Sundown Sinners

Chapter Eleven: Dark Magic

Madame Justice was not an American, unlike her sister Destiny. She had been born in Romania, where the summers were hot, cloudless, and dusty. Everything she had owned seemed to be covered in a fine red powder, which she and her sisters had turned into finger paints. When the summer died and the days grew shorter, the rain would fall and mud would claw at her ankles, yanking her deeper. Snow would come soon, too, coating everything in a freezing haze.

Her father had always tried to move them before the winter would come. When the climate grew too cold, his fingers would ache and work would be agony, especially as he beat at cold steel with a hammer, his fire failing to light.

At the time, she had been too young to understand why they had to leave their home. She didn't see the bodies that lined the canals, sheets covering their faces as funeral pyres were lit to stave off sickness. She knew nothing of the battles that men fought, each new leader vying for a part of a country they had never set foot in.

When they had arrived in France, her father had not come home one night. Arrested or dead, they never knew, but their mother swore he was not the type to run off. They waited for him for months, but he never came back. When her two older brothers disappeared as well, they had boarded a ship set for America.

She couldn't remember the journey to the land of the supposed free. She knew that her youngest sister, a baby with bright hair and wide eyes, had passed in only a fortnight, leaving just her, her two older sisters and her younger brother behind. When they did set foot on solid land, their mother had left them at the docks, stating that she would return when work found her.

In truth, the work might have found mother, but they had not waited to find out. Her sisters found work in the saloons and whorehouses made for the seamen. And, by the age of nine, she had found a family that needed her brother's steady hands to sew clothes before she had left the oceanside in search of her own future. She had thought that she could become a seamstress or maid, and yet those jobs were set aside for dark-skinned women that did not ask for pay. Those that were paid had fairer faces than she, and more adornments than her young body had been blessed with.

It was truly a surprise when a door finally stayed open long enough to invite her inside, even if she was far too young for the work. The matron of the house, an irishwoman with a heart as large as her considerable bosom, had a habit of bringing in little orphan girls who looked as poor as they smelled. She washed them, forced them to tame their locks into something manageable, and bade them to watch, listen, and keep silent until they were old enough to demonstrate a return on her investment.

Though, as harsh as this treatment was, it was also a refreshing honesty that she had not been used to. The men that she had met, both on the ship and in her journeys toward her destiny, had preferred honeyed lies to hard truths. The Irishwoman spared no rod to her tiny, grubby children. But, when it was time to rest, they were always given a glass of warm milk and a peck on the forehead. She even kissed the lice and flea-ridden Madame Justice, or as she was called back then, ratty, little Esma.

When Charlotte had arrived, the two girls had become inseparable. The blonde-haired, fair-skinned girl of twelve flinched at every man she met, which of course scared away potential johns when they turned sixteen. And yet, once Esma had taught Charlotte the act of using her spite to feign sexuality, the two became the most sought after women in the entire House of Fate.

When the Irishwoman became sick, there was a fear among the whores that the House would close. Esma and Charlotte, with no vices that drained their savings and a side-gig of shoddy fortune-telling, had barely enough money to buy-out the bank. Over the years, they rebranded the House of Fate, painting the walls a bright purple and officially changing their names to the Madames of the house.

As time wore on, Charlotte (now cast as Madame Destiny) continued her fortune telling in the only way she knew how: using her spies and intuition to gather information on her client before predicting likely things that might happen, usually waving her hands over a large ball of crystal while incense filled a dimly lit room. Madame Justice, on the other side, dropped her party trick and focused on learning the old arts. The true arts. She learned palmistry, and interpreting chakras, and reading casted runes and cracks in shoulder bones. She learned the stars and their names. She learned how to commune with the future.

"Where exactly are you taking us?" Jacks asked as we turned another wallpapered corner into the labyrinth that was the House of Fate. I blinked, coming back to myself in a sudden rush. I remembered Madame Justice commanding us to follow her, and the pale, ghostly expression of Madame Destiny as we complied. I remembered turning down a long hallway decorated in old paintings... and then nothing. I had been somewhere else, someone else, and the world around me had been of many different places that seemed to morph in and out of each other.

Was that supposed to be a cutscene? I glanced up at the tense form of Madame Justice, her wild hair billowing around her like a nest of stirring bats. Had any of that been something I was supposed to see? Why would the game want me to know that her name was Esma, and Madame Destiny's was Charlotte? What did I care about how they came into possession of the House of Fate?

It must have been significant somehow. The game was trying to tell me something.

Madame Justice did not respond to Jacks' question. She hardly seemed to register that the two of us were following her at all. Instead, she simply led us silently down a maze of hallways that seemed inconceivably complicated, her heels clicking against the wooden floor. By the time we reached her office, Jacks and I were so undeniably lost that it probably would've taken hours to find the exit again.

The door that we stopped in front of was as nondescript as the others in that hallway, made of dark wood and sporting no signs or nameplates to even indicate a room number. If forced at gunpoint, I probably wouldn't be able to find this specific room.

Without a word or gesture for us to follow her, Madame Justice yanked the door open and slipped inside. Jacks and I glanced at each other before sighing to ourselves, knowing there was no choice but to follow. I caught the door before it closed completely. With one final look at the hallway behind us, Jacks and I entered the unnaturally dark room.

The room was warmer than I expected, a fire softly crackling on the back wall casted the only light. I was expecting the decorations of Madame Justice's parlor, or whatever this place was, to be gaudy and likely made of velvet. However, where there was supposed to be thick, heavy curtains dripping with tassels, there were only bare, basic adornments. A twin bed sat to the right of the fireplace, neatly made. No decorations lined the walls, nor rugs on the floor. The only nod that anyone lived here at all were the two large bookshelves stacked to the brim with different hardcovers and a small, blue pendant resting on the bedframe. It almost looked like an eye. An evil eye. In the center of the room, there was a sturdy wooden table with one chair.

"This is it?" Jacks asked, glancing around with obvious disappointment.

"What were you expecting?" I asked with a slight smirk.

Jacks glanced at Madame Justice, who was staring at us silently like a Victorian ghost. Her dark eyes smoldered as she watched us, though whether in rage or as a reflection of the fire, it was hard to say. Jacks opened his mouth to answer me, but his voice caught in his throat as Madame Justice's voice rang out across the room, even though her voice was barely over a whisper.

"Sit."

Jacks and I exchanged a look. There were no chairs offered to us; only the single one behind the table, which she clearly intended to keep for herself. The bed looked... wrong. Too personal. Too intimate. Neither of us moved.

Madame Justice's eyes flicked down, then back up again, unimpressed.

After a beat, Jacks huffed and lowered himself to the floor with an exaggerated slouch. I followed, crossing my legs awkwardly on the bare wooden boards. The heat from the fire pressed against my face, though the rest of me felt oddly cold. My skin began to prickle with goosebumps. In a way, the air felt electric. Off.

Without acknowledging us further, Madame Justice turned toward the fireplace. From a small wooden box resting atop the mantle, one I was certain hadn't been there a moment ago, she withdrew something pale and narrow. She did not show it to us. She did not explain as she tossed it into the fire.

I leaned forward instinctively, trying to catch a glimpse before the flames swallowed its pale, smooth body whole. Whatever it was disappeared with a hiss, sparks leaping upward as the fire flared unnaturally bright. A sharp, violent crack split the room like a gunshot. Both Jacks and I jumped, startled. Madame Justice didn't seem to so much as breathe.

Her patience was so complete, I would've thought her a statue. Then, with practiced ease, she suddenly took up the iron pincers resting beside the hearth and reached into the flames. She didn't stutter or hesitate. When she withdrew them, they held a blackened thing, split and fractured, still faintly smoking.

Was that a bone?

She let it fall to the floor between us. It struck the wood with a dull, final sound.

Madame Justice lowered herself to the ground opposite us, folding her legs beneath her in one smooth, deliberate motion. There was nothing passive in the way she sat. She reminded me of a lioness at rest: coiled, watchful, utterly unafraid. Something inside of me screamed to cringe away from her, but I held my ground, casting a glance at Jacks. He was wincing slightly, but held a twinge of something on his face that could've been a smile.

I glanced back to Madame Justice. Her gaze was fixed on the bone. She said nothing at first. Only turned it slightly with the tip of the pincers, studying the web of cracks and burns etched into its surface. The silence stretched, heavy and ritualistic, until I found myself holding my breath without realizing it.

"Behind your back," she said at last, her voice taking on a monotone quality. It seemed to reverberate around the room. "Something dark stirs."

Jacks stiffened beside me. I kept my mouth clamped shut.

"You will find what you are searching for," she continued, her voice low and steady. "But what you do find will not be mercy. It will be horror. It will stain you."

She nudged the bone again. A deeper fissure yawned open along its length. "Those you care for will suffer." Her eyes lifted then, meeting mine. "You will all suffer."

The fire popped behind her, throwing her shadow high across the wall. "There is an enemy before you," she continued after a moment of tense silence, "one with more power than it pretends to have. It will be difficult to see. Harder still to kill."

Jacks shook his head sharply. "We don't care about that. There's enemies all around, Vidente. There always have been. We want to know about the Doc. Is he safe? Does he need help?"

Vidente. One who sees. It was a fitting name for Madame Justice, especially if what she was saying was true. Further still, it was better to call her a seer than a witch. I wasn't so sure she would take kindly to the nickname of Bruja.

In response, Madame Justice did not look at him. She did not look at me. Instead, she set the pincers aside.

"You must ward yourselves," she whispered in a grave tone. "Against what follows you. Against what wishes to crawl inside and make a home of you." Her tone sharpened, just slightly. "If you do not, it will rot you from within. It will hollow you out. Maggots will eat through your eyes long before you realize anything is wrong."

She stopped. The silence that followed was abrupt, almost jarring.

"You must go," Madame Justice's voice was not panicked, necessarily. Instead, she sounded as if she was someone who had just woken up from a daze.

"What?" Jacks shot to his feet. "That's it? You drag us in here, scare the shit out of us, and now you--"

Madame Justice rose in a single, swift movement and shoved us bodily toward the door. I stumbled back, barely catching myself as she forced it open.

"Wait--" I started.

The door slammed shut in our faces. We pounded on it, voices overlapping, demanding answers that never came. After only a moment, footsteps approached from behind us. We turned, breathless, but the young woman that stood in the hallway was not one either of us had met before. She wore a dark dress with a crisp, white apron covering her front. Her eyes were downcast, hands folded neatly in front of her abdomen.

"This way," she said softly, as if asking a question.

We hesitated. We looked at each other, then back at the nondescript door of the western witch. There was no sound on the other side of the wall of wood, as if the room sat completely empty, like a tomb. Defeated, we turned to follow.

As we passed through the parlor, I caught sight of Madame Destiny reclining comfortably in the lap of a preacher, her head thrown back in laughter. Her smile was bright, practiced, and perfect. But her eyes were elsewhere, watching us go.

-- ~ --

"That was weird." I mumbled awkwardly, attempting to make conversation with Jacks as we rode out of Hangtown.

"Si." Jacks agreed. "Esa mujer no es de Dios." That woman is not of God. It was a succinct way of putting it. I didn't disagree, either. Whatever had happened in the room of Madame Justice, it did not feel holy. I had to remind myself that ghosts and demons were not real. I had to remind myself that they could be real, at least in this world, which was not.

"What do you think that meant?" My voice was hoarse. I cleared my throat and reached down to grab my canteen off of my saddle pack. I swished my mouth with the lukewarm water inside, tasting dirt.

"I think it means that we are in some very deep shit, gabacho." Jacks mumbled in response.

There was a whiff of something in the air, like sweet, cooking meat and burning wood. I wrinkled my nose in disgust, looking around for a source. There, far in the distance, was a plume of smoke that arched toward the sky in an arrow of black.

"Deep shit indeed." I mumbled to myself. "I wish I had a shovel."

In response, Jacks dug his heels into Garbanzo's ribs, forcing the horse to run faster. The horse's whinny echoed like a scream, catching on the winds of a burning forest.