Unquiet Dreams (4 page)

At last he spotted it: yet another white low-slung yacht with script announcing its fancy title. Jaunty!
My aunt Fanny
, Riley thought,
both of them
. He looked around the craft. There'd never really been reason to think about it before, but there weren't doorbells on boats after all. "Hullo!" Repeated calls provoked nothing and no signs of life stirred within.

Riley's foot tapped, jittery. He hated to wait and the little snort hadn't helped in that regard. The weight of the pistol in his pocket added an awkward heft to his jacket and he found his hand sneaking into the pocket to stroke its smooth surface. Riley considered taking the gun out to try shooting it at something innocuous, just to see what it felt like, but the Frenchie guy could come back at any minute and it might look a bit untrusting.

He tried to fix his thoughts on the mandrake anthrax. In Riley's mind it had grown in proportions, like a black bird whose wide wings would envelope him and answer all the questions he'd never articulated, the gaping hole that he had stuffed with drugs and pints of the black nectar. It might be the one thing that would make him finally
know
.

What
he'd know, he couldn't say, but Riley wanted that certainty.

But even the lure of that obliviating bliss was not enough to distract him for long. Where was the damned Frenchman? The sun sank lower and the sky bruised and still he did not appear. Riley resisted another snort as long as he could, rightly figuring it would not improve his state of mind, but he had to do something and it was that or the gun, and another wrap seemed like the best thing and not too bothersome, but it did make him a bit jittery for sure and he caressed the snubnose in his pocket and wondered how it spoke.

When the froggy arrived Riley found himself feeling a bit twitchy. The man looked irritatingly foreign to his eyes, with a white linen jacket that spoke of a lifestyle difficult to maintain and privilege Riley couldn't much imagine. "Lucky Luke?"

"Yes." The man looked at him with his mouth pursed in vague disapproval.

"I'm here for Una's merch." Riley's thumb stroked the handle of the gun in his pocket and its curve made him shiver.

"Where is the money?"

Riley blinked. "You've already been paid." Had to be true: Una would never trust him with that much cabbage.

The Frenchman broke into an unexpected grin. "Oh yes, that is correct. I am forgetting. So many transactions, you understand." He opened his palms to show no harm meant.

"You're a saviour of the European market," Riley muttered.

This made the geezer laugh. "I am an entrepreneur!" Lucky Luke continued chuckling as he stepped over to the side of the boat. With practiced ease he flipped down a small ladder and stepped onto its rungs. "Climb aboard, sailor."

Riley looked at the ladder with doubt and awkwardly lifted his foot to heft himself up the ladder. His worn trainers slipped on the cold metal, leaving him flailing as he hurled over the side of the yacht. His landing provoked further laughter from Lucky Luke who moved gracefully across the swaying craft to disappear into its depths. Riley shook his head, resisted the temptation to snort another lifter and followed the Frenchman below.

"Cosy, no?"

Riley glanced around the tiny cabin. Everywhere the surfaces gleamed whether brass or wood. "It's all right. Who's that?"

They both turned to regard a black and white photo of stunning beauty that hung over the compact bed. "That is my Julia. Five years gone. I miss her so." Lucky Luke struck his chest with a closed fist.

"Dead?" As soon as the word left his lips Riley thought,
eejit, of course she's dead
. "How'd it happen?"

"Carcinoma." He stretched the word out as if savouring the enemy's name.

"It's a crying shame, a woman that beautiful," Riley agreed, though his foot was beginning to tap. There was a tickle in his throat and an itch in his skull that inclined him toward thoughts of the Kings Head and his reward. "So have you got it?"

Lucky Luke shook his head as if to clear away the haunting beauty and turned to the wee desk beside the bed. "You will forgive my sentimentality," he said as he drew out the top drawer. "And my lack of trust," he added, lifting a Glock in one hand and a small black velvet bag in the other, "But once I hand these over there's no reason—"

Riley couldn't quite understand the physics of the moment. He ran the scene over and over again in his head as he stumbled back along the docks and reeled toward Middle Street. Lucky Luke hadn't meant to shoot him, he was just protecting himself. The Glock was insurance, not aggression. Riley blamed the damned jig the speed blossomed in his brain. The curve of the snubnose seduced his fingers, that was it. No one was more surprised to see the hole in Lucky Luke's chest than himself.

Except perhaps Luke: he gave Riley a baleful look, muttered something incomprehensible in French and then slumped to the floor.

He didn't notice how his hands shook until he gingerly probed his rib cage. Feckin' brass! Riley glared around the cabin. He spotted a scarf negligently tossed over the lamp. It had an elegant print of huntsmen but it would slow the flow of blood right enough. He hoped so anyway. Riley stuffed the little black bag in his pocket and dropped the snubnose over the side of the boat as he crawled down.

His had filled with a word,
ricochet ricochet ricochet. French, innit
? A giggle escaped from his mouth as tourists stepped aside from this muttering madman. The word repeated in his head like a techno beat drumming. But it helped focus him. Only one thought now:
mandrake anthrax
. He could almost taste it, not this coppery tang in his mouth now, but a sweet nectar.

Riley faltered at the back door of the pub. The place was crowded with punters. Was it the rugby? He couldn't be arsed to care. Darting through an opening he pushed toward the stairs, knocking into a big fellah who roughly shoved him on his way with a curse. The pounding in his head grew louder as he climbed the steps.
Why were there so many people here tonight?
Riley looked in vain for Una. He felt for the scarf and found it soaked.
Have to wring it out in the sink
.

At last he saw Una. A pint of the black sat before her, a blotch of lipstick on its rim. She laughed, head thrown back, no cares in the world. He sat down heavily beside her and she sized him up, an eyebrow cocked with amusement. "You all right there, Riley?"

"Fine, fine," he muttered, finding himself gasping a little. "I got it," he wheezed, fumbling in his pocket for the velvety bag. Riley slipped it under the table to Una who took it and grimaced.

"What have you got on here?" Una scowled as she peeked inside the velvet, then dropped it into her leather bag. She looked down at the red on her hand and hastily put her hands back under the table. "You feckin' eejit! What did you do?"

"It was an accident," Riley moaned.

Una stared at him. "You all right there?"

Riley could feel the sweat pouring down his temples. "Sure, sure."

Una leaned closer. "Is he dead?"

"Aye." A wave of exhaustion swept over him without warning.
A little snort might sort that right out
. Then his eyes blinked open again. "Can I have some?"

A surprised bark of laughter burst from her lips. "As you wish, Riley, as you wish." Una's and snaked into her coat pocket and emerged with a small paper sachet. "Well done, you. Enjoy. Maybe I'll see you back tomorrow for some more."

Riley took the packet in his red-stained fingers. "Ta."

"For fuck's sake, Riley. Get yourself sorted. You're bleeding all over the place."

"It's all right," he assured her. "Only a flesh wound." He giggled helplessly. "Can I snort it?"

Una looked blankly at him. "Just let it melt on your tongue, like candy. Or under it, like nitroglycerin."

"Thanks, Una." Without another word, Riley tipped his head back and let the granules pour into his mouth. The bitterness made him grimace and he shuddered. "Tatty bye."

"Yeah, right. See you tomorrow. Don't get nicked." Una sipped her pint but he felt her eyes boring into his back as he lurched away through the shouting crowd. Riley headed toward the front stairs. The sodden scarf slipped off onto the floor and he left it. He made the last few steps by clinging to the rail, then stumbled out onto Shop Street.

The mandrake anthrax danced on his tongue. Pirouettes of stabbing pain spun within his mouth like mosquitoes seeking a vein. Crowds of students and loud Americans bumped up against him but he didn't mind. A girl with a golden throat busked with a fiddler, singing a sad song about where the wild roses grow and she winked at Riley as he staggered by. He almost wished for some coins to throw in the case. They were a damn sight better than the world's worst living statue who generally blocked the corner by Dunnes. A terrible thing to see such incompetence, Riley mused as his chest inflated with billowy air.

The crowds thinned slightly as he turned toward the square, but the horizontal rain began to pummel him once more as he passed the toilets. Riley stumbled onto the grass. As good a place as any, surely, so he sat down. The ache in his side had become a throbbing that shook his whole body, but the magic danced on his tongue. Riley squinted at the grass, melting in the rain. For some reason, it made him think of cake. He grabbed a handful to eat and it tasted sweet.

A single magpie alighted near his foot. She cocked her head at him and flicked her tail three times. It was surely a sign. "Where's your man, Miss Maggie?" Riley asked. "I seen him over at the roundabout. Perched on a reed. Telling me a story he was."

The magpie hopped closer. "Ricochet, ricochet, ricochet," she croaked.

Riley lay back and let the rain and the magic pour over him.
I can talk to the birds, móraí! Just like auntie Ruth
. He opened his eyes to find the magpie regarding him closely. "Tell me all your secrets, love. I won't tell a soul."

The pie whispered in Riley's ear as the rain filled up his mouth.

 

 

for Adele

"You blinked."

The dragon's brow furrowed and her nostrils flared with menace. Colburga dodged to her left towards the cave wall just in time to miss a half-hearted flash of flame. "Rules are rules," she said, laughing and slapping at her sleeve which had begun smoking slightly.

"I'm bored. I'm tired of being in here," the dragon rattled out her long sinuous throat, raking the words over her internal embers to give them the full weight of crankiness.

Colburga sighed. "You know it's too early to go out. Give it a couple of hours and dusk will be here."

"It's not just that—I'm not even that hungry." She stretched the top of her neck, releasing a series of popping cracks. "I'm sick of this life, sick of being merchandise, sick of being little more than a cow." Twin plumes of smoke puffed out of her nostrils and drifted gently toward the top of the cave. "I want to be wild! I want to wander this middengeard—"

"—to boldly strike fear in the hearts of warriors, to face the storm of blades, and to die horribly and alone and get hung in somebody's mead hall for a nice decoration that never gets dusted off, and soon nobody remembers who killed you or what you were." Colburga drew in a breath and softened her tone. "We've been over this a hundred hundred times. We've got a good thing here. No one bothers us and we have enough to eat. You don't know what it's like to starve, to be alone."

The dragon rolled her golden eyes. "Oh yes, it's time for the heroic ode! Where's my harp? Let me pull the strings and sing the tale of Colburga the orphan, abandoned and alone, her beloved mother dead, no one to watch out for her—"

"All right, all right!" Colburga felt her own temper rising now, particularly at the mention of her mother, but she hadn't survived all that by flying off the handle when provoked. Nothing creates patience like poverty. She still woke occasionally at night shivering with imagined cold, flinching from grasping hands of unseen dangers—but those days were behind her. Colburga had become a successful chapwoman, selling her wares on market day in the nearby villages or even to the local monastery. The abbot prized her hardy rosemary, but most folk saved their best chicken or a hearty flitch of bacon for a small vial of precious dragon's tears. Pity they were fakes. Nice bottles though. She would have thought more people knew that dragon's cannot cry.

The dragon in question, however, was now slipping into a very good sulk. It was no good telling her again that she was small for her breed, Colburga thought, that one good Wiglaf-type could slay her with a single slash of his heirloom blade. She was lonely (human company being no substitute for dragon-kind, as Colburga well knew). She was bored. There was a lot of that going around this cave, though. Life on the fringes of society was hard. Colburga herself sometimes stood outside the abbey and wondered if joining the smiling novices might not be a bad idea—good meals, a nice place to sleep, pretty songs to sing, and, well, a place to belong. She had heard that the abbey people were supposed to give up things like money and sex, but her observations had proved otherwise. Yet something kept her from going up to the gates to do anything except deliver her herbs and tinctures; even so, she took every opportunity to peek at the men and women who sang with such joy and seemed to leap across the gardens in the spring.

But she had more immediate concerns now. "Let's blow some glass," she cajoled the grumpy dragon. "Might as well do something useful, eh?"

The dragon snorted. "Something profitable, you mean."

Colburga colored slightly. She had only meant to distract the creature from her mood, not worry about money, but she had an ingrained habit of working to keep the wolf at bay. "Have you got a better idea?"

Just then the bell down the path rang. Praise Nerthus, Colburga thought, then amended her words as Abbot Ælfric had taught, praise the All-father, although she could not help thinking that a man alone would not be much of a creator. "We have company. Let's try not to lose a sale," she said with as much of a flattering tone as she could manage at that moment. The dragon's comment had hit at the heart of her worries, and although Colburga mentally counted up the coins laid by in the casket hidden under the dragon's bed as she always did when the bell rang, she chastised herself for her anxiety. The money was accumulating well. For what, she did not know yet, but someday she would. At present, though, it gave her great comfort to know what jangled safely under the dragon's rump.