Armor of Roses and The Silver Voice

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “You know this,” I said quietly, and then pulled back one of my braids to reveal the side of my face. “And this.”

  I felt the boys shift position, revealing a patch of pale human skin—and the twisting scar that was just below my ear: a brand, a symbol of a birthright that I did not understand; only that it was power. The kind of power that terrified even the most dangerous of demons—and their enemies. I was different from the others of my bloodline in more ways than one.

  “No,” whispered the zombie. “No, it can’t be.”

  “Look closer,” I snapped. “And tell me what you think it means.”

  Because I sure as hell had no clue.

  The zombie, however, stared at me like I was going to open my jaws wide and swallow her whole. She bucked against Jean, her aura shrinking even more—hugging the host’s skin so tightly it looked as though the demon was trying to hide. Jean gave me a startled look, but I ignored her, riding a dangerous edge; slipping past fury into something wild and hungry.

  “Don’t you fuck with us,” I whispered, bending close, holding that zombie gaze, which was dark with terror. “Bargain or no bargain, I will make you pay. I will make you scream. You know I can. So you will let these people go. And you will leave this host and never return. And you will forget those threats you made.”

  The Black Cat closed her golden eyes, but when she opened them again they were brown and human. All the fight had gone out of her. Every ounce of defiance and arrogance. All that power, pissing away. I could taste it, and there was a quiet presence inside me that felt nothing but disdain for how quickly that demonic parasite had folded against nothing but armor and a scar.

  She is ours, whispered that darkness inside of me. All of them belong to us.

  Heat poured from the zombie, shimmering over her stolen skin. I grabbed Jean’s shoulder, and hauled her away. The Black Cat remained on her back, chest heaving, her mockery of our tattoos suddenly resembling little more than a child’s drawing. As if I were watching ink fade, only deeper: power, heartbeat, breath—breaking loose, leaving the zombie.

  Those tattoos had been alive, I realized. Each one a life.

  “I could have used them against you,” whispered the Black Cat. “I could have spoken one word and forced those children to stand still while my men shot them. Or made them attack you. Or attack their own parents. They were mine, in every way.”

  I took the knife from my grandmother and dragged the tip, hard, across the stab wound in her shoulder, down her arm, across her ribs and stomach. I left behind a trail of blood. No one screamed outside. I looked over my shoulder and found Ernie staring from behind the sofa, eyes huge. Still rubbing his wrist.

  “Where’s his?” I asked roughly.

  Her jaw tightened. “My breast.”

  I found the tattoo. It looked newer than the others. I sliced it open, a single shallow cut. Ernie did not make a sound, or show any discomfort whatsoever.

  “Good,” I said, also glancing at Jean, who was staring at the Black Cat as though she had never seen a zombie before. “Now get the fuck out.”

  That aura flared to life. The Black Cat said, softly, “This host is strong. And she likes my kind. If you don’t kill her, someone else will take her skin. She will invite them.”

  “Then you better make sure your kind knows she’s off limits,” Jean whispered.

  “How dare you,” murmured the Black Cat, but there was no fire in her voice. Whatever the demon feared inside me had beaten her well and good.

  “Go,” I said. “You had your fun.”

  The zombie gave me a cold look. “I’ll remember you. I’ll warn the others. And my mother.”

  “Your mother,” I said, startled.

  “Blood Mama,” she whispered.

  “She’s every parasite’s mother. You’re not special.”

  “Aren’t I?” she said, finally smiling again.

  Before I could say a word, that thunderous smoky aura gathered tight against the crown of the Black Cat’s head, and slammed upward, away from its human body. In moments it was gone.

  And all that was left was an unconscious woman covered in terrible tattoos, resting naked and limp on a large bed. I stared at her for one long moment, remembering what the parasite had said. There was demon blood in that woman. She had been given a taste of power. If she remembered her possession, if she continued hurting people . . .

  Safer to kill her. Do it now.

  But I never hurt hosts. Not enough to cripple or kill, anyway. A person had to have limits, and innocence was one of them. This woman, Antonina, had been possessed. She now had the chance to make a new life for herself. If she could. If society allowed her to. Folks, I had found, were usually made responsible for the crimes demons made them commit. Justice was blind.

  I dragged Jean away. Grabbed Ernie on the way out, and then scooped up Samuel and Lizbet. Jean tossed away the knife in her hand, and swung the last little girl, Winifred, into her arms. No one stopped us. Maybe it was the tattoos on our faces, which disappeared by the time we reached the street. Or maybe it was the bodies left behind, clearly visible from the garden once the doors opened; the Black Cat in particular, sprawled on the bed.

  Or, perhaps it was our eyes, which Ernie later told me looked like death.

  Either way, we got out fast.

  10

  JEAN and I took the children home.

  Samuel and Lizbet first, and then Winifred. She was a sweet kid, and had been playing in the garden while the fighting was going on. No urge to sneak a peek, which Samuel had succumbed to, especially after Ernie had gone back inside the studio. Ernie was quiet as we crossed the bridge to Hongkou, but Samuel kept sneaking glances at my face, and Jean’s—as if he half-expected us to sprout tattoos all over again.

  Winifred did not remind me of her older self. Not in the eyes, not in the face. But I guessed that was normal. I patted her on the head. Jean promised extra goods to trade, if they stopped by that night. Enough to make up for lost wages. But they were never to return to the Black Cat. Ever again.

  “I promise to make sure they listen,” Ernie said, later. It was just the two of us. Jean had gone out, thermos in hand, to buy hot water from the vendor down the street. I thought she needed air, and a walk—away from me. Enough time to get her head straightened out. I needed the time, too. Alone with Ernie.

  “You can’t tell anyone what you saw or heard today,” I told him.

  “Magic,” he said solemnly, and with a trace of uneasiness. “You can do magic. Jean, too. It’s how she gets us stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Jean cares,” I said. “She was so afraid she would make it worse for you.”

  Ernie swallowed hard, shuffling his feet across the floor. He was still in his good clothes, which looked stark and impossibly new against the old sagging couch he was seated on. “Can . . . that woman . . . hurt us again?”

  Part of me wanted to know how she had hurt him. Wondering if it would be good for him to talk about it. But I dashed that almost as soon as I thought it. No good.

  But his question made me hesitate in other ways. Made me think about the future. How much I should say. If I told him to never look for a Maxine Kiss, then I would never be set on a course that would send me back in time. If I were never sent back in time, all of this would be different—maybe. And maybe, even now, I had done nothing to change the future. Maybe Ernie was still dead, sixty years from now. Him, Samuel, Lizbet—and Winifred.

  Which bothered me. Something was still not right. Something big.

  “I’m going to tell you some important things,” I said to Ernie, holding his gaze—making certain he was listening. “It’s going to sound crazy, but it’s magic—just like you saw today. And it’s the truth. Your life depends on it.”

  He swallowed hard, going pale. “Yes?” />
  I took a deep breath. And then gave him a date and time. A place. I told him about knives. I told him to be careful. I told him not to go out that night. Not to go at all. To write a letter to the person he was looking for. Just . . . to write a letter.

  I did not tell him he might die. No one deserved to know the date of his or her death. Maybe that was a choice some would make, but it wasn’t one that should be forced on a person. Ernie had a long life ahead of him. No need to dread the future.

  Although, given the look in his eyes, I had a feeling he could hear between the lines.

  “I’ll be careful,” he said, staring at me with that old-man gaze. “I’ll remember.”

  I nodded, ducking my head to stare at my gloved hands—finding it hard to meet that gaze of his. A moment later he said, “You’re telling me good-bye.”

  The apartment was very quiet, even though beyond its walls I heard voices in the street, and babies crying—metal being pounded in a loud, clanging rhythm. No match for the silence surrounding us, which muted those sounds, and dulled them. The air was hot. It was hard to breathe.

  I looked at the boy. “Yes.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Will I see you again?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is Jean leaving, too?”

  “Not yet.”

  He heard the “yet” and flinched. “But she will be.”

  “Even you,” I said, as gently as I could. “Nothing lasts. Not this war, not this place. You’ll find something better.”

  “But not magic,” he whispered. “Not Jean. Not you.”

  I smiled. “You only met me last night.”

  He smiled back, but sadly. “I’ll be watching for you. Everywhere I go. I promise.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you to find me,” I said quietly.

  I heard a creak on the landing outside the door. Jean came in, holding her thermos. Still with that troubled glint in her eye.

  Ernie excused himself, and left.

  “SOMETHING’S not right,” I said, sprawled on the couch. The seat was still warm where Ernie had been. The scent of mildew was getting to me again.

  Jean sat on the chair, hunched over, running a wet rag over her face and the back of her neck. I thought about asking for one, too, but was afraid of disrupting my train of thought.

  “I was told you skinned that woman,” I said.

  Jean stopped, and looked at me. “What?”

  “The Black Cat. Skinned alive. You, or those kids, did the deed. I held the proof in my hands. Human skin, with those same tattoos we saw on her body. I didn’t imagine it.”

  Disgust made her grimace. “Why would I do that? And don’t bring those kids into that kind of talk. That’s horrible.”

  I slid my hands under my head, staring at the black mold on the ceiling. “I thought there must be a good reason. But it didn’t happen. Why would Winifred lie about that? And where else would Ernie have gotten that piece of skin?”

  Jean said nothing. I had a feeling she had hardly heard me. Finally, though, she muttered, “I made a mistake today. I didn’t finish the job.”

  I heard the echo of those same words crossing old-man Ernie’s lips, and suffered a chill. “Yes, you did.”

  “I knew I would have to kill her when we went there. Discovering that she was possessed made it easier . . . until I learned what kind of host she was. So I told myself, ‘do it.’ It was the only way to be certain that everyone was safe. The only way.” She gave me a hard, stricken look. “It was one of the reasons I waited to engage her—long before you showed up. I could have used Zee or the others to assassinate her. I could have done it myself. Operations like that fall apart without a mind to guide them. Someone else would have stepped in, but it still would have been new territory. Old grudges gone. But I waited and waited, telling myself I needed her contacts, her information. And then, finally, when I had the chance—”

  “Stop,” I interrupted. “You did the right thing.”

  “No.” Jean breathed, closing her eyes. “My mother—”

  She stopped. I said, “My mother would have put a bullet in her head without blinking. If for nothing else than being the kind of bitch who rapes boys and films it to sell.”

  And my grandmother would have done the same, I thought. You, kid, in fifteen years or less, will be that woman.

  And maybe so would I.

  I stood, pacing, and then walked quickly to the door. I needed air. I needed to go back to my own time. Jean rose with me, and grabbed my arm. “There’s more. You may not agree with it.”

  I waited, utterly silent. Her cheeks reddened, though her troubled gaze remained steady on mine. “I took precautions. That man at the bridge, the naked one. He works for Tai Li, chief of secret service for Chiang Kai-Shek.”

  I must have looked clueless, because she blew out her breath and added, “Tai Li is called the Himmler of China. I’ve worked with his people in the past, including that man. I told him that the Black Cat had discovered something big about the war that she was going to sell to the highest bidder. Information that would change everything. And that if they wanted it, they’d have to get to her first.”

  “You set her up.”

  Jean clenched her jaw. “That woman is probably having her fingernails pulled out as we speak.”

  I stared, stunned. “Jesus. And you were worried about not killing her?”

  “I made these arrangements before I knew the woman had been possessed,” she replied sharply. “Now, death would have been kinder. Demon blood or not.”

  I sagged against the wall, thinking about that. But less about torture and mercy than my own confusion. The future was still not adding up with the past.

  Jean leaned on the wall beside me. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven,” I said absently.

  She seemed surprised. “You don’t have a kid yet.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “My mother was sixteen when she had me. I keep waiting for Zee and the others to force the issue.”

  She looked so young. I hardly knew what to say. It was true, or so the family stories told, that if a Hunter waited too long to have a child, Zee and the boys would make certain the bloodline continued. One way or another. Lifelong celibacy was not an option, though I did not want to think about Zee condoning rape. I did not ever want to think about that.

  “I don’t . . .” I began, and then started again, more firmly. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. You’ll have a child in your own time, when you’re ready. I’m proof of that.”

  “I want love,” she said.

  “You’ll have love.”

  She gave me a sharp look. “Promise?”

  I forced myself to meet her gaze. “Yes.”

  Yes, you’ll have love, I thought. And he’ll love you. But you won’t stay together. You won’t grow old together. And neither of you will ever tell me why the hell not.

  I could not imagine that happening with me and Grant. I could not—I would not—let it happen.

  Jean looked away. I cleared my throat. “Do you have recent photographs of yourself?”

  “Some. Why?”

  I shook my head, unsure what to say. “I came back to save those kids from something that happens more than sixty years from now, and I don’t know if it worked. It all feels wrong. Winifred said—”

  “Winifred?” Jean straightened, frowning. “You talked with Winifred?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “In the future. I told you that earlier.”

  She shook her head. “Winifred is mute. It’s an actual deformity of her vocal cords, according to her family. She can’t talk.”

  “Surgery?”

  “I don’t know. No one seems to think so.”

  She can’t talk. I
swayed, light-headed. Sixty years was a long time. A long, long time to find a cure.

  But if she hadn’t?

  Then who the hell were we talking to?

  “I gotta go,” I breathed, pushing away from the wall.

  Jean grabbed my arm. “Wait.”

  “I can’t,” I said, and flung my arms around her, squeezing so tightly she made a small grunt of protest. I had so much I wanted to say, but no time. It would take a lifetime. It would take more than I could spare, even though time was mine. The future was not going anywhere.

  My clock, however, was running faster than the rest of the universe. I needed to see Grant and that old woman. Now.

  I stripped off my glove, even as I stared into my grandmother’s eyes. “Write me a letter. Warn me. Keep warning Ernie to be careful. Same with Samuel and Lizbet. And Winifred. Make him promise to you, again, that he won’t come find me. No matter what.”

  “I’ll try,” she said, and then her eyes went distant, and she began mouthing numbers. “That year you gave me. You’d be my—”

  “Don’t,” I interrupted. “Just think of me as your friend.”

  Jean hesitated. “Will I ever see you again?”

  It was the same question Ernie had asked me, but this time I smiled and snared my grandmother in my arms, holding her tight.

  “You won’t be able to get rid of me,” I whispered.

  And then I pushed away, my eyes burning with tears. I could not look at her—I could not—but I did anyway, at the last moment. Soaking in her impossibly young face, those glittering eyes that were already grieving. My grandmother. Jean Kiss.

  “Be happy,” I said to her, grabbing my right hand, thinking of Grant and the hospital.

  And then she was gone—just like that—and the darkness took me.

  11

  THE journey felt shorter this time, or perhaps I was finally becoming accustomed to the weight of eternity collapsing around my body. When I finally saw light again, I was not sick. My head hurt only a little.