Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  “I am,” Margaret frowned, sighing heavily.

  “Is there anything…” Townsend’s voice fell off and she heard his thoughts, there’s nothing that I can do.

  Margaret closed the yard that separated them, pressing herself into Townsend’s plate carrier and armor. His gear prodded and pushed her, invading her body in uniquely impersonal ways. Her left arm reached up, fingers wrapping around his neck behind collar and chainmail, dusty with charcoal. She was embracing him as best as her body would allow, and Townsend pressed her left side closer.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for the other night. For Stormair.”

  Townsend didn’t answer and she wished for his beating heart against her ear. She could always feel his pulse, but it wasn’t the same as pressing her face against his broad chest and just listening.

  After a moment Margaret pulled away, heavy on her feet. She started to pull a chair out, with one hand, but Townsend reached over to help her. Leaning down and across her shoulder. Margaret couldn’t smell him. The smoke of Stockton’s ruin hobbled her sinuses. Yet, she could feel a unique vibration this close, the clockwork connections that made up a soldier, the woven tapestry of both his strength and concern, a thick wall betraying little.

  As she sat down, Townsend offered his hand and she accepted. Looking up at him, she smiled, blinking several times, long and slow, then waggled a finger at him, inviting him closer. He extended one leg and dropped to a single knee.

  “Do you still want to be a traitor with me?” Margaret asked softly.

  “I think that train left the station,” Townsend grunted, looking away from Margaret’s ragged face, eyes scanning across the empty tavern, “The 3rd Army garrison of Stockton showed their loyalty when they attacked the Dogs of War.”

  “What of Amy?” Margaret replied, eyebrows high as she leaned back in her wooden chair. It wasn’t comfortable, and her back mumbled in disdain.

  Townsend shook his head, eyes still distant, “No one has seen Amihan Lopez. I was concerned she’d close Stockton, so we rallied the heavy armor and entered the city. The Dogs didn’t make it easy.”

  Margaret realized her neck ached from where one arm simply hung down from her collar bone. She used her left hand to pick up the forearm and place it in her lap.

  Townsend continued, voice hushed and low, “The east gate offensive was turned back. Casualties were high. Our southern gate offensive was stalled, fighting across a dozen city blocks. We broke them thanks to you.”

  Is Amy dead? Margaret wondered, before answering Townsend, “Did you send for the other garrisons? San Jose and Santa Rosa?”

  Townsend refocused his eyes on Margaret, doing his best to ignore the crumpled flesh around her eye, where Amy’s finger tips had pressed, “Dogs of War sent riders north. The 3rd Army is in disarray. Some are loyal to you. Others consider you a traitor to the Empire.”

  She lives, Amihan ordered that.

  Margaret found the knowledge of Amy’s health oddly satisfying, though not out of any concern for the young woman, rather a hard and weighty rage in her own stomach. “So, we’re on our own against Amy.”

  Townsend turned his head to the side, chin up, and brows furrowed, “I want to tell you that’s not a problem, but…”

  “But the 3rd Army has been fat and happy, eating and fucking the heart of House Owens for nearly two years,” Margaret didn’t need Townsend to lay it out for her. Life was easy here in the west. The garrison had grown soft, complacent.

  “The Dogs fight hard.” Townsend leaned forward and stood. As he paced away from Margaret his boots made the wooden floors keen and creak. Reverence turned to anger when Townsend spoke, and to his credit Margaret could feel him press and fold it, like a starched shirt, hidden away in a suitcase. “We’ve also lost track of Ramona.”

  Looking to Townsend’s bald head, broad wrinkles of muscle and fat at the back of his neck, Margaret replied with a hiss, “Ramona Lopez is the reason we’re in this shit show. I confided in her, I trusted her, and she lied to Amy. Tell your men to flee her on site. She’s not a battlewitch. She might be worse.”

  “Worse?” Townsend looked over his shoulder.

  Blinking slowly, Margaret lifted her filthy left hand to hold it against her chest. This had begun to ache in a new way, as muscle being pried up, and off her bones, “There are three tenants of magic,” Margaret quoted her mother, “one of which is reveal. Certain witches can get to the truth of a thing. Ramona, she can see to the desires of a person, and can control their motivation. She may be better at it than any I met before.”

  This reminded Margaret of the times her mother had issued such stern warnings about the other divinations, their insidious lures, and created a litany of ridiculous exercises to prepare her student for such inevitable meetings.

  Townsend slowly turned his body, arms lifting to cross, high on his chest, “What desires did she see in you?”

  My irrational desire to look beautiful for a man who already desires me?

  Margaret didn’t say that thought, instead she answered with half a truth, “She appealed to my vanity, gave me a reason to leave my sidearm at home. Have you ever seen me unarmed?”

  Shaking his head, Townsend needed no time to consider his answer. Gesturing toward the front door, towards command camp, he answered, “Why turn on you? Why turn on Amy?” In the time she’d known him, Margaret had never quite seen Townsend angry until now. It was an awesome show of fury, his eyes danced with fire and his voice bellowed around the room like a dog gone mad, knocking over chairs and tables.

  Margaret smiled, enjoying the fury, “I’ll ask her when I catch up with her.”

  “She’s heiress to this Empire!” Townsend shouted, before biting down hard and regaining his cool. “She’s heiress. And if we keep fighting like we did today, there won’t even be an Empire.” No matter how quietly he spoke, Margaret could hear his heart hammering at his chest, angry with almost every aspect of the world, save Margaret herself. It delighted her, and to some degree emboldened her beyond exhaustion. Lost for a moment in his rhythmic pulse, Margaret realized she was grinning at him, as desirous now as she’d been the night they first bedded.

  I don’t expect him to throw me on the table and fuck me with all that rage.

  That was a lie. She did expect that.

  “First thing,” Margaret glared up under her fuzzy brows, “I want you to relocate your command to the home of Aurora Owens. Tell Aurora you’re doing this personally and tell her that this came directly from me.”

  Townsend tipped his head, “Alright,” he said slowly.

  “Second thing. I’m promoting you. General Townsend will command more respect. I also declare you rightful commander of all loyal 3rd Army soldiers. Loyal to me.”

  Townsend chuckled, “I think General Bhatt will be disappointed to know he’s been relieved of command.”

  “Bhatt went south with my brother,” Margaret spat to the wooden floor, her sneer only turning nastier, more predatory, “and Bhatt isn’t fucking me, so I’ll invite him to go fuck himself.”

  Townsend’s anger had ebbed over the last few moments, and as clearly as if he’d spoken out loud, Margaret heard him think, Bhatt would never shut up about it.

  “You have a bigger dick than Bhatt, if you’re wondering,” Margaret said.

  Townsend answered, as smooth as a poured wine, “I wasn’t.”

  A week ago, Margaret would have wrestled with the words she spoke next. Nothing had really changed in the days since, save her mind was occupied by storied betrayal and physical agony. She simply didn’t have enough mind left to dwell on girlish anxiety. “It’s much worse than what you see on my face. If you’re wondering.”

  Exhaling, Townsend seemed relieved by this. It stood between them like a roughhewn statue, unvarnished and hideous, “You’re going to lose that arm. I know.”

  Not today I won't, Margaret almost said it aloud, “I don’t really know what to do when my paramour finds me revolting. I’m
not angry. I can’t even blame you.”

  There was a sincere silence between them, Townsend didn’t dismiss her words, or defend himself. He knew his thoughts would never truly be private around her. When he finally answered, it was honest, “I don’t know, either. But I know that you’re alive, and I prayed to the gods for that. No favor is free, so perhaps Ares tests my dedication. I won’t leave your side.”

  Ares would see my flesh ruined to test my paramour?

  Margaret found that a very foreign idea. As a witch she’d grown used to being the center of the world, and as often as that was a truth of her condition, it was also an illusion that had damned her more than a few times. Margaret wasn’t offended. If anything, it was an exotic notion, that she needed to offer her lover something more than simple lust, that she’d need to find new ways to seduce someone, ways not gifted to her at birth.

  “Help me, please,” Margaret gestured over to the rain cloak that Townsend had cast aside. “You’ll have to pull it up my right arm without rotating my shoulder.”

  Crossing to the table, Townsend retrieved her cloak, turning the arms out properly, then placing it on Margaret as she stood up from her seat. It was a fumbled affair, though Townsend did better than Cyrus, avoiding her wounds. Aurora’s coat nearly touched the dusted tavern floor and obscured both hands with cuffs and sterling silver buttons, measured for a taller woman. That was fine, because it also hid how badly her right shoulder was twisted.

  “I need two escorts. Hard gunmen.” Margaret said.

  “You’d have had my best, regardless,” Townsend replied, his pulse slowing as his big hands adjusted her hood.

  “You won’t much like where I’m going,” Margaret looked at him, good hand placed, palm first, in the middle of his plate carrier.

  “Don’t imagine I will,” Townsend shrugged.

  “We need Duke Eric Owens,” Margaret nodded, mostly for her own benefit, then lifted her hand from Townsend’s chest, “We’re not fighting the Dogs alone.”

  6:45pm March 1st, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  This wasn’t the first time Margaret had strode the streets of a city under siege, but it was the first time she’d seen one so vibrant as fighting spread. Night was upon Stockton now, and her great walls cast deep shadows that obscured even the stars, a mother’s cloak protecting her children from harsh winds.

  The southern stretches of Stockton were mostly residential, pocketed with stores. Cargo and commercial traffic bound into the city’s beating heart was routed along Boulevard 5th, garishly adorned with taverns and brothels, marketing to Stockton’s inbound commerce. In better days it wasn’t uncommon for the thoroughfare to be jammed, wagon-to-bumper, well past sundown. Townsend’s temporary command quarter was located here, and he now controlled 5th.

  Margaret and her escorts had to cross east, down narrow confines, of Ateth Street. Pre-Collapse homes, row by row, had become foundations for two- and three-story apartment complexes, sewn together tightly with narrow hovels built between. Ateth was mostly gouged dirt, paved in hammered feces and small stones. The air was cumbrous with rank sewage, where the upper-apartments dumped their bedpans at night, unconnected to the city’s waterways. Most of these tenants had abandoned their homes as the day wore on, only a few derelicts held hostel. It reminded Margaret, quite intensely, of her childhood, walking empty streets with her mother and a small contingent of soldiers that would become the Antecedent Army.

  At the easternmost end of Ateth was Grant Jail, a series of old townhomes that had been converted to house petty offenders and criminals scraped off back alleys and cellars. Pickpockets, thieves, thugs, and layabouts mostly occupied the grounds. Stockton sent her more violent offenders to the ruins of Sacramento where they worked in chain gangs, digging for the rest of their lives, or until radiation finally claimed them.

  Grant Jail was also abandoned. Crossing to the rails, Margaret could hear bedlam, inmates crying out to guards who’d fled. Front gates standing wide open and guard towers left empty. Anyone could have walked into the place, ignoring high aluminum fences painted in extensive murals, a young boy stealing an onion, or a woman’s overbag being ripped free of her shoulder. Unlike the other vivid walls of Stockton, these had been chipped and faded over the years, and often vandalized with simple black tags.

  Margaret and her two companions could now head north along the rails, where multi-track yards and depots peppered the spine of Stockton. Feral dogs ran free, staying back, barking in impotent rage at the invaders who swept their territory.

  It was at least three miles before Margaret and her escorts reached the Crosstown viaducts, fresh-water delivery for most of Stockton’s plumbing. This had been one of Aurora’s greatest achievements after the Collapse, a simple and effective means of providing running tap water, for drinking, cooking, and bathing. It was the first like it on the West Coast, Aurora had once explained to Margaret, a crown jewel second only to the city walls that kept her young state secure. It also leaked badly, and Margaret’s companions waded through ankle-deep marshes, thick with high reeds, vibrant seedlings and mossy growth. People lived here in the shadow of Crosstown, collecting water that fell from the viaduct, selling it to the poor denizens of places like Ateth Street. Forgotten by Owens and Antecedents alike, these clever farmers, peddlers, and cobs watched from behind ramshackle abodes, made of rotted and soft wood, rusted iron, and dirty aluminum. They didn’t surround themselves in vivid murals, but like most in House Owens, they wore vibrant colors, deep blue or yellow, that popped and flickered in their glowing fire light. They had no desire to disturb Margaret, their voices falling to hushed whispers and the gnashing of chew tobacco and spicy seeds. Margaret’s mind washed across the swamp, a background tickle, hazy fear, a reminder that it was best to keep to themselves.

  Past their huts, kicking through mud and morass, Margaret could feel the eyes of other things watching her. Not the scampering rat-creatures that fed on garbage and horse shit of a major city, this was more insubstantial. Hinkypunks, or will-o'-the-wisps. They weren’t ghosts, there was no clicking and snapping of a human mind, these felt like a cat or weasel, inquisitive as they darted under the water and in the reeds. From time to time Margaret would see a soft glow pop up, reflections on wet stone, until she grew closer and only old bark looked back at her. Maggi had called them luces del tesoro, a goblin who might show a clever child where to find lost silver. Maggi had suggested that those children, lured deep into a swamp with sweet promises, would never return, but these little nixies seemed harmless. Every bit as curious as the occupants of Crosstown, and utterly without fear.

  By the time they emerged from Crosstown’s swamps, Margaret was weary beyond measure. For the first time in recent memory her face did not burn, but her body ached. Each joint strummed in a low and quiet pain, from her spine to knees and up into her neck. She needed rest, to sleep for a week or three. The idea of a bed was seductive beyond reason.

  With one hand braced on a ponderous concrete support pillar, Margaret had to pause and rest. She could feel decaying cement, brittle and sandy at her fingertips and biting nails. One of her escorts strode up near, short and stocky, he was middle-aged with an ill-gotten beard that seemed too thin in all the wrong places. “If ya’ need ta’ sit boss, we gotcha.”

  Margaret couldn’t place his accent, but she found his complete disregard for her title, Lady, to be charming. He was a Sarn’t named Decklan Holloway, who had been passed over a thousand times for promotion due to an ill temper and a love of spirits, according to Townsend. However, his guncraft was some of the finest in the 3rd Army.

  “For a moment,” Margaret closed her eyes and turned to lean against the pillar, her eyes heavy and her knees weak. She pulled her right arm over her abdomen and allowed herself to slink down to the ground, in a crunchy well of gravel.

  Deck’s face and torso were illuminated by distant gas light, and an occasional glint of metal caught his rifle. He kept the weapon down, slung u
nder one arm and inside a woolen coat of deep gray, though anyone paying attention would have seen it.

  He withdrew a cigarette, and Margaret heard him strike a match, the smell of sulphur blazing for a moment. He held it between his thumb and index finger, burning cherry tipped up, inside his palm, to hide the extra light.

  The road was ruin. Asphalt had become nothing more than a cadence of rocks and memories. Margaret turned south, inhaling burning tobacco, watching Stockton festooned by a fountain of murky red smoke illuminating streets, windows, signs and boards. Small arms fire could still be heard, popping, miles away. But here, in this one place, beyond Deck and rusted fences long bent and torn away, was peace. Total darkness. It beckoned Margaret close, tempted her with cool solace where she could lay, unknown and unseen, a place she could rest.

  Margaret should have known sooner that there was something out there, summoning her close, but exhaustion and injury had blurred her mind. It wasn’t until Deck turned away from her and took a few steps back, that she noticed. His cigarette smoke curled around Margaret’s view, and in shades of dissipating tobacco, Margaret could see a figure watching her. Not wholly visible at one time. It might be legs one second, at another it could be arms. Fading and skeletal with bleached bones that shifted in hues of pale blue and cobalt, wrapped in tatters of old film, atrophied and crumbling, shifting and moving in a jerking dance, for a forgotten rhythm.

  This was no ghost like Harvester, and certainly not a god squeezing a fraction of its consciousness into meat and bone. Margaret realized, this thing, it was attempting to manifest in her physical world, a display of terrifying power.

  Margaret glanced over to her second companion, who’d been quiet. She was just a silhouette in the dark, but she seemed to be watching the same entity through Deck’s smoke.