American Quest (2 page)

Gloria felt pressure on her arm as Bruce quickened their pace. But the subway prophet leaped into their path, cornering them before they reached the turnstiles.

“You!” he said. “A bond-recherché! My God. And you’re not even listening. Didn’t you hear what I just said? Can’t you see he’s sent the yellow-eyed canteshrikes to watch you?”

Bruce raised his hand. “Easy, friend. We’re just trying to get on a train.”

The man stared at Bruce, heaving, and then let his eyes travel to Gloria. “Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Enjoy it my friends. My dear, delusional friends. Take it. Ha! Wallow in it.”

He nodded in derision. “Soon there will be hell at your feet.”

The lunatic’s glare darkened. “Hell for all of us.”

Enervata watched the lovers on the street below. He could taste it full in his mouth. The taste of opportunity.

His bronze claw released the curtain as he turned back to the three Pravus attending him, the two brothers and the mouthless one, Sileny. Their eyes were intent on the young couple beyond the window, but he could tell they were subtly watching him as well. They were taking his measure. Sampling his mood. But he had no desire to cultivate their fear at this moment; his mind was on the lovers, and only the lovers.

“The time has come,” he said, his voice deep like the grinding hull of a ship as it buckles upon the ocean floor. “We have a rare bond-recherché before us. I shall assume a human form and take the woman soon.” He cast his black gaze upon each Pravus in turn. “And this time there had better not be any mistakes.”

Sileny averted her gaze. The other two—the round brothers, Hedon
and Glueg—ambled to the settee and preoccupied themselves with fatty chops and pint jars of honey wine, their plump fingers tracing glistening streaks on the glass.

But Sileny’s worried eyes spoke the things she could not say. Enervata had removed Sileny’s mouth long ago. He might have simply killed her when she dared speak against him, but he preferred to keep her alive and suffering for his entertainment. A single mole capped her left cheekbone, the only feature marking the lower half of her face, and from it protruded spikes of brown hair that matched those on the top of her head.

He could see that her mind calculated all the ways in which they might fail.

Enervata’s tail twitched with a readiness to lash her. “Have you something to say, Sileny?”

Sileny’s hands flashed in quick gestures, daring to cite the incident, nigh on two hundred years ago, when last a bond-recherché dangled its promise so close within Enervata’s reach.

So close.

Enervata raised a hand. “No more, Sileny. It is not so difficult. They are but a man and a woman, a twosome. Does this twosome know anything of magic? I think not.”

The brothers laughed, muttering, slurping their honey wine.

Again, Sileny’s hands moved swiftly, recalling those lovers of long ago, the courtier and the minstrel in Paris at the time of the revolution. They, too, had remarkable talents, and they, too, had found each other, forging a rare, passionate, blind love.

Enervata affected a yawn, his tongue lolling across his fangs, a growl erupting from the depths of his throat. At last, Sileny halted. She seemed to sense the danger.

“You speak for her, Glueg,” Enervata said as he turned his back to Sileny and sat upon his chair. “I grow weary of bearing witness to this woman’s insufferable twitching.”

Glueg’s eyes flew wide even as his teeth tore off a bit of chop. He smacked it down and stared, his lips forming an O deep within his red beard. Hedon, his brother, tapped his fingers on his pint jar.

“Right.” Glueg jammed a fist across his mouth to smear away the fat.

Enervata could see Sileny’s reflection in the glass panel doors of the
Rococo cabinet. With hesitation, hands shaking, she began to sign again.

Glueg cleared his throat. “She’s talking about the last bond-recherché, master. How you managed to break through their bond. You’d turned the woman to your side good and proper.”

Hedon broke in, shaking a chop at Sileny. “Tell’m somefin he don’t know, you stupid ninny! Why must you always try our master’s patience?”

Enervata felt the blackness welling inside him, gathering up all the hatred and putrefaction that defined his Macul heart. The Parisian courtier of long ago had been willing to lay with him, indeed, setting him on the verge of the ultimate fulfillment of his mission. To destroy a bond-recherché, to break their love, was to generate enough dark power to enslave all living things of the Earth—mystic, man, and beast alike.

But in a trice, it fell apart.

Enervata’s claws clenched and unfolded. “If you’ve a point, Sileny, you’d best make it, but I warn you to
take your measure
!”

The room was still. Hedon and Glueg stared at the floor. Enervata could see Sileny’s reflection tremble where she stood behind him. And then her hands began to move again.

Hedon cast a glance her way and shook his head, muttering. “The canteshrikes are down below in the heart of it and we must sit and endure this stupid mouthless slattern!”

Glueg cleared his throat with uncertainty but continued to interpret Sileny’s sign language. “She says how it could very well go like it did last time.”

Enervata needed no reminder of that. A rival Macul, the one focused on the defilement of human capacity, got the minstrel to leave the courtier by offering success in the symphony. The love between the courtier and the minstrel disintegrated because of this.

Enervata seethed.

The trio of Pravus went very still. None dared speak.

Enervata’s words came slow and cutting. “Sileny seems anxious to remind us of this failure. By all means, Sileny, speak of how the bond was prematurely broken. How it rendered the courtier’s betrayal meaningless. And I was cheated of the power I might have gained in the despoliation of their love!”

Hedon waved a hand. “Why listen to this woman’s drivel, master? That’s all behind us now. After all this time, we’ve a new bond-recherché, and we’ll break them to pieces, we will.”

Sileny stepped forward, letting her hands fly.

Enervata snatched Sileny’s wrist, his claw cutting into her skin. She turned her face from him.

“Are you so devoted to the notion of failure, Sileny?” Enervata hissed.

Sileny pulled, but Enervata would not release her. A sound dislodged from her throat, a stifled mew. Finally, he cast her away and she stumbled onto Hedon’s lap. The brothers pinched her as she disentangled herself and stood, tapping nervously at her skull.

Enervata rose from his chair. “There will be no failure this time. And you have my promise: any hint of it shall mean your deaths. All of you.”

He parted the curtains again and watched the lovers on the street, enchanted with one another and oblivious to the canteshrikes who hovered about, cloaked in a different kind of enchantment. Passersby went about their business, lost in their own worlds. All of them ignorant, all of them destined to fall to their knees before him.

Soon.

Glueg cleared his throat, swirling his honey wine. “When are we to begin, then, master?”

Enervata kept his black gaze fixed beyond the window. Eventually, he said, “I shall meet her a few days hence.”

GLORIA SETTLED INTO THE RESTAURANT chair and smiled, breathing in the scent of roasted garlic. The cafe wrapped them in warmth and candlelight, the familiar dining room tantalizing with smells drifting from the kitchen. The mirror by the hostess station reflected candlelight at an odd angle to the room. Gloria narrowed her eyes at it, suspicious now of rogue reflections.

“Here we are!”

Carlotta appeared from the kitchen bearing two steaming plates. Her ruffle-fringed apron flourished to a grand bow at the small of her back and she beamed with satisfaction.

“Enjoy!” she said broadly, patting Gloria’s shoulder before she headed toward the kitchen.

“Do you know who she reminds me of?” Gloria said. “Mama Bear, from ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’”

Bruce lifted a forkful of pasta and glanced at Carlotta as she bustled through the dining room. He nodded. “Definitely Mama Bear. And I bet she makes up a mean pot of porridge.”

Gloria smoothed her napkin over her lap. “You can tell good souls by the way they care about certain things. Carlotta definitely cares about food.”

“No question about it. If there were more Carlottas in the world, there would be no suffering. None at all.”

“Except for the occasional indigestion.”

Bruce grinned. “It’s a small enough price to pay.”

They dug into their food. Gloria truly was ravenous. Lunch had been an energy bar. Or was that yesterday? She couldn’t remember right now whether she’d eaten lunch at all this afternoon. Regardless, the escarole and beans was even more soul satisfying than usual.

“What’s going on with the play?” she said after her fifth bite.

Bruce’s eyes lit up. “I think we’re almost there. Good thing, since opening night’s coming at us fast. It’s all so cool. I still don’t buy why they’re putting our lead actress in the back at the start of her soliloquy, but . . .” He seemed to catch himself and shrugged. “I’m just an apprentice. I need to quit obsessing.”

“You’re more than that; you know the theater like it was your brother. Anyway, I wasn’t asking about
that
play. I meant
your
play.”

Bruce examined his plate. “Also known as the endless journey.”

Gloria smiled softly. “I have Mr. Chang and you have your third act.”

Bruce glanced up at her, a hint of resignation in his eyes. “Maybe I’m not ready.”

“You’re beyond ready,” Gloria said in a voice she hoped wasn’t too insistent. “You just need to tap every resource.”

Bruce nodded. “I know. Some of those resources are proving harder to tap than I expected.”

Gloria chewed her lip. If he really didn’t want to go the extra mile, she wouldn’t push him, at least not now. But all Bruce ever talked about was how anxious he was to get this play out into the world. And she wanted it out there, too. She’d read passages of his work that spun her head around. Most of it wasn’t like that—not yet—but enough was to make her wonder at what waited to emerge from his soul.

He looked beyond her and smiled, changing the subject with his eyes. Gloria followed his gaze over her shoulder and saw Carlotta moving in their direction.

“Everything is okay?” Carlotta asked.

“Fantastico!” Bruce said, kissing his fingertips.

“What’s the secret to the escarole and beans?” Gloria asked. “I can never get the texture right.”

Carlotta tilted her head toward the kitchen. “High heat. Hot hot hot! And fast. If you waste time or don’t use enough heat, it falls apart and is useless.”

The sound of shouting filtered in from the street.

Carlotta craned her neck. “Who’s yelling out there? I worry now. Two weeks ago, someone took a brick and smashed through the stained glass window of the church around the corner. Beautiful window! Who would do a thing like that? And this is a quiet neighborhood.”

“I heard about that,” Bruce said. “It was the big leaded glass window, way up high where they hadn’t put bars. It’s too bad.”

Carlotta nodded. “Some people see something beautiful and they have to smash it. I don’t understand that. I see something beautiful and I want to love it.”

Carlotta stared at the middle distance. Gloria wondered what was running through her mind at that moment. It seemed to mirror the sense of disquiet Gloria felt herself. Why did she have this nagging urge to look over her shoulder? Her eyes traveled again to the mirror that hung near the hostess station, half expecting to see a strange woman in white.

Suddenly, Carlotta’s expression changed. “Hey! Your wedding is soon, right?”

“Yes,” Gloria said, grinning irrepressibly. “Prospect Park in a little more than a month. We’re having the reception there, too.”

Carlotta’s arms spread wide. “Big wedding?”

Bruce smiled and reached for Gloria’s hand. “A frugal wedding. Big on sentiment.”

Gloria grazed his fingertips with hers.

“Big on sentiment is best,” Carlotta said. She smiled at Gloria. “Your dress is ready, dear?”

Gloria nodded. “Bridesmaids, too, Candace and Jamie. They’re going to be wearing pale green with blue sashes.”

“Ah, sounds lovely. So much work, these weddings.” Carlotta rolled her eyes. “Big or small, you have the invitations, the flowers, the catering.”

Bruce shook his head. “Too complicated for me. I leave it to the experts.”

Carlotta smiled. “I’ve thrown weddings for two sons and one daughter. Now with the grandbabies, some day they’ll have weddings, too.”

She paused and put a hand to each of their shoulders. “You are so beautifully in love. I can see it. Anyone can see it.”