by Matt Wallace
“Training with Ritter isn’t helping anymore?”
“He does not train with Ritter. Ritter has become too busy. He sent Darren to a friend of his in Brooklyn, to continue learning.”
Lena does frown, and it’s deep with concern. “Well. It can’t be that mess with that succubus bitch bugging him. You two weren’t even here when it all went down.”
“Yes, I know. I feel bad, but that was a good vacation.”
Lena smiles. She reaches up and pats him on the arm. “I’ll talk to him, okay?”
James nods.
Bronko’s heavy footfalls and the clacking of Jett’s high heels make an uneven chorus, but it announces the duo’s presence before they appear beneath the arch separating the kitchen from the corridor outside. Bronko doesn’t seem any less burdened lately, but at least he’s present and taking care of himself again. Jett, on the other hand, is back in top form, killing it in her finest Chanel suit and tallest Louboutins.
Lena finds herself smiling warmly at the sight of the pair of them. She can’t help feeling comforted by their return to form.
Bronko’s first question is “Where’s Vargas?”
“He is in the bathroom, Chef,” James pipes up quickly. “He was not feeling well this morning.”
“You’re a bad liar and it’s a shitty habit besides, James,” Bronko tells him. “I’d avoid picking it up.”
“Yes, Chef.”
“Y’all can fill him in later. So, here it is. This mornin’ I got the news our good friend Enzo Consoné has won the presidency of the Sceadu and we’ll be serving at his inauguration in one week, down in some sacred spot in rural Virginia.”
The line applauds, catcalling and hooting, some of it exaggeration and some of it genuine.
Lena doesn’t know quite how to feel about that announcement, any of it. The last time she and Bronko spoke with him, Consoné told them there was a war coming. She knows his being elected president of the most influential governing body overseeing and mediating all these intersecting supernatural races and powers on Earth (and possibly beyond) will only escalate the situation. Consoné is an independent, a perceived human, and not the one Allensworth wanted sitting at the head of that table.
“At least the shadow election went better than the shit show on CNN,” Dorsky comments.
Nikki shakes her head sadly. “I cannot believe he’s the new president of the United States. I just can’t believe it.”
“Speaking of which, isn’t that the same night as, you know, the other inauguration?” Dorsky asks.
“I don’t even wanna get into that,” Bronko says. “It’s done. Take heart in bein’ among the few humans who know the American president and all his cronies take their marchin’ orders from—”
“Demons?” Lena interjects.
“More rational authorities,” Bronko responds, each word a slow, rumbling warning to her.
“I can’t speak to the nationally televised inauguration,” Jett chimes in brightly. “However, the inauguration of the Sceadu president is going to be an event unlike any Sin du Jour has ever planned. I’m reaching beyond my usual channels and workforce, and I can promise you all a spectacle untold!”
The line seems far less enthused by that.
“What about the menu?” Dorsky asks.
Bronko inhales and exhales with equal measures of ennui. “Yeah. I ain’t exactly a creative fount lately, I’ll be honest with y’all. Suggestions? Thoughts? Level ’em up.”
Lena speaks immediately and without really even thinking about it. “It’s a menu for politicians. What about an all-pork theme?”
They all look at her, even Nikki, surprised and quizzical expressions on their faces.
Bronko, however, grins. “I like that, Tarr. I purely do. Not bad. Not bad at all.”
“That’s pretty damn funny,” Dorsky admits. “But I like it for the food, too. Pork has a lot more versatility than you see in this city. And most chefs wouldn’t have the balls to serve five courses or more of pork. I’m in.”
“It won’t make dessert easy,” Nikki points out, her nose slightly crinkled.
“You’re always up to the challenge, Nik,” Bronko assures her. “Let’s go with it. Tag, you and Tarr there draft a menu and have it on my desk by the end of the day.”
“Yes, Chef,” Dorsky and Lena reply, almost perfectly in unison.
“The goblin guests will need to be taken into consideration,” Jett points out. “However, I believe the rest of the guest list should respond favorably to pork as a theme.”
“Pork and gemstones!” Bronko announces with an almost sadistic glee. “G’luck figuring that one out, folks.”
Laughing, he turns and exits the kitchen. Jett waves excitedly to them all and follows him.
“All-pork?” Nikki asks Lena. “How’d you come up with that one?”
Lena shrugs. “I’m Hungarian. The only thing we love more than pigs is government satire.”
IN THE HOLE
Stocking & Receiving is quiet, just a cement-lined hole in the earth forgotten by all. The team is out of its spacious, dingy “offices” and Darren is making use of the solitude and Ritter’s heavy bag, hung on a rusty chain from the ceiling. The only sound, every 6.4 seconds exactly, is Darren’s taped right foot colliding with the center of the bag. He rotates his hip, kicks, and recovers methodically and mechanically, over and over again.
He has no concept of how long he’s been down here or how many repetitions he’s performed at this point.
Darren pauses, standing perfectly still in front of the bag. When he’s not in that brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, his mind enjoys a blissful, perfect blankness. It’s a fog that protects him from the rest of the world, from seeing or hearing or truly experiencing too much of it.
Still, there are flashes. There are stray moments, like this one, when he becomes aware of his surroundings, of the people connected to them and him. That awareness clashes with the reality he’s learning in that brownstone. The familiar surroundings throw that other reality into sharp relief, exposing it for what it is.
In this moment, Darren remembers everything, the mirror that wasn’t a mirror, the voice that was all around him until it crawled inside his head and became something else, and all the things it’s been showing and teaching and whispering to him since. . . .
He launches another kick. He doesn’t move any faster, but this one has an unnatural amount of force behind it. When his foot and shin hit the bag, the bag busts its chain and goes sailing in a perfectly straight line. Traveling at least fifteen feet and as fast as a runaway oxcart, the bag explodes, raining sand down on the floor of Stocking & Receiving.
Darren stares at the stripped cloth and grains of sand flittering down the wall. As he watches the sand tumble, the blankness returns to him, a thick pall cast over his mind that drives away all those troubling thoughts and all that painful awareness.
It’s just fine. You don’t want to wear yourself out, an inner voice that’s not his soothes him. You have training tonight, after all.
“Darren! You down here?”
That voice is coming from outside of his head, and hearing it only sends whatever’s left of him recoiling further back inside himself.
Lena pushes through the prewar door to Stocking & Receiving, halting when she sees him standing there in his workout shorts and athletic tape.
“Jesus, dude, what are you doing? I’ve been looking all over for you. You missed the staff meeting.”
Darren doesn’t respond. He seems to be catching his breath after a rough training session.
“You okay?” she asks.
“I’m fine.”
Lena looks past him, seeing the mess of the heavy bag against the wall.
“What happened there?”
“It broke.”
“Yeah, well, don’t fuck with it. I’d be amazed if everything down here didn’t require you get a tetanus shot. Now, you want to change into your whites and get on the line? We’re cater
ing Enzo Consoné’s inauguration and we’re working on recipes for the menu.”
Darren’s eyes alight at the brief mention of the new Sceadu president’s name.
He nods.
“Okay, then,” Lena says, still eyeing him suspiciously. “Move your ass, okay?”
She leaves.
Lena’s been gone for almost a full minute when Darren repeats, “I’m fine.”
PROVERBIALLY
“You wish me to what now?” Ryland asks them, one eye perpetually shut against the afternoon sun while the eyebrow of the other shoots up in confusion.
Lena and Dorsky are standing just outside his trailer, looking in. The Irishman is rooting through the filthy kitchenette of his recreational vehicle, searching for a fork. Perched on his right palm is a plastic bowl of tepid ramen noodles. His functional alcoholism precludes him from eating large or frequent meals, but even he’s aware he has to sustain himself somehow.
“It’s an idea we had for the Sceadu inauguration we’re working,” Dorsky explains. “The theme of the menu is pork, but we still have to feed the goblins who are coming. So, we were thinking you could, like, literally turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, and we’d fill it with gems for the goblins to eat.”
Ryland halts his utensil hunt, staring at him with both eyes open now.
“You know, like the saying? You can’t make a silk purse out of—”
“Yes, it’s a rather advanced idiom for you, Dorsky,” Ryland says. “And I didn’t peg you as much of a reader, either, if we’re to be totally honest, love.”
“He means you,” Dorsky informs Lena sarcastically.
Lena ignores them both.
“You know, if you just walk five feet to the building and come to the kitchen, I’ll make you whatever you want,” Lena tells Ryland, staring at the microwave noodles with open contempt.
“Thank you, no. I’ve no use for the pretensions and frivolity of what you do.”
“Fine,” Dorsky says, “but what about the purses? Can you do it?”
“Not only is it an imbecilic notion of the highest magnitude, it is an abject and insulting misapplication of both my skills and the entire craft of my profession.”
“Noted,” Lena says. “Now, can you make the damn things or not?”
Ryland bends at the waist and grips his legs, muttering too low for them to make out the words, which he’s speaking between his ankles.
Lena and Dorsky wait.
When Ryland unfolds himself, he does so with the bellow of a church organ to which angry football hooligans have taken an axe. He stares at them with such weariness in his eyes, one might think there’s wisdom there if they didn’t actually know the man.
“Bring me the bloody pig ears and I’ll turn them into whatever you want; just leave me be now so that I may ingest and then violently regurgitate my supper in peace.”
With that, he kicks the door to his RV closed, shutting them out.
“He is such an asshole,” Dorsky says as they both turn away from the RV.
Inside, they can hear clattering and glass breaking and Ryland cursing in what might or might not be English.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Lena asks as they walk slowly back to Sin du Jour’s service entrance.
“Right. Yeah. That. I . . . wanted to apologize.”
Lena stops, looking up at him with even less understanding in her eyes than Ryland received.
“Yeah, I know; I’m getting that look a lot lately,” he says.
“You don’t owe me anything, Tag. Everything we did—”
“No,” he interrupts her. “Not about that. Not about anything that happened between you and me. I feel like we were on equal footing there. I just mean . . . if I made you feel unwelcome in the kitchen, on the line. If I closed ranks on you, I mean. That’s not the kind of chef I want to be. I’m trying to do better than that. I told Nikki, too.”
“Oh. All right.”
Dorsky can’t tell if she’s surprised or disappointed or both.
“So, we’re cool?” he asks.
She nods.
“Good.” Dorsky takes a deep breath. “So, about the other stuff—”
Lena holds up her hand immediately. “Can we not?”
“I just want to say. I was pissed when you took off, all right? I was. But you didn’t owe me anything. You still don’t.”
“I know that. But I’m glad you do, too.”
“So, how about we just start over again, as two chefs on the line? Go from here?”
“Yeah. I can deal with that.”
“Cool.”
“I am surprised you pulled that silk purse line,” Lena says, changing the subject as they walk back inside.
Dorsky laughs. “I read it on a napkin in this British pub in Manhattan.”
THE FOURTH WORLD
“This is a place of the deepest power,” White Horse tells his granddaughter. “It is like a natural psychopomp, conducting and guiding spirits between planes as a conduit. It is older than ancient, more potent than any magic. This is the place we’ll begin.”
“Hey, y’all,” the elderly woman in her blue vest and nametag greets them. “Welcome to Copy Kings Max Plus Express. Can I help you find something today? We’re havin’ a special on printer ink.”
“No, thank you,” White Horse replies flatly. “We’re fine.”
“All right, then; y’all have a good day.”
Little Dove stares up at her grandfather.
The word “dubious” doesn’t begin to cover it.
“What?” he demands.
“We flew all the way to fucking Arizona to come here?”
He sighs. “Okay, look. This is a place of deep power upon which a regional chain discount office supply store has been built. Can we move on?”
She grins. “Sure, Pop.”
White Horse leads her through the warehouse-sized space with its towering aisles of printers and networked phones and floor-model desk chairs. He stops in the middle of one such aisle, Little Dove long having lost the ability to distinguish between them, and White Horse plucks a large hole-punching device from a nearby shelf.
As she watches, nervous, her grandfather removes it from its box, tossing away the packaging.
“Pop—”
White Horse removes a small bone-handled knife from his belt and punctures the rubber bottom of the hole punch, spilling the sand inside placed there as a counterweight all over the floor between them.
“Hunker down,” he instructs her.
“Pop, Jesus, they’re going to kick us out of this place.”
White Horse dismisses that with an impatient wave of his hand, squatting and sitting down on the floor.
“They don’t see us. To them we’re already dead, erased. If they saw us, they’d have to acknowledge us and all the bad shit that comes with that.”
White Horse removes a few vials of colored sand from inside his jacket, uncorking them and adding the hues to the beige pile he’s spilled on the floor between them. He begins forming the multicolored mass into a painting.
Little Dove reluctantly drops to her knees, careful of the miniskirt she’s wearing.
“Many of our people believe this, everything around us, is the Fourth World, that we pass through three others before emerging here.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I believe the universe has many layers not visible to the naked eye, or—more than that—not conceivable to the human mind. There’s power contained beneath those layers, power of those that have gone before, their spirits, pooled together, and those who’ve yet to emerge here.”
“And you’re going to teach me to call them the way you do?” Little Dove asks, reluctant.
The old man shakes his white mane. “I don’t call them, child.”
“But I’ve seen you—”
“I don’t see the layers,” White Horse explains. “I haven’t for many years now. At first, when I was a boy, I only saw . . . not holes i
n them but glimpses. Those glimpses almost drove me crazy. I tried everything short of stabbing out my eyes with a buck knife to stop seeing those visions. But this is how I was born. And since there was no way for me to stop seeing them, I decided I had to see everything. It was the only way. I learned to annihilate those layers completely. Now, to my eyes, spirits walk alongside these people of flesh. I see planes atop planes, and my mind has accepted and adjusted to it.”
“Like how Keanu Reeves sees the Matrix in the sequels?”
White Horse stares at her wearily. “Yeah, sure, exactly like how Keanu Reeves sees the Matrix in the sequels.”
Little Dove nods. “Okay. Okay, so how do you learn to stop seeing the layers?”
“A lot of folks try a lot of different shit, sweat lodges or peyote or vision quests out in the open desert. Most of the time, all they do is trip balls and hallucinate, pretend whatever they saw was real. And that’s fine. They aren’t seeking power; they’re seeking answers, and most answers come from your own mind, anyway.”
“Then how do you do it, Pop?”
White Horse raises his arms and begins chanting in another voice, the same deep, otherworldly voice she heard him use to cure the staff of their lust possession. It’s that voice from which Little Dove wants to shrink. She feels whatever he’s summoning pass through her like electricity. She jumps, goose bumps covering her skin.
White Horse falls silent and lowers his arms just as quickly as he began.
The air around them settles.
“I don’t know,” he says, casually, as if he didn’t just speak with the voice of an angry demigod. “It’s like squinting to see a hidden picture. I just let go of this plane and open myself to all others, let them come to me.”
“That’s helpful, Pop, thanks.”
“You aren’t me. You don’t have to do what I do.”
“What do you mean?”
“A true hatałii has no power of their own, not really. We heal. We draw strength from what forces we can summon. But the power doesn’t come from us. Understand?”
Little Dove nods, afraid of what he’s going to tell her next.
