Redeemer

by C. E. Murphy

  "That's mighty noble of you, Miss Ransom. Foolish, maybe, but mighty noble." Johnson opened a pack of cigarettes and offered Rosie one. She shook her head. He shrugged, tapped one out for himself, and lit it before going on. "I'd like you to press charges against her. A lot of girls are dead and she had a part in all of it. We can probably make it stick without your help, but it'd be a lot easier if you were on the prosecution's side."

  "I don't think it's a good idea." Pearl's visible hunger came back to Rosie, and she shivered. "I don't think you should hold her, Detective. I think you should let her go and …"

  And let me deal with her. Rosie couldn't say the words if she wanted to. They were too absurd. She'd been lucky facing Goode: she'd had a weapon on hand, one that she understood, and she had been willing to use it. His strength, his resistance to fire, his horrifying teeth, they had all been enough to push her beyond the edge of civilized behavior. Rationally, she could never expect herself to do something like that again.

  But that cool certainty sat inside her chest, calm and steady and born, Rosie thought, from the purity of light that had risen from Goode's body. She knew she could pull the trigger a second time, or that some other weapon would come to hand, if she again faced something like Goode had been and Pearl was becoming. That knowledge was nearly as frightening as Goode himself had been. Rosie pressed her eyes shut and after a long few seconds whispered, "I can't press charges. I'm sorry, Detective, I really am, but I just don't think it's a good idea."

  She opened her eyes again to find Johnson watching her through a cloud of smoke, fiery end of his cigarette glowing and dimming. "What really happened at the factory tonight, Rosie?"

  "Just what I told you," she answered quietly. "I'm lucky to be alive."

  "That," Johnson said with a certain amount of force, "is true. What I do know is that Miss Daly's story corroborates yours, at least as far as you acting in self-defense, and I guess that means you can go. I'll get one of the boys to drive you home. Hank?" His voice rose in an impatient snap.

  A man not too much older than Rosie stuck his head out of a side office. His yellow hair was cropped soldier-short and he looked fit. Rosie stared at him curiously as he called, "Yeah, boss?"

  "This young woman needs a lift home. Get your coat, call it a night when you've dropped her off."

  "It's too hot for a coat, boss." The man—Hank—disappeared back into the office anyways and came out a minute later with a fedora clamped against his head, a coat over his arm, and car keys jangling in one hand. "All right, doll, let's go."

  He favored his left leg, limping as he headed for the door. Rosie watched him a few seconds, then stood, shook her skirt smooth, and followed him. Johnson's voice came after them both: "Don't leave town, Rosie Ransom. We're going to need to talk to you again."

  "Where would I go," she said under her breath, and didn't say, Pearl is here, and she'll need me—or I'll have to take care of her, aloud at all. The door opened easily, creating a breath of slightly cooler air that faded as quickly as it had come. Rosie caught up to Hank in a step or two, glancing at his legs.

  "Monsters." Hank didn't so much as look at her, just threw the word out. "Tore my damn knee out over in France. Got any other questions?"

  Rosie's eyebrows lifted. "I didn't ask."

  "You would have."

  "I suppose everyone does."

  He looked at her that time, eyebrows drawn down in appraisal. "Yeah. Unless I'm sitting on my ass when they meet me, then they ask why a strapping young fellow like myself isn't on the front lines. That's my car."

  That was a long-nosed, narrow, curvaceous red two-seater with its top down. Rosie slowed, then stopped and wet her lips. "What is it?"

  A smile crept over one corner of Hank's mouth. "SS Jaguar 100. She's a beaut, isn't she?"

  Rosie swallowed, then put her hands over her cheeks, feeling the heat of a blush. She'd have to be dead to be from Detroit and not enchanted with the vehicle's low, lean lines. "It's beautiful. It's not American. The steering's on the wrong side."

  "British. Hardly made any of 'em but my old man bought one. I brought it back when I came home."

  "Your father's British?"

  "Mom is. Proper romantic love-in-combat story there. She was a nurse in the Great War and followed him to Detroit afterward. Get in." Hank threw his coat into the back, waving Rosie around the car as he climbed in himself with no evidence of his knee bothering him.

  Rosie hesitated at the door, which was scooped so low she might have stepped from the runner board into the car without risking her modesty. Hank, watching her, quirked a grin over the same corner of his mouth. It was attractive. He was attractive, in a clear-eyed Captain America kind of way. But he looked like he knew what Rosie was considering and betting she didn't have the nerve.

  Swiftly, before she thought about it more, Rosie stepped over the door and into the car, tucking her skirt as she sat, and gave Hank a defiant look. His smile twisted further and he keyed the car on. "Where's home?"

  She gave him the address over the engine's rumble. The Jaguar's seats were soft leather and still retained warmth from the day, even at two in the morning. Rosie glanced over her shoulder at its folded-down canopy, then eyed the hat smashed on Hank's head. "Won't that come off?"

  "Hasn't yet. So you're a factory girl. Where's your husband, Europe or Japan?"

  "My boyfriend is in Europe," Rosie said primly, then wished she hadn't sounded so stuck-up.

  Hank noticed too, a grin in his reply. "Boyfriend, sorry. I knew you weren't married, anyway. No ring. You like the work or are you counting days 'til your soldier comes home?"

  "Can't I do both?"

  He gave her another look, more appraising, as they left the station parking lot for quiet Detroit streets. The Jaguar announced its presence for blocks to come, a big purr that would awaken light sleepers. Rosie closed her eyes against wind that slipped around the screen. It felt good in her hair, speed finally offering respite from the heat. If the car were hers, she might drive for what remained of the night, escaping not just the warm air but the memories of the past several hours. Maybe go down to the river and find a breeze, or head to some relatively high point to look over the city from, and try to make sense of the day.

  Hank's question came as a surprise: "You in a hurry to get home?"

  A thrill of cold ran through Rosie's hands. Smart girls—good girls—didn't go off on nighttime jaunts with boys they'd just met, but the question ran so close to her own thoughts that she said, "Not really," without hesitation.

  "Great. I know a place on the waterfront." Hank changed lanes and sped up. Rosie turned her head away and bit her knuckles at her own boldness. No one knew where she was, though Detective Johnson knew who she was with, which might be close enough to the same. Besides, somebody working for the police oughta be trustworthy. Rosie tried the thought on for size and accepted it, but her heartbeat ran quick anyways.

  "It's right next to a refrigerated shipping center and they're always leaving the doors open so it's usually about ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the city," Hank yelled over the wind. "My favorite place in the summer. How fast do you want to get there?"

  Rosie's smile split from behind her knuckles. "How fast can we get there?"

  Fast enough that it seemed like the headlamp light pooling ahead of them should be overtaken by the Jaguar's smooth speed, it turned out. Hank handed her his hat and Rosie clutched it, tears and shrieks of laughter spilling from her as they raced through the empty streets. She hadn't thought she felt bottled up, but the chance to let so much emotion spill out felt like the cork coming off the bottle anyways.

  Hank braked hard outside a tall set of gates, the car's tires squealing as it whipped around. Rosie caught a glimpse of company logos as the gates swung open, and pushed against the foot well, straightening up in her seat. "Hank, we can't come through, this is private property, it belongs to Vaughn Enterprises. They say Harrison Vaughn's a beast about security. I just g
ot out of jail," she said with a weak laugh. "I don't want to go straight back in."

  "You were at the police station, not in jail. Big difference. Anyway, don't worry. They know me here." Hank put the car back in gear and eased it through the gates, waving at the security guards who scurried to close it behind him. The Jaguar's engine echoed off steel-sided warehouses as they crept closer to the river, and the silence when Hank killed it echoed louder.

  The air, as promised, was significantly cooler. Rosie took a few deep breaths, enjoying it, before giving Hank a curious look. "But you work with the police, not on the docks. Or is that how they know you, from the police?"

  "These days, sure." Hank got out of the car, limped to a locked door, opened it, and took a bottle of amber liquid from within. "Want some? You've had a rough night."

  "Not rough enough to drink with a strange man."

  Hank's eyebrows shot up as he came back to the car and leaned against the driver's side door. "Then you are one tough broad, Miss Ransom. I'm impressed. I think my mother would like you."

  "An Army nurse? No, she must be much braver than I am."

  "Maybe. Don't think she's ever killed a man, though."

  "I did—" Rosie broke off with a swallow. I didn't kill a man, she'd been going to say, but that sounded nonsensical. "I didn't have a choice," she said instead.

  "That doesn't make it easier for most people. Did you see his soul?"

  "I think so. It was stained with blo—" Rosie choked off her answer, gawking ashen-faced at Hank.

  "Stained with blood," he said conversationally. "Stained with death and horror, and when you killed him, all the blackness siphoned away and his redeemed soul rose up free."

  Rosie, staring at him, worked her mouth and made no sound.

  "You thought I meant Nazis, when I said they'd torn my knee up," Hank said softly. "But I meant what I said, Rosie Ransom. I meant monsters."

  FOUR

  "They've been around since forever," Hank went on when Rosie couldn't speak. "Since people started being people. Since we started drawing pictures in the dirt and singing lullabies. They crawl inside human bodies, and the weak ones change the bodies until they don't look human anymore. The stronger ones can keep their human shape, and stay hidden. The ones that took out my knee were weak, for demons. They got inside our sentries and came back to camp with teeth and claws. They were fast as anything and we could hardly see them at night. A lot of men in my unit died. Three days out of seven I wish I'd been one of 'em. But then the people who saved me read me in when I survived and knew what I'd seen. No way I could think it was the Jerrys."

  "Who?" Rosie hadn't meant to say a word except maybe take me home, but she blurted the question anyways. "Who—‘read you in'? You mean I'm not crazy?"

  "I'm betting you didn't think for two minutes that you were. I never saw a girl as cool as you, back there in the station. It got me to thinking about the stories they told me, about the Redeemers."

  Pride warmed Rosie. She had been cool at the station, even if she didn't think anybody else had reason to notice it. But she didn't want to let that pride show, not with so many questions to ask. If this man who knew about monsters thought she could be led around by a compliment or two, she'd never get any answers out of him. "What are Redeemers? Who told you stories?"

  "You sure you don't want some of this, Miss Ransom?" Hank offered the whiskey a second time, and this time Rosie took it.

  Bottle in hand, she got out of the car and went to the waterfront, looking at reflected lights wobbling in the river. "Three days out of seven, huh? Is today one of the three?"

  "It was, right up until you walked into the station."

  "Then I reckon you don't need to be drinking this stuff right now." Rosie pitched the bottle into the river and watched it come down at a respectable distance with only a small splash. It caught a bit of light and turned it amber before water flooded the bottle's open top and it sank. Only then did Rosie face Hank again, satisfied at his slack-jawed astonishment. She didn't much care if he drank a lot or not, but it looked to her like he'd use the booze as an excuse to draw out answers, and she wanted as many as she could get, as fast as they could come. She set her own jaw, scared, but more determined. "Something awful happened tonight, mister, and I don't have time for your word games. You can tell me who your ‘they' are, and you can tell me what a Redeemer is, or you can take me straight home and go find a bottle to crawl into, if that's what you want to do. I'm real sorry your knee got busted up, but it doesn't give you the right to play coy when you know what's going on with me."

  Anger flashed in Hank's bright eyes. "You need me, Miss Ransom."

  "I don't think so." Rosie stalked past the car toward the security gates, tossing the retort over her shoulder. "You already told me three things I didn't know five minutes ago. There are monsters, there are people that know about them, and you think I'm something called a Redeemer. That's enough to go a long way on, pal. I bet I can find out a lot, just knowing that."

  She got a good solid thirty steps beyond the car before Hank's voice followed her: "Wait. Wait, Rosie. Wait."

  Rosie turned, arms folded under her breasts, and cocked an eyebrow. Hank came after her, his limp more pronounced than it had been in the station. A single slug of hooch couldn't have affected him that much, that fast. Maybe driving aggravated his injury, or maybe he'd been playing it brave in the station. Either way, Rosie didn't have an inch to spare him, and he closed the distance until they stood ten or twelve feet apart. "They're called Ex Libris."

  He waited a second, like that should mean something to her. Rosie pursed her lips, guessing, "Library men?"

  Something pained flashed across Hank's face before he buried it with something nearer to approval. "Close. It means from the book, and that's—it's important." He hesitated again, until Rosie muttered and turned on her heel, stalking away. She could find her way back to the gates, and if she apologized prettily enough, the security guards would probably forget they'd ever seen her.

  "Stop! Look, we're not even supposed to talk about this. I don't know how."

  "Well, start at the beginning and don't quit until you get to the end." Rosie turned back one more time, but she'd about had it. From the way his shoulders bowed, it looked like Hank knew it, too. He muttered, "I wish you hadn't thrown out that booze," then sighed like he'd given up on her, and limped back toward the car. Rosie followed before she knew it, the click of her heels echoing angrily off the concrete and warehouses. "Where do you think you're going, library man?"

  "It's been a long day already, Miss Ransom. My leg gets tired. You can listen just as well with me sitting down."

  Rosie snapped, "Not if you don't start talking," but she didn't walk away from him again. She'd give him another minute, she promised herself, and if he hadn't said anything useful by then, she knew the way out. Hank settled himself against the Jaguar's hood, shifting until he stopped wincing when he did it. "Try not to ask questions until I'm done. If I get off topic I'm never going to make it all the way through."

  Rosie mimed zipping her lips. Hank smirked. "Thanks. From the book is important because there are demons in the world, Miss Ransom, and they can only be captured in art. Painting, music, sculpture, even literature. Stop it," he said as she caught her breath to speak. "I meant it. I'm not supposed to talk about it at all and it won't help if you interrupt. Demons—monsters—come from art. You ever read about art history? About how many artists seem to go crazy, or die young? How they even talk about the insanity of creation, like it's almost an outside force, driving them?"

  "Muses," Rosie whispered.

  Hank nodded. "It comes from inside, though. Art is—it's magic, Miss Ransom. Art is magic. You've seen a painting or read a book or heard music that makes you angry or laugh or cry, right? It's magic. It's the power of the artist reaching out, sometimes across centuries, to make you feel. Not every artist is powerful enough to make that kind of magic, the kind that affects people forever, but every ar
tist has got magic inside them. And sometimes, it's bigger than they are. Sometimes, instead of making a piece of art that reaches across the centuries, that magic eats them alive. They lose control and go mad, and that madness can become … bigger. Bigger than the artist it's born from. It can claw its way out, like the artist was never more than a vessel to give birth to living magic. To a demon. Most of the time, it kills the artist."

  "Only most of the time?"

  Hank made a face. "Sometimes, the artist's body survives the transition, and when that happens, it needs blood for its human body and souls for its demon spirit. That's when you get vampires. Things like PFC Goode."

  Angry disbelief thudded around inside Rosie's chest. "You're telling me that consumptive twerp was some kind of amazing artist?"

  Hank's lip curled. "Probably not. Vampires—they reproduce the way they do in the stories, by biting a human. I think Goode was probably a scion, not an original. I am trying to explain, miss. Just … let me talk. Most demons are incorporeal." He glanced at her to see if she knew the word, and went on when she didn't question it. "They're living magic, but they can't survive without a host. They claw their way into living people and stay as long as the soul lasts. Most don't last very long with a demon gnawing on them, so the demons have to keep moving, finding new hosts. And it sounds counterintuitive, but it's the weakest demons, the ones who maybe only just barely survived birthing, who go through human hosts fastest. They don't have the control to keep the host alive. The strong ones, though, they can last for decades. They just nibble away at the soul until it's gone and the demon is all that's left inside, like a parasite. They have to move to a new host at that point, but they're patient and they've usually got somebody groomed for the job. Those ones are hard to find and capture."