“Move back,” she told Spyder.
Faster than his eye could register, Shrike bought her sword arcing down and sliced the padlock off the door. The lock clattered to the floor noisily. Half of it skipped way and rattled down the stairs. Spyder heard low voices from the edges of the room.
Shrike turned toward the darkness and leaned casually on her sword. “You’re all welcome to stay here, but anyone stupid enough to come through this door will end up like that lock.”
The interior of the office was dusty and littered with paper and rat turds. It looked as if it might have been a records office. Old filing cabinets stood against one wall along with a tilting, three-legged desk. Spyder had stayed in worse places, but not recently. He described the scene to Shrike, who walked from wall to wall, pacing off the room.
“Would you push the old furniture into a corner?” she asked.
When he’d dragged the rusting junk out of the way, Spyder said, “There were some old sofa cushions and maybe a futon out there. I’ll go get them.”
“If you want to sleep on mildewed trash, feel free. I prefer something clean.”
Shrike had her pop-up book open to a page that, in the dark, looked like a scene from The Thief of Baghdad. She whispered a few words and the storage room was flooded in light and warmth.
The light came from burning braziers set at each corner of the room. The floors were covered with Persian carpets and bright pillows. There was an enormous bed against one wall and storage vessels and cabinets against the opposite. The place smelled instantly of incense and spices.
“Welcome to my home away from home,” Shrike said.
“When I was five, I had a metal folding cup that I thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” said Spyder. “But I was wrong.”
“I’m glad you like it. You’re my guest. Please sit down. Are you hungry?”
“Now that you ask, yes.”
Shrike dropped her coat and sword onto the big bed and went to the cabinets without hesitation. Spyder sat down on the edge of the bed watching her sure movements. Even though it was occupying an alien space, he thought, this was clearly her room.
“I’ve been on the road for a while, so I’m not really Suzy Homemaker these days,” said Shrike, opening and closing the cabinets. She came back to the bed with a couple of bundles. “All I have is some wine and focaccia.”
“The breakfast of champions,” Spyder said.
“My glasses are all broken, so we’re going to have to share the bottle,” Shrike said.
“That’s okay. It’ll give me a chance to look butch for once tonight.”
Shrike smiled and sliced the wax and cork from the top of the bottle with the edge of her sword, then handed the wine to Spyder. It tasted like wind felt at the top of a hill on a summer night. He handed the bottle back to Shrike. “Wow,” he said.
Shrike took a long drink. “Don’t forget to eat, too. Give it a chance, and this wine will leave you half-naked, shoeless and wearing a dog collar, with only a vague memory of how you got that way.”
“Does the wine have a sister?”
“You wish.”
Between bites of spicy focaccia Spyder said, “You’re not at the Coma Gardens. How is your client going to find you?”
“Magic.”
“You’re not much like most girls.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“That’s how it’s meant.”
“Slow down on the wine, pony boy. You don’t want your mouth getting too far ahead of your brain.”
“How long have you been living like this? Out of your little magic book?”
“A long time. Since… Almost half my life.”
“You and your business partner, the one I’m standing in for.”
“He’d be the one.”
“What happened to him?”
Shrike chewed with great deliberation for some time. “He was killed by assassins. Hellspawn.”
“You don’t ever do anything halfway, do you? It’s not enough that your friend got iced. He was done in by hell’s hit men.”
“I didn’t ask for an exciting life, believe me. I crave boredom.”
“I know the feeling.”
“I don’t remember what seeing is like,” Shrike said.
“You used to be able to see?”
“Yes. After I went blind, I could still remember things. Colors. Moonlight. My father’s face. It’s all gone now, though.”
“When you cut that lock, I thought you were playing me. A pretty girl just pretending to be blind to look less dangerous.”
“You’re not the first person to think that,” she said, and took off her shades. “But I really am blind.”
Spyder looked at her for a long time. He wanted to be sure that what he was seeing wasn’t a trick of the fire light. Shrike’s eyes were fractured, like cracked glass. The misshapen pupils were ants trapped in amber. Shrike’s eyes were bright, but dead.
“That can’t be natural,” he said.
“I was cursed.”
“The bastard lover you talked about?”
She nodded. “It’s a story I don’t feel like telling right now. “ Shrike drank more wine and lay back on the bed. “I’ve answered enough questions for now. Tell me about you, Spyder Lee.”
“I’m a Leo. I like wine and focaccia, Seventies Kraut-rock, and I dig chicks with their own swords.” Spyder lay down next to Shrike and kissed her hand. She let him, he noted, but a moment later she put her hand on his chest to keep him from going any further.
“Slow down, pony boy.”
“Sorry,” he said. “To answer something you asked earlier, I’m not Spider Clan. Or, Hell, maybe I am. My father loved cars and he loved James Dean. I’m named for the model of Porsche Dean raced. It’s also the car that killed him.”
Shrike laughed. “You’re named for a dead man’s car?”
“I think the saddest day of my father’s life was when I saw my first James Dean movie and only thought it was okay.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. We already had some problems, then he just sort of lost interest in me. He wasn’t mean or anything. We just didn’t ever talk much after that. I think I broke some kind of sacred bond I didn’t even know was supposed to be there. It was his own fault. He took me to see Journey Into Fear. The old man had James Dean, but on my planet, Orson Welles was the man to be.”
“I’ve heard of him. Tell me more.”
“Citizen Kane’s still the greatest movie ever made. People don’t even know that it’s a pure special effects flick. It all looks so real, so natural. You never stop believing you’re watching the rise and fall of the richest man in the world. And Journey into Fear. Most people haven’t even heard of that one. Welles directed it, but didn’t get a screen credit. He was just a little older than I am now and was already washed up in Hollywood. He plays a Turkish cop. He looked ten feet tall. I wanted him to be my father and I wanted to be him at the same time.” Spyder sat up and fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette. The wine had left him light-headed, but happily so. He found half a pack of American Spirits and lit one. Shrike held out two fingers in a V shape. Spyder placed the cigarette there. She took a drag and handed it back to him.
“I always wanted to do something like Welles,” Spyder said.
“Be washed up at an early age?”
“No, dummy. Do something great. Something permanent. Even if it was just a new tattoo style. Something that would tag some little part of the universe that I could point to it from Heaven or Hell and say, ‘I did that.’ That’s mine.”
“And here you are, huddled in a warehouse with a blind stranger surrounded by snoring winos.”
Spyder brushed stray hairs from Shrike’s face. “I’m not complaining.”
“What’s it been, two minutes?”