All the Pomp of Earthly Majesty

by Michael G. Williams

  The air in the alley was freezing cold, much more so than it was when Iria arrived. They drew their arms across their chest and turned to walk back down the alley to the street. Iria was supposed to meet Madge an hour from now, back in the alley from which they sent Norton into the past, and Iria wasn’t wearing a jacket. They hadn’t expected it to turn cold. Iria wanted to spend a few minutes just walking around, warming themself up.

  “It’s a funny thing, language.” The voice by Iria’s side was deep and round and friendly. At first, it sounded very far away, but it rapidly approached until a man with a big grin and a green sport jacket with gold and silver trim was standing next to Iria, walking by their side. Iria stopped moving. The man carried on speaking. “Are you familiar with the main slur for transgender people in Cantonese? It’s very rude. I’d rather not say it. But the amusing coincidence about it—the ironic thing I like about it despite how unkindly it gets used—is that it translates literally as human demon.”

  Iria drew a shaking breath.

  “I’m Mammon.” The demon held out his hand. “At least, that’s what I think you know to call me. You’ve certainly said it enough lately. Kind of got my attention, that.” He continued to grin. “Great job with the Cantonese in there, by the way. I admire someone who knows how to approach the locals on their own terms. You know, going to people where they are rather than just rolling in like they’re where you want them to be. You handled yourself well. It’s a pity I have to kill you. I feel like we could have done some great work together if we could see eye to eye.” He smiled, hands spread apart in a that’s how the cookie crumbles kind of stance. “Of course, if negotiations are still open, I’d be happy to sit down and see if we can hash out a way to get you on my team…”

  Iria, paper sack still in hand, broke into an open run.

  Behind them, Mammon began to laugh.

  The Tenderloin, San Francisco, Tonight

  Madge spoke a word when she registered the muscles in Etta’s face tensing up. Someone who knew they were about to shoot a gun often produced a sort of pre-wince, and Madge focused her energies to see it and react from the moment she walked into the room and found an armed intruder there.

  “Neheh.” The Egyptian felt weirdly breathy as she said it, all those soft syllables trailing off into nothing, but then, it was the word for time, which itself will one day trail off into nothing. Madge stared directly into the burst of fire at the end of the gun’s barrel when she spoke, and the glow from her hands grew several orders of magnitude brighter. It happened too quickly for her to see it unfold, but abruptly there was a red-hot slug floating in the air between them; then another; then another.

  Etta stepped to the side, around the cloud of gun smoke, and blinked when she took in Madge still standing rather than sliding down the wall. The air smelled hot, like a stovetop with the eye left on.

  Madge took advantage of the moment’s hesitation, reaching out and putting her hand around one of the glowing lumps of metal and, at the same moment, reaching forward to put a hand around Etta’s throat.

  Smoke and the sound of sizzling erupted from where Madge grasped the woman’s neck, completing a magical circuit transferring the bullet’s energy, and they both screamed. Madge could only hold the connection for a moment, but it wounded Etta enough to send her reeling backward. She slammed into the wall—one of the three walls covered in posters and portraits of the sorts of people whose energy Madge and Iria wanted to increase in their lives: Marilyn Monroe, Mae Jemison, Marcia P. Johnson, and countless others.

  “Intruder alert!” Madge shouted it, her voice high and strangled, as though an alarm klaxon straight off the set of Star Trek would sound. Instead, a dozen different characters and historical figures leaned out of their portraits and took hold of Etta all over her person: Laura Palmer’s prom portrait grasped Etta’s hair, screaming, while Agent Cooper put his hands on her shoulder, Frankenstein’s monster grappled her ankles, and the ’90s version of Captain Marvel wrapped her arms around Etta’s waist.

  The trespasser screamed in genuine horror, and Madge flew out the door of the room and took off running down the hallway. Her own hand was a little hurt—though not much—by the magical transaction. But then, what do witches do, Madge thought to herself, other than move energy around? Still, she held her burned hand’s wrist in the other hand and scampered down the stairs of their single-room occupancy and out into the street. She had to get to Chinatown, find Iria, make sure they were okay. She needed to move, but she also needed to take a moment to do a little magic. The magic of the portraits in their room reaching out to grab Etta had been built up over a long time: many long rituals spent pouring energy into those images to give them enough life to act when called upon. This, reaching out to touch Iria’s mind with her own, unprepared, a little hurt, literally on the run? That took a sacrifice.

  Madge raced toward the intersection, the 38 bus barreling down Geary Street, and as she approached the crosswalk, she closed her eyes and ran.

  Chinatown, San Francisco, Tonight

  Iria ran harder than in many years, possibly ever. Definitely ever. Their thoughts were strangely calm and collected as they ran, but about things like that: little stuff, the trivia. Their higher brain was occupying itself filling in the spreadsheets around this or that factoid of the current moment and not confronting or calming the rest of them, the part screaming at them to run and to keep running forever.

  They didn’t check behind themself as they ran. Glancing back was an amateur move. Iria had run from a crowd once before and remembered the lessons learned then. That was why they were in San Francisco now, as a matter of fact.

  Ah. The inner busywork has decided to switch over to historical archives instead of calculating whether this will be my fastest mile.

  A moment of foot-pounding panic passed.

  Annnnd now it’s gone meta on me. Great.

  Chinatown could be a crowded place any time, day or night, and that night was no different. Iria dodged and wove and tried not to bang into too many people. Men yelled at them, women gave them judgmental looks and tried to get out of the way. Iria couldn’t help noticing no one else was yelling at the demon running behind them, so they decided Mammon must have disappeared or…turned invisible? Can demons do that?

  Iria stopped at an intersection too busy to race into, catching their breath for just a second.

  The crowd behind them returned to whatever business or pleasure had them out on the street at night, but Iria saw a shuffling, distinctly traceable line through the crowd as people moved subtly this way, or that way, out of the path of the monster moving unseen through their number.

  Of course demons can turn invisible.

  Iria turned back to the intersection and decided to gamble on the kindness of strangers. They dashed out between two cars and held up a hand the way people do when they hail a cab or a ride-share. A taxi screeched to a halt right in front of them, so they patted the hood once as they ran around it and kept going down Grant Avenue. Four blocks ahead, they could see the Dragon’s Gate, the three-portal gray and green gate marking the southern boundary of Chinatown.

  Iria, answer if you can hear me. The “voice” was Madge’s, clear as a bell and at the same time sounding as if it came from very far away. The sound was not as though Madge spoke from over Iria’s shoulder so much as the memory of Madge’s voice from some other occasion.

  Iria tried not to tumble to the ground in surprise, but then, Madge had all the tricks in the world up her more-experienced sleeves. I’m here.

  In the background of the connection, Iria heard the sound of a crash and a blaring horn.

  Iria: What the fuck?

  Madge: I’m fine, just decided to sacrifice a little city property to make this happen.

  Iria didn’t ask. They knew better. This might be their grand experiment, their thesis project if you will, but they would never forget Madge was the one with more magic in her thumb than Iria had ever seen their whole life. />
  There’s an assassin after us. Mammon sent her.

  Iria realized they transmitted the idea of a chuckle as they replied. The big bad himself is here. Trying to chase me back to the Tenderloin. I’m guessing he wants to see where we live.

  He already knows. That’s where the assassin got to me.

  Iria danced around an old woman pushing a cart, two kids on those shoes that have roller-skates hidden inside them, and a loose dog. That was awfully past-tense.

  I got away. But this is not good. We need to meet up. I’m running toward Chinatown.

  They both had the same thought at the same time. No need to even say it aloud. They each knew they each held the same image in their connected minds.

  Do you remember the translation?

  See you there.

  Union Square, Tonight

  Madge pounded up the hill, her lungs screaming, around the corner past Kayo Books—purveyor of antique detective paperbacks and the largest collection of classic smutty dime novels on the West Coast—and back down Post Street past that insanely overpriced breakfast place and the Beresford Arms Hotel. Ahead of her were the high-rise hotels of the city’s shopping district clustered around Union Square and the multi-block department stores lounging beside the Financial District. A Norton reenactor stood in the center of Union Square, parting company from a walking tour he led from there over two or three excellent hours.

  Etta was a block away but hot on her heels. Madge guessed it had taken her only a fraction of a minute to pull free of the paper golems holding her against the wall. Etta was smart enough not to take any shots at Madge out in the open, but Madge had no delusions regarding what would happen if Etta caught up, or if she forced a public confrontation. Someone—something—as rich as Mammon could afford to buy its assassin a new identity if she had to do her dirty work in the middle of a place like Union Square. Madge wasn’t in any less danger, necessarily, running down a city street, but she felt sure this delayed the climax of that danger. She hoped that delay would be enough.

  Madge turned the corner at Grant and there, just a couple of blocks away, stood the Dragon’s Gate: the entrance to Chinatown. It had one big gap in the middle for vehicle traffic and two smaller openings, one on either side, for foot traffic.

  A block or two uphill from it, in Chinatown itself, Madge could see Iria running toward her, flushed, gasping for breath, desperate but still on their feet and moving.

  The teacher and student closed the four-block gap between them to two blocks.

  A big man in a green sport jacket came into view behind Iria, a grin on his face, his oiled hair slicked back and perfectly styled. Something about his demeanor suggested he was able to stride casually and run full speed at the same time.

  Madge heard Etta around the corner behind her. Madge spared just a glance to confirm: the woman was covered in her own blood where it ran from the wicked burn around her throat, but she continued to give chase anyway.

  The two-block gap closed to a half block on either side of the gate. Madge and Iria gave up the sidewalks and began running down the middle of the street, horns blaring, someone shouting, the lights and crosswalks and rules and conventions be damned.

  They closed to twenty yards.

  Then to ten yards.

  Iria veered to their left. Madge veered to her own left. Madge tried to focus her intention in her mind: get rid of that monster.

  They each reached opposite outside corners of the gate at the same time and cried out in unison the English version of the inscription inscribed on the gate overhead, “All under Heaven is for the good of the people!”

  The Chinese characters over the main gate flashed black-blue for a moment, a bolt of lightning in photographic negative, and the gate boomed like a cannon. A wave of magic shot in both directions at once: one blue wave of energy firing past Etta, and one firing past Mammon.

  Madge had the distinct satisfaction of seeing surprise in the demon’s eyes.

  An instant later, neither of them were there. Nothing else had been harmed, but everyone had seen a light show.

  Madge turned and looked behind her. The street behind her, adjacent to Chinatown, was lightly populated by flowing cars. The city skyline—the towers south of Market, the financial buildings to its east, the Transamerica Pyramid—was…gone.

  The Bay Bridge was missing.

  A ferry’s horn sounded from the Embarcadero.

  Madge heard a faint popping and ringing sound as all the metal anywhere on the Chinatown gate—brackets, characters, ornaments, everything—began to cool in the night air.

  Iria was nowhere to be seen.

  “Well, well,” Madge heard from behind her. She turned to whoever had spoken. Chinatown glowed with paper lanterns. Standing in the street behind her was Mammon, dressed in green and gold and silver, as always, but he appeared surprised to see her. “You certainly seem to have come from somewhere a long way off.”

  A parallel Chinatown, Tonight

  Iria turned and looked back through the gate. “Hi, honey,” they said, but they stopped short. Madge was nowhere to be seen.

  They spun around. The low buildings of Chinatown were gone, replaced with one skyscraper after another. Occasionally apartment blocks would huddle against the towers’ bases. Iria turned and took in the rest of the city skyline and found it crowded with massive buildings, each more intimidating than the next: huge, sleek, emotionless blades of glass and metal stabbing at the sky while the fog rolled in between their toes.

  Iria dashed to a corner to get out of the street only to realize there was no corner—was, in fact, no street. There was a footpath instead, one paved and covered in planters and markings for a bike lane. A guy they would have pigeonholed as a finance bro shot past on a bicycle that looked like it cost five figures. The cyclist braked to a sudden stop in front of a retail establishment at street level in one of the apartment towers. A window in the sign read, “SALE! Bananas, $10/lb! SALE!”

  “Well, well,” Iria heard behind them. They turned. Standing in the footpath was Mammon, dressed as before in green and gold and silver. He tapped his lower lip with one finger. “You certainly seem to have come from somewhere a long way off.”

  Chinatown, San Francisco, 1912

  Donaldina Cameron quirked up an eyebrow at Norton’s offer to stay with the boo how doy until the police would arrive. “The police will not come,” she said. “They are quite occupied raiding the brothel that employs him.”

  Norton scratched at his beard. “I have a friend among the police,” he said. “An Officer—wait, what year is it?”

  Eva Marie and Theodora looked to Donaldina for direction. The older woman’s features softened a bit. She shuffled the neatly stacked papers on the tidy desk of her mind and filed him away with madmen and other pitiables. Donaldina sympathized with his plight, but she had a very specific mission of charity and justice in the world and it did not include mad old men at loose in the streets. “It is 1912, sir, and I require none of your help whatsoever. I bid you a good evening. My charges and I have a child to rescue and must be about it.”

  Eva Marie halfway crossed herself before Donaldina gave her a remember you work for Protestants now glance and the girl lowered her hand as quickly as if it had been slapped.

  “Filthy hatchet man,” Theodora growled at the boo how doy, then she spat at him.

  The three of them turned and marched—there was no other word for it—away from Norton. Donaldina gestured with one elbow and then the other. “Our quarry has doubtless gone to ground in the first bolt hole she could find. We need to search the—”

  A gravelly voice cleared its throat directly behind her. “Excuse me,” Norton spoke clearly despite the effort to catch up. “Did you call him a ‘hatchet man’?”

  Donaldina did not so much as slow her stride, and thus neither did her assistants. She gestured at one alleyway. “Theodora, search down there. It’s a dead end, and the Tongs believe it haunted by the spirits of several boo ho
w doy who were killed there last year. A girl wishing to hide from anyone not of the Tongs might run to there in hopes those spirits would protect her.”

  “It’s just that, well, you see, I am rather in need of a hatchet.” Norton kept up with the women despite their longer legs and purposeful stride. “I checked just now, and that man does not seem to have one.”

  “Eva Marie, we shall check the main alleyway for any open windows a girl might reach, whether from the ground or any ladders or boxes we might see. Such as that one.” Donaldina nodded at a ladder on the ground. It was small and shabby and at least two of its steps were broken as though someone put too much weight on them and they splintered. It had probably gotten old, weakened by time and elements, but Donaldina could easily believe the girl would be able to scamper up it and into an opening.

  “Do you by any chance know a reliable way to summon the attention of such a hatchet man? Or where his hatchet might be?” Norton the First bobbed along behind them like a buoy in their wake. “I suspect any hatchet would do, but one wielded in recent violence might have more, well, I’m not sure exactly how to phrase the matter. It might have more potency? Yes, that seems adequate. I think that carries the spirit of it, anyway.”