The Night Market Read Online Free

can be found there. She might be happy with us in
the Deep. It is warm, and there is always music.”
    “Somehow I doubt it. Go with your
first instinct, that’s my policy.”
    “You will take her?”
    “Why to the Night Market?”
    “Because there are some things even I
can see, oldest enemy. There are some things that fall into my area of
expertise, living on what others throw away. This girl is desperate and hunted.
That is a state of being that I have a great deal of sympathy for.”
    “Bah. You are soft hearted, former
prey. Very well. I will take this child as far as the Night Market. But from
there, she is on her own.”
    “When it comes to the Market,
everyone is.”
    “Don’t try to sound smart.”

 
2. How
Like A Fallen Angel
     
    Faded to the point that it no longer hurts to the
touch. The elegance of momentary vulnerability, an exposed shoulder and drug-vacant
eyes. Growing in the absence of the sun, warm and obscene, like a worm in an
apple. Lessons in darkness.
     
    Yael woke curled in a
ball, her sleeping bag kicked partway off during the night, bare shoulders
resting on a blackened patch of concrete. There was an instant of panic, a
troubling feeling of dislocation, while the events of the previous day
organized themselves in her mind.
    Sneaking out of her parent’s estate the same way she
had a million times, by crawling through the dry culvert that went underneath
the main wall, too small for anyone but her. Her flight through the flooded
neighborhood adjoining the docks, the poorly considered decision that had led
her into an abandoned subway tunnel.
    The rat.
    She flipped over, still huddled in her bag, her back
pressed against the far wall of the loft, her hands up to protect her face. It
took her a moment to process what she saw, then another for Yael to slowly
relax her guard.
    A tawny cat was curled in front of her, tail waving
lazing in front of its face, eyes bright and alert but not unfriendly.
    “Do you have anything to eat?”
    The cat looked at Yael hopefully. She shook her head
mutely.
    “Pity. Are you certain? Because the rat spoke very
highly of what you gave him. I was unable to hunt last night...”
    Yael held up her empty hands helplessly.
    “All I had was part of my sandwich from yesterday. I
wish I had some food. I’m hungry, too.”
    “Well, nothing for it, then.” The cat begin a
comprehensive set of stretches. “I’m afraid we will have to go without. Perhaps
we can find some sort of breakfast on the way.”
    Yael paused in the act of pulling her shirt over her
head. For some reason, changing in front of a cat didn’t make her feel
embarrassed at all, though she had the nagging suspicion that she should have
been.
    “If you don’t mind... on the way to what?”
    The cat shook his head solemnly, then began grooming his
forepaws, first one, then the other, with a delicate intensity.
    “Some girls wander by mistake,” the cat said gravely.
“And some run away. Whatever your intentions, child, you are nowhere except for
lost. Fortunately, you have a guide.”
    “Am I far from downtown? I wondered why I didn’t hear
any trains...”
    “You are far from everywhere. Consequently, that means
you are already halfway to the Nameless City.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” Yael complained,
pulling on her galoshes, wincing when her socks soaked up the chilled water
trapped inside.
    “It’s all a matter of perspective,” the cat offered
reasonably. “If the universe is infinite, then every possibility must exist in
reality, yes? Then, it follows that there would be a place where the world is
always ending, but never actually ends. That is where I am taking you.”
    Yael paused in the act of putting on her windbreaker.
    “That doesn’t sound like a very nice place.”
    “It isn’t a nice place. But they have something
special there, a place for people in your position.”
    “And what is my position?”
    “You have lost something you are determined to