Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  “You never stopped.” Townsend whispered.

  The sketches he fixated on are a vast symphony of snakes spilling from a corpse, half buried in mud. The blonde wood behind was so heavily shaded in black and grey that even the strokes themselves took on a new texture.

  Margaret shook her head, “Some are my memories, and some of them are memories I watched. I don’t want them to be lost.”

  Townsend turned slowly and favored Margaret with eyes as warm as they were piercing. He didn’t fear her, not the way the uninclined always did. Rather, he seemed to admire her, just as he had the charcoal murals. It felt like warm summer grass on bare feet to Margaret, a place she never knew she wished to visit, under a sky she didn’t dream existed.

  “Are you sure about this? Tonight?” Townsend asked her, pointedly, “I’d not be offended if you changed your mind, if you decided this was unwise.”

  Shaken free from her daydream, Margaret cinched up a polite grin and turned back to the dining room table, withdrawing gloves that Janet had left for her. They ran to the elbow, black velvet with square seams on each finger, tailored only for Margaret’s hands. “What should I be unsure of, Lieutenant General? After tonight I cease to be lead battlewitch. I’m a free woman, and I wish to keep your company.”

  On the dining room table was a small wooden box, an inch wide, maybe an inch tall. There were no bevels, and the hinges were merely grey steel. It could have been the most ordinary thing in Margaret’s home.

  “What is that?” Townsend inquired, moving between the walls around them, closer to Margaret’s side. Inside the box were loops of narrow, gold chain, held at either end by clasps. She wouldn’t let anyone touch it, and she fastened it on her own, under stiff puffs of hair.

  “Just an old piece of my mother’s jewelry,” Margaret replied, not giving Townsend the whole story, but also telling him the truth.

  It took a moment before the necklace finally sat correctly. She’d commissioned it the morning after her confrontation with Amy Lopez, and she’d spent much of the day with an old-world jeweler as he crafted the item, refusing to leave it alone, refusing to be parted with it, even for a few hours.

  Behind her, she heard Townsend say, “Margaret.”

  Less a collection of syllables and more of a growl, an evocation of her very essence. Margaret blinked slowly, holding a hand to her midsection, “I like the way your voice sounds, speaking my name. You should let me ruin my lipstick on you.”

  Turning around, Margaret braced her palms down, onto the table, pressed her body up, scooting her buttocks across the lacquered wood, her knees pressed together, and her suede boots tap, tap, tapping. “I can’t keep calling you Townsend.”

  “Townsend is my family’s last name, and I’m sure I once had a first name.” The large man reached up to the leather buckle under his chin, fidgeting.

  “You just don’t remember?” Margaret offered, slowly, quietly. She shifted and spread her knees several inches. Her intimates were bright red silk. “It's okay. I don’t remember my last name either. The one that belonged to my parents.”

  “Townsend is a good name,” He nodded, looking down at Margaret, stepping forward, “it's been my name for plenty of years, it’ll be my name for plenty more.”

  “As you wish,” Margaret replied, and Townsend leaned in to kiss her. A few inches from her lips, a single index finger pressed into his chin, sliding up his lower lip. With her other hand, Margaret reached forward, groping for Townsend’s pressed, white trousers, loosing each button.

  “When I said I’d like to ruin my lipstick, I didn’t mean by making out with you.”

  9:30pm February 27th, 39 Veilfall

  Stormair, California

  The banquet for returning 1st Army soldiers was not held in the House Owens palace. The grand ballroom of Lady Aurora Owens was dark this night. Rather, the banquet had been hosted at Stormair, just outside the city walls.

  One of the old hangers had been partially emptied of the 3rd Army’s armor rotation in order to host the small gathering. Only officers of the Antecedent Empire, currently in Stockton, had been invited. Perhaps fifty men, and a few women.

  There was no band of violins and flutes. Rather, a field bard on raised steel, sawed away at an aged fiddle. He was young, his fatigues clean and his face shorn. His fingers darted and jerked around the faded fingerboard, playing old songs from before the Collapse along with Antecedent melodies. The strings warbled and vibrated at his whim, echoing across the hanger.

  Two large dining tables were set close to him, each one accompanied with metal chairs and simple white plates. Wax candles burned and danced as a breeze interviewed the flame before fleeing away. Large rolling doors to the hanger fore were open by perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet, and night flooded oil stained tarmac.

  This was the world that Margaret felt most comfortable in, these were men that she’d fought and died with much of her adult life. They didn’t skulk about, perfumed and pretty, planning their next machination. Nor did they work hard to impress people they didn’t like. Townsend’s senior officers nodded and smiled, hiding snickers and holding their tongues when he led Margaret in. She had wrapped her own elbow around his forearm, free hand close to her pale chest, running an index finger across her collar bone.

  I guess we all know what’s down Townsend’s pants for sure, Margaret heard from one officer, and Luckiest son of a bitch this side of the Mississippi.

  She could choose whomever she wished to bed, but Margaret had never allowed herself to be displayed this way. Least of all near those she spent years traveling and fighting with.

  As soon Amihan takes up my role, I’ll never see them again, Margaret thought, gesturing Townsend down to brush his clean-shaven cheek with a genuine kiss, whispering, “As you make the rounds, remember that I can still taste your cock.”

  She didn’t take the time to see his expression, she didn’t want to. If he’d blushed, she’d have lost respect for him. If he’d shrugged it off, she’d have been wounded. It was best simply to set the comment down and walk away.

  Several small carts, field service wagons for mess and coffee, had been rolled in to serve drinks. The service wagons were as clean as they could be, wheels encased in a permanent film of dust, the drawers and handles rusted dark red and worn smooth. Bottles of whiskey and bourbon had been neatly arranged, along with glass tumblers of a dozen different designs, so that those at the banquet could serve themselves. Between the clusters of alcohol were brass and copper chargers, full of local fruits and vegetables. Carrots, peaches, and even cherries, along with odd apple or orange.

  As Margaret filled her chosen tumbler, a simple design, cylindrical with a star inlay on the base, she bumped someone’s elbow. As she turned, she caught a stout woman in her late twenties grinning, biting into a red apple, juice running down her chin.

  None of the 9th Battalion officers wore their blue jackets, rather they were dressed in black cotton button-ups, the undershirt of the Antecedent uniform, a contrast to their white wool slacks. Her skin was a deep shade of tan, and suspenders arched across her breasts, brows bushy, and hair had been braided into four separate rows across her skull. Each knot decorated with live 9mm rounds, giving her the look of a great horned creature.

  “I’m sorry,” Margaret nodded, politely.

  “I’m not.”

  When she spoke, her voice was a rasping, hushed tone. It made Margaret feel like a slab of meat had been thrown onto her sternum to sizzle, boiling fat down her corset, burning and exciting her intimate parts.

  One of the tumblers, an inch or two from the wagons edge, tipped over and rolled, directly off the side, shattering on tarmac with a pop.

  Margaret took a step back, all her attention on the woman who watched her under unkempt brows. She blinked and her eyes glazed gold, moving like pools of liquid, reflecting Margaret’s slack jaw expression. With one hand she held her garnet apple, index finger and thumb at zenith and nadir. She spun the fruit with a
single flick from her opposing hand.

  When it stopped rotating, it faced Margaret with carefully carved cursive.

  ‘Legitimate Daughter.’

  “Try a bite!” The woman with golden eyes snapped, “It's delicious!”

  Margaret took a second step back. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The woman shook her head, holding up an index finger to waggle in Margaret’s face. The air around the two smelled sweet, fragrant with citrus blossoms and salt.

  “You can’t guess?” With deft fingers she rolled the crimson apple around her wrist, then behind her back, grabbing it with her opposing hand. Upon its return, it was made of solid gold, fissured with a carved stem and leaves protruding from the top. “How about now? Should I ask your paramour if he prefers power, beauty, or fame?”

  Which one would I be to him?

  Margaret glanced at her tumbler, raising it to her lips and chugging away uncut whiskey. Liquor ran down her chin, across her throat and between her breasts, chilly in the night air. When she tilted her head down, the apple was gone and the woman with golden eyes shrugged, a maniacal grin stretching at her face.

  “Eris.” Margaret’s voice steadied.

  The 9th Battalion officer cackled like a dying animal, gasping at the air, snorting, then she reached out to hammer a balled fist into Margaret’s shoulder hard enough to bruise, “I love that you had to up-end a fifth of whiskey, just to say my name!”

  She wanted to be anywhere else but with the golden-eyed flesh costume worn by a chaos god. Eris, like Ares, Tyr, and The Morrigan was worshipped by Antecedent soldiers the night before battle. Some claimed that they knew who would die in the morning; offered a vision of heads clutched by the fists of The Morrigan. Others carved in blood, begging favor of the Chaos Queen, that Eris may see them worthy of survival in the coming light. On campaign there was no room for gods like Aphrodite with her ocean breeze eyes.

  “Say it for me. Say it with those beautiful lips, Margaret. Tell me there’s no place for fucking Aphrodite,” Eris snarled answering Margaret’s thoughts.

  Margaret, remembering her failures, did exactly as she was told.

  “On campaign there’s no room for gods like Aphrodite.”

  Eris bit at the air, her teeth cracking loudly. The officer slid her left foot back, bowed gently to no one, and swung herself into a solo minuet, arms garishly waving over open tarmac, waist spinning and wrists fussing as if she groped and held an invisible partner. Margaret’s gaze crossed the room, looking at the other officers, all of whom were utterly ignoring the insanity that had unfolded.

  When Eris grew bored of whatever music played in her head, she spun around and crashed into Margaret, violently. The tumbler in Margaret’s right hand flew loose, bounced off the wagon, and fell to the ground, another pop echoing in the hanger.

  “You had Aphrodite’s favor because you love unconditionally. That, and all the fucking.” Eris moved gracefully behind Margaret, grinding her chest into the spin, hands groping upward and cupping the witch’s breasts. “Didn’t you ever get any diseases? I mean, seriously, you basically fucked everyone.”

  “No.” Margaret replied, less offended by the question itself than the fact that no one else had ever been brave enough to ask.

  When the officer’s fingers reached up, past Margaret’s corset, roughly floundering against her chest, she found herself drowning in a feeling she’d known only in moments before a battle was waged. The moment when everyone’s breath was held, when fear ceased to exist, and men had become immortal. It was a sibilation of pure anxiety, twisting up every muscle, a voice crying out against adrenaline and lust, run away now, for all that you love, run!

  The sensation bled out from Eris, spreading through Margaret’s bones, filling her wholly with the purest sense of anticipation she’d ever imagined.

  Eris whispered down into Margaret’s ear, “I was there, every time you walked into the fray. Tell me, tell me Margaret, what do you call it when you extend your mind across a thousand men who don’t know they’re dead yet?”

  The savory piquancy of chaos was a sort of elation that dwarfed sexual forays. Margaret didn’t hesitate to speak the words, “I call it spreading my terrible wings over the battlefield.”

  Eris pulled her fingers back, shoving Margaret away from the mess wagons and pushing past her. As she did, two more tumblers fall to the tarmac, pop, pop, “Those aren’t your wings, are they? Do you know what I look like free of this flesh and bone I wear? Free of costumes and lies? Those are my terrible wings.”

  More than anything Margaret felt hungry now, free of Eris, broken from her touch. She was hungry for battle, for blood, and most of all she was starved for chaos.

  A thousand men who didn’t know they were dead yet.

  Margaret had swept across their minds, a tidal wave, wrapping them close to unleash their primal fears, their instinctive paranoia. She couldn’t control individuals on that scale; imparting a particular derangement was impossible. Each one saw something different. They would descend on each other, feral animals, clubbing brothers with rifle butts, ripping faces off, beating their commanders, shooting wildly.

  Absolute chaos.

  “Thank you,” Margaret moaned, one hand clutched to her chest, the other braced down on a wagon to steady herself. She bumped another tumbler, sending it skittering, bouncing once on the tarmac, and then shattering, pop.

  “Don’t thank me Margaret,” Eris reached out and pulled Margaret’s hands into her own, “I’m here to fuck you. You’ll soon have your fill of chaos. The old gods seek to emerge, and they don’t care who is broken in their wake. Maybe you’ll die, maybe you’ll live. I don’t really care. I never sat at their table, I never painted by numbers.”

  “Fuck me?” Margaret was lost in a hazy stupor of ataxia, her thoughts as tangled as a web of vines, coated in thorns, “I think I won’t like that.”

  Eris smiled beyond Margaret’s fluttering eyelids, a private smile, toothy and wild. Eyes of liquid gold ran down her face forming tears that reflected fruits, whiskey, and Margaret’s lavender eyeshadow.

  “You won’t. But you’ve worshiped me for so long, how could I destroy you without a parting gift? Tailored just for you, the same as all your pretty dresses and corsets.”

  Eris wrapped her fingers around Margaret’s hands, pressing them between each of her digits and pulling hard. From the sleeves of the officer’s shirt oozed thick, black oil. As crisp and pure as a starless night. It was viscous, running up into Margaret’s wrists and fingers, wrapping around her hands, flooding each pore, traveling her arms, her chest, down her breasts and into her throat, coating every inch of her pale and scarred flesh until she’d turned thick sable.

  Time probably still existed beneath the ebony asphyxiation, but Margaret ceased to care.

  After the long breath, when melee truly was unleashed, Margaret had almost always climaxed. It wasn’t a sadistic glee in the wholesale slaughter, rather a unique side effect of alluvion chaos, an undeniable surrender that promised anything. She would have screamed, had she any connection left to her physical body.

  This is what it must feel to be a god.

  Only the necklace she wore was free of the liquid charcoal, the eye that does not see.

  Eris pulled Margaret close, comatose in her strange mummification, whispering to her ear, “Don’t worry too much. He won’t choose beauty.”

  Margaret barely heard the words, and if she did, no functioning part of her mind could have parsed them intelligently. The liquid charcoal was the calmest she’d known in life, it was a kind of mirror that absorbed her nightmares. It freed her of a thousand vile words and bound her up in the cool place between snow thaw and spring bloom. When it evaporated, consumed by her hungry meat, Margaret was left exposed, wrapped in her human garments.

  For long seconds, or perhaps minutes, she’d known what it was to be loved by a god, embraced beyond the monochrome hues of an uninclined world.

  Blinking back tea
rs, Margaret stood alone, surrounded by broken glass, devoid of the power and discord. Her heart was broken, and the world suddenly fit into neat categories again.

  It startled Margaret when Townsend stepped up next to her, a big, strong hand falling on her shoulder. The flesh connection betrayed his serious tambour as he imagined her lips pulling tightly on the shaft of his cock and her nails biting into his testicles.

  “Amihan Lopez is arriving with her adjuncts. Are you all right?”

  Are you all right? Margaret repeated the thought in her mind.

  I can’t ever be all right again.

  10:23pm February 27th, 39 Veilfall

  Stormair, California

  Margaret recognized one of Amihan’s adjuncts. He was the young man who’d worn a patch over his left eye. His face was less swollen and red, and his hair had been cut slipshod, as though he’d taken a large knife to it and then slicked it back with engine grease. Like the others, he wore a black button-up and suspenders, sans woolen coat. He was almost certainly fifteen years old, sixteen maybe, easily the youngest officer in the hanger.

  Amy’s other adjunct was a burly man with hands too large for his body, a square jaw and tiny eyeballs. Where the one-eyed boy seemed unable to dress himself in uniform, the larger man’s clothes didn’t even fit. His cuffs ended three, maybe four inches too short of his wrists.

  When Margaret approached the three, Amy turned. She gestured with thumbs toward the two men, then made quick hand motions for them to leave. The big man did as he was told, but the one-eyed boy sneered at Margaret and only backed up slowly.

  “Little young to be an officer,” Margaret raised her eyebrows, as the boy slipped away only ten or twelve feet, watching like an angry child who’d been denied supper.