“Don’t let her take unnecessary risks. I shall ask her to do the same for you.”
Cal grinned and pressed my arm. “Thanks.”
There was about him the exhilaration I have seen on those who are about to go into battle. In Afghanistan, where I was stationed at a field hospital, I saw it every day on young, ardent faces. At the time, I was horrified by how eager they were to die. I have come to understand that it was not death they yearned for, but action. Action of any kind. Anything but the waiting.
In the bar, we prepared to move out, grimly purposeful. I looked at the leather-clad Valkyrie and wondered if this hard-bitten warrior was really the same woman who had just come to me quaking with uncertainty. Already, my arms felt the ache of returning emptiness.
“This is it,” Cal told me, patting the sword at his thigh. He looked over at Tone and Jelly, who hovered uncertainly behind us. “Wish us luck.”
Tone shook his head and held out one hand. “You’re a crazy shit, Calvin. Hope you’re a lucky shit, too.”
Cal took the hand and shook it.
We headed up the stairs to the street then, Goldie trailing the double tether that joined him to Magritte-nylon and light. My connection to Colleen was, blessedly, invisible. Before Cal could lay a hand on the door, it opened, admitting a shaft of amber light. The soft radiance framed a short, misshapen figure.
“Boy howdy,” said Goldie. “If it ain’t the prodigal troll.”
Enid swore, Colleen threatened, and Howard Russo shuffled from one foot to the other, glancing at each of us in turn. He looked down at the floor, nudging a knothole with his toe as if he might cover it up or erase it.
He finally looked up and met Cal’s eyes. “I feel like shit,” he said. “I’m not a bad man. Just a scared man. Just wanted to go home. Couldn’t get out.” His eyes darted about, making him look like a trapped thing. “It wouldn’t let me out.”
“So you came crawling to us,” said Colleen. “How noble.”
Russo nearly snarled at her. “Didn’t have to. Could’ve gone to Primal. Maybe if I gave him something he wanted, he’d cut me loose.”
Colleen snorted. “You would’ve cut a deal for Enid? Fed him to the contract so you could get out of it?”
Russo’s eyes snapped to her face. “Would’ve. Didn’t. I didn’t. See?”
Colleen ran a hand through her hair, leaving it in wild disarray. “So that’s it? You’ve come back to apologize for dumping our asses on Primal’s doorstep?”
“No. To help.” Russo turned to Enid. “Feel like crap. I like you, Enid. Always have. Didn’t want to hurt you. Just got cold feet.” He curled his bare, gray toes as if to illustrate. “Came back ’cause I can help you get in. I can set you up to talk to Primal.”
“Set us up,” repeated Colleen. “Good choice of words, Howie.”
The color of Russo’s face altered subtly. “Wouldn’t do that. I mean it.”
Cal was focused tightly on Russo’s face. “All right. Let’s assume for a moment that we take you up on your offer. How do you intend to get us in?”
The big milky eyes were suddenly very direct. “I only look useless. Primal’s got my contract, too. He wants something from me.”
“What?”
“I’m a manager. Manage talent. S’posed to help him hang on to what he’s got.” He turned his milky gaze up into Enid’s face. “I let you get away. Let a couple others get away, too. S’pose he figures I owe him something for that.”
Enid took a step back, steadying himself against a table. “You let me get away?”
Russo nodded. “He was pissed as hell. That’s why he took over the contract.”
Cal dropped his gaze to the floor. “All right, Howard. You come. But for your sake, be straight with us.”
“Straight,” said Russo, making a vague gesture over his heart.
We walked out into the amber daylight then. At the top of the steps, Colleen paused to adjust the crossbow that hung beneath the skirt of her jacket.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “You have the talisman Papa Sky gave you?”
She smiled and fetched the thing out of the front of her shirt. She had cut a hole into it and hung it on the chain that bore her father’s dog tags. She laid the charm and tags in my hand. They still carried the warmth of her body. I felt a soft tingle of something more from the strange chip of leather.
“I’m taking all my good luck into that place.” Her smile became lopsided, eyeing me. “Well, almost all.”
Around my own neck, I wore a silver cross. Nurya had made up the fable that reformed vampires haunted the blood bank at the hospital and that the cross would protect me if one of them should “fall off the wagon,” as the Americans say. I pulled the chain off over my head and draped it around Colleen’s neck, then returned the charms to their place.
Her smile was gone. She grasped my hand and held it over her heart for an instant before we turned and went after the others.
IV
In the House of Suddhoo
A stone’s throw out on either hand From that well-ordered road we tread, And all the world is wild and strange: Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite Shall bear us company tonight, For we have reached the Oldest Land Wherein the Powers of Darkness range.
TWENTY-FOUR
CAL
Howard didn’t lead us back through the business district. He swung east toward the lake and up through the rail yards to Grant Park. It was nothing like I remembered it. The defunct trains had become a neighborhood on useless wheels. Boxcars, passenger cars, cabooses, even engines had been converted for human use. It had to beat trying to maintain a household in a twenty-five-story walk-up.
The park’s lawns, which once seemed to go on forever and had been dotted with picnickers, volleyball games, and joggers, were now divided into farm plots, tent towns, and graveyards littered with sad little markers. There were no flowers, but some of the graves seemed to have collected piles of offerings: bows, feathers, ribbons, other odds and ends.
It was easier going here, oddly enough, because the people seemed not to care about us. Neither Magritte nor Howard, shambling along smothered in his sweatsuit, aroused any particular interest. Maybe it was because an armed group of normals with two twists in tow merely looked like a successful hunting party. Whatever the reason, they looked at us; they looked away, they went about their business. And, I noticed distractedly, there seemed to be a lot of business going on in some quarters.
“Balbo Market,” said Howard, apparently catching my curiosity about the busy clumps of tents, stalls, and makeshift wagons. “People gotta eat, and they gotta have stuff, y’know, so …” He waved an arm at the small but bustling throng.
I slowed my pace a little to watch the patrons of Balbo Market interact. I saw haggling, items changing hands, hands being shaken in accord. Adaptation passing for normalcy.
“Life finds a way,” murmured Goldie.
I focused my attention on the cluttered path ahead. I couldn’t yet see the Black Tower through the combination of fey red haze and smoke, but the closer we got to it, the tighter my nerves twisted.
I distracted them with a study of Howard Russo. Who was this guy, really? Was he the victim of circumstance who bravely allowed Enid and others to escape Primal’s grasp, or was he the weasel who sold out flares and a handful of musicians to save his own hide? Was he both? Was there any way to find out before we walked into Primal’s fortress? Was there any way to find out what Primal was?
“Howard, the devas that Primal keeps-are they his allies or his slaves?”
Howard glanced up at me from inside his hood, his mirror lenses nearly blinding me. “I didn’t sell those people.”