Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten
Page 53
Ok, ok, I gotta stop. Sorry!
Anyway, she walked closer to us on her tiny, sock-covered feet. She appeared much better than she had the morning before. Some of her color had returned. Her bearing was more normal, though her eyes still looked haunted about the edges. She wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail, revealing her smooth cheeks, small angular nose and large oval, dark brown eyes. She was on the verge of a smile, the dimple on the right side of her face beginning to form.
“What do you see in her?” blurted Leda, all of a sudden, which made Tirza stop dead in her tracks.
As was the norm with her, whenever she was startled and stopped moving instantly. Tirza always did so perched on the tips of her toes. Her hands would splay to either side of her. Her eyes and mouth would widen. It was stance that made her look like a scared ballerina. It was a little comical to watch, and then… it wasn’t. It was somehow attractive too, though as I sit here and think on it, I cannot tell you why…
My girlfriend turned to regard my ex-girlfriend more squarely.
Tirza slowly eased from her toes to the balls of her feet, then ever so lightly let her heels touch the floor.
Ramona gasped in shock. We all turned to stare at her, imploring expressions etched on each of us. My girlfriend’s gaze flickered over me for a second, then back to Tirza, startled realization still plain upon her face.
Sandy appeared to speak, but Ramona’s voice stopped her.
“She’s… she’s a lot like you, Estefan,” she said with confidence building in her voice as she went along.
“Like me?” I was surprised as well. “You mean with all the lust and shit?”
“Well, no, but very similar… I mean, it isn’t a compulsion-sort of mutation like yours, rather it is an ability that allows her to detect.” Then Ramona’s eyes widened for a second time. “Oh god, she is powerful!” she exclaimed in a breathless rush as she reached out and grabbed one of my arms. She cleared her throat. “She too has the hardening strength just like you do, but it is this sense of detection that will be her main alteration.”
“What can she ‘detect’,” asked Katie bracketing the word with her fingers.
My girlfriend’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Everything…”
What, everything, what the hell did that mean?
“She will come to know us all,” continued Ramona, “and be able to follow us all wherever we go, no matter how far we are away…”
“So, she’s a super-tracker, like you said before?” I wondered aloud, chancing a glance at my ex-girlfriend, who had stood there the entire time like a deer in the headlights – stunned, unmoving.
“Yup, the best kind,” was all my girlfriend offered as an awkward silence befell us.
It stretched for a while…
…And then a while longer…
“…And what does this ‘youth’-thing you were talking about a few minutes ago? You said we all had it. What were you talking about?” asked Leda, her piercing orbs gouging into Ramona, though she was only asking a simple question.
Ramona flipped her vision toward her friend. The surreal understanding that Tirza was going to be a strong Muto seeped from her. Some the tension in her shoulders evaporated away. “All I can tell you is it’s like a wellspring of golden light, shooting out in all directions within each of us, even me, but other than that, I cannot explain what it means.”
If she had understood what it had, in fact, meant, she might very well have fainted with astonishment, because she was seeing a wellspring of vitality - something truly breathtaking. Without it, I wouldn’t be the one telling this tale so many years later. She had seen the essence of an Old-Timer…
~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Chapter 45 ~
(Summer – 2018)
Roberto
Half an hour later, the five girls and I met in the backyard under the covered patio that abutted the back of the house. Having garnered cold drinks and shedding unnecessary clothing and foot coverings, we opted to lounge against the oppressive heat of the day. Leda had even sauntered off to the downstairs bathroom, emerging a few minutes later, her heels and white nylons in hand. The shapely, pale skin of her legs was flawless in the filtered light beneath the massive awning that straddled the entire rear end of my parent’s home.
I had been half-heartedly admiring those young limbs, thinking about some of the stuff Ramona had said earlier in the foyer. I realized, a bit late, they were closer to me than they should’ve been. I peered up at Leda to find her already looking at me with a snide, lop-sided grin on her face.
“Enjoying the view, Estefan?” she asked under her breath, only loud enough so that I could hear.
I swallowed without recourse. I wasn’t nervous or anything. I hadn’t been mooning over the milky texture of her legs and had no more than commented that fact to myself. I was a little stricken by the way she was staring at me, though. Leda had always been aloof or sarcastic, maybe cordial at times, but she had yet to exude the consideration of me, as though she were weighing or measuring some quality about me. She hadn’t seriously regarded me the entire time I’d known her. That caught me off guard, because other than that one time I’d compelled her to lust after me, her approach to me had always been stand-offish at best.
She raised an eyebrow at the silence stretching between us, as if she had anticipated my discomfort. Miraculously, her expression softened a bit. Her smile became more genuine.
I remember thinking, something significant had passed from me to her and vice versa, but I couldn’t have told you, at the time, what that might’ve been. Of all the girls, Leda has always been the hardest for me to read. I mean, I have come to know her much better than I had back then, but that’s mostly due to the luxury of time. She and I have had a lot of it together. Still, it doesn’t detract from the fact that Leda is like an onion. Traversing from one of her layers to the next, oftimes reveals an entirely different person lying beneath. Every once and a while, the person below is so unlike person above, it is difficult to conceptualize you’re still looking at the same woman. Leda is – and always will be - a very complex lady. She hides herself and finds it hard to trust, but that is only because, once she does open up and does decide to trust – she does so for life. I know her to be so committed, I could literally say she is devoted, and that devotion has roots in every single layer comprising her. When she loves, she loves with every piece that is her.
Yeah, complex, I told you, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Every smile from Leda makes you feel like you’ve done something right, like you earned it. She makes you feel special.
“I wasn’t getting horny off your legs, if that’s what you’re asking,” I mumbled, trying to tread on familiar territory – sarcasm and indifference had always worked in the past.
Her eyebrows extended fully. “Oh really…?”
“Yeah, really,” I replied, but I had to chuckle, because, after all, who the fuck was I kidding, she had nice legs.
She took the patio chair next to mine. The others found similar seating around one of two large tables my parents had under the wooden framework, forming the structure of the awning. The shade was provided by tightly woven, indoor/outdoor polyurethane sheets hooked onto the lumber through a series of stainless steel eyelets in the coverings themselves.
“That’s okay, Effy, say what you want, but we both know what you were thinking,” she murmured, speaking at a more normal level, which got Ramona’s attention faster than a fly on shit.
That’s all I need!
“And what was he thinking?” she asked. She had no control over her ability to stay silent.
Leda laughed, a throaty sort of gurgling, ripe with connotation. “Your boyfriend thinks I have nice legs.” She giggled anew, though her eyes were watching me and not Ramona.
“Is that why you took off your pantyhose?” began my girlfriend. “So, you could make him think about your legs?”
Her eyes were riveted to my face. “Maybe…”
I watched as Leda went from flirtatious promiscuity to introspection in the span of moments. She didn’t seem mad, just thoughtful, and stayed otherwise quiet. I told you, she was complex…
Out of nowhere, Leda completely changed the subject. “So, why is your ex-girlfriend staying with you, Estefan?” she wondered, peering through her eyelashes at Tirza who had taken a seat at the end of the table, the furthest possible chair from me.
I pushed aside needless thoughts of self-pity. It was ok if Tirza didn’t want to be near me. I regarded Leda through a half-squint, trying to guess what was going on inside that head of hers. “Why don’t you ask her?” I replied simply, making my face like those on the monoliths of Easter Island.
It was Ramona who spoke instead, though: “Yeah, I think it is a good idea for the two of you to know what we’ve been dealing with here, since you left us yesterday.”
“Why, did something happen?” questioned Sandy, sitting up straighter, her bright orbs dimming with dread-filled curiosity.
Tirza snorted, an attempt at being derisive, but the hurt on her face made it fizzle.
Leda’s gaze stayed on my ex-girlfriend. I was beginning to wonder if she didn’t like Tirza for some reason.
“Tirza, why don’t you tell them what happened last night,” urged my cousin. She was seated with her knees bunched up before her, her toes wiggling from time to time, suspended over the edge of the chair.
Tirza sighed, her eyes brimming with unbidden tears.
I saw concern pour into Sandy’s expression, not the case with Leda, though. She just sat there implacable, unmoving, her vision on the small teen at the end of the table.
“Teezee, tell ‘em, so they know this shit is for keeps,” I pleaded softly.
She nodded stoically.
Sandy glanced from me to Tirza a few times. “What the hell happened?!” she queried more strenuously.
That was when Tirza began to speak, and, even though I had heard the tale more than once, I was as rapt as the two newcomers. I still found it hard to comprehend that Teresa, Lisa and Javier Cardenas (Tirza’s father) were no longer walking the earth. It was all so surreal and unrealistic, because it made absolutely no sense to me. Yet, there she was, sitting there in my backyard, under the patio awning, telling us all that her family had been slaughtered for no reason. It had been determined in some dark room with a lot of LCD screens that the Cardenas family was a threat to Humanity, and they’d been eliminated. Like I said, it made no sense.
It wasn’t long after, each and every one of the girls was weeping alongside her, filled with despair and harrowing sorrow.
Me, on the other hand - and I think it was because I had known her family – I sat there with something else beginning to boil within me. This had nothing to do with any sort of sadness or desolation.
I was filling with heat, hitting the arm of the patio chair with the bottom of my right fist – just a light pounding – trying not to notice the vague tinge of red at the edge of my vision. I didn’t realize I was denting the expensive metal armrest the entire time.
The “hardness” Ramona had spoken about earlier was manifesting. I was beginning to change.
*****
“Hey, Estefan, you wool-headed maricón, I am talking to you!” was the shout startling me from my reverie. It came from my far right, on the other side of the huge custom island barbeque my father had a contractor install a few years back. It was an unmistakable voice, deep and gravelly, commanding and demanding respect all at once.
I turned in that direction. Tirza finished talking. Sandy began to pepper her with questions, edging from her seat to kneel before my ex-girlfriend, holding her hand as they spoke.
Leda didn’t join her friend, but sat there, hugging herself, her face pained as if she was struggling from within. I don’t think she wanted to cry in front of us, and was trying her damnedest to stop the tears from overwhelming her defenses. Her eyelids were moist just the same and looked as though she would weep at any moment.
I came to my feet, craning my neck, so I could see over the many countertops and shelves of the island. I saw the fence, blocking access to the backyard at the side of the house.
“Estefan, it’s me!” he yelled again, waving.
I could just make him out. I could only see the top two –thirds of his head as he strained to peer over the obstruction before him.
It was Roberto Marquez, my uncle on my father’s side of the family, one of the two people who – on the streets – when seen together were known as, The Uncles.
Ramona was already at my side. “Ah fuck, Eff, what the hell is he doing here?” she implored unable to keep a little twang of trepidation out of her voice.
“He probably has a good reason, babe,” I retorted through a lopsided smile, trying to make light of the fact that one of the two most notorious criminals this side of Las Vegas had just shown his face at my house. “Imma gonna go find out, ok?”
“I’ll go with you,” she said in a rush.
I glanced back at her with a frown. “He’s not going to try anything, Mona, so you can just relax.” I shook my head with mild disdain.
“I just want to make sure.”
“Ok, fine,” I acquiesced. Once Ramona put her mind to something, it’s a real pain in the ass trying to convince her otherwise, she can be downright pig-headed.
“Come on, pendejo, I don’t got all god damned day to wait for your narrow ass to get in gear. Get the fuck over here and open this fucken gate!”
Besides, I didn’t have the time to mince words with her when my sonofabitch uncle was acting like a shopaholic at a Black Friday sales event.
“Alright, dude, calm down. I’m coming!” I called out to him, and saw him duck back down behind the six foot gated portion of the fence.
I punched in the code to unlock the gate and stepped back, opening the portal, revealing the man that, at a certain time in my life, I had hated more than any other person on the fucking planet.
(But that’s another story for another time).
He stood there, leaning back on one foot, his other leg extended in front of him, his chin upturned. The posture forced him to look down at me, though he was shorter than me by a few inches. It was the omnipresent “Vato-loco” stance that his generation actually thought was cool. Thank god, they were the last to think so…
“Oralé mano,” he muttered through a rictus that had suddenly inflicted the lower portion of his face. It was a strained grimace, making his chin stick out even farther than it had been moments before.
As ever, he was unobtrusive and would draw absolutely no attention to himself. He wore a double-breasted, long-sleeved denim button-up over a strikingly white wife-beater and a pair of tan colored chinos, ironed razor sharp with creases that matched – of all things – the creases on his undershirt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know… but go figure, even then Cholitos were a dying breed, so I doubt many of you could even guess at what I’m describing right now.
On his feet was a pair of nice looking tan work boots, which told me he had been pounding the pavement for some time now. Thus, he wasn’t being that much of a dick when he had said he was little pressed for time. Still, though, he didn’t have to act like an asshole about it. Aside from that, he had nothing else with him except a large duffle bag, army issue, that he had slung over one shoulder. I could tell it was heavy just by the way the straps cut into his shoulder.
He was about five foot five, wire thin and muscled. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere, which was saying something, b
ecause, even way back then, he was closer to fifty than forty. He had black hair, combed back over his head, and gelled with so much Brylcreem¹ it looked more like Kevlar than hair. It was trimmed around his ears, and high and tight in the back and framed his wide face and shallow chin, belying a stronger genetic strain of Native American blood than what flowed through my veins. His complexion was ruddy, his skin so dry and wrinkled it looked like leather left to long in the summer sun. He had the same wide mouth that he’d inherited from his father, my grandfather Juan Marques, who had died way back in 2001. He sported a thick mustache and goatee, both immaculately trimmed and maintained. His eyes were as dark as his hair, and had a piercing quality that was not unlike Leda’s, though his stare had hardened and matured with extended stays in San Quentin and Pelican Bay. Hers’ was the look of a bitchy teenage girl. His… well, sometimes it could spell death.
“Hey, man, what’s up?” I was a guarded question, spoken with an equally guarded tone.
“Nothing much, vato,” he said in his gravelly voice, looking me over for a second. Then his eyes shifted to Ramona, his gaze lingering over her round tits and hips, possibly even her crotch.
She endured it, having been under his scrutiny before. Her eyes narrowed and a thin-lipped smile emerged.
His eyes returned to me, his face bunching up with irritation. “Hey, how come none of you fuckers pay attention, man?”
“What’re you talking about?” The exasperation creeped into my tone of its’ own volition, I had no control over it.
“I was pounding on your front door for five fucken minutes and still none of you guys answered,” he explained, spreading his palms to either side of him. “Then I went to the window and looked in. I saw that retarded younger brother of yours playing on the damned video games with the pinche headphones on, not a fucking care in the world.” He stepped closer toward me. “I could’ve popped his ass, Estefan, right then and there. I doubt any of you idiotas would’ve realized it. He could be dead, right now, lying in his own shit for all you’d know.” He actually squinted harder, which I thought would’ve been impossible, seeing his face was already screwed-up beyond recognition.