The Sixteen Burdens (16 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
WO

P
ANCHITO
STARED
AT
his new issue of
Action Comics
with disdain. On the cover was a hero, one named Superman, who was lifting a German army tank over his head as if it were an oversized pillow—as if he were about to engage in a monumental pillow fight with Hitler.

He scribbled a mustache on Superman. It didn’t make him feel better.

Slumped on the couch he used as his bed, Panchito faced a trio of Christmas ornaments for the tree he and his grandmother were planning on picking up later that day. One was a blown glass ball, one was a ceramic wise man, and the third was a heavy snowman made of painted steel.

He focused on the glass ball and imagined having to go to the dentist. He recalled drills and knives in his mouth, and the sudden agony of an exposed nerve being hit. As the fear closed in on him he faced it, resisted it, and thrust it away. 

The glass ornament went tumbling off the table and crashed to the ground, breaking into half a hundred tiny shards.

The ceramic wise man was next. It was solid and considerably heavier. Panchito focused his courage at the man’s box of myrrh and thrust. The ornament wobbled and toppled over, landing on its back.

Finally Panchito tried the steel snowman. He thought of the dentist. He thought of cockroaches. He even thought of the time he accidentally flooded the restaurant kitchen. But the snowman refused to teeter. Panchito knocked it over with his hand.

Basically I have the power to annoy people.

He felt ashamed that he had been helpless to save Gray from either the knife-wielding woman or the panther. He had oversold his ability to make himself seem important, and now everybody knew it. Even worse, Elsie was the one who saved them from the giant cat.
She
was the hero of the day.

Panchito retrieved the handheld broom to clean up the broken ornament. He used the issue of
Action Comics
as a dustpan.

What good is courage if you don’t have the strength to act on it?

In the restaurant below, Panchito heard his grandmother, his
abuelita
, shouting at somebody. He walked downstairs and found her arguing with two
pachucos
in baggy white zoot suits. He could tell by their clothes that the men were part of the new gang that had driven out the Maravilla crew. That meant they had to be powerful and well funded.

“Crime is at an all-time high,
señora
,” said one man who had hair greased and perfectly parted like Cary Grant. “We want to protect you, just like we’re now protecting all the merchants on Olvera Street. All we’re asking for is a small fee, for expenses.”

“
Váyanse, ladrones!
”

Abuelita shooed the young men away with her wrinkly hand. The other one, who was thin and had a pencil mustache like Errol Flynn, grabbed her forearm and gripped it roughly.

“We’re not just talking about protecting you from thieves. We help with accidents, too. This place would burn down pretty easily from a fire. That would be a shame, what with you living upstairs.”

Panchito walked to the front of the store and put himself between the men and his grandmother.

“Leave her alone. Or else.”

The man with the Cary Grant hair turned on him.

“Or else you’re going to eat us? Get out of here, fat boy.”

“No,
you
get out of here, grease head.”

Panchito felt his courage flare. The colorful
papel picado
strung along the entrance to the restaurant undulated, as if from a light breeze.

Grant removed knuckledusters from his pocket.

“I’ll gladly make you,” Grant said.

There was no way for Panchito to win this fight, not with two men both twice his size. But he was going to try anyway. They might make mincemeat of him, but no one could make him chicken.

He looked at Grant.

“Maybe you wouldn’t need my grandmother’s money if you didn’t go through pomade by the gallon.”

Panchito opened his palm and thrust the knuckledusters out of Grant’s hand. They went flying backward into a cluttered stall of souvenirs. Grant looked around him to see where his weapon had gone. When he couldn’t find it, he shrugged.

“I guess we’re going for the classic approach.”

He grabbed Panchito by the shirt collar and swung with an uppercut to the stomach. Panchito focused his courage on the big fist swinging toward him, but whether it slowed the punch or not he couldn’t tell. Grant still socked him with enough power to knock the air out of him and send him doubling over on the ground.

Abuelita tried to stand but Flynn held her down.

“
Mijo!
”

Panchito curled into a ball on the floor.

“My grandmother hits harder than you,” he wheezed.

Grant kicked Panchito—on the back, on his head, wherever he could make contact. Panchito thrust wildly with his courage. One side of Grant’s jacket billowed outward. His black tie flew up into his face. He stopped to pull the tie out of his eyes.

Seeing that it was blinding Grant, Panchito focused his courage on the tie and held it there. It gave him just enough time to get on his knees and reach for the cast iron skillet his grandmother was going to use for her tortillas. He swung the skillet as hard as he could against one of the man’s knees.

Grant screamed and fell to his hands and knees. He ripped the tie off his neck and threw it to the ground. Locks of his greased black hair had fallen out of place. Panchito cocked the skillet back to hit him in the face when he heard a sharp slap.

“
Ay!
”

Panchito looked up to see his grandmother holding her face where she had been hit, Flynn’s hand high in the air, ready for a backhand.

“We pay back every punch equally,” the man said. “Either on you, or your grandmother.”

His sleeve had fallen down, and on the back of his wrist Chito saw an elaborate tattoo of the letter “H.” It was the symbol of the Herrera clan, the men who had betrayed and killed his father. Now it made sense. No one else would have the means to push out the Maravilla gang.

Grant grabbed the skillet in Panchito’s hand and shoved him to the ground.

“A little slap isn’t equal.”

The blackness of the man’s eyes seemed to fill his sockets. He stood up with the skillet and cocked his arm over Panchito’s cowering grandmother.

“This is equal.”

Panchito leapt to put himself between the skillet and his grandmother. Except he didn’t leap, not physically. It felt as if his very being, everything but his actual body, rushed forward at Grant. He felt himself crash into the man, and watched as the man went flying backward into the stall behind him. There was a thunderous crash. Candles and clay pots rained down upon him.

Panchito’s own body shot backward like the kickback of a gun, sliding across the room until he smashed into the wall behind him. When Flynn reached for a large stone pestle Panchito exploded outward again, a surge of courage thrust at the man like a tidal wave. Flynn flipped backward and crashed into crates of limes and avocados being unloaded off a delivery truck. Panchito’s own body recoiled painfully into the wall, but it held him in place. It felt as if he were being crushed against it.

Once he caught his breath, he hobbled over to his grandmother.

“Are you OK?”

She stared at him as if he were the Virgin Mary reincarnated. When he reached for her hand she drew back and helped herself up from her stool.

Panchito walked over to Flynn, his face smeared green like he had lost a fight with a bowl of guacamole. As he stirred back into consciousness, Panchito reached into the man’s pocket and pulled out his wallet. It was stuffed with cash. He removed a few of the bills and handed them to the shop owner across the way, a bald, doe-eyed man who had watched the scene in terrified silence.

“These men would like to pay for any damage they’ve done to your store.”

The shop owner took the money and nodded without saying a word.

Panchito pulled out the rest of the cash and pocketed it himself.

Heroes deserve to be paid.

Panchito saw Grant dazed in a pile of broken terra cotta pots. He grabbed the man’s arm and pulled up his sleeve. He too had an “H” tattoo on the back of his wrist. The Herrera clan from Mexico must have expanded northward into California. It meant that the man who killed his father, Jesús Herrera, might be in Los Angeles. He might be a short walk away.

The fact that Herrera should appear at this time seemed like destiny. Chaplin kept promising to help him avenge his father, but he refused to say when or how. Panchito was a man now, and men took vengeance into their own hands.

“Hey,
cabrón
,” he said to the man. “Can you hear me?”

He slapped Grant lightly on both sides of his face until his eyes focused.

“
Dile a tu jefe que quisiera conocerlo
,” Panchito said. “You understand?”

The man nodded vaguely. Panchito stood. Despite his scratches and aches, he felt invincible. Superman could lift all the tanks he wanted. Panchito would do the same, but without the silly red cape. He only hoped that Grant would remember to relay his message to Herrera.

Tell your boss I want to meet him.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
HREE

G
RAY
WAITED
FOR
Chaplin in the United Artists cafeteria, marking the passage of time by the thickness of the skin that was forming on his flavorless bowl of tapioca.

The afternoon edition of the
Examiner
was equally bland. With no new kidnappings to report from the Star Stalker, the editors had instead compiled a retrospective of L.A. crime in the past year. The story was all rehashed news, old carcasses being picked clean by newspaper vultures hungry for a headline.

The only real news in the retrospective was the execution date set later in the month for Rattlesnake James, the
Examiner
’s headlining criminal of last year. James loved women almost as much as he loved killing them. He married three times, and each time his newlywed found herself locked in a bedroom full of rattlesnakes. After the third wife died, police finally became suspicious that the snakes weren’t the only misanthropes in the household.

In L.A., the first two murders are on the house.

By sundown, Gray’s mood was as dark as the sky outside. Perhaps Fairbanks was right, and Chaplin was nothing but a likable goof-off. It was nice to be friends with a knucklehead, but you didn’t want him in charge of rescuing your mother from a ruthless killer.

The cafeteria was about to close when Chaplin finally arrived.

“You’re here!” Chaplin said.

Gray looked up from the comics only long enough to glare.

“I should say the same of you.”

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Chaplin said. “This, after driving up and down the coast all day on a trip for biscuits. Douglas heard that a group was spotted hiding out in the caves on the beach in Malibu.”

“Was it Atlas?”

Chaplin shook his head.

“They turned out to be a bunch of dewdroppers getting fried on gin and Soothing Syrup. Why are you here?”

“Henrietta brought me.”

“Henrietta?” Chaplin said. “Paulette should have been watching you at home. But most likely she was watching a sale at Bullock’s instead.”

Chaplin sniffed the tapioca and wrinkled his food.

“Your mood isn’t the only thing that’s sour. Let’s get you some real food and then get home. We have an important day tomorrow.”

“Important how?”

“We have a plane to catch,” Chaplin said. “Rather, a pilot to catch.”

Gray was still angry with Chaplin the next morning as they drove to the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. He believed that Chaplin had indeed been looking for Pickford all day, but resentment still clung to him like a layer of dried sweat.

Why was he so angry? Because Chaplin hadn’t taken him along on the search? No, that wasn’t it. It was because he had left him in the cafeteria all day with no word or warning. Chaplin had taken Gray in, and then just as easily abandoned him.

Whatever Gray was feeling, Chaplin picked up enough on it to keep his jokes to himself that morning. They rode in silence to Santa Monica, and the air became cool and salty as they arrived.

“I should warn you, Howard is a bit odd,” Chaplin said. “But he has a sense about people beyond what any of us could understand.”

They drove through a small city of buildings, square and bland as if a giant child had scattered wooden blocks on the ground. At one end of the tarmac they found a row of smaller, privately rented hangars. The sky was electric with the faint sound of buzzing aircraft.

They parked and entered a hangar that housed three single-engine planes. Gray had never been in a plane, but these looked fast.

“He’s not here,” Chaplin said. “I hope he didn’t forget. He can be a bit scatterbrained.”

The buzzing sound they had heard got louder. They walked back outside on the tarmac to see a biplane low in the sky, its double-decker wings pointed at them.

“It’s coming right for us,” Gray said.

“Then I propose we get out of its way.”

They ran back into the hangar as the plane descended upon the tarmac. It skidded down the runway and then turned toward them so fast it seemed as if it couldn’t stop in time. The plane screeched to a halt, the spinning front propeller only yards from Chaplin’s face.

A man in his early thirties jumped out of the plane. He wore an aviator jacket, but beneath it was wearing a tuxedo shirt and pants, as if he were on his way to the Cocoanut Grove.

“You could have killed us!” Charlie shouted over the noise of the plane.

“I had a hunch you’d be fine,” the man said.

“A hunch!”

It was the first time Chaplin had seemed genuinely angry.

“Come on now,” the man said. “I thought you were supposed to have a sense of humor.”

They followed the man into a glass-paneled office on the side of the hangar. He shut the door to block out the noise of the cooling engine.

“Gray, this is Howard Hughes. You may know him for his fighter pilot movie
Hell’s Angels
, but Hughes is also an aviator, engineer, and entrepreneur. Have I missed anything, Hughes?”

Hughes removed his aviator gloves. His thick black hair was parted neatly on the left side and greased back.

“I’m also Hollywood’s most illustrious playboy.”

“Illustrious, no,” Chaplin said. “Notorious, maybe.”

Hughes gave Gray an uncomfortable once-over, as if he were a horse Hughes was considering betting on. He reach out and pulled Gray’s cuff back to reveal the beginning of Gray’s scars. Gray pulled away.

“Nice to meet you too,” Gray said.

Hughes’s eyes were as dark as his hair, and heavy eyebrows protruding over them gave him an expression of perpetual brooding.

“He’s the reason you’re here.”

“Yes, I wanted you to take a look at his—”

“Blood,” Hughes said.

He went to a sink in the corner and began vigorously scrubbing his hands. Unlike the rest of Hughes, which was well-manicured, his hands were red and raw like fresh meat. After washing he slipped on a pair of medical gloves.

Gray looked at Chaplin, who offered no comment beyond a helpless shrug.

Hughes shuffled through a drawer until he found a pin. He struck a match and ran the pin through the flame.

“Give me your hand,” Hughes said.

“Are you some kind of doctor as well?” Gray asked.

“No. I hate blood and gore.”

“Then I should warn you—ouch!”

Hughes stuck Gray’s finger with the pin. Blood oozed out and began pooling over the puncture. Hughes leaned in over it as a black drop formed and began to lift off Gray’s finger. It dripped upward and hit Hughes in the forehead.

The man jumped up and wiped frantically at his face.

“I tried to warn you,” Gray said.

Just as quickly as Hughes had started flailing, he stopped. His eyes opened wide and turned on Gray. Through his pupils, a silver energy surged forth, like mercury bubbling up through a shower drain. It covered his irises. Gray pulled away, but Hughes caught his arm.

“I see it,” he said. “I know what it is.”

Hughes closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. When he reopened them his eyes were back to normal, but the look they gave Gray was cold.

“Your blood is not normal. It’s æther blood.”

“Either blood or what?” Gray asked.

“No.
Æther
blood.”

He removed his gloves and returned to the sink to scrub his hands and face.

“There are four classical elements that make up this world,” Hughes said. “Earth, air, water, and fire. It’s said there is a fifth element, æther, which is the element that makes up the heavens. It doesn’t belong in this plane.”

“And yet here he is,” Chaplin said. “You’re sure?”

Hughes made a reluctant nod.

“Intuition is never one hundred percent.”

“So, what’s the verdict, then?” Charlie asked. “Could he be an Artifact? An inter-dimensional space alien? I’d just like to know who I’m keeping as a house guest.”

“He’s difficult to see,” Hughes said. “It’s like trying to focus on someone who keeps moving into my peripheral vision.”

Hughes stared at Gray long and hard. He seemed to be deciding upon something.

“Come with me,” Hughes said. “We need to talk in private.”

He grabbed Gray by the elbow and dragged him out of the office. The plane in which he had landed was still emanating heat.

“This is Petey, my Boeing 100A,” Hughes said. “Five years ago she was the fastest plane around. Now she’s an old slug compared to the Racer I built, but she’s the only one with two seats.”

He climbed up into the open-air cockpit.

“If we remain content with how we are, we’ll stagnate and die. We must be willing to change to survive.”

He threw Gray a pair of goggles.

“Have you been in a plane before?”

“No, but the way Mr. Chaplin drives is close.”

“Get in.”

Gray tried to ignore the few thousand feet of nothingness that existed between him and the Earth below, but his palms wouldn’t let him. They sweated, cold and clammy, like a fish at the market. He needed to distract himself.

“How far do you go in these?” Gray shouted over the buzz of the engine.

“Last year I flew around the world in 91 hours,” Hughes said.

Gray could see the Santa Monica coastline to his right, which meant they were out over the Pacific Ocean. He desperately hoped they didn’t lose sight of land.

If this is the change Hughes is talking about, I’d rather stagnate.

“You sound like you’re good at everything.”

“It’s my intuition,” Hughes said. “I have a natural sense of how things work, especially processes and systems. I can quickly grasp how mechanical objects work. I can see patterns in our economy. And I can understand people, when I care to do so.”

“So am I an Artifact, like Mr. Chaplin says? Like Newton’s Eye?”

Hughes flipped some switches on the panel in front of him and let go of the control wheel. The plane stopped climbing and began to coast. He sat up in his seat and turned around to face Gray.

“Yes, you are an Artifact,” Hughes said. “I believe you are
the
Artifact. The Final Artifact.”

He studied Gray for his reaction.

“You wanna watch where you’re going?” Gray said.

“Do you understand what that means?”

“No, but I’d listen better if you turned around.”

Gray sat up in his seat and tried to look past Hughes to make sure the flight path was clear.

“You are, quite simply, the most powerful of all Artifacts ever made.”

Hughes pulled off his leather gloves, finger by finger.

“One of the best-known Burdens was Nostradamus,” he said. “Hundreds of years ago he was the wisest man of his age. His insights were so keen that he made some very reliable predictions about the future, mostly world events. But he also made some lesser-known predictions about the Burdens that he recorded in the Diary. Do you know what that is?”

Gray shook his head. Hughes reached into his aviator jacket and removed a pistol. He popped open the chamber, which was empty.

“I’m quoting from memory,” Hughes said, “But it goes something like this.”

He recited:

The final implement forged by Talents two

Is of form and function unlike any before it.

The strange iron forged of darkness

Will precipitate the destruction of them all.

Hughes closed his eyes a moment.

“What do you think of that?”

“I prefer the ones that rhyme,” Gray said.

Hughes reached into his pocket and pulled out some loose bullets. He began sliding them in the empty chambers.

“It’s quite simple,” Hughes said. “You are the
final
Artifact because you have a power that will destroy us all. We won’t be around to make any more.”

Gray eyed the pistol warily.

“What’s this
forged of darkness
business?” he asked.

Hughes thought about it.

“It has always been understood someone
forged of darkness
is evil. No offense.”

Gray shrugged.

“I’ve been called worse.”

“And I suppose
strange iron
simply refers to you being a new tool, an Artifact that was unexpected and unlike any other. Which makes sense, since you are the only living Artifact I’ve ever heard of.”

Gray felt a heaviness in the pit of his stomach. It was like getting a bad diagnosis from a doctor.