She slowly shakes her head to one side then the other as if maybe words have also failed her. She walks into the room, sent by dawn to mingle among commoners as her empire awaits below.
What will today bring? the city asks us. The closer she gets, the more I'm disabled, bound by all the attention she has denied me, that which I've been craving up until this point. I'm rooted thoroughly in every sense.
Any word from the Queen? To the street I would answer: I will wait forever for just one word.
But she doesn't grant even one.
She stops inches away and I realize that the language she's giving me doesn't require that kind of communication. Everything in my vision shimmers around the edges, rippling like a spun-out hallucination. Her body is a galaxy, pressing against the thick atmosphere, so close.
Again, I'm sweating. I'm so tense I can no longer feel my limbs. All I know is her sanctified stare. And with slow hands that seem to make her decision for her, she bridges the gap. Hot fingers press gently, tracing my cheeks. Her eyes slip away from mine to follow her hands as they touch me.
I can't be breathing. The universe has frozen. These light points of contact could be my death and I would take it willingly. Can she see that I am terrified? The world has changed. In the light of slow-rising shock, in the aftermath, we see each other differently than any time before. I want to speak, to tell her – what? Something, anything. I'll be anything she wants me to be. But I can't break the voodoo, my will has evaporated in the heady daylight.
Her hands close in, fingers pulling at me. One hand seizes a fistful of hair with a surety that makes me think she's wanted to do it for some time, her other hand, my face. She grasps our worlds, one in each cosmic grip, and slams them together with the fast, firm press of her lips.
My stillness is broken, something much stronger than my mind overtakes my body. Need between us attracts and breaks us down. My arms wrap around her like Ayida-Weddo, the rainbow, and my fingers bury themselves in her luscious hair like I've wanted to do since the night I met her. She is everything that's left in my fragmented life, pushing against me. She kisses me like it will save the world. And maybe it will, if only for a moment.
Chapter 3 Pulling Red
Isaiah. Ten hours earlier.
A summer evening in Louisiana is like the fires of hell cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. Everything is hot. Everything is sticky. And everything smells stronger. The long sun is waning outside, and I'm standing in the kitchen with my head in the freezer, staring blindly at all the wrapped up packages nearby. My big ticket. Even through the chill and plastic, they smell green.
Dill is sprouting in the window box, its potent tang assaulting me from behind. It conspires with the catnip nearby, whose scent is somewhere between culinary herb and insanity. They blend together and the moisture in the air extends their assault, reminding me that Mother Nature is doing the love dance.
I've never been much of a dancer.
The sweat on my skin bites as it chills in the freezer air. My sinuses contract, rebel. Still, I like this quiet, smelly, sticky moment: no money, no drama, no heat. Everyone will be back soon, then it'll be a logistics and finance meeting over dinner.
A loud, nearby crash brings me out of my mental scheduling and out of the freezer. My hand is reaching for the gun fastened in its holster at my hip, more habitually than I care to consider, and I'm cursing all things right in the world.
Green glass shattering on the floor is the first thing that catches my eye. Then the source. Charlie. He's stumbling forward, using anything he can for support, knocking things off the antique buffet in the process. He's leaving a blazing red trail.
“Shit!”
He's bleeding, all over his gray t-shirt, his hands, too much. The stuff is smeared on his face like war paint. My panic button flips involuntarily. Cognizance fails.
“Fuck. Charlie!”
“Izzy,” he whispers to me as I launch forward to try to grab him, just to steady him a little.
He's so pale. He pushes me away, stubborn bastard, slipping in his own blood on the tile floor. His fingers leave red trails on my arm as he falls clumsily to his knees.
“Stop! Don't move!”
How did the blood spread so fast? It's everywhere. Help? I grab his shoulders, hold him still. His hands slide on my arms. His body's shaking, trembling uncontrollably. His grip on me is fading too rapidly.
No, this can't be real. It can't be this bad. But it is this bad. There's a hole in his abdomen, real low, real big. There can't be much left in him. There isn't enough. The scenery warps. My stomach threatens to turn. He's dying. We both know he's dying. What do you say?
“Why?” is all that comes as a watery whisper. Friend, partner, why you?
“Reaps,” he wheezes.
Several tears have slid from the corners of his eyes, running into the war-red on his cheeks. Friend. I take his weight. Poker partner. He's sinking, no longer able to hold himself up. Hustler, who always lies about stealing my cigarettes. But who always buys me more. Partner. Venture capitalist to my distribution network. Boss.
His breaths are barely scratching the surface. Already his lungs are failing him. A guttural cry wells from him, his face broken by pain and he collapses onto me.
“No,” I argue against the legions of death, against inevitability, as if I can fight them back from this kitchen floor.
Not now, not this one, please! But it's
