Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  Amihan & Ramona Lopez by Audia Pahlevi (Moonarc)

  November 2nd, 20 Veilfall

  Crafton, Pennsylvania.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  The small apartment had once been a hotel room, with bathroom and kitchenette set off to the side. Clothes were piled high in corners, along with a dozen kinds of mismatched plates and bowls, unwashed and peppered with food fragments. A few cockroaches darted from dish to abandoned shirt, to kitchen pots, and cracks for whatever paradise waited beyond. The walls were covered in smeared charcoal, sketches that started at the dingy carpet before leaping higher. The most prominent of these drawings was a man who clutched at his head, face twisting and unrecognizable, engulfed in flame.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  The queen mattress was biconcave and lumpy. On it was a man, easily in his forties. Layered pants pulled to knees, his pelvic bones sharp and ribs pried away at sallow skin below his muscular shoulders. The woman kneeling, splayed out across him, lifted her head, greasy hair of auburn falling across her face, as she cried out; “Goddamnit, can’t a woman fucking suck some cock in peace?”

  From the other side of the gated door came a muffled voice, “Mayy, it's Alexander.”

  “Holy fucking shit! General Lopez!” The man with sallow skin twitched and pulled away from the woman holding his genitals. Slick with saliva, he was free and falling onto the floor, jumping up and into his pants as quickly as he could.

  The woman with auburn hair rolled onto her back, heaving a sigh that seemed to change the very atmosphere in the room. Light shifted and cockroaches fled in the blazing light of her direct attention. “My brother has no say over who I fuck.”

  Panic setting into his pulse, the man started to pull on a woman’s shirt, stretchy and cotton, before realizing it didn’t belong to him. His partner couldn’t even remember the man’s name. It was something luridly dull, like Jack or Jacob. “You’re not even an officer, Joe, relax. Alex won’t care.”

  “What the fuck, my name is Jason!”

  Jason was vividly offended by this, and the auburn-haired woman rolled to her stomach, eyebrows drifting high, a playful smirk crossing her cheeks.

  “We can pick up where we left off after Alex leaves. Or you can leave, and you’ll always wonder what you missed.”

  It wasn’t that Mayy wanted to humiliate Jason, she just wanted to see what would happen if she made the man sit at her bed while she interfaced with the ranking Antecedent State officer.

  That’s a lie, I do want to humiliate him and see what he tastes like for it.

  Standing, Mayy revealed black cotton shorts and a thickly boned bra that did little to flatter her bosom, but quite a lot to support her chest. She was small, with crooked shoulders and eyes that seemed a bit too large for her head. She’d already begun to ignore Jason. The part of her mind she needed to shut down his motor functions was already coiled up around his spine. She could have just as easily whispered inside his skull, you don’t really want to leave, do you?

  Knock-knock-knock. Alexander hammered on the door this time, a closed fist rattling the gate, tangible rage drifting through woodwork.

  “Learn some fucking patience!” Mayy shouted, grabbing the first long coat near her kitchenette. It was black polyester, puffy on the inside, with yellow, blue and green stripes down one shoulder, stained in grease or blood, or maybe both.

  When Mayy opened the door, it was snowing outside. Chill air cut in and across her bare knees like little knives. She was smiling when she unlocked the gate, a slick and canny grin, her lower lip falling away, showing her front teeth. “You couldn’t wait until morning?”

  Alexander Lopez was taller, by far, than the woman and her greasy hair. Whiskers had begun to pelt his dimpled chin, and his thick brown hair was only a few shades darker than the same tan skin his mother wore. Alexander looked past her shoulder, to the gaunt man sitting on Mayy’s thin mattress, “You’re fucking one of mine again?”

  Stepping back to allow the tall man entrance, Mayy rolled her eyes and offered a hand to gesture inside. Alexander smelled like road and gasoline, burning oil and the bite of winter. His heavy jacket was lined in down and chainmail and gave the appearance of even greater shoulders than he may have possessed.

  “They're not yours, Alex. They’re just people.” Mayy replied.

  Alexander elbowed the door closed as flurries of snow gamboled through the gate, to the floor below. Her apartment smelled of sweat and sour food.

  “You probably shouldn’t lecture me on possession,” Alexander pointed at the Antecedent soldier seated where Mayy had lain seconds before. His eyes twitched, side to side, like he was reading a book quickly. He didn’t even stand to salute.

  “I’ll let him go later,” Mayy said, her tone a pitched whine. She wrinkled her nose, as if the very sound of her own voice offended her.

  “Whatever,” Alexander held up a hand, to stop her from making further faces, “I’m in no mood to argue.”

  Mayy put her hands to hips. She hadn’t buttoned the snow coat closed, so her sternum and belly button were visible as she arched her head back to match Alexander’s stare. She exhaled slowly, feeling her body spinning up to fight, something her brother always brought out in her. “All right, fine. What are you in the mood to talk about?”

  Alexander’s voice was low, serious. He wasn’t playing anymore.

  “There’s a morning meeting. Lorne, Chandless, myself, and you. Maybe a few other vice officers. It's time you stepped up. Into my mother’s shoes.”

  To Mayy’s reckoning, it felt as if her stomach had fallen out of her skin, sliding down her pelvis and knees, exploding at her feet in a wash of bile and half-digested turkey fat.

  She snapped the fingers on her left hand, one of Maggi’s habits. A habit she had tried to break. The gaunt and muscular man on her bed fell asleep, his eyes calming, his brain shutting down. The weight of his day, his entire week, just too much to withstand. He fell backward onto the drool stained pillows behind him.

  “Mom is dead?” Mayy replied, the bite in her tone gone, the playful ease of her frame replaced with stiff shoulders and neck.

  It took a moment, but Alexander broke eye contact and turned away from the smaller woman. He was working his hands into fists, then releasing them, over and over. It struck Mayy that he was more frustrated than sad, or angry.

  “Her team returned from California, without her.”

  Mayy lifted right hand to face, casting off a tear that decided to leap forward. She held the hand at her lips, as if Alexander would never notice. Her fingers smelled like saliva and cock.

  “I suppose you want to carve up the States, then. Decide who takes what. You don’t need me there, I don’t want any of it.”

  Alexander glanced at her once, then held his gaze elsewhere. Under grinding teeth and tensing fingers, he was sad. She could feel it drift past her ears like the echo of a pretty melody, played on a piano, slightly off-key. “The Federals will realize Maggi is dead. They’ll think us weak, and we’ll face more attacks. We need to drop the hammer now, show them all who the dominant power in the east is.”

  We need to drop the hammer, Mayy thought to herself. A bitter hollow opened in her chest, a hole that all of Crafton’s snow couldn’t fill.

  “I won’t kneel for you Alex. I hope you know that,”

  Alexander’s tone turned condescending, as when he arrived, gesturing at the man on Mayy’s mattress, “Everyone knows you’ll go down on your knees. You’d best kneel for someone who has earned the respect.”

  “Alex,” Mayy turned her head, blinking long and hard for a moment, “My mother believed you were some goddamn super-man who’d save the world. I don’t know if you are, I don’t even really care. It should be enough for you that I’ll abide the final desires of Maggi Lopez. You’ll see me at this meeting tomorrow, you’ll see me on the front lines, and gods be fucked, you’ll see me take a bullet for you if that’s what it takes.”

  But you’ll neve
r see me kneel for you.

  Alexander Lopez had been a cute baby, a handsome boy, and a lady-killer in the glory of manhood. His brows were set and serious like he was reading beautiful poetry, eyes under them full of unrelenting confidence, as well as unrequited arrogance. The girls of Crafton had always liked that about him. They liked his beauty, but that was only because they never heard the ugly things he thought.

  I’m stuck with a half-size slut to replace my mother.

  Mayy heard the thought, loud and clear. The voice was as bold in her mind as if he’d turned and yelled, uvula flapping. Above the distant echo of sadness, there was nothing now, save anger that Maggi was dead, and unable to relieve him of these grievances.

  Grievances like me, thought Mayy.

  “Fine.” Alexander answered after watching the much smaller woman for at least a minute; as if he could read her mind as well.

  As he turned to reach for the door, Mayy called after him, “You know, if you ever wanted to talk, about her death, I’m here.”

  I’m going to regret that, Mayy thought, and she shed another tear in front of her brother. Her lie was too obtuse, and they both knew what she’d really told him.

  Can we talk about this? About her? Please?

  “Of course,” Alexander nodded, withdrawing from the door again, pressing his left shoulder into the frame. He offered up the same smile he gave his mother’s soldiers and the single ladies of Crafton, “We’ll talk about it soon.”

  She knew he’d brushed her off, just in tone. It was the curse of her nature that she could hear his final parting remark.

  Only one of us is her child. Go fuck yourself, witch.

  Mayy didn’t have the experience, or self-discipline, to hide her reaction. She coughed and felt a painful buzzing between her eyes as if he’d stabbed her.

  The door fell closed, the metal gate along with it, deaf to Mayy’s sobbing.

  10:45am March 25th, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  “The first bath I ever took was in the Ohio River.” Margaret was slipping in and out of foot traffic across the blocks surrounding Pacific Street, speaking over her shoulder, “I’d been with Maggi for about a week. I stayed so close to her, I don’t think I ate or slept. She finally woke up one morning yelling about that stinking little girl and hauled me down to the river.”

  Margaret laughed, despite herself, when her Corporal didn’t reply, “I couldn’t swim. I ended up nearly drowning myself. Maggi lost her shit, and she was trying to drag me out of the water, but she was wearing boots and she couldn’t swim either. By the time we were back on dry ground we were both laughing. Very few ever heard The Bruja laugh.”

  Margaret could still smell the Ohio River, and the way Maggi’s narrow fingers had felt on her shoulders.

  “How is that funny?” Erin Abid replied, and Margaret stopped, between rolling carriages and busy men with fresh leather hides slung in packs.

  “How is that not funny?” Margaret hadn’t even considered a better retort, “That’s fucking funny. We almost drowned.”

  Erin looked serious, shaking her head.

  Stockton wasn’t a place to sleep or wait for permission to breathe. With a full one-fifth of the city burned to foundations, many of the residents who could return already had, by steam engine or horse, to rebuild their homes. One of the first decrees that Heart Owens made, a day after reclaiming her throne, was sanctioning a government buyout of supplies. She was offering discounted rates in exchange for using House blueprints, power grids and water tables. The fetid squalor of Stockton’s poorest neighborhoods would not be returning under the Heart’s oversight.

  As the streets curved to the north, they became too narrow for carriage or cart, and the press of flowing humans reduced. The air here was earthen and smoky, sweet, and just a few degrees warmer than a block earlier. There was a clamor of steel hammering, and the huffing of kilns and forges alike, the slumber of a long-forgotten beast. Most of the smiths kept open-front shops, while others managed cement shacks for finer jewelry work.

  Margaret didn’t answer Erin right away as they continued past smitheries. There were certain things she didn’t wish to share, namely why a near-death experience in the Ohio was such an improvement on the six months prior, “You had to have met Maggi, I suppose.”

  “So, who was Maggi Lopez?” Margaret could see Erin shrug in the corner of her eye, as she sidestepped a smith patron.

  In the middle of the street, Margaret stilled, inhaling sweet grease. “I can’t answer that easily,” she began slowly, holding her tongue on the ledge of her lower lip, then facing Erin and meeting her eyes, “Maggi coined the phrase battlewitch, but she never wanted to be that. She was uneasy in her magic, not like any witch I’ve ever known. A long time ago, before I met her, before the Collapse, I think she would have been kinder. Before she hated herself.”

  Erin wrinkled up her nose, a habit she had when confused, almost clockwork predictable, “How could anyone hate themselves?”

  I don’t know, Margaret thought, and decided to be honest with the girl, “I can’t answer that, because I never have. I never will. But, for Maggi it was like breathing air. It's easier to forgive her when I remember that.”

  “Forgive her, for what?” Erin answered, curious.

  Margaret didn’t want to reply. It would have swept away her affectionate glow at the wonder of good memories.

  “Come on then,” Margaret’s silence ate up long minutes, to the point that Erin had become visibly uncomfortable, “Let’s go get me a new arm.”

  Out of a dozen or so shops, only one of them was helmed by a woman. She was tall with shoulders as broad as her bust and hips, wearing a thick apron of brown leather, coated with a grease not unlike Margaret’s own fire retardant. Under the apron she wore layered wool skirts that fell to her boots, and a white shirt cuffed to elbows.

  “Lady Mayhem,” the woman nodded, stepping away from a dark, metal anvil.

  “I brought the cast and bones,” Margaret turned, gesturing to her Corporal. The younger woman sat down two wooden boxes at a steel hemmed table.

  “And a sketch?” the bigger woman grabbed a tawny cloth, scrubbing at her hands and wrists. As she did so, her forearms and shoulders flexed with thick sinew.

  Margaret withdrew a piece of paper from the right side of her black, suede jacket. “I’m no artist, but I hope this’ll do.”

  The blacksmith reached for Margaret’s slip and unfolded it. The paper was thick, swart, and the sketch on the inside was painted in shades of charcoal. It was a collection of bones, arranged in the shape of an arm, from upper humerus down to each of the metacarpals and phalanges that collectively created fingers. Extending from the bones were delicate mounts, curved metal that outlined exterior skin.

  “You’re a helluva’ artist, actually,” the blacksmith looked it over. “These sigils here, you want that etched into the silver? Magic, isn’t it?”

  Margaret didn’t nod or blink, she simply replied, “Yes.”

  “My husband will see to that. He’s the gunsmith and engraver. I’ll see to it that the bones are drilled with steel, and that the hinges and springs twist and lock.” The blacksmith walked past Margaret to open the little wooden cases. One of them housed a collection of Margaret’s arm bones, still stained crimson and hazel with bits of torrid meat that hadn’t been cleaned. The second box contained a wax cast of her good arm, giving an example of how her skin curved around muscle. “That’ll do.”

  “How long, smith mistress?” Margaret asked, her body still facing the forge and anvil, but her head twisted so the big woman could hear.

  “Mayhaps three months. Four months, most.”

  Margaret’s head shook slowly, and she reached into the same jacket pocket her sketch had been withdrawn from, “One month, no ‘maybes.’ One month.”

  The coin that she retrieved from that pocket was easily as wide as her palm. It was solid gold, covered in tarnished grime and scratches, with a contour
relief of a much younger Heart Aurora Owens on either side.

  The blacksmith took a step away, watching the big coin, “That’s an old Owens Promise.”

  “I figure that’s a year’s profit, for a master blacksmith.” Margaret’s voice was steady, cool, she had no intention of using magic to force the issue. She wanted the work fast, not stinking of fear.

  “More,” the blacksmith said, “a Promise is rare nowadays, since the Antecedents.”

  Pinned to Margaret’s right shoulder was a cotton sash of argent trim and tassel, printed in silver poppies, a gift from Heart Owens. The silver caught shifts of forge light and turned shades of orange and red.

  “Maybe not so rare anymore,” Margaret lifted her hand to the silver poppies, the traditional House Owens badge, a smile creeping across her face.

  The blacksmith’s eyes were blue, pale and warm, that smiled as easily as her pink lips. “I think one month won’t be a problem for my husband and I.”

  Margaret could feel nothing but a sense of pride rising in the blacksmith. She probably didn’t trust the little witch, but the Promise said that Heart Owens did. When she accepted the Promise, it was no different than accepting payment from Lady Owens herself.

  “I’ll see you in exactly one month. Good day, smith mistress.”

  1:28pm March 25th, 39 Veilfall

  Antioch Queen Sunrise Special, California

  Badger tugged at his collar, thrusting four fingers under the white shirt biting at his fatty jowls. A black star was tattooed across each of his knuckles. Faded, block ink on his finger joints read ‘FIST’ on one hand and ‘FUCK’ on the other.

  “Boss, you ain’t never made me wear no Antecedent uniform. Now I’m crammed in this Owens sack of shit?”

  Grinning, Margaret crossed her legs, aware that the skirt’s slit rode up at just the right angle for Badger to be captivated by a preview of her inner thigh. The gray skirt was dyed a shade of oiled gun rail, and embroidered with polished metal in complex, spindling patterns. Vines wrapped up and around human skulls from her knee to hip, each skull uniquely stitched with impeccable detail.