Dust City (11 page)

Maybe I do.

“Couldn’t help overhearing,” he continues. “But it sounds
to me like Hank-man wants to try out, huh?” His booming voice overwhelms the room. “’Course with me here, there’s really no point.
I’m
gettin’ the job tonight. Not you. Just so you know. But since I’m such a nice guy, and you’re obviously a glutton for punishment, allow me to show you how to get in.”

He leads me toward the band, while the bartender watches with disdain. When the cats see us coming—a pair of huge wolves—the hair on their tails raises, but only slightly. Some of the old instincts kick in for me, too. A ball of tenseness rolls through my gut.

Roy waves. “Hey, fellahs! How’bout some bebop?” He cocks his head at the bare wall behind them. “We want in.”

The trumpet player moves his foot to a button on the stage floor. When he taps it with his toe, a narrow panel in the wall slides open, and not terribly smoothly either. It’s an old mechanism. Nobody in the bar appears to care.

Roy booms with false gratitude. “Thanks, fellahs!” He grabs me by the arm and pulls me through the opening, which judders closed once we’re inside. It’s a long, barely lit tunnel that descends harshly; we’re forced to walk heavy on our toes. And it’s a long walk.

At the end there’s a door that’s polished and gleaming and nothing like the interior of the Woodsman. That’s because it’s completely made of gold. Roy pounds on it and waits. It occurs to me that this is my last chance to turn back. Do I really want to find out who Skinner is? Even if I find a whole
flock of fairies on the other side of this doorway, what can I possibly do to help them?

The door clicks.

It’s not a dwarf on the opposite side, and it’s not a fairy either. It’s another cat. He’s dressed in a tuxedo that’s as sleek as he is. His hair is glossed back from his face in a dapper calico mane. His evening wear is accented with absurd boots, riding up past his knees and flaring out like a pair of upturned trumpets. “I imagine,” he purrs, “that you’re here to . . .
try out.”
Even his voice is slicked down, oily and smooth.

Roy sneers. “’Course we are.” He starts to push his way inside, but the cat doesn’t move.

“I don’t recognize that one.” He’s talking about me.

Roy laughs. “He’s harmless. I can vouch for that.”

“What’s your name?”

“Henry.”

The cat blinks. “And your last name?” “Whelp.”

“Hold on a moment.” He shoos us backward and shuts the door. Roy looks at me and shrugs. “That’s never happened before.”

We wait.

A moment later the door opens again and the cat steps aside. “Welcome,” he says.

The building inside is huge. Shafts of incandescent light cut down from hanging fixtures, slicing up the dusty air. It’s
a huge warehouse of some kind. The ceiling seems like it’s miles away, crisscrossed with girders and chains. Foundry basins dangle from them, swaying gently in the drafts. The vast floor is punctuated by ancient refinery equipment, languishing in rusty silence. There’re a few wrought-iron staircases too, whirling up to nowhere. It’s
huge
in here—it must take up half of Dockside. I can’t even see the far end. It’s lost in a fog of darkness.

Not far from the entrance is a makeshift throne, a chair soldered together from nuts and bolts, hammers and wrenches, cogs and gears, and a million other bits of junk. Like the door that’s just been sealed behind me, the whole thing has been cast in solid gold. All around the base are wolves, ten or fifteen of them, sauntering back and forth, or merely curled up in the shadows of old machines.

Roy nudges me, pointing up at the dwarf who’s perched in the golden throne. “That’s Skinner,” he whispers.

He’s larger than I expected. He’s a dwarf, sure, and is likely no more than four and a half feet tall, but he’s sturdily built. His body presses firmly against the fabric of his clothes, which are impeccable. He wears a three-piece gabardine suit, with gleaming white gloves on both hands and a collar buttoned tightly up to his chin. In fact, it’s so tight the skin of his neck bulges over the fabric. Everything about his dress is taut and tiny and perfectly precise. But it’s neither his size nor the fastidiousness of his dress that strikes you. What strikes you most is his face.

Skinner’s face is a catastrophe.

Down the center is a scar—a shiny, pink river as broad as his mouth, dividing his whole head into two crooked halves. Whatever happened to him must have healed with all the precision of blood spatter. This guy is hideously,
sensationally
deformed. His nose is a rutted, cauliflower-like bloom, his blazing green eyes are entirely misaligned, and his lips are two lumpy piles of mash. Between them, he’s chewing on a long stalk of straw.

“Whelp?”
he asks. His voice cuts into you, deep and harsh. He plucks the straw from his mouth, confused. “You’re not who I expected.”

“Maybe you were thinking of my father. He used to work for you.”

A cloud passes over his warped face. “Hard to forget.” He frowns and his lips tighten into pink puree. “I do hope you’re a little more reliable.”

Roy throws his arm over my shoulders. “I can vouch for him. We’re friends. We go
waaaay
back.”

Skinner frowns. “I wasn’t talking to you, was I, Mr. Sarlat?”

Roy’s tail dips an inch or two. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was frightened, or at least ashamed.

“Well, now,” says Skinner, rubbing his gloved hands together. “Why don’t we get down to business?” He looks up to the gloom that fills the ceiling.
“Shall we?”

A great roar of whistles and applause fills the room.
The ceiling is suddenly illuminated. On platforms ringing the ceiling, there are scaffolds covered with bleachers, deep ziggurats laden with countless wooden tubs. Inside every one of them, sloshing in the depths of every barrel, are water nixies
.
The whole of the Dockside mob must be up there.

“Skinner!” one of them hisses. He splashes steamy salt water down on us. “Start the race! We wanna see some action!” As he says it, the cheering rises, feverish and hot.

But Skinner’s not easily fazed, not even by a raft of nixies. “In due time,” he says. The lights dim along the scaffolding and the nixies once again fade into darkness. “But first—” He looks at me. “Some of us are new and may be unaccustomed to the way things proceed. The rules are simple: one lap around the warehouse.” He points to the floor. “First wolf back here wins.”

Some of the other wolves nod, but the majority are merely bored. “Oh,” continues Skinner, “and what exactly do you win? The best prize of all, of course.
A place
. A place in my pack.” He points to the sloppy, bloodred lines painted on the floor. “And please, I implore you. No cheating. My—
ahem
—‘men’ are here to ensure that all of you follow the markers. Aren’t you, my boys?” Goblins step out of the shadows. Each one is as big as—if not bigger than—Gunther. They’ve been lurking in alcoves all along. “You see?” says Skinner, grinning madly.
“Do
try to avoid cutting corners.”

Compared to a room full of globs, wolves, and nixies, Skinner looks about as harmless as a child. He’s more like
a perverted amoeba than an actual dwarf. Why do all these goblins slavishly obey someone like that?

“Oh,” says Skinner, “and one more thing: I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll tell you what . . .” He tugs at the glove on his right hand, pulling it off finger by finger. With the freshly exposed digits, he takes the straw out of his mouth and holds it up. It’s a dirty yellow color, chewed-up on one end and damp with spit.

And then something strange happens.

Skinner pinches the stalk of straw between his bare thumb and forefinger and suddenly there’s a cool gust of air stirring through the room. Even from up above, the spatters of the nixies fall dead silent. It’s all because of the stalk of straw.

It’s been turned to gold
.

I put a paw to my pocket. I’ve got something just like it—and it’s enough to convince me: Skinner was there. He was at St. Remus before Doc killed himself. Or worse: Skinner’s the one who strung him up.

Skinner tosses the alchemized stick up in the air and catches it with his other hand, the one still sheathed in a glove. “To the winner,” he says. Beside me, Roy whistles under his breath and suddenly, I realize something. This is what Siobhan meant when she told me Skinner was untouchable. Not that he’s merely powerful and aloof—and surely he is—but it’s also that he’s exactly that:
untouchable
. He’s got some of the old-time magic inside him. Make contact with his skin
and that’s it, you’re done for, turned to gold. No wonder the globs are so well behaved.

“Now then,” says Skinner. “There’s one last thing we need to take care of before we begin.” He smiles at us, which is almost too hideous to look at. Nevertheless, not a single one of us turns away.

“It’s time,” he says, “to take your medicine.”

18

READY TO BURN

BEYOND THE THRONE, THERE’S A TABLE COVERED WITH UPTURNED HUBCAPS
. They’re arranged like soup bowls at a fancy dinner. In the pit of each one is a glistening pile of powder, twinkling in the shafts of lamplight.

Dust.

This isn’t the low-potency, slow-burning medicinal stuff you get from the likes of Nimbus Thaumaturgical. This stuff is so bright it looks lit from within, like each little heap has a whole power station to itself. It’s been refined and concentrated far beyond the legal limit. This is the hard stuff. This is what foxes in alleyways will try to sell you from the insides of their ratty coats. This is nixiedust.

Skinner directs us from his throne. “If you want to be a dust runner, you have to be fast. But fast isn’t enough. You’ve also got to have—what’s the word?
Grit
. Which is the reason why each of you is going to take a hit of my very own special blend. It’s as close to the old times as you youngsters are ever gonna get. It’s meant to turn your inner self into your outer
self.” His mouth spreads into a tortured grin. “Bring out the true ‘you,’ in a manner of speaking. Which ought to keep things interesting.”

A spray of spineless laughter comes from up above. I realize now—too late, of course—that I’m in way over my head. But a glance over at Roy tells me he’s feeling none of my apprehension. He’s eyeing the dust on the table with unabashed relish. His jaw falls slack and a gobbet of drool falls out, blobbing on the floor.

All I can think about is the last thing Dad told me at the prison.
Whatever you do, don’t take his dust.

“Gentlemen,” says Skinner, “choose your poison.”

The others scamper up eagerly to the table and start jostling for a hubcap.

“You, too,” says the tuxedoed cat. He’s standing at the base of the throne, waiting for me to proceed.

I take a step back from the table. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”

The cat frowns. “No,” he says, unbuttoning his tuxedo jacket. It falls open and reveals a gun strapped to his narrow chest. “I don’t think you have.”

Guess I don’t have a choice.

Everyone else has picked up a hubcap. There’s one left on the table. It’s waiting for me. I step forward and the cat rebuttons his jacket. I pick up the cap and raise it to my snout. The dust wobbles in its shallow home, rising out of its own volition, anticipating what’s to come.

“Go ahead,” says the cat. “We’re waiting.”

At the end of the table there’s a lanky, black-haired wolf. He’s a head taller than me, but thin as a reed. I’d be surprised if he weighs half of what I do. I watch him raise the hubcap to his face and inhale. The dust leaps off the metal, snaking up with uncanny speed, clouding around his head. His snout stabs greedily at the air, huffing and puffing. All the while the dust toys with him, swelling and teasing around his head, until finally it pours inside him with a hiss.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then suddenly the wolf buckles over. He’s sputtering, his face buried in his paws. When he rises again, his eyes glow red. Curls of smoke scallop from his nostrils like a pair of charmed serpents.

“Interesting,” says the cat. He steps backward, leaning casually on Skinner’s throne. “Anytime,” he says to me.

I look over at Roy. He’s got his face pressed to the rusty hub, snorting for all he’s worth. The dust geysers up and dances in the air around him before streaming inside. Roy inhales smoothly. He’s done this before.

“Man,” he says, “I
love
this stuff.” He holds a paw up in front of his face and we both watch as his claws begin to grow—lengthening, sharpening—so dramatically they rip the flesh of his fingertips. Every one of Roy’s claws is becoming an ink-black sickle. Through all of it, Roy doesn’t even flinch. He just stares in wonder at this new and improving forepaw. He’s like a massive child with a new toy.

When the claws finally finish growing, he puts the
improved digits to his mouth, mewling and slithering his tongue between them to lick away the blood. And now the same thing’s happening with his teeth: fanglike incisors growing and rupturing his gums. He grins at me, more wolfishly than I’ve ever seen, and bolts of his own blood drip onto his shirt, melding with the gaudy print.

Luminous veils of fairydust cloud the table. Some wolves become bloated with muscle. Others grow spiraling horns. One wolf’s tail lengthens and distorts to become like that of a reptile—scaly and whip-sharp. They’re all wolves, but now each of them comes with a vicious difference. And they’re all staring at me, waiting.

My own little molehill of magic lies shining and quiet. I look up to see Skinner, glaring down at me from his throne.

“Hurry up,” snaps the cat. “You either take it . . .” He fiddles again with the button of his jacket. “Or you don’t.”

What can I do? If I’d wanted a real choice, I should’ve made it a long time ago and not even come here. Too late for that now. I hunch around the hubcap like it’s a fireplace in the dead of winter. And I inhale.

At once, my face tingles with an infinity of pinpricks. I can’t help but recoil. I block my mouth with my tongue, but the dust skitters in through my nostrils, through my ears. I try choking it out of my snout, but I only run out of air. So I open up.