City Of Souls (13 page)

I knew I was missing a million little details, but was so overwhelmed by what appeared to be an old western saloon that it took a moment longer to note the bartender blinking back at me. I did, however, notice the green felt tables fanning to my right, if only because they were the only truly familiar things in the room. Less familiar? An ornate door with a scrolled gilt handle and glossy red surface adorned with stylized coils and whipping bands—cones, balls, wedges, prisms, geometric bands, and disks—all overlapping each other in writhing detail, though I had no idea what any of it meant. It stood out not only for its lavish detail but for its splash of color, and the rim of light haloing its perimeter. Because even though the smoke was thinning, everything else was washed in a sepia haze.

I turned my attention back to the bar where the light I’d seen was revealed to be the reflection of a pagoda lantern attached to the wall behind me. The oval mirror showcasing it had a twin, like eyes holding my outline in their unblinking gaze. A third mirror, rectangular and centered between the first two, was split by an antique brass cash register, while a long bar sat before that, white towels pegged at each end, and spittoons spaced evenly along the base. A brass foot rail shone as brightly as the polished bar, matching the paneled oak crisscrossing every inch of wall space, giving the simple room an opulent feel. I glanced up at a ceiling of beautiful pressed tin, each intricate square cupping a constellation. Fans twirled lazily overhead, and an elegant staircase on the left rose to a split hallway.

I tried to shake the feeling of being watched. Hard, since my warrior’s mind calculated almost two dozen men in straight-backed, unpainted chairs, who stopped cold as they stared directly at me. I had a sudden, desperate hankering for a six-shooter.

“Well…” I cleared my throat and resisted the urge to tip an imaginary hat. “Howdy.”

Despite being born and raised in the Sierra Nevadas, at the southernmost tip of what was known as the SilverState, what I knew about the era where saloons had proliferated across the West was confined to Hollywood bastardizations of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I thought I’d been in over my head when I woke up to discover I was a twenty-first century superhero veiled in my sister’s fleshly body. But at least then I’d had a cultural rope to grab onto and regain my equilibrium…and I don’t mean a lasso.

There was nothing in this nineteenth-century-style saloon that looked vaguely familiar. Even the people were the sort that looked out at you, unsmiling, from black-and-white photos…like long-dead relatives with hard lives that leeched their personalities from their leathered skins. Ironically enough, it was the flash of a photographer’s bulb that snapped the silence from the room, blinding me once again. Vulnerable, I braced for assault, but the worry dissolved under the trickling keys of a piano intro.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I muttered to no one, rubbing my eyes and squinting in the direction of the music.

Oh, many secrets does this girl have

And she hides them in the light

But the darkness may have the last laugh

Because her temper has a bite.

I was as surprised by the subject of the song as at the way it ended…or didn’t. The piano player, a reed-thin man with a bowler hat, long fingers and a hook nose, cut off the jaunty song as abruptly as he’d begun, withering into himself like a skeleton sinking into his swivel stool. I raised my brows, waiting for some other random weirdness to occur—might as well get it all out at once, right?—and it obliged me in the form of a saloon girl appearing over the second floor’s shining brass railing.

In a muted world of sepia tones and scratchy grays, she was saturated color, almost blinding in her brightness. She smiled down at me as I rubbed my eyes again, not moving, just letting the shock of her appearance amidst so much gray sink in. None of the men, I noted, could take their eyes off of her either. The only thing to rival her brilliance was that steady orange glow circling the bright red door next to the bar.

A world ruled by women.

Hitching a hip onto the left-hand railing, she crossed her arms beneath what these people probably referred to as her bosom.

“Sleepy Mack, I could just kiss you.” Her laughter rang over the sunken room as musically as the piano had moments before. “I mean, finally. A new fuckin’ song.”

The slumped piano player didn’t respond, his hands drooped lifelessly over his knees, the dusty bowler hat tipped low over his eyes. I finally moved—Yay, me—twisting to find another solid wall behind me. Gilt frames with oil paintings of women in various states of undress were interspersed with old-fashioned oil lanterns, but the small box with its candle and the tunnel leading back to modern-day Vegas was nowhere to be found.

I did, however, spot the cause of my earlier blindness. A nineteenth century daguerreotype camera sat next to me, a shiny box front and wooden tripod so pristine that my dormant photographer’s heart went
boom-boom
. But anger rose along with my covetousness—two sins for the price of one—because the camera had clearly been set there for the purpose of catching people as they entered. I thought of what I knew about fairy tales, the way myth derived from fact and vice versa, and suddenly didn’t like that someone had snapped my photograph at all. Some cultures believed capturing a person’s image also enslaved their soul. I turned my head and narrowed eyes back to the bartender, and had the satisfaction of watching wariness overcome his handsome features as I headed his way.

“I want that picture back,” I said, pounding my fist on the bar, though I shot a nervous glance at the red door, instinctively edging away from it. By now another woman had joined the first at the top of the stairs, and two more were heading out of a room as resplendent as they were—shimmering, shining, tasseled, bright, and
alive
in a way nothing downstairs was. Catching the direction of my gaze, a Latina with heels even sharper than my tongue swiftly pulled the door shut behind her, while the rest leaned in various states of repose along the railing. Eyes were shaped, lashed, and lined from corner to corner, black kohl apparently a girl’s best friend over here, while lips fighting with nails to sport the greatest sheen. It was a rainbow-hued array of fringed and beaded and silken clothing, jewels sparking off their ears and fingers and arms, and even from the shawls pulled about their shoulders.

I wiped my brow with my free hand, unable to keep from comparing its ashen hue with the vibrancy and life perched above me. It was steaming hot down here, so maybe in this world color rose instead of heat.

Because the women above didn’t look hot. The few holding fans were clearly doing so for effect, feathers swaying with the casual flick of their wrists, shots of light from bright gems gleaming from bone handles and gold wrist straps. There was nothing on or near them that wasn’t adorned. Even Cher and Suzanne, using their entire feminine arsenal, couldn’t compete with the show above.

I returned my attention to the bartender, who calmly reached over and lifted my hand, polishing the shining bar top beneath with his pristine white rag. “Been a long time since we had anyone come through that entrance, miss.”

His voice was a sweetened drawl, and the “miss” melted me somewhat, so while I removed my hand from his grasp, I was careful not to touch the bar. He smiled his thanks. He was dressed in traditional barman garb, the collar on his white shirt pressed beneath the black vest, his white apron spotless. I didn’t look, but I would have bet that his shit-kickers were polished to a glossy sheen. His hair would have been fashionable in my world if not for the handlebar mustache above his goatee and the generous helping of pomade slicking back the honey-blond strands. Honey blond, I thought grimly, if he hadn’t been living in an achromatic world.

“My picture?” I demanded, holding out my hand. Meanwhile I sniffed, trying to scent out if he was Light or Shadow, for me or against, but I came up with the mental equivalent of a blank chalkboard, a big void, but even less than both of those things implied, because the molecules I inhaled were empty. I drew back, even warier.

The bartender shrugged. “All first-timers to the Rest House have their images taken. How ’bout a drink? First one’s on the house.”

The Rest House? I tilted my head. “And that’s secret agent language for what?”

“No secret, ma’am.” He jerked his chin, indicating a point over my shoulder, and I turned, ignoring the cluster of people—all men, I now noted—still eavesdropping. One man, dark-skinned even outside the monochromatic room, rose from his seat so slowly it looked like he was floating in space. He pointed to the wall where my image, or eventual one, sat nestled among dozens of others. I took my eyes off it long enough to watch him float back to his seat, wondering exactly how long
he’d
been drinking.

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.

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.