut quietly behind her. She emerged from beneath an arched overhang at the corner of a narrow, stone alley, deep in the maze that clung tenaciously to the margins of modern society. One day, one of her aunts would rumble her discontent and this last vestige of a bygone age would disappear beneath stone and dust. But not today.

Kami wended her way through the maze, turning down narrow passageways, opening and closing unlocked gates, moving though stone-lined canyons that rarely saw the sun. Unlike their newer counterparts in the remainder of the city, all of them were clean. The families and businesses whose rear doors exited onto them still swept them each morning and rinsed them once a week. It pleased her to know that not all of the traditions in the city had died.

Ahead, Kami spotted the noodle shop sign hanging across from a doorway flanked by a pair of windows. Each window had a small, two-person table behind it for the scant customers who dropped in rather than called. Mostly, it was a convenient waiting area. The windows were from a day when the alley was actually a bustling back street. The ancient owner, who doubled as the chief cook, could clearly remember that time, decades before the firebombings had transformed the city both in geography and in temperament. He relished having someone stop in and take the time to appreciate his craft. He received so little direct feedback these days. She enjoyed his fare more than any other in the city, simple yet elegant. Hot or cold, you could taste the time-honored tradition in every bite.

She approached the counter and gave her order to the owner's daughter, a grandmother in her own right. No chitchat like the modern restaurants, just a simple attentiveness and courtesy. The afternoon was warm so she ordered a plate of chilled noodles with a nori seaweed topping and a pot of tea in case she had to wait. Though it went against the usual custom, she paid in advance. She would need to leave quickly once Jimmi wandered by.

Setting her backpack on the stool by the door, she settled onto the seat in the corner. She faced the side alley where Jimmi would emerge and turn away from her, the perfect location to intercept him, where he would have little time to react. The pink camo backpack contrasted nicely with the traditional amber wood seat, a perfect blend of past and future.

The noodles and tea came out promptly, giving her plenty of time to savor them before her target was likely to appear. She had to stay alert. Her wait could be half an hour or three; there was no way to predict. But she knew he would come before the day was out.

As she slurped her noodles noisily, the final wave of delivery boys, mostly grandchildren and great grandchildren, entered and left the shop with piles of boxes bound for the corporate towers. This was their last run in a two-hour marathon of deliveries to feed the office workers who had long since replaced the artisans who once made the city great. They would be gone for many hours, fanning out across the city afterwards to pick up supplies for tomorrow's fresh batch before they returned for the evening deliveries.

Sated by the noodles and nori, Kami turned toward the tea, savoring its green, slightly nutty flavor. Sencha, she presumed. The pale, steaming liquid flowed so gracefully from the cast iron pot into the sky and cloud glazed, handleless pottery cup. The comparison between this and her early sampling in the Internet café was simple: there was no comparison at all. She felt sorry for today's youth who had turned to that insipid substitute, or even coffee, over this delicately flavored jade brew.

Time stretched with each sip from the rough-thrown earthenware that warmed Kami's hand. The grandmother had long since disappeared into the back to help her father with the cleaning up. He came out briefly to sit at the table across from hers, smoking a cigarette in silence, another anachronism from a distant time she recalled so vividly, a time before Christianity or even Buddhism, had spiced the city's already flavorful stew. He met her gaze once and nodded. She smiled wanly and nodded back. He took no notice of her attire only her demeanor. With Kami, people saw only what they wanted to see. He soon disappeared back to his daily routine.

When the alley began to dim as the sun retreated behind towers of glass and steel, Kami feared she had miscalculated. She was thinking about heading off to another Internet café to check her Flickr page again in case Jimmi's routine had changed when she noticed a cat stroll down the alley, a large, gray tiger that she could have mistaken for Neko had he been striped rather than marbled. An omen. She set down her cup, knowing Jimmi couldn't be far behind. In the back of the shop, she heard the splash of water and the clank of metal as lunchtime dishes were washed. No one would hear her leave.

A moment later, she spotted movement at the corner. Jimmi Tens emerged and turned away from her, his long black overcoat flowing behind him. He didn't so much as spare a glance in her direction through his dark, designer shades. As she stood to retrieve her backpack, outside the gray tiger rubbed Jimmi's legs, trying his best to trip him with affection. Jimmi continued on his way, undaunted.

Before she left the shop, Kami unzipped the middle compartment of her backpack, then picked it up by the small carry handle between the straps with her left hand.

Back outside, Jimmi had disappeared. The alley jogged through a series of sharp corners beyond the intersection Kami had been watching. As she turned the second corner, the alley began to change from stone to concrete, from natural to manmade, the threshold of a transition from old to new. She could feel the power and rightness of this place. Her right hand delved into the open backpack compartment until it found the cold steel grip of the pistol.

When she turned the next corner, she found Jimmi had paused to scratch the gray tiger behind its ears. He sensed no immediate danger, unlike the cat, which saw her, perked his ears and darted back the way he had come. Only as Jimmi turned to see where the cat had disappeared to did he notice Kami. Even then, he didn't look even mildly concerned.

"Kitten," he said with his typical false sweetness and surprise, "just the person I've been looking for. You've become shy and elusive recently."

"Hi, Jimmi, I was starting to think you wouldn't come," Kami replied evenly.

Jimmi spread his hands wide, "Here I am, girl. But what's with all the drama? What's so urgent?"

"You received my message," she said, a statement not a question.

"On the phone? Yeah, it was kind of cryptic. Who wrote that anyway? Don't tell me someone's been spreading lies about me."

"You know better than that, Jimmi. I don't get involved unless someone asks, someone who needs my help, someone pure."

"There is no one pure in this city anymore," he said, shaking his head, "not even you.. Your time here is done. But you can stop by my apartment tonight and we can talk. Maybe we can take the Ninja out for a ride again, like old times. Right now, I on my way to see my new girlfriend."

"To raise your hand to her again? I don't think so" Kami's left hand dropped the backpack carry handle. The pink pistol slid free from its concealment in her right.

Jimmi raised his eyebrows in feigned surprise. "Oow, Kitten thinks she has claws. Where'd you pick that toy up?"

"You should know, Jimmi;" she answered casually, "it traces back to you. Someone dropped it at the shrine after the Otaku murder. What did that child do to you?"

Jimmi smiled his cynical smile. "He promised to create a buzz for a new manga my sister's daughter had an interest in. I told him only girls and children are involved in that anime culture. He said he was ready to be a man. But he couldn't do a man's work."

The gun hung heavy in Kami's hand. Jimmi had just confirmed that its associated guilt was linked back to him. In her hand, it was transformed into a holy weapon, an instrument of the gods. Nothing but atonement could save him now. "What, he wouldn't commit your violence for you? You can still make amend your path."

Now, Jimmi grew angry, "I have nothing to amend. Violence is for street gangs and petty thieves. I am neither."

"I think that captures the essence of you now, Jimmi, petty and violent." She was trying to antagonize him, like Neko playing with her prey. "I used to think you had potential before you went all Martin Luther on me."

His eyes grew as hard and sharp as a katana. "You act as though you know better than I do how I should act and who I should be. You should stop this, Kitten, before someone you care about gets hurt."

"Someone already has, Jimmi, someone you threatened, someone you nailed to my temple door. You said you would defend Neko and the shrine. You swore an oath. You lied." She raised the pistol and aimed it at his chest. "You, off all people, should understand what betraying your word means."

"You think anything I promised you is important?" he retorted, maintaining his defiance. "You're just a schoolgirl playing in a man's world for excitement. What were you before I met you? The same thing you are now, a street slut pretending to be a priestess. You didn't even know how to shoot that before I taught you. Do you even remember?"

Kami let the hint of a smile creep across her face. "I remember what you told me once, 'don't point a gun at something unless plan to shoot it; don't pull the trigger unless you want it dead.'" She cocked her head inquisitively and let her smile blossom. "Did I get that right?"

Only then did the gravity of his situation begin to sink in. His fingers twitched as he longed to draw the weapon she knew he had secreted somewhere in his clothing. His eyes flicked around quickly as if trying to identify anything nearby that could save him. They found nothing. "You've never shot anyone before, have you, Kitten, never actually watched someone die." He held out his hand for the gun. "Leave a man's work to men like me and you'll live a much longer and happier life. Girls like you aren't strong enough to shoulder the load."

"You're wrong, Jimmi," Kami replied, her hand unwavering. "You only taught me to shoot, not to kill. It's time for you to face your ancestors. It's time for you to atone for what you've done." She thumbed the hammer back until she felt it click. "It's time to say, 'Hello, Kitty.'"

Jimmi's hand began to move toward his coat as he began to dodge to one side. Kami squeezed the trigger, just like he'd taught her, slowly, deliberately, until the hammer fell in explosive silence.

When the people of her island were born, their parents penned their names to the Shinto lists; when they married, they sought a Christian blessing; when they died, they were purified by Buddhist flames. Somewhere in the city, Buddhist gongs called their monks home from the fields, Christian bells called their monks to Vespers. She had never been threatened by either of their traditions, had always enjoyed them both. Perhaps one of them would claim Jimmi Tens. The Christians would condemn his soul to eternal torment, the Buddhists to another cycle on the wheel. To the spirits, he would serve the city better dead than he had alive, as an example. He had been chosen for greatness. He could have been a new leader. Instead, he had selected a divergent path, one that had separated his spirit from the ancestors. Now, he was like a candle at dawn, no longer necessary to combat the darkness. As her own temple chimes echoed like a choir in the distance, his spirit flickered out.

Kami stared down at the man who used to be a warlord, an oyabun, and now might become someone's revered ancestor. Only if a sister or a niece mourned him earnestly and reinserted his name somewhere in the temple wall. She reached into her backpack, pulled out the miko's hair scarf and wiped the pistol's grip and trigger. He would be found in an hour or so when the sabo shop's delivery boys returned. The gun alone would be enough for the national police to dismantle his organization, though they would wonder what had killed him. She didn't think there was a box for guilt on the coroner's official forms. She doubted it would be ruled a suicide, which undoubtedly it was. In the end, the report would probably say that Jimmi Tens had died as he'd lived, by violence.

Kami deposited the pistol onto his chest before drifting back through the ancient city toward the shrine where she would burn his name from the lists and tell Neko that she, too, had received justice.

© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Faeth

As he turned off the shower, he heard the kettle whistling in the kitchen. That didn't bother him; he'd set the water to boil before starting the rest of his morning ritual.

What alarmed him was the whistle trailing off as he wrapped himself in a towel and padded across the cool, bathroom tile. He paused from momentary disorientation as the implications went though his temple like an ice pick, nearly going down on one knee before he steadied himself with a hand on the counter. He stood for a moment, feeling lightheaded and confused, his heart frozen then pounding erratically. Someone else was in the house. Thinking it better to confront the situation than hide from it, he balled a fist and proceeded cautiously through the bedroom, surveying the living room, then the dining room as he inched toward the corner and into the kitchen. Perhaps his wife had returned having forgotten something, though he doubted it.

He heard the intruder before he saw her, humming a tune he knew he should recognize but he didn't, pouring water from the kettle into the French press he had set up earlier when his head was buzzing with ideas like a beehive in spring. Now his mind was empty, nearly dead, only his hindbrain active and focused on fear, struggling with the choice between combat and flight.

She was facing the stove, her right side toward him, just settling the dark green cozy his wife had crocheted over the carafe as he did nearly every morning while the coffee brewed. She was young, maybe in her twenties, dressed in a nicely tailored, pearl gray skirt and matching jacket, a white silk blouse peeking out at her wrist. She wasn't tall for a woman, but wasn't short either, maybe half a head shorter than he was. Her build was slight and athletic, reminding him of the paintings of Valkyries he had found so captivating on his first visit to the National Gallery several years ago. Where had that memory come from? He needed to focus.

She wore no jewelry that he could see, no rings, no earrings. Her sleeves hid whether she wore a bracelet or a watch, but he didn't think that she did. A sparkle from a small, gold cross dangling in the hollow of her neck on a fine gold chain caught his eye and, for a moment, he felt safe, though he knew that he shouldn't. Then he spotted the angular bulge beneath her jacket.

He had just opened his mouth to speak when she turned toward him. He was struck silent by her beauty: unblemished porcelain skin, a perfect nose and cheekbones, lips stained the pinkish-red of slightly under-ripe strawberries, a ponytail of blond hair bordering on the pale gold he only remembered seeing in children younger than five. When she met his gaze, he saw her eyes were a pale blue that flashed pictures through his mind of icebergs being calved from Alaskan glaciers. Or that hotel constructed entirely from blocks carved out a frozen lake somewhere in Sweden each winter.

He stood transfixed in the doorway, his fists still balled by his sides as if they would be of any use or even intimidating against the dusky purple bath towel wrapped about his waist. Water from his hair dripped into his eyes and ran down his face like tears. Quickly, he scanned the counter for something that might serve as a weapon, a knife, a rolling pin, a pot, anything. But everything was as it should be, neat and put away.

She smiled warmly, genuinely, as she leaned back against the counter. "Good morning, my friend. The coffee should be ready in a few moments. It smells wonderful by the way. French roast?"

He shook is head to clear it. Had he heard her right? Something in her voice compelled an answer. "Italian."

"I thought I smelled a hint of chocolate, but I could not be certain. It has been so long since I was sent to someone with good coffee. Most have something from a plastic jug or overwhelmed by the flavor of artificial vanilla. I always tell people, splurge on the best you can afford. If you are going to drink it every day, you may as well enjoy it. Simple pleasures, they are what this life is about. They never listen, though, until it is too late." Her voice had a gentle lilt and a slight accent that he couldn't quite place. Nothing European, of that he was certain.

His mind began to clear and form questions. "Sent? By who? Homeland Security? I can explain the letter."

She smiled again and slowly shook her head. "No need to explain to me. It is too late for that, anyway, unless it will make you feel better. I always listen, but it never changes the outcome."

His eyes darted to her jacket. She cocked her head, following his gaze with a glance. "The men always notice that. Women rarely see it, but men almost never overlook it. Even confronted by a complete stranger in their home, they cannot help but sneak a peek at a woman's chest. Why is that?"

"You're here to kill me," he said.

She continued as though she hadn't heard. "It must be instinct with you men. But seeing as you are curious." She undid the two buttons of her jacket, letting it fall open. He could plainly see the grip of a large handgun nestled in the shoulder holster beneath her right arm. Left-handed, he noted.

"Authentic Israeli .50 caliber Desert Eagle," she said, "one of the largest handguns in the world. Advertised as a man-stopper. One round will knock you backwards nearly a meter and you will not get up again. Though it kicks like an indignant mule. Do you know how many times I have heard men say, 'seems like a mighty big gun for a little lady like you?' Like they think that will endear them to me." She shook her head.

"But I will tell a small secret," she continued, smiling coyly. "The pistol is only for show. It keeps certain individuals from trying anything heroic. Once I show it to them, they cannot take their eyes off of it and notice little else. But here is the real danger." She hooked her left thumb around the bottom of her jacket and pulled it back, revealing the dark handle of a curved knife in a simple but finely crafted leather sheath that looked both old and well-oiled with care.

She slipped the knife out with the whisper of steel against leather. When he saw the blade, his fear left him, replaced by something closer to resignation tinged with more than a hint of awe.

The hilt was black bone or antler that had been polished to an obsidian finish, fastened to the tang by brass pins set perfectly flush. There was no guard. The blade flowed like a French curve, arcing into a wicked point that hooked out from the tip as though someone had pinched the end of it sideways. Outlines of ripples colored its surface where different metals had been beaten one into the other. The boundaries between layers were scalloped like an irregular shoreline as seen from high above the ground. Yet the surface was mirror smooth. Both edges glinted with the fine, silver traceries of a well-honed razor.

"It's beautiful," he said, unable to take his eyes off it.

"It is Damascus steel, the finest in the world," she explained with pride, twisting the knife so its blade better reflected the early morning light. "It is a Persian threshing knife, one of the oldest such tools in existence from the post-Bronze era. With proper care, it will hold an edge for many years. If you were to run your finger along it, you would feel the blood drip before you felt the cut. It is that sharp."

She eased the knife back into its sheath and buttoned her jacket, concealing both weapons. "The coffee is ready. Do you mind if I use this cup?" Casually, she picked up the hand-thrown pottery mug usually used by his wife for tea.

"Uh, sure." he answered, as if it mattered. "Who are you, anyway?"

"My apologies." She set down the mug and extended a hand. "My name is Faeth d'Angelo."

For some reason he accepted her outstretched hand. He expected it to be warm and soft. Instead it was cool, and, unlike so many women's, her grip was firm. He could sense the underlying strength in her arm as they clasped hands, not muscle toned in a gym but gained from everyday use in the fields.

Focus, he told himself as she released his hand. "d'Angelo? Forgive me, but you don't sound Italian."

She smiled again, "My father came from what is now Israel. My brother was born in the West Bank."

"You’re a terrorist then," he said before he could stop himself.

An angry scowl would have marred her face were it capable of being disfigured. Instead the expression just made her beautiful in a different way, like clouds filled with thunder before an approaching storm. Then it broke into disappointment.

"Americans are all the same these days," she sighed. "You hear a Middle Eastern accent and automatically think 'terrorist.' The Middle East is a place of culture. Its people gave humanity agriculture, the roots of law, mathematics. Cities and states. Civilization as you know it. Even your American staples of beer and coffee originated there. Three of the world's great religions were founded within a few hundred miles, yet all you can think of is the eleventh of September. It is a shame, really."

"I'm sorry," he said. He wasn't just saying it, for some reason he really did regret upsetting her, though he didn't know why.

"It is what it is," she said offhandedly as she began pouring the coffee. "It is a part of your culture now. I should not let it upset me. Still, it is sad. Sugar for you, yes?"

"Uhm, yes. Do you need cream?" Why did he ask that? What was it about this woman that made him want to please her?

"No, black is fine." She took a sip. "Mmm, dark and strong, the way coffee is supposed to be. I compliment your taste. You should have some before it goes cold." She nodded to the steaming mug beside her.

"Can I at least get dressed first?" he asked.

She leaned against the counter again, crossing an arm under her chest. "I am afraid not."

"So humiliation is part of the arrangement?"

A laugh bubbled up from her like a spring-fed stream tumbling over rocks. "You came to greet me wearing nothing more than a towel while trying to appear like an American action hero. I was content to wait until you were ready. But now that we have begun, we cannot go back. One of the rules, I am afraid." She shrugged.

"Rules? What rules?" he demanded, his fists bunching by his sides again.

"Why don't we sit like civilized people and talk about this while we enjoy our coffee." Faeth looked at him expectantly. He didn't move. "Please do not tell me you are going to be one of those macho cinema types you Americans love so much. It will end badly for you, my friend, and I do not want that."

He scowled at her and swept an arm toward the living room.

"I was thinking your breakfast area might be more comfortable. It has such a lovely view of the front garden. A simple pleasure you should take the time to enjoy."

"Fine." He motioned her in that direction instead.

"A gentleman," she said. "Always a welcome change in this country. But I must insist you show me the way."

He felt awkward leading, but it was only a few feet around the counter and into the nook marked by the transition from tile to carpet. He pulled out the chair tucked under the table for her before pulling one up from the wall for himself. He tried to sit without his towel falling open, mostly successfully. He wasn't sure how his wife ever managed to sit gracefully in a skirt. Thankfully, Faeth didn't seem to notice as she settled into the other chair, crossing her legs with practiced ease. They both faced the window across the small, round table. The carpet felt lush beneath his bare toes.

Faeth sipped her coffee and gazed out into the garden. He tasted his. Today was a day when everything was just right, the right amount of water for the right amount of grounds, the right amount of time steeping in the press. The right amount of sugar that enhanced the flavor but didn't overpower it. Just the right temperature even, barely steaming. A perfect cup of coffee.

He savored it and lost himself staring out the window. He felt as though he were a child again, ready to fall asleep rather than face an unpleasant situation. Sleep, the denial of the very young. Outside, a squirrel jumped into the crook of a distant oak holding something in its paws, a mushroom that it started turning and noshing around the edge of the cap as though it were corn on the cob. Strange the things he noticed when there was something he really wanted to avoid.

"You have questions." Faeth's voice brought him back inside. She was watching him now.

"Why?" he asked. "What did I do that you want to kill me?"

"I do not want to kill you," she responded, sounding mildly surprised.

"Well, someone wants me dead," he retorted angrily.

She shrugged. "Everyone dies. It is nothing personal."

He licked his lips. "Perhaps there is a way around it. I mean, you don't have to kill me. I could disappear, take on a new name, a new identity. I wouldn't tell anyone."

She smiled tolerantly. "I am afraid that is not an option."

"Well, why now? And don't tell me it's my time. Is this just some random act for you?"

"Something like that." She turned her chair to face him, cocking her head slightly. "But have you not been feeling tired recently, as though you were weighted down?"

As he thought about it, a wave of fatigue swept over him. His job, his wife, his lack of success, being stuck in the same rut, facing the same unresolved problems with family and friends year after year. He was over forty and still didn't know what to do with his life. On top of that, it had been a particularly difficult year, his wife's condition, his mother's deteriorating health, his own ailments. And the past, the inescapable past that still haunted him, one he could never change no matter how hard his mind struggled each night to come up with alternate outcomes to situations over which he'd had no control. Many nights during the past year, he had just wanted to lie down and sleep, never to wake again, just as he had wanted so often as a child. He rested his elbow on the table, leaning his forehead onto the palm of his hand. Now that he felt the full weight of living, he could no longer lift it. He closed his eyes.

"It will be all right, my friend," Faeth said, lightly touching his shoulder before he completely faded into inner darkness.

Wearily, he raised his head. "Will it?"

"I promise you it will," she answered, taking his hands into her own. Now her hands were more like he had expected, warm and soft, gentle, almost enveloping.

He looked into her eyes, which had changed to the color of the horizon in a clear, winter sky. "Am I going to die now?" he asked in a voice as small as a child’s.

She smiled indulgently. "We still have a little time if there is anything you wish to tell me."

Before he thought about it, memories came pouring out of him as torrents of words. Some he hadn't thought about in years while others he wasn't sure he had remembered since the day they had been formed. At first, most were the tragic moments, memories filled with frustration and anger, shame and fear. And tears, plenty of tears, even if at the time they had gone unshed. Slowly, brighter moments surfaced, the few joyful times he remembered and many he had not. From there came moments of individual beauty, most of which he had seen but hadn't noticed, which brought a deep sense of regret at not having experienced them fully when he’d had the chance. He remembered all the time he'd purposefully wasted by watching mindless television, playing meaningless games or surfing the net, as well as the energy he had consumed by struggling with things he could not change. He remembered the dreams he'd left unlived, the stories he'd left untold. And he cried, first in pain, then in joy, and finally, in release.

By the time his eyes had drained, his head rested on Faeth's shoulder while she stroked his hair with her right hand. A final memory surfaced, one from college during his second round of being born again, a conversion that also hadn't taken. A young woman from the campus ministry holding his hands as he released the bevy of his perceived sins to her care. At first she reassured him that he would be forgiven. Later, when she ceased to understand the words but still picked up on the emotion, she had held him and told him that he would be okay, that everything would be okay. An act of kindness from a stranger.

His memories exhausted, he felt himself leaning more heavily on Faeth, breathing in the clean scent of her hair. Before sleep claimed him, as he knew it would, he heard the sigh of the Persian threshing knife being slipped from its sheath as she shushed him like a mother would her infant. He felt a single tug, then the warmth flowed out of him. His head slumped from Faeth's shoulder briefly onto her chest then slid to her lap where he rested it awhile, comforted by her presence. Before she left him she eased him to the cold, hard tile of bathroom floor. She reflected a moment on his expression before returning the knife to its place at her hip, smiling and turning to go.

...

When his wife came home that evening, she knew something was wrong as soon as she entered the kitchen. She could smell the water long since boiled away now mixed with the scent of baking enamel from a kettle never intended to sit for hours atop a red hot burner. She turned off the stove and frantically called for her husband from room to room. Absently, she noticed the two mugs on the table in the breakfast nook, the dregs of coffee still staining their bottoms. Had she forgotten to put them away after dinner last night?

After searching the house, she finally found him curled on the bathroom floor as though eased there by some unseen hand, a towel wrapped around his waist. As soon as she saw him, she knew he was dead. Her hand covered her mouth as though guarding it against invasion by some unseen spirit. Her eyes washed themselves clean with tears as she gasped for breath. Even so, she was grateful for the peaceful expression upon his face, as she was again days later when the medical examiner informed her that he had died nearly instantaneously and without pain from the aneurysm that had burst within his brain.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III