The Branded Rose Prophecy Read online

  “Lightning Lords,” Charlee added.

  “What the hell are you doing fucking around with a gang?” Lucas cried, his voice rising again. “Jesus H. Christ on a pony, Charlee! The Lords don’t pull their punches. Not with anybody.”

  “You know them, then,” Asher said, with what sounded like a degree of satisfaction. “Good.”

  “Good?” He was aware that his voice was even higher now.

  Charlee pulled the carton that had been leaning over the dog to one side and stood it up so that it was resting on the open end.

  “Tell me about them,” Asher said, his voice a shitload softer than Lucas’ was right now. Soft, but with an edge to it.

  Lucas stared at him. The man was well over six feet tall, because that was Lucas’ height and this guy topped him by a few inches at least. As for his shoulders… But it was his eyes that Lucas kept coming back to. His eyes, so blue that it didn’t look real, except for the coldness in them. It wasn’t for him, that coldness, or for Charlee. The chill was absent when he looked at her. But he was letting Lucas see it.

  Anyone who crossed him or got in his way, that’s what they would see. That would be the last thing they would see for a while, anyway, Lucas thought. Arctic coldness backed up by absolute assurance that he could do with them whatever the hell he wanted.

  Lucas thought about Asher confronting the Lords, perhaps in some lonely alley like this one. He thought about who would get to walk out of that alley afterward and realized that he would probably put his money on this guy, despite knowing what the Lords were capable of.

  “They’ve got a new capo,” he said. “I heard the guy is whacked in the head. Crazier than a loon. He had them take over the Angels’ territory a week after he took over the gang.”

  “When was that?” Asher asked.

  “I don’t know. I just heard it at school. Maybe two months ago.”

  Asher glanced at Charlee, where she was interleaving the bottom flaps of the carton, rebuilding it. “That explains a lot,” he said. “Do you know where I would find them, generally?”

  “We’re right in the middle of their turf, right here,” Lucas said. He was glad to hear his voice was back to normal. Calmer. “There’s a bodega on Cauldwell, right by the park next to Charlee’s school. They hang out there, sometimes, especially when it’s hot, like now.”

  “Is that why you haven’t been to school or anywhere else, Charlee?” Asher asked her.

  Charlee looked up from the carton, her eyes big. She nodded slowly. “That…and I just didn’t want to go anywhere. Not for a while.”

  “What are you doing, anyway?” Lucas asked, as she flipped the carton over.

  “We’re going to bury Chocolate,” she told him. “While Asher deals with the gang.”

  No fucking way am I touching that thing, Lucas thought and held his lips together tightly.

  Chapter Seven

  They buried what was left of Chocolate under a tree in Ayton playground, behind the enclosed basketball courts. It was shady and cool, and by the time they were done, the sun had set. Lucas couldn’t believe that some adult hadn’t come up to them and demanded to know why they were digging up the soil in a public park, but the whole afternoon had been one surreal event after another. It seemed perfectly in sync that they should dig a grave and hold funeral rites for a mutt and have absolutely no one protest or call the police. It was just that sort of a day.

  Charlee remained silent while they dug and Lucas left her alone, not asking any of the hundred questions he had. When the grave was deep enough, he opened the carton and reached in to pick up the dog’s hindquarter, which was the way he had got her in there. Charlee didn’t protest over what she might consider to be a cruel way to handle the carcass. She was dry-eyed and astonishingly calm.

  He laid the dog in the bottom of the hole, carefully curling her up in a rounded curve so she fit in the hole, trying not to touch too much of the decaying flesh. He glanced up at Charlee, resting back on his feet. His T-shirt was sticking to him, but the very slight breeze felt great against his sweaty skin. “Want to say something, Einie?” he asked.

  Charlee looked down at the dog. “She never hurt anyone,” she said softly and looked up at Lucas and nodded.

  As an epitaph, it was a fine one. There were too few humans about whom the same could be said. “Amen,” Lucas added and started shoveling the soil back in over the top of the dog with his hands.

  The backfilling went far more quickly, but the light was failing by the time they patted the sods back into place. Lucas folded up the carton and stuffed it into the nearest trash can while Charlee washed her hands in the drink fountain.

  They turned and headed for home.

  They had crossed 162nd before either of them spoke again. “What do you think he’s doing?” Lucas asked, as if Asher had been on both of their minds while they were walking and he was just picking up the ends of the silent conversation.

  “I don’t know,” Charlee said softly. “It’s better that we don’t.”

  It was a disquietingly adult observation.

  “But I wouldn’t want to be one of the Lightning Lords tonight,” she added.

  Amen, Lucas thought.

  * * * * *

  The gang had belonged to Sergio since early April, when Ricky had up and disappeared without leaving behind so much as a smelly fart to explain where he had gone. Most of the gang figured Ricky had skipped town two steps ahead of the police and was living it up in Tijuana or Acapulco, high on the good life.

  Benny would never say it to anyone, but he didn’t think Ricky had skipped at all. He didn’t know for sure what had happened, but in his slow-moving brain he had put together two possibilities.

  Either the girl and her dog had brought the wrath of the blue-eyed man down upon Ricky for some imagined transgression, or Sergio had quietly dealt with him in the dark of the night, clearing the way for Sergio to step in and take over the gang.

  Benny had waffled between favoring one or the other possibility. Each had seemed likely in his tiny mind. But the deciding factor was Ricky himself. The dude had lost face with the gang, especially after he’d let the girl strut on by that day. As a result, the stuffing had dropped right out of Ricky. He had been barely hanging onto the gang’s respect and even though Benny wasn’t particularly smart, he knew in a gut instinct way that Ricky didn’t have the balls to do anything that might bring the big guy down on him.

  Because Ricky’s grip on the gang had been crumbling, it had only been a matter of time before the issue was dealt with one way or another. Sergio had been the one to deal with him, Benny felt sure in his bones.

  But every time one of them wondered aloud about what Ricky was doing down in ol’ Me-hick-koh, he would dutifully laugh right along with them. He didn’t want Sergio to look at him in that steady way he had, wondering why Benny didn’t find the idea of Ricky sunbathing on an Acapulco beach funny.

  Benny didn’t want Sergio looking at him at all. He hadn’t yet got around to the full realization that Sergio was crazy in a sociopathic, burn-down-the-mission way, because the concept was a complicated one. But he was getting there.

  He was also entertaining vague notions of sliding out of town himself, wetbacking across the border and finding that beach they kept talking about. It wasn’t fully set in his mind, just like Sergio’s madness had not fully penetrated.

  So for tonight he hung with the gang like always, pretending he was as carefree as the rest of them pretended to be. Sergio was the only one who seemed to be genuinely relaxed, with not a care on his mind.

  Benny hadn’t slept well since Sergio had done the dog in. His dreams had been shot with dark silhouettes of giants with swords. He would wake in the middle of the night, his body coated with sweat and the sound the dog had made, the frightened whimper that had suddenly cut off, echoing in his mind.

  Sergio had giggled when the deed was done. He had looked down at the dog’s twitching body and the laugh that had emerged from h
is mouth was that of a little boy who had kicked over a trashcan and was delighted by the mess and the smell and the sheer audacity he had displayed.

  They were wandering up Cauldwell Avenue now, aimlessly quartering their neighborhood. The idea hadn’t been said aloud, but Benny knew Sergio was looking for trouble. He was itching again. The delight over the dog hadn’t lasted long at all.

  It was another hot night. June was being a real bitch this year. Flowers wilted in their pots and the grass in the parks was a tired, bleached yellow. It was nights like this Benny thought about knocking over a fire hydrant and playing in the water just like the little kids did. But Sergio would think it a stupid idea, so he said nothing.

  They turned into 161st and headed for Trinity and Benny got jumpy, looking around and over his shoulder.

  “Got ants in your pants, man?” Sergio asked, grinning.

  “We shouldn’t a come down this way,” Benny muttered. He was too uneasy to care that Sergio had been setting the direction, that this was Sergio’s idea.

  “We go where the fuck I like,” Sergio replied, the happy grin not shifting an inch.

  Benny shut up, but he hunched his shoulders, trying to ease the tight skin between them. They crossed Trinity, and Benny realized Sergio was heading for the park. It was a dark patch in among the lights, just ahead. The park didn’t have floodlights. It was too small for the city to bother with security or policing. The pocket of blackness in among the traffic and the housing had served the gang admirably on more than one occasion. This time, though, Benny didn’t want to step into its shadows. Nuh-uh. No way.

  His breath started to whistle in and out faster than usual. Barely noticed, the dark, overwhelming imagery from his dreams skittered through his mind, but his heart picked up speed. He started to sweat harder. His silk shirt stuck to him because his tank was wet through. But he was a good, unimaginative soldier, so he kept right on trucking with the rest.

  Sergio jogged into the thick blackness that enveloped the park, giving out a great shout, throwing it up toward the high-rises that surrounded them. It was a defiant sound, without words but full of energy.

  The others, six of them tonight, trod dutifully after him, Benny included, but his throat had closed down to a pinhole and breathing was painful. He looked around wildly, his eyes wide as he tried to penetrate the black and see what lay in wait, but the dark hid everything.

  Sergio paused at the drinking fountain and took in big mouthfuls. Then he whipped his hand through the catch tray beneath, spraying those closest to him with the tepid water. The concrete at the foot of the fountain was damp with the overrun, making Sergio’s thousand-dollar shit-kickers squish as they moved through the muddy grit. It sounded loud in the silence and Benny tamped down the urge to shush Sergio. Noise wasn’t good. Noise drew attention.

  “What d’fuck was that, man?” Jesus muttered, spinning around to look behind him, into the dark. “D’ya hear that?”

  “‘s nothing, ya pussy,” Sergio growled. He held his silk shirt open and flapped it, letting in cooler air around his body.

  Benny backed up, away from Sergio. He could hear his own heartbeat, slamming inside his head. “Not good…not good,” he whispered to himself.

  There was a little light, spilling across the dark playground from the apartments and the street lights, and now his eyes had adjusted. Benny could make out the shapes of the swings and slides on the south side, and the scraggly bushes on the west. That’s where the shadow emerged from, and Benny happened to be looking right at it. He saw the shadow and he heard the sound he had only heard once before, in an alley he was trying hard to forget. The sound was metallic, but there was something layered over the top of it, like the metal was bubbling away in a pot.

  Benny remembered the sound with perfect clarity, far better than he could recall the chores his mother had given him that morning. When he heard it, his bladder let go, wetting the front of his jeans in a hot cascade, but he wouldn’t notice until it was all over.

  The shadow loomed up behind Sergio. A forearm that looked as big as a tree trunk to Benny in his panicky state looped around Sergio’s throat and tightened up. Then Benny saw the sword. It seemed to almost glow in the dark. So did the guy.

  But it was the sword Benny couldn’t take his eyes off. He had seen what the sword could do. And the guy, the dude, he had the tip of the sword pressed up underneath Sergio’s chin (just like Lonzo!).

  “Holy fuck!” one of the others cried as they all fell back a few steps in sheer surprise. All except Sergio, whose eyes were bugging out as he scrabbled at the arm around his neck.

  “If you don’t keep still,” the guy said, “I’ll tighten my arm, and you’ll black out from lack of oxygen. Then I can do what I want to you.”

  He would, too. Benny knew that as surely as he knew Sergio wouldn’t let that happen. Sure enough, Sergio stopped struggling. “Fucker,” he muttered, his voice indistinct.

  “You want to be very careful what you do and say in the next two minutes,” the guy said. “I can push this blade up through your jaw and into the base of your brain with very little effort. It would take about fifteen pounds of pressure, and I’ve got two pounds on it already, pushing it up against your chin.”

  Sergio was scowling. He didn’t like that.

  The others were hovering in a rough semicircle around them, standing anywhere from ten to fifteen feet away. They looked scared. Benny was scared, too, but an unholy fascination kept his feet planted where they were. This was the embodiment of his nightmares. He was helpless to do anything but let it play out.

  “Thing is,” the man continued, “I’ve had a lot of practice with this. I’ve used it so many times I’ve lost count. I blooded this blade when I was sixteen and I was taught by the best swordsmen in the world. I want you to appreciate that history. I want you to understand that I wouldn’t just jam the blade into your skull, because that would be crude and it wouldn’t be nearly enough to make up for all you’ve done.”

  “I haven’t done nothing!” Sergio protested, the words fuzzy because he couldn’t move his jaw much. The angled point of the sword was pressing against the skin there, and Benny thought he could see blood.

  “You and I both know that is a lie,” the man said softly, “so shut up and listen. I have a profound understanding of how your brain works. I know the areas that keep your heart ticking, the parts that let you move when you want. When I push this blade into your head, I’m going to move it around. I’m going to aim for all the interesting sections. You won’t die straight away. But you will feel pain, because I’ll make sure I hit the thalamus, and that’s the pain-processing center. Then I’ll make you squirm like a kid that needs to go to the washroom and can’t. You’ll dance a jig like you’ve never danced one before.” He was crooning all this into Sergio’s ear, sounding like he would love every second of it.

  Benny couldn’t look away. He wanted to be sick. A vision of Sergio dancing, his arms and legs flailing like a bug on a pin, was stuck in his brain.

  Sergio’s face was shiny with sweat…and Benny wondered if they were tears he could see glistening under his eyes. But Sergio also looked mad. Furious, like if he got even the smallest chance, he was going to turn this around and cream the guy into so much paste.

  “I can make you smell and taste things you’ve never eaten before,” the man continued. “Want to know what it’s like to eat your own shit? Then, as an encore, I can make you vomit until your eyes cloud over red from the strain, and your throat rips out, burned out by the bile you choke up…and you’ll keep on doing it until I move the blade to a new location. I can make you do anything I want you to do, just with the tip of this sword. Do you believe me?”

  Say yes! Benny pleaded silently. He didn’t want this to continue. He was sold.

  Sergio looked like he could do the guy in just by staring at him. But his head moved fractionally, up and down.

  “Good,” the man said. He glanced up at the rest of them, who stood
in the rough semicircle, watching this all go down with the same fascination they would have watched a lynching, or a car accident, or a tenement burn down with people still inside. The man’s eyes seemed to glitter in the dark as he looked at them all, one by one.

  He’s remembering us, Benny thought. Holy fuck, he’s taking names!

  When the man’s gaze came to Benny, his eyes narrowed. But his gaze moved and Benny felt a touch of relief.

  Then the dude looked down at Sergio and gave him a little shake. It made Sergio’s head move from side to side, while the sword stayed still. The point dug a furrow into Sergio’s chin and this time there was no mistaking the blood dripping from the cut.

  Sergio bared his teeth, a hiss of pain whistling past them.

  “When I let you go, you should talk to your friend over there, the fat one with the long hair. Ask him about Lonzo, and make sure you get all the details.”

  Benny could see that Sergio had focused in on the first bit the man had said, and hadn’t heard the rest.

  When I let you go.

  Sergio’s fear diminished. Now there was just wordless fury in his eyes.

  The man shook him again, making him hiss. “Are you listening?”

  “Yes,” Sergio muttered through his teeth.

  “In case you haven’t figured out why I’m here, I’m going to make it very plain and simple for you. Your predecessor understood. Now I’m giving you a chance to abide by the rules, too. You stay away from the redhead, Charlee Montgomery. You stay away from her, her brother, and her family and anyone she appears to be friends with. You don’t bother her. You don’t talk to her. If I hear of any one of your gang even so much as whispering to her or making her life uncomfortable in any way, even indirectly, I will hold you personally responsible. I will find you and this sword is going to make you quack like a duck in front of all your friends. Do you understand me?”

  Benny held his breath until Sergio nodded, and it took fifteen very long seconds before his head shifted up and down.

  “Say it,” the man demanded.