Tacos of the Apocalypse

     I tapped my long scarlet fingernails on my desk.  Just for show, I flicked through the pages on my display, though I knew their contents by heart. Wilson cowered in his chair.

     “So, Mr. Wilson,” I said, resting my chin in my hands. “I have a few very interesting reports here in front of me.”

     “I didn’t do anything wrong, Ms. Williams” Wilson said

     I raised my eyebrows. “Did I say you had?”

     The man flushed. I tapped a button, and a holograph of one of the reports sprung up between us. “I’m quite troubled by these reports from your colleagues of sexual harassment.”

     “Just because I’m clumsy…”

     “Yes, amazing how often you trip and have to steady yourself on someone. Usually in the general area of their ass.” 

     Wilson straightened himself up in his chair, trying to look haughty. He did a commendable job, given his bulk and his rapidly growing bald spot. “It’s all lies. You can’t prove it.”

     “Perhaps not. But combine those many complaints with your constant tardiness and the low quality of your work and I have plenty of grounds to fire you.”

     “You can’t do that,” Wilson said.

     “Actually, I can do whatever I damn well please. You have the rest of the day to pack your belongings.”

     Wilson stood up, sucking in his stomach. “You’ll regret this,” he said.

     If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me…  “I rather doubt I will.”

     “Oh, you will,” Wilson said. He stood up from his chair, and loomed over me. “You will forget about these reports, Sasha Williams.”

     I stared at him with a blank face. What on Earth was he talking about? Like hell I’d forget.

     “You will forget about the reports, and you will not fire me.” Wilson stretched out his arms, fingers pointing stiffly at me. “In fact, you will fear me from now on.”

     Oh. He was using mind control. Too bad that doesn’t work on me. He wouldn’t expect that though—it works on everyone else.

     Wilson looked pretty ridiculous standing there like a deranged zombie. His illusion must have been impressive if it was meant to frighten me. I decided to play along for a bit. “I… will… fear… you…” I said tonelessly, making my eyes wider.

     “You will not meddle in my affairs.” A look of malevolent glee filled his face.

     “I… will… not… meddle…”

     “And you will give me a substantial raise.”

     “When… hell… freezes… over…”

     Wilson dropped his arms. “Eh?”

     I narrowed my eyes. “Sorry sweetie, mind control doesn’t work on me.” I stretched out my arms and contorted my face in a mockery of his. “You will leave this building before I call security,” I intoned.

     Now he was really angry. “Don’t mock me.”

     I dropped my arms. “Did I not make myself clear? Leave this building before I call security—or before I call the Department of Sorcery to report improper use of magic.”

     Wilson went pale. The feddies do not treat illegal magic use lightly. He backed toward the door. “You shouldn’t have mocked me,” he said. “Everyone mocks me. I’ll make you sorry.  I’ll make you all sorry!” He turned and ran out of the room.

     Jared, who works in hiring, poked his head around the door. “That’s a new one, Sasha. Your sweet manners make a lot of people quit, but I’ve never seen you drive anyone insane before.”

     “It’s a new talent I’m cultivating,” I said. “Now would you put out a listing for a new ad tech?”

-----

     By the end of the day, I had completely forgotten about Wilson. So I was rather startled when I parked my hover car and realized that someone had crossed my wards. Now that I had a feel for his magic, I could sense that it was Wilson waiting in my apartment.

     A sensible girl would have called the police. I am a completely sensible girl, but I was rather pissed off that he had broken into my apartment. Besides, I could deal with him much more effectively than the police could.

     I swung the door open, and he was standing there waiting for me. He threw a nasty looking spell at me, but my shields deflected it. His eyes widened and he readied another spell. I gestured, and one of my heavier books flew of the shelf and smacked him in the back of the head.

     Wilson clutched his head, swearing. I took four great steps across the room, picked him up by the throat, and slammed him against the wall. He was heavy, so I had to use a bit of telekinesis to hold him up.

     “Bad idea, coming to my home,” I said.

     “You… you don’t have magic.”

     I generated a ball of fire in my free hand. “Bzzt, wrong.  My magic is different from the government-certified type. They can’t sense it, and neither can you.”

     He started to reply, but I tightened my grip on his throat, cutting off the words. “Let me make myself abundantly clear.  You come anywhere near me, and I will burn you to a crisp.” I brought the ball of fire near enough to singe his eyebrows.  “Got it?”

     Wilson nodded.

     “Good man,” I said, dropping him. He wasted no time in running out of the room. Once his footsteps had faded, I extinguished the fire and walked over to examine the door.  Bastard. I was definitely going to file a police report for this. Pity I couldn’t fix it myself, but I only have a few skills: fire, shields, telepathy, light, and the ability to control people’s bodies. None of those were helpful with household repair.

----

     A week later, I was still pissed off about the door. The police had been kind, especially when I played the “poor, helpless girl” card, but they hadn’t caught Wilson yet. And the damn contractor had sworn he’d be in days ago.

     And now I had to deal with my little sister Celia. She had shown up at my (broken) door, insisting that I owed her lunch for some infraction that I had long forgotten. When I had tried to argue, she had started going around my apartment and giving me speeches on how the arrangement of my furniture was polluting the aura of my apartment in particular and the aura of the city in general.

     That’s Cee for you. She’s a Greenie, meaning that she’s part of the group that dyes their hair green and paints their skin brown in memory of all the poor dead forests and destroyed national parks. She’s mostly harmless; she and her friends like to sit around in circles and bemoan the loss of all natural areas in our country. But if you get her started on auras, or worse, politics, she can go on all damn day and night.

     I knew I’d been beaten, so we took a long walk to a local Mexican restaurant. I emphasize long. Cee refused to go anywhere in a hover car if she could possibly avoid it. Those, apparently, are much more aura-polluting than even my furniture.

     Cee was quiet until she got a look at some of the photos that lined the walls of the restaurant. They were paintings of life in California almost five hundred years ago that showed cheerful scenes of Native Americans being brainwashed by missionaries. That really got Cee going.

People were beginning to stare as my little sister ranted about social injustices in particular and the tragedy of life in genera. Luckily, it was a short line and we got out of there pretty quickly.  I think the cooks were rather eager to get rid of us.

     I wasn’t really hungry—I’d eaten lunch before Cee showed up—so I left my tacos in the bag and handed Cee her burrito. She began to eat it as she followed me out of the restaurant. I’d gained myself a few minutes of quiet; she wouldn’t talk with her mouth full. There was, however, no guarantee that she wouldn’t start up again once she finished. I needed to find another way to distract her.

     I didn’t notice Wilson until we were only a hundred feet away from him. He was standing in the middle of the avenue, waiting for me.

     “We meet again,” he said, smirking.

     I cast a glance around at all the people milling about us.  Damn him, I couldn’t use any magic here. Well, I saw no shame in running from a potentially homicidal maniac. I turned and, dragging my sister behind me, tried to run down the street. We only got fifty feet until we slammed into a very strong shield.  I turned back to glare at Wilson. This was above and beyond his abilities.

     “You foiled me once, but now my turn has come. I will make you sorry for laughing at me.”

     Someone please spare me from dramatic villains.

     Various innocent bystanders who had been caught up in the shield were becoming loud in their alarm. Wilson held up a book with scribbled symbols on the front, and began to chant.

     “Why are you doing this?” I asked in a desperate attempt to keep him talking instead of chanting.

     Unfortunately, while Wilson had gone to Bad Cliché school, he had skipped the Over-talkative Villain course. He smiled at me and continued to chant.

     I pressed myself against the shield as a vortex began to form around him. The bystanders traded shouts for screams. I was just about to crispify the man when the feds showed up.

     Ten government mages surrounded Wilson and began chanting spells. Two others tore a hole in the shield and started letting people out. Cee and I were at the end of what was quite a long line, so while I waited I watched Wilson. The vortex surrounding him was growing taller, and I was beginning to see faces in it. Non-human faces.

     When we got to the front of the line, one of the mages tried to push us out, but the shield prevented it. I swore, and the mage looked at me. “This shield seems to be keyed against you. Did you do something to make that man angry?”

     “Well, I did fire him last week.”

     “Oh,” the mage looked down her nose at me, as if to say, so this is your fault.

     I am not intimidated by feddie mages, particularly ones who have two-foot high hairdos. I glared right back at her and asked, “How is he doing such a powerful spell? I mean, if he had that much ability, he certainly wouldn’t have been working in the advertising department of a bionics company.”

     The mage flushed. “We think he summoned a demon. It’s the only way he would have been able to steal that book.”

     “Which is how he’s creating that fancy vortex.”

     “This isn’t the time for jokes,” Mage Hairdo snapped.  “That vortex…”

     “Get over here, Cheryl!” one of the other mages shouted.  “We need you.”

     The whirlwind surrounding Wilson was almost as tall as the buildings now. I could see the faces more clearly. All varieties and forms of demons writhed within. A mage threw a smoky-looking spell at Wilson. It was caught up in the vortex, and as I watched, it turned into a smoky demon. Another mage tried to turn Wilson to ice, and the ice too was caught up and demonized.

     The vortex shuddered, and a shockwave shot out from it, throwing us all to our knees. Cee and I crawled our way toward the mages in hope of some sort of safety, wincing at the increasingly frequent shockwaves. Most of the mages had gone into a huddle.

     One mage stood alone, seemingly unaffected by the shockwaves. I decided that he looked to be a good person to be near, because if he could build shields that strong, he could probably protect Cee and I. The demons were beginning to reach their arms out of the vortex and grab at the buildings around them.

     The mage looked down at us with raised eyebrows, but before he could ask why we were there, I shouted, “What spell is he using?”

     “A very complex summoning spell,” the mage said, raising his voice to be heard over the howls of the demons. “I won’t go into detail about inter-dimensional rifts, but basically he’s opening a channel to draw in all demons from this world and from countless other dimensions. It seems the aura is strong enough to demonize any spell that touches it. Eventually, the demons released will destroy all life on earth.”

     Given that he was describing the end of the world, he seemed awfully calm about it. “And he got the spell from that book, right? Why the hell wasn’t a spell like that destroyed?”

     The mage shrugged. “Study purposes. We never thought anyone would be stupid enough to use it.”

     I stared at him. I have always lived by the rule that there are three constants: death, taxes and human stupidity. I glanced over his shoulder at the other mages. They were in a circle, holding hands. “What are they doing? Having a sing-along?”

     “They’re trying to summon a demon strong enough to destroy the vortex.”

     “What about you?”

     “Oh, I’ve never been good at summoning spells. I’m looking for weaknesses in his defense.”

     “Found any?”

     “Not yet.”

     A tall, red form began to uncurl itself in the middle of the group of mages. Just as they began to shout in triumph, arms reached out from the vortex and pulled the half-formed demon in. The vortex doubled in size. Smooth, guys. Real smooth.

     The mage, Cee and I all stumbled backward. A couple of the other mages weren’t quick enough in their retreat, and got sucked into the vortex to become demons themselves. 

     “Well, we’re in for it now,” the mage said. He sat cross-legged on the ground and lit a cigarette.

     “Are you high on something?” I asked, shocked by his demeanor.

     “Of course,” the mage said, blowing a smoke ring. “If we went into battle without mental boosting, most of us would run shrieking in fear.”

     Dear gods. There’s a reason I call the mage’s school the ‘government brainwashing academy.’ Keep your mages doped up, and they won’t rebel. Too bad they hadn’t done so to Wilson, but he had been too powerless for them to pay attention to.

     It was weird. With an apocalypse, I would have expected dark clouds and lightning at the very least. But the sun was shining, there were puffy white clouds floating overhead, wind rustling the leaves of trees outside the shield, birds flying over the vortex getting sucked in and turning into feathered demons… Yup, just a normal day in LA.

     I stood up. Like hell I was going to die today. Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t acting because I felt responsible. It was the mages’ damn fault for not keeping closer watch on their rejects. 

     I needed to find a weakness. Unfortunately, I knew next to nothing about his magic, and knowing that he couldn’t type worth a damn would be of no use now. Magic wouldn’t work, unless…

     I tried to control him then. I really did, discovery of my powers be damned. But I couldn’t reach him through the whirling demon energy. I could still see his face, all lit up with glee.

     Okay, there went my spells. “Any bright ideas, Cee?”

     “What about throwing something at him?” my sister suggested.

     “Excellent idea, but we’re somewhat lacking in rocks.” Both of us looked at my purse then, which was filled with all the accessories a girl could possibly need.

     “Uh-uh,” I said. “This thing cost me three thousand dollars. On sale.” I wanted to do a test run before I sacrificed my purse.

     So I threw my lunch at him.

     The bag went partway through the vortex, but got caught up in the wind before it got anywhere near Wilson. There went that idea. We really were in trouble.

     The paper from the bag tore away, but the tacos stayed intact. They whirled to the top of the vortex, growing even larger than hover cars. They developed faces with sharp, pointy teeth and hissed.

     “Look, Sash,” Cee said. “Demon tacos.”

     Despite myself, I started to snigger. “It’s good to know, in my last minutes of life, that the apocalypse will be brought about by not only a wide variety of demons, but also all the major food groups.”

     The mage smoking the cigarette heard us, looked up, saw the tacos, and began to laugh. His laughter was infectious, so Cee and I got the giggles too. The other mages saw us laughing, and came over to see what was so funny. Unable to speak, we pointed up at the giant tacos, which were roaring quite loudly now. The other mages started to laugh as well. I suppose we were all a bit hysterical then.

     “Don’t LAUGH!” a voice shrieked.

     We all turned to look at Wilson. He was glaring at us with his fists clenched. “Stop it! I am about to destroy this whole world – you shouldn’t be laughing!” He stomped his feet on the ground and shook one clenched fist at us.

     In our current state, a fat, balding middle-aged man having a temper tantrum was pretty funny too. The drugged-up mages laughed even harder as Wilson continued to shriek at us.

     I noticed that the vortex was beginning to falter. Even better, it was shrinking rapidly. Here was my opportunity. I stood up and strode over to him. Wilson was still stomping his feet and shrieking, eyes shut, so he didn’t see me approaching. 

     The vortex was almost down to nothing by the time I reached him. I took a risk and reached through what remained of the vortex to punch him right in his turned-up nose. Wilson fell backward, hitting the ground with a thud. The vortex exploded, showering us with smoke, bits of rock, ice, ashes, and, yes indeed, shredded beef, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions and crispy taco shell.

     Oh, hell. I’d just had this suit dry-cleaned.

     The mage who had smoked the cigarette stopped laughing long enough to get up and walk over to us. Cee followed him, brushing bits of lettuce off her shoulder. Still giggling, the mage reached down and picked up the book between thumb and finger. He pulled a cloth out of his suit and wrapped the book in it.

     “Thank you,” he said.

     I examined my fingernails. My hand showed no sign of any demonic infection. However, my knuckles hurt like hell.

     “Don’t thank her,” Mage Hairdo snapped. “This was her fault in the first place.”

     I tried not to stare at the very large chunk of beef that was perched on top of her elaborate hairdo. “I fire a lot of people. Most of them don’t go crazy and try to bring about the apocalypse.”

     “Most?” Mage Hairdo asked.

     Well, there had been that one woman who had threatened to make the moon crash into the earth if I didn’t re-hire her. However, since she’d had no real ability, all she’d done was wave her arms about and shriek in her own made-up language until security came and escorted her out of the building.

     Still, I wasn’t about to admit to that.  “It was just a figure of speech… Cee, what are you doing?”

     Cee finished licking the cheese off her fingers.  “I’m still hungry.”

     “Don’t eat the demon tacos.  They’re bad for you.”

     “Tastes like ash anyway,” Cee said, making a face.

----

     The mages left with Wilson, hopefully to put him somewhere nice, safe, and apocalyptic book-free.  The Department of Sorcery sent back the bill to have my door repaired.  Cheapskates.  My hand never turned demonic, and I do personality profiles on all potential new hires.

     The mental scars will probably last longer. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to face a taco again.  Pointy teeth come too vividly to mind.

Sabrina West is a Master’s student in Zoology at the University of Wyoming. She wears lots of fleece, dodges moose, pronghorn, cowboys and small songbirds, and writes whenever her fingers aren’t too frozen.  Her work has previously appeared in the Santa Clara Review and in the October 2008 issue of Crimson Highway.