Glinda seemed to come alive. "Dare," she said, her eyes flashing.
Zal cursed. If he had had such wits as she implied in the past he surely didn't have them now. Typical. Death comes asking for a dare and he hadn't got two notions to rub together. Then a moment of pure genius struck him. It was so pure and so delicious that he couldn't say it for a moment. "I dare you to take this book to Lily's attic, pick up what you find there, and leave the book in its place. On the way back speak to nobody and give me what you return with."
Glinda jerked her head back on its swanlike neck. Her golden eyes blinked. Then she narrowed them and drew a long breath in, calculating. "Can I read the book?"
What did he care? "I don't know, can you?"
He thought he'd gone too far. She got taller, darker, and the room filled with a brimming sensation of power like a tsunami about to break. Zal cowered, much more successfully this time, and got his head under both arms.
Then she held out her arm, hand outstretched. "As you say. I agree."
He thought she was trying not to smile. Carefully he brought out the volume Mr. V had given him. Mr. V hadn't said he couldn't give the task to someone else, and anything specifically not in the rules was fair. It was Faery, after all. He handed the book over to her and she took it with care, as if it were precious or dangerous. She ran her long fingers over it softly without looking at it.
"I think it would be a very short story if I were to read this," she said in a more gentle tone than he believed she was capable of. "Do you know what it is?"
Zal shook his head. He really had no idea but he reckoned she wouldn't tell him for nothing. He had to work on more material.
"Well I do," she said, smoothing the cover. "And I will be very interested to see what Lily's hiding away that is its equal. What a dark horse she can be. And as for Mr. V, why, to part with this ... hmm mmm ... interesting days indeed." With that she vanished. If Zal hadn't known better he would have said that she was skipping.
In the minute that followed he looked around him at the bleak barren gothic castle, its heights silhouetted against a blue moon and a black sun, the shifting colours of the light clouds flitting behind them in orange, red, and gold. It reminded him of a second-rate heavy metal concert stage. He tried to imagine something less obvious, but in its way what he already had was comforting. There were other ways to see this place that he was sure were infinitely less so. He liked illusions. He didn't want any more of them stripped away.
At that moment Glinda returned. She stood exactly on the same spot, but now she was covered in a thick film of dust and not too few cobwebs. Her head was on one side to regard him more speculatively than before. She kept her mouth shut and held out her hand. On her palm lay a large silver heart-shaped lady's compact. Half of it was studded with what looked like diamonds, the other half was polished smooth, but it was scratched and a bit dull with wear though there was no tarnish.
With her other hand, drink intact, she indicated a space in the air where glowing letters appeared: Do not speak. Think, and your words will appear here.
It was Mr. V's book, Zal thought, careful to finish before he took the small object. His words appeared below hers in glittering dust; then they winked out.
Zal could see the compact had a hinge and a small pressure closure. It was no use trying to open it, his fingers were too thick and blunt, and he had no nails.
Glinda snapped her fingers in front of his nose and he looked up. She pointed at her words: Well well. Take it back now and keep your word. But remember, you are mine. We have played and I have won.
He frowned-when did that get into the rules?-but the glittering writing spelled out more.
You are mine and I am yours. I am always with you and I always have been.
He nodded and understood. Some powers had nothing to do with you, some took forms that everyone saw, and some were personal. This was one of them. You would never encounter her otherwise. Lily, Mina, they were all different for the individuals who perceived them and gave them faces and shapes with meaning that for them went some way to encompass and define their power and range. Glinda was his death. This was his end of the world. Lila and Mina, even the cat, were aspects of the same fey, which was split up for him, so that he had a chance of surviving his interface with it. He wished that this knowledge made it any easier. He wished it meant he wouldn't have to walk all the way to Mina's house and back again now, but it seemed he would have to.
Come straight back, Glinda wrote, drinking at the same time and moving her small cigar to the side of her mouth with a practised pout where she bit on it with her sharp white teeth. We have a necromancer to hunt and I've got something to give you. And don't go playing with Mr. V Though I expect you will, you idiot.
He hesitated, getting up slowly. He felt light and unstable. Why didn't you let jack kill me?
She looked at him through the filmy smoke of her cheroot and grinned a fiendish grin that was as comforting as the smile on a skull. Don't be long, Zal. Don't be long.
He found himself outside on the road. Any trace of the black palace was gone. Because there was nothing else to do he began to trudge the long way back towards Mina's house. He wondered if Mr. V's talking rule included himself. In case it did he ranted silently in his head and wondered how a faery could have secrets from itself. Maybe he didn't understand it as well as he thought. It was probably the lint.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
'm going, and that's that." Lila stood at the door of her office. Malachi was beside her, hands in his coat pockets, frowning and shaking his head.
"It's suicide," he said. "The first thing they'll do is expect you to find him, for their own very pertinent and important reasons. No, actually the first thing some of them will do is try to kill you any which way they can. Then they'll watch while you find Teazle. Then they'll try to kill both of you. Meanwhile they'll expect you to kill him or else their justice enforcers will kill you and him. I can't see any way out of it. Unless of course you survive, find him, and kill him. Then you might expect about ten seconds' respite while they crown you leader of the largest cartel in Demonia and after that the free-forall will commence."
"I know all that," Lila said impatiently, her hand on the door. Its locks had already responded to her touch and opened; she was just delaying the sorry inevitable.
"So, it's not just because you don't want to go home."
She looked around, but there was no sign of Temple Greer. Zinging her Al system informed her he was at home, sleeping. The agency was at a lull for the first time in days. She turned to Malachi. "I really don't want to go back to that house. I couldn't call it home. And no, I don't want to find out and face what is living there or going on in my absence. But I will. Soon as I make sure Teazle is all right. Undead sister is probably sticking around and doing fine, according to Azevedo. I haven't seen any reports that she's eating neighbours or sacrificing pets to the dark gods, so the missing demon husband wins on points. Right after I check in here." She rested her forehead against the thick wooden panelling for a second. "And I feel responsible ... no, shut up a second ... because we had a deal going. I asked him to look for things that could help me locate Zal. And the fact that he's in the middle of them and the demons can't find him anywhere makes me think he's found something. Might not be useful, but you never know until you see it. Either way, don't you think as agents of the human interest we ought to find out what that kind of thing is?"
She turned her head without lifting it off its resting place and looked at him. He stared at her with his orange eyes, thinking, and then his tense posture slumped and he took a deep breath and let it out.
"Nice try. Kinda convincing, I admit."
"Yeah, isn't it?" She straightened herself up and turned the handle. The door opened-perfectly balanced elven wood on brass hingesand swung silently inwards to reveal ordinary rooms. Of the ghost wreck there was no sign, except the tideline of office flotsam it had created and a smell of rot and damp. Relief flood
ed her.
"That's strange," Malachi said, following her inside. "The other ships haven't decayed this much." He inspected the carpet, bending onto one knee, then picked up papers and held them up. "Not dripping. Condensation and some ice melt, nothing more."
"The smell is bad." She looked around, aware that Sarasilien had kept plants in here but seeing none now. The windows that opened into the central courtyard were papered over and she hadn't had time to pull it down. Now she went over and stripped the panes clear, at the same time finding the lock controls in the Al system and opening them up. She wadded up the old sheet papers into a ball and looked for a bin, but there weren't any, so she threw it into a corner. The sickly odour of decomposing flesh, sweet, rotting fruit, and poppies drifted sluggishly with the influx of mild afternoon air.
"Azevedo said this wasn't the same. I called her after her Tai Chi class. She isn't keen to come here and this seems to be part of the reason why. But if he wasn't part of the Fleet, why did he arrive on that ship?" Malachi put the wet papers down carefully on a sheet-covered table that was still upright near the wall. He surveyed the scene morosely.
"Not all ships are-"
"But they are," Malachi said. "They are. Every vessel of any kind belongs to it. I guess perhaps they might manifest alone. I wish I could ask. Do you think that might be because the person who sent the zombie is with the Fleet?"
"Would it be a good place for a necromancer to hang out?"
"Would be," Malachi agreed. "If they could survive it. The Fleet isn't a stable entity. It can decompose rapidly and turn into mist or less, or at least it used to. If it fizzled out while they were inside one of the ships, then they'd be floating in the Void. No air, no nothing. It took a ton of technology for the Ghost Hunters to make it out there." He sounded doubtful, but to Lila's mind not doubtful enough.
"Demon tech?" she asked, confident it must be since the machines of her type didn't deal with aetheric creations well. At all.
"Mostly. Uh-huh."
"You go talk to Jones about it. Find out why she's running and dumping on you all over." She finished her unproductive prodding about and went through into the laboratory proper. It was still littered with her previous experiments. She was an exact, tidy worker but there were so many setups that there was barely room to walk between the benches. "And get some rest. You look grey."
"Aye-aye, and you?" He bridled slightly at his ready acquiescence to her order, but it was too late now he'd said it.
"I am going to get this cleaned up by an expert." Lila snapped her fingers.
Malachi turned as he heard footsteps and Bentley appeared at the door. He realised Lila must have called her earlier, but the effect was briefly unnerving. He turned back. "And then you're going to Demonia."
"Soon as you tell me where the portal is."
"I ... uh ...,,
"You can tell me or I can just trash the Al systems and find it."
He sighed. "Is there anything about you that isn't overly aggressive today?"
Lila shook her head as Bentley began to dismantle the convoluted glass monstrosities Lila had created in the fume cabinets. The red streak in her hair shook side to side. "Nothing."
"I wish you'd change your mind."
"Can't."
"Won't." His anger surprised him with its sudden reemergence. He saw her silver eyes flash and she crooked her finger at him, lips thinning. Bracing his jaw he followed her into the back room of the suite, where Sarasilien had eschewed all paraphernalia and stuck to fine furnishings and comfortable chairs. She sat down in a large armchair still covered in its dustsheet and indicated he could do the same in one next to it. Outside the door they could hear the steady clink and tinkle of Bentley working. The toxic smell was almost unnoticeable.
"Mal," she said awkwardly, knitting her fingers together until her gauntlets creaked. "I'm grateful you care."
"But ...... he sniped.
"Yes but. But back off. Ever since I got here you've been on my case." She looked up at him and then down at her hands. "It's like you don't understand. I mean, look at me ..." She held out her arms, and the leather armour vanished into her skin softly, like butter melting into warm tea. She breathed with great control, and when she glanced up the silver metal eyes were gone and she was looking at him with ordinary blue eyes, faintly lilac around the iris in a way he wasn't sure that she knew about but which made a jolt stir in him as he recognised Tatterdemalion's hold. He was astonished when she seemed to read his mind and plucked at the thick purple cape self-consciously.
"Yeah," she said. "And that. And the other. But they're just more of the same thing. I didn't ask for them. But I've got them whether I like it or not." She pulled the cape around herself. "And they bring a lot of power. Stuff that an ordinary person has no use for. I mean, when the agency made me, they weren't thinking about saving my life so much as making themselves a handy tool for the outworld kit. I stopped being a person then and I started being an instrument. It was automatic. Nobody asked me; I did it by myself. I'd become a thing, so I was worthless, I decided it. I don't blame the people who remade me exactly, not for that part. I didn't get that for a long time. I was so angry with them, played my role as the tragic victim heroine. Thought I'd save the day and that would make it all worthwhile. I kept on trying ..." Her voice cracked and she made a snarling face of pain and mastered it. "I kept on trying to deny it. It's only when I met Zal I started to notice, and then, a long time after-actually when I met Tath and we talked in Under-I understood it doesn't matter about your makeup or what happened or what other people do, only your will. So I decided I wasn't going to be an instrument anymore. I wasn't going to be a good girl and serve my saviours. No martyrdom anymore. It's all me now. And here you find me, fighting the forces. Whatever they want me to do, I'm not interested in doing unless it suits me."
She tapped the side of her head with a callous gesture. "The Signal-that fucking hissing shit-I won't bore you with its contents, but it has a mission.... Forget that. It's not important yet. It's far from being able to do what it wants, so we can forget it for now. The old faeries ..." She plucked at the cape. "They want their own things. I don't care about that. I don't even care about the games we play. I'm a parasite opportunist, looking for my chances same as them. If they let me use them, then that's their problem. I know they have plans that are nothing to do with me. I'm just a handy method of passage for things that aren't shapeshifting death machines. And the agency still thinks I give a shit, which is interesting. Sometimes I seem to, even to myself, but I can tell you for certain that if they didn't give me everything I wanted I'd be out of here in a second. The only people in existence that I give a damn about are all in deep trouble. And I am going to try and get them out because my foolish caretaker habits die very hard and they aren't entirely dead yet. I expect this mission will kill them off. I don't know what I'll find. I don't expect you to help me. You don't owe me anything, Mal. But don't stand in my way. Maybe the demons will kill me. Fair enough. I'll risk it. Because the alternative is hanging around here forever `doing research' until I get the phone call that says love is dead."
She was looking at the covered chaise longue that was at the side of the room. Her gaze was fixed on it as if it were the most interesting thing in existence. "Where the hell did he go?" she said to herself, and the anger in her voice was bitter. "Sarasilien, I mean. How the hell could he leave me here and go?"
"If he were here," Malachi said, "he'd say the same as I say. We were trying in our own ways to take care of you. Do you think we didn't know what you just said was true? You were a victim of the system. We wanted to make it up to you and protect you from the worst of it. We just couldn't."
"You should have helped me to destroy it," she said, lost in her own thoughts. "You should have taught me to disobey sooner."
"You wouldn't ruin the defences of the humans, Lila. That's pain talking."
"No, I wouldn't ruin them. I'd make them functional, because at the moment t
hey're a wet tissue facing a cyclone. Anyway, enough of the hero formula, Mal. I don't know what you want, so you can either say it or shut up but this nannying passive-aggressive stuff has got to go." She suddenly looked up from her brooding and met his eyes, separating her hands to rest them on the arms of the chair and sit back. "If I am going to die stupidly early, full of a sense of `with power comes responsibility,' then we don't have time for bull." She gave him a wan smile. "Don't think I don't know what I'm getting into. I've figured it out by now. I am a collision of unlikely things, and that super-attracts shit."
Malachi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "When I first came here I thought it would be a good laugh, something to do that was full of curious new experiences. I wanted to see the humans struggle to accept what they have never accepted in the last centuries as they slowly took the material path. I laughed at their inability to understand the difference between the world of objects, the flow of energy, and the structures created by their own minds. We fey played tricks and finally the trick was up when the Bomb came. We thought it was the end of a merry era indeed. But even now you don't understand. Perhaps some do thanks to the Hunter. Thanks to you." He paused as she flinched. "No, I think his interference was a good thing if a savage one. But that's beside the point. I came to satisfy myself. And I would probably still be here even without you. But I like you. I love you, as a sister. I wouldn't want to see you fall. I don't want to. And there are many kinds of falls. You are tough, but I don't know that you're tough enough to withstand the storm around you."
Lila slid forward to the edge of the seat and reached out to take Malachi's hands. "Thank you."
He felt himself forgiven, redeemed. Her combative energy had gone. It was a lovely moment. Then she let go and stood up, shaking out the heavy cape with an annoyed flounce. "I wish I looked less like a second-rate warlock."
Chasing the Dragon Page 24