Magic City
Page 60
“Me?” His head spun. “I don’t know. Pearly . . . ”
But Pearly wasn’t here to advise him anymore. He had to guide himself now. He remembered how it had felt to know he could do that, could make the hard decisions without looking to someone or something else. He thought, This is the way it’s supposed to be—or anyway, the way it’s going to be from now on. Pearlywhite had taken him most of the way, past his mother’s death, down the hard streets. But the last few steps, well, he’d had to go those alone. And they had brought him to a place where he might not have to be alone any longer.
He closed his hand around the string of pearls and lay there feeling how the warmth in them, now, was simply the warmth his own flesh gave them. Before he realized what was happening, Mina was holding him, and holding his hand around the pearls. He was crying and it was okay, she understood what he had lost. What they had lost.
And when he told her one last thing he had to do, she understood that too.
Three days later, he walked away from Mina and Officer Cat, leaving them standing on the gravel road while he stepped through the wet grass toward a line of graves. He was wearing new clothes, new shoes, and he was surprised at how annoyed he felt when he saw mud splattering the nice new shine. “Damn, these are new shoes!” he thought, then he let out a surprised laugh. It was Garvey’s voice, almost. Garvey living on in him.
The rain had been falling steadily all morning, and it didn’t let up for a minute as he knelt by the plastic marker. Someday he would replace it with something nice—real stone, something lovely and permanent. But for now, he was already soaked through the shoulders, and he didn’t want to ruin the suit Cat had bought for him. She had already told him not to worry about that, but anyway, it didn’t take long. Just long enough to push the pearls, and, in a way, Pearly too, down into the soft earth over Mama’s grave, and say goodbye to both of them.
Before he became one of the creators and lead writer on the Half-Life videogame series, Marc Laidlaw was an acclaimed writer of short stories and novels. His novel The 37th Mandala won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel. A writer at Valve since 1997, his short fiction continues to appear in various magazines and anthologies.
John Shirley is a prolific writer of novels, short fiction, TV scripts, and screenplays who has published over thirty books and ten collections. His latest novels are High and Doyle After Death. His first historical novel, Wyatt in Wichita, will be published this year. As a musician Shirley has fronted his own bands and written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and others. In 2013 Black October Records released a two-CD compilation of Shirley’s own recordings, Broken Mirror Glass: The John Shirley Anthology. See www.john-shirley for more information.
Acknowledgements
“Paranormal Romance” © 2013 Christopher Barzak. First publication: Lightspeed Magazine, June 2013.
“The Slaughtered Lamb” © 2012 Elizabeth Bear. First publication: The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity, eds. Joshua Palmatier & Patricia Bray (DAW).
“The Land of Heart’s Desire” © 2010 Holly Black. First publication: The Poison Eaters (Big Mouth House).
“Seeing Eye” © 2009 Patricia Briggs. First publication: Strange Brew, ed. P. N. Elrod (St. Martin’s Griffin).
“De la Tierra” © 2004 Emma Bull. First publication: Faery Reel: Tales From the Twilight Realm, eds. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (Viking Juvenile).
“Curses” © 2011 Jim Butcher. First publication: Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy, ed. Ellen Datlow (St. Martin’s Griffin).
“Snake Charmer” © 2006 Amanda Downum. First publication: Realms of Fantasy, October 2003.
“Street Wizard” © 2010 Simon R. Green. First publication: The Way of the Wizard, ed. John Joseph Adams (Prime Books).
“Dog Boys” © 2012 Charles de Lint. First publication: Dog Boys (Triskell Press).
“-30-” © 2010 Caitlín R. Kiernan. First publication: Sirenia Digest #61, December 2010.
“Stone Man” © 2007 Nancy Kress. First publication: Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy, eds. Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois (Berkeley).
“Pearlywhite” © 2003 Marc Laidlaw & John Shirley. First publication: Carved in Rock: Short Stories by Musicians, ed. Greg Kihn (Thunder’s Mouth Press).
“Spellcaster 2.0” © 2012 Jonathan Maberry. First publication: An Apple for the Creature, eds. Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner (Ace).
“In the Stacks” © 2010 Scott Lynch. First publication: Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery, eds. Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders (HarperCollins).
“Kabu Kabu” © 2013 Nnedi Okorafor & Alan Dean Foster. First publication: Kabu Kabu (Prime Books).
“Stray Magic” © 2012 Diana Peterfreund. First publication: Magic Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, ed. Jonathan Strahan. (Random House Books for Young Readers).
“The Woman Who Walked with Dogs” © 2006 Mary Rosenblum. First publication: Modern Magic: Tales of Fantasy and Horror, ed. W. H. Horner (Fantasist Enterprises).
“Wallamelon” © 2005 Nisi Shawl. First publication: Aeon 3, May 2005.
“Grand Central Park” © 2002 Delia Sherman. First publication: The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, eds. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (Viking Juvenile).
“Words” © 2005 Angela Slatter. First publication: The Lifted Brow #5, June 2005.
“Alchemy” © 2011 Lucy Sussex. First publication: Thief of Lives. (Twelfth Planet Press).
“A Voice Like a Hole” © 2011 Catherynne M. Valente. First publication: Welcome to Bordertown, eds. Holly Black & Ellen Kushner (Random House Books for Young Readers).
“The Arcane Art of Misdirection” © 2012 Carrie Vaughn, LLC. First publication: Hex Appeal, ed. P. N. Elrod (St. Martin’s Griffin).
“The Thief of Precious Things” © 2011 A. C. Wise. First publication: Bewere the Night, ed. Ekaterina Sedia (Prime Books).