“I came here today, to ask, or,” Margaret narrowed her eyes, “beg you, to support Ro. I’m going to restore her to the throne of House Owens again.”
“What about Eric?” The old soldier leaned forward again, “Is he at his mom’s side? Good man, a fighter, just like Ro.”
“Lord Owens is the one who told me you’d not come back.”
The Maul warlord smirked with a wink, “He got his dick buried up your ass, Sugarlips?”
Margaret opened her mouth to reply, then realized that soldiers from fifty years ago, and soldiers from today had equally foul mouths and dirty minds. She answered the Marine the way she’d have answered one of her shield bearers or gunners: “Why? Are you jealous?”
“Marines don’t get jealous, Sugarlips. Just need to know the score.”
The score for what?
“I don’t know anything about a score, but I know that my niece holds Stockton’s eastern gate and a quarter of the city. She’s waiting for her father to return, and when he does return, he’ll pin down my garrison. That’ll be the end of any new House Owens.”
It was a long time that the warlord studied Margaret, long and decisively silent. His eyes ripped at her dress, and stabbed her in the heart, all at once. When he finally spoke, it was low in tone and his vocal tremor had vanished, “We are the children, children’s children, of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. We’re not just some jarheads you send to die. We’re family, blood and bone. We raise our own to live and die by the standards of the goddamn Corps. The Maul’s support isn’t manpower, Sugarlips. It's summoning God’s own elements to earth. Just like a witch do it.” The old warlord squinted and this time, when he spit, a gob of tobacco landed in the clear Pacific surf. “The Maul is loyal to the side who fights hardest. Ro Owens betrayed that loyalty. We’d have died for her, and you could have zapped us or lit us on fire, or whatever the fuck it is you do, but we’d have never surrendered.”
A cool breeze snapped at Margaret’s bare neck, warm sun now obscured by migrant clouds drifting across the coast, “I’m a nightmare mirror.”
“Out-fucking-standing!” The old warlord barked, his grin genuine. There wasn’t a hint of fear at the edges of his eclipse, if anything the notion of fighting Margaret only made him burn brighter. He offered a growl, “Never did answer my question about Eric, did you?”
Margaret broke eye contact and replied slowly, with an edge of embarrassment in her tone, “Eric turned me down, actually.”
“No shit?” The old Marine coughed, “Eric ain’t the man I assumed he was.”
Margaret waved him off, “He just has no good taste in women. One of my garrison; however, has earned the right to call me his.”
“Oh?” The old man gestured with his chin, “One of your own? One of your soldiers?”
“Mm,” Margaret thought for a second, then answered, “We’re joint commanders. In the Antecedent Empire, a General and a battlewitch work as a team. Just like your sniper and spotter.”
The old warlord held his hands out wide, gesturing towards her. “Smart man, keeping a woman like you. Too bad, ‘course. I was going to feed you some bullshit line about how the Maul seal every bargain in the Biblical approximation, eh?” He winked at Margaret, though she understood none of what he just said, only that it was a joke at her expense. He wasn’t humiliating her, he was treating her like a peer, and that was exactly what she wanted.
“A woman like me?” Margaret replied.
The old warlord gestured at her hand, then her face, holding his fingers and thumb in a straight line, like a knife, “The way you sit, I’d wager most of your chest is burned up. Tell me I’m wrong.” Margaret didn’t answer him, so he continued, “Those are fresh burns, scabbed and nasty, something awful. But look at you, right? It’s a long stage-ride up here, and you’re trying to stitch me up with my old friend, Ro. Why? Just to face-fuck whoever did that to you?”
Just to face-fuck my brother, his daughters, and Aurora Cuttersark.
“Something like that.”
“Look, Sugarlips,” the old man was grinning, “you remind me of Ro when she was young and stupid. I liked Ro back then, liked her enough to be sad she married that Cuttersark cunt. A woman who’ll fight, fight hard, why, ain’t nothing in this life sexier.”
Margaret had to blink hard to stave off a few tears. Although she was successful, the Maul warlord almost certainly noticed her efforts. Aphrodite’s bargain had been loud in her ears these past few days, and until this moment she’d had no counter.
“Thank you,” Margaret had said, grateful to the old Marine for his mercy and charm.
“The Maul will follow you, and you alone, Mayhem,” The old man gave her a few minutes to collect herself. When their eyes reconnected, he spoke, “If that restores House Owens, that’s fine too. But, Ro Owens, we’re done.”
“I’ll deal with Ro Owens,” Rubbing at her eyes with the back of her left hand, Margaret continued, “You help me deal with the Antecedent witch who burned me. We aren’t done yet.”
The old warlord whistled at Margaret, then crossed his arms, “Fancy like a pretty boy in a suit, making promises about the needs of God and Country.” Which god? A brief spasm of loathing turned up her stomach. She could taste bile and acid in her chest as she lifted her left hand up to rest it on the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta, under her gown. “You fear her.”
“No,” Margaret shook her head, violently, ignoring any pain in her flesh, “Plague Dog and her sister are pawns in a game.”
Margaret would have preferred to give the old man a scheme, something in stone that he could have charted. She had pieces of a puzzle, the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta, The Beast, Aphrodite’s ownership of Ramona, and whatever machinations Ramona operated under; but how each of those things fit into a greater plan, she couldn’t have guessed.
The old man tilted his head, eyes raising goose pimples on Margaret’s arms and legs, the wind turning colder now; “Tell me, Sugarlips, who is this Plague Dog to you?”
Margaret’s eyes burned, but she didn’t look away. “She’s my niece.”
“Damn!” the old Warlord shouted in response, “you’re fine as fuck, but I just dodged a bullet earlier. You’d have froze my dick clean off. That’s cold.”
Imagine what you’d think if I told you I planned to murder my brother.
Margaret answered, “General Townsend and the 3rd Army control Stockton’s southern gate. Plague Dog’s troops have dug in and hold the eastern gate. If the Maul attacks her there, combined with a southern push, her forces will collapse.” How could I possibly get close to Alexander? Margaret thought, laying palm, above her thighs, I don’t want to fight the whole of the 1st and 2nd Armies.
The old warlord’s jest was gone for a moment, “We’ll follow you back, push these kids out of Stockton. But we’re going to need to do something first, little Sugarlips.”
Margaret asked, with all seriousness, “Seal the bargain in a Biblical approximation?”
The old man’s expression shifted, he started to laugh, thought better of it, and just stared at her for a moment, “I’m sorry Sugarlips, but we’re going to need to amputate that arm. Maul has surgeons, old world surgeons, it’ll be clean.”
9:05pm March 8th, 39 Veilfall
Fish Rock, California
When Margaret woke up, she could see Erin at the corner of her room drawing down the wick in an oil-burning lamp, casting a flickering yellow glow. As it slowly faded, she was reminded of the creature from Crosstown, watching from total darkness.
“No, leave it on.” Margaret’s voice was hoarse when she spoke, a crack and fissure in her syllables. A bottle of bourbon had provided some comfort when the surgeon sawed her arm off, but not as much as it would have taken to silence her screams or alleviate wakefulness.
Erin mumbled something, then returned to Margaret’s bedside, in dull light.
“I need you to speak louder. I can’t hear the way I did when I was your age.”
Margaret off
ered a smile, but it just looked sad. The Maul surgeon who’d removed her arm had also spoken to her of fish skin grafting, which now covered her ruined chest and shoulder. She’d been too drunk to ask questions. For now, the handprint on her face was covered in a silky black and silver crosshatch that caught lamp light, turning Margaret’s cheek and lips a shade of gold.
“Because of the ghost?” Erin repeated herself, louder.
Margaret blinked slow, tired, “It wasn’t a ghost. Listen to your intuition next time, don’t make me correct you when you already know the right answer.”
Erin sat down on a metal stool next to Margaret’s bed, the legs scratching loudly across tile as it shuffled to one side under the girl’s weight.
Margaret glanced at the layers of linen that were pinned up to her right shoulder, needles holding the bandages in place. The wound ached in a way that Margaret had never experienced, it was an empty, tugging sensation. She itched in places where a limb no longer existed.
I should ask the surgeon to boil the flesh off my bones, save them for me. A blacksmith could make me a prosthetic out of them.
It could never function the same way of course, but a good prosthetic could hold a pose, and with proper adjustment, she’d still be able to wear gowns and dresses without alteration. No one would believe her arm was real, but a prosthetic made from metal and bone would certainly remind them of what she was.
“Talk to me, Corporal Abid. Tell me anything.”
Erin looked around the room, wheels and gears of her mind at work across her face. She had such delicate features, wearing her hair like a boy, elegantly androgynous.
“Um, well. I like the Maul.”
“So, do I,” Margaret gave her a slow nod. Unable to focus her mind she studied the girl with great attention. She was tired of this pain. It blurred much more than just her inclinations, it blurred her sanity. For a moment, a very strange moment, she felt as if she herself was Maggi Lopez, looking at a teenage Mayy, wondering what the future held for her, or what she would accomplish in her life.
“Did you ever care, mother?” Margaret let her lips loose without full control over what she would say.
Erin glanced away, leaned in, and then raised her brows, “Mother?”
Aware that her thoughts had roamed free in the air, Margaret waved off the younger woman, as if she’d bothered her with pointless trivia, “Tell me about your inclination. What do you hear and see?”
Margaret’s eyes focused and unfocused around Erin, and the girl answered with thin lipped trepidation, “I’ve heard people’s thoughts, forever,” she leaned into her words, speaking faster than before, “I know when someone is mad, and when they’re happy. I can hear lies. Or truth! Oh, and spiders.”
Margaret wrinkled up her nose, never liking spiders particularly much.
“Spiders always seem to like me. There’s some on me now. It’s weird.”
What the fuck?
“What the fuck?” Margaret withdrew a few inches from Erin. She’d never heard of such a thing in the inclined. Most animals favored witches, but spiders?
“I had a tarantula collection back in Nevada,” Erin said, casually.
I want to think about spiders even less than I want to think about losing my arm.
“What about elements?” Margaret changed the subject, quickly, “Commanding fire is very common among us, as well as air, or perhaps water.”
Erin shook her head, “I can’t make fire. Unless I have some matches,” it seemed very important to the girl to explain this. “You’re the first one to call me inclined.”
Margaret was just a child when Maggi Lopez asked her those questions. It was late at night and the old nightmares had come. She’d woke, screaming, and Maggi held the child to her chest, running fingers through Margaret’s hair.
“It’s okay,” Margaret’s ragged voice came out as a whisper, “I can’t make tornados or any of that shit either. I wouldn’t even be a battlewitch, if Maggi hadn’t believed in me.”
“Maggi?” Erin asked.
“The Bruja, Maggi Lopez, she was my mother.” A look of awe and wonder crossed Erin’s face, and her jaw clamped down on whatever else she may have said before freezing up for awkwardly long seconds. Watching her face, Margaret realized that the loss of her arm was a reminder of the day she learned of Maggi’s passing. A part of her was gone, and there was no returning it, “She adopted me when I was still very young. She wasn’t a very good mother, she was kind of terrible, actually.”
Margaret laughed, and when she did, the tears ran down her face, and across her temples, from where she lay.
“She was a shitty fucking mom,” Erin didn’t interrupt as Margaret continued, wiping at her eyes with the fingers of her left hand, “but she was a good teacher. She loved magic, and I’ve come to realize that she was the only person I could connect to, that way.”
Margaret was hardly even talking to Erin now, she was watching the plywood ceiling, stained with soot as she spoke, “Mom, she used to wake me up, with spiders. She’d enter my dreams and scatter images of them. I think it's because she knew what my real nightmares were. I think she didn’t want to really hurt me. No other witch could walk in my dreams.”
Margaret wasn’t forgetting the bad times. They were there, they were always there, “But, I guess I did forget the good times over the years,” she said, speaking her thoughts again, manifest and heard clearly by the younger woman.
Maggi had understood Margaret in a way that her own fingers understood the grease in her hair, and the crust at her eyes in young hours of the morning. Between them, they’d shared a unique bond in magic, touching and holding it close, a warm and breathing thing that suffered no fools and strode great islands of cruelty. It was this that kept Maggi close to Margaret’s heart, a network of rusted wire and tattered tape that united them both.
Margaret could not bring Maggi back from the dead to share that connection any more than she could reattach the ruins of her right arm and run fingers over her own breasts and throat. Worst of all, Margaret would never be able to bear her own children, to share such a bond. She herself would only be one witch.
“I think maybe you’d like me to wait outside,” Erin said, hesitantly.
Margaret could barely understand what she herself felt, let alone Erin, but the girl had a far better vantage point from which to read, even inexperienced.
“Yeah,” Margaret nodded, “I think I just want to be alone.”
2:34pm March 17th, 39 Veilfall
Rio Vista, California
The Maul was led, politically, socially, and strategically, by three warlords. All of them pre-Collapse members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary. They still maintained a martial society, training their children from a very young age to fight and defend themselves, as part of a life-long compulsory service that only ended in death. In yesteryear, they’d pledged their loyalty to the Heart of House Owens, while maintaining a remote state far north. A place that allowed them to continue their way of life. Owens law didn’t interest them, nor did Owens politics. They chose to raise their children, and their families, without interference from the outside world. That city state, Fish Rock, was nearly two-hundred miles away from Stockton.
While the Maul rallied their assault and support personnel, Margaret had taken a few days to recover from surgery, and true to her request, she was given a small box containing the scrubbed bones that had once made up her right arm. The box had been carefully crafted from wood with notches at the corners and silver hinges, her name carved into the lid.
Margaret and Erin would leave Fish Rock for Stockton, nearly a day ahead of the Maul’s main force. They were loaned a small, two-seat, 4x4 for the trip. The truck couldn’t make more than twenty-five or thirty miles per hour, but that was far quicker than any stagecoach.
Margaret had favored Erin to drive, since she neither enjoyed motor vehicles, nor had she ever been much good at commanding them. The truck had been old before the Collapse, much of the
body decaying, and it clattered so violently that it seemed like parts might fly off. The driver’s side floor had rusted out so completely that the road below was clearly visible, and the engine choked from years of being fed poorly refined fuel. The little truck’s engine was loud, a symphony of rattle and clamor, timing skewed and straight headers roaring. Words could not be traded without yelling back and forth.
Additionally, Corporal Erin Abid was a terrible driver.
The coastal road south had long ago been bulldozed, allowing for a smoother dirt highway that was maintained by local fishing villages and farms. The area was lightly populated, and there was no vandalism or burnt husks. Nor were there any new structures. Antique fuel depots had been converted into roadside taquerias or seafood grills, serving warm meals and hot tea to anyone traveling the coast. Several of those stations remained operational in their original capacity, previously run by House Owens. They had since fallen to private holders, offering fuel at varied prices.
Days off the coast, the dirt road would find tan and cracked asphalt again, just south of Santa Rosa. This had been one of the largest former city states that made up House Owens and was best avoided. A fat price on her skull made Margaret hesitant to learn if the large 3rd Army garrison stationed here had joined Townsend, or not.
The stretch of highway between Petaluma and Fairfield was a riskier run, however. This forty-mile stretch was harassed by freebooters who made their home on Skaggs Island, a hodgepodge of thieves, but few cutthroats. Crops and meat that could be resold at high prices in the north, and manufactured goods like lamp oil, beeswax, leather, and iron cookware could be sold anywhere in rural Owens territory. With the 3rd Army’s attention divided in the south, and Owens guard absent, Margaret had been worried they’d find trouble.
There had been none, however. Just miles and miles of poor farmsteads checkering the landscape. Large structures half collapsed, ruined frames and entryways, even the occasional vineyards left to ramble free and wild, unkept and ignored for decades. People who lived here were sallow and sunken eyed, migrant workers rejected from larger Owens landholds, refugees from the Collapse who may once have lived in the Bay Area Reach or Sacramento. In these parts people still traded stories about Dread Harvester, sworn to the idea that San Francisco was, herself, a cursed place even now.
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