Exhibiting the flexibility of a wire cable, Zamandire bent her torso out of the charging girl’s path. Shooting past the tall teen, N/Ice found herself entangled with a pair of hot-tempered gang girls. Not only hot-tempered, but hot to the touch. Flames sprang from their fingertips and their lips as they did their best to ensure that the audacious visitor would get singed for her impudence. Flying through the air, N/Ice did a complete flip that Mrs. Sanders, the Clearsight Junior High gymnastics teacher, would have scored at least an eight, and landed on her feet. Her landing was transparent, and so, for the moment, was she. Clutching at her, the finger-flames of her assailants went right through the sometimes there, sometimes not-there member of the coubet.
Having reached into their purses, Rose and Amber withdrew … lipsticks. Amber’s boasted one of those silly, foolish names so beloved by girls from eight to eighty. Something like “December Japanese Plum Blossom.” Rose’s was darker and more orangey. As to any guy, they all looked red to Simwan. But the lipsticks carried by the Deavy girls were more than mere mouth paint.
Wielding the chain that she had been wearing as a belt, one of the Ictis lunged straight at Rose, swinging the heavy metal links like a whip. Seeing her coming, Rose brought her lipstick up and thrust it forward. A stream of thick, glowing crimson (or maybe December Japanese Plum Blossom) shot forth from the tip: a fluid that in consistency and power fell somewhere between blood and napalm. The attacking gang member parried the flow with her swinging chain. The red fluid struck the metal—which promptly melted, falling to the ground as a ropy mass of hissing slag.
The gang member reacted to this in an entirely reasonable manner. Eyes wide, she halted where she was, considered the molten, rapidly solidifying remnants of her steel belt, looked up at the defiant twelve-year-old confronting her, and started to back off.
A trio of girls was closing on N/Ice. One as blocky and thickset as the polished stone from which she appeared to be chiseled (and maybe was) lumbered toward N/Ice as her companions tried to cut off any line of retreat. N/Ice appraised the three of them, took a deep breath, and ran. Not backward, not to flee, but straight ahead. Smiling nastily, the stout female figure before her extended both massive arms expectantly. As soon as N/Ice was within reach, they slammed together, grabbing.
To grab nothing but air.
N/Ice didn’t go around the female creature. She didn’t slide between those heavy legs, or leap over the short, flinty hairdo. Instead, she went right into her assailant. And didn’t come out the other side.
Stunned, the chunky gang member looked down at herself. Her expression was one of utter disbelief. Her companions stared at her as if she had suddenly taken on the aspect of a really bad date. Slowly, carefully, the blocky girl began feeling herself. She did so hesitantly, as if afraid of what she might find. Then her face started to turn green. Really green: bright green like lime Jell-O. Her cheeks bulged. She began to sweat pebbles that tumbled and clinked off her face to fall noisily to the ground. Clasping both hands to her middle, her mouth opening wider than seemed possible, she suddenly and explosively threw up.
What she threw up was N/Ice. Standing on the wet ground before the now deathly queasy gang member, N/Ice shook herself, made a face, and spoke without looking at anyone in particular—least of all any of her three assailants.
“Yuck! I’ve spent time in some really icky places, and some really icky people—but that was just gross!” As she finished, the girl whose body she had temporarily inhabited keeled over backward, rolled onto her stomach, and continued upchucking the remaining contents of her digestive system. N/Ice watched for a minute, then turned to face the other two girls.
“At least you two look halfway human. I wonder what the other half is like?” She took a step toward the nearest of the two gawking gang members. Immediately, and wisely, they turned and ran, disappearing into the rain.
Confronted by Zamandire, Amber held her ground, waving her own lipstick before her and using it to trace defensive patterns in the air. The gang leader jumped back and forth, searching for an opening, only partially aware that the rest of her gang was having rather more trouble with the other two twelve-year-old park visitors than anticipated. Slowly, threateningly, she opened her mouth, to reveal a pair of incisors much too long and sharp to belong to any human. Reaching up with both hands, she proceeded to remove them, plucking them from the roof of her own mouth and twirling them like drumsticks in her supple fingers. An apprehensive Simwan knew immediately what they were. Ord gang-types might carry switchblades. Zamandire Gosht had access to switchfangs.
Striking as swiftly as any cobra, Zamandire leaped and stabbed with one blade. Amber jumped backward and parried with a sweep of lambent orange-red from her lipstick. Almost immediately, the gang leader threw herself forward, bringing the other blade down with as much force as she could muster. Amber quickly brought her lipstick around in front of her. Red-orange flow and glistening fang clashed and locked. Grinning, much bigger and heavier than Amber, Zamandire Gosht pressed down, using her weight to force the fang-blade closer and closer to the smaller, younger girl’s throat. Grimacing, Amber struggled to push back, to hold the bigger girl off.
Despite what he had been told, Simwan started to rush forward. Something tripped him before he could advance more than a step toward the two combatants. Lying on the wet grass, he looked back in surprise. Pithfwid was standing there, wagging one paw back and forth and shaking his head.
Slightly frantic now, Simwan looked up just in time to see Amber, who had starred in her dramatics class at school and who had done a wonderful job of feigning imminent collapse, bring up a knee sharply to catch the conquering Zamandire right under the chin she had brought conveniently close. The gang leader blinked. A stupefied expression came over her face. Still holding onto both blades, she straightened unsteadily, rocking back and forth on both feet. Brushing herself off, Amber approached and, with a single deliberate motion, thrust the lipstick she was holding directly at her wobbly nemesis. A burst of red-orange shot from the end of the faux gold case to strike Zamandire directly in her open mouth.
There was a flash of red-orange light, sufficiently brilliant even in the dim, rain-swept light of afternoon to force Simwan to turn momentarily away. When he looked back, a three-foot long snake lay twisting and writhing on the grass right where the gang leader had been standing. As he and his sister stood gazing down at it, a wailing cry came from overhead. Though the Deavys did not know it, the hawk that appeared out of the rain to snatch up the snake in its claws and carry it off was something of a local celebrity. Whether it and its mate would be able to handle this particular meal was another matter. They could hear Zamandire Gosht yelling and protesting as her serpentine form was carried away into the clouds.
The fight was over. Relieved, Simwan moved to rejoin his victorious siblings.
“Nobody messes with the Deavy sisters!” Rose proclaimed proudly as she walked up and gave N/Ice a congratulatory pat on the back. Her hand went right through her kinswoman.
“Sorry, sis.” N/Ice promptly went solid and returned the embrace.
That was when Simwan saw one of the lingering gang members pull a gun. The girl was standing a goodly distance away, but that didn’t lessen the threat posed by the weapon. Especially since it glowed with an unholy reddish light. She was in the process of aiming it at Amber, who was still standing on the spot where the hawk had carried off her transmogrified tormentor.
There was no time to analyze, no time to think. Reaching down, he picked up a fist-size rock, laid on it as hasty an enchantment as ever he had uttered, and threw it with some force. Before she could get off a shot, the gang girl with the gun saw the rock coming toward her. She promptly jumped to one side. The rock shot past, missing her by a good couple of feet. It then proceeded to curve around in a tight, neat arc and retrace its path. Letting out a bleat of alarm, the girl turned and ran, dodging and twisting with a nim
bleness that was more than human. It didn’t matter. Appropriately commanded and admirably committed, the rock followed the girl’s every twist and turn. A minute or so passed, by which time the rain and mist had swallowed up both girl and stone. The echo of a dull thunk, however, was sufficient to assure Simwan that the thrown stone had finally found its intended target. Sure enough, no sign of movement showed itself through the steady drizzle, nor did any gunshots ring out above the sounds of rain falling on grass and pavement.
Amber was putting her innocent-looking lipstick back in her purse. No wonder, Simwan mused as he walked over to rejoin her and the others, his sisters and their friends often spoke of good makeup as being a girl’s best friend.
“I remember people back home in Clearsight who had been to New York always talking about how nice it was to take a walk in Central Park,” Rose ventured as the Deavy clan reunited, “but they just have no clue.”
They resumed their trek northward. The girls’ rehashing of the fight gave way to the realization they were all more than a little thirsty.
“Hot chocolate.” Amber eagerly searched the mist-shrouded trees for signs of a concession stand.
“Tea with sugar,” countered N/Ice. “First blush, like Mom prefers, and only the tips.” Thinking of her hospitalized, Truth-starved mother caused her expression to drop.
“Coffee with cream,” declared Simwan manfully. Having voiced his preference, he then joined his sisters in looking expectantly at Rose.
“Actually,” she responded a little defensively, “I kind of feel like ice cream.”
“Ice cream?” Amber’s disbelief was magnified by a desire to express her astonishment. “In this weather?”
Rose pushed out her chin. “I like ice cream.”
“Oh well,” N/Ice observed diffidently, “each to their own. Maybe with hot fudge.”
And none of them noticed the smoke that wasn’t curling just off the path. …
The concession stand was in the park but not of it. It was no bigger than any of the thousands of other portable, rollabout food carts that populated the streets of Manhattan. In addition to the usual giant, hot, soft pretzels and the less common churros dusted with cinnamon sugar, it also advertised drinks. That was what the three thirsty Deavys were looking for, and they made a beeline for the cart.
A colorful striped awning shielded the proprietor from the rain while the heat from the pretzel and churro warmers kept the temperature comfortable in the cart’s immediate vicinity. In his late middle-age, the proprietor looked to be of Middle Eastern or perhaps Pakistani origin; plump and seriously mustachioed, he wore his floppy cap like a helmet against the autumn air.
“A slow day and a damp one,” he told Simwan in response to the question that hadn’t been asked. “What can I get for you kids?”
N/Ice pushed to the front, drawing frowns from her less aggressive sisters. “Tea! Hot tea, with sugar. First blush, brewed with the tips only.”
The cart operator’s expression underwent an abrupt and remarkable transformation. Suddenly, he was no longer a jaded, overweight vendor of fast food. His eyebrows rose and a gleam appeared beneath that hinted of experiences and knowledge gleaned from sources even more exotic than the streets and avenues of central Manhattan.
“Oho! What have we here? A connoisseur, and one both young and pretty, at that!”
“She’s not pretty,” put in Rose quickly. “Just pushy.”
“Ah, but,” observed the proprietor sagely, “she looks just like you. So if she is not pretty, then you must also be not. …”
“Maybe a little pretty,” a chastened Rose hastened to correct herself.
“They both look like me,” Amber hurried to add.
“You are all pretty.” As the Deavy coubet stood there in the drizzle, the cart’s owner seemed to have grown in wisdom and stature before their very eyes. No more a vendor of cheap snacks and paper-cupped drinks, he had been subtly transformed into a potentate of potions, a purveyor of the purest potations. “Except you, of course, young sir,” he told Simwan. Leaning forward to peer down over the front of the cart, he added, “And you too, oh architect of a wicked tail.”
The man turned to a speed boiler capable of brewing either tea or coffee. “First blush, tips only, you said.” As his fingers performed sleight of hand with water and infuser, he cocked one shrewd half-closed eye in her direction. “Plantation? Altitude?”
Out of her depth now, and aware that her sisters were watching her, N/Ice gulped and mumbled hesitantly, “Surprise me.”
The proprietor nodded. Water began to boil, though Simwan could not see how the brewing machine was powered. Batteries? Or something less … ordinary? The soft, pulsing yellow glow that came from somewhere within the machine itself seemed to suggest the latter.
“Nepal? Sri Lanka? Darjeeling? Assam?” He was smiling encouragingly.
Feeling less intimidated, N/Ice smiled back. “Darjeeling, please.”
The man nodded. Whisking fingers through the air like a magician feeling for invisible cards, he produced a half handful of tea-leaf tips. Blowing on them to add moisture, he then crushed them in his fist, brought the result close to his nostrils, inhaled, and nodded with satisfaction. Into the water they went, a small pot of water that had come to a steady boil unnaturally fast. Without pausing, he turned his attention to the other girls. “Ladies?”
“Hot chocolate?” inquired Amber tentatively.
Another small pot was filled with milk and brought to another preternaturally rapid boil. The round-faced operator eyed her expectantly. “All Criollo single-origin cocoa, of course. Plantation?”
Amber exchanged a look with N/Ice, then turned back to the kindly snack master. “Surprise me,” she replied, echoing her sister.
By the time the man’s attention came around to Simwan, the combined fragrances from the two pots—one light and delicate as the finest perfume, the other thick and cloying as the memory of a particularly intense kiss—threatened to overwhelm him. He could barely gasp out, “Coffee, with cream and sugar.”
“What kind—no, let me guess,” the man murmured, catching himself. “You want me to surprise you.”
“Why not?” was all Simwan could murmur.
Rubbing the heavy stubble that landscaped his cheeks and chin, the proprietor studied the teen standing before him while Rose and N/Ice immersed themselves in their tea and cocoa. “Let me see, let me see. You look to be a sturdy type, well read and reasonably athletic, but not overpoweringly physical or overpoweringly confident.” He gestured conclusively. “Yes, I think a nice Jamaican Blue for smoothness, with a touch of Goroka to give it a little kick.” Having concluded his caffeinated analysis, he busied himself with the brewing machine that seemed capable of turning out just about any kind of exotic libation one could wish for. Once again, he seemed to draw the basic ingredients for the chosen brew out of thin air.
When Simwan accepted the steaming paper cup, the aroma rising from the dark liquid within threatened to send him into a swoon. He would have uttered “Wow!” except that he was too busy drinking.
“And what for you, last little miss?” The proprietor smiled encouragingly at Rose, who had been silent until now. She looked simultaneously embarrassed and rebellious.
“Actually, I’m not thirsty. I’d just like a scoop of ice cream. If you’ve got any.”
If her sisters and brother expected the man behind the cart to recoil, to demur, or even to laugh at this request, they were mistaken. He merely nodded. “To everyone, her likes and dislikes, her large tastes and little defiances. Why not ice cream?” Turning away, he bent to open a small cooler and began to fumble within. “I am afraid my selection today is somewhat limited. The weather, you know. I only have vanilla, chocolate, mint, frankincense, acajou, rambutan, Hanuman-nut, Loki-scramble, and everyberry.” He poked a little farther into the cooler. “Oh, and pismashio
.”
Simwan lowered the astounding coffee from his lips and frowned. “Don’t you mean pistachio?”
The proprietor looked up and smiled. “No, pismashio.”
Simwan really wanted to have a taste of that, but Rose disappointed him by ordering everyberry. Nodding agreeably, the cart owner dug into the depths of the cooler and scooped out a big ball of something blue and red and purple and—Simwan discovered that he couldn’t quite identify the exact color of the paper cup’s contents. It wasn’t his fault. The color kept changing even as he looked at it, and the transformation wasn’t an artifact of the afternoon light, which was pretty consistently drab. In contrast, the contents of the cup all but smoldered with a continuously shifting inner sparkle.
Accepting it, Rose used the accompanying plastic spoon to dig in. Sipping at their own astonishing distillations, Amber and N/Ice crowded close around their sister.
“What’s it taste like?” N/Ice asked with unconcealed interest. “Strawberry?”
“Yes,” Rose admitted as she smacked down spoonful after spoonful. “Strawberry.”
“Looks more like raspberry to me,” Amber countered.
“Yes, raspberry,” her tastebud-transported sibling agreed.
Simwan sensed that they were in the presence of something special, dessert-wise. “Blueberry?” he inquired. “Blackberry?”
Rose nodded enthusiastically, but only between tastings. “Uh-huh. Blueberry. Blackberry. Also marionberry, loganberry, juniper berry, query berry, and every other kind you can think of.”
“Wow.” N/Ice pushed closer. “I wanna taste.”
“Me too!” Amber crowded Rose’s other side.
While the coubet clashed over their sister’s unexpectedly diverse scoop of ice cream, Simwan noticed that the affable proprietor had set a small bowl in front of Pithfwid. The cat took one look at the dish’s ivory-hued contents, settled himself comfortably, and started lapping away. Clutching his coffee, Simwan moved closer to the cart and to the radiant warmth of the pretzel heater. He nodded in the direction of the contentedly consuming Deavy cat.
The Deavys Page 18