him to have heard it or even felt the vibration in his bones; but like everyone else, he, foreigner or not, knew absolutely that it was happening. So it was with the sound that reached him now—not from the Troll’s mouth or throat or monstrous body, but from its entire preposterous existence.
“Saying grace?” Richardson asked. The Troll made the sound again, and his head descended, jaws opening wider than Richardson had ever seen. Cut’n-Shoot screamed, and kept on screaming. Richardson kept a tight grip on him, but the old man’s utter panic set the echoes roaring in Richardson’s head. He said, “
Very little of Aussie was still visible. Richardson took a firmer hold of Cut’n-Shoot, lifted him partly off the ground, and half-hurled, half-shoved him at the Troll. The old man actually tripped over a concrete forearm; he fell directly against the Troll’s chest, snuggling grotesquely. He opened his mouth to scream again, but nothing came out.
“How about a taste of the guardian?” Richardson demanded. He hardly recognized his own voice: It was loud and frayed and hurt him coming out. “How about a piece of the one who’s always there to make sure you behave? Wouldn’t that be nice, after all this time?”
When the Troll’s mouth opened over Cut’n-Shoot, Richardson began to laugh in delighted hysteria. Not only did the great gray jaws seem to hinge at the back, exactly like a waffle iron, but they matched perfectly, hammer and anvil, when the mouth slammed shut.
After the jaws finally stopped moving, the Troll stretched toward the sky again, and Richardson realized that it was somehow different now—taller and straighter, its rough edges softening, sinking into themselves, becoming more fluid. Becoming more
“Well, shit,” he said. “That meal sure agreed with you.”
He was just turning to run when the thing’s hand, no longer concrete but just as hard, just as vast and heavy, fell on his shoulder, breaking it. Richardson was shrieking as the Troll lifted him into the air, tucked him clumsily under one arm, and began squeezing back into the lair under the Aurora Bridge. Crumpled against the monster’s side—clothing shredded, skin lacerated, his ribs going—Richardson heard the tolling of an impossible heart.
Priced to Sell
BY NAOMI NOVIK
Naomi Novik was born in New York in 1973, a first-generation American, and raised on Polish fairy tales, Baba Yaga, and Tolkien. She studied English literature at Brown University and did graduate work in computer science at Columbia University before leaving to participate in the design and development of the computer game
Her first novel,
She lives in New York City with her husband and eight computers.
“I’m over getting offended,” the vampire said despondently. “I just want to stop wasting my time. If the board isn’t going to let me in, I don’t care how much they smile and how polite they are. I’d rather they just tell me up front there’s no chance.”
“I know, it’s terrible,” Jennifer said. No co-op board was going to say anything like that, of course; it was asking for a Fair Housing lawsuit. “Have you thought about a townhouse?”
“Yeah, sure, because of course I’ve got a trust fund built on long-term compound interest,” he said bitterly. “I’m only fifty-four.”
He didn’t look a day over twenty-five, with that stylish look vampires got if they didn’t feed that often—pale and glamorous and hungry—staring into his Starbucks like it was nowhere near what he actually wanted. Jennifer wasn’t too surprised he was getting turned down. Right now she was feeling pretty excellent about the garlic salt she’d put on the quick slice of pizza that had been lunch.
“Well,” Jennifer said, “maybe a property in Brooklyn?”
“Brooklyn?” the vampire said, like she’d suggested a beach vacation in Florida.
It took him five minutes wrapping up to leave the café: coat, gloves, hat, veil, scarf, and a cape over all that; Jennifer was so not envying him the rush-hour subway ride home on the Lexington Avenue line.
She walked the five blocks uptown and poked her head into Doug’s office to report. The vampire had been bounced over to their team from a broker at Black Thomas Phillips, with blessings, after getting rejected by a second co-op board.
“Try him on some of the new condo developments, where the developer is still controlling the building,” Doug said. “What’s his budget?”
“A million two,” Jennifer said.
“And he wants a three bedroom?” Doug said. She winced and nodded. “Not a chance. Show him some convertible twos and see if the amenities make him happy.”
“I was thinking maybe if we could shake something loose in the Victorian, on Seventy-sixth?” she said. “I could send around postcards to the current owners.”
“Keep it in your back pocket, but I wouldn’t start there,” Doug said. “The board there won’t mind he’s a vampire, but they’ll mind that he’s less than a hundred years old.”
Tom knocked on the door and looked in. “Doug, sorry to interrupt, but you’ve got that two-fifteen with the new client at their place on Thirty-second and First.”
Doug didn’t really know the building; it was a rental, and not a good one: near the Midtown Tunnel traffic, no views, and only an aggressive goblin minding the door, who scowled when Doug asked for 6B. “Six
“Yes?” Doug said.
“You … friend?” the goblin asked, even more suspiciously.
“He’s expecting me,” Doug said diplomatically: Some tenants didn’t want their landlord knowing they were apartment hunting.
Unbelievably, the goblin went ahead and poked a foot at the watchcat sleeping under the front hall table. It raised its head and sniffed at Doug and said in a disgruntled voice, “What do you want from me, it’s just a real estate broker.”
“Broker?” the goblin said, brightening. “Broker, huh? He moving?”
“You’d have to ask him,” Doug said, but that wasn’t a good sign. Bad landlord references could sink a board application quicker than vampirism. He was starting to get doubts about the client anyway. Anyone who really had a $3-million budget, living here?
The IKEA furniture filling the apartment didn’t give him a lot of added confidence, but the client said, “Oh, it’s … it’s in a trust fund,” blinking at him myopically from behind small, thick-glassed, round John Lennon specs. Henry Kell didn’t seem like a candidate to piss off goblins: He was a skinny five foot six and talked softly enough that Doug had to lean forward to hear him. “I don’t like to spend it, and … and I don’t have very many needs, you know. Only … well … I think it would be best if, if we had our own property, and I think he’s come around to the notion.”
“Okay, so we’re looking for a place for you and your … partner?” Doug said. “Should I meet him, too?”
