Called to Battle: Volume Two Read online

  Steve lives in Utah with his two kids and his awesome wife. He’s a bit (a ton) fanatical about the New Orleans Saints and the Oakland Athletics. He thoroughly enjoys having his likeness killed off in other people’s novels.

  FLESH AND BONE

  BY CHRIS A. JACKSON

  Mercir: The Killin’ Kind

  “Order up!” Two thick wooden plates mounded with steaming…something…hit the counter. “Gator hash, hot ‘n ready!”

  A harried waiter grabbed the plates and hauled them off to a table. The spicy aroma of the food would have been appetizing if this weren’t the fifth Arjun eatery I’d been in that day. I had heartburn just from the smell. The waiter returned and cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “What is it you want?” His accent was as thick and spicy as the food, his manner brusque, and his eyes suspicious.

  I hadn’t taken a seat at one of the tables, which might have prompted his suspicion, or it could have been the pistol worn crossways at my belt. The gun looked too big for me, and I’m not small. My hand rested with one thumb crooked over my belt, never more than an inch from the pistol’s worn grip. It looks casual, but I can draw faster than most folk can fire off a dirty look.

  “Talk.”

  “We don’t serve talk here, and we’re rushed. You order something or you leave. ”

  I fished a coin out of my pocket and silver glinted in the air as it arced toward him. “How about now?”

  He snatched it and barked a laugh. “For that, you can talk all you want. What’s this talk about?”

  “A man who might have worked here some time ago. A big man who looked like me.” I indicated my features with a flick of my hand. Momma always told me my high cheekbones and large dark eyes reminded her of my father. I wouldn’t know; I’d never met the man.

  “You better talk to Cook then. I don’t know any such man.” He nodded to the swinging door to the kitchen. “Just don’t get in his way. We’re rushed.”

  “So I heard.” I nodded and passed through the door into the sweltering kitchen.

  A man and woman hustled around the small space, wielding pots, pans, knives, and spoons with an economy of motion that bespoke of years doing so. Joints of meat and whole carcasses hung from hooks, and a boy entered through another door bearing something equally dead—the leg of some creature not readily identifiable. He hung it on a hook and shuffled back out.

  “What you want in my kitchen?” The older man flashed me a glare, his knife moving in a precise blur as he diced onions and peppers and scooped them into a bubbling pot.

  “I’d like to ask you about someone who might have worked for you—a big man who looked like me. Maybe he cut meat for you?”

  “Ha! So you say!” He grinned and reached up to liberate a dressed chicken from a hook. As he spoke, his knife dismembered the bird with deft strokes. “You’re on about Worthless!”

  “Worthless?” I’d never heard that name before, though I’d heard a few others for the man I sought.

  “Never a man loved his knives more’n Worthless, and he could cut up a gator quicker than you could spit! Ha!” The chicken parts went into another pot, followed by a big dollop of lard. The mixture hissed and spat. “He ain’t worked here for some three years. Disappeared after that trouble.”

  “Trouble?” That didn’t bode well. I’d already been trying to find him for more than a year, and the trail had led me to Mercir. This was where it stopped. So, I wasn’t about to give up now. “What kind of trouble?”

  “The killin’ kind.” He stirred the sizzling meat and sighed. “The Toriella boys came lookin’ for their due one day, and I didn’t have it.” He chuckled, scooped a bubbling brown paste from a smoking skillet into the pot, then added the boiling contents of the first pot. “Money, I mean. But oh, they found plenty blood.” Through a cloud of steam he threw in a handful of dried peppers, a dash of salt, and a spoonful of white powder from a metal tin. “Worthless was cuttin’ up a hog that day, and he came in right as them Toriella boys was gettin’ impatient. You want me to tell you what he did to them?”

  I nodded, and he told me.

  The Cook’s Story: Worthless

  They weren’t the kind to take “no” from the likes of me, but I had to try, you got to know.

  “I got no money this month, Avito. Don’t got no customers, so I got no money.” I backed up right to the counter as these two thugs came angry into the kitchen. I didn’t dare reach for one of my knives. Startin’ a fight with one of Toriella’s boys would only get me dead.

  “You got money enough to feed that fat belly, you got money enough for us.” Avito had a fist like a ham, and he closed it on my shirt. Then his other fist came around in a roundhouse that made stars explode in my head. My knees went wobbly, but he held me up. “Cough it up.”

  He hit me again, and Macie screamed and ran out the back, no help to me at all, but the only thing I coughed up was blood and a broken tooth. I was tellin’ the truth about no money.

  “What you doin’?” His deep voice from the back door drew them boys’ attention before Avito could hit me another time. “Don’t you be hittin’ Cook.”

  Worthless stood there with half a hog balanced on one shoulder, maybe two hundred pounds, but he carried that weight like it was a part of him, no notice of it. He wore his knives, of course—I think he slept with them—and he had this cleaver he liked so much in his other hand. He’d only been workin’ for me about three weeks, and he hadn’t met Toriella’s boys yet. This was the first time.

  He didn’t make a good impression on Avito, not at all.

  “We hit who we like,” Avito told him. “You best shove off, or you’re next.”

  “No.” Worthless didn’t move. Didn’t even put down the side of pork.

  “No?” Avito let go of my shirt, and my knees folded. My right eye wasn’t workin’ too good anymore, but with my left I saw Avito pull a holdout pistol from his pocket. “You just bought a bullet with your smart mouth.” The holdout’s hammer clicked back, but Worthless heaved that side of pork right at Avito before he could pull the trigger.

  The bullet blasted a piece of pork away just before the meat knocked Avito back against the hot stove. A pot of boilin’ chicken stock tipped down his trousers, and he screamed like he’d been boiled himself, which was probably part true. Avito’s partner pulled his own gun—not a holdout but one of them fine repeaters like the one you got. The first round hit Worthless in the shoulder and spoiled the aim of the knife he threw. The blade still sunk hilt-deep in the man’s leg, so not too spoiled, I didn’t think. The thug stumbled and fired again, but the bullet went wide, and it didn’t keep Worthless from throwin’ another knife. That one hit Avito’s partner in the gut, and he folded over like a napkin.

  “Die, you—” Avito struggled to reload his holdout, but as he brought the gun up, Worthless’ big cleaver took his hand off at the wrist. Like he was preparing a ham hock. Avito clutched the pulsing stump and screamed as blood shot out of it, but a knife clatterin’ to the floor drew Worthless’ attention.

  Avito’s partner had freed the blade from his innards, and even though he was still holdin’ his gut, he raised his pistol again to aim at Worthless’ head. His hand was shakin’ as he pulled the trigger, and the bullet only nicked off the top of Worthless’ ear. That was all he got. Worthless’ cleaver split that thug’s skull right down the middle, all the way to his chin. Never seen steel cut through bone like that, but Worthless had been cuttin’ up gators, and they got skulls even thicker than Toriella’s boys.

  Worthless grabbed Avito by his shirt and lifted him up, his cleaver drippin’ blood. “So you think you hurt whoever you like, huh?”

  Avito spit. “You’ll die for this. Toriella will kill you.”

  “Not before I kill you.” Worthless raised his big cleaver, but gunshots and screamin’ had caught the ear of a watch patrol.

  Them guardsmen came blundering in totin’ more iron than I got in my whole kitchen. I don’t know if they
recognized Avito and took his side or not. Maybe they did. Can’t imagine Toriella didn’t pay them to keep their noses out of his business. Or maybe they just saw a big man with a meat cleaver ready to cut them all to pieces, and they took it from there. They piled onto Worthless so fast, he didn’t have a chance. Knocked him senseless with their truncheons, and hauled him out before I could make my busted-up mouth work good enough to tell them what really happened. They took Avito, too, but I don’t imagine he spent one night in lockup. Maybe he didn’t even make it there at all—because Worthless sure didn’t. I went down to talk to the city watch about Worthless, but they said they didn’t have him anymore. Seems he broke out of the watch wagon just as they were pullin’ up to the jail. Broke one guard’s head with his chains and shot through his manacles with the man’s pistol. Got clean away. Don’t know where he went after that, but he didn’t come back here. He had family somewhere down in the Waterbourg district. Bunch of sisters and a mother he was takin’ care of, if he was tellin’ the truth about where his pay was going. Maybe you should talk to them.

  So, that’s it then. You want somethin’ to eat before you get out of my kitchen?

  The Waterbourg District: Nothin’ but Blood

  “Who’re you?” The woman’s tired tread up the rickety stair halted. She looked me over with more than a little suspicion, which wasn’t surprising. Waterbourg is a rough district, and nobody there trusts anyone they don’t know—and even knowing someone in Waterbourg doesn’t always make them trustworthy. I’d been waiting on her stoop for hours and gotten more than my share of suspicious stares from the neighbors. Even the chatty one had kept me at arm’s length.

  I looked the woman over, too, and we both could tell we’d been cut from the same bolt of cloth. She was just as tall as me, with similar features and skin.

  I pushed off the wall beside her door and tipped my hat. “Looking for a man.”

  “Can’t help you. No men here. Just me.” She stepped past me and worked a key into the lock.

  “Your neighbor said a man used to live here with his family.” After I had greased her palm with silver, of course. “A big man who looked like me. He used to cut meat for a place on Dray Street.”

  The woman’s dark eyes settled on me again, and I saw even more pain there than I saw every day in the mirror. “He’s gone.” She stepped inside the apartment and started to close the door.

  I blocked it from closing with my boot. “I’d like to talk to you about him. I want to find him.”

  “You a bounty hunter?” Her eyes flicked down to the gun at my belt. “Or a killer?”

  “Neither.” That wasn’t exactly true; I made my living hunting people, but I wasn’t working for anyone right now except myself. “I just want to meet him. Nothing more than that.”

  “And how do I know you’re not lyin’ to me?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Well, at least you’re tellin’ the truth about that.” There might have been skepticism underscoring this, but she let the door free anyway and waved me in. “Come on in then, but I don’t know what I can tell you. Worthy’s been gone for nigh on three years now.”

  Worthy… Worthless… What the old cook had called him now made sense. I stepped into the apartment, took off my hat, and closed the door behind me. The place was tidy, not large, and utterly lifeless. “Was he your husband?”

  “My brother.” She went to the kitchen. Something clinked, and she returned with a glass half full of brown liquid. I didn’t think it was tea. “He was oldest. Between him and me, we made enough to feed the rest and pay rent. Worthy brought home odds and ends from work, and Momma made her meat stew.” She lifted her glass and sipped, her eyes narrowing. “Why you lookin’ for him?”

  “He knew my mother.”

  “Huh.” She sipped again. “You’re too old for him to…” Her eyes widened a bit, then narrowed again. “You from Clocker’s Cove?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh.” She sipped. “I’m Patience, and I reckon we got somethin’ in common.”

  “I’m Temperance, and I reckon we might.”

  She didn’t react to my name, though I expected her to know it—or at least recognize the convention. She rose. “You want a spot of rum? Might make what I got to tell you go down easier.”

  “I might.”

  Patience went back to the kitchen and returned with another glass, this one half full of rum. “Have a seat. This won’t be easy for me, and prob’ly not for you.”

  We both sat, and Patience turned her glass in her hands and sighed. “About three years ago, I came home to this place, and there weren’t nothin’ here to greet me but blood. I’ll try to tell you what happened.”

  Patience’s Tale: Worthy

  I’d been workin’ all day, and I was about done in, but when I saw the door had been broke down, all my tired went away. I found Worthy on his knees right there in the middle of the floor. He’d been beaten, and there was an iron cuff on his wrist, but the chain had been broke short. I called his name, but he didn’t answer. Then I saw the blood.

  I don’t know what I thought at first. I knew Worthy never would’ve done nothin’ like what I was lookin’ at. Not to his own kin. Not to people who trusted in him.

  Both Momma and Mercy had been shot. There was a bloody knife in Mercy’s hand, so I knew my girl had put up a fight. The others, though. No. Faith and Constance had tried to run, I supposed. Least ways the killin’ strokes they took were in their backs. When I looked up after checkin’ that Constance wasn’t livin’ no more, Worthy was in the kitchen goin’ through Momma’s cookin’ things. For a crazy breath, I thought he was fixin’ himself something to eat. I went to the doorway.

  “What you doin’, Worthy?”

  “Gonna kill ’em.” He had all of Momma’s knives tucked through his belt and was sharpening her biggest cleaver. His bloody footprints were on our clean floor.

  “Who? Who you think did this?”

  “Toriella.”

  I knew that name. Nobody in Waterbourg didn’t, and everybody knew it was suicide to go up against him. “You can’t,” I said, though just lookin’ at Worthy I could see there was no talkin’ him out of it. “They’ll kill you. They won’t even leave me nothin’ of you to bury.”

  “Maybe.” He dropped the sharpenin’ steel and hefted the cleaver. I only noticed then there was a bloody bullet hole in his shoulder. “Don’t matter if they do. I’m dead already.” He stepped up to me then, and the look in his eyes scared me. It was like I didn’t recognize him anymore. I knew right then I’d never see him the same again. “They killed me already, Patience.” He gestured to the bloody bodies with the cleaver. “Worthy’s dead. Ain’t nothin’ left but flesh and bone.”

  “Don’t leave me alone. I got no one left but you,” I whispered, but there was nobody left to hear me. He was right. Worthy was dead inside. I begged him not to go, but he went anyway. He left me here with nothin’ but blood. I never heard from him again after that, but I heard about what he did. Not my brother who did those horrible things. You should talk to the City Watch. They know. Just ask them about the Toriella killings.

  Lady of Mercy Hospital: Proper Payment

  “We wrote it up as a gang war, and called it closed.” Sergeant Samas of the City Watch closed his ledger and inspected me dubiously. “Why the interest?”

  My hand twitched at the empty holster at my belt. Not that I wanted to use it, but they’d made me leave my gun at the front desk; I felt naked without it. “Personal interest.” When his expression didn’t change, I added, “I’m looking for a man who might have had something to do with the killings.”

  “The case has been closed for a long time, and I won’t thank you for kicking a hornet’s nest on some fool’s errand. We found at least fifteen bodies on Toriella’s estate. I say ‘at least’ because some of them were hacked to pieces—we had to count the arms and legs and divide by four to guess how many had been slaughtered. It was a gang war, plain and simp
le. Toriella finally stepped on someone’s toes who was tougher than he was. End of story.”

  “So, nobody saw anything? No survivors?”

  “Toriella’s alive, if you want to call it that.” Samas opened his book again, scanning the pages. “His wife and kids were in the house, but they weren’t touched. They claimed they didn’t see anything. Then they left Mercir.”

  “Toriella survived?” That surprised me. If Worthy went after him, I couldn’t imagine him stopping until the crime boss was dead or Toriella’s thugs killed Worthy. And if they killed him... Something didn’t add up. I had to talk to Toriella. “Where is he?”

  “Lady of Mercy Hospital.” The sergeant closed his book with finality. “Go and see him if you want. It’s been three years, after all. Maybe he’s stopped screaming by now.”

  It was a long, rainy walk up the hill to the hospital, and the leaden sky and steady downpour underscored my thoughts. Patience didn’t know where her brother had gone, and the Watch obviously hadn’t been able to hold him. If Worthy’s was one of the bodies they’d found at Toriella’s estate, how had Toriella ended up in a hospital? And after all this time, why was he still there? But there was something grimmer to consider: Why leave Toriella alive? Why not kill him? There were only two people who knew the answer. I’d been searching for one a long time, and the other was here. I climbed the wide marble steps and entered the huge building. The scent of antiseptic was heavy in the air as I entered. The fellow behind the broad stone counter in the foyer wore the robes of a priest and the symbol of Ascendant Doleth on a chain around his neck. He looked like he’d been sniffing the astringent odor his entire life.

  “You have business here?”

  “I was told by Sergeant Samas at the City Watch to come see Korvin Toriella.” That was true as far as it went.

  “You’re no relative of his.”