The solemn traffic only accelerated Margaret’s desire to go home, back to Stockton. She wanted to make that last final dash, but she also wanted to celebrate. She wanted to show Townsend the strange gift that Condatis had bestowed, a twisted restoration that should never have been possible. Aphrodite offered beauty, but with a price, and not a price Margaret wanted to pay. She’d lived a long life, free of fetter and leash, enslaving herself to a god whose whims ran the gambit of horrific and whorish did not delight her.
“I guess the 9th Battalion is still fighting in Stockton,” Erin said softly, pulling up next to a horse tack. She was parked perhaps a few hundred feet back from the arched platform that looked out on Thornton's train station, outside a tavern called Golden Blue.
Margaret kept her seat a moment, watching Stockton’s evacuated families puzzle with glazed eyes and confusion. They pointed and gesticulated amongst each other, trading inquisitions. Where are the hostels? Are they north or south? Is there a barter tax?
Some of these families would sign on with the Leavitt Tillage to stay warm and fed, but there were only so many the landlord would accept before his cropper rosters were too swollen. Others would continue north, perhaps as far as the borders of the Antecedent Empire, up past Chico or maybe Redding, into the green lands beyond. A few could afford to abide by rents, hold up, and hope that the fighting in Stockton would end soon.
“People still need to keep the wolves away,” Margaret finally answered. Weary of the grim spectacle, she looked over at Erin, “Have you ever drank? I mean, drank liquor? Not malts or ale, poorman lunch. I mean real drink?”
Erin smiled wide, eyelids dipping low, and she offered Margaret a shrug. That was enough of an answer, and Margaret was already planning how the next hour would go. The city of Stockton would hold, as would Amy Lopez. For now, Margaret wanted to twist her body, roll her neck, and maybe press her fish breast into a boney young farmhand’s chest to remember what it was like to be whole.
Almost whole, she thought, and realized that the truck door wouldn’t open because the arm she pulled at the handle with no longer existed.
Standing outside the cab, Margaret grabbed her 9mm off the dashboard and jammed it into the chain that bound up her black dress of cotton and smoky knit.
“I thought the signs said no weapons? When we drove into Thornton?” Erin saw Margaret holster the pistol, so she reached forward to grab her shotgun from behind tattered and faded backrest.
“Oh, Corporal Abid can read,” Margaret winked, speaking in a sing-song rhyme, “Leavitt can fuck themselves, the last time I left a pistol behind I was nearly roasted alive.”
Erin pulled her sling free, shouldered the weapon, then paused, “Wait, do you think my kit will get stolen?”
“Maybe? Don’t risk it.” Margaret walked forward, away from the 4x4’s hood, her hand on beaten and warm metal, listening to radiator hiss. Erin squinted, annoyed, before resting her shotgun on the truck’s hood. She withdrew a long sleeve blouse, glossy in duck oil with a stitched framework of chainmail and lowered it onto her body. Over that, Erin added an olive-gray molle vest with tattered chunks of old velcro, along with a hand stitched patch, “3rd.”
“Won’t the Leave-it guards try to take our guns?” Erin inquired, pulling at her vest. Margaret shrugged with a smile. Tilapia skin on her face creased up and gave her a sinister glare under fading light.
With nothing more to add, Margaret turned, taking lead down a brick path that crossed onto gravel ride, and into the Golden Blue’s entrance. Erin grabbed one of the two pine doors, lacquered a deep shade of amber and trussed with dark iron hinges, pulling it open quickly to allow Margaret entrance.
Turning to the right, alongside a bar of roughhewn wood, Margaret saw Ramona Lopez.
The younger woman wore a wide grin on cherry red lips as she turned away from the bartender. A low boat neck swept down across her shoulders on a deep blue dress of textured voile and linen. Fox fur, dyed teal, curved around her shoulders, crossing ample cleavage and back down to cover her hips. Her obsidian hair was pulled up and pinned tight under a high-crowned hat of black velvet, tilted over her forehead.
Both women’s eyes met, in the exact same moment.
Ramona held her hands, palm on knuckles, at her corset. A look of amusement drew across her cheeks. Margaret’s left hand was already drawing the pistol at her waist chain, finger sliding behind the trigger guard and taking aim for her niece.
When she had a right arm, the right-handed Margaret was more than respectable with a pistol. The 9mm felt loose and undirected in her left hand, like she was trying to walk backwards and chew on rail tar. Without slow or pause, her eyes focused to take aim and she simply decided, I’ll keep shooting until something hits her.
For Erin, directly behind Margaret, it was like a flag shifting wide with the wind, appearing suddenly. The specter wasn’t there, then he simply was, a smoky vision cast in shades of sepia. When the ghost shifted into sight directly between Margaret and Ramona, his head was up, clawing at the air, wrapped shirt like Erin’s. The shade had intercepted Margaret’s bullet in a brume of atomized lead, bright with orange sparks.
Ramona was still smiling.
I’ll keep shooting until something hits her, Margaret repeated, to herself.
With one round in the chamber and seventeen more behind, Margaret unloaded the weapon, turning her frame to line up as closely as she could with her dominant eye. One foot in front of the next, closing the distance between the two, every round grouped closer and closer to Ramona’s face. The sound was a litany of monotone hammer falls, a noise almost sentient in the bar as it rang on glass liquor bottles, brass cases kissing at Margaret’s bare toes.
Every round discharged was met by a specter. They shifted like thick smoke, curled up and mutated into something unrecognizable, until only a blur of faded bronze and brick vapor jerked and popped in the unoccupied air between them. Ramona never shifted, flinched, or raised her palms. Instead, her smile grew to a wide and toothy grin, eyes twinkling.
Ignoring Margaret, Ramona shot a wink at Erin and the girl realized that a shade was standing right next to her, phantom firearm leveled to her skull, jaw bone hanging loose from his face, and battered ACH strapped to nothing in particular.
Margaret was less than a yard away from Ramona when the slide on her pistol locked back, her chest heaving, eyes stinging with gunpowder.
Ramona Lopez turned her eyes away from Erin, back to her aunt, then reached up with a hand wrapped in blue silk to flick dusted lead off her breasts.
“Quite an entrance, Mayy. Are you done?”
Margaret lowered the pistol, then glanced back to where Erin stood, a shade bodyguard looming over her. “Keep the scatt gun down and it won’t hurt you.”
“Unless I want it to,” Ramona answered, “they’re not quite as automated as I lead you to believe, when we met at the train station.”
As she turned her head back to Ramona, Margaret unfurled part of her mind, whips uncoiling in the inches unoccupied between the two women, wrapping around Ramona’s mind and spirit, digging with barbs to find grasp. Margaret didn’t expect it to work, but if Ramona hadn’t erected boundaries in the seconds it took to discharge Margaret’s pistol, she might have a ledge to leap into her mind from.
There was a glimpse, just for a second, through Ramona’s eyes, lashes fluttering, as she looked down on a newborn baby boy. His umbilical cord still hung from his stomach, eyes scrunched closed, covered in bloody viscous, and wailing like a banshee.
Ramona took a step in and threw her palm out fast, slapping Margaret across her face, the impact twisting her chin an inch or two, no more.
“You hit like a girl,” Margaret licked her lips, head unmoving. There was a ripple of red and white in the air, as if someone had brushed the very oxygen around Ramona with paint, fading away a second later.
“Ma’am,” from Ramona’s right, behind the bar, a little man squawked like an angry bird, disappointed th
at a cat was too close, “You want, maybe I call the guard cap’n?”
Margaret didn’t take her eyes off Ramona’s, she was ignoring nearly everything in favor of drilling away at the younger woman’s defenses, pressing, prodding, all over her mind for any weakness.
“I want you to shut the fuck up and fuck yourself.” Ramona replied to the squawking man behind the bar.
“At least you’re still a real witch, behind your phantoms and boy-toys,” Margaret hissed, leaning back, relaxing her mind and withdrawing an offensive. There was no point, Ramona had done well, the barriers were nearly complete by the time Margaret attacked her. All she’d get was the vision of a baby covered in afterbirth.
I would rip your throat out if your goddamn ghosts would allow it, Margaret thought, hardly protecting or hushing her mind, easily audible to another witch.
“I believe you would, Mayy. Shall we talk?” Ramona’s calm returned.
Margaret sighed, turning away from Ramona, looking at the bartender.
He was a buck-toothed little creature with tassels of hair on his shiny skull and eyes that seemed too small for his face. His right arm was stretched down, below the bar’s edge, where he was jerking furiously.
“Gods be fucked Ramona. What the fuck is wrong with you?” Margaret sighed.
“Oh, we’re drinking?” Ramona answered, snapping her fingers softly within her silk gloves and releasing the humiliated bar keep. He fell away from the bar, struggling with his pants and belt, a second later.
“I’m drinking. I came here for a drink, and now I need two.” Margaret turned away from her niece and leaned up next to the bar. It looked to be a great old tree, cut cleanly down the middle and mounted on iron supports. Once the buck-toothed man had regained control of his pants and tucked away his genitalia, he scrambled back to face Margaret.
“Bar’s closed, ma’am. Gunplay, scared off everyone.” Margaret squinted then turned back to Ramona, who waited calmly, a hand on her hip.
“What the fuck did you do to him?” Margaret wrinkled her nose in disgust, then turned back to the little man, “Just hand over a bottle of whisky and go somewhere else.”
She changed the resonation in her voice and gave command, pressing at the barkeep, to do as she wished, if only for his own good. He needed to get away from Ramona and whatever wry controls she’d used to make the poor wretch dance like a puppet. It struck Margaret as cruel, like a cat torturing a grasshopper.
The keep turned and grabbed a bottle of blue glass off the shelf. He popped the cork out, backed up, and watched the two witches for a second. There were hundreds of candles illuminating the bar, reflecting and refracting through dozens of mirror carafes, creating a flicking wash of light, and countless shadows, projected in all directions.
“Go,” Margaret commanded the squawking man from his subjection.
He fled properly, managing to never stumble over his own feet. Once he was gone, Margaret turned her attention back to Erin, who still stood with a ghost soldier next to her, spun up in sepia vapor that shifted and blurred like static on a radio. “Stand outside, Corporal. If Leavitt guards come, show them the patch on your kit. Pull rank. Pretend you’re an officer or something.”
Erin opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, squinting at Margaret. She wanted to argue, or say something like I can’t, or I don’t know how, but she realized it was pointless. A look of unfettered anger crossed her face and she turned to pull one of the double doors open.
The specter who leveled a phantom pistol vanished as she did so.
Alone with her niece, Margaret picked up the bottle of blue glass and favored Ramona again, “Did Amihan and Alexander ever have those spook guards?”
Ramona, nodded, taking a step back, hand high on her hip, “Of course. We contracted with a British Bishop to create the poltergeists. Unfortunately, only the bones of my poltergeists survived my departure from Crafton.”
“‘Bishop?’” Margaret raised her brows, then shook her head, waving Ramona off an explanation, “Is there anything you didn’t lie to me about?”
Ramona’s face turned incredulous, one brow drawing up higher than the next, her lips parting in a crooked smile, “Good witches lie. Didn’t you tell me that, aunt Mayy?”
Margaret genuinely lost whatever control she had of her emotions, “Gods be fucked, Ramona! I didn’t tell you to betray your entire fucking family! A good witch lies because she holds the best cards in the deck. If you tell everyone what the fuck you’re holding, there’s not much point in being a witch, is there?” Margaret grabbed the nameless blue bottle off the bar with her left hand and upended it. She chugged the whiskey, none the wiser to whether it was smooth or burning, “I didn’t fucking tell you to manipulate Amy. I didn’t fucking claim I planned to kill my brother. I didn’t fucking tell you to turn on me or Alexander. You’ve probably single-handedly destroyed the Empire!”
Margaret was yelling, her voice still sore and shrill. She cracked on a few vowels and her voice rasped over words, but the rage was undeniable. There was nothing but steel in her eyes when she looked at Ramona again, whiskey running down her lips.
Ramona nodded, calmly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think I could be honest.”
Margaret gestured with her arms wide, forgetting there was no right arm to balance the expression, “What are you possibly getting out of this?”
Ramona laughed back, “That salt bitch, Cuttersark, back in San Francisco saw it. Why can’t you? Magic doesn’t serve my father, he serves magic. Maps don’t matter anymore.”
So that’s the game, Margaret fell quiet for a second, collecting her thoughts, then answered, “You’ve made deals with all the Antecedent auxiliary states. Haven’t you?”
Ramona Lopez nodded, gently, “It's over Aunt Mayy. The Antecedent Empire will collapse by summer, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I suppose you could go back and make counteroffers, but Stockton will burn without you. Besides, you must stay. You agreed to kill Aurora Cuttersark and my father. Didn’t you?”
Margaret had been okay with the notion of assassination until she heard the words spoken out loud by her niece. The niece she still loved despite everything. “Lord Owens told you.”
“He did,” Ramona relaxed her shoulders, returning both her hands to the midsection of her corset, just a few feet from Margaret, “You outbid me, and that’s fine. Honestly, Lady Manticore would kill my father, even if you didn’t.”
Margaret didn’t hide her shock, “Geraldine is on this?”
“Geraldine never liked Dad. She was your mother’s witch, a brawler and bruiser to the end. She wants to be queen of her own domain.” Ramona was gentle with each word, talking the way she might have to a child who’d soon lose his gray, old dog to illness, “I’m sorry Margaret. In all of this I made one mistake.”
Margaret put the blue whiskey bottle back on the bar and turned to face Ramona. Her shoulders tensed, and she clenched her jaw in something akin to rage. Every nerve in her hand wanted to wrap fingers into a fist and strike Ramona, then keep striking until the two sat in silence.
“I assumed you were incorruptible,” Ramona shook her head, “I thought you were a true believer in this Antecedent scam. I didn’t think I could offer you anything to make you turn on your brother. If I’d known a landhold in House Owens was all you needed, we could have avoided this.” Ramona waved her hand at Margaret’s missing arm, as if she was gesturing to an offensive mess in the kitchen sink.
“We shouldn’t have crossed the Mississippi.” Margaret sighed, looking away from Ramona, watching the dancing candles, “I never wanted to conquer the whole of North America. I only kept fighting for Mom. Magic and mud was all we had left between us. I could imagine how proud she’d be if I just kept following Alexander.”
Ramona leaned over the bar to put her face between Margaret’s eyes and whatever distant play she watched, “My dad has never loved anyone. Not you and not my mother. I’ll miss him, but he’s had his day. Now
it's mine.”
Margaret wanted to be so much angrier right now, she wanted to scream at her niece, slap her in the face, and make her stop this madness. She imagined how that would play out. Dramatic scenes of holding Ramona, tearfully convincing her to undo all the damage she’d wrought. A smile skipped across Margaret’s face as she lost herself to the imaginary scenario, but it refused to end in a way that satisfied her. It was only a tale of Alexander Lopez and his pet battlewitch, forgotten in history, left to rot alone.
Margaret’s smile curdled. Not out of sadness or regret, but because she could not bring herself to hate the future Ramona had so carefully crafted.
“The Antecedent Empire will shatter into a hundred city states. You’ll be there to catch the pieces. You’ll bed their warlords and kings, you’ll bargain and deal, and every state in the Empire will answer only to you. Even House Owens.”
Ramona nodded, then reached over for Margaret’s blue bottle. She released it, allowing the other woman a chance to drink, “You’re smarter than I ever gave you credit for, Mayy.”
I don’t feel smart.
Margaret continued, as if Ramona had never spoken, sweet poison like candied arsenic dripping from her lips, running down her throat, “You’ll never have to worry about collecting taxes or water disputes. You’ll never need to concern yourself with standing armies, conquests, defenses, or security. You will end up wielding more power than my brother dreamed possible.”
Ramona was silent.
Margaret considered herself a clever observer of human emotion, but this left her rank and empty, this anger that refused to burn or grind at her bones. She wasn’t even upset now at Ramona, but rather herself. Her greatest crime at this bar wasn’t tolerating Ramona’s schemes, but rather the shame that warmed her cheeks as she delighted in victory. That was the same glow that had become welts under Maggi’s fists, a very young version of Margaret who just wanted to impress a woman who seemed larger than life.
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