A DARKNESS PALE
SPLENDID
….Irie shot with an hour or so to live, found all decisions became extremely immediate and practical…
Splendid
Irie pushed Daimon’s body out of the Prius and found her way up to the hive’s third ring. She was feeling heavy. Very heavy and very real. There didn’t seem to be anything else. She told herself this was probably the best way to go up against S.L.
S.L. stood for Stiff Lads and they were no joke. Supposedly, they made the gangs that used to exist in LA, back when she’d arrived, the Crips, 18th street, they made them look like a preschool soccer team. The Stiff Lads had mostly taken over what was left of the central LA hives after the Covid hazer destruction. Since they’d survived the burning SL thought they were indestructible.
The Salvation Army was on the first boulevard, right there, just like Greenwald detailed. The area was former colony of tony apartment structures, vacant now and scarred from water and fire. The Salvation Army occupied the bottom of one of the building and was no more than a barred door, dusty windows and rusty steel gates. A small park sat adjacent. A blackened tree, some picnic tables. It was raining, but not like the rain outside. Clear water fell in patches. Dripping. Irie remembered driving through here years ago on that night she’d reconnected with Toula. The next ring was some sort of underwater wonderland. There must be cracks.
Through the pale aquamarine florescence she saw two skinny young men with sloped shoulders in ivory track suits and puffy black boots, chilling on top of one of the picnic tables, sucking on cans of Rip It. At the other picnic table a handful of ladies milled about. Irie thought she saw Motown.
She pulled up to the curb and left the motor running. When she climbed out her Berretta was at her side. The two Stiff Lads quit talking. They were about twenty feet away.
Irie said, “Anyone moves on me gets shot.”
One of the lads flickered and Irie shot him in the chest, knocking him off the picnic table. The one she thought was Motown said to the other ladies, “Irie. It’s Irie up in here. Irie, what the fuck you doing?”
“Motown. Get in my car.”
Motown came to her, stepping over the downed Lad. Her head was shaved to skin and she was naked from the waist up, her heavy breasts sagging over her prominent ribcage. She wore a leather tartan skirt and poofy black boots like everyone else. “Look out, ya’ll,” she said with a lazy swagger. “Sheriff’s up in this bitch.” Her face was an idiotic grin and champagne fizz eyes. There were bruises and scars up and down her legs. “We got to jet.”
“I’m glad you see it that way.” Irie kept half an eye on her and half on the remaining Lad who had become a statue.
“Bitch, you talking my name ends it for me. Now my only direction’s with you.” Motown’s gaze narrowed and seemed to focus. “You been shot. Fuck, you got chest shot? You on NP. How long you got?”
“Long enough. Especially if you don’t fuck with me.”
“Ain’t me you gonna have to worry about. Cyrano what you gotta fucking worry about.”
At that, another group of Stiff Lads emerged from behind the Salvation Army building.
“Get in the car.” Irie scanned around to see what else might be coming her way.
The new group, at least fifteen strong, joined the statue at the picnic table, who reanimated in their presence. Irie assumed Cyrano was the enormous one, a walrus of a guy, at least seven feet tall. His inky black hair was combed tightly back and pressed flat with grease.
Looking at the walrus, Irie said, “You Cyrano?”
“Yes I am.”
“Anyone comes at me, I’ll shoot you first.”
Cyrano’s eyes bulged behind hideously thick lenses anchored on rickety wire frames. “But Russia owes,” he said with a voice surprising high and lilting. “Plus, we already got the exits blocked.” He gave a delighted whistling laugh. He glanced around at the Stiff Lads. None of them were smiling and this appeared to delight him even more.
High above them the ceiling continued to drip. There was slimy lime green mold in patches on the sides of the buildings and the dead tree. The air was humid and cold and itchy and smelled metallic. Irie stepped backwards and opened her door without looking.
Cyrano’s grin smeared into a sneer. He said, “You wanna hear me sing?”
“He do weddings and shit,” she heard Motown mutter from inside the Prius. “No lie.”
Cyrano spread his arms as though to embrace the world. He began to sing in an impossibly smooth tenor. He took a step.
Irie shot him in the head.
…Irie’s attempt to get Motown out of the hive takes them both into spiraling darkness…