Wicked Bronze Ambition

82

Mariska Machtkess kept moving. We walked and walked without catching up. Each time Moonblight thought we were there, we found that Mariska had gone on.

“She’s just being careful,” Tara Chayne said. “While she’s waiting for something. She’ll settle somewhere eventually.”

We burglarized a couple of Mariska’s stopping places. Neither was occupied. Neither produced anything of interest.

The last place looked like it had been tossed already. Tara Chayne observed, “The Operator organization may have slipped into panic mode. Mariska may not be the only villain on the run.”

“We rattled them good, then.”

“Maybe. I hope so. But I’m more inclined to think that somebody familiar with the Black Orchid recognized her work. Orchidia Hedley-Farfoul is a lot scarier than either of us. Scarier to some than even Constance.”

“Gah!” That was pretty scary.

“Exactly. With Orchidia there is no hype. She is as bad as your imagination can make her, and then some. Unlike Constance, she doesn’t look the part. Constance wants you to know, at one glance, that she is terror on the hoof and the only safe place is where she isn’t. But if you ran into Orchidia on the street you wouldn’t give her a second glance-though your chances of actually doing that are slim. She’s been a recluse since she came home from the Cantard.”

Common enough. TunFaire is a vast, bustling, rowdy metropolis, but you really only ever see a fraction of its people. There are day people, night people, morning people, twilight people, all forming their own tribes. There are humans and nonhumans. Each affinity constitutes a city within the city. And then there are those who came home damaged, members of a tribe that is little seen. Their bodies came back absent something left to haunt the mountains and deserts and ten thousand jungle-cursed islands of the south.

It’s out there, all round, seen but not seen daily. Any veteran will recognize it at a glance. But I have to confess that I have never completely understood it. Granted, the war wasn’t pleasant. We saw ugly things. But I’m back home, it’s over, and now I deal with things equally ugly here.

In part, I guess, I haven’t vested myself in being a victim. Meaning, I do run into veterans who have made a career of suffering from aftereffects of what they survived. Not saying that isn’t real for some. Just thinking that a certain kind of personality feeds on the drama.

A lot seems to have to depend on where you wear your face. You manage all right if you have it on looking forward, but not so fine if all you want to do is look back.

Tara Chayne nailed me with the dreaded finger poke. “Think you can stay out of Fairyland long enough to deal if we get jumped?”

“Uh. .”

“That’s what I thought. I’m wondering if I might not be safer working alone.”

Brownie made a snuffling noise. For a moment I thought that was a rude opinion. But up ahead there, whichever mutt was scouting had stopped to stare into a grove of unnaturally dense shadows. Her fur was up and her teeth were showing, but she wasn’t growling. Yet.

Tone amused, Tara Chayne punned, “Point taken. You do have your more reliable auxiliaries.”

Whatever was out there, it did not terrify my girls. Number Two spread out left, the other unnamed mutt went right, and Brownie made like a good Marine, heading straight up the middle. All three laid on some fierce growling.

Moonblight called forth her spirit centipede. You’d think that thing would be invisible in a moonless dark. It wasn’t. It’s navy-indigo presence was hard to spot when it didn’t move, but when it did it coruscated with dull violet highlights. When it scuttled fast it shed random little purple-lilac sparks. Fairy sparkles trailed toward the shadow orchard, fast. I got the feeling that our potential antagonist had not been aware of what Moonblight had at her beck.

The dogs stopped, settled onto their haunches. They saw no need to get close enough to risk becoming collateral damage.