Chapter Nineteen

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

 

The next day, once everything was arranged and it was starting to approach sunset, I went home, for the first time in a while now. It felt…strange, being there again. It was familiar, but at the same time felt somehow alien. It wasn’t just that so much of my stuff had already been moved out; that definitely played a role, but there was also an element that felt more intrinsic. I felt out of place, like I didn’t belong here anymore. I’d lived in this house for fifteen years, but tonight I had the same sort of derealization that I sometimes felt in unfamiliar places, like I was moving through a dream.

You can’t step in the same river twice. The world looks different depending on where you’re standing, and I’d gone a hell of a long way in the past week, though what direction this path led was impossible for me to guess. Regardless, the view from here was different, and my own house now looked like a strange, alien environment.

Raincloud made a soft sound and pressed up against my legs. I started to take my shoes off at the door, then stopped. I might need to run soon, after all, and it wasn’t like tracking dirt here mattered anymore.

“Sorry,” I said quietly, though I wasn’t sure who I might be addressing. The house itself, maybe. It had done a good job for me over the years. It deserved better than what I was expecting to happen soon.

But I supposed that made sense. What someone deserved never really seemed to have much to do with what they got. Why would houses be different?

Upstairs, I wandered around aimlessly, trailing my fingers over the walls, feeling the familiar energy residues left by years of occupation. I rarely noticed my own signature, for the same reason I rarely thought about my own scent or actively noticed my tattoos. It was always there, and so it became background noise. Now, paying attention to it specifically, I could feel how it permeated the space, a sound like wind rustling leaves and a faint silver sheen to everything. It had a musky scent like wolf and leather, with fainter tones of ozone and night-blooming jasmine.

I liked it well enough, which was good given that I was stuck with it; I’d never had any luck intentionally changing how my brain interpreted either magic or ordinary synesthesia. But even to me, that combination smelled a little strange.

It was funny. I hadn’t really thought about that lately. I didn’t actually look at this space much, even the parts that weren’t largely disused. It was so familiar I rarely took the time to focus on it. It was amusing to me that only now, when I was making preparations to leave for the last time, was I actually aware of the building I lived in.

Though I supposed that was natural; sometimes it’s transience, the awareness that a thing will end, which lends it beauty. That element of Japanese aesthetic philosophy had stuck with me.

I looked at the disused tools and furniture, the keepsakes that I no longer cared enough to keep, all the detritus of half a lifetime. It felt very final, somehow, as though I were walking away from much more than just the things around me.

In a way, I supposed that I was. I wasn’t just saying goodbye to the house or to the things I had in it, right now. I was saying goodbye to the life they belonged to. The idleness, solitude, and calm which had characterized my years here weren’t coming back to my life. I knew that, with a sort of certainty that left me feeling peaceful and melancholic.

I wasn’t sure I’d want those things back. It wasn’t far enough in the past for nostalgia to have softened the sharp edges. I was aware that I’d been pretty unhappy for most of those years. But it would have been nice to have the choice.

“I’m sorry,” I said to no one again, and then went up to the third floor, the part of the house I’d actually used as a living space. Raincloud, perhaps sensing my mood, was quiet, and she stuck close by my side, for whose comfort I wasn’t sure.

---

I was expecting trouble. Of course I was. I had lived in this house for over a decade, and I hadn’t been terribly private about its location. I’d have to be an idiot to think I could come back here without someone knowing and acting on it. More of an idiot than I actually was, even.

The whole point of this exercise was to invite trouble. I was fully expecting trouble to oblige me. I was ready for a variety of possible disasters; I wasn’t necessarily prepared to address them, but I was at least mentally braced for them.

I was less ready to open the door to my bedroom and see a stranger casually lying on my bed reading one of my books. She looked…odd, with dusky skin, vaguely Asian features, and what might have been the single most garish outfit I’d ever seen. Seriously, just…a black-and-white tiger print jacket trimmed with hot pink fur, pants almost as green as Saori’s new car, and black cowboy boots which were currently crossed at the ankle on my bed. What appeared to be a Día de los Muertos garland of pink and purple plastic skulls, bright red lipstick, and red-rimmed sunglasses really just…this was impressively garish, verging on tacky.

I stopped dead at the door and glared at her. Raincloud was standing next to me and growling, and I could feel anger radiating from her, surprisingly intense. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked the woman, and felt rather proud of how steady my voice was.

She shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t because of the wards. There was a reason I’d told Kadir this set didn’t need to be good at all; I was fully expecting them to fail tonight. But I had just gotten back less than five minutes ago, and nobody should have had a response time that fast. She looked like she’d been here for hours, too. I hadn’t heard or smelled her until I opened the door, though now I did, a subtle but distinct floral scent strong enough I definitely should have noticed it earlier. Every part of this was wrong.

“I’m reading,” she said, as though that explained everything. Her voice was amused, and while it had no discernible accent, there was something…odd about it. It was like in addition to the words, I could hear a sort of wild, mad laughter lurking underneath. I was guessing that was the product of my less mundane senses, but it didn’t feel like a normal signature, in a way I couldn’t explain.

“Cute. And why are you doing it here?”

“Because I wanted to chat,” she said, calmly turning the page. “And I was bored waiting for you. You have terrible taste in literature, you know, it took me ages to find something decent.”

“And you dress like a blind pimp after a three day bender, but you didn’t hear me bringing that up, did you?”

I really hadn’t been joking with the satyr who had been stupid enough to break the truce at Softened Dreams. If I had a dollar for every time I’d gotten myself into trouble being a smartass, paying for the wards wouldn’t be an issue at all.

She snickered, though, so apparently smartass had been the right tone to take for once. “If you think this is bad, you should see me when I dress up,” she said. Her grin was loose and casual, her teeth oh so very white.

“Cute,” I repeated. “Well, as we are now chatting. Who are you, and why are you here?”

“Well,” she said, “there’s a better view of the sunset than from your sitting room. It was lovely tonight, by the way. But as you’re already too late for the sunset, why don’t you call me Dusk. As to more general location and motives, well. You’ve been asking such interesting questions, I just had to see what it was all about.”

Call her Dusk. Which was not, I noticed, the same as actually saying that was who she was. And while telling me that she was here because I was asking questions could be a threat, as could breaking in like this, I didn’t really get that vibe from her. Her bearing and general demeanor didn’t fit at all, and it didn’t really make a lot of sense to me. If she was here to keep me from asking inconvenient questions about the people trying to kill me, the MO of all parties involved suggested I would be dead already. No, the impression I got from Dusk was far more playful than menacing.

Which did not, of course, mean that I was any safer. Raincloud had felt playful when she caught her first mouse last month. She’d been beaming with pride when she dropped it at my feet, while I sat at in my living room with Melissa, and I’d been proud of her as well, happy to see her learning and growing. It was a fond memory.

But I somehow doubted the mouse would agree with me on that.

So, I had to be more entertaining as a metaphorical rather than literal chew toy, because I had an uncomfortable suspicion those were my options. I wasn’t sure what Dusk was, but if nothing else she was clearly disturbingly well-informed, and entirely casual about breaking into my house while I was already in a jumpy, trigger-happy mood. And while I couldn’t get a clear sense of her signature, that overtone of frenzied laughter in her voice wasn’t like anything I’d run into before. I’d be an idiot not to be wary of her.

But she was amused when I was a smartass. So hey, on the bright side, for once I was apparently well suited to a social challenge!

This whole line of thought ran through my head in about three seconds while I stood in the doorway. Then I yawned and stretched my back. “So, on the topic of interesting questions,” I said, “did you use some of that waiting time to make snacks?”

“I’m afraid not,” Dusk said with an easy grin. “But I can make it up to you with a buffet later.”

“Is that so.” I hadn’t moved further into the room.

“It is so,” she confirmed for me. She hadn’t moved to sit up.

“And why would you do such a thing as that?” I rested one hand on the back of Raincloud’s head, soothing the anxiety and anger I could feel coming from her. It seemed to help some, for both of us.

“Well, as I see it, your problem is that you’re asking interesting questions, but the people you’re asking don’t have interesting answers,” Dusk said, still with that loose, easy grin. Her teeth were so white and even that it was a little creepy. “So I thought I’d put you in a room with some people who do.”

I stared at her. “That is both extremely vague and lacking any actual information about why you would do this,” I said. I managed what I felt was a reasonably steady and deeply unimpressed tone.

“Always with the details,” she sighed. “Fine then. I know that you’ve been asking around about two groups of interest currently active in this city. I will gladly provide you the chance to attend a social event where I know, with certainty, that you can talk to someone who knows quite a bit about both. Granted, convincing them to tell you is on you, which is why I’m only asking a token price.”

And there it was. “What price would that be?” I asked.

Dusk smiled at me, and it should have looked comical. She was still lounging in my bed in her pimp-on-parade outfit, after all. It should have looked silly. Instead, I had to fight to keep from shivering, and I didn’t know why. “Let’s say you’ll owe me a favor,” she purred. “Of your choosing.”

I was ready to decline and take my chances with pissing her off when she got to that last part, and I just paused with my mouth already open. “Of…my choosing,” I said after a moment, with the cautious tone of someone who is sure she heard correctly and even more sure it cannot possibly have been what the other person meant to say.

“Indeed.” She turned the page in her book—or, well, technically my book—casual as anything.

“So it could be pretty much anything,” I said.

“Anything I ask for,” she agreed.

“And if you ask for something I don’t want to give?”

Dusk grinned at me. “You can say no. For any reason or none at all.”

“And you won’t take any reprisal against me for declining? What’s to keep me from just telling you to piss off every time?” I had, if anything, gotten more nervous now. This sounded way too good to be true, and that usually meant it wasn’t.

“I will take no reprisal of any kind, nor instruct or request another to do so,” she agreed. Her voice sounded sweet, with frenzied laughter underneath. “And nothing. If no favor arises that you care to perform within a reasonable period, let’s say five years, I’ll let the debt expire cleanly. But I don’t think you’re the type for that. I’m sure I can find something you’re willing to do.”

I continued to stare at her, and I had gone very still now. “That,” I said quietly, “is an extremely light payment.”

“Perhaps, but consider the burden,” Dusk said, still grinning. “Gaining entry to such a social event might be impossible for you to do yourself, but I assure you it presents no great difficulty to me. A token payment for a token effort seems fair, does it not?”

It did not. Or, rather, it seemed fair, but life had taught me that fairness was rare in this world. I also didn’t miss the implicit threat there. An impossible task for me was a trivial effort for her. That implied a lot about our relative power, and I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t deception. I was a featherweight in the supernatural world, and I was willing to bet that Dusk…wasn’t.

I wanted to ask what the social event was, but I was sure I wouldn’t get an answer. Still, I had to at least do some basic hedging. “When is this event? And will I have the option of declining to attend if I decide that it’s not necessary?”

“It is on New Year’s Eve, four nights hence. And certainly. Your participation is fully voluntary, and you will be protected by binding truce during the proceedings.” That grin hadn’t gotten any less unsettling.

I was getting screwed. There was basically no doubt of that. This bargain was so close to free that I was certain I hadn’t actually seen the price tag yet. But I couldn’t see a trap in the deal itself, not at all. The bargain she was proposing was so simple, and she was putting so little restriction on it, that I wasn’t even sure where you could fit a loophole into it.

“If this is so trivial for you,” I asked, trying to buy time while I thought, “why do you even know I’ve been asking these questions?”

Dusk’s smile was thinner now, and sharper, and it felt more honest. “Because you amused me with your antics this past autumn,” she murmured. “And I assure you, in the unlikely event you live to be as old as I am, you will find amusement becomes hard to find.”

Great. Just wonderful. Just like that, she simultaneously revealed her interest, reinforced the implicit threats being made, and sidestepped the actual question neatly. She was aware of my actions in September. And she was amused by them, which was several kinds of unsettling. Among other things, if she was the sort of person who found that amusing to watch, I really did not want her to start making her own fun out of my life rather than being content to simply watch.

I was so utterly and profoundly fucked. But there was no way out but through, and I didn’t see a way to dodge this one. Besides which, I did need that information. Toby might be able to track Ekaterina’s gang down, and hopefully after tonight I’d know more about the other attacker. But there was no guarantee of that, and even if it worked, I still didn’t know anything about the context or motives in play.

“Deal,” I said eventually, quietly and with obvious reluctance.

Dusk smiled at me with no such reluctance. Just perfect white teeth, blood-red lips, and the playfulness of a tiger who has the fawn between her paws. “Bargain struck,” she said, drawing it out in a way that sent shivers down my spine.

And then, abruptly, she was gone. I didn’t see her move, nor did I feel even a whisper of magic. Even when Lacuna deleted someone, it wasn’t this instant or jarring. Dusk quite simply wasn’t there now.

I walked over and picked up the book she’d left on the bed. It was, in fact, one of mine; I recognized it after a moment, one of a fair number that I hadn’t bothered packing. I took the books that had practical value, but I just did not have much room for sentiment right now. I liked this battered old copy of The Left Hand of Darkness, but not enough to bring it with me when I left.

Dusk had left it open on the bed. I looked at the page she’d left it open to, and saw an underlined passage. It was very faint, the line barely visible, but it was definitely there, and I was sure it hadn’t been the last time I saw this book.

I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth. The only truth I can understand or express is, logically defined, a lie. Psychologically defined, a symbol. Aesthetically defined, a metaphor.

I read that passage. Then I read it again. Then, with a distinct feeling of trepidation, I found a scrap of paper to use as a bookmark, and went to put the book in my bag.

---

I was too nervous to eat after that. I knew it would probably be a good idea. I just couldn’t make myself do it. I’d already been on edge, but chatting with Dusk had bumped that feeling up several notches in intensity. I was pretty sure if I tried to eat, I’d just end up feeling sick.

I managed to get an energy drink down, though, and some soda that Saori had left in my fridge at some point. So I didn’t have to worry about my blood sugar tanking, and the caffeine would help to offset the sleep I definitely wasn’t getting tonight. Raincloud, as per usual, was having no such difficulties eating and consumed an impressive amount of steak.

I cleaned the blood out of her fur afterwards, because while Raincloud had many excellent qualities, being a tidy eater was not among them. That done, we went upstairs and sat in the bedroom in the dark. I wasn’t going to be sleeping, but the whole point of this exercise was to create an opening so tempting it would bait someone into attacking it. I’d gone to some pretty significant lengths to create a convincing impression of vulnerability. I wasn’t going to blow it now by not seeming like I’d gone to bed.

So I sat and looked out the window at the lights of the city. It had a very melancholic feeling to it. Another moment that I wasn’t going to have again. I’d picked this house largely for its excellent view of the skyline, and I’d sat and looked out at it more times than I could count. Which I was sure I would do again if I lived long enough, there would always be places from which to look out at the urban night. But I wasn’t going to be doing it from quite this vantage ever again.

Raincloud felt melancholic too. I supposed that made sense. She’d spent her whole life to date thinking of this as home. I rested one hand on her back, gently scritching at her neck. The other, I realized, was about six inches from Thorn’s hilt. The sword had decided to keep us company, it seemed. Appropriately, I supposed. The mood of the night was distinctly martial in tone.

From Raincloud, I got a sudden question as we waited in the dark. What did I cost?

I blinked. “Eh?”

There was a mental impression of the recent past. I was sitting there talking to Dusk, and thinking about how nothing came without a price.

“Ohh,” I said. “Right, I get it. Hm.”

Part of me wanted to tell her that there was nothing, that her existence hadn’t come with a price tag attached. But she was too smart to believe that. It also just wouldn’t be true, and I’d never been a fan of the lies-to-children educational model, in any context.

It took me a moment to work out the phrasing, and then I hugged her closer against me. “A bit of an opportunity cost,” I said. “In that I’ve spent time on you. I might have done more to prepare for situations like this one, if I hadn’t been putting attention towards you. And there were a few small debts to various experts before I actually met you. But on the whole, very little, and you’re definitely worth it.”

It had been the right approach. I could tell, because she felt thoughtful for a moment, and then content, and there was a surge of affection that damn near had me in tears. Raincloud wouldn’t have believed that she was free; she’d already picked that up from me, that baseline assumption that there was nothing truly, entirely free in this world. But she could believe that she was worth what I’d paid, and for tonight that was enough.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter