King's War

by Maurice Broaddus

  "Who are you to judge the ways of the fey? You do not realize your place in the scheme of things. Should you or your brethren get between me and Baylon, you will learn what Baylon will suffer firsthand, what true fey rage is capable of."

  At the release of his shirt, he dropped to the ground. His instinct was to grab for his weapon and haul her ass in. But he knew two things: 1) he'd have a hell of a time explaining the nature of their relationship; and 2) if his hand had touched a weapon, she'd have killed him three different ways before he had the chance to draw it.

  Merle poured enough ketchup next to his cheeseburger to make his makeshift plate of cardboard look like a congealed crime scene. He dipped his cheeseburger into the red pool then took loud, wet bites. Reaching for a nearby straw, he dragged it through his ketchup pool. Something in the blood-like smear drew his attention. He poured more ketchup on his plate and plunged his straw into the mess. His eyes glazed over with sights privy only to him. Tracing patterns into the sludge, spreading the goo like a Neanderthal along a cave wall, his hands sped up in a manic fashion. Part of him dreaded this meet, being caught up in things beyond his (no, their) control. Tormented by unwanted persistent thoughts of her. Of them. He marveled at his ability to hold two sets of contradictory thoughts at once.

  "Hold on, hold on," he muttered, both non-committed and diffident. "Think of it as the principles of geomancy mixed with automatic writing. Ketchup-mancy."

  Merle didn't have the heart to tell King the truth, not the complete truth anyway. The complete truth was too large to handle, like staring into time, past, present, and future at the same time, seeing all of the possibilities and connections and not going a little bit mad in the explanations of it all. So a simple-sounding question like "How could they do this?" asked by King might have gotten the response "you mean 'again' or 'why not avoid it next time'?" Would that have been any better an answer than "They are bound by the echoes of the story. Just as you are."

  Merle tore pieces of bread and scattered it on the ground before him. A brown and black squirrel with a gray streak along its back scampered back and forth between lobbed pieces.

  "What say you, Sir Rupert? How do you say he was chosen? Chosen by the story. There was once a man like any other man. At times brave. At times selfish. At times bold. At times troubled. He had a call, but often ignored it. Fought it. Even ran from it. Sorrow without top, sorrow without bottom."

  The squirrel reared up on its hind legs and chewed in greedy rapid bites.

  "Yes, yes. He stirred something in them and they dared to hope. They lived for a dream long denied. King's uncertainty broke the circle. His doubt. Once again, it's all at risk. What had been a place, a community, was now separate houses threatening to be razed."

  The squirrel froze. Its nose twitched. Once. Twice.

  "Sir Rupert! That's no way for a gentleman to speak of a lady."

  It scurried up a nearby tree across a limb and onto the roof top.

  "You're back," Merle said to the figure emerging from the shadows.

  "Did you think I wouldn't return?" Nine circled him.

  "No, I feared you would. I know who you are." It was as if he poured himself into her or her into him. Like using the dragon's breath, giving herself to him, yet holding part of herself back. She refused him her person, letting his unrequited passion bind him to her. The most ancient of magics: lust. A silly girl's power to besot foolish old men. His heart longed for her and doted on her.

  "Didn't I fool you for a minute?" Her confidence working up to where she wanted to go, slithering in the dark. She traced the letter "M" in the air, green iridescent sparkles shimmered in her wake.

  Yes, he knew who she was. She unnerved him. His mouth ran dry. "You're acquainted with my mother, Mab, the queen of the fairies? They are the oldest of all. Like all creatures of old, they came to this new world and slept. Or blended into the background when it wasn't their time. They know things. Their kind was particularly fond of glamours. Some were necromancers and wielded death magic. Some used the power of both and could assume any shape. Recreate themselves. A useful skill when one needed to bide their time. Or was driven underground."

  "Does this form please you, mage?" Nine danced near and ran her finger along Merle's chest. The flattering attention from youth to fill an old man's sails. She delighted in bending men to her will. Beauty and enchantment. Hers was the weapon of jealousy. Trapped, she was doubly dangerous.

  "Does it come with a story?"

  "It does. I was home-schooled for my entire childhood. Cloistered away in a familial nunnery of sorts. My parents were afraid of outside influences. But while they clung to one image of their little girl, other people could sense my dark side. Other home-school families shunned us and encouraged their kids to do the same. They hated me. The other women didn't trust me around their husbands even as a young teenager. Made sure to read me the story of the adulterous woman whenever they had a Sunday School lesson to impart. They constantly harped on my clothing: my skirts too short, my tops too revealing. Always striving to make me insecure about how I looked. Do you think my top is too revealing?" Nine leaned over to allow a full, teasing view.

  "That's a good story."

  "I thought so. Enough to make you feel rather sympathetic toward me."

  Nine was a clever story but a simple one. There was another story Nine could have told. About a little girl long ago, overlooked in her family. Their little girl, all but ignored by the brighter lights in her family. Older siblings. Cousins. No one noticed her or her gifts. Except for an uncle. He crept into her bed late at night. His breath on her neck, light kisses on her back, lost in her dreams. Next thing she knew, a weight pressed on her chest. Some folks called it witch riding: when you think you're awake but can't move anything. You wanted to move and you know something bad was going to happen. If you could move anything, wiggle a finger or something, you snapped out of it. But it wasn't a witch sitting on her chest. She awoke to him on top of her. Then he was in her and her virginity was taken from her. That was the last time anything was taken from her. The world taught her that it was out to fuck her so she had made up her mind that she was going to fuck it first. The next night, he had the nerve to once again crawl into bed with her as if he had done her a pleasurable service the night before. She slit his throat from ear to ear and was sent away.

  "You have not perfected your faults. Does your son know who you are?"

  "He'd kill me if he knew. He's already tried once."

  "You nestled the serpent too close to that poisoned sac you call your bosom for too long. You need to punch him in the throat like a space ninja."

  "Oh, mad mage. You know who I am, yet you wanted to see me again."

  "Because you are my end," Merle said.

  "And you come willingly into my arms?"

  "That's the story that has been written."

  "Show me your magic. Teach me the ways of the dragon."

  "My final lesson?"

  "Yes."

  "When King needs me at his side most?"

  "That's the story that has been written." At the mention of King's name, she stepped back in pause. The final battle loomed and those too near were liable to fall.

  "And what do I get in return?"

  "I offer you the pain you inflict on others."

  "I fear Sir Rupert will never let me hear the end of this."

  La Payasa had no time for foolishness.

  Black wanted his power to be felt, his name to ring out. He'd fought too hard to reach his spot for him to be pushed aside. He wouldn't be punked. The streets would know his rage and acknowledge his presence. For La Payasa, it meant making sure his own house was in order.

  Black's mother's home was holy ground. No one neared it without facing La Payasa. Not any chavalas. Not the police. Not even broken down old men repairing cars in the parking lot. She approached with a lilting step, at first glance no one to take notice of. Her yellow hair had black roots. Black and gold, the colors of her crew
, and her way of proudly displaying their colors.

  "You go to move this shit." Menace filled her eyes.

  "I got to earn, too. You ain't the only one who needs to get over," said an old man with a head too small for his body, from beneath the hood of a car. Revealing a teak complexion, and gray goatee, when he fully stepped from behind the car, he fumbled inside his shirt pocket for a pair of thick, black-framed glasses as if double-checking a vision.

  "I said you gots to go, old man." La Payasa repeated. She hated repeating herself as it lowered her in the eyes of her men. And she'd worked damn hard to rise to her rank.

  "That's some bullshit, girl," the old man said in front of her men. "It ain't fair."

  "You just don't listen, do you? Got to make this harder on yourself. I got something for you."

  A wall of vatos in white wife beaters and baggy shorts crowded around, blocking the scene from prying eyes. La Payasa couldn't let challenge to her authority go unanswered. Especially openly. The five-point crown was peace. Violent only when necessary. She raised the cross that dangled from her neck, kissed it, then tucked it into her shirt. She went to a different place when she had to put in work. A place of raised voices, when a raised voice meant violence soon followed like lightning to the storm's thunder. The place of the lie. When the words "Hija de la gran puta, desgraciada no sirves para nada!" may as well have been her name. To be condemned as a disgraceful daughter of a bitch, good for nothing, then beaten with whatever she could get her hands on. Extension cords. Brooms. Belts. Shoes. All were fair game. All were layers of gasoline and timber, ready fuel for the fire she would have to unleash. Even on herself. Fed up, one day she snatched the belt from mother's hands. "This is how you spank someone," she shouted, then beat herself so bad she bled. Her mother left her alone after that. She no longer lived in the flinch, that state of readiness, of expectation of the raised voice. She was the raised voice.

  Punched in the face, stomach, and kidneys until he dropped, the old man didn't resist as he was hauled away. Swatting their hands, he crawled off. "Fuck you," he spat out a drool of blood.

  "Se la sale como agua," she said to herself.

  An unmarked berry idled slowly toward the scene, the siren chirping once for them to disperse. At that, Detective Cantrell Williams stepped out of the car and marched toward La Payasa. His partner Lee McCarrell lingered closer to their car.

  "La Payasa." The detective introduced them in Spanish. Cantrell had taken Spanish in high school more because Amanda Fisher took it and he was a thrall to his teenage crushes, though he never did work up the nerve to ask her out. Lee spoke English and demanded that the world, or at least its representatives that crossed his borders, spoke it also. Lee made scowling faces, the international language of increasing displeasure.

  "Detective." La Payasa sucked at something stuck in her teeth.

  "You ain't afraid to let your people see you chatting with me?" Cantrell had ducked out on the cameras, claiming a personal errand. He had been working on building up relationships within the Hispanic gangs. He figured if he were more of a presence, not just the face of police to lock folks up, he could get more cooperation. La Payasa he knew from her numerous run-ins with the police, from all kinds of petty drug stuff to attacking her mother.

  "What's to see?"

  "That old man looks like he had a rough day." Cantrell nodded in the direction the old man stumbled off to.

  "You need to talk to him about that. Find some witnesses and build you a case."

  "Still, wasn't no need to fuck him up like that."

  "I know. It's the cost out here. It's the message. You can't show no weakness."

  "Cost is too high. Taking a piece of your soul every time." La Payasa was a bright girl, the kind that both gave Cantrell hope and broke his heart. She had so much leadership potential that went wasted on the streets.

  Her hands danced in a frenetic dance, her hands twisting in odd contortions as she spelled out the name of her crew. Inverting her arms to nail down some of the more intricate finger placements – her pointer finger under her middle, curving thumb to make an "S", crossing her ring finger and then spreading her other three fingers – each hand pose was a point of pride as she stacked their clique.

  "You done?" Cantrell took mental notes.

  "You know how we do?"

  "Yeah. But I'm here about her." Cantrell flashed a picture of Lyonessa. He painted a picture of a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught up in the foolishness of an older brother and those meant to watch out for her. And that perhaps she was cute enough that despite her not being blonde and blue-eyed, her image might get some play on the evening news.

  "Nobody cares."

  "We do." Cantrell said with a touch too much earnestness in his voice.

  "You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for them." La Payasa picked up a newspaper. "A few Mexicans get killed too publicly and no one can sweep them under the rug.

  "Look, we're still collecting information, but so far, no witnesses have come forward."

  "Around here bullets go off like car alarms and folks ignore them just the same. And folks're so scared to be thought of as snitches, gave them the case of the mutes for their own health."

  "No one wants to admit that they think of a little brown girl being killed as neighborhood beautification."

  "You're right. Lyonessa was invisible. To us, to most folks because staying below the radar was part of her job. Doesn't mean she was any less important."

  "What do you want?"

  "I want the violence to stop. No more bodies to drop while we have a chance to get into this. We know where to look."

  "Then look."

  "We need Black to back off. He made bad choices, but she was a good person."

  "I know."

  "Whoever killed her should pay for what they did."

  "I know."

  La Payasa didn't go the sexed-in route to the gang: she was jumped in. By men. Time had not erased the memory of the pain. She braced herself for the rain of fists and knew no mercy would be shown. Time crawled. Every punch landed with fury on any exposed body part. Ears. Ribs. Kidneys. Kicks were the worst. When she got up, her fingertips tingled and her arms shook. The cholos were all smiles like they weren't the ones who just beat her. It was all strictly business. Black first to embrace her.

  "What do you say?"

  "Do you think you're some kind of hero?"

  "No, I don't."

  "You lie. To me, if not to yourself." La Payasa turned back to her men. "I'll talk to Black. But blood… it pours out like water."

  The other day, La Payasa cried.

  She had a nightmare about a man climbing through her window and skulking over to her bed while she slept. He loomed over her sleeping and powerless form, at first content to just watch her. Then he reached down, slowly and deliberately, to touch her.

  The number 13 had been emblazoned on her shoulder. Black roots sprang from her blonde hair, a regal crown that finished her look. She was her gang through and through, no questions, no doubts. It was like little magics ran in her blood. Loyalty was a folk tale. There was a time when she thought that the gang meant something. When all of their talk about loyalty, family, and purpose meant something. The first thing the gang demanded was an initiation to prove her loyalty. None of that bullshit about going to kill a random person at Meijer. Only a gang with no structure messed around with the kind of mess that would bring po-po down on their heads. She was blessed in. The gang had rules its members had to abide by. Only wannabes had no rules. No beliefs. No faith. And their judgments were as swift as they were harsh. She once had to administer a violation to one of her girls for talking to a member of a rival gang.

  "What the fuck were you doing?" La Payasa asked.

  "I knew him from back in the day."

  La Payasa knew him too, from elementary school – all of sixth grade. Across the gulf of junior high. A lifetime ago. "You one of us now."

  "I know…" she le
t the words hang. She knew she had to be punished.

  "Head to toe or violated out?"

  "Head to toe." She flashed her gang signs to reaffirm her commitment.

  La Payasa understood they both were being judged. Her girl as a member and her as a leader. She had to put on a show. Drive home the lesson that the gang came first. That the streets were dangerous and real. And that other groups, all chavalas, were hated. No one outside the gang was to be trusted.