Chapter VIII: Storm Without an Eye

I give myself a few days to recover. A few. A few are all I can afford. Scope’s killers are still out there and who knows what madness Sparkle is planning. I need to keep ahead of them. All of them. The stakes are higher now. The chips have been stacked to the ceiling; and the players sitting around the table have been sitting for too long; and there’s been too much time, effort, blood, tears, and grit invested in the game for any of us to just up and walk away now.

Me. Sparkle. Scope. Tiger voice. The pair of murderers. We all had our chances to walk. Mine was the night Tiger Voice put that slug in my gut. I could’ve left it alone after that, but I had to play brokenhearted little avenger. Had to rage against the city and her criminals. Stupid. After everything that’s happened I finally see how stupid I’ve been. Doesn’t matter now, though. Too late to walk. Too late to do anything but keep on wading through this sea of shit I’ve gotten myself stuck in and pray to Luna it doesn’t get any higher. Pray I don’t drown in it.

A few days are all I can afford. Just a few. I spend them loving Redheart. During the mornings and afternoons we share meals and laughs, and in the evening we share a bed. We make love. Sleep little. The time we spend together isn’t much but I thank Luna for it because it’s a lot more than I deserve.

In between meals and laughs and love-making, Redheart puts me back together. She has a talent for it. For fixing things. Picking up pieces and placing them where they belong. It’s a talent I envy. My only talent is for breaking things. During our time together Redheart gets me back into fighting condition. Gets me ready to break a few more things that need breaking. She never asks about what I do after hours. After Celestia and her ball of fire sink below the Manehattan skyline, and the decent mares and stallions call their children in for supper, and the street lights come on, and the city comes alive with the wet, dull sounds of ponies making war. Fighting. Dying. Spinning themselves out of existence and taking as much with them to the next life as they can carry. Redheart never asks. I suppose she knows our time is short. Doesn’t want to ruin it. Soil it with scary stories. With talk of monsters and their dealings under Luna’s ever vigilant moon. She never asks and even if she did, I doubt I’d have any good answers.

I never ask Redheart why she came back. I’m just not strong enough, I suppose.

A few days. That’s it. That’s all. All I can afford. It’s not much but for a few days Redheart is mine again, and we are happier than we have ever been.

--------

On the first Friday night of the new season, Manehattan calls me away from Redheart’s bed. She’s been calling to me for days. Calling. Threatening. Taunting. Laughing. Manehattan wants me. She misses me and I’d be lying if I said some part of me doesn’t miss her, too. The old mule has something planned for me. Something big. She’s been calling for days and I can’t ignore her another second.

I slip out the bed and shift through the closet expecting to find my equipment waiting for me. The vest is still there. So is the spare hook and wire, but my batons are gone. Ponyfeathers. They were in my apartment when the cops kicked in my door. Damn cops. Probably turned the place upside-down after they arrested me. Probably found my weapons. Confiscated them. My batons. My batons are probably waiting for me down at the station. Waiting in an evidence locker. Zipped up in plastic. Suffocating. Forgotten and suffocating. Ponyfeathers.

As I stare into the open closet, I feel a curious sort of sadness wash over me. I miss them. The feel of them: cold and solid between my clenched teeth. The flash of their inaimate grins and the whistle on their lips as they went about their grim work. They were mean as all hell but they were reliable. I miss them. I’ll have to go back for them. Can’t let them rot in the possession of Manehattan’s finest. Later. I’ll have to go back for them later.

With a pang in my chest, I put on my boots, pull my sweatshirt over my head and tie the length of cord around my waist. Then I make for the window.

My heart drops into my stomach as I trot past the bed. Redheart is still sleeping soundly. She is lying on her side and the breath in her chest causes it to rise and fall gently. Life animates her. Moves her even when she is sleeping.

I trot over to the bedside and kiss my Redheart gingerly on the forehead. She stirs. Turns over in her sleep. For a moment it seems as though she will wake, but the moment passes quickly and thankfully she doesn’t. How peaceful she looks in her sleep. How peaceful we all must look. I gaze down at Redheart’s sleeping face and wonder if maybe the city has something more to offer me than suffering. I gaze down at her and remember the days I spent trying to make my lie a truth. Believing we could have a life together. Start over. Get it right.

I pull the blanket up to her neck and whisper a prayer to Luna. I thank the moon goddess for returning my lover to me, and I ask her to keep Redheart safe while I’m gone. While I’m chasing.

Then I force her out of my head. Doing it hurts, but I don’t need the memory of these past few days slowing me down while I chase. I force her out. Shut my eyes and remind myself why it is I let her go in the first place.

I shut my eyes the noose slips easily around Daisy’s neck, as if it were made special for her. It is the color of sand, and the contrast it creates against her velveteen purple coat is striking.

The noose tightens.

I’m out the window before the life begins draining from Daisy’s eyes. Long before Lily screams.

I’m out the window. My hook claws into one of the city’s many corners. I swing. Fly. When I land, my hooves come down on Manehattan’s ugly face, and I nearly slip on the slick surface. The kids up in the weather factory are playing my song tonight. They beat the thunderheads like war drums, making it come down like it won’t ever stop. It is the first rain of the winter season. First of many. I don’t know if it’s the cold that does it, or the long nights, or just the stress that comes with being young -- but when the winter season rolls in, the kids working up in the factor that hangs above the Bad Weather Beat lose their minds. They go crazy up there. They party in the heavens. Tear the sky open, smear the make-up on Manehattan’s ugly face with their downpour, and hurl lightning bolts way the old gods used to. Tracy and her gang -- they are winter in Manehattan, and as long as they’re up there it’s only going to get colder and louder and nastier.

I love a good Manehattan storm. Helps me think. Helps get the gears in my head turning and the blood in my limbs flowing. Back home in Ponyville you had to wait for the weather patrol to get behind schedule before you could expect any really crazy weather, and even then the downpours where always tame enough not to drown the farmers crops, or put too much pressure on the old dam on the outskirts of town. But in Manehattan the kids up in the weather factory go nuts, and the wind whips, and the air turns electric, and the electricity supercharges all my senses. I breathe in and my nostrils work better than usual. The nighttime sounds come in clearer. The sirens. The rushing hooves. My heart kicks against my chest like it belongs to a thoroughbred; and the blood between my ears pounds; and the blood in my limbs rushes, and boils, and swirls, and promises me I’ll never be tired again.

I’m heading downtown tonight. Sparkle told me to lay low for a while but the hay with that. The hay with her. My hornless unicorn may be beautiful and her madness may not be entirely her fault, but the hay with her. She’s dangerous. Sitting on too much information. She promised to tell me everything she knows but only at a time of her choosing. She only mentioned things in passing. A few names. Filthy Rich. Baritone. A few names mentioned in passing. Sparkle is hiding something from me. Plotting. I don’t trust her. She’s hiding something and I’m sure my reunion with Dee and Redheart, grateful as I am for it, was meant to be a threat. A threat masquerading as a show of good faith. Sparkle wanted me to know that she was capable of finding my loved ones. Capable of finding them and capable of hurting them should I ever step out of line. I’ll make her pay for that. Next time I see her, I’ll make her pay. Pay in blood and dignity. I won’t kill her, but when I’m finished she’ll know better than to involve the ponies I care about in her sick little head games.

No, I can’t trust Sparkle, so instead I’m heading downtown to find somepony I can trust. A certain stallion who knows a thing or two about the inner workings of Manehattan’s criminal underground. I ask around for him, and it doesn’t take long to squeeze a name and address out of the right lowlife.

When I kick the door to his apartment off the hinges, he looks surprised to see me. And when I throw him through his own window seven stories up, his surprise turns to shock. Somewhere between the broken glass and about the fifth story, the poor stallion screams and I can tell his shock is gone. Chased away by raw terror.

Before he joins the other blemishes on Manehattan’s ugly face, I toss my hook after him and it claws into the back of his jacket. Then I give the cord a swift jerk, praying to Luna I don’t accidently break the bastard’s neck as it goes taut. His fall stops abruptly. He gasps. Paws the open air desperately for his hat. Tries to catch it as it falls off his head and drifts down to the sidewalk. Once again I see that he is just an earth pony. No horn. No magic to worry about. I reel him in a few feet, then hold the length of cord between my hooves as best I can. It’s tricky. The cord is slick with raindrops. Tricky, but I manage.

“Fedora!” I call down to him, leaning my head out the broken window. “It’s been awhile hasn’t it?” Fedora flails. Curses. Shouts. I can barely hear him over the heavy downpour. The pitter-patter of raindrops colliding into him, splashing on his thin jacket.

“Crazy dyke!” he shouts. He remembers me. How sweet of him. “Bucking crazy dyke!” I loosen my grip. Let a few inches of cord slide between my hooves. Let Fedora feel the air comb through his mane as he falls. When I catch it again, I feel a sharp jerk. The slick cord nearly gets away from me for an instant, and I almost drop the poor bastard to his death. He squeals. Twists awkwardly on the end of the cord Strains his neck to look up at me.

“You should know I’m up here holding this rope with only my bare hooves. They’re not very dexterous things are they? Hooves, I mean. And mine are especially clumsy.” I play it loose. Loose cannon. Cowpony. I’m downtown tonight. I’m in my own backyard and there’s no reason to play it any way but my way.

“Buck you, you stupid bucking --” I let the cord go again and the word ‘dyke’ becomes several syllables longer. When I reel him back up the second time, he’s almost ready to talk.

“Crazy dyke. How did you even find me?”

“Turns out you’re not very well liked. A few of your friends down at The Ringer sold you out. Even told me your real name. Jimmy Two Scents,’ they called you. ‘Rat,’ they called you. Don’t worry though, you’ll always be Fedora to me.” I look down at Jimmy and he takes a long, hard look at the sidewalk seven stories below.

“What do you want now?” he whines, sounding more annoyed than anything else. I drop him one more time to let him know I’m serious.

“My legs are getting tired, Jimmy. I don’t know if I can catch you again with these clumsy hooves of mine.”

“Just tell me what you want!” My ears drink in the fearful tremor ringing true in his voice. Good. Fear I can work with.

“Filthy Rich,” I say plainly. “Who is he and what was his relation to Stephen Scope?”

“Scope? I heard that idiot got himself killed. Bet it was you that did it, too.”

I give the cord a slight tug and Jimmy lets out an embarrassing yelp. “Focus, Jimmy. Filthy Rich. What do you know? And I better find your answer damn informative, because if not -- well I don’t need to tell you it’s a long way down.”

Lucky for me, Jimmy is in the know.

“He’s a greasy looking motherbucker -- ah…slicked back mane. Has a picture of money bags on his flank -- ah, ah -- three of them I think.”

“Spare me the small talk. What’s his game, Jimmy.” Jimmy doesn’t say anything for a second. I give the cord another shake.

“Drug racket, okay -- the new drug racket! Mostly shipping. Uses his legit business as guise to move the stuff. Zap Apple Jam or something like that,” he says, pushing all the words out in one hasty breath. Not a bad start but I know Jimmy’s got more for me.

“Talk faster, kid. My hooves are getting tired,” I taunt. He tries to start again but a million and one “ums,” and “ahs,” fill his cheeks, tripping him up as they tumble haphazardly from between his quavering lips.

“He -- ah, he started his operation out in the boonies. Some hick town – ah, um -- um, Ponyville! Yeah that’s it Ponyville! He started there and -- and his operation has been growing like a weed ever since! Look that’s all I know okay. That’s all I know.” His breath is coming in heavy pants now. He’s getting hysterical. I tell him to calm down. Ask him what he knows about Filthy’s relationship to Stephen Scope. Ask him why Filthy sent his goons after the good doctor.

He tells me. Tells me Filthy is Grift’s newest competitor. Tells me the two of them have been punching it out over territory ever since Filthy Rich brought his operation to Manehattan, and during the exchange Filthy got himself hurt. Got himself cut. Jimmy says Grift tore his gut open with her own talons. I don’t doubt it. Grift’s known for getting her talons dirty.

“So I take it this Filthy stallion got himself hurt and Scope saved his life.”

“Yeah, yeah, now let me up.” Jimmy’s not making any sense. The night when I saved Scope from Tiger Voice, the doc said Filthy’s goons were after him. I take it Tiger Voice was one of Filthy’s goons. Doesn’t make sense. If Scope saved this guy’s life, why have him killed? Tiger Voice mentioned something about money. Said Scope owned him, and Scope even claimed to have the money -- just not on him. Said it was back home in Fillydelphia.

“What about the money?” I ask. Better wrap this up quick. My limbs are starting to go numb and I really don’t want Jimmy’s blood on my conscience. He’s an asshole, sure, but not one that deserves to die in such a horrible way. Thrown to his death out of the window of his own home. No. I don’t do that anymore. Kill. Not anymore. Not after what happened in that oppressive little room with the white walls. That’s not who I am. Not anymore.

“All I know is he made a whole bunch of cash when he did the job for that psychopath. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

“That’s not what I asked. What about the money he owed Filthy? Where'd the debt come from?”

“I -- I don’t know? How should I know?”

“Don’t lie to me, Jimmy!” I shout, suddenly. I change tactics. Ditch the cool confident John Mane persona for something that sounds a bit more desperate. A bit more unstable. A bit more like my real self. “You lie to me and it’ll be the last lie you ever tell.” I play bad cop. I give the cord a shake and it scares the living shit out of Jimmy. It’s fun. I try hard not to lose myself. Try to remember I’m not that pony who takes pleasure in suffering. Not anymore. I try, but Jimmy’s not helping any. He’s making it too easy. Sniffing and crying like a fillyscout. Too easy and too much fun. I play bad cop and there’s no good cop coming to Jimmy’s rescue tonight.

“I don’t know! Honest! Come on you crazy dyke, I got a wife! I got kids! Let me up!”

“Jimmy, what did I just say about lying?”

“Please! Please don’t kill me!” Jimmy’s in tears now. It’s still coming down like it won’t ever stop. I can’t see the tears rolling down his cheeks through all the rain, but the poor bastard looks up at me and I can tell he’s crying. Jimmy’s crying and I’m grinning down at him like a fiend. My blood’s boiling. Rushing. Whispering promises. I’m wound up. Ready to burst. It’s not enough. I want more. I want Jimmy to scream for me. I want to reel him back up and hammer his face until pisses himself. I want to maim him. Pull his teeth out and…and…I want to…

…I want…I…

…Calm down Rose. That’s not who you are. Not anymore. You’re better than all that. Call down. Focus. Remember why you’re here.

I take a deep breath. Relax. Slow my heart rate a bit and push out all the ugly thoughts. Remember what I’m doing and focus on it. Information. I’m here for information. That’s all. That’s it.

“…And the job for the killer,” I ask, playing it cool again. “It happened in Filly, right?”

“Right. Now please let me up. I got a family, you crazy dyke. Cut me a break, would ya?”

I pull Jimmy back into his apartment. Before I make my leave, I ask him where I can find Filthy. He tells me I shouldn’t be looking for a guy like Filthy. Says a stallion like that is nothing but trouble. I kick him in the mouth. Grab the back of his mane and force his head out the window.

“Alright, alright!” Jimmy shouts. “He stays uptown with the Oranges. Lives in a penthouse suite in one of their hotels.”

I start to pull Jimmy back in. Thank him for his cooperation. Pat him on his head and leave him with one last idle threat before leaping out the window. But then just as I start pulling him back in, Jimmy says something that really gets me going.

“I’m tellin’ ya, ya crazy dyke,” he says. “Whatever it is you’re planning -- it’s a mistake. Just walk away.”

Just walk away, he says

Just walk away!

Sets me off. Here I am trying to hold back. Trying to control myself and Jimmy insists on pushing my buttons. Just walk away, he says. Sets me right off.

“There’s no walking away, Jimmy. Not now. Not with the way things are. The way things are going.” I hoist Jimmy up. Dangle him over the edge of the windowsill with my bare hooves. I hold him by his tail and around his middle, and I dangle the idiot out of the window, and I think long and hard about dropping him.

“Don’t you get it, Jimmy? Don’t you see where things are going? It’s the old days again. The bad old days. The cold days. The days of Discord -- before Heath’s Warming, or Equestria, or the Elements of Harmony, or the so called magic of friendship…”

Jimmy pleads for me to pull him in. He’s not listening. He’s pleading. Begging. Not listening. Idiot. I pull him in. Make him listen. Make him look at me.

“…And there’s going to be feuding again. Only it won’t be unicorn against pegasus against earth pony like it was. It’ll be a free for all. Every pony cutting every other pony’s throat. Fighting over scraps of food that won’t fill them and shelter that won’t protect them. And all the lowlifes and the honest ponies, and all the guilty ones and the innocents will look to their goddesses for help. They’ll look up -- big eyed and afraid -- and their goddesses will look down, and they won’t care. They won’t give a damn. The eldest will hide behind her ball of fire and the youngest will only watch. She’ll hang her moon in the sky and watch us eat each other.”

Jimmy is shaking like a leaf. Asking for it. I want to hit him. Hurt him. I want break every bone in his face and tear every muscle in his body. I want his heart in my mouth, but that’s not who I am anymore. I hold back. Hold him still. Make him look at me. Make him listen.

“Get ready, Jimmy. Get ready because it’s going be loud, and it’s going to be ugly, and it’s going to be damn stupid and pointless. And when it’s over I’ll be sitting on a high-rise somewhere, watching this city burn, or I’ll be in a cell or in the ground -- and no matter which it is, it’ll be right where I belong. Right where I’m supposed to be.”

By the time I’m finished, I’m out of breath. Jimmy is shaking like a leaf. He keeps looking at me like I’m not making any sense, but I’m making perfect sense. I’m making the most sense I’ve made in years, and poor Jimmy is to damn stupid to see the truth. Too scared. He’s scared and shivering and he should be. He’s right to be. It’s all coming to a head.

I leap out the window and leave Jimmy to his shaking. I’m shaking too but for a different reason. It’s all coming to a head, and I’m right smack in the middle of it, and there’s no place I’d rather be. I’m alive like never before. The whole world is new and clear and scary as all hell, but the fear can’t stop me anymore. This city. Her criminals. They can’t stop me. Not anymore. I’ve challenged Manehattan’s thugs, and I’ve escaped her prisons, and I even got the love of my life back. This city couldn’t keep me and Redheart apart. It can’t do anything to me anymore. I think about the past few days I spent loving Redheart, and the memory fills me up. Makes me feel invincible.

--------

On my way back to Redheart’s flat, I try to make sense of the info I scared out of Jimmy. If I had a head like Sparkle’s or even one like Dr. Hooves’ I’d have pieced this thing together days ago, but all I have is a head like mine, so I make the most of it. I relax. Clear out all the cobwebs and all the junk that tells me I should just go home and forget all of it. There’s no walking away now. I had my chance. Back when Tiger Voice put that slug in me. I could’ve put a stop to it then. Could’ve been satisfied with saving Scope that first time. With flying…

…No. No, I suppose that isn’t true. I hid. Watched my friends die. I suppose that was the real point of no return. There was never any hope for me. Daisy and Lily died and that was it. No walking away since then. No walking away now. I relax. Clear out the cobwebs. Get the gears turning.

Without thinking, I throw my hook and Manehattan shrinks beneath me as I swing from a gargoyle jutting from the side of an old uptown theater. I don’t think about the rain freezing my matted coat, or the mass of empty black nothing separating me from the sidewalk, or the thrilling, terrifying freedom of unimpeded forward movement. My flight above uptown Manehattan happens without me. I move forward while my mind moves back. I focus. Focus on the chase and nothing else.

I start with Sparkle and the guard ponies. Sparkle said, “They think you killed the doc, and they know you killed Baritone.” So this Filthy Rich guy knows I offed one of his thugs: Baritone, Sparkle called him. Baritone must have been Tiger Voice, or at the very least, he must have been a member of Tiger Voice’s gang. The name definitely fits, and while I didn’t stick around to make sure, I’m positive Tiger Voice died at my hooves that night. Died cradled lovingly in Manehattan’s embrace.

So Baritone was working for Filthy Rich; he was supposed to find Scope and collect the money owed to his boss. Simple enough. Simple right up until Scope got away. Ran home to Fillydelphia and while he was there, he did a job for this supposed “psycho,” or “psychos,” as Sparkle seems to think. Psychos. Two of them, Sparkle said. By her own testament, she already knows exactly who they are. She said ‘they took something’ from her. Her horn. Carved it right out of her head, or at least that’s what she told me. All I have to go on is her testimony. Words that could very well be the ramblings of a mad hornless unicorn. Can I really trust Sparkle?

I picture the beautiful face of my beautiful hornless unicorn and a loud anxiousness shatters my focus. Sparkle betrayed me. She reunited me with my friends, but likely only so she can use them against me. She wanted me to know. A pony as sharp as Sparkle and as connected as the Police Commissioner of Manehattan’s finest could’ve sent anyone to come pick me up. She could’ve had her partner do it, or one the officers under her command. I’m sure she wanted to keep my escape under wraps. Make it look like I got away on my own. Even so she could have had anyone do it. She chose Dee and Redheart because she wanted to threaten me. Wanted me to know that she could find my loved ones. Find them. Hurt them.

She’ll pay for that. Pay in blood and dignity. She and Filthy Rich and the murderers and anypony else I find out was involved with the doc’s murder. He probably wasn’t innocent but his was the first life I ever tried to save, and I bucked it up. He was beautiful and I bucked it up. Scope meant something to me. What exactly, I’m not sure, but he meant something and his death won’t go unpunished. Sparkle pays first for threatening my friends. Filthy pays next. Pays in blood and dignity. I won’t kill him. I won’t have to. I’m going scare him. Break him. Break him in half and if he’s stupid enough to hire another pony like Scope to put him back together, then I’ll break him again and again, and I’ll keep on breaking him until he stays broken.

Instead of going home to Redheart, I decide to make a detour. I pay the police station a visit. I play it quick and quiet. Sneaky. Soundless. Quick and quiet like a dagger in the back. Stupid Manehattan cops never even know I’m there. It takes some time. More time than I planned, but I find them. I find them waiting for me in an evidence locker. Zipped up in plastic. Suffocating. Forgotten and suffocating. My batons. I could’ve jumped some cops and stolen another pair of batons. A new pair. But I want my pair. My weapons. My friends. I free them. Cradle them. Hold them tight against my chest and tell them how much I missed them, and about the storm that’s coming, and about Filthy Rich and what we have to do to him. To all of them. I tell them the whole sad story and they flash their inanimate grins, eager to return to their grim, grim work.

On my way out the opportunity for such work presents itself. As I make for the roof of the building adjacent to the police station, I spy Sparkle and her partner, the small sharply dressed baby dragon, coming out around back. I remember the ugly thoughts that snuck into my mind earlier tonight as I dealt with Jimmy Two Scents. The fear in his livid face. The missed opportunity to smash my hooves against something soft and breakable.

I jump Sparkle. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. I try to tell myself I am not that pony anymore. The one who takes pleasure in the suffering of others. I try to convince myself that she is gone for good.

I try. I fail.

I jump Sparkle. Jump on Sparkle. My hooves come down her backside and she screams. Folds. Crumples underneath me. Sparkle is so weak. Crumpling her is easy. Like balling up a plastic bag.

Her partner lets out a surprised hiss as I come down on Sparkle. He springs away on nimble legs. For a moment he’s confused. They both are. The baby dragon gropes around in the darkness, searching for his senses, gathering his wits. When his senses and wits are back in order, his mouths drops open and he coughs a bright green flame in my direction.

He looks surprised when he misses me by miles, and even more surprised when one of my boots bounces off his head, sending him pitching through the air. He lands with a thud. I kick him again and he skips across the sidewalk like a flat, smooth stone across the surface of a pond.

Somewhere behind me Sparkle is still slumped on the ground, as the little dragon slowly forces his legs underneath him, leaning against a dumpster for support.

“Walk away,” I tell him. He’s brave. He hisses. Bares his teeth. Doesn’t budge. Doesn’t move an inch.

“No – no way,” he stammers. He’s brave. Too brave for his own good.

“Walk. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Go on, Spike,” Sparkle calls out from behind me. I turn around and find her standing on unsure legs, still visibly shaken by the blow I dealt her. “Go on, I’ll be fine. Rose just wants to talk to me,” she assures her partner. He doesn’t buy it for even a second. He hesitates. Stares down self-consciously at his open claws for a brief moment. Then the open claws snap into tight, frustrated fists, and he slams one against the dumpster before scurrying off. Nose pointing to the ground. Tail tucked between his legs as he goes.

“What’s this about, Rose?” says Sparkle, playing dumb.

“Don’t buck with me. You know what this is about.”

“Humor me,” she says, her expression humorless.

I don’t. I drag Sparkle down the nearest alley and beat her senseless. I beat her till she begs me to stop. Till she cries. Till she’s pissing herself, and puking, and spitting blood and curses. I beat her till she’s a lumpy pile of bleeding flesh lying listlessly at my hooves. Then I beat her some more.

“Yoosee Dee. Redheart. Forget their names,” I tell her between stomps.

“Forget their faces.” I stomp Sparkle’s face. My hoof comes down on her jaw. Then her cheek. Then her eye.

“Forget where they work. Forget where they live.” I stomp her midsection. A rib cracks. She coughs. Writhes. Sputters. Feels bad. Nothing like before. Like with Jimmy earlier tonight. Feels bad but it needs to be done. Sparkle needs to pay. Pay in blood and dignity. I stomp her again. Again.

“Contact either of them again and I will break your neck. Try to use them against me in any way and I will break your neck. Threaten them in any way and I will break your neck. We understand each other, Sparkle?”

Sparkle makes a gurgling sound. She curls into a fetal position. Tries to shield her head and neck with a pair of badly bruised front legs but the blows keep raining down.

“I asked you a question, Sparkle. It stops as soon as you tell me what I want to hear,” I say, praying to Luna that Sparkle will takes the out offered to her. Praying that I will not have to continue hurting my beautiful hornless unicorn.

“You paranoid…idiot. You’re…making…a huge…mistake…” She just barely manages to force the words out of her busted lips. “You don’t want me as…as an enemy, Rose.”

“We’re not enemies Sparkle,” I tell her as I hoist her upright, forcing her to stand on her hind legs. I push her stomach into the damp alley wall. Pin her forelegs behind her back. “If we were enemies you’d be a red smear on one of these of walls,” I tell her. Then I kick her legs apart and caress the inside of her thigh with my baton. Drag it up between her legs and tap her crotch lightly with the head.

“No, no, no, we’re not enemies. But if you ever so much as think about either of my friends after tonight, we will be. And believe me when I say, it’s you who doesn’t want to make an enemy of me.” Sparkle grunts and struggles. I tap her crotch. Her struggling doubles. She squirms. Struggles and squirms, but she’s too weak to stop me. It should be fun. It’s not. No fun. No fun at all.

“Now I really do like you, Sparkle. And I really don’t want to hurt you anymore. So I’m going to ask you one more time. Do we understand each other?” Sparkle stays quiet. I smash the wall with her face. Ask her again.

“They are going to…going to bleed for this,” Sparkle mumbles through a broken jaw. Her voice is low. Raspy. Unafraid. “The cab driver. That cunt, Redheart…they’re going bleed for this, Rose. You just dated their gravestones.”

An ugly sound climbs out of Sparkle’s throat as I slowly force the head of the baton between her cheeks. With nothing but cold, hard rainwater to aid her, my baton digs into Sparkle’s anus and out of the unicorn’s mouth climb some of the ugliest sounds I have ever heard a living thing make. Sparkle shrieks. Her body tenses. Her eyes water. It’s still raining buckets but I can tell she’s crying.

“Now what did I say about making threats?”

“Please…please stop.” Sparkle whimpers.

“It stops when you tell me what I want to hear.”

Sparkle curses. Begs. Not what I want to hear. I push harder. Drive the baton deeper. She cries. A thin trickle of something much warmer than rain rolls down the baton’s shaft and is washed away before reaching the handle, my trembling hooves, or Manehattan’s ugly face. Sparkle whimpers. Bleats and bays and moans like a whore as I stuff her. And the whole time she’s crying and sniffing and begging, she’s not apologizing. Not promising me she’ll leave my friends alone. Only thinking about herself.

I push her face into the wall. She struggles. The sounds escaping her now are desperate. Pitiful. I spread her. Spread her legs and her cheeks as wide as they’ll go, and I force the baton in as deep as I can, and she cries, and pants, and begs -- and I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy hurting my beautiful hornless unicorn but she needs to learn her lesson. Underneath all her intellect and bravado, Sparkle is nothing but a frightened child and children need to be taught. Sometimes they need to be taught the hard way. My way. I don’t spare the rod. Sparkle’s a smart kid. A quick study. I’m sure she’ll learn fast enough.

Sparkle’s a quick study and my baton is a harsh teacher. Unforgiving of mistakes. Cruel. Mean as all hell. I don’t enjoy it one bit, but I can’t say the same for her. Without life or lips she flashes her inanimate grin, whistling as she goes about her grim, grim work.