Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy

416 Pages·2011·1.81 MB·English

by  Ellen Datlow

For my parents, Doris and Nathan Datlow, whom I love dearly and who infected me with their love for
reading.
Contents TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
INTRODUCTION
CURSES BY JIM BUTCHER
HOW THE POOKA CAME TO NEW YORK CITY BY DELIA SHERMAN
ON THE SLIDE BY RICHARD BOWES
THE DUKE OF RIVERSIDE BY ELLEN KUSHNER
OBLIVION BY CALVIN KLEIN BY CHRISTOPHER FOWLER
FAIRY GIFTS BY PATRICIA BRIGGS
PICKING UP THE PIECES BY PAT CADIGAN
UNDERBRIDGE BY PETER S. BEAGLE
PRICED TO SELL BY NAOMI NOVIK
THE BRICKS OF GELECEK BY MATTHEW KRESSEL
WESTON WALKS BY KIT REED
THE PROJECTED GIRL BY LAVIE TIDHAR
THE WAY STATION BY NATHAN BALLINGRUD
GUNS FOR THE DEAD BY MELISSA MARR
AND GO LIKE THIS BY JOHN CROWLEY
NOBLE ROT BY HOLLY BLACK
DADDY LONGLEGS OF THE EVENING BY JEFFREY FORD
THE SKINNY GIRL BY LUCIUS SHEPARD
THE COLLIERS’ VENUS (1893) BY CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN
KING POLE, GALLOWS POLE, BOTTLE TREE BY ELIZABETH BEAR
ABOUT ELLEN DATLOW
ALSO EDITED BY ELLEN DATLOW
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT
Introduction
The term urban fantasy was originally applied to fantasy written in reaction to
the works most popular up to the early 1980s—high-fantasy, imaginary worlds
with medieval trappings. Instead, some writers began to inject magic into
contemporary times and into urban areas, both real and invented. Mark Helprin
set his charming novel Winter’s Tale in New York City, and John Crowley set his
classic Little, Big at least partially in a recognizable New York. Many of Charles
de Lint’s Newford stories and novels take place in a thinly disguised Toronto,
while Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks is indelibly linked to Minneapolis. Terri
Windling was influential in the subgenre’s “founding” by creating Borderland, a
shared-universe original anthology series (the first two edited with Mark
Arnold), set in an imaginary city in which humans and magical creatures could
meet and interact.
Urban fantasy as we have come to know it today combines the often-dark
edge of city living with enticing worlds of magic. Its subgenres include noir
crime and paranormal romance. But the urban landscape is what’s crucial.
As one who lives in and loves New York City and enjoys traveling to other
cities around the world, to me, urban centers seem to seethe with an energy,
cultural diversity, and creativity that is more difficult to find in suburban or rural
areas. You can lose yourself in a big city or you can find yourself.
In soliciting stories for this anthology I asked writers to consider all types of
locations (as long as the story takes place in a city—existing or made up). I
wanted the city to be as important as anything else in the story—in other words,
where the story takes place should matter, in some way, to the story. Perhaps the
most fun of editing an anthology such as this is the sheer variety of types of
stories that can fit under the rubric “urban fantasy.” Some of the authors chose
existing cities that are well known and easy to identify. There are several New
York stories—each very different. Other stories take place in London; Berlin;
New Orleans; Haifa, Israel; Chicago; Seattle; Mexico City; Las Vegas; Asbury
Park, New Jersey; and Cherry Creek, Colorado. Others created imaginary cities.
Urban centers are packed with people, and this component of cities can be
both a boon for gregarious types or a curse for those who are shy and reserved. It
can also be utterly intimidating to newcomers, such as the pair of odd-couple
immigrants in Delia Sherman’s historical fantasy, or it can be an opportunity for
those with bad intent, such as the protagonists in Jeffrey Ford’s and Matthew
Kressel’s stories. A weird joyousness pervades John Crowley’s story, which
takes some off-the-cuff remarks by inventor, futurist, and visionary Buckminster
Fuller quite literally, creating an unexpected fantasia.
Some of the greatest loneliness can be experienced when surrounded by
people—such is the case for the eponymous character in Kit Reed’s “Weston
Walks,” a recluse who ventures out only periodically; Nathan Ballingrud’s
displaced person, a haunted refugee from the natural disaster that took his home;
and Peter S. Beagle’s bitter academic hoping for a last chance of stability. Naomi
Novik has written the quintessential New York story.
The Naked City was the title of a 1948 semidocumentary crime movie,
inspired by the book by famous urban documentarian/crime photographer
Weegee. In turn, the lauded television series Naked City ran in half-hour
episodes 1958 to 1959, was canceled, and then was reincarnated in 1960 as an
hour-long show, lasting until 1963. (An uncle of mine played a minor role in one
episode, but I was too young to stay up and watch it.) The catchphrase was
“There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.”
The city was New York, and eight million was an approximation of the
population at the time. So aside from being catchy, the title reflects the diversity
of what lies between these two covers.
—Ellen Datlow
Curses
A DRESDEN FILES SHORT STORY

BY JIM BUTCHER
Jim Butcher is the bestselling author most known for his urban fantasy series
The Dresden Files. He also writes the Codex Alera series. Butcher lives in
Missouri with his wife, son, and a ferocious guard dog.
Most of my cases are pretty tame. Someone loses a piece of jewelry with a lot of
sentimental value, or someone comes to me because they’ve just moved into a
new house and it’s a little more haunted than the seller’s disclosure indicated.
Nothing Chicago’s only professional wizard can’t handle—but the cases don’t
usually rake in much money, either.
So when a man in a two-thousand-dollar suit opened my office door and came
inside, he had my complete attention.
I mean, I didn’t take my feet down off my desk or anything. But I paid
attention.
He looked my office up and down and frowned, as though he didn’t much
approve of what he saw. Then he looked at me and said, “Excuse me, is this the
office of—”
“Dolce,” I said.
He blinked. “Excuse me.”
“Your suit,” I said. “Dolce and Gabbana. Silk. Very nice. You might want to
consider an overcoat, though, now that it’s cooling off. Paper says we’re in for
some rain.”
He studied me intently for a moment. He was a man in his late prime. His hair
was dyed too dark, and the suit looked like it probably hid a few pounds. “You
must be Harry Dresden.”
I inclined my head toward him. “Agent or attorney?”
“A little of both,” he said, looking around my office again. “I represent a
professional entertainment corporation, which wishes to remain anonymous for
the time being. My name is Donovan. My sources tell me that you’re the man
who might be able to help us.”
My office isn’t anything to write home about. It’s on a corner, with windows
on two walls, but it’s furnished for function, not style—scuffed-up wooden
desks, a couple of comfortable chairs, some old metal filing cabinets, a used
wooden table, and a coffeepot that is old enough to have belonged to
Neanderthals. I figured Donovan was worried that he’d exposed his suit to
unsavory elements, and resisted an irrational impulse to spill my half cup of
cooling coffee on it.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“What you need and whether you can afford me.”
Donovan fixed me with a stern look. I bore up under it as best I could. “Do
you intend to gouge me for a fee, Mr. Dresden?”
“For every penny I reasonably can,” I told him.
He blinked at me. “You … you’re quite up front about it, aren’t you?”
“Saves time,” I said.
“What makes you think I would tolerate such a thing?”
“People don’t come to me until they’re pretty desperate, Mr. Donovan,” I said,
“especially rich people and hardly ever corporations. Besides, you come in here
all intriguey and coy, not wanting to reveal who your employer is. That means
that in addition to whatever else you want from me, you want my discretion,
too.”
“So your increased fee is a polite form of blackmail?”
“Cost of doing business. If you want this done on the down low, you make my
job more difficult. You should expect to pay a little more than a conventional
customer when you’re asking for more than they are.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “How much are you going to cost me?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Let’s find out. What do you want me to do?”
He stood up and turned to walk to the door. He stopped before he reached it,
read the words HARRY DRESDEN, WIZARD backward in the frosted glass, and eyed
me over his shoulder. “I assume that you have heard of any number of curses in
local folklore.”
“Sure,” I said.
“I suppose you’ll expect me to believe in their existence.”
I shrugged. “They’ll exist or not exist regardless of what you believe, Mr.
Donovan.” I paused. “Well. Apart from the ones that don’t exist except in
someone’s mind. They’re only real because somebody believes. But that edges
from the paranormal over toward psychology. I’m not licensed for that.”
He grimaced and nodded. “In that case…”
I felt a little slow off the mark as I realized what we were talking about. “A
cursed local entertainment corporation,” I said. “Like maybe a sports team.”
He kept a poker face on, and it was a pretty good one.
“You’re talking about the Billy Goat Curse,” I said.
Donovan arched an eyebrow and then gave me an almost imperceptible nod as
he turned around to face me again. “What do you know about it?”
I blew out my breath and ran my fingers back through my hair. “Uh, back in
1945 or so, a tavern owner named Sianis was asked to leave a World Series
game at Wrigley. Seems his pet goat was getting rained on and it smelled bad.
Some of the fans were complaining. Outraged at their lack of social élan, Sianis
pronounced a curse on the stadium, stating that never again would a World
Series game be played there. Well, actually he said something like, ‘Them Cubs,
they ain’t gonna win no more,’ but the World Series thing is the general
interpretation.”
“And?” Donovan asked.
“And I think if I’d gotten kicked out of a Series game I’d been looking
forward to, I might do the same thing.”
“You have a goat?”
“I have a moose,” I said.
He blinked at that for a second, didn’t understand it, and decided to ignore it.
“If you know that, then you know that many people believe that the curse has
held.”