by Rob Thurman
Facing down a sirrush was nothing compared to the level of predatory attention now aimed my way. "Hold up. I don't want orgies or sadomasochistic role-playing weirdness," I said cautiously. "I just want to get laid, pure and simple. Being half Auphe doesn't mean I want to spend my whole life not getting any." No one with a dick, working or not, wanted that. And I was twenty. You could make little blue pills out of what was running through me. I wanted George more than I'd ever wanted anyone, but I couldn't have her. Maybe, though, I could have someone else, even if they meant so much less. And if anyone knew someone it would be impossible for a human-Auphe hybrid to reproduce with, it would be Goodfellow.
Robin nodded and laced fingers to crack his knuckles in preparation—the mental kind, I fervently hoped. "Actually, I've been contemplating your horrifying, nay, catastrophic situation for a while now and I'll be happy to—"
I interrupted hastily, "Yeah, thanks, but no, thanks."
He snorted, "You should be so privileged. No, you braying ass. As I was saying, I'd be happy to introduce you to some open-minded females." Leaning back, he relaxed. "Let me think on it. There are those out there who would fit your situation. However…" He paused and the sly cheer faded. "Some would know about you and some wouldn't. Both come with issues."
I answered the unspoken question. "I'll stay in the Auphe closet if I have to." Some would know and some wouldn't, he'd said. The ones that did know wouldn't fuck me on a bet. The ones that didn't know were my only chance, and if I were stubborn about hiding what I was, Robin would have a real challenge ahead of him. Stubborn and stupid, I knew the difference between the two.
"Then take your vitamins and get ready, Forrest Hump," he ordered, cheer reignited. "You're in for a wild ride."
I wasn't thinking about that wild ride when I left. Okay, that was a lie and a half. I was thinking about it all right, but I was thinking about something else too. I was thinking about how the sirrush came out of nowhere, and what if pucks weren't resistant to poison? I was also thinking about all the times things could've gone very differently for Niko and me. The close calls, the near misses…we were good but we'd had them. And how one day a near miss might not be a miss at all. Niko was one of the best out there, and I was good enough. But I thought about the revenants. The best, the good enough, someday that wasn't going to get it. Get thirty or so really pissed-off revenants or fifteen wolves or just one nearly undefeatable troll, get cornered by that, get boxed in and that very well could be all she wrote.
Unless we had an emergency exit, a way out.
And we did have it. If my Auphe ability saved Niko or Robin, if it could save us all, I didn't care about headaches or if I bled like a stuck pig. It was worth it, and if Niko was right and my brain did go down for the count, hell, it was still worth it.
Robin's stairwell was empty. Not surprising. It was daytime; most were at work. I took advantage of it, and sat on the landing off Robin's floor and let the door close behind me. When I'd built the gate around Robin and me to escape the sirrush, I'd done it in a mixture of effort and instinct. I didn't have a monster charging me now, so I was going to have to depend on effort. Every gate I'd ever seen or built had been big enough to walk through. But maybe if I started small there'd be fewer nasty side effects.
I held out a hand, tried not to think about the pain from last time, and focused. It came, a little slowly, but it came. It was small like I'd concentrated on— the size of an orange. Gunmetal gray, the light of it was a sluggish whirlpool—spinning as if it wanted to suck you in. It was an ugly thing. Ugly and repulsive. And it lived in me. Hard to come to terms with that, but I was going to have to.
Gateways had to lead somewhere, so this one went to the tiny closet in my room. No one would see it there. Not Nik, who would be highly unhappy about my breaking my word…even if I'd never meant to keep it in the first place.
I felt the touch of liquid warmth on my upper lip, but the headache that began to throb was bearable. So, okay, the bigger the gate, the worse the side effects. Maybe easing up to a size we could get through would help. A slow and steady progress.
And think what I could do with it besides escape. I could do what I'd done to Hob, the puck kidnapper who'd taken Niko and George. I could build one between us and our attackers and let them rush into the Auphe home away from home. Tumulus. Hell. They'd be ripped to shreds there. Turned to a pile of blood and guts and I imagined they'd live for a while as it happened. Strangled with their own intestines. The Auphe did like to play with their food. Why not get them to do the dirty work? Why not let them murder and maim? Why not let them mutilate…
I blinked and let the gate go. Now, where the hell had that come from? If you were attacked, if someone wanted you dead, you did what you had to do. But maim? Mutilate? I wouldn't do that. Wouldn't send someone to that god-awful fate. That wasn't me.
Never mind that I'd done it to Hob. That was different. He'd defeated Niko and hung him up like an animal to be slaughtered. He had George tied up across the room. I couldn't get to them both to get us out of there, and Hob would've defeated me. Was defeating me, slicing me to ribbons. Niko, one of the best. Me slightly less. I'd had no choice. But to do that when I did have a choice…no.
No.
I felt the blood drip down my chin, catching it at the last minute with a wad full of paper towels I'd shoved in my pocket before I left Robin's place. I'd known then what I'd planned to do. I mopped up the blood and held the stained towels to my nose until the bleeding stopped. With the paper saturated, I pulled off my jacket and carefully scrubbed my lower face with my sleeve. It was black; any leftover blood wouldn't show, which in turn would keep me from a Niko ass-kicking of righteous proportions.
Half of me thought I deserved it. Half of me knew I was doing what I had to. All of me thought the same thing over and over.
That wasn't me.
Not me.
Never.
7
While Robin recuperated, plotting and planning things for me that would make Hugh Hefner cry for his mommy, I ended up in an abandoned warehouse. I'll say it again. … It sounded trite, and, hell, it was, but one phone call from Promise had sent Niko and me to one. According to any mystery or cop show, these rat-infested, echoing places are a dime a dozen. They're not, but you can find one if you put your mind to it. Sawney had. How did I know?
Bones.
Chains and bloody bones.
Like wind chimes, they hung high from the rafters. But no wind would make them sing. The skeletons were held together with ligaments and thin stretches of overlooked flesh, just enough meat to keep them intact. Either Sawney had planned it that way or he hadn't been as hungry as he'd thought. And they weren't bodies of the homeless. He wasn't being careful. Not yet. He was still enjoying himself way too goddamn much.
I looked up to see a stained bike that hung beside a small skeleton. There was a silver sparkle banana seat, a basket blooming with bright plastic flowers, and shiny brown hair tied around the handles like streamers.
That had had nothing to do with hunger. That was evil, pure and simple.
"How did Promise know this was here?" I dropped my eyes to the floor and the large dried patches of brown on it. It had been hours at the very least, this morning or last night. Three sets of remains, two adults and one child. A family … a bike. It had probably been the previous evening. A mom and dad taking their little girl for a bike ride in one of the parks. Katie, Sarah, Maddie…Katie. Yeah, Katie, a tomboy with freckles and brown hair in a long ponytail.
"A friend of a friend." Niko had knelt to touch a light finger to the largest pool of dried blood as I wrenched my thoughts back to the here and now. "Arelative of a friend rather. Flay's sister told her."
Flay was a werewolf acquaintance of ours. Once an enemy, he was now…hell, I had no idea what he was now. Not an enemy, but not precisely a friend either. He was long gone from New York anyway, so it didn't much matter what label you slapped on him. He was on the run from the Kin, t
he werewolf version of the Mafia. If he showed his furry ass in the city again, he was dead—the kind of dead that would have the human La Cosa Nostra sitting up in admiration and taking notes like a dedicated college freshman.
"Flay has a sister?" I drifted away as I began to look for more bodies. Sawney might not have hung them all up. He might've gotten tired of playing his festive little games. "A scary proposition." Flay was many things—unbelievably strong, murderously quick, a talented fighter—but he was one homely son of a bitch. No, that wasn't true. He wasn't ugly, but he was unusual, damn unusual. Exotically strange enough to draw anyone's eye.
"Do not judge." Gray eyes mocked. "We cannot all be the vision you are." He stood. "They've been dead awhile, that is clear. What isn't as clear is where they came from."
The warehouse was near the piers. It wasn't the most likely place for little girls to ride their bikes. And transporting three bodies some distance in the city would be a trick for even a homicidally clever bastard like Sawney. He couldn't put them under his arm and shamble along. Even in this city, that would be noticed. I shook my head. "No telling." There were several islands of stacked crates, but no other bodies that I'd seen yet. "Why is Flay's sister helping us? For that matter how'd she know we needed help?"
"Promise put out the word in the community with Sangrida putting up some of the museum's money as a reward for information. They can't justify a fee for tracking down a supernatural serial killer of course, but can offer rewards for the damage done to the exhibit. Creative accounting." Nik kept scanning the area. "Some wolves stumbled across the bodies a few hours ago. Kin wolves. This is a Kin warehouse, although they only use it off and on. Delilah is Kin in good standing, unlike her brother. Once she heard what had been found, she contacted Promise. As to why?" He headed toward the other side of the interior. "Money, and we did save her nephew's life or did you forget?"
Not likely. I still had the little fuzz-butt's bite marks scarring my calf to remember him by. It did surprise me that this Delilah would be grateful enough to act on it, but there was the money. The Kin did love their money. It was still risky for her, though. We weren't loved by the Kin any more than Flay was, but while Nik and I were considered enemies of the Kin, we didn't hold the special place in their vengeful hearts that Flay did. Flay had betrayed his Alpha to outsiders. If there were a worse crime to a wolf, I didn't know what it was.
"Kin will be back to clean up the area soon enough, so we need to be quick." The Kin didn't like their territory violated or conspicuous. And it didn't get much more conspicuous than bodies hanging from the ceiling. Niko had moved out of sight behind a far tower of crates, and seconds later he rapped out my name, "Cal."
The tone was enough to let me know he'd found something interesting. My gun was already in my hand and had been since I'd entered the building. I loped after Nik, seeing what he'd found so intriguing the moment I rounded the crates. It was a van. With its side door open and dried blood within and without, we'd discovered how Sawney had transported the bodies. It was so mundane, not to mention inexplicable. "Okay, Cyrano, riddle me this," I said. "How the hell does a Redcap from the fourteen hundreds know how to drive a goddamn van?"
He frowned under his hawkish nose. "That is an excellent question." As he clambered into the back, I opened the passenger door and leaned in the front for a whiff. Huh. Now, that was damned peculiar. "Revenant," I announced aloud. Revenants weren't what legend made them out to be … legend never got it right, but I could see how easily it had been to go wrong with these slimy pieces of shit. They weren't the dead returned to life—unpleasant, rotting life—but they did give an amazing imitation. Revenants weren't human and had never been, but they looked damn close to a man … if that man had been dug from a not-so-fresh grave. It wasn't difficult to see how someone had made the mistake. With milky white eyes, clammy slick flesh, and a black tongue, they weren't nature's prettiest or proudest moment.
"It seems Sawney is recruiting a new family." Niko finished examining the van and vaulted back out. "Logical. There are no other Redcaps in New York, and revenants, like Sawney, do not particularly care if their meals are alive, dead, or decomposing."
"And revenants can drive." They'd been around New York nearly as long as there had been people. With a coat and a hat or a hooded sweatshirt, they could pass to the casual glance through a car window. I'd seen them do it, and it was the last cab ride you were likely to take. Finding nothing in the front, I stepped back and shut the door. "I wonder why they didn't stick around here. It's not a cave, but it's empty and there's plenty of room to keep leftovers." To keep more little girls and their mommies and daddies. "Even if the revenant knew it was Kin, I can't see Sawney giving a shit. A few wolves would be a snack and rug combo to him. Dine and decorate in one shot." Something glittered by my foot and I crouched to pick it up with my left hand. It was a barrette, gold and yellow. The little girl's last touch of sun. It had the caustic humor lying like lead on my tongue.
"The revenants may have known. And they would've known that if a few Kin wolves went missing here, the rest would come en masse," Niko conjectured as he watched me put the barrette in my pocket.
"Too much light."
It came from above. The words.
"Where is soothing darkness?"
In the shadows where the stray rays of sunlight didn't penetrate.
"Where are the sheltering arms of stone?"
A bright slice of winter, sharp as ice and white as a fatal blizzard, bloomed.
"Where is Sawney Beane's home? Not here."
As my eyes adjusted I saw more … up in the rafters. An unnaturally wide killer grin. Tangled ropes of hair, white stained with red and brown. There was the impression of a sweeping bulk of a cloak or coat, but face and hands…they were nothing but blackness. Inky shadow come to life.
The impossible stretch of smile widened. "I see you." Tiny embers sparked to life, the cheery red of an autumn fire. "Travelers."
Travelers. And we knew what Sawney Beane did with travelers.
I fired instantly. The bullets hit. I knew that although the monster didn't move. There was no attempt at evasion, only the echo of gunfire and that ever-present leer. The bastard didn't flinch, didn't shift under the impact, didn't register the blows at all. If I didn't have the confidence of my aim, I would've wondered. But I hit him. … It simply didn't matter one damn bit.
"Educational," Niko mused.
"Glad you think so," I grunted as I slammed another clip home. Just another day at the office…until the late afternoon sun chose that moment to shift to twilight, plunging the warehouse into a dusky purple gloom. What few lights had been on joined the sun in disappearing, deepening the gloom to the impenetrable.
And then it began to rain blood.
The color was impossible to discern in the thick murk, but I knew the smell, knew the slick consistency against my skin. "What the fuck?"
There was the sound of rushing air and then a meaty thump inches from me. Another body, and from the sound as it hit, this one had most of its flesh intact. There was another thump and another as the charnel house above continued to fall. I didn't know how Sawney had kept them up, and I didn't care. I only wanted to get my hands on the son of a bitch.
"I'm going up," Nik said grimly. "You cover him here if he tries to escape." There was no sound of departing footsteps—this was my brother after all— but he was gone.
I moved my own foot a few inches to one side to place the first body. As my eyes adjusted I could make out a vague outline, a crumpled form…arms, legs, a mound. Pregnant. She'd been pregnant. I couldn't make out any more than that and I didn't want to. She'd been alive; now she wasn't.
When the next body fell, I thought I was ready for it. How much fucking worse could it be? Stupid goddamn question. Sawney was the stealer of mothers, children, and babies. The taker of lives, flesh, and hope, because in New York everyone was traveling. From place to place, everyone was on the move. And to someone who preyed on t
ravelers, that meant everyone was fair game.
Sawney hit me from above…the one body that wasn't dead, but we weren't done yet. Not by a long shot. He hit hard and with a weight I wouldn't have guessed. He was an avalanche—not one of rock, but of ice. Cold, wherever he touched me. The burn of dry ice on my neck and jaw as he tasted me. I felt the slide of the tongue over my carotid artery as hands pinned my head. "Different, traveler. You taste different."
I struggled to pull breath back into my lungs that curled abused and beaten beneath bruised ribs. But I didn't need to breathe to pull a trigger. I jammed the muzzle of the 9mm into the mass that squatted on top of me and emptied the clip I had just put in. Like before, I got jack shit for my trouble.
"Full of sulfur spice and ancient earth and a world far from here."
Auphe, he was tasting it in me. That stuttered my lungs to painful life. I wheezed and used the oxygen to propel my body into motion under him. I tried to roll, dropping my gun and pulling a knife from the calf sheath. My fingers passed through the slit in the denim and fastened around the rubber hilt. My roll was less successful. Flickers of scarlet light still burned into mine. Hanks of knotted hair smelled like a slaughterhouse and felt like rope against my skin. And that grin, that goddamned grin, was still inches from me.
Then it was in me.
Teeth went through jacket and shirt, into my chest, and ripped a piece of me away. Sawney had succeeded where the Black Annis had failed, and he had done it so easily. Had made me food, and I hadn't been able to do a damn thing about it. Food. There's a special horror in that, a particular twisted terror in a part of you being eaten.
It hurt, but not as badly as it should. The shock of it muffled the pain, wrapped it in cotton, and let me plunge the knife into his back without hesitation. What it could do that the gun couldn't I didn't know, and when his grin widened, I got my answer. And with that answer came other things. There was blood on my face—my own blood—and the sound of a purring swallow.