Devil City

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Devil City Page 13

by Gestalt Publishing


  "What I!" exclaimed the old pixy thief, "do you see me to-day?"

  "See you! To be sure I do, as plain as I see the sun in the skies; and I see you are busy into the bargain."

  "Do you so?" cried he. "Pray with which eye do you see all this?"

  "With the right eye, to be sure."

  "The ointment! The ointment!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Take that for meddling with what did not belong to you--you shall see me no more."

  He struck her eye as he spoke, and from that hour till the day of her death she was blind on the right side, thus dearly paying for having gratified an idle curiosity in the house of a pixy.

  vi

  Bettina looks up at me. Drinks the last of the blood Lionel sent over.

  Takes away the bandage over her throat. Clears it. There's a rasp to it, a bass. Maybe it'll clear, maybe no.

  'It's the eye. You said, it would help if you can... I dunno, if it had some reverberation.'

  'Resonance.'

  'Yeah. I knew this story from when I was little'

  She's right. They eye. That gives us a link to a fae tradition and a model to break glamour.

  This woman, she's given me a lot. Got a bad idea how to ask for a whole lot more. Just need to tell a big lie. A bad one.

  'Yeah. You nailed it, lady.'

  'Symbolism. That's what you're always telling me. Symbols and that shit. One thing that stands for a whole lot of other things.'

  She gets up, looks in the flecked and stained mirror in Lazlo's bathroom.

  Unwraps the bandage. Still as stone. Looks into the ruin in her face.

  'That doesn't look good.'

  She turns to face me and it doesn't. Scabs line the inside of her socket. Old blood. Muscles, twitching. Still swollen but there's a darkness between the inflamed lids.

  'Think it'll come back?'

  Will it grow back? Don't know. Her face healed. Her throat. No reason to suggest it won't other than it hasn't. Give her time, fuel. Put her back in the earth a week, a month, can't hurt to try.

  What'd I say before about the symbolic becoming real? That's magic, right?

  So here's the thing.

  I can use that gouged out eye. Can turn it into magic. Do an operation that re-enacts an old fairy tale about breaking glamour, well, look at that, that'll squeeze a whole lot of juice into that rite. The only thing? You can't play backsies with magic. The whole thing goes retroactive. I make that mutilation sacred, offer the Sacred Maiming, it becomes a proper sacrifice. The magic will take the eye for good, robbing Bettina of any chance to grow it back.

  But I want to find Ava? This woman who cast a spell can fool the whole world into thinking she's famous? A magician that powerful is like to stay hidden to the likes of me for as long as she wants.

  Unless. Unless I get serious juice. Like, from a rite made up of the sacrifice of an eye and the betrayal of the woman who gave it for me.

  Good luck for me the Hollow took it. Or synchronicity if you want to think like a magician. Bad luck for Bettina.

  Don't use the loss of the eye then I never find Ava. I have the Devil on me ‘til he gets me dead. Crazy Legs, some other maggot he lures to me. Or he starts cutting on the people I'm close to. But that's not even why I'm thinking of lying to Bettina.

  Lose Ava's trail? The story ends and I never find out what her whole deal is.

  And I am surely curious about her deal. Which about seals it.

  'No baby, I don't think it's coming back.'

  'Well, shit.' She breathes it soft.

  My name is Lark. I'm good at magic. That's all the matter to me.

  Apparently.

  Eleven

  i

  Bettina lies on the floor, candles surrounding her body like a chalk corpse outline. Laying up, looking at the roof. Shifting her palm from eyesocket to eyesocket.

  'I dunno man. I think, I mean, I think - maybe I'm playing myself but I think it might be better.'

  'You want to get hopes up?'

  Looks over at me. 'You sure it's not growing back?'

  'It would have, it would have.'

  'Okay.'

  Ogham. Celtic writing. Don't know much about it but I'm writing it down on post-it notes, more drawing it than writing really. Copying. Place the notes around Bettina's body.

  Keep her talking.

  'Back there, with the Hollow.'

  A little growl. She's not forgotten the beating she took and handed out.

  'How'd you learn to fight like that?'

  She's quiet. Don't press. Then.

  'When I was a little girl - '

  It's always when they're a kid. Jon was the same way. You're not gonna like this.

  'When I was a little kid, I had an uncle. His name was Jaime. I loved him, man. He was young and well, I know this sounds weird but he was really sexy. I was a shorty, you know and didn't think of it like that but now I'm older - that's what it was. He was funny, always had treats for us, you know? Chocolate or a new video game or he'd take us out. Took me to the zoo. Man I loved the zoo. Later on, I find out he's a degenerate. Bet on two cockroaches racing, you know? Dogs, ponies, fights, cards, the tables, he couldn't say no to none of it.'

  'Yeah?' Listening but I'm working.

  'So one day he says to me, come on. Got a present but don't tell your sisters. Takes me out of school. We go up north to docklands. Shit.'

  She stops so I give her the attention.

  'I smoke in here?' Waves to the candles.

  'Sure. Hand her a pack and a lighter, saucer to ash in.

  'What it is, right? Jaime owed money to a promoter. Not, like, you know, a real one. But to the gladiators.'

  She's talking about the illegal fights they have up there. Basements, alleys, bingo halls, hell, churches. Anywhere but a legit venue to keep heat away. They get two dudes, maybe more, let ‘em at each other. There's all sorts of fights. Two tramps, going at it for a snack. Serious karateka, looking to get into it without rules. MMA dropouts too vicious to let in front of cameras. Naked women. Man fights a couple a dogs. Teams. Whatever. Just keep fighting till you can't. To the death? Not often. Not at all. But sometimes.

  'So, I only find this out later, you know? Jaime needs a way to make it square. Turns out, they're doing a comedy act. Two little kids. Throw me and a little boy into the ring. Some weapons. Nothing serious. Say go at it. I'm like, eight. Buncha old men screaming at me. I start to cry but the other kid, he's into it. He knows what to do. He comes at me. Bites me. You know how that is. So that gets my attention. Everyone is laughing. Two little kids fighting. A joke. Clearing the palette they call it. But I don't like getting bit and even then, don't like to lose. So I grab one of the weapons. Bike pump. You know, plastic ones for your bike tyres. I beam that kid over the head. Keep working him. Soon he's crying and I like that. He scared now. He crying.'

  Sighs, lights it up. I go back to work.

  'Jaime, he clears his debts some. He tells me... fuck man, you know the ways you get kids to shut up. If you tell, those men will kill me. Later, I grew sick of that. What the fuck is it to me you get clipped, Uncle? They'll kill your moms. That's a different game. Guess what though? I'm a hit. Three weeks later, they bring me back and I fight some girl. This time she's the one crying and I'm thinking, at least that's not me.'

  'How'd he hide the bruises?'

  'Jaime? Ah hell tells my parents he's enrolled me in some sort of survival wilderness adventure shit. Get inner city kids out of the city, show them the forests. I hate those things. Hey kid, here's the motherfucking majesty of nature. Now get back to the one room you, gramps, moms, dads, you three cousins and your four sisters live in. Rock climbing and shit. Shiiit. That's where I get the bruises from. Shit.'

  I work she talks.

  'This goes on for a few years. I'm about twelve and I got, you know, aptitude for it. See, I figured out something real quick. You in that ring, you about to throw down, both of you are hurting but one is gonna be a lot worse than the other. You t
ake a little pain? You can dish out more. That's how you win a fight. It's like - you balance it out. How much pain can you take in order to win? You realise pain don't matter so much. Anyways...

  Soon I'm taking on the bigger older kids. Winning most times. Jaime, he's making good dough and sooner or later, he gives me a taste. I'm buying Kicks, I'm paying for a phone moms and pops don't know about. Just spending on what kids like. Hell, I get to like the fights. But one day, I fight this girl, I'm bigger than her. I'm a vet now. She's in my yard. Get overconfident. Never see the safety razor she's got in her mouth. Spits it out and...'

  Bettina gets up on an elbow. Pulls down her shirt a ways. On her breast, a deep slender scar.

  'Finally, mom and pops twig. They figure Jaime, who loves me, I'm his favourite, they figure he's putting the dick to me or something worse. So dad follows us. Breaks in. Sees me fight. Afterwards, he's just all in Jaime's face. Old man is smart. He ain't talking police but he's getting ready to fuck Uncle Jaime up.

  Till Jaime takes out his roll. He made 700 on the fight. The old man, I remember this, man, the old man's eyes light up.'

  She stubs out. She's done talking which is okay, I'm done working.

  'So as soon as my tit heals up, which is a few weeks later, my dad takes me with Jaime. Drops fifty on me, gets four hundred back. Usually my odds are better than that. It was my thirteenth birthday and I put a sixteen year old on life support. They took me out for ice-cream after.'

  I go quiet. Just give a soft uh-huh.

  'That's how I got so good at fighting. I learned early on, it's just trading off your pain for theirs, one for one. Once you know that, you're good to go.'

  Her eyes are blank. She's thinking about pops.

  'Let's get started.'

  ii

  Don't know much about history but I know this.

  Julius Caesar was a stone son-of-a-bitch. Got a culture like the Celts? Hardcore partisans, die before they surrender. What keeps ‘em together is a sense of community. A sense of place and that their land is where they belong. So Caesar, he knows the best place to hit ‘em isn't destroying supply lines or even getting busy with torture, making examples.

  He hits the Brits where they're strongest. Right in the stories.

  Rounds up as many druids as he can, priests, lore keepers, magicians, prophets, witch doctors, everything in one crew, rounds ‘em up on some island, starts shooting. That's a kind of shot, takes the guts out of nations.

  So no more druids. No more secret knowledge. No one to talk to the Gods. He killed ‘em in ways the body never feels but that scars your soul, man.

  Is that true? I don't know. What I do know is we don't know much about druids. That's what I think of when I think of Celtic magic. Hoary old druids from hundreds of years before the dawn of history.

  Everything else is just scraps of folk tradition. The good stuff burned with the old priests. I Asked Mully about that once and he just shook his head. 'Rome was a cruel Empire but never crueller than when it was making laws, Lark. The Druids were wiped out by proclamation and courts. Slowly but surely. No magical showdown, I'm afraid.'

  Which means even if I was happy working that Stonehenge current, I couldn't. Doesn't exist. Play to my strengths then and make it up as I go. Take my time on this one though. No repeating my mistake with the Devil.

  The operation is simple. Draw some lines in make up around Bettina's ruined eye. A target, so the fae know what they're entitled to. Recite the story about the midwife and the eye, straight out of the library books. Story is older than me, treat it respectfully, dropping down into that still soft point, calling out to old intelligences, haunted the earth a long while.

  And they come.

  It goes quiet and somewhere I think I can hear something I only ever heard on TV. A creek, running over rocks. Birds I don't know and a scent I don't recognise at all but reminds me of words like loamy and earthy.

  There's a sound like a bell, like a chime. There's a weight, a presence.

  To me, they're not flapping butterfly women, long as a finger. They're not pop-eyed little creatures living in a gum nut. No. Don't see them clearly at all. Silvery mist fills up the room and I can see them. In shining silver armour, light so bright that if the mist didn't dull it, it'd puncture the lenses of my eyes. Cruel red lips. Cloaks of moss and knitted leaves. One raises a head to inspect Bettina and I think I see horns growing from the temples. Irish deer or something.

  They take the deal. That simple. Argent eyes on me, just nod. No speaking. Glad for it. These are things from out of time and their language travels backwards and forwards. Hear it, your ganglia bug out.

  Bettina will never get her eye back. It belongs to the Aos now.

  And I'll get what I need.

  Wordless, they tell me what needs to be done.

  Glamour? Choose to associate that word with beauty, fashion, industries built on lies. Get up, smash Lazlo's mirror. Use the sharp edge, reopen the wound on my cheek I made when the Devil sent me crazy. Rub cigarette ash into the cut on my cheek. That's how they used to make scarification and tattoos permanent. Rubbing in the ash. Reckon I'm too scabbed over by now for it to make much difference but... well, you know why I do it.

  Sit back down next to Bettina who, one good thing out of the con I'm running on her, is looking at the Fae in ways most folk don't get a chance. Safely. Make no mistake, these are the cousins of Gods and dangerous warriors, fit to fight monsters. They're also beautiful in ways that go beyond high cheekbones and good complexions. Tiger grace. Inhuman charisma.

  Bettina's whispering, so lean in close to listen to her. She's gone into some ecstatic vision. This is normal for how these cats work. This is what I was looking for. Trance state oracle communications. A name.

  Hondo's. Over and over again.

  Look up to finish my business with the folk in the mists.

  They're gone. It's gone.

  Hondo's.

  iii

  Hondo's is a bar, far down south on the tip of the island. The docks closed down there a hundred years ago and I don't know why. Every few years, someone decides to gentrify it. Tear down all the slums and old government housing. Give the rich folks a taste of the air and a view of the water.

  But that land here has gone wrong. The ground you walk on is wounded somehow. Way I figure it, something bad happened there, turn of last century maybe. That's when records start showing this neighbourhood's fortunes run down. Something scarred the worldskin down there and it never healed up. So now and again, every twenty years or so, some industrialist motherfucker buys up a whole bunch of land, plans to turn it all into condos. But then all the plans go wrong. All the labourers quit. Accidents happen on the build sites. A ton of bricks lands on some poor fucker's face. Some kids sneak in to play, dig a tunnel in the sand falls in on ‘em. Pick up a nail gun and ventilate their friend's skulls.

  But that was my thirteenth birthday and I put a sixteen year old on life support

  Law suits, the whole deal. The wheels grind up and the whole show ends. Industrialist offloads his bad investment, losing money to slumlords who rebuild the rat-traps industrialists tore down. Poor come back. And neighbourhoods like Morning Flat, Lamb's End, Sarah's Fight, they stay a waterfront dive, reeking of saltwater and garbage.

  Hondo's has been there forever. One of the oldest joints in the City. During one of those attempts to fix the whole place up, it got a makeover. Figure that to be the ‘20s and the deco won't quite rub off. Starburst patterns on the marble floors. Frosted glass windows all under permanent, carcinogenic stains on the ceiling. It's always an oven and the fancy neon letters out the front got smashed in during the ‘80s.

  Hondo's is a place where men go to get work nowadays. I'm not a worker like that. Don't steal or bust heads or even take private eye type gigs. Don't work that tip at all for civilians. But my work takes me down there amongst the hardcases now and again.

  Bettina isn't with me this time. She's still blissing out from the
close contact with the Aos. Wrapped every hiding spell I can over me and headed alone. Figure I've gotten past the Devil for once. Then I notice he's driving the bus I'm riding. But he's not out to mess with me tonight. Just sings a Cliff Richard song really loud and flirts with a guy in the front seat.

 

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