Last Best Day

by Jeff Somers

  And I nodded, sleepy. Sure, Lem.

  Promise me.

  I promise, Lem.

  LARISSA HAS PASSED OUT, leaving me alone in the shrinking bubble that is the dying moment of Mr. Pell’s trap. She’s breathing slow and steady. She’s beautiful. I like her.

  I don’t think there’s much time. I don’t know what happens when the moment is completely gone. Time, eating itself. Eating Lem. What happens when you die in a frozen moment before it decays? What happens if you don’t die? I’m about to find out.

  The spell has told me what to do. I won’t remember it for long. Lem always says that every time I learn a new spell, I forget an old one. This one is pretty long, but it’s there in my mind, clear as a bell. It’s a pretty big spell. Someone will have to bleed for it. To die for it. I would do it. I want to do it. I would die to bring Lem back. But I know if I bleed for the spell, I’ll pass out before I can finish it. It will collapse. And that will be it.

  I look at Larissa again. I’m crying. I don’t want to hurt her. But if I do nothing, we all die. If I save Lem, she dies. There aren’t any other choices.

  “I’m sorry.” I touch her face. “I’m really sorry.”

  Blubbering, I reach into my pocket and pull out my blade. The Words that Volker’s broken spell gave me are surprisingly easy. Most of the time I get lost in the grammar. Or the vocabulary. Usually there’s so many Words to remember, and I get them jumbled up. But this isn’t nearly as long as I expected. And I just know it, without having to work too hard. I’m going to have to cut her deep. As I get ready, I think about what Lem always says about us, about ustari, and he’s right. We’re not good people. Not even me.

  I’m glad she’s asleep.

  12.

  THERE’S A ROAR and a bright light, and then it feels like the floor is tilting, giving way, and I’m falling. I panic and try to catch hold of something, and then the floor is back, rushing up to meet me and hitting me hard, but instead of bouncing away, I bounce into it.

  And then we’re back in the penthouse.

  The kitchen is the same as when I first saw it. Except not the same. It’s brighter. Crisper. Through the windows I can see the city, lit up, clear. Everything is clean. The floor feels solid. I can see the edges of things, and the grit and swirling dust are gone. We’re back in the regular flow of time. We’re back in the world.

  There’s an explosion somewhere far away. The whole floor vibrates with the force of it. Out the window I see a jet of flame arc up into the sky and then gutter out. I can hear sirens in the distance.

  “Pitr?”

  I look at Lem. He doesn’t look good. He’s gray and sweating, his eyes sunken. He’s shivering a little, sitting up on his elbows.

  “What . . . happened?” Lem says groggily, struggling to his knees. He pauses and puts a hand to his head, shaking it. His face is normal again. His mouth is back, his lips. Then he pauses, staring. “Is she dead?”

  There’s another explosion. Another flare of fire shoots out from the floor below us. It’s higher up this time, and the noise of it is closer. I get to my feet. I don’t look at Larissa. I keep my eyes on Lem. Lem! Lem is alive! The spell told me he would be, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t understand everything the spell did, and I wasn’t sure. But here he is, and I am so happy I want to hug him until he complains. But as I smile and reach out for him, I catch sight of her ankle, and everything goes frozen, my mouth turning dry. I stare down at her foot and I can’t move, because if I move, I might see her face. Her eyes.

  “Lem,” I say, “I—”

  The door leading from the stairs blows into the kitchen on a cloud of flame and smoke, smacking into me and knocking me back to my knees and my breath out of my lungs. I manage to get my arms up to protect my head, but it hurts and my head is spinning. Then a hint of gas is in the air, and I can hear Lem speaking a spell, and everything goes quiet. I can hear my own gurgling, choking noises as I kneel under the door and try to breathe.

  I open my eyes and there is Larissa, staring up at me, her own eyes dry and dead. I want to scream but I can’t get any breath, and I want to throw myself backward but the door is too heavy. I’m trapped.

  Then the door is lifted away and Lem’s next to me, his hand on my shoulder. When he speaks, he sounds exhausted.

  “Just breathe, buddy, you’re okay.”

  I open my eyes. Mr. Fallon and Mr. Pell are in the kitchen with us. They’re shouting and circling each other, but I can’t hear anything. They both look wild and ragged; Mr. Fallon’s suit has torn, one sleeve hanging by a few threads. Mr. Pell’s left ear is a bloody, scabbed welt. He has the machine in both hands, the four candy-colored buttons glowing slightly in the darkness. Every time Mr. Fallon takes a step, Mr. Pell takes a step back.

  As I watch, Mr. Fallon pulls something from his pocket and throws it at Mr. Pell. It sprouts into a twisting curl of flame in midair, swirling around the other enustari. I can feel the heat of it. But Mr. Pell just closes his eyes and shouts something I can’t hear and the flames die off.

  “A little trick,” Lem says, breathing hard. “Just hides us, makes us hard to see. Normally wouldn’t work too well on an Archmage, I don’t think, but they’re distracted.” He leans down and smiles at me. “You ready, Magsie? I think the old man could use a little help. And I guess I kind of owe him for coming after me.”

  I nod. “I owe him, too.” I don’t tell Lem what I owe Mr. Fallon. I don’t look at Larissa. I don’t think about her.

  Lem nods. “Hit him hard.”

  I know that means I should tackle Mr. Pell while Lem uses one of the mu, the small spells he knows, to slow him down or blind him or distract him. We’ve done it a lot against cops, against other idimustari trying to get in on a grift we’ve set up, on landlords who find us in their empty houses, and people trying to rob us in the middle of the night. Sometimes Lem calls it Shock and Awe. I don’t know what that means.

  We move, and the spell shatters. Sound rushes back in. Both Mr. Fallon and Mr. Pell are casting, rapidly speaking Words. There’s not much gas to be had, not enough for anything complicated, I don’t think. But enustari know things I never will. They have tricks they don’t teach anyone else. That’s how they stay on top.

  I leap for Mr. Pell, but he flinches and turns and somehow alters the Words he’s saying, and the spell hits me and I’m floating, all my weight gone. I’m like a balloon.

  Lem is right behind me, though, giving up on his spell and racing past, smacking into Mr. Pell and knocking him to the floor. Mr. Pell hangs on to the machine, though, and rolls away. He flips over, placing it on the floor, and raises one hand into the air.

  “Pell, no!” Mr. Fallon shouts, releasing his spell. It collapses around him, and I’m caught in a strong, hot wind that sends me hurtling into the stove, all the glass in the room breaking simultaneously.

  For a second, Mr. Pell hesitates. He sits there with his arm raised, looking at Mr. Fallon, who isn’t moving, either.

  “Mycroft!” Mr. Fallon shouts. His face has an expression I’ve never seen on Mr. Fallon before. “Do not engage the r—”

  Mr. Pell brings his hand down on the red button.

  THE WORST PAIN I have ever felt was when Mrs. Lawson was angry with me and made me help her in the kitchen. Helping in the kitchen only happened when she was angry. Usually we weren’t even allowed in the kitchen.

  I’d broken a picture frame. We weren’t playing in the house. Mrs. Lawson hated noise and we weren’t allowed to. I just tripped. I tripped and put out a hand and knocked a picture of Mrs. Lawson’s husband off the wall. No one had ever actually seen Mr. Lawson. Rumor was she’d killed him or kept him locked in the basement, feeding him scraps.

  The glass in the frame had shattered, and Mrs. Lawson screamed about how much it would cost to replace. She told me to help her in the kitchen, and all the other boys got very quiet.

/>   “It’s so she can tell ’em it was an accident, your fault,” a kid named Manny said, whispering, after Mrs. Lawson had left the room.

  Mrs. Lawson put water on to boil in a big metal pot. I just stood there, waiting for instructions. I was on the verge of crying. I didn’t like to be in trouble. And it had been an accident. I remember feeling like that ought to count for something.

  The pot boiled for a long time. She just kept working on her dinner, cutting and slicing and humming. I just stood there. Then she turned and looked at me, wiping her hands. Her face was mean. Always. Even when she was smiling at the people from Child Services who came by on surprise inspections. She told me to take the pot off the stove.

  I looked around. There was nothing to use as a pot holder.

  Mrs. Lawson got angry. She told me to take the pot off the stove and hold it, and if I spilled even one drop of the boiling water, I’d really be sorry. I remember the water bubbling and spitting. I remember feeling the heat of it as I got close. I remember crying and knowing all the guys could hear me. And I remember the pain as I touched the pot’s handles, intense and searing. I jumped back with a yelp, and Mrs. Lawson started hitting me, slapping my back and shoulders.

  Pick it up! She shouted. Pick it up and don’t spill one drop!

  I grabbed hold of the pot and picked it up, and the pain was the worst thing I’d ever felt.

  Until Mr. Pell pushed the red button on Mr. Fallon’s machine.

  THE SOUND IS deeper than the yellow button. The sound is more . . . ragged. Screechy. Like loud static. Or fingernails on a chalkboard pumped through a speaker. It sinks down into me and hurts. Like someone was dragging something sharp along every nerve, tearing me up inside. Everyone drops to the floor, screaming. If I wasn’t floating like a balloon, I would have, too. I scream anyway.

  We all scream. We’re all screaming.

  I start clawing. I grab on to the counter and push myself forward, floating, weightless. I’m suddenly soaking in my own sweat. Every muscle is tight. My eyes are bulging out of my face. The pain is everything, and all I can think of is how to stop it.

  It’s all any of us are thinking. Lem is crawling. Mr. Fallon is crawling.

  Mr. Pell is casting.

  He’s curled himself around the machine. He’s bitten into his own forearm to get a bleed going. With bloody lips, he’s reciting a spell. I can hear him. But I can’t pay any attention to it because the only thing I need is for the noise to stop. I thought the yellow button was terrible. This is the worst sound I’ve ever heard.

  If I have to hear it for more than a minute, I’ll have to start tearing at my own skin to get to the nerves. Somehow I know that. Like it’s part of the machine’s spell.

  Mr. Fallon starts to stand up.

  How he does it is a mystery. Every muscle in my body feels strained. Pulled. The yellow noise made me want to throw up every internal organ. The red noise makes me want to set myself on fire. For the relief. But Mr. Fallon pulls himself up to his feet and shoots his cuffs. Stands there in his tattered suit that still fits him perfectly. His face is tight with strain. Sheened with sweat. But he walks slowly toward Mr. Pell. He walks like his bones are broken. Or like he’s barefoot on broken glass. He and Mr. Pell are looking at each other. And then Mr. Fallon kneels down and puts his hands on the machine.

  Mr. Pell doesn’t stop him. He keeps casting. He’s sweating and shaking, too. Like the pain is so intense, he can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Cast or hold on to the machine. Not both.

  Mr. Fallon does something on the machine and the noise ends.

  Mr. Pell shouts the final word of his spell and he disappears.

  I drop to the floor, heavy again. The pain vanishes instantly, and Lem and I look at each other, and we start laughing and rolling on the floor. Then I remember Larissa.

  “Pina,” Mr. Fallon says softly. He spits on the floor. “What an asshole.”

  13.

  THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE. An army of police and ambulances are down on the street. Larissa is dead. Mr. Fallon says that Mr. Pell’s sister, Mycella, is dead. Beatrice is dead. I don’t see Dorothy, and I don’t have the energy to wonder about her. I hope she escaped. I hope she never bleeds again.

  Mr. Fallon walks into the kitchen from the stairwell, followed by an older man whose skin is loose and the color of weak tea. The man looks afraid. He’s wearing a T-shirt and a pair of dirty jeans and a dark-green jacket.

  “This is what happens when enustari feud,” Mr. Fallon says. He looks fine. He’s washed up and put his suit back together as best he can. “It is always ugly. And now, I fear, I am at war with Mycroft Pell.” He smiles. “It has been too long.” Then he looks at us as if suddenly remembering we are there. “I am afraid, Mr. Vonnegan, Mr. Mageshkumar, that you are at war with Mycroft as well, like it or not. I would be careful.”

  Lem nods. He is sitting across from me at Mr. Pell’s kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. He looks terrible. Shadowed and sweaty. Thinned out.

  After a moment, Mr. Fallon nods. “Mr. Mageshkumar, come now. We do not have much time.”

  He turns and walks out of the kitchen toward the dining room. The man with him follows, keeping his eyes down. Lem and I sit in silence for a moment.

  “Thank you, Mags.” Lem looks at me. “You saved my life. That crazy bastard was gonna kill me. He was gonna . . . eat me. Thank you.”

  I can feel the tears. I don’t want to blubber again.

  “But he’s gonna bleed that poor asshole, isn’t he? So you can tell him what you promised?”

  I nod and swallow my tears. I can’t stand it when Lem is angry with me. “The spell will kill me.” Mr. Fallon says so, and I believe him. I’m tired. More tired than I’ve ever been. I don’t have much gas to give. Not enough to give Mr. Fallon the biludha I’d promised him.

  Lem’s angry now. He looks at me, and even though he’s hurt and exhausted, he looks like he might reach over and hit me.

  Then he sits back and nods, dragging on the cigarette. He’s looking down at the table, not at me.

  “Mr. Mageshkumar!”

  I stand up. I wait for a moment. I look at Lem and want him to look at me. To smile a little, tell me it’s okay. That he understands. Mr. Fallon is enustari. I cannot go back on a deal with an Archmage. But Lem doesn’t look at me. He stares at the table and smokes.

  I turn and start walking.

  It’s the longest walk of my life. I can feel the tears on my face, but I don’t care. Let Mr. Fallon see. Let everyone see. Mags the big baby. Pitr Mags the idiot.

  I haven’t told Lem about Larissa.

  He knows she is dead. He says he’s seen her before. He doesn’t know how she died. He doesn’t know that I bled her, that I killed her to save him. I have to tell him. I was going to tell him. I can’t tell him. Because as it is, Lem is angry with me. Lem already hates me for what I’m about to do. Even though I have to, he hates me for it. Our one rule: Never bleed people. Only cast on our own gas. Never. Only.

  Lem is the only person who has never hit me. The only person who has never locked me in a closet. The only person who has never made me pick up a boiling-hot pan or called me names or taken my food or laughed at me. And now nothing will ever be the same. Everything will be different forever. Every time he looks at me, he’s going to see this.

  Mr. Fallon is sitting at the dining room table. The man, the Bleeder, is sitting there, too, his jacket sleeve on one arm rolled up. Mr. Fallon has an ornate straight razor open and laid on the table in front of him. The Bleeder looks sad.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Mageshkumar,” Mr. Fallon says, smiling. Polite. He pretends I am not blubbering.

  I drag an arm across my face and sit down, miserable. Everything was fine just one day ago. Now I look back and see those were the best days. There’s before and there’s after. Now everything’s poisoned, forever.
/>
  Mr. Fallon nods at the Bleeder. He picks up the straight razor and holds it as if it were on fire. He stares at it for a moment.

  “First, I must adjust things so your Mr. Volker’s spell will draw on our volunteer,” Mr. Fallon says.

  The Bleeder cuts himself. Gas fills the air. Mr. Fallon begins to recite.

  I sit and I know the best days are over. There was always going to be a last best day, and every day after it would be worse. A little worse and then a little worse.

  “All right, Mr. Mageshkumar,” Mr. Fallon says. “All is ready.”

  I close my eyes. I wonder what the Gul Sahar Siga is. The Bleeder gasps, drained, and then I know.

  And I know the last best day was yesterday.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  WHEN MY EDITOR, Adam Wilson, first suggested I write some novellas set in the Ustari universe, I demanded a huge sum of money and sent him a contract rider that was forty-seven pages long, and he wished me luck in finding another publisher. When I called him at three a.m. crying and begging him to take me back, he did so, and for that I am grateful.

  When I called my agent, Janet Reid, and told her of my plans to write a sixteen-volume paranormal romance about a race of superintelligent cats, she had me put on a forty-eight-hour psychiatric hold and suggested I work on this instead, and for that I thank her.

  While writing these stories, whenever I had doubts or fears, I would tell my beautiful wife, Danette, about them, and she would suggest we adopt another cat. This is how she shows love.

  To all the people who read We Are Not Good People and who reacted with enthusiasm and excitement when these novellas were announced, you have my sincere appreciation and gratitude. I hope these stories live up to your expectations. And that all your checks clear.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR