by Mur Lafferty
She put the drink on the bar and Zoë looked at it briefly, then took the dare she imagined was coming from the bartender’s blank face, and picked it up and returned to her table.
She needed the gin. At this point it was medicinal.
Eir had finished her water and looked a bit more cheered up. More people were coming into the restaurant now, and Zoë recognized Beverly and Galen, the kids from the train, coming in with their family.
Beverly caught sight of Zoë immediately and grinned and waved. She made an apologetic sound to her family and left the table to see Zoë.
“Oh wow, I’m so glad you made it! Isn’t this place utterly amazing?” she said.
Zoë took a drink of her Captain Spaulding. “Yeah, great, thanks very much for suggesting it. Eir, Gwen, this is Beverly.”
The girl stared at the goddesses, eyes wide, and blushed. Zoë wondered if she saw many goddesses during her day-to-day life. Beverly then leaned into Zoë. “Can, uh, I talk to you for a minute?”
Zoë frowned at her friends, and then at the girl. Her friends were eating souls and she was probably drinking demon blood and gin. The thought of getting up was very tiring right now. The girl’s eyes were very wide and she fidgeted from foot to foot. Zoë considered telling her where the bathroom was, and then realized she wasn’t that much of an asshole, and besides, she didn’t know. Also, she had to go, too, so she figured they could kill two birds with one stone.
She got up, a little uncertain. Those drinks had hit her empty stomach hard. “I’m going to find the ladies’ room,” she said to her friends. She had to hold back giggling about asking whether they would need to go, too. Then she felt rather stupid.
The girl led Zoë to the bathroom, looking over her shoulder a couple of times. Zoë was struck by how tall she was. There was something about the way she moved: she walked as though she was trying to look much shorter. Zoë had known a woman in college who was six feet tall and who walked with a slump to look smaller, and this girl walked like that.
Beverly pushed the bathroom door open and then checked under the stalls. Zoë put a steadying hand on the wall in what she hoped was a casual way. She could blame the demon blood, but that would mean she was lacking faith in her old friend gin, and she decided to believe the gin could carry her through anything.
“You know, you’re really quite striking, you shouldn’t be ashamed of how tall you are,” she said without thinking. The girl straightened from her peek under the stall door to stare blankly at her. “I mean, I know that’s a really rude thing to say, but it’s true.”
“I—” the girl shut her mouth and then laughed, relaxing against the sink. “No, it’s not that at all. You see—” The young zoëtist’s form shimmered, then blurred, and solidified again. Nothing had changed in front of Zoë, but she glanced in the mirror and yelled.
Beside Beverly stood Anna, the ghost from the train.
Beverly straightened, her body language taking on a sudden confidence that hadn’t been there before. “She was just hitching a ride. She wanted to talk to you, but it’s harder now that we’re all off the train. No ghost train, you know.”
I may be too drunk to deal with this. Let’s see. I am still aware of my surroundings, I am capable of rational thought, and I’m not done with my drink yet. Let’s go, Zoë did not say to the teen girl in front of her. Don’t drink, girls, it’ll mess you up. It’ll be the evil pillow to fall on after a bad day. It tastes great. And sometimes you can avoid a hangover. But don’t drink. Yeah. That’s what I’ll say.
Zoë backed up, looking at the mirror and back at Beverly again. Now she could see it, a slight break in reality, like a heat shimmer, next to her.
Beverly frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“G-ghosts. Someone said. Never mind.” Use nouns AND verbs together, moron. She took a deep breath, hoping it could clear her mind. “Someone told me possession was a bad thing, and I’m still trying to get used to the reality of it. That it’s not. Apparently. Is it?”
Beverly laughed. “If I say she can do it, then what’s the harm? She wanted to see New Orleans, I wanted to know what it was like to have a ghost inside me.”
She leaned over and narrowed her eyes. “We deal in life, we imbue the earth, the plants, whatever we have the power to, with life itself. She is a spark of life that stuck around after death. I had to see what it was like. Haven’t you ever?”
Zoë’s eyes didn’t leave the shimmering haze. “Haven’t I ever what?”
“Wanted to know what it was like to taste that tiny bit of life left over. We draw life from all around but there’s real life here, we don’t have to draw from it, it’s right here. So if we can use it, then it should have a chance to use us, right? I scratch your back, you know?”
Oh yeah. The girl thought she was a zoëtist, and Anna hadn’t told her the truth. Zoë’s gratitude toward the ghost helped ease some of her fright.
“Oh sure, it makes sense on paper. But giving someone complete control, that’s…” Zoë trailed off.
“But God, Zoë, what I get in return…” Beverly trailed off as well, cocking her head and looking at Zoë as if she had never seen her before.
Zoë’s booze-addled brain struggled to catch up. She swallowed. “Of course. I’ve just heard stories, that’s all. I—well, what’s it like?”
The girl grinned. “It’s awesome. I think my mom once called it euphoria. That means all floaty and happy, right?”
Zoë nodded. The ghost shimmered and then edged closer to Beverly. The girl stepped into the shimmer, and they merged. She lost her posture, stooped over, and refused to meet Zoë’s eyes.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, miss,” she said. The voice was softer, with a slight Irish lilt. “I just wanted to talk to you again. You did mention you were coming here.”
Zoë smacked her forehead with a little too much gusto. It hurt. “Right, of course, I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. Yes, I did say that. Look, I’m sorry. I’ve had a rough twenty-four hours.” She paused to count on her fingers. Twenty-four was about right, since Arthur had discovered his herbs had been destroyed by his sister wishing to scare him straight. “The train ride, and the getting shot, and then my, uh, boyfriend or something wandered off when we got here. Demon blood in my drink. Maybe. It’s a whole thing.”
“Sure, I get it. I slept most of the day myself, we’re all fucked up,” Beverly said, then clapped her hand over her mouth.
Zoë blinked dumbly at her. Sure, kid, your nap-grogginess equals my boyfriend’s impending zombiedom. But she had to remember what it was like to be fifteen and have your biggest fear be your parents catching you swearing.
“We shouldn’t hang out in here too long,” Zoë said. “Your mom is going to start looking for you.”
“Yeah,” Beverly said. “And I want to see Reynard when he gets here.”
Zoë’s head swam. “Reynard? You have a friend named Reynard?”
“Sure, he’s a zoëtist who is studying with my mom,” Beverly said. “He was supposed to be on the train last night but didn’t make it, so he flew down. He got in this afternoon and is staying with us in our suite. He’s cute for an old guy.” She screwed up her face and studied Zoë. “He might be your type.”
Zoë ignored the unintended insult. The sink. That was a good place. Water was there. She started washing her hands. “Cool, well, I hope you have fun with your mom’s friend. I’ll see you around.” Her tongue felt thick and awkward as she spoke, and she cursed herself. She had wanted to be sober and angry if she ever met Reynard again, not drunk and scared of a ghost—which was Reynard’s fault.
“But we haven’t talked,” Beverly protested.
“Oh, right. What did you want to talk about?” Zoë asked, drying her hands on her jeans. She hated electric dryers.
Beverly’s body language had taken on Anna’s. Her stance was less confident, more submissive, fragile. “I just wanted to talk to another citytalker. It’s been so long.” The body straightened
up, switching control back, the eyes going wide. “You’re a citytalker?”
“Shit,” Zoë said.
The ghost girl looked immediately crestfallen. “Oh dear, oh dear. I’d promised to keep that a secret, didn’t I?”
“You did, and until now I’d figured you were doing a really good job,” Zoë said without inflection. She sighed. “Well, I guess that saying ‘Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead’ doesn’t apply here.”
“I’m so sorry!” Anna wailed. “I just wanted to talk to you again!”
Zoë held up her hand. “Listen. Let me talk to Beverly?”
The girl stood taller, still managing to look abashed. “I won’t tell. I promise.”
Zoë nodded. “Right, I’m sure you’ll keep the secret as well as Anna did.” The girl flinched, and Zoë wasn’t sure if it was Anna or Beverly making the movement. Zoë sighed. “Listen, I am sorry I lied, Beverly. I’m not a zoëtist. But from what I’m learning, there aren’t a lot of my kind left, and there are still plenty of people that don’t want us around. I had to lie. Defense mechanism.”
The girl nodded, her head bobbing up and down as if she were being shaken. “I got it. Mom told me about the war, it was nearly over when she was a kid. The zoëtists won, but barely. You guys and the weres got wiped out, or enough of you did to ensure the death of the talents in a few generations.”
“And since nonhuman coterie are long-lived, then the people who wanted my kind dead are likely still around?”
Beverly looked uncertain. “I don’t know, honestly. No one knows what happened to them. They kind of just blended back into society.”
“So it’s the KKK of coterie. Take off the hoods and make nice nice at the corner grocery. Great,” Zoë mumbled. “Anyway, I’m kind of tired of bathroom confessions. Anna, if you want to talk to me later, I guess we can. If you can find me. Can you still talk to the city?”
The girl took on the aspect of the ghost. “I can hear echoes, like she’s calling me, but I can’t understand her most of the time. I think New Orleans is hurting, I’ve never seen a city so… fractured.” She spread her hands out, and looked as if she were viewing a shattered piece of glass.
“OK. Well, I don’t know how to put this delicately, but Reynard was on the train last night; he just got off in Charlotte instead of New Orleans. We spent some time together on the train, and I’m not real keen on meeting Reynard again, so if you could tell him nothing about seeing me, I’d be obliged. Anna, let me know when you want to talk again. Uh, I guess you can use Beverly.” She fished a card out of her pocket and handed it over, aware that she had just referred to a young woman as she might a phone. “Text me if you need to. And remember. The one rule?” Both girls looked at her out of one set of eyes, the expression so blank that she didn’t know which one was in control. “Citytalker? Remember? I’m not one? As far as you know, they’re all wiped out?”
“OH! Right! That. Totally will keep your secret. And Anna will keep it from now on, right, dude?”
The voice turned on the Irish lilt. “Right-o!”
Beverly paused with her hand on the bathroom door. She frowned. “I guess this means we won’t see you at the Life Day celebrations tomorrow?” she asked.
Zoë thought of Princess Leia singing the Life Day song. “No, afraid not. Sorry.”
As they walked out of the bathroom, Zoë mentally counted how many people knew her secret, and how many of them were dead. And how that didn’t seem to matter anyway.
She mentally asked the city if she knew something about Reynard, but the city was conspicuously silent.
Zoë swore, and then stumbled out of the bathroom.
Reynard sat at a table across the restaurant with the zoëtists Zoë had seen on the train. He sipped a glass of cold pink wine—for which Zoë decided to judge him—and told an animated story to Beverly’s mother. A small movement on the table caught Zoë’s eye: the woman had constructed a tiny golem made of sugar cubes and was using it to act out Reynard’s story. It raised a fork in its fist and brandished it, and Reynard and Beverly’s mother laughed.
She tore her eyes back to her friends, and saw a fresh drink waiting for her. Demon blood and gin. Hooray for Captain Spaulding. That was all she needed.
Their food arrived when she sat down, and she congratulated herself on excellent timing.
Zoë nearly dove into her burger, but she stopped, the food halfway to her mouth, when she saw what Gwen had been served.
The goddess held a glass flask full of some sort of gas, pearly opaque with lines of purple threading through it. She held it up to the light and squinted at it.
“What—what did you order?” Zoë asked.
“I ordered the soul of a French girl, seventeen, who died after falling off a horse in 1946.” Gwen put the flask to her lips and took a sip. Her starry eyes grew wide and she smiled. “I’ve never tasted anything so good since the Black Death.”
“That’s… good?” Zoë ventured. Gwen closed her eyes and nodded slowly. “I thought you only ate human desperation or whatever?”
“That is what I survive on, same as how you can eat food that doesn’t sustain you but you enjoy,” she said, pointing at Zoë’s fresh drink.
Zoë tossed back her second drink and started in on the third, taking in this information.
Eir was guzzling her beer stein full of water, some dribbling down her cheeks and into the braid that lay on her shoulder. She put the empty stein down with unexpected delicateness, and dabbed at her face with her napkin.
“So is it… ethical, I guess? to devour another’s soul? I always thought that was the mark of someone evil.” She finally took a bite of her own hamburger to avoid their looks in case they wanted to incinerate her.
Gwen swallowed and licked her lips. “Not every soul goes to heaven. Not every one goes to hell. Some wander. Think of it like picking up dropped fruit from the ground.”
“Fruit. Great. But what happens after you devour it? Is it… aware of what’s happening to it?”
“Probably not,” Gwen said.
“ ‘Probably’? Doesn’t that bother you? A little?” Zoë asked.
Gwen shook her head and took another drink. She finished her flask and put it on the table. She watched Zoë eat, eyes sparkling. “And that cow that died for your meal. Was it aware of what was happening to it? Does it bother you?”
“You did not just compare my soul to a cow,” Zoë said without looking at her.
“No, she did,” Eir said helpfully.
Zoë felt something pull at her awareness and realized Reynard was trying to get her attention.
“Editor. You often go to the toilet with girls?” Eir asked. Was she trying to change the subject?
“God, you make me sound like a pervert,” Zoë protested. “It’s better than eating human souls.”
Eir sniffed and gulped at her water.
Gwen slowly swiveled her head to look at Zoë. “You sound angry.”
“I thought you were just a benign death goddess, and now you’re here devouring souls like Cthulhu!”
Gwen opened her mouth, but Zoë held up a finger. “No. Do not tell me if Cthulhu is real. I can’t handle that right now.”
“You do not object to the zombies eating brains or the vampires eating blood,” Gwen said.
“Drinking blood,” Eir corrected, studying her empty stein.
“That’s different somehow. The body is finite, the soul is infinite. If I die, I can hope my soul continues, while the body rots. But if I’m eaten by some partying god in New Orleans, then that’s it for existence. Boom. I’m done. ‘Probably.’ ”
Gwen placed her palms on the table, and Zoë felt as if reality were shuddering.
I’ve done it. I’ve pissed off a death goddess. I’m really rolling crits tonight, aren’t I?
“The restaurant is called Café Soulé. What were you expecting?” Gwen’s voice was cold.
“I don’t know what I expect, ever, when I’m hanging out wi
th you people,” Zoë said. She picked up her glass and drained it, and with three drinks on an empty stomach, she stood up and fished in her satchel for her wallet. “Here, just get a receipt so I can expense your meal.” She tossed several hell notes at Eir and staggered away from the table. “I seriously need some human companionship tonight. You know, Gwen, I thought you would be the one person I could count on not to eat me. You were my safe place. I don’t even know why I work with you guys. Maybe Arthur is right. Maybe I do have a death wish.”
She caught sight of Beverly’s table, complete with Reynard, staring at her as she lurched from the restaurant, and wondered how loudly she had been talking.
“Sorry, folks, no room for embarrassment tonight, I’m full up on shitty emotions, see,” she announced to the restaurant, and pushed the squat man by the door out of the way.
She wished she knew a human in town, someone who lived in the blissfully ignorant world of no monsters. An atheist skeptic, even better. No gods, no souls, no monsters, just cold science. Where did they hang out in New Orleans? Holiday Inn?
Problem was, she was far from home, and she didn’t know anyone even in New York who wasn’t associated with coterie.
“Christ, I need new friends,” she said out loud, and no one on the sidewalk paid any attention to her.
Part of her wondered why Reynard was in the city, was he following her? She should have talked to him. She should have stayed sober and watched him. She should have let her friends know her objections in a less sloppily drunk way.
While she was kicking herself, she shouldn’t have moved back to New York in shame. She shouldn’t have slept with her boss in Raleigh. She should have studied actuarial science. She could keep going back in her past and figured if she tried hard enough, she could send some self-loathing back to her five-year-old self for her destructive choices.
Zoë felt a strange sense of belonging, realizing she was a stumbling drunk on a sidewalk in the French Quarter. She was clearly underdressed, completely without masks or finery, but at least she matched the inebriation of the crowd.
