“I know it.” Tharyn sighed. “By the Goddess, I know it.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Invocations. Elsewhere Bargains.
HAMISHA, THE BELL GIRL, promised she would take care of Flynn and then, when the storm was over, take him to the Pacifica Express office and get him passage back to Califa. I hated to leave him, but Tharyn said he could not go with us. So I kissed Flynn and left him curled up on the bed, Hamisha scratching his tum and feeding him chicken. He’d be safer at home, anyway.
I expected Cutaway’s minions to stop me from leaving, but the guard outside our door was gone. The mess in the lobby was mostly cleaned up. Two minions were nailing boards over the broken windows, and the soggy carpet had been rolled up and carted away, revealing a sodden wood floor. As soon as we got out from under the hotel awning, the wind hit us, almost knocking me off my feet. Tharyn grabbed me and held on. Heads down, we fought our way across the drive and down the street. The rain felt as sharp as nails.
“Are you sure we can’t do this inside?” I shouted.
“We need a crossroad! Come on. It’s not far!”
We were the only ones out. The water on the street was ankle deep—or at least ankle deep on Tharyn. On me, it was more like knee-deep, a torrential river in which I struggled to stay upright. Above, the sky was a roiling leaden mess. A queer twilight had descended, a greenish gray light that made the town look underwater.
By the time we made it to the intersection, we were drenched. The cab shelter was small, but it did provide some protection. Tharyn put his satchel down on the bench and took a piece of paper out of his jacket. The wind had torn his hair from its queue, snarled it into a great tangle of curls, which made him look even more bearish than usual. I wanted to lay my head on his chest and close my eyes. Instead, I said, “I warn you, I won’t get into a box. I’ve had enough of boxes for an eternity”
“No, nothing like that,” Tharyn said. “Before we do this, I have to tell you, Nini, in all fairness, that I’ve only made an overnight delivery once, and it wasn’t very a big package. You are a lot bigger. This is going to be very expensive.”
“I don’t care how expensive it is. The Bilskinir estate is fabulously rich. I can afford it. Though I’ll have to write a postdated check—”
“The cost isn’t in money. That would be too easy If it were only money, everyone would use this method.”
“What else can you pay with?”
“Each courier has their price.”
“That other overnight. What did its sender pay?”
“A year off his life.”
I thought Tharyn was joking, but he wasn’t smiling. “Are you serious?”
“Ayah. Are you willing to pay such a price?”
A year off my life. That was pretty steep. But if Espejo got Tiny Doom and then came back for me, I wouldn’t have much life left, anyway. As if to underscore that point, a bolt of lightning cracked overhead and the walls of the shelter rattled.
“Ayah, ayah. I am willing. Let’s get on with it. “
I took the address label he offered me. On it was written: Poste restante, Fort Sandy, Arivaipa Territory.
“What does 'poste restante’ mean?” I asked.
“It means there’s no actual address. The package goes to general delivery.”
“Am I going to just show up at the post office in Fort Sandy?” I asked, horrified. If I materialized in the middle of the Fort Sandy post office, how in the fike would I explain that?
“No, of course not. This is just to get the order going. We’ll discuss the actual delivery address with the courier. Actually, I don’t think Fort Sandy even has a post office. It’s the back end of beyond, Nini.”
Tharyn took his jacket off and rolled it up. He’d never reclaimed the shirt he’d wrapped around Flynn and apparently he didn’t have another. In the greenish-gray underwater light, the tattoos on his chest were inky black and seemed to undulate and waver.
Move forward, said Nini Mo, and don’t look back—even if you can hear the snapping of the wolves on your tail.
I took Tharyn’s outstretched hand and we stepped out into the storm. The driving rain stung my face like needles; I bent my head and tried to stay in the shelter of Tharyn’s back, allowing him to pull me to the center of the intersection. It was slow going in the wind, but Tharyn was very strong, and eventually we made it. I wrapped my arms around him, buried my face in his chest, feeling the pound of rain on my back, his skin wet, slick, and warm beneath my cheek.
I couldn’t hear his Invocation over the roar of the wind, the thunder of the rain, but I could hear it vibrating through his flesh. The hum started off low and slowly gained intensity until my tonsils quivered, my blood vibrated, my bones hummed in unison, and our voices blended and became one.
Distantly, I heard a howl and looked down to see a familiar red dog squirming between our legs: Flynn had somehow escaped the hotel and now added his voice to ours. The wind joined in, merging into one infinitely long note. I no longer felt the rain on my back, the cold whipping into my neck. No longer felt Tharyn pressed against me, the weight of my own body My skull was ringing, until the noise was too big for bone to contain and I was sure that my head would split from the pressure, and then—
“All right! All right! Stop that caterwauling! I hear you! I hear you! Be quiet!”
The shout cut through like a hot knife in ice cream. The rain was gone, the wind gone. We stood in absolute silence. I raised my head and saw Tharyn looking over his shoulder, his face full of astonishment and dismay.
“Fike,” he said. “Are you the courier?”
“None other,” said Cutaway Hargity. She wore a crimson cocktail dress and held a champagne glass. She looked very irritated. The storm was gone. The sky above us was blue and as flat as paint, and the buildings looked almost one-dimensional, like stage scenery We were Elsewhere.
“How can you be the courier?” I asked. Then I said to Tharyn, “I thought you told me that the courier was a dæmon.”
“I am a dæmon. I am the Governor of Barbacoa, the denizen of this island,” Cutaway said. “I have the contract for the Pacifica Mail and Freight. And I run various other business concerns on the side. You have a delivery for me?”
“I do, madama,” Tharyn said. “A rush job. Very urgent.”
“Where’s the package?”
“Me. I am the package,” I answered, and from the smile that curved across Cutaway’s face, I had the feeling that she had known already After all, hadn’t she pointed me here to begin with? Why? I also had the feeling that I wouldn’t like the answer.
“Hmmm,” she said. “This is quite unusual. I have never transported a package so large before. Have you, Sieur Wraathmyr?”
“No, madama. But the circumstances are unusual.”
“Maybe so. How many express packages have you sent?”
Tharyn glanced at me somewhat sheepishly before answering. “Only one, madama.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me a bit. I know you know that transporting living creatures is explicitly forbidden. Surely you are familiar with the case of Tomas Bandicoot.”
“I am,” Tharyn said uncomfortably. “But that courier was new and inexperienced. Surely you, Madama Cutaway, would have no such problems.”
“You do me great honor in saying so, but I am not so sure.”
“What happened to Tomas Bandicoot? Who was Tomas Bandicoot?” I asked.
Tharyn answered, “He was an idiot who tried to have himself sent express from Porkopolis to Bexar on a dare. So he and some of his drunken pals stuffed him in a box and sent him off. The courier didn’t know what was in the box; of course, the bill of lading said it was bricks or something. Anyway, the box got lost in transit.”
“Did they ever find it?”
“Well, eventually they found it. It was empty”
“Not entirely” Cutaway said, smiling.
“No, not entirely empty,” Tharyn agreed. “After that, the Pacifica refu
sed to ship humans, and also made a rule that express packages had to be accompanied by an agent at all times.”
“But you are human. How come it’s not dangerous for you?”
“He’s a skinwalker,” Cutaway said. “He’s only part human. Skinwalkers—those born that way that is—are all praterhuman-human hybrids. Didn’t you know that?”
I had not known that. And now that I did, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this knowledge. But I didn’t have time to think about it.
“I told you it was not without risk, Nini,” Tharyn said. “And I said I didn’t care. I’ll take the chance. I doubt that Madama Hargity ever lost a package.”
“I have not, actually” Cutaway said. “But if I do this, I jeopardize my contract with the Pacifica. It’s a lucrative contract, not just Elsewhere, but in the Waking World as well. So it’s going to cost you.”
“It’s fine. I’ll pay Whatever you want, I’ll pay.”
“Well, then, let us waste no more time. Thank you, Sieur Wraathmyr. I shall take it from here.”
“But I’m the agent,” Tharyn protested.
“I can’t take you both,” Cutaway said. “It’s too much. Don’t you trust me with your package?”
I looked at Tharyn in dismay I had expected that he would go with me, and the thought had lent me a lot of courage. Now to find out I would have to go alone—this made my tum twist with fear. Suck it up, said Nini Mo, before it sucks up you.
I said, “I’ll be fine, Tharyn. Madama Hargity said herself that she didn’t wish to jeopardize her contract with the Pacifica. She’ll take good care of me.”
“Oh, yes, I shall. And I will tell you what. Since I’m obviously in a generous mood today, or I wouldn’t even consider doing something so silly, you can bring the dog. I won’t even charge you extra, just because he is so very sweet.”
“Done.” I turned to say goodbye to Tharyn.
But he was already gone. And so was the road, and the flat buildings, the blue sky Flynn and I were following Cutaway down a short flight of marble steps, across a wide sidewalk slick with recent rain. All around us, buildings, gleaming silver and wet, rose like mountains above us, so tall they seemed to scrape the sky Flashbulbs popped all around, voices shouting, This way, Cutaway! And Where’s Jaredo, Cutaway? And Cute dog!
Cutaway ignored the catcalls. She had changed clothes; now she wore a black evening gown. The silk clung to her like shiny wet paint and trailed along behind her in a wispy train. But the scissors still dangled at her waist.
Ahead, a man in a black uniform and a peaked cap was holding open the door of a long, squat carriage. Cutaway ducked inside, and as I followed her, I saw that the carriage had no horses in front. Inside, two low seats faced each other. I sat down across from Cutaway.
Faces pressed against the windows, mouths open, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying through the glass. Flynn jumped up next to Cutaway and peered out the window, drooling with excitement.
“Where to, madama?” the driver asked.
“Give me your address label,” Cutaway commanded.
I handed it to her, and she glanced down at it. “Fort Sandy, Arivaipa, eh? That’s a long way from here. And there’s no Pacifica office in Fort Sandy. I’ll have to take you all the way there myself. It’s very inconvenient.”
She said something to the driver in Gramatica, Words that I did not know. Here in Elsewhere, the Words had no spark. I sat my dispatch case at my feet and settled back for the ride.
With a hiss, a panel of glass glided up behind me, cutting us off from the driver. The coach began to move, so smoothly and silently that it took me a moment to realize that we were moving.
“What kind of a carriage is this?” I asked.
“It’s a stretch Phaeton,” Cutaway said. “Nice, isn’t it? Such wonderful suspension. Rides like a dream. I can’t understand why it never sold well.”
“Where are we?”
Cutaway was fiddling under her seat; she produced a cut-glass bottle and two glasses, and sat them on the small table she folded down from the door. “On our way, Lieutenant Fyrdraaca, on our way. But before we get much further, let’s discuss the matter of the price.” She poured herself a drink and then offered a glass to me, but I shook my head.
“I told you I would pay whatever you asked.”
“So you did. You are aware that this means I could ask for anything—your left ring finger, your favorite teddy bear, your life?”
“I’m not an idiot,” I said. “I know what I agreed to. You can have any of those things, but you have to get me to Arivaipa first.”
“No, I suppose you are not an idiot. Tempestuous and harebrained, but not an idiot. Lucky for you, I have no need for any extra fingers, I never cared much for teddy bears—”
“I don’t have a favorite teddy bear, anyway.”
“And I don’t see what good your life would do me, it being so undeveloped and green, hardly ripe. And somewhat bitter. But you know who does want your life? Your Birdie friend. He seems to want it pretty badly, and to him, I’ll bet it’s worth a whole lot.”
Here came the setup. The whole thing had been a trap. Cutaway was going to sell me out to the Birdies. No wonder she had refused to bring Tharyn with us. But I knew Cutaway wanted me to be afraid, that she was hoping I would be afraid and would show it. I was determined not to favor her. I said nonchalantly, “If you sell me out to Espejo, then you’ll be breaking your contract with the Pacifica. Can Espejo pay you enough to make up for that?
“Oh, I’ll just tell the Pacifica that the package was lost in transit. It does happen. And I dare say that your friend Sieur Wraathmyr will not want to admit what was in the package, for fear of his own position. They’ll fire him if they realize what he’s done.”
“You are wrong.” I wasn’t sure if she was or not.
“Or perhaps I have already had my minions take ahold of Sieur Wraathmyr and am planning on selling him, too. Double my profit.”
“Before, in your office, you said you’d let Tharyn go.”
“I never said that. I only said I’d send the bill to Espejo and I wanted you off Barbacoa. But let’s cut to the chase, Lieutenant Fyrdraaca. I’m a businessdæmon. I’ve got expenses to cover and employees to pay, and at the end of the year, I want to see lots of beautiful black numbers in my account books. I do not like red ink. Your petty human fighting has cost me a great deal and jeopardized my bottom line. I do not like to be in the red. Espejo can pay enough to balance my books again, at least get rid of the red ink, if not actually move back into a profit.”
She continued, “However, lucky for you, I do realize that there is more to life than the bottom line. I’ve been Governor of Barbacoa for a long, long time. It’s a rough place, and I’ve seen a lot of things. Now I find I’m bored. Barbacoa is wide-awake, but after a while, you’ve seen it all. Money can’t buy everything.”
“Then why were you threatening to sell me to Espejo if you don’t care about the money?”
“I wasn’t threatening,” Cutaway said. “I was reminding you that I could. No, the money would be nice, but you have something else that would be nicer, I think.”
Already I had learned that when someone smiles in just that way, whatever came next would involve something painful for me or happy for someone else. It was the same smile the head prefect at the Barracks used when she was telling someone to report to the Commandant for a flogging.
I said, resigned, “What do you want, Madama Hargity?”
“I want your love for Udo.”
TWENTY-NINE
The Payment. A Journey. Freezies.
THE PHAETON GLIDED ON through the night. I caught glimpses of rain-soaked streets and soggy figures, some huddling under big black umbrellas, as round and black as beetle carapaces. Once, the carriage crossed a long bridge, its lamp-lit struts arcing high above us; underneath was water, black as coffee, traced with the lights of ships. Off in the distance, city lights twinkled. After the bridge, there were no
streets, no people, nothing but the road slipping by under our wheels, impossibly fast and impossibly smooth.
“I can’t give you Udo,” I said eventually. “He’s not mine to give.”
“Of course he’s not. I want your love for Udo, Flora. Udo I can get for myself—should I decide I want him.” “Then why do you want it?”
“Because I see your love for him inside of you and it’s shiny bright. I like shiny bright things.”
“How can I give you my love for him?”
“Don’t you worry about that. Do we have a deal? You give me your love for Udo and I’ll get you to Arivaipa. As I said before, the dog rides for free. And I will not sell you out to the Birdies.”
“And Tharyn?”
“May go his furry way unmolested by me. It’s a generous offer, Flora. And after all, am I not asking for something you don’t even really want? I heard you and Udo fighting in the bar. You said you didn’t care if you never saw him again. Of course, that wasn’t true at all, as the fit you threw in my office showed. But I can make it true.”
Of course I had said hot things during our fight. I always said hot things. And Udo did, too, but we always regretted those things later and made up. Didn’t we?
Cutaway continued, “And he doesn’t love you, anyway I saw him with the other one, the Zu-Zu. He’s obviously crazy for her. Why waste your love on someone who doesn’t want it? Give it to me, and you’ll be free to find someone who will love you back.”
“You mistake me, madama. I mean, I love Udo, but I don’t love him.”
“Don’t you?” Cutaway said. “Well, then, all the easier for you. If you don’t love him, then your love is easy to give up. You’ll hardly miss it. And if Udo gets himself killed, you won’t care a bit. How nice that will be, eh? How lucky for you that the price I ask hardly costs you a thing. If you want to love someone, there’s always the bear. He’s half in love with you already, and oh, what a chest he has. And I think you are not fully immune to his charms.”
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