Shaman (46 page)

I stayed for the Day of the Dead that year — my twelfth year — and I painted my face like a skull and I carried a torch and I prayed for the Departed Ones. I sat up late and listened to Whisperers say nothing to me. Then I moved on up into the Hollow.

Now, let me tell you that I was a sorry citizen at that time. I had officially Come of Age, which meant two Big Things. One: I was now responsible for furthering my education because Two: In three years I'd be looked at to choose my Calling and I didn't have the veriest glimmer of one.

Maybe this doesn't seem like such a problem. I s'pose wherever you're from it might not be. But here, where there are so many jobs that need to get done just to keep Decay from taking over the kingdom, its the Most Important Thing you do before you're grown up. It's what you're growing up
for
. I knew this as well as anybody. But here I was, heading toward the big ONE-FIVE with no Calling in sight. At least none that I figured I could pull off. I was no kind of cook, so following in
mi padre's
footsteps was out of the question, and I couldn't grow a thing to save my sorry life. So there it was.

At twelve, in the Hollow, I was a lonely solo with nobody but the street kids to rub up against.

Oh, and I had this cat...well, I can't exactly say I
had
the cat, but we shared my cozy. He was a cat of many colors and bad attitudes and smells. We were not what I would call friends, but we got along okay. I called him Bunuelo 'cause he looked like one of those fat little buns that come out of bakery ovens around Christmastime. He sure as hell ate better than I did, mostly 'cause I always brought dinner. He hardly ever returned the favor.

I could talk to Bunuelo about the Whisperers. I still couldn't hear them clear enough to make out one word of what they were saying, but they were there on and off, kinda like a
bowu
mist. Sometimes I thought I saw them, too, the way you think you see Something out of the tail of your eye, and the Something jerks your head around, but there's nothing there.

One thing about cats I can surely appreciate. This is that they are good listeners. You can learn much about the art of listening from a cat.

Bunuelo never laughed at me when I spoke of the Whisperers. He never gave me pitiful looks like Mrs. Lopez-Alvero, or swatted my behind like
Mr
. Lopez-Alvero, or called me "that
jingbing
ghost boy" like my so-called friends and acquaintances. My teachers at the Wiz consulted the Fiche and took my questions about Whisperers into the Holy of Holies, but I never got more from them than the same sort of pitiful looks I got from Mrs. Lopez-Alvero.

Bunuelo even purred when I spoke to him about the Whisperers. Sometimes he also gave himself a bath, but I knew he was still listening. I suspect we were friends after all, and just too
macho
to admit it.

Eh, stupid idea, now that I think of it. Bunuelo may have had the genes for
macho
, but I sure didn't.

Bunuelo disappeared the year Hismajesty became King. I s'pose I should've seen a sign in this, but I didn't. I just saw that I was
really
alone this time. When I got tired of being alone, I had two options: I could go into the street, where other kids would call me names to remind me of how little I was, or I could go to the Wiz where I could hear all sorts of Important Stuff that might further my education and put me in mind of a Calling.

Nine out of ten, I went to the Wiz. Problem was, I had to go into the street to get there, which meant I'd arrive late for my classes with a sorry attitude and a few new cuts and bruises to show for it.

One night, after coming home from the Wiz with even more bruises than usual, I decided I was sick of it. I addressed God and the Whisperers, saying, “O Lord...and you Whispering guys, whoever you are. Know that I, Taco Del, am mighty tired of suffering abuse day in and day out from people who think it is somehow their right and responsibility to cream me every time I budge outside my cozy. If there is anything you can do about this state of affairs, together or independent, I should surely be much obliged. Thank you, amen and
insh'allah
.”

The next morning I met Hoot.

He's sitting up on top of a bunch of packing crates that are choking the open end of the alley below my cozy. Red hair — duck-back slick — levis, black boots with those nasty little chains around the ankles that mean,
I'm bad
. And he's wearing this jacket — this black, leather jacket — but it's like 80 degrees in this stinking alley which is steaming like a crab pot, and this dude's not even breaking a sweat.

I gotta admire that, even while I'm thinking,
This jake's gonna kick my sorry little chickpea butt from here to the Wharf
.

“Well,” he says, and pulls these shiny shades down from out of his hair as if to see me better. “Well, if it ain't His Diminutive Self. What's shakin' Taco Face?”

Okay, could've been worse. I mean, there's a lot worse stuff he could've called me, and he could've called me nothing at all but just commenced to kicking my butt down the alley. I figure, this is not so inauspicious, and I say, “
I'm
shakin'.”

“No kidding?” he says. “Why's that? D'I scare you?”

“Voices from the sky kind of, you know, weird me out.”

He tilts his head sidewise like one of those window-sill-shitting pigeons and says, “That's not what I hear. I hear voices from the sky's pretty vanilla to yourself.”

Damned if I know what to say to that, 'cause I surely expected to be getting kicked by now, so I just squint up at him for a few and then I start up the alley like I'm bored with the whole business.

“Hey!” he shouts and starts to climb down off his crate.

I know I'm in for a kicking now, and I try to hurry, but this jake's fast, and he comes down in front of me before I can make the street. He's twice my size, easy...well, okay, so I exaggerate a little. But he's big and he's got his hands on his hips and he's staring at me outta these shiny, scratched up shades and I'm really shaking now, 'cause I can't read his eyes and I just suddenly realize how important that has been to my survival up to now.

“So what do they say?” he asks me.

Since I expected to be flat on my back, perusing sky by now, this question comes as a great relief. I ask back at him, “Who?”

His head waggles and I swear I see his eyes roll behind the shades. “The voices from the sky, Chickpea-brain. What've we been chewin' on here?”

I
been chewin' on the inside of my left cheek, but I wax all sassy anyway and say, “Who says they come from the sky? I never said they come from the sky. I don't know where they come from.”

“Well, what do they say, anyway?”

“Stuff,” I say, and before he can ask the inevitable, I add, “Real secret stuff. If I tell anybody what it is, there'll be hell to pay.” (Well, I'm not about to tell him I don't
know
what they say.)

“Okay. But what
kind
of stuff do they say? I mean, do they do
mah jongg
tournaments so you win a lot of swag, they tell the weather — what?”

I make something up on the fly. “Well, they told me I'd be meeting you this morning.”

He seems real interested now. “Yeah? What else they tell you about me?”

To hell with secrets, I figure. “They said you'd be a real neon dude. Number one jade. Too cool for words.”

I am lying like I got no conscience. Which is not true — I got plenty of conscience. But I also got an appreciable survival instinct. Anyway, this works. This jake is smiling at me —
grinning
at me. He likes this stuff.

“Where you going — the Wiz?” he asks, to which I nod. “Okay.” And he turns around and starts to walk
with
me.

“So,” he asks as we stroll, “these voices from wherever they're from — they guy voices or girl voices?”

I fabricate that they are girl voices as I suspect this will hit big with Hoot. (He is called this, he informs me, as his
padre
let out a whoop or two at his birthing.) The girl voices are a very big hit, and Hoot walks me all the way to the Wiz. The net effect of which is that I arrive with no more bruises and abrasions than I started out with that morning.

Hoot is outside my cozy every morning for over a week and then on and off after that. Got so it didn't matter whether he was there or not. My bruises and abrasions healed right up and were not added unto. Needless to say, I was sincerely grateful for this and thanked both God and Whisperers accordingly.

I am asleep in my favorite room when I hear the ruckus. Out in the hallway, voices are ricocheting off the walls. As I reach the door I hear Hismajesty roaring, “Get ‘em, for cry-aye! Get 'em!” and the thunder of feet. I pop out my head and I see knighties galore, heading for the secret elevator. That's the first thing I see. The second thing I see is His M standing out in the hallway in his boxers with
Her
M sucked up to him like a limpet.

He spies me out of the corner of his eye and says, “How come you didn't see this, merlin? Where were you while all this was going down?”

I was asleep, Majesty
, doesn't sound too good, so I don't say this. I say something equally dumb: “See what, Majesty?”

He splutters and waves his arms. “This attempt on my queen! Dastardly!”

He sees I'm not tracking him and lets go of Hermajesty to come and drag me into their rooms. He drags me all the way to the balcony where he points down the long, sloping wall with its little rectangle pocket gardens and windows. A doubled cable dangles through a piton sunk in the flank of the palace. I know it's a piton 'cause of the Wiz, where I learned about mountain-climbers and Sherpas.

“Wall-crawlers!” snarls Hismajesty, his finger shaking. “Wall-crawlers after my queen! What do you have to say for yourself, merlin?”

His brows crushed together like fighting kittens, he glares at me. The breeze is chill and I realize I am shivering and he is not, though he is wearing mostly skin. I am about to say that the Alcaldé's merlin must have some serious magic at his disposal, but the thought of Scrawl inheriting Doug sends me on another tack altogether.

I draw myself up smartly. “I knew of this, Majesty,” I say and raise my finger skyward. “I saw a crane in the runes, and a scale.” I don't mention the mountain, which it seems was the Regency Palace after all.

The kittens wriggle mightily. “So?”

“Normally, a crane would be needed to reach this height,” I explain. “And the scale....” I point to the rope, threaded through the clip on the piton. “A counter balance.”

“Why didn't you warn me?”

“Because I also saw that the attempt would fail. If I told you, you might've done something to change that. At the very least you'd have worried yourself sleepless. I saw no need to disturb you or frighten Hermajesty.”

Hermajesty is sweetly pleased. She smiles at me.

“Thanks, Taco.”

Hismajesty's face struggles. Finally, he says, “Well done, merlin,” and dismisses me.

By the skin of my teeth
, I think, and slink back to my rooms.

By dawn, we know that the wall-crawlers were Noe Valley Ninjas — the Alcaldé's crack troops — the only ones, I figure, who could've gotten past our best defenses without being seen. By mid-morning we know exactly how they did it. They came by sea.

“Up from China Basin most likely,” says Firescape. “Under the wharf at the Point. Stowed their boats under the docks and came up the back way from Fish Alley. Left one of their dinghies behind as a calling card.”

Firescape is angry and offended and her skin is all flushed rose-gold. This makes her eyes extra dark, which makes her extra beautiful. Firescape is the only red-headed Chinese girl I know. Her mother's name was Flannigan, she told me once, and she'll name her firstborn that.

I hope to be the father of her firstborn. "Flannigan" is fine with me.

Hismajesty is also angry. He looks to Squire and Firescape and me. “Advise me,” he says.

“Bring in more knighties from downtown,” Squire says. “Put Wharfside on heavy alert.”

Firescape shakes her head, making all that red hair gleam in the light from the morning streets. “Leaves our southwest flank exposed. I say we move Hermajesty to a more defensible position. The Summer Palace or the Grace.”

Squire spocks an eyebrow. “I say we do both.”

I am nodding when His M gets to me.

“You agree, merlin?”

I keep nodding. “A deft move.”

“Which one? The Summer Palace or the Grace?”

I consider this, watching Firescape's face, which is no hardship. The Summer Palace is in a walled compound near the Marina — a wildy sort of place called the Presidio, ringed by the farms that produce about two-thirds of our food. Problem is, it's close to the water. Water, we now know, is hard to defend. The Grace is a
dios
house, but it's built like a fortress — reinforced concrete. Problem is, it's as close to the Border as the Regency Palace. I decide this is a decision I must take to the Wiz and say as much.

Hismajesty respects my words, but warns me: “Make it quick, merlin. Lord E Lordy is scoping the mother of my children. If anything happens to her....”

I don't need to hear the end of that. I cut for the Wiz direct. Firescape goes along — as my military adviser, she says.

The Wiz is quiet as a
dios
house this morning — full of chatter and the sound of pages turning. There's no singing or chanting here, though. Firescape and I move on through the main chamber and into the private places in the back. Here, there are maps of the city's five kingdoms. Here, I can strategize.

“What first?” asks Firescape when we reach the sanctum of the map room. It's very quiet here and her voice is hushed.