Easternport Vol. 1, First Edition

The Devil's Apprentice - Part 1

Steven

Okay, if I'm going to tell my story, I'm going to start at the beginning. See, I knew Cory Cortez before anyone else did. And back when I knew her, she wasn't Rahab or the Devil's Mistress or Magpie or Birdy or Thorn or Firstborn. She was known as the Devil's Apprentice.

Most of us arrived at the orphanage after the separatists destroyed the federal courthouse. Easternport was breaking free from the motherland and becoming its own, sovereign city-state. It wasn't that my family were loyalists. They just happened to be working at the courthouse when the place was razed. My mother was a clerk. My dad was a secretary. They were killed for shuffling paperwork all day.

I was seven when I came to the orphanage. Amanda Berkley was six. The two of us and four other children arrived at the orphanage on the same day for the same reason. It gave us a sense of camaraderie that helped us through the grief.

Three-year-old Cory Cortez arrived a year later. She was picked up by police after her parents were killed in a drive-by shooting. She wailed the entire first day and blubbered quietly the second. After that, she just moped around mutely. She didn't say a word or shed another tear.

About a week after her, eight-year-old Wesley was dragged in off the streets. He didn't have a last name. Cory was curled up in a ball in the head matron's office when he came in. With wide eyes she watched as he stood defiantly in the office and spat on the floor. He was dirty, crass, smelled like a dumpster, and embodied everything that Cory wanted to be-strong, fearless, and self-propelled.

She followed him everywhere. She mimicked his attitude, his posture, even his language. It was cute at first, although bothersome. He would shove his way into the dinner line and she'd follow right after him like his tail.

But after a few years, it stopped being cute. Eventually she grew old enough to follow him into playground fights. By the time she was nine, he trained her to fight for him. It got to the point where all he had to do was snap his fingers and she'd jump on someone. The matrons started calling her the Devil's Apprentice.

She broke Amanda's arm with a rock, once. Amanda had tattled on Wesley for stealing food from the pantry. Wesley sicked Cory on her and poor Amanda was in the hospital that afternoon.

Cory gave me a black eye, once. I don't know why.

Wesley was a psychopath. Even in grade school, we all knew it. The kid had no feelings; no attachments. He felt no remorse for breaking a kid's arm or stealing everyone's dinner. And he felt no shame for turning Cory into his puppet.

The two were constantly being punished-for stealing food, starting fights, putting spiders in Amanda's bed, even burning her birthday presents. The orphanage had a tradition of piling up birthday presents next to a kid's bed during the night, so that when he woke up the next morning, he'd see the presents first. Wesley and Cory stole Amanda's presents the night before her thirteenth birthday. I woke up to the head matron screaming and a small fire burning in the playground.

Amanda was livid. She hated the both of them with a passion, which was probably why they kept targeting her. Where others ran from Wesley and Cory, Amanda always stood her ground-and got walloped for it-if not by little Cory, then by big Wesley.

But burning her birthday presents was the last straw. We all had had enough. The matrons were at their wit's end over what to do with them. They couldn't kick them out, but I think they might have considered it.

Then the two hoodlums vanished.

They had run away before, but were usually returned to us within a day-to everyone's displeasure. But this time they didn't come back. After the first two days, the matrons became worried. Genuinely worried. Not for Wesley; I don't think anyone worried about him. He was fifteen by then and obviously tough enough to take care of himself, even if it meant armed robbery. But Cory was still a child.

Easternport was suffering through anarchy at the time. The police tried to keep order, but the Mayor had fled the city-state. Several rival groups- including the Serpents, the Underground, and the Jaggars-fought for power in the streets. The police were helpless to stop it. All they could do was wear a uniform, stop an occasional thief, and try to convince everyone that there was some kind of order. People were getting killed every day. And little Cory was out there with a psychopath.

Cory was ten years old when she disappeared. I didn't think I'd ever see her again. But when the dust finally settled in Easternport, there she was-smack-dab in the middle of the Fault.