The Crimes of Orphans Read online

  Before Rain had a chance to stand, a pair of hands landed on each of his shoulders. He moved to pull away, but they quickly yanked him off his barstool. He kicked his feet up, knocking the stool over, but two more pairs of arms took hold of his legs. He struggled, trying to free himself from the four men’s grips, but was unsuccessful. The last thing he saw before being carried out of the tavern was Lita smiling and waving at him from behind the bar. “Tootles!” she called blithely.

  Grant was just delivering Alex’s water when the boy watched in alarm as Rain was carted off. Shoving past Grant, he ran over to the bar and yelled at Lita, “Aren’t you going to help him?”

  Lita shrugged. “Sorry, kid. As long as it’s not in my tavern, it’s not my problem.”

  “Dammit!” Alex yelled. He spun around and nearly tripped over a chair as he sprinted outside.

  Lita leaned against the back counter and crossed her arms, watching the young man go. Grant approached her, interested in the scene as well.

  “That’s just weird,” he mused. “I’ve never seen a human so concerned with a vampire. Never seen no vampire pal around with a human, either.”

  “I think they’re brothers,” Lita replied.

  “What makes you say that?” Grant asked, looking to her.

  “They have the same eyes.”

  “Huh. What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t know. It is curious though,” she said thoughtfully, her eyes still not leaving the door.

  III

  Outside, Rain struggled against his four captors as they carried him across the clearing in front of the tavern. He caught glimpses of each of them as he tried to break free. There was, of course, Red. There was also one with brown hair, one in a green shirt, and one wearing a blue coat. When they reached the cliff on the edge of the clearing, they all suddenly dumped Rain on the ground. Before he had time to rise, Brown and Blue each grabbed one of his arms and yanked him to his knees. Green moved behind him, slipping an arm around his neck and holding him in a headlock. Rain glared up at Red furiously. “I gave you a chance to walk away.”

  Red issued a bark of laughter. His nose was already bruising, and his neck bore a blotchy impression of Rain’s hand. “Oh yeah?” he said, “Well now I’m going to show you what happens when you start shit in my tavern.” Reaching behind his back, he retrieved from his belt a two-foot-long sharp piece of branch that he must have snapped off a nearby tree. Holding it tightly in his fist, he advanced on Rain.

  A nearly inaudible metallic click joined the conversation then, and Alex seized a handful of Red’s hair, pulling his head back as he brought his knife’s shiny silver blade up to the man’s throat. “Let my brother go before I teach your friend here how to smile out of his neck.” It sounded like something Rain would say, and Alex didn’t particularly like it, but he knew he had to sound tough to make up for his size and age. He tried to keep his voice from wavering as he uttered the threat.

  The three men holding Rain looked to Red questioningly, but his grin only widened. “Nice try, kid,” he said before thrusting an elbow back, brutally connecting with Alex’s ribcage, causing him to cough and stumble backwards. Red spun around and moved towards him. Alex swung his blade at Red’s chest, but Red leaned back, dodging it before lunging forward and grabbing Alex’s shirt with both hands. Throwing his significantly greater weight into the slender boy, Red turned and vaulted him straight off the cliff.

  “Alex!” Rain yelled, moving to jerk away from the men in attempt to jump off the cliff after his brother. He managed to yank his arm free from Brown, but Green redoubled his efforts, holding Rain’s throat tightly.

  Alex heard Rain’s cry, but it already seemed far away by the time it touched his ear. He was suddenly aware of how cool the night air was as it whistled by, bidding him farewell as he dropped towards the blackness below. He didn’t realize he was doing it, but he screamed the entire way down, emptying his lungs and releasing the buoyancy from his body. When he hit the water with a violent and painful splash, he started to sink immediately. Icy pinpricks danced over his skin as the frigid water swirled around him, drawing him deeper into its swallowing darkness. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing would come out. Instead, that coldness rushed in, filling his mouth and pushing at his throat, eager to fill his lungs and send him to an even deeper dark than this. As he thrashed wildly, struggling to make his way upwards, his hand fell open and his switchblade sank away, shimmering down into the forever below. He thought he was done for. Looking towards the surface, it seemed so far away now. He could see the light of the moon up there, peaceful and inviting. He wished he could grab hold of it and let it carry him out of this cold, dim place.

  As he stared up at that picture of a moon getting further and further away from him, its image was shattered when something new hit the water. The last thing he was aware of as dizziness encircled his head were slim fingers curling around his wrist.

  On the ridge, Rain glared at Red, fury growing in his eyes. Red only laughed. “Oh, did I hurt the vampire’s feelings? Can’t your poor little brother swim? Well you’re next, asshole.” He approached Rain, raising his wooden weapon high above his head, but then something made him stop in his tracks. Suddenly, the eyes Red was looking at were no longer blue, though they had been a moment before. No, those eyes had begun to glow a deep, turbulent violet. Red blinked. “I thought vampires’ eyes were yello—” but he never finished his sentence.

  Rain hollered with rage as he threw his head back, slamming it into Green’s nose with a satisfyingly wet crunch. His neck freed with Green stumbling back screaming, Rain yanked his hand away from Blue and, in one fluid movement, punched Brown in the throat and shot his elbow back to collide with Blue’s mouth. As all three men scrambled away from him, Rain vaulted to his feet, headed straight for Red.

  Red tried miserably to swing at Rain with his sharp branch. Rain blocked the attempt with his left hand and swung his right fist in a blurred hook that shattered Red’s cheekbone and most of his teeth on that side, knocking him out cold.

  Looking down at Red’s unconscious form and hearing his friends scatter, Rain forced himself to breathe slowly and suppress the rage that was urging him to keep pummeling the man, or worse. Finally, his eyes faded back to their normal blue and a brief wave of dizziness washed over him as he came back to his senses. He shook it off and dashed to the cliff, where he scanned the surface of the water for any sign of Alex. His gaze was drawn by movement on the shore below, and he saw someone kneeling over what appeared to be a lifeless heap. His senses were still too dulled by ebbing fury to make out if that heap was breathing. He took off in a dead sprint down the hill and towards the lakeshore.

  IV

  “Come on, kid, wake up,” Lita said. Her wet hair hung in front of her face as she vigorously shook Alex’s shoulders. He was breathing, so it looked like he had just passed out, probably from the shock of the fall. It was a good thing. If she’d had to breathe into his mouth she’d have been pissed. It was bad enough that she was wet.

  Responding to her shaking, Alex awoke with a start, his eyes snapping open wide as his body jerked and he looked around frantically. He thrashed for a moment, but Lita held his shoulders firmly. “Whoa, take it easy. You took a big fall there, kid, but you’re alright.”

  Rain reached them just as Alex was sitting up shakily, aided by Lita’s hand on his back. “Are you alright?” he asked worriedly, dropping to one knee by his brother.

  “Yeah,” Alex croaked, then coughed wetly. “She saved me,” he added.

  Rain’s eyes shifted to Lita and they locked gazes for a moment before both looked back to Alex.

  “Thank you,” Alex said after clearing his throat. “My name’s Alex, by the way, and this is—”

  “Yeah, we’ve met,” Lita interjected. “Name’s Lita.” Rain gave her a nod and returned his attention to Alex.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Alex said. Rain took one of his arm
s, Lita the other, and together they helped him stand. He was a bit shaky at first, but soon found his footing.

  “Good,” Rain said. “Let’s get you inside and dried off. We have to head out soon.” He turned away from the two of them and began making his way back towards the tavern. After a few feet he looked down at his hand, noticing a smear of blood across it. He stopped walking and stared at it pensively. Finally, he stooped down to wash it off in the lake, then proceeded once more towards the Red Mare.

  “A little thanks might be nice,” Lita muttered as she watched Rain walk away.

  “He’s thankful,” Alex said hoarsely. “He’s just not good at saying it.” Lita looked at the young man for a moment, then nodded. They both headed off after Rain.

  When the three of them reentered the tavern, Rain returned to the bar to finish his drink. Grant approached the sopping messes that were Lita and Alex. “You know, Lita, you run out of here every time you want to go for a swim, an’ I’m gonna start dockin’ your pay.”

  “Fuck off, Grant,” she said flatly and headed towards the stairs.

  He chuckled, then looked to Alex. “You still up for that glass of water, kid?”

  “I’ll pass,” Alex said, and headed to join his brother at the bar.

  “No one appreciates my humor,” Grant said, looking to Cutter.

  “I thought it was funny,” Cutter replied, smiling.

  “I pay you. It doesn’t count.”

  A short time later, Lita descended the stairs once more, rubbing a simple white towel through her hair. She tossed another to Alex as she approached the bar. “Here, kid, dry yourself off.” Looking to Rain, she said, “You want one more, or are you driving?”

  “Both,” Rain replied. Lita raised an eyebrow. “Vampires can’t get drunk.”

  “What the hell is the point then?” she asked.

  “I like the taste.”

  Mouthing an, “Oh,” Lita poured him one more drink. He slid five goldpieces across the counter and she snatched them up eagerly.

  “Hey, Lita, I almost forgot. This came in for you earlier tonight while you were passed out,” Grant said as he approached her with a white envelope in hand. Across its front was written simply, Lita – Red Mare Tavern. Taking it from him, Lita looked it over curiously. It was a rare occurrence to receive mail these days. There was no official service to speak of outside the major cities, and it was difficult to find couriers who could be trusted.

  She was about to tear open the envelope when she noticed Grant was watching her intently. She opened her mouth to tell him to mind his own damned business when his attention was pulled away by customers approaching the far end of the bar. Returning her own attention to the envelope, she opened it and retrieved a single-page letter. As she read it, the color drained from her face. Once she had finished, she folded it carefully and slipped it into her back pocket, her fingers brushing over her handgun as she did. That had been quickly disassembled, dried off, and its bullets replaced upstairs before she had even touched herself with a towel. Just walking from the lake back to her room with a potentially unusable weapon had been enough to set her teeth on edge. Much like that letter was doing right now. Leaning against the back counter, she crossed her arms and stared down at her feet thoughtfully.

  “Are we heading out soon?” Alex asked Rain, who was sipping his drink and halfway through a cigarette.

  Rain retrieved a small silver pocket watch from inside his coat. “Dammit,” he said quietly. “Yes. We’ll have to get moving if we’re going to find an inn in Maple City before dawn.”

  Lita’s eyes snapped up and she looked to Rain. “Did you just say you’re going to Maple City?”

  Rain eyed her. “I did. What of it?”

  “Fuck, I can’t believe I’m going to ask this…” she muttered, then said louder, “Do you think I could hitch a ride with you?”

  Rain scoffed. “What in hell makes you think I’d do that?”

  “Well, I did save your brother’s life,” Lita shot back.

  Rain looked to Alex, who shrugged. “It is only fair.”

  Rain fell silent for a time, thinking. Finally, he sighed and said, “You’ve got ten minutes.”

  “I just need five.” Lita said before rushing out from behind the bar and bounding up the stairs. Rain shook his head, downed the rest of his drink, and looked to his brother.

  “If I end up regretting this, I’m going to bring you back here and toss you off that cliff myself.”

  Alex laughed, though a bit nervously. Rain didn’t often make jokes.

  True to her word, Lita descended the stairs again not five minutes later, a large stuffed knapsack slung over her shoulder. Even on the occasions that she stayed at the Red Mare for several days at a time, she never unpacked more than she could pack back up in just a few minutes. Of course, she did that anywhere she stayed.

  “We ready?” she asked as she met up with Rain and Alex.

  “My car is out front,” Rain said, pulling his keys from his pocket. Lita nodded and followed him towards the door. Behind the bar, Grant looked up to see that his employee was heading out looking packed for a trip.

  “Hey, Lita! Where the hell are you going? You walk out on your shift, I’m firing your ass!”

  Turning around but continuing to walk backwards, Lita grinned. “Fine, fire me then, Grant. You’re an asshole anyway!”

  Coming out from behind the bar, he said, “I can’t fire you, you’re my only tender!”

  “Then I quit!” she hollered, turning around to head out the door.

  “You can’t quit! You’re fired!” he yelled.

  “Fine then!” she yelled back, waving a dismissive hand over her shoulder as she stepped outside.

  Rushing after her, Grant stood in the open doorway and called out, “Will you be back by next week?”

  Lita didn’t answer.

  TWO

  I

  How can I be a leader when I’m barely even a woman?

  As Lita was jolting awake from her nightmare, Amelie was asking herself this same question that she had been pondering a lot these days. She found it especially came to her at times like this, when she would look over herself in the vanity mirror that sat in her luxurious bedchamber, examining every inch of a body that seemed trapped in some strange place where it was neither child nor adult. She absently drew a brush through her auburn hair as she stared at that lithe form that felt both completely hers and entirely foreign at this peculiar age of fifteen.

  She set her hairbrush down and ran her hands along the bottom of her hair, allowing some of it to fall forward and cascade over her shoulders, down to her small breasts. Normally, she preferred to pull her hair back into a tight braid that would lie straight down between her shoulder blades like a dead snake. It was easy to manage and it kept it out of her face. But she knew her father preferred to see her hair down, and since she was bordering on some of the last memories she would ever have with him, she wanted to look the way he liked her best: hair free, simple dress, and no makeup.

  He liked it because it reminded him of a time when her mother was still alive. She disliked it for the same reason.

  Pushing away the containers of blush and various beauty creams that cluttered her desk, Amelie laid her head down on folded arms. Her eyes drifted closed for a moment, and she began to think of all the responsibilities she was about to undertake.

  II

  Chicane was one of the founding cities of Ayenee, and at well over a century old, was still the fastest growing of all. When pilgrimage to the manmade eighth continent began, with it came the last semblances of Old World religion, and Chicane was founded upon predominantly Roman Catholic beliefs. Once heralded as the “Vatican of the New World,” much of the city’s architecture was modeled after that of the now-crumbling Roman metropolis. Throughout most of the city, a person could barely turn a corner without encountering a nearly smothering religious presence all about. However, this was but a sanctimonious surface thinly coverin
g a much darker underbelly.

  Chicane was the place to go if a person needed a gun. It housed the largest groups of weapons manufacturers and dealers in all of Ayenee, only rivaled in the world by the shadowy Black Forest group in Ireland—Ayenee’s closest neighbor to the northeast—which provided weapons to the entire Irish Army. Furthermore, Chicane was virtually the only city in Ayenee where one could easily procure almost any drug of choice—from concoctions similar to Old World heroin and cocaine, to the newer, darker substances like Black Sapphire and the Skeleton Herb, which brought about vision-like hallucinations and were even rumored to stir supernatural abilities in humans who were not previously among the subset of society that already possessed them—the Gifted.

  The city was not without political dissent as well. Its monarchical government was prone to violent coups led by men who believed they could run things with a holier iron fist than whoever held it last. The present ruler, Lord Richard Lamoureux, was the first leader to come into power by bloodless means since Lord Chicane himself had passed away. Lamoureux’s predecessor had been assassinated, but no one moved to take control, so an election was held. Richard—widely revered as the headmaster of the Chicane Academy for Higher Learning—won the election by a considerable margin.

  It had proven to be a sound decision on the part of Chicane’s citizens as the city seemed to have run more peacefully than ever in the twenty years since Lamoureux took control. However, Richard was less a peacemaker and more a leader skilled at hiding things. He was a loving and stalwart man, but the darkness that crept through his city was too much for him to banish on his own. Thus, he found quiet places to tuck it, keeping his people under the false impression that their home was indeed the holy place they believed it to be.

  Unfortunately, even a man such as Richard Lamoureux could only hide the evils of Chicane for so long before they began to gather around not only his city, but himself as well.