www.thevalentinechronicles.com presents:
Dark Forces
by
Paul L. Mathews
Formerly a vital strategic base for the Theocracy,
the Hu Kwaren
system once pulsed with transports and tankers conveying troops and ordinance
between massive brass orbital forts. Now only rock and detritus remained, the
Theocracy having destroyed everything they left behind as they abandoned the
system to invading D’Kothren forces.
The light from the system’s twin suns daubed a
brilliant halo of red and orange about the Stanztrigger planetoid as, in
geosynchronous orbit over that planetoid, the Siberian Winter reflected
the sunlight on the pale blue and white of its scarred hull; a light that possessed
the Winter’s plexiglass canopy with the radiance of weeping eyes.
On the other side of the canopy Kirill
sat on the flight-deck and bit his lip. He wrung his hands. His eyes twitched
from side to side as he assessed the many read-outs and reports offered by the Winter’s instrumentation. But, no matter how many
times he looked, they all said the same thing: the Troika had gone, and
it had taken
#
Below the Siberian Winter, through the
lugubrious clouds that hung over the planetoid, the island lay in a nascent
calm disturbed only by a timid breeze and the brittle rustle of dead trees. The
blizzard had stopped almost as soon as the Troika’s
explosive demise rocked the island, and now patches of wet earth peeped out from
beneath the receding snow. The trees wept as the ice thawed away.
What snow remained crunched under the boots of
Moreaus as they crept through the wreckage of the Troika.
Bent, blackened panels from the corvette still radiated heat and a little
steam, and the tick tick
tick of the metal’s contraction vied for
attention over the snuffling of the creatures. Grubby and with the heads of
pigs, they wore threadbare fatigues at least half a century old, the faded grey
material contrasting with the glisten of white snow. Each Moreau wore the badge
of Stanztrigger’s Eaters. They scanned for survivors, guns at the ready. They
saw none, despite the abundance of shredded Long Knife flesh and rent armour
that littered the scene. The Moreaus salivated at the sight.
Their leader—a bulky female boar named Sow, wearing
rings through her ears and nose—licked her lips and gestured at the lumps of
dirty flesh that lay amongst the snow and earth. “You!” she shouted at a small
knot of pigs. “Get this meat into bags and take it back to the ruins.” Her
stomach tightened and a wave of nausea swept over her. By God, it was so long
since they’d had a square meal...
Distracted, her eyes narrowed as she peered at
something on the fringe of the wreckage. It was the remains of an escape pod,
its hide punctured outwardly by an internal explosion. With a curt signal she
sent a further group to secure the pod. The pigs advanced at a trot, their kit
chattering and their SMGs thrust forward.
They reached the pod, and the sow watched as they
edged up to the breached shell, SMGs at the ready. A
young boar risked his snout and peered inside. A squeal of alarm and his gun
was thrust into the gap, his comrades following suit with shouts of “Don’t
move!” and “Identify yourself!” Whatever they’d found
didn’t reply, however, and the pigs ventured inside. They emerged shortly
afterwards, carrying…carrying something.
“What the hell is
that?” Sow murmured.
An unnatural marriage between flesh and engineering,
its torso and head wore gaping wounds, burns, and protruded shrapnel. Exhaust
fumes seeped from ports in a lacerated back that leaked oil and blood. Ripped
flesh surrounded metal bearings where Sow imagined the shoulders should have
been. Both arms and one leg were missing, and its lifeless head sagged back,
mouth gaping to give a glimpse of razors and gears. Despite being an
experienced part of the Eaters, even Sow shuddered at this sight of this oily
horror.
“Sow!” shouted a pig behind her. “Over here! I’ve
found a dog…I think.”
She turned from the pod. Her brow creased. A dog? The Cook hadn’t mentioned anything about a dog. His
instructions had been explicit: get to the Troika and find the Oridian
called Tatiana Valentine.
Sow strode toward the pig. Assuming this wreckage had once been the Troika, the Cook wasn’t going to be very happy at all.
She reached the pig and looked down. Sure enough a cyborg
dog lay in the snow—or what remained of one; its armoured body was ravaged by the
same explosive fate that had befallen the Troika. Now only the bubbled
and burnt head, neck and shoulders remained. A stencilled name—
“Sow! Over here! I’ve found
an Oridian!”
She turned. A further pig stood in the centre of the Troika’s
wreckage. He pointed at a humanoid shape on the ground. Sow’s pulse quickened. An Oridian? Now that was interesting. She ran toward
them. As soon as she reached the prone form she knelt beside it and inspected
it carefully. Curled in a foetal position, a frosted shell of thick ice blurred
its body. Sow could make out the azure skin and midnight blue of its hair. The
face seemed to be obscured by yet more ice—was that a mask? she
wondered—and the shoulders hidden by a fur cloak. The rest of the body looked
to be naked but for some metal two-piece over her chest and groin.
“
Sow’s ears twitched. A communicator
close by, hidden amongst the wreckage. She looked about her, and the pig
did the same.
“Do you copy? Over?”
She stood and, hunched a little, began to pace about
the wreckage with her head tipped to one side in an attempt to pin down the comm’s location. She clicked her fingers at the pig and
gestured about the devastation. “Help me!”
The pig obeyed and began to make its way through the
wreckage, cupping one ear with a grubby hand.
“
Sow’s eyes narrowed. There! She jumped forward and
knelt over a clutch of twisted metal before gripping it and throwing it aside.
The heat burned her palms, but it didn’t matter. There, amongst the melted
snow, sat one of the Long Knives’ communicators.
“
Sow flicked her tongue across the tips of her cracked
tusks. The Siberian Winter? That had to be the
name of this
“Cook? Sir?” she said. “I
think we may be able to get hold of a ship after all…”
#
What should have been a short journey from Hu Kwaren to the
planet of Heartland had taken the Valentines weeks as they followed a tortuous
route through the Sospiri, Foitek,
and Ghinzani systems in an effort to avoid being
followed or detected.
But now, finally, they stood on the fringes of
Heartland’s capital. Tatiana couldn’t have been more grateful. Ivan had
insisted they didn’t leave the Faded Lady’s flight-deck, and Katarina’s
snoring—along with Stalin’s incessant chatter—had wreaked havoc on her sleep.
Even now the noise from the labyrinthine spaceport behind them grated on her
nerves. She tried to ignore it, tried to forget the congestion and heat of the
complex behind her, and focused on both the cool metal of Matinee’s gun as it
nestled in the small of her back, and the metropolis before her.
The city was built in a river valley, its spires and
walls reflected in the water. Blue and shimmering, the river eventually widened
into a vast estuary dominated by tankers and small boats sitting at berth. Captivating in a hectic way. The urban land mass, however, crept
from the riverbank like some primeval amphibious creature. It began along the
riverbank as a festering morass of recycled masonry and renovated ship parts
such as bits of hull, ram scoops and cargo pods with myriad alien families
living within. Smoke from camp fires and ad-hoc ovens spiralled into the blue
skies and clothes hung from lines. Countless species of baby played amongst the
dirt whilst aged elders looked on and admonished them occasionally while
parents bent to wash linen and underwear in the frothing shore of the river. The
A familiar anger swelled in the pit of her
stomach—the same choking anger she’d been holding back ever since they’d left
the Troika behind. She’d hardly said two words to the old man since
Boyd’s death, since Ivan had driven into the night to kill him, and now she
couldn’t bring herself to even look at him. Instead she focused on the city,
its life and energy, and her attention was pulled through bustling streets and
markets to drink in the sights and sounds of the docks. They sprawled the
estuary shore, and the hammer and rhythm of their industry welled from their
cranes and grav-lifters as they strained to swap a kaleidoscopic profusion of
containers from ship to shore and back again. Foremen shouted instructions, and
lean dockers made discreet, gestured insults in return
behind their backs. Transports laboured from the docks, weighed down by stacks
of containers. They slid away from the harbour, crawling through the flotsam
and jetsam of the shanty town like metal beasts. Their progress, slow and
laboured, took them through the squalor, and past gates in the first of nine
concentric walls that radiated from the centre of the city. Tatiana squinted at
the guards that lurked on those walls. Wait a minute, she thought, aren’t
they…?
“Stalin?” She bent her head toward the dog as he
cowered behind her leg with eyes like saucers. “Aren’t they Theocracy
soldiers?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Just who are these ‘Theocracy’ anyway?” Katarina
asked. Tatiana looked at her. Leant against their Dante cabinet with the
relaxed air she’d possessed of late, she too appraised the city, her eyes black
masses of mascara beneath the low fringe of her woollen bobble hat. “And hasn’t
Ivan mentioned ‘em in the past?”
“They’re imperialist nutcases bent on controlling as
much of the Pagentorns as possible.” Stalin
shuddered. “Your Father and your Uncle fought them to a standstill twenty years
ago, in the bad old days…”
They looked at Ivan. Stood apart from them, the old
man either couldn’t hide his ire, or wasn’t bothering to try. Fists clenched,
jaw set and eyes narrowed, he glared across the city as a convict might glare
at his old prison.
The twins followed his stare to take in the increasingly grand buildings. Built in the gothic style Tatiana hadn’t seen since Father took her to Pugin, they were jammed amongst the walls beyond the slum. Gravs, pack animals, and old cars fought through narrow, twisting streets, their torturous progress documented by the blare of horns, insults, and bestial cries. A dizzying spectrum of life—from beggars to merchants, from soldiers to priests, and all colours between—crawled over it all like ticks on a cracked and dry hide.
“What did you say this place was called again?”
Katarina asked Stalin.
“Well, its real name is Promise,” the dog said. “And
that—” he nodded at a tower in the city’s centre, “—is the Torch.”
Flanked and bolstered by buttresses, arches, and
spires, the Torch stabbed skyward. The top of its central tower lay open as a
roaring fire danced, orange and vivid against the blue of the boundless
horizon. From those walls hung the banners of the Theocracy, fluttering in the
sea breeze. Purple etched with brass, the maxim Kore
Levin—‘Our Duty’—sat proud at their centre.
Tatiana massaged her temple with stiff, tired fingers
and groaned through her teeth in frustration. Theocracy.
Heartland. Promise. She’d
grown tired of it all—of being dragged all over the Pagentorns
by Ivan—now she wanted answers. “So why bring us here?”
Stalin nodded toward the city,
toward its Theocracy soldiers and fortified walls. “Because
we need to get through that lot.” He focused on The Torch. “We need to
get in there.”
“Why?”
“To help
Vast…and to find your Father.”
#
From the fringes of the
spaceport, over a toll-bridge and into the thick of the city, they’d ventured
into Promise, their pace slowed a little by Ivan’s limp and Tatiana’s periodic
need for rest, her lung still damaged following her confrontation with the
Cook.
Ivan had settled on their using camograph projectors to disguise their identities because
he had, in his own words, ‘...left a lot of enemies here, yes?’ Tatiana had
avoided eye contact with the old man as she’d taken the small device from him
without thanks. Now they shed their disguises as they crowded into a sparse
hotel room with one tiny window through which they could see the claustrophobic
precinct in which the hotel cowered. Identified by Ivan as
With both heat and a hint of
precipitation on her face, Tatiana leant on the window sill and looked out over
the street as it palpitated beneath the sunset’s vivid red sky. Lined by
dilapidated hotels, bars, and brothels, this main thoroughfare ran the length
of the precinct like a choked artery. Its cracked curbs were crammed with
grav-cars so beaten and make-shift Tatiana found it hard to determine if they
were parked or merely abandoned. Many had smashed windows and alarms that
wailed for attention, whilst the rest had no windows left at all. Children and
teenagers sat on their roofs and bonnets as they watched the passers-by and
assailed them with abuse, rubbish, or spit. Some of these passers-by
retaliated, and Tatiana saw at least two Karscalian
teenagers being kicked and punched to the curb by a clutch of deceptively thin Xentries. Most just scurried on.
Hookers and pimps lingered in the
few gaps between the cars. From famished human boys and Morls
with sore patches in their thin fur, to pneumatic Karscalians
and a hulking Gol Jaquan
with acres of flesh spilling out of inches of cloth—all tastes were catered
for. Their pimps looked on as their girls and boys lead a steady procession of
clients into the street’s alleys, cars, or hotels, only to be back minutes
later, their trick walking away with a lighter wallet and heavier shoulders.
Music from all corners of the Pagentorns swept out of the bars, as did the punters,
brawls, and lovers’ tiffs. Tatiana watched one couple argue with such a passion
that they were at blows one minute and screwing under a parked grav the next.
Bouncers carried a body out of one bar and dumped it in the street before going
back inside. Minutes later rats scurried from the shadows and set about this
fresh meal. It twitched a little as vicious teeth went to work.
She saw no signs of the Theocracy
or any police.
“Tatiana.”
She turned to look at Ivan and
raised an eyebrow as she spoke to him for the first time in hours. “Yes?”
“I must take Vast to see
someone,” he said as, yet again, he entered in a staring contest with her. “You
will stay here until I come back, yes?”
“Can I stay too?”
“No, Stalin. You come with me.”
The dog—lying on the floor—whined
and banged his tail on the threadbare carpet and put his paws over his face.
“Can I come with you?” asked
Katarina. She sat on the room’s only bed—a double with clean but faded blankets—and
swung her legs back and forth as she rested her hands on the edge of the
mattress. She’d already kicked off her heavy boots with now customary
insouciance, and her stripy tights undulated as she wriggled her toes.
Ivan pinched the bridge of his nose
and squeezed his eyes shut, avoiding the tender flesh about his eye were
Crepitus had almost half-blinded him. When he opened his eyes again they were
still just as bloodshot. “No, Katarina. I will go alone.”
“You’re sure? I mean, you look
really tired, and it looks kinda dangerous out
there—”
Ivan laughed for the first time
that Tatiana could remember. It may have been a harsh laugh, but it was still a
laugh. She and Katarina looked at him in stupefied surprise.
“Yes, Kat, it is dangerous. But
so is staying here. You will be okay?”
“We’ll be fine, Ivan,” Tatiana
said. She leant back against the window sill with her hands behind her back.
She rested her hand in the wooden handle of Matinee’s gun. “We’re big girls
now.”
Another staring contest between Ivan
and Tatiana only ended when Katarina stood and padded across the room to stand
with Ivan. She gave Tatiana a dirty look before standing on her toes to give
Ivan a kiss on the cheek. “You be careful,
alright?”
He looked at her, and his
expression softened. “I will be fine. Now lock door behind me and open it for no-one.”
#
The lift may have been clean but
it took an eternity to reach the ground floor, and when it did finally grind to
a halt the doors took just as long to open. By the time he and Stalin managed
to escape it, Ivan had begun to wonder if he’d finally met his match in this
rickety tin box.
Now he stood in the hotel’s
cramped lobby, if lobby were not too grand a word for it. A tiny cubicle
overlooked both the bare reception and a flight of stairs down to the street. A
grizzled human male, approximately Ivan’s age, sat behind the cubicle’s
bullet-proof plexiglass. He didn’t even bother to look up from his tatty old
paperback book as Ivan pushed the Dante cabinet forward and stood in front of the
cubicle.
“You are to be leaving already,
Eh-van?” the receptionist said, his Russian accent
every bit as thick as Ivan’s. “Are you not to be knowing
it is late?”
“I have work
to do, yes? You will keep eye on twins?”
“Oh sure,
sure.” He nodded a slow, absent minded nod that didn’t convince Ivan
he’d paid any attention at all. “I have all eyes for pretty girls, Eh-van.” He
looked up and winked. “But you are already to know this, are you not.”
Ivan laughed, and for the first
time in many weeks the laugh had genuine humour in it. Maxim may have aged—God
only knew they all had—but the mischief in those steely eyes hadn’t changed,
and the crows-feet and frown lines couldn’t hide scars that promised Maxim
would fight to the death to keep the twins safe.
“Do not to worry, Eh-van,” he
said as he reached under the counter to produce a heavy automatic pistol which
he placed on that counter with a thud, “Auntie Glock
and her nineteen dum-dum children are to be taking good care of pretty twins.”
He gave Ivan a salacious grin. “Who knows, maybe Uncle Maxim is even tucking in
twins later.”
Ivan shrugged and feigned an
expression of indifference. “And maybe I tear Uncle Maxim’s Glock
off if he tries it, yes?”
A riotous peel of laughter shook
the cubicle’s plexiglass, and Maxim smiled a wide and genuine smile that warmed
even Ivan’s frosted, weary heart. He could not deny it
was very, very good to see this old
friend again. “You are to be careful, Eh-van, eh? Promise is not improved since
you are last here.”
“And neither has your accent,”
said Stalin. He stood on his hind legs to rest his paws on the counter and peer
at Maxim. “Talk properly!”
Maxim took an exaggerated look
over both shoulders, and over Ivan’s shoulder into the street, and then leant
forward to whisper to Stalin through perforations in the plexiglass. “Is part
of act. Don’t be telling anyone.”
“Enough. We go now.” Ivan clicked
his fingers and Stalin duly returned to all fours and trotted to his side. Ivan
pushed the Dante cabinet toward the hotel door—or rather the space where the
doors should have been. Ivan’s brow furrowed. Why the hell hadn’t Maxim
replaced them?
“Is not worth fitting new ones,”
Maxim called to them just as Ivan looked back at him with a quizzical raise of
his eyebrow. “They are only to be blown off again. Like I am saying, Promise is
not to be getting any safer.” He gave Ivan and Stalin a cheery wave, a bright
smile, and a theatrical wink. “You make sure to enjoy your walk, eh?”
#
In fairness, Tatiana reflected,
the hotel room may have been cheap (or it would have been cheap if the owner
hadn’t given Ivan the room for free), but it did have its advantages. It was at
least clean (which she guessed was a rarity in this neighbourhood), it
contained a real bed, and it had a working shower.
Now steam shrouded Tatiana as she
left the tiny bathroom. A voluminous towel enveloped her body and a smaller one
crowned her head. Even so the cool breeze from the open window made goose-flesh
of her upper chest and shoulders. She shuddered, taken by surprise. The air had
been warm—humid even—before she’d taken her shower.
She looked to the window.
Katarina leant out of it as she smoked a cigarette and watched the street-life
make a gruesome spectacle of itself. With one leg
straight and the other bent, her left stockinged foot
rested on top of the right. Her chin sat in one hand and a cigarette glowed in
the other, smoke curling about her face and straight
Katarina, she realised, looked
like a killer…
Katarina looked over her shoulder
to see Tatiana’s goose-flesh and the shiver in her shoulders. “Sun’s gone down,
getting cooler,” she said as she took a final drag on her cigarette then flicked
the glowing butt out of the window. She exhaled a stream of smoke before
wrestling the recalcitrant window shut.
“How long was I in the shower?”
“‘Bout an
hour.”
“An hour?
Christ on a bike…” Tatiana knew she’d been a while, but still. It just showed
how quickly time can pass when you’re crying over a lost love…
“How you feelin’, sis?”
Tatiana blinked. “What?”
“How are you feeling?” Katarina
walked to the side of the double bed and carried on talking as she removed her
baggy jumper, her voice muffled inside its shapeless confines. “You’ve been
pretty quiet ever since we left Stanztrigger.”
Tatiana’s shoulders sank and she
looked away. “How do you expect me to feel? Boyd dead.
Dolly destroyed. The Troika
blown up.” Tears filled her eyes and she had to stop.
Katarina threw her jumper on top
of her kitbags and turned her back on Tatiana before unzipping her baggy black
cargo-pants. Tatiana watched her. With the jumper off Katarina wore a thick
long-sleeved tee which clung to her body. Tatiana’s eyes narrowed. Katarina had
lost some serious weight. The puppy fat. The muffin top. All gone. A slender
young woman remained. That just didn’t make sense, Tatiana thought. She found
it hard to believe a combination of the occasional cigarette whenever Ivan
wasn’t looking, stress, and a bad diet could leave her with such a great
figure…
As she stepped out of her pants
to reveal stripy tights Katarina said, “Well, I know you must be in pain, but I
don’t think it’s fair for you to blame Uncle.”
Katarina turned to face her
again, and their gazes locked. They didn’t speak, and the muted noise from the
street momentarily owned the room.
“Well I didn’t see anybody else
drag Boyd out into the night to kill him.”
“And I didn’t see anybody else
drag Boyd down onto Parlour and get him bitten by that Portia thing.”
Tatiana’s fists clenched and her
body tensed. Her nostrils flared as she took deep breaths and fought to bite
down on her anger. How dare she say
that? Didn’t she know Tatiana already blamed herself for Portia getting
anywhere near Boyd?
She opened her mouth to speak,
but the tumult of her emotions froze her tongue. How could her sister say such
a thing? Wasn’t it obvious how much pain—how much guilt—Tatiana endured? What had happened to Katarina to turn her
from the sister she known and loved to this…this heartless witch?
“Please, Tatty, leave Ivan alone
before we really fall out.” She pulled a huge towel from the depths of one of
her kitbags and a rattle of bottles spilled from the bag. “Oh, and speaking of
falling out,” she said as she walked by Tatiana and patted her on the cheek,
“I’d hide that if I were you. Before Ivan sees it and really loses his temper.”
Tatiana followed Katarina’s nod to see Matinee’s pistol lying neatly in the
middle of Tatiana’s pillow. The same pistol Tatiana had diligently hidden in
her backpack before taking a shower.
She span on her
heel with bared teeth and wide eyes, only to see Katarina close the bathroom
door and bolt it. “Now ‘scuse me, sis,”
Katarina said, voice muffled, “but I need a scrub.”
#
“What’s in the cabinet, mate?”
With the noise and bustle of the
main street behind him, Ivan looked at the three men who blocked the shadowed
ally. Human males, they had faces that weren’t so much been lived in as
condemned and then demolished. Bloodshot eyes glared from amongst scars,
stitches, and fresh cuts, and the sneering lips didn’t
frame many teeth.
The scratch of claws on concrete
told Ivan that Stalin had scurried behind him for cover. Ivan sighed. His head
bowed and his shoulders slumped. His was too tired for this nonsense. The
short-cut was meant to save time—time he could ill-afford to waste on these
sorry cases.
“Never mind, just give us it
anyways.”
There was the glint of light on
blades and the kla-chik of a gun being cocked.
Ivan looked at the weapons. They didn’t shake, and he surmised the robbers had
either been doing this so long they felt no fear, or they just didn’t care.
Well, he did. He had to be on his
way.
“You do not want to do this,” he
said. Better to give them one last chance to surrender than have his hand
forced.
“Fuck that. Give us the cabinet
or we kill you, bitch.”
He sighed and moved his hand from
the cabinet to the camograph projector on his belt.
“Hey! What y’doin’, asshole?”
He flicked the camograph off, and his disguise vanished. Focusing tired
eyes upon them, he raised an eyebrow and waited for them to realise just how
much trouble they’d blundered into. Realisation crept over their faces like
dawn across a bloodied battlefield.
“Fuck me. Is that…?”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Ivan fucking Valentine—I don’t
believe this shit!”
One by one they dropped their
weapons and fled down the ally. Ivan watched them go before he turned to look
down on Stalin.
“You can open your eyes now.”
“Sorry, Ivan.”
Ivan sighed and pushed the
cabinet forward whilst Stalin slunk beside him with his chin to the floor and
his tail between his legs. The pain in Ivan’s knee swelled as he limped. The pain that never went away. The pain bequeathed him by
that traitorous vixen Black Gladys. He gritted his teeth. One day, he vowed as
he shut out the agony, he would find Gladys, and make her pay.
#
Tap-tap cursed as he tightened the
cord of his plush gown over his expansive gut and scurried down the stairs. A
mutated Raistrick—giant bipedal rats more
colloquially known as Herbies—he had two heads, both
which now muttered and cussed as he reached the front door and slide back the
first of its many bolts.
“Who is this at such a now time?”
he said, his two mouths occasionally falling out of synch. “Who would come here
and make such bang racket?” The clicks of further bolts being slid back were
lost by renewed hammering on the door. “Yes yes! We
hear you! Be silent!”
He bent to undo the last few bolts and, with a groan, straightened, furry hand going to
the small of his back. When, he wondered, did we become so old?
The chain tightened with a ker-chuk as he
opened the door a fraction. Shouts, loud music, and drunken cheers seeped into
his hallway from the streets, dulled almost into an ill-coordinated melody by
the distance. His ears and the whiskers on his grey muzzles shivered as his
noses twitched. Keen eyes focused on the mammoth shape that loomed in his
doorway.
“All our
stars!” He staggered back a step. Old he might have been, but his senses
were still keen—as was his memory. Even now, after all these years, he’d know
that smell of old sweat and other men’s blood anywhere. The hair had certainly
changed—gone were the thick black hair and goatee beard—but that scowl and
those fierce eyes were still the same. The girth had thickened, the arms had
lost some tone, but the scars on that mighty frame hadn’t moved, and they still
told a million tales.
“Open door, Tap-tap,” Ivan said,
“before I kick it in, yes?”
#
Tap-tap’s flat lay on the fringe
of
Cool and crisp, the air
temperature suddenly rose, and a stench of tarmac assailed Ivan. He turned to
see Tap-tap’s bodyguard, Mortlock, facing him. An
ethereal bastardisation of intangible concrete and metal, steam rose from its
body and its head slumped forward from a hunched back. Metal cables swung from
its tarred pate like dreadlocks to cover its face, and a pair of glowing amber
eyes glared at Ivan from within.
“Fuck off,” Ivan said with a
sneer.
The Draugr
shrank back and looked toward Tap-tap, perhaps confused. It should have been
invisible to the naked eye, after all. No ordinary man had ever seen Mortlock before.
With a wave of his hand, Tap-tap
dismissed the Draugr. It gave Ivan a long, withering
glare as it faded away and back into its supernatural world.
Tap-tap continued to inspect the
frozen Vast, and Ivan surveyed the workshop. It may well have been close to two
decades since he was last here, but it hadn’t changed much. It still smelt
antiseptically sterile. Doctorpus units were still
dotted about the ceiling, black and multi-limbed. The mesh floor still sat over
mutilated bodies preserved in plaxiglass tubes until
such a time Tap-tap found the parts to heal their horrific wounds. The
spotlight still provided the main source of light, and it still couldn’t hide
the racks of preserved body parts that crammed the walls. From races loyal to
the Theocracy and species supposedly exterminated by the D’Kothren, to aliens
allied with the Accord and subjects of the Gol Jaquan, Ivan saw limbs and organs from them all—and he knew
full well they were the real thing. Tap-tap just didn’t do bio-engineered
substitutes. Every one the real thing, or your money back…
The tubes were still punctuated
by cabinets stuffed with an equally diverse range of cybernetics, each
carefully labelled with a small white tag. Each tag still had Tap-tap's careful
writing on it, each word written twice in two sets of distinctive handwriting.
This, Ivan concluded, was like stepping back in time. And it wasn’t a pleasant
trip.
Tap-tap closed the lid on the
Dante cabinet, and it sealed with a hiss of expelled air, a series of thick
clunks, and a beep from its diagnostics console.
“You give us five day nights and
we give you new big Vast,” the rat said.
Ivan peered at him. “How new?”
Tap-tap slipped his thumbs into
the cord of his gown and squinted down his noses at Ivan. “As new as you can
expect, Ivan. You have run her long hard and there are not many miles left in
her tank. But we will extract them from her—and a few more besides.”
Ivan looked away for a moment.
His heart sunk a little. While that had been the answer he’d expected, it
wasn’t the one he wanted. “Very well,” he said with a curled lip. “How much?”
“Twelve.”
“Twelve? That’s ridiculous!”
Tap-tap shrugged. “Times are dark
hard, Ivan. Take it or leave us be.”
Ivan ground his teeth and looked
to the shelves of limbs. So the rat-bastard wanted twelve limbs? He glared at
the mutant with its two heads. Both sneered at him with an air of gloating
superiority. They saw Ivan’s desperation, and clearly enjoyed it. I ought to
grab both those throats and throttle them here and now, Ivan thought. I should
let Vast pass away, at peace in her sleep. But I can’t. I need her.
“Fine.
Deal,” he muttered. “What species?”
“Any. There is a war battle
coming.” He rocked back and forth on the balls of his slippers and one head
poked a tongue into its cheek as it gloated. “Demand will be big huge. We will
be able to use whatever you bring.”
Ivan turned his head slightly to
look sideways at the mutant. “What ‘war’?”
It tapped the side of one nose
and winked. “That is for us to see know.” He turned away and gestured toward
the door. “Five day nights, twelve limbs. Now leave.”
#
By the time he reached Maxim’s
hotel, Ivan began to feel the pace. Like the twins, he hadn’t slept well in
weeks. His limbs were heavy, his eyes burnt, and his head throbbed with a
constant and dull pain. He needed sleep. Badly.
He didn’t pause to talk to Maxim,
a cheery wave from his old friend being all he needed to know. All was right
and no-one had attempted to harm the twins. With Stalin trotting beside, Ivan
proceeded to the faulty lift, thought better of it, and dragged his weary old
carcass up six flights of stairs to their room.
The key clicked in the lock and
Ivan slunk into the room with his head bowed, shoulders stooped, and his eyes
almost shut. A cursory look toward the girls—both sound asleep in the double
bed, albeit with their backs to one another—was all he needed to know they were
okay. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. He should shower, he knew.
His hair was greasy, and he stank, but he was just too tir—
He turned back to the bed, eyes
wide in alarm as it finally percolated through his fugue. There, on the bed. A
small black paper heart placed between the twins. Two painful limps bridged the
gap to the bed and Ivan snatched at the heart to look closer. No, please, he
thought. Not here. Not yet. I am not ready…
The little paper heart fluttered
in his trembling hand as he read the neat white words written across it:
Glad you’re back, Ivan. I’ve missed you. See you soon! xxx
He screwed it up and cast it
aside as he looked about the room with wide eyes. Of course she’d left no trace
of entry. She never did. Not Black Gladys.
He limped to the kitbags he’d
stacked in the corner and threw the topmost aside until he found the one he
needed. A fire-axe he’d salvaged from the Troika
lurked in the bag, and he withdrew it before—with the axe clutched in both
hands—he turned to the door.
“What is it, Ivan? What’s wrong?”
He ignored Stalin and stepped to
his side until he reached a chair sat by the window. It creaked as he sat down,
gaze focused on the door.
Ashen white and red eyed, he still
sat there the following morning when the twins awoke, and still he stared at
the door.
The Valentine Chronicles
will continue with Keys to the Kingdom
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story—and more—on the Valentine Chronicles forum
© 2009 Mathew David
Spaull. All rights reserved.