Butcher Bird_ A Novel of the Dominion

Fifty-Nine


At the End of the Day, Luck always fails

"You lose my Gytrash and bring me back this useless deviant?" rasped Madame Cinders.
They stood before Madame Cinders in her tower room. The over-sweet scent of mutant orchids and the old woman's rotting flesh almost made Spyder gag.
"One, we didn't lose him. He was our friend and he died trying to get that damned book for you," Spyder said. "Two, we didn't bring Lulu back for you, lady. You don't deserve her used panty shields. And three, if you think deviants are useless, we must not know the same deviants."
"Give me my book."
"What's the magic word all good children say when they want something?"
They'd entered Madame Cinders' fortress without bothering to wait for her servants to open the front gates. Spyder had Cornelius kick his way through. The splintering wood and twisting iron hinges flew to pieces with a very satisfying amount of noise. Ten of Cinders' guards had run into the courtyard, but they scattered when they got a good look at Cornelius. Spyder and the others had strolled straight through Cinders' palace and up her tower with Cornelius guarding their rear. No one challenged them as they went.
"Give me my book," repeated Madame Cinders.
"Pretty please, with sugar on top," said Spyder. "That's what good children say."
It had been a tight squeeze, getting Cornelius up the narrow staircase to the top of Cinders' tower. He had to turn his great mechanical body sideways and crab slowly upward, his head cutting a deep scar into the top of the passage.
Spyder gestured for Cornelius to come forward and drop the book. As it hit the floor, the tower shook as if an earthquake had hit it. Cinders' guards looked around anxiously, as bones, dried herbs and potions tumbled from the shelves, but Madame Cinders showed no outward reaction. Spyder wasn't surprised. She looked even worse, more inhuman than when they'd left her.
"I've heard about your doings in the underworld. You think you have power now that you've defeated a few miscreant angels," she said. "But you know nothing about power."
Madame Cinders was no longer in her wheelchair. She was laid out flat on a kind of mechanical gurney, atop a pile of stained silk pillows. She looked at them reflected in a gold-framed mirror perched at an angle above her head. Spyder was sure she'd shrunk in size. Were her legs missing? The pump system, that injected and drained whatever horrible fluids kept her feeble flesh moving, had doubled in size and complexity, and was nearly as large as the gurney. Still, even trapped in that ruined body, she managed to project both menace and intelligence. Spyder didn't like looking at her. She stank like an old abattoir. Spyder patted his pockets, found the last of the tobacco he'd acquired at Berenice and began rolling a cigarette.
"There's no smoking in the presence of the Madame," said one of her guards. Spyder ignored him. He licked the paper lengthwise and rolled the cigarette closed.
Madame Cinders continued, "Any fool can stumble into luck once, twice, even a hundred times, but at the end of the day, luck always fails. Then, skill and knowledge are required. You have neither. The Butcher Bird has some, but not enough to save you both."
"I have plenty of skill. I'm a pretty good tattoo artist. And I can always pour beer without it getting all foamy," said Spyder.
"The last time you were here, the Butcher Bird was the one who spoke. Now, puffed up and preening, you do all the talking. Or are you the distraction while she carries out some action against me?"
"I'm not speaking, witch, because I have nothing to say to you," said Shrike.
Cinders laughed her awful, gurgling laugh. "But you have your sight, child. And soon you will have your father. I should think you'd be grateful for these things."
"If we're not gushing and grateful it's 'cause you lied to us. The book was never yours. You conned and you lied and you blackmailed us into stealing it for you," said Spyder.
"Did I? How wrong of me." Cinders' pumps kicked into action, hissing and cranking, filling the tower room with noise. A thick green discharge was extracted from Cinders' midsection while separate pink and clear fluids dripped through tubes embedded in her skull.
"Neither your feigned outrage nor your glibness can hide your fear, boy. You forget, your mind is as clear and open to me as the sky in mid-summer. I know you want to keep me from taking the book, but you cannot. You know my vengeance would be fearsome. There's the girl's father. And the other thing."
"What other thing?" Spyder asked.
"How is my father?" demanded Shrike.
"Well. And quite himself. No longer mad," said Madame Cinders. "You've gotten what you wanted, yet you've come here full of malice and with the intention of denying me the book."
"What's the other thing?" asked Spyder.
The old woman laughed. "You have no idea, do you? You really know nothing about power." In the mirror, Madame Cinders' eyes flickered toward her guards. "Kill them."
Shrike was moving before the old woman had finished speaking, slashing one guard across the midsection before his sword was drawn, and then slicing through another's throat. Crouching, she spun and ripped her blade through the knees of two guards who rushed her from behind. As the men fell, she lunged and disemboweled a third. Launching herself into the air, she caught the last guard with a kick to the temple that sent him rolling over a table.
Lulu had the four-ten up at her shoulder and was blowing holes in guards and the walls of Madame Cinders' tower. Spyder ducked as a guard swung his sword at his head. Springing from his knees, he thrust Apollyon's blade up and into the man's heart.
An arrow shot past Shrike's right ear. She whirled around and saw one of the now legless guards reloading a crossbow. Shrike brought her sword down in a sharp arc, slicing off the guard's arm below the elbow. When she advanced on the second legless guard, he held his empty, trembling hands out before him in a gesture of terrified submission. Shrike turned and swung her blade towards Madame Cinders, but the old woman was ready. Later, Spyder realized that Madame Cinders had thrown her guards at Shrike as a sacrifice, knowing that she'd tear them to pieces, but would be distracted enough not to see what was coming.
In the fraction of a second it took for Shrike to turn her blade toward Cinders, the old woman pressed together the withered claws that were her hands. A screeching filled the air, like the metal wheels of a dozen subway trains slamming on their brakes at the same time and Shrike was lifted from the floor in the jaws of one of Madame Cinders' enormous mechanical orchids. The serrated blades of the machine's jaws tightened on Shrike's ribs until she screamed.
"Cornelius!" Spyder shouted.
The spider clattered forward, its metal legs gouging holes in the stone floor as it shot at Madame Cinders. Spyder climbed onto a table and tried to reach Shrike's outstretched hand. Lulu shot at the base of the metal bloom, but her shots bounced off, filing the air with hot shrapnel. Cinders didn't notice them or didn't care. She threw a small glass vial at Cornelius. It broke on the ground before him and where the fluid splashed on him, his metallic body glowed and began to melt. Cornelius screamed in fear and pain as the internal fire spread throughout his body. He turned and ran for the stairs. Blinded by the heat, he missed and smashed into the far wall, exploding into a thousand twitching fragments of bone and metal.
"This, you must have guessed, is the other thing. Taking the thing you love," said Madame Cinders. "You won't attack as long as I can kill the girl. It's in your eyes. See how easy it is to stop you? You know nothing about power." She turned her gaze to the iron orchid and it lifted its head, carrying Shrike almost to the ceiling. She hung limply in its jaws, not fighting anymore. Spyder swore he could hear her ribs crack.
"No one in this world or any other will hold me in this dying body any longer," Madame Cinders said. "The Dominions and I will rule completely. I'm not greedy. Let them have the universe. I'm happy with this one small world."
Cinders reached under the folds of her hijab and pulled, breaking a thin gold chain that held a small vial around her neck. Pushing a button on her gurney, she rolled forward, positioning herself next to the great book.
"I've guarded this vial for a hundred years," she said. "It's the last of my blood. I had it extracted when my body succumbed to the curse, after returning from Hell. I've been a slave to these machines ever since. No more. With this blood sacrifice, I'll be reborn into a new body." Madame Cinders inclined her head toward Shrike. "Perhaps I'll take hers. If I haven't already broken it too badly."
She raised her shriveled hand and upended the vial over the Dominions' book. The thick red fluid spread over the book's face like a living thing. It smoked where it touched the runes. The blood bubbled, and the book began to drink it down. Then it rose slowly and silently until it hovered just above Madame Cinders' head. She pushed open the cover and ran her hand ecstatically over the thick pages. With another small gesture she brought the book closer to her face until it was almost touching her. Then, she bent her head forward and bit into it, chewed and swallowed.
As the old woman ate, Lulu came to where Spyder stood. When he saw her twitch the barrel of the four-ten up a few inches, he reached over and pushed the gun back down. "No," he whispered.
The old woman ripped at the book with her teeth.
"I consume myself. I consume the wisdom of the true gods," she said. It sounded like some spell or prayer. She seemed to have forgotten about Spyder and Lulu, her dying guards, everyone else in the room. "Let their power fill me." Each time she swallowed a piece of the book, her voice grew stronger. When Spyder could see her arms, the flesh was transforming, returning to a more natural color.
When Madame Cinders had eaten all of the book's pages, she sat up on her gurney, looked at Spyder and Lulu and smiled. "You have no idea what this is like. I can see everything. Every Sphere, every creature and blade of grass within. This is what the Dominions see. These are the eyes of god." Her flesh returned quickly, and as she spoke, her face transformed to that of the young woman in the painting above the Empire desk. She was human, almost beautiful. Spyder hated her even more now.
All that was left of the book was the spine, and Madame Cinders devoured it quickly, impatient to finish her meal. With her new, strong hands, Madame Cinders pulled the tubes from her arms and body. She turned and slid slowly from the gurney to the floor, wobbling on her legs like a newborn calf. Spyder looked up at Shrike. She wasn't moving at all. Madame Cinders walked toward Lulu and him. He took a step back, but a fallen table blocked him from moving any further.
She stood in front of Spyder and stretched like a cat, feeling her body coming back to life. Then she leaned toward him and whispered, "Am I not beautiful?" She giggled like a young woman just finding her body for the first time and realizing the power in her flesh. "Do you want me?" she asked him in a purring, seductive voice.
Spyder stared at her. "F*ck you."
"Yes," she said. "F*ck me. No one's done that in a long time. And when I'm satisfied, I'll teach you to use that power you have but are going to squander."
"I don't want anything from you."
"Don't you?" she asked. The metal flower moved and Shrike screamed. Spyder froze where he was.
"All right," he said. "Anything you want. I'll do it." Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lulu, also frozen in place, her face drained of all color.
Madame Cinders put her cheek next to Spyder's. "Will you kill your deviant friend for me? Just for my amusement?" Spyder didn't answer. "No? You care about her that much? Good. I'll keep her with the other to keep you from developing foolish ideas."
"What do you want with me?" asked Spyder. "You're becoming one of the gods now. You can have anyone you want."
She smiled at him brightly. "I want you because you have the power. I can't have that just wandering around in the world," she said. "And because I don't like you, and it will kill you to stay with me, but you will anyway because of these two." She moved her hand toward Shrike and Lulu. "You know nothing about power. But I'll teach you," she said, and leaned in to kiss Spyder on the lips. As their lips came together something sizzled in the air and they were both thrown apart by an electric shock that seemed to burn through every muscle in Spyder's body.
Madame Cinders grabbed onto the gurney and quickly pulled herself from the floor. "Why did you do that?" she screamed, her face a deep and furious crimson.
"I didn't do anything," said Spyder. "It just happened."
"It was very rude. I'll teach you never to be rude to me again." She turned toward Lulu and raised her hand. Spyder jumped in front of her and pulled Lulu behind him. But instead of hurling a spell at them, Madame Cinders doubled over in pain and hit the floor screaming.
"What is this? What have you done?" she yelled.
"It's not my fault," said Spyder. "I didn't expect you to eat it, you silly bitch."
"What?"
"John the Baptist's heart. I hid it in the spine of the book. I thought it would maybe make the magic not work. I sure as hell didn't see this coming . . . "
Madame Cinders fell on her stomach, her body convulsing, her shoulders twitching. Her head snapped up and lolled to the side. Her eyes were pearl white and flames seemed to dance inside. She drew in a long, harsh breath that began as a hissing in her lungs, rising in intensity until it was the growl of a rabid wolf. Boils, red and livid, grew and burst along her right arm and spread across her body. Her white hijab, now stained with her blood, began to smoke as her skin gave off a black incandescent glow. Her bones were visible beneath the skin, and soon the skin itself was peeling and dropping off in long, dry strips. She seemed to shrink, as if something were draining her from the inside. Runes rose like welts on her blackened skin.
Whatever force she used to control her mechanical flower suddenly broke and Shrike fell to the floor. Spyder ran over and took Shrike's face in his hands. "You all right? Talk to me." He held her until she opened her eyes. "You can't get away from me that easy," he said.
"Look," said Lulu, pointing to Madame Cinders.
The witch was on her feet, her arms out, using every bit of her strength to keep her balance. She seemed paralyzed in place, unable to move. Suddenly, her head snapped toward Spyder. She took one step and the thin blackened skin that still covered her bones, sloughed off and fell to the floor like boiling tar. Her bones sank into the thick mess and disappeared.
Spyder and Lulu tried to pull Shrike to her feet, but she screamed in pain. Spyder lifted her shirt and found the deep bruising and cracked ribs. Her skin was lacerated with the serrated tooth marks of the orchid's blades. Without thinking about it, he lay his hands on her and closed her eyes. Soon, he could hear Shrike's breathing become slow and steady. A few minutes later, she could stand on her own.
They searched every room in the tower until they found Shrike's father—alive, though frail and confused. Wrapping him in a blanket they found in the guards' barracks room, they bundled the old man down from the tower.
Madame Cinders' servants waited anxiously in the courtyard as the four came out.
"We need a coach and horse," Shrike told them. The servants didn't need to be told twice.

They rode back through the Medina and just managed to squeeze the cart into the tunnels that ran to Alcatraz. Shrike held her sleeping father in her arms the whole way, speaking to him quietly as they went. Spyder put his arm around her. She reached up and squeezed his hand. He could see her fighting back tears.
When they reached the old cavalry stables, Lulu asked, "What's it going to be like back home, you think?"
"I don't know," said Spyder. "You're covered, I guess, but I might have to leave town. We'll see."
"Going to be weird to be back. You know with a full set of eyes and insides and skin."
"Weird's not so bad when you get used to it."
"No shit."
They stepped down from the coach, but when Spyder turned to help Shrike and her father, they were gone.