"Your mistake, friend," Daniel said mildly, and nodded at the money, hoping the man would just pick it up and leave.
Instead his smile changed to a scowl. He stared at the girl, started to walk on, then stopped and stared again. Daniel wished she wouldn't look at the man so. It was the fear in her eyes that was drawing him,that made him lick his mouth wet and ask, "How much, then, damnit?"
Daniel looked at him: husky, but not too husky;short, reddish hair beneath his cap; wearing a brown vest of some synthetic material that must be warmer than it looked. Daniel shook his head slowly. He didn't want this. His fiddle might get hurt. He stopped playing and lowered it slowly, hoping he'd be able to set it down gently if he had to. "It's a mistake, friend. She isn't for sale, this one. They are,"he said, and gestured toward the whores on the corner, feeling diminished but not knowing what else to do.
The man didn't move. His eyes went colder. Daniel could almost feel the man's toes curling in his cowboy boots as he tried to decide whether this gypsy was pushing him around, and whether this girl was worth fighting for. The girl moved, gripping the back of Daniel's coat. He felt both her fear and the man's lust growing. Carefully he set the fiddle down in its case,put the bow in its holder, and closed the case. He held out the twenty toward the man, but he slapped it aside. "Damnit, don't fuck with me. Give you fifty for her."
Daniel tucked the money into the man's shirt pocket. "We are leaving now," he said softly, and stooped to pick up his fiddle case. The man swung at him as he did, and Daniel rose, his knee coming up into the man's crotch as he pushed him backwardbackwards. He parking meter and stumbled into the street.Astreet.A car blared its horn and splashed oily water over him.
"You sum bitch, I'll kill you, I swear I'll kill you,"the man yelled, but Daniel had his fiddle under one arm and the girl on the other and was walking swiftly away.
The girl was trembling and clutching his arm; he could feel the soft warmth of her through his sleeve.Hsleeve. He aim around her and walked faster. Three blocks later her trembling was getting worse. She kept tripping on her shoes. Poor little thing. He stopped at the mouth of an alley, set down his fiddle and removed his coat. He wrapped it around her, turning the collar up around her bare neck. But as he did so in all innocence, she stepped into his arms, turned her face up to his and kissed him.
Despite himself, his arms closed around her. She was so young, so much innocence, so much wonder,everything was new to her, a child, a woman, and for an instant he believed he could just take her and go somewhere, start again, a life that was not filled with omens and destinies, a life of babies and meadow grass and traveling the land, always as young as she was. A life that belonged to him alone, that was not owed to his brother. Her mouth was very soft in its inexperience, and the cloying perfume seemed suddenly, dizzying sweet. The kiss she had started became something he taught her. And, when that should have been all, she began to respond-to hold him closer than she should have, to feel desires he had no business bringing out in her, or she in him,and yet he knew her passion was as real as his, which should have frightened him more than it did. And it should have frightened her much more than it seemed to.
Her hand went to her mouth when he stepped back from her, touching her lips as if still feeling the brush of his mustache.
"So. Now you see. That's how you do it," he told her, and heard the pleased silliness in his own voice.Shvoice. Sheup at him, asking for more, her eyes very bright and shining; shining for him. He felt intoxicated with the girl, the night, and even the perfume.perfume.His thoughts reeled through her scent. She fit under his arm as snugly as his fiddle fit under his chin.Somchin.Somethingously like romance swelled his soul.He soul.He aloud, and when he did, her arm came around his waist. They walked together, he didn't care where, and then they were outside a cafe.
"I didn't get any dinner," she said, so tentatively that his heart broke over her hunger.
"I'll feed you," he promised, and opened the door,not caring that he hadn't a cent in his pockets. This was not a night to worry about practical things, it was time to be young again.
They sat down in a booth together, side by side,Lore lei near the window, and he thought he had never seen anything as lovely as this girl wrapped in his weathered green coat. He took a napkin from the dispenser, and gently wiped some of the paint from her face. Her skin beneath it was beautiful, and she sat still beneath his touch.
Someone set glasses of water on the table. "Ready to order?" asked a redheaded waitress, and he suddenly realized she had been standing there for sometime. He looked at his Lore lei, smiling encouragement.
"Burger, fries, and a Coke," she said without hesitation.
"Coffee," he added, and didn't care about the waitress's grim disapproval as she turned away.
"Are you warmer now, little sparrow?" he asked her. She nodded shyly, and looked down at the tabletop. He had to put his fingers under her chin and lift her face so he could see those eyes again, and when he did, he had to brush his lips across her forehead,because he couldn't stand not to.
The city lights, they hurt my eyes
And the noises make me wince.
The Coachman left me here
Which I've regretted ever since.
"RAVEN, OWL, AND I"
There was a raw edge in the wind, threatening as a knife, Raymond walked a little faster, reached up with his hand and held his collar a little closer around his neck. Another twenty steps, and he couldn't deny it anymore. The coldness and the wind weren't all he was feeling. The chill was in his soul, as if a strong wall were falling away, leaving him exposed.
He put his hand to his chest, felt his wrapped tambourine snug there. He thumped it lightly, felt rather than heard the muted jingle of the zils. As if in counterpoint, his stomach growled. Food and shelter,that's what he needed this night. Something was keeping him from the Coachman and his brothersbrothers. Bute shrugged. Perhaps the best way to fight it was to ignore it. Some food and a night's sleep would leave him better prepared. He had not eaten in sixteen hours, nor slept in twenty-nine.
On Mount Falcon, when the sun went down, and Denver was no more than a greasy glow on the horizon, the darkness of the night had been a clean and comforting thing. Even when it was blackest and the stars pressed down on the hillside, he had not felt threatened by the night. He could lie in his bedroll and listen to the life in the scrubby brush lands around him, scale on gravelly soil as a snake went by, the wicket, wicket, wicket of owl wings, the tiny pattering as the hunted mouse sought shelter.
Here it was never night, and the colored lights were like bulbous tumors on the outsides of the buildings. Raymond felt blinded as any owl would be, felt battered by their insistent flickering s, EAT EAT EAT one nagged him, and he felt his mouth stretch in a hard smile. That was exactly what he hoped to do. Soon.ThiSoon. Thiswing wind was cutting through him.Warmhim.Warmthlittle food would be good; he couldn't be oblivious to such things, as his youngest brother was. He wondered, and not for the first time, what it would be like to trade places, to have the power, and the burden that went with it. No matter. His younger brother had it, and it was up to Raymond to find him.If hhim.Ifthers were anywhere in this city, they'd forgotten everything they'd ever known about leaving signs; he'd found no symbols scratched in the dirt near a crossroads, no broken twigs or bits of string to guide him.
Well, not precisely true, he supposed. There were other kinds of signs. Sometimes he thought he could feel his brothers, that he would step around the next corner and there they'd be, waiting for him, laughing to see him. But at times like this there was just emptiness around him, as he walked through the not-light, not-dark of the city.