How many times had I watched her fall? How many times had I allowed the abyss to consume her? Sometimes she returned, but most times she didn’t. On my twenty-third attempt, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I rescued my eldest daughter in her time of need abandoning cruelty for compassion in hopes of swaying her stubborn heart. I was wrong. Millia Gnu Aye succeeded the throne.
A glass-reinforced nylon and aluminum subgrip and an adjustable dovetailed front and rear sight with a hybrid glass fiber frame.
Morta licked her lips, closing one of her eyes as she stared down the barrel of her Luger 9mm pistol. She kept her finger off the trigger, her palm dry against the checkered grip as she stroked an oval latch at the top of the handle. It clicked as a magazine fell from the bottom and clambered against her workbench. Morta pulled the slide to the rear, exposing the barrel, ejecting a single bullet from the chamber, and inserting a bright orange inert magazine. She released the slide, which snapped back, concealing the muzzle.
Igor hung overhead, legs like elongated bent branches from a petrified tree, gears spinning within, his bright red booking lung warming Morta’s shoulders.
“I found the oil, my lady,” Igor said, dropping a bottle with an attached dropper into her hand.
“Thanks.” Morta never looked away from the carrier bolt. “Where did you find it?”
“Behind that pickled hand in your closet.”
“It’s not pickled, dumbass. That’s water and formaldehyde, thirty-seven percent at least.” Morta undid her barrette, black hair dropping over her shoulders like a waterfall as she thumbed the takedown plate between the weapon’s slide and underframe.
The steel felt like glass in her hands as she bent her hairpin straight and used it to press the takedown pin, pulling the slide assembly from the pistol’s grip. Next came the recoil spring and the barrel she lined up on her workbench in order by size. She started with the barrel and worked her way down, wiping the muzzle and rail with a dry cloth and oiling the springs, pins, and assembly.
“Would you prefer the Ithaca or the Mossberg?” Igor asked, balancing two pump-action shotguns in his arms.
“Having an ejection port on the bottom is nice, but I like the more modern hammerless repeaters,” she said, pressing on the middle of her back and stretching. “But, no, Igor. Small arms only. I don’t want to dislocate my shoulder. I never could take the recoil.”
Morta held the slide upside down and inserted the barrel into the locked position, lining up the guide rod and spring assembly and seating them next to the barrel lug. She heard a click and the sound of metal grinding against metal, slotting the slide onto the frame, pressing the takedown plate, and pulling the assembly rearward enough to insert the pin and close the panel with her barrette.
“How long was I?” she asked, pulling the trigger and making a clicking noise.
“Two minutes, thirty seconds.”
“Damn.” Morta dropped the pistol into her duffle bag and fiddled with her hair ornament, redressing herself from behind.
“What about the derringers?”
“Those too, as much as I can carry.”
Morta tossed the gun oil in with the rest, hollowpoints, lead roundnoses, and full metal jackets. She left out the wadcutters and shelved the twenty-two.
There wouldn’t be much room for target practice.
She poked around inside her duffle bag.
A sheathed cold-steel voyager, check, Beretta M9, check, Lancaster four-fifty-one, check, tactical surgical and suture kit, check.
Morta hissed, cutting her thumb on a folded steel pivoted pocketknife. The gash pulsed, her heart quickening. She sucked on the cut, squeezing her eyes shut, her arms tense, and her forehead scrunched. A single drop of blood spurt from the wound, staining her lips ruby red.
“Now you’re acting like your sister,” Igor said.
“Nona’s not always wrong. Sometimes it just feels right to bleed.” Morta rubbed the back of her neck. “You don’t agree with my decision, do you?”
“Of course, I don’t agree with it,” Igor said, the gears beneath his throat spinning red hot. “This is dangerous. Who knows what dwells at the bottom of the well where the remains of sickened fate reside? What happened to your resolve? Why retrieve the knife now?”
Morta pursed her lips, scratching under his chin as she rested her head against his mono-fiber mane. “I’m not going for the knife, Igor. At least not yet.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I must see this future for myself. The future that my daughter abandoned for my sake. You can’t tell me that doesn’t make you curious?”
It sure made Morta curious, like a moth to the flame. She couldn’t help it. What about the sediment drove mankind to such a bleak future that her daughter, a half-blood, came knowing restoring death would lead to her end? Nobody who wasn’t completely mad ever truly wanted death, if anyone knew that it was Morta, but that girl was sincere, and her sincerity sparked something within her.
Maybe, just maybe, her job wasn’t pointless cruelty but thoughtful mercy. Maybe Bastion was right all along.
Her heart quickened, stirred by a fickle mortal passion, the pursuit of meaning.
Igor knickered, nudging her shoulder. “I insist on joining you. You cannot deprive me of my duty. I am your conduit, your retainer.”
“You cannot join me, Igor,” Morta sighed. “I’ve told you this a thousand times. Only my sisters and I can use the Isomerase and I’m sure that includes the Origin Well. This won’t be like before. Only I can go this time.” She smiled, staring at the mausoleum. “I’ll be fine. I promise, and besides, you have another duty now. That girl carries my bloodline and my mantel. She needs a protector, and that is your job now. Please don’t let any harm befall my only daughter.”
Igor’s lens twisted, and he stamped his hooves against the ground. “Did you pack a change of clothing?” he asked.
“Gawds, what are you, my nanny?” Morta zipped the bag and threw it over her shoulders, grunting from the weight.
“More like your father.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Your brother then.”
Morta snorted. “Trust me, you’re getting a better deal with the nanny,” Morta said, giving him a sideways glance and crossing her arms. “I know I’m not being fair, but there are some things I must do on my own. I’m a woman now and I can take care of myself.”
“As you say, my lady.” He knelt for her.
“Cheer up.” Morta lifted herself onto his back, batting her eyelashes like a damsel from a ditsy pinup. “I need a handsome man to escort me to the cathedral.”
“Your wish is—”
“Don’t say it,” she shushed him. “And keep your voice down. I don’t want to wake Gama.”
— ✦ —
Morta tied a rope to the leg of a sturdy pew near the front of the cathedral. She looped the other end around her waist, making a figure eight and reversing the tail through the knot, pulling until twelve inches of slack rope were lying against her thigh.
“That should do,” she said, tugging on the line, a tight bear hug from an insufferable lover, hemp, nylon, and polyester.
Igor got down low, abdomen rubbing against the floor and making a scraping noise as he checked the knots on both ends. Miles of rope between her and the pew piled as if she were an unweighed anchor. “Be safe, and do nothing reckless,” he said.
“I’m already doing something reckless.” Morta kissed him, standing on her tippy toes. “It’s in my nature,” she whispered. “I’ll be fine, relax.”
“Did you bring your stethoscope? What if your heart gives out?”
“By the tower, Igor, I only die once a year. You know this.” She rolled her eyes and handed him an unsheathed blade. “Keep an eye on this and don’t return it to Gama until I say.”
Morta patted her knees, adjusting her duffle bag and bumping against the cathedral well. She swung her legs over the lip, her feet dangling above the abyss, a darkness so thick light couldn’t pierce it. Butterflies flitted in her stomach and her toes curled, a strange moist fog coming from below.
“No turning back,” she said, inching her body closer until she rolled over the edge.
She fell, yipping as the rope went taught. She dug her feet into the stonework, wet and slimy like a concrete tongue, a mountain climber dangling over the edge of an endless pit.
Igor slowed her descent, catching the rope and letting it slide through his hooves. She held the knot by her waist, her duffle bag pulling her deeper. Darkness surrounded her, embracing her, a long-lost sister in the void.
Morta vaulted, kicking off the walls and hopping to a lower position, but the deeper she went, the stranger her surroundings. Soon, her feet touched flesh, and she sunk to her ankles as if in quicksand. She strained her back, pulling her legs free, the fleshy walls making a sucking noise as they let go.
Then came the whispers, something in her head, but with the heat of someone’s breath against her neck. “I’ve missed you, cousin.”
“Atropos?” Morta asked, but there was no response.
Something tugged on her bag, a carp testing the line of a delicious hook. She kicked, but found nothing solid to purchase on. “Who are you?” she cried. “What do you want?”
“I want to help you. To retrieve what you lost.”
Again, her bag was pulled, but this time much harder. Morta fell, screaming as she dug her nails into the soft walls like pudding in her hands. She slowed, but only for a moment. Whatever was on the other end of her bag was still there, breathing next to her throat. She swung but again found nothing, immaterial vines tickling her ankles and wrapping around her waist. She cried out, pulling the buckle across her chest and releasing the bag. A weight fell from her shoulders, her luggage consumed in the abyss, Morta free for a split second.
“Help me!” she screamed.
Igor must have heard her, the rope pulling upward, but she could hear something coming behind her, fast.
Morta grabbed the rope, pulling herself up, hands sweaty and heart beating through her chest. The concrete walls convulsed as if the throat of a beast swallowing her, a river of fluid, once mortar and brick, pouring against her body.
“Come with me, cousin.”
Something grabbed her foot, ripping off her slipper. She screamed, pulling faster, the rope cutting her hands and digging into her waist, but she didn’t feel pain, adrenalin flooding her veins. Morta kicked wildly, but it came again and again, licking her ankles and tugging on her toes, each time missing her by a hair.
The light of the cathedral broke through the darkness, and she could see Bastion, his neck craned over the opening of the well, watching her struggle.
When did he appear and where was Igor!?
Bastion’s blades quivered like living teeth, the fingers of a stillborn copper mantid brushing against the rope, her only lifeline.
Morta was sitting in the jaws of an iron maiden, and the doors were closing fast.
“Bastion! Help me!”
Something grabbed her leg, dislocated her ankle, and dragged her deeper into the abyss. She dug her nails into the now solid masonry, leaving marks in the stone as she was tugged and forced into a stalemate with the rope.
“Bastion! What are you doing?!” She could hear Igor shouting above. “If I let go, she’ll fall!”
Bastion didn’t move. He stared at Morta, and she could see her reflection in his lens, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She tightened her grip on the line, trying to kick with her good leg but finding nothing but air. “Please,” she said, pain racing through her thigh. “Help me, Father.”
“To my dearest daughter,” Bastion said, cutting the rope with a snap. “I look forward to your coronation as the duchess of death.”
The line went slack, and Morta fell, screaming; the abyss rushing to meet her.