CHAPTER TWO
Granny left you how much?” Arthur asked over their second bottle of wine.
“I’m not sure how much after inheritance tax,” Zoë said. “But it’s upward of a million.”
“But she was homeless,” Arthur said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Don’t tell me how weird it is, I know it already. I saw the shithole she lived in. But you know, she did always insist on good footwear. I remember thinking how weird that was.”
Arthur drained his wineglass. “So when are you handing in your notice? After the NOLA book?”
Zoë blinked at him, surprise clearing her inebriated head.
“My notice?” she managed to say.
“Sure,” Arthur said, sniffing the wine in his glass awkwardly as if he knew he was supposed to, but not entirely sure why. “You’re rich. You don’t have to work. You can quit and live the life of luxury. Learn what we’re supposed to smell for when we smell wine. Or take a sabbatical and study whatever. Or just take your time finding a job that doesn’t constantly put your life in danger.”
She bristled. “Are you objecting to women fighting monsters?”
Arthur gave her a patient look. “Of course not. You know there are plenty of women at Public Works that I would trust with my life. But you are a book editor, not a plumber-slash-monster-hunter. Last month you got seriously beat up. You got swallowed by a snake demon, for God’s sake. Do many book editors encounter those kinds of workplace injuries? I thought all you had to worry about was carpal tunnel syndrome.”
Zoë ignored his mocking tone. She swirled her wine around the glass and took a sip, not tasting it. “I hadn’t considered quitting. It didn’t occur to me. Saving, sure. Maybe a new computer. Book a trip. But quitting?” Arthur waited, and she appreciated that he could tell she wasn’t done. “Yeah, my job is dangerous. But I’ve never felt more alive in my life. I’m seeing cities from a different point of view.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And that doesn’t even count the fact that I can talk to cities. How fucking cool is that? If I didn’t discover that, I probably would have eventually ended up on antipsychotic drugs to fight the voice in my head. And God, Arthur, if I didn’t have this job, we probably wouldn’t be dating. If I didn’t have this job, I’m sure I wouldn’t understand what you did, or appreciate the danger you place yourself in.”
“If you have such a passion for working with monsters, you should work with me,” he said flatly.
“Are we going to do this again?” Zoë asked, rubbing her face. “I don’t want to work for Public Works for several reasons.” She counted them off on her fingers. “I actually like my job. Aside from all the in-the-field danger, I’m actually using my skills as an editor. I couldn’t get a job with a human publisher, I tried. I don’t know one thing about the sewer, or the water, or whatever else Public Works does. And come on, Arthur. We already live next to each other. Let’s say this relationship goes south, and you see me at work and here in the hall. I have a firm belief that people in healthy relationships need their own space.”
Arthur looked at her, not saying anything. She finally grew uncomfortable under his gaze and blurted out, “Well, say something. Are you going to storm out? Argue with me? Tell me I’m crazy?”
Zoë burst out laughing, startling him. She had to admit to herself that it was nervous laughter, but it broke the tension and Arthur grinned sheepishly.
“I think the real reason is I’m trying to figure out what it means to be who, and what, I am. And the best way to do that is to research cities from within. And it also seems the best way to find people who can help me learn about what I am.”
“You could do that on your own. You could afford to travel.”
Zoë gritted her teeth. “Listen. I don’t want to quit. That should be a good enough reason for you, if you respect my decisions.” She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders, which had been creeping up to her ears. “Let’s drop work talk, and relationship talk, and just have a good dinner. We’ll head to New Orleans, you’ll do your zoëtist-hunting thing, I’ll do my book writing, we’ll spend some time together, and when we get back we can see if I’m still interested in this job, and we’ll see where this relationship—yes, relationship—takes us. How’s that?”
He agreed, and they spent the rest of the dinner talking about their childhoods, and books, and even touched a bit on dating history. He admitted that he had once fallen for a succubus, and Zoë told him the whole story of the affair with her married boss that had eventually driven her to New York.
After dinner they watched Doctor Who, and got into a friendly argument about who the best Doctor was. Zoë had watched the show as a child, and had a soft spot in her heart for Tom Baker, but Arthur was only familiar with the new show, and had decided David Tennant was the only Doctor worth his salt. They split the difference and watched an episode of the ninth Doctor, whom Zoë quite liked though she was pissed he had lasted only a season.
Later, in her bed, Arthur dozed and Zoë gently touched the zombie bite scar on his shoulder, puffy and shiny on his dark skin, and thought about the other unspoken thing between them, the other big “what if” that could affect their relationship.
Could she date a zombie?
Could she kill him if he begged her to, to keep him from turning?
She woke him up at ten and he left for his apartment to pack for the trip. Zoë was mostly packed already, just had to add some weapons and make sure her laptop and phone—phones, she reminded herself—were charged.
She sent a text to her friends from Raleigh, with whom she played a weekly Dungeons & Dragons (version 3.5) game via Skype, and told them to have her paladin doing penance in some temple or another while she was away from the campaign. She would try to get online in New Orleans, but she couldn’t promise anything.
Her goldfish, Lister and Kochanski, drifted lazily in their tank, showing no concern when she dropped in a seven-day feeding tab. The house-sitting service would check her mail and her fish every three days, but she might as well give them as little work to do as possible.
She met Arthur in the hallway at eleven. He had slung a duffel over his shoulder. She blinked at him.
“Is that all you’re taking?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t have to write. I don’t have to work. I’ve got some clothes, toothbrush, iPod, and wallet in here.”
“No books? No other toiletries?” Zoë managed to squeak. “No books?”
“I’ve got e-books. I don’t feel the need to carry five fantasy doorstops with me at all times. No wonder you’re so strong.” He grinned at her.
“The George R. R. Martin fitness plan, that’s me,” she said. “Besides, I might finish one. And then where would I be?”
They walked down the stairs together, Zoë still glancing at his duffel in astonishment. The streets were quiet in the late night.
“Did you call for a car?” he asked.
Zoë snorted. “Please.” She pulled off the necklace she wore all the time—a circle with a small claw etched in the center, a talisman that told coterie, “Hands off, I’m an ally, not lunch”—and held it in the air. As always, this summoned a coterie cab driven by her favorite demon, Max.
He pulled up seemingly from out of nowhere, smoke wafting from the cracked windows. Inside he hulked under a heavy jacket and hat, but he smiled up at Zoë. “What’s the plan, kiddo?”
“Grand Central, please, Max. For me and my friend.”
He heaved himself out of the car and looked Arthur up and down. “I remember you. Public Works, ain’t you?” Arthur nodded stiffly. Max laughed, a “har har” sound, and grabbed their luggage with his massive red hands. He tossed the bags into the trunk, then held the door open for Zoë, grinning past his massive tusks. She settled into the back seat, Arthur got in after her.
“Hey, Max,” she said as he got back behind the wheel. “What do you know about the new ghost train?”
Max grunted. “It’s the first high-speed rail in da country and it shares the same track as the new human bullet train. It’s called the Slaughtered Kid and it goes from Boston to N’Awlins in a night.”
Zoë nodded. “Yeah, that’s about what I hear.”
Max jerked the wheel and they careened toward the stone wall that surrounded Prospect Park. Zoë tried not to wince, but she always did, even as the cab slipped through the concealed hole and down into the tunnel system the coterie used to get around quickly.
“What’s the matter? Scared or something?”
Zoë started to bristle at the insult but realized he was grinning at Arthur’s tense face in the rearview mirror.
“No,” she answered, trying to save Arthur some more needling, “I’m just wondering if a human can ride on a ghost train. I can just see myself trying to board and just walking right through it. And I’m not afraid of ghosts, but I’m not sure what to expect. I found surprisingly little in my reading. There are a lot of conflicting reports.”
“Eh, ghosts are nothing, don’t worry about them,” Max said. “They can’t affect much in the world around them, so they’re largely bitter, lonely people. You’ll fit on the train, I’m sure. They gotta accommodate meals and thralls, after all. And if not, you call me. I’ll get you to the Big Easy.”
“Tell me there’s not a Rat’s Nest all the way down the East Coast,” Zoë said, eyes going wide. The Rat’s Nest was a coterie system of roads underneath the New York subway system. Zoë had only ever driven through it but wanted to spend more time there.
“Nah, but there’s a whole lot more than you think. Even you, Ms. ‘Human among the Scary Monsters.’ ”
“Noted,” she said.
Outside Grand Central Station, near the taxi line, a man sold necklaces off an overturned cardboard box. As Zoë was now accustomed to doing, she looked a little closer at the man. He moved with slow purposefulness, and the chilly January air didn’t seem to affect him at all. He was a zombie, with a wide-brimmed hat shading his graying skin and milky eyes. This was the guy Max had told him to buy tickets from.
Zoë showed him her talisman and asked to buy seven first-class tickets (uncomfortably aware that the first-class tickets would look like a bribe to the members of her team who chafed under the leadership of a human). The zombie looked stonily at Zoë’s talisman and shook his head. “No.”
Zoë blinked. “I have the hell notes, I have cash if you need it, what’s the problem? Sold out?”
“Humans are not allowed in first class,” the zombie said. He looked from her to Arthur, then back, and smiled slowly, showing rotten teeth. “For your own protection.”
Instead of railing at the bigotry, Zoë wanted to compliment him on how clearly he spoke but figured that would be an insult instead of the ass-kissing compliment she intended. She might as well compliment him on his cleanliness. She still wasn’t sure how to kiss up to the undead, aside from tempting them with her bodily treats, which she wasn’t going to do.
She felt a presence at her side and saw that Gwen had appeared silently, waiting for Zoë to notice her. The rest of her team—the vampires Opal and Kevin, the baby dragon Bertie, and the goddess Eir—stood behind Gwen. Kevin smirked at her, and she realized they had heard the problems she was having.
“Won’t let you in the first-class car? That must be embarrassing for the boss to be in coach,” Kevin said. His sire, Opal, elbowed him in the ribs, and he subsided.
“I’m traveling with a bunch of coterie to vouch for me, what’s the problem?” The zombie shook his head. Zoë finally slipped a hell note out of her pocket and slid it to him. “Can I convince you otherwise?”
His slow eyes never hit the money, but his hand reached out and snagged it. “Five first-class. Two coach.” He reached under the box and counted out five green tickets and two yellow. Kevin snickered behind Zoë, and she gritted her teeth.
“Bigot,” she muttered as she took the tickets.
The zombie sighed in a way that implied it was done out of habit instead of an actual need for air. “It’s nothing personal. It’s for your own safety. We don’t even allow vampires’ thralls to travel with them. The humans are just too vulnerable and we can’t be responsible.”
“He’s got a point,” said Arthur. “I’d rather sit with my own kind, anyway.”
Zoë glared at him. “You’re not helping,” she muttered.
“We don’t need to go first-class, Zoë,” Gwen said, putting her hand on her arm. She looked at the others pointedly. “Do we?”
Bertie, the baby dragon, or “wyrm” (who looked more like an Italian linebacker than a lizard), shrugged. “I usually fly.”
Eir folded her formidable arms. “I was planning on purchasing an upgrade to experience the full trip, so I will take the offered ticket. Thank you, editor.”
Gwen sighed at Eir, exasperated. Kevin reached out and grabbed his and Opal’s tickets. He glanced at Arthur, who took his and Zoë’s tickets from her.
“Did you bring your own meal, Zoë?” Kevin asked, pointing to Arthur.
“My friend Arthur is also coming to town, for a different reason. You will not harass him,” Zoë said.
“Maybe,” Kevin said. “Maybe not.”
Arthur folded his arms and stared at Kevin. “Zoë’s mentioned you. The weakest writer on the team, I understand. I’d recommend focusing on doing a good job rather than bothering humans for no reason.” He showed his own talisman, a medium-size medallion he pulled from his jeans pocket. “Besides, I’m Public Works.”
Instead of engaging further, Kevin just winked. “See you in New Orleans, Zoë. Have fun in coach.” The vampires walked away, Opal chiding him for his behavior, sounding like a mother with a son whom she chastised out of habit and not because he listened to anything she said.
Zoë winced. She wasn’t sure traveling with a team like this would work very well. “Kevin, we’ll talk about this in New Orleans.”
He waved over his shoulder. “OK, boss.”
It’s like they’re just waiting for me to fail. If she had thought that they would respect her more for saving the whole fucking city from a crazy zoëtist, she had apparently been wrong. It would take more to impress them.
“Right,” she said. “Gwen, you’re in charge while we’re apart. Make sure they don’t screw anything up. I’ll see you after we get off the train in New Orleans.”
She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and strode away, pulling her luggage behind her.
Arthur followed her. “That’s your team? Seriously? I’d fire half of them.”
“Kevin’s a prick, but the others are OK. Opal is really good, and I’d hate to lose her. And if I fire Kevin, I’ll probably lose her, too. She’s his sire. I hear that makes them tight.”
Arthur nodded, understanding.
“What’s with the talisman? I didn’t know you had one,” Zoë said, nodding toward his pocket.
“Higher-ranking members of Public Works have them,” he said. “Got a promotion last week.”
“You didn’t tell me; that’s fantastic!” Zoë said. “What are you doing now?”
“Head of Sewage Maintenance,” he said. “Comes with a pay raise, a talisman, and more authority when it comes to sewer coterie.”
“Awesome,” she said. Arthur was very good at his job, both keeping the city’s water flowing and dealing with demons in the sewer. Although, admittedly, he was more likely to enter into a fight with a demon than ask it questions, but she hoped that time with her had given him reason to ask questions before he shot.
She heard a laugh float down the empty train station, and recognized Kevin’s voice. She cringed. She hated being laughed at.
She knew that was like saying she hated being sick, or hated being late, because she didn’t know anyone who actively enjoyed being laughed at, vomiting, or having all their friends resent them. But she was pretty sure she hated being laughed at more than most people, and she knew Kevin was laughing at her.
She didn’t feel threatened by any of the other people on her staff. While the vampires and zombies (one zombie, anyway; the other two had died because of zoëtist meddling last December) could eat her, none had threatened her beyond Kevin—besides Rodrigo, but that poor zombie had been messed with. Someone had put brain-freezing formaldehyde in his brain supply and he had gone feral. But he hadn’t threatened Zoë before that. The other coterie in the office ranged from friendly to neutral.
A week before, Zoë had gone to Gwen’s desk and said, “I want to do an experiment. If I intend very strongly to do something that is dangerous, like, say, think really hard about jumping in front of a bus, will you see my chances for death grow?”
Gwen sat back and studied Zoë with her glittering eyes. “Yes, intent can change your fate, if you’re honest about following through.”
“Right. I’m going to change my mind about something right now. You don’t even know what it is. I just want to know if it will be a dangerous thing to do.”
“Zoë, I’m not your carnival game—” Gwen started, but then her eyes grew wide as Zoë concentrated. “You could be dead within the day. What in the world are you planning on?”
Zoë sighed, thinking that she should be proud of her little “hacking the future” trick, but just feeling depressed. “I was thinking about firing Kevin.”
Gwen nodded. “If you fired him, he’d kill you.”
Phil had placed strict orders on all of the employees at Underground Publishing: do not harm the human. If she fired Kevin, he would have nothing to lose, no reason to fear Phil.
She did know how to fight vampires, but why fight them if you didn’t have to?
Now, trudging with her luggage behind her, leaving the smirking vampire, she wondered if she could handle herself if he attacked her.
She and Arthur followed the crew to the platform, the only busy spot in the terminal. Homeless people dozed against the wall here and there, but some of them had their eyes open—occasional homeless were spies for Public Works, making money here and there by reporting on coterie shenanigans. A dim whistle sounded in the distance, and she shivered as the air—already a frigid New York January brittle—grew humid. The air seeped in through her layers of clothing and pulled at her skin, making it break out in goose bumps. She craned her neck to look for the incoming train. It was only her keen awareness that Kevin was watching her, gauging her reaction for human weakness, that kept her jaw from dropping when she spotted it.
“Holy shit,” Arthur said behind her.
“No kidding,” Zoë replied.
She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. A white bullet train? She was used to only subway trains, all modern and practical. This train was wispy white, insubstantial, and not like the modern human bullet trains at all. Instead it was an old-fashioned steam train. The locomotive engine’s smokestack belched smoke, which sounded like the memory of a hiss of steam. It looked like a luxury train, Orient Express–style, with what might once have been chrome lining the engine, and heavy curtains covering the windows.
The words SLAUGHTERED KID were etched along the side of the engine, and Zoë shivered again.
Coterie faces looked out of some of the windows, each of them looking ghost-like itself, but she could clearly identify some demons and zombies among them. One of the cars was completely dark, with covered windows, a first-class vampire car, Zoë guessed. As the coterie started boarding, they stepped up on perfectly solid steps but then became transparent themselves, becoming ghosts as they entered the ghost train.
Zoë bit her lip, hoping she and Arthur could board this amazing train, knowing it would be supremely embarrassing if they just walked right through it. She watched with envy as her coworkers boarded the first-class cars, Kevin turning to flash her a pointy grin and wave. She looked away.
Something caught her eye. Several obviously human women were among the coterie lining up to take the ghost train. Zoë had spent a good amount of time studying people in the past few weeks, trying to discern who was coterie and who wasn’t—and it was harder than you’d think. With vampires and some fae looking fully human, gods and goddesses tuning down their divine presence, and shapeshifters such as dragons looking like humans did, Zoë found it tough to peg the coterie. But there was often a way of moving, of standing, and for some creatures of regarding others, that spoke of who, or what, they were. To her, the group of humans stuck out like a sore thumb, and she went to join them.
“Pariah car, ahoy,” she muttered.
Some humans, male and female, filed toward the train, some looking as if they knew what was going on, others simply following like sheep.
The zoëtists were obvious: most of them were women, each of them served by a small, three-foot-tall golem that carried her bags. A couple of thralls stood dazed, getting instructions from their master vampires, many of whom left their humans, concern looking odd on their vampiric faces.
One of the women had a boy of about ten with her, and he held his mother’s hand and poked little holes in the mud back of their service golem.
One man stood apart, clearly traveling alone.
He was white, thin, in his forties, with the easy way of standing that spoke of years away from sedentary office work. He wore Doc Martens as if they were still in style, laced tight, with jeans, a sweatshirt, and a heavy red trench coat. His hair was short and spiky, black with green tips. His face was slightly lined, and he looked around him without the defiant expression found so often on the younger men who dressed as he did.
He knows exactly what he’s doing, Zoë thought. And he’s getting on that train.
Arthur, too, approached the train with little trepidation, and Zoë cursed her hesitancy, stepping quickly to fall in behind him. She remembered that confidence was like the value of money—it was there as long as you had faith in it. She gripped her ticket and followed Arthur to board the ghost train.
Zoë noticed with a start that while it had seemed insubstantial while she was outside it, once she was on board it was as real as any train she had been on, and the rest of the terminal seemed to go gray and far away.
And oh, what a train. She had trouble thinking of it as a modern bullet train. The walls were mahogany and brass trim shone in the gaslights—seriously—gaslights—as the soft fires illuminated the interior. And this was just the coach car.
The seats were deep-blue leather and shone as if just polished. She ran her finger over one and was unable to identify what animal it came from, and realized with a start that it might not have been an animal at all. She swallowed, and spied a window seat that hadn’t been claimed by the dreamy thralls or chatting zoëtists.
She peeked out the window at the station and gasped. While she and the train were as real as anything she had ever encountered, the world outside the train had gone shimmery and transparent. The people and coterie outside the train seemed unreal, drifting along, and she could see nearly through the walls.
The zoëtists were talking loudly among themselves about their trip to Atlanta, Georgia, and how they were looking forward to touring Olympic Stadium. Apparently it had been built by the mentor of one of the women, an architect who commanded metal golems. They were all staying at a swanky coterie hotel and were greatly looking forward to the vacation. Luckily their chaos, with their golems and their luggage, was at the other end of the car, letting Zoë and Arthur stow their luggage above their seats. They settled in, and the man Zoë had noticed sat in the seat facing them over a table.
Zoë still hadn’t figured out how to ask someone else, “So what kind of monster are you?” so she busied herself with her laptop bag, stowing her heavy coat, red hat, and gloves, and getting her ticket ready for the conductor. She placed it on the table and then traced the grain of the dark wood with her fingertip.
The man across from her smiled. “First time on a ghost train?” His accent had that kind of lilt that was clearly not American but difficult to place; he was quite good at masking whatever it was.
“Oh, yeah,” said Zoë. “Is it that obvious? I guess even when you know what to expect it’s kind of a shock to start out with.”
The man nodded, his spiky hair bobbing a little. “Here’s a bit of advice. When the conductor comes through, leave your ticket and a hell note on the table and go to the bathroom. Best to do that rather than answer questions.”
Zoë frowned. “Is that what they’re going to do?” she asked, pointing to the women and the thralls. “The bathroom will be kinda crowded if we all do that.”
“Nah,” he said. “But they might ask questions to make sure you belong here. Don’t want just any human on the train, you see.”
She nodded slowly. Arthur looked at the man with suspicion, wriggled in his seat to get his hand into his front jeans pocket, and pulled out his talisman. “What do you think we have to hide?” he asked.
The man held up his hands, non-threatening. “I’m just saying it’s the path of least resistance. And if you deal with coterie a lot, you deal with a lot of resistance.”
Arthur grudgingly allowed that, but mumbled something about not liking bribes.
Zoë looked around the car at the zoëtists again, who didn’t seem uptight or offended in the least. They were perfectly happy to be in the human car, and were settling in for their trip.
Some had instructed their golems to climb inside duffel bags and then removed the magic command word from their foreheads, causing the creatures to crumble into the dust from which they had been formed.
The man thought, as if trying to pick his words. “Let’s just say,” he said slowly, “that the zoëtists are commonplace.”
Zoë noticed he wasn’t carrying the same bag of dirt as the women. “You’re not a zoëtist?”
The man grinned at her over his glasses. “No. And neither are you, are you?”
“Uh,” Zoë said. She didn’t want to reveal her status to a stranger, but clearly this man knew more about her than she had offered.
“We don’t have to tell you anything,” Arthur said. “Zoë, are there any other seats?”
Zoë looked around the car, but the seats were either full, or occupied by people stretching out for a nap during the trip.
The man was completely unoffended as they looked for escape. He leaned back in his seat and watched them.
“Looks like we’re here for the night,” she said.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get some sleep,” Arthur said. “It’s been a hell of a day, and I need it. It won’t take long to get there.”
“Yeah, you’ll need your rest for the next few days,” she said. “I’m not terribly comfortable sleeping on a coterie train. I’ll stay up.”
“We don’t need someone to keep watch like that D&D game you made me play,” he said. “Kobolds aren’t going to attack in the night. There’s a reason we’re in the human car. Get some rest.”
“I will, when I’m tired,” she said pointedly.
Arthur shrugged, balled up his down jacket and put it under his head, crossed his arms, and leaned against the window.
The train started to hiss and move, lurching forward slowly. Zoë felt the red wine begin to make insistent pokes at her bladder, and she wondered about the bathrooms, and how her human waste and the ghostly plumbing would work.
She decided not to think too much about it. Half of dealing with coterie was just nodding and accepting what was in front of you. Ghost train toilet? Better than wetting herself.
Zoë placed her laptop bag on the floor below her seat and rose, swaying slightly with the movement of the train. Bullet train or no, ghost train or no, the feeling was familiar to Zoë, who had gone on Amtrak trains with her mother when she was a kid.
Worried she wouldn’t have enough books, she had filled a black garbage bag with half her bookcase and her mother hadn’t noticed until the train station. She had tried to explain that she didn’t know what she’d be in the mood to read. Perhaps she wouldn’t be in the mood for Aerin the Dragon Slayer or Mad Harry who held the Blue Sword, maybe she’d want to read about Ramona Quimby or Harriet the Spy, or maybe Bilbo Baggins.
Her mother hadn’t been happy.
Zoë smiled when she realized Arthur had had the same reaction when it came to her packing heavy paperbacks for this trip.
As she made her swaying way to the bathroom, Zoë realized she was in a very fast, enclosed space with a lot of coterie. The humans wouldn’t be a huge threat, but the cars on either side of her would have creatures happy to hunt her and Arthur.
Attitude. That’s what she needed.
I totally belong to this club, she thought to herself as she walked down the aisle. I’m the biggest, baddest monster— She stepped on the foot of a mud golem standing guard beside its mistress’s seat as she dozed. The foot squashed beneath her, and she tripped forward, stumbling against the door to the bathroom, which fell inward. One hand went into the tiny toilet, and the other went onto the floor to break her fall. Her recently broken arm protested at this new stress, and she groaned in disgust as she pulled her soaking hand out of the toilet.
At least, she told herself, it was a modern toilet with only an inch of blue water within. She hadn’t soaked her sleeve.
It was a new train, right? And they would have to clean the bathrooms before a big trip, right? Sure, she told herself, but this trip had originated in Boston, not New York, so many of these people had been on the train for half an hour or so.
“Are you all right?” asked an amused male voice. The non-zoëtist man stood at the door, arms crossed and smiling.
“Oh goody, an audience, that makes this even better,” she said aloud, and pulled herself up, using the toilet, no longer the dirtiest thing in the room, for leverage.
“Ta-da! Totally planned that,” Zoë said, wondering if the train had any pure lye soap to wash her hand with. She didn’t meet the man’s eyes as she furiously washed her hands, impatiently hitting the faucet to engage the automatic water release.
He leaned against the doorframe, clearly not ready to leave. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Reynard, by the way.”
Zoë looked at his hand, and then at her own, which was growing red and cold from all the washing in the icy ghost water. “Really?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “It’s the polite thing to do, isn’t it?”
She took his hand and shook it, trying not to react to the realization that Reynard was missing the ring and pinky fingers of his right hand. The grip was solid and skeletal at the same time.
“Zoë,” she said.
Reynard didn’t say anything more, and Zoë looked pointedly at the toilet. “So… I came in here for more than acrobatics, and I’d kinda like some privacy. Is there something you need?”
“Just conversation,” he said. “Where are you and Mr. Cranky headed?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Making conversation,” he repeated.
“I have to pee,” she said.
“So you’re not doing what I suggested about the conductor?” he asked, mock sadness causing a frown as his eyes still looked amused.
“Why should I? I have every right to be here,” Zoë said.
Reynard nodded. “Sure, I just thought you might want to avoid zombies.”
Zoë forgot her bladder and narrowed her eyes. “Do you think I don’t know where I am, or who I’m riding with? Do you think I’m afraid of zombies? Why do you want to hide from the conductor, anyway?
“Human coterie aren’t always tolerated. And if you don’t have a golem by your side, they’re going to think that either you’re easy prey, or you’re not where you’re supposed to be. Or”—he dropped his voice—“you’re not who you’re supposed to be.”
He left her then, and Zoë gratefully shut the door and took care of her business. When her mind was clearer and not occupied with avoiding a six-year-old’s potty dance, she wondered what he’d meant. Then decided he had been baiting her.
Lord, I’m tired, she thought. She furiously washed her hands again, examined the bags under her eyes in the mirror, and took a deep breath to face the smarmy dude with hair he really should have left behind him in college.
The gaslights in the car had been dimmed, and many of the zoëtists were dozing or reading tablets. Zoë realized with distracted interest that zoëtists seemed to be an Android-loving bunch, not iPad.
She returned to her seat, where Reynard faced her with wide-awake interest. Arthur was out, and Zoë envied him the ability to sleep anywhere.
She decided to go on the offensive and introduce herself again. “OK, now that I’m thinking past more immediate needs, and my hand isn’t in a toilet, I’m Zoë,” she said quietly. She pointed at the sleeping Arthur. “That’s Arthur. I’m the editor of a book about travel for coterie. We’re researching New Orleans.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really. That’s fascinating. Do you have humans writing for you?”
She shook her head. “Just me, and a bunch of coterie. I’m there because of my editorial experience. We’ve put out a New York book, now we’re branching out.
“So,” she continued. “Your turn. You’re clearly not a zoëtist either, so why are you heading south on a coterie train?”
“My employer is sending me to New Orleans, too,” he said, stretching his long legs across the unoccupied seat next to him. “I guess you can say I also work for coterie. I’m doing some research.”
“Who do you work for?” Zoë asked.
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Vampires too lazy to travel. They don’t want to deal with the risk of sunlight, understand.”
He nodded his head toward Arthur, who was breathing softly as he slept. “If you have no humans on the team, what is his story?”
Zoë shook her head. “His story is his to tell. But he’s traveling with me, so he’s seen a lot of what I’ve seen.”
They sat in silence for a while. Zoë pulled out a fantasy book and was trying to remember who was betraying whom in the current chapter, when Reynard spoke again.
“How long have you worked among coterie? How long have you known of them?”
Zoë put a finger in her book to mark her page. She grinned ruefully. “Is it that obvious?” Reynard nodded. “About three months now.”
“But you’re a talker, yes?”
Zoë squinted at him. A talker? She was a citytalker but she had never heard the term “talker.”
Then again, the only people she’d heard reference it were a reticent male zoëtist and a schizophrenic wealthy homeless woman. She hadn’t had the most reliable mentors.
Still, a coterie train was not the place to reveal a secret, even to a human.
“Talker? I’m not sure what you mean,” she lied.
“There aren’t a lot left,” he said. “They were more numerous generations ago. They’re humans who have like a sixth sense when they’re in cities. They have intuition as to what alleys not to go down, that kind of thing. They have insane luck to avoid trouble in cities. But they’re useless in rural areas.”
Zoë blinked. “That’s amazing. I’ve not heard of that. How do they get the power? I know zoëtism is largely genetic but needs to be studied, right?”
“It’s genetic, cultivated in families. There are some very old families that were all citytalkers. It used to be that only magical humans would breed with magical humans, thereby keeping the magic strong.”
Zoë looked at her hands. “What about orphans?”
Reynard winced. “That’s not a good situation, it’s one of the reasons the skill is dying. While the magic is genetic, it has to be practiced, studied like any other skill. Someone with raw power won’t be able to do much but sense odd things and intuit the future. They probably won’t even notice this feeling only happens in urban areas.”
Zoë worked hard to keep her features even and interested, not alarmed. “Wouldn’t too much inbreeding make human coterie have weak hips, or idiot children, or English princes?”
Reynard smiled and brushed his spiky black hair back. “You’d think, but there were enough of them, once upon a time, to thin out the inbreeding problems. And the gene is recessive, so sometimes parents would have a child who wasn’t a talker, but that kid could go on to be a parent to a talker. If he or she married right, anyway.”
Zoë looked out the window at the countryside whizzing by at amazing speed. “So how do these huge families let orphans happen? How is that possible if they treasure the gift so much?”
“Well, in the sixties, there was a bit of a genetic purge,” Reynard said.
“A… bit of one? Just a little bit of genocide?” Zoë asked, eyes wide.
Reynard watched her briefly, looking uncertain, then lowered his voice further. “You really don’t know anything about human coterie history? Nothing at all?”
Zoë shook her head. “Like I said, I’m new.”
Reynard kept his voice low. “The coterie decided they didn’t like the humans that had magic. If you weren’t an actual magical being like a vampire or a fairy, then you were shit in their eyes. They began hunting us. Some of the humans panicked and did a very stupid thing. They all hid in the same place. It took the coterie years to find them, but once they did, the slaughter was monumental.”
Zoë nodded slowly. “Like Battleship?” Reynard blinked at her. “When I play Battleship, I clump all my ships together so that the opponent’s bombs are falling everywhere in the ocean. But once they hit, they can find all my ships together and kill me instantly.
“Oh, and now that you know my strategy, remind me never to play Battleship with you,” she continued. Reynard stared at her, and Zoë realized the proper response to the revelation of a massacre was probably not board game strategy discussion.
“Sorry. I talk a lot when I’m nervous. That’s pretty horrific.”
“Right, Battleship,” Reynard said. “That’s an… interesting strategy. But yes, that’s similar to what I’m talking about.”
“Where did they hide?” Zoë asked, her voice in a whisper.
Reynard acted as if he hadn’t heard Zoë. “Anyway, a lot of the magical humans died. I mean a lot of them. Some had plans to put their kids in orphanages so they would never be discovered, and then the parents got slaughtered. So that’s how come there are orphans with a coveted talent.”
Zoë sat back, feeling the color go out of her face. She hadn’t searched much for her birth parents; her adoptive parents had been the only ones she had known, so she hadn’t worried about the unknown “sperm and egg donors,” as her dad had called them.
“It takes five seconds to father a child, but a lifetime to raise it,” he was fond of saying.
But if that five seconds helped create another, altogether stranger genetic brand than most humans got, then what did that mean?
“How many are left?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
He heard her, had been watching her closely. “They don’t know. The genocide fervor calmed down in the eighties, same as the civil rights fervor stopped boiling over among the other humans. But no one has done a census. Coterie know some have to be out there, but we don’t know where they are.”
Zoë’s mind was a whirl. Her birth parents probably had the same skill she had, and they could be alive. This was too much. She searched for another topic—any more questions and she would reveal herself, if she hadn’t already. “So who are the human coterie? There’s talkers, and the zoëtists, I guess, right?”
Reynard nodded. “Keep going.”
Zoë thought. “I don’t know. Werewolves? Superheroes? Ninjas?”
“One out of three is not bad,” Reynard said, laughing. “Nearly all the weres are gone now. I don’t know where they are hiding, but I’m fairly sure they haven’t been eradicated. Got any more guesses?”
Zoë chewed her lip. “Can humans do magic, I mean beyond what the zoëtists can do? Wizards, witches, those types? Is Hogwarts real?”
Reynard snorted. “I wouldn’t say that. Well. Actually, I don’t know, honestly, but wizards are like weres—they may still exist but I haven’t seen any. At best they’ve been hunted to near-extinction and likely do not want to be found.”
Zoë rubbed her face so she could focus. “But wait, why are zoëtists not hiding? They seem to be out in the open.”
Reynard chanced a peek at the still-talking women down the aisle. “Zoëtists are powerful, crazy powerful. They’re the only ones who could stand up to an army of coterie since they could build an army themselves.”
“Wizards aren’t powerful, then? Do they just throw cantrips around?”
Reynard looked at her.
“You know. Cantrips? Lame-ass D&D first-level mage spell? Am I the only well-read person of my generation?” She sighed. “Cantrips are like making a noise sound in the next room, distracting people, make lights dance, you know. Parlor tricks. Obi-Wan distracting Stormtroopers when turning off the tractor beam. That kind of thing.”
Reynard blinked. “Oh! Yes! Actually, I think the writers of D&D consulted with a wizard at the time of that writing. They didn’t know he was a wizard, but he was so intrigued by their project that he was happy to weigh in.”
Zoë laughed, covering her mouth so that Arthur wouldn’t wake up. “You’re shitting me. D&D is based on real magic? Even the really stupid spells? Bigby’s Crushing Hand? Portable Hole?”
Reynard shifted, and Zoë realized she suddenly knew more than her companion did. “I don’t know the details. If you ever meet a mage, maybe you can ask him. Anyway, you’ve got a sense of the human coterie genocide. And these people were doubly fucked because Public Works didn’t think they needed protection since they were coterie, even though it was the coterie attacking them. The humans either went underground or fought to the death. Except for the zoëtists, who managed to carve out a position for themselves. Then a truce was formed in 1978.”
The late hour was starting to catch up to Zoë. “Why did no one tell me about this? It feels like something somewhat important to tell the new girl who is learning about coterie relations.”
“Well, you already know they likely want to eat you. Why give you another reason to fear them?”
They had to have known she would find out about it, right? Especially as she had befriended a zoëtist. But Ben was oddly reluctant to discuss human coterie issues, and Zoë could see why, now.
Reynard glanced at the door leading toward the front of the train. “So your whole team is in first class while you, the boss, are back here in coach?”
“That’s about it, yeah,” Zoë said.
Reynard sighed. “That blows.”
“I’ve had to deal with much worse,” Zoë said. She yawned, despite her growing anxiety.
“So what happens if my coworkers find out I—know about this?” She had nearly slipped up and said, “I’m a talker” but had caught herself. “Are they going to kill me? Besides the ones who already want to kill me, I mean.”
Reynard waved his hand, as if brutal murder was a minor threat. “No, it was only a small, zealous faction of coterie who hunted the humans. I’m sure they’re not actively hunting anymore.”
“Then why do they keep themselves hidden? If it’s safe for talkers, weres, and wizards, then why not come out?”
Reynard stared out the window. “Habit, I suppose. No one has heard from active human coterie—beyond zoëtists—in decades. Some younger coterie are thinking it’s a myth. The zoëtists don’t like to talk about the other humans. They try to distance themselves.”
Zoë’s brain buzzed with troubling thoughts and more questions. But every answer brought more questions, and she was getting very tired. The adrenaline rush from what she had found out was wearing off. She stretched and yawned.
She pulled a neck pillow from her laptop bag and leaned her seat back the scant inches the train allowed her. Only as she was dozing off did she realize that Reynard was just like her, a hidden human coterie.
Zoë stirred awake when the train pulled into Baltimore, the slowing of the rocking having disturbed her. Reynard was awake, staring out the window at the ghostly train station. Only a few coterie boarded.
Zoë yawned. “Did you sleep at all?” she asked.
Reynard shook his head and kept looking out the window. “I really don’t like to sleep with vampires around. Even if they’re not hungry, they may remember the Great Hunt and want to take it up again. Not a lot of places to hide on a train.”
Zoë blinked several times to try to wake her tired eyes up. “Do you know how many talkers are left in the world?”
“I think each city has at least one,” he said. “New York was notoriously without one for years, or so we thought. Some witnesses on December eighth thought there may have been one in the city, but there was so much chaos we don’t know. Many could have gone underground, literally or figuratively. If you don’t talk to the city, it’s hard for other talkers to notice you.”
This guy was talking as if he was a citytalker and had already confided in her. Zoë tried to squash her excitement.
“I still find it hard to believe none of my friends have mentioned talkers to me,” Zoë said. “I mean, I work with zombies and vampires, yeah, who could be only a little older than me, but there’s also a couple of goddesses, a nine-tailed kitsune, and others. Do you think if I asked them about the genocide, they’d tell me?”
Reynard shook his head. “I wouldn’t. If nothing else, they will be interested in where you heard about it, and ask questions. I can’t afford that. Because you’ve already figured it out about me, haven’t you?”
Zoë smiled. “You didn’t make it difficult to figure out. I’m surprised you were so forthcoming with a stranger.”
Reynard took his eyes away from the Baltimore station as the train began to move. “I think I see a kindred spirit in you,” he said. Before Zoë could start to panic, he added, “You like to court danger, don’t you?”
Zoë sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
Reynard ticked the points off on his hand. “You’ve got a job with people who will eat you if they get a chance, including a fucking incubus, and it sounds like you were in the middle of the action on 12/8 when surrounded by vastly better-qualified people.”
Zoë sputtered. “OK, that’s not fair. If you hadn’t noticed, the economy is shit, and I needed a job. And the other stuff…” She sat up straighter, her back feeling as if an ice spike had been inserted where her spinal cord should have been. “How do you know all of those things?”
He slouched comfortably in his seat, his head in a shadow. “There’s only one way I could have found out. She told me.”
Was this why the city had said she was supposed to avoid citytalkers? She had communicated with this dude? Zoë paused then laughed.
“As for why, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. As for now, I just really am going to need some caffeine if I am going to stay alert to watch for killer vampires tonight. Want anything from the café car?”
Reynard smiled and got up. “I’ll go with you. I doubt the train will have much for human consumption, but we can go check. They probably have something for the zoëtists. Do you have your talisman?” Zoë nodded and brought her necklace out of her shirt. Reynard nodded. “Just let me do the talking, OK?”
“If you say so.”
Reynard removed his trench coat, carefully folded it, and left it on his seat. He and Zoë walked down the aisle past the dozing zoëtists. Zoë watched with amusement as a little dirt golem about six inches tall stood watch at one table, seeming to glare at her as she walked by.
The train thrummed beneath them, smooth and powerful. They had left the city by now and Zoë marveled at their speed. They really would reach New Orleans before the morning, amazingly enough.
She realized she was unlike Reynard, who firmly demanded his place among coterie. Zoë herself wanted to spend some time on a human bullet train, no matter what “club” she belonged to. She held her breath as they passed into the adjoining car, not sure what they would find, but they encountered a bunch of dozing sprites.
The car was dark, but the slightly glowing air sprites drifted along the top of the car. Zoë would have freaked out and assumed they were ghosts a couple of months ago, but now she knew they were dozing elementals.
She thought about Morgen, her friend the water sprite, and her heart rose in her throat. “Let’s keep moving,” she whispered to Reynard.
“You know they’re not ghosts, right?” Reynard asked.
“Yes, but sprites remind me of someone, that’s all,” Zoë said. “Can we just keep moving?”
The next car was also dark, and completely full of sleeping zombies. One woman sat in front of an untouched Tupperware container of brains, all gray and shiny, and Zoë averted her gaze. Some zombies’ elbows stuck out into the aisle and Reynard and Zoë had to inch around them. The train lurched a bit as it went around a curve, and Zoë flailed, catching the luggage rack over their heads to avoid tumbling into a zombie’s lap.
Reynard snickered and offered Zoë his hand. Zoë pulled herself up on her own, glared at him, and they went on their way.
She wondered how she was going to make it back through with a drink in her hand.
The third car was finally what they were waiting for. A vampire stood, bored, at the snack stand, flipping through a magazine. He was a tall and lithe Indian, who sneered at them as if they were rodents on his pristine train.
“Zoëtists,” he said, blowing his bangs out of his face. “What can I get for you?”
“What do you have that’s caffeinated?” Reynard asked.
The vampire reached under the counter and pulled out a can of Diet Coke and a can of Coke. “Not much call for it around here.”
“Thanks,” Reynard said, and took them both, handing the vampire a hell note. He presented both cans to Zoë, who took the Coke. She was dismayed that the can was warm. She thanked the vampire but he ignored her.
“Pleasant,” muttered Zoë to Reynard.
Reynard shrugged. “Told you it wouldn’t be very human-friendly.”
Underneath their feet the train’s hum changed timbre very slightly, and both the vampire and Reynard raised their heads, alert.
Zoë looked from one to the other. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
“This train has reached its maximum safe speed. It just sped up. That’s not supposed to happen, is it?” Reynard said this last sentence to the vampire, who ignored him.
The vampire exited from behind his little café counter and peered out the window. He said something in Hindi and fumbled for a walkie-talkie on his belt.
“Engineering. This is Deepu in the café car. If you’re trying to outrun an old-fashioned train robbery, you’re going to need to go faster.”
CHAPTER 1
Getting There
The Ghost Train Slaughtered Kid
The human creation of high-speed rails has made it possible for the coterie to piggyback on human railroads and create the first-ever ghost bullet train. The ghost train Slaughtered Kid is the first high-speed coterie-only train to go from Boston, MA, to New Orleans, LA (with stops in New York City, Baltimore, DC, Richmond, Raleigh, Columbia, Atlanta, and Pensacola, for some reason), in about ten hours. It serves all coterie, human and nonhuman, and you can buy your ticket at most train stations if you know where to book with a coterie agent. While it is open to all, it does segregate by cars, so vampires, gremlins, and deities will be seated with like folk, as well as all humans, including thralls.
Being that it is a ghost train, it is staffed mainly by ghosts, as they can find themselves in a corporeal existence on the train, while stepping off makes them go insubstantial again.
Accommodations include single seats, booth-type seats, and sleeper cars. The train has compartments for all sizes of coterie, and encourages little people, leprechauns, and gremlins to take advantage of their quality interiors.
The train allows the carry-on of weapons, claws, symbiotic relationships, and other ways of protecting yourself. The train is affordable—for those who can afford such things—and fast, and may very well revolutionize travel in American coterie circles.
Everyone must experience the ghost train at least once in their lives. Or deaths. 