Mindy struggled to fathom the reasons for Dragena’s visits to Sitota’s café. The woman was responsible for the deaths of their comrades, yet every morning since their meetings, the warlord had visited this place after her morning routine, always having the same breakfast and a coffee to go with it. Breakfast at noon! Who even does that? Mindy was hand-picked by Dragena herself to accompany her leader through the streets and to solve any misunderstanding involving the locals.
It was an important job, but the scout wished for a wolf hag or a shaman to take over. Why her? She wasn’t that important or strong, and she didn’t have any hidden potential, not even a single drop. When the warlord’s inner circle caught her yesterday demanding answers, she simply offered them to dominate her, as Mindy had none. No one touched her, and the wolf hags asked—asked, not ordered!—the scout to keep a close eye on Dragena, as the greatest of their kind, did not understand social interactions.
“Um… Mindy,” asked the brown-haired girl, and the scout raised her head from the counter. To her left, Dragena’s fork clattered against a table. “Sorry. I can’t get a thread through the needle.”
“Don’t be sorry!” Mindy smiled sweetly and gently took the girl’s hand, showing her how to do it.
She sat the girl down in a chair and helped her sew the white apron. While the scout despised Sitota for murdering pack members, her cubs were another matter. Mindy genuinely enjoyed helping the little, hard-working buffoons. During their second visit, she secretly sniffed the cubs, searching for any drugs, and paid close attention to any scars, welds, or bruises when the sleeves of their clothes fell. But to her relief, Sitota took excellent care of her adopted little ones, and so far there wasn’t a hint of a foul play.
Maybe people do change. Mindy shrugged, receiving thanks from the girl, and turned to assist the Malformed boy.
“You too?” Dragena asked off-handedly, placing eggs on a piece of bread.
“Yes.” Sitota poured coffee for a patron. “Wished to be better, to match Reaper. And a bio-tinker was in search of a test subject.” The murderer pointed at her void skin. “Wasn’t worth it, but it helped me see the perspective and the foolishness of my previous trade. Maxim. Don’t play near the machines. Go and have fun on the street.” She chastised a boy who almost put his hand on the steaming pipe. “And you?”
“Since birth,” answered Dragena.
“My condolences,” Sitota said, handing the warlord a cup of coffee. “I’d have given almost everything to get them back.”
The women never changed their intonations or raised their voices, which was unnerving to Mindy. Would it kill them to show a glimmer of emotion? The scout decided the killer was lying about the condolences.
“What was it like?” Dragena inquired.
Mindy stood up and walked out of the café, bored out of her mind. Wolfkins weren’t made for idle chatter or sitting. An itch to move, to learn, to explore burned in every cell of Mindy’s body. If she was weird by the standards of her kin, then Dragena easily crossed that threshold, stepping into the realm of the purely incomprehensible. A soccer ball flew into her snout as the scout opened the door, and she caught it, grinning wildly at the cubs.
There was a bet between her and the little rascals. If they managed to surprise her just once, she would owe them a pizza of their choice. They tried admirably: a bucket of water over the front door, pushpins on a chair, glue to her boots. But Mindy always was one step ahead, and right now she dramatically raised a paw and let the ball roll down her sleeve and over the back, caught it with another paw, and elegantly tossed the ball into a soccer gate. The ball flew past the cub, who tried to stop it, and Mindy bowed to the applause.
“Teach us how to do that!” a girl asked, staring at her intently.
“We’ll still get you, you know,” another promised, and the Wolfkin patted the pouting little one.
“One day,” she promised him. “But you have to be creative about it.” She sat at a table, enjoying the breeze from the river and stopping the chair from being pulled away with her foot. “To pull off a successful surprise attack, you have to become innocent and relaxed. Even your mind is better off focused on something else.”
“Cartoons?” the girl asked.
“Good choice!” Mindy praised her. “Know that feeling when you can sense eyes on your back? It’s the same here. When you try to get a quick one over me, I can read the intent on your faces. You are so fixated on an opportunity to see me go down to ‘even the score’ that you create circumstances when you miss that very opportunity. Let go of past frustrations and you may find your task easier than you think. But enough babbling.” She clapped her paws and asked for the football ball. “No idea how to play soccer,” she admitted, “but I can teach you a little of…”
A burst of static from the advertising screens stopped her. Electrical boards displaying ship schedules, traffic lights, even store music choked and died, and darkness and whiteness replaced everything on the displays as dynamics produced gurgling sounds. Mindy’s paws were around the cubs’ before a flash from a distant explosion illuminated them. Years of dangerous life in the Wastes had taught her this. ‘See anything out of the ordinary? Grab the helpless and run!’ was the saying her parents had drilled into her, and today it saved lives.
Bullets speared the places where she and the cubs had stood mere seconds ago. Fires engulfed a distant skyscraper, coiling around the walls and bursting out the sides with the falling burning figures. Explosives. Mindy was dreaded by the realization as the superstructure creaked and tilted, spilling torrents of stone, glass, and metal onto the street below. Thank the Spirits, it wasn’t falling on the store, but it was falling, and Mindy’s heart skipped a beat at the sight that seemed straight out of the Old World. The skyscraper, one of the tallest buildings she had ever seen in her life, fractured and collapsed, sending a tremor that reached here and a huge plume of smoke that spread across the sky like a dirty oil stain on the pristine water.
How many lives? Don’t think; focus on getting the cubs to safety. Mindy kept rushing to the café doors, darting her eyes to the left, where armored giants appeared, four of them firing into everyone. A quick-thinking pedestrian pushed a family into the rivers and tried to tackle one of the killers, but was cut in two by a machinegun and a heavy boot stomped on his head. Dragena was already standing up when Mindy shoved the cubs inside and screamed in pain.
Fingers. The fingers of her right paw dropped after a single bullet caught her on the knuckle. How dare you? Blood soaked Mindy’s uniform. The instincts took over, overriding even the desire to obey Dragena. Rage. She had never been so angry, not even after a wicked girl had once trounced her little sister, and Mindy had tracked the bitch down in the night, held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill the younger woman if she ever hurt her family again. It was an unworthy act for which she begged forgiveness, but the rage in her limbs burned far brighter.
Families killed, peace broken, civilians in danger. The scout blasted stones under her feet, covering twelve meters in a single leap. She landed on the shoulders of the closest armored prey, who was too caught up in firing at the sheltering citizens. The impact staggered him a little, and claws of her good hand immediately slashed at the neck, drawing a tingle of surprise from Mindy’s throat. Her claws, the pride and joy of her life, tools that had convinced her precious soulmate to give her a chance, had broken off at the tips and were stuck in the rubberized neck guard.
What in the world… She had only encountered such durability only in the state’s armor before. A hand closed around her ankle, and the world spun as the enemy slammed Mindy to the ground. She coughed, pushing through the pain, and kicked, her claws shattering against the groin guard. The scout tried to wriggle free, but the hand holding her easily overpowered the Wolfkin, and a single shot left a yawning crater in her side.
Sorry, everyone. Mindy blinked away tears and gasped frantically for air. One of her lungs was no longer in its place, and the barrel of the machinegun was pointed at her head. I won’t be bringing back any souvenirs. Love you. Love you so much. Spirits guide…
A knife pierced the giant’s head, going through the armor as if it were hot butter, and continued on to cut the arm of another attacker. Mindy raised her head just in time to see Sitota’s scythe strike the third giant’s visor. The seemingly frail and lithe woman brought the blade down with such force that it scraped the back of the helmet and pulled the opponent to her, hiding in his shadow as the remaining two opened fire. Their attack lasted no more than a breath; two more knives brought them down, and Dragena closed in on Mindy, briefly seizing the scout’s jaw.
“Brilliantly done. Your war is over, Scout,” said the emotionless voice, and Mindy prepared for a mercy kill, but the warlord merely glanced at Sitota. “Take the people to the nearest emergency bunker.” She rose and pointed at the two customers who left the café. “Into the river, help everyone get back to the road. You three! Tourniquets and bandages; take belts and clothes of the dead if needed…”
“My customers are my responsibility,” Sitota said. “I’d rather help clean up the city.”
“And toss the children aside?” Dragena asked in-between giving the instructions.
“Stretcher. There is one on the second floor.” Sitota turned to the frightened children.
“Mom…” The youngest stuck her thumb in her mouth, while the oldest cubs raced to get the object. “Is it going to happen again?”
“No,” Sitota replied, placing a hand on the girl’s forehead. “You won’t find yourself alone. Promise.”
“Warlord.” Mindy tried to stand, almost screaming as she used her torn paw for support. Only a whisper escaped her mouth, but Dragena should have heard her. The warlord gathered her knives and walked away, speaking into the terminal. “I can still… Let me…”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Wounded should lie down and relax.” Sitota tapped on Mindy’s head with the butt of her scythe, pinning the scout to the ground. “Bandages. We have an injured.”
“Where do we don’t have one?” grumbled an elderly man, trying to save a bleeding woman. He tossed a roll of bandages to the former assassin.
The scout obeyed, lying still and wondering about Dragena’s words. How could a war end? Was she going to die? Would the gaping hole in her side, which tormented her like a sea of sharp claws, take her life? Or was she exiled for a failure to secure a kill? The answer never came, while several people turned her to the side and bandaged her wounds. Even that simple shift hurt like the Abyss, and she bit her tongue, silencing an urge to calm down a doctor who insisted that she needed immediate attention.
Carried on the stretcher, Mindy traveled through the city, the clarity of her thoughts clouded by a purple haze. Gunfire barked, terminals stopped working, wicked words spewed from the dynamics, and more than once the group paused to help more unfortunates and grow in numbers. Doctors tended to the wounded along the way, and when they reached the bunker, the scout thought she heard the barking of shardguns, and that brought a smile to her face as she slipped into unconsciousness.
She awoke briefly to find Sitota standing guard over the entrance and the youngest cubs clinging to Mindy, shaking from terror. Trying to stay conscious, the scout hugged them, calming the little ones to the best of her abilities.
Monsters came to Houstad. Well, the city had its own monsters. And the invaders made them very, very angry.
****
Jaquan took a sip of thirty-year-old cognac and rubbed his head, trying to compute the reason behind the Wolfkins’ aggression in the jail. He had already prepared the speech, praising the familial bonds of the two sisters, even if their way of showing affection was unusual, but to be honest, he preferred to deal with Kirk and Ignacy rather than their belligerent comrades. The vices and the reasons of those two were human enough for him to understand, but the females remained a problem. If only the therapists had agreed to disclose their sessions, then he would’ve learned more of the tribe’s inner politics and traditions. But his request was sternly denied, along with a reprimand for even suggesting such a breach of ethics.
Culling of sickly cubs. Of elderly. He took another sip, disgusted at the laws his sire had implemented. There were tragedies in the past, created out of hasty desire to modernize societies unfit to it and a long death toll weighted heavily on the conscience of every figure of authority in the Reclamation Army. Be it the Restorers led by Devourer or the Expanders under the wing of Outsider and Ivar, no one wanted another genocide. Ivar opposed it to preserve his supposedly unblemished military record, and Jaquan opposed it because it was heinous, pure and simple.
But surely they had the means to solve the culling problems altogether. His Supreme Authority could have coughed up enough budget to build nice, cozy retirement homes in the Core Lands. Jaquan did his homework. The Wolf Tribe as a whole had a fear of losing its identity. It wasn’t unfounded; many males and low-ranked warriors had been known to lose their wits and mental acuity over the years, eventually being reduced to the level of an infant. That was the problem, and the solution had to lie in extensive research on individuals like Predaig who didn’t exhibit these syndromes. These days, even a genetic abnormality was somewhat treatable.
This left the problem of the youth, and that part of the puzzle was both the easiest and the hardest to solve. More nursery homes and more factories to produce augments will ensure cheap replacement organs and limbs in addition to boosting the economy. But when Jaquan, pleased with his unparalleled ingenuity, presented his idea to the Dynast, the Supreme Authority pinpointed the problems of tradition and religion. To force the Wolf Tribe into the reeducation camps was unthinkable; it would be both a betrayal and a spark for civil war, for if one tribe could be mistreated there, why not another?
Still, there wasn’t a reason to give up. He had to find a way to address Ravager, and Lacerated One graciously accepted his invitation. The Supreme Shaman seemed to be reasonable enough, albeit suffering from a mental disorder. Since they were at peace, it was for Lacerated One to decide about lending Predaig to research. No matter. Where there was a will, there was also a way. The Wolf Tribe was no more irredeemable than his own people or the Orais. He just needed to find the right approach to tackle the matter.
“How soon will the families’ heads arrive?” Jaquan contacted his secretary to distract himself from overthinking.
He had received disturbing reports in recent weeks, and the disruption of construction schedules was his greatest concern, as the conquest of Techno-Queen’s lands would undoubtedly bring in more citizens from the north. New housing districts were scheduled to be finished by yesterday, but instead a former Benguigui had organized a robbery. Clearly, there was a miscommunication between the parties involved, and the mayor hoped to resolve it swiftly.
“They apologized profusely for not being able to honor your invitation, Mayor Jaquan,” the secretary responded. “I’ve made inquiries, and the families’ heads are gathering for the supposed annual meeting at the Benguigui villa. There have never been annual meetings at this time in previous years, and the place is heavily defended.”
“Stalling, then.” Jaquan surveyed the plaza below, nodding in silent thanks to the priests and charity workers who distributed aid to the poor and gently escorted the worst of the homeless to the psychiatric facilities. “They are playing ‘wounded pride’ over the Ice Fangs’ involvement. It will not stand. I will not be disrespected in my city.”
“The police department has shown an outstanding willingness to remind the families of their place, sir,” the secretary suggested, guessing his intentions.
“No, a show of force is needed, unfortunate as it may be,” Jaquan sighed. “Get me a list of mercenary companies in Houstad that are clean of war crimes. If the families won’t have civility…”
The contact abruptly dropped, and the mayor raised an eyebrow at the hissing of the screens around the square. Confusion turned to panic when the screens exploded, showering the townspeople with shards of glass, and the mayor immediately pressed the button to call security. There was no answer, and he heard the heavy thuds as his bodyguards tried to get past his jammed doors. Jaquan took a step to open them from the inside, when suddenly there was a hiss in his office.
It was coming from every electrical device, but the loudest din was emanating from four thin columns rising from the floor. Jaquan wanted to examine them and was thrown aside in the explosion of wood and metal. His protection against contingencies, hired at the request of his secretary after the robbery, smashed the entrance to the hidden room and motioned for the mayor to lie on the floor.
Once the best assassin in the city, Reaper had paid an impressive sum in favors and tokens to have every millimeter of his outer skin replaced with the silver alloy. His head was now stylized to resemble a skull; dim lights burned in his eye sockets, for Reaper rarely approached his targets inconspicuously. Cybernetic enhancements had greatly improved the man’s body, but beneath the layer of silver there was still a human body, forever doomed to be fed through an IV. Reaper raised a needle gun and fired twice into the opening wounds in reality.
Armor-piercing needles struck two approaching figures coming out of the unfolded portals. They clutched at their necks, shuddering in excruciating agony as blisters grew on their skin and pus clogged their throats and lungs. Two of the invaders never even set foot in Houstad, dying wherever they were. That was Reaper’s style. One shot, one scratch, one wound, one kill. Jaquan was shocked that the man still used the forbidden poisons from his work as an assassin, but now was not the time to argue.
A burst of fire forced Reaper to leap aside, and a bullet shattered the glass in the trembling mayor’s hand. Hulking monsters stormed in from the portal, and Reaper faced the first of them with a stab of his short blade, infecting the man. The second crashed into the bodyguard, and the two rolled around, losing their weapons and turning into a blinding whirlwind of kicks and punches, flattening everything in their path.
“Guards!” Jaquan yelled, then screamed as the window to his office exploded; a shard of glass ended up in his arm, and a tongue of flame licked his wound. More panicked shouts and noises of gunfire came from outside; people—his people!—were dying out there. “Guards! Guards!” the mayor wailed in a high-pitched voice, wetting his pants.
He wasn’t a fighter; he never killed anyone, and the sight of criminals being burned always shocked him to the core. Just because Jaquan knew the merits of violence didn’t add to his bravery. So when his guards broke down the doors and finished off the giant who was trying to strangle Reaper, Jaquan wept with relief; his legs trembled with horror. Alone! If he had not listened to the advice, he would be dead now!
“Sir, are you fine…”
“Not thanks to you, idiots!” Jaquan snapped at his bodyguards. “My arm hurts. Reaper, you live?”
“These were exceedingly difficult to kill,” Reaper answered, retrieving his weapons. He touched his neck, running fingers over the dents in his body.
“Connect me to the police office, to the Third, and to the Provincial Army,” stammered Jaquan as his secretary arrived, while the bodyguards most uncomfortably removed the glass from his wound. “We also need the Dynast. And open the direct channel to the city. Why are the damn emergency sirens not working?” he roared in infuriation. They paid good tokens to install a security system that should have guided the citizens to the bunkers and assisted in the evacuation.
There was hell outside. The mayor briefly glanced before Reaper and his bodyguards almost pinned him against the wall. There were shootings, explosions, buildings burned, and dead bodies lay broken on the ground. Jaquan clutched his chest, wondering if he should bite the cyanide pill. Not to escape the Dynast’s judgment, the hatred that he had experienced for himself right now was worse than any punishment the liege could hope to mete out. But his death might allow a more competent person to take over, since he clearly failed in his duties.
All he ever wanted was to build land without war, a land of opportunity to heal old grievances and to nurture the next generation. This... this was worse than any nightmare he had ever experienced.
“Impossible, sir,” the smartly dressed woman shook her head, gulping nervously at the sight of the dead body. “Communications are down, no one is answering our calls, and the police are forced to use the radio for coordination.”
“What… Never mind.” Jaquan slapped himself. “We are heading out; I’ll address the people in person. Bring the maps with the evacuation routes.”
“Sir, it isn’t safe out there,” a bodyguard said.
“I know it’s dangerous, you worthless imbecile!” Jaquan roared into his face. “If it isn’t safe for me, then what about everyone else? So for once in your useless, incompetent life, do your jobs, patch me up, hit me with an adrenaline shot, and protect me for once while I try to organize the citizens before more get hurt in the confusion.”
“Should we send someone to your husband, Mayor?” the secretary asked. “And perhaps enlist the help of the families?”
“Romuald has guards…” Jaquan stopped; his eyes turned round at the realization. The families. The stalling, strange behavior, refusal to answer his summons, and weeks ago Raffy had insisted on taking a picture with him in this very office, sealing a pact of partnership. “Families…” he hissed, his lips curling to show teeth. His life? Fuck it, there was a room for forgiveness. But innocents outside? “Reaper. I have a job for you.”
“A contingency was stopped.” The man’s voice fluctuated between a pleasant, rich, masculine voice and a broken screech. His voice modulator had been damaged in battle. “Do you have enough tokens for another at hand? Credit cards don’t seem to work, Mayor.”
“Screw the tokens!” Jaquan pointed at the window. “Houstad has turned into a battlefield! We risk going back to savage times!” He jumped, covering his head with a good arm, when a skyscraper fell. Calming himself, the mayor whimpered, trying to sound certain. “Make your choice, Reaper. Reclaimers, independent or the invaders?”
“I quite prefer civilization.” Reaper stood at the edge of the broken window. He took aim and fired at someone below. “Reclaimer. But I’d rather do a job that helps Houstad.”
“Trust me, it will.” Jaquan smiled bloodily through his tears. “Clear the house. The secretary will give you the coordinates.” He jerked his half-bandaged arm from the bodyguards. Fear threatened to paralyze him, to stop him in his tracks. If he didn’t move now, he might chicken out. “Enough! We are heading out!”
“Sir, put on body armor at least!”
“Y-yes, this is a good idea,” Jaquan agreed. His legs were shaking. But his duty waited.