Stories for Chip (20 page)

Like all the other Academy students—except for Thea—Sakyo had stayed on at Shuster Academy after finishing the Program. They christened themselves the Next and became a “paranormal incident response team” looking down their noses at quaint notions like crime fighting and secret identities. They rejected old-fashioned body suits in favor of jeans, sneakers, and pictogram T-shirts.

All of them helped Thea move in to her Seattle apartment, but Sakyo was the only one who came to visit after the house warming. Every month or so, he announced his presence in Seattle with a clattering thunderstorm. He and Thea would go for drinks or dinner, or veg out on her sofa watching music videos or awful movies. He never had much to say about the team.

But what was there to say? Thea could pick up a newspaper any week for the latest story. One week, they were in Romania, fighting back an army of invading monsters from the fabled realm of Alkonost, and the next, they were on the Plutonian star base, offering aid to alien refugees while Thea ate ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, then fought tooth and nail to keep powered freaks from carving up her city.

The Next seemed beloved the world over, but Seattle was ambivalent at best when it came to Brass Monkey. The headlines said it all:
NEXT KIDS RECOVER STOLEN MOON. NEXT BEAT BACK ANCIENT THREAT IN OUTBACK. NEXT BEAT BACK DEEP ONES IN PACIFIC OCEAN.
And for Monkey:
BRASS MONKEY SAVES SEATTLE? BRASS MONKEY BULLIES FREMONT TROLL.

Thea envied the Next. She envied their press, their money, their alien technology, but Sakyo's monthly visits somehow made it bearable.

…Until recently.

It was stupid—so, so stupid!—but after the Massacre, Thea had needed someone to deliver her from herself. Until then, she'd considered Brass Monkey and Althea Dayo separate entities, but the Massacre had shown that to be a lie. Thea's body had become a prison from which she could not escape, and only Sakyo seemed able to unlock it. He began coming around more often—every couple of weeks instead of every month—but he never called or warned Thea when he failed to show, and on those nights, Thea took to the streets as Brass Monkey, patrolling in a snit. God help any criminal foolish enough to cross her path.

Now, though, it had been three weeks since she'd seen Sakyo, and despite the pleasure she took from Simon's company, Thea had begun to ache.

◊

Thea started awake and lay still, trying to remember where she was. A profound languor overshadowed her, and she felt pressed into the mattress by an unseen hand. Panic stole along the edges of her mind as she realized she'd left the Mask in its case at home. But she was home. Wasn't she? All she had to do was roll out of bed and reach down to grab it.

She remembered coming to Simon's apartment and what had happened there.
Get a hold of yourself
, she thought in Monkey's voice. She had spent four years training with John until she was dangerous even without Brass Monkey's super strength and invulnerability. She could fight if she needed to—but she didn't need to. She was safe here.

Thea's elbow bumped Simon's arm as she sat up, trying to straighten out her thoughts. Simon stood naked before the window across the room, craning his neck to watch a bruised sliver of night sky.

Thea stopped short as she realized that Simon was still fast asleep beside her.

“Don't,” both Simons said sleepily.

“Don't what?” Thea asked.

“Don't…Don't come near. You…I'm not afraid.”

“Good,” Thea said, and felt Monkey's voice mingling with her own. “We mean you no harm.”

“Dark sky. Dark Sky. Storm coming.”

Simon-at-the-window whirled on Thea to stare at her with bloodshot eyes
. “Get…out!
” His voice was low and full of blood. “He's mine.
Mine!
”

◊

Thea was already in motion when she opened her eyes. Ket stood staring outside her bedroom door as Thea hit the carpet on her knees and reached for the chest that contained her Mask. She pulled it out, opened it, pressed the Mask against her face. In the old days, the sensation was like thousands of hot needles pushing through her skin, but after so many years, it felt much more natural. Instead of a desertion of her proper body, the transformation felt like shrugging into a familiar suit of clothes. Thea was Thea, as always, but now she was Brass Monkey, too.

Monkey yanked the window up with her forehands and swung through it, back feet first. In a split second, the weightless sensation of falling gave way to that of running full-tilt, until she crossed Broadway and leaped onto the roof of Bulldog News. From there, she kept to the rooftops, moving with liquid speed.

◊

Monkey smelled blood and shit and burning hair. The lights were off in the apartment, and without thinking, she aimed her body through the window, exploding through the pane in a shower of glass.

Her skin drew tight over her bones as she took a look around. She tried to distance herself from what she saw, tried to think of this as a crime scene, but her body betrayed her. Brass Monkey fell heavily to her knees.

Blood. Blood everywhere.

◊

Thea first found the Mask in a crawl space at her uncle Arto's house after he disappeared. The moment she saw it, she knew it was important. As she pulled it from its wrapping of butcher paper, the sounds of the house receded from her senses. This mask looked a lot like the ones her father made, but Thea couldn't tell what it was made of. It smelled wooden, but it shone like brass. It hummed and vibrated, singing silently to her. Thea knew immediately that she would keep it and that she would tell no one of her discovery. The thought that the Mask was magic never crossed Thea's mind, but looking at it caused a physical stirring inside her, much like the one she felt when she watched the boys at school wrestle each other.

After Rangda the Widow-Witch murdered her family, Thea retrieved the Mask and put it on for the first time. The pain and madness of the transformation blotted out her consciousness and left Brass Monkey incomplete, acting purely on instinct. For months, Monkey prowled the Seattle streets, keeping to the shadows as Thea's consciousness slowly rebuilt itself.

At first, Thea had no idea that she could pull the Mask from her face and be a girl again. By the time she did, her whole life was gone, as if blown away by monsoon winds.

Sometimes, in her bleaker moments, Thea felt that her life was nothing but a series of tragedies. The happy summers spent dancing the Legong in Ubud, the years she'd spent living among friends at the Academy, were insignificant. All that mattered were the bloody crime scenes, the brutal battles. A warrior without a banner, Thea moved from darkness to darkness, treading an ocean of gore.

◊

The stench of Simon's agony soured the air of the room. He had been torn apart, but not before the skin had been flayed from his body. Shreds of it lay scattered like confetti around the room. Had the process taken hours? Minutes? Seconds? The blood pattern and the way the gore had been distributed told Thea that he'd been conscious, and even on his feet, most of the time. A mess of bloody fingerprints covered the front door where Simon had tried to escape. The bedclothes had been yanked from the bloody mattress and thrown into the far corner of the bedroom.

You've got to stop.

Monkey ignored the thought.

Really! Stop!

Stop what?

Stop screaming!

She had to get out of here.

Rangda!

No!

Rangda kill Simon!

No. Rangda hadn't done this. Monkey had killed her years ago. Besides, Simon's remains were spread around the room. Rangda would have…Rangda would have devoured his body and his pain, used them to become him.

Listen to us, Thea thought. We're—
We're coming apart!
We can't work a case like this! We—!

“We need help,” Monkey said aloud.

◊

Monkey didn't remember leaving the apartment. One moment, she was standing there, surrounded by blood and offal. The next, she was Thea again, standing at a pay phone up the street. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and realized she was crying. She picked up the receiver and hung it up again. Now that she was Thea again, her purse was with her, and inside was her cell phone. For a long time after she left the Academy, she'd carried a spare comm with her, knowing she'd never use it. Now she wondered what she'd done with the alien gadget. She flipped open her phone and dialed.

“Next,” said a voice Thea didn't recognize. “How may I direct your call?”

It must be a reception AI.

“This is Althea Dayo. I need Sakyo. I need Dark Sky.”

“I'm sorry. Dark Sky is currently unavailable. Shall I connect you to our duty operative?”

“No! Don't put me through to comm. I need—Give me John. Give me Clown. Please.”

“One moment, please.”

A soft click, and then a voice Thea hadn't heard in years: “Clown.”

“John! John, it's Thea. I—! Something happened! There's been—! It was a murder!”

“I'll be right there.”

“You don't know—!” Thea began, then froze as a hand fell on her shoulder.

John drew her to himself and held her silently for a beat.

“It's awful.” Thea said, speaking into John's belly. “He—He's all torn apart.”

“Who is?”

“You're not reading my mind?”

He pushed her gently away to look her in the eye. “I'm only a man right now.”

It was true. John's face was gaunt, but not supernaturally so. His brown skin bore a healthy sheen, and his glossy black hair had been tied back into a ponytail that fell down his back. Thea almost asked him how he'd gotten here so quickly if he was only a man, but she realized he must mean he was powered down for the time being.

Thea explained her relationship with Simon and told John what she'd discovered in his apartment.

“Was it him?”

“Was—? What?”

“Was it him? In the apartment. Are you sure?”

“I smelled him, but…but of course his apartment smells like him. I don't know. It could be anyone.”

“I'll go take a look.”

“I'll—I'll go with you,” Thea said. “John. Wait. I asked you not to come here.”

“Would you rather I left?”

“No! No, that's not what I—!”

“Then let's talk about that later.”

◊

The apartment was spotless. No blood, no waste, no sign of struggle. Had they come to the wrong place?

“I don't—I don't understand,” Thea said. “I know what I saw.” She turned to John. Helpless.

“I believe you,” John said darkly.

“Am I cracking up? Am I—?”

“No,” John said. “You're in shock. There's a body in the bathroom.”

Thea covered her mouth with her hands.

As she stood, trembling, John stepped into the bathroom and carried Simon's body out into the studio. He lay the corpse on the bed and stood back to examine it in silence. “So,” he said.

Thea pulled herself together and looked at Simon, trying to see what John saw. At the edge of her hearing, she sensed a slight buzzing, much like the one emitted by the Mask secreted in her satchel.

“I feel it.”

“It's unmistakable: Old magic. Very powerful. Where was he from?”

“Thailand. He's Thai.”

“I don't think we should involve ourselves. First he was torn apart. Now here he is, whole, but dead, his apartment clean as a whistle. Chances are, tomorrow morning, he'll wake up, right as rain.” He paused, made a face. “More or less.”

“He—You think he's one of us?”

“I'm a priest of the Night and its champion,” John said. “I'm no demigod. But this one…?”

“But he's dead!”

“I've been dead. So have you.”

Thea surprised herself by bursting into tears.

John seemed unsure what to do. He'd taken her into his arms before, and Thea wished he would again.

“Thea.”

“It's always something. Always.”

◊

When Thea first arrived at the Academy, John was being Called. His god was Osa, Queen of Night and Games, and John fought Her summons as hard as he could. He had manifested powers at the onset of puberty, but he was hardly religious, and he believed that his abilities could be explained through science. His struggle leeched the color from his skin until it looked like parchment, and when he thought no one was looking, a haunted, hunted look would appear in his eyes.

One morning, Thea found him in the greenhouse, kneeling before a bed of alien flowers, his face buried in his palms. She wavered for a moment, then went to him, resting a hand between his shoulder blades.

John was a telepath, and while he kept silent, the physical contact sent a bolt of emotional agony coursing up Thea's arm. He didn't seem to notice, and Thea didn't pull her hand away. Instead she stood, trying to lend him what strength she could.

After a moment or two, the pure pain in him subsided a bit—or Thea adjusted to it—until she could sense his actual thoughts.

It's not me. It's not. You're wrong. I'm not him. I'm not the Guy.
Please—!
Please just let me go!

In the stillness and among the scent of blooming plants, Thea heard something answer.

You are Ours. You are Our Clown and Our Angel of Night.

Thea had never heard her own god speak—not in words.

She didn't think he'd noticed her, but without speaking, John turned and buried his face in Thea's belly. He sobbed loudly, weeping like a little boy. “Why won't she listen? Why won't she listen to me?”

“She doesn't understand,” Thea said. “She can't. But…but it's not so bad, really, belonging to a god. Some people spend their entire lives longing for what you and I wish we didn't have.”

◊

The moment Clown and Thea appeared in Thea's apartment, Ket squawked a greeting and leaped into Clown's arms. He crawled round John's back and perched on his shoulder, watching Thea.