The Black Curtain

Previously: Batya is improbably embroiled in some card game she doesn’t know how to play, and the prize is the sword she failed to steal about a year ago. My mother told me she’s worried that Bat’s not gonna get out of this one, and now I am too.

— 61 —

Nia Muto points a manicured nail at the knife between Batya’s fingers. “Mister Jack,” she says to the very old man. “Kindly retrieve that—delicately—and give it here. I require a letter opener.”

Jack stares at Bat and does nothing for a count of ten. Then he pulls the blade from the table and tosses it with a clatter. Bat gives him a look that says I know you know what I could do to you. It’s one of her specialties, not a day goes by she doesn’t take it out for a spin. Alas, he doesn’t seem to notice.

Nia picks up the knife, slits open the envelope, takes out its contents. She gasps. She flings it onto the table as if it were red hot.

The other players lean in for a gander, as do all the various deckhands and yeomen and bottle-washers, including the newly toothless Daniel Suwannakintho.

It looks to Bat like just another one of these carrick cards, except this one doesn’t have a name, just a single wavy line there near the bottom.

The Harbormaster screeches his chair back, stands. “That thing legit?”

Sister Aether starts to shudder more violently, and then there’s a piercing screech, but it’s not coming from her mouth, more like it’s bursting inside Bat’s skull, causing tears to roll down her cheeks.

“Well, I’ll swan,” Jack says, eyeing the card. He seems amused, or dyspeptic, hard to say. “That’s a rarity.”

“Abomination is what it is,” Nia says, snapping her fingers at nobody in particular. “Bonewater, posthaste.”

A flunky appears at her side with a bottle of Snakehair rotgut that Bat unfortunately recognizes: a sadistic 140 proof liquor that is more often used for setting an adversary aflame than drinking. And Nia doesn’t drink it either, instead pouring it on her hands to disinfect them.

“That sick trollop,” she hisses. “Bringing that card on board my ship.”

“Hey I didn’t know what it was,” Bat says, wiping her eyes. “Still don’t.”

“Not you, honey,” Nia says. “The late cattleman.”

The Harbormaster reluctantly sits back down. He flicks his lighter to life, clacks it shut, repeat. “What was Dezzetti’s play, I wonder?”

“Intent does not interest me,” Nia says. “I’m certain I’ve mentioned this. What interests me are rules, and how this changes them.”

“The rules speak plain,” Jack says. “Courier inherits it along with the rest of the man’s deck.”

Bat tries to read the table but reading things is not her strong suit. She has another brief pang of regret that Mina isn’t here.

“What if I don’t want it?” she says. “You all make it sound like something I don’t want.”

“Want ain’t got a thing to do with carrick,” Jack says.

Aether is still vibrating angrily. “I won’t play with that in the mix. It’s diabolic.”

“I’m afraid Mister Jack is right,” Nia sighs, still looking at the card like a pit viper poised to strike. “You don’t get a say. The cards is the cards.”

Bat’s shoulder feels woeful, and her stomach lurches with each undulation of the ship. And yet she finds herself enjoying the giddy exuberance she always gets during times like these. Times when there is no hope. A vertiginous freedom that hits when she knows nothing in her life prior to this moment matters because she is utterly lost, and surrounded by strangers, and the future—what’s left of it—can stagger off into just about any direction.

“OK,” she says. “Tell me what’s so diabolic about this thing.”

Nia says nothing, then says, “It’s called the Black Curtain. And I thought it was cock and bull till about five minutes ago.”

“What’s it do?”

“It does nothing. Every other carrick card changes some rule or other, but this one simply...lurks.”

“Seems pretty pointless.”

“Aye, it is. Until the very end, when it makes its presence known. See, whomsoever is in possession of the Curtain at the close of the game has to, ah, flip it over.”

Sister Aether’s eyes gleam from behind her chain-veil. “And discover what is revealed there on its obverse.”

“Right now,” Nia says, “there is nothing on the back. At the end of the game, a picture will be there. And this picture will tell you how you’re going to die.”

“In no uncertain terms,” the Harbormaster says.

Bat laughs a little, that giddy exuberance, then snatches up the card.

The entire room seems to recoil at once.

Nia shakes her head. “I do adore your grit, sweetheart.”

Bat glances at the back of the card and, indeed, finds it blank. Then she adds it to her hand, fans it out, tries to look serious and thoughtful. “So, what, I should try to get rid of it?”

“That’s one strategy,” the old man says. He smiles and craggy wrinkles appear around his mouth, eyes, everywhere.

“All right,” Bat says. “Let’s play this stupid game.”

+++

This has been Chapter 61 of Chokeville, a novel by Josh Fireland.

Next up: The King of the Mothers