Armor of Roses and The Silver Voice

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Jean stiffened. So did Ernie, but he grabbed his wrist, hugging it against his gaunt stomach. I walked to him. He tried to back away, but he had no place to go.

  “I have to go home,” he mumbled, ducking his gaze.

  I held out my hand. Jean drew close and said, “Ernie. Samuel showed me his tattoo.”

  The boy gave her a hard, despairing look. “He promised he wouldn’t.”

  Jean shook her head, and I felt her helplessness. “Not an easy thing to hide, short stuff.”

  He closed his eyes, banging his head lightly against the wall. “And did Lizbet and Winifred show you theirs?”

  Jean blinked. “What?”

  I knelt, and took hold of Ernie’s wrist. My grip was gentle but firm, and I bit the inside of my cheek as I made him show me the tattoo.

  It was familiar. I had seen it before, on a scrap of human skin. But this was smaller, singular; perhaps a rose, though the coiled lines felt more like the tangle of an unending knot, or a particularly distorted ouroboros. Reminded me of the engravings on the armor encasing my fingers and wrist—still hidden beneath my glove.

  I tried to speak, but my voice croaked. I had to try again, more softly, almost whispering. “She did this to you?”

  Ernie nodded, shivering. Jean knelt beside me, peering at the tattoo. “And Lizbet? Winifred? What was done to them?”

  He hesitated, and touched a spot above his heart. “Right there. She did us all at the same time. And then made the same marks on her body.”

  I released the boy, rocking back on my heels. I stared at his feet. Bare, dirty toes digging into the floor. His breathing was loud, rasping. Like he was suffering from congestion in his chest.

  It took all my control, but my voice finally sounded normal when I said, “It’s gotten quiet downstairs.”

  He hesitated. Jean said, “Wait outside. I’ll go with you in a minute to check on your parents.”

  I did not watch Ernie go. Nor did I stand until I heard the door shut behind him. I found Jean watching me.

  “I wish you had never come here,” she whispered.

  “You afraid?” I asked coldly, softly, certain that Ernie had his ear pressed to the door.

  Jean moved so close I could taste the sweet scent of apple pie on her breath. “There’s a fine balance in this place. Upset that, and people will die.”

  “People will die.” I pointed at the door. “You willing to sacrifice Ernie and his friends? Because I promise you, kiddo, that’s what you’re doing.”

  “I’ve helped them all I can. I have to look at the bigger picture.”

  I forgot she was my grandmother. I grabbed the front of her dress and hauled her close, frustration and disappointment mingling with desperate, weary anger. “You listen to me, Jean Kiss. Every life matters.”

  She shoved back. “I’m just one person.”

  Oh, God. It was like listening to myself. “You’re the most fucking dangerous woman in this world.”

  “I can’t be killed,” she rasped. “That’s not the same as dangerous, and you know it.”

  I released her. She sagged backward against the wall, eyes glittering.

  “I try,” she whispered hollowly. “People think I whore for all the goods I get, but I don’t care. I pass out food and items for people to trade. I get work passes for some, if they have no other way. Medicine, messages . . . when there’s a need, I do what I can. Maybe where you come from life is different. Maybe you have the luxury of living in a world where people don’t suffer. But this isn’t it. I can’t do everything. There are too many. There will always be too many.”

  I heard defiance in her voice, but mostly despair. Profound weariness. Have mercy, whispered a small voice in my mind. Have mercy on your grandmother.

  Because she is right.

  I drew in a slow, deep breath. And then, carefully, leaned against the door beside her. Red eyes glimmered from the shadows. I sensed a breathlessness in the boys; anticipation, even.

  I almost asked about the Black Cat, but when I tried the words felt too heavy, too painful. I was a weak woman. I tapped my foot against the floor and said quietly, “The Japanese soldiers do this all the time?”

  Jean closed her eyes, odd relief flickering briefly across her features. “More recently. Used to be that some of their best were stationed in Shanghai, but they’ve been sent into the Pacific to fight the Americans. All that’s left are kids who hardly know how to hold a bayonet. But here they are, in a uniform, with power. Goes to some of their heads.”

  “What did they want?”

  “Looking for American currency. Shortwave radios. Evidence of spying. That’s their excuse, anyway, but I bet if you smelled their breath for liquor, it would set your nostrils on fire.”

  “It won’t last,” I whispered. “None of this.”

  Jean tilted her head, studying me. “How much longer?”

  I hesitated. “A year or so.”

  But you won’t be here when it ends, I almost told her. And I don’t want to think about how the experience will change you.

  Jean looked at the door and pushed herself away from the wall. “Stay here. I need to walk Ernie downstairs and make sure his parents are okay.”

  I almost told her to be careful. Instead, I went to the door, and watched her slip out of the apartment. Demons faded away with her. All of them, except the two Zees. They stepped free of the shadows and crouched in front of me, perfect twins, utterly inscrutable. I knelt, needing to look them in the eyes.

  “Well,” I said. “I hope you both know what you’re doing.”

  “Doing life,” said one Zee.

  “Fitting pieces,” added the other.

  “Right,” I muttered, wiping sweat off my brow. “But what if I make things worse? Or what if I don’t do any good at all?” I looked at my Zee. “This has already happened before, for you. More than sixty years from now you’ll remember what goes on in the next ten minutes, but for me, it hasn’t occurred yet. But Ernie’s still dead in the future we came from, so whatever I did here . . . it didn’t work.”

  “Think too much,” Zee rasped, tapping his forehead. “Just be.”

  “That’s crap,” I snapped. “Is the future set in stone, or isn’t it?”

  “Don’t know.” Zee held out his hands. “Nothing stays the same.”

  “Except when it does,” said the other Zee.

  I wanted to strangle them. Instead I curled my hands into fists and pushed them hard against the floor. I could hear faint voices below me, speaking German. No more Japanese. The soldiers had gone.

  “Whatever caused her to send that message through Ernie hasn’t happened yet. She doesn’t even want to get involved. And,” I added, tapping them both on the chests, “why is it her older self didn’t—or won’t—remember me? Care to explain that?”

  Neither of them did, if their silence was any measure. I stripped off my right glove, holding up my armored quicksilver hand. My grandmother’s Zee flinched when he saw it, and rasped a single unintelligible word. I ignored him.

  “Am I supposed to help those children?” I asked my Zee. “Or is there another reason you sent me here?”

  His eyes narrowed. “All kinds of help.”

  The other Zee’s claws raked lightly across the floor. “Help her.”

  I stared. “Help my grandmother? In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s not the way it usually works. One dies, one goes on alone.”

  Which, I had to admit, was about as petty and selfish as anything I had ever said. Knee-jerk reaction. Of course I would help her. Of course. But for one brief moment—just a heartbeat that lasted a lifetime—I felt a prick of resentment. No one had come to help me after my mother had been murdered. No one.

  Floorboards creaked outside the door. I slid my glove back o
n and stood. Jean slipped inside, a faint flush in her cheeks. She glanced from me to her Zee. “I need some clean cloth and antiseptic. Cans of sardines, too, and a couple flints. Hurry.”

  “Serious injuries?” I asked.

  She shook her head and leaned back against the door, hugging herself. “But they blamed me. I could see it in their eyes. I think they were appalled that their son had gone to me for help.”

  “They don’t know you spy.”

  “But they know I’m not one of them.” Jean grimaced, bowing her head so deeply I thought she would be sick. “Does that ever get easier?”

  “No.”

  Bitterness touched her mouth. “You ever wonder what we’re doing with ourselves? You got that figured out in the future?”

  I found myself shuffling close, heart so heavy my feet would hardly move. But I had to. I had to be near her. “You want to know what the point is.”

  “One woman responsible for the world,” she breathed, her pain so palpable, so much mine, I could feel the burn of her tears in my own eyes.

  “That’s not the point,” I whispered, wanting desperately to touch her. “Just the tagline.”

  “And?”

  And, I was going to lose my dignity. I was going to lose myself in her grief, if I stayed here one moment longer. “The point is to do good. To do the things no one else can do but you. Because of who you are.”

  “A Hunter,” she said.

  “Jean Kiss. Hunter Kiss.” I swallowed hard, filled with memories. My grandmother—her future self—had given me a similar lecture under the hot sun of the Mongolian steppes. I had been lost in time. Lost in every way. But she had been my anchor.

  “You’re not alone,” I said.

  Jean held my gaze. “And you, in your time?”

  I smiled faintly. “It worked out.”

  Silence drew thin and piercing between us, until finally she whispered, “If you do this wrong, a lot of people will suffer. Not just those kids, but their families.”

  “That’s why I need your help.”

  “A lot of people need help,” she muttered, wiping her eyes as both Zees rolled from the shadows bearing small bags. “But the Black Cat is something else.”

  “You said it’s complicated.”

  “She owns people. The right people. She specializes in compromising situations.”

  “And that matters during wartime?”

  “Wars don’t last forever. And some indiscretions are worse than others.”

  I studied her. “You’re not telling me everything. Why did she tattoo those children?”

  “All I’ve heard are rumors. No one wants to talk about her, not even the kids. And I’ve tried. She gets a hold on people. Not just with fear, but something deeper.” Jean made a hooking motion with her finger, and slashed the air. “You stop owning yourself when you work for that woman. The tattoo is her way of cementing the bond. She’s covered in them. Each one a life she controls.”

  “You knew this, and you let those kids near her?”

  Jean gave me an angry look. “It’s not like they asked for permission. And I wasn’t their babysitter. It just happened. You do what you can to survive. I’m sure she made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

  “Most predators do,” I retorted.

  Jean pushed away from the door and snatched up the bags that both Zees had left on the floor. The little demons watched her silently. She pointedly ignored them.

  “With or without you,” I said.

  She did not answer me. Just fished into the cloth bag and pulled out a handful of thin metal rods no longer than my pinky.

  “Flint,” Jean said absently, as though she hadn’t heard me. “More valuable than gold around here. Inflation has made cash almost worthless. People have to trade for goods. Canned food is always worth something. Just one of these flint rods, plus a couple tins of sardines will help the Bernsteins get back on their feet.”

  She began to leave, and hesitated, looking down at the floor, her hand on the knob, the wall—anywhere but at me. “Take a nap. We can’t leave until dawn.”

  I did not ask where we would be going. “Thank you.”

  “Not yet,” she said roughly, opening the door. “Not until everyone gets out of this alive.”

  She left. I stood for a long time, hearing her voice echo. Reading words inside my mind.

  Save them.

  I just wished I knew how.

  7

  AAZ brought me a blanket and pillow, which I tossed on the floor. I tried to sleep—and I suppose I did, fitfully—because I would close my eyes only to open them with odd visions haunting my brain: Grant, his large hand sinking warm through my breastbone to hold my heart; or old man Ernie, covered in rivulets of blood that wriggled like red worms upon his stained white shirt, coiling tight until they resembled the tangled outlines of roses. And in another dream, the last, I found myself a giant, colossal as a mountain, sitting naked and cross-legged upon a peninsula while watching the pinprick lights of a distant city glitter far below me like stars. If I breathed hard I would call down storms. If I wept, I would flood the plains. If I cracked my knuckles, earthquakes would rip through the mountains and collapse stone upon the city. I knew this. It made me afraid, and excited.

  Frigid air caressed the back of my neck. I turned, ever so carefully, only to discover a pair of immense golden eyes floating within a sinuous trail of smoke. Blinking lazily at me. Smiling, even, but with cold and bitter humor. Lightning flashed within its body, burning with symbols: knots and coils, and tangled hearts.

  We are both Gods, whispered the golden-eyed creature. But they do not see us.

  Unless we make them, it added, moments later.

  I woke up. Drenched in sweat. So nauseous I slid my hand over my mouth, fighting not to gag. My temples throbbed, and my neck was sore. Mildew seemed to crawl up my nostrils.

  I forced myself to take deep breaths; listening, as I did, to gentle murmurs from the apartment below me. Jean sprawled on the couch. I could not tell if she was asleep, but red eyes glinted, and I heard the soft familiar crunch of jaws tearing through metal. Dek and Mal, coiled close to my head, began kneading my shoulders.

  My dreams lingered, especially those golden eyes. Maybe it meant nothing. Maybe.

  But my gut hurt. And when both Zees crept close, watching me carefully, there was something old and knowing in their gazes that only made me feel more ill.

  I grabbed my Zee and dragged him close, pressing my mouth to his ear. “What are you hiding?”

  His breath was hot as fire, but he said nothing and pulled away. Pulled me, too, and I rose carefully to my feet. Trying to be silent, though the floor creaked beneath me. Jean stirred, and glanced at me. Not a trace of sleep in her eyes.

  “I need air,” I said quietly. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Be careful of soldiers,” she replied.

  I was more careful of not making noise on the stairs. Soft steps, hugging the wall. Wooden splinters covered the second-story landing, but the largest had been swept into a neat pile. No more door, just a white sheet pinned in its place. I paused for a moment, thinking of young Ernie resting on the other side of that thin cloth. My hands felt warm for a moment with the memory of his old-man blood.

  Hot outside, but there was a light breeze and no mildew scent. I stood on the stoop, inhaling as deeply as I could, again and again, until my nausea faded. Dek and Mal hummed against my ears: Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone.”

  Several hours left before dawn. It was very dark outside. I listened carefully, but heard nothing except my heartbeat, and the faint scrape of claws as my boys rolled free of the shadows around my feet. I sat down on the steps, taking in the night. It was 1944, but this could have been a quiet street sixty years from now. Some things were not boun
d by time.

  Like me.

  “The Black Cat,” I said to Zee, rubbing my knuckles as Raw and Aaz prowled around my ankles. “I need to know more about her. Like why she’s so tough my grandmother won’t take her out.”

  “Told you,” Zee replied. “Connections.”

  “That’s not enough when kids are getting hurt, and you and I know it.”

  The little demon leaned close, rubbing his cheek against my arm. “Different mothers, different hearts.”

  “Not that different.” I ran my gloved fingers through the thick spines of his hair. “Just not confident. Not tested enough to be sure of how far she can push. I remember what that feels like. And you. . . . You came to her when she was still young. You left her alone in the world when she was just a kid.”

  “All kids. Every mother.” Zee spat, and the acid in his saliva burned a hole in the stone steps. “No choice.”

  Bullshit, I wanted to say. You could give us all more time.

  But that would be like telling thunder not to make sound, or water not to be wet. It just was.

  Somewhere, distant, an engine chugged to life with a dull, throbbing roar. Made me flinch. I had not realized until then how silent the night was. “You’re not going to tell me anything useful, are you? You never do.”

  “Safer not to,” he muttered. “Safer to trust you.”

  And then he looked sharply at the door behind me, and snapped his claws at the others. Raw and Aaz fell backward into the shadows, while Zee leapt into the darkness between my legs and the stairs, slip-sliding from this world into another.

  I heard a muffled cough. Found Ernie behind me, slight and pale as a ghost.

  “Maxine, not Jean,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied quietly. “I can tell you apart now.”

  I scooted sideways, and he sat down beside me. “My parents are finally asleep.”

  “Will they be okay?”

  He shrugged. “They could be dead or sick. Anything else is okay.”

  Tough kid. But not tough enough to hide the quaver in his voice, or the way he twisted his fingers. I tore my gaze from him to watch the street. “They depend on you to help out with things.”