Cunning Devil

by Chris Underwood

  He sat down next to me and dug through my bag until he found my first aid kit. It contained all the usual things: bandages, gauze, over-the-counter painkillers, plus a few tinctures and unguents of Early’s creation. He was the expert on those sorts of things. My eyes always glazed over when he tried to teach me.

  “This bleeding’s not slowing,” I said. “Should be slowing by now, shouldn’t it?”

  He nodded, peering at the handwritten label on one of his tinctures. “Looks like our friend here is pretty good at exsanguinating its victims.”

  I didn’t much like the sound of that. “You can stop that, though, right?”

  “Easy enough.” He let a few drops of some green, sludgy mixture drip onto a piece of clean gauze. “This’ll burn a little.”

  It didn’t. It burned like the fires of hell. I gritted my teeth as he applied the concoction to the cut on my cheek. The sludge stank like rotting plant matter.

  Early’s herbal remedies didn’t do much for your usual, everyday injuries, but they were essential for dealing with some of the more unnatural causes of illness and injury, the ones modern medicine weren’t so good at treating.

  Almost immediately the cut on my cheek began to clot. While he applied more of his damn hot oil to my other cuts, I scrubbed flakes of drying blood out of my beard. I’d never get it all.

  The creature had finally stopped rattling the cage. It was staring at me through the bars on the door, claws scratching at the base.

  I’d thought that maybe once we’d caught it and brought it into the light, we’d be able to figure out what it was. But looking at it now, I felt just as clueless as I had before.

  It was vaguely humanoid, with a head too big for its body. Its flesh was an angry red, like it’d spent too long sitting in the hot tub. Darker spots were scattered across the thing’s shoulders and upper arms, and the skin looked thicker there, almost leathery.

  The creature’s arms were unusually long and slender, and each of its fingers ended in those long, hooked claws that’d done such a good job turning me to sushi. But they weren’t nearly as scary as the yellowed teeth that filled its snarling mouth like crooked mountain peaks. As the creature glared at me with animal fury, a long, purple tongue rolled out of its mouth, moving like a snake about to strike.

  I leaned closer to the cage, careful to stay out of reach of those claws.

  “What the hell are you?” I muttered. It didn’t answer. Neither did Early. He looked as stumped as me.

  It was male, I could tell that much. It wore no clothing, so its stunted genitalia were on display. Beyond that, though, it was a mystery.

  Not a vampireling. It’d be screeching with pain if it was, trying to curl itself away from the light. Not a kobold or an imp either. Not anything I’d ever seen before. I scratched my beard as I thought.

  “Well, I’m out of ideas,” I said to Early. “You?”

  He was just finishing up with the last of my cuts. He shook his head and set about applying butterfly stitches to the deepest wounds.

  “It’s a strange one, that’s for sure.”

  “Think we should put it out of its misery?” I suggested.

  “What if it’s sentient?”

  “It’s not sentient. Look at it.”

  “Still.”

  I frowned. Maybe he was right. I didn’t much fancy trying to murder the poor little bastard anyway. Now that it was in the cage, looking at me with such fury, I had to admit I felt a little sorry for it.

  “Well, if we’re not going to kill it,” I said, “maybe we should give it a name.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  I peered through the bars of the cage. “How about Lawrence?”

  “Lawrence?”

  “I think it looks like a Lawrence. Don’t you?”

  Early shrugged. “Well, you could take Lawrence here to Alcaraz,” Early said. “If anyone in this town knows what this thing is, it’ll be her.”

  “Not a bad idea.” I scratched my beard and smiled. “Not a bad idea indeed.”

  “I suppose it’s the prospect of seeing your lady friend that’s got you grinning like an idiot.”

  I cleared my throat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Alcaraz was something of a legend in Lost Falls. She was human—at least I thought so—but given how long she’d been clinging on to life, you had to wonder. She made Early look like a spring chicken by comparison.

  The woman had an estate on the outskirts of town, not so far from that abandoned mansion I’d found my iron nails. She kept what I had to imagine was one of the largest collection of live non-sentient Strangers in the world.

  Alcaraz had dedicated her life to studying the Strangers. She would know what our creature was, I was sure of it.

  Despite what Early said, my excitement about visiting Alcaraz had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that a very nice young woman named Lilian hung around the estate, helping with the creatures and aiding the elderly woman with her studies. Nor did it have anything to do with any sort of ongoing flirtation between Lilian and myself, no matter what Early liked to insinuate.

  I did hope she was there, though. Just for the conversation, you know.

  “Ozzy?” Early said.

  “Mmm?” I was thinking of the last conversation Lilian and I had had. That had been a damn nice conversation.

  “Your phone.”

  “What? Oh.” My phone was vibrating so violently it was threatening to throw itself off the table. I snatched it up. I didn’t recognize the number.

  I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Is this Osric Turner?” It was a man’s voice, thin and reedy. I pictured a scrawny little man, with glasses and a receding hairline. Maybe an old sauce stain on the collar of his shirt.

  “It is.”

  “I got your number from an acquaintance. I…I’ve lost something.”

  Lawrence snarled and hissed. I jumped up from my seat, moving away from the table so the sound didn’t carry down the line.

  “What was that?” the man asked.

  “Stood on the cat’s tail,” I said, smiling politely down the phone and adopting the most professional tone I could muster. This was work. A real job, maybe. I couldn’t afford to let it get away, not after the dry spell I’d been having lately. “Sorry about that.”

  “I was told you’re good at finding things. Is that true?”

  “Depends on the thing,” I said. “But yes. Nine times out of ten, someone loses something—or someone—I can find it. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Mills,” he said. “Brandon Mills.”

  “And what have you lost, Mr. Mills?”

  “It’s…something very precious to my mother and me. I—” He stopped, as if struggling to get the words out. Was that a sob? Was he crying?

  He was certainly desperate, that much was obvious. That’s not unusual among the people who come to me for help. But this was something else.

  A kind of guilty excitement flooded me. The guy was having a bad time of it, but a desperate client usually meant a trickier job, and a trickier job usually meant a bigger payout. My bank account was looking a little thin these days. It’s hard for a guy in my line of work to drum up business, so I have to take it when it comes. I can’t exactly put an ad in the local paper.

  “Mr. Mills?” I said. “Are you all right?”

  He grunted and cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes. Sorry. Listen, Mr. Turner—”

  “Osric’s fine.”

  “Osric. Can you come today? Please? I know it’s a Saturday, and I know you’re probably busy. I…I can’t believe I’m even asking a…a man like you. I just don’t know what else to do.”

  I spoke quickly, before he could break down again. Or worse, talk himself out of it. “Of course. I’ll shuffle some things around. Where do you live?”

  He gave me the address. I could be there in fifteen minutes. Lost Falls wasn’t a big place.

  I ch
ecked my watch. “Give me an hour.”

  “Thank you. Thank you.”

  He hung up.

  I was smiling when I returned my phone to my pocket. I had a good feeling about this one. After spending the better part of a week twiddling my thumbs and paging through the local paper to see if I could scrounge up some poor client who’d been the unwitting target of a minor curse, I finally had something tangible. It was shaping up to be a busy day.

  Early had gone outside by the time I was done with the call. I could see him through the window, talking with Alice. While the twins were still busy herding a ball around the yard, I took the dog cage out to my van. The creature hissed and shook the cage, but luckily the street was quiet. If there were any neighbors peering out from behind their curtains, I hoped they just thought I was taking an angry dog to the vet.

  I had to shove some things around in the back of my van to make room for the cage. The van doubles as my mobile home whenever I have a job that takes me out of town for more than a day or two. When I’m tracking something down, I can’t really stop and look for a motel. It weakens the trail, confuses my charms. Better to pull over to the side of some quiet road and close my eyes for a couple of hours.

  I threw a blanket over the cage, like you do to your pet budgie when you want it to sleep. Never know, might quiet the thing down. Or at least keep anyone looking in from seeing exactly what kind of strange beasts prowl around the darkness while they sleep safe and sound in their beds.

  With that done, I went back inside and picked up the nails I’d left lying at the bottom of the basement stairs. The smell of the Stranger was already starting to fade. I found some air freshener and sprayed it around me for good measure.

  It occurred to me then that the creature might not have been alone. And here I’d gone and left my truncheon upstairs. But I had a look around, poked my nose into all the corners, and decided it seemed safe enough. The creature had taken a shit on the floor though. I’d let my dear sister clean that up.

  I prepared a couple of simple charms to ward off nasties and left them tucked into cracks in the walls. Then I went upstairs and gave the all-clear. I thought I might’ve got a hug for that, but apparently Alice reserves all those for Early.

  “That looks like it hurts,” she said when I approached, gesturing to my cheek.

  “Not as bad as these.” I showed her the rest of my war wounds, and she let out a low whistle.

  “You weren’t kidding, were you?” she said. “Thanks, guys.”

  “What are you thanking him for?” I said, nodding at Early. “He didn’t do anything.”

  “What…uh…” She glanced at the twins and lowered her voice. “What was it?”

  “You know we can’t tell you,” I said darkly. I figured feigning mysteriousness was better than admitting ignorance. Early didn’t challenge me.

  “Best get that window repaired,” Early said to her. “And the light bulb replaced. I don’t figure you’ll have any more problems, but it pays to be safe.”

  “I will,” she promised. Knowing my sister, she’d probably have iron bars installed on the windows and forbid the twins from going into the basement until they were 25.

  Early hugged Alice goodbye, made faces at the twins, and slapped me on my cut-up shoulder. I managed to keep from swearing in front of the kids.

  “Good luck with the job,” he said.

  I guess he’d overhead my phone conversation. I nodded my thanks.

  “And tell me what Alcaraz says about that thing,” he said over his shoulder as he was leaving. “Might want to ask her to make sure it’s not…uh…diseased or anything.”

  “Diseased?” I took another look at my cuts. “Hell.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, and he was gone before I could ask.

  He was just screwing with me. Probably.

  I spent a few minutes throwing the twins around the yard. Alice looked on anxiously while the boys squealed with delight.

  “I swear to God, Ozzy, if you drop him…” she began while I swung one of them around by his ankles. The rest of the threat was drowned out by the boy’s laughter.

  When the boys’ boundless energy outstripped mine, I set them back to chasing each other around the yard while Alice and I retreated to the patio.

  “I should get going,” I said.

  “This job of yours?”

  I nodded. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”

  “Sit down for a second,” she said.

  I hesitated, checking my watch. I didn’t really have time, but there was something in Alice’s tone that told me I wasn’t getting out of this. She always did get her way.

  The patio chair creaked ominously as I sat down. Alice sat opposite, her eyes on the boys.

  “How are you doing, Ozzy?” she asked.

  I knew that tone. “Oh, jeez, Alice.” I made to stand, but before I could extricate myself from the chair and its too-small seat, Alice was already waving me to stay where I was.

  “It’s just a question,” she said. “You know it’s his birthday on Wednesday.”

  “Really? Slipped my mind.” I laid the sarcasm on thick enough for her to drown in it.

  She didn’t bite. “I was going to go down to the grave about midday. You should come, Ozzy.”

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  “Ozzy.”

  “I said we’ll see.”

  She gave me that knowing older sister look.

  I threw up my hands. “All right, fine. I’ll be there.”

  “That’s what you said last year. I want you to promise.”

  “What are we, thirteen?”

  “You need to come, Ozzy. It’ll be good for you.”

  “So would a colonic, but you don’t seem desperate to sign me up for one of those.”

  She just raised an eyebrow. She was infuriating when she was like this. Becoming a mother had only made it worse.

  After a few moments of silence, I dragged my fingers through my hair and leaned forward as far as I dared in the groaning chair.

  “Listen,” I said. “I’m doing better. I’m not like I was. You can stop worrying about me.”

  Her mouth formed a line, but she didn’t say anything. She just nodded, still looking at me with that same old look.

  “All right,” I said. “Wednesday, then.” I pulled myself out of the chair. I nearly had to snap one of the arms off to manage it. “You really have to get some bigger chairs. Look, I think I bent the leg.”

  I hollered my goodbyes to the boys—if they heard, they paid no notice—and I kissed Alice on the cheek.

  “Ozzy,” she said as I turned to go.

  “Yeah?”

  “When are you going to tell me what really happened to him?”

  I shook my head and said nothing.

  “He was my brother too,” she said.

  I sighed. “Just…know that he was avenged.”

  3

  Let me be honest for a second. Not everything I’m going to tell you in this story is strictly true. Names have been changed. I’ve had to obscure some details, or alter them completely. Trust me when I say there are reasons for that.

  But I’m not here to give you the facts. I’m here to tell you the Truth, with a capital T.

  So here it is. We are not alone.

  There are others who share this world with us. We call them Strangers. That’s probably not the best term to use, and trust me, it comes with a lot of baggage. Plenty of people—not all of them human—object to that label. But it’s the name that’s stuck, and until someone comes up with a better one, it’s the one I’m going to use.

  It’s likely that some of them have always been with us. There are plenty of legends stretching back to antiquity of strange creatures that—if you squint—resemble certain Strangers that still exist to this day. But most of them are more recent transplants to our world. They’ve been here a few centuries, a millennium maybe. It depends who you believe.

  The stories s
hift, but I’ll tell it to you as I understand it.

  There was a war. Not here. Somewhere out there. Another place. Another world.

  The devastation was on a scale that I doubt any of us can really comprehend. Genocidal. Apocalyptic. Countless creatures, both sentient and non-sentient, were destroyed. Pushed to the brink of extinction.

  The survivors were visited by…beings. Beings not of their world, and not of ours either. Beings who had the power to offer them a deal.

  The Strangers were offered an escape from the war they were losing. An escape from their doomed world. Passage to another world.

  Our world.

  I don’t know what the Strangers paid for that passage, but knowing who they were trading with, I can only assume the cost must have been astronomical. But they paid it.

  And they came to join us.

  Not just the sentient Strangers, either. It was them who’d made the deal, but plenty more creatures poured through the passage as well, like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

  Strangers were scattered across the Earth, alone in a strange land. Refugees. And they soon realized they had no choice but to hide. There were few of them, after all, and a hell of a lot of us. And for all of humanity’s good points, we get awfully vicious when we encounter something we don’t understand.

  Not that we didn’t have reason to fear the Strangers, of course. Almost all Strangers can be dangerous when the mood strikes them, and for some, that’s all they know.

  Ever since then, the Strangers have been with us. Hiding in the dark corners of the world. A lucky few are able to pass as human and live amongst us, but most of them lurk on the edges of our civilization.

  Only trouble is we keep expanding, pushing back the darkness. Every year there’s more of us, and fewer of them.

  But there are still a few places left in the world where they can hide. Places like this. Places like Lost Falls.

  Lost Falls is…well, it doesn’t matter exactly where it is. It’s a little too small to be called a city. We’re nestled in a thickly wooded valley in the middle of nowhere. Used to be a mining town—still is, I suppose. I don’t know how many thousands of miles of tunnels and old mine shafts crisscross these hills. Between the forests and the mines and the river and the mountains, there’s a place for nearly every kind of Stranger here. For better or worse.