Page 36 of Xerxes Ascendant
Kyle held up a hand, silencing Mish’s furious retort, and peered closer at the box on the floor. It was square, around a dozen centimetres both wide and deep, and the cardboard was bright; undamaged and fresh. He’d presumed it was something from the storeroom, but this box didn’t bear any of the usual barcodes or labels that indicated purchased stock. The top flaps were bent back, showing it had been opened, although pink tissue paper – expensive shit, Kyle noted absently – obscured its contents from view.
“I found it on the stairs outside,” Tyler sobbed through his fingers. “I...I thought...”
“What is it?” asked Kyle.
“It’s from my brother.”
All heads turned to Miles, whose anger deflated with a long, weary sigh and drew his shoulders back down into their usual slouch. “I recognise his style.”
Kyle swallowed. “The mayor knows you’re here?”
“It’s not for me,” Miles said quietly. He gave Kyle a significant look.
Everything and everyone tried to stop him from looking inside that damn box. Sanjay’s hand on his shoulder, Tyler’s yelp of protest, Adam’s woeful attempt at stern command. Even Chaos locked herself determinedly around his feet, meowing plaintively.
But his knees bent of their own accord, his hand stretched out to pull the tissue paper aside, and suddenly it was far,farworse than even his imagination had envisioned.
Nestled among the pretty pink paper and staining the layers below it, was a slice of human skin. Kyle might not have recognised it as such, for the shrivelled, leathery-looking patch wasn’t something he’d ever encountered separated from the person it belonged to, but the mark on the grotesque item made it far too clear.
A tattoo.
Anepsilontattoo.
Kyle stared numbly at the little symbol. He’d run his fingertips over it so many times when it still rested over Akira’s heart, and the sight of it now,here, cut from his man and discarded on their doorstep, took an eternity to process.
Akira.Akira.
His men variously swore on the stars, gagged, or fell silent as they peered over his shoulder to see for themselves. Kyle should have stopped them, should have protected them from the horrific sight, but he was unable to move.
Or speak or breathe orlive.
It was Miles who pulled him to his feet and gave him a forceful shake.
“Don’t let Benny win,” he said roughly, his eyes steeped in cold resolve. “Not again.”
“What do you...” Words hurt. Breathing hurt. “...expect me to do?”
“Your Master might still live. This doesn’t mean he’s dead.”
Miles waved a hand down at their feet, but this time Kyle couldn’t bring himself to look at the flap of detached skin.
They’d flayed him. Peeled the flesh from his body. And now Miles was saying Akira had been skinnedalive?
Stars above, it was a horror he had no words for.
“Yes...” Kyle muttered, nausea swirling in his gut. His mind wanted to shut down to shield him from the terror of what was happening, and it took every last squeeze of strength to desperately claw his way back to rational thought. Akira might be...that other thing, but he also might be alive. And if he was, Kyle needed to help him.
He just didn’t know how.
On a city – now two cities, technically, although they were still connected by a handful of cables and struts – of two million people and eight levels, where was Kyle supposed to start looking?
How had Mayor Mackenroth gotten his hands on Akira? How had he even known where the Masterwas, when even his employees didn’t have a clue half the time? Epsilon’s diary was so full that he was barely at the House when...
His diary.
Kyle rushed to the front desk and the House diary set upon its surface, running a trembling finger down the handwritten entries. Tears splashed onto the page, smudging the ink, but he found what he needed before he ruined it all.
An entry under Akira’s name that was recorded as commencing an hour ago: Club Luxe. There was no client name listed, but Kyle wasn’t an idiot. Akira was going somewhere every night, and while he’d first suspected he was seeking solace in the arms of his no-longer-secret wife, entries like this one told him otherwise. Akira was working the streets, metaphorically speaking, and hypocritically at that. No off-site client appointments for House Epsilon staff? Apparently that was bullshit.
