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“What the living fuck,” Finch said, and Marla stood speechless, taking in the scene
before her with her typical threat-assessment glance, but unsure of what she was seeing,
exactly, and certainly unsure of how to proceed.
First she saw the man, because men and monsters were usually the most dangerous
things in any given situation. He was dark-skinned and bare-chested, so thin that his ribs
protruded, and he wore brief shorts that appeared to be made of green-and-red
snakeskin. Heavy gold bracelets adorned his wrists, and his short cape, tied around his
neck and hanging to just above the back of his knees, shimmered, strangely iridescent,
like imperfect jewels transformed into cloth; prismatic, organic, and oddly disgusting.
He held a large, round wicker basket tucked awkwardly under one arm. Marla sensed a
strange power in him—spiritual gravity, heavy madness, something that tickled her
well-tuned senses but did not fully reveal itself. Something new in her experience. He
did not attack them—did not even look at them. He was looking at the other thing in the
clearing. The far more improbable thing.
Marla recognized the Cornerstone instantly, a large chunk of blue-gray rock, easily two
feet to a side, cut into a weathered cube, with a magical density so great that it actually
warped the light within an inch of its surface, making its smooth faces seem slightly
convex. The stone had been ripped from the earth at the center of the clearing, leaving a
raw hole of black dirt behind, and soil still clung to the lower two-thirds of the stone.
The Cornerstone hung in the air a few feet above the ground, supported by a profusion
of thin silver chains. The upper ends of the chains were attached to hundreds—perhaps
thousands—of hummingbirds, individually tiny, but so massed that they formed a
shimmering ruby-colored cloud.
“Hummingbirds again,” Rondeau said, and Marla nodded, thinking of the same thing he
probably was—the birds that Rondeau had Cursed in the elevator. Cursing was too
dangerous here—too many living things, too many trees, too many ways for a sudden,
nasty shift in the fabric of creation to backfire and hurt something or someone valuable.
They’d found their bird-wizard, though—Mutex, the freak in the shimmering cape, who
apparently had designs on the Cornerstone, and was making off with it. Well, fuck that.
Marla hadn’t come this far to let some bird-watcher steal her artifact out from under her.
Before she could make a move, however, Finch was roaring. “Mutex!”
The caped man bowed, slightly. “I did not think you would remember my name, sir,” he
said. He didn’t sound particularly crazy. “Not when you treated me so badly before. I
did not expect to see you today. I had hoped to see you later, when I would have a better
use for your blood. I am saddened that your teyolia will be wasted on this hidden
ground.”
“I’m going to eat you,” Finch said, rage coupled with anticipation, “and then I’m going
to ass-fuck your little spic ghost.”
“Hey, watch the racial slurs,” Rondeau said. “You fat bastard.” That was the effect of
the Cornerstone, Marla thought—people saying what they meant. She held her own
tongue.