His Majesty went on, ignoring the urgency of Iria’s order but with visible effort: a tightening of his jaw and a frown creasing his usually friendly face. “Suppose, my good witches, that you find an animal in a trap: a fox. Its leg is broken. The bait used to catch it has spoiled. It clearly does not have long to live. It suffers—no, that word is insufficient. It is in anguish. And yet you know it cannot live in the wild—not in its current state of ill health.” Norton took a step backward, now, in the direction they had come, away from the Tenderloin, as he warmed to his subject.
Iria took a step forward as though to put their hand on his shoulder and bodily march Norton back to the Tenderloin themself.
Norton stepped aside, deft as a dancer. “Let us further consider that you know—because you are kind, and not cruel—that you must free the fox. To do so would be so contrary to your innate kindness as to change who you are forever should you walk away from your fellow being’s need. And yet your only option for saving it would be to take the fox home and put it in a cage. Perhaps it would heal in that cage. Perhaps it might decide it prefers the cage to the life it imagined for itself in a vast and generous wood.” Norton scratched at his wire brush beard and fidgeted for a moment. “But what if you knew it was just as likely—perhaps more so—that the fox would break out of its cage and run away, guaranteeing its own death, the first chance it can find?” Norton looked away from the corners of the plaza and directly at Iria, then at Madge. “What would you do?”
“Free the fox.” Madge didn’t hesitate in her reply. “Every time. If it runs away, so be it. But I have to try. Choosing not to try would, I think, say worse about me than the fox’s escape would say about either of us.” Madge spoke softly then. “But this isn’t about a fox, is it?”
“No.” Norton’s voice was quiet.
Iria’s features softened, and instead of taking Norton by the shoulder, they instead held out their hand to him. “Your Majesty…” They shook their head at Norton. “You are no slave. Would you believe Madge and I have both fretted about that very possibility since we returned you to the world of the living? But I swear to you, as I did the first time we sat together on The Fist, that you are not tied to us. Rather, we are tied to each other. Your wellbeing, your agency, your friendship? They’re as important to us as ours are to you.”
Norton stared at Iria’s hand, then, remembering himself, bowed slightly and touched it for a moment. “Ah, yes, my good witches. I know this. This rhetorical question I have posed to you is not about me, either. It is…difficult for me to find the words to explain. But as you say, the terms of my return to life carry with them obligations and bonds, some of which I find it difficult to characterize even as I feel them tighten around my soul.” Norton turned and looked back over his shoulder again.
Iria cocked their head to one side a few degrees and opened their mouth to speak, but they were interrupted when Etta Place emerged from the dozens of easels displaying art for sale.
Norton already stared directly at her.
“Evening.” Etta’s voice was quiet, clipped, businesslike. She had a tiny leather journal in one hand and the stub of an old pencil in the other, tucking it into the spine of the notebook and sliding both into an inner pocket of her jacket as she approached.
Iria judged her accent American but with structure underneath it, like she’d had a very formal education somewhere else.
“Oh, shit.” Iria grabbed Norton’s hand. “Goddamn it, I would love to get somewhere without running, just once tonight.”
Etta waved the fear away. “No running, no chasing. Not right now, anyway. We’re done with that for tonight.” Etta’s hands were empty now, and she showed them to make the point. “Just talking.”
Madge stepped back, her hands halfway up in front of her, ready to fight.
“And why do you harass my comrades?” Norton turned to face Etta directly, his chin held high, his old beaver hat mostly straight, cane in one hand and his other on the hilt of his cavalry saber.
“You three are gathering up some things my boss would very much like to get his hands on.” Etta shrugged at them very slightly. Her movements were relaxed, dexterous, graceful. “He wants me to kill the lot of you and get those items back. But first and foremost, I’m a businesswoman. I suspect that’s what caught his eye in the first place.” Etta smiled faintly, just a little twist at the corners of her mouth, but there was sincere amusement there. “So I’d rather offer you a clean deal first. Name your price. If I find it agreeable, we settle and go our separate ways.”
“Sell our city to you? The soul of our home?” Madge spat on the sidewalk. “Go to hell.”
“Oh, I will.” Etta showed no offense, but she also showed only a hint of sardonic humor. “I’m sure of that. I expect to join my dearest friends there.” She turned back to Norton and nodded once to emphasize her question. “The name’s Etta Place. Look me up. I want you to know who I am so you’ll know I mean what I say: cut a deal with me and we’ll all walk away square. Refuse, and I’ll do what the boss says, and I won’t think twice.”
“Won’t your master be angry you didn’t kill us?” Iria huffed once, not a laugh but a definite sound of scoffing.
“His moods…” Etta gestured with only a thumb, but it said a lot: dismissal, a shrug, a laugh, all at once. Her communications were compact like that. She could say a lot with very little and preferred it that way. “Well, they shift. They shifted tonight, and they’ll shift back. I’ll catch him on a good day and let him know.” She produced a solitary chuckle. “He isn’t the first big-ego cattle rustler I’ve run with.” Etta shook her head, lost in her own memory for a long moment, before speaking again. “Take some time to think it over. After all, time means little to you and me.” Another hand-cranked smile. “When you’re ready to deal, send me a parrot. Seems appropriate to the city we’re in.” With one hand she pointed in the direction of Telegraph Hill and the population of wild parrots resident there for decades. “You’re witches. It’ll find me. And it’ll be secure.”
Etta half-turned away from them, then paused and glanced back. “Remember: I mean business, and business can get mean.” Etta strode away at a leisurely pace, stepped back into the small forest of paintings for sale in Union Square, and vanished from their view.
“What. The. Hell.” Iria’s voice was quiet and frightened, and they didn’t bother trying to hide it.
“That’s the woman who broke into our room.” Madge drew steady breaths, but her voice shook a little. “She had a gun. Has. Whatever. She threatened to kill us.”
Iria gazed sidelong at Norton, taking the temperature of his reaction to meeting this person sent to destroy them all.
The emperor seemed entirely unsurprised and unafraid. Quite the contrary: his expression was a little sad, and a little hopeful. He turned and bowed first to Madge, then to Iria. “My good witches,” he said, his voice low and heavy, “I give you my equal and opposite, brought here to secure the keys to the city. Just as you are aware of one another, thanks to the bonds you have forged between each other; and just as you are aware of me, thanks to bonds similarly crafted; and just as you are aware of our adversary’s influence over the city we all have called home in different ways and at different times…” Norton gestured with his saber in the direction Etta walked when she left. “I feel a bond to her.”
Iria narrowed their eyes. “Your fox caught in a trap?”
“And what we do about her will say as much about us…” Norton nodded at Iria. “As it will about anyone. There may be more than a city to save. There may be the souls of persons as well.”
THE END
Notes & Acknowledgements
In March of 2018, two of my dearest friends and I, while visiting San Francisco, saw firsthand the powerful work of The Gubbio Project (www.thegubbioproject.org) to offer safe sleep to those without houses. That service is, on the surface, very simple: each weekday, St. Boniface and St. John the Evangelist open their respective doors fo
r seven or eight hours and allow anyone who enters to sleep on the pews in the back two-thirds of the sanctuary. The front third is used to celebrate the daily mass shortly after noon, and in that way the homeless are welcomed into a space that will not kick them out to do its "real" job and the parishioners are reminded of their charge to serve those in need. There are no intake forms, no questions asked, no judgments or restrictions. People who need safe sleep are welcome there, with no preconditions or requirements. Behind the scenes, of course, their service is anything but simple. It requires dedication, long hours, stretching limited funds, community relations work, and tireless outreach. Just take a moment to imagine suggesting to the folks in charge that your own place of worship, or workplace, or community center, or library open its doors and welcome the homeless people around you into that space for hours every day so that they can sleep. Consider the bravery of The Gubbio Project's founders. That's how brave compassion can be.
I don't share the religion of those who operate The Gubbio Project, but the experience of standing in respectful silence at the back of the sanctuary while hundreds of people slept - people for whom the lack of safe sleep is a genuine and constant crisis - was overwhelming. I could feel the sacredness in that space. I've donated a few bucks here and there ever since, and will also donate to them all royalties I receive from this series.
On that same trip I learned of Donaldina Cameron and the work she did to rescue young women from human trafficking and slavery. Her story, and the limited choices available to her charges once they were in her mission house, is a much more complex piece of history. She made the Presbyterian Mission Home into a safe place for young women to recover from their previous circumstances, but she refused to release them until they learned English, converted to her religion, and married a man of whom she approved. Many of her rescues saw her as a savior. Others escaped, preferring the life from which she thought she was saving them.
I don't have as easy a response to Donaldina Cameron. I don't know what people should think of her. Like anything about real lives we didn't lead, it's easy for us to look on it from a distance, one of time and of place, and pass judgment in some form. I'd prefer to refrain from that. I wasn't there. I don't get a vote in what she did, and I don't get a vote in what anyone else thinks of it. There are many figures from history whom I'm quite happy to judge, but she isn't one of them. Instead, her career of rooftop chases and midnight rescues - all very real - is something I'm still turning over in my mind, with no idea if I'll ever settle on something so simple as a single reaction.
I mention these two very different approaches to helping people to point out that San Francisco has always been a place where there are people in need. Its edges have always been frayed. Some portion of its population has always been hungry, always been in need of someplace safe to rest, always in danger, always targeted by racists or misogynists or real estate speculators. It has also always - always - been a place where people felt called to reduce suffering, spread compassion, and protect the people of their communities.
In the build-up to the Chinese Excluson Act, the real person known to us as Emperor Norton really did climb high and break up racist rallies. In the Exclusion Act's aftermath, Donaldina Cameron really did jump from one roof to the next with a frightened child on her back while dodging shots and hatchets. Today, while a (real estate speculating, morally bankrupt) President* takes to the Internet and insults San Francisco for having a visible homeless population, some of that city's churches open their doors and welcome those people in to find rest when they need it. There have always been racists, classists, misogynists, homophobes, gender essentialists, religious extremists - the list of hatreds goes on, and it is not unique to San Francisco. But there are also brave, compassionate, diligent people who push back and make a difference, and that isn't unique to San Francisco, either. Be one of those people, in whatever way you can.
More immediately relevant to this book, I'd like to thank Erin Penn, Melissa McArthur, Natania Barron, and John Hartness of Falstaff Books. Together they provide sharp, insightful, supportive editing; exquisite covers; and a publishing company that feels like a family rather than a second career. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this, and to share the weird stuff that boils over from my brain.
Thanks also to my husband, Michael Kerr, who encourages and supports the time I spend doing stuff like this, even going so far as to set up a space to write in the Magic Room. I don't know where I'd be without him.
And finally, thanks to my many friends, but especially The Vampire Group: Josh, Kat, Corwin, and Brian, whose love of creativity and storytelling has kept me creative for almost twenty-five years.
About the Author
Michael G. Williams writes horror, urban fantasy, and science fiction: stories of monsters, macabre humor, and subverted expectations. He’s the author of three series for Falstaff Books: the award-winning vampire/urban fantasy series The Withrow Chronicles; SERVANT/SOVEREIGN, a new urban fantasy series featuring demons, witches, real estate, time travel, and San Francisco’s most beloved historical figures; and the science fiction noir A Fall in Autumn. Michael also writes short stories and contributes to tabletop RPG development. He strives to present the humor and humanity at the heart of horror and mystery with stories of outcasts and loners finding their people.
Michael is also an avid podcaster, activist, and gaymer, and is a brother in St. Anthony Hall and Mu Beta Psi. He lives in Durham, NC, with his husband, a variety of animals, and more and better friends than he probably deserves.
Also by Michael G. Williams
The Withrow Chronicles
Perishables
Tooth & Nail
Deal with the Devil
Attempted Immortality
Nobody Gets Out Alive
Short Stories in the Withrow Universe
“Daddy Used to Drink Too Much” – Wrapped in Red: Thirteen Tales of Vampiric Horror
“His Shrine to Santa Muerte” – Wrapped in White: Thirteen Tales of Spectres, Ghosts, and Spirits
“Stories I Tell to Girls” – Wrapped in Black: Thirteen Tales of Witches and the Occult
The Valerius Novels
A Fall in Autumn
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Copyright © 2020 by Michael G. Williams
Cover Design by Natania Barron
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