Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  “Do you see that Erin?” Margaret asked, turning from the girl and back to the darkness.

  “I can feel it,” Erin answered, so softly that Margaret strained to hear.

  “See what? Feel what?” Deck asked, his heels grinding up gravel. Soaked in anxiety, he tasted like bitter leaf, the kind you’d eat for a sour stomach.

  Margaret had seen a great many things in her life, but nothing like that, nothing so non-corporal and powerful that it was ripping at physical air to manifest. When people discussed the fall of the Veil, what they really meant was the weakening of the Veil. If an uninclined saw a ghost, like Harvester, it tended to be powerful and full of rage. A witch who talked to gods, like Condatis, interacted with a physical shell. Spirits and hobgoblins from the beyond didn’t walk unfettered and free, there was a price to pay.

  “Are you inclined?” Margaret asked the small woman, named Erin, ignoring Deck’s start and shudder.

  The girl shrugged. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen, a former brassboy, she’d joined the 3rd Army somewhere in Nevada. Although she commanded no rank, Townsend promised she was an uncanny marksman. Margaret was, at this moment, numb to digging beyond Erin’s skull. She needed this break.

  Whatever held her gaze in the darkness was still lurking here, and Margaret’s instincts suggested that leaving the darkness, total darkness, was the only way to be free of her.

  Free of ‘her?’

  Margaret didn’t second guess herself. Just because she couldn’t focus enough to make full use of her abilities didn’t mean that her senses were quiet.

  “Help me up,” Margaret asked, softly, as though Erin’s quiet tone was a flu that she could catch by breathing too deeply. Deck offered a hand, and it seemed slightly too big for his frame. The muscles around his wrists and fingers had all the density of steel cables. “We should continue on. Pacific will be busy, at this time of night.”

  Margaret hadn’t been wrong about this.

  Pacific Avenue was the central hub and downtown furor of Stockton. A beating heart that infused all the city with frothing life. For the brokers and vendors that plied their trade under gaslamp and snapping fluorescents, there was no war being fought. They sold finely crafted leathers, clothing, and weapons both stylish and functional. Every kind of shotgun load that could be imagined, and unique daggers. There were a thousand types of cuisine, street cooks plied their sizzling meats and sweets on cobble’s edge. From barbequed sausage to chicken marsala, smoked fish, tacos a carne asada, seaweed salted and dried, even crispy bacon fat, black with pepper, it was all here. Air was humid and foggy, with the tang of spice and curry, lard and skin, boiled with aromatic piquancy, filling lungs and wetting the tongues with esculent promises.

  Clusters of men huddled up under street light to smoke and play dice, hushed whispers and angry growls just beyond earshot echoed off brick and plywood. “The Antecedent Empire has gone mad, they’re fighting each other,” some whispered, others bit back, “Fuck the Antecedents, long live Lady Owens!”

  There were also families marauding at the street’s edge, children hugging their mother’s legs close, full of fight and awe as they witnessed Pacific for the first time. Babies wept in their parents’ arms, dreaming of home or a suckle at their mother’s breasts. These were the southern Stockton residents, the poor who’d been displaced when Amy’s Dogs seized their streets.

  In this hustle, between the press of Pacific’s garish neon temptations and cheerless dispossessed, Margaret could hear the traffic of a hundred other city-states. This was the reality that Margaret had grown up in, thrived in, listening to greasy innuendo of migration. How many times had she rode high on a big Abrams? Wrapped in goggles and shemagh, coughing at black carbon and watching a river of destitute souls leaving the fighting that she would soon join. Just like those men, women, and children, these residents clutched packs of valuables and rolls of bread or meat, small carts for the crippled, old grandmothers, and leashed dogs.

  The difference was, Stockton had not known this kind of city-fighting since the first days of the Collapse, thanks to Aurora Owens.

  “Where to, boss?” Margaret had paused outside a shuddered tannery, breathing heavy and fighting a new wave of exhaustion. Deck pressed his chest into her left arm, the upper receiver of his rifle swung up and bouncing soundlessly off her left breast and flak vest.

  “Oxford Circle. A lot of the former Owens nobility moved there after we kicked them out of the palace.” Margaret closed her eyes, feeling Deck’s right arm steady her.

  “Ya’ sure it's a good time? Ta’ have this talk? Talking with Lord Owens?”

  “No,” Margaret laughed, her upper shoulder and clavicle spun a web of stiff discomfort and very real pain. It felt as though her bones wanted to rebel, pressing themselves out of her flesh, puncturing her skin, clawing at her from the inside out. A part of her wanted to panic at the sensation, but a wiser part of her realized that it was just a trick of imagination, “But, if we don’t win the support of Eric Owens, I think none of us will like the outcome.”

  Deck Holloway laughed, the plate carrier he wore under cotton and wool vibrating with his deep chuckle, “Speak for ya’self, boss. When Alexander shows up, Imma out, droppin’ gear, patches and armor. Netter Deck Holloway, that’s mah’ name. Better believe it.”

  Despite the grim subject, Margaret adored Deck’s attitude. She couldn’t read his joke, feel his thoughts, but it sounded about right for a man pinned down a hundred times in the Antecedent Empire. He’d only fight, or die, for Townsend.

  “Netter Mayhem,” Margaret exhaled hard, then straightened up as best she could. “I really doubt anyone will believe that.”

  “Boss, I’ll get ya’ over ta’ Owens’ house on Oxford. Erin’ll book us rooms, up off Pacific, down near’a Red Light, Brothel Row.”

  “Thank you, Sarn’t,” Margaret exhaled.

  It wasn’t much further to walk. Oxford wasn’t that far removed from Pacific, and it gave Margaret the time she needed to locate the last glowing embers of cynosure that she possessed in her soul. She was tired now and needed to expend all that was left of her will on wowing the heir of House Owens, convincing him to risk his life and limb for her life and limb.

  11:05pm March 1st, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  “Lady Mayhem,” Eric Owens smiled, green eyes the same shade of a flowing California river, “while I am grieved to hear of this dispute between your commanders, I fail to see what solutions I could offer to Antecedent problems.”

  Refusing the offer to sit in one of Eric’s finely appointed leather chairs, Margaret leaned back, and tipped her chin up with the arrogance her position demanded. The stance was laborious, as her flesh stretched and pulled painfully at her side and abdomen, “I think what you fail to see, Lord Owens, is that these are your problems.”

  Eric speech was a raspy resonance from the back of his throat, almost certainly a souvenir of war, along with the jagged scar that marked his left brow. He was tall, slim, and wore a cashmere smoking robe, tattered at the collar and cuffs, a relic of a world that existed before the Collapse. It befitted a noble heir. Where the robe joined at his sternum, a clump of black chest hair, thick and glossy, jutted out, “There’s very little I fail to see, Lady Mayhem. You’re seeking my backing to make this schism legitimate. You stand before me, in one of my mother’s old gowns, to beg the support of your Antecedent auxiliary. Support I should rightfully bring to bear on the side of a Lopez, like Plague Dog.”

  Margaret knew she cast a poor symbol of nobility. The gown that Aurora Owens had loaned her was stained at her ankles from Crosstown swamp and dusted finely in brick and plaster. When she answered, she forced total conviction into her voice, “And yet, you haven’t. You’ve brought none of the former Owens troops to support the 9th Battalion.”

  Eric Owens clapped his palms together, leaning forward, directing real attention on Margaret, “Do you know why that is, battlewitch?”<
br />
  Sneering, Margaret replied, “No, I don’t. Because when my brother learns of your inaction, he’ll fall upon Stockton with Plague Dog and burn your mother’s city to ash.”

  “No,” Eric held up a hand, separating his palms, then turning away from Margaret to a finely polished shelf of black and gray marble. Withdrawing a decanter of brown liquid, he poured drinks, “Your fiat brother will do nothing of the sort. He’ll be short on supplies, returning from a long southern campaign.”

  Margaret stepped forward, closing the gap between her and Eric, balling her left fist, “If you think my brother’s armies will be weak, you may be right, but he still commands three battlewitches, no less terrible than I am.”

  “Does he?” Eric paused, brows lifted, the scar tissue on his forehead creasing flesh at an odd angle, then looked back at two glass tumblers, free of cracks.

  Why would you ask that, Eric?

  Margaret swallowed hard and accepted one of the tumblers, two fingers of whiskey inside. She exhaled, then kicked back the glass, taking liquor at her throat, “You sound like a man who’s too certain of things he has no right to be.”

  “I’m simply not interested in taking Stockton, or my soldiers, into an Antecedent civil war. Your masters are not my masters.”

  Margaret considered the whiskey smooth, smoky and even savory, but she felt no shame for downing it so quickly as Eric Owens nursed his tumbler, licking alcohol off his lips.

  He’s too certain, but he’s never been an idiot, Margaret thought, why would he so confidently disregard Alexander’s rage?

  With that, Margaret remembered, “Ramona already visited you.”

  Eric crossed to the opposing side of the marble counter, so that it separated them. He wasn’t grinning, his mouth didn’t curl into a smile, but his eyes were laughing like a young boy who’d been told an especially dirty joke, “How many more burns does my mother’s gown hide, I wonder? You’ve not lifted your right arm since you arrived. Witches can’t focus if they’re distracted.”

  Margaret sighed and slid her tumbler across the marble, shades of umber pockmarked with glints of gold and silver, “Pain is very distracting. No, I’m not listening to your mind.”

  Eric finally allowed his eyes to reach his lips, “So, we’re equals tonight.”

  “Tell the truth, shame the devil,” Margaret answered, dryly, her voice cracking as she spoke, “Pour another one, Lord Owens.”

  Eric filled Margaret’s tumbler again from the same crystal decanter, then picked it up with index finger and thumb to sit it carefully down. “Equals then, Lady Mayhem. What do you think Ramona Lopez offered me?”

  Margaret didn’t hesitate to relieve him of the tumbler. She took a long sip this time, rather than emptying the glass, allowing whiskey to warm her throat and esophagus, coddling her tender nerves, “She seduced you. You said no at first, but she wouldn’t relent. In bed, naked, she promised you the world. She explained the Antecedent disposition and offered to eliminate Alexander's battlewitches. When you asked her how, she explained that Plague Dog would kill me, and that my 3rd Army would break themselves on the Dogs of War in block-to-block fighting. She’d arrange the demise of each battlewitch at my brother’s disposal, and you’d be free to negotiate an independent House Owens once more.”

  “Mostly true,” Eric Owens shrugged, sipping again at his whiskey before placing it back on the marble, “I didn’t tell Ramona no at first. I’ve never desired a woman so much, and I’ll make her my Queen if she lets me.”

  Margaret made a sharp noise, something out of her throat that sounded like a screech and laugh, “Oh, Lord Owens, you poor fool man. I’m sure a hundred Lords and Ladies across the Antecedent Empire have said the same stupid fucking thing.”

  Lord Owens stood back, coming up to full height, cracking his thumb joints under each of his fists, “I know she wouldn’t accept. I can dream, and I will dream, and that’s the finest gift Ramona gave me.”

  Margaret shook her head, lips raised in disgust, Long after we’re all dead, that’s what they’ll say about Ramona. She gave so many fine gifts.

  “Unless, I kill her.”

  She’d said it under her breath, a whisper, a second of revulsion made manifest, wrapped up in a heady sack of anger, bloated with grief and exasperation. Eric Owens heard her regardless. He watched her for a moment, then finished his liquor, allowing the two to share his study in silence for several long moments.

  This wasn’t the first time that Margaret was deaf to the thoughts of another, and it made her feel as ruined as the burns across her body. I’m not an idiot, I can still do this.

  “Ramona’s offer is sound Lord Owens,” Margaret spoke first, her mouth numb and soaked in stiff drink. When she blinked, each fall of her eyelids felt like cotton pressed into her eyeballs, dry, and stinging, “Allow me to make a counteroffer.”

  Lord Owens shrugged and tucked the two tumblers next to his chest, answering softly, “I’m listening.”

  For decades Margaret had stood next her brother, using brute force to negotiate what the Empire would and would not accept. Although Margaret understood that Lord Owens was not a fool, nor was he naive, she could not unsee him as just another hapless victim of the Lopez family. Her mother, her brother, and now her niece. She didn’t have it in her to take what didn’t belong to her, she paid for all favors, in full.

  “Ramona has already schemed her way through my brother’s command. Maybe you don’t need to worry for his witches. You imagine that Alexander will fall east, defeated, allowing House Owens a chance to rise. I’ll give you better. I’ll give you the west back.” Margaret was only barely hiding her pain now, the whiskey had done little to take the edge off, and her cheeks were flushed, fevered as noonday sun, “We restore your mother, Lady Aurora the first, Heart of the House Owens. Your sister and her witches answer only to Modus Vivendi. I’ll kneel at her throne and swear fealty, giving you a battlewitch. General Townsend and those loyal to him will also swear fealty. When my brother comes to demand your surrender, I’ll end your Antecedent problem forever.”

  Lord Owens, leaning in now, watched Margaret carefully, gesturing slightly with his right hand, a gentle motion, barely perceivable.

  I’ll kill my brother. “I’ll kill Alexander Lopez for you.”

  Margaret did not blink or look away from Lord Owens. She didn’t want him to think this was lightly offered, or that she was lying. She loved Alexander, but she loved herself more.

  Eric Owens was closer to Margaret now than was socially acceptable. His jaw was set and tendering nothing but gravest attention.

  Imagine how much more awkward this would be if we’d actually fucked.

  “No,” Lord Owens said, “This isn’t enough.”

  Margaret almost slapped him. Her brother’s life was on the table, as well as her own loyalty. She’d served the Antecedent Empire since they were nothing more than a band of hapless mercenaries and veterans, “The Antecedent Empire is my brother’s dream. It was not Maggi’s, or my own. What more could I possibly give you?”

  For a second Margaret thought Lord Owens might kiss her, his eyes so full of passion. Without her senses to whisper all the hidden secrets, she could only estimate the situation on his body language.

  “Give me Modus Vivendi,” Eric Owens growled, and though he didn’t kiss her, the tone was darker, get on your knees, bitch.

  Margaret understood, “Kill your sister, you mean.”

  “My sister held this House hostage when your brother came. Modus Vivendi holds a dozen witches, and Aurora Cuttersark is a battlewitch no different from our mother. We could have stopped you, we could have fought you, if we held those witches in our grasp.”

  That was the cusp of it. Modus Vivendi held power separate from the Heart of House Owens, a purely uninclined role. Margaret remembered what Aurora Cuttersark had said, “Because I once tried to master The Beast, when Alexander’s army crossed the Sierra Nevada. I tried to harness the power of that monster to stop y
ou all.”

  You’d stop Alexander’s army for Modus Vivendi, Margaret knew, not for House Owens.

  “I’m not an assassin,” Margaret whispered, it was only a flirtation, she’d already promised to assassinate her own brother.

  “No,” Lord Owens shook his head, retreating back not an inch further, his voice rasping low, “But you’ll make a fine Magnate of Modus Vivendi. I also think you’ll manage the Bay Area Reach quite well as a real land-holding Lady.”

  Lord Owens asked the world of Margaret, demanding her loyalty, her service, and the lives of her men. To serve at his steed, the next Heart of House Owens, once his mother passed beyond the Veil. In return he offers me wealth, power, and title.

  “As it pleases you,” Margaret smiled, and she may as well have laid her ragged lips into his with a tone that defined her words.

  Standing back, pulling away from her, the overtly seductive moment lost, Lord Owens stood erect and extended his right hand, “Do we have an accord?”

  An accord to kill our siblings? Margaret shook his right hand with her left, an awkward gesture that she wouldn’t pull away from even when Lord Owens tried to withdraw. She didn’t want him to think, in this final moment, that she belonged to him. The handshake was a reminder that she’d do things her way, or no way.

  “Your 3rd Army and my House soldiers won’t be enough. My men haven’t trained or drilled in two years.” Finally, free of her grasp, Eric Owens shook his head, “We’ll need support from the Maul. That may be a challenge.”

  “Oh?” Margaret replied. Feeling the fingers of her left hand begin to tremor as she groped for Lord Owens' decanter and removed the rounded top, “Am I also to be your errand girl? While you relax in silk and cashmere?”

  “No,” Eric reached for the decanter, but Margaret had already hefted it to her lips and was sucking at the sweet, warm whiskey, “The Maul are peculiar. They’re a warrior caste. Their children are trained from birth to fight, but they won’t respect an Owens, recalling them.”