1. Aftermath
"The first casualty of War is Truth"
“You’re the only person I know who calls collect.” The voice on the other side of the phone line complained, the slight nasal sound of his voice awakening far away childhood memories in the young woman who was clutching the receiver to her ear. She was huddled as far into the booth as possible for shelter from the pelting rain. “Wait, I take that back. You’re the only person I know who doesn’t use a cell phone!”
The woman rolled her eyes impatiently. “I’m a god-damn refugee Glen!” Her harsh accent causing the sentence to sound more violent then intended. Her tongue was unaccustomed to the softer vowels of the language she was speaking. “Not some fancy government worker. I can’t afford a cell!”
Rain splattered into the phone booth on her high heeled but torn leather boots… the booth didn’t have a door.
“Everyone gets a cell phone Skat.” The man on the other end scoffed.
“For the last time,” she practically shouted. “I am a refugee from the North! You know? That place torn by civil war?”
A few people who were walking by seeking shelter from the downpour turned to look at her. She turned and gave them her best death glare the she could muster and returned her attention to the phone again, this time a little quieter then before.
“And it’s Skatha for you. Not Skat.”
She could almost see Glen rolling his eyes at her through the phone lines, despite the fact that she was on one of those ancient ones without display.
“Are you going to pick me up now or not?” she sighed.
“Where are you?” he responded.
“You know my locator code. You’ve got access to GPS. Find me yourself, prove you care.” And with that Skatha put down the receiver. He’d come.
Skatha was one of those people whom you feel compelled to help. Not because of beauty or anything, oh no, you feel guilt-ed into helping Skatha by the simple fact that she looks like she’s about to keel over dead any second. Her skin was sickeningly grey and pale and combined with the wild mess of dulled blond hair and emaciated figure she probably resembled a skeleton more then a human.
She stepped outside of the booth and into the rain, pulling her oversized, black top hat closer to her head in an attempt to keep at least her face dry. The light purple flower she had stuck into it though wasn’t as fortunate and was beginning to look very soggy.
She estimated that it would take Glen five minutes to get to her, pretty prompt when you consider the fact that government officials are notoriously late in Leirol.
Leirol, the super efficient, over-modernized communist state, was basically just a huge city that made its self independent hundreds of years ago. If you lived here you lived, breathed and worked for your government, which did the best at creating a society of equals. Despite the amount of communist governments that have failed in the past Leirol had done a pretty good job at creating a prospering society of equal minded citizens. The government employees of course got extra perks so in a sense it wasn’t as equal as everyone believed.
Glen wasn’t high enough up to be one of those super-power moguls, but high enough up to exert some force among the masses.
Skatha wrapped her frail arms around her abdomen and glanced over to a homeless person seeking cover underneath a store front. The craggily person looked at her. “Wha’cha looking at?” he yelled out drunk, swinging the bottle of wine at her threateningly.
She turned away to avoid any sort of confrontation and headed closer to the street. “So Leirol has its cracks too.” She muttered to herself, yet knew that that was hard to compare with the current devastation in the North. The tears began stinging in her eyes at the mere word. Devastation. She didn’t deserve this. But this was no time for self pity. Glen would be here in any moment and he didn’t need to see her cry. She was strong. She was a Necromancer, what cares could she have for this world?
As if on commando a polished black car came through the curtain of rain. Skatha wiped the salty fluids from her eyes with her sleeve, causing some coal to smear onto the white fabric. The vehicle pulled up, a gleaming gold stallion was engraved on the passenger door, the City-Nations symbol, but as soon as she reached out to open the car door the one in the back seat swung open.
“Get in the back.”
Skatha turned around startled though not afraid, Glen’s voice was so unmistakably nasally it was hard to miss.
The girl scuttled in quickly, taking her hat off as soon as she remembered the highly superstitious ways of the country she was in.
She sat down on the light beige leather of the back seat and immediately noticed the mini-fridge that was between the two front seats on the ground in front of her.
“Who are you trying to impress anyways?” she said eyeing the copper finish on the fridge-door before she had even really set eyes upon her best friend whom she hadn’t seen in close to ten years.
“Sorry if it’s not to your horse and buggy standards.” He said mockingly and leaned back, though he noticed that the girl had gone straight in and opened it. There was a silence in the car as she fiddled with the cap to the vodka bottle she had picked out.
“Didn’t realize you drink.” Glen said slightly astonished which earned him a less then friendly glance from the blonde.
“The place I lived in has just been run over by a demon and his horde of low-life misfits. If there was ever a time to drink it would be now.”
“What about when that atomic bomb went off in the Provinces?”
“The alcohol would have been radioactive and thus poisonous and undrinkable.” She replied snippishly not catching the light hearted humor in his voice.
Glen nodded solemnly. Who was he to argue? He looked down at his hand and began picking away at an incredibly soar hang-nail that had been bothering him all week. He noticed out of the corner of his hazel eyes that the girl was taking gulps straight out of the bottle.
She put it down beside her on the floor, he noticed that while her head was done she was silently trying to choke back sobs; he looked away out of respect for her.
Her eyes were brimming with tears, and it wasn’t just the alcohol that was causing them. The moment she let herself blink again they started to roll down her face, really smudging the black eyeliner and dragging it down her pale cheek.
“Houses and books burnt to the ground…” she began, her voice wavering considerably. “Farm land fed chemicals to kill the harvest, anyone who not willingly submitted themselves to that bastards rules gets hauled away. Charred flesh litters the street, not all from animals. It's horrible."
Glen fiddled with the seat belt, he hated her like this. He could never figure out what the right thing to say was with her. A completly reasonable response could send her into hysterical tears...
"And it's all that BLOODY BASTARDS FAULT."
Or no response at all it seemed. The tears were now streaming down her face freely and frequently. Coal eyeliner was smudge all across her cheeks and her sobs rattled in her chest like the breath of those on their death bed. "How dare he. How dare he. How dare, dare, dare he." she repeated almost more to herself then to him.
Glen sat frozen in mild fear. Five years with no contact to eachother and within five minutes she was in tears. That wasn't a good omen at all.
She flopped over onto his shoulder, hot tears soaking into his navy shirt. The blond mop of hair covering almost all her face.
Hesitantly the goverment offical put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder stunned. "I'll get you an apartment tomorrow, you can stay in my guest room tonight." he answered matter of factly. He was a practical person, if someone was crying they probably just needed a good-nights sleep.
She said something that sounded like an Okay but it was muffled so starkly by her burring her head into his shoulder and chocked down by sobbing that Glen couldn't be too sure.
"So we're going straight to your place?' the chufour said from the front seat in an indifferent tone of voice like his job required it.
"Yeah..." Glen answered and stared ahead blankly. He didn't tell her that the "bloody b*****d" was comming to Leirol tomorrow to negotiate a deal between the city state and the wildernis of the North. He figured he was doing him a favour, Skatha seemed able to snap the invaders neck right now. And he knew all to well that Skatha was capable of murder.
Though not on purpose really, she never had learned the boundries of life and death being taught the Art of Necromancy since she could literally walk and talk. She was around spirits of the dead from the moment she was born, death didn't seem final the way it did to others, and killing someone was similar to giving them a little push into a pool. Try to explain that concept to someone else though and your met with horrfied stares. Even after all the years of friendship Glen had a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that Skatha could kill without a second thought, which she restrained herself from doing, or that she dug out corpse from the local graveyard to "experiment" on.
The girls hat slid off and onto the car floor, though she made no effort to retrive it so Glen decieded not to disturb her. Skatha hadn't told him why she was so unraveled about, the dying bugged her only to a certain extent. But the man who had ordered it all also planned to outlaw Necromancy seeing as it more often then not required demons to do the dirty work of their human masters. The man was a humanoid demon. Shesha the serpent demon, leader of the Rebel Army composed of demon. Composed of those that lie under her in social standing. The mer thought made her gut wrench. And they were taking away the thing she had dedicated her life to, that her family had dedicated their lives to. Her nails dug deep into Glen's flesh, she could feel him wince at the pain but he said nothing.
"I hate them." she sobbed into his shirt. "I hate them so much."
