Chapter Sixteen

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I wasn’t entirely sure where I had expected the Blackbird Cabaret to be. Definitely was not a largely-disused warehouse complex in Braddock, though. It was deep in the heart of the old industrial district, and had largely died when the steel mills did. Some modestly successful attempts had been made to breathe new life into the borough, but there were still large areas that were practically deserted. We were in one of those, and apparently so was the Blackbird.

I glanced over at Saori. “You’re sure this is the address?”

She shrugged. “I mean. I don’t know this city worth shit. But it’s where Google sent us.”

“Huh.” I looked at the time. Less than twenty minutes until we were supposed to be meeting Jack. “You mind if we wait a little ways away? Watch to make sure he shows?”

Saori looked at me curiously. “I thought you said you trusted him not to get underhanded.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “My read on him says he’s the type to just obliterate you fairly rather than get twisty about it. But I’m not always a great judge of character, and something about this feels…very wrong somehow. So I think I’d rather err on the side of caution here.”

“Paranoid much?” she asked.

“Actually, no,” I said. “Paranoia is a primarily psychotic feature involving delusional thought patterns and usually feelings of persecution and ideas of reference. Pretty sure this is just garden-variety neuroticism and the fact that someone recently tried to stab me.”

“Okay, that’s fair. Alright, let’s go find somewhere to sit.”

It was slightly challenging to find somewhere that we could sit and watch the designated meeting spot without being immediately obvious. It wasn’t like there was a crowd to blend into. Eventually, we ended up just sitting on the asphalt behind a warehouse, about a block away. Saori had brought dice again, and between that and my hoodie it was a reasonably good cover. I was pretty sure we looked like just some local delinquents sitting and gambling.

Saori said that next time she was planning to bring some weed to help sell the disguise. I rather doubted that would be her primary motivation in doing so, but I couldn’t deny that it would be effective, and it was better than tobacco any day.

Jack was running late. It was closer to half an hour, and I was a small imaginary fortune down, before anyone approached the meeting point. It was a car I didn’t recognize, not that this was saying much with how bad I was at that. It was still enough to make me nervous, but no, it was Jack who got out of the passenger side. After a moment, I recognized the driver as Cassie, and relaxed a bit. Still…odd, and I wasn’t sure what she was doing here, but at least it hadn’t been a false message, something I’d been considering given how strange some of the details of the text were.

We walked over. Cassie looked deeply relieved as she was getting out of the car. I could not blame her for that in the slightest. I’d smelled Jack, and her sense of smell was at least as acute as mine. I wouldn’t want to share a car with him for any appreciable length of time, either.

“Hi,” I said as we walked up to them. “You got dragged along too, huh?”

Cassie shrugged. “I know the scents we’re looking for better than any of the others. It made sense.”

Ah, that did make sense now that she pointed it out. It was the same reason I was here, really. I had the best chance of recognizing the metaphysical traces; she had the best shot at catching a more literal scent. Jack, presumably, was along as muscle in case things went to hell. He wasn’t visibly armed, but that really didn’t matter to a guy like Jack Tar.

Oh, I was sure he had weapons. And some probably didn’t look anything like one; they were just foci, tools he’d enchanted to make it easier to do specific kinds of magic. Maybe some single-use stored spells as well, or other things I wasn’t familiar with. He might even be carrying some of them, it’s not like I was taking a hard enough look at him right now to pick out the signature traces from something like that.

But even if he didn’t have any, he didn’t need them. A mage that strong just…did not require tools to wipe the floor with any normal human and a lot of things that weren’t. They made things easier, sure. But they weren’t necessary. I hadn’t seen him throw down but I was quite sure of that much just from his reputation in the supernatural community.

“Cool. Where are we going?” Saori asked.

“Couple blocks over. I figured we’d wait a few blocks away, keep an eye on the entrance. I don’t expect anyone to start shit here, but this situation is just all kinds of weird and I’d rather err on the side of caution.”

Saori was laughing her head off by the time Jack finished. The mage looked a bit confused. I didn’t explain that it was almost exactly the same thing I’d said about him less than an hour ago. It would have been…awkward.

“You’re the one who knows where we’re going,” I said instead, shrugging.

“Aight. The dvergr should be here shortly. Drove separately. I figure get as many eyes on this as we can, yeah?”

I frowned at that, just a little. Something seemed…wrong. But I still couldn’t pin it down consciously, so I just nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Either of you know anything about this place?”

“Not really,” Cassie said. “Came here once because Derek has a crush on a dancer who performs here occasionally. That’s about it.”

“I got jack shit,” said Jack Tar. “Don’t think it was open last time I was in Pittsburgh. I know Steven was pals with the owner lately one way or another. And I know this isn’t her usual style, people seem pretty clear on that. Normally you know she’s singing on a given night but not what songs. Martin said there’s a rumor she’s some kind of half-fae, and likely leans Midnight if so. But that’s it, just hearsay more or less.”

I nodded. Yeah, that made sense. I made a mental note to tease Derek ruthlessly later, but other than that there was nothing useful there.

Audgrim showed up less than five minutes later, looking more dour than usual. He’d managed to shave since I last saw him, at least. I did not greet him, and he had the good grace to look at least slightly awkward. I could acknowledge that his stunt earlier had been somewhat useful, and given the inexplicable pressure he was getting from his family, he was probably pretty stressed. But it was still a dick move.

“Door opens in fifteen,” Jack said. “Show starts a bit later, just after sundown I think.”

“Cool. Let’s go.” I was grinning again, now. It was the too-wide, not-entirely-friendly grin that made people uncomfortable. I wasn’t worried, though. My teeth were hardly the sharpest in this group.

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The Blackbird didn’t look like much. It looked pretty much the same as the other buildings it shared a lot with. It was an older building, and it was still in the same post-industrial wasteland, part of a warehouse complex that was close to abandoned. There were four buildings advertising that they were for sale, a cider manufacturing company, a pet grooming company, and a gym, all closed for the day.

And then there was the Blackbird Cabaret. The sign was barely noticeable, and there was no exterior ornamentation at all. The few windows were useless, blackout curtains thoroughly obscuring any kind of vision in.

As we got closer, though, any doubt that it was the right place faded. I could feel the resonance around the building. It felt…sad, or perhaps melancholic was the better word. It tasted like blackberries and regret in the back of my throat, like beauty and pain and the place where the two overlapped. It sounded like a soft, gentle lullaby sung to soothe the dying.

There was a small crowd in the parking lot waiting to go inside. I didn’t recognize anyone in it at a glance. Most looked pretty normal, human or nearly so, ordinary urban people. Others…didn’t, not to me. Oh, they could pass for human at a glance. But one guy moved like he wasn’t used to moving on two feet. Another was dressed like this was a Victorian opera, to a degree that was almost comical. There was a woman wearing a domino mask that appeared to be made out of stained glass, and I noted that while the skirt obscured her feet, her gait seemed less like walking than like gliding over the ground.

I didn’t try to figure out what any of them were. There was no reason to. I wouldn’t be able to identify anyone at a distance with that many different signatures overlapping.

The door opened. People started filtering in. The line moved relatively quickly; it was apparently just a matter of paying the fairly low door fee and going inside. The Blackbird Cabaret didn’t do things like tickets. We drifted closer once the line was getting short, and I walked close enough to the building to trail my fingers over the wall.

There was magic here. I was confident of that. The walls hummed under my fingertips, strongly enough that I expected they were actually enchanted rather than just passively soaking in the power of the people who came here. Warding spells, though I’d have to actually examine them to figure out any details. They weren’t currently important. The taste of blackberries strengthened, and there was a hint of blood in it now.

I frowned. This power felt…dark, certainly. There was a distinct feeling of regret in it, but there was also plenty of blood, and some night-blooming flower I couldn’t immediately identify. But it didn’t smell like decay at all. It didn’t feel slick and noxious to my touch. That…had implications. The feeling of wrongness had not gone away.

We paid the person at the door, who appeared to be a human in his early twenties. I actually recognized him; I’d seen him before at Softened Dreams, though I didn’t know his name. Past the door, the Blackbird Cabaret was…a far less luxurious space than I’d expected. It looked like she hadn’t done much of anything to change the warehouse’s layout when she moved in. It was a single large, open room, the only feature a simple stage on the far side of the room. The ceiling was high, lending it a cavernous feeling, and leaving exposed ductwork and steel I-beams visible above us. The floor was bare concrete. I could see one door that appeared to be a small restroom, and there was another door leading to a backstage area, but that was it.

No ornamentation. No furnishings, or seating. Even the kid at the door had been using a small folding table and folding chair rather than any permanent fixture. This building felt almost exactly like the industrial space it had once been. My frown deepened. We went and stood next to one of the walls, watching the last of the audience filtering in.

I was already starting to feel…uncomfortable. There were a lot of people in this room, many of them carrying enough power that I could feel it. So many conflicting signatures was enough to start wearing on me already, filters notwithstanding. Mixing signatures was always prone to unpleasant kinds of energetic dissonance. “This is going to suck,” I said, quietly enough that the rest of the audience wouldn’t hear.

Cassie gave me a sympathetic smile. She didn’t look thrilled herself. It occurred to me, after a moment, that her hearing had to be at least as good as mine. And she could smell all these people as well. It wasn’t just magical sensations that could get overstimulating in this environment.

The hoodie was too warm in here. I didn’t take it off, actually pulled the hood up over my head. I was fidgeting, antsy and restless. Saori looked at me curiously, then stepped closer and draped an arm over my shoulders. I appreciate that. It was…comforting, in several ways.

Suddenly, Jack stirred. He was looking at the entrance, and I followed his gaze after a moment. It was, I saw, dark outside now, the sun fully set. The last few people were stepping inside currently, and they were all definitely…striking. There was a man with an actual, silk-lined opera cloak, whose movements were subtly wrong, alien, somehow carnivorous. There was a woman whose nail polish was constantly shifting, vivid metallic shades flowing slowly through each other, and her smile was as hungry as the first man’s gait. And then, finally, there was someone who looked relatively normal, but distinctly odd. He was wearing a tuxedo ten times too expensive for this place, the same night-black as his hair and cane.

It was the last of these that Jack was focusing on. “What’s he doing here?” the druid said, as quiet as I had been.

“Who is it?” Audgrim asked.

“Sidhe,” Jack said, softly. “You remember the two we were talking about?” This seemed to be directed at me, so I nodded. “This is one of them, the solitary one. Lives just outside of town.”

I frowned. “I thought you said he was a recluse.”

“He is,” Jack agreed. “I don’t know why he’s here. From what I know, he very rarely leaves his home, not without a hell of a good reason.”

I nodded, looking more closely. I didn’t know how Jack recognized the Sidhe, but I was willing to trust his assessment. And now that I looked closer, the man did seem…off. He felt as predatory as the other two, in some way I couldn’t pin down, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary. He was standing at the edge of the crowd, against the wall near the door much as we were against the wall to the side of the room. His hands, in black silk gloves, were folded over each other atop his cane. His expression, even if I’d been closer, would have been hard to read.

This was out of place. My spine itched, and it wasn’t from the energy of the wards against my back. The feeling of wrongness still hadn’t faded, and now it sharpened. I needed to see something. “Wait here,” I murmured, and started sidling through the crowd. I had Saori’s hand to pull her along, though, and Cassie could read my body language enough to see I wanted her to follow as well. Or perhaps she, like me, just thought that this was odd, and she wanted to check whether he smelled like what we were hunting.

It made it easier, in a way, that the split was along gender lines. Three girls can move through a crowded event space naturally in a way that we couldn’t if it had been, say, Andrew here. The bathroom was relatively close to where we wanted to be, and I tried to make it look like I just needed to use it before the show started. Which, I thought, should be in just a few minutes.

We got closer. Saori was unsurprisingly good at this, once she knew what I had in mind; she was quiet, but visibly affectionate, making it look like she was tugging me along by the hand, smiling playfully over her shoulder at me once. Cassie was also a better actress than I would have guessed, looking very much like she was anxious and just didn’t want to wait for us out among the crowd alone. Then again, the anxiety might have been genuine.

Saori glanced at me. I nodded. She slipped into the bathroom, and left me to wait outside. It was natural that I’d mill around slightly, and that Cassie would follow. That was enough to get me a clear look at the Sidhe, and from much closer up.

From the looks of things, I needn’t have bothered with the act. He was…not watching me. Not watching the crowd at all. His eyes were fixed on the empty stage, and they were distant. There was some emotion in them that I didn’t recognize, perhaps didn’t have a name for. He was still in a way that humans aren’t, not fidgeting or shifting his weight, barely breathing; I didn’t think he was even blinking.

Out of place. I needed to know more, needed to see more. I looked back to make sure that Audgrim and Jack were still there; it took a moment to find them in the crowd, but they were, and they were looking in my direction. As close to safety as I was going to find currently. I took a deep breath and then dropped my filters, let the world rush in.

It always hit me like a drug, the sudden, massive rush of sensation hitting all at once and at high intensity. Most of the time it was intense, pleasurable, the sensations vivid and wonderful. Occasionally, as when I’d seen the corpses of Chris and Steven, it was hellishly unpleasant.

This wasn’t exactly either of those. It wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t the vile, noxious feeling that magic had left behind. It was just…so much. I was managing to only lower them partially and it was still overpowering, a kaleidoscopic flood so intense and so chaotic that it was overwhelming to be around. I had to stop walking, and Cassie had to physically steady me or I would have fallen.

When I was younger, these senses had driven me genuinely, deeply insane. When Pepper said I was a madwoman, or when I told Saori that my mental connections were loose and the metaphorical gears of my mind were stripped, these things weren’t jokes. They weren’t hyperbole. Before I’d learned to filter this awareness out somewhat, living in one of the most crowded cities in the world had been overwhelming. Combined with other factors, it was enough to break things in my head. I spent a few years so far off the deep end that I’d never entirely come back.

Learning to maintain those filters had been an extreme relief. As much as I disliked opting into blindness, it was a godsend to be able to. Moments like this reminded me why.

Too many auras, too much noise, too many different, clashing signatures. I could smell blackberries and wolf and lavender, and also blood and lemons and honey and gasoline and stone and freshly cut grass, all at once, all vivid, oversaturated, realer than real. I could see the shimmering feeling of human magic, because enough of these people were human enough that there was a cloud of that, but also veins of black that crawled across my vision like lightning, and a low crimson hunger emanating from the man in the opera cloak. I could hear a rushing sound in my ears, though that might have been from my own heartbeat, and I could hear a soft murmuring like waves, and a second murmuring like whispering voices just barely above the threshold of hearing, and something like the buzzing of wasps, and something else like the wind howling above a lonely glacier.

I managed to focus my attention enough to pick out the Sidhe specifically. He smelled like blood in the dark and leaves in the spring, nothing like rot at all. He looked dark, but it was a natural darkness, the endless dark of a moonless night. There was power in him, deep power, a river made of shadows and pain and a laughter that was low and bitter and bloodstained, the current so strong that it threatened to pull me in and drown me.

I forced myself to look away, which was a Herculean task in that moment. I struggled to put the filters fully back up, shook my head trying to clear it. It wasn’t working.

I didn’t try to go back to where we had been standing. I was pretty sure I’d fall if I tried to walk. I blinked a few times, still feeling confused, overloaded. Something was so very wrong. Why was he here? There was a reason, had to be, things like this didn’t happen for no reason, nothing involving someone that powerful happened without a reason.

I realized that Saori was standing beside me now. She was all but holding me up, in fact. I wasn’t sure when that had started. “You alright?” she asked me, low and urgent.

“Yes. No. I don’t know, I don’t…this is wrong, why, why are we, is he, something smells wrong, why are we here?”

“Kyoko, you’re scaring me a bit. Do you need to go outside?”

Before I could answer, the mood in the crowd shifted, sharpened, focused. Everyone was looking the same direction, and I knew what that meant, but I couldn’t keep myself from looking as well.

Capinera was a pale woman, with night-black hair and sad, deep blue eyes that I shouldn’t have been able to see clearly from so far away. She was taller than me, and slender. She was smiling, and the smile was sad too, and I whimpered when I saw it, when I felt that melancholic blackberry-and-night magic. I was swaying on my feet. I blinked, shook my head again. I felt lightheaded, dizzy. Saori was saying something, but I didn’t hear it. I was staring at the stage, everyone was. A hush fell over the room, an anticipation sharp enough to cut glass.

Capinera started to sing. It was Welsh; it was the song we’d heard about, that everyone had heard about, and why, why had we heard, why had anyone heard? It didn’t matter. Her voice was sweetness and pain and silver fire, and it was full of longing, a wild, melancholic ache. I didn’t know the language, but I didn’t need to. Her voice was so sharp, and the emotion in it was so stark, so pure it hurt.

Around me, I could feel people feeling it. We were all feeling the same emotion, in that moment, the same wild longing, a hole in my soul that I didn’t know how to fill. We all felt that fierce homesickness, a longing for a home that perhaps we had never actually known, nostalgia for a better time that never truly happened.

It was the same emotion in the song, and it was the same emotion in the Sidhe’s eyes. Now that I had the context, now that it was hitting me at such high intensity, from so many directions all at once, I could name it. It was hiraeth, a Welsh concept that didn’t quite exist in English, but we all still knew how to experience it, how to feel that profound, wild longing.

It was too much. The filters I’d been struggling to put back into place required thought, and normally that thought was so familiar as to be reflexive, something I had thought so much that now it could almost think itself. But right now, I couldn’t, I was too transported by the song and by the feeling of the room around me.

The barriers fell. The world poured in, a room full of magic and full of a single aching need. Capinera’s voice was silver and lightning and sweet, broken-hearted regret as she sang an ancient ballade about a lover left behind, sending a bird out to her distant beloved with the news that she would die before the season’s end. I didn’t know the words, but I understood it. In that moment, I understood everything in the world.

I felt my knees give out. I fell against Saori, and I could smell fox and spice and smoke and blood and leaves and lilacs and memories that cut like claws. My vision faded out into storm, and the world went away.
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