Skeleton Crew tuc-2

by Cameron Haley

  Jack was flying circles around the scuffle. He had a silver sword, just like Honey’s. I looked at him and spread my arms. “Dust the son of a bitch, Jack.”

  He shook his head and kept circling. “Protected,” he said.

  Damn. I probably should have seen that coming. Just because he was dead didn’t mean Abe was stupid. I didn’t know what else he did to pass the time, but he hunted ghosts and abducted psychopomps in the Between. He’d probably have to be juiced up some kind of way. I looked at him with my witch sight and immediately saw the talismans. A medicine bag hung from a leather thong around his neck. An eagle feather dangled on a braided cord from his hat. He even had a brass Civil War belt buckle that was juiced with fairy magic, or something like it.

  I walked over to where I’d dropped Ned when I got plugged by the crossbow and picked it up. I felt something cold and wet on my mouth, and brushed the back of my hand across it. It came away slick with glowing blue juice. I had a fucking nosebleed. I was pretty sure it wasn’t on account of being shot, either-it was the glamour.

  I walked slowly toward the wrestling match, holding the gun at my side. When I got close enough that I could probably shoot Abe instead of Adan, the ghost-hunter somersaulted out of the fracas and rolled deftly to his feet. He flicked out his hand and a net blossomed in front of me, its silver, silken threads as fine as a spiderweb. It expanded to an impossible size and settled gently over me. And Adan. And Honey. We all went down in a tangle.

  Jack was the only one who’d avoided the snare-besides Mrs. Dawson, I mean, but I wasn’t exactly counting on her to save the day. She’d removed a white handkerchief from her white purse. She was sobbing quietly and dabbing at her eyes. Jack wheeled around in a wide arc and flew at the ghost-hunter, his sword at the ready in a two-handed grip. Abe leveled the crossbow-he’d somehow managed to reload it-and backed away.

  “Don’t make me do it, son,” he said. “You’re fast, but I don’t miss.”

  Jack pulled up and looked over at me. I thought about pointing out he’d missed Mrs. Dawson, but I shook my head. We all watched as Abe tipped his hat and backed into the mist.

  The piskie cut us free with his sword as soon as it became clear we’d never get out of the net without his help. The strands were so thin and delicate-looking they were almost invisible, but they were also incredibly strong. We couldn’t tear them apart and every effort to do so only entangled us further. It took Jack a good ten minutes to saw a big enough hole in the net that we could pull ourselves free.

  “It’s important at a time like this not to point fingers,” I said.

  Adan tilted his head from side to side and rubbed his neck. “It’s okay by me if no one ever finds out about this.”

  “What are we going to do now, Domino?” Honey asked. “The ghost-hunter will be on the lookout for us. He’ll never fall for the trap again.”

  “I’m not sure it counts as a trap if the trappers all get their asses kicked,” I said.

  “Not a good trap, at least,” said Jack.

  I scowled at him. “Yeah, so I’m going after him.”

  “How are you going after him?” Adan asked. “He could be anywhere.”

  “I can track him. I was just really hoping I wouldn’t have to do it.”

  No one said anything but they all had rather skeptical expressions on their faces. I gave them a mean-spirited smile and turned into a barghest.

  Once upon a time, King Oberon had sicced a pack of the ghost dogs on me. I’d also seen the dogs with his armies. I’d asked the fairy king about them later, and he’d told me the hounds were useful because they could track quarry through the mist in the Between. The sidhe used them for hunting and also for war.

  I couldn’t really check myself out but I knew from previous encounters it was an impressive beast. The barghest was a massive black mastiff, far larger and more powerful than any mortal hound. The blocky, muscular body was nearly four feet tall at the shoulder and had to be pushing five hundred pounds. Thick, curved talons sharp as knives curled from its paws, and its mouth bristled with long, yellowed fangs. Its eyes blazed red like hellfire.

  Unfortunately, using the changeling’s glamour damn near killed me. The bone-chilling cold of the Beyond flared inside me, and icy blades of mindless agony scraped across every nerve ending in my new body. The breath went out of me and I collapsed in a furry heap on the ground, whimpering and mewling.

  “Domino, stop it!” Honey yelled, swooping down to me and alighting by my head. I watched her with one burning eye as she looked up at Adan. “I told her this magic was not for her. I told her it would kill her.”

  Adan knelt beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder. His touch caused the pain to flare up again and I flinched, but I lacked the strength to move. I growled at him and my gums hurt when I bared my fangs. I lay there, my breath coming in short, fast spasms, and the play of my hide across my ribs sent white-hot needles lancing deep into my core.

  “Most humans can’t survive this magic, Domino,” Adan said, gently. “Not even sorcerers. I’m different-I told you, I don’t know why-but even I can’t shapeshift. This magic isn’t for us.”

  I wasn’t sure what the lectures were supposed to accomplish since I was already a dog. They were probably just getting warmed up for later-I knew I’d hear about it again. And again. For now, I just tried to curl my oversized, vaguely canine body into the smallest possible ball and wait for the torture to pass.

  Eventually, it did. I struggled awkwardly to my feet and shook myself, the convulsions beginning at the ruff of my neck and working their way along my body, more than eight feet to the tip of my tail. I was fucking huge.

  I trotted over to where Abe Warren had disappeared into the pale mist. I sniffed at the air. I wasn’t completely sure I’d be able to track the ghost-hunter. I knew the changeling’s magic covered a lot more than shape or form-when I’d used it to shift into a copy of Anton, I’d been able to speak Russian. I had no idea how it was possible, but I knew it worked, at least to that extent. But I really didn’t know if it could mimic the abilities of a supernatural creature. I figured it must have some limits-the changeling had not, in fact, assumed a godlike form and pounded me into sand-but I had no idea what they were.

  As it turned out, the shapeshifting glamour was able to reproduce the barghest’s magical nose well enough. I immediately caught the scent of the ghost-hunter on the wind and followed it into the mist. I heard distant shouts behind me but they were quickly swallowed by the fog.

  Abe hadn’t gone far. I found him walking along Whittier Boulevard west toward downtown. I came out of the mist about a hundred feet behind him, and immediately skulked into the deeper gloom that hugged the buildings lining the street. I trailed him silently, slowly narrowing the distance between us. I was maybe thirty feet behind him when he ducked through a gap in a chain-link fence and walked across a basketball court toward a small, Catholic elementary school. He skirted the school grounds and headed for the back of the modest, redbrick structure of Santa Isabel church that fronted Soto Street.

  I loped across Whittier and darted through the fence. A plastic banner reading Our Future Is Bright, Drug Free hung by one corner next to the hole in the wire. The ghost of a junkie did the dope-fiend shamble at midcourt. He looked more like a proper zombie than the actual zombies I’d seen. “Nice doggy,” he mumbled when he saw me. I ignored him and quickened my pace as I stalked the ghost-hunter through the night.

  Abe was headed for the back door of the church. Once this became clear, I had a decision to make. I knew I couldn’t let him enter the sanctuary. I was already probably on consecrated ground. It felt uncomfortable, unwelcoming, like God had posted a No Hellhounds Allowed sign at the property line. I was pretty sure I couldn’t pull off another glamour anyway, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it inside the church. The ghost-hunter might have allies in there, too. The question was whether to make a play in doggie form or risk shifting back.

  Abe made the deci
sion for me. He froze about twenty feet from the door. He turned and looked behind him. His gaze panned over the cramped schoolyard, and then…I couldn’t be sure, but since my coat was black and I was skulking in the deep shadows of the nighttime Between, I guessed he might have spotted my baleful, burning red eyes in the darkness. Really, it was a pretty crippling design flaw. Good for scaring the breakfast out of unwitting civilians, maybe, but worse than useless if you needed to do some serious stalking.

  I snarled and crouched, feeling the muscles coil along the length of my powerful body. I launched myself into the air and saw the ghost-hunter’s eyes grow wide. He started to turn, thinking to make a dash for the church door, but he might as well have been trudging through half-dry cement. He had just about enough time to gulp, and then my massive body crashed into him. Damn it feels good to be a monster.

  The impact didn’t send Abe flying through the air; there wasn’t even any sprawling or tumbling. He went down where he stood and stayed there, like a piano had been dropped on him. He tried to turn under me, to get his arms up to protect his head, but I dug my claws into his chest and clamped my jaws onto his neck. Actually, I got a piece of one shoulder and part of his head, too-my mouth wasn’t exactly a precision instrument. It did the trick, though, and I felt his body go limp. I’d been as gentle as I could and I assumed he was surrendering rather than dying.

  I lifted him effortlessly and trotted back across the playground to Whittier. I wasn’t sure I could get through the gap in the fence without snagging Abe on it, so I leaped over it and into the street. I landed easily, my claws digging into the asphalt, but the ghost-hunter got knocked around a little. I heard him whimper and shook him a couple times-it was barghest for “hush.” Then I turned and loped into the mist.

  Adan, Mrs. Dawson and the piskies were still at the cemetery. Adan reclined against a tree with his eyes closed and the piskies were huddled nearby, making out. Mrs. Dawson stood clutching her purse and looking timid, as usual. It looked like they hadn’t missed me much. I trotted over to them and tossed Abe at Adan’s feet-this time the ghost-hunter went sprawling. Adan knelt beside him and lashed his hands behind his back with a short length of cord. The piskies hovered to either side of him, their swords drawn.

  When I was sure Abe was well and truly captured, I shifted back. I was prepared for the soul-rending agony, but there wasn’t any. In fact, the feeling of relief that flooded through me was almost as incapacitating as the pain. It felt like I’d finally dug out a splinter that had worked its way deep into my flesh. It felt so good I wanted a cigarette.

  I stood over Abe and grinned at him, and then I kicked him in the ribs. “That’s for shooting me,” I said. I kicked him again. “That’s for making me chase you.”

  Abe winced and shifted his position, trying to get comfortable. “I feel compelled to point out,” he said, “I wouldn’t have shot you if I hadn’t been assaulted by your companion.”

  “Yeah, but you tried to shoot my friend,” I said, nodding to Mrs. Dawson. She sniffed.

  “Right, well, it was an honest mistake given that she was chasing you and you were screaming like a lost child.”

  “Yeah, that was our trap.”

  “An effective one, in the end, witch. The question, I expect, is why you felt the need to trap me in the first place.”

  “I really do prefer sorcerer, buddy,” I said. “You keep calling me a witch, you might hurt my feelings.”

  “Very well, sorcerer, looks like I’m at your mercy. What would you have of me?”

  I crouched down so I could look him in the eye and rested Ned on my knee. “I wouldn’t have much of you, Abe,” I said. “Just need to know what you did with the dogs.”

  The ghost-hunter nodded and smiled. “This is where I’m supposed to tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Except you do and you’re smart enough not to waste my time.”

  “Yes,” he said, chuckling, “I am at least that smart. I was hired to take the dogs. You may not believe me, but I didn’t anticipate the effect it would have on the mortal world.”

  “Once you figured it out, maybe you could have stopped.”

  “I couldn’t stop,” Abe said. “And, as a point of fact, there weren’t that many of them. By the time I realized what was happening…what I’d done…it was too late. You must believe me, Miss Riley.”

  “Well, I don’t think I must, but it doesn’t really matter. Who are you working for?”

  “Now I say, ‘If I tell you, she’ll kill me.’”

  “And I say, ‘If you don’t, I’ll kill you.’”

  “Right,” he said. “I do believe you would.” He looked down at Ned, nodded and lifted his eyes to meet my gaze again. “She is called La Calavera.”

  “La Calavera Catrina?” I said. “Like the etching?” The famous image of a skeletal woman wearing a fancy hat had been created by a Mexican craftsman in the early twentieth century. It had become an icon of El Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. I’d had a mask of La Calavera, and a wooden doll, when I was a little girl.

  “Not just any etching,” Abe said, “a portrait. It was the image of a spirit that visited the engraver, Senor Posada, and commissioned the work.”

  “What would a spirit want with an engraved portrait?”

  “She wanted to extend her influence in the mortal world, and thereby increase her power in this one. It was remarkably successful.”

  “So why’d she want you to steal the dogs?”

  “There is an underworld in this place, just as there is in your world. A criminal underworld, if you will, though there is no law. Indeed, in the absence of law, the gangs rule this world. The bosses are its kings.”

  “Yeah, I met one. The Burning Man. He deals hardware out of a warehouse in Van Nuys.”

  Abe nodded. “The Burning Man is small potatoes compared to La Calavera, but they are of the same breed. The Burning Man runs guns-La Calavera runs Hollywood.”

  I snorted. “Maybe she runs the monochrome version. The fairy king runs Tinseltown on my side of the tracks.”

  “Yes,” Abe said. “La Calavera was none too pleased with that development. Her turf has become a kind of highway and staging area for the fairies passing through to the mortal world from Avalon.”

  “Okay, she’s got a beef with Oberon. What’s this got to do with the Xolos?”

  “Nothing, so far as I know. The point is, La Calavera is a boss and she has her bony little fingers in lots of different pies. One of those rackets is a dogfighting ring.”

  I let the words sink in. I felt like spitting or hissing or something melodramatic like that to express my revulsion and disgust. Blood sport hadn’t exactly been unknown in my neighborhood when I was coming up. The cultural roots of animal fighting went deep and poverty tended to harden even good-hearted, life-loving people. I’d always hated it, though. It seemed like the worst kind of perversion to domesticate animals, to tame them and then to turn them into murderous killing machines for the amusement of humans. It turned out there was an even worse perversion-doing that to a sacred animal like the Xolo. I wasn’t even sure what the sacred was to me, what it meant to me. But whatever it was, the Xolos qualified.

  “Why would you do it, Abe?” I said, my voice low and harsh. “What could she possibly offer you to do something like that?”

  Abe swallowed and nodded once. “She has something I want. The only thing I want.”

  “What’s that? You don’t need money. Near as I can tell, you don’t need anything. You’re supposed to be past needing.”

  “You never get past needing, Miss Riley. You see, I’m not on some mad, eternal quest to fulfill my life’s mission. It’s my wife. She’s out here somewhere, lost amidst the thousands, millions of ghosts that wander this city. Every night, I look for her. I will keep looking for her until I find her or until the last shred of my will falls to dust as my body did more than a century ago. La Calavera claims to know where she is, Miss Riley. She s
ays she will take me to my wife.”

  “She hasn’t, though, has she? You took the Xolos and handed them over to her, but she hasn’t kept her part of the bargain.”

  Abe laughed bitterly. “Honestly, Miss Riley, I’m not at all sure she even knows. She says I haven’t yet completed my service. I think she just wants to keep me on the string. But I haven’t lost hope. Not yet.”

  “I understand you must have loved your wife, Abe, but why do you have to find her? How do you even know she’s out here? She could be waiting for you on the other side.”

  “I know because I killed her, Miss Riley. I put her here. She can’t rest until she has her revenge and I mean to give it to her.”

  “Why did you kill her?”

  “‘Suffer not a witch to live,’ Miss Riley.”

  “She was a witch?”

  “Not a powerful one, and in the end, it was that lack of power that corrupted her. She started with small things, little charms and spells meant to ease people’s lives. But she was so frustrated with her limitations, so angry that she couldn’t do more. In those times, things were different and even a little power was hard to come by. She pursued that power into ever more esoteric arts and her magic became blacker and blacker.” Abe blinked and cleared his throat. “Well, the darkness was stronger than she was, Miss Riley.”

  “Where is La Calavera holding the dogfights?”

  “I don’t know. The Mocambo club is the center of her empire.”

  “Wait, I’ve heard of that place-it was famous back in the day. But it closed a long time ago. It used to be over where Sunset Plaza is now.”

  “Yes, I believe the site is a parking lot,” Abe said. “The club was torn down in the mortal world, Miss Riley, but it wasn’t torn down here.”

  “Okay, how often does she have the dogfights?”

  “There is no set schedule. I’ve heard she holds them a couple times a week. They aren’t widely advertised. Only the Mocambo crowd hears about them, and I’m told invitations are exclusive.”