The face forgives the mirror, the worm forgives the plow
Question begs the answer, can you forgive me somehow?
-"All the World is Green" by Tom Waits
Every night before I rest my head
See those dollar bills go swirling round my bed
-"Free Money" by Patti Smith
Seven of Cups
Chicago, 1936
"She went down this way!"
I ran into my apartment and slammed the door shut, cursing my mother's name and whatever else deserved to be cursed this deep into the night. I didn't dare flick the light on, knowing they'd see it as a beacon and follow it like flies to meat, so in the shadows I worked like a madwoman, grabbing at the little trinkets I had earned and the cash I sweated and bled for, stuffing it into the pockets I had hand-stitched into the lining of my raincoat, and, most importantly, the tiny little thing wrapped in a black silk cloth. When Lady Dusk hires the best, and she always hires the best because you don't never hear about those ones that think they can skimp and be less than perfect, she don't expect nothing less than what she wants.
And this little thing, this dinky black not-quite-a-shape jumping in my pocket close to my left breast, was something Lady Dusk really, really wanted bad. I'm sure I could've skinned her for a bit steeper price, but the thing is that when you understand you're only a very little thing in a reality filled with much, much larger things, and all equally as insignificant and unimportant as you are, you get used to the cosmic caste system real quick, and you don't complain when they throw you a bone, no matter how small or chewed up it already is.
I could hear them pounding the cheap red and gold carpeted floor in the hall outside, the tall one with the Brit accent and the short sturdy one with lilac skin. Doors were being flung open, shouts of outrage like gunshots in the night, and if I wasn't quick I knew there just might be a real gunshot or two going to happen. I didn't know who they were working for, if they were a pair of Lady Dusk's molls trying to make good rubbing out a simple courier, or if I had just involuntarily done a big no-no and crossed two working jobs. But one thing was for damn sure, and I was getting right the hell outta here.
Another door slammed open out in the hall, shattered open from the sound of it, the old woman from room twenty-two shouting in quick furious Romani. The two chasing me spoke to each other, too quiet for me to hear, and their footsteps were at it again on the floor. They were crashing through room to room looking for me; they were either so inexperienced at this game that they didn't catch on to the rules or so very confident that they didn't care if I heard them coming or not.
But this was a game that I wasn't new to; I've lost a few cards, but I've never lost a hand yet. Certain that I had everything of close value tucked into my pockets, I went to the window and threw it open. The August fog drew a tentative limb inside, withdrawing almost disdainfully. The whole of Downtown was engulfed in a pale haze, smoky from the new electric lampposts, the streets choked with the mingling scents of sewage, spices from the Arabia-Oriental shop below, diesel exhaust, and excess from the Ford assembly factories down south. There was no fire escape, but shinnying down the drainpipe wasn't too hard in this weather, and just a little bit quicker.
"Amethyst, get out of the way!"
"No way. This one's mine!"
Moments coalesce and stretch out, like one oil slick reaching out and touching another to become something bigger. Everything around me seemed slow and hazy when I reached and gave myself up to gravity, sliding down the thirty slippery feet, keeping the fabric of my sleeves over my palms so my skin wouldn't imitate a whining pig on the metal. The moment I hit the ground I dodged to the big Sycamore that stood crooked in the tiny yard, hearing voices calling out. I looked up and saw the short lilac-skinned one poke her head out of the window. She sniffed the night air and scanned the ground below, looked out into the street where I knew she couldn't see nothing but vague grey shapes in the fog. She let out an animalistic snarl and beat the windowpane with a heavy fist. The windows around my floor all danced at the impact, and she disappeared back into the shadows of the room.
"Too slow, sister," I mumbled to the wind and the fog that seemed conjured just for me. I pulled the collar of my coat up and slunk into the street, humming a tune I don't quite remember hearing in the city. I made a series of gestures with my hands and spoke a few words, pulling the fog closer around me, just like adjusting a jacket on my shoulders. I allowed my nose to reacquaint itself with Chicago's murky musk, not daring to be encumbered by overconfidence. Nothing killed anyone in my profession faster than overconfidence.
For all my cockiness, I don't dare deny this job its precariousness. Just like the more earthbound versions of this profession, there can be dangers hiding behind every shadow, holes to fall into if you didn't keep your eyes wide open. Not long ago, a friend of mine made the assumption that there was nothing good about my profession, that getting in Dutch with clients was easier than not, and that it would be better were one to be in trouble with one of the mob families scattered across America's cities; to hear him tell it, you'd think every skinny white girl from New Orleans dabbled in cosmic arcana, as if I wasn't the only one peddling artifacts and curios between dimensions. Well, no, I'm not the only one, but let's face it, the job pool is pretty small. You see, I do it so that I don't end up like all the bums and winos I see cavorting on every street corner and within dim boxcars like zoo animals. I do it so that my sister doesn't have to keep on selling fortunes and ghosts in the French Quarter. I do it because, hell, it's fun and at thirty I'm still young enough to move quickly enough.
But mostly, I think, I do it because I can't stop. Once you've tasted butter on bread, every slice of unbuttered bread forever afterward becomes a dead promise. Fear is reconstituted into adrenaline, a job culminates in wealth (for the most part), and you see the world for how it had been meant to be seen, I think. Every shadow becomes darker, and every light grows brighter. And besides, clients don't exactly like it when you give them good business and then suddenly cut and run, especially those repeat clients.
Maybe I'm just talking rubbish, spewing garbage from a tired mind. There was also worry squirming inside me; just how in the world(s) did those two find me? Who were they working for, and what exactly were their intentions? Were they after me for the gemstone, or for some other reason? Coincidences, chance? All of these questions pointed in one direction. I needed a drink.
Benny's was right at the end of the street, lying squat and bent like a wood-and-brick Quasimodo in the fog with the halogen glow making a small ineffectual gouge in the mist. I knew the owner, a Lemurian masquerading as a human, and he knew that my tab would always be paid for, in honest cash or somewhat honest baubles. He kept a sawed-off beneath the counter for the Sicilians that got too pushy, or in case any of his old pals from his past decided to drop by. The smart ones knew better.
I slid inside, fully aware of how I looked and not caring an ounce. I eyed the room, energy venting into my legs, ready to bolt at the moment a dangerous error made itself present. It was a barren affair, with a wood floor and several tables by the wall, all the steel painted to look like ineffectual gold. A man and a woman were playing Gin Rummy by the far wall, actors from the follies or Vaudeville or maybe even Claude Rimbaud's Wondrous Carnival from up the street; an old man who looked like a dead ringer for Popeye's father was sat bent over his seat by the far wall, reading a dog-eared and mud-stained copy of Homer's The Odyssey; another woman sat at the counter, much too gaudily dressed for this neighborhood. She wasn't exactly wearing silks and diamonds, but she wasn't no Tin Pan Alley girl, either. Probably one of the girls just come in after doing a show at Tenemann's Vanities.
I went over to sit at the bar, keeping a weather eye on the other inhabitants. Call me paranoid, but even an old man can pull a trigger, and these days you don't have to pay them much. Benny put away the glass he'd been wiping and tossed the rag over his shoulder, put both hands on the counter, looking every inch an old fashioned booze jockey.
"Evenin', Cleo," he said. "Get you anything?"
"You know what I need, pal. On the rocks."
"Fair enough, but you know I make a delicious stew, one hundred percent homemade."
"Benny, you been pushing that stew business ever since you opened. Now unless you put whiskey in it, you can just keep it on the shelf. Unless you want me to tell you where else to put it."
Benny pulled a bitter scowl and slapped his towel down on the bar. He went to the back wall and grabbed the whiskey bottle, mumbling something about bums. He was a good sort; he kept his mouth shut. The glass shot the finished wood with ripples of golden brightness from the overhanging lights, static rattlesnake hiss coming from the radio. Just another weekend. I drained the shot and poured another one, the liquid fire falling right to my stomach. Benny went away to appropriate the stock in the backroom, leaving us denizens of the bar to wallow as we see fit.
"I'm sure he meant well," the woman said beside me, from beneath her cloche.
I scoffed. "You ever tried that stuff? It's like he cooked raw sewage and decided to call it stew."
"Well, then I guess I owe you thanks for saving me."
To say that she was beautiful would be to make a grave understatement. She was, in plain fact, a knockout. With short cut hair the color of a tangerine, bright light blue eyes that seemed to absorb every detail they witnessed, a frown that spoke of sadness, maybe past or present. She also had the palest skin I'd ever seen on a person, bright and almost translucent like alabaster or mother-of-pearl, and the longest, sharpest nose I'd ever seen.
"I guess the pleasure's all mine." I said as I poured myself another shot. "I don't think I remember saving anyone quite like you before tonight."
She forfeited a polite smile and gave a measured nod. "Our reputations follow us, no matter where we go. You wear yours on your sleeve, Miss Bixby."
That shut me up and made a lump of ice begin to gestate with the whiskey. I set down the glass and looked at her, eyeing the way she rolled her own glass in her hands…had she taken a drink once since I sat down? I looked around at the others in the diner, trying to see some clandestine operation going on, but couldn't, not at this moment.
She was looking at me with those curious hawk's eyes of hers. I wondered if there was someone with her waiting outside the door in case I am-scrayed. Those two that had been after me earlier, maybe? Yeah, maybe. It was long wicked moments like this that I was grateful for the big Webley I kept secreted in my right pants pocket, because no New Orleans girl who makes her business wheeling and dealing the same crap I do is stupid enough to not keep an iron on her. I didn't want to plug this one, not if she didn't give me a reason not to.
"You've got me at a disadvantage," I said. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."
"No, you don't."
"I'll bet it's something nice. Something bright and pretty and soft, something that has absolutely no dark streak or anything untoward about it."
"It's Pearl, actually."
I nodded and took another shot. That might be her real name, might not. I wasn't in any place to judge, and besides it wasn't important. The liquid was just settling at the bottom of my stomach and doing nothing to wash away the anxiety that was crawling along my skin. "This isn't a chance meeting, is it, Pearl? No reason for someone like me to be walking into this place and meeting someone like you."
"And what kind of a person are you, Miss Bixby?"
"What kind of a person do you think I am, Miss Pearl?"
The shadows grew along her face as she dipped her head down, staring into her glass like a crystal ball. "You're being defensive. There's no need for that as long as you listen to me very carefully."
I knew it, I knew it. The Webley seemed like it wanted to jump out of my pocket and wreak some havoc on this pretty flower. Lady Dusk must have really left her garbage in someone's lawn to have so many people wanting to botch up her plans. That might be it, might be for another job I'd pulled from who knows when, and what does any of that matter right now? I poured myself another drink, but I let it sit there in the glass, liquid amber casting honey glow on the countertop. I watched the ripples while Pearl, or whatever her name may be, went on.
"I know how this looks, Miss Bixby. You must think that I represent some danger to you and whatever deal you currently have, or that I might cause some physical harm to you. I want you to know that I don't care about whatever deals you might have with Lady Dusk. I've heard about how she can be, and I don't want you to get into any trouble over this with her. I represent someone who can help you, Miss Bixby—"
"If we're going to keep this conversation active, you may as well start calling me by my first name."
She pursed her lips and cleared her throat, suddenly looking annoyed. With me or with herself I didn't know. "Fine, fine. Anyway, we can help you. We know that nine days ago, you made a purchase in Zothique with a Mr. Vannevar, your contact, for a small item that he had procured, at no small expense, from a half-buried city. The city had no name, and it was constructed entirely out of gemstone. Starting a few days after that, you've been chased by some soldiers, priests of Thasaidon, who've been trying to intercept the stone so they can use it for their own needs. I hear Lady Dusk has been rubbing shoulders the wrong way with her neighbors, and they're not taking it too well."
I mused on that as I ran a fingertip along my glass's rim. How she knew all of that I had no idea, but it did make sense. Lady Dusk likes working in the shadows, but lately she's been making plays left and right. The Thasaidon bit seemed to pan out, too. I recognized the dark silken garb they had worn before I gave them the slip. But what about the two new ones that have been on my tail since Manhattan and never let up? People from Zothique made it a point never to jump planets, and the ones who did were unaware of Earth. I downed my shot and poured myself another in one movement. "If you know all that, then you must know old Dusky gave me two weeks to nab the stone and bring it to her myself, and that she'd kill anyone else the stone comes in contact with."
"That's not my problem, nor can it be yours. Listen, you don't know how the stone works, or even what it is. If you agree to give us the stone, we can keep you safe from Lady Dusk."
"Mm-hmm. How do I know Dusky didn't hire you to see if I'd rat out on her? If you know all about her, then you know she's prone to pull stunts like that, and unlike some people, I know where my loyalties lie."
"Don't talk to me about loyalty, Cleopatra."
The look she gave me was in a realm beyond seriousness. Experience in a flexible reality allowed me to see the life behind those iridescent eyes of hers, a life that was not unused to pain, hardship, and, apparently, loyalty. There were so many emotions and passions in that one look that I couldn't place the dominant one. I realized just now how much I was dealing with someone whom I had no idea about, and that jangled my nerves again. In this case, more so than usual. I swirled the liquor in my glass and stared at the table, happy to change the topic so I didn't have to see that look. "One thing bugs me, though. About the two that have been following me around town…"
"Yes?"
"They're with you, aren't they? Garnet and Amethyst?"
A pause, a swirl in her glass. "Yes, they are."
"The tall Brit and the little animal," I said and scoffed, ignoring her look of confusion. "By the way, how did you ever hear about me?"
"We heard about you through our mutual friend, Miss Bunny."
Were this world a Stooges skit, I would have sprayed my drink in a fine mist along the entire back wall. "Bunny Laveau!? I haven't seen her in months…what's that old broad doing these days? How many stupid stories did she tell you about me?"
She stared down at her glass, at whatever lay down in there. "Just the one, before she died."
The chill that bit at my bones broke through my skin, forcing out sweat. I searched her pale face for deceit, but there was none. It was impossible, absolutely nonsense; Bunny wouldn't be—wouldn't have been—so foolish as to let anything bad happen to her. She was getting on in years, sure, but that in no way meant a reduction in senses or faculty. She was, to put it in her terms, a mean old mama gator, a title that that was not without justification. Her cunning, wit, and courage kept her above the black waters in which we so freely either swam or drowned. It was through her constantly evolving advice that put me where I am, that kept my sanity intact.
When Bunny retired, she set up a candle shop that doubled as an orphanage cum safe house. A damn orphanage. Half the kids on Bidelia Street were picking pockets and breaking into houses just to survive before Bunny moved in, and afterward they were living there with her, and that they were all doing a lot better. That she was dead made her face appear in my glass, her wispy grey-black hair hanging over thin ebony shoulders, brown eyes so bright they were practically golden, and her smile. The smell of clove-scented cigarettes, gumbo, jasmine and Kyphi incense melding into the thick water-heavy southern air. Candles burning like stars in the abyss…swamp magick…her smile…I can't remember the last thing she said to me.
I kept seeing Bunny's face as I glared at Pearl and said "I suppose you and your friends Charlie and McCarthy outside had nothing to do with that."
"It happened after I spoke to her, I swear it. We think it might have been a coincidental burglary, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it might have been someone working for Lady Dusk."
I swore at her, and swore again as I drank my glass. Where the hell had Ben run off to? He's been an awful long time in the storeroom. Tears were welling in my eyes for the sister-mother I would never see again, and I shook my head. "No, no, it couldn't have been you. Bunny would've ripped you to pieces."
"Oh, I don't think that would have happened!"
I threw her a look and the smile vanished from her face like a five dollar bill in Lafayette. I wanted to hit her, strike her so badly that not even the rats would have her, but I stayed my hand. And I drank.
"I mean," Pearl began, stopped, started again. "I mean, she would've more than likely not destroyed us outright, I think. She surely would have drowned us or poisoned us or whatever else kills us humans slowly."
"Oui," I said, and let out a chuckle. "C'est ça. That's what Bunny would have done. Nice and slow."
Pearl relinquished a nervous smile and went back to staring at her glass, and I to mine. It was just then that I got it, like a light flickering on inside my mind; the three women were all named after gems. It was odd that I didn't catch onto that earlier.
I don't know how much time passed beneath the sallow light, and really it didn't matter. All I could see was Bunny, remembered all the times we'd skulked around ancient temples, forgotten caverns, and desiccated cities, invaded other worlds for the mere purpose of monetary gain. We were the CEOs of the blackest of black markets, and when Bunny retired, I was crushed. And now…
Well, at least she was only dead.
"What is it?" I asked after a while.
"Huh?"
I took out the little stone, still wrapped in its black silk container. Pearls eyes went wide and she reached out for it; I might have been plastered, but not so that my reflexes were completely shot. I jerked it out of her grasp and held it up to my eye, watching as the dark fabric seemed to eat the light around it. "What's the stupid stone supposed to be? Is it like a key or something? A weapon? Old Lady Dusky wouldn't be spending precious time and resources to acquire this thing if it wasn't something along those lines. Wouldn't you say, Pearl?"
The danger was growing in Pearl's eyes, fear rising into desperation, and I knew she wanted this thing as much as Lady Dusk. Could be for the same reasons. "Don't fiddle around with that! You don't know what it is!" Pearl shouted, spilling her glass. The old man looked up from his book, the two card players casting concerned eyes our way, but after getting a look at me they went right back to what they were doing.
"Enlighten me," I told her.
Pearl's wide eyes twitched along with the corner of her mouth, her plan, or her boss's plan, in danger. I tossed the bag up in the air and caught it, did it again just to watch her squirm. "Please, stop that," she mumbled, the thin pupils of her eyes locked on the prize. On the fifth toss, she tried to make a grab at it; my other hand came in from the side, python swiftness, and pinned her wrist to the table. The silk-wrapped stone landed in my palm and I held it up under her nose.
"What is it?" I asked. Suddenly she ripped out of my grip, betraying far more strength than was visible in those thin arms of hers. She grabbed at it with her other hand; I tossed it into the air, snatched my whiskey and tossed it into her face. She cried out and wiped at her eyes, and the stone made its way back into my palm again.
"You…" she growled, dabbing at her eyes with her coat sleeve. I would have offered her a handkerchief had I any to offer. Still, it was nice seeing her angry. She leapt out of her seat, reached up under her hat—
A flash of white like lightning, and when I opened my eyes again the point of a rapier was tickling the air in front of my nose. Fury was casting an infernal trail behind her eyes, brow creased in rage. Her hat had fallen from her crown and I could now see a very large gemstone set into the center of her forehead, smooth and circular, a pearl the size of my fist. The look in her eyes told me she was more than willing to take a few lives if it meant acquiring the object. To punctuate that theory, she said "I'm not leaving here without that stone, Miss Bixby. No more of these stupid games. Just, please hand it over and all of this can be over and done with."
'Us humans,' huh?
I noticed that the tip of the blade was shaking. The other patrons in the diner had all legged it out of there, except for the old man who was so engrossed in his book that I doubted the Old Ones' second coming would be enough to pull him away from it. I looked up into her pretty, pretty eyes, a plan cutting through the alcoholic haze I'd put myself in, and I smiled at her. "Do you honestly think I've never been in situations like this before? Mon petite perle, you insult me."
Her other hand stretched out to me, palm up to the ceiling. "Give it to me now," she said, no trace of sympathy there anymore. I nodded and slowly, very slowly, offered her the black silk package.
"Just one little thing," I said, pulling my hand away. Pearl's face became a rictus of exasperation. "It's just one tiny niggling thing that's been gnawing at me ever since I took this job. I feel that, in order to understand the possible consequences of this option, I should at least know what it is I've been carting around all this time."
"You don't need to understand anything!"
"You're right. I don't need to, but I would like to. Just indulge me this one thing, Pearl, and I promise I'll give you the stone with fuss. Word of honor."
She swayed on her dainty feet, suddenly looking unsure of herself. "I could just take it from you," she said.
"Yes, you could. I mean, you could try, at least, but you've been watching me, Pearl. You know what I can do, and you know that, even though I'm just a bitty little human, I can still give you grief. Maybe another circuit around town, or the next one? Ever chased someone between dimensions, Pearl? It's awfully time-consuming. So why don't you just settle yourself down, have a drink, and tell me all about this little piece of trouble."
I could see she was weighing the options in her mind; lower lip pursed, disappearing beneath her teeth, pursed again. She lowered the sword, raised it again, lowered it down to the floor. Her eyes darted to the doorway, then down to me. With apparently great effort, she sat back down in her seat. Her sword she placed on the table, positioning it in a manner that suggested she could cleave me in twain with one tiny flick of her wrist if she so desired. I put my hand on the table, palm up to show the stone, not once weakening my grip on it. I was taking one hell of a chance, I know, but if I was going to have blood spilled over this thing, I'd like to know what all the fuss was about.
"Alright," she began. "Many thousands of years ago, a war was fought on earth, a war that, if it had been allowed to continue, would have ruptured the entire planet."
"Between R'lyeh and Atland," I said. "Yeah, I know about that."
Pearl shut her eyes and rubbed at the spot of skin between them. I apologized and motioned for her to continue.
And then she told me. She told me about the Gems, an ancient society with a vicious caste, a ruthless mindset, a war of factions; their own civil war fought on Earth. She told me that neither side wanted to lose, both were so set in their minds that neither would give an inch, so they each plotted their own little secrets while battles were waged on the front lines. Casting advantages in the shadows, and what I was holding in my hand, what Lady Dusk was having happy dreams about, was one of them.
"And that stone that you're holding is a key, and a door. It's a weapon and a castle…whatever you want it to be."
"A little pocket dream," I mumbled to myself, running my fingertips over the black silk. "With that kind of hardware, old Dusky could wipe out the competition and anyone else that gets in her way."
Pearl nodded. "Yes. Anyone in possession of the stone is a potential disaster waiting to happen. So you understand, Cleopatra. The stone must come back with us, so we can keep it safe from everyone else."
"And you have no desire to keep this little miracle for yourself, eh? Make your dreams come true?"
Pearl balked, blanched. "Of course not! I'm not that shortsighted."
"Of course not." I hefted the wrapped stone, rolled it through my fingers, watching Pearl's revolving expressions. I was trying to weigh all of the options I had before me, but the whiskey was fogging everything up; in hindsight, I probably should have ordered the stew. In hindsight, I should have steered clear of this stupid place so I didn't have to meet this little thorn and get myself deeper into the well. I poured myself another shot and left it there, watching the soft amber glow being cast onto the burnished wood. Pearl began tapping her fingers together, and when I looked back at her, her eyes were wide, expectant, concealing viciousness. A train screamed outside from somewhere down the tracks.
"Alright, mon sauvage, you've managed to sway me. I still don't know what your intentions are, but if you can keep Dusky's hands off me, as you say…"
"We can, we can."
"Then you can have the stupid thing. You're prettier than she is anyway."
Pearl smiled and held out her hands for the trinket. I didn't hold back the smile that had been welling inside me; I raised my hand up above hers, watching her face. I tipped my hand over—
And when the black salt slipped out of my fingers and into her hands in a grainy stream, Pearl's gleaming face disintegrated into a look of horror. As she sat there staring at that mound of obsidian granules, I managed to messily choke back a laugh. She looked up at me, her mouth working in an effort to get the words out, eyes searching for an answer.
I showed her my palm, displaying the big enneagram scarred and inked with unearthly tinctures. Slapping my fingers onto my palm, the stone reappeared, and I held it between middle and forefinger. "Sorry, kid," I told her, feeling genuinely sorry for her, feeling bad for the trouble she must have been put through in order to reach a dead end. "This isn't the first time I've been made a cross-offer. It's nothing against you or your cause, it's just Dusky's an old friend, and I know she always pays. Be seeing you around, mon perle."
As I stood and hiked up the collar of my coat, there was a tremendous explosion by the western wall. Wood, brick, and plaster were pulverized into a fine smoke and fanned out to fill the room. I hid my face from the rubble, loudly cursing. I saw that the remaining old man glanced up from his book for a moment before returning to the page.
"There she is!" I heard over the falling of splintered brick, a voice I recognized as belonging to the little feral child with lilac skin. I didn't need no second warning; I bolted for the front door, but before I could get more than a few feet I felt a familiar vice of nickel and steel clamp down around my wrist. My momentum and my trapped arm forced my legs out from under me, and I ended up on my back, back of my head striking the floor, wind knocked out of me, the sick yellow light much too bright. When the brightness faded a bit, there were three faces staring down at me with triumphant, self-satisfied expressions, and I swore again.
"Good work, Pearl," Garnet said, observing the little black stone in her hand. She offered a grin and adjusted her thick spectacles. The one they called Amethyst was smiling, her face one big grin. She was wearing a raincoat that seemed about twice her size, a filthy old Homberg perched low over her eyes. Pearl gave me a dark look, her fingers locked firmly on the other end of the handcuffs.
"Don't move, dirt bag!" Amethyst shouted. "We've got you surrounded! Give yourself up quietly and there won't be any need to prosecute!"
Pearl rolled her eyes. "Amethyst, you've got to stop listening to those radio programs."
Amethyst, it seemed, wasn't listening. Her grin seemed to widen as she hefted a length of black whip, violet crystals periodically set into the material. "Oh, I hope this doesn't make it to court…"
Clearing my throat, I licked my dried lips and wondered how big the bump was on the back of my head. I tried to grin and tipped Pearl a wink. "Introducing me to your friends already? And here I am not even knowing you're favorite color."
Love is a gambler's hex. I should have seen this coming a mile away, but I didn't. This is what I get for trusting a pretty face.
"Take a right," Garnet said. Pearl huffed and said she knew where she was going. I tried to breathe, a biological imperative made into a gargantuan feat when you're lying on your stomach in the back of a '33 Willys Coupe with a kid who weighs the equivalent of an elephant sitting on your back. I tried to make the gestures that would distort and polarize an orb of space-time around me so I could get out of this jam, but they had cuffed my hands behind my back and wrapped a length of cloth around my eyes. All in all, this wasn't a very pleasing situation. I didn't like it one bit.
"How's she doing back there, Amethyst?" Pearl said. The feral child roughly patted the back of my head, sparking bolts of agony when she struck the spot where my cranium connected with the diner floor. I growled at her to knock it off.
"Don't worry about it, Pearl. She's still conscious."
I tried to count how long we had been driving, marking the turns, gauging the speed and distance, but so far couldn't reach any obvious conclusions. After a time, we reached a worn dirt road, a fact that Amethyst took great relish in. There was only one other time that I had been in a fix like this, when I had procured a shipment of tommy guns and dynamite for certain folks in a certain coastal town in Massachusetts. I was supposed to leave the truck in the warehouse district of Innsmouth and meet with a man named Marsh for the payment. Back then I wasn't such a good judge of character; the scumbag tried to double-cross me. He had his men corner me in my motel room and knock me out, and when I awoke I was lashed naked to a pole in some dank underwater cavern. You can trust I beat the hell outta there the moment I could move my hands. Last time I have anything to do with New England.
Chicago, it seemed, was just as bad. The Willys struck a rock in the road, causing it and Amethyst to bounce, and I felt both blows. This went on for a short while before the Willys ground to a merciful halt. Amethyst imitated the sound of the wheels screeching on the dirt and then inexplicably chuckled.
Doors opening, doors shutting. The weight of Amethyst there and gone. Just then I was hauled up out of the rear seat by the back of my raincoat and felt my feet touch coarse dirt. The cloth was removed from my eyes, and Garnet was staring down at me, surely some kind of expression hiding behind those spectacles. I looked around and noted that we were in some kind of garbage dump or state-implemented junkyard, lit by a sizeable campfire. A tumbledown shack had been erected some distance away, looking like it was about to sink into the morass of garbage that surrounded it at any moment.
"Don't move," Garnet said, and I didn't. I watched her walk away toward the shack, saw fireflies alighting on the frames of ruined and forgotten vehicles. It didn't strike me until the shack door had opened and Garnet returned how vibrant the vegetation was around here, how great and brilliant the flowers were. I didn't know the names for them, but there were an awful lot of pinks and reds.
Pearl and Amethyst stood on either side of me, and Garnet stepped behind me, hemming me in. Very, very clever. They told me to start walking to the shack, and, still trying to see any other road open for me, I did as they told me. Eventually their guard would weaken, and I'd slip through the cracks, there and gone again.
Halfway there the shack door opened, and out stepped the biggest woman I'd ever laid eyes on. She wasn't big in a sense of width, or even in height, she was just big. Towering over me by several feet, with broad yet dainty shoulders and a span of curled pink hair that cascaded around her, greatly increasing her silhouette. The titaness had kind eyes, kind eyes locked in concern.
Pearl told me to stop, and I did. The big woman's eyes blinked once, and softened. She had a mother's face, or, more appropriately, a Mother's face. She smiled at me, and I felt myself smiling back.
"It's nice to finally meet you in person, Miss Bixby. You've had us all worried for some time. You've led us on a grand chase, to be sure, but the chase is over. Pearl told you why you're here."
"Yeah," I said, feeling like a scolded child and feeling bad for feeling like a scolded child. "You've got the stone now. I suppose you'll be wanting to tie up this loose end."
She gave me a perplexed look, glanced at the others, and shook her head. "No, Miss Bixby, you've got us all wrong. The stone isn't in our hands quite yet."
The three around me let out a collective "What?" of pure compulsory puzzlement, and were it not for the cottony dryness of my mouth I would have joined them. She looked to each of them in turn and then down into her hands, at the little black stone that had somehow been encased in a brilliantly pink semi-transparent bubble. "I will not accept this if it has been taken by force. I won't have you leaving us feeling angry or scared. I want you to want to give us the stone, Miss Bixby. This particular item is very important, but not so important that it nullifies common decency and honor."
At this I think she threw a look at Pearl, but I couldn't be sure. "Garnet, remove her handcuffs, please." I heard Garnet make a noncommittal and uncertain noise, but the femme géant repeated the word "please," a word seemingly made magick from her lips, and soon enough there was a brief crunching sound, and the cuffs fell from my wrists to the ground.
I rubbed at the raw and red indentation, feeling just a tad more than confusion. In the earthbound version of this trade, sympathy is a rarity, and when that pool widens to include distant stars and faraway civilizations, it grows even rarer. I felt a stinging sliver of suspicion try to tell me there was something else afoot, but I couldn't see it.
"Rose, are you certain about this?" Pearl said, her bottom lip lost somewhere between her teeth. She threw me a doubting look, and I remembered how grimly she had told me not to talk to her about loyalty.
"Yes, I am. I trust Miss Bixby just as much as you trust me. You do trust me, don't you?"
Pearl nodded. A bit too early, I thought, biting the inside of my cheek. The big woman, Rose, held out her hand, and I could only stare at it as though it might grow fangs and attack. I looked up at her eyes, drawn into the kindness held therein, and I found my hand rising and falling over hers. Fingers clenched, and she smiled. I heard Pearl clear her throat, a bit too coarsely, suggesting the touch of a little green monster. Well, well, well.
Rose set the little black stone into my hand and stood to the side, motioning for me to enter the shack. I stepped forward, feeling the other three keeping so close to my heels they were practically stepping on 'em. I opened the door to shadows and dust, the aromatic scent of flowers as thick as a wall. Standing off to the side to allow the others to filter into the small space, I pressed myself against the wall, feeling cobwebs and the moist touch of flower stems.
A shot of white light lit up the room, and I was amazed when I saw that the light was coming from the gemstone in Pearl's forehead (neat trick, but I knew a few, too). The room was virtually empty, barren save for a few shelves and a cabinet. In the center of the floor, however, jutting up from the ground itself, was a thick circular dais made of thick bluish crystal, encircled by protruding prisms and rocks.
What luck! What sordid goddesses of fair fortune did I have on my side! These people must use the same warp points I use from time to time, whenever I'm feeling a bit exhausted and too bothered to use other means of transportation. I thought about it, and it struck me that they might have been the ones that constructed these points. The shack must have been built for the sole purpose of sheltering it.
I felt Garnet's hand fall on my shoulder like a mortar shell. "After you," she said, pushing me onto the pad.
"What're you talking about? Where are you taking me?"
"We said we'd keep you safe," Rose said "and that's what we're going to do. Lady Dusk has fingers that reach far and wide, but there's at least one place which she has no knowledge of. Please."
"Uh, alright…"
As the others stepped onto the pad alongside me, I did my best to control my mind and hide the grin that tried to force itself out on my face. In an instant I saw the road open up wide before me, the everlasting alternate route diverging from the one on which I had found myself. I waited, took a deep breath in a failed attempt to smooth out the tension that made my body a conglomeration of knotted energy.
Every foot was on the pad—there was a sudden explosion of white-blue light, the sound of a thousand crystals forming or breaking, and I felt my eardrums pop and my stomach clench as the warp point was activated, and the five of us were jettisoned through time and space to wherever our destination lay.
Their destination, rather. In a moment I felt a curious commotion within my coat; I looked down and beheld Amethyst looking up at me with wide, childish eyes. She was standing on top of my feet and enfolding herself in my coat. She grinned at me, and I grinned back down at her. She was troublesome, but not really a bad sort. She reminded me in some ways of myself, actually.
Garnet was silent. Rose had her eyes closed, the penultimate picture of serenity. Pearl was looking weary, her hair more than ruffled.
She looked at me. I smiled.
I pecked her on the cheek.
I finished the last series of gestures.
A light brighter than the warp path flared high above us, descending rapidly as we neared it. When it reached me, I leapt away from the group and into the light, careening down the new path I had punched through. I didn't know where it went, but I had a pretty good idea, and I had no fear my captors would follow; this new route would vanish as soon as it brought me to the end. Soon enough, all of this madness was going to be over. I don't think I'll ever forget that look on Pearl's face before I left, the shock and the embarrassed blush on her cheeks. I've never seen a woman blush blue before. It was one of the cutest things I had ever seen.
The path wound on and on through black abysses, a streak of light stabbing through shadow and starfire. I knew that counting the passing seconds was useless, but I did it anyway just to have something to do.
Then the path ended. The light disappeared, fragments dissolving and fading out like fireflies. It took a long time for my eyes to adjust from one level of intense brightness to intense darkness of night, but the shift happened soon enough. I looked around, taking a tentative step forward, the ground giving way with a wet squelching sound.
Trees that resembled upright centipedes swayed wickedly in the air, jagged limbs clawing at the faintest touches of warm breeze. Taller trees that towered high into the darkness above drooped their limbs downward, their trunks thumping loudly with colossal hearts inside. The sounds of insects, or that which sounded like insects, cut through the night like razor wire. The air here was thick and wet and warm, like being in the lungs of a feverish man; apparently I was in the clearing of some alien swamp, with a bulbous emerald moon low in the sky…
Oh, crap.
In a moment the trees seemed to twitch and shift in the soft ground, the grasses and ferns murmuring in the dying breeze. Something massive was twisting through the amniotic waters of the steaming swamp, and before I could hope that I wouldn't have the dubious honor of witnessing it, phosphorescent fungi lit up the clearing, casting pale blue and green light. Vegetation whispered inhuman words as a titan shifted, turned, and rose up on its trunk to face me, a monstrous pale silhouette, angry black swamp water falling from divots and inroads in its flesh, two humongous long limbs sprouting and ending in seven sharp digits. From somewhere behind a thin fungal shroud, a dark and lipless opening appeared, and from it issued perfect English.
"Cleopatra Bixby! It's so wonderful to see you, my dear! I trust the night is treating you well?"
It didn't take a genius to know that I had sent myself directly into Lady Dusk's court, and no genius would have wanted that. As her countless faceless servitors rattled and rose up from the ground around me to sniff and witness, I bit my lip, cursed myself a dozen times, and gave the creature a deeper nod than I usually would have. "Any night in your kingdom is a blessing, ma'am."
A sound that only her people could construe as laughter whispered out from the black opening. She had no eyes, though I knew she could "see" by the powerfully sensitive shroud-like construct that surrounded her face and upper torso. Every time I looked at her I found it more and more difficult not to grimace in mingled disgust and horror. She was a thing that tried very hard to look like a human female but stopped midway. The colossus murmured a bit more, then leaned forward to rest her forearms on the moist ground, leaving me in the center of a dangerous semicircle.
"Flattery will get you everything, my dear. Now, I hope you didn't have much trouble procuring my little investment. I'd hate for you to have had to go through all you've been through just to reach a dead end."
I smiled up at her and nodded. "Oh, you know me better than that, Dusk. When you hire me, you—"
"Better than you think. When I hire you, Cleopatra, I hire success. Now show me the rock."
Nothing I could do here but nod and smile and keep my mouth shut. More than once has my mouth gotten me in trouble with clients, and this was one that I would rather not be in trouble with. There was an edge in her voice that could slice flesh and bone. I reached into my coat pocket—
"Hmm…"
My hands traveled from one pocket to the next, and from each I extracted only a quickly growing feeling of deep emptiness in my stomach. Not one of my pockets, original or secret, had the stone. It was nowhere. Sweat was breaking out on my skin, something I could chalk up to the air if it entered conversation, but I doubted it would. I wouldn't live that long.
How? How in the world did this happen? Of course I had it, I just wasn't looking in the right places! It was right in my bottom left pocket, wasn't it? I had it, Garnet took it, she gave it to Rose, Rose gave it back to me, I put it in my bottom left pocket, the secret one with the yellow stitching, just before we entered the warp and…
Amethyst…that lousy little pickpocket. She must have nabbed the stone just before I finished the incantation.
"Show me the rock," Lady Dusk repeated, and her entire court echoed her in a sibilant chant that made the air hum. My head was flooded with a mixture of profound respect (a thief who is herself a victim of theft is forever a humble thief) and mounting crawling horror.
As Lady Dusk and her glowing fungal court watched me and muttered, I began thinking of alternate routes, divergent pathways, and if I could make one leading to here, then surely one could be made leading out. Because anywhere was better than here. The question was would I be able to reach it in time? The Webley in my pocket wouldn't do too much good against such things, .45 caliber or no, optimistically assuming she'd give me a chance to use it.
I opened my mouth to swear but I closed it, knowing I'd need to keep the air in my lungs for something special.