Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

XXI. Heroes & Villains

ENTRY ONE
Recording time: 05:20:10
Authors: Halcyon al-Hurra
Location: Rys, the Rebelʼs Enclave

4
Marcella
Chicago, Illinois
Port: Naigelʼs
October 31st, 2014
Time: 7:30 AM
___________________________

​
I want Chicago to burn, and I want our white-haired problem dead.

Fail to do so, and Iʼll rip the flesh from you and your loved oneʼs bones. Tick tock, Marcellita.

Winter ate the entrails of Port Naigel the way the waves ate at the shore. Lake Michigan was a greedy lover in the corner of the Port, with a frostiness towards its marriage to the moon, and as the tiny shipping vessels cowered in fear at Port Naigelʼs might, Marcella watched the fishermen tuck themselves away for the day. The Windy City was angry tonight, angry at its string of lovers, angry at its hungry urges – but still, Marcella stood in the cold with her red leather jacket and her abuelaʼs ruby encrusted semi-automatic. She wasnʼt
much of a fan of the weather, of its vengeful agenda, but the day was fairly young. The desolation, the lack of comfort Chicago provided, it was suffocating; pillowy as she smothered it, but she took it in stride. The supernatural needed it: their elegant violence, their lavish depravity. Fed off it, consumed it.

And so did she.

"Hola, muñequita," a man murmured, chucking her a neatly woven backpack. "Do you know why I call you muñequita, Marcella?"

Ciro was an indispensable satyr. Tall, strong, dark with curly coffee-brown hair and curly horns. Half-goat, half-chicano. Marcella took a peek at the bag and handed it back to Ciro. Inside of it, there were photographs of a crypt: infested with rats, swarming with insects, with raw Colombian and Mexican heads impaled upon tall spikes. Marble effigies of men in armor, with limbs twisted in anguish and agony. Ciro left her dates, details, manila files sticky with Bacardí and los explosivos. Wrapped in cocaine with the soft caress of Chicagoʼs animosity, with its foamy ferocity. Sighing, Marcella answered his question.

"Hmm...maybe because youʼre a chauvinistic *ss?"

"Because youʼre a doll; warm on the inside, and scary as sh*t on the outside, and I like you; I like you a lot. This is scary, Marcella, and I like you," Ciro babbled.

Port Naigel whispered around them. Fiercely, with a familiarity to the walls in Havana. Talking with an impending doom, growling with an animalistic predatoriness. With a tight face, Marcella looked to her left and her right, and inhaled the pervading smell of thick Chicagoan coal tersely. The Windy City was unnerving to Marcella, a door-marked exit bound and gagged to explosives, and every-time she stated at Ciro, she grew more nervous. The row houses and lofts were silent, the thick black dust pulling them into the belly of the beast, and as the eyes stared, Marcella grew increasingly paranoid.

"That sounds like something a pedophile would say," Marcella settled, whispering to him hurriedly. "Are you a pedophile, Ciro? Humbert Humbert or some equally fetishized bull?"

"Iʼm eighteen, p*ta."

"Youʼre fresh meat," Marcella murmured simply. "And I canʼt take that risk. Not anymore; not now."

Port Naigel smoked. The sky was a foggy visage of marble and golden opulence, darkened by the smoke, and as Marcella stared – at the sky ants its blackening flesh, the skyʼs charcoal tears. Her breath was labored as she stared at the bag, her body squeezing tightly, and she tried. Tried to make the madness malleable, understand, but d*mn it, she couldnʼt; she couldnʼt.