Wizard picked up a thick meat sandwich on homemade bread and eyed it suspiciously. “You attacked one of my pigeons today,” he accused her gravely.
“So what?” Cassie asked around a mouthful. “We all have to eat. Besides, I just rumpled his feathers. This meat isn’t squab, if that’s what you’re worried about. Eat now, talk later.
You’re as skinny as a pile of kindling.“
Wizard ate. He never asked her where she got things from.
Beside the sandwiches were slivers of smoked salmon poked into cream cheese balls, crisp sour tiny pickles, cashews and almonds, and small pastry rolls with a mysterious spicy filling.
As he ate, he felt his strength and calmness expanding to fill him. His fear had hidden inside him all day, nibbling away at his power. But at Cassie’s he was safe, and the food she fed him gave him back his mind. With a sigh, he finished and leaned back to look at her.
Tonight she was young, perhaps in her early twenties. Her hair was caught back in a loose roll at the nape of her neck, but tendrils of it had pulled free to soften her grave features.
She lapped cream cheese off a fingertip, and caught his eyes on her. “So?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at him.
“So,‘ he agreed. The weight of his worry pressed down on him again. ”I had a visitor last night, Cassie. An unpleasant one. It calls itself Mir.“
“I know.” She stopped his voice with a look. “I overheard it. Anyone with a shred of Power must have felt it last night.
I imagine people had nightmares for blocks around here.“
“Sorry,” he murmured, feeling guilty about the overflow.
“Don’t be. They should consider it fair warning. If you fall to it, not a street in the Ride Free Area will be safe. So it concerns them as much as it does you. What you are going to do about it?”
He shook his head slowly, haying no answer. The Pimp entered, slipping between me drapes like perfume, strolling across the room with his orange tail held high. He glanced with green eyes at the ravaged tray and leaped to Wizard’s lap, purring loudly. Wizard stroked his sleek sides, and the big cat stood up against him to rub cheeks with him. Sitting down fat on his lap. The Pimp gave a quick scrub at his face with one paw and uttered a questioning meow-
“Sony,” Wizard laughed gently. “We ate it all.”
The Pimp was not slow. He sank his claws into Wizard’s thighs and burned out across his chest, leaving clawmarks instead of smoking rubber. Wizard gave a yell and fell away from him as the angry cat vanished. Cassie only laughed. “You see where he got his name. Bring him something home and he’s your sugar man. But greet him empty-handed. -.. That’s The Pimp.”
“Black Thomas lost a paw last night.”
Cassie flinched. “I didn’t pick up on that. Do you think he’ll be all right?”
“I did what I could for him. That’s how Mir got me. reached after Thomas past my own shield, and couldn’t pull back fast enough.”
“I had wondered what made you go out there naked. Well.
I suppose you want me to look into it?“
“Would you?‘
“Why do you think I changed? I wasn’t about to play seer in a sweatsuit. It would be akin to a priest granting absolution-, without a stole. I guess there’s no sense in putting it off. Come on,then.”
Cassie wiped her fingertips and mouth with a napkin and dropped it on the tray. Wizard rose slowly to follow her- As he picked up the bag and his coat. she focused on the bag.
“What’s that?”
“I found it in a dumpster, with my name on it.” He held it out to her. As quickly as she had put out her hand, she drew it back. Wonder and dread mingled in her voice.
“There’s power there, but not for me to touch, nor use- It’s harmless right now, but the right spark…”
“Just like plastic explosive.”
“If I were one to give advice on things that aren’t in my realm, I’d tell you to leave it in that bag until the moment comes. Don’t touch it until then. Don’t mantle yourself with its power until you are ready to pick up the gauntlet.”
“Is this a Seeing?”
“Don’t tease. No, it’s just my opinion.”
“If I didn’t know better. I’d say you knew what was in the bag.”
“Well, I don’t. And I don’t want to. Not any more than I want to ask you this. But I don’t dare do a Seeing without knowing. Have you broken faith with me magic?”
Wizard stared at her, feeling slashed that she would even ask him such a thing. Did she suppose that he had forgotten the rules, unique to himself, that he must obey to retain his own special powers? He shook his head numbly.
“Are you sure? Not even by accident? Have you spoken the Truth when it was on you? When people ask, and you Know, have you always answered? Have you kept your pigeons safe and secure?”
He bobbed a nod at each question, but as she pressed on, he felt his control break. When she paused, he asked in a cold, uncertain voice, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’ve carried more than a dollar in change? If I’ve turned my strength loose upon others? If I’ve been with a woman?”
An abyss of dread opened in Cassie’s eyes and was as quickly masked. “Do I need to ask those things?” she inquired evenly.
“No! Because you know I haven’t. Can’t we get on with this? That damn thing up in my den… I know it’s from gray Mir. I Know it.”
Cassie’s calm held. “Then if you Know it, it must be so.
Tell me: What do you remember of this Mir, from before?“
He shrugged heavily. “Nothing, I guess. Sometimes I feel like my life rolls itself up behind me as I live it. I try to look back, but it’s all hidden inside itself. I see my yesterdays, but only so many at a time. Before that, there’s nothing.”
Cassie nodded quickly, seeming eager to stop his words.
“Let’s find out the worst, then. Come on.”
“Cassie?” His anxious tone swung her eyes back to him.
“It was a while back. Estrella the Gypsy gave me a tarot card.
It said ‘A Warning’ and showed a man dangling upside down by one heel. But then it was gone, so I—“
“The Hanged Man.” The silence that followed her words had a chilling eloquence. She swept across the room.
Wizard tucked the bag securely under his arm and followed.
She parted the hanging drapes and waved him through. The next room was in darkness. Wizard smelled dust and mildew and heard the chitter and scuttling of mice alarmed by his approach. Cassie came behind him, bearing a candelabra. The flames of the candles didn’t waver with her movement; they didn’t light much more than her path, either. He trailed along behind her through a maze of rooms and corridors. Most of the chambers they passed through were dusty and abandoned, but some were strangely and sumptuously furnished, twined and draped with Cassie’s ever-present plants, and lit by a pale yellow light that blinded Wizard until he passed into the darkened chambers beyond.
When they entered a carpeted room with many gilt-framed portraits on the wall, Cassie set her candles down on a low table. Wizard put his bag and coat on a loveseat beside it.
Cassie was silent, so he watched her quietly as she went to a scarred roll-top desk. She wound her hair into a black scarf.
A black cloak from a peg by the desk quenched her white robe.
She began to take objects from the drawers. Stepping a little closer, he watched her arrange them on a little lacquered tray.
There was a round mirror in a red frame with no handle; a thin ring of shining silver; four cats-eye marbles; a little pile of popcorn; five pennies polished copper bright; and white tail feathers from a pigeon.
“One never knows what they’ll fancy,” she murmured without looking at him. Taking the tray, she crossed the room to slide open a heavy wooden door on tracks. Beyond was a-, dizzying view. The lights of Seattle were impossibly small and spread out below them. But tree limbs reached up past the tiny rickety balcony which Cassie stepped onto. Wizard crept to the door and peered out. He longed to go to the edge and catch some glimpse of what supported them up here, but dared not.