Echo City Read online

  We retraced our steps to the boat launch. Fresca carried a bag of Gwyn's books on Tweed's New York: borrowed, under strict orders to return them intact. I had seen the two of them with their heads together and hoped she hadn't promised him anything worrying in return. Four hounds trotted at our heels, including Creiddylad and Arian, as well as two I didn't know. I'd hoped for the whole pack, but four was vastly better than nothing.

  Gwyn offered Muirin a hand into the boat, which she continued to spurn.

  "We were friends once, woman of the sea," Gwyn said gently.

  "Is that how you remember it? Enjoy the company of your memories, then." She turned away and hopped into the boat.

  Not visibly moved by the rejection, Gwyn clasped arms with Taliesin, gladiator style, then turned to Fresca and me. "You will need to sleep, I'm afraid."

  He placed a thumb on Fresca's forehead. She gave a little sigh and sank down in a small, fragile heap.

  I took a fast step forward, raising my hands. "Hey—"

  "Calmly," Muirin said. "She's unhurt."

  Taliesin looked back from priming the engine. "It's as I told you, Kay. Mortal eyes may not see the way."

  Gwyn handed down Fresca's sleeping body to Muirin, who accepted the burden with a minimum of contact with Gwyn, and laid my friend on a pile of gunnysacks in the rear of the boat.

  "Are there side effects?" I asked. Muirin had given me poison to drink once, and though there had been a good reason and I'd survived the experience, I'd been making sure ever since to get a full pharmaceutical data sheet on any unknown spells and potions.

  Gwyn flashed a smile at me. "Not at all. You will sleep, and wake in the mortal world."

  "How come your spells are never that simple?" I asked Muirin, deflecting my fear as best I could as Gwyn reached for me.

  "Because I am not a god," Muirin said, and then Gwyn's warm, dry fingertip brushed my forehead. I never had gotten to see Gwyn's library; the regret followed me down into darkness.

  Chapter 26

  "I don't see why you're involving yourself in this business."

  "It's my decision where I involve myself."

  I had been aware of the voices for some time, slowly percolating through the layers of my sleep-fogged consciousness. One was Muirin's, the other a man's, soft and vaguely familiar.

  "Let it go, Muirin. Walk away."

  "I can't."

  Seth. That was the other voice. I cracked my eyes open. All I could see was white, which turned out to be unsurprising when I realized I was facedown on one of Seth's white sofas. Someone had covered me with a blanket, a cheap fluffy cotton one like you might get from Target. There was a cat curled up on my feet.

  "The Gatekeepers don't care who rules Shadow New York," Seth said. I twisted my head to the side. He and Muirin were sitting at the kitchen island, glasses of wine in front of them. The blinds were open to the Shadow New York version of Central Park, and sunset colors bathed the room, tinting the monochrome color scheme in shades of pink and gold. Fresca slept on a couch kitty-corner to mine, curled on her side. The wolfhounds were doing their best impression of white speedbumps on the carpet, studiously ignoring the cats and vice versa.

  "I don't care either," Muirin said. "One human tinpot dictator is as good as another to me. But I've spent two millennia, untold human generations, in the service of the family who kept the sword. It's a trust I can't give up lightly. And we know Tweed's hunger for power may be affecting the mortal world, which is within our jurisdiction."

  Seth picked up his wine glass and swirled the contents. "But Shadow New York is not, I'm afraid. If you think the Gatekeepers are going to mount an assault to reclaim your sword—"

  "Seth," Muirin said, "I'm not asking the Gatekeepers for help. I know they wouldn't. I'm asking a friend."

  He set down the glass without drinking. "I'm sorry. It's easy to assume ..."

  "It's easy to let our roles define us," Muirin said. She laughed softly, and swiveled away to look out the window, the hard planes of her face caught in profile. "Believe me, I know. Who are we if we aren't being what we are?"

  Seth leaned across the countertop, and kissed her—on the lips. It was gentle, affectionate, and made me feel like an eavesdropper, but as I tensed my sleep-lax muscles to sit up, Seth said, "Where does Millie fit into all of this?" and I went still again. His back was to me now; I couldn't see his face, although his voice was gentle.

  "I don't know," Muirin said. "It's easy to say, 'She is what she is, and can't help it.' Except she's also a moral being, and responsible for her actions."

  "Most of her actions since I've known her have made me proud to have her at my back."

  "I don't know her well," Muirin said. "Bill and I rarely worked with her. But ... yes, I'd generally say that she seems trustworthy and brave. She's done some good work for us."

  "And yet she is, in her way, a monster. An intruder in a place she does not belong, hiding her true nature while drawing energy from the world around her. The very thing we've devoted our lives to fighting."

  "That too. Yes."

  Seth leaned his elbows on the countertop. "I'll call George and talk it over. Let him know, at least. If she's using her abilities to the detriment of our world, a good case can be made for keeping her in Shadow New York where she ought to be."

  "I don't see how she could avoid it," Muirin said.

  "And if she's managing to keep it under control? Would you have a problem with allowing her to continue to assist in our work?"

  I cleared my throat and sat up. "I have a problem with it."

  Neither of them looked surprised by my interjection. "Kay—" Muirin began.

  "I watched Tweed murder a woman in front of my eyes—my friend, Muirin—and Millie stood by and did nothing."

  "I don't disbelieve you," Muirin said, unmoved. "But she wouldn't be the first person to freeze when confronted by a crisis of conscience."

  "She wasn't having a crisis of conscience. She was on his side and she has been all along."

  Muirin reached for her wine glass. "Usually you're the one arguing on the monster's behalf."

  "She's not a monster. She's a person, and you said it yourself, she's responsible for her own goddamn actions."

  "Ah, the confidence of youth," Seth murmured.

  I folded the fuzzy blanket carefully to give myself a chance to calm down. One of the cats curled around my ankle. On the opposite couch, Fresca yawned and pushed herself up on an elbow, with her hair tangled in her face. "Where are we?" she asked blankly.

  Right, she'd never been here before.

  "This is Muirin's friend Seth's place," I said. "He's a Gatekeeper."

  "Oh. Okay." Fresca wasn't a morning person. She sat up, running her hands over her face and combing her fingers through her hair. "Cool," she said through a jaw-cracking yawn.

  "Where's Taliesin?" I asked.

  Seth nodded to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. "He was persuaded to have a nap. He's been awake for over twenty-four hours at this point, and he's not a young man anymore." He rose from his seat, graceful in an almost feline way, and said to Fresca, "Welcome to my home. I am Seth. I was just about to order refreshments. Do you have a preference for cuisine?"

  "Uh," Fresca said. She rubbed her eyes.

  "Listen," I said, "my grandmother is out there in Shadow New York somewhere. I have to get in touch with her." I fumbled out my phone, and discovered the battery was dead.

  "I don't think there is any way," Seth said. "Not without going there in person. Phones don't work in the other city." He passed me a handful of takeout menus, and another to Fresca. "Pick something you like. I'll pay."

  "She's been there alone for days."

  "So another couple of hours isn't going to make much difference," Fresca said. "We'll get her, Kay. It'll be all right."

  We ordered Thai, while Seth opened a chest freezer and pulled out some packages of meat, which deeply intrigued the cats and the dogs. He tossed it all into a cooler and van
ished into the bathroom, returning minus cooler, cats, and dogs.

  I tried calling Grandma from Seth's landline anyway—no dice—and borrowed a charger from Seth to plug my phone in. Fresca draped herself over the couch and called one of her friends back in Ithaca to go over and check on her cat.

  After the alienness of Gwyn's barrow fortress, it felt weirdly normal to be back in a place with phones and running water and takeout menus. It didn't feel like we were about to embark on a guerrilla campaign against the magical ghost of a 19th-century strongman.

  "Food's here," Fresca called from the entryway.

  "Someone go wake up Taliesin?" Seth suggested.

  We didn't have to; roused by the smell of food, he wandered out to join us, yawning, as we spread out the cartons on Seth's immaculate marble counter.

  "Didn't you say you can't stay long in the mortal world without aging?" I asked him. "How long can you be here?"

  Taliesin shook his head and scratched at his mane of white hair. "I can be here as long as I like. I just can't pass through the door into the hall."

  Right, because Seth's apartment was both here and there. Seeing the look on my face, Taliesin smiled, and clasped my shoulder with a strong, warm hand.

  "One grows used to it," he said. "Is that red curry I spy?"

  Once we had satisfied our immediate hunger, we got down to strategizing.

  "We have to strike hard and fast," Taliesin said. "If this works, Tweed will quickly realize what we're doing, and his Tigers will be out in force. We will need to spread out and recruit others."

  "Go viral," I said.

  Muirin looked blank, but Taliesin nodded and Fresca smiled.

  "Exactly," Taliesin said. "There is no chance that five of us could make an impact, even if we separate, each to a different neighborhood. But if we contact others, and have them contact more ..." He shrugged and selected another takeout carton from the cluster in the center of the kitchen island. "I suggest that we each start with a neighborhood where we know people. I can start in the Village and move onward from there."

  "Greenwich Village?" I asked. "I thought it was severed from the rest of the city."

  "One version of the Village," Taliesin corrected me. "The one where Gwyn had his shop. But there are many other shadows of it, and I have friends in several of them."

  "I can do the Harlem Renaissance," I said. "Well, the version of it where Grandma is. Oh God, do you think she knows about Lily-Bell?"

  "Nothing we can do about it 'til we get there," Fresca pointed out.

  Still. Poor Grandma. She'd only just met her mother—her free-spirited mother with whom she had so much in common. Had the real Lily-Bell Taylor been like her Shadow New York counterpart? I doubted she'd been exactly like her by the time Grandma was born; life changed people, after all. But they must be the same person deep down. And how much courage had it taken for the young Lily to turn her back on whatever life she'd had in the Deep South (bayou country, Geraldine had said), to run off to the bright lights of New York City, seeking a venue for her poems and, perhaps, an escape from the racism that boxed her in on every side.

  Instead she'd found racism alive and well in the North too, and eventually she'd found a husband and daughter too. She had died young and had never been famous. And then her shadow-clone had died in front of me ...

  Fresca squeezed my shoulder. "Uh, some of us don't know anyone. Tell us what to do and we'll get to work."

  My fork clattered to my plate. "Oh, right. Work. Where's my phone?"

  "Kay," my supervisor said when I got through to her, in a noncommittal tone. "You've missed three shifts in a row. Without so much as a phone call."

  "I was called out of town for a family emergency. I'm really sorry. Really, really, really sorry."

  She sighed. "Kay, you used to be so prompt and reliable. Never late. Hardly even took a sick day. I'll be straight with you: the only reason why I'm still giving you chances is because you used to be one of the best employees we had. But the last couple of months—"

  "I know," I said, "I know, I'm really sorry, and I'll do better, I swear."

  "I assume you'll be here for your shift this evening?"

  This evening? Oh, dammit. "No, I'm still out of town. Like I said, it's a family thing. Emergency. Emergency thing."

  Her noncommittal voice grew even blander. "And when do you expect to be back?"

  "I don't know," I said in a tiny voice.

  "I see." A brief pause. "I hope you're able to resolve your family emergency, Kay. When that's done, I'll be happy to give you a letter of reference."

  I babbled my way through the rest of the conversation—platitudes on both sides—and then leaned against the wall, staring into nothing. With all that was going on, being fired from a near-minimum-wage job shouldn't make me feel like a complete failure. But I'd never been fired before. Never been fired, never failed a class, never been anything less than Rena and Alan Darrow's perfect daughter.

  "Kay?" I raised my head from staring at my toes. Muirin was frowning at me. I told myself I wasn't going to cry, especially in front of Muirin. Compared to seeing a friend die, this was—this was nothing. Just a job. I could find another job. But Fresca had lost her job too—how were we ever going to pay rent? Could Fresca talk her Aunt Lu into letting us slide, and if so, for how long?

  Not now, I told myself firmly. One crisis at a time.

  "Sorry guys, I missed the last part of the conversation." Belatedly, I realized that Muirin and I were the only people in the kitchen, aside from a cat or two. "Uh, where'd everybody go?"

  Fresca poked her head into the hallway. "Taliesin's already on the move, and since my art skills are minimal and I don't know any useful bohemians, Seth's helping me use his home office to print out Thomas Nast cartoons. I can hand them out on a street corner or something."

  "I wish you weren't going to be anywhere near this mess." I began clearing away the lunch clutter to give me something to do.

  "Yes, too bad I'm a grown-up, capable of making my own decisions."

  Someone tapped on the door. Seth glided out of a bedroom to answer it. I deposited the plates in the sink and began to rinse them.

  There was an oddly pointed hush behind me. I turned around just in time to see Seth escort Millie and Irmingard into the living room.

  Fresca popped into the hallway. "Hey, Seth, what does it mean when there's a blinking yellow light on the—" She stopped.

  "They are my friends and they are welcome here," Seth said, cool and unruffled in response to our stares. "There's still Thai food; dig in."

  "We actually just came to use your door to the other city—" Millie began.

  "Stay." Seth's voice was calm but firm. "Eat."

  Millie took down two plates. She had to go around me to do it; I didn't get out of her way. She avoided my eyes.

  Irmingard looked baffled by the undercurrents of hostility running around the room. Her big eyes flicked back and forth among us.

  "Seth," Muirin said quietly. In a seemingly casual motion, she reached for the book next to her and turned it upside down. It was a biography of Tweed; she laid her hand, fingers spread, on the back cover, obscuring the lettering as if she'd just happened to rest it there. "Is this wise?"

  "The hospitality of my house is available to all I count among my friends," Seth said. "That will always be true." He took Millie's plate from her and spooned rice onto it.

  "Is anyone going to tell us what's going on?" Irmingard asked.

  "Millie knows," I said. My voice was soft, but it carried.

  Millie froze briefly as she accepted the plate and a nearly-empty cartoon of pad Thai from Seth, then her movements smoothed out again. "Irmingard," she began, "you might want to go—"

  "No, she should be here," Muirin said. "This concerns her too."

  Millie set the plate on the marble countertop with a sharp clink. "Why are we dancing so delicately around the topic? And furthermore, why does it matter? Irmingard, I have loyalties elsew
here, as do we all. Somehow—" She swept a sharp gaze across all of us, but particularly me, "—it's become an issue now, where it never was before."

  "You're a Tiger," I said. "How did you think it wasn't going to be an issue?"

  If I'd hoped to score a hit, I was disappointed; Millie's face never changed, though Irmingard's wide brow wrinkled.

  "A Tiger—like the one that attacked us?"

  "It's complicated," Millie said, and, gently, "Yes, Irmingard. I was born an echo of Amelia Earhart in Shadow New York, and given energy enough to become a full-fledged person—that's what Tigers are, really, shadow-ghosts made flesh. But we are the people we are patterned upon. I have her memories, her thoughts, her body. I am not the same person who died in the South Pacific, but I am, I suppose, an earlier branch on her life path; I am the person she might have been. I'm Amelia Earhart in all the ways that count."

  Irmingard looked troubled.

  I said, "And you've been running around playing human while you're really no different from the creatures you hunt."

  Now it was Irmingard's turn to frown. "Most of us aren't human, Kay. I'm not human."

  Irmingard obviously did not regard Millie's true nature as the devastating revelation I'd hoped for. "She lied to you," I said.

  "Yes," Millie said, "and I'm sorry, Irmingard. It's more a lie of omission than anything else. Every single one of us Gatekeepers has things in their past that they don't talk about, and this is mine."

  I screwed a dish towel into a tight ball. "Lies of omission? Tell her how you still work for Tweed. Tell her how you stood by and watched him kill my great-grandmother. There's a lie of omission for you."

  "Tweed rules Shadow New York," Millie returned evenly. "I watched him punish one of his own people who had transgressed against him, and I did not interfere because, yes, it's not my place, and because I do have loyalty to him. I might not like everything he does, but I also owe him. I'm one of his subjects when I'm in that city. I have responsibilities."