Page 7

T ampa, Florida

Clive Edell James got called on the carpet. It was days like this which made his job and life more difficult than necessary, but he’d fucked up. He knew he fucked up. His boss knew and now, everyone in The Chrysalis knew it as well. A child, bearing his mark, had escaped the workhouse in Milwaukee. Much to his dismay, the child had escaped with his wallet.

In his tiny little fist, he’d taken Clive’s wallet with all of his information and credit cards. This also meant the powers that be would locate his home and take everything he owned. All of it, years of working hard, building his fortress, and climbing the rungs with gusto of the organization, only to be taken down by a tiny asshole. It was why he hated kids.

“Kids are jerks,” Clive muttered under his breath while he awaited sentencing for his failure.

The painful truth of his fiasco radiated in his eyes, knowing the justice meted against him would be harsh for such an infraction that no one could have prepared for, even on their best day. A shiver ran down his spine as he heard his name bellowed by the Sargent at Arms, a no-necked man with prison ink covering most his body. They called him ‘the shank’ in all lowercase letters because he could make a prison shank out of anything, then fatally stab you with it, in nocuous places, as he watched you bleed. The Chrysalis was loaded with folks like him and worse. Again, Clive heard his name being bellowed.

Heavy feet in leather boots stepped through the double doors. Clive faced the podium where three heads of state waited to find out what had happened with the kid, and how, what, and why Clive still was alive. Sweat trickled on his forehead as a bright light shone in his face.

“Shit Stain,” a heavy voice spoke out.

Clive couldn’t see their faces because of the bright light shining in his. If, and it was a big if, he survived the sentencing, and if, and it was a big if, he survived the punishment, seeing their faces was not on his list of need-to-know items. However, no matter the trouble he faced, he wasn’t a bitch and didn’t plan to act like one; therefore, he saw no need for the Cocoon Heads to treat him like one. A bad thing had happened, and he would be punished.

“Clive Edell James,” he replied, trying to maintain a bit of dignity in the face of such adversity.

“Oh, we want to be formal, when you know, this could be your death,” the voice said.

“If my death were imminent, you would have done it before now,” Clive challenged. “The warehouse was a safely guarded location and very few knew existed, especially since it had only been up and running for about six months.”

“The child?”

“Kendrick Emmes,” he whispered, feeling the weight of the burden upon him. “He was my aide-de-camp and not a toy. A client decided when I left the room to make the child a personal rag doll. Kendrick fought him, cut the man’s face, then got his phone and dialed 9-1-1. The sound of the child’s voice, the things he was describing, brought every available police unit in the area.”

The heavy voice spoke, “Aren’t you leaving out something?”

“Yes, the client hurt the boy. He hurt him badly,” Clive said.

“Again, Shit Stain, you’re leaving out an important detail,” the voice snapped.

Clive knew what he wanted to hear. “In my efforts to save the inventory of toys and dolls collected in the Field of Flowers, the child was left alone. He was in a bad state, and I wasn’t sure he would survive, so I walked away, but he called to me, begging. I went over and he cut me as well, snatched my wallet when I went down, and made a break for the door. As the cops were coming in, he was bolting out with my wallet in his hand. The police now know where I live.”

“And Shit Stain, you are here in Tampa with that kind of heat on you,” the voice said.

“But I saved the inventory, or at least a chunk of it,” Clive said, staring into the light. “I have fifteen years of service to The Chrysalis and never has such a thing happened under my watch. I am requesting leniency to rectify the wrong.”

A second voice, laced with sexual appeal, spoke. “There is no rectification. The child is with a Technician. A Technician who is more than likely going to hunt you down. You have brought undue attention to us all. My vote is to terminate his contract.”

The third voice spoke, “I second the termination.”

Clive tried to speak. The whizzing of a bullet was the last thing he heard as the first one struck him in the chest, center mass. He didn’t have time to react to dying since his heart stopped, and his body dropped hard to the floor.

The heavy voice spoke. “I didn’t want him dead!”

“Two votes to your one Imperial,” the woman said. “You know how this works. Your Underwing, in fifteen years really has not progressed as he should have. The one lousy warehouse he ran in Milwaukee under-produced while the rest of the state is booming even in the Winter months. Underwing was a failure.”

Imperial had never cared for Swallow Tail. She was the kind of woman a leader looked forward to backhanding across the mouth each time she spoke. She was a nasty woman who reeked of too much perfume to hide the stench of her overused snatch. His expression emulated the disdain he felt for her as Underwing, while his very own aide-de-camp Clive, lay face down, all the life juices seeping from the gaping hole in his chest oozing onto the floor, ending a piss poor life. The body would be moved to a brightly lit place to be discovered in the early morning by a jogging enthusiast on the Davis Island Trail.

Hopefully, the police would stop looking for Clive; however, by the time Milwaukee caught up with the news, and the identification of the body, everything would have cooled down, or at least he hoped. Yet, a sour feeling hit his stomach. The client would also need to be dealt with for the violation. Branded kids were not toys. Touching a branded kid who belonged to another was a foul move and the man would be castigated. He almost wanted to go and do it in person since the client’s error caused Imperial the loss of Underwing.

Hornworm, the second voice, spoke to him, “Imperial, I know he was one of your favorites. Even as useless as he was, Underwing still pleased you. However, your affection for him made you blind to his shortcomings. We at The Chrysalis do not take kindly to errors of this magnitude. Don’t let his mistake be your undoing.”

“Noted, along with a high-handed fuck you, Hornworm,” Imperial replied. “I hate all of you nasty fuckers. Kids are not my thing. I don’t like what these folks do with kids.”

“Yet, here you sit, mourning Underwing, who was a kid when you took him under, dare I say, your wing,” Swallowtail said.

“Yeah, but I never fucked him; there is a difference,” Imperial stated.

“Bottom or top, all of it hits the same roster in Hell,” Swallowtail said, gathering her items and heading for the door. “Let’s not do this again anytime soon.”

The clicking of her heels on the concrete floor rang out like a death sentence. The time for all of them was coming to a close. It had been a satisfying run with lots of easy money and tons of throw away people made useful for the deviant populous. He was sick of it.

“Too much fucking death,” Imperial stated, also rising and giving one last look at Clive as his heart sank a bit. Imperial, in his own right, was a parent with four biological kids to be exact, one outside of the marriage who hated the blood surging through the tired body which housed a weary soul and three at home who saw the Imperial as an ATM. Clive was his baby, the bad apple of a son who could do unseemly things that Imperial could talk about in the dark work which filled the warehouses called the Field of Flowers. “Dang kid, you had to mess it all up.”

A finger pointed to the body as a large carry bag arrived, creating a new pupa for Clive. He would soak in the pod in his own juices until some unsuspecting traveler spotted him undergoing his transformation into primordial soup. The sadness stayed with Imperial as he exited the building, leaving behind a phase of this life while imagining a retirement, somewhere sunny with no extradition. This life was getting static.

“Rest kid; you’ve earned it,” Imperial said, making a sign of the cross, then leaving.

JANESVILLE, WISCONSIN

Helen had questions and she wanted, no, she needed answers. She felt at least she’d earned that much from Apple, therefore her mouth opened and out poured the question. The boy Kendrick, thin, bandaged, and wearing a diaper, brought the anger out of her soul. Helen understood little about what she was seeing and what she was seeing. She didn’t want to understand but needed to know.

“What does the brand on his arm mean?” she asked Apple.

“The brand means he belongs to a caterpillar in The Chrysalis,” he said. “A loathsome group of collectors who specialize in exotic toys. Branding means he’s not to be touched by anyone other than his owner. His owner didn’t do this to him; someone else did.”

“His owner?”

“Yes, in The Chrysalis, there are actual butterflies who survive the transformation from being owned, like Kendrick, to being owners themselves. The warehouses are where the toys are housed. Kendrick was used by a deviant because branded toys are not for the customers. The dolls, as desired by borderlines, who haven’t matured to collecting are used to recruit other toys,” Apple explained. “The person who owned him more than likely was grooming him as a companion, a loyal servant to share thoughts, keep an eye on the inventory, and in a pinch, serve as a recruiter.”

Helen sighed heavily and asked, “You mean this child was sent out to recruit more children to be brought into the tall grass of caterpillar habitats?”

“Yes, ugly, but true. Kendrick was an aide-de-camp to a senior officer in The Chrysalis, assigned to work in the Milwaukee area to bring back toys and dolls to the Field of Flowers, as the warehouses are named,” Apple said. “A child living on the street and tired of scraping by, will trust another child who says they know a safe place to eat, and the man or woman who has him, ain’t so bad. It can seem like a fair trade off to only have to deal with one terrible person, versus being on the streets having to take your chances.”

“Forgive me for being slow on the uptake, but where do these kids come from where they...never mind,” Helen said. “Is this Chrysalis nationwide?”

“No, it is a Great Lakes thing,” Apple said. “I have been trying for a while to find the low-hanging branches where the pupa and chrysalises meet and I can’t. Each time one is shut down, the Sweeper goes in to collect the residue, but no real trace evidence is found. Not even our best trackers can get to them fast enough.”

“Are you planning to train me to track them?”

“Helen, I plan to train you to do a lot of shit,” Apple said. “Taking me down was impressive. I know you can shoot. What else can you do?”

She sighed. “I learned to use a leveler to hang curtains the other day. I also learned to use a power drill to hang those curtains.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “You can’t cook worth a shit either.”

“Apple, what do you see me being able to do for the company? I mean, Cherry was a sniper, and that’s what she did, one long-range shot, and she called it a night. I know how to do that,” she said.

“No, Cherry did mostly sniper work, but she also could break down a body in less than fifteen minutes like you would a deer carcass,” he said. “She is an excellent tracker, she knows how to be a femme fatale and basic chemical manipulation with a solid understanding of knowing, if push comes to shove, how to stage an accident.”

“I’m going to learn to do all of that?”

“Not from me,” he said. “My job is to toughen you up, assess what comes naturally to you, and build upon that skill set.”

“What comes natural to me is caring,” she said. “As shitty as life can be, and trust and believe I’ve had my fair share, I still care. You can toughen me up, but inside, I am still me. It has taken me a long time to like the person I am, so changing me to be something else entirely is not going to work.”

“You can’t be an assassin and care too much,” Apple said.

“Says the man with four broken winged birds in a sideways nest,” she replied. “We all care about something. You’re trying to tell me to not let my heart overrule what has to be done in a timely and expeditious fashion.”

“Well, there’s a five-dollar word.”

“I was starting college classes for accounting when I got sent here, so that will be put on hold for a minute,” she said.

“Nope, reach out and do the classes online so you can still move your needle forward,” he suggested. “In the meantime, I have to go and examine that child and I sure as hell don’t want to see the damage some creep did to him. However, I need the anger. It fuels me, keeps me focused.”

“Whatever gets you there, and shakes the apples from your tree,” she added, wanting to know, wanting to see, but not needing the imagery in her head. “Good night.”

She climbed the stairs to her room. In her hand, she held her phone and stared at it. Helen wanted to call Mustang, but it was too soon. None of this was his problem, and if she called, he’d assume she wanted out and couldn’t handle it. Another week, and she’d call. In the interim, she had a weapons cache to create.

“Shit, I need to really learn how to create one for my own home,” she said, thinking of all the land and woods around Slow’s property. She could be the rear defense for his home. A yawn sneaked up on her, making her feel more tired than she had in years. “Sleep Helen; tomorrow’s a new challenge.”