I knew from my photography classes that daguerreotype processing took time, and the hot mercury vapor used to develop the images was highly dangerous to the photographer. But there was no photographer, and the image hadn’t been burned beneath a glass plate. It appeared directly onto a molding yellow piece of paper pinned to a giant board.
One with “Most Wanted” typed in bold across the top.
“Well,” I said, turning back. “It’s nice to be wanted, right?”
The bartender smiled amicably. “Everybody has one,” he said consolingly, but I’d already noted that. The entire wall was filled with posters, most with full images and agent names scrawled beneath. Many of the represented agents were at the gaming tables-all wearing, interestingly enough, the same clothing they’d been photographed in-though there were far more posters than players, pinned atop and sideways, some even on the floor. I wondered what had happened to the agents underneath.
And that’s when I spotted it, pinned to the top left corner of the board, hanging off the side, as if an afterthought. Not an agent, but the faded line drawing of a freckle-faced boy whose image Zane carried around in his wallet. Like many preteen boys, he’d been smiling uncertainly in the photo Zane had shown me. In this one he was screaming.
Jacks’s missing changeling.
Not alive. Not healed. And he hadn’t even been given the dignity of his name. All it said beneath the macabre drawing was, Mortal.
Bill mistook my gasp for one of self-concern.
“Don’t worry, your full identity isn’t revealed until you enter three times.”
“Let me guess,” I said, licking my dry lips, pulling my mind away from the changeling. I had to stay focused. New world. New rules. I looked at the musty men scattered around the room like litter. Clearly. “At which point I won’t be able to leave?”
And kill the rushlight in two tries.
“You catch on quick.” He smiled, and held out his hand this time. “I’m Bill.”
“I’m-” I caught myself just in time-caught his calculated look too-but shook his hand anyway. “Pleased to meet you, Bill.”
Bartenders, no matter how attractive, worked for the house. I shut my mouth and shoved my hands into my pockets, and he shrugged and turned back to his taps. That’s when I caught my reflection in the bar’s foggy back mirror. “Oh my God.”
It was me. Though reflected in soft focus, there was no mistaking the dark blunt bob ending just below my chin, the athletic rather than amative frame. I glanced back over my shoulder, blinking away unexpected tears, to find my poster also seemed to be taking on my old, my original, my true form. I looked down at the longer, more sinewy muscles in my arms, patted my legs-tighter, my nose-wider…I couldn’t help it, my breasts, smaller. Shoot, it was all I could do to keep from kissing myself.
“You’re in the Rest House…but also the Tenth House,” Bill explained, careful to stand aside as he slid an opulent glass in front of me. I curled my hand around it, surprised to find myself shaking so much the crystal cut against my smooth fingertips. Bill motioned to a picture pinned next to the bar, like a health inspector’s card, which I recognized as part of a natal chart, the Tenth House and Midheaven centered in its frame. “The house in astrology where deeds reflect your purpose and your true self.”
That’s why I was seeing myself now. Wiping my brow, I sipped thoughtfully. The room was like a steamless sauna, wicking moisture from my pores, but the drink helped. Its finish was cloying, not the traditional firewater I’d expected, but the aftertaste washed away with the next cooling sip. I took another and studied the rest of the room. “So why is everyone moving so slowly?”
Bill shot me that affable smile. “Maybe you’re just moving too fast.”
My movements, natural though they were, did make me stand out. While most of the men had returned to their games, their movements were molasses-slow. Others continued to stare at me, unblinking, and lifting cut crystal glassware to their lips or murmuring to themselves in unending monologues. I could practically track their gazes as they swung my way. Shit, UPS could have tracked them. And one man-black Stetson low, leather vest extended over his giant belly, dark eyes hard on mine-didn’t move at all.
The piano player might be catatonic, I thought, sipping again, but the rest of the room wasn’t far behind.
Except for upstairs. I lifted my eyes back to the women lounging against the banister, and as if she’d been anticipating it, the first began making her way down the stairs.
A world ruled by women.
And one of those rulers was headed my way.
10
Her pace was normal, but calculated. A deeply tanned hand, bejeweled with heavy rings and shimmering red nails, trailed along the carved railing. I’d have described her clothes as old-fashioned, and matching the western decor, except that even to my untrained eye they possessed a modern sensibility.
Though her jade silk dress had a high neck and button front, it was embellished with a cinched leather sash, to match the black stockings and ankle boots. Her body was liquid beneath the shifting silk skirts, her face heart-shaped below dark hair and curls I’d last seen on Little House on the Prairie. Deep-stained rosebud lips were turned upward in a secret smile, and diamonds as big as my thumbnails sat like flat pancakes at her earlobes. Her gold chain would have been more at home in a rap video than a western flick, with an inverted horseshoe that actually shot sparks of light from its diamond facets, as if tiny disco balls were reeling inside. It seemed she was mocking her own disguise, poking fun at the era while taking part in it.
She paused at the last stair, a predator’s smile on her budding lips, before jumping to the ground floor, both booted feet landing with a hard thwack. There was a collective inhalation as the room shot to life, suddenly brighter. A black man grinned the biggest, most beautifully blinding smile I’d ever seen, his ashy hue leached away. An Asian guy ran a hand over thick silky hair as he turned his head, thankfully, toward the heavens. The man who’d stared so unblinkingly at me now had his eyes shut in relief, and I didn’t blame him. The air was suddenly alive, like a cooling breeze had swept through the building, and I wasn’t as thirsty as I’d been even a moment earlier.
The fans directly above us stilled, punctuating the silence, and the woman reached for a gaunt man at the nearest table, her left hand a sinuous ribbon around his neck as she pulled him from his chair. She pretended not to notice when he shuddered, dragging him along as she advanced upon me. Though I felt color and sensation and life washing off of her in waves, I took advantage of my quicker movements to grasp her left wrist before it fell to my arm.
I didn’t care how dead sexy and life-affirming she was, nobody touched me without permission.
The surprised dulcet tones of the women above told me I’d done something unexpected. I decided to keep on doing it.
“There’s a man,” I said without preamble.
“There’s always a man.” She smiled. I tightened my hold.
“This one came from my world.” And killed a child in doing so.
“I know the lantern.”
That didn’t make sense to me, but I flagged that information for later too. “I need to find him.”