Blood Hound

by James Osiris Baldwin

  Inside the dresser, I found a vial of testosterone and needles sitting next to a deck of cards carefully wrapped in pink fabric. I knew what they were before I unwrapped them. The tarot deck was very old, the edges worn and waxy. The topmost card was La Torre, The Tower. Frowning, I turned it over. The back face of the deck was the same unicorn image Vincent had on his wall. It was the last panel of seven famous tapestries, The Hunt of the Unicorn. I’d seen this image many times in the course of my Occult study, as it was often featured in books on the Rosicrucian tradition. The tapestry was titled 'The unicorn is in captivity and no longer dead', and it showed the chained unicorn resting in a small corral. In the six previous panels, people had hunted it with dogs and spears, until it was caught by a virgin woman and then killed and eaten. In this seventh panel, it was alive again, but enslaved; a tree grew behind it, strung with yellow fruit. The unicorn wore a collar. Its expression was one of stoic grief.

  From the dresser, I wandered to the bed. Amongst the cast-off socks and candy wrappers was a quarto notebook. The cover had handwriting on it in Sharpie. Sogno Diario. I wasn’t sure what the first word meant, but I cracked it open to the last used pages to see what I could make from it.

  “La scorsa notte, ho sognato la bianco donna di nuovo. She was running away from the dog again. She says they killed her Hound. Why does she think I can do it?”

  I froze, careful not to bend the spine as I read the first line over and over again. I spoke minimal Italian but knew enough to get the gist of the sentence. Last night... something, the white woman.

  “L’ho inseguito nella foresta di cristallo... and when we came to a stop, lei mi ha detto: Scegliere!” Vincent’s dream diary read. “Per favore, scegliere!”

  “Choose... please, choose,” I muttered, frowning. I could only make out pieces here and there. Something about running after her, “like a dog.” I flipped the page, and on the back was a crudely drawn series of figures. One of them was a spiked ball, scribbled over with filaments and labeled “the fruit.” There was a tree—or at least, I thought it was a tree. It looked like a coral polyp with drooping willow branches and diamond-shaped leaves. Its branches were thrown around itself, as if it were recoiling in pain or terror.

  Something banged downstairs. I dropped the book with a clatter and brought the knife up. My heart leaped; my body flushed hot, and I sniffed, snorting out the stale air as I cross-stepped to the doorway and looked around the jamb. I could see nothing, but as the moments passed, a rushing, deep-rooted sense of wrongness built in my chest. My pulse hammered in my throat as I strained to hear any and all sound in the house. As time crept and nothing happened, I eased down, breathing quickly, and turned back to look at the book I’d dropped on the floor.

  And then, I heard it. Downstairs, the unmistakable sounds of yipping and snarling and claws clicking against tiles. Dogs. Someone was here, and they’d brought dogs. Large, quick dogs, which were already on my scent.

  My next breath flared through tight nostrils. I pushed myself away from the doorway, temples throbbing, and toed the door closed. This was definitely time for a gun, so I drew the Wardbreaker as I backed away into the room, twisting the silencer onto it and holding it up in a teacup grip. Ghostly baying rang out from the downstairs kitchen, followed by the thunder of feet up the spiral stairs that cut off abruptly when the dogs hit the carpet.

  I licked my teeth, steadying my breathing, and the tip of the barrel stopped trembling. Dogs. They were just dogs. Why was Vincent dreaming about dogs?

  Something huge and heavy hit the door, scrambling at it. I dropped to a crouch, breathing deeply, and barely got my second hand on the grip to hold it steady when the door burst open and a flaming pinscher the size of a pony lunged for me with a mouth of huge, glowing basalt fangs.

  I emptied half the clip on reflex as the massive weight surged towards my face. The dog’s momentum carried it screaming, bleeding, and then crashing into the end of the bed, riddled with gunshot. A second dog was hot on the heels of the first, moving with unnatural alacrity as I fired once, twice. I caught a glimpse of cracking black skin rippling over glowing molten rock before the wind tore from my chest and my world narrowed to a square foot of snapping jaws, blasted heat, and ear-shattering noise. Pain lanced through my forearm and filled my mouth with sulfur. Heat washed over me in a dizzying wave. I smashed the butt of the pistol into the animal’s ear, desperately trying to get away from the wall and throw it off. The heat grew—it was overwhelmingly, scaldingly hot. The dog’s eyes were blazing, filled with inhuman intelligence. They were the hot red-orange of a caldera.

  The other dog was getting up, the bullet wounds sealing with small gouts of flame. My eyes widened in the skipped heartbeat before jaws clamped shut on my hand. I roared, jamming the gun in against its ribs, but as my finger depressed the trigger, the weapon was ripped away by invisible hands. Shock built on shock, and the dog, foaming with animal rage, threw me away from the wall with a twist of its neck. I careened and landed heavily, rolling and smashing into the foot of the dresser to roll, choking, onto my side.

  The gun. Where was the Wardbreaker? I saw it near the corner of the bed.

  Ears full of the sound of claws, I scrambled to my hands and feet, but before I could throw myself forward, my wrist was grasped, yanked, and twisted. I fell on my chest, only to be wrenched up to my knees like a puppet. I couldn’t see anyone. The same force contorted my fingers into knots, and my shout of anger turned to a choking cry of agony as white fire flashed through my mouth.

  “Attaboy.” A thick Jersey accent penetrated the room from the doorway.

  I heaved, staggering forward, and tried to turn around to look at whoever was behind me. No such luck. The invisible vice on my body tightened. Through watering eyes, I watched the huge dog limp past me, back to the doorway. The other one was struggling, but it was healing. The bullet wounds smoked and sputtered as they filled in... with magma.

  The other man’s footfall was soft as he approached. Each step increased the pressure on my hand. I gagged, retching with pain. Caught in a tightening vice of nothingness, I could only jerk fractionally as a bag was pulled down over my head.

  “Well, you ain’t no Rasputin.” The voice that filtered through the back of the bag was snide. “Guess they don’t always make wizards like the old days, huh?”

  My mouth was full of knives. I managed to choke out a sound of pain and confusion just before something solid hit me across the back of my skull and pitched me down into darkness.

  Chapter 8

  “Wakey wakey, princess.” A cold voice rang out from overhead.

  I was naked. That was the first thing I realized, as my bare skin stuck and squeaked against a cold, rounded metal surface. I was in agony, and I couldn’t feel my hands. My arms were pulled back strangely, and every motion brought a lance of bright pain from elbows, wrists, and shoulders. Every sound was too loud: the rustle of cloth, the sharp jangle of change in a pocket. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Get yourself together.

  I had to focus. Had to. My pulse beat a bright tattoo against the backs of my eyes. Past the dancing lights and stabbing pain, I made out a shrewd, hawkish face with a mouth full of big white teeth. Early thirties, with short dark hair and three days of stubble. He reached over my head, and seconds later, my head and shoulders were hit with a spray of cold water that struck my nerves with a slap.

  “We can do this the nice way or the way that gets you fucked up the ass with a baton.” My tormentor caught my hair in his fist and pulled, and I realized my hands were cuffed to a sturdy assistance rail behind my back. “What the fuck did you guys do to Frank? Why?”

  I wheezed with pain, unable to speak. The man held his other hand up threateningly when I couldn’t find the words to reply. He wore a thick gold ring embossed with an eye within a pentacle, and I fixed on it in confusion. That earned me a hard slap across the face, and then a much more solid backhand in the other direction.

  Black lightning crackled around the
edges of my vision. Oh look, I thought blurrily. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.

  He leaned in, fixing me with wolfish intensity. “You think I’m joking, you son of a bitch?”

  “No,” I slurred, my voice thick with blood. “Didn’t do it.”

  “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” His eyes narrowed. They were amber, more orange than brown, like the dog’s eyes. The dogs. Hell, what the... where the fuck were those dogs?

  The water was turned on again, and I jerked back to cold reality, gasping shower spray and harsh, clinical air. “Didn’t do it! I didn’t do the hit on your guy.”

  “Bullshit,” my interrogator said. “Fucking bullshit.”

  “Didn’t.”

  Do something, or he’s going to kill you. He cocked his fist. I swallowed a mouthful of water and blood and mucus and pressed my tongue behind my teeth to protect them in the split second before he punched me again.

  “Like fuck you didn’t. I know what happened to him, you piece of shit. Someone set a fetch on him. Your side, punk, not ours! None of us did it. Who? Laguetta?”

  It took a moment for the word he’d used to sink in. Fetch. The pause earned me another slap across the face and then another dose of water. The spray left me shivering. It hurt. Pain was all I had to center on. “Fetch... fetch what?”

  The man snarled in my face. “Come on! You fuckin’ stink of magic! What was it? Demon? Elemental?”

  Magic. He was talking about magic. I struggled against the inertia, tried to gather my wits. He was acting like a Hollywood action movie villain. You can’t beat the shit out of people you want information from, because baby can’t talk with a broken jaw—but even if he was a shitty interrogator, Jersey-Shore here was as powerful a mage as any of the old masters. Merlin. Dee. Crowley.

  “Wait,” I gasped out. “Wait. Can’t speak.”

  He trembled in rage but held off for a moment, chest heaving. It was enough to give me space to see just how hyped up and unsure he really was.

  I rolled my eyes up to look at him, flinching at the light. It stabbed all the way to the back of my skull. “You are so much... more powerful. Than him.”

  He clearly hadn’t expected me to say that. Jersey-Shore obviously didn’t play poker, either. “More powerful? More powerful than who?”

  “Guy that... did the job.” I forced myself to think past the teeth-drilling agony of my hands. “Gave me... a thing. Ball... caster. He engraved it... with the cross, some other things. Said it would keep me safe. He wanted...” What? I groped for something, anything. “The diary. Diary in V-Vincent's bedroom.”

  “Why the fuck would he want…” Jersey trailed off, scowling, and then some kind of realization seemed to dawn and he bounced back in agitation. Somehow, I’d nailed it. He hadn’t even looked at the diary, he’d been so worked up over finding me. “Shit. That lying sorca, cazzo! Piece of shit!”

  Get him talking, Alexi. “You...” I tried to speak and ended up mumbling as a tooth wobbled. It shifted around every time my tongue moved. “How’d you... do that? Your dogs?”

  “None of your fucking business. You don’t get to ask questions. What’s in the diary?”

  “Don’t know.” I leaned towards him, as far as the handcuffs allowed, and licked at the blood running over my lips. “Italian. Couldn’t read it.”

  “Was it a grimoire? Big book of magic?”

  I stared at him blankly.

  The man jerked his face to one side, looking down at me imperiously, and jogged a little on his feet. He was evaluating me with a touch of uncertainty, and I realized something. He’d been expecting the Russian spook, sure, but he’d been expecting a mage like himself. Someone powerful, someone brassy. He maybe had a secondhand description of what I looked like, but it must have been tentative. He didn’t recognize me. Was he from out of town?

  Finally, he scowled. “Fuck. You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do ya?”

  “Pick-up job,” I mumbled, sinking down. “That’s it. Pick-up job. Collection.”

  “Jesus Christ. Okay, fine.” He ran his fingers back through his hair. Hyperaware, I read a hundred tiny signs of stress. He thought he’d picked up the errand boy, and that suited me just fine. “What’s the spook’s name? The one you talkin’ ’bout?”

  This time, I looked away and said nothing. My interrogator’s mouth turned down as the seconds ticked on, and then he struck again. And again. A fist connected with my ribs, with my stomach, my neck. My vision blacked. When the light reappeared, it was hazy, fizzing at the edges with a black halo.

  “Give me his fucking name!”

  “Dunno,” I managed to say. “They call him... call him Molotchik.”

  “Molotchik. Jesus, was that so fucking hard?” He stalked back, pacing an anxious circle.

  I watched him blearily. If he bent down that close to my face again, I was going to go for his throat.

  “Fine. So you don’t know anything about the spook. Well, this is your last chance to be useful, Russkie. If you don’t know who did Frankie in, who’s this Vincent? You know, Vincent ‘Manelli’?”

  Hang on... what?

  My reward for my real confusion was another punch to the gut.

  “Don’t... know.” I spat and tasted blood, lots of blood. “A-aren’t you…”

  “Carmine.” He pronounced it the proper Italian way, Carr-mi-nay, and sneered. “I work for John, shithead, and I want to know who is going around using his Family name on the street without his knowing.”

  I remembered Vassily talking in the car. John Manelli only had three sons? It was getting harder to focus over the hot pain. It felt like I had a belly full of broken glass. “Isn’t he... isn’t he a M-Manelli?”

  Something invisible wrapped around my throat and squeezed. I could smell ozone. My skin crawled as the air bent, gathering around me, and lifted me back up to my knees on the hard, wet metal. It was the same force that had torn my gun from my hand. This guy was incredible. He was also out of control. He threw his magic around like a toddler with his toys.

  “Let me make this as clear as possible, shithead. Uncle Jo hears some punk off the street has been chuckin' his family name around like fuckin’ confetti, so he calls in me. Mr. Fixit. Now I’ve got my means and ways of finding out who’s who, where they are, and then dealing with them.” As he spoke, he gestured with his fingers, and the choke intensified. My face was turning numb. “And a little bird called me up, told me that the Russkies are working with Vincent Manelli, who doesn’t fucking exist, and that they axed Frankie. Frank Nacari. So I go to Vincent’s house, thinking I’ll go ask him some questions, and find you. And now you’re sayin’ you don’t know who he is?”

  Someone was playing us. Someone had summoned the demon of feuds, Aamon, and they were playing us off against each other. “No... no, you don’t—”

  He let me loose as suddenly as he’d seized me. I fell heavily, coughing. The relentless pain, the fading adrenaline were dulling my thoughts.

  “You’re sayin’ that you don’t know who he is?”

  The quaver in Carmine’s voice spoke of underlying desperation. I was bubbling at the corners of my mouth, but I could hear it. He was mining for something. It was a weakness and exploitable. All I had to do was make it up.

  “Frankie... was a part of a deal.” The strain in my voice was genuine and cracked with every other word. “With Vincent. He’s... faking. Not really a Manelli.”

  “Yeah, that’s more like it. Go on.”

  “Frankie... he came over... to deal with us. Sell John out to us.”

  Carmine’s wolfish eyes were gleaming. “Keep going.”

  “We knew... we knew Vincent wasn’t real Manelli.” The words boiled together, rising blithely of their own accord. I was lying, and for once, I didn’t care. “But we never told anyone.”

  “What was Frankie trying to sell you guys?” Carmine crouched down now, leaning in excitedly. “What deal did he set up?”

  I wanted
to spit on him. Five inches closer, and I’d tear his stupid larynx from his stupid chicken neck. Instead, I swayed, feigning a lapse of consciousness. Sure enough, the splash of cold water followed, and under the searing, sense-clearing spray, I put two and two together. This was where I had to guess. It felt insane. Sounded insane.

  “Some kind of... relic.” I managed to keep the simultaneous question and disbelief out of my voice. “A book or something. That’s... what I heard. He was dealing with Molotchik. I don’t know his real name, I swear.”

  “Is that so?” Carmine was very intent. “What’s he look like?”

  I was reaching out on a limb. “Dark. Big. Kind of fat. Weird eyes. Bulgarian, maybe.”

  Carmine’s eyebrow arched. He held up the Wardbreaker. “So you don’t know his name, but you let him juice you up with this? Cause I swear, you have the taint on you. The mark.”

  “Y-yes.” I fought the urge to lick at my split lip, staring at the gun. “Pakhun ordered it.”

  “Huh.” He looked down on me. “So you got something else you want to tell me? Because that’s not enough to save your ass.”

  I shivered, rattling from the base of my spine to the back of my neck. The next words came to me unbidden, almost as if I hadn’t even spoken them. They were from the images and the snatches of English in the dream diary, still lying on Vincent’s bedroom floor. “What is… The Fruit?”