lit_gal | Magnificent Seven

Magnificent Seven--The Tucson Team

I have had some crossover ideas for The Sentinel and Magnificent Seven bouncing around my head. However, I had a couple of issues. First, I don't want to use the original time period of M7. The Old West is not my schtick. Second, I don't want to use the widely accepted and recognized ATF AU where the team is a crack unit of the ATF. I just can't see Ezra becoming a cop, and that doesn't really match how I see Josiah or J.D. or even Nathan.

Yeah, so that leaves me having to create my own mythology for these guys. That means that these seven are essentially original characters because they are only inspired by the Magnificent Seven guys. So, I am introducing the Tucson variation of M7 just so that IF I write that crossover later, ya'll know who the hell these people are. Oh, and I promise to introduce them one at a time (just like original characters), so I don't leave you going wtfffff??

So, on with the story

Title: Sunstroke, Insanity, and Faith
Genre: Gen... an introduction to the characters before I do much with them.
Fandom: Magnificent Seven
Taming the Muse prompt: Gentrification

Summary: An undercover cop finds himself in deeper than he ever expected when a local priest hires him to defend the church in an all out gang-war.

"

Vincent Tanner?" a voice asked.

Vin turned to look at the older gentleman who had said his full name. "My momma called me that. Most everyone else calls me Vin."

The man nodded. "Vin. Old Norse from the Latin vinum or wine," he commented.

Ah, that's where Vin knew him. The gangs he was supposed to be investigating had a bad habit of running illegal immigrants across the border and then holding them hostage while demanding a ransom out of the illegal immigrant's family. It was a good racket because these people did not call the police. Vin had been undercover for almost two months now and he was just starting to identify all the players. This was Josiah Sanchez. Some of the locals hated him—called him Father Joe behind his back and said that he was some sort of wanna-be priest while making dirty little comments about how he probably just wanted access to the little Catholic boys. But most of the neighborhood treated him like some sort of holy man. Vin leaned back against the bench and looked up. "Josiah, right?" he asked.

"That I am." The man sat down next to Vin, and for the first time, Vin realized just how large a man Josiah Sanchez was. Vin hadn't spent too much time around the guy, not after he'd decided that Josiah wasn't hooked up with the gangs. He was one of the few locals who weren't. "I thought I might invite you to spend some time at the church this week."

Vin frowned. This was a very odd conversation. "You want me to come to church?" Vin's cover wasn't all that far off from his real personality. He was a hothead with a record for burglary and drug dealing and suspected of murder back in Texas. The burglary part was true enough—Vin had done some pretty questionable things in his youth, although Tucson PD didn't know about it. Being a hothead? Vin wasn't even going to deny that. He sometimes wished that he looked rougher. Men like Josiah who had that gruff, weathered look weren't hassled, but Vin was, unfortunately, cute. That wasn't a word a man really wanted to hear used to describe him. It meant men gave him shit and Vin had to give it right back. Ironically, the unsubstantiated murder charge was pretty close to the truth, too. Vin's police partner back in Fort Worth had tried to pin a murder on Vin to stop some uncomfortable questions about bribery. That's why he'd left Texas and taken a detective position in Tucson, which had about the worst crime stats in this part of the world. About the only part of Vin's cover that wasn't both highly defamatory and true was the part about the drugs.

Vin scratched his neck where the Tucson sun was making him sweat. Josiah remained silent as he watched the traffic rumble past them. "Is there some reason why I would come to church?" Vin asked.

"Other than your soul?" Josiah gave him a crooked smile.

"Yes, other than my soul. I'm actually not all that worried about my soul." Vin rolled his eyes. God help him; the missionary thought Vin was a street thug who needed saving. Well, that did suggest his cover was working.

Josiah leaned back on the bus bench and looked up into the blue sky for a long time... long enough that he had to be seeing spots. Whatever this guy was up to, he was one seriously odd duck. Vin stretched so that his hand just happened to land near enough his waist band for him to pull his weapon if he needed to.

"That's why I'd like you to visit the church," Josiah said without taking his eyes off the sky. "You're a man who relies on himself and his own weapon, but you aren't a man who's quick to pull it. Down here, that's rare." Josiah slowly looked down at Vin, studying him with such intensity that Vin had to work to avoid squirming under the older man's gaze.

"Weapon?"

Josiah shook his head as if Vin had said something amusing. "This may not be much, but hopefully it can hire you for a few days." Josiah reached for his pocket, and Vin tensed up. This wasn't worth blowing his cover and losing two month of undercover work, but this guy was seriously creeping him out. Instead of a weapon, Josiah pulled out a turquoise necklace and tossed it at him. Vin caught the piece, and opened his mouth to answer, but Josiah was already ambling down the street. There were very few people Vin would ever apply the word 'amble' to, but Josiah ambled. Actually, come to think of it, he was the only man Vin had ever seen amble.

Looking down at his hand, he studied the piece. It was mostly inlaid turquoise, but up close, Vin could see bands of coral and mother of pearl in a Native American design. It was an abstract image of a man bend over until his body created a half-circle. This was worth something... a lot of something. And for some reason, Vin did not feel like handing it over to his bosses. Some Native woman had probably asked Josiah to use it to hire someone. The Tohonoa O'odham, Pascua Yaqui, and Ak-Chin reservations were all within spitting distance and the San Carlos Apaches and Zuni weren’t far off either. The piece looked Zuni. And the Native People seemed to have the same respect for Josiah that most of the Hispanic and homeless population did. Someone sent Josiah out with the only payment they could manage.

"I seriously hope you aren't into something too dangerous." Vin rubbed his thumb over the beautiful piece before he dropped it into his shirt pocket. Getting up, Vin wandered in the opposite direction. He needed to drop his handler a note and let them know he had been invited over to the church for some reason. Hell, maybe if some of the gangs' victims were looking to hire protection, Vin could find something to help him break this case. He was tired of dangling out here without anyone to watch his back.

Josiah's church was in a run-down neighborhood with little square houses that had been thrown up during World War II, but the church itself was much older. The front had tall, narrow windows and the church bell, still suspended from a huge beam, had left rust stains that ran down the white adobe. The only large window was a large round window three stories up and directly above the massive wooden doors. The plaque out front gave the church's history. Built in 1732, it just about fell down in 1860. From the research Vin's boss had sent him, it had almost fallen down again in 1970 from neglect, but Josiah Sanchez had shown up straight out of the Vietnam war and declared himself the unofficial caretaker. Without asking anyone's permission, he moved into the historical landmark and started fixing it up with his own two hands.

It took four years for the city to notice that the man had basically rebuilt and restored the entire site, and by that time, Josiah was feeding the poor out of the back and giving informal prayer sessions in the main room, which hadn't actually been used as a church in a hundred years. When Tucson tried to evict their unofficial employee, the entire neighborhood had risen up in rebellion. Police couldn't even drive their cars to the church because of the mob in the street, so the city threw up their hands and just ignored Josiah. Vin's captain had been very vocal about the fact that Josiah had more influence in this area than anyone wanted to admit.

Hopefully Captain Rodriguez had been right about this guy not doing anything immoral, because Vin was about to walk into the lion's den. Pushing open the carved front doors, Vin walked into the main room. His boots echoed on the tile floor, and pews with hand carved details were lined up and facing the front. "Hello?" Vin's voice echoed. The door slowly fell closed again, and the light from the window made a giant oval as it fell on the tile floor. "Is anyone here?" Vin walked toward the front, but no one seemed to be home.

"Hey, we're back here," a voice yelled. It wasn't Josiah, but Vin followed it through another door into a long hallway. This part of the structure was clearly newer. The exposed beams and rough adobe gave way to drywall and electric lights.

"J.D., do be careful with that. This is a historical landmark."

"I'm not touching the history. I'm only ripping out drywall, Josiah." The speaker sounded young, late teens or early twenties maybe.

"The drywall is attached to history." A loud crash made Vin flinch as he came into a room full of long tables. A few people sat playing cards, and even without the extra clothes that marked the homeless in colder climates, Vin could spot them. They weren't exactly clean and one carried a jacket that seemed a little out of place when the thermometer was hitting 110. On the far side of the room, Josiah was standing over a young man with shaggy black hair and a sheepish look on his face.

"I'll fix it," the kid promised, holding his hands up as if he could hold Josiah off. That was actually kind of funny because this J.D. was about half Josiah's size. Vin knew he was exaggerating a bit but the kid wasn't anywhere near Josiah's league. On the floor, a broken piece of drywall had two strips of lathing still clinging to it.

Josiah shook his head and turned his back to the kid. The second Josiah's back was turned, the kid gave the two homeless men a cheeky grin, and one laughed. "He's going to take a switch to you soon or later," the man warned.

"Hey, I'm an adult. You don't take switches to adults," J.D. protested. If he was claiming to be an adult, that probably meant he was at least eighteen, but Vin was guessing he couldn't be too much more than that.

"You came." Josiah wiped drywall dust off his hands. His toolbelt hung low on his hips, but Vin frowned at one particularly odd shape.

"Is that a .22?"

Josiah's hand fell on the end of the gun he'd tucked between his hammer and a tape measure. "The lord provides, but I find that sometimes I have to fill in a few gaps where his provisions fall short of my preferences," Josiah offered. Vin's eyebrows went up. The odd factor was definitely not going away. "Would you like some lunch?"

Vin ignored him and watched as J.D. struggled to get what looked like metal sheeting bolted to the studs. His drill screamed as the torque on the bolt drove it into the heavy wood.

Josiah sighed. "You are overreacting."

"No, I’m reacting," J.D. argued. "Besides, you went and got him, didn't you?" J.D. put down his drill and walked over with his hand out. "J.D. Dunne. I help out around the mission."

"Vin Tanner," Vin responded, but his attention was focused on the wall. One wall was a roadmap of spackle and joint tape, and the wall J.D. was working on had metal sheeting covering the bottom third.

"Are you armor plating the room?" Vin asked.

J.D. smiled. "Exactly. See, I told you this was a good idea." J.D. rapped his knuckles against the metal. Stepping forward, Vin ran his hand along the plate. Half-inch steel behind a solid wall would stop most things, but the question was, who did they plan to go to war against.

"I didn't say it wouldn't work. What I said was that the bullet deflection was going to tear the exterior to shreds," Josiah said.

"He's right about that," Vin said as he craned his neck to see into the space between the studs where J.D. had pulled out the insulation. "Something goes ricocheting off that metal, and it's going to rip through your electrical wire, studs, plywood... everything that's on the outside of this plate."

"Yeah, but that won't be us because we'll be inside," J.D. pointed out.

"And who's going to be out there?" Vin poked a thumb toward the back of the mission. If he had to take a stand somewhere, he'd rather take it in the main church where the narrow windows and thick walls would be just as effective as a fort as it had been in the 1700's. This more modern addition had standard 6 by 4 foot windows on two walls and standard walls. At least the walls had been standard before J.D.'s little project.

"East Side Los Cuatro Milpas," J.D. blithely announced. Bending over, he grabbed his drill and slipped another bolt into the attachment.

Vin looked over at Josiah for some sort of denial. Phoenix had driven many of the gang members out, and a large contingent had landed in Tucson. As they tried to wrestle territory away from the other gangs, the violence had escalated. They were the main reason Vin was undercover in this neighborhood.

"You pissed off the East Side Los Cuatro Milpas?" Vin asked.

Josiah shrugged. "I shared the truth," he said raising his arms in a helpless shrug.

One of the homeless men snorted. "Yeah, only his truth included the fact that if they threatened any more of Josiah's people, Josiah was going to take one of their semiautomatic weapons and 'introduce it to their internal organs via that most convenient orifice.' Funniest thing I ever saw." The man did a pretty good imitation of Josiah, but Vin was a little more concerned about a potential bloodbath. A half inch of steel was not going to stop the gang-bangers from shooting someone as he walked down the street.

"I was simply warning them of the consequences of remaining on the life path they had chosen for themselves," Josiah offered sweetly. J.D.'s drill whined as his put in another bolt.

"Wait," Vin said. "You hired me to go to war with the East Side Los Cuatro Milpas? That's why you asked me here?"

Josiah just looked at him in a way that made it patently clear that's exactly what he wanted.

"You do know this is crazy, right? You, me and a kid against the East Side Los Cuatro Milpas? We can save money with the group rate on funerals."

"If that's God's will."

"Have you considered that God's will might be for us to go to the police?" Vin asked. Yeah, his cover story did not mesh well with someone who suggested running to the cops, but this was the East Side Los Cuatro Milpas. Even a low-level dealer and thug would run for the cops if he had them on his tail.

"Considered it." Josiah nodded thoughtfully. "Decided against it." Without another word, Josiah walked to the corner of the room where J.D. had finished his armor plating job and he started tucking the insulation back into place.

"What? So you two are just going to take on an entire gang?"

"Buck will help," J.D. said. Vin had no idea who Buck was, but unless he was Rambo on steroids, one more person in the middle of this mess was just volunteering to be another murder victim.

"We need official help with this. I am not the cops' biggest fan, but if you're talking gangs, that's who we should go to. We could drop them an anonymous phone call," Vin argued.

Josiah pulled off a long strip of drywall tape and carefully sealed a seam before answering.

"Plenty of people would like to see this neighborhood change."

"Well, yeah," Vin agreed. He was one of those people, and unless he'd missed some signal, so was Josiah. None of them seemed to have the gangs on their Christmas card list.

Josiah stopped and looked over at him. "I'm not talking about just the gangs," Josiah gave Vin the same sort of look Vin's eighth grade teacher had always given him when he got the wrong answer for x. "It's the way of the world. The middle class forgets an area, lets it decay, and then when they decide they want it back, here comes the gentrification. The police clean it up, the middle class moves in, and the poor are pushed off to yet another corner of the world."

"What?" Vin wasn't sure when this had become a political debate, but he hadn't brought his cliff notes, that was for damn sure.

"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered."

Vin just frowned in confusion.

"Proverbs 21:13," Josiah added helpfully. "This is our home, and these people have asked for our help. We do not shut our ears to the cry of the poor, and as long as the politicians control the police, they are not truly on the side of those honest but poor citizens who would call this place home."

"You're all crazy," Vin told the room.

"He's a quick learner," one of the homeless men commented to the other. "Usually it takes people longer." His partner just threw down a card and announced gin as he laid his cards down.

"You're all completely nuts," Vin repeated. No way could he get himself into the middle of a gang war. Hell, this wasn't even going to be a gang war; this was going to be a gang massacre. He needed to get word out to Captain Rodriguez before all hell broke loose.

"I cannot ask you to stay if you don't feel the calling in your heart," Josiah said sadly.

"But you're going to stay and try and fight off a violent gang with a .22?" Vin asked.

Josiah just gave an enigmatic smile and turned back to his drywall job.

"It's not as bad as it looks," J.D. suggested.

"Yes, yes it is," Vin contradicted him. "You have no idea who you're up against."

J.D. smiled. "We've actually been doing this for a while, Josiah, Buck and me. You'd be surprised at who we've gone against."

Vin might have followed up on that tantalizing lead, but Josiah had moved to his side so quietly that Vin just about jumped out of his skin when Josiah took him by the arm.

"I'll see you out," Josiah said as he pulled firmly on Vin's arm. Vin didn't really have a choice about leaving, not unless he wanted to start a fight, and given the strength of the grip Josiah had on his arm, Vin did not want to start that fight. Instead, he got firmly escorted to the exit and left standing in the brilliant Tucson sun.

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