By Sara Aziz
Hey readers! Chapter One of A Tale and Murder and Lies is ready! Enjoy, and please comment if you have any helpful comments!
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Chapter One
The Bounty Hunter
I wandered through the fog, fear beginning to mix with my grief. What was I going to do? I was all alone. As I felt myself begin to fall into my despair, I spotted a sign with a cursive script saying,
Glass Palace
Sculptors For Hire
I stared at the sign, my mind beginning to whirl. Maybe if I saved enough money, I could…
I don’t know what I would do.
But I need to do something, anything. I have to do something before I lose control. Of my future, of my now, of…me. As I approached the shop, I saw an old man with twinkling blue eyes looking at me through the window. The minute I opened the door, he said,
“Hello miss, I’m Raphael, and welcome to my Glass Palace! What can I get you?”
I cleared my throat and thrust out a hand.
“My name’s Annamaria Lopez, and I’m here about a job” Inwardly, I cringed at the shake in my voice. I desperately hoped he hadn’t notice.
A hint of surprise flashed on his face before he covered it with a wide smile. I barely had time to think of why before he was speaking again, his voice quick and sharp.
“Well then, all the better! Do you have any sculpting experience?”
I thought back to before the diagnosis, and I remember my mother teaching me how to mold clay, how to melt sand, and how to create masterpieces.
‘Everything will someday become necessary.’ she had claimed while forcing me to sculpt and mold the glass till my hands were shaking with exhaustion, and the sculptures were perfect.
“I have experience,” I told Raphael, the words sharper than I intended.
He narrowed his eyes before they took on a sly gleam.
“Well then, do you mind making me a little something? I do love my glass swans.”
Though what he asked was normal, I felt weirdly suspicious. I didn’t know why, though.
He led me to the back where there was sand, glass, molds, an oven, and everything I could possibly need.
“Make me a glass swan and you’ve got a job.”
He turned and hurried from the back room, while I searched through the molds. I sat back on my heels as I felt a strange feeling climbing up my throat.
A laugh tumbled from my lips. Shock froze me still as I marveled at the rusty, pathetic sound. I hadn’t laughed since my mother was diagnosed. I hadn’t laughed since she lost that bright glint in her eyes and hopelessness set in. I hadn’t laughed since I saw my father crying atop her coffin. I hadn’t, I hadn’t, I hadn’t. And to think I now laughed all because there was no swan mold. It’s funny how the universe works. And suddenly, I remember a saying my mother used to have on a tapestry above her bed.
“Until you’re broken, you don’t know what you’re made of. It gives you the ability to build yourself all over again, but stronger than ever.”
I put on my metal mask, and my heavy gloves, and I got to work.
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Raphael came in about an hour later to see my glass swan. With a smirk in his general direction, I put it onto the counter, peeled off my gloves, and noted his shocked and delighted expression with a grin.
“So, when’s my first shift?”
3 weeks later
It was a late day for me, around 1:00 AM. The shop closes at 12:00, but I needed to finish some glass wolves for a customer coming in today. Just as I was raising my blade to brush it to the backs of the wolves, I heard the crunch of glass breaking, a crashing sound that resonated throughout the whole of the shop.
A break-in.
Running out to the front, I barely noticed I was still holding the knife. There, a tall man stood, his hand bloody and glass-cut. I looked at the door and noticed a hole, right above the now-unlocked doorknob. He saw me and gave me a smile.
“Now, then, what do we have here?”
I clutched my knife tighter as he stepped closer.
He laughed.
I hate him,
I hate him,
I hate him.
“Oh my, we have a fighter here.” His smile turned into a sneer, his eyes to a darkened shade of twisted.
I hate you,
I hate you,
I hate you.
“Listen darlin’, All I want to know is where Raphael is. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Liar,
Liar,
Liar.
“You’ll never find him,” I hissed, despising the slight quiver in my voice.
He stopped smiling. Straightening his jacket, he sighed, as though he expected more from me. I barely had time to wonder why before his hand shot out and wrapped around my throat, lifting me above the ground as I began to choke.
“I will only ask one more time, darlin’. Where. Is. Raphael?” His eyes met mine, a beautiful dark shade of golden brown. They were so familiar…
I felt the world starting to go black. And with the last of my strength, I stabbed the knife.
Straight into his heart,
He stilled, and his grip on me became loose. With a violent kick, I shoved him away from me.
Right into a collection of glass sculptures.
I gripped my knife, nauseated by how easily the knife had slipped in. And yet… fascinated. Amazed. What’s wrong with me?
The figurines fell and shattered around him, each piercing him, tearing his skin, staining the carpet scarlet with blood. And I watched in morbid fascination as his eyes went white, and blood leaked from his mouth, then…
Death.
I heard the creak of a door, and I whirled around to find him watching me with inscrutable eyes.
“Raphael.” What was he doing here? Was he here the whole time?
Had he wanted me to die… instead of him?
I didn’t know why that hurt so much. I had known him for 3 weeks. So why did it feel like the knife was digging into my stomach, twisting with each second his hard blue eyes looked at me? He gave a long-suffering sigh.
“You stupid, stupid girl.”
He looked once again at the body, a hint of revulsion in his eyes, and for the first time, I noticed a tattoo on the inside of his left wrist.
A skull. He was a member of Десять черепов.
The Ten Skulls.
I just signed my own death sentence.
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The first rule of the Ten Skulls is never talk about the Ten Skulls. And never make them angry.
They were legends.
They were monsters.
They were murderers.
I stumbled to the ground, the world whirling in a horrible tornado of words, colors, and terrors. Why does everything have to happen to me? Why is my luck so horrible?
‘You foolish, foolish girl. Why didn’t you look? Why didn’t you notice? Ignorant, simpleminded fool’. the coldly amused voice in my head murmured like it always did. Like it always will. It whispered, it purred, it dug its claws in deep enough to hit everywhere it hurt the most.
How could I believe that things would actually go my way, just once? How could I be dumb enough to think that for once, my life was going right? Maybe I’m cursed. Maybe I did something horrible in a past life that I’m still being punished for. Or maybe Fate is just a cruel vindictive piece of garbage who loves ruining my life like it’s her stupid entertainment.
I pressed a fist to my mouth to stifle a sob as that horrible symbol kept repeating in my head again and again, the words engraved underneath ricocheting through my mind, leaving scars that bled with memories.
Memories I wished I could forget.
“О бессмертии и кровавых клятвах. Пусть мы никогда не умрем.”
On immortality and blood vows.
May we never die.
Raphael crouched in front of me, and it was as though his face was carved in stone, unreadable, cold, and unfeeling.
“Never fear your power. But never let down your guard.
The world is covered with the bones of nations that thought they would never fall.”
I stared at the wall behind Raphael blankly. What power? This was all wrong, wrong, wrong.
He gripped my chin roughly and forced me to meet his eyes, unfocused brown to sharp blue, delirious darkness to cutting light.
“The Ten Skulls only let those who are useful live, angel”
And I watched as he pulled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo.
A bloody skull with serpents slithering through the eyeholes, and a shattered wineglass, dripping venom, spilled atop it.
I looked at Raphael again and there was something in his eyes. Darkness. A darkness, of death.
One I recognized all too well.
I reached out and grasped his hands, his strong, wrinkled hand clinging to my shaky, scarred one. So different. And yet, the same.
His voice was quiet when he said,
“What do you know about bounty hunters?”
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Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed Chapter One: Bounty Hunter, and be prepared for Chapter 2 on April 18! Please like and subscribe!
Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.
Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)
Literary World 