Page 21 of The Salt-Black Tree
You think Maria Drozdova would do this for you, little girl?
Go figure, she’d finally gotten rid of the gangster, only to find out he’d been absolutely right and damn near helpful, too. Not to mention also almost kind, in his own particular fashion. Even his attempt to teach her how to begin using this power.
Thisdivinity.
Nat laid the Knife back in its case, closing the wooden box slowly. It didn’t take long to repack her bag, both arcana safely stowed in clean laundry. She could wear this outfit for another day, it wouldn’t do any harm. The Elysium—and wasn’t that name a laugh and a half, folks—probably had laundry service.
Or if she found a laundromat, maybe she could just ask the washer politely and save herself some quarters.
World wants to obey,zaika. Just ask.
She could wash her face and get some coffee, at least, before getting back into her boots and figuring out where to find—
But the outside world, never content to simply leave well enough alone, had other ideas. Nat stiffened, her chin rising, a bare moment before a series of crisp knocks resounded against the suite’s door, floating through the sitting room to reach her.
Shave and a haircut.Pause.Two bits.
At least whoever it was had a sense of humor. Maybe it was Dmitri; her heart gave a panicked, unsteady leap at the thought. Nat slithered off the bed in a rush and padded in sock feet for the entrance, hoping there was a peephole. If it was the gangster, maybe she didn’t have to open the door.
Not that she’d be able to hide in here forever, but having the option—any option at all, really—was a pleasant change.
SUNNY FIELDS
It wasn’t what he wanted to be killing.
Dmitri Konets stalked between rows of plywood shacks, a cold breath slithering through mortal dreams. The straight razors—one with a handle of bleached, the other of blackened bone, since he was hunting half amid the rube world and half in the shadows of their fever-dreams—gleamed as he leapt, silent as a hunting panther, and a scavenger shadow’s rotting veil-body dropped, neatly cloven in half. They were thickening along her trail, the cold mouthless bastards, and if he winnowed themjustenough they would lead him to a girl growing into divinity by leaps and bounds.
It was a balance, leaving enough of them alive to follow his tender littledevotchkabut not allowing their numbers to reach truly dangerous proportions. Of course their crowd was inexhaustible, but it took time for them to coalesce.
Unfortunately, the physical and less-tangible misery of migrant workers in slumshacks tucked out of sight on land owned by the rich but farmed by callused brown hands at pennies per day was good fuel for scavengers. The tiny thieveries committed to ensure daily survival tickled him as well; the larger thefts by sunburned overseers and managers were a little less pleasing.
Of course the biggest burglaries, committed on spreadsheets and in boardrooms, were interesting and filling in their own way. But they weren’t on the menu tonight.
Sleeping mortals felt him as a chill amid bright nightly fantasies of a better life, and they would never know his lithe, deadly killquiet was keepingthemsafe, too. The scavengers wouldn’t hesitate to cluster a born-lucky mortal full of more than the usual measure of bright warm life, battening on any excess of pleasure or happiness. Hiszaika’s passage brought good golden luck, true—but she also irresistibly drew this cold wave in her wake, and would until she achieved her full status. He’d tracked this group of freezing carrion from the vineyards, and they were moving steadily west and vaguely south instead of simply drifting.
Which meant they knew, in their witless blundering way, where their most prized prey was to be found.
Dima, skipping across a malodorous alley between rows of slumped shelters built of scavenged materials, bent and cleaved through another shadow. Straightened, extending in an effortless lunge as one veil-draped specimen slightly stronger than its brethren turned to give battle, possibly driven past even its mute grasping patience by his relentlessness. He sliced it into petal-folding pieces before bursting into the camp’s central square—these mortals replicated their home villages in all but name, carrying their culture north with their own gods.
One listing, anemic water pump for the hundred and fifty souls crammed into living here; the sanitary conditions hardly deserved the name. Under their care the sunny fields near Fresno produced acres of fruits and vegetables sent to supermarkets in less-congenial climes; here, where they gathered well after dusk to choke down a few calories begrudged by their masters, disease and malnutrition ran rife. To the “employers” it didn’t matter, of course—there were always more where these serfs came from, these chickens believing the promise ofEl Norte.
Truth, justice, freedom in America? Certainly—if you could pay for them, and the price wended ever upwards. Keeping the workers exhausted was a good way to make sure they didn’t risewith torches and sharpened implements, turning on their tormentors.
And wouldn’t Dima eat wellthen, too? He almost wanted to provoke a few of them into the act, but he had other work before dawn.
The cold didn’t bother him, and weariness was not a danger. Battle was as good as Bonney’s burgers, and almost as filling as thefts. Konets leapt; his silvered boot-toes flashed as he landed with a silent crunch on the back of a stretching, rotten shadowshape, its claws scratching a plywood shack-wall like a cat demanding entrance.
Stray or pet felines wouldn’t offer any aid in this chase. Their loyalty was to the one who provided better prey, not to a fellow hunter. Still, they watched—he caught sight of tail-flickers every now and again, lambent eyes hurriedly closing, fur-sliding forms slipping into deep shadow and steppingbetweenas felines were wont to do.
They had thiefways of their own.
The battle took a breath on the edge of a broccoli field, one last scavenger drifting away hurriedly as its companion died under his flashing blades. Dmitri straightened, flicking the always-stainless razors as if to clean them of blood.
It was unnecessary—the mouthless clawing eaters held no life-giving fluid—but the fillip pleased him. He whistled, softly, and on a nearby access road an engine sprang into purring life, headlights dim-shuttered in deference to his stealth.
He would follow this lone survivor, watching as it swelled to hive off more of its kind. Yet more would clot-coalesce in due time, and when their numbers reached a certain threshold he would winnow them again, and again, as many times as it took to find his prey.
It was like hunting with dogs in the old country, and for once the thought of his birthplace pleased him. The void in his chestgave a soft, painless lurch, and the driver’s door of a low-slung black car closed with a crisp sound. Perhaps a rube sleeping nearby woke at the sound, sweat-drenched, a nightmare moan still caught on chapped lips.
