Bad Choices (A Story)

[Somnicide]

Prologue to Bad Choices (A Story)

Posted on JANUARY 9, 2017Categories Creative

 

I am running Asami as my only master for the next 6 months (see Resolutions) and I decided I wanted to chronicle my experiences via an “eyewitness” for the narrative parts. I’ve long loved the alt Wastrel model Miss Anne Thrope and decided to make her my POV character. Feel free to let me know what you think of the format or the writing (also, if you have one you’d like to sell or trade for something let me know!)

I didn’t have many things, but the things I did have were bloody well mine and I wasn’t about to leave town without them. Lynch’d given me ’til midnight to settle up with the Honeypot and I was planning on being a ghost before the first chime of the midnight hour. A quick glance at my pocket watch, a gold beauty that’d been my father’s and alone was worth near half of what I owed, showed that I still had nearly an hour to catch the 3:10 to Innocence. I’d go there, rough up the rubes some, win some honest games of chance, and make enough inside the week to pay Lynch back with enough interest on the loan that he’d forgive the delay. He might even extend me a line of credit.

I closed my hard side suitcase and sat on it to squash it enough to flatten and said one or two things that were entirely unladylike, dusted myself off in the kind of symbolism that would have impressed my old professors at the uni, and opened the door and very nearly walked into to a grey pin-striped brick wall. One with a very fashionable cotton candy pink tie and a face like a boiled ham.

 

“Mr. Graves, how nice it is to see you,” I lied. He grunted at me by way of greeting and his eyes shifted to the case in my hand. I keep a small pistol up my sleeve to discourage the more aggressive suitors one finds about the city, and I considered shooting him and heading out on the lam but was worried it might just make him mad.

 

“Mr. Lynch wants you in his office,” he spoke like he had a mouthful of marbles.

 

“It’s not midnight. Lynch gave me until midnight to get him his money.”

 

“Not my problem. I’m taking you to his office, and you can either walk all nice like, or I’ll break your legs and stuff you in that case of yours. You’re a slip of a girl, so can’t weigh much. Makes no difference to me.”

 

I pursed my lips and searched for a way out but it quickly became clear there was none.

 

“Should I bring my bag, or will I be returning?” I finally asked him with a heavy sigh.

 

He shrugged. Optimist that I am, I tossed the case on the bed. Either I’d be back, or I wouldn’t need it anyway, so may as well not wear myself out carrying it.

 

As we crossed the city it really struck me how dirty this town was. A thin coat of ash and grime covered everything that hadn’t been moved or wiped clean in the last twenty-four hours. It was cold, and gunmetal gray clouds hung low and fat and heavy over the city, like a smothering blanket. The sunlight was barely enough to see by, and there were suspect wisps of “fog” on the edges of my vision. I thought of purgatory, and that space of nothing where the dead awaited their final judgment in eternal, well, blandness if not exactly peace. I snorted at the thought. This was Malifaux, not even the dead knew peace here, so sure as all that the living wouldn’t be any better off.

 

“Wha’s funny?” that marble-mouthed voice again. It rumbled like a train in a tunnel.

 

“You know my uncle’s a duke?”

 

“So?”

 

“Real life royalty back on the other side. I could have married into money, settled down in the countryside, popped out a few kids, someday had grandkids running around my garden. Instead, I decided to make my own way. I snuck out with only the things I could carry and came here to Malifaux for adventure, and to make my own way.”

 

“Seems to me you make a lot of bad choices.”

 

“I guess I do.”

 

We walked the rest of the way in silence as I chewed over his words and swallowed the bitter truth of them.

 

---

It was early evening when we got to the Honeypot, but the party was already going strong. Or still going strong. The smart money is on the latter. Lynch wasn’t at the front door, and near as I can remember, it’s the first time I entered that I wasn’t personally greeted by the man. There was a small bespectacled man standing there in his stead nodding to those coming in, eyeing them with an accountant’s inscrutable appraisal. Some he welcomed with a lizard’s smile and a clap on the back or handshake, others his thin nose crinkled as if they were particularly odorous. He didn’t even glance at Mr. Graves or myself.

 

Graves led me to a small darkened office in the back of the casino and closed the blinds, make the shadows even deeper. “Wait here.” He left the room and I head the ‘clunk’ of a heavy lock being engaged. I hopped up on the edge of the desk and sat facing the door as I waited for my eyes to adjust. I didn’t feel as relaxed as I tried to appear. At least I’d die with a bit of pride.

 

After a while I started to shift. I was sure I looked cocky and rakish, but the hard wood of the desk was really starting to hurt, and the telltale feeling of pinpricks let me know my ass had fallen asleep. I shifted and fidgeted and was in the middle of one of those fidgets when the door popped open. I looked far less cocky and rakish twisted around with a hand down my pants rubbing the tender flesh and trying to return blood flow. Damn. I was sure I would at least have heard the lock!

 

“If you’re busy, I can come back at a later time,” Jacob Lynch stood in the door. Silhouetted as he was by the lights of the Honey, his entire form seemed to be a shadow.

 

I slid off the edge and stood. My feet tingled too. Stupid desk.

 

“No sir, Mr. Lynch,” my words all blended, stitched together as they were by my pounding heart.

 

“I’m not one for beating around the bush, my dear Edith, I’m calling your marker.”

 

“You said I had until midnight-“ I blurted out, I cringed at the whine I heard in my voice.

 

“And you did.” He made a show of taking an ornate silver pocket watch out of his vest and clicking it open. “Both hands are reaching toward the sky, which means its either midnight or high noon,” he turned the face of the watch toward me, “though I admit it can be sometimes difficult to tell the difference in the Honeypot.”

 

I scrambled for my own watch. He was telling the truth. The wait hadn’t seemed THAT long!

 

“Pay up, Edith.”

 

“That’s not fair! You kept me here so I couldn’t-”

 

“Catch the train?” He threw a piece of paper at me and I caught it against my chest. It was at ticket for the 3:10 to Innocence.

 

“It’s not like that.”

 

“I’ll make you a deal my pretty little thing, you don’t insult my intelligence, and I won’t insult yours.”

 

The gun weighed heavily against the small of my back, reminding me of its presence and I considered shooting him. Instead of doing something completely foolish, I just nodded my head. See, I don’t always make the wrong choice.

 

He smiled and his teeth gleamed wickedly, the only flash of white in the blackness of his form. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind himself. “You owe me a considerable amount of money. Turns out I can’t be expected to pay my… employees with worthless IOUs. Whatever will they eat?”

 

“I can get it, Mr. Lynch-“

 

“I thought we agreed to respect each others intelligence.” When I didn’t speak up he continued. “If you could get the money, you would have.” The room was gloomy, and even though my eyes had adjusted he was still cloaked in the shadow and he seemed taller, more imposing than I remembered him being on the floor of the casino.

 

“I can work it off.”

 

His eyes gleamed and I shuddered as he looked me over. He let out a cruel bark of a laugh and I jumped.

 

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” his voice was cold.

 

My heart dropped. I’d seen the girls leaning against the ornate upstairs railing who laughed and beckoned to those below. They offered to celebrate with the winners, and commiserate with the losers. “I’ve had my eye on you since the first time you entered the Honeypot.”

 

“I clean up alright, but I am nowhere near as pretty as those-“ his laughter cut me off. This time there was genuine humor in it.

 

“Do you have any idea how long it would take you to earn enough to pay off your debt up there? For the best of the ladies it’d be a year, and you’re right, you’re nowhere near as pretty as the best of the ladies. You’d be all used up and worthless inside a month,” he chuckled again, remembering my offer as a joke before continuing. “No, Edith, I am not interested in your charms. It is your wits that intrigue me. I can’t remember the last time I came across someone with a survival instinct honed quite so sharp as yours. You’re not terribly bright, but my word aren’t you just a delightful mixture of vicious and tenacious.”

 

“Thanks, I think.”

 

He tilted his head toward me in acknowledgment. “My business associates are looking for someone to accompany one of their assets and report back on her doings. Nice and simple.”

 

“Nothing in Malifaux is nice or simple, what’s the catch?” I asked without thinking about my predicament.

 

He laughed again. “Oh I do so like you, Edith. No catch, you follow this young lady around, chat her up or do it from the shadows, I don’t really care, but if I may give you a piece of advice I’d say don’t sneak up on her. She’s a bit jumpy, and very dangerous. Her last escort got… distracted. I’d advise you against that.”

 

“How long?”

 

“Until you’ve worked off your debt. That is entirely dependent upon your worth.”

 

“And if I say no?”

 

“Then you go upstairs and never step foot outside the casino until your debt is consumed and you are such broken and empty husk that even the most desperate gambler would refuse your attention.”

 

“Well, when do I meet this girl?”

 

Lynch pulled a calling card from another pocket of his vest and presented it with a flourish. “This is the address of a temple in Little Kingdoms. Your contact’s name is Wing Xu. Tell him you are there to meet miss Tanaka.”

 

I took the card before he could change his mind.

 

“Do be careful, Edith. You are quite the investment for me and I hate making a bad gamble.”

[Somnicide]

After that meeting with Lynch, I was shown the door of the Honeypot by Mr. Graves. There was an implied message that I was only welcome in the Honeypot for business and should seek my pleasure elsewhere, which was fine with me. Looking over my shoulder in the predawn glow of sunrise, I was surprised at how I had never noticed just how run down and drab the place actually looked. The paint was peeling in strips and the whites had long since been stained yellow by the constant haze of smoke. The carpets were threadbare with paths as clear as those in the wilderness that led to waterholes. The clientele even wore smiles without pleasure behind them – they were almost forced, and definitely hungry. I felt nauseous at the thought that my own face looked as hollow and haunted as those hunched over the gambling tables. It was clear there were no winners to be found here, only the most desperate of losers.

 

 

I showed my back to the place and swore to myself that I’d update Lynch via post whenever possible. Prickles of gooseflesh crawled across my skin at the thought of entering that place willingly but at the same time I felt hollow in the pit of my stomach and a bit nostalgic at the thought of not going back. I looked at the address he’d given me and was surprised that the address was blurred through teary eyes. I wiped them with clear with the back of my head and read the address to the temple where I was to meet my new… charge? Companion? Job.

 

Shokuji Asami was written in a very careful and precise handwriting at the top of the card and under it was an address I recognized as being on the edge of the Little Kingdom along with some kind of symbol of writing from one of the Three Kingdoms languages. The address was on the edge of the Little Kingdom, not far from one of the gates that passed through the Barricade into the Strangerskeep district. I realized I’d probably passed by the place a half dozen times running about the area on one job or another for Lucas McCabe when I needed some scrip. My familiarity with the area didn’t calm my spirit much. I considered running to Innocence once more. It’d be a death sentence for sure, but at least I was likely to stay dead. The same couldn’t be said if I spent too much time around Strangerskeep. Sure, the Barricade might keep most of the walking dead in the Quarantine Zone, but I’d spent enough time there to realize that the walls were quite a bit more porous than the Guild wanted the rubes to believe. I decided to get on with it, and was surprised to notice I’d actually taken a step back toward the Honeypot. The sounds of carousing pulled at me like a siren, and on a second glance, I laughed at my earlier foolishness. There was definitely a party going on in there and I wanted to be a part of it, maybe even line my pockets with a bit of scrip.

 

I turned and walked, not even heading toward the QZ, but just away from the Honeypot and toward the general direction of the sunrise.

 

I eventually made my way to the Barricade and walked along it, heading toward the Little Kingdom. The Guild patrols were heavy enough I wasn’t worried about anything more than harassment from a Guard and I could handle that easily enough with a batted eyelash and a pouted lip.

 

Even with the detour It didn’t take too long to get to the address on the card, an apparently flat-topped three story building. A heavy Kingdom man squatted in front of a pair of grimy doors that had once probably been red, though now they were a grungy dark brown and with the paint peeling off in long strips. The fat man’s disinterested glance turned to a hostile glare as I approached. I looked at the card in my hand and asked “Shokuji Asami?” He was slow in standing up but when he did I was surprised at his height – he was closer to seven foot tall than five by a large measure. The fat lay easily on thick slabs of muscle that the man must have developed just to maintain his mobility.

 

“What are you?’ he spoke with a heavy accent but I was glad he spoke English at all.

 

“Name’s Edith, and I’m looking for someone named Shokuji Asami.”

 

“I don’t think so.”

 

I handed him the card. It resembled a bit of confetti in his massive fist. “Where’d you get this?”

 

“I’m under retainer from Jacob Lynch, proprietor of the Honeypot-“

 

He cut me off with a grunt and slid the card in the back pocket of his denim jeans.

 

He banged on the door with his fist and barked something out in his language. After a moment I head the sounds of a lock being disengaged and the heavy scraping of a crossbar on the backside of the door.

 

“This temple is called Shokuji,” he said. “Asami is within.” He stepped back so one of the doors could swing out. I stepped through the door and was surprised to find myself in a lovely courtyard. A trio of paths meandered though the low cut bright green grass, one to each of the three smaller buildings within. An arched bridge allowed the path on the right to cross a small stream that flowed from a fountain to a sizable pond. The bridge that was painted a bright red, no doubt the same color the door to the courtyard had been once upon a time. A handful of small trees dotted the lawn.

 

 

The door closed behind me and I noticed the other man for the first time. Much shorter and more delicate of features, I realized it wasn’t a man at all, but a woman with short hair and hard glare.

 

“Who are you?” she asked.

 

“Edith Braun, I am here to see Asami-”

 

I was cut off again by another monosyllabic grunt.

 

“She’s in there, burning incense. I’d wait until she came out if I were you.”

 

The woman locked the door I’d entered through and dropped an iron reinforced crossbar across the doors and then took a rake and began cleaning up under the trees . I shrugged and leaned against the door as I watched her work.

 

Eventually, movement caught my eye as one of the paper doors slid open on the building that I’d been told Asami was in. A tiny slip of a girl walked out. She was wearing a very fine dress of red and white. From the way it shimmered as she moved, I guessed it was silk. I guessed the girl was maybe in her teens, but wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she was twelve. I leaned back against the door and drew the girl’s attention and she started in surprise. Her eyes narrowed as the looked at me and a gust of wind came up and whipped  her long black hair around into her face. She smoothed it out behind her and walked to the woman raking the leaves. The spoke for a few seconds and the girl walked over to me.

 

“What do you want Edith Braun?”

 

“I’m here to meet with Asami.”

 

“I am Asami.”

 

“Oh. I thought you’d be older,” I said.

 

“Again I ask, what do you want?”

 

“I’m supposed to keep an eye on you, and was told that doing so from a distance might be dangerous.”

 

“Being close to me is more dangerous.”

 

I laughed and her hair gusted around again, though I was sure there was no wind. I shivered, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.

 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I get underestimated all the time myself.” This seemed to mollify her a bit.

 

We stood in silence for a long time before she finally let out a heavy sigh and said, “I suppose we have no choice in the matter. If not you, then surely someone else will come,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “I am truly sorry for what will happen.”