Asimov's SF, Oct/Nov 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Damnedest Colors I ever saw."

  They sat in the old church, in the circle of the Five. Everything was shades of gray, darkening around the edges of vision like the frames of a very old movie.

  "It's like watching King Kong,” Sally whispered to Germaine.

  "Or Battleship Potemkin."

  The other three of their Five were the only colors within the Colors—dark shapes with a faint red glow at the core, like a banked fire. Sally stood from her lotus seat, looked down to see her own body exude the same muted glow. Germaine appeared translucent, absent of color, as she rose out of her glowing body. The world around them was absolutely devoid of sound other than their own voices. There was no scent at all.

  "You have already brought us further than I ever thought to go.” Germaine nodded briefly to Sally, a measure of respect that thrilled Sally's heart. “Now, how do you propose find Maman on This Side?"

  "She will be close to you.” The puzzle in Sally's head was faint, quiet, but still with her. It agreed.

  Hands clasped, they stepped out of the circle of their Five and passed through the door of the church to the porch outside.

  The field of dark flowers around the church was filled with old cars, spoke wheels and canvas tops glimmering in the inverse light of a dark moon. Men and women dressed in the style of generations past lounged against the cars and talked quietly to one another. Other than the faint voices, the entire world shared the preternatural quiet of the church. A large old black woman in a flowered shirtwaist dress stood in front of the church door watching them as they emerged.

  "Children, you all do not belong here."

  "I'm sorry, ma'am.” Sally used her best Sunday voice. “We have work that brings us."

  "T'ain't your time yet.” The old woman's smile was boundlessly sad. “And you'd best not step off that porch unless you want your time to come ahead in a righteous hurry."

  Germaine glanced around the churchyard, then back at the old woman. “Why are you still here, ma'am?"

  The woman waved at the automobiles behind her. “We're here to help others what need it. Volunteers, to assist as guides for them newly come.” She chuckled. “We ain't among the angry ones, nor those so muddled they don't know they passed on. And there's plenty enough folks with sense left after crossing over to come first to a church for help."

  "It's good that some have the heart to still give,” said Sally. “Bless you and your work, ma'am."

  "Thank you, child,” the old woman said, bowing her head. “And blessings on you as well."

  "Thank you,” said Sally. “Ma'am, in your watching here, have you seen a Haitian woman, seeking her daughter?"

  The old woman frowned. “Don't reckon I know no Haitians."

  "She died in Queens,” said Germaine. “New York. But she follows me in my dreams."

  "Oh, child. She don't know enough to let go. I'm so sorry."

  Germaine shook her head. “Maman was a Necromancer. She knows better."

  The old woman nodded. “I figure you for Skilled, too. Don't hardly ever get no one from That Side here, unless they're mighty lost or a powerful dream walker."

  "You were Skilled?” asked Sally.

  "My name is Gran Rosie, Brought by Verta Mae of the line of Tituba, with the Skill of Preparation."

  "Witch and slave line both,” said Germaine. “That's a powerful Bringing, ma'am."

  Gran Rosie's sad smile slipped onto her face again. “That's why I'm here. So why are you here, then? No one crosses over with breath in their body just to settle dream ghosts, not even for their momma."

  "A Skilled in New York has abused Maman, forced her to his service,” Germaine replied. “We are here to free her."

  The old woman stepped back, growing smaller as she did so, as if falling down a tunnel. “Lord preserve us. There's servitude enough in life and here you're on the trail of slavers of the dead. You all watch your step, girls.” She vanished into a thin dot.

  Sally looked around at the field of dark flowers. The old cars, the men and women, were all gone. She could feel the approaching shotgun.

  "Maman?” said Germaine.

  A thin, small Caribbean woman dressed in black-on-gray gingham check shuffled through the dark flowers toward the porch. At her own back, Sally could feel warmth from the door of the church, the life of the Five inside. She and Germaine were still within their protection. The newcomer was old and wrinkled, with a silver-rimmed tooth in her crazed smile, trailing a thin black thread behind her.

  "Louise-Germaine.” Maman spoke crisp English with a neutral accent. “You have not listened to me."

  "Maman.” Sally could hear the desperation in Germaine's voice, even among the accents of her childhood. “Qu'est-ce que c'est que vous faites?"

  "Louise-Germaine, you must listen to me."

  "Non, tu es morte, Maman.” Germaine kept trying, her voice desperate. “Ecoutez-moi, tu es morte. Tu jamais n'as bien parlé anglais, pas jamais, Maman."

  Maman stepped forward, shaking her head, her gait stiff and her face as unemotional as any mask. Even Sally could tell something was wrong with Maman, more wrong than simply being dead.

  Germaine dropped her grip on Sally's arm. Sally looked down at Germaine's hand. The silver scissors hung loose and dull. Sally twisted them from Germaine's grasp, slipping her fingers through the loops, and opened them to cut. Or stab.

  "Louise-Germaine.” Maman acted as if Germaine had never spoken at all. “Listen."

  Sally watched the black thread stretching away from Maman, hanging low across the dark flowers like a drifting spider web, and on down the ghost of Montopolis Drive to disappear into the shadows of the inverse moonlight. Could Aristides’ hold on Maman be that literal? Sally set one foot off the porch to try to step around Maman, but felt the puzzle twist in her head, tugging her backward.

  Her Skill was fighting her decision. The protection of the church, of her Five, was too strong to abandon. Her left foot, placed down on the ground among the dark flowers, was suddenly corpse cold.

  She really should not leave the church, Sally thought. She kept her other foot on the porch.

  Maman raised a hand toward Germaine. Sally saw more threads twined between Maman's fingers, like cobwebs clinging to an old rake. Those threads twisted, narrow, blind worms that struggled toward Germaine, who stood facing Maman as a helpless child, mouthing silent words of prayer or pleading.

  Sally couldn't reach the thread without stepping away, couldn't free Germaine and Maman without leaving the safety of the porch, and probably her own life.

  Germaine had rescued Sally from years of misery, brought her back to face Petra and Gavin and her old ghosts. Sally had wasted so much of her time, her gift, before getting back her Skill—recovered only because of Germaine.

  She owed Germaine more than she could ever repay. Sally couldn't let Germaine end this way. She didn't know how much she truly loved the other woman, but her love was sufficient to gift Germaine with her protection.

  Ignoring the puzzle in her head, accepting the cold pain from the ground below, Sally stepped off the safety of the porch to walk behind Maman. She brought the silver scissors down and cut the black thread that spun out of Maman's back.

  Maman shrieked as if she had been thrown into a fire, Germaine screamed, and, very distantly, Gavin yelled, “Bloody hell, we're not losing you again!"

  Then the dark flowers spun together and dragged her down into the cold, hard ground.

  * * * *

  Sally sat on the running board of a 1935 Cadillac Dual Cowl Phaeton, leaning against the spare tire cover. She felt very cold. She adjusted her bonnet. Her spit curls were slipping loose. The dilapidated church seemed unattainably far away, a lifetime's journey across the sandy driveway. A handsome young black man with natty leather suspenders and a canvas motoring cap leaned against another car a few feet away.

  "Gran Rosie asked me to check up on you,” he said in a very polite voice. “Seems she was quite taken with you.
Are you sure you should be here, ma'am?"

  "I'm here to help others what need it.” Her prim words echoed somewhere else.

  His smile was even more handsome, pale teeth gleaming in the vast gray darkness surrounding them. “Ain't we all? But pretty white girls like you don't usually find their way down to a colored folks church."

  "I am Color blind.” Sally wondered at the emphasis in her own voice.

  "Can't hardly be that,” the young man said amiably. “You'd see nothin’ at all here, otherwise."

  Faint shouts sounded from the distant ramshackle church.

  "Sounds like someone's fightin’ hard not to come over to This Side.” The young man chuckled. “Might ought to have a couple of us strapping lads go help out the side of the angels. You gonna be all right here, missy?"

  He touched his cap without waiting for an answer and sauntered across the dark flowers, passing between the old cars. He vanished into a distance much farther than her sight suggested was possible.

  Sally adjusted her bonnet again. She didn't think the young man was right about what was happening at the church door. Behind her, tires hissed on sand. Surprised at the sound in the silence, Sally stood to look across the hood of the car on which she had been leaning.

  A modern automobile—a new Cadillac, a dark, low wedge with wide black tires—pulled into the sandy drive of the old church. It passed through a 1947 Chrysler Windsor Business Coupe before lurching to a halt. The new Cadillac glowed a faint red, with coruscations of black and white.

  Real Colors, thought Sally. Life and death travel together in that car like twins in a formaldehyde bottle. She wanted to step back into the safety of the church-watching dead, wanted to sit in the passenger seat of one of the beautiful old cars and drive off to glory in the inverse moonlight.

  The world, her real life, came rushing back to her. Sally wondered if this was how it had been for Ben, drowning inside the van. Germaine's Maman, what had she seen when she died?

  The matte-black shotgun got out of the Cadillac, solid and real to her in the faint hands of a man with the Colors of the Skilled. There were powerful Necromancers in that car, Sally thought, who broadcast their very existence to the Other Side while just drawing breath.

  Such a waste of Skill.

  Skill, she thought. The puzzle clicked again in her head. Sally pulled at her bonnet, plucked at her antique dress, realizing she already counted herself among the dead. But these were slavers of the dead, the men she was here to stop. She could see the shotgun because she had Found it, and it was here on the Other Side to stop her Five.

  Sally didn't know if she could be killed here, but she was certain she could suffer, be cut away forever from her body in pain and fear. Sally would have bet a kidney that the shotgun was loaded with some Skill-wrought shot, perhaps silver and myrrh and old blood mixed to reach the Other Side and tear apart the unlucky dead. Or the unlucky living, as the case might be.

  If she yet lived.

  Once the shotgun was carried into the church, her Five would be in deadly danger. Silver shot would kill living Skilled just as well as buckshot. Germaine's Maman would be trapped again, Skilled would die now and later, and Aristides’ ambitions would march onward, to some bitter end—a tyranny of the Skilled, perhaps.

  Find, she thought, even if you are dead, you are still a Finder. Find a way to take their Skilled gun away. Then these would be just angry men that her Five could fight, if not on equal terms, at least with a chance of success.

  Sally walked toward the shadowed men assembling in front of the new Cadillac. She sharpened her Color focus, tried to pick out the Skills of the others. There were five of them, and she assumed that at least one was a Venator, the huntsman who was searching for her Five.

  Around her, the old cars faded away. She heard shouting at the distant church door. That was Germaine's problem, Germaine and the rest of Sally's Five. Sally knew she wouldn't ever find her way back to the church now, but she could save the rest of her Five from her fate.

  She had their Five now—two Necromancers, a Venator, a Finder, and the crisp yellow lines of an Advocate. She wondered about the Advocate, then remembered Germaine had mentioned an Advocate in her Bringing Five. Was he here to finger Germaine? Either that or to handle problems with local law enforcement.

  Both, likely, she realized.

  "Away,” said one of the shadowed men, the living men, as she approached. His voice echoed hollow on the Other Side. “You have no business with us."

  You bet your ass I do, Necromancer, thought Sally. The Venator was the one who flickered with the Colors of life, violence, and speed. Could she Find something to use against them?

  The shotgun swung in Sally's direction, not quite aimed at her yet. “Away, departed,” repeated the Necromancer. “This does not concern you.” The shotgun fired the Skill-wrought shot into the Other Side, caught Sally in the gut and spun her around. She collapsed onto her back in the dark flowers, a deep chill blooming through the core of her body. She had moved too slowly, waited too long to take action.

  What would happen now that she had been killed here, Sally wondered? She stared up at the blank sky, then turned her head to see Aristides’ shadow men stalking through the flowers toward the church door. Sally imagined the little red-and-blue blossoms crushed beneath their thousand-dollar New York shoes. Like they had crushed her.

  Then the handsome young black man reached down, grabbed her hand. “Gran Rosie said you might could use some more help.” He pulled Sally to her feet.

  She felt her body sag, as if she had bled to death all at once. She seemed in danger of folding forever to the ground. The young man steadied her elbow. “Thank you,” Sally whispered.

  "What is it you want to do now, missy?” The young man's voice was both kind and careful. Sally noticed she had been demoted from ma'am to missy. It must be the blood loss. “I do believe time is running out,” he added.

  She had to stop Aristides’ men before they caught up with Maman, Germaine, and the rest of the Five. Then Sally knew that the doors of the car were open, the keys in the ignition, knew it by Skill as surely as she knew her name. These men were so confident in their strength and hurried in their purpose that they didn't stop for little details.

  Car keys, Sally thought. Local law was always interested in automotive misbehavior. The rented Cadillac was so overloaded with Necromantic Skill traces and the violence of their intent that it had projected into the Other Side, while also still firmly anchored in the living world. Like the shotgun that had taken her life.

  She didn't need the puzzle in her head now—her next actions were plain there. “I can never find my own damned car keys,” she told the young man. Sally coughed as blood dripped from the corners of her mouth. “But I can Find theirs. Can you start that car?"

  "No, missy.” The young man shook his head. “I can't reach out to That Side no more. But I reckon I could help you get over there if we hurried."

  He carried her to the car, in fact. Her legs were numb, and the coldness in her torso had turned to fire. Sally could no longer feel herself breathing, not even the false habit of breathing she had brought here to the Other Side. “I'd be dead if I was alive,” she mumbled.

  "I reckon so, missy.” The young man laid her in the driver's seat of the Cadillac. He reached down to place her foot on the accelerator. “Excuse my familiarity, missy. Don't see as how you'll need the brake.” He smiled up at her from the foot well, touched his cap, and stepped back from the car.

  Sally fingered the keys in the ignition, the plastic tab from the rental car agency dangling. Somehow the young man had placed her in the car within a slice of time so small the shadowed men had barely moved any further toward the church.

  It would have been too easy if one of them had been Aristides, she thought. Much too easy.

  Fingers on the key, she closed her eyes and thought of Ben. She couldn't remember his face, only Germaine's. Germaine smiled in her heart, brown eyes and brown skin th
e same shade as the handsome young man. Sally was glad she had stepped from the porch, glad she had done something worthy as the last moments of her life became the first moments of her death.

  Sally opened her eyes, and, with one forced motion, turned the ignition and stamped on the accelerator. She felt the car come to life. The shadowed men paused and turned. Sally's ghostly fingers tugged on the shifter, and the car lurched forward over the dark flowers.

  The shotgun, the only real thing on This Side, raised in the inverse moonlight, and fired into the glass in front of her as she ran down three of the shadowed men with the Cadillac.

  The wall of the church filled her vision as a body tumbled through the smashed windshield. Sally threw her hands up, trying to protect her face, only to find a sodden mess. The Skill-wrought shot had done its damage. Still seeing Colors, Sally tugged at the door handle. She would be damned if she would just lay down and die inside this evil automobile.

  The door popped open suddenly. Maman caught Sally as she fell out of the car. “Ma petite fille,” Maman whispered, “vous avez fait tellement très bien. So well, cherie, you have done so well.” The old woman picked up Sally as if she was no more than a child, and carried her toward the church door. Thunder echoed from inside, and a sharp scream.

  "Germaine?” Sally asked.

  Maman smiled as they stepped onto the porch and through the open door. She kissed Sally's forehead, then Sally felt herself pulled like taffy. One part of her sought to begin the long journey onward through the Other Side. Another part of her was called back into her Form by Robert, gentle as a babe plucked untimely from its mother's womb.

  * * * *

  "Girl, you've got to wake up!” The voice was urgent.

  Warm dampness coated Sally's cheeks, but she wasn't crying. Sally never cried.

  "Let her be.” A twitty voice, tense and tired. “I'd know if she were dead, believe me."

  "Gavin?” Sally asked, opening her eyes. Had they all died?

  The gray felt headliner of a van filled her vision. Her head was pillowed on Germaine's lap. Gavin leaned over the back of the next seat forward. Sally felt warm, so much warmer than she had before.