“You'll help,” Adam said, trying not to sound too smug.
“I'll help,” she said, still too shocked to say much else. “I'll... be over in a few minutes.”
He returned to the table, feeling pretty good about himself.
“Did that waitress follow you into the bathroom?”
He blinked at Lizzy. She had noticed that?
“Ah, no. She went to the women's.”
Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously. That's what I meant.”
Thankfully, before she could say anything else, the squirrel kemo walked by, an empty glass pitcher balanced on a tray she was holding with one hand.
“Your drinks will be out in a minute,” she said. “Was there anything else you needed?”
Both girls shook their heads, and Adam answered for them. “No, we're good.”
She smiled. “Holler if you change your minds.” She turned to go, and he almost thought she had decided not to help.
Instead, her tail knocked into Lizzy.
Even though he knew it was faked, he could barely tell. Her squirrel tail wasn't anywhere near as flexible as Lily's demon one, and it was very bushy. It had probably taken her lots of practice to not bump into things. It didn't look that difficult to do the opposite.
Lizzy cursed in a language Adam didn't understand, flailing about and unintentionally completing the illusion. With a yelp, the waitress lost control of her tray. The pitcher slid off and shattered on the tabletop, shards flying everywhere.
He didn't know if the girls were injured or not, but it didn't matter. He grabbed a small towel in each hand, both covering a small pocketknife. Under the pretense of leaping up to help, he slashed both Ling and Lizzy near the upper shoulder, hopefully making it look like they had just been cut by flying glass.
“I am so so so sorry,” the waitress cried. “Let me—oh fur and fangs, you're bleeding!”
She was good. The girl had a future in acting, if she cared.
“Let me get that,” Adam said, holding the knives with only two fingers each, and using the rest to hold the towels and mop at the wounds he had made. He just needed to make sure not to mix them up.
“The one time I'm not wearing armor...” Ling muttered. “Lizzy, you okay?”
Lizzy swallowed, and nodded. “I... think so. Can we just leave? Right now?”
“This is all my fault,” the waitress apologized frantically. “If there's anything I can do—”
“Let us leave,” Lizzy said instantly. “Right now.”
The manager had run over by this point. “Of course, of course. Next time you're here, you will of course get free drinks—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ling brushed him off. “C'mon.”
They left quickly, only stopping once they were on the empty street outside.
“What are you doing?” Adam asked, noticing the girls had dumped out everything in their bags on the ground and were slowly putting it back in.
“Checking for broken glass,” Ling said. “I have half a mind to get that waitress fired.”
He really hoped it didn't come to that. “She made a mistake. Happens to everyone.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she muttered. Having decided her purchases were as close to glass-free as she could get them, she picked up her bags and headed north.
“Where are you going?”
She turned to him, eyebrow raised. “Back to the dorms. You?”
He scrambled for an excuse. “Ah... no, I think I'm going to take a walk.” He jerked his thumb south, towards Obould's place. “This way. I'll see you both later. Be sure to get those wounds looked at.”
“We will,” Lizzy said. “Good night.”
It took him about twenty minutes to get back to Laura, despite the fact that it was only two blocks away. He had to take a few small detours, mostly to avoid hungry-looking ghouls in dark alleys. He was armed, and confident in his abilities, but not that confident, and he didn't want to risk contaminating his samples. He kept them in separate pockets the whole way, to make sure he didn't get them mixed up.
“That was quick,” Mrs. Arrow said when he walked through the open door. “You find what you were looking for?”
“Ah... yes. Is Laura...”
“Downstairs,” she said. Adam thanked her and headed to the basement.
Laura looked up as he came down the stairs. “I thought that was you. Good timing. Your results just came in. Looks like you're clean. You get Ling's sample?”
“And Lizzy's. But... I had to use towels to do it. There was no way I would have been able to do it with the syringes.”
She cursed lightly under her breath. “Hardly ideal... you at least made sure they were clean, I trust?”
He nodded.
“Good,” she said, nodding in turn. “Then we should be able to get a good reading regardless.”
Adam pulled the towels of the small plastic baggies he had put them in and carefully set them on the table. They weren't ziplock bags. He wouldn't have been able to get them closed without the girls noticing anyway.
“Left is Lizzy,” he said. “Right is Ling.”
She examined them closely. “How, exactly, did you get the samples?”
He shrugged. “Recruited a waitress to break some glass near them, then cut them while they were distracted and daubed up the blood.”
She held up Lizzy's sample carefully. The towel was pure white, without a drop of red.
“You missed,” she said flatly.
He cursed under his breath. Of course.
Chapter 42: EXPERTUS
SIMON
It was Friday afternoon, two days since Simon and Yolanda had started dating. It was going better than he expected. Most of his relationships crashed and burned by this point. Either they decided he wasn't worth dealing with, or he accidentally insulted them, or they turned out to be lesbians. Okay, that last one only happened once, and at least he and Jelena were still friends.
So he was understandably concerned when Yolanda called him in the morning, saying she wanted to talk. He was terrified that he had done something wrong again, and this would go the same way as all his other relationships. Or maybe she was pregnant. That was never fun.
Thankfully, it turned out to be just poor word choice on her part.
A bland baseline reached across the table to shake Simon's hand. “Hi, I'm Adam. I'm in Applied Firearms with Yolanda.”
Simon shook his hand a little hesitantly. He had a good strong grip, which wasn't unexpected for a gunner, but he was still reeling.
“Sorry,” Simon said slowly. “I...” He glanced at Yolanda. She was smiling innocently. He turned his attention back to her friend. “Sorry. Didn't really know what to expect.”
Adam grinned. “Living in this city, I'd assume you'd learn to expect anything.”
“Well, that's just it. You're not from the city, are you?” Simon shrugged. “I guess I was just expecting something other than a baseline.”
“That's pretty much exactly what outsiders are,” Yolanda said with a smile.
“Except for the cyborgs,” Adam said mildly, as he sipped his coffee. “About sixty percent of the population has metal bits instead of fleshy ones.”
Simon stared... then frowned. “And now you're just screwing with me.”
Adam grinned over his coffee cup. “And you're smarter than you look.”
Simon rubbed his forehead, between his horns. “Oh, this is going to be... interesting.”
Yolanda gripped his hand. “Simon, be nice.”
Adam put his coffee down, frowning. “Wait, Simon... I've heard that name before.”
Simon raised an eyebrow. “Well, yeah. Not exactly rare.”
“No, that's not it.” He reached into his pocket, searching for something. “She said a purple demon named Simon... crap, what was the last name?” He retrieved a slip of crumpled paper and glanced at it. “...Lancaster?”
Now it was Simon's turn to frown. “Yeah, that's me. What's the problem?”
“Yeah, from before she moved.” The waitress placed Simon's drink in front of him. I thanked her and took a sip. “Ack, too hot... sorry, but why did Laura tell you about me?”
“She, uh...” Adam floundered for a second before finding the right words. “I've only met like three people beyond my roommate and my girlfriend, so she keeps trying to introduce me to new people.”
Simon blinked. “You're dating Laura?”
Thankfully he had only just started reaching for his drink, otherwise he would have probably spat it all over us in surprise. “Wait, what—no, no! I'm dating Lily! Lily, uh...” He frowned. “You know, its really hard to describe people when half of you don't have last names.”
Yolanda chuckled. “Don't worry, we know who you're talking about.”
Simon was still skeptical. “You're the baseline she's dating?”
“Um... yes.” He scratched behind his ear. “Why?”
Simon shrugged. “I don't know, I kinda figured it was just a stupid rumor. She's never gone steady with anyone before.” Simon paused, thinking. “Maybe because she only dates baseline outsiders.”
Adam shrugged. “Maybe.” He changed the subject. “Laura mentioned you have a sister, Simon. Where's she?”
“Seena? She's off with her culture right now. Probably more training.”
Adam took another sip of his coffee. Simon noticed that he had a small white cloth concealed in his hand. What was that for? Was he worried about spills or something? “Laura said she's a vampire.”
“Yeah, a Mal. Got recruited right before school started.”
“Can't say I know them.”
Simon blinked, surprised. The Mals weren't exactly a huge subculture, but still... then he nodded in understanding. “Ah, right, most of what you've heard about the cultures would be through Lily. She doesn't like talking about the Mals.”
Adam frowned. “Really? What's so bad about them? I mean, she avoids any talk of succubi or daevas like the plague, but—”
“The Mals are assassins,” Yolanda said. She waved her hand. “Lily has some weird thing about killing. Doesn't even think about it if she has to.” She bit her lip adorably and turned to Simon. “There's a word for that. I just can't recall...”
He closed his eyes, trying to remember. “Starts with a p, I think...”
“Pacifism?”
Simon snapped his fingers and pointed at Adam. “Yes, that's it. She's a pacifist.”
He stared at both of them in turn. Then he just shook his head. “This goddamned city...”
Yolanda cocked her head questioningly.
Adam waved the hand that wasn't holding his coffee—which, Simon noticed, also had a small white rag concealed. “Don't worry about it. So you're a...”
“Sibriex,” Simon said. “We invent new ways to use the toy maker. Or... well, the rest of the culture does. I'm really not very good at it.”
Adam sipped from his coffee. “I thought that was a vampire subculture.”
“You're probably thinking of the Glasyans. And yeah, they're basically the same, but for vampires.”
The waitress, a dae with a big bushy tail, sashayed up to the table with an empty glass pitcher balanced on a tray. “You guys all right? Anything else I can get you?”
Simon smiled politely. “Ah... no. We're fine, thanks.”
“Well, let me know.” She turned to go.
Turned a little too fast, actually. Her tail smacked him full in the face. He spluttered as hair got in his mouth, and started flailing around trying to push it away.
That was the exact wrong thing to do. He knocked her off balance, and the platter immediately went flying. She yelped and dodged to the side, while the pitcher landed on the table and shattered.
Glass went flying everywhere. Simon tried to shield Yolanda, and felt a few pieces of glass hit his back.
“God, you guys okay?” Simon turned to see Adam rushing forward. With his enhanced eyes, he spotted something glinting in both of his fists, still gripping those little white towels. What the hell? Was he coming at them with knives?
Simon would never learn the answer to that question, because a split second after Adam leaped out of his chair, a roar shook the entire building.
Simon looked behind him, past the dae waitress still cowering on the floor, to see what all the fuss was about. It was a street-level open air cafe, so he had a pretty good view of what was going on.
It was a gargant.
A massive one.
It was bigger than a bus—had to be at least thirty feet long and fifteen tall. It had six legs, each as thick as a tree trunk, splayed about its body. Its belly was low to the ground, and a rational part of Simon's mind noted that this probably indicated it was built from some kind of lizard.
It didn't have a tail, but its entire body was covered in thick plates of cartilage, fitting together like the scales of a crocodile. These were a dull yellow that shone under the right light, giving the impression the gargant was armored in gold.
The most distinctive part of its anatomy, however, was the creature's head. It had no eyes or mouth, and no visible nostrils—though there would be a large number of very small ones scattered around its skull. The gargant was blind and deaf, but that was intentional.
Simon knew from his time with the sibriex that it was a blind-rammer gargant. Not the most dangerous creation of the fey, but dangerous enough, and very hard to kill. But something about it bothered him...
He tabled his thoughts about the gargant itself for the moment, cursing his luck at having been caught in a fey Hunt. They liked doing one big attack a day—each—so it was inevitable to get caught up in one every once in a while, but they usually didn't use full gargants.
The beast stumbled forward into a storefront, thankfully one that had already evacuated. Metal screeched as the gargant broke concrete and twisted the rebar supports, nosing through the crushed window for... something. What, exactly, was unclear. Blind-rammer gargants were quite rare, so there was little data on the reasons behind their behavior patters.
It was clearly seeking something, though what was impossible to say for certain. Maybe it was trying to track something by smell? It was pretty much the only sense the poor thing had left.
“Grace, get up,” Simon heard from behind him. He turned to see Adam helping their waitress to her feet. “You need to run.”
The dae blinked. “Wait, what?”
“Run until you can contact MC. Quickly.”
The girl fished for something in her pockets, presumably her phone. “What are you talking about? I can just—”
“The phones are down,” Adam said. “I already tried. This is not a random attack.”
The dae swallowed, then nodded and ran in the opposite direction of the rampaging behemoth.
Simon mentally noted the fact that Adam seemed to know the dae. He was starting to get more than a little suspicious of him, but there were more important things to worry about at the moment. “You think the fey sent this one?”
“Obviously,” Adam said as he plopped his gun case on the table, opened it up, and took out a massive shotgun. He checked it briefly, then started belting on a bandoleer and holster. “But yes, I do think they sent it here for someone specific.”
“That's what I meant,” Simon said. “Obviously the fey sent it. But who for?”
“Damned if I know. Crap, I knew I should have bought more god slayers when I had the chance...”
“Wouldn't do much good here,” Yolanda said. She was clinging to Simon very tightly, but was otherwise composed. She wasn't even trembling. Or maybe he just couldn't feel it under his trembling. “Unless you can get a round through one of its nostrils, we're pretty much out of luck.”
Adam muttered a curse under his breath. “Not likely. I'm not all that accurate. If Kat was here...” He stopped
suddenly.
“Kat?” Simon asked after a moment.
“Friend of mine,” he said. “Got too close to some screamers—the bats, actually—and got turned.”
Yolanda winced. “Sorry to hear that. Maybe there's a cure...”
“Maybe we should save that for later,” Simon reminded them. “The gargant is coming this way.”
Thankfully, it wasn't charging yet. It was just lumbering forward, head to the street, sniffing for something. Everyone else had already fled to safety behind it, where it had already searched, but there were still a few of them in front of it. And if they tried to run past it on the narrow street, it would sense them through the vibrations and attack.
Simon glanced around at the other cafe patrons, hoping to see some better weapons, but no luck. Pretty much everyone had a few guns, and there were some nice big shotguns, but the only thing heavy enough to breach its hide would be a missile—and no one carried those around.
Too bad they were in kemo territory. If this were a giant domain, there probably would have been a few missile launchers or portable anti-air weapons stashed around. Something that would have been effective against a blind-rammer, at least.
Well, they didn't have a chance, and thankfully Adam realized that. He started ordering the shocked patrons away from the gargant while Simon was still standing around wondering what had happened with the dae. If this had been a random attack, he probably would have saved them all.
Unfortunately, it was not a random attack, and crazy as they were, the fey were still quite intelligent when they had reason to be.
The gargant roared again, and Simon finally realized what had been itching his brain for the past five minutes. Blind-rammers couldn't roar. They didn't have mouths.
Iron-lord gargants, however, could.
Coming around the corner from the other direction, right in the path they were fleeing, was a massive ape-shaped creature, fifty feet tall. It knuckle-walked forward hesitantly, watching the screaming and panicking little humans at its feet.
A giant ape wouldn't be that difficult to beat, especially at that size. Take out the knees, and its own weight would quickly do what no amount of bullets could do. That was why you didn't see ape-rager gargants and their ilk around any more. Everyone knew how to kill them, so the fey didn't bother making them.
The Composer of Screams Page 26