Butcher Bird (19 page)

"I'm so sorry." Bulgarkov grabbed a book from the stall and handed it to Spyder. "Here, the book you were admiring, please take it, with my apologies."

"I'm okay. It just startled me, is all," said Spyder, but his hand was throbbing. "Don't go square dancing in that get-up. Adiós." He took the book and headed off, following the directions Bulgarkov had given him.

As Bulgarkov said, the cinema was indeed small, a converted café, full of silent patrons, with a wrinkled sheet for a screen at one end and a clattering film projector at the other. Through the front entrance, Spyder could see a sliver of the face of a young, handsome Orson Welles. He was sweating and his eyes were wide. Welles' voice came through the open door: "Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath . . .

"The horror! The horror!"

A shadow moved across Spyder. "When they told me you were in Berenice, I knew you'd show up here."

Spyder looked at the man. He dropped Bulgarkov's book, seeing his own face, ten years younger.

"Boo," said Spyder's younger self. "I am the ghost of Christmas past."

"How long you been rehearsing that one, you little shit?"

"I had it for a while, but I was saving it for a special occasion, grandpa."

"At least I know what you are."

"What?" asked the younger Spyder.

"What's the line? 'An undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.'"

"'There's more of gravy than of grave about you!' Of course, we never read the book, did we?"

"It's just a story. Not really a book. And, actually, I have read it since then. But I still prefer the movie."

"
A Christmas Carol
, nineteen thirty-eight, directed by Edwin L. Marin," said young Spyder.

"With Reginald Owen as Scrooge."

"The only real movies are in black and white. We're secret snobs."

"I'm a snob. You're just the memory of a lot of bad speed. Who told you I was here?"

"Mutual friends."

"The Black Clerks? They send you to spy or just to fuck with me?"

"I do what I want, old man. When I heard you were around, I came by. I wanted to see how I turn out."

"What's the verdict, son?"

"Nice ink. But the rest of you is old and soft."

"That's what you always said to everyone over twenty-five," said Spyder, flashing back on using variations of the line on uncles, cousins, cops and counselors throughout his teens. "It's true, then. You little Casper the Ghosts really can't say anything original. You just remix what I said an ice age ago."

"I hear tell you're a tamed little bitch these days. You really getting led around by an eyeless flatback?"

"She's an assassin, not a prostitute."

"Maybe now but I heard that in her lean and hungry youth she had another line of work."

"Didn't we all?"

"Yeah, and it was fun!" said the younger Spyder. "You gave it up, didn't you? You have that housebroken look. Way too upstanding to steal for your supper these days."

"What can I say? Unlike you, Peter Pan, I grew up."

"That's your excuse for what you've become? That's stone pitiful."

"I'm not going to justify myself to someone who doesn't even exist. However, on the off chance that it means something, I'll tell you this. Remember Santos Raye?"

"Fat, white-haired fucker at the chop shop. Everyone called him Santos Claus."

"That's him. You're too young to know this, but Santos got murdered. Iggy Atkinson did it."

"So what? Santos was a snake-mean, drunk fuck who got what he deserved."

"Yeah, but I talked to him that morning. And Santos was Iggy's partner. Then Santos disappeared. No body, no nothing. But everyone knew what happened. I was a happy car thief, but I never pictured myself as a murderer. And I knew if I stuck around, sooner or later that's what I'd be. That or dead."

"You pussyed out. On both of us."

"We were always playing walking a fine line, painting and drawing in the day, stealing cars for Iggy and Santos at night. It was cool and fun. We were artists and above it all. Then Santos was dead and I knew who did it and I wasn't above shit. I made a choice. Art or crime. I chose art."

"You made the pussy choice."

"It's my life, and you're just the ghost of something I don't want to be, I don't even want to know about."

"Hey, remember this?" Young Spyder pulled a punch knife from behind his back.

"I'm you. You can't hurt me."

"I saw that
Star Trek
, too. But it's not how things work here. That bloody hand hurt?" His youthful reflexes were still streetfight quick. He slashed Spyder's already bloody fist.

"Fuck!" Spyder yelled, grabbing his cut hand.

Spyder went down on one knee. He'd liked kicking people in the head in his youth. When his younger self approached, Spyder doubled over as if in pain, reached into his own waist band and slashed the kid's right knee with Apollyon's knife. Young Spyder went down hard, clutching his leg.

"Fuck you, fucker! You're gonna die, you sell-out motherfucker. When the Clerks gut that dyke cunt and your girlfriend, I'm gonna hold you down and make you watch!"

Spyder felt an overpowering desire to run away. Seeing his young reckless self lying bloody on the ground and cursing him, another powerful desire took over, however. Spyder kicked the kid in the temple. Then in the ribs. Then the groin. Then he just kicked to feel the thrill of his boot making contact with a body. When he stopped, the boy wasn't moving. Spyder wrapped the silk scarf tighter around his wounded hand and ran into the side streets of Berenice, hoping he could find his way back to the rendezvous point. He didn't want to get lost and have to trade away another pair of good boots.

When Spyder finally found his way back to the corner on the pink flagstone street, the others were already there.

Lulu waved to him and Shrike cocked her head in his direction as he approached. Spyder wondered if she recognized his footsteps. He'd heard that blind people could sometimes do that sort of thing. His hand felt as if it were on fire.

"Hey, we got us horses. We're real cowboys now!" said Lulu happily. "Damn, what's up with your hand?"

"Are you all right, Spyder?" asked Shrike.

"Let me see the wound," said Count Non.

"Later. Let's get the fuck out of here."

"You know how to ride?" Shrike asked.

"The end with the face goes forward, right?"

They walked to the stables where Shrike and Primo had traded the last of her jewelry for horses, saddles and feed. Riding down the long boulevard, they left the city using a smuggler's route they'd bribed the stable owner to reveal: a refuse tunnel that swept away the waste and trash produced by the city's human population. The place was dark, stinking and, at times, the ancient masonry ceiling was so low that even lying flat on their mounts, the riders' backs slid along the slimy tunnel roof. But, it was better than trying to swim with the horses, or braving the sandstorm, fire or freezing waste at Berenice's other gates, Shrike reminded them, before vomiting into the filth. That set Spyder and Lulu off. Eventually, the tunnel ended at a sluggish stream in the open desert, just beyond the city walls. The fresh air and light was as thrilling as anything Spyder remembered in his life. They turned north, with Primo, the traveler and natural geomancer, in the lead. Lulu and the Count followed, and Spyder and Shrike rode at the rear.

"What went on back there?" asked Shrike. "Did you have words with Count Non?"

"Nah. He had words with me. Listen, can you hurt those things back there? Those memory ghosts?"

"Tell me what happened."

"I had a run-in. With myself. It got out of hand. I might have killed him."

"I don't think you can kill those spirits. Do you still have the memory of the part of yourself that you fought with?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Then it's still alive back there. The only one you hurt is yourself. There's so much pain in your voice."

"He was just a kid. I was just a kid. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to wipe him out."

"That's not how you're going to get rid of him, you know."

"What is?"

"Learn to forgive him."

"Did you forgive the guy who betrayed you?"

Neither of them said anything for a while. His hand had stopped bleeding, so he wiggled his fingers to see if they worked properly. They did, but moving them was agony. "Don't tell the others about this, okay?"

Shrike leaned to him in the saddle. "Kiss me," she said. Spyder was happy to oblige.

"Are you cured?" Shrike asked. "Back home, at the Autumn Encomium—it's a lot like Christmas—members of the royal family must kiss any ill or injured person who asks. The kiss was supposed to cure all maladies."

"Did it work?"

"Tradition says yes. As far as I'm aware, no, not even once."

They stopped to water the horses at a spring a few hours later. Berenice was long out of sight and before them was nothing but open desert and the Kasla Mountains in the distance. As the horses drank, the group ate some bread and meat Count Non had traded for in one of the street markets. The meat was stringy, but spicy and rich tasting. Spyder started to ask what kind of meat it was, but decided to leave well enough alone.

"How's your hand?" asked Lulu, between mouthfuls of bread.

"It's all right. The Count put on some ranch-dressing-smelling goo. It doesn't even hardly hurt," said Spyder, flexing his fingers.

"You see the fight barkers back in Berenice?"

"Think I must've missed them."

"Damn. You'd've loved it. After you took off, the Count and me were kind of looking for you. We went down this one street and there's all these sideshow freaks and retards in a big metal pen with all these locals staring 'em down. Pinheads. Guys with arms where their legs should be. Or their bodies stop just south of their nipples. Monster-headed hydrocephalic she-males. It's totally Tod Browning. And the real twisted part? These freaks fight each other while the barkers take bets!"

"And I thought I was having a twisted time."

"It gets worse," said Lulu. "I asked some old guy what the deal was. He said they were the broken memories. Like the memories of schizos or dying people. They're like the deranged homeless of Berenice, roaming the streets, attacking each other and normal memories. I guess some humans figured how to make some money off 'em. You'd never guess those shiny, happy people would be into that, would you? I mean, all those clean, straight streets, and here's the guy who made your shoes betting that the blind geek in the corner can bite the fingers off the legless tranny."

"They made money tossing Christians to the lions, why not memories?"

"Everything's show biz, in the end."

"Truer words were never."

"Couple of those clowns thought I was with the geeks on account of my unique look. The Count straightened 'em out."

Spyder wondered if he should tell Lulu about running into the Black Clerks, but he decided that the news wouldn't do her any good. He handed her the canteen of water Shrike had given him. Lulu took a long drink. A red and black snake burrowed up out of the sand, tasted the air with its tongue and dove back underground.

"And you say I never take you anywhere nice," Spyder said to Lulu.

That evening, they camped in a small dune valley, out of the night wind. They hadn't seen any airships all day, so the others started a fire while Primo showed Spyder how to hobble the horses. He didn't feel it while riding, but once on his feet, Spyder's ass and back were sore. It took him a while to pour grain into the horses' feed bags, as he couldn't grip either bag properly with his injured hand. The Count found him and helped him slip the bags onto the horses' heads.

"Back in Berenice, I upset you. That wasn't my intention," said Count Non.

"No harm, no foul, man," said Spyder, slipping the feed bag on the last horse. "I'm just a little on edge. You and Shrike, you're used to this Conan the Barbarian stuff. I'm just passing through and it's getting to me."

"It is a situation. I can see how ending up here unwillingly could leave one unstrung."

"That's it. I am un-fucking-strung," Spyder said. "What's your story? You don't sweat anything. That some stiff upper lip blue blood thing?"

"My father certainly wouldn't say so. Unlike Shrike, I can't claim a tragic seduction or a kingdom stolen. I'm nothing more than a bad son who can't go home."

"What did you do?"

"What does any son do? I didn't love my father enough. And he didn't have the patience to let me find that love on my own terms."

"We've got something in common, then. The last thing my father ever said to me, before he disappeared into a sea of Jack Daniel's, was, 'You are my greatest mistake.' I was twelve."

The Count nodded and stroked the neck of one of the horses. "Making our own way toughens us. Look at you. Not everyone could take the shock of being snatched unwillingly from one world and dropped into a new one."

"Halfway to Hell, man. I thought I'd cleaned up a little, and was going the other way. Or, at least, holding steady."

"It's not a kind universe. I've lived many places since leaving home, many much worse than this. Compared to where we could be, this isn't so bad at all."

"The idea that we could die out here doesn't bother you?"

"There are worse things than death. Would you rather change places with Shrike's father?"

"No thanks."

"For now, we have this sky and the moon, warm air in our lungs and good companions. I can tell you one thing for certain, little brother: In this life, no matter what anyone promises you, what allegiances of love or fealty they swear or what gods they pray to, you will never have more than what you have at this moment."