Beast of Wonder

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Lodi cackled softly. “The place’ll change for you, over time. One of the perks.”

  If this was heaven, it was annoying. If it was hell, it wasn’t terrifying enough. Purgatory, perhaps. “Good to know.”

  “Self-cleaning.” Lodi waggled her eyebrows, poisonous caterpillars clinging to a gnarled forehead-branch.

  “The housewife’s friend,” Cara finished. Who needed a name when you could remember advertising jingles?

  “Oh, we’re far more than pearls and oven cleaner, little girl.” Lodi smacked her withered palm on the table, and cutlery danced. “Go get ready. When he finishes breakfast, you’re out the door.”

  Part II

  Mundi Æterna

  Chapter 10

  The courtyard garden, enclosed in four slabs of high, window-pierced concrete, glowed under directionless sunlight. It should have been deep in artificial gloom, since clouds thickened over the visible square of sky overhead. Yet gold edged every branch and vine, and when Cara’s fingers brushed against a low, olive-leafed shrub she stopped.

  Boil the sap down, and it’s poison. Dry the leaves, aromatic. Weave the branches in a wreath before they turn dry-brittle, and catch passing gazes…

  Her ankle turned and she almost staggered, her skirt swaying. Sun-heat brushed her bare knees, and Evan’s hand closed around her elbow. “You okay?” A sleek, hip-length leather jacket, shrugged over the white T-shirt, covered up his shoulder-holster and the gun. He’d had to loosen the straps a bit, because he was…bigger.

  No wonder he’d needed to eat.

  “Fun, isn’t it?” Lodi grinned, her violently floral housecoat swinging. “Gloves won’t help. You’ll know, no matter what, so be careful what you touch. Now, you know where to go?”

  Evan nodded. “It’s in here.” He tapped at his temple with his free hand. “Everything is.”

  “Now remember, don’t talk to anyone but him.” Lodi swayed from foot to slippered foot, as if the paved path pained her. “He knows what to do and where to go.”

  Cara touched a slim sapling with paper-white bark. Birch. Betula pendula. The keys will open doors. Was it just her hands, or her entire skin? She could test it, but not with Lodi all but spitting with impatience and making shooing motions. Evan, his hand still cupping her elbow, drew her along. “It’s all right,” he said, softly. “I’ll take care of you.”

  “Mine said that to me, too.” Lodi snarled. “Go, and come back so I can finish up. I’ve earned it.” That same cat-sharp grin lingered around her thin lips, folded her eyes up in wrinkled fleshy pouches.

  Cara pushed her heels down, tipping her head back to look at Evan. Those bleached eyes, fringed with platinum lashes, quiet but not quite blank, not anymore. His jawline was the same, and his cheekbones. The slug-stuff had merely leached the color from him, and rebuilt him a little larger.

  And pulled that tarlike blackness from his lungs, his bones, his liver. Whatever else he’d lost in the transaction, that had to be a good thing.

  “All right,” she said. “I trust you.”

  “Sickening.” Lodi’s voice was the angry, reedy whine of a cricket. “Get going.”

  “Shut up,” Cara replied, and freed her elbow with a decided motion. Evan set off down the path and she followed, restraining the urge to touch the gate, the wall, another branch, to feel that soundless jolt of information poured into her skull wholesale.

  He paused at the gate, looking over his shoulder. She hurried to catch up, and the gate-hinges groaned. It swung wide, and as she stepped through, winter chill replaced sun-warmth.

  Cara shivered.

  * * *

  His car was parked in the same spot half a block from the gate, though a pall of dusty road-grime now covered it and scattered leaves had gathered under its tires. The parking permit was gone and the windshield was dappled with several layers of raindrops and dust. The license plate on the front bumper, caked with mud, rippled strangely when she peered at it, sending another quick needle-pain through her skull.

  Evan closed her in on the passenger side. The engine roused swiftly when he turned the key—apparently it hadn’t been standing long enough to drain the battery. Or was that more magic?

  Of course, that was the only word that applied.

  The car shook, the engine seating itself more firmly. Turbulence, Cara thought, and a shudder raced through her from crown to soles. Cold air soughed through the car’s vents, and her hands knotted against each other, clutching so tight small bones creaked.

  It pulled away from the kerb, a small ship on smooth seas, and Evan’s hands settled on the wheel. Creeping along just over the speed limit, whooshing within a few feet of other parked cars, anonymous shapes standing in patient rows. How many of them were waiting for people to come back? Who lived around here, anyway? Was Lodi’s building full of other amnesiacs?

  She could ask, at least. “Are there others? In Lodi’s building?”

  “Never seen any.” He glanced at her, returned his attention to the road. His hair glowed. “Or heard ’em, either. Don’t think she’s the neighborly type.”

  “No, I suppose not.” It felt good to speak, she decided. Especially without the old woman snapping at every sentence. The seat was plush instead of vinyl, so bare skin wouldn’t stick. “Are you really okay?”

  “Best I’ve felt in years.” He stretched his fingers, one at a time, each with a tiny half-moon of fresh white nail. His wrists were no longer too large. “Cara, right?”

  “Yeah.” She’d picked the name. Maybe she could pick another. A terrifying thought, taking off names like coats, trying them on, deciding—but how could you ever be sure who you truly were after you had a few? If you married you had a new name, you could file paperwork and change it—hadn’t there been an artist who changed his to a symbol?

  Names were magical, too.

  “I wasn’t supposed to bring you the apple.” His tone dropped, a dry-throat confession. “I was supposed to eat it when I picked you up.”

  “I was hungry.” A lie. Would she ever feel hungry again? He’ll eat for both of you.

  “I could tell. You even ate the core.”

  The engine warmed up, the air blowing through the vents too. Could she touch the dash, tell if the car had a previous owner? It didn’t smell like stale smoke and aftershave anymore, simply of cold and disuse. “Do you…what do you remember?”

  “Uh, everything. Except the bathtub, I guess. Whatever that stuff was. You?”

  “Nothing.” Tighter, and tighter.

  Evan reached over. His fingers were warm, and his hand covered both of hers. “Don’t worry.” Kindly. “You’re all right now. Once we’re done with this, we can find out who you are.”

  “You promise?”

  “Sure. I was a detective, remember?” He squeezed, gently. It almost hurt; she flinched, and Evan snatched his hand away. “Sorry. It, uh. That stuff did something. I broke two plates this morning just picking them up.”

  Dried leaves scattered across the road, swept by the stiff bristles of a cold wind. He took a left, then a right, then a thoroughfare opened up on either side.

  “It made you stronger,” Cara finally said. “It took the cancer out, too.” A thin cold trickle went through her. Magic was definitely the word that applied. And he was carrying a gun, too.

  It was too late to make any sort of protest. An amnesiac straw on a current, borne along.

  “Yeah. I’ll be careful.” He paused, and the car nosed into the creeping traffic. Horns blared; unruffled, he nudged into the far lane. “What do you remember?”

  A grimace, lips stretched too far, crimson rubbed between the teeth, the blonde woman’s head flopping loosely on a snapped neck…Cara shook the mental image away. “I don’t know.” It was finally warm enough, and she stopped shivering. Would she wear this skirt, this sweater, for the rest of her existence? Money was necessary. Where did Lodi’s food come from?

  Shopping. Driving. The daily minutiae of a life. How could she r
emember that, but not her own name?

  “It’s going to take a while.” A bar of sunlight fell across Evan’s profile, turned his bleached hair into a nuclear winter.

  Yes, Cara decided. It would. But apparently, she had time now.

  Chapter 11

  A massive brick house squatted on a hill, a black river of a freshly sealed driveway rising and curving back. The bleached bones of a dry fountain rose in the middle of the drive’s arc, and ropes of twinkling blue and white lights were wrapped around columns, skeletal leafless bushes, the roofline, outlining all the windows. A crystal-clear bay window held a sword of stars and tinsel, slow-dying wood hung with color-coded decorations.

  Evan’s car had somehow acquired a glossy coating, sleek and lower lines. Cara rubbed at her eyes once, decided it was useless, and closed them. The engine cut off, and he exhaled, sharply.

  “Remember the rules,” he said. “Okay?”

  It took two tries to clear her throat. “Okay.” I didn’t ask what happened to him if I don’t. Probably nothing nice.

  “Wait,” she said, as he reached for the door handle. “Here.” She dug in her jacket pocket, and dropped the rung into his palm.

  “Oh, man.” Evan eyed its glitter, touched the blue stone with a large blunt fingertip. “What happened to my badge?”

  “Lodi took it.”

  “Figures.” His fingers closed, wrist swelling as he made a fist. He exhaled, hard, and she wondered if she’d made a mistake. “Thank you. It…man, I wouldn’t like to lose this. It was my dad’s.”

  He had a father. A past. Cara looked down at her own naked, ahistorical hands as he tested the golden circle on one finger, then another. It fit on his left hand, third finger.

  Like a wedding ring. “Cara? I mean it. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, numbly, and waited for him to open his door.

  Westering sunlight, winter-thin, broke briefly over the house’s brick façade before vanishing behind a scrim of icy clouds. The A low cold wind rattle-mouthed the bushes, their naked arms full of white lop-prune scars. A wreath on the huge, red-painted double doors glowed green and silver, both colors plastic-vivid. Its ribbons waved stiffly as Cara followed Evan’s wide black-coated shoulders, his hair glowing above the collar.

  He didn’t ring the doorbell. Instead, he rapped his knuckles on thin hollowcore wood. Thack-thack. A pause. Thack.

  The door shuddered, and Cara had a vivid image of him drawing back one fist, punching, and the entire front of the house falling down, dust and bricks and—

  He glanced back at her, and she had the uncomfortable feeling he shared the thought. A radio tuned to her broadcast. His arm tensed, but she hurriedly looked away at the dry fountain and the ruthlessly clipped bushes.

  The door swung inward. A broad-hipped black-haired woman with a round brown face peered from atop a white-and-buff uniform. Her ankles bulged a bit over scuffed, thick-soled white shoes, and she shook her head once, heavy, beautiful hair swaying in a tight scraped-back ponytail. “Come in,” she whispered, hunching her large, soft shoulders. “Take your jacket sir?”

  The uniform, shiny rigid cloth, looked uncomfortable, and her shoes squeaked a bit as she stepped aside. Evan shook his head as her soft plump hands fluttered, Cara smiled as hard as she could, likewise refusing the woman’s ministrations. Small gold hoops glittered in the woman’s ears, and Cara opened her mouth to say no thank you like a mannerly child…

  …and caught herself. Did she really believe Lodi? You take my age, I take yours.

  On the other hand, there was the slug-stuff in the bathtub, heaving itself down the drain with soft slippery sounds. And the almost-white feathering of stubble along Evan’s nape, hair ruthlessly trimmed and leached.

  Magic. So she closed her lips, and simply followed Evan down the hall. The woman at the door made some sort of faint protest, and Cara longed to say something polite, something kind.

  The floor was laminate, each step clicking under her heels. The entryway was high and drafty, stairs curving up on either side. A chandelier tinkled softly overhead, hard sharp glitters and two tiny burned-out bulbs like missing teeth. Music played softly, a watered-down version of three kings rollicking towards a hanging star.

  “Who is it?” A soft female voice echoed overhead. Scurrying footsteps, and a lacquer-haired, bone-thin woman appeared at the balustrade. “Oh. John, it’s for you. John!” A slight, frantic edge to the name—of course, her nose lifted a little, and everything from her taupe pantsuit to her expensive fingernails said that she would have preferred them to wait on the step while someone carried their name upstairs for a decision on admittance. “He’s in his office.”

  “Thank you.” Evan’s voice boomed in the high-arched space, and Cara almost jumped. Warm air touched her cheeks, her bare calves, stirred her hair. “We’ll wait in the den.”

  The woman’s thick-plastered face crinkled for a moment, and her russet hair held the same too-intense tint as the door-wreath. It didn’t move as she leaned forward a little. Too urbane to gawk, instead she peered over the balustrade, and her nude lipstick cracked at the edges of her mouth. Her earrings were gold, too, but not as mellow-beautiful as the other woman’s. They clicked, a cascade of tiny trash-metal bones, and Cara pushed her hands into her jacket pockets.

  She didn’t want to know what they might tell her.

  The den was vinyl masquerading as leather, a bookshelf with color-coded titles, and a massive flatscreen television, muted but glowing, its huge face beaming a news report over couches and a polar-bear skin that was, thankfully, not real. Its fur, rough acrylic, shone in a drench of electric light from heavy brass-colored fixtures, and a fireplace with a gas insert ran with orange flame.

  On the screen, a blonde woman’s eyebrows lifted slightly as her mouth moved. The inset on the left half of the screen showed a broken aluminum skeleton reclining against the side of a mountain whose top had been scraped flat in the quest for coal. A pall of smoke hung over its bed. Young stunted pines ringed the site, some scorched and flattened from the impact. FLIGHT 277, the chyron said, breathlessly. NO SURVIVORS FOUND.

  Cara’s hands knotted, slick-palmed, inside her pockets. Evan stalked across the room, his right boot passing within an inch of the bearskin’s black plastic nose, and scooped up a king-sized remote. It took two tries, jabbing it at the screen, before the wreckage faded, its ghost scorched onto her retinas.

  “Shoulda put my fist through it. You want a drink?” Evan turned on his heel, stalking for a sideboard that was supposed to look like walnut. A strange chemical sweetness filled the entire room—air freshener. Still, a thread of fir—oily, rasping, real—floated to her as well. The tree was upstairs, balanced on a strip over the entryway, peering through the window, and of course there would be no room underneath it for presents. Only empty, glittering boxes. “I want a drink.”

  “Yes,” she heard herself say, numbly. God, do I ever.

  She suspected, however, it would have no effect.

  Chapter 12

  John was tanned, fit, and in an expensive, lightly starched Egyptian-cotton shirt, sleeves rolled up to show waxed forearms. He entered the den with heavy confidence and a bright white smile, his loafers polished and tied neatly, and stopped for a moment, perplexity wrinkling his brow for a bare moment. “Oh. Hi. They didn’t say there’d be two of you.”

  “Is that a problem?” Evan grinned, his teeth just as white. He handed Cara a small glass carrying an inch and a half of brown alcohol. “His whiskey’s good, at least,” he murmured.

  She took the drink and tossed it far back. It might as well have been water.

  “Not a problem at all.” John strode forward, hand out. “Just remarking. John. John—”

  “You sure you want me to know?” Evan extended his own hand and met John halfway. “I’m Smith. This is the missus.”

  We’re married now? A horrible, pointless desire to laugh pooled in Cara’s throat with the remains of the pha
ntom liquor. A faint warmth began behind her breastbone.

  “Well, Officer Smith—”

  “Detective,” Evan said.

  John’s jaw set. It was, Cara had to admit, satisfying to watch. Even more satisfying was John’s wince when Evan squeezed—probably gently, or he would have ground broken phalanges together.

  “Detective Smith,” John said, “I hope you won’t mind staying for dinner? We’re having pork roast tonight, it’s Conchita’s specialty.” Movement thumped and thudded overhead. Cara’s mouth dried out. Children? It seemed unimaginable, little humans here. “That’s John Junior. Do you like children, Mrs Smith?”

  I don’t know. Cara ducked her head a little, letting her hair veil her expression. It was easy to step behind Evan and watch the assumptions slide over John’s face—a little grudging, his gaze settling briefly on her chest before skittering guiltily back to her presumed owner.

  “She loves ’em.” Evan knocked back his own drink. “You have a son?”

  “Spitting image. I’ll bet May is telling Conchita to set another couple places. Come on, we’ll open a bottle of wine.”

  It was easy to let them talk, to drift after Evan, her steps making crisp little sounds against paper-thin laminate. She almost preferred Lodi’s apartment—well, not almost, she did prefer it. At least the things there were…solid.

  Conchita was the woman who had opened the door. Faint dark rosettes bloomed on shiny fabric under her arms, and she darted a bleak glance at the men as the dining room opened up around Cara—a long table with a thick cotton tablecloth, a large earthenware pot on a heavy trivet taking pride of place. The centerpiece, pushed aside, was dying sunflowers in a strange bone-colored bowl, their stems held in place by a crushing load of glass pebbles. Five places were laid, and the very thin woman in taupe was already there, fussing over folded napkins not quite thick enough to be real linen.