The elevator stopped on mother’s floor. Of course, the doors did not open, of course, the light flashed red, and the siren stung her ear with the loud buzzard sound. No entry, it said at the top of the elevator. She pressed her hand against the twin metal doors, focusing until she went through them. It felt like passing through water. As if going through the top of the ocean surface, and into the deep darkness. Mother’s room was less a room and more a corridor, an aggregation of her favorite hobbies. Gardens, artifact museums, propped statues, galleries. All of this was connected through one main hall, two floors big, with the doors sprawled to her right and left, and going up the large red-carpeted stairs, was the bedroom. Jezebel did not hesitate to walk to it. Anger took the place of resolve, as often both are the same. And fear made way for excitement. She put her hand against the twin doors and opened them, nearly kicked them open really. They flew out and hit the wall. She spotted her mother in the center of her room, knitting and deliberating over a piece of work. Tapestry, or blanket, she was too far away to tell. She only knew that Salome set it down to look back and stare at her daughter. The room was void of furniture, it was all gone save for the bed and rocking chair. The bed and pictures, pictures upon pictures. Laid out on the floors and walls like a scrapbook torn open and scattered. Memories like dead leaves. Pictures of Junior. Of Thomas. Of Jezebel, too.

“So you finally decided to come?” She asked. “What do you want? I hope Floyd hasn’t been filling your head with inanities.”

“He told me you were disingenuous.”

“By God, you don’t even try to hide anything, do you, sweetheart?” Salome asked.

“He said you don’t seem to care so much about the family as you do about what it serves to gain you.”

“Did he now?” She went back to knitting, coy and calm. “And you’re going to take him seriously? He’s about one mental breakdown away from being in an asylum.”

“Can you blame him? He took dad and Junior's death too heart.”

“It’s good he’s concerned about his family, I just wish he’d channel it for something more conductive than brashness. You saw him, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did.” She clenched her hand into a fist, clinging to a hostility she had had since meeting Floyd. Clinging to the idea that her mother, was in some way, some deep, ill way, manipulating her. As such, she was hostile.

“You saw the look in his eyes, right? The way he snakes around. Unrestrained, unfocused. Why I don’t think he’s got it all in his head,” Salome pointed her long finger to her skull. “ That's it. Revenge and madness. I don’t think he cares one bit about you or me or anyone else but killing those heart-eaters. And they’re the least of our problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? We have enemies everywhere, Jezzy.” She said. “It’s not good to tunnel vision on a few people. Not that I like the heart-eaters or anything, I want them dead, and I'm sure they will die... I’m sure. But not yet. We should plan accordingly.”

“Plan what?”

“The strategies. We need to go for Richter first, Turnus sec-” She stopped talking when she realized Jezebel had lost it, focus that is. Jezebel turned her head and spat on the floor and looked her mother straight in the face with disgust first and foremost, then shame afterward.

“What does it matter to win?” She asked. “All this talk of winning has me curious. How's it supposed to be decided when Luanne and Floyd and I are the last survivors? How will that be settled?”

She frowned.

“Well, there are other options. Means to...disengage yourself from the fight-”

“Liar,” Jezebel said. “What is going to happen when we kill my half-brothers and sisters? How do we finish this war?”

Salome stayed quiet, knitting along a path and letting her needles clang like pincers.

“Who wins then? You see, I’ve come to realize that there is no winning condition for any of us, is there? Not unless we stop chasing after this devil's promise. But is that a commitment you want to make?”

“Someone has to win,” Salome said.

“Why? Who?”

“We’ll settle that when the times comes.”

“And when’s that?”

“When everyone else is dead, and your brother is avenged, and your fathers killer is revealed.”

“As if you even care about that anymore. Your rage is hollow. You’re fake.”

“You really have been listening to Floyd. Both of you deserve to be in the madhouse.”

“No, I’ve been thinking for myself and for Luanne. Nothing more.”

“Then go bother her. I’m glad to know you’re as unreliable as I thought you’d be. It’s good to know a piece is off the table, makes it easier to plan.”

“Plan, that’s all you do. Plan. Plan. Plan.”

“That’s all we can do. Recklessness got us in this mess in the first place. Why, if we had everything sorted from the beginning, we wouldn’t have this issue. These off-the-cuff cowboy stunts you’re thinking of? They’ll just get you killed, girl.”

“I’m only planning on doing what I think should be done.”

“And what’s that?”

“Securing safety and eliminating the biggest threats.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Deal with our problem. That’s what.” Jezebel said.

“And who would that be?”

“The people, I presume, who killed Junior. Who else?”

“You’re playing this all wrong, Jezzy. Don’t fight them yet, let me work at them. Get Turnus first, separate Aenea from the two and then -”

“No.” She said. “This is happening now. Every day we just risk Aenea getting her mark. I won't have that.”

“Then don’t ask for my advice when you won’t take it. And don’t ask for my help when you need it."

“Help?" Jezebel laughed, the first time in days. "What help?"

♣

She went out the room and to the elevator, back to her floor where she spotted Luanne against a wall, cradling the child. She couldn’t help but smile and raised her hand, rather limply, before setting it back down. She went to her room. She took off the coat. The air was cold and left a sting against her exposed shoulders and arms. The hair on her body seemed to point upwards, straightening out by the fear in her. She made her way to the living room, locking every door between there and the front. She threw the furniture to its side. Pushing it against the walls until a flat, clear center was formed on the wood-plank floor. The sofas, the pictures, the paintings, the coffee tables, all standing up against the wall. There was no light enabled to peer through the barricaded windows. So it was dark, especially as she lowered the blinds. It was dark enough that she couldn’t tell time, day to night to day again, and after a while, she stopped caring altogether. The hours coming and going like seconds, perhaps days even.

She worked with pink salt.

With black paint. A can she had picked up from a departments store nearby. She took her severed limb and placed it at the center. That was the starting point of her insignia, working her way all around, making sure to get every angle and every word of Hebrew down along the rim of the circle. And closing this glyph, she bit her thumb and sealed it with blood.

She didn’t know why she was like this, stressing and worrying so much, putting this much effort into such a foreign power. She knew it though, deep in her stomach, that the fear of losing her brother and sister and worst of all, her nephew, was unbearable. The idea that they would die like Junior did.

She didn’t know how she got this way, she only remembered being as such since birth. And what a dreadful thing it was now, she felt, to have too much heart. To care so much about her sister, Luanne. It was just enough to overcome her fear of the dark arts. For each time she tried to convince herself not to follow through with the insignia, not to press her hand against the painted circle, not to conjure the thought of Mammon, each time she hesitated, she thought of her sister; Luanne. Luanne, who had seen her through the rough times of growing up, who had defended her against everyone and everything. The inseparable sisters. She remembered Luanne as a young girl, holding her, as her father and mother argued in the midst of some shoddy hotel and how she tightened her grip when her father punched her mother across the nose. And how she shielded Jezebel's eyes (though she peaked through the finger gaps) as her mother held her bloody nose on the floor. The image was clear. As was the memory of Luanne’s touch. The tight grip she had over her sister's shoulders, the closeness they shared. It was the first time Jezebel ever remembered feeling weak, it was the memory she went to whenever she wanted to humble herself. It was the memory that solidified who she ought not to be and who she ought to be.

All she’s ever wanted to be was like her older sister, someone that could protect. The desire was in her even after they got wealthy and the giant walls and glass panels came to surround her. Growing up with private teachers that forced courtesies and lady-like manners did not breed out of her that hunger to protect. Like her maternal instincts had been fed steroids.

She always protected them. Now was no different. She had failed to protect Junior, she thought, and she could not fail again.

She put both arms shoulder width from each other, laid them out in front of her, and pressed her single, open palm down on the black painted insignia. The thoughts seemed to blend, her sorrow, her anger, the esoteric shapes. Like the mystic patterns of summoning were linked to her, somehow, linked to the memories of her being struck by her father. The memories of Luanne throwing herself at Jezebel to protect her from a dog. The memories of Flint’s birth at the hospital and the joy on her sister’s face and the fear on Floyd’s. Every memory spliced together with every strange shape and design.

She spoke Latin. Though she did not know what she spoke. It came to her from another place, and all she could feel was the warmth and the sting and the ache like electrodes implanted in her tongue, shocking her with each vowel.

They killed Junior. She pressed her head against the insignia. The black paint stained her forehead. They mawed him like dogs. They butchered him.

Almost possessed by some foreign anger, she smacked her forehead against the floor again. The blood fell in between the gaps of her teeth.

They ate him whole. All of them did. They didn’t stop at one piece. They ripped him apart, and they’ll rip Luanne apart. And Floyd. And Flint. And me.

The heat rose. The insignia ignited to an emerald sheen. She felt it in her stump. Through the bandage. Through her whole body as if her veins were being filled with glycerin. The insignia blew out wind. Then, electricity! Static filled the air like a thunderstorm. The long, dragging clouds of white. She breathed in the scent. It smelled of burned flesh and rubber. Then she held herself, for the pain kept going through her.

She fell to her knees and laid there for a while, feeling the smoke blow past her, feeling her veins combust. Until at last, out of curiosity or fear, and out of a clearing of the smoke, she could finally see what waited for her.

It was something small. Her eyes widened. She dragged herself closer to it, to her arm at the center of the insignia. She dragged her face closer to her dismembered limb, to the once lifeless hand of hers, moving, rustling.

And from the dead, deteriorating flesh, she saw something ooze out. Something dark and slimy. Something black, with a little red ball at the center the size of a pool ball at the center of it. Red.

Red and black.

This creature broke through the death grip of her missing arm. It looked up, and Jezebel looked down.

And she thought while the shock was still in her, holding her breath hostage. Is this motherhood? Is this dread? I can’t tell the difference.