Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Marilyn was there, too, unhurt, a fact which delighted Astarte, though she couldn't quite recall why she should have expected anything different. At first the Arcanist lacked the radiance her companions possessed, but then the sheen blossomed. Laughing and weeping with joy, Marilyn raised her hands, and sweet-smelling yellow roses fell from the air.

  Frank gasped. Astarte turned. He was glowing too. Smiling, he touched her left hand, and an engagement ring set with a huge diamond appeared on her finger. The metal was so cold it burned, but the gift made her so happy that the discomfort didn't matter.

  The orb pulsed, and she shivered with rapture. The light was transmuting and refining her essence as well. Her companions looked on, beaming, waiting to see what sort of miracle she'd perform to celebrate her metamorphosis.

  She wondered what she should do. It would be nice to give Frank a gift in return. Maybe a Harley. A bike would loosen him up, and it would be exhilarating to streak down the highway with the wind in her hair and her arms around his waist. She raised her hands. Then the orb dimmed, and the blissful feeling inside her withered.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice breaking. "Why is it going out?"

  Frank and the others gazed stupidly back at her through the gathering murk. Astarte realized from their bewilderment that the glow wasn't fading for them. Rather, she was going blind.

  "Help me!" she cried as the room went black. She snatched for Frank, but even though he'd been scant inches away an instant before, touched nothing.

  She blundered through the darkness, wheeling this way and that, calling his name. She thought someone answered, but couldn't be sure. If so, the cry was so distant and faint that it got lost in the echoes of her own voice.

  After a time, a smudge of bluish light appeared to her left. She gasped and lurched toward it, then faltered. The glow emanated from her mom's portable TV on its wheeled stand. On the screen, two of the characters from Melrose Place were rolling around in bed. In front of the set was the stained, lumpy sofa, with three Budweiser cans, a dirty ashtray, and a half-eaten sub on a plate resting precariously on one of the cushions.

  "No!" Astarte snarled. She wouldn't go back. She wheeled and ran away from the tableau, back into the darkness. The television and couch popped into existence ahead of her. She pivoted to the right, and the furniture shifted to block her path once more.

  "Frank!" she screamed. Then she sensed him beside her, reaching out to save her. She floundered around, thrust out her arms, and his hands closed on hers.

  Like the ring had been, his flesh was icy cold. The shock and the pain of it made her recoil. Only for an instant, but that was enough. When she fumbled for Frank again, he was gone. Her mother's entire apartment oozed from the blackness, closing around her like a trap.

  She sobbed, and the darkness came back. Suddenly she wasn't standing any longer, but thrashing in a tangle of blankets. The AC hummed, and from down the hall came the clattering sound of someone filling an ice bucket from the machine.

  A nightmare, she thought, her heart pounding, it had just been a stupid nightmare. She hadn't been magically transported back to Ohio. She was still in her hotel room in Natchez.

  But though the nightmare hadn't been real, it reflected a terrible truth. She'd found the love of her life, like in some sappy old song or movie. She'd made her way into the heart of the supernatural, just as she'd always wanted. But now it was all slipping away.

  She knew that Frank didn't mean to shut her out. He said he'd put her to work as soon as he found a job she could do. But meanwhile, she was stuck on the sidelines while her companions hunted for Spectres on the dead side of the Shroud. She hadn't even gotten to attend the conference with the Governors in the Citadel. Mistrusting the Stygians, Titus hadn't wanted to expend the magick power necessary to allow her to participate in the discussion.

  I am going to lose everything, she thought. Eventually Frank's going to decide that us being together just doesn't make any sense. Unless I do something about it.

  She doubted she could go back to sleep. She sat up to get a look at the clock on the night stand, then smelled cigarette smoke. "Hello," said Dunn's deep, lazy, amiable voice. He looked like a shadow in the darkness. "You okay? It seemed like you were having a bad dream."

  Her pistol, loaded with silver bullets, was on the night stand, too. She snatched for it, and Dunn grabbed her wrist. "Take it easy," he said.

  She raked at his face with the nails of her free hand. He caught her other wrist. She sucked in a breath to scream.

  Something crackled. Her body burned and bucked uncontrollably. She realized he was shocking her like an electric eel, just as he had Frank.

  Unlike the FBI agent, she didn't die from it, but when the cunent stopped flowing, and the werewolf dropped her back onto the bed, her muscles wouldn't obey her anymore. Dunn pressed a piece of tape over her mouth, handcuffed her hands behind her back, and then switched on the lamp.

  He smiled down at her. "There. Now we can get down to business."

  Though her body was still jerking and twitching, she thought she might now be able to call for help. She tried to scream through her gag, but the garbled sound that etnerged was too weak to be heard outside the room.

  "Are you scared?" Dunn asked. "For what it's worth, I'm not going to kill you yet. I'm not even going to rape or torture you, not seriously. I admit I'm tempted, but I'd rather get out of this dump while we're still young." He pulled off his suede jacket, and unbuttoned his shirt. "But we want to leave a clear trail for your friends to follow, and that means we want the smell of your blood and terror and my werewolf funk. So unfortunately, I do have to hurt you a little." His shoulders widened, and his eyes shone.

  THIRTY-TWO

  A trio of Legionnaires sauntered into view. Valentine had to struggle against the impulse to duck out of sight, even though, on the basis of several previous uneventful encounters with wandering soldiers, he'd decided that he evidently wasn't a wanted fugitive. Ordinarily, desertion was a capital offense, but apparently Gayoso valued his new quartermaster so little that he hadn't cared that he'd run off. Or maybe, just maybe, he hadn't wanted to draw attention to the dwarf and his tale of a murderer in a blue hood by issuing a warrant for his arrest. Either way, it seemed that Valentine was free to walk the shadowy, narrow streets of Under-the-Hill.

  Yeah, right. Free until he ran into Mike Fink, With much regret, the jester had sold Alexander and used the money to buy a stiletto and a Glock 17 automatic pistol. But even armed, he had no confidence whatsoever that he could survive another encounter with the keelboatman.

  He still couldn't believe he'd come back to Natchez, still didn't know precisely why he'd returned. He only felt that somehow Montrose, Daphne, Belinda, and the nameless Drone in the abandoned produce stand had ganged up on him to pressure him into it. And at the moment, jumping at every noise, his bowels watery, he hated them for it.

  Nevertheless, here he was, prowling through the district, looking for Belinda. What made the task problematic was that—assuming she'd already found a Masquer willing to give her the form of a child—he might not recognize her when he found her.

  A rapid thumping sounded from the mouth of an alley just ahead. Peeking warily down the passage, Valentine saw a boy, his face mottled with smallpox pustules, and a little girl with long pigtails tied with green ribbons. Both kids wore clothing appropriate to the early nineteenth century, but they were playing a modern game of one-on-one basketball, shooting at a rusty, netless hoop.

  "Belinda?" Valentine asked.

  The child ghosts turned and peered at him. "What?" asked the boy.

  "I'm looking for a little girl named Belinda," Valentine said. "I thought you might be her."

  The girl shook her head.

  "Then sorry I bothered you." Valentine hesitated. "I don't know if you know it, but kids like you have been disappearing lately. Maybe you shouldn't play out here alone."

  The boy reached into his hip pocket and brought out
a straight razor. "Fuck off, midget."

  Valentine cringed. Fine, he thought. I hope the killer does get you. Loathing himself for his cowardice—even a kid, someone his own size, armed with a blade when he had a gun, could intimidate him—he hurried on down the street.

  The evening dragged on. On two occasions, passersby accosted him, demanding bribes. Otherwise, they'd tell Fink they'd seen him. Valentine had plenty of money left from the sale of Alexander, so he paid. But the second time, the tough who'd shaken him down, evidently smelling the possibility of a bigger score, began to tail him. Valentine ducked inside a dilapidated wooden building. With his long-legged pursuer's footsteps pounding behind him, growing steadily closer, the dwarf made a zigzag dash through several walls, then dove into the knee hole of a desk. There he cowered, trembling, until the would-be robber gave up the search, and, swearing, went outside again. Valentine waited another twenty minutes, then cautiously, peering this way and that) made his own exit in the opposite direction.

  Once satisfied that the coast was clear, he reluctantly decided to proceed back toward the Green Head and the street of whorehouses behind it:. He dreaded the thought of going anywhere near the tavern. Despite his newfound importance as an Inquisitor, Fink still liked to hang out there. But Valentine couldn't very well look for Belinda without checking that particular area. It seemed quite possible that the hippie would stake:out the same vicinity from which Daphne had disappeared.

  As he neared the river with its reek of silt, dead fish, and pollution, he heard the mercenary leader bellowing out one of his preposterous brags. He yearned to turn back, but instead contented himself with making a wide detour around the Green Head itself, so as to come out on the: street of brothels halfway down. Fie had to quash a ridiculous urge to tiptoe.

  The flickering lamps on the crumbling walls shed scarlet light and chill. Succubi and movie stars called from doorways and windows. Approaching the end of the double line of whorehouses, Valentine spotted two shadows, one the size of a full- grown man, the other no larger than himself, standing in the gloom ahead, Reflexively holding his breath, he crept closer. The small figure was a little girl. With her skinny frame, sharp nose, and brown hair, she might well be the transformed Belinda, but he wasn't sure. Her male companion, however, wore not a blue hood with silver trim but a lacquered chartreuse wooden mask with a curly white beard that looked as if it might have been carved for some long-ago Mardi Gras. And he hadn't dressed in a long leather coat but the layered green cape and high boots of an officer of the Emerald Legion.

  Valentine sighed, relieved to have his momentary quandary solved. Since the adult wraith wasn't the murderer, it would do no harm simply to step out into the open and ask the kid if she was Belinda. He opened his mouth to hail her, then realized that nothing would be easier, or smarter, probably, than for the killer to change his disguise. What's more, the man before him was the same height and build as the silent figure who'd lured Daphne away.

  Scythe and Lamp, thought the dwarf, appalled by the mistake he'd nearly made, I don't have the instincts for this. He wished poor Montrose were here to help him. The Stygian would know what to do.

  The man in green offered the girl his hand, and she took it. They strolled to the end of the block, then on into the blackness beyond the crimson lamplight. Taking care not to get too close, Valentine skulked after them.

  They led him into the same empty section of the city where he'd met Belinda originally. The Quick had largely abandoned these few blocks of decrepit buildings some decades before. Even the majority of the homeless preferred to spend their time elsewhere, maybe because here there was no one to panhandle and no dumpsters full of discarded food to raid. Nor had many of the Restless settled in the area. Valentine had heard people say that, decrepit and Nihil-infested as many of the local structures looked, few of them buzzed with the echo of ancient pain. A ghost who chose to dwell in one might starve and fall into the Void.

  A predator with intentions so vile that even the residents of Under-the-Hill would take exception to them might well bring a victim here, to molest her undisturbed.

  If that is Belinda, Valentine wondered, why does she just keep walking along with this guy ? Why doesn't she whip out that stupid flintlock? Probably because she wasn't yet sure that her companion was really the killer. She was waiting for him to give himself away.

  The pair stopped outside the peeling wooden door of a derelict office building. The man in green waved his arm, inviting her to enter, but she didn't. Instead, they stood there talking. Valentine crept a little closer, but despite his preternatural hearing, still couldn't quite make out what they were saying. He assumed that the girl had suddenly decided it might not be such a bright idea to visit her companion's Haunt.

  The girl had the high, breathy voice of a child, but even so, something about the tone and cadence reinforced Valentine's feeling that she was Belinda. To his surprise, there was something familiar about the low-pitched voice of the man in green as well. Perhaps if he sneaked just a few feet closer, near enough to actually hear what the masked ghost was saying, he'd recognize it.

  He started to do precisely that, but then the man in green pounced on the little girl, so suddenly that, even if she did have a gun concealed in her clothing, she never even had a chance to make a grab for it. Startled, Valentine froze. The masked ghost punched the kid twice in the face, and her knees buckled. He picked her up and melted through the door.

  Valentine gaped at the spot from which the pair had disappeared. He knew he should go after them, but what if he screwed up? What if it turned out that he was as helpless to rescue the girl as he'd been to save Daphne, or the Drone? As he had been throughout his whole miserable existence? Maybe it would be better to run back to the Necropolis and get some soldiers.

  No. By the time he found someone willing to listen to him, Belinda—or whoever the child really was—might well have been destroyed. Valentine fumbled the Glock 17 out of its shoulder holster. For a moment he blanked on the weapon merchant's instructions, and couldn't remember how to release the safety and chamber a cartridge, but then the procedure came back to him. His hands trembling, he readied the compact 9mm pistol—which was still heavy and clumsy in his grasp—and ran to the office building.

  Cautiously he stuck his face through the door. The foyer inside was empty. There were several doors along the walls, and a narrow flight of stairs leading upward.

  Valentine strained, listening. Thought he heard a whisper of sound seeping through the ceiling. His mouth dry, he skulked up the steps, through darkness and the acidic stink of cockroaches. Though he knew it was impossible, he imagined he felt a heart pounding in his chest.

  By the time he reached the second-floor landing, he was certain the noise was real, a mixture of gleeful chuckling and ugly words in a language he didn't recognize, but which made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was murmuring through the door on the left.

  Please, Valentine prayed, for all that he didn't believe in God, don't let me mess this up. He resolved to catch the man in green completely by surprise, the way Montrose had supposedly surprised the Heretic Sandmen and Chanteurs at the battle of Grand Gulf. Trying to steady himself, he drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, then lunged through the door.

  Beyond it was a room illuminated by the wavering greenish light of several barrow- fire candles, and dominated by the seething, glittering Nihil, a pit radiating twisting fissures like the arms of an octopus, gaping in the middle of the floor. A collection of painted symbols decorated the walls. Valentine had no clue what they signified, but, like the incomprehensible phrases he'd heard a moment before, they made his skin crawl.

  The girl lay on a long table with a rubber-ball gag jammed in her mouth and an assortment of darksteel daggers, one as massive as a Bowie knife, others delicate as scalpels, surrounding her. This close, Valentine could tell that she was indeed Belinda. His back to the dwarf, the bearded mask discarded on the floor, the man in green crouch
ed over her, about to snap a manacle around her left wrist.

  Valentine meant to shoot the killer before the bastard even realized he was there. But in the moment it took him to aim the Glock 17, the other wraith sensed his presence, and whirled. The dwarf froze in shock.

  Because the murderer was Gayoso.

  Astarte lay hog-tied on the floor of the empty bedroom, suffering. Her throat was parched, her cuts and bruises stung and itched, and her limbs were cramped from being immobilized behind her back. Whenever she tried to shift them, the noose around her neck pulled tight and choked her, Dunn's way of making absolutely sure she couldn't wriggle free of her bonds.

  The physical pain, however, was nothing compared to her mental anguish. The anguish of knowing what was to come.

  She'd realized Dunn meant her to serve as bait in a trap. When he'd forced her into the derelict house, she'd peered this way and that, trying to see what kind of opponents her friends would have to contend with when they came to rescue her. But the building appeared to be empty.

  "Looking for bushwhackers?" Dunn had asked. She hadn't replied, but her pitiful attempt at defiance only made him grin. "Naturally, if they were wraiths, you wouldn't see 'em. Even if they were Dancers, you probably wouldn't unless they wanted you to. But actually, we're alone. Sure, I could attack Bellamy and company with spooks, Banes, werewolves, and the whole Creature Feature. But your team has a nasty habit of escaping to poke their noses into my business another day. So in the interests of getting this crap over with once and for all, I decided to try another approach, something I hope old Frank won't suspect. See, critters like him and me sometimes get so preoccupied with supernatural dangers that we forget all the nasty gadgets you monkeys have invented. My gang and I are going to keep this charming mansion under surveillance. When your buddies go inside, we'll set off two bombs, one on either side of the Shroud. Sorry you have to check out along with everyone else, but at least it ought to be fast and painless."