Under Cover of Darkness

by Julie E. Czerneda

  The door to the apartment wasn’t quite closed. This alone wouldn’t have caused any alarm—it helped to have the door open on the really hot nights. It was the silence. There was no sound, no footstep or snatch of conversation or laughter. For a moment I couldn’t move or think through a sudden rush of panic. A part of me wanted to run, but the Taylors were good people. I couldn’t abandon them.

  My headache was off the scale. It had been irritating me with bursts of static during the day, but now it surged to the fore with a vengeance. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Transferring the insulated bag to one hand, I climbed the final flight of stairs, mentally noting the ten steps like they were part of the countdown to a launch. I avoided all the spots I thought might creak and made it to the top silently.

  It turned out I needn’t have bothered.

  As I reached for the door it swung open suddenly. A strong hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me inside. Amazingly, I kept my hold on the pizzas.

  “Look what I found,” a woman said, her voice like frost on winter glass. I was pushed toward the sofa and landed awkwardly.

  “It smells like cheese.” A man’s voice spoke from the window on the other side of the room. He sounded barely interested in my arrival, and I had the impression he only spoke because the aroma of the pizza confused him.

  “Maybe it tastes like cheese,” a deeper male voice suggested, sounding hopeful, and I lifted my head to look at them.

  Slaugh. They were all Slaugh, in long black coats. Immediately I looked away. The female had stayed near the door. The deep voice came from the kitchen table. The one at the window had seen me arrive and they had waited, perhaps curious as to why I was here. It was disorienting to focus on them and my headache . . .

  “It doesn’t look well,” the female stated, sounding amused. I christened her “Ice,” though I doubted the damned would appreciate the concept of being christened.

  “It can see us.” The one at the window moved so quickly that he was suddenly there, in front of me, a shadow blocking some of the light from a table lamp behind him. I tried not to look at any of them and remained silent. “It can hear us.” I named him “Leader,” though I got the impression each of them considered themselves the one in charge.

  “Can we eat it, too?”

  Too? The excited tone of his voice and the implication made me nauseous. I chose the name “Hunger” for him. I glanced around the apartment, careful not to make eye contact as it made me dizzy as well.

  “If you’re looking for your friends,” Ice said, sounding bored and waving her hand toward the kitchen. “They’re in the refrigeration unit.”

  “Well, what’s left of them, anyway,” stated Leader. I fought the sudden urge to vomit. This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening. My phantoms were just figments of my imagination pulled from stories I’d read as a kid, desperate for an explanation for Mrs. Hudson’s death. That’s what I’d been told, over and over again. They were representations of a distant event that gave me shudders just to recall. Perhaps my headache was causing hallucinations. There was a perfectly logical reason why the Taylors weren’t here—and it wasn’t because they were in the crisper.

  “No,” I said through clenched teeth and stood. Leader pushed me back down firmly.

  “Hmmm,” he mused. “What are we going to do with it?”

  “I’m still hungry,” Hunger announced and I shivered. I’m going into some kind of shock, I decided, the buzzing in my ears increasing with the distant promise of passing out.

  “Maybe this one knows where she is.”

  “She isn’t here, I tell you.” Ice seemed to glide over to the refrigerator without moving her legs. “The ones who lived here were favored by the Queen. If anyone could provide information about her location, you would think they would have known.”

  “My lead was solid.”

  “Your lead was useless and is now feeding the earth.” I found myself recalling the details of the last murder. A troop of camping Girl Guides had found the body parts of a man while digging their fire pit at the Scarbor ough Bluffs. Could this be whom they were talking about? Ice opened the door to the freezer and pulled something out. My mind couldn’t wrap around the nature of the item. She tossed it to Hunger, saying, “And no more until after the job is done.”

  He caught it and started to move his shadowed head over it, eating noisily.

  From what I could tell, it was a man’s hand.

  I was working on controlling my breathing and my gag reflex as the other two argued over something that was obviously a sore topic. The Taylors. Oh, God . . .

  They would be bizarre murders number seven and eight. And by next week, the world would have forgotten a few of the earlier ones. It would be like they’d never existed.

  I heard a bone crunch and realized he had bitten into a finger. I watched as Hunger chewed, my stomach roiling, still not entirely accepting what my senses presented. He sucked the marrow out and sighed.

  “The hands are the best parts. So many tasty bits.”

  I slid to my knees then and threw up everything I had eaten in the last day. The Slaugh stepped back, apparently fastidious.

  On my hands and knees, I heaved until there was nothing but bile. They were real, they were here, and they were going to eat me, too.

  Oh, God . . .

  “Is it finished?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ice replied. She sighed. “It’s so hard to tell with these things.”

  I dragged my right arm over my mouth just so I could get the smell away from my nose. At least throwing up had cleared my head. I had to escape. I was outnumbered and I didn’t need my self-defense instructor at the Y to know that if I started a fight, I would be seriously outclassed.

  “Why do we even bother dealing with the herd?” Hunger asked, sucking noisily on his long fingers. “Even tually they all end up the same.”

  “Humans can be useful.” Leader poked at the insulated pizza bag. “They usually make good spies. The Queen is so friendly with these things, after all. She trusts them and nurtures them, as if they were children and not food.”

  “None of us can have children.” Ice sounded subdued where she had been hostile moments before.

  There are no Faerie children at Court.

  “She did give them fire,” Hunger said, sliding from the table and stretching until his feet reached the floor. He yawned and I had a quick glimpse of sharp teeth, two layers deep. I almost wished I hadn’t seen it, but it was another clue as to what they were.

  “Tools were another mistake,” Ice said, shaking off her momentary mood and striding to grab a pizza box from the bag, eliciting a growl from Leader. “Look where it led. Now we have to recruit and play their silly game, pitting them against those who are swayed by the Queen.” She pulled out a slice and sniffed it. I nearly threw up again, though I didn’t think there was anything left in my stomach. “The King should just take some of their pretty explosives and wipe them out.”

  “What would we eat?” Hunger reached down suddenly and grabbed me by the front of my jacket. I was lifted effortlessly to dangle with my feet off the ground. He stared directly at me and I saw his eyes for the first time. Narrow, hard, like gems that had been cut poorly, no spark, no warmth. I wasn’t expecting the tongue that licked the side of my face. He smiled, all teeth. “This one does taste good, but it doesn’t taste like cheese.” He moved until my back was up against the wall and leaned in closer. His breath smelled like raw meat. “I can see why the Queen started breeding her Court with them, though.”

  Leader tsked. “You don’t bed your food.”

  The grin before me grew increasingly terrifying. “This one might be entertaining, though.” He dragged the fingers of his free hand through my long hair. “It’s pretty, for a human.” The face came so close that his nose pressed against mine. His voice was barely a whisper as he said, “I bet it screams.”

  Shit.

  A part of my brain was deciphering the hints about
the involvement of the Faerie Realm with human history. How long had this been going on? Another part contemplated the wisdom of kicking my captor as hard as I could in an attempt to get away. Did I have any hope of succeeding? I opted for trying to make sense of it all.

  The herd. Food. Was humanity just one, huge free-range restaurant for the Faerie folk? Was the Seelie Court really any better than the Unseelie Court? Interfering with the course of human history was never considered acceptable in those old science fiction videos my dad collected. Was my world controlled by a race of beings that just wanted to ensure they had enough fresh meat on hand?

  If so, how ironic I should work for a grocer.

  Hunger grabbed my left thigh and squeezed.

  “We don’t play with our food either,” Leader stated firmly.

  Those cold eyes shifted to regard the other Slaugh. “Maybe you don’t, but I think it might be fun.”

  It was becoming harder to focus or think. My head was a pounding rhythm section. Their voices continued, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, never mind work on a plan for escape. I tried closing my eyes.

  The body in front of me pulled back slightly. My eyes snapped open to see Hunger raise one long finger and look at the sharp claw at the end of it, as if he was weighing an option he hadn’t previously considered. He chuckled and plunged it into my left shoulder with one swift stroke. The pain was excruciating. I screamed. My headache amplified tenfold and my scream became a shriek as the claw was twisted in my flesh.

  Seconds later, the claw was abruptly removed and I found myself on the floor. I stopped screaming and took a deep breath, confused by the keening sound that continued around me. I pushed myself up on my elbows and was stunned to see all three creatures curled on the floor, clutching their heads and writhing in agony. I had no idea what had happened and didn’t care. Too slowly for my liking, I crawled over to the sofa, used it as a brace to stand and straightened. Though my left shoulder throbbed with pain and blood stained my hand when I touched the hole in my jacket, I stumbled to the door and fled.

  I had no idea where I was going. All I knew was I had to put as much distance between them and me as possible. I made it down the stairs and was backing my bike out the door before I realized I should see a doctor or call the police or something. Did I go directly to the clinic near Spadina and risk the lives of so many people? Would the Slaugh choose not to attack if I was in a crowd?

  Their collapse was probably a temporary reprieve and soon they’d start hunting me. After all, I’d seen them and knew they’d killed the Taylors, so I was likely to be their next target. They would also probably be enraged about my escape and want their revenge.

  Heading west on Bloor Street, I wondered how far I’d get before they caught up with me. There were quite a few people out; it was a beautiful summer night, and curfew for the lights was still at least an hour away. I passed several busy patios and the Royal Ontario Bata Museum was having some kind of function that had spilled onto the street. Although I must have looked white as a sheet, with blood on my jacket, and I wasn’t pedaling steadily, no one gave me a second glance. It was probably just as well. Somehow, I doubted the Slaugh would hesitate to kill anyone who tried to help me, so any thought of going to the police or the staff at the clinic was dismissed.

  Mrs. Hudson had died protecting me. It was my fault. I didn’t want to be the cause of any more deaths. I had to hide and find another solution.

  At least I could think now that my headache was gone.

  I crossed Spadina, diligently ignoring the officers on bike patrol. Too late, I realized I was riding on automatic and heading home. That wouldn’t work at all. I turned north at Brunswick, two blocks away from my apartment building, and headed for the housing development off Lowther Avenue. The project had been abandoned about five years before when the money ran out, or so the papers said. Passing the first few hiding places that seemed too obvious, I finally chose a partially-built row of town houses with a narrow gap in the chain-link fence.

  My bike wouldn’t fit. Luck of the Irish, my ass, I thought sourly. I sighed and quickly decided to leave it behind an old garage across the road. It was away from the street lamp and wouldn’t be obvious. If I survived, it would probably still be there. Resigned to hiding and hoping, I carefully slipped through the fence.

  There was debris I had to avoid, which made for slow going in the pale light provided by one dim streetlamp. It felt like forever before I reached the end house. I was reluctant to get trapped inside, so settled for lying down under the porch and making myself as small and still as possible. It was hard to decide whether or not I should scour the site for a piece of rebar and face my fate.

  “Natalie?”

  I actually yelped. It would have been embarrassing any other time but I was too scared to care right then.

  “Over here,” came the voice again, a loud whisper from the gap outside the porch. I tried to see who it was but stared at the crouched shadow without recognition. My brain scrambled to figure out how anyone I knew would have been able to find me in an old construction site on a Saturday night—or any night, for that matter. The voice added, “It’s me.”

  I couldn’t help it. I snorted. “That’s useful.”

  He chuckled. “You’re holding up pretty well, considering.”

  I gaped and was glad he couldn’t see me. I knew that voice—

  “Jack?”

  “Yep.”

  “The jackass from 2A?”

  He laughed. “Not the first time I’ve heard that one.”

  “I’ll try to think of something more original later,” I snapped. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “Go away.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. It isn’t safe here. And they’ll see you and know where I am. Go away!”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you,” he said calmly, “wanting to protect me from harm. I’m sorry, though. They already know where you are.”

  I felt a cold, sharp finger of despair drag down my spine as he pulled a curved blade from somewhere. It glinted in what little light the streetlamp behind him provided. I was trapped under the porch and had no way to defend myself.

  He’s with them? Oh, God . . .

  “You couldn’t have gone far,” he continued. “Not injured. It was easy for me to find you, so they’ll be here soon.”

  I swallowed, hard. “Why are you doing this? Why me?”

  There was a pause before he replied, “Because I made a pledge.”

  The chain-link fence started to rattle, too much to hope for rescue. My headache began a slow pulse across the back of my skull. Would that damn thing never leave me alone?

  “That didn’t take long.” Jack stood. All I could see were his cowboy boots. “Time’s up, Natalie.” I braced myself.

  “Stay here. Get away if you can.” The boots started walking toward the Slaugh.

  What the— I wriggled toward the gap and rose to a crouch as the second creature cleared the fence.

  “I thought I told you to stay put,” Jack hissed, not looking at me as I moved to stand beside him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He grinned. “Saving your ass.”

  “Are you crazy? They’re Slaugh, evil.” Jack turned to look at me then. “Friends of mine are dead, killed by these things.” As I spoke, the third one landed on the gravel surface and joined the others. They walked toward us leisurely, silver hair shining like cloaks, long fingers clacking together. “I interrupted them looking for someone.”

  Jack’s smile faded. “They’ve been looking for you.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “You. They’re looking for you, Natalie.”

  “Me?”

  We were out of time. One of the Slaugh—Hunger—chose this moment to launch himself toward us with a horrific cry.

  I lifted my arms in desperation as if I could stop
his progress, wishing I had a blade like Jack’s. I yelled something that wasn’t a word so much as an expression of my anger.

  The result was extraordinary. Hunger slammed into solid air and landed poorly on some broken concrete. I blinked and found four pairs of eyes watching me. Did I do that? My mind tried to recall exactly what I’d done in hopes I’d be able to duplicate it.

  Jack’s grin resurfaced. “This is gonna be fun.”

  Ice and Leader moved as one. I quickly raised my hands and pointed at them. Nothing happened. Jack was forced to engage Ice in a fight. She didn’t have any weapon but her claws and strength and that would be more than a match for a human with a long dagger. Distracted, I didn’t notice Leader until he’d grabbed my arm and slammed me against the unfinished house.

  Shit.

  “So,” he said, faceted eyes glinting in the faint light, his anger barely controlled. “You have some Seelie in you. That will make another abomination dead this night.”

  I was having too much trouble thinking with a rabid badger rampaging in my skull to comprehend what he was saying. All I knew was his long, multijointed thumb was pressing into my shoulder wound, and I was going to pass out from the pain. I panicked.

  “Get away!” With my remaining strength I lifted my arms as my instructor had taught me, trying to break his hold.

  His expression changed to one of surprise as an invisible force yanked him backward to slam into the fence.

  I regarded my hands as if someone had placed guns in them. How could this be happening? There wasn’t time to wonder, though. Hunger was standing and Leader wasn’t far behind him. I glanced at Jack.

  And noticed for the first time that he’d been joined by three familiar faces: The Brothers Karamazov from 1C, armed with bladed weapons I didn’t recognize. Ice was outnumbered now, though she had speed and agility that they didn’t possess. A young man brandishing nunchucks leaped into the fray, his attentions on Leader: Extreme Phil, my coworker at Levar’s.

  What the hell was going on?

  Jack raised his arm and muttered something, and Ice fell as if a bus had struck her. The brothers closed in. It happened so quickly that I witnessed the final seconds of her life. At the same time, Leader and Extreme Phil circled one another. The Slaugh was apparently wary of the nunchucks and he weaved when my coworker pressed him. It was like watching a bizarre dance. The whole evening was taking on a dreamlike quality where I was the dreamer.