Graveyard Child

by M. L. N. Hanover

  “We are,” I said. “We just need some things first.”

  Ex and Chogyi Jake both closed their doors. The sound was deep and metallic. Like a jail cell closing.

  “Things? Like what things?” Jay said.

  “Shotguns,” I said. “And a bathroom.”

  SOUTH WATER Street was exactly the worst kind of place to do reconnaissance on an enemy. It was in the middle of a wide residential area, no fences to lurk behind, and not many hedges. Two-lane streets of gray pavement, the cracks filled with black tar. Winter-bare trees lined the street on both sides, bare branches reaching across toward each other like fantastic fingers. There weren’t many cars on the street, so if I parked the SUV close enough for us to see the house from the vision, we’d also catch the local attention like a fire at a preschool. If we parked far enough away that we couldn’t be seen, we also couldn’t see anything. Jay’s car was more nondescript than my massive black apartment on wheels, but it was also the car that Carla would recognize on sight. Given what she’d said in her note, I wasn’t assuming she was going to be on our side. At least not at the start. I might be wrong. The Invisible College might have forced her to write it, and she could be desperately waiting for us to break down the door and pull her away.

  I was open for a pleasant surprise, but I wasn’t counting on it.

  We wound up parking one street over, near the corner where we were most obscured by the houses. Chogyi Jake and Ex got out to walk around the block, not using any glamours, but trusting to the darkness of the night to obscure their faces. The guns we kept in the backseat. I thought about leaving the engine running so we’d be able to use the heater, but I couldn’t find a way to do that without keeping the running lights on. So we sat in the darkness, Jay and I, while Chogyi Jake and Ex headed out. The cold seemed to press in from the windows, and I folded my hands in under my jacket and watched the traffic pass. Jay shifted nervously in his seat, his hand tapping at his knees, at the door. He sighed often and without seeming to know he was doing it. Eventually I had to talk to him. It was that or let him annoy me to death.

  “She’ll be all right.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said.

  “They don’t have any reason to hurt her. If they’re after me, she’s no good to them dead.”

  “How about hurt?” Jay snapped. “Or taken over by demons?”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Those would suck.”

  “I can’t believe you did this to us. I just can’t believe you’d be so selfish.”

  I turned to look at him. The heat of our combined breath was fogging the insides of the windows, and he looked like a silhouette of himself in front of privacy glass. A streetlight another street away caught the window behind him, giving him a false halo.

  “Guess I don’t see it that way,” I said, then turned back to watching the street. Lights were on in the houses. Men and women going about the rituals of their lives. Getting ready for parties or watching TV or putting the kids to bed. All of it going on while I froze my ass off waiting for the chance to lead a strike on a nest of demon-ridden wizards who probably wanted me dead. Damned selfish of me, all right.

  As if he could hear me thinking, Jay tapped his palms on his knees, shook his head, and spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was out of line. I’m kind of freaking out here. I just don’t understand all what’s going on. I mean . . .” His voice broke. “I’m supposed to be getting married next week. I’m supposed to be worrying about getting a job that makes enough money and what kind of fucking diaper container to use so we don’t stink up the house and making sure Carla’s not miserable because we’re back here instead of Florida with her family.”

  “Well, given our family, Wichita is kind of a hard sell,” I said. “No offense.”

  He laughed. It was a small sound, and bitter, but it was more than I’d expected, and I was glad to hear it.

  “I sooo didn’t want this,” he said. “Seriously, this wasn’t in the plan.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  Jay rolled his eyes.

  “Well, sometimes when a man and a woman love each other very, very much, they give each other a special kind of hug,” he said. I punched his shoulder.

  “Not what I meant. How about . . . I don’t know. How’d you meet her? What’s she like when my bullshit drama’s not jumping through the windows?” I said. And then a moment later, and more plaintively than I’d meant it to sound, “Are you happy?”

  A car drove past, blue or brown or black. Between the fogged windows and the night, I couldn’t tell. Something dark. Jay was quiet so long, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he did speak, his voice was soft. Almost gentle.

  “She’s great. Smart and talented. And beautiful. She got here, and she made friends with everyone at church right away, even though she’s . . . you know.”

  “Hispanic and knocked up?”

  Jay lowered his head to his hands.

  “Yes,” he said. “That.”

  “I’m not throwing stones,” I said. “She’s cool with me.”

  “Thank you,” he said, laughter in his voice. “I’m glad my crazy sister with her porn star SUV and coat and scary-old-man entourage isn’t freaked out.”

  “What’re you talking about, ‘porn star SUV’?”

  “It’s a porn star SUV,” he said. “The only things its missing are a wet bar in the dashboard and a bunch of little cameras in the backseat.”

  “Shut up,” I said, and punched him again. “How do you know what porn star cars look like anyway? I thought you were all Jesus all the time.”

  “You thought that, did you,” he said. “You noticed I’m in a shotgun wedding, right?”

  “Fair point,” I said.

  “I don’t love her.”

  He said it so easily, his voice so calm, so conversational. The words hung in the air between us, implications trailing out behind them. He was going to have a wife, a baby, a home, a life. Decades stretching out before him sharing his days and nights with a woman he seemed to like. I wanted to say something comforting and wise. Something that would make his situation better, or if not better, at least better than that. I put my hand on his.

  “What about you?” he said. “The blond guy. He’s in love with you, isn’t he?”

  “He thinks he is,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s even true. That issue’s got a lot of complexity in it.”

  “Because of the angel inside you?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it again. This wasn’t a conversation I’d been planning to have. Ever. With anyone.

  “Sort of,” I said, feeling my way around the syllables like they might have sharp edges. “She’s not an angel, though. Or a demon either.”

  “So what is she, then?”

  “She’s what I’ve got to work with,” I said. “And it makes Ex a little scared for me.”

  “And the other guy? The Asian?”

  “He’s harder to unease,” I said.

  “Do you love them?”

  I ran a hand through my hair.

  “I have an unhealthy thing for Ex,” I said. “By which I mean, I think it’s probably a bad idea and I’m probably reacting to a bunch of things besides him. But it’s there. Chogyi Jake’s . . .”

  “Like a brother?” he asked, a smile in his voice.

  “More like a mom, actually,” I said. “He’s just so nurturing all the time. I mean, it sounds kind of creepy when I say it out loud, but it’s actually really nice.”

  “So they’re your family now.” There wasn’t any rancor in the question. No outrage at the idea that I might have made a family different from the one I’d been born into. I sat with it for a few seconds. Ex. Chogyi Jake. Aubrey. Kim.

  “I guess so,” I said. “I guess they are.”

  “And are you going to church at all?”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  I looked out the side window. The house nearest us had its Christmas lights on st
ill, a half dozen bright colors blinking on and off. Inside, the blue flicker of a television danced like a fire.

  “I wish you would.”

  “It’s not really who I am these days,” I said. “Maybe later. When things have calmed down a little.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” he said. “It was hard when you left. There were a lot of things that got thrown into the air. Plans had to change.”

  “Mostly plans about what college I’d get my ‘MRS’ degree from,” I said.

  “Well, that too,” he said.

  “Yeah? So which plans were you thinking of?”

  Jay shrugged.

  “I always pictured you being around, is all. Mom and Dad are going to get old. They’ll get sick and need us to take care of them, and I figured it would be the three of us together. You and me and Curt. And, you know, I figured your kids and mine would be going to Sunday school together. Or, you know, at least Christmas services. When you stepped out of the picture, it blew everything up.”

  “I didn’t mean it to,” I said. “I just . . . I needed to go, you know?”

  “I do,” Jay said. “I know exactly. I remember when Mom called me and told me that you’d gone to Arizona even though Dad said you couldn’t. Honestly, the first thing I thought was She can’t do that—can I? But by then I was almost done with my degree, and after I had that . . . well, I could go anywhere.”

  “So you went to Florida because I went to Arizona?”

  “I don’t know if I’d say that,” he said. “But part of what made me think I could go out in the world was that you already did it. Only, it didn’t work out all that well, did it? I mean, here we both are.”

  Something shifted on the sidewalk about half a block down. I tried to wipe the steam from the inside of the windshield, but it was already half frozen, so instead I scraped it with my fingernails, tiny white threads of frost falling to the dashboard. Chogyi Jake and Ex. I rolled down the window, and Ex stepped up.

  “Got them,” Ex said. “The place is about a block and a half down on the east side of the street. There’s a truck in the front, and I’m pretty sure they’ve got the motorcycles in the back. I’m only seeing Rhodes and the woman. Idéa Smith. If Martinez is there, he’s not near a window.”

  Chogyi Jake opened the rear door. By the dome light, he started gathering the four new shotguns.

  “And Carla?” Jay said. “Is she there? Did you see her?”

  “Didn’t,” Ex admitted. “But we weren’t getting too close. They have wards on the place. When we come in, they’re going to know it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s the plan. Chogyi Jake and I will head for the front and see if we can pull them out to the street. You and Jay get his car parked on the next street over and come in at the back. If they try to get her out, you can grab her. If they don’t, you can go in after her. Invoke Calling Malkuth so the magic’s not as effective, and then use the guns if you need them.”

  “ ‘Calling Malkuth’?” Jay asked, his brows furrowed.

  “Special kind of prayer,” Ex said. “And once we have her, where do we go?”

  “Airport and out of town,” I said. “Wherever the first flight’s going.”

  “Wait,” Jay said. “What about—”

  “It’s on my dime,” I said. “If you’re not here, I’ve got one less thing to worry about.”

  “And you?” Ex asked.

  “There’re some things only your enemies know about you,” I said. “I’m going to try to distract them and get them to talk to me. Maybe get something useful out of them before it all goes down.”

  “You know they have guns too,” Ex said, scowling.

  “Didn’t say it was going to be easy,” I said.

  chapter fourteen

  There are a lot reasons that dealing with riders felt like crime. The first one—the most important one—is that I never wanted the police involved. I’ve got nothing but respect for cops. They’ve got a rough job, and an important one. But when they’re around, they’re the authority. Explaining that they shouldn’t arrest me because the guy I just shot is really a demon from another plane of existence would actually be worse than just insisting on speaking with my lawyer. I had faith in my ability to buy my way out of almost any amount of legal trouble short of murder, but it was always easier to stay out of the legal system than to get out once I was in it.

  Another reason was that most of what I did and had done for years now involved doing something other people—often violent and powerful people—didn’t want me to do. Abducting a girl before a New Orleans voodoo cult could put a rider in her, for instance, although that one hadn’t really gone as expected.

  But the thing that made my job and criminal work most similar was this: I didn’t care what other people wanted. For a thief or a murderer, that was because very few people are up for being robbed or killed. Really taking into account what the person on the other end of the knife wanted, including them in the dialog, pretty much meant you weren’t a thief and murderer anymore. For me, it was more complex. I could want the best for the people I dealt with, but I couldn’t assume they wanted the best for themselves anymore.

  Riders are like any kind of parasite. They change the organism they’re living in. A caterpillar parasitized by some kinds of wasp larvae will defend the larvae even while they are eating it alive. Toxoplasma gondii bacteria make its host mouse like the smell of cat in order to get the mouse eaten and the bacterium into the cat’s gut, where it is happiest. An ant with fungal parasites will climb to the top of a blade of grass and wait for a cow to come eat it. People with riders don’t have free wills the way normal folks do. They are puppets on strings, and if they are even still in their bodies, they may not even know they are being controlled. For all I knew, Rhodes and his buddies hated the things they were doing now.

  For that matter, if I hadn’t had a rider, I might never have fallen from grace with the church. I might not have left home. All the choices I had made in my whole life were suspect. I knew it, and it didn’t change anything. I had to pretend that I had made all my own choices at the same time that I was willing to put theirs down to being controlled by spirits and ghosts. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

  I stood at the corner, looking down the dark street. My right hand was in a cheap vinyl duffel bag, my fingers wrapping the stock and trigger of a Remington 870 Express. The nice thing about shotguns, at least for me, is I didn’t have to have great aim. Chogyi Jake stood beside me, blowing warmth into his cupped hands.

  The house looked different in the night, but not so much that I didn’t recognize it. The single tree close to the road. The porch and porch swing. Darkness had turned the white walls to gray, and the blue of its neighbors almost black. It was the same house I’d seen in the vision, though. No doubt about it.

  “Are you all right?”

  “About to walk into a trap,” I said. “Feeling a little nervous.”

  “We still have options,” he said. “We can call the police. Report her as having been kidnapped.”

  “Wouldn’t do any good,” I said. “And it would put a bunch of innocent people in danger.”

  “Better if the people in danger aren’t innocent?” he asked, and I smiled.

  “If they’re shooting at anyone, better that it’s us. At least we know to expect it.”

  He shifted, swinging his own cheap duffel bag off his shoulder, putting his own hand in to match my own.

  “This isn’t your fault, you know,” he said.

  “It’s my responsibility, though. That’s close enough. I’m trying to take a lot of comfort in the fact they were packing rock salt before.”

  “Is that working?”

  “Not really,” I said. “You ready?”

  Chogyi Jake nodded and we started down the street. The cold and the dark meant there was no one else out. I stopped at the sidewalk across the street from the Invisible College’s safe house. The shotgun felt heavy and unpleasant in my hands. The lights burned
white in the windows, and I could feel the force of the wards pushing my awareness away. I remembered being in science class in middle school and having the teacher—a short, mean woman with red hair and bad teeth—show us that we all had a blind spot. She went on about how everyone had a little glitch in their field of vision where the optic nerve was attached to the retina, but I was just sitting at my desk, playing at making the tip of my finger disappear. Move it an inch, it appeared. Shift back and it was gone. The house was like that too. There and gone. It made my head ache a little to look at it.

  “They get to shoot first,” I said.

  “Is that why you asked Ex to stay with your brother?”

  “You don’t think Ex would let them take a free shot at me?”

  “I think he wouldn’t.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said. I didn’t want to cross the street and step directly into their wards and devices. I didn’t want to stay here and slowly freeze until they noticed me. Or if they had already, until they did something about me. “I feel like Lloyd Dobler.”

  “Who?”

  “Guy in a movie. Never mind.”

  I was sure by now they’d noticed me, but nothing kept happening. It was my move, and their home court advantage. I drew my will up, letting the force of it pool in my throat. The Black Sun didn’t add anything to it. Whatever I started with, it would be only a human effort. I imagined her waiting in the space behind my eyes, as tense as I was and watching for our next move.

  “Hey,” I called, pushing the word out. It was invisible, but I felt it break against the wards and shatter. That was fine. I hadn’t meant to get through, just knock. Maybe ten seconds later the door swung open. My gut went tight. Even in the dead of winter, my palms were sweating against the shotgun. I smelled overheated iron, like an empty skillet left too long on an open flame, and a vast pressure of qi curled over me. Whatever the riders were in those people’s skins, they were strong. And worse, they were smart.

  He came onto the porch. Jonathan Rhodes in blue jeans and a thick knit sweater. If it hadn’t been for the intricate tattoos, he could have been anyone. Instead, he looked like a refugee from some deeply disturbing carnival. When I had killed Randolph Coin, it had been with an enchanted bullet. I hadn’t shot him with it, even. Just pressed the ensorcelled metal to a wound and kicked the rider in him loose. He hadn’t stopped breathing all at once. For the first time I wondered if that meant the man—the shell—had been alive at the end, empty of its rider and wounded past all hope of survival. I wondered whether Jonathan Rhodes had any bullets like that one, and if there might be a rifle trained on me right now.