BARCA

A Graphic Novel — Chapter One: The Audition

It had started over nothing, a rest-stop parking slot on Barca turf, thirty miles outside the city. Four white bikers rolling through, no colours, no affiliation, just loud mouths and the idea that the spot was theirs because they got there first. They were wrong.

The chain whipped through the air with a low whistle and caught the big white biker square across the temple. Scipio felt the impact travel up his arm. A bright fan of blood, hair, and saliva sprayed out as the links raked across his cheek and lip, laying the meat open to the bone. He dropped before the scream could finish leaving his throat, knees buckling, bike clattering to the gravel beside him.

Scipio didn’t slow. Six foot six and built like a Kodiak, he pivoted, the chain already looping back for another swing. Beside him, Libby stepped in fast, five-seven of pure wire and midnight skin, Japanese eyes narrowed, brass knuckles glinting in the sun. Her right hook drove into the next man’s ribs. He folded, gasping. To her left, Tyre and Canaan worked methodically, using tire irons to dismantle the remaining three.

It was over in forty seconds.

The fourth man, tall, bearded, their leader, had his hands up now, backing toward his Harley. Blood sheeted down the first guy’s face where he lay twitching, one eye wide, the other side swelling shut. The others groaned on the ground, their bikes still idling.

“We didn’t know it was your turf,” the leader said.

“Doesn’t matter now.”

He let the chain hang loose at his side, blood dripping from the links onto the dirt. The scar over his right eye flushed red. He looked at the four of them, then at the low hill behind the rest stop. “I could kill every one of you right now,” Scipio said, his voice low and even. He could feel Libby just behind his shoulder, waiting. He pointed toward a rise in the earth. “Bury the lot of you on the other side of that hill, and the only people who’d ever find you would be the worms.”

He looked at them. “But I like your enthusiasm. You boys got spirit. You didn’t run. I like that.”

“Who are you with?” Scipio said.

“Nobody.”

“Where from?”

“Hamilton.”

Scipio studied him. No colours, but not green.

“You boys want a job, or a funeral?”

The leader’s one good eye flicked to the chain, then to the scar, then back. Libby wiped her knuckles on her leather chaps and grinned, sharp and mean. Tyre leaned on the tire iron like a cane, breathing hard but smiling.

Scipio looked at the leader. Then he looked at the crew, the two still standing, and the ones on the ground, dragging themselves upright. “Any of you have a problem working for a Black man?”

The two standing shook their heads. The others followed.

“Smart,” Scipio said.

He nodded at the leader. “Take your boy to a clinic. Today. Infection from my chain will kill you just as quick as a bullet. You don’t want to know where that chain’s been.” Tyre barked a short laugh. Libby’s chuckle was darker.

The leader swallowed blood. “What do you want?”

Scipio walked to his Road King, the V-twin chrome gleaming, popped the saddlebag, and came back with a thick rubber banded wad of cash. Ten thousand dollars. He held it out.

“There’s a business,” Scipio said, giving him the name and address. “You’re going to buy gasoline and burn it down. Make sure its empty first, I don’t need bodies this time. You keep the cash if it’s ash in forty-eight hours. I’ll know.”

The one with the busted ribs tried to sit up, winced, and spat blood. “What if we don’t?”

Scipio crouched, and met his eyes. “If I don’t hear that place has burned in forty-eight, I’ll assume you took my money and ran. In which case, I will find you, peel the skin off your faces, blend it, stick a funnel in your mouth, and pour it down your throats. Do you believe me?” He straightened.

Libby smirked. Phoenician laughed.

The wounded man kept both hands pressed to his torn face, blood leaking between his fingers. The others didn’t move. Nobody said they didn’t.

“Good. What’s your name?”

“Decker,” the man said.

“Decker. You did alright today, relative to the circumstances.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “Phone numbers. All of you. IMEI too. Now.”

He tossed the cash onto the man he had just maimed. The man fumbled it, and the wad bounced between his hands before dropping into the grass.

Scipio walked back to his Road King, and sat on it while Tyre collected numbers. They gave them with shaking hands. Libby was already on her Street Glide, arms folded, long black hair in its tight tail, bloodied brass knuckles still on her right hand.

“If that grill isn’t gone in forty-eight hours, I start calling those numbers.”

Scipio looked back at Decker, still on one knee. He jerked his chin at the bleeding rider. “Now fuck off, get your boy to a doctor before that cut turns green.”

The guy with the split face nodded, his good eye locked on Scipio’s. He wiped his hands on his jeans, and limped back to his bike. Engines roared. They left the wounded man draped across one saddle like a sack of feed. Dust boiled behind them.

Scipio watched them go, then looked at Libby and Tyre. “Clean work.”

Libby popped her knuckles back into her pockets. “They’ll burn it. They’re scared enough.”

“If they don’t, I bury them,” Scipio said. He coiled the chain and stuffed it into his waistband. “Let’s ride.”