Page 36 of The Salt-Black Tree
Oh, I’m sure you have.Dima retreated a step, behind an endcap stacked with beer boxes. Drinking warm piss on the road was a tradition in these parts. “Liar. You sniffing after little Drozdova.” Everyone always thoughthewas the cheat in the great game; it was partly amusing and mostly maddening. It was his job, his function, his meaning, and his pleasure to take what could be subtracted from others; you could ascribe it to mortal greed or even simple hunger.
But no, everyoneblamedhim, and the guardians of private property and corporate interest got all the pets and praise for “keeping the peace” and “protecting.” As if they ever protected anything but themselves, as if peace was anything other than their grinding profit out of the blood and meat of the unfortunate.
“The chargesss are kidnapping and theft.” There was a slight click; Chip had drawn his pretty little sidearm. “Sssurrender yourssself, Konetsss.”
So that was today’s game. Of course Friendly and all his other faces would love to get their hands on the Heart, and if they could somehow slip their shiny silver cuffs on Drozdova, who knew what they could accomplish? Their ascendancy might well become total; Dima’sdevotchkawas just enough of a mannerly little girl to follow orders from men who meant her no good.
Maria had made sure of that. If Dima had chosen the other road, he’d be back in New York by now, and maybe the Drozdova would slow down for red and blue lights in her rearview.
Well, then. Even though a thief preferred not to meet thepolitsiya’s overwhelming force directly, there were times when you had to remind the snuffling, snorting, pawingpolitruksthat they were simply another variety of thief.
And, as such, they were his little brothers, not the other way ’round.
Dima’s right hand rose, full of matte-black gun. His left tingled, the bleached-bone razor giving a sharp migraine glitter. It was annoying, but he was going to have to make sure the mortal behind the counter wasn’t hit.
Today, at this moment, it pleased him to let a heavy-hipped rube who had served the Drozdova keep her miserable mortal life while he taught a mirror-faced pissant his proper place in the pantheons.
“I am going to tear your little head off and shit down your throat,Chip.” The words held a howl of steppe-winter, the edge of a prisoner’s best shiv, and the soft finality of a boss declaring war. “Then I’m going to set your little bicycle on fire.”
The Law-licker made a sound like an angry diamondback married to a plunging siren, and Dima dove down an aisle full of overpriced travel-sized “health” items—harsh shampoo, analgesics and decongestants and Dramamine, Band-Aids and Pepto-Bismol, tampons and four-packs of harsh splinter-filled asswipe. Spinning, uncoiling in a leap as bullets plowed into linoleum or pop-pinged off metal shelving, drawing the fire after him as Pollythe rube shrieked and crouched behind the counter—wise girl, he thought, and his laugh shattered the glass doors of the cold cases, a foaming tide of soda and cheap beer bursting free to flash-freeze as his pale razor flicked. The wall of carbonated ice cracked as Chip plowed into it, shiny jackboots scuttling; Dima laughed again and landed with a jolt another aisle over, bright bags of candy hanging on arm-racks and boxes of solidified sugar standing on shelf-edges like good soldiers.
A step aside into the thiefways, popping out with a short plosive sound behind the bumbling bug as Chip’s arms and legs crackled with temporary growth, segmented and shining; the soda-ice, full of sharpglass spears, crumbled under the cop’s assault and scored his muscular hide. Dima shot him twice—pop, pop—and flickered back into his private realm, appearing again in the aisle full of crisps, chips, and savories.
Bags exploded as Chip—his fury turning frozen cola, beer, and cheap wine into spatter-slush—plowed around the corner and howled, each of his two upper arms holding blazing revolvers needing no reloading. His legs had separated, the multiplied jackboots’ shine sadly stained, and a hairline crack wandered down his mirrored face. He siren-howled again, the wall of sound almost clipping Dima as it roared down the aisle. Shards of processed starch in several different flavors turned into shrapnel, scraps of foil-backed packaging flying like confetti—Dima giggled and skipped sideways again, reappearing behind the stupidpolitsiyafucker and smacking another bullet against his helmet-cranium. The bleach-handled razor cut silent-quick, carving up the bug’s tan-clad back in a deep line. Red ichor full of golden traceries sprayed free, but Dima was already in the thiefways again as Chip’s segmented spine twisted and the pig-bug tried to pistol-whip him.
They had little trouble with unarmed civilians. But Dima Konets, not to mention the more gifted of his uncles or nephews, was another matter entirely.
Polly the rube was still screaming when Dima popped out of the thiefways—not behind Chip again, for the little bastard was ready for that and jabbing with a pair of legs, the jackboots becoming leather-clad spikes whistling with deadly intent. No, the divinity of those who took what they could and gave nothing back resolved in midairabovethe petty Law-sucker so foolish as to step outside his jurisdiction by even a hair, and Konets’s boot-toes gave a venomous glitter as he dropped like a falling star.
The idiots with their shiny badges, their gleaming metal bracelets, their helmets and batons and pseudo-military armor—they had things likebordersandjurisdictionandproper procedure.
Dima and his followers merely had the will to take, to survive, to endure. Turning on the tormentors with desperate force at the right moment was a skill, like judging whose pocket to pick and which house to toss, how to tickle a safe the right way and when to put a muzzle against the back of a head and whisperyour money, your lifeormy uncle says hello.
A crunch, a spray of stinking fluid, and if Friendly or his brother-faces ever managed to catch him, they would pay this and a thousand other insults back with interest.
He almost wished them luck. Taking what another had well predated their kind. They did this for pay, Dima’s kind for survival, and the difference was total.
Chip screamed, his carapace crackle-cracking. He wallowed amid shattered shelving, among dunes of chips and crisps, a tide of sticky fluid edging around the corner from the violated cold cases. Some of the fluorescent tubes overhead buzz-blinked; others outright broke, glass glittering as it fell, grinding itself finer and finer.
Dima hopped on Chip’s back again, a gleeful stamping dance. His dark hair flopped free, his white teeth gleamed in a murderous V-shaped grin, and if Polly the rube had been peeking, her mortal heart might well have stopped at the sight. He ground down with both feet, and a sharpcrackwas a deadly deep diagonal crack blooming on Chip’s blank mirrored face.
He could have completely crushed the motherfucker, but his next iteration coalescing from mortal belief might be less stupid and hence, more troublesome. Better to simply incapacitate, and administer a lesson in the wages of stepping outside your bailiwick.
Polly, crouched with her hands over her graying head, made a thin whispery noise she probably thought was a shriek as Dima’s boots landed on the front counter. His hand flicked out, sinking into the cabinet overhead that held cartons of cigarettes; he grinned down at her as he stamped twice, leaving vast stars of breakage in the heavy glass covering notices likeWE ID IF YOU LOOK UNDER 40andALL RETURNED CHECKS WILL BE CHARGED A FEE.
Some of his disciples worked in the banks. Nowtherewas a racket.
He fished a pack of Pall Malls from the shredded cabinet, humming as Chip thrashed and wailed. Dima’s melody became words. “Better run, Polly.” Little red pinpricks danced in his pupils, bearing a distinct resemblance to hellfire. “You a lucky, lucky girl. I suggest lottery ticket. Buy one soon.”
That was all he’d give, even for a rube who had perhaps pleased a solemn-eyed Drozdova. Cellophane crinkled; he bit into the pack, enjoying the melting plastic coating his tongue.
Just like American cheese. Dima hopped down from the counter and sauntered out the door, chewing and grinning. Chip’s motorcycle quivered as his gaze fell upon it, and a few moments later he was in his own comfortable black chariot, pavement throbbing under gleaming tires as orange flames crawled over a shattered hulk of metal and glass left in his wake. Whatever was in the cycle’s tank screamed as it ignited, sickly green threading through the orange and red flames, and all told it was a lovely evening.
Even if it was raining.
SPRING’S COUNTRY
It wasn’t so difficult after all, not with the Key. All she had to do was wonderhow fast can I go, and Baby burst with a yowl of glee from the dark, dripping tree-tunnel over the wagon-rutted road into bright moonlight. The internalthumpof entering a divinity’s space spread, tingling in Nat’s arms and legs, and she recognized this place as if she’d known it all along.
