All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault

by James Alan Gardner

  I took off without waiting for more discussion. Also without mentioning a glitch in our plans … because by then, I’d already tried sending my Spark-o-Vision into the main market building. It didn’t work: yet another blinder wall. I had no idea if the Inventor’s comm ring could broadcast once I was inside the wall.

  Oh well. I was Zircon, fully costumed and ready for the lions’ den.

  I flapped across the parking lot at top speed. I didn’t slow down as I shrank to the size of a bedbug and barreled through a crack in the wood-plank wall.

  NOSTALGIA. HARD.

  Three years had passed since I’d attended a Darkling gathering. I’d forgotten what they were like.

  First, the candlelight. Darklings universally preferred candles to electric bulbs. Even the youngest, raised since birth under artificial lights, had a racial fondness for the days when humans feared the night and huddled around candles after sundown. Besides, electric lights didn’t fare well when surrounded by the reality-warping power of a large group of Darklings; the bulbs flickered, fizzed, and occasionally exploded, showering glass in all directions. As a result, Dark assemblies always smelled of beeswax and flame: tealights, tapers, and fat hexagonal candles that could burn for days.

  Next, the background music, in this case provided by a twelve-person chamber group of strings and woodwinds. (Live music worked better than recordings for the same reason that candles worked better than lightbulbs. By the end of an evening surrounded by dozens of Darklings, an electrical sound system would make nothing but static.) As I entered, the musicians were playing something I didn’t recognize. That wasn’t surprising. When I was young, I took the obligatory violin lessons, but I never got deeply into the classical music repertoire. Even if I had been a bit more knowledgeable, Darklings shied away from “populist” works like The Four Seasons and Messiah. Well-known = vulgar. Whatever the orchestra was playing, it was pretty but not catchy—something Mozart or Haydn might have whipped off for a minor noble’s birthday.

  Finally, there was the food. A banquet table was laid with white linen, while waiters circulated carrying trays of caviar, sashimi, and pâté. No goblets of blood, no plates of maggots (although the polished silver trays would rapidly tarnish and have to be replaced every few hours). Rumors abounded of Darkling debauches where they ate human flesh and drank from naked victims, but if that ever happened at all, this wasn’t the place. Too many non-Darkling witnesses: the musicians, the serving staff, the shoppers’ chauffeurs, and many more.

  Besides, you have to remember that Darklings were rich before they were Dark. For them, a proper party involved gowns and tuxedos, not intestines and knives. Think charity balls. Opera galas. The Great Gatsby, not Saw.

  The Goblin Market was cocktail-party chic, despite being held in a not-quite-windproof building that usually sold fresh-killed chickens and pickled beets. People perused the merchandise while holding champagne flutes, or they sat at elegant tables with centerpiece candelabra.

  ITEMS FOR SALE WERE SPREAD ALONG THE BUILDING’S CENTRAL AISLE

  Two other aisles were dark and unused. The Goblin Market placed quality ahead of quantity, and there simply weren’t enough wares to fill the building.

  Merchandise was impeccably displayed: a diverse collection of consumables, clothes, curios, and contraptions. I learned later that the majority of goods had been placed on consignment, crafted by artisans who had no direct affiliation with the Goblin Market but who availed themselves of the chance to show off their creations.

  Just as olden-day families had once assigned their offspring to different seats of power—the eldest sent to the army, the next to the church, the third into government, and so on—modern Darklings often slotted their children into careers that gave the family a wide spectrum of expertise and influence. An MBA. A lawyer. A “numbers wonk.” And (if the parents weren’t yet bored of paying surrogates to bear their kids) a wizard to handle chores the others didn’t have time for, including the production of useful magic items.

  James Bond had Q; Darkling clans sired their own magic hackers to supply the rest of the family with cool toys.

  Mostly, the toys were kept secret. You didn’t want rivals to know that everyone in your family carried an amulet to detect lies or shoot bolts of fire. But secrets don’t last forever, and once word got out, ingenious bling could win bragging rights, not to mention earning a pretty penny.

  Hence, the Goblin Market had stall after stall selling privately made goods. Each item was a one-off, hand made by a very rich person who cared more about street cred than money. The goal was to make other Darklings stop in surprise and say, “How did they do that?”—such as a magnifying glass that translated languages (look through the glass, and printed matter turned into English) or a CD of silence (i.e., when you played the CD, it canceled nearby sounds, creating a bubble where no noise was possible).

  I could have spent all night looking at goodies. (I’m a sucker for shiny things.) But I forced myself to shift my attention to the people, and there, I saw more shininess: Darklings dressed in finery, even if they were lizards or half-rotted corpses.

  As many as sixty Darklings were visible—a huge gathering, considering how rare they are in the general population. Each had brought support staff, if only to lug purchases back to the car, but there were also bodyguards and shopping “consultants,” easily recognized because they were dressed in business-wear rather than competing for style with their betters. Dark suits, drab haircuts, and sensible shoes.

  I scanned the crowd but saw no one I recognized. No Lilith. No Nicholas. No one who might be the all-metal Popigai. But that was only the ground floor; the building had a second story. I headed upstairs.

  THE SECOND FLOOR HAD AN AUCTION IN PROGRESS

  It looked like an art auction at Christie’s or Sotheby’s. By which I mean it looked like such auctions do in movies. I’ve never seen Van Goghs or Rembrandts go up for bid, but I’ll bet the movies are close to the truth—these days, customers at real auctions must expect them to resemble the Hollywood versions, so Christie’s and Sotheby’s have to conform to expectations.

  The market’s auction area had six rows of straight-backed chairs upholstered in the same shade of purple as the brochure in Popigai’s office. Three dozen people sat in the chairs. Some were Darklings on their own, while others were Darkling-human pairs: probably a Darkling boss and a human “personal assistant” who’d deal with administrivia once an item was purchased.

  But the auction had one thing you’d never see at Sotheby’s. The auctioneer was a purple-skinned creature even shorter than me. (I mean me-Kim, not me-Zircon, who was currently the size of a fruitfly.) The auctioneer’s head looked exactly like the sketch on the business card. He had ears pointier than a Vulcan’s and a broad mouth with too many teeth. Bald head. Yellow eyes. He wore a robe that was tailored like an academic gown, the same shade of purple as his skin.

  A goblin. Or perhaps the Goblin. I’d seen no similar creatures elsewhere in the building. Perhaps this was the market’s sole proprietor.

  Was he a Darkling? Presumably. But unlike most, he didn’t project an aura of intimidation. He reminded me of the Count on Sesame Street: an endearing version of a scary original. His yellow eyes crinkled like Yoda’s. If he had a Shadow at all, it didn’t say, “Fear me,” it said, “Trust me.”

  What’s worse than a Darkling that terrifies you? A Darkling you want to cuddle. Now that’s frightening.

  THE GOBLIN STOOD ON A STOOL AT THE AUCTIONEER’S PODIUM

  As I arrived, the item up for sale was a stoppered test tube filled with cardinal-red fluid. The instant I saw it, I thought, Healing potion. A moment later, I saw a sign on the auctioneer’s podium confirming that I’d guessed right. Someone had made a video game–style healing potion that supposedly worked in real life. I assumed if you swigged it, your wounds would close and your bones unfracture. Amazing.

  Healing magic was rare among Darklings—too warm and fuzzy for their tastes. B
esides, they healed quickly enough without artificial aids. Even so, some Darkling had spent time and effort not just to create a potion that could cure injuries but one that looked the part.

  Why? Let me speculate. The purpose of a healing potion isn’t just to knit up your wounds; it’s to see the look on an enemy’s face when you chug back a bottle during battle. Suddenly, you’re as fresh as you started, and the other guy has to be saying, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  That’s what was really being auctioned: that look, that priceless moment. And bidding was fierce, in a repressed Sotheby’s way, where lifting a finger by a centimeter was equivalent to screaming, “It must be mine!”

  One person at the auction wasn’t bidding. A woman dressed in black sat in the back row, with a veil over her face and widow’s weeds fashioned like a bridal gown.

  THE WIDOW SAT STOCK-STILL, HEAD HIGH, BACK RIGID

  Her face was impossible to see under the veil, but her manner made it clear she disdained everything around her: the auction, the bidders, the entire Goblin Market. Everything here was beneath her dignity, as if she were an aged Victorian duchess who’d doddered into the twenty-first century and deplored what the world had become.

  I didn’t see the others who’d been in the black Lexus—neither the tough-guy driver nor the pustule-faced demon. The Widow sat on the end of a row and the chair beside her was occupied by a nondescript young woman: no one important. I checked out the other bidders, but the Widow was the only familiar face. So to speak.

  A voice spoke in my mind. «Dude, are you dead or what?»

  «I’m fine,» I said. «Just scouting.»

  «You were supposed to report what you were seeing.» That came from Aria, who’d apparently relented on the whole I-won’t-use-the-comm-ring bullheadedness.

  «I haven’t seen much,» I said. «Just an upscale market, with oodles of Darklings. But I’ve reached the second floor and the Widow is here.»

  «The one who was in on the first attack?» Dakini asked.

  «That’s her,» I said. «At least I think so. I can’t tell for sure with the veil covering her face, but the outfit is the same.»

  «This strikes me as odd,» Dakini said. «Is it not your belief that she’s related to the Bride you saw in the lab?»

  I ground my teeth, trying to stop myself from projecting angry thoughts. The only way Dakini could know what I believed was by prying into my mind. After a moment, I forced myself to sound calm as I said, «The Widow’s outfit is identical to the Bride’s, except for the black/white thing. I’m thinking twin sisters.»

  «So the woman’s twin sister just vanished through a rift, and the Widow decided to go shopping? Even for a Darkling, that seems disengaged.»

  «Let’s ask her what the fuck,» Ninety-Nine said. «Meet you at the door so we can face her together.»

  I said, «I’ll be there in a minute.» But I took one last look at the Widow. If she hated her surroundings so much, why had she come? Most likely, because she wanted something that was scheduled to come up for sale—wanted it so badly, she had swallowed her distaste at where she was. I stared harder, the way you do when you’re trying to understand somebody: as if you could read their mind if only you looked with enough intensity.

  As I stared, I became aware of a subtle influence nudging my consciousness. Not from the Widow. I looked at the woman beside her, but immediately my mind said, No one important, and flicked my attention away.

  Damn! Another Ignorance spell, subtler than the one Nicholas had used. I knew someone was sitting in the seat beside the Widow; I just couldn’t be bothered to pay attention.

  I forced myself to look. Perhaps because my Spark-o-Vision had a degree of resistance against unnatural influence, I managed to break through the spell.

  Sitting calmly beside the Widow was Elaine Vandermeer.

  IT WAS ONE OF THOSE FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT MOMENTS

  Would I fly out of the building and keep going forever? Or plunge into Elaine’s ear and rupture her skull from inside?

  I just froze in fear and shame. I wasn’t Elaine’s victim anymore—I wasn’t Kimmi. But my body didn’t realize I had moved on.

  I nearly threw up. Kimmi had been so breakable, compared to Kim and Zircon. But I had moved on, damn it! I had!

  ELAINE HAD BARELY CHANGED SINCE THE LAST TIME I’D SEEN HER

  (Since she’d bitten my arm and licked my blood.) Her glasses still looked as if they came from an optician’s poster, but the frames were smaller. They made her look less like a model pretending to be a scientist and more like a model pretending to be an executive. Her makeup was different too: paler than I remembered. This was a Darkling soiree, and at such events, vampires make a point of looking bloodlessly white. Otherwise, they’re too easy to mistake for mortals.

  So physically, Elaine looked much the same, but her effect on me had changed. When she’d bitten me, I had been human and under the thrall of her Shadow. She’d seemed so imposing and superior, the way queens must have overwhelmed peasants long ago. Now though, I was a Spark. Elaine’s Shadow barely touched me. I could sense it trying to weasel into my mind, but it couldn’t get inside.

  Elaine now struck me as very, very young. Like Nicholas, she’d undergone the Dark Conversion as soon as she turned eighteen. She hadn’t visibly aged a day since. In the unforgiving noon of Spark-o-Vision, she seemed like a teen whose hair, makeup, and glasses were way too old for her, like a kid all dressed up for her first job interview.

  Baby-faced sadist. I hated her. I hated her.

  «YO, ZIRCON,» NINETY-NINE SAID

  «Weren’t you meeting us at the door?»

  «Sorry. Distracted.» I dragged my attention from Elaine and flapped my coattails back toward the stairs. «Hey,» I said, trying to get my mind off the woman behind me, «how do you know I’m not down there? I might be too small to see.»

  «No,» Dakini said. «I can’t feel your presence.»

  «If I were there, you could feel my presence?»

  «You’re a heroine, sweet.» Dakini chuckled. «However small you may be physically, on a psychic level, you’re enormous.»

  «So psionic people can tell when I’m around?»

  Dakini hesitated. «I don’t know if my psionic powers are typical, but when you’re near, the air fills with the scent of vanilla, as strong as a fifteen-year-old wearing body spray. If I focus on the aroma, I can determine your exact location.»

  I scowled. That damned First Law of Dark and Light. My shrinking didn’t hide me as completely as I thought.

  So I was visible and vulnerable to mental powers: the most intrusive kind of magic. I couldn’t even use pseudoscience double-talk to justify a degree of immunity. Dakini had already proven psionics could affect me, so the window of opportunity had closed.

  Shit. With so many Darklings here at the market, some of them would have enough psychic power to turn me inside out: hurt me, dominate me, make me tell my passwords.

  Maybe even Elaine. Vampires are famous for their powers of mental domination.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I HURRIED TO THE MARKET’S MAIN ENTRANCE

  By the time I got there, my teammates were being greeted by a fiftyish man in a charcoal gray suit. He reminded me of Pavarotti: rotund, bearded, expansive. Really though, he was a bouncer. He had the charismatic charm to deflect most unwanted visitors, but the size to get physical if needed.

  As far as I could tell, the man had no supernatural powers. Why would he need them? The only people he might have to get rough with were ordinary mortals. Darklings were welcome one and all, and as for Sparks, you do not start a fight with super-folk when surrounded by millions of dollars of breakable merchandise.

  Bouncer-Pavarotti surely knew my teammates were Sparks. If the costumes and masks weren’t enough, their Halos must have sent the message loud and clear. Mr. Pseudo-Pavarotti deserved credit for not being reduced to awed silence. Then again, a greeter at the Goblin Market had to be guarded by mental shielding magic; he’d
be exposed to so many Shadows, he’d go mad without protection.

  “Good evening, ladies,” he said. (I wasn’t offended—he couldn’t see me. I was naught but a drifting dust mote.) “Welcome to the Goblin Market. May I see your invitation?”

  “Certainly.” Dakini handed him the business card from Popigai’s corkboard. The moment Pavarotti touched the card, it flared with purple light. “Excellent,” he said. “I assume you’re with one of the suppliers?”

  Aria looked as if she was about to say something overly honest. Dakini managed to speak first. “We’re here for Professor Popigai. Have you seen him?”

  “I’m unfamiliar with the professor,” Pavarotti replied. “However, I’ve seen his name on a merchandise display.” He gestured down the aisle in front of us. “Fourth stall on the left.”

  “Does the market carry many goods made by Sparks?”

  “Not as many as we’d like,” Pavarotti replied. “The Goblin is eager to purvey the best from both magisteria.” The man examined my teammates with a critical eye. “Would any of you have a flair for crafting items of interest?”

  He meant, “Are any of you Mad Geniuses?” A handful of Sparks who created super-gadgets weren’t utterly crazy—the Inventor, for example. Usually though, when superintelligence got jammed into a human brain, it was like parking an eighteen-wheeler in an ordinary-sized garage. The result wasn’t pretty.

  “I can make things,” Ninety-Nine said. She flashed green. “Actually,” she added, “I can make amazing things.” Her face turned thoughtful. “Wow. If I just…”

  “Stop,” Aria said. “Do not. Go. There.”

  Dakini stepped forward quickly and put her hand on the bouncer’s arm. “We’d be delighted to speak with the Goblin about business opportunities. Can a meeting be arranged?”

  “I’ll let him know you’re interested.” Pavarotti withdrew a phone from a pocket in his jacket. “If his duties permit, the Goblin will contact you soon. In the meantime, please enjoy what his market has to offer.”

  Pavarotti smiled as he gestured to the aisle in front of us. Inside my head, Aria muttered, «Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.»