The Empty Magazine
“Please come again!!”
Leaving behind the sandwich shop owner, who was seeing us off with a bow so deep his back was nearly at a right angle, we headed toward the building that served as both office and home.
“It was better than I expected.”
“Right?”
Jamie, who had shared the baguette sandwich with me in companionable silence, only offered her honest review once we had put a decent stretch of road between ourselves and the shop.
“But was there a particular reason you insisted on pressing money into his hand?”
I gave a light laugh at her question.
Nearly three weeks had passed since Vita had fallen into her sleep.
In that time I had visited every single food stall and shop still operating in Sector 12, and I had thoroughly cleaned out the ones that needed cleaning. As a natural result, the shops that survived my visits found themselves with more customers—fewer places to eat meant the remaining ones filled up. Simple math.
The sandwich shop we had just left on Vita’s recommendation was a little more special than the rest. It was the closest thing to actual food in Sector 12, so I had dropped by often enough. The locals noticed, embroidered a story around it—that I was protecting the place—and the rumor spread through the entire sector at impressive speed. That was why the owner had bent himself nearly double just now. Ever since word got out that I was looking after him, the freeloaders and the problem customers had vanished as if by magic. He had tried to refuse my money for that very reason, but, as Jamie had just asked, I had forced the payment into his hand and walked out anyway.
“Because it wasn’t something I intended.”
“Even so, the fact remains that the shop benefited from Your Reverence’s presence.”
“Jamie.”
“Yes, Your Reverence.”
After several weeks of sharing meals and a roof, she had adapted to me well enough to answer with a measured tension that never quite tipped over into stiffness. Compared to our first meeting, the change was almost startling.
“No one ever knows when or how a person’s heart will turn.”
“That’s true.”
“He might feel grateful right now, but will that last a lifetime?”
“Usually… doesn’t it?”
“If I had dragged him out of certain death, maybe. But a few extra customers and the disappearance of a few troublemakers? I don’t see that kind of gratitude lasting very long.”
Jamie’s thoughts clearly ran a little differently from mine; she nodded slowly, her expression turning thoughtful.
“Right now the gratitude is big enough that he won’t take my money. But once his finances improve and my visits become routine, will that feeling hold?”
“Well…”
I cut her off before she could finish.
“Of course it will hold—in a fashion. He’s connected to Mad Dog and dealing with a priest. What’s a man who makes sandwiches in a tiny shop going to do about it? Even if he starts resenting me, he’ll just have to swallow it.”
“……”
Her head bobbed slowly up and down.
“That’s why I paid.”
“…I feel like you skipped several steps in the middle.”
“It’s a riddle. Try to work out the answer by the time we get home.”
“Ugh… that’s a cruel problem to give someone who’s supposed to be on bodyguard duty.”
“Which is why there’s no penalty for getting it wrong, only a prize for getting close. Land near the right answer and I’ll grant you one request—within the bounds of conscience.”
“I applied for the physical side of the work because I hate using my head. Never thought the day would come when I’d have to think this hard.”
I didn’t answer, and she hadn’t really been looking for one. She simply matched my pace, eyes constantly sweeping the surroundings. The streets, however, were not nearly threatening enough to keep her on a razor edge. After weeks of walking these blocks and cracking the skulls of every shopkeeper who served something that barely qualified as food at prices that insulted the very concept of conscience, the number of residents inside my usual radius had thinned out to a noticeable degree.
I was turning that over in my mind when Jamie, still matching my stride, carefully caught hold of my waist and pulled me tight against her.
The only people in sight were three men across the street, a woman in an alley sucking on something that might have been marijuana, and a small boy walking straight toward us.
I glanced sideways at Jamie. Her eyes were locked on the boy, who had his cap pulled low and was coming our way.
“Jamie.”
“……”
I tapped the back of her hand lightly—it’s fine—and after a brief hesitation she let go.
Just as I thought.
Ms. Secretary had told me there were two kinds of people in these slums I needed to watch out for. One was the junkies.
Thud.
The other was the children who belonged to no organization.
“Your Reverence.”
The boy, whose head barely reached my hip, brushed past me. Jamie’s gaze followed the back of his head as he moved away—not the look one gives a child, but a cold, settled stare.
“Interesting.”
I never carried a wallet, and the fountain pen and notebook in my shirt pocket sat well out of a child’s reach, so both were safe.
“The calf should be fine, right?”
Jamie moved fast. She spun on her heel, a dagger sliding down from inside her coat sleeve into her hand, and flung it after the boy in one smooth motion.
“Aaaagh!!”
Just as he was about to disappear around the corner, the boy went down with a pitiful scream.
“Not a gun, I see.”
“I didn’t think you intended to kill him.”
Her words were both right and wrong. I didn’t cut children any slack. The only reason that boy was still breathing was that what he had done didn’t quite rise to the level of a death sentence. That was all.
I walked toward the boy, who was crawling across the ground, unable to deal with the dagger buried in his left calf. Jamie moved with me. When the distance between us and the child had closed to about ten paces—
“Uwaaah!!”
The boy, still hunched over on the ground, let out a snarl of pure spite and shoved a silver pistol— the one that should have been holstered at my waist—straight at us.
Click. Click.
His finger worked the trigger with frantic energy, but no muzzle flash, no bullet. Only the dry sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber.
“Sorry, but the magazine’s empty.”
“……!?”
That was also why Jamie hadn’t reacted. On the very day I received the pistol I had impulsively put a hole through the forehead of a shopkeeper who was no longer among the living. After that, whenever Jamie and I went out together, I carried it with an empty magazine seated in place.
“If you’d taken anything else I would have let you walk. But you had to go and steal a gift. That I can’t just overlook.”
“Ugh…!!”
He put what he clearly believed was real strength into his grip, but he was still just a soft-cheeked child. A light squeeze and the silver pistol was back in my hand.
“What will you do with him?”
“Hmm.”
I considered Jamie’s question for a moment. Most people in his position would have been clutching at my pant leg and begging for their lives. This little one only glared up at me with the eyes of a trapped wildcat, hissing through the pain.
“Are all the kids in the slums this vicious by nature?”
“It’s not uncommon.”
“‘Not uncommon,’ is it.”
The moment he had pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger without hesitation, his fate had already been decided. Still, something about the boy had sparked my curiosity, so I decided to put that decision on hold for a little while.
“We’re taking him with us.”
“Understood.”
Jamie was, as always, quick.
“Mmmph!?”
The instant I gave the order she produced a handkerchief, seized both of the boy’s cheeks hard enough to force his mouth open, and stuffed the cloth inside.
“Some of them bite their own tongues.”
“That bad?”
“Yes. Girls might still have value as slaves, but a weak little boy isn’t even worth that. Most of them get sold off as test subjects.”
“I see.”
From what Ms. Secretary had told me, they didn’t simply snatch every child they saw and sell them. Still…
I should study the rules of the slums a little more carefully.
I turned, and Jamie, still gripping the boy by both cheeks, hoisted him up and fell in beside me.
“He didn’t look like he was from Sector 12. Do the kids move between sectors much?”
“No. Unless there’s actual work involved, neither children nor adults leave the sector they’ve claimed as home. Every sector has its own unspoken rules, and outsiders get targeted fast.”
“So children aren’t an exception.”
“Correct.”
From the sound of it, the boy had come into Sector 12 ready to die. His face didn’t look particularly starved, either. That only made me more curious about why he had crossed the line.
“Your Reverence.”
“Yes?”
We had reached the building and I was about to set foot on the stairs when Jamie, still holding the boy in one hand, stopped me.
“I’ll go in first.”
She wore an expression I had never seen in the three weeks we had lived under the same roof. She took the lead up the stairs, opened the door to the second floor where Vita was sleeping, and—
“Looks fine.”
“……”
There was no sign of an intrusion. Even so, Jamie’s face remained hard as she dumped the boy roughly onto the floor and stuck close to my side as I headed for the bedroom where Vita lay.
“Vita’s fine too.”
She was still lying neatly on the bed. I started toward her to check her condition.
Whooosh—!!
A violent rush of air, and in the blink of an eye two women tangled together and vanished over the far side of the bed. Vita, whom I had thought was still asleep, had bolted upright and lunged for me; Jamie, already glued to my side, had thrown herself at Vita in turn.
“Uuuuugh!!”
“……”
I walked around the bed and found Vita face-down on the floor, both wrists pinned under Jamie’s knees. The look on Vita’s face had gone past mere excitement; there was actual murder in it.
Jamie never took her eyes off the woman she was sitting on. I spoke to her casually.
“Ease up a little and bring her out.”
“Yes.”
We left the bedroom and closed the door. A moment later a series of dull thuds began to filter faintly through the wood.