Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 104

"Sure," Gretchen said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "Why not?"

d.a.m.n, Tony thought. Sisters. "Sure," he said. He knocked back his bourbon and set the shot gla.s.s on the rail beside the pool tables. "That'd be great."

"Great," Tamara said. "You got a car?"

As he slid his right hand into his jacket pocket, fondling the stem of the pocket watch, Tony wondered if maybe this was a sign, if maybe his luck had finally changed. "Sure," he said, and finished his beer before he led them toward the door.

Whittaker's first reaction when he caught sight of his son was to vanish into the shadows, to hide himself. But then he thought that Tony could buy him a drink, or if he wouldn't do that, could at least give him a ride home. But by the time he'd thought of it, Tony was leaving, marching for the door with a skinny girl on each arm.

Whittaker gulped his drink and stumbled forward, ignoring the grumbles from those he plowed aside. "Sorry," he said. "Excuse me. I'm sorry-"

"Fat f.u.c.k," they answered, when they answered at all, or they laughed at the yellow blanket thrown over his arm. What the h.e.l.l was he doing with the blanket, anyway? Why hadn't he gotten rid of it?

He held it tight and shoved through the crowd.

"Tony!" he yelled, but the band was loud and Tony was already at the door. One of the girls turned over her shoulder to look at Whittaker, and Whittaker tripped and almost fell, because, for a moment-as if a mask slipped-the face that regarded him wasn't human.

It wasn't even exactly a face. The eyes were huge, green-gold, afire in a tangle of angles and lines like a child's magic-marker scribble. A dense thicket of daggery teeth seemed to grind and gnash in a jagged-dewlipped maw, and the hand that rested on Tony's arm blurred into a talon.

Whittaker was used to seeing things that weren't there. Even so, this one sent him a startled step backward, blinking his eyes against the sting of cigarettes. The thing smiled at him and, with a solicitous stroke of its hand, ushered Tony outside, into the night and the cold.

The cold hit Tony across the face hard enough to make him flinch. He s.h.i.+vered, muscles locking tight enough to hurt, his right hand knotting on the watch and his left just curling hard into itself, fingernails marking his palm. "It's over there," he said, nodding in the direction of a baby blue AMC Concord hard-top parked much farther across the tarmac than he really wanted to walk. Tamara and Gretchen had no hesitations, though. They each took one of his elbows and led him forward, the sanded ice rough and slick under his boots. "Where do you girls live?" he asked through chattering teeth.

"Don't worry," Gretchen said. "We'll show you."

"So, Tony," Tamara said, "is there anything you'd change, if you could?"

"Change?"

"Sure." She paused. "Like if you had a time machine. And you could go back and change something. What would it be?"

He stiffened, his hand tightening. "What do you mean?"

She shrugged against his arm. "Like I'd do high school over. And get better grades, and go to college. Like that."

"Oh," he said, and swallowed, and forced himself to let go of the watch. There was no way they could know, no way they could have known.

"I'd stop my mom dying," he said. "I'd stop her getting sick. They say she could go any day now." He swallowed, and said it again, to himself. "Any day. Tomorrow, even. March, anyway. She'll die in March."

Gretchen petted his arm as they came up beside his car. He disengaged from each of them in turn and began to dig for his keys. "Shouldn't you be with your mom?"

Tamara asked.

Tony closed his eyes for a second. It was the cold making them sting. "She won't die tonight."

"Is that why you did it, Tony?" Gretchen asked. The girls stepped back, giving him room to open the door.

"Why I did what?"

He heard footsteps coming toward them across the lot, heavy and hurried, and started to turn. The keys rattled in his hand.

"Why you made it be always winter," Tamara said. Tony barely heard her.

He was too busy staring his father in the eye.

"Tony," Christian Whittaker said, and held out a hand. His voice was very calm, level and serious, not the bellowing voice of the old drunk Tony had feared and hated. But his breath reeked of booze, and Tony stepped back, away from his father. Away from the girls who weren't girls.

Whittaker felt it like a punch in the belly. The girls puffed up like they'd show fangs and claws any second now. He pushed forward, though, even as Tony fell back against his car.

Tony- "No," Tony said. He turned to one of the girls. " What did you just say?"

Her eyes caught the light and flashed orange-yellow for an instant. "Is that why you made it be always winter? So you wouldn't have to watch her die? How did you do it, Tony?"

She seemed larger, suddenly, and no longer looked so much like a skinny girl, all angles and no curves.

"s.h.i.+t," Tony said. His hand jabbed for his pocket, came up clutching something. He looked toward Tamara, who had fallen two more steps back and now settled on her haunches, her spiky jaws dripping slaver. "s.h.i.+t, that's like a Great Dane or something."

But the light shone through its tangled form. The other one came up beside it, circling wide around Whittaker and Tony, backing them both against the car. thirsty, the first one said as it crouched down, whining, and licked its knotwork paws. Whittaker and Tony heard it, a thick, hollow echo in their skulls.

home, the second answered. don't fight. it will only hurt more.

"f.u.c.k that," Tony said, fumbling with the thing in his hand.

Whittaker could see it now; it was Tony's grandfather's antique pocket watch, and he was trying to pry off the back of it, the curved panel with the thumb-latch that hid a sort of locket. Whittaker stepped in front of his son.

"Never mind that," he said. "Just-whatever they want. Give it to them."

"They want me," Tony said. Whittaker couldn't spare him a glance; he had no attention for anything but the two weird hounds that started toward them, their lean giant bodies rib-sprung and gaunt, hesitant as stalking cats. "They just want-"

give us the timekeeper, one hound said.

"Give them the watch," Whittaker said. He pointed with the hand that didn't hold the patchwork quilt and waited for Tony to hand over the timepiece.

"They don't want the watch," Tony said.

give us the timekeeper and we leave as we came. The second hound crouched, ready to spring. Hopelessly, Whittaker swung the baby blanket at it, as if he were shooing flies.

The hound leaped backward with a startled, angry yip; Whittaker looked down at the yellow patchwork quilt in surprise.

"Magic," Tony said as if it weren't completely ridiculous.

Well, it wasn't as if anything had made any sense at all since the bus driver. Earlier than that, really-since he'd decided to steal the car.

Whittaker turned his back on the hounds and threw the blanket over Tony's head. "Crouch down," he hissed in the voice of a father. "Don't move."

And Tony, blessedly, dropped to his haunches against the door of the car and froze there, his whole body covered under the small blanket, its corners just brus.h.i.+ng the ground.

The first hound snarled, and the second hound howled. They threw themselves at Tony, knocking Whittaker aside as if he was of no interest, as if he wasn't there at all. Slavering, snapping, they touched the blanket and slid away from it like eggs off Teflon. Whittaker hit the ground hard, banging his bruised hip and skinning the heels of his hands. He hadn't gotten his gloves on; his palms burned on ice and salt.

"Hey," he yelled, pus.h.i.+ng himself to his knees. "Hey, you b.i.t.c.hes! Over here!"

They paid him no heed. They lunged and clambered over one another, struggling to reach Tony, and they failed. Whittaker held his breath. He crawled forward, tearing the knee of his trousers. The hounds shoved him aside, long, strange claws scoring his arm and hand, leaving bleeding scratches.

Tony, hunched, s.h.i.+vering, was wise enough not to raise his head. He huddled, sagging to knees and elbows, curling tight until the shape under the blanket was more turtle than man. Whittaker could hear him breathing, long, s.h.i.+vering sobs, even over the snarling of the hounds. They lunged again, and again they failed.

"Take me," Whittaker said. He got to his feet, hauled himself up with a grip on the fender. Blood froze his hand to angled metal. He ripped it loose. "d.a.m.n you, take me!"

The hounds fell back. They circled and whined. One edged forward, great parched pads splayed on the asphalt, and nosed Whittaker's hand, brushed his flesh with its teeth.

we never tire, she said. we never fail.

"You leave my boy be." He couldn't straighten. His lungs hurt. His chest locked. He staggered forward, doubled up, braced his b.l.o.o.d.y hands on his thighs.

-master- -home- -he is the gate and the key- we cannot go home, they both said at once. we thirst. there is no home for us until he is punished. perished.

"Punish me."

we serve. you will not serve. the master will not be pleased.

"Whatever," Whittaker said, and somehow found the strength to draw himself up. "He is mine. My blood." Inspiration struck him; he wasn't sure why. "I have the prior claim."

The hounds whined. They slunk. They wagged their bony tails and p.r.i.c.ked their angled ears, all lines and points.

we cannot go home, one said, and thirsty, said the other.

"Go," Whittaker said, and pointed with a b.l.o.o.d.y hand.

They met his eyes with their flaming eyes, stern and merciless. He stepped forward. Under the blanket, Tony cringed.

The right-hand hound looked down first. She backed a step, tail falling. Her sister snarled. we do not forget, she said, and glared again before she turned to follow her sister.

Whining, cringing, glancing over their shoulders, they went. They tumbled over one another, leaving. Whittaker saw them grow taller and straighter, young women instead of hounds, their clothes hanging off their lean, uncomfortable forms as they supported each other away. One was weeping; the other walked grimly, hunched, holding her sister erect.

Whittaker felt, almost, pity. Tony hunched tighter and didn't lift his head.

Whittaker closed his eyes.

Silence followed, long silence, while Whittaker held his breath. His chest burned when he breathed in, finally, and then burned more with the cold. Tony cursed, and Whittaker forced himself, a quarter-inch at a time, to uncurl his fingers and then open his eyes. Tears had frozen his lashes together; he had to rub them free.

Tony had pushed the blanket off his head and was scrabbling in the ice on the parking lot, trying to find his keys. His fingers closed on something. He yelped in triumph, and looked up and met Whittaker's eyes. "s.h.i.+t," he said, and stood. He caught the blanket as it fell, despite holding the pocket watch in one hand and the keys in the other, and handed it to Whittaker.

Whittaker took it and folded it over his arm. "It's stolen," he said helplessly.

"I should have known." Tony made a motion to stuff the watch back into his pants. Whittaker stopped him, hand on his arm, blood on his sleeve. Tony didn't quite flinch away, but Whittaker could feel him master it.

Whittaker swallowed and asked anyway. "What's in there?"

It was easy to open, when you weren't shaking. Wordlessly, Tony showed him the photograph of Jessica that Whittaker had antic.i.p.ated, all ironed brown hair and hands like birds.

"It was my fault," Whittaker said. "If I had paid attention-if I had gotten her to a doctor-"

"You think I don't know that?" Tony ran his thumb across the stem of the watch. "You think it makes anything better?"

"No," Whittaker said. "But I do miss her, too."

"Have you been to see her?"

Whittaker shook his head. No. No, but he could imagine her. Eaten out from the inside, still breathing, but dead and dry as a cicada's sh.e.l.l.

Without looking up, Tony pressed down on the stem. Whittaker heard the click. He closed his eyes and felt something rebound, sharp as a wound spring snapping. He opened them and found Tony staring him in the face.

"Well," Whittaker said. "I should be going-"

"Dad, come home with me. We'll go to the hospital in the morning." All of a sudden, all on a breath, like Tony had to get it out fast if he was going to get it out at all.

Whittaker sighed. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and rubbed the palm across his greasy skull. "I'm a drunk, son."

Tony shrugged. "Drink tomorrow. Come home with me tonight. I've got room."

"Tomorrow?" Whittaker said, just to see if he could get Tony to grin. "What's that?"

"We'll find out when it gets here," Tony answered, and unlocked the door of the car.

Christian Whittaker went to bed sober that Wednesday night. And Thursday arrived in the morning, driven before a line of spring thunderstorms.

Follow Me Light Pinky Gilman limped. He wore braces on both legs, s.h.i.+ning metal and black washable foam spoiling the line of his off-the-rack suits, what line there was to spoil. He heaved himself about on a pair of elbow-cuff crutches. I used to be able to hear him clattering along the tiled, echoing halls of the public defender's offices a dozen doors down.

Pinky's given name was Isaac, but even his clients called him Pinky. He was a fabulously ugly man, lumpy and bald and bristled and pink-scrubbed as a slaughtered hog. He had little fishy walleyes behind spectacles thick enough to serve barbecue on. His skin peeled wherever the sun or the dry desert air touched it.

He was by far the best we had.

The first time I met Pinky was in 1994. He was touring the office as part of his job interview, and Christian Vlatick led him up to me while I was wrestling a five-gallon bottle onto the water cooler. I flinched when he extended his right hand to shake mine with a painful twist intended to keep the crutch from slipping off his arm. The rueful way he c.o.c.ked his head as I returned his clasp told me he was used to that reaction, but I doubted most people flinched for the reason I did-the s.h.i.+mmer of hot blue lights that flickered through his aura, filling it with brilliance although the aura itself was no color I'd ever seen before-a swampy gray-green, tornado colored.

I must have been staring, because the squat little man glanced down at my shoes, and Chris cleared his throat. "Maria," he said, "This is Isaac Gilman."

"Pinky," Pinky said. His voice ... oh, la. If he were robbed with regard to his body, that voice was the thing that made up the difference. Oh, my.

"Maria Delprado. Are you the new attorney?"

"I hope so," he said, dry enough delivery that Chris and I both laughed.

His handshake was good: strong, cool, and leathery, at odds with his parboiled countenance. He let go quickly, grasping the handle of his crutch again and s.h.i.+fting his weight to center, blinking behind the gla.s.s that distorted his eyes. "Maria," he said. "My favorite name. Do you know what it means?"

"It means Mary," I answered. "It means sorrow."

"No," he said. "It means sea." He pointed past me with his chin, indicating the still-slos.h.i.+ng bottle atop the water cooler. "They make the women do the heavy lifting here?"

"I like to think I can take care of myself. Where'd you study, Isaac?"