American Goth (29 page)

Remember that, and remember this: we die, Samantha. We all die, but it’s what we do while we’re here and how we face that fact that counts. It’s not enough to be “good,” we must be good for something, and as strange as this may sound right now? You’re lucky in many ways—you were born to your “something,” you don’t have to struggle like so many others to figure out what it is.

I’ll bet you’ve got that key held so tightly in your hand it’s probably imprinted in your skin by now. Start from the bottom. Everything’s dated, I’ve left notes on what I’ve done and you’ll need them to make sense of what I think is to come. There are patterns everywhere, nothing is ever an accident. Pay attention to the signs, there are more around than you know.

Two things, Samantha.

I think an avatar has arrived, perhaps more than one. There have been hints that it would happen and given what I think I’ve discovered…well, I don’t know who it is—you’ll be the one to discover that. And I know, because you are Wielder, that you will find them, and you will protect them.

Use my notes, and make Cort tell you the legend of the mark of Judas if he hasn’t already.

I think the cult has been revived and maybe tonight, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to prove it. The tides are all wrong, we’ve hit the moon’s nadir, but I have to try, I have to find out, because if I’m right, the game’s been changed for some time now, but no one knows yet.

I’m out of time. A few hours ago you came home from school. We ate dinner, we watched a movie, and I kissed you good night before I left for the station. I’m off duty, but Joe Scanlon’s a good man, he knows where I’m going. You can turn to him in an emergency, if Cort’s not around. He knows. Not everything, but enough.

I hope you never have to read this, but the threads as I read them say you will. Trust Cort, trust Elizabeth, but most of all? Trust
you
—I do.

Go. Read. Put the pieces together, find what I missed—I know you can.

Love you always,

Da

*

I smoothed the pages out on the ground next to me and sat, staring at nothing for I don’t know how long, the key gripped so tightly it had gone beyond imprinting to embedding in my palm, and I felt her before she entered the room.

“Are you all right?” Fran laid gentle fingers on my bare shoulder. The bandage around her hand scratched lightly on the skin.

I twisted my head and kissed her fingers. “Fine. How’re you?”

She knelt beside me, and let her arm rest across my shoulders. “I’m okay. Sam, aren’t you cold?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Careful!” I cautioned, perhaps a bit too sharply as I saw her hand near the raw edges of glass that still lay on the floor. My mind replayed the slashing fall of it, the spurt of red through the air.

“I’m not going to touch it,” she assured me.

“I should clean that up,” I said half under my breath and I gently plucked her hand off my shoulder, holding it in mine as I stood.

“You should clean that up first,” Fran said, nodding at my waist.

She was right. It looked a bit macabre, I supposed as I looked down, the clear lines of her fingers, the larger section where I’d pressed her hand to me, the trail that dripped down my waistband.

There was more than one thing I had to straighten out and I grabbed the waste pail from its corner, then hunkered down next to Fran. I picked up the first few shards and tipped them carefully into the bag that lined the bin.

“Is the picture of your mom okay?” she asked.

“Frankie, it’s fine, that’s not important.” I stared down at my own hands a moment. “I got scared for you,” I admitted quietly. “And as weird as it sounds, your,” and I gestured at her hand, “turned out to be a good thing.”

“
Felix casus?
” she asked with a small grin as I took her uninjured hand in mine.

“Mm-hmm, a lucky accident,” I agreed as she let me open it, revealing her palm to me. I placed the key on her skin, then closed her fingers over it. I held her fist in my hands.

“Who knows how long it would have been before I found this, if ever? So thank you.” I kissed her cheek and as I did, a chill ran down my spine. My father had told me to watch for signs, that there were many of them, and it struck me that the way I’d found that key hadn’t been a sign at all, but an omen.

I picked the pages of the letter back up from the floor where I’d left them, and handed them to her. “You can read this if you’d like,” I told her quietly.

She held them carefully and let out a slow breath. “Sam…this is yours. You don’t—”

“—have to?” I finished for her and gazed into her eyes, melted honey warm on mine, and I gave her a tiny smile. “I found it because of you. Yes, I do.”

“All right,” she agreed, and I left her sitting on the bed to do exactly that.

I cleaned the glass, I cleaned the floors, I cleaned myself, and despite the curious and concerned thoughts and questions thrown in my direction, I shrugged them all off as politely as I could before I clattered down the stairs and out to the yard to get my Vespa.

In the aftermath of everything, the reliving of things that were almost too much to bear, the anxiety over Fran’s safety, and the need for my mind to make sense of everything I’d learned, my head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, then dipped in peppermint or something similar.

I didn’t know where I was headed, really, or how long I’d be. I just wanted to let the throb behind my eyes dull before I tackled the task my father had laid before me. Images and thoughts chased each other like bright goldfish. My Da thought an avatar had returned. What in the world was the Judas myth, or its cult? What would my gifts be after my sealing? Could I keep Fran safe? Could I protect anyone, really? Where did Old Jones fit into all of this? My mother? I wish I’d known her… What purpose had it served in not telling me what had really happened to her sooner? My poor Da…were he and my mother together somewhere? Was that even possible? What happened, where was the potential new being that had left the Material just before my mother did? These things and more darted and dipped around my mind, chasing one after the other, each nipping at the heels of the next, and I didn’t see Fran by the gate until I almost knocked right into her.

“Let me go with you.”

I squirmed inside, not knowing how to say I wanted to be alone, alone in my mind, alone in my skin, away from all the thoughts and the emotions that rode down so hard on me they made me feel sluggish, heavy, trapped.

She stood there, her hand in her pocket, eyes calmly considering me, observing the play of emotion through mine.

“You don’t have to talk, you don’t have to say a thing. I can ignore you if you want, but you shouldn’t be alone right now and I’m not about to let you do something you’ll regret.”

I gaped at her. I didn’t know what to say, and this time, she touched gentle fingers to my cheek. “Sammer, you can’t do this on your own.” Her voice matched her touch.

“Frankie…” Her eyes were clear, her intent so pure, I could only shake my head and sigh. “Fine.” I unclipped the other helmet from the seat and passed it to her. “Let’s go.”

She settled around me and we were off. The vibration that raced through me, the cold on my face even as her hands were warm on my stomach while we roared around the corner, made me feel a little better, gave me a little distance from the weight that pounded in my head.

We rode aimlessly, down streets we’d never visited, got stuck for a bit in the eternal traffic around Piccadilly. Once back in the swing again, I kept riding, stopping long enough for gas only to ride off again, back to the dockyards, and then, almost as if irresistibly drawn, I headed back toward Spit.

Fran’s unspoken curiosity combined with puzzlement was an electric haze around her as we walked back over to the door, so different now in the half-light of early dusk. It was quiet, still, like something sleeping, not the peaceful sleep of restorative dreams and untroubled calm, but the fitful slumber of hot and heavy fevers, the vivid kaleidoscope of colors and sounds interrupted by the dizzying endless drop into black that might mercifully end in abrupt awareness, the sort that sits up suddenly, ravening.

I traced the plaque with my fingertips, felt the hum of industry, of purposeful labor and toil, some with cheer, some with a muted resignation, bleed from it into my hand.

“What are you looking for?” Fran asked quietly, the first words she’d spoken the entire ride.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, turning from the plaque to the main doors to do the same. The construction was newer, despite its almost abused appearance, but the read was completely different. There was the white welding arc the doors were forged in, the same industrial pound of its installation and then…a flash of blood, of fire and fear, sex and despair. I caught the scent of burning tar and plastic, and a vision, a flicker of light, surrounded, devoured, by creatures similar to the one I’d hunted on the Astral.

I dropped my hand and faced her. She looked pale. “What are
you
getting?” I asked her.

She pursed her lips, then shook her head, loosening her hair from its confines under the collar of her jacket as she stared at some vague point on the ground. “Do you remember…schoolyard fights?”

“You mean, like, fighting itself?”

“No, I mean…do you remember how the other kids would watch? Cheer?”

“Yeah.”

She raised her eyes to mine. “There were always a few who would watch that…and liked to, enjoyed it. That’s feeling I get.”

I nodded and suddenly, I was clear of the haze in my head, human again, a snap back to the skin and I was standing outside the empty club, freezing my ass off with Fran, who I’d been really rude to for no reason other than I’d felt hazy and crummy. I was a jerk.

“Hey, this…this is stupid. You want to go back?” I asked her and took her hand. Her fingers were cold and I chafed them between mine. “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I’m being a jerk.”

She grinned, her eyes sparking at me. “Just a little,” she agreed. “But,” and she kissed my cheek, “it’s been a rough couple of days for you—well, for you and me both.” The bandage on her hand scraped gently against my chin. “You’re not ready to go back yet, are you?”

“No. Would you mind…” I hesitated a moment, because I knew I wasn’t really being fair, but it was a gut feeling I had to follow. “Do you mind if we stop by the studio?”

A sudden chill ran through her and she shivered, then went still. “Why there?”

I shrugged. I had no answer. “Dunno,” I said finally. I kissed the hand that had finally warmed in mine. “Just a thought.”

I didn’t know how to explain it, that in the rush of images, there had been a scent, a sound, a thread that led there. I didn’t understand, couldn’t quite place the connection, but I had to follow it.

She dropped my hand. “Let’s go.”

*

This time, I made sure to rub her hand, hold it against my waist, before we took off. The one thing about riding with someone, even at slower speeds, was that conversation was difficult and it wasn’t until we pulled up to the block that I finally said, “You’ve haven’t been here yet.”

“No, not yet,” she answered as I cut the engine.

“C’mon.” I took her hand, careful of the wound, a momentary stab of guilt at how it happened jabbing through me as I keyed the lock.

“It’s not much, but it’s—” I stopped as I opened the door to find the lights on and Paolo and Kenny comfortably ensconced on the beat-up blue tweed sofa, apparently in deep conversation.

“Well, if it isn’t Ms. Anarchy herself,” Kenny drawled with a smile.

Paolo smirked at me.

“I thought there was only one key,” I said as we moved into the room.

Paolo’s smirk widened. “There’s only one key, but there’s more than one way into anything.”

“Well, we’re done here, anyway,” Kenny said, slapping the cushion as he jumped up to stand. “You’ve got the place to yourselves…” He winked at me, then smiled, “I’m sure you’re eager to show your friend the drum kit and the coffee maker—fresh pot, by the by.” He pointed toward the kitchenette. He seemed edgy; his hands moved almost frenetically, and he kept working his jaw. It was a marked contrast to Paolo’s languid pose.

“Yes, energy and rhythm—I’m sure you’ve plenty of both,” Paolo drawled, his gaze arrogant as he looked me up and down, and I shifted slightly so Fran was behind my shoulder. I didn’t like his look, I didn’t like his tone, and I didn’t like the gleam in his eyes on me or when he shifted to her.

I hope he plays like shit
, I thought vehemently,
even if it means another month or more of finding a replacement for Graham
.

Fran put a hand on my shoulder and moved to stand next to me. “More than most, less than some, I’d say.” Her tone was friendly, joking even, but what waved off her was heat, a liquid blush of anger, and threaded through it was the faintest hint of fear. That fear was the source of anger came as no surprise—I knew that from what I’d learned, ingrained in me as part of my very first test on the Astral—but what did surprise was the direction of the fear: she was afraid not for herself, but for me.