Page 17 of The Salt-Black Tree
The difference was, children couldn’t choose. They had to take everything on faith.
“I’m scared,” Nat whispered. It felt good to say it out loud, but also terrifying. Showing any weakness was a great way to get kicked right in the teeth.
But the cats, while maddeningly opaque and not overly concerned with answering superfluous questions, weren’t cruel—but maybe they weren’t simply because Nat wasn’t a mouse or a bird.
Felines did play with their food, after all. Dima probably did too.
“Yes,” the tuxedo agreed. “I suppose you are.”
Did my mother want to eat me?The words stuck in her throat.
The tuxedo apparently had other business tonight, because she hopped lithely from the curb and half-turned, looking over her shoulder. Her eyes were wide and lambent, green-gold with reflected streetlamp light. “I suggest you call a taxi, too.” Amusement glittered in her gaze, and her black tail lashed once, twice. “It’s easier than walking.”
“I don’t even know how I got here.” Nat stood, slowly.
“Through a door.” The cat made another amused sound. “Nell Bonney’s house has what you need, after all. Be careful, Drozdova.”
I’d love to. I just can’t figure out how.“Thank you. Have a nice evening.”
The cat stepped sideways, melding into shadows, and was gone. The parking lot was just as deserted; if there was a security guard she was going to have to do some quick thinking and even quicker talking, or just run like hell and hope for escape. Nat exhaled hard, settled her backpack, and looked around for options.
Call a taxi.Well, she didn’t have a phone anymore, but Nat didn’t think it mattered, and she was right. A faint sound, drawing nearer, was the throb of a well-maintained engine.
She also didn’t think it was Dima’s big black car.
ELYSIUM BEVERLY HILLS
A pair of lemon-yellow headlights flowed smoothly through the parking lot. They belonged to a bright yellow taxi—not justanytaxi, either, but the acme of all paid conveyances. It had old-fashioned bubble-bulging wheel wells, a stripe of black-and-white checkerboard down either side, and a lighted rectangle on its roof proudly shouting its availability. The entire car hummed with bright vivid reality as it swerved aside, banking in a tight arc and stopping on a dime right in front of the curb where Nat stood, the front passenger window rolling down.
The driver wasn’t quite a surprise, either. A lean male shape in jeans and a faded green army jacket leaned across the front bench seat, an unlit cigar protruding from a hard-set mouth. “You lookin’ at me?” he barked, but the brusqueness was merely professional instead of angry. His head bulged oddly, but as Nat bent to peer into the shadowy interior she realized it was a bright green Sikh turban.
A red air freshener shaped like a pine tree hung from the rearview, swinging gently; a hula girl with a swaying plastic-grass skirt was stuck to the dash.
Don’t get in cars with strange menwas a good rule to live by, but Nat had bigger problems. “Hello.” Her throat was dry again, and the word was a little squeaky. “I need to go to the Elysium. But I don’t have much money—”
“Don’t insult me,” the driver barked. “Honor to drive you,ma’am. Get in, and don’t dilly-dally. The Wailing Lady’s out tonight, and she ain’t nothin’ to mess with.”
Wailing Lady? That sounds appropriately terrifying.Nat reached for the front passenger door, thought better of it when the driver’s cigar lit with an angry red gleam, and stepped to the rear. It opened with a heavy satisfying sound, and while the seat was covered in tough canvas, it didn’t smell too bad. Especially with the windows down.
He barely waited for her to pull the door closed before the engine revved and the taxi lunged into motion like it had never intended to stay still. It wasn’t like Dima’s muscle car; no, the yellow automobile squealed through the entrance to the parking lot without touching a heavy, similarly bright-yellow boom lowered to keep strangers out. Nat flinched, sure there was going to be a horrific accident, but rubber smoked, the back end slewed, and the taxi took a hairpin curve practically standing on two tires.
New York taxis were aggressive, but nothing like this—and Nat could rarely afford themorrideshares. The yellow cab jolted and shimmied like a roller coaster, taking canyon curves with ruthless efficiency, veering into whatever lane it pleased. Which was fine on the deserted observatory road, but as the streetlights thickened other headlights appeared, not to mention brake lights, and Nat couldn’t decide whether to squeeze her eyes shut, stare in horror, or start cussing.
She flinched, a horn blared, and the driver let loose a string of cheerful high-volume obscenities, almost poetic in their flow and vigor.
“—sonfabitchin’road!” he finished, and drew in a stentorian breath as he wrenched the wheel aside and they slalomed down a long hill, flashing past tentacles of urbanization. His turban had changed to a faded red baseball cap, and his cigar to a Swisher Sweet in a yellow plastic holder. A roulette smear of storefronts, houses, apartment buildings, palm trees, street signs, pedestrians, other cars, fruit stands, ignored stoplights, and brightly litbillboards whooshed past as a warm flood of orange-scented exhaust-laden wind whistled through the half-open window.
Nat’s stomach flipped, she clutched at her backpack, a bright spike of pain went through her skull, and the cab slewed through a series of impossible turns, one after another, ending with a long smoking smear of rubber and a cheery, “The Elysium, ma’am, and how didja like the ride?”
Oh, shit.For the second time that night, Nat was miserably sure she was going to spew—if there was anything left of Ranger’s cornbread in her middle, that was. She swallowed something hot and rancid, peering out the window, and found a half-familiar cobbled expanse leading to a bright glass-and-silver revolving door. Two crimson-uniformed bellhops and a doorman stared at the taxi, their heads tilted at exactly the same puzzled angle, and the big slab of security with mirrored sunglasses touched his earpiece, his colorless lips twitching.
The door looked just the same as it had the very first time she’d seen the Elysium, and for a moment she was sure he’d driven her all the way back to Ohio. On the other hand, this building wasn’t brick but thick adobe with a red-tiled roof. The doorman glided for the taxi, one white-gloved hand extending.
“Very fast,” Nat managed. “Is this…”
“Welcome to Elysium Beverly Hills, ma’am.” The driver turned his head, and his profile blurred like clay under running water. Only the bright baleful orangish eye of the cigarillo and the fact of a hat stayed the same, though now the latter was a battered straw cowboy number. “I got other fares tonight, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to them.”
“Th-thank you.” Nat reached blindly for the door, but it flung itself open as if the car itself couldn’t wait to get rid of her. The doorman caught hold, a solid jolt pushing him back on his heels, and springs groaned as the taxi rocked.
