Project
Janissary: Book 2
Dark Rider
dark
of thought/dark of soul/dark of skin
this
‘breed ain’t no-body’s plaything.
Got
that, bitch?
The
Hunt:
“There
is a way. His family has no money. No power. There has to be a way.” Outwardly
calm, the ‘Spider’ Ryan leaned over to pick a few marshmallows from a
crystal candy dish. At somewhere over a hundred years of age, it was all his
jaws could handle. “Sweet Fortune, but suredly there be a way to take him.”
Quivering jaws gnawed on the marshmallow.
The
Spider spat it on the floor. “Dammit,”
he shouted. In a despair born of greed, froth formed on gray, quivering lips.
“We dare not enter that hell hole of Sandy Valley. Melancowski would eat us
alive.” He glared at the VanTur woman’s cool smile. “‘Tis so. I care not
what ye believe, madam. That bitch could destroy us all.”
Ryan
glared up at a tall, too handsome man. At the look in Ryan’s eyes, the man
caught moist lips between sparkling white teeth.
“What
the devil do you mean, breaking in on a conference between Mrs. VanTur and
meself?”
“Sir,”
the butler said in a quick rush of words, “The telephone, sir.” He thrust
out a black crystalline cordless. “It’s important. I believe it’s -”
Blackthorn
cane raised over the now weeping butler, the old man’s face stretched in a
terrible smile at.
Cindy
VanTur’s voice came between them and the cane faltered in its swing.
The
man smiled his gratitude at her, until she said to Ryan, “Business before
pleasure.”
Ryan
cast the butler a dark scowl. The man forced himself to hand the phone to Ryan
and walked out as fast as he could force his trembling legs to move. He closed
the double doors to the office and rubbed the training collar around his throat.
The Spider was kept well supplied by Cindy’s people, both in collars and
replacements in staff.
“What?
Hey? Who? Look, girly, this had better be good.” Listening, a smile came over
his face. Ryan tossed the phone to Cindy.
“I
could dance. Aye, shout, Cindy,
love.” The cane swung in the air. “On
to the hunt. Your boy is as good as ours.” Climbing to his feet faster
than his doctor would approve, he offered Cindy an arm and called for his
chauffeur and personal guard.
Trying
to ignore rank odors of chemicals and medicines, Cindy held her breath.
"Where
ever did you say our darling Benny is, James?”
Tottering
from the room, the Spider shouted, “Get him for me. Now. Now, you lazy bastards, or I’ll take all of you down to the D'Sade
room and cut off your withered balls.”
His
screams followed the nightriders out of the mansion and to waiting motorcycles.
The
Spider gave Cindy a smile devoid of mirth. Patting her arm, he gave a low,
soothing murmur.
"Ah,
love. But I did not, did I, now? Suffice to say he’s in Wilkes-Barre. At a
bar, of all things. One of the good boys who owe me money made a little call and
now we’re off to collect.”
Gentle
Dreams:
Benny
grinned in his dreams. He knew this old geezer. But from where? He stood back,
watching and listening.
The
old man shuffled up to the fire. He smiled into its shadowy light, sniffing at
the sweet odor of hickory and pine burning brightly. A piece of pine snapped,
and the air was filled with the scent of it for a moment.
He
sighed, remembering other days, and settled his weary, arthritic bones into a
more or less comfortable before the fire.
In
moments excited children crowded around, arranging themselves near the old man,
youngest to eldest.
He
nodded, staring into the fire and a story came to him.
An
explorer came to our town, up on the west branch of the River near Young Woman
Creek.
He
was, as were all strangers, welcomed, and places for him and his men to sleep
were found.He was a man of great learning who wished to study the People before
all the old ways were lost.
But
no one would talk to him.
All
night our town was crowded, noisy and happy. Children shouted and everyone loved
it. Dogs barked but no one minded, because it is the way of dogs and children to
make much noise over nothing. It means they are alive and well, so everybody
likes to hear them. As any mother can tell you, when children and dogs do not
raise hell, it means they are either deathly ill or up to mischief.
In
the day, tho’, the village was nearly deserted.
“How
could this be?” The brave explorer was puzzled. He found that everyone worked,
and this is why everyone was happy. They helped each other and were enlarged in
their souls by sharing everything, though they had lost almost everything to the
whites.
The
old man smiled to himself.
On
his very last day, this man who was so very important to all his people, a
wealthy man and of a large nation, found himself sitting in the shade of the
White Pine that is central to our towns. An old woman, her back bent and crooked
by her years of toil for her family, was pounding corn in her kanona, her grain
grinder, under that same tree.
He
lolled about, as a man will when he is bored. Finally, he ask the old woman
where she, a mere slave of her husband, obviously, stood in the village
hierarchy.
She
seemed not to hear him at first, and after several minutes, the man stood up,
preparing to leave.
“I
am one of the most important people in this town,” she said with an angry
glance. “You ask a lot of questions, very impolite of you, but I’ll explain
something, for we are a very polite People, the Wy:O:Ming.
“Of
all our People, children come first and foremost. We live so our children can
have better lives. Because of their innocence, because they are the future,
children are very holy.
“Second
in holiness come the Old-Ones, the Grandparents, of which I am one. The Old
Ones, they are sacred because they are wise.
“Thirdly,
there come the women-folk. Women folk are sacred because they bear children,
have the power to make plants grow and animals reproduce. Woman was made to
control nature and are made after the image of the Spirit-Woman, the Eagle
Mother, our Sacred Mother of Corn, as some call her here.”
She
stopped speaking. The whiteman was intrigued at all this after so much silence.
He frowned suddenly, and cried, “But Madam, you have left out one group!
Surely they are the most important, too. The men,” he said impatiently, and
drove his fist into his other hand.
The
old woman continued moving the heavy rod up and down in her kanona. She stopped,
wiped the sweat from her withered face, and turned to him, a sardonic,
half-smile twisting her lips.
“Men,
you say?”
He
nodded, growing angry with her.
“What
about men? You say children are sacred, and the elderly, and even women!
But-what-about-the-men?” he shouted.
She
shrugged, turning her back to him for his impoliteness.
With
a cold laugh, she whispered, “Men? Men are pond scum.”
That
is the end of my story. It is how I have been told, little children.
His
smile died. Benny was drawn back through a shrieking maelstrom of time to the
earth’s very beginnings and an ancient evil.
It
lay half buried in the cold black mud. What was its age? Only it could say, and
it would not speak.
Aeons
past it had fallen from the heavens, from beyond the Veil of the Sun it had been
cast at the end of a battle between the ani:aga:ki, the People of Light and Love; and the ani:asgina,
the darkened suns.
To
the eye of man, it was but a rough-cut, rectangular chunk of worn red stone. To
one open to things not of this world, it pulsed with dark hungers and promises
it would not keep. Its power made it a portal of things between this world and
the world of demonic beings.
Early
in its time on this earth, man had come and bowed in fear and awe. They brought
sons and daughters and fed them on an altar of greed. They murdered so they
could use this portal of the dark.
Here
is the ‘Stone. Here is where so many needed Benny to die so they could gain.
Ni:io,
Ayotli.
God
help us.
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