Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (40 page)

The woman was kind of a bitch, he thought; but she had just lost her husband. He ought to at least offer condolences. She was absorbed in her task, and the noise level was relatively high. Auden didn’t want to surprise her, so he shifted an empty chair noisily as he approached, and she looked up.

“
Railwalker,” he said with a nod.

“
Investigator Auden.”

She’d stopped what she was doing, and placed her left hand palm down on the edge of the table. Her right still held the knife by the blade, like a pen. He looked again at her left hand. Blood was gathering on the table.

If he’d stopped to think about it, he wouldn’t have laid hands on a Railwalker, but Auden’s move was instinctive. He leaned over and grabbed her left hand, turning it over. The bare forearm was scored up and down with cuts, blood running freely from them. The cuts looked like some sort of runes or an alphabet Auden wasn’t familiar with.

In an instant she twisted the captured hand around, and then she was holding him, his wrist gripped in her left hand, the knife flipped over in her right, held in a fighting grip, point at his throat. “Don’t push your luck, grackle,” she said.

He stared into her eyes for a long, silent moment. Finally he said, “Why do you people call me that? I never understood that.”

Morgan released her grip and sat back, chuckling. “Grackle’s a bird the ignorant could take for a crow,” she said. “It’s a term for Railwalker wannabes.”

Auden laughed. “What made y’all think I was a wannabe?”

“
The coat,” she said. “And your use of the Voice.”

Auden looked down at his overcoat, realizing that it did indeed look something like the Railwalkers’ crow coats. He looked at her again. “Never thought of that,” he said with a shrug. “Just thought it was a nice coat. As to the Voice, it’s just a trick I picked up from an old man I knew once.”

“
Not really a wannabe?”

“
Nope. Never really cared much for the weird stuff, ghosts and omens and such. No offense.”

“
None taken.”

“
Never really wanted to be anything but a guard investigator.” He looked over the bar, then back at her. “Mind if I sit?”

She nodded toward the empty chair. Auden shifted the chair and sat where he could face Morgan and still keep one eye on the rest of the bar. The Railwalker noted that, and nodded. She reached out and plucked the glass from the table, drained it, and then signaled a passing waitress for a refill. The waitress picked up Morgan’s glass and then raised her eyebrows at Auden.

“
I’m good, thanks,” he said, waving her off.

Morgan looked at her bloody forearm. “Some cultures,” she said, “a widow cuts off her hair, tears her clothing. Some even cut themselves.”

Auden nodded, his eyes on the braid of hair lying on the table. “Your man Rok seemed like a decent guy.”

“
Oh, smooth segue, Investigator. Let’s draw the widow out. They give you a psych course in the guard for dealing with bereaved family members?”

“
I wish.” He snorted a laugh. “We’re stuck figuring out for ourselves how to deal with that shit.”

She sighed. Stuck the knife point-down in the table, where it stood up like a tombstone. The waitress returned with Morgan’s drink. She looked dubiously at the knife stuck in the tabletop, glanced at Auden. As Morgan stared at the tabletop, Auden silently mouthed, “I’ll cover it.” The waitress shrugged and headed off again.

“
Yeah,” Morgan said finally. “I’ll tell you about Rok.” She picked up a napkin to wipe the blood from her forearm. “He saved my life. Many times. I would have been killed by a bunch of Ravagers in Carlito Flats if not for him. Pulled me out of the path of a runaway truck once, in Malpaso. Of course, I saved his arse more than a few times, too.”

When she reached up to push her now shorter hair back from her face, Auden noticed keloid scars on her right forearm. Cutting herself was obviously not a new activity for the Railwalker woman; the scars were old.

“
But that first time, you know why that was the most important? Because all those other times, those were all outside threats. That first time what he saved me from was myself.”

She reached around to the pocket of her tunic and brought out a flat, leather-covered case, large for a cigarette case. She opened it. It contained little cigars, the kind they called “Clints.” It was what Auden had seen Rok smoking.

Morgan brought the open case to her face and inhaled the scent of the tobacco. She looked at Auden. “You want one?” she said, offering the case. “I don’t actually smoke ’em. I’m just carrying them around ’cause they were his.” Her voice didn’t break on the last word, but it grew thick.

“
Thanks.” Auden took one and lit it up. As he exhaled smoke, he saw her close her eyes and breathe it in for a moment. Then she looked at him.

“
Before Rok, I never met a man I really trusted. I’d had a few lovers, but I never really let myself get attached, never really opened up to them, ’cause I always expected they’d either start abusing me somehow, or they’d up and leave, or both. Most of ’em left, of course. Hard to keep up a relationship where somebody never really lets you in. ’Course, I didn’t see it that way at the time. Back then, I just figured they were doing what men do, and leaving. I couldn’t see how that was a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.” She made a sound that was almost a laugh. “Don’t mean some of them weren’t also arseholes. I picked some real winners.” She swallowed a large slug of her drink, and when she put the glass down, it made a startlingly loud rap on the tabletop.

“
Tried women for a while, too,” she went on. “For some reason I thought that would be different. And it was, in some ways. But even with women I couldn’t really give my trust. I always kept ’em shut out. And guess what? They’d leave, too.

“
Rok, he really was different. He had all the patience in the world, and he just wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t do the sort of bullshit stuff I always expected men to do. He just stayed there, steady and regular, and totally committed. I gave him every opportunity to cut out. Even tried to drive him to it. But he wouldn’t. He said if I wanted to end it, I’d have to leave him.

“
When I finally faced the truth, I realized I didn’t want to end it. I wanted what he was offering. And I’d put together enough of my own self-worth by that time to think that maybe I even deserved it. Things started to get a little easier from that point on.”

Auden watched the Railwalker still turning the cigar case over in her hands, lost in thought or memory. She was very drunk, though she didn’t show it much in her demeanor—except that her zoner accent had gotten stronger. Of course, hiding how drunk you were was easier when you were sitting down, as Auden well knew. He had a feeling she’d be staggering if she tried to walk. “How’d you come to be a cutter?” he asked.

“
When I was four years old,” she said after a long pause, “my parents died. Mother of zone fever. You ever seen zone fever?” Auden shook his head. “Nasty stuff,” she said. “Cooks your brain while it eats your body. Makes you crazy, gives you hallucinations, paranoia.

“
Anyways, parents dead, they put me in an orphanage.” She stopped suddenly. “Shit, why am I telling you this? You really want to hear this?”

“
I asked, didn’t I?”

“
You did that.” She nodded. “A’right. Well, the short version is, I hit a series of foster homes, five different families in the next few years. I was a problem kid. If I didn’t run away, they got fed up with my bullshit and shipped me back to the orphanage. Didn’t help that a couple of the husbands turned out to like little girls. Fucking diddlers.”

Auden nodded. He knew about foster parents who abused their wards.

“
But it was after that I got started burning and cutting myself. Guess I was about thirteen, fourteen. Something about it was just so cool. It was, like, so good to be the one in charge of inflicting the pain, y’know? And it was like it released me from feeling the pain on the inside.

“
When I was sixteen, legal at the time in Two Suns, I ran away for good. Kicked around a while, lived in a squat... Then the ghosts started to catch up with me, and the crows started talking to me. It was either assume I was crazy and check myself in to another institution, or go to the Railwalkers and ask them how to manage that shit.”

“
Guess you chose the Railwalkers.”

“
Yeah.” Morgan smiled and looked down at her arm. The cuts still seeped blood, and she patted them with the napkin again. “They broke me of cutting myself, mostly. Eventually they let me participate in some of the body modification rituals: tattooing, piercing, scarification. But only after I’d proved it was a conscious choice, and not a compulsion anymore.”

She pulled up her right sleeve and raised her arm. It was covered with complex designs, some tattooed, some keloid scars, the two types of markings braided together and interwoven.

“
When Rok and I got married we exchanged rings, but we also got matching tattoos.” She indicated a complex design that looked like a bracelet, running entirely around her wrist. Auden noticed that there were burns and scars incorporated into the inked design. “We designed it together, to include some of the cuts and burns I already had. He got cuts and burns to match them.” Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back, took a deep breath. Reached for her drink, missed it, tried again. This time she managed to pick up the glass, and drained the half inch or so of liquor remaining in the bottom.

“
Railwalker Morgan,” said Auden, “you are totally shit-faced.”

“
Yeah.”

“
You should get some sleep. I’ll walk you back to the Tower.”

The woman looked at him like she was going to argue, then appeared to think better of it. “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.”

They rose. Morgan made her way unsteadily to the ladies’ room. Auden paid for their drinks, then waited by the bar, reflecting that it was probably good that Taffy’s was only a couple of blocks from the CA Tower. When she rejoined him they wove through the crowd toward the entrance. Once outside, the cool night air seemed to help her a little, and he didn’t actually end up carrying her back, though it was a close thing. In the end he wondered if carrying her might not have been easier. It took her three tries to slide the electronic key through the reader. She turned in the doorway.

“
Y’know,” she said, “for a grackle, you’re okay.” She aimed a light punch at his shoulder, but it struck only glancingly.

Auden chuckled. “Get some sleep, Railwalker.” She nodded and staggered into the suite. Auden wondered if she’d make it to her room, or end up sleeping on the couch, or even passing out on the floor, but figured his responsibility ended here. He pulled the door closed. Let Railwalker Wolf take it from here, if he was in. The investigator turned and walked back to the elevator.

Back out on the street Auden found he was not interested in much of anything but sleep. As he started down First Street again heading for his own apartment, he noticed two figures seated in conversation by the fountain: Railwalker Wolf and Anita Robles. He smiled to himself, thinking Morgan might sleep on the floor tonight after all, since it was a good bet Railwalker Wolf wouldn’t be back at their suite any time soon.

42. PARKVIEW APARTMENTS, BAY CITY

It wasn’t often that Nita Robles got annoyed at the conditions of her job and life. Being a woman in the guard meant you wore your strength on your sleeve just to survive. But of course that meant that all the men, hardcore gamblers at the poker game of life, had to up the ante, be stronger-than-thou. Even the ones like Gage, or the Old Man, who were a little more subtle about it, danced that dance. Mostly Nita could live with that. You were a survivor, you took life as it came, just did your best to get by and not lose any more self-respect than you had to.

But now and then, it seemed like you ought to get to take a breather. Stop and smell the damn roses, or whatever. These days her bars were the Tankard, where the guard tended to gather, or the Ring, down in half-wharf, where the fighters—boxers, martial artists, guards, bouncers, rent-a-cops, what have you—would congregate. When she came home with a man, it was hot and fast and no-holds-barred. Half the time it started in the stairwell, and by the time the door of the apartment shut they’d be naked, or good as, a two-backed beast staggering to the bedroom. Or not bothering, but collapsing there on the hardwood floor into sweat and hunger and bodily juices.

So why was she hesitant and nervous bringing Railwalker Wolf to her apartment? They’d been talking, and she didn’t crawl all over him as they started up the stairs. Nor, once the door closed behind them, had she jumped his bones. Instead, she had offered him a drink. He’d asked for cold water.

What, she wondered, is the matter with me?

She ducked into the kitchen area, ran the water, and went to the fridge for ice. She’d overfilled the ice cube tray again, and they were going to be hard to get out.