Jak Koke - Clockwork asylum

Horror filled her then, and she looked around the circle of mages, her glance finally falling on Oscuro. He stood over her, his face beaming, like a proud father.

An attendant was ordered to take her back to her room while the rest of the Gestalt finished the ceremony. And as she stumbled the way to her small room, the realization of what she'd done, of what she'd become, hit her.

I am just like Oscuro. A monster.

She had betrayed the light, had let her addiction consume again. And now, there was something more. Some dark power had entered her, had taken over that secret place in her where her true self belonged.

She looked around the room that she had once found so comfortable, where she had always found solace. Now, all she saw was tainted by hatred, as if the very things she had found good about this place had turned foul.

Is this how Oscuro sees the world?

Lucero thought it might just be. Everything good seemed disgusting, everything dark and putrid seemed lovely and desirable. Her mind told her to surrender to it, accept it.

After the acolytes left her, Lucero staggered to her feet, still quivering with the power of the girl's life energy. She stumbled to the small foot locker at the base of her bed and tossed the contents on the floor. After a frantic moment of searching, Lucero held the large carved dagger aloft to the light.

It had been a gift from her teacher on the day she had been accepted to the Gestalt. The blade was edged with orichalcum, and it was virgin. The dagger had never tasted blood, and it brought a grim smile to her lips to think that its first victim would be its owner.

Lucero knelt on the floor next to the cot and positioned the blade so that the butt of the handle rested on the bed's wooden frame, the tip pointed to the ceiling. She positioned her chin against the tip, steadying the blade with her hand. All she had to do was relax her posture and the razor-sharp tip would drive straight through her throat and up into her brain.

As she knelt, fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. They weren't tears of fear or self-pity, they were tears of sorrow. "I'm sorry," she whispered to her memory of the music, to the light. "Because of me, you have suffered, and I can't bear to let it continue."

Just as she started to relax her stance, and felt the tip penetrate her skin, the heavy door at her back swung inward.

No!

She tried to throw herself on the blade, but found herself frozen in place.

Lucero waited there, her blood dripping down the knife's edge, and could see him out of the corner of her eye. His dark hand reached beneath her chin and lifted her head.

The knife fell free and dropped to the bed.

His narrow dark eyes held a glint of amusement, and with his free hand, he stroked his thin beard. "My child, you have borne so much. But it is time. You are healed enough for you to return. Body and soul."

Oscuro smiled, and suddenly her heart was glad. She couldn't understand what she'd been thinking. How could she be sc selfish as to try and take her own life when there was so much work to be done?

Oscuro helped her to her feet and cleaned the blood off her scarred body with a damp towel. He smiled all the while, and never said a word about how he had found her.

She realized then that he had expected her attempt at self-sacrifice. That he had perhaps orchestrated it. Now, the foul part of her soul, which had spread to engulf her, was retreating to a small core.

"You are the balance, my child," he said. "The crux, and I hold you very dear."

She found herself admiring him even more, liking the way the dim light cast its shadow over his sharp features. He dressed her in a robe of white linen, and then stood before her holding out his hand. Beckoning for her to join him.

They walked from the room, and as they headed for the altar, Lucero wondered if perhaps Oscuro had planned the whole ordeal. She wondered if maybe he knew that the spot on her soul had become so dark during her blood orgy that she would be unable to return to the bridge. So he had planned her little attempt at redemption just to further his own designs.

She wondered just which thoughts in her head were her own and which had been placed there by Oscuro. Then there was no more time for wondering because they had entered the altar room, and it was time for her to return.

Like her master had said, there was so much work to be done.

Ryan sat next to Nadja in the Draco Foundation Mitsubishi Nightsky as they drove past the front of the Watergate Hotel. The area was surrounded by a huge crowd of people-tourists, mourners, media hounds, and even worshippers who considered Dunkelzahn a martyred saint. The blast crater was a massive hole in the center of the boulevard, blocked off by five-meter-tall hurricane fencing and protected by federal security agents.

Above the crater hovered a prismatic cloud that glowed with energy. It writhed and morphed, roiling like an undulating droplet of oil on water, sending out a rainbow of light that was visible even in the middle of the afternoon. Ryan knew that the fabric of physical space had been torn away here. When Dunkelzahn had died in the explosion, the barrier to astral space had been eliminated.

The limo continued its slow and arduous way, through the crowd and up the circle drive to the hotel doors. What a mess, thought Ryan. As gala events go, the intimate gathering at the hotel was a news coverage nightmare.

When the tridsnoops had found out that all press was barred from the gathering, they began spouting about freedom of the press. When that didn't get anywhere, they tried to infiltrate the private luncheon as everything from security personnel to wait staff.

Unfortunately for them, Carla Brooks was in rare form. She seemed to be everywhere at once, personally checking the staff and going over every detail with her hand-picked security squad. She was ruthless in weeding out anyone who didn't belong, and even snoops she'd worked with before, people who thought they might have some pull with her, found themselves shut out.

Jane-in-the-box had quashed three attempts by deckers to pirate the security-camera feed, sending some artistically nasty bits of IC back along the line to fry the runners as a warning. By one o'clock, the word was out. This party was off limits. If the news services were going to get anything, they would have to wait on the steps of the hotel like everyone else and take whatever prepared statements the party's attendants were willing to give.

Needless to say, this slotted off more than one self-important investigative news team, and the mood out in front of the hotel was getting ugly by the time Ryan and Nadja rolled up to the front door in the Draco Foundation Mitsubishi Nightsky.

Ryan stepped out first, immediately flanked by several of Carla's security personnel. Ryan caught sight of Matthews standing guard up near the double glass doors of the entrance. The old man gave him a secret grin.

Ryan never thought his disguise-complete with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and three glued-on datajacks on his temple-would fool anyone who knew him personally, but he still didn't like having his picture taken. The slight changes were enough to make a bystander pass over him without a glance, however.

To the tridsnoops lining the carpet that rolled up to the door, he was just another Draco Foundation heavy, guarding Miss Daviar. He wore a simple black tuxedo that fit him in a way that didn't let him pack any heavy hardware. The only concessions he'd made were the Walther PB-100 pistol strapped to his right calf and a miniature camera hidden in the third fake datajack. He was on a remote feed, straight to Jane, who would be monitoring him at all times.

As Ryan forcefully cleared a small space on the sidewalk, Nadja stepped out behind him. He could almost hear the collective gasp of the people back home watching. She had pulled out all the stops today. Dressed in a ruby red gown flown in from Paris, she was adorned at the neck and wrist with flowing strands of natural pearls.