Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  “You’re not Maria. No, that’s not right. She didn’t like that.” The voice shifted around the room like a child’s toy, shattered, and bouncing across furniture. There was a gasping urgency in the words, a woman near climax, biting for more, and still more, bound up in parcel ties, mad giggles. “Magdalena. She liked Maggi. You’re not Maggi.”

  “My name is Margaret, and I’m now the Eye’s owner. Who are you?”

  The voice shifted and moved close to Margaret, a chill gust of wind rustled her hair, colder by far than any ocean breeze, “Marinette Bras Cheche.”

  “Her Lady of the Dry Arms,” Aubriana answered a question that had never been asked, somewhere to Margaret’s left. She’d been moving this whole time, in silence. “I know you, lwa.”

  That’s good, because I have no idea what I’m dealing with.

  Margaret turned away from the icy air and took a step toward Aubriana’s voice.

  “You’ve been following me for the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta. Haven’t you? The eye that Maggi promised you.”

  Between where Margaret and Aubriana stood, a third person was moving, shifting, a sound like sashes caught in the wind, hands underwater, groping at smooth skipping stones. Beyond seeing, Margaret could feel the physical world curvilinear; it tugged at her scallop lace and slip, taunt at her skin, almost painful.

  “The eye that does not see. I want that eye, one last gift.”

  When Aubriana spoke, using Lady Cuttersark’s voice, the pitched whine of her tone was gone, and although she didn’t sound different, every word contained a grim determination that the younger woman had never learned in life.

  “Maggi is dead. If you paid her before she produced your gift, that’s only your folly.”

  Margaret could see something emerging from the darkness. At first it was simply more darkness, afterimages glancing, for a second or two. Impressions behind the eyes, creating a brief, splitting pain in Margaret’s optic nerves, running up through temples and into her neck.

  Marinette Bras Cheche was manifesting in this world.

  “You’re wearing my eye. You will give it to me.”

  There was no more giggling, when Marinette spoke it sounded like a never-ending inhale, ragged and angry.

  She can’t take it, Margaret considered, it must be given.

  “Aubriana, let me see through your eyes, I need in.”

  Margaret could imagine the dim look Aubriana might have given her in the full blossom of daylight, holding glare under brows, unblinking as she processed disgust. Regardless of that disgust, this was why she’d jammed the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta into Lady Cuttersark’s skull, and Aubriana was clever enough to know that.

  Aubriana was frantic, struggling, pulling needles from her arms when she realized that her head jerked sideways, and something tugged at her throat. Not merely her throat, but deeper into her esophagus. That’s a breathing tube.

  The memory was simply there, lying on the kitchen counter like a half-eaten sandwich, attracting flies. Margaret was groping for her own jaw, her throat, gagging on a recollection that didn’t belong to her. She regurgitated the vodka onto her hand, unaware of what the bile smelled like; she was too distracted, choking on the smoke filling her hospital room.

  Aubriana’s hospital room.

  Blind now, Margaret was looking out of Aubriana’s eyes, the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta superimposing it's strange and disjointed images across her field of view. Marinette appeared as both a squirming stain of intense energy dyed in glow that splattered and illuminated the chairs as tables; but also, as a misshapen skeleton, hovering a foot off the floor. Her jaw was too large for her skull, and moved absently of speech, chewing undercooked meat for eternity. Her spine was a woven rope, caught in a breeze, scoliosis eternal and lost in music that no one else could hear. Margaret had cultivated her skill at mind diving since she was a child, and over decades she’d done it with and without the consent of her target countless times. In all those years, she’d never experienced anything like this.

  Say what I say, Margaret was rapidly losing any sense of her own body, forgetting that she had one arm. In another body, she felt oddly whole.

  “Next you’ll want to braid my fucking hair,” Aubriana said that out loud, or she didn’t, Margaret couldn’t fathom that. She was more than herself now, and certainly less.

  Tell her she can’t have it. Tell her she can make a new bargain.

  Aubriana leaned forward, fists balled up, and immediately shot into colorful, old world vernacular, “If you wanted it so bad, you should have taken it off Maggi’s corpse. Your deal died with her. Now, you need to make a new deal.”

  That’s not what I had hoped you’d say.

  Marinette drew back in something like loathing, her spine wriggling, “I followed Maggi, when the pit grew cold and dark. She did not have my eye, the eye that she promised.”

  Carbondale, the birth of The Beast, Margaret thought more for herself than Aubriana.

  Aubriana looked back to Margaret and Margaret could see herself cast aglow in shades of crimson and rust, a shimmering pond outlined in the shape of a one-armed woman.

  “If the current owner is willing to pay that debt with something of equal or greater value, will you consider Maggi’s bargain kept?”

  The sashes and shawls of Marinette whipped back and around her skeletal form, revealing only a spindling, illuminated fabric, woven of a thousand fibers.

  She replied with a choleric disdain, “I will make no bargain with you, oathbreaker.”

  Oathbreaker?

  Withdrawing much of her mind from Aubriana, only barely able to visualize the ancient spirit, she fell back to her own voice and tempo, “Bargain with me then, Marinette Bras Cheche. What is the eye worth to you?”

  How much could she possibly demand for its ransom?

  Beyond her eyes, Margaret could feel Marinette Bras Cheche turn her attention, pulling at the lounge air, the very physical bounds of this place. Near such power, Margaret was intimately aware that the Veil wasn’t completely gone. Tethers survived, and a wall remained.

  “You’ll grant me any treasure I desire?” Marinette spoke on inhale once more, her voice chilling Margaret deep, past her sternum, to parts of her that could resonate, “I need not share?”

  Margaret wasn’t sure why, but she held her hand out, fingers turning numb, and the skitter of rats clawing up her arm, pulling at flesh with hooked claws.

  “Any treasure you wish, Marinette Bras Cheche. But I will keep the eye that belonged to Maggi Lopez. Do we have a bargain?”

  Although she was fairly certain that no physical harm had come to her limb, holding it in the space occupied by such a powerful Veil creature required discipline and focus. It was blurring realities around her, making her blind to some things and consumed by others.

  When Marinette answered, it was without pause or delay, as if she had a special wish list scrawled in a hidden place, behind stone and ledge, that she could recall at any time.

  “The brass and leaden carapace; that killed a royal king. Two hearts pledged together, bound by golden rings. A snake of bloodied leather; whose bite will burn flesh with icy knell.”

  What in the fuck?

  “Deal. I will trade these things for the eye that does not see.” Margaret did not delay her answer, she jumped on the bargain without more than a second or two of pause.

  “You have until this day, one year from now, to make good on this bargain.”

  Time was Margaret’s most valuable resource. She couldn’t earn or steal more, but she could always solve Marinette Bras Cheche’s riddles. One was, of course, wedding rings. The others would become clear enough when they needed to be. Objects trussed up in sky blue silk, darkened at the edges by her own blood.

  “Keep your word, little Bête Noire.”

  Marinette Bras Cheche’s final words reminded Margaret of Condatis. The Veil’s wrenching twist released, and Margaret felt as if she could breathe easily again, free of an incessant tugging. Warm
th ran down her left arm, and fingers, blood flowing free under acquittance, whole and part of her again.

  She didn’t need to borrow Aubriana’s mind to know that the ancient spirit was gone, vanished from the Modus Vivendi. Only in her wake did Margaret realize the raw and sour stench of this place, meat yearning for the vultures.

  12:18am March 26th, 39 Veilfall

  San Francisco, California

  “Give us light, Badger,” Margaret shouted, exhaling hard.

  Badger did not shout back, but after long seconds the electric chandeliers slowly began to illuminate once more. Nothing had changed. Even the sticky vomit that dribbled off Margaret’s fingers, down her cleavage, was a restorative when compared to this blighted, blubbering place that threatened to violate souls.

  Margaret wondered what would happen to the mutilated vocalist now that she could no longer croon for Lady Cuttersark. Would Dread Harvester have such perverse tastes?

  With thumb and forefinger, Aubriana pulled the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta from her skull, tugging hard after it refused to let go immediately. She never whimpered, nor cast note of pain, and Margaret could taste no suffering. As immune to agony as Margaret was to fear, Aubriana would have been a fearsome brawler, a witch whose focus could not be broken.

  I can see why you loved my mother.

  Margaret accepted the bobble from Aubriana’s pudgy fingers. The empty eye socket began to bleed once more, all the exposed meat and gristle twisting at the air, gently, rhythmically.

  “I’ve made good on my bargain,” Aubriana said softly.

  Margaret accepted the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta. “I’ve never taken something without payment. I will not start today. I’m sorry you’ll wear one eye in this body.”

  Aubriana shrugged, thick juice of ruby, slowly clotting on her face, “It’s fine.”

  Margaret tipped her head to one side, considering Marinette Bras Cheche’s words, and replied; “Oathbreaker?”

  “I’ve been cheating death a long time.” Aubriana smiled. She answered the question with no vitriol, as evenly as one might explain their plans to eat a nice lunch, “At the dawn of the Collapse I made a bargain with Styx, Lady of the River. I make no apologies, and I have no regrets for breaking that bargain. If all that Maggi built falls into the sea, dead and forgotten, then we can consider ourselves even-steven”.

  Even-steven? Margaret wondered, before ignoring the antique slang.

  “Candy-striper! Get over here.”

  Erin rose from behind the bar, watching the two women talk of dark times and vibrant vendettas. She looked almost a decade older. Dark lines carved up, under her eyes and lips, as if she didn’t know how to smile anymore. Her fingers were shaking, and she said nothing, favoring the side closer to Margaret.

  “Candy-striper,” Aubriana twisted her new face into a look of bemused glee, lips curled in a hungry grin, “She’s a nurse?”

  Someone confused by my slang for once, Margaret almost smiled, answering, “A candy-striper is just a young girl who’s accepted apprenticeship.”

  With her right hand Aubriana reached out, grabbing Erin’s chin and twisting her head side to side as if she needed to peer around her face, and into whatever secrets sat behind bone and marrow.

  Uncomfortably, Erin answered, “Why?” As if that word alone would sum up her confusion.

  “Aubriana, this is Erin. She’s been my escort. She saved my life in Stockton, and I promoted her to Corporal in my 3rd Army. She’s one of us now, though. She can hear and see the truth of things. Only the truth. She sees us both for what we really are.”

  “Anathema,” Aubriana jerked Erin’s head side to side, “She’s cursed.”

  Margaret once more attempted to cross her arms, before realizing it was no longer possible, and settled on groping up the right side of her chest.

  “I’ve never seen that before. I’m not even sure if it can be fixed.”

  Aubriana thrust aside the girl, almost violently, tossing a glance back to Margaret, “All curses can be lifted. This one will kill your candy-striper in due time. She’ll go mad first, slowly, over many years. Then a day will come that she can’t lift her fingers to hold a spoon, her knees will stop working, and her lungs will forget to breathe.”

  How much do you know?

  Margaret wasn’t in the habit of feeling inerudite, and few living witches possessed as much arcane wisdom as she’d accumulated. Aubriana, however, had been older than Maggi in life, and spent the last two-decades only learning more as a ghost.

  “Can that not happen?” Erin’s voice turned meek, cracking on the final syllable.

  With her left hand Margaret began to replace the Eye of Shahr-i-Sokhta under her top of embroidered scallop lace, low on her chest, above her cleavage. It wasn’t very tight, but Aubriana’s drying blood would cement it in place. “I don’t know what your price is, Harvester, but I’ll pay it. I’ve shown you, I’m a woman of my word.”

  Aubriana clasped her hands behind her back and stepped to the right of Erin, walking around her, before coming full circle and watching Margaret.

  A heavily puffed sigh escaped her lips, “Before the Collapse, I trained your mother, free of price. Because, it was what she needed. I would have saved your pet candy-striper from this curse too, but,” Aubriana smiled, “since you’ve offered to pay me, what fool would I be to turn that down?”

  Margaret glanced away, ready to laugh at herself, and unable to hide a smile. It was a somber moment, but Aubriana’s grace was lushly painted canvas that defied indifference.

  “What would you like in return, Harvester?”

  Aubriana shifted weight, along with her chin and neck, a great albatross considering what savory organs might undulate behind Margaret’s fish flesh, “I’m not pretending to be someone else. I’ll be myself, or no one at all.”

  Margaret considered the Modus Vivendi lounge, and found herself delighted at the idea of Dread Harvester cleansing this place of ill-gotten depravity, “You realize, Heart Owens is still alive. And, she hasn’t forgotten what you did to her.”

  “Good lessons are hard to forget,” Aubriana bared her teeth, in nothing that could have been mistaken for a smile.

  What’s the worst that could happen? Margaret shook her head, half smiling, and offered a hand to Aubriana, “As you wish it, Dread Harvester.”

  Aubriana lifted her right hand first, realized that was incorrect, then favored her left for the one-armed woman, stepping away from Erin’s shoulder slightly.

  “Do you fear me, child?” Erin gave up her answer to Aubriana, easily, with just a simple expression, “If you only hear truth, then let me make myself plain. I would enjoy a witch at my side with your gifts. I would also enjoy a friend. I won’t be able to save you, not right away, but cheating death is my specialty.”

  Margaret watched Erin as she listened to the other witch, her face a ruck of trepidation. It was within Margaret’s power to command the girl to serve Aubriana. Even with a 3rd Army rank, a brassboy had little voice in her own future. “You have a good opportunity here with Aubriana Harvester. She was, and is, one of the most powerful witches who ever lived. A clever and loyal friend could earn a seat at Modus Vivendi’s table.”

  Both older witches could feel the girl boil up in a brine of anxiety and terror. It was within Margaret’s power to hush those nerves once more, calm her with a whispered lullaby, but it seemed like coddling now. Had she been born uninclined, she could have taken a smoother, easier path, but between her gifts and the parting curse of a dead witch, she had little choice now.

  Besides, Margaret thought, Erin may temper Harvester enough that she doesn’t burn the whole city to the ground.

  “I’ll stay with Aubriana,” Erin said, voice ajar with lamentation, loss pressing down deep behind her eyeballs and at the bottom of her throat, somewhere near the pit of her stomach.

  Margaret glanced past Erin, her eyes unfocused, resigned, and saw Badger grabbing a bottle of liquor from behind the bar. “Hey, you g
oing to grab one for me too, selfish-sally?”

  “I was going to grab two for me, and one for you’se, boss,” Badger laughed, skin sliding along visible teeth at the side.

  Chuckling, Margaret didn’t turn to Erin immediately, “I promise you this is the right choice. You’re one of us now, you’re a witch.” With a nod and no eye contact, Erin acknowledged that she’d heard. Margaret turned toward Aubriana and her skulking glare.

  “I’ll be in Stockton for the next few months. Should you need me.”

  Aubriana lifted a hand, laying it gently on Erin’s shoulder. It didn’t seem like any magic was at play, just kindness for a child who’d been told she was going to die from madness, “You’re alright, Margaret Lopez. I might like working with you. If you don’t die.”

  Margaret smirked, stepping back a few feet closer to where Badger stood.

  “I’m not a Lopez. Maggi never let me take that name. I’m just Margaret.”

  There was little else that Margaret needed to say. Aubriana didn’t need to know the mosaic of emotions and theater that had been her life with Maggi, or the long years she’d spent missing and hating her mother in equal parts.

  On her way out, leaving Modus Vivendi, Margaret stopped by the wooden mannequin meant to represent The Bruja. The old clothes had become faded and thin, but when Margaret ran her fingers across them, she could vividly remember the smell of her mother’s hair and the sharp accent she spoke in.

  Margaret untied Maggi’s tan shemagh, kissed by fire and stained with blood. Woven fiber pressed against her heart, it left the building with her.

  9:08pm March 26th, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  I’m waiting on someone, thought Margaret, have I ever waited on anyone before?