Elias couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It had already looped five times, and he still couldn’t believe it. Mark was trying to drown himself in his drink by the third loop. They were in a surveillance room, one wall covered in feeds from the various cameras in the casino. There the distinctive little bug was on a center screen, stumbling in a zig zag across a roulette betting green while the crowd around the table cheered and laughed. According to Marin, the security guard, Mark had just lost five hundred thousand points before the start of the clip.
The crowd started chanting. The video had no sound, but you could see them yelling and clapping in unison while Mark climbed over the wall of the spinning roulette wheel. Even the croupier was participating, spinning the wheel as fast as he could and cheering when Mark jumped onto it. This clearly wasn’t an irregular occurrence.
As soon as Mark landed on the frets he was thrown into the air. All the heads of those around the table looked up to follow him, and then down as he fell. He hit the carpet and bounced two times before coming to a stop on his back. The crowd watched with anticipation. Then Mark flipped over, holding two legs in the air and spreading his wings in celebration. The crowd cheered with him. It was a short lived victory, as the very next second he was crushed underneath the sole of a bright pink stiletto.
Marin was wiping his eyes on the back of his hand, his laughter reigniting each time the pink shoes appeared on the screen. “I just can’t get enough of that,” he wheezed. “You’re like, ‘yeah!’” He raised his four fists in the air in an imitation of past Mark. “And then splat!” He clapped his hands together for emphasis. “Amazing!”
Felix smiled awkwardly, having stopped laughing after the fourth replay. “At least you’re still alive, right?” he asked Mark.
This made Marin laugh harder. “We really did think you had died when you never came back,” he said. “Actually, could I get a picture with you? The other guards will never believe this.” He reached for Mark’s glass, which was sitting on the surveillance desk.
Mark took a defensive stance. Splashing bourbon on the desk with the snapping of his casing.
Elias pushed Marin’s hand away and picked up the glass. “That costs extra.”
“Of course,” Marin said, pulling the money Felix had given him earlier from his shirt pocket. “How much?”
“My god, what is wrong with you all? No! You’re obviously not getting a picture with Mark!”
“Ok, no need to be rude about it,” Marin mumbled, tucking the money back into his pocket.
“And why is it so fucking hot in this casino?” Elias asked. He was sweating, and the air felt thick. “Are you trying to drive your patrons away?”
Marin and Felix frowned at each other.
“It’s not,” Felix said.
“Zzktii-tckit?”
“Of course I’m ok,” he answered, breathing hard. “It’s just too bloody hot in here.”
“It’s actually a little cold,” Marin shrugged, doing the wave with both sets of arms.
Elias squinted. “What are you doing?”
“Dancing,” Marin answered. He stood from his chair and began to twirl.
Mark flew out of the glass Elias was holding, his golden wings twinkling in the light from the security screens as he circled Marin’s dancing form. Mark flew out of the glass, joining himself in the flight around the security guard. They spiraled around, double helix trails of rainbowed gold. Beautiful. Mark flew out of the glass.
Someone grabbed his shoulders, spinning him around and slapping him in the face. He blinked hard at Felix. “Whas happening?”
“Did you take something?” Felix asked.
It took everything in him to focus on Felix’s words, the man was washing away like ink in too much water. “Bourbon.”
“It’s not the bourbon. You’re the only one hallucinating.”
He closed his eyes, thinking as hard as he could while his head was flipping over and over on his shoulders. “Armory.”
“Oh no.”
That was the last thing he heard before he was falling back, and falling, and falling. He fell through the floor, into the casino below, the basement, and then through the planet itself. Other stars and planets flew past him as he went: Merrick’s ship and the cat’s paw nebula, Jupiter, Mars, Earth. He reached a velocity so powerful that he was able to escape the gravitational pull of the Milky Way entirely, passing through Andromeda and a thousand other galaxies, until eventually he was flying through dead zones in the absence of all light and living things in the universe. All the way back to the beginning.
“Wake up!”
A blunt hit to the face pulled him back into the surveillance office with a snap. Felix was leaning over him, gagging and his nose bloody, with Elias’s hand around his throat. Elias threw him back and sat up.
Felix held his throat, coughing. Marin was on the floor next to the desk with a bullet hole in his head. His blood, like moonlight, was soaking into the carpet. In the doorway was a slight man laying facedown with a burning crater in his back. Mark’s handiwork. Elias scrambled up, flipping the body over. He knew him, the errand boy for the woman from the limo.
“What the fuck?” Leaving the body, he grabbed Felix and lifted him from the floor. “What happened?”
The other man was making a high pitched noise as he tried to inhale, his eyes watering.
Elias shook him. “Where’s Mark?” he yelled.
Felix pointed a shaking finger at the open door, falling back to the floor when Elias let him go to run from the room. A long hall stretched out from the office, a small group of people waiting for the elevator at the end of it. He sprinted at them, grabbing his gun from its holster, only it wasn’t there. A shot whizzed by his head. Now that he was closer he could see that there were three people in the group, the woman from the limo and two of the prostitutes she had selected from the front of the casino. One of those women had stumbled back into the closed elevator doors, his father’s gun in her hand. She recovered before he could reach them, pointing it at him again. He stopped six feet away with his hands raised.
“Alright, ladies. Let’s not be hasty.” The second window girl was holding a lead cage in her hands, with Mark inside. The limo lady narrowed her eyes at him, amused, but he ignored her in favor of the one who stole his gun. “It’s got quite the kick, eh? Used to throw me like that too when I was kid.”
She glared at him, but said nothing.
“What do you want?” This he directed at the suit. “Money?”
“You couldn’t possibly afford the price,” she responded around a smile. Her lips were painted cherry red.
“Try me.”
An imitation of shock crossed her face and she laughed. “Did you even know what you had?”
Mark was letting out a stream of expletives at the woman.
Elias shrugged. “A belligerent little drunkard?”
“Wow,” she said. “A fortune on your shoulder, and you had no idea.”
He glanced at Mark. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“Tckt.”
“Didn’t think so.” He looked at the woman again. “By all means, enlighten us.”
“That species is a walking cure for radiation sickness. The only cure.”
“Oh, that.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Ah!” The prostitute holding Mark dropped the cage, the bug having bitten her finger. She collapsed, holding her arm to her chest and screaming.
The other women turned their heads, and he lunged for the one holding his gun, pushing her arms up as she fired off another shot. She continued pulling the trigger, raining plaster over them, holding on until his fist connected with her nose.
Cold fingers touched the back of his neck. “That’s enough.”
His gun slipped from his fingers before he could grip it, falling to the floor with a thud. He couldn’t move. “What is this?”
“Kneel,” she said.
He did as she ordered, only able to move when she told him to, and could see her kneeling with him from the corner of his eye. “How are you doing this?”
“I’m not as human as I look,” she answered, grabbing the cage with Mark from the floor. She kept her fingers away from the grates. “Stand up. What happened to her?” she added, looking down at the girl Mark had bitten.
“That’s the cure you wanted. What’s wrong, not what you imagined it to be?”
“It doesn’t matter. Whoever buys the bug will just extract it from him like they used to.” The elevator doors opened. “Come on.” They stepped into the lift. “Lobby.” The doors slid shut, and the elevator jolted as it began moving.
“Used to?”
“Gods, you don’t know anything, do you?”
“I guess not. So, someone used to extract this cure from Mark?”
“Not him specifically,” she said, holding up the cage to scrutinize the subject of their conversation. Mark growled.
“How do you know?”
“Because he’d be dead if they had.” She let her arm and the cage fall back down to her side. The elevator slowed to a stop. “You’ll walk me back to my car, where my driver will finish you off.”
“Will I?”
“You won’t have a choice,” she assured him as the doors slid open.
A shot rang out, and she dropped Mark’s cage with a yell. “Shield me!”
Elias stepped in front of her, facing the shooter, who happened to be a short balding man in a garish white suit. “Felix? How’d you get here before us?”
He was kneeling on the patterned casino carpet with his chrome plated gun pointed at them in a double-handed grip. “The stairs are faster,” he said, breathing hard.
Elias laughed.
“Well, move out of the way!” Felix yelled.
“I can’t. She’s a weaver.”
Felix’s brow furrowed. “Fuck.”
“Yep.”
Felix fired another shot, it whizzed past Elias’s ear, striking the back wall of the elevator.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Elias yelled, stomach acid burning his throat. “What the hell are you thinking?”
“Keeping her hands off of Mark,” Felix yelled back, “what did you think I was doing?”
Elias couldn’t turn his head, and couldn’t see Mark’s cage from his position. “Thought you were going to hit me with that bullet, to be honest.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Fuck if I know.” His heartbeat returned to a manageable pace. “You a good shot with that?”
Felix thought for a moment. “Pretty good.”
“Stop talking,” the woman ordered.
Elias’s mouth snapped shut. He stared at Felix, then moved his eyes in the direction that he thought Mark’s cage was. The woman’s right hand was on his neck, so the cage must be on their left. He looked at Felix again, who frowned. God damnit. He did the gesture again.
Felix looked at a point on the floor, and back to Elias, shaking his head.
Elias blinked once, slow and deliberate. Yes.
The man looked unsure, but aimed his gun down a few degrees. He took a deep breath, nodded, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit something, the woman screamed, and a blast slammed her into Elias’s back. They both fell out of the elevator, and he rolled away from her. She was on her back, gasping for breath. Elias approached with caution, but she could do little but fight for air. He lifted her shoulder to see a hole between her shoulder blades, exposing her spine and ribs, lungs scorched and struggling below their cage. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist.
“Save me,” she whispered, coughing and wheezing. “Please.” A darker shade of red gathered on her lips.
“I can’t,” he said, her compulsion gone. “I’m sorry.”
Pulling his wrist from her grip, her hand fell against her chest. He reentered the elevator, where Mark was on his back on the floor, legs curled against his body. Scooping him up, he cradled the bug in one hand. “You idiot.”
“Holy shit! That was insane!” Felix said, running up to the lift.
“Move her legs, will you?”
“Uh, is she dead?”
Elias leaned down for a moment, and then straightened. “Almost.”
“I don’t really like to touch dead things,” Felix said.
Elias turned to him. “I thought you said you hunt people for sport?”
Felix shifted his weight between each foot. “That may have been an exaggeration.”
“Just move her out of the way so the doors can close.” The door was trying its best, but bouncing back open each time it encountered her legs.
Felix holstered his gun, stepping out of the elevator and grabbing the woman’s arms to drag her back. Once she was clear of the threshold, he rushed back into the lift before the doors closed, making a noise of disgust and shaking himself like a wet dog.
They rode in silence for a moment, a beep counting off each floor they passed.
“You’ve never killed anyone, have you?”
Felix glanced at him, then stared forward again. “No.”
“Hmm.” Elias nodded.
“I’m sorry for lying.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Really?”
Elias shrugged. “It could’ve gone worse, all things considered.” The elevator doors opened to the security floor. He grabbed his gun from the floor, putting it back in its holster, and made his way back to the surveillance room. His duffle bag of ammo was on the ground where he had passed out. “Here, carry this.”
Felix stumbled back when the bag collided with his chest. “This is heavy,” he said, throwing the strap over his head. “What’s in it?”
“Ammo.”
They made their way back to the elevator.
“Lobby,” Elias said to the lift.
“Is he dead?” Felix asked, staring at Mark.
Elias frowned down at the bug in his hand. “Not yet, but he will be soon if I don’t get him back to my ship.”
Felix followed him out of the elevator, stumbling over the woman’s corpse and gagging. “Is that my fault? I shot the cage. I assumed that’s what you were hinting at. I didn’t kill him, did I?”
They exited the casino, heading in the direction of the hangar.
“You didn’t do this. Mark did it to himself.”
“Wait, that blast?” Felix looked over his shoulder at the casino as they walked. “He was fine after he did it in the surveillance room.”
“Yeah. Once can take a lot out of him.” They entered the vertical hangar, stepping onto another elevator, and Elias ordered it to take them to the forty-sixth floor. “Twice on the same day, and he may as well commit suicide. It would be a hell of a lot faster.” The other man didn’t need to know about the bite. It was amazing that Mark was alive at all when that was factored in.
“Wow,” Felix said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before, that blast he did. It was all blue.”
“It’s a focused blast of radiation.”
Felix stepped to the side, which wasn’t very effective in the small space.
“Relax,” Elias laughed. “He’s not dangerous right now, and he wasn’t when he used the blast. Well, not to you. It’s very focused, so unless you were hugging that corpse after I ran out of the room, you should be fine.”
Felix retched, his hand on his stomach. “Don’t talk about hugging corpses,” he retched again, “please.”
Elias wouldn’t admit it to the little man at his side, but he was absolutely tickled by him. “What are you doing in this city, Felix? Doesn’t seem the type of place someone like you would want to be.”
The elevator let them off, the Barbara Anne in sight at the edge of the hangar.
“I don’t know,” Felix answered with a sigh. “My dad is such a crazy asshole. I had to get out of there.”
“Really?” Elias asked as they reached the ship. He slid open a panel next to the door and typed in a code. The hinges groaned their usual protest. “I would have thought that daddy provided you with a life of leisure,” he said, turning to face the man.
“Sleep.”
Felix collapsed. Behind him stood a tall man with no eyebrows or hair on his head. Elias’s hand was on his gun before he could think.
“What are you doing here, Elias?” the man asked, an annoyed look on his face. He was wearing all black, as usual, slender pants and his thick long sleeve top stopping past his hips.
“What the fuck,” Elias sighed, removing his hand from his gun and glaring at the man. “I was about to shoot you.” Ducking into the ship, he opened the hatch at the back and placed Mark inside, pushing him close to the drive before closing the hatch again. The man was standing next to the ship when Elias returned to the door. There was no sound of footsteps to announce his movements. “Are we not allowed a little free time between jobs anymore, Valen?”
“Of course you are, but not in Murder City. Your job is to protect Mark and get him to the targets, not put him in unnecessary danger.”
“Well,” Elias said, plopping down to sit on Barbara’s wing, “it would have been a hell of a lot easier to keep Mark out of danger had you told me about the price on his head. We killed a poacher back there, one of your cousins, I think.”
Valen narrowed his eyes. “I do have a lot of cousins,” he said, sitting down next to Elias. “What was she able to do?”
“I didn’t tell you it was a girl.”
Valen shrugged. “All of my cousins are girls. It was very lonely growing up.”
Elias snorted. “This one could control body movements. Had me acting as a bloody human shield when our new friend shot at her.” He gestured at Felix sleeping on the tarmac.
“Ah, Katie,” Valen nodded.
“So she was your cousin?”
“Of course not, and I’m sure that’s not her name.”
“God, you’re the worst.”
He smiled. “I don’t think I’m so bad. What are you two doing here, anyway?”
Elias leaned back against Barbara’s hull, cushioning the back of his head with his hands. “Just stopped by for some ammo.”
Valen turned to him. “You never stop anywhere just for ammo.” His hand inched toward Elias’s face.
“Do it and I’ll cut them off.”
His fingers curled into a fist and he pulled his hand back. “I wouldn’t feel the need if you would just tell me what you’re doing here.”
“I really was buying ammo, you’re welcome to check my bag.” He nodded to Felix, the duffle strap still around his neck.
“And?”
He weighed his options, but it seemed that Valen was willing to wait him out as long as he needed to. That, or take the information by force. He pulled one of the pictures from his jacket, tossing it at the man. “I was looking for information about my old man. Happy?”
Valen caught the image, looking down at it. “You still can’t remember the accident?”
“No.”
“Why do you need the memory?” Valen handed the picture back. “Isn’t it better to not remember something like that?”
Elias stared out of the hangar. The desert stretched out to the horizon, heatwaves dancing in the dim light of the star. “What do you know of it, Valen?”
“You’re right,” the other man conceded after a moment. “I don’t have the ability to forget. You’re lucky that you can. The amount of horrible memories in my head, most of them not even mine, is a torture that I cannot describe.”
Elias sat up, grabbing Valen’s arm. The other man’s muscles stiffened underneath the thick woolen material. “Retrieve the memory, please. I want to see my last moments with him.”
“Elias, you don’t know what you’re asking for. The human mind is a fragile thing. The memory may not be there at all, and it’s not worth the risk even if it was.”
“No, I know it is. I can feel it. It’s just out of reach. If you can retrieve it, Mark and I will have no more reason to come back here.”
Valen smiled, sadness in the expression. “I was surprised to find out that you were willing to return at all. How long has it been?”
Elias’s finger slid off of Valen’s arm and he leaned back again. “I don’t know. Twenty years? Twenty-five? I’ve started to lose count.”
“It never changes, does it, the city?”
Elias smirked. “Not one bit. I was hustled no less than three times in an hour. And robbed. And almost murdered.” He caught the other man’s eye and they started laughing.
Valen put his hand on Elias’s knee. “You may have my record beaten, my friend. I believe the fastest someone tried to kill me here was an hour and a half after landing.”
“Not faster than old Charlie though, eh?”
“No, no, for that you’d have to die on entry.”
“Yeah,” Elias laughed, wiping his eyes. “He was a crazy fucker.”
“Yes, he was.” Valen held a hand over his stomach as he laughed, sighing with a wistful smile once he calmed. “I may have more memories from here than anywhere.”
“That makes sense, given the company you keep. Speaking of, where is it you’re sending us to next?”
“Ah, I almost forgot,” he said, removing his hand and standing. He lifted his shirt and produced an envelope from a back pocket, holding it out.
“Forgot?” Elias accepted the packet, pulling the contents out while Valen sat back down.
“I thought I’d try the phrase.”
“Mm,” he acknowledged, looking over the first paper from the envelope, “and how did it feel?”
“Dishonest.”
“So you liked it, then?” Elias asked, glancing up from the dossier.
Valen didn’t look at him, but smiled. “You’ll be going after one Lucky Fandell.”
“Fandell? Of Hat and Wasp, the jewelers?”
“The very same.”
“What the bloody hell did they do to piss someone off, outside of their outrageous prices?” Elias flipped through the documents. There was information on ships they owned, frequent and latest known locations, and a picture of the target. “Last known location: New LA? Mark will be excited.”
“What do you care about their prices?”
“Excuse me,” Elias said in mock offense, shoving the paperwork back into the envelope and stowing it in his jacket. “I have a ring.”
Valen grabbed his hand to examine the silver band, skin soft like a man who had never had to work a day in his life. “So you do.” His eyes moved to Elias’s face. “It’s nice.”
“Maybe I’ll even get it cleaned one day.”
Valen dropped his hand with a laugh, standing back up. “It’s time for me to leave this place, and you as well.”
Elias groaned, sliding off of Barbara’s wing and stretching his arms over his head. “Don’t you want to stay, have a drink? We commandeered a nice little stash from Mr. Lavigne.”
“I’m not eager to seek a new record for multiple attempts on our lives, are you?” He squeezed Elias’s shoulder. “Until next time, my friend.”
“Yeah, alright.”
“Don’t die,” Valen shouted as he walked away.
“Love to see you go,” Elias shouted back. Valen ignored him, but for a wave over his shoulder.
He shook his head, crouching and unclipping the strap of the duffle that was wrapped around Felix. Tossing the bag into the ship, he contemplated the man in the white suit. Valen’s command wouldn’t wear off for a few more hours.
Sacrifice a share to the algorithm gods:
Can’t sub, but you’re loving my writing? Consider leaving a tip so that I can afford to continue writing like it’s my job. <3
Thank you for reading chapter 4 of Amnesiac Assassin! I’ll never get over how different a character can come out when I first start writing them when compared to how I imagined they would be. I knew Mark and Elias would have a handler before I wrote chapter 1, but I never would have expected the handler to have the quite and gentle personality that Valen seems to have. I love him already. I had imagined he would be a bit raunchy and outrageous like Elias and Mark, but the characters can never help but to be whoever they really are once they show up.
I’m very stuck on the next chapter. This was my biggest fear with sharing a first draft that hasn’t been written in its entirety. There will be moments where I get stuck. I can’t just race my way through it like I usually would. Everything I write has to be intentional, in that I have to be able to build off of it without the freedom to go back and change anything from the previous chapters, which freaking sucks. The best plot direction in my head right now could really use a little foreshadowing, but the previous chapters are already up and have been read, so I’ll just have to find a way through without it.
I have been giving strong consideration to a comment I received from several of you after the first chapter, and I so wish I would have seen this plot line earlier. Ah well, that’s the life when you’re adverse to plotting. I always think of the better direction while I’m writing, and never before I start. I’m going to use this direction anyway, I think. I have to accept that there is no way to write a perfect first draft, and that you guys are going to get the worst version of this story. By that I mean that the main plot and subplots will be fun (hopefully), but not quite at the level of awesome that I’d like them to be. I’m still going to do my best to write you an entertaining story, so don’t stop reading here. haha
Anyway, tell me what you think so far. I' love hearing all of your comments, positive or negative. I’m especially curious to know how you like the newest character, Valen. (pronunciation like Valentine, in case you were wondering, though it’s not short for it) I have about a million ideas for where this character can go, and can’t wait to see how he develops. He was very fun to write in this one short scene we’ve had with him.
Don’t forget to vote if you’d like to see another chapter next week. Until next time.
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