LI. Herr God. Herr Lucifer.

3

Robin

Remains of Havana, Cuba

Abandoned Prince Manor 

Territory: Pinochetʼs

June 29th, 2004

Time: 12:00 AM 

_____________________________

Havana was a sandstorm of gold dust and gold decay as Gustavo slept. In a city where the blood on the streets was a coagulated, congealed hue of a gilded sun – a promise of Spainʼs dilapidated power, of a dying Cuban reconquest, of the peopleʼs plea for Reina Santiago to stop ruining the streets in the name of revenge – deathʼs hand was not merciful. Havana was a capital of cocaine dreams and gasoline needs, and with the recession and Reina Santiagoʼs blood-bath, no one was safe. Not even the Wolves that slaughtered children in her name. But in a way, they were all animals – feasting on the bones and the breasts of any living creature they could find, plundering and pillaging any dying manʼs supplies before his dying breath. Havana was a city of monsters trapped in the Sahara desert of destruction, and Robin entered the belly of the beast one last time at the thought.

Inside the abandoned manor, Robin soaked in the Gothic cathedralʼs once brilliant architecture: with its skeletal stone ribs composed of pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and buttresses stacked a mile high. She sat on the cupola with a bottle of Cuban rum in her hands, her body cushioned by the crumbling pieces of marble and her mouth cushioned by the rumʼs exotic spices and taste of burnt, nutty caramel. Not facing the sun, but the darkness: the silhouettes of shattered stained windows, the ominous history of the once glorious Prince empire in the Caribbean. It was cold with opulence, the manor, meant to intimidate in every facet, and Robin hid in the shadows. The wind bit her v*rgin white dress as some of the skirts cascaded towards the floor, and as she stared into the hellish darkness, she heard the rustling of footsteps. A scent that only she could identify, a hunger that she craved to satisfy. A longing like no other. The eveningʼs transcendent moon was lovely, but her children were lovelier.

Staring at her Colombian lover once more, the fabled Medellín financier and cousin of Pablo Escobar, Gustavo Escobar, she planted a kiss on his lips as her br*astsfilled his hands. His hands moved with a pianistʼs grace, and every-time, she found herself making the sounds he wanted. Biting her lips, she chuckled into his mouth.

"Mis bebes estan aqui," she whispered, lips brushing against his mustache and nose. His lips pursed together softly, stirring under the bed, kissing her once more into a smile.

"Estoy aquí, amor," he whispered back, snaking one last, sweet kiss to her forehead.

And with that, she raced downstairs. When she approached, there was a rapping; so gentle, so tenure, and so eerily haunting in the dead night. Skirting along the foyer, which was all trussed up in tangled, carnivorous vines and dirt, decay, rot, she broke into tears – dirty tears, sandy tears, golden tears – and rushed to meet her babies. Prying open the door, Robin watched as her identical twins, Lynx and Louise, rush into her arms, her two year old babies with curly locks the color of flames and her dark, doe-like eyes of mocha wide with excitement. They were all deathly skinny, her babies, shaking in their skins as they hugged her – but Robin vowed to keep them warm. To keep them safe.

"Mami está aquí, mis bebés," she whispered in teary Spanish, kissing their heads, their cheeks, their lips, their foreheads.

"I will never leave you again. Never, my loves."

She turned towards Wil, and he looked just as terrible as the rest of them did. The scent of Mojitos and the cheap fumes of cigarette smoke was familiar poison, but when she saw him, he looked like a corpse. His ribs clung to his stomach, and his skin was gray with soot and malnourishment. Smiling at him, Robin let out a few more flushed tears and sniffled.

"I can never repay you for this, Wil," she told him, firm and emotional.

"Seeing you with your kids is payment enough...after two years on the run," he replied.

Robin embraced him and her twins once more. As she crouched down, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gustavo staring down at them. His dark eyes filled up, like a hawkʼs sizing up its prey, and Robinʼs mirrored his. A ferocity; he was not her lover in that moment, he was something...else.

"Come, sit," Robin murmured, switching to English. 

A few cups of coffee later, after ushering her twins and Wil into the decrepit dining all, Robin sighed, the smell of burnt chicory inescapable, and the ashtray collection coating her lungs in soot.

"Why did the police think you killed all those people?" Wil asked, cutting to the chase.

Robin shrugged.

"I shared a cell with Reina in Mazzora. We had the same...eyes, hair. She lost her son, same as me. It was a reasonable mistake," she murmured.

Wil nodded.

"But Robin...the police here are corrupt. They find someone to take the fall, they will nail them into any coffin they want. Howʼd you get out?"

Robin stared at Gustavo once more, her eyes never once leaving his. Growling in anger, Gustavoʼs jealously flared like a thousand beams of light, and he stomped back into his room.

"Wil es una viejo amigo, mi amor," she yelled. "No sabe nada de nuestros secretos...and, he is gay."

Robin sighed, smoking against the pastel walls.

"How does a boy from Scotland find himself in Cienfuegos, Guantánamo, and Havana?" she asked simply. "I was tortured in Mazorra for years. You worked there for years. I never understood this."

She handed the cigarette to Wil, and together, they drowned, the sights of Lynx and Louise drifting into the night in their quiet sleep, fading.

"I told you, it was like a whisper, she called me. Called to me; told me to come to you. The voice in my head."

Silence.

"Right. The voice in your head."

More silence.

"Robin," Wil said, with broken breath, broken words. "Why did you return to Havana? Why did the police think you killed all those people?"

"I told you, Reina wanted to settle an old score. I went back because I did too."

"And now...what? Cuba has fallen."

"Come," she said simply.  

The walls still whispered, the cracks of the debris like crunching teeth, pulling them into the mouth of the monsters. The lights of the fire were blinding, and Robin trailed up the stairs of the abandoned manor with the poise of a bride. Havana was still the slicing sand-storm of gold dust and gold decay, and when Robin guided Wil to her cupola, Wil saw a slew of skinwalkers – bodies of wolves with thin husks, rib-cages clinging to their feeble skin, and bottles of white pills with Cuban rum that craved bloodʼs taste. Like angels on fire, these white corpses all resembled two Latin men – Gustavo, whom Wil met, with his sharp, angry eyes sinking into his hollowing skull, and Oro, for whom Wil had not met, with his golden locks reduced to maggot meat. Wil watched with horror, his stomach convulsing, his throat suffocating him in panic.

"Wh–"

"Gustavo and Oro...wel, copies of them. I was practicing," Robin murmured, closing the door behind them.

"Robin, the amount of bodies here are damn near double the amounts in Havana. This is a massacre. Chr*st."

"This is the new world order," Robin said, voice hardening, watching the poison of the pills and the blood of the Cuban rum swallow the skinwalkersʼ vocal cords, making them swallow and spasm violently. She choked on their cries first, and then the cigarette smoke, and then her own.

"Wil, I wasnʼt locked up in Mazorra for stealing a loaf of bread from Old Jimena."

"Then why?" Wil shouted. "All this violence? Anger? Why arenʼt you finished? Havenʼt we been through enough?"

Robin swallowed, hard.

"Before Lynx and Louise, I had a son in Mazorra. A son made from God," Robin whispered. "Two skinwalkers, Gustavo and Oro, before leaving the hospital to start a bootleg weed business, took checks from a woman, Desdemona, who wanted this baby. Wanted the power of God in her hands. First, she sent Lyman Bycroft, to drink his blood in. To make me suffer. But he wanted to fuck me, use my body to find God, so he did that. Gustavo and Oro didnʼt want to get their hands dirty, and upon realizing that Lyman failed, sent Jorge Cortez. Jorge was a guard who liked babies. He did things to them. To their bodies, to satisfy his hunger, to find God in his own way. The blood poured, Jorge smashed his brains in, and I watched his brain stick to the wall. Desdemona went on to become the most powerful woman in the world, running the world through an organization called The Order of the Dragon, and Gustavo and Oro went on become to be the most powerful kingpins in the world. They played God."

The sour breath of the corpses melted into the cigarette, and like Lady Lazarus, Robin looked towards the moon, towards the ghosts of the Cuban moon, watching the grave of the Prince manor come together in the form of these corpses, eating at the floor. Unwrapping their hands and feet, stripping them down to skin and bone, Robin watch them die. Die, like hope, like her dreams. Nothingness was the new normal. Robin ate men like air, out of ash, and Wil knew now why she came back to Havana.

"And now itʼs your turn," Wil whispered back.  

"Now itʼs my turn," Robin murmured.

"Robin..." Wil sobbed, as Robin held his hands in hers. 

"I secured a contract for the both of us in Bogotá. It is with a group called The Hellbenders, theyʼre a group of mercenaries that wants to bring the Order to its knees. To stop the enslavement of humanity. Of our kind."

Robin paused.

"Wil, Iʼve never asked you for anything. Every hunt, every fight, from money laundering in Havana, to the Black Dahlia killings in Britain...Iʼve never abandoned you. Iʼve never asked for anything. Even with two mouths to feed, even when your brother died, I never went against you. I always held your confidence, and I always made sure you made it out without a drop of blood on your hands. But this contract will be different for us. A roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and a chance at a future. At justice. Iʼm begging you, as your friend, to save yourself and to make a hell of a lot of money doing it. Please, Wil, donʼt leave me alone in this."

The corpses were whispering; their vomit, spit, and blood all choking them, but they whispering. Of horror, of plague, of famine, of death.

Herr God, they seemed to say. Herr Lucifer.

"Whatʼs the job in Bogotá?" Wil asked, swallowing hard.

"Cuba has fallen. Pinochet is Simón Bolívar reborn. When Havana fell, while you were on the run, Pinochet rose from the dead, and Midas rose from the dead, forming the faction of the Two Kings in Brazil, Cuba, and Chile. The Order of the Dragonʼs Arme – its police – invested in Pinochet and Midasʼ dream of a communist Chile, Cuba, and Brazil, for one reason: the promise of El Dorado, the Golden City, and the Orderʼs next cash cow. Every Hellbender is tracking them, and I have mine. Through the narcos."

Herr God. Herr Lucifer.

"So whatʼs my place in this, Robin?" Wil asked.  "The end-game here, Robs? Your son is dead, and there are...higher powers at play here who, from what I understand, wouldn't hesitate to finish the job. This isnʼt a bloody hit-and-run job for a bit oʼ paper and booze. They will come for you."

Herr God. Herr Lucifer.

"Thereʼs a strange man in Kingston that I want you to find; they call him the Ifrit from Versailles. As for me...let them come. Iʼm going to do what I shouldʼve done in Mazorra."

"And what is that?"

Robin craned her heads towards the corpses, consumed by her hate.

"Iʼm going to kill them all."

Beware.