by Debra Dunbar
“Yes you do,” Candy said slowly. “I think you feel all those things, you just don’t want to admit it.”
No, she was wrong. I liked and admired Candy, but if she got plowed down by a truck, I wouldn’t shed a tear. I’d miss that angel a lot, but that was only because I wouldn’t have him around to teach me stuff. I didn’t love him. Fuck, I didn’t even like him. I only cared about myself. And Wyatt. And maybe Dar. That was it. Nobody else.
We jogged back up the trail to the cars. It was agonizing. Like trying to carry a hundred pounds of firewood on your shoulders while running up hill on jelly legs. I was looking forward to spending the night in a hot tub. Hopefully with Wyatt.
Back at the cars, Candy tossed me a chocolate bar. With a name like Candy, of course she’d carry these things around in her car. It was predestination. The candy reminded me of her comment this summer that I smelled like burnt chocolate to her werewolf nose. What a great smell. I wished I could smell myself. Of course, I’d probably binge constantly on sweets and weigh a million pounds.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Candy added, carefully putting her wrapper in the little bag-lined trash bin in her car. I’d tossed mine on the ground where the wind promptly carried it into the woods. “Reed called and let me know your units are already full of homeless. He says they are nervous about some of them who disappeared in the past week from an old, vacant grocery store they used to hole up in. Once word got out that there was space at your place at night, they were lining up to get in. Do you know there are over four hundred homeless in the city limits and you’ve got just over two hundred in your place?”
“Can he squeeze more in?” I wondered. “Maybe a reduced rate for those who sleep in the crawl space under the porch?”
If only I’d known about this. I could have picked up that abandoned warehouse down the street and packed them in there. Hmmm. It was owned by an out-of-town corporation. I could probably stuff it full of homeless people, collect rent from them and the owners would be none the wiser. It would be a nice little income stream.
Candy shook her head. “You’re maxed out. Any more people and Reed will need to spend the whole night there. You have no idea how many fights those people get into. He’s like Solomon deciding who this shopping cart belongs to, or who had first claim on the corner away from the window. You’re at the tipping point where you’re going to erode profits if you pack any more in.”
I nodded. “Thanks. Tell Reed to call me if he needs me to help. Although I don’t know how much help I can be. I tend to just upset those people and make everything worse. Still, if he needs rope or duct tape or anything to keep people in line, just have him bill me.”
Candy climbed in her car. “Call me, and maybe we’ll do a mid-week run. I’ve been wanting to do something along the Potomac river before winter hits.”
I drove home with increasing stiffness. At least the Corvette had heated seats, although that didn’t help my screaming legs. I’d left a message on Wyatt’s machine, but I feared I would need to soak in the tub alone. He never checked his messages when he was killing zombies, and he could be at it all night. Halfway home my phone buzzed indicating a text message. Ignoring the law, I checked it while driving, hoping it was Wyatt getting a hot tub ready. It was Candy.
“Forgot 2 tell u. Vampires own Bang. Fingers in everything. Like mafia. B careful.”
Well, wasn’t that interesting.
It was dark by the time I unlocked my door and threw my keys on the dining room table. Again I marveled at how my house looked. As if nothing had ever occurred this morning. Furniture all in place, knives back in the knife rack, breeding petitions picked up and neatly stacked on the table. Ice ran through me. Fuck. The breeding petitions.
When we’d knocked the dining room table across the room, they had flown everywhere. They’d been all over the floor, on the chairs, strewn across the table. Now they were in a neat pile. I stared at the pile as if it were going to transform into a monster and bite me. He’d cleaned them up, stacked them, no doubt read them. They all held fragments of my name, bits and pieces of my titles, clues as to who I was. Yes, he’d bound me, but the brand was fucked up. If he had my name, my true name, he wouldn’t need to fix the brand. He’d have power over me. The power to banish. The power to compel. Knowledge of my true name to other demons held nothing but a designation of whom I was and where I stood in the hierarchy. Knowledge of my true name to humans gave them a limited ability to call and request favors and services of me, if they held enough power and skill to do so. Knowledge of my true name to an angel meant enslavement.
Forgetting about my bath, I walked over to the pile and looked carefully at the petitions. They were out of order. Of course, he wouldn’t have known in what order I’d stacked them before they went flying, but he would have had a good idea of the value of each petition from the proposal it held. Instead of top down, he seemed to have put the most unworthy ones on top. I wasn’t sure if I should be insulted or not. Was he implying that these were the ones I should consider? I glanced at each one carefully and my heart sank. He’d have gotten at least half of my names from these, and a good idea of my level in the hierarchy, as well as my areas of specialty. It would take time, but with some persistence he could discover all my names. Damn.
For a second, my middle felt heavy like there was a weight in my stomach, and my eyes stung. Had he orchestrated the whole thing, planned it all to be able to sneak a look at the petitions and gain control on me? Then I shook some sense into myself. That was the kind of thing that I’d do, that demons would do, not Gregory. If he’d wanted to read the petitions, he would have demanded them in that imperial tone of his. He would have taken them, even if I’d refused. He wasn’t sneaky and manipulative; he was forceful, bossy, and controlling. There wasn’t much I could do to stop him if he really wanted something.
And so what if he figured out my true name? He could summon me from anywhere. He could easily kill me, anytime he wanted. He seemed to be pretty good at getting me to do things, even without my being fully bound or knowing my true name. Fuck, if things kept going the way they were, he wouldn’t need my true name, the brand, or even the wonderful blue shit to get me to do his bidding. I’d be eagerly slapping the shackles on myself.
I turned over the last of the petitions and stopped, staring once again in surprise. The bottom one was the one from Ahriman. Only it wasn’t as I had left it. A diagonal line crossed through the entire page in black ink, so hard and deep that it dented the skin parchment, digging a chunk off midway across the page. Written across the top was lovely flowing script in the language both our races shared. It said “NEVER.”
Chapter 10
Monday it rained. Not that nice, warm fall mist of a rain either. Big pelting drops of cold water whipped around the buildings in a bitter wind. The sky was a uniform dark grey, and the dampness seeped deep beneath the flesh into bone. Maryland generally has moderate weather and October is all about the pretty autumn colors and cool nights, offset by warm sunny days. It had been a bitch of a fall so far. Cold, windy, and now this damned rain. What made it worse was that this was the day I was supposed to go to Baltimore and collect Dar’s artifact from the vampires. I’d envisioned a beautiful day at the Inner Harbor, and now I’d be expected to stand wet, freezing my ass off, outside the aquarium. Who knows if the vampire would even show. The guy might just look out his window, say “screw it,” and go back to bed. It’s what I wanted to do.
The harbor area was deserted. It was a Monday, it was October, the weather sucked. The few people there had ducked inside Phillips or one of the other restaurants. I was shocked to find the aquarium was even open, let alone open at ten in the morning. I honestly couldn’t figure out who their target audience at noon on a Monday would be until I saw the busses with their loads of school children. Ah yes, the much-anticipated field trip.
It was warm and dry inside, plus there were animals to look at. On the other hand, it was freezing and wet outside. I contempla
ted my options, then left a note stuck to the door saying “Dear Vampire, I am inside looking at octopuses/octopi or whatever the plural is” and went on in.
It took me a while to make my way to the octopus exhibit. I first stopped to look at the sharks. I Own a sand tiger shark and was happy to watch one of its kin swimming about the main tank. In spite of how prevalent aquatic life is here, I Own very few sea creatures. I’ve always been more interested in mammals with the occasional bird or reptile thrown in. The tiger shark was the only fish I Owned, and I didn’t Own any aquatic mammals. I’d tried to grab a bottlenose dolphin once, but they are pretty wily and it managed to keep its distance.
I mentally made a wish list of eels, stingrays, and fish that would be fun to Own. Maybe at least one aquatic mammal, too. If I couldn’t manage a dolphin, then maybe a whale. I’d really love a killer whale, an orca. It would be hard to catch these in the wild; much easier to sneak into the aquarium after hours and Own them from the small tanks here. Of course, not many places had whales or orcas. I’d need to take a road trip to Own one of them. Wyatt could help me research likely candidates. I’d just have to make sure he didn’t realize what I intended to do with them.
By the time I made my way over to the octopuses, it was twenty minutes after the hour. A very irritated looking young man stood glaring at the majestic, giant pacific octopus. The irritation vanished the moment he saw me and was replaced by an expression of calm, disinterested respect. I wondered how he knew I was his contact, then realized I was the only other adult visitor in the aquarium not surrounded by dozens of squealing children.
“Baal.” He addressed me with a cross between a nod and a short bow. “We are appreciative of your travel and time on this miserable day.”
He handed me a rectangular box about ten inches long, seven inches wide, and two inches deep wrapped in plain brown paper. On impulse I shook it, like I would a Christmas present. It made a sound like rocks with tissue paper inside the box, and I noticed a look of anxiety flicker across the vampire’s face before his features returned to bland calm. He nodded again, and wishing me a good day, turned to leave. His pace was leisurely, but I could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he really wanted to break and run.
I’m not a fool. These tissue wrapped rocks-in-a-box were not the artifact, even though I had no idea what the artifact was actually supposed to look like. The vampires had played us again. Their courier boy was terrified that I’d realize the box didn’t hold what I thought it did, and that I’d take out my considerable anger on his physical being. I didn’t fucking care. I didn’t want this thing for myself and I was tired of Haagenti and Dar running me all over the place. I was cold, damp, and sick of all this. I didn’t care what kind of trouble Dar was in, he’d have to deal with it himself. The best way to get out of something unpleasant is to be so inept and terrible at it that no one will ask you again. I’d deliver the box-of-artifact-rocks to Dar, look stupid and clueless, and then they’d leave me alone and find some other chump to do their dirty work.
My mood cheered considerably when I got home just in time to meet the delivery guy with my latest canary. He was very appealing with his bright yellow feathers, alert dark eyes and chirping noises. This one was the prettiest of those I’d received so far. I wished I’d bought another one so that I could Own one, or maybe just let it fly loose around my house. Unfortunately, I’d been rather short-sighted when I bought the thing and hadn’t thought to buy a cage or food. You’d think by now, after losing four canaries, I’d be prepared, but that wasn’t the case. I spread some newspapers in a cat carrier reinforced with chicken wire as a temporary home and threw in a handful of wild bird seed as food. Hopefully that would be more palatable than the dog food which had killed one of the previous canaries. I had a premonition that this bird wouldn’t last long in my care and that I should put it to use right away, before I managed to kill it and had to wait again for a replacement. The rain showed no signs of clearing up, but I decided that as soon as I called Dar, I’d head to Sharpsburg.
Dar was beside himself with excitement when I called him.
“Some vampire guy met me at the aquarium and gave me a box,” I told him with a twinge of guilt over what the box didn’t hold.
“What does the box look like?” Okay, maybe he wasn’t as dumb as I had thought.
“It’s ten-by-seven and wrapped in brown paper.”
“Ten by seven meters? Fuck, how’d you get it in your little car? How much does the damned thing weigh?”
He was a dumb as I had thought. “No, you idiot. Ten by seven inches. And no one uses metric in this country unless they are scientists or buying soda.”
Dar was silent for a moment as he calculated the size of the box. “That’s it? It’s supposed to be able to change shape and size, so maybe it would fit in a box of that size.”
I could tell he was contemplating whether to ask me to open the box and tell him what was in it. If it was something really cool looking, I’d keep it for myself and he’d need to try and pry it from my cold, dead fingers, but if it wasn’t what he wanted then he’d be making a risky trip through the gate for nothing, and possibly appear a fool in front of Haagenti. I didn’t offer to peek. Why make it easy for him?
“Look.” I finally broke the silence. “I’ve got a lot to do this evening. This box doesn’t appear to hold anything that’s going to get up and walk away, so just come over here tomorrow sometime and retrieve it. I’ll stick around all day, but if I’m away from the house when you get here just watch porn and drink beer until I get back.”
I could feel Dar wavering. “Did the guy say anything to you? Anything at all?”
“He apologized for my having to drag my ass to Baltimore on such a horrible day. It fucking sucks outside. Cold rain and wind. I hope it clears up, or gets cold enough to snow soon. Oh, and he told me to have a nice day.”
“Okay,” Dar said reluctantly. “I’ll be there tomorrow as soon as I can sneak past the gate guardian. Do you think you could prevail. . .?”
“No,” I interrupted him. “I refuse to prevail. You want this thing, you find out a way to get it.” I hung up the line abruptly. Then I opened the box.
I was curious. Dar had said whatever the artifact was it could change shape, so maybe it was something cool that I’d want to keep for myself. I took off the brown paper and saw a white shiny box with the words “Greetings from Atlantic City” across the top. Removing the cellophane covering, I peeked under the top and laughed. Well, that was just funny. Then I put the top back on and went to get my bird.
By the time I reached Sharpsburg, I was rethinking the appeal of canaries. Sixty minutes of chirping and flapping around in a cat carrier was enough to put me off birds entirely. He was pretty, though, with the deep yellow of his feathers and the structure of his wings. Back home, we all included wings in our forms. It made getting around much easier, and they had a dramatic flair. Feathers were not really practical though. Bat-type wings were flexible, structurally sound, and basic. They were easy to repair and had a nice, menacing look to them. Feathers were too frou-frou, and where some might be able to pull that off, most of us would be teased unmercifully. Angels used feathers. You don’t want anyone thinking you aspired to be like them. Still, I thought, they were pretty and soft. Their intricate structure and specialized form held a fascination for me.
I’d never seen an angel’s wings. The two angels I’d seen here hadn’t included them in their forms. I guess it would not exactly be stealthy to walk around with big-ass wings. The humans would freak. And how would you fit inside doorways and smaller, human-sized spaces? Not very practical. I thought about my wings. I hadn’t worn wings since I’d come here, over forty years ago. They were the typical bat-type wings. Rusty red-brown with mottled blue and green swirls, and talons along the ridge and at the bottom edge. It was close to dark. Maybe I’d fly a bit when I was done here. I missed flying.
I waited until the park security had done their closing sw
eep and left the battlefield before opening the gates and driving down toward Bloody Lane. I needed to get the car closer in, so I plowed through the fencing, four wheeling across the carefully groomed grass and along the dirt path to the wooded copse. The curators would have a fit in the morning. I’d be sure to throw a bunch of empty beer bottles around before I left so they’d blame the vandalism on drunken teens.
I pulled my supplies, including the cat cage with the canary, out of my SUV and walked the three feet to my destination. The Sharpsburg gate stood before me and I did my usual routine of sticking in my hand, etc. before carefully retrieving my bird. Closing my eyes, I plunged my fist with the canary clenched tight into the gate, counted to ten, then withdrew my hand. The bird looked at me cheerfully and chirped, seeming none the worse for wear.
Well. Now was the time to do it and die or not die. I was scared. Really scared. Gregory’s words rattled around in my head. Something about how I needed to be more than an imp, and that in the future there would be a scarcity of rocks. I needed to do this.
I tied a rope to my waist and the other end to the bumper of my Suburban. Of course, the gate could disintegrate the rope, or drag the huge SUV in along with me, or kill me so my bloody remains would be found attached to a rope attached to the bumper of my car when the gate spit my mangled body out. I chose instead to pretend that it would be some kind of lifeline to help me find my way back and pull myself out of trouble. I was good at deluding myself.
Taking a deep breath, and keeping a gentle but firm grip on my canary, I stepped through the gate and to the other side. The gate itself was shallow, and I immediately found myself surrounded by nothing and everything. I’m not sure how to describe it. My eyes didn’t see anything, my ears didn’t hear anything. None of my human senses registered input. It was neither light nor dark. I breathed, but I didn’t seem to need to. It was more out of habit.