Chapter 12 Emory
TWELVE
EMORY
The shadow walk commenced beneath a blanket of stars. With dull flashlight beams guiding the way, Emory and Jack walked in step, their boots colliding in unison against cracked desert. Emory’s grip tightened around the hilt of a blade.
Behind them, the twelve Moriarty captains followed in two columns with Liam taking up the rear. At the very end, the initiate walked with his back to the wild unknown.
He couldn’t be more than twenty, if Emory had to guess. It was hard to tell these days, and initiates came to him the same—full of piss and vinegar and with some perceived chip on their shoulder.
By the time they shadow walked—the Moriartys’ arcane initiation ritual—something broke in them. That vigor was tamed and self-possessed discipline filled the void. They lost something of themselves and severed ties with their old lives.
That was the sacrifice for brotherhood and a small price to pay. Orphaned and ostracized in one way or another, most didn’t have families to forsake.
When they were well away from the mansion, a few captains made quick work of building a fire. The initiation struck Emory as a spiritual cleansing more than anything else, but some men swore it possessed supernatural qualities.
Those men claimed something else joined the circle on shadow walk nights, something dark that delighted in their collective sins.
Emory never felt shit, just the night’s chill at his back and the fire’s warmth on his face. The flames were sacred, though, even he had to admit, and they cast strange shadows as the men circled the fire.
Liam settled behind Emory. These days, he preferred to observe the esoteric rite rather than participate. He stood watch over his legacy, though, and advised where he could, and tonight looked something of his old self—proud of the empire he helped create and less tired too.
Emory unsheathed the ritual blade, all pewter and patina and intricately carved, and handed it to the captain on his left, Pete, who cracked a smile.
All Moriarty men bore a collection of fourteen scars from the blade, one delivered by each captain plus the Moriarty deputy and chief.
The scars were a reminder of duty and loyalty.
The Moriartys didn’t garb themselves in colors or symbols to signify their affiliation.
They moved with the shadows and espoused individual obscurity because the organization had an identity all its own.
Some men couldn’t handle that obscurity. They wanted to don the prestige and incite fear through the Moriarty name. Those men didn’t last long. As Liam always said, “Glory and tragedy belong to the organization, not the man.”
Emory stepped aside and allowed the initiate into the circle. The boy expelled a shallow breath and removed his black shirt. Emory stared at the kid, who squirmed beneath the scrutiny. Mirabelle called it soul scrying. Emory called it sussing out rats.
After a few quiet moments, he gave a slight nod and the initiate stood before Pete.
The boy spoke the oath on a timorous breath. “Sanguine inter fratres dedicato.”
Blood and brotherhood. Goosebumps blanketed Emory’s skin. Jack stirred next to him and Liam shuffled forward.
Pete repeated the oath and drew the blade across the initiate’s chest, leaving behind a ribbon of red. He passed the knife to the captain on his left.
On it went, the blade traveling the circle. The initiate spoke his oath to every captain, his voice rising with each iteration and chin tipping higher. His pained grunts dampened to a wince with each slice of the blade, and he reached Jack with blood coating his chest and biceps.
“Sanguine inter fratres dedicato.”
The kid’s teeth clamped on his bottom lip as Jack delivered a deep cut. Blood oozed thick and dark from the wound. With a smirk, Jack passed Emory the blade.
The boy stood at full height in front of Emory.
He looked different. Hardened, less petrified.
He stared at Emory with empty eyes, a blank slate they’d mold however they pleased, and puffed out his chest, even if it meant peeling open the cuts.
He still looked like a scrawny, bloodied ferret to Emory as he spoke his final oath.
A chilly wind rolled across the desert, and the flames responded, kicking up embers that swirled in the breeze.
“Sanguine inter fratres dedicato,” Emory repeated and drew a cut deeper than Jack’s.
The kid’s nose wrinkled and lip snarled with a grimace. When he was through, Emory plunged the bloodied blade into the ground. From his pocket, he retrieved the white handkerchief.
Blood already marred the ritual cloth, and Emory thumbed the dark red splotch. Amelia. He didn’t know—and didn’t rightly care—if it mattered in some symbolic way.
In a black baptism of sorts, the initiate cleansed his cuts with the handkerchief and a bucket of water. The circle watched his rebirth into brotherhood as he washed away the blood and, with it, his former self. When he was through, he upended the bloody water over the fire.
With the flames doused, the men exploded in an uproar, breaking both the circle and their solemn visage. One by one, each captain clapped the boy on the back, shook his hand, or offered some other gesture of camaraderie. Emory wrangled the kid toward him.
“Remember what I told you,” he said for only the boy to hear. The others had already received the same message from him. “Death is your only exit, but you’re family now, and we take care of our own.”
They headed for the mansion with the boy leading the way and the captains following in clusters.
Liam set a slow pace between Jack and Emory. “Can’t help yourselves, can you?”
Emory exchanged a look with Jack. He flashed a smile, lit up a cigarette, and offered one to Emory. He took it and tucked it behind his ear.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, old man,” Emory said.
Jack tossed the knife in the air. Hilt over blade, the gaudy thing went spinning. He caught it by the hilt and winked at Liam, who glanced at the fire rendered to ash and smoke behind them.
“One of these days, the pissing contest between you two is going to leave an initiate bleeding like a stuck pig and needing stitches.”
Jack shrugged. “Worse things could happen.”
Emory agreed with a nod. Worse things had already happened. He let that thought go for the moment and admired the full moon riding high.
He never appreciated the light it put off until he moved to the desert. He grew up in a predominantly Latin neighborhood outside of Sacramento, and the moon there never shined that bright.
“Our folk look out for each other,” his father always said.
True enough, the ties that bound ran strong and proud and well beyond bloodlines.
Jack’s family moved to the neighborhood one summer and were welcomed into the fold with cookouts every other weekend. Emory made fast friends with the crazy fucker, Jack, who lived next door and knew more about baseball than anyone Emory had ever met.
That first summer went by in a haze of racing bikes around until the street lamps kicked on, wading through the creek behind their neighborhood, and pissing off Old Man Martinez, who was all bark and no bite. It was a rare respite from the living hell at home.
As a kid, Emory took his brother Ivan’s blows and said nothing about it. When school started again, he showed up one day with a black eye other kids teased him about.
“His daddy did that,” those kids whispered, not knowing that Ivan, even at twelve, was a holy terror. Emory’s father, on the other hand, was a gentle giant who couldn’t raise hell if he wanted.
Ivan expertly preserved the outward veneer of intellect and navigated the world with sly duplicity. His sleight of hand fooled everyone, even their mother. She created a smoke and mirrors show, wrote the script with self-told lies, and applauded even the most basic deeds.
Ivan could shit his pants on that stage of grand delusion, and it’d earn their mother’s standing ovation. Ivan pulled the wool over countless eyes, all but Emory, who saw in his brother a distorted pastiche that hid a monster.
“Does Ivan scare you?” Jack asked one night when they were boys camping out in his backyard and having gone quiet with bellies full of s’mores.
Emory had picked at the tacky remnants of marshmallow on his stick.
“Yeah. Mostly for my sister.”
His confession had come harder than the hits he endured from Ivan. Sweet Mirabelle followed him and Jack around like a lost puppy with her pink tutu, mussed-up hair in pigtails, and a stuffed dolly under her arm.
She clung to Emory like salt on a pretzel and wailed the nights he spent at Jack’s. Where Emory went, Mirabelle was never far behind.
Emory came to the Moriartys with no family to forsake other than her and Jack. With his parents both dead, he’d disowned his brother by then. He didn’t need a brother when he had Jack and even told him that the night they shadow walked together.
“Ivan’s a stranger to me. You’re my true brother, always have been.”
“Then I’ll follow you to the end,” Jack had replied, their bond sacrosanct well before that night. “Until the world burns out and there’s nothing left but darkness.”
Emory glanced at Jack, who blew smoke out the side of his mouth and laughed. “What?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about old times.”
Jack flicked his cigarette into the darkness. “You think too goddamn much. What does it get you?”
“More problems,” Liam chimed in and patted Emory’s back.
They sought refuge in the mansion, the house warm compared to the night’s subtle chill. The men descended on the kitchen filled with the savory scents of Emory’s childhood. Mirabelle outdid herself with a feast that would’ve made their mother proud.
On the kitchen island, she’d laid out steaming bowls of white rice and pink beans; a caldero of pollo guisado, a hearty chicken stew; and Emory’s favorite dish—mashed plantains served with fried pork.