Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

L. Allʼs Fair in Love & War

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    I will avenge you, mi amor.

    When Oro woke up, he found himself p*ssing off the edge of the world.

    Wh*reʼs Bay was a mini Havana with its cheap f*cks and even cheaper fyrewhiskey, and when Oro fully felt the pulsating Jamaican soca beats fill his bloodstream the way the liquor did, he yearned for his pretty little Cuban wife. For booze that flowed like ichor from the Gods, for naked little girls to continue pleasuring him, for a violent raid that would make his great axe drip in blood, for his Phoenix – one of his most beloved treasures – to be satiated. And yet, here he was, hungover as he pissed into a Trinidadian pirateʼs well, greeted by Damián el-Ouahed, his first mate.

    "Did you get your fill, Oro?"  Damián asked, the scars adorning his face spiraling around is eyes like a snakeʼs.

    Oro smirked, pulling his pants up.    

    "If I wasnʼt hungover right now, Iʼd say that sounded like jealousy."

    "Not jealously. Anger."

    That caught Oroʼs attention. Pausing, reaching for his cigarette, Oro waited for the familiar tug of his mouth against the smoke, irritated.

    "And why are you angry, hermano?" Oro shot back.

    And then, he saw.

    Kissing the shore, forking from the sides of Queen Teresaʼs Glory, were bodies of all the little girls he used. They were savagely slaughtered, a feast of corpses for his wolfʼs taking. His teeth made his mark, his hunger like a musical horror show, intricately stacking the bodies among each other and bathing in their blackened blood. Some lost their limbs, others their heads, but most certainly all their dignity. Yet the blood never lost its sway, and if anything, it aroused him further.

    "Youʼre playing with fire, Oro. Little girls? Really? Months separated from your wife, and you grow that depraved? That degenerate and desperate?"

    "Who I f*ck has never been your concern, Damiàn," Oro countered.

    "Not until you p*ssed our profits down the drain. We are the Volta Grande, forged from the gold of Camelot. Now our gold is wasted because of Ruth Tudor and the other wh*res and little sl*tty girls youʼve let walk here. We are to make a move on Escobar, who, need I remind you, holds the entire Caribbean. Heʼs brokered too many deals with narcos here. And you think f*cking underage b*tches will swing the favor our way?"

    "The Pinochet deal went sour because of him and that she-b*tch. Do not put it on me," Oro growled.

    "Conquests donʼt matter if we donʼt have money, Oro. We are bandits. We should not have to succumb to outside pressures to remain profitable. The narcos have been talking too much."

    "You talk too much. Them...let them talk. Our competition. They wonʼt talk so much when they've been choking on my c*ck."

    "Wh*res are expendable. Our footing is not. The Order is beginning to exterminate our kind and Escobar has sold his cut to stay in power–"

    Oro laughed, blowing smoke in Damiànʼs face mockingly, to get him riled up, to test his loyalties.

    "Escobar sold his cut to The Order because I allowed him to," Oro told him.

    "Why the hell would you allow that? Hmm? Is it because heʼs giving you cheap f*cks and thrills?"

    Oro took another hit, lacing it with that Belizean rum.

    "My wife is pregnant," Oro said, unrelated. "Robin is pregnant; we think itʼs going to be a boy."

    "Hijuep*ta."

    Damiàn paused, trying to not mince his words.

    "Why is this...witch hunt important to you? We are safe; we are secure, poking Escobar – when the world expects him to be dead – is playing with fire, Oro. And f*cking these girls does not help."

     Oro also paused, staring hard.

    "We have enemies," Oro murmured, content with his nicotine. "Rys to the North. The Southern Isles to the Middle. Hijaz to the East. The Order to the West, and the Cenci to the South. Enemies that we are going to bleed us dry."

    "Then why are we here, Oro? Why – when Cali, Medellín, Sinaloa, Harlem, and Tokyo are all moving back to Bogotá?"

    Oro caught a gleam in his eye.

    "Come with me," he said.

    Queen Teresaʼs Glory caught the reflection of the murky blood. Lethal as a weapon, she stood – towering above all – soaking in the rage lying underneath. The blood from the girlsʼ clung to him as he walked Damiàn towards the captainʼs quarters of the Queen Teresaʼs Glory. Triple-decked with a war galley of over five hundred oars, and backed by Brazilian, Argentine, and Chilean warships, Oroʼs ship darkly loomed over them underneath Blackfyreʼs Caverns, hiding its golden sails and deck from the light. The catapults were tucked away, like a swanʼs feathers, the Phoenix glaring at they descended into Teresaʼs belly witnessing...

    "The Red Queen," Damián whispered, clutching the scythe strapped to his belt for dear life.

    "Lady Macbeth," Oro also whispered, a grin on his face.

    Towering above his desk was Shakespeareʼs rendition of the Red Queen. Buxom and beautiful, with tanned skin as gold as the sun and those dark, moon-like eyes. Yet, in gazing at the Red Queen and her harrowing grave, there were features of hers that seemed indigenous, prehistoric, ethnically ambiguous. Queen Gruoch ingen Boite, the Scottish terror, stared back at them with a hunger that matched Oroʼs – a sick, perverse horror, born of the same Portuguese history and might that he was. Her bloodthirstiness reminded him of his pretty little wife, and that was almost as satiating as the cigarette he fiddled with.

    Oroʼs eyes seared with anger after he reflected.

    "Pinochetʼs mistress, before she escaped our capture, was the senior accountant of the Order – where she kept and buried their secrets, including The Scottish Play and how the Red Queen and King had power over the world. How the Red Queen and King played God. Two years ago, my wife was imprisoned alongside her daughter, and when her daughter was released – to avenge for her death in Havana and the death of her grandson – she released those secrets to Macbethian extremists, Hellbender agents, Miami and Vyolèt Domingo. The Order r*ped and terrorized my wife and her children. Havana burned, and Pinochetʼs wh*re helped him create El Dorado, the golden city, the Latin capital, where narcos f*ck and fight until they even their scores and the Orderʼs secrets hide in plain-f*ckinʼ-view."

    He began to leave Damián, gripping the edge of the door as he did.

    "We are the Volta Grande, born from the gut of Brazilian gold; and now, we will move to take the f*cking narco world," Oro promised, clenching his teeth.

    "How, patrón?"

    "Gather Griselda, Popeye, and Chapo," Oro said simply. "We will take the Orderʼs city. We will take El Dorado."

    And we will avenge you, Robin.