The Ivory and the Horn n-6

by Charles de Lint

  But that's okay. I was never close to them anyway. See, that's the real revenge motive that let me take the anima's gift: lost innocence.

  Both my parents were alcoholics. I'm surprised I even survived some of the beatings I got as a kid. It was different for Annie. Instead of being beaten, her father started molesting her when she was in the cradle. The nightmare lasted until she was in her teens.

  "What's scariest," she told me once, "is that I didn't even know it was wrong, It didn't feel right, but I never knew any different. I thought that was how it was in every family."

  What are the statistics? I think it's something like two out of every three women have been sexually assaulted by the time they're in their twenties. Everything from being abused as children to being raped when they're older.

  Lost innocence.

  Somehow, Annie regained hers, but most people aren't that lucky. I know I never have.

  But that's why I think of what I'm doing as something I'm doing for her. So many monsters, and I've barely made a dent in their numbers. I wish there was a way to get rid of them all in one fell swoop. I wish I could deal with them before the damage is done. It kills me that it's all ending for me before I've realty gotten started with my work.

  See, by the beginning of July my savings finally run out and I begin to lose the amenities because I can't pay my bills anymore. The phone goes first, then the power. By the time I meet Chris, I've lost my apartment.

  So I become a baglady superhero— do they ever deal with that in those comics? I know I'm obsessed, but I don't have anything else to do with my life. It was bad enough when I was on my own, tracking the monsters down by trial and error. I'd deal with one, maybe two in a week— three tops. But now, with Chris's help, I can hit that same number on a good night.

  I'm proud of what I'm doing, but it's starting to take its toll. That little piece of myself I was losing every time I dealt with one of the monsters has escalated to where now it feels as though what I'm losing is falling off the way clumps of dirt can be shaken from a piece of sod. The empty patches inside me just keep getting bigger. It's as though my spirit is dissolving, bit by bit. I stare down at the anima residue I leave on their beds and want to pick it up and somehow stick it back onto me. I'm so wasted come morning now that I don't care where I sleep— on a park bench, in an alleyway, in some deserted building.

  Chris offers to put me up, but I don't want to get that close to him. I let him buy me meals, though. Left on my own, I forget to eat half the time. When I do remember, I'm usually scrounging something from one of the monsters' kitchens— now there's something that really helps your appetite. God.

  The cramps start in September, and I begin to get these sudden spells of weakness so often that even Chris notices the change. I mean, he can't see much of me, all clothed in black and hiding in the shadows most of the time, but what he can see tells him I'm not well.

  "Maybe we should ease off a bit," he says.

  "I'm fine."

  "You look like shit."

  I know. I caught a reflection of myself in a window on my way to meet him tonight. All the meat was gone, leaving just corded animal muscles over the bones. The real emptiness is inside.

  "I tell you I'm fine," I repeat, trying to convince myself as much as him. "What've you got for me tonight?"

  "Nothing."

  I don't even realize that the growl's rumbling in my chest until I smell the sudden sting of his fear. I force myself to calm down, but he still backs away from me.

  "I'm sorry," I say and I mean it.

  He nods slowly, but he keeps his distance.

  "Okay," I tell him. "We'll take a break tonight. Just give me one name."

  I don't know why I'm pressing him like this. I could do it on my own. Skulk around until I found a monster. I might get lucky, you never know. But I think later that I want his complicity in this. I want someone to know what I'm doing— not to feed my ego. Just to remember me when I'm gone.

  "One name," he says.

  "That's all."

  Chris sighs. He tries to talk me out of it for a little while longer, but finally gives in. One name and address.

  "This one's a little weird," he says as he hands it over. "It came in from the guidance counselor at Redding High. Something about it being a sensitive case, but I couldn't find anything in the file to say why."

  "That's okay. I can handle it."

  Mistake— but I don't blame him.

  6

  Grant Newman is awake, only I don't realize it. I pull myself in through his window, third story, nice part of town, and creep soundlessly across the hardwood floor to where he's lying. He's alone in his bed. I scouted around earlier and discovered that he and his wife have separate bedrooms. Makes it easier for when he wants to pay little Susan a night visit, I guess.

  I slip up onto the bed and he grabs me. It happens so suddenly that I just freeze up in surprise. Then when I try to fight him, I can't find the strength to break free. It's not that the anima's gifts have worn off; it's that I'm worn out. I've left too many pieces of myself behind in too many monsters' lairs. The shock of my sudden helplessness makes me feel dizzy.

  "What the hell've we got here?" Newman says as I struggle to break his grip.

  My heightened sense of smell makes his bad breath seem worse than it must really be. I know that smell. It's the way my old man used to stink before he took the belt to me.

  I try to get my legs up between us so that I can kick him, but he rolls me over and pins me to the bed with his knees.

  "Some kind of little ninja fuck," he says. "So what's the deal? Yukio getting tired of paying me off?"

  He reaches for my mask until his gaze locks onto my chest.

  "Jesus," he says. "Your boss must be really getting hard up if he's running woman assassins now."

  I'm gaunt these days, just muscle and bone and the muscles aren't working tonight. But the body suit still shows I'm a woman. For some men, that's excuse enough for anything. Maybe Newman thinks he's in his private place and anything goes. For all I know we are in his private place, and I've just lost control of the situation.

  Newman forgets about the mask, and reaches for the zipper of my suit instead.

  "I've never fucked a ninja before," he says. "This'll be something to—"

  I'm the wolf with its leg in a trap, the bear that's been shot, the puma that's been harassed until it has its back to the wall. Panic whips my head forward and I close my teeth on his hand, biting through fingers, straight to the bone. I'll give him this: He doesn't scream. But the pain makes him loosen his grip.

  I whip up a leg from behind him and manage to hook it around his neck. I pull him back, off of me, heaving myself up to help the momentum. He falls backward out of the bed and I'm out of there. I almost lose it in the window frame, but my adrenalin lets me catch my balance before I go tumbling three stories down to the pavement below. By the time Newman gets to the window, I'm two floors above his apartment, spidering my way up the wall and onto the roof.

  I make the jump from his building to its neighbor, and then over one more before I collapse. The roof's covered with gravel, but I can barely feel it digging into my skin. Cramps pull me into a fetal position, and I've got the shakes so bad that my teeth start to rattle.

  It's a long time before I calm down.

  It's even longer before I'm scratching at Christ's window.

  As I tell Chris about what happened, I start to remember things I saw in Newman's bedroom, things I hadn't noticed when I'd scouted the place out earlier.

  "It's going to be okay," Chris tells me.

  "But he's seen me."

  By which I mean: Now the monsters know I exist.

  "Don't worry," Chris says. "What's he going to do? All he saw was a masked woman. It's not like he can recognize you. It's not like there's any way he can find you. He's probably more scared of you than you are of him."

  "I don't think so," I say.

  On Newman's night table: T
he police-issue .38 in its well-worn holster. The billfold with the shape of a badge worn into the leather.

  "Newman's a cop," I tell Chris.

  I remember more: What he was saying about payoffs.

  "A crooked cop," I add.

  "Oh, shit."

  We both know what can happen. Newman can have an APB put out on me. He can make up any old story he likes about why I'm wanted and they'll believe him. Christ, he can tell the truth and I'll still have every cop in the city out looking for me. The police don't take kindly to anyone assaulting one of their own.

  I'm bone-tired, but I know what I have to do. Chris tries to stop me when I get up and head for the window, but I turn around and look at him.

  "What else can I do?" I ask him.

  "You're in no condition to—"

  He's actually a really race guy, even though he acts a bit too much like a mother. I can see why kids, even abused kids, like him and trust him.

  "I know," I say. "But I don't have any choice."

  I'm out the window before he can stop me. I make my way back across town to the roof of the building across from Newman's. The September wind's cold, but I can't feel it through my bodysuit. Don't need it to be chilled anyway. I've got apiece of ice inside me and that's what's making me shiver.

  I know I should wait until I'm stronger, but I'm not so sure I'm ever going to get any stronger. I get the feeling that I'm wasting away, as inexorably as the cancer that took Annie.

  I wait, crouching there on the rooftop, until I see the light in Newman's bedroom go off. I'm like a ghost coming down the side of the building and crossing the street. I don't feel strong, at least not physically. But I'm determined, and I hope that'll count for something.

  7

  When I get outside Newman's window, I realize he's not asleep. I can sense him sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, gun in hand, watching the window. He knew I'd be back.

  So I go in through a window on the other side of the apartment. My entire being is focused on what I'm doing. Keeping silent. Staying strong— at least long enough to tidy up the mess I've made of things. His wife never stirs as I slip by her bed and out into the hall. I pass his daughter's bedroom and that helps. She makes a little moan in her sleep. The plaintive sound brings everything into sharper focus— why I'm here, what I'm doing— and makes it easier for me to concentrate on getting it over with.

  Newman's attention is fixed on the window of his bedroom. He never hears me come in the door and sidle my way alongside the wall to where he's sitting. I'm sure of it. But something— sixth sense, cop smarts— has him turn just as I'm reaching for him.

  "What the fuck are you?" he says as he brings up the gun. The bandage on his hand is a white flash in the dark.

  Stupid, I think. I'm so stupid. I still wanted to make a try at keeping this clean. Step into his private place and shut him down instead of cutting him open. And maybe I can.

  I grab his hand, the one holding the gun, skin to skin. Contact.

  Everything stops. He can't shoot me, I can't claw him. We're locked in a space between our heads. Not his private place, but somewhere else. There's a sudden shift of vertigo, a crazy quilt strobing in my eyes, and then we're somewhere else again. It takes me a few moments to realize what's happened.

  We're in someone's head, all right, but it's mine. This is my own dreaming place.

  I've never tried to step inside when the monster was awake before. It's so easy to make the transition when they're asleep, dreaming. But Newman was so focused, his will so strong, that even though he couldn't have a clue as to what he was doing, he's managed to push me out of his head and then follow me back into my own.

  I can't seem to do anything right tonight.

  I try to take us back out again, but it's no good. I give Newman a shove and he goes sprawling. As soon as he hits the ground, that crazy-quilt-spinning starts up again. When it finally settles down, things have changed once more.

  My dreaming place looks like the kitchen in the house where I grew up. I took for Newman, but he's gone. My father there in his place. He's standing there, weaving slightly from side to side, grinning at me, smelling like a brewery.

  "Time to even the score," he says, slurring the words but not so much that I can't understand them.

  He takes a step toward me, mad drunk gleam in his eyes, and I lose it. This is too much for me.

  I never dealt with what happened to me as a child. I just left home as soon as I could. When I remade contact with my parents— before I told them I was gay— we all just pretended that all the drinking and screaming and beatings had never, happened. That was just the way it worked, I thought. Keep the family unit whole, no matter what the cost.

  But I never forgot. And I never forgave. And seeing him like this now, it's like I've stepped right back into the past and all the years between were just a dream. Except I'm not powerless anymore. When he hits me, I don't have to take it. I don't have to cringe and try to hide from his fists. Not anymore. Not ever again.

  With his first blow, all of my animal rage comes tearing through me and I lash back at him. My fingers are clawed, taloned, killing weapons. It's like I have rabies. I cut him down and I'm still slashing at him, long after he's fallen to the ground. Long after he's dead. There's blood everywhere. And there's this screaming that just goes on and on and on.

  I think it's me screaming, I know it's me, until I fall out of my head and I'm back in Newman's bedroom. I'm crouched over his savaged corpse, snarling and growling, and then I realize how wrong I've been. It's not me screaming. It's not me at all.

  I see her in the doorway, the monster's daughter. The screams stop when I turn to look at her, but then I see her go away. She folds away inside herself, going deeper and deeper, until there's just this blank-eyed child standing there, everything that ever animated her walled away against the night creature that snuck into her Dad's bedroom and tore him apart.

  Doesn't matter what he did to her. That's gone, swallowed by the more horrible image of what's been done to him.

  I stagger to my feet, but I don't even think of trying to comfort her. I almost fall through the window, trying to get out. And then I just flee. Run blind. I'll do anything to get rid of those emptied eyes, their blank stare, but they follow me, out into the night.

  I know I'll carry them with me for the rest of my life.

  When I finally stop running, the cramps hit me. I lie on my side and throw up. I'm still dry-heaving long after my stomach's empty, but I can't get rid of what's inside me that easily. The guilt's just going to lie there and fester and never go away.

  8

  Nothing helps.

  It comes out that Newman was on the payroll of Yukio Nakamura, the boss of Little Japan's biggest Yakuza gang.

  It comes out that not only was Newman taking graft, he was using his badge to help Nakamura get rid of his competition. And when the badge didn't provide intimidation enough, Newman was happy to use his gun.

  It comes out that he beat his wife, abused his daughter.

  By the time the investigation's over, half the Yakuza in Little Japan are up on racketeering charges and there's not one person in the city who has an ounce of sympathy for the monster. If they knew I'd killed him, they'd probably give me a medal.

  But all I can focus on is that fact that his daughter's lost to the world now, locked up inside her own head, and I put her there. I tried to help, but I all I did was make things worse.

  "You can't beat yourself over this," Chris said the one time I let him find me. "It's unfortunate what happened to the girl— an awful, terrible thing— but there's still a war going on. The freaks are still out there.

  "You can't walk away from the fight now."

  He thinks I'm scared, but that's not it. I'm not anything. All I can think of is that little girl and what I put her through, what I made her see.

  Susan Newman didn't just lose her innocence. She had any hope of a normal life torn away.

  "D
o you need anything?" Chris asks. "Money? Food? A place to stay?"

  I shake my head.

  "Give this a little time," he says. "You're suffering from trauma too, you know."

  I let him talk on, but I stop listening. I've regained my strength. I can leap tall buildings with a single bound again— or at least spider my way up their walls— but I don't have the heart for it anymore. I don't have the heart to step into anybody's dreaming place and then shut him down. And I certainly can't see myself killing someone again— I don't care how much he deserves it.

  After a while, Chris stops talking and I walk away. He starts to follow, but finally gives up when I keep increasing the distance between us.

  I don't wear my bodysuit anymore; I don't look like some dimestore ninja. I just look like any other homeless person, wandering around the street in clothes that are more than a few weeks away from clean, looking for handouts at the shelters, cadging spare change from passersby.

  A month goes by, maybe two. I don't know. I just know it's getting really cold at night. Then late one afternoon I'm standing over a grating by a used bookstore, trying to get warm, and I see, in amongst the motley selection of titles that crowd the display window, a familiar cover and byline.

  When the Desert Dreams, by Anne Bourke.

  I've got two dollars and eighty cents in my pocket. I'm planning to use it to get something to eat later, but I go into the bookstore. The guy behind the counter takes pity on me and sells me the book for what I've got, even though there's a price of fifteen bucks penciled in on the right-hand corner of the front endpaper.

  I leave, holding the book to my chest, and I walk around like that all night, from one side of the city to the other. I don't need to read the stories. I was there when they were written— almost a lifetime ago.

  Finally, I start walking up Williamson Street, just trudging on and on until the downtown stores give way to more residential blocks, which give way to drive-in fast-food joints and malls and the 'burbs, and then I'm finally out of the city. The sun's up for about an hour when I stick out my thumb.