Trickster (30 page)

“There’s me,” Ev Fallon said softly.

W
e were forming an army of assholes. The
udug
reminded me of this every time I touched it.

In a fit of collective insanity, I was the general of the operation. By virtue of being the only one of us aside from Fallon to have any direct experience with Renar or her house. And because all of a sudden everyone thought I had ability. Everyone suddenly quoted Hiram. Hiram telling everyone, apparently, that I was a bitter disappointment to him because I had a gift. I had a way with the Words. I could whittle any spell down to a quickness. But I wouldn’t bleed people.

Only, now I was bleeding people.

I sat in the back room of Rue’s. A bottle of single malt, a thick glass tumbler, and an ashtray on the table in front of me. Pitr Mags overflowed a chair, leaning against the wall behind me. Apparently asleep. Mags had a talent for looking asleep. It was part of the protective
coloring that had kept him alive this long despite his congenital idiocy.

Ketterly had floated in with Daryl. All the grifters had taken pity on Daryl, who was still pining for Claire with the adolescent kind of stoicism that inspired pity. Me, I was keeping my eye on the boy. The glyphs on Claire were one possible explanation for his ongoing devotion, but I was beginning to wonder if Daryl was really just the sort who naturally fell in love with tall leggy girls with short dark hair and a few homicides under their belt. Hell, I thought, that described me, and no one had Charmed me into anything. I didn’t know exactly why the thought bothered me—that if we took the Charm off he’d still be mooning about with a bouquet of fucking flowers in one callous hand for her—but it did. And I kept reminding myself that just because I could cast an anti-Charm on him without even having to bleed for it didn’t mean I
should
.

It was getting harder and harder to remember that.

They came one after the other, offering up their services. I was dividing them into Bleeders and folks who actually had some skill, some tricks that would be useful. When I needed a little help, I pushed my hand into my pocket, where the
udug
was strangely warm, and touched it for a second or two. It told me something about the person in front of me, then kept trying to say something about Mags.

she has forgotten a spell you will find useful yes you must push her hard to remember the horses remember the horses Pitr Mags is

I removed my hand every time. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care if the end of the sentence was
going to stab you in the face
—I didn’t want to know.

Every time I touched the
udug,
my heart pounded in my chest, my hands shook. I hated it. But it was getting easier to tolerate it, and easier to guide. It was all about willpower. You had to concentrate. You could force it to stay on subject. But the second you slipped, the second you lost focus, it veered off and started whispering about something else. It told me where fifty thousand dollars was buried out in Queens. It told me which women I knew would sleep with me if I asked. It told me about women I
didn’t
know who would sleep with me. It told me Neilsson was already halfway to drunk and would be passed out within two hours, and that I could not trust him. It told me that the winning lottery numbers tomorrow would be 34-5-7-19-23-1 in the state of Rhode Island. It told me the winnings would be six and a half million dollars. It told me where my father was. It told me he hadn’t thought of me in six years. Not even a thought.

I nodded at the woman sitting across from me. The
udug
hadn’t told me what, exactly, her spell was. “You’re in,” I said, reaching for the bottle. “Remember the horses.”

She froze, halfway out of the wooden chair. She was a beat-up old battle-ax. Bleached, wiry hair. A layer of makeup that would defy most modern tools. She was wearing too many coats, though the precise number of them was mysterious. Her mouth had the
perpetually wet look of badly fitted dentures. But the
udug
had told me she had at least one useful spell, so she could keep her sleeves rolled down.

She stared at me for a moment, startled, then turned and shuffled back to the main part of the bar.

As she left the room, a kid was sauntering in. I hated him on sight. Sixteen, seventeen, all pimples and swagger. He smirked at me as he dropped into the chair across from me, and it made me feel mean.

I put my hand on the
udug
.

jimmy marbles they called him jimmy marbles he masturbates three times a day thinks no one knows everyone knows all the people in his building he forgets to close the shades ask him about the dog ask him about Boogie where’s Boogie where’s Boogie

I lifted my hand. I didn’t want it to tell me he knew some amazing old spell, time travel or nuclear holocaust or something. I smirked back at him, feeling mean.

“Tell me about Boogie,” I said. “The dog.”

The transformation was instant. His smirk dripped away, leaving a hollowed-out stare. He sat there for a moment, visibly shaking, then stood up and without a word turned and left the room. I watched him go, triumph souring into anger and regret. What the fuck had that accomplished?

But it had felt good.

This was becoming a mythmaking session. No one but Mags knew about the
udug
. To everyone else I was becoming more Messiah-like with each passing
moment. I could see the long con: Using the
udug,
I would know things. Just
know
things. Combined with a few easy tricks, a couple of
mu
that were more flash than substance, and I could build up a following. A cult. Throw in a few dedicated Bleeders, I’d be rich. An
ustari—
maybe even
saganustari
if I learned a few big spells. And I could learn big spells. Hell, I could
write
big spells.

I wouldn’t be some fat asshole like Gottschalk, or a fancy dandy like Amir. I’d bring everyone with me. A rising ship and all that. All these Tricksters, I’d bring the circus along for the ride. My court. I saw myself, hotel to hotel, first-class everything. Me and Mags and Claire and room service and limousines and one day Renar sends a note, asks for an audience. Invites me to a meeting of the Illuminati, wants my input on how

the world should be ordered and Claire will be impressed Claire thinks she is above silk sheets and endless credit lines and private jets but Claire will

I jumped, pulling my hand off the
udug
. I hadn’t consciously touched it. I hadn’t realized I was daydreaming. Sweat covered me from head to toe, soaking into my clothes.

I shook my head and the vision dissolved. I felt cold. Clammy. Anything that sprung from the
udug
and its whispered, monotone advice would be poisoned. Rotten. I put it on the table, behind my bottle.

“Jesus,” I spat, pouring myself some booze. “What the fuck are we going to do up there? Renar’s an
Archmage, for fuck’s sake. We’re fucking con artists. We can’t
all
steal her wallet.”

Mags said nothing.

I drank off whiskey and waited for Neilsson and Ketterly to send back the next asshole. Fucking Tricksters. Barely a combat spell among them, and the ones they did have were fucking jokes. I wouldn’t take two dozen of them to assault a liquor store, much less Mika fucking Renar.

I poured myself another glass. It was like drinking water. Nothing affected me. Waited. Thought about my father. Thought about him
not
thinking about me. Thought about moving up in the world, sending the winged monkeys out to bring him in for an interview. Got that mean feeling again. I pushed it away as violently as I could, my head pounding.

The silence struck me. Too fucking quiet for a bar. Too fucking quiet for a bar full of assholes volunteering for the Asshole Army. I half stood. Spun around. Mags was staring off into space. And then, as I watched, he was washed away like he’d been nothing but watercolors. An invisible rain scoured him away in streaks, then the wall behind him, then the floor.

And then I felt it. Magic.

Once I noticed it, it was everywhere. Heavy in the air. Sizzling on my skin. I could almost smell the fucking blood in the air, iron and rust. I’d spent the last few days swimming in fucking blood magic every day. I’d forgotten what an emergency felt like.

The bar dissolved around me, melted by acid, leaving
behind a void of white and gray. I knew it was a Glamour, none of it real. I thought of Hiram. Perception was reality.

I spun back, tearing at my sleeve, running through the spells in my head. A dozen ways to pick locks. A dozen Charms. A dozen simple Glamours. I didn’t know a single fucking fireball spell. A single military-grade weaponized Cantrip.

“Please. Have some manners.”

I looked up as I jerked my switchblade from my pocket. Mika Renar stood some unknowable distance away in the white void, the last streaks of the floor draining away. Or, rather, her Glamour stood there.

She looked completely real. My heart picked up speed. I had a half erection. Her skin looked like it tasted sweet. Her hair moved and caught every bit of light and turned it fiery red. It looked like it would feel like silk against your skin. She was tall and lovely, wearing a black dress, smart and businesslike. Her face broke my heart. She looked like I’d broken
hers,
all sad and on the verge of tears that would fall to the floor like tiny diamonds.

As she walked into the room, Amir wheeled the Mummy in. The wheelchair was old and outdated. The wheels squeaked as it moved. The Mummy looked like she might turn to dust if he jostled her too hard. I considered her habit of just letting everyone know they were dealing with a Glamour. Just not giving a shit. There was something intimidating about someone who didn’t give a fuck if you knew they were vain,
that they were fucking with you. Most people made avatars like that using a Glamour to hide behind. Renar used it just to show you she could burn the gas.

Amir was smiling. Wearing five thousand dollars on his back. And looking good doing it.

It was no use. I’d been sandbagged, and I had no way of striking out. I turned and was surprised to find the chair and table still there, sitting on nothing, just white emptiness. I sank down into the seat and watched the Glamour prowl. I wondered, feverishly, if she would feel like anything if I reached out and touched it. How far the illusion would go. If I would even care that it was an illusion.

“If I had known you were planning to lead your merry band of irregulars to my house, I would have saved myself the trouble of fetching you,” she said. Her Glamour said. Her voice was light and mocking, sweet and golden. A worm tickling its way into my ear. “I’ve recently realized I must do some things myself, as apparently one cannot rely on anyone else to accomplish
anything
.”

For a second, a cloud passed over Amir’s face. I was going to die, but it was worth it, all of it, for that one second of doubt on that bastard’s face. I wondered if he was sporting some new bruises under that suit, what the exact nature of Renar’s punishments were.

She paused. Both the Glamour and the Mummy inclined their heads simultaneously. Looking at the table. I stared in horror at the
udug,
left sitting there like a puddle of color, slick and shiny.

I dived. I launched myself bodily at the table. Hated myself for being so stupid—if it had been in my pocket, it would have told me what to do. It would have issued me instructions. And Renar wouldn’t have known, at least not for crucial seconds. I had an advantage and I’d left it sitting on the fucking table.

The Army of Assholes had chosen its general well.

I beat them to it. I slapped my hand down on the
udug
. It spoke to me. It said four words before it was yanked from under my palm by invisible force. I stumbled and crashed to the floor, where a heavy weight settled on me, courtesy of Cal Amir and Mika Renar. I lay there panting, sucking in sawdust and shit and skin flakes, the dried-up puke of a million long-dead revelers.

The floor was pure white emptiness. The smell and grit was disorienting.

“You
are
useful,” Renar said. Her breath, the Glamour’s breath, would smell like cherries, I thought. “Pathetic, but useful. This is a very disobedient artifact. It has been seeking escape from me for decades, usually finding its way into the hands of the lower-class mages, such as yourself. Such as your
gasam
. It seeks to trick you into releasing it from its bondage. But, of course, this does not work, because you are too
stupid
to release it. I am glad to have it back.”

I saw her feet. The Glamour’s beautifully manicured feet. Stiletto heels. Gliding. They floated a tiny, tiny fraction of space above the floor. The only flaw in the illusion, and I had to be nose-first into the planks to see it.

“You will have time on the ride home to contemplate your mistakes, Trickster. To consider the folly of going against your betters. Yes?”