Jon Grimwood - redRobe

Dancing flashes of light they were, that blazed and then went out, one after another, like neurones shutting down.

Being brought back to life was the second worst thing that ever happened to Axl. Though no one told Axl that resurrection was what they did and Father Declan Begley did a televised meeting with the NYPD specifically to deny it.

A small Latino officer from the NYPD took Axl’s statement at the hospital, recording everything on vid and in her notebook. There was also a little vidSat set to permanent hover near the ceiling of Axl’s room at Mount Olive but no one told him who owned that, though Axl figured it had to be the priest, because he glanced in that direction more than once as he sat beside Axl’s bed and held the boy’s hand.

It didn’t take long for Axl to work out the code. No squeeze meant it was okay to answer, while fingers tightening on his wrist meant don’t remember— and that was fine, most of the time Axl didn’t.

No one got charged with any crime. The sergeant, a good Catholic from Queens, lost her notebook and somehow managed to park her Sony vid next to a magnet by accident. BodyCount on NY access led next morning with a Glasgow couple molywired outside MOMA, three Hispanics mangled by a renegade garbage crusher and a chef on Mott Street who went postie and slaughtered five First Virtual databrokers on a night out.

None of those made Sunday’s download of the New York Times and no site even mentioned a street kid pulled out of the lake in Central Park, probably because such occurrences were just too common.

Three days later, the second lead on CySat’s New York Tonite was the tragic heart attack of Cardinal Bambinetti. A day after that the local godslot led with a pithy but pious soundbite from his successor, a sleek-suited Vampyre in Armani glasses.

The girl ahead of him was good, Axl gave her that. She moved like a cat, though had there been katGirls on Samsara Axl felt sure he’d have heard about it.

All the same, this one was a natural, blending into the drizzle as she skimmed a darkened house trying the door and pushing against windows, all the while carefully avoiding spades, hoes and other rubbish left out to rot.

Whatever the kid wanted wasn’t falling into place. The door was locked and all the windows bolted. Having checked the place, she went round it again to make doubly sure. Professionalism or desperation? Axl wasn’t sure until the wind brought him his answer in a long low litany of swearing.

‘Fuck.

‘Fuck.

‘Fuck.’

Her words weren’t harsh or even that angry, more resigned like bolted windows was all she expected to find in Cocheforet. And then a door clanged in the distance and simultaneously they both froze. When Axl looked again the girl was pressed flat to a wall, well hidden in the shadows.

‘Thought you might want this,’ said a woman’s voice from behind Axl.

Ketzia had a cloak of sorts folded across her forearms. It was badly-made from greased wool and stank worse than a wet ram.

‘Thanks,’ said Axl.

‘No problem.’ The woman stared off into the darkness, head cocked to one side as if listening to the rain. ‘Figured you’d be cold. Not like Colombia, Samsara isn’t. . .’

Not like… Colombia?

Ketzia nodded, something close to doubt in her eyes. ‘Colombia, San Salvador, Whatever. . . It’s good what you speak, but it’s not real Spanish. Not like I speak. I knew you weren’t really one of us the first time you opened your mouth.’ She lent forward and touched the scars on his face. ‘But these are real. And Joan had followers elsewhere…’

‘You tell your husband?’ Axl wasn’t sure what relevance that had to anything but asked it anyway.

‘Did I tell… ?’ She looked into his face as her fingers caressed the edge of the empty pit where his other eye should be. Slowly Ketzia shook her head. ‘What would he know?’ She said dryly. ‘Leon still thinks he can go home someday.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘I don’t know who lives in my house now but it isn’t me. Besides I’m getting to like Samsara strange as that might seem. The valley’s safe. We don’t need guns or armies ... Or killers,’ her glance was suddenly fierce and she rocked on the balls of her feet, as if ready to go.

‘You were a reformista too?’

It was the wrong question. But what stopped Ketzia from swinging on her heels and leaving was a noise nearby, soft as the passing of a cat.

‘Maybe,’ she said loudly. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘Nothing.’ Axl smiled, really smiled. He could do friendly when necessary and sometimes even when it wasn’t. Without making it obvious, he took a step sideways to stare over Ketzia’s shoulder into the darkness behind.

‘Well then,’ said the woman as she lent in to lift the cloak out of his hands and drape it round him, so that her fingers rested lightly on his shoulders. ‘You should learn not to ask those questions in Cocheforet’. And then she stepped in closer still.

That was the last talking either of them did for a while. The woman’s mouth tasted of buttered tea, inevitable really. Her lips opening hungrily as her hands locked behind Axl’s head, pulling him to her.

Axl wrapped the edges of his borrowed cloak around Ketzia, swallowing them both inside its warmth. She had her eyes shut. Habit maybe, Axl decided: somehow he doubted if it was real passion. And then he realised that the woman probably couldn’t stand to stare too closely into his battered face. But all the same, Ketzia’s tongue snaked against his and she bit at his bottom lip, suddenly pushing herself against him.

She was kissing all the while, softly now as if unaware that her hips were grinding hard against his. And then Axl bit into her neck and Ketzia shook free, pulling her face away from him. But it wasn’t to stop, only to set the rules.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘No blood.’ Very slowly she began to undo buttons to reveal a silk ASui blouse beneath her top’s rough felt.

The blouse had been smart once, self cleaning, but whoever donated it to the ‘fugee clothes fund for Samsara had burnt out its power or done something stupid like wash it in water, because now the silk was stained with dirt and rotted beneath the arms. While the delicate skeins of optic that threaded through the lace were completely lifeless and unlit.

The fastenings worked, though, being minimalist and mother-of-pearl. Not allowed to bite her neck, Axl knelt in the mud and fastened his mouth beneath one full breast instead, biting softly on the underside where it joined her ribcage. And then, while Ketzia was still shivering, Axl’s mouth slid up to close on a dark nipple. The circle around it was puckered with cold and passion, and Axl swallowed the whole circle into his mouth until she was pulling him tight against her.

Her thighs were hard with muscle and her breasts were full, but her body was already losing its fight with gravity. She was, what? Thirty, thirty-five, maybe only late twenties? Axl had no way of knowing except ask. Maybe later… Resting his head against one breast and letting the other overflow his fingers, Axl shut his eye. He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d fucked who hadn’t been a street whore, but there were a lot of things in everybody’s lives they couldn’t be bothered to remember.

So instead Axl stood back up and concentrated on brushing his fingers softly around the puckered aureole of her left breast, never quite touching the taut nipple until her still-clothed hips were grinding into him hard enough to bruise. And then, with her arms locked tight around his neck and her mouth hungry against his, Axl dropped both his hands to her bare breasts and gripped hard, squeezing the swollen flesh.