Sapphic Voices Fantasy

Tales Of A Librarian

Part One

Have pity, you alone whom I adore
From down this black pit where my heart is sped
A somber universe ringed with lead
Where fear and curses the long night explore

                                                         -Charles Baudelaire



I.
Amor a Primera Vista, Amor A Primera Lucha


Chapter One


She never caused any trouble. Just sat and read. And never fiction; there was the History of the Aztec Civilization and The Ancient Middle Americas, and The Mystic Power Volumes: The Mystic Power of Runes, along with several other books in the Mystic Power series, the Mystic Power of Crystals, The Mystic Powers of the Earth and so on. She never checked out anything , only read, took notes, or scribbled copies of pictures.

Brynn Dobhale the head librarian of the city’s Avalon Wood branch always ignored the complaints some patrons had of the odd looking, too pale woman with the bruises on her face, the scabbed knuckles.

When the woman began to appear the spring before once or twice a month, Brynn too had her apprehensions.

They were in Avalon Wood after all, just out of downtown, the subdivision had once been an upper class neighborhood. Long abandoned by the affluent it was now of a low socioeconomic status, there was an occasional transient in to escape the weather, more frequent were rowdy teenagers during the summer looking for a place to loiter out of the heat.


She had that kind of power, a lot of her most faithful patrons had come in unsure, wary of the world of books, and though not overtly friendly she was encouraging in her own way, with small smiles, and her soft spoken manner. She felt like she should be a guide, not a salesman, or a teacher.

So when the tall woman with the bruised face first came in she was given a warm smile by the short, librarian with round, close-set, kind, dark brown eyes that cast a silvery sheen, (and though her own steel blue-gray gaze was quickly averted) the librarian knew she felt welcomed.

Brynn was always on guard. Watchful. Thanks to budget cuts the city’s library staff had been decimated, there was only her and Jimmy Merchant who worked every other day.

The strange woman returned to the Avalon Woods branch more frequently and currently appeared twice a week. She never spoke a word to the librarian who like a little bird learning to be bold began to flutter closer and closer performing daily tasks.

Brynn was actually gathering facts she had naturally become curious of the stranger. Her reading habits were questionable yet interesting enough but the librarian grew bored with them, so she fluttered closely to catch glimpses of the woman’s scarred hands, and the compellingly sickish bruises that circled her eyes, and stained her cheeks, the green-blue of old bruises melding with the blue-black-violet of newer ones.

Brynn concluded that she got into a lot of fights she was not a boxer, at least not the type who wore gloves, her knuckles crashed against the hard bones of other people’s faces.

A bare-knuckle boxer.

It was an underground sport, Brynn read, nothing that could be seen on ESPN.

As for her wardrobe it was that of which Brynn’s parents would have called derelict. The stranger wore a lot of black: black motorcycle boots, with round silverfish buckles on the side, black jeans and dark long sleeved shirts even in the heat of the summer, and as the winter approached she donned a long, black, drover coat, those coats cowboys wore with the short cape on the back.

One day in late December Brynn spied her with her coat off draped over a chair. That day she wore a short sleeved shirt beneath her jacket, her arms were as pale as her face, and there were dark markings on her arms. Tattoos Aztec symbols like the ones from the books she browsed (Brynn had long ago grown bored with thumbing through them wondering what could be of interest).

The woman never looked away from the book she was reading as she shrugged into the jacket, she never acknowledged Brynn had been there at all.



Chapter Two


Of course she had a personal life out side of the library, beyond her curiosity of the strange woman. She lived alone in Avalon Wood, her parents had purchased when the neighborhood was officially black middle class, she had grown up there in the very same house she’d inherited from her parents Lyle and Kathy Dobhale, now deceased.

She kept to herself, kept her house, and yard, with a fair little garden out back, a considerable library of her own inside. On her off time she enjoyed reading and her favorite online role playing game of which she was currently one of the few, the proud Ninth Rank witches.

She tried to stay busy or else the loneliness would creep in, a loneliness she had always fought, even before the tragic theater fire that took her parents. The Dobhales were never fancy people, the first time they ever went to see a play was their last, they never understood their bookish daughter, and they certainly did not understand those three years she loved another bookish girl named Natalie. They did their best to comfort Brynn when her girlfriend died in a tragic flood in the below ground mall downtown.

Brynn Dobhale had never been beautiful, her eyes were too big and set too close, she had a small mouth and her face never portrayed her real age, only about ten years negative, which she was grateful for at last when she passed thirty. She was the color of smoked whole almonds, with hair the color of cinnamon sticks that was too wavy to do anything with but keep cut short, and neatly trimmed so it would not look so horrible doing whatever it pleased about her head.

Brynn kept what she called her grimoir, a memoir of sorts, for several years the daily entries always read: Nothing very interesting happened today… or the acronym, N.V.I.H.T, or Arggh I got my period today, no matter how old I get I just can’t get over bleeding every month…or the roses are coming around nicely this year.

The Stranger provided some interesting entries, as did those few deliciously erotic dreams she inspired, the entries Brynn actually read over just for fun.

. . . .

“You should hear about the weirdoes they get downtown,” Jimmy Merchant her part time assistant said one evening near closing. It was time to announce that the library would be closing soon, but the strange woman was the last patron. Brynn was debating whether or not to just go inform the woman instead of using the scratchy P.A. system.

“She’s not your ordinary run of the mill weirdo,” Brynn said, they were behind the from counter checking in books, scanning barcodes with little laser wands.

“Wow, sounds like love to me.” Jimmy said, he was the color of butterscotch with a round, boy’s face, he kept his hair cut close and dressed like a glam Brynn flushed and giggled a short musical sound that startled Jimmy, as he had never heard it before.

“You’re nuts,” she whispered.

“I’m key-rect,” Jimmy rolled his eyes, “I always knew you were kind of an oddball.”

Brynn shrugged. “She’s interesting.”

She paused and decided to divulge her months of information gathering.

“She has these tattoos, and I think she participates in bare knuckle boxing.”

It was Jimmy’s turn to giggle.

“I’m serious,” Brynn said.

“More like defending her spot under the bridge,” Jimmy said, he was younger, barely twenty, more sarcastic, and impudent, the person in her life that came closest to an acquaintance. They were both gay and that was the strongest aspect of their bond, he was always trying to get her to get out and meet women. Right now she suspected he was poking fun of her just a little bit, and regretted talking to him about the strange woman.

“Oh please don’t say that,” Brynn said, “I hope she’s not homeless. That’s so sad.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Jimmy finished up the stack of books and began to organize them on rolling carts to go back out on the shelves, “Of course I don’t approve of this…crush or whatever-”

“It’s not a crush,” she corrected him.

He looked doubtful. “I said whatever…maybe you should try to start a rapport with her it can be sullen and solemn yet thoughtful or even clever.”

Brynn shook her head.

Of course it was too late, the woman appeared, walking towards the counter, she held their gaze until she passed.

“Um excuse me Miss,” Jimmy said.

Brynn actually gasped as the woman stopped and pinned them with her gray-blue stare, dark brows raised in suspicion.

“This month is new patron month,” Jimmy gave a short, hard, swallow, “The librarian that signs up the most people for library cards gets a…prize. Do you happen to have a card?”

Her gaze left Jimmy for a second slashed at Brynn’s, she knew something was up.

“No,” her voice was low, hoarse, as if she barely spoke aloud.

“Well, would you like to sign up for one?” Jimmy asked brightly, “It won’t take long.”

“No thanks,” the woman said and walked through the heavy glass door.

Jimmy turned to her with large eyes and mouthed weirdo.

Brynn let out a ragged breath. “I can’t believe you. You lied.”

“Me?” Jimmy asked.

“There’s no such thing as new patron month,” Brynn said.

“Those eyes,” Jimmy said, “Sexy, but dangerous, like a wild, jungle cat…she ain’t your type.”

Brynn grinned. “And what would be my type?”

“Homey, a book lover, soft butch,” he gazed off dreamily as if seeing Brynn’s soul mate, “Such a cute couple.”

“You just described Nat,” she said quietly.

Jimmy came over and hugged her. “I’m sorry. Look, you’re lonely, you should go out and meet someone, not anything too fast-”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” she grumbled.

“You start by saying, ‘hello’,” he walked around the counter and stood on his tip toes looking out the glass front, leaning onto one foot, “Fred’s out there.”

“You go ahead, I’m right behind you,” she said.

“No way,” Jimmy said.

“I close every other day you’re not here,” she told him, “I always managed not to get snatched.”

“Girl…” Jimmy frowned, outside Fred honked.

“Go on,” she gave a little smile.

Jimmy practically skipped outside she locked up behind him, and went back to the counter. She finished up with the books- she could put them away in the morning- then set the alarm, and locked up for the night.

It was a night in January, as dark, and frosty as her city (originally a stagnant swamp) would allow, the moon hung in the sky like the Cheshire cat’s smile left behind, she could almost see the fading outline of his body. The lighted towers of downtown looked hollow and flat like a studio movie set.

She gathered her brown corduroy jacket around her body as she settled in her Volkswagen Rabbit. She fit the key in the ignition, turned the engine over clicked on the headlights, then her seat belt. When she looked up, her hand on the gear shift, she saw a frighteningly, familiar, figure standing next to her car at the front left wheel, floating towards her driver’s side window.

Brynn wanted to drive away quickly, the door was locked, the engine was on her foot was on the brake her hand was on the shift. She could always apologize later, she was a woman alone who did not like to take chances.

There was a curt tap on the window glass.

Brynn turned off the engine, she undid her seat belt, opened the door.

“Yes?” her voice trembled.

“Do I scare you or something?” the strange woman asked, stooping a bit, her gray- blue eyes glowing from the interior light, her bruises garish in the white light.
“Pardon?” Brynn asked.

“I mean if you’re skittish or something I could find another place to go read,” her tone was not apologetic, or even hurt, just angry and bored, confrontational.

“No of course not, it’s just that…” she began, she hated confrontations.

“Your boyfriend have a problem with me or something?” she asked.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Brynn said, “And no. We don’t have a problem with you.”

“So you were just being nosy,” she concluded.

“I’m the head librarian, I like to know a little something about my…um patrons,” Brynn said, she somehow knew that she should not be afraid of the stranger, but with each word spoken she became a bit more anxious.

“So you make up bogus contests to get them to sign up for library cards,” she said.

“No,” Brynn stuttered, “I’m a guide, not a salesman or a teacher…Are you always so…in-your-face?”

“I just don’t like to be low handed, you know,” she said she seemed amused for a split second, “People always giving me looks like I’m something that crawled out of the sewer.”

“I’m sorry,” Brynn said.

“For what?” she shrugged, “You’re one of the only people who don’t get that look in your eyes. I’ve appreciated it. It’s your protégé Mr. Frenchie-”
“Jimmy Merchant?” Brynn asked.

“I call him Mr. Frenchie,” she said, “When I don’t know someone’s name I-”

The Stranger stopped cold narrowed her eyes quickly. “Anyway, that’s all, sorry I bothered you.”

She turned and began to walk away. Brynn watched her go, she wanted to call out to her, but what would she say after the way she had acted.

She drove home replaying the conversation in her head. She hadn’t even learned the Stranger’s name.

. . . .

Grimoir-


So our first encounter did not go too well. The Stranger left me sitting in the darkness just as curious of her as ever. I have the angles of her face in my mind, and the lay of her bruises, but I cannot put them together. I can remember her words well. Perhaps it is her loneliness that draws me to her. It’s our common ground… Tonight I walked into my little house, and I nearly burst into tears because of the absolute solitude.

Only Nat was able to make me feel a part of this human kind, and she had been gone for eight years. Why must everyone go?

The Stranger is nothing like Nat was, she doesn’t even have a car, and I’m sure she doesn’t have a normal nine to five. The Stranger is the type Nat would have dragged me off the sidewalk into a wet gutter to avoid. She was skittish of her own shadow, Nat was, I hope she has found some courage on the other side.

I must get to know The Stranger better. Just like Jimmy said, I should start with Hello.



Chapter Three


She did not show up for two weeks, and when she did it was a half hour before closing time, when the library was empty. Luckily Jimmy was not there. Brynn immediately stood and followed her to nonfiction where she had picked up a book and was settled in the darkest corner.

“Hello,” Brynn announced herself.

“Hey,” the Stranger said, “I know you close in about thirty…”

“It’s ok,” Brynn said, “I’m Brynn, by the way.”

“Little hill,” the Stranger said.

“Yes,” she brightened, “That’s what my name means. It’s Old English. Some lady on a soap opera had the name, my mother borrowed it.”

“I’m Hart,” she said, “As in deer or stag.”

Brynn sat down at the other side of the table.

The stranger shifted a little, and boldly looked into the librarian’s eyes wide and (she found) irresistibly close set they wavered around, through her gaze, taking in everything about her. She was self conscious about being so obviously studied by the librarian too cute and prim with her pink sweater, suede skirt, and brown boots.

“Umm I was wondering is you’d like to go out to dinner or maybe a movie sometime,” Brynn said deciding to just blurt out her mission, it was crazy, but it was what she had to do.

Hart wanted to laugh bitterly, but those eyes were so hopeful, she forced herself to get sober and say “sure”.

“Then what?” she went on, “You think you can get to know a bum like me? That we can take day trips in the sunshine and meet each other’s folks? Have a Holy Union, and buy a little house with her and hers Volkswagens?”

Brynn stood up abruptly. She did not know what she had been thinking. This woman was obviously too abrasive to trust with her feelings. Now she had gone and angered this stranger, she was not sure if she should be frightened or relieved.

She turned to retreat but the other woman was up and across the table, seizing her upper arm before she could walk two steps.

“Well?” she demanded turning her around.

“I don’t know,” Brynn’s head fell forward and shook as she sobbed.

“Look, you don’t want to tangle fates with me,” Hart told her, letting go of her arm, “I’m absolutely no fucking good. Muchacha Malo.”

Brynn sniffed. “Alright I get it,” she raised her head and was handed a remarkably white, clean, hankie.

“Wipe your face,” Hart said softly, then: “You’re a beautiful lady. Beautiful…I gotta go.”

She turned and walked away glancing over her shoulder as she rounded the corner a lock of black hair falling in front of one eye.

Brynn looked away twisting the white hankie in her hand.

. . . .

For a week after the night she asked the stranger out Brynn agonized over the encounter, her anger, the tenderness when she called her beautiful. Each night Brynn would go home after a day of hoping to glance up from her work to see the stranger, haunting her usual table back in the reference section and write in her grimoir how sure she was that she would never see Hart again.

Then the following Monday the stranger was back, Brynn looked up from a pile of books on a rolling cart and there she was, a black long sleeved shirt rolled back revealing the tattoos, the drover draped over the back of a chair.

Brynn gasped and trembling made her way across the library.

“Ms. Dobhale,” Fran Batterast the director for the Northwest side stepped in her path, hand extended stiffly. She was around for her usual monthly inspection usually cause for alarm for Brynn and Jimmy. Batterast was old school library, straight boxy skirts, men’s cardigans, and neck chains on her eye glasses she had no time for soft spoken girls with their newfangled ideas and community outreach programs or their mouthy sissy boy assistants.

“Hello,” Brynn said absentmindedly.

“I enjoyed your display of life here in the city throughout the years,” Batterast said, “Plenty of visuals and well researched.”

“Yeah,” Brynn said her eyes darting past her director’s gray hair to Hart reading, well not reading staring back at her brooding.

Batterast frowned sure her accolades would be more welcome, and made it plain that she felt slighted.

Brynn focused away from Hart for just a moment to see that and winced on the inside, here was poor old Batterast with her thick ankles paying compliments instead of torturing her.

“Well, I must brief you on current and upcoming events for the season,” she said catching Brynn’s wavering glance she turned her head over her shoulder to see Hart bent over her book.

“You know you don’t have to let every roving derelict who comes to the library actually stay.”

Brynn frowned. “Oh no, she never causes any trouble, she just reads and leaves.”

“And she isn’t registered?” Batterast asked.

“Well, no,” Brynn stammered, she tore her eyes away from her director back to the stranger who was looking up at her.

“She probably has a record of some sort, or straight out of prison, no valid driver’s license,” the old librarian deduced, narrowing her eyes, “I suppose if that’s the sort of ship you want to run Ms. Dobhale.”

Brynn was barely paying attention to Batterast’s tirade she was watching Hart stand, put on her coat, and walk towards them. She realized the stranger had not been so absorbed in her reading, that she had noticed the conversation.

Batterest stopped talking as she passed, she gave a mock sigh of relief. “I would have hated to report that there were transients having their way in the Avalon Wood branch.”

Brynn’s frown deepened. “You’re wrong about her, she’s a very intelligent woman and those are the type I want here on my ship.”

She turned and walked away from Batterast, out of the library, into the bitter day. She trudged to the middle of the parking lot, turning a circle; searching. She walked around to the side of the building and saw her walking through the empty lot behind the library.

“Hart,” she called the name with more conviction, and emotion than she thought she could have for a stranger.

The woman turned touched, reached, and disturbed. She waited for Brynn to run through the ankle high grass in her oxfords.

“I’m sorry about that,” Brynn said upon greeting.

“It’s ok,” Hart said, “I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”

The librarian shook her head beginning to cry a little. “You’ve already done that.”

“You should have just shut your mouth,” the stranger said.

Brynn hung her head, watched Hart’s feet begin to walk away.

“You have beauty too, you think it’s worthless so you let people pummel it, but its still there,” she said to the stranger, “I wanted to tell you that the other night-”
Hart walked towards her, nostrils flared, she grabbed Brynn by her upper arms, but that was where the violence stopped.

“You’re a clever gatita, aren’t you?” she asked.

Brynn sniffed. “I suppose.”

The stranger grinned she reached up and moved a lock of hair from Brynn’s cheek, glued there by her tears.

Hart bowed her head a bit, and leaned closer, she smelled like cinnamon and honey, scents that did not match her.

“I shouldn’t have come back here,” she said, her lips close to Brynn’s face, “I wasn’t going to come back.”

“Why?” Brynn asked, their breaths mingled and she felt pleasantly lightheaded.

“Because,” Hart said, and kissed her.

It had been a long time since either of them had been kissed, they both shivered and fell into each other, Brynn’s hand went to Hart’s face, while Hart’s arms went around Brynn’s waist: an embrace they’d both fantasized about since first seeing each other that previous spring.

They parted their burning gazes searching the other’s face.

The stranger’s hands immediately began to explore beneath Brynn’s fleece vest, her hands were fever hot, and the librarian found that she wanted them just as soon directly on her skin, tingling from the warmth and at the same time the chill from the day.

She stepped away. “I should go.”

“Yeah,” Hart agreed looking as if she wanted to say something more, “Yeah.”

“But come back later, at closing,” Brynn grinned walking away, “So we can talk some more.”

Hart grinned back at her, slow, and sexy. “Whatever you like Gatita.”

. . . .

“You’ve got a pretty good appetite,” Hart said as Brynn grinned at her around a mouthful of hamburger.

They’d ended up at Greenhorn #5, one of five hamburger stands in a citywide chain and Hart Gonzalez’s (Brynn had learned the stranger’s last name en route) favorite place to eat.

The stand provided an eating area, a sort of car port with one heavy plastic wall. It was surprisingly warm thanks to the burning grills behind the counter except for the occasional draft that cut through the air. The only other “diners” were two hulking figures grunting at each other as they shoveled burgers into their mouths.

“You didn’t get into too much trouble with the vieja?” Hart asked about the confrontation with Batterast.

“No,” Brynn said, “She only snooped around that book you were reading…you know you shouldn’t stop coming to the library.”

The stranger looked away as if she were embarrassed. “I know its weird that I don’t have a card, I’m just…weird like that.”

“So you’re a fighter?” Brynn asked, she wanted to give herself to The Stranger, Hart Gonzalez, but she could not stop thinking of her as a stranger, and so she was reluctant.

Hart nodded. “Bloodsport, it’s an underground thing.”

“Oh,” Brynn said, “So there’s wagering.”

Hart stared at her cold for a second, she seemed quite frozen then she spoke:

“Yes my dear there is some wagering.”

“Then you make a living at this?” Brynn asked her burger finished she nibbled at a few left over lone fries left on the grease-stained wax wrapper in which she had been served.

“Who are you the IRS?” Hart asked.

“Just curious that’s all,” Brynn said.

“A census taker tried to quantify me once-” Hart began and was cut off by a short giggle. She grinned and looked over her shoulders then back at her “date” as if she was surprised that birdish trill had come from her.

The other diners raised their heads like lions hunched over freshly killed prey, masticated bun and crumbles of ground beef hung from their mouths.

“She gets my jokes,” Hart said, “And she likes them.”

Brynn flushed well through her brown skin, she took a sip of soda.

“Look,” Hart said, “If you don’t come home with me tonight I can’t be responsible for what I’ll do.”

Brynn’s flush flashed down her neck.

“You are adorable,” Hart narrowed her eyes lustfully.

“Let’s walk,” Brynn stood wondering what the hell she had gotten herself in to.

“Whatever you like,” the Stranger agreed.

Greenhorn’s #5 had no parking lot so they’d parked a ways up the street. Hart jogged ahead of Brynn, shadowboxing. She was impressed by her movements, and stopped to watch her.

“So it thinks it’s a boxer,” a voice said from the shadows.

Brynn turned to see the two men from the hamburger stand, flanking a mail box, their forms tall and hard in contrast to the rounded stubby figure.

“It does,” Hart said with a jovial edge to her voice.

“A challenge then,” the other said.

“Two on one?” Hart asked as if she thought the odds were fair.

“Just me,” the first one that had spoken said, and stepped closer.

“Hart,” Brynn whispered and took a step back, the challenger wore a black vinyl rain slicker, dusted with filth, underneath was a pair of ragged brown work pants and a striped red and green shirt the colors distorted by food stains and dirt.

The challenger stepped forward, face lumped, brow broken, nose twisted, reshaped from fighting. The hands were what frightened Brynn, they were huge, not a big man’s hands, but a monster’s, with knobby, perfectly rounded knuckles.

“Hmm,” Hart said, “Alright.”

“Hart,” Brynn whimpered as the monster sailed towards them quickly, and Hart bent into a runner’s crouch as of there was about to be a race.

The monster roared closer now, Brynn grabbed the back of Hart’s collar, she would not move.

“Hart,” Brynn screamed.

The Stranger stood and received a blow to the cheek from one of the massive hands. Hart’s head jerked back like whiplash knocking into Brynn’s, sending the librarian to the concrete.

Her ears rang as she scrambled backwards until the spout of a fire hydrant poked her in the back.

The Stranger took another blow to the chest, the hollow thud made Brynn’s stomach flop she cast her gaze to the other figure who waited patiently in the shadows.

Hart lowered her head, raised her fists to her face though it seemed impossible to Brynn that she could ward off the monster’s hands. She danced, rolling off the blows, until she could finally land one, as quick as a striking snake to the monster’s throat.

The challenger gave a mighty gasp and swung blindly before falling to the concrete in a crawl.

Hart bashed her knee into the monster’s face, blood flowed black in the moonlight. She stood over him for a minute waiting for her opponent to stand again. He crawled around the dark sidewalk until his friend came and helped him to his feet.

Hart turned, helped Brynn to her feet, and the two walked to her car, the librarian thought at the time a ridiculously calm pace.

“My place,” Hart insisted once they were back in the car, and told her where to turn.

They drove closer to downtown, the stranger exhausting the supply of Kleenex in the glove compartment with blood, claiming that it was nothing.

Their destination was a towering red brick building. Brynn was amazed, it was ancient, the rounded cracking brick, the way it loomed no one had made anything so tall out of brick in a long time.

Hart guided her into a foyer of mailboxes, to a creaking elevator. They rode it to the top floor. The walked a maze of dim corridors with wooden floors and upholstered walls, material thin with age.

“Home sweet home,” Hart said unlocking her door, letting Brynn in first.

It was a loft with a partly closed off kitchen, the walls were white, the furniture black metal or wooded coated black. The windows were covered with black blinds.
Brynn eyes swept the room, larger objects catching her attention like two towering narrow shelves of CDs flanking a massive stereo system with speakers as tall as she, and a near-life size bronze sculpture of a naked woman standing, her legs and arms spread in V’s, eyes narrowed as she gazed on angrily, her hair windswept.
“You like?” Hart asked taking her across the loft to a bed with an ebony wood frame, ravens carved at four posts, black silk sheets.

Brynn flushed at the sight of the bed despite the macabre ravens their wings at their sides, eyes closed, heads down as if they were roosting solemnly, it gave off an erotic aura.

The bathroom was closed off, the floor a Greek mosaic tile of a sun and hills, and trees, and fields of grain. The walls were painted with pillars and vines, and a garden scene.

“It’s…” Brynn began but did not know what to say.

“Not what you thought my bathroom would be like?” Hart asked, “It’s all from my winnings and before that some other enterprises…” she trailed off.

Brynn met her gaze questioningly, then she spotted the tub, it was brown marble and sank into the floor, there were jet holes, and a brass faucet.

“Would you like to bathe with me?” Hart asked.

Brynn took a step back sure that meant getting naked.

“Here,” Hart said turning on the water, “You get started and I’ll busy myself for a few minutes and join you.”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“Trust me. I won’t ravish you or anything,” Hart turned away from the librarian and began to walk out of the bathroom asking her what kind of music she liked.

“Lucinda Harris,” Brynn said.

Hart made a sound of distaste loud enough to be heard through the wall. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Brynn took off her shoes and paced.

The tub began to steam and Hart called out and asked if she was ready yet.

“No,” Brynn answered tentatively, she shrugged out of her sweater, and paced some more.

Outside she began to hear Lucinda’s music. Brynn had been a fan since the second album Unwanted Blessings. Lucinda was a rock pianist who made erotic, deeply moving, poetic music from the mid seventies to the mid-eighties when she overdosed in a hotel downtown.

Brynn sighed unzipped her skirt and let it fall and let the music of the last album Golgi Apparatus guide her out of her underwear and into the tub.

Hart appeared in a kimono with another slung over her shoulder. She gave Brynn a smoldering smile as she turned off the jets.

“I thought you didn’t like Lucinda,” Brynn said.

“Not really, but I just downloaded that off the net,” Hart said as she unbelted her robe, she shrugged and let it fall in the same vicinity of the skirt.

Her arms up to her shoulders were covered in tattoos, mostly Aztec symbols, eagle talons gripped her upper back and wrapped around her collar bone, there was a blue dagger on her right shoulder.

“You’re not one of those awful music thieves are you?” Brynn asked.

“I sure am,” Hart stepped into the tub she was all lean planes, and muscle.

Brynn felt like a pig. She had never been an athlete, she was thirty-one and her metabolism was beginning to slow, she had a little gut pouch and some flab at her flanks. At least her breasts hadn’t hit her knees yet; there weren’t enough of them to sag that far.

She squirmed as Hart moaned and sank into the roiling water across from her.

“Comfy?” she asked Brynn.

She did not answer, only shrugged, the water rippled between them.

“There’s no one who’s going to miss you?” Hart then asked, “You never mentioned anyone.”

“No,” Brynn answered, “I’m unattached.”

“Me too,” Hart said and winked, she sighed, “Aren’t you comfortable?”

“I’m sorry,” Brynn said she shifted wanting to stand until she remembered that she was naked.

Sensing her flight Hart darted forward like a fish across the short bubbling sea between them stopping when their faces were inches apart, her palm on Brynn’s shoulder. The water shifted and slopped over the smooth banks of the tub.

“What are you so afraid of?” Hart asked.

“You,” Brynn managed.

“You know better than to be afraid of me,” Hart said, “Must be something else…”

Brynn searched her mind.

“The darling one was naked and, knowing my wish, had kept only the regalia of her jewelry whose resonant charms can lure and vanquish-”

Brynn’s breath quickened as she listened in disbelief as the woman who pressed so ardently to become her lover recited Baudelaire. It wasn’t exactly love poetry and only a true scholar of the poet could appreciate the words for that moment.

“-Naked then, she was to all of my worship,” Hart continued, “Smiling in triumph from the heights of her couch at my desire advancing, as gentle and deep as the sea sending its waves to the warm beach.”

She stopped and leaned forward kissing Brynn who giggled.

“I don’t have long legs or hips ‘shining smooth as oil’ ” the librarian said, “but I do have the torso of a boy.”

Hart smiled. “You’re silly, your breasts and your belly are ‘the grapes of my wine.’ ”

They kissed a long time, Hart’s hands grabbed her sternly as they had back at the library and Brynn trembled she could only reach out and pull her closer using her fingers to clutch her new lover’s face.

Hart broke the kiss to turn off the jets from a wire shelf suspended on the wall above the tub by a suction cup she retrieved a bottle of soap, a loofah, and a cloth.

“I said we were going to bathe,” she explained, “I don’t want to seem like I got you here under false pretenses.”

Brynn smiled and turned her back when she was asked and let Hart bathe her, reach around soap her small breasts. Something began to awaken in her that had slumbered for a long time. The librarian was not frightened sure that there was no way the stranger could know about the fever tingling now at her abdomen, the spreading warmth between her thighs.

“It’s ridiculous of you to believe you’re not stunningly beautiful,” she said into the librarian’s ear, “There are fairies that would kill to be as beautiful as you are.”

Brynn laughed. “Now who is being ridiculous?”

Gloriously covered in suds (they gave her some modesty so she was bold) she turned and began to bathe the stranger.

“You quote Baudelaire and you talk about fairies,” she said, “Who are you, Stranger?”

“I’m Hart Gonzalez,” was her reply, “And if you let me I’ll make love to you until the sun rises.”

Brynn settled back into the water and rinsed herself, when she was finished she noticed that she was being watched. Hart’s eyes flashed with passion, Brynn realized she was in over her head. The severity of the lust involved, radiating from herself and the stranger, mingling, stirred by her doubt and the stranger’s arrogance.

“Well?” Hart asked her voice husky from wanting.

Brynn stood, she climbed out of the tub dripping wet, the stranger behind her, she was handed a towel. Grateful she covered herself.

“I’m sorry, Hart,” she said, “I can’t-”

“You don’t have to be sorry for nothing,” the stranger said, there was warmth in her eyes now, warmth Brynn could handle.

She went for her clothes, stooping a bit, Hart stooped with her.

“And you don’t have to go running off,” she said, “Stay the night. It’ll be perfectly innocent.”

“I shouldn’t stay,” Brynn said.

“Now I can take being denied sex, but company, you shouldn’t have teased me like that, librarian,” Hart said then sighed, “Get dressed. I’ll walk you down.”

Brynn dropped her clothes and took the other kimono, it was white with a pink and red cherry tree design, she was pretty sure it was pure silk.

“I’ll stay,” she said decidedly to the stranger.

Hart gave a small bow of her head and donned her kimono it was hunter green with gray stallions running along the hem.

She grinned. “Whatever you like Gatita, I’ll get us some drinks,” she said, “I think we’re going to be reciting a lot of Baudelaire tonight.”

. . . .

Grimoir-


For our second date, Hart took me to a cemetery. Yes, I was scared, but it turned out to be quite romantic. We went to the oldest cemetery in the city, a couple hundred years ago a small huddled mass floated down Sisina, one of the main bayous that flows through this town and set up a settlement near down town. They buried their dead below the marshy ground of the swamp land and later richer folks built these lovely little mausoleums.

Hart took me among the old plots marked by thin stones that had cracked, fallen over, or tilted over the years. The day was drab but I as walking next to Hart she glows distantly like the moon, but then she can be so near me burning hot like a sun.

“This isn’t too weird is it?” she asked me, of course I said no and she went on to tell me that her mother had said that a cemetery was a garden of death.

“And its not sinister at all,” she told me, “Have you ever seen El Dia del Muertos celebrated?”

I have read about some things, snatches here and there. Hart only smiled and said she was sure she was being creepy. I was preoccupied with her brow she has the bearing of a scholar. I smiled back at her and took her hand. She pulled me behind a massive oak and pressed me there, kissing my lips, my face and my neck.

“You know its good luck to fool around in a cemetery,” Hart whispered.

“You’re making that up,” I hissed as her hand moved past my sweater to my belly, she leaned in and continued to kiss me. I caressed the side of her face, slid my hand along her pulsing neck, the base of her throat.

She began to undo my jeans, and I would have moved away, my mind told me that I was in a public place, making out with a tattooed woman, but the instant fire between my legs conjured my hips forward thrusting her fingers into the unopened parts of me.

“What good fortune,” she murmured into my ear, making me laugh, and gasp. I pulled her into my kiss and we shuddered and rocked under that tree for several lovely minutes.

Her fingers left me suddenly, she stood and backed away. “It’s bad luck to have an orgasm in a cemetery.”

I laughed sure she was putting me on then I saw that she was serious. “You live by some different code than the rest of us, don’t you stranger?”

She laughed and told me I was clever. I told her that I wanted to know, that she would have to show me her world.

“If I did that…”she sighed, “I want to, Gatita, but that’s probably not wise.”

She drew me out of the cemetery and we drove to the big park and watched Sisina’s brown waters churn through her banks. Then we went back to Hart’s where I chickened out of taking our earlier activities to a higher level.

When I woke up this morning in the Stranger’s arms I didn’t panic. My borrowed kimono was half opened but I did not panic, I kind of lay there and marveled at my own breast, then her bruised face next to mine. I remembered the cemetery, the kisses, her hand between my legs. We talked all night about books and drank fruit smoothies. I told her about Nat, and she told me of some of her past lovers. She was pleasantly shocked that I had only been with Nat. She’s going to treat me like a virgin I know. “Sigh.” It has been a long time. And last night I wanted to be with her so bad.

I snoozed off again, it was about five in the A.M. she woke and went out for breakfast. I couldn’t sleep though after she left, so I explored. Then there was this knock at the door. I was naked except for my robe and I timidly called “hello”. Who ever it was slid a book of matches under the door. It was red, the book, but on the inside flap someone had scribbled out an address. I copied it on a scrap of paper, something about a warehouse, someplace past downtown.

She came back before I had time to really think. She picked up the book of matches like it was nothing. We ate. We kissed. But I had to open the library so it was very brief. I thought about her all day, my stranger. She says she has to work tonight and we know what that means. Right now it is 9:00 p.m. and I’m at home wondering what one wears to a Bloodsport match.



Chapter Four


Just past down town was a small labyrinth of one way streets and abandoned warehouses. Before the trucking industry, when goods were hauled by train the area thrived, modest businesses manufactured things and the tracks took them out into the world of consumers.

Then the trucking industry took over, the businesses grew and left town for bigger lots and the opportunity to really mass produce. The abandoned warehouses were not desirable to even criminals. Abandoned except for Bloodsport.

Brynn had decided on black stretch pants and fur lined boots from her mother’s disco days, a low cut black t-shirt and a double breasted coat that belted around the waist finished the outfit. She slicked her hair back behind her ears and picked up some sun glasses from a convenience store.

There were a few cars outside the appointed warehouse and Brynn was sure she could not hide from Hart. Still her curiosity egged her on.

It was past midnight and the temperature had dipped. As she walked to the building from her Rabbit she flipped up the collar of her jacket.

There was a great metal door which she tried to open, it groaned but did not move an inch. Brynn pressed her ear against the cool, rough with rusty door. The clank of a bolt sent her back into an upright position. A perfect square shaft of light shone for a few seconds before being eclipsed by the silhouette of a pointy bald head, tiny ears and a thick neck.

“Who you?” the silhouette asked.

She tried to look cool and impudent she had practiced for fifteen minutes back at home.

“Here to see the match,” she answered.

The man on the other side of the door laughed. “Go home lady.”

The shaft disappeared, and she realized it was one of those cloak and dagger little sliding peeking doors.

Brynn gave the door a kick. “Let me in,” she shouted, then; “Yo.”

The little door slid back open.

“Yo,” the man said, “You got money?”

“Yeah,” she answered, that was partly true she had about fifteen dollars in her coat pocket.

“Name,” the man demanded.

“Dobhale,” she said deciding, what the hell, “Brynn Dobhale.”

The sliding, peeking, door closed, the big door groaned some more and opened.

“Never get your type in here,” he eyed her, and she him, he was slimmer than she had imagined but not by much.

“Never knew your people was into…sports,” he said.

“Oh yeah,” she answered having no idea what the man meant, just glad to be “in.”

The place was packed; there were Goth teens, and men in business suits, women in barely anything at all, even people who looked like transients. They bunched in crowds around pairs of fighters. Brynn stood a minute in awe then realized she was toeing a puddle of blood.

“Eww,” she muttered and stepped back quickly.

Like a visitor to some museum where the exhibits were alive, and beating the tar out of each other, Brynn began to explore soberly.

In one ring of spectators a woman with a mohawk of five inch high razor blades, a rack of crescent shaped horns and a leather tail of spikes was slithering around a puny, sickly looking little man. She whipped at him playfully with her tail as he stood shivering in his thick framed black Woody Allen glasses.

Brynn forced herself to look away at the maddened faces of the spectators. She did not want to see what damage the woman would do to the little man.

There was a scream and Brynn’s eyes rolled back to the sight, the little man had a wild look on his face, he had hold of the woman’s tail and was slapping at her legs, and ass. The nerd howled with delight, and his eyes glowed like an animals in the dim lights of the warehouse.

Brynn moved on to the next ring where a grotesquely overweight and naked man moved with a cat-like quickness, his flab shimmered like liquid, landing meaty blows to a woman who looked to be seven feet tall and took the punches as if they were mosquito bites.

Then she saw Hart, her black hair pulled back into a ballerina’s knob, her face just as poised. She made a graceful swagger around a woman with a broad back knotted with muscles, her arms were well muscled too, all four of them. Hart’s opponent looked oriental, but her eyes glowed green and she had flaming red hair.

Hart fended off two fists, and sidestepped the other two. She shouted something at her opponent and grinned a bloody grin. She was obviously enjoying herself, even more than with the hulking man the night before.

Hart was caught by a fist, could not dodge another, or even a third as well as the fourth she kind of stumbled back, but regained her footing, by then she was head butted and tripped.

Brynn gasped.

“You want in on this?” someone asked, “Five hundred on the medium?”

Brynn ignored the offer, Hart was not getting up.

“Looks like the end for you, medium,” the multi-armed woman triumphed, she stooped a bit before Hart, grabbed a fistful of her hair lifting her head, neck and torso.
Brynn tried to push through the crowd, but they were gathered tight and calling for death. The librarian fell to her hands and knees she crawled through legs and emerged in the center just as the creature was cocking a fist to put an end to Hart.

“Stop,” she screamed, she ran, jumped and latched on to one of the woman’s wrists.

The woman grunted, as if catching a spider scurrying up her arm, and flung her behind Hart.

Brynn scrambled to her feet. “You stay away from her. You-”

Before she could say more a blue light filled the room, Brynn squinted her eyes finding herself close to the source; Hart.

The light was a pair of wings, ethereal ones that did more than glow, they flapped lazily taking Hart into the air, then disappearing, leaving her aloft.

“Bring it bitch,” she told the woman.

A roar then filled the room as the four armed woman flexed her back and grew at least three more feet, her legs extended and bent like a goat’s.

She stalked quickly towards Hart, who flew right at her. When they collided, Hart’s feet in the beast woman’s chest the whole warehouse seemed to shake. Hart landed and turned to Brynn.

“Damned you Gatita,” she said.

“Sorry,” Brynn said.

“Hmm,” Hart said as if she were not so sure, “You look hot, but you’d better get back.”

The opponent was shaking off her blow she had fallen on her ass. Hart flew at her and hooked an arm around her neck, locked her legs between a pair of the arms.

The opponent let out a choked cry and tried to shake Hart off, slamming her back into a concrete beam, then to the concrete floor wallowing.

Brynn watched not sure if Hart had been crushed as the creature’s movements became more pained, one fist slammed into the floor three times.

“She gave,” someone called.

The beast woman rolled over and there was Hart laying quite still.

Brynn ran to her, falling on top of her.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

“Get back,” Hart rasped.

“UNFAIR,” the opponent howled back to her “normal” height, “Cheating bitch.”

She bowled into Brynn sending her flying. The librarian landed among the spectators, hitting her head on the stained concrete floor.

Dazed she looked up and saw a woman in all gray smiling at her.

“Some fall, love,” she said in a sparkling cockney English accent, “Let me help you.”

“I know you,” Brynn said, “I’m sure of it.”

“Well, you’re a fan then,” the woman said stooping, pulling her to her feet.

The melee around them had vanished they were not in the warehouse.

“You’re Lucinda Harris,” Brynn gasped, “You’ve been dead for nearly twenty years.”

The dead rock singer grinned. “I certainly hope you won’t hold that against me.”



Chapter Five


“There you are,” Hart said as Brynn opened her eyes, “I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

Brynn moaned a little. “What happened?”

“You got freight-trained by a fucking giant,” Hart said helping her to her feet,” You’re not as fragile as you look.”

“You were hurt…” Brynn said, she looked around, they were in a strange alley, she shivered hearing the chatter of rats.

“I know Gatita,” Hart hugged her close, “This is not the place for you. Neither is Bloodsport.”

They walked a few blocks, back to the warehouse and Brynn’s Rabbit.

Hart drove, back to her place she said few words, just a little grumbling- something like being a laughing stock.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she asked once they were safe in her loft, back in the tub.

“I just wanted to see what it is you do,” Brynn said.

“I told you. I fight.”

“You do more than that. You go into some kind of trance,” the librarian said, “They were calling you a medium.”

“You’re just too damned smart for your own good,” Hart shook her head, “You could have been hurt or killed, that place is not a fucking tea room. Bad spirits hang out there.”

“I noticed,” Brynn said.

“Then you run into the ring and do your Pocahontas thing,” Hart laughed. “Gods, I’ll never be able to show my face there again.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” the librarian said.

“Oh no,” she declared, “That is not fair. What if I didn’t want you to be a librarian anymore?” she asked, “It’s too early for us to be trying to change each other. If you don’t like what I do then you can just walk out right now.”

Brynn said nothing in return.

“We have a good time, huh Gatita? Look at you. It’s been such a long time since a woman has looked at me the way you’re looking at me now. I’m lucky to have you in my corner Dobhale.”

“So what should I do? Wait around until you’re killed?” Brynn asked.

“I’ve been doing this a long time. I know what I’m doing, don’t be so over dramatic….” Hart sighed, “Come on you’re not going to walk away from me…”

“No,” Brynn said, “Tell me how does it all work?”

Hart sighed, she shifted the water. “He’s called Itzcoatl, he’s an Aztec warrior, he’s a spirit I’m in touch with, I channel him into my body and we fight together.
That’s what Bloodsport is all about, you have to be in shape physically but there is a metaphysical self that also has to be in shape.”

She was looking away from the librarian, ashamed, afraid of what she might think, but when she met Brynn’s gaze she was grinning, and there was a different look in her eyes and Hart was unsettled. It was lust of course.

“That’s sexy,” the librarian said, she glided around the tub and did not stop until Hart was in her arms. They kissed a different kiss from the night before there was more gravity to Brynn’s hold than the submissive clutch. Her tongue was a hot, swaying, darting thing, and she nipped at Hart’s shoulder and neck enough to bring the blood and break the damn of skin that kept it from flowing.

. . . .

As soon as she became aware of the next day, Hart reached out for her librarian, before she could even open her eyes. She startled awake when she found that she was alone.

“Brynn,” she moaned through her grogginess, “Gatita, babe, where are you?”

There was no answer.

Hart sat up, climbed out of her four-poster bed clothed only in her tattoos, she grinned a little and continued to search out Brynn. She was not in the bathroom, no where to be found.

Hart began to dress, fretting a bit. They had made love most of the night, the librarian bold and erotic, almost impatient. Her new lover had been a bit overwhelmed, even disheartened, but was sure things would calm down for future love-making sessions.

The librarian’s skin had been as delicious as its hue promised, and as they fell asleep in each other’s arms everything had seemed fine.

“Stupid,” Hart smacked her self on the forehead, something had to have gone wrong, of Brynn would be there, or at least awakened her to tell her she was leaving.
Not up for an hour amble down to the library, Hart went down to the parking garage of her building for her little crotch rocket, her nondescript motorbike. She had slipped on her cycle jacket equipped with plastic to protect her spine in case of an accident.

She sped out of the garage black hair whipping around her head running red lights to get to Avalon Wood. She had a few choice words for her librarian about consideration, if she had regrets about the night before all she had to do was say so, and not go sneaking out while Hart was deep in a blissful sleep. She did not like being made a fool of.

She stopped at the entrance of the lot when she did not see Brynn’s Rabbit there she peeled a layer of rubber off her tire turning out of the library’s lot, towards Brynn’s house.

Five minutes later she saw that Brynn was not there either.

“Shit,” Hart grumbled, the librarian was obviously terrified and hiding somewhere from her. Perhaps it had been Bloodsport, the horrible bruises Hart carried maybe it was all too much for the librarian.

She parked her bike, and made camp on Brynn’s cold front porch, there were some hedges where she could sit invisible to passersby.

“Not worth it,” she tried to convince herself, but remained there until a little after one when Brynn’s little Rabbit hopped into the driveway.

Hart shot up to her feet to see her librarian in strange clothes (that were totally not here) a slinky skirt and a sleeveless fur coat.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

Brynn only laughed. “I’ve been shopping, darling.”

She stopped to peck her face then unloaded a couple of perfumed shopping bags on her. She opened the front door to the house and went inside.

“Well I didn’t know where you were,” Hart frowned following, “You weren’t here at home or at work.”

“Work,” the librarian turned to reveal the look of disgust on her face, “I’ll never go back to that frightfully boring place again.”

Hart dropped the bags in the middle of the tiny foyer because Brynn was serious.

“What?”

Brynn rolled over the silver sheen of her eyes seemed to sparkle. “You don’t expect me to go back? After what I saw last night?”

“But you love the library,” Hart said frowning, “You’re a guide.”

Brynn laughed, not her usual tinkle, but something wicked, she walked into the kitchen and began to rifle the cupboards, “I’ll not spend another second among a bunch of books for the rest of this life.”

“Thanks to the priceless stars that flicker out one by one,” Hart quoted after her, “My burnt out eyes can see, dim memories of the sun.”

“What are you talking about?” Brynn peeked around the corner staring at her coldly. “What is it?” she asked.

“Who are you?” Hart asked advancing, catching her wrist.

Brynn put on a pout. “You’re spoiling the game.”

“I asked who you were, so you have to tell me,” Hart said, “Those are the rules.”

The librarian snatched her wrist back and dashed through the kitchen, snatching things and throwing them over her shoulder at Hart.

“Bitch,” Hart gave chase, leapt over the sofa and caught a handful of red-brown hair she received a stout slap/scratch.

They wrestled to the floor, Brynn wailing and hissing.

She got Brynn on her stomach, pressed her to the floor, got one arm behind her back and twisted.

“Who are you?” she insisted at the squirming librarian.

“Fuck off,” ‘Brynn’ bleated.

“Where’s my Gatita?” Hart asked.

“Oh she’s having a wonderful time,” ‘Brynn’ replied, “Just a teensy bit appalled at what we did last night. You should thank me, there’s no way you’d get a good lay out of her.”

Hart could have strangled her instead she hefted her to her feet. Lots of spirits haunted Bloodsport, many were like her Aztec warrior, disembodied, looking for a medium. It meant living, even though that fraction of life was through fighting.

“On your feet,” Hart said her mind searching for a solution, for who could help her, “Now you’re going to tell me who you are.”

“I’m Lucinda Harris, your love is my biggest fan she’s honored to have me as a guest.” Brynn replied.

“Not if you’re planning on taking over her life,” Hart said, “Enjoy it while you can cause I’m going to get you out of there.”

“You can kiss my ass,” Lucinda said and laughed.

“I’ll punch your goddamned lights,” Hart suggested.

“I wouldn’t be so threatening,” Lucinda said, “The Little Hill can still see you.”

“I’ll do whatever to get her back Harris,” Hart told her, “If that means causing you some major pain.”

“I’ll scream,” Lucinda warned.

“I’ll break your fucking arm before any one comes to your aid,” Hart said searching her face for any sign of compliance.

“It sure doesn’t pain you to threaten your beloved so,” Lucinda snorted as she was guided her out to the Rabbit.

Hart kept an eye on her. “You picked the wrong chick to possess I know all the ins and outs.”

The ghost knew details about Brynn’s life, where she worked, who she was Hart had never sympathized with ghosts, she wondered what Itzcoatl thought of her.

Hart shoved her roughly over the gear shift to the passenger’s side through the driver’s side door and scooted in behind her.

“That’s going to drive a rift between you,” Lucinda taunted, “She wasn’t quite ready to give it up to you…kind of frightened of you…now you’ve gone and taken advantage of her when she was weakest.”

“Shut the fuck up,” she snapped, “I’ll bite your throat out.”

“Hart?” Brynn asked suddenly, she blinked as if waking up to the sun in her eyes, “What’s going on?”

Hart stepped closer. “Oh sweetie,” she grabbed Brynn’s face, “Are you ok?”

“I’m scared,” the librarian said groggily, “I should be at work.”

Hart laughed a little.

“I-” Brynn began, her neck jerked and she had several of Hart’s fingers in her mouth.

“Awwff,” Hart slapped her and quickly pulled away, saw the damage she had done.

‘Brynn’s’ nose was bleeding. “She knows when you are sleeping. She knows when you’re awake…” Lucinda sang.

Hart shivered, Brynn was still there deep down and she was seeing everything that was being done to her. She slammed the driver side door angrily and started the Rabbit.

“Where we off to love?” Lucinda asked.

“Home,” Hart said.

. . . .

Martín Gonzalez looked up from the Ducati motor bike he was repairing and grinned wolfishly at the VW Rabbit coasting into the drive in front of his double-wide.
“Another satisfied customer?” he asked no one.

His wife Rayna stuck her head out of the window. “It’s Hart,” she grinned, “My darling Hart with a guest.”

Martín grumbled, anytime his daughter showed up there was guaranteed trouble. She’d gone off fifteen years before to the goddamned Unfinished City (of course there was a different name for it back then) for some big adventure. As if the nice little town he’d brought her up in was no good anymore.

“Hart,” Vulcan, his son loped from around the side of the house. Where like Martín Hart was dark haired, his son had taken after his mother and was all red; his head his face, his neck, the boy was covered in red hair. That particular trait had not come with Rayna’s gene package, but later when he too ventured into the city and came back with some Lycanthropy problem.

Martín watched his son as he shifted from foot to foot then stopped to give a hard shiver of excitement.

“Hart,” he barked at the car as it coasted to a stop, “Hart. Hart.”

“Calm down,” Martín shouted.

“Hart,” Vulcan continued then whined with impatience rolling his eyes at his father and his stern look.

Martín watched as his daughter went around to the passenger side of the Rabbit and lifted a little woman over her shoulder, kicking and screaming.

“Whacha got?” Vulcan took off and danced circles around his sister as she carried the woman towards the trailer, “Whachagot wachagot wachagot?”

“You’ll see,” Hart smiled.

“I know damned well what it is, its trouble,” Martín scratched his graying goatee.

“Just enough excitement to keep you alive old man,” she said not looking him in the eye, she trotted right past him where Rayna waited with the door open, a look of concern on her face.

“So you’ve taken to kidnapping then?” Martín called, “The cops are already snooping around my crop. You trying to ruin me girl.”

They all went in, Vulcan too, the door shut firmly behind them.

“I had to marry a gringa bruja,” Martín shook his head.

. . . .

“This is not good,” Rayna said passing her authentic feathered Blackfoot drum-wand over Brynn’s prone body, her red brow furrowed, “There is a hold on her, but not a very strong one, still, she shouldn’t be bothering with the spirits if she does not know what she’s doing.”

“She wasn’t messing around,” Hart confessed, the kitchen table had been cleared of the leftover morning dishes the librarian was laid in their place. The trailer had never been very roomy.

“She followed me to Bloodsport, got possessed by Lucinda Harris,” she finished.

“That bitch,” Rayna snorted, “Talk about being clueless about the spirit world, thought she was the hottest thing around. I say if you’re going to make music do that and leave the magic to the professionals.”

Hart rolled her eyes. “An enemy of yours?”

“Of course,” Rayna said, “Your father was in love with her, but when she left him high and dry he came crawling back to me trying to buy my love with a few dozen of his dumb mushrooms.”

Rayna chuckled, usually was a big laugher, always playing practical jokes, but now she returned to the serious business at hand.

“This could do her some damage to her soul,” the witch said, “The poor thing, she’s adorable…A friend of yours?”

“Kind of,” Hart said.

“I haven’t seen you so concerned over the well being of a young woman since, Alexa.” Rayna took on a conspiratorial tone.

“Mom, please,” Hart said, “Just help Brynn.”

“Brynn,” Rayna grinned, “What is she?”

“A woman,” Hart said.

“She’s not a witch or a medium,” Rayna said, “Certainly not a Blue Dagger.”

“She’s a librarian,” Hart told her.

“What?” Rayna asked, they stared at each other for several blinks, “This is serious then.”

“Don’t make a big deal out of this Mom,” Hart pleaded.

“Shoo then,” the witch said, “Let me get started, you phone up the coven, get your father to fire up the barbeque.”

“Oh Mom, no,” Hart said, “Don’t make this out of one of your gatherings.”

“You know,” she shrugged, “Any excuse, it seems ages since Solstice.”

“Alright,” Hart said, she peered down at Brynn, touched her hand, “I won’t be far Gatita, this is my Mom she’ll fix you right up.”

Rayna looked down at her and smiled, then pretended she was not watching.

. . . .

The four witches worked until sunset, Rayna, and her coven, Hattie from up the street, Belinda, and Shirley from the next town over.

Three of them came out of the trailer where a small crowd was gathered, drinking beer around a large fire.

Martín offered his wife a toke on a fat joint she smoked several quick sips then looked up at the sky exhaling.

“Blessed Be,” she crowed and grinned down at her kids, hunkering by the fire, Hart in her drover, Vulcan shirtless and golden in the fire light.

“Well, she’s asking for you,” Rayna said to her daughter.

Hart stood and immediately went to join her lover’s side. The last coven member, Belinda waited, she smiled at her.

“I hope it will be a Wiccan hand fastening,” she said to Hart, who only rolled her eyes.

“Hart,” Brynn squeaked, her eyes wider than usual, but just as luminous and beautiful, “What’s going on?”

She explained and apologized.

“It’s ok,” Brynn said, “At least that what the witches said, “The red headed one, is she really you mother?”

Hart laughed. “She is.”

Brynn looked on at her in disbelief.

“Well I certainly wasn’t laid by a buzzard and hatched by the sun,” Hart said, and apologized when she got another puzzled look.

They finally kissed, and Hart swore to her self that she would die before she would let more harm come to her librarian.

. . . .

Grimoir-


During the entire possession ordeal I thought I was in some sort of coma dream. I knew something awful had happened at the warehouse. I dreamed I was in a hotel room, a really nice suite, I was with a beautiful woman and we were doing lines of coke. Then I got really cold and everything went dark ( I realized later that I had shared in a vision of Lucinda’s death) I saw Hart she was angry at me, shouting and shoving me.

I remembered what happened at Bloodsport and later questioning Hart. She is a true warrior, as graceful and erotic as a dancer. If only I had stayed away, things would not feel ruined between us. Lucinda had sex with Hart. I had sex with Hart, and she is so ashamed and sad.

We have no idea what Lucinda was up to during the hours she was unaccounted for, I do know she wreaked havoc with my credit card, buying clothes, perfume, and a fur coat of all things.

Hart’s dear mother Rayna exorcised me so to speak. She’s a witch, red headed, very hippie she looks nothing like Hart who took after her father Martin. The two of them are funny, Hart and her father, so cool and gruff. He’s angry with her because she did not go into the family business. Selling and growing magic mushrooms. He calls them magic and from what I have seen so far I do not know if I should take the magic part literally. Her younger brother Vulcan is a werewolf, and not a moon changing one, this guy is wolfy twenty-four seven. They are very sweet but weird. Hart was a little embarrassed, that was cute.

After my exorcism we had a celebration, and it was nothing like the sabbats described by fanatical, hysterical pilgrim girls. We had some good barbeque ribs, and there was of beer. I was given a lot of tea and was wrapped in blankets to keep warm, and forced to stay in a sacred circle marked by smoking censers.

The witches danced in a circle, they sang folk songs out of tune, and smoked weed. My father would have called them a bunch of damned hippies, but I felt right at home, especially with Hart watching over me, reassuring me in that sexy, raspy voice of hers.

We had a serious talk on the way home about our fair city. Hart says there are many secrets our city holds, she also says she is not in a rush to reveal them to me. According to her a city has many names, and these names are always changing. In her circle the city is currently titled the Unfinished City, because of all the construction, the new stadiums, the new skyscrapers being erected in an attempt to reemerge from this dusty cocoon as a Gulf Coast New York. I never noticed but it’s like the city was torn down and is being rebuilt. I am seeing the city with through new eyes, and I am falling in love with its mystique and also with my tour guide.



Chapter Six


Brynn locked up the library grinning in the dark. “It was only a family emergency.”

“I thought you didn’t have any family,” Jimmy asked, he had been grilling her all day.

“I’m not without any family at all,” she told him.

He was not buying it but Fred was waiting impatiently. “You should have family crisis more often, you returned in a real good mood...”

“Goodnight, Jimmy,” she said walking to the Rabbit.

Dismissed he left with Fred she gave him a cheery wave as they sped off.

“Hey.”

Brynn jumped, and whirled, finding herself in Hart’s arms, her eyes shinning in the dark.

“You scared me,” she whispered.

Hart smiled. “You shouldn’t be afraid of the shadows anymore from now on I’m the worst that will be hiding in them.”

Brynn kissed her. “No lucha tonight?”

Hart laughed at her Spanish. “No not tonight just me and my kitten.”

She turned suddenly away from Brynn, a sporty black car swerved into the parking lot and the doors flew open, three women got out of the car.

“Shit,” Hart muttered.

“What is it?” Brynn asked breathlessly.

In the dim, flickering light of the single parking lot lamp, she could see that one was dark brown, she was taller than Hart, and her eyes shone. The second one had midnight blue hair shaped into spiky tufts. The third had hair shaved close, she was the shortest of the group.

Hart took a step forward ready. “Get in the car and get out of here.”

“No,” Brynn said, “I won’t leave you.”

“Well lookie what we got,” the shortest said, “Two for the price of one.”

“Great,” Hart said under her breath, “What the fuck can I help you with Chevelle?” Hart asked the short one as she approached, “And um let me see if I can remember the newbies, O’Riordan and Drexler.”

The three gave dark chuckles. “You and the sweetheart can come along with us.”

“Yeah she came to Ducee’s the other night, flirted, lost bad on a couple of hands, ducked out before she could pay up,” the spiky haired women answered, she had a thick Irish accent and Brynn guessed her to be O’Riordan.

“Whatever it is, I’ll pay,” Hart said sure Lucinda was behind all of this.

“Good,” the one called Chevelle said, “A barrel of Hollering Woman, and twenty thousand bucks.”

“Lucinda,” Hart muttered under her breath.

“What’s Hollering Woman?” Brynn asked, but was ignored.

“And your debt Hart?” Chevelle asked, “We’ve been looking for you too.”

“I don’t owe Ducee shit,” she said.

“You still wear the tatt,” Chevelle said, “You still call on Itzcoatl.”

“Itzcoatl is mine,” Hart told them as they moved in closer.

Chevelle leapt like a cat, Hart met her as she landed with two fists to her chest she stumbled back. O’Riordan, joined in the attack, suddenly revealing two gleaming metal poles the length of her arm, they sliced through the air with such speed they sang. Hart easily dodged one then ducked the other, but Chevelle tripped her to the ground.

Drexler came for Brynn, who screamed and slapped at her.

Hart rolled to her feet and roared, the glow of her wings swept at the darkness, she had removed two long daggers from her boots, and as she flew over her attackers she lashed out at them with the blades.

In her struggle Brynn was able to see the source of the ethereal wings, a great eagle it’s talons on Hart’s shoulders where the tattoos were drawn.

She landed slicing at Brynn’s attacker who fled back towards the black car.

“Whoa so fast to whip him out to impress your new girlfriend,” Chevelle said.

“I’m cut,” Drexler whimpered, “Oh shit, she cut me.”

Brynn clutched at Hart, desperate to look into her eyes, but she would not turn around, would not speak to her like she had at the warehouse.

“Let’s get naked on this bitch,” Drexler said stripping out of her shirt, revealing a glowing pattern across her skin, the other two followed suit and had the same pattern.

Brynn stared until she could make out the lines it was armor, chain links, and breast plates drawn over their legs, arms, stomachs, bellies, backs and breasts.

Hart attacked again, first O’Riordan who deflected her advances then Chevelle who should have been cut except the blades did not release blood, only little showers of dying sparks.

Drexler ended the offense with a kick that handed at Hart’s middle sending her stumbling back. Chevelle followed fists flying, both slamming either side of Hart’s face.

She retreated a bit, her enemies between her and Brynn she ran at them once again then jumped into a spinning kick catching Drexler off guard but not O’Riordan who grabbed Hart’s wrist. They continued the spin trading punches the last sent the Irish woman to the cement.

Chevelle grabbed Brynn around the waist and pushed her inside the Rabbit.

Hart landed on her feet and ran towards the Volkswagen, O’Riordan on her heels, she grabbed her shoulder. Hart landed a punch, the Irishwoman struck back, kneeing her in the stomach, she doubled over and took a forearm to the spine.

The Rabbit started and jumped out of the parking lot with a squeal of rubber.

“Bitch,” Hart rasped, they had gone with her librarian.

Drexler kicked her in the jaw, and the two ran away. Hart picked her self up and watched them jump into the car.

O’Riordan leaned out the passenger window.

“You know where to find us, Pussy.”

. . . .

Brynn’s captor did not seem to want to hurt her she tried to explain to her that she was possessed when her alleged debt was accumulated.

“Who are you anyway?” Brynn asked the naked woman who had taken her captive.

“We’re the Blue Daggers,” Chevelle said their eyes meeting in the rear view mirror.

“You’re warriors,” Brynn said, “Like Hart?”

“No not like Hart,” she said “No one hardly does that medium shit anymore, not since Ducee was coming up, we all got the armor tatt now.”

Brynn got up enough courage to look at Chevelle’s tattoos, the armor that glowed when she fought.

“You like what you see Dulcita?” she asked, “You were all for it the other night.”

Brynn flushed. “That wasn’t me,” she insisted.

“So how did you get hooked up with Hart?” Chevelle asked, “You one of them ghost chasers?”

“No,” she said, “I’m a librarian.”

The Blue Dagger laughed.

“You’re kidding? You really are a stiff, a civilian?” Chevelle asked.

Brynn nodded.

“We know you were possessed that night,” Chevelle said, “Our boss thought it was very amusing, she’s a big Lucinda fan.”

“I was,” Brynn said, “I’m not sure anymore.”

“My girlfriend loves her,” Chevelle said, her voice was airy for a second, wistful, then hardened again, “Ducee our boss, she figured if Lucinda was talking about Woman Hollering then she, you knew who had some and we could go…um, relieve them of it.”

“What is that?” she asked, “Woman Hollering.”

“A Wine of Despair,” Chevelle said, “Our boss is a connoisseur of sorts.”

“What’s Wine of Despair?” Brynn asked.

“Aren’t we curious?” Chevelle asked, “Aren’t you worried about your precious Hart?”

“Hart is going to be fine,” Brynn said “And if you hadn’t run like cowards she would have kicked you asses.”

“Hart and her women,” Chevelle sighed, but went on with her explanation, “Sometimes when things happen…let’s say a child is born, or two people fall in love, or someone dies, special circumstances and certain people produce this life elixir…like if a woman happens to drown herself out of sorrow then you get the Wine of Despair.”

“I’ve never read about any sort of thing,” Brynn said, “I doubt if it can be read about…”

“Right,” she said, “You can read about the Girl Scouts but you can’t read about the Order of the Blue Dagger.”

“Is Hart a Blue Dagger?” Brynn asked, she noticed they were driving out to Calvary, where her father said all the gays lived. The district was marked by a strip of bars and shops called Calvary Street. She and Nat used to frequent a bookstore and café there.

“Hart is top,” Chevelle said nodding her head, “The toughest mother-fucker of all time, she knows the craft, she knows how to fight, she can have ghosts eating out of her hand.”

The car stopped in front of a dark building, a historical one from the 20’s with the behemoth façade in front of cheap brick.

They drove around back, and parked. Not the least bit concerned with being naked in a public place she guided Brynn to the back door and buzzed. Behind them the dark car driven by O’Riordan and Drexler arrived.

The dark door swung open and Chevelle held it for the others. The four of them went inside.

They abandoned Brynn and rummaged a rack of clothing.

“Man, that was my favorite shirt I left back there,” O’Riordan said finding a pair of baggy black jeans and a button-up shirt with flames along the hem.

“Do you have to get undressed at all?” Brynn asked.

“Yes,” they all answered together.

“It’s part of a long tradition,” a door appeared and crammed in it’s frame was an tall overweight woman, she walked forward, an ivory and gold cane at her side, she wore a silk black shirt with matching silk pants. As she neared Brynn saw that she was a handsome woman with sparkling blue eyes and gray hair cut short and combed neatly.

She should have been grotesque, but she moved with the grace of a tidal wave in a Japanese water painting, massive, slowly swooping.

“Brynn Dobhale,” she extended her hand and the librarian took it shyly, the fat woman had the bearing of a queen, and her soft spoken southern accent wreaked gentility.

“I’m Ducee,” she grinned still holding on to the hand, her eyes penetrating Brynn’s, “Hart sure knows how to pick them.”

“That’s what I was saying,” Chevelle said.

“I am sorry to inconvenience you this evening but I have some urgent business to discuss with Hart and well let’s just say it, she’s not the sit down for brandy and cigars type,” Ducee said drawing Brynn away, “I would have never caught up with her if it weren’t for your little adventure.”

She cursed her curiosity but still had so many questions about the Blue Daggers, they seemed to have something more sinister going on than Girl Scouts, more like the organized crime, and if that was true she was about to sit down with the Don.

“Welcome to our little clubhouse,” she said, “Our base of operations since the early thirties when we acquired the building.”

“Base of operations,” Brynn said, “What is it exactly do you do?”

Ducee laughed at the question like a politician. “Well, vice my dear.”

Brynn did not know what to say next as she was led out the sliding door where Ducee had appeared.

“If you’d like, I’ll tell you the old story of how the Blue Daggers came about,” she said, “We’re not just a gang of female street ruffians, though a lot of us like your dear Hart started out as just that.”

Brynn could see that, one gangly, young, Hart, snorting at adult authority, ditching school to break into cars.

Ducee led her into a hallway, dimly lit by brass lamps hanging from the ceiling. The walls were covered in a blue fabric with a fleur de lys pattern set in gold, the floors were a gleaming dark wood.

“Hart,” Brynn said turning to look behind her, she had forgotten she had been taken captive sure she should have been rescued by now.

“She’ll be along soon,” Ducee said, “In the meantime we can keep each other company.”

For the first time in her life Brynn was not sure if she should trust someone, the charming exterior the fat woman put up seemed too obvious like the stone in front of her club.

. . . .

Hart did not like the whole situation one bit. She grumbled to herself as she hot-wired someone’s pick-up truck in the parking lot of a twenty-four hour adult video store.

She was a fool to think she had done her time with the Blue Daggers, they would always come back needing her to fight for them, always after her to repay the debt she earned as Ducee’s second in command, and the honor of wearing the tattoo, knowing what she knew. No matter how many battles she fought they would always be back.

“As long as I wear the blue dagger,” she said to herself.

The truck started.

She sighed and backed out of the parking lot pushing her thoughts away, thinking of Brynn. She hated to see her librarian manhandled by Chevelle Cantu her long time rival. Hart had to go get her out of Ducee’s clutches quickly, anything could happen down in Calvary, the alleged gay district of the city.

Hart despised self pity, but it was a secret sin she attended to every now and them, self loathing always followed up later like a hangover. She desperately wanted to build a life with the cute librarian, and she was sure they could never live in peace as long as she was a Blue Dagger.



Chapter Seven


“A long time ago some settlers floated down the bayou, Sisina (of course it was nameless back then) and discovered this city,” Ducee said as they entered a room off the hallway, they peered into darkness until she flipped a switch.

“That’s the conventional story, few people know that there was preexisting settlement here on the marshy land, a gang of outlaw women from all six flags that flew over this state,” she puffed a little, and seemed to be out of breath, “Now these women were not your typical Wild West outlaws, they were rebels against more than man’s law, they could have cared less about the new politics, their main concern was certain knowledge and of course they would have done anything to protect that knowledge. They called themselves Las Sangrientas. The Bloody Ones.”

The room was paneled with a dark wood, with matching floors covered in Persian rugs. Chairs lined the walls, a lighter shade of wood, tinted red they were high backed with brown leather padding. A long marble table dominated the room, with the same chairs all around. There were two grander chairs at each end of black wood, carved with ravens, those two sat at each end of the table. Brynn guessed that they were for Ducee and her right hand.

“Of course,” Ducee went on, “As soon as those men hopped off their raft it was all over, they were so called law men armed with missionaries to dispatch of any woman who would not give up what they figured was witchcraft,” she shrugged, “These women weren’t going down without a fight, but they were out gunned, out numbered, and there was a massacre right there on the banks of the Sisina.”

“And how did the Blue Daggers come about?” Brynn asked surveying the banners hung throughout the room, rich hues of red, gold, and blue, with the black silhouettes of daggers.

“A young woman named Sisina (and yes the bayou was named for her),” Ducee said and grinned, She was a whore who was not so proud to bow her head to men. She ran a house of ill refute that brought men from all over, she cursed the scholars and dreamers that abandoned the settlement, later in life she fled to a country convent to serve the Christian God taking the knowledge with her. Before that though, Sisina used the monies from her cathouse to fund organized crime in the city- The very first Blue Daggers.”

Ducee motioned to the back wall, there were about ten oil paintings each subject was a woman, each seated on one of the raven chairs, they looked straight ahead out of the painting, a lot of them had swords or guns at their sides or drawn across their laps, two of them had women at their right with a hand on their shoulder, an arm drawn around their necks. One woman had a large dog at her feet.

The first was Sisina, she had long dark hair, her head was turned to the side as if to show off her Roman profile, a rather large protruding nose, there was a sly smile on her face. She was dressed in a clingy white toga, two bandoliers criss-crossing her chest.

There was a painting of Hart at the end, shirtless, her tattoos resplendent. One of her bare feet was propped on a skull, there was an open book on her lap and she looked away in a sexy brood.

“Even though she has not had much to do with us lately, no one has the heart to take it down,” Ducee said, “I could never dishonor all she has done.”

“She’s a legend,” Brynn smiled a little to herself.

Ducee chuckled. “Over the years The Bloody Ones and The Blue Daggers became enemies. Hart led the war against the Bloody Ones, we almost lost all of our holdings,” She looked over at Brynn smiling. “Would you like some wine?”

The librarian nodded and was led back through the original room, down another opulent hall to a room lit by neon piping along the walls, and a mirrored bar. Ducee went to a wall safe and turned the right combination.

“Here,” she said reaching inside and producing a bottle, she handed it to Brynn for safe keeping as she closed the safe.

The librarian inspected the bottle it had no label, just a green bottle with a cork stuck in it. She followed Ducee to the bar and was bid to sit as the big woman poured.

“This wine,” she said, “Sprung up during a Haitian slave rebellion in the islands, just flowed from some plantation owner’s lavish fountain.”

Brynn watched her pour, trying not to make a face of distaste.

“Are all of these mysterious wines so tragic?” she asked.

Ducee laughed and raised her glass in toast, then she swirled it in her glass. Brynn watched waiting until the fat woman drank before she did.

“Lovely,” Ducee said, “This is a wine of rebellion, there is the wine of despair, a wine of destruction, a wine for injustice, a wine of desire, a wine of ecstasy, and many more I have not tried.”

Brynn’s wine was bitter sweet, and instantly went to her head she felt some courage in her heart she was sure had to be false.

“Hmm,” she said after awhile as they drank in silence, “My favorite poet Baudelaire wrote about a solitary’s wine, and a murderers wine, a lover’s wine too.”

Ducee’s eyes brightened. “Aren’t writer’s clever things?”

“‘Even so,’” she quoted, “‘wine pours its gold to frivolous humanity, a shining Pactolus; then through man’s throat of high exploits it sings, and by it’s gifts reigns like authentic kings’.”

“Ducee you old charmer you,” Hart said sauntering into the room, “Not even an hour and you have my girl reciting poetry and drinking wine with you.”

“A beauty,” Ducee said going to meet her, “You should take more care with her.”

“What do you want with me?” Hart asked.

Brynn stood, woozy from the wine went to stand next to her lover, their eyes met and she made sure she communicated that she was not harmed.

“We’ve been having some trouble with some enemies south of the border,” Ducee said, “They’ve challenged us to a tournament, their best fighters against my best fighters.”

“Will there be side bets?” Hart asked.

“No,” Ducee answered walking back towards the bar for her wine, “But each fighter will be making the ultimate gamble-”

“To the death,” Hart said she took Brynn’s hand, “No dice, Ducee.”

“You don’t have a choice in this,” Chevelle said, she had entered with Drexler and O’Riordan.

“I don’t see why the famous brave-Hart has to be talked into this,” the Irish woman said, “Unless you’re cowed at havin’ your life taken.”

Hart grinned, it was the one she wore in battle, the one that made Brynn shiver.

“I don’t take lives anymore,” she told them, “We’ve had this discussion before.”

Chevelle screwed up her face in anger. “You think you’re the only one to ever lose anyone,” she exploded, “We get on with what we do...” she directed her gaze to Brynn, “We find new loves, we don’t cow.”

“I don’t take lives,” Hart insisted.

“You’re a shit, and a jack,” Chevelle continued, “Puta to a fucking ghost.”

Hart let go of Brynn’s hand. “Fuck you, this place would be nothing but ashes for the winos to piss in if it weren’t for me. I don’t owe this organization shit. I walked away with my ghost and the clothes on my back-”

“Enough of this dirt,” Ducee shouted, “You want to talk about debts, when you still wear the dagger, that makes you one of us, until you choose to leave formally.”

There was silence, Brynn looked from Hart’s back and beyond her, Ducee, and then behind where Chevelle and the others waited.

“When do we depart?” Hart asked.

“Next week,” Ducee smiled, “I hope you’re not too much out of shape, I expect to win this.”

“So what’s so important that you’re willing to send Blue Daggers to their death?” Hart asked.

Ducee was finishing her wine she put her glass on the bar and said: “A girl.”

“A girl?” Hart asked in disbelief.

“A young bruja, a genius in the craft,” Ducee said, “She has written a tarot that is more than accurate, she wants to become a Blue Dagger, but she comes from a powerful family an old line of brujeria to whom she is most valuable.”

“The Calaveras,” Hart grunted, “Fine.”

She turned and took Brynn’s hand she would not look the librarian in the eyes. She led them out back to the parking lot and the Rabbit. Brynn drove them to her place in silence, led them into her little house, where Hart collapsed defeated on the first seat she came upon.

“I’m sorry,” Brynn said kneeling in front of her, “If I had never gone to Bloodsport-”

“They would have found me anyway,” Hart said, she sighed and looked up finally into Brynn’s eyes, “No matter what I’ll always be a Blue Dagger, Gatita, they’re killers, thieves…and so am I.”

“No,” Brynn said, “You’re not.”

“I’m going to Mexico to kill people,” Hart stood slowly, “I have to prepare or else I’ll be killed.”

“Why do you have to go do anything?” Brynn asked, “You could quit the Blue Daggers.”

“No one has ever quit,” Hart said, she shook her head, and there were tears in her eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Brynn said stepping closer.

“You have to fucking understand,” Hart exploded, she pulled her shirt over her head and showed the dagger on the outer shoulder of her right arm, “In order for me to formally leave as Ducee put it is for us all to get drunk and for me to let them tear it off with their bare hands.”

Brynn felt a sob hitch in her throat. “That’s,” she swallowed, “That’s just-”

“Savage?” Hart asked, “Barbaric? Welcome to my world, Gatita.”

Brynn hugged her then, held her.

“I told you, I’m all wrong for you,” Hart sagged, rested her head on her shoulder, “I should have never kissed you.”

“I don’t care,” Brynn said kissing her neck, “You’re not alone in this I’ll quit the library if I have to, but I’m going to Mexico-”

Hart pulled away from her quickly wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands.

“You can’t come,” she said, “That’s one thing I can’t allow you to do.”

“We’re in this together,” Brynn said, “I can be as brave as you, we’ll go in there together, shoulder to shoulder.”

Hart walked away from her.

“I’ll come anyway,” Brynn said.

“There’s a chance you might see me killed,” Hart said, “Do you think you can handle that?”

The librarian made no answer, and the Stranger turned to see tears escaping her eyes. She tried to stand firm, so Brynn would understand that Bloodsport was not a game, it wasn’t staged and choreographed, or pretend punches like the wrestlers on television.

Hart’s resolve crumbled, she took Brynn in her arms.

“We don’t have to talk about it right now,” she told her, “We can enjoy our week together.”

She kissed her, they clutched each other with a new fervor, Brynn’s hands exploring the remarkably smooth skin at Hart’s back, the muscles liquid under her fingers. The Stranger unbuttoned Brynn’s shirt and gently kissed the tops of her breasts as she reached behind her and unclasped her bra.

“I need you tonight,” Hart whispered, “Are you sure you’re in there.”

Brynn smiled. “I am.”

She led the way to her bedroom. They backed towards the bed, their hands tugging at clothes, lips roaming each other’s faces and necks, their eyes shut in a blind tango, orchestrated in time to the song of moans in their throats.

Brynn fell to the bed first she giggled a little, peeled off her shirt, pulled off her slacks and let them drop to the floor. Hart watched her strip, grinned as she leaned forward and unbuttoned her pants, pushed them to the floor.

She kicked out of her shoes, stripped off her t-shirt then joined Brynn on the bed, facing each other, kissing, touching. Hart lay down, pulling Brynn on top of her. Their hips moved together as if magnetized. They parted their legs and began a slow grind, relishing the growing heat that was being generated between them.

Brynn moaned, her eyes closed because she was a little frightened of what she would see.

“Hey,” Hart said.

She opened her eyes and stared into the blue-gray of Hart’s burning gaze, on other occasions she felt as if she would be burned alive by the Stranger’s desire.

Hart turned them over, their eyes still locked in a consuming stare.

“You still scared of me?” she asked.

“No,” Brynn said.

“It’s what we’re doing here that scares you then?” she asked, “Has it been so long?”

“It has,” Brynn said.

Hart kissed her breasts, her lips moving lower until their gaze was broken she kissed the length of her body, then returned.

Brynn kissed her she gave the most luscious kisses, like the ripest sweetest fruit, letting Hart know what she wanted.

They lay side by side facing each other, kissing until Hart turned them over and she was above Brynn kissing her throat, between her breasts before sampling the area around her contracting nipples with quick slashes over her tongue.

Hart’s eyes shone on her, watching her reaction as she sucked her nipples, occasionally breaking to kiss the rest of her breasts. Brynn moaned and hissed in air.
Hart traveled back to her lips, and Brynn tangled her hands in her hair, began to kiss her throat, bruising her skin, biting her.

“Goddamn you,” Hart hissed, she did not exactly dislike the hickies, they just reminded her a bit of the aftermath a fight had on her face.

Brynn grinned and turned over, Hart straddled her thighs just below her ass, leaned forward and rubbed her palms along the curves of her back, then bent and traced the same path kissing her ass, running her tongue in one long swoop to the nape of her neck.

Hart, licked and caressed and kissed until she felt her own desire hot, wet, and heavy just below her belly, down between her legs. She parted them, leaned forward, straddling Brynn’s ass. She pressed her weight on her lover’s back, and with a few rough pumps of her hips her clit was rubbing against the soft velvet skin between the small of Brynn’s back and the divide of her buttocks.

They both shuddered.

Hart kissed the back of her neck, slowed her hips, glided against her, silent at first listening to the rustle of the sheets, the whisper of their skin, a long moan from Brynn, the rush of her own breath.

Her climax claimed her slowly, throbbed out a pulse of pleasure throughout her body. The steady rocking of her hips became erratic bucking she pressed closer burying her face in Brynn’s neck.

Their bodies shifted to a new position, she pulled Hart on top of her, opened her legs to receive her, they moved into each other, their heat mingling, burning hotter with every hissing orgasm from steam to vapor.

Slowly their desire consumed itself, leaving them transformed, and exhausted like piles of ashes.



Chapter Eight


“We should do something fun,” Hart suggested over their breakfast of juice and toast.

Brynn laughed. “You mean something more fun than last night.”

“You wish,” Hart said, there was actually some redness in her cheeks, the Stranger sat at her kitchen table in front of a window and the sun shone strong , lit up the back of her head, her hair was tousled and looked a little brown. Brynn decided she would follow her anywhere.

“How about the shore?” Hart asked brightly.

“It’s January,” Brynn reminded her.

“Well what else does our dynamic Unfinished City have to offer?” she asked, “The theater? The Aquarium?…oh wait they’re not finished building it yet.”

Brynn laughed.

Hart frowned a bit, it was strange being in this house, pictures of Brynn’s dead parents (her mother was conventionally pretty with honey colored skin), even a picture of the infamous Natalie looking all stiff and shit in a black turtleneck.

“Too bad for you,” Hart thought at that particular picture, but then she could not help wondering what kind of life Brynn would have with her Natalie. They would probably have it all by now, and jacks like Hart would be totally locked out.

“I like to go down to the Gulf,” she said, “It’s empty in the winter, we’ll catch a boat.”

“That sounds fine,” Brynn got up and began to clear the table, “Then I want you to show me how it is you do what you do.”

“Fine,” Hart said watching her tidy the kitchen sure she was thinking of Mexico. A few weeks ago she would have been fine going, not sure if she would live or die, most likely she would have been hoping for death. Now that she had Brynn in her life, she was reluctant she hoped that would not slow her down when it came time to take a life.

. . . .

Brynn felt like a ghost at her side, watching Hart watch the sea, not seeming to mind the chilly wind. They sat on a famous rocky outcropping, abandoned because of the season. Cold mist sprayed them, and Brynn sat close to Hart, to keep warm, to let her know she was there, that she could be of some comfort, not a hindrance. She could go bravely into battle and Hart would not have to worry about her being possessed or trampled by some obscenely huge creature.

They had a late lunch at some sandwich shop, spicy shrimp poboys. They drank bottomless cups of coffee while Hart told her of how she left her small town, against her father’s wishes and the plans for his mushroom farm to venture into the Unfinished City.

“My mom had taught me a few things about The Craft,” Hart said, “And I was always a tough little broad. I was so green, but Ducee found me, she was a real live Blue Dagger and I supposed I was too.”

The shop was empty save the Vietnamese man behind the counter he kept the filmy glass door propped open with a huge chunk of cement, beyond was the street, and beyond was the beach, and the rushing Gulf.

“You wouldn’t believe my description of Ducee back then,” Hart laughed shaking her head, “But she was well on her way to being top, and the creeper who was over the Blue Daggers (well she wasn’t so old but to us she was) Mago, she didn’t like the idea of being usurped. So she sent Ducee to do some tasks, crazy shit, dangerous shit, but she did each one, and she let me come along.”

“So you two were close,” Brynn said.

“We weren’t lovers,” Hart said, “Ducee likes girls with curves, nice butts like you, Gatita, I was a rail. So then I got into some trouble with the cops of all things, I had this trick where I could will people not to see me, I was breaking into houses and that went bad.”

Brynn laughed. “You were such a little punk.”

“I was on a certain path,” Hart said, “I should have listened to my folks, I could have ended up a more powerful witch than my mother or-”

“A magic mushroom farmer,” Brynn said, “For some reason I don’t see either.”

Hart sighed. “I had many chances and that was the first, the folks came to town, got me out of jail, but I ditched them, went back to Calvary where I stumbled onto this battle between Ducee and Mago who was like the tiniest thing but she had this sword, no one knew where she got it, some kind of magic. She was certainly kicking Ducee’s ass, she was about to kill her too, but something happened…that sword of hers flew right out of her hand and clattered at my feet.”

Hart shifted and sat up, taking a sip from her coffee, as she told her story she seemed to grow haunted, her blue gray eyes staring away into the past, shadowed.
“Ducee killed her then,” she said, “I snatched the sword and left, never told anyone I had it until I acquired Itzcoatl, of course then I was damned near invincible, I probably would have taken Ducee’s place by now.”

“So why’d you leave?” Brynn asked.

“I got tired,” Hart said, “After the big war with the Bloody Ones…guess I wasn’t so tough after all.”

Brynn smiled. “I think that makes you very tough.”

Hart grinned. “I don’t know, I’ve always had a soft spot for sweet girls, not those Blue Dagger types, I just thought it was my nature wanting to seek out things to steal, plunder, I resisted the urge, maybe it was because I was scared.”

“Of a different life?” Brynn asked sliding her hand across the table for her.

“Of a different life,” Hart agreed taking it, bowing her head to kiss it tenderly, her eyes never leaving Brynn’s.

Several hours later they sat cross-legged in the middle of Hart’s living room, so close their knees touched. Brynn was anxious to see the short sword resting on Hart’s lap in a red silk bag. Hart was reluctant to remove it, to hold in front of her, but still as anxious she, as if she wanted to see it in Brynn’s hands.

The librarian gasped when she saw it.

“It’s very old,” she said reaching out, recognizing the figures and designs to be medieval. The hilt and scabbard were gray iron, carved with stylized roses at the pommel one being a red jewel beneath, on the handle of the hilt were three nude women holding hands, at their feet, the top of the hilt before the blade was a haloed woman doing battle with a large bird.

Brynn bent her head to inspect the scene since Hart’s hands were wrapped around the scabbard. She passed her fingers over the women and the roses. Her eyes perused lower finding Hart’s fingers.

Brynn looked up and saw that she was troubled, she touched her face.

“It’s ok, Hart,” she told her and the pale fingers moved to the hilt.

The scene revealed on the scabbard seemed to be a struggle, a battle; the figures were lean, their faces without much detail. There were women, some in Elizabethan dresses, some in the full armor of the time their breasts poking right through, on the other end some had skeleton faces one of these carried a sickle, another an hour glass.

Both seemed to be fighting over a woman, two of the skeleton women had her by the arm and shoulder, the Elizabethans had one arm.

“Amazing,” Brynn said, looking up at Hart, she gave the scabbard a tug the blade came free with a pleasant scrape of metal.

The blade gleamed razor sharp.

“I had it replaced,” Hart mentioned, “I buried the old one at my mother’s.”

“And you’ve killed with this?” Brynn asked.

Hart was startled by the question, and could only nod.

“I saw your picture on the Blue Dagger wall of fame,” Brynn said, “You had a book on your lap, and you were barefoot, it seems like you’ll be remembered in a different way.”

Hart tossed her head she retrieved the scabbard and sheathed her sword.

“One of the lost values of the Order of the Blue Dagger was knowledge, I rediscovered that, or else they would be just a regular bunch of drug pushers and bullies, I found out about the tattoo armor, and those elixirs of life, those wines Ducee loves so much.”

There were tears coming in her eyes and she blinked at them. “Damn,” Hart said, “I’m becoming a regular cry baby.”

Brynn bent to kiss her. “It’s ok to cry, it heals.”

“I got hold of a wine that bubbled up after a serial killer’s execution,” Hart told her, “I drank it and went into what we call in this business a rage. I killed a good number of the Las Sangrientas, in one night I visited their homes, murdered their families, their lovers, anyone who got in my way.”

“Oh, Hart,” Brynn drew away a little, and Hart jerked as if wounded by the gesture then stood carefully leaving her sitting there on the carpet.

The librarian stood and followed, wrapping her arms around Hart’s waist.

“So that’s why you quit the Blue Daggers?” Brynn asked.

Hart sighed. “No, I was still on top of the fucking world, mad with power, but it caught up with me soon, real soon.”

“I don’t see you as that person,” Brynn told her, “I never could.”

“I’m afraid you will,” Hart said, “One of these days.”

. . . .

Jimmy followed her anxiously through the aisles of books in the circulation room, after she had blurted the big news at the front desk, the chilly January weekday brought no students of other patrons.

“You’re leaving?” he asked.

Brynn nodded.

“What will you do?” he asked.

“My parents left some money, it will tide me over until I find something to do with myself,” Brynn told him, she turned to see the worry on his face and hugged him.

“You’ve been a good friend to me, Jimmy,” she said.

He stepped back a little weepy, but smiling anyway. “There’s something different about you,” he said, “Does this have anything to do with a certain tattooed patron.”

“It might,” she said slyly.

He shook his head, and took her hands. “I knew it. You’re in love…What now?”

“We’re going to Mexico, she has work there,” Brynn told him.

“Work?” he asked, “Freddy’s brother went to the border to do some work, now he’s doing six to ten in the state pen.”

Brynn chuckled. “It’s not that kind of work…its very unique.”

“Oh God it’s a cult,” Jimmy gasped.

“It’s not a cult,” she reassured him, “She’s going to fight in a tournament, I don’t know how official it is, or if it’s legal. I just know that I’m going along.”

He gave her a matronly smile. “I never thought you’d get tired of this place, slaving for this damned city and their damned people ungrateful for the care you put in.”

She smiled back and hugged him. “I probably never would have if it weren’t for Hart.”

He laughed. “The mystery woman has a name. I’m happy for you.”

They both paused to wipe at their eyes with their hands.

“I’m going to recommend you take my place,” she said.

“Like that would happen,” he rolled his eyes.

“It will,” she said, “Maybe there are more adventures to come through those doors.”

He turned as a group of kids the first of the after school rush walked entered the library.

“A bunch of punk kids,” he rolled his eyes, “Just my luck.”

He left to assist them, make his presence known so they would be sure they were being supervised. Brynn sighed and shuffled some books around. She would miss the circulation room, it smelled like coffee and paste, never quite heated up in the winter, or cooled off in the summer, but it was her throne room and beyond was her little kingdom of books.

“If you think this place is so great-”

Brynn turned sure the voice had come from her left side, but there was no one.

“-you should come check out my library,”

She knew it was Lucinda and panicked, picked up the phone to call Hart.

“Don’t be afraid,” the ghost in her head said impatiently, “I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

“What are you still doing here?” Brynn asked her.

“I’ve come to bury the hatchet,” Lucinda sang, it was a lyric from one of her songs. Brynn realized she was not actually hearing her voice, only what seemed to be her recollection as if Lucinda was transmitting from somewhere deep in her head, like when she played the singer’s music in her head so she could hum along.

She reached for the phone again, she did not want the dead rock star in her head at all, and wondered how she had outsmarted the witches.

“Rayna couldn’t tell her own ass from a hole in the ground,” Lucinda said, “Brown magic,” she scoffed.

“That’s magic that supposedly lays dormant in the earth,” the ghost explained, “From trees and shit that grows. Damned Hippies.”

“And what are you into Black magic?” Brynn asked and began dialing Hart.

“There is not such thing,” Lucinda said, “Hang up the phone and I’ll tell you why.”

Brynn hung up the phone hastily. “Why?”

“These are things you have to know,” Lucinda said, “There is not black magic only Anti-magic, the great nothingness, the opposite of magic, the opposite of life.”

“Death?” Brynn asked.

“If you’re foolish enough to go along with death,” Lucinda told her, “That’s why we’re fed so much religious garbage so we can be tricked into going willingly so there will continue to be Anti magic.”

The dead rock star laughed because Brynn was intrigued. “I’ve been looking for a disciple and I like you a whole lot, you’re cute as a button and smart.”

“Not interested,” she said trying to sound like Hart she picked up the phone again.

“Let me show you my library, there aren’t many books as this place,” there was disdain in her voice, “But its quantity not quality.”

“I should tell Hart,” Brynn said one again retrieving the receiver and dialing.

“Oh fine then,” Lucinda pouted, “Just so I can prove I’ve nothing up my sleeve, so to speak.”

Brynn gave a little shriek when Hart answered, startling her Stranger.

“You’ll never guess who just paid me a visit.”

. . . .

Hart did not trust Lucinda Harris but she could not talk Brynn out of wanting to go explore this secret library. So she called her mother.

Rayna was flustered that the ghost was still in Brynn’s head, and wanted to see her right away, but she too was curious of what secrets there were to be found.

“Lucinda was a pest, not diabolical, she had the money so she probably stumbled upon some goodies,” Rayna told her daughter, “Everyone was talking about it back then, it’s definitely worth checking out.”

“I just don’t want to go poking my head in holes and getting it bitten off,” Hart explained, “And I don’t want Brynn getting hurt.”

“Not with her Hart to protect her,” Rayna giggled over the phone, Martín mumbled a comment and she told him to shut up.

“Ok, I’m going to meet her,” Hart told her mother and hung up the phone she left her apartment, and began her walk to the library.

There was a part of her that enjoyed satisfying her gatita’s curiosity about the unseen world unfolding all the layers. In a way Hart was also too curious for her own good. Still she did not want to get them involved in anything over their heads there were lots of secrets hidden in the Unfinished City, which she in the boldness of her youth had been frightened away from by myths alone.

Brynn was waiting outside the Avalon Wood branch with Jimmy, and they had to meet, shake hands and the like.

Hart tried to be civil, she didn’t smile though Brynn was cueing her to do so. She just was not the smiley type. After ages Jimmy left and she was alone with her Gatita.

“We’re going to have to work on your social skills,” she told her.

“Sure,” Hart purred and kissed her.

“Lucinda’s here,” she said.

Hart sagged against her. “Hello Lucinda.”

“She says we don’t have time for this,” Brynn said.

“Whatever you like Gatita,” Hart agreed, “The sooner we get a look at this library the sooner we get you to my mother so we can get rid of Lucinda once and for all, the sooner we can get to bed.”

Brynn grinned then winced. “She’s giving me such a headache I never would have guess she was so negative.”

Hart drove according to Lucinda’s directions they went deep into the Unfinished City, near the old mission the first signs of civilization brought to the city.

“This is it she says,” Brynn shouted as they cruised down a one way street of abandoned crumbling buildings, loitering homeless people lined either side of the gutters
“Bleeding Heart?” she asked, “This is where homeless people come to get a free meal.”

“It’s around back she says,” Brynn said.

She drove around back to find a tiny cemetery of about five graves on stone angel, and a little stone mausoleum, the fence around the lot had rusted and fallen, ivy covered everything.

“It’s Underground,” Brynn said.

“Underground?” Hart asked, “As in a basement? This far south?”

Brynn winced.

“What is it?” Hart asked losing her patience.

“She says shut up,” Brynn said, “So she…I can explain.”

Hart narrowed her eyes, grabbed her librarian’s face in her hands inspected her eyes.

“It’s in the disguise of the mausoleum,” Brynn told her, “For some nun.”

“Are you in pain?” Hart asked.

“I’m fine-,” Brynn said, “Just a little headache.”

Hart let go of her. “Conjure pain, what real life mediums get until they get better acquainted with their ghosts.” She was impressed but not amused. “We’re leaving.”

“Please,” Brynn touched her hand, “There has to be a reason Lucinda is showing me this-”

“Yeah there is a reason, she wants you to host her,” Hart said, “No dice.”

They drove away from the little cemetery.

“This isn’t fair,” Brynn said, “We’ve cheated her.”

“Shit,” Hart punched the steering wheel, the car bleated like a startled animal, “I didn’t want this for you Gatita, having a ghost in your head is just not cool.”
“So why do you have one?” she asked, her eyes shimmering in the city lights.

“Because I just-” she sighed, “It’s something I got into I’m not saying it’s the worst thing that ever happened to me but it ranks right up there.”

Brynn turned in her seat to look behind them. “So you’re just going to drive away.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” Hart told her, “And I don’t want you snooping around that place…And Lucinda you’re going back to wherever you came from.”

Brynn straightened suddenly, cocked her head.

“She’s gone.”

“Fuck,” Hart punched the wheel again she turned the car around just as they were going to enter one of the freeways that led out of town. Several other cars squealed and honked as they passed.

“I need you to listen to me carefully,” Hart said she looked at her to make sure, Brynn gave a quick nod.

“We’re going to get you a tattoo, one that will keep Lucinda out for good,” she told her.

Brynn raised her eyebrows. “Who says I want a tattoo?”

The Stranger reeled in her anger. “So what you want to be a medium? You want to go through the training necessary to keep a ghost under control? You want to share your life with a ghost?”

“Ok,” Brynn raised her palms, “I don’t want that. I’ll get the tattoo.”

“Fine,” Hart said, “Man, I don’t need this shit you’re going to give me a stroke.”

Brynn smiled a little, her hand sneaking through the dark car to join hers on the gear shift.

. . . .

Imelda did all the tattoos for the Blue Daggers she was a copper skinned woman with a generous face, her hair twisted in to dread locks. She had her own private quarters in the building off Calvary where she worked ink into Blue Dagger skin, the marks of their order, the protective magic like the armor, and any whims of the gang, tattoos were in such high fashion.

They sat in her waiting area while she puffed an intricate glass bong shaped like a coiled dragon and discussed what Hart called their options.

“She’s not a warrior,” she told Imelda, “But I need to find a loop hole to sneak her in.”

“I can’t think of nothing,” she said after exhaling pungent misty smoke, “Except the spousal package.”

Brynn’s eyes widened a bit and she looked to Hart who blushed a little.

“Fuck that,” Hart said, “She’s not a Blue Dagger wife, she never will be.”

“And she’s a total stiff?” Imelda asked somewhat amazed, “No kind of…anything?”

“Nothing,” she admitted, some what tired she yawned.

“I’m full of Blue magic,” Hart said, “Maybe you can work some of that into her.”

“I don’t get you,” Imelda took a toke then exhaled, “You denounce the gang in front of every body, then you come here asking for Blue Dagger services.”

Hart lifted her chin. “Whatever you do I’ll earn it next week.”

Imelda laughed. “You’re some piece of work, but hey if you got magic to spare then I got the time.”

“You always got the time,” Hart reached out her hand and they slapped hands, shook, then stood.

“You ready, Gatita?” she asked.

Brynn stood her eyes revealed her anxiety, Hart stooped a bit and kissed her.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Imelda is going to transfer some of my Blue magic to you, this way you’ll always be under my protection,” Hart told her.

“Will this harm you in any way?” Brynn asked, “The tournament.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said taking her hand, “I’m not. Anyway it will give me some peace of mind to know you’re safe.”

“Will it hurt much?” she asked as Hart drew her to the back through a heavy beaded curtain.

The room on the other side was bright white with a clinical looking cot in the center the head had a hole for holding faces during the occasion of back tattoos.

“Take off your shirt and lay on your stomach,” Imelda told her.

“Don’t I get to choose a design or something?” Brynn asked looking to Hart nervously.

The other two women laughed.

“That’s part of the magic, Gatita,” Hart said removing her own shirt, and sitting cross legged on a chair next to the cot, “The design will reveal itself to Imelda.”

“Ok,” Brynn said, she removed her shirt and lay on the cot, preferring to rest on her elbows.

“This going to have to go on the back of her neck,” Imelda said decisively gently pushing Brynn’s head forward exposing her nape, her touch was whispery dry, clinical like a doctor’s as she moved her fingers along her spine a few inches above her shoulder blades.

“Here,” she said.

“Keep your head down,” Hart told her as Imelda began to burn some incense that smelled suspiciously like the smoke that rose form her pipe earlier.

“Breathe deep,” Hart said touching Brynn’s shoulder, “That’s it.”

She inhaled and exhaled as she was instructed and was soon in a near doze. The mechanical whir of Imelda’s needle was pleasant to her until the minute pricks. She gasped and felt Hart’s hand on her face.

She heard Lucinda’s voice somewhere among the pain, her pouting now a panic, then devastation as she was pricked away.

“Just don’t forget about the library…it’s yours I guess, you stole it fair and square.”

If you have enjoyed Cornwel's "Tales Of A Librarian", then please be certain to e-mail her at  cornwel[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

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