Chapter Four: Bitter as the Wind

So, I was at the brothel owner’s funeral. I was surrounded by the lowest dregs that the underworld has to offer: dealers, con men, crooks, criminals, and addicts. What kind of person attends a brothel owner’s funeral? I mean, what do you say? Hey, sorry about your pops. Do you have any escorts available after the service? Isn’t this a whole other level of commitment to your addiction? Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your vida loca if you find yourself at your brothel owner’s funeral.

It wasn’t just dregs, either. The funeral was attended by Nords because their boss, the Frost Giant, was there, too. If Hades was a land of drug dealers, smugglers, and slave traders, the Nords were the veins that pumped lifeblood through the world, and the Frost Giant was the unofficial king.

I remember we were in the graveyard in San Malinche. The tombstones there were all made of ice. See, bodies were never buried on Hades. It was too cold, and they would just attract predators, so either the body was burned, or it was ceremonially consumed from one of the funeral stands outside of town in the Acheron Mountains. This made for an awkward funeral since there was no body to bury. Valgardt’s funeral was even more uncomfortable. The Frost Giant got up and said a few words about how hard Valgardt worked to build his business, and he said that Hel would be good in the business, and he officially announced that he would look after her as his own. Then a few of the “unpaid employees” sang a song for Valgardt, and then everybody got in line to give Hel their condolences.

While we waited in line, I read the names on the tombstones. They all had gang names like Pelón, Lil Joker, and Pinky. Does nobody have a real name anymore? Where are the Daves and Johns and Pedros of the universe? What happened to naming a girl Jennifer or Sally?

If the execution of Valgardt was a discordantly quiet affair, his funeral was the loud chorus of chaos because all around the graveyard were protestors chanting and holding holo-signs that said things like “Leave the animals alone!” and “You deserve this, Valgardt Warg!” I remember the shear anger in their eyes. I mean, those protestors really hated us.

La Regla Todo. Steal, rape, tear each other apart like animals, but do no harm to the animals.

“They don’t hate us, Mateo,” my dad said when he caught me eyeing the protestors nervously. “They hate what we represent.”

“What do we represent, Dad?”

“We represent the ice, son.” Whatever that meant. I know now, but I sure as hell didn’t know back then.

I waited in line like a mammoth being led to the slaughterhouse. I stood behind an addict with droopy eyes and a wiry body. I remember he stank like a mammoth’s butt. He shuffled as he walked, with a misstep and a lean like he could fall over at any moment.

I was feeling low. Everybody was. It was a funeral, right? Now, I know funerals are never happy things, but this one was especially rotten. The last words out of Valgardt’s mouth had been to avenge him. That sinks into everything. I mean, not two hours ago we all watched as a saber ripped apart Hel’s dad and consumed him. I promise you, if you ever see a human consumed by an animal, you will not forget it. And that memory was fresh on our minds while we were at his funeral.

“Sorry for your loss,” the drug addict said to Hel. He was twitching and rubbing his nose when he shook her hand. His grip was so light and airy, like a feather could escape his handshake.

She stood next to the Frost Giant. Or maybe, the Frost Giant stood next to her. I was next, and I was frightened. Not cause there were gun trolls trained on me, which there were. If I made one stupid move, they’d turn me into a blood mist so quick, I wouldn’t know it.

No, I was frightened cause I knew I was going to say the wrong thing in front of Hel. I didn’t want to say something stupid or utterly meaningless. I had class with her, and she was pretty in that third-generation Hades way. It was like all the color had been drained from her skin and hair except for two crystalline eyes. That’s what not seeing the sun for three generations will do to you. Odalé. The Forever Night.

Hel wasn’t my type, even though I was too young to really know what my type was. But that didn’t matter. She was a girl, and talking to girls made me feel like slushy snow inside, and the words couldn’t come out of my mouth right.

“This sucks,” I told her. And not in a this sucks that your dad died way. It came out more like this sucks that I have to be at your funeral, which I totally didn’t mean. Who would mean that?

I’m an idiot. Even the addict in front of me could come up with something better, and that dude would cut off your hand if he thought he could sell it to the Nords for more cragweed. I shook Hel’s hand. Her grip was like an eagle claw. She smiled when I was looking the other way. That’s what Dad told me later.

“If there is anything we can do to help,” my dad said, then we walked across the graveyard. Our boots crunched in the snow that had been gently falling all morning.

Dad’s rig sat in a row of cholo hover cars and customized cybers, most of them wolves. Nords love cyber wolves. I saw at least one cyber dragon, which I thought must belong to the Frost Giant. The dragon was watching the protestors warily. The protestors were going as strong as ever, chanting and yelling. I seem to remember a lot of spit dripping from their mouths. Maybe that’s just my stained memory. This was all a long time ago, and so much has been written about my life, sometimes the world of my memory and the fictional world of what I’ve seen merges into one memory, like snow dunes out on the plains. So maybe those protestors had spit hanging from their mouths, and maybe they didn’t. You will have to decide, not me.

The rangers, who were usually there to defend the law-abiding citizens from the criminal elements, found their roles reversed the day that Valgardt died. Now they were holding back the protestors and making sure they didn’t leave the designated protest area.

After the funeral, I climbed into the cab of dad’s rig. Cerbie was waiting for me there. Dad had said he thought it wasn’t a good idea to bring Cerbie, but I did anyway. He’s my best friend in the whole Mala-Mundial, and he could always cheer me up. Even with those yellow eyes and featureless face he was able to convey complete happiness at seeing me. I rubbed him under the chin the way he liked, and he melted into the floorboards and rolled over for a belly rub.

We drove into town. The main street was called Red Avenue by everyone cause it was the main road to the slaughterhouse, which was uphill. The road was stained crimson from all the moths slaughtered there. I have only taken the road all the way to the end a few times in my life. Dad usually leaves me at home when he goes to town. That day, though, was different. I had witnessed an execution and a protested burial. What else could be better for a kid to do? Time to visit a brothel.

We had to pick up supplies first, mostly supplies for the house and feed for the ‘moths, so we were one of the last to arrive at the brothel. The hover cars and exotic cybers were parked out on the street. Notably, though, the dragon was missing. The Frost Giant had made his point, that Hel was his daughter now, and had bigger things to occupy his time. He had a criminal empire to run. There were still plenty of Nords, though.

In true Nordic fashion, the brothel was a giant dome built to look like a thane’s keep. Like some giant meadhall out of Beowulf, except that this keep was made from ice and synthetics, not wood, and it had lurid statues carved at the entrance. Inside, the hall was brightly lit, like a theater after a concert ends and the magic is gone. The only music was the soft murmur of a funeral’s aftermeal. Instead of dancers, the stage was occupied by the giant skull of a saber-toothed tiger. Half its head was fragmented and missing. This was the beast that Valgardt was executed for killing. Its remains were displayed there like a half-eviscerated symbol of everything that was wrong with this damn planet.

The Nords and all their friends stood around talking. The slaves had been given the day off, but they were still attending to everyone’s needs by getting refills and making sure the food was warm.

Some of you might be asking if the reason I can describe the brothel so well is because I went there after this moment. The truth is, I was fifteen, and this was not my first time in the brothel. I knew what the place looked like when it was open for business, but not because I wanted that nugget of knowledge.

Dad went to Dr. Stephens, the veterinarian and one of the few people in the room not directly connected to the drug trade. Or so I thought.

“It’s a damn shame,” Dr. Stephens said. They shook hands and started to talk, but I wasn’t really paying attention. The last I heard, my father was going off on one of his diatribes about sabers and the justice system. I had already gotten an earful on the way over. “If you let a saber kill a human, they get a taste for it, a taste they never forget and come to relish.” Whatever. Like there was anything we could do about it even if it was true. I had my attention focused elsewhere, like Hel.

Hel was tending to the bar. She looked too small to be behind the bar, like a teenager trying to wear their parents’ old suits. The fit was not right yet. It would be, though. This was her place now. She had grown up in this bar and was raised to take over the brothel for her father, though nobody expected it would happen this soon. One of the Nords was consoling her. He was a young kid, only a few years older than me. He was saying something, and I could tell it hurt her cause she excused herself, put away the towel she was using to clean a mug, and hurried out the back door of the brothel.

Yeah, this may not have been my first time in a brothel, but it was my first time chasing a girl in a brothel.

I followed Hel out back where the trash incinerator was kept. Hel was sitting on the steps, staring at the ground and drawing circles in the snow with a straw. She spoke like she knew it would be me and no one else coming out the back door.

“Remember being a kid and dancing in the snow? Making ice forts? Snowball fights?”

“I grew up on a space station. We didn’t have snow.”

“I don’t want to grow up.”

“I’d be willing to do it if it gets me off of this ice ball.”

I sat down beside her. I was looking at the ground for something to pick up and trying to figure out what to say. She was intimidating. I was a back-of-the-class kid talking to the popular girl. While I fumbled with my words, Hel watched me with her crystal eyes.

“Hel, I can’t imagine why you’d want to go back to being a kid. You’re the most adult person I know in class. You always make the best grades, and with everything you do, you know, with the…”

“Nords?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not good at this.”

I am the worst person at this.

“I’m just saying that I think you are going to be okay. You’re like a badass of badasses. Cabrona de cabronas, you know?”

“Really?” Her tone had changed, but I wasn’t aware because I was fifteen and stupid. “What makes me such a badass?”

“Did you not hear that speech your father gave?” Que pendejo. Of course she did. She would remember it for the rest of her life.

Something inside her was shriveling, and I wasn’t even looking. We said nothing for a minute.

“You know what scares me, Mateo?”

I shrugged. Hel was looking up at the forever night, so I followed her gaze. The stars were so cold and distant.

“I keep thinking, people call this place the Underworld, cause it is named after Hades. So if this is the Underworld, what happens when we die here?

“Our bodies are burned or fed to the dire wolves in the Acheron Mountains.”

“But that’s our body. I want to know about our soul. They say that nothing decays in the land of the dead, but what I want to know is, what happens to your soul? If you die in the underworld, can you be reborn?”

“I’d like to believe that,” I told her. But I knew better. This was the end of the line. The Far Colony. The Underworld. Mala-Mundial.

Next Chapter: Chapter Five:  Slaughterhouse Lessons