Chapter Fifteen
Colter
“He’s passing through the Bleed,” Fenrir speaks into my earpiece. “Heading west out of the city.”
The Bleed.
Midnite City’s diseased underbelly. A shanty village that sprawls around the city’s boundary, constructed on the hopes, dreams, and failures of those who reside within it.
“We have one chance at this,” I say, shifting down a gear on my bike and cranking the throttle to speed up. “We’re not going to miss it.”
To enter Midnite City, the Sprawl, one must pass through the Bleed. When you do, you see the chaos swirling inside. You feel the inhabitants’ anguish before you reach the prosperity of the city. The Bleed is enveloped in a thin haze of the city’s eternal glow. Muted and dull like its inhabitants.
Faces peer at me through blackened windows, as I pass. They glare at me from alleyways. I scoff as I pass them by. They came here en masse, searching for salvation. Praying that they may find their peace beyond the pearly gates.
But there is no peace in Midnite City.
Only a sinner’s paradise.
“I’ve taken control of the car’s onboard computer,” Iniko says. “Give the word and I’ll cut the engine.”
“Wait.”
Timing is everything. If we act too quickly, my target’s security detail will have time to react.
If they intercept us in the middle of the act, it will cause a bigger problem than I want to face.
Worse still, killing his engine in the middle of the Bleed could see him fall victim to one of the many unhappy residents.
What they wouldn’t give for a chance at raising a corporate head on their pikes. It would be a desperate cry for sympathy from the monsters who abandoned them.
“Two minutes out,” Fenrir says. “He’s taking it leisurely.”
“His mistress?” I ask, barreling past a group of ne’er-do-wells, sucking down whiskey shots from a brown paper bag.
“Everything we’ve got says he’s alone,” Fenrir confirms.
“She’s at the motel? Is he heading there? I need answers.”
“Surveillance footage suggests she’s there,” Fenrir adds. “They caught her slipping into room thirty-three twenty minutes ago.”
“Then we’re good to go. Count to ten, Iniko, then work your magic,” I say, pressing a finger to the side of my helmet to kill any further communication.
My team assists in my operations, but I don’t allow them any more than this taste of it. It’d put their lives at risk if they knew my position behind the Veil. Instead, I let them believe whatever they want to. Stories of the Crawfords being smugglers, drug runners, or arms dealers.
We are, in fact, all of those, but we’re also so much more.
I count the numbers down, alongside Iniko, as Maxwell Henderson’s car comes into view.
On the count of six, I shift gears once more to gather as much speed as I can.
At four, I latch onto the brake handle, and my motorcycle comes to a screeching halt.
At one, I discard my bike and helmet and slip into the backseat of Maxwell’s Bentley.
The doors have been unlocked by the same magic Iniko used to kill the engine.
It roars to life again a moment later, but my pistol is already pressed against Maxwell’s head.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doi—“ Maxwell starts, but falls silent as he stares into the rearview mirror and sees my mask staring back.
“Drive,” I say. I don’t need to tell him where to go. A visit from me could only mean one place.
Life is full of little moments like this. Interactions executed with such perfection that it’s hard to believe we managed to pull it off at all.
I was on patrol in the city when Iniko called to say they had him.
Our window was small and closing, so if we wanted to move on Maxwell, we’d have to act quickly.
Had it been any other day, I’d have delayed our attack.
Risking a mission as important as this under a time crunch isn’t the sort of thing I take lightly.
But after what happened at Lilith’s place, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
I needed the distraction. Something serious and severe to focus all my attention and remove any risk of my mind wandering back to her.
Maxwell swallows hard, his fingers tightening around the wheel as his Bentley starts rolling forward again.
Neither of us says a word as we drift through the thin stream of traffic.
Beyond the Bleed, the Sprawl’s effervescent glow might as well not exist. Here, there are only black surroundings, brightened only by headlights and the streetlamps overhead, which guide us further toward our destination.
But, as with all men in his position, Maxwell’s silence breaks when we pass the motel where his mistress is waiting inside.
“Why are you here, Ghost?” he asks. Other than his shallow inhalation, I wouldn’t think he was afraid.
“You know why, Maxwell.” Until tonight, calling him by name would’ve resulted in some imaginative punishment from the Head. But with the lack of title comes a severe understanding that he has been stripped of his power and is no longer the Hand.
Maxwell Henderson is now just another ordinary, mortal man, no better than those who dwell in the Bleed.
“You can’t be serious?” His knuckles whiten. Whether it’s from rage or fear, I can’t tell. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I’ve kept my mouth shut. I lied about my own son’s death…” Passion causes his voice to crack and shake. But he shows no sign of sadness for Tom.
Interesting.
“Then take solace in knowing that the rest of your family will live,” I say.
He blinks rapidly, processing what I’ve just said. Then the realization hits.
“You can’t. You swore an oath,” he says.
“You’re right. I did, but so did you.” I don’t take my eyes off of him. Constantly watching through the rearview.
Any sudden moves, and I’ll have to break that vow. Show him that my loyalty to the Veil is more than just a set of words.
“Why is he doing it?” Maxwell’s temper flares. “Huh? Why’s the Head pushing for my death?”
I don’t answer.
I don’t know.
“I didn’t cross the line. I kept true to my word. I kept up my bond to the society above all else. For Christ’s sake, I let you kill my son.” Droplets spew out of his furious maw, splashing haphazardly against the windshield.
“The Head will bring you before the Council,” I say, uninterested in going down memory lane. His mentioning Tom once equated to sadness, but a second time is desperation.
“You will face trial and be given a chance to clear your name.”
“Face trial,” he scoffs. “When my judge and jury are the men sitting in his pocket? Hoo-fucking-rah.”
I press the barrel tighter against his head.
“You’d be wise to remember who you are talking to, Maxwell.” It’s a threat I’m fully willing to act on. It’s not within my power to kill him, but he’s a prisoner of the Veil now. No one would bat an eyelid if he walked into our hallowed hall with a few broken bones.
My words remind him of his place, and he keeps still for the rest of our journey.
We pull off the main road, onto a dilapidated concrete street, littered with potholes and cracks.
There’s no light along it, and no wayward souls driving or even walking in either direction.
The way is long abandoned and forgotten by time.
Two miles further down the road, we come upon the rusty and decaying remains of an old railway station.
This is all that is left of a once promising venture to link an underground metro between Midnite City and smaller surrounding towns. The idea was made redundant by the addition of sky-rails into the city, instead. Why let more in, the Veil pondered, when so many reside in the Bleed already?
But various mega-corps have found uses for the tunnels that were already constructed beneath Midnite City.
They use them as a low-cost alternative for transporting their goods from one district to another safely.
However, the railyards and depot stations that were built this far out were left abandoned.
The Veil found a use for them, though.
“Why did you stop?” I ask, gazing into the pitch-black mouth of a tunnel that obscures the few tracks that are laid inside it.
“Don’t do this, Ghost. You’re making a mistake,” he whimpers, finally coming to terms with the fact that his fate is sealed.
“It’s not my decision to make.”
He flicks the lights on, but they barely penetrate the darkness of the tunnel. We move deeper into the tunnel at a crawl. When we reach the end, a rock face, left over from when the construction was halted, forces us to stop. I exit first, my gun trained on Maxwell’s window and he joins me outside.
“I’m not stupid enough to draw on you,” he says, defeated, and casts his eyes toward the opening behind us in the distance. He gazes long and thoughtfully at the freedom he had a moment ago.
It sets my mind down two different paths.
One train of thought brings me to the conclusion that Maxwell must be guilty. If he weren’t, he’d object and plead his innocence with more vigor. The other, I’m loath to admit, sees him as innocent. Pleading his case to me won’t do any good. I’m neither judge, nor jury, nor executioner.
I’m a simple chauffeur bringing him from one point of his life to the next.
However, his lack of fight keeps me wondering.
He knows that if it came down to it, he wouldn’t survive a fight with me.
Yet, when he knows that he will face a trial, that will see him shamed, disgraced, and killed, I find it odd that he doesn’t try everything in his power to prove he’s guiltless.
I’d listen, not to Maxwell Henderson who stands accused, but to the man he once was. The Hand of the Veil.
It seems we both know there’s no use arguing. No matter the reason and even if I think they are true, I can’t and won’t release him.
Just as I reach the comfortable conclusion that Maxwell intends to face his trial with his head held high, he opens his mouth and shatters the illusion.
“Whatever this is, I can fix it,” he says in a last-ditch effort to win me over.
I sigh and jam the suppressor into his back. “Walk.”
And so he does. Over the tracks and to a service door that would look completely out of place in this tunnel, in daylight.
I press my hand into a box next to the handle.
Thuds and clangs from mechanical pins being dislodged from their locks erupt from inside the door.
Their horrid cries come to an end with a loud, deep groan and the door swings inward, exposing an equally out-of-place corridor.
Unlike the dilapidated tunnel housing it, the corridor is lit with bright white lights that seem unending in length. Equally secure doors run along the walls, each three feet apart from one another.
Our arrival stirs a cacophony of howling from those who dwell behind those doors. Some beg, some cry, and others who have accepted their fate simply hurl insults and curses at Maxwell and me.
We walk past those who await their judgment in their tiny prison squares.
Their misery grows louder and more frantic with every step.
Some will never have their audience with the Council.
They will spend the rest of their sorry existence in this cold, clinical hall.
Others will be tried, by the Veil or the Head, but that wouldn’t be the outcome they might wish for.
From my experience, none will survive.
At the first open cell, I press my hand into another biometric scanner, and listen to the door’s protest before it opens. I usher Maxwell into the three-by-three block interior.
“You’re making a big mistake, Ghost,” he says, not bothering to face me.
“It isn’t my mistake to make,” I answer, closing the door.
I leave the Bentley in the tunnel, and start back to the Bleed on foot. My bike will still be there, I know. Because even though they scorn me in passing, those who live in the Bleed know not to touch what belongs to the Ghost.
If you do, he will find you. He will make you suffer.