by Kaye, Rainy
“My friends were in there,” I said, more loudly. “Did they get out? Did anyone go in to see if there were people in the building?”
He looked up at me. “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to step back, please. It’s dangerous over here.”
“My friends were inside the goddamned—”
A familiar voice cut me off: “Safiya!”
I spun around to find Sasmita and Fiona huddled together near the lifeless fountain. An ambulance was parked on the other side, and two paramedics were nearby, talking with Randall.
I hurried over to the fountain.
“Oh, my god,” I said, breathless, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of the fire, or that Fiona nearly disappeared against the darkness. She was a silhouette of her former self, nothing more. There was nothing wholesome or good about whatever had happened to her on the steamboat.
She sat on the edge of the fountain, head tipped down, and didn’t acknowledge me.
“I woke up choking on smoke,” Sasmita said to me. “The whole apartment was on fire. It was so close to us, I didn’t think we’d make it to the door.”
I looked at Sasmita. “Any idea what started it?”
“Who could even tell? Maybe we weren’t the only people squatting there,” she said. “Fiona was nearly lifeless when I woke up. I had to drag her halfway to the door before she came to and could walk. Luckily, she was fine.”
She glanced at the sliver of a person next to us, as if to silently add, all things considered.
I nodded and touched the tip of my tongue to my bottom lip. It figured the closest thing we had to shelter had gone up in flames—it was symbolic, to say the least—but we were all alive and together. We had to take our wins where we had them.
“This whole town is a nightmare,” I said. “Randall and I saw weird darkness in the sky unlike anything else so far.”
Sasmita tipped her face skyward. “What could it have been?”
“No idea,” I said.
Randall jogged over to us. “So, the paramedics want to take Fiona to the hospital and—”
“No,” I snapped, reeling on him. “There’s no way I’m letting a medical team get ahold of her until we know more about what is wrong.”
I knew how contradictory my words sounded, but I didn’t care. Fiona’s condition was not in the jurisdiction of the medical community. If they tried to keep her, or separate us, I would lose the last of my self-control and burn this whole fuckin place to the ground.
The apartment was enough for today.
“I told them that we were just passing through and we’d take her to her normal doctor when we got home,” Randall said in a hushed voice. “They’re pretty adamant.”
“There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell,” I said. I reached down and grabbed her hand to tug her to her feet.
A sharp pain cut across my palm. I yelped, jerking my hand back. I held it up to the firelight.
A deep red slit ran the length of my hand, and it oozed rich blood.
I shook my arm, the pain tingling up to my shoulder, trying to determine what I had injured myself on.
Fiona’s hands were no longer her own but contorted and ended in long black claws barely distinguishable from the rest of her hand. One nail left crimson on her pants where it rested.
There, barely noticeable, were two emblems, one above each wrist. They glowed faint white light.
I crouched down next to her to inspect the marks. They were distinct from each other, but hinted of runes and lore and forgotten magic.
Even though I had no idea what any of it meant, I felt, deep down in the coldest part of my soul, that whatever Fiona had been changing into, it was complete.
“We need to go,” I said, hoarse.
I grabbed her upper arm, and she came to her feet with the smallest tug.
“Where to?” Randall asked, looking between the three of us in turn.
“After you guys left, I watched out the windows until I dozed off. There’s a shopping center not far from here.” Sasmita pointed to the distance. “One of the store fronts was lit up and I saw a few people come and go.”
“So far, our luck with people in this town has been zero,” I said.
“Well, except them.” Randall nodded towards the firefighters.
True.
“Should we check it out?” I asked no one in particular.
Sasmita and Randall exchanged glances, as if waiting for the other to determine our fate.
When neither replied, I shrugged. “Not like we have many choices, right?”
With wordless murmuring, we headed in the direction of the shopping center.
7
Every store in the shopping center was dark except for one, a tattoo parlor tucked back in the corner. A few motorcycles and a Dodge Challenger sat in the parking lot nearby.
Holding onto Fiona’s wrist, careful to avoid her new accessories, I led the way past a closed Indian food restaurant, an out of business travel agency, and an empty print shop, judging by the sign. Sasmita was right behind us, glowing with the ability to blow up the first thing that moved. Randall hung back a few feet with his hand on his weapon, should the need present itself.
As we neared the tattoo parlor, I slowed and listened for any signs of what might be going on inside. Talking and the occasional thud issued from just out of sight, but I couldn’t make out anything useful. I stepped into view of the glass door.
Bright lights lit up the interior. The walls were lined nearly floor to ceiling with sketches and photographs of tattoos. The glass counter to the right displayed body jewelry, and the room just beyond the first contained two red reclined tattoo chairs.
A man sat in one of the chairs with his shirt off, back to the artist who was busy working away with a tattoo gun along his shoulder blade. Two men stood around with them, and a woman leaned in the doorway, sipping from a bottle of vitamin water.
They seemed harmless enough.
I released Fiona and pushed open the door. Before crossing the threshold, I tried to draw up my magic. My body tingled as magic welled to the surface.
Satisfied I was well-armed, I continued into the parlor.
Everyone looked up, and then the artist went back to work.
One of the men turned to us. He was a short, wide man with facial hair and tattoo sleeves on both arms.
“Sorry, we’re closed,” he said.
“Darn, I had my heart set on getting a butterfly on my ass cheek just now,” I said before I could stop myself. I briefly closed my eyes. “Actually, we’re passing through…Uh, well, we came here to kill a monster. Kind of. It’s sort of complicated.”
“Take your pick of the bastards,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of outside. “I knew everything had gone to hell in a handbasket after that electrical storm. It wasn’t right.”
I raised an eyebrow, then stepped out of the way so my companions could enter. The door fell closed behind us.
“What storm was this?” I asked as I eased closer. “You’ve seen the monsters, I take it.”
He scoffed. “Seen a whole lot of things lately.”
The woman sipped from her drink, but her gaze continued to flick toward Fiona who stood behind me, head bowed.
“It was a freak storm,” the tattoo artist said without looking up. “No rain, no wind, not even thunder, just a lot of lightning. Charged the air with electricity. Animals were freaking out. Then it went away, just like that.”
He snapped his fingers, and then continued with the tattoo.
“Next day, Hector”—he nodded toward the burly man who was receiving ink—“went outside and some crazy woman…thing…was eating a rat.”
“Ah, yes, we met her,” I said. “Very charming.”
The other man stood nearby. He had an undercut with the top cinched up in a small ponytail. “What’s up with your friend?”
“She’s not feeling well,” I said with an edge. “So, these monsters arrived and…any chance you hap
pen to know someone around here who collects art? Might have brought a new piece home recently?”
Hector tipped his head at the woman. She didn’t even look at him.
“It’s sort of important,” I said. “Without it, I can’t get rid of the sludge monster in the sewer.”
The man in the chair jerked forward. “Ah, I knew it!”
The artist pulled back, and the man turned around to face us.
“I took my dog for a walk the other day and saw this…yeah, sludge monster sums it up nicely. It dropped down into a dry riverbed and just sort of rolled away. I had no idea what to do.”
“There should be a picture somewhere in this town,” I said. “It’s kind of…Let’s say it’s cursed. I can fix all this if I know where the picture is.”
He eyed me up and down. “It’s cursed, all right, but there’s nothing else to it. We’ve already tried to make sense of that freaky thing.”
“Well, you probably can’t do this either,” I said, filling up with my magic until my hand began to glow blue. I snuffed it out before I accidentally caught something, or someone, on fire. “We’ve put away several monsters already, and there’s three more after we’re done here. The longer this takes, the more destruction the others get to do and the bigger mess I have to clean up—and frankly, I’m tired.”
He started to say something—no doubt, to ask who the hell I was, and that was an increasingly good question—but the woman straightened, and everyone’s attention shifted to her.
She capped her water. “I’ll take them.”
With that, she strolled past my little group, heading toward the door.
The men said nothing. I twitched a little at the confusion of it all, and then followed after her. I wasn’t about to balk at being lucky enough to find the portrait.
Thank god for small towns.
Fiona stayed right behind me, and Randall and Sasmita flanked us.
The woman continued on without glancing back, seemingly confident we were right behind. She crossed the parking lot and stepped into a field that gave way to a dry canal. In the distance stood the shadowy form of a small motorhome.
As we caught up with her, I scanned the trailer. It was an old class C motorhome with off-white siding accented in dark brown and tan. The bumper on the front had been crushed on one end.
She pulled on the small lever knob and the door bowed a little with the motion as it opened. The interior, cramped with a table and two storage benches, a stove, and a tight path into a tiny bathroom, was lit with a small overhead light. Leaning against the table was a large rectangle covered by a thin blanket printed with a blue and purple mandala.
When she stepped up inside the motorhome, the vehicle rocked a little. She had to turn sideways to make her way around what was left of the floor space.
I pulled myself up inside, and my companions crowded behind me.
“My boyfriend brought this home one day. Called me and told me to come see it. I thought it was ridiculous, but he said the man who sold it to him assured him it was valuable. One of a kind, Lucy, he said. I told him, of course it’s one of a kind. Who else would be dumb enough to buy the first one?” She frowned, recalling the memory. “It creeped me out. He said I was being dramatic, but I hated the thing. On the night of the lightning storm, I swore it…It just…I walked into the room, and it was—alive. I don’t know how that can be, but I yanked it off the wall and tried to break it with a hammer. Punctured some holes straight through it, big as my fist, and…”
“It healed itself,” I said for her.
She started a little, and then nodded. “Yeah. I guess you knew that, but it was like a nightmare. It’s been a nightmare.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered. I stepped farther into the motorhome, shifting around to stand in front of the covered painting. “May I?”
She took a step back, as if by instinct. “Please, just make this stop. All of this.”
“I’m going to try,” I said with more vulnerability than I had meant. I didn’t know why I had assumed the role of a great protector when I entered the parlor, like I was sent by the same people who had unleashed Joseph Stone.
Maybe it was because of her, and her companions. They were just bystanders. Nothing had corrupted them yet. They were just living among this hellscape, praying for help from a world that simply couldn’t. Much like how I knew doctors couldn’t save Fiona, no one was coming to rescue these people, either. We didn’t owe anyone anything, but the truth was startling clear, time and time again: we were it. The world had no one else, at least not yet.
I batted away the thought and reached for the blanket. My arm shook as I sucked in a breath, my hand hovering over the cover. With a yank, I pulled the cover loose, and it fell in a delicate heap on the floor next to the painting.
My world spun until it flew apart in shards. Then, everything came back together again, and finally, another piece of the current puzzle made sense.
The painting wasn’t of the sludge monster. It wasn’t the naga, either.
We were after witches and mages; those weren’t it.
Staring back at me, the portrait of the man that should be captured in its frame. It was the Japanese man from the Halloween party.
Yuto Takahashi, per the plaque on the frame. He was our mage.
It was time to take him down.
8
As I stomped down the street in the direction of the Halloween party, I flung my hands out wildly as I yelled. “We’re such idiots. Of course we weren’t after the sludge monster. Joseph was a million times smarter about all this than us, and he got himself killed. What are we thinking?”
“That a fork and a house got up and walked around,” Randall said from beside me. He matched me stride for stride. “It’s a little distracting, ya know.”
“Distraction is what killed Joseph,” I snapped. “As soon as Lucy arrives with the picture, we are shoving his ass back into it, so be prepared for a fight.”
“At least she was willing to transport the portrait in the motorhome instead of us lugging it around,” Randall said. “In hindsight, we probably could have ridden with her.”
Rage boiled in the back of my throat. I had no desire to sit still for any length of time.
“You got the New Orleans medallion still?” he asked.
I nodded, and then reached up to touch it through my shirt.
“Yep. My magic, too. We’re good to go.” I glanced at Sasmita. “You ready?”
“Let’s get him,” she said.
We charged forward until the empty spot where the house had been came into view. Broken pipes jutted up from the ground and wires laid across the grass. It was a strange reminder that just a few hours ago, the house had sprouted spider legs and crawled away.
The Halloween party was still underway. I stormed across the street, not bothering to check for traffic, and up the front yard. As I reached the dip where the house had been, I veered to the left, onto the gravel driveway. Footsteps crunched behind me as the others kept pace.
The man in the linen clothes sat in his chair, drinking from a refill of punch. I beelined straight toward him.
He looked up at me. As I reached him, I slapped him across the face.
I expected him to roar to life, to show the demonic creature he was within. Fire, lightning, and bursts of magic. I was ready for it.
Instead, he just blinked up at me.
“It’s you,” I said on a snarl. “It was you the whole time while I was off on some stupid chase with a sludge monster.”
“Frank,” he said.
“What?”
“His name is Frank. I always name them.” He sighed, his face crumpling into a frown. “Esmeralda was a beauty, but she ate half of the colony, so I can see why people didn’t find her fascinating.”
“You create monsters?”
I didn’t really intend to have a conversation with him, but I also didn’t expect the sludge monster to have a name.
“No. Well, no
t on purpose.” His expression darkened, but it wasn’t aimed at me. He seemed to be turning his loathing into some place…internal. “I tried for decades. I talked to monks, traveled the globe, delved into the esoteric. Hiked Mt. Everest, too. Didn’t make it to the top. It didn’t matter, though. Nothing ever stopped my magic.”
I hunched forward a little, like if I could get closer, any of this would make sense.
“Next thing you know, the weather goes wild, monsters appear, people start acting strangely, and objects get up on their own accord. I didn’t want it. I never did. Then there’s these things that show up.” He reached down and batted at one of those naked cat gargoyle creatures I hadn’t noticed under his chair. “I don’t even know what they are.”
My brain reeled, trying to make sense of what he was telling me. “So, I’m to believe that all this mayhem, all this destruction—it’s not your fault?”
“Oh, no, dear. It’s entirely my fault.” His face drooped with sadness. “That’s why they put me away. I didn’t expect to ever come back out.”
“Then why did you?” I snapped.
“The seal broke. Who would resist?” he said simply. He heaved a sigh. “I should have gone right back, but…”
“But what?” I was no longer scared or angry.
He was the first mage to speak to me. Maybe he would have some insight into what was going on. He must know more than I did.
“I guess I was curious,” he said with a sad smile. “Thought maybe I could look around…”
“Well, if you’re done sightseeing, you need to—” I cut myself off. If I went along with what he was saying, he wasn’t a bad guy. Not intentionally, anyway. I wasn’t sure how to digest this turn of events, but if he was going to chitchat, maybe he could get us on the right path. “Where’s the vault?”
“I was never shown the way there,” he said. “I’m sure it does not exist in this world, though.”
More weights fell onto my shoulders. My search for the vault had just widened, significantly.
“What about that darkness in the sky? That was you, I assume?”
He tipped his head skyward in thought, then frowned. “No. I don’t believe so.”