Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 55

Melissa sucked her lower lip in and released it. "So did he kill that woman or not?"

"I don't know," Katie said. "I want him to be a good guy."

Gina patted her shoulder, then reached across to also pat the journal with her fingertips. "I say we go to his apartment and find out."

There were drawbacks to being a member of Matthew's society of Magi. For one thing, n.o.body else liked them. And with good reason; not only was the Prometheus Club full of sn.o.bs, Capitalists, and politicians, but its stated goal of limiting and controlling the influence of wild magic in the world put him in sworn opposition to any hedge-witch, Satanist, purveyor of herbs and simples, houngan, or priest of Santeria he might want to contract with for ritual supplies.

Such as, say, a white, virgin c.o.c.kerel.

New York City was not bereft of live poultry markets, but given his rather specific needs, Matthew wasn't sure he wanted to trust one of those. He'd hate to find out at the last minute, for example, that his bird had had a few sandy feathers plucked. Or that it was, shall we say, a little more experienced than Matthew was himself.

And then there was the recent influenza scare, which had closed several poultry markets. And what he really needed, now that he thought about it, was an illegal animal; a fighting c.o.c.k.

He booted his desktop system, entered an IP address from memory, wended his way through a series of logon screens, and asked about it on the Promethean message board.

Fortunately, even if Matthew didn't know something, it was a pretty good bet that somebody in Prometheus would.

Before close of business, he was twenty blocks north again, edging through a flaking avocado-green steel door into the antechamber of a dimly lit warehouse that smelled of guano and sawdust and corn and musty feathers. It drove the eyewatering stench of the c.o.c.katrice from Matthew's sinuses, finally, and seemed in comparison such a rich, wholesome smell that he breathed it deep and fast. He coughed, sneezed, and waved his hand in front of his face. And then he did it again, feeling as if the inside of his head were clean for the first time in hours.

There was a desk in a cage-not unlike the ones inhabited by the clucking, rustling chickens, but far larger-behind the half-wall at the far end of the dirty, hall-like room. Matthew approached it; a stout woman with her white hair twisted into a bun looked up from her game of solitaire.

He cleared his throat. "I need to buy a c.o.c.kerel."

"I've got some nice Bantams," she said through the grate. "And a couple of Rhode Island Reds." Not admitting anything; those weren't fighting c.o.c.ks. "You got a place to keep it? There are zoning things."

"It just needs to be pure white." He hesitated. "Or pure black."

She reached up casually and dropped the shutter in his face. Of course. He sighed, and rapped on the grate, rattling the metal behind it. No answer. He rapped again, and again.

Five minutes later she cracked it up and peered under the bottom, through the little hole for pa.s.sing papers and money back and forth. He caught a glimpse of bright black eyes and a wrinkled nose. "I'm not selling you any bird for your Satanic rituals, young man."

No, but you'll sell me one for bloodsports? Matthew sighed again and stuck his hand through the slot, nearly getting his fingers up her nose. She jerked back, but he caught the edge of the shutter before she could slide it closed again. His biceps bulged inside his s.h.i.+rt sleeve; his tendons dimpled his wrist. She leaned on the shutter, and couldn't s.h.i.+ft him.

"Young man." A level, warning tone. She didn't look intimidated.

Oh, what the h.e.l.l. "It's for the c.o.c.katrice," he said.

Her hand relaxed, and the weight of the shutter lifted. She slid it up; it thumped when it reached the top. "Why didn't you say so? About time somebody took care of that thing. Though I notice you didn't give a s.h.i.+t when it was just in East Harlem."

Matthew glanced aside. The cops were always the last to know.

She hesitated. "You'll need a human virgin too."

"Don't worry," he said, biting the inside of his cheek. "I've got that covered."

When he returned home, there was a woman waiting in his apartment. Not surprising in itself; Jane had a key and the pa.s.scode for the locks. But it wasn't Jane. It was the homicide detective, Marion Thornton.

She had an outdoorswoman's squint and silky brown hair that framed her long cheekbones in feathered wings; it made her look like a brighteyed Afghan hound. She showed him her badge and handed him back the keys before he was fully in the door.

"The victim was an alcoholic," Marion said, re-locking the door as Matthew put his chicken on the counter. It was in a cardboard animal carrier. Occasionally a glossy jet-black beak or a malevolent eye would appear in one of the holes along the top. It scuffed and kicked. He pushed it away from the counter edge and it grabbed at him, as he thought of a line from a Russian fairy tale: Listen, Crow, crow's daughter! Serve me a certain service- "The nun was a drunk?"

"To put it crudely. And we found another possible for the same bogey, about three days ago. Elderly man, never married, lived alone, drank like a fish. We're continuing to check back for others." She flipped pages in her report pad. "Here's something interesting. He was castrated in a farming accident when he was in his teens."

"Oh," Matthew said. "It's always virgins, isn't it?"

"For dragons and unicorns, anyway," Marion answered. "But I'd guess you're correct. And more than that. Heavy drinkers. Possibly with some talent; a link my ... secular ... colleagues won't come up with is that Promethean records show that we considered inviting both of these victims for apprentices.h.i.+p when they were young."

"So they saw things," Matthew said, thinking of Henry, living on the monster's doorstep. If the thing had a preference for s.e.xually inexperienced prey, that would explain why it hadn't eaten him yet. Well, if Matthew was prepared to make a few conjectures. "Do you think it wanted them because they drank, or they drank because they saw things?"

"We operate on the first a.s.sumption." Marion picked her way around him, leaned down to peer into the animal carrier. She pulled back as a grabbing beak speared at her eye. "Vicious."

"I sure hope so."

"Jane said you had a possible ID on the bogey?"

He knelt down and began peeling the rug back, starting beside the inside wall of the living room. "The black c.o.c.k isn't enough of a hint?"

"Basilisk."

"That's a weasel. c.o.c.katrice, I'm guessing. Though how it lured its victim into hurling herself from her window is beyond me. You're describing very specialized prey."

She straightened up and arched, cracking her spine. She picked a spoon off the breakfast bar and turned it, considering the way the light pooled in the bowl. "Call it one in ten thousand? Then the Greater New York metropolitan area has, what, two thousand more just like 'em?"

"Something like that," Matthew said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. A dust bunny was stuck to the heel of his hand; he blew it off. When he opened his eyes, he found her staring at him, tongue-tip peeking between her lips.

"Want to make sure we're safe?" she said, with a grin. The spoon glittered as she turned it beside her face. "I'm off duty. And your chicken won't mind." She held up her left hand and showed him a plain gold band. "No ha.s.sles."

He bit his lower lip. Matthew had practice. And years of careful sublimation-which was, of course, the point: sacrifice made power. He also had a trick of flying under the gaydar, of making straight women think he was gay and gay men think he was straight. All just part of the camouflage.

He hated having to say no. "Sorry," he said. "That's a lovely offer. But I need a virgin for the c.o.c.katrice already, and it beats having to send out."

She laughed, of course.

They never believed him.

"Come on," he said. "Help me ensorcel this chicken."

Doctor S. lived in Midtown West, on 60th near Columbus Ave. It was kind of a hike, but they got there before sunset. It wouldn't get dark for an hour, but that was only because the afternoons were still long. By the time they paused down the block Katie's stomach was rumbling. That milkshake was only good for so long.

The spot they picked to loiter had a clear view of the front door of Doctor S.'s brown brick apartment building. "Nice place for a junior professor," Melissa said, and for ten seconds she sounded like she was from Boston, all right.

Katie looked at Gina and made big eyes and whimpering noises, but it was Melissa who went and got convenience store hot dogs, Diet Pepsi, and a bag of chips. They ate in the shade on the north side of the building, the heat soaking from the stones, their hair lank and grimy with the city air. Katie scratched her cheek and brought her fingernails away sporting black crescents. "Ew."

"Welcome to New York," Gina said, which was what she said every time Katie complained.

Katie had nearly stopped complaining already. She scratched her nails against her jeans until most of the black came out and finished her hot dog one-handed, then wiped the grime from her face with the napkin before drying her hands. It worked kind of halfway-good enough, anyway, that when Melissa splashed ice water from a sport bottle into everyone's cupped hands and Katie in turn splashed it onto her face, she didn't wind up feeling like she'd faceplanted into a mud puddle.

The second handful, she drank, and only realized she had been carrying a heat headache when the weight of it faded. "All right," she said, and took the bottle from Melissa to squirt some on her hair. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"Unfortunately, apparently Doctor S. isn't," Melissa said, reclaiming the bottle to drink. She tilted her head back, her throat working, and as she lowered it a droplet ran from the corner of her mouth. "No, wait, spoke too soon."

Katie stepped behind the pole of a street lamp-silly, because Doctor S. wasn't even looking in their direction-and caught sight of his stiff little blond ponytail zigzagging through the crowd. He was wearing another sort-of costume-Katie wondered what he wore when he wore what he liked, rather than what suited his role-a well-cut gray suit with a fabulous drape. A woman in a navy pantsuit, whose light flyaway hair escaped its pins around a long narrow face, walked alongside him. Her stride was familiar. She had a white cardboard pet carrier slung from her left hand; Katie could not see what was in it, but it swung as if something was moving slightly inside.

"Isn't that the cop who showed up where the woman jumped?"

Katie glanced at Gina and back at the woman, a stuttering doubletake. It was. Not the same outfit, and her hair was clipped back aggressively now- though it wasn't staying restrained-but the woman was conspicuous. "Well," Katie said, feeling as if she watched the words emerge from a stranger's mouth, "we could follow him and find out where they're going."

Neither Matthew nor Marion was particularly sanguine about attacking on a c.o.c.katrice in the dark. They had to take the subway across the island (at least the c.o.c.kerel was quiet, huddled in the bottom of its carrier) but still ascended to the surface with light to spare. It roused the bird; Matthew heard it s.h.i.+ft, and Marion kept her fingers well clear of the air holes. It was, as promised, aggressive.

Matthew shoved down guilt and substantial apprehension. There was no other choice, and power grew out of sacrifices.

They found the courtyard without a problem, that tunnel-like entrance with its broken gate leaving rust on Matthew's clothes as they slipped through. He wasn't wearing his usual patrol clothes, a zipped camouflage jacket and boots enchanted to pa.s.s-unnoticed, but a gray silk suit with a linen s.h.i.+rt and a silver, red, and navy tie. A flask in an inside pocket tapped his ribs when he moved. He looked like a dot com paper millionaire on his way to a neck-or-nothing meeting with a crotchety venture capitalist who was going to hate his ponytail.

His clothes today, and the quick preliminary ritual they'd performed in his living room, were not designed to conceal him, to occlude his power, but rather to draw the right attention. If you squinted at him with otherwise eyes, he would s.h.i.+ne. And other than his rings and the earrings and the pigment in the ink under his skin, he wasn't wearing any iron, as he might have been if they went to face something Fae.

Iron was of no use against a c.o.c.katrice. Except in one particular, and so two steel gaffs wrapped in tissue paper nested in the bottom of Matthew's trouser pocket. He touched them through fabric like a child stroking a favorite toy and drew his hand back when they clinked.

"This is it," he said.

Marion set the carrier down. "Nice place you've got here, Matthew. Decorate it yourself?" From the way her nose was wrinkling, she picked out the acid aroma of the monster as well.

Henry and his comrade at arms were nowhere to be seen. Matthew hoped they had taken his advice and moved on. He hated working around civilians.

Without answering Marion, he kicked aside garbage, clearing a s.p.a.ce in the center of the court. The windows overlooking it remained unoccupied, and if for some reason they did not continue so, Marion had a badge.

She helped Matthew sketch a star overlaid on a circle in yellow sidewalk chalk. They left one point open, facing south by Marion's compa.s.s. When they were done, Matthew dusted his hands, wiped them on his handkerchief, and reached into his pockets for the spurs, the flask, and something else-a leather hood of the sort used by falconers to quiet their birds.

"Ready?"

She nodded. "Where's the lair?"

He patted himself on the chest-"the s...o...b.. comes to us"-and watched her eyes widen. She had thought he was kidding.

They always did.

Well, maybe someday he could catch a unicorn.

"It's okay," he said, when her blush became a stammer. "Let's get the knives on this chicken."

It took both of them, crouched on either side, to open the box and hood the bird without harming it. It exploded into Matthew's grip as Marion pried open the flaps; he caught at it, bungled the grab and got pecked hard for his pains. Somehow he got the bird pressed to his chest, a struggling fury of iridescent black plumage, and caged it in his blunt hands. It felt p.r.i.c.kly and slick and hotter than blood under the feathers. He smoothed its wings together and restrained the kicking legs, while Marion dodged the jabbing beak. Once in darkness it quieted, and Marion strapped the three-inch gaffs over its own natural spurs.

When they were done, it looked quite brave and wicked, the gleam of steel on rainbow-black. Marion stroked its back between Matthew's fingers, her touch provoking a tremor when she brushed the back of his hand. "f.u.c.king abomination."

She meant c.o.c.kfighting, not the bird. Matthew set the c.o.c.kerel down and moved his hands away. It sat quietly. "How do you think I feel?"

She shrugged. Still crouched, she produced a pair of handcuffs and a silken hood from her tan leather handbag. Matthew bent over to pick up the flask. "G.o.d, I hate this part."

He prized it open with his thumb and upended it over his mouth. The fumes of hundred-and-fifty-proof rum made him gasp; he choked down three swallows and stopped, doubled over, rasping.

Matthew didn't often drink.

But that would be enough for the spell.

Light-headed, now, sinuses stinging from more than the reek of the c.o.c.katrice, Matthew handed Marion the flask and then his spectacles, feeling naked without them. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, fine hairs harsh on his lips. Four steps took him through the open end of the pentagram.

He turned back and faced Marion. With the silk of the hood draped over his forearm, he handcuffed himself-snugly: he did not want his body breaking free while he was not in it.

They weren't replaceable.

He took one more deep breath, closed his eyes on Marion's blurry outline, and with his joined wrists rattling pulled the hood over his head.

In the dark underneath, sounds were m.u.f.fled. Concentrated rum fumes made his eyes water, but at least he could no longer smell the c.o.c.katrice. Chalk grated-Marion closing the pentagram. He heard his flask uncorked, the splash of fluid as she anointed the diagram with the remaining rum. Matthew tugged restlessly against the restraints on his wrists as she began to chant and a deep uneasy curdling sensation answered.

G.o.d, too much rum. He wobbled and caught himself, fretting the handcuffs, the tightness on the bones. The sensual thrill of the magic sparking along his nerves was accentuated by the blinding darkness. He wobbled again, or maybe the world did, and gasped at the heat in his blood.

Magic and pa.s.sion weren't different. It was one reason sublimation worked.

The second gasp came cleaner, no fabric m.u.f.fling his face, the air cooler if not fresher and the scent of rum less cloying. Marion seemed to have moved, by the sound of her chanting, and somehow the tightness had jumped from Matthew's wrists to his calves. He lay belly-down on rough ground.

He pushed with his arms to try to balance himself to his feet. The chanting stopped, abruptly, and someone was restraining him, folding his arms against his side gently but with ma.s.sive cautious strength. "Matthew?"

He turned his head, seeking the voice. It echoed. The ... arms? holding him retreated. "Matthew, if you understand me, flap once."

He extended odd-feeling arms and did so. A moment later, a half-dozen fists, it seemed, were unhooding him. He blinked at dizzy brilliance, and found himself staring into Marion's enormous face from only a few inches away. He hopped back and fouled himself on the gaffs. Fortunately, the needle point slipped between his feathers rather than stabbing him in the wing, and he stopped, precariously balanced, wings half-bent like broken umbrellas.

He clucked.

And flapped hard, surprised to find himself lifting off the ground. He flew the two feet to Marion's shoulder, landed awkwardly, facing the wrong way, and banged her in the eye with his wing. At least he had the sense to turn carefully, keeping the needle-tipped gaffs pointed away from her thin-skinned throat. He crouched on his heels, trying not to p.r.i.c.k her with his claws, the alien body's balance far better than his own.

Only if he thought about it did he realize that the warm shoulder he nestled to Marion's warm cheek was feathered, that it was peculiar to be able to feel the beats of her heart through his feet like the footfalls of an approaching predator, that the colors he saw were abruptly so bright and saturated-so discriminate-that he had no names for them. That he balanced on her moving shoulder as easily as he would have roosted on a swaying branch, and that that was peculiar.

"Wow," he said. And heard a soft contemplative cluck. And laughed at himself, which came out a rising, tossing crow.

Marion flinched and put a hand up on his wing. "Matthew, please. My ears."

He ducked his head between his shoulders, abashed, and clucked sorry. Maybe she would understand.

His body stood stolidly, restrained, inside a wet circle of chalk and rum. The c.o.c.kerel wearing it was quieted by the hood and the handcuffs, and Matthew turned his head right and left to center himself in his vision. He failed-he had the peripheral view, and only by turning to see it first with one eye and then the other could he reliably guess how far away it was. Almost no binocular vision, of course. But with a shock, he realized that he could see clearly around to the back of his head.

That was pretty tremendously weird. He'd have to practice that. And think about his small sharp body and its instincts, because the enemy could be along any moment.

Marion was pulling back, stepping into the shadows, an alcove near the gate concealing them. Matthew pressed against her warmth, feeling her heart beating faster. He clucked in her ear.

"Shh."

He hoped the c.o.c.katrice would come quickly. This could be very, very awkward to explain if something happened to the glamours. Still, they had brought alcohol, talent, and innocence-symbolically speaking-and left them, special delivery, in the thing's front yard. Wherever it was nesting, it should come to investigate before too long.

He was still thinking that when he heard the singing.