Chapter 4
When reality drifted back into being, like a mirage on the horizon resolving into a citadel, Avery, Layanna and Coleel were being dragged down green stone halls, green alchemical lamps burning from recessed niches, with glabren leading the way moving in their stolid, dreamwalking way. Pain filled Avery, and he tasted blood in his mouth. He turned to see Layanna blinking, regaining consciousness, and beyond her Coleel, awake and bleeding from the nose and scalp, with his head down and eyes filled with despair. A horde of glabren hauled them bodily, and Avery could feel their rough hands all over him.
“The mirrors,” he heard himself say. “I should have known …”
“Mirrors?” Layanna asked, sounding dazed.
“The mirrors we passed. There were some just like that aboard Paradise.” He named the aerial brothel above the Twilight City, but he was aware that he was speaking just to speak, as an outlet for his fear, and his voice held a tinge of hysteria. “I asked Janx about them later, and he told me they were two-way mirrors so that voyeurs could watch the action from the other side.”
“The glabren were watching,” Layanna nodded, still sounding out of it. “Sentinels.”
“The receptionist warned us. ‘He has eyes everywhere’.”
“What does it matter?” Coleel snapped. “However it was done, it was done. We knew what we were getting into, and now it’s caught up with us. I only wish I was still in some cult or other. I don’t even have any gods to pray to.”
The glabren hauled them to the door at the end of the hall, a great edifice of stained brass inset with a bas-relief of a coiled serpent, with a window peeking out between the coils, and after being admitted dragged their catch into the room beyond, a large, dark chamber with a single light set on the floor—alchemical, of course: green, which reflected, just faintly, off the pitted, green stone walls glimmering with moisture. Somehow, though, the lamp seemed to throw back more shadow than light, and the shadows were tinted green. The dreamlike glow emanated from the very center of the room, to which Avery and the others were carried, then deposited in a heap. Their weapons were taken forward and set beside what Avery could see was some sort of throne—Virine truly did have a high opinion of himself.
It wasn’t just a throne. Oh, no. It was made of living humans, all glabren, Avery was sure, and arranged in tortuous positions so that one was a seat, another a footstool, two for the armrests, a large fat woman with big breasts for the back, and so on. The throne towered ten feet off the ground, and every foot was composed of human beings. Virine (and it must be he, surely) lounged back in his seat, drinking from a bejeweled goblet and with his head between the woman’s breasts. Her purple eyes gazed out on the room as if not seeing it. Virine himself boasted many tattoos, some glowing, some not, and his hair was arranged in long dreadlocks, none of which stirred, and he dressed himself in red-dyed furs. He was a fairly ordinary-seeming fellow for all that, other than being particularly seedy-looking, and several of his teeth had gone missing and replaced by the teeth of animals—sharp, Avery saw, and thick. One exuded something that might have been venom.
Glabren held Avery, Layanna and Coleel down while Virine appraised them. Coleel’s lambent flesh-art threw many colors across the floor, some even onto the throne itself, but the colors did not touch Virine.
“Well well,” he said, “look what we have here. I’ve wanted to see you in this position for a long time, Losgana, you bastard son of a milkless mother.” He spoke not in the local tongue but in Hurucan, a much more florid, colorful language. Avery understood it better than he could speak it.
“Fuck you.” Coleel tried to force himself to his feet. One of the glabren clubbed him on the back of his neck and he sank to his knees.
Virine grinned, showing off his stolen fangs. “Now now, that sort of talk won’t get you far here. But why are you here, Losgana? You’ve avoided my traps for too long to come blundering into my actual web now.”
“That’s not your concern.”
Virine leaned forward. “But isn’t it?” He let a beat go by, then drew back into the green-tinted shadows. “You see, prior to your arrival I received this.” He held up a photograph; Avery was too far away to see what it contained. “It’s of her.” Virine’s gaze flicked to Layanna.
Word travels fast, Avery thought.
“Do you know who delivered it?” Virine said, but Coleel didn’t answer. “Our delightful jackbooted occupiers. Apparently she’s an enemy of theirs and they’re hunting her. They’ve sent out word to many of the local businesses to deliver her. If they’re found harboring her, it will go ill for them. So, you see, Losgana, this poses a much more intriguing question than I would have wanted.”
“Just let us go,” Avery said, knowing he was mangling the pronunciation. “We can pay—”
One of the glabren struck him on the top of his head. Unable to help it, he cried out and fell silent. Layanna’s gaze fixed him, and she shook her head: Don’t do anything stupid.
“Why are they after you?” Virine said. The question, apparently, was directed at Layanna.
She answered slowly, and her voice, when it came, did some justice to Hurucan—better than Avery had done it, anyway. “It doesn’t matter. I’m an enemy of Octung. You say you don’t like them. Then help us.”
Virine laughed. “Like them? ‘Like’ has nothin’ to do with it, beautiful. And you are quite a looker, aren’t you? It’d be a shame to hand you over to the Lightning Crown, wouldn’t it? I could sell you for a pretty avilct and no mistake.”
“Do it and you’ll regret it,” Avery said, then flinched as one of the glabren kicked him in the ribs. He grunted and doubled over, wheezing. Blood ran down from his scalp and he could taste it at the corner of his lips.
“As I was saying,” Virine went on. “I don’t like Octung, but they are my clients. I’ve sold the contracts to many of my pretties to them. They need them more than ever now, don’t they, to keep the peace? Wouldn’t want to lose their business. Worse, wouldn’t want them to toss me into one of their black cells, would I? No, that wouldn’t do at all.” His gaze returned to Coleel. “Just how did you wind up with this lot, eh? I mean, I know you were in hiding, but surely you have some standards.”
Coleel shot a dark look at Avery. “I probably wouldn’t have joined up, to be honest, if certain facts had been made known to me.”
Virine laughed again. He seemed very pleased with himself. Then, with shocking suddenness, he sobered. “You will give me the locations where the ghost flower is harvested. And you will provide me with the seal you use on your contracts so the villagers will agree to deal with me.”
Coleel watched him. Streamers of bloody saliva dripped from the merchant’s lips. “I would rather die.”
Virine drummed his fingers on his living armrest. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “that skin of yours … if properly peeled … it would make a hell of a hanging. Maybe even a robe?”
A low growl coming from his throat, Coleel tried to rise again, and several glabren were lifted into the air. In the end, though, there were too many, and they forced him back to the floor. Gasping, he subsided.
“There is no scenario in which you can leave my presence without giving up your secrets,” Virine said. “So you’d better just get used to that fact, you garish spawn of a withered womb. There may be a scenario in which you can leave alive. I’m not sure. It depends on your manner and the level of respect you’re prepared to show. I—”
A woman approached the throne, coming from the rear of the chamber. Avery hadn’t even seen her. The room was so dark and all he could see was Virine’s obscene seat. There must be another door. She stepped up on a kneeling glabren and whispered in Virine’s ear.
“A fire?” he said, and she whispered again. “On both sides? Has the fire department been notified?”
“Phone lines are down again,” she said, not bothering to whisper.
Avery glanced at Layanna, who was frowning. Distantly, he thought he could hear commotion, the sound of people talking loudly, shouting, maybe screams.
“Send a runner, damn your diseased cunt,” Virine said.
“Already sent, sir.”
“Good.” Virine scowled, then, slowly, returned his attention to Layanna. “You should be delivered up to the Octunggen. And your friend, too, I suppose. He was wanted, as well. It’s a shame, girl. I would love to have seen you with purple eyes.”
Avery thought quickly. He was pinned down, but his arms were free. Hoping he wasn’t noticed, he rubbed his hands against his blood-spattered face, then massaged his arms, slicking them with blood.
Virine flicked a hand, as if unconsciously, and several of the glabren jerked Avery and Layanna to their feet, then pulled them toward the rear door. Avery could just barely see a vague light coming from there. In the distance he could hear the screams and the commotion louder now, even, yes, the crackle of flames.
He acted fast. With all of his strength, he threw himself to the side. The two glabren gripping his arms seized his biceps tighter, but they were well greased with his blood and the glabren couldn’t maintain their holds. Avery tossed himself at the pile of weapons on the floor near the throne, grabbed up one of the assault rifles and aimed it at Virine’s head.
The room had gone silent, save for Avery’s breaths and heartbeat. In the background, the roar of the flames was getting louder. Closer. He could smell the unmistakable reek of smoke.
Slowly, Virine rose to his feet.
Half of the glabren had raised their own weapons and were pointing them at Avery. None made to shoot, however. Virine couldn’t risk Avery squeezing the trigger in one last firing of the nerves.
Virine, for the first time really, looked at Avery. “Well,” he said, and his voice was droll. “You have the floor.”
Avery swallowed. He could feel his legs shaking. “Free my friends.”
Virine paused, then nodded. The glabren released Layanna and Coleel. The merchant, still breathing heavily, grabbed up a gun, then offered one to Layanna, who shook her head. Even now she wouldn’t arm herself. The trait was beginning to annoy Avery.
“What else?” Virine said.
