--Insert obligatory mumbo-jumbo here--

Chapter Nine

Well-Read

For an hour after leaving Louisville, Corso was a still figure in the passenger seat, as if by not moving he might lessen the pain. The only motion came from his Adam's apple, which bobbed at intervals as if he was trying to keep something down.

Shadow's fingers drummed on the steering wheel as he reviewed the museum encounter. Even though he'd heard Corso's story several times now, this was the first time he'd really believed it. Oh, the part with the book, sure, but the business with the beautiful girl following him around had sounded like Corso's ego padding the tale. There was a girl, and some instinct warned Shadow that she was indeed supernatural. He wasn't sure if she'd picked up the thought he'd tried to project--he'd only tried that particular stunt once before, and that was with an ordinary human being.

Was she really The Devil? And if she was, did that automatically made her invulnerable? No, he decided. Corso had accidently given her a nosebleed in Paris--according to him, that was when she'd marked him with her blood--so she could be hurt. It seemed logical to suppose that the same rules applied for her kind as they did for gods--and he'd seen a few of them die. Whether or not he was capable of killing her was another question entirely.

They were traveling southwest toward Mississippi on a toll road. As Shadow paused to pay, he multiplied the quarters from two to four for the surprised toll collector--he hadn't planned the trick ahead of time; his practiced hands did it of their own accord. The woman was smiling as they drove away; she hadn't been, to begin with.

"Where did you learn all that, anyway?" Corso asked listlessly. "You're always fidgeting with money. You were doing it on the plane, I remember."

"Self-taught, from a book. I had a lot of time on my hands."

"Out of work?" His tone sounded like he was forcing himself to make conversation.

"Three years in prison."

Corso's head turned. That got his attention, thought Shadow.

"You were? And I thought you were a Boy Scout."

"I beat the snot out of a couple of monkeys who tried to rip me off."

"Huh." His companion inspected him with new-found curiosity. Then he seemed to realize that he might be behaving gauchely. "I'm sorry. You seem so...you don't seem like the type. Your aura--"

"What can I say? I was younger, then."

Shadow didn't feel like going into all the sorry details. Laura had been the brains behind the robbery; Shadow, the driver. The heist should've netted them enough money for a house of their own, credit be damned. When their accomplices scooped the pile for themselves, Shadow had thrown them a beating. He'd served time for aggravated assault and battery. Forty-eight hours before his release from prison, a car wreck had taken his wife from the land of the living. After that, nothing had been the same.

He threw the conversation back to Corso. "What is it with this aura business? It's getting a little creepy."

"Auras? They're amazing. It's kind of like a colored halo, and the colors and shades mean different things."

"What did hers look like? The Blonde?"

Corso's lips trembled faintly. "Seductive," he finally admitted. "Dark, like burgundy wine or drying blood, but beautiful. Enticing...." There was a note of longing in his voice.

"Stop it. It's bad enough you're marked by her, you don't have to think her to you." He couldn't entirely blame Corso though. Hadn't his own first reaction to her been attraction? "I shouldn't've asked."

"Thank you," the other man said a moment later. "For stopping her. I should've said it before this. You took a big chance."

"Maybe. I wasn't thinking about that."

"You really are a Boy Scout," said Corso, but he grinned as he said it, a wince of humor on his pain-wracked face. "True blue, and it's not just the color of your aura."

Shadow felt a surge of emotion he couldn't put a name to. As much as the cynical dealer annoyed him, their were moments when he almost liked the guy. Like now; you could see that he was hurting, but he wasn't whining about it. Probably had the whining beat out of him when he was a kid, Shadow thought, remembering their talk at the rest stop.

"Can I ask you something else?" Corso asked hesitantly. "Being the son of a god--is it good for anything? I mean, can you--I don't know, do anything special?"

"This is your day for questions, huh? Look, I'm not Superman. I got sheer size from my old man, but I don't have x-ray vision and I can't bend steel in my bare hands."

"That's not what I asked."

"Corso, you are one persistant bastard when you get going, you know that?" Corso just looked at him. "Look, I conjured up a blizzard once. And I talked a guy out of killing himself. Those are the only so-called special things I've ever done." Corso's eyebrows raised slightly. "The blizzard was easy. The other, I'm not sure how I did it, but I tried something like it on your friend at the museum. I don't know if it worked or not."

"You what?!"

Shadow sighed. "A couple years ago, some bad shit went down, and a guy I knew was going to commit suicide because of it. It was like a cloud around him. I pushed the cloud away, got him to forget the bad stuff and concentrate on what was important."

"And you did what at the museum?" the other man's voice went up a notch.

"Tried to send her a message: don't fuck with me. Like I said, I'm not sure if it worked, but she didn't exactly stick around." Corso was staring at him open-mouthed, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. "Okay?" Shadow put as much finality as he could into his tone.

"Tell me about these people we're going to see," the bookseller asked, making an effort to change the subject. "I mean, a funeral parlor? Is that a front for something?" He fished a pack of Luckies and Cerridwyn's note from his coat pocket. "Ibis and Jacquel?" He pronounced the second name "Zh-ah-KELL", as if it was French, and Shadow shook his head.

"No, it's like the animal, jackal, and the town is Kay-ro, not Cairo like in Egypt."

"Jackal god, jackal god," Corso murmured. "Egyptian...Anubis?"

"You got it."

"What can I say? Well-read, well-traveled...." Jinx protested as he lit up the cigarette. "...and I like the History Channel. Anubis was the god of the underworld, if I remember correctly."

"Is. He is the god of the underworld. And Ibis--Thoth--he's a guide for the dead. They work together," Shadow explained, "and it really is a funeral home. It's not very upscale, because it's not part of the big network of funeral homes, but they're scraping by."

"Egyptian gods, here? In America?" He took a drag on the Lucky.

"For thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians came here to trade, and brought their gods--not just those two. The traders died out. Jacquel and Ibis are old men now, because they aren't worshipped any more. They're not invulnerable." That had memories too, worse ones, and Shadow's throat tightened. "They run a funeral parlor because, well, it's what they do. Jacquel works as coroner on the side. Ibis writes. And Bast...cat goddess. She's a cat."

Corso didn't need to know everything, Shadow decided, feeling better. Odds were, Corso would only meet her in her feline form. Thinking of the tawny woman who'd rocked his world brought a smile to his face. She'd stayed youthful while her compatriots had aged...humanity might be neglecting her, but apparently, cats still knew and loved her.

"You're smiling," Corso observed. "That makes me nervous. You don't smile a lot, Shadow."

"They're good people. I'm looking forward to seeing them again." It struck him that that was probably the closest thing he had to a place to call home. Nowhere else qualified; none of the other places he'd lived, with his mother or his wife. What was the old saying? Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in...? He repeated that aloud.

"Robert Frost," was the prompt response. "I had a gorgeous first edition once..." Corso's voice trailed off. "I had so many things I didn't to be bought and sold. Just books, old books...and my life. And my soul...." He was silent for a long moment, the cigarette burning to ash between his fingers.

Shadow glanced over at his passenger. "Did you actually sell your soul? You never mentioned that part."

When Corso finally spoke, it was without the air of urbane sophistication he'd always affected. "Balkan bought my services, but believe me, my soul wasn't part of the deal. That was the only deal I made, Shadow. I never promised her anything, never asked her for anything."

"You said you slept with her."

"Once. It just happened, I wasn't in love with her, it was just--nookie!" He made an impatient gesture, and the inch-long ash spilled down onto his coat.

"And after that, you went and got that other page from the book and chucked it all into the fiery furnace?" Shadow groaned. Corso hadn't figured it out? For a smart guy, he sure could be dumb.

"That's right."

"You're well-read," Shadow reminded him. "Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'?"

To forestall all you flaming English majors out there, yes, the correct quote is, "Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Shadow ain't an English major and he's paraphrasing. One of my well-read betas has already called me on it. Thank you!