Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Kim knew the way. She was a Texas girl, born and raised, but it was only once she had started college that she stopped spending every summer and Christmas running wild through the family’s New England home. More accurately, it was quite a few houses close together, connected by winding, tree-shaded walks and underground tunnels. Some of the houses were huge, and some of them were very small, and every one of them was full of Reeds. In some ways, it was like a compound, and in some ways, it was like a small country, but Kim had always found it most like a museum. She led the way down, out of the mostly-normal house above, into the climate-controlled tunnels below.

  There were several levels beneath the ground. The place was more than just a home; it was also a safehouse, a research facility, a conservatory, a training center, and a prison.

  At the very bottom was the bunker, a few spartan rooms lined with barrels of water and cases of food. Kim had been down there only once, and she hoped to God she would never have to go down there again.

  Above that was the prison. She had been through the halls, but never into any of the mostly-empty cells. All she knew for sure was that the criminals kept there were the most dangerous sort of person, abusers of magic. They were not the ones who cheated in Vegas or sold uncannily accurate forgeries. They were the ones who made pacts with unspeakable things, who used the human body in unconscionable ways, who tampered with life and death and the nameless things between. She knew that no sound or light escaped those cells.

  The level above the prison was empty and unnaturally cold, but above that one was the labs, and above the labs was the archive. It was cold in the archive, too, but Kim knew very well that the chill there was from the massive climate control units constantly cooling and dehumidifying the air that surrounded the fragile documents.

  The only problem was that there were thousands of them: journals, birth records, death records, marriage records, research logs, fables, fiction, directories, histories, recipes, letters, telegrams, printed emails, phonograph cylinders, records, cassettes, compact discs, sheepskin scrolls… They were stacked on shelves, on racks, on the floor. They were preserved behind plastic and glass. They were in file boxes and folders and ring-binders, in drawers, in cabinets, on microfiche and in the rows upon rows of hard drives that lined one wall.

  Kim paused at the door to pull on a pair of cotton gloves and slip a dust mask over her nose and mouth. There was a tingle of magic in the air, protecting the materials from time, but there was no reason to take a risk with bacteria and skin oils.

  Bea stopped behind her. “You’re just going to start reading?” she breathed, aghast. “Kimmy, you’ll be here forever!”

  Kim ignored her. She shut her eyes for a moment and sucked in a deep breath before letting it back out, making the mask inflate slightly. Then she took sixteen steps in a random direction and stopped. That felt right. She opened her eyes to make sure she was not about to step on anything, focused, and took another twelve steps to her left. That felt right. Getting closer. She found herself among titles that suggested anthropology. Cryptoanthropology. It was possible that someone, once, had stumbled upon something Broken and made record of it. She raised one hand and touched the spine of a drably-bound book. That was wrong. The ones to either side of it were wrong, as well. She squatted and surveyed the bottom shelf. Night-things of the Caucasus Major: With Some Notes on the Traditions of Reciprocal Hospitality and the Ritual Feast, W.E.R. Garrow, 1917.

  It sounded unbearably dry. It also sounded right. She slid it off the shelf and retreated to the table near the door, where she began to read.

  * * *

  COYOTE KNEW WHERE Kim was. She had always been careful, but no one can erase every trace of herself, and he had found a few hairs tangled in a half-knitted scarf on her floor. A map of Texas failed to find her, but a map of the United States showed her moving through Oklahoma. He watched until she abruptly picked up speed, heading north. She must have boarded a plane.

  He gritted his teeth and cursed the medium soundly. “Couldn’t just let the chindi bastard go,” he growled. “And Duran’s got them both, now.”

  Zeb watched the little twist of hair snake its way across the country. “You think so?”

  “Can’t afford to assume otherwise. I can track her, can’t track either of them. Should’a grabbed a few more hairs from the wuss.”

  Zeb drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair and glanced at Bernice and Itzli. “Just sayin’, if she keeps on in that direction, it’ll land her in Boston. Her folks live near there. Know y’all don’t want to waste any time.”

  Coyote scoffed. “I doubt she took off for an impromptu family reunion.”

  “Naw. But if somebody tipped off her ma about the… that… Cindy might be pretty ticked.”

  “Cindy can shove it.”

  Zeb chucked. “Tell her that to her face, I dare ya.”

  Coyote scowled.

  Zeb tilted his head and ran his hands over the grips of his pistols as he stood. “Welp, if you think Duran’s up that way with her, y’all better get a move on. Don’t want to think what he’d be doin’ to her if he did get her. I’ll catch up. Want to check up in Abilene, first.”

  “Why?”

  “Family of mundanes potentially got slammed by a vampire. Someone should prolly check-see they’re okay.”

  They took off, Coyote and the vampires in one direction and Zeb in another. He made sure to lock Kim’s apartment before he left, and he drove to Abilene. The going was almost painfully slow. He would rather have been charging off to rescue a friend, but there were other things that needed doing, and it looked as though no one else was going to do them.

  He did not talk long with Mara Demarco, just long enough to find out that everyone in her house was okay, and she had not seem Kim, but she had not seen Duran, either. He did not tell her that the medium was missing again, because he could tell she did not want to hear it, but she had worked it out from the open front door and the fact that his things were still there.

  Mara handed Zeb the bag of Lenny’s belongings. She had loosely sewn shut the back of the stuffed rabbit.

  “Get him back,” she said without tears. “Please get him back. And if you do, tell him I’m sorry. I wish I could have turned back the clock, but…” She shrugged. “He doesn’t have friends, you know? He has soul mates, picks someone to be completely devoted to. And I could never live with it if he was giving me all he’s got, and I couldn’t give the same back. And if he ever wants to drop by, he’s always welcome under my roof, or however that goes. I just can’t be part of all this. I can’t get my girls into all this. I’m sorry.”

  Zeb took the bag and drove away.

  Chapter 15

  LENNY WOKE UP yet again with no memory of having gone to sleep, and decided he was getting tired of being treated as though he had an OFF switch. He wondered whether he had the guts to tell Sebastian that. He did not intend to run. He could say that, and Sebastian would almost certainly know that it was the truth; the man could sniff out lies with ease, so surely he could know the truth when he heard it.

  Lenny pushed himself up from where he had been sprawled across the back seat and made a futile attempt to rub the burn out of his throat. He would have to take care of that, he knew, but reaching for the door handle let him know that leaving the car was forbidden. His muscles tightened, and his hand shook, and he could not quite touch the plastic. After a few moments, he gave up trying.

  Sebastian was gone, and it seemed to be early morning. The car was in an empty lot, somewhere near downtown, to judge by the tip of the Tower of the Americas thrusting up into a cloudless sky beyond a nearby broken-windowed building.

  Even if the lot was empty, there would be people somewhere nearby, so close to the city center. No lives would be in danger, no matter how bad off he got, but Lenny refused to do to someone else what he had done to Kim. Then, he’d had no choice, and she had understood that, but now, here, the people of San Antonio might not be as forgiving. Besid
es, if he could find the strength, he could do something about it.

  He tried again to get out, and could not. That might in itself have been a solution to his problem. Sebastian had kept him contained for years, unable to hurt anyone. But whatever Sebastian had done to him, it had taken years to complete, and Coyote had demolished at least some of it. What was left was enough to keep him put for the moment, but later, when his cerebral cortex shut down and the animal brain took over?

  He could feel that coming, and it felt too familiar, and for an instant, panic began to rise up. He fought it down again. That moment was still hours away, at least. He had kept himself in good condition while he was with Mara, as good as he could manage, and that caution had given him some extra time. He could make it another few hours, and that might be enough time for Sebastian to come back.

  He took a steadying breath and waited.

  Waited.

  Waited.

  The burn in his throat began to spread, and a tension grew in the back of his mind, like a tightly-wound rubber band. He knew that feeling. When the band snapped, he would be gone.

  Still he waited. His eyes itched. They would be darkening, white to pink, pink to red. He had heard it said that it was the human mask falling away, revealing the demon inside, but the truth was more pedestrian. It was disintegration, the point at which there was no longer enough power in his body to hold him together. That hint of decay was internal, and it was everywhere – organs, tissues, bones – but the eyes were where it showed, capillaries so close to the surface, visible when they broke down.

  Sometimes it showed beneath the nails, as well, he reflected, and checked his hands. Still clear. Not that bad yet, then. Painful, miserable, but there was still some time left.

  Sometimes in the gums. His gums did hurt. His teeth sliced into his tongue, and he winced.

  And he waited.

  He started and shied away when the driver’s door slammed open and Sebastian slid into the car with a delighted grin, oblivious to his passenger’s problem.

  “He’s a teacher,” he cackled. “Just like you! You did say you were a teacher. I think I remember that. Stupid bastard must be blind, never did see me watching. I’ll send him a message, I think. He hangs out with this other guy, skinny little sprout. I’ll get a picture, maybe. Leave it somewhere for him with a red X, like in the movies. See? Not even touching him, just like Rhona said. Just letting him know we’re still around. Wonder where I can snag a camera…”

  Lenny curled in on himself in the back seat. He could see any number of things wrong with that plan, but could not spare the brain power to articulate them. He whimpered.

  Sebastian twisted in his seat, mouth turned down in a scowl. “What is wrong with… Oh.” The scowl mellowed. “I didn’t realize. What’s your poison? You’re no good for anything if your brain gives out.”

  Lenny shifted uncomfortably. He had time left but not, he thought, enough to get him out of town. Still, he had to try.

  “Something b-b-big,” he muttered into his knees.

  Sebastian laughed. “Oh, right. Goody-two-shoes would rather starve than chew on law-abiding citizens. Whatever. Leland’s not going anywhere. Thinks we left. We can afford to lose a little time.”

  He put the car in gear and rolled out of the lot, crossing a few intersections before finding Interstate 10 and heading south out of town.

  By the time Sebastian spotted something promising and swerved off the road, Lenny was shaking. The tension inside him was stretched so thin and so taut, he felt that if he let go, it would slingshot him through the windshield. And he could let go at any time, give himself some slack, some relief. It would be easier, and it would hurt less. No one in that car would be in danger. But if he lost the power to think, there was nothing to stop Sebastian from pointing him at a crowded gas station or a school just for laughs, and there would be nothing he could do about it, so he hung on as hard as he could, letting himself stretch as far as he could take, waiting for the snap.

  “Horses,” Sebastian said. “Horses are pretty big. Not people. That’s what you meant, isn’t it?” He unlocked the doors and made a shooing motion. “Well, go.”

  Lenny crawled out of the car and was squeezing awkwardly through the barbed-wire fence when the snap came, and he was gone. He did not come back to himself until something shoved him hard and he felt the animal die, seconds or minutes later. He doubled over in an agonizing spasm.

  Sebastian stood straddling the carcass, a section of the dead horse’s spine between his hands. “Damn… You okay? Thought it was going to trample you.”

  Lenny picked himself up and felt around. The death hurt, but there was something else, a sharp pain in his side that he suspected was probably horseshoe-shaped. It was healing, though. The pain was receding, cracked ribs knitting together, and he was almost clear-headed again. He nodded.

  Sebastian snorted and dropped the body. “You are really bad at this, you know? You’re bad at… at just being. How the hell have you survived this long?”

  Lenny looked away. “I t-try not to antagonize people.”

  Sebastian grinned. “Yeah, I guess you probably do. Speaking of which, we need to fly. There’s someone coming down from that house over there.”

  A cloud of dust was racing down the dirt road that stretched away from the interstate, hiding a silhouette that might have been an ATV.

  Sebastian stepped away from the dead horse and vaulted gracefully over the fence. Lenny scrambled after him, collecting a few scratches as he did. They climbed into the car and roared away, Sebastian laughing like a maniac the entire time.

  “Horse,” he sputtered. “That was way too much trouble for horse.”

  Lenny twisted the hem of his shirt between his fingers. It was the only shirt he had left, and now it was stained with blood, dirt, and grass.

  “I could take care of myself,” he suggested timidly, “if you maybe didn’t make me wait in the car. I won’t run. Just out and back. If you needed me for something, you can always find me.”

  Sebastian drove into town in silence. He said nothing when they passed the Anderson Loop, nothing when they passed the Connelly Loop, nothing until after the San Antonio skyline was behind them.

  “You’re lying,” he said at length, and Lenny’s stomach clenched.

  “I’m not.”

  “I think you are. You’d run back to your wizard.”

  “No. Kim can’t help. If she c-c-could, she would have already. I don’t have anywhere to g-go. I have to come back to you.”

  “Damn straight, you have to.”

  “And… I think… I think maybe you need me around.”

  Sebastian barely moved, but his fist caught Lenny in the jaw. It was only a light cuff, but he was Sebastian, and a light cuff from him whipped Lenny’s head around and started his jaw swelling.

  “I don’t need you half as much as you need me. Look at you, sorry son of a gun. Who else would even bother with you?”

  He pulled into a motel parking lot, stopped the car, and sat thinking for another moment.

  “Do whatever you want. Wander around if you feel like it. But if you’re not back where I tell you to be every night, I’m heading back to Abilene to change your girlfriend, maybe throw her kids at her when she gets hungry. Bet you anything she wouldn’t have the problem you do.”

  And he got out to negotiate for a motel room, leaving Lenny alone with his nauseous terror.

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN LEFT THE motel room at some point, and Lenny stayed very still and quiet until he returned. It was nearly evening, after all, and he needed to be where Sebastian wanted him to be. That was the deal. He would sit still and quiet, and Sebastian would not hurt the people Lenny cared about. It sounded reasonable.

  Sebastian brought back a camera and a plastic shopping bag. He threw the latter at Lenny, who flinched, but the contents of the bag were soft. Jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt tumbled out.

  Lenny picked them up uncertainly. “Th
anks?”

  “Yeah. Go shower before you start to smell bad.” The words came out harsh, but then Sebastian grinned. “This is going to be fun.” He fell into the chair beside the curtained window and began to explore his camera. It was a big one, undoubtedly expensive, the kind that usually came with interchangeable lenses and a lot of bits and pieces, the kind professional photographers used. Sebastian did not have any other lenses or bits and pieces, and Lenny thought it likely that the professional photographer was probably lying in a dumpster somewhere.

  “What… what exactly are you p-planning to, um…?”

  Sebastian looked up, and for a long moment, Lenny thought he had overstepped his bounds, but Sebastian blinked and squinted in concentration, and finally nodded.

  “Follow him around, get some pictures. He won’t show up in them. I don’t know anyone around here who has the stuff to develop them right for that. But his friends will. I get a few pictures, have them developed, leave ‘em somewhere he can find ‘em, get him all nice and worked up over it, then leave one that says where he has to come meet us if he wants his friends safe.” He peered into the camera’s lens and lifted it up to look at Lenny through the viewfinder. “I figure he’s sort of like you, maybe. Likes playing human, likes the ones he hangs out with. We’ll be out of here in a week. It’ll be fun. Like a movie. Like playing spy.”

  They didn’t have time for fun, really. Lenny half-expected Tony and Edith to show up at any moment, hopefully with Kim and her posse in tow. Kim could find him, always, the same as Sebastian could, and there had to be something Coyote could do, and Zeb would make the shaman try whether he wanted to or not. Someone was looking for him. Someone would be coming to help. Surely Sebastian knew that, knew that the longer they stayed in one place, the more likely it became that someone would catch up with them.