An Imago of Rust and Crimson

Chapter 4.03

That week I first met Kirsty was a nightmare, but once it was over… nothing happened. For months.

Eventually I worked up the nerve to start looking into the Other Place again. Sure, I'd found a few more murderers for Glory Girl to capture, but it didn't feel like I was doing much. I just needed a name and a bit of information to send a cherub to hunt them down. Usually it didn't take much more than watching the morning news. Sometimes I went to scout out the area ahead of Victoria's capture, but I didn't even really need to leave the house.

I'd wanted to do more. Maybe I could have tried taking down an entire gang, like Victoria had delightedly told me she'd done, but there hadn't been the time. There had been project deadlines and essay hand-in dates and teachers lecturing us about how we needed to step up our game, and so on. Even Winslow, crappy school though it was, had to look like it was trying to help us, and that meant more homework for everyone.

At least these days I could get things done without the worry of my bag getting soaked in juice or having my pencil case stolen, but I still couldn't find the time to do anything big. I'd tried to find the S-I-X people and the government's grey men, but there wasn't a trace of either of them. I'd tried sending a cherub to look for the bird-lady. After days of walking the streets and peering into dark and rotting corners, it had seemed like a good idea. In retrospect, of course, I was very, very glad that the cherub hadn't found her. What if she'd somehow traced it back to me? I'd rather be bored than caught.

Then, at the start of May, someone died at school.

By this point I was back to the daily grind of normal life. And it lived up to the name, but I was coping. I had a whole set of tricks to avoid trouble, foremost of which was staying in Isolation, and being moved out of the trio's classes meant they couldn't go for me casually.

Considering Emma and Sophia mostly didn't bother, it was strange that I'd still catch Madison lurking around near my classrooms every once in a while. She was proving really persistent for someone who'd always seemed like they were just along for the ride. Of course, a lot of the time she turned out to be waiting for one friend or another who happened to be in one of my classes. I kept an eye on them, just in case she was setting something up. Nothing had happened yet, though. I was beginning to half-suspect I might simply be paranoid. Maybe she really had forgotten about me?

Of course, that was sloppy. I knew they could bide their time, hold back until I let down my guard. They'd done it before.

Still, all things considered I was having an easier time at school than I had in years. In fact, if it hadn't been for Cry Baby, I'd have been asleep at my desk. Mr Singh was having us read a poem about two people in a dump truck and two beautiful people in a Mercedes and how the beautiful people were meant to be unreachable and unreal compared to the smelly garbage men. Or something. My attention was sort of split. I was spying on another sweatshop through the eyes of my cherubs. I was planning to take it down with Glory Girl next weekend.

"And… Luci. You can read the final verse."

Next to me, Luci stood up and cleared her through. "Um," she began, scanning the photocopy that until a few seconds ago she'd been doodling on. "The last bit?"

"Yes. As I said, the final verse."

"And the very red light for an instant
holding all four close together
as if anything at all were possible
between them
across that small gulf
in the high seas
of this democracy," she read, and sat back down.

"Now, what do you think this means?" he asked the class. No one raised their hand. "Don't all go at once," he added. His eyes drifted to me. "How about you, Taylor? You've been staring off into space all lesson. What do you think about this verse?"

I dropped out of the Other Place guiltily, trying to look like I had been paying attention all along.

"Um. Well, the red light and… uh, you know, the way it talks about an 'instant' means that the author is saying that… well." I could hear sirens outside, on the street outside the school. They sounded like they were getting closer, and it really wasn't helping my concentration.

"They spent the rest of the poem talking about how different the two scavengers and the two beautiful people are, so while they're close to each other for a little bit, that's because of the red light and they're really not very close together at all," I tried. "That is, uh… when the stoplight changes, the garbage men will be off picking up more trash and the beautiful people will be off to some fancy restaurant and just because they're next to one another doesn't mean they're living in the same world. If you know what I mean."

"That's one common reading of it," Mr Singh said. "But of course, it goes deeper than that. Alex, what do you think he's talking about in the later bits of that verse?"

One of the boys stood up. He was wearing a tank top, and his ginger hair was cut to a fuzz. "Like, it rhymes because he's rhyming 'seas' and 'democracy'," he said.

"Yes, that's certainly true. The rest of the poem is written in blank verse, but for the final two lines he goes for a rhyme. But what deeper point do you think he's trying to reinforce?"

"Is it something about how rich people play golf and poor people don't? Like, they play golf by the sea."

I rolled my eyes and started to return to my cherubs.

"Golf?" Mr Singh frowned. "No, he's talking about a 'gulf' here. A gulf is a bit of the ocean partly surrounded by land. Like the Gulf of Mexico."

"Oh."

"Though you're right, yes. One of the things it is touching on is how rich people and poor people live completely different lives. So yes, I guess you could say that the way that rich people play golf is part of that. If you had two scavengers in the poem, all 'grungy from their route'… I bet you wouldn't see many golf courses letting them in to play. Unless they had garbage that needed picking up."

That produced a dutiful laugh from the class. I abandoned the cherubs and glanced outside as the sirens got uncomfortably close. The ambulance had actually arrived at our school, driving through the open gates. Mrs. Knott was outside wearing a high visibility jacket, waving it in. Other people were looking too, and Mr Singh had noticed he'd lost his class's attention.

"Everyone, please, eyes front. Now, one of the big themes of this poem is the divide in—"

I wasn't paying attention anymore. Sinking back into the damp chill of the Other Place, I exhaled Watcher Doll and sent it after the ambulance. And then someone jabbed me in the ribs. I twisted around, and found myself glaring at Luci's monstrous form. She jerked her head towards the front of the room, and I forced myself to surface in reality.

"When I tell people to pay attention, that means you too, Taylor," Mr Singh said, glaring at me.

I blushed. There were only ten minutes left before lunch. Despite myself, I managed to pay attention.

"So," Luci said, as I gathered up my books. "wanna see what's going on down there?"

"Hmm?" I packed my bag, hands shaking, and resisted the urge to sink into Isolation. It felt too much like I was on the spot. She was talking to me without prompting, about things that weren't school-related. I'd been ready for lunch a few seconds ago, but now I felt queasy. I knew perfectly well that she just wanted to see what was going on with the ambulance, but there was still part of me wondering what her game was.

God. I was a fucking mess, if something like this made me panic. "Sure," I croaked out, trying to sound normal.

"Good. Let's go quickly, before everyone else blocks it off." She grabbed my hand and half-pulled me out of the classroom. I hoped she didn't notice me flinch, or how fast I was breathing.

Madison caught my gaze as Luci pulled me towards the stairs. She was waiting for me! She had to be. I walked quicker, until I overtook Luci and she stopped dragging me. I imagined Phobia, and thought of driving iron nails into her fear-locked mask. "Where did it sound like it was coming from?" I asked her, already feeling better.

"Over towards the bike lot, right?"

"Yeah, that sounded about right," I said, looking behind me. I didn't think Madison was following me, but I couldn't be sure.

We weren't the first ones there. There was already a small crowd present, gathered around a cordoned-off area. A teacher was trying to make everyone stop staring and go away, but his waving didn't seem to do much. No-one could look away. People outside the school were staring in. A young woman in a white hoody was practically pressed up against the chain mesh fence, snapping away with her instant camera. A little girl in a white dress was standing a little further away, eyes wide as she stared at the ambulance. Her mother was trying to pull her away, but she was tugging against her, one hand tightly clutching her red balloon

Even animals seemed to be watching. Doves had gathered on the overlooking buildings, and cooed from their perches above me. They probably saw a crowd and thought "food".

Of course people were going to stare. Anyone with a nose could smell the thick, coppery scent in the air. There wasn't the slightest wind, so the smell lingered and piled up, drowning out the fumes and smoke of the city. I was much too familiar with that smell. It hit my nostrils every time I entered the Other Place.

I straightened up and peered over the bobbing heads. The shabby old paving stones were splattered with rust, even out past the edge of the cordon. There was so much of it. It reached up the walls. And when I sunk into coldness and gloom, the Other Place showed me the black oil of death. It was fresh, and strong.

Someone was dead.

"What happened here?" Luci said, standing on her tiptoes as she tried to peek over the top of the crowd. That wasn't something I had to worry about. "What can you see?"

"There's…" I swallowed, tasting the stink. "There's a lot of blood on the ground. I… I think someone's dead."

"Oh." Next to me, Luci slumped down. "Well, that sucks. Can you see who it was? And how do you know they're dead? Is there a body?"

"I can't see a body," I said. "I guess they must be in the ambulance."

"Well, how do you know they're dead then?"

"Uh. Well, there's a lot of blood…" I said uneasily.

"That doesn't mean they're dead," Luci said, bouncing up and down on her toes as she tried to see over the mass of people. "How much blood is there?"

I swallowed. "Lots. It's… uh. On the walls as well."

"People can bleed lots when they get stabbed and not die. 'specially if they're in an ambulance."

"Oh?"

Luci looked at me. "Saw it on TV. Like, uh, on one of those hospital shows."

"Oh yeah," I said. I might have been able to believe her if I hadn't seen the death out there. Besides, there was too much blood.

The teacher who was trying to shift the crowd seemed to be losing his temper. He'd started to move from waving to shouting. "Wanna make a retreat and get lunch?" Luci asked. She had a wry expression on her face. "There'll probably be less of a wait in the canteen if everyone is here."

She was right. Wasn't that awful? I'd expected to not be hungry, knowing that someone had died out there, but my appetite was back in force. Had the Other Place worn me down so much that even death didn't shock me? The person in that ambulance might be someone I knew!

It probably wasn't, though. It wasn't like I knew many people to begin with, and given the timing, everyone was meant to be in classes. Hell, I didn't know for sure that it was a student. Maybe it had just been on school grounds.

"Luci!" A short, pale girl came over and sat down opposite to us. She was wearing nearly as much make-up as I was. I didn't know her, but I thought she was covering up acne, rather than scars. "Did you hear? Someone's dead."

"They're actually dead? Like, I saw the ambulance, but…"

"I heard from Riana that she saw a body near the bike lot. And they were putting it in a body bag, and, like, they'd been stabbed! And there was blood everywhere!"

"There was a lot of blood," I said softly.

The girl directed a stare at me, her thick brows furrowing. "Who's she?" she asked Luci.

"Faith, Taylor. Taylor, Faith. She sits next to me in English."

"Oh, sure. But yeah, and you know what else I heard?" Faith said, leaning in. She was practically murmuring under the noise of the cafeteria and the hum of the fluorescent lights overhead, and I had to lean in too to hear her. "They're saying the dead guy is Justin Wells."

Luci sniffed. "Oh. So it was probably some stupid thing," she said in a low voice. "Not surprised."

"Who?" I asked.

"Uh… like, big-big guy from the year above," Faith said, gesturing with her hands to indicate both height and width. "Skinhead, smells funny, wheezes—"

"He's an asshole," Luci said, bitterly.

"You know him?" I asked.

"Got stuck on the same bus as him," she said, eyes narrowed.

"I wonder who did it," Faith said. "I mean," she looked around as if she could notice a killer just by their appearance, "if it was someone here…"

I looked around too, but in the Other Place. There was no deathscented oil on any of the people I could see. "I don't think it was anyone here," I told Faith's cracked china-doll face.

"You can't tell by looking," Luci said. She paused, many eyes blinking. "Well, unless they're still covered in blood. It was probably a gang thing if it was Justin. One of the Japanese gangs. Or someone from one of the Ormswood crews."

"Oh?" I said, returning to normalcy and getting back to my lunch. Eating in the Other Place wasn't a good idea, unless you wanted to lose weight. "You think?"

"Yeah," Luci said, pushing back her wire-rim glasses. "That or he stole some skinhead jackoff's girlfriend and got his ugly face stabbed for it." She checked her watch. "Shit, got to get to the library to get my stupid homework done. I bet everyone's going to be talking. So annoying."

I nodded a farewell. They'd certainly given me a lot to think about. I needed to—

"So, hi," Faith said. Her can of Coke hissed as she opened it. "Didn't know Luci knew you. Haven't seen you around."

I jolted out of my thoughts, surprised that she was still there. More surprised at the fact that she was talking to me. What was I supposed to say? "I wound up moving classes a while back", I tried, after an awkward moment. "I ended up in hers. Mr Singh doesn't let people sit where they want, and he put me next to her."

"Oh, you got him? I had him last year. He's a dick."

I quite liked him. "Yeah," I said.

She sipped from her drink. "So, when you said you moved class recently… where did you go to school before?"

I blinked. Had she really never seen me before? Most people remember a girl who's taller than most of the boys. I vaguely recognised her, although we'd never been in any of the same classes. I'd thought everyone would have heard of me, by this point. After all, I was the girl who'd been shut in a locker full of used tampons. I'd probably been the butt of the joke for every week I was away. "No, I went here all along. I had to move classes because of," I considered how to phrase it, "issues."

"Oh." She seemed about to say something else, but then the school's announcer system let off a two-tone note.

"This is Principal Blackwell," said the principal. I wondered how she was dealing with it. Badly, probably. She really was useless. "I am sorry to announce that there has been a serious incident over near the north entrance, and a student has been killed. The police have asked me to inform you that the north entrance will remain closed off for the rest of the day, as will the bike lot. Students whose bikes are currently in the lot should gather in the reception area at the end of the day if they require transport.

"The police ask that you do not speculate on the identity of the unfortunate victim until their identity is formally released. Please go to your classes at the start of the next period normally, where a list of names will be gathered. Over the course of the next few days, the police will be making enquiries, so please help them in any way you can. There will be further announcements if the situation changes. The school councillor is ready and waiting to help you if you need someone to talk to because of these tragic events."

Well, there it was. Actual confirmation that someone had died. The Other Place had been telling the truth, no surprise there. I wasn't shocked, but from the sudden explosion of babble I was in a minority. No one had actually died at school in years. I mean, I'd made a pretty good try at it, but I'd sort of botched the dismount and landed in hospital.

Until now, they'd managed to restrain the pupil-on-pupil violence. There'd been beatings, broken limbs, a few stabbings, sustained and extended unprovoked bullying campaigns… but no deaths. Although it couldn't have been fun to be that one kid who had to be hospitalised because someone stuffed a fire extinguisher nozzle in his mouth and filled his stomach with foam. That's what I heard, at least. I didn't know any names, so maybe it was only a rumour. Or some idiot wondering how it tasted.

"Looks like the rumours were on track," Faith said quietly. "Huh. Wonder if that means they were right about it being Justin, too."

"Maybe," I said. "I mean, there was a lot of blood. It'd be pretty easy to guess that someone died, but I don't know how you'd know who it was." From the noise filling the canteen, everyone else was also ignoring the request not to speculate. Well, I was going to do more than that. I was going to catch a killer before class started again, so that meant I needed to ditch this girl.

I pretended to focus on my food, and sunk into the Other Place. It suddenly became much harder to focus on my food. I rushed through my breathing exercise, exhaling a cloud of blackness that squirmed into a crawling Idea. The little pale centipede-creature crawled up Faith's sleeve and into her ear. I could see it still wriggling behind her hollow doll-eyes.

"You're not so bad," she said. I could hear the whispery little Idea saying what she did, just a heartbeat ahead. Huh. I guess she really wasn't very complicated, if she was saying the first thing I'd put in her head. "No wonder Luci likes you."

"Thanks," I said, smiling. I made sure to swap back to reality before I started wolfing down my food. "Sorry, but I've got to go track down Ms Hamstead," I said, once I'd had all I could tolerate of canteen food. It wasn't exactly appetising, even without maggots squirming in it. "I need some help with a geography essay."

"Urgh, don't speak to me about geography," Faith said, still smiling despite her words. She rummaged in her pocket, pulling out her phone. "What's your number?"

I winced. "Don't have one. My dad won't let me."

"That sucks."

"Yeah, it does." I picked up my tray. "Anyway, might see you later."

"Sure thing!"

I went to put my tray away. Glancing back, I could still see the whiteness of the Idea in her hollow skull. It was something I'd learned over the last few months. Ideas weren't very strong, but they could nudge people around if they weren't thinking of much else. Faith didn't feel strongly about me one way or another beforehand, but now she sort of liked me. After all, Luci liked me, so that meant I had to be okay, right?

The Other Place wasn't really much more cynical than normal school socialising, I thought to myself. It was so much easier. You didn't have to spend as much time pretending to like the same things as someone else just to get to the stage where you were nice and safe acquaintances.

The atmosphere in the school, though, was anything but safe. You'd have to be blind to miss the simmering tension, and I saw more than anyone else could. The same anger that licked at Dad jumped from person to person, like a wildfire. There was fear, too; cold, clammy, cloying. But it fed the fire like oil, and the anger left fear in its wake. People were whispering in the real world, but in the Other Place they took on a thick substance, strands weaving together like thick cobwebs.

The skinhead locker room was on the third floor. It wasn't like there was a sign posted there, but I was glad I was in Isolation. This wasn't a place for people like me. If I hadn't been unseen, I'd probably have been told to fuck off – and I was white and local. I felt sorry for the people who'd been given lockers here. They were all busted, and you didn't linger if you didn't 'belong'. A group was already gathered there, weaving cobwebs around each other as they shouted and hissed. I checked them for black stains and then rose out of the Other Place. None of them were killers, and I wanted to see their faces properly.

"Look, I fucking saw Justin," a short brown-haired girl raised her voice, drawing my attention. "I saw his body. It was… there was blood everywhere! And… and his arm was off…" Her voice sank down to a hollow whisper.

I didn't think she was lying. She was too scared to be lying. I'd seen blood. If there really had been body parts, then they'd cleaned them up ASAP. I thought you weren't meant to tamper with a crime scene, but I guessed they'd wanted to stop any of us seeing it. Apparently that hadn't worked.

"You mean…" one of the boys said uneasily. "Well, was it… like… I dunno. Really all the way all off?"

"All the way." She didn't shout it. She just sounded numb.

"Fuck."

Yeah, fuck. For the first time in my life, I was in total agreement with a skinhead. That made it way more serious than someone getting stabbed. Arms didn't get torn off at school unless someone was going Carrie.

But if that was true, why hadn't they sent us home?

I almost jumped out of my skin when someone thumped the locker right next to me. The broken door bounced on its hinges, revealing an internal coating of posters of white rappers.

"Fucking Japs," growled a blonde girl. Her hair was long on top, but she'd shaved the sides shorter. Train tracks drawn in with clippers traced their way back over her ears.

"You think so, 'Tash?"

"Yeah. Who else would do that?" She slammed the locker again. "They got one of their big brothers in the Japfia to kill him."

"I dunno," one of the boys said, running his hand over his scalp. "What if it was the 205 NY Crew? I mean, he lives 'round there and they've been going for anyone who walks through their turf."

"Nah," 'Tash said. "Listen to what June said. They tore his fucking arms off. Who'd do this but that dragon-freak who runs the Japfia?"

I'd heard enough. So the rumours were right. God. The school was going to explode. Still, I had a lead. They might have dismissed the idea that it was one of the Ormswood gangs, but that seemed way more likely to me than the head of the Boumei deciding to just show up and dismember a random schoolkid. They probably wanted to think that it was a Japanese ganglord who killed their friend, but I doubted it. I'd found out a bit more stuff about the local gangs in the past few months, but I'd been keeping well away from the Japanese Mafia. Sure, I had Isolation, but I knew some parahumans could see through it and there was no way I was going to have a chance against a giant dragon-man if he saw me. But he breathed fire and stuff, and there hadn't been any burn marks near the blood.

I drifted off, and spent the rest of lunch wandering through school. Everyone seemed to have their own theory, but I didn't find any killers. Or any giant dragon-men, for that matter.

I slumped against an empty patch of wall and took off my glasses, pinching the brow of my nose as I scrunched my eyes shut. The Other Place was exhausting like this. Most people seemed to think it was simply some gang stabbing. No one else seemed to know that the victim had an arm torn off. So how did that June girl get there so fast? The ambulance must have covered up the corpse quickly. Had she been there from the start, and seen even more than she was telling? I'd have to go back and investigate, but—

My chain of thought was shattered by the figure stepped around the corner. They drew closer, down the corridor, grey and drab Not a person. A thing. No more human than the walls.

There was a grey man. Here. At school. I pressed myself up against the wall and prayed to God that thing wouldn't notice me in the crowded corridors. I was surrounded by pig-faced boys and burning skull-women and ranting graffiti, but that one bland grey-suited figure was scarier than anything in the Other Place. It was flanked by a pair of cops, but they were real people, twisted and strange but real and not like that thing.

It passed me by without a glance. I couldn't breathe. My stomach felt like it was about to crawl out of my mouth. What was one of them doing here? Did that mean the bird woman was here too? God. She was here and she was still hunting me and—

Dashing for the nearest bathroom, I locked myself in a cubicle. Then I lifted my feet so no one could see me just by looking for legs. I knew how to hide in bathrooms.

I exhaled Phobia. Then I jabbed iron nails into her rigid, screaming mask until I felt better. Until I could breathe without feeling like I was going to throw up. Until I could think clearly.

I'd panicked. This didn't mean the bird woman knew I was here. If she did, she'd have come for me right away. I wouldn't have been able to hide from her, not like the grey men. She could see through Isolation.

So I was safe. For now.

Kirsty had told me, in her own special way, that there were other parahumans like the bird-woman. They gave orders to the grey men. I'd done a lot of speculation over the last few months. Who did she work for? Did she make the grey men? Were they some kind of tinkertech clones, like a special high-end genejack? Or were they brainwashed slaves?

There was a bit of me that wanted to run. I could get a barbed-wire angel to tear open a hole in the world, and run somewhere where she wouldn't find me. It was tempting, but I couldn't do that. The Principal had said they'd be taking names, and if I wasn't there, questions would be asked. That was more likely to lead them to me than if I stayed. I bet everyone who wasn't here was going to get a visit from the cops.

Besides, if they were here… this might be a chance to learn something. I ran my fingers through my hair, exhaling slowly.

Now, that was a thought. Maybe I didn't need to build up a list of suspects. Maybe the police could do it for me. I'd have to get my hands on their list of names, but if they were asking questions all across the city they'd have to make copies. Grabbing one for myself shouldn't be too hard.

And I could find people with their names.

Whether it was a gang thing or someone going Carrie, I wanted to find the killer. Maybe they were a villain. Maybe they were just someone like me, who'd had one really bad day. Either way, they had to be parahuman, so I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to know why. Why the grey men were after them, why they'd taken someone's arm off, why they'd run.

And if the bird woman really was interested in them, I might be able to find out more about what those people wanted.

And what they were.