by Mur Lafferty
There was still one ghost left. Zoë crawled over another seat, able to see very little, but knowing the golems, the demon, the zombie, and the vampire could probably take the one remaining ghost.
But then something slammed into her shoulder and she flew forward, sprawled on a thrall’s lap, thinking vaguely that it was a shame to bleed on the new ghost train. She heard another scuffle, another scream, and then her name being called.
“Oh. Hey, Kevin, what are you doing here?” she asked, and fainted.
When she came to, her head was pillowed on Eir’s lap. The lights were back on, and Zoë could see mud and blood spattering the walls and windows. The zoëtists were crowded around one of their own. The train was still.
Zoë blinked and tried to sit up. Eir held her down gently. “I think one of the zoëtists got shot,” Zoë said. “Did you help her?”
“Shhh, Zoë,” Eir said. Zoë stared at her. A smile crossed the severe goddess’s face. “Everyone is all right.”
“I don’t know about that. For one thing, you never call me Zoë; what the hell is wrong with you?” She pushed Eir’s arm off her and sat up. Gwen and Reynard sat in the seats opposite them. Arthur still dozed in his seat.
“What happened?” Zoë asked.
“Kevin came to get us. When we got here, the ghosts were gone. You and one of the zoëtists had been shot. Eir healed you both, and now we’re close to Charlotte.” She glanced at Zoë’s filthy feet. “What happened here?”
Zoë ran her hand over her shoulder. Her sweater was still ripped and sticky with blood, but she seemed just fine underneath. “Stepped in a golem,” she said absently. “So you’re saying Kevin came back for me?”
“Not exactly,” Reynard said. “A vampire I sometimes deal with was on the train and I had time to work out a business deal.” The “business deal” on his neck still leaked blood, but it didn’t look serious. “He met up with your Kevin and, well, vampires don’t like to look cowardly, so Kevin turned back around right away and came back here with us. Together they helped stop the third ghost. Unfortunately, they’re both quite ill right now.”
“Ill?”
“Ghosts aren’t real people. So what they drank wasn’t real blood,” Gwen said.
“Oh,” Zoë said, and heard retching coming from the bathroom.
“So what happened after I left?” Reynard asked.
“Lame-ass ghosts from some sort of corporate team building stunt gone bad decided to be cowboys. Then they asked for you, then I got shot. I think some other things happened, but it was dark.”
She glanced at Eir. “Uh, sorry I was rude before. Thanks for healing me. I just, well, you weren’t acting like yourself.”
Eir just smiled at her.
“And you still aren’t,” Zoë said.
“Eir gets a hit of euphoria when she saves a life,” Gwen said softly. “It’s a lot like being high or drunk. She will come down soon. But she will remember how you treat her.”
“Got it,” Zoë said. She smiled widely at Eir. “Thanks again, so much. I love you, man.”
Eir smothered her in a giant hug, and Zoë tried not to wince at the crushing embrace. “And I you, Zoë my editor. I am so glad you are not dead. We are truly heading on a great adventure!”
The train began to slow, and a zombie entered the car, shuffling through and moaning that the next stop was Charlotte.
“You said they were looking for me?” Reynard asked quietly, after Zoë had carefully removed herself from Eir’s huge arms. His face grew a bit pale.
“If your last name is Arseneaux, then yeah, they asked for our valuables, but really wanted you.”
“Then I think Charlotte is where I get off,” he said. He stood abruptly and said, “I’d recommend the same to you, Zoë. If they find you’re here, too, you will have nowhere to run.”
“Wait, who’s ‘they’? Why me?” Zoë asked. But the train had stopped, and Reynard had already left them after a short bow to the goddesses. He didn’t even grab the trench coat he had left on the seat opposite Arthur.
“What is he talking about?” she asked Gwen, but her friend shrugged.
Zoë frowned. “Hey, why didn’t you notice I was in trouble?” she asked. “You usually check in when shit goes down.”
A flicker of irritation crossed Gwen’s face. “I was concentrating on something else,” she said. “I can’t focus on your well-being all the time, Zoë. Kevin saw you got shot and came to find me and Eir. You’re fine now.”
Zoë frowned. Gwen’s voice had a “the lady doth protest too much” tone to it, but it wasn’t Zoë’s style to argue with a death goddess.
“Yeah, totally, I’m great,” Zoë said. “I’m going to go check on the zoëtists, OK?”
Gwen walked with her, leaving Eir leaning back in the seat, eyes half-lidded. “I’m not even going to pretend I know what’s going on with her,” Zoë said.
“That man. Reynard. Who is that?” Gwen asked.
“I really have no idea. I met him on the train. He’s not a zoëtist but clearly knows a lot about coterie. Says he’s doing work in New Orleans for his employer, but he ran when he found out the ghosts knew his name. He didn’t tell me much else about himself. He apparently sells himself to vampires for protection.” She shuddered. She didn’t tell Gwen what she had found out about the genocide, or that Reynard was a citytalker. It would be something to worry about later.
The zoëtists fussed over their own, a young girl who was pale and confused, but healed fully. Her eyes met Zoë’s and she tried to smile. “Thanks for fighting with us,” she said.
“I’m not sure I did anything, truly, except piss them off,” Zoë said. “They could have shot me in the head. Glad you’re OK.”
The train began to start up, and she and Gwen headed back to their seats.
A voice pushed at the edge of Zoë’s consciousness.
Fuck, girl, what were you doin’ cowering like that in your little chair? You gotta fight if you wanna get anywhere in this world! The voice was loud and bossy and more strident than New York had ever been.
“Charlotte?” she whispered. “Are you speaking to me?”
The voice was gone.
Gwen was looking at her curiously. Zoë said, “Uh, hey, about those ghosts. From what Reynard said, they’re pretty scary, and you guys have never mentioned them. Especially since they seem to be on the train, too.”
Gwen joined Eir at the table and motioned for Zoë to sit. “Now why do you think ghosts are scary?” Gwen asked.
“Reynard said—well.” Zoë began to feel uncertain. “One of them shot me, for one thing!”
“Anything with a gun is scary, then. Give a gun to a harmless creature like a rabbit and it can be scary,” Gwen said. “Why are ghosts frightening?”
“Rabbits don’t have thumbs,” Zoë said, but relented. “Reynard said that ghosts possess humans and then take them for a joyride, like stolen cars. That they want to live again.” She didn’t want to meet Gwen’s fathomless eyes; she suddenly felt like a kid trying to explain why she was shaving a cat when her best friend had suggested it would be a fun idea.
Gwen shook her head. “I think your friend was embellishing to you, Zoë. Ghosts can possess you, but they can’t take complete control over you unless you’re unconscious. And there aren’t a lot of ghosts; they’re made when a vampire or zombie has tried to turn someone, but they messed up the job somehow.”
“Why would he lie?” Zoë asked, face burning, this time from anger.
“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “Maybe he was trying to scare you, get you into the vampire car with him? But clearly he was going there for protection, and was planning on coming back. It doesn’t make sense. But it does seem he purposefully tried to frighten you for no reason.”
“He certainly was terrified when he jumped out at Charlotte. So there’s something to be afraid of,” Zoë said grimly. “That dude is way too mysterious, and he likes it that way.”
She wished she kne
w who the “cowboys” were.
Someone was sitting in Reynard’s abandoned seat when Zoë and Gwen got back to where Arthur was sleeping. A small woman, a girl, really, wearing a black maid’s outfit and with her hair in a style that harkened back to the 1940s. She was black and short, a demure girl who shyly looked up at Zoë’s face.
Zoë took a step back. She had been burned before by coterie who didn’t look dangerous.
“Are you a ghost?” she asked, feeling rather stupid for saying it. “I mean, you look like one, but…”
The woman smiled and fixed her eyes on the ground at Zoë’s feet. “Pardon, miss, but I’m a porter for this area of the train and I’m coming to check on your well-being. After the excitement, I mean.” Her voice had a slight Irish lilt to it.
“So you’re not going to attack me to get me off the train and then go joyriding in my body?” Zoë asked.
“I told you, that’s very difficult to do,” Gwen said.
The porter’s eyes widened as she looked up at Zoë. “No, ma’am, of course not. I’d lose my job if I abused a passenger like that!”
Gwen gestured for Zoë to sit next to the ghost. She sat beside Arthur, who still dozed against the window. “Zoë, this is Anna. I convinced her to take her break with us so that she could teach you a bit about ghosts.”
This was starting to feel like an after-school special. But Zoë realized the ghost train must be the best place in the world for ghosts to work, since they would have a corporeal body here. Step off the train and they’re a wisp again.
“I’m—OK, we can talk. I mean, I believe Gwen over some stranger who told me a bunch of lies, but, I guess—” She stopped, realizing she was babbling.
“What do I need to know?” she asked simply.
“That man lied to you,” Anna said.
CHAPTER 11
Lodging
HAUNTED HOTELS
Human tourists in New Orleans delight in the so-called “haunted hotels,” but truly those hotels are merely fronts for good places for coterie to stay.* The rooms available to humans are few and separated, the rest of the hotel is always “booked for a convention”—and open to coterie. These hotels include the Hotel Provincial, the Omni Royal Orleans, and the Andrew Jackson Hotel—which is actually staffed by Andrew Jackson, a vampire who is much happier owning a hotel than he was being president. The hotel is often picketed by Native American ghosts, so be aware you may need to cross a picket line.
CHAPTER FOUR
Anna the ghost spread her hands on the table as if she enjoyed just feeling it. “If it pleases you, I don’t have a lot of information beyond my own experiences, but it takes a lot of work to enter a human who isn’t willing, or welcoming, or unconscious. It’s painful for me and them, and it’s not a perfect match. I mean, if we’re not welcome, we have little to no control over the body.”
“So what if I am willing. How do I let you know?” Zoë asked. “I mean if I can’t see you.”
She smiled. “That is why there aren’t a lot of possessions.”
Gwen leaned forward and fixed her eyes on Anna. “Ghost, tell me why the passenger known as Reynard would want to lie to Zoë about what ghosts are, and what they can do?”
The girl looked frightened. “I—I don’t know. I didn’t see Reynard. I don’t know who he is. He’s a citytalker like you, yes?”
Gwen slowly turned to focus on Zoë. “Citytalker? Does this mean you have the same particular gift as your addled elderly friend?”
She forced herself to look Gwen in the eye, which was like looking into a demanding starry sky. “I can trust you, right, Gwen? I mean, you feed off me and everything, but you don’t actively hunt me. You don’t view me as a sentient sandwich.”
“I thought we had well established that.”
Zoë shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s just my one secret I’d like to keep from Phil and many of the others.”
“I knew that you’re a magical human.” Gwen’s voice was steady as always, but Zoë stared at her. A small smile crossed Gwen’s face. “I can tell by your life force. I’ve known it for a while.”
Zoë leaned back and sighed. “Can I keep nothing from you people?”
Gwen waved her hand dismissively. “Only people who have fed on you would know. As far as I understand, that includes myself and John. You haven’t let a vampire feed, and a zombie would have killed or turned you by now. So it’s only us.”
“John isn’t necessarily someone I trust,” Zoë said, remembering with discomfort the time the incubus had nearly seduced her to feed on her sexual energy.
“He has told no one about you thus far,” Gwen replied calmly.
Zoë glared at Anna. “Thanks for outing me,” she said, and the girl’s eyes went wide when she realized she’d offended. “I hadn’t planned on talking about it yet.”
“Because the more coterie know about citytalkers, the more dangerous it is for us,” Anna said quietly, looking down. She touched her neck where a vampire had savaged it—something Zoë hadn’t noticed since Anna kept that side away from people when speaking. “I was killed during a purge, Dublin didn’t tell me the assassin was coming. I don’t know why.”
“Were you killed by a vampire?” Zoë asked, and then felt stupid because it was an obvious question, but the girl shook her head.
“I don’t know what took me down, but once I was down, they were on me, tried to turn me. It was part of the second wave of attacks, if you will. The city didn’t warn us, and by the time it realized what the vampires had planned, we were too incapacitated to prepare.”
“I remember,” Gwen said. “I witnessed some. Zoë, you were right, it’s not something you want people like Kevin knowing. And if Phil knows you have this power, he will figure out a way to use you to his advantage.”
Zoë frowned. She realized she had been hoping that Gwen would deny all her fears instead of validating that she was correct to hide her secret. This made it even worse if it came out.
“OK, so you’re not mad and you’re not going to give me up. Good to know,” Zoë said. “But how come no one told me about this genocide thing? It’s a pretty big freaking deal to humans, I figured you guys would know that little bit of history ought to make a difference to me. I know lots of coterie eat people, but this is so much worse.”
Gwen sat back and closed her eyes, then licked her lips, and Zoë got an uncomfortable feeling of her remembering a specific taste. The taste of people like her, and their proximity to death. Her dark eyes opened then, and she leaned forward.
“We didn’t think you needed to know. They don’t know you’re magical, so they figured you wouldn’t be threatened, and if you’d found out, you might not have taken the job.”
“No kidding,” Zoë mumbled. “What can you tell me about any citytalkers left? Granny is the only one I’ve ever met. I barely understand what this power is, and now people exist that want to hunt me for it?”
Gwen inclined her head. “I came into being astride a black mare, galloping across a moor in pursuit of a wayward soul. Coming to terms with your sudden existence is a shock.”
“You’ll have to tell me that story sometime.” Zoë wanted to take a drink of her soda, and then remembered it had walked off to fight a bunch of fake cowboys. “So no, I don’t know where my people come from. I don’t know how I became a citytalker, and I don’t know how to control it, even. Riding on this train is bizarre as I’m getting a taste of personality from the occasional city, but we’re moving too fast for anything to solidify.”
“I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you this—” Gwen began, but Zoë interrupted her.
“I trust you, Gwen,” she said. She started to count down on her fingers. “You are not interested in eating me. You have kept my secret from Phil even though you didn’t know exactly what it was, and you have shown yourself to be concerned about my well-being despite what you say about being an impassive death goddess.”
Gwen waited for a moment, then said, �
�Are you going to finish counting your fingers?”
Zoë lowered her hands, feeling her face flush. “I had only three.”
“I see. And all of those things are true. I simply fear that you finding out the details will make you less interested in working with us.”
“I’ve been attacked by zombies, zoëtists, golems, and demons. One of them even swallowed me,” she reminded Gwen, shuddering at the memory. “What can you tell me that will turn me off more than those have?”
“I can tell you what we have lost.”
“What we lost?”
“What everyone lost when we lost the citytalkers. The cities.”
“But the cities are right there!” Zoë waved her hand, although only South Carolina farmland was beyond the train’s windows.
“The spirits of the cities are fractured and confused. The citytalkers not only talked to the cities, but they supported the cities, too. Obviously the buildings and bridges and infrastructure are still there, but the city itself is weakened. If no one can talk to the city, no one knows if a disaster is imminent, or if a bridge is weakened. And frankly, healthy cities are happy, and happy cities have happy people. Some cities are near death now that the talkers are all but gone. And those who are here”—she gestured to Zoë—“are not taught what they need to know.”
Zoë sat in stunned silence. Gwen patiently signaled to Anna, who rose, left the car, and hurried back, carrying a red can. She gave a soda—cold, this time—to Zoë.
“Drink something. It will ground you,” Gwen said, gently pushing the fresh drink toward Zoë.
“Dying cities? You are kidding me, right?”
Gwen frowned. “I’m very bad at kidding. Jokes were Morgen’s job.”
“Why would the coterie want the cities to die?” she asked.
