Arc TWO: Chapter 5

Uptown. Bad Weather Beat. 9:57pm.

Baritone followed a blood trail through the back entrance of a craggy, boarded up coffee house. Sopping wet, his black jacket clung to his stocky build, highlighting the raises and dips of compact muscles that flexed with his movements. His gun hovered near his left shoulder, enveloped in ghostly light, cocked and ready to do its awful work.

Outside, thunder boomed with the frenetic passion of heavy metal guitar riffs, and lightning bolts made a laser show of the plum-colored night. Raindrops the size of bullets barraged the pavement, strangely warm and muggy, like sweat rolling off the body of some dancing giant.

It was raining here, in Manehattan’s upper eastside—the Bad Weather Beat—and no where else in the city. The BWB (a nickname devised by the police who patrolled the often rain-soaked beat) sat directly beneath the city’s weather control plant, whose seasonal working crew, composed of rowdy juveniles and restless college students, loved nothing more than kicking up unscheduled storms.

For the young pegasi, life in the clouds was a non-stop party—a party that Baritone envied in a vague way. He didn’t miss his own youth, didn’t long for his brothers' taunts of his father’s grumbles and snorts, but he wanted what the young weather workers had—wanted their music and their dance, their haphazard syncopation and the boom, boom, boom they stomped out of thunderheads.

Of its own accord, the back door swung closed behind Baritone, and the storm-music dulled to a distant rumble. A faint coffee-grounds smell perfumed the otherwise stale air, seasoned by even fainter wisps of beer, homemade food and the comfort of like-minded congregation. It was dark, too, and warm and cozy. A decent place to die, but horrible for the work of stealing lives.

A short hallway delivered Baritone to a long-abandoned lounge. Yellowed stuffing spilled from rips in ancient upholstered furniture, and dry rot had claimed the wooden tables and chairs set up near the bar, perhaps months ago, perhaps years, reducing their finely crafted surfaces to something akin to dry, cracked skin. The blood trail faded as Baritone stalked farther into the lounge, then disappeared entirely when he reached the steps of a stage. He hung his hat on a nearby chair and sparked his stubby horn, illuminating the neck of a microphone stand.

He scanned the empty room, blinking against the steady trickle of blood that washed over his eye, rolled down his chin and dripped onto the floor. Scowling, he pressed a hoof to the gash above his eyebrow, grumbled, applied pressure, whipped his face, then grumbled some more.

The damn cut wouldn’t stop bleeding. He would have sealed it with a spell, but his grasp of healing magic was poor at best and cataclysmic at worst. Such a spell, cast by a novice like himself, might heal the wound without fuss, or peel a sliver of skin off his face. The thought made him cringe. He had witnessed such mishaps before, back when Tenor and Bass were still learning the basics of healing magic.

Pff, healing magic—who needed it? Baritone was comfortable with his mastery of basic spells—levitation, limited telepathy (he could only form psychic bonds with his siblings, or others he knew especially well)—but anything more he viewed as a weakness unique to unicorns, a crutch for the unresourceful to lean on.

Dusty speakers flanked both sides of the stage, and a piano sat near the back and off to right, its keys chipped and yellowed. Amazing—Baritone was surprised to have found a building like this still standing here in uptown Manehattan. Years ago, during the city’s most financially prosperous era, several of uptown's family-owned diners and coffee shops had been chased away by chain restaurants. This one was clearly overdue for demolishing; Baritone doubted anypony had set foot on that stage in a good, long while.

Coffee, food, live music played by the city's own local talent... It must have been a nice place, he mused.

“Come on out, Wisp, and lets finish this someplace else,” said Baritone, calling out to the bare walls and empty room. “If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not kill you in such a quaint little coffee house. Don't feel right. Feels... disrespectful.” He trotted up the stage steps. Halted. Waited for a response.

Outside, a thunderhead boomed. Inside, nothing, only silence.

“Or better yet,” he went on, “I'm thinkin’ I don't need to kill you at all. I got nothing against you, Wisp. We've worked together, drank together, even hid a few bodies together.”

He padded across the stage, looked behind the Piano.

“Me plugging your pal Twenty—that was just business. She stepped out of line, you know that, so I had to do something. And because of that, you had to do something.” He touched a hoof to his slit brow. “An eye for an eye right?—yeah, I get that. But look, I didn't kill Twenty, so there's no reason for you to kill me, right?”

He paused, waiting for a response that wasn’t coming.

“You know what I like about, Wisp? You aren’t like the other crazies running around stirring up shit in our fair city. You've always been a reasonable stallion—real fucking reasonable—and right now I'm betting that slug I in put in your flank is really startin’ to fuck with your day...”

It must have been, Baritone hoped, unless Wisp knew some healing magic. At least twenty minutes had passed since their skirmish out in the rain, and Baritone’s bullet had done more damage than the ghost-stallion's knife. Wisp was no fighter. He had made the obvious tactical error of confronting Baritone in the rain, where the falling water silhouetted his invisible frame. He had surprised Baritone, and even disarmed him for a moment, but from there he underestimated the stout pony's reflexes and combat instincts. Even with his small size and limited reach, the dwarf was a fierce fighter, especially at close-quarters.

It's that whore's blood in your veins, his father used to say with a snort. The 'whore' in question was Falsetto, a beautiful earth pony with a songbird's voice, and his father's mistress—the mare he blamed for tearing his family apart.

Although each of the Choir Boys shared the same father—expert vocalist instructor and all-around hardass, Basso Profondo Fach—Falsetto was Baritone's mother alone, and her blessing of earth pony speed and strength had come at the cost of weakened magic, or so the Fach family believed. Her blood had also cost him much of their respect. And their love.

It's that whore's blood...

Baritone heard his father's voice as blood dripped from the gash above his eye. She would have liked this place, Falsetto, the old whore—she would have been right at home on this stage, her lips inches from the microphone as she breathed her canary tunes through the speakers. She was good with her voice but better with an instrument; she could play them all and her favorite was the piano. Shutting one eye against the blood stream, and the other because he was tired and it felt right, he pictured his mother there, sitting at the piano, her front hooves coaxing music and magic from the dusty instrument.

Ah, and there it was now, her music, so fragile, so faint. Suddenly Baritone was a colt again, melting under his mother's soothing melodies. She was playing her favorite song, a simple piece she had learned as a girl, before moving to Manehattan from a small town where she was born.

“Winter wrap up, winter wrap up...” Baritone sang, recalling the lyrics with a dreamy half-smile. His voice was low and rich and smooth, perfect for bellowing blues songs at an audience of lonely souls. It was all wrong for the cheerful lyrics of his mother's favorite song; she had said so herself a long time ago.

“...Let's finish our holiday cheer,” his mother chimed in, her songbird lilt contrasting enchantingly with her son's melancholy growl. She played slower now, making a ballad of the usually chipper folk song.

“It suits you better this way,” she told him once between verses, her front hooves flirting with the keys of his father's grand piano. He could hear her now. He could...

Wait.

He could hear her now. Literally hear her!

His eyes snapped open to find the piano playing itself, and his gun barked, firing at the vacant space where his mother would have been sitting had she actually been there. The live round punched a hole in the wall.

“Sick little fucker,” he stammered. “Think you can play games with me? Get in my head?”

A phantom spotlight blinked to life and shined down on the stage, creating a bright halo where it landed. Baritone looked up in search of its origin, but found nothing.

“Winter wrap up, winter wrap up...” went his mother's disembodied voice. “'Cause tomorrow spring is here!”

“How do you know that song?” said Baritone. “Who told you about her? Answer me!”

The music grew louder.

Something moved to Baritone's left. He wheeled around and fired, fired, fired, fired, fired—emptying his revolver.

“Stop fussing and sing along with your mother,” the voice insisted. “You always wanted to be singer, didn't you? Well now’s your chance.”

“Shut up!” A veil of magic threw back his jacket and reached for his ammo belt, dropping sells as it fumbled to reload. “You're not her! Stop using her voice!”

Once reloaded, he shot the piano full of holes, but the music continued pouring out.

“Go on,” his mother cooed. “It's what you've always wanted.” Gradually, the microphone stand’s neck lowered to Baritone's height, and the spotlight shifted, roaming about the empty tables and chairs. Except now they were noisy with applause—an audience had appeared, all of them clapping or shouting encouragements up at the befuddled performer.

This wasn't real, he told himself, even as his stumpy legs carried him toward the microphone. This wasn't real, this wasn't real, this wasn't real...

And yet... and yet there was his father, Basso Fach, old and grizzled and breaded, smiling in that slight way his. It was more a smirk than a beam, but it was the best the old stallion could muster. Baritone had seen it many times before, but never directed at himself. It was an expression of pride reserved for Soprano and for Tenor and for Bass and for Alto—always for Alto—handsome Alto, clever Alto, tall Alto; Alto who had his father's strong jaw and dark eyes; Alto whose mother was a unicorn, an aristocrat, a proper mare; Alto who didn't have a drop of whore's blood poisoning his veins...

But this particular smile wasn't for Alto; it was for Baritone. He couldn't let his father down now. Not again. Standing before the microphone, he glanced over at the piano, shaking.

“Go on,” prodded Falsetto. “He's right there. Watching you. It's what you've always wanted, right?”

Baritone's breath caught. “M-Mother?” She was just as beautiful as he remembered.

She gave him a nod and began playing anew, starting the song at the beginning.

Warmth flowered in Baritone's chest. He shut his eyes and hummed at first, just hummed, his voice resonating with that special soulful quality that was his and his alone. All of his siblings were talented vocalists, and Alto was better, more naturally inclined, but none of them could lay themselves bare before a listener the way he could.

The cheers ebbed into silence, and, outside, even the storm fell quiet in anticipation of the coming performance. He opened his mouth to sing and...

...and nothing. Nothing came out.

But that was okay, really it was, these things happened, happened all the time in fact, he was just nervous, that was all, just nervous, he could do this, just needed to clear his throat, needed some water, yes, some water would help, but he had none, and that was fine, too, that was okay, just needed a second, one more second and he would be fine, just fine, yes, just fine.

He tried again after taking a second, and... nothing. Still nothing.

Audience members murmured among themselves. His mother cooed, assuring him it was alright—that everything was alright.

His father was silent. Before shaking his head and getting up to leave—to walk out on his failure of a son, again—he mouthed something that failed to climb above the murmurs, the coos and the piano music. Baritone was no lip reader, but he hadn't missed Basso Fach's departing message. He heard it loud and clear. Perhaps louder and clearer than ever.

Must be that whore's blood...

The music clanged stridently, more opera house pipe organ than quaint cafe piano.

...that whore's blood...

The crowd booed and stomped.

...whore's blood...

Thunder boomed in the distance. And then closer, much closer, a second boom echoed from outside—the unmistakable crash of hooves kicking in a door. Baritone wheeled to face the front entrance, gun at the ready... but held his fire when he saw sister's face peek through the doorway. She was sopping wet.

“Are you alright, Baritone?” said Bass. “Tenor and I heard gunfire; we thought you might have been harmed.” There was no concern in her voice, no compassion or real interest in her brother's well-being. She had assessed the situation and was relaying information. That was all.

Baritone blinked, then looked over at the bullet-riddled piano. “It was nothing,” he said with a sigh and shiver. “Just shooting at ghosts.” He lowered his gun. His heart was still pounding. “How did... how did you even find me?”

Tenor entered and answered the question. “A regular at your favorite bar informed us. He said you and Wisp had been fighting all over town, and that he last saw you sprinting down Clydesdale Boulevard toward the Bad Weather Beat.” He came closer, eyeing the cut on his brother's brow. “Is your injury severe?”

“No, no—I'm fine,” said Baritone. “We fought for a bit, but he got the worst of it. He... he showed me things, though. Things about me and Dad and... I don't know, it was confusing.”

“You can explain later,” said Bass. “Filthy needs us.”

“Now?” Baritone groaned, wiping blood from his face. “It's been a long, fucked up night. Whatever Filthy needs can wait till—”

“It's about Diamond Tiara,” Tenor cut in. “She's been kidnapped... By The Prankster.”

“What?” was the best Baritone could muster. He took a moment to gather himself, then said, “Okay. What are we doing about this?”

Bass promised to explain on the way. As they left through the back exit, Baritone, paranoid, exhausted and bleary-eyed, chanced a backwards glance over his shoulder. He thought he saw a ghost—not Wisp, but his mother—smiling at him from the end of the short hall. There was a bullet hole above her right eye, marking the spot where Baritone had shot and killed her a decade ago. The fatal wound was bloodless now; it didn't seem to bother her.

He wiped his own eye one more time, begging the gash to stop bleeding, then trotted outside, happy for the rain and the storm-music.