The air of the Never was thick tonight, filled with the cold of the bay and heavy with fog. In the distance foghorns called across the water, their echoes dimly heard even as far as Nob Hill. Piotr, lounging on the sidewalk below the huge hotel, tilted his head up. The foghorns weren't the only echoes reaching the street. Tonight the Top of the Mark rooftop bar was jumping with spirits—though the restaurant had closed to the living at midnight, the party for the dead had barely begun.
A faint movement to his left revealed Lily and her blades. As she approached she sheathed the bone knives and held her hands wide, welcoming him. “The perimeter is clear,” Lily murmured, brushing a thick black braid over one bare shoulder.
Tonight she'd formed her essence into a lightweight version of the cotton manta and deerskin moccasins she'd worn in life; generally Lily kept her clothing nondescript, but Piotr had known her long enough to tell that she, like Elle, felt that tonight, visiting the Council, was a night to honor who they had once been. Faintly jealous, Piotr glanced down at his own basic shirt and black pants. If only he could do the same. Lily didn't notice his comparison. “No Walkers roam these streets.”
Piotr was glad. He was still shaken up over the previous night's encounter, and tangling with Walkers this close to downtown was never a good idea. The White Lady's territory hadn't been too far from here, cunningly hidden amid the lush vastness and living heat of the city; there was no telling how many of her trained Walkers had escaped that deadly fight and still haunted her old locale.
“Prekrasnah,” Piotr declared, grinning and leaning against the balustrade. His gaze flicked up to the top of the hotel again and he fancied that he saw thin, white faces looking down. “This news is very good, Lily. Have you any word from Elle?”
“None yet,” Lily said, sliding beside him to stand in the shadow of the matched columns guarding the entryway. In the dappled moonlight she was as still as a doe, wary and watchful but peaceful nonetheless. “The moon is high, yet she is still speaking with the cacique of this place.”
“I wish she would hurry.”
“In time all things come,” Lily soothed. “We shall journey on to the great wide world soon enough, and then,” she spread her hands out, as if encompassing the city, “then you shall miss this and wish we had stayed.”
When Piotr did not rise to the bait, she touched his shoulder. “The words of the Walker last evening concern me. You claim that you and Wendy have parted, but I wonder. Have you spoken yet with the Lightbringer, Piotr? Have you truly said your goodbyes?”
“Da,” he snapped, pulling away from his old friend. Some days, he fancied that Lily had a healer's soul; she was gifted with a knack for prodding his sore spots, exposing festering pain, both physical and mental. Normally he allowed her the little jabs and probing, as he almost always felt better after speaking his mind to her, but Piotr was protective of his feelings for Wendy. He didn't want to discuss the Lightbringer with her. “Wendy and I are through; she understands what I must do.”
“What you must do, yes, but Piotr…” Lily glanced up at the riotous rooftop. “What about what help you swore to her? If it were not for her—”
“If it weren't for Wendy then James would still be with us,” Piotr said through gritted teeth, ignoring the way his stomach clenched at the low blow. Lily and James had been together for decades until Wendy's Light had destroyed James. With him gone, Lily had fallen into mourning for days. No matter who spoke to her, she was unwilling to do more than sequester herself amid the lush thickets of Apatos Village Park and pray to her gods for James’ safe passage into a kinder afterlife than the Never. When her praying was done, Lily left the park with her head held high and a refusal to speak of her pain on her lips. It was her way, and until now Piotr and Elle had respected it, but if mentioning James’ death moved her to silence, Piotr was willing to broach the topic.
“Perhaps,” Lily said mildly. “Perhaps not.”
Unwilling to get into a fight with his oldest friend over Wendy, Piotr turned his back on Lily and scowled out into the darkness. Though the fog was thick, he could still make out the shapes of lighthouses in the distance and the thin moonlight drifting down. Shapes moved at the base of the hill—humans and the dead alike. It was late though, past one, and there were no crowds milling about to burn the weeping, wandering Shades with their searing, living heat.
If Wendy were here, Piotr thought, she would send the Shades on into the Light. In truth, the act would be a blessing. Their minds were long gone.
These past few weeks, Piotr had tried to avoid thoughts of Wendy, but it was difficult to do when Lily insisted on continuously poking his pain. He would never admit it out loud but he missed the sight of her, the electric fire of her touch. He and Wendy had parted ways amicably, but all Lily seemed to see was that they had parted.
Piotr knew that it had been the right decision, leaving Wendy. It had.
“It was James’ time, as it was time for the Lost,” Lily added coolly, dismissing his moody silence outright. “Piotr, it is as if you think I do not know the ways of the Never! After these many years? For all my love for James, his will to continue existing was weakening. In truth, he was very lucky that the Lightbringer came along when she did; Wendy saved him from great pain.” She looked at the Shades below and shook her head, expression grave. “The Light washed over him and he moved on. It is as it should have been. It is done. It is good.”
Piotr crossed his arms over his chest. He did not like where this conversation was going or how thoroughly Lily was derailing his points. “That is not how Elle sees it.“
“Elle is angry,” Lily said, frowning. “Her emotions are not the Lightbringer's concern.”
“Nice,” Piotr snorted.
Lily gestured to the Shades below. “Look at them and know that I speak the truth. Piotr, for all your protestations, you know this in your heart. It is not Wendy's duty to keep the dead and our relationships with one another intact. It is her job to send suffering spirits on—spirits like them, spirits like you, spirits like myself, and yes, even spirits like the Lost or James.”
Startled, Piotr glanced at his old friend, troubled and wary. “You think I suffer?”
Lily's fists relaxed and she smiled sadly. “Yes. We all do, Piotr. If we did not…would we need aid to find the Light we once spurned so thoughtlessly?” She touched him gently on the shoulder. “As once you taught me, I shall now teach you. Hear my words and attend me, Piotr, for your very soul, listen well: the lost souls of children are no longer our duty. The Riders you began are no more. We must spurn the Lost. We have more important goals now. I know that, and so do you. One day Elle will know that as well.”
“One day I'll know what?” Elle's approach through the front doors of the hotel had been soundless and swift. She'd shaped her essence into a flashy red-fringed gown for her meeting upstairs, her bobbed blonde tresses clinging to the sides of her head in elaborate pincurls. Careless of Piotr's presence, Elle hiked up her already short skirt and adjusted her left stocking, rolling it just above her knee and pinning it there.
“That's better,” she said and swished her hips, grinning at the rustling fringe.
“Indeed?” Lily drew away from Piotr and crossed her arms across her chest, still half-clothed in shadows. “How was hunting?”
Elle threw her hands up and spun around. “There's one hell of a rub going on up top.”
“Indeed?” Piotr asked dryly. “Do go on.”
Rolling her eyes, Elle ignored his tone and spoke to Lily instead, nearly gushing with glee. “The band is laying down some smoking licks and every snifter is the real McCoy—Kentucky Mountain Gold!” She giggled and flapped a hand at her face. “I swear, I'm flying off fumes alone!”
“The crowd is indeed thick,” Piotr murmured. “We can hear them from here.”
“It's a real crush,” Elle agreed. “Every spirit up there is overflowin’ with years and I haven't seen so many folks cutting a rug since I was alive.”
/> “Such revelry seems imprudent. I wonder why they celebrate so,” Lily mused.
Elle shrugged. “Makes sense to me. Everyone's been in hiding since the White Lady claimed this chunk of the city, right? But since the Lightbringer blotted her out even the babbitts want a night out on the town. It's a real dead man's bash up there!”
“If there is so much revelry,” Lily said slowly, “and safety, then the Council is most certainly making no end of profit off these endeavors.”
“The sawbucks are falling like rain,” Elle agreed. “When I had a chance to squeeze past the hoofers and get a word in, I spotted better than two or three hundred thousand in trade piling up behind the bar. Most of it was hard scavenge too, useful stuff like heaters and ice. Bone knives. Even a couple of copper pipes, polished up nice and weighted.” She knocked her knuckles against a temple. “Take a Walker down quick.”
“The Council is collecting guns and weaponry?” Piotr frowned. “Without bullets, what is the point?”
“Who knows? So long as they can't point ’em in our direction, or, more specifically, your direction, who cares?” Elle shrugged and slung a companionable arm around Lily's shoulders. “Anyway, Pocahontas, the big cheeses wanna invite you and Petey-the-grind here upstairs for the ballyhoo. Feel like cutting a rug?”
Lily glanced down at her manta and moccasins. “I do not believe I'm attired properly for such a gathering.”
“Horsefeathers!” Elle declared derisively. “Half the crowd is dudded up like they never died; you'll fit right in.”
“If they did indeed set Walkers after me, going upstairs seems the height of imprude—” Piotr began.
“Remind me how I managed to handcuff myself to two wet blankets like you guys, again?” Elle crossed her arms and jerked her chin toward the hotel. “Look, I went up to natter, but no dice; they patted my posterior and sent me back down like a precious little thing. It's mostly an old boys’ club up there. They ain't gonna deal through a third party, Pete, especially not a tomato like me. It's you or nothing, and they went to a whole lotta trouble to see your ugly mug.”
“What of Walkers?” Lily asked.
“Neither hide nor hair,” Elle assured them. “You're more likely to get jumped by some hotsy with a hardon for scars than a Walker, flyboy. So, you comin’ or what?”
“So be it. I shall deal,” Piotr said, straightening.
Elle twirled a finger in a whoop-dee-do gesture. “Ducky. Just remember to watch yourself, and the three of us might just get out of there in one piece.”
Piotr sighed. “Advice noted. I shall be wary and wise, Elle. I am not a complete child.”
“Coulda fooled me,” she said, but gestured for Piotr to lead the way.
“You are savoring every moment of this, aren't you?” Lily asked as they passed through the front doors of the grand old hotel and made their way across the vast, polished entryway toward the stairs.
Grinning, Elle spun again, letting the fringe fly. “Pos-o-lute-ly! I gotta level with you, it's the cat's meow to doll up and ritz it up for a night again.” She played with one of the pincurls pasted to her temple. “I guess I'm just longing for a bit of the good ol’ life. Or just life, period. Same thing, really.”
“That seems counterproductive. We are dead. What is the point of longing for that which we have left behind?”
“Says our resident Mrs. Grundy,” Elle sneered as they passed through the stairway door and began the long climb to the rooftop. “Come on, girl, don't you ever miss hunting the wild plains or…wait, what did you raging redskins do for fun, anyhow? Pardon me for not knowin’ already, but I was a little busy livin’ when I was alive. Didn't have much time for schooling or ancient history.”
Shaking her head, Lily couldn't help but smirk at Elle's ignorance. “Perhaps many of our days were not as frivolous as yours appear to have been, but my people were not dull, Elle. When the crops were in, we had many hours available for enjoyment and sport. I myself enjoyed helping my parents and older sisters craft fetishes and masks for the Shalako, and before I passed, I was—how do you say—being courted? Being courted by—”
“Tiho! The both of you!” Piotr snapped from the landing above them. He waved a hand at the thin stairs that they stood on, the remnants of the hotel that had stood before a 1906 earthquake had burned it down and forced the living to rebuild. They stood upon the memory of the building that once was. It supported them as easily as if the steps had been solid wood and stone.
“Life is what it was,” he said, calming and apologetic for his outburst. “It is done. We are dead. Does it truly matter now?”
“I know your oh-so-Russian posterior did not just tell us to shut up,” Elle snapped back, taking the stairs two at a time to slap the back of Piotr's head. “I'm trying to do you a favor, you flat tire! Both of us!”
“Elle, please,” Lily soothed, ever the mediator. “I am not offended. Piotr is under much pressure and I know that he means no disrespect.”
Scowling, Elle did not respond. Instead she pressed her lips together and tossed her head, pushing past Piotr roughly and hurrying up the remaining flights of stairs.
“Give her time,” Lily urged as Piotr scowled after her. “Warrior she might be, but Elle is young yet. Barely among the dead in truth. She longs for what she left behind and yearns for all that she can never have.”
“Time,” Piotr sighed as Elle reached the locked door at the top of the stairs and slid through it, beyond their view. Only a few flights down, they could now hear the raucous laughter and wild musical thrumming from above. The smell of gin and whiskey made his eyes water.
“Da, you are right. She is yet young, and time…time is the one thing the Never can always offer.”
The Top of the Mark, though lit by dim sconces, was a multi-level restaurant, elegantly attended and packed with spirits of all ages. A portion of the wooden floor near the glassed-in wall had been sectioned off for dancing. Nearby, an eclectic jazz quartet had set up behind the wrought iron balustrade and one portly spirit perched behind the black baby grand.
Relaxing his eyes, Piotr blinked and smiled. The piano existed both in the Never and the living world, and the pianist was tickling the ivories with bright concentration. In the living lands the keys pressed down in quick succession and the distant remnant of the sound provided an eerie, dissonant echo in the deadlands, hardly heard above the hum of the crowd. Piotr was impressed; the pianist was one of the rare few who could reach past the Never and brush the living lands.
Ghosts bellied up to the shiny wooden bar. They glanced at Lily as she and Piotr passed, but none commented. The dead didn't need to drink any more than they needed to eat, but so long as alcoholics breathed in the living lands, more than a few bottles of liquor always found their way into the Never.
What amused Piotr the most was the fact that almost every spirit there was dressed to the nines—many were clad in what had passed for fancy dress in the century in which they'd lived—and more than a few were sporting the slinky styles and black-tie fashions of the current decade.
One, at first glance, didn't appear to be wearing anything at all, but she moved and her long hair slid aside to reveal the skimpiest, sparkliest dress Piotr had ever seen a woman wear…or barely wear, as the case may be. The man beside her, in contrast, was clad as a fourteenth-century monk, in scarlet and black from neck to toe. They appeared to be debating Revelations as Piotr neared them, though they paused their discussion to eye Lily and Piotr until they passed.
Elle had gone ahead and was waiting for them beside a long cherry wood table with an amazing view of the city spread out below. The streets were lit up like golden wefts of a spider's web and the bay glittered like starlight with distant ships’ lights.
Five men and a woman lounged on the striped chairs arranged around the table, playing with a well-worn deck of cards; none looked up as Piotr and Lily maneuvered their way through the throng to join Elle.
It was the woman Piotr noticed at first�
��slim and dark-haired, dressed in a pale gown with a voluminous bell-shaped skirt neatly tucked under the table—she couldn't have been more than thirty or so when she'd died, but there was a vibrancy to her that many of the spirits in the room, even the loudest and most rambunctious, were lacking. As Piotr neared, she exposed her hand and the entire table groaned. The woman, smirking, leaned forward and collected the pile of chips in the middle, humming under her breath as she plucked the disks up and dropped them into a small tapestry handbag in her lap.
The closest of the men noticed them and stood, gesturing for the others to do so as well. Two of the men, one clad in regulation Navy whites and the other in modern camo, rose and abandoned their seats for Elle and Lily, moving to the bar and waving for the bartender's attention. The lady, still sitting, glanced the newcomers over with cool appraisal. Her unblinking gaze was unnerving, and when her lips pursed, Piotr felt a shiver run down his spine. He felt like a pickled specimen sliced thin and bared to the bone before her.
“Gentlemen, I think,” she said, rising and tapping the table with lacquered nails shaped into perfect pale pink ovals, “that this game is done for the evening. We should leave Mr. Morris to his business.”
“Ada,” protested the man who had first noticed them, reaching for her hand, “you have a seat on the Council as well. I wouldn't dream of—”
Sidestepping him, Ada waved a hand brusquely. “This is your project, Mr. Morris. Have done with it.” She dipped a slight curtsy and tilted her head in Piotr's direction. “I wish you good eve, sir, and good luck. May the Lord see you swiftly and safely on your way home. However, be wary. There are Walkers about.”
“We're young, not dumb,” Elle said, putting her hands on her hips. “We'll mind ours and you mind yours.”
Raising an eyebrow at Elle's daring, Ada nodded once and started away, pausing at Lily's side. “A word, if I may? It shall only take a moment.”
Reaper (Lightbringer) Page 5