Seanan McGuire - An Artificial Night

“Glad to see you haven’t lost your fatalistic outlook on life,” she said, clapping her hand down on another cockroach. “It’s always been one of your best features. Why bother going if you know you’re going to fail?”

“I have to.”

“Why?” she asked, popping the roach into her mouth. “It’s pointless. If you’re that anxious to die, just say the word. It would save us all a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t want to die.” That’s why I was negotiating with a woman who’d threatened to kill me at various points in the past. Sometimes my life seems devoid of any logic whatsoever.

“Then why? ”

“I have to,” I repeated. “He took two of my best friend’s children, and there’s a third who won’t wake up, no matter what we do, and that doesn’t even touch the kids he took from the Court of Cats. I have to try. How could I live with myself if I didn’t?”

“I see.” Almost gently, she said, “If I help you—and you need me to help you—you’ll owe me. Can you live with that?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Luidaeg. Three times asked and three times sure.” I shook my head. “You want my word, you have it. Now please. Tell me what I need to know.”

“Fine.” She crossed her arms, leaning against the cutting board. “You have to move fast; he’ll have started to change the children, but he hasn’t had them long enough to do any permanent damage. Wait too long and you won’t save any of them. You’ll go tonight, and you’ll go alone, and you won’t look back. Because the rules say so.” Her smile showed the edge of a single scrimshaw fang. “It’s the beginning of September. He’ll hold them until Halloween night, changing them to suit his whims, and then they’ll Ride. It’s his way of remembering our mother. Her Rides were always held on Samhain night.”

I nodded, feeling the first flickers of hope. “So there’s a chance.”

“The rules let you try, right here, right now. I don’t know if you’ll succeed.” She yanked open a drawer, digging through it. “The rules require me to warn you, just so you know.”

“Warn me?”

“You go alone. You can take any help you find, but you can’t ask for it. You fight with what you have and what you’re given; neither steal nor buy any weapon of any kind. You can take each road once, and only once, and some roads not even that often. You go now. Are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really. Do you know where you have to go?”

“Blind Michael’s lands.”

“No.” She shook her head. “If that’s all you know, you’re finished before you start. Stop, think, and ask again.” She straightened, a paring knife in one hand. The handle was made of pearl and abalone, and the blade was a curl of silver barely wider than my finger. It looked like it could cut the air.

I kept my eyes on her face, trying to ignore the knife. It wasn’t working. “Just once, I wish you’d speak English like a normal person.”

“What would be the fun in that? Give me your hand.” I blinked, automatically holding out my left hand; she grabbed it, raking the blade across my palm. It cut deep, but there was no pain. Yet.

“Hey!” I yelped, yanking my hand away.

She looked at me impassively. “Give me back your hand.”

“No!”

“We can do this the easy way, or we can not do it at all. You can wander the hills looking for Blind Michael and never see him coming … or you can give me your hand, and I can give you a road to follow.” She shrugged. “It’s your call. You owe me either way.”

Great. Rock? Meet hard place. I extended my hand, trying not to think about what I was doing. Spike jumped down to the counter where it crouched, rattling its thorns.

The Luidaeg looked at it, amused. “Fierce protector.”

“It does its best,” I said, watching with sick fascination as the blood started to flow over my palm.

“You’d be surprised at how deep rose thorns can cut. They’re pretty, not safe.” She wrapped her fingers around my wrist, turning my palm toward the floor. Blood spattered on the dirty linoleum. The Luidaeg dumped a handful of tarnished silver coins into a baby food jar and shoved it under my hand, saying, “Hold this. We only need a little blood.”

“Why do we need any? ” I was trying not to be sick. I’ve never liked the sight of my own blood. If I get hurt in the line of duty, I can usually handle it until I’m out of the path of certain doom. Standing in the Luidaeg’s kitchen with no visible dangers—except maybe the Luidaeg herself—was forcing me to fight the urge to stick my head between my knees and pass out.

“Because there are no free roads, moron,” she said, sorting through the mess on her counter. “You should know that by now.” She turned back to me, holding a length of filthy, off-white twine. “You’re going to need a map. The blood pays for it; proves you mean it.”

“A map where? ”

“Back in time and just around the corner. You’re going to visit my brother, and he’s choosy about who he lets through the door. Give me that.” She took the jar from my hand. “Silver that’s come a long way already, the iron in your blood … it’s going to have to do. Go ahead and run your hand under the tap, but don’t bandage it. The wound’s not going with you.”

“What are you talking about?” I turned on the faucet, looking dubiously at the cloudy water, and then stuck my hand under it. The cold registered a moment before the pain. I shrieked and jumped back, turning to glare at the Luidaeg.

She shrugged. “I’m the sea witch, remember? Were you expecting fresh water?”

I shouldn’t have been, but I was. I’d stopped worrying about the Luidaeg and started thinking only about her brother; that was a mistake. “No,” I said, quietly. “I guess not.”

“Good girl.” She dropped the twine into the jar and screwed the lid on before shaking it. The coins rattled, and the blood sloshed against the glass. I looked away. “Wimp,” she chided. I looked around to see her uncap the jar, pouring the contents into a wax mold, and topping them with salt water from the tap.

“What are you doing?” Blood rituals are dangerous. If I was going into one, I wanted to know.

“Making your map.” She lifted the mold and shattered it against the kitchen counter, easily catching the candle that fell out of the shards. “Perfect.”

I stared.

The candle was a foot long, made of multicolored wax. Swirling streaks of moon white, copper red and pale straw gold mingled together in long, lazy spirals. The wick was a deep, rich brown, like long-dried blood. “What the—”

“There are three ways I could send you to my brother.” She turned the candle in her hand, making the colors in the wax seem to dance. “There’s the Blood Road—you could take it, but you don’t want to. Not if you want a chance to come home alive. There’s the Old Road, but even with my help, you couldn’t find the door as you are. You’re too much of a mongrel.”

“What does that leave?” I asked. Spike was still rattling its thorns, growling. It didn’t like this. Neither did I.

“The last road.” She held up the candle and smiled, almost sadly. “The road you walk by candlelight. It’s not going to be easy—it never could be—but you have iron, and you have silver, and you can get there and back if you hurry.”

“How do I get started?”

“Did you jump rope when you were a kid?”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Jump rope. Did you stand on the playground jumping over a piece of moving rope and chanting? Cinderella dressed in yellow, Miss Suzy’s steamboat?”

“Of course.”