them want to do things. Give them freaky powers. Normal people who've got a feel for it and the right training-call 'em wizards or witches or cunning men or whatever-they can do some pretty weird shit, but nothing compared to what riders are capable of."
"So not just demons, but magic too," I said. He dropped the onion into the spreading pool of butter, where it sizzled angrily. The pepper was next for the block.
"Thing is, kid, the folks that believe that shit? They're absolutely right. That's exactly how the world is. Let me give you a fer instance. I know you're wondering what the fuck happened to me, right? Well, how old do you think I am?"
"I...I don't..."
"I was born the year they stormed the Bastille. The year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty motherfucking nine." His voice had taken on an angry buzz. The blade in his hand flickered over the cutting board. "I crossed the Invisible College, and they cursed me. I've been wandering around ever since. Coin is direct apostolic line from the pig fucker who did this to me. He's the only one who can take it back."
He put the peppers in with the browning onions. Wisps of smoke and steam rose from the black metal.
"I came to Eric because he's the kind of guy who knows things. Helps people. I needed help."
"You're telling me that a bunch of evil wizards killed my uncle?" I could hear the raw disbelief in my own voice.
His yellowed eyes locked on me. He took an egg from the carton and cracked it deliberately on the countertop.
"I'm telling you the world's more complicated than you thought," he said. "And I'm not wrong about that."
While he whipped eggs in a tiny steel mixing bowl, I sat hunched over the breakfast bar, brandy in my hands. I felt like I'd been on an amusement park ride one too many times. Confused and dizzy and a little sick. We both knew he was giving me time to think. Time, specifically, to decide he was a nut or a liar. My first guess was both. But he was the only thread I had that might lead to Uncle Eric and whoever had killed him.
"Okay," I said as he poured the yellow-white froth over the peppers and onions, "let's say I buy it. What were you two going to do? Track this Coin guy down and give him a good talking to?"
"The Invisible College is here for a reason. Every few years, they have to come together to induct new people into the club. They have to call up a rider, open the poor sucker who's signing up for the horror show, and infect them with it. Things start moving just outside the world like sharks coming up for chum. When you get too many riders bumping around, the barrier between the physical world and the abstract gets...well, not thin exactly, but weird. That started in April. While that's happening, the Invisible College has its hands full. Eric and I were planning to disrupt things before they could eat the new crop of people. And while we were at it, kill Coin."
"You were going to murder someone?"
He put his hand on the handle of the skillet, flinched back from the heat, and reached for a dishcloth to protect himself.
"Coin's dead, kid," he said. "Coin's been dead since the day they made him Invisible. We were looking to kill the thing that's living in his body."
He lifted the skillet, and a flick of his wrist spun the omelet in the air, folded it, and caught it. The ragged lips twisted into a satisfied smile. He waited a few seconds, then flipped it to the other side.
"That's how it works with them," he said. "You take the unclean spirit inside, and it devours you. It's not always like that. Other kinds of rider, you maybe don't need a ceremony. You get bitten, you pick up the wrong guy at the bar. You get assaulted. Maybe it kicks you out of your body, puts you someplace else. Or it just hangs out in the back of your mind, making suggestions or taking over in little ways so you won't even notice."
"That's..." I didn't know whether I was going to say horrible or gross or implausible. Midian shrugged.
"Yeah, well," he said. "Thing is, the Invisible College bastards? They're strong, and they're smart, and they're organized. Every one of them that penetrates into the world makes Coin stronger, and