Nevernever

by Will Shetterly

  I didn’t have to help move her bike. Magic would flow back to the spot where it lay in a second or an hour. The Dead Warlock could have sat and waited till then. People would have passed by her and gawked or sneered or laughed, as they pleased...

  I hoisted her bike and carried it about ten feet away. The engine kicked in, a healthy rumble to impress or annoy everyone within three blocks. I set the bike down. Once vertical, it hovered about six inches above the dusty street.

  “Thanks,” the Dead Warlock shouted, throwing one leg over the bike.

  I nodded.

  “You don’t talk much, Dutch.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “’S right, Dwight. People babble constantly, never say a thing.”

  I hear that too many times from kids who want to sound profound. She just sounded tired. I looked at her again. If she’d been human, I’d’ve put her at seventeen, tops. I lifted my right hand as if I held a cup by its handle, and I tipped it once toward my lips.

  “Coffee?” Her gaze settled on me. Her silver eyes were as opaque as mirrors or camera lenses. “Hot damn, Sam.” Her grin was almost a sneer. Her teeth were small and feral and yellow. “Coffee’d be nice.”

  I picked up a rock and scrawled TACO HELL on the pavement.

  “I know it. Hop on, Juan.”

  I swung onto the back of the bike, and we headed out. The Dead Warlock smelled of wood smoke and oil and leather and old sweat, an ugly but erotic scent. If you’ve got a dog’s nose, anyway. I could feel her ribs beneath her stiff leathers.

  Her seedybox began to play, Home Service’s eerie cover of an ancient Roundhead hymn. I nodded to the rhythm. Once, as the bike raced along a downhill slope, the volume decreased, telling me we’d hit an eddy of low magic. Before I could jump, the Warlock downshifted and hit the throttle. The Triumph coughed like a sick submachine gun, but we rocketed.

  I closed my eyes until the engine ran normally again. The Dead Warlock laughed delightedly. The moment she did, I knew who she was. I’ve never been so glad I couldn’t speak. If she wondered why I let I go of her waist, she never said anything.

  Mingus was tending counter at Taco Hell. He said, “Yo, the Wolf!” and set out a mug of black coffee. “That’s twenty-five and a half World dollars, six Faerie silvers, or one ounce of fresh four-leafs you owe us.”

  I cocked my thumb at the Dead Warlock.

  Mingus grinned wider, set out the second mug with a bit of a bow, and said, “Twenty-six seventy-five, six and three coppers, or one and a twentieth, but, hey, who’s counting?”

  Mingus is three-fourths Ojibway, one-fourth elf, and five-fourths nice guy. When he was younger, he led the Thunderbirds, a mostly Amerindian gang that operates out of a couple of blocks called Little Earth.

  As I turned to go, Mingus said, “You okay?”

  I nodded quickly and carried the mugs to a corner booth. The place was quiet in the afternoon. That’s one of Bordertown’s unwritten rules: Nothing comes alive until night. There were two American Indian kids and an elf with dyed black braids, all in Thunderbird vests, at one table. Near them, four humans in Pack black ignored two elves in Blood red at a third table, who were ignoring the Packers. Like most of the places I like to go, Taco Hell’s neutral territory. People got tired of fighting for the right to go into debt to Mingus for his Meltdown Burritos.

  The Dead Warlock dumped cream and honey into her coffee until it was dessert. “Nice place, Ace.”

  Taco Hell used to be a car dealer’s showroom. Mingus and the Thunderbirds dragged in furniture from a dozen different restaurants, then painted the boarded-up windows with a mural showing a running bird outwitting an inventive but unlucky dog in a wasteland that reminded me of the barren parts of the Nevernever.

  We sipped our coffee. I spilled sugar on the table and wrote: NAME? Then I tapped on the table with a claw to get her attention.

  “Huh?” She looked from her mug to me, then to the table. “Oh. I’m The Scent of Heather One Dewy Dawn in Autumn, of The House Where Two Queens Fell.” Her bitter smile touched her face again and disappeared as quickly.

  If I were elven, I would’ve understood immediately. Being human (having been human?), it took me a minute. Her clothes, her hair, and her manner said that she was of Soho. Soho elves rarely use their elven names, not even their elven names translated into English. I wondered whether to think of her as Dawn or Heather, then understood her joke. She had given me the name of someone she had been, not someone she was. She’d given me the name of someone she thought was dead.

  A Dead Warlock. Right. If I hadn’t recognized her, I would’ve pitied her. I wondered if a real name hid somewhere in her, then wondered why I cared.

  The answer came quickly. If she didn’t think she was alive, I couldn’t make her hurt.

  “What about you, McGoo?”

  I almost wrote LOBO, then decided to stick to what I’m usually called: WOLFBOY. I didn’t want to romanticize my condition. Not for her.

  She nodded and went back to her coffee. She played with her drink, slurping loudly, then swirling the surface with her spoon, then slurping again, every so often glancing out one of the few remaining windows. Kids passed by, some human, some elf, some not so easy to identify.

  She said, “Many of you in town?”

  I shrugged my confusion.

  “Wolfboys. There many wolfboys in town?”

  I lifted my index finger.

  “Oh.” She stared at me. “Thought I knew one once. Must’ve been the family dog.” She laughed, much too loudly.

  When she drained her mug, Mingus refilled it, giving me a look that said he didn’t understand why I was hanging out with this sullen, dirty elf. I ignored him. If I’d wanted advice, I’d’ve taken the Warlock to Danceland and let Sai treat me as though I were two years old.

  The Dead Warlock glanced out the window, then drummed her forefingers on the table and whistled tunelessly, then sat perfectly still and fixed me with a stare. “So, whatcha do for fun, son? Chase cats?”

  I could’ve answered half a dozen different things, but that’s when the Plan hit me in all its soiled glory. I wrote: I HIT THE NEVERNEVER. I was Montresor offering Fortunato a taste from the cask of Amontillado.

  She looked at me, and I was sure she saw through me. All she said was, “The wild woods? I hear it’s bad. Monsters and all. But the best dream’shrooms, if you can tell ‘em from the poisonous ones.”

  I shrugged, smoothed the sugar, and wrote: NEVER BEEN?

  “Nah.” She had her nose back in the coffee mug.

  WANT TO?

  She looked down, frowned. “With you?”

  I grinned, which isn’t always reassuring.

  “Hard to imagine there’d be anything worse than you out there, McHair.” She smiled a little, like she’d meant it as a compliment.

  You should know, I thought, and worried a tiny bit because she didn’t seem to. I wrote: BIGGER THAN ME. NOT WORSE. I love a good line. I smoothed that out quickly, wrote, NAH. STORIES ARE JUST STORIES. I spilled more sugar. Mingus should’ve got after me for wasting the stuff. I’VE MADE 12 TRIPS. NO HASSLES.

  “Why me?”

  Her brain hadn’t shut down entirely. Good. I’VE LEFT THINGS I COULDN’T CARRY.

  “I’m the only person you can sucker into this?”

  FOR 10% OF THE TAKE.

  “Ten percent.” Her eyes narrowed.

  YOU’RE FEET AND HANDS. I KNOW THE WILD LANDS.

  “Feet and hands and a bike, Ike. Don’t dismiss me.”

  I started to smile, then squashed the impulse. 20%, I wrote.

  “All right, Dwight,” she said, getting bored again, and I began to wonder if I was crazy.

  The Scent of Heather One Dewy Dawn in Autumn, of the House Where Two Queens Fell, was the elf I’d known as Leda, the elf who cursed me. I was sure I knew why she didn’t recognize me. She thought she had turned me into a dog, not Teen Wolf—just another case of Magic Not Always Working Right in Bordertown. Or ma
ybe my transformation wasn’t important enough to remember. Maybe she didn’t remember anything of what she’d done as a pampered Dragon’s Tooth princess.

  For a second, that made me wonder why I was sure I’d found her. My senses had changed; I no longer saw or heard or smelled things quite the way I had. The Dead Warlock was fifteen pounds lighter than Leda or the Dragon’s Tooth princess, her hair was chopped short and dyed extravagantly, her clothes were grungy leather and coarse cotton without the slightest bit of the care that Leda or the princess had shown in what she wore—

  But I remembered the laugh. In the Warlock’s weary features, I saw Leda’s death mask.

  And when I saw Leda, I remembered Florida leaping for the rifle that threatened me. I remembered being unable to catch her eye to sign to her, being unable to say a single word to warn her, to save her.

  “So, when do we go, Joe?”

  MAÑANA. DAWN.

  “Don’t’cha wanna sleep before?”

  I underlined the DAWN.

  “Yeah, yeah. I dunno, Moe. The Nevernever. You don’t worry about monsters? Or the wild elves?”

  I looked at her and said nothing.

  She laughed. “Listen to me! Worry like a Dragon’s Tooth matron, eh? Hey, if we’ve got a day, let’s find some real fun.”

  I looked at her.

  “It’s gonna be dull in the woods.”

  I doubted that.

  “C’mon, I’ll take you to a proper house party. Show you what Dead Warlocks do on a blitz, Fritz.”

  Humans on the downhill slide become River addicts. For elves, the Big Bloody is just water. What did a self-destructive elf do? What would be the effects on me as boy werewolf?

  If I left her, I might never find her again. I wrote: FUN COULD BE GOOD.

  •

  We rode to a house in the heart of True Blood territory. Half a dozen wheelless bikes hovered outside where anyone with the guts could steal them, drive them away slow, ready to jump if they hit a spot of dead magic, then wheel, paint, and sell them. But what thief was that desperate?

  The Dead Warlocks’ house was a mess from the outside, so I figured the inside would be worse. It was. The only thing that distinguished it from the lowest Rat hideout was that the kids sprawled on the ancient mattresses were elves. The mix of social types was surprising. Some seemed to be further gone than Leda (I could not think of her as The Scent of Heather). Others were immaculate visitors, slumming for kicks. I recognized one.

  His eyes opened wide when he saw me. “Can it be? Our own good Wolfboy in this sordid den of elven degradation?”

  I gave him a thumbs-up and a grin. Ash Bieucannon may live near the heart of Soho, but he’s the ultimate slummer. He wore a loose white silk shirt, a thin lizard-skin belt, baggy green cotton trousers, and rope sandals. A lock of silver hair hung in his eyes. One arm was around a halfie whose ruddy skin betrayed her human heritage; the other was around a slender, blue-haired elven boy. I couldn’t tell if he was clinging to them from affection or for support. All three had slightly bloody bandages around their left wrists, as if they’d sworn a suicide pact, then changed their minds. Most of the inhabitants of the house wore similar bandages.

  Ash said, “Hale wants to paint you. You should go. It’d make him happy.”

  I nodded. Hale’s the lone human artist sharing work space with Ash and several elves at the Mock Avenue Studio. Hale had spotted my face in Danceland and mentioned something about me posing. If I stayed away from Danceland for a week, he might forget about it. If you’re not vain, posing is like watching paint dry, but with the exciting parts removed.

  “He hasn’t long to live, you know.”

  I stopped. I didn’t know Hale well, but I liked him.

  “After all, he’s—” Ash began to grin. “—human.” All three doubled up in laughter.

  Leda jerked a finger at Ash. “This a friend of yours?”

  I shrugged.

  “What a douche.”

  “I?” Ash indicated himself with an extravagant sweep of his long, perfect fingers. “A douche? I am an artist, my dear lady...”

  “Scumbag.”

  He nodded. “Excuse me. My dear Lady Scumbag. And if I must...” He paused and frowned. “I must...” He looked back at me. “Wolfboy! Did I say that Hale wanted to paint—”

  I nodded. Leda sneered and shoved Ash’s shoulder. He fell back among his companions, and they all began to giggle. Leda took my hand and drew me toward the back room.

  A huge bald elf in Blood leathers draped with silver chains stepped in front of us. Her jacket was open, showing a bodybuilder’s corded muscles. “What’s this?”

  “Get outta here, Sunshine. You know me.”

  “Not you. Him.”

  Leda spun on her heel and stared at me, then looked back at the behemoth. “He looks human to you?”

  “This is elf turf.”

  “You want to shave his ears to see, McGee?”

  I snarled. A couple in the corner suddenly noticed they weren’t the whole of the world. Both of them gasped. Sunshine took one step back. Her fists closed, then opened slightly.

  Leda looked at me. “Any reason you should leave, Steve?”

  I shook my head.

  “See?” she said to Sunshine. “Everything’s copacetic.”

  “Copacetic.” Sunshine grinned, savoring the word. “Ye-es. Truly copacetic.” She nodded and, with a flourish of her hand, indicated that we might pass. Leda hadn’t convinced her, and I hadn’t frightened her. We’d kept up appearances, the most important thing to do when dealing with elves.

  In the back room, an elf with a red Fu Manchu mustache sat with his sneakers on a desk. He wore a long, brightly colored tie-dyed cotton coat over something like green pajamas. His eyes were closed and an impression ball was in one hand. I recognized the label: Cats Laughing’s third album. He opened his eyes, set aside the impression ball, put his sneakers on the floor, and smiled. “The Doctor is in.”

  His desk was bare, except for the impression ball, a scalpel, a tube of Gold-N-Rod, a bowl of white paste, and a roll of clean bandages. Leda unzipped a pocket that ran down the thigh of her coveralls and brought out a battered copy of Love and Rockets #73.

  “A pre-Change comic book,” she said, placing it in front of him. “It’s good. Has nothing to do with the band that stole the name.”

  “I recognize it. Hardly mint condition.”

  “I can take it elsewhere.”

  He picked it up and set it on a shelf behind him that was cluttered with items of high trade value, like art deco lamps and video recordings in half a dozen formats. “No need, my dear.” He gestured toward the scalpel and paste. “Be my guest.”

  She nodded at me. “Him, too.”

  The Doctor laughed. “The back cover is missing. There’s tape on the front. The staples are rusty. Someone wrote on—”

  I pulled out my wallet and shook out my last four-leaf clover.

  “This?” The Doctor held it up between two fingers so it dangled, wilted and limp and sad. “This is to laugh.”

  I shrugged.

  “But since you’re making your first visit, you may owe me.” He tucked the four-leaf behind his ear.

  “Right-o.” Leda shoved back her sleeve, revealing a white wrist crisscrossed with ugly little scars. She placed the tip of the scalpel a third of the way up her forearm.

  “Damn it, don’t—”

  The Doctor’s words came too late. Leda slashed downward without expression and grunted, “Do it, Hewitt.”

  The Doctor, clucking disparagingly, smeared her cut with the white paste. She gasped, then grinned as it mixed with her blood. While the Doctor wiped her arm with Gold-N-Rod, he said, “Little shallow sideways slices, please. I do not want to lose a good customer.”

  Leda kept her eyes closed while the cut contracted under the Gold-N-Rod. I doubt she heard the Doctor. Her smile made me wonder what she did hear.

  The Doctor bandaged her, then wiped his scalpel on a
rag that smelled of alcohol. “Next patient, please.”

  I looked at the white paste until he said, “You don’t know? It’s abed peca’aryn.” I tucked my chin and raised an eyebrow, not because I didn’t recognize it but because I didn’t recognize it in this form. It smelled like catnip, ginger, and something, well, elven. “Oh, you Bordertown youths have no education. Dragon’s Milk, capisc’? A purer form. Trust me. You’ll love it.”

  Hale’d drunk Dragon’s Milk. He said it only made him ill. God only knew what it’d do to me. I held out my wrist. The Doctor said, “Hmm,” clipped away a little fur, said, “Next time you come prepped or I charge double,” then sliced. Before I felt the cut, he smeared cool paste on it. I had just enough time to wonder if this would affect me at all.

  Someone tore off the top of my skull and threw my brain skyward.

  Then Leda and I were in the front room, drinking something bitter with Ash Bieucannon and his friends. Ash said, “’S won’erful, eh, Wolfboy? I always knew you were elven. Those eyes and those ears...and you’re so serene.” He began to giggle, so I roared, knowing that they’d all laugh more. Sure enough, they did.

  In the Dead Warlocks’ house, we listened to music and danced and played hide-from-the-monster (I was the monster) and find-the-monster (me, again) in the many dilapidated rooms. I remember being delighted that everyone liked me, and I remember how much I liked them all, even Leda.

  That delight lasted until the end of find-the-monster, when I was alone in a dusty closet on the third floor. I began to snuffle, as if I was about to cry. To stop myself, I howled. Three elves threw open the door and dived on me, screaming, “Die, monster, die!” I threw them back. One hurt her head against the wall. She looked at the blood on her fingers and laughed. Leda and I must’ve left the house soon after that.

  I was walking through Soho. It had begun to rain, a warm rain that flattened my fur and made it smell good. Something was in my hand. I looked: a Chinese menu. I thought of beef chow mein and wondered if I was on my way to or from Lee Ho Fouk’s.