Suicide Kings, page 18
“You’re not gonna throw me into it again, are you? Because I have had a really shitty night.”
“No,” Mictlantecuhtli, my other me, says, stepping up to watch the nightmare unfold before us. He looks even less like me than the last time I saw him. Skin stone gray, so thin I can see his heart beating inside his chest. The necklace of eyeballs “That was just to get your attention. Did it work?”
“Fuck you,” I say.
“I see it did. Mictlan is dying because of you.”
“Not easin’ into that one, are ya, pal? Just plough on through and lube be damned. Okay, I’ll bite. How?”
“I am more Mictlantecuhtli than I have ever been anything else,” he says. “I know this. It’s as much a fact as the sun is hot. I know it in my bones.” He picks a jawbone from the ground, tosses it casually toward the hole. It sails through the air and I lose sight of it long before it reaches its destination.
“Nice little symbolic punctuation there,” I say. “So what? I know that, too. I knew that. I mean, I was . . . Fuck.”
“Uncertainty,” he says. “Doubt. Are you a piece of me? Am I your progeny? You don’t know.”
“Do you?” I say.
“No, but that’s irrelevant.”
“Look at you bein’ all cryptic and shit.” He’s not me, not anymore. I can feel it. Like he said, it’s a fact. We were the same once, but we are nothing alike now.
“I really was an insufferable pain in the ass, wasn’t I?” he says.
“You still are,” I say. “Okay, great. Uncertainty and doubt. I don’t know who I am, you don’t know who I am. Hurray for us. What does that have to do with that big sucking chest wound out on the horizon?”
“Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl define Mictlan. Simple enough. Only you and I are still linked. I know what I am, but you don’t. Mictlan can’t tell the difference between us. All it knows is that your doubt is my doubt. My doubt is Mictlan’s doubt.”
“This is why you told me to choose when you threw me into the hole the other night.”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t have mentioned it then?” I say.
“You wouldn’t have listened.” Neither of us says anything for a moment. Just as I’m about to ask the question, he gives me the answer. “Mictecacihuatl is good. Worried. Worried about Mictlan. Worried about you. But good.”
“Not worried about you?”
“No,” he says. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“I guess only one of us gets to be the family fuck-up,” I say. “Let me make sure I’m clear. I’m killing Mictlan because I haven’t chosen who I am?”
“No,” he says. “You’re not doing anything. It’s just happening. Saying you’re causing this is like saying you’re making your heart beat. It’s a function of you, you have the ability to stop it, but you’re not making it happen.”
“Something horribly tragic and it isn’t my fault? Will wonders never cease? Okay. I’m Eric Carter. There, I chose.” I look at the hole in the distance. It’s continuing to grow. “Yeah, okay, that’s a non-starter.”
“You have to choose what you are, not who you are.”
“Human, necromancer, asshole?”
“Definitely that third one. I can’t tell you what you are. We’re not the same anymore, and neither of us is who we used to be. What you are is not mine to decide. What’s important isn’t what you choose, it’s that you choose. So long as there’s a question, that hole will get bigger. Take too long and all of Mictlan will be swallowed up.”
Uncertainty. Doubt. I think back to the other night, yelling at Gabriela that I don’t know what I am, hearing Lani’s words, “What are you?”
“How much time do I have?” I say. “Finding the right therapist to help with this sort of thing isn’t easy, you know.”
“You joke because you’re terrified.”
“No shit. Shouldn’t I be? Hell, shouldn’t you be?”
“I’m not afraid of anything anymore,” he says. “I’m not sure why. I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Great. You got the sociopathy, I got the tattoos. I think you got the better end of the deal.”
“Oh, I know I got the better end of the deal,” he says.
Then the fucker throws me into the hole again.
* * *
—
I snap awake and immediately my razor’s in my hand. I sit up, disoriented, and vertigo pulls me back down. The lights are dim but they’re still too bright. I’m not in Mictlan or outside the camp with everybody’s eyes burning holes in the back of my head.
“Good morning, sir,” Bigsby says, smiling at me from the side of the bed. Right. This is the Werther estate. I came here to get a bead on Werther’s soul and then made the mistake of agreeing with Gabriela that I needed to sleep.
So, I came up here and . . .
“Did I pass out in the bathroom?”
“In the shower, sir,” he says.
“It’s good to know that even back from the dead I’m still on brand.” I swing my legs out of the bed and that’s about as far as I can get. “Oh, Jesus, everything hurts.”
I remember getting to the house, up to my room. Gabriela tried again to get me to agree to check just how jacked up my body is after three fights to the death in less than twenty-four hours. We compromised and I let Bigsby take me upstairs and sew up all the holes and slices I didn’t know I had.
From there I remember stepping into the shower. And then I remember Mictlan eating itself because I’m having an existential crisis.
“You got me in bed?”
“I did, sir. I’m sorry, should I have left you in the shower?”
“No. No, this is good. Uh, I don’t recall owning pajamas.”
“They’re part of the wardrobe Miss Amanda commissioned for you. Suits, ties, casual wear, a tuxedo for this evening, and assorted accoutrements are in the closet at the far end of the room.”
Wow. A guy could get used to this. Wait. “This evening? I thought the big conclave dinner wasn’t until tomorrow.”
“Miss Amanda felt that given recent events and the unexpected early arrival of other members of the family the timetable should be moved forward.”
Dammit. I need to get out of the estate to see if I can track down Werther’s soul out there. It’s not noon yet. I can still do some searching. Maybe I can pinpoint the exact location? At the very least I want to see what the tracker’s actually pointing at.
“Okay,” I say. “I can work with this. Can you get me out the gates without anyone seeing me?” I’m assuming we’re going with the original plan where I don’t show up until tonight.
“Unfortunately, sir, the gates are locked, as the conclave has officially started.”
“I can’t leave?”
“No, sir.” So much for that. Clearly, plans have changed.
“Did Amanda tell you anything about what I’m supposed to do?”
“She did not, sir. But she wanted to give you this.” He hands me an envelope sealed with wax. I can tell there’s a spell on it. Can I trust it? I hand the letter back to Bigsby.
“You open it.” If it’s a paper charm, it could easily be a trap. Depending on what type, just being in the same room with it when it goes off could still be dangerous, but at least it won’t be pointed at me.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m unable. The seal can only be broken by you.”
I haven’t even seen most of this family yet and I’m already paranoid. I crack the letter open and the magic locking it dissipates. I’m not on fire or breathing toxic gas or something, so that’s a plus.
Eric,
Sorry for the sudden change of plans. The rest of the family has forced me to move the official beginning of the conclave up a day. If you can, please come down for luncheon. I’d like to get all of the surprises out of the way and see who does what when I announce Dad’s death and you walk in.
When you’re ready, let Bigsby know and he’ll have Siobhan meet you outside your room to escort you downstairs. The two of you should meet. I trust her. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. She knows what’s going on, so you don’t need to censor yourself. She’ll give you a rundown on who’s here.
Thank you for being here. This whole shitshow would be a lot harder without you and Gabriela’s help.
—Amanda
Guess I better get ready, then.
* * *
—
Bigsby offers to dress me and no, that’s just—no. I kick him out and take a look at what I have to wear. My rain-soaked clothes from last night are nowhere to be seen, which is just as well, since after everything that’s happened they stink of blood and sweat and need to be burned.
The clothes are all very . . . colorful. Okay, not so much colorful as not-black. I don’t know how formal this luncheon’s supposed to be, but the lack of ripped jeans and logo t-shirts from strip clubs tells me it’s going to be a little classier than I’m used to.
I get daring and grab a light gray suit. Gray won’t hide bloodstains, but it’s not like I’m going out on the town with the doors locked. I have to say this thing fits perfectly. It’s even cut in a way that I can carry the Sig in a holster at my back and the derringer in an ankle holster without looking like I’m packing.
I step out into the hall. This time it’s a proper hall, not a short step to a kitchen. Oak doors, plush runner, wood paneling. There are even framed etchings of ducks and shit on the walls. It looks a little like another house I was trying to escape filled with people trying to kill me. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to do it again.
“All right, Bigsby,” I say. “What now?”
“Oh, you don’t need Bigsby for that, Mister Carter.” Tall, light-skinned, black woman. Soft Irish accent. She steps into the hall from a staircase I swear wasn’t there a second ago.
“You must be Siobhan,” I say. She’s wearing a red tunic top with silver edging that goes into a split skirt down to her knees over black leggings and short-heeled boots. Her hair is in long beaded goddess braids, the beads small talismans, most of which I don’t recognize, but I can feel the barely perceptible magic coming off them.
“I am. Admiring my outfit?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. You really make it work. Though I’m more interested in your braids.” She picks one up and looks at it with a critical eye.
“You noticed the magic?”
“Should I not have?”
“Most people can’t, which is how I like it.”
“I won’t say a word.”
“Then let’s go down and meet the family.”
“I’m looking forward to it like it’s a root canal.” We head down the stairs arm in arm.
“You’ll fit right in. Amanda’s asked me to bring you up to speed on things. What do you know?”
“Laughably little,” I say. “I know Amanda and Attila. I’ve met Otto, and Hans and Liam briefly. Oh, and Reinhold.”
“I wasn’t aware Reinhold was coming.”
“He won’t be,” I say.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it? Even more reason Otto is going to love seeing you again.”
“If there’s one talent I have it’s to make any gathering awkward. Hans might be a bit surprised, too. He sent an assassin for me after I kicked him in the nuts and set him on fire.”
She fans her face with one hand. “Mister Carter, you’re trying to seduce me.”
“Is it working?”
“It’s an excellent start. What else do you know?”
“Hans has a boy, Tobias, who has no magic. Helga’s Otto’s and Hans’s mother. Attila kicked her out long after he did the others over some spat. Then there’s Liam, who I understand came with a wife and a mistress. Oh, and he murdered Amanda’s mother.”
“Not bad. What holes would you like filled?”
“Let’s start with you,” I say.
“How forward of you. I don’t let just anyone fill my holes, you know.”
“I can tell you how I set Hans on fire again.”
“No,” she says. “That ship has sailed. Now go on, ask the obvious.”
“I can’t help but notice you don’t exactly look—”
“Like a Nazi?” she says. “I am the family’s great shame. Our father shared a passionate evening with a black woman in a brothel and I was the product. I wouldn’t be here except for one thing.”
“You’re as powerful as everyone else.”
“More so than most. The rest of the family either hates me or ignores me. I’m simply not important enough for them to waste their time.”
“Don’t you have a stake in all this, too?”
“A stake, yes, but only the one I carved out for myself. Apparently, a racist restriction from the sixteenth century says I can’t receive the Great Inheritance. But I have the same restrictions as the rest of them.”
“The curse.”
“It’s more a minor nuisance for me. I haven’t seen any of my family besides Attila and Amanda for years, so it’s easy to avoid. Helga needs a hot poker shoved up her ass, but the rest of them don’t really matter to me.”
“I haven’t even met everybody and I think I like you more than the rest of them already. What’s the problem with Helga?”
We reach the bottom of the stairs and head to one of the many sitting rooms. “There’s a bar in this room. Do you mind if we stop for a drink? I’d rather go in with a slight buzz than have to wait for the alcohol to make my family tolerable.”
“Best plan I’ve heard all week.” The room is like the rest of the house, movie set Tudor-ish. A bar on one wall is doing its best to look like a British pub, but it feels like it’s trying too hard.
Siobhan steps behind the bar, grabs a couple of glasses, and gets to work. She’s quick, efficient. Mixing the drinks like a magician shuffling cards.
“Helga,” she says, “is trying to be a family matriarch, but none of her people really care, including her own sons. You have to understand that us here are simply the top of the heap. There are thousands of other family members. But none of the rest hold a candle to our power.”
“And each of you commands loyalty from a chunk of them. Like serfs.”
“Good analogy. We each have followers, for lack of a better term. Most are family, either direct descendants or whoever has married in. But not all. We have a responsibility to each other. We protect them and in turn they—well, I’m really not sure. I don’t demand much of my people other than that they not be complete gobshites. I don’t really have what you’d call a power base. Most of the people I take care of are the misfit types, low-power talents, folks with no magical ability, that sort of thing. In any kind of fight they’d be useless. So mostly I just try to make sure everyone’s got a job and a place to live. I don’t know much about what my other siblings do, though I’ve heard some fucked-up stories.”
“And Helga’s people don’t like her?”
“Helga’s people think she’s weak,” Siobhan says. She pours the drinks from a shaker into the glasses over crushed ice. She slides one over to me, raises her glass toward me as a toast. I don’t move.
“Don’t leave a lady waiting.”
“I’m a little paranoid.”
“Of course. Bigsby?” The butler appears in the doorway. “Are either of these drinks poisoned, ensorcelled, or otherwise harmful to anyone?”
“No, ma’am, but from what I recall of the recipe, I believe you may have used a touch too much Grand Marnier.”
“Everybody’s a critic. Good enough for you?”
“Good enough for me. Thanks, Bigsby. That’ll be all.” After he disappears I say, “That thing creeps me the fuck out.”
“Same,” she says. We clink our glasses together. I don’t know everything she put into it, but it’s good. I flash to the last time I was in a bar, trying to convince Darius to step into a trap. It worked, but it wasn’t pleasant.
“I like it,” I say. “What is it?”
“Something I thought you might appreciate,” she says. “A Corpse Reviver.”
“I like your style,” I say. “Helga’s losing her powerbase. Otto and Hans picking it up?”
“Otto, mostly. Hans is kind of a pussy. Helga could put a stop to Otto trying to undercut her, but I think she realizes she’s not the future. Things may have changed the last couple of days, though.”
“Because I—” I run my finger across my throat and make a ripping noise.
“Precisely,” she says. “And murdered Reinhold. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was hoping you’d kill Otto outright. I don’t think it occurred to her that he might not stay dead.”
“We’re a pesky bunch, us dead people. What about Tobias, Hans’s kid? I hear he’s pretty much the family whipping boy.”
“That kid’s had it rough. Hans is weak and cruel and he takes his frustrations out on Tobias. Sometimes I want to kidnap him just to get him away from that psychopath.”
“Amanda thinks he’s here because they’re going to try to marry her off.”
“I don’t doubt it. She’s pretty effectively nixed that, though. Provided her girlfriend doesn’t get herself killed.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” I say. “Gabriela can take down any of these fuckers and not break a sweat.”
“Known her long?”
“We go back,” I say. There’s no point in trying to describe our history or relationship. I don’t even understand it right now. “Who’s left?”
“Jonathan, Otto’s slimy lawyer. I’m not sure, but I think he might not be human. Have you noticed that he’s hard to, well, notice?”
“Yeah. He’s got some sort of camouflage, makes your eyes slide off him. I haven’t figured out what he might be, though. Know anything else about him?”
“If it wasn’t for him, Otto would be giving handjobs down at the docks for spare change. He’s been handling all of Otto’s finances for years. Otto’s too much of an idiot to do anything himself. As far as I’m aware their relationship is entirely professional.”
