Ballad & Dagger, page 29
And now I will not be stopped.
Awaken, my Galanika!
I swat away Gerval’s flailing attack and shove my hand into his face as Tantor Batalán’s death surges along my arm, out from my palm, and directly into the open mouth of the man I used to call my hero. He flies backward from the sheer force of it, eyes wide, smashes straight through the skylight, and plummets in a shimmering hail of glass.
Everything stops. The hugeness of what just happened seems to stretch like a shadow at dawn across all the fighters and creatures on the rooftop.
Who knows what stories will be told about this moment—what myths and lies and songs will spring up. I will be a hero and villain, I’m sure, but right now, none of that matters.
Right now, I know I did what I had to do.
This death feels different.
Arco’s threat was a contained one. I didn’t mean to kill him, and if I’d taken a different approach somehow, he might still be alive.
Gerval’s murderous wrath still extends around us, even with him gone.
I barely have time to catch my breath before the other fully formed bambarúto swings at me with one claw and then clobbers me with the other when I dodge. It’s standing over me, wide mouth splayed into a toothy, horrific grin, when a small brown hand explodes through it, splattering me with more black ichor. The creature shrieks and whirls around, flinging Chela, with her arm still shoved through its midsection, toward me.
“Starting to get the hang of these powers!” she says, managing a slight smile in spite of looking like hell and being covered in creature goo. “They’re already coming in…handy.”
I want to cheese with her, but I’m too busy being happy she’s alive and…the bambarúto is wounded—mortally, I’m sure—but it’s still got some fight left. Plus, the phantom ones are closing in from all sides now, and Vedo and Anisette have finally recovered and both have blades drawn, raised to kill.
I look at Chela, glowing brightly with a ferocious effervescence as she pulls her bloody hand from the creature and nods at me with a glance toward the skylight.
The only way out is down.
I run forward to meet her embrace and launch us both, along with the bleeding bambarúto, off the concrete, into the air.
Glass explodes around us, and then we’re supposed to plummet—the creature will cushion our landing and then we’ll collect ourselves and rejoin the fight.
But that’s not what happens. As soon as the skylight shatters, the world around us vanishes….
And we’re surrounded by warm wind and water and the fresh smell of the ocean.
WITH ONE THING THE WORLD begins.
We are not old, but we have been around a very, very long time when we begin to understand ourselves, know our own ways and rhythms.
We are of the ocean, like all things, but we are also of heaven.
When the waves churn, we know that song; it is a part of us.
And we know the slow dance of clouds across a magnificent sky.
Once, torn and wounded, we flitted over the foamy sea, barely alive, side by side, and fading, both fading.
This is how we remember ourselves.
This is how we become what we are.
One thing. A sanctuary.
You, creator, destroyer, bind and brandish, you wield the rocks and soil, from nothing pull the essence of this earth, and in your sparkling hands, a new world is born.
Three peaks rise over the waves.
The land formation entangles, then traps the thing that pursues us, finally binds it beneath the sea. And we are free.
Free, and we spread out side by side in the wavering tall grass of this strange new island.
Slowly, lovingly, I heal you. Restore vitality to your aching heart, run my sparkling hands along your contours to find the breaking points, the damage; soothe to a stop each hemorrhage and ache.
You watch as I close my own torn shimmering skin, and then we hold each other as countless suns set and moons rise, and this small world grows and grows around us.
One thing.
But will it hold? The demon beneath the island grows restless, tests its boundaries daily.
We surge out over the water again until we find flames rising from a boat, humans escaping in a small raft. So desperate to survive, they’ve forgotten that they were supposed to kill each other; their only notion is to flee. No gold can replace life.
Their skin is burnt and torn, ligaments shredded, bones broken.
Silent, invisible, I mend them.
Ablaze with light, you guide them.
Three peaks appear over the waves as they approach—our home is now theirs.
We find more people—the desperate and dangerous—the barely alive but so full of life.
We whisper our stories in songs while they sleep. They bring their own spirits, and we mingle and churn; new tapestries shift and reveal themselves in the night sky above the city that now rests in the rocky embankment of this new island.
Together we grow.
And as a tiny civilization rises, so do we.
Once, a couple offers their bodies to us to feel, just for a few hours, what it means to inhabit flesh again, and within their skin, we find a new love.
You—angel of creation, angel of destruction, shining light over a stormy sea, an unrelenting warrior at my side against that ancient giant.
Tongue made of fire.
A thousand swords, your wings.
I can’t make something from nothing, not like you, but I become the light in each strum against strings, the clack of the clave, the wild thump of each drumbeat that calls to the blood, thunders through the heart, raises the spirit to dance, to heal.
Each scar a story.
For you, I usher whole new musics into this sparkling world, new dances, new stories to call your name, to sing your praise, to try to make sense of the eternal rumba that is the way you move through me, with me, inside me.
They call this music kama—the dagger. Because it was named for you, burakadóra.
Through their tongues, the tongues they sing, whisper, and shout with, make love with, we gift each other names.
I sing one for you into their ears as they play songs of adoration—a word poem from the Santeros: Heart, way. One, dream. Okan, Ala.
One. The one that begins, the one that ends, yes.
But also my one. The one I come tumbling back to, at the end of each song.
They come up with their own name to go with it: Madrigal—a refuge. Madrigal, the Creator.
You reconstruct an ancient bawdy love ballad into a praise hymn, slide it into their throats as they heal, and when they are in need, they call me: Avrix mi Galanika.
When we wander each to our battles and villainies out in the world, we call each other home, gently, fiercely:
Return to me, my love,
Through stars and burning cities,
Awake, my love. The dawn approaches.
Change is water, seeps through the strongest frontiers.
Ocean crashes on these rocky shores, stains crumbling facades, sends that salty smell through white-curtained windows into wide-open rooms where lovers sleep.
Awake and we rise.
As one, we rise, but distinct.
One thing.
My love.
Our love.
One thing.
A crash and the sudden warfare of a storm, as we are born and reborn.
With one thing
the world ends.
AN ANCIENT LAUGHTER ECHOES AROUND us as the ocean world begins to dissolve.
Soon we will be back in that plummet, that chaos, but not yet.
Not yet.
Right now, in this place between past and present, this niche within the world, outside of time, it is just us.
I take her in my arms, and she wraps hers around me.
Our bodies shake, and I don’t know whether it’s with laughter or sobs.
I don’t have to ask if she saw it, too. She was there, has always been there, by my side, as my partner, lover, sometimes commander and other times rival, warrior twin, inspiration, teacher, student, and savior. Hers is the body my hands learned to heal on, the spirit that found mine in the void and pulled me back.
She takes my face in her hands, brings it to hers, and we pause as starlight dances all around, we pause.
“Just hold right here,” she whispers. “Let me feel you in this moment.”
I nod. Then, because I can’t contain it: “You’re both! It’s been you, all along.”
She smiles, a sunrise in the middle of this impossible night between worlds.
“Did you know?” I ask.
Shakes her head. “But I do now.”
“It’s not over. Not yet.”
“I know.”
“Don’t leave me, Chela, Okanla, Madrigal.”
“I haven’t yet, have I?”
And then, with a whoosh, we’re plummeting once again. Starlight becomes shattered glass that cascades all around us.
The bambarúto grunts and flails before it smashes through the wooden stage in Tolo’s club with an explosion of snapping planks and splinters. We fall through the dust clouds and land in a tangled heap on the creature’s bleeding carcass.
Chela launches herself up before I can even take in what’s happening. She smashes her fist into another bambarúto, hurling it backward in a mass of suddenly hemorrhaging flesh and shrieks.
We’re in the basement. The stock-still golems towering around us make it impossible to get a full glimpse of what we’re up against, but I can see at least five or six fully incarnated bambarúto stomping through the shadows amid a handful of empire pirates. Yells and footsteps echo across this dark hall, the desperate scuffle of confusion.
Directly above us, the ruptured stage lets in a shaft of light from the main club, and a little farther away, another hole in the ceiling illuminates a pile of rubble.
I place my hands over the bambarúto’s corpse and pull all its injuries into me as an eerie, chaotic song rises. I recognize that melody—it’s the one that my ancestor scribbled over and over on the key-code partitur.
But there’s no time to untangle why.
These damages will have to do, since I’m not about to bring the creature back to life.
Chela stomps on the one she just smashed and then turns to me, her face a question.
Her sword! I’d completely forgotten. My hands are empty. “I…”
She glares. “You, what, forgot about it?”
“I must’ve dropped it as we were plummeting through a few centuries of memories!”
A bambarúto charges out of the shadows. I sidestep and unleash a swath of broken bambarúbones into its back as it rushes past.
“Well, find it!” Chela yells, backstepping as five burly guys advance on her.
The bambarúto stumbles and shrieks but doesn’t fall—it renews its attack with a whole new rage.
“Don’t you have your little dagger thing?”
“Why would I bring a little dagger thing when I have a big fancy sword, Mateo?” She blocks the first guy, spins him to the ground, takes his hand, and holds it up for the others to see. Then she literally crushes it to pulp while he screams.
“Whoa!” I dodge a swipe from the bambarúto’s claw. “I mean…doesn’t seem like you need a sword that much, is all I’m saying.”
“Mateo,” Chela growls.
“I’ll find it! I’ll find it!” I duck another claw attack, then let a wave of crushed creature organs surge through my hand and into the bambarúto. It drops to its knees, and I Spartan-kick it in the face, collapsing it.
Which is all well and good, but more are closing in around me, and I don’t know how many times I can hurt and heal and hurt again before the net result is just a lot of pissed-off bambarúto.
What’s more, I thought Chela’s whole hand-crushing thing would scare those guys away, but it just got them more furious.
Chela and I back toward each other, facing down our respective enemies, and somehow it feels like old times. I wonder fleetingly if spirits can die when they take mortal form. Then I realize things could actually be much worse for us if we can’t die, depending on how all this goes down.
And then something long and sharp whizzes from the darkness and plunges directly into the thigh of an approaching bambarúto, and Baba Johnny Afrá’s raspy laughter seems like it’s coming from all around us.
“Ha!” the old Santero yells, stepping out of the shadows and pulling his cane—which I see has a steely, sharpened point—from the fallen creature. “Keep calling Death and Death will answer, hmm? Heh-heh-heh!”
“Baba Johnny!” Chela and I both yell. He whacks the writhing creature once, then again, and a stream of people pour in behind him.
Tams! Maza! Tolo and Safiya! Iya Lisa and Oba Nelson! At least ten or fifteen more! They’re all armed with machetes and clubs and look ready for a fight. They surge into the ranks of empire pirates and bambarúto with a vicious battle cry.
“You didn’t think we’d let you guys have all the fun, did you?” Tams laughs in my ear as we quickly hug and then turn back to fighting.
“I…Tía Lucia,” I choke out, because her loss suddenly overwhelms me, burns through everything else happening.
Tams shakes her head, blinks away tears. “I heard. The empire pirates were trying to take out the whole Cabildo with some hired goons. Rabbi Hidalgo captured a couple who came for him and forced them to lead him to where they were keeping prisoners. He…found her body there. I’m so, so sorry, Mateo.”
“I…” There’s nothing to say. Well, there’s too much to say, and no time to say it. “I have so many things to tell you.”
“Then stay alive,” Tams says. “So we can compare notes when this is all over. Damn.”
“Less talking, more murdering people who are trying to kill us!” Bonsignore yells, whooshing past us with a sharpened lacrosse stick and smashing some random guy in the face. He collapses with a yelp, and the gym teacher pauses, suddenly stricken. “Shit. He wasn’t on our side, was he?”
“Reckless,” Tams says. “But no, that was one of the goons.”
And then we’re fighting again, swiping, blocking, dodging, backing each other up.
Chela flits in and out of various fights, crushing random body parts when the enemy least expects it.
And for a few moments, it seems like we’re actually getting the upper hand, even though they have the numbers and huge creatures.
But only Chela and I can do much damage to the fully incarnated bambarúto, and even with all we have, it takes a lot to bring one down for good. Especially, as Chela reminds me more than once, without her sword. Both of us are still new to our powers.
Everyone just tries to stay out of the way, but Safiya charges one and takes a claw across her face, and then Tolo goes down trying to pull her away.
Neither one is dead, but the remaining empire pirates swarm to where they fell, and it suddenly seems like we’re going to lose two of our best leaders at once.
“Break through the crowd!” Tams yells, and she and Baba Johnny charge side by side into the thick of things.
Chela and I have a trio of bambarúto cornered, but they keep slashing out and it’s impossible to get a good angle to finish any off.
“I need to get to my cousin,” she huffs between stabs and blocks. “And this situation won’t hold.”
I nod and send one of my last shards of hurt into the closest bambarúto. We break toward the swarming masses, but it’s too late: the empire pirates have pulled out Tolo, bloodied but alive, and now Anisette Bisconte stands beside him with a blade to his throat.
Everything stops.
The councilwoman laughs, then sighs. “It didn’t have to be this way, you know.”
“Don’t…stop…fighting…” Tolo grunts.
Anisette shoves the blade into his flesh, just enough to draw blood. “Quiet, thug.”
Chela goes to rush in, but I grab her arm and whisper, “Wait.”
“No, you wait!” Anisette snaps. Then she sags, knife still shoved up against Tolo’s neck. “None of this was supposed to be this way! None of it! This fool should’ve died like his fool father. You two assholes should’ve listened to Gerval when he tried to talk to you about all this! You should’ve listened! He listened to me—why couldn’t you listen to him?”
A thought has been building inside me. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. “The bambarúto,” I say into Chela’s ear. “What if…What if it isn’t your destroyer powers they are feeding off of?”
“I had everything set,” Anisette complains. “Everything!”
Intentionality, Tía Lucia had said. But that can go in both directions, I figure. If they knew she had dual powers, the enemy could’ve used both, even if she herself didn’t know….
“Mateo…” Chela says, but it comes out as more of a snarl. It’s clear her whole body is aching to bring down all her wrath on the councilwoman’s head. But we both know Tolo wouldn’t survive if she did. She softens. “What do you mean?”
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Anisette says, a little tremor in her voice, though she’s obviously trying to keep her cool. “You all are going to put down your weapons, and you’re going to do it now, hmm?”
“I mean…you are both, right?” I whisper to Chela. “Destroyer and creator. You’ve only just figured out how to destroy, but what if you—”
Chela stops me with a raised finger. Her eyes meet mine, and then we both gaze at the towering stone figure beside us.
“Hmm,” Chela says.
CHELA PUTS ONE HAND AGAINST the golem, closes her eyes, and…
Nothing.
Crap.
She opens one eye and grimaces. Gives the statue a little kick.
“I thought for sure you—” I start.
The statue rumbles and then surges to life with a deep, sonorous growl.
Chela points at Anisette. “That one.”
