Easter bouns
The Butcher's Bill
The rain in London did not fall; it drifted, a cold, grey shroud that clung to the stone skin of the city. It was the kind of dampness that didn't just wet the clothes but seemed to soak into the very history of the streets, turning everything into a smudge of charcoal and slate.
On a narrow balcony overlooking the black, churning ribbon of the Thames, Chris stood motionless.
His hands were braced against the iron railing, his knuckles standing out like bleached bone. Across the water, the Honse Duchy headquarters loomed—a monolith of glass and steel, glowing with a sterile, corporate gold. It was a palace built on the suffering of the "refined," a sanctuary for a trafficking syndicate that operated with the blessing of high-court permits.
The French doors behind him groaned open. Two shadows detached themselves from the dim interior of the apartment. Yunli and Sonia.
They didn't look like the elite operatives who had breached the Paris hotels a week ago. They looked like survivors of a shipwreck. Yunli's dark dress was heavy with moisture, and Sonia's usual rhythmic grace had been replaced by a stiff, mechanical gait.
"Report," Chris said. The word was flat, stripped of all color.
Yunli stepped forward. She didn't speak. Instead, she reached into the folds of her dress and produced a small, crystalline vial. Inside, a pinch of fine, ashen dust shifted with the vibration of the city.
"The merchandise... it was lost to the Dark Magician," Yunli whispered, her voice a fragile thing in the wind. "AXILE's hierarchy in the third division is gutted. Tess, Andre, Maeve... all gone. The Wraith claimed them before the Magician claimed the Wraith."
Chris didn't blink. "And our people? The lead delivery?"
Sonia made a small, choked sound. She stepped into the light of the balcony, her eyes red-rimmed and raw. She reached out, her fingers trembling as she brushed Chris's leather sleeve.
"Oscar is gone, Chris," she said, her voice breaking on the name. "Ian... he killed him. He executed him in the bakery and took the head for a neural harvest. When he was done... he atomized the remains. There is no body. There is nothing but that vial."
The silence that followed was heavier than the rain. Chris felt a sudden, violent cold bloom in his chest, radiating outward until his fingertips went numb. Oscar a comrade who whistled through his teeth. The scout who could disappear into a crowd like a drop of ink in a well.
The man who had been the pillar of the Detroit labs—the one who had guarded these children through the fire—felt his knees betray him. Chris slid down the railing, his back scraping against the wet stone until he was sitting in a puddle. He stared at the vial in Yunli's hand, the light of the Honse Duchy reflecting off the glass that held the remains of his brother.
"He was just a comrade," Chris whispered, his voice disappearing into the grey mist. "He was a family ."
The four days that followed were a descent into a private hell. Chris didn't go back to the mission nor did he track the Duchy's shipments. Instead, he drowned.
Soho's neon lights blurred into a kaleidoscopic nightmare as Chris staggered from one basement bar to the next. The scent of cheap, biting gin became his only companion. He sat in the corner of dive bars, his eyes fixed on the bottom of a glass, watching the ghosts of Paris swim in the amber liquid.
"To Oscar!" he roared one Tuesday night, his voice cutting through the low hum of a jazz club. He slammed his glass down with such force it shattered, shards of glass embedding in his palm, drawing blood that he didn't even feel. "To the boy who delivered the mail to the devil! Drink up, you cowards!"
By midnight, he was a wreck on the cobblestones. He wandered the alleys, screaming at the towering shadows of London's wealth.
"We're just meat!" he shrieked at a passing black cab. "Merchandise with heartbeats! AXILE! MACE! It's all just a different name for the same butcher shop!"
Yunli and Sonia followed him like silent sentinels, ten paces back. They were the shadows of a shadow. Every night, they would find him slumped against a brick wall or sitting in a gutter, his face a mask of tear-streaked filth and rain.
"Chris, please," Sonia would whisper, her strength the only thing keeping him upright as they dragged him back to the flat.
He would shove her away, his eyes wild and unfocused. "Do you know what they did? They tore his mind, Sonia! They harvested him like a crop! And all you did was give me news that all you could do is watch!"
Back in the apartment, as they washed the vomit and the shame from his skin, Chris would fall into a fitful, screaming sleep. He wept for the boy who had been turned to ash, while the Honse Duchy continued its silent work across the river, unbothered by the broken man in the Soho shadows.
---
[The Morning of the Whistling Ghost]
Half a world away, the atmosphere at Ohio State University was a sharp contrast to the suffocating grief of London. The morning was brilliant, the air crisp and smelling of freshly cut grass and the exhaust of early-morning traffic.
Skara wove his bicycle through the campus gates, a jaunty tune puckered on his lips. He wore a bright yellow windbreaker and headphones that leaked the upbeat tempo of a pop song. To the passing students, he was the picture of youthful normalcy—the "paperboy" for the administrative offices.
He felt good. The sun was warm on his back, and the weight of the canvas bag on his shoulder was a familiar comfort. He knew he was carrying high-level correspondence for the MACE organization, but he didn't care about the contents. He was a courier, a bird in flight. He assumed it was just another update on logistics or a new set of forged transcripts for the Ohio crew.
He glided toward the back of the Thompson Library, where the industrial waste bins were tucked away. He saw the familiar, hunched silhouette of the janitor.
"Morning, old man!" Skara called out, his voice bright and oblivious. He didn't even slow his bike. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a heavy, cream-colored envelope sailing through the air. "Special delivery from the Big Man! Try not to spill your coffee on this one, it looks expensive!"
Skara pedaled away, his whistling echoing off the red-brick walls of the library. He was the only one left in the world who was allowed to be happy, simply because he was the only one who didn't know that the mail he delivered was a death warrant.