“Oh, fuck!”
I’d stepped on the glass globe that held the sun scorpion. Swearing, I kicked aside shards of broken glass and stone and a small gritty heap of sand. Something gleamed as it skittered across the floor, glowing cobalt in the UV light; then disappeared, as though it were a flame that had been extinguished. I hopped over the shattered globe. The fact that I had on heavy leather boots with two-inch heels somehow didn’t seem much of a comfort. I headed for the half-open door, but when I reached the mattress again I froze.
Sprawled across its center was the tangled mass of blankets I’d shoved aside minutes before. One side of the pallet was bare, and still showed the faint imprint of my body.
But there was someone on the other side of the mattress, the side that was closest to me. Her body curved to form a question mark, arms drawn in front of her with hands clasped. She still wore her dress with the heart-shaped cutouts; in the cold light the flesh that showed through looked slick and damp, the color of a mussel shell. Her eyes were slitted, her mouth open and teeth bared, tongue protruding like a kitten’s. Along the bottom of her jaw a silvery filament of saliva glistened.
“Ali. Hey, Ali…” I knelt, paused before touching her arm. “Shit.”
I jerked my hand back. Her skin felt hard, cool as plastic. I swallowed, tasting bile; forced myself to look at her again, my gaze traveling from face to breast to abdomen, searching for some sign that this wasn’t real, that I’d made a mistake and she was just sleeping.
She wasn’t. I steeled all my courage to lay one palm against her breast. It was like touching a hot water bottle that’s been left overnight, cold and slightly flaccid.
“Oh, Christ, Ali, don’t do this, don’t do this, please please don’t—”
I lowered my face until it grazed hers. Her cheeks were cold, her hair stiff. I ran my hand along her arm, stopped when I reached the crook of her elbow. There was a row of tiny bruises there, each with a bright dot in the center, as though she’d been playing with a red Magic Marker. I brushed a dank tuft of hair from her forehead, let my finger trace the outline of her cheek, trailing down the side of her nose until it reached her upper lip. There was something sticky there, sticky and granular. I pulled away, letting a wash of blue light cascade from the overhead bulb onto her face. Sparks of purple and black glittered on her lips and around her mouth, as though she’d been eating poisoned sugar. I hesitated, then touched her mouth and held my finger up to the light. The same purplish gleam was there, flecked with grains of glowing violet. I inhaled, breathing in a perfumed sweetness that was also rank, like wisteria or fetid water.
“They look so peaceful when they’re asleep.”
A figure loomed above me, her sharkskin jacket and miniskirt given a sinister, inky sheen by the light.
“She’s—she’s dead.” I stumbled to my feet. “Have you—did you—”
Precious Bane stared at the corpse. “‘Lethaeo perfusa papavera somno,’” she said in a throaty voice. “Poppies soaked with the sleep of Lethe.” She stooped and gently touched Ali’s lips with her finger. “Opium soaked in honey.”
She held up her hand, the UV bulb making her nails glow like so many lit tapers. “She must have eaten an entire cake of it—yeah, look, there it is—”
She pointed at the floor near my feet, reached to pick up a filmy piece of paper, its surface shiny like aluminum foil. “See? There was enough here to kill someone twice her size. Little slip of a thing like that.”
Precious Bane flicked the paper so that it floated into the shadows. She knelt beside the corpse, lifting one of the arms to study it. “And she was using.”
“She said she wasn’t. She said she was just chipping—”
“Uh-uh. Sorry, honey, but she lied. Lesson Number One: junkies always lie. She was trying to find a vein— see?”
A shining talon tapped at the cluster of star-shaped bruises on Ali’s arm. “But she wasn’t very good at it. Junkies are stupid, too,” she said flatly, and with a soft thud she let the arm drop to the mattress.
Rage and horror bloomed inside of me. I tried to hit Precious Bane, but she was too quick.
“That’s enough—” She grabbed my wrist and I started to cry. Gently she pulled me beside her, smoothing the hair from my forehead. “First time you ever saw one of your friends OD?”
I nodded.
“Yeah. Well, it’s not a pretty sight, even if it doesn’t kill you. Here”— she held out a big, white, man’s handkerchief. —“that’s it. Aw, don’t cry, honey, you’ll rust. God, I hate it when they cry,” she sighed. “C’mon—”
She stood, took me by the shoulder and guided me to the door. “You start shooting that stuff, you’ll be hanging with the Lee sisters—Homely and Ugly. And then you’ll be dead. Ha ha.”
After the ghastly light of that room, the corridor seemed black as a lake-bottom, and as cold. Broken glass was everywhere, along with twisted muntins and powdery chunks of plaster. Every window we passed had been shattered. We sidestepped twisted tree-limbs and branches thick with wet yellowing leaves, and acorns everywhere like marbles tossed across the floor. Precious Bane made little grimaces and grunts of distaste, her platform heels clunking on bare wood. Occasionally she would stop to kick at a twig or piece of bark, nearly losing her balance in the process.
“God, this place. I hate this place—”
I followed her, too exhausted and frightened to fight any more, too horrified by what had happened to Ali. There was no light, save what seeped down from the windows. The few doors we passed were small and invariably shut, with rusted hasps dangling from broken latches. The floorboards were so worn it was like walking over crumpled carpeting, the windows so deeply recessed that looking into one was like gazing into a dark kaleidoscope. All the familiar landmarks looked shrunken and out of place, the lake where the night sky should be, gale-tossed trees moving slowly back and forth, as though they had sunk to the bottom of a river. The fitful rain of early evening had grown to a steady downpour. Now and then voices would abruptly ring out from the surrounding darkness, but they sounded hollow and metallic, fragments from a soundtrack or a television left chattering in an empty room.
“Man, it’s freezing.” I rubbed my arms, grateful for Jamie’s clothes. But then I had a terrible thought.
Had he known Ali was dead?
“She passed out. Hillary took off…”
I stopped, my breath coming way too fast. How could Jamie have left her?
How could I?
“You couldn’t have done anything, even if you’d been there.”
Precious Bane’s voice was gentle, as was the hand she laid on my shoulder; but to me it was the accusation I’d been waiting for.
“But I did leave her! I knew she had no fucking idea what she was doing, and I still left her—I left and she—she—”
“No.” Precious Bane shook her head. In the darkness her face was more masklike than ever. The heavy pancake makeup was faded, her lipstick chalky-looking, so that the masculine lines of her face showed clearly: the strong chin and square cheekbones, wide mouth and bluish unshaven skin. But her eyes were still garishly mascaraed and flecked with glitter, and her cherry-colored hair still flamed around her Medusa-like. “You couldn’t have done a thing. Believe me, honey—I’ve been here before. People get hurt, and it always ends badly—”
“Then why are you here now?” I asked, my voice quivering.