River of Blue Fire (91 page)

“Emily's a Puppet,” Renie said desperately. “She's not even real.”

Quan Li raised one eyebrow. “So you wouldn't care if I pulled her apart right here in front of you, is that right? Bones and strings everywhere?”

“Tryin' it, and you six-meat,” growled T4b.

“Well, dang it, podner.” The harsh new timbre made Quan Li's imitation cowboy-drawl sound even more bizarre. “Guess we got us a Mexican stand-off, then.”

Despite this person's matter-of-fact tone, the entire situation felt fatally unstable to Renie. She struggled to keep the panic out of her voice. “If we give you the lighter, then you promise you'll let her go?”

“Happy to. Plenty more where she comes from.”

“Answer some questions first. That will be part of the bargain.”
If we can keep whatever or whoever this is talking long enough
, Renie thought,
perhaps one of the others will think of something
. Her own mind was churning, but nothing useful was coming. She was furious with herself for being tricked, furious with Emily for being captured. She did not want to risk the girl's life any more than necessary, but they could not just let the lighter go: the idea of giving up that precious device, when they had only just discovered it, was devastating—unthinkable.

“Questions. . . ?”

“Who are you? You can't be Quan Li.”

“You are a clever girl, aren't you?” said the person in the peasant sim. “So clever you think you can convince me that you wouldn't care if I skinned this child alive.” Emily yelped and struggled a little, but was silenced with a squeeze. “But the truth is, you don't know much about anything—like what's happened to your brother, just for instance. Well, I do, and it's pretty bloody funny, in a sickening kind of way.”

“Do not listen!” Martine put a hand on Renie's shoulder. “She is lying—she is just trying to hurt you, to make you angry!”

Staring at the contorted, hateful face that had lurked inside a shape they trusted, Renie felt sick.
It's the Wolf
, she thought.
All that time, it was the Wolf dressed up like sweet old Grandmother.
 . . .

“Lying, am I?” The Quan Li thing abruptly turned and hissed a warning at T4b, who had moved a step closer, and pulled the arm around Emily's neck tighter. For a moment the girl's feet lifted from the ground, kicking. “Why would I bother? Why on earth would I care what a gang of hopeless losers like you lot thinks or doesn't think?” The lupine smile crept back. “But since you're asking for the latest news and sports, you might be interested to know that your original Chinese grandmother is very definitely dead. Atasco guested her in—that's how I got onto her line. Granny Quan pretended to be a hacker, but I'm sure some Hong Kong contact got her onto the network. And wound up getting her killed, for that matter.” The laugh was febrile, excited. The monster was
enjoying
this.

“Are you working for the Grail Brotherhood?” Renie asked. “Is that why you have been spying on us?”

“Spy for the Brotherhood?” the creature said slowly. “Do you really think this is about you? You don't know
anything.
” The expression changed again, slackening into a cold emptiness which was somehow more terrifying than the demonic grin. Emily appeared to have fainted in the stranger's arms. “Enough talk. I'm calling your bluff, bitch. Either give me the lighter or I start taking pieces off her.”

Renie could not doubt it—the eyes that glared back at her out of Quan Li's face were as untroubled by human scruples as those of some elemental spirit—like the Hyena of !Xabbu's stories. She badly wanted someone else to make the decision, to take some kind of control, but none of her companions moved or spoke. It was down to her, and she could keep one or the other—little whining Emily, only debatably human, or the key to a universe, and perhaps to her brother's life.

She handed the lighter to !Xabbu. “Open a gateway.”

“What are you up to?” the stranger snarled.

“I'm not just going to hand it to you,” Renie said scornfully. “God knows what you could do to us with it. When !Xabbu opens the gateway, you release Emily and we hand over the lighter. Then you step through and leave us alone, like you said.”

Florimel was astonished. “You are just going to
give
it to this monster?”

“I wish we had a choice.” Renie turned back to the Quan Li thing. “Well?”

It hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Right. But no tricks. Things will get very ugly very fast if you try anything.”

!Xabbu had closed his eyes in concentration, and was paddling his fingers atop the lighter's shiny surface. For a moment Renie was afraid he would not be able to make it work again, but then a glimmering curtain of fire kindled in the air behind the stranger. The Quan Li thing maneuvered back toward it carefully, keeping Emily outward as a shield, until the golden rectangle was only a step away.

“Toss me the lighter,” it said.

“Let go of the girl”

“It's not your call any more.” The flat, emotionless tone was back. “You could even kill me and I'd just drop offline, which is more than you can do-I'm not stuck here the way you are. But I'd rather have the lighter, so throw it to me.”

Renie took a deep breath, then nodded to !Xabbu, who pitched it to him. The stranger caught the lighter and examined it quickly, then smiled as it took another step back to the very edge of the golden light, dragging Emily along. The mouth that had been Quan Li's puckered; the spy leaned and placed a kiss on the unconscious girl's cheek. “Come on, sweetness,” it said to her. “Let's go find ourselves somewhere to play.”

“No!” Renie screamed.

Something leaped onto the stranger's leg and clung. The spy shouted in anger and pain, then Renie and Florimel and T4b were all wading in together, slapping and gouging and trying to drag Emily and her abductor back from the shimmering gateway. Quan Li's Puppet was slippery and shockingly strong, and even with superior numbers they might not have been able to save the girl, but the Quan Li thing could not hold her and pry !Xabbu's teeth out of its thigh as well. With a screamed curse it let her go, then thrashed its way free from the confusion of clutch and tumble.

It paused, the gateway so bright that the stranger was little more than a silhouette as it pointed a trembling finger at Renie and the others, but when it spoke, the tone was eerily calm. “Now it
is
bloody personal. I'll see you lot again, every one one of you.”

“Too right you will,” Renie muttered.

It brandished Azador's lighter as if to mock their loss, then stepped backward into the light. A second later the gateway went out like a snuffed candle.

For the space of several heartbeats, the silence and stillness seemed to have choked everyone. Renie suddenly thought of something: “Where's !Xabbu? He was holding onto that . . . thing!”

A small hand took hers. The baboon stood by her knee, looking up, his muzzle scratched and bloody. “I am here, my friend. When Emily came free, I let go.”

“Oh, thank God.” Renie's legs had been threatening to give way, and now they did. She sat down with a bump beside !Xabbu. “Twice in one day.”

Martine and Florimel were kneeling beside the pregnant girl, who appeared to be regaining consciousness. T4b stood over them, his arms outstretched, his gloved fingers clenching and unclenching, helpless once more after his brief moment of heroism. No one remembered William until he coughed and spat out blood.

“
Is . . . there . . . any water
?” His voice was as scratchy as wind in leaves.

Renie crawled across the ground to his side, quickly joined by the others. Her momentary hope evaporated. William's eyes were wandering, unfixed, and his breath made a terrible bubbling sound.

“We have found no water in this place, William,” !Xabbu said. “I am sorry.” He hesitated for a moment. “Have this water from me,” he said, then bent close and let a stream of saliva run from his mouth to William's.

The pale, bloodied jaw clamped, then the gorge rose and fell as the injured man swallowed. “Thank you,” he sighed.

“You should save your strength,” Florimel told him sternly.

“I'm dying, Flossie, so belt up.” He took another liquid breath. “You'll be rid of me . . . soon, so . . . the least you can do is hear me out.” For a moment William opened his eyes wide; they lit on Renie, then he winced and let the lids fall shut again. “I thought I heard your voice. So . . . so you're back, are you?”

She took his hand. “I'm back.”

His eyes opened again at a new thought. “Quan Li! Watch out for Quan Li!”

“She's gone, William,” Martine told him.

“She tried to kill me, the miserable . . . old bat. Didn't want me . . . comparing notes with anyone . . . about that night in Aerodromia. I told her I heard . . . someone come back.” He fought for breath. “She said she did, too, but she said it was . . . Martine.”

The blind woman leaned close to him. “Is that why you came to me for that strange conversation? Why you told me all those things?”

“I . . . wanted to see how you responded. I told you the truth about me, though. I thought you would . . . know if I lied.” He laughed a little, a horrible sound. “Granny played me like a . . . frigging violin, didn't she?” His face contorted, then relaxed. “God, this hurts. It's slow, though. Feels . . . like I've been dying . . . for days.”

Renie didn't know anything about the night he was referring to, and it hurt her to see him struggle for speech. Martine could explain it all later. “It doesn't matter, William. Quan Li's gone.”

He appeared not to have heard her. “Guess this answers . . . any questions about . . . dying online, eh, Flossie? No one . . . could fake
this
feeling. You . . . drop off the perch here, it's for . . . for real.”

Florimel's face was still set in its usual hard lines, but she was clutching William's other hand in hers. “We are all with you,” she said.

“Martine, I didn't tell you . . . the whole truth,” the dying man murmured. His eyes were again open, but now he seemed to be the blind one, unable to find the Frenchwoman. “I told you that . . . friends of mine, online friends . . . that some were in comas. But, you see . . . there was one in particular. I was . . . I was in love with her. I didn't know that she was so young. . . ! I never met her in real . . . real life.” William's face contorted with pain. “I never touched her! Never! But I told her . . . how I felt.” He moaned, and there was a terrible harmonic from his punctured lungs. “When she . . . got sick, I thought it . . . was my fault. I came here . . . because I wanted to find . . . find her and . . . tell her I was . . . sorry. Because I thought she was . . . a grown woman, truly I . . . did. I would never . . .” He gasped and then fell silent but for labored breathing.

“It is all right, William,” the blind woman said.

He shook his head weakly. He opened his mouth, but it was a while until the words came. “No. I was . . . a fool. Old fool. But I tried . . . to be . . . a good man. . . .”

He went on breathing raggedly for a time, hitching and gasping, but no more words came. At last he shuddered and went still.

Renie looked at his stiffly unoccupied sim, then pulled a corner of his black cape over his face and sat up. She blinked away tears and wiped her cheeks with her hands. Long moments passed in silence before she said: “We have to bury him. After all, we may be here a while.”

“Have you no decency?” Florimel demanded angrily. She still held William's hand. “He is only just dead!”

“But he
is
dead, and the rest of us are alive.” Renie stood.
Have to be cruel to be kind
, she thought. They had lost William and they had lost the access device. It was important to have something to do-not just important for her, but for everyone. Even a funeral was better than nothing. “And the thing that killed him might come back any time. We have a lot of other things to talk about, too.” She pointed to a spot where the strange landscape had moved a little closer to normality, its gray, protoplasmic color at least formed into shapes that resembled rocks and earth and grass. “If we pick one of the solid spots, like that, we won't have to keep looking at his empty sim for however long we're here. You don't really want to do that, do you?”

“Renie, we are all very tired and upset . . .” Martine began.

“I know.” She turned in a slow circle, surveying, taking stock of things. “Which is why there are some things we have to do now, so we don't wind up in this situation again.” She heard herself sounding imperious and softened her voice. “By the way, Martine, I was impressed with the way you went after everyone. You can be a bit of a bulldog when you want to.”

The Frenchwoman strugged awkwardly and turned away.

!Xabbu came to stand beside her. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

Emily 22813, awake again, but deserted by her rescuers, sat up. “That woman tried to kill me!”

“We know,” Renie said. “!Xabbu, if there is any way to make a fire in this place, I think it would be a very, very good time to have one.”

“I will see what I can do.” He loped away up the patchwork hillside.

“She tried to kill me!” the girl howled. “Me and my baby!”

“Emily,” said Renie, “we all know what just happened, and we're sorry about it. Now, we've got a lot of problems to solve, so just for once, would you please
shut up
!”

Emily's mouth snapped closed.

!Xabbu found some of what Renie could only think of as non-wood-wire-framed deadfall, like tree branches made of stiffened fishnet. He stacked them in a careful pile, and managed by dint of hard work to induce frictional sparks to ignite this fictional kindling, resulting in a remarkably healthy non-campfire. The flames shifted color and texture in some very disconcerting ways, and sometimes became holes which seemed to show depths not present in the environment, but whatever it looked like, it
was
a campfire: it persuaded the environment to supply them with a node of warmth and a focus for their attention, which was what Renie had wanted.