by Dawn Metcalf
Inq’s oldest lehman was in his seasoned fifties, silver-haired and dashing like a James Bond from south of the equator. Even though he wore an Oxford shirt and gray slacks, Joy always pictured him in a suit. He had that kind of air about him: confident, high-stakes, first-class. He’d picked her up in a white Ferrari 458 and explained the situation, but Joy still couldn’t wrap her head around what was happening. Even flicking some gizmo that made the Blue Ridge Parkway tunnel empty out on Flatlands Avenue made more sense than what he’d been saying during the drive. Her stomach fluttered, either from the jump, her growing fear or the steamy cup of hot caffeine in her hand.
“Tell me again why I’m here?”
Enrique checked his mirrors. “We wouldn’t have called you if we hadn’t run out of options.”
“So what happened?”
She felt the powerful engine growl as Enrique took a corner. “We ran out of options.”
Joy frowned. “I mean what happened to Ilhami?”
“Call it an unfortunate by-product of being a tortured genius,” Enrique said, taking a sip of his coffee and placing it back in its holder. “Ilhami is a gifted artist, you know, but I think if Inq hadn’t found him, he would have been lost in the gecekondu ages ago. He had no family, no money, only his art. The way he describes it, his talent ‘burns.’ He has few who understand him this way and Ladybird is, unfortunately, one of them. He knows it is very hard for Ilhami to endure ordinary life.”
Joy sipped her latte thick with cream. “This is an ordinary life?”
Enrique smiled as he switched gears. “Well, maybe not,” he said, his voice jovial, light. “Still, we can’t leave him stuck in Brooklyn. Besides halting your fascinating collection of Venus figurines, Inq wouldn’t like it.”
Joy didn’t like it, either. She needed to get back to Ink and explain what had happened with Stef and why. “I don’t see why she can’t get him out,” she said.
“I’m not certain, but she made it clear that she will not be going,” he said as he slid up the road. “Confidentially, I think she can’t. Maybe the place is warded against her. Maybe it’s some old agreement between her and Ladybird, who knows? What I do know is that Ilhami told him his sister would come and bring his backpack and, since his host is a member of the Twixt, those words are binding.”
“Why would Ilhami say that?”
“He meant Inq,” Enrique explained. “We never call them by their names so we use replacement words like sister or cousin or good neighbor for the Folk.” He checked his mirrors before changing lanes. “It’s considered polite.”
“So he calls Inq his sister?” Joy said. Ew!
“Yes, well,” Enrique said. “I’m sure he didn’t know that she wouldn’t come. I tried to reach Raina, but no luck. That leaves you.” He turned onto a side street. Joy didn’t ask who Raina was—it wasn’t important if she couldn’t help. Enrique sighed. “One of the problems with the Twixt is that the Folk take things very literally. Ilhami’s words are binding—he cannot leave Ladybird’s until the conditions are met—his sister must come get him, bringing his backpack. Fortunately, there can be more than one interpretation of the word sister. That’s why I grabbed his backpack and called you, Cabana Girl. You’re the little sister in our brotherhood, so it should work.”
It wasn’t a question of whether she’d do it or not; the question was...why was she so afraid? When she’d been in trouble, the Cabana Boys had been there for her—Nikolai had left an exotic shoot somewhere in Russia to come steal a car in Glendale, North Carolina, in order to drive her home before she and Monica had to deal with the police or, worse, a mob of angry aether sprites. She knew that if any of Inq’s lehman needed her, they could call and ask for help and she would try her best because she was once one of them—an exclusive club of mortals chosen by one of the Folk, in this case, a harem of drop-dead gorgeous men from all around the world and her. The fact that she had removed Ink’s mark, freeing her from lehman-ship, didn’t mean she forgot her friends.
And if they needed her to bust one of them out of New York, she would.
Joy bounced her head against the headrest. “All I have to do is walk in with this backpack and bring Ilhami out? That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he said. “That should satisfy the conditions of his release, and I’ll be waiting outside to take you both home.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if we weren’t desperate. It’s been many weeks.”
Joy’s hands wrapped around the cup as Enrique completed another turn. She was feeling pretty desperate, too. She was glad she’d told Stef that she was going with Enrique to get another protective pendant—not a total lie as she planned to ask him to drop her off at the C&P afterward. Her brother had let her go with reservations and a promise to come home soon.
“And we have to do this now?” she asked, still thinking about Ink.
“Best as soon as possible,” Enrique said, checking his mirrors. “The longer he’s in there, the worse it can get. Who knows what he’ll say next? No, better to get him out now.” The older man thumbed the side mirror up with the touch of a button. “You still willing to do this?”
“Yep,” Joy said without feeling.
“All right.” Enrique turned away from traffic and drove deeper into darker, less populated roads, whose buildings cowered away from the glass-and-steel downtown. It was shadier here, subdued and cool. The borough felt sinister. Trash speckled the gutters, windswept and crushed. Joy tensed in the passenger’s seat out of some urban instinct and checked that the doors were locked.
“Over there,” he said, nodding toward a gray building. It looked ignored compared with its neighbors, devoid of greenery or decoration, aloof and alone. “Go down to the basement floor. Let them check you in. They should bring you to Ilhami when you get there,” he said as he slowed the car at a red light. “Try to avoid talking—that’s how we got into this mess in the first place. Take Ilhami, come out the front door and I’ll be waiting to pick you up. In and out. Simple as that.”
“You’re trying to make it sound easy,” she said.
“I’m used to corporate takeovers,” he said. “This should be easy.”
Joy put the coffee in the cup holder. Her hands were shaking. “Then you should be doing this.”
“I know. I would if I could. I’d do just about anything for one of my brothers, but a hasty sex change isn’t one of them.” The traffic light ahead changed, and the cars began moving. “I’m sorry I can’t go in with you, Joy.”
“It’s okay,” Joy said, which it wasn’t. She took giant sunglasses and a pink lipstick from the bag on the floor. It had been in the passenger’s seat when she got in, in case she didn’t want to look like herself given cameras could record her time-stamped image being both there in New York and at her condo moments before. Joy bypassed the wig and the high-heeled shoes. She wanted to run unencumbered if she had to. She folded down the sun visor and used the mirror on the back. Her trembling fingers smeared the lipstick and she had to start again.
Enrique pulled over, and Joy slid on the sunglasses, keeping an eye on traffic as she opened the door. She almost stumbled into the street and watched more than felt Enrique hand the heavy backpack to her.
“In and out,” he said. “I’ll be right outside. If there’s a problem, come back here and we’ll figure it out.”
“Okay.” The shoulder strap felt slippery in her hand. She squeezed the fabric and walked away from the car with a backpack, a pair of CK sunglasses and a tight tingling in her stomach.
East New York smelled hot and chemical, the buildings crowded together and looking grumpy about it. Joy felt surrounded by the dark facades and cheap smells, smears of old chewing gum and splashes of waste spackled the sidewalk. Pale, weak grass pushed out of the cracks in the pavement, and there were far more cracks than pavement
. Joy walked quickly to the gray building and, holding the backpack over one shoulder, pushed the call button by the door.
“Name?” said a loud voice from the speaker. For a million and one reasons, she didn’t want to say her name.
“I’m here for Ilhami.” She raised her face to the camera. The door buzzed. She pulled it open and ducked inside.
The lobby was dark, cold and quiet, a concentrated bubble of the outside. The door closed behind her like an air lock, sucking her in. A large balding man sat behind a security desk, pale and flabby and bored.
“Name?” he asked again.
Joy hesitated, squeezing her fingers. “Ladybird?”
The man pointed with a ballpoint pen. “Downstairs.”
She walked to an open stairwell of chipped blue paint and thin, weak light. Her footsteps echoed softly as she made her way down.
The smells changed subtly from canned air freshener to something smoky and spicy, slightly sweet and acrid like burned orange peels. Another whiff of something petrochemical felt oily in her mouth. She blinked through a foggy haze before she found the bottom floor.
The door to the basement was missing. A beaded curtain hung from the frame that filtered the scene beyond the stairs. Noises shivered through the beads, low voices and a plinking, plucking sound that might have been Middle Eastern music or leaky water pipes. Joy’s heart hammered in her ears as she thought of Ilhami somewhere in there and wondered if Nikolai had felt like this as he’d stepped into Inq’s stolen car to save her. What we lehman won’t do for one another...
Joy pushed her hand through the curtain, feeling something other than the beaded strands part. It sparked along the tips of her fingers and sizzled. A ward. As she passed into the large room, the soft babble became louder and the smells overwhelming. She hesitated on the edge of an elaborate carpet dyed in vivid yellows, blues and crimsons, breathing in through her mouth, trying to adjust.
The basement was one large studio filled with white columns and hazy kaleidoscope lamps. Dismantled cubicle partitions lined the opposite wall, built into a sort of haphazard maze with LED constellations projected on the ceiling. There were seats everywhere, from hard wooden church pews to pale fainting couches that looked like they’d been salvaged from some wealthy estate. More beaded curtains hung from the ceiling, creating small booths around a row of papasan chairs lining the back. Long bolts of sheer fabric hung from exposed pipes, slowly wafting in thick eddies of smoke. The whole place looked like a cross between a backstage bohemian theater and a salvage furniture warehouse, and there were people strewn absolutely everywhere.
A fat black man with a homemade cigar blew an enormous cloud of ill-flavored smoke at her feet, his lips puckered wetly around the tip of his tongue. Two shaved-head teenagers sat in a tangle of limbs on the floor, passing a rolled joint back and forth and giggling, while a white-haired woman lounged over the length of a stippled silver chaise, sucking delicately on a bone pipe that exuded bluish smoke. There were two men in embroidered caps and billowing sleeves gesticulating madly, their language both scratchy and strange. Someone cackled from somewhere off in the maze. Five twentysomethings sat in a circle, staring blankly at each other, the ambient light of a crystal lamp lending color to their faces. There was a snort. Something olive-green rustled under a pew, snoring loudly, and Joy guessed that whatever it was was sleeping it off.
That’s when it hit her: she was in a drug den of the Twixt.
As soon as Joy noticed the green creature’s tail, she became aware of all the other Folk in the room. There was a feathered figure nesting in one of the papasan chairs with colorful wings as bright as macaws. A reedy person with multiple spindly arms played a stringed instrument next to a brazier of coals riddled with hissing leaves. What looked like an elf from Lord of the Rings sipped purple wine from a crystal chalice while a furry sort of creature snuffled around a dish of steaming broth. A chubby girl hung from a chrysalis glued to the ceiling, her wings shining wetly, dripping thin rivulets of mucousy drool. A bubbling fish tank connected to a number of thick pipes and wires sat in a corner, and a small generator chugged next to it on the floor.
Joy stepped forward, if only to get beyond the cloud of noxious smoke. A thick slab of a man guarded a door on her left, his square face impassive. Behind tiny yellow John Lennon glasses, his eyes were stone. Joy didn’t immediately see Ilhami, so unless he was in the office-partition maze, she guessed he was behind the door.
She stepped to the side, bumping into someone; she turned to apologize but instead stared at the horned man whose head hung back over the edge of the couch. A thin orange mist hovered over his face, turning with galactic, sparkling slowness.
“Don’t touch him, Nightingale,” a smooth voice warned. “Sunset Dust plunges one into dizzying dreams.” The voice grew closer, forcing her to turn around. “One touch is all it takes, and it doesn’t come cheap.”
Joy clenched both fists as a tall man in a crimson greatcoat stepped into the room, stabbing out a cigarette into a hand sparkling with rings. His dark hair hung about his head in thick waves, eyes sparkling in either delight or madness. There were small black spots dotting the edge of his hairline as well as his jaw and the sides of his throat. His smile was golden and sharp. His skin had a glossy, chitinous sheen.
Ladybird.
“You’re here for Ilhami.” He said it less like a question and more like he liked the feel of the words in his mouth. His eyes brightened as he neared. “My, my, you are a pretty bird. But there’s hardly any family resemblance.” Joy said nothing as he came closer. His skin rippled. The greatcoat flared. He waited politely for her to answer, and eventually inclined his head and directed a ringed finger at the backpack. “Is this my payment?” he asked. “Ilhami said that you would bring it.”
The penny dropped. Joy had never checked the contents, but she guessed the amount must be quite a lot given the weight on her back. This was Ilhami’s dealer and she was the drop. She wanted to thrust the backpack into his arms, away from her, and run—but she needed something first. It took her a second to remember why she was in this grubby, bohemian basement on the wrong side of East New York.
“Where is he?” she said, finding her voice.
“He’s here,” Ladybird said, full of authority. He didn’t even turn his head to address the beefy hulk by the door. “Bring him.”
The guard disappeared into the office. Giddy laughter trilled from somewhere in the divider maze. The cigar smoker hawked and spat into a copper spittoon by his feet. Joy tucked her hands behind her to keep from crossing her arms. Get Ilhami. Get out. Get in the car. Go!
“Will you sing for me, Nightingale?” the dealer purred. “I bet you have a pretty voice.”
Joy bit the insides of her lips. Pink lipstick felt like margarine on her teeth.
There was a collective sigh and the circle of humans collapsed like dominoes, the crystal lamp in the center sputtering out. The guard’s glasses winked in the dying light as he came back into the main room holding Ilhami by the arm as if to keep him from running away or, perhaps, to help him walk. Ilhami swayed, his street tattoos blue-black over his tan arms and neck, his jeans hanging loose and his T-shirt sweat stained and tight. He pulled himself upright, sniffed and ran a finger over his teeth. He smiled until he saw her standing there—he blinked owlishly, dark lashes fluttering.
“Joy?”
“Joy,” the drug dealer said, clapping his fingers together, rings chiming. “What a delightful name! I daresay it suits you.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak—she could feel a quivering tic next to her mouth and a telltale flush of heat on her face. She couldn’t risk Ilhami saying more of her name. She knew without anyone needing to tell her that it would be more than dangerous to say it here.
She put down the backpack and gestured for Ilhami with an outstretched hand. He looked bewilde
red. Ladybird smiled.
“Come, come, dear boy. Give your sister a kiss.”
Ilhami slowly eased past the two men, his pupils wide with drugs and dismay. He took Joy into his arms for a brief hug, placing a chaste kiss near her ear. He smelled oddly of roasted chestnuts and candle wax.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.
Joy nodded, jaw tight. She couldn’t trust herself to say anything; she was furious, terrified. She could barely imagine the words she would use—but not here, not now. She let go of the shoulder straps, and the pack sank to the floor. Her fingers were cramped and damp as she took one of Ilhami’s hands in hers.
“The conditions have been met,” she said, voice tight. She backed toward the exit. The guard didn’t move. Ladybird watched, touching the tips of his fingers to his smile, the black spots pulsing up the tips of his ears. She and Ilhami were almost to the doorway. Five more steps. Four. Three. Two.
“One moment,” Ladybird said. Both Joy and Ilhami stopped dead. Dread lodged in her throat as Ilhami’s hand tightened on hers. The greatcoat brushed past the eclectic collection of seats as Ladybird drew closer, completely ignoring the backpack as he studied her with interest. “Joy is hardly a Turkish name. Did you change it when you came to America?”
Joy didn’t speak.
The man tipped his head to the side and sang a string of syllables that bounced off his tongue. Joy tensed, expecting a spell of some kind. The men in the back stopped arguing and the thin, pale woman slipped the bone pipe from her mouth.
Joy glanced at Ilhami. His hand tightened on hers.
“She does not know your native tongue,” Ladybird said in English. “She is no more your sister than I am.” The dealer turned thoughtfully, his greatcoat swirling. “Yet the name rings in my head like the toll of a bell.” He tick-tocked his forefinger. “Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong. Now where have I heard the name Joy before?” His face leered closer. She could smell tar on his tongue. “You can see me,” he said and puffed a breath in her face. She flinched and blinked. “And there is no sheen of elixir in your eyes.” He grinned and hissed, a low giggle. “Ohhh, yes, I know you!”
