Caleb Wayward
“Wedding Smashers”
by Matthew Cavazos
“So what’re you supposed to be?” She stayed poised, low to the floor, and punctuated her question with a quick dart of her bruise-coloured tongue between blood-stained lips.
A pattern of welts rose on his olive-toned flesh as he stood just a few paces away but did not answer; instead his fingers prodded the spots where his skull and lower jaw met.
“Who sent you for me? You Lucifer’s bounty hunter? Yahweh’s hitman? Buddha’s bitch? What exactly is it? Just why are you starting trouble for me?”
Her thin, pale shoulders flinched as an audible pop issued from his skull.
Through grit teeth and cracked lips he let out a hiss then a question of his own, “You hit like a pro boxer, you know that?”
As her reply, she simply widened her eyes exposing more of the blacks of the sclera that surrounded the burnished gold of her pupils. Of all the feats he witnessed her perform in their skirmish, this was the most unnerving, and he turned his gaze on the blood streaked glass platform that kept them mere inches from the water’s surface.
“Alright, to answer you in reverse: Because I can. I have a job for you. Karma’s. Not exactly. Not entirely. And, first of all, I sent me.”
She shook her head while standing up from her crouch, “Okay, okay. So who’s ‘me’, exactly?”
“That is a very simple to answer question.”
“And?”
“I am a debt collector, and you owe a debt. A big one. The kind that no amount of treasure Earthly or otherwise could fulfil the terms of, and so you’re going to work it off by serving me.”
Within the space of his pained blink he found himself nose to broken nose with the onyx-eyed creature.
“So you crash what was supposed to be the happiest day of my now dead groom’s life. You pre-empt my annual nocturnal bridal succour. You start a fight that spoiled what could’ve been a solid two decade identity that would’ve secured me nineteen more such feedings. Then you give me this bullshit, unsatisfying answer.”
A sickly gurgle came from his throat before he spat blood and mucus onto the front of her shredded and burnt wedding dress.
“Yeah, fine. I’m Caleb Wayward, and I’m here to collect on behalf of my Father. Don’t recognise the surname? Good. His name was Faust. Johann Faust and you’re going to help me round up the worst of your kind and send them back to where they belong.”
She grabbed the tattered hem of her soiled wedding dress, covered her split lip and busted features, and feigned a shiver.
“Ooh, I’m so scared. So you’re going to send us to Hell?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, we’re gonna drop their fallen asses back on Heaven’s doorstep because I’m fucking tired of Him dumping His garbage on this little spinning rock.”
Hops, Malted Barley, Maize and Water
by Jason S. Kenney
The place felt disgusting, and Mister Oblique turned his nose up as he entered the door. Normally he wouldn’t be caught dead here. The place reeked of old beer, a damp mildew scent hanging in the air, mingling with the smoke of too many cigarettes and cigars.
It was fairly empty, a table to one side hosting a card game with four gentlemen, another man saddled up to the bar, hunched over his drink, one person working the place, standing behind the bar, cleaning a glass, eyeing Oblique.
Oblique walked to the bar and chose a stool beside the other man there.
“So should I speak to you in French or English?” he said to the man at the bar.
“Well, you are in France,” the man said back in French.
“Yes,” Oblique replied in the same tongue, “but why exactly are you here? In Gorron of all places?” He turned to look at the card game. “Does it have to do with one of them?”
“No,” said the man, lifting his drink and taking a long pull off of it before continuing. “I just liked the name.”
“Liked the name?”
“It reminded me of Zelda.”
“An old flame?”
“I suppose she would be. If a video game could be a flame.”
Oblique turned to study the man and decided not to laugh.
“I have need of a man of your skills, Mister Carter.” The other man stiffened at the sound of his name. “Or is it Rowe these days?”
“These days it’s neither,” said Jeffery Carter with a sigh, hanging his head and closing his eyes.
“Ah, the sad story of Jeffery Carter.”
“Ah, the sad story of my cover.”
“So you are after one of them?”
“No,” said Carter, locking eyes with the man at the far end of the bar, “I’m here for the bartender.”
Carter grabbed Oblique and spun around, putting himself between the head of UKXD and the bartender, taking a blast from the bartender’s hand straight into his back. Carter grabbed a barstool and turned, flinging it in the direction of the bartender who ducked behind the bar.
Carter leapt onto the bar only to be blasted back by another shot from the man’s hands, tossing him into and through a table on the far side of the room.
The bartender took advantage of the lull and bolted from behind the bar and through the front door, leaving before Carter could climb out of the splintered remains of the table.
Carter pushed himself to his feet and brushed off, looking to the four gentlemen who had paused their game to watch the exchange.
“Drinks are on the house, gents,” Carter said to them in French and the smiled and turned back to their game.
“And you,” Carter said in English, pointing to Oblique who was just getting to his feet, “owe me a foot soldier of the Imperial Magistrate, Mister Oblique.” Carter rounded the bar and grabbed a bottle, set it down harshly in front of Oblique and smiled. “Or is it Frere Lud these days?”
“Now that,” Oblique said, the revelation not registering on his face, “is a bit of information that is hard to come by.”
“As was that dude.” Carter pointed at the door that the bartender had escaped through. He reached down and came up with two shot glasses, setting them between himself and Oblique. “But the answer is no.”
“Yet you do not know the question.”
“You have need of a man of my skills,” Carter said, pouring two shots. “And I am not for sale.”
“Every man has his price, Mister Carter.”
“Jeffery, if you’re going to be so friendly,” Carter lifted his shot in a toast.
“I don’t drink,” Oblique said as Carter took the shot.
“The other wasn’t for you,” Carter said, picking up the second glass and drinking it. He took a second to swallow, took a deep breath and poured another. “And you can’t pay my price.”
“Which is?”
“A city, half a million people, and a partridge in a pear tree.”
“What if I could get you Erlend Romanov?”
The name stopped Carter’s drink in mid-raise.
“Where?”
“We’re working on that. But I know you’d like to be in the know, yes?”
Carter took his drink and set the glass back down, but this time did not refill it.
“What do you want?”
“Do you know about UKXD?”
“I know what the little birdie tells me.”
“The angel around your neck?”
“The demon.”
“I have an agent that I need you to watch.”
“I suck at detective work.”
“More bodyguard.”
“Even worse.”
“You just did a fair job here.”
“I was lucky. You were luckier.”
“Erlend Romanov,” said Oblique, leaning forward and pointing at the chain around Carter’s neck, “and his scarab.” Carter instinctively clutched his shirt and the scarab underneath. Oblique smiled. “I know you’re looking for them.”
“Maybe I am.” Carter poured ano
ther drink. “How the hell did you find me anyway?”
Oblique turned and gestured to the men playing cards. “They work for me.”
Carter looked over his shoulder, and they looked his way. “Is that true?” he called out in French. They all nodded. He gave one in response, drank his shot, slammed the glass back down. “Then you can buy your own damn drinks.”
They chuckled and returned to their game.
“I wasn’t kidding,” Carter said to no one in particular as Oblique turned back to him.
“It’s a short assignment, a year at most. But the girl you’re watching is going to be a handful.”
“Most girls are.”
“But she’s an important asset to us and her well-being is a priority.”
“So no pressure.”
“Shouldn’t be any with someone like yourself, Mister Carter.”
Carter hung his head and took a deep breath.
“I’m trying to lay low, you know.”
“As are we,” said Oblique. “Nothing fancy, nothing flashy, you’ll be dealing with things that will be very quickly swept under the rug.”
Carter didn’t look up, just stared into his empty glass.
“You can even wear your mask,” Oblique said.
Read what happens next in TWISTED by Jason S. Kenney