The Don’s Special Delivery

The rain on Neo-Chicago’s dome made a sound like static on a dead channel. Xel’Thraz wiped condensation from his three primary eyes and adjusted his human-passing glamour. The creature in the cage wouldn’t stop making that godawful trill. Xel couldn’t tell if it was singing or dying.

“Shut it,” he hissed, poking a finger through the air holes. “You’ll be back in the jungle soon enough, birdie. If you’re good.”

The thing had cost him half his quarterly profits. Mauve feathers that shifted into ultraviolet when viewed from certain angles. Beak like polished obsidian that could supposedly crack titanium. The Vermilion Shriek-Thrush from Epsilon Eridani was extinct everywhere except his shop—and now this cage.

The Citadel loomed ahead, a bone-white spire festooned with holographic gargoyles that tracked visitors with ruby eyes. Three centuries of technology wrapped around a core of pure, distilled fear. The Outfit had perfected intimidation long before humans reached the stars.

“Name and business?” The doorman had six arms, each ending in a different weapon. Pure Molvanian muscle, probably gene-grafted into loyalty.

“Xel’Thraz. Monthly payment for Zaffre District.” He held up the cage. “Special delivery for the Don himself.”

The guard’s nostrils flared. “The Don doesn’t take payment in livestock.”

“He requested this specifically.”

A lie. But a necessary one. Three months behind on protection, and Xel had heard what happened to Grugach the fish-monger. They’d found parts of him in seventeen different recyclers across the city. The Don had sent recordings to everyone on the payment list.

The guard waved him through with three of his arms. Inside, the Citadel resembled a pharaoh’s tomb crossed with a casino. Gilded surfaces everywhere, plush red carpeting that swallowed footsteps, and an oppressive silence that made the bird’s occasional trills sound like screams.

“The shopkeeper’s here, sir,” someone called ahead.

Don Vincenzo Mazzoli, patriarch of the Mazzoli crime family, controller of sixteen districts and rumored psychic vampire, sat behind a desk carved from a single piece of obsidian. He looked human, mostly. The rumors said he was seventy percent metal under that tailor-made suit. The eyes gave him away—black as space with tiny pinpricks of starlight in their depths.

“Xel’Thraz,” he said, voice like gravel on velvet. “You’re late with payments.”

“Times are hard, Don Mazzoli.” Xel set the cage on the desk, hands trembling slightly. “But I’ve brought something special. Rarest bird in the quadrant. Worth ten times what I owe.”

The Don peered at the cage. The bird inside went suddenly still, its plumage shifting through colors like an oil slick.

“Pretty,” the Don admitted, tapping the cage. “But I run a business, not a zoo.”

“It’s more than a bird, sir.” Xel leaned forward, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “The Shriek-Thrush secretes a compound from its pinfeathers. The most powerful hallucinogen known to seventeen sentient species. One gram sells for enough to buy a small moon.”

The Don’s eyebrows rose fractionally. “Is that so?”

“That’s why I’ve been behind on payments. Been saving up to acquire this beauty.” Xel hoped the Don couldn’t hear his second heart hammering against his ribs. “Consider it… investment capital.”

Don Mazzoli’s thin lips curved upward. “Open it.”

“Sir, it’s highly volatile—”

“Open. The. Cage.”

Xel’s fingers fumbled with the latch. The bird had gone completely still, its eyes locked on the Don’s face.

“Beautiful,” the Don murmured, reaching for it with jewel-encrusted fingers.

The transformation happened in microseconds. The bird’s form liquefied, mauve feathers melting into something that resembled mercury mixed with blood. Before anyone could realise what was happening, it leapt at the Don’s face, covering it like a mask.

Xel turned around to leave. The Don made a horrible wet sucking sound as the creature—a Morphing Vengeance, one of the legendary shapeshifting assassins from the Outer Rim—consumed him from the outside in.

By the time Xel reached the door, the creature had already taken the Don’s form perfectly, adjusting the man’s armour with casual precision.

“Gentlemen,” it said in the Don’s voice, opening the door, “Our friend Xel was just leaving. His payment has been… accepted.”

“Your protection has been extended,” the false Don told Xel with a wink that no one else could see. “Indefinitely.”

Outside, Neo-Chicago’s artificial rain had stopped. Xel walked back toward his shop, hands still shaking but steps lighter than they’d been in months. The Morphing Vengeance would dismantle the Mazzoli operation from the inside, eating its way through the hierarchy like a cancer.

He’d found the creature six months ago, barely alive in the shipment of exotic pets. Nursed it back to health. Discovered what it really was. What it wanted.

Justice had strange appetites in this corner of the galaxy.

As he reached his shop, something caught his eye—a small mauve feather on his sleeve. He picked it up carefully, watching as it dissolved into nothing more than dust.

He wondered how long before the next Don would come to collect.

He wondered if he’d have another pet ready by then.