by Kenny Soward
Lonnie took another drag and blew smoke into the sky.
Someone came to stand by him. Crash. The giant folded his arms and leveled his gaze across the brown field. “You ready for this?”
Lonnie lifted his hand to his cheek to wipe the tears away. Then thought, fuck it, he wasn’t winning any tough guy awards today. “I think so. Shit, I don’t know.”
“You've got questions. Ask me. But be warned, you've been iced a long time, my friend. Nothing too heavy, okay?”
“Okay.” Crash might not have a clue about his family, so he started with something simple. “All right. Question number one. Where did you get that accent? If we’re from Hell, if we came here together, then why do we sound so different?”
Crash glimpsed over his folded arms at the ground. “After we arrived, we went our separate ways to keep them from scrying us. You and Selix came here to the New World. Elsa and Ingrid went to Europe. The Brit to England. Me to the shining seas and Jamaica.” He grinned wide as if remembering some golden time in his life.
“Yeah, but to pick up an accent so thick. To become so different—”
“We've been on Earth awhile. A long, long fucking time. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy staying hidden. So many enemies here on Earth. More than we ever imagined. So much time was passing.”
“How much?”
“I’ll tell you this. I was part of Tacky’s Revolt back in 1760. You know anything about that?”
“No.”
“Well, it was shit, brother. Slaves revolting, fighting the plantation masters. Bloody as hell, but I got out of there with a little girl named…” Crash choked on his words.
Lonnie glanced over, caught the gleam of tears shining on his face.
“I escaped with a girl named Hatty. Little Miss, I called her. She’s the one named me Crash.”
“What happened then?”
“We fled to America. Came looking for you. But, we got distracted.”
“Hey, man. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
"I do, but it’s a long story. If we get through this, I’ll tell you all about Hatty and what we did. If we don't get through this, then it won't matter."
Lonnie nodded, trying to digest the fact that Crash was at least a couple of hundred years old. The whole lot of them, relics.
The big man held out his hand. “By the way, I’m Khenan. That’s my real name. You’ll remember that in awhile, I’m sure.”
Lonnie clasped the hand. Shook it. “Nice to meet you, Khenan. I guess I’m some dude named Mardokh.”
That perfect white smile beamed. “Yeah, you are. But we can stick with Crash and Lonnie for now.”
“Sounds good.”
Lonnie took another drag of his cigarette, dropped it to the ground and stomped it, and went to check on Selix, leaving Crash standing at the edge of the trees. She was in the same position, the drool having connected with the front of her T-shirt. Lonnie removed his jacket, then his own shirt, using it to wipe the spittle away. He continued to clean her face, removing the smudges of dirt on her cheeks like he used to do to his own little girl after she came in from playing in the yard.
Lonnie found his eyes lingering on every detail of her face. The lines of her nose and the curve of her thin, pretty lips. Every hair of her ash white eyebrows. Each bit of her peeled his heart open against the resentment he’d been feeling.
Lonnie tossed his shirt into the bushes, chalking it up as beyond repair, and wondered if his head wasn’t in the same shape.
Chapter 13
Selix jerked upright, scaring the shit out of Lonnie and nearly toppling them both off their seats. Eyes wide, she sniffed the air with a wrinkle of her nose. “They’re here.”
Lonnie redoubled his efforts on the frame, checking the tubes and lines one last time. He fumbled with a clamp, having to re-seat it due to his rushing. His heart beat with the slow, steady kick of impending doom. He held open a leg strap and waited. Selix stood, put her hand on Lonnie’s back for balance, and sluggishly inserted her foot into the contraption. He buckled her calf tight.
“Will this thing work?” Elsa slurring her words, stood there holding one of the ARs in her hands, clothes bloody and black and reeking like death reheated. She’d pulled her hair into a loose ponytail that hung over the damaged part of her face.
“Looking good, Elsa.”
“Fuck you, Lons.”
“No thanks. You’re not the girl of my dreams anymore.”
Elsa sighed with impatience. “Again, will this thing work?”
“Ask her.” Lonnie nodded at Selix
Selix was putting her other leg into the subsequent brace, wobbling. “It should widen the tether threshold. Allow me to channel more power through the Fade.”
“Ah, very smart,” Ingrid joined them. “That’s why we’re still alive all these years. Your brains.”
“Don’t count on it this time. Just like—”
“—every time,” Ingrid finished for her.
Selix chuckled, shrugging as Lonnie buckled the the rest of her legs up.
Crash came around, armed with his Desert Eagle. “Okay, ladies and gents. Time to rumble. Everyone in position inside the tree line. We lead with bullets and add to the pot as necessary. Lonnie will hit them from behind to spread confusion, right?”
“Right. But not like Tom Cruise.”
Crash's face went blank for a second, then lit with a grin. “Jackie Chan is better.”
“Jackie Chan, it is.”
“Sounds good, friend. All right, people. Let’s go.”
The Drear Sisters and Crash took up positions facing south into the playground, Elsa more-or-less hobbling along but looking better with every step.
Selix took Lonnie by the shoulders to steady herself. “If things go south, I want you to escape. Leave us.” Her words were a drunken slur, but he understood them well enough.
Lonnie kept on suiting her up. “Mm hm. Leave you? To what? To where?”
“Leave us to whatever. Our fate.”
“If you’d told me that a day ago, or even this morning, I might have agreed. I didn't want to be here. Elsa’s been a bitch and you’ve been killing my memories. But now I can't leave you. I mean, we need to survive this if I’m going to remember everything I’m supposed to remember. You're the key to my past.”
He finished tightening the frame around her waist with an old military belt, drawing it as tight as he dared. He strapped in her shoulders and arms and, finally, her wrists. He stepped back to admire the work. She looked like a human scaffold.
Selix flexed in her new aluminum-framed suit. Light poles hinged together at the elbows, knees, and hips. Tubes and wires woven in, ends sticking out where they'd come loose or couldn’t be fastened properly for lack of time. The cradles were in place. Thirteen of them, each one positioned above a specific part of Selix’s body, above the big veins, and secured without a millimeter to spare.
“You look ridiculous.”
“I’m serious, Lonnie. If we get our asses kicked, I want you gone.”
Lonnie sat back on his plastic bin, emotions clashing again. “No deal."
“In time, you’ll figure everything out. But I’d rather you figure it out alive.”
“I still have questions. Like...” Lonnie’s eyes grew distant as another memory flowed through him. He saw old cars and radios with dials. Selix in a polka dot bikini, laying in a striped lawn chair and bathed in sunlight. A languid day, dreamy happiness. A sense of timelessness. "Coney Island."
Selix tried but couldn’t keep a faint smile off her lips. “Yes. It was 1942, I think.”
“And years after that. Everyone wearing flowers in their hair. You wore them, too. Daisies were your favorite. ”
“Yes, Woodstock. I got high whenever I wanted. In front of everyone. No one cared. We were powerful then. We were flower children, you and I.” Her grin glowed in the moonlight.
“Ugh. Hard to believe. Elsa?”
“S
he and Ingrid came in plenty of time for Flower Power. They’d gotten tired of Europe. Thought they might enjoy the sexual revolution, but Elsa hated it. She was much happier with the S&M scene.”
Lonnie laughed. “Not surprising. Glad I don’t remember that.”
“You will.” Selix rested her hand on his shoulder.
“So why? Why are you kicking me out now? You’ve gone through the trouble of keeping me around. Don’t you want me to help?”
“You were never a prisoner, although I'm sure you'd disagree. More importantly, you've got to live to fight on. That's why we're here."
“Right.” Lonnie said with a frustrated sigh.
Selix put her finger in Lonnie's face. “Look, there’s a war happening. Has been for centuries. There are too many pieces to count. Too many moving parts. This is just another fight, and fighting is what we do best. This is the easy part for us. But we still have to make hard decisions.”
“And this Makare person is part of the war?”
“Yes. She started it. Well, I guess escalated would be a better way of putting it.”
“This war, it’s a war across worlds?”
Selix twisted her lips, eyes sliding skyward. “It’s more like a family squabble times a hundred.”
“Seems fucking insane if you ask me. What side are we on?"
"We're on the right side."
Lonnie imagined Elsa's leer. The sisters (whorchals, Selix called them) and their messes. "If we're the right side, I'd hate to see the wrong side."
“Exactly. Now, load me up and get going. Keep your head down, kid.”
Lonnie got up and reached into their backpack, fishing out thirteen hypodermic needles filled with amber liquid, which he carefully clamped into the cradles attached to her frame. He went as fast as he could to calibrate them, using a tiny hex wrench to fasten them tight.
While he worked, Lonnie set his jaw. “I know it's a shitty time to argue the point, but I won’t go. Even if you get shot to pieces. If I wanted to run I'd have done it back at the apartment."
"Lonnie—"
"No, I'm in this to the end. Because nothing else matters. I…” His eyes watered again, and it was pissing him off. “I’m finally worth something. My dreams. My wife and little girl and our lives together. I need to know their names. Need to know where they are. They're tied to this war somehow, aren't they? I’m assuming after you started icing me and we broke up, after we came here, I found them. Does that sound right? I feel like it does.”
Selix proffered a wan smile and cupped his face with her hand. Every move she made rustled with tubes and aluminum framing. The time between them broke apart, decades falling to pieces. “Oh, Lonnie. You leave me no choice. I'm going to do something. Something real bad. And I’m doing it because if I don’t then you won’t be mad enough to leave us. It has to hurt. Understand?”
Chapter 14
Tired of being jerked around, Lonnie gave a clipped reply. “Okay. What is it?”
“Well, I can ice, right? Actually, it's more of a dispersal of heat, leaving cold in its place. But I have skills for memories, too. Something inherent in every dragon voice.”
“That’s what you are? A dragon voice?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“You had a family, right?”
“I have a family.”
“Right. But you can’t remember their names. Nothing specific about them.”
“Part of being iced, I assume? Your tinkering inside my head. I have a wife and daughter. They left me because I’m a piece of shit. They hate me.”
Selix swallowed. Her eyes lowered, then lifted. “You don’t remember them because I put them there. I magicked them to life.” She wiggled her fingers. “Well, the idea of them, anyway. The rest you invented on your own.”
Lonnie half-grinned in disbelief. “Right." He drew out the word, exaggerated with doubt. Yet, the truth pecked at the base of his skull. He tried remembering his mom and dad. His extended family. His wife and the Shrimp. Nothing but faceless visages churned in his recollections. Ghosts in his subconscious.
“And your shop. Totally made up. Carlito’s was the first place I saw the last time I had to ice you hard. Had to reprogram you every few years, always changing the script.”
“No.”
“Yes, Lonnie. What about your employees’ names? Any specific day at the shop?”
Lonnie closed his eyes and focused. The shop. Hammers, pistons, and air guns. Engines roaring and sputtering. Burning oil. His guys cutting up. Remember that skinny dude with the piercings? Or the old man who sealed gaskets? Sure, but the memories triggered no names.
“What the fuck, Selix?” Lonnie’s knees shook as he fought to stay upright, temper teetering between simmer and boil.
“Here. I’ll help.” Selix covered his forehead with her palm.
"Get off—" Lonnie's words died because her touch held no chill. Instead, a heat melted what remained of the ice, memories colliding like a flush of loosened debris. His focus wavered, no single memory clear. His eyes chased his tumbling past which played like a movie against the surrounding woods. Red sands whipped up into a storm. A train derailed and plowed through someone's home. An owl soared over a snowy tundra. So much more. He lurched back, feet kicking over the plastic bin.
Selix stood against the superimposed memories. A skinny girl with a drug problem. A magic girl. This pain was her fault, rested on her shoulders. Lonnie wanted to rage, to make her feel what he felt. The people and places anchoring his memories melted and dribbled from his ears. Lonnie slammed his hands to the sides of his head to stem the flow, but they leaked between his fingers, spilling out into nothing.
Selix had pulled the plug, and Lonnie was losing it.
The red hot landscape exploded into view. Lonnie's senses reeled with the exquisite vividness of it all. The terrible fire-torn sky. Those wicked moons. The dragon. He slid off its back and set his boots on the hard stone of the platform. Stepped away from his mount’s swaying head, legs unsteady after such an arduous, swooping ride, and strode toward the massive gate. Removed his sweaty helm and tucked it beneath his arm.
His eyes roamed the gate’s carved circular design; two long dragons, tails entwining at the bottom, wings flaring out around the middle on each side. Scaled heads in detailed relief covered the top third, claws meeting at the apex with sharpened precision. Cut from something as dark as iron but heavier. Steelcore. Within the gate, the surface shined silver, singing a high note as the wind whipped by.
Fingers splayed, he reached out to touch the shimmering light.
“Lonnie.”
His hand froze, back stiffening. A chill ran through him as he registered the voice. The woman he missed so much. The woman who’d left him three years ago. Made up, magicked, according to Selix.
Lonnie turned.
At the far end of the platform, his wife waited. Sable hair fell in waves to her shoulders. Dark eyes soaked in the light. Dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a plaid blouse, she held a young girl against her. Couldn't have been more than seven or eight. The Shrimp, spitting image of her mom, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, feet swimming in brown boots.
Dusted with sand, the escape pod survivors.
“Oh." Lonnie smiled, swallowing tears. "I missed you guys. Missed you so much."
“We missed you too, babe.” The woman sounded right and real, though desperate and afraid. The girl nodded in nervous agreement.
Lonnie let out a shaky sigh, then squatted and offered his hand. “Now, this next part is very important, ladies. I need you to tell me your names. This woman here (he motioned to Selix) hid them from me. But if you tell me, if you speak them, we can go home."
His wife smiled back. A sad smile, cheeks dimpling at the corners of her mouth. Her head shook, curls tumbling.
"What is it?"
With a shrug, she said, "We thought you knew."
"You don't—"
"We don't know." Her eyes pleaded. "We're n
ameless."
Lonnie's jaw clenched. "Fuck the names. Come here. Come to me. I'll get you out of here."
His wife nodded, suddenly hopeful, and clasped the Shrimp’s hand, leading her across the platform. Lonnie waited expectantly, arms out and sporting a big stupid grin. They had faces now, which was a good start. He wanted to whoop and leap for joy. No, not yet. Not until he held them. Not until he was sure.
“Lonnie.” Selix's voice, but deeper and more resonant. A dragon’s voice.
He turned, expecting to see the massive beast hunched there, glowering with bejeweled eyes and a mouth full of teeth. But it was just Selix standing naked before him, a coat of red flame shimmering across the surface of her skin before trailing off in wisps of smoke and ash. Her mohawk shed its flames last, tendrils of fire licking at the sky.
The others were there too. Elsa and Ingrid in black skirts and the soft clang of silver bracelets. They stood near a tall iron cage with a huge ring in its top, a place for the dragon to hook one massive claw and carry them. Must've been part of their escape from Makare. Elsa glowered through half-lidded eyes, doubt and mistrust written all over her gaunt face. Ingrid’s eyes trailed tears, her expression hopeful as she wrung her skirt. Crash was just getting out of the cage, having to turn sideways to squeeze through the door. Once through, he squared his shoulders and took a position behind Selix. “We doing this or not?”
“Doing what?” Lonnie said.
“Going through that big sonofabitch.” Crash gestured at the gate.
“We’ve already been through,” Selix said, her voice her own again. “This is just in Lonnie’s head. Part of a memory and part of the now thrown together.”
She reached for him.
Lonnie recoiled from her touch. “I'm taking my girls and getting the fuck out of here.”
“Lonnie, they can’t come with us anymore. Not now. Not forever.” Selix winked out of existence and back, clothed again in the aluminum framing. “They were never real to begin with, but your memory of them is so strong. Your will to see them even stronger. It's never been this bad.”
“No. They are real.”
Selix reached again, hesitant. “I’m sorry, Lonnie, but no.”