Author's Note: Normally, for Royal Road, I try to remove sensitive language through alternative words or phrasing. But this time, I'm going to try 'bleeping' out words with asterisks (like t***!) so that the basics of what these characters are saying aren't lost. Be ready! More than most, this chapter goes some places.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Josiah, I am sorry.
No doubt, you know what has passed. The Council of Magisters was never informed; I only learned when I saw her at a fundraiser for Blair. At once, it was clear that something was deeply wrong. She was wearing a dress, and she carried no gun.
I forced the confrontation and saw the marks myself on her neck. They confirmed my worst fears, Josiah. A Keeping has been performed, and the man who performed it was once one of my own. I trusted Soteris. I promoted him. I saw so much of our struggle within him. But I have underestimated his gall and ambition. I will make sure that the Court does not follow.
That this boy, a younger Sovereign than I ever was, would so flagrantly violate the Court's laws should tell you much of the figure you now stand against, for there is no doubt in my mind that you are already working to free Harriet, no matter the enmities that might once have divided you. Enmities, I am sure, that extend even more greatly to me.
I know you have no reason to trust me. I know you have every reason to despise me. But I did not want this. I did not ask for this. And God willing, I will not allow this.
Seek out Ombras. He has agreed to aid in this, and forgiven all trespasses of your past altercation. There are few secrets he cannot gather, few doors he cannot open. I trust him with my life, or whatever that life now is, and he will be of great assistance to any assault on Polyphron. It is shameful that I lack the political capital to spare you men or settle this matter peacefully. But I can augment and legitimise any act you perform. You may not wish to join us, and we will make no effort to thus pursue you. But know regardless that the freedom of Ms. Eddards is now a Scáthshiúlóir priority. You might think that my oath is betrayed, Josiah, but in my heart, it never has.
I still fight for justice.
I still fight for your family.
And I would sooner fall on my sword than allow this evil to claim your daughter.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Time passes. Finnerty bites her lower lip. Watching the way Red’s body melts and reforms, melts and reforms, like water on the cusp of freezing.
“... I can do it meself.” She nods, folding the letter up. “Aisha knows these men, she’ll accompany me. You keep your focus on Texas an’-”
“No.”
She looks back up. Shrivels at his anger. The way he seems ready to pounce. “‘No?’”
“If ya really think I’m so stupid or desperate that I’m gonna trust a word outta that fucker’s mouth-”
“But what if it's true?” She bites back. “What if ‘e’s serious? Red, dis is our break! We can’t be fookin’ around!”
“Ya’ve been doin’ nothin’ but fuck around!”
“Wiff Freeholds! Washout Nocts an’ cold fookin’ bodies! Red, dis is a GODDAM MAGISTER! If we get him, we don’t NEED fookin’ weapons, we don’t need fookin’ spells! You know ‘ow much Blair loves him!? The Kepts!? The Navy?! Forget the fookin’ runes, Red! He could open the front door!”
“So why hasn’t he?”
She glares at him. “Do you realise ‘ow many risks he took, just sendin' dis!? DIs parchment alone is blood in the fookin’ water for 'em goddamn Reeves! You know ‘ow much ‘ey want his heart served on a fookin’ platter! 'E needs us!"
“Yer defendin’ him.” Red’s voice is cold. “After all he did, after all he did ta her, ya would still leap, willingly, inta his arms-”
“YES!” Her fists pound the table. “Yes, I fookin’ would! I’d work wiff the New Sun if she fookin’ asked! Red, it’s your fookin’ daughter!”
“Ya think she’d accept him, in my place?”
“She is fookin’ MENTAL!” Finnerty shouts. “You aren’t! You ‘ave to be the FOOKIN’ ADULT ‘ere!”
“Oh, oh, I have ta be? Ya know how fuckin’ rich that sounds, comin’ from you?”
“I know! Life’s a bitch!” Her eyes turn to slits. “When will you’se fookin’ Yanks start learnin’ ‘at?”
His eyes flare. A burning, solar red. But Finnerty’s already turned around. Bobbing her way to the door.
“I have a duty!” Red shouts after her. “I made a promise ta him!”
“Good! Keep it! I don’t fookin’ need you!” She pulls open the handle.
“Ya think it’s fuckin’ easy!?” He’s waving her off. “Some of us actually try! Try ta live fer more than our fuckin’ egos!!”
Freeze. Red’s face falls as he listens to the words he's just spilled out. Finnerty’s face is blank. The doorknob crushed beneath an aetherial fist.
Andrzej’s on the floor, playing his GameBoy when he looks up at her. “Does this count as something bad?”
She turns. Glares at the old cowboy. Slams the door as she marches back to him. Through the window, more fireworks. Reds and whites and blues against a blazing orange sky.
“Issat what you fink dis is?”
“Has it ever not been?”
She breathes through her nose. Bitter. Fierce.
“He killed Rowe," Red growls. "He. Killed. Rowe.”
“I saw! I was fookin’ there! An’ it wasn’t the first fookin’ time I ‘ad to step in an’ save your fookin’ kid!”
“FUCK YOU!” He shouts back. “Don't talk ta me like that! He was the best! Of ANY OF US! An’ ya would have me piss on his corpse!?"
“Would you ravver piss on your kid!?"
“Morris is a traitor! Morris chose a slave state over our one fuckin’ chance-”
“Tell ‘at to fookin’ Jayden, arsehole!" She points. "You’re not one to throw fookin' stones!”
“That was different! Ya know that was different!”
“No shit, Sherlock! Morris’ slaves are whiter!”
Red roars and sweeps his arm through the table. Letters and missed bills flying high.
"He 'ad his reasons!" Finnerty shouts. "You KNOW he ‘ad reasons! He’s not some moustache-twirlin’ freak! We were in a fookin’ war!”
“There was a time I woulda shot ya fer sayin’ that!"
"Oy fookin' vey!" She gives him a wild look. "Dis isn’t a fookin’ gift-horse, Red! It’s a goddamn UNICORN!”
Fireworks go off. Lots of them. Too many of them. It pulls her out of the fight. Puts her somewhere different. Somewhere wrong. The shouting claws at her chest. She blinks, and her throat clenches.
"Why?" She's clutching her shirt. "Wh-what's..."
Her face won’t stop twitching. It won’t stop fucking twitching.
“My honour!?” Red throws up his hands. “My fuckin’ dignity!? That’s what I have left, that’s what I won’t let them take! Ya wouldn't get it! YA WOULDN'T FUCKIN'... Aislin'?"
She’s stepping back. Gripping the wall. She feels smoke in her mouth. Hears loud sounds. Sees flashing lights. Sweat beading down her brow.
Red takes a cautious step closer, staring at the mist that fills over her eyes. “... shit."
He rushes to her side and catches her just before she crumples to the floor.
“Aislin'!” He pulls her back to the couch, setting her down across the tarp. Her head elevated. She’s breathing, but they’re harried, quick. Her lips twitching and eyes darting.
“Okay. Okay, okay." He's standing up. Moving towards a cabinet drawer. “Deep breaths. Yer here. Everythin’s fine. Jes’ keep blinkin’ an’ - yeah, exactly, get holda that tarp.”
Without turning, he slides open the drawer. Pulls out the wooden stake hidden inside. Security.
“Aislin’, I need ya ta tell me what colour’s the floor.”
“Y-you…” She can barely force the words out. “... you f-fink… I…”
“No. No. We’re not talkin’ about that. We’re talkin’ ‘bout the floor. What’s its colour?”
Slowly, she lifts her head. Her gaze is bright and clear and watery. “... You fink I ‘aven’t lost someone?”
Pause. Fireworks. Red’s uncomfortable. Won't look back. “Sorry. I know ya have. I was bein’ an ass-"
"No," her words cut. "You do."
Another eruption. Roaring sounds and flashes of light. For once, her body doesn’t respond. It’s set and tense, almost frozen. Her feathers slid back in a sheen.
“I saw him too, Red.” Purple light falls over the apartment. She takes a shaky breath. “You’re… you’re not the only one to... to watch..."
It dawns on him. Red’s eyes grow wide.
She looks away. The wall. Flashing red then orange then green. Showered by sounds that are always too loud.
“'85. You weren’t there," she starts. "But you’se did leave us. Keaton, the whole Unbound. An’ at dat point, I couldn’t blame you. ‘E was different. Age an’ the Wilds ‘ad fooked him hard. He was chasin’ shadows. Spoke ‘bout shit so old even I ain’t seen, but 'e thought was just yesterday."
"Aislin'..." Red starts. "I don't think it's smart right now ta-"
She glares at him. Glares until he backs down.
"Schrecher left, then more an’ more, half our number, an' still 'e didn’t see. Didn’t even fookin' care. It was Rathe an’ I callin’ shots, at each ovver's throats as always, but it was hollow. We all were. Hollow an’ exhausted an’ barely holdin' the men 'ey sent to clear the slums."
Red watches. Silent. The colour gone from his eyes.
“I warned ‘im.” She tries to breathe in. Keep herself whole. “Harav called a meetin’ ‘bout the ‘S******** problem’, an' I warned 'im. 'E said ‘e wanted ‘em gone, said 'e wouldn’t stand to live next to animals! But ‘ere were fifty-thousand Blacks in the city, then, an’ ‘ey were all headed East! ‘Ey ‘ad nowhere else to go! 'Ujamaa' was already a name on me radar by then, an' I was worried, worried 'cause I knew well 'at rabbits will bite when 'eir cornered. I said as much. I fookin' said as much. But Harav..."
She blinks a few times and waves.
"... 'e wanted it. 'E wanted it bad. It put somefin' back in 'im. It gave 'im some pride. So 'e looked at me, an' 'e fookin' said..." She makes her voice low. "'Rabbit don't bite when 'ey're strung.'"
Red gives her a wild look.
“Yeah. ‘Ose stories were true. Shot three boys, 'anged one. Rathe’s work, the little cunt, an’ 'e made a show of it like you Dixies do. Posters. Cards. Photos covered in words even I won’t fookin' use. It worked. Eight-hundred homes emptied ‘at night, to get picked cleaned by Rathe's men. Ujamaa learned. Started the riot. Wrote ‘at little letter 'bout 'retribution', an' I shoulda talked. I shoulda fookin’ talked to him, I shoulda done fookin' anyfin'. But Ratcatcher was in a frenzy, by then. 'Eir nuffin'!' he said. 'Poor boys! We've fought worse.'"
Outside, the fireworks rattle the windows. People cheering. Dogs barking. Finnerty listens to them, silent, shaking, before meeting Red’s eyes.
“Then I 'eard rockets,” she says. “An’ knew it was all fookin' over."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
September 29th, 1985
Gunshots and screaming and a sky of bright red.
She’s running. Muscles torn. Her lungs exhausted. Full of smoke and ash and sulfur. Her arms are weighted down by a Galil, and parts of her hair are burned. She leaps over broken bricks and shattered glass, Nancy gliding overhead, caws silenced by shouts of dying. Fights for living. Artillery ruptures the Kingdom’s walls. Sails through the sky.
byOOWWW! byOOWWW!
Like nails on chalkboard they claw through her mind. They’ve hit homes and streets. Shops and phone booths. Cars ignite like petrol bombs, and market stalls burn like kindling. Everything is locked doors and boarded woods and the blood that sloshes as she runs in white shoes. Moon blotted by smoke, the lights cut who-knows-when. Sirens blare. Homeless hide. Bodies slumped or in piles or shoved half-way through the grates of the sewers.
On this street, three schoolgirls stab a corpse.
On another, someone pulls gold fillings from dead men's teeth.
An apartment bursts open, and a man sprints out, on fire.
“RATHE!” She screams into their comm. “[Position! I need your position! The South Wall is gone! 'Ere's a fahkin' ARMY out there! Where the fahk are the Fed!? Call the Council! Call the Unbound! CALL FAHKING THATCH-!!!]”
Nancy caws out a warning, and Finnerty leaps back just in time. A food-truck that meant to hit her instead collides with a solid brick wall. There’s broken glass and clouds of dust. A black boy sees her, and leaps from the door. His face painted skull white, a ?korpion in his hands. He starts to shout. She’s already spraying. Tugging and tugging and tugging the trigger. Bullets pierce his shoulders. His ribcage. She runs. Thirteen smoking holes in all.
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She can hear the other’s fire behind her, but she’s already gone. Running and running. She’s lost in a town she’s known for a century. The street signs are gone. The cars are turned over. Schools and restaurants, flickering lights. The rockets keep going. byOOWWW! byOOWWW!
“HAVERSHAM!” She picks up her mic. “[I need your position, you fahking prick! Cable Street’s lost! We have to get Harav! CABLE STREET’S-]”
She stops. Her eyes spark. Her comm crashes to the floor.
Rathe Haversham is here. His fangs open in death. One eye is cut out with a knife, and withered, wrinkled hands reach out, fingernails still dirty with soot.
Aisling Finnerty’s greatest rival hangs impaled on a streetlamp. His entrails dangling three metres above her.
Her mind freezes. Knows it can’t freeze. The Galil rattles, her feathers ruffle, and a single word bursts through her mind. Fuck. FUCK.
“Foygl!” Someone distant calls out.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
She feels strong hands pull her back. The Galil is knocked down. She screams. Flailing, clawing. Nancy vanishes. Aether ignites, threatening to burst, but somehow his grip is stronger.
“I’LL KILL YOU!” She shouts. “IR FAAK! DU MIMZIR! IKH VEL DYKH EZ-”
“QUIET!” A hand flies over her mouth, muffling the shouts. She sees three rings on two fingers. Cappie is holding her. The old bodyguard draws her away until she’s pressed against an alley wall. Beyond it, near the lamppost, she hears boots on concrete and tyres on stone. He whispers in her ear. "Not a word.”
“Jayden!” One of Ujamaa's boys. She knows his face will be painted with the same skull. “I no sabi! Girl just ‘ere! Where the fahk did she run?”
“No gree!” A deeper voice, this ‘Jayden’, cuts through. She hears more follow behind. Twelve. Maybe ten. “Wayo-wayo. Girl turns unseen. She’s not important, link up wiff de Costa!”
More boots. Rattling guns. Finnerty looks into Cappie’s burning eyes.
“Ujamaa. Tis Jayden.” She hears the static of a walkie-talkie. “We dey fine. Haversham dead. De Raven still runs, but Cable secure.”
There’s fewer whispers now, maybe half. She strains against Cappie’s grip until her mouth is finally free. “Lemme out.”
“‘Ere’s five of ‘em.”
“I can fookin’ take-”
“Foygl!” Cappie grips her head, lowering himself to look in her eyes. “[Listen to me,]” he says in their tongue. “[You need to go South. Organise. Regroup. The fighters won’t follow me.]”
“[Like Hell!]” She hisses back. “[I need to find Master. I-]”
“[BITCH!]” Cappie squeezes. “[They targeted our leaders, you stupid girl! You’re the last fahker left!]”
Her fire is stolen. She stares at him, aghast, disbelieving, but can only note the scratches on his face. The black marks of burns.
“Bishopsgate down?” While Jayden speaks, the others reload clips. Empty chambers. “Ujamaa, we ‘ave problem. De boys keep runnin’ into children.”
“Cappie…” Finnerty’s eyes water. “[Your wife was at Bishops-]”
“Not...” His voice turns harsh, and he pulls her further away. “Not fahkin’ now.”
“Yes! Kids! Children!” Jayden shouts into his radio. “Young as six! Dey be chargin’ de men! Stabbin’ wit’ knives! We be tyin’ dem wit’ rope or lockin’ dem in houses, but we…” He’s sharply cut off by someone on the other end. Someone loud enough for Finnerty to hear. Seconds pass. Jayden sounds shakes. “But…”
Artillery goes off. Hits an apartment tower. Red light shrouds Cappie’s face amid the rubble and the screams.
“... yeah. Yeah yeah. I sabi.” Jayden starts to shout. “Kids are shoot-to-kill!”
“What?!”
“Wetin!?”
“Ujamaa says dey are spies! We ‘ave no time to check! De Met only gave us two hours!”
Finnerty pales. They what!?
“No.” One of Ujamaa's boys sounds upset. “No no. I will not do dis! Jayden, dis is what-”
“What DEY have done! Yes!” Jayden suddenly steels himself. “Dey’ve shot at us! Dey’ve hanged us! Dey kidnap our children an’ put dem in white homes! You won’t stop dem!? You’ll fahkin’ ‘low dem!? We are Zulu! We are Songhai! Until we take, dey will take! Until we kill, dey will kill! Do you forget dat!?”
Silence. But then a few voices call out. “We don’t forget!”
“Are you Afrikan?!”
“We are Afrikan!”
“De Rat hides in his chapel!” Jayden fires his gun. “Find! Break him! HANG HIM LIKE HE HANGED US!”
Boots on concrete. Shouts of war. Cappie can barely hold her after, and when she finally breaks free, she tears down the street after them.
“Where the FAHK are you’se goin’!?” He shouts.
“I ‘ave to get Harav!”
“Did you fahkin’ ‘ear!? The Met approved dis! Thatcher signed off on dis! The East End is dead! The Kingdom is lost! An’ by fahkin’ God, I’m not..." Cappie stops. She's running faster than he can. Eyes already on the sky. "Foygl! Get the FAHK-"
But she leaps, and twists, and soars into the air. Aether re-shaping her form.
byOOWWWWW! byOOWWWW!
Her eyes are small and dark and focused. Her wings lifted on the winds. But her hearing is sharp, and she catches it all. Screams of pain. Cries of help. Looted stores and barking dogs and the rockets, most of all. She dares. Dares to look down and see the sights that will blaze in her mind forever.
She knows each building. She was there when they were built, the towers of glass and brown squats of stone, and now she’s here to see them burning. Ujamaa's boys break windows and burst through doors. Families run. Walls collapse. Temples and bookshops and grocers and toy stores. Nothing is spared from the fires. Men leap from high stories. Women are chased down dark alleys. And on the edges, on Aldgate and Bishopsgate and the streets near the Tower, she sees them. The Met. With their dogs and gasmasks and hoses. A host of Oathsworn watching from the rooftops above.
Only seconds pass before she knows why. White plumes rise from the streets, followed by sounds of panic. Tear gas. More than they need, enough to cover whole streets like smoke. Fed boots charge in, and civvies sprint out. Batons. Dogs unleashed. Chains and struggles and black, unmarked vans. Harav pushed it too far, it dawns on her. Thatcher, the Homeland, they see liabilities now. They’ll call this a riot. Shake their heads and smile like snakes when the cameras switch off. The sky is red and yellow and brackish for the first time in forty years.
This is the death of the Jewish Quarter.
Glenmore Ujamaa has done what Oswald Mosley never did.
Suddenly, flashes of bright light, and she’s swerving, flapping mad, thick scents of powder in her bill. Against the red smoke, black clouds. They come in flashes and bursts, right before the cannons' roar. Holy shit. Anti-aircraft?
WHERE THE FUCK DID HE GET ANTI-AIRCRAFT!?
She dives. Searching amidst the rubble, barely racing past the clouds. There are runners and children and streetlamps going dark. The gas covers all, Black and Jew both, drowning war’s noise in screeches and a hiss. The Met didn’t give them two hours. Maybe Ujamaa knew. His men certainly don't.
She finds it. The white chapel. St Mary Matfelon, with chipped paint and rusted doors. Its tower has been struck, the entrance covered in splinters, while the graveyard beyond is pockmarked by mortar. She rushes to it, ignoring the streets. Harav’s there. Her master, her sweetness, her alts-things, her-
She doesn’t see the cylinder. She doesn’t hear the hiss.
When it strikes her, there’s only a bang, a deafening sound, and the scent of meat that’s been too long on the grill. Black smoke surrounding her.
She’s falling out of the sky. But she doesn’t comprehend. Doesn’t feel anything but a mild, tickling pain.
She’s falling.
She’s falling.
+++
She wakes up to shouts and gunfire. Her eyes bolt open, and a smoky breath is drawn in. She strains to get up, but only pain arrives. Fierce and sharp and overwhelming.
She gives out a bloodcurdling scream.
As Finnerty looks down, blood swarms into her mouth, and would drown her if she could still drown. Her eyes shrink. Where her legs should exist are two charred stumps, blackened and red, nerves deadened by shock and searing. On one arm, she’s missing an elbow tip, three fingers, and half her hand. The skin has ripped and melted, boiling into the tendons and bone. She can’t imagine her waist is better, but for now it’s mercifully hidden. Beneath a yellow trackie that shouldn't be red and brown.
She rolls onto her belly and vomits. Tries to crawl forward and vomits again.
The tear gas is right in front of her. She can sense it, and see it, its chemicals stinging her eyes and her mouth. But even as it surges beneath still-firing rockets, it never sweeps over her. Against this last piece of her world, the tear gas won't move.
She doesn't notice the three mushrooms, part of a ring, that stand near her fingers.
Finnerty marvels, dumbstruck, until she hears the snapping of wood, the flurries of bullet. She spins, as much as she can, and calls out. “Harav. Ha-”
More blood spews out of her mouth, lurching in the grass, a sizzling pile. Finnerty curses, and crawls. Her good hand clutching grass and dirt, hoisting the rest along. At least it's lighter.
There’s no one outside, and her ravens are gone. The streetlights long bare, so that the world is lit solely by fires. She’s still crawling when she sees a Black boy burst through a window. His head hits a rock; claws have teared through his throat. Then dozens of holes, tearing through the rotted wood walls like so many sheets of paper. The pain is more constant now, an unending throb, impossible to fight. But she does. She must. Mags is dead. Cappie is gone. She’s all that’s left. The only one. The only-
She’s nearly crested the hill when the front doors fling open.
Ratcatcher lands on the stairs with a sharp, angry crack. He rolls down the flight, his clothes bloodied and soot-filled, his hat spiralling off his head. The Freeholder quickly rises to his feet, with claws five inches long, his face warped with the Wilds and eyes glowing a fierce yellow. Two of Ujamaa's boys rush to his sides. Their cricket bats ready. Their restraint clearly thin.
Finnerty calls out. “HARAV!”
Master.
He turns. His face falls. “...foygl…?”
Little bird.
Footsteps in the distance. Ratcatcher swivels towards the door and raises his claws. “S********!!! You C***! Dis is MY TOWN! Dese are-”
The gunshot bursts from the chapel, and Finnerty screams. The bullet shreds through Harav’s stomach, so that blood and flesh and guts coming out. He stumbles, and Aisling roars.
“Ikh vel hrgenen, ir mshugeim! [I’LL TEAR OUT YOUR BONES!]"
A tall man walks out, smoking pistol in hand. He’s tall, with thick dreadlocks, a coloured suit, face painted with a white vèvè. A bullet case is pushed by his shoe, tumbling down the steps.
“Your 'town,'” Glenmore Ujamaa clicks the Makarov's hammer. “Is ash.”
While Ratcatcher growls, his Kept continues to scream. “[LEAVE! Leave while there’s still time!]”
“Foygl, [get back]!” He waves her off with a horribly scratched hand. “[GET-]”
Blood spools from his lips. He looks down to his chest and sees more, pooling over her shirt. Finnerty’s crawling, as fast as her dead arm can carry her.
“Michael,” Ujamaa nods to one of his men. “Finish ‘er.”
“NO!”
It happens too fast. Michael lifts his FAL, and Ratcatcher’s on top of him. Claws and fangs and the sounds of torn clothes and skin. The second soldier runs up, but he’s grabbed by the ankle, thrown to the grass. It gives Ujamaa a window. He fires his gun. Again and again. Six shots in all, each a hit, until her Keeper is splayed on the ground and quiet.
“[I’LL RAPE YOUR MOTHERS!]” Finnerty screams as the surviving soldier hoists Harav up. Her legs sear with pain. Blood covers her left eye. “[I’LL LYNCH YOUR KIDS!]”
“FOYGL! BLEYB TSURIK!” Ratcatcher’s eyes spark, his words pounding in her skull. Suddenly, she’s stopped. Her arm won’t reach out. Her body won’t squirm forward. “Don’t touch ‘er! No one FAHKIN’ TOUCHES HER!”
Ujamaa throws his gun to the grass. “You want ‘er to watch you die?”
“Harav!" She’s crying now. Tears blinding her sight. "HARAV!"
Ujamaa takes a boy's bat and slams it into Ratcatcher’s jaw. Finnerty can only writhe. Through the gaseous fog, sounds of rockets, flooding the sky.
“Dis is over,” Ujamaa stands back. “Your Kepts are dead. Your Oathsworn slaughtered. Tomorrow, I will sell de rest. Root out your agents and burn what’s left of dese homes. Do you ‘ear me, ‘Freeholder?’ I ‘ave conquered your kind like yours once conquered mine. We are no longer your mules.”
“Conquered?” Ratcatcher laughs. Laughs, and coughs up blood, and struggles to stay on his feet even with the NAM boy's help. “Look at you. A spook who finks bombs can still scare us. I am de East End. My flesh is its food. My blood is its water. You’ve conquered shite.”
Ujamaa’s face curls, and the bat slams again against Ratcatcher’s nose.
“HARAV!!!!”
“Kill a thousand of my rats, boy! Kill ten-thousand!” Ratcatcher hisses throughs the pain. “‘Ere will still be ‘ose to crown me king! You will rule a soulless city. THEY FEAR ME, BOY! An’ they will ALWAYS hate you!”
Ujamaa drops the bat. A mirthless, vicious frown.
“You are right, Unbound rat..."
“AKHH-” A dark hand seizes Ratcatcher’s neck. The man flails, but Ujamaa merely squeezes tight. Fires bursting from cat-like eyes.
“... but you forget…” From Ujamaa’s lips, sabre-toothed fangs. “... towns are not all we can conquer."
Suddenly, Ratcatcher’s pale. Fear growing in his eyes. He kicks and bucks and screams as Ujamaa’s lips grow closer.
“HARAV!” Finnerty’s body shakes. “HARAV!”
Fangs meet skin, and an explosion of light. Colours rise out. Greens and blues and magenta hues. She can feel the heat this far away, her eyes blinded by the brightness as screams fill her ears. Almost as loud as the rockets above. Dozens. Hundreds.
Fireworks against the sky.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
November 5th, 2004
“‘Gwledd Enaid.’” Finnerty sounds it out slowly. “‘At’s what the Court calls it. Welsh, I fink. Or Predecessor. Who gives a flyin' fook? Know what it means?”
“Yeah.” Red’s arms are crossed. Leaning on the wall. “The gyp mentioned somethin' like it. Called it 'the Feast of Souls.”
“When you’se drain a mortal of all its blood…” Finnerty still won’t make eye contact. “... it’s a husk. A shell. An’ when you’se squirt a bitta fookin’ aether back in, pop, ‘ere’s your vampire. But if you try an' drain a Noct…”
“The Court doesn’t know, do they?” Red's focus sharpens on her. “It’s their greatest crime. Great enough that even Keaton, at his height, wouldn't dare ta break it. Ya don’t jes’ get their blood, ya get half their bloody powers. Newbloods become elders. Elders become gods. It could crush the Court under its own weight, so even discussin’ it-”
“‘At’s…” Finnerty swallows. Her voice pained. “... not why it's a fookin' crime.”
Red pulls back, silent, watching as she rolls up her jogger, and writhing black marks fill his sight. She finally meets his eyes.
“After twenty years, ‘ese should 'ave vanished.”
“Oh, fuck.” Red pales. “Aislin’, shit, I’m-”
“‘Ere wasn’t a body.” Finnerty’s words are too shaky. “You got a body. Harriet got a fookin’ body, but me? I got shit. It was beautiful, Red. His death was like fookin' art. Like staring into a million facets of a thousand fookin’ jewels! But ‘ere wasn’t a body. No bones or ashes or even a fookin’ ring to hold! An’ you know what’s in aether? Every memory. Every feelin’. Every love you’ve ever ‘ad, every thought you’ve ever thunk, all the pieces ‘at make you you… call it a soul, call it whatever the fook you want, it's gone. Gone. Stolen an’ used against the people who fookin’ knew you.”
She loses herself for a moment. Staring at the wall.
“... Wiff Harav’s mind in Ujamaa's brain, we fell like leaves. ‘E knew every hideout an’ informant an’ secret stash. The Jews quickly fled. All but a handful of Nocts died. The Sun spewed somefin’ up, mortar forced 'eir fookin' hand, but it was all brushed aside. Written up like all our fookin'...” She exhales. Looks at Red. “... it's always so clear lookin' back, innit? 'Ow stupid you were? ‘Ow it was never meant to last? I see every mistake now, every moment I 'ad to stop it, an'... klog iz mir. 'Ere wasn't a worse way 'e could die."
Suddenly, her feathers spring up, and her eyes turn to slits.
“... an’ it hurts even worse,” she says. “‘At none of you cared.”
She looks into his face, confirming it. That expression of disgust wrapped in sympathy that she’s seen so many times.
Red puts his hands in his coat pockets. “Aislin’-”
“You mocked,” she growls back. “Or retched. Or wished you had put a bullet in the fook first an’ somehow redeemed the fookin’ Unbound! ‘Ere was no mournin’ like wiff Rowe. No songs or little fook-you poems! He spent ‘is whole life protectin’ you’se, protectin' us, an' the moment 'e's dead, you swore 'im off! You fookin’ buzzards!”
“He didn’t want our fuckin’ music. He was proud ta make us retch! Aislin’, I know ya two were close, but that doesn’t defend-”
“You fink I don’t know what ‘e fookin’ did!? To dem?! To me!?"
Red recoils. She’s staring at him, harshly, before rising fully to her feet.
“I loved him! ‘E loved me! Was it like a pop? No, clearly! But I wouldn’t know the fookin’ difference, would I!? ‘E saw me, Red! ‘E fookin’ saw me, when no one else dared to fookin' look. So why do you fooks insist we let a few rapes get in the way of ‘at!?”
His face sharpens. “Aislin’-”
“No! Why!? WHY!? It’s not like you’se were the fooks who dealt wiff ‘em!” She’s shaking her head. Voice dripping with venom. “I paid my price. I’d pay it again! But ‘e’s fookin’ dead! It’s fookin’ over! All I can do is get the fook up an' protect what I 'ave! So if Glenmore Ujamaa walked in 'ere wiff the key to Harriet's castle, you better fookin' believe-"
“It’s not-”
“Don’t fookin’ tell me it’s not!"
Red’s lips are tight as he frowns. “... It’s what he wants. It’s what he fuckin’ needs.”
The fireworks go off again. She's so fucking tired of this twitching.
“Morris is a man of pride. Morris is a man of honour.” Red's rage is barely concealed. “He knows what he’s done, an’ what it’s done ta him. It follows his steps. Hounds his thoughts. But if he saves my daughter, maybe all the guilt fuckin' stops! Maybe it patches the hole. Maybe he can feel, fer fuckin' once, like he’s the goddamn hero. I won't let him feel that. I can't let him feel that. I want him ta suffer because he needs ta suffer, or I won’t be able ta look that girl in the eye.”
Finnerty tilts her head. “You fink Rowe would say shit like ‘at?”
“No.” Red frowns. “That’s why they killed him."
Before she can respond, the door bursts open, and Andrzej's running through.
“DANGER!” He's out of breath. “Niebezpieczeństwo! Niebezpieczeństwo! Aisling! Aisling-”
“Stop!” She grabs him when he reaches the kitchen. “Deep breaths! Deep fookin’ breaths!”
In her hands, she can feel the panic calming. Fireworks go off, illuminating the sweat and heat across his face. “By?o ich tak wielu-”
“English, Andrzej, English!”
“Men. Five men. Bats. Pipes. Knives! Hitting! Kicking! S-S-Sorry, I-I’m so-”
He freezes. Finnerty squeezes his arms. The flesh compressed and pinched red.
“Who kicked who?”
“I don’t know. But the symbol…" He swallows. "... Powstanie warszawskie! Powstanie warszawskie!”
“What the fuck is he on about?” Red asks.
“I don’t fookin’ know! Somefin’ ‘bout…”
Andrzej, desperately, puts two fingers on her upper arm. Slides them up and to the right. The connection rockets through her brain.
“... ‘bout Varshav.”
Briefly, Finnerty and Red lock eyes.
Then he’s gone from the kitchen. Marching right out the door.
“RED!” Finnerty follows after him. “WE CAN’T!”
By the time she reaches the door, he’s already halfway down the hall.
“We can’t fookin’ touch ‘em! You’ll bring half of Souffwark on our-”
He’s opened the front door. A roaring boom floods the sky. He hasn’t slowed his pace. He clearly isn’t listening.
She runs after him, screaming. “RED!”
+++
The blow strikes him swift, and hard. David Akeyo Oduya spirals into the cobbles, his fingernails cut, his shoes half-torn, his head ringing and throbbing with pain. The five men who surround him laugh. They wear dark jackets and trackies, their hair short, their faces hidden by black bandanas. He can't help but notice the armbands: two black arrows in a circle of white. Pointed up and to the right. Worn with obvious pride.
He doesn't know the symbol of Lianna Stirling's Albion Guard, but he can guess what trouble it brings.
“‘Ey. Name’s Ned. From Auction Lots.” The man who struck him kneels down. He has a young London voice. A silver cross hangs from his neck on a chain. “You owe money on your car."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
self-destructive.
reacting to the violence and racism of others. However, as any American reader from Chicago or New York or LA would know, violence between distressed neighbourhoods often erupts along ethnic lines. While there were actual riots that took place in black-majority Lambeth during the time of this chapter's flashback, they were obviously NOWHERE near as violent or organised as what we see here. For Ujamaa's attack, I drew a lot more inspiration from the 1981 England riots and the violence in Koreatown during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
