Dysmorphic Kingdom: a fairy tale by Colleen Chen

Author:Colleen Chen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Publisher: Montag Press
Published: 2015-07-22T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Even a person with a better sense of direction than Vesper would have had trouble remembering which way Jules led her. They took a bewildering set of turns, running down small streets, over fences and even through someone’s house, until they ended up in a part of town where the streets were engulfed by rickety structures and the smell of trash and sewage. Women in tight-bodiced dresses shivered on the corners or leaned out of windows as Jules and Vesper passed, auras of sweat and stale perfume repelling as much as their hands beckoned. Men fell into step beside or behind the fleeing pair every so often, remaining until Jules flashed the blue-metal baton or even a bit of that blank look he still wore. Either would be enough to trigger the men’s disappearance into the shadows as quickly as they’d appeared.

It seemed that, for now, Vesper and Jules had lost their pursuers—if any of the guards had even thought to pursue. Jules had been intimidating enough without that baton; with it, he radiated invincibility. As if he could feel Vesper’s eyes on the baton, Jules glanced at her, a hint of his usual mellow calm surfacing in his expression, and then he tucked the baton away in the waistband of his trousers—where it couldn’t possibly be comfortable, but Vesper could pretend, a moment here and there, that she hadn’t seen what he could do with it.

Finally Jules knocked on the door of a building on a narrow street. Vesper felt the crawling sensation on the back of her neck that told her someone observed them; she glanced above, where darkened window-spaces obscured all within. Then the door opened, and a squat man with a clipped gray beard, dressed in the most shapeless, unattractive gray top and trousers Vesper had ever seen, stepped aside for them to enter.

“Burl,” Jules said, nodding to the man, who closed and bolted the door.

“Jules,” Burl replied. He pinned Vesper with a gaze that felt almost intrusive, assessing her, judging her for all the sins she’d ever committed and was likely to commit in the future. “Who are you?”

“She’s a friend,” said Jules.

“Oh?” Burl asked, eyebrows rising, insinuating. “Have you been doing anything that might disqualify you from membership in the Children, Jules?”

“Shut up, Burl. We were both wrongly arrested by the king’s soldiers. We’ve just escaped and need sanctuary for a short while.”

“You did what!” Burl yelled. Jules shouldered past him, and Vesper skittered past Burl with an apologetic smile. Burl followed them, slamming the door. “You know, you’re already wanted for questioning over that business with those body-part bandits. Why’d you have to tell anyone at all about them? You should have just gotten rid of them, with no one the wiser. You gave them your real name! They’ve identified you down to the last hair, and point to you as the murderer of their leader. And now you’ve come here after escaping arrest? How do you know you weren’t followed?”

“I wasn’t,” said Jules.

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