IGMS Issue 48 Read online

  "Zombies," Hinge added with a yowl. "Or werewolves. Though you probably wouldn't want Pierre to survive like that."

  "Gargoyles don't catch plagues," said Hatch.

  "Ghosts!" barked Fender.

  "That would defeat the purpose, muttface," said Hatch.

  "Ssssshadow thievesssss," Spoiler said finally. Sun would have laughed if it didn't feel like knives. He managed to lean on his right arm enough to flip himself over. The intention was to use the streetlight post for back support, but all he managed to do was touch it with the top of his gargantuan head.

  "Why do you look like somebody dropped you through stained glass when you was a baby?" asked Hatch.

  "Or ralphed up a crayon box," said Hinge.

  Sun's deformity usually hid beneath his long-sleeved shirts. Birthmarks covered the length of his pale body-except for his head, hands and feet-patches of discoloration every color of the rainbow, like a botched Tiffany lamp.

  "My mother . . . is . . . was . . ." Wow. Sun had seriously taken for granted his previous ability to breathe. ". . . not . . . shadow."

  "That don't make no damn sense neither!" Hatch looked freaking hilarious with those Bozo orange eyebrows. If Sun had been able to laugh, he would've had to add himself to the list of things on this street that definitely didn't live forever.

  "You're either a shadow or you ain't," said Hinge.

  "Ssssso what are you, Poissssson Eyesssss?"

  He was about five minutes away from becoming another stain on the sidewalk. "I'm a freak," Sun said. "Just kill me already and be done with it."

  Hatch nudged Sun's body with a stone toe. "Don't feel like it anymore."

  "Yeah," Fender woofed. "It's no fun when they can't fight back."

  Sun felt their shadows pass over him as they walked away. One. Two. Three...

  "Hey, Freak," the third shadow said.

  Sun cracked one eye open and saw Spoiler looming above him. Pieces of Sun began to dissolve into the devil's blessed shadow.

  "Asssssk your dad."

  "Ask him what?" How he gave birth to a freak? Why he abandoned him? What he had to do with his life that was more important than having a son?

  "Asssssk him how to live forever," said Spoiler. "Pierre'ssss a good guy."

  One of the Stoners hollered for Spoiler and all too soon his shadow was gone, leaving Sun in a pool of light and blood and pain.

  Sun peeked through his lids up into the bulb of the streetlight that beamed down upon him, merciless as the noonday sun. Soon, Pierre would see a beam like this, and his soul would use it to walk from this dark world to a place of beauty and peace. There would only be a statue left where Pierre had been. A statue, a few dents in the door of the street sweeper, and a hole in Sun's heart.

  Sun tried to sob but his broken ribs would not let him gasp for breath. A few hot tears leaked out the corners of his eyes anyway, making trails in the dirt and blood on his giant head. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to live.

  Maybe if he stared at the light long enough, Sun could make it to that place on the other side of the light first. Wouldn't Pierre be surprised when he arrived.

  And then the light went out.

  Sun hear the pop of the bulb in enough time to close his eyes before the tiny shards of glass and filament fell on his chest. Fuzz was the next thing to fall on his chest. Sun braced himself.

  The aye-aye fell right through him and landed on the sidewalk.

  Sun yelped in relief and gratitude as he slowly became one with the shadows and the pain melted away. Oh, he'd still have to heal, but now he could do it in the privacy of his own bed instead of bleeding to death on the sidewalk.

  Sun took a few gloriously deep breaths. Fuzz chittered at him.

  "Yes, yes," said Sun. "Thank you already."

  "You're welcome."

  A match sprang to life before him and lit a cigarette. It took a moment for Sun's eyes to adjust. Before him stood a shadow thief. He was taller than Sun, skinnier, and paler. His head was just as big. But his eyes . . . Instead of milky white, they were completely black-blacker than shadow-the empty black of nothingness and despair. But this guy wasn't blind. He could see just fine.

  This was one of the elder shadow thieves, the original inhabitants of this street. The thief took a long drag from the cigarette and exhaled. The foul gray smoke mixed with his own insubstantial shape. "Hello, Lightwalker."

  "Do I know you?" Sun knew he didn't, but he asked the question anyway. Deep down, he had a really good idea.

  "No." Another drag. The cigarette's glow mirrored in those black eyes. "If you're lucky, it'll stay that way."

  "Why?" asked Sun. He wasn't sure which of his million questions he was looking to answer, but this one-word question covered most of them.

  "I'm no good, kid. I'm a monster. I suck souls and leave the carcasses for the street sweepers. I'm the Bad Guy's Bad Guy. It's what I do. It's who I am." Ash fell onto the sidewalk. Smoke curled up toward heaven. "Shadows don't have children."

  "Then what am I?"

  "You're a mistake, kid. A lapse in judgment. Darkness that once found a soul so bright he couldn't bear to take her." He tossed the cigarette into the gutter.

  I'll be sweeping that up later, thought Sun.

  "But I took her anyway," said the thief. "In the end, I ate her soul. Because that's what I do. It's who I am. Do you understand me?"

  Sun shrugged. "Yeah."

  "See, I don't think you do. I think you're still contemplating the possibility of getting the Captain here"-he indicated Fuzz-"or one of the other bats to suck Pierre's soul so that you can babysit a shell for the rest of your life."

  It had crossed Sun's mind, even before Spoiler had mentioned it.

  "I'm telling you right now, it's a bad idea. It's what Bad Guys do. You have never been a Bad Guy."

  Sun shrugged again. How would he know?

  "Don't take after me. You let Pierre's soul find peace like it's supposed to. Just because you're not okay with the idea of him dying doesn't give you the right to change the way of the world." The wind picked up, blowing a cold eddy of street trash through the both of them. Dirt and straw wrappers stuck in the blood Sun had left on the sidewalk. "Trust me. I know." The thief's voice fell, fading. "If you love him, let him go."

  Sun could not think of more perfect parting words from a father he had never known. "Be seeing you, then."

  "No, you won't." That cold metallic wind picked up again; it smelled like fresh graves and sorrow. "Keep an eye on him, Captain."

  Fuzz gave a few clicks and a snort, but the thief was already gone.

  With nothing left for him here, Sun slunk through the shadows behind Fuzz all the way back to the ratty apartment. He slipped right in through the front door-he wasn't sure what to tell Pierre about this particular outing, but he didn't want to hide it from him either. Pierre deserved to know what was on Sun's mind. He deserved to be part of the conversation.

  Unfortunately, it was a conversation they would never have. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. It was too late.

  Sun left Pierre's empty bedroom and walked around back to the courtyard. He tried not to think about how hard it must have been for Pierre to make it all the way out here unaided. But there he was in the center of the garden, wings unfurled, arms outstretched, head thrown back in a passionate cry, basking in the glory of the full moon. From his mouth trickled a small fountain that fed the flowers at his feet, and in each of his hands he held a crystal prism.

  And as the moonlight hit those prisms-Sun imagined it would be even more magnificent at dawn and sunset-the already colorful garden was blanketed in a scattering of rainbows. Light and shadow and color. Pierre had spent his last days on this earth tinkering in his workshop, making a tribute to the only son he'd ever known. A gift for which Sun would never be able to thank him.

  Despite Fuzz's scolding chirps, Sun stepped out of the shadow and into the moonlight. His broken bones began to ache again and his cuts started
to bleed, but he needed to feel something, even if it was pain. He had so very little that mattered to him, and in his very short life he'd gone and lost it all. What did he have to look forward to? A future of long days sweeping a street clean of death so the shadows could muck it all up again? It may have been Pierre's legacy, but it didn't seem like much of a life.

  A movement in Pierre's great shadow interrupted his thoughts. It wasn't a thief-didn't look like one or stink like one or slink like one. It moved more like smoke curls from a cigarette, like a clumsy butterfly flitting from one spot of rainbow to the next. Sun didn't smell a soul on it. A ghost maybe? But not substantial enough. Ah . . . a wraith. Wraiths were sometimes left after a shadow thief feasted, if the soul was strong enough.

  Sun decided not to frighten the wraith; it wasn't causing any trouble. Besides, Sun was enjoying his level of pain too much to move and make it worse. And then the moonlight caught the silhouette of the wraith's arm as it stretched out to touch a flower. A rainbow reflected off the shape of a wing. It was a fairy.

  All the pieces fell into place. The light, the dark. The prisms. The garden. The secrets. The warnings. The rainbows. Fairies loved green and growing things. They loved colors and light. They had souls that shone like beacons. This fairy had no business being anywhere near Shadow Street, but for better or worse she had come, and met her end here.

  This wasn't just any wraith.

  And, just like that, Sun once again had something to live for.

  The Curie Priest

  by Chris Phillips

  Artwork by Tomislav Tikulin

  * * *

  The fueling station orbiting Sirius B was a hulking mass of necessity, blending a mismatch of smooth hulls and derelict subsections like a garbage heap constructed of everything from gutted ships to half-finished aluminum buildings jutting out at odd angles.

  When Stepan Tinett was awoken by yet another call from his dead son, he phoned in sick and left the apartment like normal, not telling Loisa where he was going or why. He didn't feel guilty about withholding the information from his wife because even if he had shouted that he was off in search of a curie priest she wouldn't have heard a thing. She was out of control and stuck in a world full of poisoned memories. The priest could fix that. At least, so Stepan hoped.

  Before he left the apartment, he tossed all the toys back into his son's bedroom, cursing the anti-grief counselors as he did it. It was a morning routine that defied mourning. Stepan shook his head. His son might be dead, but thanks to his wife, and the counselors she had hired, the memory of Jem lived on in a macabre ritual they all played day after exhausting day.

  Stepan kept a firm grip on his identification card as he shoved his way through the lower marketplace. Overhead, fluorescent lights buzzed, coating everything in the washed out glow of dulled luminance. Most of the lights were busted, and occasionally his foot would crunch into the glass of a discarded bulb trampled under thousands of feet until the shards became fine as sand. The salty scent of sweat multiplied by body heat enveloped him.

  But what dominated the press were the atomboxes, glowing nuclear furnaces harvested from the nearby star needed to power a starship up to speed. Most sat in cases the size of a small child, which took four men to lift because of the lead required to shield the radiation. Even with the shields, some leaked around rusted-out rivets. It was why the powers that be pumped radioprotective drugs through the water systems. At least, that was the rumor. They would only do that if the population's health somehow influenced bottom-line profits.

  A scrounger with burnt fingertips wearing a gray shawl that might turn white if he washed it stepped in front of Stepan and said, "Set you up good, I will. No cracks. Prices are glowing!"

  "Local." Stepan was a short, balding man with tiny fingers perfect for typing in mining commands all day. His father had been a scrounger, but Stepan had risen to the ranks of lower management.

  Searching for a spacer who might buy an atombox, the man's eyes gazed past him.

  Stepan grabbed the man's arm and spun him around like a small child. "I hear there's a curie docked?"

  The man backed away as if Stepan had exhaled a breath full of radon.

  "Not sick," Stepan said, assuring the man. "Just need a curie priest."

  "No other reason for a curie." The man spat out the word and covered his face with the dirty shawl as he spoke. "Bay four, I hear. Stay away if you ain't peeling."

  Bay four was the lowermost subsection of the station. Normally, a hundred smaller freighters would be docked, giving their captains a chance to trade or refuel. The space was enormous and open. If the ceiling had been painted blue Stepan would have sworn it was his childhood home, a place he had loved before his father had stolen them all away to this backwater heap of metal and bodies obsessed with harvesting starlight.

  But the ceiling wasn't sky. And the bay was empty except for a mid-sized vessel about twenty meters tall by a hundred meters wide. It had an avian shape about it with a dented chrome hull that reflected Stepan's weary expression as he approached. On the top and bottom of the vessel, the symbol of the curie faith stood out in sharp, crimson paint: a circle broken by a vertical line. Nobody would approach such a vessel unless they were dying from radiation poisoning.

  When he was ten paces from the ship, a vaguely feminine voice from inside hissed through a static-laced intercom, "Are you searching for relief or revenge?"

  "What does that mean?" Stepan stood at what he thought was an entrance, an archway dominated by a series of symbols he couldn't interpret. He wanted to shove his way inside and get this over with.

  "It means what it means." There was a pause as the speaker crackled. "You're not sick. If you're here for revenge I can assure you that it wasn't my fault. And I am truly sorry for your loss, but really . . . was just another step along the path."

  Stepan glanced around for a secret camera, but he guessed it was obscured within all the markings. He suppressed another impulse to pound on the door until they either dragged him inside or sent someone out to face him. He took a long, deep breath until the impulse passed. Scroungers like his father behaved in such ways, and Stepan liked to think he was beyond that. Yes, light-years beyond.

  "Rumors say that you do more than usher the dying to their rest," Stepan said.

  No response from the voice.

  "Rumors say you help the living. That's what I'm here for, the living." He thought of his wife in their quarters, lying to herself about the truth. The incessant buzzing of countless phone calls from his dead son pressed against his skull until he thought it might split open, revealing his weakness to the world. If his supervisors caught wind that Loisa was cracking up then it might change his status, and that would harm the future he was trying to build.

  "A void in the path?" The voice spoke quickly.

  "What?" Stepan wondered if all the other rumors were true. Were the priests in these ships just out their minds, tainted by the radiation that surely seeped from their pores?

  "Tell me short," the voice said. It sounded excited. "The loss is denied, yes?"

  "My son died fifty seven days ago. A faulty atombox broke open near his school. The man transporting it was executed, but revenge doesn't matter. About fifty children were exposed to high doses. So far over twenty have died, including . . . " He had been about to say his son's name, but the word would have squeaked out, layered with emotion, showing weakness. Stepan clenched his jaw and forced out the name like a breath laced with fire, "Jem."

  "You have closed the void, said goodbye. But I'm guessing you have a wife or a husband that hasn't?"

  "A wife."

  "How far off the path has she strayed?"

  "I don't know what that means." Stepan slowly punched the cold metal of the hull and sighed, wondering if they were even speaking of similar things.

  "She hasn't accepted Jem in the beyond?" the voice asked.

  Stepan perked up. They were on the same page, staring at the same word in a book he n
ever thought he'd have to read. "No . . . no she hasn't! She even hired an anti-grief counselor."

  The voice in the speaker hissed . . . or it might have been the static. But after several minutes of Stepan saying hello into the open air the door in front of him slid open. A small girl, a child, about half his height stepped out. Her body had the vague shape of a woman swaddled in silvery robes. Her head was shaved but her forehead was marked with a tattoo of the crimson circle and its bisecting line.

  Stepan backed away from the girl as if she were an atombox cracked in half and ready to decay everything in the vicinity. Who knew how much radiation flowed through her body?

  "You should have told me about the anti-grief counselors when you first approached. What their kind does is a crime."

  Stepan cocked his head. There were about half a dozen such companies on the station, providing services out in the open. "Not a crime on this station."

  "A moral crime then." She draped the end of her robe over her arm. The heavy fabric shimmered and for a moment Stepan wondered if it was laced with metal . . . with lead. It would make sense to keep the girl's poisoned body contained.

  "It's wool, not lead." The girl laughed. "We don't sleep in emptied out atomboxes either."

  Stepan swallowed. Could the girl read his thoughts?

  "All psychics are charlatans," she said with a grin. "Show me the way."

  Stepan blinked. "Where?"

  "To your wife. To the void."

  "You're . . . a priest?" Once or twice he had seen such priests from afar, the safe distance, but he had always assumed they'd be older.

  The girl squinted at him with yellowed eyes that belonged to the dying. It was as if she already had a foot in the beyond, standing in a place where she could hear his unspoken thoughts. "Most of us don't reach our middle years. While normal people shuffle toward the beyond we run at great speed, searching for the path everyone takes through the universe."

  "You mean faith?" The word sparked a distant memory as it escaped his mouth. Back home, before his father stole his life of wind and water, his mother had taken them to the temple. The curie acolytes spoke of the importance of the pattern and the path that everyone walked through the circle of existence. For a time, Stepan had wanted to join the curie acolytes, explore his own faith, but his father had laughed and shipped them off to the black soon after.