Selling Out

by Justina Robson

  “What?!” Lila abandoned her daydream of barbecuing the imp on a stick and swung around to look. Sure enough there was a sudden twitch of curtains from the big beige fake Georgian opposite. Who lived there? She didn’t remember. For an instant she moved forward, ready to march across and sort them out, take their stupid camera and smash it flat. Then she realised that the Otopia Tree would delete the images anyway, since it was illegal to distribute information about crime scenes except via the police.

  “Some people are just bottom grubbers,” the imp said scathingly. “No matter what they think of themselves. Total feeders. They’se the kind of crimes gets you made into lower than imps, into asprits who have only the power of swearing and the power of naysaying. Not here though. Here it gets you a fancy house. I sees that all through your world history. S’like none of you have a sense of what’s right and wrong in a being. Youse never stop the worst ones when the stopping’s good and you never hesitate to string up the good ones before they even finish a sentence.” It spat a tiny burst of yellow flame and crisped a few strands of dry grass that poked up between the nearest rails. “Did you know lesser demons come here on holiday to feel good about themselves?”

  “Shut up,” Lila said. She calmed the dogs and prepared to leave them in the enclosed porch with bowls of dry food and water. Rusty and Buster were so soft they accepted Okie without a care. It was Thingamajig they didn’t like. They all snarled at him and he cringed against her head and pulled faces at them.

  She was with the dogs. The one thing that was spoiling her plan right now was the imp. She had to get rid of him, at least for long enough to let Tath out to examine the scene. Briefly she considered asking Teazle for advice, but she didn’t want him any closer or to be more beholden to him than she already felt. She decided to take the demon’s code at face value and said to the creature, “What do I have to do so you get lost for a couple of hours?”

  “Not forever?” the imp piped hopefully.

  Lila groaned inwardly. “I thought that was too much to ask for . . .”

  “I knew you was starting to appreciate me! A’course you could kill me easy. I know that. But it’s an honour to be asked, ma’am. An honour. Why, I could manage a little time perusing the city’s fine sights I believe . . . let’s say for the sum of not less than a hundred bucks?”

  Lila straightened from filling the water dishes and frowned. “I thought imps were attached until Hell was all done? No reprieves.”

  “Of course technically that’s true,” Thingamajig declared, rubbing his paws together and looking hungrily at the dogs’ dinners. “But for people who don’t want us dead we can make a few rules bend. No harm in it. But afore I go I must remind you of the salient points of your personal Hell, as is my duty.” It stood straight and put its hand to its heart. “You need to face up to the fact that you were sold out big style by a whole bunch of people who don’t care about it one bit. And now you’re a slave of the state, and everyone who had a hand in it has their own game to play that includes you but isn’t about you. They care, sure. What’s not to care about a huge risky investment that’s running around with half a brain of its own? That’s all they know. And they’ll do anything they have to so you stay in line, even give ya a fake life and a nice dog and a house and some dates with a hot elf. Sure, it’s true.” He paused for breath. “Now gimme the hundred.”

  Lila sent a banking instruction via the Tree. “And, what can I do about it? If getting out of Hell is keeping it real . . . what do I do to achieve that?”

  “You figure it out,” the imp said, shrugging. “Not my problem. Listen to your heart, as my old mother never used to say cos no one in Demonia needs to know that. See, I already overstepped the line. My business ends with the telling it how it is.”

  Lila told it how to collect its cash from a bank outlet downtown.

  “One thing,” it said, letting go of its aching grip on her ear. “I do know ’bout Hell. You can stay if you like. Nothing in particular will happen. There ain’t no special thing about it. Sometimes it seems much better than the real thing when you don’t know the real thing and it looks like a lot of pain to get to it. You choose. That’s all. Everyone got their time and everyone chooses. You get me?”

  “Why did you choose it?” Lila asked.

  The imp went quiet for a moment. “I wonder,” it said, head hanging low, and then without warning transformed into a small orange fireball and zipped off through the unopened screen door into the garden air, leaving a tennis ball-sized hole.

  “That’s fifty bucks right there!” Lila shouted after it. The dogs looked at her. “Don’t ask,” she said to them. “It was a stray and I was tired.”

  Back in the kitchen the pasta was in the water. Max was listening to Malachi do a good impression of a secret agent with everyone’s best interests at heart. They were both seated at the table. All the Great White poker magazines belonging to mother had been stacked on the counter. The top issue promised How to Hold ’Em Out for More.

  “I’m going in to do the search,” Lila said, at a break in Malachi’s talk. “Stay here and I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Malachi started to stand up.

  “No,” Lila held out her hand. “I’ve got the AI. I’ll get whatever’s there, then you can do an aetheric pass if you want to.” It was a bit of a weak excuse but he saw her determination and sat back down.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  She nodded and slipped out into the hall. Her status was still high alert and she left it like that, pausing a moment to let her AI configure a set of responses to all her Incon instreaming commands so that people wouldn’t think she was ignoring them. Then she checked the outgoing feeds and detached a minicam from a supply inside her arm cavity. She went upstairs and stuck it inside her room then switched all her outgoing information centres to that unit. It wasn’t much of a ruse but hopefully she’d been so obedient in the past they’d fall for it if they chose to sneak an unwholesome inside peek on her whereabouts. She didn’t linger to see what changes Max had made to her place, just went out again as though it was any other building she had to recon, but her cool left her when she reached the downstairs hall.

  She stopped before the locked room and looked at the door. Dark fingermarks decorated the edge of it under the lines of red and white crime scene tape, left there by years of pulling and pushing without bothering to use the handle: hers too, she’d bet. With a jerk she pulled herself out of the reverie and looked more closely at the tape. It was the work of a few moments to pick the pathetic little doorknob lock, push the door open, and limbo under the thigh-height lowest line.

  There were the cards, the vodka glass, the hollows in the sofa, the white piano, the dusty photographs missing occasional bodyparts at the edges. She waited for intuition or fear to hit her like oncoming cars in a lengthy train wreck but what struck her instead was the sense of how unreal the room seemed. She remembered it, but standing in it was like being inside a museum of her own life, so far removed that it might as well be archaeology. The feeling that washed through her was nostalgia followed by a lingering anxiety that made her want to leave as quickly as possible.

  She bent down to look at the cards: two of clubs, six and nine of spades, Jack of Hearts . . . a shitty hand. The rest of the deck was sliding to the side towards the rimline of a splatter of dried vodka tonic. Next up: eight of spades. Why would that be face up? Maybe her mother had just picked it up . . .

  Let me, Tath said.

  She almost jumped. His presence had become so familiar she didn’t know when he’d started to seem like part of her. “How?” she asked but he was already spreading out through and beyond her body, his aetherial form much stronger than she anticipated. Full of demon?

  Has to be some benefit, he replied.

  She couldn’t really see his andalune body in this light, not in Otopia, but she had a clear sense of where it began and ended.

  I need the whole thing, he said
and suddenly she was immersed in him. They hadn’t been like that since the night in Arië’s palace. She knew that now, if anybody walked in, they’d only see elf. His power and glamour coated her absolutely as he took on his most articulate magical form. She shrank back to give him bodily control, surprised at the change that came with becoming the one who was inside. Last time he had been commanded to his performances. This time it was entirely voluntary and with that came a strange vulnerability she hadn’t anticipated, hers and his. He enveloped her and infused her body but he didn’t attempt to touch her mind, or heart. It was a peculiar tenderness. She was suddenly speechless in the presence of it.

  But Tath, if he noticed, passed over the moment to briefly exult in his freedom. Warp residue, he said, and she had no idea what he was talking about—at least, she detected nothing. It is everywhere in this region, like trash magic.

  Meaning?

  A necromancer took them into Thanatopia; stolen away in time. He breathed, even though he had to use her lungs. He reached out and touched the cards, one at a time, with the tips of his fingers. Regrettably I have no blood, else I could track the lines.

  Won’t mine do?

  No. He touched the glass and shivered, his entire form rippling with waves of aetheric disturbances. Lila was desperate to ask him what they were but she daren’t interrupt him. As he worked she could feel his self-command. His revulsion was strong but he ignored it. There was so much she didn’t know about the death realm, so much his work defied in the world of her human knowledge.

  Can you tell who did it? Where they went?

  Only by following the path. He went back to the glass and picked it up, holding it in his/her hand carefully. It decays. Already it is very old.

  You mean go after them. Into Thanatopia?

  Yes. Tath sighed and turned the glass over, looking at the thick bottom of the plain tumbler which was shaped like an irregular lens. Time is place, he said. You think this room is in the same place that you left it, but every second that passes alters its position in the whole fabric. When your parents were taken, it was not from here. It was from Ago. Even the track of the world cannot go back to it though if you had a craft you might . . . but you have not. We cannot reach Ago from here without crossing over. We can only track in Thanatopia.

  Lila wasn’t sure she got it but it would do. And you need blood?

  I have the demon to ride. I do not need blood. The demon’s spirit will take me over. But I need a living form in order to return. The part of us that passes into Thanatopia is not the material body, but the aetheric. But the aether cannot exist here without the material form and cannot return without one.

  How did it take my parents? We’re human. No aether.

  Humans have subtle bodies that may cross over—I believe you call it astral travel. Those forms are quasi-aetheric. I know little about them. I have never tracked or spoken to human dead. He set the glass down exactly where it had been and went to sit down where her mother had been. He closed their eyes. Lila felt cold, jumpy. He was calm though across the surface of her skin Lila felt him scattering and jittering as though he was being electrocuted. He was strong, sad, determined. If we are to find them at all it must be soon, within hours. I have no instruments or charms—nothing. Only my pact with the undead.

  The who? She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

  He ignored her. Lila, if we are to do this thing you will have to come with me. We must go together. Otherwise I will be trapped in Thanatopia, as if I am truly dead, and I will never cross back . I have never attempted to carry a spirit, although I know it can be done. Just as I ride the demon, I can be ridden.

  Like a conga? She supplied the image of party dancers in a huge line.

  Something like this. For a moment he almost smiled, the soft glow of affection blinking on and out in him like the glimmer of a distant lightning bug. But you will be the one to carry me back because you are the only one who can find yourself in time on this side. Your astral form will call to and be called by your gross forms. As long as they persist you will be able to find them.

  He opened their eyes and looked around. Other Necromancers have been here but they did not track. I feel their touches. Fey. They will have known it was a demon, and that it came here and left here through the dead gates into time. It dragged your parents with it.

  But they died . . . she said hesitantly.

  Tath was quiet.

  Tath, if they didn’t die . . . why did they look so dead in the picture? Why have they been taken away to . . . She stopped suddenly. A shiver went through her that had nothing to do with him or where they were. Are they dead?

  When a spirit rides through the gate the body left behind will maintain life unless it is so badly damaged it cannot. If it dies, then the spirit will remain in Thanatopia, as with any dead. If it survives, the spirit can return. But those who are not necromancers do not cross into or out of Thanatopia at will. Only one who has a pact with the undead has the ability to transect the barrier. If you are taken across, you must also be taken back .

  So, they’re what, stuck there?

  It was a punishment of certain dynasties, Tath said tonelessly. He didn’t elaborate and Lila didn’t press it.

  If they come back . . . does it matter how long has passed? Can anyone just come back at any time? She was trying not to hope, not to dream it could be fixed.

  Return after the passage of years was the final part of the punishment, Tath said. Entropy takes its toll. The longer the separation the worse the fit upon return, because time passes differently in Thanatopia. After a long time, there can be no reunion.

  Worse than death?

  They are known as the Sundered. Lost souls who live and appear to be themselves, but they are constantly torn between realities. It is not a pleasant existence. They do not know if they are alive or dead.

  Lila sat for a while. What happens to ordinary dead people, over there?

  In the time of your life here you have a life in Thanatopia that is the same, exactly, in every way. But there you exist only in this astral form, as energy. On your death the body is released and you cannot persist in physical realities. Thereafter the astral self undergoes a brief incorporeal existence in Thanatopia. The living and the dead are present there, but in different forms. It is hard to say, without showing you.

  So, I can talk to people who are dead?

  Yes. You can even talk to them when they were still alive, but none who are not Necromances know this part. It is our secret.

  She thought of it and he denied it at the same moment.

  You cannot go back and warn them. The means of talking with them would only frighten them. It is rare any living person can heed the warnings of their deathform, especially humans. The astral does not speak with a voice. His conviction was clear.

  Right, she said. If we’re going, we’re going. Let’s get it over with. That spaghetti is going to be done in about two minutes’ time.

  As you wish, he said.

  How . . . she began to say but the room had already vanished.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Zal woke with a start. He expected to see ghosts, hear bells, feel the ocean, but instead he heard the sound of distant TV and felt the sponginess of a hotel bed. He rolled over and found himself face to face with the implacable, gigantic, terracotta face of Mr. Head; in the near dark it looked like a giant black mountain.

  He jumped so badly he almost ended up on the floor. Clutching the sheet to his chin he stared at the immobile features with their ever-open eyes. “A Buddha statue would never have done that,” he said, accusingly, although he wasn’t even sure exactly what he meant by it himself.

  The clay man simply lay, an unwieldy statue that might have been stolen from some over-the-top hotelino tableau during a drunken binge. Zal stared around him, eyes adjusting to the blackout, and came to recognise the decor. He might be anywhere in Otopia, but he was in a Bellevue Deluxe apartment. It looked like the one he’d left behin
d in Illyria. They all did.

  Another few moments revealed that he was fully dressed in his filthy, ruined clothing, boots and all. There was a certain sloppy kind of feeling in his pants but that was less dispiriting than he had thought it would be. He felt mildly pleased with himself for no adequate reason and then he remembered: Lila, Demonia, Malachi, Lila.

  “What day is it?” he rolled over and picked up the telephone. “Hello, yes. Where is this hotel, please? Thanks. What’s the date and time? Thanks. Send me a steak sandwich and orange juice. A bucket of orange juice. And some painkillers. No, the whole box. And get me a cab. To Ikea. Yes. Ikea. Yes, now. I know it’s midnight. Sandwich, juice, pills, cab. Right.”

  Zal grabbed an apple from the bedside display and slipped out to the bathroom, practising his silent mode. However, he was so focused on what he was doing in terms of what he had to do once he got out of Otopia that he missed a move and caught his hip on the corner of the dressing table. It didn’t make a big noise but it hurt and he realised he had got into the habit of holding his andalune clenched tightly inside because of the fear of the ghosts. It was making him human-clumsy. He had to take a moment and try to relax. It wasn’t like him to panic and he didn’t understand why he was doing just that. Realising his state made him sober, and that in turn let him know that he had been high.

  A moment of calm let his nose tell him that silent was also irrelevant—he stank. Despite his need to get clean and dressed ready to leave he made himself wait to at least allow his spirit body to spread out. And then he realised that even though he had stopped and waited, and was fine and himself, it still had not released.

  He tried again, not even knowing how to try since it had always been a completely natural thing to let that body spread out and move at its own will. Nothing happened. He bit into the apple, sure that the contact with one of nature’s own objects would pull it forward from its hiding place. Fruit dishes featured large in his hotel orders for exactly that reason—since there was precious little else in a standard hotel room that was friendly to the spirit body.