All Hallows Page 21

  “It would appear you were underestimated.”

  “That, or the bounty could be… perhaps there is no plan. It may be like chatrang—we lesser pieces take each other, the outcome left to probability, with no favorites in the ranks. You might have ended me here, and yourself as well, had I not—”

  “—Yes, yes; rub salt in it.” Slager’s dimples returned. “Don’t die, Maren. It would simply kill me. Go home.”

  “Hiding is for the weak. You said it yourself. I would be found, and I won’t live like a groundhog. Well, not from fear. Besides, I have matters to attend. I would like a sack of candy, and your treat is lying on a cactus.”

  “So pleased I could help you see reason,” Slager said. “Thank crimson you’re not stubborn. I can remove myself, but the bounty stands. Be safe, Maren—and watch your neck.”

  “You may be right. If I can find a Snickers, I’ll consider making a shorter night of it than I’d planned.”

  Maren did not notice Slager was gone for several seconds, her mind seeing a shadow that no longer existed.

  “Hmmph,” she said, confirmed that her shoes were clean and properly tied, and headed for the brightly-lit house across the road, for it was actively participating in the sugar rush.

  15

  “Who are you supposed to be?”

  “Are you stupid?”

  “Evidently—though you’re the clown. That outfit has changed more than the menu. I remember when their signs showed how many sandwiches they’d served. You should have gone as the burglar. When you took more than was offered, you could have said you were playing to the character.”

  An older girl scoffed loudly. “Are you seriously talking about fast food? He’s got a bloody arm. It’s not Ronal—”

  “—Careful about names,” Maren interrupted. “One never knows what might answer, hmm? Clowns look much alike to me. They all get away with murder. You can wave an arm, but tell me this: which has killed more than the other? Ask anyone with a gastric bypass.”

  “Grandma’s straight-up tripping,” the clown said. “She doesn’t know who I’m—“

  “—Where’s the mace Mommy gave us?” demanded a child at the back of the group.

  A masked serial killer waved a plastic machete rimmed with red liquid in a hollow tube. “Are you even wearing a costume? You just look… like, super-old.”

  ”What’s with the freak shoes?” asked the older girl.

  “Fugly!” lisped a short boy with braces, plastic vampire teeth, or both. He looked nothing like Slager.

  Maren peeked into her bag. “Ugly? Why, thank you. You’re right, though. Ugly isn’t scary, and tonight’s… I love to get myself gussied, but I’ve been occupied. I do hate to disappoint.”

  “She’s old and fugly!”

  “I shouldn’t rise to such bait, but I was hoping to shoo you from a certain house anyway. You haven’t seen anything yet. Think an old woman can’t get into the spirit, do you?”

  “Use the mace!”

  “Who is that, hiding in the back? The unicorn or the donut? I like to know who is calling for my demise.”

  “I’m not a donut!”

  “Fugly!”

  Maren’s lips thinned. “Clowns rarely know when to stop their schtick. You others, watch closely. I’ll put a bigger stain in your shorts than any cross-eyed peddler of deep-fried pies.”

  “Oh my God—she’s so stupid! I’m literally… I can’t even… he’s not… he’s Penny—”

  “—Move! I found the spray! The nasty old elf is going down!”

  Maren sputtered with indignation as bear deterrent sprayed her open mouth. The effect of the mace was minimal, but Maren smacked at the minty taste of a stadium toilet.

  “An elf,” she said bitterly, spitting a tooth-sized pouch of charcoal from her mouth once the mace was neutralized. “You’ve obviously never met one, or you wouldn’t… run into those trees and talk badly of elves!” Maren snapped.

  “She’s crackers! You missed her face.”

  “Did not! It doesn’t work on people! It’s for bears!”

  “If it works on bears, it’d work on anything.”

  “Not a shark!”

  “That’s underwater, moron. You’d need a spear-gun.”

  The cluster of children circled to argue while Maren searched her bowling case. The smallest, the white unicorn, was in the vanguard—seeing Maren’s expression, it began pulling at the polyester vampire, which continued to slobber precocious insults.

  Maren’s mask was old, whisker-thin, and nearly transparent. She aligned the crude holes, placed it on her face, and looked no more imposing than a burn victim.

  “Børn af den mørke, mødes en skabning af din skabelse,” she snarled. Her hair pulled as though her scalp would tear away, her slack face tightened; the glamour exploded, and Maren’s visage flailed and slopped.

  The chatter of the children ceased, the group took a collective breath, and the costumed party united in a single, earsplitting scream as Maren’s transformation roared in a lion-like challenge undercut by the tones of a howler monkey.

  The little unicorn was pushed and trampled; urine hung hot in the air.

  Maren giggled—the mask made this rather sinister—and bent for the smaller candies that weren’t wet.

  The severed arm was, Maren was disappointed to find, a fraud: most of it was stuffing; the sleeve was pungent with food dye and whiteboard marker.

  Partially removing her mask, Maren’s face and hair lost their distortion. A messy silver braid fell against her back; her face regrouped as though compressed by a strongman.

  Maren presented the false arm and a full-sized Butterfinger to the downed unicorn, which was no longer uniformly white. It was also, Maren saw, not a unicorn at all, but a girl not yet into her elementary years.

  “Got your pot stepped on, did you? That comes of trusting plastic. Here, this will put a bump in your tummy. Your army retreated that way. Don’t share this bar with the others. It’s poor form to leave a living ally behind.”

  Maren examined the girl, brown eyes and a tiny mouth behind spots of tinted mesh in the prosthetic head. The unicorn was hyperventilating, and did not reply.

  “What’s the matter? Worried they’ll pat you down? You need a decoy. I had a number of Tootsie Rolls, but they… do you talk?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Find your feet. A flutterheart shouldn’t dress as such a vicious creature. Why, the last time I saw a unicorn, it was impaling a knight in full plate. It punched straight through the reinforced boss of his shield. Oh, how that young lord screamed.”

  “You hurt me,” the unicorn said, a sneeze-face signaling the arrival of tears.

  “Did not. Who used you for a carpet? Not me. It’s what you get for hanging-back. Trace the source, and you’ll find the first thing to hurt you is often yourself. Good—your horn’s bent. A scimitar is more true to life, if you haven’t… It’s best you not meet one. Fickle creatures, unicorns. Don’t believe what they say about the safety of maidens. Go on, take this.”

  “Thank you,” the unicorn said politely, accepting the Butterfinger and the old woman’s hand; Maren leaned until they were both standing.

  “You’re welcome. Good manners deserve good advice: never ask that goofy clown what goes into a dollar cheeseburger. Now that would scare you,” Maren said. She peeled the last of the mask from her chin.

  The unicorn fixed on the false arm with distaste, and Maren threw the prop end-over-end. It landed in the gutter, eliciting a snarl from whatever had decorated its grate with a red balloon.

  “Lazy!” Maren called. She turned to the girl, who gripped the Butterfinger in a way that would soon make it inedible without tongue and spoon.

  “I haven’t shown you the mask I’d planned to wear to the dance,” Maren said. “It’s more… extreme. Takes some doing to rattle a nuckelavee. Care for a preview?”

  Maren reached into her purse. The girl ran like a thoroughbred, the candy bar a yellow baton
in her mitten-soft hoof.

  16

  Maren’s spoons warmed; from within her bag, the prism pulled. The tachyderms were in her hand before she turned.

  “Speak, shadow,” Maren commanded.

  “It’s me, you great tot. Must I wear an Argives jersey?”

  “Uriah? Finally found religion, did you? What’s with the scapular, cincture, and veil? It’s Halloween, but desecrating… don’t tell me you’ve been tempting the young women in the monastery?”

  “I’m no Bride of Christ, but I’ll tell you one thing, Maren—you’ve never seen such repression of want… or such wondrous guilt when lust breaks vows.”

  “Nor would I want to. You are not my first Uriah of the evening. Prove yourself.” Maren’s hand plunged to the scar tissue, the bowling bag’s zipper chewing a ring around her wrist—tachyderms might not be enough against anything that could assume Uriah’s persona.

  “Uh, lemme think. We had a phrase, didn’t we? Was it… you can’t spell covenant without coven?”

  “I have had a night of it.”

  What might be Uriah Lee tore off the veil and belt, though she left the scarlet apron around her waist. A finger pressed against full lips glossed in a matching color, pouting as if she could not recall the phrase.

  Maren felt a slight intoxication—an aerosol—and an object in her bowling case swelled and began to spark.

  “One word, whatever you are: tachyderms.”

  “Whoa. Grumpy. I wouldn’t mind a friendly wrestle with one or two, but you’ll send the whole herd. All right—all right, already. The night is a tributary of silent waters. Hag.”

  “Don’t you hag me.” Maren bit her shriveled lips to quell the emotion in her chest. “Uriah Lee. You look as different as can be expected. Too thin. Too young. Elf-shot, if I didn’t know better. What’s changed? It’s more than the clothes. Oh no… you’ve chipped that adorable bump from your nose! I pray that’s not permanent.”

  “What is?”

  “Nothing, I suppose.” Maren said. “You could never be satisfied with perfection.”

  “Nope. That’s why I was happy with you,” Uriah Lee quipped. She bounced and spun. “Whaddya think? Like it?” The little witch primped at her chopped-up hair, spiked in the places it was dyed a punky green, ropy where it could not be tamed. The scarlet apron flew inappropriately high, but Uriah wore jeans underneath. Tight ones, torn ones—but jeans.

  “It’s all very… progressive,” Maren remarked. “You chase the latest turns of world culture harder than anyone I know. The red-lacquered boots are… what happened to your pants? Get afoul of Tocaya’s guardians?”

  “Hmm? Ah—very funny, Maren. Laugh it up. You know, I get more good out of these shredded jeans than… everyone wants to get into these pants.” Uriah Lee winked. “Some do.”

  “I can’t see how. You barely fit by yourself.”

  “In a mood, are we? I see you’ve reinvented yourself as… an old woman. Still.”

  “Old age and black dresses. Never go out of style.”

  “Nor fully into fashion. Especially the old part. I can love a black dress if there’s not enough of it, or if… do you remember that little number I had—the one with wyvern squama? Your hands were stained for a year.”

  Maren snorted. “Was that for you?”

  “Said as though you truly don’t remember—you’ll pay for that.” Uriah Lee looked Maren up and down. “Full price, too. I don’t give discounts to veterans—not those from the Napoleonic Wars.”

  “I recused myself of that business after the first exile, as well you know.”

  “No doubt,” Uriah Lee said dryly. “What’re you—do you even know where the after-party is this year?”

  “I do. Got it from a wasp that should’ve known not to speak aloud or sting a baby. And I have my prism, though that’s in my doghouse at the moment.”

  “You and that cloudy stone. I always meant to palm it to pawn. I could have, too—any gray morning when I’d worn you out and left you wrapped in a skin. There were days you looked at that rock longer than you looked at me—and I’m not the jealous type.”

  “Clearly. You wouldn’t have sold it.”

  “I might have thrown it into an ocean, though. You’re the one who can’t let it go… They say it’s difficult to escape a prism of your own making.” Uriah Lee cackled with delight as Maren rolled her eyes.

  “I didn’t groan,” Maren lied.

  “You did! You did!”

  Maren would have pushed Uriah, but pushing was touching. “I admit I like that one,” Maren said, clenching fists into her clothing.

  “Thank you,” Uriah Lee said, still laughing—still beautiful, still excitable—her hands gripping the rim of a tiny purse. “Curse the first brooms—I have to pee, and I’m out of cigarettes.”

  Maren tilted her head in thought. “I can’t see how shredded tobacco would inhibit…”

  “Smoking and pissing are unrelated. Not my kind of fetish. If you were desperate, you could tear the filter off and stuff it into your ureth—”

  “—Uriah!”

  “What?”

  “I know you well enough to say that this vulgarity signals insecurity. Nerves.”

  “So?” Uriah shook the tiny purse. “This can hold two packs of Alloways or three of Red Rabies. Sideways and softpacks, if I want three. But then I have to pack everything else, too.”

  “I used to have a compartment in mine devoted to a tobacconist’s finest leaf,” Maren said, frowning into the bowling case. “Roll your own—that sort. Pipes, if you prefer. I needed the space, however, and I kicked the habit when I decided I wouldn’t… Uriah, it’s a delight to see you, but I should ask what you want. Don’t say nothing. That’s the one thing you never need.”

  Uriah Lee pinched her thighs together, knees touching. She shook her purse and squeaked with delight as a battered cigarette with a bright blue filter fell into her hand. She thrust the cigarette over a delicate ear. “Heck yes—Alloway for the win! Hmm, what do I want? Can I say that I wanted to see you?”

  “You may say whatever you like, but try shaking hands with the truth: it sweetens the greeting and shortens the meeting.”

  “Yes, because weapons are pulled immediately. I prefer to watch passions build.” Uriah set her jaw, cute and aware of it. “Fine. I felt you. Got the pull.”

  “You…? The pull? Well it wasn’t me.”

  “But it is you. I… I needed to see you. Someone has put a price—will you stop walking and talk to me privately?”

  It was Maren’s turn to set her jaw; the hollows of her eyes stretched to the sides. “I know of the bounty. You could have sent a warning without … where’s Kate?”

  “Put on vacation. I got tired of bandaging my earlobes. She flew south for a… visit, anniversary, reunion—I wasn’t listening. I love that bird like family, but she talks more than a toddler.”

  “If you give her as many gifts as you give yourself, she likely is one,” Maren said.

  “Kate won’t take it. Not willingly. I’ve tried it fifty ways, but… she says she’s gone vegan.”

  “Typical herbivore. Then again, familiars recognize the gift as unnatural.” Maren waved a hand in surrender before the discussion could become political. Uriah was a champion of taking the gift early and often; presuming to change her mind was folly.

  Uriah’s hair shifted slightly. “How long has it been since you last fed? Who was on the radio? Lita Ford? Janis Joplin? Rosetta Tharpe? There’s dust between your legs.”

  “Such imagery,” Maren said, scanning the canopy that edged the development. She would have liked to see Hecate perched on Uriah’s shoulder, for this made Uriah look as much pirate as witch—not that the two were incompatible.

  Kate was a green-cheeked conure, a veteran of Paraguayan independence (she’d lost both legs in the conflict) and, once Uriah had patched her up, the pint-sized parrot had eventually grown a third eye and been entrusted with a tiny key that could open most doors.<
br />
  Hecate was Uriah’s Hecksbesen, a thought that made Maren miss a weight on her own shoulder.

  Then again, Kate chattered incessantly. Liked bananas. Bit ears and squawked louder than a HAM unit. The comparison was more in spirit than personality traits—both were birds, and both had made reliable companions for many years. A twinge reminded Maren that Bessie could travel well in her bag, but that was because Hecksbesen was dead.

  “Are you somber or sulking?” Uriah asked, the Alloway making her face glow as she inhaled. “I might as well not be here.”

  “Yes, you might as well not. Why are…? I asked that. You said you were… it’s not the pull, and it’s not the bounty.” Maren did something she thought she might regret by meeting Uriah’s eyes. She waited for the illumination of the cigarette. “Crumbs of the comtesse… you’ve botched a potion.”

  It was not a question. Maren brought a cupped hand to cover her mouth, but the laughter in her eyes was unmistakable. Uriah gave chase, blowing smoke into Maren’s fur and scarf.

  “You’re so… ugh. Botched! You make me sound stupid. I’ve had a bit to drink, but I didn’t… if I did sample a potion, I didn’t… I experimented.”

  “Experimented!” Maren exclaimed. “No! Not Uriah Lee—why, she’s a prig inside of a prude!” Maren laughed until she swallowed a mouthful of spit; it tasted more of caramel than gum disease, but she choked anyway.

  Uriah dragged the Alloway and held her arm as though signaling a left turn. Maren found it hard not to envy such a flexible elbow.

  “I still have it,” Uriah said. “The wyvern dress. Your laughter makes me want to burn it to a shadow. It wasn’t a love potion I fiddled with—you know it wasn’t. Love was never an issue.”

  Maren’s smile faded more quickly than her cough. “That dress would not burn on the surface of the sun. As to… I won’t deny your claim. Commitment was your issue. Monogamy—it seems a sizable word, yet I find it insufficient to contain the importance of its premise.”

  Uriah shrugged, threw the half-finished cigarette into a pile of leaves—she never stubbed them out, fire being as natural as rain—and stepped out of her scarlet apron with a balletic hop.