The Shambling Guide to New York City (32 page)

“Why the change of heart?”

“Because I’m a fucking bridge,” she said, exhaustion making her sound and feel drunk. “I needed to help Arthur fight Apep because he didn’t understand the demon. And I have to help you fight Lucy because you don’t understand her. You both need me. And I need the two of you like I need a punch in the throat. Christ, Arthur hasn’t even checked to see if I’m dead or alive. Whatever. I’m going to go to sleep. Wake me when there’s a sandwich.”

She wondered if he’d balk at the orders, but he said, “Done.”

She went to the kitchen and made herself some of the strong restorative tea Granny Good Mae had recommended, then took her medicine with the scalding tea, ignoring the pain in her mouth, since it was completely outclassed by the pain of her other injuries.

Her bed beckoned her, and she gratefully lay down on it, dozing off immediately. The food arrived all too soon, and she sluggishly ate her sandwich while Phil watched.

She downed the coffee, changed clothes, and got her coat, the knife from Public Works she had managed to keep, her painkillers, and her travel mug. Why did her days seem to mush together with pain and sleep deprivation?

She ushered Phil out, locking the door behind her. “How are we getting you to work?” she asked.

“I’ll take the Rat’s Nest,” he said. “There’s an entrance in the
basement of your building.” With that, he headed toward the stairs.

“How does he know… never mind,” Zoë muttered, heading out into the December gray.

Before the writers’ meeting, Zoë sat down in Phil’s office.

“LaGuardia’s not a small airport, you know,” she said. “If you don’t know where she’s coming in, it’s going to be hard to be in the right spot.”

“We can narrow it down to flights from Raleigh.”

“Or Richmond, or Charlotte, or Atlanta, or Philly,” Zoë said. “Raleigh-Durham doesn’t fly direct to a lot of places. Believe me, I’ve gone way north to go way south before. How did you figure out she was coming at ten, anyway?”

“Public Works keeps tabs on incoming coterie to the airport. But she’s managed to stymie them, and they don’t know her flight number. But they know she’s coming in tonight, and besides, Gwen said there’s going to be a lot of death at the airport tonight,” Phil said. “Around ten.”

“That’s what you’re going on? That’s it? You don’t think it’s a terrorist plot, or a disgruntled worker?”

Phil cocked an eyebrow at her. She sighed. “Oh all right, believe the goth goddess. You’ve not been wrong yet. Dammit.”

A rare smile crossed his lips. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll make a bad decision at some time. I have in the past.”

“I hope I’m there when it happens,” she grumbled.

Phil and, for some reason, John attended the writers’ meeting. Zoë felt herself nodding off during, and she pinched herself. She caught John looking at her, eyebrows arched, but he had fed recently and looked more like a nebbish and less like a Narcissus. She still got a definite sense that he would be quite happy to
pinch her, or bite her, or whatever, but her desire sat in her stomach like a surly lump of coal.

It was an odd feeling, realizing he’d fed on someone else, inspired someone else to dizzying lust. She knew he was bad news, but still the feeling that he inspired that in all women, and would sleep with anything that would sustain him, was bitter. But also eye-opening.

He’s no better than any other bad boy. Or bad publishing-house CEO. I need a nap. Then I need to get laid. Too bad all the men in my life are way too complicated.

She was grateful when it was her turn to speak so she could focus. She went through the book outline and was astonished to see the impressed and interested looks on her coworkers’ faces. She covered the assignments and set up the timeline for the book, taking into account new hires. Phil nodded slowly as she presented, and when the meeting was over, asked her to stay.

“You’ve really done a good job,” he said.

She didn’t look up from gathering her notes. “Good, I’m glad you liked it.”

“Why don’t you take a nap in your office? We can head to the airport at seven.”

“Sure, whatever.”

Phil looked at her for a long moment, then left the conference room. She sighed, so tired she wanted to weep, and trudged to her office. She locked the door, spread out her coat on the floor, and lay down.

She had one moment to realize she was going to sleep with vampires, zombies, and ’buses on the other side of the door, but then realized she was too tired to care.

A couple of hours later, Morgen woke her up with a little splash of water. “Come on, sunshine. Man, you humans sleep a lot.”

“Not enough,” Zoë said, wiping her eyes. “Ugh. Where did that come from?”

Morgen grinned. “Not telling.”

“What’s going on?”

“Ben is here, he’s going to help us with the airport.”

“ ‘Us’?”

“Yes! I’m going too! It sounds like fun!”

Zoë groaned as she sat up. The pain meds had worn off. “Can you get me some water?” she asked. “Real water, I mean,” she amended, and Morgen traipsed down the hall.

When she returned, Zoë took some more painkillers and then left her office to find Phil and Ben. They sat in the break room, talking in low voices.

“You guys realize you’re on stage?” she asked. They looked up.

“We’re going over our plans,” Phil said.

Zoë shrugged, then winced as her stitches pulled. “Do we know what we’re going to do?”

“I bought us tickets for a flight to Philadelphia to get us through security,” Ben said. “We’re each heading in with one carry-on.”

“And that’s where we keep the weapons? Good plan, they’ll never suspect that,” Zoë said.

Phil and Ben exchanged looks. “There are ways to get weapons in the airport,” Phil said. “But I have my own abilities, as does Benjamin.”

Zoë groaned. “And I’m bait.”

Dark, smoky bars are perfect for coterie who still enjoy a good single malt or a bit of live music. Bloomberg’s ban back in 2003 killed a lot of establishments that were quietly coterie-friendly, but that’s slowly eroding. The popular Play It, on Lennox Avenue, is currently a private club that allows only coterie as members. The cost to join is four blood tokens or 245 hell notes per year. Visiting coterie can buy a week’s pass for twenty-five hell notes.

For those who enjoy live music, especially jazz, the open mic night on Thursdays is very popular with the musically inclined.

It should go without saying that these bars are not recommended for air sprites or any coterie who rely on pure air.

Z
oë and Morgen carried backpacks full of blankets, and Phil carried a briefcase. Ben lugged a full duffel bag and made it through security without incident. Once they had put their shoes back on, Phil went down the hall with long strides.

“Look, can you just slow down a second?” Zoë asked, putting her hand on Phil’s shoulder. She might as well have tried to stop a truck rolling in neutral. He didn’t pull away violently, it was just that he wasn’t going to stop because of her hand alone.

She ran for a second to catch up, limping a little due to her hip. “We don’t know where we’re looking. We aren’t armed to prepare for this. What are we going to do? Somehow force them to circle the city and not land, or close down all the shops selling ‘I heart NY’ shirts to foil their tourist attempts?”

Phil moved on with purpose, and Zoë swore and followed. He paused at the door of the American Airlines Gold Members’ Club door, pulled out a card, and swiped it.

“You’re going for exclusive peanuts and gin when we have a monster to catch?” she asked, following him. Phil paused inside the door and she ran into his back.

He turned swiftly and suddenly his head was by her ear. She hadn’t seen him move. “I will remind you that word is offensive to my kind. It’s also a misnomer, as you’re hunting a human. Regardless, don’t use it in here, or else you may regret it.”

She nodded once. “I’m sorry,” she managed to say, but he had
already moved away from her. Morgen looked at her sympathetically, and Ben just moved past them silently.

The room was like the lounges Zoë had seen through open doors in airports, but much darker. A hulking demon stood behind the bar, a highball glass jammed onto one giant red hand as she dried it with a dish towel. Her skin was a reddish purple, and spikes jutted from it around her eyes and mouth.

They were alone in the bar. Couches of all sizes lined the walls, and Phil chose a table near the wall and leaned back as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

A wispy air sprite floated up to them. “Hello, can I get you anything or did you bring your own?” He looked pointedly at Zoë.

“God, are people always going to assume I’m your meal?” she asked, giving the waiter what she hoped was a haughty look.

Ben and Zoë ordered coffees. Morgen ordered water. “Nile, pre-pollution if you have it, please.”

Phil placed a hell note on the table. “A negative, Irish descent, please,” he said to the waiter, and then, “and access to the vault.”

The waiter’s eyes sharpened. “Reason?”

“I have reason to believe a zoëtist is arriving in the next half hour who is a real threat to the city. I need to stop her. I have no intention to get on a plane; she’s coming here.”

“Are you willing to accept a geas placed on the weapons?” the waiter asked.

“I am,” Phil said without hesitation.

The waiter nodded once and turned to float toward the bar. He whispered something to the barkeep, who pulled a thick glass of blood for Phil and loaded a tray up with the other drinks. She handed the tray and a key to the waiter, who drifted back to where Phil, Morgen, Ben, and Zoë had seated themselves on a couch.

“Each weapon holds a geas,” the waiter said. “Taking a weapon on the plane or giving the weapon to a human will cause violent vomiting. This is only for protection within the airport.”

Zoë’s eyes widened. “Wait, does this mean I can’t get a weapon?”

The waiter didn’t look at her. “No humans can touch these. Well, except for the business end, of course.”

Phil frowned. “This is my colleague. She’s capable of holding her own.”

Zoë appreciated that, even though she felt far from able to hold her own, or anyone else’s.

“That’s not my problem,” the waiter said, and then added, “sir.”

Zoë snorted at the title. “So what am I supposed to do? Can I have a bar stool to throw?”

The waiter finally deigned to look at her. “Furniture stays here.”

She made a face. “I bet if I had a vacuum cleaner you wouldn’t be so high and mighty.”

Phil put a hand on her shoulder and she winced. “Relax. We will make do. Thank you for your help.” He handed the waiter a hell note. The waiter nodded and floated away. Phil drained his glass and seemed to grow warmer next to Zoë. She held back a shudder.

“I’m ready. Let me get a weapon and we can go.”

Morgen sat back in the plush seat. “Dang, I just got comfortable.”

“Do you want a weapon, Morgen?” Phil asked.

The sprite shrugged. “Never been good at using them. I’ll be fine.”

Phil nodded and unlocked a door on the wall next to them.

“Do you know yet how we’re going to find her?” Zoë asked.

Phil pulled out two ceramic daggers. “I think she will make herself known to us, Zoë. It won’t be a worry.” He stuck them into his belt and covered them with his sweater. He looked at Ben. “Are you ready for this?”

Ben shrugged, looking very small in a too-large overcoat. “I studied the mystic arts under Rabbi Dansky in Newark, I covered golem creation and some zombie raising and curing of the curse, but Dansky wanted me to be well-rounded, so he sent me to Louisiana.” His eyes were far away. “It was rare I found someone to teach me; zoëtists of different schools didn’t mix. Even though they usually respect one another, they each think their own school of thought is superior. It was hard getting training from another school’s master, but I found a shaman who had been betrayed by her apprentice and decided to pass her secrets along to a willing Jew. She died before I got fully trained, murdered by her former apprentice. She came after me then, and that’s how I met Lucy.

“She was ruthless and cold and frankly terrifying. She learned how to make horrific flesh golems out of body parts instead of good clean golems out of the elements. I don’t know what else she’s studied.”

“That sounds like Lucy,” Zoë said.

Phil checked his watch. “Let’s go.”

“So you can’t sneak a weapon to me?” Zoë asked.

“No. You will stay out of the fighting this time.”

“Sure, I’m the bait and everyone will respect your wishes, right?” She rolled her eyes and stepped through the Members’ Club door back into the airport. “This is just turning out to be awesome.”

“Isn’t it? Are you getting information about the lounge for the book?” Morgen asked.

“Research? Now?” she asked incredulously.

“Always do research, Zoë. Always learn,” Phil said as they started walking up the concourse.

When they got outside, Zoë froze. She tried to make herself very small and unobtrusive, even though she had no bags and no typical harried traveling face. Still, the couple didn’t look her way as they walked past, and she let out a breath.