Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  “Tonight isn’t just about assassination. You’ll have access to something far more valuable than Cuttersark, or Modus Vivendi. Can I trust you to freely return this power?”

  Margaret had spoken with and seen ghosts her entire life. They flickered about in the shadows and walked empty hotel lobbies. Some, no more than memories, others manifest. Mad with years, but capable of careful reason. In all that time, she’d never once seen a ghost pull itself out of the drained and hollow sepia tones where they existed. Aubriana’s color returned for a few seconds, the dusted black of her leathers seemed solid enough to touch. Her auburn hair was almost the same shade as Margaret’s, with gray streaking her temples.

  At her breast, stitched into the flesh, was an old name patch: HARVESTER.

  She flickered as she pressed into this more physical manifestation, as if Margaret had looked at the sun for seconds too long, stuttering her eyelids in a quick succession of blinks.

  “You want me to wear the flesh of Aurora’s daughter like a cheap suit. I told that bitch to never return, and look at this city. She did return. I’m far too amused to betray you, little Margaret. You have a deal, and maybe a friend.”

  When Aubriana leaned in to say ‘friend,’ there was an unspoken threat. The emotional response of the specter was strong enough to create a physical imprint on the world.

  Yes, Aubriana, if I betray you the way Maggi Lopez did, I’ll live to regret it.

  “When you have flesh again,” Margaret nodded, looking across Aubriana’s vibrantly colorful form, “we’ll shake hands.”

  Margaret had no intention of lying to the Dread Harvester’s ghost.

  10:13pm March 25th, 39 Veilfall

  San Francisco, California

  A short walk from the Wave Organ, where Margaret’s mother had once fought and killed Dread Harvester, Modus Vivendi sat on a flourishing knuckle of land. Before the Collapse, the elegantly garnished structure was known as The Palace of Fine Arts.

  While the neighborhoods surrounding it were lit only in dim and flickering gas lamps, the majesty of Modus Vivendi was illuminated by San Francisco’s young power grid. Manicured gardens, looming trees, and a freshwater lagoon turned shades of coral and orange under buzzing bulbs. Directly across the shallow lagoon was a wooden pedestrian bridge, built over the water on low trusses and painted a deep shade of mahogany, caked in decades of wax. Hundreds of candles burned, sizzling under the very first trickles of a soft rain.

  The bridge truncated at an enormous stone rotunda, around one hundred and sixty feet tall. One of the tallest features of old San Francisco remaining since the Collapse. Held aloft by eight enormous pillars, and frosted with old world frieze and modern stone carvings, statues of the influential witches had been added to the structure. Lady Owens and Lord Cuttersark greeted Margaret as she descended the trussed gradient. The stone was painted in enamel, bringing to life the House Owens founders in vivid detail that fell into shades of apricot under high pressure sodium. The wind had pelted their faces slick, giving an appearance of tears.

  Under the great dome stood Corporal Erin Abid, nose tucked under her black woolen coat, buttoned up past her collar. Next to her was Badger, striking a formidable pose in Owens black and silver; a shade of death, his nose missing, creating the implication of skull under his deep-set eyes.

  “You’se didn’t tell me this city was so ass fucking cold,” Badger shouted, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat.

  The air was still in the rotunda interior, a massive arena tiled in polished black granite and dull steel slabs. Arranged in one-foot-by-one-foot plates, the ground was stained in a thousand shades of dried blood. From flaccid pink slivers to deep black gashes, bits of bone and dried marrow remained. Toward the exterior pillars were many more candles in blue, green and red wax, spindling stalagmites sprouting up from a substantial bone collection. The ribs of cattle and goats were clean, hewn free of meat. Pyramids of skulls had been stacked, from all manner of animal and human alike. Some had been etched with stone or blade to contain various arcane symbols from dead languages, while others had been painted with sticky polymers that reflected coral light. This was a place of power. Margaret could feel it needle at her feet, tickling at first, almost driving her to giggle, then clutching at her thighs and groin, a greedy and demanding lover, ascending into her chest, spine turning into a warm glow that bound her close in a sense of awe and familiarity.

  At some moments it smelled of blood or tannery chemicals. At others, was the heady aroma of burning grasses. Margaret swore a few times she could see, and feel, cinders kiss her face. This was a place of sacrifice, and worship. Even in the inception of a sea storm, the odors held their dominance. Each of the tall arches between rotunda pillars represented a gate. Each gate was idling, whispering in Latin, Sanskrit, and even Sumerian. One, Margaret could only see out the side of her eye, the hint of movement, rats and vermin clawing about for purchase. Another seemed to blur air like a mirage in hottest summer, promising water where none existed.

  “Do you know where we’re standing?” Margaret favored Erin with her eyes, boots tapping against the stone and marble floor, creating two distinct echoes as she did so.

  Erin pulled her nose out of the long coat, sniffing, “There’s nothing burning, but I can smell it. It feels like we’re in the middle of a road. It makes me feel like I have a fever.”

  “Makes me have to piss,” Badger said, mostly to himself.

  “Eight roads, to be exact. Eight pillars, and eight roads.” Margaret reached for her cigarette tin and tossed it to Badger. He relieved her of a twig and lit up as she pulled off the cotton sash of silver poppies and suede jacket underneath. “My mother would have called them huacas, or ley lines. You can call this a crossroads. A place to offer gifts and ask favors.”

  Erin visibly shivered, and Margaret thought she could hear her teeth chatter, “Modus Vivendi makes all their guests walk through a crossroads?”

  Margaret’s jacket and sash fell to the smeared floor, sticky at her heels. Underneath she wore a simple black waistcoat made from thick linen. It wasn’t tailored for her, and was too tight across her chest to look attractive. It took her a moment to release each button of bone, and toss this atop the pile. “They’re reminding us who has all the power.”

  Badger shrugged, exhaling mint oil and tobacco, his eyes taking in the great columns, “Just a place like any other.”

  “That’s because you understand fear about as well as I do, Badger.”

  Last to come off was Margaret’s skirt of gray, embroidered in metal beads. This, she’d miss most, since it had been tailored for her. Custom made in fact, years earlier in Denver. It was probably the sincerest sacrifice she offered.

  Sticking his lower lip out, intentionally creating the vision of a pensive man, before breaking a rough laugh, Badger replied, “Yeah, there’s always that.”

  Under her clothes, Margaret wore a sweetheart overbust corset with embroidery work at her hips. Roses and thorns twisted and crawled up her stomach and spine on matte, black, cotton. Flowered scallop and lace pulled her bust together under boned support, before clustering at her throat. An asymmetrical slip of garish, red, silk fell over her legs, barely touching one knee.

  “I guess I’m undressing?” Erin looked around, unbuttoning her coat.

  “Only I need to sacrifice. I’m the only mature witch here. You both left your pistols back at the hotel?” Margaret slid a sharp object out of her corset spine, where a thick support bone had been. It was a narrow piece of razor, thin as a knitting needle.

  “Yeah,” Erin seemed unhappy, but not nearly as annoyed as Badger.

  “As you’se say, boss.” He nodded once, hard, suckling at his cigarette again.

  Margaret leaned over, and ran the narrow razor down the inside of her right thigh, closer to the knee, careful to avoid her femoral artery. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as the unrelenting cold. Replacing the razor, she had to slap her thigh several times before blo
od would let slip.

  “Fuck, boss, you’se didn’t say we had to do foreplay too.”

  Badger laughed, before flicking the remains of his twig across the rotunda, between middle finger and thumb.

  “Twig,” Margaret replied, satisfied with the blood. Badger opened her tin and retrieved another brown roll of tobacco. With one hand, and with great care, Margaret worked the cigarette in her bloody fingers and palm until it glistened. She leaned over the pile of her clothes, toward Badger, “Light a lady.”

  Badger obliged, and Margaret took a few puffs off the twig before dropping it to the ground with her beloved skirt. Though he was uninclined, this wasn’t the first time Badger had helped Lady Mayhem in ritual. He handed her a metal lighter and she crouched down to catch the clothing aflame.

  The wind didn’t seem welcome in this place. The air was still, cavernous, and it certainly wasn't wet. Margaret’s raiment was ablaze in moments.

  “You’ve sacrificed something, you made payment.” Erin spoke as Margaret remained close to the flame.

  One by one, metal beads were falling free, bouncing on the tile and rolling free to whatever safe harbor they understood. Margaret whispered, not in English, but Español. The words a gift that her mother had taught. She didn’t understand the whole prayer, but enough that she could recite it with clear intention.

  Standing, Margaret looked directly at Erin, then past her, right through her, far into a gate where swirls of green and blue swept up and danced with each other like quarreling dust devils on the Great Salt Lake.

  “You have two choices, Erin,” Margaret said, and for a moment she bit into her vowels just like Maggi used to, “You can walk away now, sleep in your room tonight. In the morning you can catch a Peninsula bound train and return to Stockton. General Townsend will accept you into any branch of the 3rd Army you please. My gift to you, for your service.”

  Margaret corrected her voice, shaking off her mother’s accent and then speaking low from her throat, “Or you enter Modus Vivendi with Badger and me. You will spend the night fighting fear and you will do as you are told. No less, no more. If you hesitate, if you risk our lives, Badger will kill you. Consider this a real test, if you want to study with me.”

  Badger knew Margaret well enough to inquire no further. He simply pocketed her twig tin and tilted his head down to the tile, watching little beads flee Margaret’s sacrifice.

  As Erin’s face grew more focused and her brows lowered further, so too did the smoke between them turn black and ashen with bits of fabric, caught in updraft. Spiders crested Erin’s shoulders, crawled down her shirt, and even scampered in her short hair. It could have been a dozen, or two dozen, large and small, migrating on paths only they understood.

  Fucking spiders, is this her only gift? Margaret thought before Erin finally replied.

  “I’ll go in with you.”

  Badger turned, looking Erin over. He saw the spiders as well, though it seemed like he didn’t care. The fire was beginning to die, and Margaret’s clothes were now retreating cinders.

  There were no further words to be spoken, and no reply escaped Margaret’s lips.

  She wasn’t dressed in the fashion of House Owens, nor the witches of San Francisco. She wore no gloves to bar herself from those inside Modus Vivendi and she made no attempts to hide her Tilapia skin. The fish flesh of her lower lip felt cool and smooth at the tip of her tongue, ridgeless and erotic. It glistened coral, as if part of her had been at sea, swimming in the ebb and wave of coming storm.

  Crossing out of the rotunda, Margaret stepped out of another quiet gate. In slumber this one contained a shimmering fog made of gold dust, drifting lazily. The closer she got, the fewer particles appeared, until finally, she walked out and there had been nothing after all.

  For just a moment, Margaret caught the glimpse of sepia at stride, a few paces up and to the right. Wide in the hip, thick hair spilling down shoulders. It was for less than a second, just the outlines of movement, then it was gone.

  Dread Harvester was true to her word.

  Black and steel tile simply lead up to three enormous double doors. The stone frames were painted in overlapping symbols that had either faded into cast shadow or glowed in soft yellows and vibrant reds, arcane evocations. Some of them Margaret recognized, variations would be etched into the silver of her new arm. Others she had last seen decades before, inked into her mother’s skin.

  Some, she’d never known before this night.

  “Do any of these forbid the dead?” Margaret whispered low, her lips unmoving.

  In reply, three identical sigils across the upper frames dimmed and died until they seemed little more than wet paint. If Margaret blinked fast enough, and paid attention, she could see the after impressions of many more evocations, visions beyond the physical eye.

  “Of course,” Margaret heard at her left ear, the sensation of moth wings skipping past her skin, “but these were designed to keep wandering spirits away. None bar me, a guest at your own request.” The flicker moved to her right ear, along with the susurration.

  Margaret ran her left hand through damp hair. It had begun to curl and crimp, “Stay in the shadows, you’ll know when it's time.”

  Aubriana did not reply, she was simply gone, vanished between worlds in the places that even a witch could not see.

  Whatever remained of the outside world began to evaporate. There was no more storm, no more San Francisco. This was the edge of the map, and Margaret willingly plunged off.

  10:34pm March 25th, 39 Veilfall

  San Francisco, California

  A new world foyer met Margaret and her companions.

  Sleek onyx tile reflected orange gas lamps, and walls of matte pitch seemed to absorb light rather than refract color. Under low wattage bulbs were mannequins carved from wood and stained in rich auburns, posed with gestures of open arms and regality. Margaret could recognize one of the wooden frames wearing white and silver linothorax as Heart Owens, from her youth. Emblazoned with poppies on the breast guard and stitched with ceramic plate, it was similar to the one Margaret had borrowed. A sibling mannequin bore less regal fatigues, none more elegant than Townsend’s own battle rattle. A brass plaque identified it as the former field dress for Lord Cuttersark himself.

  Separate from the witches who founded House Owens were several other outfits, and one caught Margaret’s eye. She left her companions, approaching a woman’s mannequin which wore dingy green slacks and dusted boots, as well as a shemagh that Margaret knew. The clothes were tattered and dirty, stained with blood, and singed with fire.

  “Before you is notorious Antecedent battlewitch, The Bruja. In life she was better known as Maggi Lopez, a California native who fled east during the Collapse. She’s known as a friend of House Owens for dispatching two dangerous Ifrit in Carbondale.”

  Margaret’s jaw fell open, genuine shock foaming in her sternum. A ghost in pre-Collapse regalia manifested from nothing next to her. He wore a rumpled jacket with ridiculously excessive golden epaulets, and a tall hat adorned in various feathers and trinkets. This ghost held more clarity than others, though he still blurred and washed out like Aubriana, as he moved and gesticulated with life.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Margaret asked, unable to contain her disquiet.

  “Welcome, weary traveler. My name is Emperor Norton. I’ll be your guide through the history of Modus Vivendi, the birth of House Owens, and the advent of magic in our time.” The ghost answered, taking no notice of her shock, or disdain.

  More perplexed, Margaret decided to engage the ghost, “Who were you in life?”

  Norton smiled big, showing the most handsome set of teeth Margaret had ever seen, his face shifting through an opaque spectrum of puce and rust, “My name is Emperor Norton.”

  Margaret understood aspects of old-world technology. Simple battery-powered devices continued to function for a few years into her childhood. Her mother once found a doll with pink and blue dress, and a string connect
ed to its spine. If the string was pulled, the doll repeated a recorded message. It had made Margaret sad after a while because no matter how many times it repeated those messages, they would never change, never evolve. It could never answer questions or engage with her. That same sad feeling leaked down Margaret’s throat now, clutching her windpipe, making her short of breath for a second.

  “Tell me again, who was this.”

  Emperor Norton resurrected his smile, “Before you is notorious Antecedent battlewitch, The Bruja.” The ghost repeated, word for word, the same tambour, the same cheerful exuberance that promised he would be just as interested in this as you wanted him to be.

  Ghosts could emote the same as any living person, but their existence was tied beyond the Veil, so there was no mind to dig around in. No drawers to search, no secrets to be found. This thing had been mutilated into the same kind of awful carcass, no different from Margaret’s doll with a blue and pink dress.

  “Do you like him?”

  Margaret turned from Norton as he finished his speech to see Lady Cuttersark approach. Her face was thick at the jawline, and she was wearing a form fitting dress that ran from a copper choker at her neck, made of white leather. She was full bodied, and her stomach was divided into two bulbous segments under mounds that made up her bosom. It gave Margaret the impression of a sausage tied in knots, underneath a long coat of black, dyed, fox fur.

  “He’s just a recording,” Margaret almost crossed her arms before realizing she could no longer do that.

  “Of course, he’s just a recording. We found his ghost wandering the streets, sweeping them as if he expected that they’d grow cleaner. He claimed himself to be Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Utterly mad, of course.” Lady Cuttersark stepped past Margaret, waving her hand through Norton, then snapping chubby fingers to vanish his manifestation.