Chapter 22. Payment

  Jeremiah turned in the direction of the scream, earning himself a torrent of swears and shoves from the other members of the current. But the scream was echoed again and again, finally causing enough disturbance that the implacable stream of Elminia was disrupted. People began to strain their necks and look around nervously, unsure of what was happening and where the screams were coming from. But Jeremiah quickly saw when part of the stream ran ran backwards, quickly backing away from something

  Suspended high above the crowd was a body. Even from this distance, Jeremiah could tell it was freshly killed—blood dripped onto the crowd below. The people under the deluge scrambled to get away, some being knocked to the ground and smeared in red mud.

  Jeremiah fought his way towards the body, fighting against the direction of the crowd as people backed away, eyes fixed on the horrific sight. The body had been stripped naked and hoisted aloft by wires connecting it to the buildings on either side of the street, it’s arms fully extended. The torso was wrapped so tightly in more wire that it resembled bread rising around twine. It was as if a metal spider had captured its prey and heaved it up for all to see. The head was missing, instead only an ovoid rod of metal jutted up from the stump of the neck, creating a facsimile of a complete body, albeit with a miniscule skull.

  “Did anyone see what happened?” Jeremiah called out. This had to be one of the cult murders the Empress had talked about. It was ghastly and dramatic, seemingly ceremonial in the extent of the preparation. But how had it gotten all the way up there with no one noticing? No one answered his question, lost as it was in the various shouts and voices around him.

  He stared up at it, scanning the body for clues to its history or killer. He could see great gouges in the flesh around the wire wrappings, but nothing fatal. It was male, human, and well-muscled. A laborer of some sort? Or a soldier? Adventurer? He had put up a fight, whoever he was. Jeremiah quickly scanned the crowd for anyone with obvious injuries that might be watching their handiwork, but no one met the criteria.

  “How did this happen?” Jeremiah muttered aloud. The body was pouring blood, this person was recently killed. Maybe even just killed. How did it get hoisted up like this in enough time for it to still be bleeding so freely?

  He followed the wires to the two supporting roofs and saw they were looped around hooks that had been hammered into the masonry. That would have taken time. Jeremiah slowly closed in on an assumption–he had likely been restrained, bound to bursting in the wire that Jeremiah could see still gleamed in the sun, never used. He saw indigo bruising around the wires where they had moved while he struggled. He’d been wrapped up for a while. Jeremiah couldn’t imagine how painful that must have been.

  Someone finally broke away from the crowd, a man gazing up at the body in awe. He wore the apron and clothes of a baker, flour dust still on his cheeks and beneath the nails of his thick hands. Walking as if in a daze, he stepped just in front of the pouring streams of blood, looking dreamily at them. He stuck out his hand and let the blood fill his cupped palm. Then stepped fully beneath the stream, shuddering and exalting beneath the shower. Blood cascaded down his head washing away the flour and painting him red.

  The crowd gasped and recoiled in disgust. The man looked up and let the blood pour into his mouth. A woman stepped out from the other side of the street. An elven woman, elegant and venerable, wearing the complex and baubled attire of aristocracy. She walked just as the man had, the crowd shifted nervously as more gasps and frightened shouts went up. She stepped in front of the man, still exalting in his baptism. He looked to her. She smiled nervously. He reached out his hand. She took it. He pulled her into a passionate embrace as they kissed furiously beneath the torrent of blood, coating each other with desperate hands.

  Jeremiah stared in shock, as did everyone else. There was something so horrifyingly taboo about what he was looking at. Each aspect was bad enough on its own, but together…together they spoke to something far darker.

  “Move!” someone screamed, nearly in his ear. A man shoved Jeremiah and several others aside. “He’s not getting any deader! Move! Worthless gawkers! Leave it to the guards!” The man was red faced with fury as he crashed his way through the crowd, stomped through the empty space in the road, and crashed his way into the crowd on the opposite side. Never so much as glancing upward.

  His march seemed to restore Elminia’s pulse, as the crowd suddenly surged ahead again, the flow of people restored. Though it still parted, as little as possible, to avoid the flow of blood and the passionate couple.

  “What in all the evils of the world is going on in this city?” said Jeremiah.

  A woman bumped him, spat on him, and without thinking Jeremiah reached out and yanked her back by the hair. She screamed and snarled at him, and Jeremiah jammed a hand in her pocket and yanked out a coin, then shoved her along with an indignant shout. He ducked away from the scene, breaking off down a new street and finding a stoop to sit on.

  Jeremiah fished in his pocket, and found a silver coin. The coin trembled in his palm. It could be food, or safety for a night. But where had it come from again? Right, the woman.

  “She deserved that,” thought Jeremiah, “Lucky I didn’t break her face.”

  “Excuse me?” asked Allison.

  Jeremiah winced. Why had he done that? That was incredibly excessive…but the coin.

  “Hello, Tourist,” said Cutter.

  Jeremiah tried to flee like a frightened rabbit. He hadn’t seen the group of men that had formed around the stoop all at once, so engrossed in the coin he had been.

  Hands grabbed onto Jeremiah and threw him back onto the stoop. Jeremiah hit the ground hard. There was laughter, familiar and cruel.

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  “Payment’s due,” said Cutter. Jeremiah scrambled to face him. He had half a dozen men with him, who fanned out to cut off Jeremiah’s escape. Cutter’s hands kept yanking at his hair, and a thin line of drool hung from the corner of his grin. He looked even more deranged than last time.

  “Here, take it!” Jeremiah tossed the silver coin to Cutter’s feet. “That’s all I have.” There was no defiance in him to be found, just a painful terror.

  Cutter began bouncing on his toes. He seemed agitated and frantic. “Not enough, is it? Not enough! Put it in the paper!”

  With a shriek, Cutter leapt the distance between them and swung a fist at Jeremiah’s head. Jeremiah recoiled and managed to deflect the initial blow, but Cutter kept swinging, raining fists down over Jeremiah’s body, head, back—anywhere he could reach. “Where’s my money? Gimme my money! Put it in the paper!” Cutter yelled over and over again.

  Cutter didn’t even seem to notice the few strikes Jeremiah managed to land. Jeremiah realized that Cutter was on something. He was too fast, too reckless, too intent on hurting Jeremiah to notice his own pain.

  Jeremiah abandoned his defense and curled up. Cutter clawed at his shirt and ripped it open. He tore at Jeremiah’s trousers, emptying the pockets and sending enchanting tools and lock picks flying. “This is my shit now, this is all my shit now!” Cutter shouted.

  Jeremiah was being robbed, stripped, in broad daylight. He was dimly aware that a crowd had gathered outside of the perimeter established by Cutter’s men. Nobody seemed interested in interfering.

  Jeremiah’s hand fell on his metal files. He seized it, planted his heels, and thrust the file upward towards Cutter’s throat.

  The file gouged the underside of Cutter’s chin. Cutter recoiled, shouting. His face went red and his eyes bulged. He screamed in psychotic rage, then fell upon Jeremiah with even more fury. The crowd oohed and aahed.

  “I’m the big man! I’m the big man! I’m ten men tall!” Cutter screamed. His nails raked Jeremiah’s exposed skin, his fists pummeled every inch they could find. When Jeremiah tried to twist away, Cutter kicked him in the teeth, snapping his head backwards and filling his mouth with blood.

  There was no fight to be won here. Jeremiah curled into himself, covered his head with his arms, and tried to survive.

  Gradually, Cutter’s drug-fueled rage slowed. His breathing grew labored, the blows more intermittent until they stopped altogether. “See ya…tomorrow…Tourist,” Cutter panted, climbing to his feet.

  “Look, guy had a frog,” said one of Cutter’s men. Gus was trying to hop to the relative safety of the alley refuse, having been torn away with Jeremiah’s clothes.

  Without a moment’s hesitation Cutter screamed and ran at Gus, kicking him into a wall as hard as he could.

  Jeremiah’s thoughts were shredded to a thousand microscopic fragments. Consciousness fled, leaving only darkness.

  He groaned before he was fully awake. Fragments of what had happened began reforming in his mind, coalescing memories of fear and pain and—Gus!

  One of his eyes was swollen completely shut, the other restricted to a narrow slit. It was still daytime and he was on the same street. Someone had dragged him to the side, out of the way of foot traffic. People passing didn’t even glance at him. Apparently the beating in progress was more entertaining than the results.

  “Gus, where’s Gus?” Jeremiah gagged. Something was loose in his mouth. He rolled onto his hands and knees, and realized his clothes had been shredded. The remains of his trousers hung loose on his hips, this shirt was gone.

  “Gus! Where are you, buddy?” He crawled to where he had seen Gus land and pawed through the refuse. “Come on, buddy, please,” he whispered.

  His fingertips brushed something soft and clammy. Jeremiah gently lifted Gus’s limp form from the detritus. Gus’ spines were fully protruded, his color sickly and yellowed. One of his legs was turned the wrong way around. He felt heavier than Jeremiah remembered.

  Jeremiah cradled Gus to his chest. “It's okay, buddy, I’m here,” he choked. “I’m here, don’t worry, I’m here.”

  People rushed past uncaring, on their way to or from, but Jeremiah knelt in the dirt, holding his entire world in his hands. “I’m so sorry, buddy.” Tears streamed freely down his face. “Gods, I’m so, so sorry.”

  Gus peeped.

  Jeremiah nearly fell from how quickly he tried to move. Holding Gus firmly against his chest, ever careful not to touch the spines, Jeremiah ran. His every muscle protested as he forced his legs to carry him, his ribs seared with every ragged breath.

  Never before had he detested the crowds of Elminia as strongly as this moment. He dashed and dodged around people and carts, darted down side paths, ignored the pain that flared with every movement, ignored the abuse hurled at him by whoever he knocked down. None of that mattered. Nothing mattered except that Gus needed him.

  He and his friends had agreed upon a series of procedures for how best to approach the apartment. Jeremiah ignored every one of them, slammed the building door open with his shoulder, and took the steps two at a time to reach their floor. He pounded on the door, praying someone was home, and when nobody was forthcoming, he kicked it, hard.

  The wood around the door latch splintered. With the next kick, the door gave, and Jeremiah rushed into the apartment.

  “Delilah!” he bellowed, looking around frantically.

  The apartment was empty.

  Jeremiah swore and tried to collect his thoughts. Delilah kept her tonics in the Giant’s Bag, if he held the one he needed clearly in his mind, it should give him the right one.

  He charged into Delilah and Allison’s room. The Giant’s Bag was sitting on Delilah’s bed, and he hurried towards it. Then he noticed it was slightly open, and seemed to be emitting a thin line of vapor towards the open window. Jeremiah cursed again, re-secured Gus, and climbed into the bag.

  “Delilah!” Jeremiah shouted again, as he floated. As he’d suspected, Delilah was already below, working in a crammed laboratory. At his voice, she jumped and screeched in alarm.

  “Jay! What’s happening? Why are you—oh no.”

  Jeremiah had reached the bottom of the cramped space and held Gus out towards her. Without another word, she took the toad’s limp form from Jeremiah’s hands into her own and set to work.