Shadow Walker

Bargaining

Dec approached the ivy-covered doors of the Lady Josephine, feet swirling clumps of yellowed leaves on the gravel path. The breeze had changed direction somewhere between home and the church and was now a cool, straight-off-the-sea, southerly. Autumn was coming—a reminder that it was almost their two-year anniversary since the March Massacres and the government's radical decision to implement 'The Solution'.

Tommy pushed the church doors open with a haunted squeak and disappeared into the din. Dec followed, almost hitting his head on the bone-coloured crucifix hanging by a single rusted chain just inside the entrance. One of these nights, that crucifix was going to fall and kill someone.

Lazar stood beneath the main apse of the church, face angled upwards so it caught the moonlight streaming through the broken stained glass dome above. The crumbling statue of the Lady formed a plaster shadow behind him, making it look like the dove white wings were his own. He'd swapped his magician's outfit for an all-black tuxedo and his cravat for a bow tie. He was wearing dark-tinted sunglasses.

"Bit optimistic don't you think?" Tommy said, walking with the confident stride of someone expecting an enthusiastic greeting.

Lazar didn't answer. Instead, he flicked a hand in Tommy's direction and from out of the broken pews, two men appeared, wearing identical tuxedos and dark-tinted glasses. Medium heights, medium builds, same blonde hair styled in matching combovers, they were twins, save one of them had an eyebrow piercing, and the other had a vivid white scar when an eyebrow piercing used to be.

"Check them," Lazar said.

Next thing Dec knew, piercing man was patting him down, sweeping his hands over his chest, down his torso and up both legs with dismissive coarseness and much less precision than when Rain had done the same after his night at Mansions. He could hear Tommy protesting his treatment beside him.

"Shove off, mate. What's this all about anyway? Think I've got some kind of weapon on me or something?"

Lazar answered from his place at the apse. "We can never be too careful."

Meanwhile, piercing man had moved onto Dec's palm pod, turning his wrist this way and that. Probably checking for tracking devices, Dec thought.

Tommy opened his mouth to say something to Lazar, but was cut off when the scarred twin caught his jaw, held it open with one hand while shining the torch down his throat. Tommy spluttered and turned his head away. "What the hell, mate?"

"We need to make sure you haven't contracted the Desert Sickness so we know you're fit to perform your first assignments," Lazar said in a bored monotone. "Don't want any hallucinations clouding your judgement."

Piercing man gripped Dec's head and peered down his throat just like scar man had done with Tommy. Once this was done, he pried open Dec's eyelids one-by-one and shone his torch in them.

"All clear," he said, taking a step back.

"Clear," his brother said from Tommy's side, his voice an echo of the first.

Lazar approached them from the apse. His stride was slow, procession-like. It was a wonder he didn't fall over his feet with those stupid glasses on. He came to a stop directly in front of Dec. "As you know, the dust storm has brought with it a severe outbreak of the Desert Sickness. The government is working with the hospitals to keep it a secret, but the number of infected individuals could be as high as one in three. Of infected individuals, some will start showing symptoms within the month, others will merely remain carriers, whose symptoms might not show for years. It's the coverup of a century, and the NYR is the only group in a position to do something about it."