A Local Habitation

THIRTY-TWO

“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE FOLLOWED. I’d have taken good care of him,” she said. “Walk until you hit the wall, then turn and put your shoulders against it. Keep your hands away from that knife. It wouldn’t do you any good, anyway.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, walking forward. I couldn’t count on the gun being waterlogged, and if it wasn’t, there was no way I’d get Quentin clear before she shot one of us. For the moment, I needed to go along with her and hope for a chance to turn the tables.

“I need to be able to reach your wrists, and I can’t trust you to hold still without incentive. Hence your pretty boy.” She sighed. “Honestly, I haven’t been able to trust you to do anything. You don’t follow directions.”

I reached the wall and turned, stealing a glance at Quentin. He was breathing. I covered my relief, looking back at Gordan. She was smiling and relaxed; the tension of the past few days had melted out of her like it had never existed. I’d have been relaxed, too, if I was the one with the gun.

“That’s better,” she said. “I’m glad you’re being so agreeable. It hurts the data if you’re damaged before we begin.”

“Haven’t we already invalidated your data, if you need us undamaged?”

“I’m a little worried, yeah—are you always this fond of trying to get yourself killed?” She shook her head. “I was starting to wonder if you’d last until I got around to you.”

“You were the one that kept trying to kill us,” I snapped.

“Details. That was just an impulse.” She waved a hand, keeping the gun trained on my chest. “I didn’t want you calling your master and his hounds, not after I’d gone to so much trouble to keep him from knowing what was going on. April does a surprisingly good imitation of your liege, don’t you think?”

“You little . . .”

Gordan smiled, seemingly unperturbed. “I’ll admit, it was sort of hard to talk her into it. Little idiot didn’t understand how it supported our project. Still, it had the desired effect; you don’t listen, but you’re still predictable. And don’t worry about my work—I figure I can use you, injuries and all. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when I start with damaged goods.”

“What are you going to do now?” My options were limited by our surroundings: there was nothing for me to throw or hide behind, and if I went for the knife, we’d find out fast whether or not her gun worked. I was sure she’d planned it that way. A waist-high railing ran along the catwalk’s edge, broken only by the ladder access gaps. Even if the gun didn’t work and I managed to outrun her, I’d never get Quentin down.

“That’s easy.” There was a deep, wide madness in her eyes. It was there all along; I’d somehow mistaken it for grief. Stupid me. “April’s gone for the equipment. You should be grateful. You’re going to have a grand adventure!”

“Our last one,” I said. Elliot was bleeding to death on the floor below, Tybalt was taking care of Connor, and Terrie was out for Oberon-only-knew how long; no one was going to find us until it was too late. She could kill us both and walk away unscathed. She was going to win.

“The odds that you’ll survive aren’t good, but it’s not impossible. We’ve made great strides! Every failure is another step toward success!”

“You’re talking about killing us!”

“Isn’t it sad? But this is important! We’re making sacrifices for the greater good!”

“Sacrifices like Barbara?”

Her manic cheer slipped for a moment, showing the anger behind it. “That was an accident,” she hissed, finger tightening on the trigger.

I have a few basic rules for dealing with guns. First, don’t let anyone else have one. Second, if you must let someone else go armed, try not to tease them. I put my hands up, saying soothingly, “I’m sure it was.”

“I didn’t know it would kill her! I thought I’d fixed the problems, and she was so upset about the cats. She was going to demand we abandon the whole project, and . . . and . . .”

“And you thought you’d show her just how well it could really work.”

“Yes,” she said, desperately. That’s the nice thing about insanity: evil people kill you, but crazy ones try to make you understand. “I could do it one last time—do it right—and she’d see. We’d be finished. We could go public, and everything would be . . . better.”

“But something went wrong.” She was silent. I frowned. “You still don’t know what went wrong, do you?”

“I’ll find it!”

“I’m sure you will.”

Gordan shook her head as if to clear it, and then smiled. “I will, thanks to you and your courtly boy. Every bit of data helps. If you survive, it’ll tell me everything, and if you die, you’ve helped save Faerie. Be proud. You’ll be remembered as pioneers of our brave new world.”

“Sacrifices are always remembered that way.”

“If it bothers you to think of yourselves as sacrifices, don’t. Think of yourselves as . . . explorers running the risk of sailing off the edge of the world. It’ll only hurt for a second. Once the current starts up, you won’t feel anything at all. You won’t even be able to move.”

That explained why none of their victims struggled. Use April to get the machine on them, flip a switch, and they were frozen while they died. April didn’t help to kill Jan, and so she wasn’t caught the right way. “Let Quentin go, Gordan,” I said. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Maybe if you’d sent him away when I told you to, I could have, but it’s too late now.” She glanced over her shoulder. “April should be back soon. It’s nice, having an assistant who doesn’t understand that space is supposed to be linear. She’s so efficient.”

I began inching away from the wall. She turned immediately, a small, chiding smile on her face. “Uh- uh. No funny business.”

“You’re using her,” I said, slumping back against the wall.

“Who, April? I didn’t use her. She came willingly.”

“Did she understand what she was doing?”

“What we were doing, you mean? Of course she did. She understood we were helping others be like her. Of course, she didn’t know they wouldn’t come back after they were shut down, but that doesn’t matter. She still agreed.”

“It matters to me.”

“It doesn’t. No one’s coming to save you. I’ll kill you, and the boy, and then we’ll take out your stray cat and the seal. Don’t worry. I’ll tell your liege you died heroically. So sad. April and I will be the only survivors, and we’ll be heartbroken . . . but we’ll continue our work.” She glanced around. “Where is she? April!” The echo of her shout bounced off the walls. “Stupid girl.”

I knew the cavalry wasn’t coming; all I could do now was stall for time. “The only thing I don’t understand is how you killed Peter. The generators . . .”

“Panic buttons can have multiple purposes.” Gordan’s smile grew. “April hooked him up, I pressed a button, and the power died. No way April could have done it. Instant alibi. And he’d never have gone off like that with me.”

“And Jan? She didn’t know what you were doing.”

“She would’ve figured it out. Or you would’ve. She was going to tell you.”

“So you killed her to protect yourself. Why did you kill her differently? None of the others were cut up like that. Didn’t that hurt your data?”

Gordan narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to keep me talking? It’s not going to do you any good. It’s over. You two are part of the project, whether or not you want to be.”

“You’re right; it’s over. They’re all gone. You killed them.” She’d killed them chasing a dream they’d shared and would have helped her pursue, if she’d just been patient. None of them needed to die—no one ever needs to die—but I somehow doubted her madness would let her see that. She’d gone too far.

Gordan shook her head, snarling, “You don’t understand! We were trying to save them! I was going to save them all!”

“You knew the process killed people. After Barbara, you had to know.”

She glared at me, madness flooding back into her eyes. “You’re nothing to them, do you realize that? Nothing—hell, less than nothing. Humans have iron and fire, but changelings? We have no iron, no fire . . . no power. We’re tools to them. You have the nerve to wonder why I had to kill them? I’d expect that from him,” she indicated Quentin with the hand that held the gun, and for a sickening moment, I was afraid she was going to shoot, “but not from you.”

“I don’t understand.” I was lying, but I didn’t think she could tell; I’m pretty good at hiding that sort of thing. She was standing on the edge of sanity, and I was afraid that if she lost her balance, she’d take Quentin with her. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed her distracted.

“We’d all have been the same inside the crystal! There would’ve been no more borders and no more differences! We could all have been what we were meant to be!”

“Static. Dead. Unchanging.” I shook my head, not caring how stupid my words were. She had the gun and Quentin was unconscious; I had to defend us both, and for the moment, words were my only weapon. “That’s not life. That’s just programming.”

“It’s the best chance we have for Faerie—for us. Have the purebloods gotten their lies so close to your bones that you can’t see them anymore? Have you forgotten what they call you?” Her voice rose, taking on a sharp, mocking tone. Remembered pain and stolen mockery. “Half-blood. Mongrel. Mutt. Have you forgotten the way they hurt and hurt and never care?” Tears were gleaming in her eyes; she was too busy ranting to hide them.

“I’ll never forget what I am,” I said, softly. “But I know how to forgive.”

“They own you! You’re one of their dogs! When the purebloods order you, you go. You even baby-sit their kids while you’re marching off to die!” She laughed. “We found everything we needed to know when we were trying to find out how we could stop you from destroying everything. Sylvester points and you go. Dog. Stupid, mongrel dog.” Her words were meant to wound, but it’s hard to hurt me with words. I’ve heard them before.

“I’m his and he’s mine. Everyone owns their family, for good or bad. It’s why we don’t kill each other.” There were only a few feet between us. If she kept distracting herself, I might be able to make it. “If I’m their dog, it’s because they’re family, and I want to be.”

“Then why didn’t they stay for me?!” Her grip on the gun was loosening. Hysteria was breaking her focus. That didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous; it might actually mean we were in more danger. Insanity is unpredictable. “If family works that way, why didn’t mine stay?!”

“I don’t know, Gordan. I’d tell you if I did,” I said.

“They wouldn’t listen!” She was lost in her own private pain: my world and hers weren’t meeting anymore. “They would never listen! Not my mother, not Barbara, not anyone! I wasn’t pureblooded and they were, so I wasn’t good enough to listen to! Idiots!”

“Why wouldn’t they listen?” I asked, inching forward. I was almost close enough.

She didn’t notice. “They thought being pureblooded meant they knew better than I did,” she said bitterly. “No matter what we do, no matter how much we improve Faerie, it’s never going to make them accept us. You should know that. It’s not my fault Daddy left. It’s not my fault I was born the way I am. So why do they blame me?”

The gun was dangling forgotten in her hands. I wasn’t going to get a better chance. If I moved now, I might be able to shove her over the edge before she could hurt Quentin, even if she shot me in the process. It was my fault that he was in this mess in the first place. I had to do whatever it took to get him out of it alive. Lunging forward, I grabbed the gun out of her hand, spinning both of us around in the process. Now she was the one with her back toward the wall, and one little push would be enough to send me to down to Elliot.

Gordan screamed, landing an openhanded slap across my cheek. “Bitch! Don’t you see? They’re doing it to you, too!” Her fury was almost visible, and the air was swimming with the burning oil signature of her magic. No wonder I hadn’t been able to trace the spell that blew up my car. The smell blended into the flames. “They’ll never let you be anything but a pet! You’re their dog, their stupid changeling dog!”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I like being what I am.” I was baiting her to keep her distracted, and it looked like it was working. She wasn’t looking at Quentin at all.

She lunged. I scrambled backward. My left shoulder slammed against the railing, and a bolt of pain shot through my arm. I cried out. “They’ll kill you when they’re done with you, just like they kill everything else!” I wasn’t prepared to dodge this time, and her lunge ended with her hands closed around my throat. She squeezed, shouting, “They kill everything they touch! Everything!”

I beat my fists against her, suddenly aware of how useless the gun in my hand really was. I had no way to aim or brace myself, and I didn’t know whether the chamber was blocked; if I tried to shoot her, I might blow my own head off. I couldn’t even get the aim needed to hit her in the back of the head with her own weapon, satisfying though the idea was. I brought up one knee instead, planting it in her stomach. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the desired effect: her grip on my throat tightened.

“Didn’t it bother you?” she asked, with restored calm. She knew she was winning. “Knowing you were less than they were, knowing they wouldn’t care if you died? There’s always another changeling. You’re nothing special.”

Black spots were clouding my vision, and my fists were beating more and more weakly against her sides. Suffocation feels a lot like drowning. I don’t recommend either. Gathering the last of my strength, I whispered, “Says . . . you.”

That just made her angrier. She removed a hand from my throat, delivering another slap. I didn’t care. I was too busy struggling to fill my aching lungs with air.

“Do you know the real reason I killed her that way?” she demanded. “I didn’t back her up, that’s why—even if the others come back, she won’t. She’s gone, and nothing your masters do will bring her back. How’s that for the dogs, huh? How’s that? We took down one of the kennel keepers!”

“But only one . . .” I whispered.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll kill as many as it takes.” She slapped me again, snapping my head to the side. “Why you and not me? Why did they want you? My blood’s more pure than yours! Why are you their lapdog while they keep me in the kennels? Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Her hands closed around my throat again, and the black spots surged back.

“I hate you!” Gordan screamed. I closed my eyes, going limp, and waited to die.

The sound of splintering wood made me open my eyes. Gordan’s hands loosened, losing their grip as she spun toward the source of the sound. April was standing behind her, holding the remains of a folding chair in both hands. I’d never seen the Dryad look so solid, and for once the look on her face was something more than a pale mimic of the people around her. It was bone-deep and weary, and very real.

“Let her go, Gordan,” she said.

“Go back to your computer, April,” said Gordan. “This isn’t your concern.”

“You hurt Mommy,” April said, sounding puzzled. “You said she’d come back like the others. But now you say she won’t, and I think you’re telling the truth. Why did you lie to me?”

“Go home, April!”

“You killed my mother!” April brought the chair down again, hard enough that it shattered against Gordan’s back. Gordan released me, swinging at her instead. I pulled away, moving along the catwalk, stopping to catch my breath once I was out of reach. I still had the gun—a fact that Gordan seemed to have forgotten.

“April, you don’t want to start with me,” Gordan said, ripping the remains of the chair out of the Dryad’s hands and grabbing her by the hair, using it as a lever to sling her away. April yelped and slammed into the wall next to Quentin, going down in a crumpled heap. I couldn’t see her breathing, but that didn’t worry me: the impact hadn’t been that hard, and I’d never seen her actually breathe.

Gordan had turned while I was watching April fall. I didn’t see her move until she was on top of me, trying to grab the gun away. I shoved her as hard as I could before I had a chance to think. She stumbled away, falling toward the gap in the catwalk rail.

“Gordan, look out!” I shouted.

The warning seemed to startle her. She stumbled back another six inches, heels leaving the catwalk. She teetered on the edge, glancing over her shoulder and going white as she realized how far she had to fall. I dropped the gun and rushed forward, holding out my hands. “Gordan, quick! Grab hold of me!”

There was a choice there. It was a brief one, and a hard one, but it was still a choice. Faerie justice isn’t kind—there’s very little mercy in the immortal—and we both knew they’d never kill her. Death is too much of a stranger to the Fair Folk; they never kill if they can help it. If I saved her, she’d stand before a fae Court and be judged by immortal standards . . . forever.

Gordan looked at the differences between her possible fates, weighing an eternity of punishment against a moment of pain, and she chose the mortal option. In the end, her humanity won. Her arms stopped pinwheeling and dropped to her sides. I saw the moment of decision and lunged, still reaching for her hand, and for an instant she was almost, barely in reach. I grabbed for her . . .

. . . and caught nothing but air. She fell in silence, eyes open all the way down. I looked away just before she hit the concrete. It didn’t change a thing. Maybe I didn’t see her hit the bottom, but I could still hear it. She never made a sound; gravity did it for her, and the silence that followed told me that she hadn’t survived the impact.

Wearily, I moved to kneel beside Quentin, reaching for his wrist. His pulse was weak but steady; he probably hadn’t even realized he wasn’t in the futon room anymore. I lifted my head, calling, “Elliot? Can you hear me?”

There was no reply from below. I winced, offering my hand to April, and said, “It’s done now. You can get up.”

She lifted her head. “Will everything be better now?”

“No. It won’t. I’m sorry.”

“Will Quentin remain on the network?”

“I think so, yeah. Elliot, too.” It was over now. If Elliot was alive, Sylvester’s healers would wipe away the damage like it had never existed. He and Quentin would be fine. I wondered if they’d keep the scars, or if the scars they carried inside would be all that was left to remind them.

She stood slowly, asking, “Will my mother come back on-line now?”

There were no words to answer that. I gathered Quentin into my arms and rose, waiting for her to understand.

“Oh,” she said finally, and looked down. Something in her had changed, something more than her new depth of emotion. She looked, for lack of a better term, real. “Where is she now?”

How do you explain the concept of the soul to someone whose immortality is kept in electrons and wire? You can’t. So I told her the truth: “I don’t know.”

“She won’t come back? Not ever?”

“No, April, she won’t. Not ever.”

“Oh.” She vanished, the air rushing into the space she’d occupied, and then appeared again. “Gordan has left the network. Elliot has not.” Almost timidly, she added, “I secured his wounds to stop the bleeding, when Gordan was waiting for me. Was this right?”

“It was perfect,” I said. I needed the confirmation about Gordan, but I hadn’t wanted it. No death is pretty, or fair; Faerie wasn’t born to die, and neither were her children.

“Good,” she said, and looked up at me, eyes wide. “Who will take care of me now?”

“You’re going to have to take care of yourself.”

“Can I?”

“I don’t think you have a choice.”

“Oh,” she said. Then, quietly, she asked, “For right now, until they come and take Gordan’s hardware . . . can we pretend that you’ll take care of me?”

“We can,” I said, and smiled sadly, shifting Quentin onto my left arm so that I could offer her my hand. She laced her fingers through mine, flesh cool and slightly unreal—not that it mattered. Reality is what you make it.

We needed to get Quentin down; we needed to get Elliot someplace safe. But for just a moment we stood together in the dark, looking out across the darkened room, and the sound of our heartbeats mingled with the hushed whispering of the night-haunts’ wings.