The Last Heretic

BREADCRUMBS

She picked the note out of the envelope and sighed. Her father's handwriting was perfect cursive, like something off a printing press - the paper an elegant but thin stock like a sheet of stiff silk. Another address and sack of money. Another haul. All these years...some things never change.

6 Rau di Virre, Auia Depot West

2100

The sun was setting outside the window of the cramped apartment. St. Bastion was blanketed in the warm, orange rays of an ending day. Carriages of travelers crowded the streets as workers flooded home after a hard day's work. The little girl stirred as she slept in the bedroom down the hallway, her nearly silent breathing gently wafting through the apartment like a breeze in the distance on a quiet afternoon. The woman sat in the dusty chair frozen in thought - staring through the curtains as the sun slowly crawled behind the skyline of the magnificent capital. She watched the yellow ball of heat and light slowly descend behind the brick and mortar skyline. The meeting was tonight - and she had enough money in his little envelope to purchase a damn house. 'The most prodigious of artifacts' her father had said - what could be so important that he wouldn't give her more details?

What haul was so special that he wanted it to be a surprise? Another treasure from the old world? Another several thousand year old trinket from before the War of the Gods? After the job that'd gone south a few months ago she had begun to doubt her father's choice of words regarding these 'jobs'. At least there wasn't a crew to worry about this time around. The woman sighed and rubbed her temples - if the money wasn't so good she wouldn't take half of these jobs from her old man. And he knew that.

She slid the note in the back pocket of her jeans and walked down the hallway. Her footsteps quietly echoed through the old apartment's hallways as she stepped into the bedroom and strode past the sleeping girl sprawled over the bed.

"Get up."

The girl's eyes snapped open and she immediately sat up, looking around the room like an animal blasted awake by a gunshot. Her mentor stood over a duffel bag on the desk in the corner of the room, rummaging through its contents. The girl stood up and yawned, glancing at the curtained window of the master bedroom. She could see orange light through a crack in the curtains. There was still a bit of daylight left out there.

"Time for the meeting?" She asked the older woman.

"Almost. We're heading to the site of my brother's murder, first. I'm meeting someone there."

Evelyn pulled a small, sheathed dagger out of the duffel bag and tossed it to the girl, who snatched it out of the air and tucked it into the waist of her pants. She tied the leather cord around her thigh to secure the sheath to her leg. The woman grabbed a hair tie from the bag and tied her hair into a ponytail. She pulled another sheathed blade out of the bag and tucked it into her jacket.

"Let's go."

The door to the ten-story, brick and mortar apartment building closed behind them as she stepped out into the bustling street. Horse-drawn carriages rumbled down the streets as crowds of people swelled through the sidewalks. She checked her mechanical watch. It was nearly seven-thirty in the afternoon. The sun had set, but its gentle twilight kept the sky burning a deep red as the heat from the day started to dissipate into the breeze. The girl glanced around the city, taking in the sight. Street vendors started up their stoves and called out their dishes to the crowds as the day's workers flooded through the dense city like undulating schools of fish. She looked up at her mentor, but the woman was gone.

A horse-drawn carriage parked next to a streetlamp as a man hopped out with a long pole and a burning wick on the end of it. The horse stood in place as he reached up to the streetlamp and ignited the oil lamp for the coming night. She turned around, looking through the crowd. There were easily dozens of people swarming the streets - a couple hundred, maybe. She saw the ponytail sticking out of the mass of heads and ran up to it. Jillian paid the street vendor and handed a wrapped paper meal to the girl running up behind her. It was a juicy cut of meat - uncooked. Bloody. It was dripping all over the concrete at her feet.