Nobody moved to greet her. Nobody doubted what she was, either, though no Taken had visited us in months. The Limper had been the last.
She turned my way, frowned slightly, then smiled just as the sun sneaked out from behind a cloud. Its light kissed her. Her face suddenly seemed coated with white makeup on which thin blue lines had been sketched. The light faded before I got a good look. Then I got distracted by the cat that ambled out of her shadow.
It was a three-eyed cat. You do not see many of those. It was as black as her hair. The rationally placed eyes were yellow—except when they looked straight at you. Then they became a pale lilac rose, and glowed. The third eye, above and between, was a slit visible only from straight ahead. It shone crimson for a moment, then purple.
Alley kitty, not. It was longer and skinnier, in an adolescent female sort of way, than any normal cat, but it would prove to be all male.
Its gaze was almost hypnotic.
I focused on the girl. The woman. She seemed familiar. She floated my way. Gurdlief gurgled his admiration. Thirty additional witnesses rendered worshipful agreement and thunderous lust.
The cat did cat stuff, trying to get between the Taken’s ankles.
She stopped in front of me, inclined her head slightly, met my eye. “Thank you, Annalist.”
Another cloud unmasked the sun. The Taken cast her own hard shadow again. From behind her, to either hand, came children, twins, her miniatures, a boy to her right, a girl to her left. They might be six years old. The boy looked as crabby as an old veteran whose wounds tormented him in winter. The girl had devilment in her eyes. She flashed me a grin and a wink while her mother’s face whitened. The tattoos I saw now were not the ones that I had seen just moments ago.
I was too distracted to care.
“My children.” The Taken laid a palm atop the boy’s head. “Beloved Shin.” Then the girl. “Blessed Baku. But we call her Firefly.”
The boy sneered. “Baka is more like it.”
The Taken snapped, “Ankou! Friend!” at the cat, which had begun to stalk me, tail lashing, teeth exposed, those more numerous and sharper than any installed in your standard mouser. It backed away, resumed trying to trip the Taken.
“Mischievous Rain,” she said, as though reading my mind. I flashed back to another Taken who had had the mind-reading knack, the demon Soulcatcher. “I was once Tides Elba.”
Not possible. That was only half a year ago. That Tides Elba had had no children.
* * *
The crowd expanded fast. The Captain and Candy, along with Elmo and some other noncoms, clustered outside the headquarters entrance, uniformly grim. For unfathomed dour, though, nobody exceeded the renegade wizards Two Dead and Buzzard Neck.
Gurdlief observed, “The wicked flee where no man pursues.”
Two Dead and Buzz had plenty on their consciences and not half a sense of humor between them. The Taken’s appearance might mean trouble over them having deserted Whisper and the Eastern Army—notwithstanding the fact that they had been expected to get themselves killed while trying to sabotage the Company.
Mischievous Rain ignored them, as she did the arrivals of our other sorcerers. She just glided closer to me, settling a gloved right hand an inch above my left elbow, gently. Wind chimes sang all round.
Gurdlief wanted to stick with me. He was for sure an Annalist-in-waiting, determined to be the witnessing eye. But he went to his knees, suddenly. I failed to notice that. It happened behind me. He told me later that it felt like his feet got nailed to the ground, after which several tons of weight pressed down on his shoulders.
Plenty of other feet got nailed, as well. Minds went too numb to move bodies. I stumbled toward Admin while the gallery gawked, Mischievous Rain beside me. Candy and the Old Man stepped aside, then followed us in. Working staff began leaving immediately. They claimed that the chimes told them to go. It did not occur to them to refuse.
The Taken knew her way around. Nothing had changed since she was Tides Elba. She headed for the Old Man’s cluster of crude furniture, where she eschewed the seat of honor, the Old Man’s big plank armchair. She gestured at the seats normally occupied by him and Candy and the Lieutenant, who missed the moment because he was off leading a recon-in-force.
The Old Man and Candy settled. Candy fidgeted. The Captain betrayed no special interest. He had a knack. He could make the Lady herself unsure that she was of any actual consequence.
The Taken squeezed my arm, then rose on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Thanking you for before. But not the part with the hand.” Then she kissed me again, nearer my mouth, warmer, holding it a bit longer. I wondered why I had skipped shaving. “That is from the One Who Binds Us All.”
Chimes sang. Mischievous? You bet. Two witnesses only, both infernally laconic, but word would get out. I could expect a major ration of shit.
Why did the Lady torment me so?
Though nearly lost in my inner wilderness I managed a moment of curiosity. “What happened to the kids?” They were nowhere to be seen. And the devil Ankou had gone missing, too.
“They are with me.” She clung to my arm almost possessively.
The Captain asked, “You have come back because?” A sudden raging show of impatience for him.
“I am here to seal the Port of Shadows. Someone will try to open the way. You will help me stop them.”
I blurted, “But weren’t you…?”
The Old Man gave me a hearty scowl. “You are here to witness and record.” Not to comment. Not to participate. Naturally. That should not need saying. I bobbed my head and sealed my lips.
One more blurt and I would be outside witnessing the weather in progress.
Mischievous Rain said, “Perhaps then. Not now. That nightmare destiny has passed. We must find out where it has gone.”
So. Our immediate future featured a hunt for some other wretched witchy girl unwillingly conscripted by the supernatural. Oh joy, for us. And, oh, so much sorrow for her.
There would be fighting. Those invested in the Port of Shadows and the Dominator’s resurrection would struggle with all their hearts to find him a way to return to the living world.
The Old Man nailed me with a piercing look as my traitorous mouth watered with questions that would have to go unasked.
I received a gentle, reassuring squeeze to my right arm.
I confess to having developed a bad attitude as I become ever more certain that my importance as Company Annalist exceeds that of my role as Company physician. Gifted with free time most days, I have immersed myself in local history and folklore, a passion understood by no one else. A passion that, I admit, borders on addiction.
The hobby pays occasional dividends. The Captain indulges me because my research leaves me less time to spend at the Dark Horse, where too often I become too wasted to function as a physician.
Nobody likes sorcery. Most of us, especially those in charge, believe literacy equals sorcery. Things written down are less than ideally mutable. It is hard to weasel out from under recorded facts. What is written on the wind can be revised or denied at one’s leisure.
The Taken released me. I oozed away, putting myself beyond easy reach. She was amused.
Candy said, “The Company will, of course, assist you in whatever fashion you require.” Like a condemned man offering final thoughts.
“Of course you will. That is why I am here. You are her most dutiful and faithful sons.” Wind chimes tinkled. Laughing? Mocking? Cynical old fart me, I assumed the latter.
Most dutiful and faithful could be right. The Taken are no more faithful than they need to be to survive. They plot and conspire, collude and cautiously rebel, every one a fallen angel who has not fallen far. We, the Company, have shown ourselves to be a tool less likely to turn in the Lady’s hand.
Our continued fortune depends entirely on her constant favor. We have made ourselves some powerful and abiding enemies amongst the stumbled angels.
Candy and the Old Man, each with
hands folded on the table before him, still as death, eyed the new Taken, and waited. I waited, too, wishing I could manage their calm.
This was only a meet and greet but already I was all fidgets and pounding heart.
* * *
Mischievous Rain could have played their game and waited them out. She was having fun in a quiet, internalized way. I had not known her well when she was Tides Elba so was not convinced that this Mischievous Rain was anything like a new personality.
Still, she had been inside the Tower long enough to have been rebuilt.
“We will begin the hunt once the weather turns. Meantime, I will get to know you here in order to understand whose skills can be used in what fashion, given the demands of the moment. And I will develop a more efficient intelligence program. For now, though, I need to be assigned quarters. Fancy isn’t necessary. Spacious is. I must have room for my work and room for my family.” Slight pause. “I’ll need a place to lie down soon. I’m exhausted. A long carpet trip with children takes it out of a girl.”
We had no place that suited her, and no space lying fallow. Even the Old Man did not live in a luxury grander than having a private room—which was just large enough to house a bed and two chests.
Mischievous Rain mentioned that she had brought money.
The Old Man promptly announced, “We can build you whatever you need. Shouldn’t take long if we can pull the materials together.”
Candy got him a sorry, snarky look that he aimed my way. “Croaker has a place in town. He won’t mind if you use that until we get something thrown up. He can bunk in at his clinic here, which is what he’s supposed to be doing anyway.”
I dared not respond but, boy, did I want to. My hole-in-the-wall in town had caused contention from the start. Candy was obsessed with the risks of me spending nights outside the safety of the compound. I considered Aloe completely tamed. Plus the place was close to my free clinic and even closer to the Dark Horse.
The Captain blessed me with a brilliant smile. “An elegant, combined arms solution to multiple problems, First Officer.”
Mischievous Rain did not cooperate. “I would prefer to avoid town, gentlemen.”
They did not argue. It takes a special sort of insanity to squabble with the Taken. The Old Man said, “Look around, then. See what will do for temporary. Then do tell me what you’re going to need. We’ll throw you up a place purpose-built.”
Just free and easy and the soul of cooperation, our Captain. He lived to serve his masters.
Something was perking in the shadowed deeps of his mind.
“Croaker, give the lady the tour. Make her feel at home.”
I glanced at Mischievous Rain. She winked. She knew a game when she smelled one.
Or maybe she was just flirting, the old perv within dreamed.
The woman was a tasty morsel.
* * *
The Taken and I were a dozen steps into daylight when the weird cat Ankou blew past us, headed for the pigeons working the verges of the drill ground. Her children were right behind the cat.
“Where the hell were they?” I blurted.
“Hidden in the shadows.” Her smile felt less genuine than its predecessors had been.
Blessed Baku ran with her eyes shut. She crashed into Gurdlief Speak at full speed. Gurdlief had just turned to watch the streaking cat. He toppled onto his belly in some mud, then suffered the further indignity of having a small girl crash down on top of him, cooties and all.
Beloved Shin neither slowed nor looked back.
“Firefly, you need to watch where you’re going.” Mischievous Rain sounded like every mother of every small child ever. Smirking, she asked, “Isn’t that odd? One of the Taken being domestic instead of all thunder and pestilence.”
“It is disconcerting.”
Her smile had no strain in it now.
A breeze wandered by. Mischievous Rain tinkled as she brushed her daughter off. I expected the kid to put on a big pout and produce a double ration of tears. My expectations were disappointed.
The girl did eye Gurdlief like she was wondering whether to murder him or marry him.
I thought it was cute. Gurdlief thought it was creepy. Mischievous Rain pretended not to notice.
The Taken completed her ministrations. “Be more careful, dear. There are a lot more people here than there were back home.”
Firefly had her right hand up behind her head, her body turning back and forth, kind of chagrined, not meeting her mother’s eye, bashful. She nodded.
Mischievous Rain considered Gurdlief. “Gurdlief Speak?”
“Yes, ma’am?” How did she know his name? From back when? He was officially a temple orphan.
He had not yet recognized today’s Mischievous Rain as yesterday’s temple girl, Tides Elba, transformed.
“Gurdlief, I apologize for my daughter.”
“It’s all right, ma’am. She’s just a kid.”
“True enough. And with that being true, and with this being an alien environment for her, might I ask a major favor of you?”
“Uh…” Reluctantly. Gurdlief Speak believed that adults invariably wanted more than he ought to have to give. “I guess.” Stated with totally underwhelming enthusiasm.
“Just keep an eye on them. Make sure they don’t fall down a well or jump off a roof to see if they can fly. They aren’t used to all this much outdoors.”
“Uh … All right?” He looked to me.
I said, “Sounds like a good idea. Keep them inside the compound.”
Sigh. Thumbs tucked into his waistband, Gurdlief went after Blessed Baku, who had gone a short distance, then had stopped to wait.
Beloved Shin was nowhere to be seen.
With Gurdlief and Firefly out of earshot Mischievous Rain said, “It will be good for them to be around someone nearer their own age.”
“You may have picked the wrong kid, though. Gurdlief thinks he’s twenty-five.”
“Then they will be good for him, too. So show me around, Annalist. Just the essentials. And catch me if I drop.”
She did sound as tired as she made out earlier.
* * *
We threw some cots into the armory, which Mischievous Rain insisted would be adequate. The armorers were seriously put out. She would try to stay out of the way during working hours but those boys had mountains of stuff that needed frequent shifting. They were prepping for a campaign season headed our way all too fast.
I did not get included in construction planning. I learned more about that at the Dark Horse than I did during working hours at the compound. Our procurement people had no trouble acquiring materials. And the Taken’s war chest apparently had no bottom, though the Old Man seemed determined to find one.
The project kept growing. Mischievous Rain would have herself a rustic palace and the compound would feature its first not mainly adobe structure.
* * *
Goblin brought warning. “One-Eye is looking to score the Taken’s war chest, soon as he figures a way to frame Whisper or Two Dead for it.”
I asked, “Is he really stupid enough to try that?”
Little old toad-looking Goblin shrugged. “There are no bounds to One-Eye’s stupidity. Aloe is driving him crazy. It’s too clean and too straight. Relatively speaking.”
“Relatively speaking.” One-Eye had become self-destructive, generating one lunatic scheme after another, each more mad than the last.
Goblin could, occasionally, be that bad but he did have sense enough not to yank the tiger’s tail—which was an order of magnitude less dangerous than would be trying to rob one of the Taken.
Goblin explained, “He figures she’s got to be naive because she’s so young. He says look how we got one over on the Limper, one of the heavyweight old-time Taken.”
“The Limper makes One-Eye look like a genius. He isn’t anything but poorly contained urges and emotions unfortunately bound up inside the same package as a raw talent for sorcery of a city-flattening scale. Plus,
the Lady covered our asses on the last one.” I did not mention my confidence that the Limper would keep coming back until he had satisfied his hunger for revenge. “Mischievous Rain isn’t stupid and she isn’t on the Lady’s shit list. Explain that with a cane if you have to.” I tilted a little finger in a field sign. When Goblin could do so casually he took a peek.
Ankou was curled up in a handy shadow, pretending to be napping. But his ears kept twitching.
Our conversation began outside my clinic. It continued as we strolled toward the drill field. Goblin eventually muttered, “That’s the weirdest cat that I’ve ever seen. Hunts down shadows the way most cats go after sunbeams.”
“You do know that he’s not really a cat, don’t you?”
“I am aware. I didn’t realize that you got it.”
We had not talked much lately. In fact, I had had few conversations with anybody since Mischievous Rain’s arrival. She monopolized my time, often to the point of auditing my work during sick call. She did not tag along when I went to town, though. That left me curious about who or what she wanted to avoid.
Her presence was no secret. No way that it could be. Our guys were in and out of town by the hundreds, every day. Some had formed relationships. Others were local recruits who visited their families regularly. If Mischievous Rain’s reluctance to go to town was about avoiding someone … That someone wanted to avoid her, too. No one came looking for her.
When the Taken was not in my pocket herself, Ankou was sure to haunt a shadow nearby. Or the kids would be underfoot.
Goblin observed, “Your girlfriend must really be worried about you cheating on her.”
“Makes as much sense as any notion that I’ve been able to conjure.” Killjoy Croaker stealing the wind from the runt’s sails, agreeing instead of protesting.
We arrived at the drill field. The pigeons taunted Ankou. There were no shadows into which he could vanish. I made like I was checking to see that there was water enough in the water buckets, a point that I did have to make again and again.
Ankou decided that suffering so much sunshine was not worth the agony if he did not get to kill something. He left. Kids gravitated toward me immediately.