Wing-Clipper by Nicholas J. Evans

Author:Nicholas J. Evans [Evans, Nicholas J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Parliament House

7

Hollow Light

Treachery.

This part of New Ashton was the mud-coated skeleton of its past. Left to rot away, to be buried forever. A city that was gone, a name that was nearly forgotten only to exist in the worn pages of unopened textbooks drowning in dust and cobwebs. It was the only place in New Ashton that was not kept pristine, or at least pristine by the standards of a world set on fire and left to burn itself down from within. It was swallowed by darkness and regurgitated without flesh or blood. Just bone.

A sea of weathered brick project housing rose from the street to a slowly darkening orange sky. Ghosts of warehouses were tucked between them, alleyways full of debris and rats, and the scorched remains of overturned cars left behind. It was nameless—it was dead. At the center of it all stood a small bar emblazoned with the word “Treachery” across its forehead in scarlet neon. The cars pulled up before it, one at a time, and came to a halt. The purr of engines shut down in unison and car doors began to open.

“This,” Carter said as he exited the car, along with a mentally broken Jackson Crowe and a strung-out Cassiel. “Is why, despite my business across the pretty blue globe, I seem to always gravitate toward New Ashton.”

He took in a deep, animated breath and combed his fingers through his dark hair.

“Treachery,” he said with a spit as if the word were acid coated. “The lowest circle of a material Hell. It is my child, my legacy. Come.” He gestured to Jackson. “Meet my offspring.”

The Order walked, a shell of a human running on sheer mechanics as he trudged behind with a distant gaze. Behind him, armed Scarabs escorted Coldin and Aldrich, wrists bound in front of them and still blindfolded. The pair stumbled over the slush and slid on near-invisible black ice while the Scarab guards poked barrels at their backs in a direction to keep moving forward. At the front, the driver who accompanied Carter pulled open the stiff metal door with a loud squeal to reveal the inside.

The guards tugged off the blindfolds of Coldin and Aldrich.

Through the doorway, it seemed to be nothing but a cheap dive bar not completely unlike the one Jackson had been attacked in with Griffin. It was an old bar that was slapped full of peeling stickers and duct tape, along with mismatched stools spread across its length. Red neon bled over rows of half-empty liquor bottles. The light arched around a strange man who gave Carter a wink and a nod as he entered, sporting a particularly horrid grin over a face that was more bone than flesh. Several other Un-Ascended adorned the stools and scattered around old tables with drinks in hand, smoking and gawking at the crew.

The bartender looked at Coldin, then Aldrich, giving both an ominous shake of his head.

“The fuck is this…” Coldin muttered as he scanned his surroundings.

“Oh, this is just a bar, nothing special really,” Carter answered.

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