James Baldwin - Stained Glass

Over all the years I’d worked for Sergei, Rodion and Lev, I’d done and seen my share of horrors. I’d broken wards that sucked the life out of people, made a man spontaneously combust, and knocked my father’s brains out with a hammer. But when this girl looked up at me with nothing but feral, exhausted certainty, I knew that this was the limit. This was the line that I’d draw in stone, and anyone on the other side of that line was fair game for the rest of my life.

“Josie?” I dropped my hand and pulled the shirt away from my face, letting it hang around my neck. “You’re Josie, aren’t you?”

Her stare did not waver. She didn’t nod, or even blink, but a tremor passed through her thin limbs.

“It’s going to be okay.” I spoke to her the way I would a stray animal, checking behind me in case something had decided to use her as bait and set me up. “Just… hold on a couple more minutes.”

I sheathed the knife and ran my hands over the door, searching for a bolt, something to pull across or flip up. There was nothing that sophisticated. The gates were padlocked and chained shut. The keys weren’t downstairs, but after rummaging around near the bed, I found a cardboard box with tools, including a pair of rusty boltcutters – for emergencies, I guessed. It took every bit of remaining strength I had to snap the lock on the doors. Josie pressed in closer to the wall, clinging to it with her hands.

I crouched down at the entry to the cell, and held my shirt out to her. “My name’s Alexi,” I said, slowly. “Some people sent me to help you. Do you know the Twin Tigers? The people who ride the motorcycles?”

After a moment, Josie nodded, a single jerk of her head. Her breathing was quick, like a small bird.

“I will come in here, and I will cut that chain off. Here… cover yourself with this.” I motioned with the shirt again.

Slowly, she reached out and took it. She didn’t put it on: she hugged it to her chest as I went inside, rolling her eyes to track my position as I cut her free. The collar was fixed in place with a screw that was too tight to get out with my fingers. We’d have to deal with it at Strange Kitty.

“Josie, we have to go outside in the rain.” I slung my jacket back on over the holster. “I’m going to carry you upstairs, but if there are any bad guys up there, I’ll have to drop you. You just run outside, okay? Run for the car.”

She nodded mutely, sagging against the wall.

Josie looked up at me, the shirt wrapped around her body. “Where is everyone else? Did they cut them up?”

“I don’t know, zolotsye’ . But we have to go now.” I offered her a hand. After a moment, she accepted. Her fingers trembled against my palm.

Before now, I’d thought of the Morphorde as something blunt and simple. Demons flying at your face, monsters under your bed. People like Jana, whose Neshamah was damaged and crazy, or Lev, who was merely power-hungry. Committed misanthropes like Sergei and Nicolai. What I hadn’t considered was that some Morphorde, maybe most Morphorde, wore masks. Maybe they didn’t know they were evil, or maybe they could live two lives, one wholesome, one tainted. A man could walk into a spotless hospital with a clean lab coat and a white smile, and come home to… this.

As I expected, Josie could barely stand, let alone walk. When we reached the stairs, I didn’t even pause to think, to resent the contact or the responsibility as I swung her up into my arms, bundled her under my coat, and carried her out of Hell.

I reversed the car into the driveway besides Strange Kitty and all the way back to the garage entry, scattering bystanders loitering under umbrella stands and tarp marquees. The rain was still hammering down as I flung the doors open, collected Josie into my arms, and ran with her – limp and exhausted beyond consciousness – into the relative warmth and safety of the clubhouse.

Talya was in some kind of intense conversation with Zane on one of the sofas against the far wall, watching three of the Tigers shoot pool. When the door banged open, they were first up on their feet.

“Rex!” Talya cried out as I swept past the confused pack of Weeders and headed for the door leading into the house. “What is- oh my god.”

Both of them were right behind me on our way to the bunkroom. I lay Josie down on one of the spare beds, limp and unresponsive. She’d lapsed into a faint sometime on the way home.

I checked her pupils and her breathing, stripping my gloves to feel for her pulse. “She needs fluids and careful warming. Get me the first aid kit… I have a bag of saline in there.”

“Where is it?” Talya asked, her voice high and panicked.

“Here, Tally. I got it.” Zane was already pulling it across the floor from the end of my bed. The street surgery kit was far too large to fit underneath.

I worked quickly, vaguely aware that I still smelled like a charnel ground. I doused my hands in alcohol, pulled on gloves, and set up the needle. We hung the bag from the ladder leading up to the top bunk. I had swabbed Josie clean and was just sliding the needle into the crook of her arm when Jenner stalked into the room.

“Jesus Christ,” she said, out of breath. She smelled of liquor and cigarette smoke. “You found them? Where the living fuck did you—”

“Only one,” I said, concentrating on landing the needle in the vein.

“Oh God. Jesus fucking Christ.” Jenner crouched down by the head of the bed, one of her hands matted through her hair. Behind me, I heard the soft sounds of someone crying.

I tapped the needle, and a small amount of blood flushed back into the tube. I connected the line and opened the flow, and fluid began to wind its way down from the drip chamber. When I was sure it was working the way it was supposed to, I crouched back on my heels and let out a harsh, tense breath.

“’Research’, huh?” Jenner said. She was staring at me, her eyes hard and black.

“I told you. I hit up one of my contacts today.” My voice was cracked, breaking on every other word. “He pointed me to a dodgy transplant surgeon who recently started making a lot of money off children’s organs. I went there to pay him a visit, thinking I could get a lead. He was dead. There was… it… Lily and Dru’s murderer got to him first. Josie was in his basement. She was the only child in the place.”

“Those fucks. They knew we’d find him and they shut him up,” Jenner bounced to her feet, wire-strung. I could hear and smell a clamor of people gathering at the open bedroom door. “What about the others?”

“Two dead,” I said. I swallowed: my throat felt like it was full of sand. “The Blank boys. Moris Falkovich killed them.”

“What the fuck, Rex?” Jenner was pacing back and forth. “What the actual fuck is wrong with people?”

How could I tell her? That the men I knew – Nicolai, Petro, Sergei and Vanya – knew that car parts sell better than whole vehicles? That a healthy kidney was worth a hundred grand on the street? That at least one young mage’s organs, innocently charged with Phi, were being stripped and loaded into the sons and daughters of wealthy people, people who felt their children deserved life more than an anonymous stolen child?

I swallowed, trying to wet my mouth. “I took Falkovich’s computer. He had a computer in his office… it might have evidence on it. Whoever was in there took or destroyed all his paperwork. I don’t know how to search for information on the machine.”

“I do. I’ll find any files that are on there.” Talya sounded thick, her voice tearing like yellow paper in my mouth. “If anything was deleted, I can recover them.”

“Where on Earth did you learn that?” I knelt back, dry-mouthed and woozy.