Angels still walked amongst us back then. That?s what the older folk said, anyway. About the time before, and by ?before? they mean ?before the hammer? - of sheriff, of war. Before the land really dried up and the trees stopped sprouting leaves. When the creeks were full and flat mirrors for the sky, so if you dived in, you seemed to be diving into the heavens.
The days seemed longer back then too, to Maida, much longer and hotter. There seemed endless days to get going on a dream, or to just lie about in the prairie and count the clouds until you fell asleep. You?d wake up with your cheeks stinging with sun and the hairs on your arms like thousands of blonde fires. But there were still a few hours before dusk, and the world around you, like that day, was endless too. There was always some new curve to the world to find; some cliff to shimmy along, some cave or crevice to explore. But those days may as well have never happened and if there were any angels left, they had probably sold their wings. We were a hopeless bunch out in the country. After the war, we were dust on the wind. So when Maida first saw Morgan come out of thin air - or so it looked - down a road and all seeming to glow and emanate some sort of buzz, she was sure one of the angels had come back. Decided to pawn back his wings and set foot into a place that had forgotten its name and honor and place on the map. Maida would never forget two things - the first time she saw Morgan Wright, on that blazing day, and the last time.
The sun was beating hard that day. Waves of heat were visible on the horizon, casting the world in a strange light. It was like the earth itself was slowly melting away, eaten up by the sun. Morgan was a wretch to behold, though the silhouette he made in the distance would have you thinking he was some lone hero marching through the wasteland. He was a ragged looking thing with sweat and dirt caking every inch of his starving body, his cheeks and eyes sunken and hollow and a thick layer of hair covering his chin. He had dirt under his nails, which had grown too long, and his gaze held the look of a man who had truly succumbed to madness. When he came closer it was like staring into the eyes of death, like his soul had gone and left behind an empty vessel. He grunted and clicked his tongue, he growled and groaned and made all manners of noises that most would associate with a crazed beast.
He was feral.
Decrepit wasn?t a town that welcomed the outside well. Though it?s real walls had long since been decimated through ruin, wind and overgrown with dust, and wild furling trees of no known name, it was a cloistered community, secrets were incestuous and insidious - a part of the town?s make up. But it protected them from a world that had encroached and nearly taken them all. And it is the only reason why innocence was what brought Morgan any kind of salvaging that day. Because Maida?s young eyes did not see Morgan as bad, or wild, or threatening, but as someone who was, to her nubile senses, on the edge of life, and looking like he was to step to the next plane. Where many of the rest had, including her mother, only a summer past. She wandered out from beneath the shade of a low-slat porch, stacked high with horseshoes, saddles, the scent of brass, polish, straw and sunlight gone cold. Her eyes wandered over the stranger as she placed one foot in front of the other to get there. She had no knowledge then, of all the feral pariah might come to mean to her, and how that face would lurk in her dreams, roam her thoughts. How he became the deus ex machina. The one who set her fate in motion.
Back then, Maida was on the eve of her ninth birthday and was a thing constructed of wild-weed petals that told of lovers and prospects and whether or not you?d have a baby. Fate was a spider?s web breaking over her face on a winter morning. Fate was a little word. She looked up against the brutal light at his face and lifted up the rusted, dented can in her hand. Luke warm water sloshed inside. She squinted at him. ?Where are you from??
Around them, eyes burned with question and hammers were clicked into place. There was the sound of the water in the can, and a small voice that made one think of moth-eaten linen, or tattered cloth over a fragile, pale body.
And that was how their fate started so simply.
The sound he made was a hoarse croak. His throat was dry, brittle like parchment and ready to crack. It hurt to speak. He eyed the water with a certain greed. When she spoke he seemed startled, like he hadn?t heard the sound of another voice before. His gaze rose and he stared her in the eye. His own narrowed and his nose wrinkled, like she said something abhorrent. Then he snatched the water from her hand, it sloshed and spilled on his before he put it to his lips and drained it in a few, desperate gulps. He had a gun at his side, loaded with empty casings to make passersby think he was armed. He?d run out of bullets months ago.
?Beaumont,? he managed to croak out. ?Where?m I now?? he lifted the bottle to his lips again, shaking out the last drops of water to wet his lips. Then he shoved his hand back out to offer the bottle back to her.
He eyed her like a beast eyed its prey. Then he looked over her shoulder at the porch she?d come from. Were they alone?
?Decrepit. It?s the last place for a long time, you know. There?s just lots of roads around here, if you want to keep going?, her eyes, shocking amber, glinted with the sun caught in it, and she, though young, didn?t seem deterred by his smell or the way he looked. She was a funny child in that way. And she had been watching him from beside the smells of cold sunlight and brass and waxed leather for some time, and had made up her mind straight away that he was okay.
?That?s my home?, she happily indicated, though there was no mirth to her mouth, just a kind of a fundamental comfort of home. Even if it was where it was, and for many it hadn?t been enough, and so the few that had stayed, and stayed on after the hammer.
?My dad?s in the city getting us gold, because Mama went underground and it?s just him now to get us stuff. And he might come back with a shiny thing for me, he says. I?d like a little butterfly. He said in the city they made them out of diamond. I could wear it around my neck?, her eyes glinted again, in the light, and the clouds passed over top the sun and it made her face go a sort of milky blue for a moment, and she turned around and began shuffling towards the porch and its creaking shadows. ?Come on?, not without some impatience, and she didn?t care to look back because, well, where else was he going to go?
He blinked at her as she spoke. This child, she was a poor sight to behold. So much evil the world and a man left her alone out here like this? He had to wonder what kind of father he really was. But she was inviting him in and he was desperate. There was food in there, no doubt, food and drink and Morgan had had too little of that for too long.
He followed her toward that porch, its shadow slowly wrapping him up in a cooler, softer air than what he faced out on the road. The door was a truly fascinating sight. The roads had been empty up until now, he almost forgot how to work one. He reached past the girl and opened it with a jerk. ?You got any water inside?? he asked, not hesitating to take advantage of this girl?s na?vet?.
?Yuh hmm. The sink makes noises like it?s not gonna do it, and the water takes a while but it comes, you just have to wait a while, I?ll show you?, she headed in behind him, and looked up over her shoulder to make sure he wasn?t going to fall. It occurred to her that the sudden dark and cool might be something else to a man fresh off the road, like a body might not wear both elements well, and she was quick to take up that can again and begin working the pump to get the water out. It was cool as it left the tap but warmed right up, even inside. Warm, drowsy air crawled in through the windows like after thoughts, up through the cracks in the boards, and stuck to the skin, the wallpaper.
The place smelled cramped, stuffy, but there was a faint scent of orange blossoms that permeated everything. Clementine fruit. A vague impression, that flirted with the senses. The girl stood back as she held out her hand with the water tin and watched him. ?How long have you been out there? Dada says I can?t go too far from here because I?ll probably get dead.? That he had managed to make it to her doorstep was a miracle. She didn?t know too much about where he?d walked from, but anywhere but Decrepit was mystery, roads that wove in on themselves and got lost in meadow and wasteland and valley, and heat, and starvation, and coyote. The rumors of anything else her father sometimes scared her with before she slept, and before he left for one of his city visits, when he came home smelling of others, and the way a lie does, but it wasn?t something she could fully express. Like the clementine in the air, it was a suggestion, a ghost of a thing.
The girl blinked, and looked aside and down. Flies swarmed around a wooden bowl of fruit, mostly decomposed.
?I lost count of the days,? he said, licking his lips as he saw the water fill that can. He took another drink, a long one, gulping down every drop then handed it back to her. ?Too long. How long?s your daddy been gone, girl?? he was looking around now, searching for signs. He noted the rotting fruit and wrinkled his nose at it. ?You got any food? M?starvin? here,? he stepped past her and started digging. He looked weakest when his arms lifted. They shook, his muscles lacking in any real power. He was like a wispy blade of grasp and even the slow, dense air that filled the room was enough to make him sway. But somehow his feet stuck to this earth and he managed to keep breathing.
That was the cruelest curse he?d endured.
?You lost count? How did you do that??
Sincere befuddlement appeared on her face, knitting pale brows. She had returned her eyes from the task of decay beside her left foot, and huddled back against the kitchen sink - though really all it was, was a single door cabinet with a basin crudely worked on top. ?I just count by sleeps. Dad?s been gone two sleeps.? Her braids were coming undone, and their sun-bleached ends uneven and bristle as an old paintbrush, tickled at her shoulders. ?There?s some stuff in the basement. I?ll show you?, and happy for the opportunity to show someone around, she headed towards the spring latch on the floor, hidden beneath a rug with an ouroboros upon it. She bent down and slid it out of the way, it rasped across the boards like an old man?s whisper, and relieved the door, revealing a set of dusty stairs leading down beneath. ?It?s dark. There?s a string just a little bit down the stairs. Pull it for light.?
She stood and stepped out the way, watching him still with that muted fascination.
?Did you see angels out there?? Almost like an aside, and not without some embarrassment, and mystery. She said it like she depended on it, but also like she was worried if he left her sight he wouldn?t be real anymore. That his answer was a lifeline, a rope. A tether to beyond this shack in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the earth.
?Well, I didn? sleep much out there, hun,? he explained. It dawned on him then just how little he did sleep. In fact, Morgan couldn?t remember the last time. Must have been back in Cossol, before all this madness.
He sensed that desperation in her tone, and he didn?t know why it meant anything to him, but it did. ?Angels?? he clicked his tongue and reached up for that string. With a clicking sound the light flickered on, dim and yellow. He looked down at the girl and struggled to find the right words to keep what hope she had alive. Maybe it was the innocence that got to him, much as he thought it wouldn?t. Morgan was a man who sold his soul for power. He didn?t think innocence meant a damn thing to him anymore.
?Yeah. Angels in the sky. How do you think I stayed alive out there, all this time? Most men would be dead on the road, but they watched out for me,? he flashed her an uneven smile. It was crooked and forced.
?You ever counted the stars? Dada says they?re angels, you know.? She slipped down around and passed him into the darkness below, a flickering dimly lit fey-like glimpse, dancing into the black. A drunkard?s dream, a hallucinogenic epiphany. The sound of feet along bared, dirt floors, and the whoosh of fire. A match stick and a proud smile. Lanterns glowed, one by one, as she passed. She turned back to face him, and it seemed her small face floated in some hellish cloud, red-tinted, where the lantern glow conspired with that dreary light from the stairs. ?There?s fridge over there but there?s s padlock on it. Don?t know why. But there?s jerky too, easier for you. It?s up in those boxes.?
Hardware boxes lined one low-lying shelf. The kind tools were kept in. ?Dada has them in bunches. There?s a chili one too, if you like it? and evidently, the child did not. Her face screwed up.
She would wait for him to explore the recess. ?Tell me more about the angels.? Her voice lilted, and her face looked like the land did - desolate, despaired, and longing.
?They told me I wasn?t supposed to die out there,? he said, eyeing that locked refrigerator as he approached the boxes of jerky. He opened one up and took out a strip, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing. Nothing had ever tasted so good. He took another strip and did the same, ravenous. But he wanted something more and so he turned for the fridge and jangled the lock a bit.
He looked like a specter; pale despite all the sun he?d seen. He seemed to glow in the dark as his fingers pinched around the lock and after a time, he tore it free almost like it were as easy as tearing paper. Then he tugged the fridge open and peered inside.
The rusted metal broke apart in his hands and fell into a pile to forget. It clunked as it hit the raw ground at his feet. The box fridge sat without consciousness, yet it seemed like some terrible door, some secret keeper, some box of death Maida had always thought so, and it was what had kept her curiosity in place for months - ever since Dada installed the unit downstairs, and spent the best part of the savings he?d had after her mother?s casket cost - on the turbine, which he had to beat the shit out of to keep going on better days. The box was scratched and peeling and the entire thing ebbing with the manic power coming from that humble turbine by the side of the house. Beside the spectral angel, Maida stepped closer, and looked from him, to the box fridge, and after and then spoke: ?You should not. I don?t think?. Dada would not want. It?s the special meat.?
She reached out, right as Morgan opened it. That was the second time fate had conspired right beneath their noses. A blast of icy air, a sobering chill that did not regret itself what was contained.
The smell inside was worst of all. It was extraordinarily gamey and off - meat past it?s expiration. Thick slabs of horsemeat sat carved in thin sacks. Blood and a gel-like film soaked it. But that was not all. From behind, a pair of hands. Two thick, previously ginger-knuckled hands, gone grey and terrible. Upon them, strange glyphs and symbols. A tattoo in darkest green ink. Maida?s eyes widened in terror, and then she began wailing in fear, her scream shrill, sent crows flapping from their roosts outside on the thatches, and into the sky to turn in cautious circles.
It took a moment for reality to settle in. He studied the glyphs and symbols on those hands with a confused frown. His brow cast a darkness on the rest of his rough countenance and then the girl started her damned wailing. He cast his gaze down to her and clicked his tongue. ?Hush, girl. M?tryin?a think,? he reached into the refrigerator and picked up one of the hands and studied it. One of the glyphs as a key, or at least that?s what he assumed it was. Bloated now, they were hard to recognize.
?Fuck kinda monster is your daddy??
The refrigerator slammed. He heard someone coming down the steps. Dead eyes turned aside to peer through the thick air in the room, the orange glow of sunlight filtering through the dust made it look like the stairs were on fire and the devil was walking down.
Pierce was not, by all accounts, not what one would expect to see in a child deserter, and probable killer. ?Ah, I see, you?ve found my treasure. Those hands belonged to a friend of mine, who, unfortunately, betrayed me. Sad, that.?
He was tidying his combed over blonde hair as he took the last few steps down. His suit, even covered in road dust, could still be considered a fine suit, from the tailoring through to the embroidered roses across each open breast of the jacket, and the shoes were pointed and thick heeled. Despite the wear and tear of a journey, and the beads of sweat along his brow, he carried himself, and wore his way, to charming effect. There appeared to be no gun on his hip, but his eyes were loaded with a quiet menace. ?What pray tell are you doing here??
Maida?s wailing had died away in her mouth and he pulled her over and against him, stroking the top of her head. ?And Maida, dear, did I not tell you that that is Dada's special box.?
?He opened it before I could stop him?, she pleaded, and her face seemed confused - for her strange fixture and fondness for the angry stranger, and the fealty to her father.
?My dear, toddle on up them stairs. Going to need words with our guest??
He began removing his coat - and smiling. His teeth bright against the tan of his skin. He walked over to one of the pipes and rested the coat there, and then faced Morgan, dipping a glance to the hand. ?He was a tattooist. Best in seven counties. The are far and few between. Do you know what those symbols mean??
He began to unbutton his sleeves. Cufflinks shining. Everything about him was at odds with the surroundings. He belonged in a secluded corner reclining on a velvet chaise in a bar room, or one of them parlors in the north where the well to do to crowd. He gave Maida a warning look, as she idled at the foot of the stairs, her eyes upon Morgan intently.
?Maida!? he spat harshly. The girl ran up the stairs. He waited for the latch to go on the door before resuming his speech. He folded his sleeves neatly against his elbows, taking his time, his fingers nimble, quick, but elegant. Chess player?s hand. A man of bluffs and bad deals.
?They are from an old, old order. My own Da kept it going. Charlie was the name of the man who once held the world in those hands. He too, was of the order. Perhaps you noticed the ouroborous upstairs, on the mat??
He stepped over to Morgan and reached out for Charlie?s hands, gazing at them as though they were indeed some treasure. He smirked to himself, for too long, then whispered, ironically. The palms were up. The lines lost to the bloating. Had Charlie looked at his hands one day and wondered that this might be his fate? Now they were fat, and idle.
?The devil?s playground, eh??
He barked with laughter.
He had to wonder what kind of man could afford to dress himself as well as this one did, yet left his daughter alone for days and lived in such a ramshackle place. But he only had to think back on the road that brought him here, the men he?d encountered on the way. His sort loved the isolation afforded, the privacy to practice their arts away from prying eyes. He wasn?t sure what this man was talking about.
He offered the hands over.
?Thinkin? too highly of me,? he grunted. ?I ain?t got the faintest idea what any of this shit means,? he wore a look of disgust, which was perhaps ironic considering the man he spoke to was well mannered and dressed while he looked like he?d just crawled back from the grave. ?Ain?t like I?ve never killed before, when needed, but damn?? he blew out a frustrated sounding breath, like he didn?t know what to do with himself. His hands were flexing, palms opening and closing. ?Fuck, I don?t keep their goddamned hands, man.?
?The hell is wrong with you??
?Ah ah ah?, he shook his head.
He smiled again, and bowed his chin deeply, as if disappointed by the man?s admittance.
?It?s not *quite* like that, good man.? He drew his eyes all over Morgan. ?Not quite. But, why am I telling you, a trespasser, all this at all? That, is what is wrong with me.?
He stroked the hands and walked them back to the box, still emitting freezing bolts of air. He gently placed the hands within, atop the horse thigh, and then slammed the door shut, sealing it.
?I am going to ask you to leave. Are you going to do this on request, or am I going to have to escort you?
You have no idea, who I am, and of what I am capable. Luckily, my visit to the city has left its imprint upon me and I am indeed in good spirits.
Those hands, and their symbols, are of an origin only a few know. You looked upon an ancient rite. You bore witness to something mostly extinct.
There is a world beyond the world, my good man.
I could be the key to your undoing.
For all? you? know??
Another of those smiles - Cheshire, antagonizing, and he gestured to the stairs.
?All due respect?? he began, hands clenching into fists. It was damned hard to stay in control with all that nagging. ?Shut up,? he muttered under his breath, his chin jerked aside as if he were talking to someone behind him. ?All due respect, I ain?t leavin? until I get some straight answers. You think I?m gonna leave that girl here with a madman like you?? You?re one to talk. He cursed something foul and then looked up at the man.
He went still for a moment, like he was holding his breath. Then all at once he breathed and the tension evaporated from his bones and he seemed more at ease with his current dilemma. ?Son,? he began, taking a step toward the man. ?Ain?t a god damned thing you can do to make me go anywhere,? the voice that spoke was indeed his own, but unlike that cracked and dying thing that he?d used before it was even and cool, betraying within its depths a power and confidence he might have lacked upon first impression. There was a reason his fingers were blackened by soot and his palms charred and it had nothing to do with the harsh sun.
?You?re a key to somethin? alright,? he placed a hand on the fridge. ?Lemme see it.?
The days seemed longer back then too, to Maida, much longer and hotter. There seemed endless days to get going on a dream, or to just lie about in the prairie and count the clouds until you fell asleep. You?d wake up with your cheeks stinging with sun and the hairs on your arms like thousands of blonde fires. But there were still a few hours before dusk, and the world around you, like that day, was endless too. There was always some new curve to the world to find; some cliff to shimmy along, some cave or crevice to explore. But those days may as well have never happened and if there were any angels left, they had probably sold their wings. We were a hopeless bunch out in the country. After the war, we were dust on the wind. So when Maida first saw Morgan come out of thin air - or so it looked - down a road and all seeming to glow and emanate some sort of buzz, she was sure one of the angels had come back. Decided to pawn back his wings and set foot into a place that had forgotten its name and honor and place on the map. Maida would never forget two things - the first time she saw Morgan Wright, on that blazing day, and the last time.
The sun was beating hard that day. Waves of heat were visible on the horizon, casting the world in a strange light. It was like the earth itself was slowly melting away, eaten up by the sun. Morgan was a wretch to behold, though the silhouette he made in the distance would have you thinking he was some lone hero marching through the wasteland. He was a ragged looking thing with sweat and dirt caking every inch of his starving body, his cheeks and eyes sunken and hollow and a thick layer of hair covering his chin. He had dirt under his nails, which had grown too long, and his gaze held the look of a man who had truly succumbed to madness. When he came closer it was like staring into the eyes of death, like his soul had gone and left behind an empty vessel. He grunted and clicked his tongue, he growled and groaned and made all manners of noises that most would associate with a crazed beast.
He was feral.
Decrepit wasn?t a town that welcomed the outside well. Though it?s real walls had long since been decimated through ruin, wind and overgrown with dust, and wild furling trees of no known name, it was a cloistered community, secrets were incestuous and insidious - a part of the town?s make up. But it protected them from a world that had encroached and nearly taken them all. And it is the only reason why innocence was what brought Morgan any kind of salvaging that day. Because Maida?s young eyes did not see Morgan as bad, or wild, or threatening, but as someone who was, to her nubile senses, on the edge of life, and looking like he was to step to the next plane. Where many of the rest had, including her mother, only a summer past. She wandered out from beneath the shade of a low-slat porch, stacked high with horseshoes, saddles, the scent of brass, polish, straw and sunlight gone cold. Her eyes wandered over the stranger as she placed one foot in front of the other to get there. She had no knowledge then, of all the feral pariah might come to mean to her, and how that face would lurk in her dreams, roam her thoughts. How he became the deus ex machina. The one who set her fate in motion.
Back then, Maida was on the eve of her ninth birthday and was a thing constructed of wild-weed petals that told of lovers and prospects and whether or not you?d have a baby. Fate was a spider?s web breaking over her face on a winter morning. Fate was a little word. She looked up against the brutal light at his face and lifted up the rusted, dented can in her hand. Luke warm water sloshed inside. She squinted at him. ?Where are you from??
Around them, eyes burned with question and hammers were clicked into place. There was the sound of the water in the can, and a small voice that made one think of moth-eaten linen, or tattered cloth over a fragile, pale body.
And that was how their fate started so simply.
The sound he made was a hoarse croak. His throat was dry, brittle like parchment and ready to crack. It hurt to speak. He eyed the water with a certain greed. When she spoke he seemed startled, like he hadn?t heard the sound of another voice before. His gaze rose and he stared her in the eye. His own narrowed and his nose wrinkled, like she said something abhorrent. Then he snatched the water from her hand, it sloshed and spilled on his before he put it to his lips and drained it in a few, desperate gulps. He had a gun at his side, loaded with empty casings to make passersby think he was armed. He?d run out of bullets months ago.
?Beaumont,? he managed to croak out. ?Where?m I now?? he lifted the bottle to his lips again, shaking out the last drops of water to wet his lips. Then he shoved his hand back out to offer the bottle back to her.
He eyed her like a beast eyed its prey. Then he looked over her shoulder at the porch she?d come from. Were they alone?
?Decrepit. It?s the last place for a long time, you know. There?s just lots of roads around here, if you want to keep going?, her eyes, shocking amber, glinted with the sun caught in it, and she, though young, didn?t seem deterred by his smell or the way he looked. She was a funny child in that way. And she had been watching him from beside the smells of cold sunlight and brass and waxed leather for some time, and had made up her mind straight away that he was okay.
?That?s my home?, she happily indicated, though there was no mirth to her mouth, just a kind of a fundamental comfort of home. Even if it was where it was, and for many it hadn?t been enough, and so the few that had stayed, and stayed on after the hammer.
?My dad?s in the city getting us gold, because Mama went underground and it?s just him now to get us stuff. And he might come back with a shiny thing for me, he says. I?d like a little butterfly. He said in the city they made them out of diamond. I could wear it around my neck?, her eyes glinted again, in the light, and the clouds passed over top the sun and it made her face go a sort of milky blue for a moment, and she turned around and began shuffling towards the porch and its creaking shadows. ?Come on?, not without some impatience, and she didn?t care to look back because, well, where else was he going to go?
He blinked at her as she spoke. This child, she was a poor sight to behold. So much evil the world and a man left her alone out here like this? He had to wonder what kind of father he really was. But she was inviting him in and he was desperate. There was food in there, no doubt, food and drink and Morgan had had too little of that for too long.
He followed her toward that porch, its shadow slowly wrapping him up in a cooler, softer air than what he faced out on the road. The door was a truly fascinating sight. The roads had been empty up until now, he almost forgot how to work one. He reached past the girl and opened it with a jerk. ?You got any water inside?? he asked, not hesitating to take advantage of this girl?s na?vet?.
?Yuh hmm. The sink makes noises like it?s not gonna do it, and the water takes a while but it comes, you just have to wait a while, I?ll show you?, she headed in behind him, and looked up over her shoulder to make sure he wasn?t going to fall. It occurred to her that the sudden dark and cool might be something else to a man fresh off the road, like a body might not wear both elements well, and she was quick to take up that can again and begin working the pump to get the water out. It was cool as it left the tap but warmed right up, even inside. Warm, drowsy air crawled in through the windows like after thoughts, up through the cracks in the boards, and stuck to the skin, the wallpaper.
The place smelled cramped, stuffy, but there was a faint scent of orange blossoms that permeated everything. Clementine fruit. A vague impression, that flirted with the senses. The girl stood back as she held out her hand with the water tin and watched him. ?How long have you been out there? Dada says I can?t go too far from here because I?ll probably get dead.? That he had managed to make it to her doorstep was a miracle. She didn?t know too much about where he?d walked from, but anywhere but Decrepit was mystery, roads that wove in on themselves and got lost in meadow and wasteland and valley, and heat, and starvation, and coyote. The rumors of anything else her father sometimes scared her with before she slept, and before he left for one of his city visits, when he came home smelling of others, and the way a lie does, but it wasn?t something she could fully express. Like the clementine in the air, it was a suggestion, a ghost of a thing.
The girl blinked, and looked aside and down. Flies swarmed around a wooden bowl of fruit, mostly decomposed.
?I lost count of the days,? he said, licking his lips as he saw the water fill that can. He took another drink, a long one, gulping down every drop then handed it back to her. ?Too long. How long?s your daddy been gone, girl?? he was looking around now, searching for signs. He noted the rotting fruit and wrinkled his nose at it. ?You got any food? M?starvin? here,? he stepped past her and started digging. He looked weakest when his arms lifted. They shook, his muscles lacking in any real power. He was like a wispy blade of grasp and even the slow, dense air that filled the room was enough to make him sway. But somehow his feet stuck to this earth and he managed to keep breathing.
That was the cruelest curse he?d endured.
?You lost count? How did you do that??
Sincere befuddlement appeared on her face, knitting pale brows. She had returned her eyes from the task of decay beside her left foot, and huddled back against the kitchen sink - though really all it was, was a single door cabinet with a basin crudely worked on top. ?I just count by sleeps. Dad?s been gone two sleeps.? Her braids were coming undone, and their sun-bleached ends uneven and bristle as an old paintbrush, tickled at her shoulders. ?There?s some stuff in the basement. I?ll show you?, and happy for the opportunity to show someone around, she headed towards the spring latch on the floor, hidden beneath a rug with an ouroboros upon it. She bent down and slid it out of the way, it rasped across the boards like an old man?s whisper, and relieved the door, revealing a set of dusty stairs leading down beneath. ?It?s dark. There?s a string just a little bit down the stairs. Pull it for light.?
She stood and stepped out the way, watching him still with that muted fascination.
?Did you see angels out there?? Almost like an aside, and not without some embarrassment, and mystery. She said it like she depended on it, but also like she was worried if he left her sight he wouldn?t be real anymore. That his answer was a lifeline, a rope. A tether to beyond this shack in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the earth.
?Well, I didn? sleep much out there, hun,? he explained. It dawned on him then just how little he did sleep. In fact, Morgan couldn?t remember the last time. Must have been back in Cossol, before all this madness.
He sensed that desperation in her tone, and he didn?t know why it meant anything to him, but it did. ?Angels?? he clicked his tongue and reached up for that string. With a clicking sound the light flickered on, dim and yellow. He looked down at the girl and struggled to find the right words to keep what hope she had alive. Maybe it was the innocence that got to him, much as he thought it wouldn?t. Morgan was a man who sold his soul for power. He didn?t think innocence meant a damn thing to him anymore.
?Yeah. Angels in the sky. How do you think I stayed alive out there, all this time? Most men would be dead on the road, but they watched out for me,? he flashed her an uneven smile. It was crooked and forced.
?You ever counted the stars? Dada says they?re angels, you know.? She slipped down around and passed him into the darkness below, a flickering dimly lit fey-like glimpse, dancing into the black. A drunkard?s dream, a hallucinogenic epiphany. The sound of feet along bared, dirt floors, and the whoosh of fire. A match stick and a proud smile. Lanterns glowed, one by one, as she passed. She turned back to face him, and it seemed her small face floated in some hellish cloud, red-tinted, where the lantern glow conspired with that dreary light from the stairs. ?There?s fridge over there but there?s s padlock on it. Don?t know why. But there?s jerky too, easier for you. It?s up in those boxes.?
Hardware boxes lined one low-lying shelf. The kind tools were kept in. ?Dada has them in bunches. There?s a chili one too, if you like it? and evidently, the child did not. Her face screwed up.
She would wait for him to explore the recess. ?Tell me more about the angels.? Her voice lilted, and her face looked like the land did - desolate, despaired, and longing.
?They told me I wasn?t supposed to die out there,? he said, eyeing that locked refrigerator as he approached the boxes of jerky. He opened one up and took out a strip, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing. Nothing had ever tasted so good. He took another strip and did the same, ravenous. But he wanted something more and so he turned for the fridge and jangled the lock a bit.
He looked like a specter; pale despite all the sun he?d seen. He seemed to glow in the dark as his fingers pinched around the lock and after a time, he tore it free almost like it were as easy as tearing paper. Then he tugged the fridge open and peered inside.
The rusted metal broke apart in his hands and fell into a pile to forget. It clunked as it hit the raw ground at his feet. The box fridge sat without consciousness, yet it seemed like some terrible door, some secret keeper, some box of death Maida had always thought so, and it was what had kept her curiosity in place for months - ever since Dada installed the unit downstairs, and spent the best part of the savings he?d had after her mother?s casket cost - on the turbine, which he had to beat the shit out of to keep going on better days. The box was scratched and peeling and the entire thing ebbing with the manic power coming from that humble turbine by the side of the house. Beside the spectral angel, Maida stepped closer, and looked from him, to the box fridge, and after and then spoke: ?You should not. I don?t think?. Dada would not want. It?s the special meat.?
She reached out, right as Morgan opened it. That was the second time fate had conspired right beneath their noses. A blast of icy air, a sobering chill that did not regret itself what was contained.
The smell inside was worst of all. It was extraordinarily gamey and off - meat past it?s expiration. Thick slabs of horsemeat sat carved in thin sacks. Blood and a gel-like film soaked it. But that was not all. From behind, a pair of hands. Two thick, previously ginger-knuckled hands, gone grey and terrible. Upon them, strange glyphs and symbols. A tattoo in darkest green ink. Maida?s eyes widened in terror, and then she began wailing in fear, her scream shrill, sent crows flapping from their roosts outside on the thatches, and into the sky to turn in cautious circles.
It took a moment for reality to settle in. He studied the glyphs and symbols on those hands with a confused frown. His brow cast a darkness on the rest of his rough countenance and then the girl started her damned wailing. He cast his gaze down to her and clicked his tongue. ?Hush, girl. M?tryin?a think,? he reached into the refrigerator and picked up one of the hands and studied it. One of the glyphs as a key, or at least that?s what he assumed it was. Bloated now, they were hard to recognize.
?Fuck kinda monster is your daddy??
The refrigerator slammed. He heard someone coming down the steps. Dead eyes turned aside to peer through the thick air in the room, the orange glow of sunlight filtering through the dust made it look like the stairs were on fire and the devil was walking down.
Pierce was not, by all accounts, not what one would expect to see in a child deserter, and probable killer. ?Ah, I see, you?ve found my treasure. Those hands belonged to a friend of mine, who, unfortunately, betrayed me. Sad, that.?
He was tidying his combed over blonde hair as he took the last few steps down. His suit, even covered in road dust, could still be considered a fine suit, from the tailoring through to the embroidered roses across each open breast of the jacket, and the shoes were pointed and thick heeled. Despite the wear and tear of a journey, and the beads of sweat along his brow, he carried himself, and wore his way, to charming effect. There appeared to be no gun on his hip, but his eyes were loaded with a quiet menace. ?What pray tell are you doing here??
Maida?s wailing had died away in her mouth and he pulled her over and against him, stroking the top of her head. ?And Maida, dear, did I not tell you that that is Dada's special box.?
?He opened it before I could stop him?, she pleaded, and her face seemed confused - for her strange fixture and fondness for the angry stranger, and the fealty to her father.
?My dear, toddle on up them stairs. Going to need words with our guest??
He began removing his coat - and smiling. His teeth bright against the tan of his skin. He walked over to one of the pipes and rested the coat there, and then faced Morgan, dipping a glance to the hand. ?He was a tattooist. Best in seven counties. The are far and few between. Do you know what those symbols mean??
He began to unbutton his sleeves. Cufflinks shining. Everything about him was at odds with the surroundings. He belonged in a secluded corner reclining on a velvet chaise in a bar room, or one of them parlors in the north where the well to do to crowd. He gave Maida a warning look, as she idled at the foot of the stairs, her eyes upon Morgan intently.
?Maida!? he spat harshly. The girl ran up the stairs. He waited for the latch to go on the door before resuming his speech. He folded his sleeves neatly against his elbows, taking his time, his fingers nimble, quick, but elegant. Chess player?s hand. A man of bluffs and bad deals.
?They are from an old, old order. My own Da kept it going. Charlie was the name of the man who once held the world in those hands. He too, was of the order. Perhaps you noticed the ouroborous upstairs, on the mat??
He stepped over to Morgan and reached out for Charlie?s hands, gazing at them as though they were indeed some treasure. He smirked to himself, for too long, then whispered, ironically. The palms were up. The lines lost to the bloating. Had Charlie looked at his hands one day and wondered that this might be his fate? Now they were fat, and idle.
?The devil?s playground, eh??
He barked with laughter.
He had to wonder what kind of man could afford to dress himself as well as this one did, yet left his daughter alone for days and lived in such a ramshackle place. But he only had to think back on the road that brought him here, the men he?d encountered on the way. His sort loved the isolation afforded, the privacy to practice their arts away from prying eyes. He wasn?t sure what this man was talking about.
He offered the hands over.
?Thinkin? too highly of me,? he grunted. ?I ain?t got the faintest idea what any of this shit means,? he wore a look of disgust, which was perhaps ironic considering the man he spoke to was well mannered and dressed while he looked like he?d just crawled back from the grave. ?Ain?t like I?ve never killed before, when needed, but damn?? he blew out a frustrated sounding breath, like he didn?t know what to do with himself. His hands were flexing, palms opening and closing. ?Fuck, I don?t keep their goddamned hands, man.?
?The hell is wrong with you??
?Ah ah ah?, he shook his head.
He smiled again, and bowed his chin deeply, as if disappointed by the man?s admittance.
?It?s not *quite* like that, good man.? He drew his eyes all over Morgan. ?Not quite. But, why am I telling you, a trespasser, all this at all? That, is what is wrong with me.?
He stroked the hands and walked them back to the box, still emitting freezing bolts of air. He gently placed the hands within, atop the horse thigh, and then slammed the door shut, sealing it.
?I am going to ask you to leave. Are you going to do this on request, or am I going to have to escort you?
You have no idea, who I am, and of what I am capable. Luckily, my visit to the city has left its imprint upon me and I am indeed in good spirits.
Those hands, and their symbols, are of an origin only a few know. You looked upon an ancient rite. You bore witness to something mostly extinct.
There is a world beyond the world, my good man.
I could be the key to your undoing.
For all? you? know??
Another of those smiles - Cheshire, antagonizing, and he gestured to the stairs.
?All due respect?? he began, hands clenching into fists. It was damned hard to stay in control with all that nagging. ?Shut up,? he muttered under his breath, his chin jerked aside as if he were talking to someone behind him. ?All due respect, I ain?t leavin? until I get some straight answers. You think I?m gonna leave that girl here with a madman like you?? You?re one to talk. He cursed something foul and then looked up at the man.
He went still for a moment, like he was holding his breath. Then all at once he breathed and the tension evaporated from his bones and he seemed more at ease with his current dilemma. ?Son,? he began, taking a step toward the man. ?Ain?t a god damned thing you can do to make me go anywhere,? the voice that spoke was indeed his own, but unlike that cracked and dying thing that he?d used before it was even and cool, betraying within its depths a power and confidence he might have lacked upon first impression. There was a reason his fingers were blackened by soot and his palms charred and it had nothing to do with the harsh sun.
?You?re a key to somethin? alright,? he placed a hand on the fridge. ?Lemme see it.?