Chapter 520: Resurgence (2/2)
Even with all he had done.
In his lower left hand he held a little black book. The cover was faux-leather. Stamped with gold foil was the words ” kniga na mrtvite” into the fake leather. Inside was spidery script, all done in dark red ink, as well as terrible drawings of great power.
A power he had wielded as ruthlessly as any gangland mobster.
With a grim expression he turned away from the window and clopped over to his desk, sitting down in a comfortable bench seat. The back and armrests swung into place and he leaned against the backrest and sighed.
After a moment he poured himself a stiff drink of synthahol, chugged the glass down, then poured himself another.
He set the book down, opened it, and paged through it.
Names, descriptions, drawings of faces, lists of terrible crimes, dates and times.
Each face was marked out with an 'X' of smeared dark crimson.
Mobster. Serial Rapist. Serial Killer. Mass Murderer.
The list of crimes went on and on as he slowly paged through the book, sipping at his drink.
The lights flickered and Lnosvumo'o tensed slightly. He poured himself a refill on his drink, the synthahol burning like fire in his first stomach, the smell of it making his nostrils burn, his feeding tendrils recoiling back out of his mouth at the burning taste of it.
The lights seemed to dim as the temperature dropped in the room. The smartglass window flashed ERROR almost too quickly to be seen before resetting. The shadows slipped out of the corners and from under and behind furniture to creep across the walls and floor.
Lnosvumo'o felt anxiety begin to rise inside of him as a thick mist began to rise up off the floor.
He reached the end of the book, the thin section of empty pages that never seemed to get any smaller. He took the pen out from where it had been cleverly hidden in the cover and held it over the page.
”Call for blah bleh blah street justice,” the whisper was cold as ice and smelled of iron and hot copper, seeming to come from the shadows that had gathered in the room.
”There is none left to be had,” Lnosvumo'o said quietly. His breath steamed out in front of him in the chill of the room.
”Inscribe the names of the blah bleh blah guilty,” the cold voice whispered. The voice changed slightly. ”It happened, blah bleh blah, in the broad daylight...”
The singsong whisper made Lnosvumo'o's temples pound with anxiety.
'There are none left that deserve your particular 'mercy',” Lnosvumo'o said quietly.
”Why should blah-bleh-blah slime escape the law?” came the answer from the shadows around him.
”There is one name,” Lnosvumo'o said quietly. His hand shook as he held the pen over the parchment. ”One who has committed murders, dealt in death, defied the law.”
There was a low chuckle, full of malevolent amusement.
Lnosvumo'o slowly inked the name in. He watched as his own bold confident strokes slowly flowed and reformed into the spidery script. A picture appeared of the named being, a detailed yet crude sketch. Data appeared, name, location, place of residence, employment, all of the statistical data on the being.
A cold white hand settled on his shoulder and Lnosvumo'o flinched slightly.
”You believe, blah-bleh-blah, that I would punish that being?” the cold voice whispered.
”He has violated the law,” Lnosvumo'o said. He took a deep drink, finishing off the glass, and grabbed a bottle of real alcohol. Telkan bourbon. He cracked the seal and poured a glass.
”The letter, perhaps,” the voice said.
”He has perverted and suborned justice,” Lnosvumo'o said. He lifted the glass and sipped at the expensive bourbon, made even more expensive by the Telkan System's succession from the Unified Council.
”The letter, perhaps,” the voice whispered.
There was a soft glow in the window and Lnosvumo'o watched as a small Shavashan female squirmling hopped up. The diminutive reptilian held a candle in her hands, she had an odd head covering that Lnosvumo'o had learned was a bonnet, and she wore a vest of white linen.
Lnosvumo'o suppressed a whimper.
”Which is guilty, the gun that takes the life of someone or the being who pulled the trigger?” Lnosvumo'o asked.
There was a low chuckle and Lnosvumo'o watched as the tiny Shavashan lifted up the candle, which began to glow brighter to reveal a Telkan podling on her left and a Leebaw tadpole on her right.
”You see yourself as the being who blah-bleh-blah pulled the trigger,” the cold voice chortled. The cold white hand gently smoothed the shoulder of Lnosvumo'o's vest. ”The trigger had been pulled before you blah-bleh-blah even knew of my existence. You were merely the one who aimed the blah-bleh-blah gun.”
”I am the only guilty one left,” Lnosvumo'o argued.
”The only honest being in a system that had fallen to blah-bleh-blah corruption call himself guilty in the hopes of wiping away his guilt,” the voice whispered. The hand released Lnosvumo'o's shoulder.
”You killed, slaughtered, at my guidance,” Lnosvumo'o said. ”I perverted everything I stood for in my pursuit of justice.”
”Then live with it,” the cold voice said softly. ”You live with it.”
The Shavashan and her tiny companions slowly vanished as the candlelight dimmed, darkness filling the smartglass.
The fog slowly began to sink, soaking somehow into the floor. The shadows slid back to where they belonged and the temperature began to rise.
The book shivered and turned to blood that ran down the desk blotter and dripped off the edge, vanishing only inches from the edge of the desk, never reaching the floor or Lnosvumo'o's front legs.
As the lights slowly brightened, Lnosvumo'o put his face in his hands and wept.
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In a forgotten chamber in the storm drains and sewers deep below the cities a pale figure in elegant clothing opened the lid of a coffin. The inside was padded with rare silks, a vibrant purple and red. A small line of dirt, taken from Terra itself, could be seen at the foot of the coffin.
The elegant figure climbed into the coffin, lying down, and crossed his hands over his chest. The lid slowly closed, a lock clicking and whirring to seal the coffin. Chains rattled up from beneath it, binding the coffin in heavy cold forged iron links.
The Lanaktallan Renfield supervised as the massive, ancient, and corroded shipping container was loaded with the coffin, the pipe organ, and the other furnishings. The Renfield trotted alongside the worker robots as they moved the massive shipping container to the starport and loaded it onto a ship.
The doors clanged shut on the cargo ship. An older model, without a single living being aboard. It lifted off with a whine of mistuned repulsors as the Lanaktallan Renfield trotted away.
The two robots woke up in an alley, reeking of alcohol, missing one shoe each, wearing only pants. The last thing either had in their memory buffers was unloading agricultural products from a massive cargo ship.
They were fined for unauthorized wear of pants and single shoes.
The Renfield woke up in a hotel room, surrounded by ragged clothing, a suitcase full of credsticks, a VI lawyer holocube, and guns on the bed and the worst hangover the Lanaktallan had ever had. A prostitute was in bed next to him, her makeup smeared and completely naked in the dim light filtering in through the dirty window.
The last thing he could remember was trying to settle an argument between the food dispensers and the parking overwatch VI's.
Written on his upper right arm was the comlink number for a lawyer. On his upper left arm was the comlink number for a notorious brothel.
He was naked except for a gunbelt around his waist.
He quickly shut the suitcase, got dressed, and snuck away.
After all, it wasn't everyday you found a suitcase full of lawyers, guns and money.
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Dreams of Something More saw the notification pop up on her datalink eye implant and breathed an internal sigh of relief.
NOSFERATU INITIATIVE DEACTIVATED
She gave no clue of her relief as she stood on the podium and listened to the Hamaroosan delegate formally request acceptance into the Terran Confederacy of Aligned System.