by Dia Reeves
“Thanks!”
Rue weaved among people carrying plates filled to capacity with food. And drinks with food in them: olives, onions, cherries. A fire blazed in the fireplace and the ballroom was warm and vibrant.
Rue drank bubbly stuff that made her sneeze and wakened a hunger she was unable to satisfy. She watched the others enviously as they ate creamy things and crunchy things and juicy things with abandon. Even the musicians nibbled food between notes.
Rue’s stomach growled loud as a beast.
“Such a look in your eyes.”
Rue turned and came face to face with the Mayor. She stepped back, and the Mayor smiled. Her teeth weren’t razor sharp, but they may as well have been. “They’re wondering if they’re on the menu.”
“They’re not.” Rue wasn’t hungry for musicians.
“Why haven’t you fed?”
“I’m biding my time.”
“So far from home?”
“I can go where I want.”
“Hush child.” Soothing, motherly words. The Mayor, however, was nobody’s mother. “Don’t speak nonsense. Must I drift from one grandiose human mortal to another? You absolutely cannot go where you want.”
“Why not? Heartless followed our food across a multitude of worlds, some less hospitable than others. It’s why we’re skilled at healing ourselves…so that we can go where we want.”
Rue gave the Mayor a pointed look that was returned with interest.
“I begin to understand why your family disowned you.”
“What’s not to understand?” Rue refused to wither into a pile of nothing. “No one can stand to be around me.”
“Rue!” The twins raced to her side, ruddy and cheerful, as if they’d had too much of that bubbly stuff.
“We’ve been looking for you.”
“Yeah, let’s dance.”
“Me first.”
“I called it.”
The Mayor smacked at the twins’ hands. “Don’t pull on her like that. She’s not a wishbone. Let her choose for herself.”
“I don’t like choices.” Rue took them both by the arms, and dragged them onto the dancefloor, into the crush. She thought she heard the Mayor behind her, laughing, but when she looked, the Mayor was gone.
If the band played fast, the twins both danced with Rue, and it was fun, matching her steps to theirs, in sync or counterpoint, creating intricate physical harmonies. But if the band played slow, they took turns. Sterling was having his turn while Stanton twirled Karissa round and round.
“You’re squeezing me.”
“Squeeze back.” Sterling demonstrated, squishing the air from her lungs. “You know all our secrets now; tell me yours. What do you eat? Blood? Babies? Beets?” He grimaced. “Please tell me you don’t eat beets.”
“Drake eggs,” said Rue, grinning against his shoulder.
“That’s it? That’s the big secret?”
“I never said it was a secret. Sorry it’s not as interesting as bringing someone back from the dead.”
“That’s okay. Sometimes life is too interesting.”
Drabbin’s hand landed on Sterling’s shoulder, disrupting their dance mid-step.
He’d abandoned his mask and his melted face glistened with sweat. “I wanna dance with her now,” he said, and before either of them could speak, he grabbed Rue’s arm.
She’d thought Sterling would tell Drabbin to hit the road—he and Stanton had been hogging her all night—but he said nothing as Drabbin dragged her across the ballroom, out onto the patio, into his lap.
“I could have had any one of them hoity-toity folks, once upon a time.” He wiped his forehead—cheek?—with a hanky. “Now they won’t even look at me. Not with this face.”
“Maybe Westwood can fix it.”
“Or maybe you can.”
He pressed the middle of her palm and when her claw shot forth, he dragged it across his throat. To the bone.
Rue removed Drabbin’s bowtie and cleaned her claw with it. And then tied it tight around Drabbin’s neck to tie off the artery. The blood flow was sluggish and cool, and so was his breath.
“Perfect.” He wheezed, swooning. “I feel almost warm.”
Rue felt the opposite. The ballroom had been stifling, but the cool, rainy air refreshed her.
After a while the twins came out and found Rue still in Drabbin’s lap, watching the rain fizz and shimmer in the dark like fireflies.
“Is he dead?” Stanton said.
“Not really. He needs stitches.”
“If he was bothering you, you should have come and got us,” said Sterling.
“I’m a lethiferist. I can rescue myself. And anyway, I wanted you to think we were out here mating. Isn’t that what you wanted, since you handed me off to him? Since you love to share everything?”
“We feel bad about his face.” Stanton pulled her off Drabbin’s lap. “That’s all. We don’t want to share you with him. I don’t even wanna share you with Sterling, but technically he called dibs.”
“And don’t you forget it.” Sterling took Rue in his arms and kissed her. So delicate and fragile that she had to make herself super soft to keep him from shattering against her.
When he pulled away, she said, “I thought you hated me.”
“I did, but I’m over it now.”
“Real smooth, Sterling.” Stanton shouldered his brother out of the way and took charge of her. “What he means,” he said, kissing her on the ear, “is that usually when people know you like them they use it against you. But you never ask for anything. We can like you and not worry about what it’ll cost us.”
Nothing delicate about Stanton’s kisses. He gave her a tour of the inside of her own mouth, pointing out scenery she’d never noticed before.
“That thing you do with your tongue? That’s really clever.”
“What thing?” Sterling asked, so Rue embraced him and taught him his brother’s technique.
“Damn.” He shot an admiring look at Stanton. “That is clever.”
“Too bad you’re not half as clever.”
“Don’t be mean to me.”
“You’re the mean one,” Rue said, surprised he didn’t understand that.
“You are,” he insisted, “but I love you anyway.” Her surprise gave way to shock. “I didn’t want to say it first, but I don’t want to sit around waiting for you to get a clue either. So it’s done. I did it. I love you.”
“How do you know?” she asked. “Adele said you don’t know anything about it.”
“Well, if it’s not love, it’s near enough. Some tumorous thing that keeps multiplying; whatever that’s called.”
“Cancer.”
“And I never said I know,” Sterling continued, ignoring his brother. “I don’t know. I feel.” He put her hand over his heart. “See?” his heartbeat thundered into her palm, and thunder rumbled in the dark clouds. Like Sterling’s love was so big it was everywhere.
Meanwhile, her own heart plodded along like always. Never raced or thundered, unless something was horribly wrong. Her body wouldn’t allow it.
And then a different rumbling. More of a grumbling as Frida dragged a protesting Westwood through the second set of french doors a few yards ahead. Beyond the portico and out into the rain.
What’s gotten into you, Rue heard. No servants allowed, Rue heard.
And then Frida embraced him, her body tightly entwined with Westwood’s startled frame.
Rue and the twins gaped at each other and then sniggered behind their hands.
“Frida? And Dad?” Stanton’s laughter was tinged with pity. “Oh, that kid. That poor kid.”
Rue was about to suggest they go back inside, give Frida her privacy for when Westwood inevitably crushed her spirit.
But Frida’s face began to crackle. To fracture. To spark with blue-orange-white hot fire. And then she disappeared in a terrific explosion that sent Rue and the twins backwards into the windows.
Startled guests poured
out of both sets of doors to find Westwood standing as before, tall and straight and dapper despite the explosion, despite the rain. He picked up the arm that had belonged to Frida pointed it at the darkness.
“Are you out there, Bastard?” His voice was full of snaps and scratchings, like damaged audio. “I know this is your work. You think you can hurt or stop me? You have no idea what I can do. Who I am. You think a man stands before you? Flesh that can be cut or pierced or blown apart?”
He threw the arm, and it landed at Rue’s feet. The rainbow of wires snaked around her heels like they wanted to trip her.
Wires?
“Not flesh, you bastard. Will. Desire so deep that it was given form, my form. I will not be denied. I will not be stopped!”
A bolt of lightning lit Westwood from the inside. Even after he collapsed onto the lawn, the light was slow to fade from his skin.
One of the Mortmaine gave the Mayor a speaking look.
“Well, you know how much I hate cocky humans.” She raised her voice. “Just a warning not to aim too high, John. A misstep from such lofty heights will always be fatal. Remember Icarus?”
“To hell with Icarus.” Westwood remained in the dark, remained on the ground, but Rue could see his eyes, see the remnants of lightning burning in them. His voice electric, broken. “Nothing can stop me. Not even death.”
Chapter 27
Westwood lay in his bed, his family around him. Without the handsomeness of impeccable grooming, he was nothing to look at. A purple lightning mark zapped over his bald head, his left eye twitched. His sweat smelled of storm clouds.
Grissel sat at Westwood’s side, studying a picture of Elnora on the night table and adjusting the fit of a black wig. She checked herself in a looking glass, then snatched off the wig, frustrated, suddenly indistinguishable from the pale wall behind her. Drabbin sat opposite Grissel, a scarf wound around his neck, a smile full of schadenfreude. The hair that perched on Drabbin’s shoulder was lighter than Rue remembered, almost as white as Grissel’s.
Westwood’s children sat in a semi-circle at the foot of the bed in funereal silence.
“Is he dying?” Rue asked.
“Just sulking about his watch,” said Drabbin. “Lost it after the Bastard’s attack. Or the Bastard’s thievery.”
“It’s the sort of thing he’d do,” Westwood said. “Just to spite me.”
“Maybe I can find it.”
After searching the patio and the lawn outside the ballroom, Rue spied the watch in the grass. Only the chain was melted, the rest in fine working order. On the back, an inscription: To my beloved Walter. Time is eternal, and so is our love. Walter had been scratched out and written over. Not a professional engraving either. Just a series of angry slashes that spelled the name John.
Rue took the watch back to Westwood, who hurled the watch at Drabbin’s head.
“I can’t believe you didn’t notice no one noticed that Frida wasn’t human! Didn’t you see she had no soul?”
“Who notices servants?” Drabbin fingered the knot the watch had raised on his...forehead? “Especially ones with no bosoms.”
Grissel stroked the wig in her lap as though it were a pet, and Rue could see the wig through Grissel’s hands. Could see the tag of her dress through her neck: Lady Jane. Dry Clean Only. Grissel stared back at Rue with an intense hunger that felt like teeth.
But she said, mildly, “Frida did have a soul. A strange slithery one that slipped off into the woods like a will-o’-the-wisp.”
“Back to that asshole no doubt.”
“Bastard, Daddy,” said Karissa, in half-view.
“Isn’t that what I said? I know there was a spy.”
“Too bad it was Frida,” said Sterling. “I liked her.”
“We all liked her. She was programmed to be liked. Clever bastard. He knows I’m close, knows I’ve as good as got her in my grip.” Westwood made a fist so tight that if Elnora had been in it, she’d have been crushed.
“I’ll retaliate. See if I don’t. I’ll strap explosives to someone”—but he was looking at Karissa—“and send her into his shop and BOOM!”
“We have to go.” Stanton took hold of Karissa and hustled her from the room.
“Go where?” said Westwood. “To some park to frolic and play while I lie alone in my bed of pain?”
“To see the Lazarus snake.” Sterling said, bringing up the rear. He gestured for Rue to go ahead of him. “We won’t be long.”
“The Lazarus snake.” Westwood’s eyes were a mixture of pride and fear. “You protect my boys, you hear? You and that girl should be payment enough.”
“You could be payment. We could give him directions to your bed of pain.”
“I cannot be killed. I tried to kill myself seven times after Elnora’s death. I failed every time. If I want to be with her, I have to bring her to me.”
“So what happens after the Lazarus snake kills us all? Is there a plan B?”
After dropping Karissa at Adele’s, Stanton had driven south. The further downsquare they drove, the sparser the trees became as the forest gave way to marshland, and the marshland gave way to Luna Swamp.
“If we’re all dead, why would we need a plan B?” asked the twins.
“Flawless logic, as usual.”
They parked at the lot where the nature trail began, and shed the jackets they’d needed earlier in the day. No sun, but yellow streaks painted the sky, as though winter had lasted so long, the world had forgotten how sunny days worked. The nature trail, a boardwalk, stretched through the marsh, and the three of them tramped over it toward the middle of the stagnant, slushy land that was more water than earth. Black-necked stilts tiptoed on long red legs, hunting bugs in the shallow water, and frogs and ducks she couldn’t see were in full voice.
Rue tried again. “Your father is sick.”
The many zippers on Stanton’s school bag jingled as he hitched it high. “He’ll get better soon.”
“He’s sick,” Rue insisted. “Him and Drabbin and Grissel. Sick in the head, and maybe in a contagious way. Why would you want to bring your mother into an environment like that?”
“If things are sick, it’s because she left,” Sterling said.
“She was murdered.”
“And once she’s back, everything’ll be fixed,” Stanton said.
“You keep saying ‘fixed.’ What does that mean? The time to fix things was before Westwood killed her.”
“It’s different now,” said the twins, stepping over several red stilts lying dead on the boardwalk.
“How? Who’s different?”
But they didn’t answer. Maybe they couldn’t.
“I’ll ask the Lazarus snake to explain. Better yet, I’ll ask him for a heart, since apparently that’s the only way I’ll ever get one.”
“No!” said the twins.
“Why not? You’re going to ask for your mom back from the dead, so why can’t I—”
“That’s not what we’re doing,” said Sterling. “This is the Lazarus snake, okay? It’s not like us, doing nice things just because. It’ll want something in return, and the bigger the wish, the bigger the price.”
Stanton said, “All we want is to find something we misplaced.”
The boardwalk ended in the middle of a pond. A pond that appeared to be on fire. The flames were cool and low and purple, however, and didn’t seem to bother the wildlife. The frogs and ducks she’d only heard were now visible, half-congealed in water that looked like something had died and decomposed atop it. Organic slush floated and collected like bath water scum.
“Lazarus!” called the twins.
The scummy patches shaped themselves into a snake and then reared out of the marsh. Twenty feet tall, as wide as five men standing shoulder to shoulder, purple fire where eyes should have been, fangs a brilliant white contrast against charcoal flesh.
Despite the frantic skipping of the twins’ hearts, they wore their resolve like armor.
Stanton s
tepped forward. “Hello, sir. We were hoping you could help us find a sort of robot we lost a long time ago.”
“It’s really the teeth we want,” Sterling said. “The robot is only good if it has our mother’s teeth in it.”
“What do you offer in exchange?” Lazarus’s voice spit and crackled like flame.
“What do you think would be fair?” said Stanton carefully.
“Three fingers will be enough.”
“Deal!”
The twins turned their backs to the snake and fumbled a severed hand out of Stanton’s school bag. Rue was sure it was the hand that Westwood had used at the spectacular.
Mostly sure.
Sterling snipped off three of the fingers with garden shears, turned, and tossed them high into the snake’s mouth.
The purple fire blazed red, and the three of them stepped back from the sudden heat.
“That wasn’t fresh. And it wasn’t yours.”
“You didn’t say it had to be,” said Stanton.
The snake brought its head down to their level. He’d banked the heat, as if he didn’t want to cook them, but the smell of decay was debilitating.
“I also didn’t say I wouldn’t eat you alive, but here we are.”
After an awful snap, only Rue and Sterling stood on the walkway, but Lazarus’s mouth had developed a bulge. A Stanton-sized bulge.
“Stanton!”
“Wait a minute.” Rue hooked her arm around Sterling to keep him from leaping fruitlessly into the pond. She raised her free arm. “I’ll give you my three fingers for their mother’s teeth. Okay?”
Lazarus spat out Stanton with a gratifying swiftness, sent him skidding down the boardwalk, nearly back to the Dauphine, trailing a clear slime. He was coated in the stuff. Sterling rushed to his brother and then attempted to figure out a way to help Stanton to his feet without touching him.
“You shouldn’t spit in public,” Rue said, as Lazarus lowered his massive head and nibbled the fingers from her hand, like peppers from a vine. “Humans hate that; they say it’s not nice.”
“It’s well for you to please humans. You can pass. I never could and so I must do what I think is nice.”
He ate each finger separately, savoring them, gentle and precise and so neat, she barely felt the loss.
