The Shambling Guide to New York City (28 page)

“Save it,” Zoë said. “I am not really in the mood. I’ll see you tomorrow at work, if I survive this.”

“This is why he hired you, Zoë.”

“No, not this part. I’m pretty sure he didn’t hire me for this,” she said without much venom, and let the death goddess out of the apartment. She followed her, locked her door, and as Gwen headed out, took a deep breath and went to knock on Arthur’s door.

“I don’t even know how I’m supposed to pass you off,” Arthur said, casting an appraising eye at Zoë. He had put on his stained Public Works coveralls and tossed some weapons into a duffel bag. He had taken off his sling and tossed it inside the bag as well.

“Don’t you need that?”

He flexed his arm and winced slightly. “It still hurts, but it’s healing fast. I think whatever that Chinese stuff was helped, and the zoëtist did the rest of the work. It’s impressive, I will admit.”

“Anyway, let me worry about passing me off. I’ll just introduce myself and be honest,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorjamb.

He zipped the bag and sighed. “I can’t think of any way that this is going to go well.”

“Well, I don’t know a lot about, uh, geases? Geeses?”

“Geasa,” Arthur said absently.

“Sure, geasa. Whatever. I don’t know much about them, but it sounded pretty serious.”

He hefted the shoulder bag. “It is. I’m magically obligated to do what he tells me to, and I’m free once I’m done. And you heard what happens if I don’t.” He didn’t look at her as he opened the door and waited for her to exit.

Their shoes echoed in the hall, a sound that always made Zoë think that she was being followed. “So what is the plan?”

“We have to go to the Department of Public Works first, and get a briefing and assignment for the day. With luck it’ll be plain old sewer problems and not monster movement. I’ll introduce you to my boss and my team. We’ll drop the information about the zoëtist. If I’m not fired and you’re not kicked out, we’ll talk some more. I might get called away to take care of something, but hopefully it’ll be a quiet night.”

He didn’t sound convinced.

It’s already hard to exist in the city as the most hated minority of all, so one would expect the auto-sexual, homosexual, pansexual, and budding coterie to have an even tougher time of it. But many humans may find it surprising that there’s very little prejudice in New York. The coterie work hard to maintain balance in their associations with the humans, so much so that the sexuality of coterie rarely enters into any equation.

If you’re looking to hook up or meet people, do what anyone would do, be polite, flirt, flash your colors, drool, or moan at your intended before engaging in any aggressive courtship. Unless your species is into aggressive courtship, that is. If they’re into you, you’ll know. If not, then move on. No one wants unwelcome advances. That’s why they’re unwelcome.

Please know that New York is rare in this respect. Places such as Columbia, SC, are completely intolerant to any coterie but the heterosexual, and on the flip side, Las Vegas, NV, and Celebration, FL, will accept only gay coterie. Alternatively, Santa Monica, CA, will accept only fae who bud, and the town forbids coterie sex entirely.

W
hen they got to street level, Arthur swore and checked his watch.

“What?” Zoë asked.

“That argument made me lose track of time. I’ll be late if I catch the bus.”

“No problem,” Zoë said. She stripped the choker from her neck and stepped around Arthur and raised it, trying not to grin when the cab screeched to a halt in front of her, incense wafting from the cracked windows.

“What… is that driving the cab?” he asked.

“That’s Max. He’s a demon. He helped us the other night, but you probably don’t remember.” She peered through the haze at the grinning demon. “Max, can you get us to the Department of Public Works?”

“Taking humans to Public Works? That’ll cost you two fingers!” he said, glaring at Arthur’s coveralls. Zoë just laughed and opened the door to the backseat.

“We’re on a diplomatic mission. It’s cool. I promise.”

Max jabbed a taloned thumb at Arthur. “That one is diplomatic, you’re telling me?”

Arthur raised his empty hands. “You obey the law and I’m just a passenger. Agreed?”

Max grunted, but allowed Arthur to climb in beside Zoë.

Zoë jerked backward as Max accelerated quickly, and grabbed
on to the door handle. “I’ll vouch for him, Max. My boss needs me to deliver some information to his boss. If you eat him, then his boss probably won’t be open to talking to me. And you might get your cab license taken away.” She ignored the panicked look Arthur gave her.

“What’s going on?” Max asked, perking up at the promise of gossip.

Zoë glanced at Arthur, who shrugged. “There’s… apparently something big coming to town that could stir things up for both humans and coterie. My boss thinks that if we cooperate with Public Works, we can stop the threat.”

“Man, I fuckin’ hate Public Works,” Max grumbled.

“Aw, just think of them like police. They just want to keep the peace,” Zoë said.

“I fuckin’ hate the police, too,” Max said.

Max jerked the cab to the right and Arthur swore as the city disappeared. Zoë patted his arm awkwardly.

“I guess you didn’t know about the Rat’s Nest?”

Arthur ignored her. He pressed his face to the window as Max zipped through the tunnel, mumbling to himself. “How did they build this without us knowing? Are we above or below the sewer system? This is amazing!”

“There are spells hiding it from humans,” Zoë said. “It has something to do with the rats. I’ll be researching it for the book, incidentally.”

They popped out of the Rat’s Nest and Arthur made a disappointed noise as the cab tore down the street toward Public Works. It stopped on the corner with a lurch.

“This is as far as I go,” announced Max.

“Thanks a ton, Max, I owe you,” Zoë said. “Actually, how much
do
I owe you?”

His red eyes slid along the mirror to stare at Arthur, and Zoë
realized that she was going to have to pay more for bringing an enemy into the car. She groaned inwardly.

“Twenty. And a write-up in your book.”

She exhaled slowly. She’d been sure he’d ask for a finger again, only mean it this time. “Of course. No problem. I’ll take care of it. Thanks a lot, Max.”

The demon grunted as they climbed out. The cab peeled out, did a U-turn that nearly caused a bus to ram into a light pole, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Arthur’s eyes were still wide and dazed. Zoë punched him in his good arm. “Hey, wake up. We have a job ahead of us.”

He shook his head and finally focused on her. “You don’t understand. We know a lot about their culture, but we’ll be the first to admit that we don’t know half of what we should. There’s over six thousand miles of sewers and tunnels in the city, and I know we can’t watch all of it all the time, but I didn’t know there were whole systems we didn’t even know about.”

“Well, they’re designed for you to miss. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

They headed up the grand steps of the Department of Public Works. Zoë eyed the tall marble pillars that seemed to loom in the afternoon sun. “I feel very small.”

“You get used to it,” Arthur said, heaving the massive brass and wood door open for her.

Zoë wondered if Arthur knew that his boss was coterie.

Ms. Fanny Hogbottom would have had a funny name, if you’d dared to laugh at her. She was six feet of solid muscle and curves that reminded Zoë not of a woman, but of an automobile. Zoë didn’t know what she was, goddess or demon, but she was pretty sure the woman had an otherworldly quality. Her skin
was dark black and her hair snaked around her head in cornrows that formed an intricate pattern. Her brown eyes were very wide and they did not blink.

Fanny crossed her arms under her massive breasts and stared at Zoë. She’d brought Arthur and Zoë into the office when Arthur had mentioned that Zoë had some news of a diplomatic nature. She closed the door behind them and cocked an eyebrow. “Why are you really here?” she asked, a hint of an accent on her tongue.

Zoë loosened her scarf to show her coterie pendant. “I assume you know what this is?”

Fanny nodded without changing her expression.

“I work for a publishing company that puts out travel books for visiting coterie. We want New York City to be a safe place for the coterie who visit as well as the resident humans.”

“I still don’t understand why you, a human, would spy on Public Works.” Her voice was hard, and Zoë’s hands started to sweat.

“This is not spying. This is being completely up front about my intentions,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound shrill. “I am doing research on Public Works, yes, partly to continue my own education in the coterie world, but also my boss, Phil Rand, a vampire, sent me here with a message for you.”

Fanny sat down in a brown leather desk chair that squeaked ominously, as if warning that this was the last time it would stand for that kind of abuse. “A message from a vampire. I await this with considerable interest.”

“I’m a human, so I’ve been trying to learn as much about the coterie as I can in the past few weeks. In that time I’ve uncovered things my boss says are signs of some bad stuff happening and he thinks you should know about it.”

“ ‘Bad stuff,’ ” Fanny repeated.

God, did she ever blink? Zoë tried to drop the feeling of being in the principal’s office, and soldiered on. “Apparently a high-level zoëtist is coming to town to stir things up.”

Finally the woman blinked. “That’s impossible. The balance has been maintained for a good forty years. How can one zoëtist cause such a stir?”

Zoë shrugged. “Like I said, I’m still learning about all this. I’m not even sure what zoëtists do. This woman” (she was loath to mention she knew Lucy) “is allegedly behind the spiking of zombie food with formaldehyde.”

She waited, watching Fanny, but the woman didn’t ask what that meant, so she continued. “A construct stole brains from the zombies at work, and we found out he had already been spiking the brains they did eat. Hunger and formaldehyde were behind the attack of the morgue worker and the jogger. We think. All I know is that I am to tell you to be on your guard for an increase in coterie activity when she gets here.”

Fanny’s eyes narrowed. “We are always on our guard. Do you know when she’ll arrive?”

Zoë swallowed. “Tomorrow.”

“And why should we trust you?”

Arthur leaned forward. “Ms. Hogbottom, I encountered Zoë when she was in the middle of the zombie uprising I reported last weekend. She fought bravely. She could have killed me anytime during that fight. Hell, she could have just let the zombies get me.”

Fanny fixed her shiny eyes on Arthur. “And this boss? You’ve met the vampire?”

Arthur nodded. “He seems dedicated to keeping the balance of the city. And the fact that he’s employed Zoë—who’s there of her own free will, I’m certain she’s not enthralled—is also a sign that makes me, if not trust him, respect him.”

“When were you going to tell me that you had been speaking with a vampire?”

He didn’t drop his gaze. “I just did.”

“Wait in the hall, Arthur. I want to talk to this woman alone.”

Arthur looked at Zoë, eyebrows raised, and she nodded. She had a feeling she knew what was coming.

“I’ll be right outside,” he said.

When the door latched behind them, Fanny relaxed visibly. Her head became rounder and her breasts swelled to become even larger. Her girth also increased, making her appear less strong and much more obese. She smiled at Zoë, her fat cheeks lifting. “That’s better. Holding that shape all day isn’t easy.”

Zoë nodded slowly. “Please forgive my rudeness. I feel I should know you, but I am not sure who you are.”

Fanny reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a pomegranate. She split it in half easily by twisting it. The juice ran down her wrists. “Few know my name anymore. And yet I’m worshipped more worldwide than nearly any other god these days.” Her tongue snaked up her arm, slurping at the juice. “The only people who pray more than men in foxholes are women in labor. Or women trying to get pregnant.”

“Then why are you heading up Public Works? Why aren’t you an ob-gyn or something? You’re a fertility goddess, right?”

“
The
fertility goddess, my little pomegranate. I been those. I been everything that creates. I got bored. People are comfortable around new life. It brings them the hope. So who better to infiltrate the humans’ biggest coterie control organization than someone who puts them at ease?”

Zoë glanced at the door and laughed. “Arthur didn’t seem comfortable around you.”

Fanny laughed too, a booming, lovely sound. Zoë wanted to crawl into her lap and ask for a story. “Oh, the underlings don’t
need to be comfortable. Still, they’re the best-trained humans to keep coterie under wraps, and when they look at me, they don’t see me. That’s the comfort I’m speaking of. I been in the maternity wards. Fertility clinics. Even television—the Learning Channel shows
A Baby Story
and
A Wedding Story
were my ideas. But I think mothering two children, humans and coterie, that hate each other is also a part of my job, and managing Public Works fits that well.”