Safora sat in her room waiting for Laena to go to the library. Pretending to be too exhausted to go with her to the paper halls.
Yawning theatrically while her friend started packing her things.
“You coming, or what?” Laena asked while putting on her shoes.
“Ugh, you never went to the library this late before.” Safora fell backward onto her bed. “I can’t go with you today. I am too tired.”
Safora snuck a peek through the gap in fingers she had placed over her face. Her friend was rolling her eyes at her! “Stop being so dramatic. It isn’t like I need to be worried while walking in the dark anymore.”
“But I just want to tuck myself into my blanket and go to a cozy sleep.” Safora declared.
“Fine, I am going to the central library, so if boredom finally wears you down you know where to find me,” Laena said.
The girl on the bed threw a pillow after Laena. “Begone, evil fiend. Go haunt the halls of the school. I cast you out of the pillow fort,” Safora cast her friend out of her realm.
The pillow promptly returned and hit her in the face, and just like that she finally was alone as her friend had fled from her realm.
Safora got up from the bed and skipped to her closet. She put on a sweater and some long winter pants. Putting on gloves, her hat, wrapping a scarf over her face up to her eyes, and a warm jacket, Safora almost fell on her butt when she hastily tried to put on her shoes while standing.
Instead, she hovered in the air putting on her shoes with a smug grin on her face.
Before she went out she turned off the lights. Opening the window, she looked around. Winter was great, Safora thought as she zoomed out of the open window. Putting the piece of wood from the window sill over the closing mechanism and gently closing the window without snapping it shut.
And away she flew. She quickly climbed to a height where people would not notice her high above the skyline of Pliada City.
Flying over the city for hours, slowly weaving and changing directions. It felt so natural but somehow never lost its magic.
She did some loops, spins, falls, and a few steep climbs. The cold wind prickled her skin just a tiny bit.
She found her way to the inner city. Gliding into the big Safe House tower, Safora watched the people below toil in preparation for the new year’s celebration. The fireworks and stages are being installed on either side of the river. The city was preparing for another orbit around their star.
The teenager watched as time went on and people slowly began to leave their workstations. The shadow of the thick walls kept her hidden from prying eyes entirely. Pliada City had yet to grant money for spotlights up to the tower's full height.
City Hall’s Clock ticked past the eleventh hour, and the streets were almost completely quiet. A group of five men and one woman came out from a restaurant across the street. Four of them left merrily joking with each other and being silly like boys of her class were when they were joyous and thought themselves unobserved. The woman left with a burly man. The men’s tattoos left a foul taste in her mouth. Even from up in the tower, she could see their red face markings.
Safora flew after the four men walking seemingly aimlessly through the inner city. She was hoping they would try to rob someone. The longer she followed them the more apparent it was that they, like every other citizen but herself, were just enjoying the few holidays before the new year's celebration.
While following them she made out another pursuer behind the group. A woman with a camera followed them through the streets. After some time following them through the inner city, Safora saw the woman giving up and walking off in a different direction. Immediately the attitude of those four men changed. They checked for two more streets if they were still being followed, and then they sharply changed course for a warehouse by the river docks.
The teenager hovered over the warehouse thinking about sneaking in to see what they were storing there, but she refrained when the bell of City Hall began to ring out. The twelfth hour had finally come.
She climbed higher into the night sky overlooking the vast city.
Safora imagined the fireworks going off, forming a frame with her fingers pretending to film the city, imagining the flurry of colors exploding around her, showering her in glimmering lights. Sparks that no longer hurt her. She had experimented with a candle and found while her nerves still felt the heat, her skin was entirely unbothered. Of course, she tested this in secret, or else Laena or Markus would have declared her insane.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!” She screamed against the winds up in the sky. Roaring her liberation just beneath the clouds above, she flew as fast as she could manage. Back to the dorms, back to her room. The acceleration felt intoxicating.
Morbolfr stood with his men at the meeting point. The warehouse’s dim night lighting kept the place appear properly inactive for the nighttime.
His crew was waiting for the rest of his men to be part of their next operation. His organization took the business from all clans.
The family heads had created his place of business to manage the sometimes messy politics to the most peaceful ends.
The four men finally arrived. ‘Late,’ Morbolfr thought to himself.
“So we are finally here,” Morbolfr greeted them all.
“Sorry, boss. Had a little something on or shoes. Had to walk a bit through the city like drunken fools till it fell off.”
Morbolfr nodded, professionalism was everything in this select group. “Good, good, wouldn’t want you to drag some dirt into our meetings.”
Walking over to the crates, he readjusted his tie. “Alright, we have a few things I need to be taken care of.”
Sitting down on his box he started to read his note block. “First, Klingr, ask one of your boys from East End to get a clean piece to Baker Street. Preferably something which doesn’t have half the neighborhood rushing for the windows and phones. Speaking of phones,” stretched his neck, “Come Tuesday, I believe there will be maintenance on the phone lines in Gem Grinder Street, Menny could you see if that is right? Say roughly 10:30 in the morning. The man needn’t stick around, just make sure all is in order between the post office and the corner of Gem Grinder Street.”
Morbolfr grinned and wiggled his eyebrows into his select circle. “Dolf, one of yours needs to pick up a car from out of town. Something lowkey would be good. He can park it over at the Kent’s Mall parking house first level outer corner away from the mall on the street side. Tell him to mind the number plate and take good care of them.”
Bobbing his head while getting into the rhythm of a flawless orchestration, Morbolfr flipped the page. “Raphael, you get us a provisional number plate from your side of town. Glosser, your man meets Raphael’s man near Wilker’s and puts those on the car in said spot. Our new crew members. One of you should better not get into an accident with one of Kell’s boys. Since your clans are on very bad terms, the police would just hate it if you had to discuss your differences right then and there. We wouldn’t want things to get heated, now would we? I will call you guys about the balloons on 1st street on a certain pay phone across the cinema.”
Getting up he could almost see things happen before his inner eye. “Probably around noon. Right on top of the crossroad by said cinema. You’ll loudly argue. Be heated, be mean, but remember to keep your mothers out of things and this is all for show. This is all just clean good fun, yeah? Okay, I am just making sure here. Maybe exchange notes on the conversation. Just in case you aren’t too confident in your on-the-spot swings. We are organizing a very important party, after all.”
Once again, a page was flipped. “Ideally, you block that part off on the side that leads to the mall for obvious reasons. Half an hour to one hour tops. Borno, I think you could pick up our garbage for disposal in the usual place.”
Looking around he got nods of reassurance from all sides. ‘Splendid.’ “Pay is the usual rate. I’m gonna call the pub to fit the right man into the job. Last thing, I believe I got two more jobs to give out.”
He looked at the last two men measuring them. “We need a car on 12th street, the same treatment as the car before. One organizes it. The other gets the license plates and switches them out. Leave it ready for a fast start. Wires ready, key in ignitions, I don’t really care.”
The men looked at each other. One nodded to the older one to pick his choice.
“Alright, I will organize the car. Where specifically should I park it?”
“There is a pay phone outside of Old Steamers. Right there would be great. Before 9:30 am on Tuesday.” Morbolfr supplied. “Make it a family car,” He switched his attention to the younger man. “Mourn, the switch at 9:35 at the latest. You know how to do it, right?”
The man gave him a nod. That was enough for Morbolfr.
His face lost his grin and cheery spark. “That is all then. No question?” Morbolfr nodded. “Then go on scram, be busy. We’re on the clock here.”
The men left without another word. Simply nodding at each other with stern eyes. The fun part was over now it was time to get it done.
Morbolfr waited till he was alone then pulled out the stone bowl from behind his favorite seat. He pulled the pages and then four more for good measure. Knowing that it should be enough to make finding out anything from indentations in the paper impossible.
Watching the pieces of paper burn without haste, Morbolfr pulls out a small box from his inner jacket. The leaves and herbs in it went into the burning bowl. Taking the sheathed thick needle out of the small casing he pricked his finger and added a single drop of blood. “To a job well done.”
Not many practiced their old rituals as diligently as Morbolfr, but the clan heads and he upheld them.
Atla Jaest sat up high in the warehouse roof’s support beams. Her special camera had taken brilliant photos of the meeting the mobsters had.
She grinned to herself. All that effort to make those dirtbags believe she had been observing only one restaurant paid off. She had figured out their meeting spot a while ago, and to throw them off their game she had for a while stalked a very specific bunch of individuals.
These oafs thought themselves clever in leading her around town, and after some time Atla pretended that she had given up and stopped following them. Only to double back in a wide arch, so she could get to the warehouse in time to witness the meeting.
She had voice recordings just sitting behind one of those crates waiting to be taken home and prepared. The photo of Morbolfr Krone, practicing his heathen religious ceremony after plotting to murder someone was just the icing on the cake.
It took a while before the boss of this arm of the mafia finally left. Atla needed some time to get safely down to the ground. After retrieving her equipment and confiscating the stone bowl from behind its hiding place, she bailed out of there through a window in one of the offices after she baited one of the guards into searching the warehouse for a distraction she created.
Like a shadow at night, Atla was gone with all the story she could ever want.
It was late in the night, and despite her generous dinner, Atla was now accompanied by her growling and howling stomach in the inner town of Pliada City.
She knew a place that had around-the-clock service. Because even night owls had to eat, so their business was always brimming with creatures of the night. Police officers, Firefighters, and the EMTs all got their fix of the hungry right there, so it was the ideal spot to go over her battle plan for the long weekend she had ahead of her.
The walk to Yee old grand Diner was long and she had all the time to think the situation at hand through. First, she would need to contact the police anonymously and hook them up with the information to prevent whatever horrible retaliation the Clans planned for their competition. She would also need to sell the story to a newspaper without getting her name attached because the last thing she’d want was to repeat her mistake of being too close to the scene of the crime.
She had promised herself that there would be no repeats of La Heumö in her career.
The neon lights of the diner appeared after she had walked for fifteen minutes. As the diner door closed behind her a whole world of noise flooded around her. Sources talked as though there was not a worry in the world.
People waiting to take food back to their workplaces and others sitting at a table having a normal meal. Nightshifts had a way of being bad for the mood but inside this diner things usually became lighthearted and even slightly upbeat.
EMTs and police talking over two tables. Firefighters and policemen banter with each other in the line for the pick-up food.
All the night shifts converged one way or the other in this large diner.
Atla sat down away from the windows somewhere in the third row, close to the kitchen door and the pie display. One of the waitresses came over and greeted Atla with a merry voice, “Good evening, there. How can we make your night a good night?”
“The cheesecake looks great. I’ll have Oolong tea with that. That would be it for the start.”
“Okidoki,” The waitress squeaked in her very chipper voice, and off she went on another round through the diner to get more orders.
Atla pulled out her back and furiously began writing notes. Two versions of the picture to develop in her little workstation, keeping the negatives though, copying the voice recording tape, two times. Remember to label the original and give that to the police. Which newspapers to call to get a good price? The Tribute or maybe the Ulundi Times? She would call the Ulundi first to make since they usually gave good commission, but if they weren’t forking over her asking price she would hang up and go to The Tribute for a bit cheaper. That way she could make sure that the next time she came to the Times with a story they wouldn’t balk at her price tag.
She vigorously began to draft out the rough story and article. This would get her a new front-page story. A bang to start her off after the first few minor hits during the last year.
