The Dragons of Babel (36 page)

Will had his doubts about the nettle-seizing strategy, whether taken literally or figuratively, but he kept his silence. They were in this thing too deep for quibbles. So he followed Nat to a vantage point in a narrow alley across and down from their brownstone. “They're desecuring the area,” Nat said. The emergency vehicles were starting to pull away and the scarecrows were one by one being doused and dismantled. Only the most important players remained to see the operation through to its conclusion. “I don't recognize anybody on the street,” Nat said. “How about you?”

“Actually, yeah.” Will pointed with his chin. “The one with scarlet lipstick and a warrior's posture. That's Zorya Vechernyaya. She's pretty highly placed in the political police, I think.”

“Damn. I've got a rap sheet as long as the Fisher King's dick. She might recognize me.” Nat scowled and muttered. “Hey, babe. I need you on deck. You're a better judge of character than I am. Take a look at this dame and tell me what you think.”

“Huh?”

“Not
you
,” Nat said peevishly. “Yeah, that's what I think, too. You want to take over here?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I've got to step out briefly, kid. There's someone I want you to meet. Tell her everything. Trust her as you would me.”

“But I don't trust you
.” Will followed in Nat's wake down the street to the storefront temple at the corner operated by the Cult of Profane Love.

“Smart-ass.” They ducked within the temple. The interior might have been an educational tableau demonstrating the cult's varieties of worship: the flagellators with their whips curled in cryptic arabesques above their backs, the self-abusers in a circle about the altar, heads thrown back in ecstasy, and finally the virgin sacrifice strapped down upon the altar, about to receive the priest's chastising instrument. “Watch closely. This is my best trick.”

Nat slowly bent over double. For a long moment he writhed as if, within the suit, his body were changing form. Then he straightened.

There was a stranger's face in the helmet.

“So you're the kid. I heard a lot about you.” The stranger quirked a sardonic smile. She was one of those women who were beautiful at first glance, then showed their age, and then were beautiful again. Her hair was red and cropped. Her features were sharp and Asian. “I'm an old associate of Tomba's,” she said. Then, when Will did not respond, “St. John Malice? Mullah Nasreddin? Tom Nobody? Liane the Wanderer? Nat Whilk? Let me know when I'm getting close.”

“Who are you?” Will asked. “And what are you to Nat?”

“He didn't tell you about me? The rat. He'll pay for that.” She stuck out a hand. “I'm Victoria il Volpone She herazade Jones. Don't call me Vickie. I'm Nat's partner.”

“You're the vixen,” Will said. “The one who rescued him in Whinny Moor Landfill.”

“So he did tell you about me. The bastard. I told him not to.”

“You, uh, share Nat's body with him?” Will flushed. “I mean—”

“Fast on the uptake, too.” She tapped her chest. “I caught a shotgun blast right here—it pretty much pureed my heart—
and had to go to earth for a few months to heal. Let's not get into the specifics about how it's done—they're a little intimate. Bring me up to speed here. What's Nat been up to in my absence?”

Will gave her the short version. How they had met in Camp Oberon and traveled to Babel together. How Nat had saved him from the political police but then, through his disdain of official documentation, made Will an illegal. Lastly, how they were working the Missing Prince scam together.

“Yeah, I know all about the scam.” The vixen fleered. “This is another of Nat's overcomplicated schemes. The classics always work best when done simply. But he's an
awrtist—
he needs to rework' em. Give him a pocket watch and he'll take it apart to see if he can add a few more cogs and maybe a stick of butter to it.” Going up to the altar, she said, “Hey, let's give these guys a miracle!” She dipped a finger in a censor of scented charcoal that hadn't yet been set afire, and wrote the rune of celibacy on the sacrifice's stomach. Then she smartly slapped the celebrant's tool between her hands.

“What was that all about?” Will asked as they left the building.

“The priest's dick goes limp, he screams, and the sacrifice is suddenly labeled off-limits.” The vixen had a short, barking laugh. “I just created the cult's first sacred virgin.”

“You and Nat are two of a kind.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.” They resumed their posts at the alley. “Not everybody would.”

A gong sounded and the mages lowered their arms.

Time resumed.

Will and the vixen removed their hoods and gloves and lit up cigarettes while they waited for Zorya Vechernyaya to finish an interminable conversation with a Teggish agent. The mages dispersed in waiting limousines. Not long after, Esme came running up. “Unca Will! Is this my Auntie Fox?”

“Yes I am, hon.” The vixen picked her up and held her upside down until she squealed with laughter. “Pop-Pop told you I was coming, huh?” When she set Esme down, they were both standing in the alley's shadows, out of sight. “We have to be careful here—I don't have Nat's luck.”

“Is that how he gets away with all the crap he does? It's all good luck?”

“No, it's
strange
luck. Not good, not bad—just unlikely. Nat must've inherited it from you, eh, little grandmother?”

Esme shrugged. “I guess.”

“Wait. Esme's literally his grandmother?”

“Why do you think he was in the refugee camp in the first place? He had a premonition that his mother was going to die, so he went to see her.” The vixen pulled a five-dollar bill out of Esme's ear and swatted her on the rump. “Run along and buy some ice cream, sweetie. We'll play later.” She peered out onto the street again. “They're breaking up at last. What does it say on the back of my moon suit?”

Will looked. “ATF.”

Zorya Vechernyaya strode down the sidewalk, looking grim. She passed by the alley just as the vixen was stripping off her suit, almost but not quite showing more flesh than might be expected. Behind her, Will doffed his suit more circumspectly.

The vixen thrust her bundled suit into the policewoman's arms. “Hey, babe. Be a doll and hold this for me for a sec.”

“Do I know you?” Zorya Vechernyaya asked in a tone that said that she did not.

“Kim Freydisdottir, Alchemy, Tobacco, and Firearms.” She jerked a thumb toward Will. “This is Dan Picaro. My intern. And today's your lucky day.”

The policewoman glanced once at Will, and then glared at the vixen. “Is it?”

“You betcha. You just met me. And I'm a gal like nobody you ever met before.”

“How so?”

“I lead your quintessentially charmed life. All these years in ATF and I never been shot. Never been ensor-celled. Never been hurt in love.”

“Oh?” Zorya Vechernyaya said. A small, cruel rosebud of a smile bloomed on her mouth. “Let me buy you a drink.”

L
e Wine Bar's interior was overgrown with jungle vines through whose foliage green and yellow snakes slowly twined. A satyr led them through the foliage to an orchid-strewn table beside a pool of black water from the depths of which corpse-pale faces peered up at them.

“Boodles martini, very dry, straight up with a twist,” said Zorya Vechernyaya.

“I'll have a Bloody Mary,” the vixen said. “Nothing for my intern. He's on duty.”

“You want me to drown a mouse in your drink?” the satyr asked.

“What the hell.”

When their drinks arrived, the vixen took a long slug and said, “So. You think this guy is really His Absent Majesty's bastard?”

“We won't know until we find him, of course. But nothing discovered so far contradicts the possibility. Looks to be an innocent fallen in with bad company. The perp he's lodging with is a small-time criminal with so many aliases I doubt even he knows who he started out as. Which explains why the target's so fucking elusive.”

“I was talking to a guy who said you'd have the target in custody within three hours.”

Zorya Vechernyaya snorted.

The vixen fished the mouse out of her drink and, holding it by its tail, threw her head back, and swallowed it whole. Zorya Vechernyaya watched her intently. Then the vixen swallowed and said, “So what's the next move?”

Zorya Vechernyaya casually placed a hand on the vixen's forearm. “Next we put in for supplementary funding so we can send a compulsion to find this guy back in time two years to get a head start on the investigation.”

The vixen whistled. “That's pricey.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Chancy, too. Suppose they kill him.”

“It hasn't happened. So it won't. We just want to get a good, solid start on the investigation—and we have. How do you think we got this close so fast?” Zorya Vechernyaya slugged down the last of her martini and shouted, “Hey! Who do I have to flay alive to get another drink around here?”

Will had had a lot of practice maintaining a deadpan face since taking up with Nat. Now, though, it was all he could do to hide his shock. So this was why the witches from the political police had invaded his train on the way to Babel! They'd been searching for him not because of any crime he had unknowingly committed but because they thought him the rightful heir to the Obsidian Throne. It would also explain why the rumor of the heir's return had spread so quickly and convincingly. The ground had been prepared years ago and doubtless the whispers had since spread beyond the circles of governance. It was all beginning to pull together now. It was all beginning to make sense.

He just didn't know what to think about it.

“Say. You're in investigative, maybe you can help my intern,” the vixen said. “The kid's looking for someone.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“His father. Only the kid doesn't know much about him. Not even his name. But he does know that he owns a hip-pogriff.”

Zorya Vechernyaya accepted her new martini from the satyr. “Hippogriff or simurgh?”

“Hippogriff,” Will said.

“Purebred or mongrel?”

“Considering the owner, probably purebred.”

“So your old man's an aristocrat?”

“Blue blood, with a touch of crimson,” the vixen said. Mortal blood was red, for it contained iron. “We're pretty sure he's got money.”

“You'll be wanting to look into gizzard stones, in that case. A serious' griffer will have his own distinctive mix. Moonstones, opals, gold nuggets… Do you have any idea what colors your rider might favor?”

Emeralds, Will thought. To match her eyes. Rubies to match her hair. He knew it for a certainty. Aloud, he said simply, “No.”

“Too bad.” Zorya Vechernyaya turned back to the vixen. “Tell me a little more about yourself.”

“Not much to tell. I'll sleep with anyone who thinks he or she or they can break my heart.' Cause I know it can't be done and it's fun to watch' em try.”

Zorya Vechernyaya's eyes narrowed. “I admit to liking a challenge. But to be frank, you're not my usual type and I don't know if I care to get involved.”

“Oh, you want me,” the vixen said. “My primary orientation is straight, I'm willing to try anything, and I've never been hurt. Emotionally, I mean. I am, to be equally frank, the hottest little weekend you've ever seen.”

Under the table, she kicked Will's ankle.

Will looked up to see both women staring at him expressionlessly.

Red-faced with embarrassment, he left.

D
warf jewelers always set up their shops like caves, with clutters of boxes stacked in the corners as casually as boulders, and rows of tiny little drawers like strata of rock that hid precious stones, rare minerals, and magic rings. You could ask for Charlemagne's sword and, after the mandatory glass of oversweetened hot mint tea, a flunky would
appear from the shadows with a canvas-wrapped package whose cardboard tag read, in neatly calligraphic letters faded an almost invisible brown,
JOYEUSE
.

The firm of Alberecht & Ting, Gastrolitheurs, however, was as posh as they came and almost all the racial signi-fiers had been scrubbed away. Normally, chairs in dwarf establishments were too small and too low to the floor to be comfortable to sit in. Except for the dwarf. They'd fit him perfectly. Will was ushered into an easy chair that looked no larger than Alberecht's, but was a pleasure to abide in.

Alberecht smiled as though Will were a personal friend. “As I'm sure you know,” he said in the easy manner with which the discreet enlighten the ignorant, “the purpose of gizzard stones is to break down the hard parts of your mount's food—the seeds and bits of bone—into smaller pieces to be better exposed to the digestive enzymes. These rest in the muscular gizzard, or true stomach. Now, the opening of the pyloric sphincter is very tiny, which keeps the gizzard stones from escaping. But as the gizzard churns, the stones are ground against each other until eventually they are so small that they escape through the sphincter. Thus, you need to begin with a mix of varied-sized stones, and follow up with a regular replacement regimen.”

“I see.”

“Our product has been chosen specifically for its gastrolithic qualities and artisan-cut in a manner designed to be both attractive to the eye and safe for your mount. Try one yourself.” He lifted up a ruby from the display tray with a pair of tweezers and proffered it to Will.

Will rolled the stone in his mouth as the connoisseurs did. It tumbled over his tongue smoothly. The facets were crisp but did not cut his flesh.

Satisfied, he spat the stone into the discard dish set discretely to one side, as if the stone wouldn't simply be washed and returned to the stock.