I would have died for you, his mind erupted like a volcano, I would have fought them to my death. My father, my mother, my sisters would have fought their Empire until we were no more. Why would you have denied us such a glorious death? We loved you. We loved you!
When Sammy erupted inside Margaret, she took this as a form of payment. It wasn’t a physical climax she sought, it was the final confession. It was his darkest secret, a part of him buried so deep that it would fester for a lifetime.
Margaret, satisfied, wasn’t about to steal from Sammy. He wasn’t an evil man, just a broken creature she’d provoked beyond reason. He’d offered her everything she wanted, he’d given her what she most needed to survive a day like today.
Now, he’d take his remittance.
“Pull me up and hold me close.” Margaret said the words, and there was power in her voice. Any bystanders would have known now that she was a witch. She didn’t simply command the uninclined Sammy, she verbalized her will.
Sammy obliged her, pulling her up and pressing her back against his chest. She’s covered in sweat, semen dripping down her legs. His big arm pressed her chest in, and she found herself panting for long moments before she could speak.
“Aurora Owens betrayed you,” Margaret’s voice still vibrated and warped the air around her lips. She was bending energy, raw magic, flowing from her loins to throat, filling her lungs and opening her mind to see not merely the bar around her, but the city block and even the whole of San Francisco. “She was unworthy of your love. I am not. Love me and I shall never betray you. If you walk with me to hell, I will give you such a glorious death that your Maul shall sing of your deeds for a hundred years to come.”
Margaret could feel the big man heaving his breath behind her and pulled his arms away, turning to face him. Tiptoes still balanced on the rail below her, she was exhausted, spent in emotional and physical ways that went far beyond something as simple as sex.
Sammy was calm now, voice still stout, full of pride, but also a strange sort of awe. As though he spoke directly to the god of his forefathers. Margaret was letting it leach into her bones now, locking it up, saving it for later. It’d never be as effluvious as this moment, but in a dire place or time, she could call upon it.
“I will keep my promise if we meet again.”
Margaret reached up and ran her fingers down his fleshy, moist face. Stubble prickled at her fingers and she could feel serenity in his mind, a release from the pain he’d known.
With that, Margaret offered him a sincere smile and stepped down from the bar rail. Half of the patrons had left during her hatefuck, the other half worked hard to ignore their conversation. She pulled her clothes back together as best she could, tattered and ripped, and availed herself as lead battlewitch of the Antecedent Empire.
Despite her small size, despite the stains she was caked in, Margaret strode back to the streets of San Francisco easily ten feet tall.
10:35am February 20th, 39 Veilfall
Stockton, California
The original seat of government for House Owens had been built on top of a college campus just north of downtown. When the Antecedent Empire came, they built further upon that seat and provided most of their senior officers dwelling in nearby buildings, many of which had once been hotels before the Collapse.
For Margaret, she had desired a more private abode. Regardless of her affection for the 3rd Army, she simply had no desire to be a part of the crude Antecedent dismantling of Owens’ city-state. She could feel what Aurora Owens had built, she could hear men with hammers and nails raising a new world from ashes of the old. They whistled and sang, and as Antecedent office displaced those memories, so too did the music vanish.
Margaret had taken up a home on Atherton island, a small lump of land connected to Stockton, huddled against the blue and brown San Joaquin River. On the other side of that river was the great city wall of Stockton, shadowing her residence most of the day and keeping it cool in all but the noon hours. She had hired local gardeners to keep grounds, along with the two servants she’d maintained in her years on campaign. One was a lady’s maid, the other a cook. The maid was a woman a few years younger than Margaret, named Janet Lécuyer. Her parents had been French, tourists stranded in a foreign land during the Collapse, and first citizens of the Antecedent States. Back in Crafton, Janet had tailored several dresses for Margaret, though her talents extended beyond stitchcraft, to general housekeeping. Margaret could dress herself without help, she very much preferred not to. Janet was well paid, and the two were as close as a battlewitch and stitchwitch could be.
“My Lady, you have a guest.” Janet spoke with a puckered accent, as though she was holding her lips in preparation for a kiss that never came. She pronounced her own name ‘Gee-nette,’ and referred to her Lady as ‘Mar-gar-uete.’
Margaret turned away from her dining room wall. She was wearing black pantaloons, drawn up at her waist and calves with golden cord. The fabric was a thick cotton that wrinkled a thousand times, crisp from drying in the sun. Her feet were bare on a stonework floor, and above the waist she only wore a bra to offer support up and over her shoulders, animal bone lined with lace. Both garments were hand manufactured for her alone by Janet: seamed, cut and assembled.
“Who is it?”
Janet shrugged. She was tall and her furrowed brow was a poor missive for her welcoming, brown eyes. “I know not, Lady. They wear Antecedent uniform.”
“Is it a gentleman?” Margaret asked, despite herself, considering Townsend more often than she wished.
“No, Lady, it is a woman.” Janet swept her hands up from her waist, drawing an underline of breasts in the air with index fingers.
It's for the best, anyway.
Margaret’s face flushed for a moment. She had rules, molded like clay over the years, a fluid sculpture. Never return to a lover’s bed. You could also forget their faces, once you fucked them. You could walk away from the tethers, bring them no harm, allow them no power, and best of all, never weep when they died.
“See her in, Janet.” Margaret nodded, walking away from the blanched and textured wall she’d been working.
With her index finger and thumb, Margaret gripped the largest piece of charcoal in her right hand while her left held a collection of smaller flakes. Each shaped and worn differently, allowing her to apply different styles and volumes in soot. Her hands were pitch black for several inches above her wrists.
The wall behind her was swept up in an ocean of atramentous monochrome, moving and dancing like leaves caught in a river as the light shifted and struck at different angles. This was the most recent in torrent of murals that stretched from the wall where Janet stood, perhaps ten feet away, across the dining room and towards the window on Margaret’s right. They were all memories, trinkets she’d purchased and bartered for.
She was creating the boy’s face that Sammy had pummeled in his childhood, but in her creation the eyes had swollen shut and blood had become a flowering wreath upon his brow. She wasn’t merely sketching memories, she was expressing the emotions she felt in those moments. It was a habit she’d kept her whole life, even as a girl she’d etched the world as it tasted on her lips in midnight black, grinding colors in so deep that the walls changed texture; or delicate hints of shades, each darker than the one before.
When Janet returned, she gestured toward the dining room and a slender woman entered. She was easily over six feet tall with a long, narrow, neck. Platinum hair shaved close on the sides and a braid ran down the zenith of her scalp. Her dress uniform of blue slacks and white jacket was dusted and stained from travel, but her face and hands were clean.
“Lady Mayhem,” the adjunct, based on her patches and collar pips, nodded briskly.
“Lieutenant,” Margret didn’t return a nod or a bow.
“I bring a private message from Lady Manticore, 2nd Army,” the tall officer glanced over to Janet, scowling.
“Yes,” Margaret chuckled, “I know Geraldine
well. What does she wish?”
Janet was no fool; as servant to a battlewitch, lead battlewitch of the Antecedent Empire, she commanded more authority than a young officer could dream of. She simply crossed her arms and smirked. The officer turned back to Margaret after a moment, her nose wrinkled, and replied, “It's private.”
“Yes,” Margaret answered a second time, blinking slowly. The servant knew this game well, Margaret would never allow anyone else to command her about a room. When their eyes met Janet nodded, turned and exited the room. Only upon her departure did the blonde Lieutenant stride toward Margaret, a walk so quick, and intense, that Margaret briefly considered this an attack.
Once the officer stopped, she reached into her jacket and removed a small slip of paper, holding it out, waiting for Margaret to accept.
She did accept, but only after nearly a minute of holding eye contact. The young woman was doing her best to maintain military standards, and clearly didn’t intend to step on Margaret’s nerves. This didn’t change the fact that she was, nor did it change the fact that Margaret was inclined to step on her nerves in return.
The slip of paper was wrinkled at the edges and looked like something torn from an old and yellowed notebook. In graphite was a single word, ‘windtalker.’
Margaret knew what this was and closed her eyes a moment.
As the syllables formed out loud, the young officer’s eyes rolled up into her head and her arms went slack, shoulders low, while her head dropped forward as if her neck could no longer support the weight.
“Margaret,” the voice that came out of the officer’s lips was Geraldine Bianchi’s surly rasp. In person, she was a lifelong chain smoker, her voice a contralto dragged through gravel, stumbling through one of various east coast accents. She hammered on her “r’s” like nails, and cast “d’s” to the wind like a fly fisherman.
“I hope yuh’ fuckin’ great up there in tha’ redwoods an’ shit. Tucson fell to tha’ 2nd Army this afternoon. Shitlicking cuckolds fucking folded like a fuckin’ lawn chair. Yuh’ brother is on his way with tha’ 1st Army, a detached a command element. Half of tha’ 2nd Army will remain inna’ south, garrison against tha’ Republic of Texas. Tha’ rest’ll head for Stockton. I’m sending yuh’ this fucking message because I know yuh’ stepping tha’ fuck down. I’ll see yuh’ in Stockton soon, to relieve yuh’. Then we’ll relieve a few bottles of whiskey together, amiright?”
When the officer’s lips stopped moving, she didn’t return to her senses immediately. It was a mind recording. An experienced witch could leave an impression of themselves in another’s memories, hidden behind a spoken trigger that they themselves implanted. It was a difficult task, but also far more private than anything like a letter.
Margaret’s eyes were heavy with tears.
Geraldine was a pre-Collapse witch, like Maggi, older and kinder, despite her language. She’d been, more than once, a fantasy stand-in as mother, just like Aurora Owens. Geraldine would take no joy in assuming her command, but she’d also never let a friend down.
As the blonde officer started to regain her wits, Margaret spun on her toes and pressed away the urge to wipe at her tearing face, smearing carbon everywhere.
“Lady Mayhem?” Margaret heard the officer say, to her back.
She was disgusted by her clean accent, even pronunciations; it was an insult to Margaret’s aural sensibilities after Geraldine’s message.
“When did Manticore give you this message?” Margaret asked, coldly, crossing her arms up under bra with her chin tipped down. From this angle there was a glint of white stone, from where the eye that does not see hid between her breasts.
“Shortly after the new year, Lady.”
The officer answered the question, curtly, promptly, so keen to impress. The 1st Army wouldn’t arrive for a while yet, but if Alexander and Geraldine traveled with fast vanguard, they’d be in Stockton by perhaps a week distant, two at the latest.
Decades of service to the Empire, and this was it. Just a few more weeks.
“Please, leave me,” Margaret told the officer. She didn’t want the woman to see her tears and she didn’t want to explain herself. More than anything else, she just didn’t want to be near this polished creature, this denizen of Alexander's new world with her perfect Imperial English.
Good riddance, she thought, and allowed her pulse a moment to relax.
Her mind was playing a game of toss ball, and before she had fully puzzled out her words, she decided to act without further consideration.
“Janet!” Margaret shouted, turning and looking for a towel to wipe at her face, “Fetch me a day dress. I’m going out this afternoon. Low in the tits, if you please.”
2:01pm February 20th, 39 Veilfall
Stockton, California
Margaret had forgotten Janet dressing her, all snaps and laces, as the servant muttered to herself about measurements, cooing. She’d also forgotten her carriage ride toward the former Owens palace, and the center of 3rd Army command. She knew she’d nodded and waved politely as officers paid her respects, welcomed her, or questioned her. She may have even spoken to them, answered those questions, or made cheerful small talk. Perhaps a wink here or a blown kiss there. Try as she might; however, those details were cast aside in the blinding light of her own disbelief at what she was about to do.
You’re a grown fucking woman, you’re a battlewitch feared across North America, and you will not be defeated by a door.
“I’m going to be defeated by this door,” Margaret whispered to herself.
Lieutenant General Townsend’s secretary had waved Margaret past, and into the small waiting room which opened into his office. Outside the main hall were a half dozen such doors, each employing a separate assistant, banging away at steel typewriters, making notes, filing folders, or transcribing documents by hand. Townsend kept the largest of these offices at the end of a wide hallway. He also had the prettiest secretary, the most impressive door, and a waiting room with leather stitched sofas and a disintegrating bear rug. The animal’s head had been chewed at over the years by rats, and its glass eyes were missing. Despite this, it still provided a menacing welcome.
At Margaret’s will, Townsend’s secretary, with her pert breasts and upturned nose, did not tell him that she arrived. Neither of the two women had spoken, but Margaret had rummaged briefly through her mind, wondering if Townsend had taken her into his office before. Laid her across the table, one hand gripping at her wrists while the other drew up her linen skirts, palm crossing her buttocks. The notion didn’t anger Margaret, far from it; she found the notion titillating. She would have enjoyed watching Townsend, through another woman’s eyes, free of the control that Margaret herself maintained with any lover.
The secretary had been a disappointment, and so had Townsend. She had a mind full of rosters and troop rotations, and today she was making hand copies of a dozen records that catalogued 3rd Army debauchery in the bars and brothels of Stockton.
A few feet from the wooden door, stained deep mahogany with a steel nameplate, bolted a foot above her eye level. She studied the engraving, wondered who’d done the work, a blacksmith from the Empire or a local businessman? Or maybe it was manufactured for Townsend years ago, and he brought it with him to mark whatever office he held?
You’re just stalling.
“I’m just stalling.” Margaret whispered again.
She closed her eyes and reached her right hand for the doorknob. Her leather gloves squeaked on the brass, the catch released, and she walked directly inside.
“Lady Mayhem?” Townsend’s voice cracked when he spoke.
Margaret opened her eyes after three steps into the room. Townsend’s office was once a sprawling suite with a lowered tile floor, appointed seating, and a huge desk; likely antique even before the collapse. The wide windows that looked out onto the bustle of Stockton spread deep yellow light across the room and shadowed parts of Townsend’s face. He was much more impressive here, stiff an
d squared away in his chair, all his attention drawn up, a kind of armor no different from the sort of magic Margaret kept.
Margaret’s jaw fell open for one second, then two, before she replied to him, “Lieutenant General.”
Townsend paused, placing his palms on the table, watching her. His moustache seemed more robust, and his tone bordered on angry, “What are you doing here?”
Townsend had not been the first man that Margaret was drawn to so intimately. This wasn’t the first time in her life that she’d wanted to see someone more than once. This was; however, the first time she’d ever acted on these desires, and she found herself stumbling like a fool, crippled by a life of granite rules and personal self-discipline. She was now anemic in her talents and confidence.
“I’ve come,” Margaret swallowed, holding in check all the carbonation that threatened to burn away her esophagus, “to speak with you.”
Townsend’s gray eyes watched her. He tilted his head and she noticed the little wrinkles above his ears, and the lines on either side of his mouth. He was concerned, confused, on guard as though she wished to harm him.
“What can I do for you, Lady Mayhem?” He replied.
“Do you remember the night, at the gala?” Margaret began, taking another step forward. Townsend smoked in his office, the odor of stale tobacco was thick, an embrace, and Margaret yearned for a twig suddenly. “Tell me the truth. Tell me to leave, Commander.”
Townsend did not reply. Rather, he reached for a tin of cigarettes on his desk and withdrew a heavy lighter that seemed to act as a paperweight. It was stout and cylindrical, made of a dried clay that was set with hundreds of broken mirror shards. He leaned in to light the twig, inhaled deeply and exhaled. The smoke was caught in afternoon light and told stories.
Margaret continued, shaken, but determined, “I’m a witch. I can smell a lie, I can see your words and taste your emotions. You’re confused right now, on guard. There’s a gun in your desk drawer, maybe two. You’re afraid you may have to shoot me. You’re afraid you’ve done something to offend.” Margaret stopped, her voice dropping low as she spoke. “I can’t stop being what I was born, I can’t stay out of your mind, I can’t stop bending the world around me. If that’s too much for you, tell me to leave, commander.”
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