Dead to Rites

by Ari Marmell

  But on the square, when I came a few steps nearer and got a good slant on who was loitering there, it was a bit of a shock.

  “Tsura?”

  She bolted to her feet, almost guiltily.

  “Mick! I’m glad you’re finally here. I—” She stopped, peerin’ over my shoulder, and I realized she was unhappy I wasn’t alone.

  “Look,” I said, “this ain’t a good time to—”

  “Can we talk?”

  “What part of ‘ain’t a good time’ do you not—? Guh. Fine. Come in with us. When I’m done with—”

  “No.” She was damn near bouncin’ in place. “No, I mean alone. Please, just for a minute.”

  Dammit, I couldn’t handle this right now! I was too steamed, too worried, had too much to deal with!

  “No, we can’t! You wanna talk? Come in and wait your turn. You wanna make yourself useful? Tune in to whatever psychic radio you listen to and find me the missing mummy. Or McCall. Or Goswythe!” No way she even knew the names I was throwin’ at her now, but that wasn’t really the point. Not sure I hadda point.

  I brushed past her, up the steps, and yanked the door open.

  “You comin’?”

  She crossed her arms and scowled, and otherwise stayed put.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Uh, Mick?” Pete asked as we tromped down the stairs to the basement level. “Who was—?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Part of me was already feelin’ a bit sheepish; this was the second time I’d barked at her that way without real cause. I was still too peeved and too caught up in more important stuff to go back out and talk to her, but if she was still there after I’d made the call…

  Except I didn’t have to make any calls. Soon as I set foot in the hallway, I sensed her, already in my office.

  Again.

  “Better locks. Definitely better locks.”

  Pete blinked. “Huh?”

  “Maybe some wards. Yeah.” I strode over and tossed open the door to my place. “Ms. McCall.”

  “Mr. Oberon,” she said, from my chair. Behind my desk. “Why is your typewriter lying on the floor?”

  “It was tired.”

  “And the tooth?”

  “It’s the typewriter’s teddy bear. What’s in the elixir?”

  She blinked, took a long drag off a cigarette in an ivory holder.

  “Are you sure you want to talk about such things in front of your friend there?”

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have.”

  “Fair enough.” Another puff. “But of course I can’t tell you that. A little of this, a little of—”

  “How about we skip to the part where I tell you I know you’re a damn succubus and I’m more’n ready to commit some serious violence, and you give me a straight answer?”

  “Oh.” She slowly lowered the gasper, chewed her lip once or twice. I’d thrown her, but not very. “Oh,” she said again. “Dear Ramona’s been incautious, I see. That complicates things.”

  “You got plans to say anything useful, toots?”

  “Fine. I’m still not going to give you the recipe for my elixir, bo. But I’ll tell you the answer you’re looking for is yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.” She grinned, which woulda been less disturbing if it hadn’t been so pretty. “It requires a human soul.”

  There it was. The one thing I most hadn’t wanted to hear, and the one thing I’d pretty well known I would. I dunno if demons can really steal or bargain for the soul or not, or if it’s somethin’ else about the life essence of mortals they collect and just call it the soul. But it might be the real deal—and even if it ain’t, it’d still mean somebody’s life sucked away and consumed to wake Adalina.

  “And it doesn’t matter,” she purred. “You’ll go through with this anyway, because you’ve no other choice. If you had any other way to wake the little tart, you’d have found it long before now. Besides, it’s not as though good people have any truck with me and mine, is it?”

  I wanna tell you I laughed in her face. That I didn’t give it a second thought, that I’d never even have considered somethin’ like that.

  But every god help me, I did.

  Just for a moment, I did.

  I mean, she was right. What kinda sap gets himself mixed up in a hellish bargain for his own soul, anyway? I’d met a few, and I’ll tell ya, Baskin was one of the better of the lot. Besides, it ain’t like me refusin’ to use the elixir was gonna unkill whatever poor fool she’d last rubbed out. Better some good come outta it, right?

  Right?

  Adalina… It’d been over a year, now. I didn’t know what else to do for her. And she deserved so much better’n this, especially after…

  After…

  And that, that was when I came to my senses. When Adalina saved me from doin’ something awful, from makin’ the sorta choice I’d left the Seelie Court to escape.

  Adalina lay on her bed, in an endless coma, because she’d almost died; battered and torn by her grandmother’s spells until even her Fae magics and resilience shouldn’t have been able to save her. She should have died, expected to die. Because she knew Orsola needed to be stopped, because it would save lives, sure, alla that.

  But also because she refused to live as a monster.

  It didn’t matter if the price for Carmen McCall to wake her was one I’da been willing, in my worst moments, to pay. Adalina would never, ever have wanted it.

  “You’ve got thirty seconds,” I growled—literally growled—at McCall, “to get your ass outta my chair, outta my office, and outta my life. Otherwise, I am gonna either make you leave, or kill you. And by then I really, truly will not give a fuck which of those two outcomes we arrive at.”

  That unctuous smile slid off her face like wet mud on a hillside.

  “You didn’t… You can’t!”

  “I did. I can. Twenty-five seconds.”

  Now, she stood, the chair flyin’ back so hard it bounced off the filing cabinet, but probably not so she could quietly leave like I’d asked.

  “How dare you? Nobody says no to me!” Her fury was a series of explosions, blast after blast buffeting me from across the room. I squinted into ’em and didn’t flinch.

  “Twenty seconds.”

  She ranted, shrieking her rage in a voice that twisted and broke, in turns higher and lower and more heartbreaking and more horrifying than anything that ever came from human pipes. Claws she didn’t have a few seconds ago gouged deep into the wood of my desk, sending out a geyser of splinters.

  Well, nuts. No way that was gonna buff out.

  “Ten. And if you’ll take some friendly advice, maybe work on that temper.”

  “You can stop counting, Oberon.” Just that quick, she was all smiles and calm again, which bugged me more’n all the screeching had done. “I’m not leaving until I’m good and ready.”

  I went for my wand before she’d finished speaking. If she wanted to make a tussle of it, I’d give her one—and I had every intention of hittin’ hard and swift enough to win that fight before she knew the bell’d rung.

  Except it was my bell that got rung. ’Cause what I didn’t know is that her whole tantrum was a put-on, a distraction, at least in part. And that McCall’d started the fight before I set foot in the office.

  The blow came from behind, hard, fast. Wasn’t iron or magic, but a knock to the conk like that woulda put me on the floor, even if only briefly, at the best of times. Since it landed right on my wound, which was real near to healed but not quite faded yet, this wasn’t the best of times.

  My knees and palms hit the carpet; the L&G rolled under the desk, which actually surprised me some, since the room seemed to be spinnin’ the other direction. I saw someone walk past me—just a pair of shoes and trouser cuffs, from my angle—and I didn’t recognize ’em at first. I was too busy strugglin’ to Humpty Dumpty my noggin back together, and tryin’ to figure out who coulda slugged me. Who coulda…?
r />   Aw, shit, no.

  I forced myself to look up, and yeah, there he was. Pete stood beside McCall behind the desk like a good little puppy. (I never did find out for sure what he bashed me with, but I’m guessin’ the butt of his service revolver.) She had her arm around him, her chin perched girlishly on his shoulder.

  “Isn’t he darling?” she said. “I could just eat him up with a spoon.”

  Wasn’t Pete’s fault. I knew that from the get-go. Didn’t hold this against him at all, or at least I wouldn’t in a minute when the ache subsided some.

  McCall, though… Far as I was concerned, those two acceptable options for how to handle her had dropped to one, now. And “making her leave” wasn’t the one I was still okay with.

  ’Course, it’d have to wait for a time where those claws weren’t mere inches away from Pete’s spine.

  I struggled back to my feet. Didn’t even bother tryin’ to retrieve the L&G; no way she’da been okay with a move like that.

  “When did…?” Nah, it didn’t matter. She coulda gotten to Pete at any time in the past week. Or even before, if she’d planned this out far enough in advance to have him wrapped around her finger before she ever even approached me.

  Damn succubi. I can respect a good plot or a good grudge, but you come at me direct. Goin’ through my friends? Gettin’ into their heads, their emotions, until they can’t tell right from purple? That ain’t kosher—and it ain’t forgivable.

  Meant she was well informed, though. And keeping a slant on me, so she’da known when it was safe to approach Pete and…

  “It was you the whole time, wasn’t it, McCall? All the different people digging around on me. Talkin’ to folks I know, pinpointing who’s more important to me than who? Never was any group.” Never was Goswythe, I added silently. Damn, but I shouldn’ta let myself get so fixed on that notion! “Your whole spiel about findin’ Ramona before ‘they’ did was just more smoke. All of it, just you wearin’ different faces.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly know if it was all me,” she cooed. “But certainly most of it.” Crazy twist actually batted her lashes at me!

  “So what now? You know everything I do, or you will once you’n Pete have the chance to barber for a few. You don’t need me anymore—or him, either, once you got your information.”

  “Mick, Mick, Mick. You’re adorable. I didn’t hire you only to find my dear sister, remember? I hired you to deliver her. Signed and sealed.”

  Dammit.

  “Yeah, but if you already know where to find her—”

  “No. You’re going to bring her to me. You’re going to ensure that she’s in no shape to resist, or interfere with me bringing her home. We have such… lovely entertainments planned for her ‘welcome back’ party.

  “Until then, dear Pete’s going to be keeping me company. Aren’t you, love?”

  Pete’s answering grin was absolutely empty of anything resemblin’ rational thought.

  “You know how to reach me,” she continued. “I do hope you’ll come through for us. Soon. In fact, you have… Oh, what is it? Ten days? Eleven?”

  I was reluctant to give her even this much satisfaction, but…

  “’Til what?”

  “Why, the next full moon, of course. Even I won’t be able to keep dear Petey in check then. I’m afraid things could get… messy.”

  Damn her!

  “So do get to it, Mick. I’m sure you’d absolutely hate to disappoint us.”

  Yeah. “Us.” Not exactly bein’ subtle with any of this, was she?

  But it got the point across. My choice was between Ramona—who I wasn’t exactly happy with, but I didn’t wanna be responsible for her bein’ slowly, real slowly, tortured to death—and my best friend. I watched the two of ’em march outta my office, arm in arm, and I couldn’t think of a single goddamn thing I could do to get us outta this jam.

  I got no idea how long I’d been starin’ at the door, or past the door—seconds, minutes, an hour—when it opened again and Tsura stepped hesitantly in from the hallway.

  “I saw them leave,” she said.

  “Swell.”

  “I sensed something about him, something on him, as soon as I saw you two. I just… didn’t know what it was, or how to warn you while he was right there listening.”

  “Well, maybe you damn well shoulda—!” And just like that I stopped, temper and breath deflating. This woman’d done her best to help me, from the moment we met and she foresaw an inkling of what Ramona was about to pull… Plus she had done everything shorta takin’ me by the arm and yanking me away from Pete to get me to talk privately, despite how much of a jerk I’d been to her last time we talked.

  And here I was… what? Shoutin’ at her that she hadn’t tried hard enough?

  Shit.

  “I’m sorry. Why don’tcha take a seat? I, uh, can’t offer you anythin’ but milk…”

  “Oh, um…” Y’know, when she wasn’t playin’ the carnival huckster, her smile was surprisingly kinda shy. It was sweet. “Milk would be great, actually.”

  Wasn’t much of a grin I could work up right now, but I tried. Poured us both a glass, put mine aside to warm up a minute or three.

  “Not that I’m objectin’,” I said, “but why’re you even here?”

  “I didn’t wanna leave things where we’d left off.” She scooted her keister in the seat, like she couldn’t quite get comfy—or else wasn’t quite comfy with the answers she was givin’. “We’re not exactly old pals or anything, but it didn’t feel right.”

  “Yeah, but that ain’t the whole of it, is it?”

  More scooting. “Maybe I was curious. About everything going on. About you, Ramona, the mummy… This may be just another Thursday for you, but it’s all new to me.”

  “Nah, this ain’t normal, even for me.” Then I thought over the past year and change. “Maybe every fifth or sixth Thursday, tops.”

  A soft snort, then that almost-but-not-quite-bashful smile again.

  “But that still ain’t the whole of it, Tsura.”

  And the smile was gone. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “It’s… maybe there was premonition involved? I hate not knowing, but I just can’t always tell. I think I mentioned that.”

  “Somethin’ to that effect, anyway.”

  “Your friend’s in deep trouble, isn’t he?”

  It didn’t even feel much like a topic change, really. “Doesn’t get a lot deeper. It’s partly my fault—he’s only behind the eight ball ’cause he is my friend—and I dunno how to help him. Not without someone else payin’ a pretty awful price.”

  Quiet for a few, then, as we both took a few slugs of the white stuff.

  Then she asked, “Do you wanna tell me about it?”

  And y’know what? I did. Pretty much all of it, the whole ball of wax. Ramona and how dizzy I’d been over her durin’ the hunt for Gáe Assail. My history with Baskin, and the kinda bastard he was provin’ to be. My discovery of Ramona’s connection with him; of her and McCall’s true nature. Of the no-win bind I was in with the two succubi and Pete. Even, believe it or not, the Ottatis and Adalina—partly because I’d decided Tsura could probably be trusted, but on the square? Mostly because, after her earlier vision of Adalina and Ramona’s ease in findin’ the girl, it seemed like she could find out easy enough on her own if she really had a mind to.

  Sure, yeah, I focused on the last year or so, told her almost squat about me from before then. And it ain’t as though I spilled everything from the recent past, or told her alla even my most recent secrets. Still’n all, by the time I wound down, I figure she probably knew more about yours truly than any full-blooded mortal in the Windy City other’n Pete himself.

  Which is sayin’ less than you might assume, since even Pete was ignorant about most of my life before the Depression or thereabouts, but… I guess even a self-exiled loner needs to open up to somebody now’n again.

  When it was all said’n done, Tsura took another moment
to polish off the last few drops in her glass. Then, in what I gotta confess was a pretty good imitation of me—or how I try to sound these days, anyway—said, “But that ain’t the whole of it, is it?”

  The sound I barked probably qualified as a laugh, though I wouldn’ta sworn to it.

  “I’m steamed at myself,” I admitted to her. “I been blind to too much. I shoulda tumbled a long time ago to what Ramona actually is…”

  “Isn’t that part of her emotional power, though? To manipulate you into not figuring it out?”

  “Yeah, maybe, but there was a time I coulda seen through it anyway. I was too taken. Got too comfortable here in this world. This life. And then I got fixated on Goswythe. Spent so long diggin’ around for the damn phouka, God only knows what clues I missed that coulda put me wise to McCall, coulda helped me protect Pete.”

  “And…?” she prodded.

  And? And what? There was no and. Was there?

  Except there was. Is this how it feels when I do that to some mortal sap? Sense or taste or just figure out they ain’t singin’ the whole song and keep pushing until they do? Because if so, it’s really irritating.

  (Which doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop. Just means I don’t much care for it bein’ turned around on me.)

  “Guess I’m… feelin’ guilty, some. I had Adalina’s cure in my paw, or near enough, and now it’s gone. Poor girl’s been out for over a year now, and I’ve been useless. I was so close…”

  Tsura reached over the desk like she wanted to take my hand, then froze halfway—whether because she realized she couldn’t reach, or suddenly wasn’t sure it’d be a welcome gesture, I couldn’t tell ya.

  “But you never really were close, Mick. You said so yourself; it was never a cure you could have used, not in good conscience.”

  “If I hadn’t known…”

  “You couldn’t have come this far, gotten so close to doing what McCall wants, without finding out. And not knowing wouldn’t have made it right.”

  My sigh was for her sake, an easy way to convey what I was feeling.

  “Yeah, I know that. Ain’t how it feels, though.”

  “I understand.”

  Yeah, sure. Everyone says they under—

  “Imagine how I feel every time something awful happens around me that I didn’t sense or foresee in any way.” Her voice was steady, but I could taste the tremblin’ emotions pouring off her at the memories she’d just invoked. “A car accident. A mugging. It’s always the same. I should have done something. I—I was actually grateful, in a small way, when I sensed what was about to happen to you. I know that’s awful, and I don’t mean I’m glad it happened, but…”