The Blood Market Chapter 6

We stepped back out into the mid afternoon baking orange heat. Harbinger turned and grinned broadly at me.

"What are you smiling about?" I asked, "I've been working for you less than a day and we already have two cases for two different government organizations that carry high stakes and unpleasant consequences if we don't pull them off.  You sister could take the fall for our failing to solve their human smuggling with a side of mass murder case. The queen could find herself embarrassed publicly, and our trade deals with both the restored Republic of China and the Empire of Hong Kong apparently hand in the balance. And we also have to solve this apparent faux suicide. That poor woman was an aristorcrat, no doubt about it. We both saw her makeup and the lack of tan during the dry season. I saw you check her hands. I assume she had not callouses or anything to suggest that she'd ever done a day's work in her life. The good Sheriff mentioned City Hall breathing down her neck, which makes no sense if her identity is unknown."

"The mere fact that she is clearly upper class and possibly of the noble class is enough to panic the City Administrator," Harbinger said, "The Administrator's position is elected just like any other civil position, and if the voting nobles feel that the Administrator can't serve their needs, well they'll drop Administrator Fix as if her were an angry rattlesnake."

"I'd vote him out already," I muttered.

"But you can't, and so he only needs to worry about the elites- who can." Harbinger said, "ten cholera suffering working class folk can die the same way and nothing happens, but when one noblewoman joins the party all hell breaks loose."

Asphalt and Cobblestones clicked under our boots as we walked back towards Honey Bee Street. Foot traffic remained manageable and bicycle traffic confined itself to the bike paths. We passed Main Street and I glanced at the large street clogged with horses, carriages, rickshaws and the occasional electric trike or automobile. Main Street was too chaotic for me of late and I tried to avoid walking it. I turned back to the look in the direction we were walking and noticed something odd. about two hundred yards ahead stood a man; heavy build and probably three hundred pounds, wearing a black bowler hat on a shaved head and bearing mutton chops and a nose ring in his left nostril. His hands were big and meaty, heavily calloused and covered in runic tattoos. He was staring at us, chewing on a cigar held in his left hand as he did.

"So you see him?" I asked.

Harbinger nodded, "I do, member of the Brothers of Perun from the tattoos."

The brothers of Perun were the second most numerous gang in New jericho. With a core membership drawn from German and Slavic descended people in the working class, the brother of Perun made a lot of noise about warrior ethos and honor, but they also ran most of the opium dens and more than a few of the brothels in New Jericho- but those were just their legal business fronts. Behind the scenes they sold stronger drugs, specializing in euphoric and hallucinogenic substances.

"Do you know how to use that gun you brought?" I asked.

"I'm not a marksman, but I can manage. I trust that you are armed?"

I nodded, "I'm not carrying all that I would like to be carrying, but it will do."

"Freeman Harbinger?" A voice behind us said. We stopped and turned to look back behind us. A young man with a smooth complexion that made him look maybe fifteen stood behind us. He wore the black uniform of the Royal Commission.

"Yes? What does my sister want now?" Harbinger asked.

The man shook his head, "No sir. I am delivering a communication from Lieutenant Colonel Blackwater. He says, and I quote here ' I wonder if you shouldn't be working on the case that you were given by the government and not some suicide.' He also asked me to convey your response back to him."

I looked at Harbinger and raised an eyebrow. Harbinger smiled and then rolled his eyes." Tell Mr. Blackwater with the long and awkward rank and title that we are giving the matter all necessary attention. He and my sister have nothing to worry about."

The young agent nodded, "I will sir. But the Lieutenant Colonel doesn't worry sir. He plans and then he executes. Emphasis on the 'execute', if you understand my meaning, sir."

"He's in Military Intelligence all right," Harbinger said, "Do any of you Royal Commission folks not talk like you've escaped from a Juilian Rey novel? 'Do you expect me to talk?' and then 'No Senor Rey, I expect you to die.' Who talks like that? I'm very good at my chosen profession. You look at me and you probably see a crazy old man, right?"

The agent paused and then nodded.

"And you probably don't think I look like much right now. But let me ask you something. How do you think people survive long enough to be crazy old men. You can tell Mr. Blackwater that we are both old men for the same reason. And that he can count on me getting the job done because that's how I get to stay a living crazy old man, and I'm very good at that. Good enough?"

The agent nodded and then turned crisply on his heel and marched back the way he came. We turned back in the direction of Honey Bee Street and noticed that the thug was still waiting and watching.

"How did Blackwater know where we've been?" I asked.

"I assume that he had us under surviellence. Or rather I assume that he still does."

"That doesn't sit right with me."

"That's because you're a soldier and he's a spy. You think in terms of loyalty. He thinks in terms of control. You think in terms of teams and units. He thinks in terms of agents and pawns. Are you ready to face that big fellow? I suspect he's going to try and use force as a method of persuasion."

"He's welcome to try." I said.

"Good to hear. I'm a pretty decent pugilist for somebody of my ripe old age, so don't feel the need to protect me, or at least ignore it should it pop into your mind."

I smiled and nodded and we proceeded down the road towards the big man. He stepped into the street in front of us as we closed on his position. He was wearing loose trousers held up by bright red suspenders and wore a heavily sweat stained white sleeveless tank top shirt. I could smell the cigar now, even through the clove smoke of the Jakarta Black I was still smoking. His cigar was a 108, a cheaper brand with the motto "incense for your lungs". The smell of sandalwood, vanilla and cheap tobacco permeated the air around us, mixing with the smell of cloves and expensive tobacco.

"You guys are all kinds of popular. I didn't figure to have to wait in line to pass on words to the wise."

"You might wish you'd chosen another queue." Answered. I didn't have my my pepperbox hold out pistol loaded or rigged in my wrist holster, which would have been ideal. I wouldn't be able to reach my T-handle knife unless I bent down. That limited me to my Eccleston Sabre by my side and my 9mm Ehrenfeld pistol in the hip holster.

"I ain't here to give you a thrashing, not unless you don't listen to the warning that is," The man grinned, and made a show of cracking his knuckles, "So let's all listen to my message and then we can decide if you want me to thrash you good and hard."

Harbinger smiled, "What's the message?"

"The message is that you don't need to go looking into dark corners. That poor dead lady, she got somebody dealing with her problems. Them poor dead Chinese folks at the docks, forget they existed or died or whatever. Tell them folks who hired you, that you're too busy. Go find other jobs, like cheating husbands and missing cats. You don't want to go poking in my boss's business and you're about to start doing that. People who do that don't survive too long." He paused, "So, do you get the message? Or do I have to thrash it into you?"

I crossed my arms, "Your knife is in a sheath on the back of your pants if I'm reading you posture correctly. And that little Allegheny revolver in your pocket is going to be awful hard to draw quickly."

The man looked at me in surprise. I continued speaking.

"I, on the other hand, have pistol in a hip holster. Not subtle, of course, but much quicker to draw. And I'm wearing a military saber in a cross body draw configuration on my other hip. I can separate your torso from your hips before you could connect with a punch or draw that knife of yours. And if you go for your pistol, that's just as bad Even if you manage to draw fast enough that we end up in a shoot out, you're firing a double action revolver and I'm firing a magazine fed semi-automatic locked breech style pistol. So my gun fires faster. Your weapon holds six rounds, mine holds fifteen rounds and one more if I chambered a round first. On top of that, my weapon loads using magazines, yous must be loaded individually into the cylinder. Even with a speed loader I'd still beat you on the reload."

The man looked at me like I was crazy, "Lady we're standing in the middle of the street. You want to bring that level of violence here?"

"You started it," I said, "You weigh, I'd estimate, between one hundred and one and fifty pounds more than I do. I'm not about to fight you one on one if I have to. Look at my uniform. I'm a soldier, not a street thug. I don't fight people, I kill them. My name is Dahlia Crowe. And people around me tend to forget to keep breathing. So my recommendation to you is to walk away. Run back to you boss and tell him that he can't scare us."

"I can't just run. That ain't going to fly with him. You might kill me, but he'll do worse."

"Then make your move or run away."

He lunged at me. A blast of adrenaline hit my nervous system and I noticed sound dropping away in the classic auditory exclusion common to the adrenal response. Tachypsychia hit and my perception of time slowed down, norepinephrine and dopamine obediently doing their jobs for my survival instincts. I reached out and grasped the hilt of my sabre, stepping off line to the outside of his left arm, acting on the assumption that he would hold his cigar in his dominant hand. Based on his statement about attacking me, because his boss would do worse, I re-aimed my blow.  I aimed the angle of my draw to  drive the pommel of my sabre into his floating rib, the lowest rib on the body, not anchored to the rib cage and vulnerable to fracture. The cracking sound broke through the auditory exclusion of my adrenal response, and the man doubled over in pain. I jerked the sabre away and then brought the pommel down and the back of his head where the skull met the spine. He fell the rest of the way to the ground and lay gasping. I noticed several people gawking, but my uniform seemed to convince most to keep moving.

"You have a name big man?" I asked. I sheathed my sabre and took another drag on the clove cigarette. I could get used to these, not that I could afford to, of course. Too expensive to buy, too hard on the lungs to make into a habit rather than an indulgence.

"Jaromir Hus."

"I'm sympathetic to your position, having unreasonable superiors forcing you to act on stupid orders. that's why you're alive Mr. Hus. You likely have a concussion and I probably cracked a rib there. You've lost and you can honestly tell your boss that they didn't get the message despite your best efforts. I can add a black eye if you need me to make things more visually convincing."

"He'll send more guys. This won't stop it." Jaromir Hus pushed himself up to a sitting position, and then swayed and steadied himself with both hands.

"Eventually it will. Because that's what I do. I stop things. I'd recommend you don't try standing up for a few minutes. Give you brain time to account the damage it's received. And remember that I could have killed you, if your boss sends you into my path again. I may not have to luxury of not killing you next time."

We carried on, leaving Jaromir Hus sitting on the cobblestones.

"So did you notice that?" Harbinger asked, "Mr. Hus was instructing us to steer clear of both of today's cases. And that means that either the same group is involved in both cases, or that the cases are related in some more direct manner. Either way, we owe Mr. Hus and his mysterious employer a thank you, because they've given us a huge hint."

"I am all a goggle," I answered, "Is that all you got out of that interaction? That was also a not very subtle and very direct threat on our lives. You did notice that part as well, yes?"

"Well yes, I noticed it. But people threaten my life pretty frequently. It goes with the territory, and so I try not to take it personally. Rat catchers where gloves so they don't get hepatitis or rabies or whatever. I thicken my skin so I don't catch a case of the grumpy gus."

"And what do you do to prevent yourself from catching a case of dead?"

"Well, your father long ago taught me the manly art of fistcuffs. I should tell you about that some time, it's a funny story- there's a Emu and far too many pumpkins involved. Actually, your father would probably rather that I never related that story again. He'd probably demand that I replace his trousers as I promised I would. He always brings that up. I also carry a pistol. And now, as you've obviously demonstrated, I have an assistant slash partner who seems more than capable at redirecting the death thing towards people more deserving. So there we go. Shall we get home? I have some theories I'd like to test.

"How did you survive to adulthood?"

"Well your father helped."

"I don't need to know the story," I said, " I really don't."

We walked uneventfully back to Harbinger's death trap disguised as an office. We climbed the stairs and entered the office. I looked around the office at the horrible mess.

"Is there a place for me in the this disaster area? I was told that I would be living here as well." I asked.

"I have a military cot for myself, but I don't have another I'm afraid," Harbinger answered.

"I have a military cot of my own. It comes with the territory. That and my possessions, a duffel bag and a back pack with everything I own is sitting back at my father's house. Do you mind if I go get them?"

"Not at all. It will give me time to do some tests on this necklace I nicked from the morgue."

I turned in surprise to see Harbinger holding a rosary up to a filthy window in the vain hope that the feeble light entering through the grime would improve his view. "You took evidence from the Sheriff's office? Without their permission? I thought you liked Sheriff Hurley. That's the impression I got."

"I do. I quite like the Sheriff."

"And a lack of respect is how you show her that you like her?"

"I'll bring it back when I'm done and she'll not even notice that it was gone."

"You said that you were going to do tests on it," I pointed out, "The tests won't damage it?"

"Not at all," He waved his hands, "A little divination and a little scrying, a little attempt at remote viewing and psychometry. Nothing invasive in the slightest."

I felt my face go slack in disbelief, "You stole evidence from your friend, the Sheriff- who hires you over the objections of at least some of her staff- and you're going to do magic to it? Eye of newt and tongue of moron and all that?"

"Not magic," Harbinger said, "Magick with a 'k', there's a difference."

"I said magic."

"it doesn't matter. Are you going to tattle to Sheriff Hurley?"

"No," I answered, "Knock yourself out. As long as you don't need me to strip naked for the ritual you can do what you like. I'll get my gear."

I walked back to my father's house. He wasn't in, but I still had a key. I collected my gear, hard frame backpack and a duffelbag; everything in the world that belonged to me save what I wore. I trudged my way back to Harbinger's office. The hour was approaching for dinner. I carried my equipment up to the office and found that Harbinger had cleared a space in the center of the room and laid down a rug and pillows that appeared to be of old Persian design. He had lit his pipe and sat, eyes closed,  in front of a small wooden altar, upon which rested a wooden bowl with arcane symbols and within which lay the rosary beads. I wasn't Catholic, or even Christian, but the whole thing seemed disrespectful towards the rosary. I lay my back and my duffel bag on a clear patch of floor in the corner behind the door. Harbinger's pipe smoke smelled sweet and pungent, but left me a little light headed. I decided that I would let him do whatever he intended to do, and I would go enjoy a dinner somewhere reasonably nice. I left the office and enjoyed the fresh air when I reached the street. The clove cigarette had all but burned out and dropped it to the ground and crushed it out. I would remember to accept any offer of a Jakarta Black that came my way int he future.

I found a small restaurant that served German food and ordered myself some labskaus: a kind of corned beef pate with herring and potato and beetroot with a fried egg on top. They didn't have a Wu Li Sour Red on tap, and I was forced to accept a Dark Wu Li. I'm not opposed to drinking porter, but lately compromise seems to be continually forced on me. I finished up my meal, and paid with my dwindling funds. I then made my way back to the office.

I opened the outer door and could smell the sweet pungent herbal scented smoke of Harbinger's pipe from the bottom of the stairs. Looking up, I could see a haze of smoke drifting on the breeze at the top of the stairs. I shook my head, and climbed the stairs into the smoke. Pulling open the door, I realized that the office was worse. I could barely see across the room due to the smoke. I picked my way to my back pack and removed my cot. Harbinger sat motionless on his pillows and rugs. I walked past him into the Kitchenette. I set up my cot in the Kitchenette, owing to there actually being enough floor space. The day had taken it's toll on me. I'd fought with and broken off a relationship with Violetta. I'd been dragged into a Royal Commission investigation with international trade implications. I'd started a business relationship whose durability seemed highly uncertain. I'd assaulted a man who'd threatened my life. I had done enough today. Things would keep until tomorrow. I lay down on my cot to sleep. I had slept through cannon fire, I could sleep through pipe smoke.

I don't think about the Ashland Incident every day. Day in, day out, I don't think about the Ashland. By near constant application of will and discipline, I don't think about the Ashland Incident. Even when talking about the Incident, the events are themselves kept outside my thoughts. I have, in my mind, transformed even the name into a symbol akin to a semaphore flag that I may wave at my leisure personally ignorant of the meaning that others derive from the thing.

So long as I do not think about the Ashland Incident, I can move forward and continue functioning. I have filed and categorized lists in office of my mind to depersonalize the events when I need to refer to them, a friend or family member bringing up the event in an attempt to talk away the things I did, questions from a would be soon to be ex-employer wanting to understand my part in the events, probes from reporters and journalists who wanted a pound of flesh as bloody and scandalous as they could find, government employees and military tribunals looking for answers. Over two hundred people died, nearly all of them soldiers engaged in a training exercise. I personally killed nearly two dozen such soldiers. I gave orders that sent nearly fifty soldiers under my command to be killed by other soldiers in the same army engaged in training exercises. When asked, I give the same answer. I memorized my answer with great difficulty in front the mirror, repeating it until the words were sounds and I did not have to register their meaning. If the meaning of the answer that I repeated again and again for weeks were to seep into my understanding, I knew I would break- stumble, fall, cry, scream, lose composure, maybe lash out physical if, Buddha forbid, one of the officers who had held command over said training exercises were actually in the room.

Again, and again I gave the speech: "I did what I felt necessary at the time to prevent a greater loss of life. There remained no other viable actions to take and no other viable orders to give. Had I given any other orders than the ones I gave, I would have allowed the deaths of nearly a thousand or more of fellow soldiers. I do not know if I would make the same choice if I were to find myself back in that situation again, I do not know if I would have the strength. But I would know that I should if I were able."

I look at the words on the page, and my eyes do not register them as words, but as hieroglyphics. They have meaning to others. Once, I think, they even had meaning to me, but no longer. That change was a change that I crafted very intentionally. I do not allow recollections, true recollections, of the Ashland Incident to seep into my consciousness. I drink beer, not hard bar. I smoke tobacco and nothing stronger, despite the prevalence of cannabis and opium imported from the Babylon Republics: illegal but generally not enforced. My mind holds shut a room, and the functioning of the rest of my mind depends upon the locks holding shut that room holding fast.

But that night, as I fell to sleeping with Harbinger's pipe smoke swirling about the squalid series of rooms he charitably called an office, I found myself in an unfamiliar mental landscape. The Ashlands were named for a series wastelands left over after the great Modoc Forest fire. The whole forest pretty much burnt to the ground during the dry season and then smoldered for months. Even once the monsoon rains came, the fires never quite went out. For decades later people traveling through the area would see fires erupt from where they had smoldering underground. Travelers did not bed down in the Ashlands, disturbing the soil was a good way to lose the top layer of skin. The military liked to use it for training precisely because it was unpleasant. They provided metal frame raised cots as protection against catching fire while sleeping and assumed everything would be fine. I watched mortar and cannon rounds against the night sky and listened to their rising whistles as I stood on a rise in the mild terrain on the south side of the forest near the ruins of Ambrose. When the cannon balls began landing among the tents, the situation did not feel fine.

"Lieutenant!" A private whom I did not yet know by name came running up, "We've got impacts in the command center! Cannon balls, live rounds! What is happening sir?"

I shook my head, "I don't know private, and we are not winding up dead waiting to find out. Sound a full alert. Get me Sergeant Dunbrook, and organize a full retreat from this position. They can't possibly realize that they are firing on us."

"The sergeant is asleep, sir." The private said. A whistling sound rose above us and then descended and the ground ahead of us exploded, The soil underneath my feet flexed upwards and then collapsed inwards towards the gaping hole in the earth a dozen meters or so down hill from myself and the private. i found myeslf airborne and then abruptly prone, although the process by which this had been achieved remained elusive. I pulled myself to my feet and looked at the hole.

"That was mortar, and a large one." I said aloud, " Probably a Sultan NJM-30. We need to move ourselves out of the line of fire yesterday! Private, find Sergeant Dunbrook- wake every sergeant and officer under my command. Private?"

With no answer from the private, I swung my gaze in a careful scan of the area around me. I saw the private's body some twenty feet to my left, and could see even from this distance that the private was missing his face. A crimson piece of stone lay near enough to the private's body that I could tell the cause of death. I ran to the body and heaved it over my back into a fireman's carry and ran as fast as I could carrying a body into the camp.

"Retreat! Full retreat! We are under actual mortar fire. This is not a drill! This is not a training exercise any longer. Fall back to the ruins of Ambrose! They are firing on our position. We have casualties! This is not a drill. Fall back! Fall Back."

As the camp scrambled to full activity I handed the body of the fallen private to a passing Corporeal whose name I should have known, but whom I could only recall as 'Peachy' with the adrenal response guiding my actions.

"Peachy, get the private's body to the field hospital. We aren't leaving anyone behind, and I don't want to waste human arms carrying our dead or wounded."

Peachy nodded and disappear with the private's body. Moment's later Dunbrook emerged, partially clad in combat fatigues, but wearing more makeup that I would have suspected.

"Lieutenant, are we actually being fired upon, sir?"

"We are Sergeant, organize a full retreat back to Ambrose, get us out of the line of fire. And Sergeant, is anyone else wearing that lipstick?"

Sergeant Dunbrook blushed, "Yes sir."

"Carry on, don't think about him while we're doing this or you might get him killed."

"Yes, sir." More mortar shells and cannon balls hit the camp. One cannonball smashed through a tent hit something hard on the ground and careened back up.

"Is that tent empty?" I called to a Private as she stood staring at the tent.

"I don't know sir?"

"Then find out, and if there is or was, get the body or the wounded to the field hospital. Now!"

I took a breath, scanned the camp to observe our progress and get control of myself so that I could get control of the situation. And then the great giants stepped out of the smoke from the mortars, climbing out of the holes in the ground left by cannon fire and mortar rounds. Their heads were decked with three faces, on in front and two facing back in either direction. They carried great clubs in six hands and their skin bore a shade of iridescent crimson that threatened to hypnotize me. More of the beings, Asuras, if I knew my buddhist folklore correctly, emerged from the darkness and the smoke and began swing clubs and knocking my soldiers flying left and right.

"No." I said to myself as I watched the slaughter, "This is not what happened."

The Asuras went about killing my troops, completely ignoring the fact that they were never one the battlefield during the Ashland Incident. And that's when I jolted awake, flailing for my sabre as an Asura charged me. The room was thick with Harbinger's pipe smoke, and I found myself too unstable to stand. A ghostly Asura  stepped from the smoke and I snatched my sabre from beside the bed and slammed the pommel of the sabre into and through the face, which vanished into the smoke along with my sabre- still in it's sheath. I braced myself on the cot and pulled myself to my feet. The dead private stepped out of the smoke, Private Toby Marks as I had later determined, reached out a hand that passed through me.

"I'm sorry Lieutenant, I couldn't find Sergeant Dunbrook. I can't find anyone sir. I'm all alone sir. Where am I?"

"You didn't make it Private."

"But where am I lieutenant? Am I in naraka, in hell? Why would I end up in naraka? Am I a hungry ghost?"

My legs gave out from under me. "You aren't in naraka, you aren't a hungry ghost. This is my karmaphala, not yours." I whispered.

More figures came walking out of the smoke, Private Gale Flanders, Private Jaspal Sajjan, Corporal David Tang, Sergeant Gertrude Messer, and more. Name after name that I kept filed in the office of my mind stepped into view and I could manage my emotions. I couldn't hold myself together.

I found myself gasping for breath, unable to steady myself enough to stand, repeating a mantra of nothing more than "This is my karma, this is my karma."

I don't know how long I knelt on the floor before I heard Harbinger's voice, "Dahlia, can you hear me? I'm very sorry Dahlia, I'm a damned fool. Let's get you to the roof. The fresh air will help you. I'm such a fool."