SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Homecoming Chapter 1

The graffitied walls of the underground tunnel came into focus as the train clattered to a halt. It looked like any other grimy train station in any other filthy Sector Seven city. But it wasn't. This was The City. His city. Tabriur.

Home. Am I supposed to be feeling something?

With feline agility, Falkner picked himself out of the cracked orange plastic chair and swept past the warped metal doors, cloak swishing behind him. The sound of his boots seemed deafening in the empty station. Tabriur's citizens never dared brave the train tunnels after dusk. That much had not changed.

A bedraggled drifter slid out of the shadow behind a concrete pillar. A knife glinted in the sickly flickering fluorescent lights.

He rasped, "You must be new here. Don't you know it's dangerous to be out at night? But don't worry mate. Hand over your wallet quiet like and I won't slit your throat."

"I don't think so."

The drifter took a step back in surprise at Falkner's manic grin. With one fluid movement the latter reached into his shirt pocket, throwing a small glass bottle he kept for occasions like these. He turned to go, laughing as the drifter clawed frantically at the acid eating into his eyes.

"Fool. Don't you know it's dangerous to be out at night?" Falkner mimicked, with an ugly look on his face.

Leaving behind the drifter's tortured wails, he climbed the corroded spiral staircase - up and out of the dingy subterranean heat and into the smoggy surface heat. His feet guided him instinctively down steaming streets while his thoughts were preoccupied with the deed to be fulfilled that night.

They say homecoming is always the hardest. After the isolation of life on the road, an assassin could go crazy in the claustrophobic confines of his old city, his cold-blooded resolve softened by the eyes of past lovers, his mettle weakened by the sights and smells of old haunts.

As he passed the Green Dragon on the corner of Main Street, the aroma of fresh noodles and old grease assaulted his senses. Subconsciously he shrugged it off, his mind on higher things.

Shegala's thugs used to meet there. Probably still do, he thought. Scourge of the Shadows, they had called him. A sinister smirk spread over his face as he imagined her reaction if she knew he was back, if she even knew that he was still alive. She was spared that terror, for then at least; he had more important business. The business of the Wizards of Hestrod.

Ahead of him, there was a hooker on the corner. She looked up with half-hearted hope as he approached.

"Looking for a good time, mister?"

"I doubt I'll get it from you." Falkner barely spared her a glance. She didn't look older than sixteen and she reeked of floral perfume. He kept walking. She flipped her middle finger at his retreating back.

"Jerk."

The garish neon of the bar district gave way to the menacing side alleys of lower downtown. Falkner followed the cracked pavement, lit erratically by the streetlights that had not been smashed. The jagged windowpanes of the apartments were mostly dark, only a few illuminated by the paint-can fires of the homeless. These familiar sights dredged the painful mire of memory, unburying things in Falkner best forgotten.

He had reached his destination, an unremarkable street, indistinguishable from all the others that smelled of rotting cabbage and human waste. The building could have been any of Tabriur's ramshackle structures occupied by only vagrants. But it wasn't.

His emotionless eyes appraised the mark of Hestrod on the flimsy door, drips of red paint visible only to him. He knew what it meant, what he had to do.

He knocked. Seconds later the mutilated door opened and a wizened grey head appeared. Pockmarks were still visible through the wrinkles of the man's face. One filmy eye brightened in recognition, the other a mass of scar tissue.

"Falkner my dear boy! I knew you would return. Come ins-" Whatever else he had been about to say was choked off in a wet gurgle as his throat was slit.

Outside the mark on the door turned to black and faded slowly.

Amber rubbed her hands together, trying to get the blood circulating through her frozen fingers. Dressed only in a miniskirt and white halter-neck top, she was ill-equipped to deal with the cold night. The street steamed around her sandaled feet and her legs were turning blue under her ripped fishnet stockings. She hunched closer to the building, hoping for some shelter from the wind.

Most of the other girls were too out of their skulls on drugs to notice the cold, but Amber had only been walking the streets for a few months and she still clung to her ideals. Getting addicted and spending all her food money on drugs was not part of the plan.

Skye and Nikita had gone off with clients, leaving her alone. Only one man had passed in the last hour and he had been rude to her.

Better rude than violent, she supposed pragmatically.

Just then she heard footsteps around the corner. She hitched her skirt up higher and put on her best business face.

"Well, hello there, mister. I've-"

A hand clamped over her mouth and she felt the tip of a knife blade on her throat.

"Hello, Lady Amber." The voice was low with menace. "The Wizards of Hestrod are very keen to meet you."

Amber's panicked mind was empty of all thoughts, save one. They've found me. It whirled around and around inside her head. They've found me. Oh please, no!

"You thought you could run from them, didn't you? Well, you were wrong, Lady Amber. So wrong. I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth now, but if you scream, I will kill you. Don't doubt that for a single second. Understood?"

Amber nodded, gingerly, still conscious of the knife near her neck. The hand withdrew, the knife did not.

"Good. And as for your two charming lady friends, my colleagues are taking very good care of them. Try to struggle, and life will become a lot more unpleasant for them."

Amber bit back her protest and allowed herself to be dragged around the corner. I can't let them hurt Skye and Nikita.

Her concern for her friends was misplaced; hardened by life on the streets, they could more than take care of themselves, but she still suffered from the childish notion that their fate was in her hands.

I have no choice.

He is eleven. Hiding behind a dumpster. His hair is wet with rain. The stranger's face is pockmarked. Falkner tries to spear a broken bottle into the fork of the stranger's legs. He simply steps aside and laughs.

"Close, but no cigar, boy. But I can teach you. Oh, the things I can teach you! How would you like to be an assassin?"

Falkner had run away. For good this time.

As usual, his stepfather had been beating his mother. As usual, the man was drunk. And as usual, the fight started over Falkner.

"Angela, you have to report him. His kind are a danger to society. You can't just allow monsters to roam free."

"How can you say that! He's not a monster. He's my son! Please don't ask me to turn him in, you know what they'll do to him."

"Either you report him to the authorities or I will. Make your choice."

"I can't. Please understand that. I cannot take my only child to have a brand burnt into his face that will mark him as a freak for the rest of his life."

"He is a freak. Just like his father."

"How dare you! James was twice the man you'll ever be!"

Screaming obscenities, he hit her, knocking her onto the floor.

Falkner, who was watching from the top of the stairs, ran down to help his mother. He got a punch to the face and a kick in the stomach for his pains. Angela struggled to her feet, shielding her son with her body. As the blows rained down on her, she managed to say the one word that mattered.

"Run!"

Falkner ran. He ran until he collapsed, exhausted and unable to move. He crouched there, behind a dumpster, hating his stepfather, hating the world, but above all, hating himself.

If he kills her this time, it will be my fault. Why did I have to be born different?

That was when Scarrow found him.