The Liminal War

by Ayize Jama-everett

  Like I need another question mark. My eyes find Mico’s. I walk past A.C. and offer my hand to the DJ.

  “Me and mine have been a bit gruff with your hospitality. For all you’ve done, thanks. I won’t ask for any more. I’ve got to find my girl right now.”

  “If I could help, I would. I have no interest in seeing you back in Nordeen’s sway,” he tells me, grabbing my hand with both of his.

  “Is that all you’re afraid of?” I almost laugh as I survey the room. “Nordeen wouldn’t take me back if I begged. He’s going to yank my throat out if I don’t pull this off.”

  “And that would be the grander tragedy,” Mico says, still gripping my hand hard. “If I ally with you, Nordeen’s people get to take offense. That means Alters worse than Narayana would be free and clear to come here and slaughter everyone. There are more potential victims than warriors that call the Manna god right now. I can’t let this island turn into our Masada.” Everything in his earthly body convinces me he’s telling the truth. I’m about to let him off the hook, tell him it’s okay. . . .

  “I can fight by your side.” A.C. was right: I almost forgot him. Mico obviously didn’t. He crosses me to speak with A.C.

  “But you’ve smoked the Manna,” the DJ says softly.

  “You think that’s the first god I’ve inhaled?” The wind boy isn’t taking things seriously, if his smirk is any indication.

  “They’ll know you’ve allied yourself with me,” Mico snaps.

  “They will not,” Narayana says from behind his boss. “Alters are born of stillness, the quiet of entropy. The wind child is born of noise and perpetual movement. Just as I am an affront to the Liminal eye, no Alter will spend time sourcing the origins of his annoyance.” Aside from the apology, it’s the most I’ve heard the Indian speak. His voice sounds like dead leaves being pushed along broken concrete with an old rake.

  “See? All good,” A.C. says to Mico. Then to me: “I’m yours if you’ll have me.”

  “Know how to fight?”

  “I’ve been trained by the sickest djinn ever to walk the terrestrial planes. Plus I rock entropy weapons.” Again that annoying smile.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s go.”

  “You planning on taking a flight?” the smirker says, checking his six-shooters and the three-foot-long sword he secreted behind his back, under his trench coat.

  “You gonna blow us there?”

  “After a fashion. I can get us dead smack into the middle of your little Razor Neck terror town sight unseen. It’ll be a rough ride, but we’ll lose no time.”

  “Do it.”

  “You might want to get your game face on,” he recommends.

  I grow five layers of skin quickly, then cut off all circulation to them. Razor Necks are all blade specialists. Those that didn’t train me, I trained. First line of defense will always be blades with them. I get sliced now, it’s just dead skin. Autonomically my body steps up my bone density to compensate for the weight. Rather than bulk up my muscles I super-myelinate them and dull the rest of my muscular autonomic functions. Once we’re there I’ll let normal synaptic functions flow, giving me a reaction time five times faster than your average cheetah. I bump my oxygen flow for good measure and grow thin, removable reticulating lenses over my eyelids. A lot can happen in the darkness of a blink. It was Prentis who convinced me to try this trick for the first time. Prentis. And Tamara.

  “Ready,” I say, standing in front of the assembled crew. “What? Do I have to click my heels three times?”

  “I guess this would be a homecoming for you,” the wind boy says, stretching out his neck and arms. I catch a nervous, silent “good luck” dance across Samantha’s mouth.

  “Stay focused on your daughter: her smell, the sound of her voice, the silhouette of her body. Allow yourself to be carried to closer versions of her. You’ve got to let yourself be taken by the wind.”

  There’s a gust in my eyes, and my reticulating lenses go nuts. Still, I miss nothing. In under ten seconds the light gust feels like a Class 3 hurricane. But nothing else in the room—no furniture, no people—is being affected. I’m fighting to stay upright, but no one else seems bothered. The winds whips so hard I can’t even breathe. Just when I start thinking I’ve been tricked somehow, A.C.’s voice approaches from everywhere.

  “You’ve got to let go.” He echoes with desperation. I can’t even ask “Let go of what?” because the vindictive wind that threatened to knock me over does. The only thing I can release is my balance. So with a memory of Tamara knocking me out of a twelve-story window almost four years ago, I let go of my questionable balance and fall.

  Ground does not stop me. Physics takes a strong bong hit as my falling becomes propulsion. With never-blinking eyes I see only the essence of movement. No landmarks aid my sense of place; everything echoes off itself, even my own breath. Only the vague awareness of A.C. in control counters my soul panic, and only in part. When the world makes sense again I’m on all fours in the middle of Razor Neck central, our—their—small, semi-abandoned fishing village on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. Biya. I’m back in Biya.

  The familiar sun-bleached and blue-tile three-story buildings around me represented kitchen, living room, and office to me for over a decade. The smell of fresh fish in the sea-laden air would make me nostalgic, if I had the time. I’m missing two kids.

  “Now would be a good time to stand up, Healer.” I look up to see A.C.’s sword drawn.

  “Don’t,” I tell him once I see who’s coming. Hasan. In the old days he was a friend, in and out of combat. I don’t expect loyalty from him now, but I don’t want him dead. I give him crippling leg cramps, feel the lactic acid build in his heels and seize his calves fully. The barrel-chested Berber stumbles . . . but stands again and keeps coming.

  “You okay?” A.C. asks.

  “The problem is not on this end,” I say, flooding Hasan’s brain with orgasm levels of opioids. Still he doesn’t stop. I scan his body, and aside from a monumental infection of hookworms he seems human as ever. “What the fuck?”

  “I got this.” In the time it takes me to say “No,” A.C. has already covered the seven meters to Hasan in the middle of the Biya courtyard. I’m moving toward the both of them as Hasan attacks, scooping upwards with a curved blade in his right hand. Without a staggered step to the right, A.C. would have been gutted from crotch to gullet. Hasan compensates perfectly, placing his left hand at the butt of his knife and going for A.C.’s thorax. The wind boy parries with the handle of his sword casually, then rotates the entire weapon into Hasan using nothing more than the Berber’s own force and his finger. But when I scan for wounds, I find none. A.C. sees my confusion as we stand over the passed-out Hasan.

  “Entropy blade.” A.C. smirks. “Really good at cutting things that shouldn’t exist, like a bond between an Alter and a human.”

  “There’s an Alter here?”

  “One of the worst. One of the pestilence twins. The Rat Queen. Poppy by name. She makes minions out of millions. It’s damn near impossible for an average person not to be infected by her or her brother.”

  “Twins? How do you know both of them aren’t here?”

  “’Cause Africa wouldn’t be standing. Nah, I’ve seen Poppy’s work before. This is her,” A.C. tells me while squatting over Hasan, checking his vitals.

  “But your sword kicks them out?”

  “Nope. Just breaks the connection. It was your healer-in-reverse move that knocked him out.”

  “Then we might have some problems,” I tell him, pointing across the courtyard at the thirty-five Razor Necks with guns and blades drawn. They start running with psychotic intent.

  “Delaying tactic,” I grumble, densing up the bones in my hands.

  “I got this,” A.C. says, switching his sword in his hand casually. “Get your girl so we can get gone. Go do what you do best, healer.”

  I thank him in the only way I have time to. Half the Razor Neck crew go
es hysterically blind. The other half collectively develop a maddening tinnitus. It won’t stop them, but it’ll make them easier targets.

  I strengthen my legs and take an old-school Incredible Hulk leap onto Nordeen’s roof, three stories straight up. The furniture, the carpet, the smell of mint tea, the ceramic fire stand; it’s all here. But no Nordeen. Even his countless jackets. I want to scream in rage but I hear A.C. fighting for his life below me and there’s no time. I run to the opposite ledge and use my liminal eyes to scan for Tamara. Two buildings over from where I’m standing. Hasan’s old spot. The second floor. And she’s in pain.

  I back up and do a hurried trigonometry body math. In this town, windows never caught on. Only porthole-sized openings that can be closed by wooden blinds. Last time I tried something like this I had a bigger target and was drunk on self-pity. Now it’s for my girl. I launch myself off the roof and aim for the porthole with beefed-up fist and neck muscles to cushion the fall. When I see my aim is true I tuck my head and roll into that nine-inch opening like an Olympic diver.

  I roll up just as quick. In the living room a pale, frail–looking, eggshell-white woman dressed in black slim pajamas casts a black glow over Tamara by issuing utterances that sound like the rape of words from her mouth. Tamara writhes with each syllable. I launch both my butterfly knives at the widest part of the Pajama Woman’s narrow slit eyes. They land and sink deep into her skull. Then she speaks to me.

  “I must confess you are a disappointment, Taggert.” She pulls the blades out as though she were removing sand from her eyes. “When Nordeen first found you I told him to put you down. But he begged, and for a while you were good at hunting down your own kind. How he got you to maim and kill them I’ll never know. But this breaking my calm and trying to kill me: it simply won’t do.”

  “Leave her alone,” I tell the Alter, Poppy, in front of me. What Narayana squelched in himself—that cavity of issuing malaise—this thing celebrates. Her words alone make me sick, mad . . . and engrossed.

  “Or what, Taggert? You’ll destroy me? I am the nightmare your gods fear.” I feel the shock and piercing agony of my two blades going into Tamara. She squirms in inarticulate agony.

  “Leave, Taggert. Maybe your daughter’s sacrifice will quench my thirst for liminal blood. That’s your only hope.” She turns from me, bored, and pets Tamara’s head, whispering psychotic thoughts in ancient tongues.

  I conjure up the Dame’s cancer genome and throw it all into the Rat Queen, wishing I had A.C.’s sword. The Alter laughs, and my soul shakes. It stands a full five inches shorter than me and I’m terrified.

  “Death abhors my kind as much as life fear us. And here you are with gross material and our antecedents? At your best you are a distraction, Liminal.” I see her teeth, a million small rodent-shaped collection. Only they have no calcium deposits connected with them, no nerve endings. These are psychic rat teeth. I’m so fucking out of my depth.

  “Where’s Prentis? Why did you take her?” I’m stalling for time.

  “Why, she’s with her uncle Nordeen.” It smiles again, and I go cold inside. There’s nothing I can do. I have no weapon that hurts, my powers can’t . . .

  The thought/memory comes borne on A.C.’s errant wind. What he said, what all of Sam’s crew has been calling me. How Sam thinks of me. What I am: Healer.

  I launch myself at the Alter, grabbing its face and ribs at the same time. Its laugh is terrifying until it senses me trying to correct the essential wrongness of it. Its violation of the human form by existing in it. I pour every drop of my healing into the exploding darkness in it. I put human demands on the human shape, declaring the need for oxygen, circulation, homeostasis, and biology. I push everything into healing the entropy. It wrecks me. It’s a losing battle. The darkness infects me, finds a chink in my sense of self and devours me from the marrow outward. It’s killing me with my own body. But I don’t quit. Poppy roars and throws me off of it.

  “You dare . . . ? You liminal filth! I am a daughter of the eternal quiet, sister to the Pestilence King. You dare attempt to heal my nature?”

  On the ground, I grin. “It’s like you said. At best I’m just a distraction.” I felt Tamara awake the second I went deep into the healing. I kept pushing to keep the Poppy bitch’s attention on me, so my girl could recover. Didn’t take long.

  “Bye, bitch.” The first time I met Tamara she “shoved” me through a plate-glass window. It was a novice move, but it’s still her favorite. Only it’s gotten stronger. Tamara combines her telekinesis and her arm strength to shove the Alter hard . . . out, or rather through the house, and the building next to us. And the one after that, through another 600 meters of air before momentum dissipates and drops the Rat Queen deep into the Mediterranean blue. A smart brute-force attack. But even with my quickly closing eyes I can see it took a lot out of Tamara.

  “Tag!” She calls my name, almost makes me forget this searing pain.

  “Hey, girl. You good?” I touch the loose hair in her face. I want to use my skills to check her, but it burns. You don’t touch the void without it touching you.

  “Tag, what’s wrong?” I hear her say. “Stay awake. Come on, Taggert. I need you. Don’t die. Taggert, I can’t do this alone!”

  I’m so sorry.

  Chapter Five

  I wake up slowly to a disembodied heartbeat making consistent offerings to an impossible god. Waking slow equals pain; a recently accomplished need for deep healing. I sit quiet for a minute, pinging the bodies around me. I feel Tamara before I see her, sleeping in a chair next to the lush bed I’m in. I’m on Eel Pie. The heartbeat I felt is Mico’s people. His is the body that contains . . . multitudes, and it’s downstairs in the ballroom with strange children. On the east side of the island, Samantha is sweating profusely but breathing steadily. One more desperately hopeful sweep before I open my eyes. No Prentis.

  Muscle decompensation and melatonin deprivation tell me I’ve been lying down and out of the sun for over three days. I put the rest together pretty easily. No doubt A.C. found Tam and me and did his windy thing before the rat witch could crawl back from the sea. If she could take two blades in the skull, I doubt that would do any more than annoy her.

  Those psychic rat teeth plague my memory as I get out of my room quietly so as to not wake Tam. The Alter’s words scratch the back of my ears like little rodent feet while I walk down the half-carpeted steps toward Mico. She laughed at my assassination attempt; damn near mocked every move I made. Even Nordeen was never that dismissive of me or my power. She knew Nordeen. Another secret he kept from me.

  I open the door to the ballroom to see Mico picking a long-necked banjo, singing to a group of twenty-five children. His dreads are braided back, and he wears black-striped running pants. He’s moving a tune too young to be ancient but too seasoned to be an original composition. It’s a pliant declaration of unity with friends and family despite whatever may come. Mico doesn’t perform, he invites. The same energy he generated with his DJ set he creates with these Eel Pie kids. By the end of the song, even the smallest of them are joining in with handclaps.

  “I’m feeling some questions out there,” he announces. I’m in the back of the hall, making my way forward along the sides in the shadows among the ever-present scaffoldings. For a second I think he’s talking to me.

  “He doesn’t mean Manna when he says ‘smoke them,’ does he?” a ten-year-old ginger boy sitting with a coal-black girl five years his junior asks.

  “Right. He means cigarettes. It’s an old term people used to say when a plane was going down.”

  “Who doesn’t make their living by labor?” an Indian girl of eleven asks, surrounded by little boys and girls waiting to get their hair braided by her. English is obviously her second language.

  “Oh.” Mico smiles, recalling the lyric. “Making your living by labor means physical work. Sweat equity, we call it around here.”

  “I know,” the little Indian snaps back. “What I mea
n is, if you do not engage in labor-type work, what other work is there?”

  “Rich-people work,” another little girl with a Geordie accent interrupts. “The rich, yeah, sit in front of computers and talk phones all day. They’se work in offices. And they don’t swear.”

  “Then how do they eat?” The Indian girl is so confused she stops braiding hair. Her body shows her confusion better than her words. Malnutrition is written all over her digestive system, her calcium-depleted bones, and even her brain.

  “They are paid more to sit in offices and make phone calls than farmers or shop keeps or bus drivers,” the Newcastle girl continues.

  “They must do something very important,” the Indian concedes reluctantly.

  “Some do. Most don’t.”

  Mico lowers his voice, and all the kids pay attention. “And that’s why the Manna has come now. It wants to give us all a choice. An opportunity to change our values. Mr. Whitmore’s song ‘Hell or High Water’ could have been written by any of the smokers here. That’s what it means to join with us using the Manna. You love your people, are owned by your people, and the people are owned by you. You love your people and the people love you. It can be a hard road to walk. But the alternative is the solitude people experience now, where the best you can hope for is a soft job in a cushy office doing nothing, watching a screen filling the emptiness of your life with money.”

  “So Manna hates money?” the Geordie girl asks.

  “Manna doesn’t hate anything,” the ginger protests.

  “Right.” Mico silences them all. “But money, acquiring the individual wealth and profit, doesn’t increase the benefit of all humanity. That’s why we work on mutual debt here. I owe you . . .”

  “And we can owe you,” they say in unison. All of them.