Fog

People say, no one comes out. Just a big no-man's-land, a whiteout miasma of mist and fog. If this were the history books, there'd be a big map in there with a big splotch right in the center saying, "Here there be dragons." But this isn't, and there isn't. Right now, it's just got a big question mark. The Mapmakers don't go in there anymore.

Once in a while, guy gets it in his head that he's gonna go climb the mountains in there. Get to the top, put a way station up there, so people that get themselves in a pickle can go on up and find somewhere to stay alive. You can bet your shiny boots he's not coming out again. Guess there's got to be thirty, forty dead bodies all over that wet ground out there, rottin' away in the mist. Maybe now all that's left is their guns and their glasses. Not much to shoot in there, or if there is, it never comes out to say hello.

Tied a rope around one of 'em once. Sent him off as far as he could go. A few miles of rope is an awful long way. Took a whole town's worth of stock and then some just to get it together, and even then you had to store it in a whole building. So we put up a set of shacks just for the rope and tied on a new coil every time he started running out.

Guy died in a couple of days. Least, we saw the rope stop moving for too long. Didn't even take up a mile. Decided we'd just leave him there, pull until the rope came free, that kind of thing. So we hauled his body back, turns out he didn't even get to the mountains. Didn't even get lost...after all, we gave him a full pack of food and a whole lot of water. Something about that mist just kills you. So, the whole lot of Mapmakers just threw up their hands and gave up. Didn't no one have the guts to call them chicken. It ain't being scared; it's just smart thinking.

'Cept one person tried it again. I won't lie; we all said she was crazy. Girl stood just inside the fog and sat there a while, too far away to see, too close to have run off. We all left her there, figured if she wanted to die, that was her business, no place here for someone without half a brain in her head anyway.

She came back half a day later, told us what was what. It's sleepy-juice, that's what it is. All that white stuff makes you tired. Like breathing the sweet smoke off a pile of black mushrooms, it'll make your head spin. You sit down, think you'll close your eyes for just a while, don't wake back up again. Dream yourself to death. That's what she thinks happened to all those people. After all, don't drink water for a couple days, you dry right up and die. And it's real smooth too, she said. Get too afraid, think too hard about keeping on, and you don't notice you're that tired 'til it's too late.

Girl said she'd sign up for the Mapmakers, go off and see what was in that killer place. Well, we all wished her luck and sent her off, said don't blame us if you die, but you got a lot of guts.

Haven't seen that girl in a couple years now. Some guys say ever' so often, she comes back for a pack of food and a few canteens, then heads out again. Stack of maps on her back. Guys tell me she can stay in there for weeks, months at a time. Got used to the sleepy fog, I guess.  Don't know how she didn't just roll over 'n die like the others. Hope she'll come back with her map roll full of drawings. We folk back here got hemmed in by the fog a long time ago, and we need to know what's out there to the east.

Rumor has it she'll come back Resonant. Got to find the thing responsible for all that fog first. Resonant's a hard thing to get to, a hard thing to be.

But if anyone can do it, she's got it taken care of.





(Author's note: I am so sorry I felt the need to write a thing in Bastion-speak. But I did. It was like lancing a wound or something, just had to let all the Bastion-speak out.

This is the Resonant Universe, only I will do my best to write all the rest of it not in Bastion-speak.)

Takashi Kuro

(Hurrr I wrote a thing at work at some point long ago. Here it is. Takashi is kind of the zen old man type. Also, yay inconsistency, but I hacked in some stuff in the middle that hopefully shows the characters transitioning between their thoughts? Lame draft is lame.)

"My name is Takashi Kuro. I was the first Light. I wish I were the last."

He sat on the edge of the Red Capitol's cathedral, recorder in hand. The steeple was still unfinished, as no one could quite figure out what to put on it, so he leaned back against the empty column and clicked the gadget on again. "Akakyo grows. We're still a no-human community, and right now we're at two thousand people. I remember when I could count us on ten fingers."

Down below, a few people walked here and there, and from the zipline that led up the mountain came a cheering blur that dropped off just inside the town walls. At the city gates, far to the east, a crew of Lights herded an incoming party through the huge steel doors. Takashi bundled his knees closer to his chest and wrapped his arms about them, lacing and then merging his fingers. The recorder lay trapped inside the wrapping, its microphone poking out.

"Visitors today. I think humanity has given up trying to contain the Blight, although Akakyo was originally considered a quarantine zone. I declared a few of us to be ambassadors, people who will talk to the still-normal humans and try to establish good relations." He took a deep breath and sighed, a holdover response from his human days. Need for lungs or not, it made him feel a little better; he smiled for a moment and closed his eyes. "They have good intentions, and we have a perfectly clean record of interactions with them. Not a single mistake. They're grateful for our good spirits, and we're grateful for their tolerance.

He felt the fibers in his cheeks relax and let his smile drop. Dragging his gaze back to the incoming humans, he watched as they entered one of the security buildings. There, a crew of Lights would search the visitors and confiscate any explosives, hazardous chemicals, flammables, recording devices, and cameras. Guns and knives, ironically, were not much of a threat. "But I can't manage the energy to talk to them right now. I'm getting old. I was never a robust strain, not even from the start. I'm tired."

He peered up at the mountaintop and the rich red cabling that ran up its sides. His own bared mass was dull, rusty, and washed-out by comparison, and no matter how much he tried to flush in a more lively shade, he could only get it vaguely pink. His colors had been failing for a while; the muddy brown pants and tan shirt he wore today were typical clothes for him. At least human skin was a shade of tan.

"I've been shot, burned, stabbed, drowned, and exiled. Sometimes I'd take the first four over the last."

He stood, the mountain wind rushing over his skin, stirring what little hair he bothered to create. Clicking off the recorder, he took one step, then two, and then a third that left him soaring through the air and forty feet down to the ground. He landed with a heavy, wet thud that squashed his legs, forcing him to reshape them and climb slowly to his feet. The couple of passersby in the area seemed more concerned about his landing than his fall, and one of them -- ah, yes, Vasily, the Russian lab escapee -- reached out to help him up.

Takashi paused a moment, held back a sheepish look, and took the hand in his.

Even the lightning zap of his hunter's instincts had dulled to a faint buzz as he felt foreign biomass against his own. How long would it take for him to fade out? What happened when he did? He stood there a little too long, then shook his head and forced a smile.

"Sorry. I'm a little absentminded today." He withdrew the hand, nodding even in the face of Vasily's knotted brows, and formed up his legs and rose back to his feet.

"Takashi!"

He turned.

"Wait up." Vasily jogged over on his animal legs, red and orange coursing together into lithe limbs and dainty feet. He barely made a sound as he slowed to a walk beside the Japanese man.

"Do you need something?"

"What happened?"

"It's nothing. I simply wasn't thinking." Takashi waved away the question with another smile that felt even more false than usual. He wasn't fooling Vasily, and he knew it, and the young man was eyeing him now and crossing his arms.

"Takashi, there are lots of humans around here these days. We just got another pack of them. They want to stay a couple of days, discuss a documentary about Akakyo and how we're doing over here."

"It'll be all right." He never let his expression change, but the writhing in his chest and the hand that rose to still it, betrayed his tension. "We'll discuss it...turn them away if need be."

"You're wearing a lot of brown these days. It makes you look tired. Dried up."

"Vasily." He turned and started to raise his arms, lowered them. No, he shouldn't touch the young ones casually. He should set an example, make contact only when necessary or when deliberately trusting.

Just like I kept away from you, Yuriko. He couldn't help looking down at the ground.

"Takashi, something's wrong, and I know it, and you know it. We all know it. People are talking about it. I figured I'd end up asking the question. You know, the one about -- that."

A burst of fear stirred in him, the first energy he had felt in...weeks? Months? A little bit of the old flame color bled into his chest.

"Question?" No. I'm not dying. Not yet. I have a people to lead. And what will they do without me? His fingers trembled.

"I didn't want to be the one to ask it."

"Vasily, just ask, the worst I can say is--"

"What do you want done with any remains?"

"There won't be any."

The words echoed in Takashi's mind, drifting back and forth among all the others there. Yuriko. Sakura. The researchers. Hiroshi Kaneda. Winding between their memories and the fragments of their personalities was the silent knowledge that had been forming there for months now, the one Takashi had never wanted to bring to conscious thought. Saying it now made it truth, made it real.

Vasily had stopped in the street, and Takashi turned to see him ten feet behind.

"What do you mean?" The young man was still like a statue, no breath, not even a flutter of his hair. His eyes widened just enough to let the tension seep into his face.

He forced his lips to move, and his chest felt heavy as lead. "I don't want to die."

"I...don't want to you, either. But everyone does. At least, I think even we do, someday. If not naturally, someone will blow us up."

"I can't teach a protégé in time." Takashi laced his fingers and stared down at them, then up at Vasily. "I'm losing my capability. Soon after, I'll only be good for thinking." The words flowed out faster than he could control them, and that was best, because he wasn't sure he could force himself to say it straight out. "I don't need this body to keep thinking.”

He placed his hands on Vasily's shoulders, slowly, deliberately, with meaning and intent, and the younger Light took a shuffling step back. The contact had told him everything, even if the words hadn't.

"Then--who? We're not--we can't--think of what you're doing!" He threw up his arms, knocking Takashi's away. "What good are you to us if you're just a--a drifting mind? If you're sitting in limbo? We...that's not life or death at all..."

"Whoever takes me with them, has to make good use of me."

"You're not a tool!"

"You're wrong." Takashi motioned to the city gates. "Who built these? Who constructed a city for us, so we could hide when we must? Who has been the tool that you all have used to speak to human society? Who bolted together the infrastructure of our customs? I am nothing but a tool."

"You're a man, you damn fool." Vasily stomped one clawed foot, scraping up dirt around his nails.

"I know you cared most for me of anyone here, Vasily." He offered a smile; the young man shoved it away with a sweep of his arm.

"Stop talking like it's over. Look, I'm sorry I asked. They made me ask. I didn't want to. I didn't want to think about it--"

Takashi waited for the stuttering to fade out into silence. "It isn't over, Vasily. But it will be soon, and then life will go on for all of us."

"You can't do this, you -- you silly old man! Giving up, that's when you die, you know? Don't talk crap like this. I figured we'd just find the dust when you went out fighting for us, y'know? Someday. Not today. Not tomorrow, either. You're a hero. So don't give up and blow away in the wind. That's not...how you're going to go out."

"Then I won't." He cut off Vasily's protest with a finger. "And believe me, I do know what I'm talking about. After that death, there is life. And I don't want to die."

"You stupid -- you'll just be a shadow. That's it. Just a ghost, artificially held together in someone else's mind." Vasily's anger turned to fear as it crossed over his face. "I...don't know what we'll do without you."

"No, you don't know what you'll do." He smiled, genuinely this time, and felt his eyes crinkle and remembered that once he might have had tears. "The decision is made, then. Take me with you, Vasily, when the time is right."

The young Light skittered away. "No. I can't. And how can anyone ever know when it's time?"

"You can. If the last thing I can do in life is give someone else the strength to go on, then I will." The tension in his chest settled, the fibers all lying flat and loose, stretching out with air as he took a deep breath. "As for when? Well, I'm not sure anyone knows."

Gamebuilding Vomit 1

This is where alcor's brain barfs ideas all over a page. This is not a story -- it's just a bunch of ideas.



Light Specializations:

• None -- generic transforming creature. Has two default forms: puddle and human. All Lights can turn into humans at will because their bodies "remember" what being human was like, and so they can intuitively assume that shape. However, augmenting their skills as a human (higher strength, etc.) beyond typical Light acceleration, is difficult due to this intuition problem. All Lights can turn into puddles simply because that's what you get if you don't hold yourself together.
• Flight -- one of the Light's forms can fly. Flying is a very difficult task, because seriously, have you ever been a bird? No. So you don't have any knowledge of how animal flight really works, not viscerally, and you'll land on your head or your ass enough times before you can master the art of mass distribution, muscle power to weight ratio, proper wing construction, so on and so forth. But eventually, you can fly.
• Heavy Infantry -- one of the Light's forms is impressively strong and heavily armored. It's a melee tank with legs. This takes training to beef up the form while still maintaining control of its shape and functioning, just like Flight.
• Biomechanical -- being able to assimilate metal parts into a form. This can provide additional armoring against things like fire, and can also make Lights capable of running huge machines by themselves. It means that the metal is literally part of you, and you have an intuition for mechanical functioning.
• Bioelectrical -- being able to connect yourself to electrical wiring. This isn't as badass as it sounds, because it's pretty much limited to small signals, so you can't exactly hook yourself up to the local transformer. Also, no, your brain does not know how to read computer data. However, if you have the right technology, you can just merge electrical chips and so forth right into your body's signals, because suddenly the issues involved in foreign object rejection and sickness and cutting nerves and so forth, are completely moot. The result is basically a cybernetic interface, insofar as we can make one. (If a Light ever figures out how to make a biological transistor, well then, we can talk real interfaces.)
• Polyform -- the Light has a large number of forms that it can use. This is for people who got the knack of shapeshifting faster than everyone else and has a better intuition for the way different shapes work.
• Disguise -- you're a real expert on people specifically, and can imitate them down to a very detailed level. This isn't something people can just do by thinking about others; you have to study the person, really know where every wrinkle and mole and birthmark is. Portrait artists and the like get a boost to this.
• Wide Range -- you can get big, really big. You can eat a city block and just kind of shrug. You're the kind of creature everyone is trying to kill unless you lie low, but you're a real whiz-bang in a battle because you just roll everything in your path. If you actually specialized in this, you are either one lucky bastard, have iron self-control, or you were infected out in rural Montana where no one cares if you take out N square acres of forest once you wake up for the first time. Most Wide Range folks get burned out within a few hours of their appearing.
• Water Tolerant -- unlike many Lights, you're really good at holding form. Thus, you can go underwater without being washed around and losing coherent shape.
• Chemically Tolerant -- you can consume more hazardous material than most people, such as compounds that might ordinarily kill Light cells.
• Chemovore -- you specialize in eating a certain kind of chemical. For all others, you are normal, but you are superior to Chemically Tolerant in this area.
• Projectile Weapons -- you can create and project spikes, thorns, liquid, or other sorts of distance weapons.
• Non-Destructive Mind-reading -- if you can come into contact with someone's neural tissue, you can actually read their thoughts without destroying the tissue. You have to be in contact with someone's actual brain, which presents its own problems, but you can, under the right circumstances, pull thought and memory out without harming the human very much.
• Fast Eater -- consumes mass at a higher rate than most. Helpful for getting rid of your enemies in a pinch, or being discreet.
• Infrastructure Growth -- you can create and maintain load-bearing structures using your mass. You are stronger and can withstand more pressure, stress, strain, etc. than most.
• Low Metabolism -- you don't need as much food as others to survive, so you can go for longer without it and feel less overbearing desire for it.
• Flesh Maintenance -- you can actually keep human (or other) flesh living by interfacing with it and allowing it to draw nutrients from your body. As such, you can wear another person's skin, keep an organ living, and so forth. This is especially good for, say, getting through biometric security.

Disadvantages

• Weak-Willed -- you can't control yourself as easily as others. You have to disappear more often for food, or you screw it up and eat humans, their pets, and/or pieces of various living spaces so on more often than you'd like. People should watch their couches around you, and maybe their arms and legs.
• Water Intolerant -- you get dissociated more easily than most when coming into contact with water. Don't go swimming. Ever.
• Predator -- you will go out of your way to eat living creatures instead of safer matter. This can be more or less harmful depending on whether your living creature of choice is an animal or a human.
• Difficulty Disguising -- you always look a little Light-ish in human form, no matter what you do. You can't hold yourself to a form as well as others.
• Small Range -- you really can't grow very much past your original human size. You're fine at melee combat, but you suck at actually holding a line because you can't secure it by yourself. You have to be a team player.
• High Metabolism -- you have to eat a lot. This is distinguished from Weak-Willed in that you can easily redirect your desires to more acceptable targets, but you still have to consume more mass than most others on a day-to-day basis. (Combined with Weak-Willed, this is a recipe for getting incinerated.)
• 
  

Behind The Arena

I think my name is Luke. Luke Valencia. I've probably spent hours now sitting, arms around my knees. It feels nice and warm to wrap yourself up. The storage room is so cold when they've been opening the doors a lot. I can smell other flesh in here, and it riles me up until I get used to it. It's worst when they take the others in and out, because when they come back, they always reek like blood. It smells like pennies and meat and tastes like memories.

I'm a bad thing. I know that much. I'm a Blighter. The cops would call me Bravo, I think. Other people say other things. Demon. Devil. Lecter, for your non-religious types. Killer, alien, beast, whatever you want. The Horsemen would tear you down for that stuff, but I don't care. I'm a monster. I'll call me what I am, all of it. I'm a man-eating freak of nature.

It's times like this I can think. I realize how dark it is in here.  The sun doesn't rise or set; it's all just a dim fluorescent haze. Blighters don't really sleep on a normal schedule. We kind of hibernate a while whenever, just shut down in whatever shape we're in. I don't bother looking human much anymore. I'm not human at all. I don't notice time passing; it's like I'm in stasis or something. Like in those books I might have read. Or was that one of the other ten or fifteen people buried in me now?

The short stocky man comes back, smelling like sweat, booze, and snuff. He waddles a bit; I can see the screwed up knee even before I can see his face. He's the kind of guy I'd pick out of the herd: the meaty guy with the beer belly who can't run away. I guess I still think I'm a bit human, because I normally have a real face. Right now my human mouth is a little open. That stupid thing cats do when they're watching mice. I used to be ashamed. Maybe I still am. Did my girlfriend have a cat? Or was she the allergic one?

He notices me staring. His eyes are the color of pond muck. Sounds more filling than what I usually get. At least there's a lot of it.

"Not your turn, Lucy. Give it a few days."

He spits on the floor. It smells like breath. I'm against the wire before I can think. He laughs at me, crouching down to leer into the cage. It's small enough that he'd have to crawl if he tried to get in here. I can't ever stand up, even on four human limbs. I can't remember the last time I had four human limbs. I mostly keep a face and some fingers. I can't talk these days. If I try, I just end up gnawing on something. I tried to eat myself once. It's not really satisfying. It hurts and makes me more tired. Something about conservation of energy?

I try not to stare at the pit master like a piece of meat. It's too hard, but sometimes I can look at the cage where I chewed on it.

"What's your problem, huh?" He talks to me like I'm a dog, in that overdone tone you use when something can't really understand your words. Lots of the time, I'm really like that. Not today. He's right -- it's too soon. If he wants me to act like the dog he thinks I am, he's got to wait.

I know it's coming back. I used to wish it didn't, but it always does. Wasn't there a dog that got shocked until it never got back up again, just laid there and gave up?

What does it mean, if I'm that dog?

There's a taller man coming in now. His air tastes like ink and smoke. He's got papers in his hand. They look tasty, too.

"Hey, I remember this one." He jerks a thumb at me. I watch it move through the dusty air. Sometimes I scrape the dust off the cage floor. It's not filling. The new human stands beside the first. "Lucifer, yeah?"

"That's the one. You were poking him with a stick the other day or something."

"Just looking."

"Yeah, well, here he is, look all you want."

The guy leans down. It's that man from the match, the one with the notebook. He gave me a cigarette last match. Didn't he ask me how to smoke? No. He asked me what someone did with a cigarette. Testing my thinking. Seeing if I could respond.

So I did. It looked like I might have gotten through to him, somehow. He doesn't look at me the way the pit master does. He's okay getting right up to the cage. He doesn't sneer or look nauseous. Lots of people are disgusted by the way we look. I guess we do look like bloody flesh. Well, they look like cooked flesh, so we're even. Just like a roasted chicken. Did I ever cook chicken? I might have been a vegetarian. Or maybe that was Anderson.

"So what would happen if he got out?" Cigarette Man has another of his, well, cigarettes, dangling in two fingers. I don't like smoke and fire, because fire is one of the few things that kills me pretty well. The pit master once threw some coals into my cage, when I wouldn't shut up. That hurt. But I watch Cigarette Man with what I hope isn't too bright a look. I can't resist his words.

"What do you think? He runs wild, eats both of us, breaks out, takes out part of a city block, the fuzz comes in and flames him out, and there you go."

Can I do that? I thought most Blighters could only sweep maybe a room or two. Close range type stuff. I don't even remember my infection. Usually you see what someone can do when it takes over everything it can in the first loss of control. Little numbers float around in my head about death ranges, whatever those are.

I dig around a little in my recent memories. "Has a death range of three times our ring."

Does that mean I can sweep up an area that big? I think the ring is an oval, maybe fifty feet across, thirty feet wide?

I'm not so small, then, if they were talking about me.

All that says right now, is that I can eat a lot. That probably scares them, though. The ring doesn't have any food, so I can't grow in there. Neither does the cage.

I don't raise my head, but I roll my eyes to look at Cigarette Man. The pit master has already started wandering around, going to the other cages. His friend jabs out the cigarette on the ground and pokes it through my cage.

I manage to hold off for barely a minute to stare at it before chomping it in half. Tobacco and a body a week. How long until I blow away like dust? Isn't that what happens when we die?

"Hey, Lucifer."

I look up at him. The air around him tastes good, this close. Like more than one person. Maybe his friends? I can't touch the cage wire, but I can sniff through it. My face looks vaguely human right now, not like the last time he saw me. He stands up after taking a long look at it.

"Hey, Cole, gimme that prod and go get a couple beers. You've been at this a while. I'll make sure they're all still alive."

"Thanks, man." The pit master -- Cole? -- throws something through the air that makes me skitter way back in the cage. I slam against the back wall and throw myself onto my face. The hot lines on my back burn like a shot of fire, and they hiss, and they smell like death.  I feel some powder crumble off. I scrape it up.

Cigarette Man leans closer. He has Cole's stick, the one he jabs me with when I'm too loud. When Cole leaves, he puts it down and sits next to the cage. He sounds nervous. He rubs at his neck a lot and doesn't look at me much. "Hey. I don't know your real name, but I'd call you that if I did. You hearing me?"

I manage a shaky nod. The clunky industrial fans are blowing stale air back and forth, and some of it has his taste all over it. It washes over my skin, and I shiver and clatter my teeth. He's got a cut on his lip. I want to lick the blood off.

"I got a present for you."

I jump up so fast I nearly bang my head on the cage. My lower body moves into action, tensing up as I pull it into enough shape to coil around on the floor. Like a kid waiting for his birthday. Or maybe a puppy waiting for a treat.

"Here." He reaches into his big duffel bag, digs around under some clothes that throw old stink and salt into the air, and pull out a couple of big black plastic bags. "You have to listen to me, okay? I'll help you out. I'm Bray, remember that."

I'm all ears. Not literally. I can do that, but I don't. It's silly, and I don't really know how to process more than two ears. But I lean my head near the cage to listen.

"I'm going to open this door."

My jaw hangs open, and I rise up in the cage, ready to spring. First him? Yes. First him. Then the pit man. Then -- then--

"But he said if you get out, you're too far gone to be set free. So I can't let you go."

I scream and throw myself against the cage. Teeth scrape on steel. Claws throw sparks. The grate fries itself into my face. I come back smelling like ash. Pain flies back and forth through my body like fire, or maybe one of the other Blighters' tendrils. I hunch down and glare at him.

"You idiot, look at you, that's exactly what I mean. Now shut up and listen. There are four other guys in here like you. If I want to get them out, Cole has to trust me."

That...that made sense. Right. There were others. They were like me. But were we worth getting out? I guess we wanted it, whether we deserved it or not...

"There you go. Listen to me. Calm down." Bray hefts a bag into his arms. I can't really smell what's in it. He covered it up pretty well. It mostly smells like old cloth. "I'm going to help you get your brain back enough for us to start a plan. But you've got to act like you're still in a bad spot."
I make my brows wrinkle up. That's what the others in me did when they were confused. What humans do.

"You've got to act like you're still starving, and you have to fight your matches. And right now, I'm going to open this door, and if you kill me, you're doomed. Did you hear what he said before?"
I'm shaking in place so hard that I look like a bowl of jelly, but I nod. I start thinking, Don't go out the door. Don't go out the door. I close my eyes. I grab hold of the floor as best I can.

"All right. Here we go." He puts on some weird thick gloves and fumbles with the lock. "I stole the key from Cole and copied them after the match. He only keeps one on him at a time, just the one he's using for the match right then. I don't know where the rest are. But this one's yours." He holds it up when he's done, then jerks the lock out of place and swings the door open.

Freedom freedom freedom--
 
No!
I shudder back into the cage, dragging my head on the ground, and Bray empties both of the bags in front of me. Then he slams the door and locks it back.

The turkeys are gone only minutes later, every last drop of blood and flake of bone scratched up from the floor, and I truly look at myself for the first time in...weeks? Months? I don't know. But I can focus now, and I can see my vaguely human hands, and I notice the meaty flesh-pile body behind me, shiny and liquid and curled up tight on the dirty floor. Most of all, I notice Bray, look at him, not just sniff him out anymore. He looks human, not just edible. He's rough, but he looks clean, unlike what I remember of Cole.

I sink down onto what would have been my knees but is now just another part of the tangle of viscera and muscle that makes up my lower half.

"There, that wasn't so bad." He picks up the prod again and stuffs a cigarette between his lips. I shake my head. "Huh?"

I think back to the other humans, to what I might have been, and I let myself feel the way it felt to speak...and my throat rearranges itself into a familiar pattern. I draw some air into my chest.

"I don't like smoke." My voice sounds thick and wet, but it comes out.

He coughs a laugh and stares. "So you can talk. Damn. I thought for sure--"

"That I was a really smart dog." It takes me a lot of effort to squeeze out the words, but contempt definitely helps.

"Well...okay, yeah, fine, I'll admit to that." He adjusts his collar and glances back at the doors. "I'll drop in with more food between your matches. I can't do too much, or you probably won't act right. But if you can strip down two hundred pounds of meat out there, I figure forty or fifty more is a good snack. So I'll bring you about that much of whatever's on sale, okay? It's November, so you get turkey. Don't bitch at me or I'll poke you with this thing here, whatever it is."

I glare at him. He shrugs and pockets the prod.

"Look, I'm trying to do you right, you can tell that. You got a name?"

"Luke."

"All right. Nice to meet you, or something."

I shrug. It definitely is, although the circumstances could be far, far better...

"Cole's gonna be back soon. I want your full name and the name of the last--"

I can't think about that now. Not when I have this much clarity. It's too powerful. I just spit out the names and turn my head away, my voice all blurring together into something soupy: "Luke Valencia. Joshua Marron was a bouncer. Chinatown bars. Drove a pickup truck something like ten years old. I think it was a Chevy." I pause to draw in another forced breath; anger to grease the wheels or not, it's hard to manage that many words after not saying much for this long. Bray stops with his mouth open. As I focus, the memories dull to a low roar, and Bray's hand rushes over a page in his notebook.

"Joshua Marron, bouncer, next to Chinatown, drove a Chevy pickup, I got that. Luke Valencia, ah, anything more about you?"

"What's this for?" I sit back on my serpentine haunches. It's a nice pillow, at least, if you get over the slimy, fluid feeling.

"I'm going to see if I can dig up a pattern to who this guy's kidnapping for the pits. You know, do a little sleuthing. You know anything about the other poor bastards in here?"

"No. They don't talk."

"Right." Bray stuffs the book and pen back in his pocket. "All right, Luke, sit tight. We'll see what we can break open, yeah?" He turns to leave.

"Wait." I sidle up to the cage door again, barely missing it. Bray glances over his shoulder.

"What?"

"Why bother? Cole pays you."

"I don't know. Maybe I saw something funny in the way you looked at me. I didn't know you guys were smart. Or maybe I heard it, but I didn't believe it, and that Luthor guy shook me up a little, too. Joshua." Shrugging, he pulls a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket and raises it to his lips. "I think that if anyone's got half a brain to try, they should be given a shot at making it in the world. That's both people and creepy monster men, right? If you can think, you can live."

He lights the cigarette and strides away.


(I tried to bring out the inconsistent thoughts caused by Luke/Lucifer's chronic food deprivation. He has spurts of lucidity, but he's easily distracted. There's a method to the madness, though, and I'm trying to fish around for what that is.

I have no idea what this fascination with first-person-present is. I almost never write in it. I'm a die-hard fan of third-person-past.)

Social Associates

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Gladiators

"Hey -- hey! You! Ten for five!"

Another fist shoving money at him. Bray yanked out the bill and jotted the drunk's seat down in his book. A lot of people had confidence in this Luthor guy, but Bray figured he wouldn't last two minutes, let alone five. The odds were already pegged at 10:1 in favor of a loss, but the audience was convinced that he'd hold up.

That would be the day. Bray had seen Luthor in the prep box. He wasn't any different from the hordes of other scrappy street-fighter types that were dragged in for a cheap thrill. Lied to, kidnapped, whatever they were, they ended up in the Gladiator pit not to win, but to live as long as they could.

It was so stupid, watching a losing fight, but one Brayden Olson got a cut of every bet these drunks and junkies and sadistic bastards lost, and he really did need that cash.

He pocketed the ten and sauntered down the aisle to the edge of the ring. Not even glass here at the Dragon Pit, just that electrified chickenwire. It was up to the losers watching the fight not to get themselves fried on it or get their fingers eaten off.

Better that than to be the poor bastard about to get thrown in the pit in -- he checked his watch -- about three minutes, now. He guessed that judging by the guy's bodybuilder look, he was going to be easy prey. Fighting a Light was all about your speed and unpredictability. Strength couldn't help you much, and you certainly couldn't just punch it into the ground, although he had seen a few epic fights where the challenger had thrown the thing across the room.

"Send 'em in!" someone shouted from the stands, waving a beer. Bray riffled his pages and added how much cash he expected to bring in. Once Luthor got axed, carry the two, that would be a pretty nice haul for a single night.

"Are you ready for blood on the floor?"

Screams from the stands. Bray pocketed his notebook and sat in the bookie's seat, right on the front row, elbows on his knees. Crazy fuckers, the people that watched this, but he was here too, so maybe he was just as looney as the rest of them. He twiddled the end of his pen between his lips as he waited for the booming announcer to finish.

"Tonight's challenger is a real fighter, weighing in at two hundred fifty-one pounds, standing tall at six feet four inches. He's bald, he's brutal, and he's ready to take on the boss of this ring! Give it up for Luthor!"

The man was already covered in sweat as a couple of guards threw him into the arena. Faded tattoos cut across his gleaming shoulders like black scars in the dim light. As he scrambled up off the ground, his eyes flicked around with the telltale sign of death -- the wide-eyed look of overwhelming fear. Bray wondered if Luthor had been told just what he was getting into before ten seconds ago.

"C'mon, Luthor! I got forty on you!"

"You got this! Take 'em out!"

"You ready to die, bitch?"

Bray tuned out the crowd as the opponent descended from the ceiling in a wire cage. The announcer's deafening boom returned.

"In the opposite corner, we have a beast picked out just for our challenger -- Lucifer! Hauled straight from Hell to our arena, this monster has a death range of three times our ring. Let's hear it!"

Boos from the crowd. Bray always thought that was strange, the way the onlookers howled at the monster as if they wanted it to die. Maybe they did, but that's never what happened, and he wasn't sure if it was even possible. Lights never lost.

Ever.

That was the point. No more, no less. No one in that arena was coming out alive besides the red monster. As the cage settled to the ground, Bray lit up a cigarette and leaned back to watch the match, staring for a moment into the darkness past the mesh.

Ding.
The cage opened, and a red blur swarmed out, sprawling out onto the floor and rising up into a crude head and a set of arms. Jagged teeth ripped through the front of the face, bursting out into a half-made snout. Long knife-claws tipped the fingers, three on a side. The rear half was just a snake's body, a bloody red mass of something thick and liquid and trailing out over the dirt. It rolled over itself until it reached the side wall of the arena, and its cage drew back up into the ceiling.

Luthor charged the Light -- Bray sucked on his cigarette and gave the man points for sheer balls. Balls didn't win bets, though. He puffed some smoke.

The beast slashed out, and Luthor jumped in deep and caught the arm in his hands, feet dragging in the dirt. Oh, big mistake. Always the musclebound types that do that. Inhale, puff, puff.

With a howling cry, Luthor dug in and ripped the claw clean off, throwing it away with a wet slap as it splatted on the ground. Bray paused between puffs. The audience roared. Shit, not bad. He leaned forward in his seat as Luthor scooted back, dragging his hands on the dirt to scrape off the enemy's flesh.

Diving for him head-on, the Light peeled open its jaws and snapped for Luthor's leg. Missed. Hit the ground. Damn, the man was fast, especially for a big guy. Bray hadn't seen that one coming.

Snap, swing. Luthor feinted left, hurled himself right, and dealt the beast a driving punch to the face that bent it over backwards like rubber. Diving after it, he jumped in the air and came down on its other arm, tearing it free at the shoulder as his feet crashed to the floor.

Long wet whips wrapped around his ankles, and he dropped to the ground and rolled, scraping and kicking them away. Just as he came to his feet, he saw the tail coming from around the back of the ring and dove over it as it swept past.

Bray barely noticed the cigarette fall from his lips until it had burned into his pants. What, had this guy fought Lights before? No mass in the arena meant that the monster couldn't grow, so it was reluctant to spread out -- made for a slower fight -- but in the end, most people made the key mistake and got themselves dragged in close. Luthor was fighting hand-to-hand and making it out. If he could pull it off, it could win, because the beast had no way to regrow itself if Luthor kept ripping parts of it off.

I might not get my money.
Maybe he would, though. Luthor was tired, and the tail came round for another hit that took out one leg and sent him stumbling back in pain. He dropped to one knee, and the red splash behind him wasn't enemy flesh now.

The arms were growing back, too, the tail shrinking and withering. Lucifer flung itself into a tackle, Luthor ducked, and claws caught him across the hip. Blood splashed out onto the dirty floor, drawing screams from the crowd.

Come on, man, you got this. It didn't look deep. Bray checked his watch -- almost two and a half minutes. Why was he cheering for the guy? Luthor was doomed either way.

Lucifer screeched a challenge, its chest blowing up huge and liquid, then squashing down and shrieking like a siren through the jagged teeth. Bray covered his ears, and the monster hurled its tail all the way around to take out Luthor's knees from behind.

Luthor stumbled, kicked out his legs, and managed a rough roll backwards and up onto his feet. There was the tail again--he parried it with his arms and rushed in.

Bray's mouth hung open. Oh hell. Oh no, man, look at your--

The Light mess was still stuck to Luthor's arms, though the tail was mostly gone, and it ripped his flesh away down to bone. Luthor shrieked and dove in like a madman, powered by adrenaline--

So close.
He tackled the Light, tearing its face open, ripping into its head, squirming red mess thrown all over the ground and the walls. It didn't even have time to react until its neck was split open, its face all over the dirt.

Bray wanted to think that would work. Really, he did. But in the end, a Light's head was just another little piece, like an arm or a finger or something, and you couldn't just take it off and win. Luthor's arms were covered in the stuff now, and his blood was feeding the beast as it wrapped up around his shoulders.

With a monstrous yell, Luthor tore off the Light's feelers and backed up, bleeding all over the floor. Bray's jaw dropped.

The man had not much left of his arms now. A stump of one, a couple fingers on the end of the other, that was all. But somehow he was still going, dizzy and sweaty, stumbling now, losing it but managing to keep his feet on the floor.

The guy was going down, but Bray had to feel for him a little. He had tried so damn hard.

"C'mon, Luthor, suck it up," he muttered. "Die like a man. Whatever your real name is."

Four minutes.

Luthor cast the audience a quick glance, one that seemed far more coherent than it should have been, and Bray felt as if he were looking right at him. What kind of sicko watches this? said the look, or did it? Bray found something else to stare at for a moment.

Stumbling away, Luthor leaned on the wall of the arena and waited for the inevitable. Lucifer rose up, serpentine, and howled its challenge as it dove in hard--

Luthor fell aside, and the beast smashed headlong into the arena walls, sending Bray leaping out of his chair along with most of the front two rows that crashed down onto the crowd behind them with a collective yelp. Light flesh fried on the fence, filling the air with a dull reek and shriveling up like overcooked meat. The chickenwire hissed and sparked, and the Light was already dripping through, ash and sticky withering mess gluing itself to the steel. It smelled like boiling blood, and Bray clapped a hand over his nose.

Where was Luthor? He scrambled over a fallen drunk and eased up to the fence.

Four and a half. The fighter was on his knees, slumped against the side of the wall, having exhausted all his energy just to lead the beast into his trap. Blood mingled with sweat and dripped down over his body and legs, and his eyes were barely open as Lucifer shuddered and inched its way back from the fence.

Come on, get up, you damn fool, Bray found himself thinking as Luthor raised his chin and then let it drop. No, there was no more life left in that. The crowd was already howling for death, and the clock was still ticking.

Four-forty. Lucifer dragged its blistered body -- what was left of it -- away from the fence and seethed back into a coherent shape again. Forgoing arms, it funneled its stripped-down self into a malformed serpent's shape that snaked its way toward the fallen man.

Four-forty-five. Luthor raised his head long enough to stare down the beast. Past the point of fear, his eyes rose to meet the dull dark pits behind all that bone and tendril.

Four-fifty. Bray's book slipped from his fingers and into his lap as Luthor's arms reached out. The bookie's eyes darted back and forth between Luthor and the clock.

Four-fifty-five. Lucifer's head shot out with such force that the rest of the body rose off the ground, the coiled form stringing out into a spear that dove headlong for the man's throat.

Four-fifty-six. The serpent's teeth clamped down around the pale neck, the rest of the body whipping about to surround the torso beneath it. Luthor's eyes rolled about to stare at the crowd, glazed, dull. Bray swore the man looked his way again.

The clock stopped at four-fifty-eight.

Though the crowd erupted around him, Bray barely heard their voices. As he sat still, he couldn't take his eyes off the lifeless body, skin dissolving away into flesh, Light tendrils chewing through it and tearing it down from a human body into some butchered carcass lying in a meat market window. Even as it disappeared into a shapeless red mound, Bray saw the eyes looking back, blank and yet living, nothing like the soulless beast in the center now. Even with no body, Luthor was still watching.
Pleading? Raging? Maybe none of that. Maybe just accepting.

Or, maybe blaming.

Bray riffled through his book without looking down, fumbling for his pen, a blank and empty nothing filling his chest. As he stared past the chickenwire, he saw Lucifer crouch onto newly formed forelimbs, shaking as if panting over the floor.

The announcer said something -- he wasn't even sure what -- and the crowd began to trickle away into the arena's lobby to collect winnings, drink, and hoot about the match. Their dull roar faded as Bray approached the edge of the arena. Bray put his arms on the rail in front of the fence.

"You're a real bastard, you know that?" He said the words to himself, but Lucifer's serpentine head rose to watch him, little beady eyes in a skeletal snout.

Was that thing ever human? Bray had a hard time believing so, although that was how the story went. He folded his arms and pressed his face so close to the fence that he could feel the buzzing near his nose. The Light rose up onto its coiled rear, extending and slithering toward the fence.

Human arms formed out of the shapeless claws, then pressed against the lower walls of the ring, below the wire. Though the head remained the same, Lucifer hauled itself up to watch Bray at head level.

Cole, the pit master, yelled from across the room: "Bray, what are you doing over there? You antagonizing my monster? You have two minutes before we sweep it back up, so don't get your fingers bit off!"

Bray waved a hand in Cole's general direction and turned back to the Light. He managed a vague chuckle.

"You are one mean motherfucker." The bookie fished out a cigarette from his pocket and poked it through the gaps in the fence. "And you know it, don't you?"

A hand came up and swiped at the fence, grabbing the cigarette away and hissing against the wire.

"Whoa!" Bray jerked back and rubbed his fingers together. "What, you can make sense of anything I'm saying? I'm damned if you're smarter than a dog..."

Lucifer hissed at him, less of a snake noise than a garbled snarl, and hoisted itself back up against the arena wall. They sat there, nose to nose, for a good twenty seconds before a trembling hand rose and pressed itself as close to the wire as possible.

"Shit. Okay, I'll bite." He glanced around; Cole was pacing in the rear of the room, but the crowd was long gone. Lowering his voice, Bray gave the creature a suspicious glance. "Do you know English?"

"Bray! Get your ass off the fence so we can put this thing back in the box!"

"Hey. What do you do with a cigarette, Lucifer?"

Shaking and fumbling, the fingers managed to twist Bray's cigarette around and jam it between two teeth, where it stuck out at an awkward angle. Lucifer only managed a few seconds before chomping down, shredding the paper and sending tobacco everywhere, which it scooped up flake by flake with the painstaking air of a starving boy licking the edges of his plate.

The bookie stared, mouth open. "Food. You want food, right? That's what you all want."

Lucifer clanged back against the wall, expectation in his eyes.

"Hey, Cole!" Bray cupped a hand to his mouth. "What do you feed these bastards?"

"Not much!" Cole jogged around the side of the arena, watching Lucifer glare through the mesh fence. "What, I never gave you the lowdown?"

"I never asked, really. I usually stuck to the boxing matches, right? I've only been down here a few times."

"Well, they're more vicious when you don't feed 'em." Cole picked up a straw and poked it through the chickenwire, jerking his hands away like he had touched something hot. Catching it in midair, Lucifer stripped the paper off and tore the plastic to shreds, licking up the little white flakes like it had the tobacco. "The right amount of time's about...two and a half days, if they're used to it. First time you get one, you have to keep them for a week in the cage, then turn them loose on the first person they see."
Bray put on a cool expression and shrugged, jerking a thumb at Lucifer. "So, you gave this guy a taste for blood like that?"

"Oh, that part's just something they do. They like flesh. Don't you?" Cole picked up a gnawed chicken wing, broke off one of the bones, and stuck it through the fence; the beast inside nearly threw itself into the mesh trying to catch it. "But they don't usually eat people unless they're desperate. So you make 'em desperate."

Just an animal. Bray glanced at the serpent-man as it backed away from the edge, human hands still dragging the ground beside it. But I never met a dog that could tell me what you do with a cigarette.

"How many you got?"

"About five. Lucifer's the newest one, so I figured I'd show it off, christen the new ring, all that, right?" Cole turned and brought both hands to his mouth. "Hey guys! Pack this boy up! Let's close down for the night."

Crane-arms lowered from the ceiling, sparking, driving Lucifer back into the corner where its -- his? her? -- metal box sat open now. Bray kept a straight face as the Light inched back into its holding cell, curling up inside, melting down into a quivering pool and allowing the door to be shut.

"So you feed it people and nothing else?"

"That's right. Keeps the guy on his toes. Trains him to know that the only food he's getting, is what he goes and gets himself, right here." Cole pointed at his notes and pulled out a checkbook. "How much I owe you for today?"

Bray thrust the notebook into his hands, and while Cole wrote out the money, he watched Lucifer's cage rise into the upper reaches of the arena.

"Here you go."

The bookie stared at the check in his hands. "Right. Hey, Cole?"

"What?"

"You want me to stick around, you know, someone who knows the routine? I make a good buck around here, so I figure I'll keep the bets down here." He gave the pit master a nonchalant smile and pulled away the notebook.

"Yeah, sure, old buddy. No skin off my back if you stay, better than explaining this shit to more people. Glad you had fun." Cole pocketed his checks and set off for the exit. "Let's get going, right? I have to get up early and set up the boxing ring upstairs. Go get yourself a beer from the lobby or something, catch a cab, head home."

"Right." He watched Cole fling the doors open and waltz past the few people left from the night's audience, but his hand felt glued to the arena, and so he stayed until Cole disappeared from view. Behind him, the arena's sprinklers flicked on, hosing down the floor and sweeping the blood away.

He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and, with a glance over his shoulder, lit it and took a long drag.

Assassin

"Brian?" Nagare leaned over its engraved wooden desk, resting on its elbows. Its long black hair fell loosely over its shoulders, pooling into puddles of oil on the old mahogany.

Brian Aronson.

Lines on the man's face. Looks 45--no, 50--no, 48.

Tension in his smell but also in his body language, and a certain way of carrying himself and looking about. He's angry, no matter how scared he may also be. He's out for blood. He came here not because he can't kill, but to keep himself out of trouble. He's still too afraid of me to try anything here, though.

A fresh suit, cheaper fabric, but clearly an attempt at sharp business clothes. Looks like a middle-class type, heading upward, or aspiring to it. Nagare searched its mind to pinpoint the brand, triangulating from several foreign memories.

Popular in England. He came a long way just to see someone dead, but he's not British, so where is he originally from?

No one within Nagare knew a Brian Aronson. The trail grew cold.

"That's me, yes." A middle-aged man with a briefcase in tow pushed the rest of the way through the door.

Nagare eyed the bag. Leather. It could smell the skin from here. Dried, tanned flesh, though, was not at all as appealing as the musky organic smell coming from the human himself, smelling of nervous sweat and living cells. Despite Brian's heavy coat and hat, the odor still wafted across the room, and the warmth from the body was near-visible as he drew nearer. Nagare's hands flushed hot and writhed in frustration, keeping their tension barely under the falsified skin.

It forced the fibers back into stillness, calming its body, slowing the motion under its palms to a crawl and then a stop.

Be still.

Its gaze rose to meet Brian's, just a little too calm to be human, and it let some red bleed into its cold brown eyes. "I see you're already serious about this. Many start having second thoughts about now."

The man shook his head, pressing his lips into a thin line as he hefted the briefcase onto the table with a thump. "Ten thousand up front, in cash, just as I was told. Keep the case."
Nagare let its eyes slip into a deep red shade as it reached out a hand.

Brian stared at it as if it were covered in poison. A tiny bead of sweat gathered at his graying temple, and Nagare could smell the salty fear all about him. Little zaps ran through its body, palm to palm, head to feet, flicking across like electric arcs.

"Let's be civilized about this," it said, extending its fingers.

"Is this some kind of test?"

The Light kept its eyes locked onto its client's gaze. Brian's hand trembled, then rose for the shake.

"There. Now you know there's no need to fear me." Nagare leaned back in the chair and motioned to the single seat on the other side. All that show tended to have the exact opposite effect, which was what he wanted. "Here, sit."

"Check it." Brian turned the briefcase around with a shove of his hand, then crossed his arms, statue-still. "I don't want anything to land me in hot water with someone like you."

A tendril snaked out from Nagare's right leg, seeping across the cold wooden floor, rough old scars catching against its slick length as it twined toward the smell of cloth and leather shoes. Raising itself up like a cobra, it crept onto Brian's jeans and branched up his leg.

The color drained from Brian's cheeks.

"I said," Nagare tensed the coils, and Brian's leg buckled, "sit down."

"I can--"

"You can't take your business elsewhere, or you would have. No one comes to me unless they have plenty of money and more than a drop of," it slipped a hiss into its final word, "desperation."

"Light, are you going to take the job or not?"

"My name," it stood and thumped its hands down on the table, "is Nagare. Know it, and use it."

No response. Brian's face was so white that his mousy hair looked black by comparison, but still he straightened his back and soldiered on. Courage is not the absence of fear? Or is he simply faking his way through?

"Now, then." Nagare let its expression relax, loosing the fibers, stretching its fingers across the desk and honing them into sharp tendrils that stretched to the far edge and stopped. "Your target?"

The human motioned to the briefcase. The surge of heat and narrowed eyes reappeared, latent rage rekindled. "In there."

Nagare opened the lid and peered at the money inside. About ten thousand, good. If there was any less, it would have a word with the man later. As for the information, there was a yellow envelope strapped to the top of the box, and Nagare reached out, wrapped around the paper, and tugged it free. A long red strand held the envelope high.

Watching Brian try not to fidget, it pulled off the top of the envelope and reached inside to lift out a set of photos and a pack of paper.

"Your data's all there. The guy's name is Ashton Ballard. He works for Alethea Scientific. He's a," he paused for just an instant, "researcher. Chemistry."

Nagare wasn't going to ask why the man wanted this Ballard dead. No one who came to an assassin wanted to tell his story. They had already decided it was worth it, or they were insane enough to pony up fifty thousand dollars on an impulse, and as such the Light decided it wasn't enough of its business. Just the name, the information, and any relevant details.

"All right, Brian Aronson." Nagare finished riffling through the papers and set them on the corner of the desk, covering them in a gleaming red web. "And what would you like done? It's quite a profile, but there's nothing in here about the man's fate. Do you want him simply killed? Or..." He let the word trail off, dripping down its tongue, seeping out into the air and hanging there. The slight raise of its brows drove home the point.

"Or." Brian's jaw set.

The Light leaned closer, its eyes a little wider. The tendrils sprawling over the front of its desk ran down toward Brian's chair, slithering in front of the man's shoes. This time, he didn't twitch.

"Enlighten me."

The fear boiled down into determination, a lowering of the brows and a setting of the jaw. This one was a fighter; Nagare watched in satisfaction. Better that than a scared little mouse. It always liked to weed out its clients by who could withstand working with its Light nature, and who couldn't -- staring the beast in the teeth was the best way to know, or conquer, fear. Brian looked like the type to push through, regardless. Danger brought out the force in a man.

Brian's voice was even and flat now, though his hands balled up in his lap. "Ballard was working on a number of research projects. I want everything about them that he knows."

The viral threads crept up the chair and climbed onto Brian's arm, sweeping down to his hand.
"You understand that this does involve his death, whether you like that, or not."

"Yes, I know. Do whatever you must," he raised his hand and let the biomass crawl back and forth between trembling fingers, "to pick his brain. And after that, I want him destroyed. Not just killed -- make sure there's no body."

Nagare watched the fingers close over its tendrils. Human warmth, close against him, drowned him for a moment in ecstasy. Flesh, so near, so close--

Be still.

The hands squeezed, and Brian gave a slow nod. "You're welcome to have him." The faintest hint of a smile, or was it grim resignation? "Take your time with it."

There, out came the bloodlust, that was it. Nagare slipped its tendrils away onto the floor again, withdrawing over the panels and back up the desk and into its arms, where they reformed into fingers. It stood, sweeping briefcase, money, and folder into a corner near its hand.

"I'll take your job. You know the payment conditions, yes?"

A nod from the human. The fearful, sweating smell drifting about him was dissipating now. "Forty thousand upon completion, within a week. If I bail on you, I cease to exist."

That was a polite way of putting it. Nagare smiled, this time showing too-white teeth. "Yes, you have it right. Now, leave me be."

"Two weeks."

"Hm?" A raised brow, carefully arched.

Brian stood and motioned to the papers. "Ballard is only in the area for two weeks. After that, all bets are off, and I take my forty thousand elsewhere. He'll be under so much lockdown that I wouldn't trust God himself to get the man out. Right now, though, he's in transit, and he's out of his home country, so this is your best shot"

"You know my terms."

"I know Ballard." Brian stood, fists clenched by his sides. "You have two weeks, Nagare."

"And will there be anything else?" A smile and a lacing of the fingers, and Brian was stopped in his tracks halfway to the door.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, there are many who like a trinket or two from their target. Both ears and the tail, perhaps?"

"Ha ha." Brian glared at him a moment, then glanced off to the side. "Actually, yes, there might be. He has a picture with him, a photograph. It's of a woman. His wife. Bring it back. Proof and all that."

"Of course."

Sometimes you could just tell.





(I'm only partially happy with this, but I wanted a sketch of Nagare, so here it is.)
Type of piece: Character sketch