"Her words, not mine," Cooper said.
"Well, I think you"re not a t.u.r.d." The smoke on Marvin"s breath smelled good. Warm. Alive.
"Do you?" Cooper pulled Marvin close. "I think that"s premature."
Marvin took Cooper"s chin and brought their faces together. Noses brushing. A kiss.
After a long, long moment Cooper broke away. "Yeah. You think I"m a shaman. You want to feed me to your lichly masters." He made it sound like a joke, but knew it wasn"t.
Marvin rubbed his forehead against Cooper"s. "That isn"t how it works."
"But you"re still going to hurt me, aren"t you?" The question came out as a whisper.
Marvin looked out over the city, and Cooper followed the arrow of his gaze-the view here was the opposite of that from Sesstri"s rooftop terrace: the Dome lorded over a quarter of the horizon, of course, but from here they could see the karst-hill volcano of the Apostery as well as the wide bowl and set-piece houses of Bonseki-sai. Cooper saw the yellow hills near Rind and Displacement, one of which had been his landing pad in this anti-Oz.
Marvin disarmed him with a cheap smile. "Hurt happens, Cooper. Sometimes the best you can do is to direct it."
"That isn"t rea.s.suring, Marvin."
"Would false rea.s.surance be a kindness? Come on." He pulled Cooper with him, toward the gyre of whirling Charnel Girls and Death Boys, the two living thirds of the Undertow. The sky surged with their undead complement, dripping darkness in black rain that pooled underfoot. The air was cold and the fires were hot; Cooper felt more alive than usual.
Maybe Marvin"s right. Maybe by abandoning the dance of lives, they truly live. Live free.
They dove into the madness hand-in-hand, Marvin"s spine loosening itself with ecstatic energy and unch.o.r.eographed abandon. Cooper thanked the green smoke still pulsing through his veins, and began to yield to the ritual, the rave, whatever this was-a black-ma.s.s flash-mob dance.
The drum beat wildly and Cooper found himself bending to its rhythm despite himself, eyelids half-closed, raising his arms with the sweat-soaked Death Boys in a wordless paean to the heart-dark masters who circled overhead. The liches themselves Cooper could not see, but the black wraiths of energy they radiated flapped all around the Undertow now; the air grew thick with undead tailwinds and crazed, beautiful dancers.
The Death Boys formed an impromptu circle around their leader, who stood naked, save his vest and gla.s.ses. Hestor"s c.o.c.k was hard and red, and he gloated while his boys hooted and cried, imploring their lich- lords to take them above, to give them flight. On another corner of rooftop the Charnel Girls had formed their own ring with Killilly a wild-eyed valkyrie at their center.
Hestor lifted his arms to the sky and the black rain fell on him like India ink. He opened his mouth and the rain did something to the tattoo inside his lip-dark lines of tattoo ink began to pour down his chin and spread unnaturally across his collarbone, coiling in a rococo flourish that expanded across his bare chest. He sang to the sky, a hymn of wrong notes and backward progressions-anywhere else in the worlds his voice would have offended the ears, but here it fit-and Hestor was transformed into an Orpheus. Wrongness swaddled them. When the ink trails curled across Hestor"s shoulders and climbed the skin of his raised arms, the Death Boy leader unleashed a triumphant cry-the tattoos coursed up his arms and around his hands until the ink spilled out of his skin and shot up into the sky-and when Hestor"s tattoo ink met the dark whips of the lich-lords" tails, a shockwave burst across the roof.
Cooper gasped-the power of the Undertow rolled over him in a fusion of living l.u.s.t and undead appet.i.tes. An intoxicating combination that compelled him to follow the urges of the clan, muting any other thoughts. He became part of the host of black-eyed sirens that circled, crying out to the sky.
"Tonight you fly with the Death Boys." Someone grabbed his shoulder and shouted. "Tonight you learn what it means to live!"
The lich-tails were everywhere now, curling about their legs and arms, teasing their waists before whipping back up into the turbulence above. As one, the Death Boys screeched their pledges, begged their night-masters for favor, and Cooper screamed with them. To his right, a tall Death Boy with a mop of corn-yellow hair and bloodshot eyes caught hold of a lichtail as it solidified out of the bristling shadow, and for a heartbeat he locked eyes with Cooper. Then he vanished, ripped away into the sky with a shriek.
Like sharks to a frenzy, the lich-tails sought out the living with a hunger. One by one, the Death Boys around him caught their tails and rose, hooting with glee and devotion. Cooper heard similar cries from the Charnel Girls across the roof. Marvin grabbed his waist and pulled him close, breath urgent against his cheek.
"Hold on, childborn, or you"ll fall forever," he warned, and Cooper wrapped his arms around Marvin"s rib cage.
Then he felt a cold snake whip around his thigh, his chest, his arms- and the rooftop dropped away. They flew through blasts of inky wind that shocked him with their coldness, as though his life bled out through his pores to fill the deathly vacuum.
Marvin"s c.o.c.k pressed through their clothes, steel-hard despite the frigid wind, or because of it. Cooper felt the heat against him and shuddered- part l.u.s.t, part terror. Then they banked to one side and rolled over again and again in a spin of yaw, and all thoughts of Marvin"s body flew from his head.
The thrill was electric, opiate, and Cooper understood how the flight- fever held the Death Boys in thrall. Marvin was right about at least one thing-this was freedom. They"d found the razor"s edge, an adrenaline- junkie"s wet dream, whirling through the dark on the coattails of undeath"s midnight minions. Cooper cackled into the gale and clutched at Marvin with all his strength. He cried into the air and again knew that no one heard him, but he did not want to care.
Then Marvin did the strangest thing. He stroked Cooper"s cheek with one free hand, which shouldn"t have been possible-what was holding them together?-and kissed Cooper softly on the lips. Tears were pouring down Marvin"s face now and Cooper kissed him back, hungry, but Marvin turned his head aside.
"This is what we live for," he whispered into Cooper"s ear, kissing his way gently down his neck. Cooper saw the City Unspoken sprawling below him, lights flickering, rolling on and on as far as his eye could see. From on high the Dome almost looked small, cradled at the heart of the land by the concave bowl of the city"s crust. They fit one another somehow, the Dome and the concave metropolis, the pieces of a design you couldn"t see without a perspective larger than life, the vantage of G.o.ds and undead hurricanes.
Marvin continued to kiss his neck while the ground spun away. Marvin purred against Cooper, their bodies fitting together like the Dome and the city- strange and electric. Cooper felt the full attraction of the Undertow, and its pull was tidal. The exhilarations of undeath seemed limitless, less about natural laws and more about . . . conceit. It wasn"t living, not a moment of it, was it? Charcoal smudges and splattered red ink, light welling up from below, casting strange shadows on a darker sky.
"Do you feel undeath, Cooper?" Marvin"s voice gained a strange echo, a papery lisp dubbed over his natural snarl. "Do you feel it slithering up your thigh? Wrapping its arms around you? Kissing your neck, right here?"
"Oh, G.o.d, yes. It"s not life at all, is it?"
"No, it"s not," Marvin agreed, while the echo cackled.
"It"s not life. It"s art."
Marvin"s c.o.c.k was a hot brand against Cooper"s hip. "I knew you"d see it," he hissed.
"It"s not good art, but it"s art."
Cooper pushed Marvin"s face away and let his response die into the shrieking wind. f.u.c.k, this felt good. Cooper"s life bled out of his heel and into the undead thing hiding above, his head spun high above towers ruled by emaciated poseurs, and somehow it all felt so wonderfully good. Black tar champagne s.e.x, cut into lines.
As he and Marvin gnawed upon each other, Cooper tasted the red thread of Marvin"s story. He could taste the truth: a black streak of running with the Death Boys, and before that a short life under a red sky, before that a sickness, before the sickness there was rage, before the rage came ecstasy, the ecstasy followed a period of torture and fear, and before that was nothing. Marvin"s lives, reduced to simple flavors, were so easy to digest.
Cooper tasted America. Mall food from the "70s, cheap noodles and expensive vodka in the "80s. Lots and lots of s.e.x, followed quickly by death. There was more.
Then they fell, and Cooper"s stomach interrupted his trance on its way to his throat. Cooper made a strangled sound.
"Are you alright?" Marvin asked as he rolled himself to catch the brunt of the landing.
Then the hard roof knocked the breath from them both, and by the time Cooper sat upright Marvin was standing, straddling his body and pointing at Cooper in a kind of glee. Though his vision spun, Cooper saw Hestor, still panting from his dance and flight, leaning against a half- crumbled wall, sucking on his teeth with eyes that already looked bored.
Cooper pushed himself up onto his forearms, all thought crushed from him by the impact. Looking up at Marvin, he saw a pretty, damaged man who offered him momentary tenderness. He harbored no illusions about Marvin"s loyalties, and he knew he couldn"t trust him, but the Death Boy offered him physical affection and the semblance of comfort, and those were commodities Cooper could not bring himself to reject. Not even if Marvin bartered intimacy for some greater reward from his tribe.
"My second wh.o.r.e," Cooper murmured, almost fondly.
"You live!" Marvin cried in triumph, a moment too late to be entirely natural, watching Cooper collapse back to the ground beneath the steel overhang that sheltered them somewhat from the downpour of black rain. He turned to his fellows and gestured. "I told you this one would not fail!"
Warm hands helped him to his feet, and Hestor"s teeth gleamed in the firelight. From behind the plastic scrim of his sungla.s.ses, he spoke with the ba.s.so of a leader. "I doubted you, Marvin, but that was my error. You"ve earned your reward tonight, in part."
"In part?" Marvin asked in a voice close to a wail. Cooper"s heart fell, though he"d expected it to.
Hestor held out a wicked knife with one hand and pointed the other toward the sky. "The emirates of freedom will weigh your redemption when your work is complete."
Reward? Cooper wanted to run, but Marvin"s hand on his back kept him rooted to the rooftop. Redemption? Marvin hung his head and accepted the knife with his other hand.
"I"m sorry, Cooper," Marvin whispered through tears while his fingers danced up Cooper"s spine, his thighs, his throat. Then, inside his head: SorrySorrySorry SoManyReasonsForSorrowMyChubbyAngel, MyDearBoyIWouldLoveYou, IfOnly IfOnlyIfOnlyIWasAllowed.
Hestor gave a barbed chuckle and peeked out from over his stupid sungla.s.ses.
"Do it. Carve him up."
Again, Marvin"s narcotic touch made Cooper arch his back and moan. Entropy would consume the boundless universes before Cooper tired of this, and still he would beg for more. Marvin knew it and smiled, continued. Cooper"s tattered feelings fell away, and he found himself pleading: do it; take me; consume me. You f.u.c.ker.
Once Cooper had a home, but he lost it; friends, but he wandered off; a way forward that he lost when his sight blossomed into a rose of possibilities. Sight beyond sight for the lost beyond lost. With his terrible new sight Cooper saw that he would dance with the Undertow to be free again, if that"s what it took; Cooper would love an Undertow Death Boy, give him his lifeblood and his soulhunger if he asked for it. If Marvin led him toward freedom, Cooper would hand over his heart itself. He would kiss a lich and lick the paper lips from its teeth, if that"s what freedom demanded.
Marvin bared his teeth and unsheathed his knife-then Cooper learned bliss.
"What is the matter with you?" Sesstri asked, holding Asher"s arm as the big gray man went into some kind of fit. They"d had a tough climb up the exterior of the smooth- skinned building, which rose from the city like the nacelle of a mile-long airship, and Asher had grown more agitated the higher they"d come. By the time they pulled themselves onto a sloped ledge just a few floors shy of the rooftop, he"d become apoplectic. They"d have been lost to Cooper, and he to them, if not for Asher"s preparedness: he"d brought more climbing gear than Sesstri had thought to do, and moreover, he"d jerry- rigged a descent line with expert skill; it didn"t hurt, of course, that the spikes on the crampons he"d attached to their boots sank easily into the soft but firm skin of the building. It felt to Sesstri like she was climbing a towering animal, digging her feet into the hide of something too big to notice.
"What"s wrong?" she repeated. Spittle flew from Asher"s mouth. Asher didn"t answer but pointed to the building above them. His eyes rolled wildly as he seized Sesstri"s roan leathers. "She"s here!"
he screamed, and she winced at the sound, hoping n.o.body would hear him. "And she"s on fire . . ."
"Who? Asher, who"s here?" But he was beyond hearing.
"Oh dead G.o.ds, they"re cutting her back. His back. Whose back are they cutting?" Asher gnawed on his own fingers in distress, unable to escape the pain being broadcast into his head. That made no sense, but it burned him like fire anyway. "They"re flaying him alive, I think."
"Who are they . . . flaying?" Sesstri bent her knees and sagged into her harness, letting the line take most of her weight. "Cooper? And who is she?"
Asher gave no response.
"Fine, just concentrate on climbing, okay?"
He nodded, or she thought he tried to, but at least he put one hand over the other and kicked his way up the flank of the skysc.r.a.per with the mindless skill of an expert. Sesstri wondered just how much there was about Asher she didn"t know. She looked behind his eyes and saw something vast that terrified her-what"s worse, her terror was shameless. So she concentrated on the unknowns she could wrap her head around: those old and new scars between his ribs, for instance. She"d been thinking about those scars, and how they could have all been reopened at the same time, uniformly, and the more she thought about that the more she felt like they should remind her of something. Then she remembered his hands on her body and it all fell away.
Those hands. She focused on climbing.
Then, just below the toothy ridge of the roof, Asher began giggling like a madman, and Sesstri was forced to interrupt their ascent. If she had to, she"d secure him to the line and leave him here while she rescued Cooper herself. She didn"t relish the thought of taking on all the gathered Undertow they"d seen climbing and sky-lining to the rooftop of this peculiar, smooth- skinned building, but she supposed she could manage. They were so close, though, if Asher could have just stayed sane for a few moments longer . . . well, she"d figure out what drug he"d taken or been dosed with later. It had to be chemical, didn"t it? Unless the liches were somehow broadcasting something witchy directly into his head-that wasn"t a prospect she relished.
Could he be vibing off something they"re doing up there? He"s shown no trace of psychic ability, how would that work? And who, by the hoofbreaker"s stones, is "she"?
Distracted, Sesstri continued her climb when something grabbed hold of her hair and jerked her up with wicked force. A bola snapped around her wrists before she could reach for her knives, and the leering face of a Charnel Girl hove into view.
"Lookee here," the gap-toothed woman said as her companion hauled up a still-squirming, half- senseless Asher, "we caught us a pretty pair of sky rats."
Cooper lay upon his former clothing, cut to shreds by Marvin"s knife. He and Marvin weren"t the only ones copulating openly on the rooftop, but they drew the most onlookers. The boys and girls had clapped along to the rhythm around their merging bodies.
Cooper had never been even remotely comfortable with public nakedness, let alone exhibitionist s.e.x before a gang who might just as easily kill him as f.u.c.k him. In the heat of the moment he hadn"t cared-the crowded roof gave him a thrill as he and Marvin worked each other"s bodies, mouth, fingers, c.o.c.k. Now he felt like a stretching cat, lying naked on a rooftop beneath the eyes of dozens of Death Boys and Charnel Girls, and any number of unseen skylords.
The fact that he hadn"t been eviscerated, or otherwise "carved up," as Hestor had commanded gave Cooper little solace. He knew Hestor"s type, the s.a.d.i.s.tic controller who would promise you agony and then offer you ecstasy, only to s.n.a.t.c.h it away at the last moment and replace it with the torture you thought you"d avoided. Still, Cooper had come to find the crying woman, and he would stay to save her. Not that he thought flight possible-he was well and truly trapped.
Oh, but what a prison. Marvin growled into Cooper"s neck, half-asleep but tangled in Cooper"s limbs. Cooper snarled in response, nipping at Marvin"s ear and earning a warm, tightening embrace. Just when he thought matters were about to escalate to round two-or was it three?- Marvin extracted himself and stood, honoring Cooper with a look of l.u.s.ty regret.
"Come on." He tickled Cooper"s side with his foot. "It"s time."
The rooftop looked no brighter for the fires that still burned in trash cans and torches set into the crumbling walls, but it was less crowded. Only Hestor stood at the far edge, swinging by one arm from the grip of a secured zip line attached to an exposed beam. He crooked a finger and Marvin brought Cooper closer. Cooper was still naked, and almost laughed at how recently that would have been the worst fate he could imagine. Instead, his nakedness felt like armor.
Be careful what you wish for, Death Boy.
"You"ve felt the freedom we claim as our deathright," Hestor lauded. "You"ve tasted the black rain of freedom on your tongue and felt the tail of a skylord hugging your body. You"ve taken and given pleasure with us"- Hestor nodded at Marvin, who wrapped the straps of a leather harness around Cooper"s bare torso-"and exulted at the ecstasy of our dance."
Cooper nodded in his best imitation of sagacity, trying unsuccessfully to dispel the sense of unease that had resumed growing in his gut. The danger was real now, again. What a seesaw I ride, he thought. What a lich"s tail, what a graphene dragon queen.
Hestor leered at Cooper"s naked body. "There"s really only one step left." Hestor lording his authority over them both. "I"m envious, Cooper. You only get your first taste once."
First taste of what, Death Boy?
Cooper grew queasy just looking at the zip line and the hundreds of feet between the towers. A feeling of sheepishness crept over him, at developing a fear of heights now, after he"d flown through a thunderstorm with the liches. All his former fears were just . . . so . . . amusing.
Hestor handed Marvin a second zip line grip and buckled him together with Cooper. Their bodies reacted as if they"d begun round two-or three-despite the frigid air and the menacing presence of the Death Boy chieftain.
"Are we going somewhere?" Cooper tried to quell the fear in his voice but the effort was hopeless.
"Is that a problem?"
Cooper was still racking his brain for a reason to delay when Hestor shoved Marvin off the roof with both hands, dragging Cooper with him- his naked body spinning into the air, dangling too loosely from the harness attached to Marvin"s. The zip line buzzed and shook violently with their pa.s.sage through the open air, and Cooper continued to spin for what seemed like half an hour but couldn"t have been more than half a minute. Then Marvin slammed into something hard that knocked the wind from Cooper- a wall?-and they both hung limp from the line. Marvin unclipped himself and they dropped to the floor just seconds before Hestor followed on the line, rebounding from the wall with a jump and a shout as he landed. Hestor needed no harness.
The fall had bloodied Cooper"s knees and sc.r.a.ped his wrists, but otherwise he felt undamaged. Hands that were neither Marvin"s nor Hestor"s helped him to his feet and brushed him off- a crowd of Death Boys stood on the rooftop, forming a half circle around the end of the zip line. One of them slipped some sort of robe around Cooper"s shoulders and he drew it in close, teeth chattering with cold and fear.
They stood atop a different tower, this one more fantastical than what Cooper had a.s.sumed was the Undertow HQ. But, of course, all these towers belonged to the liches and their minions. The floor and remaining walls of this skysc.r.a.per were constructed from a seamless whale-blue material that seemed a cross between metal and clay, and pinpoint electric lights traced the paths of circuitry beneath the matte surface.
Cooper said nothing.
"Are you prepared to feel the full power of the Undertow?" Hestor gloated, taking off his louvered shades and tucking them into the breast pocket of his vest while, behind him, a thin youth with long burgundy hair emerged from the shadow of a stairwell. "Let me ask you a question, Cooper."
Cooper looked up at the black dyspeptic sky. "Okay."
Hestor stretched his back like a cat. "What wine do you drink?"
"What? Wine?" Cooper wondered aloud. The new Death Boy stepped up beside Hestor and dipped his head, whispering.
"Yes." Hestor laughed. "What wine?"
Cooper looked out at the city that lay sprawled beyond the veil of shadow- another night was almost over, but the Dome still glittered from within, and the districts sprinkled with lights, the craggy heights further north. The idea of a city, c.o.c.kled and crusty, bearing its own history on its broken back. What"s an idea but a kind of spirit? he wondered. Shamans communed with spirits.
"What wine. Um. I think, Mister Hestor, that you"ve caught me in the midst of a sea-change."
"A what?" Hestor asked, but Marvin and the long-haired Death Boy nodded.
"Three days ago that would have been an easy question." Cooper closed his eyes and remembered the last song he"d played from his laptop. That world was so gone. "Two days ago I only belonged to one city, and now I"m part of two. Two days ago? Cheap Bordeaux, maybe a nice Lafite when my father sent me wine for my birthday. I miss my dad, you know. I don"t know if that"s an idea that matters to you people." He stressed the word. "I think it"s probably something you don"t approve of talking about, am I right?- but anyway, I miss him, and I"m glad I miss him. Because it makes it easier to tell you that my wine, Hestor, is the metaverse and every goblet world it holds, decanted in s.p.a.ce like Lafite or Viognier or whatever horrible miscarriage of flavor that I know you"re about to pour down my throat."
Hestor looked at Cooper as if the childborn shaman had grown an extra head in his armpit. Cooper doubted anyone spoke back much to Hestor.
"So, um . . ." Cooper scuffed the roof with his bare foot. "That"s my f.u.c.king wine."
Hestor bit his lip to hide a smile. He nodded toward the long-haired Death Boy. "Vaitch the Sommelier here curates our most precious spirits. I"ll let him show you the prize that awaits you."
Vaitch pulled a thin-lipped smile; his eyes didn"t quite focus. "Forget the metaverse, Cooper," he said, and turned away. "My wine cellars will occupy your attention for much, much longer." Marvin took Cooper"s hand as the sommelier led the group down a flight of stairs into the watery flesh of the building below.
Vaitch the Sommelier led them down a sloped hallway lined on one side with open portals, and the din in Cooper"s ears grew louder. From within each-sealed with an oval hatch, more like a ship than a building- came whimpers, moans, and sounds of pure animal misery that echoed down the dim corridor. The walls curved overhead like the blue pipe of a wave that never broke and Cooper felt as if he were drowning, only the water wouldn"t finish him off-sinking into a vastness of blue-gone-graygone-black, dwarfed by the yawning deep but still aware, still alive, an unendable witness to fathoms and fathoms of emptiness.
After they"d pa.s.sed a dozen or so of the cells, each leaking sounds of misery into the corridor, Vaitch the Sommelier stopped at a hatch and put his hand against it, leaning a bit as if he were out of breath. After a moment, two Death Boy guards emerged, one thin and blond and bored, the other dark with a smile, still fastening his trousers.