“Other people?”
“One was, mmm, Manny? I think that was the name. The other was Brooklyn Thomason, one of those city council people. Tall and Black, both of them, fair man and dark woman. They said our Padmini was Queens.”
They’ve begun to find each other, even without his help. Paulo can’t help smiling. “And they’ve left? Can you tell me where…?”
She tilts her head, thoughtful, and her gaze is suddenly shrewd. The man in the background has come forward and now stands just behind her, and their stances are alike: subtly protective. The man follows the woman’s lead, however, and the woman says, “Who are you to ask, then? They said something was hunting them. Someone. A woman.”
Paulo’s skin prickles all over, as it did at the Inwood rock, and by the suspicious swimming pool. Could the Enemy have reactualized harbingers already? It is as if the birthing-battle did nothing. “That should not be,” he says, slowly and softly. “But… hunting. Yes. I believe that’s true.” New cities usually had very healthy survival instincts, because they had to. If the avatars of New York believed that a hostile foreign presence was hunting them down, they were probably right. “A woman, you said?”
Her mouth pulls to one side. “I suppose you’re not a woman. Still, why should I tell you anything?”
“Because I’m here to help them.”
“Lot of good you’ve done so far.”
Paulo inclines his head in acknowledgment of this. It’s not an apology. “Truthfully there isn’t much I can do,” he says. “My task is to advise. In the end, the battle is theirs to fight, and survive. But I can’t even advise them if I can’t find them—and any knowledge, at this stage, will help. They need every bit of help they can get.”
The woman considers this. Paulo thinks his honesty has helped; she doesn’t have a high opinion of him, but at least it’s marginally positive. Her husband murmurs in her ear in some other language, and even without translating the words, Paulo can recognize a Don’t tell him anything, we don’t know who this man is.
The woman nods a little, but there is a sad look on her face as she regards Paulo again. “I can’t help her, either,” she says at last. “She’s my cousin’s daughter. Smart girl, good, pretty when she bothers to try, but they sent her here alone, can you believe it? It was all they could afford. And only us to look after her.”
“She has more people to help her now,” Paulo says, as gently as he can. Her concern is genuine. He can’t reassure her, sadly. If this woman’s cousin is indeed the avatar of Queens, then she is in terrible danger and might not survive. But Paulo can be truthful about this much. “A city is never alone, not really—and this city seems less solitary than most. More like a family: many parts, frequently squabbling… but in the end, against enemies, they come together and protect one another. They must, or die.” The woman is watching him now, sorrow giving way to fascination. “There are five other people out there who will be this for her. Six, if you let me help.”
After a long moment, she sighs. “They were tired,” she says. “Hungry. They went to Brooklyn—with Brooklyn—to rest for the night.”
They should not be either tired or hungry. Nothing about this city’s birth is going as it should. Paulo restrains a sigh and says, “That could be good. If they know how to create protective loci…” He glances around at the walls of the apartment building’s corridor, seeing more than the ugly wood paneling. In a place protected in this manner, they would be proof against attack. Safer, together, than they could ever be with Paulo. He nods to himself. “Then the three of them can take care of one another, for now. But that leaves two alone.” The Bronx. Staten Island.
“They said they would go to the Bronx in the morning. It sounded like they had an idea of where to look.”
It leaves the avatar of the Bronx to fend for themselves until then, but if the others have some inkling of the avatar’s location, then they’re doing better at tracking each other down than Paulo is. “What of Staten Island?”
“What about it?” The woman looks skeptical now. “They said they didn’t know how to find that one.”
Staten Island is the smallest borough, according to Wikipedia. Geographically vast, but only a few hundred thousand people in population. There’s a chance that Paulo might find the avatar simply by going there and driving around, if he rents a car. Cities—even small ones—make a weight upon the world. With enough proximity, one can feel the pull they exert.
“Then I’ll begin there,” Paulo says. He reaches into a lapel pocket, past the half-empty pack of cigarettes, and pulls out a business card. Paulistanos are infamous workaholics; other Brazilians joke about their obsession with meetings and office politics and all the trappings of business. There is a touch of power in the card when he hands it to her, but he does not attempt to expend that power. She’s not one of his, after all, and Queens is likely to take it poorly if Paulo gets pushy with her relatives. He merely says, “Please give your cousin that number when you speak to her again. The country code for the call, assuming she has an American phone, will be fifty-five.”
She takes the card and frowns at it. There’s nothing on it except, in elegant block capitals, the words MR. SÃO PAULO, and a phone number. Underneath the name, though above the number, is a smaller subhead: CITY REPRESENTATIVE. “Why should she have to make an expensive international call to talk to you? Get an American phone.”
“Forcing others to acknowledge my point of origin provides a latent strengthening effect.” She draws back a little, utterly confused. Paulo nods to her, and to her husband, then turns to go.
“Is that all, then? Just call you?”
“Yes.” Then Paulo stops at the top of the steps. “No. Tell her to text me the location of the Bronx, and I’ll meet them there after I’ve found Staten Island.”
“They said they didn’t know exactly where the Bronx—”
“They will.” That they’ve managed to find each other thus far is proof that the city is helping them, however weakly—pricking their intuition, calling their attention to seemingly innocuous details or facts, guarding their places of rest. That won’t be enough to keep them safe for long, but it helps. They need every bit of help they can get.
The woman shakes her head, sighing. “She has studies. A job, a life. When will all of this be over?”
“When they find the primary avatar,” Paulo says. But this feels like a lie. Something strange is happening in this city—something he’s never seen before, and that the others have never mentioned. No way to be certain that it will end when the city is whole, because nothing here has gone the way it should. So he amends, “I hope.”
Then he heads off, to track down the smallest borough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
No Sleep in (or Near) Brooklyn
Brooklyn tells herself that she’s just crashing in the vacation unit to be polite. Padmini’s stressed out, poor child, considering she only just learned about all this city business a few hours ago. And Manhattan—despite being a scary motherfucker behind that nice face of his—is still a new kid in the big city. Brooklyn tells herself that she’s sticking around in case they need anything.