“I knew that was what you wanted: that’s why I said no. I was never going to leave the carnival for you,” I said. “I was only ever going to leave it for myself.”
“I’m selling your pony,” he said. Those words were utterly calm, with no emotion attached to them. This was something he could be sure of. “Maybe you’ll be able to get everyone else to tell me that I had no right, but it won’t matter. The sale will already be finished, and you’ll never get her back. Maybe then you’ll stop cavorting around like you’re better than everybody else. You’ll stop holding on to the past.”
“No,” I snarled, and ducked toward the mouth of the tent.
Davo worked the airway lines, where speed was of the essence, and I worked with Billie, who never moved faster than she had to. He was faster than I was, and his hand caught my ponytail as I ran past, pulling me up short. The pain in my scalp was immediate, and familiar. My hair had been pulled before.
“Yes,” he replied, utterly calm. He let go of my hair. I pulled away, turning so that I could see him, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach, leaving me shaky legged and unsure of my next move.
Davo looked at me without blinking, his grip on the small ceramic pistol he’d produced from inside his jacket unwavering.
“You … you wouldn’t shoot me,” I said. “Not over this. Not over who owns a pack animal.”
“That’s true,” he said. “But I might shoot you over going behind my back to Grandfather. Over complaining endlessly when I just wanted to do right by this show. Over trapping me here when you refused to let me be your ticket to a better life. You’ve given me lots of reasons to shoot you, over the years.”
“Davo—”
“Everyone will just assume you went with your pony. Even Grandfather. And I won’t have to look at you anymore. You won’t defy me. Life will be perfect, once you’re gone.”
Fighting him wasn’t getting me anywhere. It was just making him more and more sure of himself. Time to stop. I pulled myself up straighter, composing my expression. “Then do it. Prove to me that you can be a Big Man for once in your life. Make a real decision. Kill your kin.”
“I can,” he snarled.
“So do it,” I said.
I’m not sure which one of us was more surprised when he pulled the trigger: him or me. The bullet flew past my head, the wind from its passage ruffling my hair for an instant before it was gone. I stared at Davo, too stunned to scream. He stared back. Then he adjusted his aim fractionally, shifting to ensure that the next shot wouldn’t miss. I didn’t wait for him to fire. I turned and ran.
This time I made it out of the tent without a hand catching in my hair or a bullet taking me in the back. Davo fired again, the bullet punching a hole in the wall of the tent. Almost without thinking, I grabbed the pull tag that would identify me as the tent’s owner and yanked, dancing out of the way. “Run!” I shouted.
I will never know if Davo even tried to escape.
The tent collapsed in on itself, walls folding and sealing back into the small, tight cube that it became in its storable state. Davo screamed once, the sound quickly cut off by the rustle of fabric and the snapping of bones. I stayed where I was, breathing heavily, and only belatedly became aware of a hot, wet feeling spreading across my upper arm. I turned to look, and was somehow unsurprised to see that Davo’s second bullet had ripped a trench along the outside of my bicep.
There was a medical kit at the ticket booth. Hoisting my bag over my shoulder, I turned and walked toward the lights of the midway.
* * *
The music from the rides and the noise of the crowds had covered the sound of gunshots. Nicole helped me patch my arm, and she didn’t ask why she was doing it, or what had happened; she just looked sad and sprayed the quickseal skin substitute into place, keeping infection out of the wound. “I can’t stop the bleeding,” she said. “You need medical care.”
“I know,” I said. “Just do what you can.”
Nicole nodded, and kept to her work. When she was finally done, I stood and hugged her. She hugged me back, seeming startled but not displeased.
“Be well, cousin,” she said.
“I’ll do my best,” I replied.
Bay was waiting at the edge of Billie’s pen when I came walking through the shadows. She perked up and ran toward me, calling, “Davo, are you—” Then she stopped, dismay and distrust washing over her face. “Ansley?”
“I’m here for Billie,” I said, and walked past her. As I had expected, she didn’t stop me. Bay was weak. She was pretty, and she was clever, but she was weak. She didn’t really understand what it was to love something enough to die for it. Maybe they’d forgotten to include that piece of her when they were designing her genotype.
“You can’t,” she said behind me. “Davo said to watch her.”
“You can watch her,” I agreed. “You can watch her walk away.”
Even with the howdah removed, there were ropes draped over Billie’s back, because without them, we’d never get everything put into place when it was time to go. I grabbed the nearest line, careful not to put too much weight on my injured arm, and began pulling myself up her side. She snorted once and kept eating, untroubled by my presence.
“Come down from there right now!” shouted Bay. “I’ll tell!”
“You can tell if you want, but I’m not coming down,” I called back.
When I reached the top of the rope, I pulled it up after me. Then I slid down the length of Billie’s neck, scooting along until I reached her ears. I’d need to come up with a better steering system. Or maybe I wouldn’t come up with a steering system at all. Maybe this would be the way of things from now on; where she walked, I would follow.
“Opre, Billie,” I said, pulling gently on the edge of her ear. “Akima. Time to go.”
The Indricothere raised her head, snorting. There was a pause while she considered my request. I could hear Bay shouting something up at me, but I shut it out, listening to the sound of Billie breathing.
Then, slowly, the Indricothere began to move.
I leaned back on her neck, comfortable and confident that I wasn’t going to fall, and closed my eyes. With every step she took, the midway fell away behind us, the music turning ghostly and unreal. It was a living fossil, and its time would last as long as everyone who worked it cared enough to keep the past alive. I wished them well.
I never wished them anything but well.
Let the future tend to itself. I nestled deep in the fur of Billie’s neck, and rode my own piece of the past onward, into the night that had no certain ending.
Copyright © 2014 by Seanan McGuire
Art copyright © 2014 by Theo Prins
Tonight it’s Shelly.
If I were capable of having feelings since Angie disappeared, I might have some for Shelly. Not because she’s finer than the rest of them—she is fine though, don’t get it twisted—but because at the beginning of the night, when she crawls into the back of my Crown Vic all prettied up and glittery, she always catches my eyes in the rearview mirror and asks me how I’m doing. Not in the concerned way but not in the throw-off way either: She really wants to know.
Anyway, I don’t think she’s into women, especially not middle-aged skinny butch ones with salt-and-pepper hair and angry lines in their faces and the memories of long lost lovers dancing around their subconsciouses.
And anyway, I’m not sixteen anymore, in fact I’m not even forty anymore and I’m not here for the quick thrill of teaching straight girls that what they really want is this, this, and this. Been there, done that. Far too many times.
And anyway: Angie.
So I nod. Yes, there’s a glint in my eye. I can’t help that; it’s who I am. But I keep it to the trivial bullshit and then we roll out into the midnight streets of Bushwick to whatever fancy scum made the call tonight.
* * *
It’s one of those suburban blocks. Trees and pretty old houses that Germans and Russians abandoned in
terror when we Puerto Ricans started moving in a few decades back. The house is all dark with a well-manicured lawn and draped windows, just like all the other ones. In other words, it gives me nothing. If it was a face it’d be a blank stare. I don’t like it.
“You want me to come in with you?” My voice is raspy, disarming at first, but it turns out to be sexy when I’m whispering late at night. I put a cigarette to my lips and then take it out again because I quit smoking last week and I really mean it this time.
Shelly rolls her eyes in the rearview. “You’re such a worrywart.” She finishes putting her lipstick on, atrocious pink against her light brown skin, and flutters her lashes. She’s Trini I think, mostly Indian; getting a master’s in social work and has a set of tits that can call you from across a room, but her swagger’s a little pressed if you ask me. She’s better when she just stays genuine.
I’d tell her that but she might either slap me or fall in love with me. Probably both. Instead I just mutter, “Okay,” and look out the window.
When the ritual of mirror coquetry is done, Shelly clomp-clomps out my cab and up the porch steps. She rings the bell twice and then tries the door; it’s open and she walks on in.
I shake my head. This isn’t how any of it’s supposed to go, but what can you do? Johns will always be unpredictable and finicky with their creepy little preferences and peculiarities. And I’m just the muscle. My gnawing discomforts mean nothing, especially since they’ve been there since Angie went missing six months ago, so who cares if that plunging knell of despair is a little louder than usual? I blip the base that I’m here and the scratchy reply is in Charo’s voice. That’s one thing I’ve always respected about Charo: He runs the whole operation, both the legit end and this side of things. He keeps his eyes on the bank, he checks in with his employees, he must handle an absurd amount of cash every day and still he sits in on the radio board when someone can’t come in. I’ve known him since he was little, know his parents and his sick fuck of an abuelo, I know them all, and believe me, Charo’s the only one worth a damn. We’ve had our disputes but he gets it done.
Charo wants to know if I’m okay. Stupid question and he knows it but I guess it’s in his gentlemanly code to ask.
“I’m fine,” I say. “But I don’t like this place.”
“Maybe,” Charo says, “because it’s only a block or two away.”
I’m about to ask away from what, but then rub my eyes and sigh. Of course! How could I not realize? One block over, halfway down the street just like we are now, there’s a house not that different from this one that Charo and I turned inside out and upside down looking for Angie. It was the last place she was seen alive, and we took the place apart a hundred different ways and didn’t bother putting it back together and found not a single trace of the girl. Nothing.
“Reza,” Charo says.
“Hm?”
“You want me to send you Miguel?”
Miguel’s the biggest driver we got. No, that’s not true: Carbrera is the biggest driver we got, pound for pound. But that’s all lechón and batidos. Miguel is made of muscle. He’s on the legit end, doesn’t know a thing about this side of things in fact, so I guess all the other muscles are off on calls. I used to think he was a wuss, all that muscle not withstanding. He has a on-again-off-again chick that he never shuts the fuck up about—Virginia? Vanessa? Vanessa—but really there’s no one else I’d rather have my back in a fight. Except Charo himself, of course, because sometimes sheer wrath will take you further than any workout video or tae-bo bullshit.
“No. It’s fine. I’m strapped and there’s nothing wrong, just us being paranoid. No te preocupes, Charo.”
I’m sure he shrugs at this point, probably lights a Conejo. Then he says, “Suit yourself, Rez.”
I roll down the window and let the Brooklyn night in.
* * *
I usually clean the Vic to pass the time, but I ran her through thorough last night and once-overed her with a rag earlier, and now she’s immaculate, even by my standards. My suit pants are pressed and spotless; the perfect line runs down the center of each leg and stops just above my steel-tipped snakeskin shoes. The matching gray vest I’m wearing hangs just right over the glocks tucked securely under each arm. There’s a dagger strapped to my ankle and the bigger hardware in the trunk. May seem like a lot to you, but I still have some habits left over from The Bad Years and one of them is Never Be Outgunned. There’s a gold crucifix around my neck and a locket that Angie gave me that sometimes brings me comfort and sometimes nightmares. I never take it off.
The radio’s playing old salsa, the good Cuban shit that’s so true and raw they can only put it late at night on one of those 88.whatever college stations. I take the cigarette out of my mouth again and replace it in its gold case, shaking my head. I’m not thinking about Angie. I’m not thinking about Angie.
The doctor that Charo made me go to said, “Try not to think about Angie so much.” Might as well’ve told me to try not to have an arm. But I try. The song wants to take me elsewhere but Angie’s smile keeps wrenching me back. And then the emptiness her smile left behind. And then the frantic search. And then the feeling of gnawing desperation. And then giving up. And then giving up. Which I never really really did, probably. Give up. On Angie.
Even though Charo has told me to again and again.
* * *
Probably I dozed off, because a muffled scream wakes me from some kind of dazed stupor.
Fuck.
I’m out of the car, breaking towards the doorway, accosting the night air for any hint of another scream, anything.
It sounded like Angie.
Everything sounds like Angie when I first wake up.
I stop. This is no way to move. I’m wide open to attack. I’m barreling forward recklessly. This is not me. There may not have been a scream at all. My haunted head. There may have only been silence, like right now. I stand perfectly still on the front porch. Cicadas are chirping their spring drone into the night. Cars are passing on nearby streets. The Jackie Robinson isn’t too far from here; it cuts through that big old cemetery on the border of Brooklyn and Queens.
No one is screaming. No one is screaming but something skitters over my foot in the darkness of the porch and I jump back so fast it almost sends me toppling down the stairs. One of my guns is out by the time I regain my footing; it’s pointed at where my foot was, but whatever-it-was is gone. It looked like a thing I hate more than death itself, a thing I would prefer not to even mention, thank you very much. And if it was that thing, there are more of them. There are always more of them, that’s the rule about that thing. Many more. Seething, writhing masses of more. I reholster the glock, walk back to my car, resist the urge to jump in and drive straight into the house, madman-on-a-rampage style, and come out firing. Instead I go into the trunk, bypass the secret compartment with the heavy guns and dig through a duffel bag until I find a can of bug spray. It seems ridiculous I guess, but like I said, I’ll never be outgunned. Not by no killers and certainly not by no six-legged hairy monstrosities, no sir. I get a flashlight too and then I walk onto the porch again and test the door.
It’s open and I slide ever so quietly inside.
* * *
Everything is in its right place in this standard American front hallway. There’s an old staircase, coats on the coat rack, an open door leading off to the kitchen, a few closed doors on the way. It’s dark but some hazy streetlight comes in through the window over the door. I can make out the old-fashioned swirly motifs along the wallpaper leading up the stairs. It’s dusty in here and the air is thick with mold. But nothing moves, no one screams. No creatures crawl across the walls. I don’t lower the spray and my gun hand twitches slightly, ready. The kitchen is the same; so is the living room. Everything’s just so and that’s how I know something’s off. It’s all been carefully placed there, but no one lives here. The place is dead, a mask.
I’m standing in the kitchen looking out the win
dow into the backyard when I see it. I can stand so still I almost disappear and it makes every tiny movement crisp, shrill even. A tree is waving around outside, making a wild shadow show on the far wall. A digital clock on the microwave blinks 12:00; a car passes. And: something scurries across the floor and disappears under the fridge. I don’t freak out. I don’t. I let the freak-out wash over me and pass; it’s only a jittery tremble now and I’m about to take a step forward when another one of ’em shoots out of nowhere and makes its silent, frantic sojourn to the fridge. It pauses a couple times along the way; before it’s gone two more appear.
Even in the darkness, I can tell there’s something different about them. They’re pale. Instead of that dark maroony swirl glinting with light, these are pinkish.
Anyway, maybe there’s something rotting in there; they’re making their way to a wretched feast. Maybe. I swallow a little bit of vomit that found its way up into my esophagus and inch towards the fridge, my finger shuddering against the spray can button.
There’s nothing in the fridge but an unfortunate brown stain that’s dark in the center and spreads into lighter, crusty circles. At any second, a thing will fly out from under there and up my pant leg, I’m positive. I step back from the fridge, carefully, and take it in. My brain knows there’s something wrong but my eyes can’t decide what yet. It’s one of those old antiquey ones, all bulky and aqua blue, and it stands next to the door coming in from the hallway. The front steps climb straight alongside the hallway, so the landing on the second floor should be right above my head and … there should be a basement. All these old houses have basements. There should be a door along the hallway wall that leads under the front steps. But there isn’t. I stare harder at the fridge.
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