Night Season (3 page)

Probably Mom had also told them not to cut school, but never mind that. The girls weren't hysterical anymore.

Lily recovered the briefcase and restored it to its owner. "Sorry for the shock, sir."

"But he tried to hit me!" the orange whatsit exclaimed. It was child-size, but built like a squashed sumo wrestler. With breasts. Big breasts. And that tail. "Can't you shoot him or something?"

"No," Lily said shortly. "Gan, what are you doing here?"

Gan? Cynna looked closer. The body had changed the most, but the face was different, too. Same orange skin and bald head, same ridiculously wide eyes with Maybelline lashes, but the rest of the features were… well, you couldn't call them normal, but it was amazing what a difference a nose could make. Cynna would never have recognized the little demon.

Former demon, she supposed. Gan had been staying with the gnomes while she underwent some kind of mysterious transformation. Cynna ought to have recognized the voice, though—high-pitched and squeaky, as if one of those yappy little dogs decided to talk.

A crowd was gathering. "I'm calling the police," Briefcase Man announced.

Gan ignored him. "I'm going with you, of course. Didn't they tell you I was coming?"

"They?" Lily said. "Who?"

Gan looked around, frowning—an interesting sight, given the lack of eyebrows. Then she rolled her eyes. "Great. They got the timing wrong. Wouldn't you know it! They're supposed to be such hotshot gaters, but they couldn't even sync the—"

The screaming interrupted her.

Cynna and Lily locked glances for a split second, then took off running. The screams were coming from back near the fountain.

The China Doll was smart, she was tough, but Cynna's legs were a lot longer and she knew how to run. As Cynna pulled ahead, she heard the little demon piping away—somehow, despite her runty legs, Gan was keeping up with Lily. "Are you going to shoot someone? Who? I want a gun, too."

Gun. Right. Probably a good idea, so Cynna fished in her purse for her weapon without breaking stride. She had only two offensive spells—one that worked only on demons, and one that required physical contact. If whatever was up ahead required subduing, she'd rather not have to waltz with it.

She swerved around two young men running flat out and nearly collided with one of the stroller-mobiles. Damned bloody things were everywhere! She skidded, managed to dodge it and its terrified mom-motor—and stopped dead.

There were three of them. They stood beside the empty fountain, looking around. The short one wore a short green robe and tights. He looked like a gnome—small, wrinkled, long beard, big nose. A pair of oversize ears parted his scraggly hair, their tips covered by the absurd pouf of a hat he wore. The middle size one was the color of wet clay, his skin damp and shiny, as if he was sweating. His lips were the weirdest part of him, being dusky black, and he was as bald as Gan. The effect was different… maybe because he wore only a loincloth and some sort of fancy boots.

Never mind the funny skin. This dude was beefcake.

The third one was gray, tusked, eight or so feet tall, with tight little curls on his head—no, her head. Those were breasts beneath the brown tunic, not just great pecs.

Didn't matter. Not when she was holding a sword big enough to gut an elephant. Cynna slid into firing position. "Put down the sword!"

They all looked at her. The gnomish one smiled and said something, but the syllables did not add up to English.

"Hold your fire," Lily told her as she skidded into place on Cynna's left, weapon ready.

"Hey! You can't shoot them," Gan squeaked, sounding disappointed as she, too, came to a stop. "
Harazeed
," she called out to the trio—or something along those lines. "
Ke antar essy isclaum
Lily Yu
si
Cynna Weaver.
Ke relan
English, you idiot!"

"Ah!" said the little one in the funny hat, beaming. He put one hand on his chest and bobbed his knees once. "Welcome me-you-us, Lily Yu and Cynna Weaver. Please to take us to your leader."

CHAPTER THREE

Gan liked cars. She'd been in cars a few times back when she'd been sent to this Earth realm to help that idiot Harlowe. That was before Harlowe got himself killed, which had kept Gan from possessing Lily Yu like she was supposed to, and then they'd been dragged off to Dis, where she ended up liking Lily Yu, which made her start growing a soul so she couldn't be a demon anymore.

Things had sure been simpler back then. Simpler, but not as interesting.

Because life was more interesting now, Gan had decided to forgive Harlowe. When she'd told Jenek that, though, he had laughed in that whispery wheeze of his and said that wasn't really forgiveness, oh no. But he wouldn't tell her what forgiveness really was.

Gnomish elders were like that.

Gan had enjoyed the fuss when she blinked out of dashtu and surprised everyone, with people screaming and all. There'd been even more fuss when the three from Edge showed up, but Lily Yu didn't like fuss. She'd called someone on her
cell phone
—Gan wanted one of those—and a bunch of cops had come, and things were dull for a while. But now they were leaving.

"Where are we going?" Gan asked as she climbed into the back of the police van with Lily Yu and Cynna Weaver and the delegation from Edge. There were benches along the sides, and the delegation from Edge sat on one bench while Gan sat between the two humans on the other. A metal wall divided their sitting place from the driving place.

"To see my leader," Lily Yu said. The other female, Cynna Weaver, snickered.

"Not Rule Turner, though," Gan said. She did not like the wolf. "
He's
not your leader."

"We're going to see a man called Ruben Brooks." Lily looked at the three beings opposite them. "If I understood you correctly, sir, you're from another realm."

The councilor smiled. "Is so. The our home… English word for realm is Edge. Edge is close many realms, is for trade many realms. Is hub. Many gates in Edge. Many trade."

"You're here for trade?"

"Is for trade, yes. We very good with gates, with the making and maintaining. This for your leader and we to talk of. Many details to agree with, yes? We is also here for the Lily Yu and the Cynna Weaver."

"M-me?" Cynna Weaver stuttered. "You're here for me and Lily?"

The councilor nodded, smiling that stupid smile. He probably wasn't stupid, though. Gan wondered if she should warn Lily Yu about that.

Maybe later. "We don't have any windows," Gan said, frowning as they jolted into motion. The cars she had been in before were called
Taxis
, and they hadn't gone very fast. She'd hoped the
police van
would go faster, but even if it did, it wouldn't be much fun without windows. "Do we have a siren?"

"We don't want to draw attention," Lily Yu said.

"Why not?"

"In Dis you knew the dangers and I listened to you. Here, I know the dangers. Drawing attention would be bad." She turned toward the councilor. "Sir—"

"But this is made of metal. Even a Claw would have trouble opening it up, I bet. At least for a minute or two. Not that you have any Claws here."

Lily Yu glanced at Gan. "People can be dangerous, too, especially if they have weapons."

That made sense. Gan had seen some of the human weapons on television, though not lately, because the elders didn't allow television in the underways. "Do you have a television?"

Lily Yu gave her one of those thinking looks, but before she could answer, the councilor spoke. He told Gan to be quiet or he would have the half-half squeeze Gan's throat until her eyes exploded. He used the trade tongue, so Gan understood him but the humans didn't. He smiled the whole time.

Gan stuck her tongue out at him. Humans thought that was very rude, but he might not know that.

"So what did he say?"

That was Cynna Weaver asking, not Lily Yu. Lily Yu was asking the councilor questions, like what his name was. Which was rude, but she didn't know about gnomes. Gan would tell her… oh, the councilor was explaining now. Harazeed gnomes didn't even use call-names except with family. The others did, though, so he introduced them: Wen of Ekiba and Tash.

Then Lily wanted to know how he'd found her and Cynna Weaver at the mall, which was a very good question, but she should have asked Gan, The Councilor just talked nothing-stuff back at her about that.

Gan turned to look at the woman who'd gone to Dis to find Rule Turner but hadn't gotten to keep him or even do sex with him. For some reason lots of human females wanted to do sex with Rule Turner. Gan didn't get it.

Cynna Weaver was interesting to look at with all those patterns on her skin. She wasn't as dense to Gan's
üther
sense as Lily Yu, but she wasn't thin, either. In fact, now that she looked closely… "Hey, you're pr—"

A flat, human hand clamped Gan's mouth shut. "I'd rather you didn't mention that."

Gan perked up. Secrets were almost always useful. She nodded, and Cynna Weaver removed her hand. "It's secret?"

"For now. Are you going to answer my question?"

Gan shrugged. "He told me to shut up or the half-half would choke me." Cynna Weaver's eyebrows went up. That eyebrow motion could mean all sorts of things, but Gan thought that this time it meant surprise. Gan's gaze drifted. "You've got great breasts. What do you think of mine? Pretty nice, huh? Jenek told me to keep 'em covered out here. He said humans have rules about that, but I see breasts on television sometimes."

"Human sexual customs confuse us, too, but keeping most of your breasts covered is usually best. I notice that you're talking and no one is choking you."

"I'm not talking to Lily Yu." The councilor didn't care if Gan talked to Cynna Weaver, which was interesting. Shouldn't he be trying to get Lily Yu on his side? "You're a Finder, right?"

"Right. Is the little guy your boss?"

"Huh! You mean the councilor? He's not in charge of me, but he is in charge of the half-half, who probably isn't strong enough to make my eyes pop out. I'm pretty strong, too. But she does have those tusks."

"Not to mention a great big sword, if we're talking about the same person—the one the councilor called Tash. She's a half-half?"

"Uh-huh. That's what they call them, all the ones who aren't just one thing or another. Half-halfs."

"Who's 'they'?"

"Gnomes. That's who I know about, anyway, but I guess everyone in Edge calls them that. There's a lot of half-halfs in Edge because of all the magic."

"You been to Edge?"

Gan nodded, preening. "I can still cross." That was rare—hardly any demons could cross between realms without being summoned, but Gan could. She hadn't lost the ability when she started growing her soul, either. This made her very special.

Cynna Weaver recognized that. Gan could see the admiration in her face and hear it in her voice. "I wish I could cross like that. Is it harder to do now?"

"Well, I don't have as much juice, but… hey, do you have any candy?
Chocolate
candy."

"My, you have changed. Not gobbling live bugs these days?"

Gan sighed. "I can't eat
ymu
anymore, so I have to eat dead things. But chocolate's different. I like chocolate."

"I think I've got some." Cynna Weaver pulled her big bag up into her lap and started digging around in it. "You've been staying with the gnomes."

"Uh-huh. What kind of chocolate?"

"How did you know that the councilor and the others were coming here?" She pulled out a candy bar. Gan tried to grab it, but Cynna Weaver held it up too high. "Answer the question first."

"I'm stronger than you. I can just take it."

"Do you have money?"

Gan's forehead scrunched up. "Huh?"

"If you have money, you can buy your own chocolate. If you don't have money, you'll either have to steal things—which can get you in lots of trouble—or get someone to give you what you want. I might give you more chocolate later if you don't make me mad. If you make me mad," she added, "I might zap you."

Gan eyed her. Cynna Weaver was bigger than her, of course, but that didn't mean much. Even big humans were pretty puny. But she'd seen Cynna Weaver kill a red-eye with a spell. Red-eyes were tough to kill. "Lily Yu wouldn't like it if you killed me."

"I have more than one spell. My zap spell hurts but doesn't kill. Usually."

"Yeah?" Gan perked up, interested. "Show me. Not on me," she added hastily. "On the half-half, maybe. Or the councilor."

"Not now. How did you know the Edge people were coming here?"

"I'd like to know that, too," Lily Yu said.

Gan looked up at her. It made her feel funny to see Lily Yu again. Good-funny and bad-funny all mixed up.

While Lily Yu was in Dis, she had died. Well, part of her had, since she'd accidentally gotten herself split in two—which wasn't Gan's fault, or not all her fault, anyway. Being human, Lily Yu had a soul, so the part that died hooked up again with the part that lived, which was the Lily Yu sitting beside Gan now.

It was complicated, but Gan more or less understood what had happened—as much as she understood anything about souls, anyway. The confusing part was the way she felt right now, as if she'd eaten something bad, something she couldn't quite swallow all the way. "Most of you doesn't remember me, huh?"

"Some of me does."

The way Lily Yu said that made the tight, unswallowed feeling in Gan's throat feel better. "You recognized me. Even though I look a lot different now, you knew who I was."

"I did, right away. Are you going to answer Cynna's question?"

Gan stole a glance at the candy, but Cynna Weaver still held it out of reach. She sighed. "Some of it I can't tell, but—"

The councilor tried to interrupt, but Lily Yu told him she wanted to hear what her friend said. The councilor made a huffy sound. "Little orange one is being mostly demon still. Not is friend."

Gan liked the way Lily smiled at the councilor, as if she might hit him in a minute but wanted it to be a surprise. "Really? I wonder how you would know who my friends are." She looked at Gan. "How did you know about this?"

"The councilor is a Harazeed, see—that's one of the gnomish people. So the Hragash—they're the ones I've been staying with—knew he'd be coming, or at least the elders did, because they talk to each other. And it's time for my testing, so they sent me here so I could take the next step."

"Next step?"

"Going with you to get back the—"

The councilor burst out with a lot of words, some of them in the trade tongue, none of them in English, but Gan caught the gist, which was
shut up
, Gan looked at him. "I'm supposed to help you, but you are not in charge of me. I can tell them that part if I want to, and I do… if I get my chocolate."

Cynna handed her the candy bar. Gan grinned and ripped off the paper. She stuffed half of it in her mouth, closing her eyes to savor the experience, and spoke through the thick pleasure. "They lost something. They want you to Find it."

"Some reason you didn't want her to tell us that?" Lily Yu asked the councilor.

"No, no," he assured her. "Is that the loss is secret—as the Gan knows."

The chocolate was almost gone, melting away inside her mouth. Gan swallowed and opened her eyes. The councilor wasn't smiling now. She shrugged. "Not a secret from these two, is it?"

"Is for speaking only when is shielded. No shield here."

"Excuse me," Cynna Weaver said, "but do you mean 'shield' or 'wards'? Because we can do wards, but… well, when we speak of wards we're talking about spells to repulse specific intruders—fleas, demons, whatever. Usually they'll send a warning if something does get through, as well. But a shield spell would create a true barrier, one that keeps out everything, including the mental stuff."

The Harazeed bobbed his head. "Is meaning that kind, yes. Shield for everything’s keeping out."

"Sorry. We can't do those."

"Is needing shield! Wards is not closing off the farseeing, farhearing, the elementals, the… wards is not being enough!"

Lily Yu spoke. "Can you make a shield?"

The councilor talked to the others in upset murmurs. They used trade tongue, but spoke so fast and low Gan didn't catch all of it. When the gnome turned back to Lily Yu and shook his head, though, the negative matched what she'd heard. "This one is not able. Others not able. I is having knowledge of spell for shield, but is not having…" He waved his hands. "English is not having word for this. My magic wrong for making shield."

"But you know how to make one?"

"I know spell."

"Cynna?" Lily Yu's face was all shut down so Gan couldn't see what she was thinking.

"I don't know," the inky woman said. "An unknown spell… ee-way ant-cay oh-nay ut-whay it-way eally-ray uz-day."

"Hey!" Gan said, "What language is that?"

"Pig Latin."

Pig Latin? Gan had heard of Latin, but she didn't think pigs spoke it. Or any other language. She frowned and took another bite of candy, smaller this time, wanting to save some for later… a couple minutes later, anyway.

Lily Yu reached across Gan to pat Cynna Weaver's knee. "You can do spells, but for something like this… an unknown spell and all… well. Better call in the expert." She looked back at the councilor. "I know someone who can probably work that spell of yours."

The councilor looked relieved. Cynna Weaver didn't. She looked… what was the word? Oh, yes. Appalled.

Wouldn't it be interesting to find out why?

Gan popped the last of the chocolate in her mouth and wiggled with pleasure. She was having so much fun. Even without the windows.