by Kim Harrison
“Don’t be silly,” she said as she pulled Leonard onto her lap. “Hell smells better than the swill you breathe.”
Cooper sat up, adrenaline giving him strength. He wanted to stand but wasn’t sure his legs would hold him. “You’re a demon,” he said. “You are eating people!”
Anger flickered over her face, and she jiggled Leonard a little too hard. “We are not demons,” she said hotly. “Filthy little . . . stinky-tailed vermin.” Her expression became coaxing. “Please, Cooper. We’re running out of time. If I had wanted to poison you, I could have done it. I want to take you home—not as food, but as an equal. I need help, and Emily likes you. So do I. I can’t trust anyone else.”
Emily was nodding, clearly having been in on the decision.
“One kiss,” Felicity soothed him, her hand on his arm to make him shudder. “With that, the veil will part for you as it does for all of us. I don’t want another cow. My father keeps me well set. I’ve been careful. I’ve enough for two. Enough for all of us until the veil thins again in a year.”
Enough? Enough what? Enough bodies suspended between life and death to feed upon?
“Oh my God!” he whispered, panic rising anew. He had to get out of here!
“Please,” Felicity begged, looking as beautiful with her black hair and her dark eyes as she had with her red hair and green eyes. “I’m offering you everything a man wants. A beautiful wife, loving, obedient children. Power, status, people moving aside as you walk by. I’m from a wealthy house, Cooper. Old blood. And Cooper? We dance. We dance forever,” she said, her eyes glowing with possibility. “You could have every earthly pleasure before you’re too old to enjoy it, because it comes with everlasting life. I promise!”
Fingers trembling, he looked at his hand, seeing in his thoughts as if it was worn and aged already. The music beat like a second, communal heart. Guttural groans from the dance floor were like the passion that she promised him. His head came up, and he stared at little Leonard, the boy grinning to show red teeth before he slid from his mother and ducked behind his sister.
“You’re animals,” he breathed.
“As if you are not,” Felicity said indignantly.
Yeah, but we don’t generally eat each other. He groaned, leaning away from her, from immortality, from savagery beyond belief. This was a nightmare. A freaking nightmare.
“Cooper. Listen to me,” Felicity said, a new urgency in her voice. “The veil is thickening. If we wait much longer, you can’t come through. I know this is a lot, but I promise I will love you, and you will learn to love me. I just don’t have time right now!”
She laughed, shaking her head ruefully. “I’m going to live forever, and I don’t have the time. Cooper, let me mark you so the veil will let you through. Just one kiss, and you’ll see everything as it truly is, not the faded wisps that the sun bleaches everything into. Be my husband. Be Emily’s and Leonard’s father. Please.”
Behind Felicity, the dance floor was going empty. People were being carried away, slung over shoulders with their arms dangling. Food? “No!” he said forcefully, and her eyes went round with surprise. “You are a bloodsucking monster!” he shouted as he found the strength to rise to his feet.
The music died, and pale faces turned. “All of you,” he panted into the sudden silence, weaving on his feet.
Everyone was looking at them, and Felicity bowed her head. “Why can’t I find just one decent man? Just one?”
From across the room, her father stood. “Damn you, Felicity. I said no,” he said, pointing directly at two young men. “Take him. Dump enough wine down his throat to get him across. I want this one as an object lesson.”
“No!” Felicity stood in a panic, and Cooper blinked up at her, heart pounding. “If you won’t allow me a new husband from the families, I’ll make one!”
“I won’t allow you a new husband because I decided your line should die out, you stupid cow!” her father exclaimed, and the remaining dancers began to leave the dance floor and gather their things, skulking to stay out of his sight. “You and the ill-gotten spawn that ignorant sidestepper engendered. Who do you think closed the veil to him?”
“Papa!” she shrieked, her eyes shifting to a pale green. “You? You killed my husband?”
Cooper tensed, eyeing the door. It looked too far away with too many people between him and it. But no one was looking at him. Sweat broke out. They were animals, feeding on people. Feeding on him. Feeding on his cat!
In sudden impulse, he grabbed the animal. Emily shrieked and Felicity turned, tears slipping from her eyes. Grunting, Cooper shoved them both at the two men coming for him. Amid yells and screams, they all went down. Heart pounding, he ran for the polished bar.
The kitten tucked under his arm didn’t move. He hoped it was still alive as he shoved a woman of incredible beauty out of his way. A cry of outrage followed by a laugh went up, and his tired legs found strength. Hands grasped him, but he slipped them all, jumping onto the bar and running down it, scrambling to avoid the reaching hands.
“Someone catch him!” the old man demanded. Felicity was crying at his feet and Emily was curled into a ball, sobbing for her kitten.
Cooper jumped from the end of the bar, fumbling for his car keys knowing he’d have precious few seconds to get in and get it started. Feeling like he might make it, Cooper hit the door at a run, slamming into the lever, but the door didn’t move. Panic hit him. The thick wood took his pounding, giving nothing. The lever rattled up and down, but nothing happened. Through the smoked glass, the moon shown through the trees—tall, huge pine trees green in the snow and moonlight. It wasn’t the parking lot.
He stared, jerked out of his shock when someone touched him. “No!” he shouted as he was yanked backward into the room, grunting as he hit the floor and curled up to avoid crushing the kitten. His keys went flying, the Harley bell that his grandmother had given him ringing clear and sharp as it pinged across the floor.
As one, every single vampire cowered, howling in pain. He froze, seeing the little bell roll in a circle to become silent. First one, then another black head rose to look at him, pain still etched on their faces.
Cooper surged after his keys, scrambling on the floor until the little key chain with the Florida emblem and the Harley biker bell that his grandmother said would keep him from hitting potholes was back in his grasp. “You’re animals!” he shouted, shaking it to make it ring, and they all fell back in pain. Only Felicity’s father stood tall at the far end of the room. Blood trickled from the man’s ear, and Cooper remembered the bells on the shop door hadn’t rung when Emily and Felicity crossed the threshold.
With a renewed hope, he ran for the door. “Let me out! Let me through!” he screamed, pounding on it.
A crack split the air, throwing him back into the bar. The lights went out as he hit the floor, landing awkwardly so he wouldn’t hurt the kitten still in his arms. The door swung out and open, and the cold night smelling of exhaust spilled in: gray snow, frozen slush, leafless trees, and the lights from the gas station across the street illuminating the parking lot that held a scattering of cars.
Standing beside his snow-covered Volvo, staring at the bar with her feet spread wide and her hands on her hips, was Kay.
Scrambling, Cooper lunged for the door as it began to close.
“Cooper!” Kay cried, her red scarf flying as she ran forward. “Don’t let the door shut! For God’s sake, keep it open! Keep it open!”
Cooper scrambled out onto the threshold, breathing in the smell of exhaust and cold snow. The people in line waiting to get in were gone. Behind him, the bar was filled with angry howls and screams. The moon was down. It had to be almost dawn. Felicity’s cry of pain jerked him straight and he looked behind him into the darkness. She was a monster. Why should he care? She wanted to turn him into a goddamned dancing fey, bloodsucking vampire!
“Cooper, don’t let the door shut!”
He flung out his free hand at the last
moment, the heavy wood pinching his fingers before he pushed it open again. Inside, someone was screaming his name. “Kay?” he stammered as she slid to a breathless halt beside him, her eyes bright and her red scarf falling off her neck. Her fur-tufted boots were leaving clumps of snow on the swept front, and she looked alive, thrilled. “What are you doing here?” he asked, then yanked her back when she tried to go in. “Stop!” he shouted. “It’s a flesh club! I saw one take a chunk out of someone!”
Kay jerked her attention from the dark opening, grinning. A strong scent of pine wafted over him, clearing his head, and the kitten in his arms stirred. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Don’t let go of the door,” she added as she put his hand on the door. “Promise me you’ll keep the door open for me. Please, Cooper. I don’t know how, but you got the door open. You can hold it. Just give me five minutes. That’s all I want. Five minutes.”
“You can’t go in there!” he exclaimed.
“I can now,” she said, flashing him a savage smile. And then she ran, screaming as she dove through the opening and vanished in the darkness of the bar.
A second later, a flash of red light lit the room, glittering scarlet in the chandeliers and turning the gold on the bar to a burgundy sheen. Shocked, he stared at the cowering forms and savage snarls. His hand slipped from the door, but he caught the edge before it shut again, grunting when he needed to put all his weight behind it to pull it back open. He almost let it go again in surprise when two cats raced over the threshold, their coats smoking as they ran into the snow. When he looked back, the stage was on fire.
No one was trying to get out. Figures slumped across tables or on the floor. The people still moving were screaming in outrage—snarling as they circled the stage and tried to get into an inky black spot at the back of it. It hung behind a smoky gray figure wielding a bright sword. Whenever someone would try for the fog, the apparition would attack, cutting them down with three swipes and a horrific, satisfied scream. That others would slip in behind it and escape while their brethren died was not going unnoticed, but the sword wielder didn’t seem to care as long as someone was dying.
“It’s on fire,” he whispered as he realized the sword wasn’t glowing red from reflecting flame. The sword was really on fire.
Blood slicked the stage and dripped to the floor with each new sweep of the blade and falling body kicked off the sword. Feeling ill, Cooper slumped, almost letting the door slip shut as a wave of nausea hit him. “Kay?” he warbled, finally sitting down on the cold cement to prop the door open. It felt as if his energy, his stamina, was being sucked into the bar. “Kay? I can’t hold it . . .” he whispered, his hands still cradling the kitten, now a shivering ball. His fingers were so cold he couldn’t feel the softness of fur, and he hunched into himself, holding the door open with his deadweight as the screams grew fewer, more distinct, and finally, ended.
“Kay,” he whispered, not altogether conscious when someone smelling like a pine tree wedged a shoulder under him and lifted.
“God save you, Cooper,” he heard Kay whisper, and he felt them start to move. “I told you it was slippery tonight.”
“The people,” he muttered, unable to lift his head as he shuffled over frozen ruts, kitten cradled in his arms.
“I couldn’t save them,” she said, her voice lacking her usual warmth. “I don’t even know how you got out.”
“Didn’t eat the food,” he said, shambling forward. “Grandma told me not to eat food with dancing . . . fairies.”
A boom of sound shoved them forward as the bar exploded, and by the light of it burning, Kay got his passenger-side door open. She practically shoved him in and slammed the door shut. It seemed like forever before the driver’s-side door opened, and he blearily watched her grunt at his key ring, giving the bell a little tap. “That might explain it,” she said. “Cooper, you are one lucky bastard,” she added as she revved the engine and left Gateways to burn to ash behind them.
THREE
Shivering violently, Cooper waited in Kay’s office for her to come back, a feminine shawl that smelled like flowers draped over his shoulders as he practically sat on the space heater. It roared as it kicked out the heat, but he still shook with cold and shock. His shiny shoes squished with snow melt, and his slacks were soaked from it. A soft bundle of fur cowered in his lap, and he curved a hand about the little black kitten as if it was a talisman. What the hell happened? he thought, flexing his free hand to see his strength returning. He’d say he had gotten some weird drug into him and had hallucinated the entire thing if not for the changes in Kay’s appearance—changes she didn’t seem to know he saw.
The familiar soft sounds of her feet filled him with new foreboding, and he managed an uneasy smile as she pushed past the hanging sheets of milky plastic to hand him a cup of coffee. “Better?” she asked as she sat on the edge of her flower-decaled desk and sipped her own hot chocolate.
Cooper set the cup down, the heat from it seeming to burn his cold-soaked fingers. Kay was sitting almost as close as he was to the heater, not wearing her coat but still having her scarf around her neck to make her look kind of trendy—in a petite, preppy, sword-wielding-warrior, pet-shop-owner kind of way. “Yeah,” he croaked out, feeling his throat. “Tell me that didn’t happen.”
The woman gave him a toothy smile. “What, you getting drunk and me having to spend your Christmas bonus on bail money? You owe me, Cooper. You owe me a week of Sundays in the store, and don’t think I’m not going to take advantage of it.”
Cooper’s lips parted. “Jail?” he said, one hand around the kitten, the other circling the hot coffee. “I was at a dance club. They were vampires, and you broke down the door and slaughtered them.” He didn’t believe it, but that’s what he’d seen, and he risked a glance at her, her eyes crinkled up in laughter as she sat on the desk like she was a normal person—a little closed and reserved perhaps, but normal.
Her laughter dying away, Kay brought a knee to her chin and wrapped her arms around it. “Vampires,” she said as she rested her head on her knee. “That’s what the cop said you were raving about. Drink your coffee,” she said, glancing at it. “It will make everything all better.”
A quiver went through Cooper at her words even as he lifted the mug, his grandmother’s words echoing in his thoughts again. Feeling Kay’s eyes on him, he dutifully brought the hot coffee to his lips, letting it touch his lips and nothing more—faking it. Sure enough, a hint of bitterness blossomed, reminding him of that sloppy, little-girl kiss that Emily had left on his lips. He hadn’t eaten anything, but what if that kiss had changed him? It might explain how he got the door open and could see the changes he now saw in Kay, things that had been under his nose for three years, but he hadn’t seen until now.
“Better?” she asked, all innocence and light, and he pretended to take another drink, sneaking looks at her and wanting to be sure what he was seeing was real. “You take the cake, Cooper,” she said as she slid from the desk and stretched to make Cooper look away fast. “It’s not every boss who will come down at two in the morning to bail out an employee. It’s a good thing you got drunk enough to be hauled out, though. The place burned down an hour later. You were lucky. No one made it out. They’d bolted all the doors to keep out the riffraff, and everyone inside died. Terrible. Just terrible.”
“Yeah, lucky.” Looking past the clear plastic curtain, Cooper had a view of the bus stop on the opposite side of the street. Under the slatted bench was a straggly black cat with a bedraggled kitten. They’d been there for the last fifteen minutes. Felicity and Emily? Cooper had been waiting for them to do something, but all they did was stare malevolently at the store. He was not going out until they left—or had a dog with him.
He shivered, and Kay touched his shoulder. The warmth of her hand came through the blanket to feel like the sun itself. “You okay?” she asked in concern, but he couldn’t look at her, afraid she might notice where his eyes were drawn to.
“Fine,�
�� he said, his gaze on the old oak floorboards. “I need to warm up before I go home.”
She turned away and reached for some paperwork. “Sure, go ahead. I can take you home when I pick up the puppies.”
“Mind if I pick one out?” he said, and Kay hesitated in her reach for a pencil. “I’ve been wanting to get a dog for a long time,” he said, carefully not looking at her. “I can keep it here at the store with me in the day, and take it home at night. Besides, it will give Ember here someone to grow up with,” he added, petting the kitten still curled up in a frightened ball against him. He couldn’t call her Happy—that was a name of a snack cake.
“That’s a great idea.” Kay stuck the pencil behind her ear and headed to the front of the store with a clipboard to do the year-end inventory.
He watched her walk away, free to stare now that she wasn’t looking. Next to that long pointy ear of hers is probably a really good place to wedge things, he thought as he watched her floor-length, dexterous tail push aside the grimy plastic curtain so she could go through without touching it with her hands. It wasn’t that her pointy ears were especially big. Actually, they were kind of small and cute, but the little horns poking out right next to them cinched it. The pencil tucked between her ear and that cute little wedge of bone wasn’t going anywhere.
And neither was he, he decided, holding Ember close and breathing her fur smelling of pine and iron.
Temson Estates
I wrote “Temson Estates” about the same time that I began working on the short that eventually became the first chapter of Dead Witch Walking. I wanted to know what a dryad might be like if the Greek and Roman visions of tree spirits were real, possibly giving a scientific reason for both their absence and possible resurgence. I played with a few ideas here that I went on to use very loosely when developing the Bis/Jenks short, “Ley Line Drifter,” but I liked my dryads here better, which might be why I never took the Hollows dryads any further.