Silver Eyes

Note: This story contains mild foul language references to human trafficking and criminal activities.

Skin crackles in the heat, never knew that one. It felt like the hard skin of baked poultry, pulled sizzling hot from an oven. Too bad it was his skin doing the sizzling. Towery looked down at his arms, the skin had darkened weeks ago, and freckles had spread like road rash. No one back home would ever recognize him. He even had those stupid freckles across his nose, the ones that vanished when he turned twelve and finally outgrew his big brother.

‘Easy job, right boss, sure. Go to a nameless, filthy, smelly market in the dark side of Hell’s outhouse, transfer sixteen thousand kilos of high-volume goods across the Arabian Peninsula, through half of Africa and –

A glint of metal caught his gaze, Towery reacted, hand to hip, eyes locked on the threat of a weapon. The sudden spike of adrenalin fled his nerves before a rush of cold terror that left him cold and jittery. There was no weapon, the metallic glint was a man’s eyes.

‘Silver eyes. How can a man have silver eyes. He is a man, right?’ Stories of human-like robots and mechanized aliens filled his mind from a childhood of science fiction reading.

Towery walked through the scorching desert streets. His hazel eyes on the ‘guard’ across the way. Xio Ye’s guard, a big man with black licorice skin and ebony waterfall hair tied back in a long braid. The man oozed death radiated an all-consuming darkness. And those eyes. Those silver eyes stared through men. Through flesh and bone and into the darkest core of a man’s soul.

Towery shuddered. He had worked these markets long enough to know the old ones, the few rough souls that had lived longer than they should have and paid the price in soul-deep scars. That guard was one of them, although the man looked younger than him. Thirty-eight, ‘I need to settle down. This life will kill me and for what?’

The thoughts had come more frequently, wanting out. This wasn’t a life, it was a perpetual hustle, the next big haul, big job, big contract. Moving weapons, furs, animals both four and two legged. He moved what needed moving, and ensured the client moved their money for the goods and services requested. Services that most countries had laws against.

In the back of his mind a cartoon character whimpered ‘crime doesn’t pay.’ Oh, but it did. Crime paid very well; the benefits, however, were crap. He thought of his brother working in a Chinese space port out in a desert that no one talked about. Clif had it all, wife, kids, good house, rental properties dotted around the globe. The lucky sod had everything, and always complained about how money was so tight with six kids. That challenge sang like a siren to him now.

Towery sighed and focused uncomprehendingly on the dirt at his feet. When had he looked down? When had he dropped his guard? His dusky hands were dark shadows against the pale sand. A sickening twist in his gut jolted him from his distractions, and a sinking tingle along his shoulders told him he was used up. He felt eyes on him. A quick glance and his spine turned to ice, his knees jelly and he might have peed a little. ‘It’s just sweat, please let that just be sweat.’ He swallowed dryly and blinked. ‘That can’t be real.’

The big guard hadn’t moved. He could have been carved black granite, but the eyes. No longer raw gunmetal grey, shiny and new from the production floor, they glowed red demon fire in the sweltering dusk. The eyes shifted, and crimson tongues of flame followed their movement. Towery shuddered, involuntarily taking a step back.

The demonic eyes followed him, blazing trails shifting in the dying sunlight. The flames died, eyes blinked and the guard faded into the deepening shadows. Towery sighed, shoulders slumping. Memories of his parents quoting lines from different faiths and him scoffing at the power grab that defined all religions, only now, he wondered if there had been any truth to it all. Demons walked the earth, and he had just seen one.

“You look like shit, and smell worse,” Khafta slammed a shoulder into him as she walked by, her laughing eyes and feral smile reminding him why everyone called her The Mongrel when she wasn’t around. The supposedly Arab woman was built. He came up to her collar bone and glancing down when you talked to her usually got someone dead.

“Permission to shower, boss?” He asked after her, she made a gesture both rude and funny. He sighed and turned toward the low building they had as a temporary office. He entered the building, sweat freezing on his skin. The shock from heat to cold made him nauseous.

The hot mugginess of the shower, cold shock of the office complex, Towery swallowed hard. He dreaded stepping outside again.

The moon rose through the indifferent office windows, hostile blinds hooded the windows, making them glare at him – or the world outside? Towery shifted uncomfortably; his thoughts pulled in too many different directions.

A familiar voice echoed from the warehouse, familiar and haunting. “Riely?” he muttered, wondering if he was going insane. He stepped into the poorly lit room, lined with over two hundred massive dog crates. Only, they weren’t carrying dogs this time. Other kinds of pets, merchandise, the kind that made good dolls or two-legged mutton, depending on the buyer.

The voice rose again, familiar, he looked into the cage, staying concealed in the shadows, and swallowed bile rising in his throat. His niece had dropped her off at college months ago. Did his brother know she was missing? ‘Oh God, what have I done.’

Towery stopped, blinking. Riley was his favorite niece, but Clif’s unwanted child. The scandal of the affair, the strange woman arriving pregnant at their family reunion. The birth, her suicide. ‘Oh God, please no!’ Towery begged in his mind.

“Bro, need a favor, my girl’s going to college. We got a deal; they’re almost paying me to let her go …”

‘Clif, what did you do? Once the deal is made the Devil always collects her due!’ Clif sighed and slid backwards in practiced silence.

“Uncle Troy” Riley sobbed, shaking, “help me.” She cried into her knees, the poise his little tomboy always took when she faced something her rough and tumble tenacity couldn’t overcome. He felt a sad despair fill him as he looked at her with a merchant’s appraising eye. She had grown pretty the last two years, despite her love of machinery and physics, grubbing in the dirt and working in the local maker space shops, she had stayed tall and slender, pixie face and huge innocent eyes. Khafta would make a killing from the sale.

‘I can’t do this anymore.’ Towery – no Towery just crumbled as he dry heaved in a corner, his growing distraction making him a liability in this line of work. Troy turned from the warehouse, heading for Towery’s guard shift outside.

Troy knew that he was going to have to bargain with the Devil for Riley – no, not Riley – the girl, so many deals made, what would The Mongrel ask of him this time?