Betwixt (33 page)

His ringtone was set to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” for unknown
callers, and there was only one person who called him who was unknown. From a pay phone, just like in the old days.

“Nix.”

Despite himself, Moth couldn’t disguise the gruffness in his voice. An initiate’s leaving his first gathering was, of course,
a possibility every guide had to prepare for. But Nix’s departure had been so early and sudden, and so clearly tied in with
Bleek. Till now, the cutter had kept to himself, and though Moth lived in fear of his own elimination, he knew Bleek feared
the same thing. Any meeting would have resulted in danger for both of them. Now Bleek was taking more chances, sensing that
a ringer existed close by. Why else would a noted scion like Viv have come out of isolation, endangering herself? Moth chided
himself that he had not prepared for the possibility that Bleek would actually show up at the Ring of Fire, dragging a pet
along, no less. But then, that was Bleek. That was how the cutter had always been.

There was no sound for a moment, then Nix’s scratchy voice broke the silence.

“You bastard.”

It shocked Moth, how angry they were. Had he been so angry?

“Calm down, Nix. We’ve got a long road ahead of us and I suggest you get used to the fact that we’re on it together.”

It was something like what Moth’s own guide had said at the beginning, though less obtusely. Viv had nailed it: His and Bleek’s
guide had failed them, though it had been a failure of attention rather than intention. Theirs had been more interested in
using his newfound knowledge for his “practice” — Moth shuddered at the word the older changeling so favored to describe his
human calling — than for preparing the very real, very scared, and, except for a gathering every so often, very isolated changelings
for their exidis. Bleek had seen the advantage in the situation; Moth had just foundered. But failure was failure and their
guide’s had created potentially deadly consequences. Moth had to only look in the mirror to know that.

He was going to be different: a better teacher, less egotistical, more compassionate. Still, talking to Nix and Ondine, Moth
felt like a sixth-grade punk trying out his first cigarette. He wondered what it would be like when Morgan finally contacted
him.

“Where are you? Where’s Ondine?”

“Ondine won’t speak to me. That’s your fault.”

Something had changed in the changeling’s voice. Though Nix had always been defiant, this new tone shaded into something darker.

“Are you listening?”

“Of course. What’s happened?”

“You must know. You have to. You’re our
guide,
aren’t you?”

Moth took a breath. The rebelliousness in Nix’s voice set his teeth on edge. Had he been so bold?

“Slow down, soldier. I don’t know anything. I am your guide,
but I’m not a mind reader. I know only a little more than you do. Something you would have known had you stuck around and
listened to what Viv had to say —”

Moth knew it was wrong to bring it up — Nix was looking after the pet Bleek had brought, a local girl Moth recognized by sight
but did not know well named Neve Clowes — but he couldn’t help it. Nix’s aggressiveness, his accusatory undertone, pissed
him off and made it hard for him to play the role he was supposed to. He could hear Viv now:
No. Not this way. You’ve done it wrong. Once again. Pay attention. Focus, Moth, focus.

“It’s Neve. She’s in trouble. I don’t know what to do. I see — I see a light around her.”

“You see a ring?” Moth’s voice emerged tighter than he’d intended it. “You can see it now? On that girl?”

“I guess I can,” Nix replied, offering nothing more.

“She was right,” Moth said under his breath.

“What? Who was right?”

“Nothing. Listen, Nix,” Moth interrupted. “There are some things I need to tell you about. Involving … the light you see.
And Tim Bleeker. The stuff you missed when you left. Meet me at the park at sundown. Morgan will be there, and I’ll get in
touch with Ondine. The same place you used to meet me, up by the clearing —”

It was Nix who interrupted this time.

“Ondine won’t be there. She wants nothing to do with you,
man. You have to know that. She kicked me out this afternoon. She called the cops.”

Though he didn’t want to acknowledge it, Moth knew it was true. He took a breath. Ondine he’d have to convince later. He had
to meet the others. Bleek was planning something with the girl, Neve. Viv had surmised as much, and his ring had to be aligned
so they could negotiate a response. Besides, the chain of events that would hopefully end in his own long-awaited exidis had
already begun. The spark had been lit.

“Sundown,” he repeated at last.

Nix responded in kind. “Sundown.”

Moth closed the slim silver phone, heard its satisfying little click. What humans accomplished with nothing — no scia, no
dust, no mancing — somehow, it was much more impressive. This was the hardest thing for Moth to accept when he first was initiated.
There were no tricks to being a changeling. You either were or you weren’t. He never liked the rigidity of it. Still didn’t.

It made his heart hurt, thinking he’d leave this world, the one where tricks got played and fantasies were nurtured. In Novala,
everything had an explanation.
No one gets away with anything. Ever. All things are transparent in Novala.

And here, in preparation: only rules to follow, lemma to memorize. Scia to obey.

Heart. That he still felt his testified to the pull of his adopted tribe.

Moth knew his time was almost over. Whatever was happening with his ring, it would lead him back to the exidis, where he would
finally be released. It had been promised to him for so long — its delay so harsh on his body — that he almost could not wait
for Nix, Morgan, and Ondine to learn their lessons so he could join them. His door to the invisible world had been harder
to find. Now it was just there in front of him.

It scared him, though, the thought of entering Novala for good. No fixed body. No death. No pain. Only total and everlasting
consciousness, permeable through each brane in the bulk, able to slip in and out of lower dimensions at will. Fay. Even thinking
about it made him dizzy. He had won Viv’s trust, finally. Overcome his ring’s early mistakes. Proven to her that he was worthy.
She promised him that soon he’d have his glimpse. Now there was just this last task, and it was revealing itself so quickly
that he was stunned. Somehow he’d expected to — what? Get an e-mail about it?
No, Moth.
Viv had placed him here, in Portland, to ready him for these three. A ringer and a potential scion were rarely paired, and
never before in this part of the human world. Even Morgan, though a common morpha like him, was no slouch. It signaled a new
opportunity in the long battle against the insidiousness of the cutters. That Moth was given the task of initiating the three
meant something.

This was just as it should be: fast and furious. At the end he’d know what he was meant to know. He’d be ready — really
and truly ready — for the exidis. His door would show itself, just as Viv had told him. The person who had just called him
—
Nix, who comes from nothingness.
Nix was one of the keys.

M
ORGAN KNELT BY THE BATHTUB
, watching it fill, occasionally dipping her hand into the bottle–bluish green water to check its temperature. Her brother
would be home soon, and she wanted to be clean.

K.A.
She let his image float around her in the mist while she undid her yukata, hung it on the hook at the back of the door, and
climbed into the bath.
You know how to distract him, don’t you Morgana?
There was the sudden scalding, the bright pain so hot it was almost cold, and then a warm flush up her back. She sank farther.
The water cupped her breasts and settled there.

Just an hour before, she had called Neve Clowes. She told her that she was calling for K.A. “He wants you to meet him at the
Krak in forty-five minutes,” she had told the girl, and Neve, happily, breathlessly — it was guilt Morgan heard in the younger
girl’s “Oh great! Sure!” and relief — agreed. K.A. wouldn’t be using his phone — Coach Gonzalez outlawed cell phone calls
on the team bus — and though Neve said she’d been grounded “for
some lame party in the mountains she didn’t even remember,” Morgan knew Clowes wouldn’t have anything against Neve meeting
up with “the square,” as she knew the old man called her brother.

“Thanks, Morgue,” Neve had said. Then whispered: “I miss you.” Morgan mumbled something like, “Me, too” and hung up.

She called Bleek. Told him if he wanted the pet he’d better take his chance.

“What do I owe you?”

“Just what you promised,” Morgan answered.

“Tomorrow? Are you sure you’re ready?” Bleek’s voice had slipped into his skeevy, mocking approximation of flirting. “Do you
even know where you’re going?”

“I’ll find out.”

“Good. Good. Very fine.” He laughed and his mouth moved closer to the phone. “I like the attitude. All right. Here’s something
that will help you, since assface will likely teach you nothing of importance anytime soon. You’re a morpha. Like I am, like
Moth is. Like many of the changelings are. What inhabits you can also inhabit other corpa you tame and utilize. It’s your”
— and Bleek paused here, turning his voice saccharine — “
gift.
Problem is, it’s really, really not easy to get control of. And it’s a bummer when it gets out of hand. I think your little
experiments on the bunnies might remind you of that. But Moth has
come along fairly well in his studies and so I suggest you listen to what he has to say in that department. And use it to
our advantage.”

“Okay …” Morgan’s voice trailed off.
Our
advantage?

“Not what you were expecting, muffin?” Bleek’s laughter stung her ears. “This isn’t the fucking Force, Morgana. You don’t
get to learn all of this in a montage. You want knowledge, you work for it. You keep your eyes open and you learn.”

“That’s supposed to be a tip? I deliver your precious bitch to you and I get fucking meditation advice?”

“Watch your mouth. I suggest you practice listening for a while. You really have no idea what you’re saying. And I’ve got
to run. I’ve got an appointment to keep. Oh, and if you can, bring Nix. No. Strike that. Bring Nix. Or else.”

That was all there was.

Morgan slipped back into the water, trying to let it relax her. Gift? Morgan D’Amici
defined
gifted. The problem was not
a
gift, but
which
one?
Concentrate, Morgan
. She closed her eyes.
Morpha.
The screen of her mind was a white field, thick with mist. Shapes emerged, but Morgan could not make them out. She felt her
body sag into the warm water. The shapes seemed to be nothing more than denser spaces where the white coagulated, making oblong
figures — nothing so recognizable, densities spun of snowy foam.

Bit by bit she felt a cold drying. The hairs on her arms stood
up. Her shoulderblades chafed against something hard. From somewhere not near and not far a blackness ripped. A crack, tiny
at first, barely noticeable, a fissure of loneliness and foreboding. A sucking. She was not alone. Then a single black shaking
tendril emerged — quivering, dark energy.

It had happened in the forest, when she was young. That’s where it had all started. There were others there, older than she,
in a ring. She had tried to run away but only backed against something cold….

Sacrificing Neve: It was the first truly evil deed she had done.

A sudden draft sucked the air from her chest and her eyes sprung open. Water was in her mouth, in her eyes. She sputtered
and coughed. Black split the edge of the door.

“Sorry!”

Morgan only had time to register the confused and bashful expression on her brother’s face before he shut the door again and
said from the other side: “Um. Sorry about that. I didn’t know you were in the habit of taking baths in the middle of the
day, Miss Hilton.”

Morgan was silent. She was sitting up now, staring at the water.

K.A. coughed nervously. “Mom called. She’s on her way home. She asked if we wanted to go to the Spaghetti Factory for a late
lunch. I told her I’d ask you if you were working.” He scraped a finger on the door, just like he would do when they
were kids and he wanted to be let in. “You know. Like a family. I was gonna call Neve and see if she wanted to come, too.”

Morgan lifted her head. She was aware of something instinctual happening inside of her, something tied to the vision she’d
just had.
Morpha,
she repeated silently. The nights in the forest. A rattling cocoon.

“Morgue? You okay in there?”

She stood up dripping, plucked her yukata off the hook, and wrapped it around her. Its thin cotton clung to her still-wet
body. She ran her fingers through her hair and looked at herself in the cloudy bathroom mirror. Black eyebrows, black shining
hair, blue eyes. She was still there, and she was clean.