Grit & Shadows Boxed Set

by J. D. Brink

  My gaze shifts to the corner, behind the door. Lying there is the other garlic necklace, the one Ophelia was wearing. Discarded.

  “Where is she?” I ask, getting up to all-fours.

  “She’s fine. Doc’s got her in the other room.”

  I wait on hands and knees. The garlic string is in front of me, in reach if I dare go for it. I don’t know what the hell I’ll do with it, exactly, but if he got her to ditch it, it must hold some threat, right? What about the silver mace candlestick? Not in my immediate field of vision. But I know it’s here. It was in the duffle bag. I unpacked it along with everything else. Didn’t I?

  “So, Doc Vic is a vamp after all?” I ask, stalling. For whatever good it does me; no miracle plan to save our butts is coming to mind.

  Paul waves dismissively. “Nah. He’d like to be. Begged me to make him a ‘made man,’ you know? But he’s worth too much where he is. Why screw up a good thing?”

  “Should have figured,” I say. “You being on night shifts and all.”

  Paul belts out a good belly laugh. “You never seen me in the day time, Zeus? C’mon. That’s just Hollywood bull. Sunlight don’t kill me. Just weaker in the day. And tan too easy.”

  Feet clatter in the hallway outside. Someone stumbles in front of the exam room door.

  It’s Ophelia, all out of breath. “How ‘bout electricity, you son of a bitch?”

  Two tiny darts on wires fire from the hall into Paul’s shoulder. I hear the crackle of taser juice arcing into his body.

  This is my chance.

  I grab the garlic necklace with my left hand, pivot onto one knee, then ram straight into Paul. The taser stings me at just the moment of contact, then Paul slams without me against the opposite wall.

  Poor Lou is taking up much of the floor in here. My eyes scan his unconscious form looking for—the candlestick, cradled between his legs!

  Paul bounces back with supernatural speed. His hand clamps down hard on my neck. Something pops and paper crinkles as my head gets stuffed sideways against the exam table.

  He drops me on top of Lou and knocks the taser darts clear with a wave of his hand.

  Paul flashes away.

  I don’t see where. All I do see is Lou’s pale face, inching toward death.

  I spin around, snatch the candlestick, and force myself to my feet.

  Paul’s got Ophelia. They’re standing in the doorway, her a human shield. O’s left eye is blackened and her lower lip is busted open. But I don’t see any marks on her throat. Yet.

  “Looks like you guys are the lottery winners tonight.” Paul smiles over O’s shoulder. His upper lip pulls back, showing a row of pointy shark’s teeth. There’s dry blood crusted in his five o’clock shadow. “Sorry, partner, but you’ve left me no choice.”

  O struggles but can’t move. She stops when that hot breath hits her neck.

  “I’ve been reading a lot lately,” I say. I have to say something to stop his advance. “And eating a lot of garlic!”

  The string in my left hand whips around in a wide arc, past Ophelia’s head, and slaps Paul across the face.

  He jerks away like he’s been hit by the pepper spray.

  Ophelia dives sideways.

  I bring the big silver-plated mace around in my right fist. It’s an awkward swing, far from perfect, and doubt flashes through my mind, me thinking it won’t be enough to hurt him. But the bulky column of candlestick makes contact and the alchemy alone is enough. The blow wipes away a layer of pink flesh, as if the thing were bladed instead of blunt. He staggers backward into the darkened hallway with a meaty slice of cheek shining like raw beef.

  He crashes against the opposite door. I’m starting to think we have the advantage. Then his eyes flick back up at us, shining white in the dark. His teeth glisten with slobber against the room’s pale light. Paul’s showing us what he’s become. No longer human but a monster that preys on the weaknesses of others. He’s a preternatural animal. And animals are even more dangerous when wounded.

  My knuckles go white against the uneven shape of the candlestick. Will it be enough to repel his charge? Or will he just knock it aside and tear my throat out?

  BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  O’s backup gun fires and smokes in her two-fisted grip.

  Black blood and bullets strike the door behind Paul. He slumps against it and nearly falls over.

  By the time my eyes have gone from O’s tearful face and trembling hands back to the shadowy hallway, Paul is gone.

  “Where’s Doc Vic?” I ask. My voice is as shaky as the muzzle of her gun. She still hasn’t lowered it.

  “Cuffed in a room down the hall. That son of a bitch is going down.”

  And he does.

  Seven

  Paul hasn’t surfaced yet, but I don’t think he’s dead. I even sleep with a garlic necklace on these days.

  And you know what else hangs around my neck?

  Ophelia and I both got medals from the mayor herself, awarded at the inauguration of a new addiction treatment facility. It’s a big to-do, a beautiful ceremony, and a decisive victory for the good guys. My mom doesn’t even mind my swiping Abuela’s good China when she hears my name over the loudspeakers. And later on the news.

  Maybe I only work here, but I do good work. And I’m not the only one.

  But the epidemic isn’t over, and there’s new casualties every day.

  So let’s get to it.

  Part Two

  The Proposal

  The Proposal

  James stepped off the curb on Bleaker Street and stuck his hand in the air to hail a cab. A checkered yellow Studebaker drove past him, paying him no mind. In the back seat was an exotic looking woman in a broad-brimmed hat and pearls.

  She looks nice, James thought to himself. Guess I wouldn’t have stopped either.

  Then again, I have Pauline. So I wouldn’t have picked up that high-priced dame in the first place.

  Pauline wasn’t like most women James knew. Oh, she had all the feminine qualities that others had. She had beauty: curly raven locks, crystal blue eyes, and the curves of a rather short hourglass. She had brains: the mind of a university professor, the knowledge of a librarian, and the adventurous heart of an archeologist. And she fragility. She was a soft flower, drawn into a tight bulb most of her life, just now beginning to open up and blossom into womanhood.

  James wasn’t the only one to notice Pauline’s own personal spring, either, but he was right there. At her side. Working together, exploring together. He was her sun, she his rose. And though he was six years her senior, they were meant to be together. He was sure of it, and certainly she was, too.

  Even though there had never been any actual, blatant expression of romantic feelings between them… Well, he knew it was true. Certainly she shared that unspoken bond.

  Another cab passed him by, this one with no passenger in the back seat. It simply didn’t stop for him.

  James shifted the bundle of white daisies (he couldn’t afford a dozen roses, not on a research assistant’s stipend) from his left hand to his right, as well as the tiny wooden box he held.

  Wait. Fragility? Pauline?

  James chuckled. Would a fragile flower of a girl have survived that whole big scaffolding collapsing out from under her? The sarcophagus and weight of ages falling on top of her?

  He saw the whole terrible scene again in his mind. Pauline, stout and curvy, in her working apron and flat-bottomed shoes, ten feet aloft on that bamboo scaffold. The stone chamber was lit by torches, flickering shadows everywhere. The huge stone mural of hieroglyphics loomed three-stories tall. Pauline was armed only with a coarse, horse-hair brush against the fearsome fate that was about to befall her. She swept away the dust and stones, clearing the negative space that spelled out something important in standing figures and balancing cranes and swimming crocodiles. A warning, she had said. Pauline was reading it, translating it, as she went, and she had called his attention because she thought she had finally
figured out what had been worth so much time and effort on the part of Egyptians two-thousand years dead.

  And then it happened. The wall cracked, spontaneously broke open, and the sarcophagus spilled forth from its hiding place into the dim torch light. It practically landed on top of her, though in his mind’s eye he still swore that the scaffolding had buckled first; Pauline was already in the act of falling when the vessel that would carry its cargo into the afterlife appeared from the crumbling wall.

  Although that didn’t make much sense. If not the weight of the coffin and rubble, what would have caused such a thing to happen?

  The scaffold, the opening sarcophagus, and Pauline, all piled up on the tomb floor. A wave of dust roiled outward. James had been so frightened that his eyes had played tricks on him. He swore that he saw faces in that thundercloud of dust and debris. A beautiful woman one instant, a withered, cackling skull in the next, there and gone in the space of a blink as the particles hit him in the face. He had already hurtled himself into the chaos, was tasting and choking on the airborne remains of a deceased priestess and ages of lost history.

  That had been the end of the expedition. Pauline—poor lovely, delicate Pauline—had suffered bodily injury and was unconscious as he carried her from the cavernous tomb. The guides and their camels, supposedly waiting for them outside, were in the act of fleeing when he emerged carrying his burden of love. Had he been a moment later in making it to sands and sky, he and Pauline would have been trapped there, alone. He’d have held her in his arms and watched her slowly die there in the deserts east of Cairo.

  James’s heart reacted again—speeding up, pounding against his ribs, the green taste of dread surging up his throat, thinking the girl he loved but had never told so had just been killed before his very eyes. His hands tightened involuntarily, crunching the green flower stalks and testing the sturdiness of the small wooden cube.

  After a brief hospital stay in Cairo, they were flown back home to the States. James went to his lonely apartment, and back to the university to deliver their treasures and report his findings to the board of regents. Pauline went to Gothic General. There she slept in the care of physicians and nurses who couldn’t say what was wrong with her. She appeared to suffer no serious injuries, and yet was oblivious to the world. Comatose.

  Until today. When James had phoned the hospital today, they’d told him that Pauline had woken up and discharged herself from their care. The doctors could see no reason to hold her, as she’d spontaneously awoken from the only ailment with which they could charge her.

  But why did James have to find out this way? Why hadn’t Pauline telephoned him to assist her home? Or invited him to see her once she was safely back to her apartment?

  Had her deep, death-like sleep robbed her of the feelings she once held for him? (For, surely, she loved James as much as he did her. Surely, her endless fever dreams were fantasies about their finally professing their undying love for one another, and about their wedding day, and their future children.)

  Finally, a yellow cab declaring itself of the Acme Taxi Service eased to a stop next to where James stood in the street. The driver’s face must have been a reflection of James’s own flustered, hopeful, and heartbroken expression, for he gave him quite an inquisitive and puzzled look.

  James gave the cabbie the address, following with, “My girl’s just been released from the hospital. We are reuniting today after nearly two weeks apart.”

  “Congratulations, mac,” the driver said. “But, in that case, don’t you think you could have sprung for roses?”

  Eighteen minutes later, the cab deposited James outside her building.

  But he wasn’t the only one there waiting.

  A swarm of cats, dogs, pigeons, and even rats were amassed at the stairwell door.

  The cabbie sped away with curses of confusion and disgust. James stood at the edge of the street, gripping his gifts, half afraid to step up on the curb. Several of the beasts turned around to stare him down. A mangy hound and a fierce Dachshund growled at him. More than a few cats hissed in his direction—not at the rats or canines, their natural enemies, but seemingly at James.

  Finally a jet-feathered rook squawked at him, perched on a lamppost above his initial field of vision. It cawed again and the savage peanut gallery cowered. The black bird flicked its head from side to side, sizing James up with one eye and then the other. He had the strange feeling that he was being assessed for worthiness. James fidgeted with his bowtie.

  Suddenly a Roadster blew past him, blaring its horn. James jumped onto the sidewalk.

  The menagerie of creatures gathered there, however, did not budge. They flipped around en mass to face him, to keep him from reaching the door. Only when the rook fluttered down among them, hopped around and swept its wings in shooing arcs did they take the hint and move aside. A few seconds later, the way was cleared. The animals had all retreated to the open alleyway, crouching around the corner, or peeked on from behind a blue postal box. Then the winged usher flew back to its perch and squawked a final time, as if to order James inside.

  “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen in my short lifetime…” James muttered, hurrying through the door and mounting the first few steps in a single bound.

  Pauline’s apartment was number 2B. He had never been there, but he knew it from the university records. And she must have told him herself once, as well. He was certain she would have.

  James cleared his throat, smoothed his hair, and checked his bowtie one more time. He inspected his daisies and found one stalk fractured and drooping where he’d clutched it too tightly. That one he tossed, primped the rest, and poised his fist to knock.

  But the door eased open of its own accord, just enough to allow her bid to enter to reach the hallway.

  “Um, hello?” he called, gently pushing open the door. “Pauline? It’s James. Come, uh, come a-calling. Of a sort.”

  Her apartment was small but nice. The foyer merged with the parlor on the left and kitchenette on the right. There was a sea-green sofa and chair in the parlor. A Zenith radio sat on a small, circular table beneath the window.

  Something black uncoiled itself on one seafoam-colored pillow. A black Persian cat lifted its head, probing him with yellow eyes and pointed ears. The thick furball climbed up into a sitting position and glared on, watching him defensively.

  “Oh, you have a cat,” James said nervously. “You never mentioned that before.”

  “I always keep one vassal close,” came Pauline’s voice, rougher and more determined than he was used to hearing, “and several more in waiting.”

  She strutted into the parlor and went immediately the Persian, stroking its head between the ears. She looked… good, he supposed. Pauline stood slightly taller than he remembered, wearing a strapless blue dress, black sandals, and what must have been every piece of jewelry she owned. He recognized some, simple necklaces and a few inexpensive rings that she’d inherited from her grandmother, she’d said. But Pauline usually went modest on her adornments. Today, seven fingers wore rings of various styles and the pale, bare skin of her chest held almost as many chains, lockets, and brooches. A thin tiara was poked into her curly raven hair with interlaced triangular silverwork centered at her forehead.

  Her face… Her face was pale, too, cheekbones more pronounced, and her eyes appeared sunken, made worse by the darkening application of cosmetic eyeshadow and thick, ruby lip gloss. Pauline almost never wore make-up, and he’d certainly never seen her put it on so heavily.

  Two weeks asleep, he reasoned. Not eating, not taking care of herself, just… Just the illness. And two weeks of famine. That must be it.

  Pauline glared at him. “Well?” she demanded.

  “Well, uh,” James stammered. “I wish you’d have telephoned me, Pauline, I could have helped you home.”

  “Are those for me?” she asked expectedly.

  “Oh, yes!” He clumsily stumbled forward, flowers out-stretched. When she didn’t take the bo
uquet, he simply lowered his arm. The tiny wooden cube he gripped even tighter now, consuming it in his hand. He almost hoped she didn’t see it, that he hadn’t brought it.

  “So, uh, how are you feeling?”

  “Better,” she said. “Better than I have in years. Thousands and thousands of years.”

  James chuckled. “It’s only been two weeks. Two long weeks, granted. They seemed a lifetime to me, too.” He felt his cheeks blush and hated himself for it.

  “Oh, the treasures!” He looked around for somewhere to place the flowers, found nothing, and continued. “The tomb, the artifacts, everything we brought back from Cairo.”

  “Oh, Cairo,” she breathed. “Poor ignorant, vengeful Cairo…”

  “Uh, yes. Well… Not sure what you mean there, dear.” He’d slipped in a dear! Had she even noticed? Did she mind? “Professor Clark has analyzed what we found and determined that the tomb belonged to an excommunicated priestess—”

  “Hecateptra,” Pauline said, stepping nearer. “The Stillness of the Water. The Emptiness of the Night. The Cold in Men’s Hearts.”

  She was close now—very close, inches from him. A dark passion flared in the deepness of her blue eyes. Her ruby lips pursed provocatively as she formed each syllable. She stood so near to him now that the heat of her body… Well, actually, he felt a rather chill vacuum coming from her direction, but James certainly felt warmer.

  He flushed and licked his lips with a suddenly dry and anxious tongue.

  “That’s right,” he whispered.

  Her fathomless blue gaze locked on to his. He felt as if he were swimming in those dark pools.

  Swimming.

  Sinking.

  Drowning.

  Her powerful, entrancing glare broke away and glanced downward.

  “What do you have there? What are you keeping secret from me?”

  Slowly, he raised his hand and unfurled his fingers. A tiny wooden box, two cubic inches, rested on his palm. He dropped the daisies to the floor and used his other hand to slide open the lid. Inside, nestled among a packing of shredded paper, was a ring. A scarab of tarnished turquoise, hastily polished as best he could, clasped to a circlet of pure gold.