Tag: death

Flowers in Her Hair

She always loved to wear them

around her raven curls.

I said “That’s too flamboyant;

you’re not like other girls.”

She smiled and said “I like them,

and know you like them too.”

I said “I do. And flowers

look beautiful on you.”

And on the ship she traveled,

that sank into the sea,

the flowers that adorned her

came floating back to me.

She always loved to wear them

around her raven curls.

And now I’ve no desire

for any other girls,

for love had crossed an ocean,

perilous, dark and deep.

And now I see her flowers

bloom only in my sleep.

I see them multicolored

around her raven curls.

She calls on me to save her

as the deep water swirls.

And no, I cannot save her.

But even so I try

before the deep blue claims her.

Before she sinks to die.

She takes the wreath of flowers,

entangled in a curl.

She hands them to me, smiling,

As ocean winds a-twirl.

She always loved to wear them.

I still remember when.

And when I live no longer,

I’ll crown her once again.

She always loved to wear them.

I’ll keep them here until

we walk the sky together.

And she will wear them still.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death’s Handmaiden

Let bone fingers,

gentler than colder scythe,

close my eyes

in

eternal sleep

 

I would seek

Death’s Handmaiden,

dressed in mourning finery,

And plead a softer touch,

no less final for

all its gentleness

 

For all her smiling

reassuringly in

my final moment,

I would hear

at least

the faint echo of a

woman’s heart

where

none exists

 

I would kneel

in abject

Obeisance

to her

gory majesty

 

And take her hand

in gratitude

for mercy,

though I bleed

 

No sunset,

just darkness

without stars

 

I go

and wait for

you

in the drafty caverns,

the void

of her many- shadowed palace,

in a vast and ebon realm,

disguised as

a humble cottage

in the midst

of

woods and meadow.

 

Dance You Now Before Me, Spirit?

Dance you now before me, spirit?

Trickery do you now devise,

that you would take my lover’s form

and bring new grief to heart and eyes?

 

Dance you now before me, spirit?

Lovely was she, when the dance

would her effervescent nature

make her leap and spin and prance.

 

Dance you now before me, spirit,

knowing she has gone away,

taking life and laughter with her,

holding me no more in sway?

 

Dance you now before me, spirit?

Leave me now and put to flight

Frilly lace and fragile gossamer,

And my heart she held so tight.

 

Dance no longer with me, spirit.

Music, broken, plays no more.

Dance into benighted moonlight,

Leave me here, on love’s dark shore.

 

Dance into benighted moonlight.

Leave me here, on love’s dark shore.

 

Happy Valentine’s Dead (3)

Too early to go home, too late to go back to the office.

I’d put something maudlin on the stereo, and grieve with an expensive bottle of single malt; the picture of that in my head was too pathetic, even for me.

I went to the Full Moon Saloon instead; it was everything it promised.

My favorite barmaid, Sandy, was there; she didn’t like the term though. She preferred bartender, because she had her reasons, which oddly enough, were pretty valid.

“Hey, Kent.”

“Hey Sandy.”

“I heard.”

“Who hasn’t?”

She leaned forward, searching my face, all compassion. “What can I get you?”

“The usual, stronger than usual.”

She gave a little smile, but there was concern as she pulled back. “You sure you want to…?”

I sighed. “Sandy, I’ve been second guessing myself since I heard about Valentine. I just had a young cop get in my face and second guess me too. I consider this place a refuge, and a haven, which may be the same thing, but I don’t care right now, and I’d like to think I know my own mind, at least here.

“So yeah, I’m sure.”

“Hey,” she said, leaning back over. “This place is a refuge for you?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled. “Does that make me your refugee?”

I groaned, smiling in spite of the fact my heart felt like a sledgehammer hit it.

“Really? Is that the best you got?”

“Ha! I got a million more like ‘em.”

“That’s why you’re here.”

She stroked my cheek, then gave it a little slap.

“Fuck you, big man.” She went down the bar to make my drink.

“When I watch you walk away, anything’s possible.”

She looked over her shoulder, then it registered, and her mouth dropped.

I started laughing, then she joined in.

We actually did have a thing once, but she wasn’t going to walk the path I chose, and truth be told, I didn’t want her to do it either; she had an innate sweetness, despite the jadedness of the surroundings she worked in.

The place was a dive, but it was ‘our dive.’

She came back with the drink, and poured a shot for herself.

“To Valentine,” she said. We dribbled some of our drinks on the bar; she let it run down a bit, and the scent wafted up like sinful incense.

“So what happens now?”

“Word’s getting around; by tomorrow there’ll be a manhunt.”

“You in it?”

I sighed.
“No, Kent. C’mon. Those jackals that do this stuff for real are great at it, way better than guys like you.”

“I’m motivated.”

“By what? Were you…?”

“No. She was like a daughter to me. Sort of.”

 You didn’t admire your daughter’s legs. or let her roam the world in short, tight dresses killing people for obscene amounts of cash.

“You, and other guys like you. C’mon, Kent! She’s played the role on stage a million times to guys like you.”

“You keep saying that, Sandy. What do you mean by that?”

“Careworn, world-weary. Guys like you, carrying weight you no longer need to carry, having problems that should have gone away by middle age. Guys like you, trapped by money and no way to get out ‘cept through the morgue.”

She put her hand across my folded forearms.

“It was never going to be enough, Kent. Don’t you see that? You’ve got blood on your hands, your conscience, and no one to inherit anything good, because nothing good came out of it.”

She dug her nails in a bit.

“All you have to show, for all you’ve done, for all the years you’ve been supposedly cleaning up the streets and changing things for others, and profiting from it, is an onset of cirrhosis, and a dead young girl with her guts steaming in the rain.”

Her words felt like someone jammed a double-barrel to my head and pulled both triggers.

I felt myself convulse, and she took her hand away.

There was such a rush of mixed emotions, I wound up acting on none of them: I wanted to slap her, I wanted to throw the glass as hard as I could and watch it shatter, the way Valentine shattered when the bomb went off. I wanted to shoot something or someone, I wanted to scream, and I wanted to die.

I was out of tears, but my face must’ve gone rumply like I was going to cry again.

“Sorry, Kent. I care about you; I don’t want you to do this.”

“You’re really saying you don’t know if I can.”

She turned that over, took a sip of her drink, then focused back on me.

“Yeah, at the core of it, that’s what I’m saying. Let the hounds loose, and they’ll find him. Swoop in then, and take him away and butcher him all night when they do, but don’t join the chase.

“Please, Kent. Don’t do it.”

I took a sip of the malt.

“You had me at ‘butcher’….”

“Kent?”

I took another sip.

“Ahhh, dammit, Sandy…”

She beamed, leaned over, kissed me quick.

“That’s my man…”

We had another round, and I caught a cab home, and watched the rain run down the window, and the red neon lights colored it, and it was Valentine’s blood again, running down the window, down the gutters, down the drain, down to wherever the damned souls go, crying for peace.

 

*****************

 

When I got in, I booked a mid morning flight to Valentine’s hometown.

I hung up, feeling a bit guilty, remembering everything Sandy said, but there was one thing more important than anything else that stood out.

“Sorry, love.

“You really did have me at ‘butcher.’ ”

 

 

Happy Valentine’s Dead (2)

When I stopped bawling, there was work to do.

It should’ve frightened me that I wanted to be the one to do it, and if I’d known the depravity my own heart would reveal, I would’ve put a bullet in my head that instant.

But Valentine always said I was a hardhead.

It was raining. There was a white sheet over a red blob, and the sheet was soaked through.

“You sure about this, sir?” the cop said, standing just outside the crime tape.

I wasn’t, and he took my hesitation as an answer.

He waved over the ME. I knew him: Larson Hughes, smartest in the business.

Hughes looked up, saw me, put something away in a case, and walked over, peeling off a bloody latex glove.

“Kent.” He nodded.

“Larson. What happened.”

“Explosive of some type.”

“Thrown at her?”

“No. Found traces of it in a briefcase she was carrying.”

My heart sank.

“What color was it?”

“The case?”

“No, Larson, her blood. Yes, the fucking case.”

“Silver. Why?”

“Cuz he gave it to her,” the cop said. “There were money fragments all over the place.”

“Larson, shut this kid up.”
“You opened the door, Kent.”

“I didn’t give her that case. I paid her two days ago, and she disappeared. That’s how we worked. That’s how we always worked: I paid her, and she went away while the cops scrambled their eggs and came up with nothing.”

The cop’s jaw hardened.

“Walk away, Gilliam.” Larson advised.

Gilliam took a moment to let me feel the weight of his wrath, and walked off.

“Don’t be stupid, Kent. You’re gonna need them at some point.”

“This ain’t that point.”

Larson sucked in a breath.

“You’ve been at this awhile, so I’m gonna let it go, because I know you know better. Don’t be an asshole on this. Everyone knows what this girl did, they just can’t prove it.

“Either she met somebody better, or the whole thing was a tragic accident, and there’s nothing that’s ever gonna get proven either way.

“You know that too. Don’t’cha.”

I nodded. “You know what I have to do then, ‘don’t cha.’ ”

“If I catch you Kent, you know what I have to do.”

I nodded again.

“Too bad, Kent. Sweet kid, when she didn’t have a gun.”

“Somebody unsweetened her a long time ago, Larson. I need to find out who, and why?”

“Does it matter? Chick assassins are as commonplace now as—“

The look on my face stopped whatever he was going to say next.

He looked away, lit a cigarette. “Head back. Get outta here. I’ll see to it she’s taken care of.”

“Thanks, Larson.”

He waved and turned away.

I stood there a moment longer, looking at the white sheet soaked red, the blood and rain mingling in rivulets that sluiced down the drain in the gutter.

“Ah, Valentine.”

I understood Larson’s point; he’d known her too, before I did, in a different life, when she was a teenager. A lot had happened, and he tried to mentor her, but she wanted something more than the straight and narrow, and my other friend provided that, for awhile.

She would’ve moved on from me too, in time. Perhaps she already had someone else lined up. She never really worked for anyone; she was freelance, and handled her own affairs.

Her rep in the underground markets was impeccable. I’d been lucky to get her.

Most of my problems were gone, but not all, and none of them were good enough to get her like this.

I had to work up a list of her enemies, and her competition; there was room for overlap there, but true pros always left it at competition, and never made it personal.

Valentine had been one of those.

There was the matter of an estate, if she had one, and I decided to start there.

Someone made a ton of money if he was able to take her out, and I decided to find out whom that might be.

A niggling feeling told me I was getting into deep waters: Valentine was international: passports, money, tech, anonymous drops, first class hotels and flights. She knew the ropes, made the loopholes, and walked wires that would make other assassins quit.

She was the best, and someone had taken that away.

I wouldn’t be the only one hunting whoever it was that thought they could replace her.

They were off to a good start, but Valentine was well-liked.

Whoever you are, you better have killer legs and a sunny personality. Being a crack shot might aid your cause too. Explosives were over-reach, cowardly even; just put it down, and slink away like a vole.

She was the only one I knew her age who would get my jazz references.

The last thing I’d said to her was the opening line from a jazz standard, and she knew what to say.

That alone was cause enough to marry her, in my book.

“I’ll find them, Valentine. And when I do, they’re gonna wish I blew them up.”

 

 

Happy Valentine’s Dead (1)

As always, she delivered. There was never a trace, never a mess.

Honestly, I don’t know how she did it, and I never cared to ask.
She came referred to me by someone she used to work for; they parted on bad terms, and she shot him in the knee, but even then, he admired her work.

“Best I ever saw.”

“Rate?”

He told me. It was up there, but workable.
”All right.”

 

*****************

 

She came in looking like new pearls; guess that made me the swine.

Short red dress, body like a tight spring, killer legs, not too made up, soft perfume, the whole nine, then nine more.

Now I realized why he kept her after she shot him; she was the kind of woman who could do that to a man and be forgiven instantly. Hell, I forgave her, then and there, and she never even took her gun out.

She crossed the killer legs, let me look my fill and travel my way up; when I finally got to her eyes, they were amused, and she was smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

“Do I pass…inspection?”

“With flying colors.”

She uncrossed the legs and leaned forward, eyes no longer amused, and told me her terms.

“I work alone. No cops, no tails. If I get wind of anyone, anyone, I’m giving you a refund, but I’m coming after you.”

I sat back, steepled my fingers, intrigued.

“You shouldn’t tip your hand so early.”

“I don’t care; I need to get to Mexico.”

“Why Mexico?”

She looked at me as I’d just fallen on my head and changed color.

“Why not Mexico?”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

I told her the job, and gave her a down payment, the rest to be paid upon completion.

“So, just to be clear, I work for you now?”

I held out my hand: “You can always give it back.”

We locked eyes for a few moments, before she brightened, smiled, and winked, all flirtatious play, like a shark bumping a hole in your sea cage.

“See you later, boss” she said, and left.

She did it in two days. No trace.

I paid her double.

 

*************

She went on to do a few more jobs.

I liked her sass; you didn’t see girls with sass anymore; in my day, I might’ve held her for a bit, but she’d have burned me like acid.

I’d have melted away a happy man…

“My money?”

“Right there, Valentine.”

I pointed to the briefcase.

“Yes, they’re not marked, blah blah,” I said waving a dismissive hand.

“I trust you, Kent.”

“You should. How long we been together now?”

She smiled. “A gentleman remembers her birthday, never her age.”

“Ha, listen to you. You’re still in diapers, and you didn’t make that up.”

“I read, peasant.”

I laughed.

“Anything else for me,” she said.

“Might be, Valentine. Gimme a day or so.”

“You’re the only one that calls me ‘Valentine,’ Kent. Everyone else says ‘V’ or ‘Val’.

I got up, stretched, yawned, then said to her, “I ain’t everyone else. I like the way your name sounds. I like you, and I’d love to…well, if you’d let me, but that gets…”

“Expensive?” she teased.

I cleared my throat, then answered her.“Costly.”

She laughed then. “Charmer.”

She picked up the briefcase.

“Til next time, lover man.”

“If you’re ever feeling lonely…”

“I’ll call you.” She turned and blew me a kiss. “Promise.”

I never saw her again.

When they found what was left of her, I bawled like a kid.

The Breaking of Chrystal Belle

“Is she dead?”

“Mostly.”

“Why not completely?”

“I’m not finished; you said to prolong it.”

“It’s been prolonged enough. Finish it.”

“She’s said nothing. If I finish it, you’ll get nothing.”

“It’s been three hours. You’ve done everything but…”

“I could do that. She’d need to be cleaned up first, but I can do it.”

“Would you? Would you really? Even now?”

“Why not?”

He looked at me a long moment.

“You’re going to tell me I’m a monster? A fiend? A devil?”

“No.”

“ ‘No’,” I imitated his voice, “ ‘I’m just going to think it.’ Right?”

“I…I’ll leave you to your work.”

“Ha! It’s your work, wizard; I’m just the tool you’re using.”

That stopped him in his tracks, but he didn’t turn around, and after a heartbeat or two, walked out.

I went back to work.

 

****************

“You heard him, Chrystal?”

Her voice was raspy from screaming and the smoky torches, deliberately dabbed in something to make them so.

She nodded.

I leaned in close: “He doesn’t care if I kill you. Do you?”

She nodded again.

“I’m going to take off the gag, all right? Just tell me what I need to know.”

She gasped, and I gave her some water to wet her throat, clean the blood, and deceive her into thinking I just might be merciful.

“Where are the others?”

“He told you to rape me.”

“Yes.”

“You told him you would, if he wanted.”

“Yes.”

She paused a moment, then said “What if I said you didn’t have to force me?”

I smiled in shocked amusement at her pluck.

“Do you think I’m so easily bought? I could have you whether he granted me permission or not.”

She gave a smile of her own, red rimmed as it was. “You know that’s not true.”

Interesting. It had been a statement meant to rattle her.

“You’re stalling, Chrystal. When he returns, he expects me to hand him your corpse.”

“You’ve broken me up inside already, and what have you gained?”

“I told him that, but I believe you know where the rest of your kind is hiding, and…”

I picked up a branding iron, spit on it to let her hear the sizzling hiss.

“I would so hate to ruin that lovely face.”

“Do it. I don’t know where they’re hiding, and it no longer matters.”

I took off the hooded mask I wore, and she flinched at my appearance.

Walking toward her now, I saw her shrink back, and I smiled, which made her flinch even more.

“Before I do…”

Gripping her chin, I forced her lips to mine a long moment, heard her retch in her throat, and I stuffed the gag back in, and jammed the brand onto her thigh.

As she thrashed against the bonds and screamed behind the gag, a thought occurred to me.

Maybe I am going soft…

 

*****************

The pain shooting me through me made me drop the brand, as if I’d burned myself with it.

Chrystal was still kicking a bit, her eyes watery, and mucus and saliva pooling around the gag made her unlovely.

I knew immediately where I’d made my mistake, and I could torture her no longer; everything I did to her, I would now feel. Already I could see bruises appearing, feel the aches she felt, saw the cuts I’d made on her now slice my own skin open and weep with blood.

I could see the brand on my own leg.

Her eyes were still defiant, and if I weren’t going to go blind in the doing, I would’ve gouged them out with my thumbs.

The gag dissolved, and her smile had that same smarmy slyness when she told me I couldn’t have her without permission.

“Free me. Now.”

“You marked me.”

“You marked yourself with your lust, Bressal. You knew, or said you did, of our powers.”

I freed her.

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked her.

“No. You’re going to kill the wizard for me. When he comes, don’t bother dragging it out.”

She walked over to my array of bloodletting toys, and picked out an axe, one I’d trusted through the years for other duties, but it was somewhat dull now, as I’d not used it in some time.

I bowed my head in defeat.

“Put this through his skull,” she said.

“It’s dull.” I could no longer meet her eyes.

She laughed. “As are you. My husband has made his choice, now I’ve made mine. Strike as many times as you have to; I’ll be back to see what you’ve done.”

Her eyes narrowed, and I felt something like a fist around my heart.

“And if I see no body, Bressal, I’ll know you’ve betrayed me, and make you wish you were never born.”

The fist let go.

I didn’t like being threatened. She’d bested me, and now felt emboldened to boast.

“We will one day have reckoning,” I said to her retreating back. “I will break this spell, and then you, Chrystal, into shards of bad memories your husband’s maid will sweep under thick carpets.

“My ruined face will be the last thing you see, my kiss the last thing you feel, as I take your womanhood along with your life.”

The door shut on my tirade.

I wiped at the tears in my eyes that baptized me into her service, but I couldn’t stop them, and decided to blame it on the acrid torches.

Then I took the axe, put it across my lap, and waited.

 

 

Leiko and the White Wolf (5)

5)

 

As it often happens when in a strange place for the first time, Leiko couldn’t sleep, and got up to skulk about the monastery to explore whatever piqued her curiosity, which was just about everything.

The dark halls with single torches intrigued her most, but she knew the monastery was likely labyrinthine, and didn’t want to risk getting lost.

She decided to see if Akira was up; perhaps he could make some sort of sleeping tea for her, if he wasn’t too angry at her behavior during dinner.

A bit peeved to find that she cared what he thought of her, she figured it was best to go apologize; he’d been kind to her, all things considered, and she hadn’t, as he’d promised, come to harm.

There was no threat here, at least not from the Brothers, but she could also sense an undercurrent of contained power, controlled, but almost throbbing like a heart, inside the walls, under the ground, a vibrancy running like a warm current tickling the fine hairs on her arms.

It was a sense of gathering power, and it gave her an excited, anticipatory fright.

If that was what they were going to teach her to harness and wield, she dreaded the learning of it, and never desired anything more.

Some of the doors were open, and she looked in to see the men packing large satchels. When they saw her, they hurriedly looked away, almost shamefaced.

She stood in the doorway of one, and the monk came over to close the door, but she wouldn’t leave.

“Leiko, I need privacy.”

“Are you leaving? Did Hakurou send you all on a journey? A mission?”

She saw his face change at the words ‘journey’ and ‘mission,’ and something clicked into place.

“You’re leaving.”

“Please…” he pushed the door at her again, not hard, but firmly, and she had no choice but to back away or let it hit her bare toes.

The lock clicked, and she heard him shuffle away.

They’re leaving because of me.

Disturbed, she went in earnest to find Akira, and ask what problems she’d be facing with them now that she was living here.

 

****************

“Come in, Ko.”

She went in, saw Akira standing by the small window, looking out at the yellow moonlight on the green grass, giving it a bluish cast.

“You knew it was me?”

He chuckled, but didn’t turn to her.

“No powers needed there; the brothers aren’t prone to knocking, and they’re a ham fisted lot if they do.”

“You called me ‘Ko.’ Hakurou changed my name. You call him master, but you defy him by using my old name.”

He turned to her then, looking at her intently; her observations were keen for one so young. Tigress by the tail…

“Between you and me, you will always be ‘Ko.’ That is the name I found you under, and the name in which you branded your father’s cheek with your spittle.”

She reddened at the memory, and looked away.

Good.

“It is also the first cord of our bonding, and I will only call you ‘Leiko’ when Hakurou is around.

“Are we agreed?”

She nodded, not wanting to speak yet, fearing her voice would squeak.

“You are not asleep; tomorrow, Hakurou’s going to start your training in the path of the Rei.”

She sat on the edge of his bed. “Some of the men are leaving because of me. I saw them.”

Akira inwardly cursed them for cowards.

“There is nothing to be done for it, Ko. Those that remain…”

“Those that remain…?”

He shook his head. “What is it you want?”

“Besides returning to Iwai? I’d like a sleeping tea, if you have any.”

“I do. I will even join you. Any later, and we will both see the sun before we topple.”

 

*****************

 

Hakurou’s voice was low thunder.

“I am grieved…so grieved I can no longer call you Brothers.

“You are craven, useless dogs.”

“You said to consider carefully, Hakurou. We all have—“
“No spines!” Hakurou’s fist slammed the large table they were sitting around, and they all jumped, blinking at the sudden fury of the motion and his expression.

Another monk spoke. “Maybe you shouldn’t issue edicts you don’t mean then, Hakurou.”

Hakurou sat down, the blood slowly leaving his face as his hand worried at his beard.

“You’re right. If you didn’t leave now, you’d prove a weakness in the fighting, and run, or die. Either way, you’d have the witches victorious, and this is not the time for people like you. I would say ‘men’, but that doesn’t fit you.”

The monk who first spoke stood. “I’ve had enough. You said we could leave. We’ve done our part, and served our gods; we want to go on serving them. We don’t want to die.”

Hakurou gave a bitter laugh.

“And if the witches win, pup, do you think they’ll leave you be?”

That gave them pause, and some of them remained sitting.

“He’s turned you? With that simplistic question, he changed your mind?”

One of sitting monks sighed. “He’s right, Brother Milal, there is no place to run they won’t find us.”

“But there’s a chance they won’t; there’s a chance we’ll survive, and as long as it’s there, I have to try. I have to take that chance.”

“Best be leaving then,” Hakurou said. “The sun is up soon, and Leiko’s first session will start at first light.”

They stood, and filed out in silence, giving the old wolf at least that much respect, dropping their pendants and rings in a reliquary beside the main doors.

 

***************

Leiko and Akira saw them leaving, and before Akira could react, she was off, running toward them.

“Wait! Please! Please wait!

The monk who spoke to Hakurou first stopped the rest of them, watching her wild eyed approach.

Seeing he was the leader, she went up to him.

“If you leave, sir, you weaken the monastery. You weaken us all.”

“I have no part in this war. It will be a bloodbath, and none of it theirs. You seem like an intelligent child, for a peasant’s daughter. Demand Akira return you to your homeland.

“Dosojin Monastery will be destroyed in the battle to come.”

“Are you a seer, now?” Akira interjected.

Milal looked at him as if he’d just bled on a hymnal.

“No, I’m a realist.”

“If you believe your god is real, ‘realist,’ then why don’t you stay and ask for victory? Your brothers need you.” Leiko said. “And I need you.”

He looked at her, incredulous: her rudeness knew no boundaries.

“He is not a god of warriors, you fool girl, he is a god of the temple. He watches over us in peace and in life, if we should so pray.”

She looked at him a long moment. He was bristling, but dared say nothing in front of Akira. He was shifting his feet under her gaze, and not making eye contact, but summoning backbone to stand straight and say:

“If there’s nothing else, child, we must go.”

She stepped aside, and as they filed past, the leader stood glaring at her, and she calmly bore it until it was his time to step forward on the path of stones.

As he passed her, she murmured so only the three of them heard her:

“Pray hard then, Milal.

As Akira began to close the door, she the fear in Milal’s eyes, but his pride wouldn’t let him capitulate.

He swallowed, and turned away from them, and walked out.

As the lock clicked, a roll of thunder resounded in the far distance.

 

 

 

Leiko and the White Wolf (4)

The evening meal, as it turned out, was less a somber affair than Ko would’ve thought; the monks were smiling, even chatty, after grace was said.

They passed the plates along with good natured jokes about round stomachs and big appetites.

The servants, probably neophytes, hung around behind the monks, waiting with refills, smiles of amusement on their faces; Ko took notice of that too, and thought it a good thing they weren’t being reprimanded.

She sat next to Koji, who did have a round stomach and big appetite, and didn’t seem to care what the others thought of it, and he served her from the platters of food that came his way.

Her stomach growled, and she had to force herself to exercise control.

The scents of the cooking here were different, more smoky and pungent; in her home it had always been tangy, with some sort of orange spice her mother liked to use. It was peasant fare to be sure, but it was filling, and Ko couldn’t remember ever going to bed hungry.

Her diet had consisted largely of fish and the things that preyed on fish; her mother grew her own vegetables, and was fast in the kitchen after long years of arduous experience in her own mother’s small kitchen.

But the monks here seemed to eat well, despite the seeming indolence of their calling.

She noticed Akira watching her, and gave him a small smile to assure him she knew what was going to happen, and she was prepared: he was ready to introduce her to the rest of the monks.

The servants cleared away the dishes and utensils, and Akira stood and signaled for silence, which came as abruptly as the chatter had after grace.

“Brothers, I have news.”

They gave him their full attention.

“We have, in our midst, a young lady that we have taken from her homeland, and her parents’ side, to train in the path of Rei, thunder and lightning,  for reasons she does not, as yet, know, but will in time.

“Brothers, I give you Ko of Iwai.”

Ko stood, stepped back from the table, and bowed low.

Murmurs of approval at her manners and training buzzed briefly through the assembly, and when Ko straightened, Akira had sat down, and they were all watching her.

A thrill of nervousness coursed through her, as her eyes fastened on the man at the head of the table, the one whose eyes now bore into her as if they would have her soul or know the reason.

He was tall and broad, with a silver mane and full whiskers, luxurious and immaculate, handsome in a long, dark blue hakama with a white wolf head sewn over his heart.

“Welcome, Ko, to Dosojin Monastery.”

Ko thought his eyes could pierce granite, but she decided not to be cowed; it wasn’t an easy decision, since she couldn’t stop her knees from shaking.

“Welcome? It was not my choosing; my father sold me for reasons I don’t know. Akira has tried his best, but to be honest, elder, I am not a little angry.”

The table buzzed again at her forthrightness.

“I know that I’m here because you feel you need me; how I can deliver you from whatever it is men such as yourselves are threatened by, you will have to reveal to me sooner rather than later.

“For all that I’ve been kidnapped, since I cannot return to Iwai, it seems I must do what I can.

She turned to Brother Koji.

“Thank you, Brother Koji, for taking care of me. If you will excuse me, Brothers, I slept through most of the afternoon, and I need to make a list of belongings that I, as a female, will need.”

Hakurou and Akira remained expressionless, but the looks around the table ranged from surprised affront to amusement.

“May I be excused, elder?”

“You may, Leiko.”

“With respect, my name is Ko, elder.”

“I am changing it for the duration of your time here; you are Leiko now.”

She seethed, but bowed in resigned acquiescence.

“Thank you.”

She left, her mind swirling with emotions: surprise at her boldness, bordering on disrespect, and a slight flush of pleasure at the reaction she got.

Her name, Ko, meant dutiful daughter.

The name he’d given to her, loosely translated, meant ‘sarcastic one.’

Given her behavior, she supposed she earned it.

She was smiling in spite of herself.

Leiko. Thunder and lightning indeed.

 

****************

 

Hakurou roared with laughter, and the monks themselves, not quite knowing what to make of things, laughed too, albeit nervously.

“Akira,” he sputtered, “you’ve grabbed a tigress by the tail.”

“It would seem so. I will go speak with her.”

Hakurou waved his hand. “Bah, leave her be. She said nothing untrue, and slighted no brothers. Think on it a moment, and if what happened to her happened to you,” he looked around the table, “any one of you, you’d be inclined to be ill-mannered too.

“Send for a village girl to get the supplies our female will need.”

He sat down, the gaiety leaving his eyes, and as he regained his breath, he addressed them.

“The threat from across the sea grows, gentlemen. The witches play their pipes, and light their fires, and mate to sacrifice the offspring, and the isle mist has a scarlet cast to it, and it is darkening despite the resplendent dawns we enjoy here.

“It is a real and distinct possibility that they could be lost to sight, if the mist gets thick and dark enough.

“I know they’re beginning to conscript an army, wielders of steel, to slay us outright, so their magic can be saved for the extraction of their treasures from our soil.

“You know the history of our battle, and our victory came dear.

“Now we have a weapon, one girl against an army, and the path of Rei has been forbidden us for centuries, if not millennia. It is a dark and terrible practice, but we have weakened ourselves, and there is no time for us to catch up to them.

“We needed a woman to fight against women, for a man trained in the way of Rei will not be effective. The battle is aligned by gender; male for male, female for female.

“This is the way the Rei have always done it.

“Leiko is that weapon. Her feistiness could prove to be a two-edged sword.”

He cast a sidelong glance at Akira, and grinned, briefly, “Akira, I trust that you are up to the task.”

There was light laughter.

Akira didn’t share in it, only nodded.

Brother Koji spoke. “As her attendant, I too, will do what I can to aid Akira.”

“Thank you, Brother,” Akira said.

“Yes, Koji, that would be appreciated,” Hakurou said.

“Hakurou?” one of the other monks asked, “If she invokes Rei, will it not destroy us too?”

“It could. But we have ever known that it is better for both to die, than for one to be unleashed, unchecked, across the world.

“In the taking of their lives, we may be sacrificing our own; the path of Rei has been untrammeled for longer than men can remember, and in its dormancy, it gathers power.”

He leaned forward across the table and looked at each man until they were newly focused on him.

“That means that when she destroys the island, it may be too much for her to control, and we will die as well in the ensuing destruction, by tsunami, by earthquake, by fire, and there will be no escape.”

He sat back.

“Consider carefully what lies ahead, and if any one of you wishes to leave, see me no later than midnight tonight, and be on your way by first light.

“Leiko’s training starts tomorrow.”

 

 

 

Justice = Just Us

So as a cop, you don’t even have to engage the tween with the TOY gun in the department store. No criminal record, no threat to you, himself, or anyone in the store, but he never even got a ‘drop your weapon.’

Just pull up, and bang.

When we’re innocent, cops plant evidence.  Alabama ‘police’ did it for 10 years. Where’s the outrage from #ALLLIVESMATTER?

Make up your mind:

Don’t want us ‘thuggin,’ but won’t hire us.
Don’t want us on welfare, but don’t want us educated.
Don’t want us holding political office, but it’s okay if it’s a ball or a microphone we sing and rap into, as long as we’re not decrying supremacist / oligarchal bullshit disguised as ‘policy.’

Then redline the districts to remove black representatives, and put them in districts where prisoners can’t vote.

Then talk about ‘reverse discrimination’ when it used to be called ‘hiring on merit’ before.

Worried about terrorism? Guess it takes one to know one.

Time to segregate, on our own terms, for our own reasons, to rebuild ourselves, our youth, and our communities. Stop celebrating Kwanzaa for a week when we’re not living out the principles 24/7/365.

We weren’t brought over here to live, but to work, and as long as we’re not turning a profit for anyone else, we can ‘go back to Africa.’

But let’s get back to Black Wall Street instead. Let’s build schools where our youth will excel and begin to invade the halls of power: science, law (and its enforcement),  finance, technology, and trade, in the same numbers we seek to invade the NFL and NBA.

We’ll be talking about a different country then; help is not coming from the outside, and for damn sure reparations are not coming for slavery. You’re paid less for the work you actually do, as opposed to the work you didn’t, where no one was paid at all.

Stop rapping about money and hoes and guns and drugs, and pull your pants up so you can stand up and man up. You do know by now that showing your ass means anyone can screw you, and screw you over?

If you ‘love your hood,’ stop poisoning its people with drugs imported from countries that don’t like you either, and shooting your brothers, and impregnating your sisters with babies you can’t take care of from behind bars. You leave them vulnerable, like Tamir was vulnerable.

Stop riding around in expensive cars through neighborhoods that look no better than bombed out Syria, talking about ‘I got mine’ before the cops add it to the Criminal Forfeiture fund to pay for their bodycams, which they’ll turn off the next time they aim for your heart.

Poverty is a mindset; it just manifests as an economic factor.

Wake up. Strap up (your mind first, your home second).

The revolution has started, and it’s not only televised, it’s being broadcast all over the world.

Resolve in your spirit, now, to answer this question:

How long are you willing to remain a target?