John triggered the umbrella with his thumb and held it over David’s head, as per usual. “No matter what happens, we are not going to maim or kill anyone, right?” he said tightly.
“Yes, of course! That’s the plan!” David replied, too quickly.
“David, I really mean it. We talked about this…”
“Ah-ah-ah.” David hushed him with a single gloved fingertip. “Yes, we did, and we’re not doing that again. We’re going somewhere nice and safe and ordinary — and within walking distance — and we are going to have fun. I gave you a pass last time, because you’re my favourite, but I am here to have fun, Johnny. If you need an alienist, call someone boring. Did somebody finally fix that rotten old door?” They’d gone out the side, but people were using the revolving door in the centre like it had always worked that way.
“I don’t know,” John muttered.
David stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and folded Erik’s arms.
“Miss Doubek says the management sent someone but there was some kind of mix-up and they didn’t tell her,” John said. “Now she’s trying to get them to send him again, but they’re not answering her calls. Can we move, please?” Pedestrians in Cyre treated the sidewalk like a two-lane highway, with no speed limit.
“All right,” David allowed, pulling back into traffic. “But you badly need someone to educate you in the art of deception and I am very, very available!”
“No, thank you,” John replied.
“Oh, I can wait. I’ve got time. I’ve got scads of time, Johnny. When you want me, you know where I’ll be!…”
◆◇◆
Chez Chatterbox was grimy, dimly lit, anonymous, and loud. It was after eight and the highballs were fifty-percent-off too. They had something they were calling “frites,” but cut much too thick, and the mayonnaise-based sauce they came with had sour cream in it for some reason. Prokovia liked Marsellia, or so they insisted, but they also felt everything Marselline needed some serious repair before it could be called “tasteful,” or even “decent.” Potatoes, yes. Rémoulade, no. Here. This is better!
It was okay. But John was craving a goddamn normal frite like oxygen, and these things were so heartbreakingly close.
He had to eat something or he was going to pass out on the floor trying to keep up with David, who was being extra solicitous this evening.
There were two flags hung on the wall behind the bar, Marsellia and Prokovia, together. It made him feel sort of sick. Or that could’ve been his dinner of mutant frites and cheap liquor.
John flagged down the bartender and cupped hands around his mouth to hopefully make himself heard: “Do you have. Any. Samosas?”
The bartender grinned at him. “Parly-voo Ang-lay? Ha-ha-ha…”
“Yeah. Super,” John muttered. “Kartofel’!” he attempted. “Potato, okay, like this? But… Empanada! You get me?” He cupped his hands around a frite and approximated the shape, while the bartender grinned. “Okay, okay. Potato, frite, but… pie, all right?”
The bartender signed two thumbs up and backed away, nodding and grinning.
“No idea if he thinks he understands me or if he thinks I’m nuts,” John muttered. He sighed and ate another frite.
David stroked him on the back and he damn near choked.
“There!” declared the man in obvious makeup and a gold mask. “No awkward accidents and I even washed his hands like a human being!” He tugged down both gloves, demonstrating. “Are you still eating?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He pushed the plate aside. Another plate intruded, with the bartender’s hand holding it. John tweezed a lukewarm pierogi between his fingers, nodded weakly, and then hung his head.
“All right, all right, leave that, come on.” David picked him up, straightened his jacket, and dusted him off. “I hear music, so let’s go dance.”
“Is he playing again?” John said fuzzily.
“Ah, if he is, everything else is too loud for me to tell!” David squealed and clapped his borrowed hands. “Ooh, listen, listen, it’s ABBA! I remember them! What year is it? Who won Eurovision?”
“It’s 1388, that’s ABBA Teen, and I have no ‘ovision’ — whatever that is,” John said.
“Well, this is some blatant plagiarism and I am loving it!”
“It’s more like a remix…” David was dragging him towards the dance floor. It was even louder in that direction.
“It’s faster and more obnoxious,” David crowed. “How fab! I love teenagers!” He beamed, already bouncing gleefully to the beat. “Pop culture is a boomerang — it always comes back! Oh! Find me Gray and a piano and we’ll bring down the house!”
“Who’s Gray?” John said, blinking.
“What’s grey?” David replied. “Oh, nevermind, nevermind. It’s impossible to have a conversation, thank gods!” He stepped back gamely and offered his hand. “I’m still free. Take a dance with me? Ha-ha…”
John sighed, nodded, and submitted. Dancing with David was a bit like taking a ride on a Tilt-o-Whirl. Once you were belted in, the door banged shut and you were at its mercy.
But it was pretty fun.
The floor lit up in dizzying chequered patterns like a syncotech, and the smoke-wreathed lights above pulsed to the beat. The dancers were wearing jewelled costumes, fairy wings, glitter, and even more lights, both electrical and chemical. At least one of them had a bubble wand. The volume of the music was oppressive, with occasional snatches of laughter, shouting, and thudding footsteps.
John rapidly lost all sense of where he was or even which way was up. If David had given him a twirl and let go, he would’ve plowed right into a wall, or the floor itself, or another dancer. But no matter where he staggered, the man in the gleaming gold mask was right there to catch him, redirect his momentum, and keep his whole world spinning — like a codependent gyroscope.
It was impossible to stop. Impossible to think. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing. But it hadn’t killed him yet!
All the while, the hamster-voiced teenaged version of ABBA kept extolling him to “take a chance.” He didn’t like that. It was like they were trying to hand him a gun with one or more bullets in the chamber. Sure! Give it a spin and pull the trigger, what’ve you got to lose? Everything you’ve worked for is disintegrating around you and nobody else is going to help you! You made sure of that! So you’ll either be dead or in heaven, but you won’t be alone anymore! No one else cares! How ‘bout it?
I care, he thought dizzily. I care about Erik, and about all these people we’re trying to help. I do care. Don’t… Don’t I care?
The song melted seamlessly into something bouncy and Prokovian. David caught him, laughing, and kissed him on the brow. There was a smattering of applause, and a few voices said, “Woo!”
“Ah! They love us!” David said.
“I love you too,” John said weakly.
“What?” David said. “Oh, this is impossible. Everyone wants to dance to this folky-nonsense, there’s no room to play. Come on, let’s have another drink!”
“Okay,” John said.
A man in a leather bomber jacket pushed David back with a hand before they could even step off the dance floor. David narrowed Erik’s eyes and touched a fingertip to the man’s chin. He spoke a few sweet words. The man grimaced and staggered a step backwards, propelled by sheer disgust. David tried to eel past him, but another man in a blue blazer stopped him and shoved him back with both hands.
“David…” John said warily. Everything he had for self-defence was in his coat, at the coat check. He didn’t expect to get jumped indoors, around all these people; that had never happened before. It would be a bouncer or an usher asking them politely to leave, at most. After they got out, if it was dark enough, then someone might…
“They’re saying they don’t like our kind here,” David muttered aside. “Don’t worry about it, I won’t let them…”
A third man snatched John by the shoulder and dragged him away, snarling words that were too fast and music-muffled to understand.
He couldn’t see David anymore.
No one’s going to help me, he thought. And he was almost, sort of, a little bit… relieved.
“Leave my boyfriend the fuck alone!” snapped a distant voice. David was yanking people aside and making his way nearer. A faint green aura surrounded him. “Uberi ot nego ruki, nemedlenno!”
The hand released him.
It’s just the lights, John thought numbly. There’s a fog machine. There’s a lot of lights. It could just be the lights. It’s… It’s a new kind of glowstick, I’ll say it’s a new kind of glowstick. We’re okay. We’re…
“Ukhodite vse, nemedlenno!”
Everyone backed away, leaving John in a fairy circle lit by the pulsing lights, and the green halo around David.
“Ostanavlivat’sya! Ne vy!”
The three men — bomber jacket, blue blazer, and red blazer — stopped in their tracks. Their expressions mixed confusion, anger, and terror.
“That’s a nice jacket,” David said, examining the man in red like a department store display. “I like the stitching. Very fine. Johnny, do you like this jacket?”
“No, please stop,” John said helplessly.
“What about this one?” David indicated the bomber jacket, grinning. “Is this about your size?”
John shook his head. “David, please…”
“Well, I’ll just have all three. Otdayte nam svoi kurtki! Nemedlenno! Ha-ha-ha…” David collected all three jackets. “Now take a walk outside and cool off.” He pointed towards the glowing exit sign. “Ukhodi, nemedlenno!”
The three men staggered away, disappearing into the crowd and the smoke.
“Please, go now,” John said, shivering. “David? Please…”
“I think we’d better give them a chance to put a little distance between us and them, dear,” David replied. “Shall I tell them all to stop being so conservative and leave us the hell alone? I think they’ll…”
“No, please just find us another door so we can get out of here!” John cried.
David sighed, pouting. “Oh, very well. What about over there by the kitchen? I suppose we don’t need your overcoat…”
John clutched David’s arm, horrified. “Yes we…”
“Oh, then we’ll call them and pick it up tomorrow. Come along. Pozvol’te nam proyti, nemedlenno. Shoo. Shoo!”
The dancers made way, staring, some of them with noticeable tears gathering in their eyes.
“I’m sorry,” John muttered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
“Dear, these people don’t give a damn about us,” David said softly. “So don’t worry about them.” He cleared his throat and spoke up, “Zabud’te, chto my kogda-libo byli zdes’!”
Somebody laughed, though it seemed a bit hysterical. Behind them, the noises of talking and dancing feet began again.
“There, we were never there,” David said. “It’s fine. They’re fine. Come along, now.”
John let David pull him out of the back door. As it clicked shut, muffling the music, he collapsed against the wall, shuddering, and hid his face in his hands.
There was a rusty dumpster back here, between this door and the kitchen, near enough to touch. It had icicles dripping from the bottom and made the nervous rusting sound of rats and roaches foraging. John recoiled from it, and David grabbed him again, as if they were still dancing.
“Oh, there-there-there. Put this on. Get your hands in the pockets. You’re all right.”
David zipped him into the bomber jacket and selected the red blazer for himself.
“Ah! A blazer and a frock coat! Mod-regency! What do you think? Is it worth starting a trend?” He spun around.
“It… It is toddler degrees out here!” John howled, steaming the air. “You told them to take a walk in their shirtsleeves!” He shrieked and clutched his hands in his hair. “We don’t have the umbrella! We don’t have Erik’s papers… Oh, gods, we don’t have anything! Stop glowing!”
“What?” David held up his gloved hand and regarded the faint green aura. “Ooh! I didn’t know I could do that!” He waved it back and forth, observing the trails. “I’m not even high! Wow!”
“Someone’s going to see!” John hissed. “It is snowing!” He snatched the blue blazer and tried to hold it over David’s head, but he wasn’t tall enough. “Get down here!”
“Oh, nobody’s going to see. It’s toddler degrees out and smoking is allowed indoors, so we’re the only ones with any reason to mess around in this filthy old alley.”
“We can’t leave all that shit at the coat check… How will we get home?”
“We’ll work something out… Woo! I’m a fairy!”
“Stop doing that!”
David laughed. “I’ve no idea how! Ha, ha… Oh, wait, there it goes… That’s a shame.”
“Thank you,” John said. “Now let’s fix your…”
“I wonder how it works? Is this an emotion-based thing…?”
“David!”
“Fascism! Homophobia! Sensible shoes!” The green light flared anew. “Ha-ha! How fab! I’m a lamp!”
“Stop being a lamp or you’re going to get us all killed!”
“I highly doubt it,” David said. “I just ordered a whole nightclub around.” He straightened his lapels proudly, both sets. “Get me on the radio, Johnny, I’ll tell this whole stupid country to get its shit together and leave the magic-users alone!”
“Stop it!” John cried. “I don’t even know how I’m going to get you out of this stinking alley! Shut up and let me think!”
“Why, I’ll just tell anyone we meet to ignore us,” David replied. “‘Right now!’ Ha-ha, all I need to do is keep being overdramatic and annoyed, and I can do that whenever I like. Oooh, shall we tell that bitch at the front desk to go kill herself, or shall I see if I can turn her into a lesbian? You know, she’s over forty with no prospects, Johnny, we might as well give her a…”
“If you’re going to keep… keep violating every last person we meet, I do not want you for a boyfriend anymore!” John snapped. “You’re going to sink this whole operation by making us too afraid to call you and then you will never see me again. So cut it out!”
David opened Erik’s mouth and closed it. He slumped down in a pout, stuffing his hands in the blazer’s pockets. “Oh, you’re no fun at all.”
“Please,” John said, offering the blue blazer. “Sit down, let me hold this over your head, and try to fix your face. If you can’t manage that, we’ll have to…”
There was a light, metallic thud, as if someone had sneaked out and kicked the can while they were distracted. Olly olly oxen free!
The cotton wool sky, the gusting snowflakes, and the entire alley lit up red. There was a new bright star above then, burning and drifting down languidly.
“Oh, shit, run, it’s the COPS!” a surprisingly near, and female, voice shouted.
John blinked and looked up, looking for her. That was perfect Anglais. Who…?
Then, running at them from both ends of the alley, there were men in dark uniforms that looked black in the light. They were shouting, too loud and fast for John to understand, but then a bright fleck of amber pinged off the side of the dumpster. Ah-ha. In that case, their situation had escalated beyond “what’s all this, then?”
“They have guns?” David shrieked. “They let the fucking pigs have GUNS?”
“Oh, gods,” John said. There was nowhere to run to…
◆◇◆
“Well… What about that?” Ann said doubtfully.
Mordecai regarded his porcelain-like reflection with a frown. He turned away, brought up his hands… and put them back down, afraid to smudge what must have been hours of work. How long had they been doing this? He glanced around, seeking a clock to validate his frustration.
He shut his eyes, pained. It had only been thirty minutes. “It’s worse, Ann. You see it, don’t you? I don’t know what it is, but somehow it’s even worse.”
“I… I suppose I could add some age spots? I’m sorry, Em, only if you don’t mind. Or… Freckles? A beauty mark? Some kind of imperfection?”
“Don’t bother,” Hyacinth said. She stood and began to pace. “There is nothing that looks so much like a man in makeup as a man doing everything he can to look like he’s not in makeup. I’ve been in front of a mirror like this before, only David didn’t give a damn.” She made her voice a bit higher and fussier, “‘Obviously, this is a façade, but I want it to be an attractive façade… And then I’ll do yours!’” She shuddered. “Ugh. There is no plausible reason for you to do that to yourself, other than being coloured and trying to hide it. If you take two steps out of this room like that, you’re toast. They’ll arrest you or kill you.”
“Well, what the hell are we supposed to do?” he snapped. “Order more ‘Red Detect’ by mail and wait for it? We’ve got one dose of it left and I’m not going to waste it on skulking around a nightclub or a theatre or wherever else John wants to go where it’s dim. If we can’t do it this way, just buy me a balaclava! I’m already a terrorist, aren’t I?”
“I was under the impression you were retired,” the General said dryly, from the other bed. She did not feel this absurd situation required her input… but she wasn’t about to refuse an order for sarcasm.
“Why aren’t you out helping your daughter watch the damn hotel?” he shot back at her.
“Whether an eagle in glasses, or a woman in glasses,” she said, “I would be rather conspicuous on a window ledge. Given that John and ‘David’ seem to have been looking for a movie theatre where they will be tolerated, and the one near us is now off-limits, it is not likely they will depart their hotel for anything less than a nightclub, bar, opera house, or restaurant — after dark. In any case, I have full confidence that my daughter can handle herself until sunset, and we are trying to cobble together some sort of disguise for you so that we may relieve her of duty before then. I am somewhat less useless here.”
“You’re lying on that bed with your eyes closed like a corpse!”
“I am listening to the radio and saving my delicate vision for when you require it.”
He threw up his hands, “Fine!” and regarded the mirror with a snarl. “If you want to show me this ‘David’ or whatever-it-is, you either need to get me out of this hotel room or find some way to bring it here. If you figure out how to accomplish the latter, for gods’ sakes drop me a line, but in the meantime — it is freezing out there, and I need something over my face anyway, so just get me a mask!”
“You have a Marselline accent,” said Hyacinth. “You speak no Prokovian at all. Someone is going to card you. And this is your ID, Monsieur Masked Avenger.” She flipped open the little folio, displaying a somewhat-plausible forged passport, with a sickly-looking red individual repeatedly wincing at the photo-booth’s flash. “We use up the last of the good makeup taking another photo, and it’s gone. We need to make this work.”
“How? I look like a damn discount mannequin!”
“I’m so sorry,” Ann said weakly. “I… Milo and I have gotten very good at making a boy look like a girl, but that… That’s not really an option for you, I’m afraid. You’ll never pass.”
“WAIT!” Hyacinth cried, as if they’d been about to mow down a baby carriage with a city bus. “I’ve got it!” She ran to the closet and snatched her cranberry red bubble coat. “Stand up! Put this on!” She pummelled him into the coat and zipped him up. “There! Now relax!”
He stared at her, more shell-shocked than relaxed.
“No-no-no.” She shook her head. “Stand how you stand. Be normal!” She growled. He wasn’t being normal at all. “Talk to me! Gesture!”
“Oh-ho, like this?” He raised a hand with a theatrical flourish and showed her a rude, reversed V-sign.
“Oh, my gods,” Ann said.
Hyacinth was grinning like a maniac. “You see it, don’t you? You see it! It’s perfect!”
“It really is,” Ann said, in awe.
“What?” He spun around once, regarding the furry hem of the coat. “I look like an idiot,” he said.
Hyacinth raised a finger to the heavens like an exclamation point, “Like a gay idiot!”
“What?”
“You can pass for gay! That’s how you got out of that stupid marriage to that woman you hated, right? You’re not coloured anymore, you’re a vain old queen!”
“Mm.” Ann covered a polite laugh with her hands. “Milo says, ‘Not in those shoes, you’re not.’”
He picked up the hand mirror, but it wasn’t enough. There was a full-length mirror inside the closet door. He centred himself and observed the whole picture. He turned left, right, and then full profile. He faced forward again and gestured. “Oh, shit,” he said.
Ann squealed and clapped her hands. “Can we go shopping? We’ll dress him! We’ll make him look like he’s trying to pick up boys half his age! Eeeee,” she added, brandishing a brown crayon. “Let’s do some contouring!”
“Ah, you see?” said the General, eyes closed. “You solved that all on your own.”
◆◇◆
“You’re not mincing,” Hyacinth muttered towards the vain old queen. “Need another rock in your shoe?” He didn’t reply, so she gave him a nudge.
“They’re right there,” he said faintly. “I could run over and give that kid a hug, and he’d feel me…”
Maggie pulled him back and gave him a hug right now. She whispered in his ear, “Keep it together, Apparent Gay Grandpa. Don’t nick your paint job.” She’d bought herself a muffler, and her coat had a hood. If anyone carded her for being foreign, she had a real passport with her real face on it. She’d cultivated one of those polite, international-type accents, like her father, and she could turn it on like a faucet. Covered up against the cold, she wasn’t very conspicuous.
On the other hand, Hyacinth and Mordecai were Gays on Parade, so the three of them were following two blocks behind and no nearer. Maggie was pretty sure she knew where they were headed, anyway. She’d surveyed the whole neighbourhood and considered the logistics. They needed dim lighting, entertainment, and alcohol, and it was safer to walk than to pile into a taxi and sit there with the driver staring at them in the rearview mirror the whole time.
This was not the nice end of town, but not a full-on slum like the area near the ghetto. It had been respectable once, but respectability had moved on. A few ancient supper clubs like Dasha’s remained, sharing space with dive bars, cafés, storefront businesses, and one old movie palace with a lavish lobby and a single screen. Presumably, the theatre was not an option. Since they were headed east, she thought the nightclub with the big Anglais neon sign displaying cartoonish chattering wind-up teeth was the destination. Chez Chatterbox. It looked like alliteration, even if it didn’t sound that way when you pronounced it right.
Mordecai drew out one of several lace-edged handkerchiefs they’d stuffed into his various pockets, for the inevitable blood-stained coughs. Vain old queens don’t carry tissues, are you mental? Hyacinth had said.
Even Maggie had to admit, the effect was eerie. She knew he was dabbing so carefully because if he wiped off the makeup these people might kill him, but with that outfit, it was much more plausible he was trying to stay polished, and some deluded manner of handsome. He rather resembled Calliope’s grandfather, who had once worked in a molly house, and now had an air of a deteriorating old mansion that kept getting haphazard repairs and new coats of paint.
Hyacinth was looking butcher than usual, with a thrift-store set of trousers and top hat, and Mordecai’s original vest, tie, and overcoat. We don’t want to look married, she’d said. She held a bright green silk umbrella over his head and scowled at anyone who came near enough to stare.
Milo had apparently — and quite forcefully — pegged Mordecai’s molly persona as “opera gay.” Cold. Artistic. Refined. Top hat, spats, a cape and a cane.
Hyacinth sat Ann down on a convenient, stained, “50% Off!” sofa and explained, Ann, our “opera gay” has a gold mend in his lungs, and if you send him into the Prokovian night in a cape, you will kill him.
I don’t understand why we wouldn’t just use a heating charm, Ann had protested, on Milo’s behalf.
Because he’s conspicuous enough without melting the snow as he walks down the street! cried Hyacinth. He’s keeping the warm coat that zips up. Work with that!
Cin, you can tell how much he hates that thing from a block away. Isn’t that rather conspicuous too?
He’ll make it work for Erik, Hyacinth replied.
Ann sighed and said, Okay, then he can be a disaster gay like you — Milo’s words, Cin. I’m sorry.
Hyacinth, still laughing, had told Maggie, I didn’t have a problem with it!
Mordecai didn’t seem to either. He was, indeed, making “disaster gay” work, like a little rat dog afflicted with a pink sweater.
Ann and Milo built the look from the ground up. First came a pair of ankle-high patent leather boots with a gold zipper, and a modest, merciful heel. They didn’t quite fit, which was just as well, but Hyacinth added a couple of rocks, to keep him from “plodding around like Frankenstein’s monster.” Above those were straight-cut denim trousers that also didn’t quite fit, a floral print turtleneck sweater, a gold chain, and a faux fur vest.
Hyacinth said it looked like they’d taken twenty years off him. Then Ann went after her perfect paint job like an artist with a pallet knife and added back ten. Dark, runny eyeliner, smudged, unlined lipstick, and — brilliantly — indecent amounts of rouge with a little red scrape high on one cheek. Hopefully, if the makeup wore off, it would look like more rouge, and/or like he’d been in a fight. She’d found him a drugstore pair of aviator sunglasses with windshield-sized pink lenses, too, just to make it a little harder to see anything red. Above it all, his hair was gelled and artfully disarrayed, with a set of fuzzy earmuffs holding it back.
He looked like he’d already had a long night, several long nights, and it was only eight PM. The gaunt, miserable expression was entirely unrelated to being a sixty-eight-year-old man who wanted to prove he could still stay up drinking and partying with the cool kids — but it didn’t hurt.
Maggie squeezed his gloved hands in her own and reminded him, “It’s not him. If you try to go get him, that thing inside of him may hurt you, and all he’ll be able to do is watch. It’s hard for me, too, but we gotta stay smart.”
“I know,” he said softly.
Their fallback position, which Ann and the General were guarding with the suitcase, was the café across the street from the Vesely. It was open all night, it had booths into which one might safely tuck a suitcase, and it had a bathroom with a door that locked. It was perfect. But it was getting farther and farther away. If they had to access it in a panic, with someone chasing them, they might not make it.
“Do you see anyone else following?” he asked. “Are we the only ones?”
“I can’t tell,” she admitted. “I’d have a much better shot in daylight, or, like, if they got into a car.” She smiled. “But the good news is, it’s harder for them to see us too.”
Hyacinth pulled back on her shoulder and pointed, “They’re going in.”
Maggie beamed. “I figured, yeah.” The bright neon glowed, legible even at this distance, and the cartoon teeth opened and closed.
“All right,” said the young soldier-in-training, to two of the least-military individuals she’d ever met. It was too bad she didn’t have a whiteboard and a pointer, but they probably wouldn’t have paid attention any better anyway. “We got three exits in that building — the big double glass door in the front, and the kitchen and a fire exit in the back. No alarm on the fire exit, I think ‘cos people like to smoke or make out back there.
“It’s a club, so they’re gonna card you if you go in, and they expect you to order at least two drinks. They don’t have real food, so there’s no waitress to police your order. If you don’t look like you’re drinking, the bouncer will come pressure you. Whoever goes in there needs to show an ID, take off their overcoat, and order at the bar.
“I,” she touched her chest, and briefly pulled down her muffler, “am not the most inconspicuous person to do that. I blend in way better with all my winter gear on. I would say Uncle Em does, too, but that’s a very loose definition of ‘blending in’ right now. I would like to send him in at some point to get a look at the god, but I think Cin better go first. There are issues with being a single lady at a club, but you really don’t look like you’re interested, so that might make things a little easier, depending on how desperate the gentlemen are inside.”
Hyacinth snorted and tossed her greying head. “I know how to shoot guys down. Been doing it my whole life.”
“Be that as it may,” Maggie said, “we do not approach, as a matter of safety, for Erik, John, and ourselves. We do not know who or what is running Erik, how John is paying it, or if anyone else is watching. Do not get near enough to be recognized. Do not engage. If you have to get out, get out — there are three exits, as I’ve said, but if you try to get out through the kitchen, they’ll try to stop you. Generally speaking, if you just keep walking, it won’t be a problem.
“If John or Erik are at the bar, do not approach the bar. If they are sitting at the bar and not leaving, and you need a drink, give someone else money and have them buy it for you, or get out. Cin, I am assuming you can get someone to buy you a drink. Em… you can’t speak the lingo and you look like a hate crime waiting to happen, so I advise you to give up and leave if neither you nor Cin can get you a drink. Likewise, if they don’t want to let you in at all, just go and I’ll put you back on the roof. We will work out some other way for you to observe the god if we must. We are not going to lose Erik again. Don’t be a hero.”
He nodded, weakly. “I know. I… I just want him to still be okay. I know.”
“Okay,” Maggie allowed. “We have two sides of the building to keep an eye on in case they take off. I say Cin goes in first, and I boost Em and myself onto the roof, so we can see both sets of exits without splitting up. Em, we are not going to leave you alone if we can help it. You can still get killed for looking like that around here, just not as much as the other way. When you go in, you’ll find Cin and stick to her like peanut butter on toast.”
“How will you watch both exits?” he said.
“I’ll put a silent alarm on the back doors,” she said, “like we did at the Vesely. It’s not ideal, but even if we lose them, we know where they’ll end up eventually. Stay cool. Do not panic. This is just a proof of concept. If we need to try again to get you near the god, we can do that — as long as you don’t fuck up the whole deal right here and now, pardon my language. Are we clear?”
“Go into the club, buy a drink, and observe the loud idiot with the gold mask from as far away as possible,” Hyacinth replied. “And when you send him in, I’ll babysit. Anything else?”
“You have a mask too,” Maggie said acidly. “Don’t forget that.”
“Aha.” Hyacinth rooted around in her borrowed coat pockets and came out with a cat-eared black domino model… and a mint. “Well, this is mine now.” She unwrapped it and ate. “You can have whatever you find in my pockets that you like,” she told the vain old queen.
He began to paw through her coat. “Oh? Do you have any drugs?”
“No drugs!” Maggie cried. “Two drinks only, sip them, and order a goddamn sandwich or something, you got it?”
Hyacinth saluted. “Da, moy komendant!”
◆◇◆
The roof was gritty black tarpaper, with a single shallow peak in the middle and intermittent puddles of ice. The glowing, buzzing sign was perched at the highest point, flashing in red, white, and yellow. “These are neons, not fey lights,” Maggie had warned Mordecai. He was old, he might not have known. “Do not touch unless you’re a big fan of pain.”
“Can they see us down there?” he’d asked.
“I can darken up the shadows,” she replied. “But if someone comes out, they can hear us, so walk over and whisper or sign to me, if you can.”
Now they were perched on opposite sides of the roof peak like gargoyles, cold, dim, and quiet, listening to the thumping bass beat from indoors. Maggie thought she’d give Hyacinth another half hour or so, then see if they’d let Mordecai in.
He hissed — she heard him — and caught himself before he said anything more. She met him halfway, at the peak of the roof, under the blinking sign.
He cupped his hand and spoke into her ear. “They just came out the back!”
Maggie signed, [E]YEBALL, [J]RAINBOW [ASK]? «erik and john?»
He nodded frantically.
She touched her finger to her lips and took him gently by the arm. They crept over the rooftop as quietly as they could, supporting each other, so neither would slip and make noise.
John and Erik — but not really Erik — were standing in the alley in back and having an animated conversation. Erik was glowing, an obvious bright green. Maggie gave a little gasp and covered it. She’d seen it happen a few times during magic storms, and, once or twice, when he was holding a god who was angry and meant business.
But he couldn’t do that now! Someone would see!
She signed urgently, ANGRY [ASK]?
Mordecai shook his head. He pointed at Erik. The god was laughing and chattering away.
“Ooh! I didn’t know I could do that! I’m not even high! Wow!”
John articulated Maggie’s thought perfectly: “Someone’s going to see!”
They eavesdropped from a literal eave as John tried — repeatedly — and failed, to rein in a hysterical god with melting makeup and an intermittent glow.
They know it’s about the magic-users too, Maggie thought. They know what’s going on, and John and the god are trying to do something about it together. But is Erik on board with it? Is John on board with it, or is he just playing along because this god guy can kill him? Do they really think they’re boyfriends?
Oh, my gods, that boy has no idea what he’s doing, Mordecai thought. And that god doesn’t either! How does he not know about lighting Erik on fire? He doesn’t even care! Erik has called an insane being into his body and John helped him do it!
“Please. Sit down, let me hold this over your head, and try to fix your face. If you can’t manage that, we’ll have to…”
There was a light, metallic thud, as if someone had sneaked out and kicked the can while they were distracted. Olly olly oxen free!
Maggie and Mordecai observed with gape-mouthed horror as what could only be an anti-magic flare drifted down from the cotton wool sky, bathing the rooftop and the alley in its glare. The police back home carried those, for emergencies, and Maggie could only assume the worst. She cupped her hands to her mouth and cried, “Oh, shit, run, it’s the COPS!” before muzzling Mordecai with a hand and dragging him back from the edge.
“Do not engage,” she hissed in his ear. “Do not…”
An unmistakable gunshot shocked what would have been — without the gunshot — an audible cry from both of them.
“They have guns?” the god shrieked. “They let the fucking pigs have GUNS?”
Maggie signed frantically, STAY THERE SHUT UP. She crawled to the roof’s edge and peered down.
John and Erik were standing in the middle of the alleyway, clinging to each other, and the Prokovian police were advancing from both sides, guns drawn. Each group of them had lit another flare, leaving them on the ground at either side of the building. Now, this meant it was almost frigging impossible to see what they were shooting at, and the dumpster itself was blocking the view of half the cops at the moment, but they were advancing with suppressive fire.
John was an idiot, the god was insane, and Erik was unavailable.
And everything that red light touched was a magic-free zone.
When they got near enough — and reloaded those slow-ass Prokovian police revolvers — John and Erik were toast.
She couldn’t let them see her, and she had no idea how to help them.
