Page 1 of Installment Immortality

Prologue

“It’s all right, baby girl. This isn’t your fault, and the best thing you can do for me now is to live your life. The world isn’t your responsibility to save.”

—Eloise Dunlavy

A remote crossroad in the Mojave Desert

Seventy-five years ago

THE SKY WAS THE DEEP, rich blue that was only possible miles from any signs of civilization, and it glittered with so many stars that they seemed to fill the entire world, lighting up the sand with a pale, luminous glow. The road that cut through the dunes was a scar against the flesh of the land, too dark and swallowing the starlight as nothing else in the environment did. The moon was a bleached, bloated disk, hanging high overhead like a silent judge over the scene that had yet to properly begin.

The air grew thick, and the staticky sound of a million insectile wings began to emanate from absolutely nowhere, forming an ongoing, inherently endless drone. There was something wrong with it, something unnatural in the precise timing of each individual wingbeat, like they were matched to an invisible metronome.

Overhead, a star glittered brighter for a moment, and a single gust of wind blew along the black tar ribbon of the road. A scorpion that had been lounging on the concrete, absorbing the lastlingering heat of the day, rose on its segmented legs and scuttled away, vanishing into the sand.

The pale teenage girl who had appeared where the scorpion was looked around herself with disinterested eyes, long white hair ruffled by the wind. Her clothing was easily twenty years out of date, matching the age of the shadows in her graveyard eyes. They weren’t gray or black or any other color that has a name behind it; rather, they were the color of a cold afternoon in an empty churchyard, when everything smells of petrichor and loam. They were impossible eyes, for an equally impossible girl. Her fingers were stained blue and red and yellow, primary colors swirled together in a formless, artless mess.

The buzzing grew louder for a moment, and then a voice spoke out of the nothingness, saying, “You know this won’t do, Mary. You’re not dressed for a negotiation.”

“Huh, what’s that?” The girl—Mary—looked down at her loose, well-worn shirt and lifted her eyebrows, white as her hair, in an expression of exaggerated surprise. “You mean this isn’t what you think of as my uniform? Funny thing, that. I was supposed to have tonight off.”

“You’re our arbiter, and we own you,” said the voice from nowhere. “Dismiss this idea of nights off and dress yourself accordingly for your position, or we’ll do it for you.” The threat in those words wasn’t even partially veiled: it was open and direct.

Mary rolled her eyes and waved her painted hands in a sweeping gesture that managed to encompass her, the road, the fleeing scorpion, everything there was for her to encompass, and she… flickered, like a still from an old, well-patched strip of film. Her out-of-fashion clothing vanished in that flicker, replaced by a blouse with a deep V for a neck, colored as scarlet as her perfectly applied lipstick, a wide black belt, and a long A-line skirt that stopped just above her ankles, displaying her black Mary Janepumps to perfect effect. Her hair remained loose and unstyled, now moving ever so slightly against the wind, like even it was running out of patience.

Her hands were abruptly clean, not a trace of paint in sight.

“Isthisbetter?” she asked.

“Yes, Mary,” said the voice from nowhere, mockingly. “You finally look as if you know your proper place, and won’t embarrass us before tonight’s petitioner. You’re going to be meeting a very famous man on our behalf. Amovie star.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “I don’t care. Alice is almost too old for fingerpainting, and you pulled me away from her when you knew I was supposed to be sitting tonight. This goes against our agreement.”

“Do you really want to renegotiate the terms of your employment, Mary Dunlavy? Do you want to count on your connection to that mewling brat being strong enough to keep you manifest if we decide to be done with you?”

Wisely, Mary didn’t answer.

The nothingness chuckled. “Good girl,” it said. “He should be here soon.”

Under the endless stretch of stars, Mary and the desert waited.

Minutes stretched into hours, and the buzzing faded into an annoying background hum, like an overloaded power line singing to itself through the country night. Mary shifted her semi-substantial weight from one foot to the other, trying not to squirm. She wasn’t physically uncomfortable—that sort of burden was no longer hers to carry unless she wanted it to be, and as she wasn’t fully solid, she wasn’t heir to the miseries of the flesh. What shewasheir to was boredom, made worse by the knowledge that Alice was missing her. The girl’s little voice had been tugging on the edge of Mary’sconsciousness for well over an hour, repeating her name over and over again. It was like having someone ringing a hotel bell every few seconds to summon a clerk who was busy with another guest.

“Are yousurehe’s coming?” she demanded peevishly, as off in the distance, the sound of an engine split the night. It was roaring, clearly pushed to its limits by whoever was behind the wheel.

“He comes,” said the voice from nowhere, sounding smug. Mary caught her breath and stood up a little straighter. “Hide yourself,” commanded the voice, and Mary disappeared. The buzzing stopped a moment later.

The night was silent except for the distant roar of the approaching engine, still as only a midnight desert could be. Even the wind had stopped.

With a screech of rubber tires and laboring brakes, a cherry-red roadster swept around the curve in the road and roared to a stop just shy of the physical crossroads. The cooling engine ticked almost angrily as a booted foot kicked the driver’s-side door open and a short, slim man slid out of the seat. He didn’t walk so much as he swaggered, like he was performing for some unseen camera. Like his car, he stopped just shy of the place where the two roads met, standing on the border of the physical crossroads.

He looked at the intersection for a moment, then up at the sky, studying the stars as the renewed wind stroked the perfectly gelled sweep of his pompadour.

“Oh, this is bullshit. This isn’t anyplace special. Just another chunk of dead-end road not worth pissing on,” he said. “That fucker was just saying whatever he could think of to get me out of his shit-ass trailer. Probably afraid I’d tell the fuzz where to find his little camp. Bet he’s terrified someone’s going to come along and sweep all his child brides away into the dark.”

(Beneath his feet the road, which had been neutral a moment before, cooled and turned against him. But Diamond Bobby had never been destined for a routewitch’s life, and he didn’t understand how important it was to stay on the good side of the roads. He wasn’t paying attention.)

He scoffed, looking down again. “This is stupid,” he said. “Waste of time and gas.”

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