by Jeff Somers
trees, the trees there are five hundred five hundred left look for the red trees
I let go. I was breathing hard and bathed in sweat. Five fucking hundred people left.
I thought, concentrating, should I kill the monkey
I clutched the Udug.
you or the monkey one of you will kill the other Artifact most powerful Artifact in history buried in desert coordinates
I let go. I looked at the monkey. I would have sworn it knew what I was thinking.
I took a deep breath. I cleared my mind. How the fuck do I use the kurre-nikas?
I clutched the Udug.
she is her thread is she is gone truly gone it must be personal must be personal remember every detail must be remember remember choose wisely what could be different to change everything what could be different sit and concentrate sit and listen listen here are the Words
Holding the Udug tightly, I sat in the old dentist’s chair. And listened.
61. I WAS OUT OF BREATH by the third floor, head spinning and heart thudding weakly in my chest. For a moment I clung to the banister, gasping as everything receded and I almost lost my footing. Then Mags had me, the seams of my jacket groaning as he took hold of it and set me on my feet, steadying me with his other hand on my chest, almost squeezing me to death.
“I got you, Lem,” he said. “Take a moment.”
I took a moment.
I stood there taking in great gasps of air, waiting for the dots to clear out of my vision. The old familiar pain in my throat returned, a strange burning on my neck as if someone had tied a rope around it and given it a good tug, and a sharp pain that caught at my lungs as I breathed. It didn’t always happen, but it happened often enough to make me worry. Too bad idimustari didn’t have group health care.
I raised my right hand and flexed it, fighting through another bout of the strange numbness I’d been experiencing. It came and went. Sometimes I was totally normal, and then all of a sudden I’d get weak and numb and my hand would feel like it belonged to someone else. I was fucking falling apart.
On top of that, I was bled white. Our luck kept getting worse and worse, and we were five minutes from living on the street. We’d started the day with seventeen dollars and a bit more gas in our veins, and through a spectacular series of complete bullshit decisions, I’d managed to back us into a final play that had almost zero chance of working out. And if I bled for three more spells, I was going to pass out.
The building smelled like tobacco and cabbage. I wasn’t sure how I managed to identify those two smells, but it was absolutely accurate.
I lowered myself into a sitting position on the stairs by inches, shaky. Mags dropped down like a bomb next to me, making me jump an inch. He blew an explosive sigh through his lips and began twiddling his thumbs.
“Don’t worry, Lem,” he said cheerfully. “Things’re gonna be great now. This is gonna be a Win.”
I wanted to tell him to shut up. I wanted to tell him that he was getting dumber, somehow, as impossible as that was. I wanted to tell him that he’d made a huge mistake following me out of Hiram’s apartment all those years ago. It had been slow, and easy to ignore, but looking back it was obvious: Mags had been near the bottom of the world when we’d met. And all I’d managed to do was drag him down closer to it.
“Right, Lem?” he said, nudging me hard enough to bruise.
“Right!” I said, a little too loud. My heart felt thready, thin and too fast.
“Treasure,” he said. “That’s what it is. Gold and shit.”
I stared down at my bandaged hands. Two fingers without bandages. I’d gotten tired of cutting my forearms, scarring the same skin over and over again, some of the scars hard and raised, making me feel like a mutant.
Footsteps above us, and I felt Mags stiffen in terror, going silent. We just sat and waited, and eventually, the Oldest Man in the World appeared, huffing his way down the hall from the opposite end; the landings just opened out into the hallways, and you had to walk past a bunch of apartment doors to get from one flight to the next. The green carpet was ancient, sending up little clouds of dust as the old man walked. He was wearing what appeared to be a smoking jacket, black socks, and sock garters with no pants.
He stepped nimbly past us down the stairs. We kept our heads down. I didn’t have it in me to cast a Charm. I’d fall asleep on the stairs.
A few seconds after the old man had disappeared around the next landing, Mags snorted. “Nielsson, that cocksucker. Did you know he used to be a pilot?”
I was in no mood to joke about the old man, who had sat there laughing with his green teeth and bottomless liver while we piled on the gassed-up dollar bills and made him stupid. It had taken forever, and I was about to vomit and pass out because of it.
“Now he’s all alone,” Mags said, getting dreamy and sad. “That’s why he’s always at Rue’s, you know? Because he’s got nowhere else to be. I remember when I was living with Hiram and it was scary and he yelled at me all the time but I was happy because I had somewhere to be, you know?”
He settled himself more firmly. Patient. Happy to wait. He began humming to himself.
I turned my head. Here was Pitr Mags, the perfect organism. You could feed him garbage and he would grow strong. You could treat him terribly and he would love you. You could frighten him to death and he would wade into fire to defend you. You could drag him onto the streets and make him live in poverty and he would refer to you as home. Pitr Mags, the perfect organism.
I reached up and tousled his hair, then patted him on the neck. For a strange moment I imagined I could feel his nervous system, his heart beating, his lungs filling and deflating. I took a deep breath and felt almost human again.
“All right,” I said, hauling myself up. “Hurry up now. It’s time.”
The door looked like a normal, everyday kind of door. I stared at it with a stone roughly the size and shape of a bowling ball in my stomach. The handle seemed to pulse with evil energy. I had this feeling that if I grasped it, I would be shocked or stabbed or burned.
Mags was almost dancing, he was so excited. “This it?” he asked. “Huh, Lem? Is this the right door?”
In Mags’s head, we were already sitting down to a steak dinner and renting a suite at some Times Square hotel. We were rich. Mags couldn’t count very high, so his idea of rich was kind of a funny one, but whatever the word meant, Mags assumed we were moments away. As if gold coins would spill out into the hallway once we managed to open the fucking door, maybe with a leprechaun surfing down the wave, giggling and farting clovers. It was the right door. And it wouldn’t take more than a drop or two of gas to pop. But I stood there staring at it. My arm had gone numb again, and in the back of my mind, a whisper—or a memory.
She is gone.
I stood there, hands at my sides, and listened to it. A strange voice, flat, with no emotion.
She is gone.
“Lem? C’mon, Lem, before someone comes.”
Mags was dancing again. Now, though, it was out of fear and anxiety.
I looked at my numb hand, holding it up in front of my face. Three fingers and the thumb sported flesh-colored bandages, damp from recent wounds. The cuts always healed, but sometimes lightly, and they tore open again. My whole body had sizzled in slight, tiny pain for years. I rarely noticed anymore.
She is gone.
I blinked. I turned and looked at Mags. He had discovered a piece of hard candy somewhere in his pockets and was unwrapping it, his face a wide-open mask of pleasure. He was my best and only friend. I looked back at the door and thought about what, if anything, we might find behind it. Then I looked at Mags again and laughed; he’d put the candy in his mouth, and his big, broad face had screwed up into a cartoonish mask of distaste, which was a risk when you ate random candy of unknown vintage found in pockets.
I felt like the biggest asshole on the planet, because Mags deserved to be dressed in jammies and put in a warm, dry bed and told a story every n
ight, not terrified and exhausted.
I thought, Start tonight. I had no money, and one more good bleed would make me pass out. And I thought, Start tonight anyway. Because I thought of Mags happy, laughing, delighted, and relaxed, and it made me happy.
I reached out and touched his shoulder. He frowned a little. “Lem?”
I looked back at the door. In between the unsteady, ragged beat of my heart, I felt the thunderous, slow march of Mag’s pulse somehow. It felt natural and familiar, and sleeping under an overpass one more night didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EVERY NOVEL HAS A team of people behind it. First of all, and most important, there is the author, the person who actually wrote it, that is to say, me. I’d like to start off my thanking myself for all those poor decisions in life that have conspired in complex and unknowable ways to bring me to this junction in my life.
Behind every author is a person who whispers encouragement and dire threats in his ear as he writes, and for me that person is and has been my lively wife, Danette, to whom I owe everything and who knew I would sell this book, this book you are now holding in your hands, before I had even actually written it, such are the powers my wife possesses.
Let’s see how many commas I can squeeze in here, want to? Commas are fun, and underappreciated, much like writers.
Every author, the guy who actually writes the book, that is, me, has someone in a windowless room somewhere collecting the pennies that cascade in from our crime syndicates and book sales, and also who buys the author drinks, and that person is my redoubtable literary agent, Janet Reid.
Every author, that is, the guy who actually writes the books, which is to say, me again, every author needs hooligans who tempt him from serious work and encourage him to consume adult beverages in lieu of pious labor, and my hooligans, aside from my aforementioned literary agent, who on many occasions incapacitated me with drink when I should have been home tapping words into a hard disk, aside from her the hooligans in question were fellow authors Sean Ferrell and Dan Krokos, who so often suggested I spend my time drinking curated whiskeys while viewing Internet Celebrity Gossip sites, supposedly in an ironic manner, although I suspect the irony was a pose as I really do enjoy celebrity gossip.
Above and beyond all of these, of course, Olympian and leviathan-like, stands the man who actually signs the contract that sends those pennies cascading to be collected in unused mason jars by my aforementioned literary agent on behalf of me, the author, the guy who actually writes the book, and that person is, of course, my editor, Adam Wilson, whose suggestions and ideas for the book were disturbingly intelligent and interesting, and I thank him for it while simultaneously becoming enraged that anyone might contribute something to my story I did not myself think of, and whenever I express these feelings of rage to my aforementioned literary agent, she pours out two glasses of good Scotch and at first I think she’s going to have a belt with me but then I slowly realize these are medicinally intended for me. And she’s right, I feel lots better.
GLOSSARY OF MAGICAL TERMS
ARTIFACT: nonmechanical magical object, often but not always inhabited by an intelligence that guides it
ASAG: demon companion
BARNA: an Artifact
BILUDHA: Rite, Ritual, a major spell
BILUDHA TAH NAMUS: The Rite of Death
DALRA: literally, to fly out
DIMMA: golem, an animated sculpture or object, guided by an intelligence
ENUSTARI: Archmage
FABRICATION: mechanical magical object, trapping a demonic intelligence or reproducing a complex spell with no, or only a very small, sacrifice
GASAM: teacher, Master
GEAS: curse, obligation
GESPU: an Artifact
GIDIM: demon, Summoned by a dual sacrifice from which it takes form
GLAMOUR: illusion
GULLA: a Fabrication, literally, to overwhelm, destroy
IDIMUSTARI: little magician, Trickster
KURRE: literally, change, alter
MU: Cantrip, minor spell
NAMUS: to die, death
NIKAS: literally, result
SAGANUSTARI: high magician
SILIG: literally, to stop
SISKUR: a Bleeder
SUTAKA: literally, to push at
UDUG: demon, a specific Artifact
URTUKU: apprentice
USTARI: mage, magician
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JEFF SOMERS was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, but as a student of history, you already knew that. Credited with being the first author to discover a penchant for drinking booze and laying about, he frequently forgets what day it is and where, precisely, his pants might be at any given moment. As a young child his family was hopeful he might grow up to make a difference in the world, but as he made his way through his schooling they slowly lowered their expectations. When he announced a desire to write fiction they collectively threw up their hands and stopped paying attention. He oftens claims to have invented the dance known as the Dougie.
In 1995 Jeff began publishing his own magazine, The Inner Swine (www.innerswine.com). His first novel, Lifers, was published in 2001; the Avery Cates series, beginning with The Electric Church, was published by Orbit Books from 2007–2011; and in 2013 republished Chum with Tyrus Books. He’s also had stories published in many magazines, most of which regret the connection. His story “Ringing the Changes” was chosen for “Best American Mystery Stories 2006” and his story “sift, almost invisible, through” appeared in Crimes by Moonlight edited by Charlaine Harris in 2010.
He currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with his lovely wife, Danette, and their plump, imperious cats Pierre, Oliver, Spartacus, Otto, Coco, and Homer Spit. Jeff insists the cats would be delicious.
In between all this and writing, too, Jeff plays guitar, chess, and staves off despair with whiskey.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Jeff-Somers
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
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THE USTARI CYCLE
“Fixer”
We Are Not Good People
THE AVERY CATES SERIES
The Electric Church
The Digital Plague
The Eternal Prison
The Terminal State
The Final Evolution
STAND-ALONE NOVELS
Lifers
Chum
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Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Somers
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition October 2014
Part One of this book was originally published in an altered form as Trickster by Pocket Books in February 2013.
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Interior design by Jaime Putorti
Cover design by Alan Dingman
Cover photography by Arcangel
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4516-9679-0
ISBN 978-1-4516-9682-0 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Part I: Trickster
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Part II: Negotiator
Chapter 30
Part III: Glamour
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Part IV: Fabricator
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61