Chapter 5: The Wildfire
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5.1
Juan watches the colors of the Spectrum Nexus move around him, vivid, fractal, alive, dancing in what feels like perfect rhythm with the music drifting through El Guapo's surround sound.
The patterns shift and fold into each other, endlessly, hypnotically.
His eyes grow heavy.
Heavy.
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He closes them.
He feels himself drifting.
Drifting somewhere.
Somewhere ethereal.
He opens his eyes.
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Everything smells fresh.
Green.
Woods. Or something close to it.
Juan rubs his eyes and does a double take. He finds himself in a massive forest.
He looks around. Everything looks manicured. Organized.
Like a garden.
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But whose garden?
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He grabs a leaf from a bush and rubs it between his fingers, feeling the texture, the liquid from the broken leaf.
The air carries a familiar sweet scent.
Purple wisteria.
He can hear the sound of distant water trickling over rocks.
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"Is this a dream?" he asks himself.
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A serene, melodic, sultry voice flows behind him.
"What is a dream, Juan?"
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Juan turns around. He finds nothing behind him.
A voice whispers in his left ear.
"Is a dream a break from reality?"
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He turns. Nothing.
Her voice circles around him, like a light breeze.
"Or is a dream merely a glimpse of the truth?"
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He knows that voice.
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Juan draws both his pistols as fast as he can. The red one in his right, Faith, quick and honest.
The black one in his left, Hope, patient and powerful.
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The voice responds, warmly amused. "Oh, Juan. That's no way to greet a good friend."
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"Our last meeting didn't end well," he says, turning slowly, scanning between the trees. "We didn't part on good terms."
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"That is true." She pauses. "I lost myself, for a little while. But I've had time to cool down." Another pause. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding."
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"Shouldn't you be dead?"
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"What is death, Juan?" The voice is closer now, just behind him. "Is death a change into the unknown?" He turns. "Or is death just a different type of dream?"
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He sees her standing in front of him.
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Beautiful. Beautiful in the way death is beautiful to a suffering soul.
Uncanny. She is Schrödinger's beauty.
So alien. So human. So delicate. So divine.
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Golden serpent eyes that could pierce steel. A gentle, warm smile that could melt it just as easily.
She is Eve. She is the Garden of Eden. She is the tempting serpent. The forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. All four wrapped into a single entity, with sad eyes and a dangerous smile.
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Juan's baggage is measured by centuries.
Her baggage is measured by the death of stars.
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Juan says her name softly. "Metairie."
She smiles, genuinely happy to see him.
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5.2
"I miss you, Juan."
She closes the distance and throws her arms around his neck. She stands a little shorter than him. She turns her head and rests her cheek against his heart.
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He can feel the gentle coils of her snake tail-like locks, her Medusa-like hair drifting against him. It looks rough but feels like soft fingers brushing his skin.
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She still has that same scent.
The delicate sweetness of plumerias, filling him with memories of a time long forgotten.
He puts his arms around her waist and returns the embrace.
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"You found this place sooner than I expected," she says. "But I knew you would."
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Juan stays quiet.
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"Do you know where you are?" She leans back far enough to look into his eyes without releasing her hold on him.
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"The Spectrum Nexus?"
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Metairie laughs. A small, private laugh.
"Is that what the others call it?" She smiles to herself, a sly curl at the corner of her mouth. "How quaint." She looks around at her garden. "We call this place the First and Last Dream. This is where we were made. The Naga."
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She holds his gaze. Their eyes play a slow tug-of-war. "This is the home of the Lonely Dream," she continues. "The same Lonely Dream that made me." She lifts one hand and places it over his heart. "And the same Lonely Dream that made you. This is the home of all Tala."
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"Tala?" Juan's eyes narrow. "There you go again, talking in riddles. Can you finally explain it?"
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Metairie smiles. "I've told you many times, it can't be explained simply, Juan. Tala means many things" She takes her hand off his chest and twirls a slender finger in the space between them. “It's all around us. It is us. It is your truth, and that you must discover for yourself."
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The nostalgia quickly fades from Juan. He holds her gaze. His eyes go cold and quiet. "You didn't have to kill her, Metairie."
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Metairie sighs and looks to the side. "You're still upset about that?"
She glances back at him. His eyes haven't changed. "I suppose I don't blame you." She pauses. "I forget how fragile humans are."
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"She was a good person," Juan says. "She didn't deserve to die."
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He raises Hope and presses the double barrels gently to the base of Metairie's chin.
She gives a small, playful sound, somewhere between a laugh and a dismissal, and moves her head to the side, letting her cheek slide along the barrel.
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She holds his eyes the entire time. Then she moves her lips to the tip of the gun and kisses it. "I suppose that's fair."
She brings her face close to his, noses almost touching. "If you get hurt playing with flames, is it the fault of the fire?"
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5.3
"You can't compare yourself to a mindless fire," Juan says.
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"Even if you give a fire a mind," Metairie answers, "wouldn't its desires remain the same?"
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Juan closes his eyes for a moment.
This is something he has contemplated about himself for a long time.
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He opens his eyes and returns her gaze. He knows the cold sadness of regret that they both share. "Only if the fire refuses to grow and understand."
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Metairie smiles and settles back, relaxed.
She turns her head. "Touché."
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They stay in each other's arms and let the words hang between them in the garden.
"I'm sorry, Juan," she says finally, a hint of something genuine in it. "I should have known better."
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"Sorry won't bring her back, Metairie."
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"I know." She pauses. "But does a person really die, if you still carry her dreams and her Tala?"
Juan is quiet. The words work on him despite himself.
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She reaches for his left hand, the one holding Hope, and moves it gently to the side. "You should put Hope away. At least for a little while."
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He agrees. The black revolver dissolves into smoke and disappears into his palm.
Metairie watches it go, and as it fades, she sees the anja in his left hand, her gift to him, sitting in the slit of his palm.
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"How is my gift treating you?" She looks at it with quiet fondness. "Hopefully it makes things easier."
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"It's been useful," Juan says. "But I'm afraid it might make things a little too easy."
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She smiles, a real one, warm and satisfied. "As long as it helps. Without it, I can only exist here." She looks up at him.
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He gazes back. "You could take it back. Free yourself, Metairie."
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She thinks about it, genuinely, for a long moment. "I'm not ready to go back yet. I don't deserve to go back."
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"I understand," Juan says.
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Her golden serpent eyes grow softer. "Maybe you could stay here with me, Juan?"
Juan remains silent. Steadfast.
"Promise me?" she continues.
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Juan's answer comes with a faint smile. "You know I can't make promises about things I don't fully understand."
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Her eyes open wider. He can see her working to hold something back.
She turns her face and buries it against his shoulder.
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"It's a shame you were born a human." A pause. "You would have made a great king."
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"There's no guarantee I'd be the same person I am today."
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They begin to move, slow, without deciding to, hands tracing each other's backs.
Juan continues, "I'm just a man, playing poker at a table full of gods."
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Metairie looks up at him. A smile finds its way through. "That's why you keep winning. You're the only one who knows what it feels like to lose everything."
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Juan returns the smile.
She takes his left hand with quiet affection. "I still remember the first time you showed me how to tango."
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Juan laughs. "I remember. You were a goddess with clumsy feet."
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Metairie laughs too, and they begin to sway together, easy, unhurried, a gentle dance among the garden trees.
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Then she lets go of his hand and presses her palm to his chest. "It's funny," she says, almost to herself. "I could rip your heart out at any moment." She keeps her hand there. "But no matter what, it could never be mine."
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"That's because love isn't about ownership," Juan says. "It's about connection."
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"Connections can be both a blessing and a curse," she says quietly.
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Juan considers that. "I agree."
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She looks up at him, and her expression has shifted, something more serious moving behind her eyes. "I want to see it."
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"Metairie. Now isn't a good time."
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Her voice stays calm. "That wasn't a request."
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5.4
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The garden responds.
Branches move. Vines uncoil and reach, wrapping around Juan's limbs, his neck, pulling him back toward the tree trunk behind him as it bends and contorts, thick with moss, reshaping itself into something like a throne.
The branches continue to press him down into him, reclining him back. Metairie settles on top of him, straddling his lap.
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Juan looks at the vines holding him. "You know this can't hold me."
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"And yet," she says, like a witch casting a spell, "you stay." She places both hands flat against his chest. "Don't worry. It won't hurt."
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Massive flowers erupt from behind Juan, releasing a thick, intoxicating fragrance that hangs in the air like something between perfume and medicine.
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Metairie reaches back and plucks one, squeezing it over the cross-shaped scar on his chest.
Branches grow from her fingertips, fine and sharp as surgical instruments, and she uses them to open the flesh along the scar line, peeling it back carefully, exposing the Black Amrit crystal beating in the hollow of Juan's chest.
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She is careful not to touch it directly.
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Sad memories from a time many stars ago flood her mind. "I remember when this corrupted Galliano. He was the strongest of us all. Only Mandias could rival him."
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She manipulates branches from nearby trees with practiced precision, drawing the crystal out slightly from Juan's chest. Juan doesn't look at it.
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He doesn't like looking at it. Instead, he keeps his eyes on Metairie.
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She glances up. "How do you keep it from corrupting you?"
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Juan takes his time. "To be honest, I don't really know. I mean, who's to say it hasn't already?"
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Metairie studies it: the red sutures moving beneath the crystalline surface, the various toothy eyes staring back at her from inside the facets.
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She can see her own reflection on its surface. The toothy eyes expand, trying to connect with her. It has no effect. Her soul broke eons ago.
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She examines the glowing blue runes binding it, and something like admiration crosses her face. "I can see what the Alchemist has done here. His work has always been impressive."
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Golden thorns grow from her fingertips.
She shapes them into circles, careful and deliberate, and has the vines break them free one by one, placing them around the Black Amrit like a second layer of binding, reinforcing what is already there. Then she uses the tree branches to ease it gently back into Juan's chest.
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"Why can't you just destroy it?" Juan asks.
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"I tried once." She begins stitching the wound closed with her vines, precise as thread through a needle. "I cast it into a star. The star erupted, but it remained. I only survived because of its counter, the White Amrit the Alchemist created."
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She finishes the last of the stitching and looks up. "You still have it? The white one?"
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"Yes. Somewhere safe."
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She grins. "Let me guess. It's with your little celestial friend?"
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"Maybe. Or maybe not." Juan gives her nothing. "I'll play that one close to my chest."
She takes his left hand and places the anja against her heart. It pulls something from her slowly, color draining from her by a few degrees. Juan's wounds slowly heal.
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"You've always been good at making friends," she says, with the faintest hint of envy. "But friends can be a blessing and a curse. A weakness, a pain waiting to be exploited by others or by fate."
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"We all suffer no matter what," Juan says. "I'd rather do it with people I trust."
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Her expression grows serious. "You trust way too easily. You have a bad habit of attracting dangerous people."
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"I can only play with the cards I'm dealt."
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Metairie smirks. "I can see your tala. Fate has dealt you your biggest weakness." She looks at him directly. "A dangerous woman." She pauses. "Your chivalrous nature will be the end of you."
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Juan grins. "Then I die with no regrets."
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"That's why you'll always be surrounded by wildfire," she says. "Looking for something to burn."
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Juan is quiet for a moment. This is not the first time someone has questioned him about this. "What's the point of being strong," Juan says, "if you're too weak to be kind?"
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Metairie stops.
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A tear runs from one golden serpent eye.
"If only Galliano was like you." She looks away. "Then none of us would have to atone for his sins."
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5.5
Juan raises his hand and wipes the tear from her face. "I've been seeing you cry too much lately."
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She catches his hand and holds it against her cheek. "I've always liked how warm you feel."
They stay like that, one last moment of stillness in the garden, the wisteria around them, the water trickling behind the trees.
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Then Metairie looks up and away. She can hear someone calling from the other side of reality. She turns back to him. "You should get going. Our time is almost up."
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She begins straightening him out, cleaning his face, smoothing his hair, like a wife doing a last-minute check on her husband before he heads out to work.
She feels the back of his hair and notices something is missing.
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"Where's your ponytail?"
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Juan shrugs. "Got burned off by an onion ogre."
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Metairie laughs, genuine, surprised, bright. "You watch too many movies."
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"Nothing wrong with a guilty pleasure here and there."
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She looks at him with a look. The particular look every man knows. The look of one guilty pleasure staring into another. "I know," she says with a smile.
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Then she remembers something. Her expression shifts back to something purposeful. "Make sure you give the White Amrit to Laveau. Only a Naga could use it."
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Juan studies her. "Why send me on this quest? Why not go yourself?"
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Metairie turns her head away. "Because my heart is too weak. Every time I see Garuda, I can only see Galliano. And he knows it."
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"Then why do you want me to kill them all?"
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"To break Garuda's grasp over fate." She is quiet for a moment.
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"Garuda has many zealots, and I have no doubt his Fortune will pull you toward one of them."
She leans her face close to his, foreheads touching. She places a flower on his chest, gently, over the stitched scar. "Stay safe."
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"I will."
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They kiss, and Juan says goodbye to the first queen of the Naga: the Cruel Angelic, the Melancholy Goddess, Metairie.
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The garden begins to blur at the edges. The colors soften and run together.
His eyes start to close.
The sounds fade one by one until the garden is silent.
The last thing to go is that gentle scent.
The sweet smell of plumerias.
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His consciousness fades back into the darkness.
A familiar voice breaks the void.
Someone is calling his name.
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Juan opens his eyes and finds himself on one of the couches in the rear cabin of El Guapo. He is lying flat, arms crossed over his chest. A flower rests on top of him, as if someone has arranged him that way.
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"How did I get back here?"
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He looks up to see Alice leaning over him.
"Juan, you okay? We're almost out of the Spectrum Nexus."
Then she looks at the flower. Back at him. Back at the flower.
"What the hell is that?"
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Juan looks at it and smiles.
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Alice leans in closer, examining him. She scans him with her orb, running diagnostics. The scanner's light reveals something.
"What is that?" she asks. "Is that glitter?"
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Juan starts laughing. "I guess that's really her."
He sits up and looks out toward the front of the van. At the far end of the swirling light show that is the Spectrum Nexus, a tunnel is forming, a narrowing point where the colors gather and concentrate, a way through and out.
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Alice stares at the white flower that fell to the deck.
"Where did this flower come from?" Alice asks.
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Juan picks up the flower and looks at it. "I'm not sure. Maybe a ghost. But this place seems to be connected to more things than we originally thought."
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End Chapter 5
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and then Add to home screen.