Free Ashes of the Fall by Nicholas Erik Page A

two stories, linked side-by-side with red-brick, winding stairs, and dusty lawns out in front. I walk to the corner and stare down the cross-street. I can actually see the river.
    This is the place where time—and the Circle, apparently—forgot.
    I head back to Jaime Aslan’s house, which is like all the others, but has a red door, neater trim—well maintained, with pride—and take the cool brass knocker in my hand. No shock greets me. Purely mechanical, the heavy thud of the century-old brass banging against the door, echoing through the halls.
    I hear a voice yell back, “I’ll buzz you in.” Just like that. I must raise an eyebrow, because the voice yells—I can tell it’s an old woman, now—at me, “Well shit, I ain’t stupid. I’ve been expecting you.”
    I try the knob, and it turns easily in my hand. I step into the foyer and close the door behind me. The ceilings are tall, twelve feet easily. The foyer leads into a hallway from which rooms spring off to the right. My footsteps pad against the hardwood as I check out the living room—empty, with faded furniture—and dining room.
    I get to the stairs, where I can either head up or continue on, towards the kitchen. A little candle glows on the table, by a window next to the backyard. The woman’s shadow stays still on the floor. I head into the kitchen, where the appliances were last replaced around 2010. They’re all clean, well-maintained, but look funny, like someone dug them up from museum storage.
    “I don’t think this would pass inspection,” I say, with a nod towards the stove. The woman doesn’t move. She’s sitting straight up, head facing forward. A shotgun is seated in her lap, where you’d expect a cat to be. “Good to see you again—”
    “Cut the shit,” she says with that gruff voice, “I know you’re not him. Matthew told me as much.” Taking the shotgun in her hands, she points the barrel’s nose towards the chair across from her. “Besides, I can smell the pussy on you from here. Matthew wasn’t much for the women-folk.”
    “Oh,” I say, not sure how to react to any of these statements, “I didn’t know.”
    “I ain’t got all the time in the world, so you best not waste it.” I guess that’s my second invitation to sit down. From the sound of it, there’s unlikely to be a third. She coughs as I pull out the chair. “Go on, now.”
    I do as I’m told and sit at the table. When I finally get situated and get a closer look at Jaime Aslan through the candlelight, I’m taken aback. Her eyes are cloudy, unseeing.
    “You’re blind,” I say.
    “You’re fucking observant,” she says. “Matthew picked well, sending you here.”
    “They’re killing all the engineers,” I say, “but you’re still alive.”
    “Oh, you think the little old Asian lady, in the middle of her quaint brownstone, she can’t defend herself?” She reaches up and puts the shotgun on the center of the table and then takes her hands down. “Those idiots couldn’t hit a fly with an atom bomb.”
    “They got everyone else.”
    “One of those SC boys sets foot inside this place, they get lit up,” Jaime says. Her fingers grope for something beneath the table. A button clicks, and I see a sudden web of laser beams appear, crisscrossing the hallway that I just walked across. “Ain’t no one on the list of approved scans except you and me.”
    “What’s it do?”
    “Ask him,” she says, reaching into the folds of her grandma jeans to pull out a pair of dog tags. They clink, real lonely on the table. Then another pair, and another, and another joins them. The stack begins to resembles a mountain of metal scalps. “Assuming you can séance.”
    “They still after you?”
    “Me and the good Chancellor, we came to an understanding after the ninth man’s spine was turned to ash,” Jaime says.
    I look at the shotgun and then back at her. For someone with well-earned trust issues, she clearly trusts me—or my brother. That’s a