There came to Maggie’s ears the gentle rush of the breeze through
forest branches, like the wash of the waves upon the shore. She
groaned as she sat up, not out of lingering drowsiness but because
sharp reports from her shoulderblades and lower back told
of what she had been through last night. And upon her forearms, now
that she saw them out of the blanket – long lines that had scabbed
over, but that she had not been able to heal before falling asleep
from utter exhaustion.
She wondered,
idly, how such marks must stand out upon the pale skin of her lover.
She realized with a start that if she hadn’t been able to heal
herself before collapsing, she hadn’t been able to heal Alejandra
either. "Hm," she mumbled, "Alejandra, how are you
feeling? You okay?"
No answer. Maggie
looked to her left, where Alejandra had slept. An unkempt bedroll,
empty. She looked to her right, where Madame Balam had also slept. A
neatly-folded bedroll, and the woman was no longer there.
"Come out of
the tent," growled the voice of an unfortunately familiar man.
Diego San Obispo.
"So you
finally managed to actually get close to me," said Maggie.
"Third time’s the charm, I guess. But, sorry, you’re so
close and yet so far! I can’t come out of the tent when there’s a
big ol’ iron cage around it." She heard the creak and groan
of metal.
"Clever,"
said Diego. There was a tink tink
as of something tapping the iron. "You said iron, right? Not
steel? Just cast
iron?"
"I don’t know," said Maggie. "I suppose so."
"And is it white cast iron, grey cast iron, or ductile cast
iron?"
She
had known the differences between the three, years ago. An
encyclopedia entry had explained it. One allowed cracks to pass all
the way through, one split the cracks into smaller cracks, and one
bent instead of cracking. She had to pick the one that didn’t bend
and didn’t crack. But which was which? It had been too long. She
guessed randomly. "White,
I suppose?"
Diego
chuckled. "The one that lets cracks go all the way through. Ha!
If you say it, it must be so. Julio, if you would bring that taco
cart to me? Thank you so much. Hrmp!"
He grunted, as if lifting something heavy. There
was a tremendous CLANG,
and the sound of cracking wood.
Maggie
clapped her hands over her ears. Then another CLANG,
and a tremendous crashing sound, followed by further clangs. "Oh!
You awful fiend! You are sunk to your waist in the earth and your
hands are pinned under stones!"
There came the clatter of stone on stone. But Diego only laughed.
"Alright boys, she’s open."
Maggie heard a ripping sound. She turned to see a knife slicing open
the fabric of the tent. "Oh no you don’t!" said Maggie,
"all your knives are made out of rubber! And your rifles are
made out of leaves! And my skin is bulletproof!"
"Shut the hell up or we’ll shoot your girlfriend," said a
gruff voice, and then hands were reaching into the tent and dragging
her out.
There outside the tent, bright sunlight struck Maggie’s eyes,
through the few gaps in the canopy of branches. As she blinked the
spots out of her vision she could see her iron cage lying in pieces,
the sad legacy of a decent attempt. Amidst the shattered metal lay the
mangled remains of a wooden food cart. She could not see anything yet
in the shadows of the forest – save for Alejandra, held fast by
twelve large men, a gleaming golden pistol aimed at her temple.
Maggie was about to cry out when a burly arm wrapped around her
ribcage and a gloved hand clamped over her mouth. No matter what
words she said, they would not be distinct enough to conjure
anything.
And
there was the blonde-bearded
man clad in a white suit, buried up to his waist. A few young men
with blue scarves tied around their forearms were digging him out.
Others were lifting the heavy stones away from where they had pinned
the man’s hands. "Finally!" He looked as smug as a
well-fed slumlord.
"We’ve got you where we want you. And now as long as we’ve
got a hostage you care about, you’ll have to work for us. You’ll
be making us
a lot of gold, you see. Literally."
Maggie glanced at Alejandra, who was scowling. She raised her
eyebrows, trying to convey that she was looking for Alejandra’s
word on the subject. Alejandra raised one eyebrow.
Maggie looked back to Diego and shook her head. Then she looked back
to Alejandra. The woman was smiling.
"Oh
come now," said Diego, "don’t you want to be rich? You
could let the world be your oyster! You could have anything! You can
have anything. Come to think of it, why don’t you already? You
could have conjured a great big seaside palace filled
with diamonds."
He planted his hands on the ground and lifted himself the rest of the
way out, clumps of clay and sod tumbling off his ruined suit.
"You
could have made yourself queen. Why didn’t you? Did you just not
think of it?"
Maggie shrugged. She had more interesting things to be contemplating.
Such as where Madame Balam had got to, and where everyone else was.
"You
are quite the odd one," said Diego. "Ah, but no matter. I
shall have the seaside palace now, thank you very much. And from
there, we shall see about
making something to make sure that the Mother of the Sea rules this
existence, in place of Los Ojos. It’s not safe to work for those
things anymore. Oscar, bring her to the truck, will you? And remember
to gag her. Tightly."
The
rough arm dragged her out of the direct sunlight. As
Maggie’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was at last able to see
where everyone else had gone – they were kneeling with their hands
bound, Maria and the nuns at
the forefront, as
green-uniformed police
officers stood before them,
amidst piles of leaves,
pistols in hand. Maggie silently cursed herself for being too
specific with her wording.
Or
– was that everyone else? There had been a great many people in the
clearing last night, enough to fill the place. Now it was just a
gaggle small enough for Maria and her nuns to fully screen. Where had
everyone else gone? Perhaps they were being held elsewhere?
Near
a large pine, Maggie could see a large white truck, its back hatch
open. She struggled in her captor’s grip as best she could,
desperate to avoid being placed within that trunk. But the most she
could do was cause Diego to chuckle and stride over to her. He
twisted her ear. "You’re
not going to be causing trouble for me and my men any further. Count
yourself lucky that you’re useful to me, otherwise I would have had
you and your friends more decisively dealt with after you slapped me
with that fish."
So Rafael had been displaced to Los Hijos after Luis stopped
existing, as if it were some sort of timeline shenanigans...only,
Diego remembered the fish incident, as if there hadn’t been any
timeline shenanigans. That made no sense.
And thus there was yet one more plot hole in Maggie’s back pocket.
"It would be better for you to be quiet anyhow," said
Diego. "I can’t get rid of you too quickly, but I can get rid
of your friends if you disobey me." Diego gestured to the
gathered people. "These people didn’t report to work this
morning. So they’re all under arrest, and if some of them happen to
die before the judge sees them, well, that would be too bad, wouldn’t
it? And the best thing is, even if we haven’t caught most of our
targets, we still have plenty of hostages for good behavior. I’ve
been wanting to shut up all these frikkin’ favelanos for a while."
"What about the nuns?" said one of the dark-clad young men
with a blue scarf on his arm. "If the bishop knew you’d killed
a nun, he might actually complain."
"How many soldiers does he have at his command?" said
Diego. "Besides, I’ve been wanting to deal with Maria for a
long time. He’d love to know I took her down. And here she is,
finally caught in the midst of blasphemy! What a prize! Go get the
sledgehammers."
Maria and the nuns had their heads bowed in prayer. Maggie hoped it
was in prayer. At least it looked like they were praying. Their
mouths were moving, with what words Maggie could not tell. One of the
officers seemed to dislike this, for he was snarling at Maria –
presumably telling her to stop, with no success. He seemed to be
growing more and more agitated, until finally he kicked Maria in the
thigh. And fell to the ground screaming in pain.
Maria and her nuns raised their heads to stare at the man. No longer
did they utter prayers, yet neither did their faces betray an inkling
of pity, nor any emotion whatsoever. Not even when other officers
came over to demand answers to what happened did they speak, no
matter how angry the shouting got – one of the officers slapped
Maria across the face.
And hissed, and clutched his hand, while Maria’s head was not moved
a single centimeter.
Diego frowned. "I thought I told you guys about the nuns."
Maggie realized with a start that Mojito should already have been
running up to kick the shins of anyone who would dare attack Mother
Marquez. He should have been taking advantage of this golden
opportunity now that so many police officers and Sons of the Sea were
gathered in the same place. He knew he couldn’t be touched. So
where was he? Was he still alive? Had Maggie’s blessing failed him?
The answer came at the same time as the answer to another question,
for out of the line of trees sashayed a wine-dark woman of dreadlocks
and many green rings, leading a little boy by the hand. "Greetings,
sir," purred Madame Balam. "It is good that you have at last discovered the location of Maria's heretical cult. I have brought you an extra hostage for the good behavior of
Maggie Noyr." She made an artful bow, with much flourishing of
her hands. "I live to serve you." Then she stepped
backward, deeper into the shade of the forest.
Diego looked puzzled. "Uh...that’s nice, but who are you?"
Madame Balam’s face split into a grin, her wickedly sharp teeth
bright enough to gleam even in the shadows. Maggie’s shoulders
drooped, and she looked down at the ground, not willing to see any
smug smirk on the face of a woman who had deceived her.
"Hi everybody," said Mojito, chipper as anything. "Hello,
Mother. It looks like a lovely morning. Hi, Mister San Obispo. Nice
to meet you."
Maggie frowned. This was not Mojito behavior, not after he’d
suffered so much from men like Diego in his previous life, not after
he’d sworn vengeance. And come to think of it, hadn’t Maggie
specifically said that the boy couldn’t even be touched by an adult
who wished him harm? Clearly Madame Balam had no ill will toward the
boy. But if she had any ill will toward his mothers, did that count
as intent to harm by proxy? She raised her head. Mojito was smiling
from ear to ear...but what exactly did that mean?
"Ah ha," said Diego. "It seems I have the approval of
a child. Don’t we all long for smiles from such innocent faces? And
it seems Maggie herself is losing her stubbornness, as well. Well,
Maggie? What say you? Will you agree to work for me?"
Maggie glanced at Alejandra, who was staring at her intently. She met
Diego’s eyes. Then she drooped even more heavily, practically going
limp, lowering her head – trying to sell her false surrender as
best she could. One thing she remembered from her encyclopedias was
that con artists did best by simply claiming to fulfill the desires
their marks already had. This man here seemed easy to fool by
pretending to give him what he wanted. Madame Balam had, after all.
"Capital," said Diego. "Very well, let her go. She’s
ours now. But I must warn you, Maggie, if you ever dare disobey me,
each time you do it I’ll have someone here killed, starting with
your girl. Remember that."
The hand lifted off her mouth, and the arm wrapping her released. She
slumped to the ground, kneeling in the dirt, head bowed, a perfect
picture of supplication. "Perhaps I should not have thought of
opposing you," she said. "Perhaps it was foolish. Certainly
I should not have slapped you with a fish, that was terribly rude."
In taking a breath to speak further, a booted foot kicked her in the
calf. She winced. "I’m sorry," she said. "I’m very
sorry for doing harm to your person. That is no lie. I am sorry for
doing physical harm to anyone, most of all to the man I dropped a
tree on." The foot kicked her again. "And having made my
point, which I do not need to be prodded further into making…"
She raised her head. "I will only say that there is a plot hole
beneath Alejandra de Surdeville."
There were two sounds in close succession – a quiet "Whoop!"
from Alejandra, and then the ear-splitting pop of pistol fire.
"I missed!" said the man who had been holding a gun to
Alejandra’s head. "How the hell did I miss? Where did she go?"
"God dammit!" growled Diego. "Never let that woman
speak, I should have known! Pedro, gag Maggie again. Porfirio, shoot
one of the nuns."
As one of the green-uniformed officers raised a golden pistol to the
temple of a nun, Maggie blurted out, "All your pistols are water
guns!" An arm wrapped around her and a hand clamped over her
mouth, but it was too late, for all that struck the nun’s temple
was a splash of water.
"Useless," said Diego, "you’re all useless! Someone
get me a goddamn machete!"
Mojito giggled, and ran towards Diego. "Ha ha," he said,
"gotcha, you big dummy." He kicked Diego in the shin, as
hard as he could. Which wasn’t too hard, but it caused Diego to
flinch a little bit. Someone handed him a machete, and he swung at
Mojito, a lightning-fast strike that would have slashed anyone open –
but it went wide. The next stroke went wide the other way. No matter
how Diego swung, he missed. He even tried to kick Mojito, but the boy
simply jumped out of the way. He tried to grab for the boy and found
his hands closing on empty air as Mojito shuffled backward.
A few of the police officers moved away from guarding the crowd of
people to chase after Mojito, who was now running towards the line of
trees, laughing and squealing all the way. "Get back here!"
shouted Diego. "He’s just a stupid little kid, he’s not
worth the effort!" But the officers, still on the chase for
Mojito, did not pay Diego any heed. "Whatever," he
grumbled. "The rest of you, just get rid of the – oh, hell,
now what are they doing?"
The remaining officers and goons had been watching Mojito’s antics,
and hadn’t noticed that the people they were guarding had risen to
their feet and moved into a large bunch. Nor had they noticed Maria
and the thirteen nuns getting free of their restraints. They couldn’t
avoid noticing that their efforts to bind the women’s wrists with
new zip ties were being deflected without a single glance.
What Maggie noticed was that the majority of the people within the
bunch were the non-combatants – the elderly, the disabled, the
youngest children. There were very few adults of fighting age and
strength among them. It was perhaps possible that the strongest
adults had simply got away and left their elders and their disabled
behind, which Maggie would not have put past panicked people. But
even their children?
Maybe it was actually the safest place to leave them. The nuns were
now standing in a ring around the captives, arms spread wide, still
as statues. No matter how much any officer pushed and pulled, he
could not move any part of any nun a single inch.
Diego snarled, and turned to Maggie, his machete glinting wickedly.
Maggie’s heart began to beat faster. Everyone had been gotten out
of the line of fire except her. Madame Balam had gone. Benigno was
nowhere to be seen. There was no telling where Alejandra would
reappear. In this moment, with her limbs bound and her mouth shut
once more, she was utterly vulnerable to a man she had thoroughly
aggravated. Diego lifted his machete and took a step forward –
And out of the branches fell a rooftop’s worth of air-conditioning
compressor units, thudding into the earth hard enough to make it
vibrate. Diego paused, as did everyone else, wondering just what the
hell was going on now. As they watched, the machines extended sets of
long metal legs, and rose upon them – and then opened their jaws to
reveal sharp metal teeth, which they clashed together in a great
ringing sound. Frenz, frenz. Frenz do not abandon frenz.
"Metal Friends!" shouted Mojito in the distance. "I
can’t believe we forgot them!"
Someone screamed, and there was a thonk as
someone tried to stab one of the Metal Friends with a now-rubber
knife. This effort backfired as the Metal Friend under attack grabbed
its assailant and threw him to the other side of the clearing. Most
of the police officers abandoned their efforts to attack the nuns,
dropped their useless knives, and went after the Metal Friends with
truncheons, to no avail. The Metal Friends shoved them aside and took
their place in a line before the ring of nuns, creeping forward
slowly, snapping their jaws, forcing the officers to back away, to
turn, to jog to safety. Or the next safe spot, at least, which would
be slowly overtaken by the Metal Friends. The officers were being
swept.
"Machetes!" shouted Diego. "Get some more damned
machetes from the truck, Maggie hasn’t ruined those yet! Get
grenades, get the shotgun, get the submachine gun, get everything
that actually works!"
Some of the dark-clad young men approached the truck – only to
recoil in terror, as shadowy figures stepped out from behind it,
holding glinting knives in their indistinct hands. "We’re in
trouble," said Pedro. "Benigno’s around with his ghosts.
Forget going after Maria, we need to get out of here now that we have
Maggie."
"Didn’t I tell you already to get the hammers?" said
Diego. "Break that bitch and we can get out of here!"
But the police officers, and the dark-clad young men alike, were
already retreating in the direction of the gap in the big hedge,
regardless of what Diego or Pedro had in mind. Even the ones who had
been trying to go after the Metal Friends were following the rest of
them –
Only to be halted, in the distance, at the sound of a bugle signaling
the charge, and a great battle cry. There was a gleam of gold from
the darkness, and out of the gap in the hedge came Carolina,
galloping forward on a great grey horse with bugle in hand. She
charged straight at the retreating men, forcing them to turn back,
and turned her horse along their line, swinging her bugle down at
their heads, not connecting but forcing many of them to duck and
stumble if they hadn’t already leapt out of the way and fallen.
Then out of the gap in the hedge stepped Benigno, and behind him, a mass of people, surrounded by darker shadow than should have
been possible on this bright morning. And more people behind them, and more, and more. It
was all the people that had been missing, and they all had one thing
on their mind, as they raised a mighty battle cry, charging forward
in a furious mass towards Diego’s position, still surrounded by the
pitch-black shadows.
"We can be safe from them!" shouted Pedro. "Stand in
the sunight!" He dragged Maggie towards a patch of light under a
gap in the canopy. Around him, men were running to other patches of
light, sometimes fighting over the space. Those who didn’t manage
to fit into the light in time were being grabbed by the angry mob,
and tossed toward the shadows, which dragged them backwards into the
darkness, no matter how they clutched the earth.
Diego was taking up all the space of one patch, ignoring the pleas of
a few young men. Around him, between the light, a mix of snarling
people and shadowy figures were stalking, waiting for anyone to put
out a foot or hand that could be grabbed. Here and there, some were
falling prey to that mistake, or they were flinching backward as
Carolina turned her horse to canter towards them, or they were
ducking as she swung her bugle and falling backward into the shadows
– to be immediately seized and carried off. Here and there, people
had other musical instruments in hand, trying to poke their enemies
hard enough to force them to step out of the light.
Some of dark-clad young men had managed to actually grab weapons from
the truck, and they brandished their machetes and hammers, forcing
their would-be-captors back. Tully and Michael had got fencing sabres
from somewhere, attempting to use them to deflect strikes from the
machetes.
But then there was one young man who had managed to grab a submachine
gun, and he was tracking Carolina on her horse. Any moment he would
shoot. Maggie squirmed in the grip of her captor, biting, trying to
get her mouth free, to no avail.
And then out of the shadows gleamed two eyes, and a dark figure gave
a low growl. A patch of shadow stalked forward on four legs. Then it sprang into the light, bowling over a lone police officer, forcing
him back into the shadows, where many indistinct hands grabbed him
and dragged him away. It streaked towards the man with the submachine
gun, pouncing upon him and knocking him to the ground, where many
hands waited to immediately seize him and drag him into the shadows.
In the light Maggie could see the figure was a jaguar, with a coat so
dark it was almost entirely black. Everyone else could see it too.
Everyone could hear it growl, everyone could see the points of its
wicked fangs. Which meant that police officers and young men alike,
standing mostly each of them alone against a wildcat, could not keep
the fragile remains of their morale any longer. As the jaguar dashed
at this man and that man, most broke -- some stumbled backward out of
their patches of sunlight; some ran in fear. The result was the same
for all: they were seized by the dark hands and dragged away. Very
few stood their ground.
Diego was one who stood. Pedro was one who wavered, just slightly,
just loosening his grip on Maggie a little, just enough for Maggie to
slip an arm free. With this one arm free, Maggie was able to drive
her elbow backward, hard, into Pedro’s abdomen. He let out a pained
breath and his hand fell from Maggie’s mouth. "All the police
officers and Sons of the Sea are back safe at home with terrible
headaches!" she shouted.
And so it was, that all of the enemy vanished, save for Diego, who
remained there in the sunlight, unflinching – pointing a shotgun
right at Maggie.
And in the next instant there was a black jaguar with its teeth on
Diego’s arm, ripping through the man’s ruined suit with its
claws, trying to wrestle the shotgun away from him. But he was able
to match the jaguar’s strength, and even beat it – he was slowly
forcing the gun back to its aim. Then Mojito ran up to him and jumped
and hung into his arm, forcing the gun back down – where it had
been aimed at her head, now it was aimed lower.
Yet Maggie did not move, did not bother to step away, let alone run.
She stood in a nonchalant contrapposto. "I don’t see why you
bother, Diego. I already made my skin bullet –"
Pain exploded in Maggie’s midsection as a thundering BOOM
deafened her ears. She fell backward into the shadows, onto her
behind, stunned. Someone screamed, faint and distant to Maggie’s
assaulted eardrums. There were a lot of nuns suddenly blocking her
view.
And then a dark hole opened up overhead, and Alejandra de Surdeville
fell out of it, landing in a three-point crouch, right in front of
Diego. As she rose, she gave him a mighty uppercut that knocked him
straight up into the hole. It vanished.
And all was silence, for a moment.
And then Mojito was hugging her about the abdomen, sending more pain
shooting through her. "Hey kid," she grunted, "glad
you could help, but that really hurts, can you let me go?"
Mojito gasped, and released her. "Sorry, Mom. Are you okay?"
Before Maggie could answer, Maria was kneeling next to Mojito,
pressing her fingers against Maggie’s abdomen. Maggie hissed in
pain. "Yes, doctor, it hurts when you do that. Ow. Can we stop
poking the injured person?"
"No blood," said Maria. She plucked something out of
Maggie’s lap, and held it up to her eyes – a palm-sized,
flattened lump of metal. "A shotgun slug to the stomach and no
blood. Well, what you say goes, as ever. But clearly you didn’t
think to make yourself bruise-proof. You might be dealing with
serious internal bleeding. Do you want to magic yourself to an actual
surgeon or what?"
"You know what?" said Maggie. "I’m fine." The
pain vanished. "It’s fine, I’m fine, anyone who got injured
in this madness is healed." She struggled to her feet, still a
little dazed and exhausted. "We’re all fine. Alright?"
Then she spotted Alejandra, standing a few meters away, hands behind
her back, looking worried. "Well, maybe not emotionally."
Alejandra rushed forward and wrapped Maggie in a tight embrace,
nearly driving the air from her lungs. "You," said
Alejandra, "you nutcase, you knucklehead, you protected everyone
besides yourself."
"It’s fine," said Maggie, not yet returning the embrace.
"I won’t die until the end of the story. But you, I didn’t
know if you would be okay. I’m sorry about dumping you into a
hole."
Alejandra’s only response was to hug Maggie tighter.
"Good heavens," said Maria, "Alejandra, what happened
to your arm?"
Alejandra released Maggie and stepped back. "Nothing? Both of my
arms feel perfectly – " She lifted up her left arm.
Or what stump was left of it past the elbow.