| The Second Life of Cristina Cisneros |
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| By: |
| Published on 21 Jun 2022 03:30 |
The ground raced to meet Cristina. Finally, she hit the floor hard. She could feel her ankle twisting beneath her with a sickening pop. "¡Me lleva la chingada!" She exclaimed in a burst of anger.
"Comandanta, are you okay?" Asked Baruch as he lent her a hand to stand up.
"I'm fine," Cristina replied to the jaguar-man as she applied an analgesic spell to her ankle. "Where is Lorena? I can't see a damned thing in this darkness."
"I'm here, want some light?" Asked Lorena in her characteristic playful tone.
"Please." Cristina smiled, knowing that at least they would not die in pitch darkness.
Lorena the pyromancer opened her palm and five small fireballs appeared at the tips of her fingers. She blew delicately over them, the fireballs floating away along the stream of her breath. They grew in size as they floated into the ceiling, illuminating the halls of the infinite library.
Several-meter-tall bookcases surrounded them, some taller than others, but all of them seemed to rise up as if desperately trying to reach the impossibly high ceiling above them. Cristina knew better than to look at that ceiling, for the contemplation of the eternity could overwhelm even the strongest wills. Such was the imposing nature of the endless labyrinth containing all the knowledge in the multiverse.
"So, it worked," muttered Cristina with relief. Then she shouted, "How many of us are?"
"Nineteen," answered Baruch. "Eleven civilians, including five children."
"And wounded?" Cristina inquired.
"Four."
It could be worse, thought Cristina. They had just narrowly escaped with their lives from the Ravens. While she was happy about that, they were now stuck in the Library. And that represented a whole new set of problems.
"I still can't believe we had to run like this," said Baruch angrily. "Never thought we would be running from crows."
"We live to fight another day," replied Lorena trying to sound confident, though her voice betrayed her.
Cristina was probably the most frustrated by their defeat. But she couldn't let her people lose their morale. Not in a place like the Library. She raised her voice and addressed the group:
"Víboras! We must stay strong! This is not the end of the war! We cannot leave our people back on Earth at the mercy of our oppressors and their mercenaries! Hasta la victoria siempre! Abya Yala will be free!"
Her people cheered. Cristina had a fire inside, a fire that kept burning even at the worst of times. And she knew how to infuse that fire in others. That fire and her ability to save face were the secrets of her leadership. She managed to smile at her people without betraying an ounce of the concern in her heart.
But she knew speeches wouldn’t be enough. Not for long. They had just experienced terrible losses and now they were all lost in a magical labyrinth full of otherworldly dangers. We can only keep the morale for so long, if only I could find a quick way out of here, thought Cristina as she felt the weight of the world settling on her shoulders.
"Comandanta", said Lorena pointing upwards, "I think we have company."
Cristina looked up to the giant bookshelves that surrounded them. She saw various figures observing them from the top of the shelves. Some were human, some merely looked human, and some looked like something she’d seen in a fever dream… or a nightmare. Librarians, she thought.
More and more librarians kept appearing. Though they took no aggressive action, soon they had Cristina’s forces neatly surrounded. Some of her men nervously raised their machine guns.
Cristina threw up her palm to stop them. "Hold your fire!" she ordered.
"… understood, Comandanta," replied one of her men. They reluctantly lowered their weapons.
"Comandanta," exclaimed a female voice from above, "Is that what you are calling yourself now, Cristina? I suppose it fits. You always had such a flair for the dramatic."
Cristina immediately recognized that voice. ¡Mierda! she thought, "this day could not get worse."
"I learned from the master," replied Cristina trying to sound nonchalant, "but if we are talking about dramatic noms de guerre, I don't really think anyone could match yours, Allison."
"I always had enjoyed your wit." The Black Queen smiled sardonically as she descended graciously toward Cristina. A floating mass of books formed a staircase beneath her feet as she walked down from the massive height without a care in the world.
"You must have been desperate if you thought coming here was your best option." The Queen continued her sneering speech as she landed softly in front of the rebel sorceress. "Welcome to the Wanderer's Library, Comandanta," she added with a sarcastic bow.
"I wasn't thrilled either. But we didn't have much time; the Library was the fastest portal I could conjure. Though I don't owe you any explanation, Your Majesty." Cristina answered with her own exaggerated bowing. "Guerrilleras don´t owe anything to Queens," she added.
"You are right you don't owe me anything, Cristina. But you are quite deeply indebted to the Library itself. Sooner or later, we all must pay our debts. And for you, my darling, it is going to be sooner." The Black Queen gently put her palm on Cristina's face, "You will return what you stole."
Prompted by the thinly veiled threat, Cristina's subordinates jumped to their leader’s defense. Baruch roared and began to unleash his nahual transformation, flames sprouted from Lorena's arms, and the remaining guerrilleros aimed their guns at the Queen.
"Back off!" Shouted Cristina. "We cannot win against her," she directed a defiant look to her former teacher, "not here at least."
"There's no need for confrontation," the Queen's tone of voice had the peculiar quality of making you feel mocked and reassured at the same time. "I'm not here to punish you, Cristina. But even you have to concede that it is only fair to pay your debts if you are going to enjoy our hospitality. Though I must admit I admire your guts. Stealing some cookbooks from the Library, tricking the Sin Nombre Cartel by convincing them the books are actually powerful grimoires, and exchanging them for weapons and supplies for your little revolution. That takes courage, creativity, and a death wish. I can respect that. On the other hand, I really enjoyed some of those recipes."
"I did what I had to do in order to protect the people from Abya Yala. Unlike some other sorcererss I could name, I just couldn't stay here doing magic tricks while my people suffered." Cristina looked intensely at Allison's eyes. For a moment, it seemed like she was going to go toe to toe with the Black Queen herself, but then she remembered the reality of their situation, and her bravado fell off. "Please, give my people sanctuary here," she hesitated for a moment and grumbled: "I will pay my debt. I will retrieve the books."
"Cristina, my dear, you've already done that. I made a deal with Sin Nombre. They will give me the books…" the Queen added a dramatic pause, "… in exchange for you." Her amused expression suggested she derived a twisted enjoyment from saying those last words.
"I will not allow this!", shouted Baruch as he assumed jaguar form. The 400-pound beast-man charged the Black Queen.
She only had to raise her hand to stop the feline in midair. "Men are so predictable”, she spoke bored and with a swift hand gesture threw Baruch to the ground, where he started to revert into human form.
"Stop!", Cristina addressed her team, "I’m telling you we cannot win!". The soldiers kept their guns nervously pointing to the Queen. After seeing the ease with which she had defeated the therianthrope, they did not seem too eager to fight her. Even Lorena looked nervous, as she helped Baruch to stand up. "Lower your weapons! That is an order!", shouted Cristina and her men complied. She looked at the people: battled-hardened men and women looking impotent and terrified, civilians hugging and joining each other in praying el Rosario, children crying while they hugged their parents, and a jaguar that now looked like a hurt little kitten. She had brought them to this end as they had trusted their Comandanta to lead them to victory. Having failed at that, at least she could lead them to safety.
"I accept your terms, just promise my people will be safe here." She remembered the words of her old friend, Artemio Sol, before the Ravens took him: A tyrant aspires to be served by the people, but a leader aspires to serve the people. Cristina smiled sadly, guess I'll be seeing you soon, old man.
"You have my word," replied the Queen, for the first time adopting a serious tone.
"Though you know what the Sin Nombre Cartel will do to me once you hand me to them. They take their time torturing and butchering their victims just for the hell of it. They force-feed you your own flesh. Starting from the fingers. I hope you can live with that, Your Highness." If this was going to be the last time her people saw her, they shall learn to be defiant to the end. Es mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas, she remembered.
"Cristina, my dear, don't be so dramatic and pessimistic," the Queen approached Cristina and whispered in her ear: "When you see the Pale Lady, tell her the Black Queen sends you."
Cristina hung upside down, reflecting on the tactical choices that had led her to this point. She had been bound with a rope made with nahual hair, which inhibited her sorcery. "If only I had had more time to conjure a portal," she muttered to herself.
She glanced around the dirty room they had locked her in. The floor was tainted with blood. Dried blood though, not hers, they had still not reached that point of the torture. For the moment, they had just beaten and burned her with cigarettes. Laughing, they said they would save the cutting of fingers for the next session.
Cristina had not given up. She scanned the room searching for any possible thing that could help her escape. The metal door was locked. There was a rusty bucket and a dirty mop on the floor; a broken clock and a big black moth adorned the walls. Nothing seemed to be useful. Then, she noticed something that had escaped her attention until that point. In the corner of the room, there was an altar. Candles, cigarettes, and liquor offerings had been put at the feet of a particular statue. It depicted a skeleton wearing a baroque dress and wielding a scythe in one hand, while it held the world in the other.
La Santa Muerte, thought Cristina. Then, the realization hit her. "La Santa Muerte! The Pale Lady! Goddammit, Allison you histrionic bitch!"
"Pale Lady, the Black Queen sends me to you…" She had not finished speaking the sentences when the big black moth took off from the wall and landed on her forehead. Then, the broken clock started ticking. At that moment, she felt as if time-space itself folded unto her, compacting her into a point where she lost any semblance of self. For a moment everything stood still, and she felt a strange peace.
Then she was violently decompressed and snapped back to reality. She found herself in an open field of orange flowers extending until the horizon.
She looked around inspecting her surroundings. Nothing but the endless field of flowers and an odd starless dark blue sky above her. At times it looked more like a painted ceiling of a cavern rather than an actual firmament. She turned around and found a small white garden table with two chairs. Was that table there before? She was so tired she didn't even question it. She sat in the chair and closed her eyes.
Cristina took a depth breath. The flowers smelled comfortably sweet. She could have stayed like that for all eternity.
"Are you enjoying my cempasúchil fields?" Said a voice in front of her. Cristina opened her eyes to find a sharp-dressed woman sitting at the table. The lady was dressed in an elegant old-timey dress and donned a wide flowery hat. She wore black makeup over her pale skin, in the manner of a skeleton. Or was she an actual skeleton? It was hard to tell.
"Cristina," said La Catrina smiling, "I have been waiting for you, linda."
"Am I dead?" Asked Cristina
"Dead? Querida, stop the telenovela. You are still pretty much alive, at least for now."
Cristina shook her head as the memories of the last 24 hours returned to her mind. The battle with Valravn, the escape to the Library, and her torture at the hands of the Sin Nombre drug gang. The adrenaline started to kick in, "They're about to cut my fingers off and make me eat them! I need your help!"
"Of course, I will help you, querida" the voice of Death was strangely reassuring, "but first, let's have some xocolatl."
The Pale Lady rang a small bell she had just conjured out of thin air. A silver-feathered serpent with colorful bird wings, deer horns, and claw-like hands descended from the sky. Its scales shined like precious stones. It carried a tray with a talavera tea set. On its back rode a hare with bull horns and a six-legged hedgehog. They were as colorful and extravagant as their mount.
The serpent landed graciously next to the garden table. The hedgehog and the horned-hare proceed to dismount. The hedgehog received the tray with the tea set from the serpent and put it on the table. The hare poured a thick brown beverage from the talavera teacup into two cups. It gave one to the Pale Lady and offered the second to Cristina. Then, they mounted, and the serpent took flight again.
As they disappeared into the star-less sky, Cristina had been observing the three creatures with wonder, "I had never seen an Alebrije before."
"They're so cute and helpful”, said the Pale Lady. "I would hug them all day, but they are not big fans of that sort of thing."
Cristina took a sip of xocolatl. It tasted sweet, spicy, and a little bit like iron.
"Are you enjoying it? It's an old family recipe: cacao, sugar, chiles and just a little bit of blood.
"It is quite tasty", replied Cristina with a smile. She was a bruja after all, and blood chocolate from the Death was not the strangest thing she had drunk.
"Ay querida, I'm really glad to hear that", The Pale Lady's smile shone like a beacon full of pure joy. Then, her face took on a more serious expression. "Regarding your current situation, I will help you. However, I'm going to have to ask you to make a promise to me."
"What kind of promise?"
"That when the time comes, you will come to my aid." Answered the personification of Death, somewhat sadly.
"Could you be more specific?" Cristina raised an eyebrow.
"There's going to be a war. And we will need a Comandanta", La Catrina sighed, "I'm sorry, querida, but you already know how this business of cryptic prophecies works. You can never be too specific, or everything falls apart. But I can assure you, I'm on the side of the people. The people that spend their lives facing the threat of death every day, and yet manage to still find joy in life. The people that make me promises and give me offerings so I can protect them from violence and oppression. The same people you are so willing to die to protect."
"It always has to be like this", sighed Cristina. But she knew well that Death could be trusted. She was, after all, the fairest of all judges. "Here is my promise to you, Pale Lady; that I, Cristina Cisneros Izcalli, will come to your aid when the time comes."
"Thank you, querida. And don't worry about that for now. We have more pressing issues to take care of. Our time together is coming to an end, at least for now and you must return to your predicament. But don't worry, help is on your way."
"Wait I have more questions…" Cristina’s voice faded into nothing as she felt the same spatio-temporal forces compacting her again, ripping her from the Cempasúchil Fields. She saw herself riding a giant black moth, traversing the unknowable skies between the planes of the multiverse. She shut her eyes as the ethereal winds caressed her skin and wished that trip to never end.
Then, the touch of the winds stopped. She opened her eyes to find herself again in the dirty room. She was still hanging, bound with the magic ropes. The door opened and two men entered. They carried knives and clamp pliers. One of them took the rusted bucket and put it below Cristina. I guess they are going to start working on the fingers, she thought resignedly. I wonder how they taste, though. She laughed internally, then; the fire started one more time in her heart.
"I'm a motherfucking bruja, perros!" She shouted with all of her strength, "if you even dare to put a single finger on me, your soul will be cursed forever. You shall never know rest, you shall never quench your thirst and your dick shall always remain flaccid! So go on puercos! Don't say I didn't warn you!
The two men hesitated for a second. They looked at each other briefly and then started to laugh. It was worth a shot, said Cristina to herself.
Then, an actual gunshot was heard and one of the men dropped. A second gunshot and the other one was dead. Cristina looked at the open door. There was a person standing there, with a smoking gun in their hand.
"I hope I'm not too late", said the stranger as they approached Cristina. They took one of the knives from the dead men a proceeded to cut Cristina free.
"Thank you," said Cristina while directing an intrigued look to her savior, "do I know you?"
"My name is Ramirez, Guadalupe Ramirez," they looked around nervously, "we can chat later, we have to go now."
"There's no hurry," replied Cristina with a twisted smile, "I have something to do before we go."
The cartel safehouse burned in the distance. From the lookout, the light of the flames and the sirens of the firetrucks gave the cityscape of Juarez a spectacular touch. Cristina and Ramirez drank beer while enjoying the view. They had bought a 12-pack from the local OXXO.
"Was that really necessary?" Asked Ramirez as they sipped their Corona beer.
"I needed to let that out. Consider it a kind of self-care."
"I have to admit it was quite a dramatic exit."
Cristina smiled and took a sip from her beer, "so tell me, carcelere aren't you tempted to hand me to Foundation?"
"A little bit, I'm not going to lie. But my time with the Foundation has come to an end."
"How did you find me?"
"I asked to be relocated to Svalbard. Thought that freezing my ass off would help me forget my failings. But it didn't and I kept having nightmares about dead people. People I tried to… people I couldn't save. One night I woke up and decided to just walk into the snow. I collapsed half-dead into the frozen ground. Then an animal came to me, an arctic fox looking directly at me. The next thing I remember, I was in a field of flowers drinking chocolate with La Catrina. She told me that I could join her in the Cempasúchil Fields if I wished, but that I could still make a difference if I lived. That the nightmares would get better if I promised her to find you in Juarez and save your ass. So, I accepted it. I woke up half-frozen and dragged back into the site. The next day, I defected from the Foundation."
"Those two perras are playing a weird game of chess. And I hate being treated as a pawn."
Ramirez smiled, "so what's next?"
"I'm going to rebuild Las Víboras. The war is not over."
"Are you sure? I've seen what Valravn did to your followers. Have you considered that you might be making things worse by escalating the conflict?"
"Only a sheltered person would think that the conflict wasn't going to escalate on its own. The Foundation keeps deciding what is "normal" and then leaves us to rot under the fist of tyrants and criminals. The magic they took from us was our rightful defense against our oppressors, and now they dare to pretend to have the moral high ground? To tell us how to protect ourselves? Hypocrites!"
La Comandanta’s beer bottle cracked ever so slightly in her grip. "The normality they love so much is one where innocent people are led to be slaughtered by corrupt governments and mercenaries. Is that what normal is supposed to be? Is that worth protecting with such devotion? Let me get this straight, Ramírez, we didn't start this war."
Ramírez didn't retort. They kept looking into the horizon, melancholically. Then they broke the silence: "So there's no other way?"
Cristina shook her head, "It had to be this way. I wish it hadn't though."
"If that's the case, then I may have some information for you. There's something cooking here in México. Something big and rotten."
"There's always something rotten in México," replied Cristina, half-jokingly.
Ramirez smirked briefly, "Before I left, I took a last look at the Foundation's intel. They were worried about a little bird asking too many questions."
"A little bird?"
"Yes, of the kind that carries a notebook and writes in a journal. The same kind that tends not to survive too long in México."
"I never liked those pájaros. They were always so annoying at the Library. I don't trust them."
"You need allies at this moment."
"I need an army, not a gossip bird," she took a long sip from her bottle until it was empty. "And another beer, do you want one?"
"Not all the battles are military. You already tried to outgun them and lost. Maybe it is time to try another approach," Ramirez was looking at her seriously then added, "and yes I want another beer".
Cristina groaned, "So now one of the carceleros is telling me how to fight my war. I have fallen so low," she took a new beer for her and handed another one to Ramirez.
Ramirez accepted the bottle. "I bet you can learn a few things from me, Comandanta ¡Salud!",
"¡Salud!", Cristina smiled and drank her beer. "Anyways, what are you going to do now that you have fulfilled your promise to the Pale Lady?" she asked.
"To be honest, I haven't thought too much about it."
"I could use the help of an ex-Foundation operative," Cristina extended her hand to them.
"And I could use a second life," replied the ex-operative as they shook Cristina's hand.
"We both could," answered Cristina and drank the last sip from her beer.
