Richard Kadrey - Dead Set

Zoe slid forward so that she was sitting on the very edge of the chair. The door was only ten feet away, but Mr. Prosper still held the knife.

“What happens now?” she asked.

His eyes snapped open, wide and red. “What happens is that I’m the one who gets reborn. I know her plans, and how she was going to sort you out.” He slumped against the wall at the head of the bed. “God, the look on her face, if only she knew.” He slurred his words and his eyelids drooped again. “Her face, when she figures it out.” He slid to his side, down onto the pillows. The amber bottle spilled its contents onto the bed. “You’re my treasure. The first one to make it all the way down. Such a clever girl.”

She could hear him breathing, taking regular, shallow breaths. The knife slipped from his hand and fell onto the Persian carpet. Zoe stood and quietly left Mr. Prosper’s room.

When she made it back to the boardwalk, Hecate and the crowd were gone. She didn’t know how long Mr. Prosper had kept her in his room, but it was long enough for the streets to clear, so he might have done her a favor after all.

Zoe started heading to Valentine’s rooftop home feeling less afraid than before. She wasn’t stupid. She kept her head down and steered clear of any dogs, but something had broken inside her in Mr. Prosper’s apartment. The steady, gnawing dread she’d felt since coming to Iphigene was gone. Maybe it was learning what had lured her to the city and why. Knowing she’d been manipulated made her feel a little less guilty. And walking out of Mr. Prosper’s room without a scratch proved something else. That the entities that ran Iphigene, for all their power and sinister magic, were far from infallible. They were fuckups and losers, just like people she knew back in the world. That was something she could understand and find comfort in.

She found the twisted garage where Valentine lived and limped up the fire escape to the roof. He was coming around the far side of the shack when they saw each other. He ran to her, his homemade legs pumping at crazy angles, and threw his arms around her.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said over and over again. “I should never have left you alone.”

“It’s all right. I’m all right,” she said.

He let go and took a step back to look at her. “I thought Hecate had you for sure. All those people in street, they’re all looking for you.”

Zoe nodded. “I know, but no one saw me. No one even looked at me.”

“I’m kind of not surprised,” said Valentine. “The way Hecate talked about you, they’re probably all out looking for someone ten feet tall and riding a tank.”

“That’s me all right,” she said. She couldn’t believe how good it felt to see a friendly, familiar face. She tried picturing Julie and Laura, even Abysnthe, here with her in Iphigene, but their faces all came out blurred and indistinct. Valentine took her hand and pulled her toward the shack.

“We should keep away from the edges of the roof. Someone might see you.”

Zoe followed him inside his crowded little home. Valentine got out a teakettle and started rummaging around the shelves for cups. “I went back looking for you just a few minutes after I left, but you were already gone,” he said.

“I kind of freaked out,” Zoe said, picturing the scene in the restaurant. The black creatures swirling in the air. Her father disappearing under them. “I ran off and got lost. It was stupid.”

“I came back for you,” Valentine said, his voice a little high and strained. “I really did come back.”

Zoe looked up at him. “I believe you.”

He lit the camp stove and put water on to boil. “So, you saw Father.”

Zoe nodded. “You were right. There was nothing I could do for him. Hell, I couldn’t even watch.”

“I’m just glad you got back here in one piece.”

Zoe took off her sneaker and rubbed her sore ankle. Her whole leg was burning. It wasn’t until she was sitting here, where she felt relatively safe and at home, that she noticed.

“I can’t leave Dad like this, paying for my mistakes,” she said. “I have to do something.”

Valentine picked up the teakettle from the stove and slammed it down hard. “Yeah? And what are you going to do for him? You going to bring him back with you to the land of the living? Maybe he can live under your bed or be the monster in your closet.”

Zoe looked down at her sore ankle as she adjusted the rag. “I can’t leave him here, being eaten piece by piece. I saw the dying dead. I won’t let him end up like that.”

“Yes, you will. You’ll leave him just like you’re going to leave me, because it’s what Father and I want and it’s the right thing to do,” shouted Valentine. “You keep trying to change things you can’t change. Some things are just too big. They are what they are and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He came over to her and bent down, pushed Zoe’s hands out of the way, and retied the cloth around her ankle until it was snug and comfortable. “If you love Father, do what he told you when you first came here. Go home. Be safe. Have a life.”

“How can I just run off and leave you?”

Valentine got up, went to a pile of dishes, and put two cups on the table. “Just put one foot in front of the other and keep doing that until you’re far away from this shithole.”

“I don’t even know how to leave.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” he said. “I’ve learned to sneak around the edges of things. Get far enough out of town to sneak into your dreams, but that’s because I’m dead. You need some other way back.”

“Emmett. . um, Ammut, he’s alive, isn’t he? I could go out from the place where he goes.”

Valentine turned away from her, rummaging for the sugar. “If we knew where that was.”

“I might know someone who does,” said Zoe.

Valentine turned and looked at her intently. He reached over and turned off the stove. “Let’s go.”

Traveling with Valentine made Zoe feel safe and they didn’t see any dogs along the way, so it wasn’t more than half an hour before they were standing in front of Mr. Prosper’s building.

Valentine looked up and down the bright, clean street and gave an exaggerated whistle. “Damn. I’ve seen these buildings, but I’ve never had the nerve to go inside. I always figured they had some kind of alarm that could smell street scum.”

“You’re not street scum.”

“I’m sure not one of them, ” he said, looking up at the top of the building.

They went through the lobby and took the elevator up to the top floor. Zoe led the way to Mr. Prosper’s apartment. She turned the knob slowly, and when she could feel that the door wasn’t locked, she pushed it all the way open. Mr. Prosper was still asleep on the bed where she’d left him. She went over and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing the sleeping man. Valentine remained in the doorway, his gaze taking in the room and its opulence.

Zoe gestured for him to come in and close the door. Valentine nodded and did as he was told. Inside, he spotted Mr. Prosper’s knife on the floor and picked it up. Zoe watched him weigh the blade in his hand. He shrugged off his greatcoat and let it fall to the floor. Zoe hadn’t seen his arms in the light before. They really were pipes. His hands were a crazy combination of metal scraps all fitted together like a rusted jigsaw puzzle. It didn’t make sense that they could work, but they did, by whatever magic ruled Iphigene. Plus, they looked formidable.

Valentine smiled at her. Zoe reached over and shook Mr. Prosper’s shoulder. “Wake up! Hey, wake up!”

Mr. Prosper jerked violently away from her and raised his head. “What?” he said hoarsely. He opened his eyes and looked at Zoe, but didn’t seem to recognize her. His gaze moved past her to land at the foot of the bed, where Valentine was standing, the knife held tightly in his metal hand. “Gah!” shouted Mr. Prosper, scrambling back farther on the bed. “Go away!”