I decided there was no point hiding from the old Demon. Baxter had tried to be sympathetic to my frustrations, and I’d be a dick if I didn’t return the favor.
“Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s not. Nobody has seen him or spoken to him in days. Unless you…?”
Baxter shook their head.
“A fortnight at least since I saw him. He brought a bunch of students to the museum. I’d say we haven’t had a proper chat in over a month. Nothing seemed strange. The usual discussions of myth and history. If I think of anything helpful, I’ll let you know.”
“And I, you. Thanks for the story, Baxter.”
“Come by the museum any time. That’s usually where I am.”
“Will do.”
I tried to get out of there before Baxter asked the other question again.
“But what about her?” Damn. I searched my pockets for a Clayfield, forgetting I was all out. “When we take down the mansion, are you going to understand?”
The answer was no, but what was the point? I’d been lucky to visit her these past few years. It had been my little sanctuary, but it wasn’t my right. As dazzling as the light inside her had been, there wasn’t a chance in hell it was ever coming back. So, what was I waiting for? The vines will crack her eventually. Or the bark will flake away. Or the old tile roof will come crumbling down and crush her into splinters on some unimportant, forgettable night when nobody even knows.
What did it matter if it was done by time or some nameless man with a steamroller? The end would be the same. The end will always be the same for all of us.
I tried to say “go ahead”, but my tongue wouldn’t let me. It took all my strength just to nod. Baxter went to say something, but just smiled.
“You’re similar,” said Baxter. “You and Edmund. Before the Coda you were both so full of beans. Perhaps you both felt you had something to prove to the world, being what you are. Heavens knows, I understand that urge myself. But now, it’s like you’ve been released. You’re handling this better than most of us, Fetch. Rye is the same. For all the damage the Coda has done, I believe it’s made you better men.”
They smiled, and I wanted to be sick. I opened the door and got the hell out the building. I was dangerously close to having a change of heart and burning this whole goddamn city to the ground.
I took the long road home, hoping to cough up the switchblade that was stuck in my chest. Why did it suddenly feel real? She’d already been gone for a long, sad, eternity of time. All they were taking away was the shadow.
On these dark, hungover, dust-covered days, I sometimes get scared that maybe I imagined it all. That there was nothing special, just the distorted idea of an uneducated boy who didn’t understand the world, or women, or anything. I have to count the little moments till it all makes sense. They might seem like nothing to anyone else but they are everything to me. An old calendar marked onto my mind as clearly as the shame on my arm.
I know them all in order and off by heart. Every time I saw her during the long, dumb years of misunderstandings and muted passion. Spread out over time it seems inconsequential, but when I chain it together, it’s everything:
The first day in the slums and the long walk home. Second escort to the suburbs and lunch from the vendor (skewers, soda, hot sauce). The concert when we sat side by side and listened to the band in silence. A delivery to her house when she hugged me from nowhere. Making her laugh when the missionaries came. First time at dinner. Meeting the Ambassador of Perimoor when she sang my praises. The drive to the springs and the swimming and drinking the green lemonade. The pictures and the park. When Hendricks came back. Dinner where she lost her temper and later put her head on my shoulder to say that she was sorry. The Governor’s house at sunset. The twins’ birthday. The old bunch back together again. Eastern guests. When they burned the chicken. The Ditch, no drinks. Dinner with the orange cake. Sulking dinner. Passing on Tenth Street, which was the only time we didn’t talk. Sad night at the Governor’s house. The morning at your door. The party after. Cocktails at the wedding reception. The long, weird phone call when you said you’d come around but never did. Noodle Bar. Dinner with the Fae. Slums with the nurses. Morning walk in the park when the dogs followed and you said that I was handsome. The slums with the Governor and he told you that you’d won. The police parade when you got day-drunk and held me by my arm for hours. That night. The next day when we didn’t talk in public but everything was hidden in the corners of your eyes. The hotel with the hounds-tooth cushions. The party with your hair down and the late-night ice-cream and the noise you made when I kissed your neck. The New Year’s party. The week in the park, preparing for the hospital. The last dinner with Hendricks. The weekend away. The last time you smiled. The end.
That’s all of them. The only days that mattered. For all my mistakes and all the bad I’ve done, it was worth it all for that.
16
I woke up, and the phone was ringing. Twice in one week. I was becoming popular.
I stumbled over and slammed my knee into the desk. In the old days, the streetlights would have blasted in those windows at all hours. Now, the street wore darkness like a second skin. I found the phone. The sound in my ear was Pete’s heavy, grating breath.
“Can you do an old friend a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Anything? What if I asked you to bury a body?”
I tried to laugh it off.
“You never used to be so dramatic, Pete.”
The Dog-man’s breathing slowed to a deadly calm.
“Doesn’t need to be dramatic, that’s just what it is. The Credence Textiles Mill. Steel district. Right now. You in?”
Shit.
Like most of Hendricks’ associates, I was never sure if Pete secretly hated me and just put up with me for my boss’s sake. He wasn’t a friend, exactly, but we were tied to each other. Most of all, he was tied to Hendricks. If you wanted me to do something, there was no quicker way to convince me than to poke me in my guilty, cracked conscience.
“Yeah, buddy. I’m in.”
I skipped the larger roads and made my way along the back streets till I was down in the darkness of the steel district. From there, I could see the candlelight that flickered in the windows where the unemployed Dwarves were still squatting. I knew the names of the factories from my time as an errand boy but now, they all looked the same: façades blasted by time till the bone showed through. When the magic dropped out of the machines, the textile mill was abandoned along with all the others.
Old air was trapped inside. Burnt and thick with the memories of livestock and dye and little old ladies hunched over the loom. The stray reams of wool and cotton that were hanging from broken hooks had become the foundations upon which a thousand opportunistic spiders had sprouted their creations. Twisted arteries of silk wound their way from the floor to the rafters in tight cylinders and sheer webbed sheets. It was easy to see the path Pete had cut through the factory. Torn strands parted in ragged archways from the entrance into the darkness. I stepped my way through, twitching and slapping as things tickled the back of my neck. Soon, I could no longer tell which itching was paranoia and which was the real thing, so I gritted my teeth and ignored them all.