by Matt Wallace
“Chef, we have to get out of here. Now.”
He looks up at her, expression turning from business to grave. “How’s that, now?”
“Something terrible is going to happen at the Sceadu inauguration. I know it. We have to get out of here and try to stop it. We have to.”
TRAIN TO CATCH
“What time do they inaugurate Consoné?” Lena asks Bronko.
“Midnight. That’s the tradition.”
They’re bussing after dessert service, as the VIP guests all file out of the banquet hall to join the spectators on the steps and colonnades outside of the Capitol Building. They’ll be swearing in the new president of the United States soon. They’ve heard gossip the crowd gathered beyond the security perimeter is record-breaking and terrifyingly partisan, an organic bomb waiting for a spark.
“Then we can still make it if we leave now,” Lena insists.
“We all know you’re good with a paring knife,” Dorsky tells her, “but you ain’t John Wick. The Secret Service won’t let us leave. There’re a lot more of them and they all have guns.”
Lena is resolved. “If we can just get to that crowd out front, we can ditch our smocks and mix in. There’s no way they’ll be able to spot us.”
“It’s fucking government security, Lena!” Dorsky explodes. “They see everything!”
“Oh, bullshit!” she fires back at him. “This is all bullshit, Tag. It’s an illusion. It’s meat puppets on parade. It’s literally run by fucking meat puppets. Everything everyone thinks about this place and these people is a lie. There’s no power here. You want to know who I think the most important people are in Washington tonight? Seriously? Us. Because Allensworth wants us to be trapped here, and he and people . . . and things like him, they’re the ones who actually see everything. This, all of this, is a fucking shadowbox.”
Her words are enough to shut down Dorsky, but Bronko is quick to ask, “Don’t that amount to the same thing? If Allensworth wants us here, isn’t it him we’re trying to sneak past?”
Lena shakes her head. “He isn’t here. He’s where the real power is, in some backwoods in rural fucking Virginia right now. I’m betting he expects us to be exactly what I was when we pulled in here tonight: overwhelmed and scared and falling in line out of habit.”
“Why are you so damn sure something that bad is up, Tarr?” Bronko asks her. “And what do you imagine is about to happen?”
Lena hasn’t articulated it fully for herself yet, perhaps because she doesn’t really want to.
“It’s all about Consoné,” she says. “Allensworth wanted to take him down, and he was willing to wipe out hundreds of humans and goblins to do it. That didn’t work. We screwed it up and Consoné won. Allensworth has to take out Consoné directly now. And the only reason he hasn’t made us pay for our part in ruining his plans is because we’re still valuable. We’re still the cooks. We’re the invisible servants they let go anywhere and get near anyone.”
“What are you saying?” Dorsky asked, genuinely lost.
Bronko, however, looks as though he’s catching up.
“Darren,” she says, darkly.
Bronko nods.
“Boy’s been . . . way off lately,” he admits.
“It’s more than that,” she insists. “I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to call him on it, out of guilt. But he’s not himself. It has to be him. Allensworth is using him to do something horrible. Tonight. I know it.”
“All right, then,” Bronko says, the same resolve that’s overtaken Lena seeming to have infected him. “How do we get to the crowd, past the revenue men?”
“A distraction,” Lena says. “It needs to be a big one. Pac, would your new gremlin pals help out?”
Pacific shakes his head. “Those dudes are serious about serving their country, man. They’d never go against the office. They’re pretty socially liberal, which is nice.”
“Pretty damn easy to cause a ruckus at an event where the president is speaking, seems to me,” Bronko says. “Especially this one. Somebody’s just gotta go after him.”
Lena nods. “The only problem with that is whoever makes the play isn’t leaving with us.”
Bronko says, “I just said it was the easiest way to cause a ruckus.”
“Normally, I’d volunteer, y’all,” Pacific chimes in, “but I’m not sure I have the motor coordination at this point in the evening, y’know?”
“I’ll do it,” Dorsky says.
Bronko and Lena both stare silently at him in collective shock.
“Don’t normally know you to change your mind so fast, Tag,” Bronko says.
Dorsky looks at Lena. “It needs to be done, right? We’re running out of time, right? I’ll do it. Hopefully, they won’t shoot me.”
“Nah, you’re the wrong complexion for that,” Pacific points out.
“Don’t do this for me,” Lena practically scolds him. “If that’s what this is. Don’t do it because—”
“You convinced me, all right? If Allensworth is coming after my line, then this is what I’m prepared to do. Let’s do it. Now.”
Bronko reaches up and grips his shoulder, claps him on the back. “Don’t worry; they won’t kill ya. And if we have to, Ritter and the team’ll bust you right out of whatever black-box prison they send you to.”
“That’s really comforting, Chef, thanks.”
They deposit the remnants of dessert and coffee and what’s left of cocktail glasses in the kitchen, then the five of them head outside. Oddly, it’s not the Secret Service or White House staff that gives them any flack; it’s the producers running the setup to broadcast the inauguration nationally.
They find themselves ushered and massed directly to the right of the inaugural podium. The shortest path to the barricades holding back the public is a fifty-yard dash down the stone steps below. There’s police and Secret Service staffing those barricades every few feet, however. All Lena and the rest can do is wait.
It would be thoroughly boring if it weren’t for the knowledge of what they’re about to attempt mainlining adrenaline and anticipation throughout their bodies. Lena watches the chief justice take his position near the podium, holding the book with which he’ll swear in the new president. Lena can’t make out what the book is, but knowing the candidate’s image, she assumes it’s a copy of the Necronomicon.
Half an hour passes. They hear the crowd before they see him, half of them exulting like it’s Nuremberg circa 1938, the other half ready to crucify like they’re in the gallery of the war crime tribunals held there later. The president-elect walks out in his formal winter best to meet the chief justice and to be sworn in as president of the United States.
Lena looks up at their faces: Bronko and Dorsky, Pacific and Mo. They’re all still looking at him like he’s human instead of a meat puppet being piloted by an overly patriotic gremlin.
“I liked his show, you know,” Dorsky remarks, nervously. “‘You’re fired.’ All that. It was funny. It was a funny show.”
“Are you okay?” Lena asks.
“Fuck, no, I’m not okay,” he spits back at her, annoyed. “This is all insane, everything that’s happening, this whole world. It’s fucking off its tit.”
“Glad you’re finally getting that.”
“I just wanted to cook.”
“I know.”
“I just wanted to run my own kitchen.”
“I know, Tag.”
“I can deal with goblins and demons and trolls and all of that shit, but this—”
“Tag, listen to me,” Lena says, gripping his wrist. “You don’t have to do this. We can think of something—”
Before she can say the next word, his wrist has left her hand and Lena realizes he’s leapt out onto the inauguration platform. Dorsky breaks into a run, using his longest stride, becoming a missile aimed at that podium in the center.
He doesn’t make it four feet before three Secret Service agents tackle him to the ground.
It’s over in a split second and about as anticlimactic as a climax can be. In fact, it has the exact opposite effect of distracting the crowd. The first several yards of the surrounding throng falls deafly silent except for brief gasps and a scattered exclamation. No one else moves. The entire scene freezes as if it’s the final scene of a 1980s sitcom episode. It’s like a spotlight made of a hundred thousand eyes has been shone right in front of them.
“Shit on us,” Bronko mutters.
Lena’s heart sinks a foot below her chest and her brain burns with frustration and panic.
It’s still quiet enough for a gentle scraping sound to draw Lena’s attention away from Dorsky being subdued on the concrete four feet away. What she sees when she locates the source of the noise wipes away all of those feelings and sensations, replacing them with abject surprise.
It wasn’t a large enough distraction to cover the four of them breaking into a run down the U.S. Capitol steps.
It was, however, enough of a distraction that no one seems to notice or process the slender oxygen canister rolling across the plateau toward the podium.
Even those who see it can’t or don’t fully comprehend the ramifications of the lit bundle of matches perched precariously where a tube should be connected to the canister. The metal cylinder rolls directly toward the president-elect, stopping when it hits the polished toes of his wing tips.
Lena glances frantically back at Mr. Mirabel. The air tube perpetually attached to his nostrils is still there, but he’s slowly twirling the opposite, detached end like a lasso.
He shrugs at her.
Lena looks back just in time to see the oxygen canister explode at the meat puppet’s feet in a tornado of white. There’s no blood. There’s no gore. There are only patches of fabric and chunks of what looks like flesh-colored tofu flying through the night. The storm of dry meat chunks rains down and splats against the plateau around the podium, creating a sickly mound of half-melted reddish pink.
That’s not the worst part.
They hear the first faraway sounds of the shrieking a moment after the meat-puppet chunks settle. The shriek grows louder and louder until a small green blur reappears in the hot stage lights erected for the television cameras. The gremlin lands directly in the middle of the meat-puppet puddle, the concrete-softened, half-liquefied stuffing helping to break its fall. The gremlin rights itself, dazed, and begins wildly shaking off the reddish pink goo, throwing it everywhere and on everyone nearby like a shaggy dog out of the bath.
It stops, staring out at the crowd from the middle of what used to be the most controversial president-elect in the history of America.
That’s when everyone finally loses his or her shit.
It’s the screaming, frothing chaos Lena was hoping for when Dorsky made his move. Secret Service rush the podium. Politicians and celebrities flee. Most importantly, the barricades holding back the public are overrun in less than sixty seconds. Police, protestors, supporters, and everyone in between are embroiled in all-out, mass-psychosis-driven warfare.
“Let’s go!” Bronko shouts over the madness.
“Mo can’t make it without his tank!” Pacific yells. “I’ll chill here with him. You guys handle business!”
There’s no time to argue. Bronko and Lena begin pushing their way down the steps, trying to keep tightly together as they go.
“Stop right there!”
Two Secret Service agents with pistols drawn, spaced far enough apart to be a problem, and everyone is giving their firearms a wide berth.
Lena and Bronko are stuck.
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! I’m afraid I’m going to have to order you to lower those weapons and let these folks pass!”
Lena turns her head and looks past Bronko, recognizing that voice instantly just as she did standing in front of the meat-puppet rack.
The outgoing president, long winter coat whipping about him and gloved hand raised like an image from a comic book cover, is commanding the Secret Service to stand down.
“Sir, you should step back—” one of the agents begins.
“Son, I’d like to think I still brook some authority around here. Now, these people are on business vital to our nation’s security, and I insist you let them pass.”
Lena looks to Bronko, who she’s certain she could knock over in that moment by poking him in the chest, then back at the Secret Service agents.
They slowly lower their weapons.
Lena slaps Bronko on the arm to snap him out of his disbelief.
“Thank you again, sir!” she shouts to the president.
As they break into a run between the agents, heading into the thick of the crowd, Lena hears him yell after them both: “Good luck with that train!”
SECRET WEAPON
In the tent given to Sin du Jour to prep their Sceadu presidential inauguration fare, Nikki is drizzling chipotle-and-Kahlúa chocolate sauce over small paper-lined baskets of churro chicharrónes. Designing a dessert for an all-pork menu, let alone a formal all-pork menu, wasn’t easy, and Nikki isn’t a particular fan of fried pastries to begin with, but she pushed herself as she always does and is pretty damn pleased with the results.
James pops his head in, sweat dappling his bald scalp. “The ones that are part horse have eaten all that we brought for them.”
The rest of the line refers to centaurs and minotaurs as “half-and-half,” a term Jett constantly reminds them is pejorative. Nikki knows James is just doing the best with the English he’s learned over the past several years after arriving in New York City from Senegal.
“Then they’re going to have to eat what everyone else is eating,” she says impatiently.
He nods, backing away from the tent flaps.
“And I need arms to serve dessert!” Nikki yells after him.
“I will try, but everyone is in the weeds. I cannot find Darren.”
That stops Nikki cold. “You can’t . . . what? You can’t find Darren?”
“No, Chef.”
Nikki explodes. “I cannot believe . . .” Then a thought seems to occur to her, breaking through that burst of anger. “Oh, thank you for calling me ‘Chef’. That is so sweet of you, James; I love you.” Nikki shakes her head as if shaking the burst of levity away. “But no! No, that is some BS right there!”
Despite finding herself suddenly in charge of the entire event, or perhaps because of having that responsibility thrust upon her, Nikki can’t stop herself. She leaves the tent and strides through the party space, around the currently unoccupied inaugural dais. She weaves through the guests in her soiled chef’s smock, ignoring the several celebrity faces of goblins she registers.
She passes by Allensworth, who raises a glass of champagne to her with that perpetual smile that only mocks genuine human emotion.
Nikki ignores him.
She exits the hovering platform, jogging down the suspended steps of onyx and leaping over the final one onto the shore of the lake. She walks toward the tree line, leaving the straggling party guests and the cacophony of the crowd behind.
Nikki approaches the back of Sin du Jour’s rented truck, finding it half-open and unattended.
“Darren! Are you out here? What the heck is up, man? You’re leaving the rest of us in the weeds!”
There’s no answer, but her eyes catch a glint, a strip of light cast from inside the truck.
“Darren? Seriously, dude!”
Nikki marches over to the back of the truck and climbs up over the edge of the loading door.
“Darren!”
Hoisting herself up to her feet with great effort, Nikki’s eyes have to adjust to the darkness filling the back of the large space, but her ears are assaulted with both the sound of cutting air and a feral growling punctuated with occasional shrieking battle cries.
Darren is stripped to the waist. He’s armed with a six-foot spear ending in a sword-length blade. The other end is crowned with a jewel that gleams all at once blue, red, and green in the dark. Darren is twirl
ing the shaft and slashing with the blade like a master in a kung fu movie.
“Darren?”
He stops in mid-stroke, halting with his back to her. He stands perfectly still and straight except for the slight motion of his shoulders moving in time with his labored breath.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“It’s almost time,” he says in a voice that sounds nothing like Darren’s, especially with his back turned to her like that.
“Time . . . for what?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Everything in Nikki’s body, everything she’s spent a life time accruing as a woman who walks alone in the streets every day and night, is now telling her to run.
“Yeah . . . yeah, I get that sense. I’ll just go, okay? I’ll go get James. Maybe we can all talk about—”
“You can’t go.”
“I’m happy to stay if it’s so we can talk about what’s going on with you. But you’d need to put that weird-ass spear down. Where were you hiding that thing, anyway?”
Almost before she’s done asking the question, the blade retracts into the shaft of the spear and its entire length folds impossibly inward until it becomes a single, foot-long haft.
“Oh,” Nikki manages around the lump in her throat.
“You can’t go,” Darren repeats in his alien voice.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Nikki assures him, after which she immediately turns to bolt from the back of the truck.
She never feels the jewel end of the spear collide with the back of her skull. Nikki is only aware of the thick veil of darkness that drips over her vision like molasses, and the curious sensation of ordering her limbs to move and her limbs not obeying.
She does feel the floor of the truck rush up and smack the shit out of her, however.
Then she’s out.
THY LIFE BE MINETO TAKE OR SAVE
Nikki watches Darren roll a black undershirt over an abdomen that looks as though it was drawn for the cover of an erotic novel.
It only confirms a theory she’s long held: having six-pack abs makes you evil.
