Alive At Crepusculum ✓ [TPL Book One]

VI

Go back in time for Richard because he's that deserving, isn't he? Nearly tea time, right on the dot of three, he finished cleaning up Anastasia's projectile vomit from the ceiling. What a way to begin the story.

He was late to Geoffrey Brews'. Perhaps it was fate, but he was late. Even a little rhyme thought up in his head didn't lighten the mood for this "sour puss". Did it have to be vomit that would delay him? It had, most certainly. Lesser demons like Glasya took up to thirty years to get to the state of devouring a soul. The push and pull of him coming out could do things to the organs.

No more about that. Geoffrey Brews was next on his menu today. Not to eat. Not yet. The gruesome stuff won't be available until supper.

Around the bend came rural Tupper, and a rhyme in the mind.

Vast brown fields with speckles of new spring green, gave fresh scents into the air. A delightful countryside rural Tupper would have been if only that was all there was. Just as every beauty held a dark secret—Lwendolen would come to mind first with its once fancy cities and towns now riddled with crimson fingerprints, and corrupt police beating the homeless to death—so did rural Tupper. In urban Tupper, handsome cabs drove smart businessmen and pretty ladies to huge multidallen brick buildings lining old cobblestone streets. Still there, like Lwendolen, or any city that Richard had ever been to, darkness hid.

Disease-ridden alleys with skin-and-bone families, shivering in the winter and melting in the summer, weren't phenomena of fallen Lwendolen. Every city in all the world had a few of these sad souls. But at least Lwendolen admitted the sorry state of their shadowy streets. United Arcan didn't. They stood atop an imaginary throne even when they never had a monarchy. They thought they were fine, 'okay enough' in Richard's words, but not good enough. They were suffering in a different way, caught in rut of fake luxury.

Something had gone sour with United Arcan.

They weren't like neighboring Tikkerland with its new invention of chocolate candy bringing joy with its sweetness, and sharing that joy with any interested businessman across seas. U.A. even lost prosperity to Parajan with its thriving culture keeping spirits high in a languishing economy. Languishing! And yet, Rajanese spread color and joy to other countries. Colorful textiles were a great welcome to any willing to invest. But joy, U.A. would think, did not make money. They saw the struggling writers and artists and thought to themselves, 'That won't work. Let's make hard workers do it for us.'

Entitled, lazy, codfish aristocracy. Richard could think of even more words to describe the true face of Arcans. They built upon the backs of slaves, theft, lies, and a true dystopia. He thought, surely, one day it would all fall and be exactly like Lwendolen.

Of course, he had to save it. He had to liberate the slaves if they won't do it themselves. Would it truly be this high-horse, self-proclaimed dark hero, called Mr. Nobody, called the Vampyre, called entertaining—by Charcoal—that would save U.A. and help them make a fist?

Neighboring contrast, and model country in Richard's mind, was Xemica down south where everyone was free, as it should be. Despite stigma over Micas with their jumpy accents and darker skin, these people were the most hard working that Richard had ever seen. He liked them all. Even the drug dealers. No one flaunted wealth and hid behind someone else's efforts. Micas did something good down there.

United Arcan—united, humbug—required a wagging finger and a few toes of disapproval.

Hardened dirt roads of rural Tupper had been trampled by many a horse and drawn carriage over decades. Richard stiffened. The flaw of United Arcan was beyond those acorn trees. It was the underworld of the living, the punishing grounds for those who did no wrong. Sir, very good sir, please do not show disgust sir because these slaves want to be here, sir.