by Nazri Noor
Well and good, but they wouldn’t be the first people to go missing in Silveropolis, not in recent times. At least going missing implied you could still be found. The only ones the locals found had been very dead, and very faceless. They couldn’t possibly be wild animal attacks. Nothing out there that’s hungry enough to pounce on a human being eats just the face.
No. There was something definitively supernatural going on in Silveropolis, and not the fun kind of supernatural. Not an orgy with wood nymphs, or a unicorn tea party.
“I’ve got a better idea. Don’t get too comfortable, we’re heading out.”
Asher shut the lid of his laptop, then blinked up at me. “Where to?”
I smiled. “We’re going to touch base with the local freaks.”
4
Now, I don’t necessarily consider the word “freak” a pejorative, not when it was something that bound so many of us in the arcane underground together. The supernatural species are numerous and terrifying, but there’s a certain mutual understanding there, a kind of secret handshake that comes with having to live a life that’s hidden from humanity.
I had the privilege of passing for human, and so did Gil, but even we had huge aspects of our existence that simply could not be witnessed by the normals. I couldn’t imagine how much harder things could be for a troll. Barring some specific instances, we freaks stuck together because we knew how different it was to be different. One of those instances is vampires and werewolves not totally getting along all that well, but let’s not get into that just now.
Here’s something slightly more interesting. Confession time. This wasn’t our first trip to Silveropolis. Gil and I, at least, had visited once before. It was also for business, mind you, and it involved a full moon, which meant that I was left with an incredibly unenviable task.
“Remember?” I said, nudging him in the ribs as we walked up to a frankly adorable little building, just a stone’s throw from the town’s plaza. “Remember when I had to chain you to some furniture before you tried to bite my head off?”
He scratched the back of his head, sulking. “I said I was sorry.”
Asher looked between us, frowning, confused. “Wait up. I thought you could control when you transformed. It’s like your thing. It’s what makes you different.”
Gil scoffed. “Different? Try unnatural, at least in the eyes of other werewolves. Yeah, I’ve trained that part up. But a full moon comes and you don’t have a choice but to go full dog.”
Ah, yes. Going full dog was how Gil liked to describe his transformation, when his skin sprouted fur as black and glossy as his beard and hair, when his nails transformed into horrible talons. But that’s not the visual you want just now. The bed and breakfast? Cute as all hell. Two stories of adorable. The swing on the porch with its weathered wood and peeling paint, the flowers under the windows with their overgrown foliage and untrimmed curlicues of tendrils, and a wooden sign that swung gently in the breeze. A single crescent moon was carved into it, the emblem of the Twilight Tavern.
I stepped in first, followed by Gil, and then Asher. A tingling sensation passed over me, which oddly reminded me of walking through one of those airport scanners, or even weirder, a rotating glass door. I made sure to check for Asher’s reaction. He wrinkled his nose, staring down at his hands. He curled his fingers, then looked panicked.
“What the hell was that?” he said.
“Relax. It’s normal.” I gestured at the doorway. “There’s a dampening field starting from the entrance. No magic works in here.”
That was part of the point of the Twilight Tavern, after all. It was designated as neutral ground for supernaturals to meet, reducing, if not eliminating the possibility of arcane foul play. Werewolf transformations, however, being nonmagical, could not be nullified, which meant a huge honking bill for room damages when we finally checked out that one time.
Inside, the Twilight Tavern was just as rustic and charming. Stray knick-knacks festooned the shelves lining the walls, potted plants dotting the entrance hallway. It was so cozy that I very nearly forgot how we were there to ask about some dead bodies who had their faces eaten off.
An enormous woman stood behind the front desk, evidently alerted and excited by the appearance of actual guests. Enormous isn’t meant as a pejorative here, either – there was a reason she was a giantess, larger than life in every sense. Her blonde hair was coiled into perfect braids, her blouse and skirt making her look right at home in a beer garden, or Oktoberfest. She craned her neck to get a better look at us, her eyes going wide. I gave her a wave.
“Helga,” I said, smiling. “Lovely to see you again, sweetheart.”
Helga vaulted over the counter, a frightening yet thoroughly impressive feat, considering she could have punched a hole in the ceiling with her head. The ground faintly rumbled when she landed, then again when she stampeded towards me. Thundered. In my peripheral vision, Gil and Asher were moving well enough away from me. Helga opened her arms, and I decided that the sight of her ample bosom would be my final delight before she crushed me to death. She lifted me off my feet, pressing the air out of me in a bear-like embrace.
“Sterling,” she cooed. “Oh, our lovely little vampire, returned to visit his dear Helga.”
I gasped, struggling to get a word out, and struggling to look pleased to see her while simultaneously hoping not to have my bones splintered into tiny pieces. She set me down gently, then backed away, abashed. I choked down a gulp of air. Ah. The breath of unlife.
“Oh, oh my goodness. I do forget my own strength.”
“It’s okay,” I wheezed. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Helga was a very attractive woman, and while things never really quite worked out for us, she did end up becoming a good friend. A cool chick, and certainly someone we could count on for information, if not for backup in a bareknuckle fistfight.
“And I remember you as well,” she said, nodding at Gil. “It’s good to see you, Gilberto.”
He smiled, happy to be recognized. Asher kept his distance, but charm came naturally to him anyway. “And I’m Asher.”
“Wonderful to meet you. How can Helga help you boys tonight?”
“We’ve got a few questions about some recent developments in town,” Gil said.
She nodded gravely. “Yes, yes. We’ve heard much of this. I really shouldn’t speak too much on the matter. I can’t imagine how my employer might react to me discussing the – the incidents.”
“Except that he’s not around, is he?” I rubbed my chin, stroking a nonexistent beard and grinning. “How is the old coot, anyway?”
She drew herself up, bristling, which is impressive to see on a seven-foot woman. “My employer is currently away on business. He is attending to many very important things.”
“Ah. So he’s off on one of his Wild Hunts, eh? Off for drink and debauchery.”
“It is a most unkind way to speak of the All-father, but yes. Yes. It is as you say.” She shook her head and sighed. “This one has gone on far longer than I am comfortable, so we are left to manage the tavern on our own.”
I shrugged. “The place looks great, if I’m honest. Even better than the last time.”
She looked around conspiratorially, as if checking the walls for bugs, then leaned in. The counter creaked. “Between you and me, it has been better. I am startled to learn that both business and the state of the tavern have improved since the All-father departed.”
Was it really so much of a surprise? Yes, Odin was still powerful, as far as gods who’d survived into the modern world could be, but he tended to enjoy the rampaging and revelry more than actually running a business. Putting up the Twilight Tavern always sounded like more of a midlife crisis than any old aspiration. Take it from me, immortality gets boring, and I haven’t been around as long as any of the old gods.
Perhaps I should have led with the fact that the gods existed at all. Those, and angels, and demons, too. I’d both fought and befriended my fa
ir share of them in my time. One even gave me a spiffy sword, with a blade that sparked with lightning.
But, I digress. Helga here was the exact person we’d come to see. It wasn’t her statuesque frame and sheer strength that made her unique. Those traits were common to all valkyrie, who made up the entire staff of the Twilight Tavern. Things just weren’t the same as the old days. Too many valkyrie, and not enough warriors dying in battle for them to lift up to whatever lofty realm it was that the brave and valorous were supposed to go to. Oh, there were still valkyrie out there doing the job, just a far smaller number of them. Helga and her sisters at the tavern seemed to be perfectly content with the business of running a business.
“We’re not going to take up too much of your time,” said Gil. “We know you’re very busy here, but we’d like to know what you’ve heard of these killings.”
Helga tutted and shook her head. “Terrible. Truly awful. My sisters and I believe that these were premeditated, no mere accident. Not a wild animal attack, as reports have stated.”
I snapped my fingers. “See? I said the exact same thing. Nothing just eats a person’s face then wanders off just like that.”
Asher wrinkled his forehead. “Well, don’t look so happy about it.”
“How did you see these images? Who sent them to you?”
Helga shrugged. “It is a small town, Mr. Sterling. All it takes is for someone from the right department to leak a photograph, and then it spreads like wildfire. It is the way of things with information in this modern age. Fascinating, and yet, terrifying.”
Asher gulped, then licked his lips. “Do you think we can take a look?”
She glanced around, then nodded. “I would prefer that my sisters do not see me doing this.” She slid open a drawer behind the counter, retrieving a smartphone that looked so comparatively tiny in her hand. “Here. I must warn you, the photographs are most unpleasant.”
I looked to either side of me: a werewolf, and a necromancer. And me, a vampire. Nothing in the realm of the macabre should have been so shocking to any of the three of us. Yet all the numbness that comes with being in close proximity to death doesn’t really prepare you for the sight of a corpse with its face ripped off. Helga kept scrolling. The pictures only kept coming. They seemed to indicate at least three different victims.
Asher covered his mouth, gagging. Gil made a low rumbling at the back of his throat, shaking his head. I pressed my lips tightly together. This wasn’t really the worst thing I’d ever seen, but there was something so inherently violent about how these people had died. Whatever did this had done it deliberately, with malice, perhaps pleasure. Despite their heads only having the barest remains of facial features, it was clear that they had died in states of complete and utter terror, mouths wide open, eyeballs bulging.
“As I said, the images are truly upsetting.” Helga tucked her phone back into the drawer. “I can send them to you if you wish to examine them more closely.”
“We’d appreciate that,” I said. I clapped Asher on the back. “Asher here can take a closer look, see what he can find.” He looked up at me weakly, his skin pallid and a little sweaty.
“How spread out are the murders?” Gil said.
Helga’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling as she tried to remember. “The first was last month, I believe. It was all over the Silveropolis Gazette. Now there have been five murders.”
I frowned. “That makes one each week. It checks out. Too methodical. These weren’t accidents. Animal attack my ass.”
Helga sipped in a mouthful of air like she was about to speak, but she hesitated, her eyes flitting towards Gil. I arched an eyebrow.
“Were you going to say something, Helga?”
She looked between us, nodding at Gil apologetically. “I shouldn’t say this – or I should say that I am sorry for suggesting this possibility. We valkyrie have been away from battle for quite a while, but of my sisters and I who work here at the tavern, there is a common opinion.” She looked down again, twiddling her thumbs.
I shrugged. “It’s all right, Helga. You’re among friends. You can say it.”
“Well, you see, it has been ages since I have seen something like this, but we are familiar with the ways of death. A valkyrie remembers the way a wound looks when it is inflicted by a blade, or a spear, or a hammer. In the same way, one remembers an injury dealt by, say, a war hound – or a wolf.”
Gil’s face darkened. “You’re not seriously suggesting that, are you?”
Helga nodded again, shutting her eyes solemnly. “I am sorry, Mr. Ramirez, but my sisters and I agree. We believe that these attacks were instigated by werewolves.”
5
“That’s impossible,” Gil said, glaring at me from the passenger seat. “And frankly a little offensive that you think my people are capable of that.”
I turned up the heat in the car, which might have been a mistake considering how ornery Gil was getting. “Listen, it was just a hypothetical. And how can you say with certainty that it wasn’t werewolves, anyway? I’ve seen plenty of dead people, but I’m not going to argue with valkyrie forensics.”
He slammed his hand against the dashboard. “It’s just not done, okay? We’ve come a long way. We don’t just eat people. It’s not how we do things.”
Asher’s voice, meek and sweet, piped up from the back seat. “Sterling isn’t saying that all werewolves are violent cannibals, though, is he? We’re just examining the possibility that maybe some of them have broken protocol. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.”
Gil glared over his shoulder at Asher, but didn’t say anything, just sulking in his seat. I knew it was deliberate, the kid gloves Asher was handling Gil’s ego with, but that was part of his brilliance. He was great with people, whether they were living or dead, and he knew it.
“Yes, raw meat is still a thing for us,” Gil said, calmer, not as rough. “Can’t help it. Great nutrition, and it’s delicious, frankly. All that protein. But the days of packs going out to hunt and feed on human flesh are long gone. We’ve worked hard at that.”
“And no one is disparaging your public image,” I said, my jaw set. I didn’t have Asher’s patience, and my charm worked differently. It wasn’t the sort that was useful for soothing werewolves. “We’re just saying. Be open to the possibility.”
The back of my seat shuddered as Asher pulled himself up between us. Our little boy. “Is there even a local pack here? We should check that out.”
You could feel the sudden chill emanating from Gil’s body. He shook his head, glowering. “No way. Absolutely not. We are not interacting in any shape or form with the Blood of Garm.”
Asher tilted his head. “What’s the Blood of Garm?”
Gil folded his arms, determined to fill the rest of the trip home with silence. I sighed, stepping on the gas, getting us back to the cabin within minutes. He was still sulking when we arrived.
“You both don’t want me smoking indoors,” I said, “so I’ll just stay out here and die of exposure while I try to enjoy a cigarette with my cold, dead lips.”
Gil said nothing, which stung a little. Even at his grumpiest he tended to give in to my sense of humor. Asher rolled his eyes as he shut the car door. “You’ll be fine. Don’t be so dramatic.”
I grunted, watching them go down the path as I flicked my lighter. An ember crackled to life at the end of my cigarette, the soft whisper of toasting tobacco. I took a long, deep drag, savoring the smoke lightly burning my insides, then blew out a perfect silver plume. Ah. My first cigarette since the other two I smoked outside the Twilight Tavern. Bliss. Not hard to develop a pack-a-day habit when you can’t die.
The door creaked open as the two headed inside, yellow light spilling down the path when they turned on the electricity. I took another puff, happy to bask in the night air and give Gil the time to cool off, when Asher let out a scream.
A cold bolt lanced through my chest. That wasn’t some playful yelp. He soun
ded genuinely surprised – maybe even a little frightened. Surely Gil wasn’t that pissed off. He knew better than to play rough like that, especially with Asher. I stubbed my cigarette out under one heel, then sped across the pathway, shoving the door open.
“Asher? Where are you? Gil, you better be playing nice in here. We’re trying to be cool about this whole potential werewolf problem, but you’re just being – oh.”
Asher was standing behind Gil, as if for protection. Gil himself looked like he’d grown another foot taller, his shoulders broadened, chest puffed up, and fists curled tightly, like he was trying to intimidate something. Or someone. A man was sitting in the same armchair Gil had slept in the night before. Both his arms and his legs were crossed, the fine red velvet of his suit shimmering, and definitely not typical for Silveropolis. His ringlets of hair brushed his shoulders as he tilted his head at me, smiling sweetly in greeting.
“Sterling,” he purred. “So good to see you again.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Vilmas. Yeah. I’m not so sure I’m as happy to see you. Stand down, boys. I know him.”
Vilmas placed his hand on his chest, long, delicate fingers pressing at his breast as he gasped in mock offense. “You ‘know’ me? Why, we’re the fastest of friends, aren’t we, Sterling? You might say as much to your companions here.” He gave Gil and Asher an appraising glance, smiling as if each of them was a tempting morsel. “Your thralls? Lucky, lucky.”
“Please,” Gil growled. “I have standards.”
I pointed at him. “Hey. That’s hurtful. Vilmas, these are my coworkers, and my friends. Skinny one’s Asher, the angry one is Gil. They’re cool. You, on the other hand – I don’t know about the fastest of friends.”
The smiled dropped from Vilmas’s face. He placed his hands on the armchair’s rests, pushing himself up, his demeanor colder. “Very well. I see that you want to treat me brusquely. Hardly a generous way to greet one of your own kind.”