Battle Hill Bolero

by Daniel José Older

  I scream, rising from my crouch behind the tombstone. Pant. Mama Esther is everywhere, but the night is empty. Snow. Monuments. Angels. Trees and the dark sky. Empty. She is nowhere.

  The troops have faltered as my focus fell away. They scream amidst the flames I’ve lit inside them, begin to scramble.

  There is no time for this bullshit. I swing back into control.

  Ahead, the rebels, my troops now, sling back into position, erect. Mine. I push forward with my mind, stepping out from behind the headstone. Push.

  The troops burn forward, push toward their own again. Screams cut the cool night.

  Never held this many at a time before. Must be at least three dozen. It doesn’t matter. I could release some now—even a small group will have the desired effect. But I want them all. I need . . . I need to outdo myself in this moment. That’s the only way I can get a grip again. This will bring me back to life, one way or another. The ’catcher protection squad emerges around me out of the darkness, and together we move up the hill, slipping deeper into the woods as the rebels fall back in turmoil.

  “Are they fighting them?” the squad leader asks.

  I shake my head. The first line of enemy troops just melts away as my flaming assault sweeps through; the second comes thundering in swords out, cutting down half of them as they run. Chaos erupts in the camp; it almost overwhelms me, being so many places at once. More jolts of terror, screams of pain echo down the thoughtlines of my control as my flaming puppets are chopped down by their own friends.

  Push.

  A dozen remain. As I stride up the hill with my soulcatcher entourage, I grunt and thrust out all their blades at once, shoving back the confused attackers. I will push them straight into the heart of the camp, I’ll destroy each captain and bring the whole trembling rebellion down in flames. I’ll end this single-handedly and then . . .

  Something moves in the shadows of the hill to our left.

  Something solid. A full-flesh-and-blood something. Not an animal. My attention surrounds it, and three of my puppets are shredded in a matter of seconds.

  “See what that is,” I gasp at the squad leader, returning to my duties. He nods, sends two ’catchers into the gloom. “Gonna need more than that,” I mutter, but no one hears me, because the sound of the ’catchers being slaughtered fills the air.

  I’m down to six puppet soldiers now, and the enemy has coalesced around them. Their worried faces gaze into the flames; their comrades scream. One of the ’catchers beside me shrieks, then falls. The squad leader whirls around, blade drawn, but the night reveals nothing.

  Emptiness.

  Mama Esther’s laugh echoes through me, becomes me.

  The last of my fiery puppets falls, struck down by her own friends. The night reveals nothing.

  Three ’catchers remain by my side.

  He’s out there. Carlos.

  I can feel him. My fire is nothing next to his. I am barely solid, a fetus, beside his fury. Mama Esther keeps laughing, lodged inside me, and her minion stalks me, moves silently from gravestone to gravestone. My ’catchers all have their blades out; they mutter to each other, but none of it matters—it’s just games to him. He will butcher them, then butcher me. He’ll kill me slow, war be damned, and make me pay for each death I’ve caused, double for Mama Esther, even though she still cackles on and on through me, unabated, undaunted, the freak.

  To think I once arranged for my own death at his hands. Not so long ago either, but a whole different lifetime. Before Siberia. Before Monica fucking Tannenbaum’s empty fucking eyes. Before Raj. Before Mama Esther’s infinite laugh.

  “Caitlin Fern!” he yells into the night. The ’catchers spin and gasp, surprised, pathetic. Incompetent and twelve steps behind as usual. A pinecone cracks against one of the headstones. The ’catchers glance at it, like fucking assholes, and another one gets dropped.

  To hell with this. I’ve done my piece for the Council. Those platoons that snuck off to outflank the rebellion will be swinging in from the rear any time now. And anyway, I won’t be slaughtered where I stand.

  I turn around and run like hell.

  —

  Athletically, I am pathetic. But I’m small, so I can move fast, at least for a short sprint.

  And Carlos, I believe, is wounded, probably quite a bit. Plus he’s a fucking gimp. So by all rights, I should get away. But I hear his boots pound the snowy gravel behind me. He’s not within striking distance, but he’s pacing himself. He wants this kill. He won’t return to battle till he has it. Fine. I’ll draw off the vengeful halfie, for all the good it does me.

  I hop down a small embankment, slide, and almost lose my balance and collapse into a snowfield, but I stay up, and once I’m on flat ground, I find the path again and sprint ahead toward . . . toward what? I don’t know the full layout of this ghastly place, but somewhere it has to end. It has to.

  I wind around an elegant lake, all glistening with moonlight and romance, the grandiose crypt beside it shimmering in its windblown eddies. A quick glance back: he’s gaining. Still not close enough to hurl that blade of his, but it won’t be long now.

  I have a gun. A stupid weapon, really, but there are no ghosts nearby to set fire to and hurl at him.

  A gunshot will bring police maybe, and police will believe me when I say a crazed Puerto Rican has been chasing me through a graveyard. I mean, it’s true.

  Down another slope. I’m winded, losing momentum, but the fear of Carlos, even greater than the fear of death, pushes me forward. A stitch opens up in my side.

  I dig through my Lands’ End jacket pockets for the pistol as if it hadn’t been slapping up against me while I ran all this time. Try to still my trembling fingers.

  It’s snowing again. I hadn’t even realized it had stopped, but now it’s on again and coming down hard, so when I turn to point, trying not to hyperventilate, I have to squint through the spiraling flakes.

  Mama Esther cackles through me, relentless.

  He’s gone.

  A flash of movement, and the gun explodes in my hand without warning. I pulled the trigger? Carlos, just a dark splotch against the snow, dove as the shot echoed through the night. Or did he fall? Could I have hit him, by blind luck? My arm is shaking; the shot reverberates through me like Mama Esther’s cackle, a continuous earthquake. The gun is in the snow, little plumes of steam rising from it.

  Carlos rises.

  Fuck the gun. Still shaking, I bolt.

  The enemy’s voice rings out across the cemetery again, some indistinct gibberish. Up ahead, my salvation: the gate. Beyond that: the street. Snow soaked and slushy and shining. I hurl over the crest of the hill, slip, then slide onto my ass and crumple, turning over and over in the snow, the whole sky spinning above me.

  Land in a heap, but I’m that much closer to the edge, to the world, to safety. Rise in a panic. Where is he?

  Nowhere.

  Everywhere. I scramble up the fence, then over it, shredding my Lands’ End jacket in the process.

  Come down in a heap once again, my whole body on fire with exertion. He crests the hill, comes burning toward me. He can’t keep chasing through the streets. He won’t. There are people out, even at this late hour. He can’t stay away from the battle this long, surely. He’s needed. Surely.

  My God.

  He’s not even slowing. I watch through the gate, long enough to feel the wind of his fury blow over me, my certain death.

  I want to live!

  I turn, tears flooding down my face. A city bus rushes along Fifth Avenue toward where I stand. It doesn’t slow—it’s late and there’s no stop nearby. Just barrels forward.

  I turn again, catch Carlos’s eye.

  Smile.

  Then, as the roar of the bus drowns out even Mama Esther’s endless cackle, I step backward.

  CYCLE FIVE


  REQUIEM

  Ay, aquí termina la historia

  De tan tremendo ciclón . . .

  Aquí termina la historia

  De tan tremendo ciclón:

  Los muertos van a la gloria,

  Y los vivos a bailar el son.

  Ay, and here ends the story

  Of this tremendous cyclone . . .

  Here ends the story

  Of this tremendous cyclone:

  The dead go on to glory,

  And the living dance the son.

  “El Trío y el Ciclón”

  Trío Matamoros

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sasha

  We’re on top of Battle Hill, huddled around the war table once again, when the message comes in: our spies have spotted about three hundred enemy troops moving into position further into the cemetery. So those deserters weren’t deserters after all, and now we’ve been outflanked. The camp is still in mass confusion over those fire attacks, and this won’t help. News travels fast, though, and soon we hear the murmur of fear and contention rise around us.

  “What’s the play, Commander?” Talbot asks, showing Riley a respect he hadn’t bothered with before the first battle.

  Riley keeps his head down, eyes fixed on the table.

  “We have about six hundred troops left,” Damian says. “But they’re not in great shape, overall.”

  “We could charge the flankers while they’re still lying in wait,” Vincent offers. “Leave a smaller group to hold the hill from the frontal attack, then—”

  Riley shakes his head. “They’ll throw everything they have at us from the front. We’ll lose the hill and the defenders and be caught between two armies.”

  “We launch a full-frontal charge on these guys in the field,” Talbot suggests. “Before the flankers have a chance to attack.”

  Riley scowls.

  Cyrus raises his hand slowly. Riley nods at him. “We split in three,” the old ghost says. “The small group pushes hard and sharp into the center of the army up front. Then the two larger groups attack from opposite sides. The Council will be cut in half and fighting on four fronts.”

  “The middle group will be crushed,” Saeen says. “They’re the smallest, and they’ll be instantly surrounded.”

  “And that’s if they don’t simply get obliterated outright when they try to charge through,” Talbot points out.

  Kaya grunts, and everyone looks at her. “The Council won’t be expecting a push like that. If that middle group moves in fast and hard, it could break the lines. The ’catchers’ll be so busy getting back in order and trying to handle that, they’ll be even more thrown by the other two attacks.”

  “That’s a whole lotta if,” Talbot says. “And even if all that does go right, here’s what else will happen: one side will inevitably start pushing in further than the other. Then whatever’s left of the center squad will fight in that direction to close the gap and rejoin with us.”

  “Which’ll leave the opposite flank in the dust,” Damian says. “Although then we’ll have a single larger force to push through toward them.”

  Talbot scoffs. “And the entire Council army between you. I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t either,” Damian says. “But it’s the only one that makes sense. There’s no way out of this without massive losses. We have to coordinate those losses to our favor as much as we can.”

  “Spoken like a true Council bureaucrat,” Talbot growls.

  Damian fixes him with an icy stare.

  Riley pounds the table. “Enough. D is right: it’s the best plan we got. The question is, who gonna roll up front and center?”

  “We are,” a ragged, throaty voice croaks. We all turn. There in the trees, a small army of ancient, robed spirits stands. Their muted luminescence flickers in the cemetery gloom. Each one is tall, with long limbs and hunched-over backs.

  “The Marcus Garvey Park spirits,” Riley says, a wary smile breaking out across his face. “The fuck y’all doing here?”

  The lead spirit warbles something in a language too old for me to even fathom.

  “That was all the English they know,” Riley reports. “This one’s name is Rathmus. He an ancestor of Carlos’s. Says they’re joining the cause and they want to be the front punch roll.”

  Riley shakes his head sadly.

  “It’s a suicide mission,” Talbot mutters. And I see what he means: the park spirits don’t look like they have much fight in them—they move at a lethargic crawl, and those arms are long but look ready to snap.

  Cyrus nods at them and says something in warble, which Rathmus responds to. “Yes,” Cyrus says with a pained smile. “This is the way.”

  “I’m with them.” It comes out of my mouth before it’s a full thought in my head. Maybe it’s because Carlos hasn’t shown up since he went tearing after Caitlin Fern, and some little piece of him lives in Rathmus, however distant. Maybe it’s because I know Flores will be back there somewhere, and the center strike feels like the clearest shot at him. It doesn’t matter—deep inside me, I know this is right, even if it ends in slaughter. Which it probably will, considering I’ll be waging war with Team Senior Center.

  Riley side-eyes me. I nod at him: Yes, I am sure.

  He shakes his head, then shrugs. “Kaya, Damian, Talbot, take your troops to the western flank. Vincent, Saeen, take the east. Cane, you good to fight?”

  The huge detective has been lurking off to the side the whole time. He gives a thumbs-up and a big smile, but it looks like it took some work to make it happen.

  “You roll with them. Cyrus—”

  “Me and the remaining Burial Ground troops will join Sasha and the Old Ones,” Cyrus says. And that’s that. Riley might be the supreme commander, but no one challenges Cyrus Langley.

  Riley lets a half smile creep over his face. “Aight, boss man.”

  “Where you gonna be, Commander?” Saeen asks.

  His smile becomes full fledged and grim. “Wherever the fuck I’m needed most.”

  —

  “Us Burial Grounders will make the first push,” Cyrus tells us as we gather at the edge of the woods. “But y’all can roll up along either side of us like a sleeve once we break the front line. Feel me?” He gazes up at the gigantic, wrinkled faces of the Old Ones. They confer in quiet flapping noises, then nod. It makes sense—I don’t think these guys will be able to keep pace with us in the initial rush, and the sleeve maneuver should help widen the battle zone around us once the fight slows our roll.

  Should.

  Forsyth Charles, somehow still dapper amidst all this killing, and Dag Thrummond stand to one side of Cyrus. Dag’s still got that war hammer of his, and I make a mental note to steer the hell clear of it. A woman in a head scarf named Tam and a tall, older woman with skeletal face paint stand to Cyrus’s other side. We regard each other with quiet nods, and then Cyrus turns toward the enemy line, draws his blade.

  We make it halfway across the snowy expanse in front of the Council army before the alarm goes off, and by then it’s too late. Forsyth, Dag, and Tam lead our thin column of warriors in a breathless bum-rush straight into their front lines. The ’catchers are just getting it together when Dag swings that hammer in a wide arc, obliterating an even dozen. Forsyth Charles and the skeleton-faced woman hurl into the fray behind them; the sharp clang of ghost blades fills the air as yells and commands erupt around us. And then Cyrus gives me a grandfatherly wink, and we pass out of the peaceful field and into the realm of war.

  ’Catchers on all sides. I’m deflecting blade swipes and charges, barely registering any of it. The Council’s troops look worn out, terrified. They slash and parry and then fall back or are chopped down, letting out desperate bleats as they fall, then fade.

  They weren’t ready for us, but this won’t last long. The rest of the Bu
rial Grounders pour in behind us. We push outward, blades swinging, then pull back suddenly, an ever-expanding and contracting snake, all the while carving deeper into the Council ranks.

  “Any time now,” Cyrus mutters, shoving a Council blade away with one blade while he swings his other one upward through the ’catcher’s face guard. They crowd in harder now—their confusion has become fury. A blast of pain ignites across my left arm, and I yelp, then throw myself backward into our ranks as another blade flashes inches from my face.

  “You okay?” Cyrus asks without taking his eyes off the enemy ranks.

  The wound sends a sharp, urgent throb through my shoulder, down my arm, but it didn’t reach deep. “Fine,” I growl, and lurch back into the fray blades-first, skewering a ’catcher in the neck and another through the gut. They fall, and it seems like five rise up in their wake. It occurs to me that sheer exhaustion might do us in if we’re not cut down first.

  “Where them old spirits go, then?” Cyrus says. He tries to steal a glance back into the fray, but there are too many swinging blades. “Not sure how much longer we can hold out.”

  “All squads of the revolution!” Riley’s voice seems to claim the entire night sky as its own; for a moment, it’s all I know. “CHARGE!”

  The Council should be bracing for a full-frontal assault now that we’ve got them pointed forward. Unless their spies let ’em know what’s coming. Or the rear assault showed up before our troops could move into place. Or some other unforeseen shit went down. I shake off the endless maybes, parry two attacks from ’catchers, and then duck as Dag’s hammer comes whooshing past overhead.

  “Good timing,” Cyrus says. His eyes are smiling, even if his mouth is clenched.

  Riley pops his head up from the chaos behind us. “Thanks!”

  “Riley!” Cyrus and I yell at the same time.

  “The hell you doing here?” I demand, shoving some blades away and moving in front of him.