by Matt Wallace
“Sweet,” Pacific says. “So all we have to do is walk back out there and ask the horny monsters to line up so we can dust them in the face. You know, without them gangbanging us in half and all.”
Mr. Mirabal shakes his head, inhaling deeply through the oxygen tube stretched beneath his nostrils. “No way, man. No way.”
Nikki, on the other hand, has moved directly past doubt and fear. She’s staring up the length of the massive decorative cake, a look of pure steel on her face.
Around the kitchen of Sin du Jour this is known as Nikki’s “get it done” look.
It is never to be trifled with.
Nikki looks from the top of the cake to her ravaged baking station, more specifically at the large piping bags strewn about the counter and floor.
“Okay, then,” she says simply.
“If we’re truly on our own here,” Prince Marek says, “then anything that’s to be done we’ll do together.”
“All of us,” Bianca adds firmly.
Her prince seems taken aback for a moment, but then nods resolutely, reaching out and taking her hand.
Nikki watches them, and at that moment, amid the madness and anger and tension and peril, the two seem to coalesce together, becoming a unit.
She smiles, all but forgetting the desperate plan she’s just formulated that may result in all of their violent deaths.
“Do you two want to at least have a piece of your own wedding cake first?” she asks them.
I CAME TO MAKE A BANG, YEAH
Cindy adheres the final liner strip to the center of the bricked-in entrance behind Sin du Jour.
As she does, Ritter continues tapping a simple message in Morse code against the brick with the spike of Cindy’s tactical tomahawk, advising anyone on the other side to back away and take cover.
Moon cocks his head, watching them from a safe distance. “So is this, like, dynamite?”
“It’s HMX compounded with three percent polymer-bonded explosive composite,” Cindy says around the grip of the diagonal pliers clinched between her teeth.
“Did you say that all extra technical to make me feel like an asshole?” Moon asks.
“Mm-hmmm.”
Several seconds pass and Cindy steps back from her handiwork, removing the pliers from her mouth.
“All right,” she says to Ritter. “We’re hot. I’ve shaped the charge to minimize the scattering of debris when it blows, but I don’t know how physical objects will react under whatever enchantment this is.”
He nods, turning and motioning to Moon to take refuge behind the RV.
As Ritter jogs after him, Cindy retreats behind the explosive shield she’s bolted to the ground the minimum safe distance from the entrance. She’s holding the detonator in her gloved left hand.
“We’re lighting it up in five!” she calls out.
Ryland, refusing to vacate his lawn chair, empties his wineglass in a single, frantic gulp and then sticks a fingertip in each ear, still holding his cigarette.
Cindy cups her hands around the detonator, lowering her chin against her chest.
“Five . . . four . . . three . . .”
Two seconds later she clamps her hands tight around the detonator, then releases it and repeats the action.
The sound of the blast is little more than a typhoid cough when it reaches the street, but in the immediate vicinity of the service entrance it’s enough to set ears ringing and shatter the wineglass in Ryland’s hand.
The rear of the building is covered in a veil of white smoke, and redbrick dust fills the alley, clinging to the exposed skin and clothes of everyone in it.
“What was that bullshit about ‘minimizing’ or whatever?” Moon calls out, hacking on the dust as he and Ritter emerge from behind the RV.
Cindy ignores him, moving from behind the blast shield and waving her way through the dust and smoke.
Ryland gropes for his white wine bottle, wiping its mouth with his shirt (which is far more soiled than the mouth of the bottle itself) and drinking directly from it.
“Truly, I have achieved the American dream,” he mumbles drunkenly.
“Cindy?” Ritter calls through the haze.
“Son of a bitch!” she screams.
They all hack on the debris for another thirty seconds until enough of it has been swept down the alley to see the rear of the building clearly again.
Despite the red cloud raised by the blast, the bricked-over service entrance appears completely undisturbed.
There isn’t a visible scratch on it.
Cindy unhooks the tomahawk strapped to her right leg and chops at the center of the brick patch with its blade, just to be sure.
Solid as brick and mortar.
At that moment gas-powered thunder fills the alley and a monstrous motorcycle twice the size of any other commercial bike rolls beside Ryland’s RV. Its rider is almost perfectly proportioned atop the massive vehicle.
It’s the only time Hara ever looks relatively normal in size.
He pulls off a helmet the size of a witch’s cauldron and climbs from the massive Leonhardt Gunbus. He takes in the scene for several long moments, then looks to Ritter, perpetually silent and questioning with his expression.
“Someone fill him in while I think of what the hell to try next,” Ritter says with more exasperation than they’ve ever heard in his voice.
They all watch as he climbs the steps into Ryland’s trailer and closes the door behind him.
“Grab me another glass, will you?” Ryland calls after him.
THE OBSTINANCE OF ANCESTORS
The six-foot reptile wearing what’s left of Darren’s formerly fresh and fitted Sin du Jour smock is suspended three feet off the ground over an elaborate sand painting.
The lustful creature snarls and thrashes against its invisible bonds, but whatever force has bound it there in midair holds tight.
Orbiting the creature in staggered spirals, small wisps of milky white energy undulate and pass through one another, creating cymbal crashes of sound and bursts of light each time they harmlessly collide.
Little Dove takes in the sight from the corner of the sand painting, arms folded and brow furrowed.
She looks down at her grandfather, seated cross-legged in front of the large square frame holding the sand. He chants absently as he hand-rolls a cigarette he’s laced with weed stolen from one of Pacific’s many stashes around the building.
“So . . . these are our ancestors?” Little Dove asks the old man. “Their spirits, anyway?”
White Horse nods, sealing the tightly rolled wrapping paper with an envelope lick of his tongue.
“Yep.”
Little Dove is dubious. “For real?”
“Yep,” he says, perching the cigarette on his bottom lip. He motions to one of the white wisps with one hand while the other searches his elk-skin jacket for his lighter. “That there is your great-grandfather, Long Knife. And that other one there is Aunt Margaret. And that there is your third cousin, Lloyd.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re so fucking with me right now.”
“Yep.”
Little Dove curses under her breath while her grandfather, having located his light, sparks it and burns the end of his cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs.
He coughs, with immense relish.
The door to their offices stands wide open.
When the chaos erupted, rather than barricading themselves inside White Horse simply moved his sand painting board in front of the door and set to work on a design his granddaughter had never seen before.
Darren was the first creature to sniff them out, and as soon as he rushed inside he was caught, rapt.
It’s been more than enough to ward off the other creatures their coworkers have become.
“They are the spirit of your ancestors,” he says seriously. “But you have to think of it as a pond of energy to which we all return. There’s no discerning or separating. Their energy protects us when called upon.
We’re connected, by blood and by our spirits. It’s their instinct. It’s really not complicated.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I can just Google it.”
“Probably.”
Little Dove paces in front of the sand painting, watching the Darren-creature flare its nostrils in frustration.
“So can you change him back?”
White Horse exhales a long trail of smoke and leans back against the floor, propped up by his elbows.
“It wasn’t my power that did this to him, or the rest.”
Little Dove stops pacing and glares down at him. “That’s not what I asked, Pop. Can you fix him?”
“Probably.”
“Then do it!”
White Horse frowns. “They pay me to help conjure and cleanse their crazy bilagáana food. They don’t pay me to clean up their messes. We’re safe back here. Let the rest of them figure it out.”
“‘Them’?” Little Dove hisses at him angrily. “You mean like Bronko? That awesome guy who got us off the res? Who paid for us to move to New York City? Who paid off all of Papa’s debt?”
“They’ve been making a mess of this land for four hundred years,” White Horse mutters grouchily.
“Oh, Pop, spare me the Ken Burns documentary, all right? They’re not the fucking Union cavalry. They’re the people we work with every day.” She motions back at the Darren-creature. “This kid’s been here, like, a month, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s even in for yet. If you can fix him, then do it already.”
The old man sucks on his cigarette and grumbles to himself for another full thirty seconds, looking anywhere but at her.
Then he reluctantly climbs to his feet.
“Stand against the wall,” he instructs her.
Little Dove nods, moving to the far wall and leaning back against it.
White Horse stubs out his carefully fashioned cigarette on the hard sole of his boot, brushing off the end and slipping it into one of his jacket pockets.
He walks over to the desk and opens a drawer, removing a small sprig of green herbs.
“Is that sage?” she asks him.
“No, it’s oregano from the kitchen, but it doesn’t really matter.”
White Horse stands in front of the sand painting and lights the herbs ablaze.
He spreads his arms out wide before the Darren-creature who, sensing danger, begins thrashing anew.
“What are you going to do?”
“His spirit contains his true self,” White Horse explains impatiently. “It can overcome the magic holding his form in thrall. I’m going to call to that spirit, wake it from its slumber. Now shut the hell up, will you?”
Little Dove mimes zipping her lip.
She also uses her middle finger to do so.
The old man begins chanting in earnest, his normally ragged, noncommittal voice becoming impossibly deep and powerful. He taunts the Darren-creature with the burning herbs. The wisps of energy circling him begin to move faster, more erratically, somehow taking on an air of menace.
Little Dove feels the barometric pressure in the room change abruptly. She hugs herself against it, watching as the lights begin to flicker.
The creature held suspended there is no longer thrashing. It now appears that a separate force is moving its reptilian form, shaking it fiercely.
White Horse’s chanting voice becomes almost godlike in its power and fury.
His granddaughter finds herself shrinking against the wall in sudden, confused fear.
The lust creature becomes a blur of motion.
The chanting reaches a thunderous crescendo.
Then it all stops.
A half-naked, sweat-soaked Darren falls on his hands and knees against the sand, gulping desperately for air.
Little Dove slides back up the wall.
She steps tentatively to the middle of the room.
“Are you . . . okay?” she asks Darren.
“He’s fine,” White Horse insists.
The old man is doubled over, hands clasping his knees.
He’s also panting.
“Get me some water, will you?” he asks her.
Little Dove nods, running to grab a bottle of designer water from their miniature fridge. She also grabs an emergency blanket for Darren.
Thrusting the water roughly into White Horse’s chest as he stands, Little Dove spreads the blanket over Darren.
He finally raises his head, his eyes wide and tear-filled and mystified.
“What . . . I . . .”
“Shhhhhh,” she coos to him, stroking his damp hair. “Don’t try to talk or . . . you know, move around a lot for a little bit, okay? You were just a really big snake thing.”
Darren stares up at her, somehow even more confused now.
Little Dove shakes her head, silently cursing herself. “Just . . . never mind right now.”
She looks up at her grandfather. “Okay, now fix the rest of them. Then maybe the doors and windows will change back.”
White Horse stares at her.
Her expression only hardens further.
“You change them all back or I swear to God you can take care of yourself from now on.”
He frowns deeply, sighing. “I swear, you are worse than all three of my wives put together, including your grandma.”
Little Dove turns back to Darren, mostly to conceal her grin.
White Horse pats himself down, searching frantically for his cigarette before adding with vigor: “And she was the worst one!”
99 PROBLEMS AND A BRICK IS ONE
“I guess the only thing left to do is have Moon eat his way through the fucking thing,” Cindy says without even attempting to mask the defeat in her voice.
“I’m not a carnie, you know,” he snipes back.
Ritter ignores them both, surveying the wreckage of the past few hours and their failed attempts to breach the magical barriers of Sin du Jour.
Hara’s customary stoic posture and expression make him resemble a brick statue now that he’s antiqued in red dust. The industrial jackhammer none of the rest of them could even lift has been discarded on the ground beside him, its bit worn to a twisted steel nub. Every grain he pounded from the entrance replicated itself immediately.
Ryland is now splayed over his lawn chair upside down, staring up at the waning sun as if it is some unmerciful god. The cigarette perched on his lips bobs animatedly as he mutters inaudibly to himself. He’s caked head to toe in dried white froth. His attempt to change the brick into a soft custard through which they might dig did not, needless to say, end well.
“No,” Ritter says to Cindy, a dangerous steel coming to his voice. “It’s my turn.”
Before she can ask what the hell that means Ritter begins stripping his clothes off.
He’s down to his waist when Bronko’s Judge pulls into the alley with what sounds like a marching band on meth inside his trunk.
After he parks and climbs out of the vintage car it takes Bronko less than ten seconds to assess the situation.
“Goddamn muckraking fuckbudget,” is how he summarizes things.
“The wedding gig?” Ritter asks.
Bronko nods. “Locked down. It’s the food. I don’t know. But I know what it’s doing to ’em.”
He looks back at the dented-out trunk of his car.
The rest of them are already staring at it.
“You got one of ours in there?” Ritter asks.
Bronko sighs. “I hope she still is, yeah.”
CONTROL OF THE SITUATION
“You sure as shit looked like you knew where you were going.”
“I’ve been here a month, asshole! You’ve been here for years!”
“And if I’d pointed that out you would’ve had some smartass reason it didn’t matter!”
They’re back in the Sin du Jour courtyard. The second window Lena smashed (this time using Pacific’s beloved patio chair) led them into a wing of the building that can only access the corridor leading to Boosha’s
apothecary through an exterior door. Which, of course, is now made entirely of brick.
“That shouldn’t have stopped you!” Lena shoots back at Dorsky, marching several feet ahead of him.
A sharp electric buzz precedes the living cartoon materializing in front of them.
It’s Droopy Hound.
This time, however, he’s wearing a chef’s smock and floppy toque on his head.
“I told you, folks,” he says in his passive, nasally monotone. “You won’t be leaving this place alive. I am enjoying your scurrying, however.”
Lena immediately picks up a rock from the courtyard floor and, growling with teeth bared, hurls it through the illusory being.
Its animated form doesn’t stop the rock, but its passing through does disperse the toon in a hail of colored pixels.
“Why cartoons?” Dorsky asks, helplessly. “Why a fucking cartoon?”
“I don’t know.”
“You had a map,” Dorsky points out. “You were standing in front of a map of the whole building. A goddamn enchanted map with control over all of the inside doors.”
Lena spins on him, advancing with her finger forward as if it were the blade of a knife.
Dorsky actually backs up.
“This place is a maze! It’s like four asylums smashed together! I’m surprised anyone finds their way out on a normal day, let alone when the place is sealed up by a magic fucking spell and filled with monsters, one of which is my goddamn roommate!”
“All I’m saying is you need to slow down and stop trying to control a situation that’s clearly way the hell beyond your control.”
“No one made you follow me,” she says with finality.
“Yeah, well. I saw a nice ass and I followed it. That’s just how I’m built, I guess.”
All of the anger abruptly leaves Lena, and in its place is an all-consuming weariness.
She shakes her head.
“What?” Dorsky says, confused and almost alarmed by her sudden change in demeanor.
“You know . . . you were still an asshole, but you’d actually almost become a human being. And in one sentence you manage to take a good long piss all over that. Basic-ass line chef dude bullshit. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
