Green Hair looks nervously over her shoulder. The fat lady and the pale, flabby guy with greasy hair nervously shift on their feet. The whole group of maybe a dozen or so seem unsure of themselves, and the excitement of their killing frenzy is dulled as they look to each other, then off behind them. They're like actors on stage waiting for someone to come in from the wings.
This is typical punk behavior. He tells you you're going to get hurt, but he's not going to try to hurt you now, because he knows he'd get his ass kicked, and he's a coward. So he tells you he's going to go home and get his gun, and then you'll be in trouble, or his brother, or his gang, or his parents are coming for you, and then you'll be in trouble, or he'll sue, and so on.
“Is this the part where your red-robed friends with the masks come in?” I gesture with my snout to an alleyway. “Because your friends aren't coming, ever.”
They look at each other, and their agitation grows. Any of these sad sacks could have starred in a traveling freak show, but when the whole world is full of insane people who make themselves ugly and deformed, a freak show becomes redundant and purposeless.
“If you kill the guy handing out the weapons, nobody gets armed,” I tell them, and their uncertainty becomes fear. “Can you hear that?”
A metallic plink echoes in the alley, reminding me of when I played Little League baseball and a batter with a metal bat made solid contact with a hardball.
A skinny guy with a sunken chest and a black ring through his nose comes up behind me, but is slow to catch onto the fact that I'm not human. Humans have eyes at the front of their heads, which gives them poor vision to the side, and a huge blind spot from behind. Because geckos have eyes on the sides of our heads, we have excellent vision to the side and behind, where this dumbass has tried to sneak up on me.
“Ha!” he yells daintily and whips a cup of something at my eyes like a girl flinging a rat off of her.
The clear lids snap down to protect my eyes as a liquid splashes over my head and left eye, stinging with a caustic burn. It's obviously some kind of acid or lye, but it's not even up to the level of a slack day in purgatory, and there are no slack days in purgatory.
Sissy boy tries to run, but I catch him with my tail around his waist.
“Hey! You're hurting me!” he shouts.
I hate this whiny bitch: he's free to throw acid on my face, but now that I've caught him, he complains that he's being hurt.
“Let him go!” Fat Girl adds, raising a flabby arm ending in a pseudo-fin where her fingers are sewn together into a permanent karate chop. She starts to waddle toward me, but realizes it's a lot of effort.
The rest join in, yelling at me to let him go.
“It's your turn.” I open my snout and spray an acid mist into his face, then release him.
The skinny guy shrieks piteously, clawing at his face and stumbling over the street, wailing for Ashera to help him. In my brief time as the avenging gecko of God I've found that if I horrifically maim someone, I shouldn't be too quick to kill him, because the sound of his shrieking and the sight of his terrifying injuries demoralize the others.
As a group, they turn to run to the alleyway, planning to join their comrades.
I spin, and my tail lashes out, catching several runners at the back of the knee. They go down, and rather than stop to take them out, I run over them, scampering over their backs and making certain that I get in good kicks with my shackled ankles, catching each one at the skull. I leap at the green haired woman, catching her by the straggling lock of green hair, and yank her off her feet. She cries, and reaches up with tattooed arms to regain her hair.
With a butt of my beak, I slam her head into the pavement, and the combined force of my snout hitting her between the eyes and the impact slamming the back of her head into the stone, it's lights out, forever. She's about to discover the truth about Ashera—she's not a goddess who rewards her worshipers, but a demon who exists only to kill, maim, and cause pain.
The few who reach the alleyway don't return. Instead, I'm greeted by Taur and Liana as they walk out of the narrow gap between the buildings. Faces are watching us from gaps in curtained windows in the apartments around us. No one has sounded the alarm, or wants to, because the Red Riot has taught the populace not to resist, but to remain quiet as the mob does its work.
There is blood on Taur's club, and he jogs over to the wailing skinny guy, who is rolling on the street. With a plink the guy goes silent.
Fat Girl is still in the street, huffing and resting one hand and one fin on her bloated knees.
I spring, vaulting up through the air and seize her head. The sides of her face are fat and swollen, and there is too much fat under her chin, but I find I can get the very top of her head in my jaws. She wants to shout but she's too winded, and can only let out a gust of wind over her lips like an exhausted horse. I snap down on her skull, and she flops to the ground.
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“Blech!” I realize that geckos can't spit. “I was hoping she'd taste like donuts.”
“What's a donut?” Liana asks with curious pastel blue eyes.
“It's like a tart.” I laugh at my own joke. “Ha ha, the tramp tasted like a tart.”
Taur and Liana give me blank looks. Apparently, the joke didn't translate into Siskalian.
“You've got blood all over your nice dress,” I tell Liana to change the subject.
She waves a soft white hand like a fish's belly over her dress. “I might as well be wearing a butcher's apron.”
Taur has picked the pockets of the dead on the street and shakes a handful of silver coins he's holding in a loose fist. “We had a good haul from the alley, too. 'The gold of the wicked will not profit them, but will feed and clothe the righteous.'”
I smile, or try to, but I don't have lips. You don't appreciate lips until you're without them. Instead, the back hinges of my jaw tighten. “You're learning, my friend.”
“You were right,” the bull man says, and pulls his cloak forward over his scarred shoulders. “They went to slink off to the alley, where several were waiting with robes, masks, and weapons. While you're busy dealing with the civilians, the 'peaceful protesters,' their companions are arming themselves in secret and gearing up for war.”
“Only thanks to Liana, we knew where they'd go.” I try to smile again, but it's just not working for me.
“Thanks to God the Empowerer.” Liana shrugs and points down the street. “Somebody needs you.”
We stroll down the street, getting curious glances from people who are too timid to stare. I figure we don't need to kill everyone in the Red Riot, just enough to weaken them and make the survivors afraid to tangle with us. The fire at the barracks has hopefully taken out a number of the city guard. We pass vendors pushing carts and porters hauling goods on rickshaws, jogging in the direction of the market.
“Here,” Liana says, pointing to a building made of white marble with fluted columns.
The three of us look up and see a banner of a disjointed snake in several pieces reassembling themselves.
Liana and I enter, while Taur keeps watch in the doorway. The ill, the elderly, and the injured lie on cots in a room that is heavy with fragrant smoke. There is the sound of coughing, and low moans. Someone babbles incoherently, gripped by a fever. At the end of the room, along the far wall, a statue of a cobra rises from stone coils where incense burns. The serpent is covered by thin squares of gold leaf, which followers stick to the image as a sign of devotion and to earn favor for healing. The serpent's tongue extends from its mouth as if tasting the air.
In the midst of all the sick crammed into this room, I see him and I know why we're here. There is a boy lying on a mat with curly brown hair and dark skin, only he's covered with boils. A woman who looks older than her age runs a thin hand over his brow, mopping up sweat with a damp rag.
Liana and I wind our way through the mats on the floor, jostling past the ill and their attendants until we are at the boy's side. I drop down to all fours and study his face, which is dotted with pustules, but the nearly Asian eyes could be Max's. The boy looks up at me sleepily.
“He reminds me of my son,” I say, and gingerly run a hand through his curly hair, careful of the boils in his scalp.
The woman stares at me oddly, as do the others surrounding us, who are listening without appearing to listen. I forgot myself for a moment. A six-foot gecko just told this woman that her boy looks like the child of a reptile. Okay, clumsy start there, Vic.
“Why are you here?” I ask her. I know the answer, but I need to draw it out of her.
“I want healing for my son, but I have no money to buy gold.” She refers to worshipers applying gold leaf to the cobra statue to gain favor. Her wan face reminds me of the Roethke poem, Dolor, and the “inexorable sadness of pencils.”
“You don't need gold. You need faith in God the Healer.” I adjust my tail behind me when I realize I've draped it over a paralytic woman's legs.
“But Ashera...” the woman protests. She is alarmed, and I see it in the faces of those around us.
“Ashera isn't a goddess; she's a fake, a demon,” I tell the woman sternly. “She's not about healing, that's not what demons do. She's about suffering and pain. That's why people in this city cut on themselves, scar and cripple themselves, and disfigure themselves to become ugly. That's what demons do.”
The discomfort level in the room skyrockets up to ten. This isn't just the uncomfortable conversation at Thanksgiving dinner when Uncle Fred starts talking about how the Jews secretly control everything and the Apollo moon landing was actually just a movie set. This isn't a religious disagreement, because I've entered blasphemy territory, which is punishable by death. People are shifting where they sit, subconsciously assuming defensive postures. Liana has her hands near her daggers and Taur is tense at the doorway.
I gently lay a cool hand on the child's blistered thigh. Would my own son recognize me? I'm singing to him, but everyone else can hear it.
When they abandoned my laws, they welcomed lawlessness.
They adorned themselves with shackles
and walked out of the daylight into a dark cell.
When they forsook the Creator of all life, they embraced death,
and pain became their shadow.
Step into the light and sing My psalms.
To walk with God the Healer is to be made whole.
For a moment, people are caught up in the song, but when I am finished the fear returns.
I look the woman in the eyes. “If you want your son to be healed, get me a cup of water.”
She seems doubtful, but her concern for her son outweighs her misgivings, and she gets up. Moments later she returns from a fountain at the corner of the room where water pours from the mouth of a toad image. She hands me the clay cup and I reach down to my left ankle, where there is a hollow spur. A single drop of poison drips from the hollow spur and plops into the water.
Until last night I had no idea that I have flaps of skin and can glide. Until just now, I had no clue that I have a poisonous spur on my left ankle. Maybe I should just think of this as my rookie year as a gecko.
Getting up slowly, I weave my way among the sick and approach the cobra idol. I reach up, but my stubby arm comes up short once again, so I reach up with my tail and wrap it around the serpent's forked tongue. With a heave, the tongue snaps off. While gripping the bit of stone with my tail and holding the cup with both hands, I stir the mixture of water and venom.
Returning to the boy, I lightly cup the back of his head and raise him up to drink. He eagerly gulps down the potion and gives me a weak smile as I cradle his head against my chest. The skin of a gecko has antibiotic properties, which I remember courtesy of Mr. Frazier's freshman biology class.
“Vic!” Taur shouts from the threshold. “We've got company!”