Uncertain Allies

11

A few hours of brooding drove me out of the apartment in search of a drink. Half my favorite bars in the Weird were gone, casualties of the firestorm that had swept through the neighborhood. I wasn’t all that welcome in a number of the remaining ones. People blamed me for a lot of things that had happened, not least of which were the fires and the shootings and the riot. I might have had a noticeable ego in the past, but even I would have had a hard time rationalizing my ability to cause that much damage. Maybe some of it, but not all.

I went to a variety of bars for a variety of reasons. I went to quiet dives where I could sit at the bar, stare into my beer, tap the bar top for another without having to speak, and go home nicely drunk and depressed. I went to loud dives where I could hang on the bar, watch people in various stages of joy or desperation, and go home nicely drunk and bemused. Some places I went because I was being social, others because of the food, and still others for the eye candy. I rarely went to clique bars like a sports or leather place. I preferred the places that a sports fan can hang out with someone in chaps and not find it the least bit ironic or odd. Sometimes, I needed a space with no judgments, no demands, and plenty of indulgence.

Which brought me right where I needed to be that night, a dark, nameless club that was invitation only. One look around the place revealed that wasn’t something to be impressed with. I sat at the dim end of the room, a Guinness warming on the table as I watched a state senator smile into a cloud of fairy dust. Protocol dictated that I did not see him, did not know him, and that was fine. We all needed a place to escape sometimes. Some people needed to cross lines. Some lines needed to be crossed. Druids liked to live by the code of “do no harm,” which in politics often translated to “no harm, no foul,” even if the action was a bit foul.

Carmine slid into my booth, a mixture of scents wafting off his clothes, smoke and sex and liquor, the stale funk of a night of partying. With Carmine, it was always a party. He owned the bar and several others, provided party services for a steep price and coveted discretion. He smiled in the darkened booth, tiny sharp teeth flashing against his deep red complexion. “Connor, my friend, it pleases me to see you drink, but not with that look on your face.”

“I’ve had a bad run the past couple of days.”

He chuckled. “I might have heard about that. I’m beginning to think I might need to learn a trick or two from you about how to end an evening.”

I sipped my beer. “Avoid armored tanks.”

“Yes, I imagine they are a bitch to park,” he said.

A thin elf, skin blue and stippled black, delivered a flute of champagne to Carmine. He checked my drink, then glanced up with a smile. Changes in essence around him radiated soothing calm with a touch of desire. “Anything more?” he asked.

“I’m good,” I said.

Carmine watched him with the assessing gaze of a marketer looking through the eyes of a consumer. “He’s very good, don’t you think? Subtle work. He has this lovely trick of making people feel like they had no plan to come in and end up in the back room.”

I took a long swig of my beer. “Sure. Not wanting to take responsibility for your actions is not all that surprising. Blame it on someone else. No recriminations.”

Carmine tapped the champagne flute along his teeth. “Imagine—some people hate themselves for enjoying themselves.”

I grunted. “I could use a little of that kind of hate.”

Carmine draped himself across the booth, leaning on the edge of the table and propping his foot up on the seat. “Connor, Connor, Connor. Self-pity doesn’t become you. I thought you had gotten past that.”

I slumped back, rested the beer on my hip. “I’m responsible for a lot of dead, Carmine. I’m not happy about it.”

“The Wheel of the World turns as It will, Connor. I have the scars to prove it,” he said.

Carmine had the right to say it. Some of those scars he wore were because of me. Mistaken identities will do that to a person. I dropped my head back. “But I’m sick of hearing that stuff, Carmine. I’m sick of people doing shit and shrugging it off as fate or the Wheel or bad luck. I did shit. I’m trying to make up for it. I want to. Instead, all that happens is people biting my ass for reasons that have nothing to do with me.”

At first, I thought a trick of the light darkened the booth, but then I realized the darkness clustered around Carmine. He sipped long on his champagne, his tiny sharp teeth a slash of white in shadow as a feral yellow glinted in his eye. “Do you know what I do, Connor? Truly know? Do you know the price for the services I provide? I hold a mirror up to people’s desires and give them what they think they want. I give people what they want and make them pay for it. But the price isn’t coin, Connor. That’s the surface, the lie, if you will, that we hide behind to salve our consciences. What lies beneath is the soul of the matter, everyone’s soul. The Wheel of the World turns, but people make It turn. and the Wheel responds by turning as It will without regard to our petty desires or hopes and dreams. It turns the way It will, sometimes random, sometimes true, and that is the fate we all must face. It turns, Connor, and gives us the chance to keep It turning for good or ill. We always have a choice. Taking responsibility is one choice, but it isn’t the only one. Not taking responsibility turns the Wheel, too. Either way, no one gets away with anything because there are always changes and results, ramifications and consequences.”

His voice became one with the shadow around him. “You’re not angry about the Wheel. You’re not angry about people not taking responsibility. You’re not even angry about the things you’ve done. You’re angry about time, Connor. Time reveals answers and not always when we want them or if we want them. That’s the Wheel, too. Time will come and go in time enough for what you need. Patience rewards, but action satisfies. Choose between them carefully because they, too, will cause more time still. Choose your time.”

The shadows dissipated. As Carmine stopped speaking, the music in the club became louder, and the conversational voices around us rose in volume. I inhaled as if I had remembered to breathe. Carmine stared at me now with a pleasant smile, the horned ridge of his eyebrows lifting in thought or a challenge to deny his words.

I stared back, letting what he said sink in. “Yeah, that’s not making me feel better.”

He laughed in a staccato of high barks. “You say that as if that was my intention.” He pulled a small granite block from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Touch it,” he said.

I rubbed my finger across the top of the cube. A short flash of essence danced up my arm and slipped into my face. Blood rushed to my head, a warm flush that spread throughout my body. My heart beat in my ears, a soft, thick pulse that reminded me of a soothing drumbeat. My skin tingled as the rush faded. We called them blushies when I was a kid. I chuckled. “I haven’t played with those in years.”

Carmine tilted his head to the side. “Then you’ve missed some interesting modifications. No headaches, for one. Timed release. Intensity controls. They’ve come a long way.”

The idea was tempting and no more unusual in the fey world than drinking. “Thanks, Carmine. I think I’ll see where the night takes me.”

Carmine slid out of the booth as pink essence flashed in the air. Joe wobbled above the table, oversize sunglasses pressed against the bridge of his nose. “It’s dark as the bottom of a keg in here,” he said.

I glanced at Carmine, but spoke to Joe. “The glasses, Joe. Funny you showing up here.”

He settled to the table, removing the glasses and staring at them as if he’d never seen them before. He tossed them over his shoulder into the next booth and cocked his head at Carmine. “Dare I think that’s a bar behind you, Master Red?”

“Your powers of observation astound as always, Master Pink.” Carmine placed a plastic red card on the table next to my elbow. He nodded at the stone cube. “We have a wide selection of those. Consider yourself my guest for the rest of the evening, Connor. The rooms in the back are at your disposal.”

“You don’t have to do that, Carmine,” I said.

He bowed. “Of course not, but sometimes I do things I think are necessary at the time.” He nodded to Joe. “Master Pink.”

Joe tapped his head and bowed. “Master Red.”

Carmine strolled away as the waiter reappeared. He placed a small chair on the table for Joe, two mugs of Guinness in flit glasses beside it, and a full pint in front of me. Joe picked up a mug and draped himself on the chair, dangling his feet over one of its arms. He raised his mug. “To the good red man!”

“To Carmine,” I said, and tapped.

Joe hummed as he surveyed the bar. “Busy in here.”

“Carmine called you, didn’t he?”

He looked at me with half-closed eyes. “I would have been here soon or later, making the rounds. You think you’re the only morose guy bitter at the world that I know? I have a schedule, you know.”

Joe knew my ancestors, stood beside them on battlefields and watched people die over the right to lands that didn’t even exist anymore. It was hard to feel like my issues were important around him. Not that he didn’t care what I was going through, but he had a way of reminding me that I wasn’t alone and that anything that was happening now had happened before and will again. It was the Wheel of the World. I chuckled as I drained my glass and pulled the new pint closer.

“How’d you make out with the elf?” I asked.

He downed his glass and picked up the second. “Very strange. I lost him. One moment he was there, the next gone. Never saw an elf do that.”

“Did he ghost?” I asked. The fey, especially ones with strong body essence, had the ability to move at extreme speeds.

Joe feigned an insulted glare. “Do you really think someone ghosting can get away from me?”

I shrugged. “Just asking.”

“Nope. He turned a corner and vanished. Not a trace of essence left behind. It was like he fell in a hole.”

I grunted as I drank my beer. “I wish I could fall in a hole.”

Joe grinned. “I feel a bender coming on.”

“That, my friend, sounds like a perfect idea. I don’t want to think about tomorrow.”

He downed his second mug and sighed. “See, now, in the same situation, I can’t wait to see what happens.”

Amused, I crumpled a bar napkin and tossed it at him. He tilted his head and used his toe to nudge at the card Carmine had left. “Are you going to use that? I’ve heard rumors about some interesting new entertainments.”

Meryl’s vacant stare flitted through my mind. She wouldn’t care if I lost myself in some mindless recreation. Depending on the situation, she’d toss me out the door to go play if I was not on her agenda for the night. I didn’t want to, though. Tonight, it would have felt like an indulgence and not in a good way. Beer was enough for what I needed right then. I pushed the card closer to Joe. “I’m not in the mood. Take notes for me.”

He spun the card on the tip of his finger, cheating by using essence to keep it aloft. “Oh, I’m sure Carmine has video.”