Music: https://open.spotify.com/track/5RR0dw4yB4VvyALi6vOOFL?si=6e02fecdeb9b4ce5
It’s not safe to talk here
The walls are listening
The line is so clear
Almost feel your skin touching my skin
So push the light switch
Spark up another cigarette
Breathe in slow, slow, slow
Explode, explode, explode
The swamp steamed with decay beneath a gravid, golden sunset. Foul drifting strands marbled the wine-dark water. Below the rustling grasses and floating scum, fetid shapes bumped and bobbed. The woman slid into the fen, hissing as the mud oozed between her bare toes. The water licked up her legs, warm and rancid.
“Furtha’.” the boat pole slapped between her shoulder blades. A cicada chorus lifted their voices as she stumbled deeper. She writhed away from the sharp wood to look at the ragged figure on the dock. Her hands were fluttering fish beneath the surface. Water black as ink between the webs of her fingerbones.
“How much further?” she shuddered.
“All th’way.” The decrepit creature instructed. The end of the boathook stabbed into the hollow of her collarbone. Pale shoulders vanished into the murk as she submerged with a gurgle. Beneath the surface there was only darkness and bursting bubbles on her face. Her toes had drifted away from the bank. She kicked against the current as it tugged at her hair like a petulant child. Scrabbling limbs found purchase in the mud of the bank and she pulled upward towards the dock and air.
The first blow landed on the crown of her head as she surfaced. The second smashed across her cheek and tore the jewel from her nose. The wood cracked loud as a gunshot and a flock of spindly egrets rose, affronted, from the weeping trees into the goldenrod sky. There was no third strike. She dropped with a splash and did not rise again, dark tresses fanning out across the disturbed water from her downturned face. The drab personage on the dock waited, brandishing the remains of the splintered pole. Minutes passed. Cautiously, the swamp sounds returned. A dark scaled shape burbled in the water, tugging at the body, causing it to dip beneath the scum that swirled around the woman’s loose and drifting limbs.
“Backoff!” the spindly figure leaped from above into the slower-moving shallows, slapping the surface and wrapping gnarled fingers around one colorless wrist. With a grunt, they backed out of the pool, heaving the woman’s body onto the bank. A reptilian snout bumped against a trailing ankle and the swamp-dweller was quick to jab with their splintered pole til it retreated languidly with a show of teeth and malignant hiss.
“Take ‘er to the slab.” They directed at the man leaning against the shack at an angular slant. “Ah ah!” One emaciated arm wagged at him. “Don’t ya’ put tha’ evil look on me. Rememberin’, I gots yer darlin’s locked in m’box, Mista’ Logan Bishop-Creed.” They let out a bonafide cackle (who does that? he thought) and sloshed past him into the creaky structure.
The man lowered his glare, strode down the shore and crouched over the woman.
“Hey, hey.” his voice more rough and harsh than the hands that flipped the body over. “Raj? Rajah? Are you still with me, or have you gone down below?”
Her face was a smear of mud from the bank, and he brushed it from her mouth with calloused thumbs. Blood dripped dark and heavy from one torn nostril above purple lips. She didn’t move.
“Haste haste.” croaked the hag from the doorway in a tone that made him keenly aware of the empty holsters on his hips. “Wait t’long and she’ll be remembrin’ naught from this lesson at’all.”
Yet he hesitated.
“If you’ve changed your mind about this, I suppose sinking now would be a good way to signal such.” he mused, staring down at the mostly-probably-dead woman called Rajah. A bubble of blood slowly trailed across the cupid’s bow of her lips. Logan sighed. “As you wish.” and with a smooth motion borne of long practice, wrenched the body across his back with a tug and twist. He rose and strode on long strong legs to the door, his companion lolling boneless across broad shoulders.
“Where do you want her, harridan?”
“Mind yer tongue.” aforementioned harridan snapped, pointing at a rough hewn table that ran half the length of the ramshackle cabin. “Tha’ll do.” He was rather glad they hadn’t indicated the filthy looking bed tucked against the back wall. At least the table had been washed clean by rain falling through the hole in the roof above sometime in the last week. With a heave he flipped the woman from his shoulders onto the mottled-grey wood, paused a moment, then shrugged out of his long coat and tucked it over her blue-tinged body gently.
“Pfft.” The swamp-person snorted a laugh, “She won’t know th’ difference where she be now. Move ya’self and yer gallantry over tha’ and stay outta m’way.” Up close they seemed little more than sun-burned skin stretched over a rack of bones, clad in what looked to be almost entirely netting and rope. Clumped and clotted hair caught up in a mess of sticks and wire above yellow-mud eyes in a walnut-shell face that seemed ageless and genderless in the way one only achieved after living and dying so many times one ceased to know the difference. They shouldered past him with a shove and alighted with spry levity upon a stool at the head of the table. Knees drawn up above their waist. Back curved, vulturous and hunched, they deposited a bottle of whiskey onto the table with a thunk.
Logan hitched one hip upon the side of the table and watched with drawn eyebrows as the hag-teacher placed one hand on each side of his companion’s head. Fingers brushed along her face where a purple bruise now darkened her hairline. Long moments passed. He reached out and lifted Rajah’s wrist, searching for a pulse with the caress of a gunslinger pulling a trigger, smooth and slow. There was nothing, only cold dead flesh.
“She’s gone.” He growled.
“Is tha’ so?” The necro-witch crooned, eyes closed, fingers moving in slow circles across the Vegasian’s scalp “Ya’ townies all th’same. Think ya’ know wha’ death looks like jus’ because yer ma’ shot yer da’ once or twice in fronta ya’. Ya’ know nuthin’ of how deep true necrosis can go.”
His guns and sword may have been locked in the trunk near the door, but his knife was not. It was in his free hand and at the creature’s throat in one motion.
“I would be happy to show you exactly how deep it can go.” Logan drawled. “What sort of teaching is this?”
The target of his blade opened reptilian amber eyes and pulled chapped lips back over brown sharp teeth. Eyes raked over the ink etched into the skin of his face as though reading his biography. Logan Bishop-Creed. Husband. Widower. Shepherd. Trigger-puller. Hero. Killer.
“Th’only kind th’matters.” They rasped with satisfaction and, ignoring the knife at their throat, grasped the nearby bottle and upended it, splashing whiskey across the bloodless face below. Mud and blood ran in rivulets and spattered on the dirt floor. “Stop frettin’. I’ll stick t’ th’deal she made.” Their croaking voice lowered to a sing-song whisper. “Spirit calls t’spirit.” They crooned to the dead girl.
Raj’s pulse leaped hard and fast beneath Logan’s fingers as her body bucked on the table. Bare heels beat a tattoo against the wood as she sucked in a wet and rattling breath then spat forth black water and a scream that started low in the gut and rose higher and higher and higher.
“Let go or hol’ fast, Baywalker. Now she sinks, an’ if ya’ try to be her anchor she’ll take ya’ down with her.”
“Nowhere I have not been before.” He said grimly as Rajah’s shriek filled the room. It seemed to go on and on and the light in the shack dimmed though the heavy southern sun was still sinking, dripping honeycomb rays through the snaggletoothed trees outside. His vision was closing in now, the bottle of whiskey barely visible between him and the pale form arching on the table, but he could smell its fumes and feel the vibration of that inhuman, banshee scream. His head spun and he dropped his knife hand to the table to steady himself. The swamp-witch’s voice rose into the air with the heavy ozone crackle he associated with psionics.
“We dive now!”
And then all was dark.
Please don’t stop
Be mine in a carpet made of stars
I close my eyes and dive in
Please don’t stop because I’m scared to
Please don’t stop because I’m scared to
Someone was in her head.
Rajah felt the entity moving, trespassing, pushing through her thoughts as one would push stacked boxes in a dusty attic. She thrashed against the intrusion, but in this place she had no body, no force. She drifted through her own mind, helpless and impotent, as invisible fingers trailed across the chords of her memories.
Sorrow. Triumph. Anger. Relief. Loss. Emotions burst forth as each was plucked, a rhapsody of feeling overlaying the melody of remembrance.
What shall we pick? A voice rasped somewhere behind her eardrums. Distantly, she felt her body on the table, the automatic rise and fall of breath, but whoever was in her head was holding her beneath the surface of consciousness and she could not rise. Ah, the swamp-witch. Rajah thought, and the entity emanated a grouchy grunt in response. Ya’ label as witch tha’ which ya’ do not understand, it chastised. Then, ahhh this one seems vintage. And she felt a sharp tug that made her heart stutter painfully.
Out of the darkness a shape rushed towards her, bright lights unfolding like a house of cards tumbling in reverse. Rajah slammed through its surface and fell to her suddenly corporeal knees. Beside her stood the death-teacher, grey and mud-spattered, hunched aggressively against the bright and garish colors of the room around them. No, not room, caravan tent. Vibrant dyed fabrics stretched overhead, illuminated by an oppressive sun. Hot, dusty wind whipped past their ankles. Sacks of goods were piled against the fabric walls, stamped with the figure of a blue serpent on the pale canvas. Logan slumped against one of these, hat pulled low over his eyes, armor gleaming in a ray of sun. She stumbled towards him, shoved his shoulder gracelessly til he groaned. Sat up and looked around.
This is not the venue I had in mind for our reunion date. Logan’s mind-voice felt groggy where it brushed up against her own. She could sense him now in the greater-space of her mind alongside the intruder’s presence. A sensation of a flash of copper and swift water – like a coin at the bottom of a fountain.
Oho, so he did survive submersion. The crone beside her critiqued. Then, Don’t fuss a’ him, girl. It’s startin’.
The caravan flap lifted and a sharp-featured woman stepped into the memory, turquoise earrings swinging beneath dark hair pulled back in a braid. Her bright blue skirts were dusty, chiming with the bells sewn into the fabric, shoes split-toed, soft and silent. The beauty of her youth had long since mellowed into a pleasing worn maturity, but those eyes were still sharp and calculating. A face Rajah recognized as well as she did her own, having seen it most days of her life before she left her mother’s caravan. A man followed her in. Well-dressed in black and gold and shades of crimson, he was not dusty, but shiny and sleek in his expensive tailoring. Hat in his hands, tight on the brim. Mouth a hard line in a darkly handsome face.
“Leyla I’ll recognize. She has the breeding.” The man grated as they reached the center of the room. “Keep the other.”
Her mother spat in the dirt, “They’re both yours, born the same day, Fremont.”
“My physician has examined them both, and she assures me she is not wrong. One has my true blood, the younger is of your ilk. I’ll not take her to Vegasia.” The man’s tone rang with bored authority. “Don’t worry about your chips, Venetia. I’ll still send your payment.” He mocked.
“They’re sisters. Twins.” Venetia’s voice rose, angry and lilting, “I’ll not see them separated. Take Rajah as well, even if you won’t recognize her officially. She can learn how they live on the Mile.”
“I’ve snakes enough in my household, thank you.” Fremont’s words froze the air. “Better to remove one now, while they’re both young enough to forget it quickly. Leyla Bellagio will want for nothing, and I’ll not have my daughter remain in a merchant’s caravan.”
“You spent plenty enough of your own time here once, as I remember.” The woman’s fists were crossed in an angry X, “Didn’t seem to think you was too good for it then. Too pure to crawl with the snakes.” She uncurled one arm and reached out to brush the cuff of his sleeve.
Silence stretched between them as the fabric above snapped in the wind.
“That was a decade ago.” Fremont replied crisply, “I was stupid and young. We both were. I have left my foolish days behind.” For a moment he hesitated.
“I suggest you do the same.” His fingers tightened on his hat and he spun on his heel and left. Venetia’s shoulders slumped for a moment before she straightened with a shrewd expression and followed.
“Then we need to negotiate the payments…” She called after him.
Their voices faded.
From behind the cargo bearing the Blue Serpent logo a child stepped forth, hair tangled in a flyaway braid. Eyes wide in sharp-featured face that stared out at the desert beyond the door. Beside Logan, Rajah sucked in a breath. The Baywalker watched the scene silently, hand reaching out to land on her wrist. The child ducked under the side of the caravan and disappeared and the memory collapsed with her exit, drifting down around them to compress into a small neat pile of color in the teacher’s palm. Logan and Rajah stared at it mutely. Such a small, fragile thing. Palpably emanating confusion and loss.
Delicious. The necro-witch’s approval echoed in the empty space of her mind, and then with a horrible rending feeling they lifted the memory to their mouth and ate it. The spot of light vanished behind those grey chapped lips.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Rajah howled, the loss sharp and aching.
You promised payment. The memory-devourer shoved at her with a sharp psionic jab and Rajah’s resolve burst and fled along with her form. She drifted once more weightless and frail in this not-space. Penetrating fingers resumed that waltz across her thoughts, poking and prodding.
Let’s see how many we can get through before you learn how to kick me out. That’s what you wanted, right? How to control your power? How to talk to the dead? To learn from the best? Well watch and learn. The concepts are much the same. Of course… you may not remember after. A horrible laughter echoed behind her temples.
Now, what morsel do we want next? That one was a bit dusty…
So push your fingers in
Come on and touch my frightened heart
Bring your quiet mouth closer
Come apart
I want to smash through
Smash through this moment ’til it’s gone
Just want to have you
That’s all, that’s all, that’s all
The third memory collapsed. The necro-witch opened their toothy maw and once more the scene faded from view, leaving Rajah with only the faintest trace of excitement and exaltation. What had it been about? She couldn’t remember now. Something about an old retrograde standing beneath a tower… She screamed in frustration, throwing her mental self against the intruder. Another anomalous blast tossed her to the side and she drifted, stunned, through her own subconscious. Logan’s presence drifted with her, uneasy at the scene, a quiet rage building in the parts of her mind that felt like him. Perhaps he wasn’t really here. Perhaps she was dying on that table and he was watching, Rajah mused, and wondered why the thought didn’t fill her with panic.
Time stretched around the holes in her memory and she worried at them the way a tongue worries at the hole of a missing tooth. She was losing the delineation of where she ended and the others began. Her lost memories called to her from the belly of the devourer and she too was slowly devoured.
Have ya’ figured it out yet, little corpse? How t’ fight me? The intruder taunted, psionic fingers darting along the folds of her thoughts like a librarian flipping through the drawer of a catalog. Rage. Lust. Curiosity. Pity.
Tha’s not one I see often. The hag paused. Ya’ don’t seem th’pityin’ type. They made their selection and the memory spun up around them full of shadow and neon lights. The bleak cells lining King Sinatra’s Way sprang into view, deep in the shadow of Luxor and the bustle of Vegasia at midnight. Rajah stumbled down the avenue behind her memory-self, now a young woman, tangled in the faceless crowd moving towards the Strip. Pedestrians clustered on the far side of the street, away from the arms sticking out of the cages, away from those desperate faces crying for mercy. She tried to shy away, to stop moving through the memory, but the emotions sucked her in and she was tethered in the wake of memory as it turned towards the cells.
Wot is this place? The teacher-turned-tourist-turned-torturer craned their neck upwards, taking in the obsidian pyramid outlined in scarlet floodlights towering over their heads. Speak corpse-girl.
Gone now. Rajah ground out reluctantly. We stand before the cells of those condemned to die on the steps. The Damned. She remembered these cells. She’d spent enough nights in them. Purged now by fire and blood.
I have only heard of this abomination. Logan muttered by her side. If there is hell, beyond what we make ourselves, this place will fill the role nicely.
“Please, please.” They swung towards the man who called out. Silver eyes in a once-tan face, hollow and pale after extended imprisonment. “I go up tomorrow.” He pleaded. She could taste his fear, see the blood beneath his fingernails where he’d clawed at the walls. Terror rolled off him in waves, but his face was kind and just as he had seemed twelve years ago. He stared at her now as though she was the only beautiful thing he’d seen in weeks.
Not this! Rajah shouted, placing herself between that long-dead face and the consuming creature even as her memory-self veered towards the bars. A moth to a flame – drawn to his need.
Then stop me. The witch taunted. A friend of yers? The condemned continued their pleading behind them as those serpent’s eyes traced her face and narrowed. No. Somethin’ else. What was his name?
I never knew it, she regretted. The bars were pressing into her shoulders and she shoved off them to kick at the memory-eater. The crone backed away with a bark of laughter as one of her feet connected with solid force.
Yes, good. Try again. They encouraged, spinning away. She pursued them towards the edges of the memory, where details faded and blurred and the people were gaussian blobs of color. The creature danced along the perimeter, just within the wall of grey that stretched up and over.
There was a snarl and then a flash, as something struck the creature in the back. Staggering slightly from the impact, it turned to see what struck it. Logan stood there, gun drawn, a cold look in his eye.
“Just because I do not like coming here does not mean I am powerless when I do.” He said with a clipped tone.
There is a moment in every Vegasian’s life when the fear rises sharp and bilious in their throat and the limbs take on a mind of their own. At that time, the true mettle of each sequined, sour, silken, and suffering creature is revealed. For some, it is genuflected in an offering of pale throats and yellow bellies, the instinctive urge to grovel to survive before the wolf tears you apart. For others, feet fly faster than words and they are over the next dune before the first gleam of knife’s steel flashes. Rajah had always fallen into this category of snake- a flanker and a flight risk, jumping at shadows and most comfortable operating within them when she could strike at her leisure. But there was a third type of creature that dwelled in the filthy gutters of Vegasia City, one that arises when the white rings are visible around your irises and there’s no exit visible. The fox. Trapped by the hounds, the vixen grins with all its ivory, sets its back against the wall, and lets fur fly. Rarely does the fox win.
No way out but through. Rajah grinned nonetheless, sharp nails outstretched, she lunged at the swamp witch, towards her pale throat and her tender eyes. Slashing flesh and scoring corneas, she struck to regain that which was hers, one of the few things ever legitimately earned and own by her. The memory around them shuddered as the hag flung backwards on her heels to escape the onslaught. But there was no escape, not in this memory of a city that was a trap in every sense of the word. Walls meant to contain riots and funnel pleasure-seekers towards the sharks now funneled them both towards the steps of Luxor, the great mountain where all souls meet their doom.
Blood flowed on the obsidian, on the red of Rajah’s dress, and rose in wells where her thumbs pressed into the hags eyes. It bruised that swamp-flesh in purple hematomas on her neck, and flecked her final breath. With the blood came an upswelling of memory. Her own. Other people’s. The creatures own existence and all the memories they had stolen over decades of miserable and haunted hermitage, it spilled forth in a corrupted flow and they were both drowning in it. The sun set orange and furious behind the city, and still she knelt there, shins on the steps, straddling the body as it cooled, as a lifetime of memory flowed into her mind and drowned her thoughts. Sat until the moon rose and crowned the Black Pyramid with a pure and cleansing light it had never deserved while it had existed.
Nearby, the Baywalker crouched and waited. Finally those pale eyes opened and Rajah rose.
I know how to get us out of here.
And she did.
Please don’t stop
Be mine in a carpet made of stars
I close my eyes and dive in
Please don’t stop because I’m scared to
Please don’t stop because I’m scared to
Please don’t stop
Always A Good Bet: A Dystopia Rising Fanfiction Blog 