Bloody Trade Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 6

The crowd cheered as the signal announced the start of the race, and the runners began dashing along the course. Within the first few seconds, one of the runners was struck by the swinging pendulum blades at the first obstacle, causing the person to fall apart into a pile of bloody pieces. Despite the gory scene, the audience continued to roar with excitement.

Sitting in the midst of the stadium filled with onlookers, Matt dug his left hand into the popcorn bucket on his lap, and fed a handful into his mouth. His right hand was covered by a red glove, concealing its distinctive appearance.

“Oh my god! That looks so real!” Matt’s ears heard someone saying.

“Think anyone will make it this time?”

He shook his head at how easily these people were fooled by the beautiful lie the promoter of this theme park sold to them, but continued to watch.

The rest of the course was just as deadly; running through a path filled with arrow-shooting penguin turrets, jumping across bouncy spheres over a pool of acid, crossing a swaying bridge over a pit of fire, until the final one which was a game of falling platforms. Despite the large number of participants, each obstacle continued to reap their toll of lives, the innocent audience not realizing that the deaths they were seeing were actually real. 

Matt reached for more popcorn, only to find his bucket empty. With a sigh, he grabbed his walking cane and got up, carefully making his way past the people seated in his row to head for the nearest exit. They courteously made way for him, assuming his cane was for some handicap.

Just after he tossed the bucket into the nearby bin, he felt his handphone vibrate, and answered it.

“Yes?”

The sound that came through was garbled, but he understood it nonetheless.

“A new customer? As in, really new?”

“...”

“Alright, I’m coming back right away. Seems like I arrived too early anyway. Besides, I’ve already got the main thing I came for.” Matt held up a glass vial in his right hand.

Within the vial were tiny shards of red crystal, which sparkled forebodingly in the light coming from the stadium’s exit.

“So much of it was left around for anyone to pick up. How careless.”

Tucking the vial away into a pocket, he walked over to a nearby door and touched it with his red hand, causing its surface to be dyed red in an outwards spreading wave. Matt then pushed it open and walked through, and the door reverted back to its original appearance soon after. When a squad of gun-wielding guards came by to investigate later, they found no sign of the person or any clue of how he could have vanished from their cameras.

Inside the Bleed, a young boy with blond hair looked around curiously at the red interior design. His clothes were made out of rough material, resembling an olden tunic. Despite that, his appearance was practically cherubic, and anyone who looked at him would have described him as such. The second thing they would have noticed about him was the white feathery wings that grew out from his back.

He had stumbled across this place while exploring one of the many ruins that littered the world he was on. During one of his explorations away from his adoptive tribe, he felt a strange calling and followed it out of curiosity. It led him to a dangerously-leaning structure that was only accessible to someone who could fly, and he found a strangely-glowing red door. Passing through it led him to where he now stood, in a place that was bigger than the structure should be, and with a gravity that didn’t match the initial tilted incline.

“Welcome to my shop.”

The boy spun around at the sound of the voice, hands raised in preparation to fight. Despite his youth, his strength was far beyond his childish appearance. Standing in the doorway of a door that wasn’t there earlier was a red-haired man, dressed in strange, cleaner clothing.

“Peace. I mean no harm.”

The language was unfamiliar to the boy, but somehow, he felt like he understood the meaning.

“You… who?” He asked awkwardly.

“A shopkeeper. My name is Matt. What is yours?”

With every word the man spoke, understanding clicked into place within the boy’s mind, knowledge seemingly filling his head out of nowhere.

“My name… Sanguinius.” The boy introduced himself with the name his adoptive parents gave him.

Matt nodded to him. “Nice to meet you, Sanguinius.”

“Nice to meet you.” Sanguinius echoed.

Matt studied the strange boy curiously; despite his angelic appearance, the boy had one of the bloodiest fates lurking on him. There was a sensation as though he had been marked by a Great entity, with capital G, and yet…

“Do you know what a shop is?” He asked.

“Shop…” Sanguinius pondered the word. “Trade?”

Matt nodded. “Exactly. In this shop, I trade many things, in exchange for blood.”

He pointed to the sign indicating that only blood or barter was accepted, and the boy, despite seeing that script for the first time, recognized its meaning in an instant.

“Blood? Like my tribe? We… Folk of Pure Blood.” The boy gave the name of the tribe that raised him.

“That is correct. If you came to my shop, then there are two possible reasons. One, that you need something. The other is that you want to trade away something.”

Sanguinius looked down at himself, with nothing else but his rough clothing on him. “I have… nothing.” He admitted honestly.

“Then what do you need?” Matt replied instantly.

Thoughts raced through the boy’s head, faster than most people could conceive of. The planet his tribe lived on was extremely harsh, with pollution and radiation making it all too easy to die, let alone the dangerous wildlife or the cannibalistic mutants that inhabited the place. He could think of many things that could make the tribe’s lives easier, and more than just that, he wanted to. Sanguinius knew that he wasn’t normal, and in the death world he was on, that usually meant mutation, and mutants were best killed off early on, rather than spared and raised like he was. He wished to return that compassion his family had shown him.

“Anything. Anything you have.” Sanguinius boldly asked.

A smile spread across Matt’s face, one that wasn’t malicious nor friendly, just triumphant in benefiting from the deal they were about to make.

“Then let us do business.”

When Sanguinius left the shop, he did so with a quickly fading pallor, and was carrying several large bags filled with all sorts of tools and equipment. Apparently, the blood of Sanguinius was extremely valuable to the strange man Matt, who had extracted a large quantity of it from the young boy’s body in exchange for all the items and various enhancements his awareness told him should not be possible. His wings initially struggled to carry him with all the extra weight, but with the enhancement to his vitality, he adapted soon enough and began making his way back to where the tribe was camping. 

As he flew across the wasteland, Sanguinius thought back to what Matt had told him, and resolved to return to the shop in the future for more answers. The grim prediction of his future resounded within him in a profound way, matching the slivers he sometimes glimpsed and had yet to share with others, such that he felt driven to learn more.

Then, Sanguinius’s sharp eyes caught sight of a giant creature in pursuit of some of his tribe’s members, and quickly dove down to rescue his precious family. Those men would later tell tales of how the angelic boy, not even a Terran year old, cut the giant fire scorpion to shreds with his crimson blade. The same boy would then share many similar relics with his tribe, and forge them into a powerful force that no band of mutants could threaten.

…

“Here’s your sundae, Matt.” A large glass cup of strawberry ice cream topped with cream and cherries was placed in front of him.

“Thank you, Florean.” 

The wizard and owner of Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor smiled at the redhead, and turned to handle some of his other customers. While there weren’t so many with the students still in Hogwarts at this time of the year, Diagon Alley still had enough traffic that the ice cream parlor still saw some business. Matt was just patronizing a fellow business owner’s shop in the colder season, especially since the man’s ice cream was delicious.

As Matt ate with one hand, the other was busy writing in his journal. The blood of Sanguinius was impressively complex, containing many secrets that he could barely identify, and probably concealing even more. The same could be said for its Blood Code; the gifts it carried was many times that of those he had gathered from the Gaol, both in quantity and strength. If Matt could break its encryption somehow, he might be able to trade it for more valuable items, or use the generous quantity he collected in more powerful rituals.

Matt was halfway through his second sundae when a snowy owl came landing down in front of him, carrying a letter in its claws. He blinked at its intense gaze, even as the owl barked at him and stuck out the leg carrying the letter. Taking it from the bird, he slowly opened it while noting that the owl remained where it was.

“Waiting for a reply?” He asked, and got another bark in response. “Alright. Just hold on.”

He read through the letter, which was from Harry Potter, whom Matt had met months prior. It detailed the strange events its writer had experienced on Halloween, and some of the strange occurrences he had observed in the time since then. 

Matt finished reading and looked up as Florean put out a bowl of water for the owl in a kind gesture. 

“Florean, you’re quite knowledgeable on magical history, aren’t you? Have you heard of the Chamber of Secrets?” He asked, as the bird started taking gulps of the water.

“Hmm… it sounds familiar.” The friendly-faced man crossed his arms thoughtfully. “Isn’t it one of the Hogwarts myths?”

At Matt’s prompting, Florean Fortescue shared what he could remember; one of the four founders of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin, had built a secret chamber he kept from the rest, and when he fell out with the rest, had sealed something within that chamber for his heir to unleash in the future. Of course, many had searched for it in the years since then, but apart from a lone incident about fifty years ago, no sign of the chamber had ever been found. Overall, it sounded more like a fake story that someone came up with. Matt thanked the chuckling man, who went back behind the counter.

Matt began writing his reply on a new piece of parchment.

‘Dear Harry, thank you for writing. If there really is a Chamber of Secrets, containing some horror that only the Heir of Slytherin is able to control, it is highly likely that it is some kind of magical serpent.’

He followed up with his reasoning, such as how Salazar Slytherin could speak to snakes, and how a magical creature could act without leaving the same signs a powerful spell would. Matt ended the letter with advice to look up the type of magical snakes in the Hogwarts library, which was sure to contain bestiary books with the relevant information. 

Folding up the letter, he tapped it with his wand, casting a charm that would protect the parchment from the weather, before handing it over to the patiently waiting owl. It took off immediately afterwards, flying back north to its owner.

Matt watched it leave, feeling as though he had caused a slight alteration of fate with his action. A slight buzz on his wristwatch drew his attention, and he quickly finished off the rest of his ice cream before leaving.

Some time later, back in the Bleed, two men got up dazedly from the medical chairs they had been sitting in for the past week, which showed in the slight stench of body odor and the growth of facial hair. Despite having spent so long in the same position without food or drink, their bodies were only slightly stiff and not bearing any signs of deterioration. Unbeknownst to them, they also carried something extra: mystic runes that existed only within their mind, and yet enhanced their bodies slightly beyond normal.

“Good morning,” Matt greeted them, holding out towels, “I think you two would like to freshen up before anything else.”

“What… I feel like I had the worst nightmare…” One of them mumbled, his eyes shadowed with lingering trauma.

“Don’t think too much about it, it’s just a side effect of the process,” Matt told him. “Think about the hot shower that’s waiting. Doesn’t it sound lovely?”

The second man nodded, and they hesitantly followed Matt into a large toilet with two shower cubicles. A good several minutes later, they came out looking much cleaner and well-trimmed, and carrying their dirty clothes in the laundry bags provided. They stared at Matt, who was waiting with his hands clasped in front of him, but before they could say anything, one of the men’s stomach growled.

“You must be hungry. Come, I have a reservation at a steak restaurant.”

The pair of men silently followed Matt to the garage, where the same van they had arrived in was waiting for them. Once again, they got into the vehicle, which drove out of the place following a route that they had no idea about. It parked near a steak restaurant, and the three of them were quickly seated at a table, with Matt ordering sirloin steaks for all of them. The two men dug into their food with gusto, their hunger driving them to order seconds.

Partway through their meal, they were joined by a fourth man.

“Matt.” The newcomer greeted the redhead.

“Rico. Good to see you again.”

“Likewise.” Rico nodded in a businesslike manner, but his eyes were asking a question.

“The sharpening job is done,” Matt said quietly, and took another bite of his steak.

The man turned to look at the other two, who slowed their eating pace slightly to nod, signaling that they were feeling fine. Rico looked back at Matt, who was finishing the last of his meal.

“Good work. Let me cover the bill.” He offered.

Matt’s eyes widened slightly, then nodded before standing up. “Thank you. I’ll be leaving first then.”

“See you around, Matt.”

“Rico.”

As Rico waited for the food he ordered to arrive, the van started up and drove off into the night, once again vanishing to parts unknown. A small electronic device was left where the vehicle was parked earlier, a move made by Rico’s superiors, yet again countered by Matt.

Afterword: Once again, felt a huge writer’s block and decided to revisit this story. I hope I did a good job on making it entertaining to read.