Blood Engines(17)

 

There were whimsical statues in Yerba Buena Gardens, including a giant-sized metal chair high enough to walk beneath, and while Marla generally had a low tolerance for whimsy, she found the sculpture almost charming in its straightforward silliness. San Francisco probably had other charms, but there was much about it that unsettled her, including her mental geological map of the place, which included the fault lines that streaked all around the city. There were magics that benefited from living in a place that always teetered on the edge of natural disaster, but Marla didn’t think the benefits were worth the possibility of sliding into the sea. Her own city seldom faced anything worse than ice storms in the winter and summertime heat waves. She didn’t think she could handle the local politics here, either—passing the power from sorcerer to sorcerer made sense as a way of keeping everyone happy, but she wasn’t so sure it worked well when it came to getting things accomplished and keeping the city safe. Sorcerers were backstabbing, vicious beasts at worst, cautious allies at best; how many of these pro-tem chief sorcerers were giving full disclosure to the people who came to replace them, letting them know about all the current problems and opportunities? Probably none of them. Marla preferred her own form of mostly benign dictatorship.

 

It occurred to her that someone would probably try to kill her at Finch’s party. She’d pissed off the biggest sorcerer in Chinatown (maybe—it was always possible that was self-aggrandizement), who now knew where Marla was going tonight. That gave the night a little extra sparkle, at least. At home, people were always trying to kill her. It helped her keep her edge.

 

Something fluttered in her peripheral vision. “What’s that?” she said, and Rondeau said, “Hmm?”

 

Marla stepped closer to the giant metal chair, eyes scanning the dark. Something swift, flying, darting randomly up, down, and sideways in the air.

 

“Hummingbird,” Rondeau said.

 

Marla nodded. The bird was ruby-throated, wings an invisible blur. Marla frowned. Hummingbirds in January? They never appeared until spring back home, but there was snow there—maybe the appearance of a hummingbird in January at night was perfectly seasonable here, in this strange land where the trees had green leaves in winter. Marla flapped her hand toward the bird, and it zoomed straight backwards, then zoomed toward her. Marla and Rondeau walked on. They crossed the street and headed in the direction of the closed Museum of Modern Art, but when Marla glanced back, the hummingbird was still hovering nearby. She took a long step sideways, and the bird shifted with her, long beak pointing unerringly toward her face. Marla stepped back the other way, and the bird followed.

 

“Fuck,” she said thoughtfully.

 

“That’s weird,” Rondeau said. “Maybe it thinks you’re a flower.” A second hummingbird buzzed up and began hovering over Rondeau.

 

“You’ve got one, too, Rondeau.”

 

Rondeau looked around. “Huh. Familiars, you think?”

 

“Seems likely,” she said. “Birds are tricky, but not unheard of.”

 

“That was Somerset’s thing, right? Birds?”

 

Marla nodded, remembering. Somerset had been the chief sorcerer of her city once, a brutal, cheerfully vicious man, and even after his death he’d been reluctant to relinquish power. He’d come closer to killing Marla than anyone else ever had. Somerset favored pigeons for his familiars—a flock of pigeons trying to hurt someone could do real damage. But a flock—hell, a swarm—of hummingbirds wouldn’t be much good in battle, would they? Too fragile. But they were certainly fast. Marla jumped and snatched for her bird, and it avoided her easily, hovering just out of reach. Watching.

 

“We have to get rid of them,” Marla said, “and then get lost. These birds probably have to return to their master to deliver whatever intelligence they’ve gathered—I doubt they’re telepathic, or that they’re rigged with surveillance equipment. Even the smallest microphones and cameras would be a burden for birds this small, so it has to be a magical transference, and that’s easier with physical contact.”

 

“Who do you think they belong to?”

 

Marla shrugged. “The Chinese guy? Finch? Maybe he heard we were coming to his party. I don’t trust the Chinese guy to keep a secret. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t like being watched. When I want to know something about someone, I go ask. Spying is low-class.”

 

“You know, Hamil and I do keep our ears open for you, though.”