by T. A. Pratt
My jaw! she thought, overwhelmed with dismay. Taken, used! The Belly Killer could be questioning it right now, keeping track of her every thought, rifling through her secrets! She realized Rondeau must feel the same way, and a rush of shame suffused her.
A new concern overwhelmed her jaw-worries. She touched the pin at her throat, surprised to find her cloak still attached. Rondeau could have taken that for himself, or sold it to the highest bidder. No one could use it as well as she, anymore than someone untrained in sword fighting could wield a katana like a master, but many would have liked the opportunity to learn.
Marla gathered the cloak around her, bunching the soft white side in her fingers, letting its healing energies fill her. She’d lost a lot of blood, but as the cloak worked, she felt her strength return. If I’d had my purple turned, I’d have eaten him for breakfast, she thought, knowing it wasn’t true, comforted by her anger anyway.
“You’ll be going after him,” Rondeau said. “I just want you to know, I’ll help you.”
She nodded absently, looking at Juliana’s corpse, covered, in the corner. She felt an overwhelming urge to tear the sheet away, to look at Juliana’s body. More than an urge: A compulsion, or a mandate handed down by forces unseen.
She crawled on hands and knees across the room and tugged the sheet aside. Juliana lay sprawled, her intestines lying beside her, a meaningless spill of gray like the alphabet disarranged.
But only disarranged. She could read the alphabet, just not the mussed message.
“The cameras,” she said suddenly. “We have to go upstairs, to the office, and looked at the surveillance tape.”
“You’re the boss,” Rondeau said.
It took some doing, but Rondeau finally isolated and enlarged a clear frame showing Juliana’s corpse. “It’s a good thing I got her to invest in such high-quality equipment,” Rondeau said, clearly uncomfortable looking at Juliana’s death-image on film. “I told her, the usual protections are all well and good, but times are changing, and the eighth room, it needs all the security it can get, so we put these cameras right outside...” He prattled on. Marla ignored him, staring at the screen.
The Belly Killer showed up indistinctly on the film, shimmering with auras that obscured him, an arm or leg occasionally appearing clearly. In the frame just after he stepped away Marla could see Juliana’s intestines undisturbed in their original, portentous configuration.
What’s more, she could read the portents. The Thrones had given her the gift of divination, allowing her to read clues that eluded everyone else.
She looked at the intestines, the message revealed clearly, and didn’t know what to make of it. Could the portents be wrong? “According to this, I’m the Belly Killer’s only chance at survival. Except I know I’ve got every intention of killing him.”
“You can really read the intestines, like a haruspex?”
She nodded.
“That explains why he didn’t kill you, at least. Why kill his one chance at survival? It might explain why he took your jaw, too. I’d want to keep tabs on you, if I were him.”
Marla rubbed her chin, her sense of violation returning. The Belly Killer could find out anything she knew. Of course, he had to ask the right questions. The jaw wouldn’t offer any information, and would respond as cryptically as possible. The Belly Killer didn’t strike her as a particularly subtle questioner, either. He might not even know to question it. As a mortal madman gifted with power, his understanding of the unseen world must be sketchy at best. Still, she didn’t want him to have her jaw. It belonged to her.
“You know,” Rondeau said, apropos of nothing, “I can still feel my jaw.” He pointed northwest, in the direction of Marla’s apartment. “I could walk straight to it, I bet.” He grinned.
Marla stared at him, then concentrated, trying to feel... There. To the east.
Marla grinned back at him.
The next day, after sleeping in Juliana’s office and recovering her strength, Marla used her pet policeman to look at the crime scene photos, to see the undisturbed guts and read what the Belly Killer had. She ran her policeman deftly, like a professional driver in a high performance machine.
After a long morning poring over photos with her pet’s eyes, Marla sat back in Juliana’s (but Rondeau’s, now, she remembered) office chair, rubbing her eyes. She was both disappointed and relieved by what she’d seen.
“So what does the future hold?” Rondeau asked, straining for casualness. “Cataclysm? Alien invasion? Are hemlines dropping this spring?”
Marla shook her head, her own hopes for a grand revelation already gone. The killer was interested in the merely personal, as the Thrones said. “The Belly Killer doesn’t care about that. His divinations have one purpose: To find out the details of his own death.”
Rondeau gaped. “That’s it? He killed Sorenson and Mann and Chandler to find out how he’s going to die?
“What else matters?” Marla asked.
Marla flew over the city, her cloak fluttering white, angel wings in moonlight. The Belly Killer read the future, and those readings spelled out a multitude of possible deaths. He’d seen futures where he died at Sorenson’s hands, Chandler’s, Mann’s, all his victims’, and still more who hadn’t been killed yet, who the Belly Killer would surely target soon. Artie Mann’s entrails named Juliana as a threat, and so the Belly Killer took steps to remove her. Marla couldn’t imagine Juliana hurting anyone—unless they tried to get into the eighth room without her leave. As custodian, even someone as dissolute as Juliana couldn’t stand for that. If, at some future time, the Belly Killer tried to enter the eighth room, Juliana might have mustered enough last-ditch power to stop him. That situation would never come up, now.
The Belly Killer did what no ancient priestly haruspex ever had. He attempted to change the future, eliminating risks and reading the new future in the guts of the old.
The sorcerers all wanted him dead now, because he’d been killing their kind. If he’d never murdered in the first place, would anyone want to kill him, would his future hold such executions? Had the killer caught himself in a snare of recursive causality? Certainly Marla wouldn’t be after him if he hadn’t killed Artie.
As an agent of the Thrones, though, he would have frightened or angered the sorcerers, probably sooner than later. Attempts on his life were assured from the moment the Thrones chose him. He never had a chance.
The Belly Killer could die, the futures agreed on that. He could, he would, he didn’t want to—and according to Juliana’s unwilling prophecy, only Marla could save him.
She didn’t plan to do so. She would treat him like a rabid dog, killing him without magic, from a distance. She hoped his prodigious powers of self-defense wouldn’t activate, that she could blow his head apart before lightning sheathed him and the air filled with the stink of ozone and curdled blood.
She flew over the city, a sniper rifle clutched to her chest, homing in on her missing piece, her torn-off jaw broadcasting like a communications tower engaged in the transmission of pain.
She found the killer in the parking lot of a long-closed supermarket. Newspaper covered the building’s windows and half the letters in the store’s sign were missing. A single shopping cart lay upside-down in the center of the yellow-lined parking lot like the skeleton of an exotic dinosaur. A scrap of paper fluttered forlornly along the asphalt. The big mercury lights didn’t work, as defunct as the store itself, but Marla’s eyes could do wonders with the moon and starlight.
She settled, invisible, on the arm of a lightpole, sitting easily as an owl on a branch. The Belly Killer stood in the center of the lot, hands at his sides, Marla’s bloody jaw tucked carelessly into his back pocket like a boy’s slingshot.
Marla lifted her rifle, confident of her aim at this range.
She heard a motor approach and sat still. What now?
A black limousine purred into the lot. The front doors opened and two goons emerged, shuffling their feet awkwardly. Demo
ns, fresh off the boat, Marla guessed. Effective enough protection, but who were they protecting?
The limo’s back door opened, and a stout, well dressed man got out. Marla recognized him instantly. Sauvage. The oldest sorcerer in the city, a man with a reptile’s patience and no tolerance for fools. Marla had read his name in the remains of Sorenson’s corpse.
Marla sat still. Sauvage would be able to see through her invisibility, but if she sat quietly, he might not notice her.
“Let’s see it,” Sauvage said.
The Belly Killer nodded and took the jawbone from his back pocket, holding it up.
Mine Marla thought fiercely, leaning forward and almost falling off the pole. Why would Sauvage want her jaw? She was a mercenary, a woman of some status in her peculiar community, but not important enough to merit Sauvage’s notice.
“That’s not Cochran’s jaw,” Sauvage said flatly.
The Belly Killer giggled and wiggled the jaw.
A trick, Marla thought, a lure, just bait because Sauvage couldn’t easily be found. Cochran was his chief rival, of course he’d come personally for the jaw, and who would dare lie to him? Not Marla. Only a madman, or someone with the power of a Throne.
Sauvage waved his hand and the goons lunged for the Belly Killer, who still held up the jawbone like a proud child. One of the goons struck him solidly, knocking him over. Marla winced as her jawbone fell. Sauvage bent and picked it up, turning it in his hands, examining. The goons aimed kicks at the Belly Killer’s stomach.
The air changed, becoming heavier, crackling, reeking, and the Belly Killer sparkled with greasy light. Tentacles lashed out, pure energy gleaming like razorwire, and slit the goons’ stomachs deftly, spilling their secrets to the asphalt as they fell to their knees, looks of stupid surprise on their faces. Poor demons. Only in their bodies a few weeks, probably, and already dead. The Belly Killer regained his feet and peered down at one of the goon’s guts.
All this happened in an instant, before Sauvage could react. Marla let her rifle fall without thinking, and then she fell, too, gliding down like a fisher bird in search of a meal. She grabbed Sauvage from behind, hooking her hands under his fleshy armpits, hauling him skyward without looking back, straining under the weight. Afraid, thinking of the Belly Killer streaking through the sky after her like a comet, like malevolent ball lightning, she made herself go faster.
The killer didn’t follow. He’s reading the future in the goons’ entrails, she thought, maybe finding out my destination.
Sauvage, not even breathing hard, said “Thank you, miss. A singular experience back there. Care to tell me about it?”
“Sure. If you make sure not to drop that jaw.” She told him what she knew, about the killer and the Thrones, and then explained her plan, only formulating the details as she spoke.
Rondeau surprised her again by not arguing. “Sure. Count me in.” He took Sauvage aside, making him a drink from the private stock in Juliana’s office. No, his office, Marla reminded herself. Rondeau even acted like he belonged there, like he’d inhabited the space for years. Had she misjudged him? As Rondeau talked quietly with Sauvage, he exhibited none of the deal-making shiftiness or fawning she might have expected. Had his new responsibility, the custodianship, matured him, or had he developed this dignity over the years, without Marla noticing? Rondeau may not be the only one hobbled by impressions from the past, she thought.
Marla examined her jaw critically. Scraped, bloody, the gums already drawing back from the teeth. An incisor cracked, and a canine missing entirely. Still, even damaged, it felt good to have her missing piece back. She wrapped it in a handkerchief and tucked it into Rondeau’s wall safe.
“How long before he gets here?” Sauvage asked, swirling ice in his empty glass.
“I’m not sure,” Marla said, uncomfortably aware of all the things she didn’t know. “If he can fly like a Throne—”
“Time enough for another drink, at least,” Sauvage said, and turned back to the liquor cabinet.
Marla shared a smile with Rondeau. These old guys, you had to admire them. About to face the avatar of the Thrones, and he didn’t lose his cool.
Rondeau chalked a simple pattern and summoned a powerful stink to drive the nightclubbers out, sending them to gag and vomit on their knee-high boots and translucent blouses. The few members of the special clientele out this early (mostly low-class cantrip throwers and apprentices) left at Marla’s forceful suggestion. When the Belly Killer came down the stairs and found Juliana’s deserted, would he expect a trap?
Probably, Marla thought, shutting the front door. But he’d walk into the trap confident of his powers. Marla hoped that, being a dupe for the Thrones and otherwise uninitiated, he wouldn’t know about the eighth room. If he’d heard about it at all, he’d think it hosted live sex shows, or poker games with human lives for stakes, or some other silly speculation.
The stories said Thrones couldn’t see the eighth room, and certainly while in the club they seemed oblivious to its existence, slouching through the rest of the bar, blatantly spying. Legend said that once, before a building occupied this spot, a Throne had accidentally walked across the place now contained by the eighth room—and simply vanished. What would happen if a man with the power of a Throne went inside?
Marla sat at a table, touching the stag beetle pin at her throat. She could have waited in the eighth room with Sauvage and Rondeau, but the Belly Killer might not find his way inside without guidance. “Besides,” Marla told them, “we can’t make it look too easy. We should make at least a pretense of protecting Sauvage.” She offered those reasons, but in reality she wanted to face the Belly Killer. He’d surprised her, and stolen her jaw, and pride demanded a chance for her to revenge herself.
When she heard his footfalls on the steps, and his giggle, she reversed her cloak.
In the purple, draped in the color of bruises and dead flowers, Marla barely noticed the now-familiar smell, or the crackling air. The door opened without drama, swinging wide, and Belly Killer stepped inside.
Marla got her first clear look at him. He stood just under six feet, scrawny, with greasy black hair hanging past his ears. Pockmarks made braille of his face. He grinned crookedly, his teeth speckled with green and yellow, and similar stains covered his white t-shirt and frayed khakis. He giggled almost spastically, a vocal tic. “Sauvage. The murderer. Let me have him.”
Marla gripped the edge of the table, her rational mind a buoy bobbing on an ocean of purple rage. She wanted to take off his arms, tear his face apart, grab his spine and twist. Through gritted teeth she said “He’s back there, behind the curtain. You’ll have to come through me to get him.”
The Belly Killer took a step forward, and the energies surrounding him became visible, white primary shapes rotating and revolving. A fire-spoked wheel. A translucent blue ball of lightning. A coruscating pinwheel, spinning wildly around his head. “I see the curtain,” he said dreamily. “It’s dim, but you can’t hide it.” He lifted his foot, sparks crackling from the sole of his ragged sneaker to the floor like lightning streaking to earth from a thunderhead. “I don’t want to hurt you. You can save me.” He licked his lips, blue fire sparking where his tongue touched. “I’ll tell you the future, the secrets of your death.”
“I’ll read it in your corpse,” she said, voice thick and fuzzy, her thinking-self overcome by the purple madness cursing through her. She jumped for him.
His eyes widened. A net of flashing light wrapped around her and, caught in mid-air, she clawed through. A purple shadow clung to her like a second skin, turning her fingers to claws, her teeth to blades. The Belly Killer’s fiery lace parted under her onslaught and she fell to the concrete with a thump. She scrambled at him, snarling, and in his human surprise he simply kicked at her. He drew back his foot, howling, minus his shoe and one toe. Marla tossed the shredded remains of both aside and went for his throat.
Remembering his power, the killer struck with glowing tentacles and hu
rled her aside. She hit the wall, bounced, and shot to her feet, going for him again.
He grunted, throwing up a barrier, and Marla clambered over, heedless of the burning damage done to her hands. If she survived, she would heal.
He won’t kill me! her mind crowed from somewhere deep inside. He believed she could save him, somehow, someday, and so he held back. He could kill her, but if he limited himself to the merely defensive—
She came over his barrier, clawing for his face, and he threw her again. Just before she struck the wall, she remembered. She couldn’t kill him yet, shouldn’t even try. If she gave him no choice, he would kill her. She only needed to put on a good show so he’d go into the eighth room, unsuspecting, thinking he’d defeated her.
When she bounced to the floor this time, she lay still, struggling to overcome the purple madness. She reversed the cloak with a thought and watched the killer relax when he saw the white. He couldn’t know exactly how the cloak worked, but he knew enough to fear the purple. Marla’s injuries began to heal immediately.
The Belly Killer squinted toward the eighth room. His human eyes can see it, Marla thought, but his Throne-eyes can’t.
He took a hesitant step forward, then another, more sure, then ran to the curtain and through it, glowing like a knight protected by the armor of the sun.
Marla scrambled to her feet and ran after him.
Sauvage stood holding the baseball bat in one casual hand. Rondeau prodded the Belly Killer’s unconscious body with his foot.
Marla looked at the killer, crumpled pitifully on the eighth room’s floor, blood trickling from his ear, and felt none of the triumphant bloodlust she’d expected. This pathetic man, his powers utterly dissolved by the eighth room’s nullifying effect, posed no threat anymore. He twitched in the flickering gaslight, a random muscular clenching, and Marla pitied him. Used by the Thrones, killing only in what he perceived as self-defense, driven mad by energies too tremendous for a human to contain—how did he merit her hate? She’d done worse things than he had, for less reason.
