The Saint (4 page)

Except for this offer. Which was, as Ben pointed out, for a hundred thousand dollars. And there were all those medical bills to pay from when she'd spent time in her own chemical straitjacket, while the doctors tried to decide just what was wrong with her— an illness of the mind or of the body.

Santa Claus. Puh-leeze.
It was The Voice, Adora's almost constant inner companion and master critiquer, who had survived even the strongest of medications. She called The Voice Joy—short for killjoy, which of course Joy knew and found amusing. The Voice, her childhood make-believe friend and sometimes bully coach, was disconcerting even after all this time. She had mysteriously appeared around age five, when Adora's family moved to Aptos in California, and still popped in to chat whenever Adora was in a stressful situation.

Like now. What have you gotten yourself into this time? Just do us both a favor and tell the man no.

I'm not into anything. Yet,
Adora responded.

But you're thinking about it. I know you are.

So much for trying to sneak anything past Joy.

Okay, I'm thinking. Look, being noncorporeal, you may not need food and shelter, but I do. If you have something useful to say, please do. If not, pipe down. I'm weighing my options and you're distracting me.

Is that what you call it—weighing options? Better wipe the slobber off your chin. I guess we know what your price is. Ben mentions
The New York Times
and you start drooling.

Quiet.

“Adora? Are you listening to me?” Ben asked. “I swear, you get more spacey with each passing year.”

“I'm listening.”

But not to you.

No, not to him—and that was a little weird, wasn't it? Every once in a while, now that she'd given up pill-popping, Adora realized that talking to Joy was actually pretty strange. Other people didn't do this. Her former shrink had insisted Joy was a manifestation of her guilt over her anger at her parents' abandonment, but Adora didn't think so. There was guilt, sure; like Orestes of Greek mythology, she had been pursued by appalling Furies, ferocious hags with serpentine hair and fangs who chased her through dark dreams after her mother's death. But Joy had helped then, as much as she could. And what Joy couldn't kill, the Demerol and Valium had finally banished.

And Joy had been around long before Adora's parents died. If she was a manifestation of guilt, it was guilt over something far older.

Of course you don't listen to Ben,
Joy answered.
He doesn't have your best interests at heart. Not the way I do.

Which was probably true. Joy sometimes liked to shadowbox with Adora's emotions and muchneeded rationalizations at inconvenient moments, but the two had more or less made peace. Joy was Joy. And it wasn't
really
that weird that Adora talked to herself, now was it? After all, her body kept all kinds of mysterious things going on all the time. Her lungs, stomach and heart performed their assigned tasks without specific permission or guidance; why believe she could or should control her brain? Some things were best left on autopilot. And Joy often had useful insights to share.

Of course, sometimes she just liked to nag.

Adora wasn't given to impulsive actions. But it was ridiculous to think that she could ruin her small store of hard-won literary credibility this way. Mightn't it be fun—just once—to be Alice and follow the rabbit down the hole? Just for a little ways? Like Ben said, she could go out and hear what the guy had to say. What would be the harm in that?

After all, Ben might have gotten it wrong— especially if he'd been drinking. Maybe the guy didn't think he was Santa. Maybe he thought he was a descendant of Saint Nicholas, or something like that, and he wanted a biography written about his illustrious ancestor, whose good works he was carrying on. Wouldn't she be dumb to refuse until she'd heard all the facts from the horse's—er, the philanthropist's—mouth?

Besides, hard as it was to imagine, she'd never been to a lutin city. Everyone said L.A. looked just like it had when the humans ran things, but there had to be some differences. And different could be exciting. A little cultural synergy might also spark new ideas for writing projects. A biography about some famous silent film stars, perhaps. She had recently heard a rumor that Buster Keaton was really a goblin.

“Have you gotten a cell phone yet?” Ben asked, interrupting her thoughts. Between him and Joy, it was hard to consider anything fully.

“No, Ben. Not yet.” And not ever. She disliked phones. In fact, Adora had a passionate hatred of the favorite device of Satan. The device's spawn— the cell phone—was even more detestable. Just being near them made her head hurt. The radio waves seemed to bounce around her skull, beating on her brain until it wanted to burst free and explode.

Even without that, experience had taught her telephones usually brought ill tidings: cowardly lovers who didn't want to break up in person, bad news from your doctor about unheard-of and untreatable syndromes, even word of dead mothers favoring flamboyant suicides. Hearing a phone ring was for Adora like getting zinged with a stun gun. Or, from Ben's phone, like getting zapped with a cattle prod.

She had actual physical tingling in her hands and head anytime she touched the single phone in her house. It was surely psychosomatic, but the devices were still unpleasant and something she avoided.

Ben, who wouldn't dream of going anywhere without an electronic leash, still could not understand her attitude. He had let her coast until now, but this was different. After all, why wouldn't she want to supply him with hourly updates on the activities of this rich and famous—and clearly insane—client? And maybe he had a point regarding the wisdom of staying in touch with someone. There'd be no peace if she gave in, though. He'd call night and day. Joy was enough of a round-the-clock nag; she didn't need Ben riding her, too.

“Well, then, how will I reach you?” he asked, sounding peevish. “I don't think he plans to stay at the Wilshire for very long.”

You
won't
reach me.
The sudden thought was somewhat encouraging, a consolation prize for having to meet a loony and hire herself out to him— albeit for a very good price.

“Call Mr. Nicholas's assistant. You have his number, don't you?” she asked.

“Oh yeah,” he said more cheerfully. The good mood wouldn't last. She had already braved contact with the instrument of Satan and tried the number last night. Ben had gotten it wrong. She had connected with some candy company whose employees didn't speak English. Maybe he had been drunk at the time he took the call. That was frequent after eight p.m. Or maybe Ben had tried to pump the man for gossip, and the assistant had purposely left a wrong number to punish him. The rich and arrogant often had equally arrogant employees.

Normally, Adora wouldn't try to duck her agent.

After all, she liked eating as much as the next person, and he was often the one who found her jobs between books. Still, it looked like she maybe had employment now, and she didn't feel like satisfying Ben's insatiable curiosity about her patron. Not even at a distance. Especially not until he sobered up.

“Do you have the ticket with you?” she asked.

“There's no ticket. It's a private plane,” Ben said, shoving a printout her way. “It will be at the Alma Airfield tomorrow morning at ten. Pack an overnight bag.”

Adora glanced at the paper. It had a map of an airport and a name scrawled on the bottom.

“Do you know what kind of plane it is?” she asked casually. She didn't like small planes. She didn't like large ones either, but they were slightly less scary than the flying coffins her mother had loved to fly.

“It's probably a private jet. The Bishop S. Nicholas Foundation has one.”

A small jet? Well, that was okay. Unpleasant, but not impossible. She'd manage. And if she couldn't, she probably still had a few of those pills the doctor had given her. . . .

I thought you'd given those up.

I have. Really.

“Who and what is Robin Christkind?” she asked, squinting at Ben's spidery handwriting.

“He's the pilot. You're supposed to ask for him at the airfield.”

Adora nodded and slipped the paper into her purse. “Okay. I'm going to L.A.—but I'm making no promises about taking this job. If this guy's a complete loony or a bastard, I'm gone.”

Her agent nodded, looking marginally happier. He'd be getting fifteen percent, after all. That was a tidy paycheck for him.

“Good choice. Now let's have dessert,” he suggested, forgetting that they hadn't had lunch. “I'll order champagne.”

“No, thanks. I'm dieting.” Ben didn't see anything odd in this answer, even though Adora was still gaunt and underweight from her prolonged battle with some Epstein-Barr–type virus—or insanity— which had killed her sense of taste and hence her appetite. In his world, everyone was always on a diet, whether they needed to be or not.

Feeling suddenly exhausted, as she did all too often these days, Adora got to her feet. “Thanks for the tea. I'll call if I decide to take the job, and you can get the contracts ready.”

“They are ready. Mr. Nicholas sent them. All you need to do is sign.” Ben was starting to sound peevish again. “Where is that stupid Luther? I ordered another bottle of wine hours ago.”

“Well, then, I'll leave you to it.” Adora began to back away, wanting to escape the sight of Ben's bleary, hopeless eyes. A small touch of guilt pinched her heart and she heard herself saying: “I'll talk to you soon.”

Or not.

Or not. Experience told her it might be weeks before Ben sobered up again—weeks she'd rather not witness. Ben on a prolonged drunk wasn't something attractive. She could see a day coming when she'd have to find someone else to handle her work.

But that was just whistling in the dark. She wouldn't walk away from her agent, drunk or not, would she? He had, after all, been a friend of her father's and her last link to her childhood, the last person who shared her childhood memories and could testify that her father had ever lived. And she needed that, because she had very few memories of her youth. Pretty much everything before five was one big blank space in her brain. It was almost like she had come into the world as a kindergartener.

Stop worrying about it
, Joy said sharply.
It's perfectly normal for people to not recall their childhoods.

Is it?

Of course.

Nevertheless, Adora wouldn't be firing Ben. Not today. However, she would spend a little while hiding out in L.A. while he sobered up, and she would decide what to do with her life.

 

 

And so it came to pass that, one year at the time of the Solstice, a fierce cold seized the land and the Sons of Man were near death and greatly afeared of the dark that seemed to have no end. But Niklas came upon them and said: “Be not afraid. You shall not die in the Night, but instead the Sons of Man shall live.” And he raised his flute to the sky and called down a bright fire. And the fire struck a sacred tree that burned with holy light for Twelve Days. And Death and cold were turned back from the Sons of Man, and the men rejoiced and blessed the shaman. But Niklas said: “Bless me not, for it is the Love of Gaia and not I that has saved you and brought you fire. If you wish to give thanks then worship thusly: Every year on the darkest of days you shall choose one sacred tree and hang offerings of thanks in its branches. And you shall set the tree alight and tend the fire for twelve days. Thus will the gift of your lives and thanks be returned to Gaia.”

—
Niklas 3:1

The Green Man dances, but not as lightly as before, because he is growing old just like the year. His hair is silvering, increasingly rough. His body hurts, too, and every step is an ordeal. This is his burden, though, so he does not complain about the aches in his bones. Besides, there is the music and there is Gaia waiting, her loving hands at work on the spindle that reels his life back in and calls him home.

Around him people are crying, giving thanks for his offering. He appreciates this, but truly he does not dance for them. He does this for Gaia, for the love that, as a physical being, he has no better way of expressing.

The moon rises in the cold sky, white as cream, sweet as honey. He lifts his eye to it and weeps with joy because it is time.

The goblin Miffith hunched behind his computer and watched General Anaximander the way a cornered mouse would watch a cat offering cheese— except the cat would be far less scary. No sane person would take this job, unless they were in straits so dire that a fifty-fifty chance of being murdered by his boss were better odds than the thugs in his old life were offering. As it was, joining the L.A. rebels was a shade less dangerous than continuing to hang out with the goblin-fruit gangs. Gangs were no place for a goblin with no taste for rape and torture. His initiation had also been his final assignment. He'd raped the human fruit-junkie as ordered, but he hadn't been able to pinch and bite her the way he was supposed to. She was just too pathetic. And he'd kind of wanted to see her again.