Spectral Evidence

“Listen up, bitch,” Dionne began, a bare voice in the dark, low and grim and even. “I know how you think I’m some kind of dead weight ‘cause my blood’s a hundred percent human, but here’s the deal—we get out, we give you a head start, and that’s all. You’re a monster, we’re monster-killers. End of story. Nod if you understand me.”

I did, quick-smart. “Won’t happen again,” I managed, voice thin with effort.

“Good.” The blade drew back—but she leaned forward nevertheless, whispering right in my ear: “oh yeah, and by the way…try to fuck with my little sister again, and I’ll cut you

r damn tits off.”

“Message received, loud and clear.”

“Better be,” she told me. And was gone, into that same darkness, long before I could get up the nerve to look ‘round.

—

On some level, I truly do think I believed I was doing Maybelle a favor—but I also know she didn’t see it as such, because for the next couple of days she followed me around, alternating frantic make-out sessions with Felicia with equally frantic apologies to me. on the surface, she seemed genuinely horrified both to have “cheated” on me in the first place and by her utter inability to not keep on doing so, any and every chance she got; at base, she was scared shitless I might kick her to the curb, so’s she’d be back out on the market again, with no one to protect her at all.

“Think you might be doin’ Felicia somewhat of a disservice there, darlin’,” I pointed out. “She seems a loyal sort, from everything I’ve heard; I’m sure she’ll stand by you.”

“Don’t make fun of me, A-Cat! I just…why did I do that? I just don’t understand…”

“Well, c’mon, gal: Seriously, it’s okay. You two seem very happy together.”

“But I’m not! A-Cat, please don’t cut me loose, please. Please.”

And there I was, still trying to be nice, but really; this was all getting somewhat ridiculous.

“Maybelle,” I said, “you just need to step off, right now. Stand on your own two. It’s pitiful.”

I just walked away and left her standing there, lips trembling, with nary a backwards glance. And the very next time I saw her was when Guard Curzon came by our cell, as per the Warden’s request, to take me to the morgue.

It’s harder to kill yourself in M-vale than you might think, ‘specially if you’re dumb. But she’d managed it, nonetheless: Drank a bleach cocktail, industrial-strength, and crawled in between two heavy machines to wait it out, making sure nobody’d find her ‘til the worst was long over. She didn’t look too kissable afterwards, what with her mouth all gone blue and vomit in her long, blonde hair. Still, I bent down so we were nose-to-nose, shooting Curzon a glance that penetrated even his rhino skin; made him step back, shut the door halfway behind him, and give us some time alone.

To this day, I’m not all too sure what I really felt for her, if anything—though I certainly did appreciate the effort she put into things of an intimate nature, ‘specially where I was concerned. But at the time, all I could think was—

Guess she really did love me—how ‘bout that. I mean…fancy.

Turns out, Maybelle didn’t just stay with me ‘cause I made it impossible for her to be elsewhere; she was mine ‘cause she wanted to be, all along. Unlikely. Surprising.

…Depressing.

Yet potentially useful, all the same.

I rummaged ‘round in my bra for an empty aspirin bottle I’d found on the infirmary floor one day and managed to keep hid, a secret bit of inexplicable contraband saved for just such an occasion, through all the subsequent strip-searches in between. Slid my thumb to line both triangular childproof seals up, and popped the lid. After which I leant down to the china-pale curl of Maybelle’s ear, closed and dumb now as any empty snail-shell, and murmured into it:

“O lenti, lenti curite noctus equii…come back to me but a spell, honey, ‘fore you go gentle into that good-night. Shed that cocoon on your way to wings. Break off just some tiny unnecessary bit of yourself and leave it here, for me, to remember you by.”

Took but a second or two for my words to reach her, trailing down the snarled and fading synapses of her dead brain. And then I saw it right at the back of her throat, a dim light flickering between her stained teeth, on the necrotized black skin of her tongue—some merest fragment of sweet Maybelle Eileen Pine’s soul, like a fluttering luminous moth, snared in her very last wisp of earthly breath; dull as a sub-molecular Los Alamos half-spark, powerful beyond Oppenheimer’s fondest dreams yet struggling still against death’s inertial pull, its foul gravity. Trying blindly to force its way up to me who loved it, against all hope, or logic…

I sucked what was left of Maybelle’s pathetic little soul in hard, lip to lip, so close I felt the bleach yet left there start to crisp my skin. Then spat it right back out into the aspirin bottle, along with a smear of my own black blood, to keep it trapped there ‘til I needed it. And: “Thank you muchly, baby girl,” I sang out, briskly, straightening again. “Never think, wherever you do end up, that I’m not grateful for your sacrifice—because I really, really am.”

Like I said—hadn’t seen that one comin’, though maybe I should’ve. But I surely did appreciate the gesture, all the same.

“Your jolt, Princess,” I told Samaire, much later, as I placed the bottle in her hands.

—

The riot broke out on a Tuesday, over in the mess hall—something about somebody either encroaching on somebody else’s territory or looking a bit too hard at someone else’s woman, which soon enough swelled to embrace the shank-wielding triple-header of all good prison conflicts: race, face, personal space. Not that I was there to witness it first-hand, of course…since I knew enough to avoid getting myself inconveniently locked down before all the fun began, I’d already made sure to turn Guard Curzon’s piggy eyes firmly back on me, long before that particular storm ever started to break.

So here we were instead, in that same supply closet, deep in congress—his version thereof, anyhow—when the alarms went off; he jumped for his gun and stick, only to find ‘em suddenly both in my hands instead. Then went backing away from me at an awkward half-shuffle, with his pants down ‘round his knees and his dick flapping free, ‘til he ended up just where I wanted him—right overtop the most sinister of Abramelin’s squares, which S.L. MacGregor Mathers says “should never be made use of,” and must be buried in a place where the intended victim will walk over it in order to work to fullest capacity: