Memory and Dream

Tombs. They especially didn’t go wandering about on foot the way he and his companions were.

Closer he could hear the sound of the wind, blowing down the deserted streets, occasionally bringing them a snatch of music from the boom box of one of the area’s squatters. They’d seen very few people since first entering this wasteland of empty lots and abandoned buildings. Those they had were all the kinds of people that Alan would normally cross a street to avoid. They always had an attitude. But here, on their home turf, the inhabitants of the Tombs seemed content to ignore them. Watching and waiting, perhaps, to see what had brought them here.

“I can’t find him,” Cosette said, looking alarmed. “Usually I can almost see him in my head—not clearly, the way I can always see Isabelle, but I can sort of feel where he is.”

“Do you feel him now?”

“No,” Cosette said. “I can’t feel him at all.”

“But Isabelle’s inside?”

When Cosette nodded, Alan glanced at Marisa.

“We’re not going to do any good hiding out here,” Marisa said.

Like they were going to do so much good inside, Alan thought. Then he sighed. He studied the ground around them, looking for something he could use as a weapon, although use was perhaps too strong a word. Something he could hold to give him courage. He wasn’t sure that he was actually capable of hitting someone, little say murdering Rushkin the way Cosette wanted him to.

He got up and edged away from the car they were hiding behind to peer into the open trunk of the other vehicle. There he found a rusting tire iron. Picking it up, he turned to his companions, holding the tire iron awkwardly in his hand. When he returned to where the others were waiting for him, Cosette regarded his makeshift weapon with approval but he saw sympathy in Marisa’s eyes. Alan swallowed thickly.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Before he could step around the car, Cosette suddenly pulled him down again behind the vehicle.

“What—” Alan began.

Cosette put a warning finger to her lips and then Alan heard it as well: two voices raised in argument.

A man and a woman. The sound came from the direction of the building they’d been about to enter.

Peering over the hood of the car, Alan saw two figures leave the tenement. One he recognized as John Sweetgrass until he realized it had to be John’s doppelganger, since Cosette, sneaking a quick glance beside him, drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the approaching pair and quickly dropped out of sight again. The doppelganger’s companion he only recognized from Nora’s description of “a real punky-looking girl.” These were the two people who’d kidnapped Isabelle from the courtyard in Joli Coeur. Rushkin’s creatures.

“Don’t let them see us, don’t let them see us,” Cosette was chanting under her breath.

Alan ducked below the hood as the pair crossed the street.

.. have to walk back, thanks to you,” the man was saying.

“Don’t blame me. I think she almost broke my fucking wrist.”

“Serves you right, panicking the way you did.”

“They’re supposed to be social workers in that place,” the girl said. “Not street fighters.”

“That’s no excuse. If you hadn’t screwed up, we’d have the paintings and not have to walk back across town to get them.”

“So we’ll steal another car.”

“So we’ll steal another car,” the doppelganger repeated, mimicking the girl’s voice.

“I didn’t see you doing all that well,” the girl responded sharply. “No one said you had to follow me back.”

“I couldn’t very well take the paintings and fight them all off at the same time once you buggered off on me.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” the girl said. “If that black bitch is still in the office when we get there, I’ll rip out her heart.”

They were talking about Rolanda, Alan realized. They’d gone after the paintings hanging in the Foundation’s waiting room and somehow Rolanda and the others there had chased them oft: And now they were on their way back. He turned to Cosette, about to whisper to her that Rolanda had to be warned of a second attempt on the paintings, when he realized that the conversation they’d been eavesdropping on had suddenly fallen silent.

Oh, shit, he thought.

There was no time to do anything. The doppelganger came around the front of the car before Alan could stand up. When he did, he raised the tire iron only to have the girl drop silently from the roof of the car and kick him in the shoulder. The tire iron fell to the pavement with a clang, and Alan backed away from the girl. His whole arm had gone numb, from his shoulder down to his fingers.

“Yum, yum,” the girl said, a feral light burning in her eyes as she caught sight of Cosette trying to hide behind Alan.

“Scara!” the doppelganger warned.

The girl gave him a sour look. “Who put you in charge?”

“Plain common sense. She belongs to Rushkin—or do you feel like explaining to him why you took her instead of bringing her to him?”

Scara’s only reply was to look sullen. She spat on the ground at Alan’s feet, but made no further move toward Cosette.

“Don’t even think of it,” the doppelganger said, directing his attention now to Marisa, who’d been edging her hand toward the fallen tire iron.

Marisa let her hand fall back to her side and rose to stand beside Alan. Cosette got to her feet as well, trying to wedge herself into the narrow space between Alan and the car so that Alan would be between her and Scara.

Considering the hungry light in the girl’s eyes, Alan didn’t blame Cosette at all. He wished there were someone he could hide behind.

“What—” Alan had to clear his throat before he could continue. “What do you want with us?”

John’s double regarded him with amusement. “A better question would be, what do you want with us?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the one who’s come spying on us.”

“We’re looking for Isabelle,” Marisa said.

“Oh, she’s inside.”

Alan and Marisa exchanged glances. It was going to be this easy? “Inside,” Alan repeated slowly.

The doppelganger nodded. “Painting.”

“But you ... we were told you’d kidnapped her.”

“How do these stories get around?” the doppelganger said. “We did bring her here to visit with her old mentor, but she certainly wasn’t kidnapped.”

The man was so reasonable that Alan felt confused. It was true Scara had kicked him, but then he’d been threatening her friend with a tire iron. And while the conversation between the pair concerning Cosette hadn’t exactly been comforting, neither of them had actually done anything since then that could be construed as a threat.

“Bitterweed,” Scara said.

It took Alan a moment to realize that she was using the doppelganger’s name.

“This is getting boring,” the girl went on. “We’ve got things to do.”

Things to do, Alan thought. Like stealing Isabelle’s paintings from the Foundation and assaulting Rolanda and whoever else happened to be there. His resolve returned.

“Listen,” he said. “You can’t just—”

“If you’re so worried about whether or not Isabelle wants to be here,” Bitterweed broke in, “why don’t you come in and ask her yourself?” Alan hesitated. “I ...”

“Of course we’ll see her,” Marisa said. “That’s why we came.”

She sounded brave, but she walked very close to Alan as they followed the pair back into the tenement. Cosette bookended Alan on the other side. She walked so near to him that he could feel her trembling.

It was dirty inside the building, the walls smeared with more graffiti, litter clogging the floor. The air smelled