IN WHICH TWO PATHS CROSS, AND A THIRD INVITES ITSELF

[little_lady_d]

 

The path (Lola explained) was ever-changing. You didn’t want your speakeasy in one place the feds could knock over in a night — you kept it moving, like a change in key to keep a song interesting. The path would show you the way every time, but every time the path would have a new end, a new beginning.

You couldn’t come in the middle, either. You might as well come in the middle of an opera in another language without the libretto, except the stage would disappear if you didn’t know who was dueling who while who else was dying of heartbreak. You had to know where to look, or know someone who knew, someone who could explain it to you in the hush of intermission.

Lucky thing, then, that Lola was popular. When she sang at a new venue, that was the sign. That’s where you would open up your libretto — after calling on the element of fire to light the words. 

And the folks who knew, knew.

She explained some of this as she walked, collar up against the chill. “I see,” said Orion, with solemn understanding. “It is like the paths of the daemon-realms.”

“What a life you lead,” Lola replied, desert dryness in her voice. She brushed her hand against the walls, alley walls, walls of shops, filigree fences curling off into the night. Sigils spread and danced like fireflies, showing them the way.

“Like Theseus in the labyrinth,” Narcisse said — not contradicting, extemporizing. “Following Ariadne’s thread.”

Elsewhere, Immanuel wove the same paths of purpose, and made his own explanations, like a professor referring to the reading of the night before (or a student, eager to prove he’d done it). Scrying (he reminded Blessed) defined and redefined sense. It defined the sense of sight, redefined its application, and in the ruins of the turned-over speakeasy, Immanuel drew on place and context to see and scry through time.

But sight wasn’t the only sense available to them. Consider (he bade Blessed) the sense of balance that centered the tightrope walker, suspended high above the ground. The sense of direction, that certain species of bird followed like a lodestone home.

He wrapped the scrying glass in wire and string, and let it hang between his fingers. Muttering ursprache incantations, Immanuel focused on the swaying of the glass — still wreathed in daemon-darkness — until he felt a tug that wasn’t the wind.

“This way.”

“Oh!” Blessed hastened after Immanuel and the flickering trail of his coat. “I see. Like dowsing for water, is it?”

“No. I’d construct the arguments completely differently if I were dowsing for water.” Immanuel struggled to keep it simple, to keep his words clipped and terse. “It only works as long as the target is in motion. I use the gem as a pendulum to determine the direction of that motion. But I’ve no idea of the target’s destination, or of how near or how far it may be from us, so time … is rather of the essence.”

“Of course,” Blessed agreed, “and it’s a nice night for a walk.”

Elsewhere, Narcisse walked into a room rattling with all the sounds of a roulette wheel, cards shuffling, high-ball glasses clinking from hand to hand, promises and bargains dancing in the air. Orion loomed behind him, and Lola strode like Moses into the Red Sea.

“A gaming hall!” Narcisse exclaimed.

Lola smirked. “Once you beat the house, you might as well run it.”

The crowd was black and tan, like the Alexandria Club, though a little less of the ritzy set out in their coat-tails and fashionable fringe. Plenty were working men, shirt-sleeves rolled up after a day’s shift, chatting over an easy game. The sorts of girls Narcisse’s father would scoff at and call hedge witches swapped spells and gossip about their upper-class clients. All they think about is love, Narcisse overheard one say. Love potions, love charms, don’t they know it’s not that easy? If you could magic your way to love, we all would do it. 

No one danced, save a single flapper dressed in yellow, whirling across the tiles like a child skipping cracks. And no one looked at her twice. But Narcisse could hear the music in her movements, could imagine a world where it rippled through the crowd, pouring with the drinks. He sighted a ramshackle stage in the back of the room, with a microphone like an abandoned standard on the battlefield. Where his band would play, sweet and hot. Someday, singing someday.

Everyone had a word for Lola, and Lola had a broad, businesswoman’s nod for each of them. “There’s the Kettunen sisters, in town from Buffalo,” she said to Narcisse, sotto voce. “More money than sense, those two, but so long as they’re spending it here, better give them a smile.”

That Narcisse knew how to do. He flashed his pearly whites, lifted two fingers in a wave, and winked. “Good evening, ladies.” The two sisters, rare peach-skinned girls with fire-red hair, smirked and tittered between themselves. One fanned her cards in front of her mouth, and leaned to whisper somethingin the ear of the other.

Lola rolled her eyes. “Simmer down, sheik.” She bumped Narcisse’s chest with her hand, gesturing him to look away. “That’s Mister Wolff with them — steer clear for me. I know you like them tall, dark, and intellectual, but he’d eat you alive.”

The warning only drew Narcisse nearer. This Mister Wolff was tall and lean and Narcisse’s type, grizzled and bespectacled at the same time. He sat across the sisters at a table lined with green cloth, flicking through hands with strategic swiftness, conquering the game with a confidence that made Narcisse swoon. He’d have to creep closer, to see whether Wolff was truly in the lead, or only knew how to project victory. Either way took skill. “What’s the stake?” asked Narcisse. 

“Secrets,” Lola answered. She rolled her eyes openly. “As good an investment as any. These are proper thaumaturges, so money’s not interesting enough for them. They’re gambling their little tricks, magics passed down or kept in hiding.”

“Oh?” Narcisse spoke so his voice carried — a showman’s trick of his own. “Then here’s a secret worth the gamble. The secret of how my father raised the dead to fight in the Great War.”

“He told you that?” Lola asked, sharp and disbelieving.

“I put it together.” Narcisse flashed those pearly whites again. “I’m cleverer than I look.”

“What you look like is too smart for your own good. We don’t need —” Lola looked around and lowered her voice to a hiss. “We don’t need secrets like that around here.”

“I’ll raise,” one of the redheaded sisters said. Sunny as a church picnic. Like she was picking a cake from a cake stand, piled high, and they all looked good, luscious with frosting. A girl like her wouldn’t waste it — she’d lick the frosting from her fingers. “Let’s deal him in, shall we? It makes a more exciting game.”

“I’ll raise when he introduces himself,” the other sister said. She twisted her pearls for the pleasure of feeling something rich between her fingers. “It isn’t honorable to take on an opponent without exchanging names. My name is Tuulikki Kettunen; this is my sister, Kirsikka.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Narcisse told them, and prepared to take a seat.

Elsewhere, Immanuel came to a stop before the brick face of a building, pendulum stilling in his hand. He cursed beneath the breath. He couldn’t let Blessed catch the hesitation — but catch it he did, touching Immanuel’s elbow, voice high and curious. “What is it?”

“I warned you,” Immauel said. It had to be a warning — he couldn’t let Blessed think he’d failed. There were limitations, that was all. “We can only detect motion while the target is in motion. As of now, it’s stopped.”

“Hmm. Maybe the target went into one of the buildings around here? If someone went into a restaurant, there’d be a pause right between when they went through the door and a waiter showed them their seat. Right?”

“That’s far too optimistic — excuse me. But we don’t know if they’re anywhere near here … we don’t know how much of a head start they had on us …”

“Mister Bachman,” said Blessed, in chiding tones. “I don’t know how long you’ve been an investigator, but sometimes you’ve got to trust your gut. I feel like we’re close, don’t you? We started in the neighborhood where the suspect was last seen, and if they’re smuggling a cage-golem with them, they couldn’t go far. Maybe there’s thaumaturgy you can use to hide a giant automation, but keeping that up takes time, and effort. So you’d have to go slow, and you’d only stop somewhere secret, somewhere quiet, somewhere it’s safe to stop ... so … hm. It’s not going to be a building right on the main road, right? Let’s look for a building with a side alley, or…” He pointed. “Oh, that one. I’ve got a good feeling about that one.”

A good feeling? Immanuel shook his head in all-too-believable disbelief. “This isn’t a gamble.”

“Come on!” They browsed down side doors, until they found one guarded by a doorman. There’d be no doorman, Blessed explained in a whisper, if there wasn’t something to guard. Immanuel could deduce nothing from a man lingering by a door in the alley — he could’ve mistaken him for a loiterer, and walked straight past on the way to work in the morning. But Blessed didn’t. He strode right up to the flat-capped stranger, and it was Immanuel’s turn to keep up.

“We’re with the band,” Blessed said, with marvelous confidence. “Have our instruments arrived?”

The man eyed them up, over a lit cigarette. “What d’you play?”

What’s your game? Immanuel asked Blessed with a gaze, but whatever the answer, he could see the game had begun. He had to take his place. “Trumpet,” he said.

“You, bookworm? You sure you’re not the accountant?”

Immanuel glowered over the rims of his pince-nez. “I’m sure you’ll be paying for it if my instrument doesn’t arrive in due order. We need to be on, do you understand? There are preparations to be done and the time is short to do them in.”

“Now, now,” said Blessed soothingly. “We’ve got plenty of time — sorry, sir. He gets so edgy right before a big performance. But we’ll be fine! I promise we’ll be fine. We’re here, we’re ready, show us the way.”

And the way was shown, eye-rolling and reluctant, but one does what one must to soothe the temperamental artists. “You were a little scary back there,” Blessed whispered to Immanuel.

“What? I simply behaved the way I normally would.”

Then they heard the lightning, echoing — from where?

Elsewhere …

Daemons had a way with true-names, but anyone could tell you the pull of them. When you hear your name, or something like it, it cuts through the clutter of the crowd. Your ears go back, like a tame dog’s, ever-open to the sensation of being spoken to. The command isn’t roll over or play dead but listen – and before you can refuse, you must.

But plenty have opened their ears to a name then turned away, when their name slipped past them to somebody else. Or they never heard it, insistent, like a train whistle in the distance, for a stop they never saw coming until the locomotive at their door.

Hear your full name, and you know.

“Narcisse Judicaël Gautier Decoudreau.”

“Shit,” Narcisse hissed, as if in pain.

Orion coiled, ready to pounce, to protect, but aes master shook his head.

“I hate my middle name.”

It was that flapper girl, standing on a table with the cards beneath her dancing slippers, and no one looked her way. No one saw her; they played around her, flicking antes past her legs, and she walked up and over them without a how-do-you-do. 

No one save Lola, saying now see here, shoulders up in indignation, feather boa curled around them like a lion’s mane. This was her establishment, there were rules –

Lighting struck, and the room saw that. A roar, a flash, and the girl’s eyes lit like a great cat’s. She grinned and, for one split second, had too many teeth. “Narcisse Judicaël Gautier Decoudreau, I bind you to hear me. I am –” 

She spoke and shots of whiskey shattered on the table, clasps on ladies’ bracelets broke, chaos spilled with the liquor and surprise fell rustling over the crowd. 

“But,” she continued, “you can call me Clarion.”

“Clarion? Sister?”

Narcisse turned to Orion. The darkness in aer swirled, aes metal body swaying as if in shock, as if human sinews and human weakness held up aes frame. “An impromptu family reunion?” asked Narcisse. Teeth-clenched sympathy colored his voice.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Clarion drawled, “but you don’t know much.”

Narcisse raised his hands, like a magician turning out his cuffs, saying nothing up my sleeve. (Or, perhaps, like a man held at gunpoint, his hands saying no harm here.) “It’s the wise man who knows he knows nothing,” he said. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Blah.” Clarion’s face twisted in annoyance, girlish pout pushed to the side. ”You’re all wet. You and my so-and-so sibling — you backed the wrong horse, you know that, little Hunter On High, Hum of the Bow-String? Some dudded-up dewdropper spouting Socrates like oh, what’s the word?”

“I am unfamiliar with many of the words in which you speak, sister.”

“Get with the times, or the times’ll get you.” She smiled that many-toothed smile. “I’ve come to issue a challenge. On behalf of my mistress, Domitille Edmée Etienette Decoudreau, for the inheritance of Léonide Ghyslain Lazare Decoudreau.”

“You’re right,” said Narcisse slowly. “I don’t know the half of it. But what you have, I don’t want. Let Domitille and maman slice the estate up, every which way they wish — I’m out of it.”

“Your name —”

“Oh, please, don’t repeat it. I don’t think the old building can take it.”

“Your name alone qualifies you. And if you’re out of it —“ She cocked her head towards Orion. “Why walk around with an Attendant to the Sixty-Sixth House of Kimariis?”

Narcisse raised his brows, and inclined his head. Fair enough, his expression said. But Orion, fairness incarnate, justice clad in night and steel, spoke up for them both: “I have come by our compact to save he who called me, sworn to subdue all dangers. I am his shield and his arrow. Issue your challenge, and I will answer it.”

“Well, aren’t you a wind sucker? Too bad,” Clarion said, “this is one danger you can’t subdue. My mistress is yours, too — you can’t fight her for Narcisse or anybody.” Heels clicking across the table, she leapt, and landed whirlwind-graceful on the floor. She raised her eyes to meet Narcisse’s, and her voice was the voice of the thunder, heralding the storm. “So let me speak here and now for my mistress, Domitille, daughter to House Decoudreau. Through cunning and witchcraft, she has broken into the secret houses of your enemies, and reclaimed the stolen inheritance which you left to fallow. She has proven herself Léonide’s true heir, and will prove herself once more on the field of combat. Duel with her, and to the victor will go the last of the Decoudreau lore, the libraries and legions.”

Domitille, Domitille. Of course she wouldn’t stand idle while the Bureau ransacked her father’s legacy — that wasn’t her style. Some brotherly instinct reared up inside of Narcisse, imagining the trouble she could get herself into, but he waved it off like an annoying insect. “I don’t want the legions —“

“All right, enough.” It was Lola again, voice risen to a roar. She still can sing, Narcisse thought. He knew opera singers who couldn’t project like she could. 

All he thought was that he missed her, he missed the days when she shouted down protesters outside their tents and her eyes blazed like a Fury’s. She’d have burned the world for them — for their right to stand up on a stage like anybody else, any color or creed. And the world that was left could enjoy the show.

Here Lola stamped her foot, and fire flared in cracks along the floor, lighting up the tiled sunbursts, opening into ur-language runes. Narcisse recognized them. That one meant reveal, that one repel. They’d been etched there beforehand, he realized in the moment, scratched into the tile by some patient thaumaturge who knew to set the groundwork before the main event. Spells to deal with daemons, Narcisse surmised, who didn’t play fair.

Clarion screamed. Everyone looked at her, saw her. The compact broke and fell like a clattering chain. Orion —

Narcisse spun towards Orion. The metal of aes cage-body shivered; the stars in aer flickered like the dying sparks of embers. “What’s happened?” asked Narcisse, reaching out — he didn’t know whether touching the raw metal offered any comfort, whether the daemon in it could be soothed by intent.

“I cannot be here,” Orion intoned, “but I must — to protect you —“

“It’s not worth it. Let’s go,” Narcisse whispered. He tugged on the daemon, feeling aer pass through his fingers like rolling mist. He had only his words to make Orion move.

And Orion answered. Wordless, ae flowed up and caught Narcisse, lifting him in the shadow of arms. Narcisse’s stomach flipped; his heart leapt like a wonder wheel, and the beat played on.

Elsewhere, Blessed raced ahead of the doorman, and pointed out, across the stage — 

“That’s him, isn’t it? Our suspect!” He cried out with the joy of a sailor spotting land. “Let’s go, Mister Bachman! We can’t let him get away!"