by Anne Bishop
They burst out of the alley and were caught by the crowd.
His heart pounding, Sebastian spun around, deaf to the cries and questions of the humans and demons around him.
He’d almost slipped into another landscape. The alley had almost changed into another landscape. A terrible place…from which he would never return.
The certainty that something terrible had existed in that other landscape made his legs weak.
“I need a drink.” Now as desperate to get away from the crowd as he’d been to reach them, Sebastian shoved his way through the bodies and headed for Philo’s place.
Standing at the back of the alley, It watched the crowd follow the incubus like a herd of trembling sheep. On another night, It would have walked among them, looking like a well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman who had come to the Den for a little gambling, a little whoring. On another night, they would have looked at It and seen potential prey. The succubus It had killed a few days ago had certainly seen It that way. The human female stinking up the alley had been less convinced that another “human” could give her the same sensual thrill as an incubus. It had shown her It wasn’t human—and then It had shown her other things. Not that she’d been able to see most of them, since her eyes were one of the first pieces of forfeit.
Her fear had spilled out with the rest of her, a delicious feast of emotions, spiced at times with the hope that someone would see her, help her. Killing the succubus, a creature so diluted from the purebloods of her kind, had produced the first shivers of fear in the hearts of the people who lived in this place. But the human female’s terror, coaxed and nurtured in the few minutes It had taken to kill her, had seeped into the ground, changing the alley’s resonance into something It could use as a connection to one of Its own landscapes. Then It wouldn’t have to move through landscapes held by Its enemies in order to reach this hunting ground.
But something had fought Its attempt to shift the three males into the bonelovers’ landscape. They had almost crossed over, had felt the sand beneath their feet for a moment. But something—or someone—had been strong-willed enough to hold on to the alley and keep them in this place. Anything that strong was a rival to be eliminated.
But even a strong rival could be beaten if fear was molded into a sharp enough weapon.
It resonated, imposing Its will on the ground around It—forcing Ephemera to yield to Its desire.
Between the alley’s stone walls, the ground changed into rust-colored sand around the corpse.
It shifted form, Its large body changing color to match the stone while Its eight legs climbed the wall. Then It waited.
A few minutes later, the first bonelover appeared. Not long after that, the sand was hidden under a mass of glistening black bodies.
A little girl’s fear of ants had been the seed It had nurtured long ago, feeding that fear until the girl had been glutted with it, then hollowed out by it. Her terror, day after day, had pulsed through the land, giving It the power to reshape something small and natural into a nightmare come alive—a nightmare people called bonelovers because that was all that had been left of the little girl who had been their first prey.
Sighing like a sated lover, It watched the last bonelover disappear. Being simpleminded creatures, they couldn’t cross over into the alley. For them, the alley didn’t exist. But anyone on this side of that fluid border who could be lured or driven onto that sand would disappear into the bonelovers’ landscape—and never return.
It climbed down the wall, Its body changing as It touched the sand. As a bonelover, It raced across the sand to the access point It had created that would take It back to the enemies’ lair—the place they called the Landscapers’ School. It had found a safe place there, a dark place where It could hide while It anchored Its landscapes within other landscapes—and searched for the landscape where the Dark Ones now lived.
As for the humans and other creatures who lived in this hunting ground…When they came back for the female’s body, they would find sand instead of hard ground, an elegant dress that was now tattered rags, a wide gold bracelet…and clean bones.
Sinking into a chair, Sebastian braced his arms on one of the tables scattered around the courtyard of Philo’s place. His body shook, as if it comprehended something his mind couldn’t bring into focus.
Teaser, collapsing into a chair opposite his, looked just as sick, just as frightened.
What had happened in that alley? Glorianna had told him once that a person couldn’t cross over into a landscape if the heart wasn’t open to what it held, just like you couldn’t always get back to a landscape you’d known if something had changed inside you so that your heart no longer resonated with that place. When you crossed a resonating bridge, the borders and boundaries that defined the landscapes could become as fluid as a dream. The only constant in Ephemera was that it was ever-changing.
So what did it mean that he, Teaser, and the bull demon had almost stumbled into another landscape without crossing any kind of bridge? How could two landscapes meld so that you saw one fade as the other became dominant?
Nothing like that had happened in the Den before.
Philo, a short, round, balding man who served the best food in the Den, hurried up to them and clattered two whiskey glasses on the table. Sweat beaded his forehead, but his hands were steady as he poured drinks and pushed the glasses toward Sebastian and Teaser.
Teaser gulped down the whiskey. Sebastian, afraid to haze the edges of his mind and slip into nightmare, took a cautious sip.
The crowd gathered in the street just beyond the courtyard, but there were a few precious minutes of silence before Philo shifted from one foot to the other, drawing Sebastian’s attention.
“This is the second one in two weeks,” Philo said. “There is no demon race that kills like that. Nothing in the Den kills like that. That’s why, when we found this one, we asked Teaser to fetch you.”
Sebastian frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Philo and Teaser wouldn’t look at him. When he glanced at the crowd, none of them would look at him.
Finally Teaser asked softly, “Are we being punished, Sebastian?”
“How should I…” But he did know. Looking at the naked fear in Teaser’s eyes, he did know. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t do this. Belladonna wouldn’t bring something like this into a landscape.”
At the edge of the crowd, Mr. Finch made distressed chirpy noises.
Philo wrung his hands. “If we have done something to anger the Landscaper—”
“She wouldn’t do this!” Sebastian snapped.
Silence. Then Philo said, “Someone did.”
Keeping his eyes focused on the table, Sebastian sipped his whiskey, feeling the tug of conflicting loyalties. The Den was his home. He’d spent the past fifteen years living among these people. But every good thing that had happened in his childhood had come from Glorianna, Lee, and their mother, Nadia. Every happy memory from the years before he escaped his father for the last time had a connection to at least one of them.
And the year the wizards, those self-righteous pillars of law and justice, had tried to destroy the Den…
Six years after the Den was created, the wizards came with a Level Seven Landscaper whom they had convinced somehow to take over control of the Den and “balance” the landscape.
Sebastian stood on one side of the main street with Philo, Teaser, and Mr. Finch, watching the Landscaper take a position between the line of wizards and the line of residents, her hands slightly lifted, her head tilted back, her eyes closed. Then he stared at the wizards, at one in particular who finally met his bitter stare with eyes filled with hatred.
Demons were a blight on the world. Demons were a threat to humans. Demons had no place in Ephemera, and creating a haven for such vileness…The wizards hadn’t been able to prevent the Den’s creation, but now they were determined to put an end to it.
They could have done it anywhere. They could have picked a quie
t place on the outskirts of the Den, wouldn’t have needed to go more than a few steps beyond the bridge they’d used to cross over into the landscape. It would have made no difference in terms of what the Landscaper could do. Instead, they marched into the Den’s main street, taunting the humans and demons who had gathered with the knowledge that their place in the world was going to be splintered beyond recognition. The changes were already in motion, and not even killing the Landscaper would have stopped what was to come.
Finally, when he felt something swirl around his heart and knew the Landscaper was tapping into the heart’s core of every creature that made a home in the Den, he looked away from the wizards and the woman and focused on the colored lights and the buildings and the small islands of dwarf trees and night flowers that could gather sustenance from the cold light of the moon instead of the sun’s warm glow. He wanted to remember the Den as it was in this moment—because when the wizards and Landscaper were finished, there was no telling what he and the others might be able to salvage.
The swirl faded. Everyone was silent.
Then the Landscaper, one of the most powerful of her kind, rubbed her arms as if chilled and took a hesitant step away from the wizards as she looked around. As they all looked around.
Nothing had changed.
“This landscape already has a signature resonance,” the Landscaper whispered. “A very powerful signature resonance. I’m…not welcome here anymore.”
“Stupid bitch,” Teaser whispered. “Did she really think she was welcome before?”
Sebastian just watched the woman, who looked more and more uneasy with each passing moment.
“Who controls this landscape?” the Landscaper asked.
The wizards didn’t answer her, so he did. “The Den belongs to Belladonna.”
She whirled around to face the wizards. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“It wasn’t significant,” one of the wizards replied.
“Are you mad?” she screamed. “No one touches one of Belladonna’s landscapes. No one!” Her voice broke on a sob.
Pity stirred in Sebastian. The Landscaper looked like a terrified child who suddenly realized all the bad things she feared were lurking in the dark spaces truly existed.
The wizards shifted uncomfortably. “Since there is nothing more to be done here, we will go,” one of them said.
“Where am I supposed to go?” she wailed. “There’s no safe place to go.”
The wizards stared at her in disgust. Then they walked away—and never looked back.
The Landscaper crumpled in the street.
Philo lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Perhaps—”
“Daylight,” Teaser muttered, looking up the street.
Looking in the same direction, Sebastian felt his heart jump.
She stood beneath one of the pole-lights, staring at the Landscaper. He walked forward to meet her, once again startled by the fact that this slim, lovely woman with green eyes so like his own and a river of silky black hair could do things to their world that terrified even the fiercest demons.
“Glorianna,” he said softly when he stood before her.
“Sebastian.” Her voice still held a hint of the country lilt that had enchanted him the first time he’d met her.
“I don’t think the Landscaper truly meant us harm.” He studied her eyes, looking for the fiery compassion he knew burned within her—and found only ice. “Judge her with your heart.”
“It is not my heart that will judge her, Sebastian,” Glorianna replied. “It is her own.” She swung around him and walked toward the Landscaper.
He caught up to her, walking close enough to make it clear he was with her, whatever she chose to do, and still keeping enough distance so that she knew he wouldn’t interfere.
They stopped a few paces away from the Landscaper, who made no move to get to her feet and face them as an equal. She just looked up at them, knowing no plea she made would change anything.
No one around them spoke. No one so much as shifted a foot while Glorianna and the Landscaper stared at each other.
Finally, Glorianna said, “Go back to your landscapes.”
The Landscaper scrambled to her feet, wobbled as she took a few steps away from them, then turned and ran in the same direction the wizards had taken.
Sebastian looked at Glorianna. The sadness in her eyes was so unexpected it made him ache. He knew she’d been cast out of the school, had been declared a rogue Landscaper. Lee had told him that much, but not why. Never why.
He sidestepped, bringing him close enough to nudge her with his elbow. “Come on. I’ll treat you to Philo’s specialties—Stuffed Tits and Phallic Delights.”
No sadness now. Just shock swiftly changing to the suspicious look she used to give him and Lee when they’d try to convince her that something preposterous could really be true. Of course, they’d all been young enough then not to understand that nothing was preposterous in Ephemera. Especially for Glorianna.
“Stuffed Tits and Phallic Delights,” she said. “And what might those be?”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Come with me and see for yourself.”
So they went to Philo’s, and when the plates were set before her, her laughter rang through the courtyard—and for a few hours, while they drank wine and ate the various offerings Philo placed before them, he saw her as the bright-eyed girl he remembered and not whatever being an outcast and a rogue was shaping her into.
Sebastian raised his glass, discovered it was empty, and reached for the whiskey bottle.
No one dared touch one of Belladonna’s landscapes. That was the lesson wizards, Landscapers, and demons alike had learned nine years ago. Which meant a Bridge had linked two landscapes recently, enabling a killer to cross over to the Den, or another Landscaper had managed to add something to the landscape—or Philo and Teaser were right and Glorianna herself had brought something into the Den.
Which he didn’t believe. Couldn’t believe. But if it wasn’t Glorianna…
“Could be a human,” Sebastian said.
Philo stiffened. Teaser looked at him, shocked.
“It could be a human,” he repeated. “A sick mind, or an evil one, that’s come to hunt in the Den because it’s a dark landscape.”
“Well, daylight! What are we supposed to do about that?” Teaser said.
The words lodged in Sebastian’s throat like sharp stones, while the whiskey churned in his stomach along with heart-deep revulsion. “We have to inform the wizards.”
“Guardians and Guides, Sebastian,” Philo sputtered. “You’d give those creatures a reason to come back here?”
“What choice is there? A human died here.”
“Humans have died around here before,” Teaser muttered. “They cross over, see a pretty horse that acts tame enough to give them a ride, and they’re in the lake and drowning before they understand a waterhorse has ensnared them. Or they follow marsh lights instead of keeping to the path that leads them home and end up the guest of honor at a Merry Makers feast. Or they figure a bull demon isn’t smart enough to notice if they cheat while playing cards.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Sebastian said. “Anyone who wanders through the dark landscapes that surround the Den is taking a chance of never getting home again. And anyone stupid enough to cheat a bull demon is asking to be gored. This is different. Besides, you said this woman had a rich husband, which means she probably has some status in her own landscape. Someone’s going to start looking for her when she doesn’t come back.”
“Maybe,” Teaser replied. “But she gave me a different name every time I saw her, and she never said which landscape she came from.”
“Which brings us back to informing the wizards,” Sebastian said, suddenly weary.
Philo said hesitantly, “Perhaps we should wait and ask the Landscaper?”
“No one knows how to find her,” Sebastian replied. Which wasn’t quite true. Aunt Nadia probably knew how to get a
message to Glorianna, but he didn’t want to tell his aunt what was happening in the Den and see a horrible truth in her eyes: that Belladonna had sent that evil to walk among them.
“So that leaves the wizards, since we do know how to find those bastards. Besides, the Justice Makers are supposed to take care of this kind of…problem.” He looked at Philo and Teaser…and accepted that there really was no choice. “I’ll go.”
Teaser pushed back from the table. “I’ll try to convince a demon cycle to give us a ride.”
“Us?” Sebastian asked, surprised. “You’re coming with me?”
Teaser moved his shoulders in what was probably meant as a shrug but looked like an uneasy twitch. “As far as the bridge, anyway.”
Which was farther than he’d thought the other incubus would go. “I’ve got to go back to the cottage and pack a bag.” Even if the journey didn’t take more than one rising and setting of the moon, he’d still need a fresh shirt to wear when he presented himself to the bastards who lived behind their walls and rituals.
He borrowed Philo’s bicycle and rode back to the cottage as fast as he could. By the time he packed some toiletries and clothing, changed into the leather pants and jacket that would probably outrage the wizards but made him feel less like a supplicant, and walked out of the cottage, Teaser was waiting for him, straddling a demon cycle.
Like the motored carriages that had been invented in one of the big-city landscapes, the motored cycles had been unknown in the Den until a dozen men had crossed over a few years ago to cause some trouble and have a spree. They’d thought they were bad. They’d thought they were mean. They’d thought they were powerful—until they’d clashed with demons who were badder, meaner, and much more powerful.
The wheels were gone. So was the motor and whatever else had originally powered the cycle. The demons who had taken up residence in the cycles didn’t need those things.
The demon who inhabited this one stared at him with red eyes. Its pushed-in face and tufted ears made it look comical—if a person could ignore all the razored teeth, the powerful torso, the thick arms, and the fingers that ended with curved talons.