Middlegame

by Seanan McGuire

  “I didn’t.”

  Erin picks up the battery, turning it over in her hand before fixing Dodger with a hard look. “You’re not lying to save your own skin?”

  “I don’t understand enough of what’s going on to lie to you.” Dodger pops the back off her phone and holds it up, still ringing, to show Erin the empty cavity where the battery ought to be. “This isn’t scientifically possible.”

  Roger laughs. He doesn’t say anything: he just laughs, helplessly, sinking lower and lower in his seat, until his head is almost level with the top of the booth.

  Dodger sighs. “Right. Should I answer it?”

  “There aren’t many people who could call you on a dead phone. You’re one of them. Pick up.”

  Dodger nods, and presses the button on the side of her phone before raising it to her ear. Roger stops laughing.

  “Hello?” she says.

  * * *

  Leigh hasn’t spoken to the Cheswich girl since she was a baby, red-faced and squalling whenever taken more than five feet from her brother. Still, she’s heard recordings, has seen pictures, and she knows the voice of a cuckoo when she hears it. She smiles, eyes half-lidded, and leans back in the chair she’s commandeered for her use.

  “Why, Dodger,” she purrs. “You sound like such a big, grown-up girl. How old are you now? Twenty-nine? Almost an old maid, and nothing to show for it but a lecture tour and a few books that have already being remaindered in some stores. I read your first one. You should be proud of your scholarship. That’s one thing I’ll never try to take away from you: you have a brilliant mind. It’s a pity you didn’t do more with it while you had the chance.”

  “Who is this?” Dodger’s voice is low and tight with fear. Leigh’s smile grows. All the math children are like this, wary and easily frightened when they assume the danger is to themselves. Threaten their other halves and the response is very different. That’s why it’s important to come at the problem sideways, putting pressure on the weak link.

  The math children will die to defend the language children. Many of them have. Most of them have had no capacity for defending themselves. It isn’t part of what they’re made of—and Leigh knows very well what they’re made of. She was one of the people who did the making, after all.

  “My name is Leigh Barrow. I assume you’re with Erin. I want you to lower the phone and say my name. Watch her eyes. You’ll understand how serious I am. Once you’ve done that, come back to me. Oh, and Dodger? If you let her take the phone away, I’ll hang up, and you’ll never know what I’ve done.”

  Dodger doesn’t say anything. Leigh keeps smiling, and listens. In the background, she hears Erin’s startled, wordless exclamation, followed by a run of words too fast and too distant to be understood. That’s all right. She doesn’t need to know what her creation and former protégée is saying to know that it isn’t anything good, because no one ever has anything good to say about her or the things she does. Not even Reed, who supposedly values her contributions to his work. Leigh doesn’t mind. Being universally feared and disliked has its advantages, and she is legion; she needs no one’s company but her own.

  “Hello?” Dodger’s voice, querulous and—yes—afraid. Oh, good. That will make things so much easier.

  “Hello, dear. Where are you?”

  “No.”

  A simple refusal, flat, nothing to latch onto or exploit. Leigh’s smile grows. This is going to be fun. “I don’t think you understand. You know who I am. You know what I am to you. Not mother—that questionable honor was reserved for a farm animal who got more than she deserved when I slit her kiss to crotch—but midwife. I was there when you were born. I yanked you into the world screaming, covered in blood and mucus, and I’ve always hoped I’d have the opportunity to send you out of the world the same way. You know what I am. If you want me to be merciful—which isn’t easy for me, I’m not going to lie to you—then you need to tell me where you are, and let me come to you.”

  “No,” Dodger says again, and it’s so stark, and it’s so simple, and it’s never going to be enough. Maybe if she’d been the firstborn … but if she’d been the firstborn, Leigh wouldn’t be calling her. Always go for the weak link in a hunt, if there’s any possible way.

  “You don’t have to be so stubborn, you know. We could be friends.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Oh no? I have something I can offer. Something I think you’ll want very much.”

  Dodger pauses. She knows the importance of barter, of bargaining; the math children always think they can get something for nothing, or for not quite as much, if they play their cards correctly. “What’s that?”

  “An easy death. I’ll kill you so gently, Dodger. I’ll slit your throat before you have a chance to blink, and you’ll bleed out on the floor still waiting for me to strike. If I do it fast enough, there won’t be any pain—not for you. Erin may even be able to keep your brother alive, if she uses everything I’ve taught her. You could set him free. I know you’ve tried to do that before. I know that’s all you’ve ever really wanted to do.”

  Silence.

  “Oh, but I haven’t given you any reason to go along with my proposal, have I? Here’s a reason: your parents are dead.”

  “What?” The word is half-gasp. Leigh can picture the look on the girl’s face. The horror, the anger, the fear, all mixed together in a delicious cocktail of pain. She wishes she could actually see it, but hearing it is almost as good.

  “Your parents. They’re dead. I killed them, in case you were hoping this was about a car crash or something of the sort. You see, I couldn’t find you anywhere—and I’ve been looking ever so hard. I assume you’ve been twisting time around yourself to muddy the trail. That’s not very nice of you, you know. You’ve been denying me. I don’t like to be denied, so I took a little trip to the address where Reed placed you.”

  Dodger finds she can’t breathe.

  “I rang the doorbell. Your mother answered. She was wearing a pink robe with blue satin trim. Very out-of-date. It soaked up the blood nicely when I stabbed her.” The blade sliding between her ribs, slicing flesh and organs indiscriminately. Her lung had deflated like an old balloon, no longer capable of holding air or sustaining a body. It was a simple move, and one Leigh had practiced many times, on many bodies. “Did Erin ever tell you how she killed your little Indian girl after you and Roger were stupid enough to request a DNA test? She learned that move from me, and I showed it to your mother tonight. She didn’t even have a chance to scream before she was on the floor. You’ll be happy to know that her body’s going to be donated to science. My science. I always need more parts.”

  “You’re lying.” It’s the whisper of a wounded child. There are voices behind it, loud ones, raised in exclamation and dismay.

  Leigh leans back farther in the chair, letting the weathered leather wrap around her like a lover’s arms, and closes her eyes. It’s a good chair. A pity about the bloodstains, but all things must come to an end in this world. “Am I? Or do you simply not want to listen to the truth? I admit, it’s a painful truth, but it’s the one we have, and it’s not negotiable for people like you and me. Your brother, he can argue with the truth, within reason … but he can’t raise the dead. Only a very good alchemist can do that, and believe me when I say you wouldn’t appreciate the results. They’re rarely pretty. Even when they are, there’s always a cost. Everything costs.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Your mother answered the door, and when she didn’t go back up the stairs, your father came down. I shot him. Men get so aggressive when they see their wives dead, and his hands are intact. You’ll never see me coming. Do you believe me now? Or do I need to walk through your childhood home, describing everything I see to make you understand that I’m not a liar? Because I’ll be honest, Dodger. I’m getting tired of you calling me names I haven’t earned.”

  A soft squeaking sound, and then silence. Leigh opens her eyes.
r />   “Come home,” she says. “Leave them, or bring them with you. Try to take me by force, try to ambush me, come for revenge, I don’t care, just come home. Come close enough for me to give you what I’ve promised. The people who took you in, raised you, and claimed you as their daughter are dead, little cuckoo, and all because you wanted to see the Impossible City. You could have spared them. You could have spared so many people. Come home, and leave the rest of the people you care about among the living. Because I assure you, it doesn’t end here.”

  “I can’t…”

  “Your mother’s blood tasted like candy, little girl. Don’t fuck with me. Come home.”

  Leigh hangs up the phone and stands. The nameless alchemist is standing in the hallway, his construct a dark shape behind him. She looks at the pair with narrowed eyes. “Well?”

  “I have them both laid out in the dining room like you asked.”

  “Good.” Her smile has nothing to do with happiness. “Let’s arm ourselves, shall we?”

  * * *

  Back in the diner, Dodger drops the phone. She stares at it, eyes huge in her pale face, and for a long moment, no one says anything. Finally, Roger reaches for her, and flinches when she pulls away.

  Her head snaps up, attention zeroing in on Erin. “Was she lying?” she asks. Her voice breaks on the last word.

  Erin is more concerned about the rest of her breaking, for good. “No,” she says, quiet, implacable. “If Leigh Barrow says she’s killed someone, she’s killed them. That’s how she operates. She can lie, but she rarely sees the need. The truth hurts so much more.”

  Dodger stands. This time, it’s Erin who moves, leaning across the table, putting her hands on the other woman’s shoulder, and shoving her back down into her seat.

  “Let me go!”

  “And what? You’ll call an Uber and run off to Palo Alto to get yourself killed? You die, Roger dies. You want that?” Erin glares. It’s the last weapon she has. She belonged to Leigh once: she knows how the woman operates because she operates in much the same way. There’s power in the truth. It’s an alchemy of its own. “If she told you any lies at all, she told you there was a way for you to die without killing him. His body might keep breathing for a while after yours stops, but it won’t do a damn thing to save his mind. You die, he dies, and no matter what, your parents don’t come back.”

  Dodger’s eyes widen again, flaring with sudden hope. “They could! They could. The timeline, we … we can reset the timeline. We can go back and try to warn them.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. It’s never that precise.”

  “It has to be!” Dodger turns to Roger. “Please. She said you’re the one who has to tell me what to do. So tell me what to do. Let me change the timeline.”

  “I think we need to listen to Erin right now,” says Roger quietly.

  “Dodger, don’t you think if we could do this without losing your parents, we would have already reset the timeline to do it that way?” Erin tries to make the question as gentle as she can. “I know you’ve accepted that the earthquake had to happen to make you believe me. What if—as much as it hurts—what if this is where your parents have to die, because otherwise, they’re going to suffer something much worse? Not everyone can be saved.”

  Dodger stares at her. “You’re fucking kidding, right? They’re my parents.”

  “His parents work for Reed,” says Erin, indicating Roger. “They trained him like a puppy to be sure he’d take the correct shape. At least your parents truly loved you. Take that, and avenge them by manifesting the way you’re supposed to.”

  Roger says nothing.

  Dodger looks between the two of them, eyes going wider and wider, before she moves, again, to stand. This time, Erin doesn’t stop her. “You people are both insane,” she says. “I’m going home.” She steps out of the booth, moving toward the door.

  Roger jumps to his feet before he can stop to think, lunging after her, grabbing her arm. “Don’t go. Please.”

  She looks back toward him. “My parents,” she says.

  “I’m know. Dodger, I’m so sorry, I—”

  “Really? Because we just found out you lost your parents, too. Maybe this is symmetry. Maybe this is the numbers balancing. Only, you never really had yours. There was never anything there to subtract.” She’s being cruel. She knows it; he can see that in her eyes. That doesn’t keep the barb from hitting home.

  He lets her go.

  Dodger takes another step away.

  Erin looks at him. “It’s on you now,” she says.

  He can’t hesitate or they’ll lose her, and if they lose her, they’ll lose everything. The world will lose everything. She’ll forgive him. He holds tightly to that thought as he says, “Dodger, stop.”

  Dodger stops.

  “Come back.”

  She turns, face a mask of fury and dismay, and walks the three steps back to the booth, where she stands, vibrating with rage. “Don’t do this,” she says.

  “Sit down,” says Roger.

  Dodger sits down.

  “I’m sorry, Dodge,” says Roger. “I can’t let you leave.”

  Dodger turns her face away and says nothing. Erin sighs into the silence.

  “Oh, isn’t this going to be fun?” The question is blessedly rhetorical. None of them would have an answer if it wasn’t. She picks up her discarded menu, opens it, and says, “We need to eat. We may not get another opportunity.”

  Roger stares at her, aghast. “What?”

  “You heard me.” She lowers the menu and looks at him. “This is war, Jackdaw. I kept you out of it as long as I could, because I needed you to have as much time and knowledge under your belt as possible, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been going on for over a hundred years. Baker thought of you, Reed created you, and now that you’re here, the whole world gets to keep you. Both of you. This isn’t something you walk away from. Smita wasn’t the first person I killed on Leigh’s orders, and the Cheswiches won’t be the last people she kills on her own. Are you with me yet? All you can do by running away is play straight into her plans.”

  “Aren’t we even going to call the police?” Dodger’s question is small, meek, the question of a child. There’s no anger in it. All the anger is reserved for her expression. Her glare in this moment could melt steel.

  “And send them to their deaths? Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Erin meets Dodger’s glare unflinchingly. “That’s assuming they’d find the house. She’ll have Hands of Glory burning by now, making the whole place obscure. She’s not an amateur. She taught me everything I know—but as the cliché goes, she didn’t teach me everything she knows. She’s a monster trying to bait you into meeting her in her den, and we can’t let you go. I’m sorry. We can’t lose you, or we lose everything.”

  “She’s not a monster. She’s a woman. Women can die.”

  Erin shakes her head. “She was crafted from a dozen corpses. Half her bones are carved with protective runes, safe below the skin, where no one can see to counter them. The alchemist who made her died at Reed’s hand; there’s no one living who knows every trick that woman has squirreled away. She’s dangerous. She’s deadly. If you want to stop her, if you want to avenge your parents and make things as close to right as they can be, you must manifest. I don’t know how many ways I can say this. You have to find the heart of this country we’re in, whether it’s Munchkin or Hyacinth, and you have to get us there, before it’s too late.”

  Dodger holds Erin’s gaze locked on her own. “When this is over,” she says, in a perfectly reasonable tone, “I’m walking away, and I’m never speaking to either of you again.”

  “We’ll see,” says Erin. “Now figure out what you want to eat. You’re going to need to keep your strength up.”

  Ham and Eggs

  TIMELINE: 4:13 PDT, JUNE 17, 2016 (THIS DAMNED DAY).

  They linger over their midnight meal (which reaches the table sometime after one A.M.; misnomers a
nd inaccuracies abound in this liminal space between the night and day) until Erin glances at the clock on the wall and says, “The trains have started running. We should go.”

  “Go where?” asks Roger. “We don’t know where we’re going. We just know there’s a killer out there looking for us, and we’ve spent the whole damn night sitting in this Denny’s, eating eggs and not running for our lives.”

  “Eggs can be a lifesaver,” says Erin. She turns her eyes to Dodger. “If you want to know where we’re going, ask your Crow Girl. She’s the only one who can get us there, if she’d start playing along.”

  Dodger hasn’t said anything in hours. She glares at Erin and holds fast to her silence.

  Erin sighs. “Sulking doesn’t bring them back, but it might get us killed. Roger, talk some sense into your damn sister.”

  “It’s like spiders,” says Dodger.

  They both go still.

  “When he gives an order I don’t want to follow, it’s like spiders in my brain, and I can’t say no.” She virtually spits her words. “No matter how much I want to not do it, I have to, because he told me to, and it’s like spiders running their spider legs all over the inside of my brain. You told him to do that. You made him use me like a puppet.”

  “Dodge—” Roger begins.

  “Don’t think you’re getting out of this,” she says. “She told you to do it, but she’s not you. You don’t have to listen to her the way I have to listen to you. So you’re not clean either.”

  “It’s nice to know you can still sulk like a teenager, but this isn’t getting us anywhere,” says Erin. “If you want to be mad at me, it’s not like I can stop you. I want you to remember one thing, though: I didn’t make you. The man who did, the man who sent a killer here to take you down, he’s out there. All of this is at his feet. He’s been chasing this dream for a long time. The only way we stop him is by taking it away from him.”

  “Alchemists can raise the dead,” says Dodger suddenly.