Catskinner's Book (The Book Of Lost Doors)

by Misha Burnett

  The bald man sighed. He wasn't just bald, I noticed, he had no hair at all, not even eyelashes. His skin looked slick and a little gray, almost like a dolphin's hide. He raised a hand and Catskinner's attention followed it. He had no fingernails, either. “Okay, I guess it does have to get ugly.”

  White had his gun out, pointed at the bald man. “Or maybe just for you.”

  For a moment we all just stood there, looking at each other. A long moment, long enough for me to think that maybe he was bluffing and that we were going to be able to just walk past him—

  —and then things got really busy.

  Somebody's gun went off, painfully loud, but I was in motion, past and over the gunshot, bouncing up to the ceiling. There was a huge ugly light fixture up there, some relic of the 1960s in chrome and neon with little ray gun projections all over it. I'd walked under it without noticing it, but evidently Catskinner had been paying attention because he yanked on it and it came crashing down—along with about half of the ceiling—to bury big and bald under a mess of debris. A regular human would have been crushed but he stood there unmoved and I felt Catskinner's realization of that fact along with an impression of terrible weight.

  Catskinner was still moving across the lobby, and I heard more gunshots, one and two and three and four and five, calm and measured, then the sound of something big breaking. Then a fire extinguisher—something else I hadn't noticed but Catskinner had—was in my hands and I spun around and it impacted against the stranger in an explosion of white powder and smoke and still the bastard wouldn't go down, just staggered a little.

  A bowling ball came out of somewhere and bounced off that bald head with no reaction. I guessed that either Godiva or Alice had thrown it, Russwin was standing back and changing clips, no expression on his face. White was down in a splash of blood at the stranger's feet.

  What is that guy? I asked Catskinner in my head.

  his elements have been shifted downwards, I heard in reply as my body hopped, dropped, rolled, and came up on my feet next to a rack of balls, heavier metals than human bodies possess.

  Then my hands were throwing bowling balls. I knew how Catskinner could use my muscles. Those balls would have dented a battleship's hull, yet the stranger was still standing. I did, however, seem to have gotten his attention. He turned and started walking towards me.

  I had mixed feelings about that.

  Catskinner stood to face him, his attention fixed on the empty space around him. I saw Godiva bending over White. Russwin had reloaded but wasn't firing, I guess my body was in his line of sight. I didn't see Alice anywhere.

  Catskinner was moving my head, scanning the surroundings. Something registered to one side, a flat metal panel on the wall, and then the stranger was on me and Catskinner ghosted out of the way of his strike.

  See that metal sheet on the wall? I spoke in my head. See if you can get him to hit it.

  Catskinner didn't reply, he was dodging, but my body moved against the wall.

  “i will see you drowned deep in cold water,” Catskinner spoke aloud, and the bald man lunged at us. I was on the ground suddenly and there was a flash of white that blinded me, followed by the sound of something heavier than a man hitting the tile.

  Through purple afterimages I saw Russwin growing closer and I took my body back. Catskinner gave it up easily.

  “Is he down?” I asked Russwin. I still couldn't see well enough to tell.

  “He's down,” Russwin said. Evidently my plan had worked. The big guy swung at me and Catskinner dodged so that the big guy's fist went through the electrical panel instead. Whatever he was at least partially metallic.

  My eyes were coming back but the place was mostly dark, emergency lights scattered here and there didn't do much to break the gloom. The place had grown eerily silent. The patrons were sitting quietly in the darkness. Even the clapping had stopped.

  I turned to Godiva and White, sitting together on the floor. Godiva turned to me. White didn't.

  “We need to get him to a hospital,” she said simply. Alice was standing beside them. I hadn't noticed when she arrived.

  Russwin bent to pull White to a standing position and Godiva stopped him with a yell.

  “Careful!” A deep breath. “His skull is crushed. He's got subdural bleeding, bone fragments all through his parietal, he needs intubation, he needs—shit, he needs surgery now and I haven't got dick to work with!” She seemed on the verge of tears.

  Russwin nodded slowly, and very gently drew White to his feet. Alice took his other side. White's legs hung loosely, unconnected with the ground, and his eyes were staring off into nothing.

  That's when I heard the bald man getting up.

  Catskinner spun me around. The stranger's clothes were burned, but his slick gray skin seemed unharmed. I reached to take control of my right arm, dug into my pocket for my keys.

  “Take the van,” I said, “get him to an ER.” I tossed the keys behind me.

  Catskinner walked my body forward and Russwin joined me. “save your bullets for his eyes,” Catskinner told him quietly, “his eyes are soft.”

  The big man pointed at Russwin. “You—you can still get out of this. I've got no reason to hurt you.” He was staggering a little, still looking dazed, but I had a feeling he was shaking off the effects of the shock.

  “Not a chance, Tin Man,” Russwin called back. “Not after what you did to my partner.”

  “He did shoot me,” the other pointed out, “but, hey, suit yourself.” He bent his back slightly and spread his arms like a wrestler.

  Catskinner turned and ran.

  He didn't run for the exit, but for the lanes.

  After a moment I heard Tin Man following, and a moment after that Russwin followed him. We weren't running flat out, not as fast as I knew Catskinner could move.

  We have a plan? I silently asked him.

  yes.

  Well, that was good to know.

  Catskinner hopped up on a table and behind us baldy smashed through it. On the other side was an upholstered bench. On it two men—flannel shirts, jeans, ball caps—were locked in a passionate kiss, one of the pretty ambimorphs lying across both of their laps and smiling sweetly up at them. She jerked her head to follow me as Catskinner sped by, the men didn't notice our passing, even when our pursuer knocked the bench aside.

  Up and over a rack of bowling balls and Catskinner lashed out with a kick that snapped one of the side supports. Balls rolled out onto the floor. I heard the big guy stumble and fall, smashing the tile floor. Catskinner spun in place, swung my arm at a table crowded with beer bottles and the air was full of flying glass. It didn't seem to faze the big man, he got up and we were running again. Up on the back of another bench, avoiding the gently moving bodies draped across it, and out onto the lane. Behind us the wood splintered with each step of our pursuer. Then a louder crack and the steps stopped.

  Catskinner twisted to look behind. The man was shin deep in the floor, wrestling with the splintered wood of the lane. Catskinner grabbed a ball and hurled it. The man shot us a black look and ducked, catching the impact on his shoulder. He heaved himself up and got free of the wood, scrambling for purchase. Catskinner heaved another ball then ran again, heading back to the lobby.

  A moment later the heavy steps were back in pursuit. Catskinner knocked over a vending machine without looking and I heard it smash under the other's footsteps. He wasn't moving as fast as he had been, we were wearing him down.

  Catskinner slowed slightly—still moving faster than most unmodified humans could manage—and I felt the man behind us closing the gap.

  Catskinner spun and leaped straight at the big man. Startled, he threw an arm up to block and Catskinner grabbed the arm and kicked out with both feet, swinging around his body like a tetherball. The big man's arm didn't break—

  —it bent. Like an iron bar it flexed and bent in the middle of his upper arm, the bone twisted almost into a right angle. The big man's eyes got wide and his
mouth opened to let out a long hiss of pain. He dropped to his knees, clutching his misshapen limb in his good arm. Catskinner pressed his advantage, lashing out with a half dozen rapid kicks to the man's face. We stepped back then. The big man blinked slowly and shook his head, trying to focus.

  Russwin stepped up, put his gun against the man's eye, and fired three shots into his head. The big man fell straight back and I felt the floor crack under his weight. His one eye was simply gone, and the other bulged out. Blood mixed with a thick dark blue fluid poured out of his eyes and ears and mouth. The back of his skull was deformed, bulging out like a weak balloon.

  Russwin switched to the other eye and fired three more shots into it. More blood and heavy blue gore sprayed across the floor.

  He looked up at Catskinner. “Enough?”

  “he's dead.”

  Russwin nodded and holstered his gun.

  I took my body back, cautiously. I felt weak and the usual hunger, but it wasn't bad this time. The battle had gone faster than I realized.

  I blinked, looked around. The ambimorphs were watching us silently. The patrons paid us no attention, lost in kissing and caressing each other, oblivious from whatever sexual spell had been cast on them.

  I looked over at Russwin. He spoke to our audience of pretty girls. “We're leaving now, right? None of you are going to try to stop us, right?”

  As one they turned from us and back to petting and murmuring to the patrons.

  On the way out I reached behind the food counter—a teenage girl in a white apron lay on the tile floor, giggling softly, her hands between her legs—and helped myself to a couple of pieces of pizza.

  Russwin made a call on his cell phone. No answer.

  He frowned, tried another number. No answer.

  “You got a number for Godiva?” he asked.

  Mouth full, I shook my head.

  He stood and thought for a while. “DePaul's closest. Let's go there.”

  He made another call, this one to a cab company.

  I finished my pizza. “If they're in ICU they may not be able to use their phones,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” he seemed unconvinced.

  They weren't at DePaul. No Tom White, no emergency room admissions of a middle-aged white male with a skull fracture. Russwin showed some ID at the nurse's station and started asking questions. A few calls and a lot of searching on the nurse's computer told us that no one matching that description with those injuries had been admitted to any area hospital.

  I felt sick. “He's got them.”

  Russwin nodded. “He must have had something else waiting outside.” A long sigh. “We did just what he expected us to do.”

  “So where are they? The Good Earth?”

  He pulled out his gun, pulled out the empty clip and replaced it with a full one before answering.

  “No, I doubt it. He wouldn't want them that close to him.”

  I sat down on a hideous waiting room chair. “What do we do?” I asked softly.

  “We need information. We need some bigger guns. We need a car.” He pulled out his phone and called another cab.

  “And then what?”

  “Then we go hunting Mr. Morgan.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “all creation is also the destruction of what had been”

  The cab took us to a dark industrial section of north city. A tall chain link fence topped with coils of razor wire surrounded a lot full of cars, most of them rusted hulks from what I could see. A faded steel sign warned “Entrance By Authorized Personnel Only,” but didn't specify who did the authorizing.

  I paid the driver in cash.

  Russwin got out and held a quick conversation on his cell phone. A moment later there was a clink and a rattle and a section of the fence started rolling out of the way. Russwin entered the yard and I followed, Catskinner aware but not concerned by the neighborhood. Naturally. The most dangerous thing on the streets at night was him.

  The gate began rattling closed behind us. Russwin seemed to know where he was going. There were aisles through the mass of vehicles and he turned right. I noticed that most of the cars seemed to be official vehicles of some kind—police cars, ambulances, an enormous fire truck that looked like it had been sitting there since World War II. At the end of the aisle was a big construction trailer with an illuminated sign in front of the office reading “Yard Office. Visitors MUST check in here.”

  The door to the trailer opened and a person headed down the metal steps, footsteps ringing in the quiet. A slim figure with a black leather jacket and a spiked mass of bright pink hair. Not what I expected to see.

  Russwin waved. “Hey, Ace.”

  The girl—Ace?—stopped and looked at me. “Hey, Cobb. Where's Tom? And who's the new guy?” She looked like a teenager, but then so did Godiva.

  Is she human?

  unmodified.

  “Tom's out sick,” Russwin said. “This is James, he's on loan from DEA.”

  Ace looked me over. “Nark, huh? Looks good. He doesn't look like a cop.”

  I held out my hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  She grinned and took my hand. “Likewise.” Then back to Russwin. “So, what can I do you for?”

  “Wheels to start with,” Russwin said.

  “To start with, huh? Let's talk in the shack.”

  She led us up the stairs. The inside of the trailer seemed to be furnished with random items scavenged from government auctions. A half dozen chairs, two desks, some file cabinets, none of them matching, all of them ugly.

  The computer system on one of the desks, on the other hand, looked new and powerful. It had two monitors, one of them showing views of the lot. There were movie posters on the walls, from horror movies I'd never heard of.

  A coffeemaker sat on top of one of the filing cabinets, full, and Ace found some cups—also mismatched—and poured three cups. I didn't really want any, but I figured it was polite to take it and say “thank you.”

  Ace shrugged out her jacket. Underneath she was wearing a black T-shirt that said, “Zombie Squad” under a logo of crossed machine guns.

  “How are you fixed for vans?” Russwin asked.

  Ace considered. “How big? I've got a fifteen passenger job from a tour group, seized in a tax deal.”

  “I was thinking something more in the utility line.”

  “County Water? It's a theft recovery—the ignition's punched out, but it runs fine.”

  “Perfect.” Russwin smiled at her.

  She smiled back, a conspiratorial gleam in her eye. “Now. What else?”

  “I need some big guns. Militia stuff, you know. Aryan Nation.”

  Ace's grin got bigger. “I can hook you up. Stuff I've been saving. I'm drowning in AK's here—meth is a hell of a drug, you know?”

  Russwin scrubbed the side of his face with his hand. “Actually . . . I was hoping for something bigger.”

  That earned him a raised eyebrow. I noticed that it was pierced with a small silver ring. “Bigger?”

  “Anti-tank?”

  A frown. “Anti-tank? What the hell for?”

  Russwin spread his hands. “Hey, if you can't do it, no problem. I was just asking.”

  “Wait, I didn't say I couldn't do it.” She sat back and stared at one of the movie posters, considering.

  Russwin waited.

  “Am I going to read about this in the National Enquirer?”

  Russwin shook his head. “Probably not.”

  Ace switched her attention to me. “How do you figure in this?”

  Me? I shrugged. “I just do what people tell me.”

  She stared at me. I stared back at her. She sighed and looked at Russwin. “If this is a sting, I will lay on you the biggest voodoo curse ever cast. I mean it. Spiders will start crawling out of your ears.”

  Russwin leaned forward. “Ace, I will go to Leavenworth for life before I roll over on you. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” she said slowly. She seemed to come to
a decision.

  “I got some TOWs. A half dozen, in crates, launchers, primers, all that shit. Never been opened, far as I can tell. Some grunt at Jefferson Barracks tried to sell them to an FBI plant. The ACLU got involved and the kid got out with a dishonorable discharge. Nobody's ever asked about the gear, but if they do, it's gonna be my ass.”

  “If it comes to that, call me. I'll take the rap,” Russwin said very seriously.

  Ace reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a big ring of keys. “Okay, let's get you loaded up before I come to my senses.”

  The van turned out to be a little bigger than the Quality Electric one, but I felt comfortable backing it down the aisle of lost emergency vehicles until I reached a row of big metal shipping containers. Ace sorted through her keys, muttering, “This never happened.”

  There were four crates, each the size of a footlocker and heavy enough that I asked Catskinner to help me move them. Ace watched me lift them, amused.

  “So that's what he's on loan for.”

  I glanced back at her. “I also type,” I said, and she laughed. It felt good, making her laugh. She was cute, in a post-apocalyptic princess sort of way.

  “I'll take a couple of AK's, too, and all the ammo you can give me.” Russwin said to Ace, then looked at me. “You want anything for your friend?”

  Do you want weapons?

  time and space and the spaces between.

  “Uh, you got any knives?” I asked Ace.

  “Oh, yeah,” Ace said expansively, “knives, swords, axes, chainsaws—you should see some of the shit they take off guys in county lockup.”

  “Let's see,” Russwin suggested.

  Ace locked up the first shipping container and opened another one. “AK's over there, knives over here.”

  Take what you want, I told Catskinner.

  Unlike the neat lockers and sealed envelopes on CSI, the things that Ace had in the shipping container were just stuffed in bins in no order that I could see. A few of them had tags with faded numbers scribbled on them.

  I didn't really expect Catskinner to do anything. He'd never expressed much interest in physical objects, and he'd certainly never expressed any interest in personal possessions. In fact, he always seemed to view my desire to own things and take them with me when we were on the move as a liability. He used objects, if they happened to be close at hand, but he'd never shown me any indication that he ever understood the concept of ownership.