In the dead of night when the fires were banked and people were gone or asleep or too drunk to care, it was Flavin who cut him down and took him to yet another rickety shack.
Rhade lay uselessly on the rough matting as the old man saw to his wounds, his mind filled with fire and brimstone. The girl's screams mixed with Gillian's cries and Louisa's whispered words while fire blazed up and rained down burning him up both inside and out. He hadn't saved them, hadn't protected them. No one had, and no one cared. There hadn't been any last minute cavalry charge, no white knight, and any hope of rescue or salvation had died with the girl. The furnace raged out of control and he knew without a doubt that he could never hope to regain control.
He became aware of Flavin talking. "The meteors come every time someone comes through," he was saying as if talking about the weather. "But that was unlike anything I've ever seen. Must have been something big, I wouldn't be surprised if it were a giant spaceship or something come through, but who knows. We need to get you out of here, my friend, there's a small township further over. Thomas is a bit odd, but I have a residence near there and you can stay for a while and perhaps…"
"Shut up." Rhade growled softly and the old man did. If the Neitzchean had been able to see beyond the flames in his soul he would have seen the deep sadness and guilt in Flavin's eyes, but he was too lost to see anything at all.
During the clandestine journey, without the aid of a transport, Flavin fed Rhade strong liquor that numbed the pain from his physical wounds enough for him to keep going. Fortunately the people they'd left behind hadn't known much about Neitzchean physiology and had been primarily superficial in their punishment of him.
Rhade however, found another benefit in the liquor. It tamped down the fire inside, took the edge off and freed him up enough from the torment to function.
The other residence was bigger and far more robust than the shacks Rhade had seen since coming to Seefra. In fact, the small township was more robust, even boasting a bar and established shops and markets. Thomas might be 'odd' as Flavin had said, but he was very good at organising the people for the greater good. So long as they worshipped him and his book, of course.
Thomas and Flavin detested each other for reasons Rhade could only guess at and periodically Thomas would try and have Flavin killed, but the old man was born lucky and it had become almost a game between them.
Thomas himself gave Rhade an opportunity, offering him a one-off stint as co-pilot to one of his regular cargo runners, Denny. Denny, it seemed was not as profitable as he used to be and as his co-pilot had unfortunately come to a sticky end, Thomas thought that Rhade might like the job. On the understanding that any wrong doing by Denny would be brought to Thomas' attention for a bonus.
Thomas disliked technology mostly, except when it suited him, and it suited him to have runners carry goods for profit.
Unfortunately for Rhade, Denny was indeed guilty of wrong doing. Fortunately his Neitzchean hearing heard about it before his own demise came to be fact. Denny made a very surprised looking corpse and right there and then Rhade decided it was a smart move to take over where Denny had left off. Except Rhade was not stupid enough to do it behind Thomas' back.
For a mutually agreeable profit sharing agreement, Thomas was happy to let Rhade run the business and get his hands dirty which allowed Thomas to get on with being pristine and worshipped.
While Flavin and Rhade could have been friends in another time and place, here and now the girl was always between them. Mutual guilt over time turned to bitter resentment, until Rhade decided it was time to get his own place. He rented a room behind the bar from the barman, Sembler, and kept to himself there, never using the bar area. Familiarity would let people stop being scared of him, and he liked that they left him alone because of it. They weren't as intolerant as the people of the last place and with Thomas seeming to accept him, the people let him be.
He discovered an advantage to having a room behind the bar. There were other rooms there and they were used by the working girls. And some of the working girls seemed to like him. He resisted at first, but then it dawned on him that he had no one to be faithful to, no one to honour him with her choosing, and no one with whom he could ever fall in love again. A man's got to do, what a man's got to do, and along with the constant flow of alcohol, the sex helped contain the eternal agonising flames.
Sometimes he would wake up in the morning and look at himself in the mirror, frown at the length of his hair and make a half hearted attempt at shaving, but increasingly he couldn't see that it was worth the effort so he didn't bother.
So long as he left his room with his guns, two of them now, the force lance long abandoned somewhere, and a bottle within reach, he was set for the day.
Until one of Denny's contacts came up with an offer for a service that Denny had occasionally undertaken as a sideline. One of the local gang lords needed to have an accident quite urgently.
At first Rhade refused; he was no assassin. But then it transpired that the gang lord concerned was Anthony, and Rhade found it impossible to refuse.
Cont'd/.