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five

THE FIELDS OF LOST DAYS

CROSSROADS, 1937

A
lone crow rose out of the cornfield, wings flapping as it gave a ragged caw and flew up into a cloudless blue sky; and as the dry wind stripped the grain from the corn and whipped it into the air around him, he stepped out onto the cracked tarmac of the crossroads, unslung the blue guitar from back behind his shoulder, put his fingers to the right frets, to exactly the right frets, and struck a chord.
Should be here soon,
he thought,
should be along real soon.

From its first low growls in the Deep South of the Depression, the blues was born to make new legends for itself, with Robert Johnson standing tallest and proudest among them, like some Voudon loa caught for an instant of time in a grainy old black-and-white photograph, like the Lord Eleggua himself, standing at a crossroads in a dusty, gray three-piece suit and wide-brimmed fedora. The blues was always the dark side of gospel, the devil's music, a music made of pain and hard, hard sorrows, with the bluesman as a hero of a kind, murderer, adulterer, searching for the lost chord, making pacts with the devil, hellhounds on his trail.

There's one story, one legend, says that if you take your guitar down to a crossroads and play it—play it good enough, that is—eventually the devil will come along behind you, tap you on the shoulder and take your guitar off of you. You don't turn around to look at him—you don't ever look the devil in the eyes—just take your guitar back when he's done tuning it for you, and from then on you'll play the bittersweetest blues was ever played…from that day on until the day you die and the demons come to drag your damned soul down into hell where it belongs.

And so, on a hot and hellblown summer's day, the man with the blue guitar took himself a long walk out of town, out through the cornfields, to the crossroads and the old tree heavy with the ghosts of all those who'd been hanged on it, like baubles on a Christmas tree, or strange golden apples. He walked out, as if to a date with the devil, or with whatever ancient African god—god of the crossroads, god of song—was wearing that Christian mask these days. That old soul deal, though, had already been made, a long, long time ago and far away. He wasn't here to sell, today, only to play the blues and—one last time—to pay his dues, before the hellhounds that had followed him down through the centuries finally caught up with him.

A lone crow rose out of the cornfield, circling over the seven men in sharp black suits who came now, from off of the road of all dust, shimmering in the liquid light that rippled around them like air over tarmac on a hot summer's day.

DOGS OF KINGSHIP

1971.

Thomas crouches in the bushes. He hears them crashing through the undergrowth around them, and he's trying not to gasp, to grasp for air with his lungs, with the rain running down his face, into his mouth. He can't afford to spit, to shake the rain out of his hair. He can't afford to make a sound. He holds the dog tags like a rosary he's praying by.

Baseball bats crack branches, whack through sodden leaves, feet splash in puddles of mud, and dogs bark. There are seven of them, big men in body, small in heart, and mean as the German shepherds that they track him with. He should have known not to take the lift; he should have seen it in the eyes of the four of them sitting up in the back of the pickup truck, sodden with rain and drink and their own misery and looking for something, anything, to take it out on. The leering grin of the one who sat up in front between the driver and the passenger, as he leaned back to stare at him out of the rear windshield.

What was his name again? Jack, was it? Fuck, but he's hot.

Scarcely had his sister spoken when Dumuzi cried:

“My sister! Go! Quick! Run into the hills! Do not step slowly as a noble. Sister, run! The
ugallu,
who men both hate and fear, are on their boats. They come. They carry wooden stocks to trap the hands; they carry wooden stocks to trap the neck. Sister, run!”

“You see them?” she said.

“They are coming,” said Dumuzi's friend. “The large
ugallu,
with the wooden stocks to bind the neck, are coming for you.”

“Quickly, brother! Put your head down, in the grass. Your demons come for you!”

“My sister, tell nobody where I'm hiding. My friend, tell nobody where I'm hiding. I will hide in the grass. I will hide among the bushes. I will hide among the trees. I will hide in the ditches of Arali.”

“Dumuzi,” said his friend, “if we tell anybody where you're hiding may your dogs devour us, your black dogs of shepherdship, the royal dogs of kingship, may your dogs devour us!”

And Geshtinanna ran, fleeing the
ugallu,
up into the hills, and Dumuzi's friend went with her.

Another century entirely.

Thomas crouches in the grass. He hears them crashing through the fields of corn toward him, and he's trying not to gasp, to grasp for air with his lungs, with the sweat running down his face, into his mouth. The whipscars on his back are hurting real bad and he thinks they must be bleeding again, but he can't afford to make a whimper. He holds the little wooden cross around his neck and prays to the Good Lord, but the Good Lord says salvation lies in suffering and Thomas surely knows his suffering, yes sir, he surely does, and the Master's men are surely going to make him suffer like the Lord Himself, but Thomas doesn't think there's going to be any salvation for him. No sir, not for Thomas.

Rifle butts crack cornstalks, thrash through green-gold leaves, feet kick up dust in the dry heat and dogs bark. There are seven of them, men big in power and small in kindness.

“Come out here, boy. We
gonna
find you.”

The small
ugallu
spoke to the large
ugallu.

“You
ugallu,
with no father and no mother, you, who have no sister and no brother, wife or child, who fly across the skies and stalk the earth like guards, who stick to a man's side, who show no mercy, know no good or evil, tell us, who has ever seen a coward's soul living in peace? We should not seek Dumuzi in his friend's house. We should not seek Dumuzi in his brother-in-law's house. No. We should seek Dumuzi in his sister's house, the house of Geshtinanna.”

Sweet Little Pink Things

They introduced themselves as Mr. Pechorin and Mr. Carter.

“But you can call us Vlad and Rosie,” said Pechorin.

They looked like raptor birds, one dark, the other fair, a black falcon and a golden eagle.

“We only call him Rosie,” said Carter, the blond-haired one, absently, nosing around the radio. “It's not his real name.”

“But then, Vlad's not his real name either,” said Pechorin.

“It's short for Rosebud…because that's the way he likes them, you know?”

“Sweet little pink things,” said Pechorin, showing his teeth with something too sweet to be a sneer, too cold to be a smile.

“And why do they call you Vlad?” the girl asked, pushing her dark red hair back out of her eyes and flicking up the collar of her biker's jacket in a way that—as soon as she had done it—she regretted.
Too much attitude,
she thought,
defensive.

He ignored her question and, instead, just ever so slightly cocked his head and sniffed, like a curious dog. Or like a hungry dog.

“Where is he?”

“Paranoid delusions of grandeur,” said Carter as he twirled the dial on the radio through snatches of classic rock and country music, static shrieks, hiss, strident ads and Radio AWZ 104.5's Super Sounds of the Sixties, and finally settled on some orchestrated molasses that just oozed out of the speakers.

“Isn't that…? I know this song.” said Carter.

“I don't know,” she said. “Sounds vaguely familiar.”

Pechorin still circled like a vulture. “So, little girl. Who do you think you are?”

“This is…oh, what's it called?” the other said. “I know this song.”

She looked from one to the other.
Are you guys for real?
she thought.

“So full of yourself,” said Pechorin. He leaned in close to her face. “You think you're something special? Think you're better than the rest? Think you're up there with the likes of—”

And the word he used sliced through reality and left it soft and open, like quivering flesh, and the mug of Earl Grey on the table in front of her had somehow sort of
shifted
into the blackest espresso that she'd ever seen, blacker than the sharp suits worn by the pair of them, blacker than the leather binding of the book that the other one had lain on the table beside the cup…blacker than hell; and the instant after he'd spoken it, she couldn't remember that word at all, only the emptiness in her head where she had heard it and the ripples in the air through which it had moved.

“That,” he said, “is what it is to be unkin.”

“Go on,” she said, “tell me all—”

Carter snapped his fingers. “Of course. That's what it is.”

“—about it,” she finished. She lifted the coffee toward her mouth but stopped just short, held the cup just almost at her lips so she could smell the bitter steam of it, the rich black scent. She waited.

“I knew it,” said Carter. “I knew I recognized the tune. That's some cover.”

“Where is he?” said Pechorin, suddenly, casually.

She just smiled and shook her head. She didn't know, and wouldn't have told them anyway; they could go fuck themselves; she wasn't part of their stupid fucking war, their stupid fucking game, and she wasn't going to be dragged into it.

“You think you're God's gift, eh?” said Pechorin, sneering, and she sneered right back, at the sheer idiotic irony of it. “Another little hatchling got a taste of godhood and you think you're the fucking Second Coming?”

“You know,” said Carter, suddenly leaning in just as close as Pechorin, speaking quietly, firmly. He nodded toward the radio. “They crucified the original.”

His Long, Thin Fingers

The
ugallu
clapped their hands with glee. They went to seek Dumuzi at the house of Geshtinanna.

“Tell us where your brother is!” they cried out.

Geshtinanna would not talk.

They offered her the gift of water. She rejected it. They offered her the gift of grain, but she rejected it. They raised her up to Heaven and they threw her down to Earth. Geshtinanna would not talk. They ripped her clothes off. They poured tar into her cunt. And Geshtinanna would not talk.

Pechorin stepped over the girl, looking down at her for a second, where she lay on the floor, naked and smeared with blood and filth, the broken and twisted limbs still quivering. He sniffed the air. She was still in there, somewhere, somewhere buried deep enough they couldn't reach her, no matter how far down inside her soul they reached. He looked at Carter, licking the smears of red and specks of white off of his long, thin fingers.

“I don't think we're going to find him here,” he said.

“Since the start of time,” the small
ugallu
said to the large
ugallu,
“who has ever known a sister to betray her brother's hideout? Come, let us seek Dumuzi at his friend's house.”

The
ugallu
went to Dumuzi's friend. They offered him the gift of water and he took it. Then they offered him the gift of grain. He took it.

Seamus Finnan clicked his Zippo open, snicked a thumb across the wheel and brought the flame up to the cigarette that dangled from his mouth. He sucked in a deep, deep breath.
Christ, Tom boy, what have you fucking gotten yourself into now? And I'm the one supposed to get you fucking out of it.
He couldn't do it. But he had to. He looked up at the thing that called itself Carter, fastened his eyes on it, locked on it like he was cutting it open with his gaze and opened his mouth to curse the fucker.