Black Sunshine
Chapter 6 - When a Garden is Trampled, What Hope is Left to a Flower but to Look to the Gardener?
Nera fidgeted with the radio, as she drove down the city streets. For once in her life, she went the speed limit. Even knowing her time was short, she was having trouble bringing herself to go where she needed to go. She had even caught herself making wrong turns in some sort of subconscious play for time. Was she nervous?
Nera wasn’t familiar with the feeling of her heart pounding in her chest, and the nausea that accompanied it. Had Doctor Shorque screwed something up? No, he was the best doctor in Helios City, possibly in all Wirmbold. She was anxious about returning to the Garage, unofficial headquarters of the White Lilies, and she couldn’t for the life of her think why. She had always been welcome at the Garage, even before her parents passed, even while she was a snot-nosed punk picking fights with boys twice her size for soda money.
Olise had taken her under her wing, and shown her the ropes. How to control her sizable anger and put it to use. She was like a second mother to Nera, but like all daughters she had left the nest, and that had left Nera uncertain of where their relationship stood. That was the problem Nera realized. She wasn’t sure how Olise would react to her coming back. She did know she was in for the mother of all lectures about what she had let Doctor Shorque do.
She flopped her head back against the headrest, and let out a groan. Then, with that out of the way, she floored the accelerator, and weaved her way through traffic to her doom.
She felt much better as she pulled into the fenced off area behind the garage. The front actually did the best car repairs in the city, but the back was for a very different kind of business. Someone had hung strands of fairy lights from the heavy metal poles that extended above the barbed wire topped chain link fence. It was actually quite pretty if you ignored all the rust.
She stopped the car in a spot by the open metal garage doors. Not many people realized that they were more than just a way to stop thieves, they were Carnathian steel and so heavily enchanted that nothing short of a heavy cannon could budge them. Even then it would take a few shots. She turned the engine off and took one last deep breath.
As she got out, she came face-to-face with someone she didn’t recognize.
“You lost, girlie,” the tall muscular woman who looked like a large badger with spikes covering her jacket asked in a voice that would have sent shivers down anyone else’s spine, “I don’t recognize you, and we’re closed for business with the public.”
“That might matter if I was with the public,” Nera didn’t even bother trying to square up with the woman, she simply continued walking towards the door, “and I don’t recognize you either.”
“Hey, I said get lost!”
“Technically, you only asked if I was lost,” Nera turned and smirked at the woman who was now baring her considerable teeth, before continuing towards the warm light of the garage.
“Hey, did I just hear… Nera!” a voice squeed from under one of the cars.
“Hey, Kiddo,” Nera smiled warmly as a short, thin woman in loose coveralls rolled from underneath a rusting muscle car in desperate need of a paint job, “How you been?”
“Oh my gosh, you are not gonna believe the sort of things I’ve been hearing, just you wait,” Kiddo said as she jumped to her feet and gave Nera a surprisingly crushing hug, “did you know someone brought a gun into the 32nd precinct and threatened Mackie with it? Apparently, the cops just let them go too.”
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“Is that right,” Nera tried to keep her face straight.
“Wait, you already knew?”
“Rumors fly fast, but the truth is always too damn slow,” the gruff no nonsense voice of Olise came from above and behind Nera.
Nera froze involuntarily. She had forgotten how intimidating Olise was.
“Hi, Olise,” Nera gulped and turned around, her warm smile turning to a sheepish grin.
“Don’t you give me that ‘Hi, Olise’ bullshit,” Olise grunted, “we don’t see you for nearly a year and then you decide to piss the cops off, and return like nothing happened? What are you doing Nera?”
“I needed information.”
“So you started with the cops?! I know I taught you better than that. And Mackie no less, do you have a death wish? Oh, right, of course you do. Sharkie already called and told me what you had him do.”
“You’re calling him Sharkie, and I have the death wish?”
“I’d never call him that to his face,” Olise huffed, then she took a puff from the cigarette she had been waving around, “You’d better come up, we have a lot to discuss.”
Nera ruffled kiddo’s hair with an overexaggerated grimace that elicited a chuckle from her, and walked up the metal stairs to Olise’s office. Well, her office in the Garage. Nera knew from experience that she had offices stashed all over Helios City. She had told Nera that you couldn’t be too careful, and it was better to keep an organization decentralized if you wanted it to last. She had gotten her paranoia from decades working for the Supreme God Enexpotest as a master spy, and it had served the White Lilies well since her “retirement”.
Olise was already sitting, smoking behind her desk, which was absolutely covered in piles of papers. There were filing cabinets lining every wall, and baskets on top of them with even more papers. A shelf behind Olise’s desk was covered in miscellaneous cheap knick knacks from around Wirmbold. Nera closed the door behind her and waited for Olise to gesture at the chair on the other side.
“Now, what in the hells is going on, Nera?”
“Sorry for the comotion, Olise. Solana’s been kidnapped by some group called the Nuns of Contempt. They kicked the shit out of me and Doctor Shorque was able to fix me for a short period, but at the end of it I don’t know what sort of condition I’ll be in,” Nera said, knowing better than to try and embellish, Olise was straightforward and she expected the same from those she dealt with.
“That is quite a mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” Olise said solemnly, she sighed a smoky sigh, and then she asked what Nera was hoping she would, “How can the Lilies help?”
“You mean it?”
“Don’t make me regret it, punk. I don’t know much about these Nuns of Contempt, other than that they are kidnapping people off the street. And I don’t like not knowing things.”
“Right, I was going to try and get information from Rain.”
“Enexpotest help me kid, you’ve really got it bad for this girl if you’re gonna risk that place.”
“I wouldn’t bother if there wasn’t such an unknown deadline.”
“Alright, I think I’ve got something that she wants,” Olise began digging through one of the cabinets against the wall, and pulled out a necklace with a brass ornament on the end in the shape of a fox’s head, “Here, you can use this to bargain with that nasty fox. Do you have a plan for after you’ve found her? I doubt the nuns will take too kindly to your interference, and I know the cops are already pissed off and looking for blood.”
“I hadn’t actually gotten that far,” Nera winced, “kinda playing it by ear.”
“You idiot,” Olise muttered under her breath, before taking a deep breath and continuing, “alright, I can find a safe house for the two of you until things calm down. Find her, bring her here, and we’ll get you there. We’ll get Sharkie to see to your recovery and care afterwards. In return, you work for me for 5 years minimum pay, if you recover. Otherwise, I’ll consider your past work payment enough. Hells know you’ll have it hard enough in that case. Deal?”
“Thank you,” Nera said, the tightness in her chest finally easing a little.
“Don’t thank me yet, you still have to do the hard part.”
Nera shook Olise’s hand, and she left the Garage better prepared for what had to happen next.
She hoped.