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Shadow (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #4): Bridge & Sword World

Page 19

by JC Andrijeski


  “Your mother the Rook,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah,” he said, his face hard. “My mother the Rook.”

  Chan gauged his expression, gripping the back of the chair.

  “So? What is it, then?” she said. “What are you now, Maygar?”

  He shrugged. “I’m nothing, Chan. I’ve been living in New York. Passing.”

  “And in your spare time? You are looking for deadly viruses that kill humans?”

  “No, look… that came to me.”

  “Came to you how?”

  “It's complicated.”

  “Complicated… how?” Chandre said.

  “I heard about what happened in Hong Kong,” Maygar said. “I didn't think anything of it at first, but then I ran into a different group of seers in New York. Underground types––you know. Work for hires, doing some of the less legal jobs for high pay.”

  Chandre gave him a wry smile. "I thought most of those were ex-Rooks too, Maygar."

  He gave her a surly look, clicking in irritation.

  “The point is, we all got drunk together… and they let slip about their last job. They claimed they knew the location of the lab where that virus was stored. They said someone tried to pay them to break in and steal it. They also claimed it was the same virus used on that crowd in Hong Kong. They called the Hong Kong thing a ‘demonstration,’ said their client hinted the disease would be deployed for real in the coming months.”

  Chandre stiffened. “Where?”

  “I don't know that, Chan.” Maygar frowned at her. “Jesus, I don’t know everything.”

  “Did they tell you anything about this deployment? Anything at all?”

  Maygar sighed. “I asked them where, and who was doing it, but they claimed they didn't know who the real client was. As for where, they said it might even be somewhere in the United States.” Maygar frowned, shrugging with one hand. “They were joking about it. Saying I should ship out before things got ugly. They seemed to think no matter how many it killed, once it was really deployed there’d be total chaos––”

  “And who actually hired them to steal this thing? This virus?”

  He shook his head, his almond-shaped eyes slanting sideways.

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “But you suspect?” she said, reading his light, as well as his face.

  He conceded with a tilt of the same bound hand. “One of them let slip a name that I recognized.”

  “Which is what?”

  Maygar sighed again, clicking in irritation. “I doubt you’d know her, Chan. There was this old seer my mom used to work with––or really for, I guess. I saw her at the White House a few times while I was there, and my mother told me that was her ‘real’ boss. She thought of Terian as mostly a flunky. She said they both really worked for the old woman, whether Terian admitted it to himself or not. She seemed to think Galaith answered to her, too.”

  “Old woman?” Chandre said, straightening in her chair.

  “Yeah. Like really old. She was this dried up old fossil. Scary, really. Face like a reptile. All of the humans were terrified of her.”

  “What was her name, Maygar?” she said, impatient.

  “She was going by some human name, impersonating the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. They’d eliminated the real one, of course, to put her there.”

  He hesitated, and she knew he was recalling it from the relevant portion of his light.

  “…Novak,” he affirmed. “Yeah. That was it.”

  “Is that the name these freelancers told you of?”

  "No," Maygar said, shaking his head. “They only knew her by her seer name."

  “Which is what, Maygar?” she said. “The seer name?”

  “The only name I ever heard my mother use was Xarethe. That was the name those black marketers mentioned. They said a seer named Xarethe hired them.”

  There was a silence.

  In it, Chandre looked at him, feeling her fingers curl around the wood of the plain-backed kitchen chair.

  “Do you know where she is now?” Chandre said.

  “Lizard lady?” he said. “No. Thank Christ.”

  “What about your mother?”

  He hesitated, his eyes growing more evasive.

  Chandre smiled. “I will not hurt your mother, Maygar. I only wondered if I could speak with her. If she would talk to me.”

  “She’s in China, I think,” he said finally. “Last I knew. She and that Lao Hu dragon lady are friends. You know… Voi Pai. She said they had some work for her.”

  “Would she speak to me, do you think? If you asked her?”

  He met her gaze, shrugging. “Honestly? I doubt it.”

  Chandre nodded. Still watching his face intently, she took another drink of coffee, mulling over his words. Finally, curiosity leaked into her voice, almost without her willing it.

  “Why me, Maygar? Why did you bring this to me?”

  He gave her a surprised look.

  “We were friends,” he said. “I thought we were, anyway. I thought you might be the only one of that bunch who wouldn’t shoot me on sight. And I figured the Bridge had to be interested in this.” He shrugged, his eyes growing cold. “…Or her Rook husband, if not her. I wasn’t sure which of them you were working for, honestly. I had some hope you were infiltrating him, working for her.”

  Hesitating, he glanced at her, his dark eyes holding more of a predatory edge.

  “Are you, Chan?”

  She only laughed, rolling her eyes at him, seer-fashion.

  “Well,” he said, frowning. “Is it true, then? Can you tell me that, at least?”

  Her mouth tightened.

  “Is what true?” she said, although she knew what he meant.

  “What they say? About what she did to him?”

  Chan shrugged, her voice indifferent. “I have heard many things that she is supposed to have done with him. They cannot all be true.”

  “Did she really infiltrate his operation? Take it down from the inside?”

  Chandre felt herself hesitate. Finally, she gestured a yes in seer sign language.

  “That part appears to be true, yes.”

  “I don’t suppose the rumors that she killed him are true?”

  She rolled her eyes impatiently. “You and I both know how unlikely that is. If it were true, we’d be hearing about her death by now.”

  “Does she have him locked up somewhere?”

  Chan shrugged with the same hand. “Honestly? I do not know. That seems to be the prevailing theory. And the most likely of all the fictions I have heard.”

  “What do you suppose she’s doing with him?” he said.

  “Doing with him?” Chan smiled faintly, leaning her arm on the back of the chair as she raised the mug back to her lips. “I would not get my hopes up, brother Maygar. I have my doubts she is putting hot coals on his feet.”

  “But things must have fallen out with them,” he insisted. “They must have, right? She wouldn’t have done this, otherwise. Not if they were still married. Not if they were still bonded to one another. She wouldn’t have tranked him like a rabid animal––not from his own bed.”

  “Bonds are non-negotiable, Maygar,” she said, her voice warning. “It will never just ‘go away,’ no matter how much you might wish for it to be so.”

  “I have heard they can be broken,” he muttered.

  “Have you?” She smiled at him faintly. “From who? Another of your old lady Rook scientists? This is news to me, Maygar. I know of no such ‘loophole’ clause in life-bond mates.”

  But Maygar smiled, shaking his head a little.

  “I never said she was a scientist, Chan.” Smiling wider at the irritated look that came to her face, he laughed. “You are interested in her. You are so interested, it is taking all of your willpower to pretend that you are not.”

  “What is in New York?” she said.

  “Untie me, and I’ll show you.”

  Exasperated, Chandre clic
ked at him for a moment. Then, realizing she had already made up her mind to go with him, she rose to her feet, setting the empty coffee mug on a cork coaster with an image of the Capitol Building stamped on the front. Walking over to him, she fished the keys to the cuffs out of her pocket.

  “Remember how quickly I took you down,” she said.

  “I remember,” he muttered, glancing up at her.

  “Remember that I can do it again.”

  Standing by him, however, she could feel in his light that he had relaxed. She doubted he had developed such a skill at infiltration in the past year that he could feign compliance so thoroughly as to fool her, not when she was standing so close to him. Still, she gave his face a last warning look before she averted her gaze.

  “You have a car?” she said.

  “Yes. It’s out front.”

  Chandre nodded. As she squatted down to begin unlocking the first cuff on his wrist, his eyes craned past her, gazing wistfully towards the kitchen.

  “I don’t suppose you have any more of that toast?” he said.

  She snorted a low laugh, reaching for the cuff around his second wrist after she had unlocked the first.

  “We will make you toast,” she said. “You can eat it while you drive. Or we will go to one of those horrible places with the food in boxes. The places the humans like.”

  Maygar shook his head, clicking, but she heard the humor in it.

  When she glanced up, he was looking at her, his brown eyes clear as he rubbed his unchained wrists.

  It struck her again that some of the piss seemed to have been knocked out of him in the past year since she’d last seen him. Maybe it was a byproduct of being ostracized from the Seven and most of Seertown for what he’d done to Allie. Maybe Allie herself had wrought this change in him, by nearly killing him with her telekinesis.

  Either way, the arrogant, halfway-smirking look she normally associated with his broad, Chinese-looking features had changed.

  His face hadn’t quite softened, but perhaps it had lost some of its youth.

  “You all right, Rook?” she said teasingly, slapping his back. “You look like you might cry.”

  For a second, he didn’t answer. When he did, it was with the last words she would have expected from him.

  “Thanks, Chan.” He looked at her again, his dark eyes serious. “You are a good sister to me. Even when I have not deserved it.”

  She glanced up, hiding her surprise with an effort.

  Then she grunted, squatting back down by the chains at his ankles.

  “I will tie you up any time you like, brother Maygar,” she said, pulling out the second key on the ring. “Just don’t expect me to play with you once I have.”

  He laughed at this, the most genuine laugh she’d heard from him since he’d arrived. He was still rubbing his wrist as she unlocked the first of two organic cuffs from around his ankle, cracking it open with a soft pop.

  “I think you can be assured I will never make that mistake with you, sister Chandre.”

  “That is good, Maygar, good,” she said. “Perhaps then, you are learning after all.”

  20

  NEW YORK

  IT TOOK THEM a few hours to get to New York.

  Maygar seemed to know where he was going, she noticed; he drove his near-antique of a car without programming the GPS, and without seeming to be thinking overly about the details of his navigation.

  He barely seemed to be concentrating on the road at all as he steered them towards the New Jersey Turnpike. Instead, his attention still appeared to be mainly focused on her––and on the sandwich he ate with a disturbing amount of enthusiasm after they stopped at one of the human restaurants along the way to the highway.

  She watched in some distaste as he swallowed mouthfuls without chewing, and not only because he kept spilling bits of the sauce on the front of his dark blue T-shirt. She’d often wondered how it was that some seers developed such a taste for human food, particularly of the most poisoned variety.

  When they entered Manhattan through the Holland Tunnel and popped out on Canal Street, she frowned, staring out the windows.

  She had forgotten about this place, what it was like.

  “What?” he said, nudging her arm. “Don’t you like the Big Apple, Chan?”

  “It is not a seer-friendly town, my brother.”

  “Sure it is,” he said, grinning. He pointed at a marquee as they passed.

  “Oh, I am terribly sorry,” she said curtly, clicking at him and rolling her eyes. “I had forgotten how much they would love me if I agreed to put them in a box and whip them for a few hours, calling them a naughty, dirty boy.”

  He laughed, leaning back in the beat-up leather seat of the sedan.

  Chandre noticed he’d relaxed, and seemed oddly at home in the honking and aggressive traffic of the lower part of Manhattan. Baffled at his comfort within the light and energy here, she turned back to the window, watching humans milling on the street, seemingly an endless parade of them in all of their varieties, mixed in with virtual projections from the ubiquitous ads that followed pedestrians like liquid shadows. Those same ads followed humans sometimes for blocks past their points of origin, yammering at them and bringing yet another component of frenetic energy to the city streets.

  As for Chandre’s own level of “comfort” here, she was just glad she’d brought her ownership papers and a gun.

  She found herself reluctant to use her sight, at least conspicuously. Too many other seers might be occupying the nearby Barrier space, many of them working for humans.

  Unfortunately, that meant the only people of her kind she could identify easily stood and walked on the street like overgrown dogs, wearing collars. Many appeared to be leashed, as well––literally leashed––with their human masters grinning and holding leads as if they’d stumbled upon the winning ticket in some grand, genetic lottery.

  She had heard about this on the feeds––apparently, it was a new fashion trend among the rich and ethically retarded.

  Watching one of these rich idiots yanking on the throat of a young sister who looked only a few years older than the Bridge, Chandre found herself thinking maybe she should have brought two guns. Or at least a few more magazines.

  They passed more fetish shops, and a clothing store for human “sponsors” to buy apparel for their owned seers. Chandre found herself gripping the padded dashboard with one hand as she peered through the windows of the latter, waiting for the light to change, half-hoping it would before she could see much inside the fogged windows.

  Even so, she managed to glimpse more of those leads in different colors, as well as what could only politely be termed costumes. The outfits ranged from elaborate period clothing to pink taffeta, studded leather and VR-panel minidresses with nothing but suspenders on top.

  By the time the light changed, Chandre was biting her tongue hard enough to taste blood.

  “Explain to me again why you live here, Maygar?”

  Glancing in the rearview mirror at the same store, he frowned.

  “Come on, Chan,” he said. “That shit is everywhere. It’s just more blatant here.”

  “Which means more humans think it is okay,” she growled.

  He conceded her words with a vague gesture. “Maybe.”

  “There is no maybe, Maygar. Look at these worms.” Her eyes followed a human female wearing an expensive suit and yanking on a neon-pink lead attached to a young male seer, one of the few Chandre had seen. “They have no regard at all for what they do,” Chandre said angrily. “Our brothers and sisters are nothing more than shiny toys to them.”

  Maygar grunted back, but didn’t argue.

  Watching another female seer being led into an Italian restaurant by a twenty-something human wearing designer clothes and holding a metallic blue lead, Chandre felt her frown deepen.

  She turned, aiming a scowl at Maygar before her eyes drifted back to the window.

  “Do you ever kill them at night, Mayga
r?” she said. “Walking the streets? Or are you too busy ‘passing’ at local nightclubs, chasing human tail and trying to find ways to fuck it before they notice your cock isn’t quite what they envisioned on the dance floor?”

  He gave her a thin-lipped smile. “Only sometimes, sister Chandre.”

  “Which part?” she snorted.

  “Both.”

  She smiled humorlessly, clicking at him.

  Leaning back in her seat, she folded her arms, grunting, “I would love to bring the Sword here. Even for one day. I would buy popcorn and simply watch from a safe distance.”

  He gave her a look at that, his light exuding an open annoyance.

  “What?” she said. “Tell me you would not do the same. Then tell me again how he is always wrong. That there is never any cause for the hard path.”

  Maygar didn’t answer that, either.

  Chandre was still scanning faces and storefronts when he pulled the little green sedan into a side street just a few blocks east off Bowery, north of Canal.

  The amount of graffiti seemed to double within a block.

  She saw a few large paintings from the Myth archives bordered by seer script, but most of the graffiti appeared to be in English, and human. She supposed there weren’t enough local seers with outing and free assembly privileges for there to be much of a street-crime problem in the seer community here––if it could even be called that. Infiltrators and SCARB agents didn’t generally tag, and house pets usually had other duties after dark.

  Thinking about this, Chandre felt her mood sour even further.

  That time, she kept her thoughts to herself, however.

  They passed a community garden bordered by a junk area, and a school that looked like it hadn’t been repainted in about two decades. Chandre studied the buildings as they passed, most of them residences, until Maygar slowed the car, parking in front of a dilapidated apartment building that seemed to consist mainly of exhaust and pollution-darkened brick.

  Scanning the area briefly with her eyes and her light, Chan noticed at once that the building stood directly across from what appeared to be a motorcycle shop filled with overweight and angry-looking human bikers.

  “Charming neighborhood, brother,” she said. “Is there a reason you’ve decided to live in a human armpit?”

 

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