Bloody, Brawling Business CH7

 

Newton held out his hand. 

  “Is that a yes?” Tiro asked.

  Newton grunted and gave a nod. A moment later his fingers were curling through both of the eye sockets, into the hollow skull. He had the urge to run, escape into the darkness of the city and find a way back home, but it had just dawned on him that he did want to know more about Scarlet, the side of her he wouldn't be able to uncover back at home. If he’d just let Tiro prey on him a little longer, it might be enough for him to discover why she was involved with Bame. 

  “Let’s get some food before the stalls start selling out,” Tiro suggested. 

  “You promised to answer my questions,” said Newt.

  “We can do that over food,” said Tiro. “Your brain will need the energy.” He turned to Yara. “What do you feel like?”

  “Let Newton choose. He’s our guest, not a tool for your job,” said Yara.

  “It’s not as if he’s familiar with Bamel food.”

  “What do you feel like?” Yara asked Newt. “You can answer with food you're familiar with.”

  “Maybe a soup or a curry. Something with meat,” Newt answered.

  “Moghdom bgrega,” Yara said.

  Newton understood the word bgrega to mean a thick stew or curry. The other word, however, sounded as foreign to him as he thought it should’ve. 

  “What’s moghdom?” He asked. 

  “A moghdom is a sort of pancake looking creature. They stick to the trunks of trees and drink sap until they get too fat and die,” Tiro answered. “It’s good meat.”

  Newton could taste the sweetness in the meat as he had his first Bamel meal. They’d found a bgrega stand not too far up the street and raced the crowd to catch some seats as soon as they emptied. Newton watched, interested as the cook layered a net shaped food into a bowl and scooped chunky Moghdom curry out of a massive animal skull to pour over it.

  The skull was black, held upside down above the fire by a tower of stone, at the base of which were gaps for air to flow through. Its clay-sealed eye holes stared down its snout which was propped up by a wooden stand behind its two elliptical nose slits. Above that was its long maxilla which bore empty sockets where its teeth should have been secured. There were no teeth, however. Instead, the cook seemed to be using the sockets to hold an assortment of spices which he sprinkled, one by one, onto the bowl of curry. 

  When he received his bowl, Newton inspected the layers of net, separating them and seeing how easily the curry had seeped through to the bottom.

  “It’s actually a sort of grain, similar to rice,” Tiro explained. “They grow in a grid pattern which is why it’s shaped like that.”

  Newt left the questions for after his meal, so it wasn’t long before he was firing away. 

  “Why are you interested in my sister's past?” he asked Tiro.

  “Not here. You can ask about that stuff when we’re somewhere private. Keep the questions general for now, nothing related to your sister, or the world you came from, or that.” Tiro pointed to the skull in Newton’s lap.

  Those conditions narrowed Newton’s endless bank of questions down to a few unimportant but curious options.

  “How can you teleport?” was the one he decided to go with.

  “Good question,” said Tiro. “It’s my skill, what we call a Blood Trait. It’s a result of my Blood.”

  “What’s wrong with your blood?” 

  “My blood is fine. That red juice flowing around my body is just like yours. I was referring to a metaphysical substance. It shares its name with the word for blood in Kholorinal, the language of kholorine, and so it shares its name with blood in English.

  “So Blood gives you your powers?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “Everyone has Blood, It’s a crucial component of complex life.”

  “So why doesn’t everyone have powers?”

  “Not everybody can control Blood. One has to go through a certain process to be able to do that. You’ll do it. It’s a requirement if you’re going to become a citizen of Bame.”

  Newton picked up the skull and turned it in his hands. So there were perks for becoming a citizen, he thought. But they weren’t enough to undermine the downsides. He didn’t want to need authority to get home. He hooked his fingers into its eye sockets again.

  “When are you planning to make me a citizen?” Newt asked.

  “Hopefully as soon as we can.” Tiro answered. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” Newton said. “Can I have another bowl?”

  “One more,” Tiro said in Kholorinal.

  The cook scooped another bowl of curry from the boiling pot and placed it in front of Tiro. The curry had just stopped bubbling when he’d slid the bowl over to Newton who instantly picked it up and threw it into Tiro’s face. Yara gasped. Newton kicked his stool back and ran away, into the massive crowd of shoppers through which he could still hear Tiro screaming in pain. 

  He ran through the lit sector, making as many turns as he could into the streets he knew he’d lose himself in. The smell of hot food faded as he started to pass stalls with colourful fruit and vibrant produce. The fruit turned into tools, turned into toys and textiles. He kept the skull on his chest so that it couldn’t be knocked out of his hands by the passing bodies of manic shoppers. 

  The dark streets ahead marked the end of the shopping district where he stopped. He didn’t want to uncover himself from the concealment of the noisy sector. He checked behind him before veering into a narrow alleyway where he sat behind a stack of wooden boxes, not caring for Tiro’s coat which he sullied on the dirt ground. 

  The alleyway was overgrown. The ground had a variety of strange weeds spread in patches across it, and a tree in the middle blocked the path to the other side which Newton knew was there by. The orange light he could see beaming through the vines on either side of the trunk. The vines dangled all throughout the alleyway from the tree’s branches which covered it like an incomplete ceiling. 

  Newt finally had time to catch his breath and think about what he was going to do. He wasn’t going to become a citizen of Bame, but he didn’t know whether to stay and find out more about his sister, or go home. He could break back into the town hall tonight while it was empty. It would probably be the easiest thing, but would he lose the opportunity to come back and explore when curiosity gets the best of him? An image of the body in Scarlet’s basement flashed behind his closed eyelids. It had to be a way back.

  Newt’s mind was made, but his thoughts stalled him. They were stuck to the corpse who he'd previously thought Scarlets was responsible for killing. He’d tried to kill someone… two people, and he tried to use that thought to justify it. He’d tried to associate Scarlet with a terrible action. 

  Newton’s heart jumped. He wiped tears out of his eyes, unblurring his vision and got to his feet, still crouched low but ready to run. There were voices coming through the alleyway. 

  “In here,” said one of them in coarse Kholorinal.

  A boy stumbled past the stack of boxes and into Newton’s sight. He was carrying four frayed straw bags, his arms through the handles. Newton couldn’t see a face behind the boy’s long straight hair which drew like a curtain in front of it, disturbed by the chaotic movement. A foot kicked into the boy’s soft, plump side, its body of origin obscured by the wooden boxes which kept Newton hidden. 

  The boy tripped. He tried to catch one of the vines as he fell, but failed, landing on his front, his fall cushioned by his plump bell under which the bags hanging from his left arm were squashed. He crawled into the alleyway as two other boys stepped in. They were identical, nearly bald with red stubble growing out of their heads. Their noses were small and round and their fists were clenched as they approached the long haired boy in sync.

  “Wh-at do you want?" said the long haired boy, his voice quivering as he turned over to face them.

  “We’ve been inducted, both of us,” said one of the boys.

  “We both got Blood Traits, and we just couldn’t wait to show you.”

  The boy’s long hair parted across his face, presenting his wide, red eyes to Newton as he looked up at the bald boys . “You two are the last to deserve that.”

  “And you’re the last person who’d ever get one,” said one of the bald boys.

  “Hurtful,” said the other. “Even so, you’re invited to celebrate with us.” He opened both his hands and his nails lengthened, shaping into points at the end. “You joining in, Yowlov?”

  “I’ll stand back for a while,” the first bald boy replied as he stopped. 

  They’d walked far enough into the alleyway that they were past Newton, leaving a big enough gap at the entrance for him to make a comfortable getaway. 

  “I find my joy in watching others have fun,” continued the boy, Yowlov.

  “Your empathy is touching,” said the other bald boy, continuing his advance on his whimpering prey.

  Now’s my time to leave, Newton thought, his fingers tightening into the skull’s eye sockets. Ready, set,- 

AGH! AAAAGH! The boy with long hair cried. Newton’s legs locked up, and he jolted, he’d only managed a small hop, the sound of which, the soft dirt had thankfully muffled. He instantly looked to the boys who still hadn’t noticed his presence.

  The boy with long nails, pushed the one on his pointer finger slowly into the long haired boy’s cheek. “I can feel his teeth on the other side,” he said. He pulled the nail out and blood leaked from the hole it left behind. “Oops, I forgot, you need all the blood you can get, don't you?”

  The other boy, Yowlov, who was now leaning against the wall, chuckled.

  He’s not your problem, Newton thought to himself. They probably have a good reason for doing this. I need to worry about myself.

  Newton got ready to run again. He didn’t want the bald boys to have any chance of chasing him. The long haired boy let out his loudest scream yet as the bald boy plunged his nail into his other cheek.

  Newton took off at a speed that surprised even himself. He swung the skull in his hand, connecting it to the back of the bald boy’s head. He retracted his nail and stumbled to the side as Yowlov came forward from his position against the wall. Newton swung the skull at him, but he dodged it, taking a few steps back and watching it as it brushed past his nose.

 The long nailed boy turned around and slashed, catching Newton across the lips. He felt them part and blood burst forth to drip down his chin. 

  “Joloq!” shouted Yowlov. He pointed to the skull and Joloq, the long nailed boy, followed with his eyes.

  The bald boys sprinted through the vines and out of the alley way, stricken with terrified expressions.

  Newton didn’t think too much about it. His attention was on his mouth, the center of an odd sensation. He could only describe it as pain too fast to feel. It didn’t cause him to scream or tear up, but it made him uncomfortable, scared. 

  This is what he got for stepping into someone else's business again, someone who didn’t care about him. He didn’t know if his mouth would ever be the same again. He needed to get back home and to the hospital fast.

  “Take this,” came a voice from next to him, speaking kholorinal.

  It was the long haired boy. He was holding two clothes, one pressed against his cheek and the other presented to Newton. Newton took the cloth and pressed it into his mouth. Blood leaked through to the other side almost instantly. He could finally feel the pain he knew was there.

  “What’s that?” the boy asked, looking at the skull in Newt’s other hand.

  Newt remained silent. He couldn't talk.

  “Oh, your mouth,” said the boy. He knelt to the ground and used one hand to refill the straw bags with the items that had spilled from them during the commotion. With the other hand he moved the cloth from cheek to cheek, alternating between the two bleeding holes. When all the items had been returned, the boy picked up the bags, putting his arms through the handles.

  Newton was about to sprint off when the boy spoke again.

  “Come with me. My sister will be able to fix you up,” he said.

  Newton looked at the boy, he studied his face and found only sincerity in his expression. He let out an inquiring grunt and was thankful that the boy could recognise the tone.

  “Yeah, that’s nothing for her,” the boy said. “It’s thanks to her blood trait that my face is still unblemished.”

  Newton followed the boy out of the shopping district and through the dark city, slowing his own pace to allow the boy to lead, meanwhile his eyes darted around anxiously looking for any signs of Tiro or Yara, until the boy suddenly stopped and Newton’s eyes locked on the house in front of them. It was just like all the others, yet this was the one that caused the boy to end their walk.

  They entered the front door into a dining room where the boy dumped the bags on the table. 

  “She’ll be here in a moment to pick up her shopping,” said the boy as he took a ball out of a stone bowl on the table. 

  It was by no means a perfect sphere and it must have been malleable because the boy pinched into it and picked off a small piece. He split the piece into three smaller bits and stuck them to the wicks of three candles on the table.

  He went over to the corner of the room and reached into the pitch darkness. Newton heard some splashing and the boy returned to the table and hovered his hand above one of the candles. The candle sparked alight and the boy moved his hand over the next. Newton could now see water dripping from the boy’s fingers, onto the wick of the candle causing them to light on contact.

  Once all the candles were burning, the boy pulled out a chair for Newton who took the offer and sat. He was in the seat for a relative eternity, struggling to stay awake after the long night he’d had. 

  “Don’t know what’s taking them so long,” The boy said. “even the markets should be closing now.”

  Them? Newt thought. Did the boy have more siblings?

  The first light of the morning came in with the front door as it finally opened. Newton’s body jerked up and awake as Yara and Tiro stepped into the house