The brothers jetstream, p.1
The Brothers Jetstream, page 1
The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan
Zig Zag Claybourne
Contents
Mark well what has been said, because it’s kinda cool.
PART ONE
1. Home?
2. Skin and Groans
3. Death and Wishes
4. Death and Wishes, Part II
5. Blank Stares
6. Night Moves
7. Tug of Oar
8. Empaths and Flatlands
9. False Prophecy
10. Poetic Vices
11. When We Were Younger, So Much Younger Than Today
A WHALE, A HARPOON, AND A JACKASS WALK INTO A BAR…
12. Pointillist Ninjutsu
13. Point Break
14. Mission Loss
15. Run
16. Hide
17. Seek
18. The Belly of the Beast
19. Fatherhood
20. Interim
21. Interim Two
22. The Chronic
23. Cut Scene
24. Not As Easy As It Seems
25. Strawberry Tango
26. Blood
27. Interims Three, Four & Five
28. Blood and Clarity
29. Threats in the City
30. Bond. Eternal Bond
31. No Secrets
32. Dust and Shadows
33. Raffic the Mad Buddha
34. Unwanted Private Iowa
35. God and Country
36. Night Moves
37. Know the Enemy
38. The Long, Dark Night of the Mole
39. The Deeper Sea
40. Through to the Other Side
41. The Boom
42. The Bang
43. Sunlight
44. Moonlight
45. Gaslight
46. Boogie
47. Head. Desk
48. The Peeled World
Important Text Messages:
PART TWO
49. The Subtler Things
50. Battle Scenes
51. Meanwhile…
52. Turf
53. Worm Pulling
54. Atlantis
55. LEVIATHAN
56. Death Mettle
57. Grit
58. The Lady Eve
59. Battle Hymns
60. This Side of Paradise
61. Papa Don’t Take No Mess
62. Into the Breach
63. The Blue Fantastic
64. Transcendental Strangulation
65. The Sleeper Awakes
66. Death
The Adventures Continue
About the Author
This Book
Mark well what has been said, because it’s kinda cool.
“Claybourne is a hell of a prose stylist. Stunning word-play, amazing events, worlds, and characters. An impressive novel!”
Minister Faust -Coyote Kings: Space-age Bachelor Pad
* * *
“Folks ain’t ready! The Brothers Jetstream is humorous, irreverent, captivating and sensual. All the things good urban fantasy should be. Sit down and enjoy the adventure!”
Milton Davis -Changa’s Safari
* * *
“This book is funny, smart, original, holy and profane; the best work Zig has done! Slap a guy and send him back a moment before the slap? Brilliant.”
Sparkle Hayter -The Robin Hudson Mysteries
* * *
“What Zig Zag Claybourne does is deconstruct the status quo, brick by brick. Trampling on holy cows, remixing myths, smashing stained glass windows — he turns anarchy into a work of art. He etches phrases into the soft tissue of your brain, sears imagery into your eyeballs. If you read books to be transformed, you have to read him. Now, dammit.”
Zachary Jernigan -No Return: A Novel of Jeroun
* * *
“The Brothers Jetstream is a remarkable achievement offering an intricate world with wondrous and richly developed characters well worth revisiting. There’s particular and captivating elegance to his plotting that verges on poetry. Read these words and be changed by them!”
Bryan Thao Worra -Demonstra
THE BROTHERS JETSTREAM: LEVIATHAN
Copyright 2015 by Clarence Young
Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The author reserves all rights. You may not reproduce or transmit any part of this manuscript in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Please mail requests for permission to zzclaybourne@gmail.com
www.writeonrighton.com
Obsidian Sky Books
Detroit, USA
Published in the United States of America
Print ISBN 978-0-692-65546-7
Second Edition, March 2016
Cover art designed by Nathaniel Hébert www.winterhebert.com
PART ONE
“If it was special we made damn sure it didn’t stay that way.”
~ Fine print, bottom left corner, Book of the False Prophet Buford, located in his tomb under the lifeguard tower on Belle Isle Beach off the Detroit River.
* * *
“Use everything to create the new.”
~ From one of the many notebooks of Kichi Malat, old man wandering with a guitar.
* * *
In those sprawling adventures of yesteryear
The villains were always so clear
The world, however, lost it
Evil today is as efficient and innocuous
As water exiting most faucets.
1
Home?
A pleasure ship moved slowly across open waters. The Brothers Jetstream didn’t take vacations. Way too much heinous stuff for vacations; things people know about but try to pretend otherwise: movie industry’s just a front for a secret vampire cabal; The Brothers Grimm? Their short stories were warnings. The brothers aren’t dead. They teamed up not two weeks ago with the Brothers Jetstream. Much ass kicked that day. Much ass. Came as close as the space between a gnat’s ass to finally getting rid of the False Prophet Buford.
Raffic the Mad Buddha’s absence, however, made all the difference.
Regular Joes got tired and took vacations. Tired for the Brothers Jetstream was escaping the Bermuda Quadrangle, dodging angry resurrected dead folks, uncovering lesser known cabals (deep down folks knew about the vampires but it was a lot easier to stick a head in the sand and scapegoat Jews rather than admit a bunch of psycho blood-suckers were actually responsible for some damn good box office), or having to deal with the Thoom.
The Thoom were stupid. They thought Scientology didn’t go far enough.
Seagulls, aware of the buffet aspect of cruise lines but not bold enough to land on deck, whirled past the ship’s bright venting stacks. Ramses Jetstream watched one glide lazy eights.
He took a deep breath, scratching his scarred fingers through a rough goatee.
He was trying hard to relax.
Reactions to being dark-skinned were at times tiresome too.
For example: he and his brother wanted to procure cold ones for two of the loveliest women in seven dimensions, black, white, brown or green—and there were some damn fine green women in the world—and they’d been understanding of the busy Joyeux Voyage cruise ship, but the wait staff was performing its interpretation of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, zipping to youngish tan things as if guaranteed a fierce lay despite the commanding presence of the Brothers Jetstream.
So Ramses spoke up a little louder.
And got the one moment finger.
The resigned weight of a sigh dropped his chest. He was more patient than Milo, but that didn’t make him patient per se.
And seagulls weren’t interesting in the least.
Ramses Jetstream had little choice but to reach back and smack the college out of the boy when he gave him the one moment finger a second time.
The Shadow clouded men’s minds. Ramses Jetstream calmly slapped the fye out of you.
Same effect. Nobody who saw it believed he had actually done it, and thereby negated the experience within a collective null-time bubble. A genetic trigger shunted the slappee into a personally localized alternate universe exactly to a point before the slap so he/she wouldn’t have to deal with the reality of his/her dumb ass.
Sounded like a lot of work.
But didn’t a brother get some drinks?
Virgin mango daiquiris for both ladies (one of whom looked on in appreciative silence), hot tea for Milo…
“Tea?” said the waiter. It was eighty-four degrees on deck.
“In a tall glass. Hot. You got Earl Grey?”
…and an orange soda for Ramses.
“Are you enjoying your first cruise?” Ramses asked one bikini-ed lady.
“This isn’t my first cruise,” she said, the younger of the two women. “I mean, I don’t get out as much as I could,” she said, and shrugged. “How’d you do that?” she asked.
“What?”
“Slapped the shit out of him and he just snapped back and took your order.”
He and brother Milo glanced at one another. She saw and remembered it. Ramses was impressed. “It’s got to do with the multiverse,” Ramses started, but Milo saved the moment with a quick interruption.
“Are you going to dinner wit
Milo and Ramses warmed to them immediately. The Jetstreams were tired and glad to be back in the fold of civilization, however numbing, just this brief while. Home was two more days away.
“When did you want to eat?” asked Yvonne, the older of the two. She had military dog tags which, on her, didn’t seem out of place with an orange swimsuit and floral wrap.
“Meet you in open-air dining at nine o’clock,” said Milo, hoping the glint of sweat off his bald head wasn’t off-putting. Another nice thing about these ladies: all they needed was a time and it was a date.
On most Atlantic cruises there was at least one person guaranteed to shout a daily “Dolphin!” alert.
“Dolphin!” shouted Susie Saindon from New York.
Her shout was relatively close. The younger woman, Neon Temples, burst from her seat and grabbed her friend’s wrist. “Nine o’clock.”
The Brothers Jetstream watched them run off.
“Ramses,” said Milo.
“Enjoy the moment, brother.”
“I like them.”
“So do I.”
“Damn,” said Milo. He settled in his deck chair. The younger one was physical perfection. The elder: more athletic, a little taller.
“Let’s make sure we don’t do so too much,” said Ramses.
Neon decided to broach the question Yvonne had advised her against. “So what do y’all do?”
“Not talk about work while eating,” said Milo.
“Whale!” somebody shouted but the ladies kept their seats.
“And for fun?” asked Yvonne.
The muscle definition in Milo’s arms was distracting. Yvonne couldn’t look at him without wanting to wrestle.
He sang a line about something inside being forever denied for many, many years.
“She’s having fun,” said Yvonne. “A Beatles man.”
“Name the album and you can have my last shrimp,” said Milo.
Yvonne speared the shrimp with her fork. “Revolver.” She smiled. Half the fat flesh disappeared in one bite.
He retaliated against her defenseless flounder. “Sgt. Pepper.”
“You sure?”
“Another whale!”
“What are they spotting out there?” asked Neon, squinting toward the darkness.
They dined under a huge, lit canopy. The dark Atlantic night seemed like sky brought to ground. Patches of moonlight dappled in rippling, silent spots.
“Blowhole spray. Hear more than see it,” said Milo.
“Whale snot,” said Neon.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Like I wanna see that.”
“People pay money to see that,” said Milo.
“White people pay money to see that. Personally, I’m on this cruise to eat, sleep, and walk around in a bikini.” She and Yvonne high-fived. “Who feels me?”
“And meet nice people,” Yvonne added.
“I’m glad we’re nice,” said Ramses.
“Your brother’s nice. I don’t know about you,” said Yvonne.
“I look better than him,” said Ramses.
“I’ll give you that,” she said.
“Big ass whales!”
The voice wasn’t shouting this time; it was screaming.
“Hello?” the screamer said, clearly a “hello” of panic. “Whales!”
“Dammit,” Milo muttered. He shot up. Whales could be royal pricks. He stopped short of the screamer, who was being swarmed by cruise staff. The ocean was almost a fountain square with blowhole geysers jetting at irregular intervals. Milo estimated thirteen big sumbitch whales forming a moving semi-circle less than fifty yards off the cruiser’s port fore. Their huge backs broke the water like islands. The call had already gone above decks to cut speed.
He found a deserted section, grabbed hold of the fat safety railing, and launched.
2
Skin and Groans
Maseef Or-Ghazeem sat on the bobbing back of a whale. He rubbed a tired ache from his hairless eyebrows. Water allowed no time for fatigue. He wore full breach gear from head to foot. He carried a pocket umbrella.
He reached down and grabbed a brown hand from the water, keeping firm grip on his suction mount while Milo scrabbled for footing. It wasn’t easy getting on top of a whale.
Maseef handed Milo a suction handle. Milo popped it on and swung himself up. They were a decent distance from the main blockade of whales but droplets of spray from those others still managed to rain on them, prompting Maseef to run a gloved finger along the outer ring of his whale’s blowhole in quick squiggles.
Both men gripped their handles firmly. The whale’s grey-black body jarred as a flick of its powerful fluke sent it gliding.
“Can’t stand that on my skin,” said Maseef. The only visible flesh on him was the figure eight around his eyes. Pressure goggles hung from his neck. The eau of mammals and fish was strong.
They waited till the whale’s momentum stalled.
Then Or-Ghazeem spoke without his voice cracking:
“You left my sister.”
“We’re going back,” said Milo.
“Soon.”
“Immediately.”
“You loved my sister.” Or-Ghazeem rarely asked questions.
“I did.” But not in the way everyone assumed. Lolita's interests lay in the hidden layers of the world, not the heart. Lolita Or-Ghazeem, for Milo, was a friend and a comrade who had planned to spend all her days alone and was fine with that. Maseef, being overly protective, took the furtive smiles she had for the Jetstream and turned them into a love affair.
“You need Raffic.” The beserker. The only one of their crew who saw killing as inconvenience, not mortal failing. “I know all that happened.” Nobody had ever heard Maseef's voice above a soft whisper one had to lean to hear. The Atlantic, however, didn’t swallow the softness of his words; it seemed to wait, lapping waves between his pauses. “I’ll find him.”
“So will we.”
“You left too quickly.”
“Didn’t see much of a choice, Maseef. You could’ve been there if you wanted.”
Maseef looked out at the expanse of water for a silent moment. Milo followed his gaze. The ocean at night was terrifying for the uninitiated. There were huge things underneath which sometimes ate things. Huge ancients that were gigantic sets of teeth with human sized gaps between them. They were called singularities, dark holes in the darker night of the ocean, that sometimes rushed from below and bit whales in half so quickly and cleanly no one was likely to know. Singularities were nocturnal.
He and Maseef bobbed the waters of this night.
