Armor of Roses and The Silver Voice

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “I can’t,” he whispered, rubbing his wrist.

  “Okay.” Jean breathed. “Then listen. You and I never talked about the things you’ve had to do here. I’m sorry for that. I knew it was bad, and I never did a thing. But that’s going to change. So chin up, short stuff. Your job is to stay out of the way.”

  Ernie looked so stricken. “She knows you’re coming. That’s why she had me come here to . . . welcome you.”

  I pushed past the boy, watching the guards—smiling so coldly at them that several stirred, hands tightening on their guns. “I know I’m ready to say hello.”

  Jean rolled her eyes. Ernie looked at me like I was crazy. But I winked at him, and his mouth twitched with a tentative, wary smile that warmed me to the bone.

  He turned and led us down a gently curving path shadowed with palms and thick decorative grasses. The air smelled rich, with a mint undertone that clung to my nostrils. The guards watched us, but did not follow. No need. There were a lot of them, and they stood in regular intervals within the garden and against the walls. I heard several speaking softly in Russian.

  “Pogroms drove the Russian Jews into Shanghai, but revolution forced the rest,” Jean told me under her breath, as though reading my mind. “Soldiers, mostly. The Japs recruited some for their police force, but the rest hired out as construction workers, or muscle.”

  French doors stood open in front of us, tucked beneath a stone arch built below a series of balconies and large windows. Rose vines clung to immense trellises. I heard a woman’s throaty laughter. Ernie ducked his head, and led the way inside—but not before Zee twitched between my breasts. All the boys, stirring—and not just on me. Jean touched her stomach as though she was being kicked, and glanced at me warily.

  It was crowded inside. Unexpectedly so. The chaos did not at first make sense. I saw old-fashioned movie cameras, and tall lights; men scribbling on notepads; a mix of Chinese and white women dressed in loose robes and heavy makeup, lounging in velvet armchairs while others dabbed sweat from their brow. I heard muffled shouts and gasps, and then brief silence; and I glimpsed beyond the milling crowd one long, naked tattooed leg.

  Ernie pushed through. We followed. And it suddenly became quite clear to me what was going on.

  Someone was making a porno.

  A bed was the centerpiece, but all I could see were its round edges, draped in raw silk the color of butter. Again, a single tattooed leg stretched sinuously. I saw claws drawn into the flesh. Scales and veins of inked quicksilver. I glanced at Jean to see if she had noticed, and found her staring. All over my body, the boys twisted, roiling in their dreams. I knew I was looking at the Black Cat.

  I saw the rest of the woman moments later, just beyond a break in the crowd. Most of her, anyway. A Chinese man knelt at the base of the bed; a giant, huge muscles straining in his back and arms as he drove himself forward into her writhing body with sharp, mechanical thrusts. He obscured her face, but I glimpsed tattooed arms, and the edge of a tattooed breast.

  But not just tattoos. Flickering shadows surrounded every line and curve of her flesh. A dark, thunderous aura—one of the strongest I had ever seen.

  The Black Cat was a zombie.

  A photographer stood on top of the bed, taking pictures. Another crouched off to the side, doing similar work from a different, more intimate angle. Intense men, with jobs to do. Sweat rolled down their faces. Beyond them, leaning against the wall, I glimpsed three children.

  I recognized Samuel and Lizbet immediately, but the other little girl with them did not immediately remind me of Winifred. The coloring was the same—dark hair, dark eyes—but there was a quality to her face that was distinctly different.

  None of them was watching the sex. But not, I thought, because of embarrassment. Just boredom. As though they had seen the same scene played out so many times it meant nothing. Trays of empty glasses were at their feet, along with water pitchers and small bowls of diced watermelon. There to run errands, I guessed. Better than the alternative.

  The crowd swallowed them. Ernie moved around several cameramen and disappeared. Less than a minute later a throaty, satin voice said, “I have business. Everyone, come back after lunch.”

  Men and women exchanged startled looks, but no one argued, not even a grumble. Without a word, they put down whatever they were holding—cameras, makeup, iced tea—and streamed past us to the door, exiting into the garden. The children followed, joined by Ernie. All of them, except him, stumbled when they saw Jean—staring at her with horror. Not a peep left their mouths, though. Too well trained.

  The man having sex with the Black Cat was the last to go. He strode out naked, still erect and holding himself in his fist. Not caring who watched. And perhaps, in this place, no one did care. But that still left behind a handful of Russian bodyguards—and the Black Cat, lounging on silk sheets. Her aura pulsed with a dark fire that I had only ever seen in one other demonic parasite—the Queen of them all, Blood Mama.

  This was not her. But the parasite was very old.

  Unlike its host—an unconventionally beautiful woman. Her jaw was a little too thick, her nose a bit too pointed. She had a wide mouth and a crooked smile. But there was something in that smile, and something in those features—energy, personality, a crackle—cemented by the pure, raw aggression in her blue eyes.

  Hard to know how much of that was from the demon—and how much was leaking through from the real woman, whoever she might have been.

  “Now this is a sight,” said the Black Cat softly. “Two Hunters, in one place. That just can’t be right.”

  “Run, if you like,” Jean said in a cold voice. “But don’t pretend you’re not frightened.”

  “I’m not,” replied the zombie, stretching sinuously. Her body was all woman, covered in dimples and curves that not even her tattoos could obscure. But those tattoos . . . Those tattoos were something else. As the eye traveled, so did each tattoo—claws becoming roses, fangs lengthening into thorns. Petals and vines dripped with sweat, curving in an inked tangle across her breasts, up to the base of her throat. Even her fingers had been tattooed, but the art stopped around her pubic hair. A fact that I found strangely reassuring—but no less unnerving. I felt as though I was looking at a bad copy of myself, as though someone had tried to re-create from memory the body of a Hunter—but gotten it wrong in ways that were disjointed, dizzying. Her tattoos shimmered in my vision.

  Something else, too. I could not name it, but I felt a burn on my tongue when I looked at her, as though tasting something bad in the air. And not just the parasite.

  The Black Cat leaned on her elbow, fingers digging through her brown hair, and pursed her lips into a cold, assessing smile. There was nothing kind in her eyes, no amusement. Just business. Dangerous fucking business.

  “You,” she said, looking at Jean. “It’s you I’ve felt all these months, creeping around my city. I knew you were close. I could smell you and the bastard Kings in the air. But you,” she added, fixing her gaze on me. “You don’t belong. And there’s only one thing I can think of that would have the power to bring you here.”

  She looked pointedly at my gloved right hand. I did not want to guess how she knew about the armor, though I had some idea. It had been worn before by one of my predecessors. No doubt she had also skipped through time.

  But all I said was, “You know how this is going to end.”

  “No,” she said, smiling coldly. “But you do. Or else you wouldn’t be here. Must be bad, I think. Bad for you.”

  Jean lunged. Men moved to intercept her, but I was right behind, grabbing the first thing within reach—a teacup—hurling it like a baseball at the nearest head. Glass shattered against a pale brow. I snatched apples, glasses of iced tea, throwing them with all my strength. It slowed down the men a little. I was surprised that none of them were using their guns—unless the B
lack Cat was worried about her host. Bullets ricocheting off our bodies.

  The woman threw out her hand just before Jean reached her. “If you kill me, the children will never be free.”

  Jean hesitated. One of the men slammed into her, both going down in a heap. I was there in two steps, grabbing his ears and hauling backward with all my strength. He screamed, and then shouted in Russian. Large bodies loomed behind me.

  “Stop,” said the Black Cat suddenly, her voice so quiet I was certain the men would not hear her. But they did, and quit all movement—standing so perfectly still I wondered if they were human. Only their chests moved—faintly, quickly, in shallow breaths that made their nostrils flare.

  I finished hauling the man off Jean. He fell on his knees, clutching at his ears. She hardly seemed to notice—staring only at the Black Cat. “What the hell do you mean they won’t be free?”

  “So naïve, little Hunter.” The zombie smiled as she looked from Jean to me. “But that one . . . she’ll understand.”

  “Cut the crap,” I said. Or tried to. Because just at that moment, I saw a flash in the zombie’s eyes, and it was not emotion, but actual light. Inhuman, golden light.

  Jean gasped. I took a step closer, a cold hard knot forming in my gut. The Black Cat’s smile widened, and the golden light in her eyes flared brighter, hotter. She seemed to swell in size, and gazed down upon my grandmother with a patronizing smile. “There were Gods once, little Hunter. Just so you know. They fought my kind and put us inside the prison. But not all. Those who were free left their spore in human flesh. Passed down and down and down. Until we have this.” She trailed her hand across her tattooed hip. “Her name was Antonina before I found her. Known for being . . . odd in the head. Premonitions, dreams. Not afraid of spilling a little blood. She saw my true form, and welcomed me into her skin. Her extraordinarily powerful skin. She had no idea what she could do with her gifts until I stepped in.”

  “And the tattoos?” I asked.

  “Charms,” she replied, her aura thunderous, dancing with bolts of crimson light. “And irony. Because I care for you so.”

  I ignored that. “You use those marks to bind people to you. How?”

  “How does a parasite feed on pain?” countered the Black Cat, gazing lovingly upon her tattooed arm. “How did those gods of old, our dear enemies, manipulate the flesh of humankind with nothing but a thought? How, dear Hunters, did they make you?”

  She smiled. “A mystery, yes? But, truth. Here, truth. The tattoos are merely an anchor that I use to bind their spirits to mine.” The Black Cat raked her nails across a petal etched into her stomach. One of the Russians standing behind me cried out in pain, clawing at his eyes. The Black Cat closed her eyes, shivering. Tasting his pain, no doubt. Like having straws stuck into her body, I thought. Every time the parasite hungered, it needed only to . . . poke herself.

  “If you kill this body,” she said breathlessly, digging her nails deeper into the petal, speaking over the Russian’s cries as he dropped to his knees, “everyone I have marked will die, as well. Here, inside, in their hearts. Those children you care so much about will never live full lives. The world will be gray to them.”

  “Unless,” she added, “they die first. But then, I don’t suppose it would matter, anyhow.”

  “All we have to do is get rid of you,” Jean said, though she sounded shaken.

  The Black Cat gave her a disdainful look. “Forever? You’ll never keep me away from this host. And you can’t kill me.”

  Jean snarled, staggering to her feet. This time, the guards used their guns.

  9

  THE boys raged in their dreams, surging over my skin to cover my face. Split second, less than a heartbeat. I glimpsed movement against Jean’s cheeks, a shadow bursting—and then she was protected, as well. Both of us, wearing our demon masks.

  None too soon. A bullet bounced off my forehead, the impact making me stagger. I heard other pings, and then a meaty thud, a low cry. One of the shooters bent over, clutching his stomach.

  Hands grabbed my throat from behind, trying to choke me. I felt nothing, and slammed my elbow backward, sending it deep into a hard gut. Fingers loosened. I turned and drove my fist into the man’s sternum. Heard a crack. He fell backward, screaming.

  I looked for Jean, and found her already at the bed. Her torn blouse was gaping down the front. Somewhere she had found a knife—perhaps from the fallen men at her feet.

  One of the few Russians left standing barreled toward her. I reached him first, taking us both into a heavy pile of camera equipment. Glass shattered. I found myself pinned by two hundred pounds of red-faced man. He grabbed my hair with fists the size of hams, trying to pound my skull into the floor. All I felt was a tickle. I let him work out his frustration, and was just about to use my demon-hardened nails to puncture his femoral artery when small arms reached around his neck, and hauled backward.

  Or tried to. I spied a thatch of dark hair and determined eyes. Ernie.

  The Russian let go of my head, reaching back. I surged upward, slamming my forehead into his jaw. I felt all the bone in the lower half of his face implode, and when I leaned away, the dent I left behind made his face resemble a crushed soda can. He swayed, staring dumbly at me, and then toppled sideways. Ernie did not let go quickly enough, and fell with him.

  I reached for the kid. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he cried out when I tried to pry his arms loose. I whispered his name, trying to calm him, but when he looked at me, a shudder raced through him that was so violent I almost wished he had kept his eyes closed.

  “Your face,” he breathed.

  “Pretend it’s magic,” I replied, and dragged the boy close—stuffing him into the small spot between the back of a chair and the wall.

  “Stay there,” I told him, and then, because he looked so scared, planted a rough kiss on his forehead. He tried to grab my hand when I turned away, but I ignored him, looking again for Jean.

  She had been busy. Blood trickled from the Black Cat’s mouth, and she lay pinned to the bed with a knife pressed into her throat. Jean straddled her, appearing every inch the lethal woman I remembered. Cold, hard, and mean as hell. But the Black Cat did not look frightened. She was laughing.

  “Be quiet,” Jean said through gritted teeth. I realized her hand was shaking, the knife dangerously close to slipping off the zombie’s neck—a good or bad thing, I did not know.

  “You understand now?” replied the Black Cat, arching sinuously beneath Jean. “You can’t touch me.”

  I strode to the bed. “What the fuck is going on? Exorcise the bitch.”

  “I tried,” Jean snapped, pressing the knife more tightly against the zombie’s throat. “The boys . . . The boys didn’t do anything.”

  The boys ate parasites. That was how it worked. We exorcised, while Zee and the others sucked the bastards in. Usually. I looked from the exposed tattoos on Jean’s chest—red eyes glittering—and met the Black Cat’s amused golden stare. “You cut a deal.”

  “I didn’t,” replied the demon inhabiting the woman, aura thundering silently around her head. “But it was made of blood, nonetheless, and binding. I cannot be killed by you. Or them.”

  I wanted to scream with frustration. This was not the first time I had been denied justice because of deals made between my ancestors and other demons. Promises that had to be honored, forever. Demons might be savage, but they always kept their word. As did the boys.

  “And your host?” Jean raised the knife and plunged it into the zombie’s shoulder. Somewhere, out in the yard, a woman screamed. My grandmother stilled for one horrified moment—and then quickly yanked out the knife. The Black Cat began laughing again.

  “Be quiet,” Jean cried hoarsely. I stepped to the bed, and the Black Cat tore her gaze from my grandmother to look at me. Finally, something more
than amusement flitted across her mouth, and that light burned again in her eyes: golden, tinged with red, something deeper that was older than the night.

  The zombie murmured, “Hunter. Hunter of the Kiss. The old King’s Kiss. What will you do with me now? Kill my magnificent host, and you will condemn those children. Kill my host, and I will find another, and another.” She looked at Jean. “I will feed every man you ever helped to that Nazi Neumann, for his experiments; and send the women to the comfort houses to be whores for the Japanese. And I will take those sweet children you love,” she added, in a whisper, “and take them, and take them, until they are nothing but rags on the screen.”

  Zee pulsed between my breasts. I drew in a deep breath, fighting the tremor that started in my gut—rising up and up into my throat. A zombie was in front of me—nothing but a parasite—but there was demon in the blood of her host, and people’s lives at stake. Jean made a small, frustrated sound—the tattoos on her face seeming to pulse in fury. A cruel smile touched the Black Cat’s mouth. She was goading my grandmother. Pushing her. But all Jean did was quiver. That was all.

  Because I took one look at her face, and I knew—I knew. She had never killed anyone. Zombie parasites, maybe, but those hardly counted. She had never, with her own two hands, taken a human life. Not even a host.

  She could not do it now, either—and not simply because of the price that would be exacted on the children. I could see it in her eyes. I could feel it in my own gut. It was one thing to let the boys do the dirty work, but making the cut took a whole other kind of nerve. A nerve I didn’t have, either. The only times I had taken human life was in the heat of battle, or by accident.

  This was neither. This was cold blood.

  I stripped off my glove, revealing the armor, and climbed on top of the bed. I showed the Black Cat my hand. She must have known it was there—she had intimated as much—and yet she still flinched when she saw it. Flinched, as though I had struck her. She stared at the dull metal and her smile slipped away. So did her contempt. Her aura shrank.