Chương 9: a partner

"I need more than that." Jordan Darius dabs her tear duct. Caspar gives me a sharp look as another drop of blood rolls down her cheek. That's not my fault, all right? The woman demanded another look at Heaven. The rest of the new arrivals have fled to the taphouse to shake off their vision of the truth. Only the inspector remains out in the crisp evening.

"You could fabricate this," she says.

"All of it. What am I gonna believe, that you somehow killed the Father of Creation or that the great deceiver of humanity is deceiving humans?"

"I don't really give a shit what you believe, inspector," I say.

"You are dead." Jordan folds her arms.

"You two cheated. Would have been your man with the hole in him."

"Maybe." I grin.

"But we did cheat. The Father may have cheated for you, if I hadn't, as mentioned, eaten him."

"The Father trusts His children." Jordan grins right back, teeth bared.

"It wasn't me, but it'll be someone. You got the tricks, we got the numbers and the faith. I take those odds."

"What would count as proof for you?" Caspar says. I don't know why he's bothering with this jerk. She shakes her head.

"I can't think of anything."

"Oh! Oh, I can." Bina waves a half-formed wing.

"Can I try?" We turn our attentions toward the fuzzy beast.

"Knock yourself out," Jordan says.

"Okey dokey!" Bina scurries away, toward the door out from Autumn.

"Back soon!"

"Would you like to take in the taphouse while we wait, Madame Inspector?" Caspar says.

"We're gonna have a pool table in there."

"Don't think we can just pick it up like we're friends, Abraham." Jordan shoves a finger into his chest.

"You killed me and left my body in the woods." This might have crippled the Caspar of a few days ago. But my warlock has grown his calluses.

"Beg your pardon, Madame Inspector. But I put you in the trunk." She scowls.

"Suit yourself." Caspar shakes his head.

"I'm gonna go see what Miss Irene thinks a red ale tastes like."

"Ye of little faith." I follow him into the taphouse. The templars' arrival has thrown the darts/pinball vote into disarray. Kester, the man who got his head revolver-ventilated, recovered quickly from the shock of his death ("I wasn't doing much with that brain anyway") and has organized a strong pro-pinball contingency. The conversation dies as the conversers' killer steps into the taphouse, in the company of his heretic goddess. Aaron coughs.

"Howdy, Caspar."

"Howdy." Caspar crosses sheepishly to the bar. Edgar's standing behind it, giving him a hard expression.

"How's the place?" With a bump of wood-on-wood, the front door bonks open and the pool table enters the taphouse, clopping across the floor on its four legs like a wandering ox. It brushes past an agog templar and nudges Sam out of the way as it finds its spot past the booths and plants itself on the floor. The pool cues clatter as they roll to a stop on its lip. Edgar unracks a stein from the wall and fills it with amber beer.

"Stout's a little flat."

"It's a nitro," I say. The conviviality gradually returns as the men of Chamchek Diocese get some drinks into them. Eventually, Caspar's up at the pool table, chalking his cue.

"You watch out." Sam slaps the back of the warlock's templar opponent.

"Cas here is a hustler."

"I am not," Caspar protests.

"I'm humble is all."

"Theria 7: 17, buddy," the templar says.

"They whose humility dwells upon the tongue have none in their heart."

"Irene 1: 1," I say.

"Nut up or shut up, cop." Jordan leans by the door, gives the entire establishment the stink-eye.

"Beer, Madame Inspector?" Edgar holds up a stein. Jordan sneers.

"We're inside the literal belly of a beast, brother. You wonder what exactly it is you're drinking?" Edgar stares in disquiet at the glass.

"I'm baaack," a voice sings. Bina saunters into the function. She's started to get the hang of bipedalism, and bounces back and forth excitedly on her dewclawed feet.

"Jordan, can I borrow you?" Jordan puts her hands on her hips.

"Fine."

"Great! We will be right back, dead and undead humans. And Irene."

"I'm coming along, Beany," I say.

"I want to see this."

"Oh, fun!" Bina flutters her pseudopods.

"Beam us out, boo thing." Caspar looks up from the pool table.

"You need me?"

"Nah." I shoot him a thumbs up.

"You keep thrashing the servants of the Father. I'm around if you need me."

"You got it, Miss Irene." Caspar returns to his game. I really, really like how he calls me Miss Irene. Have I mentioned that? Inspector Darius' posture straightens as we depart the cozy evening into the pitch-dark corridors of my primary demesne. She regards the marble colonnades and the geometric tiles with well-practiced suspicion. Here, finally, is the crepuscular realm of the Adversary that she expected. I steer us into a hatchway that I've grown on my flank.

We shuffle into a limousine interior of dark amethyst velvet cushions and curtains drawn across the windows. Jordan lifts the corner of one and it tugs itself from her hand and flaps shut. I tut at her.

"No more putting your hand on the Heaven stove, inspector. Caspar's already peeved at me from last time." A jolt as I expel us from my prime form. The tumorous pod within which we ride unfolds leathery wings and flaps toward Bina's demesne, which floats patiently a mile from mine.

"I really cannot wait to host you again," Bina says.

"It's been, like, forever. I've learned a lot."

"I bet," I say.

"I'm interested in what you've done with the place."

"Well, it's not all spooky and gothic like your stuff." A note of pride thrums through Bina's harmonics.

"But I've really gotten the hang of hiding my organelles." Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. With a sucking judder, my pod anchors to Bina. The door swings open into a chamber of dripping, rough-hewn stone. Lime and moss flower through the cracks in its cyclopean brickwork. I step from the limo and admire the flickering torches in their wrought-iron sconces.

"Bean, this is great. The atmosphere. Is that mildew I smell?" She nods gleefully as she bends to beckon Jordan.

"You can come out, Miss Inspector." Jordan eases into Bina's dungeonesque depths. Bina nudges her.

"Pretty good, right?" The inspector just grunts.

"Your architecture has come so far in just a half century," I marvel, and the torches flare as Bina practically glows with pride.

"Last time I was here, I stepped on the wrong flagstone and accidentally punctured a gallbladder."

"Ohmygod Irene, don't tell her that." Bina gives me a light whack with one malformed wing.

"Okay, Jordan. Right this way." She leads us down creaking byways and over splintered floorboards.

"Why do you practice these things?" Jordan eyes a rat as it skitters past.

"To affect your world, we need warlocks," I say.

"Refracting ourselves into human-parsable spaces is important in their care and keeping."

"Plus, it's fun." Bina stops before an ironshod ring-pull door.

"Here we are. Go on through, Miss Inspector." Jordan clasps the ring and creaks the door open. We are immediately buffeted by a discordant chorus of moans, screams, and indescribable sounds. Biological instruments pushed into overdriven realms of unimaginable pain. The acrid, unspeakable scents of every automatic process sharpened into a caustic joke on humanity.

Jordan beholds a raw ruin of humanoid wreckage, twisted and racked and so tangled underfoot and over wall that it's impossible to know where one being begins and another ends. A jagged mouth, its vocal cords stripped and tenuous as catgut string, twitches open and makes a phelgmatic sound like Juh. Juhrdn. Jordan's knees and spirit tremble.

"What is this."

"This is everyone you've ever known who went to Heaven," Bina says.

"I gathered them up for you so you could talk to them yourself." She points at the thing that managed to speak.

"That's your father. Go on. Ask him anything." ₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ Bina's unpracticed in her small-scale manifestations, but eventually she manages a quilt without hair growing on it and a mug of tea that has no sebaceous fluid. We pass both to the inspector. The first thing she says, when she finds her voice again, is:"Send me back." I raise an eyebrow.

"Back in there?"

"No," Jordan croaks. Her hands have stopped quivering.

"You sent Caspar back. Send me back."

"Caspar's a warlock," I say.

"That's the only way my people can bring the dead back to life."

"Fine. Make me a warlock and send me back." She peers up at me.

"I had your boy beaten, even with the strength a warlock brings you, and I have inspector credentials. I'm an asset." I shake my head.

"I've already got a warlock. Can't tend more than one at a time."

"Well, I don't have a warlock. I've never had a warlock." Bina sits cross-legged (a complicated origami with her current form) before Jordan.

"Wanna be my first, Jordan Darius?"

"Bean," I murmur. We've been talking about Bina's first warlock for a very long time, now. I've been training her. It's important she gets it right.

"I don't know if she's suitable material for your trial run. Maybe we find someone more malleable, huh?"

"I don't want malleable. This one has fire in her." One of Bina's tendrils snakes below Jordan's chin and tilts it upward.

"Don't you, Miss Darius? You wanna be mine?"

"Yes." She doesn't hesitate.

"I need to fix this. I need— we need answers from the Suzerain."

"We're going to kill the Suzerain," I say.

"Caspar's just the same, you know. Still clinging to the hope a conversation might earn him the key. You ought to be clearheaded about your mission, and understand how impossible that is."

"I'll do what I have to do," Jordan says.

"Always have. Make me your warlock, Bina. I'll work with you."

"You mean serve her," I say. Jordan nails me with a look.

"I mean what I say."

"You were more than happy to serve the Father." She scoffs.

"You ain't the Father."

"Don't worry, Irene." Bina's drooling maw tilts upward at its black-lipped edges.

"Miss Darius and I are going to have so much fun together." One of her appendages wavers before the inspector, glowing a cherry red with heat.

"But you're going to need to accept my mark if you want my power, you know. And it's going to hurt like the dickens." Jordan's gaze is dagger-sharp on my sister.

"Fine."

"Where do you want it?" With mechanical determination, Jordan unbuttons the bottom of her service blouse and indicates a stretch of her abdomen. There's already a snaking scar across the hip.

"There."

"Okay," sings Bina, and with no preamble, she slams her brand down onto Jordan's exposed skin. Jordan howls a drawn-out " Motherfucker!" and slaps her hand against the flagstones as Bina lifts her appendage away.

"You couldn't have given me a countdown?"

"Oops." Bina is genuinely abashed.

"Sorry. It's done now, though. Welcome, warlock!"

"Say the thing," I prompt.

"I accept your service," Bina says.

"I grant you my strength."" Now it's done," I say.

"Okay, Jordan." Bina helps the inspector clamber to her feet.

"Now we're partners. So you need anything, you just say it. And you get all my spooky magic."

"I think what I would like," Jordan says, "is to get back to that bar and get drunk."

"You're going to be working in concert with my warlock," I say.

"Will that be a problem?" Jordan tilts her head.

"Will it?" I really wish I could just kill her again, but now Bina's in charge of her.

"Hooray! They'll be friends." My sister gasps.

"Irene! We could have them go on little dates! What if they have little warlock infants?" My jaw clenches hard enough that I think I might have broken off a tooth in my throat.

"Hate to disappoint, Bina," Jordan says.

"But I'm a lesbian."

"Oh!" Bina blinks.

"That's okay. Where's Lesbia?"

"I like girls," Jordan says.

"Me too! They smell lovely."

"Instead of boys."

"Ohhh." The pieces fall into place behind Bina's eyes.

"Wait! Irene. Salome had a girl warlock, right?"

"We're not a dating service, Bina," I say. Bina pads off toward the limo.

"You are just no fun." The ride back is in tense silence. Jordan sits curled in on herself. Finally she says, "What happened to them?"

"Same thing that happened to you," I say.

"Same physical and spiritual agony. Only you had a second of unprotected exposure to Heaven. They've had years. My sisters and I think the Father designed His kingdom to repair dead humans, then shelter them from the effects of this dimension while your next forms incubated. Forms that could handle it." I'm leaving a few things out. I doubt she could handle the unvarnished truth.

"But the processes broke down and the psychopomps disappeared, and the wards failed. And that's the result. By the time we arrived at the Father's kingdom, He'd sealed himself into His palace and left His subjects to spoil."

"Can you fix them? The people in there? Can you do like what Irene did with the men her warlock killed?"

"You like that, huh?" I cross my legs.

"You ready to admit it's a cozy spot?" Jordan gives me a dim look.

"I can do my best," Bina says. This is not a comfort to her new servant.

"Now that they're in my demesne, I can fix some of the damage Heaven did. But it might take a little while."

"Bina is very good at anatomy," I say.

"I know her appearance doesn't suggest it, but as far as knitting flesh, I'd say she's one of the best of us." Bina preens at my compliment.

"How many of you are there, anyway?" Jordan asks.

"Eight," I say, at the same time Bina says "Seven."

"Eight," I insist. Bina clams up. Jordan's brows lower, but she gives that a pass without questioning it. When we return to Autumn, Florin is on the roof of the taphouse, gazing out across the woods, something unreadable on his face.

"You break your neck, I'm gonna make you wait before I reset it," I call as we duck inside. Jordan fills a stein with weissbier and drains half of it with one gulp.

"Abraham." She points at Caspar, who's reracking the pool table. He jogs over.

"Yes, Madame Inspector?"

"I'm a warlock now and we're going to be working together," she says.

"So if you thought you were gonna get to drive my cruiser, think again." Caspar works through his shock at her words (He did think he was going to get to drive the cruiser, but he's more excited than upset).

"You should probably start calling me Caspar, then," he says.

"I'm Caspar Cartwright."

"You wanted that, you shoulda introduced yourself as it." Jordan shakes her head.

"I'm gonna keep on with Abe." He blinks.

"Okay."

"Oh, this is just going to be so fun." Bina babbles brightly as we assemble outside the taphouse.

"Irene's taught me all about how to do this. Do you want a scary claw like Caspar's?" Jordan gives my warlock a look.

"Prefer my gun back." Caspar shrinks somewhat.

"Of course."

"Don't let her walk all over you now, Cas," I say.

"We're senior to the warlock game, remember."

"Oooh. You hear that, Jordan?" Bina wriggles teasingly.

"Irene's afraid we're gonna out-lock her." Jordan smirks.

"Just return us so Abraham can give me back all my shit."

"Kay." Bina taps Jordan's forehead with a tentacle, and Caspar witnesses firsthand the bizarre spatial fold that expels her from our dimension. His lips purse.

"I thought you had to plant a kiss on someone to do that."

"What?" Bina glances over.

"Who told you that?"

"Anyway uh you should probably get your new partner out the trunk okay wakey wakey good bye." I hastily peck Caspar's forehead. His consciousness fractalizes and jolts back into his Earthly body." Dude," I say.

"Don't blow up my spot."

"Ohhhhh." Bina's ridgy brows raise.

"Oh, I get it. You're kissing him because you want to have smushy human intercourse with him." I glance back at the taphouse.

"Keep your voice down around the dead people, okay? That's not how mortals talk about this stuff."

"But you do, right?"

"Yes, I do."" Gross," Bina says, delighted.