by Paula Guran
CRYPTIC COLORATION
EELIZABETH BEAR
Katie saw him first. The next-best thing to naked, in cutoff camouflage pants and high-top basketball sneakers and nothing else, except the thick black labyrinth of neo-tribal ink that covered his pale skin from collarbones to ankle-bones. He shone like piano keys, glossy-sleek with sweat in a sultry September afternoon.
Katie already had Melissa’s sleeve in her hand and was tugging her toward the crosswalk. Gina trailed three steps behind. “We have got to go watch this basketball game.”
“What?” But then Melissa’s line of sight intersected Katie’s and she gasped. “Oh my fuck, look at all that ink. Do you think that counts as a shirt or a skin?” Melissa was from Boston, but mostly didn’t talk like it.
“Never mind the ink,” Katie said. “Look at his triceps.”
Little shadowed dimples in the undersides of his arms, and all Katie could think of for a moment was that he wasn’t terribly tall, and if she had been standing close enough when he raised his hands to take a pass she could have stood on tiptoe and licked them. The image dried her mouth, heated her face.
Melissa would have thought Katie silly for having shocked herself, though, so she didn’t say anything.
Even without the ink, he had the best body on the basketball court. Hard all over, muscle swelling and valleying as he sprinted and sidestepped, chin-length blond hair swinging in his eyes. He skittered left like a boxer, turned, dribbled between his legs—quadriceps popping, calves like flexed cables—caught the ball as it came back up and leaped. Parabolic, sailing. Sweat shook from his elbows and chin as he released.
A three-point shot. A high geometric arch.
Denied when a tall black boy of eighteen or so tipped it off the edge of the basket, jangling the chain, and fired back to half court, but that didn’t matter. Katie glanced over her shoulder to make sure Gina was following.
“God,” Melissa purred. “I love New York.”
Katie, mopping her gritty forehead with the inside of her T-shirt collar, couldn’t have agreed more.
So it was mid-September and still too hot to think. So she was filthy just from walking through the city air.
You didn’t get anything like the blond boy back home in Appleton.
Melissa was a tall freckled girl who wore her hair in red pigtails that looked like braided yarn. She had a tendency to bounce up on her toes that made her seem much taller, and she craned over the pedestrians as they stepped up onto the far curb. “There’s some shade by the—oh, my god would you look at that?”
Katie bounced too, but couldn’t see anything except shirts. “Mel!”
“Sorry.”
Flanking Gina, two steps ahead of her, they moved on. Melissa was right about the shade; it was cooler and had a pretty good view. They made it there just as the blond was facing off with a white-shirted Latino in red Converse All-Stars that were frayed around the cuffs. “Jump ball,” Gina said, and leaned forward between Katie and Melissa.
The men coiled and went up. Attenuated bodies, arching, bumping, big hands splayed. Katie saw dark bands clasping every finger on the blond, and each thumb. More ink, or maybe rings, though wouldn’t it hurt to play ball in them?
The Latino was taller; the blond beat him by inches. He tagged the ball with straining fingertips, lofted it to his team. And then he landed lightly, knees flexed, sucked in a deep breath while his elbows hovered back and up, and pivoted.
It wasn’t a boy, unless a man in his early thirties counted.
“Holy crap,” said Gina, who only swore in Puerto Rican. “Girls, that’s Doctor S.”
Wednesday at noon, the three mismatched freshman girls who sat in the third row center of Matthew Szczegielniak’s 220 were worse than usual. Normally, they belonged to the doe-eyed, insecure subspecies of first-year student, badly needing to be shocked back into a sense of humor and acceptance of their own fallibility. A lot of these young girls reminded Matthew of adolescent cats; trying so hard to look serene and dignified that they walked into walls.
And then got mad at you for noticing.
Really, that was even funnier.
Today, though, they were giggling and nudging and passing notes until he was half-convinced he’d made a wrong turn somewhere and wound up teaching a high school class. He caught the carrot-top mid-nudge while mid-sentence (Byron, Scott), about a third of the way through his introductory forty minutes on the Romantic poets, and fixed her with a glare through his spectacles that could have chipped enamel.
A red tide rose behind her freckles, brightening her sunburned nose. Her next giggle came out a squeak.
“Ms. Martinchek. You have a trenchant observation on the work of Joanna Baillie, perhaps?”
If she’d gone any redder, he would have worried about apoplexy. She stared down at her open notebook and shook her head in tiny quick jerks.
“No, Doctor S.”
Matthew Szczegielniak rubbed his nose with the butt of his dry-erase marker, nudging his spectacles up with his thumbnail. He wasn’t enough of a problem child to make his students learn his last name— even the simplified pronunciation he preferred—though the few that tried were usually good for endless hours of entertainment.
Besides, Matthew was a Mage. And magic being what it was, he would be hard put to imagine a more counterproductive activity than teaching three hundred undergrads a semester how to pronounce his name.
Enough heat of embarrassment radiated from Melissa’s body to make Katie lean on her opposite elbow and duck her head in sympathy.
She kept sneaking looks at Doctor S., trying to see past the slicked ponytail, the spectacles, the arch and perfectly bitchy precision of his lecturing style to find the laughing half-naked athlete of the day before.
She’d thought he was probably gay.
Sure, books, covers, whatever. It was impossible to believe in him exultant, shaking sweat from his hair, even though she’d seen it, even though the image fumed wisps of intrigue through her pelvis. Even though she could see the black rings on every finger and each thumb, clicking slightly when he gestured. She couldn’t understand how she had never noticed them before. And never noticed the way he always dressed for class, though it was still hotter than Hades; the ribbed soft-colored turtleneck that covered him from the backs of broad hands to the tender flesh under his throat, the camel- or smoke- or charcoal-colored corduroy blazer that hid the shape of his shoulders and the width of his chest.
It was maddening, knowing what was under the clothes. She wondered if the barbaric tattoos extended everywhere, and flushed, herself, at least as bright as Melissa. And then brighter, as she felt the prof ’s eyes on her, as if he was wondering what she was thinking that so discomfited her.
Oh, lord, but wouldn’t that have hurt?
On the other hand, he’d had the insides of his arms done, and the inner thighs. And that was supposed to hurt like anything, wasn’t it?
And then she noticed that his left ear was pierced top to bottom, ten or a dozen rings, and sank down in her chair while she wondered what else he might have had done. And why she’d never noticed any of it— the rings, the earrings, the ink, the muscles—any of it, before.
“Oh, God,” she whispered without moving her lips. “I’m never going to make it through this class.”
But she did. And leaned up against the wall beside the door afterwards, shoulder-to-shoulder with Melissa while they waited for Gina to come out. Quiet, but if anybody was going to do something crazy or brave or both, it would be her. And right now, she was down at the bottom of the lecture hall, chatting up the professor.
“Oh, God,” Katie moaned. “I’m going to have to switch sections. I didn’t hear a word he said.”
“I did. Oh, God. He knows my name.” Melissa blushed the color of her plastic notebook cover all over again. Her voice dropped, developed a mocking precision of pronunciation. “Ms. Martinchek, maybe you can tell me about Joanna Ballyhoo … ”
“Baillie.” Gina, who c
ame up and stood on tiptoe to stick a purple Post-it note to Melissa’s tit. “He wrote it down for me. This way you can impress him next week.”
Melissa picked the note off her chest and stared at it. “He uses purple Post-it notes?”
“I was right,” Katie said. “He’s gay.”
“Do you want to find out?”
“Oh, and how do you propose we do that? Check the BiGALA membership roster?” Melissa might be scoffing, but her eyes were alight. Katie swallowed.
Gina checked her wristwatch. She had thick brown-black hair swept up in a banana clip, showing tiny curls like inverted devil horns at her pale nape. “He’s got office hours until three. I say we grab some lunch and drop off our books, and then when he leaves we see where he goes.”
“I dunno.” Katie crossed her arms over her notebook. “It’s not like playing basketball with your shirt off is a crime … ”
“It’s not like following someone to see where they go is a crime, either,” Melissa pointed out. “We’re not going to … stalk him.”
“No, just stalk him.”
“Katie!”
“Well, it’s true.” But Melissa was looking at her, and … she had come to Manhattan to have adventures. “What if we get caught?”
“Get caught … walking down a public street?”
Right. Whatever. “We could just look him up in the phone book.”
“I checked. Not listed, amigas. Maybe it’s under his boyfriend’s name.”
Even Melissa blinked at her this time. “Jesus Christ, Gomez. You’re a criminal mastermind.”
Those same three girls were holding up the wall when Matthew left the lecture theatre, climbing up the stairs to go out by the top door. He walked past, pretending not to notice them, or the stifled giggles and hiccups that erupted a moment later.
He just had time to grab a sandwich before his office hours. Almost one o’clock; probably nothing left but egg salad.
He needed the protein anyway.
He supplemented the sandwich with two cartons of chocolate milk, a bag of sourdough pretzels and three rip-top packets of French’s mustard, and spread the lot out on his desk while he graded papers for his Renaissance drama class. With luck, no students would show up except a lonely or neurotic or favor-currying Ph.D. candidate, and he could get half of the papers done today.
He had twenty-four sophomores and juniors, and of the first ten papers, only two writers seemed to understand that The Merry Wives of Windsor was supposed to be funny. One of those was a Sociology major. Matthew was a failure as a teacher. He finished the sandwich, blew crumbs off his desk so he wouldn’t leave mayonnaise fingerprints on the essays, and tore open the pretzels before he sharpened his red pencil one more time.
Honey mustard would have been better. He should get some to stick in his desk. Unless it went bad. Honey didn’t go bad, and mustard didn’t go bad. Logically, an amalgam would reflect the qualities of both.
The spike of ice and acid through the bones of his hands originated from his iron Mage’s rings, and it not only made him drop a pretzel— splattering mustard across the scarred wooden desk—but it brought him to his feet before he heard the police sirens start.
He glanced at the clock. Five more minutes. “That which thou hast promised thou must perform,” he said, under his breath.
He left his lunch on the desk and found his keys in his pocket on the way to the door.
Their quarry almost ran them over as they were on their way in to start stalking him. Katie sidestepped quickly, catching Gina across the chest with a straight left arm. Melissa managed to get herself out of the way.
Doctor S. was almost running. His corduroy jacket flapped along the vent as he skidded between pedestrians, cleared four concrete steps in a bounce, and avoided a meandering traffic jam of students with as much facility as he’d shown on the basketball court. And if Katie had begun to suspect that it was just a bizarre case of mistaken identity, the toreador sidestep around the lady with the baby carriage would have disabused her. Doctor S. moved with a force and grace that were anything but common to academia.
Katie turned to follow him. It was only a small gesture to catch Gina’s wrist, and without more urging, Gina trotted along beside her. Which was good, because Gina was strong and stubborn, even if she was only three apples high. Melissa took two more beats to get started, but her longer legs soon put her into the lead. “Slow down,” Katie hissed, afraid that he would notice them running after him like three fools in a hurry, but frankly, he was getting away.
So when Melissa glared at her, she hustled, like you do. And Gina actually broke into a trot.
Doctor S. strode east on 68th, against traffic, towards the park. He never glanced over his shoulder, but kept rubbing his hands together as if they pained him. Maybe the rings were the magnet kind, for arthritis or something. RSI.
“I can’t believe I never noticed he wears all those rings.”
“I can’t believe I never noticed the muscles,” Melissa answered, but Gina said “Rings?”
“On all his fingers?” Melissa was too busy dodging pedestrians to give Gina the were you born that stupid or do you practice hard? look, and Katie was as grateful as she could spare breath for. They were disrupting traffic flow, the cardinal sin of New York’s secular religion. Katie winced at another glare. Somebody was going to call her a fucking moron any second.
Gina sounded completely bemused. “I never noticed any rings.”
Doctor S. continued east on 68th past Park Ave., down the rows of narrow-fronted brick buildings with their concrete window ledges. By the time he crossed Madison Ave., she was sure he was headed for the park. Every so often he actually skipped a step, moving as fast as he possibly could without breaking into a purse-snatcher sprint.
… he wasn’t going to the park.
Halfway between Park and Fifth Avenue—which, of course, unlike Park, was on the park—traffic was gummed up behind flashing lights and restraining police. Doctor S. slowed as he approached, stuffing his hands back into his pockets—“Would you look at that?” Gina said, and Katie knew she, too, had suddenly noticed the rings—and dropping his shoulders, smallifying himself. He merged with the gawking crowd; Katie couldn’t believe how easily he made himself vanish. Like a praying mantis in a rosebush; just one more green thorn-hooked stem.
“Okay,” Melissa said, as they edged through bystanders, trying not to shove too many yuppies in the small of the back. “Stabbing?”
“Sidewalk pizza,” Gina the Manhattanite said, pointing up. There was a window open on the sixth floor of one of the tenements, and Katie glimpsed a blue uniform behind it.
“Somebody jumped?”
“Or was pushed.”
“Oh, God.”
Gina shrugged, but let her hip and elbow brush Katie’s. Solace, delivered with the appearance of nonchalance. And then, watching Doctor S. seem to vanish between people, betrayed only be metallic gleams of light off slick hair. She could pick him out if she knew where to look, if she remembered to look for the tan jacket, the hair. Otherwise, her eyes seemed to slide off him. Creepy, she thought. He’s almost not really there.
And then she thought of something else. And maybe Melissa did too, because Melissa said, “Guys? What’s he doing at a crime scene?”
“Or accident scene,” Gina said, unwilling to invest in a murder without corroboration.
“Maybe he’s a gawker.”
“Ew.” Katie tugged Gina’s sleeve. “We should see if we can get closer. He probably won’t notice us.” And then she frowned. “How did he know about it?”
“Maybe he has a police scanner in his office?”
“So he’s a vulture.”
“Maybe he’s an investigator. You know. Secret, like.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “Right. Our gay college prof is Spiderman.”
Gina snorted. “Hey. Everybody knows that Spidey and Peter Parker have a thing.”
Melissa hunched down so her head wou
ldn’t stick up so far above the crowd. Her hair was as bad as Doctor S.’s, and she didn’t have his knack for vanishing into the scenery. “Gina,” she said, “you go up, and tell us what’s going on.”
“I’ve seen dead people, chica.”
“You haven’t seen this one,” Melissa said. “Go on. It might be important.”
Gina shrugged, rolled her eyes, and started forward. And Melissa was right; a five foot tall Latina in gobs of eyeliner did, indeed, vanish into the crowd. “Criminal mastermind,” Melissa said.
Katie grinned, and didn’t argue.
This was the part of the job that Matthew liked least. There was no satisfaction in it, no resolution, no joy. The woman on the pavement was dead; face down, one arm twisted under her and the other outflung. She’d bounced, and she hadn’t ended up exactly where she’d hit. She’d been wearing a pink blouse. Someone in the crowd beside him giggled nervously.
Matthew figured she hadn’t jumped. He checked his wards— pass-unnoticed, which was not so strong as a pass-unseen, and considerably easier to maintain—and the glamours and ghosts that kept him unremarkable.
His hands still ached; he really wished somebody would come up with a system for detecting malevolent magic that didn’t leave him feeling like a B-movie bad guy was raking his fingerbones around with a chilled ice pick.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, buttoned the middle button on his jacket, and hit speed dial. He was one of five people who had the Promethean archmage’s reach-me-in-the-bathtub number; he didn’t abuse the privilege.
“Jane Andraste,” she said, starting to speak before the line connected. He hadn’t heard it ring on his end. “What’s going on?”
“Apparent suicide at Fifth and 68th.” He checked his watch. “It tickles. I’m on the scene and going to poke around a little. Are any of the responders our guys?”
“One second.” Her voice muffled as she asked someone a question; there was a very brief pause, and she was back on the line. “Marla says Marion Thornton is en route. Have you met her?”
“Socially.” By which he meant, at Promethean events and rituals. There were about two hundred Magi in the Greater New York area, and like Matthew, most of them held down two jobs: guardian of the iron world by night, teacher or artist or executive or civil servant by day.