I knew these were enustari because of the stink of gas in the air, and the long line of heavy men and women lining the walls, silent, some with black hoods on their heads, some wearing nice suits, all of them nursing open wounds, most on their arms, a few on their heads.
A few other men and women, younger than the mages at the table, stood around in the shadows. Well-dressed, blank-faced, they were all saganustari, I figured. Apprentices to the bigwigs, ustari who were waiting patiently for their gasams to die so they would be free, so they could ascend. One guy was a good-looking dark-skinned man in a beautiful overcoat and gorgeous leather gloves that looked like they’d grown on his hands, supple and perfect. He stood in the shadows by the Bleeders, next to an ancient woman in a wheelchair. My eyes caught hers, and a feeling of dread, black and heavy, settled on me. I looked away as fast as I could.
Fallon walked briskly toward them. A few stood up as he approached, a soft rustle of expensive suits and shimmering dresses. Fallon paused next to the floating red-haired woman, who turned her head regally to look at him, her face amused. Instead of looking at her, Fallon turned toward the old woman in the wheelchair.
“Mika, if you think I will speak to your Glamour, you are sadly mistaken,” he said. “When will you tire of these games?”
“Evelyn,” said the beautiful, floating woman, her voice like soft chimes, musical, the sort of voice you wanted to hear forever. My heart was pounding in my chest. I wanted to turn and run and find a dark space to hide in, and I wanted to record her voice and edit it so that she was phonetically sounding out my name. “You are fortunate to be here under truce.”
Fallon snorted, still addressing the old mummy. “Do not threaten me, Mika, or who will craft your toys for you?”
“Enough,” snapped a broad-chested, purple-faced man in a well-cut shiny suit, his jowls quivering. “We have business.”
Fallon turned and smiled at him. “Alfonse, a pleasure as always,” he said in a way that strongly implied the exact opposite. Fallon then beckoned me forward before sliding into the chair in front of the beautiful red-haired woman as if she weren’t there. Her smirk came a second too late and looked a trifle too forced. Fallon reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a small green plastic army man, the kind I’d played with as a kid whenever my father wasn’t kidnapping me, when my mother wasn’t throwing away all my toys in a fit of fresh rage. Fallon set it on the table in front of him, and the rest of them visibly shifted in discomfort.
“Come, Mr. Vonnegan. Sit. Describe her. Describe everything.”
I DESCRIBED THE Old Bat, the house, the crawl space, the girl. I described the route that Lugal had taken while using me as a puppet, everything I could remember.
“Lurida,” said a surprisingly young girl, swirling whiskey in a glass. She was a skinny brunette and she was too confident, seated with people three, four times her age, no hint of nerves.
“Almost certainly.” Fallon nodded. “Lurida Moret, the crazy old bitch.”
The brunette grinned, her face red; she was pretty drunk. “Evvy, you agreed with me!”
Fallon’s eyes tightened. “Elsa, we are not friends.”
“Who’s Lurida Moret?” I asked.
For a moment there was silence. Then the girl named Elsa hooted, banging her glass on the table. “Aw, shit, kid, you stepped in it now. You ain’t s’posed to fucking talk! Some o’ these creeps haven’t been spoken to by a human being who couldn’t set them on fire with a spell in decades.”
“Mr. Vonnegan is here under my protection,” Fallon said.
I thought of Hiram, the stink of fear on him, the humiliation of it. I stirred myself. “Who says I can’t set you all on fire with a spell?”
Silence again. A tall black man with snow-white hair and a close-shaved beard leaped up, hissing out Words, too low for me to catch, and his hands began to glow an ominous yellow, the light like a tiny sun. Heat radiated from his hands, making me sweat.
“You will be silent,” he said, his voice accented, lilting.
“Sit down, Mycroft,” Fallon said, sounding irritated. “We are under truce, and he is under my protection, as I just said. Shall we attend to the matter at hand?”
Mycroft glared at Fallon, and the yellow glow brightened, the heat becoming intense. “You have no Bleeders, old man.”
Fallon nodded. “You know who I am. I do not need Bleeders.”
Mycroft looked around, then glanced at the tiny green toy on the table in front of Fallon. The confidence drained away with an almost audible hissing sound. When no one said anything else, the yellow glow faded away, and he resumed his seat with a scowl.
In the shadows behind him, a fat man in a baggy suit crumpled silently to the floor.