Editing The Headless

"This is the second time I've seen you three in as many months.  This is getting damn old.  Maybe the next time you should just go into the light, okay?"  Weeping Jade snickered to herself as she peeled the man-leather gloves from her hands.  She strode away from her operating table, barely glancing at the intruders.  "One of these days they're going to put a whole in your souls that won't grow back.  Give me that."

She tore the letter from the grasp of the terrified courier.  Wu, a boy barely old enough to carry the satchel, shrank away from her touch and crouched by the door.  His eyes rolled in his head as he tried to find the ghosts that had followed him, knowing that they dogged his every step, but unable to perceive more than an ominous crawling on his skin.

"Hmm.  Build him again, He says.  Build him again!  How much soulsteel have I already wasted on your worthless hides?"  The letter fell to the floor.  She reached for the scroll shelf and pulled out the gore-spattered design and glanced over it.  After a moment she sniffed and tossed it on the floor.  Lifting one finger, she jabbed it at empty air.  "That body was a work of art, a thing of vanity.  No more.  This time..."

She slumped in front of her desk and began sketching plans.

"This time..."  She chuckled to herself softly at first, but the laughter began to seep out as grunts and hisses, finally breaking out into mad cracks and peals as she reached for more parchment and began sketching notes.  Wu turned to face the wall and knelt there with his hands over his ears and his eyes tightly shut, shivering and muttering to himself as he begged merciful heaven for the gift of madness.

----

[[Heaven's Mandate]]