The Lucifer desk

13

Pita sat in a corner of the main branch of the Seattle library, wedged into a space between two stacks of archaic twentieth-century books. She’d run here after escaping from the Yakuza at the hotel, and hadn’t set foot outside since. The library offered everything a street kid needed-warmth, shelter from the rain, washrooms to clean up in, free entertainment, and the cafeteria had plenty of vending machines that offered Growliebars, soykaf, and nutrisoy snacks. Best of all, the library was open twenty-four hours a day. The only trick was in avoiding the security guards. who would turf out anyone they caught sleeping.

The secret was to keep moving from one area of the building to the next. Pretend you were scanning a chip at one of the data displays in the reading room, and had fallen asleep because it was boring. Then catch a nap in one of the viewing booths on the second floor. Then off to the children’s department, where animated holos played continuously. The volume was a little intense, but the padded benches were soft. Then over to the reference department, where you could use an old piece of datacord to make it appear you were jacked into one of the municipal decks. If you could sleep sitting up, it was easy to look as if you had merely closed your eyes to eliminate noncybernetic input.

But the best place to crash was in the tiny, cramped section that contained old-fashioned hardcopy-books. The aisles were narrow and cluttered, and hardly anybody could be bothered with the cumbersome task of turning pages and manually scanning each one. The data display units, with their instantaneous keyword searches, animated holo graphics, and automated download systems were vastly more popular.

By moving from one area of the library to the next, Pita had been able to catch a few quick, brief naps. When morning broke and her stomach began to rumble, she jimmied one of the vending machines and grabbed a Growliebar and a kaf, then returned to the hardcopy section. She pulled the paperback she’d stolen from Aziz’s shop out of her pocket and began to look through it. The colorful illustrations called to her somehow, and she couldn’t stop looking at them. They aroused in her a curiosity that the vis-aids at school never had. Driven by yearning to know more about these fascinating images, the forced herself to read the accompanying text.

Most of it was pretty complicated and difficult to understand. But Pita was able to glean a few of the basic concepts. According to the book, everything-people, plants, stones-even the book she held in her hands existed both in the physical world and in astral space. But there were some things whose true form could only be seen in astral space-totem animals, for example. Like the one called Cat.

The human shaman who followed Cat could do the same thing. And it was the totem that did the choosing, not the other way around. It wasn’t just a matter of getting someone to give you magical training, or of building a “medicine lodge”-whatever that was. You could do all that drek, and still not become a shaman. Not until Cat called you.

Pita smiled at that one. It sounded pretty silly. She imagined a cat calling to her, just as her old neighbors had called their pet cat home at supper time. Instead of, “Here kitty, kitty, kitty! Come and get your dinner!” it would be, “Heeere Pita! Come and get your magic!”

Tired of reading. Pita set the book down and sat with her chin on her knees, thinking. A lot of strange drek had happened to her over the past couple of days. First there’d been the dream she’d had in the studio that had warned her about the disguise the elf mage would use to lure her out of the news station. She should have paid more attention to that. And then there was the weird trance that Pita had been able to put on the yakuza guard, back at the hotel room. Did that mean she had some kind of magical talent? She hoped so. Because that would also mean she wasn’t just another gutterpunk-some ugly ork girl that didn’t amount to anything. She was magic. She was special.

Pita’s mouth broke into a wide grin as she thought about the possibilities. Just wait until she met up with those kids from her old school who’d called her “porkie.” She’d show them.

She heard footsteps, and looked up. A security guard-the same one who’d rousted her earlier from another corner of the library-rounded one of the stacks. Spotting her, he stopped, then pointed a finger at her.

“All right, kid, this is your last chance,” he said. “This is a library, not a hotel for street trash. You’ve been here for hours, and now it’s time to go. Shift your sorry ass out of here.”

Pita smiled smugly at him. Staring hard at the man, she visualized him turning around, walking away. She curled her hand into a claw. “Go” she whispered. Leave me alone.”

Nothing happened. Pita’s heart began to beat more rapidly. The power that had infused her earlier had deserted her. She was alone again. Just a powerless kid, about to be turfed back out on the street, out into the open where the yakuza could find her.

She looked wildly around, preparing to make a break for it. But she couldn’t focus clearly. Something had happened to her vision. The shelves around her had gone all shimmering and fuzzy, and the books on them were translucent. The guard had a weird glow surrounding him, an ugly purple and green smudge that she instinctively recognized as his anger.

Pita had a wild image of her eyes gone round and small, with pupils that were slitted, like a cat’s. She imagined her ears flattened back against her head in fear. Was she going crazy? Was this a Mindease flashback? Or was this some new sort of magical power manifesting itself? If so, it wasn’t helping any. She felt so dizzy she didn’t trust herself to move.

The guard’s hand fastened around her collar. He yanked Pita to her feet. All at once, the world snapped back into focus as her vision returned to normal.

“I said move!”

“But my book…” Pita twisted around to see where had gone. The book had fallen to the floor.

“You planning on taking out a book, kid? You got a library card?”

“I don’t need one,” Pita protested. “That book is mine. I brought it in with me.”

“Sure, kid.” He picked up her book and reached up to place it on the shelf.

Pita grabbed his arm. “It is mine,” she insisted, wrenching the book out of his hand. She flipped open the torn cover. “Look. There’s no library code.”

“That does it.” The guard was really slotted off now. ‘Out!” Grabbing Pita by the collar of her jacket, he hustled her through the library and out the door. She twisted, she protested, but the guard was as oblivious to her complaints as he had been to her silent mental commands. She was pushed put the revolving doors and onto the sidewalk.

Pita stood outside the library, shivering in the cold night air. She stuffed her book into a pocket, then slammed her fist against a pole that was holding up an awning. She was rewarded with a shower of water that doused her hair. From inside the building, through the glass of the revolving door, the guard watched to make sure she would leave. Pita tried again to penetrate his thoughts, to make him turn away, but even though she concentrated so hard that her head hurt, nothing happened. It seemed her magical talents appeared only when they felt like it. She couldn’t call upon them at will. And that was fragging useless. Unless…

Pita flipped the finger at the guard, then trudged away up the street. If she went back to Aziz’s shop, maybe the mage could put her in touch with a shaman who could help her. At the very least, she needed someone to explain what had just happened to her, to assure her that she wasn’t going crazy after all. Aziz would probably still be slotted off at her for telling the yakuza that he had the Mitsuhama datachip. But if she explained that they’d forced her to tell them, they’d have killed her if she didn’t, he’d probably understand. She was just a kid, after all. Not a powerful mage like him. And knowing that sly fragger, he'd probably have made a dozen copies of the chip by now. He'd have handed the yaks the original chip, befuddled them with a spell, and sent them on their way.

For now, Pita didn’t worry about how she would persuade Aziz to help her. She might have to flatback for him, or trade him some favor. But one way or another she was determined to satisfy the curiosity that her strange experiences had awakened in her.

Pita stood in the rain, guilt washing over her. Across the street, where Aziz’s shop had been, was an empty, blackened ruin. The stores on either side were intact, but the space between them was a darkened concrete shell, the interior filled with soggy piles of charred books and fallen ceiling tiles. Rain streaked across the broken shards of glass that still hung in the place where the front window had been, smearing soot across the ornate scrollwork. The smell of scorched wood, wet paper, and melted plastic hung in the air like a shroud.

People walking along the sidewalk in front of the store seemed oblivious to its demise. They hurried along the sidewalk, chins tucked against the evening rain. The burned-out shop was empty, devoid of life. Pita wondered if Aziz had died in there, and if the inferno had been triggered by the spirit somehow slipping in through a crack in his magical defenses. But perhaps he’d had some warning and was able to escape.

A flash of white amid the charred remains of the shop caught Pita’s eye. Something was moving in there, in among the ruined books. Pita pulled back into the shadow of a doorway, hoping it wasn’t some spirit left by the yakuza mage to watch for her. But then the creature slipped out through the empty window, and Pita saw what it was. She breathed a sigh of relief, recognizing the shop’s cat.

The cat was probably hungry and looking for its master. Pita reached into her pocket, found the nutrisoy bar she’d boosted from the library vending machine. It was supposed to smell and taste like smoked beef. She wasn't sure if the artificial flavors could fool a cat, but it was worth a try.

Pita waited for a break in traffic, then slipped across the street. She crouched beside the broken window, unwrapped the bar, and held it out to the cat. The animal approached delicately, whiskers twitching as it snifed the food. Then it started lapping at the salty coating with a pink tongue. Pita crumbled off a corner of the bar and dropped it on the ground. The cat ate it, then looked up plaintively at her with one yellow eye done blue, and mrrowed.

Pita gave the cat more of the bar, then scratched it behind the ears while it ate. “That’s it, kitty,” she said. “You can’t afford to be finicky when you’re on the streets. You eat what you can get, and sleep where you can. I hope you have a dry place to curl up for the night.” The cat turned and trotted down the sidewalk. Curious to see where it was going, Pita followed it around the corner. The animal padded down the sidewalk for another half block, then turned into an alley. At first, Pita couldn’t see where it had gone. But then she spotted the cat’s tail disappearing through a broken window.

The window was at ground level and led to the basement of a department store. The glass was broken, and the mesh that had covered it was loose at one side. It would be a simple matter to yank it away, reach inside, and turn the latch.

Kneeling beside the window, Pita peered into a darkened room and a jumble of old junk. Mannequins lay on top of rigid foam boxes, display signs had been piled up in a corner, and an old sink fixture lay broken on the floor. A thick layer of dust covered everything; Pita could see the cat’s footprints on several of the boxes. It was obvious that no one had entered the room in ages.

Pita glanced up the alley to make certain no one was passing by. Then she eased the mesh cover from the window, It squeaked a little, but soon she could reach inside. She shoved on the rusted latch, and the window opened. She slithered inside, feet first. Then she closed the window and reached between the shards of broker glass to pull the mesh back into place.

The room was quite dark; only a little light filtered in through the dirty glass of the broken alley window. Above, the store was silent, closed for the evening.

Satisfied that nobody would disturb her, Pita lay on her side behind some boxes, next to a heating vent. The cat leaped down beside her, then rubbed its head against her hand. Pita stroked it, then yawned. She hadn’t slept that well the night before; the security guards at the library had kept her from taking more than a series of brief naps. This place was much better. Warm, dry, a little dusty, but a good place curl up. Here she could hole up for a while to hide from the yakuza. She cuddled the cat against her chest, pretending it was Chen. She hadn’t felt this safe in…

She awoke from a fitful sleep to the sound of boards creaking overhead. Sunlight was streaming through the broken window and people were moving about in the store above. From somewhere down the hall came the sound of water gurgling in pipes.

Pita sat up and stretched. She was hungry, and still tired, and needed to go to the washroom. She stood, brushed the dust from her jeans, and made her way to the door. Opening it a crack, she peered out into the hallway. Like the room she’d slept in, the corridor was also piled with junk. Pita stepped between storage boxes and battered display signs, testing the doors as she went. Most of them were locked, including one at the end of a short flight of steps. Pressing her ear against it, she heard nothing. She decided it must lead to the store above. From the amount of dust on the landing, she doubted it had been opened in recent months.

Pita retraced her steps and found an unlocked door. She reached in and groped for a light pad. Palming on the light, she saw that this was a washroom. The fixtures were old and stained, but when she tried the taps she found that they still worked. She shut them off quickly; the running water made a hollow, groaning sound in the pipes.

Pita smiled at her discovery. All she had to do to avoid detection was time her uses of the washroom to coincide with shoppers’ visits to the bathroom in the store above. The water that rushed down through the connecting pipes would hide any noise.

In the meantime, she could stay here. There was a Growlie Gourmet and a Stuffer Shack just down the block. She ought to be able to boost a few snacks from the latter, and if she timed her visits to the dumpster behind the restaurant right, she’d be able to snag the kitchen scraps before they went bad. She wondered what time it was, and tried to remember when she’d last had a decent meal. She was pretty fragging hungry. And despite her sleep, she felt jangly and weird. She could tell herself over and over again that she was safe now, that she had found a place of refuge from the two goons who’d jumped her. But she still felt tense and on edge.

Something soft rubbed against Pita’s ankles. She jumped, then realized it was only the cat. She picked it up and stroked its head, listening to its rumbling purr. If the cat had escaped the fire, perhaps Aziz had, too. And if he was still in the city, maybe he could help her, could put her in touch with a shaman who could tell her if she really did have any magical talent. Running the type of shop that he did, Aziz must have known plenty of people who practiced magic.

There was just one problem. Aside from the shop- which now lay in ruins-Pita had no idea where to find Aziz. He might be listed in the city directory, but she doubted if he’d just be sitting at home, waiting for the yakuza to come and get him, No. it was fragging hopeless. She’d never find him.

Pita heard footsteps in the alley outside, and ducked as she saw someone walking past the grimy window. It was someone in suit pants, someone with expensive shoes. A yakuza? Her heart thudded in her chest until the footsteps had faded into the general traffic noise.

She held the cat close against her, stroking it with one trembling hand. The animal gave a soft mrrow and rubbed its cheek against her chin in response. Pita closed her eyes and nuzzled against its soft fur. She’d wait until later to venture outside, until there weren’t so many people on the streets. She’d just have to ignore the rumbling in her stomach and the dizzy feeling in her head. Her life was on the line here, and she didn’t want to risk it for a fragging Growlie Bar.