by L. A. Zoe
I glimpsed a brief flash of light and a wisp of black smoke. I smelled firecrackers. My ears rang with pain, and felt like they were popping, like somebody held a plunger to my ear, and pumped it to break my ear drums.
Before I could think about what happened, Rhinegold, one side a bright, liquid red, charged Greco.
Another explosion. I thought I screamed, but I couldn’t hear it.
Rhinegold slammed his shoulder into Greco’s desk, pushing the desk and Greco into the columns of terrariums behind him.
The crash of breaking glass scraped the inside of my ears, and Greco opened his mouth in a huge though silent scream.
A big brown snake dropped into Greco’s lap. Striking faster than I could follow, it bit Greco’s arm. The fangs going right through Greco’s black leather jacket. A smaller green snake landed in his lap.
Rhinegold grabbed my shoulder again, and this time I let him lead me outside. He slammed the door behind us.
From the Mahogany’s drive-thru entrance, Ami charged.
“Motherfucker!” she screamed, then tackled Rhinegold.
They tumbled over the cold bare concrete walkway, then rolled into the snow, half-burying themselves in white. Slugging each other in the face.
I jumped on Ami’s back, and tried to get my arms around her neck to pull her off Rhinegold.
Frightened and upset, ears chiming like giant bells, I didn’t notice the shrieking sirens.
I barely noticed the police at all until two of them each grabbed a wrist, and a third locked the hard, solid stainless steel alloy handcuffs on my wrists.
Chapter Sixty
Back in the Hospital
Everything seemed unreal. But gradually dreams faded.
And transitioned to waking reality.
Two thick, bandaged arms. A fire pit next to his nipple.
All a gray, misty haze shaken by visions of memories or hallucinations.
Hands around Ami’s throat. Snow. Police radio crackles. The memory of pain deeper and more wicked than ever before.
Ambulance. Lying on a table as white-jacketed men and women touched and probed.
Only, then he lay in a bed. In a hospital. Light green walls. Antiseptic smells.
Trouble breathing. His lungs didn’t want to suck in air without pain like a dagger stuck in his chest.
Another police radio ripped through the air from just outside the door.
Father, wearing a black wool suit, sitting nearby. Pen scratching a sick lemon yellow legal pad.
“What—?” his throat and mouth tried to say, but only a low growl came out.
What happened to SeeJai? he wanted to ask, but his mind could barely concentrate on a full sentence.
Father glanced up. Arching his eyes, he put down the legal pad. “So, you’re finally awake,” he said in a surprisingly calm, almost amused, voice. “Congratulations.”
“Errgggh.”
“Hold on.” Father found the lever on the side of the bed to raise Rhinegold to a forty-five degree angle, then gave him an ice cube to suck on.
“Uhhhh?”
“In case you can’t think or feel anything with all the heavy drugs they assured me you needed. You’re hurt pretty bad, but you’ll live.”
“SeeJai?”
“Oh, she’s fine. She’s just upset, as she should be, so I made her wait outside. I’ll get her, but first we have to talk.”
Rhinegold tried to remember what happened. He waited for SeeJai, close to The Mahogany Motel, because she planned … on working for that rich perv … Holy Shit!
“Greco,” Rhinegold said.
“That pimp shot you twice,” Father said in a dry monotone, just as he explained factual issues to his clients. “Once in the upper right arm, so it complements the knife wound in your lower left arm. Just a flesh wound. And, by the way, you once again tore the shit out of that when you pushed the desk and the pimp into the wall.”
“Greco?”
“His second shot hit you in the chest, grazing a rib.”
“I was lucky.”
“He wasn’t.”
The memories popped back into Rhinegold’s mind. “All those snakes …”
“The police showed me pictures of the body …” Father shook his head. “Very ugly, even though he’s to blame himself. He had no legal right to keep such dangerous animals.”
“So, am I under arrest, or what?” Rhinegold asked.
Father pointed his chin toward the crackling radio outside. “You’re in custody, but it’s just a formality for now. I’ll get the case dropped before the doctor will release you from here anyway. Self-defense. Rescuing a young lady before the pimp could exploit her tender young flesh by selling it to depraved old men. Cleaning up the city of criminal filth the police coddle. I’ll play all the right angles.”
“I’m lucky you’re my father.” He meant it sarcastically.
But Father just nodded. “Except, lots of police and the DA want to use you to stick it to me. Fortunately, none of the snakes escaped, and nobody else got bitten. I gather … that kind … of place isn’t busy on a Saturday morning. Of course it’s closed down now, for allowing poisonous snakes on the premises.”
Poor Mr. Patel. Maybe.
He had this funny suspicion the Patel family could afford lawyers at least as expensive as Father. In six months their private family corporation would sell the Mahogany to another private corporation. It would reopen under a new name—with Mr. Patel again sitting in his little office behind the bulletproof glass, raking in ten and twenty dollar bills.
This time, however, no snakes allowed—except the kind that walked on two legs instead of crawling.
“I’ll go get SeeJai,” Father said as he walked toward the door. “She made me promise I’d tell her as soon as you woke up.”
“Father?” Rhinegold asked.
He paused. “Yes?”
“What’s the price of all this help?”
Father sighed so deeply his belly deflated. “No price, son. Except I ask you to think about what I’ve been telling you.” He spread his arms. “Look around, look at what your stubbornness has done. You’ve been stabbed once and shot twice. The woman who loves you planned to degrade herself for money. I’m not crying for the pimp, but he didn’t have to die. And for what?”
“To live my life my own way,” Rhinegold said.
Father looked down at the floor. “Just think about it, Rhinegold. That’s all I’m saying now. When you have time by yourself, think about it.”
Through the dull throbbing pain in corners of his body he hadn’t thought about since babyhood, the sleepy muzziness of drugs nibbled at the edges of his consciousness, mellowing it to shallow translucent threadbare onionskin paper, Rhinegold thought about it.
Tried to define it. His ’problem,’ as Keara used to call it.
The preference for fantasy to mundane reality.
Crazy. They called him crazy.
Reality, where his mother wasted away, neglected, usually asleep in a haze of alcohol by the time he arrived home from school.
Where, he watched, Father went to work seven days a week, growing bigger every year, white hairs taking over his head, without ever smiling an honest smile or bursting out with spontaneous, genuine laughter.
Where he had all the toys and clothes and food and games he could want, yet it all just felt empty and meaningless. Except when he thought about the world’s poor children, which made him feel guilty, because they had nothing. They played in the mud, but looked happy.
Where Father married a woman with an incredibly beautiful, magical angel for a daughter, and yet he was forbidden to love her except as a sister.
Where another incredibly beautiful, magical angel wanted to sell herself to Greco for large amounts of money.
Where, now he had grown into a young man, Father, the whole entire universe—incredibly SeeJai—wanted him to masquerade as a normal, boring person and waste his life throwing away his time, as Father did.
&nbs
p; Rhinegold said, “I understand.”
Father nodded. “Just think about it,” he repeated.
Rhinegold grunted.
“I’ll go get SeeJai.”
Chapter Sixty-One
Recruiting Keara
I’d never been on a college campus before, let alone inside an actual dormitory, so I didn’t know what to expect.
The guard manning the entrance gate into the Cromwell School of Fine Arts main parking lot gave me the eye as I tore off the paper from the dispenser machine.
“Visitors park in the rear, to the right,” he told me. “First two hours free. After that, you got to get your ticket validated.”
I’d left Rhinegold in Mom’ apartment. He’d be safe there, and could watch movies with her. She might even say a few words to him, if she felt like displaying a little courtesy.
I told him to let her choose the movie, hoping it’d be Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, or maybe Shirley Temple. Wouldn’t you know it?—Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep. A noir private eye flick. And private eyes were just another type of hard-ass hero who wound up with the beautiful woman despite thumbing his nose at society’s rules and regulations.
I had to ask around before I found the Evelyn J. McMurray dormitory.
The gang of women in front of me all knew the password to the inner door blocking the elevators. I had to ask a young woman behind a desk, who called up to the fourth floor. Much like Mother’s apartment building. They didn’t let in just anybody.
She unlocked the door to the elevators, so I wouldn’t learn the secret password. “Miss Murphy will meet you upstairs,” she said.
When the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, Keara greeted me with a weary look. How dare I impose on her important time?
“It’ll be quieter and more private in the Common Room,” she said, leading me off to the right even though I could see the left hallway led to rooms.
One solemn black woman emerged from a door and headed toward us. Two white women exploded out from another door, one chasing the other with a pillow. Both screaming loudly. Neither Keara nor the approaching black woman paid attention.
Around the corner, and we arrived at an area that reminded me too much of a hospital waiting room. Several groups of young women sat around talking quietly, books and laptops open in their laps. They ignored Keara and I.
We sat across from each other. I told Keara my idea.
She blinked, looked down, and clenched her hands in her lap. “It’s too crazy. Just like him.”
“That’s the point. I’ve been reading stuff. You can’t argue people out of their problems. Tell a paranoid little green men from Mars don’t really control the world, and they just think you’re controlled by the little green men.”
“I’m taking Psychology 101, but the professor hasn’t told us anything like what you just said.”
“It’s like, if somebody’s lost in the middle of a maze, you can’t rescue them by standing outside the maze and yelling directions to them. You’ve got to go inside, take them by the hand, and lead them out.”
Keara wore her college’s sweat suit, matching pants and shirt, in red and white. She tied her long blonde hair back in a simple ponytail. Despite the worry on her face, she looked cute as Suzie Creamcheese, like my mother used to say. To me she looked like a born cheerleader, not a princess. But what did I know?
Her fingers and palms wrestled in her lap. “Look, SeeJai, I’ve reluctantly decided you mean well—but haven’t you already done enough damage?”
“Maybe this won’t work, but it’s worth trying.”
“Let his psychiatrist handle it.”
“That’s worked out so well.”
“It did until you showed up.”
“Your father wants him off the streets, going to college.”
“He’s not my father!” The heat in Keara’s voice surprised me.
“Look, it won’t take long. Do you have classes late tomorrow afternoon? We’ll pick you up, bring you right back here.”
“You’re as crazy as he is.” Such a stubborn, steely voice.
Her jaw muscles tensed as tight as a bulldog’s, appearing odd in a such a beautiful young woman with a cute face. Her balled fists pressed down on her thighs.
What upset her so much?
I leaned forward, but kept my voice hushed. “You can help him,” I said. “To him, you’re still a princess. The lady fair who got him exiled from the king’s castle. I don’t mean he loves you like before, he knows that was a mistake, but you’re still a part of his fantasy world. You can help lead him out of it, back to the real world, so he can be the man he’s supposed to be. So he can start a great business and get rich helping other people.”
“I think you ought to leave my brother alone.”
“Now he’s your brother.”
“I know his father pays you to stay with him. It’s a job for you. Easier than waiting on tables. But don’t mess around with his mind. You don’t know what emotional need those fantasies help him cope with.”
It struck me. “You liked being his princess, didn’t you?” I said.
“We were stupid teenagers.”
“Thrown together at night, I understand. I would have fallen for him too, I’m sure.”
“He was like a prince, or a knight. I was too young to understand.”
“You still want that, don’t you?” I said. “You enjoyed feeling special. Magic. A gorgeous fantasy queen. A thousand year old elven lady, giving herself to a golden hero. But it’s time both of you grow up.”
She stood up. “So, spank us, Mommy.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
The Riverside Park Weirwoods in Winter’s Silence
SeeJai and Rhinegold: an unusual couple on an unusual date in the middle of the park.
Rhinegold wore snowshoes, so he walked over the hard snow crust, and used his two crutches as ski poles, to keep his balance. His private doctor didn’t approve of this expedition, but consented because Rhinegold’s wounds were healing so quickly.
No wind. No sound except the rhythmic shuff shuff of their rolling, snowshoed gaits. He smelled only a whiff of his red and yellow flesh under the bandages, and the astringent purple antibiotic salve.
The midmorning sun blazed strongly enough for its light to retain a lemon glow despite the surrounding acres of white snow, unblemished as vanilla icing on a cake. A happy white, it glared so brilliantly Rhinegold wished he thought to wear sunglasses. Unbroken except for the tops of trees. The ice-packed bare branches glittered.
Broken off by the weight of the ice, many branches lay at the base of the trees.
Several ravens, a glaring purple-black against the pale blue sky, flew overhead, making odd noises, like interlocking gears chewing glass.
His wounds ached, the dull throbbing pain Rhinegold tried to keep below his consciousness. His first day out of the hospital, he caught himself counting the minutes until the private duty nurse was allowed to give him another pain pill. After that, he stopped taking them during the day. He did take one just before going to bed, or he couldn’t sleep.
SeeJai carried the small, ornamental sword and the CD player preloaded to play Empyrium’s piece The Franconian Woods in Winter’s Silence.
She wore black earmuffs, but no other head covering. She quickly got used to walking in snowshoes, the wide to the side, swinging strides needed to keep from stepping on and tripping over yourself.
Of course, Rhinegold realized SeeJai was trying to trick him. As a princess, she didn’t want to knight him in the weirwoods. She wanted him to stop all that nonsense and grow up like a big boy.
Still, he cooperated. It’d be fun to have her act like a faeryland queen, and knight him.
Whatever her plan, it wouldn’t work. So then they could go straight home, or eat out, and laugh together.
That was the most he could expect these days. Sex with SeeJai seemed like a distant memory. Romance only a dream since … when?
She went over to Father’s side, demanding he go to college, or do something to make a living with a normal business.
A small part of him resented her willingness to sleep with a rich pervert and not him, but Greco’s death put an end to that plan.
Besides, healing from his wounds, he didn’t feel much sexual energy.
He still appreciated SeeJai’s beauty, the play of light and muscle in her face when they talked, especially when she smiled. The magic of her personality shining through her flesh. Flashing from sparkling black eyes flecked with gold. The exotic, glorious slant of her cheeks.
He knew more than ever, he’d been right the first night he met her. She was an angel.
Her denials meant nothing. She didn’t have to know it.
She felt guilty for Greco shooting him, even though he didn’t blame her. He refused to let her sell herself. He wasn’t sorry Greco died. He chose to keep those snakes. Rhinegold was sorry he gave Greco time to shoot him twice, but was grateful the wounds were not more serious.
He was sorry for the problems he caused Father to get all legal charges dismissed.
But he’d do it again tomorrow if he had to. Even if he wound up in jail, so what?
Protecting SeeJai was his fulltime job now, while he recovered from the wounds.
By the time they were just ugly scar tissue, SeeJai would tire of his refusal to go to school, and leave.
He didn’t know what he would do then. Go back to protecting innocent people on the street, but Greco had been his main source of gigs. Ami took over his stable, but she now hated him for bruising her ribs and losing her the large finder’s fee her old acquaintance would have paid for Ami referring SeeJai to her.
That would leave the welfare mothers and children, few of whom would even pay him one dollar.
So he’d have to find another empty house. And market his services to more landlords, life insurance agents, utility repair people, and prepaid burial contract salespeople. Anybody who went into the Hood as an outsider.