by Nazri Noor
“No more detours through Heinsite Park,” I said. “Please.”
“No promises,” Sterling said. “See you at the Boneyard. You two don’t play so rough, now.” The door clicked shut behind him.
Herald grinned at me, his eyes twinkling. I gulped.
“No promises,” he said.
Chapter 7
Carver’s eyes bored into me as he listened to the story of the attack in Heinsite Park. And I don’t think I flatter myself when I say that his pupils burned with a quietly contained excitement, with the same brilliant amber of the flames I’d used to blow away the invisible stalker. But I was very careful not to mention anything about the Dark Room – and how the thing had whispered in my ear, how it had known.
“A cloak of fire, you say?” Carver said, speaking over steepled fingers, the rest of his body perfectly still.
“Yes,” I said, uncertain, but hopeful.
“Marvelous. Allow me to say that I am thrilled with what you’ve done with your education, Dustin.”
The rare compliment washed over me like warm bath water, like a cashmere hug. I perked up and grinned.
“Though perhaps next time, attempt to control them more specifically so that they do not burn your clothing.” His eyes cut into me as they glanced slowly down, and up my body. “Not that it ever costs very much to replace the things you choose to wear.”
I deflated. “Hey, that’s kind of rude. The Sisters said the same thing.” I held out my arms, looking down at myself. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
Sterling snorted. “What isn’t?”
“The key, Mister Graves, is learning to do this without burning yourself, or indeed any of your possessions. Recall your enchanted backpack. Shame to destroy it on accident.” Carver stroked his chin. “It might even trigger a kind of arcane detonation, one powerful enough to break your spine. Yes.”
Yikes.
Sterling coughed. “Come to think of it, this sort of shit happens no matter what kind of magic you use, Dust. That shadow stuff would even rip your skin open sometimes. Get a grip. It’s like you love showing off a little too much. You an exhibitionist or something? Be honest. You’re among friends.”
Though fully clothed, I flexed every muscle in my body, then stuck my chest out. “Maybe I like the way my body looks naked.”
Sterling scoffed. “The way this fire stuff is going, you’re going to be naked a lot.”
“It’s literally fire magic.” I sniffed. “I can’t help that I’m so hot.”
Sterling groaned.
Carver cut in smoothly. “You are learning new ways to manifest the flames, after all. In time you may even find more – creative applications for your power. Boil a man’s blood. Burn the air in his lungs. Cook him from the inside.”
“Holy shit.”
“Indeed. At least you appear to be trying. Just please, do not practice in your bedroom. My pockets run deep, Mister Graves, but I am not in the mood to shop for new mattresses.”
I blinked at him. “Good point. Where am I supposed to practice, then? You said so yourself. Magic is like a muscle.”
Carver turned to leave, waving his hand behind him. “Somewhere on the premises, perhaps. The Boneyard will provide.”
I watched him head down the corridor to his offices. The Boneyard certainly did provide, in very literal ways. Like the Lorica, there was something about the Boneyard’s architecture that made me think of it as sentient. I’d seen both spontaneously reshape their structure to literally make room, or rooms, as it were.
The Boneyard had used its strange intelligence to build an entire bedroom for me, then for Asher, when he joined our motley crew. It wouldn’t be too hard to request space for a kind of practice platform, a magic dojo.
The problem, of course, was where to put that request. It’s not like there were forms for that kind of thing. I figured I could ask Gil. He’d managed to convince the Boneyard to sculpt out a gym for him. He’d know what to do.
I glanced over at Gil on the floor, Banjo twirling in tiny circles in the space between his legs. Banjo nipped at his fingers, panting happily before starting the game of chasing his own tail all over again.
“You’re really bonding with the little guy, aren’t you?” I said, struggling to keep the jealousy out of my voice.
“I have all the time in the world for Banjo right now,” he said. “I’m practically single.”
I perked up, concerned. “Wait. You’re not saying that you and Prudence broke up? I mean, did you?”
He shook his head, frowning. “Not at all. No way. She’s on vacation with her grandma, over in China. I say vacation, but Madam Chien said it was a kind of pilgrimage. They’re visiting historic sites or something. Prue was pretty excited either way. She’s never been.”
“That’s really cool that she gets to experience part of her heritage,” Asher said. “I’ve never been to the Philippines myself.” He folded his hands behind his head, sighing. “Some day, maybe.”
“And here I thought that we’d lost an entire Lorica-Boneyard couple,” Sterling said. “Quite the tragedy.”
“Speaking of which,” Asher said. “How are things with Herald?”
Sterling cackled. “Hot and heavy, by the looks of things.”
My ears burned bright red, and I tried to keep a level voice when I spoke. “It’s early days, you know? Like a honeymoon phase. New relationship energy. We just started officially dating, and I guess there’s a lot of. Um.”
“Hormones,” Sterling said.
“Pent up aggression?” Asher offered.
“I guess both.”
“Understatement,” Sterling said, elbowing Asher in the ribs. “I was there when it happened. Herald’s – enthusiastic, to say the least. Buttons popping everywhere. Like one of those bodice ripper romance novels.”
Asher whistled.
I sighed, my shoulders drooping. “I’m running out of bodices.”
“You make that sound like it’s a bad thing,” Sterling said.
“I mean, it isn’t, not entirely,” I said, well aware that a goofy, vacant smile was taking over my lips. “It’s incredibly flattering, and I know he looks excitable, but Herald’s actually really gentle.”
Asher went bright red. “Okay, I’m not sure we should be hearing about this.”
“Don’t spoil the fun,” Sterling snarled. He placed his elbows on his knees, bending closer. “Graves. Go on. Spill.”
“How dare you,” I said, chuckling. “I wasn’t going to say anything else.”
“No fun,” Sterling said. “No fun at all.” He sighed, rising from the couch and stretching. “But maybe we’ll have some fun tonight at the Glovebox, hey?”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Sorry. The Leather Glovebox? We’re going? Tonight?”
“I’m coming with,” Asher said.
“Hey,” Sterling said. “No. Hard no. I’m willing to bend a lot of rules for you, but I’m not sneaking a kid into a bar.”
Asher flopped onto the couch, folding his arms and pouting. “I never get to have any fun.”
“This isn’t about fun,” Sterling said. “We’re seeing someone about the dog.”
“Even worse,” Asher grumbled.
Sterling rolled his eyes. “I promise we’ll hang out soon. Okay? I’ll plan something. Just you and me.”
Asher glared at him for some seconds, then finally softened. “Fine,” he muttered.
Hmm. The Glovebox, huh? I twiddled my thumbs, wondering what I was going to wear, at least whatever was left in my closet that hadn’t been burned or torn apart. I needed more clothes either way. Maybe it was time to ask for a raise.
Chapter 8
It was weird, taking a little corgi all the way to a BDSM club, but it had to be done. Sterling said that the Fuck-Tons, the drag queen proprietors of the Leather Glovebox, were experienced foster parents for both cats and dogs. That experience, he said, combined with their own magical talents meant that they might be able to help us
with the small matter of figuring out Banjo’s place in the massacre at the Ramsey House.
The story had gone public, which really wasn’t a surprise considering how so many of the victims were what the general populace might consider fine, upstanding citizens. They didn’t have any way to know that these recently deceased doctors, lawyers, and political figures were also in the business of sacrificing small animals to attract the attention of insane elder gods from beyond the stars, but hey, details.
The prevailing theory – though more accurately, the cover cooked up by Royce and his public relations team at the Lorica – was a psycho with a sledgehammer. Never mind that the police couldn’t find signs of a break-in, or that the injuries couldn’t possibly have been caused by a hammer, but hey, the arcane underground needed to spin a story to uphold the Veil, and that was the best they could do.
And this, dragging a reluctant corgi along to a love dungeon, was the best that we could do under the circumstances. We’d taken a rideshare up until about a block away from the Glovebox because Gil insisted that Banjo had to “make poopies.” How he knew was anybody’s guess. Maybe he was starting to break through to that secret doggie language the rest of us weren’t privy to.
And you would think that the walk of a single block on a nice, quiet night out in Valero wouldn’t have been a problem, but you’d be wrong. There’s always something, damn it. Always something. At least this time it wasn’t the invisible Lorica creep from before.
“Give us the dog,” the man said.
He’d stepped out of an alley, his forehead glazed with sweat, his voice husky and slurred, like someone only getting used to speaking actual words. It took a while for me to figure out what “us” meant. Two more men stepped from out of the shadows. They were similarly sweaty, though from out of fear or an unfortunate affection for drugs, I couldn’t say. All three were wide-eyed, gruff, and meaty, the type of men a gang boss would send if he needed someone to cough up some money – or hand over a hypothetically magical mutt.
“Hand it over,” one of the others said.
Sterling watched them over the menacing ember of his cigarette as he took one long, deliberate puff, his eyes burning. Sterling, being Sterling, sauntered up to the man who spoke, blowing a heaving chestful of smoke in his face. The man blinked, eyes stung by smoke, but otherwise did not flinch.
“Or what?” Sterling said, pressing one finger into the man’s chest. “What’re you gonna do about it, sweaty?”
The man’s fist crashed into the side of Sterling’s face, the crack of bone on bone whipping through the empty parking lot. Sterling, being Sterling, barely flinched. He spat his cigarette onto the ground, then grinned, his fangs on full display.
“I wonder if you know who we are.”
Banjo started growling. The man reared back for another punch. His fist never landed.
In a blur of silver and leather, Sterling streaked through the darkness. The man screamed, his hand broken at the wrist, bent in ways that human hands aren’t supposed to bend. My stomach roiled. No big deal, I reminded myself. I’d seen grosser things. Way grosser. Sterling blurred again, his ridiculous vampire speed taking him behind one of the other attackers. The man wailed as his leg cracked, splintered at the shin.
“We’re not giving up Banjo,” Gil growled. “Doesn’t matter who you people are.”
The injured men were kneeling on the pavement, clutching their broken limbs, groaning, sweating more than ever. Sterling held the last man by his hair. The man’s eyes bulged with fear.
“We need the dog,” he blubbered. “Please.”
“No,” Sterling said coolly. “And you know why? Because we’re the bloody Boneyard, and whoever your masters are, you can go back and send them this message. Nobody fucks with – ”
Banjo barked, just the once. The man’s head exploded in a spray of brains, blood, and broken skull. Sterling yelped, letting go of what used to be a man and dropping his lifeless corpse to the ground, where it made a meaty, wet thud.
“My hair,” he screamed. “My jacket. No!”
Good old Sterling and his priorities.
The other two men hissed at each other in a bizarre, guttural tongue, their eyes huge as they sprang to their feet, desperate to escape.
Banjo barked again.
Two more heads exploded, splattering more gore and brain matter all over the asphalt. Gil pulled on Banjo’s leash, more than strong enough to keep the corgi under control, but his eyes were huge, uncertain. Terrified.
“What the hell just happened?” I shouted. “Holy shit. Holy shit, we’ve got to clean this up.”
“We’ve got to clean me up,” Sterling said. “This is leather.”
“We didn’t see this happen,” Gil growled, scooping Banjo up in his arms. Banjo licked at his face happily. “We were never here.”
“But those men,” I said. “They were terrified of the dog. They knew it could do whatever the hell it just did. We could have questioned them, gotten information.”
“Hello,” Sterling cried out, kicking his booted foot into one of the headless corpses. “Do you want to interrogate them? Because I’m pretty sure we need tongues and, oh, I don’t know, an entire fucking head to get a confession out of one of these meat sacks.”
My hands shook as I reached for my phone, my glance flitting nervously between the corpses and the little corgi in Gil’s arms. Banjo blinked at me with his innocent black eyes. What the fuck was this thing?
“Asher,” I said. “We can get Asher down here, and he can communicate with the souls from these corpses or do whatever it is he needs to do to squeeze something useful out of them. I’ll just call him and – ”
That was when the hissing started. It was the sound of the corpses dissipating, flesh and skin and bone bubbling and smoking, as if touched by an incredibly powerful acid. Within seconds, all three bodies had turned into sludge. I stared, mouth agape, as what remained of our attackers trickled into a storm drain.
Sterling pushed his hands into his waist, glaring at me accusingly, his face coated in bits and pieces of dead guy. “Got any more big ideas, genius?”
“This isn’t my fault,” I said. “How the hell is them melting my fault?”
“Shut up,” Gil growled. “The two of you. Don’t you smell that?”
Banjo growled as well, a tiny, adorable, yet ultimately super dangerous echo of his werewolf master.
It took a moment for me to register the smell, but with the rank odor of it wafting off of three disintegrating bodies, it was brutally overpowering by the time it fully assaulted my nostrils.
“Rotten eggs,” Sterling said, wrinkling his nose and spitting onto the ground.
I raised my jacket sleeve to my face, breathing through the fabric to block out the smell.
“Brimstone,” I said. “Demons.”
What the hell did demons want with the corgi? And was it even just a corgi to begin with?
Banjo’s tongue flopped out of the side of his mouth. He panted in my general direction, then made a small bark. I flinched.
Chapter 9
Imperial Fuck-Ton held a hand to her chin, her acrylic nails digging into the bottom of her lusciously painted lips.
“Hmm,” she said, staring at Banjo, who stared back and tilted his little head.
“Hmm,” Metric Fuck-Ton said, echoing her drag sister. “This is quite something.”
The Fuck-Tons, the proprietors of the BDSM club known as the Leather Glovebox, were dressed in their regular drag regalia. Okay, fine, there was nothing regular about it. The Fuck-Tons had looked completely different every time I’d seen them, dolled up in matching but incredibly unique outfits, and that night was no different. Their makeup, wigs, and outfits only varied subtly, but everything featured shocks of hot pink, from the candy-floss hair to the massive skirts and parasols.
That was the curious thing about the Fuck-Tons. They were enchanters, gifted at imbuing ordinary objects with magical power, the way that Carver liked to
augment his own jewelry with spells and arcane artillery. The question, of course, was what exactly the Fuck-Tons were capable of. I knew they considered themselves Valero vigilantes, cleaning the streets of magical misdeeds. In that sense, with their costumes and gadgets, they were basically superheroes.
“Do you sense anything amiss?” Imperial said.
Metric shook her head. “Nothing. That’s the problem. For all intents and purposes, it seems to be a normal dog.” She lifted her head to the rest of us, her huge wig bobbing as she nodded at Gil. “Yet you say that it caused three men to spontaneously explode just half an hour ago.”
“Their heads,” Gil said, gulping, like he wasn’t totally over our shared traumatic experience. “Just their heads.”
“And I’m guessing almost thirty cultists,” I added.
Imperial’s eyebrows went up, and she peered at me through the rose-tinted glasses – oh, very clever – that she was wearing, a mirror of Metric’s own. “The Ramsey House massacre, you mean? It’s all over the news.” She reached a finger out towards Banjo, who licked it, pacing forward on his perch. “And this lovely little boy caused all the chaos?”
The Fuck-Tons had invited us into their drawing room, or parlor, whichever it was. Confusing considering how many names they had for the little chamber they had just off the lobby leading into the Leather Glovebox proper. It was quiet in that room, which was styled with a lot of lavish woods and silks.
We sat on woven wicker furniture around a low coffee table, on which Banjo sat, occasionally lapping from a bowl of water. Balinese chic, the way Metric had put it. Beautiful, brass-filled Indonesian folk music played from some unseen speakers. Among the potted plants, a water feature spilled and trickled, making soothing, burbling noises.
Sterling grunted. “We’re just as stumped as you are, ladies. Is this normal? Can animals even wield magic like this?”
Imperial pursed her lips together, holding a cup of tea close to her chest. “It’s complicated. Some animals – a very, very rare number of them – may be born with some innate magical potential. We’ve never seen even one.”