by Phil Tucker
A hand grasped hers. Yanked her arm nearly out of its socket, and then they were sprinting. Right at the giant. The flowers left behind, a streak of color in the dark, the club rising into the air, still dripping blood. Kevin hurdled over Tommy’s body, leaned down as he ran to snatch something up, and then pulled Maya right between the giant’s muscled legs. Each as broad and thick as a tree. The stench was awful, rank rotting meat, ancient sweat, something sour and sweet and worse—but then they were through. Jack in Irons turning, surprised, perhaps, the club thrown from one great hand to the other, and then whistling down once more.
Kevin shoved Maya, shoved her hard enough to send her staggering and falling to her right, down hard on both knees. Tearing the skin off of them, burying grit into the palms of her hand. With a cry she looked up, hair in her face, and saw that the club had once more broken a fell crater into the concrete slab of the pavement. Already it was lifting, Jack in Irons turning to face them completely. Kevin—she couldn’t see him, and then there he was, rising slowly to his feet, his left arm slumped by his side, the angle of his shoulder all wrong.
“Kevin!” she screamed, and pushed herself to her feet. He turned to stare at her, his face stupid with shock, and then he gestured that she should go, and turned back to face the giant. He had no chance of stopping Jack. None. For a moment Maya stood, eyes wide, staring at his narrow back, how he was somehow raising his chin, pushing his shoulders back, standing proud and defiant before the giant. Prepared to give his life for her. That awful club rose higher in the air, and she saw Kevin flex his knees, ready to leap aside at the last moment.
He wasn’t going to make it. Run, a small, selfish voice in the depths of her mind whispered, the survivor voice that had kept her going these past years, that had moved her beyond injury and insult, that had made her work when she wanted to drop, that had kept her head above these turbulent waters. Run. It was good advice, and maybe the old Maya might have taken it. Instead, she darted forward, grabbed him by his belt, and yanked him back, causing him to stumble and almost fall.
With a crash, the club came down, shattering concrete yet again, and they both nearly fell. Kevin whipped around, getting ready to scream at her, but she shook her head. “We go together,” she yelled, grabbing him by the shirt and tugging at him. “Come on!”
His shoulder looked broken. His face was pale, gleaming with sweat, but he was grinning at her, a smile wide enough to split his face. He had to be terrified to smile so broadly. Jack in Irons took a large step toward them, but they ran stumbling to the street corner, turned it, and staggered to a stop.
The avenue was deserted. Not a single car drove up or down its length, not a bus or cab was in sight. A long, empty canyon of asphalt and desolate traffic lights, blinking their patterns of green, yellow and crimson to nobody. Nobody on the sidewalks. Nobody manning the kiosk across the avenue from them, nobody in the stores or shops. Endless banks of empty windows lining the front of each building. And with that absence, an absence of all sound but the wind, which came moaning and twisting down the broad street, playing in the desolation.
Kevin and Maya stood stock still, staring. The change was so sudden, so unexpected, that they simply gaped. Turned, stared behind them, and then, unable to resist, took a few steps back and looked down the street from which they had just come. Similarly empty. The entire city. All of Manhattan. Devoid of life, of people, cars, bicycles, pigeons, movement, everything.
“I think I’m hallucinating again,” said Kevin, holding his limp arm with one hand. Maya turned to him, shook her head.
“Unless we both are. How—how is your arm?”
He grinned at her, lips pulling back from his teeth. “All right. Never liked that arm much anyways.”
“Is it broken?” She wished she knew what to do. Splint it? Make a sling?
“Nah, just dislocated, I think. Hurts like a bitch though.”
“Can you… pop it back in?”
“Well, if you help me. I might cry though. I’ll probably cry. All right, fuck. Here. I’ll sit down,” he said, putting his back against the building’s wall, and sliding down to a sitting position, “And now you take my hand. Careful. Okay. Okay. When I say go, put your foot on my chest and just pull that fucker as hard as you can. Okay?”
Maya gingerly took his hand. His nails were chewed to the quick. She held it with both of hers, and placed her left foot against his chest. She felt nauseous. He took a few fast, deep breaths, and then looked about. “Fuck.”
“What?” she asked.
“My drink. I left it with Jack in Irons.”
“Oh come on already,” she said, exasperated, “Can we just get this done?”
“Fine. One. Two. Three. Go.” Maya leaned back, pulled as hard as she could. Kevin let out a mangled scream, eyes flaring wide, going blank for a second. Foot pressed hard against his chest, heel digging into his ribs, Maya put her hips into it and hauled back. Something twisted wetly through his arm, and then Kevin was yelling at her and she let go and staggered back.
“Are you better? Did it work?”
Kevin keeled over, pressed his head to the concrete, holding his hurt arm against his chest. “Better? Better? You kidding me? Maybe after a bottle of tequila and a couple of prostitutes, but right now? Ah, fuck.”
“Sorry,” said Maya, hovering. “Thanks, by the way. For shoving me.”
Kevin took a deep breath, breathed out through his nose, sat up. “No problem. Bill’s in the mail. Here, help me up.” He extended his good arm. She grabbed his hand, hauled him up.
“Ah,” he said again, wincing. “All right. It’ll be fine. Had worse. I think. Now, where are we?”
“This must be it,” said Maya, looking around. “The House of Asterion.”
“It’s just an empty Manhattan,” said Kevin. “Nobody here. Nobody to… guard the stores. Or the banks. Or the liquor shops.” He suddenly brightened. “Hey, this could be good.”
Maya rolled her eyes. “Look, we’re not here to rob the place. We have to find Asterion. We have to find this sword before that woman does. Clear?”
“Sure, sure,” said Kevin, looking about speculatively. “But you don’t know where he is, do you?”
“Asterion? No… not as such.”
“So it’s possible—technically possible—that he could be in the back of that Prada store. Right? Technically speaking. Or in that First Nations Bank over there. Right?”
Maya stared at him.
“I’m just saying,” he said. “Just saying. He could be. You don’t know. And there’s only one way to find out. Right?”
“Wrong,” she said. “Somehow I don’t think he’s going to be hanging out in a clothing store. Or counting dollar bills.” She paused. How could she really know? Kevin watched her face hopefully. “Look, if you want to go in there, fine. I’m going to walk around some first. Do what you want.”
She strode away, heading north up the avenue. Her footsteps echoed off the cliff like sides of the buildings, empty hand claps that disconcerted her more than the lack of people. Where had they all gone? Kevin jogged up alongside her. “Fine,” he said. “Fine. But if it turns out that he is hiding in the back of a bank, you’ll owe me for all this wasted time.”
“Right,” she said. “Sure.”
They walked on in silence. A silence that grew steadily unnerving. A deep, mournful wind howled down past them, tormenting the still spaces and rejoicing in its newfound primacy. Endless windows stared down at them. The city took on a surreal aspect, and Maya suddenly felt as if she were walking the streets of a city encased within a snow globe, which was being observed from without by countless eyes.
“Asterion,” she said quietly to herself. “I wonder what he looks like.”
Chapter 15
Maribel staggered to a stop. Though her eyes were open, she didn’t see the city before her, bereft of life and movement, a still life, a study in gray and white. Instead, she stared sightlessly at nothing, saw again Isobel’s ey
es widen in shock and pain. Saw the blood splatter and pour. Saw her rise into the air, speared on the phooka’s horn.
She shivered then, a convulsive shudder that wracked her frame. Pressed her hands to her face, but they felt like dead things, and she took no comfort from the gesture. A sensation came to her then, of fingers brushing her cheek as she lay still in her bed, recovering. The gentleness in that caress, the care, the love. Desperately she tried to recall Isobel’s last words, but all that came back was her refusal to let her proceed. There had been more, but it was lost now, smeared and blended into the horror of what had transpired.
Maribel lowered her hands, stared at them. She had hated them when she was younger, the veins that marked their backs, the whorls on her knuckles, how they betrayed her age more than any other part of her. An old woman’s hands she had always thought, though Antonio, everybody, had protested she was being irrational. Looked at her hands, and asked herself, what am I doing?
A cold wind was blowing, but it failed to disperse the cotton wool fog that hovered high above, smothering the building tops. That made it impossible to see further than a few blocks in any direction. That beaded the window fronts with water, that made the pavement slick with viscous oil and filth. Maribel listened to the desolate howl of the wind, and imagined she heard a cry twinned within it. Something howling out of the darkness and solitude. She shivered again, stepped aside, into a doorway, where she slid down into a crouch and wrapped her arms around her shins.
So far from home. How had she come so far? She tried to remember Barcelona, Las Ramblas, the mosaics and balconies, the flowers and sunshine. The sound of guitars playing, the crash of the surf. Tried, but nothing held together. Each element would rise within her mind, and then sink into oblivion as she tried to recollect something else. Barcelona failed to coalesce, and remained as distant a country as health.
What was she doing? What was this blade she sought? Why? An image of the phooka came to her, blank eyed and hideous, but she dismissed it. That wasn’t the cause, that was merely the catalyst for what was taking place. Thought of Kubu then, of its wretched face and existence, but no; Kubu wasn’t the motivating force, not really: though she yet despised it, she understood it now, at least a little, and thought of it with pity. Kubu might be the target, but not the cause. Thought of Antonio, of her photographs, of her life led before the cameras, of her reputation as his wife and not a person in her own right. Thought of her face, how revered it had always been, and how, predictably, nobody had ever thought to look beyond it.
Thought of Antonio, his face haggard, defeated, confused, afraid. Thought of Isobel, her eyes widening in pain and shock. Her blood, hot in the winter cold. Splattering, showering down. Her eyes locked on Maribel’s even as she died.
Thought of Sofia. Dead, dead before anything could happen. Stolen, taken, killed. Lifting her face, Maribel looked down the avenue. The empty lanes, a newspaper swirling down the pavement, the erratically blinking traffic lights. A vast, empty maze of streets and cross streets, devoid of life. This was the reality, the world she would live in from hence forth. Even if she returned to the normal world, if all the people came back, this was where should would forever reside.
Maribel rose to her feet. A cold certainty was coalescing within her. Without Sofia, without that bright spark, that life, the world would be empty for her. A countdown to her own death. Perhaps there might be other children, but she doubted it. She wouldn’t return to Antonio. Could not, now. No; this howling in-dark was to be her fate. And, as such, why not take up this blade? Why not strike at Kubu, strike at the indifference that had allowed all this to come to pass?
Maribel pressed her hands against her face, smoothed back the skin of her cheeks, rubbed her knuckles into her eyes. Smoothed back her hair, lustrous and long and black. How Antonio had loved to play with it. The memory failed to bring back even sadness. Maribel raised her chin. These empty streets were as home to her now as any place. Barcelona was no longer for her; that had been another person. No; for her it would be shadows and silence and solitude.
So be it.
She began to stride down the street. This was the House of Asterion, and her search would not be a meticulous one, taking in each building, store, shop or alley. No—if this was his House, then she was his guest; it would be his duty to find her, and welcome her to his home.
With each step, fear fell from her like leaves from a tree. It no longer mattered to her, not truly, if she succeeded or failed. What was there to strive for? The only true goal was now beyond her. The shadows that filled the alleys held no secrets, harbored no potential horrors. Whatever might lie within them would be dealt with if they emerged, or not. She thought of the things she had seen, felt. Thought of blood, and pain, and things beyond her ken. None of it touched her. She walked as if in a cloud, an enervating mist of detachment and inviolate indifference.
Movement. Maribel stopped. Asterion? A young man had turned the corner a block away, rounding the green support column that held up the façade of a Starbucks. He took a few steps, then saw her and stopped. Curly brown hair, a distinctly ugly face, lean and wearing too little clothing for this cold. They stared at each other, and then an even younger girl walked out and joined him, and Maribel thought that she heard the distant peal of a bell.
Something about her. In this monochromatic world, her tan skin seemed to glow with health and vitality. Her chin was lifted at a defiant angle, and her hands rested lightly on her hips. They stared at each other, and then Maribel began to walk once more. Shortly thereafter, the other two did the same, approaching while speaking quietly to each other. When they were five yards apart, they stopped. Examined each other further.
The young man, in his early twenties perhaps, positioned himself to one side and angled his body between them; a protective position. He watched her carefully, his sensual mouth cast into a light frown. But it was the girl, the girl that she watched, stared at. She could feel the tension between them, causing the air to grow charged as if with electricity. Almost she expected the hair on her arms and head to begin to rise. Almost.
“You’ve come for the sword,” Maribel said at last. Her voice cold, certain.
“Not really,” said the girl. “More like we’ve been told to stop you from taking it.”
Maribel absorbed this. “Who asked you to stop me?”
“Old Man Oak. A fox called Guillaume. The Seelie Court.” Maribel felt weight behind those names, some stirrings of power, but they meant nothing to her. The girl looked carefully at her face, searching for something. “The Seelie Court,” she said again. “Your enemy?”
“I don’t have any enemies,” said Maribel. “Unless you count Kubu as one. And he’s an enemy to us all.”
The girl and the man exchanged puzzled looks. “But you work for the Unseelie Court,” she said. “They’re bad. They’re opposed to the Seelie Court.”
“So you say,” said Maribel. “That means nothing to me.”
“Well,” said the man, speaking for the first time. His left hand was in his pocket, holding something. “Be that as it may. You ain’t going to be getting your pretty hands on that sword. So.”
“I mean to,” said Maribel. She did. There was no bluster, no threat in her voice. If anything, she felt tired, annoyed, perhaps, by this interference. The young man pulled out a worn handle of wood from his pocket, and then flicked open a razor blade, long and straight and wickedly sharp.
“Don’t think you’re going anywhere,” he said, and smiled apologetically. “I’ve never hurt a woman before,” he continued, and then stopped. “Okay, I’ve never cut a woman before, but this is pretty serious. So. I guess I’d have to if you tried to get by us.”
The girl was staring at the man with a mildly shocked expression. “That’s Tommy’s,” she said. The man nodded. “How did you grab that?”
Maribel closed her eyes. The wind whistled about her, stirred her hair, blew thick strands across her face. She felt something rising wi
thin her. Annoyance, turning into a low snarl of anger. Her patience was wearing thin. With her eyes closed, she could sense the girl before her, a green spark of light, tinged with golden yellow. There was some power to her, but nothing to match her own. Nothing to match that which was welling up from her depths. Suffusing her.
Maribel opened her eyes. “I’m going now,” she said. “Move aside.”
“Sorry, sweet tits,” said the young man, grinning an ugly grin at her. He waved the razor before him, cutting at the air. “You move, I give you a neck tie smile, or something.”
Maribel felt no fear. No concern. Instead, she allowed her anger to swell, to surge for a moment, and extended her hand in the man’s direction. An image of Isobel’s eyes flashed through her mind, her hands limp and bloodied, and the young man was lifted off his feet and thrown back as if tackled by a charging rugby player. With a grunt he crashed onto the road beyond, rolled, and lay still.
Maribel looked at her hand. What surprise she felt was muted. She turned to look at the girl, just in time to see a brown fist come swinging out of nowhere. The girl cracked her across the cheek, smacking her head back, a flash of pain and white light blanking out everything for a moment, and then Maribel regained her balance, blinked tears from her eyes, and stared at her.
Extended her hand. Pushed. And felt her despair and resignation flare out of her, only to hit some resistance, to curve around the girl like a wave hitting a rock, or wind hitting the trunk of a great tree. The girl staggered back, however, legs buckling. Her eyes went wide, and she gaped at her.
“Move aside,” said Maribel. “I don’t want to hurt you.” But I will, said a voice deep within her. I will if I have to’i>.
“No,” said the girl. “I won’t.”