Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  “They raped you. Tortured you, for months,” Erin’s voice fell flat and quiet, lips parted, and mind betraying her thoughts, you were just a child.

  Margaret turned from Erin, to unsee her expression, no desire to witness her eyes. They would bleed for her, weep for her, a flood of empathy and regret. An act of contrition, as they wished for ignorance to the truth. No sane person wanted to know what had happened to Margaret, they liked her the way she was.

  I’m sorry you know.

  Spinning back to loom over the young woman, Margaret unleashed a vile grin, bloody with charcoal, a reminder of the woman who now wore that child’s skin.

  “It's not worth your words.”

  “I think she wanted me to warn you of something,” Erin said.

  Two drops of blacksmith grease fell from Margaret’s sternum plate and tapped Erin on the chin, beyond her notice. “She told me. I’m not the only witch who the gods court.”

  “Not that,” Erin scrunched up her nose, her habit when she didn’t understand something that made her disquiet or uncomfortable, “she told me the Lord of War was coming.”

  9:09am March 19th, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  Thousands of core Antecedent infantry gathered in Lafayette Park, one of three staging arenas. They had been loosely organized by company, but the park was no parade ground, and the men pressed back and against each other, a piebald exhibit that would have made no sense to an outsider. Most of them wore fatigues, antique styles, a mix of camouflage. Some looked no different from the average denizen of Stockton, save the 3rd Army patches stitched to their shoulders or breasts.

  Step by step, Margaret carried the awful visage of Lady Mayhem. Her dripping linens left clotted grease stains in her wake, and black soot bled from her eyes and mouth. Cobble by cobble, each mottled row of the 3rd Army dropped to one knee, elbow close to the ground, none of them averted their eyes. Their gazes like a deep ocean fog, tangible, edible to the likes of a battlewitch.

  At Margaret’s flank was Erin Abid, shotgun off her shoulder and braced on hip. From the receding companies of the 3rd Army, a man with a pencil moustache met the dread mistress of Stockton. A long scar ran across his brows, through his missing nose, and into the ruin of a cheek, exposing a half dozen blackened and rotting teeth. He squinted as if Margaret shone greater than the sun, with verminous eyes.

  Margaret flashed a grin under her mess of charcoal. A hand wrapped in oil reached up and caressed the knotted scars of his face, “Badger.”

  “Your fireteam is reporting for duty boss,” The man named Badger kissed the air and gave Margaret a wink, “Gamblers wouldn’t have missed this, not ever. We heard you’se was perched up here when Townsend called us from San Jose’s garrison.”

  It seemed like Badger had more to say, but he paused as a full line of armor let loose a savage volley, a few streets over. The bellowing report shook Lafayette’s cobbles, rattling Margaret’s belly and spine.

  She spoke again as concrete dust blew across her face.

  “We’re hunting a Lopez today. You feel good about that, Badger?”

  When Badger smiled his face twisted up like a rabid muskrat, sneering and leering all at the same time, “Fuck the Lopez brat. Gamblers only serve Lady Mayhem.”

  Margaret’s cackle filled her mouth with brick dust and sheetrock. “Then what are you waiting for? You want Amy Lopez to come to us?”

  “Sir! No sir!”

  Badger’s fireteam, Gamblers, fell in behind Margaret. Counting Erin, it would be a total of five custodians following the 3rd Army’s battlewitch. None of the fireteam looked genteel. The largest man, a brute Margaret knew as Dirty Pete, wore the cylinder of a six-shooter in his empty eye socket.

  Entire city blocks of Stockton were consumed in flame. Black diesel vapor wrapped up streets as a wide and ragged cloak. Margaret marched in the lead of her troops, descending into the discord as another salvo of 120mm rounds flooded the air in dust and ash. She was no longer the pretty woman who stood under five-feet-tall. She was now the 3rd Army’s manifest god, leading her vanguard. From the east came thunder and fury as Maul forces were loosed against Stockton’s gates. To the south, Townsend was leading a smaller assault into the throat of Amy’s command. From the north, the drumming antipathy of San Jose garrison’s mortars. Nothing but hateful retorts and screeches echoed in Stockton’s streets, a confused symphony, playing out of tune and off-key.

  For Margaret and her vanguard, first contact came within a few city blocks.

  Dozens of two-story apartments had collapsed under the weight of an initial armor assault. The gravel streets were soft and muddy with blood where camps had been crushed under falling stone and concrete. It was the quickest way to eliminate snipers and skirmishers who could have used these buildings for cover. 9th Battalion survivors ran south, their kit dusted the color of desert wind, faces slick in spittle and blood.

  They were picked off, one by one, as they attempted to gain cover and engage.

  Second contact came at a roadblock, eight blocks deep into occupied Stockton. Hundreds of men braced this street, behind windows, broken doors, or overturned carts. Margaret could see through their eyes, breath short, panting, sweat stinging. They jerked at triggers, little boys learning to masturbate as their throats welled up with belching cries. One by one, each man became aware that his brother nearby was going to betray him, all their sins and slights made manifest.

  Lady Mayhem had already unleashed her terrible powers ahead of the vanguard. Her motor functions remained, bending knee, swiveling hips, overbite clamped down on blackened lips, but Margaret’s body was nothing more than an automaton while her mind swept up and out, raging flood waters.

  From a first-floor cottage someone shouted, “Fucking die, Paulie!”

  Paulie knows I stole his fucking beans! He knows! He fucking knows!

  The cry was followed by the clatter of semi-automatic rifle fire. The other 9th Battalion soldiers in the house turned on the man who stole Paulie’s fucking beans, hammering his skull open with rifle butts, his brains emptied like a bedpan at morning, splashing survivors.

  The carnage expanded, kindling for a greater fire as weapons chattered and sang to each other, entire sonatas performed in primer and powder. Lead and steel in percussion, howling and pleas crooned about from the wind, and finally strings followed with the shatter of broken wood and glass. Bones split by vibrating aluminum. Entire structures began imploding as grenades and nailbombs were deployed.

  Behind Margaret came a single, giant, armored vehicle. It was an ancient Abrams tank, turbo diesel engines wailing out of time and tune, vomiting ink smoke along Stockton’s burrows, some kind of sick and wounded demon ripped out of ancient tomes.

  Under the blizzard of chaos, Lady Mayhem’s light infantry poured into the streets. Fireteams broke off, huddled up single file; they kicked down doors and shattered windows made from colorful bottles and waxed sugar. Each survivor was executed, one round to the chest, one round to the skull, Margaret’s men called out which buildings were hot, and which buildings were clear. All the while her Gamblers formed a protective line around the battlewitch herself, rifles on shoulders, eyes on scopes, rails clutched, breathing guarded and calm.

  Margaret was loosely aware of the other strike points. Her mind could hear overtures in the distance, melodies gusting up and down streets, domiciles, taverns, cobblers and empty vegetable stands. It wasn’t that she could see or clearly understand the progression of battle, it was like running blindly through the forest, aware of the largest trees. She could feel the savagery in this joint assault, she could feel the bloodlust of the Maul and the methodical focus from the San Jose garrison. It was a temperature at her palms, stuck to her fingers, tacky and saccharine like pulled sugar.

  Racing east, the remaining soldiers from Stockton’s southern urban area were in full retreat, Margaret’s infantry chasing them down Charter Way. Those 9th Battalion combatants who hadn’t gone mad under L
ady Mayhem’s hateful lust were insane with fear, weapons skittering across tarmac like cockroaches under lamp light. Some of them were screaming as they ran, every primal nightmare in the darkest recesses hot on their feet, feral wild cats, venomous snakes, and giant spiders. One by one they fell to the ground, their armor and flesh pulled open like a poorly made dress at the hands of a seamstress, hacking apart stitches, laying aside parcels of unwanted fabric. It was no longer a battle, it was a route, and Margaret’s own soldiers were drunk on blood lust, feeding on fear no differently from their mistress.

  It was a mile and a quarter into the vanguard assault that Plague Dog showed herself.

  Margaret tasted her first. Much like Maggi Lopez, Amihan tasted of cold ashes and hot cinders, a bright, weaving vibration that showed her unique in this battle.

  I need to get my men away from here, thought Margaret. This was her most nerve-racking responsibility. Evacuating her forces in the wake of another battlewitch.

  “Badger, pull back,” Margaret spun to face the fireteam lead. Her voice cracked like a sputtering two-stroke, commanding him, “North and south. Fall back to the mercados and hostels.”

  A sea of black oil began to fill Margaret’s eyes, and whether Badger saw it or not, he didn’t hesitate to follow orders. He’d been Margaret’s personal fireteam leader since Saint Louis, the city that ruined his never-handsome face. He knew, two witches were about to fight.

  The 3rd Army didn’t scatter. They fell back into the surrounding structures, one team at a time, each covering the next. It had been two years since they’d engaged in this kind of combat, but their drilling remained true. The troops furthest east parted first, their flank supported, then repeating back to Margaret herself.

  Charter Way was quickly becoming a ghost town.

  “That means you too, candy-striper,” Margaret glared at Erin Abid, nothing soft or friendly in her eyes.

  “I can fight Plague Dog, with you.” Erin’s head dipped, but Margaret had no interest in arguing with a witch who couldn’t even understand mortality. A young inclined offered no challenge, no danger for an experienced battlewitch.

  “I don’t repeat myself, candy-striper.” Margaret’s voice resonated.

  Erin’s expression didn’t change, but her physical body reacted like she’d been shot in the spine. Her chin twisted up to the sky and her shotgun fell free, dancing on roughhewn cement. She had no way of keeping Margaret out of her mind, swallowing nerve bridges whole, commanding every muscle in her body. She didn’t turn or run. Her legs jerked up and back, thrusting about as a mad, wounded insect. She simply danced away, a puppet on a string, some kind of near-human abomination. Several of the vanguard grabbed her, pulling her inside a dingy cannery with low and wide windows. They knew what was coming, as well as the kindness Margaret offered this child.

  Free of annoyance, Lady Mayhem turned to the east side of Charter Way.

  A second figure was joining her. Wide in the hips and well-muscled. Her hair was a fiery wreck of bleach and henna, and a single line of ink ran across her face. The parts of Margaret that crawled and skulked, up and down these streets, peered out windows with the eyes of her soldiers. She could see Amihan just fine. Linen gauze wrapped her neck tight, but she labored through each breath. The second round from Townsend’s gun had likely clipped a lung.

  Margaret bit her lower lip, promising Townsend a sweet reward for his fine marksmanship. Even under duress, he’d delivered not one, but two near-fatal shots.

  “I missed you at the front lines, Plague Dog.”

  Margaret’s voice was gone, her throaty and feminine squeak was replaced with something else. Syllables and consonants were drawn up in a bow, taunt and broad, sound made corporeal in empty streets. Hunkered down, away from Amy Lopez, both witches could hear snickering from the 3rd Army. This wasn’t so different from the scene that Margaret had fantasized about when Aphrodite tempted her with beauty.

  “I don’t want to fight you, Mayy.” Amihan Lopez shouted in reply, horse and breathless. She wasn’t armed as far as Margaret could see; a dozen eyes running across her from various angles. No pistols or knives to be seen.

  “We’re going to finish what you started at Stormair.” Margaret’s voice knocked rust off old road signs and battered bead hovels.

  Slowly extending her hands, Amy held her palms forward, “Margaret, I submit. The 9th Battalion submits. You can parlay with my father, but we submit.”

  Behind Lady Mayhem’s night sky eyes, Margaret remembered Amy’s words from Stormair, “I loved you.” Just as quickly, Margaret also remembered what it felt like when the skin blistered and ripped open on her face, under Amy’s hand. Just as easily remembered was the hiss and pop of her own meat, boiling fat dripping to Stormair tarmac.

  You burned me alive and now you want mercy?

  The sun was turning the street bronze and red under a wreath of smoke. Margaret reached down for the 9mm pistol strapped under her bosom, unclasped the holster, and tossed the weapon to the pitted cement. There was a second pistol at her left hip. She unsnapped and discarded this as well.

  “I know your poltergeists are gone. No guns. We finish this in the tradition of Maggi Lopez, my mother, your grandmother.”

  Amihan’s chest heaved, and the smell of fear was all over her, pungent, calling out in the morning sun like a wailing cat in heat. “We don’t need to fight! I know what Ramona did!”

  The tawny fire retardant that covered Margaret glistened with a coat of rust, the remains of Stockton. Under golden sheen, Margaret began to perspire, black ink bubbling up from her pores, deep and viscous sweat, so dark it swallowed light, only reflecting flames that didn’t exist in this world. A mirror into Margaret’s mind.

  Covered in liquid charcoal and nightmare infernos, Lady Mayhem charged Plague Dog as fast as her legs could hammer the street.

  10:42am March 19th, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  Only about 300 feet separated Margaret from her quarry. At full sprint she could cover that range in maybe eighteen seconds.

  Eighteen seconds was a long time between two witches.

  The edges of Margaret’s barriers lit up first, curving lines of yellow became visible to the naked eye of any 3rd Army observers, then blurred, curling. Fissures formed along the eroded, nodular concrete, rocks and broken sediment popped and shattered, scattering dust. Amihan was leaning in, fists balled tight, every muscle tensing. White linen wrapping her throat began to stain crimson. She was investing all her effort in some kind of kinetic attack, failing to split the very road on which Margaret was casting footfalls.

  Fifteen seconds.

  No different from Maggi Lopez, Amy needed to borrow flame. She couldn’t simply manifest it. In a blazing city, this wasn’t hard. Fire spun up and around another layer of Margaret’s barriers. These were more complex, overlapping circles etched with what could have been writing or script, whispering to the wind that gusted against her ears at full stride. They burned hot, flashing white and sparking like an old transformer on rotted pole and line.

  Twelve seconds.

  The kind of barriers Margaret understood to protect her from fire were thousands of years old. Words of evocation passed down through the ages from a lifeless, more antique tongue. Maggi herself might have known the original words, teaching Margaret only half mouthfuls. In younger languages, like Latin, the magic didn’t work as well. The barriers were soft and pliable, they bent and vanished not merely under the physical effects of heat, but also the onslaught of another witch’s desire to break something.

  Nine seconds.

  With her left-hand Margaret ripped a strip of linen off her chestplate, pulling it across her nose and mouth. It was hard to draw breath through the oiled fabric and it smelled muddy, metallic. Her barriers would fail soon. The blacksmith grease coating nearly every inch of her flesh would protect her from actual fire, for a little while, but not if she inhaled it directly into her lungs.

  Six seconds
.

  There was flame around her, deep orange, the kind of searing heat that gasoline could cast up. It moved about her physical body, independent of anything Amihan herself was commanding, a serpent with a mind of its own, weightless on her armor, making demands she couldn’t understand. Her curas didn’t ignite right away; the oil did its job, forbidding the blistering flame to come further. That wouldn’t last forever, especially not against the heat that a battlewitch could summon.

  Three seconds.

  Amihan was now desperate. The fire osculated, yearning to burrow deeper under linen wraps with dreams of flesh below, a sweet delight, salty and supple. Somewhere in the final seconds between Margaret and her adversary crashing together in a rolling ball of oil and fire, she lost connection with the same reality that her 3rd Army observers understood.

  It wasn’t about Stormair. It was about watching her parents burn. She saw their skin peel off blackened bones. She watched her mother’s breasts melt down her stomach, a deep, bisque sheen. She watched her father’s skin curl off his face, and his eyes liquify. She smelled their hair and flesh turn to ashen smoke, the wind slapping her in the face with it as she wailed, aware that she was breathing her parents.

  Let’s see if you’ve more spine than your grandmother. She turned away the first time she glimpsed my memories.

  Margaret was on fire when she crashed into the larger woman, full force. There was a crack in the air, blinding white. The physical world didn’t react well to this kind of clashing magic. The Veil grew brittle in the wake of such exchange.

  Fingers thick with midnight, one hand clutching her niece’s face, Margaret dove into Amy’s mind.

  There were eight of them.

  The men who’d broken into Margaret’s childhood home. They didn’t want flatscreen televisions or crystal chandeliers. They didn’t want jewelry or gems. They built a bonfire in the street, made of her parent’s furniture, lushly carved antiques piled high. Cabinets, a bed frame, chairs, so many chairs, tables, even a great clock made of glass and gold, bound in steel and rope. Margaret’s parents were bound in chain to the wooden armada; naked, bloody, and beaten, their faces were a ruin of mud and bone. They were screaming.