Dying Bites

by DD Barant

  That doesn’t happen.

  The first night the zerkers keep to themselves. From my room I can hear faint, bass-heavy music and see the glow of a bonfire on the horizon, but that’s about it. Duvalier drops by and tells us they’ve bought up pretty much every drop of liquor in town, but he’s been assured they prefer their own company. He doesn’t know how long that’ll last and neither do I, but I tell him he can count on our assistance if he needs it. He nods, tosses me the keys to a half-ton truck parked outside, and says he’ll let me know.

  Charlie and I stay indoors. I get on my laptop and spend the next few hours getting as much data from Gretchen and Eisfanger as they can give me, which isn’t much. We were right about the cause of death; the satellite broadcaster was exactly the same as the others and had been stolen from a container ship in Perth. I send Cassius an e-mail letting him know about the Bearbreaker situation and how I’m handling it; he congratulates me on getting a description and says he’ll have Gretchen try to find a match in our files.

  Then I go to bed.

  “Morning, Jace.”

  “Mmnnuh.”

  “You have a visitor.”

  “Fwah. Go ’way. I have a gun.”

  “He has coffee.”

  I lift my head from the pillow and blink at Charlie blearily. “Then I’ll let him live. Whozit?”

  “Prime suspect number one. I’ve got him cooling his heels downstairs.”

  I’d expected Duvalier, but somehow I’m not surprised. “Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I get up, throw on some comfortable clothes, run a brush through my hair and make sure I have my gun. Then I go downstairs, where Charlie and Bearbreaker are having an old-fashioned staring contest, with the newfangled twist of trying to look casual and vaguely amused at the same time. I think Bearbreaker might have been winning, but Charlie could probably take him in the long run.

  He offers me the coffee, which I politely decline. I may be a caffeine addict, but I’m not stupid. “Didn’t think you’d be awake yet,” I say, trying to sound alert.

  He shrugs and drinks the coffee himself. “Haven’t been to bed yet.”

  “Talk to your friend?”

  “Not a lot of talking going on last night.”

  For a second I think that’s some kind of sexual remark, then realize that with all the thropes wolfed out, none of them would be capable of talking—not vocally, anyway. “You know what I mean,” I add quickly.

  “Sure. And yeah, I did. Buy me breakfast and I’ll tell you what he said.”

  “You pick the place.”

  He grins. “I was hoping you’d say that. . . .”

  Main Street is blocked off and lined with booths, filled with every person in town and probably quite a few from the surrounding area. There’s a number of pires wrapped up like mummies, but none of the thropes are in were form; I gather that during Moondays it’s tradition to only transform at night.

  There’s a comforting kind of sameness to festivals, no matter where you are in the world. There are endless cultural variations, of course, but certain things seem like constants: there’s always food, performers, music, and games. The music and performance is currently being supplied by a small but funky bluegrass band twanging away on a small stage in front of the post office, the most popular game is a weird variant of volleyball played in an empty lot with a giant inflated sphere and no net, and the food seems to be, oddly enough, all vegetarian: candy apples, corn on the cob, lots of pastry and deep-fried starchy stuff.

  As if reading my mind, Bearbreaker says, “Hope you got enough meat last night. I know the whole idea is to celebrate our human side during the day, but some months I just don’t eat at all until the sun goes down.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I say, though I obviously don’t. From what Dr. Pete told me, I thought the whole idea of Moondays was for thropes to embrace their wolfiness; either I missed a few details or this is a regional variation. After all, Mardis Gras in New Orleans and Mardi Gras in Rio are two very different things.

  Bearbreaker takes me to a booth selling something I’ve never seen before, some kind of mushroom dipped in batter and deep-fried. I’m a little wary, but I try a bite and discover it’s delicious—reminds me a little of prawn, somehow.

  We take our food and wander down the street, Charlie keeping a discreet distance behind us. It’s both comforting and kind of embarrassing how he’s always present, like having your dad along as a chaperone.

  “So I got a message from this Stoker guy.” Bearbreaker finishes his mushrooms and licks the grease off the ends of his fingers with a tongue like—well, a bear’s. “A message for you.”

  He knows I’m here. It only verifies what I already suspected, but the statement still has an emotional impact. I don’t know where Stoker is—probably hundreds or even thousands of miles away—but there’s also the distinct possibility he’s looking at me right now through a pair of binoculars.

  “Let me guess. I’m working for the wrong side.”

  “It was a little longer than that. I wrote it down.” He fishes a folded piece of paper out of the back pocket of his pants and hands it to me. It reads:

  Hello, Jace.

  My condolences on being kidnapped from your home. I wouldn’t wish this world on anyone, least of all on someone who fights monsters. This place must be your worst nightmare; I know it’s mine.

  They’re lying to you, Jace. They’re not the only ones that can send you home—I can, too. Human beings can do magic that vampires and werewolves find difficult or impossible, and that includes using your RDT to trigger a kind of slingshot effect; basically, eliminating the wards that are keeping you here and letting Mother Nature pull you back where you belong.

  You don’t know how much I wish I could go with you.

  I hope we get the chance to talk, face-to-face. I’m intensely curious to hear firsthand about a world where a human being can walk down a street without fear of being kidnapped and turned into a blood factory, or having their very humanity stolen by a bite or a scratch. It sounds like Heaven to me—but Heaven is not where I belong. I am a creature of Hell, sentenced there since birth, and I am sworn to fight the demons that rule it until my dying breath. I would be honored if you would join me in that fight, but it is not your battle and I do not expect you to make that kind of sacrifice for a world that is not yours.

  We are not enemies. Can you blame me for fighting for the survival of my—of our—species? If my methods seem brutal, remember that this is a war. I do what I have to, not out of sadism but necessity. It is not your fight, but I ask you out of simple humanity to not hinder me. By your inaction you will save countless human lives, and earn our eternal gratitude.

  And I promise I will get you home.

  It’s signed Aristotle. Two seconds after I finish reading, it consumes itself in a quiet whoom of flame, making me blurt, “What the hell?”

  “Sorry—warlock paper. Wasn’t my idea—guess he wanted to keep his offer private.”

  “He dictated this to you?”

  “Not in person. Rather not go into details.”

  “Of course.” I study him, reevaluating. He must be one of Stoker’s most trusted lieutenants to be the go-between for something like this—or maybe he’s just a mercenary that’s being extremely well paid for his loyalty. “What’s your take on this, Bearbreaker?”

  “Me? I’m just a soldier—kind of like your sandy shadow, behind us. I get paid for my skills, not my opinions.”

  “Humor me.”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “I think you should look out for your best interests. Works for me.”

  “Despite his politeness, I don’t think your boss has my best interests at heart.”

  “Who said he was my boss? Just a guy I’m passing along a message for.”

  “Sure. This guy—you trust him?”

  Bearbreaker stares at me for a moment, not saying a word. When he finally speaks, he looks away first. “In my business, bad
instincts will kill you. Fast. My instincts say he’s a man of his word—otherwise I wouldn’t be here. But he’s got a real hate on for every pire and thrope alive, and I don’t think he’d hesitate for a second if he had the chance to wipe us all out.”

  “If that’s true, why are you helping him?”

  He turns back to me and grins. “Girl, I’m a zerker. I ride a bike in thirty-below weather bare-chested—you think I’m gonna let a little thing like a genocidal OR slow me down? Hell, running into him is the most interesting thing to happen to me since that riot down in Mexico. I’m sticking around just to see what happens next . . . but I gotta say, I kind of see the man’s point.”

  “How so?”

  “I know what it’s like to be an outsider. To know the rest of the world doesn’t understand or give a damn about you, to know most people would be just as happy if you dropped dead tomorrow. I get that.” He shakes his massive head. “But like that Nietzsche guy said, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And this Stoker, he’s a tough customer—the world’s been trying to kill him for a long time, and it hasn’t done it yet. Me, I think the guy’s just trying for a little payback.”

  “The world’s trying to kill him, so he’s going to kill it first?”

  Bearbreaker shrugs. “Hey. Whatever works for you . . .”

  And then he ditches me.

  He excuses himself to duck into a nearby shop to use the john and never comes back. Charlie strolls over just as it’s beginning to sink in and says, “He stick you with the bill, too?”

  “Go check on him, will you?”

  He does, and confirms my suspicions. “Back door,” he says. “Bet his bike’s gone, too.”

  “No doubt.”

  “What was that paper he handed you? The one that flash-fried?”

  I hesitate. “Message from Stoker. Same thing the Irish decoy told me—I’m on the wrong side, I should be working for him instead of against him, yadda yadda.”

  “Doesn’t give up easily, does he?”

  “Neither do I.”

  I contemplate taking the truck out to the zerker camp and arresting Bearbreaker—I can tie his bike to the murder scene; that’s enough to bring him in—but decide against it. First, I don’t have the manpower for that kind of operation, and second, putting pressure on Bearbreaker will just piss him off—he won’t roll over, and I’ll be severing the one link I have to Stoker. Better to keep the zerker in play and see what happens.

  Charlie and I return to the inn and check in. Gretchen’s ID’d the vic as Elliot Dennison, an oil-rig worker from Anchorage. A number of previous arrests, mostly for public drunkenness and assault, similar to that of the Australian vic, Andrew Fieldstone. As far as the location goes, Gretchen hasn’t found any particular historical significance.

  It’s frustrating. I can connect any two of the murders by type of victim or site, but they make no cohesive pattern when viewed overall. So far, two of the vics were thropes, two were pires. No consistency there. The one thing that does hold true is the methodology—killing a thrope with blood is a clear reference to vampirism.

  I’m still thinking about it when I go for dinner downstairs. Charlie’s up in his room, but there’s another woman eating in the small restaurant—one of the other guests, I assume.

  I suppose I should say “dining” rather than eating; she’s obviously a pire, sipping blood from an oversize brandy snifter. Could be red wine, I suppose—but her pale skin and sharp incisors tell me otherwise. Besides, the Urthbone has given me a sensitivity to the emotions of thropes and humans, and she doesn’t broadcast at all—even when she looks up from the book she’s reading and smiles at me.

  “Hi,” she says. She’s got just a touch of a southern accent. “And here I thought I’d have to have supper all by my lonesome.”

  I study her for a second before replying. She’s got long, oil-black hair, a face with the kind of high cheekbones and long jaw that can look either striking or odd. On her it’s definitely striking. She’s dressed in a loose-fitting black silk blouse and a dark purple skirt, with high-heeled black leather boots that go all the way to the knee.

  “Hi,” I say, taking a seat. “Hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Not at all—glad to have the company. I’m Mona.”

  “Jace.”

  “You mind if I join you? I hate eating alone.”

  I shrug. “Sure, fine by me. You a local or a tourist?”

  She closes her book and joins me, her glass of blood in hand. “Oh, I’m just visiting. Thought I’d surprise an old friend of mine, but it seems she’s out of town. Bad planning on my part. Figured I may as well look around a bit while I’m here. You familiar with the place?”

  “Afraid not.” Too bad; a local contact might have been useful. Still, maybe she can provide me with some information. “I’m from Seattle, flew in by seaplane. How’d you get here?”

  “There’s a Coffin Express—you know, one of those buses where you can sleep the whole way? And it’s an awfully long way from Anchorage, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. How long have you been here?”

  “I just got in a few hours ago.”

  Strike two. Mona wasn’t going to know anything I didn’t—

  “This town has a fascinating history, if you’re into humans.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, sorry. That’s my field of study—humanology. I know it’s kind of trendy now, but I’ve always been interested in unenhanced people. My best friend when I was a child was one.”

  I’m dying to ask her what a pire means by “when I was a child” but don’t want to blow my cover. “Really. What happened to her?”

  “Him. Died of a human disease—cancer. Such a shame. Of course, he only would have lived seventy or eighty years, anyway—but that’s one of the reasons I find them so intriguing.”

  “I have to admit, I really don’t understand the fascination. Aren’t they just inferior versions of us?”

  She shakes her head, smiling. “Oh, no, not at all! They’re amazingly resilient, especially when you consider the fact that they have no supernatural abilities—well, not inherent ones, anyway. They’re the forerunners of both the pire and thrope races—we wouldn’t exist without them—and they basically created civilization as we know it. We should respect our progenitors, don’t you think?”

  Damn straight. “I suppose, when you put it that way. What were you saying about the history of this town?”

  “Oh, yes. It was the site of a massacre, some three hundred years or so ago. A clan of pires and a pack of thropes both approached it simultaneously, and fought to see who would own it. Legend has it that the Inuit who lived here—it was only a fishing camp at that point, and not a permanent one—negotiated a peace between the two by using the only bargaining chip they had: their own lives.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean the spoils the two groups were fighting over were the humans, who all loaded their parkas down with rocks and threatened to jump into the sea if the fighting didn’t stop. The residents knew they were going to lose either their lives or their humanity, but they demanded to be able to pick which one. The pires and thropes agreed to the deal—but by that point, they were all very hungry.”

  “So become dinner for a pire or a thrope. Not much of a choice.”

  “In a way, it’s the very essence of being human. Knowing they’re going to die one day, and fighting for the only real power they have—the power of choice.”

  I nod, trying to look nonchalant but actually pretty impressed. This woman’s summed up the most basic difference between my race and hers: when you know life isn’t forever, the decisions you make matter. You don’t have the next hundred years to try to fix a mistake.

  “Funny,” I say, “I have a friend who’s a history buff, and she’s never mentioned that story.”

  “Oh, I doubt she’s heard it unless she’s a humanologist; it’s not a very well-known tale.” Mona finishes
her blood and gets to her feet. “I’m going to see what’s keeping our waiter—while I’ve been yammering on, you’ve probably been thinking about food.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—”

  But she’s already on her way. The waiter shows up a few minutes later and apologizes for not having noticed me.

  Mona doesn’t come back.

  The second night is a little wilder. I can hear motors revving in the street, and some howling. Still, I don’t get any urgent messages from Sheriff Duvalier, so I decide that as long as the town isn’t going up in flames he can handle it on his own.

  Besides, I have a lot to think about.

  Stoker’s offer bothers me on several levels. He may or may not be telling the truth, but what’s really disturbing is how well-informed he is. Am I dealing with a leak, or is it just more magic?

  I’m not going to take the deal, of course. For one thing, all professional ethics aside, it would require me trusting someone who’s demonstrably a sociopathic killer. Just not that desperate, thanks.

  Not yet, anyway.

  I think about what Mona told me and the fact that Gretchen didn’t mention anything like it. Oversight? Or is it just an old story with no great significance? For that matter, is Mona really who she says she is?

  I’m starting to jump at shadows. Tomorrow I’m going to nail a few of them down and make them talk.

  “You know,” I say to Charlie, “I think I’m going to stop making plans. Just go straight from objectives to total chaos, save some time.”

  Charlie and I are standing back-to-back, so I can’t see his face. But I can hear the T. rex in his growled reply: “Yeah. Time’s kinda short at the moment.”

  Two zerkers in front of me, three in front of Charlie.