The Echoed Realm

by A. J. Vrana

  “A concussed shih tzu learns faster than you,” Kai cut in.

  Clint’s bleary gawp wandered over. He swooned to the side and squinted. “What the hell? You again!”

  Kai smiled wickedly. “Did I leave an impression?”

  “Hey,” Crowbar touched his arm. “I got this. Let me do my job.”

  Clint’s bloated face rouged like a squishy, bulbous tomato. The colour around his pasty neck was a spreading wine stain as he ground his jaw. “You got some balls on you, kid.”

  Crowbar’s pacifying hand slid off Kai’s arm as he stood up and cracked his neck, then levelled his stony gaze on Clint. “Eyes up here, buddy.”

  “You going to start shit, asshole?”

  Crowbar swiped the bottles and glasses off the counter. “Hey! No fisticuffs!” she snapped as she ducked down to hide the booze.

  But neither Kai nor Clint was listening, both fixated on their stand-off.

  Strike him, chimed Rusalka, her voice now ringing between his ears as though she were inside him. You know you want to. He could feel her bony fingers slide over his fist, squeezing it tighter, but her lips didn’t move even as the words pulsated through his skull.

  Fuck off, Kai growled inwardly. Clint may have been a douchebag, but Kai wouldn’t attack him without provocation—even if he wanted to.

  The demoness sighed against his neck, then floated over to Clint and stared at his profile. Her lips quirked as she opened her hand to reveal a black spider quivering against her palm. Rusalka leaned down and whispered something to the vermin before it scurried up Clint’s face and crawled into his ear. Kai grimaced, but Clint didn’t seem to feel a damn thing.

  That is, until his eyes widened, he clenched his fist shut, and swung wildly at Kai. Lunging out of the way, Kai watched as the belching ragdoll lost his balance and shambled forward.

  “What the hell was that?” Kai taunted, then pointed a thumb between his legs. “They’re right here, shih tzu.”

  The bulbous tomato looked ready to explode, then roared in fury.

  See! Rusalka hissed. He’s trying to hurt you!

  Kai scoffed. Didn’t you say he was in danger?

  Or was I referring to you? She chuckled, weaving confusion into his mind. Distracted, he hardly noticed Clint hurling himself forward. Glimpsing a fist from the corner of his eye, Kai leaned back against the bar, the breeze from the clumsy strike tickling his nose.

  Rusalka’s reverberating laugh shook his senses. He was lucky Clint’s organs were practically fermenting; the guy was likely seeing doubles as he pushed forward a third time and hucked a fist at Kai’s shoulder. This time, Kai didn’t move out of the way. He blocked the attack and grabbed Clint by the collar of his shirt, spinning him around and throwing him towards the door.

  “Come at me one more time, and I’ll rip out your liver,” Kai menaced with a feral snarl.

  You want him to get back up, don’t you? Rusalka goaded. To give you a reason to hit him until he can’t get back up at all.

  Kai’s lip curled as he prepared to intercept another attack—the last one, he told himself. One more swing and he’d pummel Clint into the ground.

  “Enough!” Crowbar slammed her fist down on the laminate counter, the sound jolting Kai out of focus. “If you two want to brawl, take it outside!”

  Kai glanced over his shoulder and saw her glaring right at him, her eyes spilling with disappointment. You should know better, they said.

  Her disapproval felt like barbs pressing against his chest, so he tore his eyes away. He reached down and clutched his aching thigh. What he would’ve given to see Miya. She’d been his equilibrium; she tempered his worst impulses, and after nearly unleashing them on her, he had no one to restrain him.

  Restrain yourself, you dick. His self-chastisement did little to help. He was fighting off a mouldy washcloth as she toiled away with his mind, shaving off pieces of his sanity.

  Before his emotions erupted out of control, he clamped down hard, battering the anger and helplessness away. Bundling them up, he imagined whipping them behind a reinforced steel gate. Then, he pictured the only key that could unlock that gate and threw it into the ocean. Once it sank, it was gone forever.

  Exhaling slowly, Kai opened his eyes only to see the doors of The Spade crawl open. Clint leaned against them, his eyes glassy and his cheek raw with scrapes from faceplanting the floor.

  “You’re a bully,” he grunted, then hobbled into the alleyway, the doors clanking shut behind him.

  Kai considered himself many things, but a bully wasn’t one of them.

  He was outmatched, and you knew it. You could’ve chosen not to escalate, but you did, Rusalka tutted. You were cruel, like a child plucking the wings off a helpless butterfly.

  That’s one gnarly butterfly, Kai retorted, but her words stuck like rancid sap. He’d been eager for a fight, but instead of knocking the bastard out cold, he’d toyed with him just to delight in his own power. It was no wonder why; he’d never felt more powerless. Turning towards the bar, he pulled out his wallet and placed a few bills on the counter.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, staring at Crowbar’s silver-studded belt. He couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze—wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he’d find there. Kai turned on his heels and stormed out, the dripping, spectral footsteps of Rusalka stalking close behind.

  14

  MASON

  Apprehension tumbled through Mason’s chest as he dropped into the driver’s seat of his rental Chevy Impala. The backs of his eyes prickled with déjà vu. When he’d last driven from a large city to a middle-of-nowhere town, it hadn’t ended well. Yet here he was at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, signing off on a two-week contract and directions to Orme’s Rest charted on his GPS.

  Through Bayou Sauvage and across Lake Pontchartrain, the trek northeast shook him from his ennui; he was crossing into another world. The bridge stretched for miles over the deep blue water, the summer sun glinting off every dip.

  Mason pushed down the impulse to seek out the Servant for answers. Whatever it was, however benevolent it seemed, Mason didn’t want to deepen his dependency on it for the truth.

  But God, how he yearned for truth.

  The mirror-image moons on his forearm ached like a spider bite, every brush of fabric a scorching itch he had to resist scratching. The Servant wanted to be called; it wanted to be asked. Still, Mason refused.

  “I’ll find the answers myself,” he said, and the needling finally subsided.

  If Black Hollow was a village of secrets that wove through forest and fog, Orme’s Rest was the silent scream of a living, breathing gravestone. The town, while picturesque, had a heaviness to it that stank of pestilent winds, like one of the four horsemen had already ravaged the riverbank.

  Mason’s lips twitched as a haunted laugh escaped him. He never would’ve entertained the possibility of a town having an aura, but he knew better now. He didn’t have to ask the Servant to glean he was in the right place.

  As Mason turned onto the main road, he spotted a police cruiser parked outside a three-story brick-house inn—Mildred’s Guesthouse, according to the sign. The officer was speaking to a frumpy, greying woman holding an oversized tuxedo cat. Its bushy tail whipped back and forth as it observed passing traffic. Mason needed a place to stay, and where better than a possible crime scene?

  He parked his Impala in a narrow side-lane and plucked his suitcase from the back seat. Poking his head around the corner, Mason waited for the police cruiser to drive off before he approached the inn.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he called out just as the woman headed inside with her feline companion. She stopped with her fingers around the door handle and blinked at him.

  “May I help you?” Her voice was nasally, every syllable lethargic.

  “I was wondering if you have any vacancies.” He offered her his best smile—the one he gave to nervous patients.

  Her brows knitted together like she was uns
ure why anyone would want to stay in her establishment. “Yes, we do. It’s just—where are you from, son?”

  “Vancouver,” he answered. “Is something the matter?”

  The woman sighed and gestured for him to follow her inside. “We just had an incident recently,” she said as she held open the door, “so I’m surprised you aren’t taking your business elsewhere.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  The woman—Mildred, he assumed—plunked down in the armchair behind her desk, jostling her cat as she did. “Bad one. Had a couple come in the other night. The girl seemed nice, but the man,” she shook her head, “the man looked like trouble. Awfully rude. Paid with cash straight from his pockets. Just hours after handing them the key, I heard a loud noise, then screaming! There was a terrible sound, and when I finally got my old knees up there, they were both gone.”

  Mason frowned. It wasn’t quite as juicy as he was expecting. “Maybe they had a fight?”

  Mildred choked back a laugh. “The hell they did! There was a giant pool of blood on my carpet!”

  “Oh…” Mason trailed off. “You said the man looked like trouble?”

  “Sure did.” She leaned back. “Tall, dark-haired fellow. Broad shoulders, nasty eyes. Real menacing, you know? Didn’t seem to give a hoot about anything.”

  Mason blanched. Few people in this world gave less of a rat’s ass than Kai Donovan. Their time together had been short, but it was one of blood and bonds. Mason had peered into the wolf’s eyes and seen what he was made of. Kai was all edges—stone-hard grit and bare-boned reckoning.

  “The girl,” began Mason, “was she about this tall?” He held his hand up to his nose. “Brown hair? A little tan, maybe?”

  Mildred’s jaw slackened. “How’d you know that?”

  Mason’s hand dropped to his side. “Just saw it on the news.” It was a poor lie, and anyone with sense would’ve known it, but Mildred only nodded.

  “I suppose it would’ve been on the local news,” she said slowly. “The station sends an officer every day to check on me, just to make sure everything’s been handled.”

  “That’s very courteous of them.”

  “Small town police,” she shrugged. “What else they got to do around here?”

  “Well, seems like they’ve got a crime to solve now,” Mason chuckled, earning him a toothy smile.

  “I’ll say! You seem like a nice young man.” She pushed her chair back and shooed the cat from her lap. “Go on, Petunia!” Mason watched as she fiddled with the old wooden drawer and barely managed to yank it open by the blackened handle. “It’s been a bit slow, so I can give you a room for cheap.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mason interjected. “I’m happy to pay full price, ma’am, precisely because it’s slow.” It was coming out of Raymond’s pocket, anyway.

  Mildred’s knobby hand flew to her chest. “Oh, you sweet boy!” She reached into the drawer for a room key. “What brings you all the way to this little bayou town?”

  Mason considered his answer. “Just some business. I’ll be staying for a week, I think. Two at the most.”

  “Second floor, dear. First door to your right.” She smiled and dangled the split ring from her forefinger. “Just let me know if you need more time with us.”

  Mason pulled out his wallet and handed her a card before taking the key. “Thank you.” When his payment went through, he retreated up the narrow, winding steps.

  Caution tape meekly blocked the staircase to the third floor. Mason elected to ignore it for now, wondering if he could charm Mildred into showing him the bloodstains she was so upset about. He unlocked the door to his room and creaked his way inside.

  The accommodations were a total eyesore. The walls were covered in lilac floral patterns accented by light brown curtains framing the window. Against the cream-coloured carpet, the frilly yellow duvet draped over the bed seemed like the yolk of a giant egg. Mason winced.

  After unpacking and organizing his impeccably folded clothes in the wardrobe, Mason slipped downstairs and smiled at his overeager hostess on his way out. The late afternoon light sank below the treetops, and a dark shadow crept overhead as a gargantuan cloud blanketed the sun. The town’s charming façade crumbled beneath the weight of the stormy curtain. Historic buildings now seemed derelict, and the flower beds garnishing the sidewalks drooped as if overheated. Unsettled by the jarring change in atmosphere, Mason meandered down an adjacent alleyway in search of a bar or pub. His nerves felt like they’d been hooked up to a three-hundred-volt battery, and he needed to cool off.

  The dream stone hummed to life against his leg. Rattled by the vibration, he reached into his pocket and grasped it, then stopped to look around. Above him, an old wooden sign hung from a brass post fastened to the rust-coloured bricks.

  The Mangy Spade.

  The door was speckled with playing cards, and Mason’s eyes fell on the king of spades. The eidolon of the blood-speckled card by the swampy riverbank invaded him like a fever. What were the odds?

  Mason pushed through the heavy, laminated doors to find himself in a gold-lit tavern with a long bar stretched across the back wall. A woman with short, two-toned hair was drying glasses, then looked up and nodded in greeting. “Welcome,” she said gruffly. “Looking for lunch?”

  “I’m just here for a drink.” Mason helped himself to a stool several feet from the bartender. He smiled and shrugged mildly. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?”

  “That’s what I tell myself,” she laughed, setting aside her towel. “What would you like?”

  Mason was a sucker for craft beer, but today he felt adventurous. “How about something local?”

  “A visitor!” She leaned back. “Odd times, these are.”

  Mason didn’t know what that meant, yet he couldn’t stop the disorienting blur of tiny black spades floating before his eyes. “I’m in town on some business.” It was a half-truth, at least.

  “You and everyone else.” A pensive smile crossed her lips as she glanced towards an empty whisky bottle sitting by the sink. “All right,” her probing hazel eyes shifted back to Mason, “I recommend a Ramos gin fizz.”

  “Is that different from a regular gin fizz?”

  “It’s…got some alterations.” She grinned and raised her chin proudly. “The usual stuff, plus lime juice, egg white, cream, orange flower water, and soda water.”

  Mason felt the curls on his head bounce as he reeled back. “I have to admit, the mad scientist in me is intrigued.”

  The bartender snorted, waving him off. “It’s hardly mad science, hon.” She turned and snatched the gin from the shelf. After what felt like ten minutes of potion-brewing, she slid over a straight collins glass frothing with whipped egg whites. Mason stared, dumbfounded, then poked the foam with his straw and took a long drag of the strange elixir.

  It was delicious, he decided, and sucked up the rest in a single breath.

  Just then, the pub’s doors screeched open, and a woman with thick white tresses walked in. Her nails drummed against the door frame, and her eyes—golden like honey—dragged across the playing cards encased against the wood. She greeted them with a quirk of her lips, then floated into the room like an apparition, her navy slip-ons soundless against the aging boards beneath her.

  Mason gawped as she slid into the stool next to him. The bartender on the other side fiddled with a pair of tapered scotch glasses, struggling to arrange them on the shelf.

  “If you turn every other glass rim down, they’ll fit more snuggly,” the white-haired woman’s velvety voice echoed through the near-empty taproom. Mason still couldn’t speak. The bartender startled and hissed several choice words.

  “Shit!” she exclaimed, slapping a hand to her chest. “I did not hear you come up to the bar, lady.”

  Ama’s plump lips curved into a lovely pink arch as she slipped a silvery strand behind her ear. “Sorry, old habits die hard.”

  “Were you an assassin in your yesterye
ars?” the bartender asked, pressing her fingers into her cropped hair.

  Ama chuckled and rested her cheek against the palm of her hand. “Well, if I was, I wouldn’t tell you, would I?”

  “Fair point.”

  “Could I have a drink, please?”

  “Oh,” the bartender blinked, “of course. What would you like, assassin lady?”

  “A Black Russian should do.” Ama’s eyes trailed the conspicuous MANEATER tattoo on the bartender’s forearm. It disappeared as she reached for a bottle on the top shelf.

  Mason watched as their mixologist swiftly measured each ounce of water-clear vodka and dark liqueur.

  “Here you are, assassin lady.” She set a small green napkin on the counter and placed the old-fashioned glass just over the corner.

  Ama lifted the glass to her lips and tilted it just enough for a grazing sip. She clamped her teeth over the rim, then set her drink back down and smiled. “What’s your name?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your name,” Ama repeated. “Surely it isn’t Maneater?”

  The woman with short hair turned her arm over and pressed it to her side, her face scarlet. “Dahlia,” she said shrilly.

  The white wolf simpered. “It’s a beautiful name—”

  “Ama,” Mason cut their flirtation short.

  Her glossy, navy-blue jacket hugged her waist as she shifted on the stool and finally acknowledged his presence. She took her time peeling off the garment to reveal strong, well-muscled arms and a sleeveless, charcoal mock neck tucked into waist-high jeans. Glowing, sunlit eyes locked onto him, and rosy lips pulled apart in a knowing smile.

  Air caught in Mason’s throat as the stone’s song rang louder, more urgent. His heart hammered behind his ribs. “What are you doing here?”

  Ama picked up her drink and swirled the black liquid around. “Waiting for a friend.” She paused as she took a sip. “Not you, I’m afraid.”

  “Does your friend know where to find you?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

  Ama set down her Black Russian and cradled it between her hands. “She will.”