Bedlam Boyz

by Mercedes Lackey

  Carlos laughed and swatted cheerfully at Manuel. They walked together to the waiting car, Carlos’ customized old Chevrolet. At least the policía didn’t take my car, he thought. That would’ve been much worse than spending a night in a jail cell next to a madman.

  Ramon was seated at the wheel, and he smiled and nodded respectfully to his eldest brother as Carlos slid into the seat behind him. “Mother will be glad to see you home,” Ramon said by way of greeting. “She was very sad to hear that you’d been arrested again.”

  “Mama is saying that county jail is like your home away from home, Carlos,” Manuel joked.

  “Heh, they haven’t arrested me for at least a year!”

  “Until last night,” Ramon observed from the front seat.

  “Ramon doesn’t mind, since he could make time with Roberta at the party last night.” Manuel smiled, then his smile faded at the cold look Carlos gave to Ramon.

  “Is this true?”

  The young man shook his head. “Roberta is your girl, Carlos, and everyone knows that. Maybe someday I’ll meet a girl that I like, someone who isn’t already in love with my handsome oldest brother.” He grinned. “Maybe she won’t even like you! Wouldn’t that be a wonderful joke!”

  “Heh.” Carlos sat back in the seat, glancing out the window at the city. Ramon was driving carefully, even sedately, probably not wanting any more trouble than they’d already had. Soon they’d be on the 101 Freeway and out of Hollywood, which was good. He would never have admitted it to his brothers, but he had been afraid after being arrested in Hollywood. Outside of Van Nuys and the San Fernando Valley, and away from his own barrio, any other city gang boy could’ve tried to make points by cutting or killing him. That would’ve started a war, which he didn’t want at this point—everything was going too well for his homeboys, and he didn’t want anything that could cause trouble now. Especially not now, with what he’d heard from the madman in the jail.

  “I have some work for you, Manuel,” he said. “There is a young girl I want to find. I only saw her for a few moments, and I don’t know where she lives… .”

  “Isn’t Roberta enough for you, Carlos?” Manuel asked. “How many other women do you need?”

  Carlos considered hitting his brother, then decided against it. Manuel would always be a joker, no matter how many times Carlos bruised his fists against him. “This girl is different, Manny. She was at the jail and is staying with a black woman who might be a policewoman. The girl’s first name is Kayla, I don’t know her family name. The black woman’s name is Elizabet Winters. You will find out where she lives today.”

  “What, today?” Manuel’s voice held surprise and a hint of laughter. “You’ll give me one day to find this girl in the entire city of Los Angeles? That’s very generous of you, brother!”

  “Why do you want this girl so much?” Ramon wanted to know.

  Carlos thought about it for a moment, then decided to tell them. They were his brothers, after all, and there was no one in the world he could trust more than them. “She may be a bruja, a witch,” he said at last. “At least, that is what a crazy man in jail told me. If we find her, I will be able to know for certain.” He smiled. “If she is a witch, she could be useful to me. To the homeboys. We’ve had trouble with those bastardos from the city, trying to take over the drug selling near our barrio. With a bruja, maybe they would be more afraid of us.”

  “I think Carlos just wants another woman, a girl who is a bruja in bed,” Manuel said. “I can’t wait to tell Roberta that she isn’t enough for him anymore!”

  “Carlos, what if this girl doesn’t want you?” Ramon asked.

  “What do you mean?“Carlos said, surprised by the question. “She’ll come with us, whether she wants to or not. She’s just a girl.”

  “But that’s—”

  “That’s what? Survival, that’s what it is! Ramie, it’s us against them, our family against the T-Men, the bastardos that would ruin our business. You know that!”

  Ramon glanced at him. “Carlos, I don’t like this. You know I’ve never liked what we’re doing, but this is even worse. It’s changing you, changing all of us, making us into … into something I don’t like.”

  “So, what else are you going to do?” Carlos asked. “The money’s good, I know you like that. Are you going to work at McDonald’s for a handful of dollars a day?”

  Ramon shook his head, his eyes on the traffic ahead of them. “I … I talked to Luisa this morning. She says they might have work for me at the store. I could do that during the day, go back to school at night… .”

  “Heh, you couldn’t even finish high school!” Carlos laughed.

  “I couldn’t, because you made me quit! You made me quit and help you sell drugs!” Ramon said angrily.

  Carlos glanced at Manuel, who was being very quiet in the seat next to him. He leaned forward, speaking quietly to Ramon. “Ramie, Ramie, I need you. We’ve built a business, but I can’t hold it all alone. Not with those bastardos from downtown trying to cut into our territory. Do you forget, Rey’s in the hospital because of them? They want our territory, and who knows what they might try next? No, you can’t go back to school now, I need you too much. Our family needs you too much.”

  “But you know, I want more than this… . I want to finish high school, become a lawyer… .”

  “A laywer, that’s good!” Manuel laughed. “Then you can keep Carlos out of jail when they arrest him for selling rock!”

  Carlos gave him a dirty look, then turned back to Ramon. “We’ll go find this bruja, Ramie. If she’s real, if she can do what that crazy man said, then she’ll make the difference for us. Then you can do whatever you want, Ramie. You can go back to school, become a lawyer, do anything.”

  Ramon didn’t answer. Carlos thought about saying something more, trying to find other words to convince his baby brother, then decided against it. Today Ramon was saying that he didn’t want to help, but he wouldn’t walk away from the familia, Carlos knew that. And if Manuel didn’t believe him about the bruja, that was fine, too. When they found the girl, his brothers would change their minds.

  Because he’d seen the magic himself. Oh, he’d heard his mother’s stories of magia and tierra del las hadas, the land of the faerie people, but he’d never believed them.

  Until last night, when he’d seen the sparks of witchlight on the girl’s hands, blue and bright in the harsh light of the jail cell. And the shirt with the bullet hole in it; he’d felt something when he touched it, a strange sensation he couldn’t identify. He knew the crazy man’s story was true, even if no one else believed it, not even the policía.

  He would find the girl, the little bruja. Even in a city as large as Los Angeles, it was only a matter of time before they found her.

  “It’s called magic,” Elizabet said, pouring another cup of tea. “And you have enough for three, child. More than anyone I’ve ever met, to be honest.”

  Kayla yawned again, and glanced at the kitchen clock. Six A.M. I wonder if this lady ever goes to sleep? “I don’t believe in magic,” Kayla said stubbornly. It was the third time she’d said that in the last five minutes, and she wasn’t really certain whether she believed it anymore. Especially after what had happened tonight.

  “You keep saying that, but the evidence is before your eyes. You healed the man in the jail cell … yes, I could tell that just by looking at him,” she said in response to Kayla’s wide-eyed look. “I expect you healed your hurt friend who was mentioned in the police report, though it seems you didn’t do a complete healing on him, since he’s in the hospital right now.”

  “I’m not a healer. I don’t believe in magic,” Kayla repeated, rubbing her eyes.

  :How can you keep saying that, Kayla, when you know it isn’t true?:

  “Stop that!” Kayla shouted, furious. “I hate it when you do that!”

  Elizabet put her hand over her mouth, and a moment later Kayla realized why: she was stifling her laughter.

 
“Don’t laugh at me!” Kayla yelled. “And stop saying things without opening your mouth. It isn’t natural,” she concluded.

  “Who’s to say what’s natural and what isn’t?” Elizabet leaned forward across the table. “I believe everyone has a touch of it, a little magic. But only a very few people ever develop it into anything useful and predictable. And I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

  “I’m nothing special,” Kayla said, looking down at her hands. The same hands that had held that weird light …

  “No. At the moment, I’d call you remarkably dangerous, not special.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “That man in the cell—you could’ve killed him, if you’d wanted to. Did you want to?” Elizabet was looking at her intently.

  Kayla shook her head. “No. If I wanted him to die, I could’ve just let him bleed to death in the store. I just wanted him to let go of me. I don’t … I don’t want to kill anybody. Ever.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Elizabet folded her hands on the table, looking down. To Kayla, she looked suddenly nervous, which was very different from the impression she’d given all evening of a tough, self-confident lady. “I’m not quite certain how to say this, Kayla … but I want you to consider staying here. As my student.”

  “What?” Kayla wasn’t certain she’d heard her correctly.

  “Oh, I’m sure I can find a foster home for you in this area. The local schools are fairly good, and I can arrange tutoring for you in academic subjects, if you need to make up for lost time. But what I’d like to do is teach you about magic. You’re the first person I’ve met that has the potential to learn magic … no, more than just the potential to learn magic. You have the potential to easily surpass me and become someone who could make a major difference in this world, for many people.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. You need to learn how to use this magic. Because it’s not going to go away, not now that you’ve used it once. And until you learn how to control it, your magic is incredibly dangerous, to you and everyone around you. Believe me, it’s true. You have to learn to control the magic, not let the magic control you.” Elizabet looked up at the kitchen clock. “My, look at the time. I forget that not everyone is used to working the night shift. We’ll talk more about this after you’ve slept. I’ll set you up in the guest bedroom.”

  “Okay.” Getting some sleep did sound like a great idea. Maybe all of this would make more sense in the morning … or maybe she’d be lucky and it would all turn out to be an awful dream. That would be great, waking up in Suite 230 next to Billy and Liane; they’d all laugh about her weird dream and then go scrounge some breakfast on the street.

  She was so tired, she didn’t resist when Elizabet tucked her into bed after she’d changed into a granny nightgown that was four sizes too big for her. The bed was warm and soft, much nicer than sleeping on a pile of carpet padding in a drafty office building. She was asleep a few seconds after Elizabet switched off the bedroom light.

  Elizabet Winters walked quietly back to the kitchen and poured herself another cup of tea. This child isn’t quite what I expected in a student, she thought wryly.

  Her grandmother had been her own teacher, after Elizabet had discovered her odd gifts. Gram, who’d been born only a few years before the end of the Civil War, a wrinkled old woman with a talent for making sure that her grandchildren never suffered from any illness for more than a day. One day she’d been ill with the influenza and seen Gram use that magic to help her. From that day onward, she’d learned everything she could from her grandmother.

  After Gram had passed away when Elizabet was twenty years old, she’d continued studying on her own. Reading, researching, trying to learn everything she could. But never revealing her talents, no. Because Gram had warned her about that above all else … that even if she could prove that her abilities were real, it was too dangerous to show them to the world. So she’d studied alone, always hoping to find others who understood.

  And she’d hoped to find a student someday. Elizabet had watched her nieces and nephews closely, looking for any sign of the family gift. Eventually, she’d decided, one of the children would show the talent, and Elizabet would pass on the learning to a student the same way Gram had taught her.

  She’d never dreamed that her student would be a scrawny, underfed, unwashed runaway white girl.

  Well, she could live with it. Everything but the girl’s ethnic background could be cured with good meals, rest, and a thorough scrubbing. And the fact that the child was white wasn’t a problem for her, though Gram would probably have carried on for hours about how her lessons were meant for good, solid people of color, people who knew how to respect an old woman’s African wisdom and would use her teachings in the right way.

  She hoped Kayla would use her teachings “in the right way.” That was the danger. She didn’t know how much of the street life had rubbed into the girl; was she a junkie? a whore? a thief or a dealer? Elizabet would have to find this out, and soon.

  I should get some sleep as well. Tomorrow, I’ll see what I can learn from this girl, before I begin to teach her anything.

  Kayla rolled over in bed, pulling the blankets over her head. It was too bright, too early …

  “I’ve called the hospital. They’ll have visiting hours later this afternoon. Do you want to go see your friend?”

  “Uhn,” Kayla said incoherently from under the blankets, then sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes at the light streaming in through the open window. “I mean, yes, I’d like to go see Billy.” This lady looks like she’s been awake for hours. Doesn’t she ever sleep?

  “I washed your clothes for you. They’re folded over the chair. There’s enough time for you to take a bath, if you’d like.”

  “Thank you.” Kayla climbed out of bed and grabbed the handful of clothing from the chair. She remembered the location of the bathroom from the previous night and smiled at the sight of the large bathtub. That was something she’d missed, living in Suite 230—a chance to really get clean. Scrubbing down while standing next to the sink just didn’t work that great. She found a bottle of nice-smelling herbal shampoo on the tiled counter and a towel that Elizabet had left her, and got to the serious work of removing several weeks of built-up grime.

  Clean clothes were a nice change, too. She combed her hair, struggling with the tangles, and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. This was a Kayla who looked very different, happy and well-rested and clean, no more smudge marks on her face or tangled and dirty hair.

  A couple minutes later, she joined Elizabet in the kitchen. “Breakfast?” the black woman asked, and Kayla nodded politely.

  They ate in silence, until Kayla set down her fork to ask the question that had been bothering her all morning: “How do you do … that speaking thing?” she asked, tapping her forehead.

  Elizabet laughed. “I don’t really know. My Gram could do it, and one day I was able to do it as well. We’ll see if you can learn it, too.”

  “Sure beats using the telephone,” Kayla said around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “Once you get used to it,” she added.

  “You have to be discreet about that kind of thing, though,” Elizabet said. “Gram taught me that, telling me a story about how some folks tried to burn her out of her house in Georgia, back in the thirties. That’s the first thing I’d like to teach you, how to help people without them realizing it. So you can stay out of trouble, child.”

  “I’d—I’d like that,” Kayla said hesitantly, and was rewarded by another of Elizabet’s warm smiles.

  “Well, we’d better start moving,” the woman said, standing up and carrying the dirty plates to the kitchen sink. “We have a lot to do today.”

  She wasn’t kidding about that, as Kayla found out over the next few hours. The first stop was at a shopping mall in West Hollywood, where Elizabet wielded a credit card like a medieval knight with a sword, buying Kay
la a new pair of jeans, several T-shirts and sweatshirts, underwear and socks, and a new pair of high-top sneakers. The new sneakers squeaked on the linoleum floor as they walked through the mall.

  Kayla was uncertain how to react to all of this generosity on Elizabet’s part, but that didn’t stop her from looking wistfully at a pair of silver hoop earrings in one window display. She had the plain steel stud earrings that the lady in the shop had used to pierce her ears last year, but she’d never owned another pair of earrings. Elizabet only laughed, out came the credit card again, and Kayla left the shop with her stud earrings in her pocket and the new silver hoop earrings dangling from her ears.

  Their next stop was Cedars Sinai Hospital, only a few blocks away from the shopping mall. Elizabet parked the convertible in the garage. Kayla followed her into the lobby of the hospital, and stopped just inside the entrance as a wave of dizziness and nausea hit her like a fist. “Elizabet—” she managed to say, as everything whirled around her. The older woman caught her as she nearly stumbled and helped her to a nearby chair.

  “Take a few deep breaths, child,” she said quietly.

  Kayla buried her face in her hands, afraid she was going to faint. Beyond the dizziness, she thought she could hear voices: someone cursing in Spanish as a pain ripped through her, the wail of a newborn baby, a boy screaming as a doctor set his broken arm, the unending pain of an old man breathing through a respirator.

  “I hadn’t thought about this,” Elizabet murmured, chafing Kayla’s hands with her own. “Just keep breathing and try to push all of that away from you—it’s not happening to you, it’s someone else’s life, someone else’s pain.”

  “I think—” Kayla said, gulping for air and wishing she hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast “—I think I’m going to be sick.” She pulled away from Elizabet and ran for the women’s bathroom, which fortunately was only twenty feet away.