Butcher Bird

by Richard Kadrey

  “What do you see? Is it like normal vision?”

  “Nothing at all. It’s like I’m floating above the scene, looking down on everything happening. I can see myself and my opponent, plus the nearby landscape. The visions never last for long. Just long enough for me to get my bearings and a sense of an opponent. I can’t do it too often. The gods get tired of these dime-store sacrifices. I have to be careful not to ask for their help too often.”

  Spyder frowned. “I wondered why you kept that coat on, even in the heat. You’re hiding the bracelet.”

  “And my arm,” said Shrike. “It’s not something to see.”

  “How many times have you used the bracelet?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes you make a blood offering without asking for anything in return. Sometimes, when you’re boxed in, say, you use it more than once. More blood sometimes means more sight. Sometimes not. I’ve been using it for ten years.”

  Spyder reached over and pushed up the sleeve of Shrike’s coat. The bracelet was on her right forearm. It was a beautiful object. Like something that belonged in a museum, he thought. He turned Shrike’s arm over and worked the bracelet’s clasp, sliding the thing off her arm. Shrike’s skin was streaked with years of ragged scar tissue. The back of her arm was red with new scars, still in the healing process. She’d used it on the airship, Spyder thought.

  He set the bracelet over his own arm. It was too small to go all the way around, so he held it in place and pushed the metal shrike back until he felt it catch. Feeling around the bird’s wings, he found the release button and pushed it. The bird raked down his arm, sending an electric pain all the way up to his shoulder. When Shrike heard the bracelet snap, she started a little and reached for him.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I wanted to know what it was like,” Spyder said. He leaned down and kissed her scars before putting the bracelet back on Shrike’s arm. She leaned into him and he put his bloody arm around her.

  “Where I come from, this isn’t your standard dating scenario,” Spyder said. Shrike laughed at little. “But I guess it’s one way to get to know each other.”

  “Excuse me.”

  Spyder looked up. Primo was standing over them.

  “I hate to intrude, but I need to speak to madame Butcher Bird.”

  “Meaning you want me to take off?” asked Spyder.

  Primo was silent.

  “It’s all right, Primo. Spyder is part of this and can hear anything you have to say.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Primo said. He groaned as he sat down. “There’s something Madame Cinders didn’t tell you, afraid that you might not agree to perform the service she requires.”

  “She wanted you to tell me when we were on the road and in too deep to turn back.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. I would have preferred not to do things this way.”

  “It’s all right. I understand that it wasn’t your choice. What is it that was too awful for me to know?”

  “The mutinous spirits in Hell, the confusion that is to be our cover?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Some say that it is led by the Golden Bull, Xero Abrasax.”

  Shrike was silent. She stabbed the ground with her cane.

  “Shrike?” said Spyder. “You know this guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s the…”

  “Yes, he’s the bastard traitor who fucked me, took my father, my sight and my kingdom.”

  “There’s more, I’m afraid,” said Primo.

  “Fuck that sick bitch,” Spyder said.

  “Be quiet,” said Shrike. “Tell me the rest, Primo.”

  “The key that Madame put into your body. You know that it was forged in Hell. It is not an object that is compatible with life. If you fail to reach the cage in which the book rests, the key will move through your body, as it is doing even now, and pierce your heart. You will die.”

  “We should turn around right now,” said Spyder. “We’ve got the Count with us. She’d never expect an ambush. We’ll kick her chair over, pull out her tubes and stand on her fucking throat until she takes that thing out of you.”

  “I can’t do that. Loyalty is all people in my profession have.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but Mr. Spyder has a point. Whatever you decide, this I’m telling you as a friend and a Gytrash: Madame Cinders does not always honor her bargains gracefully. When this is over, you must be wary.”

  “Swell,” said Spyder. “If we fail we’re screwed and if we succeed we’re fucked.”

  “Thank you for telling me. You’re a true friend,” said Shrike. She reached out and squeezed the little man’s hand.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “We have to go forward. Without the book, we have nothing to bargain with. With it, we have a chance.”

  “We can cut and run,” said Spyder. “Disappear into that city ahead. Or trade for a ship and go somewhere.”

  “There are too many people looking for us,” said Shrike. “There’s no ship that can sail us away from this mess. And I need to get this key out of my body. The only way to do that is to get to Hell and succeed.”

  “I’m going with you,” said Spyder.

  “You can’t. One glimpse of the underworld and you’ll be trapped there forever.”

  “I’m not going to sit by the door reading the funnies, wondering what time you’re getting home from work.”

  “This is just stupid and dangerous. Why are you doing this?”

  Spyder kissed Shrike’s cheek. “Didn’t you get the memo? Heroes are coming smaller this year.”

  They went and sat back down at the fire with Count Non and Lulu. The Count had his long legs propped against the far wall of the cave. Spyder watched as a tarantula worked its way down from the ceiling, stepped onto Count’s boot and crept up his leg. When it reached his hip, Non grabbed the tarantula and tossed it into the fire, where it writhed and sizzled. Spyder looked at the man.

  “When you cut out the poison sac, tarantula tastes a lot like crab,” the Count said.

  “There must be some seriously fucked up Boy Scouts where you come from,” said Spyder.

  Lulu was making shadow animals on the wall. She wiggled her fingers to create a giant spider.

  “The Count and me were having a chat, and we agree on the whole Elvis thing. ‘Suspicious Minds’ is a fine song, but Tom-fucking-Jones could’ve sung it as well. Probably did, too. I don’t have any Tom Jones CDs.”

  “I have a bootleg of Elvis doing ‘Suspicious Minds’ live that I’ll play for you when we get back,” said Spyder. “You’ll see it’s worth suffering any number of white-leather Vegas jumpsuits. For a song like that, you’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  BERENICE

  “It’s Berenice,” said Shrike. “We’re lucky we followed the river.”

  “Now we know what town it is,” said Spyder. “We could have just walked here through some sewer pipe and skipped the whole Hindenburg drama.”

  “No. Berenice isn’t like other cities. It isn’t really here. Only the memory of the city.”

  “A city like the Coma Gardens?”

  “Berenice is where memories live when we’re done with them. It’s where they’re born and it’s where they eventually die.”

  “What good does it do us? We can’t ride the memory of horses to the mountains.”

  “There are humans in Berenice,” said Count Non. “Someone has to be there to bear witness. Otherwise, the memories fade away. To make money, the human inhabitants trade with travelers.”

  “Trade what?” asked Lulu.

  “Lost keys, lost pets, lost dreams, lost hope,” said Shrike. “I passed through there once before. It can be dangerous. Psychically. You don’t want to turn a corner and run into your own lost virginity.”

  “Speak for yourself. I’d do me at fourteen,” said Lulu. “Let’s follow the goddam yellow brick road.”

/>   “No road, Lulu. Just the river,” said Spyder.

  “Shit.”

  “We’ll swim,” said Shrike. “We just have to get past the city walls. Inside, there are walkways along all the canals.”

  “You cool with swimming, Lulu?” Spyder asked.

  “Excuse me, son. You were the civilian. I was a lifeguard at YMCA summer camp, remember?”

  “Yeah, but that was a while back before your troubles.”

  “You think my empty eyes and guts are going to fill up with water and drown me? That ain’t going to happen. But thanks a fuckload for bringing it up.”

  “I’m just worried is all.”

  “Don’t be,” Lulu said, and waded into the river. When she was knee deep, she turned back. “There aren’t any sharks or things with stingers out here, are there?”

  “Nothing that can hurt you,” said Shrike.

  “Count, you get on one side and I’ll get on the other. We’ll put Shrike and Primo between us. Make sure no one wanders off course,” said Spyder.

  The Count smiled. “A fine idea.”

  “Primo, are you all right swimming with one arm?” asked Shrike.

  “I’ll be a little slow, I think,” he said.

  “Slow’s fine. No one’s in a rush to find their lost socks,” said Spyder.

  Shrike took Spyder’s arm as they waded into the river. When she swam, she did so with ease and confidence. Spyder realized quickly that she didn’t need much looking after. He kept an eye on Primo, who was doing a kind of modified dog paddle with his one good arm. The swimmer Spyder kept wondering about was the Count. How he managed to stay afloat while still wearing his chainmail amazed Spyder. Lulu was ahead of them, a strong, steady swimmer. She’d tied her jacket around her waist and on certain strokes, her Hello Kitty shirt slid up her body, letting the morning sun glint off the glass and metal she’d inserted into her wounded flesh.

  Something brushed along Spyder’s legs. Fingers touched his chest, tugged at his arms as they entered the water on each stroke. “What the fuck is happening?”

  “They can’t hurt you,” Shrike said. “They’re just memories. Drowned sailors, corsairs, anyone who died in water.”

  Spyder suddenly wanted very much to be out of the river and done with Berenice. The towering city walls, through which they soon passed, also seemed to be made of water. Not ice, but liquid water, pulled upward and carved into imposing barriers. If all that water ever came down, Spyder thought, it would wash the city away.

  Lulu was already out of the water when the rest made it to the walkway. She helped Spyder out and he grabbed Shrike. The Count leaned down and practically lifted Primo from the water. The little man bowed in thanks.

  “Where to?” Spyder asked.

  “Uptown Saturday Night,” said Shrike.

  “You know some weird shit, girl.”

  “That’s an old movie, right? It just popped into my head. That happens here.”

  As they walked along the marble concourse beside the canal, Spyder asked, “Earlier, why did you say that we’re lucky we followed the river?”

  “There are four entrances to Berenice. Water, air, fire and earth. Fire is the memory of violence and war. Air is the perpetual hurricane of anger and lost souls. Earth is a freezing mountain of despair and fear.”

  “The memories of the drowned are like the welcoming arms of your family compared to what lives in those other places,” said Count Non.

  “Wonder what would’ve happened if I’d tossed in a handful of Alka-Seltzer back there?” asked Lulu. “Would it piss those dead guys off or make ’em feel better?”

  THIRTY

  A UNIVERSAL JOKE

  Their clothes dried quickly in the bright sun, and by the time they reached one of the great boulevards that divided Berenice into its local parishes, no one would have guessed that they’d had to swim into the city.

  From the interior, Berenice was much more impressive than it had seemed on the approach. At each corner of the boulevard was a whitewashed ziggurat topped with a gilt sun, angled to catch the light at different times of the day. Crystal globes hung from polished streetlamps. Spyder counted a dozen large bronze statues to different gods on the one street. Who knew how many there were on the others? Handsome residents came and went from temples and tailor shops, butchers and herbalists, paying no attention to the travelers. The street on which they stood was paved with pale pink flagstones, but green, yellow and sky-blue streets intersected it.

  “Okay, we’re here, somewhere. What do we do now?” asked Lulu.

  “Let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation,” Count Non said.

  Spyder looked hard at the Count.

  “St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians,” he said.

  “Yeah, I was just about to say that.”

  “We need to find stables or a market,” said Shrike. “Some place big, with professional traders. And remember, you can’t tell the wandering memories of people from real humans simply by looking at them.”

  “Then how do we know who we’re talking to?” asked Spyder. “How do we trade for anything?”

  “It’s a question of attitude,” Shrike said. “If you’re talking to the memory of a trader, his responses will be mechanical and rote. A memory isn’t active. It can’t really do or say anything new or original. A human trader will be more eager and unpredictable.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “I’m going to go alone,” said Shrike. “A poor blind girl can sometimes count on a pity discount.”

  “You’ll be able to find your way back here?” asked Spyder. “Maybe you should take Primo as backup.”

  “I’ll be happy to accompany you, Butcher Bird. And a one-armed man with a blind woman might evoke even more pity from an anxious trader.”

  “All right,” said Shrike. “We’ll meet back here in two hours. Can I trust you three to find your way back?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll look after Lulu and the little brother,” said the Count.

  Spyder felt a pang of awkwardness as he and Shrike went off in different directions. He felt, somehow, that he should give her a goodbye kiss or something, but simultaneously wondered if he was supposed to acknowledge anything between them at all. In the end, they both went their own way.

  They walked three abreast through the strange town, Spyder near the street and Lulu near the buildings. Count Non walked between them. “The first time I ever went to Tijuana on my own, I got lost,” said Spyder. “Ended up in this shantytown somewhere up in the hills. This place went on and on. Plus, it was one of those days where you don’t wake up hungover, you wake up still drunk. So, I’m wandering around, trying to figure out a way back to town, and this kid, a student, starts chatting me up. He wants to practice his English. Only whenever I ask him how to get back downtown, he suddenly can’t understand me. I tell him to fuck off and keep walking. But these Tijuana shantytowns are like a goddam anthill. Houses made of broken cinder blocks, cardboard and big cans of vegetable oil pounded flat.

  “Fast forward a few hours and I’m somewhere, but nowhere I’ve ever seen before. And now the sun is going down. Out of nowhere comes the kid who wanted English lessons. At first I think that I’ve just walked in a big circle. Then, I realize that the little fucker’s probably been shadowing me all day. My eyes are red and my head’s full of broken glass and dust bunnies. I was wearing a brand new shiny pair of two-hundred-dollar New Rock boots. I had to trade ’em to the kid to get out of there, and walked back to my hotel barefoot.”

  Spyder couldn’t quite figure out a pattern to the city. A street would be laid out like an ordinary one in any town, but then a building would be gone and in its place would be a pile of junk. Lost things, Spyder guessed. Not objects, but the memory of them. There were mounds of keys, piles of every kind of money, great meals laid out on endless banquet tables, the wan clowns and listless trapeze acts fr
om forgotten circuses, lost limbs (fingers still trying to grasp some long lost something, feet flexing with somewhere to go). There were packs of dogs, flocks of birds, colonies of house cats and stacks of dirty aquariums holding every kind of fish imaginable, lost pets all.

  They stopped to look at the trinkets laid out on tables in a small street market on a yellow boulevard that intersected theirs. A trader with leathery skin and blue, chapped lips clasped his hands and greeted them eagerly. He stared at Lulu. “I see you’ve been doing some renovations, my dear.” He took a bite of a juicy, green-skinned fruit. “What will you take for her?”

  Spyder didn’t bother looking up at the man, but kept studying the charms on the table. “She’s not for sale.”

  The merchant leaned in close, speaking in intimate tones. “You think I won’t keep her well because she lacks eyes. Don’t worry. Those are not the organs that interest me.”

  Spyder tucked his hands in the waist of his jeans, pushing back his jacket to make sure the man saw Apollyon’s knife. “I missed that. Say it again,” Spyder told the man.

  The merchant’s gaze flickered from the knife to Spyder’s eyes. “You misunderstood me, friend. There is no business here,” said the merchant, licking his thin lips. “Thank you. Have a good day.” He walked quickly away.

  Spyder turned to Count Non, who loomed close behind him. “I was doing all right, you know. I don’t need you doing Hulk Hogan over my shoulder.”

  “Perhaps neither of us frightened him,” said the Count. “Perhaps for once he heard his own words and was appalled.”

  Lulu said nothing, but swept her arm across the merchant’s table, knocking his wares to the pavement.

  “Yeah, he seemed like the real reflective type,” said Spyder.

  “‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.’” The Count laughed. “I like you, little brother. You disguise your nobler qualities to play the fool.”

  “Uh, thanks.”

  “Would you take some advice from someone with a bit more experience of the world?”