by Bryan Fields
I shoved the scarecrow back. He charged in again, right into my foot. I kicked. He bounced off the far wall. Kindness met him half way back to me, and his head took a left turn at Albuquerque.
The second scarecrow had a softball-sized hole all the way through his chest. His heart was resting on a pile of candy wrappers and cigarette butts, surrounded by fragments of spine. It was still beating. Rose was standing over him, arm smeared with blood up to her elbow.
As fast as we were, Angus had finished with his opponent while we were still reacting. Number three was leaning against the wall, both arms and both legs broken. One of Angus’s wooden swords had gone through the scarecrow’s shoulder and at least a foot into the wall. The thrust had missed all the vital organs and pinned him like a butterfly.
“You could have saved one for me!” Aerin actually pouted and stomped her foot. Muttering under her breath in Elvish, she leaned her guillotine-thing against the wall and went to work dispelling the toxic fog choking the eight gang members. Geneva slipped out into the hall, calling out as she cleared the rooms around us.
I sliced the shirt off one of the gang members and used it to wipe blood off Kindness. All three women in the closet were watching us with wide eyes and shaking hands. I sheathed Kindness and nodded toward the door. “Don’t be afraid,” I said. “We’re not going to hurt you. Go wait in one of the other rooms. We’ll make sure you get home safe.”
Toni Aguilar looked around the mattress and turned pale. She jerked back, pulling the teenage girl with her. “Don’t look don’t look don’t look! Righteous wrath is fair but foul, for evil deeds bring evil fate.”
I turned to see what she was looking at. The guy Rose killed had been wearing a metric buttload of gold jewelry, with solid gold teeth to match. Rose was pulling his teeth out with her fingers.
I shook my head and looked away. I guess no one warned him blinged-out grills attracted Dragons. I picked up the mattress and held it so I could block the ladies from seeing what Rose was doing as they made their way to the room across the hall.
Toni ran to the window and sniffed around the edges. “Not alone. Not alone. More rats, more snakes, more blood. Santa Maria, pray for us sinners, preserve us against the darkness and the blood that walks in the night. Save us from their return. Save us from their return.”
I looked out the window as well. Beyond the glow of a feeble street lamp, all I saw was night and dark. “Are you sure more of those things are coming?”
“I hear them. They gather at the water, staring into it as she sates her thirst on their offerings, whispering her name, saying prayers in the darkness for the madness to come.” She stopped and pressed a hand against the side of her head. When she spoke again, her voice was calm and lucid. “They’ll try to take us, but if they can’t, they’ll just call the police. I can’t let anyone sedate me again. The Blue Lady can’t help the children if I’m asleep. She needs my body.”
“I see. Just wait here. I’ll be right back.” I went across the hall and said, “Toni thinks reinforcements are on the way. We might want to go.”
“We may have a problem.” Angus was examining the scarecrow he’d nailed to the wall. He used the point of a folding knife to lift up a gold pendant hanging from a matching chain around the guy’s neck. It depicted a woman’s hand crushing a human heart. All the scarecrows had the same image tattooed on their shoulders.
Rose reached for the pendant and Angus knocked her hand away. He spotted a matching pendant in her loot pile and picked it out with the knife point.
“Don’t touch it,” Aerin said. “It’s a token of the Bloodmaiden. It could have wards or curses on it.”
Angus pulled the chain off over the scarecrow’s head. He tilted the guy’s head back enough to pour something down his throat. “Wake up,” he commanded. He slapped the scarecrow twice before the guy came around. Angus dangled the pendant in front of the scarecrow. “Answer my questions and I’ll kill you gently. Where did you get this?”
The scarecrow spit blood and profanity.
Angus dodged the bloody spittle without appearing to move. He shook his head and pulled a black metal rod the length of his forearm out of his wallet. “You should rethink that decision, son.” He jabbed the tip into the scarecrow’s chest and tapped one of the small gems studding the handle.
The scarecrow’s face lit up in utter joy. Ecstatic eyes and a beatific smile were not what I had expected the rod to produce. His body trembled in a frisson of pure bliss. “So…beautiful…” he whispered.
Then Angus turned it off.
The scarecrow whimpered, just the slightest sound of pain and loss. I was sure he would lunge at Angus, but he didn’t move. He said, “Reporter. Got fired. Don’t know her name. She gave the charm to me. It stops bullets. She wants stories. Bloody, awful stories. Bones. Bloody bones. Bloody Mary. That’s her. The crying woman. All I know…”
Angus nodded. He twisted the baton’s handle to the right and touched the scarecrow’s forehead with the tip. The blissed-out smile returned, and stayed there even after his heart burst.
A little piece of ice settled into my heart. “You didn’t need to do that. Rose or I could have gotten him to talk without torture.”
“Torture?” Angus snorted. “You have no—” He stopped and cocked his head to the side for a moment. “Two cars out front. One, maybe two in the alley. Time we were leaving. Everyone into the room across the hall.”
Aerin stood up from where she’d been working on the last gang member. “I lost two, but the rest will be fine. That gunk in their lungs was some nasty crap.” She wiggled her fingers and the bloodstains on our clothes and skin vanished. Another wiggle scoured the walls and floor clean. With all the trace evidence destroyed, we teleported out just as the first tear gas grenade came through the window.
We reappeared in the parking lot of an all-night restaurant in Henderson. Aerin hit the teenager and the older lady with a memory spell (Retcon, I guessed) and sent them inside with a roll of well-used twenties. That left only Toni Aguilar to deal with.
To her credit, she was coping with the violence, death, magic, and teleportation better than I had expected. She checked out one or two landmarks to work out where we were, went through her pockets for cash, and started walking up the road toward Vegas.
Aerin called out, “Danya sent us to check on you and she’ll sulk at me if we leave you out here alone. Is there someplace we can take you? Someplace safe?”
Toni stopped and looked back at us. For a moment, her skin turned a glossy, African black and her clothes became a blue wrap-around skirt. That gave way to a porcelain-skinned woman with blue hair, a blue toga, and gold-flecked dragonfly wings. Her image flashed and flickered, replaced by a venerable Chinese woman in a midnight-blue silk robe. The woman started to say something, but struck her own cheek hard enough to switch back to Toni. This time, she didn’t change again.
“Tell Danya I’m always safe,” Toni said. “I’ll see you at the convention.” She turned and ran across the street to a bus stop. Maybe perfect timing was one of her superpowers; no sooner had she made it to the shelter when a bus headed for downtown Vegas pulled over to let her on. She waved out the window at us as she took a seat.
“Maybe it’s just me,” Angus said, “but it feels like something big is going on.” He produced a steel vial and dumped it out, and the pendants he’d taken off the scarecrows fell onto the ground.
Aerin recited a Nordic-sounding prayer and a spectral war hammer dropped from the sky to smash down on the pendants. All three shattered and dissolved into scarlet slime. The slime hissed and bubbled into nothing, giving off burnt-orange vapors that burned the eyes. Aerin finished with a quiet prayer to bless and purify the area, driving away any lingering unholy energies.
“Definitely something big,” Aerin said. “I’m just not sure who’s behind it. The Bloodmaiden shouldn’t even have a significant presence here, and all the local deities are doing so far is driving that poor girl insane.
They’re going to kill her if they don’t get their shit together.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Aerin waved at the empty bus stop. “That girl, Toni. She’s an Emissary.” She noticed my expression and added, “Hey, we recognize each other, okay?”
I held my hands up. “Is that why she was changing shape?”
“She wasn’t changing shape,” Aerin replied. “She was channeling the avatars of the deities who are trying to empower her. I don’t know who the fairy was, but the other two were Iemanjá and Kwan Yin. She’s also getting a lot of power from the Virgin Mary, but…” Her eyes went blank, staring at something impossibly far away. “Mary is a silent partner. Something horrible has happened in her name. Those she tries to help are terrified of her…Children. Tens of thousands in this country. They…” Her eyes focused again, now dark and angry. “The Bloodmaiden convinced these children that she’s the Virgin Mary. I don’t know how or why, but that’s what precipitated all of this. Toni is a very devout Catholic, so she’s resisting the other Goddesses, but if she accepts the Virgin Mary’s avatar, she terrifies the children she’s trying to help. No wonder she’s so messed up.”
“Can we do anything else right now?” Angus didn’t sound optimistic.
Aerin shook her head. “No… The Boss wants us to stay out of it as much as possible, but just until Saturday night. No reason why, of course.”
“Then we’re done here.” Just like that, the world vanished.
We reappeared back on the patio and took a few minutes to get cleaned up. Magic is great for getting rid of bloodstains, but for feeling clean, I’ll take soap and water.
I took some extra time with the lather and rinse portion of the show as I pondered what, if anything, I should say about Angus torturing our prisoner.
We’d needed the information; I can’t argue with that. Angus hadn’t hurt his prisoner more than needed. He even carried out a swift, merciful coup de grâce on the poor sod. So, maybe it wasn’t actually torture. Maybe the issue was that I wasn’t used to…well, feeling intimidated. Was I protesting just to prove I could stand up to him? If so, was I trying to prove it to him, or to myself?
Hmm, pretty sure trying to prove something to Angus would be a waste of time and effort. Scratch that idea off the list. Trying to impress Aerin was out for the same reason, and I didn’t need to impress Rose.
So, David, could you have gotten that guy to talk?
Yes. Not that fast. Not complete disclosure of everything he knew without some additional prodding. Fine, Rose or I could have gotten the guy to talk, but neither of us could have gained his willing cooperation.
I met my own gaze in the mirror. You challenged him because you wanted to feel like a full partner in this little adventure.
You didn’t want the high-level guy to think you were a total noob, so you got in his face and removed all doubt. Like Odin says in the Havamal,
Wit is needful to him who travels far,
At home all is easy.
A laughing-stock is he who nothing knows,
And with the instructed sits.
So, if I were the high-level dude, what could the noob do to earn my respect?
Simple. Stop being a noob.
I rinsed off, dried my hands, and toweled up the water splashes on the counter. It was Italian marble; leaving it spotty would just be wrong. Then I straightened the towels back the way they were, or as best I could get them. I made myself leave before this brand new compulsion to be clean and neat had me scrubbing the toilet.
Nadia was waiting when I opened the door. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “I think so. I just have to ask—are all Elves back home as…ruthless as your parents?”
“Well, Mother doesn’t have a formal diagnosis...” She saw the look in my eyes and her smirk turned into a sigh. “Yes, they are, when roused. A thousand years ago, all of the Elven factions, including the Drow, united under one flag and set out to exterminate the Goblin races. It lasted ten years, and to this day, the only Orcs you find on Iargolon either live on reservations with strict population controls, or they’ve assimilated into Human culture. The last Orc chieftains accepted that life for their people because they were facing genocide.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Angus has a very even temper, but Mother goes from zero to ‘nuke them from orbit’ in a heartbeat. She has no sense of moderation, but she’s no more bloodthirsty than any other Elf. Unless someone threatens the people she cares about. Then all bets are off.” She slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.
Angus was outside, cleaning the grill grates with a wire brush. For a second I wondered why he wasn’t using magic. I gave myself a kick for the thought. I did the same thing with my smoker back home. It’s part of the ritual surrounding using a grill in the modern era.
I said, “I want to apologize for what I said. I had no basis to call what you were doing torture. It was just simple primate chest-thumping to get attention, and I’m sorry.”
Angus chuckled. “Well, at least you didn’t throw your poop at me. Much appreciated.” He hung up the brush and closed the grill. “I’d prefer glamor or mind control, but didn’t have the time. I gambled on breaking his will. It paid off. We needed the information.”
“No argument here. Any ideas on where random people off the street would be able to get an unholy symbol capable of deflecting bullets?”
“Why random people and not a gang?” Angus didn’t seem sardonic or disparaging, just curious.
“The two Hispanic guys were wearing jeans and cotton work shirts, standard working-class uniform. The guy Rose took apart was Caucasian, but dressed like a Central Casting ghetto hood. I’d say suburban wannabe, but the jewelry and dental grillwork were real gold. My guess would be he’s a house DJ at a dance club. Probably made way more than the other two. Gangs are like any social group; they tend to be made up of people with the same demographics.”
“Mmm. Agreed.” Angus leaned over the rail and stared down at the city. “This reporter is probably not even aware the Bloodmaiden is working through her.”
“Riding her, the way the Voudoun loa possess their worshippers?” I’ve never taken part in Voudoun, but you pick things up here and there.
Angus shrugged. “Not my area. However, possession causes memory loss. Eventually she would notice the lost time, unless the Bloodmaiden hides or explains it.”
I started grinning. Too many of Mitch’s old friends had shared his love of blackout drinking on the weekends. “Bars. She’s picking people up and bringing them home, or to some other quiet spot where she can do her thing to them. She might assume the blackouts are all alcohol-related.”
“Too many video cameras,” Angus replied. “She doesn’t want to be noticed, so no cameras filming her with missing persons.”
Hmm. Yeah. I shook my head and looked down at the city as well. It might just be this part of town, but it seemed every other car on the streets below us was a cab. I looked back at Angus. “A taxi driver.”
“Maybe. Maybe an escort doing incall only. Make the guys take care of covering their own tracks. If she’s like the priestesses back home, she might be a dominatrix. She likes blood with her sex.”
The ladies returned from the upstairs bathrooms looking ready for a night on the town. The clock said it was almost twelve; it took me a few seconds to remember we’d been invited to the Warchief’s Hall grand opening. I may have forgotten, but the ladies hadn’t.
Angus clapped me on the back. “We’ll pick the trail up tomorrow. Come get changed. One of Matthew’s suits should fit you. Don’t want to embarrass the ladies, right?”
“Perish the thought.” I gestured out toward the city lights. “You really want to leave the bloodthirsty she-demon until tomorrow?”
Angus chuckled. “No, but I plan on getting laid tonight. I’m Chaotic Good, not Lawful Stupid.” He started toward the stairs.
As it turned out, Matthew and I have the same shoe size,
too.
Chapter Twelve
In Vino Veritas
Even with the acceptance and three years of living together, I still can’t sleep through Draconic snoring. Thankfully, it’s only an issue when Rose gets hammered; unfortunately for me, she’d managed to do just that.
Drinks at the Warchief’s Hall were strong enough to run a power boat engine, served early and often to all guests. A few hundred bucks of booze per person is nothing compared to ten grand minimum bets. Not that I’d been gambling. I couldn’t afford to burn that kind of cash. The bet levels aside, this wasn’t the kind of environment I could get comfortable in.
Bright fabric draped the walls and ceiling to give the room an exotic look, with bodybuilders at the exits holding giant scimitars. Other barbaric appointments consisted of topless women chained to the wall, food being served off the bodies of more topless women, and a gladiatorial pit for oil wresting. The servers got to wear fur bikinis while the dealers stuck with the house uniform.
Nadia staked Rose a stack of chips, and introduced her to both baccarat and the Cuba Libre. Aerin hauled Geneva off to the roulette table while Angus went for poker. I wasn’t the only attendee who couldn’t afford the table stakes, so bunch of us wound up taking over a corner and chatting most of the night. By the time we headed back to our room, Rose had downed enough rum to give a dozen pirates the Yo-Ho-Hos. She crashed, and I stared at the ceiling for a while.
Trying to watch TV would wake Rose, so I grabbed my robe, found my laptop, and slipped out the separation door into the hospitality room of our suite.
The first thing I noticed was a quiet buzzing…actually, a rather specific kind of buzzing. The other noises I heard were, well, the ones that normally accompany the previously mentioned buzzing. Ever have your face feel so hot you were tempted to try frying an egg on your forehead?
I turned to leave and my laptop banged into the doorjamb. The impact knocked it out of my hand. I grabbed one corner before it could hit the ground. As I straightened up, I banged my head on the same doorjamb. The laptop slipped out of my grasp and bounced off the top of my foot. I grabbed it and stood up again. This time something pointy dug into my shoulder. I figured out what it was when the lights came on.