by Tim Waggoner
“The monster,” Jinx muttered.
He’d gotten Jack to his feet, but Jack was far from steady. Lizzie must’ve really hit him hard this time, I thought.
Lizzie wore a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops. A dozen tattoos were visible on her body, and she probably had quite a few that weren’t. Some were larger, some small, some realistic, some cartoonish or abstract. But they all had one thing in common: they were all tattoos of insects.
“What’s wrong with getting a new tat?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. She sat back down at the table and crossed her legs. “Except that by agreeing with me, Jack implied that the tattoos I already have aren’t enough.” She paused. “Besides, you should’ve heard where he suggested I get it!”
Jinx had given Jack a quick once-over, and he looked at me and nodded. Jack might be the worse for wear, but he’d survive. Incubi can be injured in their Day Aspects, even killed, but once the sun sets and they return to their true selves, all physical damage is repaired, and as long as enough of their body remains intact, they can even return to life. For this reason, no matter how badly hurt, Incubi almost never seek medical attention. It’s unnecessary, and if a doctor performed too many tests, he or she might notice that despite appearances, their patient wasn’t altogether human.
I turned to Jack. “You all right?” I wasn’t just asking about his physical state. I wanted to know if he was planning on attacking Lizzie.
“Hmm?” He looked at me, blinking and squinting, as if his eyes were having trouble focusing. “Oh, yeah. Sure. Better’n ever.”
He wore an old black jacket over a black Iron Maiden T-shirt, with jeans and sneakers. He spit out his bent cigarette and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, presumably to get a fresh one. But instead he pulled out a butterfly knife, flicked it open, and lunged for Lizzie.
I drew my trancer and prepared to fire, but I feared I wouldn’t be able to do so before Jack could cut her. Sure, she’d heal the damage by nightfall, but I wanted to spare her the pain if I could. Plus, the more pissed off Lizzie got, the more trouble there would be, if not now, then later tonight when they were both in their Night Aspects. And that, I – and the city of Chicago – could do without.
But Jinx intervened before I could pull my trancer’s trigger. He stepped between Jack and Lizzie – and just as Jack swung his knife toward Jinx in a vicious arc that would’ve laid his throat open, Jinx raised his arm to block the strike. His forearm connected with Jack’s, but Jack – still wobbly on his feet – stumbled. His arm slipped, his wrist twisted, and the point of his blade jabbed into Jinx’s shoulder.
Jinx let out a bellow that might’ve been the word Fuck! but which just as easily might’ve been an inarticulate shout of pain. He grabbed Jack by the collar of his jacket and his belt, picked him up as if he weighed nothing, then slammed him down onto the table at which Lizzie still sat. The table collapsed into kindling. Lizzie let out a shriek and tried to push herself back, which only resulted in her falling over backward in her chair and smacking her head against the concrete floor.
Jack lay amidst the remains of the broken table, not moving, and Lizzie lay on the floor several feet away, equally unconscious. Jinx stood there looking at them, the butterfly knife stuck in his shoulder, a bloodstain blossoming on the fabric of his jacket. For an instant, I almost fired on Jinx. If he’d been in his Night Aspect, I might have, if only to distract him from his homicidal rage. But this was Day Jinx. He was much better able to control his emotions than his nocturnal self. At least, that’s what I’d always thought. But right then I wasn’t so certain.
From behind the bar, Deacon shouted, “Who’s going to pay for the table?”
“Put it on my tab,” I called back. I holstered my trancer and went over to Jinx.
“Want me to pull it out?” I asked.
“Not yet. I might be tempted to ram it into Jack’s chest.”
“Wouldn’t blame you. Buy you a drink?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a soda water.”
We headed to back to the bar.
Once we were seated and had our drinks – I ordered a Sam Adams – I called up the Internet on my wisper. Jinx gave me a disapproving look but didn’t object. A small holo display appeared above the device, and using vocal commands, I found information about Dr Kauffman. She was no longer in private practice and now worked for a company called Perchance to Dream: Advanced Sleep Solutions. The company specialized in all aspects of sleep therapy: physical, psychological, and pharmaceutical. It was the last that seemed to be their biggest money-maker. They’d produced several popular sleep aids that were currently on the market.
I made a note of the address and then closed the holo display. The bloodstain on Jinx’s jacket had spread since we sat down, and I decided that we shouldn’t put off taking care of his wound any longer.
Deacon keeps a full medical kit behind the bar. Given the nature of his establishment, he needs to. It gets a lot of use and requires constant restocking. I took Jinx into the women’s room, had him strip to his underwear – boxers, if you must know – and did my best not to make too much of a bloody mess as I pulled Jack’s knife from his shoulder. I’d stripped down to my bra and panties – no way was I going to pay a dry-cleaning bill if I could avoid it. Besides, bloodstained clothes cause more than a few raised eyebrows at the cleaners.
There was nothing remotely sexual about what we did. Despite Night Jinx’s insistence on calling me Mommy, we were more like brother and sister. Besides, I don’t get aroused by blood-spurting knife wounds. I guess I’m just an old-fashioned girl that way.
I’ve had more than my fair share of practice at tending to injuries in the field, both Jinx’s and mine, and I managed to get the knife out, then clean and dress Jinx’s wound without spilling too much blood on ourselves, the sink, or the floor. Despite the fact that as an Incubus, Jinx probably didn’t need it, I put some antibiotic cream on the bandage. His wound would heal completely come nightfall, but a little extra precaution never hurts.
I cleaned up the mess as best I could, and then we got dressed. Jinx’s shirt and jacket were bloodstained where Cancer Jack’s knife had sliced through fabric and flesh, but as Jinx didn’t have a change of clothes with him, he put them back on. He moved stiffly and grimaced as he put on his shirt and jacket, but he needed me to tie his tie for him.
“Want some pain meds?” I asked. “I’m sure Deacon’s got some.” And if he didn’t, Abe probably did.
Jinx tapped his wisper with an index finger and softly glowing numbers appeared above the device. 3.38. After a few seconds, the display vanished.
“Better not,” he said. “It’s getting late.”
Day Jinx was careful about what he put into his body, especially in later afternoon or early evening. No alcohol and definitely no drugs, not even the legal kind. He didn’t want anything in his bloodstream when his Night Aspect took over. Not even caffeine. Once he’d forgotten and had a double espresso a half hour before the sun went down. I spent half the night chasing him through the city as he jumped up and down like a demented kangaroo.
“Have it your way, tough guy.”
We said goodbye to Deacon, who reminded me one more time that we owed him for the table we destroyed. Abe had left the bar while we were in the restroom – probably because he was afraid I might change my mind about busting him for possession. Jack and Lizzie had regained consciousness and were sitting at a different table. They looked worse for wear, but all they did was glare at us as we walked past. They were both drinking water, which I knew was a bad sign. It meant they wanted to keep a clear head for later, when they would undoubtedly try to get even with us.
I sighed. One more damn thing to worry about.
We stopped before we reached the door, and I used my wisper to make a quick call. Then Jinx and I stepped outside.
A 1973 baby-shit-brown Pinto came rattling down the street toward us, a blue-black exhaust cloud billowing in its wake. The body
was dented and rust-nibbled, and a large horizontal crack ran across the middle of the windshield. A woman pulled up to the curb outside Wet Dreams, the Pinto’s ancient brakes grinding, tires so badly in need of air they looked as if they might burst any second. The windows were down, and the driver – a short, heavily tattooed woman with a buzz cut – leaned toward the passenger window.
“Your chariot awaits!” Connie Desposito said cheerfully.
Jinx had taken a deep breath when he first heard the Deathmobile approaching. He hated the miasma of exhaust, gasoline, and burning oil that surrounded the vehicle like a cloud of military-grade defoliant.
He continued holding his breath as he opened the passenger door – which creaked and sagged as it swung outward – and climbed into the backseat. Jinx let out a soft hiss of pain as he settled back, and I knew his shoulder wound hurt like a bitch.
The car’s upholstery had been repaired by duct tape so many times that the back seat was practically covered by it. Crumpled fast-food bags covered the back floor, and Jinx grimaced as he tried to find a relatively clean place to put his feet. He couldn’t hold his breath forever, and the interior of the Deathmobile smells even worse than the exterior. It’s best just to breathe through your mouth and try not to think about the millions of exotic bacteria multiplying around you.
I slid into the front seat next to Connie and closed the door behind me. It made a loud chunk! sound as it shut, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the damn thing had fallen off. But it didn’t. The Deathmobile is always on the verge of total mechanical and structural collapse, but somehow it manages to hold itself together, if only just.
Before Connie could remove her foot from the brake, Jinx and I buckled our fraying seat belts. While safety is an unattainable ideal in the Deathmobile, every little bit helps.
Connie tromped on the gas and pulled into traffic, cutting off a Lexus whose owner honked at her. She raised her middle finger in cheerful salute, then lowered her hand back to the steering wheel. One thing about Connie: she takes her driving seriously.
“Where to?” she asked.
“First to our place since Jinx can get a clean shirt and jacket there. Then to a business called Perchance to Dream,” I said. “It’s located–”
“I know where it’s at,” she said, a bit sharply. She takes pride in knowing the Chicago area inside and out, and she hates it when anyone implies otherwise.
“Of course you do,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Jinx’s face was red edging toward purple. He can hold his breath longer than a regular human, but not much longer. I knew he’d have to give up soon. Good thing the windows were open.
“How are things, Connie?” I asked.
“Can’t complain.”
She was dressed in a black tank top and purple short-shorts that were so tight on her they looked as if they would cut off circulation to her legs. Her body is tattooed with a winding racetrack on which various makes and models of cars seem to be zooming across her flesh in a never-ending contest. Connie is, to put it mildly, a car enthusiast. If it’s got four wheels and an engine, she’s crazy for it.
She went on. “Been a slow day so far. DM and I haven’t had many fares. Business will pick up tonight, though.” She grinned. “It always does.”
Not all Incubi are living creatures – or rather, they are, but they don’t always look like it. During the day, the Deathmobile is a decades-old car perpetually on the verge of falling apart. At night – well, it’s still a vehicle and still just as scary, but in an entirely different way.
Connie’s a gypsy cabbie who only services Incubi and Ideators, along with the few humans that know about us. But that wasn’t why I called her. The more unusual-looking Incubi ride with her at night, so they don’t attract attention going from one place to another. And even though Jinx looks relatively human in his Night Aspect, his behavior is so bizarre that when we need a lift, we usually call Connie. But during the day, we take a cab or ride the El without anyone looking at us twice.
Given the way the Deathmobile smells inside, I’m sure Jinx would’ve preferred we’d chosen a different mode of transportation today. I wasn’t overly fond of the odor either – the car’s interior smelled like a mixture of corn chips, sweat, and bubblegum, with a touch of ammonia tossed in for good measure. But Connie, like Deacon Booze, was one of the go-to people in the community when it came to information. So I figured we might as well see what, if anything, she knew about Quietus and Nocturne-slash-Russell while we made our way to our apartment.
As it turned out, she didn’t know more than Deacon did, and actually knew a bit less. She’d heard about the Bean coming to life last night, and she asked me a few questions about what had happened. I answered them, feeling as if I was giving more information than I was receiving.
When we got home, Connie and I waited outside while Jinx went inside to change. After a few minutes, he returned with a fresh shirt and jacket, and we started on our way to Perchance to Dream. By now it was close to 4.15. I told Connie we needed to get there before five. I figured a place that conducted sleep therapy would keep odd hours, but why take chances? She said she didn’t think it would be a problem, she hit the gas, and the Deathmobile began coughing and rattling down the road once more. Despite the car’s appearance, Connie could make good time in it when she wished, and I felt relatively confident we’d reach our destination before the close of business.
As Connie drove, Jinx and I decided that we’d pose as freelance writers who wanted to do a feature story on Perchance to Dream. We’d used similar cover stories in the past, and they’d always worked for us. As we figured out the details, I noticed a shimmering in the air outside the Deathmobile, a rippling and distorting, as if waves of intense heat were rising from the asphalt. I felt a dizzying sense of disorientation accompanied by a twist of nausea, similar to what I experience every time I step through a Door, and the car upholstery beneath my rear shuddered and jerked, as if we were going over a stretch of bumpy road.
At first, I was afraid I was hallucinating, an aftereffect of experiencing two backsteps in so short a time. I turned around in my seat to face Jinx, intending to ask him if he was experiencing the same thing, but my voice froze before I could speak. Despite the fact that it was full daylight out, my partner had assumed his nightmare clown Aspect. His clothing had transformed, too. He still wore his gray suit, but now Jinx had on his overlarge orange tie with blue polka dots, his flower boutonnière, and his absurdly gigantic sneakers.
He grinned at me, but there was a hint of uncertainty in the expression.
“This is different,” he said.
I turned forward once more to talk to Connie, but as I did, the Deathmobile changed around us. The upholstery became fine black leather, and the rest of the interior – floor, roof, doors – became black as well. The engine – which up to this point had sounded as if it were perpetually on the verge of shaking itself to pieces – now sounded smooth and powerful, like a large beast growling softly just before it attacks. Like Jinx, the ancient Pinto had transformed into its Night Aspect: a hot-rod hearse. A true Deathmobile.
“Holy shit!” Connie said. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“Good question.” I turned back to Jinx, but he just held up his hands.
“Don’t look at me. I don’t have a clue.”
I looked out my window again. We’d left downtown a while ago and were driving through a lower-middle-class business district – fast-food restaurants, liquor stores, short-term loan joints. People on the street looked confused and terrified. There was a scattering of Incubi among them, humanlike for the most part, but there was one that resembled a cross between a velociraptor and an armadillo that was making folks decidedly nervous.
Worse was what was happing to the surroundings. Buildings canted at strange angles, their windows distorting into all manner of geometric shapes, and the sidewalk undulated beneath pedestrians’ feet as if they were standing on the back of a giant writhing s
erpent.
“It’s another Incursion,” I said, not fully believing it. But it was the only explanation that even came close to making sense.
“But – but that’s not possible!” Connie said.
The Deathmobile’s engine revved loudly, as if agreeing with her.
“Only Maelstrom energy bleeding through the barrier between dimensions could cause Jinx and the Deathmobile to assume their Night Aspects,” I said. “So unless several million people suddenly fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon, what else can it be but an Incursion?”
The thought was far from comforting, though. As far as I knew, an Incursion couldn’t happen during the day, and even at night there had never been one strong enough to distort the surrounding area like this. What happened with the Bean at the AT&T Plaza that morning was only a mild hiccup compared to what was happening now.
Connie had continued driving as the local reality shifted around us, but now she cried out, “Oh shit!” and slammed on the brakes. The Deathmobile screeched to a halt – in time to avoid crashing into a mound of rock that had broken through the middle of the street. It stood about twenty feet high, and as we watched, crude facial features formed on its surface – eyes, nose, and most distressingly, a tooth-filled mouth. The eyes glowed red-orange, as if the sockets were filled with roiling magma, and the teeth were uneven stalactites and stalagmites. The mouth opened and closed several times as the creature’s magma eyes blazed at us, the stone teeth gnashing with the sound of colliding boulders.
Jinx grinned in delight.
“Showtime!” he cried. The hearse aspect of the Deathmobile had four doors instead of the Pinto’s two, and Jinx opened one of the rear passenger doors and jumped out. Muttering a few choice obscenities, I disembarked as well. I wasn’t about to let Jinx have all the fun.
I drew my trancer as I ran toward Stoneface, flicking the selector switch to the highest setting. The weapon would quickly deplete its charge on this setting, but I had a feeling that anything less wasn’t going to get the job done. Traffic had ground to a halt in both directions, and there had been a few fender-benders when vehicles came to a stop, but there didn’t appear to be any serious accidents. Of course, that was here. Who knew how large an area this Incursion was affecting? A block? Two? More? The thought terrified me, but I thrust it aside. I had work to do.