Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel (16 page)

The Jericho's eyes filmed over, a clear viscous liquid pouring from them, emitting a smell Xakiah knew well. Nitroglycerin.

He sprung over the man's body, flying from the mouth of the apothecary into the dank and dark tunnels he'd had to navigate to find it. His footfalls echoing in the damp sewer, he ran faster than he ever knew how, propelled forward by what he knew was coming, by the sudden absence of the Jericho's garbled struggle--

The explosion that followed was magnificent and all-encompassing, a supernova of light, heat, and sound. Xakiah grunted as skin peeled from his neck and shoulders, as he was thrust forward and landed in a hard roll further down the tunnel. Behind him, slimy stones had been blasted from their mortar, and they rained down in a sandy waterfall of soot and rock, forever burying the entrance to the Jericho's hovel.
 

Ignoring the stings and ringing in his ears, Xakiah stood up and dusted off his hands. He frowned, looking back at the charred, sinking wreckage. The crazy bastard had turned himself into a walking bomb. The bomb had been a small one, probably no more than a pound of C4, with a nitroglycerin trigger-- wherever he had hidden it-- but the tight space of the sewer had magnified its effect. Had he lingered any longer, he wouldn't have survived.
 

As for the Jericho... God only knew how he was able to survive a surgery invasive enough for him to carry an explosive. The sheer mechanics of such a thing were impossible, and aside from the heat burns on Xakiah's back, he had no evidence to prove his story.

One thing was for sure. Whatever they had done to her, Sophia Green was dead. While there had been a collection of body parts in the apothecary, the smaller ones had looked relatively fresh. Not to mention the teeth he had picked up.
 
He had no doubt they were hers.

He slumped down against a clammy stone wall and flipped through his memory until the page in the Jericho's lab book glowed brightly in his mind. Though he didn't generally report his comings and goings, he needed to log the details of the incident for the police files. If the Jerichos and Koa were in league to initiate terrorist attacks against Azures, the Order and alchemic law enforcement would need to start building up contingency plans.

He took his cellphone out and flicked it on, ready to log his investigation when two messages came up. One was from Muirgin, the wet-tailed rat holding a piece of the Page. According to the encrypted note, Muirgin had another shipment he wanted moved. Not high on Xakiah's list of priorities, but as much as he hated dealing with the rat, he always got a good cut out of it.

The second message was from Captain Palmer at the Demesne Five Headquarters. He hadn't written anything, but he
had
attached a dossier of updates on the precinct.

A quick scroll through the message told Xakiah everything he needed to know... and the most important thing. There was a new recruit with a closed file. Caleb K. Rai. Palmer had given him access to the recruit's file, but Xakiah couldn't read past the seal. He didn't like it, but as long as this "Rai" stayed in his place, there shouldn't be a problem. And if he didn't, well... Xakiah smiled. He loved breaking in new blood.
 
But now wasn't the time to muse on how to geld the new stallion.

Work now. Play later.

He logged the Jericho's notes, the man's last chilling words ringing in his ears.
All the world's woe will be carried by your children.
He frowned. It wasn't just harmless psycho-babble. Xakiah had learned long ago how to tell the true jingos from the bullshitters... crazy or not, the Jericho hadn't been lying about retribution coming.

Not before
mine
, though.
 

Anyone even tangentially connected to the Sophia Green kidnapping had been hunted down,
 
from drug pusher to school teacher to messenger boy. He had killed many of them, but not all. One thing he'd learned in his career was that loose ends had a nasty habit cropping up just when you thought you had already closed a contract, and sometimes, they left you ass up. But never him... he always had stragglers to bleed when he needed more info. The only question was who'd be next.

Einee, meenie, miney, moe. Kirk Grainger, you're next on the roster.

He stood up and stretched his muscles, breaking the soreness out of them, and with a thought, the skin on his neck and back began to regenerate. He walked out of the tunnels, knowing that Kirk had probably skipped town already, running scared. Xakiah smiled, knowing he would comfort him in ways he couldn't imagine, because he was going to blast away his uncertainties, uproot them through the arts of terror. He would show the infidel the divinity of torture-- and share with him a sweet, prolonged anguish that would linger in Xakiah's heart for as long as an alchemic eternity could last.
 

When Zeika sneaked into the back alley of the Lakeside, Mackey was already waiting for her, sitting on the back step and smoking a cigarette. The pack he handed her was bulging with food, her severance money in a hidden pocket on the side.

"When you left that day, Crony Roni practically held a protest to get you fired," Mackey muttered in between puffs. "I'm sorry about all this, Z. Bad luck, bad timing." Except he didn't sound sorry at all. He took his cig out of his mouth and frowned at how small it was, looking more worried for himself than for her.

"Yeah. Thanks." Zeika tightened the straps around her shoulders.

"I tried to talk some sense into Mort, but he's too yellow. Old Crony Roni in there's got him by the sack."

Zeika shrugged. "Who
don't
the Azures have by the sack?"

"Everyone except you, apparently."

She stopped gearing up to shoot him a quizzical look.

"Oh come on, you know what I mean. Your mouth, your attitude... they get you into worlds of trouble. They got your job lost, and look at you, still walking around with your chin upwind."

"If you want to keep your nose above the bullshit, you have to lift your head. It's the only way to really see where you're going."

He paused, considering this. She didn't wait for it to sink in.

"Take care of yourself, yeah?" She said, turning to leave. "Don't let Croni push you around."

Mackey waved her goodbye and went back inside, and she continued back the way she'd come. The shadows of the alley seemed to grow around her as new thoughts clouded her mind. The pack he'd given her was heavy; maybe the money and the food could be stretched out to two weeks if she stretched it thin and controlled their rations. Plus, the Guild would take care of Mama once she was committed to Angels Nine. It'd be one less mouth to feed, so her working at the Forge full-time
might
make up the difference. But they'd still be tight...

Someone was walking down the alley. Towards her.

The outline of the body was framed against the night, and as Zeika got closer, she realized it was a little sprat of a girl, no thicker than her hip, dressed in Azure robes. A clot of bitterness curdled in Zeika's chest as she noticed how clean and bright her robes were... but Zeika also averted her eyes, trying to fight the urge to roll up and hide her own sleeves, which were saturated with dirt.

The child's shoulder slammed into her body, cold and heavy, a sack of wet cement knocking a concave into Zeika's right side. She felt the wind rush out of her as she stumbled and hit the alley wall, the clammy chill of the child's touch causing Zeika's skin to recoil.

"Sssorry."

The one-word whisper slipped from the child's mouth, running an icy finger down Zeika's spinal cord, taking all the warmth from her body at once. The kid hadn't seemed to feel anything at all. But what was more disturbing was what Zeika
thought
she saw.

Under the low hood and cowl, a lipless, gazeless gray body with cords sewn tightly in the places where two eyes and a mouth should have been. Worse yet, was that Zeika thought she recognized the corpse-like face... that birthmark on the left cheek...

It--
she--
looked like that missing girl Zeika saw every day in the bathroom of Manja's daycare. That Azure kid, prioritized above all others in the hunt for the missing ghosts of war.
 

She looked like Sophia Green.

No... couldn't be...

Zeika looked back over her shoulder, feeling the dead chill once more as the child swayed through the back alley of the diner. The kid never looked back; it was as though she hadn't even really seen Zeika to begin with. Even the apology had seemed to hiss out between the child's bodily cracks, as though forced by reflex, by the impact itself, rather than by the child's desire to apologize.

She kept staring, part of her thinking that the girl needed help. She was lost or stunned or
something
... Whoever she was, she couldn't have been any older than eight or nine, and it was nearly eleven thirty at night. Who the hell would let their kid just wander around like that?
 

The little girl was heading towards the back door of the diner, and Zeika felt relief pool into her as she watched her stumble in. Whatever the kid needed, whether it was food or help, she would get it. Mort was a coward, but he wasn't heartless. And she was an Azure besides. He'd break his back to make sure she was okay.
 

She turned to leave, perplexed at the sudden impulse to run as fast and as far away from the diner as possible. Something wasn't right...
 

Okay, but what
is
right? You just got fired, and the world sucks, hello?
 

She smiled, shaking her head. She was just stressed. She just needed a night jog to calm her nerves, get her blood flowing. A couple of miles would do her good, and besides she'd eaten well at home. She had the energy for it.

She began to run, then leaned in and picked up speed. She left the diner behind, and the world turned to a blur around her as her body came alive again, her spirits lifting. But for the life of her, she couldn't shake the sudden tremble in her limbs. There was still--
 

Her thoughts disappeared in a deafening holocaust of light, heat, and sound as she was shoved forward and lifted off the ground, as though the hand of God himself had thrown her. Ten feet later, she slammed down hard on concrete, skidding a couple more feet before finally slowing to a stop. On impact, a sheet of black snuffed out her vision, and minute after minute fell off the world as her
 
body lay there.

"Unh..."
 

The primal groan seemed to reset her body completely. One by one her senses flickered back on, and immediately, she felt the pangs of her unexpected flight. Scratches had torn open the skin where she had slid, and bruises swelled up.
 

What... what happened?

Still laying at the mouth of the bridge, Zeika blinked away the tears, at the same time rubbing her stinging eyes with the back of her hand. She coughed, once, twice, feeling something like coal dust dislodge from her windpipes. The taste was bitter, and as she purged, she realized that the noise of the world had been muffled. Trickles of fluid, running down her neck. She put fingers to her ears and looked at them once she felt a warm glaze on her fingertips. Blood.

Slowly, she rolled over, forcing herself to deny the agony inside as she tried to get up. She clamped her jaw, placing her hands squarely beneath her body and using her legs in tandem, and in the next moment, she was standing on wobbly legs, turning around to see what had pushed her.

My God...

The top of the Lakeside Diner had been blown open, twisted and charred by flame. Bricks had blown out of the diner's belly, glass windows scattered across the ground like black rain. What remained of the wreckage was completely engulfed by hellfire. A thick inky cloud billowed around the dead brick and mortar like fingers of death, and Zeika's skin practically shriveled beneath the dry heat that blasted over her.

Mort. Mackey.
Feeling tears spring to her eyes, she shook her head as though trying to ward off a bad dream.
Me. That could have been me in there, too.
She folded back down to her knees, and her fingers closed around the folds of her traveling robes as she realized how close she had come to being blackened to a crisp, robes and all.

The bridge shook and groaned, dust and debris shaking from its loose parts and snowing down around Zeika's head, but she could barely feel it. Her mind was spinning, navigating around both her shock and sorrow to try to understand what had just happened.
 

A gas leak, maybe. But not likely. Mort was extra careful about his kitchen safety and even had an in-house technician for that sort of thing. Especially since his diner had become so popular with Azures. Telling by the extent and nature of the damage, it had been a munitions explosion. Bomb.

But who would do this? And why?

She shook her head, bouncing between Koa and the Azures. The three Protecteds were like sacred meccas to the Koan rebels; being the defenders of Civilians and their territory, they would
never
target any place in Demesne Seven, not even one so populated with Azures and Azure Alchemists like the Lakeside Diner. And the Azures... they would never attack their own. It was against their code.
 

None of it made any sense, and no matter how many times she asked herself, the answers never came. And it didn't matter. The sick truth of it was that Demesne Seven had just been breached, just as the Sixth had.
 

Zeika pursed her lips, understanding what this could mean, what could happen next. Burning with purpose, she staggered to her feet, shaking out her limbs and re-securing her knapsack before breaking back out into a sluggish, limping jog.

She had to get home before daybreak.