HADES- Chapter 2

I’d been to many places in the world but they were mostly cities, large cities, where most targets were hard to find but flocked. Birds of a feather, right? Now we were in Harieliath, the largest city when you look at it as a whole. The city was located where the three corners of Sa’hariel, Itarea and Caeld met giving the town the name that meant “Center World” in Sa’harielan. It was a world of diversity, three countries, three cultures, a whole mess of conflict. It may have been one city but it was treated like three different ones. Borders cut the city into thirds, three pizza slices of a city that had been subjected to years of violence due to its location but right now all was peaceful and the border wasn’t as heavily watched as was routine. It made our job easier.

We made it to the Sa’harielan side without a problem. Not a single guard checked for ID, if he had then we would have had to knock him unconscious and slip over the boundary. Tokala would have probably made it through okay but I was a different matter. I had no real identification, the only name I had was the name that had become legendary. The guard, had he been looking, would have recognized me and arrested me on sight.

“I’ve always wondered,” Tokala said as we moved through the market place of the Sa’harielan side of Harieliath. “Why do you always leave jewels on the victim?”

It was a custom that I had developed early on in my HADES career. I was known as Kage in HADES but to the outside world I was the Shadow Jewel. Kind of a pansy name but it’s not like I came up with it myself and it’s not like I can go up to the guy that just walked past and shove him against the wall demanding that it changed. Shadow seemed to be fitting for me, as I had said before I was as subtle and fluid as a shadow in the night. No one saw me come, no one saw me leave and if they did then they sure didn’t live to tell the tale. The only way people knew that I had been there, the only way they knew that I existed, was the pouch of jewels I left behind.

“Call it a M.O. I’m not about to let other people take my credit,” I said.

“Yeah, right,” he said and shrugged. “I have my own theories.”

“Do you?” I asked but was cut short. I nodded towards a tent on the edge of the market place and turned away from Tokala, splitting up. One would think that people would be suspicious of the tall man wearing a black cloak with the hood over his face, especially in the middle of the dry season but I went unnoticed. I maneuvered through the very center of the market and turned right until I was behind the tent. Fruits, vegetables, flowers, they were all here but I was only pretending to be interested in them when really I only barely saw them. The man standing on the other side of the tent seemed to be much more interested in the watermelon he was holding. He didn’t look up from the melon or the summer squash in his hand as he paid the vendor, he didn’t look up as he turned to leave the market place. He only looked up when he felt that he was being followed.

I jumped over the watermelon aimed for my feet and ducked as the squash lobbed at my head flew through the air, both disposable apparently but the other bag in his hand he held close to his chest. Dusk had started to set, the street lamps flickered dimly before shutting down as they did every night until someone came around to turn them on manually.  

The target turned a sharp left, hoping to throw me off but I’d done this enough times to be ready to expect the unexpected (as cliché as that sounded) and was still on his tail. He, like so many others who had the luxury of being able to run, reminded me of a sambar, desperately trying to avoid the jaws of a hungry tiger, knowing deep within their hearts that it was useless but trying nonetheless. I admired it, I really did, it made the job a lot more interesting.

“Get away from me!” The man shouted to no avail. He turned another corner but I didn’t run after him this time. Instead, I walked around to gaze at the alley floor where our feisty target lay sprawled on the grime covered ground.

“Good work,” I said to Tokala who’d laid in wait for the runner. As I had said, I’d done almost this same chase enough times to be able to do it with my eyes closed. The alley was the only one that didn’t end in an abrupt halt, it opened out to the next street while many others around the marketplace were dead ends.

I bent down to grab the man’s filthy, baggy white shirt and hoisted him up with the sound of ripping stitches of fabric filling the alley. I pushed him hard into the brick wall to catch his attention and he ceased his belligerent moaning.

“Mr. Takashi,” I tried for my best smile but it didn’t seem to ease him any. I wasn’t much of a smiler, not even a fake one. “So nice of you to drop in!”

“What do you ruffians want with me? You’re with HADES, that much is clear but what have I done?” He tried to be intimidating but it worked just as well as my best smile. I pushed him into the wall harder.

“What do you have in the bag?” Tokala asked and the man scoffed. The arrogance melted away in the blink of an eye with the feeling of icy, blue steel against his throat.

“That didn’t sound like a joke to me, Takashi” I said threateningly and watched the color drain from his face. Poor fellow, he was just a plain, ordinary, human guy but he’d done something down the line to be picked up on the HADES radar. Poor fool would be a more accurate statement. “What’s in the bag?”

This time he said nothing, too afraid of my sadistic glare to form accurate words and instead blathered almost inaudible nonsense. I sighed and grabbed the bag from his limp grasp to hand to Tokala.

“It’s full of rabbits’ feet, talismans and what appears to be more hoodoo junk,” Tokala said and I sighed.

“I was hoping it was another squash,” I said to Takashi and he somehow appeared to get paler.

“No, wait!” With voice two octaves higher than any man’s should be, Takashi summoned enough energy to grab my hand before I could make a move. “I have a proposition!”

“Yes?” I said with a quirked brow.

“I have many things in my home, please, you may find something useful or something you like?” The man was begging now and if I didn’t have a firm grasp on his collar he’d be on his knees groveling. I, feeling especially cruel today, let go to watch him fall to the ground and clutch onto my leg for all his life.

“What do you think?” I asked and Tokala shook his head.

“You know the rules, it’s against protocol!” Tokala said.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said and acquired a devilish grin that also seemed unnatural. “But when have I ever followed protocol?”

Takashi knew it would be pointless to try and outrun us, he’d already tried that once, so he walked rather nicely and we followed. Not a single passerby spared a glance, we blended in nicely among the crowd and Takashi did well hiding his fear of us.

He led us to an old apartment building near the edges of Harieliath on the Sa’harielian side. Upon entering the building we discovered that Takashi was the only tenant and it wasn’t exactly an apartment building at all, not any more. He’d gutted the whole place, tearing down walls to leave open space for a warehouse like complex. Now it was filled with so much junk that the walls and floor were almost completely hidden.

“Please, take whatever you want!” Takashi said and stepped aside. Tokala and I looked at each other but then went to the second floor, ignoring the first all together.

“Tell me again why we’re fooling this poor old man?” Tokala asked.

“Because it’s entertaining,” I replied flatly and moved aside some beads to enter the next room.

“You’re cruel,” Tokala frowned. “You made him believe we were going to kill him!”

“Maybe this will be a wake up call for him,” I said and picked up a book. “I’ve been watching him for a while and he’s gotten sloppy. He’s lucky HADES hasn’t found him yet.”

“What are we looking for?” Tokala asked and picked up a random object. Realizing that it was the real skull of some rodent used for rituals, he dropped it and wiped his hands off on his tunic frantically.

“I don’t rightly know, yet,” I said. “But he’s got to have something that can help us.”

“All I see is junk,” Tokala sighed. “Creepy and disturbing, vile junk.”

“Cry me a river,” I muttered and climbed another flight of stairs. I was actually surprised that Takashi hadn’t followed us up the stairs like a used car salesman trying to get his next big commission. I stopped suddenly and Tokala, not paying attention to where he was going, ran into me. I turned to glare at him.

“Sorry,” he said and then turned to the wall. “What are you looking at?”

There was a portrait on the wall of an older, well dressed guy, posing before the artist and his brush. It was so out of place in the building that it had caught my eye. What was it doing here? There were no other paintings hanging anywhere in the building or, at least, they weren’t here.

“Bingo,” I said and removed the painting. There was a hidden door which I pick-locked and opened. There was a small chest sitting inside which I pulled out and looked inside. “It’s a scroll.”

“What does it say?” Tokala asked and I looked at him with narrowed eyes as I untied the ribbon.

“Gee, I don’t know, let me read it.” I said and opened the scroll. “I can’t read it. It’s in some ancient script.”

“We can find a scholar,” Tokala said and I nodded.

“But how do we know it’s for the Khutsaba?” I asked and put the scroll back in the chest before going down the stairs. “Takashi!”

“Yes, sir?” Takashi dropped to the floor immediately. I looked over at Tokala who rolled his eyes.

“What’s this?” I asked and watched as his jaw dropped.

“How did you-?”

“I found it fair and square,” I said and moved it from his hands. “What is it?”

“It’s an ancient scroll about an ancient treasure,” Takashi sighed.

“Which one?”

“Tsubasa? I don’t know,” Takashi said and grabbed my shirt. “It’s something my family passes down generation to generation. We’re supposed to protect it.”

“You can let me leave with this or you can die, either way I’m taking the box,” I said. He sighed and let go.

“Fine, you may have it,” he said.

“Can you read it?” I asked and he shook his head.

“Find a Sa’harielian,” he shrugged.

“I will,” I said and looked at the box again. There was a small carving on the top, inlaid with a small opal, it had probably been a diamond at some point in the boxes life. Humans, sometimes they were just so greedy.

Tokala and left the bitter old man to covet what we’d left behind. I blew the random, stubborn strand of hair from my eyes before turning to look at him.

“What do we do now?” He asked and I stepped under a vanity as it started to rain. The box was ancient, water would only damage it more.

“I’m going to try and read what this thing has to say,” I said and touched the opal. “If I can’t figure it out then we’ll go looking for some Sa’harielans.”

“You think you can decipher that?” Tokala asked skeptically and I scoffed.

“Who do you think I am?”