Four Roads Cross (31 page)

Swing legs over the bed's edge, lean forward, stand. Dirty clothes crumpled underfoot. She picked up a stained shirt with her toes, transferred it to her hand, and tossed it to the hamper, where it rolled down the heap of dirty laundry already there and wedged against the wall. Cat felt more satisfied than she should have. The shirt's disposal left a gap in the layer of clothes that otherwise carpeted her floor.

Always felt strange to sleep late on a workday. Justice—Seril—brooked no argument on the subject.
Go home. Sleep until you wake up. Heal.
She hoped she'd get paid for the downtime. Last night was easily a double shift.

Of course, that assumed there was anything left to pay her.

Barefoot in bra and pajama pants, she padded into the living room. Dark here, too, blackout curtains drawn. How long had she slept, anyway? Seventy-seven demons from seven hells did the can-can on the right side of her head. Fuck. Cursing felt good—relieved the something or other. The cat-shaped clock hanging over her sink ticked its tail back and forth and showed a time she did not want to believe.

She opened the blackout curtains, pulled up the slat blinds, and leaned her forehead against the window. Eight floors down, a woman pushed a baby carriage along the broken sidewalk. A train passing two blocks over rattled the window, and Cat felt-heard the rattle in her skull. It didn't hurt. And she smelled—burning?

Behind her, someone screamed.

She turned just in time to see a reddish blur streak from her couch to bedroom. By the time the bedroom door slammed, the rest of the night had caught up with her: the trip to the hospital, the pain of healing, endless tests, after-action report, the order to go home, staggering back as dawn blued and pinked the east between skyscrapers. And with her that whole time—

She opened the window to let out the smell of burning skin, and tugged the blackout curtains shut. “Raz?” She ran to the bedroom door. “Shit, Raz, are you okay? I'm so sorry, I didn't—I forgot you were here. Say something!”

The door opened a crack, and a red-brown eye peered out. Above that eye stretched a charcoaled forehead, regrown skin wet and tender beneath the blackening and cracks. “Your room is a mess,” he said.

She reached for the burn and he pulled back. “You can come out.”

The crack between door and jamb widened to admit Raz's whole face. “How can you sleep in here?”

“When I'm tired. I keep the public space clean.”

“I clean the place I sleep.”

“You're a sailor, and you sleep in a coffin. You don't have much choice in living arrangements.”

“Or not, as the case may be.” He slid out the door. With one fingernail he peeled back an edge of blackened skin.

She made a face her mom wouldn't have liked, but to hells with Mom. “Does that hurt?”

“Yeah. Garbage?”

“Under the sink.”

He leaned the can against his leg and deposited charred bits of self inside.

She watched, intrigued at first. “You want coffee?” She caught herself too late. “Habit, sorry.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“No coffee.” She squeezed past him to the sink and poured water in the kettle. “I never put that one together.”

“Coffee's one of the few I miss.” Flakes of burned skin made a sound like light rain as they struck the trash bag. “I didn't notice the first few days of headache. I had a lot of getting used to do, after.” His wave included fangs and all. “Later, withdrawal symptoms were worse. Stabbing muscle cramps in my legs and back. I thought the transformation went wrong. Turns out that's just the drug leaving your system. Not fair, if you ask me. If a dreamdust addict turns, most of the time she finds someone to share the high. By the time I wake up, most of you have metabolized your caffeine.” His skin was clear, mostly. He returned the garbage can to its cabinet, bent over the sink, splashed hot water on his face, and scrubbed. She'd ground her coffee with a hand mill and dumped the grounds into the press. “Sorry I gave you a hard time about your room. Where I live, you have to tie stuff down.”

The kettle whistled. She plucked it off the burner, waited half a minute, flooded the grounds, and stirred. “I've been busy at the office, and getting my act together. Some things slip through the cracks. Plus, I don't have many guests. Mom and Dad live out in the Fell, and we haven't spoken in years.”

“No gentlemen callers.”

“No callers, gentlemen or otherwise.”

“Thank you for inviting me to your secret lair.” He leaned against the counter and watched her press the coffee. Flared nostrils invited the aroma, and he exhaled. “I could have found a hotel.”

Light tessellated the coffee's surface as she poured. “My memory of last night's hazy.”

“Mine, too,” he said too quickly. “We can just—”

“You drank my blood.”

“A taste, to regain enough strength to move.”

“It felt different.”

“It would.”

“Why?”

“It's complicated.”

“I want to know.”

He touched his chest. “I need what you have, the way you need air. For most suckers that settles the question. Blood's a resource, like water or oil, and like water or oil, the people who need it do whatever they need to get it. That attitude ignores the
why
of the condition.”

“Okay,” she said, meaning,
go on.

He did, with arms crossed. “I only know so much theory, but here it is. When you take the curse, it seals your soul and self. The curse stops change. That's why my hair grows back if it's burned off, why my muscles don't tire. But the seal makes it hard to take soulstuff in. Humans, you get paid or eat a good meal or meditate and you draw the world into yourself. We don't. This is how we refill.” He pointed to his mouth. “The curse is thousands of years older than Craftwork, but the idea's the same. Imagine if the only way you could connect with the world was to steal it from someone else.”

“But you don't.”

“I use tricks. The
Bounty
has its own soul, and we share. There are other ways, which boil down to knowing the other person well, so you can accept and trade, rather than just taking. That's why it felt different.” He stopped. “Feeding makes a connection between us. The curse wants it to be one-way. I can force it back. At Andrej's, when you—surprised me, it felt so good, and I wasn't ready. The curse took over. I freaked out.”

“Then you blamed me for it.”

“That was an asshole move on my part.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Why fight what you are?”

“Because the curse isn't me. I'm what I was before, only the curse tries to make me something else. It's old, and it's had a lot of time to learn how to make people see other people as food. Most suckers don't last fifty years. They go mad, or get killed, or sleep their lives away. Or they walk out into the ocean and never come back.”

“I haven't heard that one before.”

“We don't talk about it much,” he said. “I don't like any of those options. I've walked the line for decades, but I still slip.”

“And last night.”

“Last night, you'd saved my life three times, and I'd saved yours at least once. I trusted you. I was ready.”

“Are you still?”

They were closer than before. She'd pushed herself off the counter and approached him, step by tender step. His mouth was open.

There was a knock on the door.

“Yes,” he said. “But I don't know if it's right for you.”

Again, the knock, followed by a voice like a knife scraped over a guitar string.
Ms. Elle?

“Just a sec.”

She marched toward the door and realized halfway there she still wasn't wearing a shirt. Dammit. A bathrobe hung on a hook in her bedroom; she grabbed it, tied the belt around her waist.

A Blacksuit stood in the hallway, female of figure, glistening.

“What's up?”

You are summoned.

“It's my day off.”

There is to be a council of war.

 

40

“We're in trouble,” Tara told those gathered in the cramped black stone room. The Cardinals listened, along with Shale, and Abelard who'd arrived escorted by a few eager monks who in any other setting Tara would have described as groupies, and a few officers of Justice, and Cat. They were all here: clerics, gargoyles, Blacksuits, and the gods they served, whose attention she could detect, when she blinked, as ripples in Craftwork spiderwebs. “Much as I support Cardinal Bede's decision to decline Ms. Ramp's deal, he's left us in a hard spot. In three days, Ramp will bring the weight of the world down on our shoulders. We can't fight that alone.”

“Can we fight it at all?” Bede rubbed his pipestem as he smoked. He'd put on a brave show before, but he was worried. Good.

“Let's review the plan: your creditors will claim the church misrepresented the risks to which Kosite was exposed. They'll use that to bleed Him dry.”

*   *   *

Madeline Ramp stood feet wide-spread on roiling chaos amid nightmare clouds, hands clasped behind her back, shoulders broad and square as a general's. Daphne watched, taking notes.

Lightning licked from cloud to cloud as immense shapes swelled and sharpened into faces: skulls with eye sockets in which strange fires danced, ruined visages of women, cracked marble countenances that might have stared from ruined temples onto trackless wastes, beings bird headed or goat bearded, the world's secret chiefs swelled to the size of mountain ranges. Some were gods. Some were Deathless Kings. Some were not quite either—she recognized a Southern Throne-Lord by her pitted face and dried tight skin.

Call them clients. Easier that way.

“It is a pleasure to see you all again,” Madeline Ramp said. “And thank you for coming on such short notice. Alt Coulumb has taken up our gauntlet. Soon, we begin the war.”

The thunder laughed.

*   *   *

“Fortunately,” Tara said, “Kos can fight back. He has a broad worshipper base and a diverse portfolio. We can make a strong case Seril has had little impact on his operations, or his creditworthiness, so far. Seril just isn't big enough—her balance sheet disappears into his operating budget. That's your first line of defense: cleric up and bluster through. The ‘come at me' option.”

“Which leaves the Lady vulnerable,” Shale said. The Cardinals, particularly Nestor, squirmed in their chairs.

“Right. Alt Coulumb's people back Kos, but they won't support Seril yet.” She took a sip of bad coffee and grimaced. A scribe arrived at the door, bearing copied documents; she passed them out, though they were short one copy, so Cat had to share with the Blacksuit rep. “Ramp's opinion of our side isn't high. She sees a junior Craftswoman and priests she's quick to dismiss. Since she thinks we're weak, she'll press Kos first—like inviting an idiot's mate in chess. She'll try to win quickly. If we don't crumble, she'll turn to Seril for the endgame.”

*   *   *

Ramp regarded each of her thunderhead clients in turn.

“Kos's clergy's faith is shaken. First we will strike their core operations, with accusations of mismanagement and undisclosed risk. If we succeed, we sweep the field: if found malfeasant, the priests will have to surrender control over Kos.”

A man who wore a mask of flesh showed green-flashed teeth. “Your chance of success seems low.”

“We don't hope to win this round, just to force Kos's clergy to retrench theologically. They'll proclaim faith, affirm core principles, rouse the masses. Which, in turn, will undermine the moon goddess's attempts to establish herself among the populace.”

*   *   *

“So we should let Kos take care of Himself, and focus on defending Seril.”

“No,” Tara said. “We use her feint as an opportunity.”

The skin around Nestor's eyes crinkled like an apricot's. “Because it gives us more time?” He was a man of gears and fans and belts, not thaumaturgy. Tara had to slow down, or lose him.

“Because chess is a bad analogy for an argument. We don't start with an array of forces and remove them from the board one after another. We start with a blank board and build our position in the context of theirs. They'll expect us to defend Kos so fiercely we'll ignore Seril.”

“What do you mean?”

“How would you shore up faith in Kos, ordinarily?”

“Preach,” Abelard said. “Encourage prayer and reflection.”

“Using your current theology?”

“Of course.”

“Which sees Kos as the center of your faith, and Seril as an afterthought, or a rival.”

“Ah,” Abelard said.

“That's her goal: her attack will push you into fundamentalism, exposing your flank. Then she'll strike.”

*   *   *

The chaos beneath Ramp's feet whirlpooled down and out to form a miniature of Alt Coulumb. Claws of light surrounded the model city, curved down, and pierced.

“That,” Ramp said, “leaves Seril to us. The moon goddess is not strong enough to defeat a direct attack, and we are not bound to respect her as we are Kos. Since she signed no treaties after the Wars, she is technically a combatant still. If we break her, we resolve the main issue and obtain a captive goddess, not without value. But if Kos comes to her defense, we have him.”

The raven-faced creature croaked a thunderclap. “How can we be sure of defeating Seril?”

“She is doubly weak: directly and through her creatures.” A mock gargoyle crouched upon Ramp's open palm, fangs gnashing as it beat its broad wings. She closed her fingers, and stone dust rained onto the miniature city. “When they break, so will she.”

*   *   *

“Justice might also be a target,” Tara admitted, turning to page three, “but Ramp will probably ignore her. The parts of Seril connected with Justice don't have enough slack to support the Goddess's mind. If all Seril has left is Justice, she'll be as good as dead.”