Taco Del and the Fabled Tree of Destiny

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  “They gotta run out of food,” says Sweetie. “And when they run out of food, they gotta come out. And when they come out — whammo!” She slams one leather-bound fist into the opposite palm. “We got ‘em.”

  “And when we got them,” asks Dragonboat — she’s from Wharfside, “what do we do with them?”

  “Nuke ‘em,” opines General Nab.

  “Run ‘em out of town in their underwear,” says Sweetie. This has always been her favorite way of punishing miscreants.

  “I don’t want to nuke them,” I interject, “I want to drive them out so they don’t want to come back and their Backers won’t pay to send them. Listen, they’re not all like John Makepeace. Some of them feel kind of guilty about what they’re doing. One of them — a dude named Ty — helped me and Firescape get out of captivity the other night. They don’t want to kill us either.”

  “Hell, no!” sneers Deadend. “They don’t want to kill us, just snatch our kingdom right out from under us. Whether we starve or get lightning shot, we’re still dead.”

  “No, Taco’s right,” says Cinderblock, giving her magic weapon a sharp rap on the floor. “If we kill them, more might come to even the score. We need them to leave here and never want to come back. And we want them to tell everybody back home that the Gam Saan is bad news, your worst nightmare and otherwise unfit for tourism.”

  Sweetie snorts. “Don’t matter to me whether it’s the Grim Reaper, guilt, lack of funding, or sheer humiliation — I just want ‘em gone.”

  “You just wanna pants ‘em,” sniggers Dragonboat.

  I find myself staring at her. She is a traditionally beautiful Chinese girl, sans red hair, but still reminds me powerfully of my Jade. I think, again, for just a moment, about sitting in front of that fireplace in the Farm House with a cat in my lap and Jade in my arms and our baby snoozing peacefully alongside. I sigh.

  “I still say we nuke every last mother’s son of ‘em,” says Nab, clenching his fist around a handful of air.

  “Me too,” agrees Sweetie, and the ruby in her eye patch glitters like a drop of blood. “I say if none of ‘em makes it home, the legends about the Lost Cities will grow, and that will keep their kith and kin from pokin' their alien noses into our turf.”

  “And I say,” says a voice from the dark beyond the Pit, “it’ll crank their kith and kin up for some serious revenge.”

  My wife steps out of the shadows with Hismajesty at her side.

  “Merlin Taco and the Colonel are right. We get them out of here with as much finesse and as little loss of blood as we can.”

  My heart leaps to see her, then falls flat on its keester, ‘cause I know she’s gonna want to lead her knighties into battle.

  Cinderblock’s face is as screwed up as mine by this realization. We exchange worries in a glance.

  Firescape and her cohorts waste no time. It seems only minutes before they begin to settle on strategies that they will begin to implement as soon as weather allows. Me, I mouse out and pray that the fog holds until I can produce a miracle.

  In the midst of the war council, a wiry little knightie in Richmond yellow comes streaking into the throne room to hold a harried whisperfest with Firescape and Cinderblock. Next thing I know, they’re all three in my face.

  “Somethin’s afoot, Del,” says Firescape. “Hear this report.” She nods at the wiry little knightie, who unloads the tale.

  “There’s fighting going on inside the alien camps.”

  “Inside?”

  I imagine a coup perpetrated by Ty against his leader. It takes a lot of imagining.

  “I been attached to the unit at the Mission Dolores,” the knightie, Bustop by name, goes on. “It’s quiet as a graveyard in there, then, all of sudden, there’s shouting and shooting and general panic and all these big lights come on. It’s like as if they’re lookin' for something. Of course, we can’t get a good gander inside, ni dong, ‘cause those damn sirens’ll go off.”

  I can only boggle. I try to think, but nothing comes. I look at Doug. He rustles and trembles. Uh-oh. I know that look. Somethin' is afoot.

  “Is Hoot back yet?” I ask.

  Cinderblock roughs up her wild crop of hair and grimaces. “No, and I think your buddy Lou’s gone off after him.”

  “You think it’s them raising this ruckus?” Firescape asks.

  “Hell, I hope not!” says Cinderblock. “Damn gonzo, jingbing half-wit!”

  I appreciate for a moment that true love can happen anywhere at anytime to anyone, then make a command decision.

  “I’m gonna do some personal recon. Maybe I can magic up some answers.”

  I turn to my wife, trying to think of a way I can talk her out of going with me.

  Cinderblock is one step ahead of me. “General Firescape, we gotta get back to the war council, finish our tactical stuff.”

  She glances from me to Cinderblock, then at the Pit where Hismajesty is pacing in circles. Then she kisses me with enough heat to make my jeans tighten up and says, “Take Bustop with you.” Then she turns to go.

  “Wait,” I say. “I gotta know — are you planning on leading the raids?”

  “Hell no,” she snorts. “I can’t brace my AK against this.” She pats the growing Flannigan and winks at me. Then she and her Colonel go back to Our Twitchy Majesty.

  oOo

  At the Mission, Bustop and I are far from enlightened. From outside, we can’t see squiddle, just a huge patch of bright fog from which come occasional spatters of laser fire. Bustop wasn’t jinkin' — the aliens got every light in the place turned on.

  We go inside. But the view from our rabbit hole isn’t any better. In the hour we lie among the crumbling statues of the garden, all we see is the occasional random shadow, stretched, spider-like, in the fog.

  It is as we wriggle back toward the hole that something happens. A sound we’ve been hearing without hearing just stops and all the lights go out. There is a moment of gaping, dark silence, then all hell cuts loose. There is yelling, gunfire and general panic, much as described by Bustop in her report. The weird wu is sliced to ribbons by alien power torches, but I doubt the aliens can see whatever it is they’re shooting at.

  The shouting gets louder and louder, but eventually, one voice wins out.

  “Hold-your-fire!” roars John Makepeace. Sounds like he got a bull-horn or something.

  There is another sudden, dark quiet, and then some lights come on. From the way they spear the fog, I know they gotta be winnebago headlamps. Huh. Those aren’t gonna last long.

  “The generator cut out,” I whisper to Bustop. “It’s gotta be Hoot.”

  She shakes her head, something I can barely see even though she’s hunkered down right next to me. “Why would this jingbing jake decide to take out the aliens single-handed? That’s loco.”

  “It’s also muy Hoot-like. Besides, I suspect he’s double-handed. I think Creepy Lou’s with him.”

  Bustop whispers a raspberry. “Like that’d be a help.”

  “Yeah, it would be,” I defend Lou. “Lou may be a little gooey between the ears, but he’s got this...special sense. I don’t know what it is, but it’s pretty neon. If I got to go into a bad place alone, Lou’s one dude I’d surely take with me.”

  “2 there?” someone yells and a bolt of laser fire screams over our heads.

  We are, understandably, outta there — behind the cedar bough, under the statue, into the ground. I hear the gallop of alien feet as I slither into the earth. We don’t stop to catch our breath until we’re safely out in the street. Behind us, a flurry of power lights whip through the fog over the garden.

  “If they find that hole,” says Bustop, “they’re gonna fill it in and your buddies are gonna be trapped.”

  “Then pray they don’t find it,” I say.

  The words are barely out of my mouth when the flurry of power lights gets really wild and gunfire rips loose again.

  “What the hell is going on in there?” asks Bustop. “What c
ould your buds be doing that’d get the aliens so riled up?”

  “Don’t’ know,” I answer. “But we’re not going to find out here. Let’s report back.”

  oOo

  The fog does not lift by morning. The military types move their troops around, working them closer to the alien camps. When they get close enough to hear the outbreaks of weirdness, they settle down to wait some more.

  If they wait forever, there won’t be enough of them. Nab and Sweetie agitate to lay siege, pick off anybody who comes out. I hope cooler heads will prevail until I can figure out what it is Hoot is doing and what I can do to help him out. I can’t shake the awful feeling that he might’ve gotten himself and Lou trapped inside the Mission.

  In fact, I’ve about settled on this theory when there come confirmed reports that the same weirdness is going on inside the other alien camps, too. This makes me suspect that maybe Hoot was able to raise some Potreran recruits after all. It also makes me worry about casualties. Just like Hoot not to coordinate efforts. Damn jingbing buckaroo.

  Eventually, the waiting gets to me and I head up to the rabbit hole once again. The street end looks the same as always, so I don’t think twice about slipping on down. I think three times, but in the end, I do it anyway.

  I’m just at the part where the tunnel starts to slope up into the garden when my foglite, which I got clenched in my teeth, picks up the first piles of dirt and rock. Four feet later, I realize I’m gonna have to back all the way out. John Makepeace has found the hole and filled it up.

  Backing up on the flattest part isn’t so bad, but when the slope gets steeper, it’s really tough. I try not to think about where I am; I tell myself I can smell fresh air, that I’m really close to the surface, that any second now, my feet are gonna be swinging free.

  Then they are. I almost cry out in relief. That’s when something grabs my ankles and hauls me out of the ground like a ripe carrot.

  When I’m right-side up again, I find myself staring into the muzzle of an alien laser rifle.

  Twenty-fifth: History

  We don’t go in through the main gate. We go in through a little gate in the side wall. The moment we step inside the place, I get how weird things are. Above the Mission is a patch of wu luz that filters the sunlight just enough to give everything in the place this kind of angel glow. It’s like being in the eye of a storm. I didn’t know fog had eyes.

  Faces peer out at us from winnebago windows. The guys I’m with seem real edgy, too, eyes going every-which-way. It’s clear there’s no work going on in here.

  We’re almost to John Makepeace’s personal winnebago when a silky banner of mist drifts across our path and the guy next to me slices through it with his laser pistol and a wild shriek.

  Weird.

  John Makepeace himself slams open the door of his winnebago, reaches down with both hands and hauls me up the stairs by my collar. He flings me so hard across the little room, I flip over the table and into the bench seat on the other side. It’s not a smooth landing, ‘cause my hands are tied behind my back.

  Next thing I know, I’m right-side up again and looking hard into John M’s face, which at this moment is almost as red as his beard.

  “All right, you conniving little bastard. Call off your dogs or, I swear, we’ll drop every one of them.”

  “My dogs?” I repeat, wondering if John and I are on the same planet.

  “You heard me. Tell them to cut the crap or — “

  “I don’t get it, John. I don’t have any dogs. “

  “You know what I’m talking about, you little cheese ball.” John’s face is getting redder by the second. “The spooks, the haunts. You remember them: first you pretended not to know about them, then you decided they were the Minions of Darkness. Well, I think it’s pretty clear whose minions they are. And I’ve never heard of ghosts that tinkered with machinery. Now, I’m going to take you out there — “ He nods toward the door. “ — and I want you to tell your buddies two things: one, they stop this harassment of my crews right now, or they’re going to end up with their sheets full of holes, and two, they give back the components they took out of the satellite dish.”

  I blink and try to look muy innocent. “You mean, it’s broken?”

  “You’re damn right it’s broken.”

  “Then, you can’t phone home and call in reinforcements.”

  I give him a certain look, hoping he will see that his situation is deteriorating.

  He does. And he reacts to this observation by rapping my skull against the window behind me and snarling, “Look, weirdo, my crews are cut off from home, sitting on a fault line, and surrounded by fog, legends, and a pack of schizophrenic indigents who have exploited their every nightmare. I’ve offered them extra pay and bonuses and paid time off — you name it — but right now, every other man’s ready to quit. Ty’s threatening to take his crew and bug out right now and — ”

  He fumes for a moment, then finishes, “ — and I just lost contact with the group in Golden Gate Park. Either they’ve been put out of business, or they’ve broken camp. Now, I’m telling you, Taco Shell, you are going to show these boneheads that these spooks are bogus before somebody really gets hurt.”

  He hauls me to my feet and aims me at the door.

  “So, no one’s been hurt yet?” I ask.

  He shoves me out the door before answering. After he has picked my sorry ass up off the flagstones, he says, “Actually, a few of my guys have managed to break some bones and singe each other. Naturally, they blame it on the spooks and not on their own careless stupidity.”

  He commences to dragging me toward the sanctuary. Shabu dong pulls apart before us like gauzy curtains and glides back behind.

  “So you...you haven’t shot any of the haunts?”

  “Not yet. But if they don’t stop their haunting, we will.”

  “I don’t get it, John,” I say, ‘cause I don’t. “Coming in, you didn’t have any queasies about wiping out a couple city blocks of Potrero-Taraval, Potreros and all. I know. I buried some of them. Burying the kids was the hardest.”

  I check out his face. He looks pretty grim.

  “You’re lying,” he informs me. “We didn’t target any kids. Only people who were attacking us.”

  “No, John. I’m not lying, and I think you know I’m not lying. And it doesn’t matter that you didn’t target them. They still ended up dead. Collateral damage, I think they used to call it in wars. So, I gotta wonder what you’re waiting for here. I kind of think if you could shoot these haunts, you would. So, why don’t you?”

  He doesn’t answer, just drags me up to the top of the sanctuary steps, turns me around and addresses the shabu dong thusly, “Listen up, all you ghosties and ghoulies. I’ve got your feckless leader here. Make no mistake, this is a threat. You pack up your bed sheets and get the hell out of here or people are going to get hurt — starting with El Loco, here.”

  The shabu dong has been minding its own business up to now, eddying here and there, sniffing at our heels a bit. At the end of John M’s pronouncement, there is a sudden stoppage of dong. The courtyard is so quiet, I can hear water dripping from the church roof and pigeons mumbling under the eaves.

  Then, weird stuff happens — stuff I seen before real recently, only not in a real place as I recall. The shabu gets muy, muy dong and begins to coil into columns and spirals that I suspect are going to look very human before too long.

  Huh, I marvel, not Hoot and Lou after all.

  A couple of laser bolts zing across the courtyard. One hits a tree, another zaps the corner eave of the church and sends plaster flying away in scorched chunks.

  “Hell,” mutters John Makepeace, then bellows, “Hold your fire!”

  He gives me a hard shove, then yanks me back by the rope around my hands, obviously forgetting that arms don’t bend that way.

  “Tell them,” he snarls. “Tell them to get lost.”

  “Sorry, John,” I say, “I’m afraid I can’t
do that.”

  I feel the muzzle of his laser pistol glide, cold, alongside my neck.

  Yow.

  “I mean, yeah,” I say quickly, “I can tell them to get lost. I can tell them anything you want, but I don’t s’pect it’d do any good. They’re not my guys. I can’t control them.”

  I can’t control my face, either. It just starts grinning bigtime. Master Ho was right, the city does have a soul and the Ohlone are part of it and probably always will be. They’re the spirits of this place, after all.

  Whoa. I have understood monk-speak. Anything can happen.

  I laugh — an untimely and ill-advised move.

  “What are you laughing at, you nit-wit?” roars John Makepeace and clobbers me upside the head, then grabs a fistful of my hair to keep me on my feet. “What do you mean, they’re not your guys? You mean they belong to that moron, Lord E?”

  “No, I mean they don’t belong to anybody. They’re spirits.”

  “Aw, jeez,” John M says, then adds a few more colorful comments, taking the names of several Prophets in vain. "Are we back to that crap about the Minions of Darkness? Are you going to pull out that old Chinese wizard our of your hat again?”

  “I don’t own a hat. And the old Chinese wizard is out of the picture,” I explain, my eyes on what’s shaping up in the courtyard.

  I wonder which funnel-o-fog is Pedro? I wonder if his son, Delmar, and Paguin the Shaman are here, too.

  “And this isn’t the Minions of Darkness, either. This is the Dolores.”

  “The who?”

  “The spirits of this place. The soul of the Gam Saan.”

  “That’s bullshit! There are no spirits. You’ve got some sort of technology you’ve been hiding from us. You — ” He breaks of and glances sideways at me. “Damn. What the hell am I saying? You’re such a backward bunch of — If they’re not your people, why would they defend you?”