by Wayne Santos
This time they were ready. Teek had properly cloaked both of them so they would be undetectable to the mortal drivers around them. Maria was in awe of his speed; now that she had a frame of reference, rather than the vast, endless plains of the imagination, she realized the Tikbalang could really move. The cars they were dodging between were going at about 120 kph—until they suspected police might be nearby, in which case they usually dropped back to 100—but none of that mattered to Teek. He blew past them all, his hooves echoing, switching lanes and watching them fall behind him.
“Fuck you, Special Week, and the pretty derby you ran in on,” he said as he ate up the distance between themselves and Aurelio.
“What?”
“Nothing. Working some things out,” Teek said.
Maria just held on tighter, which Teek didn’t even seem to notice. Now, racing these cars in the real world, he really seemed to be enjoying himself, and she wondered if this was something else he was working out. Now that she thought about it, his relationship to the real world was… ambivalent. She would need to probe this further.
But the important thing was the guy in the awful car, with the awful music that was rapidly coming into earshot.
“Get beside him,” Maria said.
“Oh, fuck, are you going to do what I think you’re going to do?”
“If you think it involves jumping, then yeah.”
He held up a hand, and she high-fived it. “This is like my favorite day ever,” he shouted, “I’m going to mark it in my calendar, and we’re gonna celebrate it every year and call it Bad Ass Day because we’re so fucking badass right now…”
“Just get us close, save the badassery for later.”
“Fuck that, it’s badassery on endless repeat with us today.”
But he closed the gap between themselves and Aurelio in his self-mutilated Tesla. There was no way Aurelio could hear them, the electronic dance music swallowing up everything in bass ensured that. But had he retained enough of his divinely-augmented senses to see them, even with Teek cloaking?
Apparently, he did.
Maria caught just the briefest glimpse of Aurelio, in his car, checking his rearview mirror, and saw his eyes widen and his pupils shrink like his fentanyl had finally kicked in. The car careered to the left, and would have caused a collision right there on the 401 if the other driver hadn’t seen him, and also swerved.
That driver, however, was not so lucky.
The screech of tires and rending metal followed as the domino effect kicked in and more vehicles collided, while Aurelio sped on. This would only get worse if Aurelio wasn’t stopped. Maria had to end this now; there was no telling if or how Mateo would join the party.
Aurelio accelerated, but it really didn’t seem to be doing any good against Teek, who showed a need for speed like nothing Maria had seen. He pounded the road, faster and faster, until Maria could make out the license plate on Aurelio’s car, URP00R which he had always claimed was ‘ironic,’ and made Maria doubt he actually knew what the word meant.
But she knew what ‘high-speed chase’ meant, and that’s what was happening now.
“Make it count,” Teek said, somehow putting on a burst of speed.
Maria readied herself—as much as she could, having never jumped from a horse, one-handed, holding a magic sword, onto a car that was going to try and knock her out of the air at the first opportunity.
She made the jump in silent, totally focused concentration. But her brain was a long, unending litany of Oh fuuuuuck…
The car swerved away from her, and she responded with instant, divine instinct, growing to her full size and thrusting her magic sword that stabbed right through the roof of the car and into the rear seats. Aurelio screamed and swerved, bumping into a car in the other lane.
Maria landed on the car, gripping the sword, legs swinging in the air, Aurelio lurching at the wheel, trying to regain control.
I’m a goddess. Goddesses are tough. Okay, maybe not a goddess, but supernatural anyway, supernatural things are tough, I just jumped from a running demon horse onto a moving car, I can do this…
And she did it by wrenching her now considerable bodyweight to the side, forcing the car off the road as they passed over the Humber River and Pine Point Park.
It hit the barrier, flipped, and tumbled down, and it was only as the ground came rushing up that it occurred to Maria that even if she could survive a car crashing off a freeway, that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to hurt.
And oh, shit, did it ever.
Her body remembered what it was like to be hit by a car. Being hit by a car and the ground was worse. Metal wrapped around her, bending, yielding to her rib cage and limbs, but she remained intact. Her bones were up to the challenge, even if her nervous system wasn’t; her body screamed as the metal fragmented and scraped her, bloodied her, but did not break her. Her breath was almost knocked out of her as her back smacked against the ground, but she was still in one piece.
Aurelio was similarly fortunate.
She lay just a few meters away from the car, which now lay on its side, its roof facing her. She no longer had the sword, but she could see it, still embedded in the roof, glowing furiously. She climbed to her feet and pulled it out, looked down and saw that Aurelio had had the presence of mind to put on his seatbelt. The airbags had done their duty and spared him some of the impact.
She heard Teek behind her, holding her up, checking her for damage. He really did care. She was going to remember this.
“You just took a car with a ratfuck son of a bitch in it right off a major highway with a sword,” he said. “You are my best friend for an entire month.”
She ripped the sword out and stuck it back in, tearing the roof off like a can opener.
“Make that two months,” Teek said. “You know we don’t have a lot of time, right? People are going to be phoning this in.”
“I don’t need much time,” Maria said. She tore off the roof, revealing Aurelio, carefully packed away like an expensive hi-fi component. She cut through the seat belt, and a little bit of Aurelio as well, and then reached in to toss him onto the ground.
He rolled to a stop, screaming. Even with dirt on him, and a little blood, he just looked intense and attractive; how the hell did he do that?
That still did not stop her from advancing on him, swinging the sword a couple of times to get a feel for it and hear it cutting the wind with its own smooth note.
When she met Aurelio’s eyes, she saw fear there, perhaps even knowledge of an imminent end, but she saw no confusion. He knew exactly why she was doing this, he understood it perfectly.
“How are you doing this…?” he asked breathlessly, holding a hand up to fend her off.
“I got tired of being the victim,” she said. “Then realized I just had to stop acting like one.”
“You’re not a victim!” he insisted. “You’re just mine. That’s the only thing I ever want—”
“Putang ina mo!” The word had come from the mouths of her parents more times than she could count as a child when they were arguing. It reverberated through her memory as something she had spit at Aurelio and Mateo over the centuries. But this was the first time she’d really leaned into the word, slapped someone in the face with it.
She heard metal twisting behind her. “Look what I found,” Teek said.
She turned back to see another sword in his hand. Aurelio had evidently packed it in the trunk.
She had to make this count.
She swung the sword in a wide, fast arc, tearing right across Aurelio’s back as he tried to roll out of the way. Maria followed with another slice at one of his legs, whipping through his hamstring muscles.
He seemed to know he was beaten. He turned over and looked at her. This was different from Mateo. Here there was genuine sorrow. She couldn’t believe that Mateo wanted her, at least not now. But Aurelio… in his eyes, she could see the same sad, defeated expression when one of their proposed game pitches was
shot down by upper management in France. He really was sad this was coming to an end.
“All you had to do was let me be,” Maria said. “None of this—and I mean none of it—would have carried on for so long if you’d just given a shit about what I think. How I feel about all this.”
“But I did,” Aurelio said. “I cared. I just didn’t accept it, and I tried again. Isn’t that love? That’s what love is all about. Don’t give up. I never gave up on you. Every time you said no, I tried you in another life. That’s how much I love you.”
“But I didn’t feel the same way. You just drove home how fucked up that is. When I was a kid, I thought it would be so amazing if two hot guys loved me enough to take their shirts off all the time and break into my room and watch me sleep.”
“I did do that. I even took my shirt off when I did it.”
She could feel her eyes trying to escape from her sockets. “You know, nothing that sounds romantic actually is, when you think about it happening in real life.”
She thrust the sword out and stabbed Aurelio in the arm. He cried out with the pain, and looked at her sadly. “So this is how it ends? You killed Mateo, now you kill me?”
“There are other ways for this end.”
He shook his head. “There are only two ways. You become mine, or I become worm food. There is no love that is bigger than the love I have for you, and only something bigger could make any kind of difference here today.”
“Funny. I was thinking the exact same thing,” she said, and she stabbed him again, this time in the leg. She knew she was taking a gamble here. He still had some magic in him; she hoped it would be enough to keep him alive, maybe even heal him. If she killed him too soon, she’d have to do it herself. She moved on to his other arm and his leg, with shallow slashes, enough to draw blood but not damage any major organs. Muscles she couldn’t be too sure about.
“Are you just trying to stretch this out? Make me suffer?”
“Something like that,” she said. “It’s fair to say that I’m not interested in letting you get what you want. But I’m trying to give you something you need.”
“Well, shit, you’re getting a lot more than that,” Teek said behind her.
She allowed herself a glance at Teek.
Mateo hurtled off the freeway.
She didn’t know whether he was using some other magical means, or just what was left of the power from Hiraya, but he was here now, with a fear on his face she hadn’t seen at all in his apartment when they were trying to kill him.
Now. It had to be now, and it had to be fast.
Please let me not fuck this up…
She took another swing, this time at Aurelio’s stomach. He cried out, enough that it shook Maria, and the sword dug deeper than she’d intended.
Behind her, Mateo screamed, all fear and fury all at the same time. She imagined him with his hand stretched out, as if that would make a difference, as if it would stop what was happening, but it wouldn’t. Only one thing would now.
She brought the sword back, held it high. “Now, you get what you need,” Maria said.
She lunged forward, sword aiming for Aurelio’s chest.
It never got that far. Mateo was there, taking the hit. The sword sunk into the meat of his side, but instead of screaming, he grunted, quietly; as if, somehow, he was grimly pleased by it.
“Mateo!” Aurelio screamed.
Maria pulled out the sword and Mateo slumped against Aurelio, who grabbed his shoulders and held on.
Mateo raised his hand. “Not him.”
“That’s not up to you,” Maria replied. She thrust again, and Mateo moved once more to take the hit. It sank deep into his shoulder.
“Mateo!” Aurelio screamed again.
“No more. You win. You win. You’ve taken our power, we can’t hurt you anymore. We won’t fight you anymore. If you’re worried we’ll come back, we won’t. I give you my word.”
“How can I trust your word?”
“Because I give you my life too,” he said, gasping. “You can take mine, kill me. Just spare him. Let Aurelio live. Anything you want as long as he lives, that’s all I ask.”
“What, why are you…” croaked Aurelio. “Mateo…”
Mateo turned and looked at him. “We can’t come back from this. You know we can’t. She’s taken it all away somehow. I don’t know what she did, but she did it. This is how much she doesn’t want to belong to you, to either of us. This is how far she was willing to go. I don’t want anyone who has this much spite in their heart.”
“You haven’t wanted anyone else for a long time,” Maria said. She withdrew the sword.
He grunted. “I just hope you’ll do one thing in time,” Mateo said, fixing his eye on Maria. “Of your own free will, give Aurelio a chance. Think about going to him. Being with him. It doesn’t matter if I’m gone. Just… just be his. If only for a little while.”
Aurelio stared, open-mouthed. “Mateo… why? Why would you say such a thing?”
He shrugged, a lock of hair falling over his eye. “I just want you to be happy. That’s all.”
Teek walked over quietly and leaned in, whispering, “We’re not going to kill them?”
Maria shook her head. “I think we’ve got a better way.” She kneeled down, so she was facing the Spaniards as they rested against each other, bloodied, damaged, staring at the other as if for the first time. “Aurelio. I want you to think about something.”
Aurelio turned to look to her.
Maria drove the sword into the ground and resumed her mortal form, feeling small and vulnerable again, but ultimately safer. More in control. “Four. Hundred. Years. Over four hundred, really. You’ve have chased me across lifetimes. Always wanting me because you thought you knew me, thought you loved me. But every time I ran. I fought. I cursed you, I hated you, I tried to kill you. Then I forgot you. Four hundred years you’ve been chasing a suspicion in your heart.
“But for four hundred years, there’s someone you’ve known. Someone who hasn’t changed selves and personalities every lifetime the way I did every time I ran from you. Someone who was there for you. With you. Knew you, worked with you, understood you. Grew and changed with you. Stood by you through wars, through collapsing empires, your lowest moments, your best ones. Four hundred years, someone has always been by your side, never wavering when you chased your dream. Someone who knows you better than anyone else in the entire world, understands who you are in a way no one else ever could. Someone who never gave up, just like you. Even when he knew what it might cost him. Because the only thing that mattered was that you were whole. Happy. Someone else was willing to make that sacrifice. Over centuries. For you. That wasn’t me. Ever.” She nodded at Mateo. “That was him.”
Mateo and Aurelio looked at each other.
“Is that big enough for you?” Maria asked.
Teek’s eyes widened. Maria could very nearly see the light bulb appear over his head. “Holy fucking shit. You mean these two…”
“You need to be quiet now, Teek,” Maria said. “You’re not the only one that’s just figuring some shit out at the moment.” She stood up and called on her divine form. Aurelio and Mateo shrank before her. “Don’t think about what you’ve heard. Those are just words. Think about what you’ve seen. What people have done. That should tell you everything you need to know to figure out what to do next.” She held out her hand, looking at Teek and the sword he held. He handed it over. “And if it’s all the same to you, you can do it without these.”
She held both swords in her hands and exerted some of her strength until they both broke in half. She handed the broken pieces back to Teek. She hoped this was the start of something new, but they didn’t need the encouragement that even fragments of a magical weapon might provide.
“I think we’re done here,” she said. “Mateo, I’m not renewing my membership at the gym. You understand. Aurelio…”
He looked up at her with the most complicated, confused expression
she’d ever seen on his face during the entire time they’d worked together.
“I hope you understand some things better. Also, I quit. I’m not giving you thirty days’ notice, either.” She turned and walked away. “Come on, Teek. I think these two need some time.”
Teek followed, waiting until they got a discreet distance before speaking. “That was… kinda classy, actually.”
“Not really. Just pragmatic,” she said. Then the sirens warbled in the distance. “Also, with us gone, they’ll have to explain and pay for all that shit.”
Teek giggled. “I knew there was a catch.”
“Let’s get out of here. It’s over.”
And holy shit. Maybe, just maybe, it really was.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
MARIA MALIHAN LOVED a good parade. And when summer came to the city of Toronto, the Pride Parade in June was one of the biggest, loudest and best.
The muscled men and women, the Mounties embracing and kissing, the music, the stage, the sheer joy; all of it just made her happy, and this year, she felt like she could just revel in it. Everyone could be who they were meant to be here. Everyone was okay, and that really hit home.
Tate squeezed her hand. She squeezed back and laughed along with him as someone came along, smiling, screaming, and apropos of nothing, put two Hawaiian style garlands on them.
“I thought you said you wanted a nice, quiet dinner,” Tate said, shouting over the revelry.
“I do. But there’s something I wanted to see first.”
Tate clapped, laughed and pointed. “That?”
On one of the floats stood Teek in all his bulging, muscly glory. He struck various bodybuilder poses, and the entire street roared its approval, never once guessing that the buff dude randomly masked as a horse was actually a demon horse with a fondness for anabolic steroids.
Behind Teek, smiling and acting as one of the grand marshals of the parade, was Margaret Atwood. She beamed when Teek winked and flexed his biceps at her.
Maria cackled. She couldn’t help it. Teek was basically a greased up, equine Adonis up there and he knew it. He realized that Maria was looking at him and waved. She waved back.