Chapter 8: More than a Year

Garrett swam in the darkness for what seemed like a short while. It was like sticking his head underwater, it was calm and quiet at first, but soon his air was running out and he began to panic. In a matter of minutes, he had to resurface. When he woke he expected to see the rubble of the room. The last thing he remembered was the ceremony room caving in around him. Erin. He had to find her and get them out of there before they were caught.

But when he opened his eyes he was met with a shabby roof just a few feet from his head and the sound of people bustling around him. He froze, trying to figure out just what the hell happened. His head was still fuzzy and he was finding it a little difficult to keep his thoughts in line. He looked around to get a bearing of where he was. He was laid out in a cart, covered from view. Erin wasn't anywhere that he could see, but he could just make out the backs of two men in tattered clothes.

"Hey, it looks like he's waking up! Quit slacking we gotta get him into The City before they call the lockdown." One said to the other.

Lockdown? Why was The City in lockdown? Were they that desperate to find him?

"Pace yourself, boy. We just have to get him to the clock tower safe and sound and then we'll be rosy."

He tensed. How did they know he lived in the clock tower? Unless Basso sent them…

"Where's this cart going?" A guard asked, addressing the man on the left.

"Bakers in Stone Market." The man on the right said.

"Was I talking to you?" The guard bellowed and struck him across the face. Just then a commotion broke out and he turned his attention to that.

"Makes you miss the old watch…" One of them mumbled as they pulled him through the large wooden gates. Garrett narrowed his eyes. If he was entering The City, then at some point he must have left. Basso must have sent a rescue squad. He smirked to himself, that old fool. He would have to make it up to him somehow.

As they rolled through the streets he knew something was wrong. The City wasn't exactly a glorious place; their law and order department was funded by a corrupt government that was in turn funded by the old, rich families that had their dirty fingers in everything. But for the most part if you lived on the right side of the law and didn't owe anyone with resources any money, you could live a decent life. Most of the citizens spent their days with their blinders on, turning their eyes to the evils and corruption so long as they were left alone to raise their children and throw their parties. And that was fine, the higher ups only cared that their factories had people that worked too hard for too little money. The scales were in no way even, but they were still within a functional range.

But he could smell the acrid odor of rot, and the cries of people all around them.

"The nightmares! Make them stop! Can't someone please make this stop?!"

One of the men pulling the cart shook his head in sadness. "The Gloom's getting worse." He said. " Everywhere 'cept Auldale. Someone should do something."

What the hell is The Gloom? He thought.

"All he cares about is progress!" A gruff voice shouted in the distance. "Do you want to see more of these bloody pipes everywhere? That's not food for our bellies! That's not medicine for the sick and dying!"

He lifted his head slightly to see a guard approaching a group of men that seemed to be getting more irritated by the second. "You! On the box! That's enough!"

"And YOU!" The man on the box shouted, pointing his finger at the guards, a mad look on his face. "Don't you think that you're safe just because you shovel shit for the rich! The Baron has a noose for every one of us!" He gestured above him, and Garrett's eyes widened as he craned his neck and saw almost half a dozen bodies swinging in the wind, hung from their necks right over the streets. "But change is coming! Orion is going to bring change! The Baron will burn!" He was promptly dragged from his stand by his skinny arms. "See?" he yelled as they drug him away. "They're scared of the truth!"

The man on his right glanced back. "Keep your head down!" He hissed.

"You there!" A guard yelled. "Who are you talking to?"

Garrett ducked down, cursing under his breath. Since when did the watch become so paranoid?

The man on his left lashed out, knocking the guard to the ground. "RUN!" He yelled and hauled the cart as fast as he could. He heard the shrill sound of an arrow cutting through the air, and the man on his right fell. He winced as they continued down the bumpy road, he didn't want anyone to die. The man to his left suddenly dropped the cart and sprinted on down the road a way before turning a corner and disappearing. Garrett waited until the guards passed him up to give chase before he slowly emerged from the back of the cart. He crouched at first, making sure he was alone before he straightened himself to get a good look around. The City used to be lively, if anything. Even the slums. But now everything just looked like it had one foot in the grave. He was drawn to the darkness of an alley, and slipped away undetected.

Once he was sure he was alone, walking through a dark street as the rain began to fall from the darkened clouds overhead; he patted himself down. He still had his bow and arrows, his picks, his razor and wire cutters, his daggers. He scowled when he found Erin's claw. Upon closer inspection he realized that she had just modified her blackjack to be more deadly. He decided to hang onto it for when he found her, if she was still alive. He shook his head; he could feel a headache coming on. He needed to get to the clock tower and clear his head.

How long had he been knocked out? He thought as he looked around the dirty streets. Using the back roads no one bothered to even register his existence, so he could walk around relatively openly. Everyone he came across was skinny and sickly, and there were some that wandered with a lost look in their eyes, mumbling about nightmares. He passed one man that was in the process of scratching his ear right off the side of his head.

He lunged forward and clung to him. "I… I see you." He stuttered and began to violently poke himself in the eye. Garrett struggled to make the maniac let him go, but his scrawny arms were latched on with a death grip. "We all can see you!" He shrieked as his eyeball burst and blood ran down his face. He was finally able to throw him off and climb an awning and get to the safety of higher ground. He watched as the crazed man stumbled away, still bleeding from his gory socket.

"What the fuck is going on around here?" He asked himself as he turned his eyes upwards to see the clock tower looming above him. There was old, rickety scaffolding around the bottom levels. He narrowed his eyes. Someone had tried to get in there but it didn't look like they made it very far before they gave up. His traps hopefully saved his reputation as a vengeful ghost while he was away. The clock was stuck at 1:26 so he assumed that no one had made it to the top. Good, that meant no one had been messing with his stuff.

He made his way up the tower, passing his traps as he went. A few of them had been set off, and he could see the fading blood stains where someone lost a part of them venturing where they didn't belong. He usually found comfort in the silence, but not when he was home. His echoing footsteps put him on edge. He missed the creaking and groaning of the clockwork and with it gone he actually felt a little sad.

He opened the creaking door and looked around. Everything seemed to be in place even though the moonlight cast an eerie glow on his surroundings. He walked up the stairs and dragged his hand across the table. Everything was covered in about an inch of dust.

"How long was I gone?" He asked the emptiness. At his words a flock a birds flew from their roosts overhead in an array of flapping wings and loose feathers. He watched all but one scurry through the open window, a small magpie stayed behind, hopping around to get his attention.

"Jenivere." He called to her. That was Basso's bird. As he approached she spread her wings and took off just like the others, and it wasn't until then that Garrett noticed all the small matchboxes that littered the window sill. There was at least a dozen, some looked relatively recent and others were covered with dust, just like his hideout. He picked up one of the older ones.

WHERE IS THE STONE? B. He tossed it aside and picked up another.

WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YOU? WHERE IS ERIN? B.

FORGET THE STONE. I GAVE YOUR JOBS TO ALIA. YOU BETTER NOT BE DEAD. B.

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? COME SEE ME WHEN YOU GET BACK. B.

He sighed and looked around. There's no way he could have been unconscious for this long. It seemed like he had been gone for months, but he felt like he was only out for a few minutes. But how else could he explain going dark in Northcrest Manor and waking up outside The City? He pinched the bridge of his nose, something just wasn't adding up. He tried to concentrate on what he should do. That's when his vision clouded, then became sharper than it ever had. He startled a bit then looked around. He could see the pitch black corners as if it were daylight, and certain things were covered in a bluish hue. He had seen this color before, it was the same aura from that wretched stone.

"What the hell happened to me?" He groaned. He noticed that the matchboxes were lit up, his head cleared and his thoughts became sharper and organized. He needed to see Basso, first and foremost.

BASSO'S OFFICE

He slipped in through his usual window. He saw Basso hunched over a box, moving things around. As he made his way in the darkness around to the front of him he stiffened. Then he pulled out a large knife and spun around, looking for whatever had the hairs on his neck standing up. Garrett couldn't help but smirk. Same old Basso.

"I would have went for the pickle jar, Basso." He said, causing the round man to jump back. "A lot more weight."

"Garret…" He said breathlessly. "Shit… I see you still can't work a door." He straightened himself slightly. "You don't come see me. You don't write." His voice cracked slightly before he became angry. "I thought both you and Erin had been killed in the mansion attack! So just where the hell have you been?!"

The thief didn't know what to make of his own emotions. All he could muster up was a small shrug. "I don't know." He muttered honestly.

"You don't know." He scoffed. "Fine forget it." He raised his hands defensively before reaching for a crate. "Far be it from me to pry about where you've been for the last fucking year." He coughed and set a crate down on his desk as Garrett glared intensely.

He had been gone for a year?

"I don't have time for this. Especially with the Baron's new duty on opium thanks to this gloom sickness. Not to mention the Thief Taker General's black tax squeezing us… Entrepreneurs."

"What's a 'gloom sickness'?" He asked, taking a seat at Basso's desk and crossing his foot over his knee.

"Oh they didn't have it where you've been hiding?" He spat. "Then maybe you should have stayed there. It something that's going around, starts off like the flu. Then you stop sleeping and start hearing voices. They say the crazy ones that don't die from their lungs collapsing try to rip their ears and eyes out to stop the hallucinations." He shuffled around some papers before making eye contact. He squinted and leaned over his desk. "What the fuck is in your eye?" He asked.

Basso produced a mirror so he could see that his right eye's iris and pupil were a cloudy blue color instead of their normal brown. He gently ran his finger over his eyeball, thinking that maybe it would come off but it didn't. He closed his left eye, then his right. He wasn't partially blind. "I don't know." He said again. Then the crazy man flashed in his mind.

"We all can see you!" His shriek echoed in his brain.

He shook the thoughts from his head. "Where's Alia?" he asked as Basso fed his bird.

"Who knows." He said, a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

"What happened? I got your messages. You gave her my jobs so I'm assuming she's alive?"

Basso sat down, sadness etched on his face. "Last I heard… She was stealing kids."

"Stealing… kids? As in baby humans?"

"Yup."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He couldn't imagine her hurting anyone, especially children.

"I had her doing most of my jobs when you disappeared." He started, fiddling with a small knife. "Then everything around here went to hell, literally. The Gloom struck, the black tax, the new watch and their not so gentle ways. The Thief Taker has a brand new hatred for blackhands. Anyone caught stealing gets hanged as I'm sure you've seen. Then she starts taking jobs from this putz in the slums, and the night she refuses a job, a baby is stolen right from her crib. Then another the next week, and two the next. The pattern kept up. She didn't even try to hide it. I would send her to a place for something and when she came back the watch was on alert looking for that man's sons."

Garrett glared, his heart pounding in his chest. What the hell was she up to? He had to find out. "I'll get to the bottom of this. What do you think? Slave trafficking?" The words were sour on his tongue. If she had her hand in something that dirty he would cut it off himself.

"I don't think so but who knows." Basso shook his head sadly. "I asked her about it and all she could say was that she was 'doing the right thing' and not to concern myself with it. She rarely comes around anymore…"

He stood, anger rippling through his body. "Know where I can find her?"

Basso shook his head. "You taught her well. She's a ghost."

Garrett scowled and left The Crippled Burrick. He dreaded that this was going to happen. He had made another monster.

THE SOUTH QUARTER

Alia stepped through the window of a bedroom. A woman gasped on the bed, clawing at her throat as she tried to breathe past the blood pooling in her lungs. This house was infected; they were all hallucinating. So she didn't really have to worry about being quiet, they would assume she wasn't real anyways. She helped herself to the jewelry box, then she moved down the hallway, peeking into every door as she went. She passed the office and bathroom, both were empty and had no valuables. The maids quarters were in disarray as a woman's body hung from the rafters, her eyes had been clawed out and judging by the blood on her hands the young servant had done it herself. In her pockets was a nice gold pocket watch and some coin. She didn't need it now though so the thief helped herself.

The next room over was the nursery. Alia took a deep breath before she slowly opened the door, then quietly stepped over the toys on the floor and peeked over the edge of the crib. There, wrapped in a soft blue blanket was a beautiful baby boy with a head full of blonde curls. She finally let the breath she was holding out, she could feel the tears of relief threaten to spill from her eyes as she saw the faint rise and fall of his peaceful breaths. The blanket was embroidered with the name 'Micah' in gold letters.

She gently picked him up and smiled. That new baby smell was something magical and couldn't be duplicated. He didn't even stir.

"It'll all be over soon, little Micah." She cooed before she turned and left the house with the little boy cradled in her arms.