Authors: Maria Violante
"Damn drunkards," muttered the Mademoiselle, low enough that there was no risk of being overheard.
"Alright, Alsvior, go find yourself someplace open to stand or sit, and don't you dare break any of my chairs on the way over!
And can't you pick a smaller form, for Pete's sake?"
Immediately, he shifted into a more appropriate size.
"Hey," said one of the men, "That's a neat trick!
Can he do a donkey?
Or a unicorn?"
He hadn't finished laughing before Alsvior bit him.
* * *
"So, what's all of the fuss?"
The Mademoiselle was cleaning the bar, mopping up wet spots with a damp rag.
De la Roca marveled at that.
It's like she enjoys the exertion.
She was sure the demon could have flicked a finger and accomplished the same task—if not by herself, then by proxy.
Perhaps it's like cleaning my gun.
Always unnecessary, she still did it faithfully every night.
It was a kind of worry stone, a signal that all was well in the world.
Perhaps this is the same.
Alsvior had curled up under a tall table, his legs tucked under him.
"Aren't horses supposed to sleep standing up?"
The Mademoiselle's question was punctuated with an odd half-smile, and De la Roca couldn't tell if she was kidding or not.
"He's not exactly a normal horse."
"That may be so, but he's pretty cute.
You're just a big puppy dog, aren't you?"
She pursed her lips in a soppy, ridiculous fashion, pitching her voice up into a whispered squeal.
As if he heard, his ear flicked and he neighed gently.
Not for the first time, De la Roca was astounded by the Mademoiselle's humanity.
It was as if she retained feelings that De la Roca had long ago lost, an absence that the mercenary didn't notice until she came to Pico.
Maybe it's because you live the life of a killer and not a bartender.
She reached into herself, intent on using the lamprey's
kevra
stone, but the Mademoiselle laid a firm hand on her arm.
"You know my rules.
We don't do that sort of thing in here."
De la Roca was about to protest, but the buxom woman continued, "Don't give me a reason to throw you out.
I'm far older and far stronger than you could ever imagine, and I get the feeling you didn't drag your ass all the way to Pico for some watered-down, piss-warm beer."
She released De la Roca's arm.
Incredibly, it felt cold and hot at the same time, and tingled as if it had fallen asleep.
"Actually, it's quite cold," said De la Roca, sending her mind back up, away from the depths of the stone.
"And not exactly the swill you make it out to be."
The Mademoiselle preened slightly.
"I make it myself."
Her face grew serious again.
"So what brings you in here?"
"I'm looking for
the Phoenix Well.
"
She muttered the last three words, her tones dripping with ominous gravity.
The Mademoiselle nodded solemnly and matched her seriousness.
"
What
…
is that
?"
Huh?
The woman threw her head back and cracked up with jubilant guffaws.
What makes her so—hey wait, is her hair blonde?
I'm sure it was red when I walked in.
Flustered, De la Roca cleared her throat.
"I have no idea where it is.
I'm on an assignment, and that's the clue I got from the Angel."
The Mademoiselle paused to wipe a tear out of the corner of her eye—
really?
Is it that funny?
—and sighed.
"Okay, I apologize for that, but I just couldn't resist.
Sometimes, you make it too easy, De la Roca."
The mercenary shrugged.
Humans and demons the world over feared her, whispered tales of her at night to small children and cursed her name while muttering that she was death on the wind.
She wasn't used to being a laughingstock, and she didn't know how to respond.
"So, the Phoenix Well, huh?
Hmmm, I'm going to have to
think
about that one."
By "think", De la Roca knew, she meant the curious process of scrolling through the Archives.
She'd only personally seen the Mademoiselle do it once, when they first met.
* * *
Shattered by her amnesia and the encounter with the Angel, the nameless De la Roca stumbled her way into Pico by sheer dumb luck.
The Mademoiselle took pity on her and volunteered to search through the Archives for any information that would shed light on the newly freed demon's past or identity.
She started by sitting still, her palms held together, and closing her eyes while tilting her head back.
Soon, she was in a trance, one so deep that she didn't respond when De la Roca tapped her.
Panicking, the young demon even slapped her hard in an attempt to rouse her, but the effort was fruitless.
It wasn't until four hours later that the Mademoiselle suddenly blinked, her face becoming animated again.
"You're getting a one-time pass on the slap," she said, "mostly because I didn't find anything useful."
De la Roca nodded, both relieved to escape punishment and disappointed by the lack of information.
She hadn't really expected any, though.
She had somehow known it would end that way.
"Here's an interesting, although somehow unrelated tidbit.
It was foretold you were going to show up."
"Excuse me?"
De la Roca had been a lot more polite then.
"A young Mexican man collapsed on my doorstep once.
He had just run the border through the Chihuahuan Desert.
Dehydrated and suffering from heat exhaustion, he made it as far as my Cantina and then just gave out.
It took days of nursing him before he came around, and in the heights of his sickness, he often screamed out in his dreams."
"So?"
De la Roca didn't see where this was going, although she found it odd that the Mademoiselle would go through the trouble of nursing a human back to health.
"Once he awoke, he was convinced, utterly convinced that he had seen demons in the desert.
They haunted him incessantly.
He refused to sleep until his body overruled him, often causing him to pass out in a chair or even just standing in line.
Once, when I had no customers, I convinced him to take a nap in one of the booths in the Cantina.
Not ten minutes had lapsed before I heard him screaming."
She gave De la Roca a hard stare.
"When I woke him, he said that a demon would come for him, a gunslinger with, as he put it, 'nervios de piedra'—nerves of stone.
He named you 'of the rock', which, although not your true name, probably in some way hints at it."
"I don't understand."
"He didn't know your true name.
It's quite possible that nobody does—you don't have to know a demon's name to strip it from them.
But given the nature of his dreams, I'd hazard a fair guess that the idea of 'rock' has something to do with your real name.
So how about it?
You're going to need a name to get anywhere in this world, so how does 'De la Roca' strike you?"
* * *
The name suited her.
She had known that instinctively.
What she
didn't
know was if she was the demon the man had dreamed of, or if his dreams meant anything, but the name fit her as if made for her.
So De la Roca it was, and had been ever since.
The Mademoiselle rose up from the bar, seemingly oblivious to her reverie.
She walked around the room, straightening tables and tucking in chairs.
"You know, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can go."
De la Roca found her feet.
"I thought you wanted to do it yourself.
You usually do."
"Yes, but this 'Phoenix Well' thing has got me all
a-twitter
.
I'm ready to get cracking on it."
They set about straightening the rest of the bar, until a thought occurred to De la Roca.
"One question."
The quiet had been so perfect, so comfortable, that breaking it put an odd thickness in her throat.
"Yes honey?"
"What happened to
him?"
"To whom?"
The Mademoiselle gave the last word a slight lilt.
"To the Mexican, the one that named me."
Her smile was grim, the closest thing to evil that De la Roca had ever seen depicted on her face.
"Why, honey, after that night, he stopped having the dreams.
He eventually wound up running that bar across town.
That is, until a certain mercenary strung him up on a fence."
She continued without slackening her pace, her hands sorting bottles and straightening napkin holders with a polished flair.
"Really, De la Roca, you've got to remember that men are men.
They can't help how dirty their minds are.
It's in their biology."
De la Roca had other questions, but they finished the work in silence.
Eight
L
aufeyson wanted a cigarette—
badly
—but he was fairly certain that either the glow or the odor would give him away.
Damn
.
He'd been skulking right outside of the window for hours, listening to the conversations of the two female demons and evaluating their progress.
Honestly, it didn't have any bearing on his objective, but he was curious.
He was unsure about De la Roca, although he wouldn't admit that to anyone—at least, not anymore.
She had made mistakes with the lamprey, major mistakes that could have easily ended
everything.
She had depended a lot on luck, although she was luckier than most, luckier perhaps than she knew.
Few understood that luck was a skill in and of itself.
He doubted she knew much about herself though, even after all these years.
Who does?
He reflexively manifested another cigarette.
The craving was so great, he thought it might kill him.
He could feel the soft texture of the paper in his fingers, the gentle rustle as he slid them down its length, and the faintest odor of tobacco wafted to his nose.
Calling on his deepest reserves of self-control, he manifested it back away.
There was a lot riding on this, a lot, and if De la Roca caught him skulking around outside of the Cantina in Pico, she wasn't going to be open to listening to his explanations.
Not that he had any to give.
He doubted she'd really appreciate the fine intricacies of the truth.