Arching a skeptical brow, Gigi taps ash off the cigarette in the end of the holder. “Peas in a pod, you are. Fine. Let them both in.”
She has no bodyguards, no goons to watch for hidden guns or break up fights before they start. Rather, she doesn’t have the usual kind, apart from the gorilla at the door. Here in her sanctum, she doesn’t need the men in suits with shoulder holsters tucked under their jackets. She’s got other eyes looking out for her. I don’t know what exactly would happen to someone who tried something back here, but I’m not going to be the one who tests it.
Gigi turns the cigarette holder to a straight-backed padded chair across from a little round table in front of her, an arrangement designed for serious meetings, for two people staring at each other, reading each other while they make deals. M folds into this chair like a pro, crossing her ankles, leaning forward like she’s about to tell a secret. I put myself in a sofa tucked off to the side and pretend to study my nails.
The room is set up like a parlor, with the chairs and sofas collected around the table, cabinets against the walls holding cut-crystal decanters, sparkling with amber liquids. Tiffany lamps give off soft yellow light, so that the dark brocade wallpaper seems painted with shadows. Looking into this room from outside, the place is shrouded, the beaded curtain and cigarette smoke fogging the view. Looking out, though, the bar, tables, dance floor, and band are all clear. I can see straight back to the entryway and the main door and the gorilla standing guard. Doesn’t seem like I should be able to, it doesn’t seem quite right, but there it is and I try not to question it too much. The mist in the air might be as exotic as opium, but I’m pretty sure it’s only tobacco. She might try to dope her associates, but never herself.
The woman in red starts, which is only right because it’s her place. “Well, my dear, how are we going to do this little dance?”
“You know what’s coming,” M says, to the point, not playing the game or doing the dance, and I can’t tell if Gigi is surprised by this. She doesn’t twitch a muscle, not even to blink, and the cigarette holder never trembles. Smoke flows straight up from its end to the ceiling.
A moment passes, we wait for Gigi to agree or disagree. She doesn’t. “And?”
“I’m aiming to circle the wagons. Safety in numbers. We’re stronger together than we are apart, we always have been.”
“What’s it in for me?” she asks. The cliché is beneath her. I can’t help but think she’s gone soft. Not soft, not in the way she treats people or runs her business. But soft in that she’s comfortable. She knows what she’s got and she’s keeping hold of it. She’s not thinking ahead because she thinks that she’s got it as good as it can get. M isn’t going to get the answer she wants at the end of the meeting.
“Safety,” M says without hesitation. “Longevity. Peace.”
“Those are very abstract words.”
M says, “We can pool resources, double protections around us and ours, and the vultures—like Anthony Margolis and that Fed—won’t be able to touch us. How’d that Fed even get in here tonight, hm? It isn’t like you, Gigi, to let a crack open up in your armor.”
Gigi tries not to fidget, but her legs straighten and recross, and she looks on M with such contempt. “He’s nothing. Didn’t take much to take care of him, did it?” She looks at me, her smile cruel.
How hard it is to keep quiet. I bite my tongue and try to watch every square inch of the room for the thing that will leap out and bite us.
There’s a phonograph in the corner, sitting on a little mahogany table. Its scalloped bell is turned out to the room, like it should be, but there’s no record on the platter, and no needle on the arm, which means it’s doing something else than playing records. The skin on my neck crawls a bit, thinking of what else it might be doing.
“This thing that’s coming,” M says, trying one more time. “It’s not magical. It’s not the vampires or the sirens or anything. It’s economic. It’s the businessmen, the bankers and stockbrokers and money people who’ll bring it all down. People like you, who think you’re safe, and that nothing’s ever going to change. What’ll you do, Gigi, when everything changes?”
“Why are you so worried about me?” Gigi says, as if amazed.
“Why not?”
“I can take care of myself. You should take care of yourself, instead of worrying about people who don’t need your help.” She takes another drag on the cigarette, lets it out in a cloud through her round mouth. Just like M might do. M studies the woman in red for a long moment, and Gigi won’t notice the sadness there because she isn’t looking. She leans over to tap off her ashes into a glass dish.
Then suddenly she looks up, concerned for no reason that I can see. M hasn’t done anything different, and I haven’t moved an inch. But she’s looking over M’s shoulder, through the beaded curtain to the dining room, which is silent. The band’s stopped playing, voices have stopped humming, not even glasses clink against each other, and now I’m worried too. I don’t need any extra sense to tell that the whole pattern of the place has changed, and it’s got to be worse than I think for Gigi to be looking like that.
There’s a gunshot, a body falling to the floor with a thud.
M rushes to the curtain to see, and I follow, ready to push her back into safety, it should be me walking first into the trouble and why does she always have to see what’s happening? Gigi pauses a moment to pull back the slit panel of her skirt and retrieve the pistol held in a garter, and that’s when I know it’s bad, worse than bad.
M pushes back the curtains and we all see the tableau as it happens, the five or ten guys in suits and fedoras pulled low over their heads storming into the place, all armed and ready for battle like soldiers in the Great War. Some with tommy guns, some with shotguns, one guy with a revolver. All led by him, the arrogant Fed who’s got his raid, just like he promised. Must have sobered up after he got thrown out—and he remembered, too bad. Must have stuck wax in his ears to get past the siren, and sure enough, I see them all with cotton sticking out of their ears. Had to hand it to the guy, he might not have held all the cards but he was figuring out the game all the same. But he should have waited until he had the whole thing figured out, and not just part of it. Footsteps pound, a woman screams.
The gorilla manning the door is lying dead on the floor, and the Fed must be using silver bullets to be able to kill him. That’s why no one’s taken him out.
“Everybody freeze!” the Fed hollers.
It’s like some scene out of a moving picture, and I imagine everyone’s getting shot and dying, reaching up, trembling dramatically as the bullets hit them, collapsing in ways that no one ever does in life but people in the pictures must think looks good. Can’t see the blood splatter in the pictures, or maybe they just haven’t figured out how to fake that yet.
I grab M’s arm to pull her out of the way, just as Gigi pushes past us, maybe to get a better look. I don’t care if she gets shot, but I have to get M out of here.
Everyone’s staring, frozen just like the Fed asked, Gigi and all her people all stare, the band and singer, and even the zombie bartender, because this isn’t supposed to happen, Blue Moon is supposed to be safe, and if Feds can raid the place that’s supposed to be invisible, then what else can they do? It’s like a little bit of magic going out of the world.
M puts her hand over mine, smiles at me, with an unspoken command: Wait. She’s crazy, or she’s got a plan, and because it’s M, it’s got to be a plan, so I wait.
“Everybody, down on the floor! Flat on the floor! This is a raid!” He sounds so pleased, like he’s won a battle. His men spread out through the room.
From across the room, the Fed looks right at me like I’ve done him some specific wrong. He’s too far away for me to reach, for me to do anything but frown at him. I’ve got all kinds of thoughts, though, about snatching that gun right out of his hand and maybe kicking in his kneecaps. I clench my hands and glare, for all the good it does.
&nb
sp; M leans close to Gigi, and says, “Didn’t see this coming, did you?”
“Did you?” Gigi spits back.
M looks at me, and I smile.
She walks past Gigi, onto the dance floor. Now all gazes fall on her, she has drawn every last bit of attention just by moving, and I want to scream, because here and now attention isn’t a good thing—every Fed in the place turns his gun to her, and fingers move to triggers. But she knows what she’s doing, she always knows.
Raising her arm, she makes a gesture, fingers bent in a pattern that looks simple but no one could ever replicate. Looking right at the Fed, she waves her other arm to encompass them all, and it’s like the air goes thin and sound fails. There’s a pop in my ears, like sinuses clearing after a bad cold, and the Fed’s rage-filled snarl freezes. Trigger fingers are still, the gunmen stand still, and no one even blinks. They are more still than stone because the stillness of stone is natural, and this is something else.
The others in the room, the band and singer, the waiters and patrons and gangsters look at each other as if confirming this is a dream, and brush themselves off like they’ve been in a storm. They start moving around, studying the gunmen, who are nothing more than obliging statues.
“I’m just doing what the guy asked.” M brushes her hands like she’s wiping off dust, but I know they’re spotless. The Fed can’t do a damn thing now, when she walks up to him and starts patting down his jacket and trouser pockets. I can almost see the protest in his watering eyes, though.
It’s the jacket’s inside pocket where she finds the spell book, a drab little thing with a red cover, worn edges, and a broken spine, like it’s been sitting in some attic for a century or two, just like you’d expect an old lost spell book to look. M scans the first couple of pages, smirks.
“That’s what I thought,” she says. “You had talent, to get this far. You could have made something of yourself. But you thought you could pick this up and aim it like a gun. Well, it doesn’t work like that. Pauline?”
I step forward at her call. She hands me the book, and I put it in my clutch. We’ll get rid of it later.
“You can clean this up?” Madame M asks Gigi.
Gigi purses her lips. She might be thinking a million things and won’t say any of them. She might be shocked at what M could do on Gigi’s own territory, but she won’t show it. Even after this, Gigi still doesn’t know how much power M really has. She so rarely shows off.
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll clean ’em up and throw ’em out.” She nods, and the triplet waiters go around to all the goons, depriving them of their weapons. However much we all might want to make the whole crowd of them disappear, most likely Gigi will just obfuscate their memories and throw them in some far-off alley where they can’t bother her anymore. She’ll find a new guard for the door.
“Remember what I said,” M adds. “Call me if you change your mind.”
Gigi wears her sneer like a mask. “I’ll do that.”
M’s got on a sad look and might stand there all night, but I touch her arm and point her to the door. I don’t know what to think about Gigi except maybe to feel sorry for her. To have someone like M around wanting to help and to snub her like that.
Gigi calls after us, one last time. “M. Don’t get in too much trouble.”
“You too, Gigi.”
And that’s that. I take one last look over my shoulder to the beautiful singer, who’s singing again, trying to get back to normal, crooning about how wonderful it is to dance in the arms of your man. It’s got to be near dawn, closing time. She’s singing to a near-empty room, the only ones still around are the waiters and the zombie bartender, who’s still got that rag in his hand, wiping.
We retrieve our furs from the coat check girl, a new guard—also thick as a barrel, with odd fur around his ears—opens the door to let us outside, and we’re back on the street, next to a dirty brick wall, and the glow from a distant streetlight makes our shadows long. She keeps walking. The car ought to be around here somewhere. It’ll find us when she wants it to find us. Meanwhile, she’s in a mood to walk, and I stay at her side.
“You got a bottle of whiskey in that thing?” M asks, nodding at my clutch.
“Probably. Might have to go digging around for it.” The clutch is no bigger than my two hands put together, but it’s got everything in it because that’s what it’s designed for. Cigarettes, cash and poker chips, a pretty little Derringer for emergencies that no one will ever find unless I want them to, a handful of bus tokens, an extra pair of stockings, a spool of thread, and a lipstick. And now an odd little book of spells. Maybe I can find a bottle of whiskey.
“Never mind.” She gives a deep sigh. “I knew it was a long shot. Oh well.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I say.
“Not our problem. Not anymore.”
We walk for maybe half a mile, and I might be tough and M might be magic, but my shoes aren’t built for this and I’m getting sore. But I’ll stay right with her. The sky is gray, the sun’s coming up.
We pause when we hear singing, gruff and out of tune. It’s around the next corner, and I can’t help it, I have to go look. And there he is: The Fed’s lying in the gutter, no jacket, his shirt torn open. His shoulder holster is hanging lopsided, and he’s got a revolver in hand, waving it around in what might be despair. Gigi took their guns—but he must have had one hidden, under a trouser leg maybe. So the Fed’s standing here, gun in his hand, lost as a puppy and trying to figure out where his life went, and who to blame.
I put myself in front of M like I always do in my imagination in this scenario. This isn’t too rough. We can get away, get out of his sight before he even knows we’re here, and I press back against M, urging her to turn around.
Too late, though, because the Fed sees us, and his arm suddenly becomes steady, and scrambling to his feet, he levels the weapon.
He’s got us in his sights and the gun is real. No back door to escape out of. I can hear M breathing hard behind me, and I don’t know if she has any tricks for this.
“What—what happened in there?” He’s gesturing with the gun, like it’s an extension of his arm.
I can feel sweat freezing on my skin under the silk of my dress. “I don’t even know what you think you saw.”
“Yes, you do, you saw everything, you saw it all! I don’t even remember! What am I supposed to tell the director?”
He can shoot me and say it was my fault. Sure, he can. Can’t come back from his raid empty-handed, and I think how silly, that it all comes down to this, getting held up in a back alley by some drunk-ass Fed.
I step forward and grab the gun out of his hand, all in one smooth movement that he doesn’t see coming. The weapon comes loose from his hand like a plucked flower, and he collapses into a sob, leaking tears and snot, hands over his face. He slumps to the sidewalk.
We stand looking down at him. I’m holding this weapon I don’t want. But I’m relieved, M is safe, and all is well. Sprawled on the concrete, he starts singing his mashed-up song again, and this time I can hear what it is, or what it’s supposed to be: the one the siren at Blue Moon sang, about the guy that done her wrong.
I empty the bullets from the chamber into my clutch and drop the gun on the sidewalk. I say, “You think we should help him? Call the cops or something?”
“He’s not going anywhere. They’ll find him soon enough. Come on, Pauline.”
She loops her arm around mine and we walk away. The car pulls up to the curb ahead of us, right on schedule, and the driver gets out to open the door for us. Time to go home, wash the paint off my face and roll into bed.
“I wonder sometimes how it all could have come out different,” M says. “With Gigi, I mean.”
“I don’t think you could have said anything—”
“Not here, not now,” she says, turning inward, thoughtful, and I can’t guess what webs she’s spinning, what plans she’s making, or past plans she’s picking apart for the
flaws. “I’m talking ten, twenty years ago. Did all this happen because I took her doll, or because she stole my licorice? Or because Mama loved her best, or me best? I don’t know who Mama loved best, or if she loved either of us at all. Probably doesn’t matter one little bit.”
I don’t say anything because what can I say? I’ve never gotten the whole story about M and Gigi’s mama, probably because I haven’t asked. And I won’t. I don’t want or need to know because it wouldn’t change a thing.
“I imagine it doesn’t,” I say. “You and your sister have done most of this your own damn selves.”
M smiles, squeezes my arm. “I’m a lucky woman to have you walking by my side.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I thought I was lucky that you put up with me at all.”
“The two of us make the best damn gang in this city, you know that? No matter what comes, we’ll be okay.” She doesn’t sound certain.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say firmly. “We will.”
Scott Lynch
Fantasy novelist Scott Lynch is best known for his Gentleman Bastard sequence, about a thief and con man in a dangerous fantasy world, which consists of The Lies of Locke Lamora, which was a finalist for both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Society Award, Red Seas Under Red Skies, and The Republic of Thieves. He also runs an online serialization of a novel, Queen of the Iron Sands, on his Web site, www.scottlynch.us. He lives in New Richmond, Wisconsin, but spends several months of the year in Massachusetts with his partner, SF/F writer Elizabeth Bear.
Here he takes us to a beleaguered city, torn by a war among wizards and under assault from deadly magic raining from the sky, where a desperate group of thieves and rogues must steal something that’s impossible to steal—and are running out of time to steal it before forfeiting their lives.
A YEAR AND A DAY IN OLD THERADANE
Scott Lynch
1. Wizard Weather
It was raining when Amarelle Parathis went out just after sunset to find a drink, and there was strange magic in the rain. It came down in pale lavenders and coppers and reds, soft lines like liquid dusk that turned to luminescent mist on the warm pavement. The air itself felt like champagne bubbles breaking against the skin. Over the dark shapes of distant rooftops, blue-white lightning blazed, and stuttering thunder chased it. Amarelle would have sworn she heard screams mixed in with the thunder.
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