Butcher Bird

by Richard Kadrey

  At the top of the last big dune Spyder looked down onto a maze of market stalls that sprawled down to the water’s edge. As he got closer, sounds and smells hit him: the screams of hawkers, a dozen different musics pouring from out-of-tune instruments and cracked speakers, the heavy smell of roasting meat, spices and creosote. There were toys and piles of mismatched shoes, fresh vegetables, dried chameleons and flowers that sighed when you smelled them. There were orreries and telescopes, cracked eyeglasses and black eggs that hatched kittens who (according to their seller) spoke perfect ecclesiastical Latin. Sellers tugged at Spyder’s arm and waved squirming things, glittering things and mechanical things at him.

  By a stall selling decomposing medical books and sex toys made of black lacquer and amber (some with ominous-looking beetles sealed inside) Spyder bumped shoulders with a tall, handsome man.

  “Sorry,” said Spyder. “My fault.”

  “You should watch your step, little brother,” said the big man. “Not everyone in the market is as reasonable as I. Some are downright belligerent.” The man’s voice sounded the way black velvet looked and felt. Spyder wondered if it might be some kind of magic trick. Not that he actually believed in magic, but he was beyond ruling out that much anymore.

  Though they were physically the opposite, the tall man reminded Spyder of Shrike. He held himself with the kind of grace that Spyder had seen in the swordswoman. But the man was huge, more than a head taller than Spyder. His face, while classically handsome, was marked with deep scars that, at first, Spyder thought might be ritual, but then decided were some terrible accident. Chainmail covered the man’s upper body and he wore pants that seemed to Spyder like modified motorcycle leathers. Metal plates and studs had been affixed along the legs, which were tucked into heavy steel-toed boots. At his side, the man wore a wide-bladed Kan Dao sword like ones Spyder had seen in maybe a thousand kung fu movies.

  “Do I know you, little brother?” asked the big man.

  “I don’t think so,” said Spyder. “I’m new here.”

  “Still, you seem familiar.”

  “I’ve got one of those faces.”

  “Perhaps that’s it.”

  The tall man picked up a particularly elaborate sex toy from the stall and shook it. Six little legs sprang from the bottom and some kind of spring-wound plunger popped from the top and began pumping the air vigorously. The little legs kicked as if looking for something to grab on to. When the tall man laughed at the thing, Spyder noticed that color on his face was unnaturally intense. He realized that the man was wearing makeup, trying to cover his scars. The sudden insight made Spyder feel oddly more at home. Even here, down the rabbit hole or wherever the hell he’d ended up, people still had egos and still worried about how they looked.

  “I’m looking for a place called the Coma Gardens. Do you know it?” Spyder asked the man.

  “Very well,” he replied. “Go down this aisle and turn toward the water at the Sphinx. Be sure not to speak to her. She will never let you go. Keep walking and when you see the Volt Eater, the Coma Gardens lie just beyond. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks,” said Spyder, desperately wanting to ask what the hell a Sphinx and a Volt Eater were, but thinking the better of it. He knew he’d find out soon enough.

  He wasn’t disappointed. Following the crowd in the direction the tall man had pointed, Spyder saw a Sphinx. A living, breathing Sphinx, like the sculptures in Golden Gate Park. The Sphinx sat up on its haunches, its lion body acorn brown, muscled and sleek as a cruise missile. Gathered around the Sphinx was a rapt crowd. They were clearly in awe, maybe hypnotized, thought Spyder. The Sphinx’s face—the face of a human woman—was easily the most beautiful he had ever seen. Spyder looked away when he caught himself staring, but the Sphinx had already noticed him.

  “Don’t be shy, my friend. Come closer. I can answer all your questions and tell you your destiny.”

  Spyder half-turned in her direction. “Nope. Sorry. No thanks,” he said.

  The Sphinx’s eyes narrowed with sudden interest and the crowd turned to see who she was looking at. “Yes, you should keep moving,” she said to Spyder. “Don’t let anything or anyone stop you from getting where you’re going.” Lowering her voice, the Sphinx spoke to her adoring crowd. Spyder slowed his gait, listening to her words. “See what passes, my children. A blind fool. A golden champion. What could he be seeking under Heaven’s rough gaze? We have a mystery in our midst.” When Spyder turned to sneak a last look at the Sphinx, she was staring him right in the eye. The beautiful beast gave him a smile and a wink. “It looks as if heroes are coming smaller this year.”

  Spyder’s head spun. He turned away and hurried down the aisle. At the end, he found what he figured must be the Volt Eater. An exotic bare-breasted beauty, her skin oiled and gleaming, she was inhaling in long draughts from a wrist-thick cable attached to a gas-powered generator. After each breath, she spat lighting bolts, snaking and crackling, over the heads of the happily screaming crowd. People threw money at the Volt Eater’s feet after each demonstration of her electric skills. It made Spyder a little sad to see her. On any other night, she would have been the hands-down highlight. He would have been in temporary love and dreamed about her as he went home with whomever he was with that night. Tonight, however, the Volt Eater was just a pretty girl spitting watts, no more or less miraculous than Bible-quoting kittens or the lion-woman who’d just pronounced him both a fool and a hero.

  Just when Spyder thought he would never be surprised again, he came to the edge of the market and saw the Coma Gardens. Bathed in light the color of blood and pumpkins, the whole building was engulfed in a spectacular fire. Part of the roof collapsed and flames shot fifty feet into the night sky. The only thing more shocking than the fire was the fact that no one in the market was paying the slightest attention to it. They went on with their selling and haggling even as the whole structure cracked and caved in on itself.

  TWELVE

  CYANIDE RECALL

  The Coma Gardens kept on burning. The beams glowed as if they’d been injected with magma, shedding hot jets of flame and debris over the sales stalls. Spyder walked along the cement broadway between the market and burning hotel, unsure what to do.

  If Jenny hadn’t taken the cell phone, Spyder thought, he could call 911. Of course, he wasn’t sure exactly where he was. Still, all he’d have to tell them is that there was a burning building on the pier. The fire trucks would be able to see it from all the way down at Fisherman’s Wharf. In fact, someone had probably already called the fire in, which was both good and bad. It was good in that the fire department would put it out. It was bad in that it brought Spyder back to the fact that he had no idea what he would do if Shrike was inside the burning building. He didn’t want to think about it. Spyder turned around one more time to see if anyone in the market was forming a bucket brigade. The market went on as it had all evening—oblivious, a world unto itself.

  Then Spyder saw someone at the edge of the crowd. She was talking to a man wearing an enormous, jeweled bird mask, one that covered his entire head (or actually was his head, Spyder later thought). The woman wore her shades, and moved her white cane from one hand to the other so she could shake the birdman’s feathered mitt. Spyder ran to her through the smoke of the smoldering Coma Gardens.

  “Shrike!” he yelled. The woman turned her head toward him as the birdman walked away. Spyder ran up and grabbed her happily by the shoulders. “It’s me, Spyder. You saved my life the other night.”

  The blind woman gave him a crooked smile. “Oh yes. The pretty pony boy. How are you?”

  “I’m…” He started to answer, but realized he had no idea what to say. He felt giddy at having found her, but there was the accumulating wreckage of the rest of his life. “I’m fine,” he said. “I can see things now. The real world. That’s how I found the market. And you.”

  “Good for you,” she said. “Maybe you’re more clever than I thought. A trick pony. Me, I’m off
to find new lodgings.”

  “I can see why,” said Spyder.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? Look! Your hotel is an in-fucking-ferno.”

  “No, it’s not. I would be able to feel the heat.”

  “Of course it is. I can see it burning from here.”

  “Really? Because the Coma Gardens isn’t going to be built for another fifty years,” she said. “And it’s not going to burn for another twenty after that.”

  “Then how were you staying in there?”

  Shrike breathed deeply and nodded. “You can see things now. And it’s all brand new and you don’t know what to think of it, do you? Take a walk with me.” Shrike reached out and took one of his hands and led him through the crowded market, swinging her white cane gently in front of her feet. The effect of that cane was less that of a blind person feeling her way along than her warning people that she was coming, Spyder thought. Everyone and everything got out of her way.

  “People are afraid of you,” said Spyder when they reached a less crowded part of the market.

  “They’re afraid of rumors and tall tales. And I let them be afraid. It makes my job easier.”

  “What is your job?”

  Shrike sniffed the air as they passed a perfumer’s stall. “Smell that? Raw ambergris. There’s nothing else that smells like that. It’s one of those magical substances that makes everyone— humans, demons, angels, ghosts and your little dog Toto—all swoon. There are merchants whose entire trade is delivering ambergris to the markets in Purgatory.”

  “A couple of days ago, I would have considered that a very odd thing to say.”

  Shrike nodded. “Yes. Your little vision problem,” she said. “First of all, that burning hotel you saw… I’m sure by now you’ve noticed that the world is a much more flexible place than you’re used to. Time isn’t the same everywhere you go. And space can change depending on what time it is. Understand?”

  “Hello. My name is Spyder and I’m five years old. Have you seen my mommy?”

  Shrike smiled and looped her arm around his. Spyder liked how she felt. “Listen,” she said, “the waterfront is one of the places where the edges of all the Spheres, the planes of existence in which we live, meet. It’s why the market’s here. I was able to stay at a hotel that hasn’t been built yet in this Sphere of existence because it’s already been built in another Sphere. Unfortunately, time being a slippery and relative thing here, the hotel has already burned down in another Sphere. That’s what you saw. For me, though, it hadn’t burned down. I was booted for an exorcism trade show.”

  “You went into the future, but you went into the wrong future?”

  “Close enough. I was already in the future and the future I didn’t want, the one with exorcists in party hats, drifted close enough to make my room reservation disappear. I have to find another place to sleep.”

  “You can crash at my place,” Spyder said.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’m not coming on to you. My girlfriend’s moved out. There’s plenty of room.”

  Shrike removed her arm from his and leaned over to retie one of her boots. “I’m sorry about your girlfriend, but my client isn’t expecting to find me in some cozy Victorian flat. Don’t take it personally. This is a work-related rejection.”

  “What the hell is that?” said Spyder. They were at the back of the market, walking back in the direction Spyder had come earlier that night. San Francisco was white and chilly with fog. Looming out of the mist exactly where it shouldn’t be was a gigantic stone archway sporting Roman columns. On top was a tarnished copper chariot being pulled by four enormous horses. Shrike sniffed the air, turning her head this way and that.

  “It smells like Berlin,” she said. “Near the Brandenburg Gate.”

  “Berlin? Like, the real Berlin?” asked Spyder. “I always wanted to go there.”

  “Here’s another secret for your scrapbook. There is no difference between San Francisco and Berlin. In all the world, there is only one city. Because of how mortals perceive things, the one city appears as different cities, broken up and scattered all over the globe. But if you know the right doors to open, the right turns to make, the right tunnels and rocks to look behind, even mortals can find their way from one city to every other city. There are maps and trackers, ancient, hidden smuggling routes that only a few in the thieving guilds know.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better? I almost had enough frequent flyer miles to take Jenny to Prague. Now, she’s gone and we could have walked there all along.” Spyder stood in the quiet beyond the market, looking up at the gate. When he looked down again, mist was beading on his jacket and he was growing cold. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I need help. Can you put me back the way I was?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “Can anyone?”

  “Maybe.”

  It might have been better if that thing had gutted me at the club, Spyder thought. He said, “Why did you help me the other night?”

  “I don’t know. I just had to. You were so clueless.”

  “Why can’t you help me now?”

  “I’m on my way to meet a client.”

  “You didn’t answer me when I asked you earlier. What exactly do you do?”

  “You’ve seen what I do. I kill things,” Shrike said. “People. Beasts. Demons. Whatever a client wants dead.”

  “The Black Clerks?”

  “No one kills the Black Clerks. They’re elemental forces. Killing them is like trying to kill wind or light. Why do you want to know?”

  Spyder pushed up his jacket sleeve and put her hand on the scar on his arm.

  “Damn,” she said. “By the pike, you’re a fool.”

  “There’s nothing to be done about this?”

  “Not by me. When they come for you, offer the Clerks a better deal.”

  “I could offer them you.”

  Shrike moved close to Spyder. She smelled of musk and jasmine. She whispered in his ear. “If I didn’t know you were such a fool that remark could cost you your head.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Spyder backing away from her. “I’m falling apart. I would never do something like that.”

  “I know that. I have a pretty good nose for treachery and dangerous folk.”

  “Where do I fit on the danger scale? Say that one is a pretty little butterfly and ten is the thing that beat me like a two-dollar drum the other night.”

  Shrike thought for a moment, then reached into the pocket of her coat. “I don’t know exactly what you call one of these. It was a present from my niece.” She held out a blue plastic rabbit that fit snuggly in the palm of her hand. Shrike wound the rabbit up with a silver key in its side and the toy started to vibrate while a little bell jangled inside. “I suppose this could get stuck in an enemy’s throat and choke him, so it’s a one. You’re a bit bigger and a little smarter, though. I rate around a two.” The toy wound down and Shrike dropped it back into her pocket.

  “You’re Death Valley. You know that? Beautiful, but harsh,” said Spyder. He sat down on a sand dune and Shrike sat beside him. “I never got to ask, if you’re blind how did you kill that demon?”

  “I’ve trained for this all my life. My father taught me. Then a friend, before he turned out to be exactly the bastard I’d been told he was. Besides,” she said, “there’s blind and there’s blind.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “My head is spinning. I have this magic juju sight and’ve seen such demented shit in the last twenty-four hours. I wouldn’t mind being blind for a while.”

  “It’s not really magic sight, you know,” Shrike said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Memory,” she replied. “When that demon had you, some part of it—saliva, a fragment of tooth, a fingernail—infected your blood. Everything you’re seeing now you’ve seen all your life only you’ve chosen to forget it an instant la
ter. If you remembered anything of this part of the world, it was in your dreams and nightmares.” Shrike pulled up Spyder and started walking. “Don’t feel bad. Forgetting is the way it is with almost every living thing in this Sphere. But now you can’t look away and you can’t forget.”

  “Poisoned with memory. And you can’t help me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can you at least point the way back to civilization?”

  Shrike pointed back at the market with her cane. “Follow the stalls to the right until you come to a café in an old railroad car. You’ll see streetcar tracks just beyond. Follow them along the waterfront and they’ll take you all the way to more familiar territory.”

  “Thanks,” said Spyder. “Good luck with your client.”

  “Take care. You know, I forgot to ask you. Are you Spider Clan?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Which is probably the perfect way for us to say goodbye.”

  “Take care, pony boy.”

  Spyder walked slowly back to the market, following the route Shrike had described to him. He passed horse traders and what looked like a kind of sidewalk surgery, with a hand-lettered cardboard sign describing procedures, from amputations to nose jobs, along with prices. Spyder found the train car café a few minutes later. He was colder now. His body ached from his injuries and his shoulders were knotted with tension. Somewhere in the dim back of his brain he knew he should be worried about the Clerks and what he was going to do with Lulu and how he was going to open up the shop tomorrow, but none of it got through the fog of exhaustion that was narrowing the universe to thoughts of walking and sleep.

  At the edge of the market, by the last big dune, some teenagers were juggling fire without moving their hands. They stared silently and the balls of flame moved through the air all by themselves. Spyder started walking up the dune, when he heard someone call his name.

  “Spyder, are you there? It’s me!”

  He turned and saw Shrike running after him through the sand.

  “I’m here,” he said quietly, and she hurried toward his voice, to the base of the dune.