Cooper tried to climb to his feet but lost his balance when he saw that the floor he pushed himself up from was made of finger bones. He let out a cry of disgust and scrambled to regain his purchase.
Across from him stood a lovely man dressed in a green coat over black livery, with hair like a fox that fell over his eyes. The man"s ripe lips were rubbed with just a dab of pink petal dust. He held a femur bone in one hand and a bucket of bitumen in the other.
"Don"t panic." Cooper held out his hands, realizing he was still wearing no more than a plaid workshirt and a makeshift sarong. "I"m here on official business."
"You"re the gray man"s human!" the valet exclaimed, pointing. "Yeah?" Cooper cleared his throat and straightened his back. "You must be the mean lady"s butler."
Tam narrowed his eyes. "I am not a butler." Then hefted the bone in his hand and lunged at Cooper, swinging for his head. Cooper blocked with his forearm and punched Tam in his exposed armpit. It was an awkward but lucky blow-Why didn"t I take those self-defense cla.s.ses? Cooper asked himself as his fist connected-he"d struck the sensitive bundle of nerve ganglia hidden under the armpit, and Tam"s arm went momentarily dead.
"Mab, that hurts!" Tam cursed when he"d blinked away tears, cradling his numb arm and the ma.s.s of pain beneath his shoulder. The two men looked at each other and reached a wordless accord that they were neither of them fighters.
"Look, I just don"t want to be f.u.c.ked with, okay?" Cooper bargained for parley, as if spontaneously manifesting in an enemy"s bone cellar weren"t something to get jumpy about.
"You stupid boy, how was I ever as green as you?" Tam sounded exhausted. "I haven"t any power to f.u.c.k with you or leave you unf.u.c.ked-with, but I can tell you this: why ever you"re here, you"ve saved my mistress another kidnapping. Now put your hands down and leave me be." Tam flicked his eyes toward Cooper"s crotch. "Or the marchioness will find a different member to sever."
Cooper said nothing, until Tam tossed his head and said, "Fine. Can I get you some coffee?"
Upstairs, for lack of a better idea, Tam marched Cooper into the kitchens, where he sat on a stool, sulking. He looked around the large white- tiled room lined with steel sinks the size of bathtubs and an army of oven and stovetop ranges; a pile of china on the counter beside him bore the red-and- black coat of arms of Oxnard Terenz-de-Guises. Although his back was no longer a mantle of pain, he nevertheless resented Alouette for dumping him here. Whatever she was-Cooper had felt the touch of her true self thrice now, he thought, and no longer accepted her protestations quite so glibly. He cursed her silently. Lady, G.o.ddess, sea mammal- any way, I hate you.
Tam poured coffee, pained by the responsibility of keeping Cooper contained until his mistress returned. Cooper seemed to have little- to-no appreciation for the horrors awaiting him when Lallowe discovered him, which made Tam suspicious and tremendously uncomfortable. And a little bored, said the part of him that had been amidst faeries for too long.
"I must say, you"re making me tremendously uncomfortable," Tam told Cooper. ". . . And a little bored."
Cooper just nodded. Tam wrung his hands. Cooper closed his eyes and listened.
LaLaLaDon"tRun, HmmHmmStayPleaseStay OhOhOhIHateItHereHmm. Tam"s thoughts, even his fears, were strangely musical, not quite unhinged but definitely tainted with what Cooper could only guess was faeriestuff. A hundred years of singing flown by in a single night, that sort of thing; Tam reeked of it.
It still felt odd to hear fear and see ident.i.ty. Since recovering from his torture atop the towers and the dawning awareness of the c.u.mulative effects of his recent deliria, dreams, and hallucinations, Cooper"s abilities seemed not only stronger but also linked to a vaster body of intuition than he could possibly merit: looking at Tam, he could see a pale blue note above a bowl- shaped guitar, a sign that fluttered over the majordomo"s throat. A rather delicious throat, as well as the rest of him, Cooper couldn"t help but notice-if a little over-painted. Tam"s forearms-he"d rolled his shirtsleeves to wash dishes-were more muscled than his thin frame suggested, and his lower body filled out his trousers admirably, especially tight around the thighs and rear.
"How does she keep you here?" Cooper asked the fox-haired domo.
"Pardon?" Tam tossed his head and pretended not to have heard.
"Lallowe Thyu. You"re her slave, right?"
This appalled Tam. "Certainly not! I am no slave." Then, reluctantly: "I just can"t ever leave, and must obey at all times."
Cooper swirled his dregs. "I thought I was conflicted. Are you f.u.c.king her?"
"Not lately." Tam smiled, suddenly chummy, then darted back into formation, quick as a minnow. "No, I"m being saucy-Lallowe Thyu inherited me. I"ve been pa.s.sed down from one fickle fey to another like an heirloom that cleans house. I haven"t been pleasurable to the marchioness" family for a thousand years or more, although the reason I was originally . . . acquired . . . was, ostensibly, for my pleasing looks as much as my skill with the lute." The golden note and bowl- shaped string instrument glowed brighter as he spoke.
That sign is who he is. Cooper reminded himself. It"s his name. "What is a lute, anyway? It"s the sort of thing I"m always hearing referenced in period films and fantasy stories, but I don"t think I"ve ever actually heard any, um, lutations? Does it sound like the guitar? G.o.d, this coffee is good."
"It"s a funny little guitar that sounds, to me, like home. Why don"t I fetch you some cheeses? I think you"ve had enough coffee."
"Are you kidding me, faerief.u.c.ker? Do you know how long it"s been since I had a cuppa joe?" Cooper moaned in a caffeinated glow. Tam just stood there, not understanding Cooper on principle. "Nevermind, I don"t know why I bother with you people. Might as well try to pull the donkey"s head off Nick Bottom."
"You know Nick?" Tam lit up.
Is this guy for real? "I know his work, sure. Top me off, Tam-tam." Tam dispensed a miserly amount of coffee from the pot and shook his head, apparently sincere and not a little distraught. "Poor a.s.shat Nick. Seelie b.a.s.t.a.r.ds ate his mind. They say they"re the good ones but, really, if you want to know the absolute truth-"
"-And you know I do, Tamela-" Cooper drained the demita.s.se with gusto and slapped it onto the countertop. Bardic references aside, he had no idea what Tam was talking about. So far, that seemed about par for Cooper"s insane course. I should not feel this good, he thought, before dismissing the idea as a letdown.
"-There"s no such thing as a good faerie. Just different flavors of f.u.c.kwith-Tam. I spent time in the Summer Court too, you know. Ah, now I"ve gone and had too much myself, see what comes with forgetting one"s place?" Tam patted his vest nervously, then pulled out his pocket watch. "It"s past time. Am I late or am I early?"
"No offense, but your job sucks." Cooper picked up a cube of pink rock sugar from the sugar bowl, popped it into his mouth. It tasted like Turkish delight.
"None taken." Tam shrugged. "Wait till you meet her. You have no idea."
"Well"-Cooper shrugged-"she can"t be worse than her mother."
Tam dropped his pocket watch, which swung on its chain. "She . . . what?" He narrowed his eyes at Cooper. "You can"t have met the, ah, Cicatrix." That word hurt him to say.
"Ha. "Met" is a strong word." Cooper held his arms over his head like horns. "Giant black helmet with dung beetle horns, big as a dinosaur? Slithering cybernetic dragon body, powered by little imps on metal skewers?"
"Ah, Mab"s menses, you"re not lying!" Tam"s eyes grew wide as harvest moons. "Lallowe is going to skin you alive for that, you know."
"In that case, she"s late." Cooper laughed a little too loudly. "She can try, if she dares, but my skin is damaged goods and I"ve been in an increasingly s.h.i.tty mood for the last few days. For some reason. This has been a nice talk, Tambellina. You"re the most normal person I"ve met in three days-not counting the pilot in the beer barrel, I guess he was pretty normal too, all things considered. He seemed like a guy who makes good choices."
Tam c.o.c.ked his head sideways. "You"re a strange young man, CooperOmphale."
"Well of course I am. You"d be strange too if you started your week as a magic t.u.r.d who"d been dragged across the universe-metaverse, whatever- by a G.o.ddess, kidnapped by a faerie princess, drugged by Cleopatra, met the Cicatrix from the inside out, f.u.c.ked and flayed by a dead gigolo from the motherland, saved an angel-thing from an undead monster straight outta Vogue, dumped in cave of tears, and thrust into the mansion of an evil elf who"s sounding more and more like Cruella De Vil every minute. Does she wear puppies? Oh, and Nixon was there."
"You don"t say." Tam had the look of someone too well-mannered to flee the room in which he was trapped with a crazy person.
"He tried to steal my t-shirt."
"Is that a fact." Tam collected Cooper"s cup and tossed it into one of the tub-like metal sinks.
"Yeah," Cooper harrumphed. "But I think he got adopted by a redhead."
"That sounds nice." Tam"s cup and saucer followed with a clatter.
In the corner of the ceiling and the wall, a silver bell began to clatter. "Oh thank G.o.ddess!" Tam exclaimed. "And f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k."
"You. Atrium. Now," he spluttered, pointing at Cooper.
"Me. Cooper. Always." Cooper started to rant, but then something happened. His heart flipped inside his chest and the world stopped. Light froze through the windows, motes of dust stopped drifting midair, and everything became a single sound. A song. His ears filled with the song of breaking gla.s.s, gla.s.s that broke without stopping, a glacier of gla.s.s grinding itself into sand against the hammer of the world. Louder and louder until his eyes pulsed with the sound, and then the cacophony stopped as suddenly as it had begun. When his ears stopped ringing, something about the world was different, though he couldn"t have said just what.
Tam still stood there blabbering about Lallowe, unaware of what Cooper had just experienced. A sudden dark impulse urged Cooper to grab and yank, shake, and pull until Tam"s neck snapped and his skull separated from his spine. Tam"s skull would float loose inside the sack of his skin and he could play with the body like a broken doll. Break the doll.
Cooper stumbled and braced himself against the wall. He couldn"t . . . couldn"t breathe, even though he felt the air moving in and out of his lungs. He couldn"t see, even though his brain pa.r.s.ed the photons his retinas captured.
Then it pa.s.sed. His head cleared and he was himself again, but the image came unbidden of the haunted look in Asher and Sesstri"s eyes when they"d discussed the svarning. Tam stared at him like a cornered fox, and Cooper couldn"t help but wonder how long Lallowe Thyu would corner the market on monstrosity.
The atrium was empty when Cooper entered. A long, gla.s.s-paneled geodesic greenhouse connecting the rear end of both wings of the manse, Lallowe had filled the atrium with traditional plants. Traditional, that is, to a woman raised to inherit seven universes: a red flower the size of a dog pouted in a pot, its stamen thick and swollen and stinking of burnt pork. Pulsing blue stalks with red fur stood watch over a carpet of moss- sized fronds that tickled the feet, fresh blood dripped dripped from carnivorous pitcher plants, and so on. A fern that grew tall as a palm flexed its roots into peat like nervous knuckles, tensing and relaxing. Sprays of jasmine that seemed ordinary until Cooper saw the way they pulsed, petals fluttering in and out: breathing. Everywhere the smells of loam and leaf and wet stone.
Beside a banyan, a chaise longue sat within an immensity of white blossoms, tiny and redolent. Near it was a small table and, at the foot of the chaise, a tiny stool for a second person. Cooper sat on the chaise longue instead. He shut his eyes when he heard the clip of boot heels in the hallway, and kept them shut until he sensed her presence at the threshold.
His first look at Lallowe Thyu walking down the length of the atrium confirmed the image that everyone, primarily Asher and Tam, had painted in his mind: she looked like a Thai wh.o.r.e who owned half of everything and coveted the rest. Too much eye shadow, no smile lines, pearl earrings the only bright thing on the face. Her jodhpurs cut from a heather suede, riding jacket in Terenz-de-Guises red and black, hair up-the marchioness ripped off her gloves while barking at Tam.
Lallowe held a little golden disc in her hand, and spoke to it with a smile slit across her delicate face as she marched toward the banyan. "Of course she"s Dead, new sister, you don"t think I"d leave her be if she lived, do you? No, it doesn"t matter how it happened, why would that matter? What matters is that the s.l.u.t is well and truly capital-D Dead, and as I was saying- boy, bring me wine," she snapped at Tam, who fled back down the atrium. "As I was saying, the Lady"s last lunacy accomplished several of my goals, not the least of which was her removal as a trusted friend and advisor to our erstwhile-what"s this? Boy, I said wine, not swinep.i.s.s-you, other boy, get out of my chair."
Here she snapped at Cooper, who did not jump at all.
She continued, seeming to ignore Cooper"s disobedience. "Besides which-good wine, imbecile, do I have to crush your man-grapes to drill the notion of a peppery dry white into your obdurate skull?- and more to the point, I"ve forced matters to a head, which I hope Mother will appreciate, just like I hope the boy isn"t bringing me the second reserve of that sour gewurztraminer he knows I loathe"-Tam and the offending bottle did an about-face-"and which ought to drum out whatever it is that the vivisistors are connecting to and causing the feedback loops I can"t get past. I won"t mention that I suspect that same stormy feedback system to be responsible for the-what was the word?-whatever sickness that"s suddenly driving people to act like the churls they"ve always truly been. Everyone knows it"s more than just the government that"s rotten in this city. Well, everyone who knows anything, which of course isn"t anyone at all."
She folded her palm and the golden disc disappeared, then lifted a booted leg and punted Cooper off the chaise lounge with all the piston force of an angry bull. He spun twice in the air and landed in garden muck, too surprised to remember to breathe.
"Airy Dark," Lallowe Thyu cursed, relaxing into her favorite chair with all the ease of a sunbather on holiday, "the children of men are stupid beasts." She took a gla.s.s from Tam, sipped, bared her teeth in a tolerant smile, and with a tap of her ring against the rim of the gla.s.s, chimed her wine frosty. Tam set a second gla.s.s on a small table beside her. Cooper noticed all this with half his attention, pulling himself out of a trough planter that had moments before been riotous with geraniums. He gasped, regaining his breath.
"I hate geraniums," the Marchioness added. "They"re a common, furry plant. And you"re a common, furry man-aren"t you, Cooper?"
Cooper brushed dirt and crushed leaves-they were furry, he admitted to himself-off the shirt Alouette had provided, and straightened his ridiculous sarong. The still-uncatalogued shaman"s senses he"d won with such difficulty pulsed inside his chest in warning. A high-pitched buzzing sound rang in his ear.
"You . . ." He struggled to regulate his breathing. "Are vile . . . trash, Lolly. And . . . that"s all your momma . . . can talk about in . . . the Court of Scars."
Thyu dropped her jaw and something dark and cruel rolled out of her mouth, intending to whip his face with her prodigious serpent tongue- but Cooper, tipped off by his newly enhanced instincts, managed to raise his hand at the last picosecond and grab the dry black thing as it shot out from her mouth, twisting his wrist to catch Thyu"s tongue just before it struck his face. Her expression, he thought, was priceless.
"I"ve been whipped enough for one week." He let go of the tongue and wiped his hand on his shirt.
Thyu held her hand against her jaw, wincing, as the ophidian tongue retracted into her mouth. After a moment she pursed her lips and nodded sharply.
"Come a long way in just a few days, have we? Already beating up ladies, are you? I see Asher"s rubbing off on you."
"I don"t think anything with a six-foot tongue gets to call itself a lady, Lolly."
"Ha!" The marchioness slapped her thigh. "s.e.xist and racist. He raped his sister, did you know that? She killed herself and the baby to escape him. Oh yes, "Asher" is as famous a woman-beater as he is a ladykiller. He must be so proud of his meaty little protege. Still, I"ll bet he hasn"t shown you his other face, has he? The one he was born with?" She leaned forward to study Cooper"s expression. "I didn"t think so. Poor Cooper, lost and abused and fed to all kinds of wolves."
Thyu bent forward and slid the second wine gla.s.s toward him like a chess piece. She tapped it with her ring, and the gla.s.s chimed frosty in an instant.
"We"ve only just met, so forgive me if I offend you by saying so," she purred, "but it seems to me that you might feel rather put out that I"ve been more forthcoming than your absent-hued friend?"
Cooper wished the buzzing in his ears would go away until he recognized how it scratched at the inside of his skull. "Riddle me this, princess: that a magic ring you"re wearing?"
"It"s just a ring. I"m magic."
"You sure about that?" He smiled.
"Ape, I"m a faerie. Of course I"m magic." It was a fine gold ring from her husband"s family h.o.a.rd, and maybe a wedding present, but it was only jewelry.
Lallowe narrowed her eyes until they were razors.
"Well, you do know that I can hear fear, right?" Cooper sat down on his little stool and picked up his wine. "I can"t do much, but apparently hearing fear is a thing-and I can do it. I hear an eensy weensy worm dying inside your ring, Lollipop, and it is terrified."
For the first time, Lallowe Thyu looked taken aback. For a moment Cooper saw a frightened, lonely woman where a lamia had been. Inside his head, where the magic happened, Cooper heard Lallowe"s truth: Mother, she thought, MotherMotherMother. Vivisistor, AreYouWatchingMe? Vivisistor?
Cooper smiled. "If she is watching, Lolly, how disappointed she must be."
The marchioness jerked as if slapped.
"Are you all junked-out on vivisistors, too?"
Lallowe"s mouth formed a thin smile that promised cruelty commensurate with her embarra.s.sment. "What commendable curiosity!" She clapped her hands rapidly in a frill of mock delight. "What an opportunity to begin the exchange of ideas and digits!"
Lallowe slid a jewelry box onto the table, a matte red metal bevel and lid, paned with silvered gla.s.s on two ends. Cooper didn"t need his fancy new superpowers to recognize that Lallowe Thyu specialized in nasty surprises. So many ways to lose yourself, here, and so many pieces to be lost.
"A vivisistor, my plump, healthy-looking guest, is not that different from a contraption called a "transistor," which I understand you should be familiar with, coming as it does from your world of origin."
Cooper said nothing. In the center of the box, like nested junk, sat the golden disc to which Lallowe had been chatting-the bottom half of a pocket watch cupping a coin.
"A transistor, as I"m certain you know, receives a current of a power called electricity and amplifies it, producing a stronger emanation than it received. A vivisistor works along similar principles but incorporates the more versatile and propitious properties of the arcane. Which is how I can teach it to talk before I"ve completed it." She paused. "Mother really hasn"t scratched the surface."
Lallowe pointed inside the box. "It"s a true wonder to see an invention that incorporates ideas developed in separate realities-that usually fails quite spectacularly. But in this instance, the creators of the vivisistor have produced a device that generates and manipulates power. Power from life."
"The worm in your ring." He did not like where this was headed.
"You see"- she ignored him-"I have a problem of scale. You"re far too big for what I need, and yet I"ve thought of a way through which you can still be useful. Isn"t that a delight? I"m going to ask you to put your pinky finger inside this little red box, and you"re going to do it."
"f.u.c.k you."
"The Ruby Naught here is quite a treasure. Among other, better things, the box has a keen ability to manipulate here and there. Which is how the box is going to separate your finger from your body, while keeping it alive. And you"re going to let it."
"f.u.c.k me," Cooper breathed.
She lifted her shoulders in acknowledgement, as if he"d paid her a compliment, but awkwardly. "After, the stump where your pinky finger used to be will be capped with a metal that possesses transitive and entanglement properties, so that the detached finger will continue to receive blood from your body. It won"t actually be severed so much as simply separated."
"You do know that all these props don"t distract from the fact that your mother doesn"t love you, right?"
"And then you"re going to finish your wine because it"s an exceptional vintage-not too dry, not too sweet, weighty on the tongue with just a hint of Anjou and black pepper and dusk cedar. Then you"re going to stand up and walk out of my mansion and never lay eyes on me again. Just so we"re clear."
"I"m going to do exactly none of that, you overprivileged nut job." He lifted his gla.s.s and toasted her; Thyu did have good taste in whites.
Lallowe shook her head. "Cooper, I admire your vim, but no matter what has happened to you since you arrived in my city, there is one truth that remains unaltered: you are quite beyond your depth."
His hackles rose. "And you"re a oppressive c.u.n.t."
If the marchioness felt insulted she gave no sign. "Oppression. You say the word like it"s a malignancy, when nothing in the world could be more natural-and in fact, oppression serves your interests far better than you seem to believe. Do you, perhaps, nurture some flawed yet abiding notion concerning the welfare of the people who live in the City Unspoken? Absence of any limiting, containing force in this city is precisely what"scaused the current chaos."
As she spoke, Lallowe Thyu reached across the table and took his wrist with all the care of a palm-reader. Cooper found himself unable to move.
Lallowe saw the panic on his face. "I did tell you, I"m magic. But to continue . . ." she spoke casually. "You are, however, comically mistaken if you believe I have any interest in the mongrels of this city." She opened one side of the box by sliding the gla.s.s panel up until it clicked into place. "Toward what absurd purpose would I direct them? I have little to no interest in anything or anyone you could possibly know, be aware of, or expect to encounter." She folded Cooper"s frozen fingers into a fist, all but the pinky. "I will acquire your blood because something I want necessitates that I do so, and I will contrive to remove only your finger because it is efficient: you are not important, and I spare you your freedom because I don"t fancy commissioning a metal cage big enough for an entire man-pig."
At that, the marchioness carefully slipped his little finger into the box, then flashed him a smile of such humble beauty it belonged on a magazine cover. The gla.s.s dropped. There was no pain. Cooper watched the gla.s.s panel slice neatly through his pinky, below the second knuckle. He felt a popping sensation and a spark of electricity, but nothing more.
From the faceless coin, a bead of mercury-like liquid metal condensed. It slid toward the severed fingertip and quickly capped the stump, pulling tight as a tourniquet and capping his finger like a bottle capped at a factory. Sliding beneath the gla.s.s pane of the box, the living metal dripped up the outside of the gla.s.s and performed a similar procedure upon what remained of his little finger. The metal flexed and sealed itself off, growing cool.
That was it. When Lallowe removed the box from the table, Cooper looked down and saw the hermetic cap that fit his wound-it annealed to his skin perfectly.