Anything’s sacred if you soak it in enough blood. The hill on Calvary, and the fields of Flanders, and that plaza in Dallas: the blood sticks the stories to the ground and now visitors are mournful and respectful and keep their hands clasped in front of them. Or not. Thermopylae is a thruway now and they stuck an office building right where the last two used to be in Lower Manhattan, and there is a rock a quarter of the way up Pulaski Peak in the backyard of a man who made a tidy living selling novelty underwear. More of a boulder than a rock, and at least half-buried, he balked at the cost of digging it up and just integrated it into the landscaping around the pool. It was flat on top, so the man who sold novelty underwear attached a diving board. The contractor countersank fat metal bolts into the sandstone and noticed that the rock was only red on the surface.

“Set him down, cousin.”

“We need to bring him back to the village. His wife needs to see him.”

“Throwing Knife is across the lake having babies.”

The two Pulaski were in a natural clearing that surrounded a rock–at least half-buried, and more of a boulder than a rock–with a flat top. Talks To Whites did not remember the walk down from the pass. There was the gunshot and then Black Eyes killed those two men, and he another, and Here And There arrived. He remembered picking up Cannot Swim in his arms, and struggling with him until Here And There took him by the elbow and then his cousin was almost weightless. Black Eyes silent and watching and bloody as Here And There stood over the bodies of the Blacks and the White, muttered words in a tongue foreign to Talks To Whites, torn fabric from their clothes and plucked hairs from their heads; he remembered that, too. But not the walk down.

“Set him down.”

“We don’t have the funeral shroud.”

“Ask your cousin if it bothers him,” Here And There said. “And then set him down.”

He could not. Cannot Swim was heavy air in his arms, barely felt, and a good splotch of his blood and some brains were unwiped on Talks To Whites’ neck and ear and shoulder. Both rifles were strapped to his back, along with two satchels stuffed with everything worth stealing off of the dead White. He did not notice the load, and he could not relinquish it, just stand there dumbly, arguing with a shaman.

“Your cousin is larger than you, Talks To Whites. He is a heavy burden.”

“I can carry him.”

And now Cannot Swim was no longer weightless; Talks To Whites’ knees buckled, but held, and his heart raced and beads of sweat popped out on his forehead and forearms. It is a terrible idea to argue with a shaman. He held up for longer than Here And There thought he would, but soon he placed Cannot Swim on the rock, which was more rightly a boulder. His head pointed west, back towards the village and the valley and the lake and the harbor and the entire world, and Talks To Whites set down the weapons and bags and arranged his cousin’s hands so that they were resting on his chest. Then, he stepped back some paces, a respectful distance, and began to sing.

Talks To Whites sang about The Turtle Who Once Was And Will Be Again. About his eminent return. Very soon, The Turtle would regain his power over man. The Turtle would make all the decisions, as he did in the days of the ancient ones. Any day now.

He stopped singing and walked over to Here And There, who was sitting on the grassy ground.

“Why didn’t you stop this? You know powerful magick,” he said. Talks To Whites was pointing his finger, and his eyes were narrowed. “Cannot Swim told me all about the things you can do.”

“Did he?”

And now Talks To Whites was buck naked. It is a terrible idea to point at a shaman.

Here And There had been an odd child. She was born with a caul; the midwife carefully sliced it from her tiny face and buried it by the lake once she was suckling. I am part of the earth, she told her peers once she got a little older. None of the other children knew how to process that statement. She refused moccasins and went everywhere barefoot. Before she was near old enough to chew the leaf, she did so openly and none of the adults or elders made any attempt to stop her. The tribe’s dogs looked to her before following anyone else’s commands.

Naturally, this attracted the shaman’s attention. He had been waiting many years for a replacement. The first words he spoke to her were,

“What does magick cost?”

She answered,

“Life.”

He asked,

“Whose?”

Here And There laughed and shrugged her shoulders, which was the right answer. The shaman took her from her parents’ kotcha and she came to live outside the village, about two miles to the south. The shaman kept his own fire. He taught her about the peregrine maria tree and the cybellinus mysticus mushroom. She learned the forgotten language, the original language that they spoke in Babel, and she learned the resonant frequencies and how to bother crickets. When he died, she never spoke his name again.

“Sit with me, cousin,” she said to Talks To Whites.

“Can I have my clothes back?”

He was naked and covering his cock and balls with his hands. It was warm, he thought. At least he had that going RONCH Black Eyes leapt at one of the vultures circling Cannot Swim and the funeral rock, got it by the nude throat, shook twice three times, and the other birds hopped from claw to claw, heads swiveling between the boy and his dog.

And now Talks To Whites had clothes on again. Breechcloth, tunic, stiff leather leggings, moccasins.

“Sit.”

He did. The grassy plateau was open to the sun, which was high and unguarded by clouds, and wildflowers bloomed like they did after every rain, purple and red and yellow, and these attracted fat bumblebees that plopped along and made a low noise like thrrrrrrrrrm.

THRRRRRRRRRM is the sound of the LAPD (No, Not That One)’s helicopter warming up, rotors still, on the helipad atop the police station on Peel Street. It was a Bell model, the one with the bubble-shaped glass cockpit and the blades high above that on the end of a metal stanchion. The chopper was intended for the Korean War, but didn’t quite make it to the Salt Wharf. Some call the helicopter a conscientious objector. Others say that the cops stole it from the Army. Locals despised the machine; it was just so unsporting, like hunting deer by laying a minefield.

Little Aleppians would not be hovered at, thank you.

The widespread irritation never boiled, though, as the helicopter had flown less than a dozen times in the 30 years the department had it. It turned out that it was far easier to steal a chopper than to fly one, and both of those activities were cake when compared to maintaining one. The Brass paid for Officer Saccocetti to take a correspondence class in helicopter repair, and he did the best he could, which consisted mostly of gazing in confusion at the intake valves and begging his superiors not to let anyone fly in the damned thing. In the end, the Chief and his Captains didn’t want to budget the money for the chopper, preferring instead to spend the money on themselves.

This led to a very dumb behavior loop: a criminal would win a car chase; the Cenotaph would print an editorial asking what the hell the chopper was for if the cops weren’t going to use it; whichever Town Father was currently about to be indicted would hop on the story to distract everyone from his or her nonsense; the Brass would try to blame each other while secretly hiring a mechanic to get the bird back in flying shape. The Bell ‘copter would then be flown around the neighborhood, at which point everyone would lose their fucking minds and walk down to the police station on Peel Street and scream and throw fruit. The helicopter would be covered with a tarp when it returned. All involved would forget about the whole incident. Then, a criminal would win a car chase. Repeat until terminal metal fatigue.

But Frenchy Somme needed impressive hardware to stand in front of while he avoided questions about what the police were doing about the Downsider, and since it was 198- and the cops hadn’t been given tanks yet, the helicopter would have to do. He pressed the station’s car mechanic into service that morning.

“No comprende.”

“It’s a fucking engine, Luis.

“Es helicóptero.”

“Engine’s an engine. Just get it running. It doesn’t have to fly, just idle.”

“Podría matarnos a todos.”

“There’s the spirit. Reporters’ll be here at two.”

When the reporters arrived, they were treated to coffee and a variety of pastries. None of the cops winged their shoes at any of the reporters’ heads, which is not unheard of; they were under strict orders to be pleasant. None of the LAPD (No, Not That One) cared much for the Fourth Estate, but they did care about winning the blame game with the Town Fathers. Or the fire department. Or the teachers or local criminals. It did not matter who was deemed responsible for the Downsider, the cops thought, as long as it wasn’t them.

Stalin knew how to deal with reporters, Chief Somme thought. He had a podium that a rookie had humped up the stairs, and all the Brass stood behind him on his left, and the chopper was to the right, and beyond all of them were the seven green Segovian hills. The tableaux said strength, authority, competence, and helicopter. There were two cameras, both from KSOS, and at least two dozen microphones arranged in an electronic bouquet atop the lectern; this blocked the captain’s face in both shots.

THRRRRRRRRRRRRM.

The cameras each came with an operator, and a producer, and a talent (Cakey Frankel and Flip Chares); there was an intern from KHAY buckling under the weight of her tape recorder, sundry slobbish types with pencils and notebooks (among them Iffy Bould and Lolly Tangiers), and Luis.

“I have some prepared remarks and then I’ll take your questions. Okay. The Little Aleppo Police Department is committed to the safety of the neighborhood’s residents, and we are sworn to uphold the law. This vigilante jackass, some people are calling him the Downsider or whatever, is a criminal and he’ll be treated as such. He’s put ten or twelve people in the hospital. Sure, all those people were scumbags, but we’re just not gonna have it anymore.”

Chief Somme knew he would be standing for a while, so he had fortified himself with an extra vicodin or two. His knees felt wonderful.

“We’re not waiting for the Town Fathers to come up with a plan,” he said, and peered over the microphones to make sure the print reporters had jotted the sentence down. “I’m announcing the formation of a task force designed to hunt down and capture the Downsider. This task force will be given the money and material needed to bring this law-breaking maniac into custody. We’ve already got the chopper up and running.”

THRRRRRRRRRRRRM.

The chief waved his arm at the helicopter, but felt like a model on a game show standing next to a pair of jet-skis, so he turned the wave into a thumbs-up and that was awkward, too, so he pointed vaguely into the small scrum.

“Questions?”

Iffy elbowed Lolly in her ribs, sharpishly. He had told her on the walk over that she was to ask the first question. The Cenotaph always asked the first question. The world had certain rules to it, he told her. She barked out,

“How many officers will be on the task force?”

“As many as is necessary from a tactical point of view.”

“And how will they be deployed?”

“Tactically. Cakey?”

Cakey’s hair was particularly massive, and her earrings were small gold crosses. Her scarf was diaphanous, yet welcoming.

“I didn’t even have my hand raised.”

“That’s okay. Do you have any questions?”

“Wasn’t there a family of possums living in the helicopter?”

“There was. Luis got ’em out.”

Chief Somme gave Luis the thumbs-up, then worried about giving too many thumbs-ups. He’d been out here for only minutes and had done it twice already, he thought. Knock it off, Thumbelina, he thought. Luis did not have any problems with giving a thumbs-up, and so he did.

Cakey turned to him and said,

“Good for you. So brave.”

“Gracias.”

Iffy was slouching and smoking, and he called out,

“What exactly will this task force be doing? Like, what are they gonna do that you’re not capable of doing?”

“The task force will require different skills than normal police work. For example, we’re going to need a computer expert, a master of disguise, an explosives guy. I’m waiting on a call back about a genuine Indian tracker. And a big strong guy. Always need one of those. You. In the glasses.”

A thin young man with thick black spectacles looked at his notes and asked,

“Chief, have you heard the new Herpes 7-inch? And what do you think about Carcass Canvas breaking up?”

“Where the hell are you from?”

“I have a zine that covers Little Aleppo’s underground music scene.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Chief Somme said. “Flip, did you have a question?”

Flip Chares and his immaculate combover did have a question, and it was,

“Does the task force have a name yet?”

“We are hung up on that, to be honest. Whole station’s arguing about it. Some officers want the name to be what you’d call ‘heavy-metalish.’ I’ve heard ‘Street Dragons’ and ‘the Fistpunchers,’ which I told ’em didn’t make any sense, but these are younger officers and they’re excitable. There’s a large contingent pushing to go understated with it. ‘The Firm’ or ‘The Squad’ or something real plain like that. Detective Haney likes ‘Mix’tlaoc’lkal,’ which he says is Ancient Aztec for ‘a hunting party where the prey is a god.’ Haney’s probably been working Narcotics a little too long.”

Flip had another question, which was,

“Will there be a telephone hotline set up?”

“Absolutely not. No one takes them seriously when it’s not about a kid. Jackasses call in breathing heavy or trying to lure officers into elaborate traps. When the Fifth First Bank got held up and we had a hotline, some idiot kept calling up and putting us on the line with pizza places and the zoo and wherever. You’ve all heard the tapes.”

Some of the reporters were too polite to nod, and the rest were professional except for Lolly who SNORFED out of her nose. A local who went by Phoney Maroney got the cops on three-way calls with random establishments around the neighborhood, and neither party would know who called who and the confusion was often comical, mostly because Officer Arellano was on hotline duty, and Officer Arellano responded to confusion with belligerent yelling. “I’LL SHOOT THAT FUCKING GIRAFFE,” was one of the more printable quotes from the conversations. Phoney Maroney recorded these dialogues, and they went from tape deck to deck around Little Aleppo. It was a rite of passage to drive around getting high and listening  to the tapes. Iffy elbowed her in the ribs again. She counter-elbowed, but he bent his back around the blow. Iffy was quick for a shambler.

“Chief?”

“Iffy?”

The Chief’s knees were feeling utterly delightful.

“What exactly is the Downsider wanted for?”

“Questioning.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

“It’ll come. All things in due time.”

“I don’t think that’s how warrants work.”

THRRRRRRGANGALANGACHANGABOOM

Chief Somme came around from the podium and waved everyone towards the access door to the roof.

“Let’s go. Inside.”

First the reporters and then the Brass and it was just the Chief and Luis and HONGADANGABANG from the chopper.

“Te dije que esto pasaría.”

“Just shut the damn thing off!”

And then it was just Luis on the roof.

The briefing room wasn’t big enough for all the Brass to stand behind Chief Somme, so the press waited while they argued about it, and then they finished up. The teevee crews were happy because they thought the change of venue added production value, and the print reporters were happy because there were pastries left. Questions were asked, responded to (though usually not answered), notes were taken. Many sports metaphors were used, and the movie Patton was quoted at length.

“How can my cousin be dead?”

“The Turtle Who Once Was And Will Be Again did not make the Whites. That was a different god. That god did not teach the Whites not to shoot strangers. The Turtle did not teach us that, either, but we did not have guns until the Whites brought them.”

The bees made a low sound like thrrrrrrrrrrrrm as they bounced among the flower petals getting sticky with pollen and full with nectar. More vultures had arrived, black and turkey, and so had condors. They flared their massive wings and hopped up and down. There were two groups of the scavengers: one around the rock that bore Cannot Swim’s body, which was protected by Black Eyes, and a smaller circle around the vulture whose neck Black Eyes had snapped. The dog did not growl. She did not need to. She walked the perimeter of the sacred rock and made aggressive eye contact with the birds.

“So maybe I didn’t have much of a point.”

“Bring him back,” Talks To Whites said. “You can do that.”

“I can? How?”

Talks To Whites waved his hands around in what he felt was a magickal fashion.

“With all that.”

“Let me try.”

Here And There waved her hands in a similar fashion.

“Did it work? Go poke him.”

They were sitting on the thick grass to the west, which was upwind of the funeral rock. Here And There wore her hair loose and so long it brushed against dandelions; there were seven ice-white stripes running from her forehead to the ground. She was the only Pulaski with freckles, which spread out under her eyes like bat wings. The tribe wore tunics that were sleveless and made of soft deerskin and hemmed well above the knee. Loud Fingers did the embroidering, and each Pulaski chose their own designs. Talks To Whites had hummingbirds, for no other reason than he liked hummingbirds; Here And There’s tunic had glyphs and sigils all over it and she wouldn’t tell anyone what they meant. Also, Loud Fingers grew hair all over his back and lost his voice and kept waking up in trees while he was sewing in the symbols.

“Magick is about existence. The past exists no longer. The future does not exist yet. What exists is the present. And in the present, our cousin is missing half his head. So we will sing for him and then return to the village.”

“The hunters will want revenge,” Talks To Whites said.

“So will their hunters. I see darkness coming.”

“You said you couldn’t see the future.”

“Don’t need to be a shaman to smell blood in the air,” Here And There said, and she whistled FEEtwee and Black Eyes sprang forward and snatched a turkey vulture by the neck, shook twice, dropped it. She pawed back away slowly, and the other birds surrounded the carcass.

TINKadink went the bell on the door to the bookstore with no title; a man with a thick beard walked in and up to Mr. Venable’s desk. There was a teevee on it. Portable and newish, white, with a handle on top for ease of carry, and rabbit ears. The picture was smudgy and saturated with thick reds. The set usually resided in the office behind the secret door in the bookcase, but Gussy didn’t know about his office or the secret door yet, and he didn’t want to tell her, so he quick-snatched the teevee out of there when she wasn’t looking and set it up on his desk. He was in his customary spot.

“Do you have anything on traditional burial practices?”

“Shh!”

Augusta O. Incandescente-Ponui, whom everyone called Gussy, walked out of the shelves to the rear of the shop and said,

“Don’t shush customers.”

“Then what’s the point of having them?”

Gussy planted herself in front of the man with the thick beard and smiled her best retail smile.

“Did I hear you ask for traditional burial practices?”

“Yes,” he said.

She pointed back the way she came.

“Go down the middle aisle until your first left. Then take seven more lefts. Every first left you come to, take it. Seven times. No! Eight. If you get an overwhelming sense of dread, you’ve gone too far.”

The man sauntered off. It was not his first visit.

“Gussy! It’s almost time!”

“You’re a child.”

Buh-BAAAAAA-duh-bah went the theme music for the KSOS Evening News with Trusted Meese. The graphic was a globe with a glowing star marking Little Aleppo; it was spinning a tiny bit too fast, and the image faded into Trusted’s face. It was a good face. It was the kind of face that could spot lies but not spout them. You could use Trusted Meese’s face as collateral on a bank loan, metaphorically. (In actuality, the bankers were just confused when Trusted tried. “We can’t take your face as collateral, Mr. Meese,” the bankers said. “How about my hog?” Trusted said, and took out his dick. The loan was not offered.)

Gussy leaned on the top of Mr. Venable’s chair back. He had his feet up, and was wearing his customary suit.

On the screen, Trusted looked into Camera One.

“Little Aleppo, it’s five o’clock and here’s the news.”

He turned to Camera Two.

“Dueling press conferences today as both the LAPD (Not, Not That One) and the Town Fathers announced their plans to deal with the costumed vigilante known as the Downsider. We have wall-to-wall coverage and exclusive interviews with Police Chief Somme and two Town Fathers, one of whom was not on PCP. ”

Mr. Venable was smiling. It was not natural to him, and his cheeks began burning right away.

“You’re smiling.”

“I love a shitshow, Gus. The cops and the politicians are now fully involved. Nothing but fun from here on in.”

“Seriously, it’s weird when you smile. It’s like seeing the Mona Lisa’s tits.”

Footage from the press briefing at the police station was first, and it led off with multiple angles of the helicopter seizing up and stroking out. Then Chief Somme–stern, commanding, swaying slightly–announcing the task force.

“A reaction. Finally. The authorities have recognized the problem, named it, and thus made it official. Stage two.”

“There are stages?”

“To all of life. And this is stage two.”

“What’s stage three?”

“Did you ever read comic books as a kid?”

“Archie.”

“No superheroes?”

“Ugh.”

“That explains it. Had you been versed in the form, you would realize that we’re missing something. You have your hero, and he lives in a city, and–”

The teevee screen went SHVAZ and the horizonatal lost its hold; the picture flipped upupupupupup and the sound went FLERSHFLEEEEEEEEEE and then there was a figure shot from the shoulders up. Helmet, mask. Both made from copper, it looked like.

“Good evening, Little Aleppo. My name is not important. What is important is that the man calling himself the Downsider reveal his identity and take nude photographs of himself. If my demands are not met, things are going to start blowing up. This is the part where I show you I’m serious.”

The door to the bookstore with no title opened onto the Main Drag, and beyond that was a dull BOOM and then a glow that shone through the window.

“I am not telling you how much time you have, but the clock is running. Back to you, Trusted.”

The screen went SHVAZ again and the sound went FLERSHFLEEEEEEEEEEEE and then there was Trusted and his face.

“–he has an arch-enemy,” Mr. Venable concluded the thought that had been interrupted.

Gussy walked around the desk towards the door, and Mr. Venable followed after. The bell went TINKadink and they stood on the Main Drag in the quietly failing light as sirens flashed to life around them and all the dogs were howling in Little Aleppo, which is a neighborhood in America