Laura Anne Gilman - Tales of the Cosa Nostradamus Read online

  “You’ve not been to a Gather recently,” it accused him.

  “Been busy.” Pizza cost money, unless you were willing to mug the delivery guy. P.B. was law-abiding, within reason. So if he wanted to eat, he had to work. He was, as he had just so deftly proved, a damn good courier–objects or information, carried safely from one place to another. A lot of demon did that, the ones who didn’t go in for bodyguard stints. He wasn’t much for violence, so that career path was out, but he was no slouch, either. He also had excellent vision and a better memory, so the person who robbed him did so at their peril.

  His memory was his real asset, though, even more than claws or muscle. Couriering paid well, but not so well as his secondary career–gossip. He made a habit to learn who and how and where and why, for as wide a range of questions possible. It might not seem important at the time, but you never knew what someone might be interested in. So the past few weeks he’d been spending with his ear to the ground in and around some of the less reputable places where gossip hung out, hearing what there was to hear. But, from the way the creature was still grinning down at him, he might have missed a bigger story. Something someone might be willing to pay real greenbacks for.

  “All right, pleasantries out of the way. Spill.”

  “Spill what?”

  Innocent eyelash fluttering worked better when you didn’t look like the misbegotten offspring of a squirrel and a squid. And had actual eyelashes to flutter.

  “Okay, if you don’t have anything of interest, I’ll be on my way, then.”

  The fatae leapt from one branch to another with annoying grace, keeping pace with the demon as he walked along the shaded path. It took all of seven paces–P.B. was counting–before it let out a heavy sigh.

  “You’re no fun any more. Spending too much time with humans.”

  “They’re where the money is. Spill.”

  “You’ll share?”

  “Have I ever not?”

  “Anchovies, this time. I like anchovies.”

  P.B. kept from shuddering, merely nodding gravely and making a complicated gesture with the claws of his left hand. “With anchovies, just for you.”

  “There’s something hunting piskies.”

  P.B. stumbled on a non-existent tree root, catching himself awkwardly before he fell. His form, which a human had once not-unkindly described as an ape crossed with a polar bear, was not made for graceful.

  “Einnie didn’t say anything to me about it.” Like the thought had never occurred to him, like he’d not been judiciously contemplating exactly that possibility. Like he hadn’t thought about breaking protocol and asking Einnie, flat-out, if something–someone–was bothering her. He would never have done it... but he had thought about it.

  The creature shrugged, tossing an acorn in the air and catching it in its impossible wide-opening mouth with a loud crunch. “Maybes they don’t know? Maybes they know and don’t tell demon.”

  That was possible. Being known as a seller of information meant that you had to ferret it out; people didn’t just hand stuff over if they didn’t want it on the market. Although P.B. would think that having something hunting you would be something you’d want known, so others could keep an eye out…

  “Why are you telling me, then?” If the piskies didn’t want to share, who was he to insist? Protocol was there for a reason. Nobody wanted another species up in their business, Cosa or no.

  The creature pointed one tiny clawed finger at him. “Piskies are being foolish. Clannish. What hunts them, it may not stop there. You walk all worlds. You talk, listen, hear. Are listened to, on occasion. If this is more than piskie-hunting, you will know.”

  “And do what?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Yeah, right. Look, I don’t –“

  P.B. stopped mid-scoff. The branch above him was empty.

  “Well. Damn.”

  oOo

  There was a way to gather gossip, and a way to do research. They might look the same, to casual observers, but one was much harder than the other. Gossip, everyone wanted to share. Information? Not so much. It took P.B. three days–three days he should have been scouting out real work, paying work–to discover that there wasn’t anything to discover.

  He wasn’t even sure why he was bothering. Cosa was Cosa, sure. In theory, all fatae were united. Practical application had always been a lot shakier. And there wasn’t anything in this for him, far as he could see.

  “You sure you don’t know anything?”

  The angel gave him the most supercilious eyeballing imaginable, one delicate brow climbing all the way back into its slicked-back blonde hair. Wasn’t an angeli existing that didn’t think its sweat didn’t stink...and that all that stink had washed down into demonkind. “I know many things. None of which I would share with you.”

  Right. Like that was a surprise.

  A real detective, now, would slip a reluctant snitch a twenty, or do something to ensure future info would be sweet. He wasn’t a real detective. He wasn’t even a faux one. And he knew no matter how many twenties he folded into anyone’s palm, that was all they were going to give him: nothing.

  It was time to go back to basics.

  oOo

  “A piskie? I should care about them, why?” Andolf made a rude noise, particularly spluttery through his sucker-like mouth, and P.B. thought about just stomping the shizida–a narrow, snake-like creature from the deserts of the Middle East–flat under his foot. It wouldn’t even take much effort, because the thing was as dry and fragile-looking as the ecosystem it came from.

  And the thought was as good as the deed, his clawed foot lashing out and knocking the foot-long fatae onto its back, three black claws almost but not quite puncturing the unpleasantly oily skin of its stomach.

  “Hey, ow!” The shizida was a new immigrant to the city; P.B. didn’t think much of its survival chances if it caved this quick under a little physical coercion. “Why me? Do I have sign, stomp on me like worm?”

  “Only because you look like one.” P.B. could produce the elocution of an Oxford don when he chose to, but the inflection of a Brooklyn slugger always seemed to produce better results. “Come on, Andolf, ya wuss. I’d say show a little backbone, but you don’t got one, do you? If I step a little harder on you, you’ll just go squoosh, won’t you?”

  “Bite me, demon.”

  P.B. hated that, the way other fatae made his breed into some kind of title, and not one of respect, either. He’d been hearing too much of it lately. Time to make it pay for him. Widening his eyes and opening his mouth slightly, the demon allowed the streetlamp overhead to catch the glint of his sharpened teeth and blood-red eyes. “You wouldn’t even make me an after dinner mint.”

  “Ow! Look, demon. If I knew anything I’d tell you. Just get offa my neck!”

  Stretched out on its back, Andolf's seven tiny arms waved madly, the seventh, in the middle of its thorax, pausing long enough to make a rude gesture, while the seven legs kicked helplessly. The main defense of the shizida was a noxious fume that was reputed to strip the gloss off chrome. P.B.’s leathery black nose wrinkled in anticipation, but the assault didn’t come.

  Interesting. It didn’t want to piss him off. Which meant ...something. Or nothing. Damn it, he couriered information, he didn’t interpret it. All he knew was that the fatae was lying to him. About something.

  But one thing the demon did know was that when everyone was singing the same song–don’t know a thing, can’t tell you a thing–the lie usually hid a truth, somewhere. P.B. didn’t believe in conspiracies. Too few people, fatae or otherwise, were capable of holding a secret that long.

  “Talk to me,” he suggested, trying for a more reasonable tone, letting his lips cover his teeth again. “Or I might–oops, y’know, do that squoosh. Just ‘cause I don’t know my own weight.” He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to put any more weight on the thing’s belly. Pretty sure. Not positive. And if he didn’t know, himself...

  “Come
on, you little fishhook bait. Talk to me.”

  “Don’t. Know. Nuthin’.” But Andolf’s voice shook in fear far in excess of maybe getting his innards rearranged, and something an occasional employer had said to P.B. once resurfaced in his memory: it’s not when they’re telling you something dire that you should be nervous. It’s when they won’t tell you anything.

  o0o

  The Park at night was a scary place, even for a demon. Cop cars made random patrols, their headlights cutting through underbrush, sweeping the tree line, but never penetrating very far. Not even drug dealers came this far into the park, not this late at night. They weren’t scared; merely cautious. Things happened to people who wandered alone in this part of Central Park. Things that never made the evening news.

  “Hoogaboo—”

  P.B. pivoted and snarled at the goblin, who turned an interesting shade of puce and fled back into the underbrush.

  “Yep, I still got it,” he said in satisfaction, mock-polishing his claws against his fur and walking deeper into the brush. His white fur glimmered even in the moonless dark, faintly luminescent at the tips of each strand. The overcoat had been left at home tonight, as had the hat.

  Overhead, he could hear the faint chitter of the occasional squad of bats, or a solitary piskie, hunting in their wake. Underfoot, the soft whisper of grass, or the crunchier snap of twigs. And that was it. Contrary to popular belief, most of the fatae were daytime-dwellers, going about their 9-5, shoving for a seat on the subway, and standing in line at the coffee place, bitching about whoever was mayor at that particular moment. Every law-abiding fatae, and most of the ones that weren’t, were in whatever passed for their bed right now.

  Or, if they were sanitation workers, getting up and going on their rounds. He’d been told once that their union was almost 60% fatae, but nobody had ever paid him to verify it.

  Why he wasn’t in bed as well was something he’d given up trying to understand.

  “Screw this for a rotten lark,” he said, finally, after an hour of patrolling the underbrush had netted him nothing beyond a lot of twigs in his fur. P.B. could see quite well in the darkness, but he had been up and working for almost 24 hours now, and supernatural creature or no, his feet were beginning to get tired. So were his knees, his shoulders, his back, his...

  “Right. Fine.” He spotted a rock set into a small hillock that could double as a seat for a large child–or a demon of average height. And it glimmered like dirty marble, so he would blend into it, to the casual observer.

  As good a place as any to watch the area from, he figured. And try to figure out why he was doing this in the first damned place.

  oOo

  “Why?” They all asked that. Once. Maybe twice. Never a third time.

  “Because he is curious. Because he can.” The only answer there was to give.

  “You call him master.” Accusing. Hurt. Disbelieving.

  “He made us. We owe him our breath.”

  “We owe him nothing!”

  oOo

  “Hrmmm?” P.B. opened his eyes even as he was questioning what had woken him, coming to awareness the way his kind always woke; quickly, silently, and assuming the worst.

  It was almost dawn, the faintest grey-pink touching the sky overhead. Something moved, off to his left. And behind, no, over him, on top of the rock he had fallen asleep on. His muscles tensed, but other than a faint flexing of his paw-claws, he didn’t move.

  “Cheeeechachachcha...”

  A piskie, finishing up her night’s hunting. And pleased about it. That was in the coming-closer distance. Overhead...

  “You take the left quarter, Dobson’s on rear. Set?”

  “Yeah. No worries, this winged bitch won’t get past us.”

  P.B.’s nose twitched, taking in the flavor of the air wafting downwind from them. Humans. Not Cosa–they didn’t have that extra tang, like buttermilk, that marked a magic-user from a Null.

  “Stinking animals. Disgusting things.”

  “We’ll take care of them. First this one, then its nest. A good night’s work.”

  Nulls, talking like they knew about piskies. Were planning to harm piskies. Was this what had been hunting them? Humans? Nulls?

  Unlike most of the fatae, P.B. had never discounted Nulls simply because they had no magic. Lack of Talent did not make a human harmless.

  Hate-mongers. Vigilantes. Oh, he knew about those: from his earliest days, he knew about those who hate. But piskies? Annoying but hardly offensive, unless you’ve annoyed them, and even then you mostly have to look out for the rude practical joke. They can’t afford to be aggressive; their claws are too soft, their wings too weak, their bodies–

  Too easy to damage.

  Easy targets. Not human, no magic, no real defenses other than their wits. Exactly the kind of target cowards like the humans over him would look for. Something to make them feel like tough hunters, mighty monster-killers, Big Bigots on Campus.

  And P.B. had a sudden flash of understanding.

  It wasn’t that none of the fatae he questioned didn’t know. It was that nobody wanted to know.

  The Cosa Nostradamus thought that by looking away, it wouldn’t happen to them. As though these hatemongers–fataephobics–weren’t just getting warmed up.

  The fatae in this city were shit out of luck. And any human Talent who stopped to help them, likewise.

  P.B. has been there before. Holland, the land of his birthing. Transvaal. Armenia. Germany. He was older than he looked, and his memories carried the weight of all those years, the past decades in America doing little to lighten them. All he had done was shove them down, under the skin and into the bone.

  His bones ached, now.

  Master, why your kind must destroy as well as create...

  What he should do is go back to his apartment, throw whatever he couldn’t live without into a bag, and head for the city limits. And then keep going. Somewhere there weren’t many fatae. Weren’t any fatae.

  He owed them nothing. They cared nothing for him, had never done anything for him.

  He owned no-one anything.

  Blood. So much blood. Who would have thought the old man – stop Don’t think. Don’t hear echoes of anything any more. This is not a place of civilization. This is Hell

  Hide. Down. Cover. Branches over his head. Mud on his fur.

  “Hier! Ze hier zijn!”

  Feet, pounding. The weight of humans, carrying guns, the blades once sharp and glinting fixed at the ends.

  “Master! Master we must go!”

  “We go nowhere. This is my home. My work. Stand at the door, and let no one pass.”

  “Master! I will not die for you!”

  Silence.

  Blood. Blood everywhere. His fur, his eyes.

  Blood on his claws

  And the soldiers go past him, hunting other prey.

  oOo

  This thing, this hatred. It always starts with the weakest.

  The demon’s eyes glittered red in the pre-dawn light. This was nothing to do with him, nothing he could do anything about. He was a courier, a go-between. A neutral party.

  But, unlike some, his claws were hardened, and his teeth were sharp.

  And he was, he decided, so very tired of sitting out the fight.

  This story first appeared MURDER BY MAGIC, edited by Rosemary Edgehill (Aspect Books, 10/04). It features Wren Valere and her partner, Sergei Didier, as they are caught up in the fallout of a series of terrible deaths among the Talent of New York City — and discover an even more terrible secret….

  Overrush

  Wren Valere looked at the body sprawled in the alleyway in front of her and wanted to throw up.

  Okay, she thought, dead body. Not your problem. All you have to do is go on past him, hand the painting over to the client, and the damn job's done. It was twenty feet, tops. All she had to do was keep walking down the alley, slide past the dark green dumpster, and go home. Nothing to it. Piece of cake.


  Once she stepped over the body face-down and blocking the alley.

  "Bodies were not in the contract," she muttered, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of one latex-gloved hand. She thought about taking a deep breath, then looked around her surroundings and thought better of it. "Right. I can do this."

  Not that there was any other option. The Wren never left a job unfinished. That was the reputation her partner sold to nervous, twitchy clients. He talked the talk, and now she had to walk the walk…

  Stepping over the body was every bit as bad as she expected it to be–the paranoid fantasy of the corpse reaching up, grabbing her foot, pulling her down—but once she managed that, it was even worse. Every move she made was shadowed, like his ghost had decided to latch onto her like some phantasmic kitten.

  Wren didn't believe in ghosts. Mostly. Placing her feet firmly against the cracked sidewalk at the end of the alley, she exhaled once, slowly, letting all the remaining tension flow from her neck, through her shoulder muscles, down her arms and legs until she could practically feel it oozing out of her feet and fingers like toxic sludge. And with it, the buzz of unused current-magic still running her in her system, drawn back into the greater pull of the earth below her.

  When she opened her eyes again, the word seemed a little more drab somehow, her body heavier, less responsive. Current was worse than a drug; it was like being addicted to your own blood, impossible to avoid. All the myths and legends about magic, and that was the only thing they ever really got right: you paid the price with bits of yourself.

  She reached almost instinctively, touching the small pool of current generated by her own body. It sparked at her touch, like a cat woken suddenly, then settled back down. But she felt better, until she looked up and saw the body still there. And the ghostly presence weighted on the back of her neck again.