Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel (15 page)

Baba filled the doorway with his broad shoulders, which stuck out wide like two boulders, framing the smooth, bald head in between. He was a serious man generally, with lake-still eyes, a square jaw, and a graying goatee. But as he stepped into the door of his home and saw his family huddling, the hard lines of his work day dissolved into a wide smile, lighting up the room.

"DADDY!" With wet hands, Manja ran out of the back, and he scooped her up, hoisting her onto his shoulder.

"
Kayf al-haal, habiibaati?
"--How are my darlings?-- He cooed, smiling warmly as he kissed both Manja and Zeika on their cheeks.
"
Hi, honey." He kissed Mama on the lips as she took his coat and a raggedy lunch box out of his grasp and disappeared with them into the back.

"Baba, guess what I did at school today? I read three books and played house and I--"

"Hey! What's this?" Baba scolded. "
Bil Arabiyya
."--"In Arabic".

Zeika chuckled. Manja had forgotten the golden rule. As a refugee from Demesne 21 in the far East, Baba still held onto the Semitic tongue of his country-- or
countries
, as they once were. From countless stories, Zeika had understood Demesne 21 to include countries of legend: Egypt, Northern Sudan, Yemen, Oman, and bits of Saudi Arabia. The rich nightshade of his skin and his emphasis on Arabic had marked Baba's origins as Northern Sudanese, though the Great Collapse had since made such distinctions useless.

Still, there were memories-- traditions-- that Baba wouldn't allow them to neglect. At least not while he was around.

"
Anaas'fa, Baba,
" Manja apologized and jumped down from his shoulder. Alarmed, Zeika caught Manja by the front of her robes mid-flight and lowered her the rest of the way.

"Mou, Zeika!" Manja huffed, pouting at her interference. She turned back to her father, grabbing his hand. "
Yaa Baba
,
fil madrasa
katabtu--
"

As Manja rattled on about her day, Zeika led Baba into the living room. "Sit down, already!" She said, smiling. From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother slink back, looking tense.

Baba looked at her with eyes that were ragged with fatigue and guilt, and for the moment they stood there, she could see a struggle in his eyes. Fatigue won out, however, and he practically fell into the chair. She pulled off his boots. A rancid smell leapt out of them, causing her to drop them and stumble back. She wrinkled her nose, glowering at her father.
 

"Ugh! Do you believe in talcum powder? This is worse than mustard gas!"

Mama burst out in laughter. Baba shot her a playful glare. In spite of herself, Zeika stared at her mother, love filling her up. Seeing Mama laugh lifted her heart in ways she had forgotten years ago.

"You women sure are a pain! Look, I'm a man, not a rose garden!"

"And your feet are swollen again," Zeika scolded. "You should soak them in some salt water."

"Salt? No way, I don't want to be near the stuff," he muttered, managing a chuckle.

"Okay then, I'll get some cold water. Hopefully, that won't offend your dainty feet."

He cut Mama an amused glance. "You hear how she speaks to her father? That waitress job is teaching her some things I don't think she should be learning."

Zeika dumped Baba's boots into their usual soap and water bucket where the smell of grime and brine would soak out. Then, she filled an old pan with cold water. At night, his feet were always twice the size they were in the morning, from being on them almost sixteen hours a day.

"Thanks, love," he said affectionately, putting his feet in. He sighed in an obvious relief, almost melting into the living room couch.
 

As Baba unraveled, the three of them set the table and served the food, and for an hour, all of the worries of the world melted out of the room as they laughed and ate. They chattered away about a myriad of things, and Manja sang songs until she got hungry enough to plunge her face into her food.
 

Right in the middle of the bread pudding, though, Baba put his coffee cup down in the middle of the table. It was a gesture that Zeika knew well. She nodded and got up to get her ledger.
 

Mama looked at him with exasperation. "Merco, do we have to? We're having a nice family dinner."

"You know we have to. Time to talk business." Baba then turned to Zeika who was sitting back down at the table. "Did your mother tell you what happened?"

Zeika looked at her father cautiously. A lot of 'things' were happening, but what he knew and didn't know was beyond her. "No..." she responded carefully. "No, she didn't."

"Contractors are getting squeezed out of Demesne Six because of the incident. We're being limited to the Fifth and Seventh. I'm not sure how long it's going to last, but that's what we're working with now. That knocks me down to about 1,200 a month. How are things on your guys' end?"

Mama leaned her cheek on her hand. "On a good day, I pull about twenty articles, for two dollars each. On regular days, fifteen is my average."

"So let's get that down at 900 dollars a month. Zeika?"

Zeika was rebalancing the ledger. "Seven hundred a month. About a quarter of that is from the Diner, and the rest from the Forge. Hardware is moving at 50 bucks a pop, give or take what clients are willing to barter along with it. Negotiation fees bring in about 30 bucks a week."

"Have you crafted lately?"

She shook her head. "We got slowed down because Manja was swelling up again. We just finished deliveries a few hours ago."

"Have you
practiced
?" Baba asked, eyes hard.

She knew he was asking if she had been staying on her Majkata. "Two days ago. Haven't had time since."

"Make time. For that and for dance. Even if it means fewer deliveries or less time forging. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Baba."

She was about to apologize when a tinny knock at the door drew her from her seat. It was one of the boys from three rows back, and she could never remember his name.

"Hey, Z. You got a call at the front. It's from Mort. He's on line three."

"Oh, thanks!"
 

Zeika excused herself from dinner and jogged into the misty night air, towards the public telephones that their lot shared. The set up made communications much cheaper for the whole lot, the downside being that everyone knew your business.

"Mort!" Her voice hit a high twitter as she put the receiver to her ear. "Got work for me?"

"Yeah, about that..."

As the lilt in Mort's voice turned downward, Zeika tensed. "What is it?"

"I called because I need you to turn in your uniform. We're letting you go."

If Mort didn't have to push out each word with such slow force, Zeika would have thought she was dreaming. She creased her brow, the confusion going deep. "What?"

"Please don't make me repeat myself. This is hard enough already."

Her cloud of confusion turned into a storm of fury. "You're
firing
me? For what?" Her voice was shaking, and it was all she could do to keep the decibels down to an even hum.

"Lady Webb is threatening to withhold business if we don't let you go."

"WHAT?! She comes in and starts throwing her weight around, kicking us like we're animals, and you're going to punish
me
for it? The Civic Order just put a work quarantine on Demesne Six, Mort. My parents can barely get contracts. I have a family to feed!"

"So do I, Zeika. And there is no way I can do that so long as you're employed here."
 

"But this isn't my fault!
She
came in with the vendetta!"
 

"I'm not blaming you. I'm just asking you to understand. I've already asked the kitchen to pack you up some food. To help you and your family until you can find a way to get back on your feet. I gave you a month's advance on your weekly pay, to help you guys get over. Mackey's got it for you at the back."

Zeika leaned her forehead against the booth. "You've been planning this all along, haven't you?"

"We are indebted to Lady Webb and to her family for our business, and for our protection from the war--"

"Protection from a war
they
started! When they started muscling in on
Civic
Demesnes,
Civic
Guilds! They made the world like this, and now we have to lick their feet for the scraps?! Screw 'em, and if you're going to bend over for her like some choir boy, then screw you too!"

"Now see here, Zeika!" He tried to protest, but then he sighed. "Please, kid. Let's not end this on a bad note. Take the severance pay, okay? And I'm really s--"

Zeika slammed down the receiver and stormed back to the hut. There was no point in playing nice. So long as Roni hated her, Zeika'd never work in the Diner again. Or anywhere else in Demesne Seven for that matter, depending on how far her Azure arm reached. The money and food that Mort gave them would probably last their family only a week before they'd start to feel the pull. Either way, she needed to go get it.

From there, she didn't know what would come. All she knew was that things were going to get very real. The Forge was all they had left.

The Jericho had been busy indeed.
 

The small apothecary had been empty when Xakiah got there... in a way. Dozens of jars filled with piss-colored formaldehyde were stacked on the shelves, and floating in them were shriveled sacks of smooth muscle and slick bone. A liver, a stomach with the entrails, a heart... all the size of a small child's. He walked up to the old splintered writing desk in the middle of the room, noting the open doorway behind it. He didn't doubt that it led back into the Jericho's lab and "butcher shop", where the blood-letting was done. Pearl-sized chips of ivory shined up at him from the surface of the desk. Teeth, too small to belong to an adult. Next to them, a thick spindle of sewing thread, a suture needle, and a needle driver.

Perhaps as a young boy he might have been disgusted, but he had grown up since then, had begun to understand the merits of shrine-keeping.
 

He picked up the smooth row of baby teeth from the table, examining them-- and then his eye caught sight of an old hardback book with decaying, yellow pages. Ignoring the dried splotches of rusted blood at its corners, he pulled it towards him and opened it to find the Jericho's chicken-scrawl.

Progress Report on Sweet Susie #6: Cerebellum and basal ganglia still operative, femoral catheters installed, C
₃
H
₆
N
₆
O
₆
at stomach cavity
_,
C
₃
H
₅
N
₃
O
₉
at left node, vagus nerve and sinoatrial node
 
reconfigured-- energy recycling engine nearly complete. Set point reconfigured...

The scratchings named body parts of the brain, circulatory system, the heart... and there were also formulas for various chemicals, two of them being high explosives, C4 and nitroglycerin. But what a Jericho-- a specialist in surgery and medicine-- would need with such things was beyond him.

"That gun in your hand won't do much for you, Jericho. I've already closed the barrel," Xakiah said without turning around. "That, and you don't have enough light in here."
 

He could hear the man behind him stiffen, and the gun clattered to the floor. Footsteps shuffled forward, and as Xakiah turned around, he watched his Echo walk the Jericho into the room by his collar. It shoved him forward before dissipating back into its shadow.

In his wrinkled, blood-spattered lab coat, the old man looked worn to the bone, but the wide smile betrayed a boyish glee as his gaze rolled up and down Xakiah's body.
 

Hairs raised up on Xakiah's neck. The way the Jericho was staring at him wasn't at all human. It looked unhinged. Clinical. As though he wanted to take him apart.
 

"Ah, so I finally have the pleasure of meeting the infamous Kaelen X. Cotch. Assassin of the Order. Your notoriety precedes you," the old Jericho said, smiling. His gaze was glassy and necrotic.

"If my reputation precedes me, then you are a fool to still be here."

The Jericho's smile widened. "Not everyone will scatter like mice when Death's at the door."

"Where is Sophia Green?"

"She's here. And there," the Jericho answered. "I'm afraid you won't find much of the little Azure left--"

Xakiah closed the distance and slammed the man into the wooden floor by his neck. The Jericho sputtered beneath the dull crack that erupted from his skull.

"I'm not sure that answered my question."

The Jericho gurgled, something like wet laughter crawling from his mouth. Xakiah slipped the eight inch field knife from its sheath and angled it at his jugular, but the Jericho's smile never slacked, the corners of it flecked with foam.
 

"Retribution is coming," the Jericho whispered. "You'll get to experience it in a very personal way. We're going to make sure that all the world's woe is carried by your children. As you've done to ours. Your kind is going to burn... starting with Sophia Green."

Xakiah was about to start carving until the foam at the man's mouth began to expand. It dribbled down his cheek, taking curls of flesh with it. Xakiah's eyes widened, more in curiosity than in fear. Whatever the liquid was, it was eating away at the Jericho's skin.

The man's body temperature shot up, and Xakiah stumbled back at the sudden flush of hot-iron heat that had nearly burned his palm. The Jericho was heaving, spasming on the floor, and his flesh began to balloon. As he swelled, a wet and spotty groan rolled out, evaporating into the thick, acidic foam that was now pouring from his mouth.

Xakiah took a step back, his instincts kicking up, telling him to run, even though the man's sudden throes weren't making any sense--