by DD Barant
“That’s a little harsh.”
“No, underage scotch is a little harsh. What you’ve done to me has to be measured on a different scale entirely.”
“You want another apology?”
“How many until I have the full set?”
“Getting one from me in the first place makes it a collector’s item.”
“Great. I’ll put it up on eBay and see what I can get.”
The last remark provokes an unexpected burst of laughter. “What?” I say. I can banter with the best of them, but that wasn’t much of a punch line.
“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head and grinning. “I think we have a little cultural dissonance going on. What’s eBay in your world?”
“A public auction site, where people buy and sell practically everything—why, what is it here?”
“Online porn for thropes. There’s this thing they do called baying, which involves releasing as long and loud a howl as possible at the moment of orgasm. EBaying is doing the same thing over the Internet.”
I frown. “That explains a lot. And here I thought he’d pulled a muscle in his back or something. . . .”
Okay, I just made that up. But it provoked another burst of laughter from Cassius, and he had one of those infectious laughs that could cause giggles at a funeral. I started laughing, too. And then I thought of this scene I’d seen in a movie once—I think it was Porky’s II—where a woman with the nickname Lassie is having sex in a school equipment room. The sex itself is offscreen; what the audience sees is the reaction of the high-school boys trying to play basketball in the gym next door as the woman does exactly what Cassius just described: lets loose with a long, mournful howl as she hits her peak. It goes on and on and on, getting funnier and funnier, but what’s really hilarious is the reaction shots of the boys as they struggle—and fail—to keep straight faces. When I saw it in the theater, it provoked the same kind of building crescendo of laughter in the audience, leaving them literally gasping; the humor may have been juvenile, but the setup and delivery was genius.
And that’s what happens to us. The harder I try to keep my own laughter under control, the harder I laugh. So does Cassius. I don’t know if the Urthbone is affecting the equation, but every time I think I’m done I hear this desperate Owwoooooooooooooooooh in my head, and I’m off again.
“Okay,” I gasp. “Damn. I think I needed that.”
“That’s probably what he said,” Cassius says, and we both start all over again.
When it finally, finally winds down, things are different between us. Laughter is something we take for granted, because everyone—old, young, dumb, smart, good, evil—laughs. But you can’t share the kind of release Cassius and I just did without a certain level of intimacy, whether you acknowledge it or not.
It doesn’t last. The monitor on his desk chimes three times, and his attention is instantly fixed on it. “Jace,” he says. “The Miyagi video just went up on the Net.”
He swivels the monitor so I can see it, too. Sure enough, there’s a bound Keiko Miyagi, suspended by her wrists, her ankles fastened to the pole that’s slowly killing her. Any laughter left in me dies as she does. It’s gruesome to watch . . . but it’s also my job.
Cassius is already on the phone to Gretchen, trying to pin down the server that’s hosting the site. I can tell it’s not going well, but that’s hardly a surprise. I study the footage intently, looking for revelation. She’s nude but not gagged, and a steady stream of loud, angry Japanese is pouring from her mouth. She’s not going quietly. The first two vics didn’t do much more than howl or scream; Fieldstone went from being drugged to wolfing out, while Porter was too busy fighting drug-crazed huskies to utter anything coherent. I wonder what she’s saying.
“It’s originating in Alaska,” Cassius tells me. “Get to the airport—Charlie and Eisfanger will meet you there.” I’m already on my feet and moving.
And wondering who’s dying at this very moment.
NINE
“Well, here we are again,” Eisfanger says, taking his seat. The plane starts to taxi down the runway. “How was everyone’s weekend?”
“Outstanding,” Charlie grunts, staring out the window.
“Interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word,” I answer, flipping open my laptop.
“Yeah? I spent mine—”
“Gretch’s nailed down the location,” I say. “Same as last time, a satellite link broadcasting from a remote area, in this case a river delta in Alaska. Local law enforcement are being advised, but they’re going to wait for us until they move in. We’ll have first eyes on the site.”
“Unless the natives beat us to it,” Eisfanger says.
I frown at him. “I thought local authorities were onboard.”
“Not talking about the law. I mean natives, as in Alaskan packs. You ever seen an Alaskan timber wolf?”
I shake my head.
“Well, they mass a little less than a grizzly and are a lot less friendly. There are bloodlines in that state that go back thousands of years, and some of them have never even bothered taking full human form.”
“Great. Hillbillies with fangs. How about pires?”
“Tourists, mostly. Get a lot of them during the dark season—you know, hardly any daylight. Anchorage has a lot of casinos.”
That made sense. Dr. Pete had said something about Anchorage, but I couldn’t quite recall what it had been. Something about Moondays?
“We’ll be flying in to Anchorage,” Eisfanger says, “then transferring to a floatplane. The nearest town is Bethel, a glorified fishing and hunting village with the only government offices for hundreds of miles. We’ll touch down on the river, then take a boat to the site itself.”
“He’s not making it easy for us, is he? Every one of his killing sites has been in the middle of nowhere. Serials that pick remote spots usually do so for one of two reasons: to conceal their crimes, or because the location isolates their victims, letting them hunt without interference. The first definitely isn’t true—he’s publicizing his crimes, not hiding them.”
Eisfanger scratches his wide jaw. “So maybe the second reason? A human being is at a physical disadvantage against a hemovore or a lycanthrope; maybe he’s trying to even the odds.”
“Possibly, but I don’t think so. Two of his victims were large and strong, and one worked for a powerful criminal organization—if anything, he’s flaunting the fact that he’s not afraid of anyone. No, the locations are important in and of themselves—I’m just not sure how.”
“The Japanese site had historical relevance.”
“True, but the Australian one didn’t. And the McMurdo site is a big unknown—unless you’d care to enlighten me?”
He hesitates, then looks around as if he expects someone to leap out from behind a seat, even though we’re the only ones on the plane. Charlie’s still staring out the window, but he abruptly gets up and walks to the rear of the plane without saying a word.
“Where’s he going?” I ask.
“Out of earshot,” Eisfanger says. “Guess he thinks I don’t trust him.”
“Do you?”
“Of course!” Eisfanger says, sounding offended. “But I’m not going to force him to listen to something that could get him in trouble. Plausible deniability ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
“Okay. So what can you tell me?”
“Not that much, really. The McMurdo site is a weapons research facility—that’s why it’s located in such a remote region.”
“Weapons? You mean like nuclear weapons?” From the confused look on his face, I can see he has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Right,” I say. “No nukes. Well, that’s good news, anyway.”
“I don’t know what nukes are, but I doubt they’re as dangerous as what they test at McMurdo. I don’t have any details, just rumors—but they’re quite disturbing.”
“Tell me.”
“Diseases that target only thropes or pires. Orbi
tal mirrors that could focus sunlight on any part of the globe. Golems that mimic thropes or pires perfectly.”
“Bioweapons, space lasers, and androids?”
His eyes widen. “You’re familiar with these things?”
“Only in fiction. My world hasn’t gotten any further than the rumor stage with those ideas, either—most of them, anyway.”
A weapons facility and an old concentration camp. Stoker’s trying to tell me—to tell the world—something, but there’s more to it than the sorry plight of the human race. Is the weapon the government’s working on maybe something designed to solve the human problem once and for all?
But the human problem means two different things for pires and thropes. Pires need human stock to replenish their own, while thropes don’t; therefore, it’s ultimately in the thropes’ best interests for the human race to die out, and in the pires’ for it to survive.
The first victim was a pire scientist at McMurdo. If the pires were working for the survival of humans, why kill one?
I think about it all the way to Anchorage—and wonder how much I can trust my own boss.
I don’t get to see much of Anchorage beyond the airport. About the only difference that really stands out in the terminal is the aroma; there’s a certain rank gaminess to the air, probably caused by the preponderance of thropes. I don’t see many in were form—air travel is really more comfortable for the two-legged—but I can sure smell them. Still, a New York bus on an August night is worse.
I’ve never been a fan of small planes, and adding pontoons doesn’t make it any better. I try to take my mind off the choppiness and sudden drops in altitude by studying the terrain below. It’s beautiful, raw and wild and green, and being high above it almost makes it seem like I’m home again.
The pilot is a black man—well, a dark-skinned thrope—with a French-Canadian accent and gold-rimmed aviator glasses. His name is Francis Duvalier, and apparently he’s not only our ride but also the local Sheriff. I get a sense of relaxed amusement from him, that kind of been-there-done-that confidence you find in highly independent people. He fills us in on the local political landscape and what we can expect as far as cooperation from the locals goes: not much.
“This place, it is very much like the Wild West,” he says loudly over the roar of the engine. “The locals, they do not like to be told what to do. They keep to themselves, and solve conflicts with their fangs and claws.”
“They do that a lot?” I ask.
“There are many packs, each with its own territory. Border disputes happen often, but war between packs almost never. Most disputes are settled one-on-one.”
So—not so much hillbillies as street gangs. Lucky I packed my switchblade.
“Is there a local boss?” I ask. “The leader of the strongest pack?”
Duvalier grins at me. “How do you think I got this job?”
The flight takes a few hours—Alaska is a big place. We finally touch down on the Kuskokwim River around 4:00 P.M. and I can get out and stand on solid ground again. The air is cold, barely above freezing, and I’m not really dressed for it. It doesn’t seem to bother either Duvalier or Eisfanger, and Charlie of course ignores it completely. I wrap my arms around myself and try not to shiver.
Duvalier tilts his head back and sniffs the air. “First snow of the year coming, I think. Maybe mess up the crime scene.”
“Then we better get going,” I snap. Being cold makes me grouchy.
“Of course. But we can get there faster traveling as loup, no?”
He has a point, but I’d rather not tell him I’m a mere human unless I have to. “Good idea. You and Damon go on ahead; Charlie and I will take the boat with our equipment.”
“Maybe I should ride with my gear—,” Eisfanger begins, but a glare from me shuts him up. “Oh. Right. You know, I could use a good run.”
“I’ll try not to lose you, city boy,” Duvalier says with a grin.
He helps us lug our bags to a flat-bottomed skiff moored next to the plane; we’ve got a lot with us, since we won’t have Tanaka’s high-tech train to help us out this time. We do have GPS coordinates thanks to Gretchen, and once Duvalier sketches out our route on a map we’re good to go. He and Eisfanger shift into four-legged mode—Eisfanger looking slightly embarrassed as he strips down first—and I get my first look at the techie as a wolf. He’s pure white, his pit-bull heritage giving him a wider head and shorter snout than most wolves.
Duvalier is long and lean, jet-black fur with just the barest bit of curl to it that gives him a tousled, rakish look. He winks at me and then takes off down the dock at a strong lope with Eisfanger right behind him.
“Mind if I drive?” Charlie asks.
“Sure. I’ll navigate.” I climb aboard.
Bethel is in a region known as the Yukon Delta, a huge and mostly unpopulated area that’s mainly subarctic tundra and marshland. It’s flat and muddy, the riverbanks lined with scrubby black spruce and balsam poplar, with lots of ducks and geese paddling through the frigid water. The docks themselves are oddly deserted; I wonder where all the locals are. Charlie revs up the outboard, and the small village and its docks are very quickly out of sight.
I dig a parka out of our bags and put it on, along with some gloves and a toque. It helps a lot. Fortunately, the site is only about an hour away by boat—we should be able to make camp before nightfall. I would have preferred to take a helicopter, but this is actually faster—there’s no chopper in Bethel, and the closest one that’s available is five hours away. Hopefully we’ll be picked up by one when we’re ready to leave, but for now the quickest way to get there is by boat. Unless, of course, you can run on four legs.
It’s cold and desolate and mostly bare, not like the Alaskan forest I’d imagined at all. Of course, we’re right on the edge of the Bering Sea, home to polar bears, walruses, and killer whales; we’re about as far north as you can go and still be in the USA. Not quite the fifty-below temperatures of McMurdo, but still a barren and hostile environment.
The sun is low on the horizon, gleaming off the water as we motor down the river. I wonder how cold it’ll get once the sun sets.
And whether the locals prefer hunting during the day or the night. . . .
Eisfanger and Duvalier are waiting for us when we arrive at the site, an outcropping of rocky tundra covered with patchy gray-green moss, bordered on two sides by marsh and one by the river. Eisfanger is in half-were form, while Duvalier is still fully lupine.
Charlie brings the boat to a sputtering halt and beaches it. I jump out, already replacing my warm leather gloves with sterile latex ones.
At first glance, I can’t tell if the vic is a thrope or a pire—what I see is a naked male body, lying on his back and wearing what seems to be an old-fashioned diving helmet, the kind that looks like a metal sphere with a window in the front. As I get closer, tugging paper booties over my own shoes, I see that’s exactly what it is. The helmet itself is a dull, tarnished gray, the glass of the faceplate tinted a deep red. A grid of four thin silver rods has been welded across the window, sealing it shut. A few feet away, a compact satellite dish sits on top of a wooden crate, broadcasting the Hokkaido killing to the world.
Eisfanger begins to sign as soon as he sees me, but he’s moving too quickly and using lots of words I don’t recognize. “Whoa, slow down.”
Sorry. Vic’s a thrope—cause of death is drowning. I think.
I frown and crouch beside the body. Up close, I can see little silver sparkles in the red of the glass—and then I realize it isn’t the glass that’s red.
I turn back to Eisfanger. Helmet’s iron, rods are silver. I think the liquid is—
“Blood,” I finish. “Laced with silver of some kind.” I examine the helmet critically, note that a heavy clasp and padlock has been used to seal it around the neck. “There’s no entry point for adding a liquid. The blood’s probably his own.”
Could be a variation on the silver maiden—silver blades that cut
open an artery when the helmet closes.
I nod. “Doesn’t tell us how the silver was introduced, though. We’ll know more once we get it open.”
I’ll start setting up.
Charlie’s already begun unloading the boat, and Duvalier changes into half-were form to help. I go over and examine the satellite dish cautiously, but it doesn’t seem to be booby-trapped. I turn it off.
Before too long we’ve got an enclosed tent structure around the body, though a stiff wind has sprung up and threatens to tumbleweed the whole thing across the tundra. Both Eisfanger and Duvalier have been very careful where they stepped, so the crime scene is relatively undisturbed. The wind is a problem—there’s no telling what evidence it’s already blown away—but there’s little I can do about that. We set up our own tents around the crime scene tent, managing to do so just before the last of the daylight slips away.
In the tent, under the harsh glare of the electric lights, the rising wind competes with the snapping of the fabric and the throaty purr of the generator. Eisfanger has his gear, both scientific and mystical, set up on two folding tables. You’d think there would be a clear delineation between them, but no—he has a feathered rattle right next to a bone saw, which magnifies the creepy element of both. The body is on another folding table.
He uses bolt cutters to shear off the padlock, and a bowl to catch the blood that spills out once the helmet’s seal has been cracked. The helmet may have started out as a piece of diving equipment, but it’s been heavily modified: as Eisfanger predicted, there are razor-sharp silver blades where it snugs against the neck, spring-loaded so they’ll slash the wearer’s throat once the helmet is in place.
The victim’s face is revealed, a man in his forties with a thick blond beard now dyed red with his own blood. The skin of his face is pocked with hundreds of small black dots with glittering centers, contact burns from tiny bits of silver flake.
“Look at the interior,” Eisfanger says. He runs a gloved finger against one curving red surface, and it comes away with a thick, silvery sludge tinged with red on it. “Some kind of paste—silver mixed with a gel, probably water soluble.”