The Wager
Word Count: 2336 (2005 Elex / 331 Umber)
The sun still lingered in the sky when Elex was released from Azure Valley's lengthy schedule. His mother often sent for him immediately, interested as she was in curbing his wanderlust habits, but no driver arrived for that day. Taking pity on him crossed his mind. Forgetfulness did, too. Neither of these quite fit his mother's modus operandi, however; the most logical explanation concluded that she simply could not wrangle their driver into the job that day. And Elex took these turn of events as providence.
Two hours spanned between class release and dinner, which left Elex with time to explore the stranger portions of the city. Too often he was faced with well-kept storefronts, politeness pouring from each hired face behind the counter, and ventures beyond the average man when accompanying his family. Too many times he was urged away from these simpleton ventures, where he might find himself a taste of a less exalted lifestyle. Here, the opportunity lingered before him in his mother's lapse in micromanagement, and Elex found no reason to wander his way home in haste.
But Azure Valley nestled itself within loftier neighborhoods, and Elex's attempts to find real activity demanded a twenty-minute walk through heavily manicured gardens, ugly topiaries, and winding roads laced with overly long driveways. Sunlight pooled on the leaves where automatic sprinklers prevented their drying out in the late winter drought. Elex shaded his eyes against the lot of it and walked on, anxious to find real life amongst his impeccably dull socialite obligations. But the false idol symbols of exorbitant wealth crowded around him, suffocating him, bludgeoning into his head the life he was intended to lead - all dinner parties with bankers, housewives, business sharks and cretins.
Businesses began to sprout between immaculate houses, and Elex turned down the nearest cross-street he found. Old Town, the street signs read, and the picturesque, ornate sconce fixtures confirmed the name. The cobblestone street felt richly Victorian with the surrounding buildings, and one side of the side street offered a descending retaining wall for a highly forested backyard. The wayward youth cast it a glance, considered it for where it might lead, then decided against the potential trespassing charge. The disintegrated lion carvings fitted into the stone wall offered more of interest than errant woods, and he paused to investigate one of the more intact sculptures before he embedded himself further in the district.
The perpetual rush of city sounds enveloped him easily, and Elex paid them little heed while investigating the piece. Cars honked, traffic whirred, and people spoke in indistinct tones while Elex traced a few fingers over the carefully hewn lion's mane. He touched the nose next in curiosity, but a single yelp from further down the side street urged him to pause.
Black eyes darted toward the general direction of the sound, but he found no indicators to the reason behind the shout. Possibly a break-in, or coffee spilled on the lap, or any number of listing inanities that Elex could stumble upon. Still, he broke from his venture to investigate. He heard tell of terrorists in the night, of suspicious suited strangers taking to rooftops without any effort whatsoever. His father condemned such magazine articles as paltry fiction to draw the overactive imaginations, but Elex still yearned in his heart for confirmation of such stories. Each of the latest reads blossomed at the fore of his mind when he approached the end of the street, and such curiosity found reward when peering around the corner.
His position behind a large potted fern gave some cover to his inquiries. From there, he spotted an alleyway cutting between houses, likely intended for the afterthought carports put into the area. Some of the other side streets emptied out into the alley, but so much cover remained with retaining walls on the opposite end that the area sported great privacy. It was between two particularly girthy gardens that two men stood, and a woman laid on the ground. A cursory glance confirmed no movement, and her eyes fixated wide and sightless on the setting sun. Dead? Her crumpled, prone position hinted toward it heavily.
Of the remaining pair, the man stood dressed in a disheveled business suit. He recognized the cut from afar; Armani suits bore their own unique signature fit, and far too many visits to the tailors drilled such information into his mind. For being dressed so well, Elex imagined business as his profession of choice. A further scrutiny confirmed the man's familiarity to Elex, though he dared not breathe it. The girl on the floor suggested a daughter more than a wife or mistress, possibly Jezebel or Julia; her dress proved too long and too conservative for sexual interest. But the third man? Elex found himself delightfully stumped.
The third man looked more like an artifact from a fiction novel more than any dress sense Elex recognized. A feathered hood and shoulders, a tattered coat, and leagues of sinew wrappings threw Elex off his usual dressing game; the teen recognized no makers or even formed an understanding of the dress sense beyond tribal. His hand was wrapped in a falconer's glove, he knew, but the rest ran beyond mention. He couldn't possibly be Native American. Was he some kind of LARPer? No - Elex had to remind himself that he faced reality here, not substandard fiction.
But what came next caused further consternation in the teen. While he heard none of the hushed whispers rushing from the businessman, he watched keenly as the taller tribal man plunged a hand through his conversant's chest, and the other man yelped in abject terror. Elex's hand curled in the fern fronds to pull them from view as he leaned for a better look. No, he couldn't doubt what he saw - the man's entire hand vanished up to the wrist beyond the Armani blazer, and nothing indicated that his clothing stood open.
Out from the chest came a curious gem, bathing his hand in luminescent yellow. Elex watched as the jewel vanished into the pocket of the tribal man. The businessman slumped shortly afterward next to his presumed daughter. Elex wondered, was he just privy to a murder? When did withdrawing gems from the body become a form of incapacitation? Elex held his breath for a moment, waited until he was certain the remaining man busied himself in shouldering the inert forms, and approached in careful step.
Instinct prickled in warning about the coming question. Elex ignored it willfully. "What did you pull out of his chest? What did you do to them?" The questions came without the insinuation of wrongdoing, and instead bore genuine curiosity. He banked on it, heavily,
And was met with a near-instantaneous bladed gauntlet to the throat. The metal hovered so close that he felt the hairs on his body reaching out to greet it. His back met wall with a driving force, and upon impact, breath fled his body. Once his mind caught up, he felt his pulse hammer heavily against his avian ribcage. Elex knew not how to respond - or if he should respond.
The bodies were shed in a heap behind him, and Umber knew no hindrance in his movements. Redirecting an attack grew second nature in great lengths of training and Umber relied on such tactics heavily. Now, with his weapon drawn on the throat of the boy, he looked down at his intruder with callousness. "Are you a senshi?"
His voice shook, and all words on his tongue fell away before his breath delivered them. "What?"
"Answer or die." The hand bound into the collar of Elex's shirt tightened in mounting threat.
"... No."
"How did you approach without my knowing?" The eyes upon him remained unyielding, cold, and oppressive.
Elex caught his breath. The man pushed too hard against his frame, and Elex struggled to swallow down oxygen while they remained in such close quarters. The man above him was all tanned skin, feathers, and tattoos - and Elex found no sympathy in his gaze. He shut his eyes at once, and resigned himself to abandoning the struggle against his aggressor's superior strength. What was the use now? "My family says I've always been light-footed."
"No magic?"
"None."
The grip on Elex's shirt strengthened painfully, and the youth considered at once that his bones might snap beneath the force. He very nearly wanted them to, if only to break the suspense. But the question alone gave him hope - the mention of magic proved a gentle boon in these last moments. He thought that, if he were to die that day, he might at last know the existence of a force beyond modern mediocrity and stilted dinners. He hoped, and he kept his eyes shut against his aggressor.
The answer bought him no leeway, however. "You have to die for what you saw." He spoke clinically, matter-of-factly.
Elex grit his teeth. "Because I saw a man and his daughter collapse? I knew the father. He ran a franchise of gas stations with the same heavy hand that he used to run his family. His first wife took a late-night plunge and the second escaped a fiery marriage with his first and only son. Now he turns all his troubles on his workers while he tries to milk another heir out of his third wife. If this is how his life ends, who is there to cry about it? The wife who just inherited millions? Or one of the many daughters left without an abusive father figure? Some things are better left for the streets to tell."
A pregnant silence fell between them. Elex dared not open an eye. The man seemed to consider his words, and the grip that threatened to crush him loosened somewhat. Elex could breathe through the residual pain, could taste the sharpness of urgency on his tongue.
The boy resigned himself, he knew. Umber recognized capitulation in an instant; it manifested the same in humans as it did in dying elk, coyotes, rabbits. The body articulated when the mind lost hope. "Tell me how you know that."
He should have taken the boy's starseed and left him with the remaining casualties. These interrogations only wasted precious seconds where a senshi may happen upon him, or the police might grow curious about these latticed, secluded alleyways. Murder often proved the safest venue. Murder meant replenishing their stock of starseeds, and tying up all loose ends when confronted with a compromised starseeding. He could drain energy as he did with the first two, then end the confrontation by extracting the very gem that the boy asked after. Perhaps intrigue was what stopped him, or interest. Perhaps wishful thinking in that he might discover another lieutenant with which to repair their ranks.
Elex's mind worked feverishly to propel him through explanation; his words came quick and stark against the high stakes of his situation. "My family attends a lot of social functions. Dances, dinner parties, fundraisers. They buy into the decrepit fanfare of parties thrown for stroking egos. They always take me along to watch the grandeur devolve when too many drinks meet too many lips. It's easy to find secrets that way. It's even easier when you're just another part of the wall."
"And you've always been like that." The question was spoken as statement.
Elex nodded. He swallowed a heavy weight.
The hand against his collar shifted lower, and the pressure gave way. A blistering pain erupted in Elex's chest and his eyes snapped open, looking down with wild fear for what he might see. A nightmare revealed itself in how only a wrist protruded from his chest, and Elex knew with certainty that his eyes spoke no lies the second time. This man, this tribal hunter, forced his hand beyond his chest - not through - and Elex felt a pain as if his very heart was being squeezed. Soon, blackened lightning coursed down the man's arm and deep into him, where Elex struggled and fought against wracking pain. The hunter's gloved hand clasped over his mouth to silence noise. The youth bit the leather with enough strength to nearly crack teeth. He jerked and writhed and fought against the insurmountable form before him, and found reward only in the minute lessening of pain.
The pain did not extend into eternity, nor did he perish from it. The lightning fizzled into ozone sparks, and while Elex smelled blood in the air, he found himself weak but alive. He raised his hands to test the tremor and caught a wholly different outfit in his peripheral. He tried to speak, but words failed on his tongue.
While visibly taxed, Umber conducted himself with ever-present professionalism. "Tell no one of this. Meet me here at the same time tomorrow. If you want your answers, you'll show." The hunter withdrew his hand and straightened, readying himself for departure.
"Wait," the newly-minted lieutenant tried breathlessly, "what's your name?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow." His icy gaze never left the boy until he vanished without pomp.
And were it not for the change of clothing and residual pain, Elex would have considered the encounter a yearning feverdream. He panicked about his lack of school uniform and soon the strange set of clothing faded, and he found himself dressed for Azure Valley once again. Curiosity and an insatiable mind worked the events over at a hungry pace, and even with Elex's inclination toward the strange and fantastical, he found no comparable experience in his life with which to compare recent events. Not even Kolkata's godmen demonstrated such infallible magic as what he saw. Still, no strength remained to pour over the subject. He needed rest terribly. With a hand pressed to his aching chest, he retraced the long route home, having had his fill of adventure and exploration for the day.
