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“There’s a parking garage by that convention center,” Rondeau said, pointing. Marla set
off in that direction, trailed by Rondeau and the hummingbirds. “You know, ‘Finch’ is
kind of a birdy name,” Rondeau said.
Marla nodded. “Already crossed my mind. Could be coincidence, but it could be
sympathetic magic, too, or a nickname he got for being a bird-man.” Marla shook her
head. “This is like when I was first learning back home, before I knew who everyone
was, what the surface and secret allegiances were, before I even knew people’s names. I
thought I was through being ignorant and pushy—I like being well informed and pushy
much better.”
“Welcome to a whole new pond, little fish,” Rondeau said.
She snorted. “I’m always a big fish. Sometimes I have to hang out in the shallows first
for a while, is all.”
Marla opened a metal door on the side of the parking garage, intending to hold it open
gallantly for the hummingbirds, but they zipped down close to the smalls of her and
Rondeau’s backs so they could follow. She swatted at her back, fast, but the
hummingbird buzzed out of reach.
“Little bastards can fly backward, you know that?” Rondeau said. “Everybody knows
they’re the only bird that can hover, but they can actually go in reverse.”
“Such are the wonders of nature,” Marla muttered, and went into the garage. She felt
instantly at home, with the low ceilings and exposed pipes, the piss-stained corners, the
oil spots. This was the essence of the home of her heart, dark and somehow
fundamentally illicit—why else did so many secret meetings take place in parking
garages? The parking garage smelled like car exhaust and cold concrete. She followed
the signs to an elevator and pressed the “Up” button. The scarred steel doors slid open.
Marla and Rondeau got in, and the hummingbirds followed.
The doors slid shut, and Marla grinned. The hummingbirds were hovering in the corners
of the ceiling, but the elevator was only about seven and a half feet high, and they
couldn’t get that far away.
Marla opened her leather bag and rooted around inside for a moment, then pulled out a
towel she’d stolen from the hotel. She put down her bag and twisted the towel, as if she
were wringing it out, and tied a fat knot at one end. “Step back, Rondeau,” she said, and
he pressed himself against the elevator wall. Marla swung the towel in a short arc,
experimentally.
The hummingbirds instantly moved to hover right in front of Rondeau’s face.
Marla lowered the towel. “Huh,” she said. “Smarter than your average bird, aren’t they?
I guess we need magic. What do you think, Rondeau—want to Curse at them?”
“In an elevator?” Rondeau said. “Isn’t that sort of dangerous for us?”