“That’s Kidron’s stablemate, Wildfire,” Hexe explained. “She’s our ride back home.”
The alley was barely wide enough to accommodate one cab, much less two, but somehow the vehicles managed to pull up alongside each other, with barely three feet between them. Wildfire pulled a cord affixed to her harness, and the door of the empty cab swung open. A second later the door to our own cab swung open as well.
“Hurry up!” Kidron shouted over the din of the street sellers. “Before the rickshaw enters the alley!”
Lukas quickly leaped into the empty cab. I jumped in after him, closely followed by Hexe, so closely, in fact, that both of us were knocked to the floor of the carriage.
I rolled over to find myself pinned under Hexe, my limbs tangled with his, staring up into those amazing, catlike eyes. The feel of his weight resting against my body made my skin flush and other, less public, parts of me tingle. I looked down and realized a six-fingered hand was planted firmly on my right breast.
“Do you mind?”
“Oops! Sorry!” Hexe yanked his hand away as if my boob were a red-hot stove. “I didn’t mean to, um, you know ... um ...”
“Cop a feel?” I suggested helpfully as I rearranged my clothes. I climbed off the floor and peered out the window after Kidron, who continued to forge through the congested alleyway. Ninety seconds later the rickshaw bearing Boss Marz’s goon pushed its way past us in dogged pursuit of the empty cab. The rider didn’t even glance in our direction. We were home free.
Morale was high as we returned to the boardinghouse. We joked among ourselves about how stupid the Malandanti following us had been. I could tell by the way he laughed that a great weight had been lifted from Lukas’s shoulders. All of that came to a crashing halt the moment we arrived home and saw the one-armed man walking up to our doorstep.
“Oh, shit. Do you see what I see?” I hissed.
The smile on Lukas’s face dissolved instantly. “That’s it. I’m doomed!”
“Remember what I said about getting upset about things that haven’t happened yet,” Hexe said in a steady, reassuring voice. “Dr. Mao told me that the Malandanti were going to every healer in Golgotham looking for you. That would include me.” He fished his BlackBerry out of his pocket and began typing. “I’m texting Wildfire to keep moving and let me out around the corner. She’ll go around the block a couple of times until I get rid of him. Everything will be okay.”
As we passed the boardinghouse, I could hear the one-armed man rapping on the front door. I realized for the first time that he was missing his right arm. I glanced over at Lukas. He looked worried but did not seem as fearful as before. I wondered if he was thinking about Meikei and if those thoughts were giving him newfound strength.
Wildfire rounded the corner and stopped to let Hexe out. Before exiting the carriage, he turned to address us. “I’ll give this guy the brush-off as fast as possible. But if it turns out bad, I want you two to get out of here, you understand? Tell Wildfire to take you to my mother. You’ll both be safe with her.”
As I watched Hexe leave the cab, the thought of him confronting Boss Marz’s goon on his own made my guts feel as heavy as a length of anchor chain. I was already out of the cab and halfway down the street before I realized what I was doing.
“Wait a minute—I’m coming with you.”
Hexe stopped and turned to face me. I expected him to be displeased, but, instead, he merely smiled.
“Are you sure you really want to do this?”
“No. But I’m damned sure not going to be left behind just to worry about you.”
“Very well,” he said. He pointed to Lukas, who was watching us from the cab. “What about our young friend?”
“Lukas is a big boy. You can ride in a cab by yourself, can’t you?”
The were-cougar nodded his head.
“And you know what to do if the shit hits the fan, right?”
Lukas shook his head and grimaced, an alarmed look on his face.
“Relax, kid,” I whispered. “That just means ‘when things go wrong.’ ”
“Oh! In that case, yes, I know what to do,” Lukas replied with a sigh of relief.
As Hexe and I walked up to the house, the one-armed goon was still standing on the front stoop. He had taken a couple of steps back and was staring up at the second story. It both creeped me out and pissed me off that he was staring at the windows of my apartment.
Hexe took a deep breath and then plastered a smile on his face. It was the same one he had used to greet Mr. Ottershaw.
“Hello—!” he called out. “Are you looking for someone?”
The one-armed man turned to glare at us. The cotton-candy pink hair did nothing to soften the brutal lines of his face. The smell radiating from him was equal parts licorice and fish oil. I almost gagged.
“Are you Hexe?” he growled.
“Yes.”
“Then I am looking for you.”
Hexe nodded at the Malandanti’s missing arm. “Have you come to me for healing?”
“I don’t need healing from you,” he replied curtly. “My name is Nach. I’m here in the service of Boss Marz.”
“I see. And what does Boss Marz want from me?”
“He wishes to know if you have treated a young male were-cougar in the last few days.”
Hexe raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. “What would a were-cougar be doing in Golgotham?”
“Just answer the question.” Nach scowled. “Have you treated one or not?”
“No,” Hexe lied. “I have not.”
The Malandanti soldier reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and took out a business card. “If one comes to you, or should you hear of someone harboring such a creature, call this number,” he said, shoving the card into Hexe’s hand. “Boss Marz is offering a handsome reward for any information leading to the capture of the beast.”
“And what if I elect not to call?” Hexe replied, holding the business card by its edge like a soiled tissue.
“You don’t want to do that,” Nach said grimly. “It would be bad for you.” He shot me a look that made me feel as though a hungry crocodile were sizing me up. “All of you.”
The smile disappeared from Hexe’s face as if Nach had slapped it off. “I don’t like it when people threaten my friends,” he said, his gaze as hard and menacing as that of Marz’s goon. “Do you know who you’re addressing?”
“The Malandanti fears no one in Golgotham, be they peasant or prince,” Nach replied flatly as he pushed his way past us. “That includes you, Serenity. You would do well to remember that.”
Chapter 12
After our visit to Dr. Mao’s apothecary shop, Hexe kept the drapes pulled and warned Lukas against looking out the windows, day or night. The poor kid probably would have gone stir-crazy, if not for Meikei.
Every day the young were-tigress would arrive with a specially prepared medicinal meal designed to help purge the silver from his body and speed up his physical recovery. Sometimes she brought baby pigeon stew garnished with huang qi, or crocodile soup served with braised mutton, all washed down with Flowering Dragon Eye Tea. No matter what the ingredients, Lukas eagerly consumed each and every dish without a moment’s complaint—as long as Meikei agreed to sit on the corner of his bed and watch him eat.
Being a proper young lady, Meikei insisted that the door to Lukas’s room remain open the whole time and that they be overseen by a chaperone. Needless to say, Scratch was less than thrilled with having to play shepherd to their budding teen romance.
One day, after spending another lunch in the young couple’s company, the familiar sauntered into my room and hopped onto my workbench. When he wasn’t guarding Lukas, the familiar would come into my room and watch me work. He claimed the sparks from my welding gear and the smell of hot metal reminded him of home.
“I hate watching Garfield and Hello Kitty make goo-goo eyes at each other,” he grumbled. “It’s enough to make me yack up a hairball.�
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“You don’t have hair,” I reminded him.
“I didn’t say it had to be my hair, nump,” the familiar replied, flashing me a toothy grin.
In the weeks since we first met, Scratch had become increasingly social toward me—although I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “friendly,” which is to say that while I no longer feared being eaten alive, he wasn’t above insulting me.
“How long have you been with Hexe?”
“Since he was a child,” Scratch replied, his tone suddenly cautious. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering if you might know why the other Kymerans call him ‘Serenity’?”
“Ask him yourself,” the familiar replied curtly, and refused to say anything else for the rest of the day.
Although I was curious, I decided not to press the issue. It was clear from the way Hexe reacted to the charm peddler in Witch Alley that he was uncomfortable with whatever connotations the word held for him. I decided it would be better if I let him explain in his own time, instead of pressuring him. Since we lived under the same roof, I could afford to be patient.
One night I was working late on one of my sculptures for the gallery show. I was in “the zone”—where I focused so intently on what I was working on the rest of the world ceased to exist for me. When I was zoning, hours could pass by without my knowing it. In fact, the only reason I finally set aside my tools was because it felt like a bear was gnawing my belly. As I looked at the clock, I was startled to realize that it was well past midnight. No wonder my stomach was growling—I hadn’t eaten since breakfast!
The house was quiet as I left my room and headed downstairs to raid the kitchen.
Hexe had left earlier in the evening to consult with a client, and had yet to return, while Lukas had long since turned in for the night, Scratch curled up at the foot of his bed.
I opened the fridge and carefully scanned the shelves. One of the first things I did upon moving into the boardinghouse was buy a bunch of plastic containers and write my name on them, so I could tell my food from Hexe’s. While Kymeran cuisine was nowhere as bad as legend would have it, it was something of an acquired taste. I might have joked about being hungry enough to eat a horse, but that didn’t mean I wanted to chow down on pony goulash.
I located a bag of deli meat, gathered up some condiments, dragged a loaf of whole grain from the bread box, and proceeded to slap together a sandwich on the kitchen counter. I stuck the finished product into the toaster-oven, in order to get the cheese all melty the way I liked it, and then headed back to the icebox to score myself a beer.
As I closed the fridge, bottle in hand, I had the weirdest feeling that I was being watched. I looked over my shoulder and was startled to discover that the door leading to the cellar was standing wide-open. I gasped in alarm, the beer slipping from my grasp, upon seeing the silhouette of a man at the top of the stairs. There was an angry hiss as the beer bottle’s contents started to squirt from under the cap, spraying the linoleum with foam.
“I knew that was going to happen,” the shadowy figure said, speaking with a doleful, midwestern drawl. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, ma’am. Let me clean that up for you.”
I took a cautious step backward, unsure whether I should grab a kitchen knife or hand him a roll of paper towels. As I moved back, the stranger stepped forward, revealing himself to be an old, and I mean old, man.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked as I handed him the paper towels. “And what are you doing in my—I mean—Hexe’s cellar?”
“My name is of little consequence,” the old man replied. “I have been called Mr. Manto, in the past. You may call me that, if it suits you. As for what I am doing in the cellar: I live there.”
As he spoke, I recalled Hexe’s telling me that there was at least one other boarder in the house, one I would probably never have occasion to meet.
My fellow housemate was older than anyone I’d ever seen before, his long face weighted by heavy folds of wrinkles about the mouth and eyes. What hair he still had was the color of dirty snow, gathered about his ears and the nape of his neck. His exposed scalp was dappled with liver spots, as were the tops of his hands. It was clear from the way he stood, slightly stooped with rounded shoulders, that he had once been tall as a younger man.
He was dressed in a pair of baggy olive green trousers, held up by old-fashioned leather braces, and a plain, rumpled white shirt with a dark, narrow tie. Over this he wore a cable-knit cardigan the color of oatmeal, the elbows of which were sewn with well-worn brown suede patches. On his feet he wore a pair of tasseled leather house slippers.
As Mr. Manto soaked up the spilled beer with the paper towels, I stared at his hands and saw that his fingers were swollen from arthritis—I also noticed that there were ten of them instead of twelve.
“You’re not a Kymeran.” It was more an observation than a question.
“You are correct. I am, technically, human,” he replied evenly. As he struggled to stand up, I grasped his elbow, helping him to his feet. “Although I may not be a witch or a wizard, I am a soothsayer. The last of a very long line, to be exact.”
“You’ve been living in the basement all this time? How come I’ve never seen you before?”
“My apartment is self-contained. Everything I need is down there. It has its own entrance. In fact, this is the first time I have been upstairs in three decades.”
“So what are you doing here, then?”
“Because you need your fortune told,” he replied simply. “That, and I must borrow some cream. I seem to have run out.”
I followed Mr. Manto down the cellar stairs to have my fortune told. The old man went ahead of me, carrying in one hand the carton of half-and-half I had given him. I didn’t particularly want to know what lay ahead in my future, but there wasn’t any point in arguing with the elderly soothsayer. He had seen a vision of himself reading my fortune, and, by damn, he was going to make sure it came to pass.
“You’re not from here, are you?” I asked.
“Do you mean Golgotham or New York City?”
“Both.”
“You are an astute young lady,” Mr. Manto said with a dry chuckle. “I was originally born in Missouri, the ‘Show Me’ state; ironic, considering that I’m supposedly descended from Tiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes. I traveled quite a bit as a younger man, before finally settling here, but I consider Golgotham to be my home now.”
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, I saw that the basement was divided into two sections. To the left was an old boiler that squatted in its corner like a household god, behind which lurked a mare’s nest of fuse boxes and electrical wiring, some of which looked like it dated back to Thomas Edison. Opposite the boiler was a tall, narrow door painted a bilious shade of green, which led to Mr. Manto’s apartment.
The elderly oracle gestured for me to enter ahead of him. Upon opening the door, I was greeted by the smell of moldering paper, yellowing newsprint, and fading ink. Mr. Manto’s apartment was as large as my own, possibly even bigger, but it was hard to tell since virtually every square inch of space was given over to the printed word in all its various forms.
Bookshelves not only lined the walls but divided up the room, creating narrow corridors that zigzagged back and forth like livestock chutes in a stockyard. Every table and chair was covered by a jumble of old magazines, comic books, and newspapers. Stalagmites of stacked books as tall as a man dotted the remaining open floor space.
As Mr. Manto closed the door behind us, he called out in a surprisingly high-pitched, almost girlish voice. “Daddy’s back, my babies! Daddy brought you some delicious cream, just as he promised!”
There was the sound of books toppling and newspapers being scattered as the members of a horde of previously unseen cats emerged from their various hiding places within the overflowing shelves and teetering stacks. Mewling piteously, they hurried forward to greet Mr. Manto, running in and out between his shins like little furry eels
. Within seconds, six felines were gathered at his feet.
“Now, now—don’t be such a bitch, Isis,” Mr. Manto said, wagging an arthritic finger at the Siamese as it arched its back and hissed at one of its fellows. “There’s plenty for everyone.” He turned to me and smiled apologetically. “Gracious! Where are my manners? Allow me to introduce you to my little family. These are the twins, Comus and Momus,” he said, pointing to a pair of black Persians. “The tabby over there is Bacchus. You’ve already met Isis—that Oriental shorthair is her son by Bacchus, Endymion. ...”
“So you named your cats in honor of the gods?”
“Gracious, no!” he laughed. “They’re all named after Mardi Gras krewes. I lived in New Orleans for a while before relocating to Golgotham.” He bent down to pat the head of the massive Maine coon rubbing against his leg. “And this fat rascal is Rex. Say hello to the nice lady, Your Majesty.” The tomcat meeped in response, its voice surprisingly tiny for what had to be a thirty-pound feline. “Once I get you settled in the receiving room and feed my babies, we can get started with your reading.”
As I followed Mr. Manto and his furry entourage, I glanced at the bookcases I walked past, curious as to their contents. I expected to find them lined with antique books bound in leather with metal hasps and gold leaf pages. Instead, the shelves were crowded with cheap paperbacks, cookbooks, self-help manuals, outdated encyclopedias, and top-ten bestsellers.
Eventually we reached what Mr. Manto referred to as his “receiving room,” basically a couple of easy chairs arranged about a coffee table, the surface of which was lost under a drift of loose papers.
“Please make yourself comfortable, my dear,” he said, gesturing to one of the chairs. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Mr. Manto promptly disappeared behind a chintz curtain that separated his kitchen from the rest of the living space, his cats following after him, their tails held erect in anticipation of a fresh treat.
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