Josefine

The Books

Josefine Belda Martara tugged her balaclava down onto her face a bit more. Beneath her knee, the shop assistant lay silent and motionless, dark eyes wide open and glazing over. Blood oozed from the corner of the woman's mouth, but Seffy was way past being in emotional turmoil about that.

Seffy rifled through the pockets of the woman's simple, faded dress and pinny, searching for anything that was useful, but her search produced nothing but a tiny wallet containing exactly twelve ri in change and a half-empty ruby-red lipstick. Twelve ri would have bought about half of a lettuce. From the battered photogram on the desk, Seffy deduced that those twelve ri were intended to feed the woman and her three young children, probably for a week. In other times, perhaps Seffy would have felt bad about killing the shop assistant, watching her suffocate as Seffy used her whole weight to crush her neck. But it wasn't. Besides, Seffy had other problems.

Having raided the woman's pockets, Seffy rose, opening her backpack and racing down towards the aisles. It was incredibly risky, what she was doing, but not doing it would mean certain death for both herself and her cousin Beatrix. Trixie was also doing her rounds, but at five feet three, she specialised in smaller areas. Six-foot Seffy was far better suited to areas where she might need to run or fight.

As she ran down the aisles, Seffy shoved products into her bag. The most difficult to obtain items went first – sanitary products, first aid kits, iodine tablets, toothpaste and toothbrushes, and chocolate. Then she searched for more perishable items and tins – as many tins of fruit and vegetables as she could carry, some meat, a few bags of flour, bread, and miscellaneous foodstuffs. Then Seffy was ready to go.

She was nearly half out the door when she spotted a few locked glass cabinets. Curiosity sparked, she skidded to a halt.

Books.

Alarms blared as Seffy sprinted through the alleys, left hand cut and bleeding through her glove, towards the woods. Her breath became steam in the smog of the night air, barely visible in the feeble orange glow of the lights on the street that ran parallel to the one she was using. Shouts echoed across the cobbles. Lights turned on in the crummy little shacks. People emerged, shivering in their nightclothes, onto the street. Dogs, roused from sleep, barked and howled at the half-obscured moon. Nobody noticed Seffy flying between the cracked stucco and rusting corrugated iron of the shacks and sun-baked soil of the little pathetic gardens.