Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  Margaret shook her head, mystified by Cyrus. She liked the sound of his voice, it was deep, comforting, and made her forget about the pain.

  “When you touch a witch, her skin vibrates. You can feel all that energy in your fingertips. The hairs at the back of your neck rise, and your teeth hurt. Like you’d eaten a bite of candy apple. It's not all sweet, it's terrifying. Knowing someone so close could swat you like a fly and maybe your life isn’t worth notice.”

  That was, to Margaret’s mind, more like her mother. For Maggi Lopez, people were a collection of tools. She’d never really understood those tools, she’d simply collect them and hammer away at problems until those tools broke.

  “That’s why I always take such care,” Margaret answered herself, “you’re so fragile.”

  Nodding, Cyrus chuckled, “Grant a fragile old man a favor, Lady Mayhem?”

  Margaret didn’t hesitate, “Of course.”

  “Losing her House broke Aurora’s heart,” Cyrus leaned forward, braced his fingers on his knees, and slowly stood up, bones creaking, “I’d like her to be happy, really happy, before she passes on. If it's ever in your power, I hope that you restore House Owens.”

  Margaret averted her eyes, unwilling to share her own broken heart, remembering Amihan, hand pressing her face to the tarmac, “I’m not sure how I could help you or her.”

  Standing, Cyrus straightened his linen jacket, tugging at fabric. Coughing for a moment, he said, “What do you call us? Uninclined? I’m uninclined, not stupid. There are two fire eaters on the west coast. One is asleep in our bed. The other is heir to the Antecedent Empire. If she burned you, then you stand against her and Alexander Lopez. You could run, I suppose, but you don’t seem the type.”

  Margaret’s eyes shot back to Cyrus, jaw clenching, “I’m not,” and neither was my mother, Margaret thought proudly.

  “Then, I suppose you’ll need to fight Alexander and his daughter. Either you crown yourself queen of the Empire, or you shatter it to survive. Whatever happens, a day is coming that the restoration of House Owens will be within your power.”

  I need to fight the other Lopez twin too.

  Margaret didn’t answer Cyrus.

  This seemed to be enough for the old man. Simply that Margaret listened to him, that she heard him. Perhaps he understood witches were not to be begged or threatened, perhaps after years with Aurora Owens he trusted a woman like Margaret to weigh the words of her own volition and see his logic.

  “Get some sleep, Lady Mayhem. You’ll need all your strength.”

  Cyrus turned and walked away, leaving Margaret alone with the lemongrass and pine smoke that threatened to suffocate her. There was a portrait, woven through the old Eleven-Charlie’s words, a story of desire and terror and how the two could be mistaken for each other. Margaret desperately wanted to tell that story across empty wooden walls with sticks of broken charcoal.

  How can I sketch without my right hand?

  Margaret wouldn’t have closed her eyes to the pain, but that thought was somber enough to press her to slumber.

  11:30am February 28th, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  Margaret would need all her strength for the morning.

  Bones were cut out of the corset. Removing the remaining molle web required skin to be pulled up and away, falling under steel’s edge. For a moment Margaret had watched this, and against polished blade, an eye looked back at her, drowning in tears, stained pink and swollen. White willow bark would only thin her blood for surgery, and peyote couldn’t be taken by witches. Although it was used as a painkiller in many parts of the southwest, Nevada, and the former House Owens, it also contained psychoactives. If Margaret lost her grip on reality, she could easily destroy her surgeon’s mind.

  Or drive Stockton mad.

  This was all she could hold onto now. A monomaniacal control over her waking mind, counting through memories and dreams, a catalogue of things that had won her heart. The treasures of blueberry moonshine on her lips or teeth breaking the flesh an inch below her left ear. These trinkets became steps in an uphill stride, a breathless race between screams, phantom songs to drown out the nearly incomprehensible pain of being flayed alive.

  Her chaise lounge was now covered in blood, pus, and charred flesh. Her bottle of scotch was three-quarters empty and when Margaret took swigs, she’d become sloppy; much of the liquor ran down her chest, into crushed and yellow fat of her right breast, curled up and lumpy, a malformed teat remnant.

  How can I sketch without my right hand?

  Cascading memories cut and ground at Margaret’s eyeballs as if she waded under a waterfall of diamonds. The hold that kept her mind aware and harmless under such duress now turned into a jabbing anxiety. Fear would have been easier; its absence was a vile poison that turned her blind and deaf against what her own raw cries must have sounded like.

  She was breathing heavy through her nose, jaw clenched, blinking hard. She’d already cried all the tears she had, her face stained in salt. At first it had been easy, cutting dead skin off her right arm. The doc had explained that these nerves were gone, and necrosis would likely take hold. Less severe burns required more care, more cleaning. Margaret had, at this juncture, lost consciousness a few times. The pain unfolded like a long and monotonous book where all the sentences read the same. Just as she believed she could take no more of the repetition, something would get cut off, or pulled, or tugged in a way that created a new variation of agony. She would weep with all the precision of a rabid animal.

  The doc was absolutely a professional. He wasn’t afraid to work on a witch. In fact, there was nothing about him that didn’t feel like a neatly ordered toolkit that had fallen open on her lap, creating a warbling din of Latin jargon around Margaret’s mind. There was something soothing to be found in this, but only in a way that hinted further towards madness, a kind of itching distraction that only served to annoy her beyond suffering.

  Doc Rosso.

  He was an old man, perhaps in his early seventies. A pre-Collapse surgeon who had served the 3rd Army. His head and face were clean shaven, along with his eyebrows, and even hands and arms. Townsend had delivered him, then vanished as the morning sun carved up the world into servings of percolated fear.

  Fear. It wasn’t her own, it was a flood that ran in through windows and slipped under the door like river water. It filled Aurora’s apartment and spread across the whole of Stockton. Thousands of people were afraid, whispering, quivering. The machine of commerce didn’t wake easy this morning, there was no hum or burgeoning bustle from Stockton’s great gears. Fear, for Margaret, was a better painkiller than single-malt scotch would ever be. It was a warm bath in the privacy of a hostel, after a week eating petrol, dirt, and bugs. It was the first bite of masticated steak to reach her stomach, after days starving. It was a wild and feral friend, a creature she’d never kept on a leash. Rather, for Margaret, fear was a loyal animal that washed across her foes with a whisper and slept at her feet by night. It calmed her mind, made her dream of better places, happier times, a distant lullaby in her ear.

  When Margaret was young, sometime after her mother had defeated the witch Vix, the two had spent weeks away from home. In those days, Maggi was a broken heart with teeth and eyes. She’d allowed Margaret to sleep on her chest. The old nightmares, the terrors that Margaret had long since locked away, still owned her. She’d wake, screaming, sobbing into her mother’s chest. Maggi would simply wrap her arms around the little girl and sing her back to sleep. She had no magic that would have helped, she couldn’t calm minds, or soothe nerves, but there was something deeply maternal in that action.

  “A la nanita nana

  nanita ella, nanita ella

  Mi niña tiene sueño

  bendito sea, bendito sea.”

  Maggi wasn’t a particularly good singer, but Margaret could remember her ear pressed to Maggi’s chest, listening to the words resonate behind her clavicle. No matter how cold or hungry she
’d been, there was a solace in that song. Solace behind Maggi’s skinny fingers, clutching her so tight that it hurt.

  To a young Margaret, Maggi Lopez was the personification of fire. Somewhere in her young mind she would pretend that an ancient god had sent this merciless creature, The Bruja, to rescue Margaret from the smell of burning skin. Her parents’ burning skin.

  Margaret hadn’t realized, but she was singing the song aloud. Never turning away from his work, Doc Rosso asked her, “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Margaret exhaled, her voice ragged, “my mother never taught me.”

  Doc Rosso grunted, and for a second before he ran his scalpel across Margaret’s lower breast, she realized she wasn’t in pain.

  It was a blissful respite, no matter how few seconds it lasted.

  6:37am March 1st, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  “Tick, tick, tick.”

  Margaret was caught between waking rest and dreaming sleep. Her skin was screaming, itching under bandages, and her head felt packed full of lard. She knew that the chaise lounge velvet was soft under her left cheek, and that she was inhaling long dried vomit, crunchy on her lips. But, behind this, she was also in the dark. Running.

  Not running from something, running toward it.

  Perhaps, Margaret thought, it was decades on campaign. Radio transmissions had etched a channel in her mind that still buzzed. Perhaps, instead, she was simply connected with her paramore; that was Townsend’s voice in her head, speaking calmly.

  “Tick, tick, tick.”

  Margaret opened her eyes. She knew what was coming.

  “Troops in contact,” Margaret whispered, left hand forcing herself up and off the lounge. Aurora Owens’ apartment was quiet, swaddled in the first rays of morning light, orange and yellow playing off embroidered tapestries and luxurious couches.

  The first crack came from the south. It was a 120mm cannon, a main line battle tank. The big, thirsty bitches that drank endless petrol.

  Seventeen pounds of propellant.

  One of Margaret’s first jobs, as a child, was helping reloaders. Amihan’s troops didn’t have heavy armor, which meant those were 3rd Army guns.

  Seventeen pounds of propellant, Margaret thought again, “I need to get to work.”

  Crack. This one came from the east. Townsend would have split his forces, entering the city from both gates.

  “Captain Cyrus!” Margaret shouted, doing her best to sit up straight. Her right shoulder, which had always rested a little low, wouldn’t square back correctly. Likewise, the bandages across her chest restricted movement, pulling her into a rigid and uncomfortable mass that made even simple tasks slow and taxing.

  “Captain Cyrus!” Margaret shouted, a second time, her voice a choking rasp that sounded like a broken hand mixer trying to grind up wet rocks.

  “Lady Mayhem.” Cyrus said from behind her.

  “Do either you, or Aurora, still have field dress?”

  Cyrus paused for a second. Margaret could hear his mind rattle off a list of possessions, where they’d been stored, or if they’d been sold off. “A few vests, some shotguns and my old service pistol.”

  Margaret nodded, mostly for herself, and attempted to turn her head. This caused shrill pain across tugging flesh. It was a strange sensation, like a steel spring pulled open then snapping tight across skin. She was forced to shift all her weight to her left arm and buttocks.

  After a quick gasp, she slowly croaked, “Bring me your pistol and a vest. Wake the Lady Owens as well. I need to negotiate the Antecedent Empire’s surrender, in exchange for one of her old gowns.”

  Cyrus was wearing a pressed white shirt, cuffs rolled to his elbows, and a kitchen apron that was sprinkled with bits of flour and oil. He didn’t answer immediately, and the two locked eyes across the room.

  Crack.

  The silence between Margaret and Cyrus was such that the sound, preceded by chirping automatic weapons, was a tangible exclamation point. Cyrus slowly smiled, understanding unfurled as a flag in his mind.

  “Of course, Lady Mayhem.”

  Margaret returned his smile, then turned back, hiding her face. When she’d heard Cyrus leave the room, she allowed a pained groan. The more awake she became, the more it felt like some great dog had locked his jaws onto her breast, gnawing the flesh like a supple chew toy.

  She wasn’t hiding her pain from Cyrus. He and Aurora had certainly heard her lamentations. This was part of her dress for battle. The 3rd Army, her troops, could never see her cry or cringe, they had to know that their battlewitch was alive and strong.

  While she waited for Aurora, and her clothes, Margaret began ripping the bandages off her face. She didn’t want those, they felt constrictive, like a hobble or a crutch that kept her from moving freely. Standing up was the easiest thing she needed to do, and despite herself a triumphant giggle escaped Margaret’s lips. She was wearing the same underclothes she’d had on the previous night, but the skirt and corset were gone. Linen bandages on her arm and chest provided some cover, but her left breast fell free and Margaret briefly considered whether she cared, before dismissing it.

  On a table, just a few feet away from Margaret, was the necklace she’d commissioned to hold the eye that does not see. It had been tossed there, unceremoniously, its thin chain of gold scattered about and hanging off tan wood. The eye was mounted by clasps on a basic setting, nothing more than a dull looking piece of glass, ovoid and imperfect.

  “I wanted to steal it while you slept,” Lady Owens said, lurching toward her on antique crutches, painted in rich, orange, enamel. It was obvious that she was struggling, elbows jittering and her shoulders trembling.

  “You should be in your chair,” Margaret gurgled a placid reply.

  “Should!” Aurora Owens cackled, “I hear you’d like to negotiate with me.”

  Margaret looked back to the necklace and pressed her left palm into it, fingers closing on the chain, “I need to dress. My commander has begun an assault on the 9th Battalion in Stockton. They’ll need me”

  “Oh, I see,” Aurora snickered, but Margaret didn’t turn to watch her, “the mighty Empire begins to fragment. Turning on each other. Do you plan to lay claim to your brother’s throne?”

  For a second, with her hand on the eye, Margaret was certain she could hear voices. One of them was her mother, “One day, after I’m dead, Mayy will replace me.”

  “Mom?” Margaret turned, her back to Aurora, and then felt foolish. Her mother was nearly twenty years in the grave, the eye, whatever it was, had played a dirty trick on her.

  “Maggi is dead.” Aurora heard her, and continued speaking to her back, “Your brother rules and Amihan Lopez has turned on you. Why?”

  Margaret pulled the necklace off the table, puzzling how she’d wear it with only one hand. The answer was, she couldn’t, she’d ask Cyrus for help. Even now, Margaret couldn’t summon the anger this betrayal deserved as she remembered Ramona’s reply, “You’ll shake the hornet’s nest for sure, but maybe I can help.”

  Aurora Owens answered Margaret’s silence, shuffling closer on crutches, “Oh, is this a guessing game?”

  Before Aurora could finish, Margaret interrupted her, “Ramona told her sister that I planned to take the Lopez name and assume my brother’s crown. She told Amy I would betray her father.”

  When Aurora answered, her voice was serious, clean and hard, like a blade, cutting to the heart of this matter, “Look at me, Margaret Lopez.” Margaret did, but only after allowing her face to twist up in pain. The surname hurt, every bit as much as the blisters on her right cheek. “You’ve spent your entire life at war. You told me of your childhood, at Maggi’s side and your years after her death. You don’t understand the machinations of men; or in this case, a very clever young woman.”

  When Margaret licked her lips, she could taste jelly and aloe vera; it was greasy and turned her tongue numb. “She’s an heir to the Empire, she’s already got
power. Why betray me?”

  “Are you going to kill Amy Lopez?” Aurora leaned in, raising her eyebrows with the question. On her crutches, clawing for disquiet balance, she was still taller than Margaret.

  “Yes,” Margaret hissed.

  Aurora nodded, smirking, her eyes every bit the polished silver of a monarch, “Ramona has betrayed you and the Plague Dog. Why is that? You’re smart. Figure it out, my dear.”

  Some days Margaret would hate to admit it, and others she’d swear it proudly; but she was the product of Maggi Lopez, and right now it was Maggi that snapped back with venomous rage, “She wanted to fucking eliminate her rival, her fucking sister.”

  Aurora’s lips were thin, puckered down to her chin, and etched deep with fine wrinkles. Her answer held the same grit as her question, “Ramona has already won whatever game she wanted to play. Chances are, she’s met with my son, under her conditions. If you bring Eric a better deal, he’ll side with you. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Margaret exhaled, anger choking her, “A better deal?”

  “Total independence. The restoration of House Owens.” Feeble and sick, Aurora may have well been an immovable statue when she spoke.

  “All of it,” Margaret nodded, “Total restoration. And after the smoke clears, I want a home here. No bullet in my skull, no exile. I want asylum for myself and the Antecedent soldiers who follow me.”

  Aurora Owens studied Margaret for a while, so long that Margaret was becoming concerned that the older woman might topple on her crutches. Finally, she leaned sideways, shifted her weight to the right. Looking at Margaret’s good arm, then back to her eyes, extending her left hand, “My home is your home. My House is your House. I offer you the protection of Stockton, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, the Owens Army, and the Maul. We’ll back you against Amihan, Ramona, and your brother. There’s a price of course.”