“We’re available for a limited time only,” I said, three-fourths asleep.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“They’ve got the turbine; the note came from Theo an hour ago. He says he’ll see you in Oz.”
“Ha ha, Theo. Sher? In the… thing, this evening. There wasn’t anything from Frances.”
“She said, in — I think it was an Irish accent — that there was only one thing you’d ever given her that she could hold in her two hands, that she hadn’t eaten. And that the one thing would be perfect for the pot, but it was also the first thing you’d given her, and she thought the sentiment would be more use to her than the identification would be to you.”
I laughed again. “That’s very Frances-like of her. Sher, why does China Black have silver eyebrows?”
“She got in trouble once, she says, because her eyebrows moved. She was afraid it would happen again.”
“Silly,” I said, and fell asleep.
10.1: Who plans revenge must dig two graves
The wind had come up, and swept a domed lid of overcast across the night as far as I could see. Which, given the towers in the way, wasn’t far; but I’d seen it over the road into the City, too. In the Night Fair, vendors would be keeping an eye on the sky, a hand on their shutters and awning cranks. If the wind didn’t blow the clouds away, there would be rain. Which was no guarantee that there would be a whirlwind.
LeRoy had driven me to the edge of the Deeps. I’d spent the ride looking out the passenger’s side window of the truck, to keep from looking at him. Even so, I could tell that he was glancing over every few minutes, when the crumbling pavement gave him leave. Whatever he wanted — to ask if he could come along, to ask me to give it up, to cuss me out for undoing his work in getting me out of the City in the first place — I wasn’t strong enough to stand against it. So I’d kept my face to the glass and the growing darkness, and hoped that the cloud cover meant that the Engineers, or random luck, were giving us what we needed.
Josh had wanted to come, too. I’d talked him out of that, at least. I didn’t want anyone else there if Tom Worecski managed to backtrack along my trail. LeRoy was risk enough. I wondered if LeRoy realized that I hadn’t made any provisions for getting out of the City. Something could happen that would leave me alive and in danger if I stayed. But how could I say when and where I’d meet him, or what to do if I didn’t? Besides, alive and still in danger was the least likely possibility.
I had a clean shirt, Large Bob’s nice trousers, the glass bead on a chain around my neck, and not much else. Nothing that might serve as a weapon. I had maybe been rash there. But I didn’t know anything about weapons, and I didn’t want to hurt myself. Or have someone take the gun or knife or whatever away and use it to hurt me. That, at the moment, seemed more pressing than symbolism.
It wasn’t deja vu; I had been here before, in the street, looking up at Ego. But the appropriate haunted-house sky was missing this time behind the building’s halo of little lights. And Frances wasn’t with me. She was in the Gilded West, with Theo, waiting for a brisk Jehovan miracle. For Oya Iansa, Lightning Woman, patron of revolution and change, whose dancing brings the wind. I wondered if she was the pictograph who sounded like Frances. I hoped Theo hadn’t taken too much gear from the Underbridge. If an electrical storm came with the tornado, the club would be full of dancers under the long windows. Oh, gods. I wanted to be on the sound balcony. I wanted to see Robby, and hear Spangler say “fuck” one more time. I wanted it so badly I hurt.
Enough. I shook myself and went to Ego’s front door.
I could see the camera, watching from its bracket on the ceiling, and past it, the guard desk. I looked into the camera’s eye and nodded, schooling my face to something like confident blankness.
The guard was one I didn’t know, young, brown-haired, with a sunburnt nose. He looked up when I stopped in front of the desk.
“They know I’m coming,” I said.
“Can I have your name, please, to—”
“They don’t need my name. They just saw my face on the monitor upstairs.” I tilted my head toward the camera.
“I have to call to authorize—”
“Please do.”
He went into the little room with the window in the door, and I followed silently after. When I came in, he was on the intercom saying, ”… didn’t give a name, sir.” I reached gently around his shoulder and took the desk mike away from him.
“Hello, Tom,” I said. It would come through clearly; I knew how to talk into a microphone. “I thought I was invited.”
There was a beat of silence. Then the drawling voice, saying, “Well, God damn if you aren’t. Come on up. You know the way.”
The guard stepped back, watching me. He seemed skittish. I handed him the microphone and headed for the elevator.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. We’d discovered, when we put our heads together, that the only thing we could plan was the lighting of Ego. Helping Dana, thwarting — or even avoiding — Tom, were too full of variables. I could only go, because I had to go, and stay alert, and do the next thing, whatever it was. Everything depended on what happened next, and what happened after that, and after that, and I had no idea what any of those would be. I was waiting, almost literally, for a sign. Improvisation wasn’t what I was good at. What was I good at? What was I made to do?
Theo would light the Gilded West, if he could, at the request of Sherrea’s gods. What was I here for? To bring Dana out. To stop Tom Worecski. I doubted I could manage either one. I was simply moving in the direction that seemed right, and hoping that at the appropriate moment, something would tell me I’d arrived.
“This isn’t just the power monopoly,” Sherrea had said before I climbed into the truck. “That’s just a symptom. D’you understand?” It had meant a lot to her, I could telclass="underline" her hands were closed hard on my shoulders, and her face was uncomfortably close to mine. She wouldn’t have forgotten if it wasn’t important. Once, I would have smiled and told her yes, I understood, sure. This afternoon, I’d stood quiet under her hands and finally shook my head. She’d remembered then, let go and stepped back. But I’d seen the fear in her face.
Oh, spirits, if Frances wasn’t John Wayne, I certainly wasn’t. Why hadn’t I just stood at the front door and cut my throat?
The elevator door opened on darkness. The elevator itself was still lit, so the power hadn’t gone off. I stepped out, holding the door open. It pinged furiously; I jumped and lost my grip. The door closed and left me in a perfect absence of light. I wish I’d thought to bring a candle. But how could I have expected that here, where electricity ran like water, there wouldn’t be enough light to see by?
I could find the office by touch; there weren’t that many doors. But I could probably find other things, too, if I was meant to. I took two steps, my fingers trailing along the wall. “Tom,” I said on a whim, “this is stupid. I can turn around and leave.”
In the ceiling, a speaker crackled. I’d been right. He’d seen too many movies. “That elevator ain’t comin’ back.”
“I know where the fire stairs are.”
“Sure, you do. But I’m awful sorry about the lights on those stairs. Seem to be on the blink. You sure you want to go down ’em in the dark, nice and slow?”
That might mean that he had put something in the stairwell. Or it might only mean that, once I headed for it, he would.
“And speakin’ of fire, what did you think of the one I lit for you last time? Huh?” He laughed, a high, scratching giggle overhead. How about a little fire, Scarecrow, I thought, but didn’t say. The horse you rode in on, and your little dog, too, Worecski.
I found a light switch under my fingers and flipped it, but nothing happened. Shut off at the breaker box, probably located in Ego’s heels; and I was in her hair. Either he’d just ordered it done, or the paging system was on a separate circuit.