Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play) - On Hold

LX. Fiddle Oʼ Gold Against Your Soul

7
Oro
Medellín, Colombia
Hammam de Andalus
Territory: Volta Grande
July 11th, 2004
Time: 8:30 PM
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    Medellín was dark as chocolate, in the darkness, the blood poured on thicker than water.

    For ten days and ten nights, the Volta Grande crested up the coast from Santiago to Medellín securing alliances with the shamans of the Southern Isles, with local kingpins, moving in on the matador Escobarʼs playing field. Long gone were the days of breaking bread, of drugs and s*x for pleasure. Damiàn traded Sudanese spices for cheap secrets about the Draco family and their allegiance to the Order. Popeye, Escobarʼs ex-hitman, rounded up virgins along the local villages, and expanding their cravings for young bridge money. Black Caesar flew between Miami and Medellín securing the heroin and fyrewhiskey imports for the Volta.

    Bloodbeard, a freemason with former ties to the Order, went on a rampage in smuggling illegal arms from Jamaica and other islands in the Caribbean. The Barbarossa Brothers and Don Quixote – the deadly Ottoman bandits of Turkey, and the Volta Grandeʼs accountant – identified new routes to push their prostitution rings in Turkey and Southeast Asia. La Tosca and Granny Evil, two Mexican assassins contracted by Griselda and cast out by El Chapo worked out the kinks in the transport of the girls, the liquor, and the drugs, and Griselda sat at the top, her pretty little head spearheading the whole operation, as Oro waited on the f*cking sidelines.

    Free me from El Dorado.

    Oro lit his cigarette, letting the smoke swallow him whole.

    He couldnʼt even escape Medellín. He couldnʼt even –

    "Orito," Griselda cooed, interrupting his thoughts.

    The moon was glorious that night: fat, full, and reddish as it sat along the waterfront of the tropical night, but Griselda was even more glorious. She wore a one-piece bathing suit of black and gold that traced the curves of her body like a goddess, skirting along the moonlit courtyard towards him as night began to crawl sleepily into its bed. The turquoise blue waters of the Andalusian hammam was the pinnacle of luxury, with incandescent lights and the soft bodies of sensual Colombian women whispering softly, humming with the wind. Devilish princes dotted the serpentʼs eye, snaking along the grains of white sands, and Griselda stood among them, as their queen.

    "Bourbon?" she offered, the moon basking in her devilish youth as she held a flute of chamagne to her lips. Oro put out the cigarette against one of the palm trees, humbly accepting.

     "Walk with me," she hummed, snaking her arm around his.

     "Do I have a choice?" he retorted.

     "Well, when you sell your soul to the devil, cock-sucking is custom, and I am more than ready," Griselda mused, sipping her champagne.

    Oro gaped at her. Griselda rolled her eyes.

    "Close your mouth, Orito, youʼll catch flies. Now, walk with me."

    And so, they walked. They walked along the Hammamʼs courtyard, taking in the Arabian and Colombian architecture as if they were art connoisseurs, rather than serial murderers, pimps, and kingpins.

    Griselda motioned to the local Colombian kingpins lounging in the bathhouseʼs boiling hot waters, dangerous men with refined tastes and a thirst for v*rgin blood.

    Men like him.

    "Midas and Pinochet have finally sanctioned the hunt for El Dorado. Midas holds court in Buenos Aires like a goddamn king and Pinochet is getting his troops ready like heʼs God almighty," Griselda told him in confidence, smiling at the Hammanʼs onlookers.