But the final reason that I welcome this fight tonight is because it may be my one shot at having a family again. I had love, a makeshift family, but I’ve lost it, and there’s a gaping hole in my heart where it used to be. I need to be honest with myself. Hawthorne isn’t coming back. He’s going to go on with his life—his firstborn life. He would’ve contacted me by now if he planned to be a part of the rebellion—or to see me. It’s been weeks. He knows where I am. He also knows the odds are against our fixing anything. We have a better chance of making things worse.
Saving Gabriel could be my only shot at happiness. If Balmora, the secondborn of the Fate of Virtues, and Gabriel, the firstborn of the Fate of Swords, can unite and fight for change, then maybe there’s a better world ahead for all of us. Maybe together, they can bring us peace.
Chapter 15
The Consolation of Oblivion
Franklin stops the hovervan on the street corner one block from Club Faraway. Before I even close the door, he speeds away. Taking off the cat mask, I toss it into a garbage receptacle. The streets aren’t very crowded in downtown Purity. The upscale metropolitan area is more office building than residential.
Slowly, I follow the navigation on my wrist communicator. “I’m approaching the club,” I whisper into the device. “Have you located a weapon?”
“Go look under the bench in front of the mechadome clinic,” Balmora replies through the communicator.
I spot the hovering bench in front of a mechadome storefront. Different types of bots are on display. None of them resemble Phoenix. Attached to the bottom of the seat bench, I find a generic fusionblade, tear it away from the adhesive, and strap the thigh sheath to my right leg.
“Got it,” I mutter into the communicator.
“Good. You’re clear to go.”
“Copy.”
I tighten the belt of the long black jacket that Clifton’s team made for me. My hand smooths down the Copperscale. I hope it’s as good as Clifton claims, or I’m dead. The navigation points to a posh, fin-shaped skyscraper. The outside of the slender building resembles gray shark skin. It’s intriguing without being overt. Club Faraway is nestled on the corner, next to other elegant facades of what appear to be average-looking office buildings.
The drug lair doesn’t overtly advertise. No signs. No patrons milling around outside. Balconies speckle the side of the building, reminiscent of an elegant hotel. The rooftop has a penthouse at the peak of the dorsal fin. At street level, glass doors filled with undulating blue water blur the view inside. Pushing one open, I take a cautious step in. The door closes behind me. Bright light from the ceiling and the floor make it hard to see. Security traps me in the vestibule between the outer and inner doors. I’m in a faux tank, the walls all filled with water, blurring everything on the outside. “This is a weapons-free zone,” an automated feminine voice sounds. “Please check all weapon in the receptacle.”
A silver cylindrical apparatus rises from the floor, and a round chute opens inside it. My heart sinks. I have to give up my weapon if I want to get in. I consider leaving, but if I do, I’ll always ask what-if. Reluctantly, I pull the fusionblade from the sheath on my thigh and deposit it in the receptacle. The weapon disappears, and an orange plastic disc emerges. I place it in my pocket. The bright light fades. The doors slide open.
The pristine lobby is dimly lit. The floor shines with wavering aquamarine light, like sunshine filtering through water. Softly lit chandeliers barely push back the shadows. Clusters of dark velvet chairs with high seat backs float above the floor. I gaze around for elevators, hallways, or other attached rooms. There aren’t any. For a drug club, it isn’t attracting any customers.
Soft instrumental music plays. A woman with thick dark glasses sits in the corner facing the door. Her hair is white, with blunt-cut bangs in the front. A fat tumbler of amber liquid rests on the table beside her. A rose-colored cigar sends a curl of fragrant pink smoke up from her ashtray. A glove masks her moniker. On the opposite side of the room sits a thin, well-built man. He’s hollow-cheeked, and dressed as if for the opera, drinking a wine spritzer. I don’t judge: wine spritzers are delicious.
A clerk—middle-aged, a Virtue-Fated secondborn with slicked-back hair and a dark suit with a high collar—stands at a blue wave-shaped desk at the back of the room. The wall behind it is a shark tank. Holographic screens in the desk cast hieroglyphic symbols up onto the clerk’s face.
“Hello and welcome to Club Faraway.” The secondborn smiles. His teeth glint. His glittering diamond ascot pin twinkles. “Do you have a reservation or are you here to meet a party?”
“A party,” I say. “Solomon Sunday.”
His nostrils flare, and his finger hesitates on the virtual screen. He has been expecting me.
“Firstborn Sunday is—” His eyes widen in terror. I duck. The clerk’s neck and jaw explode from a fusionmag shot, spattering brain matter onto the tank behind him. I don’t look back but jump over the desk. A second fusionmag blast strikes me in the back between my shoulder blades. Judging by the angle, the shot had to have come from the wine spritzer man. The Copperscale of my coat absorbs part of it, but the impact is like being hit by a speeding hovercraft. I slam into the shark tank and slide to the floor. The clerk’s corpse twitches beneath me. I wheeze. My lungs feel turned inside out. Flecks of the clerk’s blood mar his diamond tiepin. I pluck the tiepin from the cloth.
Footsteps draw nearer. Ignoring the pain, I lurch up and throw the tiepin at the man who shot me. The needle and diamond slice into his pupil. Wine Spritzer screams and holds his hand to his bloody eye. I reach across the desk, grasp his other hand, and turn his fusionmag. We shoot at the white-haired assassin stalking toward us, but she dives to the floor. I twist the fusionmag in Wine Spritzer’s hand again and shoot him through the chin with it, blowing off the top of his head. As he crumbles, I tear the weapon from his hand.
The woman on the floor fires again. The pulse hits my right bicep. My jacket absorbs most of the pulse, but it still knocks me off my feet. My fingers go numb. I can’t hold on to the fusionmag, and it drops to the floor and slides. Straightening, I reach for it with my left hand. The woman walks around the desk, and her perfect cherry lips gape open when she sees I’m not dead. My fusion pulse blows her shattered heart out of her chest. She flies backward and hits the ground, bouncing.
I stagger to my feet as the numbness in my arm gives way to aching tingles. It still works, but it aches like hell. Moving my fingers to get the feeling back into them, I search Wine Spritzer with my other hand. A spade-like knife is concealed in a leg sheath. He was waiting for me. Whoever planted the assassins in the lobby knew I was coming—or someone like me. I remove his glove. No moniker—but a scar where it used to be.
I move to the woman. Her hair is a wig, and when I pull it away, she’s bald. Gruesome scars cover her scalp. I pluck the dark glasses from her face. Brown eyes with a silver tint stare up, unseeing. I don her glasses and wig, stuffing my long brown strands beneath it. I untie her rose-colored scarf, wrap it around my throat and the lower half of my face, and remove her glove. She doesn’t have a moniker either—it was cut out. I take her fusionmag and shove it in my pocket. Back at the clerk’s desk, I use the spade knife to cut out his secondborn moniker, stuffing it inside my glove so that it shines through the mesh.