Selling Out

by Justina Robson

  The bubble station drifted in the I, calm and collected. No ghosts were near. The machines hummed, a vibration he felt in his bones as he lay on the rough decking with the others, huddled in their sleeping bags around a mess of opened fast-food containers. He had no idea how much time had passed in his office but he was reasonably sure—contrary to his expectations—that he was not in any way in his office any longer. He was with these people, entirely in the I, floating in a bubble within the tides and flow of Akashic space. It was the fey term: Akasha. I-space. The Interstitial. The Void. The Aether.

  The female demon—Rhagda—held the beer barrel (an entire hogshead! Malachi noted; they would not rise for a week) firmly and the male demon who had been the captain on the Matilda’s abortive voyage took up a mallet and bashed in the tap unit with a single, slow resigned blow, as if he were putting the final nail into a coffin. Malachi felt that the time for explanation might be upon him. “About the Fates,” he said and they all lifted their heavy heads to look at him. “They’re well known to us.”

  “Us too,” the male demon grumbled, setting his cup to the tap and drawing off an expert stein of ale. He licked the froth with his thick, pointed tongue. “But they not demons.”

  “Nor elf kind,” said the female elf scientist, sniffing and wiping her nose on a delicate handkerchief. “But we have met them in Alfheim from time to time.”

  “All ghosts cross over,” Jones said firmly. Malachi thought he detected the zealot’s conviction in her tones and hesitated.

  “We know what they are. You know too. If they’re connected to the Tem and the Fleet then, even if they are limited here by their ghostly forms . . .” Malachi trailed off. He didn’t know what he was talking about, he realised suddenly. Could the Fates be limited by form? Insight rushed him like a mad bull and he looked at Jones with his faery sight. He could see a thin wall of grey and red around her head and shoulders, the shield of deception. “You wanted them. Not the Temeraire.”

  The gazes that had been on him switched to Jones. She glared at the floor.

  “By the Namer,” said the Demon softly. “Is it so?”

  “Jonesy,” said the elf man. “You would not risk us . . .”

  “We have to get something incontrovertible,” Jones said, glaring at them defiantly through her fringe. “You know that.”

  “Humans!” Rhagda snarled, flinging her beer away with a grand, angry gesture that sent the cup and most of its contents sailing straight out of the room, through the fields of the bubble wall and out into the great magical nowhere. “No sense of danger. No wisdom!” She spat at Jones, hitting the girl where her hands clasped her bony knees. “The Matilda sails no more until you are back home in Otopia where you belong!”

  The silence that followed was acute, desperate, and final. They all felt it, none more keenly than Malachi. Jones stared at him with dismal loathing as she wiped her hands on her jeans. He shrugged helplessly. Fey had no tact. He wished it was not so at that moment and got up, swaying slightly on his feet.

  “I should go,” he said. He turned to Jones. “Don’t go chasing them again.” The sullen quiet was waiting for him to depart so it could erupt. He felt that he was throwing her to the lions. “Not until I get you some decent protection for that barge.” Oh, where had that come from? As soon as he was saying it he was already regretting it but he was back at the centre of attention again. Seven hopeful gazes on him.

  Well, he thought, he could use the family charm and probably blag something out of someone, even if it wasn’t Incon. He probably could. He could convince the fey that they should support the Ghost Hunters’ science. Just had to not actually mention the Moirae as such, only more generally in some bigger and more vague kind of mention of the Others. Curiosity would drive things forward where his convictions faltered. He knew enough of his own race to momentarily welcome their greatest weakness as his advantage. Nothing would stop them wanting to find out more on that one subject. And since he could pretend a degree of ignorance with reasonable cause he would not be in personal danger, most likely.

  How was it, he wondered, that one always thought of these excellent schemes AFTER one had committed to them and not before?

  Jones was giving him a mixed look of gratitude and annoyance. He made some awkward farewells to the others and then slunk away as unobtrusively as he could to the far corner. He hated to be seen shifting. Maybe it was a cat thing.

  He slipped his humanoid skin with haste, barely felt the split instant of I-immersion, and was back in his offices in the flat atmosphere of Otopia before he had time to blink. There was a brief but unpleasant itchy feeling inside his skull, like a badly tuned frequency crossing his awareness. In Otopia with its endless deluge of radiowave shit polluting the entire electromag spectrum it was common but for a horrible moment he rather fancied it had followed on as something which had started in I-space. Then it was gone and he stretched out in his wonderful chair, made sure all his comms were turned off still, and took a well-earned forty winks.

  It turned out when he awoke that it had been more like a hundred and forty winks, and, reading the clock, that his stay with Jones and her crew had consumed thirty hours. No wonder he had been sleepy. Time shifted too, if he had any say in it, because he’d spent at least two days with them. He made his notes for Incon dutifully and then, finally, switched on his messaging systems.

  “You’re late,” his secretary said with her regulation slightly addled anxiety. He didn’t blame her. With him as a boss she had a lot to keep up with and she was only human. “Delaware wants to see you,” she added. “I’m afraid there’s some bad news.”

  She paused and Malachi waited. When he didn’t prompt her she said, “Lila Black’s parents are dead.”

  Malachi winced. He’d kept an eye on the family for Lila, taken surreptitious photos, ensured she got as much news as possible. It had been his special thing. “She doesn’t know,” he said, filling it in for himself. Of course she didn’t. She was on assignment and they would never pass that to her until she got back.

  “How?” he asked, getting up and studying himself in the full-length mirror he unrolled down a length of wall. Man, he looked dreadful. He raked his hands through his hair and tried to dab at some of the marks on his suit but it was a pointless effort. With a snarl he turned away from his reflection, not wanting to notice how damned guilty it looked.

  “I don’t know,” Sally said. “Delaware said she would brief you. It looks suspicious.”

  Demonia, death, family. It was goddamned predictable is what it was Malachi thought furiously. Humans! He was as sick of them in that minute as the elves ever were. They didn’t even know where to fear to tread, or why. But it never stopped them long enough to listen. The idea of facing Delaware’s cool expense account attitude, after Jones’s deathwish ambition, made his claws suddenly appear. He had to wait ten minutes before they would retract far enough to head out.

  Cara Delaware’s office had panoramic views out over the Bay City area. She was the top of the department, the head of the world. Malachi knew that he and Sarasilien and all the other seconded diplomats here tolerated her rule only because it suited them. He never was sure if she knew that or not. Either way could account for the hard-faced manner she deployed; disappointment or ego, they were two sides of the same coin. He spent a miserable minute holding his predatory instincts in check as she made him wait for her. She was reading something at her desk. He got to pace restlessly by the windows and pick out potentially suitable victims from the pedestrians he was able to see walking at varius points downtown. The cooling air conditioning soothed his temper but dried out his nose. He sneezed, three rapid cat sneezes. He felt superstitious about three. He made himself do another, but it wasn’t quite the real thing.

  Delaware looked up, her heavy brown ponytail swinging heavily behind her head. She was as immaculate as he wanted to be. “Malachi, you were away a long time.”

  “Important business elsewhere,” he said. “I’m
still writing the report.” He hadn’t even begun to consider what pack of lies he was going to set down in it. He didn’t try now. He needed his concentration not to give away through his body language that he and she were no longer exactly allies all the way from top to bottom. He relaxed in his usual manner and took a seat in one of the easy chairs Delaware kept for guests. He crossed his legs and found a fried chicken wrapper stuck to the sole of his shoe. He crossed them the other way.

  “You know that Agent Black’s parents are dead,” Delaware began, giving him the full width of her attention, her desk silent.

  “I heard,” Malachi said quietly. Then, unable to contain himself he added, “They were killed, right?”

  Delaware nodded.

  “Demons,” Malachi said.

  “Maybe. We aren’t sure.” She cued up something on her private screen and turned it towards him so that he could see.

  Malachi leaned forwards. He felt his jaw loosen slightly and his hackles rose. Tiny hairs stood up along the length of his spine and he felt his nostrils flare, taking in air in a futile search for telltale scents. “Necromancers.”

  “Yes. So, they could be of any race, technically. We don’t know. And also . . .”

  Where she paused he had no trouble filling in, “Also you don’t know if they’re all that dead. What have you done with the bodies?”

  “Freeze suspension . . . attempted . . .” Delaware said stiffly, clearly fighting to control her feelings and keep herself calm. She managed of course. “Just in case.”

  “You need a magical suspension,” Malachi said, turning away from the picture of the scene with a curled lip. “Not so nice to come back from the final dance and find you’re a corpsicle. Die next to the frozen peas, screaming.”

  “Do people return?” Delaware asked, looking him straight in the eye. She was strong. He shrugged.

  “No humans ever have. It’s assumed your bodies decompose too fast, even if you could port back to them. Fey sometimes. Don’t know about elves or demons but I’d bet if they were careful they could make it. Thanatopia’s an aetheric place. But not exactly. You need to talk to someone who knows. I met a returner. They weren’t quite . . . like they used to be.”

  Delaware nodded and made some note or other. She looked up. “I need you to find Lila and tell her.”

  Malachi nodded silently. “What about the sister?”

  “We’re watching over her. Round-the-clock surveillance.”

  “Hn, and what does she think happened to Mom and Dad?”

  “Funeral’s on Friday.”

  Malachi shook his head. “Two empty caskets I take it?”

  “Malachi,” Delaware ignored his resentment. “Do you think there is any possibility at all that those people could be returned?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Malachi said, getting up and pacing to the door, trying not to know how bad every step suddenly felt. “But as your faery wiseguy, I’d have to say that no matter what you think about it, I would never try to do it. Burn the bodies and be sure. You don’t want to mess with the kind of people who traffic in the dead. If there was one thing I could make you humans do it would be to never take up hope of those you lost coming back from Thanatopia. Because they don’t come back. They come forward and they miss out the middle and I have the feeling the middle might be important.”

  “Malachi,” she said again, stopping him with his hand on the doorknob.

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  “Find me a necromancer, or a returner. I want to know.”

  “What shall I tell Lila?” He gave the slightest nod to let her know he’d heard her. “Will you let them die for certain? Have you signed them off the registry, like you did for her?”

  Delaware looked at him, flat, a long minute. He took it as a No Way I’m Telling You and a clear passing of the buck. He shook his head at the stupidity and left the door wide open as he walked out without another word. He toyed with the idea of walking straight back to Faery without any plan to return, but first he had another trip to make.

  He went home to get washed and changed and in some kind of shape. Sure, he was putting it off. He’d put it off forever, given half a chance.

  “Adai Tzaba, like all demons, had a talent,” Sorcha began. “Now how strong and how useful it was depends on who you talked to. She had a gift of Presence, which means a ranged gift that’s passive, you don’t turn it on or off, it’s part of you. Everyone within range of Adai could see the truth of their own lives. She was of the Voyant Prefecture, Inward Facing. She was included in the scope of her talent too, so she was never able to do any of that useful shit like deny what was going on around her, or to her, at any moment. And when you got next to her you were in no doubt about exactly how much bullshit you had believed about yourself in the past, and also the actual truth of what happened to you and what your friend meant when they said ‘nice hair’ that day you were nervous about your first stage appearance . . .” A curl of smoke came from Sorcha’s mouth with the last words, but she mastered herself and continued.

  “Now in Demonia telling the truth is one of the essential arts, but don’t let that fool you. To be a liar in Demonia is to be the most successful alpha-class bitch. Yet holding to the hard truth is what is most valued because only truth can set you free. You understand me?” Sorcha tilted her head and looked Lila in the eye with a hawklike stare.

  She is as clear as mud, Tath grumbled, excessively disapproving but understanding all too well.

  Lila hazarded, “Um, if you tell the truth you’re honoured but if you manage to lie and convince others you’re telling the truth then you get one up on all of them, and that’s better?”

  “Is so,” Sorcha agreed, nodding. “Exactly so. But danger always lies in lies. They addictive, like Juju. The thrill of success . . . thrills. But the thrill is hungry. It is the hunger that can’t be satisfied. It makes more and more lies. And always you are in danger of being exposed by clairvoyant talents of some kind. Like Adai’s.” Sorcha took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was looking down at the floor, her sight cast inward to her memories, and they seemed sad ones Lila judged, by the way the demon frowned and pressed her lips together.

  “So,” Lila said, to clarify for herself as much as to show Sorcha she was listening, “Adai was in great danger, because people saw the truth when they came close to her. She exposed how they’d been tricked. That made them shamed. Of course nobody wanted her around, making them feel weak.”

  Sorcha nodded as though her head was heavy, “But she was also one of the great medicine spirits, Maha Bhisaja, because the danger of bullshit is that you come to believe your own. The path into Hell begins there.” Sorcha looked up at Lila and glanced at the red stone in Lila’s ear.

  Lila touched it without thinking.

  “Imps sense weakness,” Sorcha murmured. “Wish I had paid more attention to you. Zal will blame me . . .” She sighed and then suddenly straightened, and arched her back and roared in frustration, a musical but terrifying exclamation of feeling that made Lila’s heart jump. Afterwards the demon relaxed again with a rueful expression. “I blame myself. I should have guessed you were more fucked up than fifty genies in the same bottle.” She looked at Lila with interest, to see if Lila was going to dispute the statement.

  Lila found her jaw clenched but she didn’t say anything. She was aware of the fragile remains next door, and her part in their making. Let Sorcha say what she liked. She was probably right. Lila listened inwardly, hoping that Tath might deny this out of a need to deny everything the demons stood for, but instead of rebellion she sensed only a sad quietude and that, more than Sorcha’s assertion and Madame’s warnings, made her hesitate. Sorcha’s red gaze was searching.

  “Once that road is taken, few return. Demons take it to prove themselves. Most never do. And outsiders, if they want to become of demonkind, they must travel the path. But Adai was the cure for the Hell road. Every good intention was shown to be self-serving, riddled w
ith contradictions, based on dreams. There was no escape. So though you might be found out through her, you could find your way free again, back to the Via Maha, the True Way.”

  How ironic, yet again that the one person who could most have aided you is dead, Tath said drily, and Lila felt herself twice attacked, and twice hurt.

  Sorcha shrugged. “She was a damn painful experience to have around for anyone not pure in heart . . . and because of her liabilities nobody wanted her around. She was destitute when Zal married her. There were plots afoot to get rid of her all the time. She spent her money and time avoiding death, little girl mouse. She gave them no excuse for murder. Her family were powerful too. They wanted her least. Their secrets were in constant peril. Nobody wanted her at parties. People used to run from her in the street, shout names, and avoid her. The worst part was, they all knew she was better than them. She would never sink to Hell. She was the angel who fell from heaven we don’t know when. Blessing and bane.”

  Sorcha shook her head. Her fires were slumberous now, embers and soft smoke around her head. She folded her hands and sighed. “Zal married her, his only wife. The thing about Zal is . . . actually he’s the most powerful member of this family. He went to Hell and came back on his own. That’s why he’s here. He doesn’t need marriages. Now me I try to steer clear of them too. I don’t want to waste my time with all that family shit but I only escape it by never being around much. And I make my own money. Money buys a lot here. But Zal has real power. Nobody’s sure what exactly it is. But some big bad-ass mojo, that’s for sure. He’s demon, real demon, in a way he was never really elf. Who knows what that means? Who cares? Point is, he saved her from a miserable life—nobody would cross him in a hurry—and gave her a place to live where she could be safe. And she loved him, not for that, just anyway. She wasn’t supposed to come to town. But she must have found out he was coming, so she had to rush up here, see him. He hasn’t been here in an age. Been with you lot, like me. Taking turns to fight, then run. Only difference is he ain’t running from Demonia.”