"Is the circus so much better?"
"Ask the shades that sign up in droves."
"What about the angels?" He arched a brow. "Or should I say angel-shades?"
Lilia spared a glance to the spot where the angels had stood and down at the shuddering soul in her embrace. The red welts on his back were already fading. "I thought they were shades. I thought they had to be shades." She met Montgomery's gaze and found him more inscrutable than usual. "You said you believed in angels before this."
He didn't respond.
Lilia remembered her sense that the one angel had known Montgomery. "They knew you. Did you know they would come, the way Micheline knew?"
"Did she know? I wasn't sure." Montgomery glanced at the skylight overhead. The light coming through it had turned rosy and Lilia guessed that dawn was approaching. His move made his ear stud gleam.
"I guess now the Republic knows, as well," she said, not hiding her anger. "Or did they always know? Are you their spy?"
He smiled slowly. "I don't believe my ear stud is working."
Lilia told herself that her heart only went thump because she was a sucker for rebels and rule breakers. "You left it out yesterday."
"And it was embedded again, more tightly, when I reported for duty. You should know by now that you can't use the same trick over and over again, Lil."
She tried to not like how he said her name.
She lost.
Montgomery smiled, looking wicked and unpredictable again. Lilia's pulse leapt right on cue. "The transmitter in my cube that picks up the signal from my stud was smashed at the end of my shift. The cleaners, you know, can be so very careless."
"Are you sure?"
"I made sure," he said, his tone unequivocal.
"Whose side are you on, Montgomery?"
"My side," he answered without hesitation. "Just like you. And who knows, maybe we're both on the same side." He moved toward Lilia, looking long and lean and fearless, and her knees weakened. His words came softly. "Why don't we make a deal, Lil?"
Lilia immediately thought of physical debts to be rendered between them, but told herself to keep it clean. She held her laze a little higher and wondered whom she was trying to persuade. "I don't have to negotiate with you."
"Just how fast are you, Lil?"
Her gaze dropped to his holster and she considered that she probably didn't have it in her to shoot him.
And Montgomery probably knew it, perceptive beast that he was.
"What kind of deal?" Lilia lifted the laze as he eased closer, recognizing that he was trying to disarm her.
In more ways than one.
Montgomery halted, a mere step between them. The muzzle of the laze was almost against his chest, but Lilia was more worried about that than he looked. "Have you ever noticed, Lil, that your actions speak louder than your words?" He touched a fingertip to the laze. "And that they're a more reliable indicator of the truth?"
Lilia stepped back and lifted the laze again. "Don't try to persuade me that we should work together. I don't trust you."
"And I don't trust you, so that makes us even." He was giving her that bemused look again, the one that confused her.
He looked like Armaros and Baraqiel.
Who were real angels.
Lilia glanced down at the former angel who still clung to her side. The angelfire had died in his eyes when he'd lost his wings, but there was still intelligence gleaming there. He would be found a shade by the Republic if his scars were discovered, but he wasn't running slow like most shades.
She blinked. The receptionist at Breisach and Turner hadn't been dumb either.
Lilia glanced up at Montgomery. "That's why you cared about the receptionist at Breisach and Turner," she guessed. "You knew her. She was an angel, but she got caught. She was found a shade because of scars on her back, just like these ones."
It was Montgomery who took a step back this time, his expression turning wary. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"No, but I'm guessing and it's making a whole lot of sense." Lilia also liked what her guess told her about Montgomery's motivation. "Tell me: why did she earn the shade designation?"
Montgomery studied Lilia for a long moment, then punched something up on his palm. He flashed a pair of images at Lilia. The first was the one she'd seen before, the one of the eviscerated receptionist. Lilia was glad she didn't look away, though, because she might have missed the second image.
It showed the same woman, her back bare, and clearly displayed her pair of diagonal scars. They were exactly the same as the scars on the back of the man who leaned on her shoulder.
Lilia exhaled slowly as she wrapped her mind around the truth. There really were angels.
Angels who sacrificed their wings to pass as norms.
Angels whose sacrifice, if discovered, saw them classed as mutants and made them slaves of the Republic.
She immediately wondered how many of them there were.
"Why do they come?" she asked.
"To try to save humanity." Montgomery's tone was matter-of-fact, but Lilia wasn't fooled. His eyes were gleaming and she knew he cared deeply about the angels.
Just as she did.
"What happens to them?"
He met her gaze steadily. "They do their job, complete their assignments, and go back."
"They get their wings back?"
He nodded solemnly and she felt a little better about the injured angel she was holding. She was also more determined to help him.
"You know about the angels; you know about this place," she said, watching Montgomery. She knew he might not answer her questions. "The angels trust you. Do you help them?"
"What if I do?" He was cautious, just as she would have been.
Lilia gave a mock sign of resignation. "Then I'd have to revise my every prejudice against NGPD detectives. This is huge, Montgomery, a complete overhaul of my belief system. You'd owe me big time for a long time." She smiled.
"Would I?" Montgomery smiled back at her, his gaze wanning. Lilia was sure that she wasn't the only one thinking about what they had just done.
Never mind what they might do next.
Montgomery reached for her, his fingertips brushing her cheek. Lilia strove to appear unaffected by his touch and lost that battle too. (She was thinking it might be too late to win the war.) He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stared down into her eyes. She knew he was going to kiss her again.
And that she was going to kiss him back.
"Answer one question for me," he murmured. Lilia stared into those green eyes and was ready to name her best orgasm of all time, or her favorite sexual position, or...
"Tell me what you said to Fitzgerald when he denounced you to the Society."
Lilia blinked.
Then she glared at Montgomery for changing the subject. "How do you know that I said anything?"
"I'm guessing. He told the Society that Armaros and Baraqiel couldn't be mutations, that it was too improbable to be true. That's essentially calling you a liar. I can't believe, Lil, that you would have let that pass."
Lilia looked away, unexpected tears clouding her vision.
"What did you say to him that left you thinking he might have committed suicide?"
Lilia swallowed. Maybe saying the truth aloud would let her dismiss the possibility that haunted her.
Maybe. Maybe not. Given what she'd figured out about Montgomery, Lilia was willing to take a chance on trust.
She wouldn't try to remember how long it had been.
"You're right. We fought, for the first time ever." She heaved a sigh. "He said a lot about my disregard for the rules and disrespect for the Society. He reminded me of my debt to them and to him. I was angry that he thought I was unappreciative after"—her words faltered—"after everything. I was furious that he wouldn't even come and look for himself. He called himself a scientist and I called him a stubborn idiot."
The silence hung between them, only the
sound of the blond man's sniffles filling the air. Lilia stroked his hair and soothed him, knowing that she hadn't really answered the question. She glanced up to find Montgomery watching her, his gaze bright.
"I'm not proud that I lost my temper, but I can't lie that I did." Lilia took a breath and Montgomery waited. "I told Gid that I didn't love him. When he argued, I told him that I never had." Her voice was tight when she continued. "I told him that I had only married him because I owed him."
"Ouch," Montgomery said softly.
"I know." Lilia grimaced. "I thought he already knew, or at least suspected." She sighed and frowned at the floor. "It would have been kinder to have kept my mouth shut, but that's never been my best trick."
"Why did you owe him?"
"That's a second question, Montgomery. We agreed on one." Lilia was pretty sure that he wasn't going to let it go but his palm pinged, and it had a more imperious summons than Lilia's.
She noticed that he didn't activate the vid link.
"Montgomery," he said, reaching as he did to lay a finger against Lilia's lips. She felt what was left of her resistance to him melt, maybe because he had heard her truth and not condemned her.
"Montgomery!" The irritable voice of an older man carried from the palm. "Where in the hell are you?"
"Off-duty, sir."
"Homicide is never off-duty in New Gotham, Montgomery. It might be different in Topeka, but you're not in Kansas anymore."
Kansas? Lilia blinked. Montgomery was from Kansas'? She'd never met a less likely farm boy in her life.
"Yes, sir."
"What the hell's the matter with your stud? I told you to check with Tech Support yesterday when you came on duty."
Lilia's eyes widened. Montgomery nodded, as if to say "I told you so," and Lilia found herself smiling in return.
"I did, sir," he said. "They installed a new stud and cross-checked it."
"Well, there's not a damn thing coming in on it now. Where are you?"
Montgomery's smile broadened as he surveyed Lilia. "Lost in the pleasure fringe, sir."
Lilia blushed.
"Consider yourself found, Montgomery. We've got a homicide and since you're in the pleasure fringe, I'll expect you to be first on the scene."
"Which is where, sir?"
"Address pending. Meet Dimitri there."
"On my way, sir." Montgomery watched for the displayed address, then terminated the connection. He didn't leave.
Instead, he laid a hand on the former angel's shoulder. Lilia watched something pass silently between them, then Montgomery took off his cloak. He slung it over the other man's bare shoulders and fastened the front clasp with a care that put a lump in Lilia's throat.
Montgomery pulled a handful of pleasure fringe tokens out of his pocket and gave them to Lilia. "Find him some clothes and talk to him until he's coherent. He'll learn fast."
"And then what?"
"And then he'll know what he needs to do."
"You know about this," Lilia guessed. "You were supposed to take him into the world. Why are you leaving him with me?"
"Because I don't have a choice. I have to report for duty."
Lilia started to smile, hearing what he wasn't saying. "Because you trust me. Go ahead, admit it, Montgomery."
He gave her a hard look. "I don't trust you as far as I could throw you," he said, but his smile softened his words. "But I think a potential shade can trust you to help him evade the Republic's many eyes."
"Thank you for that."
Montgomery leaned closer, his breath fanning her cheek, his eyes dark with intent. "And, Lil, if something happens to him, you get to answer to me."
"Promises, promises," she teased.
Montgomery kissed her ear, leaving her yearning for more as he pivoted and strode into the shadows of the warehouse.
Montgomery was completely confident in leaving the angel in Lilia's care. Even if he hadn't been, the volunteer's wings were gone, so he'd not be of any value to the circus.
Which was, by strange coincidence, where Montgomery was going.
He had a strange sense that he had made a mistake in seducing Lilia, yet couldn't regret what they had done. The pleasure had been consuming, but fleeting. Too fleeting. It left him more hungry than he had been in the first place.
He'd missed something, but didn't yet know what it was.
Montgomery had a job to do before he could think more about Lilia. He reached the New Gotham circus, as instructed by his supervisor, first of the NGPD team. It was just after dawn and the circus had the morning hush that he knew from the pleasure fringe.
In fact, the circus had a great deal in common with the pleasure fringe. Not everything or everyone was as appearances might lead a visitor to believe. Not everything was legit and above the law. Deceptions and illusions proliferated beyond the reach of law enforcement. He felt a sudden affinity with Lilia, who was as much at home at the circus as he was in the pleasure fringe.
A burly shade met him at the entry way. The man had a third eye on his forehead, the same extra nodule as the shade Lilia had found dead in the old city.
"No admittance," the shade said, folding his arms across his chest. "We're closed."
Montgomery was startled. In the city, a shade would never confront a norm. A shade's eyes would never be clear of the cloud created by sedatives and his manner would never have been anything other than deferential.
In fact, it was hard to consider this man to be a shade, given his behavior. Montgomery understood why Lilia was so quick to defend shades as human.
"New Gotham Police," he said, flashing his badge on his palm. The shade's expression changed immediately. "We were called."
"Right over here." The shade led the way through the tents.
"I thought you'd know that already," Montgomery said.
The shade looked confused.
"Doesn't the third eye make you psychic?"
The shade laughed. "Only if it's real." He pulled at the skin nodule. "This one's an implant." His expression changed as he realized what he'd admitted. "I mean, it was there all along, of course, but my parents paid for me to have it augmented a bit."
"Right," Montgomery agreed easily,
"I always had the power to tell fortunes," the shade continued nervously, spreading his hands to show that the web between his fingers extended the length of an entire digit. "I was born with a caul. My mom said my fingers meant I was toast anyway, but Stevia said that my third eye needed to be more showy. She arranged everything." He gulped then and fell silent, sparing several anxious glances at Montgomery.
Montgomery had heard of norms in disadvantaged circumstances surgically adding a defect or two to get themselves work in the circus, but he'd never met anyone who had done it. It was illegal, and the doctors who performed such surgery did it on the sly.
It had to be a better fate than the Republic's slave dens. This shade's parents had paid for the illegal surgery to ensure that their child had a reasonably secure future. He could understand that impetus and the loyalty that such shades would feel to the circus owner who arranged the details.
He wondered again about Lilia's lost child. He could imagine that she would have fought to give her child a better life.
But she'd never had the chance.
The shade paused before a smaller tent, its stripes in shades of blue, and turned to confront Montgomery with some nervousness. "Are you going to report me, Officer?"
Montgomery met the shade's gaze steadily. "I'm a homicide detective. Unless you've killed a norm, your choices aren't my concern."
"Thank you." The shade was visibly relieved. "Stevia's in here. I didn't kill her, I swear it. I found her when I brought her coffee this morning." He pulled back the tent flap and the distinctive waft of fresh corpse caught at Montgomery's nostrils.
"Don't go far," he advised the shade. "And don't tell anyone what you saw. I'll need to talk to you before I leave and I'd like to be the first to hear your story."
<
br /> The shade nodded. "Yes, sir."
Montgomery punched up the image snatcher in his palm and began to document the scene. He was particularly careful in his observations, given the context.
Because nothing at the circus was as it seemed.
Even the circus itself masqueraded as an itinerant operation, despite the fact that the New Gotham circus had stood on the same soil for decades. It was still set up in tents, as if poised to move at any moment, even though permanent buildings would have been possible and practical.
Nothing was as it seemed.
He glanced over his shoulder, thinking about the shade who had guided him here. The shade owed Stevia his life of comparative freedom and Montgomery guessed that his loyalty would run far deeper than that of a mere employee. He guessed then that the killer wouldn't be found within the circus' guy lines, that the circus operated more as a family than as a business.
This was Lilia's world.
Lilia had a free and easy relationship with the truth, but would fight to the bitter end for a noble cause. She was incapable of doing violence to another person, in Montgomery's estimation, and Lilia considered shades to be persons.
She'd said she'd owed Fitzgerald, and given that she'd married him, her obligation must have been considerable. He'd guess that no one could graduate as a Nuclear Darwinist—and by extension have access to the Society's databanks—without passing four years of the core course of Dissection and Vivisection.
Montgomery had a pretty good idea what Lilia's debt to Fitzgerald had been.
The former angel looked around himself with curiosity after Montgomery's departure. He stood straighter, as if the pain was fading from his injuries. He was fair, his hair a pale blond, and his eyes were blue. He was as buff as Montgomery, if not quite as tall. He fingered the edges of Montgomery's cloak, then smiled at Lilia, a sweet trusting smile that nearly broke her heart.
He was in the wrong place to be trusting of strangers.
"I am Raphael," he said, his speech halting. "I must take the train to New Seattle, please."
Lilia's heart skipped at the coincidence of hearing that place named so soon after Montgomery had talked about her file, then told herself not to make much of little. Micheline had gotten her thinking about the past, that was all.
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