Taste of Wrath

by Matt Wallace

  As he speaks, Cindy leans forward on the futon, resting her forearms atop her knees and regarding him perhaps more seriously than she ever has.

  “Well, that was some deeper ish than I ever expected outta you, Moon,” she admits.

  “What about Hara?” Ritter asks him.

  Moon’s expression hardens. “Hara wasn’t my fault, dude. I’m always gonna be sorry I couldn’t help him. He was my bro. But I didn’t kill him.”

  Ritter nods. “That’s right, you didn’t. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”

  Moon begins blinking as if tears are threatening his eyes. He looks away briefly, then back at the three of them, clearing his throat.

  Cindy stands. “Look here, I ain’t about to forgive you in your admittedly defunkified apartment, but I am willing to let you roll with us and earn it. We need you. We needed you before, and we need you even more now for what’s coming at us.”

  Something like a smile, albeit a tormented one, touches Moon’s lips.

  “Thanks, Cin.”

  Moon’s gaze shifts to Marcus, seeming to be waiting for something from Ritter’s brother.

  Marcus stares back at him indifferently for a moment and then seems to realize Moon is awaiting some kind of verdict from him.

  “Oh, this is all you guys,” he says. “I don’t have an opinion. I’m only here cuz I wanted to watch.”

  Moon looks from him to Ritter and Cindy. “Watch what?”

  Marcus hauls the satchel slung from his shoulder in front of his stomach, unzipping the bag and reaching inside.

  Moon’s eyes widen as he watches Marcus remove from the satchel a gallon plastic Ziploc bag filled with large misshapen lumps that have been battered, seasoned, and fried. The resulting pepper-speckled golden-brown skin looks familiar to Moon, even if the shape and size of the “food” items do not.

  “Wait,” he says, pointing at the bag. “Are those—”

  “One of the last official batches of Chicken Nuggies distributed by the now defunct Henley’s Fast Food Corporation,” Cindy confirms.

  Moon’s mouth hangs open for a moment before he says, “But that means . . . that means those are . . .”

  She nods triumphantly. “Fried pieces of the sumbitch genie I dick-punted into that fryer my very own self.”

  Moon looks up at Ritter who shrugs without a readable expression on his face.

  “Where did you even get those?” Moon asks.

  “eBay,” Marcus says. “I also got some of that special limited edition ‘Szechwan’ sauce. I’ve been posting pics all week on threads of whiny-ass Rick and Morty fans complaining about not getting any of me feeding it to squirrels and giving it to homeless dudes. It’s awesome.”

  The part of Moon he hasn’t scrubbed away with cleansers can’t help snickering at that, at least until a new thought sobers him up.

  “Wait . . . what do you want me to do?”

  “Consider it a welcome-back initiation,” Cindy advises him with a cattish grin.

  Marcus bangs his head as if he’s in the mosh pit of a metal concert and holds up the sign of the Devil with his free hand.

  “You guys suck so hard,” Moon says, but his grin almost matches hers.

  “Less talking, more choking down all this bad juju,” Marcus demands. “I want to see what it does to you, or what you do to it. I’ve heard some bananas stories about you and a live leprechaun.”

  Moon’s grin tightens. “Yeah,” he says quietly, looking up at Ritter. “I guess we do have some stories, huh?”

  Ritter nods, the faintest smile on his lips. “That we do.”

  Moon takes a deep breath. “All right, fuck it. Bring it on. I’ll get a clean plate.”

  “You got any clean plates?” Cindy asks with a raised eyebrow.

  “They’re all clean,” Moon proudly announces.

  DESPERATE MEASURES

  Bronko fills the bottom of two glasses on his desktop with whiskey older than he is and offers Ritter a cigar from a box of pre-embargo Cubans.

  “If you’re trying to get in my pants, boss,” Ritter says dryly as he carefully removes one of the stogies, “you don’t have to wine and dine me like this.”

  It’s late into the evening, and Bronko has summoned Ritter to his office clandestinely, instructing him not to tell any of the others.

  “Think of it more like the pit master feedin’ a gladiator the finest mead and elk in the larder before a fight.”

  Ritter makes a noise almost like a laugh but without the mirth.

  They both bite the ends off of their respective cigars and spit them into a large ashtray Bronko brought out with the rest. He lights their stogies and the two of them puff exultantly.

  “Small pleasures,” Bronko affirms.

  He picks up his whiskey tumbler, and Ritter follows suit.

  Bronko raises his glass across the desk. “You’re a good man, Ritt. I’m sorry as hell I ever offered you this job, but I’m damn glad you took it.”

  Ritter elevates his tumbler. “Nowhere else I’d rather be, all things considered. And thank you, boss. I won’t insult you by disagreeing.”

  Bronko nods. “Good policy.”

  They toast, then drink down the hundred-year-old whiskey, savoring it for as long as they can resist the burn.

  Ritter places his empty glass on the desktop and puffs on his cigar.

  “So, we did that. Now tell me.”

  Bronko takes a deep, pensive breath. “We need to know for sure if Allensworth is still alive. And if he is, we need proof of what he’s been doin’ to take to Consoné and the Sceadu. We don’t know why, but we know for damn certain he tried to ruin Consoné’s shot at Sceadu President, and we know he tried to use Vargas to assassinate him, but our word alone ain’t enough. If we can prove he’s a direct threat to them, they’ll have to intervene. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe. Callin’ it favors ain’t gonna cut it, especially with the goblins turnin’ their backs on us. If we can’t get the Sceadu to take him on, he’ll crush us.”

  Ritter nods. “Makes sense, but we don’t even know where to start looking for him, let alone hard evidence of whatever he’s planning.”

  “I do,” Bronko says resolutely, taking a deep puff of his cigar and languidly exhaling to steady his nerves.

  Ritter places his stogie in the ashtray and leans forward, listening intently.

  “He . . . Allensworth . . . he took me out to this cabin once, upstate.” Bronko leans back in his chair, sighing. “It wasn’t a Sceadu joint or any kind of government-spook safe house. It was his place. It was private, had a ton of heat around it. His guys, I’m sure. I don’t think anyone else knows about it. Hell, I don’t think he really thought much of me being there. I am just a damn ol’ cook, after all. But it strikes me it’d be a good place to look for secrets, and I’m pretty sure I remember how to find it.”

  Ritter nods. “Tell me where.”

  Bronko holds up a hand. “Hold on there, hoss. This ain’t like any job I’ve ever given y’all. This here ain’t about business, or for a client or some damn catering event. This is off the grid, and it’s the worst kind of dangerous. If it goes ass-up, you will get yourselves killed, and maybe worse.”

  Ritter doesn’t hesitate. “Like I said, tell me where.”

  Bronko grins crookedly. “Rest of your team’ll feel the same, will they?”

  “I think I can guarantee it.”

  “All right, then.”

  Bronko leans forward, taking a piece of paper out of a drawer along with a pen.

  He pauses and then looks at Ritter with a dark expression on his face.

  “One more thing,” he says. “You’re going there to look for evidence we can use against him. It may be he’s laid up there himself. Probably not, but it could be. If he is there . . . you kill him, ya hear?”

  Ritter’s eyes harden. “I’m not an assassin, boss.”

  “No, you ain’t, and I ain’t askin’ you to be. I’m not offering to pay you. I’d d
o it my damn self if I could get my hands around his throat. This is self-defense, self-preservation. That’s why you do it. Hell, kill him for your own reasons. You have enough of ’em.”

  Ritter nods.

  “You’re right,” he says. “I do.”

  TWO DARRENS, ONE BEWITCHED

  White Horse’s chanting is the sound of the past disagreeing with the future, something deep and ancient, not of this time and unsuited for the modern world. His faded jeans-covered legs are crossed beside the plain mattress laid on the floor of the subterranean chamber beneath Sin du Jour that houses Ritter’s Stocking & Receiving department. Darren’s shirtless, comatose body is resting atop the mattress, Little Dove gently dabbing the sweat from his forehead with a damp cloth, her young brow furrowed in concern. James crouches at the foot of the makeshift sickbed, his arm still cradled in a sling, his anguished gaze solely for Darren.

  Smoke fills the windowless room, acrid and white, wafting from the singed sprig of herbs pinched between White Horse’s fingertips. He waves the thin, burning stalks over Darren’s body, continuing to chant low and slow and steady.

  “It smells like spaghetti in here,” Cindy comments.

  Ritter glowers at her quietly.

  “Well, it does!”

  He and what remains of his team are watching from a distance with Lena, who ignores the pair’s brief exchange, focusing on Darren, who hasn’t truly been awake since they rescued him from Allensworth’s clutches at Gluttony Bay. Since their return, they’ve kept Darren sedated until White Horse and Little Dove returned to drive out whatever evil influence was poured into him to enact Allensworth’s plot to assassinate the new President of the Sceadu.

  “Pop, is that sage?” Little Dove asks White Horse.

  “It’s parsley,” the old man informs her between his thrumming refrains.

  “Pop!”

  “It doesn’t matter!” White Horse snaps, ceasing to chant completely. “How many times do I need to tell you that?”

  “How can it not matter?”

  “It’s like lighting a fire. What difference does it make what you use for kindling?”

  “I mean, you can use a million chemicals to start a fire too, but if they’re the wrong ones, you’ll blow the building up.”

  “That’s why I said the thing I said the way I said it.”

  “If it doesn’t matter, how does any of this crap work?”

  “Haven’t you learned anything?”

  “You haven’t really been heavy on procedure.”

  “That’s because there is no ‘procedure.’ It all comes from the Hatałii, and from the spirit world they call upon.” The old man holds up the smoldering parsley sprig. “This is a tradition. It’s just a way to connect us to ourselves. It’s how we separate what we do from the normal flow of this world. It doesn’t matter what herb you burn. It’s not fucking Harry Potter.”

  “At least Harry Potter has rules!”

  “Will you please not argue with each other?” James asks them both, calmly. “Not now.”

  “Sorry,” Little Dove grumbles.

  White Horse returns to his chanting and his ministrations.

  “How long will it take to heal him?” Lena finally asks from the background, trying to stem her growing frustration.

  “I can’t heal his spirit. Only he can do that.”

  “What do you mean?” Lena demands. “This is, like, an exorcism, right? Why can’t you just pull whatever was controlling him out so we can kill it?”

  “There’s nothing inside him,” White Horse insists, obviously growing impatient with her ignorance. “There’s no demon controlling him. It’s just him. Whatever spoke to his spirit split it in two, you understand? It created another Darren, one that’s everything . . . dark and hateful in his soul. I’ve seen it before. They played on his fears, on his hatred of who he is. He poisoned himself.”

  “Then how are you going to help him?” Lena asks, her voice edging into desperation, the pain and fear and regret beginning to sound through unchecked.

  “I’m going to call him out,” White Horse answers.

  Lena opens her mouth to question the old man further, but Ritter gently grips her wrist. When she looks up at him, Ritter shakes his head.

  “Please, can you bring him back to me now?” James asks White Horse, his abject serenity given away only by the tears welling in his eyes. “I have waited long enough.”

  “It’s white people magic took ’im from us and from himself,” the Hatałii assures the young chef. “They don’t know who they’re fucking with.”

  White Horse blows hot, extinguishing breath through the smoking herbs and sets them aside. He leans back, squaring his shoulders and closing his eyes. His arms slowly rise above his shoulders.

  “Shit,” Little Dove breathes quietly.

  She knows what comes next.

  When White Horse begins chanting anew, his voice is utterly changed. The entire atmosphere of the space around them changes with it, or perhaps is altered by that voice. The temperature and barometric pressure drop, prickling all of their skins. The old man’s chanting is deeper, booming, echoing beyond the simple acoustics of the cement room. It’s a voice that isn’t speaking to them; it’s calling to forces beyond their mortal plane, a voice strong enough to rip through the membrane of our reality and reach the souls that have gone beyond. Wind that shouldn’t exist in a room with no windows and a locked door rises around them, sweeping back and forth as White Horse’s chanting continues to grow in depth and power and volume.

  “This is some hoodoo-type shit here!” Cindy yells above the sudden chaos.

  “This is nothing!” Marcus insists. “We watched this brujo snake-handling dude once—”

  “Shut up, Marc!” Ritter instructs him.

  He keeps hold of Lena’s wrist as she takes a step forward, watching Darren begin to stir, then thrash from side to side atop the mattress. Little Dove does her best to keep him still without harming him, but his convulsions become more violent. A deep, thrumming moan of pain emanates from his throat that soon causes him to begin frothing at the mouth.

  “You are harming him!” James shouts against the chants of the old man. “Please, stop! Can you not see he is in pain?”

  “Just wait!” Little Dove instructs him, struggling with every ounce of her strength to help control Darren’s agonized throes.

  White Horse’s demigod voice reaches the earsplitting pinnacle of its crescendo, and as it does, it’s as if a deafening thunderclap explodes above their heads in the water-stained concrete of the ceiling.

  Then all is silence.

  It takes a moment from all of them to recover their senses in the wake of the crash. It takes another moment after that for all of them to realize there is a new addition to the room.

  Darren, another Darren, is standing at the foot of the mattress, looking down on his other self with disgust.

  “Look at him, the pendejo.”

  He’s a Xerox of Darren save for his wide, alert eyes and dry skin, but his voice and manner possess nothing the rest of them have come to know of the man. He’s like an actor who plays Darren breaking character to reveal his contempt for that character.

  “You know, in high school, he wouldn’t even jerk off because he was afraid someone would find out he was thinking about the dude from that old Hercules show? How crazy is that, being scared someone will find out what you’re thinking?”

  “He had plenty of reasons to be afraid back then,” Lena says, almost like a reflex, ignoring the surreal absurdity of the situation.

  “But he never stopped! Fucking coward.”

  James stands slowly, moving his gaze up and down the other Darren.

  “You are not my amour.”

  “I’m not a fag,” the projection fires back at him.

  “Neither is he,” James responds coolly.

  White Horse rests a hand as old and leathery as a weathered saddle on the real Darren’s forehead.

  “Op
en your eyes, son,” the Hatałii whispers into his ear. “We’ve pulled your spirit free of ’im. Now you have to face him, face yourself, and take him back into you purified. You have to do that to be whole again. You have to reconcile all that horseshit we all carry around, weighting our spirits like damn anchor chain. You can’t let it be separate from you anymore.”

  The other Darren laughs. “You writing a fucking Emily Dickinson poem down there, old man?”

  White Horse looks to James, who seems to read the message in the old man’s eyes with total clarity. James turns his back on the poisonous projection at the foot of the bed and kneels beside Darren’s true form. He takes the hand of his unconscious lover and covers it with both of his.

  “It is time to come back to me,” James tells him. “It is time to be you again, to be us again. Please, mon amour.”

  “Open your eyes, son,” White Horse repeats. “You’ve put this off too long.”

  Little Dove lightly rests her fingertips against Darren’s temple, closing her eyes and summoning whatever power to which she’s become attuned, hoping she can will it to reinforce her friend’s spirit and resolve and strength.

  Tremors wrinkle Darren’s eyelids, each one weighted heavily as they strain to open.

  “He can’t get rid of me,” his other self insists.

  “He doesn’t need to,” White Horse whispers without looking at the poisonous projection.

  The true Darren’s eyelids snap back and he gasps like a drowning man breaking clear of the water’s surface. His back arches above the bed, Little Dove stroking his chest and stomach and whispering calmly in his ear that he’s all right. When Darren sees himself, really sees the projection of his own self-loathing and all of his hate and malice, he’s at first shocked, then repulsed.