Honour

Honour:
A Prelude to Dexter Driggs By Keith A. Miller His nose told him he was in trouble as soon as he walked into the room. The soft black burning embers instantly placed him back a lifetime ago to the funadero de opio, the opium dens and the confusion of the del mundo de fe shielded, being encased in the womb of the decadence, the temptations of the esh replaced by the temptation of the soul. His soul was not tempted. He no longer had a soul. Waleed was laid out on the couch, the whites of his eyes barely visible, the sides of his lips crusted dry. His arms extended in silent supplication. The music, a mlange of arterial bass, voice reverberated and syncopated snares overshadowed the human symphony of suffering, spread out in random patterns drug addicts squatted in blank repose. Their misery disgusted him; their willingness to strike out the heart of their personal suffering angered him. Most of all their cowardice humiliated him. Blindly, with forgotten practice, Amir put on the dark soft gloves as he approached Waleed, ever careful to avoid direcr conact. Get up! he roughly pulled at the young mans shoulder. The burnt offerings began to affect him; the slow smoke peace began to creep up on him and he couldnt allow that, not now. Not when there was a matter of familial vengeance. Wake up, pendej, the adopted language of his Spanish conquests and subsequent defeat escaped in short terse bursts and Amir slapped the dreaming youth. Waleed stirred, his face fading awake in the sliver of light. The short loose curls, the light crme of his skin and the large eyes blinked in the confusion of his opiate

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frosted world, which reached out for purchase, barely scraping the surface of Amirs wrist and his eyes, already a dark pool of memory, shifted completely black. The ecstasy of heroin coursing through his veins, sympathetic magic for a man left with few sympathies. Mary, just coming off of her high, deposited on the couch across from Waleed, disrupted by the quiet violence, would later swear to anyone that listened that the tall Arab spat out a black smoke from his face. She tremble a little, too realistic and serious for a junky, when she recounted the dark smoke issued from his eyes, nose and mouth. Cabrn! Amir cursed and picked up the dazed youth. He hoisted him in a remans carry across his narrow shoulders and walked out of the room, careful not to disturb anyone, Amir moved with a long forgotten grace. The front door was ajar and he quietly crossed the threshold, leaving the unconscious man, a guard collapsed in a puddle of urine and stench. A gun, Glock 9mm., a favorite of his type, loosely clutched in his warm st.

* Consignment. Waleed and Marquis Johnson had a simple plan born of a diet of B-movie

gangsters, street lore and one too many YouTube submissions to WorldStarHipHop. They would cop [buy] an ounce of brown tar [heroin], nothing too big, and sell it bit by bit to the local nodders, doubling their money and then perhaps buying two ounces next time until they were beyond being nancial solvent and actually thriving as an independent partnership. This would have worked out ne had Waleed and Marquis not been addicted to opiates themselves. They never took heed of NWA followed by Christopher Wallaces

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advice, dont get high on your own supply! A week following their joint purchase and failing to communicate with their supplier, Marquis found himself waking up from his two-day binge with the dirty rays of yellow light scattered in angry oval patterns framing the silhouette of a frightened young woman; what could only be Mirna. Fear swelled out of her still puffy cheeks, the baby fat not completely gone with the onset of adolescence. Behind her, with his hand rmly gripping Mirnas neck was Netto, Lil mos boy. Netto, the closest thing to an enforcer Lil Mo employed; tall lanky and dirty looking, his dead droopy eye added horric panache to his urban sociopath visage. Marquis had just enough time to look over and see Waleed still emerged in the blissful opiate sleep. His last thought was a weak smile when the rst pop awoke the air. He felt the other three pops as his body involuntarily jerked. The last thing Marquis would see is the smoke shade Mirnas face, her mouth opened in an exaggerated o, her hands covering her ears. Soon the world, his own private Idaho, would narcolepse into oblivion. Wake your punk ass up, bitch! This would be the rst time Waleed was forced

into consciousness with a gun pressed against his lips, the hot expanding metal burning his lips, pressing against his teeth. With a practiced ourish, Netto ipped the gun forward catching it by the barrel and struck Waleed across the face. His eyes, bruised plum, slopping blood, mucus and saliva in his mouth, Waleed

immediately xed on Mirna. Netto still had her within his mean thin grip. Her eyes plead for Waleed to x what was happening, to make this right; to someone make this situation no longer exist. He just returned his glassy-eyed druggy stare. Hed meant to project warmth, but the eyes dont lie. He was no longer there. The drug had him. Slap!

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You with me!?! Slap. Netto hit him again. Follow me. This is happening! You borrow product from Lil

Mo, you gotta sell product. You sell product, you pay Lil Mo. You smoke up product, you pay Lil Mo. You dont pay Lil Mo. Then I gotta hurt you. Waleed had nothing in him, he could only stare back blandly. This happening! Netto placed the gun tight against Mirnas rib cage. He then

leaned in, his wet lips brushing the cuticles of her ears and whispered, across to Waleed. The ssure of a smile opened across his face, a dirty prelude. Mirnas dry eyes wept.

Pop!

The Earth topped spinning, gravity reversed itself and Mirna began to oat

towards Waleed, somehow her hair defying physics, came crashing down around her head. She collapsed in his lap and Waleed watched as Netto began to back out of the

basement doorway. Lil Mo says youve got two days to get his money or more shit is gonna

happen. Netto quickly became a silhouette, then a shadow and soon was enveloped in

darkness. His parting shot, you might want to get your girl to the hospital!

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That was three days ago. Mirna was laid up in the hospital charity ward with one

machine breathing for her, a feed drip and ready-made morphine if she were to somehow wake which she would, if she could, to a world mountain of pain. Amir dropped Waleed to the oor of his apartment. It was a dump, far from a home; it was clearly a dirt depot, a place for Waleed and whoever was in his company, to sleep in between scores. Rummaging through his cabinets and settling on the interior of the old stove, Amir grabbed a dented tin pot and placed it under a running faucet. With a feigned ourish, he kept a consistent pour on Waleeds face. Waleed stirred. Abd! The Arabic curse, loose dry dirt in his mouth, broke the silence. Amir

slapped him, I am not one to be tried with. I am not your peer. Then what are you? Waleed mopped his hair back. Balas il aair! Slap. Your sister dies and you talk to me of this foolishness? Grabbing Waleeds face and twisting the end of his nose, Your friend dies and you defecate on his memory with this? You snort your life away? badly. Fuck off! Waleed pulled his head away in a wild jerk. Slap! Why do you care? Maybe I dont. Then fuck off! Too late for that! Im involved and when I get involved I end my involvements

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Amir tossed the pot at Waleeds lap and sniffed at the air. If you asked Waleed,

when he was available, later why he recoiled into a fetal ball and ejected his intestines into his lap, he would swear, however quietly, that the strangers eye shrank completely black. The black of oil slick and mirrors. He would cry that he saw his future in its negligent reection and in the future he was not welcomed. Filth, was all the stranger said when he grabbed a stful of Waleeds collar and

literally began walking him across to the door. Waleed crab walked to gain his balance and spun around facing Amir. Asshole! Waleed grabbed the strangers shoulder that instantly felt hard and

immovable, the feeling of vibrating stone. Amir shrugged his back muscles, simultaneously extending his right hand against Waleeds chest and the young man ew backwards across the oor. Never failing to break stride, Amir grabbed a hold of the back of the young mans

collar and began dragging him across the room again. Vengeance is upon us! Waleed, defeated, allowed himself to be manhandled across the door threshold. The man threw the boy into the bathroom. Cleanse yourself, absolution may be upon you this day. Man, I dont care about no Lil Mo; I wanna go see Mirna! Anger. Amir continued, his voice the threat of violence, We go to kill Lil Mo! Noooo we go to see my sister! No compassion, she is dead. And Amir forced Waleeds head under the cold wet

shower that could have disguised his tears, but Waleed was too numb.

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The sky had not turned auburn against the warm desert sand when the rst rains

began. It is said that within the tears of the sun the Quarin are born. The great halls of the temple al Jawal in Zora had not begun to fade when the beggar passed through the doors of the mosque. No one knew from where he came nor why, but the Imam bade him welcome and he lived within the walls of solace. He took prayer ve times a day, cleansed the temple and even helped heal the sick. His knowledge was incomparable, he added to the wealth of the temples library in his only demonstration of the pillars of Islam. His zakat, his offering was not lost on the community. But still others questioned why he never announced his faith or taken hajj, the sacred pilgrimage. They questioned why he had not taken a woman among them and joined a tribal lineage. And mostly they wondered why he did not have a name. And it became soon the wondering of men that found the stranger beaten and

casted from the City of Zora, named Uruk, now Iraq. Some say the stranger brought shame to the temple by tempting the Iman, others say that he took for himself a Caliphs daughter or renowned beauty. Some say the stranger disappeared into the sands with the Bedouin and took a young bride and when her ower blossomed and bloomed with child, he disappeared again. The truth has since own through the desert wind. One thing is true, that remains, the knowledge he taught was forgotten, his face erased and left no footprints as his shadow disappeared into savage rains the dark void of the desert night.

The two men entered Hanks Saloon soaking wet. The tall one, dark and angry,

the length of his kandura, long Arabic robe, weighted damp and straight, stood surveying

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the bar with ill disguised disgust. The other, younger, seemed almost to t in. Amir nudged Waleed forward and followed closely behind. Tucker, the barrel bellied owner and bartender briey eyed them from behind the

dirt encrusted once mahogany counter, in the process of cleaning a row of shot glasses with a slightly dirty towel. He dismissed them with a quick purse of his lips which emphasized the bushy growth of salt and mostly peppered beard. Amir took a deep short breath and the room came alive to him, the desires of men

splashed across the back of his eyes, a bitter scented trail of broken memories, failed dreams, stale and ransomed passion all in a swirl of sorrow suffused in sin. In the corner sat Mal, an Irishman drunk from two dead marriages, a dead end shipping clerk job and a delayed death. Behind him was Isaac, sullen and removed, he just lost his mother to the expected renal failure brought on by cancer. At the bar sat Jon, his liver an old sponge, his eyes an egg yolk of jaundice and the gout of his foot exposed as he rested it on the stool, the pain too much to bear for shoes. In the rear of the bar, seated in the last table shrouded beneath a dim blue light hanging like diffused halo, was the man known as Driggs. A glass before him, he sat in dull contemplation, the deep furrows of his brow shading the opaque glow of his eyes. His dark skin almost absorbing the light, he cared nothing for this world, or perhaps the next. Amir sought his attention. Waleed knowing him, approached lazily. The black man slowly turned to face the wasted youth. As he turned, his sharp and

jagged prole cut through the light. His eyes were deep set under the roof of his brow;

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high-ridged cheekbones accentuated squinted eyes that scrutinized. His gaze travelled from Waleed to the Stranger and then back to the youth. mouth. Amir stared at the man, The old rules? The black man looked away, his slow wander a rebuke or perhaps boredom. We need a way into the towers? Waleed pleaded. Still facing away, the black man answered disinterest, perhaps to the wind, I What is it you seek? Waleed expression stopped and then turned a quizzical squeezed lemon peel in his

smell death. We seek vengeance. The black man turned and faced Amir, your kind always do. Seating himself across from the man, I fucked up okay and my sister is We,

me and Marquis, we were moving some product and, Waleed paused, a moment of shame impregnating the air. We were moving some for Lil Mo and we lost it--- In your veins? Dont judge me! Fierce anger and quick guilt ashed like fangs. From above them, Amir cut in, hes already passed judgment. What you asked

for will not be granted. And then to the dark man, I have observed the rules, I am in your space. I mean to cause harm but not to you, nor your kind. The man gave Amir no reply. Waleed took a moment and studied the man. He wore a harsh almost cruel stare.

There seemed to be no emotion behind the mask, the eyes have not known peace for

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some time. He steeled himself to say something to the black man and only found himself, at the oddest moment, why he kept thinking of the man before him as the black man. Waleed had never really been conscious of these thoughts. Marquis was his friend, his now dead friend and yet he never thought of his blackness, but this man was black and not in the way he was used to the idea of not labeling people. There was something dark and innite about this man and the way he had of reecting his inner most dreams and nightmares right back at him. The mans eyes were a dark pool of Narcissus of which reected his guilt and shame. Waleed slid from the table, standing up in a slumped arch of surrender. He walked

away defeated to the bar. Amir turned to follow him. There is no life in the boys eyes. His touch is your death. The man spoke

without looking at him. He died with his sister. Perhaps, the man answered. Let not believers make friends with indels in

preference to the faithful - he that does this has nothing to hope for from Good - except in self-defense. God admonishes you to fear Him: for to God shall all return. Seek your vengeance, no one else must be harmed. I do not trade in belief. There is no innocence, you should know this watcher! Im always watching, the answer, a swear. The man turned and looked at Amir,

or rather through him, his very soul. His pupils were two dark pits, no light found its way in. He is one of yours? The Stranger stiffened by way of an answer.

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He is. You know this is a new time and a different place. Some of the old ways

are anachronistic, out of time. There is no place. Watcher, we who have no place must respect, honor and cherish the very things

tie us to the world and when the occasion calls for it, we must mete out vengeance! I guess I was wasting my time. Do what you will, I dont care. The Watcher sat

stoic, the slightest tremor of his shoulder revealed anger. Just dont fuck up my neighborhood! Amir walked off, trailing, By your pact, no harm shall come to them who are not

involved. Amir walked past Waleed, who quickly followed behind his stride.

The black man quietly put on a pair of shades, Raybans, and looked off into dead space by way of a response. Say what you will he had style. The bartender brought him a drink, a simple nod exchanged and the man was left to himself again. *

The killing began a little past midnight. Lil Mos enforcers, Trent and Marcus, two brothers, literally related, both large

men laid caddy cornered away from one another, their necks twisted unnaturally; Candice, a modern day gangster moll, was throbbing lightly against the wall, the only sign that catatonia had not completely settled in; Mark and Warren were both now catatonic and lost in a burning love that was rapidly vaporizing their life energy and transmitting via a spiritual LAN to the recovering incubus. *

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Waleed led the way into the building. He was ushered in by a large line backer of

kid with too much of a baby face to reect the stored anger projected outwards. Amir took in a deep breath and the building was alive with desire, in his beginnings, he would have been lost in the sensations, but too much time has passed. The collective desires of the Atlantic Housing projects were white noise but for one dead spot, an interminable void of desire, love, hope perhaps happiness, and he was almost sure where it was coming from. They rode the elevator up to the fourteenth oor. Marcus stood axen staring at

the control panel, he was stuck in the moment that he ushered Amir and Waleed in the lift. He could have sworn he did not say anything to the man, when Amir, who refused to look at him declared loud enough, so even that punk motherfucker Waleed could hear, Its probably not such a good idea that you act on your wish to sleep with Marlena, Marcus. After all, shes only eleven. He hadnt mentioned his name and how the hell did this Osama, know about Marlena. Nobody knew that he thought about Marlena and the dark ideas he had, not even his twin Trent. Marcus kept his distance from the man though tense, he relaxed feeling the warm impression of pistol shoved in the small of his back. Marcus quickly studied the man from his downward gaze, he didnt look like much. Kinda tallish, light skinned but not too light, still some color in there, his clothes were funny, like he was somebodys daddy or something and didnt really like wearing American clothes. That bitch Waleed looked like he took a dump in diaper and his back was broken. Fuck them, fuckem both. I got my gat and Ill ghostem, straight one-eightseven those motherfuckers, Marcus comforted himself.

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The elevator stopped, the doors opened and Amir stopped a moment. His face was

a blank chalkboard. Marcus waited nervously, the doors began the slight shuddered as the began to close again. Marcus held the door open. A quick but imperceptible emotional shift prompted Amir to walk out the elevator. Waleed followed behind him when Amit suddenly stopped, turned around and looked Waleed in the eye. He had the look of someone with something too important to say; the look of a man who knew an avoidable truth and was searching for a way to share; and nally the look of a man too tired to care for the fate of a simple drug addict. For the rst time during their meeting Waleed saw some semblance of empathy projected is way and a cold blade of fear knifed its way through the blurred edges of his addiction and he understood more about himself, his life, his desires right there in that innitesimal moment than in his whole life. And he felt shame. Great shame. Watch your step, ibn akhoya. Amir turned and stepped out f the elevator. Thats all the Arab said and yet Marcus suspected something important was

happening here. He wasnt aware of what exactly was taking place and the unknown scared him. Marcus sloppily withdrew his pistol and shoved the matted black into Waleeds shoulder forcing him out of the elevator. Waleed merely shrugged it off his shoulder. A thin haze of smoke collected at the ceiling from an apartment at the end of the

hall. The narrow connes of the long passageway were quiet until, a tall thinner replica of Marcus stepped out into the hall, a sneeze of smoke escaping with him. They here to see Lil Moe! Marcus declared, his condence boosted at the site

of his brother.

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voice.

I can see that. Whos the faggot with Waleed? The Replica had a deep raspy

Amir winced at the designation, he said nothing, he paused his advance. I dont know, he just here with Waleed! To Waleed, What you want,

mofucker!?! Netto already went to see you. Aint you got what you need? Waleed turned. The violence in his slow turn prompted Marcus to bring his gun

forward. We wish an audience with Maurice. You hear that shit, Trent--we wish an audience with Maurice.--They funny! Something in the Arabs quiet matter of fact tone belied an old and undeniable

custom. The replica, Trent opened the door for them, not before taking out his gun. They entered the apartment and death began. The door opened to a large living room, in the center of which was an expensive

looking white leather couch, an expensive looking at screen television, with expensive looking speakers bookending the confusing ashing lights of an expensive looking entertainment system. Displayed on the television screen were two women and a man, all naked, engaging in various acrobatic demonstrations of sex with no desire and the look of dead sh in their eyes. Two young men were engaged with the porn. A young woman, dressed in a tight

tube dress, high heels and a centimeter layer of makeup stood around petulant, lazy and bored. Seated behind them on the couch, his back buried deep, his legs akimbo, Lil Moe

surveyed his subjects with a mildly disguised contempt.

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Amir stood on the fringe of the room. Waleed waited. His eyes danced furtively. Yo, Mo, you got visitors. Amir was announced by Trent. Unseen, Lil Moe dismissed them with a wave of his hand, a dark hand glistening

with bright ashing bobbles and trinkets adorning his wrist and all of his ngers. Waleed here, too! Added Marcus. The arm shot up and pulled Lil Moe into focus. He sat up in the couch. He

appeared a slight man, with ushed cheeks, a baited smile and two large pools of eyes. He looked at Waleed, completely ignoring Amir, I thought you dipped? After what I heard had happened you know hypothetically speaking. Waleed tensed. Lil Moe continued on in the dialect of a man educated through the criminal justice

system, I mean the circumstances of nding you in my whereabouts is very lucky. Its a shame about what allegedly happened to your partner and I hear your sister is in the hospital. Thats all fucked up. No hard feeling, though? His smile, false pity followed by thinly disguised rage, You still owe me my money! Amir studied Waleed, he was still in his fog, the veil that covered this world fro

the blank one of his making. Aye-yo, Netto! Come out here! Im deep into to something now! The unseen voice called from the back of the

apartment. Nah, come on out here, son. You gotta see this shit. Your boy Waleed is here!

Lil Moe issued a directive. Aight! Imma come see him!

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Everyone stood around silent and waiting. The live action acrobatics on screen made an interesting contrast. The shufing of clothes and haste and the promise of violence rode the current of the room as Netto sauntered through the threshold. He was shirtless and his bare feet were visible through the comically large and untied workmen boots. Amir gave him the once over. Netto unconsciously stepped back, caught himself and stepped forward. Too late, the room read it. Lil Moes enforcer was a pussy. Amir took in a slight breath and the taste of rage, shame, and the rancid almost sexual desire to commit murder swam in ebbs and ows from Waleed. Amir took another breath and as he exhaled his pupils expanded in blackness covering his eyes. Get him! Amir whispered. Waleed ew across the room in silent rage. A bolt of grief lightning. Shazam! His hands were locked around Nettos neck, his thumbs depressed into his throat. Netto, startled, fought against Waleeds wrists, struggling to pry them apart. Waleed snarled in rage, sweating fear and spraying froth from the side of his mouth. He was locked in a death grip. Netto, arched backwards, couldnt get a proper footing, Waleed stepped into him, forcing the man in between his legs while hyper extending his arms out maintaining his stranglehold. Everyone looked on: Marcus and Trent surprised at the violence unleashed by the

little brown dope end; Candace, the girl in the tube dress, afraid of the violence and wanting to escape into the happy folds of methamphetamines; the two other men, amused at the shared distraction, another form of perverse entertainment and then there was Lil

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Moe. Maurice. He turned and sat back into the couch staring blankly into the television. Everything upended with a simple pop. Waleeds tense grip relaxed. Netto fell from his hold, dropping to the oor on his

back. He danced around in a broken epileptic seizure, his throat crushed, destroyed trachea and desperately coughing for air. Waleed maintained his wide stance for a brief moment, turned, looked at Amir

and whispered thank you before he fell forward away from the painfully dying Netto. That was when Amir turned and acknowledged Marcus in the absurd standing

posture, the arm extended outwards turned in, the Glock 19 still smoking. Is Netto okay? Lil Moe, buried in his couch and porn, broke the silence. Nah, I dont think so! Trent spoke. Your soldier is dying. Amir declared. The sparkle coated hand shot up in the air again, Killim, killem all! Really!?! A confused Marcus. Yes, really. The couch-comforted voice. Trent and Marcus cocked their guns and the party started.

Gun smoke and cordite. Amir fell face forward on ground. Maurice rose out of his throne, adjusted his shirt and stepped up to the limp body. He done? He dead or on his way to it! Marcus lowered his gun.

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Maurice stepped closer. The Japanese have an expression ---, to rise like smoke. Where a ghter, from a

seated position stands in uniformed position with the ascention of a line of smoke rising deeply vertical. Maurice, awed by the grace and ow by which Amir stood, failed to retreat as Amir wrapped his hand around his throat and prepared to squeeze.

An incubus is a creature of desire, it trades the faade of love and the furnace of

lust for the tiny breadth of life hidden in the folds of the human heart. Yesterdays failed dream is todays deepest hope, a dirty little wish casting its spores outwards, waiting to take root, to grow into our secret shame. An incubus allows you to explore that shame all the while devouring your life force. Usually a death grip at the hands of an incubus begins with the euphoric expanse of tranquility, an intense explosion of white from behind the eyes, the recipient lapses into morphine narcolepsy as the incubus sucks up its essence through a straw dug deep into the spine; a slow long slurp of astral goodness fresh from the tap of the tan tien. Maurice stood still. Immune. Nothing. Amir felt no desire. There was no exchange. Emotional void. A bereftness. The rst thing Amir felt was the damp breeze along his back. He never heard the rack of the barrel. He never heard the singulary blast of the shotgun.

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He looked forward and saw his entrails stain Maurice and some of his white

couch and just before everything went black, a shadow danced, no itted, in the door space where Netto arrived.

Marcus and Trent were too busy worrying about where to dump the body. They

had actually never have to worry about disposing of human waste before. Mostly bodies were found where they were left and the drop gun somewhere in the local vicinity. Amir laid crumbled, face planted into the ground, his arms awkwardly angled along bent knees. His bullet wound remained unexposed behind layers of selectively burned charred clothing along the entry point. There was no pool of blood. No discharge of bodily waste. That should have been the rst sign.

Desire is the beginning of the death of virtue and the rst compromise of the soul.

Desire breeds the negative emotional energies within us, it creates the space for evil to dwell in the hearts of humankind. It settles within the spine the disrupts the ow of bioenergies, impedes the chakra, disperses our life force away from its proper channel ows. If you are a messenger of shadows, what the Navajo named the Nayee, a darkness that gets in the way of life, if you have the ability to siphon this energy by way of blood, psychic, or spiritual transference, then you have the power to transcend life in the absence of life at the expense of life. An incubus power begins with desire and expands as the darker emotions take hold. Such darkness generates power and the darkest emotion generates desire within the incubus.

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Marcus disappeared to get a garbage bag. Trent returned with a toolbox. Mark and

Warren stood by over the body. Candy watched from the far corner in reluctant excitement. The room waited in pregnant silence. What yall niggahs waiting for? Cut that motherfucker up. We aint got all night

for this shit!, Maurice commanded imbedded his deep plush throne. The spell broken, Trent retrieved a hand-sized mallet, and passed it to Mark. From

behind the tool box his hand extended a chisel to Warren. Both men stared at the tools, disbelief and fear. Marcus arrived, dumping the bags on the oor in disgust, Pussy! He snatched

the mallet from Trent and opened his palm to Warren for the chisel. Do something, earn your keep, grabs his arms , spread him out! My, man! Take charge like you mean it, Lil Moe chuckled, his attention on the

two women kissing passionately on screen with very little passion. Stretch him out! Trent scolded. Mark sheepishly grabbed one arm and Warren

fumbled with the other. Mark and Trent shared a quick moment of disbelief, two frightened rabbits in foxs den, and then took a step back together. The body exed forward as if from an internal spring. Warren dropped the him quickly and vomited on himself. Lil Moe sprang from his chair and slapped Warren solid across the mouth. Warren

was coated in his sick. But the rich rugs were not damaged. The course linoleum oor with its industrial gray patterns with specks of black, thoughtless grains of dirt was only amplied by the expensive throw carpeting.

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Watch that shit. Thats an expensive rug and it cost a lot of fucking money to

clean that shit. I dont want to have to buy another one! Speaking to the room, And chop that curry eating nigger up on some plastic! Mark picked up the hand again. Marcus grabbed the ball of garbage bags and

began spreading them out, creating a workspace. Lil Moe stared at Warren with contempt and the young man, forcing his dry heaves back, grabbed the limp arm. Trent lifted the legs. Now!, grunted Trent. The body was placed on the plastic. Satised, Maurice returned to his thrown. He nodded in Candys direction and she

walked over and sat in lap. He looked back once more, Warren was a mess, the front of his shirt and pants a pastiche of the days meal as interpreted by Jackson Pollack. Niggers cant have shit. Dont know how to appreciate shit! He went back to the television where the two women were now kissing each other in their nether regions. Marcus pushed Warren aside in disgust. He lengthened the limp arm and poked

his ngers in the wrist, elbow and shoulder. Still soft, lets do this quick. He extended his hand and wiggled his ngers. Trent smiled and handed him the rubber mallet and chisel. Marcus put the at edge of the chisel at the wrist and quickly raised the mallet into a dramatic pause. A crooked smile that did not ever belong on such a youthful face preceded the chuck of the mallet slamming into the chisel breaking past the skin, imbedded in bone. The chisel was stuck. He raised the mallet again and brought it down with double force and the same sick smile. The bone snapped and the body bolted upright. The boys darted backwards in all directions. Warren lurched over, his tongue

sticking out of his mouth. He had nothing to left to get rid off. Marcus scampered to the

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side mallet still in hand. Trent had his gun trained on the body. Mark was on all fours, his shoulders twitching in quiet bursts. He was crying. Lil Moe looked over briey, Relax bitches. The man is dead, thats his body

getting all stiff. It called vigor mortis! He turned back to the painful staged improvised love on screen. Marcus was sure that Lil Moe meant to say rigor mortis, which what happened to

the body when oxygen ow stopped and the chemicals reactions made the body stiff for the rst two days or so. He knew enough about this stuff from watching Crime Scene Investigation: Miami. But wasnt going to correct Lil Moe. No one corrected Lil Moe. The men were quiet each building up his composure, each now concerned about

the perception of their reaction, each worried about his position being diminished in the eyes of Maurice, three of them all happy for the decline of Warren who created a oor of which for them to stand on. A new pecking order that began on Warrens neck. Amirs eyes opened. Deep black pools. The whites enveloped. Trent screamed. Fear electric traveling through his body, his muscles tightening,

his trigger nger taught. He red another shot. Amir was shot again, now in the chest. Trent quickly rose. Warren and Mark retreated into the corner. Marcus stood with the mallet and chisel. Amir got up, his hand limp and dangling from his wrist by thin ropes of esh. He

looked at is arm, raising the stump and survey the ngers touching the inside of his arm at such a bizarre angle. Slowly moving his neck, he focused on Trent. He took a deep breath and the room lights dimmed.

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Lil Moe stirred from his seat. Warren threw up again. Marcus, and Trent began to swoon to a far off song and

Candy collapsed in Lil Moes lap. Amir lifted his wounded hand in display and everyone, with the ability, watched

as ligament attached boned that expanded and retracted with little pops and cracks that signaled the reformation of cartilage and esh tissue as the hand reformed its attachment in a string of wet snappy webs right before their eyes. In a moment, his hand was whole, right as rain, and he exed. Thats when the deaths began. Trent raised the Glock 19 to re again. He never had the chance to squeeze the

trigger. Amir smiled and coughed a jet spray of black mist that spat forward like smoke trapped in oil and sprawled around the young man. Trent, panicking, red off three more rounds in chaos before steadying himself to re at the incubus again. But Amir was no longer there. As if trapped in soft silk netting Trent plied through the swarming black mist and surveyed the room. Everyone had dropped to the oor, Warren and Mark were exposed at on the ground, hands on the back of their heads; Marcus was unseen and Maurice was behind his couch, directly behind Candy, held rmly in place by his one armed grip. Trent stood a moment, instinctively trying to relax his heavy breathing. For all his resuming relaxed composure, his shoulders were still tight and the gun still held high and in front of him. You done shooting up the place? Marcus called from behind the wall, leading to

the bedroom.

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go?

Trent took another breath and lowered the gun, Yeah. Where that motherfucker

Marcus edged his head from behind the corner slowly, I dont know, you started

shooting and shit got--- Marcus jerked back violently. His screams a muted blood chorus of blocked air

passage ways, thick liquid and deep dark fear. And just like that, Marcus was tossed out of the corner into the light a broken wasted esh shell of bones and soaked organs and sadness. Wordless and in silence Trent emptied the clip against the wall. The dry click announced the empty chamber and Amir stepped from the shadow

of the corner, walked to Trent in quick liquid strides, gently placed his hands n his neck, never breaking the angle of his approach, snapped his neck and head back to follow his stroll. Years down the line, in a moment of panic soaked clarity, Warren will remember looking at the Incubus, his darkened face, prolonged and hyper-articulate teeth, and his eyes, though shiny pools of onyx, they were smiling. And indeed, the Incubus smiled. Even as he raised his palms outward and open and he began to cast, almost as a

whisper, the dew soft net of spell, that soft swarm of black mist that began to ll the room and then the hall passage as a wave of transparent night began to ood through the building like the tiding of dark uorescent night. It was over. Atlantic Towers was cast in his darkness and the Incubus fed on the every fear, stench of death, every whores solemn desire, every drug slaved fevered dreams, the chemical retreats from past present and future pains; the lost children, the force abortions, the unrequited loves, the rapes, the collected sum of a serial murders and the small silky sadness of biological self awareness

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reaching just a little before the hindbrain, dancing at the tip of the medulla oblongata that lets them all know that something primeval, unnatural and predatory was intruding upon spirit and what more, their sacred pain. And the Incubus drank, like he hadnt in centuries. And just like that, the light switch turned on. The darkness left. And Maurices crew was done. Candy sad, head against the wall, drooling.

Warren lay in the fetal position sucking his thumbing and rubbing his crotch raw while Mark laid at on the ground, his pupils gone, staring with the white of his eyes into the vast empty universe of the ceiling. But the last moment, the last breath, that was saved for Maurice. The incubus,

drunk with power and the emotional supercharge of the failings of humanity, wobbled to Maurice, who lost his gun and scampering on the ground for it, was caught unawares as the Incubus picked him up by his shoulder, and Maurice found that he didnt want to resist the embrace and the soft delicate caress of his face as the Incubus cradled his face. He felt the iron grip enclosing his head, cold hard palms held him in place. He couldnt move, his head trapped in a vise and his body barely erect. Slowly, ever so slowly like glacial migration, the grip shifted, still strong but the intent changed. The incubus massaged the edge of Maurices eyebrows with his thumbs. Amir smiled, with the faintest hint of mischief and kissed Maurice. Hindbrain

aside, Maurices homophobic socialized instinct to ght the incubus off disappeared as he surrendered. And for the rst time, he felt something besides the empty hollow. For the rst

time Maurice had more than the faintest sensation of the breath of life, of desire; of

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wanting something more than he ever cared for beyond the most basic need of food, water, drugs, pussy and power. He felt the hunger for sustenance, for life. He felt need. He needed. The incubus kept feeding him the unbridled emotional power of his victims as Lil Moes began to husker and hollow out. The longer the la faire du bouche bouche, the more gaunt Maurice became and the kiss of life slowly stole from him the essence he unknowningly used as the ambrosia of his life. When he was done, the incubus left nothing but the dried mummied remains of a

boy playing the games of a man reaching at the seams for the favor of lost gods.

It was a media upset. For three hours straight the Atlantic Avenue station, the

central hub of transportation connecting South Brooklyn to the rest of New York was dark. The Long Island Rail Road and everywhere from Atlantic Avenue down to 1st street from the Gowanus to Flatbush avenue was hit with an unexplainable brown-out. Trafc lights failed, deadly accidents were barely averted. The largest arena and overall entertainment venue, and tremendous eye sore, the Barclay center went off line. The schedule concert of a young pretty packaged crooner was canceled and the tonally challenged former child star was stuck in a room with a table of neatly arranged bottled water and two giant bowls of chocolate candy with hard sugar coatings neatly arranged and color coordinated. Or at least that is what the news media focused on. There were no mention of the

thirty-two people that died in Atlantic towers and the remaining twenty-three that were hospitalized and treated for what could only be charitable described as communal nervous breakdown. The ofcial word was exposure to a gas main breakage caused a

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widespread toxic reaction. Since most of the dead and aficted were marginalized African-American and Latinos not much was made of the incident and the whole affair amounted to one sentence from two news commentators on two different stations. In actuality, the Atlantic Towers was done; its power grid fried, communications lines destroyed and the overall atmosphere, depressing at best was damn near suicide inducing now. It was now coated in a psychic residue of thick shame, self-hatred and moral anxiety. In short, the Incubus left his stink and it would be some time before those projects were inhabitable again. In Hanks Saloon, Tucker placed a glass of clear water before the quiet black man.

You heard? The man looked at him and nodded. Sorry, Dexter. I know this makes things difcult now! Tucker smiled. We have a name to the face now, Dexter shook his head, Yes it does. I guess I

have to kill an incubus. Probably not. Tuck pulled a folded paper from his back pocket and left it on the

table as he walked away. Dexter took a sip from the glass and looked at the paper. It was a local

neighborhood rag popular amongst the Muslim crowd. The cover story featured a picture of a black European model van with a raised roof. It screamed surveillance vehicle. The caption of the article read ICE AT IT AGAIN and the subheading, HOW MANY MORE ARAB-AMERICANS WILL DISAPPEAR TO THIS TIME AROUND! Dexter tried to make out the license plate and could only see it partially. He could make out CU2---. The government had the man and since he recognized it was a containment unit

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vehicle and not a surveillance van, the American governments special agency--- so special it did not have a name--- knew what it had in its custody. The incubus was in trouble. Not my problem, he snorted. Dexter nished his glass of water, Put his leather blazer on, walked up to the bar

and instructed Tucker, Hold all my calls. You know how to reach me and keep the holy trinity on standby! got it. Dexter stepped out into the light of day with the weight of darkness in his Crossing palms in the manner of eld soldiers, Lawyers, guns and money! You

retreating soul. With the knowledge that it was going to be a long days journey into night, he put on his shades, felt the direction of the winds and walked towards the projects.

This story, the fate of Amir and the introduction of Dexter is continued in The Solar Myth: A Dexter Driggs Novel.