The following morning, Richard arrived at Bayland in the rain-thick air anticipating a downpour. He had not anticipated the horrors of all the filth that wandered. Bayland was so bad it made Tupper look clean!
"I'm dying," Richard the Immortal groaned as nausea clouded his thoughts, poked needles in his stomach, bringing up breakfast that he forced down. The amount of filth here, suffocated him.
Richard was a planner. He never did something underprepared. "Never" was an understatement though because he certainly had miscalculated in the past though he hated admitting it. His ego wouldn't allow it.
"You bastard." Charcoal laughed, unaffected by what Richard was seeing. For Charcoal, he saw people as normal, and the only abnormality was that he could tell which ones had given themselves to demons or had protective angels behind their backs.
"Shut up, Charlie," Richard whispered, clutching his stomach.
Filthy gray dusty clouds swarmed the wharf and the bay area. It didn't help that the air was heavy with humidity enticing clouds to just vomit raindrops on the denizens below who all seemed to have come unprepared for rain in Montgomery.
"Vomit" was not a good metaphor for Richard. He could feel his own vomit coming up from his stomach, threatening to leave a literal bad taste in his mouth. He never consumed alcohol to feel like complete garbage, but he guessed this feeling was quite close to having a brick in his old hat. The world was closing in on him and the dusty gray clouds were touching him, breathing on him, making his skin crawl, and surrounding him in a silent attack.
Still, Richard managed to continue on with a straight face, the mighty actor, and as Charles Reuben Rushford. One would have to admire Richard for never once showing what he felt inside. He should be given a "Best Actor Award".
To anyone else, the dusty gray clouds would have been well-dressed gentlemen taking their pretty ladies on a well-deserved vacation from "Any Elsewhere" to rural paradise. Montgomery, with its vast swaths of green pastures and mountainous cliffs with waterfalls curtaining down to land in a pool of crystal-clear water, was an ideal location to many looking for a "get-away". Rich men and women came from any industrial or smoke-curdling city to rest their eyes upon nature's beauty.
Richard stumbled into Plattatood Inn and was unhappy to see filth sitting at tables. Only the plump red-haired woman at the front was normal. Richard gave her a kind smile and asked for a room to which she replied with a key and a nod.
"Dinnie's a six. After-hour's nine to the dot. Smokes outside," she said.
"The dot?" Richard cocked his head.
"Twelve. Not a Montgomerian, eh?" She wiggled her brows.
Richard shook his head. "Penwood."
The woman gave a squeak of delight. "A Penwood Proper!" she exclaimed. Then she immediately narrowed her eyes to look him up and down.
"But we ain't takin' bonders," she said and heads in the diner turned. "I'm 'fraid you'll have to leave."
Bonder or snow hacker were slang words for Roktion slave traders, but more recently, in Montgomery it pointed to traders that took virgin slaves on ships to sacrifice them in Satanic rituals abroad. Customers were said to mostly come from Penwood State thanks to Geoffrey Brews' stash of Satanic memorabilia making talk on tables.
Richard widened his eyes. "Why, I'm against all forms of slavery, miss! Why," He shook his head as if he could not believe what she suggested, "how dare you even suggest such a thing!"
The woman hastily apologized, bobbing her round head. "Pardon me, forgive me ignorance. Your room is on the second floor. Shall I have Sammy carry your bags?" A young boy that was her son came out from a room behind her. Richard shook his head and hoisted the bags up himself. He would rather have dogs urinate on his clothes than have someone touch his precious things.
Once in his room, he closed and locked the door. He took out his knife, dagger, gun, sword, pistol, and dynamite, and at last, he opened the other suitcase filled with wads of money. He lay these all on his bed, thinking of those he would meet, guessing what they would ask for. It was just enough.
"Abolitionists," he said, "and then we'll burn this place. Disgusting. Tommy-and-Anna is on its way, right?"
Charcoal swirled out of Richard's shadow. "Right behind us. Who can I eat?"
"Why are you always so hungry?" Richard shook his head.
"Why do you never eat?"
"I do eat." Richard put everything away and slipped into a disguise. A dead abolitionist called Lawrence Walker. No one knew he was dead yet. He was someone Charles associated with for years, but lost touch. Richard found Lawrence's body rotting in an alley, hardly recognizable if Charcoal hadn't told him.
"I mean when I eat. You never eat when I eat."
"Nay, not after ya, bastard beast," he spoke like Lawrence, getting the tones perfect. No one would doubt. Richard muttered a spell, vanished luggage and all, and appeared in the back alley in the shadows of Sawyer near Bayland Cusp.
He staggered a bit, catching his breath. Richard could only do spells thanks to Charcoal's powers and could only go to locations he had been before. On top of that, he could only teleport or go into the spirit realm.
"Why don't you have other powers?" Richard grumbled in his own voice. "Why do I have to return to the inn to burn it. Can't we burn it from here?"
"Igniting things is not my specialty. It's Marbas'. My subordinate, remember?"
Richard nodded. "When will he come?"
"Soon. Soon." Charcoal hid. "Hush, be Lawrence, someone's coming."
* * *
Arriving in Montgomery at ten in the morning was Calvin, the man with stubs for thumbs. He couldn't decide if he wanted to find Richard or not. He knew about Anastasia and Bayland, but Calvin was getting old, and Richard was ever young.
Years ago, he had followed Richard knowing they wouldn't grow old together. With a heavy sigh, he checked his cash and went to get a drink at the bar across the way where the cabby let him off.
"The hardest thing you got," he said.
At the bar counter, he drank down his fears and sighed. Another sigh echoed his and he turned to see a woman, around fifty or so, drinking down some emotions, too.
"I'm not that kind of woman," she said, and Calvin quickly shook his head. He hadn't even thought about getting a woman in years.
"I wasn't thinking that ma'am."
"Too early for a woman to drink?"
He offered a stiff smile. "Not at all."
They sat in silence. He noticed her accent then had the slight lilt of a Lwennen and the strange up and downs of certain vowels that many Jonchese had.
"Good day," she said to him.
"And to you," he called after her, swirling his drink around in the glass. She was pretty, for his standards. Calvin never married and he knew he never would. For he would love only one.
The memory of the first day he met Richard came back at that moment. A man without a face but with many faces at the same time, suddenly appeared in the rickety old hideout where Calvin had been sharpening his knives and wondering who his next victim would be.
"You have a good hand with that."
"Who are you?" Calvin had pointed the knife in the man's direction. The man ducked into the hideout and sat on the ground.
"I'm nobody."
"The bloody hell does that mean?" Calvin had scoffed and looked the man up and down. The man had looked about his age. Thirty, maybe less.
"If you work with me, we can cleanse the world together. You won't be able to count the bodies."
"So, you're like me, eh? A killer?"
The look of hurt on the man's face had confused Calvin. If he wasn't a killer, what the bloody hell was he talking about bodies for? Only killers talked about bodies. It was a known fact in Calvin's area of expertise.
"I cleanse the world of filth," the man said after a long pause.
He had some ideals, maybe a religion. Calvin didn't care, but he did think having a partner would be nice. It wasn't easy to come by other killers, so maybe this was his chance to cash in big.
"Sure. If I can get my share of the thrill, whatever fella. And the dough. I reckon you gonna promise that, too?
The man had chuckled. "But this is all for a purpose, Calvin, if you understand?"
"How do you know my name?"
But the man, Richard, never answered that. Calvin knew now it must have been one of Richard's visions. They were destined to find each other.
* * *
The woman tasted the ten o'clock drink on her lips and returned to Plattatood Inn. Her husband was out with their children. They had all come on holiday, hoping to enjoy the sights of U.A. Sometimes living in arid Jonchin suffocated her. Yet, it was the same here. Even though it was still early in the morning, she thought a drink would help, but it didn't. It only made things worse.
It only made her think about her troubling past. Ella was involved in a massive fire when she was just a baby but survived unscathed while her grandparents burned. They had even been in the same room. Her older brother Richard vanished. Police speculated he started the fire and ran away, but no one believed a child could do such awful things to his own family. The case went cold.
"But I know he's alive. Richard." Ella looked out at the ocean and wondered, where was he? What was he doing? Did he ever think about her?
There was a knock on her door and her family returned. It was ten minutes after eleven. They had to leave now or miss the ship back to Jonchin. Ella resumed the role of a mother and wife, ushering her family out the door.
* * * * *
Richard sneezed four times in the garden behind Plattatood Inn and cursed the Naibonese saying. Someone was rumoring about him, and he suspected former Red Circle. He was sitting on a bench exhausted from running around handing weapons to feverish abolitionists and reuniting Lawrence Walker to John Brown. He checked the time. It was eleven fifteen. He had to set fire to the inn and leave for Bayland Cusp.
"Ella, wait!"
The name attracted Richard to the shadows of the trees. From there, he could see his likeness, aged, but recognizable. They shared the same nose, eyes, and hair. Her eldest child looked about fifteen. 'Uncle Richard' watched the family disappear into a cabby.
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Note: Author here!
Well, well, if it isn't Ella, Richard's sister?
Remember Ella who is from Jonchin. She might return ;)