Pawn's Gambit

by Darin Kennedy

  In an instant, Steven was twelve again, crouched on his parent’s driveway and staring at a trail of something that looked a lot like spattered red paint. He followed the string of wine-colored circles into their family’s garage and around his mom’s silver Buick. In the corner, whimpering, he found their neighbor’s dog bleeding from her mouth and side. He guessed the old sheltie had been hit by a passing car and managed to make it to the shade of their garage before collapsing.

  He stood to go for help, and the dog let out a whine. Steven reached out to stroke the dying dog’s fur and his world disappeared in a sea of red. His father heard the screams and ran to Steven’s side, but by the time he arrived the dog had released Steven’s hand and fallen unconscious. Steven still bore the scars of that day, and his father’s words still echoed in his mind over a decade later.

  Never trust a wounded animal, especially if it’s cornered.

  “All right, manito,” Vago sputtered. “You want the truth? Your brother was a traitor.”

  Emilio’s grip on the gun tightened. “Careful.”

  Vago’s lips turned up in a snarl. “Last few weeks, he treats me and mine like we’re stinking garbage, and today he spouts all this stuff about getting out and moving on. I told him he wasn’t going anywhere.” He spat out a bloody tooth. “He said he’d go to the cops if he had to, and that didn’t go over so well.”

  Emilio’s eyes went cold. “So you did kill him.”

  “You disrespect me, you break loyalty, you pay.” Vago’s battered face turned up into a distorted likeness of his trademark smug grin. “So, what you gonna do about it? You gonna cap me, esé?” Vago kept up his pretense of cool, but the tremor in his voice told another story. “Get your revenge, Little Traviezo?”

  “Maybe,” Emilio said. “I don’t get it, though. Why did you lie about all of this? Why bring me down here?”

  “Tactics, kid.” Cortez shot Vago a sarcastic grin. “He gets you pissed off, you come down here, mouth off to the wrong people and get yourself killed, he doesn’t have to worry about kid brother coming after him somewhere down the road. Pretty much what I’d expect from this piece of chickenshit.”

  “Shut up, Cortez,” Vago said.

  “No, you shut up.” Emilio brought the gun down and placed the barrel against Vago’s temple. “You killed my brother, you bastard. I’m not even gonna feel bad about this.”

  Lena, who had remained silent through the entire fight, left the relative safety of the circle of Pawns and stood by Emilio. Steven let her go in hopes she could talk Emilio down in a way he couldn’t, and instantly cursed himself for a fool as an image of Lena’s bloodied form flashed across his mind’s eye. Steven knew more about survivor’s guilt than he liked to admit, even to himself, and could only imagine how much worse it would be for Emilio if anything happened to the woman he loved.

  “Are you going to kill him, Emilio?” Lena’s voice cracked as tears trailed down her high cheekbones. “Are you really capable of that?”

  “What do you want me to do, Lena?” Emilio bared his teeth in fury. “You want me to let him walk? Carlos was all the family I had left.”

  “I’m your family now, papi. Please don’t do this.”

  Emilio’s hand trembled. The barrel trailed along Vago’s furrowed brow and up into the man’s greasy hairline as Lena pled her case.

  “He’s already confessed to killing Carlos. The police will sort all this out, but if you pull that trigger, he’ll be dead, and they’ll be taking you away instead.” Emilio didn’t budge, but the tremor in his hand became more pronounced, the tip of the automatic pistol now dancing by Vago’s head like a drunken bumblebee.

  “This is not what Carlos would want for you, papi. He spent his whole life keeping you away from this crap so you could get out of here and make something of yourself. Don’t waste the opportunity he bled and died for.”

  Not a word was spoken as the war in Emilio’s mind played out on his young face. Steven tensed as the dance of the Desert Eagle stopped and the barrel came to rest once more on Vago’s drenched cheekbone. Vago closed his eyes and busied his lips mouthing a prayer to whatever God would listen to his murderer’s confession. Steven’s heart grew cold as Emilio’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  “Do it,” Cortez whispered. “You know he deserves it.” Cortez’s smug patter brought fire to Lena’s eyes.

  “You’re as bad as he is,” Lena fumed. “All of you. I wish every last one of you would—”

  “No.” Emilio lowered the gun to the ground.

  “Papi?” Hope flickered in Lena’s features.

  “We’re done here.” Emilio placed the pistol at the feet of the closest Pawn and wrapped his arm around Lena’s shoulders. “Let’s get out of here.” Emilio and Lena turned to leave.

  “You think you’re going somewhere?” Cortez’s derisive tone stopped Emilio in his tracks. “I don’t get how you think you can come around here, get in our business and then walk away clean.”

  Steven’s entire body tensed.

  Cortez ran a hand through his greasy locks. “The way I see it—hell, the way Vago sees it—this is all pretty cut and dried. Capping him is justice, eye for an eye. It makes you one of us, and we look after our own. But you don’t walk away from this. That makes you nothing but a witness.” As if on cue, every Salvatrucha within earshot leveled weapons at Lena and Emilio. Cortez turned his attention to the nearest Pawn, his smug smile firmly in place.

  “You freaks may think you’re pretty tough in all that King Arthur getup, but not one of you is fast enough to save these kids if I give my boys the order to open up.” Cortez went nose to nose with the Pawn. “You and the others drop all your pointy sticks and get the hell out of here or I swear I’ll make them both bleed.”

  Steven surveyed the situation with eight sets of eyes, and lost count of the number of guns aimed at Lena and Emilio at around thirty. The element of surprise now a distant memory, Steven found himself out of options and desperate for a diversion.

  Any diversion.

  As if in answer, a familiar gnawing mounted in his collective side. The dragonfly at his neck shifted nervously as the shields all regained their previous luster. The spear-axe tips of the eight pikes gleamed even brighter than before. Even the tip of the shattered black arrow regained its dark shimmer.

  Oh no. Steven cast about for any hint of their true enemy. Not now.

  A flash of black along the roofline declared the arrival of a Black Piece. Another flash followed, and then another. The eight White Pawns all shifted their attention skyward, and even Cortez had the good sense to shut up and pay attention.

  Steven and his seven Pawn brethren formed a tight circle around Lena, Emilio, Vago and the few Salvatruchas close enough to protect. Cortez took refuge behind one of the Pawn’s shields and aimed his weapon at the roofline, his dispute with Emilio for the moment moved to the back burner. Salvatruchas and Blues alike followed suit, and Steven allowed himself a moment of hope they might still survive the day.

  From his perch, the Blackfoot archer stepped to the rooftop’s edge and hailed Steven with a brisk salute. A second later, from a building across the street, the assassin’s mirror image stepped forward and offered a similar greeting. The humble Baltimore street corner soon became a kill zone as the remaining six Black Pawns revealed themselves to the crowd gathered below.

  The dark archers controlled the high ground, arrows nocked and bows drawn. Steven and his seven Pawn brethren raised their shields and steeled themselves for the hail of arrows sure to follow. From within the circle of Pawns, Cortez cursed under his breath, and though the Spanish was beyond Steven’s understanding, he echoed the sentiment.

  What are they waiting for? Steven didn’t have much time to mull over the question.

  Another flash of black appeared along the skyline accompanied by a brief but intense flare of pain through Steven’s belly. Though he had no doubt as to the identity of the new arrival, his heart still skipped a beat as
she stepped forward and looked down on him from the dilapidated rooftop, her emerald eyes cold and flickering with dark energy. Her movie star smile tarnished only by the malice in her gaze, the Black Queen broke the silence.

  “Hello, Steven,” she breathed, her voice carrying on the wind. “You must know, I was quite disappointed our date last night was cut short, but that’s yesterday’s news.” She tilted her head to one side, darkness crackling in her gaze. “If nothing else, you’ll find I’m all about second chances.”

  She raised her scepter above her head, a black bolt of energy from the darkening sky pouring into its serpentine form, and leveled her weapon at the circle of Pawns. The Black Queen’s smile disappeared, replaced by a contemptuous sneer, as she issued a whispered command that echoed down from above like rolling thunder.

  “Fire.”

  13

  Crucible

  The octet of archers let fly their first cruel volley. While the majority of the bolts shattered on contact with the glowing platinum of the encircled Pawns’ shields, a single errant arrow found its way into the thigh of one of Vago’s boys.

  “Diablos,” the wounded kid screamed.

  Devils. “Close enough, kid.” The nearest Pawn broke formation, grabbed the injured boy by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him into the relative safety of the circle. The boy’s eyes were wide as rhythmic spurts of crimson jetted from his thigh where the dark shaft protruded, a shaft Steven wasn’t certain the boy could even see. “Try to stop the bleeding,” he said to Lena as he reconfigured his eightfold perimeter to block the second volley of arrows. “I’ll do my best to keep us covered.”

  Lena dove at the boy and clamped her hands over his pumping wound while another of the Blues, no more than thirteen himself, whipped out a bandana and fashioned a crude tourniquet at the top of the screaming boy’s thigh. It took only seconds for the surrounding mob to disperse, leaving the circle of Pawns defending ten: Lena and the two Blues, Emilio, Cortez, Vago, and four others, their gang allegiance for the moment inconsequential.

  While Lena and her resourceful assistant continued to work on the wounded boy’s leg, Cortez and the remaining Blues and Salvatruchas raised their weapons and returned fire. The archers retreated, taking cover from the barrage of small arms. The Queen, conversely, moved even closer to the edge, her green eyes crackling with obsidian fire as she leered down at the circled Pawns below.

  Steven’s suspicion the Queen had nothing to fear from bullets was soon confirmed. The few that came anywhere near her flared and evaporated like meteors passing through the stratosphere. Still, a window had opened. Steven barked commands like a seasoned soldier.

  “As long as they’ve got the high ground, we’re sitting ducks.” Steven gestured to Lena and the Blue helping her with the wounded kid. “You two. Grab him and head for that alley.”

  “What about me?” Emilio asked.

  “Grab Vago and try to catch up with Lena.”

  “No way,” Emilio said. “I’m not touching that piece of—”

  “Do it.” An arrow whistled past one of Steven’s doppelgangers and ricocheted off the ground at Emilio’s feet. “Now.”

  The octet of Pawns formed a screen to their rear and herded the group en masse toward the narrow alley. Lena grabbed the wounded boy’s hands and dragged him along while the other kid kept tension on the tourniquet tied high on the boy’s right thigh.

  As Emilio stooped to help Vago to his feet, Cortez shook his head in disbelief. “He wouldn’t do that for you, manito.”

  Emilio grunted a coarse reply, draped Vago’s arm across his shoulders, and followed Lena’s lead.

  As the third and fourth volley of arrows came in, Steven struggled with his next move. To go any faster would compromise the already minimal cover the eight shields provided, but every second in the kill zone was a fatality waiting to happen.

  That’s when the Queen made her move.

  Steven had kept at least one set of eyes on her throughout their scramble for the alley. As a stream of black flame shot from her feet and rushed down the store facade toward the street below, the eight Pawns cursed as one.

  “She’s coming,” Steven grunted. “Hurry.”

  Though no one but Steven could truly see the threat he referred to, they moved nonetheless. A pair of Salvatruchas took the kid with the injured leg off Lena’s hands and fireman-carried him the rest of the way with Lena close behind. A pair of razor-sharp arrows narrowly missed her as she rounded the corner into the alley. With a roll of his eyes, Cortez took Vago’s other arm and he and Emilio dragged the Blue leader away with the phalanx of Pawns bringing up the rear. As the last of his doppelgangers passed into the alley and out of the archers’ field of fire, Steven looked frantically for a door.

  No sooner had Steven discovered a decrepit service entrance at the far end of the alley than a tongue of ebon flame snaked halfway down the alleyway and pooled there, a lagoon of black fire. A blink, and the Queen appeared within the circle of dark flame. She snapped her fingers and the eight archers materialized before her, aligned as if the blacktop below their feet hid a life-size chessboard.

  Steven sent seven of his doppelgangers to defend their end of the alley, their shields and pikes at the ready, while he focused on getting everyone else through the open door to safety. Most of the Salvatruchas went through first, carrying the wounded Blue away from the battle, leaving only Emilio, Vago, Cortez and Lena to guard.

  From behind her own line of Pawns, the Black Queen scowled, raising her scepter at Steven’s hastily formed wall of flesh and steel. Her eight emissaries moved forward in a careful advance, launching another barrage of barbed missiles. Make certain none of them leave this alley alive, her whisper echoed through the space.

  The line of seven Pawns held their position as the archers pressed forward. Volley after volley of black bolts impacted the line of gleaming platinum shields, the echoed clangs making it nearly impossible to think. Behind his hard-pressed defensive line, Steven worked to convince a balking Cortez to step through the open doorway at the alley’s far end. A weathered sign above the door read “Patrick’s Hardware,” but what lay beyond was anything but a hardware store.

  “Where’d you say this goes?” Cortez peered through the doorway at a long, sterile hallway lit with fluorescent light that had no business being behind that particular door.

  “Not sure,” Steven said. “Should be a hospital.” He watched through the portal as the mixed gang of Salvatruchas and Blues disappeared around the far corner of the hospital hallway with the wounded kid in tow, a trail of crimson marking their path. “All I know is that it’s somewhere far from here. Now go.”

  “You first,” Cortez said.

  “There’s no time to argue. Go now, or I’ll leave you here with them.” Steven jerked his thumb at the advancing line of archers. Cortez weighed his options for all of two seconds and dove through the door. Steven closed the door behind him and recrossed the frame, muttering under his breath, “Take us away from here.” The pouch groaned as Steven opened the door onto a midday beach scene. A gull rested beyond the threshold, snacking on sand fleas as a wave broke upon the deserted shore.

  “Lena,” Steven said. “Go.”

  The girl shot a hesitant look in Emilio’s direction. “But, Steven—”

  “Trust me, Lena. I’ll make sure nothing happens to Emilio, but you have to go now.”

  Lena ran to the open doorway. Staring for a moment in disbelief at the impossible scene on the other side, she stepped from cool Baltimore asphalt onto the hot afternoon sand of someplace else. With Lena out of the picture, Steven returned his attention to the enemy assault. Frustrated by their failure at range, the eight dark archers dropped their bows and drew short axes fashioned of wood and steel. In spite of everything Steven had already seen, their bloodcurdling cries as they charged his line shook him to his collective core.

  “Emilio.” Steven’s voice took on a renewed urgency as the wave of oncoming Blackfoot
warriors broke on his wall of White Pawns. “Your turn.”

  “Got it. Just one question. What do we do with this?” Vago, still half-conscious and draped across Emilio’s shoulders, appeared to be in no shape to even stand, much less fight.

  “I guess we’ll have to bring him along.” Steven said. “Head for the door and we’ll sort it out on the other side.”

  “Better idea,” Vago said as he slid from Emilio’s grasp. “Why don’t we sort it out now?” Far less injured than he had led them to believe, he maneuvered his muscular arm around the boy’s neck and squeezed. “Shoe’s on the other foot now, ain’t it, Little Traviezo?” Vago positioned Emilio between himself and Steven, the boy’s struggling form an effective human shield. “And don’t get any ideas, Steven, or whatever it is you freaks call yourselves.” Vago slipped a five-inch blade from his boot and held it to Emilio’s throat.

  “Way I see it, these guys want the kid dead, and I got no problem with that. So either back off and tell your bag of tricks there to get me the hell out of here, or I’ll hand him over.” He pulled the blade in tight to Emilio’s neck and drew a thin trail of blood below his left jawbone.

  “All right,” Steven said. “Don’t hurt him. We can talk about this…” Steven’s voice trailed off as a troubling realization hit him like a battering ram. Though her octet of Pawns continued their efforts to penetrate Steven’s line, the Black Queen had somehow faded into the background and was nowhere in sight. His father’s words echoed in his head.

  The pawns are there to defend and distract, Steven. Don’t forget the little guys. They can kill you like the rest, but always keep an eye on your opponent’s heavy artillery. That’s where the money is.