Friday Fiction: Workings.
By Yva | March 19, 2010
((Things are coming to a head within the Wildfire Riders. Our villain plots and plans with her ever faithful co-pilot. Enjoy!))
“Reed, darling.” Maggie put her newspaper down and eyed the man across the room from her. His dark head was bent over an alchemy station, swirls of clouds erupting near his face, the smoke’s dark tendrils reaching for the ceiling. She tried to ignore the animalistic chuffs he made when something went awry, but it was difficult. He sounded more like a coyote tracking its prey than a human being.
“Reed . . . ”
Two vials clicked together in his wrack, and he snorted, his shoulders beginning to tremble.
“REED!”
His head jerked around and he whined, raising a shaking hand to his mouth so he could bite down on his thumb. His eyes flicked from her to the shadows, and he shook his head frantically.
“He’s talking to me, Mother. Talking in a thousand voices. I hear them and I . . . I need to listen.” Cocking his head to the side, he began to twitch, his fingers raking through his hair.
“I know, pet. Come here, would you? Mother has a favor to ask of you.”
“Yes, yes anything to please my mother.” He lumbered over, sliding to his bottom so his spindly arms could wrap around his skirts. She patted his head, suppressing her disgust at his unwashed state, at the way the oily dark strands clung to her skin when she touched him.
“Do you see this man?” She pointed to a picture of a man on page four of an old issue of the Dailies. He was short and sly, with dark beady eyes and a bald head. His scalp was tattooed with an odd twisting symbol, his left cheek scarred from ear to jaw. Over his black and white portrait the headline read “Mistrial Declared in Death of Stormwind Noble, Jones Free.”
Reed peered at the picture, licking his lips. “Yes, I see him. Is he an offering? He’d make a good offering. The shadows are so hungry, Mother. So hungry and I . . . I need to sate them or they’ll come for me. GODS NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN.”
There was a loud crack as Maggie’s hand met his cheek, almost hard enough to spin his head around. She hissed at him, grabbing his shirt collar, her face moving in so close to his that the ends of their noses touched. “I need you to listen to your mother, Reed, and do as she says or Mother will be very, very displeased. Do you want to displease me?”
“NO! No anything . . . oh it hurts and I love it so. I love you so.” He prostrated himself before her, his tongue snaking out to lick at the toe of her shoe, fingers circling her ankle in a death grip, like she could anchor him in this and all things.
“Good, now his name is Jones. Harold Jones and he owns . . . are you listening, darling?”
His ‘yes’ was muffled in the wad of skirt he had crammed against his mouth. He was sniffing the fabric like a dog.
“Good. He owns the shops in the back alley near the Pig and Whistle, him and his little . . . band. He’s a very proper offering. Ripe for the plucking, but one must be careful. He keeps his friends close.”
“Nnnnngh. I’ll kill the bleeders. Kill them all, and take him . . . gift him. A proper gift.”
“Good, just like Stokes, then, hmmm?”
She tugged the skirt from his mouth, cringing at his spittle now glistening on the folds. Her foot nudged under his chin to force his face up so he had to look at her. “You remember Stokes don’t you, dear boy?”
“Y-yes. Oh yes. I cut him because I loved him.” He moaned in rapture, writhing upon the floor, his dirty fingernails scraping in the crevices between the stones. “The shadow will swallow him whole, suck his essence, it . . . it will live in blood and grant me His power.”
“I know, my love, and won’t it be nice.”
“Yes. Nice. So very nice.” He scuttled to the corner almost like a crab, moving left and right in a zig zag pattern, looking like he had bones in places he ought not have had bones. The shadows welcomed him, cloaked him, oozing over him like a second skin as he began to murmur. The communing began shortly thereafter, Reed’s prayers for unearthly glory spoken in a tongue she could not understand, nor did she want to. There were some things even she would not do – embracing Reed’s god was one such thing.
She pulled a watch from her pocket, checking the time, her mouth settling into a thin grimace at the realization that half of the night had already passed by. To stay on schedule, to keep chipping away at Old Town’s crumbling infrastructure, she needed Jones gone before sunrise. The other four – Stokes, Barlenby, Fitzsimmons and Charnos – had already been done, offerings to Reed’s lurking shadows, which allowed the Phillips boys, Attindra’s crew, and the Wallace gang to rise. Replacing temperate, reasonable scum with savage scum who’d commit any atrocity in the name of a full purse forced Mathias Shaw’s hand. Sevens had to keep squeezing Old Town, trying to wrestle control away from the rising underbelly. Every new law, every edict, every extra night time patrol searching the dark corners for unlawfulness made it more and more difficult for THEM to function, which was exactly what she needed.
Distractions, she needed so many distractions right now, so the pieces could fall into place.
“Darling, can we pray later? Harold Jones NEEDS you now. He needs killing, love. Please.”
The request was met with a snort and a moan. “An offering now, yes. Of course. For Mother. Always for Mother. We love Mother.”
“I know, Sweet boy. I know.”
She never saw him leave the shadows. There was the quiet thud of the door as he slipped into the night, off to do her bidding, and she settled back into her chair. She pulled a notebook from the table beside her and skimmed the names, crossing Jones out. The next name caught her eye and she had to bite her lip to suppress her own rapturous moan.
“Oh yes. I’d forgotten about him.”
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