Luminous (20 page)

She kept her eyes on his as she clicked the silver case closed.

“Let's go.”

 

WHAT
happened here?” Consuela asked V as they entered the dim hallway; she knew the floorboards were cold without needing to feel them. The lights were off, the door was open, and all the photos in the hall were gone. It was as if they'd entered an abandoned building, a before-and-after shot of Casa O'Shea.

Consuela had flipped open the compact, expecting to see V's face staring back—like some sort of
Star Trek
gizmo trick—but a rush of color and matter hurricaned out and left V standing next to her, very much whole. It was both unsettling and cool.

“Is this the right place?” she asked aloud.

“It's the right place,” V said as he pointed up. The line of blood still burned.

“The ward's still alive even when . . . ?” Consuela couldn't finish.

// The Yad is not. //
V's heart spoke the seraphim echo that he, himself, couldn't hear. She knew for a fact that he was hurting. V knew the Yad. They had been friends.

Consuela didn't know the Yad well. She hadn't had the chance.

“He's not here,” she said, thankful that there wasn't a body or chopped-up bits in the hall. She'd been half afraid of what they'd find, but the place was empty of everything but dust. “No one's here.”

She heard V, but said nothing; the baby-powder scent was all but gone in the empty room. Cardboard boxes labeled with fat black letters littered the floor: WINTER CLOTHES, TOYS, SAFETY STUFF, LINENS/DRAPES. The walls were bare and the drawers were empty. Everything except the boxes, a roll of packing tape, and the large furniture was gone. The hardwood crib in the corner of the room still burned with flickering, dark fire. Neither of the Yad's wards had been broken, but the baby and his family were gone.

V walked around the room on the empty carpet. “So? Anything?” he asked.

She didn't feel anything, but she was piecing together what she could see.

“They're moving,” Consuela said. “And it was unexpected.”

V frowned. “How can you tell?”

“Ever had to move a whole house?” She pointed at the boxes, half of which had yet to be taped shut. “It takes forever. This is happening quickly and missing important bits.” She pointed at the crib. “Where does Killian sleep?”

“In another crib, somewhere else,” V concluded.

“Somewhere unprotected.” Consuela said, examining the boxes. “This looks like it's a second load of stuff. The first went out already; clothes, diapers . . .” She glanced at the open box labeled TOYS and a thought slid into place. “It's not his mom.”

V peered into the box full of bright-colored junk. “What?”

Consuela felt the chill like a sudden drop in temperature. “Killian's mom didn't pack this,” she said. “The stuffed animals and blankets are all tossed in. A mom . . .” She remembered when her family moved to Illinois how her mother had packed every one of her toys with blankets so they wouldn't break, how each of her glass figurines had to be excavated carefully from bubble wrap and towels. Her room had taken the longest to pack because her mom kept telling her stories about every little thing. Consuela's fingers stroked the satiny edge of a yellow blanket.

“Moms like to linger over sentimental stuff,” she said softly. “They pack those things with extra care. Baby things, especially.”

“You sound as if you know something about it,” V observed.

She shrugged and said, “I've got a mom.” Her voice cracked.

V coughed uncomfortably. “So the O'Sheas are moving, Mom isn't doing the packing, and the Yad is dead.” He waved an open palm at the undone room. “If there's something else here, I don't see it.”

“Me either,” Consuela admitted. She had no other ideas. She felt for the stale traces of any of them being here, but it wasn't something she could sense. The black lines of blood shone like a command:
Protect them.

She was an Angel of God, after all.

“Maybe we should ask Sissy where the O'Sheas are going,” Consuela said. “It might be good to give her something to do.”

“Good idea,” V said quietly as he stared at the crib.

Consuela self-consciously waved a cardboard flap closed. She could feel the pain spilling off V in waves, rippling through the air. V trembled with a sadness he couldn't express. Not with her here.

“Okay,” she said, and walked quickly past him, her passage brushing the black curls from his eyes like a blown kiss.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

V nodded and rubbed a hand over his face, massaging the deep shine in his eyes.

He turned away. She turned away. She thought that maybe this was why guys needed someone like Nikki, someone to cry for them when they could not.

Consuela left to find her next grieving friend.

—OCTAVIO PAZ

 

 

 

It
was like stepping into an old movie or a bad museum trick.
Animatronics,
Tender thought,
with hidden wiring and lights.
He didn't like things that tried to look alive when they weren't.

Joseph Crow looked like the Ken doll of the Indians.
No way he really looks like that,
Tender figured. Then again, none of them did. Except Wish.
Abe's too stupid to take anything for himself.

The large man stood bared to the waist, hairless and tan, wearing body piercings and well-worn Levi's jeans. The jeans looked like they'd gone through the desert, been run over by a pickup truck, and dried while worn after the rain. They were the jeans every other male trouser wanted to be. Those were Joseph Crow's only clothes.

It was hot.
How can he have a fire going in here?
Tender wiped sweat from his eyes and stared at the small hole around the rough, center post.
Air. Fresh air. Hot. I can't breathe! The bastard did this on purpose, dammit.

“I came to talk,” Tender said to Joseph Crow, watching the smoke curl up and out, thinking,
If anyone's escaping, it's going to be me.

Joseph Crow didn't turn around, which irked him. The giant Native American stared into a corner at a six-pack of cheap beer. The cans had the untouched look of having always been there. Joseph Crow kept staring. Tender thought if this was a contest, the beer might be winning.

“Going to offer me a drink?” he asked.

The big man finally said something: “No.”

Tender shrugged and took a step closer. “I have something to ask you.”

“No one's keeping you from asking.” Joseph said it like a challenge. The silver barbell pierced above his Adam's apple bobbed as he talked. Joseph Crow threw a bundle of gray twigs into the fire and the place grew smoky-sweet.

“Someone's killing in the Flow,” Tender said. “Folks are dying.”

Joseph said, “I've heard,” not making it clear whether he had heard about it secondhand or that he'd overheard it done. The ambiguity made Tender nervous, despite his cocksure grin.

“Do you care?” Tender asked.

Joseph glared at him. “Do you?” From under the wink of two hoops through his left eyebrow, Joseph's eyes were darker than brown.

Tender, annoyed and surprised, said, “Of course I care.” He wiped his limp bangs angrily from his face. “I wouldn't be here in your goddamn wigwam if I didn't. How about you?” he accused. “You give a damn?”

Joseph cocked his head sideways as he scratched absently at his chest. There were rough patches of discolored scarring, an inch above each pierced nipple, which Tender thought was pretty homo if he stared at them too long. He kept his eyes up.

“I do,” Joseph said finally. “I give exactly one damn.” He glared again, rubbing the stud in his ear and fingering its smooth green stone. “Care to guess whose?”

Tender frowned and slipped a hand through hidden ooze and over the hilt.

“Are you threatening me, Red Man?”

He said only, “I am Joseph Crow.”

It was not a correction, or another veiled threat; it was as if the bare-chested man were summoning courage or something bigger. More. Tender drew out his pitted sword and held it between him and the flames. Black sludge ran, secreting out the blade's pores to hiss, bubbling, onto the hot coals. The smell in the tent changed from white sage to sick.

Joseph held up two shriveled things on strings: shrunken claws—eagle talons—that he waved above the smoke. Raising his head, he tipped back his chin, nostrils flaring with a deep inhale. He pierced the black points through the scars on both breasts.

He screamed without surprise, a rictus of the familiar, a groan of endurance. Tender stepped back. The sharp nails fished around, jutting points of tented flesh. Meat hooks beneath the skin. They burst like bloodworms out of Joseph Crow's chest.

The wounds poured, bleeding freely. Joseph's eyes rolled back in his head as he swayed in pain, or ecstasy, or both.

As he leaned back, the thongs attaching pole to claws to skin pulled taut. Belt hooks of chest flesh yawned, but held him upright. Tender could see Joseph's black gums against his gnashing white teeth.

“I am Joseph Crow.”

Each word pushed a fresh cough of blood onto his chest, streaming to slide under his belt and soak into his jeans. He spread his arms back as if he might fall; a spectral image superimposed itself, flaring out of the smoke. The slicked-back hair smoothed into a crest of feathers, his bear chest blending into stag legs. Hawk eyes blinked, cat-reflective, and huge black wings flapped for balance, whipping through the wan image of arms.

Wind and sparks and stinging ash beat at Tender, who shielded his eyes with one hand.

“I am Joseph Crow”
—the creature's voice rolled like thunder—
“and all that I am may oppose you here.”

Tender blinked against the rain of debris. Bits of stone and dirt pelted the sword and stuck.

“Screw this,” he muttered, and lowered his blade, sliding it back into its sheath and retreating from the totem knight.

Tender blew through the hide walls as if they were mist, wondering whether he was as afraid or if he'd just seen too many animals at once, like at the zoo.

He hated the zoo, what he remembered of it. No one ever knew how many bars there were on each cage, no one had even bothered to count. Animals behind bars, pacing, stinking . . . contained. Uncontrollable. Intolerable.

Tender knew all about cages.

He'd passed through eight other outcrops in the Flow before he realized his mistake. “Damn,” Tender muttered. Joseph Crow had seen the sword. Tender had left the job undone and he'd most likely be barred from Joseph's part of the Flow. It was only a matter of time before the freak job squealed to Sissy. He couldn't let that happen.

Fortunately, Joe would need time to recover. He wouldn't be able to get a message out until then. Tender had other alternatives for just such an occasion and he'd been saving one for a rainy day.

Tender smiled to himself. He was actually looking forward to this . . .

 

SHE
looked better. One eye swollen, the other somewhere hidden, the Watcher stared resolutely at the computer screen, fingers flying over the keys. The cold blue light outlined Sissy's face, making her look more skeletal than Consuela usually did. After the initial fear at finding her bedroom empty, Consuela found Sissy in her dark office, working. Sissy had turned off the lights, plunging the wide basement room into mourning.

“I'm back,” Consuela whispered.

“I know,” Sissy said. “You're safe?”

“I am.”

“Good,” she said with an ember of warmth. “Find anything?”

The question was an uncomfortable one. What could she say?

“Maybe,” Consuela admitted. “No hints as to what happened, but V and I noticed that Killian's family had gone.”

Sissy stopped typing and spoke into her shoulder without turning around.

“Why did you go to the O'Sheas'?” she asked.

Consuela slid into her usual chair, trying to catch Sissy's one eye. They said nothing about what had happened between them; it was as if the incident hadn't happened at all and was verboten to speak of now. That hurt and Consuela moved around it uncomfortably.

“It was the last place I'd seen the Yad,” she said uneasily. “I thought, maybe, there'd be . . . I don't know. Something.” All her words were suddenly awkward, fragile. “The O'Sheas are moving.”

“Correction,” said Sissy. “Killian is moving. His parents both mysteriously died in their sleep. The police suspect carbon monoxide poisoning, but that wouldn't account for little Killian being found safe and sound the next morning. There's going to be an insurance investigation.” She sounded quivery and tired, the afterburn of grief. “I doubt they're going to find that there was a protective ward drawn around his crib.” She swept her flawless hair back from her cheek; it had dried in enviable, sculpted curls. “He's going to live with his legal guardians and I'll have to track him down again. Without the Yad's wards . . .” A sniffle threatened to stutter her sentence, but she got it under control. “Killian's vulnerable and Yehudah knew it.”