Supernatural Vigilante series Box Set

by D. R. Perry

  “Mind your tongue, Sarah.” Mother clucks her tongue. “And that elder Lamb of ours may still be breathing but just look at those eyes. He's dead inside, you see. We must have angered the Deep Ones in some way if they returned him to the land and the light.”

  “It’s not anger,” Raven says. “When one of their Lambs live, it’s because they’ve found him of particularly potent virility and intend to use him again.”

  I blink. No wonder Raven went and got themselves turned at such a young-looking age. I would too if I had fish people I wasn't attracted to all hot and bothered for my bod.

  “This is what your brother told you?” Father’s peering at Raven through the monocle. I get the feeling this is an extremely dangerous game of choosing and using the correct words.

  “Exactly that.”

  Mother and Father Pickering give each other a set of matching looks that make me want to vomit in my mouth a little. It’d be cute and romantic if they were anyone else, but these are people who pimped their teenage son out to monsters, so no. No sympathy here for them, at least not from me. But Frankie himself is another story. His brother and sister, too.

  The three Pickering siblings practically simper. Which of course, they do because this has been their lifelong example of what love is, and all three of them probably aspire to something like it. Frankie’s only just started to get the idea that there are other ways to be. And a big part of the reason I’m here is to give him that chance. Now, I want the other two to have the same.

  The tip of my sword lifted with these thoughts. Let’s call the motion accidentally on purpose. Raven sees my implied threat and immediately knows how to exploit it. That’s one brilliant vampire.

  “Now that I’ve demonstrated who and what I am, it’s time to talk about renegotiating our family’s grossly outdated and patently unfair contract with the Deep Ones.” Raven stares directly at my raised blade until every pair of eyes in the room is on it, too. “I’m willing to fight alongside my allies for that right, if necessary.”

  “I think we agree you are part of our family,” says Mother.

  “And you are the oldest of us,” Father continues.

  “But we have no new advantage to negotiate with,” Mother finishes.

  “You’ll have to trust me when I tell you I’ve got something they will want.”

  “We can abide that if you include one of us in your negotiation process.”

  “I’m not sure how either of you will survive at the bottom of the ocean.” Raven leans back in the chair with a gleam in their eye that tells me this was an unexpected wrinkle.

  “I can.” Mother pulls away the long collar on her dress, revealing a set of gills along each side of her neck under her ears.

  “Very well, then.” Raven rises from their seat. “We will return after sunset on the day the new agreement is finished.”

  Mother Pickering leads us through the door with Raven on her heels. I let Frankie and Leora go ahead of me. On her way out, Leora gives Levi a grin, pulling one of her lower eyelids down with a finger and sticking out her tongue. He snickers, a blush forming on his cheeks. Cute.

  Not much is for the remainder of the evening.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There’s no way everyone will fit in my car. But Mother Pickering has a van. Raven practically orders her to let me drive, but she’s cooperative enough now for me to think that was overkill, maybe. But I can’t blame Raven for laying it on thick. What happened inside the Pickering study feels like nothing short of a socially manipulated miracle. No wonder King DeCampo chose Raven as his attaché.

  The entire meeting with the Pickerings only took forty minutes. We'll have time to chat with the king about everything we've managed to do before heading off to rescue Steph.

  I drive us back into Providence and park the van in the shadows under a bridge near WaterPlace Park. It’s not far from where I caught Sparky at the beginning of all this mess, either. I get out alone, letting the others wait while I go back on foot to report to the king at the Blood Moot. As I walk, I try calling Maya, but she’s not answering. I pocket the phone and do the secret knock, and there she is, at the door looking over her shoulder like all hell has broken loose inside.

  “Tino, we have to go.” Maya’s got a duffel filled with lumpy cargo slung across her body. I take a whiff. It’s weapons, so my guess about hell was correct. Shitballs.

  “What?”

  “Shadow came out of the king’s back room and dropped like a rock. Dead sleep.”

  “Holy shit!” It takes vamps either decades or loads of blood to get out of a long sleep like that. I try to go past her, but she blocks me successfully. “Let me go in and help!”

  “You can’t, Tino, and we have to go now. I’ll give you the whole story while we walk.”

  I do what she says, more because I’m worried about someone hurting her if vampires are Raging back there than anything else. True to her word, she gives me an update by holding my hand as we power-walk away from the building. It’s not as intense or as fun as the kissing earlier, but I get the picture through Maya’s eyes. Literally.

  I see Shadow appear from out of nowhere beside the king’s throne, hand over his heart. An iron rod sticks out of it. He topples to the floor, sprawling halfway off the dais. And I’m running on Maya's legs with a crowd of other vamps toward that door behind the throne.

  Through the doorway, I make out three heaps of ash and a jumble of stakes. The air in the room smells thick and musty, like something ancient and wet was in there recently. The fire in the grate is out, and the metal cover twisted and tossed aside. The king’s Lazakhar is entangled with Stephanie’s, while Hargrove’s is nowhere to be seen.

  Maya and I both know that the reason for Steph’s amulet being in that room isn’t because she’s dead. It’s because the king had it on him. But then, I see Maya's delicate brown hand reach down and snatch both amulets. I feel their combined weight in her hand and then her pocket. She hunches and elbows her way through the gathering crowd of vampires, trying not to make skin contact with any of them. She succeeds.

  She pauses to listen to the jumble of voices while she tries to think of something to do with the Lazakhars. There’s got to be a place to hide them. But then, the last thing she wants to hear meets her ears.

  “If you’re claiming the throne, Whitby, we need to do the Test of Ages on everyone here to make sure you’re the oldest.”

  No. Maya knows it’s bad to be here for that test. Her thoughts grow distant and incoherent after that. I realize she’s hiding the reasons for her fear about this from me. I ease off a bit and give her thoughts some room by focusing on the memory’s physical surroundings.

  Racing through the room is easy because it’s mostly empty now, but as Maya leaves, Peligro steps in her way.

  “It’s dangerous to go alone.” He's holding a stuffed duffel bag in his arms like it's a baby.

  “No, Peligro. Not now.”

  “Take this!” He pushes the duffel at her.

  At the front door, She hears the secret knock and opens the door, and I see my own face.

  “Wow, Maya. Well, Raven and company are in the van. I bet they’re older than Whitby, so no problems there.”

  “Those two are the same age, actually.”

  “Oh.” It figures. "They’re twins?"

  “Yeah. The others will back Raven, though. So whatever adventure we’re going on, protect that attaché at all costs.”

  “We?” I shake my head. “No, Maya. You shouldn’t get mixed up in this.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Why do you think Whitby keeps me around?”

  “Um, the telepathy thing?”

  “No. I’m his muscle.”

  “Wait, seriously?”

  “Absolutely. Annie’s a gun-bunny, Peligro’s psychic. Mrs. Kent’s a walking archive, and I sprout claws and spikes.”

  “I can hardly believe it.”

  “Well, you will if things get bad enough for you to actually
see it.” Maya chuckles, but the sound cuts out like it was on a radio someone shut off. “Wait a minute. Was that your van?”

  “What do you mean, was?”

  And she’s right. The ex-van is sitting there in literal pieces. I don’t smell any blood, but that blackish slime is everywhere. And thanks to drinking Mrs. Kupala’s evidence sample, I know exactly what that stuff does. It looks like the Deep Ones decided to start their negotiations without me. Forcibly.

  What a bunch of assholes.

  I warn Maya not to touch the icky ooze. We follow the slime trail down some cobblestone steps until we get to the waterside. At a quarter to three in the morning, there aren’t any people in this part of town. The slime leads down the tunnel Scott, Esther, and I went down while chasing Sparky. I shake my head and snort.

  “What?”

  “It’s just, I was here last night after a kid’s lost pet. And now, I’m chasing after monsters way above my paygrade.”

  “Well, you take the good, you take the bad.”

  “I guess that’s life.”

  “Unlife.”

  “Yeah. At least we’ve got weapons.”

  “Hello?”

  Maya and I look at each other, then all around, trying to figure out where that tiny creaky voice came from. And that’s when I notice what looks like a tent left up way after WaterPlace closed for the evening. I move in for a closer look and see that it’s actually thatched and made of wood and mortar. There are two windows with geraniums in boxes below them, and a door which are all higher off the ground than I’d expect. The foundation's raised.

  “Tino, look.” Maya’s pointing at the bottom of the structure. Well, not really. She’s pointing at its legs and feet.

  Yeah, I said the little thatched house has legs and feet. Chicken ones, to be exact. I might not have read Sasquatch’s Baba Yaga article, but I sure do remember the illustration. And guess what it is? Ding! You win a prize! It’s a cottage standing on chicken legs.

  The door’s open and I can see the light of a fire inside. Something’s cooking in a pot over that, but all I smell is sandalwood. I step closer, trying to see the face of whoever called out to us. Could one of our friends have escaped into this strangely located tiny house?

  “Mister Crispo!” Leora’s head peeps out from one side of the door jamb.

  “Leora! What happened?”

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  “She?”

  Maya elbows me, then leans over to whisper in my ear, “Baba Yaga.”

  I whisper back, “Well, that makes sense. Leora’s working for her.” I turn my head to speak to the kid. “Can you tell her I’m short on time?”

  “She knows. Don’t worry, she says you’ll get to where you need to be in time.”

  I look at Maya. “So, what do we do?”

  “We go in.” She’s already stepping into the dark goddess’ house. I can do nothing but follow.

  Saying it’s untidy in there is like saying the ocean is wet. Dust bunnies big enough to be Great Danes live in each corner. The sourness of gone-over meat comes from crumbs littering the shelving to the left side of the fire. And a stink of unwashed flesh emanates from the crooked figure on the three-legged stool in front of the blaze. One wiry arm emerges from a nest of hair and faded red rags, a wooden spoon in its hand to stir the pot.

  “Baba, your guests are here.” Leora gives a little curtsy. I see that the wrist that wore the bracelet earlier is now bare.

  “Inna minute.” Baba Yaga finishes her cooking task, scraping the sides and bottom of her cauldron. When she withdraws the spoon, a fish head tries to come with it. She shakes it off, and it falls back into the stew with a fat plop. “Whaddaya want?”

  “I figured you’d be the one telling us, ma’am.” I give her a slight bow. Not because she’s considered a deity by some but out of respect. Baba is a maternal word, and I was raised to respect mothers in general, even the non-Italian kind.

  She cackles. I’m not sure whether she’s thrown her head back or not because of all the hair covering her face and most of her body. But I’d bet you dollars to donuts she has. And I can’t even eat donuts anymore.

  “Love that one. Gets ‘em every time.”

  “Baba, you know we’re worried about mortal time.” Leora’s tone is almost chiding but gentle enough to be mistaken for a plea, reminding me of how Ma used to talk to my grandmother at the beginning of her Alzheimer’s.

  “’At’s right.”

  Something creaks as she gets up. I’m not sure whether it’s the stool or her old bones. There are a table and benches built into the wall to the right side of the fire. She hobbles over to them and takes a teacup from the saucer sitting there. It vanishes under the steel-gray of her hair. In moments, she straightens. The hair deepens to a rich white-streaked auburn, and her figure goes from withered to matronly in less than sixty seconds.

  “Valentino Crispo and Maya of Macedon, I welcome you for the time being.” Baba Yaga’s voice is the same, but her accent and inflection have changed entirely.

  “Thank you.” Maya copies Leora’s curtsy.

  “Thanks.” I smile. It doesn’t faze Baba Yaga one bit, of course. But I’m on the defensive because of the word Macedon, which is ancient. But Maya can’t be that old. Maybe the witch meant Macedonia, which I happen to know is a country just north of Greece where Yugoslavia used to be. I paid attention in Geography, okay?

  “Now. I hear that you’re fighting back against the fishes.”

  “The Deep Ones. And yes, we’re after them. They stole my sire, killed Leora’s mother, and raped two other friends of mine.”

  “I saw what they did while you went on your errand of mercy for the Pickering Lamb, Sir Crispo. This child’s mother was one of the mortals under my protection, among other things. We have the same enemy. Will you accept my assistance?”

  I’m about to answer with a simple yes, but Maya takes my hand. I keep my mind’s eye peeled and let her show me what I need to see.

  It’s Leora. She’s outside the studio where my office is, getting into the same house we’re currently visiting. And then I see her again, coming out of this house in a field behind what looks like a school. She’s ugly-crying. I realize that this must be right after she found out her mother died. I watch Kayleigh approach her, and their conversation becomes audible.

  “No. You’re a hunter, and I’m not going with you. I’m getting the guidance counselor to find me a group home.”

  “Look, kid, I know you’re the old lady’s Lamb, but I’ve got no beef with either of you. My family’s not against magicians, anyway. I’m just helping a friend find you because he wants to talk.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Valentino Crispo.”

  “Now him, I’ll talk to.”

  The scene fades. I grip Maya’s hand tighter, preventing her from letting go. Why was she following my friends and me? I need to know. No word of excuse or explanation comes, but I feel her regret, like an undertow threatening to drag her down. And she gave me all the information to handle this talk with Baba after all. Our mission now is more important than past actions, especially if we want to rescue the others and keep Whitby from taking the throne uncontested.

  We unclasp our hands. Baba Yaga is stirring her stew again, back turned to us.

  “I understand you’re used to making contracts, Baba. Arrangements with mortals.”

  “Yes, but you aren’t one.” She turns her head, so I see her in profile. “I don’t want tithes from you. Vampire law will do.” Awesome, that’s exactly what I wanted her to say.

  “Baba, here is what I offer in return for you and yours obeying my orders regarding the Deep Ones and the Pickering family.”

  “Continue.” She turns her back again, stirring.

  “Leora Kupala has no guardian—”

  “I am guardian enough.”

  “Here? Absolutely. I’m not questioning that.” I shake my head. “But I’ve heard you don’t get out muc
h. The mortal world is different. It’s hard enough to navigate when you’re anything other than human. And Leora isn’t even an adult yet. She will face more hardships than other kids her age, going it alone on your business. That is unless you arrange for someone out there who knows what they’re doing to help her.”

  The spoon goes still inside the pot. “And all it takes for you, an honorable vampire, to accept this responsibility, is my obedience in one single fight?”

  “No, Baba. You will obey my orders regarding the Deep Ones and the Pickering family. Until they both cease to exist.”

  “And your intention is to destroy all of the fishes.”

  “No. Only the ones who don’t accept the Pickerings’ new agreement.”

  “Ah.” The witch turns, brandishing the spoon. A rivulet of stew trickles inexorably down the handle and toward her hand. A long tongue with gray splotches darts out, catching the droplet, marring that matronly image by reminding me of the crone on the stool. “But there will be death? Bloodshed?”

  “I’m almost ninety-nine percent sure that kind of thing will be happening.”

  “Then I accept your offer. Let me ready your most important weapon.”

  “That’s okay.” I wave a hand at Maya’s duffel and my rapier. “We came prepared.”

  “No, you didn’t. I’ve got someone better than that.” She drops the spoon in the pot, then gets a ladle and scoops out a dipperful. “Sparky!” She whistles. “Get out of there!”

  And the last thing I expect happens. From the whitest part of the fire in the hearth, a shape emerges, red and rimmed with black. As it crawls out of the heart of the fire, Baba lowers her ladle, and I recognize that shape as the salamander. He holds his sticky little feet up toward the food Baba’s offering, but she moves it away to slosh it in a bowl. She places that on the stool. That’s when Sparky starts to warp and grow in front of my eyes.