Darkshine

by R. D. Vallier

My throat clicked. "I know. I loved you, too."

  "Then let's help each other out. I'll fund what you want, if you don't damage what I want. Deal?

  "Deal," I said. We shook on it. "Now, will you please get Orin and I out of here?"

  "That I will."

  I followed Sam out of the interrogation room, his car keys jingling like boot spurs in his hand.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I squinted as Sam and I trotted down the steps of the police station, the sun glaring into my eyes. The air had become crisp since we were detained. Wisps of clouds cut through a powder-blue sky.

  Sam's rental car—a brand new, white Nissan Maxima—was parked near the police station's front door. He leaned against the driver's window and lit a Camel. A brisk wind circled around me, rippling my hair and the hem of my skirt. A dirty receipt tumbled into the hedges. The detectives had let me keep the blanket; I hugged myself for warmth and focused on the police station's door. Sam sucked on his cigarette, the soft crackling the sole conversation between us. His silver belt buckle glinted against his faded blue jeans. I ground my teeth. What is taking Orin so long? Every second that passed was another second closer to the sniffer tracking us, the Realm imprisoning us, a knife sliding across our throats.

  A spider scurried across the trunk of the car. My breath caught. Was it a spider or a spyder? I flicked it to the ground and crushed it with my foot, twisting my toe until a stain remained. I had forgotten about spies. How did you hide from an army of spyders, lurking in spaces too small to see?

  Sam smoked almost to the filter, then threw the butt on the ground and let it burn.

  "Are you sure they're releasing him?" I asked.

  Louie opened the station's door as if I had uttered the magic words, and Orin skulked down the steps. Never had I seen his gait so heavy. His shredded pant-leg had been cut to the knee, and his calf was freshly bandaged. His hands were shoved deep into the sniffer's coat pockets, his shoulders curled forward as if ducking from the world. He scanned the parking lot, his eyes darting to the trees lining the street, to the Crown Victorias behind the chain link fence.

  I met Orin halfway to the Nissan and threw my arms around his neck. He hugged me low on the waist, both of us avoiding the rawness on each other's backs. He tucked his face into my hair and whispered hoarsely: "I'm sorry."

  "You have nothing to apologize for," I said. "How is your back?"

  Orin pulled away and shrugged. "Painful. The doctors re-bandaged it. They wanted to stitch it, but I refused."

  "Why did you refuse?"

  Orin nearly spat his words: "Because I am sick of lies."

  I sighed, unsure what to say. "We got a ride."

  Orin glanced at Sam—who glared at him—then back to me. His brow furrowed. "You want to do that?"

  "We are otherwise stranded," I said, then lowered my voice so Sam wouldn't hear. "And it's safer than trying to outrun the Realm on foot, right? It'll also get us cash and time until we decide what to do next."

  Orin blinked. "You're not returning to Ohio with Sam?"

  My back straightened. Orin had spoken much louder than my whisper. I sensed Sam's eyes boring into the back of my head. "No," I said, slowly. "That has not changed."

  My husband's footsteps clomped behind me. Dread filled my bones.

  Sam extended his hand to Orin. "I guess I ought to thank you for protecting my wife." He forced a smile which did not meet his eyes. "God knows what would've happened if she attempted this harebrained adventure on her own, ya know?"

  Orin shook his hand. "Oh, I wouldn't worry. She is stronger than she appears."

  I doubted Sam noticed the sly smile tugging at Orin's lips before he turned to unlock the car.

  Orin slid into the back behind the driver and leaned forward to keep his gashes off the seat. Sam walked around to open the front door for me. "I think I should sit in the back," I said.

  Sam's eyes hardened—two six shooters cocked and aiming. I recoiled. My instincts (or is this impulse?) told me to grab Orin and flee. But flee where? The sniffer would track us on foot. Sam sighed deeply; his tension released on the exhale and returned the husband I knew. His eyes softened and my shoulders relaxed. Those bullets I had imagined were blanks.

  "Whatever you feel is best," Sam said, then left me for the steering wheel.

  In-N-Out wrappers and Redbull cans littered the rear floorboard, yet the whole car reeked of newness, making my stomach clench. New-car-smell always shoved me toward the edge of carsickness. So did backseats on windy, mountain roads, come to think of it. For a brief moment I thought the front seat was the better option. Then I realized sitting beside Sam would cause more nausea than any swaying car.

  The ride was quiet. No music, no conversation. Just breathing, the occasional cough, and the engine's trundle. I tucked my hands between my knees, sitting in a triangle with my adulterer husband and my outlaw faerie friend. I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that every tick of the odometer brought us farther from Raina, farther from the sniffer, farther from the Realm. Orin leaned his forehead against the window and closed his eyes. His shallow breath fogged the glass in two patches, growing and shrinking like the tide. I wondered if he regarded this car ride as I did. Was he grateful for the quick escape? Or had his devotion been so deep that fleeing the Realm felt like abandonment, despite their lies and torture? I frowned. Maybe Orin knows fleeing is pointless, merely killing time before the sniffers inevitably kill us.

  I reached over and patted Orin's thigh. Orin's fingers found mine and squeezed. His forehead never left the glass and his eyes never opened. My thumb rubbed his, a pathetic attempt at comfort, but the one comfort I had to give.

  Sam glared at me from the rearview mirror. I met his eyes and felt ... nothing. I had suffered too many real threats to shrink away from Sam's empty ones. The realization would have felt liberating if it wasn't so depressing.

  My stomach spun as Sam raced along the curvy, mountain roads. Flip flop. Flip flop. Around and around. My sinuses burned with nauseating newness. What made new-car-stench, anyway? Freshly molded plastics? Gassing upholstery chemicals? Metal coatings burning off? Flip flop. I cracked open my window and leaned my forehead against the cool glass, mimicking Orin. Maybe he was carsick as well.

  Winter whistled through the window. I closed my eyes and dozed.

  The crunch of tires on dirt and gravel woke me. Sam parked in a turnout on the side of the road, the engine running.

  "Where are we?" I asked, rubbing my right eye. An overgrown field, fenced in barbed wire, formed a valley between two forested hills. The sun had dipped behind the peaks, sending a burst of vermillion across the sky.

  "No idea," Sam said with a groan. "I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere." He pulled a map from the console and opened his door. "Stretch your legs and piss if ya gotta. I need to figure out where I got lost."

  Orin and I climbed out of the car and stretched gingerly, our backs too raw to pull taut. I circled my head to get the crick out of my neck. Orin limped to a fencepost and took a leak.

  "Hold this down for me, will ya, Mir?" Sam tried to spread a roadmap across the car's hood, but the wind kept flipping up the paper. I pressed one side down, the warm engine vibrating beneath my palms. "See highway thirty-nine?" he asked.

  I scanned the roadways, the wind trying to tug the map from my hand. "No." Branches snapped behind us in a thick tangle of brush. I wheeled around with a start.

  "Dammit, Miriam! Hold it down," Sam said, trying to tame the map. "I can't do this alone."

  "Sorry," I said, and pressed the map to the hood. I glanced over my shoulder. "I thought I saw eye-shine in the bushes."

  Sam's finger traced a paper highway. "Probably a cat or a raccoon or something."

  Or a hunchbacked greyhound.

  Orin joined us, peeking over my shoulder. The map rattled, fighting Sam and my's grip.

  "I don't think there is a highway thirty-nine," I said, after a moment.

  "There is. It's what
I came here on," Sam said.

  "Well, I don't see it," I said. "Maybe you drove off the map."

  Sam groaned. "Guess I should have paid extra for GPS."

  More branches snapped. Orin stiffened with me; we glanced at each other, then to the brush.

  "Let's keep driving," I said.

  "Do I look made of gas money?" Sam said. "Keep searching. I think the rental company gave me an atlas."

  The map snapped up when Sam let go, crinkling against my chest in the wind. Sam ducked into the car; Orin grabbed the map's wild side and pinned it to the hood. I squinted in the day's dying light, desperately trying to find highway thirty-nine. But I was convinced highway thirty-nine didn't exist. Sam probably mistook what road he arrived on and his ego now hampered his judgement. It happened frequently during our marriage, but usually lead to delays and arguments. Now it would lead to a sniffer slitting our throats if we kept dawdling. But how do I tell him that?

  "Found the atlas," Sam said as he rejoined us. A single snowflake drifted onto the map and melted. "Hey, Orin. Do me a solid and hold this a sec, will ya?"

  Orin's eyebrows pinched together. "What do you want me to do with this?" he asked, awkwardly holding the grip of Sam's Glock.

  "Nothing. Thanks for the fingerprints," Sam said, and slammed his fist into Orin's face.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Orin staggered backwards, blood gushing from his nose, but before he brought his hands to his face Sam nailed him in the temple and dropped him like a stone.

  I gawked as Sam yanked the gun from Orin's hand. I knew I needed to do something—rush to Orin's aid, attack Sam, run away, something!—but my brain and body refused to connect. I stood aside, useless, mute.

  Sam snatched a fistful of Orin's hair and wrenched back his head. Orin hung, insensible, making Sam look like a headhunter claiming his prize. Orin's eyelids fluttered; his whites rolled. Blood streamed out of his nose and spotted the dirt.

  I flew at Sam, dug my nails into his forearm, and yanked. "Are you insane?"

  "Do you take me for an idiot?" Sam shouted, shoving me off him. "Do you think I can't smell a setup?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I was on the other side of the mirror, Miriam." His fingers curled in Orin's hair, straining his knuckles white. "I heard you tell the detectives about Mark and those photos, and I know you will tell others!"

  Mark. The name of my husband's lover is Mark.

  "If you didn't want anyone to know you were gay you shouldn't have screwed a man!" I snapped.

  "I am not gay! If you were capable of satisfying me, my tastes would have never changed. This is all your fault! And I'll be damned if you'll blackmail me for your inabilities."

  "You're blaming me for your betrayal?"

  "You are the adulterer," Sam said, and thrust his finger at Orin. "Running off with him!"

  I gaped at Sam, dumbfounded. "Orin is not my lover!"

  "The police found you two in bed together!"

  "We were sleeping!"

  "Oh yeah?" He dropped Orin to grab my arm and waggled my cut wrist in my face. "Kinky sex, was it?"

  My jaw fell. "No," I spluttered. "I didn't mean—"

  "Not so tough when caught in your lies, are you, you stupid slut? You will not ruin the future I have sacrificed for, understand me?" He glared at Orin and shook his head. "A pity Orin fooled the detectives. I tried to fend him off, but he snatched my gun and murdered you. It's a goddamn miracle I killed him before he killed me." He gestured at Orin with the gun barrel.

  I lunged on Sam. Comical, really. Like a gnat attacking a gorilla. But after surviving trains and magic and the elements and rebels and homeless lunatics and blizzards and perverted guards and ley lines and darklings and bloodthirsty greyhounds and sniffers and the Realm and the police, I'd be damned if Orin and I lost our lives to the bastard who drove me into it all. My shoulder rammed Sam's arm; he staggered and stumbled over Orin's body. I pounded my fists on his chest as if he were a door I was desperate to have answered. He sneered and shoved me to my ass, then pointed the Glock at my face. My heart hammered. I remembered the torn rose petal in the restaurant and the heliofiber glowing gold in a twirling dress. I tried calling in that sensation to protect me, straining to hear sunlight's song. But the only answer was winter whistling through the valley, and a rattling map ensnared in barbed wire.

  I scrambled to my hands and knees. Sam lunged, caught my skirt. He dragged me towards Orin, my fingertips gouging claw marks in the ground. The wind swallowed my screams, killing them in the valley. I twisted onto my side and chucked a handful of gravel into Sam's face. Sam cursed, dropping me to shield his eyes. I sprung to my feet and bit his wrist, prying the Glock from his hand. Sam snatched my hair. I crammed the barrel against his chin and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Sam sneered. "You think I'm stupid enough to hand that faggot a loaded gun?"

  My blood dropped to my stomach. "Sam," I squeaked. "I—" Sam clenched my hair and yanked me to his eye level. His pupils were huge, like two empty casings in a six-shooter gun. He swatted the Glock from my fist.

  "I can't believe you tried to kill me, you bitch!"

  "Sam! Please! I'm sorry! I-I—!" I shrieked as he swung me in a semicircle, hair ripping from my scalp. My shoulder whacked the rear passenger window. Sam clenched my throat and rammed my back against the door. I squirmed and tugged on his fingers, nails digging into his flesh. I might as well have been trying to pry apart a mountain.

  My body bucked beneath Sam's grip, as useless as a flag trying to tear itself from the pole. His hands squeezed tighter. My eyes bulged and I heard a breathless hiccup, startled when I realized it escaped from me. Blood throbbed in my ears, and my tongue became a gelatinous glob inside my mouth. I tried gasping for air, but none flowed in. Sam's face was lax, watching me with the soft, sinister promise of a noose swaying beneath the branches. My hands slipped off his. Once upon a time I had found safety in these arms. How was I so blind? Sam had never been my knight in shining armor. He had never been my protector. Sam was a mole, a hidden enemy armed with broken hearts, betrayal, lies.

  Cheater, cheater, marriage eater. Lured his wife just to deceive her.

  The sun crept slowly behind the hills, bruising the sky. Sam licked his lip, his eyes fixed on mine. I tried calling in night's whispers, begging the shadows to protect me, pleading for them to force my husband away. My skin prickled. Was it from magic or lack of oxygen? Just a few more seconds...

  White and gray stars bloomed in my vision, scattering across a darkening sky which didn't darken quick enough. Sam's wedding ring dug into my throat, keeping its promise of until death do us part. My extremities numbed, and somehow my body lightened and floated past the panic and pain.

  "You brought this on yourself," Sam said, as blackness crept into my vision.

  Then a naked man materialized behind him in a puff of shadow, his fingers arched like claws and ready for murder.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Delano's fingers dug into Sam's eye-sockets; his pinky hooked a nostril and yanked backwards, as if trying to rip off a Halloween mask. Sam cried out, releasing my throat. I collapsed to my knees, gasping and coughing, stars popping black and gray in my sight. Sam flailed. His heels dug into the gravel as Delano dragged him backward by his armpit and face.

  "I'm gonna fuck you up, blondie," Sam shouted. He bucked Delano off his back and spun around. "I'm gonna—" Sam jumped back with a start when he realized it wasn't Orin who had attacked him, but a naked man with eyes like bloodstained scythes. "Who the hell are you?"

  "Blast him, Delano!" I croaked.

  Sam gaped at me from over his shoulder. "You know this crackhead?"

  Delano grinned and licked his teeth. "I'm keeping this old-school," he said. Both men circled each other, fists up. "I want to feel this wife-beater's blood on my hands."

  Sam whipped a folding knife from his pant pocket, flicked the blade open with a snap. "Oh, there will be b
lood, motherfucker. Just not mine." He flipped the knife blade-down and lashed out for Delano's throat.

  Delano threw up his arms to shield himself, yelped when the blade struck his wrist. Sam ducked down and left, dragging the knife across Delano's forearm, then swung backward, aiming to impale the darkling's kidney. Delano rammed his bleeding elbow down onto Sam's ribs before the blade found its mark, then hooked Sam's shoulder and used the momentum to hurl him to the ground. Sam's hands opened to catch his fall, dropping the knife as he rolled onto his ass. Delano seized the weapon and brought the blade behind his head, ready to plunge it into Sam's heart. "Not such a tough-guy now, are you?"

  "You dumbass." Sam snatched a small revolver from an ankle-holster beneath his pant-leg and fired.

  "No!" The gunshot echoed in the valley; a murder of crows screamed from the hills as Delano collapsed to his side. My magic blasted Sam as he pulled the trigger, hurling him sideways in a wave of darkness. His head whammed against a fence post and knocked him out cold.

  "Oh my God oh my God oh my God." I staggered to Delano and rolled him onto his back. His forearm was gashed from wrist to elbow, oozing dark blood; bright blood dribbled from the gunshot wound above his left hip.

  Delano sat up with a grunt, curling his legs to hide his nudity. "I'm okay," he said, clutching his side. "The bullet just clipped me. It didn't go in, see? But you." He lifted my chin with his thumb, examining my throat.

  "I'm fine," I said, then burst into tears. "You were right about everything. I should have trusted you. I am so sorry."

  Delano cradled my face in his palm. He tilted his head and smiled, his ruddy eyes on mine. "You used night magic."

  I snuffled. "Of course. I-I couldn't let Sam hurt you. I couldn't—"

  Delano crushed his lips against mine. I jerked with surprise, but he pressed firmer, held my face against his. I felt night's magic hum on Delano's body, tasted winter on his lips. Whispers caressed my skin and called me home. I tensed, then cupped Delano's face in my hands, opened his lips with my tongue. I gave my warmth to him freely, shivered to his chill. Venus's brilliance paled above us and the dying light dimmed. But for once neither glow seemed to lessen. Instead, my darkling shined.