He slit his wrist open with Cija’s knife at the height of it, too, and let her drink from him ‘til her lips were crimson, ‘til she shivered, blinked and near passed out from the desperate jolt of it. Thinking: Won’t make you like me, I reckon, but it’s good enough to keep you mine…and that ain’t too bad, is it? Considering how I’ll for damn sure treat you better than any of those fuckers ever treated me.
So. Because he wasn’t them, he finally knew, not really; never had been and never would be, no matter what. But he wasn’t nobody, either—not nothing. Neither wolf nor hyena but something new, something other, entirely. A chimera, of sorts.
A victory of half-life over half-death, made unexpected flesh.
CROSSING THE RIVER
…dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
a lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
—Anne Sexton
Here’s how it probably happens, that first time, if you’re anything like me…
Your Momma wakes you in the middle of the night, takes you up on the mountain. Says she has something fine and secret to show you, something that sets you and her apart from all the rest of the common herd. This here is our’n, baby girl, she tells you, gifted by Him who made us to the whole of our blood—and you more than most, darlin’. You more than any.
And what is it you see once she’s got you up there, anyhow? Maybe a dog with horns or a black cat bigger than a bull, a goat with women’s breasts and owl’s eyes, some sort of beast having ten horns, ten crowns, and on every head the name of blasphemy. Or maybe just a pale man with a black beard and a sad face, like the ghost of Osama bin Laden, who lays one hand on the top of your skull, the other on the sole of your foot and laughs, saying: Shall I really take you for gift on only your mother’s word, all of you, everything which lies between this hand and that? What true mischief could I ever possibly do in this world with such a little one as you, Gley Chatwin’s gal?
If you’re anything like me, which most just ain’t. Because my Momma was a witch, same as hers, and so on; it’s from their side of things that I can’t stand the touch of salt, can’t cry real tears. But I sure ain’t no hill-woman like her, either, out hollering to old Scratch every full moon—and I never did kiss any man’s ass but for money, horns or no. I got my pride.
So: I can throw out a fetch, given time, and dirt enough to build one from. Bring anyone my way and keep ‘em long as I want, using nothing but a drop of their blood, a drop of mine and a hank of my own long hair to tie the knot with. Spread out a pack of cards and tell you your future; knock a rag against a stone and raise up a wind, then write nonsense words on myself to whip that same wind into a Force Three twister; make doors slam, tables tap and call up a ghost to talk through me, just like that woman of Endor who got old King Saul in so much trouble with the Almighty.
I’ve read some books, too; Montague Summers, Scott’s Discoverie, Stuart’s Daemonologie. The mighty Hammer. I know my history, such as it is. My culture is different than yours, older still than the Travellers with their tricks or the Injuns with their anger—ain’t just moonshine and trailers, back where I come from. And I got but two things to blame for everything I’ve done since, I suspect: Gley Chatwin and the Daddy she chose to get me on her, her cold witch blood and his hot demon seed. or three, maybe, if you choose—like I do—to also count my own bad self.
But if any of the above meant I could witch myself right in and out of prison anytime I felt like it…well, we wouldn’t have too much to talk about, now, would we?
‘Course, biology does count for something, at least in terms of execution. If I was a man, they’d probably have to keep me in Ad Seg 24/7, for fear of me trying to stick my dick in anything that moved close enough past me for me to grab at it. Being I’m not, though, my “unrepentant serial sexual offender” sins always tended to err more on the side of knew I shouldn’t’ve, but I went on ahead and did it anyways: it, her, him, them. Whatever.
I mean, sure—my not-Daddy messed around with me some, just like everybody else’s. But I’ll gladly own the rest.
Sometimes I feel like I must’ve been drunk, high, picking up
trade and robbing folks blind for a straight year before the Powers That Be finally got around to slinging me right back in where I so obviously needed to be. Seems like I looked up the once and I was in custody, looked up twice and I was in court, allocuting before sentence. Looked up the third time and I was already dug deep down here in Mennenvale Women’s Penitentiary, Block A, max security—sweating hard, getting clean; not such a bad place to do it, either, when all’s said and done. Certainly does concentrate the mind wonderfully.
Getting into Hell, that’s the easy part, always; people do it every damn day, though far more often by accident than by intent. It’s getting out that’s harder, ‘specially on demand—though it’s not like that can’t be done either, exactly.
Not so long’s you can only make yourself patient enough to wait for just the right sort of…leverage.
One way or the other, what you maybe need to know most about me is this: I don’t think of myself as a monster. Never have. Never will.
But then again, I guess most monsters don’t.
—
Now, leverage comes in many different forms, by many different methods. I mean, if you’re looking to understand just how somebody like me ever came into partnership with two kick-ass do-gooders like Samaire and Dionne Cornish in the first place, much can probably be made of the plain fact that Cornish and Chatwin lie almost right next to each other come roll-call, alphabetically speaking…but then, there’s really no earthly reason I wouldn’t’ve noticed them anyhow, eventually—Samaire, in particular. And not for the reasons you might initially assume, given my record.
That same morning, just before the fish truck pulled in, I was lounging at the cell-door with my pretty little Maybelle already all ground up against me, one thigh slung so tight over mine I cou
ld fair feel the heat of her through my pants (sweat-moist, or what-have-you), over my hip-pocket. Murmuring in my ear, as she did it:
“They got the Cornish sisters comin’ to call in this batch, Alleycat. Pulled life plus nine-nine between ‘em both, mainly ‘cause of the three strikes rule.” Pause. “Well, that, and they had a whole car full’a concealed weapons, when the Feebs finally caught their asses at the Border.”