52. Louie

What a time to be in the organ business. Dragons blowing guilds up. Guilds blowing themselves up. The world had gone crazy and there was only one thing he was certain of: everyone could use a little bit more magic right about now.

“King Louie, we have received reports that a glider has fallen into the remnants of Dortam.”

After the destruction of Mercury Town, Louie had decided it was time to invest a bit in the real estate business. Dortam had always been dangerous, but it was taking a new turn with the past year’s events. He found a comfortable spot down along the main train line out of the city. Close enough that his men could pop into the Revos’ world whenever they needed something, but far enough away that he was well removed. Conveniently, it also positioned him better to run down the line in the opposite direction to Ter.5.2, which opened a whole world of opportunity for exporting.

Business had been going so well that he was considering moving operations permanently in that direction. Or even onto Ter.4 altogether. He’d been contacted by two very interesting Ravens at the behest of a certain girl he once did business with for the infamous White Wraith of Dortam. It almost made him feel bad for selling out young Florence to the Dragons. Almost.

But all was well that ended well. The girl clearly survived and was none the wiser to his decision to trade her for a few organs. Organs he never got.

“Would you like us to investigate?” Ralph asked.

Louie took his eyes away from his personal harvesting operation. “Let’s continue this upstairs. The smell is overwhelming.”

Ralph followed him upward. They switched back in a half dozen flights of stairs up to ground level, and a few more to Louie’s new “throne room”. The depth helped hide the scent of harvesting, so Louie had purchased the building immediately when he had discovered the depth of its underground portion. Bloody cogs, how he loved the Revolvers and their need to build a bunker into everything.

Not to mention, it had an excellent view of the mountains of Ter.5 that turned into a front-row seat to watch Dortam burn days before.

“Has there been word on if it took off again?” he asked.

“No reports of such.”

“Any Dragon activity?”

“None seen.”

Curious, Louie thought to himself. He had good instincts. It was part of what made him so effective for so long. Good instincts, determination, and the proper amount of ruthlessness to tie it all together. They lived in a cold world, no point in rewarding it with warmth.

“I shall go investigate myself, I think.” Louie slipped on a pair of leather gloves, carefully selecting the proper goggles and mask to match. Dortam was a smoking wasteland.

“Do you think that’s wise?” Ralph folded his arms.

“My men work harder when they think I could appear at any moment,” Louie explained. “Furthermore, there’s something odd about this one. A Rider returning alone?”

“Perhaps they were checking to see if the guild was truly destroyed?”

“That explosion rattled the world itself.” Louie chuckled and shook his head. “Even if that were true, why has the glider not left yet?”

“Perhaps it has, and was unseen.”

“And, if such is the case, I will just be checking to ensure my men are leaving no stone unturned, no valuable untaken, and no organ left to rot.”

Ralph knew better than to continue objecting when Louie had made up his mind. He knew who paid his salary, after all.

Trains had long since stopped running along the main tracks into Dortam. The only engines that went in and out were small vehicles fashioned for single-track runs. Fast little things lifted right from the high-speed thoughts of the Ravens themselves. Louie didn’t know the first of how it worked, but the two Ravens, Will and Helen, had agreed to supplying schematics for his Rivets to reproduce as a sign of good faith in their business agreement to funnel weaponry to them from the Revos. What two Ravens wanted with the guns, Louie didn’t know nor care to find out.

He, Ralph, and two others kept on retainer whose names Louie never bothered to learn, sped toward Dortam in the late night.

The center of Dortam, where the guild used to be, was nothing more than a smoldering crater. Louie had kept his ear to the ground, following the destruction, trying to make sense of the presence of Dragon Riders and sudden silence that seemed to sweep across Loom. He was slowly gaining a picture that explained why the Revolvers would blow their own guild five ways to rubble.

The refinery still burned, keeping other parts of the city aflame with it. Buildings still tumbled. Smoke still darkened the air in all-too-quiet Dortam.

Louie couldn’t be bothered for any of it. The days slipped from one to the next, and people struggled. Everyone fought so hard for everything they thought was so important and, in the end, what did it get them? Piles of ash.

“Ralph, tell your men to seek out my other excavators and have them all report here with their current findings for my review,” Louie instructed. “You will lead me to where this supposed glider landed.”

Ralph did as he was told, sending off the other men and starting through the carnage in the general direction of what was once Mercury Town. Louie was winded within minutes, and questioning his decision to come out at all. It was hard work scaling all the rubble. He had people for this.

But the prospect of a Dragon glider was far too enticing. Technology he didn’t get his hands on often, at least not until the first glider crashed in New Dortam months ago. If he had a few more mostly-intact machines, he might be able to finally reverse engineer the mechanics the Rivets kept under such careful lock and key. That would really accelerate his business in new and exciting ways.

It was nearly enough to make him giggle with glee.

“According to the reports, it should be somewhere around here.” Ralph helped Louie onto the top of a fallen building, trying to get a better vantage.

It was hard to see through the darkness, even harder with the perpetual haze that clouded the air. “Do you see anything?”

“No, I—” Ralph stopped and pointed. “Over there.”

Louie followed his finger, looking through the night. He squinted, trying to see what his right hand man had seen. Just when he was about to regard it as nothing, his eyes caught a flash of gold.

“Yes, yes!” He clapped his hands gleefully. Oh this was fun.

They made haste across the remaining distance. Ralph was his strong arm, pushing materials out of the way and clearing a path for them to get to the glider. It was further than he expected from their previous vantage. But the trip would be well worth it, Louie kept reminding himself whenever his clothing snagged on a metal snarl or he had to climb over a particularly steep chunk of concrete.

They approached the glider, and both stopped at the same time. Louie didn’t need to ask if Ralph saw what he saw. For there was no denying the spot of white shining in the faint moonlight as if protesting the inky blackness that tried to close in around the figure.

The glider was half atop the woman, a Chimera by all appearances. But there was something different about this one. Louie stepped forward.

“It may not be safe.” Ralph stopped him.

“Anything worthwhile rarely is.” Louie grinned madly, brushing him away.

Ralph stayed in his place.

Louie approached the semi-crushed figure with interest. For the first time, he saw the creature up close. There was no mistaking it—the unique coat alone was proof enough—each detail met every first-hand account perfectly.

The White Wraith was a woman.

But that was not Louie’s most important revelation of the day. No, there was something far, far more curious about her. A spear of iron was stabbed directly through the side of her stomach. Her body was, no doubt, struggling to heal the wound despite the presence of the foreign object. But no magic could remove the iron, so blood continued to ooze around it before slowly fading into the night air.

Louie squatted next to the unconscious woman, touching his fingertips lightly against the wound. Sure enough, the blood was warm. It was truly coming from her. He had encountered many valuable things over the years and dealt in everything from secrets to organs, weapons to schematics. But Louie had never found something so rare, so precious, and so dangerous that it could change the world.

He grinned, already thinking of the possibilities for how he was going to work this discovery to his advantage. Not only did he have what he well suspected to be the infamous White Wraith of Dortam in his clutches, he also had a Chimera the likes of which Loom had never seen. Though he didn’t understand exactly how, he knew the creature before him would shake the very foundations upon which their world was built.

He had what guilds wanted and Dragons feared.

He had a Chimera that bled gold.