The Legacy of the Monster Diego Tomas, Part 1Ramon stood shirtless in front of the open window, dripping sweat onto the warped pane. It was two in the afternoon, the worst part of the day, when the sun angled in and beat and beat and beat. At ten floors up, there was no relief, no escape from the heat, even if it rained. Rain this time of year was tropical. All it brought was more humidity.
He stared at the flooded avenues below. Skeletal awnings, rusty and broken, poked up out of the oily water, catching errant debris—flotsam from yet another building that had collapsed in some far off part of the city. The Barquemen fished the narrows, shouting and scrambling as they hauled in another catch. They weren’t going to eat any of it. Nobody would. They used it for oil. For their lamps. And th
