The Magi

Foste didn’t stop her. She made it into the passage, the door closed, and he didn’t follow. For a moment there was nothing but the grinding of the tracks, and the mechanical thrumming of her panicked heart.

Then there was screaming.

It was muffled through the thick walls of the Priority Suite car, but she was close, and they were loud. Cries of fear, pleas for mercy cut short by sharp, agonized shrieking. More crashing, more shattering glass and splintering wood. Something slammed against the door. Blood seeped beneath the threshold.

Mayfly bolted through the passage into Econ and slammed the door shut behind her.

“H-help!” she yelled, or tried. Whatever she had in her chest, lungs or not, it failed her, and all she managed was a pitiful croak when she saw.

The car had been mostly empty, but what few passengers there were now sat slumped in their seats, unmoving and unbreathing. Blood stained their clothes, it dribbled from their mouths, from their heads.

A lone guard stood at the other end; it was the woman who had been with Foste at the conman’s table. The door beside her opened, and the last of the three, the hooded man, entered. He too wore a guard’s uniform, and with his hood gone, and the gnarled flesh around one of his eyes laid bare, he could more aptly be called the scarred man. They both noticed her at once.

Mayfly whimpered.

“The fuck’s that?” the woman asked.

“Don’t ask me, you were supposed to clear the damn car,” the man said. “Hey, you. C’mere.”

He started down the aisle, and Mayfly turned back for the door on instinct, only for it to open in her face. There was Foste, no longer splattered but dripping with red. The hunger still raged in his eyes and he looked almost drunk, but when he stepped towards her there was nothing but surefooted, deathly intent.

She whirled and ran at the scarred man. She didn’t know what she was doing, she didn’t have a plan, she had a voice screaming in the back of her mind: “Run! Run!” and her body listened. Something grabbed her, or tried. Fingers of pressure took her by the shoulders, by the wrists, digging down like they meant to grab her by the heart, but they didn’t take; they slipped off her like rain down a window and she kept running.

“Wh—grab her!” Foste snapped.

The scarred man did. Mayfly barreled into his chest, and he gave a winded grunt and many feet of ground, but eventually managed to brace himself and get his arms around her. She shrieked, his big hand slapped over her mouth. She thrashed, his bear hug tightened like a bear trap. She kicked, he widened his stance and lifted her high enough that her feet didn’t touch the ground.

“Shut the fuck up!” he hissed. “Settle down or I’ll snap you in half.”

Dangling there, she realized she had no other choice. With all the compliance of a kicked animal, she stopped struggling. His hold didn’t loosen, but nothing hurt—a blessing she didn't question.

Foste approached, flexing his fingers with a curious look on his face. “Any issues?”

“No, quick and quiet,” the woman said, rounding up beside him. She looked to the scarred man. “I’m guessing the same goes for you?”

“Some idiot came to the crew’s cabin looking for the others, realized I wasn’t part of his shift. I took care of it. Tossed him before first shift came by, then I tossed them too. Few still at their posts in Econ, but no one knows shit, we’re in the clear.” He gave Mayfly a quick jostle. “Who’s this then?”

“The reason I’m wearing Priority Suite,” Foste said. “Get rid of her.”

“Gods all, it’s a kid.”

He shrugged. “She named me. She was there at the conman’s table, she saw us. No choice.”

His nonchalance was almost as terrifying as how serious he was. Mayfly thrashed again more desperately, and the scarred man squeezed her back against his chest until she had no room to move. But he hesitated. Foste frowned.

“Do you understand we just assassinated a defector? If our alibies fall through, then we just started a war our house isn’t ready for.” He glanced down at her. Whatever pity or remorse there might have been in his eyes had already been devoured. “The Confederacy’s been looking for an excuse for decades, think they won’t take this one? Think they’ll show the same mercy to us? They didn’t at Grayden. They didn’t at Chiral Fields. You want them to march on Uvinholm with an army we can’t meet? No. Hold her still; if you won’t do it, I will.”

Before either of the others could protest, before Mayfly could even realize what he was doing, he struck his hand out at her. His fingers curled, and as he took hold of the air, she felt that pressure on her again. An invisible force brushed across her, clawing for a hold, but once again it slipped away. Foste’s brow furrowed. He stepped closer, teeth barred, and tried again. This time it dug a little deeper, made her arm twitch, then it was gone. His arm dropped.

“What…” he muttered. “How are you…?”

As the hunger in his eyes withered into frustration, Mayfly saw her chance. She kicked her feet out at him, catching him in the gut hard enough to send him stumbling back into the seats, and slammed her head back into the scarred man’s face. The arms around her let go, and she dropped to the ground.

The scarred man’s hands flew to his nose. Blood leaked between his fingers. “Fuck!”

“I’m sorry!” Mayfly shrieked, darting between his legs and right for the door deeper into Econ. The woman tried to snatch at her, but her colleague was too big for her to get around.

“Rifle!” Foste shouted. “Give me the—fucking shoot her!”

The same thunderous crack filled the car, and something small punched into the door, right next to Mayfly’s head. Before a second shot could come, she was through to the passageway. She couldn’t even hear the rails anymore, nothing but the ringing, and her heart undercurrent to that. She ran through to the next car.

The people here still lived. They’d heard the noise, the screaming, and now they were all craning their heads hesitantly into the aisle, like chickens spying their feed, waiting for answers. She just kept running.

A guard met halfway down, and she only just managed to stop from bowling into him. Her hands tangled themselves into his uniform, she babbled in wordless panic.

“Hey, kid, woah! Stop—stop! You’re bleeding, stop!”

She looked down at her clothes, wet and spattered red. It was on her hands too, and down her face, dripping from her hair. It stained her marbling rose gold. The realization made her ill in a way her body couldn’t be. A low whine crawled up her throat.

“Help.”

The air shattered, passengers screamed. Blood bloomed out from the guard’s thigh and he dropped to his knee in white-faced pain. He went to draw the rifle from his shoulder, but it flew from his grip, across the car, into Foste’s hands.

“Magi!” the guard yelled. He pressed his finger to a little button in his ear. “M-magi in E-2! Get—”

Another shot cratered his eye and sent his head jerking back. He slumped over, and more screams erupted around her. Mayfly didn’t have the voice to join them.

She bolted down the aisle, and a few steps in something stuck her shoulder, hard. She stumbled against a seat, dazed, bracing for the pain. None came. A smashed metal bit fell from her back and rolled between her feet.

“Don’t have to do this, girlie!” Foste called. “Only has to be you!”

By the time she got her bearings they were almost on her. She threw herself from the seat, made for the door, only for another crack to hammer the back of her knee and send her down again. Still no pain, no blood, but when she rolled over the woman planted a boot on her chest, and had her staring down the mouth of her rifle.

“The hell is this?” she asked. “Just bounced right off her.”

“Put one in her fucking eye and let’s get going. We need to be off this thing before we pass the technoscape.”

The woman scowled, but leveled the barrel at Mayfly’s face. “Sorry, kid.”

Mayfly shut her eyes. The shot was loud enough to deafen her, but she didn’t feel the same punch that she had before. As the ringing subsided, she heard shouting, and boots stomping past her. Cracking an eye open, she saw the woman laid out dead.

Two more guards came charging through the door rifles ablaze, forcing Foste and the scarred man into cover behind the seats. Passengers spilled into the aisle, scrambling over each other to get further down the train. Mayfly crawled until there was enough space for her to get to her feet, and she followed.

The next car was clogged. People stood up in their seats or shoved their way into the crowd. Everyone was shouting, swearing. Some were crying. Words like ‘dead’, and ‘magi’ were spat from mouth to ear to mouth again. Another pair of guards shouldered through, weapons clutched, but she didn’t see any more after them.

Wild-eyed, Mayfly worked her way through the mass. Panicked hands tried to muscle her aside, but as she drew further down the car, the storm in her head cleared. She remembered how to move like she would in the Valley, how she’d chase Bounce through the woods whenever he snuck out of the house. Thickets and brush and fallen branches—to navigate her home you had to be as liquid as the Carys. Even if you were metal. 

The grace was missing, but the speed was there. She squeezed and slunk her way between the bodies, onto seats and down again, ducking swung elbows and lunging over shuffling feet.

She felt the words all the way down to her toes: 'A little cat in you...'

The train shook violently. Through the window she saw someone flung out from the last car. They hit the ground and vanished in a puff of dirt. More shots echoed behind her. More shouting. Mayfly pressed the rest of the way through as the crowd lurched and people began to decide she had the right idea. She reached the door, threw it open, and dashed through the passage into the next car.

Right into the arms of Enfie Dora.