by Daniel Marks
She didn’t even need to read it to know what it said, but she turned her eyes to its bold crimson lettering anyway:
A REAL Departure Is Coming!
Velvet pushed Logan behind her as she backed away, rejoining the rest.
“What does it mean?” Nick asked, staring at the flyer.
Logan stepped forward, face as serious as a heart attack. “You don’t want to know. It’s bad, though. Real bad.”
“It’s the revolutionaries,” Luisa whispered. “They’re here in the station now, those people.”
As if to prove Luisa’s statement accurate, a new ruckus sprang up, and in the distance a brawl was storming like a mosh pit, swirling around some epicenter. It seemed that whoever had posted the incendiary flyer, whoever had staged the burning of the effigy and then run away like the coward they were, was getting their ass beat times a hundred.
The horror of the event still clung to Velvet, but she pushed it down.
Things were happening so fast, so brutally fast. They needed advice.
“We don’t have time for all this,” Velvet admonished. “We’ve got to meet with Manny, like forever ago.” She spun and marched off toward a broad stone staircase that circled the walls of the round space like a corkscrew, ending near the rafters of the domed hub.
From behind her she heard Nick ask, “Who’s Shandie?”
She twisted around in time to watch Quentin darting back down the stairs. Just before he disappeared into the crowd, Velvet thought she caught a glimpse of the Collector girl, massive puffs of hair bobbing through clumps of souls like a cartoon character.
Velvet, so tired of rolling her eyes, tried to ignore the fact that her undertaker had turned into an official honest-to-God stalker.
As they rushed up the stairs, the brawl on the floor began to look like satellite images of hurricanes. Everyone seemed to want to get a lick in on this guy and his crew. And Velvet did, too. The revolutionists were dangerous and possibly deadly. For constantly putting up flyers in the Latin Quarter, they deserved imprisonment in the Cellar. But burning paper mannequins in the perfect image of Manny, when paper was at such a premium?
That was just plain wrong.
Sure, the woman could get bitchy, but what had she done to piss these people off?
The guys were talking again as they ascended, hitting on everything from Nick tripping balls over this whole afterlife thing to Manny’s generous endowments to Quentin’s girl problems to, if she’d heard correctly, the decidedly heart-shaped quality of her butt, which was flattering in that let-it-slide-until-the-objectification-gets-gross kind of way.
Plus. She’d certainly done her share of ogling this evening.
Velvet tried very hard not to glance over her shoulder … and failed.
Nick lagged behind, Logan dancing around him as they plodded up the stairs, chirping away happily about his favorite topic—breasts—complete with the accompanying hands cupped in front of his own chest.
Velvet almost laughed. Boys were so predictable, but when she glanced at Nick’s face, expecting to see him salivating lasciviously, she was actually surprised—something that didn’t happen too often. Her fifty-seventh acquisition wasn’t focused on Logan’s pantomime of a bullet bra but on her. He was grinning, of all things. And it was a devilish one at that, like he knew something about her.
Like he knew.
Nick doesn’t know anything about anything, she thought.
She spun back toward the station agent’s offices, fists in tight little balls. I’m not looking at him again, until I absolutely have to.
Manny’s doors towered before them, as dark as coal and carved with scenes of a battle. When Velvet had first seen the monstrous things, she’d guessed that upon closer examination she’d find angels and devils fighting, or something else as obviously religious, but no such imagery hid within the doors’ intricate detail. Shapeless forms, as worn away as the faces on temple ruins, warred with their own kind, and in the distance a domed mountain rose from the landscape like a blister.
She’d wondered what it meant. Was it a piece of their collective history, a metaphor or a detail from a premonition? The only time she’d ventured to ask Manny, she’d been answered with a dismissive shrug, as though the door was of little significance. A decoration.
“You like him, huh?” Luisa asked.
Velvet jumped, spun in the girl’s direction, and then relaxed as she registered what she was actually being accused of. A slow smile spread across the little girl’s glowing face.
“Who? Jockstrap back there? You gotta be kidding.” Velvet huffed and stabbed her hands into a copper pot filled with finely ground ash beside the threshold to the station agent’s office.
“Yeah. I must be, huh?” Luisa leaned against the wall, watching the boys nearing. “ ’Cause he’s not hot or anything.”
“Shut up,” Velvet hissed. Her eyes darted toward the approaching boy even as she spread some of the ash under them. “He’ll hear.”
Luisa nodded, the grin still plastered on like a wicked little mask. “Wouldn’t want that. Better to keep these kinds of things a secret so you won’t have to interact with anyone on a real level.”
“If I need advice, I’ll go see Miss Antonia.”
Luisa threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, good idea. Perfectly reasonable solution. I’m sure she’ll be receptive, too. In that she won’t be at all.”
It was ridiculous, of course. The woman in question had never been a people person. Probably ever. And if there was anyone Velvet would accept advice from, it would be Luisa. But not this advice.
A scattering of pebbles nearby announced the boys’ approach.
“Never mind,” Velvet spat, hoping to put an end to the conversation.
“Hey, Nick!” Luisa called the boy over. “You’re about to have yourself a rite of passage.”
“Another one? I think I’ve hit my quota.” Nick shoved his hands into the pockets of the wool pants and bounced on the balls of his feet, watching Velvet with an odd quizzical expression as she coated her skin with the ash. “Is that what people have all over their faces and stuff?”
“Yeah. She’s ashing,” Luisa said. “The why is self-explanatory, I think.”
“Otherwise everybody’s eyes would hurt all the time, right?” He cocked an eyebrow and returned his gaze to Velvet, lingering on her delicate fingers smudging the ash across her pale luminescent flesh.
“It dulls down the nerve endings,” Luisa said.
Velvet narrowed her eyes as Nick’s gaze lifted.
Luisa continued, “Despite us looking bright right now, we get brighter.”
Velvet nodded, but refused to look. “Also meaner.”
The little girl waved Velvet off, grabbed Nick’s wrist, and twisted it so that he could look at the underside. Hundreds of phosphorous threads throbbed beneath its surface. With her other hand, she pressed his fingers into a fist, and the boy’s eyes widened as the threads began to spark and glow brighter than the filament in a lightbulb.
“Whoa.” Nick squinted.
“That’s why we ash. Brings down the glare, so it doesn’t hurt other people’s eyes.”
“Plus,” Velvet said, breaking her visual embargo and looking directly into Nick’s eyes. “Manny doesn’t like to look at sparking. It bugs her. And no one likes her when she’s irritated. No one.”
“That’s the truth,” Logan agreed, dunking his own hands into the pot and gesturing for Nick to do the same. “Rub it all over, man. Even your eyelids.”
The older boy scooped the gray powder from the bowl and pressed it between his fingers. “Just regular ash?”
Logan nodded. “More or less.”
“Just,” Luisa interjected, “regular ash.”
Velvet watched as the girl scowled at her brother, chastising him with no more than a glance and a promise that he’d get more later if he continued. Nick didn’t let on that he’d caught the exchange at all, busy as he was coating the backs of his
hands and wrists with the gray smudge. He crouched and mirrored the other boy, rubbing the ash into his ears, over the thick cording of his neck, his sturdy jaw.
Sufficiently proud of the job, Nick mugged for Luisa and Velvet.
He looked good.
More than good, the voice in her head responded. Frickin’ gorgeous.
Velvet cursed her conscience. It could shut up at any time.
Nick, somehow, even made the muted coloring look natural.
And he seemed so calm. Gone was the shuddering mound of boy emotions she’d held in the Shattered Hall. His resilience was impressive. It hadn’t been longer than an hour since he’d learned of his fate, and he hadn’t even broken down all that hard, in the scheme of things. No more tears, no sign of the agonized mourning that went so well with the gray motif. It was as though he was taking the whole death thing in stride. Velvet had seen the type one time before.
Number thirty-three, Rachel Snable.
She’d died in a car wreck, and her soul had somehow gotten trapped within the twisted wheel well of a Dodge Charger. The car was a complete mess and in a wrecking yard when Velvet found it. A group of misdirected kids in black robes were worshipping it as a prophet. Something about the construction of that particular make and model had a tendency to capture souls more than others. No one knew why, exactly. Rachel held it together pretty well, stiff and businesslike all the way through her debriefing with Manny, but then, on the way to the dorms, she broke down into great buffoonish sobs. Velvet had almost been embarrassed for the woman. She’d never, herself, been a fan of emotional displays, and Rachel’s had been so loud. So. Loud.
Nearly everyone had been watching her, gawking.
But then the oddest thing happened. Rachel’s light went out and she turned to dust.
Just like that.
Manny hypothesized that Ms. Snable’s remainder, her leftover import, that thing that keeps souls in purgatory until it’s resolved, whatever you wanted to call it, had been the ability to express emotion.
And boy had she ever. You could hear her wailing all through the Latin Quarter, sobbing and heaving her shoulders one minute, and then, poof, they were all standing there alone, picking ash off their tongues. The fact that she’d broken down on the railcar meant that Velvet and her team had been responsible for cleaning and collecting the ash and delivering it to the local ash pot.
Yes. Those ashes.
The greatest form of respect was to wear them. It might have been disgusting, but it was tradition. Try having hot dogs at Thanksgiving and see how that goes over. People don’t like change, and neither, it turns out, do souls.
She was pretty sure that expressing emotions wasn’t Nick’s remainder, though she wasn’t great at prediction. Maybe, she thought. Maybe I just hope it isn’t. Either way, he was bound to have another breakdown soon. It was inevitable. A teenage mind processes things so quickly that they get bored and start to remember why they’re here, and then … boom!
Another meltdown.
She shook away the idea and focused on the door. This meeting had very little to do with Nick anyway. She’d be explaining to Manny the banshee they’d collected, or the all-out brawl with the revolutionary downstairs—but probably not the effigy. That would really hurt the station agent’s feelings. There was lots of business that didn’t have to do with hot boys. She didn’t have time to worry about someone who probably wouldn’t be around long anyway.
Velvet pressed her shoulder to the doors and shoved. They shuddered and split in a crooked zigzag instead of a straight line, as though an earthquake had cracked the carved mountain at its center in two. The hinges screeched loud enough to cause a hush to fall over the crowd below. Luisa and the boys rushed over to the rail, and Velvet saw them framed in the aura of the angry mob’s emotive glow.
A whoosh of warm wind spilled from the gap, flooding the air with powdery notes of jasmine and orange blossom, tussling Velvet’s hair and making her nose crinkle.
Disgusting, she thought. Where the heck does she find that perfume?
“It’s Arpège by Lanvin.” Manny swept out, seemingly alive with pink powdered skin and a tight-fitting sweater and skirt to match. She tapped across the stone floor on dangerously high heels. “Don’t you love it?”
“Something like that,” Velvet lied, wondering if the station agent had added mind reading to her varied and substantial talents. The question didn’t hang in the air long, as Manny sped around the balcony misting from a small brown atomizer.
Velvet choked back a gag.
“It was my favorite. My signature scent. Thank the good Lord for the Collectors.”
“It’s really something.” Velvet didn’t care to thank anyone for Isadora, Connie, Isadora’s mother, or their team of Collectors. Their job was to steal castoffs and lost things and bring them across the veil between purgatory and the daylight. Their taste level was suspect. Half the crap they brought through was complete butt.
Velvet followed the woman into her office, a vast and lavishly appointed Hollywood set of a room lit by the same glowing orbs of gaslight that filled the station hub with columns of light. She flopped down into the armchair next to the davenport, which is what Manny insisted on calling the couch.
“So, what happened out there?” Manny asked in her breathy old-fashioned way. She swished around the settee and settled into it. She crossed her legs elegantly and popped her ankle like a signal flare. “I heard a ruckus.”
Velvet hesitated and looked over her shoulder. Sure enough, the others had wandered in, Logan’s mouth gaping, as usual. Thankfully he’d gained some control over his normally lolling tongue. The station agent definitely had Nick’s attention too, but not all of it. His eyes darted in Velvet’s direction.
And before she could stop herself, a small smile escaped.
“Oh!” Manny shot up and skittered across the room. “This must be your fifty-seventh soul! Congratulations!”
She gripped Nick by his biceps and let out a sharp, “Ooh! Strong, this one.”
Velvet grimaced.
“I’m Nick, ma’am.” His cheeks glowed dimly through the ash.
“Oh, my. So formal and polite.” She raised her index finger to his chin and tapped it playfully. “You can call me Manny, doll.”
Nick jittered a bit, grinning nervously. “Um, okay … Manny.”
“Good boy.” She pivoted and sauntered back to the gray knobby davenport, and flopped down near Velvet. “How are you adjusting there, Nick? You don’t seem at all bothered by your …” She paused as though pondering her words. “Change of circumstance.”
“You know, doing my best to stay calm. Soldier on. That kind of thing. Coach would say—”
“Coach?” she interjected. “A sporting man? Athlete?”
“I play basketball.”
She clapped deliriously—everything Manny did was peppered with a flair for drama. The actress in her never died, just the body, she’d told Velvet once.
“He’s assessed as Salvage.” Velvet watched Manny carefully.
“Well, then, kid.” She beamed at the boy. “You’re in luck, because Velvet and her team are the absolute best. And you’ll want to watch them very carefully. Learn everything you can for when a spot is found for you on another team.”
“Oh,” Nick said, sounding suddenly morose. “I thought …”
“You thought what, darling?”
He glanced from the twins slowly to Velvet, then tilted his head downward.
“Are you sulking?” Velvet prodded.
“No!” he snapped. “I just thought I’d be on this team. It just feels right.”
“Really?” Luisa’s smile spoke uncomfortable volumes. Her stare all but poked Velvet in the forehead.
“Really,” Nick replied.
“Oh. Well. That’s not likely.…” The words falling away along with her smile, Manny turned toward Velvet, suddenly stony and serious. “What caused such a severe shadowquake? I suspected a collection of souls.
I am surprised that Nick was the only save from this operation.”
Velvet glanced at Nick, who looked as though he weren’t sure how to take the comment, an expression between hurt and curiosity at play on his face. Though he could have been confused by Manny’s schizophrenic change in direction—God knew Velvet was.
Manny noticed, too. “Oh, dear. No offense, young man. You are certainly both large and strapping.”
“Uh … none taken.” He puffed out his chest.
“There were two spirits,” Velvet said.
“Oh, my. I was afraid of that.” Manny slipped out of her shoes and curled her legs up under her, getting comfortable to hear the rest of the tale. “Go on. Go on.”
“Nick was imprisoned in a glass cell. A crystal ball. That was no surprise, but when we tangled with his captor, we found her to be possessed.”
“Yeah!” shouted Logan. “Tell her what it was!”
Velvet shot him a glare and continued, “It was no ordinary soul engineering the woman. It was a deformed one, all bansheed out and screaming and stuff. Logan and Luisa were quite valiant in their battle with the beast. Quentin’s timing was spot-on.”
The little girl pushed Velvet’s leg to the side and scooted in next to her, balancing on the edge of the chair. She beamed at the acknowledgment.
Logan was more demonstrative. “It grew to, like, seven feet tall, Manny!” He stretched up onto his tiptoes to indicate the size discrepancy and his own fearlessness. “I tore—”
“We!” Luisa interjected.
Logan nodded. “We tore that thing right out of this old fortune-teller woman. Bear traps!” He brought his hands together like the jaws of the phantom machines and shouted, “Snap! And it was real pissed, Manny.”
“Mind your language,” Manny scolded.
“It was very angry,” he corrected quickly. “Twisting and turning like a tornado.” He reenacted the struggle with the banshee, rolling on the floor and grunting like a pro wrestler.
“Heroic!” Manny clapped her hands and grinned at Logan’s display.
Luisa rolled her eyes.
Nick chuckled.
Velvet took over. “The flies took it.”