Jude peered out from under the brim of his hood as he rolled along in the wheelchair pushed carefully by Ansell. A single tear crept out from the corner of his red-ringed eye. It rolled down his cheek and carved a path through the dried blood, before dropping to the blanket covering him. The Gardens. A graveyard. The charred remains of Trevor’s Kitchen hung mournfully over the piles of bodies strewn about the swamp. Children zipped and darted over the makeshift wooden walkways, diving from body to body and stripping them of their clothes and valuables. Tilly Martin and her brother were sliding through the mud on upturned riot shields. Their joyous laughs, in chorus with the piercing caws of blackbirds, rang out with the clamouring of rebels clearing the battlefield.
“You ok, kid?”
“I’m fine.” Jude sniffed and pulled the blanket up to his face, scrunching into his eyes. “Most of the bodies are City Guard.”
Ansell grunted in agreement as he swung the chair left to skirt the swamps in the centre of The Gardens. The rebels seemed to have come off better in a recent skirmish. They had taken The Gardens and were working tirelessly at erecting barricades on all the entry points to the massive square. A huge rebel, with a thick red beard and a tattoo of a dagger in between his bushy bronze brows, directed the men and women furiously.
Beggars and vagrants called out to Ansell as he rolled Jude past, but he ignored them and kept his eyes forward on the foreboding archway ahead. It was early afternoon, but the sky was a deep dark grey, spattered with swirls of red. It seemed to darken and darken as it drew in towards the entrance to the squats, where the flickering lights of fires inside danced with hot malevolence. They were usually inviting, but looming in the dark behind the charred battleground, they were strangely foreboding.
“Trust this guy?” Ansell asked.
“I trust him. But he doesn't do favours and he does nothing for free.”
“Is he a Crochead?”
“No. His drug is money. He wants to make enough to buy a place in the Mercure Hotel with the roomers.”
Jude rolled anxiously closer to the Archway Squats. He hadn’t been here for almost a month now. Before that, he was here at least once a day. He dropped his chin to his chest and allowed his hood to droop over his face as he arrived at the path that zigzagged through the tents and fires of the squats. The stank odour he normally baulked at was pleasant. They reminded him of home, of his old life.
They pushed on towards the far corner of the squats, where a ramshackle shack of corrugated metal and rotting wood stood illuminated by flickering ceiling lights. A white skull with crossbones was painted on the wood. Below it, a battered black front door, removed from a house at some time or another, stood slightly ajar. On it hung a sign crudely assembled from bird bones: “Jolly Roger’s.”
Jude stuck out his feet and pushed the door open as Ansell guided the chair forward. He came to a stop abruptly, running out of room to roll into. The shack was dingy. Homemade candles flickered calmly on shelves at various heights, casting eerie shadows. They illuminated the weapons adorning the walls, all made or salvaged by Jolly Roger. Mostly, they were old tools – hammers, screwdrivers, crowbars, and the like – though, here and there, grizzly bats adorned with rusty nails and shivs with wicked blades took up pride of place, surrounded by the enticing candle light.
Jude smiled into the blanket tugged up about his face, peering through the small gap between it and the brim of his hood. Roger sat cross-legged on a high-backed chair behind a counter and a chain-link fence, which he had fashioned into a barrier between him and the shop floor. His white hair was bizarre, shooting off in all directions in between patches of bald scalp. His face was gaunt, the skin hanging on to his cheekbones for dear life. Bright blue eyes peered out from deep, dark recesses under a prominent brow. He looked remarkably like the skull on the flag that flapped on the front of his shack. The thin cigarette which hung from the corner of his mouth threatened to set his bushy black moustache alight, the end burning bright red with each deep inhale. Smoke, decorated with dancing dust particles lit by shafts of light, hung around his face. He smiled a toothless smile at his new customer, though when he spoke, his voice was low and full of distrust.
“What be yer business, stranger?”
“Not very jolly, are you?” replied Ansell, without a hint of humour.
“I don’t deal with strangers,” Roger said, his fingers curled around the butt of a submachine gun. He shifted the barrel to point it through the chain-link fence.
“Shit business model, not-so-Jolly Roger. How will you afford your room with the middle class if you turn away new customers?”
Roger’s eyes narrowed into a curious glare. “How do you…? I don’t know you,” he said through gritted teeth.
“No, but you know me!” Jude flung the blanket into the air and jumped to his feet with a wild grin. He swooped his hand over his head to knock down his hood and beamed at his old friend.
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“Well, I’ll be damned,” laughed Roger, his toothless smile beaming from ear to ear. “I thought ye were dead, laddie! Word in The Gardens was that the Ghost took you?”
“The Ghost did take me” – Jude tipped his head towards Ansell – “but it’s not what you think. He saved me. It’s a long, long story.”
Roger crushed his cigarette into a crystal dish and peered at Ansell as he idly twisted the ends of his moustache. “So you're him. Daren’t think ye was real to be true. You've killed a lot of my customers over these last few years. Aye, and you’ve killed a few mates as well.”
“I make no apologies, old man.”
“Nay. I’d expect not.” Roger swung his eyes to Jude. “It gutted me to hear about Trevor and his woman. Good people. Very sad.”
Jude nodded solemnly. “Look, I hate to drop in like this, but I need a favour and it's a big one.”
“You know I don’t do favours, laddie, not even for you. Tell me what it be, and I’ll tell you how much it’s going to –”
“That enough?” Ansell interjected as he thumped down a bundle of notes the size of a house brick.
“Sweet Jesus.” Roger’s jaw fell, making a cross symbol over his chest. Sliding open a hatch in the chain-link fence, he picked up the lump of notes in both hands, as though he was holding a golden ticket out of the country.
“Not enough for your room at the Ritz. However, when you add it to this...” Ansell reached under the blanket draped around his shoulders and pulled out a second wad of notes. He tossed it up and caught it theatrically before slamming it on the counter. Roger reached out for it, but Ansell snatched it from his fingers and slid it back under his blanket.
“Half before, half when the favour’s done. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone,” he explained, shooting a quick glance at Jude, “but I know what you seek, and I know this money is enough. So, do as the kid asks, do it well, and you’ll get the rest.”
“I – I’ve never seen so much money…not since before The Panic. How? I don’t understand?”
“Money means nothing to me. I’ve robbed and killed enough drug dealers to buy a hotel, never mind a room. It’s immaterial.”
Roger slowly closed his mouth and turned to Jude. “Anything. Tell me what the favour is and I’ll do it, kid.”
“I need you to vouch for the Grey Man, refer him into the Trials.”
“Done.”
“That’s not all. You’re welcome at Arnero's, right?”
Roger slid down from his chair with a groan and stepped to the back of his shack, where a glass cup rested on top of his bullet press. He took it and filled it from a crystal decanter, swirling the dark liquid around briefly before he slammed it back in one.
“I don’t like where this is going, laddie, but...aye, I’m welcome.”
“Take me in to watch the Trials. I won’t get in alone.”
“I can do that. I suspect a motive more than an eagerness to watch your new friend murdering addicts for sport?”
“There’s a prisoner on Arnero’s residential floor.”
“Ha!” Roger exclaimed before knocking back another shot of dark liquid. “So, let me get this straight. He wins the Trials, gets taken up, frees this prisoner, and somehow makes it out alive…past Arnero’s entire army?”
“Er, yeah...and when he wins and gets taken up, you’re going to help me create a distraction.”
Roger stared at Jude, his face a picture of bewilderment. He narrowed his eyes quizzically. “What distraction?”
Jude glanced at Ansell, who stepped forward from the shadows. “You’re familiar with the ground level, where the Trials take place?”
“Aye.”
“You’ve seen them using motorbikes, then.”
“Aye, I have.”
“They fuel them from a massive drum. It’s too far inside to get at it from the street. They think they’ve been clever. They haven’t. It’s near enough to the main supporting pillar to bring down the whole right side of the shanty.”
“You want me to blow it? It’ll kill people. Hundreds, most likely.”
“No. Jude will blow it. It’s his rescue, so the burden is his. You’ll just get him inside and watch his back.”
“Ok. Done. I’m in.”
“Good. Now, it’s time to move. We don’t have long. Jude, take Jolly Roger here to the building we spotted Marcus from. Wait for me there.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the place I took you after that night in The Gardens. I have grenades there to blow the tank. Then I’ll go to Dawson’s and set up the second part of our distraction.”
Jude nodded and swallowed back his anticipation. His hunger for revenge had been partly satiated, but his appetite for more was growing. The explosion would kill many, but everyone in that filthy shanty deserved to die. Crocheads, criminals, scum.
Children, mothers, people, his conscience bit back.
No…needs must. Ansell’s plan was the only plan. There was no time to ponder after a more humane version. Besides, Zuri’s life was worth infinitely more than the lives of those living under Arnero’s roof. He longed to stare into her amber eyes one more time and tell her he was sorry. But, somewhere deep inside, he wondered if he’d still feel the same for her as he once did.