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Rondeau waved his hand in a be-my-guest gesture. “Go. Convince her. She doesn’t like
taxis. Because the drivers could be taking you anywhere.”
“Like bus drivers can’t steer you wrong?”
“I do not claim to endorse her logic,” Rondeau said. “I am merely reporting it. She
mostly travels on foot back home. We could have a limo driving us around here, but
Marla likes to keep her feet on the ground.”
B sighed, steeled himself, and lengthened his stride. He fell into step beside Marla and
said, “Would you like me to flag down a cab? They’re not too hard to get on Market.”
“We can get a bus, can’t we?” she said.
“It’ll take longer,” B said.
She frowned, then nodded. “Yeah, all right. But only since we’re in a hurry.”
B raised his hand to the next passing cab, which was, fortunately, dented, battered, and
in need of a wash. He could tell Marla approved. B and Rondeau got in the backseat,
and Marla rode in front. She told the driver the address, reading from the piece of paper.
He grunted and drove on without comment.
The three of them stood on a corner in front of a liquor store with barred windows, dirty
newspaper pages and discarded ice-cream wrappers blowing around their feet, the
sidewalk permanently mottled and discolored with spit, vomit, ground-out cigarette
butts, and ancient blobs of chewing gum. Marla inhaled, deeply, taking in the scent of
piss and spilled beer, and, yes, she could have been in Felport, in the darkest part of the
urban core, where she lived alone in an apartment building that would have been
condemned if not for her influence. This was the neighborhood of easily gratified baser
appetites, where sex and booze and drugs were just a quick cash transaction away,
where the distance between want and have and have-not could be cut down to nothing
in a moment. Every city had places like this, though some cities took pains to hide them.
Marla liked it here. She understood its logic and its brutal grace. This was a place of
simple motivations. Marla suspected she would get along with the sorcerer who had
taken this neighborhood as her own.
“Now, this is almost like home,” Rondeau said, looking up at a sign advertising “Live
Nude Girls.”
“Except around here, some of the strip clubs are employee-owned co-ops,” B said,
slouching against a light pole. His eyes were shadowed, and Marla wondered if he’d
slept at all the night before, or if he always looked this much on the edge of being usedup.
She suspected he did. It must be difficult, being half ordinary, half magical.
Chimeras had short life spans. The strain of being more than one thing at once could
tear anyone apart.