After a special tutoring session for Spider and Azael in which we analyzed the latest iteration of their pastry acquisition scheme, Ash announced, “Isha, Faith, I want to introduce Azael to his Tycherosian heritage, and I happen to need to speak to my mother, so I’m taking him. Did either of you want to come?”
Did I want to see a bunch of part-demon doctors and nurses who dealt in arcane rituals fueled by life essence collected from the dying – wearing fuzzy cat ears like little kids dressed up for Arkenvorn? Did I want to see Ash’s reaction when his mother told him that he needed to wear cat ears, too? Did he even need to ask?
I shrugged at him. “Eh, I’m not really doing anything right now. Why not?”
To my surprise – after all, the best part of any prank was the denouement – Faith declined. Instead, she waved us off with a cheery, “Have fun, kids! Try not to get eaten by demons!”
As we strode through Nightmarket, Ash gave Azael a sanitized summary of his family’s activities. “My mother’s crew, the Blood Traders, is kind of like us,” he explained (which came as a surprise to me since, as Faith had once pointed out to Bazso, we didn’t exactly specialize in providing functioning pancreases). “They may do a little more along the lines of fixing books, though.” (There was no “may” about it.) “My family is eccentric, and they also do rituals with….” He fumbled for an age-appropriate explanation and settled for, “It’s kind of like electroplasm. A little bit. Anyway, it will be good for you to make more Tycherosian friends.”
Diligently trotting along to keep up with us, Azael gave a solemn nod.
----------------------------------------
For some inexplicable reason, the Slanes’ receptionist greeted us wearing a pair of sparkly cat ears attached to an orange satin headband.
“Are you…okay?” demanded Ash, both his voice and his face suggesting that she avail herself of the infirmary’s services.
Her response was a frosty stare completely at odds with her normal friendliness. “I presume you’re here to see Mistress Slane,” she bit out.
“Yeees….” Ash was still frowning at the cat ears and looking as if he regretted picking this particular day to bring Azael. “Um?”
“I’ll let her know.” The receptionist put a message in the pneumatic tube, then met Ash’s gaze stoically.
I’d positioned myself so I could see into the back hallway where the examination rooms were. Doctors and nurses in crisp white uniforms bustled about as usual – but all of them were decked out in furry, pointy ears. In fact, the young Tycherosi who ushered us to Zamira’s office had tugged oversized, slightly deformed, brown tabby ears over his horns. Ash wasn’t the only one giving Zamira’s crew odd looks, although the patients were too polite (or too nervous) to comment.
“What on earth?” Ash snapped, mostly to himself. “Have they all gotten possessed?”
Zamira Slane was seated behind her desk when we entered, as usual – but something seemed to be missing. After a moment, I realized that it was her tail. Usually it draped over the back of her chair, black scales throwing off little blue glints under the electroplasmic lights, and waved around when she got excited. But today it was nowhere in sight.
However, her elegant cat ears were the same shade of blue-black as her tail.
Acting completely normal, she glanced up from her paperwork and remarked, “Oh, Ash. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Moooooother?” he inquired, half-falling into a chair.
Shooting many puzzled looks at him, Azael nervously sat next to him. I took my customary seat by the door, and, since I was out of Ash’s line of sight, permitted myself a broad grin – which Zamira most definitely did not return.
Slowly, blinking in confusion but determined not to make a scene in front of Azael, Ash began, “Moooother, I have serious matters to discuss….”
“As do I,” she replied promptly. (I clenched my jaw to hold back a giggle.) “But go ahead.”
“Mine…should be later…and in private. I would like to touch on less serious matters right now…. This is Azael.” The boy was gawking at Zamira with his head tipped all the way to one side, like a Strathmill Park pigeon. “He is one of the upcoming stars of our, well….”
“Operations?” his mother finished smoothly. She extended a hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Regarding his own grubby, sticky hand a little dubiously, the boy reluctantly put it out and shook hers. Zamira pretended not to notice how much candy he’d consumed on the way over.
“Azael can be trusted, and more importantly, he’ll be in charge of delivering messages….” Ash’s voice trailed off. Giving up on conducting any kind of serious business, he glared accusingly at his mother’s cat ears, then shifted his stare to her face.
She straightened in a matter-of-fact way. “Ah, yes,” she announced with commendable sangfroid. “We held a conference the other day, and we decided that it would be good for business if we projected a less intimidating appearance. Therefore, we have decided that we should seem less demonic. Of course, everyone is still aware that we are Tycherosi – we can’t really hide that. Accordingly, we have decided to minimize – as much as possible – the extent to which the marks of our heritage are visible, and to adopt a more uniform appearance.”
With absolutely perfect timing, she reached into a desk drawer, produced another pair of sleek black cat ears, and proffered them to Ash. When he refused to take them, she set them on the desk in front of him.
“Mooooother?” The way he stretched out the syllable warned her to stop the madness right this instant.
“Fortunately, I also have a spare.”
Zamira slid a smaller pair of black cat ears across the desk to Azael, who picked them up with trembling fingers. Casting uncertain glances at Ash the entire time, the boy slowly fitted the headband over his messy shock of hair.
“Mother!” snapped Ash. “Surely you must have realized that this is absurd!”
“Is it,” she stated, totally neutral.
I couldn’t help it. I burst into giggles, which made poor Azael turn bright red, which only made me laugh harder.
“What is this?” Ash asked, disgusted with both his mother and his crewmate. Seizing his pair, he inspected it suspiciously, as if it might spray glitter at him. When nothing happened, he grudgingly put it on.
Zamira nodded approvingly.
“They look good on you, Ash,” I told him, widening my eyes in an imitation of Faith at her most earnest. “I think they really suit you.”
A scathing glare was my reward. “I will get to the bottom of this,” he vowed. “Azael, perhaps this is a good time for you to run along and find the other children.”
“Okay, Mr. Slane!” No stranger to signs of an impending fight, Azael scrambled out of the office.
“This was not how I expected to start this conversation….” Distractedly, Ash swept the room for any eavesdropping devices while I leaned back, crossed my legs comfortably, and enjoyed the show.
Zamira told him, “You’ll get used to them after a while.”
His expression said that he would do nothing of the sort. “I…will remain confused. But, if nothing else, I wouldn’t want to stand out by not wearing them?”
“Indeed.”
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Finishing his security sweep, Ash sank back into his seat and informed his mother in the most circumlocutory way ever, “The Hive has assassinated the seconds-in-command of our allied gangs. There are different options on the table, but doing nothing is not a popular one – and there are various extremes the response can run to. What we discuss here can influence the outcome. In any case, no matter what happens, there is potential for more blood to be drawn from any level of the Hive.”
Accustomed to his speaking habits, his mother raised her eyebrows at him. “Are you suggesting that we involve ourselves?”
That was not the reaction he’d expected – although probably the one he deserved. “No! Not in the slightest! What I’m trying to say is that we haven’t decided what to do yet, but showing weakness to the Hive could be even riskier than taking action. That said, if something is to be done, you need to be forewarned.”
“I see.” Neither Zamira’s tone nor her face gave away what she was thinking.
Sounding as if he were trying to soothe himself, he said, “It might not even be just us doing it. We’re hardly the only assassins that they work with.” (Actually, I was pretty sure we were. Neither Bazso’s nor Mylera’s styles tended towards anything as subtle and indirect as assassination.)
Sucking in a breath, Zamira clarified, “So you are concerned that the Red Sashes and Lampblacks will retaliate against the Hive, and that their connection to you will then be traced back to us.”
“I wouldn’t say that I’m concerned…,” Ash hedged. “I’m just letting you know, as family and business partners.”
His mother’s mind had already raced several steps ahead, anticipating disaster. “If a real upheaval happens in the Hive, we have to pull Tess.”
“True, but….” Unwilling to surrender that flow of coin, which still constituted the bulk of our income, he babbled and equivocated for a while before turning to me. “Isha, have I missed anything?”
I hastily rearranged my face into a sober expression. “No, I think that’s it.”
As we bade Zamira farewell and went to look for Azael, Ash fingered his cat ears uncomfortably but left them on. Literally every Tycherosi in sight was wearing them too, even the children with whom Azael was playing a game of marbles. Unlike the receptionist, however, most of Zamira’s crew had left their ears plain and cat colored.
On our way out, Ash grabbed a passing orderly and snapped, “You must think this is ridiculous.”
The poor man looked cornered. “Zamira’s orders.”
“Zamira’s orders,” Ash repeated sarcastically. “From the ‘committee meeting.’”
The orderly refused to meet his eyes. “I don’t know why Zamira gives the orders that she does.”
“I see,” Ash said, releasing him. “Well, I suppose we’ll just all go and blend in together.”
The young man nodded and fled.
“This is absurd,” Ash grumbled before trying to spread the misery: “Would you like a pair, Isha? You wouldn’t want to stand out too much.”
I was grinning in a rather silly way, relishing the sight of a whole roomful of part-demons wearing furry cat ears. “Oh, no, that’s quite all right.”
“It’s all very confusing,” Ash pronounced to no one in particular.
Before we exited the infirmary, he tugged his hood all the way down to his forehead, hiding the cat ears as best he could.
----------------------------------------
When we dripped our way into the railcar, Faith (who’d probably been dancing with impatience, dying to know what happened) floated into the common room with a sketchbook tucked under her arm. At the sight of us, she stopped short and blinked at Ash, who was hanging up his soggy cloak. Chewing on her lower lip, she stared at him with intense concentration, as if attuning to figure out what demonic ritual had gone so horribly wrong.
Ash turned, registered her shocked face, yanked off his headband, and tossed it onto the table. “Something has infected Mother,” he informed her. “I’m not sure what it is, but that’s a mystery for another time. Right now, we have matters to discuss.”
Faith released a deep breath with apparent heartfelt relief. “Oh, they’re removable! For a moment, I thought you’d grown another demon tell!”
Her flippancy was enough to fray even Ash’s temper. “It does not work that way, Faith! You are entirely aware of this!” He hurled himself into his chair with so much force that the legs creaked. “Nonetheless, it is just a minor mistake that my mother has made. A temporary one, just until she realizes it.”
Shoving his cat ears aside, he piled a couple account books on top of them. (Smashed, crooked cat ears weren’t going to do anything for his appearance the next time he went out, but who was I to comment?)
“Now – I think we need to discuss what we’re doing and why,” he told us, not bothering to specify what he meant. “I am not opposed.” (He’d been saying that for ages now – and dodging and quibbling and opposing retaliation against the Hive the whole time.) “We just need to be fully committed if we’re going down that path. It is not something we want to dabble in.”
Personally, I thought he was the one with commitment issues. I’d never dabbled in anything in my life. “Which path?” I inquired, just to be perverse.
“The path of starting to kill Hive members intentionally instead of accidentally, as we have had a very good habit of doing.”
I permitted myself an eyeroll. “I’m in.”
He’d known that from the start, of course. “So, I know that it would be poetic to take out the nephews since they killed Pickett and Xayah, but it is not impossible to short-circuit them. It would also be ludicrous and potentially stupid – but we might be able to take out Djera Maha herself. If we did that, we would start open warfare with the Hive, although we would likely do the same by taking out her lieutenants. I don’t suppose that the nephews are vying with each other for power? That would be awfully convenient. Also, the Circle of Flame hates the Hive too, right? Does either of you have connections there? I’ve already checked with my mother, and she does not.”
“We don’t even know who the members are,” I reminded him. “Isn’t it a secret society?” (Sigmund and I could, of course, investigate and identify them – but that seemed like a terrible waste of time for very little benefit.)
“We could ask Mylera or Bazso if they have connections, commit to this, and decide whom we’re taking out….” Pushing aside the distasteful subject, Ash returned to his favorite theme: “Focusing on the Church instead would be totally fine with me.”
Of course it would be. He’d been harping on that since the very beginning, but I threw him a sop anyway. “A side effect of targeting the Hive would be whittling down Church membership.”
Ash blinked, acknowledging how deeply intertwined the two organizations were, and turned to our tiebreaker. “Where do you stand, Faith? I would pay dearly to kill Dunvil.”
Throughout that entire conversation, Faith had remained standing just inside the common room, sketchbook dangling forgotten from one hand, head cocked as she contemplated the bit of faux fur poking out from under the account books. Now, addressed directly, she made a production of starting in surprise. “What?”
She didn’t fool Ash for one second. “I have many ideas for what endless tortures Dunvil could undergo. But the Hive is more likely to send assassins after us, sooner or later.”
Faith shut her eyes and shook her head in helpless confusion. “You’ll have to forgive me. I wasn’t paying any attention. I was too busy admiring the beauty of those cat ears. Can I try them on for a little while?”
Without waiting for permission, she darted over to the table and grabbed them.
“Yes,” said Ash, as she clucked over the bent ears and settled them on her head, slightly askew.
Giving them a pleased stroke, she flopped into her chair, opened her sketchbook to a fresh page, and started scrawling out a stick figure. “Sorry, we’re murdering the Church?”
Giving her the benefit of a doubt, Ash explained, “We’re deciding between murdering the Church and the Hive. We could jump to Dunvil directly – ”
“Are there people to pay us for that?” she interrupted, not looking up from her scribbling.
“I’m certain we could find people to pay us very dearly.” (That was true. Nyryx, for one, abhorred the head of the Church in Doskvol.)
Faith’s stick figure sprouted pointy cat ears and a snake-like, forked tail. “For higher-ups in the Church? That’s fair.”
“That said, I’m also certain that we could get quite a lot of coin for any higher-up in the Hive. It’s simply a question of what we want to do: I’m worried about the Hive, and I hate the Church.”
“I say we go for the Hive,” I put in.
“But at what level?” Ash countered.
As I had sworn at Pickett’s funeral, I intended to extract revenge to the utmost limit. However, neither Ash nor Faith harbored the same personal hatred that I did, so I played on a different, more promising reason: “Assassinating Djera Maha’s nephews first is very much in keeping with our theme.”
“It is,” he allowed. “And I’m not opposed.” (Meaning that he was.) “The nephews are good targets, but it would honestly be safer to deal with Djera Maha first.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because it would create a power vacuum in which the nephews vie for control. If her nephews are taken out, she will immediately hire assassins with more money than we can access, to retaliate against their murderers. That will be us. We will have assassins coming after us, and we are not well suited to protect against them.”
Actually, I thought we were uniquely well suited for defending against other “guildmembers of our profession.” After all, the only people who knew about our railcar were our allies, and we could simply hunker down here while launching strategic strikes against the Hive.
Ash, however, had larger concerns than just the three of us. “The orphans will suffer. Almost inevitably.”
That was a fair point: By now, Strathmill House was inextricably associated with our crew, and we couldn’t exactly pack a horde of children into our railcar. “You’re right,” I conceded. “I really like the idea of poetic justice, but we can take out Djera Maha first.”
Looking up from her portrait of Zamira Slane at last, Faith threw open her arms and declaimed, “Until the Hive takes this as a call to arms against our crew and our allies and descends upon us to torch the orphanage in a frenzy of fire and flame! Then you will flee, hearing the shrieks of the slightly charred children as the inferno engulfs their bodies. And you will know deep inside your heart that it was all your fault. Their screams and their ghosts will haunt you for the rest of your demonic days!”
“I’m going to invest in some safehouses for the orphans where we can regroup in case all of our headquarters get burned,” was Ash’s cool response. To me, he said, “The important thing will be setting up very private meetings with Bazso and Mylera. They will probably have opinions on this. They had better have opinions on this.”
Did they ever! And Mylera had basically already told me that she wanted to hire us to avenge her best friend’s murder. “I know Mylera for one has opinions. I am fairly certain Bazso does as well.”
“Well, since you’re their most intimate confidante, why don’t you organize the meetings?”
I was more than happy to oblige.