Page 57 of Spring's Arcana
“Mascha liked the fights.” One shoulder lifted, dropped; the shrug looked almost painful. Maybe he was sore from a day in the car too, though she doubted it. “A hungry girl, your mamma. We had some good times.”
That’s… unexpected. “Oh,” Nat said, blankly. How did you respond to something like that?
He spun as if she’d shouted, and glared at her. But when he spoke, it was the same flat, mocking tone. “They got a swimming pool. Bring a bikini,zaika?”
Oh Christ, I should hope not. “Did you?”
A brittle laugh and he jolted into motion, passing her with a long swinging stride. But his shoulders hunched like he expected her to hit him, or say something nasty. “Rest up. Tomorrow we really drive.”
“Great.” Nat waited until the door in the wall swallowed him again, and let out a long, soft breath. Tiny tremors ran through her, and even her favorite knit cap felt itchy and strange, likesomeone else’s clothing. The room was quiet except for the fire, eating whatever fuel it could find and exhaling heat. A ghostly reflection hung in the window’s clarity, a pale face and a dark coat, just as insubstantial as she felt at the moment. Nat peeled the hat free and unbuttoned the peacoat, trying not to feel like she was taking off necessary protection.
Maybe dinner would be a good idea; she could certainly use a drink. And if there were other powers, or divinities, or whatnot in the bar… well, she at leastlookedold enough for booze, didn’t she? And she didn’t think they checked IDs here.
“Certainly old enough,” she heard herself say, and wondered if she was going insane. “Butbraveenough? That’s the question.”
It didn’t matter. De Winter, or Baba, or whoever the hell she was, would fix her mother. That was the goal;keep your eyes on the prize,they said.
The only trouble with that was you couldn’t see what was sneaking up behind you.
PERSONAL, DIFFERENT
When a man was in a certain mood, drinking was only a prelude to a fight or a fuck. He didn’t want one of Candy’s girls, though all he had to do was pick up the phone and request; the thought of her smug smile when she caught wind of the event was intolerable.
No, there was only one thing that would do right now. Which meant Dima skipped any imbibing at all and rode the whisper-quiet elevator down, down, and down, snarling silently at his reflection in the polished brass doors.
She’s my mother. Can you just not?As if a little bitch’s sentiment could—or should—outweigh what Mascha had done. Thezaikadidn’t even want to go to the fights, despite the fact that an invitation was highly prized, something she’d never seen in her mortal life.
Maybe letting Maschka eat her own spawn was fitting. Maybe it would soothe the prickling under his skin, the throbbing in his empty chest. She wouldn’t even havedinnerwith him, as if she knew her place in the pantheon was so different than his.
Same old story, the rich girl looking down her nose at the thief in the shadows. Well, she would bleed just as well as anyone else, the minute his sharp little friends left their dark homes and glitter-glinted.
You could have done something.
Like it mattered, one rube more or less. Likeanythingmattered.
The elevator halted its plunge; when the doors whooshed reluctantly open a featureless black granite hallway receded into thedistance. At its far end bloody neon glowed, flanked by two big slabs of muscle with shining-blank eyes. Purely for aesthetics; no rube would get this far even if one could be brought past the Elysium’s hungry revolving door, and no true power would be troubled by mere soldier ants.
But appearances had to be observed. Dmitri Konets stalked down the hall, an unfamiliar tickle at his nape and his boot-toes shining.
The starving ones couldn’t enter the Elysium. She was safe enough for tonight. If someone else swooped in to grab thezaika,if someone else trailed her or forced her to hand over what belonged to him… well, as soon as he didn’t need her to show the way, he could pursue whoever acquired a bloody fist-sized diamond and let his vengeance upon Mama Dearest take a backseat like so many other enjoyable things, savoring the inevitable when he had the time to devote himself fully.
Assuming, that was, that dear Maschenka survived long enough to be punished.
“Good evening, Mr. Konets.” Both soldiers bowed slightly, and Dima contented himself with a nod instead of a snarl. The door opened, bloody light spilling out with the formless mutter of an excited crowd.
He plunged into smoky dimness very much like the room the Elysium kept for him—or maybe they changed between every guest, because Masha wouldn’t want white leather and birch bark. No,shewould have a room with a rocky cataract in its center and a gray stone altar with the flint knife ready, no cozy fire or wide soft bed. She would want a pile of springy pine boughs and a jug of water-clear vodka, a steaming mound of winter-lean meat and tender little bunnies quivering in an osier hutch.
Or maybe she had changed when they brought her over the ocean in crammed holds and shipping containers. Had she taught the littlezaikato crack an egg and suck it dry, or how to call up the black stinking mud to mire any pursuit?
No, she’d taught the girl nothing. A little shivering ball of flufftrapped in wickerwork, ready for the black blade and possibly stupid enough to offer its own throat out of misplaced affection.
“Dmitri!” A rich, plummy baritone with just a hint of static-scratch hidden in its flow boomed through the haze. Hash smoke, tobacco smoke, the skunkier harsh tone of plain reefer, a thread of sticky perfumed opium, all mixing together. The doors closed behind him and Prommo appeared in his white coat open to the waist, his hard little potbelly twitching. His white top hat was furred, like his broad shoulders; his oiled moustache gleamed over broad flat ruminant’s teeth. “Heard you were in town. Come to watch the show?”
The Ring, its borders festooned with chain link and barbwire, held a fringed, spitting manticore and a youth in black leather; the latter wasn’t quite a power yet, his features blurring through several copies of currently famous action heroes. A win here might keep him solid for a few more weeks, and if one of his devotees managed fickle stardom he might get enough of the short-term celebrity to solidify yet more.
Although Arnie Sly might have something to say about that; he generally liked to eat the newer ones to keep himself solid between box-office morphs.
The manticore, pulled straight from a thundering, fevered mortal nightmare, hissed and squirted a bright jet of acid. The boy, muscle moving in flat straps under bronzed skin—now he wore the form of an Indonesian star achieving much stateside acclaim for his photogenic savagery—flickered aside with disdainful ease and stamped on one of the thing’s fringe-tentacles.
