by Faith Hunter
Swallowing my adrenaline and nanobot combat chemicals, I sat. Drank the rest of my beer. Wished for another. Miraculously one appeared at my place.
I should have been nauseated and shaky from the fight-or-flight breakdown chemicals. Instead, I was starving. I sipped, trying to remember the proper protocol. I had watched enough of such meetings when Pops was alive to know that specific things had to be said and done at the negotiating table. Old Ladies and random women were not allowed to participate unless they were spoken to first. Only made-men were permitted to speak, and it was best this family didn’t know who I was.
Old Marconi sat, and a fifth chair appeared at his side, I assumed for his wife. I was interested to see what her status was. When she appeared in the kitchen, I realized that she had already been on the premises or she lived near the restaurant. I finally took a good look at the family. Old Marconi’s skin—wrinkled, nearly as dark as mine, spotted with age—had seen a lot of sun and gravity. He sported a small beard and moustache, both pure white, while his hair was thick, white sprinkled with black, styled long, and swept back. He was justifiably proud of his hair. He had likely been killer pretty when he was younger, like Enrico, but his sharp black eyes said he had never been stupid. His daughter, Mina, took after her father.
“Mina. Did you know your brother had been talking to the Mara Salvatrucha?”
“No papa. I would have killed him myself had I known.”
“This family and this chapter will never join with the Mara Salvatrucha. We will fight them until we die, as we always have. You will discover if any of your siblings or cousins or cohorts were part of his betrayal. And you will bring them to me. You will not kill them until I have dealt my own justice.”
Mina snarled but spat, “Yes, Papa.” She took Enrico’s Morphon and hooked it to hers. Turning, she stared daggers at her brothers, one who was being helped to the back by another sister. She snarled again. Mina was vicious and unforgiving of any weakness. I filed that away. I might need it someday.
Marconi’s Old Lady sat, ponderously, as if her knees hurt. Proving her status as a made-man, she said, “Give our guests decent wine.” She held up her glass, and one of her sons filled it from a very large bottle of red, before replacing Cupcake’s and Jagger’s glasses with fresh ones, and filling them as well. She frowned mightily at the sight of my beer, but I stared her down. She did an eyebrow shrug, as if to say, Oh well. The strange woman is a guest. She can drink what she wishes. Another daughter placed a short rocks glass beside the Old Man and poured three fingers from a fancy whiskey bottle, no ice. At a gesture, the girl placed a matching glass at Jagger’s side and poured an equal amount, also neat. The Old Lady held up her glass and said, “To information exchanged and peace in our city.” We all clinked. Sipped. Set down our glasses.
Three Marconis stepped back but didn’t depart. Still in earshot, they listened and watched us avidly. The Old Lady said, “I am Lucretia. My husband, Daniel Marconi.”
Jagger said, “Logan Jagger.” He pointed to me.
“Heather Anne Jilson. My mother was an Outlaw Old Lady before the war.”
Jagger pointed at Cupcake.
“You can call me Cupcake. I used to be Red’s Old Lady, with the original Hell’s Angels. I stayed with him after the Mara Salvatrucha took over our chapter.”
And then it hit me. Cupcake had all the contact info for every single MS Angels chapter. That meant she also knew which Hell’s Angels chapters were still independent and fighting against the invading MS-13. She had known about the Marconis. Cupcake had made the reservations for us. Cupcake had arranged for Jagger to come here. I shot Cupcake a look, but she didn’t return it, her eyes on Marconi.
Bloody damn hell.
“I remember Red,” Marconi said. “He rode a Harley Bronx when I knew him. His old lady was comms and records specialist for the president of the Hell’s Angels before the war. Red was number three. You left him?” He didn’t move, but suspicion and threat laced his tone. “Where’s Red?”
Bloody damn. Red had been the Hell’s Angels’ number three?
Cupcake said, “A female made-man, Clarisse Warhammer, moved up the roster at the national chapter house. When she hit number two, she was offered a chapter of her own, mostly to keep her from challenging the president. She took over our chapter. Red was knocked from chapter prez and from number three nationally to number four.” Cupcake’s eyes went hard as blue diamonds. “Clarisse made stupid decisions. Red died in a stupid-ass, ill-chosen MS Angels battle against superior forces. Warhammer and One-Eyed Jack ran off and left her people to die.”
Cupcake didn’t sound remotely like herself. Cupcake sounded like what she really was, an in-charge woman who took no guff from anyone. Cupcake was a dangerous badass and I hadn’t known. Bugger.
She added, “Latest intel says she challenged the prez anyway, and he bugged out of St. Louis to a safe house somewhere.”
I glanced at Cupcake. Mateo had picked up something about that possibility, but it hadn’t been confirmed. I also hadn’t shared it with Cupcake. More evidence my thralls were working behind my back. Good.
Jagger sipped his whiskey. “Very nice,” he said of the liquor. “Clarisse Warhammer’s chapter went up against me and a few of my people. When we found Cupcake, she was shot all to hell. We got her to a med-bay. Cupcake came over to our side to get away from the Mara Salvatrucha.”
Marconi looked at Cupcake. Both of his hands were beneath the table. I didn’t have to look around to know we were once again targeted. “You gave to our enemies all the contact information? You are a traitor?”
“No. She didn’t. We didn’t even know who she was until today,” Jagger said. “But when she heard that the MS Angels were heading here from Louisville, she contacted me, to tell me there were a few honorable Angels fighting the good fight. We met today at the library and arranged to meet here, at your restaurant.” Jagger looked at Cupcake. “You could have told me Marconi was your contact.”
“You could have told both of us,” Marconi said. “Perhaps my son would not be injured.”
“Or perhaps we’d all be dead,” Cupcake said.
I was clearly the least important person in the group. That anonymity might keep me safe, which should suit me just fine. Should. Didn’t. Ego and pride waggled around in my gut, emotions left over from being Little Girl, the daughter of the head of the Outlaws, and then a twelve-year-old female made-man in the war. A hero in my own right, promoted after I crawled into a Mama-Bot, disabled it, and survived, saving Outlaw chapter members, a buttload of military, and an entire city of civilians. Yeah. I had been important.
Which I couldn’t share because I was important enough to go to war over. This sucked.
“It is a sin to let good food grow cold. Eat,” Lucretia said.
Miraculously, my food was still warm, kept that way by a heated metal plate. It was spectacular. Better than anything Mateo could cook. Better than anything Cupcake could cook. I ate everything, ignoring the small talk around me and being ignored in return. But I discovered I didn’t like being ignored, no matter how good the food. I drank two more beers. I may have sulked. When dessert came, it was little tarts with fresh fruit on them. Again, marvelous. The small talk stopped when Daniel Marconi looked at his Morphon and said, “My daughter informs me that her brother has been in contact with a woman in a hotel in Louisville. He promised to give her access to me. To his own father.”
That meant the son had plotted patricide.
“Mina, come to the dining room.”
Mina walked in. There was fresh blood on her white apron. I was pretty sure the blood was her brother’s.
Daniel looked at his wife. “I know you love him best.”
“I love all my children. Equally,” she said, her eyes hard and dry but her lips quivering at the obvious lie. “Enrico has put this family and this city in danger. He will stand trial. Meanwhile,” she asked Mina, “when was the betrayal to take place?”
�
�In two days. We have enemies close by.” Mina looked at us. At Cupcake. “I don’t believe in coincidence. Red’s Old Lady is here today, on the eve of a war with the MSA? Looking us over? Maybe taking back info to the MS Angels? And him? The top enforcer in the OMW?”
She snarled again, clearly her preferred expression, and I could see her desire to kill us in her eyes. She was still and unmoving, loose and ready. This girl was a killer. Clearly a trained one. An assassin? Or a psychopath? Both?
“Forgive me for speaking,” I said. “I’m not just a—civilian. I . . .”
I looked around and everyone was staring at me, some in reevaluation, one in threat. Jagger and Cupcake were waiting, giving me the chance to stay safe or take a part in whatever was happening here. An equal part. Out in the open. Or maybe partway in the open. I didn’t want to create another thrall. But if I could keep the kid alive and that cemented a relationship that saved Charleston, that would be worth it.
“Speak,” Old Man Marconi said.
“Clarisse Warhammer has a weapon she uses to control people.” I stopped, thinking about what I was going to do and say. I found a partial truth and threaded the needle with it. “She puts a chemical on a teacup, a doorknob, a lowball glass.” I glanced at Old Marconi’s glass. “It enters through their skin. Or sometimes she uses a direct touch, a handshake, and it enters through a scratch or a tiny cut somewhere. That chemical makes them something like a slave.”
“This Warhammer drugged my son?” Lucretia murmured. There was something dark in her eyes, something that said Mina had taken after her mother more than her father. But there was also hope there, that her son had not been a willing traitor.
I looked at Cupcake, who nodded slightly, as if she knew what I was doing and asking.
Cupcake said, “Warhammer is immune to the drug. She enslaved Red and me, and kept applying the drug. But the effects decrease if it isn’t reapplied.” Cupcake grinned at me. “Heather devised a med-bay program and has some Berger-chip plug-ins that make it easier to break the compulsion.” She raised her eyebrows, making a point. “It’s the only med-bay in the world that can break this compulsion.”
Partial truth. Good enough.
“My son did not plot against this family by his own choice?” Lucretia demanded.
“Yes and no,” Cupcake said. “When Warhammer transitioned Red and me, we knew right from wrong, but we didn’t have any options, no way to get away. No one to help us. Your kid knew right from wrong. He still did wrong, even when he was away from her. He might be a weak person who followed the compulsion, like a sleepwalker in a dream, or he might be evil. I can’t tell you that.”
Lucretia glared at Cupcake. Cupcake shrugged. “I don’t know your son.”
“Did Enrico go away and come back recently?” I asked. “And has he been sick? Feverish, like the flu but worse. Sweating, maybe delirious.”
“Yes,” Lucretia said. “He had a sickness last week. A high fever. I feared we would all become sick, but no one did. Only Enrico.”
“Fever is one sign of the toxin. He likely met with Warhammer seventy-two hours before that,” I said. “And anything he touched before he washed his hands and clothes could have been transferable.” I could feel Jagger’s eyes on me in accusation as my words reminded him of his accidental transition. “If an employee or a chapter member touched his things right away, that person might be sick too.”
Lucretia said, “We will make inquiries. Anyone who has had a fever will be quarantined.”
Mina said, “The woman he met in Louisville. He says he’s in love with her.”
“Did he describe her?” I asked.
“Augmented. Meter and a half tall. Moves fast. Pretty.” Mina placed a Morphon on the table and touched it open. It displayed a series of photos. “Is this the woman who poisoned my brother?”
“Yes,” Jagger said.
“You can cure my son?” Lucretia asked me.
“I can try. It might kill him.” I looked at Cupcake. “She made it sound easy. It wasn’t. She nearly died.”
“True,” Cupcake said with a saucy grin.
“Warhammer has some of our people,” Jagger said. He put down his glass and leaned forward, elbows on the table. It was earnest body language, saying he was showing all his cards. “She’s entrenched, well-funded, and she’s made contact with and likely converted a group of military and Gov. employees at the state and national level. She’s making an army with that chemical. We’re going after her before she takes over completely. We’re getting our people back and taking out Warhammer and all her slaves.”
“Except for my son. You want something from us,” Daniel said, sipping his whiskey, holding the glass one-handed near his chin and breathing in the fumes. “What?”
Jagger looked at me. “Tell ’em.”
Because Jagger knew I was here for something, but I hadn’t told him what. Right. “We’re here to get a weapon, currently buried in the ground. A wartime weapon. We need to get it without the Law or the Gov., who might be in Warhammer’s pockets, learning about it. We need a distraction. A big one. And we need an earthmover, front-end loader-dozer combo if possible. Or a backhoe, any heavy-duty excavation equipment you might have access to, and a large-capacity pump in case we hit water.”
“My people can provide this. But we want the weapon.”
Jagger grinned and sat back, taking his glass with him. He sipped his whiskey, considering the older couple. “Once we’re finished taking down Warhammer, you can try to take it away from us. But then Heather won’t try to cure your kid.”
Old Marconi pursed his lips as if thinking, but his black eyes were shining with something I understood completely. It was the expression some people wore when bargaining. I saw it a lot at the scrapyard. “I could take the woman,” he said, looking at me. “Force her to give us her med-bay and save my son. Take the weapon. Leave you with no help.”
“I didn’t bring it with me,” I said, letting only a hint of scoffing into my tone. I didn’t need to tick him off. Yet. And maybe not at all. “Why would I? I didn’t know about your son or how he betrayed his family.”
Marconi’s eyes narrowed, as if insulted. I just grinned. I’d played this game for years, and Old Marconi’s lips pursed as if he recognized that. He also seemed to know I had more cards against my chest than it first appeared, that I was more than I appeared. He said slowly, “I will provide this distraction. I will arrange to have earthmovers available, free of charge, a sign of good will. I will leave the weapon to you, and will not go to war with you, if my son survives. Assuming you win this weapon and the war against this Warhammer, and again assuming my son survives, what do I get in return?”
“Assumptions don’t work,” I said. “Here’s the facts. You’ll never see Warhammer’s chemical delivered. You’ll just see your children and your chapter get sick, and some of your people will die as the chemical takes over. The ones who survive will change overnight, like Enrico did. Your life as you know it will end, and you’ll never see it coming.”
I set my stein down and leaned in. “That said, you work with us, and in return for your help we’ll fight your war for you. We will remove a dire threat to your chapter and your family. You don’t have to send your children to fight an enemy they will never see coming. Also, I’ll attempt to save your son and any of your people affected. Attempt. Nothing guaranteed. That’s it. Take it or leave it.”
“This woman speaks for you?” Marconi asked Jagger, his tone insulting.
“We take it,” Lucretia said to him.
Marconi shrugged with his whole body and face. “The mother of my children has spoken. In matters of family she is fully in charge.”
“Oh,” I said. “One more thing. There’s a cost to the cure. I’ll need specific Berger plug-ins, and since they go into your son’s brain, you’ll want to provide them. That way there aren’t any trust issues.”
“You are young to have such medical training,” Marconi said. Unsaid was, and nego
tiating skill.
I met Old Man Marconi’s black eyes and said flatly, “Battlefield training.”
He nodded at what that meant and who I might be. Not a nobody. He raised his voice. “Do I smell coffee from Bolivia? Not that cheap swill we serve the patrons?”
“Yes, Papa,” one of the boys who had been listening said. The boy raced to the kitchen and returned with a tray, set with a white cloth, a thermal coffee server, and five tiny cups. “Espresso,” the boy said, reverently. I hadn’t had espresso in … since before the war. The boy placed a delicate sugar and creamer set on the table, with five small white napkins and five sterling spoons. Into the five tiny white cups he poured black espresso, the coffee steam aromatic enough to make me want to weep for the lost past.
I accepted the small cup. It would keep me up all night. I didn’t care. I took mine black. Breathed in the steam. Sipped. Raised my eyes to Jagger and gave a faint nod.
“I’m in agreement in principle,” Jagger said, taking the tiniest sip.
“I too have one more thing,” Daniel said, sounding almost lazy. “You will take one of my sons and train him for a period of one year. Then you will return him in good health and alive.”
Jagger frowned, and I knew that bargaining expression too. It meant a deal-breaker had just been laid on the table. “With all the secrets of the Outlaws? No.”
“Reconsider.”
“Personal assistant to the enforcer?” Jagger asked. “Dangerous job for a kid who would also be a hostage. I’m not a babysitter to keep a pup alive.”
Marconi shrugged slightly, but as a bargaining gesture, not speaking the truth. “All of life is dangerous, and I have many sons.”
Lucretia shot daggers at her husband, but he kept talking.
“All are capable in a fight, in a negotiation, on a bike. However, all of them, especially Enrico, are precious to their mother. You will heal Enrico and return him. If he does not return in one piece as outlined”—he shrugged again, that sparkle bright in his clever eyes—“I will declare war on the Outlaws and personally on the enforcer to the vice president, McQuestion.”