The Painted Boy

by Charles de Lint

  He knew something was wrong.

  He remembered the threat of El Tigre.

  But El Tigre was dead, so what was the threat now?

  He could remember letting the dragon wake up, but he had no idea if it had, or what it was doing.

  He knew what Rita and Abuelo and even Lupita had said, but the dragon still seemed separate from him. He tried to find it in the overwhelming barrage of stimuli but it was hopeless.

  He could remember Maria. He could almost see her body lying crumpled against the wall of the pool hall, chest crushed in, her T-shirt blossoming with blood. Or was he thinking of Margarita, murdered in the pool hall, the blood on her shirt? A thousand other images flickered through his mind in a headlong rush and he couldn’t hold on to only one.

  But he could see the blood.

  Margarita’s—no, Maria’s. El Tigre had killed Maria.

  The blood . . .

  Like the red haze of anger that had loosed the dragon.

  He could feel himself falling deeper into the bewildering, spinning morass of sensory input.

  The dragon.

  What was the dragon doing?

  You know that you and the dragon are one and the same, right? he could hear Rita say in his memory. It’s part of who you are.

  Okay. Then what was he doing?

  But it was too late to figure that out. He could no longer separate himself from everything else in the barrio. Every human, every cousin, every creature that wasn’t a cousin, every plant, rock, arroyo, and dry riverbed—he was one and the same with them all now. He couldn’t get away from the overwhelming press of them for long enough to focus on who he was, or what the dragon was doing. There was only the long fall into otherness.

  Falling . . . falling . . . falling . . .

  He tried to grab on to something—anything—that would allow him to get back into himself, but the spinning pressure of the thousand thousand others inside him ran rampant, all connected and there was no way to tell one from the other. No way to tell who he was, or where he was, or what he—

  No, the dragon.

  —was doing.

  But it wouldn’t be anything good. He remembered letting it wake up. And it—

  No, he.

  —had been seriously pissed. Right now it was probably destroying the barrio. And that meant they were going to show up soon—Paupau and the other dragons that had come with her after the dance hall was destroyed. They’d know he was out of control this time. They’d come to shut him down the way Lupita said the feathered serpents did.

  He wasn’t sure he even cared anymore. Because he couldn’t live like this. If this was what it meant to be connected to everything in the barrio, he couldn’t deal with it. He didn’t see how anybody could.

  But others had, hadn’t they? Señora Elena had done it. Even El Tigre, who shouldn’t have been allowed to call himself that, since he wasn’t even a tiger.

  He supposed they were just stronger than him.

  Because he was lost now and there was no way back.

  Except . . . except . . .

  The whisper of something pure crept through the chaos.

  It was a singular sound and he knew he’d heard it before, but he couldn’t remember where, or what it was. He focused hard on it, trying to hold on to its elusive sound. And then he recognized what it was.

  An electric guitar . . . and trumpets?

  Yes, trumpets.

  Bass and drums, pounding a beat that the guitar and trumpets fought with for a moment, then joined.

  A needle scratching on vinyl.

  Malo Malo, he thought. This was one of Ramon’s songs. The band must be playing somewhere.

  Then he remembered seeing them on Camino Presidio, set up on the flatbeds of a couple of big trucks.

  The music pulled him out of the morass. The quickened pulse of the music slowed and slowed until it was the same heartbeat that he’d first heard when he stepped out of el entre.

  And as suddenly as he’d been lost, he was himself again.

  Himself, but more. Still connected to it all, still a part of everything within this stretch of desert, but himself. He could keep it as a background hum—the way he used to keep the rustle of scales in the back of his mind—or he could zoom in on one cacti, one adobe building, one person. . . .

  He didn’t know how he could have been so lost. Everything was in its place and he stood at the hub of the great wheel made of all their multiple presences. The medicine came up out of the ground right under him, from the wheel’s hub, and filled him—not so much with power as with energy. The guardian of the barrio wasn’t supposed to destroy things. He or she was here to keep everything connected. But he could destroy something if he needed to.

  His eyes snapped open.

  There was El Tigre. Still in the shape of some kind of panther man. Still dead.

  There was the pool hall, its adobe cracked, the windows popped, shattered glass scattered on the pavement.

  And there was Maria . . .

  Movement distracted him. He saw the bandas gathering their courage. They were picking up weapons that the dragon must have knocked from their hands. Cruz was in front, the morning sun shining bright on the crown and devil’s horns tattooed on his forehead. They were ready to start the cycle of violence all over again.

  “No,” Jay told them. “This stops here.”

  Cruz shook his head. “The only thing you’re going to stop is the blade of my knife.”

  The morning chorus of birds could be heard from the next street over, oblivious to the drama playing out here. A block away, a young mother was nursing her newborn daughter. On the edge of town, a man paused as he opened his garage to take in the beauty of the sun coming over the mountains. At the lip of an arroyo, a roadrunner spread out its wings to capture the warmth.

  Jay sighed. The morning was perfect. How could the bandas be so focused on shedding blood? It was so frustrating that they couldn’t be made to see that their time here was done. Jay’s annoyance with them made dragonfire flicker around his fingers.

  Cruz wasn’t impressed. “Throwing fireworks only works once, kid. I know what’s up. You can’t pull the same scam twice and expect to get away with it.”

  Jay met the gangbanger’s gaze and held it for a long moment.

  “You misunderstood me,” he said. “I wasn’t asking for the violence to stop. I’m telling you it has stopped. You’re alone in your lust for it.”

  “What the hell are—”

  “You think that knife of yours is thirsty for blood?” Jay broke in before Cruz could finish. “It’s as tired of the violence as I am.”

  Jay remembered Abuelo telling him, Dragons are rare creatures, Jay. Your elemental spirit embraces all the elements. Fire and water, rock and air.

  He called on air now. A wind, narrow and focused, plucked the knife from Cruz’s hand and sent it clattering down the pavement.

  Cruz took a step forward, stopping when Jay held up his hand.

  “This is the way it’s going to be,” Jay said. “No more gangs. No more drugs. No more violence. If you want something to occupy your time . . .”

  He made a sweeping motion with both arms and the long row of motorcycles and low riders parked in front of the pool hall literally fell to pieces. Metal crashed and clanged as it banged against other pieces and hit the pavement. Bolts and screws and nuts went rolling in all directions. The vehicles in the parking lot weren’t spared.

  “You can play with your rides,” Jay said.

  The other bandas started to edge away, but Cruz held his ground.

  “You think you can clean up the barrio, man?” he said. “You think you’re the first to try? They all try. The policía. The do-gooders. Nothing takes. You can’t get rid of us. This is our place. Our home.”

  Jay shook his head. “I’m not cleaning it up. This place is already all it should be. It’s just that somebody forgot to take out the trash.”

  Cruz snarled and lunged forward, taking
a swing at Jay. But before his fist could connect, Jay called on a wind that picked the gangbanger up and flung him hard against the cracked adobe of the pool hall.

  “When I said no more violence,” Jay said, his voice still mild, but carrying to all parts of the street, “I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t enforce the rule.”

  He looked away from where Cruz lay, his gaze taking in one side of the street, then the other.

  “Everybody clear on this?” he asked. “Anybody breaks these rules and I’ll know. Don’t think I won’t. You even fart, and I’ll know. And you don’t get three strikes. Mess up once, and you’re gone. Anybody have any questions?”

  All the gangbangers had slipped away now except for Cruz, who was still trying to catch his breath.

  “So no more fun?” a voice called from one of the rooftops.

  Jay looked up to the crow boy standing there.

  “You need to hurt people to have fun?” he asked.

  The crow boy shook his head.

  “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, do you?”

  Jay turned away and walked over to the pool hall. He ignored El Tigre’s body, just as he ignored Cruz, but he was still aware of them, just as he was aware of everything on the wheel that was this piece of the desert. He knelt down by Maria’s body and brushed the hair away from her eyes. Then he reached out with thumb and forefinger and gently pulled her lids down.

  He realized that she hadn’t done this just for the barrio, or to keep Rosalie safe. She’d done it as much for him as well. So that his guardianship wouldn’t be tainted with El Tigre’s death.

  Would he have been able to take El Tigre? Before, he wasn’t sure. The dragon part of him had power, but he had no fighting skills. But now . . . now he could snuff out even a creature as powerful as El Tigre without breaking a sweat.

  Now, when it was too late to help Maria.

  He became aware of Rosalie jumping down from the makeshift bandstand and approaching. Picking Maria up, he cradled her against his chest as he turned to face Rosalie.

  “She . . . she’s dead, isn’t she . . . ?” Rosalie said.

  Jay nodded.

  Rosalie’s eyes glistened. She reached out with a trembling hand, but Jay pulled back so that she couldn’t touch Maria’s body.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t get to feel remorse now.”

  Rosalie gave him a surprised look. “What do you mean?”

  But Jay had already stepped away into el entre and she was only speaking to the air.

  Malena Gracia turned in her lawn chair to look at Señora Elena.

  “You should have taken my bet,” she said, “though I’m glad you didn’t.”

  Elena shook her head. “I still don’t—”

  “Gamble on people’s lives. I know. You already said that.” Malena hesitated, then added, “Are you going to let him just take her body away like that?”

  “Why would I stop him?”

  “The question is, could anybody stop him?” Malena said. “But that’s not what I meant. Shouldn’t Maria be laid to rest here in Santo del Vado Viejo, with the rest of her kin?”

  “She has no kin except for me, and I’m not dead yet.”

  Malena hesitated again, then said, “Maybe not, but you look like you’re standing right at La Santa Muerte’s door, ready to join this foster daughter of yours.”

  “I . . .” Elena sighed and fell silent.

  Malena didn’t press her. She looked across the street to where El Tigre’s body lay, marveling again at how all it had taken to lay him low was one five-fingered being and the sharp blade of her knife. But the humans living in this barrio would never really know what she’d done. If they did, they’d make her a saint.

  Her gaze shifted to the ruin of the bandas’ motorcycles and low riders, all those fancy machines. That was something you didn’t see often—a cousin who could talk to the elements and get them to do a favor like this for them. She was going to have to study up on the Yellow Dragon Clan, see what else they were capable of.

  Elena shifted in her chair and the plastic creaked ominously in its aluminum frame.

  “I didn’t think it would be like this,” she said finally.

  Malena turned away from El Tigre’s body to look at her. “Be like what?”

  “That I would feel the way I do. Letting go of my responsibilities . . . I thought I would feel only relief. That this great weight would be lifted.”

  “And it hasn’t?” Malena asked.

  “Yes and no. The truth is I never really thought it through.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “While Flores stole the potency of the medicine from me, he never took away the medicine itself. I could still feel the land and every being that lived in it. But that is gone now. It all went to Jay.”

  “You have nothing?”

  “Only the memory of how it felt.”

  Malena reached out and took her hand. She looked again at El Tigre’s body.

  “That is a terrible price to have had to pay,” she said.

  A price she didn’t think she would ever have had the courage to pay. Because how do you continue after such a loss? To be a part of everything and then to be trapped only within the confines of your own skin.

  She thought that perhaps Maria had got the better part of the bargain.

  Rita looked over the silent crowd as Jay stepped away into el entre carrying the body of Señora Elena’s foster daughter in his arms. She knew the five-fingered beings who had come to see Malo Malo were stunned by what they’d witnessed, but the cousins were all oddly quiet as well. She didn’t blame them. That trick with the choppers and low riders was something she’d never seen before, either. She turned to the band.

  “You should play something,” she said.

  Ramon’s only response was to put down his trumpet and jump to the ground, pushing through the silent crowd to where Rosalie stood.

  “Like what?” Anna said.

  Rita shrugged. “Do I look like a music director? You’re the musicians. Do whatever it is that you do. But those people down there, they need something real to focus on. Give them that, and if they’re lucky, they can probably convince themselves that none of this ever happened.”

  She turned to the edge of the stage but Anna caught her arm before she could leave.

  Rita looked down at where Anna’s hand gripped her upper arm until the guitarist let it go.

  “Seriously,” Anna said. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Before Anna could reply, Rita jumped down and made her way through the crowd. When she reached El Tigre’s corpse, she picked it up by the scruff of the neck as though the body had no weight. She tossed the body inside the pool hall, glanced at where Ramon was comforting Rosalie, then turned her attention to Cruz. He scrambled to his feet.

  “Traitor,” he said, and spat on the ground.

  Rita could only shake her head. “Why? Because I drank beer and tequila in El Conquistador, shot a few games of pool? That was supposed to make me loyal to you?”

  Cruz nodded.

  “You’re serious?”

  When he nodded again, Rita laughed. A snake’s tongue flickered from between her lips. Then for one moment she let the illusion of humanity fall and a rattlesnake’s head took the place of her own.

  Cruz stared at her.

  “Did you ever really think I was one of you?” she asked.

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “Here’s the deal, Cruz. The new boss in town seems to be antiviolence, so I can’t hurt you the way I’d like to, but if I were you, I’d make tracks and put as much distance between Santo del Vado Viejo and wherever the hell you end up. You know, before he comes back and makes an exception for you.”

  “Why would—”

  “You think he’s never going to find out whose idea it was to make Maria one of your Queens?”

  “It was supposed to be—”

  Rita cut him off. “Doesn’t mak
e any difference what was supposed to happen. It’s because of you that Maria got into la vida loca. You think he won’t figure out who made her life a bigger misery until she finally held a knife to your gut and you had to back off? I don’t know if even a continent is going to be big enough to put between the two of you.”

  “Bitch. You’re going to tell him.”

  She shook her head. “I won’t have to. The stink of what you’ve done lies all over the barrio. When he gets back and starts to sift through the history of this place, he’s going to know.”

  “I’ll—”

  “You won’t do dick, if you’ve got any kind of brains left in that tattooed head of yours. Now run along like a good little gangbanger. Chop-chop.”

  Cruz hesitated until she let the forked snake’s tongue slip out between her lips again. Then he backed away until he could slip out of sight. Rita listened to his footsteps receding before she crossed the street to where the two old ladies from the lizard clans sat in their lawn chairs.

  “I’m sorry about Maria,” she told Señora Elena.

  Elena nodded. “Thank you.”

  “I had no idea she had anything like that planned.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Are you going to be okay? Do you need a hand getting home or anything? Because you’re not looking so good.”

  “I will survive. It’s what we’re good at, isn’t it? Whatever inconveniences the five-fingered beings bring into our world, we find a way to go on as we always have.”

  “I guess. Me, I’m going to find myself some breakfast. Think I’ll go gringo this morning. Bacon and eggs. Home fries. You want to join me?”

  “Not today, thank you.”

  Rita nodded. She glanced at Malo Malo. The band was playing some old Sonoran ranchero, the guitarist leading the band; their lead singer was still trying to console his girlfriend. She saw Lupita approaching and gave her a wave before setting off down Camino Presidio.

  She was feeling a little buzz from how everything had actually worked out for a change, and knew that talking to the little jackalope girl was only going to bring her down. As she walked, she wondered what Malo Malo was going to sing about now. With Jay on the job to clean up the barrio, they’d pretty much have to come up with a whole new repertoire.