Path of Smoke (7 page)

Morgan approached the counter. “Julia, I know you aren't exactly on friendly terms with us, but we're somewhat entangled.”

The young artifex laughed bitterly. “What an excellent description. I suppose we are. You need to leave, though.” Her face betrayed a flash of desperation. “I have a trade here, a real mystery. It's actually working out. I can't jeopardize that.”

“We need your help,” Fel said.

She glanced at the miles. “I thought you'd managed to escape this bizarre company.”

“It's not a company.
We're
not. Yet. But you could change that.”

Julia backed away but only managed to get tangled in the curtain. “The wheel would have to crack before I agreed to join you.”

Babieca leaned over the counter. “We understand your hesitation. But something happened a few nights ago.”

Julia frowned. “At Domina Pendelia's? I was there. Aside from an orgy and some character assassination, I saw nothing out of the ordinary.”

“The real action was in the alleys.”

“I don't want any part of this, whatever it is.”

“That's the problem. You're already a part of it.” Babieca smiled sadly. “I know that you want to live your life in peace. But is that really what Naucrate would have wanted?”

Julia's face went white. Before he could react, she grabbed a handful of his tunica. With surprising ease, she hauled him over the counter, like a sack of root vegetables. He landed facedown on the floor, and she knelt beside him.

“Say her name again,” Julia murmured, “and I'll break every bone in your body, starting with the one you love most.”

He coughed. “I'm not sure why this keeps happening to me today.”

“Julia.” Morgan carefully walked around the counter. “This involves the silenoi. That's why we need your help.”

“You couldn't pay me enough to go near them again.”

“We think that—” Morgan also kept her eyes on the door. She lowered her voice. “Latona is going to make some sort of deal with them. She has something that they want. An ‘heirloom,' she called it.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“We know where she's meeting them,” Fel said. “If something goes wrong, that mechanical bee of yours is the only thing that can stop them in their tracks.”

“
If
something goes wrong?” Julia's laugh turned into a kind of sputter. “You've all gone soft in the head. What's your plan? To follow the basilissa to her secret assignation?”

“Nobody else knows of this,” Morgan pressed. “You understand, as well as we do, what Latona is capable of. Anfractus isn't enough for her. If this transaction is successful, it could bloom into an alliance that will destroy us all. The silenoi could hunt the streets during the day, picking us off like stunned cattle.”

“That couldn't happen,” Julia said. But she didn't sound convinced.

Slowly, Babieca rose from the ground. “We need you,” he said. “Roldan is gone. If you join us, we'll be a company once more.”

“I'm no auditor,” she said, uncertainly.

“Companies change. You may not be able to speak with lares, but you're a builder. Your mother was a true artifex, and she passed that on to you. Her talent is in your blood.”

Her face fell. “I like this job.”

“If that were so, you wouldn't still be listening to me.”

Julia looked forlornly at the bin of frogs. “I just got the hang of making those,” she said. “They're all the rage.”

“We're going to the necropolis,” Morgan replied. “Just before sundown. Can you meet us there?”

“I don't know.”

“Think it over. We'll wait for you.”

“I can't promise anything. I need to think.”

“In the meantime,” Babieca said, “remember that hopping frogs may be the rage, but that bee of yours is part of something much larger. Perhaps we all are.”

“I suppose you can be charming,” Julia replied. “Mostly when you're silent, though.”

“That's what I keep saying,” Fel agreed.

“We really do need you.” Babieca gave her a curious look. “You're the only one who's mad enough to help us.”

“I definitely get that from my mother.” She sniffed the air suddenly. “The mushrooms are burning, and the master will return soon. You have to leave now.”

“Hopefully we'll see you among the graves,” Babieca said. “Once you get past the swampy smell, the marsh lights can actually be romantic.”

“Just get out of here,” Julia said, trying to conceal her smile. Then she disappeared behind the curtain. Fire was a constant threat in this neighborhood, and even a skewer of mushrooms was capable of burning down the insula.

Once they were outside, Babieca let himself relax a little. “I think we made an impression,” he said. “It might actually work.”

“Mentioning her mother was a wild throw,” Morgan said. “It could have ruined everything. How did you know that it would work?”

“I didn't. I only knew that it would make her angry.”

“You're not allowed to talk for a while,” Fel said.

“That hardly seems fair.”

“You can still sing. We need money, after all. Just no talking.”

“I'm not sure that I like where this new company is going.”

“I'm certain you'll grow to appreciate it,” Morgan said sweetly. “Companies change, after all. You said it yourself.”

Babieca didn't reply. Perhaps Fel was right. He'd talked himself into enough blind corners for one day.

C
ARL
DIDN
'
T
REMEMBE
R
FALLING
asleep, but he woke up on the couch with a slow, spreading ache in his left shoulder. They'd returned before dawn, and the transition had left him feeling shaky and wired at the same time, like an ancient fuse about to burst. The glass on the coffee table still had some dregs left: an unpleasant mixture of rye and Coke with a few ashes floating on the surface. He washed it out, then stood in the small, bright kitchen for what felt like several minutes, trying to spark some neural activity.

His mind felt oxidized. If he'd been teaching today, it would have been the perfect time for group work. Then he could watch them blearily from the front of the room as they highlighted, flipped through the textbook, or acknowledged without shame that they'd read nothing. He could turn them loose on each other, allowing the talkative ones to seize control, while the introverts made notes and refused to engage. Carl's teaching strategy could best be classified as mellow. Sometimes he was full of energy, but most of the time he sat back and let them come to their own conclusions. As long as they occasionally wrote things down and didn't make any offensive comments, he felt that the tutorial was going well. A teaching assistant was a kind of liaison between student and professor. His job was to translate Dr. Darby's lectures, in the same way that a foreign language was broken down with flash cards.

Students would usually avoid the professor's office, with its accumulation of books, art prints, and moldering exams stuffed into corners. They felt more comfortable visiting the shared TA office, with its bare walls and slowly dying ficus beneath the window. Often, graduate students were only a few years older than their undergraduate charges, and the power differential wasn't quite as obvious. In the first six months of his MA, Carl had been yelled at, cried on, touched inappropriately, and given cookies with a heart-shaped note (from a shy computer science student, who'd booked weekly meetings purely to talk about Minecraft). One of Shelby's students always seemed to be coming from the gym and would show up to their meeting in a tank top and shorts that reminded her of Bob Benson from
Mad Men
.

He'd just keep stretching,
she'd told Carl,
all casual, like any moment this was going to turn into a hot yoga session.

Luckily, this was an off day. No tutorials. He should be studying for something. He couldn't remember what, but there was always something. The life test that he would someday fail miserably. Shelby might want to organize a reading party. His apartment was the only one with a balcony, which meant that he'd probably be hosting. Carl surveyed the living room. It was sort of clean, if you squinted and wore shoes. He spied only a few dust bunnies, receipts, and loose change hiding in the corners. He had a kind of fondness for dust bunnies. They reminded him of tumbleweeds. When they got big enough, he liked to pretend that he was in a spaghetti western, and his apartment was the back lot of MGM.
Prairie Showdown.
Something that allowed him to wear a black hat.

The barrel-sized container of coffee from Bulk Barn was empty. That would be a problem. Aside from an old Celestial Seasonings sampler—which he'd inherited with the apartment—there was nothing left to keep him awake. Carl removed a take-out box from the fridge and shoveled cold fries into his mouth. He found an old tin of mixed nuts in the cupboard. The cashews had been picked over, but a few walnuts remained, lying in a bed of salt. A trip to Safeway might be in order. Both the fridge and the cupboards were turning into a kind of burial ground for meals past.

When he was living in Toronto, he'd shared an apartment with two girls. It was a small place, and the girls had slept in a bunk bed. He could remember coming home to the smell of polenta and roast vegetables, or chicken that was delightfully charred. They would split a pack of cider and watch
The Wire
, pausing to replay half of the conversations when none of them could figure out what was going on. His dinner contribution always amounted to picking up giant burritos from Kensington Market. Still, he'd felt as if he were adding fuel to the fire, helping to power their crazy, idealistic machine. A year ago, he'd run into one of the girls—Haley—at the Regina Folk Festival. She'd looked beautiful and healthy. She was almost finished with her thesis on animal consciousness in literature. Carl had wanted to ask her if he was still the same, if she could see the flush of anger and confusion beneath his smile. Instead, he'd split a piece of coconut pie with her, and they'd talked about Detective McNulty's greatest moments.

Making friends in a graduate program wasn't too difficult. Everyone shared a trauma bond with each other, and there was always a party or clothes swap or study session at someone's tiny apartment (freezing in winter, tropical in the summer). The issue was avoiding the cloud of hysteria that seemed to fall whenever more than three grad students were in a room. The conversation always turned to essays, exams, and the bleak horizon of jobs. If someone received funding, they were celebrated in public but immolated privately. It was a game of
Survivor
that you played with your close friends. He was lucky to have found Shelby and Andrew, but their friendship also had an edge of logic to it. None of them were in competition for the same grants. Their radical differences made them less threatening to each other.

His phone buzzed. Shelby must have been reading his mind.

Downstairs,
the text said.

Carl pressed the buzzer. The speaker delivered only static, but you could still open the door. This was a gamble. His apartment was located above a sex shop, and many people assumed that the top floor was a massage parlor. More than once, he'd been woken up by middle-aged businessmen pounding on his front door in search of a happy ending. One of these days, he'd open the door and name his price. A bit of extra money wouldn't hurt. And it wasn't as if the act were so foreign. He gave himself handjobs all the time.

He threw on a shirt and a pair of shorts. Weather in Saskatchewan turned on a dime. But if the sun was out, you dressed for summer. That was the rule. Even if you ended up shivering in a patch of cold light, at least you'd exposed your skin to some fresh air. Once winter came, no part of your body could be left uncovered. Sometimes when the wind was cutting through his jacket, he felt like a raw potato covered in tinfoil, completely vulnerable to the horror of the seasons. He opened the patio door, just a crack, and stuck one toe into the breach. The air was surprisingly warm. He chose to trust it, in the dumb way that you trust an ex who tells you that nothing has changed, not really.

He heard the door swing open.

“There's no coffee,” he called from the bedroom, looking for a pair of socks. “I do have gin and walnuts, if that's what you're looking for.”

Carl stepped out of the bedroom. He expected to see Shelby, but there was nobody there. He looked around. The patio door was open a bit wider. That was unlike her. Usually, she made a point of washing his dishes, because she couldn't abide the thought of them creating new life in his dirty sink. He squeezed through the opening that led to the patio. The door always got stuck on its runners, and pushing it only made things worse.

There was nobody on the patio. Carl felt a prickling in his stomach. Had he even looked at the number that was texting him? It could have been anyone. Mardian. Or someone else hired by the basilissa to hunt him down. Nobody was following the rules anymore, and the division between city and park made no difference. It wouldn't take much to figure out his address. Ingrid had found him easily enough. Carl tried to listen, but the noise from the street below filled his ears. He reached into his pocket, realizing as he did so that his phone was on the kitchen table. Slowly, he picked up a the pair of barbecue tongs. They were the closest thing to a weapon that he could find. They were grimy and didn't feel reassuring in his hand.

“Your toilet's running.”

Heart pounding, he turned, holding the tongs like a knife.

Andrew blinked at him. “Are we patio-fighting? Is that a thing now?”

“
Fuck.
You scared me.”

“Sorry. I had to go the bathroom. I noticed that your toilet was running. Sometimes it helps if you put a brick in the tank.”

Carl lowered the barbecue tongs. “I thought you were a burglar.”

“You let me in.”

“I know. Sorry. I had a weird sleep.”

“How was practice?”

“What?”

“Hockey practice.”

“Oh. Right.” Carl stepped back into the living room. Most of the time, Shelby was here to temper his lies. He wasn't used to spinning them without her. “It sucked. I'm out of shape, and I can't stick-handle for shit.”

“It seems kind of late—eleven thirty at night. Is that normal?”

“I don't know. It's the only time that we can reserve the rink, I guess.”

“Between your hockey practice and those art classes that Shelby's taking, it feels like we almost never see each other in the evening.”

Carl felt a stab of guilt. “Yeah. I'm sorry. It won't be forever.”

That was probably a lie, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

“How's therapy?” Carl winced even as he said the word.

“Fine.” Andrew looked away for a second. “Also, I'm catching up on my DVD sets. Did you realize that you can watch
Game of Thrones
in both Urdu and Brazilian Portuguese?”

Carl supposed that they wouldn't be talking about the sessions. He could hardly blame Andrew for avoiding the topic. Maybe each session was just forty-five minutes of silence.

“That sounds like a sweet time. The language settings, I mean.”

“I've already learned how to say
Winterfell
in six languages. In Spanish, it's
Invernalia
.”

He thought of Andrew, fiddling with the menu on his DVD, while his friends were in another world. He'd been there once, by their side, whispering to salamanders and bribing gnomoi with delicious marble. Now he was like a child whose parents had separated. Everyone wanted what was best for him, but nobody would tell him the truth. Carl realized that magic was cruel. There was no other way to describe it. How could you offer someone a life full of endless wonder, then snatch it away? It seemed like an awful payment for the sacrifice that he'd made. He didn't understand the rules, or why they were so bloody important. He didn't understand why death was a boundary that you couldn't cross, even in a place like Anfractus, where the stones had arguments while mechanical spiders brushed your feet. What was the point of power, with its wings dipped in blood and all of its many-colored fires, if it couldn't cheat death?

The poet Catullus had been right.
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Death was the perfect, dreamless night. Even in Anfractus, it was a permanent shift in state. Years from now, decades even, Andrew might find his way back to the city of infinite alleys. But he wouldn't be the same person. Roldan would sleep forever, with no stone or blue hen's egg to mark where he'd fallen. In the meantime, Andrew had no shadow. Carl could see the effect that its loss was having on his friend. He smiled less. His eyes no longer held that sweet anticipation, which was always visible just before they transitioned. The small thrill of knowing that change was possible, that he could step into the skin of another. It seemed that every last trace of memory had vanished. Carl wondered if Roldan's alley still existed, if it waited for him, or if it was gone. His belongings were buried underneath the house by the wall. The patched tunica, the sandals and smallclothes, and the dagger that Felix had given him.

Carl sat down on the couch. A second later, he wanted to stand up. He wasn't sure what he was doing. Why was Andrew here? Had they made plans? He was a terrible host. Shelby was much better at organizing things. Carl felt like an alien who'd suddenly been thrust into a complex social situation. He knew how to make small talk, to put people at ease, but this was different. He couldn't lie all of the time. Even the lies of omission were getting to him, chewing up his insides, like fiberglass.

“Pues, nada—”
Carl blinked. “Sorry. Force of habit from talking to my mother on the phone. I mean—so—how are things?”

“You're acting strangely.”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem nervous.”

“I'm just hungover. I need a coffee.”

“Did you go out for drinks with the team?”

He stood up. The action seemed to negate the lie that was building. “I need a coffee,” he repeated. “Let's go to the Dodger.”

“Sure. We can get a prairie scone.”

“I can't believe they're called that. As if scones were somehow different in a flat province.” He put on his shoes. There was a pebble stuck in the sole. He shook it out, then slipped his foot back in. The pebble was still there. “Fuck!” Carl smacked the shoe against the ground, again and again, until the pebble flew out.

“Maybe you need a green tea.”

“No. Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me today.” He checked his phone. No messages from Shelby. “Did we have plans? Are we meeting at the library, or something? I feel like I'm forgetting something.”

“Shelby's in Moose Jaw, visiting her aunt.”

That was what he'd forgotten. Shelby was occupied for the day. There would be no monitor to ensure that he kept the lie turning on smooth wheels.

“Right. She must be going crazy.”

“I've heard that Moose Jaw has a pretty good arts scene.”

“They've certainly got a large moose statue. That's something.”

“You're right, though. We didn't make specific plans. I came over because I forgot my copy of
Beowulf
in your knapsack.”