1.24

Dis­tant ring­ing trans­formed into a clan­gor­ous, echo­ing cacoph­o­ny the moment they stepped out­doors. Car­nelia shout­ed over the din of bells and hus­tling feet as they start­ed run­ning.

“Where are we going?”

“Hell if I know,” Doro hollered from behind. “I was fol­low­ing you!”

“We need to get to a bell, any bell! They’re the key to what­ev­er comes next!”

Yaeno slowed them down, look­ing up and around for any bells with­in sight. It was sur­pris­ing dif­fi­cult despite---or rather, because of the count­less bells ring­ing across the city. Their met­al songs were bounc­ing around and com­ing off from all direc­tions. It was hard to pin­point where any sin­gle one might be.

Not for Car­nelia. She grew up in a place that echoed like this. She squeezed her eyes shut and searched for sound that was com­ing from the oppo­site direc­tion every­one else was run­ning in. Her ears caught one, the low and dull sound of thick tar­nished cop­per, hid­den beneath the rest. She point­ed right.

“That way!”

Car­nelia led them south, away from the sea, the dull dong of met­al grow­ing more dis­tinct with every street sign they passed. After fif­teen min­utes of dip­ping and div­ing through crowd­ed streets, Car­nelia sud­den­ly skid­ded to a stop. Doro and Yaeno crashed into her as she held out her arm, and togeth­er, pant­i­ng, they peeked around the final cor­ner to see where she had led them.

Built on a five way inter­sec­tion amongst stol­id apart­ment build­ings and fad­ed and squat com­mer­cial build­ing was a mosque, pre­served with its orig­i­nal star-shaped design and archi­tec­ture. Ornate carv­ings to script spi­raled up the sides of its walls and atop the twin minarets that speared its roof was a thick and heavy bell, swing­ing in time with the tolling they had chased.

Car­nelia had led them true, but she had made one mis­take. Going for the clos­est bell, even in the oppo­site direc­tion, meant there was already a small crowd of can­di­dates gath­ered around the arch­way entrance. No one had noticed the trio, but as peo­ple in the crowd faced each oth­er down in the cob­ble­stone street, fists clenched and hands hov­er­ing over weapons, they also blocked the way for Car­nelia and her friends.

Doro cursed qui­et­ly, lean­ing against stac­co tex­ture of the wall they hid behind. “Shit, we’ve been beat­en to the punch.”

“Not quite, it does­n’t look like any­one’s made their way inside yet.”

Yaeno point­ed at the doors to the mosque. They were closed, with a vel­vet stan­chion rope gen­tly looped through its ring knock­ers. For any­one who was pay­ing atten­tion, they were clear­ly a hint that some­thing spe­cial was hid­den here.

At the head of the crowd were two peo­ple. A burly, bald man wear­ing more tat­too than cloth­ing, and an angry-look­ing woman with a fren­zy of pink hair and a base­ball bat slung at her side. They looked to be argu­ing about who came first, and the rest were watch­ful vul­tures, won­der­ing if there was an open­ing com­ing for them to take advan­tage. Nerves were on a hair trig­ger, and their argu­ing voic­es were get­ting loud­er by the sec­ond.

 Doro shook his head and glanced over his shoul­der. “This is a damned pow­der keg. Maybe we ought­ta look for anoth­er bell. One that’s far and away from all this bad busi­ness…”

Even as the said that, two peo­ple peeled away from the crowd exact­ly towards the direc­tion he was look­ing. Sev­er­al more fol­lowed, split­ting off towards oth­er paths. Yaeno shook her head.

“You saw how many peo­ple were in the square, Doro. Even the dullest of them are bound to start check­ing the bells soon­er or lat­er. The best way to avoid the tide behind us is to seize what is right in front.”

Carnelia’s atten­tion was on the minaret. Between the cal­li­graph­ic engrav­ings, pat­terns of orna­men­ta­tion jut­ted out in zig-zag­ging for­ma­tions. Very handy look­ing for­ma­tions.

“I agree with Yaeno,” she said. “We have a chance, here. I think we should take it.”

“You have a plan, kid?”

Doro turned to her with a raised eye­brow. Car­nelia took a breath and gave a thumbs up.

“All I need is a dis­trac­tion. You can leave the rest up to me.”

Doro glanced over at the group block­ing the mosque’s entry­way. The pink-haired woman’s voice had gone up an octave as she screamed for the man to move, wav­ing about her bat as a warn­ing. And the man was step­ping for­ward to show he wasn’t going to back down. The oth­ers were creep­ing for­ward, wait­ing for things to get start­ed.

A bead of sweat dripped from Doro’s fore­head. He laughed.

“A dis­trac­tion? That should be easy enough.”

---

 

Two sets of eyes watched the minaret with the ring­ing bell. One, black and fea­ture­less. The oth­er gold­en, like a bird of prey. Togeth­er, they watched from the silent twin of the ring­ing minaret, still as stat­ues.

The gold­en-eyed one leaned over the edge and blew through his lips. The crowd was still there, still in a stand­off. How dull~

But right as he was about to give up, two new­com­ers joined the mix. At first, he almost dis­missed them as passers­by, who would flit off to anoth­er bell as soon as they saw this one was too much has­sle. But the beat of their pace, the line of their walk­ing paths---some­thing made him give them a sec­ond look. One was a dark-haired woman, dressed in white and teal. The oth­er was a broad-shoul­dered fel­low, sport­ing a poor­ly done hair knot. They approached from two dif­fer­ent streets, feign­ing that they were strangers, but from this eagle-eye view, their con­nec­tion was obvi­ous. They made their way into the crowd, on an inter­cept course to each oth­er, push­ing to the front, until they were shoul­der-to-shoul­der.

After an appro­pri­ate pause, there was a shove and then a shout. An argu­ment blos­somed between the two that super­seded the one that had already been tak­ing place. Fin­gers point­ed in each oth­er’s faces, grab­bing each oth­er’s col­lars, and scream­ing. Very dra­mat­ic.

That new octave reached the ears of his part­ner. The fig­ure with black eyes glanced up from their spot on the floor, and she spoke with a voice as stilt­ed and flat as a metronome.

“What’s going on?”

The fig­ure with gold­en eyes grinned. Unlike hers, his voice danced. Many women had con­fessed to lik­ing it so; almost as much as he did.

“A fight final­ly broke out. No, not the first two. New­com­ers. And---oh, my. He just pushed her. What a gen­tle­man.”

The hint of inter­est, which even he could bare­ly per­ceive, fad­ed from the fig­ure with black eyes. “Like I said. Only rab­ble. I told you your plan to watch for what­ev­er you call your… vic­tims in your hob­by, was point­less. Any­one worth their mea­sure would already be at the cam­pus.”

“Oh, I would­n’t be so cer­tain of that. Fate weaves dif­fer­ent paths for us all, after all, and dia­monds are so com­mon­ly found in the rough. It would be unfair for me not to give them a fair shake.”

The fig­ure smirked to him­self, even though he knew the humor of what he had just said would be lost on his friend. That was what made her so spe­cial after all, that black, tick­ing void of a heart she had. She would nev­er under­stand why peo­ple did the things they did, she could only observe it, ana­lyze it, pin it to the wall. Where­as he lived for the pas­sion, and the blood and guts it so often spilled.

They would mur­der each oth­er, one day, of that he was cer­tain. What a bless­ing to find true kin in this world of dullards.

He kept watch­ing. After being pushed by the man, the woman fell back into the crowd and some­how man­aged to knock some­one in the back of the head with an elbow. Then when the woman got back up and tack­led the man in revenge, he serendip­i­tous­ly tripped and knocked over a cou­ple bystanders. The guy who got hit on the back of the head stum­bled, got shoved by some­one else, and shoved them back. The two bystanders that fell down fought over who got up first, until one threw a fist. There was dry tin­der all around. Wher­ev­er the man and woman sent out sparks, oth­er lit­tle fires began erupt­ing. Soon, there was an all-out brawl in the street.

“Hmm~”

The fig­ure with the gold­en eyes con­tin­ued to watch the fight below, amused at how no one seemed to notice how lit­tle dam­age the pair had inflict­ed upon each oth­er for all their blus­ter and flail­ing. Or how they were now back­ing out of the crowd as the chaos begun. With but a few slipped punch­es, the sabo­teurs sur­rep­ti­tious­ly exit­ed the street, silent­ly leav­ing behind the dev­as­ta­tion they had sowed.

But what was this in ser­vice of? Sure­ly this was­n’t an act of sim­ple chaos.

A pale shape pok­ing over the far rail­ing of the bell-car­ry­ing minaret caught his atten­tion. It revealed itself to be a hand as it clamped down on the rail­ing and pulled itself up. A head crowned with cop­per, auburn hair, popped up, and the fig­ure with gold­en eyes smiled, even as he slipped back in the shad­ows of his tow­er.

Unno­ticed by the brawl­ing can­di­dates below, the girl had climbed all the way up the minaret into the space where the bell hung from. As she land­ed inside on the balls of her feet, she flinched as the bell clanged loud­ly beside her head. She only momen­tar­i­ly glanced around her sur­round­ings before spot­ting a small fold­ed note taped to the clap­per inside the bell. She tried to snatch it free. Twice, it slipped her fin­gers. Or rather, she let go to avoid dam­ag­ing it.

Chang­ing tac­tics, the girl approached the bell from a per­pen­dic­u­lar angle and bent her knees. This time, when it swung her way, she lunged for­ward, stick­ing one arm inside, and one arm around. The clap­per made a dull thunk as she grasped onto it, try­ing to slow it down. The bell stopped ring­ing, but it still dragged her around for anoth­er two swings before com­ing to a stop. She did a small cel­e­bra­to­ry dance once it did.

Care­ful­ly peer­ing inside, the girl peeled the let­ter free of the clap­per. The fig­ure with the gold­en eyes could spot the red wax of the Guild’s emblem from here. He peered over the rail­ing of his minaret to see how the crowd below had react­ed.

All fight­ing had ceased. And they were silent­ly star­ing at the bell tow­er that no longer rang. Too late, they clam­ored for the entrance. The duo that had start­ed the brawl were nowhere to be seen. The girl was gone too.

Dip­ping back from the rail­ing before any­one noticed him, the fig­ure with gold­en eyes closed his eyes and brought up their appear­ances with­in his mind’s eye.

A tall, broad-shoul­dered young man with scruff on his chin and scuff marks on his clothes. An air of bom­bas­tic state­ments and cow­ardice mask­ing brav­ery.

A slim and for­mal young woman, with neat black hair and a style of dress that reject­ed the weath­er. Rev­o­lu­tion was in her blood, as was loy­al­ty.

A pale, ath­let­ic girl, the col­or of cop­per and stone, wear­ing a bolero jack­et out of time. Amber eyes that---

A sharp nail to his ribs broke his focus. The fig­ure with black eyes stared at him.

“Are you done, yet? They’ll be up here soon.”

The fig­ure with the gold­en eyes idly cast his gaze about mosque and the streets below. No trace, of them, noth­ing but wind and dust. He smiled.

“Yes. I sup­pose I am.”