The Façade of Quad in Nimrod ✓ | Satire, family drama, dark society

XXIII

Saturday for the Quads passed nearly the same as Friday except Mordecai was not out to work, but out prompted by Fernando's messenger girl, who had come that morning, to get something better than Sensland wine at Fernando's suggestion.

"So, Angie, what else has Fernando said about this...midnight oil, he calls it?" Mordecai was intrigued to say the least. He was already feeling mild effects of opium withdrawal which included restlessness and a fast heartbeat. Although he didn't know they were caused by opium, he did know that more 'Sensland wine or whatever was part of it' would help him to relax.

Nelly gave her prettiest little smile and took him to the jeweler's. Mordecai was shocked and even appalled at first that Fernando even knew about such a place, but only a bit of coaxing got him to try it. It didn't take long for him to succumb.

Leaving him there, Nelly went to call Fernando to report the deed was done.

* * *

It was night in Quinex. The streets were dark, the snow glistened and crunched underfoot. Two men clad in black suits wearing red gloves approached the only open bar. Yellow light poured out and laughter could be hear inside.

"And you don't say! You have a Naibon sword at your house?" Henry said in exaggerated tones. He was sitting at the bar next to his target, making him all happy and giddy to lure him out into the streets. The poison didn't know what was coming, for sure.

"I stole it, from an old peasant woman who said it was her husband's sword, but pah! Heck should I care, eh? We are the golden society! We do as we please!" the man bragged and drank more beer. He was a thief that stole valuable goods from the poor. To Richard, he would have seemed to be consumed in gray filthy cloud.

"Would you show it to me? I would so be honored to see that!"

The man chuckled. "You, eh, I like you kid. You've got good tastes. Alright, the drink's on me! Come on get your arse off the stool and let's head out to my big, grand mansion, eh?" The man half fell off the stool, paid the bartender, and stumbled out the door. He didn't go very far before a man clobbered him from behind and he fell face first onto the snow.

Henry and Jaxson—who clobbered the man—dragged him away and into the forest nearby. There, they gagged him to muffle his screams as he came to. Jaxson was about to shoot him in the throat—as requested to destroy the voice that talked down to the poor—when Henry stopped him.

"Let me do it."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah," Henry said and took out a gun he borrowed from Jaxson. He aimed at the man's throat, his fingers twitched, his palm sweated, and he imagined Aulen's face on the victim—that made it all the more easy.

BANG!

The gun went off and blood shot out from the neck. Henry jumped out of the way just in time and watched it spray out onto the snow. He was trembling from both horror and excitement at how the blood of life just kept spraying until the man's eyes rolled back in his head and he choked on his own blood.

"There she sprays," came Frankie's Koltts drawl of drawing out the letter 'e's in unnecessary places. "If you jump on his back, he'll spray more."

"I don't think we need to do that. Want to have the honors?" Jaxson handed Henry a dagger. 

It was also requested to slice up the tongue. 

Such gruesome things Henry had previously not been able to stomach, but now he had stopped seeing the body as a body or the blood as blood. They were just things to him now. He could cut up a few 'things' couldn't he?