by Rink Wester
-My complicity is free and independent, Detective. Now, what would you like to know?
Detective Mozee pulled from his pocket a tiny Samsung recording device and set it on the conference table, noting that there was still plastic on the table legs as if someone had just delivered it. As he looked around he noticed that all of the furniture looked like the Ikea fåîrÿ had just visited them. He told himself to make a mental note and ask about it later.
-The time is 13:12, Friday, November 24th. Now, Mr. Lång, and other parties present, I have only one question worth asking. What in the fuck happened here?
Just as Tony sat back expecting Gærüt or Mr. Mysterious Light Bright Lapels to take him through a play by play of what he hoped had enough logic not to make his report read like Harry Potter, his interrogation like his train of thought were unceremoniously interrupted. He jumped and very nearly yelped as three people appeared from nothing, as of three somethings that suddenly materialized that were a split second ago simply not there. A collision of confusion and stupor forced a visible open mouthed headshake as his mind reeled and he instinctively went for his service pistol.
Through a tear torn in the fabric of the room, the air unzipping and flaying open, stepped a bloodied Ptøshä Nërrip, Blähn Båhkû and Q. Åkäniÿh. Three of his four Sihiosian warlords. The fourth was Ptøshä’s mate, Divåd, dispatched by Gærüt this morning and currently battling Grynn Xanthopoulous and her insufferable hoard of patrician wizards. They were the Asipade of old. Centuries ago they were the guilded devil hunters of the Pörø. Human wielders of ëgbë and ajabo mågÿckal charms. Now they were His four Ájøgün. His demigöd warriors. Gærüt was Death To All and they were his four pagan overlords, into which he poured a clay fount of Sihiosian intent and deadly potential. Less than true göds but imbued with his power and so something both less than and greater still. Creatures of myth and lore even to cryptids, they were the ravenous bovine riding exertion of his apocalyptic will and whim. Cryptid göds scattered and tears were wrung when Gærüt and the Council summoned them. Broken of any loyalties save that to him, once and eternal traitors to their human order, they were mågÿckally bound to Gærüt. Betray him and the seed of Sihiosia within would ignite and burn them to star ash.
Ptøshä kneeled, face swollen and lacerated, the other Ájøgün immediately genuflecting behind her, placing her right fist against the open palm of her left hand and spoke in that short clipped tone only authority in front of a greater fearful darker authority knows,
My Liege Ôlörûn, forgive us! We have failed you My Lord! Your realm is broken and The Craven One has escaped!
Gærüt bellowed, teleporting away, and for the second time in as many days the Sallie Douglas building shook while the crush of quantum and temporal rage filled its halls.
18
At the same time Gærüt was bellowing and teleporting to his pocket prison realm from which the being trapped there 4000 years had just escaped, Vickie Basse was rounding the corner of the PörøSociety Annex building as Divåd Nërrip barrelled after her. She reached the corner of the building where the trellises dripped with climbing bougainvillea and other foreign succulents. She headed for the security ladder that seemed to appear out of thin purple tinged air.
Nowhere to go but up, she thought as she hit the ladder at a leap and began to climb. She could hear the sounds of warriors and death being played out behind her and her adrenaline reserves screamed anew for her to climb.
Climb bitch! Climb! Get anywhere but here!
Just as her left foot fought for purchase, Divåd’s clawed fist smashed into her sternum, throwing her screaming through that early morning air, casting her like a rag doll 10 feet away on that manicured lawn. The last thoughts Vickie had as she landed in a body breaking heap was that of her grandmother, Carrie Tyree. She heard the tinny ethereal memory voice of her grandmother, as if from down a long hallway, Or a concussion, she reasoned, singing over a bowl of shucked snap peas, hog maw and slowly sautéing collards cooking on the stove.
I am waiting at the crossroads
I look to the right –
there is nothing
I look to the left –
there is nothing.
I look straight ahead –
there is silence.
I take the guinea pepper in my mouth
I recite the old incantations:
Sono sethu yinyaniso- (Our sin is the truth-)
Mayibuye i Àgátù! (Mantis spirit Àgátù, rise and return!)
Even when these amulets of riches fail-
Stay and stay.
Caress his waiting entrails-
These words to say!
Now wake up and fight Victor!
Divåd smiled, his gait that of a predator sniffing the dying light of its prey. He stalked over and as he grabbed her, mandibles snapping and spit flying, she suddenly convulsed. Vickie’s eyes burst open in amethyst radiance and her body exploded in radiant heat and power. The ground beneath her bowed and she rose, a tree of galvanized current and force growing around her.
The sin of the great göd is my truth! I am the mantis! Mayibuye i Àgátù!!
Fear unknotted her tangled thoughts as she blasted Divåd with a bolt of pure unrestrained mantis energy. A solid wall of spirit mågÿck hit him, cracking his carapace, snapping his front leg and sending him careening into the cement wall of the Annex.
How is this possible? He screeched in incredulity, body limp, mouth dripping in black blood and other things, You have no Sihiosian mågÿcks! No talisman of Ajabo! No Amulet of Ëgbë! You will relent!
How indeed? she thought, her soul and body finally one with the mantis. The tables in her mind turned and now Vickie sang those memory lyrics as she mentally stalked her own prey, rich purple mågÿck dripping from her in large sizzling drops. She lashed out again and again stinging and scorching the demigöd Divåd Nërrip, relaxing and giving herself over fully to the warrior within.
It’s not the feather, it’s you Dumbo.
19
The Androsphinx floated in front of Nänå, a whirlwind of time scraping against space, as fungal spores of mågÿck filled the air and sucked down the present. Sphelix knew his sister was insane but he also knew the best way to stay insanity was to put on the dunce hat and play along. So he gathered together and released the gift given him by Aeyitria and Łoštåghår, powers long bestowed and abandoned, swimming backwards in time 4000 years. Threading the cosmic reel spooling out before him in reverse, he plucked from that mystical undercurrent of connectedness a vision of his brother Gærüt standing in the open savannah. Giraffes and ostriches ran freely, chased by a pair of cheetah brothers learning the hunt, their mother stalking in silent education.
They were surrounded, on the plains and in the hills, by tens of millions of worshippers, some prostrate in tears of ruin and joy, others stomping the ground and ululating in the deepest of praise. All present for some great call to arms. The Shava and Zezuru clans of the Shona people. The Bantu and the Zulu. The wailing women and serious men of the Ndebele. The wandering Maasai, Samburu and Yoruba. The cannibal Kikuyu. The pastoralist Himba. The farming gurus of the Kunda. The San Bushmen and the Xhosa.
They were gathered, praying to Gærüt and Nänå and their ancestors in the time of the great migration. There in a place they called Mabwe Dziva, the pool of stones. Long before there was a Stone Henge there were the Stones of Dziva, the Matopos Shrines.
They chanted and screamed their worship to the great göd beasts standing there in the long wild meadows of the great city of Bulawayo. Their guruuswa or land of high grass. They ululated proudly In that profusion of granite rock formations long cherished as a shrine by their ancestors for many millennia. Rock paintings chronicling their histories, dating from 11,000 BCE, these tribes had occupied this site for over 500,000 years.
At the heart of their praise were totems of clan and dynastic mågÿcks given to them by Nänå and sanctified in blood and venom by Gærüt. Wild untamed m
ågÿcks.
They surrounded an angry gnashing Nänå held down by Gærüt’s power as he stood chanting over her. Suddenly he snatched the Amulet he had given her from around her neck and with a blade conjured in one hand he plunged it deep while with the other hand he drew a rune on Nänå’s forehead, sending a shriek through her entire being before her mind faded to blackness and void.
Gærüt looked down at what Nänå had forced him to do. She had left him no choice. She had grown mad with power and the universe, his universe, was for the first time in true and unrelenting danger. Her plan had to be stopped and for that she had to die. She and...
Gærüt’s head suddenly snapped up and looked Sphelix squarely in his noncorporeal eyes.
He sees me! He knows I’m here? Impossible!
Across time and space Gærüt saw his brother, Sphelix Thorne dropping all eaves and his response rose to equal that threat. He must never know of this shame and her threat. He reached out and pulled his brother through the veil, an ache in time so painful Sphelix immediately began to lose consciousness. Gærüt’s tusks ground him into the hardscrabble red clay of that arena and as he bit into him, tribal chants now fever pitched coating the night air, fangs worrying him like a hyena with a bone, he whispered in a psychic farewell,
Nothing is impossible brother. Now leave this place as you came. With nothing.
Before falling back into the present and passing out in roiling agony at Nänå’s feet, he screamed at her, a fever seizing him causing him to pitch forward,
Gærüt has poisoned time itself! He knows! Death is coming!
20
The being in the skin of the little boy walked and marveled at all the new things for which he knew not their tongue. He had been trapped in that bitter thick void of The Other for nearly 4000 years but now he was free. He was surrounded by all these new moving things standing in things of things and at things. These things chittered and chattered in seeming communication. Communicating what, he wondered, in their frantic, alien, back and forth, jerking and flailing walk from over here to over there to everywhere it seemed. His eyes drank in the newness and the light and color of this new realm. Everything growing like mad writhing pustules on the face of this new reality.
Up walked one of those living things, tall and lanky. The walking chattering thing approached him and touched him chattering indistinctly and instantly thebeing in the skin of the little boy knew and saw a lifetime of her. She wanted to know if he was “lost” and where his pa-rents and why he was na-ked. She was a hu-man. They all were. This hu-man was a fe-male of the species and she was called A-le-si-a Cheta-ra and she had a mate called Kar-elle Cheta-ra that she called Kar-Cheta None-sweetah when they bumper to bumper coupled or made love or bambi sexed or bumped ugly or daddled or scissored. So many ways her mind now surrendered to him to describe this act she held as sacred and familiar with her Kar-Cheta None-sweetah. This world was a blue and green wet and dry orb in the heavens it seemed. An “Earth” stuck and held by a mågÿck A-le-si-a’s mind could not explain. And yes the beast within the little boy had been right, their chattering was indeed communication. A lan-guage among many he plucked from her mind. The En-glish of The A-mer-i-can. That was her designation. He saw back to the far recesses of her memory and knew flags and culture, childhood and chocolate, war and pigtails, pa-rents and hu-man e-motions.
The e-motions of man and animal. Fear. An-ger. Sad-ness. Joy. Sur-prise. Dis-gust. Trust. An-ti-ci-pa-tion. In-dig-na-tion. Shame. Love. Hate. These e-motions informed everything about them. He now knew the name of that look on their faces as they looked down at him. Pi-ty. They actually pi-tied him. And in that moment he also knew the name framing the look he hoped they saw on his. A rich dark satisfied e-motion. Contempt. He felt it for each and everyone of them. All hu-mans. For A-le-si-a and her Kar-Cheta Nonesweetah. They were beneath them. He also knew in an instant something else. Something that had been nibbling at his mind there in the dark for 4000 years but now belonged to a single word. He was a göd.
I am neither man nor animal but their ciphering. The debt that must be settled.
And as his legs merged into a great muscular tail, his fingers tipped and transformed into clawed fists and his face elonGâted, fangs and tusks framing scales and eyes full of resolved mayhem, he knew what he had to do.
Ripping out A-le-si-a’s throat and slamming her lifeless body into the pavement, watching first surprise and then fear and then nothing, for the first time he knew the words and that he belonged to them.
He knew what he was and that soon enough either The One or The Other would come for him.
He would be ready.
Forewarned is forearmed mo-ther-fuck-ers!
21
Salvador, Bahia. Brazil. November 26, 2017.
Dr. Örên Marcuse sat and enjoyed his fifth caipirinha as a group of young college students yipped and laughed, dancing the trio electrico as they hopped from one sweaty day club to the next. He had always loved it here. His favorite piece of Brazil.
Salvador, the city, was for centuries, and to this day in some small villages around the Baía de Todos os Santos, The Bay of all Saints, still is, popularly referred to as “Bahia”, which is the archaic Portuguese-language spelling for "bay". Salvador lent an intoxicating old world charm to Brazil, Örên had always felt. With its vibrant musical scene and popular Carnival celebrations, it was considered one of the birthplaces of Brazilian culture. The Bahian Recôncavo, the area around the great bay over which Salvador presides like a rough-cut but radiant black diamond, is where the great root of Afro-Brazilian civilization gave rise to the scintillating fluorescence which continues to illuminate and move benighted Brazil. From the senzalas .slave compounds, of centuries past, to the quilombos, communities formed by runaway slaves, to the flashy cars and unequalled wealth and “crackland” neighborhoods of today. It was a journey closely paralleling that of the cultural genius of African-Americans in the United States where most of his brothers had chosen to live.
By the time Örên had arrived and become the largest real estate developer in the region, Salvador was already the third largest city in the world's sixth economy, with innumerous modern apartment buildings looking like gleaming upended harmonicas, these filled with occupants of the professional classes who shop in New York and take their kids to Disney World but return without fail to the frantic madness of their busted cobble streets. Ships filled the bay daily, carrying away industrial plugs for blast furnaces, resins, chemicals...the stuff of large-scale manufacturing by multinational corporations from China to Dubai to The Maldives.
And of course there were the people themselves. They had always fascinated Örên socially and sexually. Their melanin content ranging from darkest African through dusky indigenous Indian to lightest European, the preponderance weighted toward the darker end of the spectrum. Much like his own complexion. He had always taken that as a good sign. Although there were exceptions, the prevailing wisdom was, as expressed by sambista Ederaldo Gentil, "Todo branco tem negro na família”, Every white person has a black person in the family. In contrast to places like the United States, where "one drop" defines who is considered "black", the distinction between persons of European-heritage ethnicity and those of African-heritage ethnicity was conceived differently there. Part of that due in large fact that, unlike in great colonial powers like the United States, where the children of slave-owners and slave-women were themselves consigned to slavery, in Bahia this was often not the case, creating a class of mixed-race ”black" people who were there called "mÖrêno" and who had property, rights, and freedom. And with churning intermarriage and a mathematician's nightmare of racial combinations in people's backgrounds, particularly amongst the "common" people, and the consequent commonality of cultural background, the feeling of “I'm the black or white dude and he or she is white or black” has a,ways been rare there except amongst the top-most, old landed economic class, or would-be snobs who ascribe to that benighted class's pretensions
and prejudices. His Salvador was not home to a racism-free society but at least, Örên proudly and quietly believed, day-to-day personal relations between most people were thankfully free of the back-of-the-mind fencing so common between people of different continental heritages, like they were in places like Atlanta, if he was to believe the stories he heard his brothers tell.
In any case, Örên mused, he absolutely loved this place and the native soteropolitanos beyond any other place on the planet.
As the clock ticked on, he sat nursing his caipirinha at his favorite little bistro, drink in one hand and a nice hot plate of feijoada, a stew of sausages and pork ears and tails and anything else that fell off the pig and the dogs didn’t get. All of that spread over rice and black beans. He was at the center of the Cidade Alta, where the 2 large squares Praça da Sé and the Terreiro de Jesus were connected at the corner by the great cathedral. This area was considered the the liveliest most vigorous part of town, with food carts and stalls through the day and revelers lasting well into the wee hours of the morning.
He picked up his phone and noticed a missed WeChat group chat message from four of his brothers, Hlünin Såtûri, Aren White, Xiao Yu Shizi and Bæbäl Richmand. Osänyìn. Obàtálá. Yuhuang Dadi. Bæbälúayé.
What fresh Council bullshit is it now, he scoffed, his good time shot, drinking the last of his caipirinha in one gulp and waking his screen.