Wicked as They Come Page 13

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I’d already been thinking about it, of course. “I’d rather be free than safe, and drinking someone’s blood and becoming something I’m not . . .” I shook my head. “It’s not a compromise I’m willing to make.”

  “No, no—it’s all about being free,” he argued. Seeing him animated and passionate made me a little breathless, even if I disagreed with him. “That’s the point. Do you know any other humans walking around barefoot and gloveless around here?” He looked down at his boots and tugged at his collar with a shrug. “I’m dressed up now for the show, but most of the time, I’m the only person who isn’t wrapped up in fear and cloth.”

  His lip curled up, and his hands were in fists. The old Tish would have apologized and moved on, changed the subject. But Letitia was more willing to argue for what she believed.

  “But how long are you a human, when you’re drinking from Bludmen? I don’t have anything against them, obviously, but when do you start to crave blood? When does it take you over completely? You might be free to dress differently, but you become a slave to your choices all the same.”

  “I choose to disagree,” he said quietly. “But then again, you’ve never died. I have. And I don’t want to do it again. And I don’t want you to, either.”

  We were silent for a moment, watching the Pinkies disembark and mill about in a tight cluster. I subtly studied him. He was just as pretty when he was angry. Criminy was right to call him sulky, but it suited him. It was odd to yearn toward two such different men at once when I wasn’t even sure how I fit into their world. Loving either one of them would be easy, if I let myself. Choosing between them would be the hard part. I would have to ignore the glancing and listen to my gut. I trusted Nana’s wisdom more than magic.

  He caught my eye, and I was lost for a moment in the startling blue. Despite his bravado, there was fear there, and I wished that I had some solace to offer him. But I didn’t.

  “Is that what you saw for me, then? Becoming a Bludman?” he asked, almost pleading. “Is that the great loss—my humanity?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Or I wouldn’t.

  He put his head down and chuckled sadly. “You can see it, but you won’t tell me.”

  “I do not talk of the beginning or the end,” I quoted with a sad smile.

  “You can quit quoting ‘Song of Myself,’ ” he said bitterly. “This is Sang. The words were never written here.”

  He stood up and walked away.

  When he was out of range, I muttered to myself, “That doesn’t mean they never will be.”

  The Pinkies cut a path through the grass, moving toward us in a giddy but skittish herd. My skin tingled as a ripple of magic rolled over me. I looked up and smiled. Everything seemed brighter, sharper, more fascinating. Glitter danced in the air, and a calliope began to play. I wondered if that was Criminy’s doing, too, or if Casper’s fingers were the magic behind the cheery pipes. Emerlie’s smile became genuine, Torno’s muscles seemed to bulge a little more through his leather suit, the jigging leoparth let out a very genuine-sounding roar. I sought Criminy in the crowd and saw him in front of his wagon, his hands playing in the air as he grinned. Just another one of his talents, this glamour.

  The crowd flowed in little groups, and I could feel their fear and excitement. A gaggle of Pinkies approached me in a rustle of skirts and whispers, my first customers for the night.

  Oh, great. Teenagers.

  They looked like teens from my own time, except for their heavy, suffocating clothes. Frilly, silly, catty, whispery, scared but hiding it with bravado. The boldest of them broke off from the group and stepped up to me with a flounce and a sneer as her friends giggled behind her.

  “Can you really tell fortunes?” she said. “My pa says it’s a trick.”

  I lowered my head and looked up at her through my painted eyelashes, trying to appear mysterious. “It’s not a trick, miss,” I said, my voice husky. “Touch my hand and see.”

  “How much is it, then?” she said as if bored, but I could tell that she was caught.

  “Whatever you think it is worth,” I said. “To know your future.”

  I held out my hand, with the glove already removed. Mrs. Cleavers had filed my nails to talons and shellacked them, bright red as cherries. When the girl saw it, she gasped.

  “Remove your glove,” I said with a knowing smile.

  She looked back to her friends. They urged her on, and she knew she couldn’t back down. She removed her glove with a dainty, unwilling tenderness. She likely hadn’t shown her hand to anyone but her parents in her entire life.

  When I touched her skin, the jolt was quick.

  “The lad you love doesn’t return the sentiment,” I said, my voice low. “But another does. Beware the one with golden eyes, for she will betray you. Tell your father not to bet on the black mare. Listen to your mother, and don’t marry the first one who asks, and you will find happiness.”

  I dropped her hand. Her eyes bugged out unbecomingly, showing me how young she truly was. “Thank you, lady,” she said.

  She slipped her glove on and dropped some coins onto the table. I whisked them into a little bag at my feet, as Criminy had told me never to let them see the money. Her circle of friends enveloped her, but she shook her head at their questions.

  “She sees true,” she said. “That’s all I can say.”

  Of course, her six friends fell into line before me, and my bag of coins grew heavier. Every time I grasped a hand, I was terrified that I would see something horrible, some hideous end that I couldn’t prevent with a few well-chosen words. Or even worse, that I wouldn’t see anything and would have to make something up on the fly. But life in the city, from what I glanced, was dull and mostly safe. Only one girl’s palm held a tragedy, and I was able to help on that one.

  “No matter what your boyfriend says, never sneak out at night,” I said, my tone dark and foreboding. “Or else your death will come from the shadows of the alleys, and your mother will find your bones nibbled by bludrats.”

  It sounded bad because, well, it was bad. But it could easily be averted. Stay inside, stupid. I hoped I had scared her sufficiently.

  Fortunately for business, nothing spread the word like a group of impressed and terrified teenage girls. Soon I had a line, and Criminy’s clockwork monkey came by to do tricks for pennies, which she gathered in her little fez. After turning several back flips, she brought me a note in elegant handwriting signed with a C.

  Well done, love, you’re a star was all it said, but my mysterious mask cracked into the goofy smile of a kid receiving a love note in high school.

  “Miss?” said the next customer. “Can we make this quick?”

  I looked up into the anxious face of a Copper. I recognized the spade beard and mustache. It was Ferling, the nicer of the two I’d seen on my first morning in Sang while I was invisible.

  I discreetly tucked the monkeygram into my sleeve.

  His nervous fidgeting told me that whatever Coppers were allowed to do at the carnival, fortune-telling wasn’t on the list. With shifting eyes, he yanked off his leather glove, which had already been unbuttoned. He was ready. And he was worried.

  “I need to know if my wife is true,” he said quietly. “Quick.”

  I grasped his hand, and the jolt was powerful.

  Oh, gracious. This wasn’t good at all.

  “Your wife is true, but she is being forced,” I said. “Proof lies in the spice chest. The baby is yours. Stay faithful, and all will be well. The bones can knit. Seek vengeance, and all will be lost in blood. When the time comes to choose, remember this.”

  His face was stricken, his hand trembling in mine.

  “I’m sorry,” I said in my regular voice.

  “Thank you, lady,” he said, tossing a vial of blood onto the table and disappearing into the crowd.

  It was a tough fortune, and I felt sorry for the man. What I hadn’t told him was that his wife was
being blackmailed by his partner, Rodvey. It was a fast, confusing jumble of visions, but I could see that if he confronted Rodvey, the resulting duel would leave them both dead. In the bottom of the spice chest, he would find the documents that his wife was winning from Rodvey with her body one page at a time, a fake declamation of Ferling’s supposed illegal dealings with the Bludman’s Guild. She was doing it to protect him from a false accusation and certain execution.

  As I had first deduced, Rodvey was a very bad man.

  I had seen something else when I touched Ferling’s hand, though, something even scarier that I was absolutely positive not to mention. It was a secret meeting of hooded figures, all in copper-colored velvet robes and surrounded by candles in a stone chamber. In the center of their circle lay a Bludman, whiter than white, his blud draining into strange channels carved into the floor. The faces of the cloaked men were in shadow, and I didn’t recognize the voice that spoke.

  “Another demon drained. But he has many brothers, and we will bring a plague on their kind, sent from the gods to purge the wickedness of Sang,” the voice boomed. “We will destroy all the creatures of blud once and for all. The Stranger will come to make our world pure again.”

  “Amen,” came the answering chant.

  The Coppers were planning a secret genocide, and I had no clue how to stop it.

  My mind was elsewhere, which made the glancing even easier. Everything seemed so petty after Ferling’s revelation, and I didn’t have any problem seeming mysterious and far away.

  It was amazing how many people needed to be told not to go out alone in the dark of night. It just seemed so obvious, like telling people not to jump out in front of cars. But being cooped up in their clothes and their homes seemed to lull the Pinkies into a false sense of safety. It wasn’t even Bludmen they had to worry about, swooping in like dark angels to drain them in the shadows. No, it was the stupid bludrats.

  Faces blurred together, and glances streamed into glances. I forgot most of them almost immediately, like passing faces on a busy sidewalk. I’d only been glancing for a few hours, but I was starting to get sleepy. It must have been time to wake up, in my other world.

  “Good evening, madam,” came a deep, fatherly voice with a cultivated English accent.

  I had been drifting off. Oops.

  With my head still hanging low, I looked up through my eyelashes. A kind-looking old man with a big, gray walrus mustache smiled at me and held out his hand.

  “I’ve heard a great deal about your talent,” he said. “I’d like to know my future.”

  “As you wish,” I said, and grasped his hand.

  Despite myself, I gasped. His glance was just as jumbled and fast and confusing as Ferling’s, but the secret went even deeper.

  First, I saw this man in the city, in an office, speaking to a roomful of Coppers. He was wealthy and powerful, something like a mayor. Outside his window, I saw a soaring white church with broken windows and a strange spire shaped like an X.

  Next, I saw him throw back the hood of his copper-colored robe in the empty ritual chamber and kick the drained Bludman’s body.

  “One down, a million to go,” he said to himself.

  Lastly, and most chillingly, I saw the old man asleep.

  But in the vision, he wasn’t wearing this tall top hat, buttoned down his throat. He wasn’t wearing gloves or boots or a copper-colored, bloodstained robe.

  No, he was reclining in an expensive bed, tucked into rich, fluffy blankets. On his right was a small table with a telephone and a clock radio. On his left was an IV stand. An older woman in nursing scrubs changed out his IV bag, saying, “Well, then, Mr. Grove. That’s better, ain’t it? Y’all missin’ a beautiful spring day, you know.”

  She looked out the window at a magnificent magnolia tree in full bloom within a high brick wall. In the fancy driveway was a minivan with Helping Hands Homecare on the side next to two purple hands forming a heart.

  I startled as the old man asked, “Can you see anything?” in a playful, patronizing tone.

  The British accent sounded fake to me, and I wondered what his real one was like. I knew that I had to lie, but I had only a split second to decide whether to seem genuine or ham it up. I went with fake and threw in several of the trite phrases Criminy had taught me.

  “Oh, sir. You are a very powerful man, a great leader. You will live a long and fulfilling life. Your destiny is cloudy. The spirits watch over you. Beware a dark-haired stranger.”

  I focused on his mustache as I finished, and it twitched. His eyes narrowed. He was suspicious. Whether he believed me or not, I couldn’t say. Most people aren’t prepared for a true fortune-teller who speaks lies.

  “I see,” he said. “I see.” Then his eyes traveled over my face and down to my chest. I drew back.

  “That’s a lovely chain,” he said. “You’re brave, my dear, to wear so little clothing around these monsters.”

  Criminy and Mrs. Cleavers had decided to dress me in a Bludman’s blouse for the actual crowd, since they would all be Pinkies. It upped the exotic factor and would help draw their attention away from my occasional blunder. The top of the locket barely peeked out from my cleavage, the ruby glinting in the flickering light.

  I wrapped my hand around the locket defensively. “Thank you, sir.”

  His eyes roved over me. I shifted and drew the shawl over my skin, clearing my throat and looking at the ground. At that signal, Pemberly stopped her cavorting and ran up to tug on the man’s coat.

  “Our time appears to be up,” he said in the same kindly voice. “Thank you so much for sharing your talents, my dear.”

  He dropped a gold coin onto the table and strode purposefully back into the crowd. My next customer stepped up, a middle-aged woman with desperate eyes.

  “One moment, madam,” I said.

  Fortunately, there was a feather quill on my table, along with the crystal ball, skull, and other props. I scrawled on the back of Criminy’s earlier note, Old man big mustache head of Coppers wants to kill Bludmen is really Stranger!!! I crumpled it up and gave it to Pemberly.

  “Take it to Criminy,” I told her.

  Her eyes clicked closed and open again in acknowledgment, and she scampered into the crowd. I put on a professional smile for the waiting customer and held out my hand.

  Then I went unconscious.

  14

  Even before my eyes opened, I was overwhelmed. The cacophony was dizzying. My alarm was buzzing, my cell phone was jingling, and my cat was meowing.

  9:47. Crap.

  First the alarm. Slept in for more than two hours. Oops.

  Then the cell phone.

  “Nana, I’m so, so sorry,” I began.

  “Well, sugar, you’re the one who has to clean up if I wet myself,” she said in her most peevish tone, “Although breakfast would be nice, too.”

  “I’m on my way, and I’m bringing doughnuts,”I said.

  “I might forgive you, then,” she said.

  I was so exhausted that I could barely stand up. I made a beeline for the coffeemaker.

  My morning was blurry and heavy, like being drunk without the fun. I showed up at Nana’s just in time to prevent a laundry crisis and mutual mortification, served her hot doughnuts and hotter coffee, and sleepwalked through my chores there, barely able to focus on what she said. I was so tired that I was scared to drive to my next patient.

  I ran a red light and nearly got T-boned on the way to Mr. Rathbin’s. When I parked in the driveway, I barely registered that two tires were in his grass. I didn’t bother to repark.

  “Having a good day, Mr. Rathbin?” I asked with a yawn.

  He was pretty jolly for a terminal patient—unless I was late. Luckily, I had brought him one of Nana’s extra doughnuts, so he was in a great mood. I set up his meds and helped him brush his teeth. Then, as I was carrying his used bedpan to the toilet, I passed out and hit the floor in a puddle of Mr. Rathbin’s urine.

  As I slowly ros
e to consciousness, I had the marvelous, achy, breathless feeling that I only got from several hours of uninterrupted sleep. It was completely delicious. I wiggled my toes and stretched my arms and legs and yawned. It was good to feel rested again. I opened my eyes to complete darkness.

  I knew immediately that something wasn’t right.

  I felt around blindly until I found a side table with a button. I pushed it, and orange light filled the room. It was my wagon.

  “Criminy?” I called. There was an answering rustle in the other part of the wagon, and the door opened. He looked confused. And sleepy.

  “Are you all right, love?” he said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s barely morning.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I was at work, and then I woke up here. What happened?”

  He came in and sat down on the bed, his hand warm on my cheek. I was still in the blouse and skirt from my costume, with my corset laces mercifully loosened. And I was scared.

  “You fell after nine,” he said. “In the middle of glancing. It was very dramatic, and I suspect your line will be doubly long tonight. I carried you here and put you to bed. But you shouldn’t be awake now, I don’t think. Unless you fell asleep in your dinner.”

  “It was just after lunch,” I said. “I was helping a patient, and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “I don’t know. I just opened my eyes, and I was here. But I feel rested. How is that possible?”

  I tried to look into Criminy’s eyes, but they were focused on my exposed cleavage.

  “Up here, mister,” I said with a playful grin.

  “My locket,” he said simply. “It’s gone.”

  I reached down, and he was right. Both locket and chain were gone.

  “Where? How?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, angry. “I was right outside. I only fell asleep for a moment. No one came near the door. Pemberly’s been on guard. There hasn’t been a sound. It’s impossible.”

  “Does it mean I’m stuck here? Is that why I’m not exhausted—because I was actually asleep? In Sang?”