Song of Siren and Blood by Thomas K. Carpenter

Author:Thomas K. Carpenter [Carpenter, Thomas K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Carpenter
Published: 2022-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Minerva was walking back from the Last Note when she saw the ginger man. It was a fine March day, and puffy white clouds reflected on the massive glass pillar of the Spire. The breeze tousled her hair but wasn't so swift that it was annoying. She felt good about her lessons with Audrey, who was headed downtown to buy a present for her dad's birthday. After two hours of stone singing, she'd managed to shape the cube into a lumpy bean. A failing grade by Professor Zeng's standards, but more than she'd accomplished thus far during the year.

Her insides went cold when she saw him. Suddenly she didn't know what to do with her hands. The ginger man, Rütsch, stood next to a newspaper kiosk, staring directly at her. She thought of leaping into a taxi and speeding away, but there was an inevitability to his gaze, a weight that she couldn't avoid.

"G'morning, Minerva," he said in his lilting Irish accent.

She gritted her teeth. "You're not Irish, and don't call me that. Kitty spies on me."

"I need to have a word with you."

Minerva searched the street for an appropriate place for a private conversation. The only thing she saw that wouldn't be packed with people was an occult bookstore called the Nine Eyes. The shop was narrow and deep. Barely two arm-widths across, it was packed with shelves that looked like they were going to spill their books onto the floor at any moment.

She stopped deep enough into the store that they weren't visible from the street, but close enough to the front that she could watch who might come in through the door.

Content they hadn't been followed, she gave her attention to the ginger man. His eyes were colder than before, pale green rather than bright emerald. He had the sleeves of his shirt pulled to his elbows. The sleeve of overlapping leaf tattoos looked washed out.

"What do you want?"

He lifted a fist before his lips, coughed lightly. "Your father has been stingy with the payment he owes me."

"That's not my problem. Take it up with him or Mr. Thule," she said.

The ginger man glowered. She smelled wicker and fat sizzling in a hot fire. "It's your problem now if you want to stay in that body, Minerva."

"If it's money you want, I can get you that," she said, wondering if taking their private conversation to a small business with few workers and customers was a good idea. She sensed he could kill her with little trouble, or remorse.

"I don't want money," he said, the Irish accent disappearing briefly, replaced with a guttural tilt to his words. "I want what they owe me, what is mine by rights, what those bastards stole from me, and now they're dangling it before me like a prize, making me dance for them." He jammed his finger into his own chest. "I'm the one who makes people dance. I'm the one who calls, not them."

The heat coming from him felt like standing before a bonfire.

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