Roadside Magic (15 page)

T
hey called old Pete Craddock crazy. He coulda told them what was, really. Crazy was the goddamn capitalists. Crazy was the nine-to-fivers in their offices. Crazy was the gummint that sent a boy to the jungles to murder Commies and then, when he came back, spat on him and called him a babykiller.

It was a damp night, even though the rain had stopped, and he pushed his cart down the sidewalk as dawn came up. Unbroken bottles piled high in the cart, and Pete’s bootsole was flapping a little. His head hurt from the cheap rye, but he had enough empties to turn in. You got up early, just like you did on the farm or in the service, and you got your work done. Those what stayed in bed lost out, or were throat-cut by the little crawling gooks in black pajamas.

Rail-thin almost-elderly mortal man in a blue knit cap and boots held together with worn-down duct tape, shuffling down the pavement, bobbing his head as his long brown coat flopped. Winter had been damn hard, but down here you could set yourself up in one of the empty warehouses, if you knew how to get in. If you looked for the forgotten spaces.

A flicker of motion ahead. Pete’s head jerked up, his bloodshot muddy-hazel eyes narrowing.

Sometimes they came after him. If it wasn’t the pajamas it was the longhairs, and if it wasn’t them it was the pig cops who didn’t give a damn if you were a ghost, if you’d died for your country in a goddamn rice paddy and couldn’t get a woman or a place to stay now because everything slipped right through a ghost’s hands.

The world was full of assholes. They’d set Jimmy McClintock on fire, poor Jim lost in a glue-sniffing stupor. Those drugs would get to you, bad juju. Liquor was much better. It warmed a man up, set him straight.

In fact, Pete often thought, liquor was even better than a woman. It didn’t nag you to death.

The flicker came again. His bootsole flopped as he slowed, staring.

The old Emberly warehouse was locked up tight. The fence around it was topped with razor wire and pretty damn solid. At first Pete thought the delirious tremens had him, because there was a man balanced on the top of the chainlink, stepping between the sharp coils. Dressed all in brown leather, with a shock of nasty matted hair that looked almost green in the predawn glow. He coiled himself, the top bar of the chainlink fence flexing slightly, the wire rattling, and leapt, landing on concrete soft as a whisper.

The man rolled his shoulders back, and Pete realized he had stopped dead, his jaw hanging. The tattered garbage bags covering his prizes flapped, a soft rustle as the usual dawn exhale filled the city.

It was enough to make him think about Bad Mandy who lived under the overpass, smelling of sour lavender and whispering about the things that lived in the cracks and corners. “Aliens, dontcha know. Some of them can fly. They hide, and only come out when you’re not looking.”

Bad Mandy, with her blackened teeth and her hissing, jabbing two fingers at you. “Don’t you look at me!” she’d yowl. “Don’t you dare!”

The man in brown darted into the alley across the street between two falling-down brick heaps. He made no noise at all, but the fence was still quivering. Pete’s mouth was dry, as if he was back in the jungle with the shadows under every leaf, the steam and the stink and the shit and the blood.

Trembling, Pete pushed his cart forward, wincing as the wheels grated. So loud in the hush, how hadn’t he noticed it before? What if the man came back, or suspected Pete had seen him?

He sped up. His bootsole flapped harder and harder. Rancid sweat burned all over his body. By the time he hit Caroline Street he was running flat-out, the cart juddering madly, bottles jouncing free of the garbage bags, shattering like bombs.

He was two blocks away from the collection center, and only one from the police station, when the massive heart attack seized his chest and dug its claws in without mercy. He screamed, a short cry because he had no breath left, and toppled to the cold pavement. The cart continued down the sidewalk, rolling with slow majesty before tipping, spilling glass and dirty clothes, a sleeping bag, and various other items into the road—a snail’s shell, brutally upended. Its wheels came to a stop, finally, and there was silence for a little while longer.

A
fair, fine morning in Summer, but nary a sprite or nymph was to be seen. Crystals of dew sprinkling the lush grass, the finely carved leaves, and the glowing flowers went unharvested. No dancing in the dells, and Summerhome did not throb with merriment. The pennons hung listless, the green and white walls smoke-tarnished, the shell-white paths glowing as bleached bone under a harsh-glaring sun. No balmy breeze, no music floating in the air, and the orchard’s blossoms had closed tight. No open frills on the gnarled black branches, just white buds, shy and hard as a kraken girl’s nipple.

The crystalline steps were repaired but dull. The visitor’s glove-soled feet brushed them, and he blinked out of sight before the massive door. He appeared on the other side of it, stepping out of nowhere as casually as a mortal on a Sunday stroll.

Who was it, to tread so bravely, when Summer’s door had not opened that morning? The Queen of Seelie was not accepting visitors. Perhaps he had an invitation?

He passed lightly over the shifting map of Summer’s domain in the eternally twilit rotunda, glancing down only once to see
the damage wrought by Unwinter’s raid. So much had been restored, but the edges of the map paled alarmingly. Half of the fens were gone, the Dreaming Sea reaching hungrily inland, the borders with the Low Counties ran and blurred much faster than they should, and the deep scars, as if a gauntleted fist had raked across the map, were still discernible.

The doors to the Great Hall were closed as well, but he simply skipped through the Veil and came to a halt just inside them, observing the empty, cavernous space. The hangings were now the deep, clotted red of dried blood, hanging utterly still. The couch on the dais was no longer choked with pillows.

Perhaps she found them too soft.

On the couch, she sat, straight and slim. The red scarf knotted around her wrist dripped down the front of her dress of black spiderweb and sigh, its many misty, shifting draperies blurring her outline. Her hair was just as long and golden as ever, its waves hardening as she raised her head and saw who stood before her.

“You,” she said tonelessly.

He swept her a fine bow, hand wide as if holding a feathered cap free, one toe pointed just so. “Me. Hail Summer, light of Seelie, Jewel of Danu.”

Her aristocratic nostrils might have flared a millimeter. That was all. She watched him straighten, and if she noticed any change in him, she did not inquire. No, she sat white and still, her slim fists clenched. The Jewel on her forehead gave a single brilliant flash, settled back to a low punky glow. No minstrels behind the carven screens above, no handmaidens waiting upon her, no knights in attendance.

He turned in a complete circle, widdershins, looking about him with much interest. Finally, his irises flaring with yellowgreen light around the black tarns of hourglass pupils, he faced
her again and mimed shock and surprise, his mobile mouth stretching wide, his features contorting.

Whatever she thought of this display remained a mystery. When she did speak, the words dropped listless from her carmine lips. She moved them as little as possible. “What do you want?”

“Many things, oh Summer. But is this any way for old friends to greet each other? Your hospitality grows a little thin of late, I should say.”

“What. Do you. Want.” A tremble passed through the throneroom, and the visitor affected not to notice.

“You had better manners when you were a serving-girl, my dear.”

Another tremor slid through the room, this one more definite. Summer’s blue, blue eyes narrowed a fraction.

That was all.

Finally, he sighed, an almost-comical expression of resignation playing over his youthful face. “I shall match rudeness with its own kind, then.” He stepped forward, easily, and again, until he stood in the exact center of the hall. “And I will ask very simply, so you may understand me.”

“Ask and begone.” Summer did not move.

“With good grace.” Puck, called Goodfellow by some, the closest thing to a leader the free sidhe had, bared his sharp teeth in his V-shaped grin. All things considered, he was looking very well, though his leathers were new, and a pair of sharp eyes might have noticed a certain absence of items at his belt. “I have searched as you bade me and found nothing but hints of your knights striking death into mortals. This will not do. Where is my girl, oh Seelie’s Dawn? Where, oh where, is
my Robin Ragged
?”

G
allow.” She prodded his shoulder, felt at his clammy forehead. “Hist,
Gallow
.”

He groaned, woke with a start. She clapped her hand over his mouth to capture any startled cry.

“Listen,” she whispered. “Crenn is gone; he left just a few moments ago. Wake. We must move.”

Gallow blinked. This close, she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes—he had been much older than her when he first stepped into the sideways realms. His skin was too cold, and sweat-slick besides. As long as he stayed in the mortal realm, he wouldn’t sicken further; one step into the sideways and the poison would begin to swell in the wound again. He nodded, his black hair rasping against his sleeve, and she eased her fingers away.

“He’s gone?” he whispered.

She let her hand fall and matched his quiet tone. “As soon as dawn rose. I do not like the thought of where he might hie himself to. We must away.”

“Okay.” He nodded, levered himself up with a grunt. Stood, rubbing the sleep from his green eyes with one hand, and the
set of his shoulders would have told her he was in pain, even if he had not winced a little, digging in his pocket with the other hand. “Half a minute.”

“He’ll return, probably with reinforcements.” She restrained the urge to hop from foot to foot. “If Summer wants me, it’s best not to stay where her messenger left us.”

“Where’s your dog?”

Does it matter?
“Looking for a safer place to hide. It’s dawn; come along or I shall leave you.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that.” He rolled something in his palm, then cracked it, like a nut in a brughnie’s capable, horn-hard hands. A red glimmer, creaking leather, and she averted her eyes as he stripped off the rags of his dun coat and shirt. Muscle flickered under pale skin, and he struggled into a gossamer doublet pulled from a carrying-boll. She recognized it now—goblin work, and fine, capable of carrying almost any weight. “A few seconds now might save us trouble later.”

“I have difficulty believing anything will
save
us trouble now.” She found herself stepping forward, tugging at the under-doublet laces to settle them aright, as if he were a child or a lover.

The leather was supple, varnished-red armor, with a jingle of whisper-light and iron-hard chain worked into the hide. Dwarven work, very fine, but not of a cut Summer’s knights would willingly wear. It was, perhaps, just the thing for a lanceman who needed a balance between agility and a fair measure of protection. Was that what he’d gone into the Markets for?

“What else have you in there?”
Why am I whispering?

“Want to dig and take a look?” A lopsided grin, and he bent to his boots.

She found herself smiling as well and smoothed her face as well as she could. She turned in a circle, first deosil then
widdershins, wishing Crenn wasn’t so
quiet
. If he came back now—

A few more moments, and she turned back to find Jeremiah Gallow running a hand back over his short hair. He offered her the boll, his palm cupped a-cradle and his dirty fingers shaking slightly. “Here.”

She took it, marveling at its lightness, running her fingers over the patterned surface. “A beautiful piece of work.”

“Should be. I paid enough for it. My Summer armor’s back at the bus station.”

Why tell me?
She shrugged as he picked up his tattered coat again, digging in its pockets. She looked away, unwilling to witness any other secrets he might be carrying. “You planned to leave, then?”

“What? Summer? Oh. I wasn’t always . . . well.” He dropped the coat, kicked at it with one booted foot. Now they weren’t mortal shoes, but hobleaf-boots, light and supple to the wearer, heavy as stone to the insect crushed beneath them, and worth a pretty penny. “I was not always Summer, Robin. Let’s go.”

“Wait.” She offered him the boll again. “You must need this.”

“No.” Gallow looked down at her, and there was the mark of fever on his cheeks, a slight hectic flush. His green eyes glittered dangerously. “You may find a use for it, or for anything in it. It’s yours.”

“I have nothing to offer in return.”

“I didn’t ask you for anything in return. Come on.”

As if you know where we’re going
. “Not that way. Here.” She slipped the boll into her own pocket. If he was in a giving mood, well enough. If it was a trap, she could rid herself of it later, couldn’t she?

A door on the south side was chained shut, but the padlock
holding the chain was more than happy to click open under a sidhe’s gentle coaxing. The hinges were rusty, too, but she pushed it open, wincing at the scraping, and peered out. Thin sunshine fell over a weedy gravel driveway, shadows sharp as knives, and a flash of tawny-russet was Pepperbuckle, slinking along the fence at the end of the gravel.

The touch surprised her. Gallow’s hand closed loosely about her wrist. “Do you really think I’d kill you for Summer?”

She pulled away, or tried to. “Come along.”

Sunshine, a balm against her skin. It felt good, even wan as early-morning spring light could be, and she pulled Gallow along. He turned loose of her wrist only to slip his fingers through hers—his gauntlets had retracted, a marvelous bit of workmanship. Warm skin, calluses scraping, and she wondered why it felt . . . well, natural, to hold his hand.

“Tell me.” He didn’t squeeze, but his hand caged hers securely.

“I don’t know.” There it was, in plainest truth. Pepperbuckle’s pads didn’t disarrange the gravel at all; he nosed at her excitedly and pranced, clearly proud of himself. “You might give me some lee to run, for Daisy’s sake.”

His fingers tightened. There was a weak spot in the fencing here, she spread her free hand against it and pushed. Chantment sparked on her fingers, and a curtain of chainlink drew aside. She hopped through; Gallow had to bend, much taller than her. Pepperbuckle nipped along at Gallow’s heels, and when they were done the chantment loosened and the fence snapped back into place. She exhaled, shaking a slight stiffness from her fingers.

“I would not betray thee, Robin.” A little formally. He’d fallen back into sidhe-speech now, with its arcane etiquette and architecture. “What I did, I did to protect you.”

“So you say.”
You stole from me
. Was she supposed to believe he felt so much for her dead sister he would risk his own skin for just a fading echo of her in Robin’s own face?

“Summer didn’t send Crenn to kill you, at least. Just to bring you back.”

“No doubt what she has planned for me is worse than a simple stabbing.” She tested the wind and glanced at Pepperbuckle, who took off trotting along the fence, tail high, the very picture of a hound with a mission. He glanced back, and she hurried to keep up. Gallow moved well enough in her wake, but even in the hobleaf-boots his steps were heavier than their wont. “Especially if . . .”

“Especially if she knows you invited guests to her revel.”

Robin halted. Her breath caught, and her back prickled with gooseflesh.

He
knew
. How?

Stop. He’s only guessing.

He was at her back now, so close she could feel the fever-heat of him. “What hold does Puck have on you?” His breath brushed her ear, another chill running down her spine. “I’ll protect you, Robin.”

A lucky guess, nothing more.
“Protect me?” Her throat was dry, and the music under her thoughts took on a slow, sonorous quality. Was she going to have to unleash it on
him
? “You’re poisoned, Gallow. All I have to do is wait.”
Just as Crenn said
.

“That’s why you woke me up instead of just slipping out with your dog?”

The world threatened to tilt out from underneath her.

Pepperbuckle trotted back, ears perked and his ruff rising, and she saw something hopeful in the distance, glowing white. Atop it, one of the more hated symbols perched, its stubby
arms thrust stiffly out. Her heart tore a little further. Funny, how she’d thought she had already suffered enough.

There was always more to be drawn from that well.

“Please,” Gallow breathed in her ear, and she shut her eyes, as if she could pretend he meant any of the words that would follow. “
Please
, Robin.”

The mothering darkness behind her lids, a false friend, offered no comfort. “Let go of me.”

He did.

She took two steps, rubbing at her left wrist as if he’d injured it. Her skin ran with electricity at his nearness, at the chill left by moving away from his warmth. She opened her eyes as Pepperbuckle halted, ears pinpricked and tail stiff, its fringe moving slightly as morning breeze touched it. Exhaust, cold iron, the filth of mortal living. Summer was more fragrant, but much more dangerous. A pretty sweet, wrapped in gold to hide the poison.

Was Unwinter better? Did she care enough to find out?

“There’s a church,” she said, hollowly. “You’ll be safe enough there.”

“And you?”

She shook her head, her hair bouncing, and set off down the sidewalk again. The street curved down a hillside, shambling warehouses rising on either side, early light tinting even the tired facades with gold.

Her velvet coat was no longer so dusty. Pepperbuckle’s heat had dried it quite nicely last night, and she could perhaps needle-chantment some of its threadbare patches. Some of the rips would mend of their own accord as the heat and chantment-aura of a part-sidhe worked out through her skin and into the cloth.

“Robin.” Gallow, behind her. “I was frantic, searching for
you. I cleared your trail of all the Unseelie I could find. I have something Unwinter himself wants, and I mean to trade it to him for your protection.”

Oh, Daisy would be proud of you
. “Very kind of you.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“You must have loved Daisy very much.” She sped up, her heels clicking, a familiar sound. “We must hurry. The assassin of Marrowdowne will no doubt track us easily.”

Thankfully, finally, he spoke no more, just stepped heavily behind her. His breath came hard and fast, but she didn’t slow.