Page 20 of Stone Blind

Heavy feet in leather boots stepped through the double doors. Clive faced the podium where three heads of state waited to find out what had happened with the kid, and how, what, and why Clive still was alive. Sweat trickled on his forehead as a bright light shone in his face.

“Shit Stain,” a heavy voice spoke out.

Clive couldn’t see their faces because of the bright light shining in his. If, and it was a big if, he survived the sentencing, and if, and it was a big if, he survived the punishment, seeing their faces was not on his list of need-to-know items. However, no matter the trouble he faced, he wasn’t a bitch and didn’t plan to act like one; therefore, he saw no need for the Cocoon Heads to treat him like one. A bad thing had happened, and he would be punished.

“Clive Edell James,” he replied, trying to maintain a bit of dignity in the face of such adversity.

“Oh, we want to be formal, when you know, this could be your death,” the voice said.

“If my death were imminent, you would have done it before now,” Clive challenged. “The warehouse was a safely guarded location and very few knew existed, especially since it had only been up and running for about six months.”

“The child?”

“Kendrick Emmes,” he whispered, feeling the weight of the burden upon him. “He was my aide-de-camp and not a toy. A client decided when I left the room to make the child a personal rag doll. Kendrick fought him, cut the man’s face, then got his phone and dialed 9-1-1. The sound of the child’s voice, the things he was describing, brought every available police unit in the area.”

The heavy voice spoke, “Aren’t you leaving out something?”

“Yes, the client hurt the boy. He hurt him badly,” Clive said.

“Again, Shit Stain, you’re leaving out an important detail,” the voice snapped.

Clive knew what he wanted to hear. “In my efforts to save the inventory of toys and dolls collected in the Field of Flowers, the child was left alone. He was in a bad state, and I wasn’t sure he would survive, so I walked away, but he called to me, begging. I went over and he cut me as well, snatched my wallet when I went down, and made a break for the door. As the cops were coming in, he was bolting out with my wallet in his hand. The police now know where I live.”

“And Shit Stain, you are here in Tampa with that kind of heat on you,” the voice said.

“But I saved the inventory, or at least a chunk of it,” Clive said, staring into the light. “I have fifteen years of service to The Chrysalis and never has such a thing happened under my watch. I am requesting leniency to rectify the wrong.”

A second voice, laced with sexual appeal, spoke. “There is no rectification. The child is with a Technician. A Technician who is more than likely going to hunt you down. You have brought undue attention to us all. My vote is to terminate his contract.”

The third voice spoke, “I second the termination.”

Clive tried to speak. The whizzing of a bullet was the last thing he heard as the first one struck him in the chest, center mass. He didn’t have time to react to dying since his heart stopped, and his body dropped hard to the floor.

The heavy voice spoke. “I didn’t want him dead!”

“Two votes to your one Imperial,” the woman said. “You know how this works. Your Underwing, in fifteen years really has not progressed as he should have. The one lousy warehouse he ran in Milwaukee under-produced while the rest of the state is booming even in the Winter months. Underwing was a failure.”

Imperial had never cared for Swallow Tail. She was the kind of woman a leader looked forward to backhanding across the mouth each time she spoke. She was a nasty woman who reeked of too much perfume to hide the stench of her overused snatch. His expression emulated the disdain he felt for her as Underwing, while his very own aide-de-camp Clive, lay face down, all the life juices seeping from the gaping hole in his chest oozing onto the floor, ending a piss poor life. The body would be moved to a brightly lit place to be discovered in the early morning by a jogging enthusiast on the Davis Island Trail.

Hopefully, the police would stop looking for Clive; however, by the time Milwaukee caught up with the news, and the identification of the body, everything would have cooled down, or at least he hoped. Yet, a sour feeling hit his stomach. The client would also need to be dealt with for the violation. Branded kids were not toys. Touching a branded kid who belonged to another was a foul move and the man would be castigated. He almost wanted to go and do it in person since the client’s error caused Imperial the loss of Underwing.

Hornworm, the second voice, spoke to him, “Imperial, I know he was one of your favorites. Even as useless as he was, Underwing still pleased you. However, your affection for him made you blind to his shortcomings. We at The Chrysalis do not take kindly to errors of this magnitude. Don’t let his mistake be your undoing.”

“Noted, along with a high-handed fuck you, Hornworm,” Imperial replied. “I hate all of you nasty fuckers. Kids are not my thing. I don’t like what these folks do with kids.”

“Yet, here you sit, mourning Underwing, who was a kid when you took him under, dare I say, your wing,” Swallowtail said.

“Yeah, but I never fucked him; there is a difference,” Imperial stated.

“Bottom or top, all of it hits the same roster in Hell,” Swallowtail said, gathering her items and heading for the door. “Let’s not do this again anytime soon.”

The clicking of her heels on the concrete floor rang out like a death sentence. The time for all of them was coming to a close. It had been a satisfying run with lots of easy money and tons of throw away people made useful for the deviant populous. He was sick of it.

“Too much fucking death,” Imperial stated, also rising and giving one last look at Clive as his heart sank a bit. Imperial, in his own right, was a parent with four biological kids to be exact, one outside of the marriage who hated the blood surging through the tired body which housed a weary soul and three at home who saw the Imperial as an ATM. Clive was his baby, the bad apple of a son who could do unseemly things that Imperial could talk about in the dark work which filled the warehouses called the Field of Flowers. “Dang kid, you had to mess it all up.”

A finger pointed to the body as a large carry bag arrived, creating a new pupa for Clive. He would soak in the pod in his own juices until some unsuspecting traveler spotted him undergoing his transformation into primordial soup. The sadness stayed with Imperial as he exited the building, leaving behind a phase of this life while imagining a retirement, somewhere sunny with no extradition. This life was getting static.

“Rest kid; you’ve earned it,” Imperial said, making a sign of the cross, then leaving.

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