87 — End of Eternity

Snow dusted the stone path connecting the wrought-iron gate to the portico of what had once, briefly, been called the Thresh Estate.

The gate bore a large iron padlock, which was conspicuously free of the same ice that covered the surrounding balustrade. Manifested hands, both within and without, made short work of the mechanism. It was pulled free and discarded. My entourage of hands pushed the gate open for me. 

The path before me held an odd place in my mind. The memories were there, but they felt uncannily like someone else's. Even Obs regarded them with skepticism. As I made my way forward, the click-clack of my tall bootheels and cane echoed from the manor’s stone façade into the night.

I approached the front door, and closed my eyes. A hand manifested on the other side. My sense of touch was far more acute when not distracted by vision. My hand went to the base of the door, feeling with a feather-light touch, for a thin wire. I soon found it, fingertips sliding from where it had been affixed to the doorframe, to its broken end. It had been snapped.

I undid the deadbolt, and opened the door from the inside. 

The familiar mixed with the unexpected within. Another delegate had been living here after I had — possibly the one who had briefly acted as museum curator in my stead. The décor had changed, though much was now covered in large sheets. The layout, however, was immutable, and unforgettable.

The space was not silent. The tick of a large, recently wound pendulum clock overwhelmed the air. It wasn’t subtle — the occupant had not intended for their presence to be a mystery.

As I made my way to the central stair and ascended, my many hands fanned out in many directions. They opened windows, letting the chill early-winter air push away the dusty staleness. One climbed the building’s exterior, seeking the highest point. I kept another hand with me, manifested on my shoulder, holding itself there not unlike the way my real hand gripped the top of my cane as I walked.

The damage to the woodwork around what had once been my bedroom door was still evident. I pushed the comparatively new door open, and looked inside. 

A pang of disappointment struck my heart as I looked within. The room was of course nearly empty — the mansion was currently uninhabited after all — with the remaining furniture covered in sheets. I had expected to be stuck with some sense of melancholy at the sight. Instead, it was just a room that I somehow had memories of sleeping in. Worse, it held a lingering odor. A man had been living there.

I left the room that a version of me had once died inside, and returned to the foyer. As I descended I smelled something else — tobacco.

“I had expected you to eventually return here,” came a young man's voice. “We are creatures of nostalgia, after all. It will wear off after a few centuries. Enjoy it while you can.”

I followed the voice, and the scent, to the drawing room. A youthful man in an old fashioned, well tailored black coat and vest was seated. A faint stream of smoke emitted from a large pipe which he loosely held before himself.

“I see you've gone for youth this time,” I said as I walked to a large chair opposite his. My attendance had clearly been his intention. Two chairs had been uncovered, the white sheets folded neatly on a side table. 

I sat. I could see his eyes go to the extra hand on my shoulder. For an instant he seemed alarmed, but that faded to amusement, before the expression vanished.

“The austerity of age no longer benefits my present ventures,” Jossimer said simply. “Really you, this time? Not that entourage of yours?” His eyes once again went to the manifested hand on my shoulder.

I smiled. “Florence Starshine is her own person. She goes where she pleases.”

He smirked in a belittling way. “Congratulations on finally getting the knack for it. But, trust me — the companionship of automatons can only satisfy you for so long.”

“I think you’d be surprised at how autonomous she actually is,” I said in a playful tone.

“Charming play on words, but utter waste of your focus and concentration to allow it a semblance of free will. You’re operating at a fraction of your potential as long as you maintain it.” He snorted, and then took a puff on his pipe. Did he think the smoke would dull my senses? I supposed it was a game the two of us were playing — the hand on my shoulder filled the space with the scent of entourage.

He was doing his best to mask his entourage scent. It might have worked, but he had a giveaway. The figure seated before me had no reaction as the chill wind blew through the space.

At the uppermost point of the tallest rooftop spire of the manor, a manifested hand lifted up, and signaled to the skyline with simple gestures and signs.

Entourage here. Distracted. Proceed.

Kaite looked up in the dark space that towered above her. The cavernous interior would have been impossible to read were it not for the broken remains of a metal staircase that clung to a gap in the distant ceiling. It descended only two flights before it ended in broken, twisted shards.

The old military factory in the northern outskirts of the city felt big enough to lodge the Giant inside. Kaite would have resembled a gnat on the floor to anyone in the upper levels who peered below.

But she wouldn’t be spotted. She walked slowly, carefully, along an edge that she knew was a blind spot for the outpost hidden at the top of the long-abandoned structure. She could see the faintest shimmer of light coming from the opening. Very few knew that the condemned factory was host to a delegation meeting place. Whoever had lit the lantern was almost certainly the man she sought. He had, after all, called her here many times in the past.

She heard a single raven’s call. It was time to move.

She laid down her pack and pulled free a large coil of rope with a metal hook at the end. She ran her fingers over it, appreciating the craft in the metalworking. If she wished, she could have summoned up something like it, but there would be no entourage manifestations for this mission.

Carefully, knowing that the faintest sound would echo endlessly and give her position away, she threw the hook over a beam up above. It would be the first of many such throws. She caught it before it landed, and fastened it to a solid bar near the floor.

She swung her pack back into place, and began to climb.

“So, no more General Jossimer?” I asked, wondering what he was willing to give away.

“Just Michael, for the time being. Though I don't expect you to devote any time adjusting to the change. I don't intend for us to meet again within the lifetime of this avatar.”

“Then why meet at all? Why not go on with your hiding?”

He laughed, and strangely enough, it sounded earnest. It felt so odd to see and hear — had I ever heard him laugh before?  Was the younger body affecting his moods, or had the version of him I had known always been the act?

“You believe I've been hiding? From you, Sheam? I admit your actions and potential future actions have factored into my movements, but no. I've simply behaved as normal. The visibility of my acts as a general have been the anomaly. You have your late progenitor to thank for that.” He wrapped his lips around the stem of the pipe, and inhaled.

“I'm surprised to hear you call me Sheam,” I admitted. “I'm not used to respect from your kind.”

He blew smoke into a cloud that obscured his face. “Do not confuse respect for indifference, and do not forget that we are of a kind. Delphiné had been foolish, but I admit that she had been correct about you. You're a millennium or two behind in experience, but a Benefactor you are, and shall remain until you give up on this existence and allow yourself to fade into the darkness. I've only known you briefly, but I suspect your tenacity at remaining alive is at least a match for my own. Clearly it exceeded Delphiné’s.”

I waited for him to finish before speaking. “I'm still waiting for the explanation. We noticed activity here. The clock had been wound, so you didn’t aim to hide the fact. Clearly you then noticed my arrival a few minutes ago, and decided to reveal yourself. If you're just going to vanish again for another eighty years — or however long you intended for that body to last — why? Why this, why here, why now?”

“The only answer of any relevance is why this. To plant the seeds of our eventual alignment. All Benefactors do align, given enough lifetimes. We know there's others like us out there, so we eventually give in to the desire to consort with our own kind. Call it loneliness. Call it boredom. Many reasons are given, and most dishonest. What we all have in common however, is an instinctive need for continuity. We know that we may find that among one another.”

I narrowed my gaze. “You imagine that I'll grow so weary of a life filled with love and variety that I'll eventually come crawling back? To you? Really?”

“You act incredulous but you can not comprehend it until you've seen a half dozen generations come and go. We all eventually crave stability — consistency. We long for a world to inhabit as eternal and unyielding as we. One day, you will see.”

The hand on my shoulder tapped her fingers restlessly. I learned forward, resting on my cane. “You know I'll never stop hunting your kind. You know your kind can be defeated. So many already have.”

“Perfect,” Michael said. “Weed out the weaker of our rank. You do us a service.”

“Of course. I forgot. You all hate one another. But if so — why do you band together?”

“We, Sheam. We all hate one another. Better to have a familiar hatred than a perpetual stream of chaotic nonsense. I knew what to expect from Delphiné and Timothy and from your little pet, Grégoire. One day I'll learn what to expect from you. One day I may even honor you by allowing my indifference to evolve into hatred — when you're worthy.”

“You keep talking like you expect this isn't the end. We're beating you, and do not intend to stop.”

“And you imagine that you know what a delegate is, how they behave, all of the symptoms and the effective treatments. The current iteration represents a failure of the imagination. I know you've diluted yourselves into thinking that your flexibility and spontaneity give you an advantage. You imagine that we're incapable of the same. Good. I'll allow you to think that for now. 

“You will win your current war without ever realizing that the next had already been waged, and you've already lost. Then you'll try again. You'll lose then, too. Around then, we'll likely speak again, just as we are now. By that time you'll already be operating as we are. By then your goals will be stability and continuity. By fighting us, you'll be furthering our goals. Then we'll wage another war or two, and then you'll come around. Ask Grégoire. He'll remember. It's often how it works.”

“You act like you can see the future, and yet—”

“Yes, yes — here you'll insist that your very special and unique form of rebellion is immune to the process I've described. You'll point out recent short term victories as proof. I've had this conversation before, Sheam. I've had it with Benefactors who lived long, storied sagas, who are now dead and gone long before you came into the tale. The cycle is self perpetuating.

“There are things about the world that you wish were different. You shall work to make it so. You will achieve victory for yourself. This new condition will then become your new normal, which you will then fight to maintain. You will build a power structure designed to shore it up. Thus, before you realize it, you’ve become exactly like the rest of us. Your act of resistance to it ensures your role in it.”

“You're proceeding from a flawed assumption,” I finally said, after he seemed satisfied. “I'm not rebelling to create a new world order that suits myself. I'm not interested in continuity or consistency. There's no imagined perfect future I'm clinging to — that I will turn back on my own ideals to preserve once I think I've obtained it. I'm here for the chaos. I'm all about the mess. My goal is the raw, spontaneous, untamable beauty of it, for everyone.”

“So, anarchy then? As if that's not been tried before.”

“Yes, why not? Anarchy. Let’s call it that.”

“You will grow weary of the barbarism,” he said, his disapproving expression growing to match the one I was used to seeing him wear.

“Now who has the failure of imagination? But you are wrong about even more than that. You're wrong about things you can't comprehend. I can't explain them to you. You talk about loneliness in a way that gives yourself away. You've never felt companionship. You've never felt connection. You hide yourself away. What about Coolish and Blanc? We know you’ve not made any attempt to contact them.”

He took a long moment with his pipe before answering. “The three of them and I have a mutually beneficial no-contact agreement. You will understand, in time.”

“You make my point for me. You build your society around people you hate, who you do not wish to be in a community with, but refuse to seek it elsewhere except in a context where you’re the undisputed authority. That’s why you’re not a general anymore, is it? As far as the national military organization understands, both General Jossimer, and that replacement officer of yours, whatever you named him, died by the Giant. You can’t stand the thought of working your way back up the ranks. It’s general, or nothing.”

He hadn’t touched his pipe for a long moment, and was no longer looking at me. I kept going. “You won’t let yourself be any of the ways a person needs to be in order to build real connections. Worse, you've never understood yourself well enough to give anything of yourself with unbridled, raw, vulnerable ferocity. I know this for certain because you can't have experienced that, and still think the way you do. All you can see is the inevitability of self-isolating, flavorless hatred.”

Michael scoffed. “And yet you're already falling into the pattern. You separate yourself from your underlings to come see me — an equal, whom you hate. Do not imagine we are so dissimilar.”

“Goodness, have I separated myself from them?” I said, mocking surprise.

“You come here to a place that symbolizes your ties to the delegation, alone—”

“Oh, fuck, oh no, I'm alone?” I said slowly as my smile grew.

Outside, another of my hands signaled.

Next phase.

Kaite carefully, slowly, shimmied through the dimply lit opening above her.

She was now in the managerial tower of the factory. Half of it was oriented towards the interior, walls of glass tilted to give a better view of the cavernous space, allowing dictatorial eyes to intrude upon every corner of the work space below. The other half gazed outwards, allowing domain over the vast railyards that allowed freight in and out of the structure. Fuel and parts went in, machines of war went out.

The man she was looking for had set up in the latter half.

Still silent as a mouse, she peered through a keyhole into the space. Kaite could faintly make out a figure slouched down in a large chair, his head silhouetted against the very lower edge of a large circular glass pane that acted as eyes out into the railyard. He was surrounded by objects too difficult to resolve through the narrow opening with so little light.

She heard a raven call twice.

Kaite realized that the door before her would likely cause too much noise opening, and that she was behind schedule. She searched her memory for another way into the chamber. She half remembered a moment when she had been hastily ushered out of that room. She and her handler had been interrupted by someone who couldn’t know about her target.

It clicked into place. Her eyes scanned the ceiling of the tall corridor which separated the tower’s two large observation chambers. She quickly saw it, a small ledge, leading to an alcove that wasn’t actually an alcove. A mass of pipes and conduits protruded from it like a nightmarish sea-creature, connecting the managers to hundreds of gauges and pace-keeping mechanisms positioned throughout the factory.

She had been smaller the last time she had slipped through that space.

Carefully, she discarded her pack, and began to climb once more.

Michael jerked backwards, caught off guard by a small, shiny object that had suddenly appeared within his near vision. He jerked a second time as it suddenly moved, wresting the pipe from his grasp, impaling it against the wood of a cabinet. When his eyes refocused, he would see a long, thin, shining object puncturing the pipe through the stem. It wasn't a knife — it was a razor sharp key.

“Kaite?” he said suddenly, his voice almost hopeful.

Instead, Flo appeared sitting atop the large backrest of my chair, legs crossed, nude aside from black eyeliner and her golden piercings. She eyed Michael like a wildcat, ready to pounce. I half expected to see a long tail swishing behind her.

“Oh, just your entourage,” he said with a sigh. “You're making my point for me. If this is your idea of not-alone you're more far along than you realize.”

I broke my silence. “You could not fathom how I feel when I'm with her.” I then kissed her hand.

Michael averted his eyes, attempting to dislodge the key from his pipe, and free it. “Attempting to shock me with your predilection for indecency and threats of violence? I am not so easily befuddled as the servicemen you killed in cold blood that day.”

“That’s not how I remember it.” Jaegré’s voice clearly caught Michael by surprise. 

He jerked in the direction of the new voice, his hand going for what was likely a small firearm hidden inside his jacket. He saw the tall man with thick black hair and beard, wrapped in a heavy embroidered robe that coiled asymmetrically around his body and draped into a long skirt. 

Jaegré, unfazed by the threatening posture, walked across the room in front of the seated ex-general, and easily pulled the pipe free from where Flo had nailed it. He lazily dropped it into Michael’s lap, before moving to stand by my chair, opposite Flo. “I remember you flailing just as helplessly as your little tin soldiers were. Hey you two. Thought I’d drop in. Door was open.”

Michael glared and slowly produced the pistol. He hadn’t noticed Jaegré’s approach at all. We were two for two on that.

“Who the devil are you?” Michael demanded, the cracks in his cool deepening as he readied the weapon. It looked like it could only fire one shot at a time. “And what point are you trying to make, Sheam? That you have friends? That you’re not alone? I see a tawdry puppet and a man who will be bones in fifty years hence.”

“Oh, you don’t recognize me. Hey, ladies, he doesn’t recognize me,” Jaegré said with a chuckle.

Michel pulled back the hammer of the pistol with his thumb, and leveled the barrel at Jaegré, while keeping his eyes locked on me. “I can picture the faces of each-and-every within our organization, and all I need to know is that this man is not among them. Our business is secret. You know that. You have seconds to explain yourself and this breach of decorum.”

My various hands signaled once more.

Very distracted. Go. 

“We know they left you behind,” I said, a hint of compassion in my voice. “The other Benefactors took the lodge, and fled. They didn't wait for you. They didn't tell you where they were going. Coolish and Blanc won’t talk to you. We had a feeling you'd seek me out. Flo has a good read on people. You gave yourself away once before — you couldn't help yourself. You came visit her when she was a prisoner in your camp — a captive audience. 

“No, Michael. The loneliness you speak of isn't an inevitable fate of our nature. It's just you. Only you are this desperately lonely.”

Kaite could see the small command center laid out below her. Piles of radio equipment formed a horseshoe that surrounded the seated man. There were maps, large and small, cluttering the space, like wallpaper in a child’s room. Tidy stacks of books and binders dotted tables and desks.

The distant raven called out three times.

Kaite was ready, but her timing needed to be air-tight. Even a second’s gap could give the enemy the advantage he needed.

She let out a long breath.

She had been waiting for this one for a while.

With silent precision earned over a decade, she dropped down.

She deftly undid a small leather strap holding a knife, an ordinary metal knife, in place on her forearm, and held it at the ready.

The Benefactor Michael Jossimer — his true flesh and blood body — sat limp in his command chair, his mind fully occupied elsewhere. She had never seen him this young before. He had already been fifty by the time of his tenure as her handler.

He would never be that age again.

She leaned in close, knife poised in her left hand, and lifted her right to his face.

Kaite snapped her fingers.

“What is that supposed to mean to me?” he said, trying to sound bored. “Is that meant to insult me? Get a rise out of me? Drive me to anger? I’ve been through more than you can fathom, girl.”

Just then, a raven flew in through an open window — the very thing the scent of my manifested hand had been masking. It landed on Flo's shoulder, and made a rapid clicking sound in its throat.

We knew what that meant.

“Oh, no,” I said, leaning forward even farther. “That wasn’t elocuted to get a rise out of you, but this is. Did you know that Delphiné offered me three gifts? I won’t bore you with those details, but I will excite you with report of the fourth gift — one she hadn’t realized she had bestowed. She placed it, my inheritance, into my hands like a radiant gemstone. It was the only of the set I accepted. And now, I am here to re-gift it.”

“Fantastic,” he sighed. “Are you a poet now?”

“She explained exactly how to kill a Benefactor.”

Michael's eyes flashed with a sudden realization. Those eyes then went dark. The form before us took on the lifeless visage of an empty entourage.

Michael’s eyes came alive, and quickly grew wide with awareness. His body went rigid as he saw Kaite looming over him.

Barely a breath passed.

Kaite’s knife moved in a blur, opening his throat.

He gagged, eyes wide, only able to process what was happening for a split second.

But he did process it.

An instant later, his body melted away, leaving behind only a coppery residue in its place.

Satisfied, Kaite wiped the splash of blood from her cheek, and looked up through the massive window. She made eye contact with a raven clinging to the top of a tall pole, standing amongst the rail lines.

The first domino had been tapped.

---

A lavish apartment sat nestled close to the city center. The family that lived there afforded a standard of living far exceeding their means.

Generations ago, their forebears had struck a deal with a mysterious gentleman who had come calling. He would ensure that the family lived in comfort for perpetuity, provided that they took in a lodger.

He would be quiet. He would want for nothing. He wouldn’t even need to eat. He would sit silently, still, for days, weeks, and eventually years at a time, in a private room, where he was not to be disturbed.

In all that time, no-one had even come asking after the lodger. He remained an uncomfortable family secret, a ghost that haunted a chamber that was to remain sealed.

That was, until that night.

That night a second mysterious individual came calling, bearing a face and attire that left the head of the household uncertain if sir or madam was the proper honorific. They promised to finally answer the family’s questions about the pact their great-grandfather had made with the mysterious lodger.

That night, the door was unsealed.

A Benefactor in his thirteenth century needed not disturb the universe to leap. He could slide into the new body with it scarcely taking notice. The physicality and energies of the space around the body that now held the unbroken chain of consciousness shivered as a new equilibrium took shape. The space surrounding the new, real, flesh and blood Benefactor was spared the torment of a massive outward physical impulse. There was no mess when Michael Jossimer leapt.

The mess was only delayed by a breath, for a raven had just called three times.

No sooner had Michael nestled into his new form, did a thin unbreakable cord cross his throat.

If he had had time to turn around, he would have proven his previous assertion at least somewhat true. He might have recognized the face of the person who was now holding him in a garrote, but he would not have used the correct name, even if he were able to speak.

Michael struggled fiercely, but Natalie No-lastname held the garrote tight. They were pushed back against a delicate cabinet, smashing the glass front, before kicking away, pushing the struggling Benefactor face-down on the bed. 

The bed was shoved against the far wall, cracking the legs of an equally delicate table, and allowing an ornate glass lampshade to fall, shattering bits of colored glass all over the back of Michael’s head, and Natalie’s hands.

They shook with exertion, teeth bared, trembling as their heart raced. They were well aware of the technique, but it was the first time they had done it in person. A puppeted entourage would not have worked in their place — the Benefactor would have smelled it coming, even as an uninhabited entourage vessel.

The seconds ticked by. It felt like an eternity to Natalie.

There was a fluttering outside of the single dark window that connected the lonely room to the outside world. The drapes had been drawn, but there was a gap wide enough for a raven’s eye to peek through.

Muchael stopped struggling.

Natalie allowed themselves to breathe.

The body melted into a coppery goo.

---

A smoky speakeasy clung to the underside of a hulking mass of stone and iron, out in the city’s vast sprawl.

A password was given. The door reluctantly opened. The bouncer didn’t recognize the face of the woman before him at first, but when he did, his eyes lit up, and his voice took on a deferential tone. She was not in her own turf, but the fact that she knew the password showed that she was an invited guest. Even if she hadn’t been, she was still to be respected.

The heels of Rémi Meribor’s two-toed boots clicked as she walked through the space. The bartender, a small elderly woman with cheeks just as red as Rémi’s lips, recognized her more readily, and shot her a knowing nod.

She ordered an obscure brand of whiskey. It took the bartender a minute to find it in her cabinet. The bottle had never been opened. Rémi purchased the entirety, and had the bartender pour her a glass, neat.

She scanned the room, and spotted a young man in an old fashioned black jacket and vest seated alone at a secluded table in the back. She asked the bartender about him, and was told that he had been coming almost every night for the past season. He sat and drank and smoked alone, scarcely said a word, often didn’t move a muscle for hours, paid his tab, and left, like clockwork.

She pulled a small ornate case that had been tucked between her belt and corseted top, and pressed a panel on the side. A single cigarette popped out. Before Rémi had raised it to her lips, two flames had been offered to her. She accepted the light from the bartender, and shooed away the man who had suddenly appeared at her left. He was just as quickly forgotten.

Rémi Meribor exhaled slowly, and smiled, savoring the moment.

Thin windows peeked out into the street, level with the paving stones. Rémi kept her eye on them as she sipped. Finally, her vigil was rewarded — a raven landed, and then hopped into view behind the thick, dirty glass.

She couldn’t hear it, but she could see its beak. It called three times.

In a smooth motion, Rémi rose from her bar stool, strode over to the seated man, and pulled one of her four pistols from its holster hidden beneath her many-layered coat.

The speakeasy clientele recoiled in shock.

Right on cue, the loneliest man in the bar, Michael Jossimer, looked up, eyes suddenly filled with life, and then fear.

He looked down the barrel of her gun.

Rémi winked, and sent a bullet shattering his skull.

A slick coppery substance sloshed onto the floor.

---

Beyond the northern reaches of the city, farther than even the factory, was a great hollow wall set into what resembled a ravine, and machines that had once been used to divert one of three large, raging rivers. That was long ago. The riverbed had long since run dry. The wall, and the machines, remained.

Inside, catwalks criss-crossed a gulf of empty space above rows of turbines. These were the oldest of the machines. The river had once flowed straight through the wall rather than be diverted by it. The turbines had once, long ago, powered homes.

Tony Carmichael knew all of that. He also knew that the man seated mere meters away from him had been born at a time when all three of those rivers flowed through Rivton. Could Michael Jossimer have had a hand in the attempt at diverting them? Had he had a hand in seeing the rivers run dry?

Tony had no way of knowing. He did, however, know of the blood on this man’s hands accrued only within his comparatively short lifetime. There were cities, entire countries, that he’d never be able to visit and meet the people of — ancient cultures that had been reduced to ash and glass as recently as half a year ago — unfathomable counts of lives lost. Tony was incapable of understanding such cruelty, yet he knew that it was true.

If Michael had had his way, the only thing anyone would have ever known about those lost peoples would have been through their plundered objects, and small plaques bearing lies propped up in a sham museum.

Tony could see outside, to the north, through giant sluice gates. The land in that direction was barren — spoiled by human handiwork. He knew that it was once different. He had seen paintings, lush with green. He had seen maps.

For now, Tony focused on his assignment. He felt deaf, cut off from the others without his com’ask, or any other radio equipment. 

But he had seen the black bird through the sluice gate. He knew that he was far from alone.

Michael had somehow made a small living space in a broad junction between several catwalks. It was carpeted. There was a bed, a table with a large gas-powered lantern, and a sturdy, sealed bookcase filled top to bottom with neatly organized volumes. Tony took some comfort in the grim work ahead knowing that when he was done, those books would be liberated and put to better use in the new museum — the Circle, and its library.

Michael would contribute to it after all.

Tony took a breath, steadying himself. He knew that the continuous wind that flowed through the space and sent the catwalks into a constant groan and rattle would mask his approach. He had come prepared with a blunt instrument, but he realized that he would not need to use it. He saw how easily the chair supporting the comatose Jossimer-shaped entourage could be tipped off balance. He saw how brittle the metal of the guard rail had become over the centuries.

The raven called.

It was his turn.

Jossimer’s entourage became his true self with a shudder.

Tony pushed with all of his strength. 

Just as he knew it would, the guard rail snapped like a dry twig. The flailing, shocked former general tumbled into the gulf, his body quickly cracking against the upper edge of a turbine. An instant later it was just a splash of residue.

---

Lorne Swann had been the daughter of a butcher. Her father had generational pacts with those who raised herd animals far to the south of the city. They, and families like hers, helped satisfy the seemingly limitless appetite of the city.

But she was no longer part of a family of butchers. In the blink of an eye, she had lost everything. Just six short months ago, a general, bearing the flag of Annulia, the country she called home, chose to rain death upon an ordinary district. It was once not unlike dozens of others across Rivton. Those who lived there had just sat down in their homes for their midday meal.

He had explained why for all of the following day and night. She couldn’t remember the words. All she could remember was being seated at the tail of the table, her standard place as eldest since her mother died. In a flash, her father and brothers and sisters alike were replaced with a wall of white. She had been pushed backwards through the window behind her, landing with only a sprained arm.

In the time since, she had learned about a man named Emmett.

She learned what Emmett stood for and what people like him were doing to fight back.

She met him. She trained. She was given tasks. She completed them. 

She became reliable, even trusted, even though she was only nineteen years old.

Then she met his trained ravens. Then the jobs began to grow more complex.

Then she was given a new trainer — a woman named Kaite. She was incredible — inspiring. Lorne wanted to be just like her. She wanted to be better than her. 

The regimen became grueling, and relentless. She was repeatedly pushed nearly to the breaking point. She persevered.

Then she was given her first real assignment. 

She killed for the first time. It was a businessman, who dealt in the buying and selling of land. She was told he was a delegate, and that he collaborated with the general, who had been his most loyal customer.

The murder felt like nothing to her. She had felt far more compassion for the animals she had once slaughtered for food. She believed that she would have to kill a million times before it would match what the man who she hunted deserved.

Finally, she was given the job she had been picturing in her mind over and over since the moment she decided that she could fight.

She followed the instructions to the letter. She went to the rows of warehouses at the designated hour. She scaled fences. She cut locks. She had memorized the map and squeezed through cracks.

Inside were dozens of corridors lined with storage units. They seemed to go forever. Each one represented a person — a history. Each hid away treasured heirlooms or forgotten collections.

It didn’t remind her of what had been taken from her. She didn't need anything to do that. She thought about it every single day.

She found the one she had been instructed to breach. Anxiously, she looked to the rooftop rafters for any sign of one of Emmett’s trained ravens.

She saw it.

But she knew it was not yet time. She needed to wait for three calls.

Her fingers tensed around metal cutters. She would not be able to breach the padlock on the storage unit’s shutter without alterting the occupant. She would move when the third call came, and not a breath sooner.

Could he breathe in there, she wondered? How often did he come out for food and water? How long had he been hiding? Did he feel isolated, trapped — alone?

She hoped that he did.

She hoped that he was afraid.

The call came. Three.

In a flash, the cutters bit at the thick metal of the padlock. She had practiced hundreds of times. It was no match for her.

She pulled the shutter open, and in the dim light of the small torch attached to her chest harness, she stared into the eyes of a shocked general. She saw what she had been yearning to see.

He was terrified.

In a flash she was upon him, knife from her father’s shop in hand. 

Arcs of blood streaked across the room as she plunged it into his chest over and over.

And over and over.

And over.

But then, to her confusion, the body was gone. Satisfaction over having finally killed the man who had ordered the attack that killed her family and destroyed her life was broken by confusion. Where had he gone, and what was the strange substance that stank of copper?

She would need to ask Emmett.

---

The entourage sat, still as death, eyes like a corpse.

Jaegré and Flo both stood at the ready. I could almost feel the tension from their muscles affecting the air around us.

Emmett, his mind within the raven perched on Flo’s shoulders, also tensed.

Emmett emitted a click from his beak.

Click, click.

It was the falling of dominos, one by one.

Seconds passed.

One, two.

Seconds creeped by, each one an excruciating eternity. Only Emmett had eyes on all corners of the operation.

Three, four—

— five.

The entourage then jerked to life — but no longer an entourage. It was Michael himself, in the flesh, gasping for breath, eyes wide with terror, and far, far beyond his limit.

He hadn’t planned to come back here. All of his backups spent, he certainly tried to manifest a new body, somewhere safe. But, his body had sought the path of least resistance reflexively — a survival instinct.

Jaegré was the first to move, capturing the immortal in a vice-like grip, one arm around his neck, the other gripping the youthful head of hair. They both dropped to one knee as Michael struggled.

Flo pounced. She slid close, her eyes in his eyes, fingers around his chin, her face close enough to kiss him.

She gestured with a flourish and a thin, rapidly spinning shard of metal appeared in the air. A second flourish, and it stopped, its fine point hovering just out of his field of view.

His wide eyes shook as they darted from her, straining to see to his right, eyes searching for the razor sharp object, as if seeing it coming would help. His jaw strained and shrugged, but Jaegré and Flo both held it shut.

He had already said enough.

A third flourish. The metal moved, faster than the eye could see, crossing through Michael’s skull, temple to temple.

Life vanished from his eyes in an instant.

Jaegré did not loosen his grip. Flo backed off slightly, watching the body.

It melted into coppery goop.

Jaegré and Flo both looked up at me, startled, disappointed, but I lifted my hand up swiftly, “He’s close,” I simply said, my eyes closed.

My hands were everywhere, positioned at every door and window. They were sensitive. I could feel any disturbance in the air. I waited. I focused.

“Got him,” I quickly said.

Hands sprung to capture the swiftly moving figure who had been trying to slip through the kitchen exit. He was naked — the body had only existed for a few seconds, and he didn’t have the strength to manifest an outfit for it.

The three of us moved quickly, dashing to the kitchen. I sacrificed a little pain for a bit of speed. 

We arrived to see a dozen of my hands, crawling over his body like spiders, pulling by my unshakable will, dragging his struggling newborn form away from the back exit.

Flo had manifested two rough, jagged shards of metal above each hand, both spinning in place rapidly. Jaegré looked over to me. “Got this?” he asked.

“Think so,” I said, eyeing the struggling, naked man as he fought desperately to free himself of the dozens of small, feminine hands that slowly dragged him towards his fate. “Wait, he’s—”

Suddenly there were two hazy, shimmering figured in the room with us. They both lunged for me. Jaegré moved fast, arms wide, catching each by the throat, holding their flailing, clawing hands away from my body.

Michael pressed his advantage with my moment of surprise, scrambling to his feet, and bolting for the door — body still covered with my gripping, tugging hands.

Flo vanished from my side. The two spinning blades remained, hanging in the air.

She appeared on the other side of him, arm outstretched, palm forward, catching him in the chest, letting his own speed knock the wind out of him. As he staggered backwards, my hands renewed their grip, fixing him in place.

I could see through her eyes as she pressed her open palm over his heart. The two metal shards rushed to Flo’s new position, zipping and twisting to avoid me, Jaegré, and the two flailing entourage. They converged on Michael Jossimer, tearing through his chest cavity, though his heart, exiting into Flo’s waiting hand on the other side, harmlessly absorbing into her body.

The two shimmering, hazy shapes faded to nothing.

My many hands released him. I let the body fall. It hit the wooden floor with a reverberating thud.

Flo crouched down, her nude form splashed with blood, her wide eyes filled with tense anticipation.

The body did not melt away, just as Delphiné’s hadn’t.

I allowed myself to breathe. My body felt almost numb from the tension.

We had done it. It was over. He was gone.