Paradise…
Like a lover’s breath against her ear, warm and susurrant. The scent of cloying lavender filled her nose.
Mabeth tore away the lens, letting out a stifled cry.
Levio whirled around, reaching for his sidearm, until he realised the girl had shrieked at shadows.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said, a little breathless, and out of instinct touched her neck. But there was nothing there. It just felt cold, like a strange absence.
Levio scowled, standing down as he went to light up a smoke and muttering some about the bad decisions that had led up to this moment.
Tentatively, Mabeth put the lens back on. Nothing happened. The body remained as it was, horrific but lifeless. There was no voice, no scent of lavender. Just old blood and musty prayer scrolls. She got what she needed and finished up, handing the parchment to the proctor on her way out.
‘I expect prompt payment,’ she said by way of a parting shot.
Levio’s coarse laughter followed Mabeth until she had left the church.
Gethik was waiting for her outside, the servitor’s dull eyes barely comprehending his surroundings and not so different from the corpse Mabeth had just sketched.
‘Follow,’ she uttered as she passed the brutish creature, hearing him fall into clomping lockstep behind her. The city had lost its mind since the killings, so it paid to have protection, even if Gethik was a piece of cyborganic shit better suited to the scrapheap than bodyguard detail. Intimidation went a long way though, and Gethik was big. He smelled of machine oil and rust, but at least it helped to banish the memory of sickly lavender.
‘Must be tired…’ she said and through the gaps in the overarching buildings caught glimpses of the sky. A blood-red blush coloured it, like paint clouding in water. Shouts echoed on the warm night air, a sign of the madness to come. She’d be gone before any of that. Mabeth turned away and headed for the mag-rail.
The other patrons in the carriage gave Gethik a wide berth, though the servitor barely noticed them and the late hour had thinned the crowds substantially so it wasn’t hard to find a seat. Fires lit parts of the city, seen through a grimy window. The violence had started early tonight. It wouldn’t trouble her here, Mabeth reflected, as the rattling journey played out in all its mundanity. Sat in her protector’s shadow, she tried to remember everything she’d experienced in the church.
She must have imagined it, but it didn’t feel imagined. She had felt his breath, smelled lavender… The voice had sounded old, but melodic. Definitely male. Not an accent she knew, though, and not from Durgov. From elsewhere. Her mind had conjured it from some remembrance, she reasoned. She rubbed her neck, her fingers gently caressing. The downy hairs felt soft to the touch, and her eyelids fluttered.
Paradise.
Mabeth sat bolt upright, suddenly aware of her surroundings. Perspiration dappled her skin, her fingertips tingling. A face looked back at her, reflected in the glass. Young and pale from a lifetime spent in her studio, shaven haired with a streak of violet running through it. A writhing serpentine neck tattoo, her own design. Jewellery on her wrists, gold and platinum. Good robes of warm cerise and a vermilion cloak with a silver artisanal clasp. Last season’s fashions; she couldn’t keep up like she used to, but her clothes and trappings were still finer than most. Affluent, it spoke to her success. She admired her reflection, pleased with what she saw.
And just behind it, another face.
Smiling and overlarge. Human and yet…
Mabeth turned around, heart pounding, but there was no one sitting behind her. A couple of factorum workers from farther back in the carriage glanced up at the sudden movement but quickly became downcast again as the day’s labours grew heavy. When she looked back, the face had gone.
So startled was she, Mabeth nearly missed her stop and had to dash for the exit, her lumbering retainer in tow.
‘I need to find a different line of work, Gethik,’ she said, rubbing her eyes as they walked, her hab-tower close by.
The servitor did not reply, and merely shadowed her as always.
‘What’s that?’ asked Mabeth, miming as if he had spoken. ‘I’m in the wrong profession?’ She gave a rueful shake of the head as Auric House came into view. Not so gilded any more with its tatty facade and chipped colonnade. ‘Yes, you’re right, I do need a change in fortune.’
Greeting the door warden with a tired wave, she went inside. He smiled as she passed, his mouth altogether too wide under the vision slit of his helmet, the teeth too white and too many. Mabeth recoiled, but the guard’s sour look had reappeared almost immediately.
I’m losing my damn mind…
She hurried inside.
Her well-appointed rooms greeted Mabeth upon her return. Everything was as she had left it. The chaise, the hookah pipe, her silks and fine drapery, the ornaments and artist’s lectern. Dark, on account of the hour, she instructed Gethik to light the lamps. The gloom lifted, shadows lengthened in corners and filled alcoves. The glass shades coloured the light, turning it into competing jades and crimsons. Mabeth collapsed onto a pile of plush cushions, her hand outstretched for the drink that Gethik then provided.
A sip of absinthe helped ease the nerves, warming as it passed down her throat.
‘Leave me…’ she uttered, reaching for the hookah as Gethik turned without comment and retreated into his alcove, out of her sight. Mabeth supped on the pipe, taking long draughts of kalma smoke. It had been hard to acquire and not a little expensive too. Worth every coin though. She imbibed and smoked until the bottle had drained and her eyelids grew heavy. Fingers slipping from the neck of the pipe,
