The scarred crescent, p.4
The Scarred Crescent, page 4
part #1 of The Crescent Series
‘Two?’ he answered, denying existence to the nothingness around him.
He stretched his hands, touched pillars to either side. Thick. Cold. Slimy. He advanced in the abyss where no movement was possible and the pillars followed him.
The sea of thoughts became a straitjacket, enveloping him, chafing him.
‘Forty-nine hundred and forty-five rupees,’ he muttered.
He paused. A wall of light rose around him, pure white bricks laying upon each other. When it was higher than a hundred storey tower, it began forming a circle—the most perfect shape in a mode of existence that relied on untruths and falsehoods—each end of the wall rushing towards the other.
He entered inside once the circle was complete. In there lay the vile darkness. It slithered towards the wall, smacking itself against the bricks in vain.
He reached forward, his fingers — that weren’t really fingers — seeking, probing. The darkness writhed, struck him, recoiled in horror.
Undeterred, he advanced, fingers now curling inward. A scream rose, pure and visceral. He tightened his fist over the wrongness, feeling it throb like a branch against a raging river.
He pulled and the wrongness gave way, coming away like a rotten grape from the vine.
The wall collapsed. Voices shrieked in horror. A storm of insects wider than aircraft carriers blew towards him. Went through him.
Nothing but untruths.
The abyss receded, screaming like a trumpet whining through catacombs.
With a gasp, he opened his eyes. He was panting as if he’d run a marathon. He coughed, his mouth full of bile. Nigel approached, a towel and pitcher of water in his hands. He accepted both with a nod. His Fez was no longer on his head. Exhaling, he wiped the sweat on his face.
With each passing second, the world grew brighter, clearer, the abyss nothing more than yet another terrible memory. Nigel handed him his Fez and he placed it on his head. The six Inquisitors swayed on their feet like drunk sailors landing ashore after months. They’d taken the worst of it.
He turned towards the magi. The former magi. Craig met his eyes coolly, no hint of emotion on his peaceful face.
‘How are you feeling?’ Omar asked.
A long pause. Then Craig shook his head. ‘Nothing.’ His eyes carried a puzzled expression as if wondering what the expected answer ought to have been.
‘Good,’ Omar said. He stepped forward, patted the thin tranquil on the head. ‘You did great. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.’
‘Thanks?’ said Craig.
Omar inhaled a lungful of air, watched the tranquil one last time. Then gesturing the Inquisitors to follow him, he turned about on his feet, and headed towards the door. His chest heaving, he climbed the steps two a time.
Light flooded the corridor when they finally emerged through the cellar doors. Omar nodded at the guard standing at the dungeon’s entrance. The moustachioed man in khaki slacks offered him a limp salute.
‘Salam Saeen,’ he said.
Omar sighed. ‘Wasalam, what are you after?’
The guard pressed the palms of his hands together, bowed his head. ‘Saeen, due to your prayers and goodwill, my daughter is going to get married next month. And…’
Omar stared blankly, not following the blasted man. His mind felt like a voodoo doll with a million pricks, unable to process thoughts. ‘Umm...’
Nigel grinned. ‘That’s great, old man, Saeen is busy right now, but we will get you a token of our goodwill.’
‘A million thanks!’ The guard bowed again, finally stepping away.
Shaking his head, Omar walked out into the long, narrow corridors of Miami Central Police Station. Nigel walked beside him, the other Inquisitors going their own way. His head hurt, and thankfully Nigel kept quiet.
‘The office?’ Omar asked without turning to face his assistant.
‘Aye.’
Omar sighed. ‘Very well.’
They climbed two staircases up to the officers’ wing. Winds whipped into the closed windows, Doris was close. His feet dragged on the worn carpet in the corridor, but he kept his back straight. Severances tended to impact Inquisitors differently. For him, the penalty was a severe lethargy. And extremely vivid dreams for weeks.
A tall figure stood beside the door to his office, leaning against the brass plaque carrying his name. Even with shadows covering most of the face, Omar would recognise the smug bastard with greasy hair anywhere.
‘Chester Ford,’ he hissed through clenched teeth.
Beside him, Nigel muttered under his breath, none too pleased either. Omar quickened his pace.
‘Ah, our Sherlock Holmes returns with another triumph no doubt!’ Chester pushed himself off the wall. He spread his arms in a show of amiability. ‘And the brilliant Watson in tow. As always.’
Omar didn’t stop until he was six inches from the younger man’s smug face. ‘You’re in my way!’
‘Am I?’ Chester cried, leaning back a degree, then his voice turned cold. ‘I could say the same.’ Omar raised a hand to push the bloody idiot away. ‘Careful now,’ Chester said. ‘You have no idea how much shit is coming your way!’
‘You’d know better mate,’ chimed Nigel from behind him with a chuckle. ‘After all, you’re always licking this hole and that.’
Chester’s refined jaw worked. Despite his eyelids feeling a tonne heavy, Omar allowed himself a smile. This will be golden. Pursing his lips, Chester hissed, ‘You… lowly… what do you know of… of—’
‘I know, I know,’ Nigel said sagely. ‘Sometimes you get shit so thick on the tongue, you stammer vomiting up more shit!’
Omar burst out laughing. He slapped Nigel on the back, guffawed until his stomach started to cramp. Tears running out of his eyes, he adjusted the Fez.
The young man’s body shook with rage, his face taking on a colour Omar was certain would be close to the metaphorical bright red. Instead of responding to Nigel, he turned towards Omar, raised a trembling finger. ‘The superintendent remains pissed off with your bumbling investigation of the bombings. Two more weeks, and I will have your ass on a platter.’
‘I’ll bring salt and pepper,’ said Nigel. ‘Sinking in all that… muck, you could do with a flavour hit.’
Omar roared with laughter again. Chester turned about on his feet, and marched away at a pace that would have put a speed walker to shame.
Nigel clicked his teeth. ‘Such a sorry excuse for a man.’
‘Aye,’ Omar concurred with some feeling.
Nigel slid open the door and Omar entered his office. Immediately, his eyes fell on the bookcase to the right. Collected Poems of Ghalib sat atop the Translated works of Hafiz again. Grunting, he moved Ghalib’s tome under Hafiz’s. When would the damned cleaners stop moving things in his office?
With a big sigh, he collapsed into his worn leather chair and plopped his feet on the tidy desk with stacks of paper arranged neatly. An unexpected bright ray of sunlight shot across the room like an unearthly beam of energy, dust motes floating in its wake. He closed his eyes.
‘He’s not wrong,’ Nigel said after a while.
‘Aye,’ he admitted. ‘But I don’t care.’
‘If the superintendent does try to transfer you, he will find out quickly enough how tied his hands are, but maybe we shouldn’t attract unwanted attention?’
Omar cracked open an eyelid. ‘What should I do then? Ask one of the magi to conjure up the men behind the terrorist bombings?’
Nigel blinked. ‘Is that possible?’
‘Nigel!’
‘Sorry I’m just looking for ways to help you.’
With a groan, he dropped his feet down, turned to face the short man with red hair. ‘I am an Inquisitor of the Raj first and foremost, anything else comes after.’ He paused. ‘But I do agree we need to keep up appearances. What have you got?’
‘Thought you’d never ask!’ Nigel said, his voice bright and chirpy. Omar groaned, knowing he’d be expected to hear the man out now.
‘First thing, we need to build up your public profile,’ Nigel said, raising his index finger, ‘harder to pull down a statue than a scarecrow. Second, ideally, we need to start getting to the root of all these bombings.’
‘Not much good coming up with plans if they keep getting leaked.’
‘We’ll find the leaks and once we do—’
Omar waved an arm. ‘What’s the fastest way to get you to shut up?’
‘Not possible unless a bomb takes me out,’ Nigel replied, not missing a beat. ‘I think we should take up the offer of that reporter friend of yours. Anything to get your name, and face, out to the public ought to buy us time.’
Zuwena. His tired mind conjured up the pleasing figure of the tall statuesque woman with the stern expression and kind eyes. The figure smiled, curly hair bobbing in the air.
He opened his eyes to find Nigel watching him with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Not thinking of anyone special, are we?’
Omar waved away the accusation with an easy laugh. ‘Just tired.’
Nigel kept grinning. ‘Just a couple of weeks till the big day… Till the big night!’
‘Shut it, Nigel,’ Omar warned with little conviction.
‘Can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to sharing interesting anecdotes with our Mrs-Ghazali-to-be! Ah, the shock when she comes to know of all the soft places hiding behind this—’
Omar balled up a paper from the tray and threw at Nigel. He ducked. Not quick enough. Nigel winced, a hand on his right eye. ‘They say one shouldn’t blind their right hand man.’
Too tired to argue, and mentally drained after the severance, Omar leaned back into his chair. ‘Put the paper in the bin. Anything else?’
Nigel tapped at his hand terminal. ‘Looks like the elections just got tighter. The local fella… Ali Ellison is a real contender now.’
Omar closed his eyes, letting his mind drift as Nigel droned in happily. They had much to do, but for now nothing else mattered than some quality shut-eye.
Hopefully, he was too tired for dreams.
5
Inspiration
Abigail pointed her trembling index finger at the wall screen as the camera panned over corpses lying on a street in Jacksonville.
‘Butchered,’ she said in a soft voice, letting the word echo over the PA system. She shook her head, sighed. ‘What was their crime, you might ask? I’ll tell you. Going about their normal business. Nappies for the toddler. Groceries for the wife. Errands at the super market. Hanging out with friends.’
She fell quiet, her eyes taking stock of the fifty odd people sitting in a semi circle around her in the cramped hall. The silence stretched, an awkward itch begging to be scratched. Wind rattled the shuttered window panes and she could almost taste the anger building up in the room.
Guilt reared its ugly head, a most unwelcome guest, chiding her for manipulating people. For using hyperbole. For not trusting her own friends. She clenched her fists, letting the nails bite into her palms. They have eyes, but they do not see. Ears that don’t hear. When the baby doesn’t take the teat, is the mother at fault to force the issue one way or the other?
She cleared her throat, waited till she had the room’s attention again. ‘Is this the sort of world you’d like your children to grow up in?’ Her voice was still calm. Friendly. In contrast to the vengeful anger burning in her chest. ‘What was once land of the free, land of the brave, is reduced to the land of the impoverished!’
Anxious faces looked up at her. A couple of middle aged women to her right fidgeted on their seats. A wizened old woman with a red scarf draped around her rocked back and forth. But a few faces didn’t shy away when her eyes fell on them. A blonde woman in her twenties leaned forward, staring at her with a steely determination. Abigail smiled at her. A potential recruit for All Americas Alliance.
‘How can we allow the Raj to continue their occupation of us when they can’t even provide us with the right to live?’ she said softly.
‘Isn’t the police doing all it can?’ The old woman with the scarf spoke up. ‘Terrorists are terrorists. They have no religion. Or ideology. Or even a nation. They don’t listen to reason. You either kill them, or let them win in the end.’ She raised a finger at the wall screen. ‘Supposing the locals ran the police, controlled the government, the terrorists wouldn’t just snap out of their day dream!’
Abigail stared at the older woman in disbelief. How could she be so blind to the real issue underlying the symptoms? The crone had gotten a few heads nodding, and whether or not Abigail liked it, she couldn’t let the old woman’s challenge unmet.
She walked over to the old woman, the mic still in her hand, aware of the eyes following her. ‘When you stifle the bird of prey in a gilded cage,’ she said, ‘you force it to change its nature. The bald eagle isn’t meant to live as the falcon, ready to fly at the master’s behest. Nor can it survive as a parrot might, singing primitive notes. Clip her feathers, keep her chained, and she is going to snap.’
The young couple to her left nodded. Abigail shifted her weight, ignoring the shirt sticking to her back in the humid night. The crone shook her head.
‘One of our very own,’ the blasted woman said, ‘Ali Ellison, could very well become the next president of the Raj! If we were truly that suppressed, why would they let this happen?’
Abigail shook her head. She could not afford to shout at the woman in front of others. Yet, how could she not see the buffoon from Miami was but a token symbol meant to placate dissenting voices. A parlour trick for the masses. Abigail ground her teeth, swallowed the urge to shove some sense in the damned woman.
Focus. She stood straight, reminding herself of the need to watch her tongue in public.
Lights flickered behind her on the wall screen. Annoyed with yet another distraction, she turned around to switch the damn thing off. For the millionth time it seemed, the Atlantis Warriors took another lap of victory in the Miami Oval.
She swore under her breath, knowing fully well she had lost her momentum. He eyes fell on the dark figures of the AAA members standing by the main doors. Little chance of swelling their members when the masses were so easily duped by slices of bacon dangling in front.
Forcing a smile on her face, she took a step back, stood between the crowd and the blasted screen. ‘We were once the United States of America. The greatest nation on Earth. We led the world in technical and scientific endeavours. It was Americans who invented the computer and managed to put a man on the moon! Airwaves throughout the world were saturated with our music. The world spoke, sang, made love under the shadow of our culture. Heck, even the ISIS terrorists of a century ago were fans of our Hollywood stars.’
She walked back into the semi circle, eyes following her again. She looked at the two middle aged women most likely to be mothers. ‘Our children don’t even speak English anymore. Or Spanish, for that matter. They take more pride in their Hindustani accents instead of learning their own languages.’ She shook her head slowly, clicked her tongues. A few heads bobbed. Her body was falling back into the familiar rhythm, the vivid imagery thawing her from the inside, her voice rising towards a crescendo.
She raised a hand, ignored the crone’s attempt at getting in a word of her own. ‘This land is not the Raj,’ she said in a cold voice. ‘This is the United States of America.’
She pointed at a dark-skinned woman clutching the arm of a sickly looking child. ‘You are not a citizen of the Raj. Nothing more than a tax payer to the occupiers in New Karachi.’ Her finger danced around the room. ‘Nor are you. Not you either.’ She whirled about to face the cantankerous woman. ‘And most definitely not you!’
A soft murmur rose and she smiled. Men dressed in overalls sitting at the back raised their fists. Blood coursed through her temples, spurred by the rising emotion around her.
‘USA!’ someone cried out, the voice shaky, unsure. A second later, another picked up the ancient cry. Within moments, the room was ringing with shouts of ‘USA! USA! USA!’
Abigail exhaled, surprised again by how on edge she was. Moving a rogue lock of red hair away from her eyes, she walked back to her place beside the wall screen.
Once the shouting had died, the AAA fellows would swoop in, registers in their hands, and take down details of all those interested in peaceful resistance to the Raj. Hopefully some of them would graduate into more active ways of resistance.
The crone’s wheedling voice cut through the muffled shouts bright and loud. ‘Rose tinted glasses don’t fix everything, little girl! I’ve been around long enough to have had babysat your nanna.’ She stood up, a frail, tiny figure, the overhead bulb casting long shadows under her eyes. ‘Sure, things aren’t perfect. Not as ideal as they once were in the so-called good ol’ days. But breaking what’s half-working never fixes what was broke all along.’
The woman took a step forward, her scarf coming off her shoulder. ‘What’s your fix anyway, eh? Take it from the rich kids, and give it all to your friends?’
Abigail squeezed her eyes shut for a quick second, counted till three. She smiled, looking the crone in the eye.
‘Nothing’s that different, you say from the good ol’ days, eh? Same shit, just different day.’ She nodded, struck a thoughtful pose. ‘I can see the appeal in such ignorant assertion. However…’ She smiled, letting the sentence drift away into silence. Her manicured fingers came to rest at the top of her tight blouse. She undid the first button. And another.
Then another.
She leaned forward, ensuring the teenagers in the front row got a good view. ‘Tell me, could you do this when you were my age? What about your nanna?’ She barked a sharp laugh. ‘Ali Ellison, the so-called champion of Florida, our so-called representative, is a traitor to his folks. He may have been born here. Raised here. But he is also a prime example of what we’ve become. Look how he panders to the Raj in their cities, speaking their Hindustani, espousing their ideals. He even dresses as if he was raised in the posh areas of Mumbai instead of good ol’America!’
