Pretty In Pink

"Pretty In Pink” - A Kannon Falls Tale

“It’s Friday, and I’m in love.” Mojave, twenty minutes before the worst day of his life.

Mojave lay dead, dreaming.

Like all his kind he didn’t dream as a normal dream, it was memories. Ideas and games of ‘what if’.  In this dream he could smell the fresh air coming in from the cracks and breaks of the farm house. Rebel Yell dancing around and his other children playing guitar to the local radio. Then, only fire and the birth of a near endless rage.

“Wake up Suck-head.” Came the harsh and overly angry voice of a young man. It cut through the fog of the remembrance and brought him fully into the waking world. He could feel his body snap out of the rigid lock that held his bones and muscles tight as he opened his eyes. It was the same dingy god forsaken back room that had been converted into a bathroom he’d entered his sleep in, part of him had hoped to awaken somewhere slightly better or not at all.

“Good morning Henrich.” He forced himself to sit up, the draining of his life started, the body feeding on the blood inside itself to sustain. “You’re overly enraged today. Fleas?” He smirked and climbed to his feet from the tub and the cold bothered him a bit. ‘No,’ he mentally corrected himself, ‘The idea it was cold bothers you, to the actual weather you’re indifferent.’ “What is it?” He finally asked, annoyance slowly building in his frame.

Mojave looked good for his age. A man who should be about seventy looking like a thirty year old hippie and dressed like one. Leather vest with padded inside, countless types of necklaces he’d gathered around places and so on and blue jeans that had last been washed with the Dead dropped their last album.

“Lecroix is dead.”

There was a beat pause. A shimmer of hope told him that this night might not be a total waste but reality quickly pushed that aside. “Cool. And?” Mojave asked moving over to what could on a good day be considered a sink and took out the straight razor and applied it to the curve of his face. In his day he was ruggedly good looking, but today he was slightly out of place with the more feminine concept of male beauty.

“I think it was what the Standing Stones Sept had become, that had the hit issued and carried it out.”

And with that, today, and probably very many days in the weeks to come Mojave felt his days go not only down the drain but washed out toward the shores of Singapore. “So the werewolves had a hand in it huh? This is bad. Really bad. Woodstock Brown Acid bad. As much as I hated Lecroix he kept things in balance, in check. Yeah, he was a total Jesus freak but still he didn’t enroll in a death cult and then bring his own  Kool-Aide for Mr. Jones. Unlike others lurking around the corners here.”  There was a beat, “You have no idea what the hell I’m talking about do you?” There was a clink as he just let go of the straight blade and let it roll a bit around the curves of the sink.

Henrich let it go as he leaned against the exposed sheetrock that served as the western wall. “What can we do? The king…”

“Prince.” Mojave corrected as he focused on his reflection in the mirror. The strange distortion slowly curled and turned into a normal reflection of his face.

“Yeah ok, this Prince… was your areas Alpha right? Well, who takes charge now he’s dead? Probably Those Witches you told me about right? They’re … good guys, I mean they believe in Gaia and her love and they’re second most powerful group of leeches around yes?”

“Not that simple. Whenever a Prince steps down there’s strife for awhile, when one is - and let’s be frank about this - assassinated in office, everything will go to hell in a hand basket for a long time. Our political structure just became as ‘bout as stable as the Berlin wall in ‘92.” He picked up the blade and started to shave again.

“So this means?”

“This means that whatever help your side worked out and you’d expected from Lecroix and his men… Don’t. Even the ones who were most loyal to him are going to be fighting, clawing, and other things… to get a position of power, its in our nature. His death is the first shot in a civil war that’s going to take some months.. Maybe even years to settle down. For the time being none of our kind are friends with each other, not till things settle down and there’s a new ruling Prince who’s strong enough to fight off vultures and harpies.”

There was a soar of frustration inside the young man, “What about you and your group? You guys still going to help us?”

‘’Fraid not kiddo. It was us that brokered the peace between your kind and our kind. That puts us on a very bad hot plate. People are going to say we did it on purpose to take out Lecroix and out of fear they’re going to start blaming us for everything and trying to force the hand of any leech that’ll listen to step up against us. Any resources we had to lend, are now in short supply.” He moved the blade across the curve of his left side of his face slowly preening away whiskers.

“Well what about this Hierophant or whatever the leader of your Witches calls himself, that guy?” Stress adding to Henrich’s voice as everything that had been worked out so very carefully was starting to come undone. “Do you think he’ll help us?’

“Honestly Henrich,” He moved onto moving the razor over the right side of his face. “I don’t know. But if he does the price for it is going to be way more then what you’re willing to pay. Yeah, on the outside they pay lip service to what you guys believe in but it’s a dark twisted version of it. Black magic, sinister power, human sacrifice. If Lecroix was taken out to cripple the North alliance between the lupines and the kindred and so The Witches for some reason could form one with the South… this is a bad scene. Like Hell’s Angels providing security for a Rolling Stones concert level bad scene.”

“But there was a deal.” The sound of anger leaking thickly into Henrich’s voice. Mojave knew he wouldn’t be sleeping here again come the daylight. Maybe in a few days or so, but not tomorrow.

“That was with Lecroix. Like I said, every leech in Washington and upper Oregon are going to be fighting for power, territory, and feeding rights. This’ll cause old alliances to die on the vine, and new ones to spring up out of necessity. So yeah, again: whatever he was giving you guys, money access to foreign markets or even just good ol’ jackbooted thugs… not going to happen now.” He finished with the razor and let it drop into the sink where it slide around again against faux-porcelain. “And pray, pray that your leaders don’t go to the Hierophant. I swear that’ll just make things worse, but  I --”

“It’s not fair.” There was a flash of anger so hot Mojave could feel it burn through his body. “We worked so hard for those peace accords, hell it took…”

“I wasn’t finished yet.” The old hippie felt his own temper set in, “As I was saying I don’t think it’s right. And it reeks of someone passing on inside information on our end. Or someone who can look into things and not be caught messing up what we’d worked hard for. Hell, I’m probably already on several people’s hit lists. So you know what Fur-bag… I’m going to toss my hat in with ya’lls. Work what connections I have to get things done. It’s not going to be as impressive as The Prince’s were, but it’s better then being square. Anyway, who wants to live forever?”
They were both silent for a good solid minute and without saying another word the young man reached into the beaten high school jacket he still wore and handed Mojave a small envelope.

“What’s this?” Mojave took it and started to peel the scotch tape back open and look at the rough hand written information on it.

“It’s what you asked for. Your payment in full for all the stuff you’ve done for us.” With that, the werewolf turned and left the converted room. Mojave’s eyes scanned over it, the handwriting was rough, done on an irregular surface and quickly wrote but it was all there clear as day. Thinking about it, no… he wouldn’t return here again at all. On the way out he lit the hurricane lamp that was in the main room and set it resting on the corner of the table, mostly hanging off. With a quick pace he left the room and Mojave slammed the door behind him, not even a second later followed by the sound of breaking glass and a gentle whoosh of heat. The cheep furnishings and paper posters on the wall would spread the fire evenly and destroy any evidence of him having been there.

The walk was forty-five minutes by foot into the more suburban area of Red Falls. He drew up his ability to be unseen as he watched the people come and go. He saw his first target, watching the old porcine woman work her fingers to the bone, unaware of him being not even five foot away. He wondered if the others had such awful things happen to them, the starving sensation for revenge in his gut quelled and soured - the woman he once knew had turned into this and this was crueler then anything he could have done. Without a sound he left out into the parking lot heading to the southeast corner where the payphones were. He would still seek revenge but not in the cold blooded way he originally intended to. A blood debt was drawn and must be paid still.

For a brief second, his eyes caught the full moon in its beauty and wonder and his mind drifted back twenty plus years, when the nights were filled with laughter, music and family and the moon shone down like a loving face on them. How beautiful his Rebel Yell looked in her pink dress, dancing and laughing and loving. That was pushed away. He didn’t have time for that right now.  Mojave pulled a quarter from the inside pocket of his vest and pushed it into the slot.

There was brief ringing and then a pick up followed by silence. “ You’re right. There are spies in your camp. I’ll leave the information at the normal drop off.” No more to be said he hung the phone up and walked off into the endless night.