Welcome to Bordertown (41 page)

“Uh, yeah!” I answered as he ran for the back door.

“And drink your beer next time,” he called over his shoulder, “because I’m buying.”

Outside, I passed the alley that ran behind The Ferret. A loaded cart attached to a put-putting trike sat ignored. The band surrounded Moss and seemed to be giving him a hard time.
It must suck to be the kid brother
, I thought,
especially when all your brother’s friends get in the act, too.
As if he felt my eyes, Moss looked over at me. I waved and left him to his fate. I had business at the docks.

I ate down by the river often. There were scavengers there who were too messed up on river water to say no to me, and if they ever remembered what happened, no one would believe them anyway. When I’d first arrived, I wondered if the Mad River tasted like blood, but I didn’t try it. The water made the kids who drank it taste funny, though, and I had to force myself. Maybe that’s why the last two had made me throw up. Polite elves say to their host, “I ate quite well. I’ll now be sick.” That wasn’t meant to be literal. Luckily, I kept down enough blood not to starve. If it got worse, though, I’d have to find another source of food, and I didn’t even want to think of the danger that entailed.

I rounded up my dinner with no trouble, but I couldn’t find the right angle or something. My teeth wouldn’t slide in smoothly; I had to try several times. I made a mess of his neck.

After I ate and threw up, I cried.

Even without Dr. Vee’s final bite, I would be exactly like him, forever and ever, and I wouldn’t even be good at it, and I would never, never, never find a way to stop.

When I finished crying, I wiped my face with my sleeve and headed home.

I had found myself a nice little squat on a cobbled, dead-end road not far from Hell’s Gate. Ma always said I would go to hell. I guess she was right. But hell was a long walk away, and streetlights were rare—I was thankful I could see well in the dark.

The Old Town was crowded when you were up on Ho Street, but there were many ruined places scattered through the Old Town where no one came anymore. For a few blocks, I passed occupied houses. I liked to peek through the windows at the cozy rooms hung with bright fabrics and lit by spell lamps draped with patterned scarves. Farther south on Hell Street, the houses looked gap-toothed and hollow-eyed, with vacant windows and broken-in doors. More and more empty lots with broken fences lined the road, and after them sat a burned-out gas station where fuel was a memory. The sign had once read “Shell,” but someone had managed to shatter the “S.” I wondered if that was how the road got its name.

The night became all indigo and purple shadows, and the outlines of roadside trees rose like torn construction paper layers, ragged against the moony sky. I had to be careful of roots that pushed up through the paving stones. As I passed a squat deco apartment building, I thought I heard footfalls behind me. I flattened against the wall and peered back through the darkness. Nothing.

I had been happy when I first got to Bordertown—relaxed for the first time in ages—but lately I’d felt a growing unease. It prickled on my neck at night and squirmed in my stomach. The feeling had been worse the last two weeks.

I had read there were catchers in Bordertown—people who dragged runaways back to the World—but I had left home a long time ago. How would my parents know I came here, and would they care? No, it was Dr. Vee I thought of every time something skittered in the shadows or a darker silhouette moved against the night. He didn’t take kindly to ungrateful kids.

Halfway home, I took a detour through Damnation Alley over to South Street. I needed a few more sketchpads. Just my luck, some Packers were hanging out by the stone-pillared entrance of South Street School. This was no place to be mistaken for someone part elf. I dashed across the street, cut though a corner parking lot, ran down the side road, dodged around the back of a rusted Camry, and climbed through the torn chain-link fence behind the school. As I approached an open window, a shower of pebbles clattered against the cracked windowpanes.

I turned. A gangbanger stood behind me, but he took off running in the direction of the Camry. What the …? I didn’t wait to figure him out; I slipped through the window of the boys’ bathroom.

Inside, I ran down the corridor and took the stairs up to the second floor. My footsteps echoed. The peeling, graffiti-covered walls made my fingers itch to add my own tag—but I wasn’t Bloody Mary anymore, was I?

I trotted past the cobwebbed classrooms. Next to the media center, carpeted with mildewed books, was the art room. On one of my previous expeditions, I had found a cupboard in there, behind a jumble of dented file cabinets and the shards of a desk. No one had been curious enough to clear the debris away, but pickings were slim, and so I did. Jackpot! Inside sat stacks of sketchpads filled with yellow-edged sheets of paper. There were also pencils, brushes, dried and cracked poster paint, charcoal, grease pencils, and construction paper that was hidden from the light, so the colors were still bright. But the prize was a set of Prismacolor pencils and pastels. I had carefully barricaded the door again, loaded what I could in a black-smutted curtain, and hefted my treasure back home.

Tonight I had to huff and heave to move those file cabinets out
of the way. I felt certain the work had been easier last time. After I grabbed three sketchpads, I decided to move only one file cabinet back in place.
You’re becoming a wuss
, I told myself as I ran down the steps at the other end of the corridor that led to the gym. I negotiated the piles of volleyball nets, punctured basketballs, and ancient beer cans, and let myself out the door on the south side of the school, where the buses used to pick up the kids. I guessed a lot of those buses were now down in the trailer parks, past my place, substituting for caravans.

I lived near the South Wall, as if I had barely squeezed inside Bordertown and possibly still didn’t belong. My place sat on the presciently named Woodland Road, where the crumbling brick houses squatted like wild animals among feral garden foliage, their roofs covered with the fur of lichens, trees sprouting from attic dormers like horns. The abandoned dwellings looked as if, when they had evolved enough, they would shamble out into the Never-never to find new nomad lives. In the light of one predawn, I had been sure I’d seen fruit on the branches at the back of my house, but when I climbed over the wall to check, I couldn’t find any.

As I walked up to number 44, the leaves rustled and whooshed in the trees, but I felt no breeze. Under the bushes, trash rattled. The skin on my back crawled, but I shook the feeling off.
Animals
, I told myself, but I glanced around before I ducked into my overgrown yard and crept toward the house with caution. Halfway down the path, I froze. The nightlife had stopped chirping.

A commotion broke out in the undergrowth on my left—scuffling, scrabbling, squeaking. I snarled and whirled, my fists clenched, ready to face my enemy. Then something crashed away toward the next house.

I waited for I didn’t know what, but the normal night sounds started up once more and my shoulders slumped in relief.

Two of Flora’s cats fighting
, I thought. Flora is my nearest neighbor—out back and over two. She runs some kind of sanctuary for crossbred elfin cats people have tired of—oriental-looking creatures with bright green points or pink stripes. Flora called her cats in when I walked by. Her distrust hurt me. I never bother cats. I like cats.

A bird sang a lonely song, and the sky slowly turned pewter.
I’d better go inside
, I thought. I moved the shaggy coat of ivy to reveal my front door and whispered the key. A dandy from the Dragon Fire gang had swapped me a protection spell for a watercolor of his chopper. He didn’t want a picture of a girl or his family; he wanted a picture of a machine. He might be worse off than me.

Inside smelled of home—moldy, dusty, safe. Even though the ceiling had collapsed into the front parlor, there were two good back rooms in the house and a kitchen tacked on that might have been called a scullery in times gone by. Water still ran from the faucet; I didn’t know why. Maybe the water came from a well. At least I could wash. I had lived in worse places.

I stashed my supplies in a corner and checked the curtains on the back windows; then I changed into an extra-large World of Warcraft T-shirt. I curled up in a pile of blankets to sleep as the sun rose, my arms around a stuffed toy tiger I had found in the fallen plaster upstairs. I mean, who could throw that away? It would be heartless.

*   *   *

Sometimes I wondered if Bordertown rearranged itself every so often. I had found streets that I was sure hadn’t been there the day before, and occasionally streets I thought I knew spat me up in unexpected places. That could worry a person who wanted to reach home before sunrise. It took me a while to find Green Lady Lane, even after I asked three people. None of them had ever
heard of Sluggo’s. Where was this club? I walked up and down the lane three times and was just about to give up when a stout oak door burst open and a blond kid with zits wrestled an ungainly wooden sandwich board out onto the sidewalk and set it up. “Sluggo’s” was emblazoned on the sign in red and gold.

“Don’t do anyone any favors,” I griped.

The blond kid poked his tongue out at me, then went inside to leave me staring at old, bowed, multipaned windows glazed with thick, ancient glass—rippled, uneven, and greenish. The place looked like a refugee from a Dickens novel.

“You’re early,” Moss said with delight in his scratchy voice when I found him in front of the stage. Tonight he wore a perfectly fitted black dress tailcoat over a white T-shirt and washed-out jeans. I couldn’t decide if that looked impossibly cool or totally dorky. He had another book under his arm.

The band was busy setting up and tuning and testing mics, but when the bass player saw me, he tossed his mod shag and snapped at Moss in Elvish. Perhaps he didn’t approve of interracial hookups.

Moss replied calmly, also in Elvish, and the bass player thumped his strings with the palm of his hand in discordant ire.

“It’s no biggie. I’m not dating him,” I protested. I mean, I hadn’t dressed up, had I? I’d changed my shirt, that’s all. “WTF” it said.

The bass player turned on me. “I am sworn to protect him,” he spat.

“Huh?”

The plunking and banging onstage quieted, and the band gathered around.

“Hadaway, divvent scare the lass,” the singer said.
“She’s only a bairn.”

The other human punched him gently on the arm as if to say,
Keep out of it.

“She’s a street hustler,” said the bass player.

That pissed me off. “I’m not a con artist,” I said. There it was again, that thing elves had against me because of my looks.

The drummer poked the bass player with one of his sticks. “Quiet,” he said. “We don’t know who she is.”

That was better. Some respect at last.

“Lizzie is my guest,” said Moss. “Please be gracious.” I liked the forcefulness that gathered in his voice. It was totally at odds with his meek appearance.

Sky looked sympathetic. I waited for him to say something nice to me, but instead he addressed Moss. “Don’t think that you’re infallible because nothing has gone wrong since you’ve been here. Don’t go courting mischief.”

Courting!
I thought.
You’ve got it wrong. I’m not with him. I’m available
, but all I could stammer out was, “I’m not mischief.”

The bass player put his hand on Moss’s shoulder. “You are your kindred’s hope,” he said.

“I’m their tool,” said Moss, removing the bass player’s hand firmly.

I was impressed. He was so composed.

“It’s what you get for having a perfect record,” said the drummer, and laughed like he was trying to lighten things up.

“I hope I’m not perfect,” said Moss. “If I’m not, my parents won’t have so many plans for me.”

“I don’t think you’re perfect,” Sky said to Moss. “I’ve been here longer than our parents. Things don’t work the way people expect in Bordertown, no matter what they believe.” He finally turned to me. “Be gentle in your dealings with Moss. He has many who love him.”

Was it my imagination or was there a threat in those words? I opened my mouth to protest again but decided to curb my tongue
and wait. If they let me hang around, Sky would soon see I was a decent person. We’d laugh about this one day.

I followed Moss to a table, and he beckoned to a bartender clad in a sari and combat boots.

“Wow, overprotective much?” I said after she took our order. I tried to wriggle the tension out of my shoulders.

“They only want what’s best for me,” he answered, as if it amused him.

My stomach gurgled. I hoped he didn’t hear.
I might have to leave early to eat
, I thought. I was always hungry lately, even after the blood, as if my body yearned for something. Elf blood maybe? “What’s the book this time?” I asked to distract myself.

He showed me a copy of
The Bride Wore Black
by Cornell Woolrich. “A femme fatale on a quest for revenge,” read the blurb on the back cover. The book looked absurdly noir for elf reading.

“So you like mysteries,” I said as Sari Girl set two beers in front of us.

He nodded enthusiastically. “And adventures.”

“Yeah, you said.” I flipped through the pages. No illustrations despite the promising cover.

“Sometimes I think I’d like to write a book,” he admitted, and then he blushed.

I stifled a giggle. No one comes to Soho to become a plumber, though I suspect that there are many who move uptown eventually and find a trade.

“But I don’t know those places to write about them,” he continued.

It’s funny, I’m usually tongue-tied with people, but he was such a nerd that I had no problem talking to him. “Who says they have to be set in the World?” I told him. “Mysteries happen here, don’t they?”

He laughed hard. “Drink your beer,” he said.

I’d given up trying to eat and drink real food ages ago, but because he watched, I took a tiny sip. I was surprised that the beer went down smoothly. I didn’t push my luck, though.