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She woke to the sun rising from the sea.
Ciris slept beneath a sheet on the sofa, a pillow pulled over her head.
She used the bathroom, and when she came out, the panther, sleek and black, had replaced the girl. She licked the pad of her paw and extended her claws while issuing a low, grumbling purr. Regarding her with feline indifference she flicked her tail.
“Ciris?” The cat flicked her tail again.
A knock came at the door.
The animal stared at her and yawned, showing sharp fangs.
Again, knock knock, knock.
She opened the door, expecting to find Thuy holding the chay tray. Instead, Nawt, the night guard, gave her a slight bow.
“Ciris,” he said to the cat on the sofa. “The Black Scorpion has called a war meeting.”
“A war meeting, why?” said Ciris.
Jane turned to find the girl holding the blanket under her chin.
“He said the orb has given him a vision. Please come.” The boy turned and left. A breeze cooler than their sunny room blew in from the hall.
The panther rolled to the floor, shook off the sheet, and loped out the door.
Uninvited to any war meeting and thinking Thuy might arrive soon with the chay, she took up the notebook where she had been working out her memories and opened it to the next empty page. As far as she knew, she was illiterate, yet she scribed her thoughts in a language as alien to her as any she had yet encountered in this strange land, a script of curling strings.
Here I am, the queen of a land called America. But I am not a queen. These are things I know. I am married, but not to a king. I am married to another woman; however, I am the monarch.
I sit in the penthouse of this hotel overlooking a tropical city. The sea is rolling, and I can hear the waves crash on the wide, sandy beach. Ciris took me there two days ago, and we went swimming in the ocean and slept in the sunlight. The boys followed as cats and watched us from the shadows beneath the trees. My guardians… or my jailers.
The sea is vast and fills me with a sensation of boundless hope. That is, until I am forced to reconcile with the sky. Even in the unmatched blue of waking day, and the large white clouds that are honest and real, I know the sky means death.
Today, the wind is blowing through the windows. The salt air is fresh and fills me with vastness and possibilities I can’t articulate. It reminds me of a place called California. It took me a long time to remember this place. It’s a favorite of my lover, who is at once familiar and anonymous. Last night in a dream, I remembered her name. Christy! We went shopping in California. She likes shopping, but I do not. Yet I go along because I love her. She is beautiful and famous. People always look at her and whisper. Her face is known throughout the land.
Though I am the queen, she is renowned.
There is an itch in me to govern. I want to tell people what needs to be done, and I want to trust they will carry out my vision, for I have chosen them by hand for their unique abilities.
The people of America are angry, broken; they are divided. There is a yearning in me to return. They need to be prepared. We need to be ready. But how? Do I just tell them? Behold, I have seen a vision, and any day now, the heavens are going to split open, and an apocalyptic armada will sail through and end this mortal coil as we know it!
They would call me mad. Insane. Take away the keys to the kingdom. But there are others who know of this. One of them is a powerful man who helped me win the throne. He is a warrior and a politician. And I wonder if I can trust him. I know now he is part of them called the Hunters, and if they were here, they would kill these precious children whom I love so much, the Maji.
I’m beginning to see, there can be no escape from the sorrow to come, but with preparation, a vestige of our people might survive, and we might rebuild. We can raise our cities again, and we will not fall into the trappings of hate. Only as one people will we succeed.
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The elevator was turned off, but she felt light-footed and stable. She had the memory of a limp, but it was only a memory. She bounded down the stairs as she had when she was a little girl, breathing easy and sure, and didn’t stop until she hit ground level.
Two large doors opened into the ballroom. All the Maji were gathered. Cats crouched on the tabletops, dogs sat on the floor, and a cluster of sullen kids adorned with piercings and tattoos leaned against the wall, passing a cigarette. Ciris, as the black panther, paced before them.
The day’s brilliant sunbeams blasted through the skylight and the stained-glass windows, casting a luster of reality over those gathered in a state of anxious anticipation. At the center of the ballroom, the Black Scorpion rose from his seat between Hung and Stefan. He spread his arms and stretched his wings, and the animals and the pierced kids began to circle him. Those in human form started to shout. In unison, the cats wailed, the dogs barked, and the panther screamed. Kee-yah, kee-yah, shrieked two young hawks as they flew circles in the air. It was a racket from a nightmare.
The unsettling sensation of enchantment caused her skin to crawl, and she felt as though she had trespassed into an ecstatic sacrament. Slowly, she backed away. With an instinctual need to hide, she turned and ran through the corridor into the kitchen. The screams grew louder. A pan fell from the wall and clattered onto the floor. A fiery wind brushed against her skin.
The dark stairway at the rear of the kitchen called to her. From her explorations, she knew it existed, but she had never ventured so deep. Nawt of the night watch had mentioned once in his sullen way that it wasn’t a good idea to go down there.
She picked up a candle from the counter and lit it on the pilot light of the gas range. Bearing a single flame, she descended, leaving the cacophony of the Maji and the daylight behind.
Her bare feet took the rickety stairs, and when she reached the concrete floor at the bottom, her toes and soles felt the cold dust of ages, and the heavy aroma of wet and mold assaulted her nose.
She held the candle aloft and ventured into the gloom, surrounded by her golden halo. The basement was expansive and vacant. At the far back—it must have even extended beneath the streets—the candlelight materialized a long, wooden table against a brick wall.
The table was laden with loot: wallets, cash, coins, necklaces, rings with glinting diamonds, a blue sparkling dress, coats and furs, a toy car, a teddy bear, hatchets and daggers, laptops and phones, smartwatches, VR glasses, passports, handbags… At the center of the table, atop an antique chest, was a pair of silver soccer cleats with blue wings emblazoned on the sides. A golden chain draped out of the right shoe.
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She reached out to grab it but stopped. What was that sound?
Tik, tik, tik…
She leaned over and peered into the shoe to find a golden pocket watch lying on the insole. Taking the chain, she carefully lifted the ornate device. It caught the candlelight and glowed, swaying before her eyes like a hypnotist’s medallion.
Tik, tik, tik…
She blinked. It could have been minutes or hours. The beauty of the antique had captivated her. She forced herself to gently return the watch and stepped back from the treasures. As she did this, a glinting threadlike fiber more delicate than a spider’s web emerged from the shadow above the table, growing slightly brighter and slightly dimmer, pulsating with an iridescent gleam.
“It’s what protects us.”
She jolted. The voice reverberated in her mind. She hadn’t heard him approach.
“The loot of lost souls. All the hopes and fears of my gang,” the Black Scorpion said.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “What is it?”
“The enchantment demands that each Maji steal the most precious item they can imagine. They offer it to the Majestic, and in return, it protects them.”
“And what did you steal?”
The Black Scorpion smiled, lifting the watch by its golden chain. His smile quickly left. “I stole time.” There was sadness in his voice. The strands of light fell across his skin, one of them catching in a feather on a wing and gently trailed as if caught in a current. He carefully returned the watch to the shoe.
“What is it?” Jane asked.
He reached up and let the filaments sift through his fingers. “My sister did it a long time ago with the Viking. It starts at Sunwheel and touches every part of the Free City. Some of my boys say they’ve followed it outside the city limits, into the fields and the jungle. Who knows, maybe it touches the entire world.”
“Those shoes,” she said, nearing the table. “I know Lionel de Borges?”
“What do you mean you know Lionel de Borges?” he said emphatically.
“I’ve met him. I remember now.”
“The greatest striker the world has ever known!” exclaimed the Black Scorpion, his wings flaring out, almost quivering with excitement.
“The Ninety-minute Man!” their voices harmonized.
“Who stole them?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “those were a gift from a grieving father. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Time ticked eternal around them as they gazed upon the heaps of wonders. She recognized a delicate glass Christmas tree ornament, and she knew that if she touched the tippy top, it would cast a blue laser across the room.
“You plan to fight the Chaos from here, don’t you?” she said.
The Black Scorpion spread his magnificent wings. “Not fight, defend. We’re gonna catch it like a surfboard on the waves, like a feather in the wind, and we’re gonna ride it through!”
“How can you be sure?”
“The Viking says there’s nothing sure but death!” he spoke with fervor.
“You think the Majestic will survive?”
His eyes sparkled with fiery passion. He touched the corner of the table and gently lifted the cover of an old book sitting there. “Norse’s hand is in this enchantment. So, yes! And not just the Majestic, we’re gonna save the whole fucking city!” With a trembling voice on the brink of tears, he said, “Bring your Maji to me, queen. Let me save them.”
He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs into the sunlight. “This way, come on.” He pulled her through the cluttered back rooms piled high with the hotel’s junk, through the large doors that led to the fountain garden where the faun poured his endless water.
“Feel the shift of the enchantment out here?”
It was like stepping into a cold room after a shower.
“Hold on!” he shouted. He grabbed her, and they were airborne.
She wrapped her legs around his slim waist and clung to him. The muscles that worked his wings moved in powerful unison as they flew up and up.
“You’re amazing,” she whispered in his ear. She felt the lean strength of his torso against her loins.
“Yes,” he said.
They were above the hotel, peering down on the rooftop pool where the young Maji swam—some waved at them with glee. He beat his wings, propelling them higher and higher.
The city was vast, larger, and taller than any Asiatown in America. Its grid stretched out for miles toward the hinterland hills. She spotted the little house where the farmer lived with his family and his competent rifle and vigil hound. There was the road cutting through the jungled fields, and the bridge where Hung had tended the watchfire to guide them through the veil. The road kept going into a bright, humid haze—what was beyond there, she could not begin to imagine.
He descended in a slow spiral to the deck next to the swimming pool, where he set her down, then skipped back into the air on nubile wings to land in a boastful crouch.
Lasha and Duy cheered from the water.
“Here.” He held out a leather pouch.
It had an awkward heft in her hand.
“What is it?”
“My curse and my gift. It’s what they hunt me for. The orb told me it is time. It chooses you.”
“What do I do?”
“Nothing. The orb does all.”
“When I touch it, will I turn into a Centurion?”
The Black Scorpion laughed. “The Den comes up with such funny names. Listen to the orb. Keep its secrets in your heart. They will be your bearing through the hardest times.” He dipped a foot in the brilliant pool and churned the water. The sun reflected up across his face.
“Can I ask you a favor?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “There’s a man in your world. He’s being held prisoner by the Sisters of the Den. They call him the Viking. I beg you, please help him.”
“I will try,” she whispered.
He looked down—trying wasn’t good enough.
“I promise I will help him,” she said with conviction.
He lifted his head. “Thank you, Queen. The orb will leave you when it’s done. I have things to do.” He approached the balcony. With a powerful shove of his wings, he vanished.
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The hotel had gone to the cats, but the elevator worked at her command. In the hallway to the Queen’s Chamber, she saw a scraggly tabby the color of a dismal city’s smoky evening. It watched her with intense eyes—a new guardian, perhaps.
She placed the pouch on the table as if the sun’s broad daylight might ward off any magic. But there it sat, concealed. She paced the room, eyeing it as though it were alive. She sat down, the pouch’s leather drawstring between her fingers. A commotion in the hallway stopped her.
She opened the door to see two felines race up the stairs, then another and another, followed by the girl with the shaved head.
She grabbed the pouch and took the elevator to the roof to find Maji morphing from their beasts into their human forms.
Ciris rushed past her. “Where’s Nhat?” she shouted.
“He flew away,” someone shouted back.
“The Veil,” a girl yelled.
“Something’s happening with the Veil,” said a boy.
A collective gasp rose from the onlookers, followed by excited chatter in the language she knew but did not know. If she focused on one speaker, their meaning was clear, but collectively, they sounded like a flock of birds.
In the sky above, a dark cloud billowed from the armada. At the edge of the celestial tear, a long spire glided out of the wound. It was connected to a box-like structure that reminded her of a cement casket. It completely surpassed the fissure and entered their sky, then began a slow, deliberate descent. Lower and lower until, far across the ocean, it disappeared below the horizon.
A dry wind hit her face, carrying the distinct smell of sulfur.
Lasha and Duy came to her and hugged her sides.
“Look!” exclaimed Lasha.
Far out over the ocean, a splinter crowned the horizon. They watched it rise like a dark moon. It soon became apparent that this was no natural sphere, but the jagged geometry of a constructed form. It expanded to fill the sky, growing larger and larger until it eclipsed the sun and cast its shadow over the city. The brightness of day dimmed to twilight, then to night.
The wind turned cold, tousling Lasha’s blond hair and Duy’s black. The smell of burnt rock and of machines reeked in her nostrils. The boys covered their noses and breathed through their hands.
The sound started as a distant howl like the wind blowing through an empty building, but soon the rising pitch and amplitude screamed in her head. She thought the craft was going to carve them up with as much apathy as the glacial ice scours the earth.
The howling faded, surrendering to a surreal silence. The ship glided overhead in horrific detail. She gazed up into an alien city where sharp stalactites reached down. Smaller crafts raced along its surface, darting in and out of hollow tunnels.
A figure swooped through the air. The Black Scorpion soared above the rooftop then alighted among the Maji on the deck. His wings, spread wide over his followers, caught the wind in their feathers. He glided to the ledge overlooking the streets below and raised his arms, commanding their attention.
“The Majestic will not crumble,” he declared. “The Viking’s magic infests these walls, and the Dreamer has woven us into the city via the dynamo of the Sunwheel.” He pointed to the Ferris wheel still completing its rotations, casting out its golden light between the rooftops and the alien craft. “I have studied these enchantments. I believe in them.”
“I’m with you, Nhat!” shouted one of the tattooed boys, his scimitar dimly glinting in his hands.
“And I,” said Hung.
The Black Scorpion clenched his fist. “We have friends out there.” He pointed to the city. “And other Maji will come. Maji with powerful abilities.” His gaze landed on Jane. “The Viking is alive, and he is coming to fight with us.”
A war cry echoed among the children.
Ciris observed him from a distance, her long, agile tail flicking by her ankle in her semi-transformed state.
It was time. Jane unwound the leather lace that cinched the purse and let the contents fall into her hand.