Page 256 of Rage

Sin & Sacrifice

By: Shar Khan

Chapter One

Silver Tyrant

Joseph Singh, the youngest of the heirs, had one sister—older by two minutes—and two brothers—older by eight and five. He hated them. He hated all of them with every bone in his body. Trust the feeling was mutual, and that’s why he’d been strewn across the wooden grounds of his suite, bleeding out from the silver bullet in his neck.

His pants lay twisted around his ankles, and the girl he’d taken from the nearby elementary school was still draped across his bed. He didn’t have time to fulfill his vices, for the bullet came from the shadows at his back, and he had a feeling he knew who it was.

She wasn’t known as the Reaper or the Maiden. Vigilantism didn’t interest her, though it was clear she had the skill for it. As she moved through the bedroom, Joseph heard the sharp click of her combat boots on the wooden floor. The gun she carried was Omar Singh’s, but the suppressor that muted the shot? That was hers.

Her dark hair was a long braided tail held together by a band, and as she stopped to cast her gaze over the child on Joseph’s bed, he saw the first inkling of utmost disgust creeping over her face.“I told Mother we should’ve killed you when you werea boy.” Her voice had either set in from the brisk winter winds outside or the inhalation of her black-gold cigarettes. “You’ve always been a degenerate, but I suppose I can’t blame you. It runs in the family after all.”

She stripped the blazer off her arms and draped it over the child’s legs. Then, with a sigh, she sat on the corner of the mattress.

That’s when Joseph saw it; the kohl that dripped down her cheeks like streams of war paint. The tattoos that swept down the valleys of her arms. The gold jewels that hung from around her neck matching the blown-out pupils that looked down on him; a dark angel come to claim justice.

She was a Singh who walked the hollows of Nameless City. But now, faced with the predicament before her, she had become something else. A silver bullet in an empty chamber, a reluctant savior of children swallowed by darkness. Yet it was that terrible smile she wore that revealed what she truly was. A reminder.

“Mother loved you most. What a fucking insult… And to think she protects you even when you do something like this.” She gestured towards the child at her back, the one she refused to look at now. “They’re helpless, vulnerable creatures of our society. You? You’re a parasite that needs to be eradicated.” She leaned forward, elbows digging into her thighs, the gun dangling loosely from her fingers as though it were an afterthought. “I said that too about Jackson. Right before I killed him. Remember?”

Joseph did.

He remembered the sound, a scream, and a snap. He remembered the palace in an uproar. He remembered the look on her face when everyone pointed up the gilded steps and screamed,“A jinn with red eyes and war paint! Look at her!”

“The next thing I know, I’m boarding a plane to London, rising into the Guild as one of the finest echelons that could everexist. I grew to enjoy the taste of wine and women, the sight of a briefcase overflowing with cash, and shrines for the dark gods that answer my call when no one else does.” She popped the cartridge open and showed him its intricate little insides. “I can’t die. I’ve won three lives from Baal in a round of blackjack, and I hear he’s splitting his tongue open with rage.” With an extra bullet in the chamber, she prepped the gun and set it against the side of her head. When she pulled the trigger, it locked. When she pointed it back at him, it burst from its insides, nuzzling an inch from Joseph’s hand.

He choked while his sister tilted her head back and laughed, the sound louder than a bullet ever could be.

Staring up at the ceiling, she continued, “Fatima used to call me Jinn. All the men in our family have done worse than I ever will, but I’m Accursed because I learned how to talk to the shadows and bend them to my will, the same ones who helped our great ancestors carve a hollow in the earth and tether us to them—interlopers through and through.” She moved off the bed then. Knelt onto the wood, and peered into Joseph’s decaying soul. “When you see them, let them know who sent you.”

“Jo-Jos-Josephine…” he gurgled.

“In the flesh.”

Then, she raised her gun and shot him between the eyes.

One Singh down, two to go.

Chapter Two

Darling Scar

The Doll House could be seen from three counties away, flashing like a beacon in the night. A neon pink sign that hung from the side of its building pulsed in a languid manner. The ever-changing outline of a girl with long, flowy hair parting as she slid down a pole gave the illusion that Upper Encino hosted some of the finest shows for the finest gentlemen, but even the Federation knew the truth.

They were the ones that helped cover up all the little wrongdoings for the right price. Pigs in uniforms, smiles that never reached their hollow eyes, hands that touched even though they weren’t supposed to.

Scarlett blinked up at it, numb to her senses. It was so different seeing the Doll House from outside, and while many would say it was liberating to have earned their bodies back from years of servitude, she shook as the brisk winter winds came sweeping in from the sea.

The fur coat that had been delivered to her room hung off her shoulders, letting smooth, white skin grow flush from the cold. She looked like a million dollars with silver hair cascading over one shoulder, and while Pigs came lusting after her blood, thesight of white chains wound tight around her neck made it clear who she really belonged to.

A woman like Scarlett Emerson didn’t step into the Red-Light District of her own free will. She was dragged from Lower Salem, torn from her mother’s embrace while her father had been counting hundreds by the lamplight.

Then, the First Heir walked through the districts and caught sight of her beauty on the northern terrace. He fell in love, and House Mistresses began telling the younglings about how their work for the prestigious Syndicate would earn them a place alongside the Highborns.

Scarlett would beg to differ, but if she did, she would lose more than just her title.

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