Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 20

She sashayed out, letting the door swing shut behind her. Not quite fast enough to cut short the cackles of outraged queens.

Halfway down the corridor, she realized she'd left her cellphone behind. It wasn't worth ruining a good exit for. She would get it tomorrow. Anyway, she didn't have anybody to call.

The coat wasn't long enough to cover her knees and the cold burned through those hot little boots. After ten steps, Edie regretted her decision. But going back now would be a sure way to convert triumph into ignominy, so she soldiered on, sequined spandex stretching around her thighs with each swinging stride as she click-clacked up Jane Street toward Eighth Ave. Sure, it was cold, but she could take it. Sure, her feet hurt-but she could take that, too. She was probably less miserable than the gaunt black hound with his hide tented over his hip-bones that she glimpsed slinking aside at the first intersection.

The cold deadened her sense of smell. Manhattan's rich panoply of scents gave way to ice, cold concrete, and leaden midwinter. The good news was, it deadened her incipient migraine, too. And in the freezing dark of the longest night of the year, there weren't many people hanging around to ha.s.sle her.

Of course, she'd no sooner thought that than the purr of an eight-cylinder engine alerted her-seconds before the car glided up beside her. Somebody rolled down the window, releasing warm air and the scent of greasy bodies. A simpering catcall floated through the icy night. A male voice, pitched sing-song. "Hey lady. Hey lady. I like your big legs, lady. You want a ride?"

The car was a beige American land yacht from the 1980s, rusty around the wheel wells. There were four guys in it, and the one in the front pa.s.senger seat was the one purring out the window. From the look on his face, his friends had put him up to it, and he was a little horrified by his own daring.

Edie turned, flipped the skirts of her coat out, and planted both hands on her snake-slender hips. She drew herself up to her full six-foot-eight in those stilettos. Something smelled mushroomy; she hoped it wasn't the interior of that car.

"I ain't no lady," she said definitively. "I'm a queen."

The car slowed, easing up to the curb. The front and rear pa.s.senger doors opened before it had coasted to a stop. Three men climbed out-one must have slid across the rear bucket seat to do so-and then the driver's door opened and the fourth man stood up behind the car.

Edie brazened it out with a laugh, but her hand was in her purse. She didn't have a gun-this was New York City-but she had a pair of bra.s.s knuckles and a can of pepper spray. And other advantages, but she'd hate to have to use those. For one thing, she'd ruin her blouse.

The throbbing behind her eyes intensified. She kept her hand in her purse, and was obvious about it. They wouldn't know she didn't have a gun. And now that they were standing up beside the car, it was obvious that she had a foot on the tallest of them.

I'm not easy prey, she thought fiercely, and tried to carry herself the way her father would have-all squared shoulders and Make-My-Day. Thinking of him made her angry, which was good: being angry made her feel big. The car was still running. That was a good sign they weren't really committed to a fight, and she could pick out the pong of fear on at least two of them.

She smiled through the blood-red lipstick and said, "What say we part friends, boys?"

They grumbled and shifted. One of them looked at the driver. The driver rolled his eyes and slid back behind the wheel-and that was the signal for the other three to pile back into the car with a great slamming of doors. Predators preferred to deal from a position of strength.

"f.u.c.king f.a.ggot," one shouted before leaning forward to crank the window up. Edie didn't quite relax, but her fingers eased their deathgrip on her mace.

Oh, bad boys, she thought. You never got beat up enough to make you learn to get tough.

She hadn't had time to come down off the adrenaline high when a shimmering veil of colors wavered across the width of the street, right before the beige Buick. The car nosed down as the driver braked hard; that mushroomy smell intensified. The veil of light had depth-beyond it, Edie glimpsed a woodland track, the green shadows of beech leaves, the broken rays of a brilliant sun. She heard a staccato, as of drumbeats, echoing down the street. She took an involuntary step forward and then two back as something within the aurora lunged.

A tall pale horse, half-dissolved in light, lurched through the unreal curtain. It stumbled as its hooves struck sparks from the pavement, reins swinging freely from a golden bridle, then gathered itself and leaped. Its hooves beat a steel-drum tattoo on the hood and roof of the Buick. The men within cringed, but though the windshield starred and spiderwebbed, the roof held. It smelled of panicked animal, sweat, and-incongruously-lily of the valley, with overtones of hungry girlchild.

The horse pelted down the street, leaving Edie with a blurred impression of quivering nostrils, ears red as if blood-dipped, and white-rimmed eyes-and of something small and delicate clinging to its back with inhumanly elongated limbs.

The veil still hung there, rippling in the darkness between streetlamp pools. Edie could see the full moon riding high beyond it, and the sight made her migraine come back in waves, She wanted nothing so much as to put her head down to her knees and puke all over the gutter. That sweetly fungal aroma was almost oppressive now, clinging, reminding Edie of stepping in a giant puffball in the Connecticut woods as a boy. The drumming of hooves had faded as the white horse vanished down the street. Now it multiplied, echoing, and over it rang a sound like the mad pealing of a carillon in a hurricane.

Edie dropped her purse and sprinted into the street, so hasty even she tottered on her heels. She yanked open the front pa.s.senger door and pulled the abusive one out by his wrist, shouting to the others to get out and run. Run.

The thunder of hooves, the clangor of bells, redoubled.

The driver listened, and one of the pa.s.sengers in the rear-and he had the presence of mind to drag his friend after. The man she was hauling out of the car looked at her wild-eyed and seemed about to struggle. She grabbed the door-frame with one hand and threw him behind her with the other, sending him stumbling to his knees on the sidewalk when he fell over the curb. When she turned to throw herself after him, her heel skittered out from under her. She only saved herself from falling by clutching the car's frame and door.

Edie had half an instant during which to doubt her decision. Then she dropped to the ground and wriggled under the car, aware that she'd never wear these stockings again. She just made it; her coat snagged on the undercarriage a moment before the clatter of dog nails on pavement reached her ears, and she tore it loose with a wince. Then the swarming feet of hounds were everywhere around her, their noses thrust under the car, their voices raised in excited yips. Some were black, a dusty black like weathered coal. Some were white as milk, with red, red ears hung soft along their jowls and pink, sniffing noses. But they sniffed for only a moment before moving on, baying in renewed vigor. Edie was not their prey.

Close behind them came the crescendo of that hoofbeat thunder. Edie cringed from the judder of the car she sheltered beneath as horse after horse struck it, hurtled over, and landed on the far side. The horses also ran to the left and the right, and all their legs, too, were black as coal or white as milk. The car shook brutally under the abuse, a tire hissing flat. The undercarriage pressed her spine. She was realizing that maybe this hadn't been her best idea ever when she heard human voices shouting. Something broke the wave of horses before her, so now they thundered only to the left and the right. The belling of the hounds was not lessened, except in that it receded, and nor was the pounding of hooves-but the stampede flowed around her now, rather than over. It felt like minutes, but Edie was sure only seconds had pa.s.sed when the sounds faded away, leaving behind the raucous yelps of car alarms and the distant wail of a police siren.

She wriggled against the undercarriage like a worm between stones. The pavement smelled of old oil, vomit, and gasoline, so cold it burned against her cheek. She pressed against it with her elbows, inching forward, kicking with her feet. So much for the hot boots.

Doc Martens appeared at street level, followed by a young olive-skinned woman's inverted face. She was crowned in a crest of black-and-blond streaks and framed by the sagging teeth of a leather jacket's zipper.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Lily Wakeman. You look like you could use a hand."

"Or two," Edie said, extending hers gratefully.

The woman and a slight white guy wearing a sword pulled her from beneath the car. It was pancaked-the roof crushed in, the suspension broken.

Edie shook herself with wonder that she hadn't been smashed underneath. She turned to her rescuers-the punky girl, that slight man, who had medium-dark hair and eyes that looked brown by streetlight, except the right one seemed to catch sparkles inside it in a way that made Edie think it might be gla.s.s-and a second man: a butchy little number with his slick blond hair pulled back into a stubby ponytail, who wore a tattered velvet tailcoat straight out of Labyrinth.

"Oh, these shoes. Do you know what these cost?"

"Matthew Szczgielniak," said the bigger and butcher of the two white guys. She didn't miss his nervous glance in the direction the hunt had run, or the way his weight shifted.

"Edith Moorc.o.c.k," she said haughtily, smoothing her torn coat.

He stared at her, eyebrows rising. He wasn't bad, actually, if you liked 'em covered in muscles and not too tall. She was waiting for-she didn't know what. Scorn, dismissal.

Instead, the corners of his mouth curved up just a little. "That's rather good."

Edie sniffed. "Thank you."

Then she realized why his face seemed so familiar. "You're that guy. The Mage." He'd been all over the news for a while, after the magic finally burst through in big ways as well as small, enchanting all of New York City. He was supposed to be some sort of liaison between the real world and the otherwise one; the one Edie's people came from. The one she couldn't go back to unless she was willing to lie about who she was.

She tried to remember details. There'd been a murder... . But if this was Matthew Magus, that meant his companions were people Edie should have recognized too. The woman was supposed to be Morgan le Fay's apprentice. And that meant the little guy was ... oh s.h.i.t.

Edie stole a glance at Matthew's right hand, but he was wearing black leather gloves.

"From the comic book," she said.

Matthew covered half his face with the left hand, then let it drop. "Guilty. And you're my responsibility, aren't you? You're a werewolf."

"Don't be silly," Edie said, swallowing a surge of bitterness. She dismissed the whole thing with a calculated hand-flip. "Werewolf is an all-boys club. Queens need not apply. Besides, since when was the rest of Fairy ready to write us a certificate of admission?"

Lily and the other man-who Edie also recognized, now that she had context-were already jogging away down Jane Street after the vanished fairy hunt. Matthew turned to follow, and Edie trotted after him in her ruined shoes.

She couldn't let it go. "How did you know I was a werewolf?"

Matthew shrugged. "I've met a few. Never a drag queen before, I admit-" He waved back at the flattened Buick. "That was very brave. Did you stop to think you could have shifted? It's a full moon; it would have been easy."

Edie tossed her wig away, since it was a mess anyway. She wasn't going to tell them that it had been a dozen years since she'd used her wolf-shape. That lupines were pack-beasts, and it hurt too much being alone in that form.

She said, "Turn back into a wolf? Are you kidding? You know we regenerate when we do that? You know how long it takes to wax this s.h.i.t?"

They were catching up to the others quickly now. "Did you call up that hunt?"

"Just happened to be standing by when it broke through," Edie admitted between breaths. "Lunar eclipse on solstice night. Is it any wonder if the walls of the world get a little thin?"

"That's why we're on patrol," Matthew said. "Solstice night. Full moon. And a lunar eclipse. Let's catch them before they flatten any pedestrians."

They caught up to the others. The little guy favored them with a sideways glance as they all slacked stride for a moment. "You brought the wolf along."

"The wolf brought herself," Edie said.

Lily chuckled.

"Welcome to the party. I'm Kit," the little guy said.

Edie snorted to cover exactly how impressed she was. Him, she still cringed with embarra.s.sment for not having recognized immediately: Christopher Marlowe, late of London, late of Fairy, late of h.e.l.l. "Hel-lo, Mister Queer Icon. I know who you are. Don't you?"

"Oh, he knows," said Matthew, breathing deeply. "He just likes the fussing. Edith, I don't suppose you got a look at what they were after, did you?"

Edie remembered the first white horse, the thing wadded up on its shoulders, face buried in its flowing mane. "A little girl," she said. "On an elven charger. She looked terrified."

"s.h.i.t!" Matthew broke into a jouncing, limping run. The other three fell in behind him.

The cramp in her foot was back, and now her toes were jammed up against the toes of her boots with every stride. She started to run with a hitching limp of her own, accompanied by a breathy litany of curses.

Here, there were no destroyed vehicles or shattered pavement. It was as still and dark as Manhattan ever gets-the streets quiet and cold, if not quite deserted. The scent pulled her down Washington to West 10th Street, and then she tottered to a stop beneath a denuded tree.

"My feet," she said, leaning on a wall.

"Let me see," said Matthew. He crouched awkwardly, one leg thrust off at an angle like an outrigger, and put his hands on her ankle. She could feel through the soft leather that one of them was misshapen, and did not grip.

"Hey," Edie said. "No peeking up my skirt." She gave him the foot as if she were a horse and he the farrier. When she felt him pressing his hands together over her ankle bone, she glanced back over her shoulder. "You can't see anything with the boot on."

"Hush," he said. "I'm talking to your shoes."

When he put the foot down, it did feel easier. The incipient blood blisters on her soles hadn't healed, but something was easing the cramp in her instep, and the toes felt like they fit better. Matthew touched the other ankle, and Edie lifted the foot for him.

A moment later, and she was offering him a hand up. As he pushed himself to his feet she saw him grope his own knee, revealing the outline of metal and padding through the leg of his cargo pants.

She blurted, "You're kicking a.s.s in a knee brace? Hardcore."

"If the team needs you, you play through the injury," he said. "Ow!"

That last because Lily had thumped him with the back of her hand.

"I need a new knee," Matthew said apologetically, as they limped along a street lined with parked cars and brick-faced buildings. "I'm trying to put it off as long as possible. The replacements are only good for fifteen years or so."

"Ouch," Edie said, even as he picked up the pace. "Ever consider a less physical line of work?"

"Every day," he said.

It wasn't too hard to follow the hunters-the flattened cars and glowing hoofprints pounded in pavement were a clear trail, and there was always the wail of car alarms and police sirens to orient by. The sounding of the hounds carried in the cold night as perfectly as the distant ring of a ship's bell over water. The air still reeked with the scents of hunters and hunted. Before long, Edie was running at the front of the pack, directing the others.

Matthew limped up beside her, the chains and baubles hung from his coat jangling merrily. Despite the awkwardness of his stride, his breath still wreathed him in easy clouds.

He reached out one hand and tugged her sleeve, slowing her. "Can we get ahead of them? Being where they've been isn't helping us at all."

"It's been a long time since I hunted, sugar, and the rest of the pack never thought me much of a wolf." Edie skimmed her hands down her sides and hips as explanation.

Drawing up beside them, Kit said, "You should talk to the Sire of the Pack. Things have changed in Fairy-"

"How much can they have possibly changed? The Pack doesn't want me, and I don't want them." Edie made a gesture with her left hand that was meant to cut off discussion.

A prowl car swept past, its spotlight briefly illuminating their faces, but they must not have looked like trouble-at least by Village standards-because the car rolled by without hesitation. Distant sirens still shattered the night, a sort of a directional beacon if you could pick the original out of the echoes.

Edie saw Matthew's crippled hand move in the air as if he were conducting music-or, more, actually, as if he were plucking falling strands of out of the air. He frowned with concentration. Magi, she thought tiredly.

Just out of range of a kicked-over hydrant spouting water that splashed and rimed on the street, Edie paused to consult her mental map of the Village's tangle of streets. The middle and northern parts of Manhattan were a regular grid, but this was the old part of the city, where the roads crossed one another like jackstraws.

Edie raised her head and sniffed to the four directions. "Let's double back and head south on Washington. I think they've headed that way."

"I'm pushing them that way." Matthew fell in behind her, and Kit and Lily followed. Edie's palms were wet inside her gloves: nervousness. The nose didn't lie, but it could be tricked-and it had been a long time since Edie ran with a pack.

Off to the left, Kit cried "Hark!" and slowed his pace to a walk. Edie cupped her hands to her ears. The scent was strong again, and growing stronger. At the end of the block, Hudson Street was still moderately busy with cars, and the noise could have confounded her. But there was the trembling of hooves through the street- The first horse and rider burst into sight around the oblique corner of West 10th and Hudson. Sparks flew from beneath the hooves. Matthew's hand moved again, and down the street, a pedestrian, distracted by her phone, chose that minute to jaywalk. A panel van swerved to avoid her, cutting off the horse and rider. Edie found herself slowing as the animal raced toward her, running against traffic. She could smell its sweat, its exhaustion and terror.

From behind it, she heard the baying of the hounds.

"Stand aside," Kit said, and took Edie by the wrist to pull her onto the sidewalk, amid the shelter of trees and light poles. Matthew stood firmly in the middle of the street, his back to traffic, his velvet coat catching highlights off the streetlamps. Edie pulled against Kit's grip; Lily was suddenly there beside her, restraining her as well.

"He's the Archmage," Kit said. "If he doesn't know what he's doing, it's his own fool fault."

The Fairy steed bore down on him, and Matthew drew himself up tall. At the corner of a red brick building whose ground floor facade was comprised of grilled Roman arches, the horse reached him. She was going to run him down, Edie saw. She reached out a futile hand- The horse gathered itself to leap, and as it did, Matthew threw out his arms. "Hold!" he cried, in a voice that shook the windows and rattled the fire escapes against the brick faces of the buildings. "In the names of the City that Never Sleeps-New York, New Orange, New Amsterdam, Gotham, the Big Apple, and the Island of Manhattan-I bid you stand fast!"

Edie would have expected flares of light, shivers of energy running across the pavement-something from a movie or a comic book. But it wasn't there: all she saw was the man in the tatterdemalion dark red coat, his hands upraised.

And the lather-dripping mare planting her heels and stopping short before him. Her head hung low, her throat and barrel swelling with each great heaving gasp of air. She swayed, and for a moment, Edie thought she would collapse.

The girl on her back, all snarled pale hair and twig-limbs, raised her head painfully from where it had rested, face pressed into the mare's mane. Edie gasped.

Here was no elf-child, moving as stiffly as an old woman: just a human girl of eleven years, or twelve.

The hounds rounded the corner in full cry, surging like a sea around the knees of the running horses. Matthew sprinted forward, arms still outstretched, and put himself between the hunt and the girl. Edie shook off Kit's hand and ran to stand beside him, aware that Kit and Lily were only a step or two back-and that only because Edie's legs were longer. When she drew up, Matthew snaked out a hand and clasped hers, and then she was grabbing Lily's hand on the other side while Lily linked arms with Kit. They stood so, four abreast, and Matthew again raised his voice and shouted, "Hold!"

Edie felt the power through her fingertips, this time, like a static charge. She imagined a barrier sweeping across West 10th from building to building, towering high overhead. She imagined it thick and strong, and hoped somehow she was helping.

Whether she had any effect on it or not, the hounds quit running. They circled back into the pack, their belling turned to whining, a churn of black bodies and white ones dotted with red. The horses drew up among them, harness-bells shivering and hooves a-clatter. At the forefront, on a tall gelding, sat an elf-lord who smelled of primroses and p.r.i.c.kles. He had cropped hair as red as his white horse's ears, shot through with streaks of black where a mortal man would show graying. He wore a blousy silken shirt, heavily embroidered, and a pair of skinny black jeans stuffed into cowboy boots.

"Matthew Magus," he said, casting a green-gray eye that seemed to gather light across Edie, Kit, and Lily. His harness did not creak as he shifted his weight, but the bells tinkled faintly-rain against a gla.s.s wind-chime. "And companions."

"I do not know you," Matthew said. "How are you styled?"

"I am a lord of the Unseelie Court, and I would not extend my calling to one so ill-met."

Matthew sighed. "Must we be ill-met?"