The woman inhaled through her nose again. Her smile widened. “We are happy to know the very private gentleman in question.”
“Fine,” I sighed. I pulled out my own wallet, which was not thick with crisp bills. I tried to put a self-conscious shoulder between Addam and the five battered twenties, but he defeated the attempt by standing behind me and resting his chin on my head.
“We are pleased to not need this very generous tip,” the fae said, and hovered up so that her eyes were level with mine. “Customers take much delight in our other skills. We would be happy to share one of your dreams in exchange for such help.”
“Would you,” I said to her, slowly.
I turned to Addam and Brand and said, “Leave us.”
Brand opened his mouth, and I looked at him, and whatever he saw in that look made him get off the stool and drag Addam to a respectable distance.
I turned my head back to face the fae, who was much less certain than she’d been a moment ago. The male dream sprite was hovering below her, reaching up to tug anxiously on her belt.
“Do you know what I am?” I asked her softly.
She wasn’t so small that I couldn’t see her swallow.
“I know your kind better than you suspect,” I said. “I know that if I agree to share a dream, you’ll be able to rifle my mind as I sleep.”
“We do not steal, we only share,” she insisted in a high whine. “Share.”
“You want to share one of my dreams? Mine? Go ahead and taste them. I know you can.”
Her eyes flicked to my forehead, and then back to me. I leaned close to her, a low bow.
“Go ahead,” I whispered.
She darted over and placed a weightless finger above my brow. And as she did, I thought about my dreams. I shoved them forward like water through a firehose. I thought about horrors that never aged; and images that never dulled; and sounds that never faded into echoes.
The little sprite screamed and flew backwards. She mouthed the word Arcana with shaking lips as blisters rose on her finger. She turned orange. Not her actual pallor—just the flickering reflection of my burning eyes, as my Atlantean Aspect flared to life.
“I am what remains of the Sun Throne,” I said, “and I do not share dreams or memories. You may thank me for the mercy.”
“We are now pleased to recognize Lord Sun!” the male dream sprite said, all but throwing the woman behind him. He bobbed in front of me, shielding his eyes against my power. “We are pleased to offer beer and smiles and directions to Kellum Greenwater!”
Atlantean Aspects are difficult to describe.
A particularly powerful magic user can look different—distorted— when strong emotion or magic is upon them. My eyes used to glow orange, but lately I’ve had a distressing tendency to catch fire.
It gets even more dramatic the higher you go up the food chain. Arcana—real, ruling Arcana—are the closest things to gods on this planet. They require fearsome Aspects—it’s a survival mechanism, like a predator’s coloring or the ruff of a wolf. There are stories of Arcana becoming burning bushes, scorpions, and F5 funnel clouds. My father became a pillar of light so bright that it left an afterimage for hours. Addam’s mother had dangled from the ceiling like a spider.
Many scions of the newest generation don’t have Aspects. A lot of academics cite this as evidence that the Atlantean race is in decline. I have always disagreed.
Just because most scions don’t turn into jabberwockies or lightning bolts when they’re pissed doesn’t make them weaker; it just makes them children of a different world. Blending in has become their survival mechanism.
The apologetic male sprite herded us out of the common room, toward a stairway at the end of a hallway. The corridor was richly appointed, but it was still a ship, and soft carpets only went so far in masking the raw utility of planks and hull.
I wanted to ask the sprite more questions, but his fellow bartender— the woman who’d pissed me off—buzzed up to us. She had something in her arms.
“We are very sorry,” she said. “This is a cherished gift to say how sorry we are. It is—” And here she said a word that sounded vaguely French. She held out her arms to me. In them was a button.
“A magic button?” I asked.
“It is chord-dee-roy,” she said with great reverence.
I took it from her by carefully pinching two fingers together. She bobbed up, released of the weight; sketched a midair bow; and flew away. The male sprite that had led us upstairs pointed excitedly to a metal hatch at the end of the corridor, burbled his own goodbye, and chased the woman back downstairs.
I looked down at the corduroy-covered button, then looked up at Brand. “Don’t go pressing my buttons,” I told him.
He walked ahead to scout the hatch.
“That was a little funny,” I said to Addam.
“Of course it was,” he said. He gave the hatch ahead an uncertain look. “It would make sense for one of us to remain in the corridor and watch for trouble. You and Brandon are more skilled at the type of discussion you need to have with this Kellum Greenwater. I will remain outside.”
“You think we’re going to beat him up, don’t you?”
“No. I think you both have very clever minds for asking questions. Now go do as much. I’ll watch your backside.”
He meant what he said, because I felt his eyes on my ass as I walked down the hall to join Brand, which made me feel a little better about life in general.
“Addam’s going to stay and watch the hall,” I said. “So keep any objections buttoned up.” I held up the corduroy button.
“We don’t do puns,” he said.
“Is that a hot button issue with you?”
Brand pounded on the door, twice, with the heel of his hand. He didn’t wait for a response. He turned the handle and pushed into the room, turned sideways so that he minimized himself as a target.
The room was empty. Almost empty. Through a closed door in the corner, we heard a shower running.
I put a finger on the side of a cup of tea, which had been placed on an elegant cherrywood bureau. “Still warm,” I murmured.
“We’ll give him a minute,” Brand said. He began a circuit of the room, looking for any weapons or alarm systems.
I did my own tour of the stateroom. It was small and filled with lots of padding. Padded cushions, padded quilts, a padded leather headboard. The color scheme was a tasteful gray and sage. The only thing that screamed brothel was the collection of condoms on the nightstand. They were piled in a ceramic bowl like Halloween candy. I picked up one that had anemone-like whiskers drawn on the packaging, and held it up to the light.
The shower stopped.
Brand and I stayed on alert the full two minutes until the door handle moved. A tall, heavily freckled blond came into the room in a silk kimono, rubbing moisturizer into his neck.
“Company,” he said, coming to a complete, surprised stop. He kept his hands where they were, fingers slightly splayed, projecting a nonthreatening stance.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” I said. “But we do need to talk to you. You’re Kellum Greenwater? Sherman’s kin?”
“Cousin, yes,” Kellum said. The reply ran over his teeth like a sigh. “Please. Make yourselves comfortable. I was about to have tea?”
There could have been a dozen different reasons for his relative calm, but calm’s hard to fake when you’re unable to protect yourself, which had me on guard. So I opened my senses, and felt for magic.
He was Atlantean. I could tell that much. He had gifts. His magic— the way it felt—reminded me of seeing something through a magnifying glass, and of breathing deeply in a thick fog. I recognized the metaphor. It was my brain’s way of interpreting air and water magic.
“No, thank you,” I said, after a fractional delay.
Kellum moved to a vanity area in the corner, where he began to clean the lotion off his hands with a soft cloth. His robe fluttered around him with great affect. There w
as a skill to that, to sliding the sleeves of silk up and down your forearms, creating the illusion of wind and slow motion. It was not the skill of a low-end whore.
“Sherman,” Kellum said, and smiled at nothing in particular. He unpinned his hair, which he’d kept dry in the shower. “How far has he fallen this time? Rock bottom seems to get further and further away with each stumble.”
“Do you know where he is?” Brand asked.
“Will you tell me why you want him?” Kellum returned.
“Because he’ll lead us to Layne Dawncreek,” Brand said, which made me blink, because it was rather bloody blunt.
“Layne . . . Sherman and Layne are friends. You’re trying to find where Layne lives?”
“We know where he lives,” Brand said. “He ran away. He’s missing.”
Kellum sat down in the chair at his vanity table and crossed his long legs. The silk bathrobe parted over a thigh as dense with freckles as his face.
He gave me a slight but warm smile. “You’re very quiet. For what it’s worth, nothing breaks my heart half as much as a beautiful man with a bad haircut.”
“I have a bad haircut?” I said, a little defensively.
“I cut my own hair. Why not let me cut yours?”
Brand said, “We’ve got time.”
“We do not,” I said sharply.
Brand looked at Kellum, looked at me, looked back at Kellum. “Right. We have more questions.”
“Of course, dear. Why don’t you tell me what Sherman has done now. You’re here to help Layne?”
Brand said, “It’s the best way to save Max from—”
I slapped my hands together, funneling a bit of willpower into a cantrip so that the clap boomed like thunder. Brand’s mouth hung open; Kellum’s eyes widened.
“Understand this,” I said. “I have every sympathy for you and your kind. It must not be easy living in a city with such an inbred distrust of psionics. I know it’s why you’re hunted.”
“You know of my kind,” Kellum said, slowly, biding time.
“You’re a merman. And you must be very old, because young ones aren’t nearly as subtle as you, which is why so few make it to maturity. As I said, I am not without sympathy. But make no mistake, if you do not release your hold on my Companion, I will burn your vocal cords to ash.”
And with that, the merman’s subsonic spell dropped into silence, and the buzzing in the back of my brain stopped.
I saw him more clearly now, especially his eyes. They were the heavy black of deep-sea pressure.
“You mind-fucked me,” Brand growled.
“You entered my room without invitation, dressed like a thug,” the merman said.
Brand laughed—though it really wasn’t a laugh—and clapped his own hands together. “That was awesome. Do that again. That sly, Hollywood, high-priced-whore look. Maybe toss your hair while you do it.”
Kellum rose to his feet, but kept his hands where we could see them. “I’ve seen you here before. You stay in the safe parts of the ship. You’re a tourist, not a member. That’s not an insult, by the way. I could tell you stories of the real citizens of these docks. I could tell you stories about what they have taught me. Do you know the perfect position to put your lips before they’re duct-taped shut? Slightly agape and rolled inwards, so you can relax them a bit without losing skin. Do you know how to keep whip marks from scarring? Blue kelp and powdered vitamin D, mixed into a paste—though you’ll always need to keep out of direct sunlight, to preserve the myth.”
“I know about duct tape and scars,” I said quietly.
Kellum swiveled his gaze between us. “Then cut me some bloody slack. We all wear different types of armor, to make it through the day and put food on the table. I won’t ding your armor if you don’t ding mine.”
Brand held his gaze for a long ten seconds. Finally, he dipped his chin, a sign of truce if not approval. The confrontation washed out of the moment.
Kellum gave a long sigh and sat down again. “Let’s start over. And so. My name is Kellum Greenwater, of the Jade Tide School.”
“Rune and Brandon Saint John,” I said.
Kellum smiled. “Saint John. I see. I thought it might be something like that.”
“We got off on the wrong foot,” I said, “but if it matters to you at all, we’re the good guys here. You know Layne Dawncreek?”
“Yes. We’ve meet twice—no, three times. The last time I saw him, I tried to convince him to keep his distance from Sherman. My cousin isn’t a bad person, but he tends to fall in the path of bad men. Layne is . . . Well. There’s time yet for him to find his way. You said he ran away?”
“He did. We believe Sherman has information that will help us find him. Can you tell me about your cousin? And where he is?”
“He worked here briefly, but was let go. I almost lost my position as well, since I’d vouched for him when he was hired. He’s a cousin on my paternal side—he’s not from my school.”
Merfolk bred in maternal lines and lived in packs—in schools. The males were sterile. Psionics aside, the female’s need for human sperm had always marked them as outcasts. In the modern world, at least they’d stopped eating the donors.
Kellum continued. “His father—my uncle on my father’s side—was a vassal of a lesser house. My uncle fell on hard times, eventually, and Sherman . . . Sherman is a very pretty young man.”
“What court did the lesser house belong to?” I asked, and knew the answer even as he said, “Lord Hanged Man.”
It may have not been as simple as a piece falling into place—but at least there were more pieces on the board to make sense from.
Kellum grimaced. “Nothing I could do kept Sherman clear of them for long.”
“Do you know where Sherman is now?” Brand asked.
“I’ll write down the name of the bar. You’ll need to find it yourself— I’ve never gone that deep into the docks. I’m not sure how much sense he’ll make, either. He’s into the Agonies.”
“The Agonies?” I asked.
“It’s a new class of drugs,” Brand said. “I’ve heard of them. They’re fucking brutal.”
“Yes,” Kellum said. “They are.” He looked down at his lap, at his folded hands. “You aren’t surprised that I mentioned the Hanged Man.”
“Kellum,” I said, but not unkindly. “You don’t want to ask questions about that.”
“I suppose I don’t. But if Layne’s fallen in with the Gallows—then I fear he’s already lost.”
Back on the docks outside the Honey Pot, we took a second to get our bearings. Addam and Brand put their heads together to talk about the layout of the deeper areas. I dialed Corinne for research.
We’d set it up in advance. Corinne was standing by to pluck whatever information she could off the Internet. She listened to me explain we needed intel on the brothel Sherman was now working in—the SS Waratah—and then ended the conversation much like Brand would: by hanging up on me.
I went back to Addam and Brand. Brand was saying, “I’ve heard they even have the Marie Celeste down there, about a mile out. You Atlanteans are pretty fucking good at stealing human history right out from under their noses.”
“What do you see in this place?” I asked Brand, a little too abruptly, and before I could stop myself.
Brand gave me a look. Addam seemed interested in either my question or why I asked it. I made a sound—more growl than sigh—and said, “Forget it. We—”
My phone rang. The Dawncreeks. I answered it, expecting Corinne, but someone was whispering on the other end.
“Is this Corbie?” I said.
“Shhh,” he said. “I’m in the closet.”
“Why are you in the closet?”
“I didn’t want anyone to hear me. It’s important.”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
He said, “Did you tell anyone where I hid my candy?”
I closed my eyes and massaged the skin between them. “I did not, no.”
&
nbsp; “Oh good,” he whispered, and hung up.
I put the phone back in my pocket. “Corbie just wanted to chat,” I explained.
Brand said, “Let’s head out. We can ask people for directions on the way. Corinne will call when she knows more.”
“Perhaps I could speak with the guards on the Vijli first,” Addam said. “They may know where this Chained Rock is berthed.” That was the name of the bar on the Waratah.
While Addam retracted his steps toward the Honey Pot, Brand stared at me. He looked uncomfortable. “Thank you,” he finally said. “For making me shut my mouth back there.”
“Where? With Kellum?” I said. “Not many people can resist a merman’s siren song. It’s not your fault.”
“I didn’t even know the bar had a merman. I should have known.”
“Why? Because you go there a lot?”
“I don’t—” He glared at me. It’s possible my question had a little too much bite in it. “It’s not like I’ve got a fucking punch card or something for the docks. I don’t come here that often. And I definitely don’t go into the sketchy areas.”
“You don’t need to explain.”
“Apparently I fucking do. It’s just . . . Places like this, people leave each other alone. It’s not like being at normal bars. You’re not expected to get chatty with people.”
“That makes total sense,” I said. “You come here to take a break from being chatty.”
I smiled into his glare, which he turned into an eye roll, which meant we were okay for now.
Addam came back with no useful information at all. We took a vote and decided to head toward an area called mid-dock, which was the last crowded section of the docks before it splintered off into a dozen different, specialized paths—each one flying their own unique freak flag.
As we walked, we moved further from the neat order of city utilities. There was no power grid this far out—any bar with electricity had a generator or magic. And there were no lampposts, either. People walked around with whale oil lanterns, glow sticks, cell phone lights. The sheer variety of small lighting sources created a bizarre competition of shadow and motion.
And overlaying all of this—darting through the corners of my vision—were ghost images of death and destruction. Phantom icebergs, hill-sized tentacles, tidal waves that reached up and blurred the moon.
The Hanged Man Page 11
