Secondhand Sorcery

Fatima still wasn’t great at the whole SP thing. It might have helped if she’d listened to Bob a little closer, maybe practiced a little more. She was pretty sure it would work, but “pretty sure” wasn’t enough with these stakes. And trying to get it perfect while driving—to a place she’d never tried to drive to before, in a strange city—was just a pain. Her picture was supposed to be a door, a big open door she could walk through. Easy enough to keep in your head if you’re just sitting still doing nothing. A lot harder when you just realized you took a wrong turn because you were concentrating so hard on picturing a door while trying not to concentrate so hard you ran into another car.

What was the plan? Hell if she knew. She didn’t even know what was going on, and neither did anybody else. Frenchy’s human alarm got knocked out, and so did everyone else’s, at the same time everybody lost contact with the hospital. Dowsers said halo, when you could get them to work at all. But why would there be a halo around the hospital? It wasn’t like they needed a familiar to take Rus on when couldn’t even wake up.

Simplest explanation: trap. They knew where Rus was, just like Frenchy said. He was the easiest of them to find. So they used him as bait to pull in the rest, right? That didn’t take a genius. And Frenchy was probably right that the smart thing to do was to retreat and figure out what was going on before they went charging in.

Fatima would have totally agreed with her … if she only trusted the bitch as far as she could throw her. But she didn’t. They’d been burned too many times, and she’d been talking about ditching Rus as a liability even before all this went down. And Sunday, when the three of them were fighting for their lives and even Yuri was stepping up to fight like a man? Nadia said Frenchy had wanted to bail then too. Whatever tactical retreat she was calling for now, it’d turn into cutting their losses and running for good at the first excuse.

No way. That wasn’t how Fatima rolled. Lessons from Papi, Number One: you keep your word, and you pay your debts. If your people stand by you, you stand by them. Somebody tries to fuck with your boys, you hit them back harder. Ruslan might have been a fat, whiny, pervy pain in the ass, but he kept his word when it counted and he didn’t leave her hanging. That called for loyalty.

She missed another turn, and ran over the curb backing up to turn around. Somebody honked at her; she flipped him off and kept going. It was getting a little easier to think of her door now, harder to avoid going that extra step to call out Mister Higgins in person. She had the creepy dude’s mostly-full kitty in her pocket, right next to her knockoff Beretta, and there was an M4 sitting in the backseat. She was as ready as she was going to get.

As usual, there were a bunch of cars crashed just outside the hospital—enough that she couldn’t get all that close without getting out and walking. Not much cover, and like most hospitals the damn thing was mostly windows. She parked out of line of sight and tried to sidle up fast and quick, with both guns and the kitty handy. It wasn’t hard at all to keep the door handy; she was definitely thinking she ought to haul ass the other direction. She just couldn’t actually do it.

She took cover behind one of the wrecks, and peeked inside while she was there. The driver was a middle-aged lady thrashing around in her seat. Whatever the valence was, it looked like it hurt. Could valences hurt? Like, actual pain, not an emotion? Maybe the woman was just really upset, but it didn’t look like it. Weird. Fatima kept moving. The next car had two people in it: a driver flopped over an airbag, looking kinda dead, and an old dude in a patient gown in the passenger seat, staring at nothing while he grabbed his chest and panted. Yep. Pain. Whatever this was, it was even more jacked up than the Lamprey, and she’d better keep her door open if she didn’t want to join them.

She had to vault a fence to get near the hospital, then cross about fifty feet of open ground until she was flush with the wall and out of sight from any windows. The whole thing was moot if Yefimov or whoever had spotters on adjacent roofs, but she didn’t see any and she didn’t have time to spare being careful; for all she knew, this was all some fucked up way of torturing Rus for info. Until she knew he was dead or out of the building, she had to keep moving.

She jumped the fence and sprinted for the wall with the M4 hugged to her chest. No shots, no shouts. So far so good. A look around—nearest entrance was a little ways down the wall, but it looked like you needed to scan a badge to get in and she wasn’t desperate enough to start shooting locks off yet. Too noisy. She had to edge around to the nearest public entrance instead, losing more time.

There were more people flopping around inside, in the ER waiting area. She stepped over and past them, wondering what the emissor here could even do, if his halo felt that bad. Then again, Yuri seemed to do okay with Shum-Shum, and that felt like an acid trip. There were no badge-free doors here, either, so she tossed the rifle in through the receptionist’s window and squirmed in after it, trying not to bump into the girl spazzing out in her chair.

So far, so good. She snagged the desk girl’s badge, then wondered if it would even work with the halo up. Were badge systems dumb enough? She tried on an elevator—nope. Damn. The stairs weren’t secured, though—until she got three flights up, and found a reader blocking the way back out. She slammed the rifle-butt into the little window in the door, cleared out the glass, and let herself in.

Almost there. A few people groaning on the floor, and she hardly noticed, because the double doors to the ICU, at the end of the hall, had been smashed. One of them still hung, at a messed-up angle; the other had been hit hard enough to rip the hinges off and damage the frame too. The door on the floor had a big splintery crater in the middle of it. Fatima held her rifle ready; whatever did that wouldn’t care about bullets, but if she spotted the emissor the first shot might save her life.

Ruslan’s room was right in the middle of the unit, next to the nurses’ little fort thing where they hung out and did their computer shit. You couldn’t see it from the door; you had to go down a little hall and turn a corner. Fatima sidestepped into the turn, sweeping the whole unit with the M4. Nothing. Where the hell were they hiding? She had to wonder if they’d done something crazy, like rig the ICU with mines.

A few cautious steps down the hall, checking every room and corner before she passed it. All the patients were moaning and crying in their beds, except one who was on a ventilator—he looked dead. The machine had a computer in it, and wouldn’t work in a halo, so he hadn’t been able to breathe. Its screen, like the monitor over his head, was glitchy, all flickering blotchy blocks of weird colors.

She got another three doors down before she remembered that Rus had been using the exact same machine.

Fatima wasn’t conscious of dropping the rifle, or making any kind of decision at all. The thing hit the floor and she was off at a flat run down the hallway, hurdling a guy in scrubs on the floor, skidding past the last corner, and lunging into his room like there were wolves on her tail.

Rus was thrashing in the bed, his face bright red from the effort as every breath went gurgling around the tube in his throat. His arms were pulling against the restraints hard enough to draw blood, but not making any progress. Fatima ran in to help him—then stopped. The tube was attached to his face with a complicated plastic harness deal, and she couldn’t figure out how to get it free, or pull the damn tube out. Every part of her was shaking.

She put a hand on his chest to force him back down onto the bed; she might as well have tried to tackle a tree. “Rus! Calm down!” He bucked and thrashed, kicking hard at the end of the bed. She grabbed his head, trying to hold it still so he wouldn’t crack his skull on something. The sweat made it slippery. “Rus! Hey! Look at me. Look at me!” His big dark eyes were just barely cracked open, and wouldn’t focus on her or anything else. All he could do was make choking noises.

“Okay. Okay, we can do this, we just have to … “ What? What was she going to do? She didn’t know how to manage this shit, and everybody who might have helped was barely better off than he was. Did she just have to grab and yank the fucking thing out of him? What if it was attached in there? They’d just pulled one of these things out of her, back in Ankara, but she’d been high as a kite, and she couldn’t remember how.

The door was still open, inside her head. Walk away, sister. Walk away. This shit ain’t working. The deck is rigged, the game’s not fair. Time to move on. But she stayed where she was, trying to hold Ruslan’s head still and talk him down. God only knew where she was supposed to go from here.

A noise from the door, and a change in the light, made her turn her head—then scream. Something huge and black was blocking the exit. She had her piece out and firing in less than a second. Blood splattered out of the thing with every shot, and it shuddered against the muzzle flashes—but it didn’t move, and when the magazine was dry, it was still there. Not trying to come into the room, or retreat back out, or get her back for twelve rounds center-mass. Just standing there, breathing heavy. All she’d done was set her ears ringing from the noise.

“What the fuck do you want, freak?” It didn’t answer, or else she couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t even tell what it was supposed to be; it was all blurry around the edges, with no real shape to it. Like whoever had called it had done a crap job and failed halfway through. It moved a little, and more blood dripped onto the floor. She got a glimpse, against the light, of a fringe of feathers. Then she understood.

“Shit, Rus, what’d you do?” She dropped the gun—she wasn’t sure if she even had another magazine for it—so she could grab his face with both hands. “Listen. You’ve got to send him back. Do you hear me? Send him away. I can’t get you better till he’s gone!” Frothy drool spilled out of his mouth. He wasn’t fighting so hard now, but it might just be that he didn’t have the strength left anymore. “I mean it, fool! Send him back.” She let go long enough to rear back and slap him. “Send him back, dumbass! You’re gonna kill yourself!” But he didn’t listen. He wasn’t even looking at her.

The thing by the door shuffled forward, and leaned against the wall for support, leaving a bloody smear. Fatima could almost make out the big bird’s head, if she squinted. “Is he broken? You break your own damn familiar? Just how jacked is your brain now, Rus? Why’s it always gotta be me who cleans up all your shit? Huh? Why? Just what the fuck am I supposed to do with you?”

He didn’t answer. Fuck it. She started yanking at the shit on his face, pulling off sticky pads and velcro tabs. That got Rus started struggling harder again, and she slapped him some more, not to settle him but because she was just that pissed off. She’d got a bunch of it undone—it’d be easier if he wasn’t a gooey, slobbery wad of sweat—when he gave one gigantic gagging cough and the damn tube came flying out.

She jumped back, and the tube slapped her across the face, and Rus made a noise halfway between a cough and trying to throw up, but nothing came up except a mess of blood and mucus. Then he went back to panting like a dog. He sounded nasty, like he had a dying bird trapped in his throat, but at least he was actually breathing now.

She felt real tired all of a sudden, kind of light-headed, and slumped down to rest on the floor, with her back to the bed. Every part of her was shaking. But she couldn’t stop yet; Kizil Khan, or whatever was left of him, was still standing there, looming over her, dribbling blood over everything. “You can leave now. You’re done not helping. Thanks a ton.”

But the big blob didn’t budge. All he did was quiver a little. She still had the kitty, and she thought about just calling Mister Higgins to boot his ass out, then letting go so they could get started fixing this shit. But that would be a big shock, and if Rus’s brain really was messed up, she didn’t know what that would do to him. It might kill him. Or … this was all him, wasn’t it? There wasn’t any attack at all. He was the reason that Aare dude had the seizure, and everybody in the hospital was moaning like they had fish-hooks stuck in their junk. What would happen to all those people if Rus’s brain got smacked like that? What were the rules for dealing with brain-damaged familiars, anyway?

Well, Fatima didn’t know how to deal with all that. But Rus, she could handle. She reached up, grabbed the bedrail, and hoisted herself up to stare him in the face. He still sounded like ass, but his eyes were moving now. Moving a lot, in fact, twitching this way and that. “Hey. Rus.” Her slap was gentle this time, more of a pat to get his attention. “Focus, numbnuts. You need to wake up now.” His eyes might have flickered in her direction, just for a second. Or she might have imagined it.

“What, are you mad at me? Or is anybody even in there now?” No answer. Twitch, groan, hack, cough. Eyes all over the place. “Look, I just hauled your ass back from the brink of death. Self-inflicted death, I might add, because apparently you’re too damn stupid now to even keep yourself alive. If you’re in there, I’m gonna need you to get your shit together and show it. We can’t be pulling your dead weight all the time.” Another little slap. “Hey! Listen!”

The black blob stepped a little closer, looming over them. She turned back to tell it to give them some space, and saw it was a little less fuzzy now. He had all his feathers, and something like a beak. Still bleeding all over the place. She turned back to Rus, and just for a second, their eyes met, before his went flickering away again. “Okay. I think that’s good. But we can do better. C’mon now, work with me.”

She reached down, found his bloody hand at the end of the restraint, and grabbed. “I’m here. Fatima’s here. Right here. I ain’t going anywhere, and I’m not going to just let you go on with this bullshit. You’re a stupid son of a bitch, Rus, but you’re still my boy, you’re still my brother, and we’re gonna get through this.” She snapped the fingers of her free hand right in front of his eyes; he jerked, and looked right at her. Then he blinked, and went bouncing off again. She snapped some more. No help, and she was still shaking. “Damn it.”

Behind her, the thing that was trying to be Kizil Khan made some choking noises of its own. She ignored it. Morbid old asshole was always trying to die, or wanting to, and all this was his fault anyway. Just Ruslan was enough to deal with right now. She moved her free hand down to rest it on his nasty, slobbery cheek. “This ain’t no fairy tale, Rus. If you think I’m going to kiss you to wake you up, it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to happen. You need to figure that out. Should have done it a long time ago.” One eye moved to look right at her; the other stared in the other direction. “What? You got a problem with that?”

The shadow bumped into her from behind, knocking her sideways; she pushed back hard, letting go of Rus’s hand long enough to hit it with her elbow. She found his hand again—he wasn’t fighting anymore—and squeezed it, hard. “I don’t know what you want from me, boy. I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t know if you’re mad at me, I’m not sure you’re even in there … shit, I don’t even know what I’m doing, half the time. But I’m with you, you hear me? Because you’re with me. You’re the only one I can trust. I got a sister who thinks she’s Jesus and her brother who’s trying real hard to be Shaitan. You’re not always the smartest, and you piss me off more than I’ve got words to tell you, but you know what? You’re fucking there, day in, day out. You’ve always got my back. That ain’t nothing. And I respect that.

“So … if you need some kind of reason to come back, that’s it. That’s what I’m giving you.” He was lying still now, still hoarse but not breathing so hard, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “That’s it. You’re not getting any more. But you don’t need to. You’re not going to be my man, but you’re still my man, if that makes any sense.” Probably not. Shit. “And I want you back. And … I guess that’s all I’ve got to say.” She let go, and turned around so she wouldn’t have to look at him anymore.

Kizil Khan was solid now, solid and huge, filling up most of the room with his bloody black wings. His beak was wide open, the face on the inside staring right into hers out of his gullet. “Still here, huh?” The face got a little bigger, poking farther out. “Nope, still not impressed. Get your nasty ass out of here.” But something was up. Now that it was closer, it didn’t look quite the same as usual. His inner face was usually solid ebony black; this one was paler. “What are you playing at now?”

He reared back, pointing his bird’s-face at the ceiling, and shuddered, spraying the room with blood. Fatima flinched back to keep the worst of it out of her face. Kizil Khan made a gurgling noise, just like his master, and Fatima tried to edge further away but there was nowhere to hide. His wings blocked off the way around the bed. He kept gurgling, and from between her crossed arms Fatima saw something coming out of his beak.

Something white, pure white, poked out and over, until a woman’s face was staring down at her, meeting her gaze. She had dark almond eyes like Ruslan’s, but a pale and perfect complexion, just a little peach blush around the cheeks, framed by silky black hair. She had a shiny gold cap on the top of her head, perfectly posed even though her whole head had just forced its way out of a bird’s throat.

The rest of her came out quicker—a matching vest of gold brocade, spotless white sleeves, gold bracelets around her perfect hands. Her bottom half came out in a rush, and the dark body of the eagle collapsed as it did, everything sagging and folding in faster and faster until somehow the lady’s sparkling gold slippers landed on the floor and the last of Kizil Khan’s body tucked itself away into the ends of her knee-length hair.

The woman, whoever she was—she was all got up like a princess from India, or Persia, or something—leaned over to take Fatima’s chin in her hand and tilt her face up to look her in the eye. She was too surprised to fight back, or say anything. At some point she’d forgotten her door, but there wasn’t any pain. The only one hurting was the lady in gold; her pretty eyes were wet with tears now, and her lips were tight. Everything about her was tense and tight, and Fatima wanted to help her, but knew she couldn’t. All this woman knew how to do was hurt. A tear fell out of her eye, and landed on Fatima’s cheek; she reached up to wipe it away, and saw bright red blood on her fingers.

Abruptly the woman straightened up, arching her back, and let out a long, terrible scream. Fatima fell over clutching her ears, feeling the woman’s pain in every part of her, and when the scream ended and she looked up the woman was gone.

For a long time Fatima lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, unable even to process what the hell had just happened. It took the increasingly loud sound of Ruslan’s wheezing breath to bring her back to herself. She sat up, saw her “Beretta” on the floor next to her, and picked it up.

Outside, in the hallway, she could hear a growing murmur as all the staff came back to life. They had to be even more confused than she was. But so what? Ruslan sounded like his throat was about to cave in, and that shit wasn’t going to fix itself. This, at least, was something she knew how to handle. She tucked the gun away and went out into the hallway, shouting, “Hey! Get your lazy asses in gear! We got a sick man in here!”