Bloody Knuckles (And Other Tales) Read online

  Most recently there were the posters, the flyers, showing his face smiling mockingly back at him above the name Daron O’Brien, pianist, along with the date and address of his upcoming performances. He reached a shaking hand into his pocket for a cigarette, lit it, took a drag, and suddenly felt the need to vomit. Even smoking, a habit of fifteen years, was suddenly something that seemed foreign to him, something not him. The nausea passed, and he finished his smoke before heading to the hover-station, and home. If he could call it that. He was finding suits in his closet lately, suits he did not remember buying. Food and drink in his fridge that he had never liked before. Scattered music notes across his desk. At least he had not gone out and bought a piano yet. He giggled suddenly. A passerby looked askance at him, then hurried past. I’m not mad, damn it. Not yet.

  And the notes slipped under his door. Messages left on his voice-mail. A woman named Mary. Who the hell was she? He had the vaguest impression of red hair, blue eyes, lithe body. Smooth skin, pale breasts with those cherry nipples, moaning, moving beneath me, on top of me, that sucking mouth, hot and wet, Mary.... He stumbled suddenly, lurching into the wall of the building as the vividness of that flash sent heat into his loins. The pedestrian in front of him broke into a run, casting fearful glances over his shoulder. Nate laughed. He did not care if he sounded mad. He could not tell if it wasn’t the truth.

  *

  The man at the piano played with his eyes closed, his body moving in time with the music. Now slow and paced, then crashing into piercing violence, his head jerking up and down, side to side, as he became one with the melody, with the piano. The crowd felt it too, their breathing almost sighing in harmony with the composition, some eyes closed, some not, but all moving, swaying, heads nodding, feet tapping. Some of the audience poured sweat as freely as the man whose fingers struck with fanatic deftness the keys that wrought the atmosphere. Seconds turned to minutes, turn to hours, turned to sweat-drenched ecstasy as the crowd began to weep as the performer wept, tears as real as his, faces rapt in attention. Then, as softly as it began, it trailed off into silence. The man behind the piano sobbed, his shoulders shaking. The crowd sat in stunned silence, some of them still weeping themselves, than as one rose, applause resounding through the room.

  The man behind the bar smiled. This was the sixth month Daron O’brien had played here. Every Tuesday and Friday night. The shows were always packed, always brought in plenty of cash. Brilliant. A slight cough brought his attention back to a skinny man seated at the bar. He picked up the bottle of scotch and refilled the man’s drink, then watched as the pianist wiped a towel across his sweating face, dried his tears, and moved down into the worshiping crowd. The bartender shook his head in amazement. Six months and the man still drew a crowd, never repeated the same piece. Six months of original materiel and, it seemed, no desire to advance to a larger, more profitable venue. Still, if he choose to play here, who was he to complain? His lounge had never made as much as it had in the past six months. Business was booming.

  Raymond MacPherson took a stiff swallow of the scotch, grimacing as it burned its way down his throat. The crowd was still oohing over the performance. It had been exceptional, no doubt about it, but the show was not the reason he was here. No, it was the man who played, the man who he had known as Nathan Erion, but now called himself Daron O’Brian. Strange, that the drug had worked its magic so quickly. The subjects back on Earth had all rejected the dosage, barely managing to stay under for more than a few hours. But Nathan…. Ray felt a twinge of guilt that he had lured an unsuspecting person into his experiment, but he shrugged it off and swallowed it down with his scotch. Science didn’t wait. What was it his grandmother had always said? You sometimes have to break a few eggs to bake a cake.

  He nodded to himself. It was time to bring Nate in, see just how far into the persona he really was. From the looks of it he had succeeded admirably, but what remained was determining if Nate could be brought back to his original frame of mind. The buyers on Earth wanted the system perfected. And for what they were paying, Ray was going to follow the instructions to the letter. He put his back to the bar, folded his arms against his chest, and waited.

  Daron O’Brian was exhausted. Four hours of rapture, of floating in the void of music, his life. He smiled briefly to a woman as he signed her portfolio, moved on to the next. Slowly he made his way through the crowd. He did this at every show. After all, these were his fans. It was true that he wrote the music mostly for his own enjoyment, but it was magic when others shared in the dream, could feel the same passion he felt. Sometimes he felt the need to shove them all away so he could go have a cigarette, but that was absurd. He had never smoked a day in his life.

  He murmured his thanks to a balding man in his fifties and suddenly he was done. The crowd was dispersing. He felt the need for a drink. A shake of the hand to a lingering fan, and he headed to the bar, where a vaguely familiar twig of a man sat, arms crossed, looking at him with eyes that pierced too deeply for his tastes. He felt uncomfortable suddenly, a strange itching at the base of his spine that crawled up into his skull. A strange feeling of—Ray! It’s me for Christ’s sake—something. His foot landed awkwardly and he stumbled, catching himself at the last second with a hand splayed against the bar. He laughed embarrassingly.

  “Damn leg sometimes goes numb,” he explained. “Can I get a gin and tonic, Larry?”

  The bartender nodded and moved to pour the drink. Daron wiped the cloth across his face one more time and took a deep breath as Larry handed him the glass. Another successful show. He swallowed the drink in a single motion and turned to find the other man staring at him. Daron felt his left eye twitch as something… twisted… in his head. Ray! Please oh help me help me shit get me out of here goddamnit. He rubbed his eye and stretched his shoulders. “What did you think of the show, friend?

  The smaller man looked at him sharply. “It was wonderful. I’ve heard you have made quite a name for yourself locally. Amazing, really. My name is Raymond MacPherson. Do you mind if we have a talk, Mr. O’Brian?”

  Daron smiled brightly at him. Another adoring fan. “Of course, Mr. MacPherson.”

  The skinny man smiled. “Just call me Ray.”

  *

  His apartment was as he had left it. If someone had been here, he would know. And they hadn’t bothered checking in on him in months now, not since they insured his addiction. Bastards. He swallowed the anger and slouched his wiry frame into the chair at his desk. Three monitors, his lab equipment, a blinking light on the middle screen noting a message. Probably from Earth. They might not check up on him physically these days, but they never left him alone. Not like before, when his research was just a side project. He sighed. At least he had figured out a way around the transition. It was getting worse for Nate, though. He regretted that it had to be this way, but this was his baby, his creation. Risks had to be taken for the greater good. And at least he still had the control.

  There were six at present. Four were back on Earth, in the proper facilities. They had wanted a more realistic test, to see what would happen if the conditions were not controlled. It had been nine weeks since Nate’s first injection. He appeared to be having a severe reaction, including the flashbacks, periods of time where the alternate persona took over completely. Strange, that the drug had picked a specific alter-ego. In all of the other subjects the drug appeared to pick a different personality each time they were injected with a new batch. But with Nathan it was different. It was the same person reaching out every time there was an episode. If things kept going the way they were, to hell with University. Ray was not about to pass up the opportunity to experiment with something as unique as what was happening here.

  In the other subjects it was always temporary, lasting only a few minutes at most. But in Nate, the transitions could last for days. The University frowned on human testing, but Ray knew better. He knew of their links to the military, the wire-taps and constant surveillance. And he didn’t care. He
was a licensed psychiatrist, a doctor for Christ’s sake. If he saw fit to take the experiment a notch higher with human subjects, then so be it. And it wasn’t as if they were complaining, at least not privately. Publically they had to play nice and pretend as though they frowned upon and vehemently fought against human testing, but only the media-addicted populace believed that. The real ones, the ones who had broken free of Earth and lived out on the Rim, they knew better.

  The pain started to snake its icy claws around his eyes again and he adjusted the dose a little higher this time. He floated there in space for a time, touching the stars with his fingertips.

  The Medallions of Lashiva

  By T.W. Anderson

  What better way to end this anthology, than with the first professional sale of my career. I wrote this in January of 2008, just a couple of weeks after I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria, while on a skip trip up in Bansko. A week later, it had been accepted into Flashing Swords Magazine, Volume 13, a small independent press that was the first place I sent it to.

  The version that appears here is the unedited version I wrote, which is about 1,300 words shorter than what appeared in print. It’s a Lucimia story, set in the capital city of Finglis Mirror, though before I had finalized the concepts of the Retarin or the Aden’than.

  This was the world I first started building in 1999 when I created the D&D campaign that launched everything, and this was the story that started me down the path of creating the Saga of Lucimia outline, which would eventually turn into the novels + MMORPG.

  The Widowed Peasant was no different than it was on most nights as Del stepped through the doorway into the murky interior. A permanent haze of smoke hung thick as a blanket over the entire room from his waist to the ceiling, stinging his eyes slightly as they adjusted to the dim light. He scanned the crowd but found nothing out of the ordinary. A dark-haired girl, perhaps a year or two beyond twenty and dancing on top of a table, swayed in time to the tune of a flute being played by a short, thin man of perhaps thirty, a smile on his lips as his fingers flowed up and down the wooden pipe. The song was called Maiden’s Kiss and from the look of the dozen odd men gazing in rapt attention at the dark-haired beauty nearly spilling out of her too-tight dress it was clear they all hoped they were the one to claim it. Del knew for a fact she was no maiden and winked at her as he caught her eye on the way to a table in the back. She flashed a quick smile in return as he motioned towards the bar for a serving woman and sat down at an empty table.

  There were perhaps thirty people scattered around the main floor, some of whom he recognized but none of which he had business with. Tonight was one of those nights that had the hair on the back of his neck raised in anticipation of something just around the corner, something that he couldn’t quite place but knew was coming. He always had that feeling when meeting a new client, even if it was someone who his contacts had cleared in advance. You didn’t come into this part of the city unannounced, and you most certainly did not make it within a beggar’s toss of The Widowed Peasant without clearing your visit beforehand with the proper authorities, who in this part of the city weren’t exactly authorities; rather, they were simply the people you paid to keep your skin where it was most comfortable… on your back.

  “What can I get you, Del?” The voice was one he recognized, and he smiled up at Erla. She was an older woman, veteran of the floor. She had a few streaks of grey in her hair, loosely tied up at the nape of her neck, but her face was still mostly free of lines and handsome.

  “Just ale for now, Erla.” Hopefully he wouldn’t be sitting here too long, but you never could tell. He was settled in for the night at any rate, but a clear head was better that one clouded with spirits when doing business.

  She nodded, a stray wisp of hair floating free across her cheek. She brushed it back behind her ear. “There’s a man here looking for you,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder towards the back. “Dressed in fancy clothes, like a nobleman. Though why such snooty types as him be coming ‘round here is beyond me.”

  Del felt mild surprise as he turned his head and looked. His gaze was met with a smile and nod from a man who was clean-shaven and smooth-cheeked, dressed in what looked to be black and silver velvet with intricate pattern work upon the breast and sleeves and knee-high black boots, silver engravings of roses twining up the sides. Del was not late to the appointed meeting time; either his client was early, or this was someone unannounced. If it was the later, he idly wondered if he’d stepped on anyone’s toes recently during business hours. “I’ll take it over there, if you please.” He pushed his chair back and made his way over to the table.

  “You would be Deleroth?” The man’s voice was smooth, almost smoky. His eyes gleamed brightly despite the dimness of the interior, and he smelled of cinnamon and oranges. His hands were upon the table, palms down; several rings encircled fingers that were long and elegant, almost womanly hands.

  Del nodded as he sat. “What can I do for you?” he asked cautiously. He set his hands in his lap as he sat, close to the handles of two of his belt-knifes. It never hurt to be prepared.

  “Would you like something to drink?” the other man asked, gesturing with one of his long-fingered hands at a bottle of wine and two glasses set upon the table.

  Del shook his head. Whoever he was, he was certainly brash enough, and hedging. “Who are you?”

  The man raised his hands in defense. “I apologize for my manners. You may call me Willem. I represent someone who has need of your particular, hmm, how should I put this?” His voice took on slightly questioning tone. “Your particular skills, yes.”

  Erla appeared at his shoulder and caught his eye as she set his mug down on the table. She raised her eyebrow at the well-dressed man calling himself Willem as if to ask “Everything ok?” He shook his head slightly at her and she disappeared. “Go on,” he said to the man as he took a swallow.

  Willem nodded. “The person I represent would like you to acquire a certain object from the Museum of Antiquities.” Despite himself, Del felt his eyebrows rise slightly. The Museum was one place people in his line of work just plain avoided. Not out of fear, necessarily, but because the risks just weren’t worth the effort involved. “I can see you appreciate the delicacy of this particular matter,” the man continued, watching Del’s face. “We are prepared to compensate you quite handsomely for your time and efforts, should you choose to accept.”

  Where to begin? Not least was the simple fact that the Museum of Antiquities was one of the most heavily guarded treasure-trove of artifacts in the city aside from the King’s own coffers. Then there was the matter of it being a mere stone’s throw from the City Watch headquarters, which made a nightmare out of any type of approach to the building, not to mention getting out in a hurry should things go downhill. The risks just weren’t worth it. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir,” he said as he shook his head. “There is, quite simply, no chance of success, regardless of what you and your employer might have heard regarding my skill.” He took his mug in hand and stood to leave.

  The man in velvet raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Please, hear me out,” he said calmly. “The individual whom I represent happens to sit upon the board of directors for the Museum and, to put it bluntly, would like to add one of the items recently brought to the Museum for research to his personal collection. He would like to employ someone of your particular skills to retrieve the item for him so as to avoid any unpleasant repercussions against his own person.”

  Del sat back down and took a heavy swallow of his ale. Was this a setup? One of the Museum directors wanted to hire him to steal an item from the Museum for his personal collection? “What is the item?” he found himself asking slowly. “And how much compensation are we talking?”

  Willem smiled. His teeth were perfectly proportioned and perfectly white. Del nearly shivered. “My employer is prepared to offer you the sum of ten thousand gold crowns.” Del could not keep the shock from his face. Ten thousan
d crowns! That was more money than any job he could think of anyone ever pulling off in the history of the city. The man across the table went on. “The item is a small coin with the image of a young woman on the front and an old woman on the back. It is engraved with these symbols on each side.” He slid a small piece of parchment across the table to Del. Despite himself, he found his hand clutching the parchment as if it were a floating piece of wood and the only thing keeping him afloat on a river wild with flood.

  He wet his throat with the ale again, flipping the parchment over to take a closer look. Four strange symbols he did not recognize stared back at him. He could feel his pulse racing and hoped his voice was calm. “Aside from the fact you have just offered me more money than any job I have ever done in my career, which makes me doubt the sanity of your employer at being willing to pay such a fee for a simple piece of antiquity,” he paused for a moment, catching his breath. “There is still the Museum security to deal with, not to mention the City Watch. The patrols in the streets make any sort of entrance nearly impossible.”

  “Not to worry, Deleroth.” The man’s smile was smooth and came quickly. Too quickly to Del’s mind. He felt alarm bells ringing in the back of his head. “My employer can get you assigned as the new night janitor for the Archive department, where the coin is being held at present while it is researched. All you have to do is acquire it.”

  Del licked his lips. He could not deny it sounded too good to be true. There was that old saying that if something sounded one way, it probably wasn’t. But ten thousand gold crowns was a fortune, more than enough to establish him among the ranks of history’s greatest thieves. To be the man to pull off such a job.... “I’ll do it.” He could not believe the words as they escaped his lips, but there it was. He had just signed his life away for ten thousand gold crowns.