The Clarity of Cold Steel

“YOU’RE ONE STUPID bloody bastard,” I snarl. We’re sitting on one of the many sloped rooftops of Red Fort in Dacoit Dirge, on the west coast of Mortise Locke, watching what passes for a sunset in this shit world of mine. Broken tiles abound. The cracked grey sky’s turning more and more to black as the vestigial ghost of a sun, if you can call it that, sinks over the horizon. Only time you ever see the sun. Alpha and omega. “Now, what the hell are you going to do?”

“You could have said no,” Nikunj offers.

“No’s not my strong suit. We both know that.”

“Spilled milk.” Nikunj says it matter-of-factly. “I had to get you out.” As though he just put honey on his naan and didn’t just admit to a capital felony. “Had to do it fast.”

“You’re a wanted man by now.”

“A few felonies, but as a ’Mister Patel,’” Nikunj counters.

“By Brahma, you’re not that stupid.” I kick a loose tile with my foot, watch as it slides down the roof only to stop just shy of the edge. “You think Vortex won’t put two and two together?”

Nikunj smirks. “Fast carries with it a steep price.”

As the ghost-sun slithers out of sight, a ragged cheer goes up, a scattered applause from watchers scattered all around the rooftops. Squeezebox music starts erupts from somewhere, carried on empty winds.

“You should have let me rot in there.”

“You’re my brother.” Below us, waves break against the walls of the fort.

“Not anymore.”

“Always.” He picks up a broken tile, winces as he snaps it in half and then quarters.

“And what about that poor bastard we left in the stir?”

“Vihmal…” Nikunj says the name then just lets it lie, like he’s considering precisely what he’s about to say, which I know he is. “He owes me for a job I pulled a few years ago.”

“That’s a pretty big deficit to be paying up.” I whistle low. “What’d you do for him?”

Nikunj purses his lips. “His family’s taken care of. I saw to it then and will continue to see to it now.”

“You have to leverage him?” I rub my throat, watch a dirigible ghost silently over the water, returning from some scavenger haul from Brahma knows where. “Cause I’m a shit — I know I’m a shit — but still it’s sitting like a boulder in my gut.”

“I didn’t force him.” He lets a piece of tile fly, sidearming it, smashing into the loose tile at the edge. Both plummet out of sight, satisfaction playing across Nikunj’s face at the sound of them both shattering below.

“Well, did you tell him he was buying himself a life sentence, too, and a short one at that?”

“He knew,” Nikunj says, “and he was adamant,” grey waves continue to roll in from infinity, “and he was dying.”

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“There is no ‘supposed’ to, brother.” He wings another piece. “There only ‘is’ or there ’isn’t.’”

“Fuck you,” I spit. Having another man pulling the hangman’s jig on my account is better than me doing it, I’ll admit, but only just.

“What’s done is done.” Nikunj stands, wings another piece of tile shattering into a gargoyle of one of Kali’s demon-spawn. “We can sit here and prevaricate and moan or we can find your boy.”

“Why the hell do you care?”

“Why the hell would I not?” He rears back, another tile in hand, pauses. “Still got that line on him.”

“From what?” I wave a hand. “Who? The razor-boy from Brumson’s?”

“He goes by Clipper.” Nikunj nods, lets fly. Again, he doesn’t miss. It would be rare for him to do so.

“Remind me why he’s got a beef with the masked man?”

“He doesn’t. It’s with the Church.”

“Some priest diddle him?”

“The term he used was ’rape.’” He snaps another piece of tile. “And yes.”

“And how’s that supposed to help us find our masked nemesis?”

“Clipper says the priest who raped him’s preaching again.”

“Again, how’s that help us?”

“When the church finally addressed the priest’s crimes, they send a cat in a metal mask to gather him. Clipper was there, says he saw it all go down. Gotta be our man.”

“It’s thin.”

“Blades are thin.”

I frown. “This a revenge saga or an investigation for a missing kid?”

“Why not both?”

Leaning back, I stare out over the grey surf. Come finally to the conclusion that my shitheel brother’s right. Again. This is all we’ve got. “Alright. I’ll bite. What’s it going to benefit us finding this priest?”

“We brace the priest, squeeze out what he knows of this masked man, pursue.”

I settle back. “What’s the priest’s name?”

“Don’t know. Clipper says we have to promise to do something for him if we want him to cough it up.”

A sailboat far off rides on the ash-ridden winds, seagulls wheeling around it, ravenous, screeching; it’s almost beautiful in the dying light. “And that price is…?”

“Exactly what you would charge if you were him.”