by Tanya Huff
“Our spin?” The snort managed the complex trick of being both dismis sive and accepting. “What are you blaming it on?”
“Chupacabra.” And didn’t the spellchecker love that.
“Goat suckers?”
“They’re not necessarily goat specific,” Graham muttered, backspacing. “They suck the blood from livestock. Cattle are livestock.”
“They’re not being exsanguinated, they’re being eaten.”
“Potato, potahto.”
“And we’re too far north for chupacabra.”
“Yeah, like our readers are going to care.”
“And that right there is the problem in a nutshell. No one cares about scholarship anymore.” Kalynchuk paced away from the desk, turned by the white board, and, unfortunately, paced back. Graham had been hoping he’d stomp all the way off to his office. “Imagine the hysteria if we printed the truth.”
“We’ve printed the truth. No one ever believes us. No one is supposed to believe us; that’s the point of the exercise.”
“Control. Discredit. Hide behind the expectations of the masses.” A beefy hand smacked down over a blurry picture of what was probably a raccoon in a dumpster. “Most people wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them on the ass.”
Having half expected a bad Nicholson impression, Graham reminded himself that his boss was not a fan of popular culture
“Now…”
Even without looking up, Graham knew his boss was standing with his arms crossed. He was just that good he could hear crossed arms in the other man’s voice.
“… about the Gale woman.”
“Alysha. I’m seeing her tonight.” In three hours, twenty-two minutes, seventeen seconds. But who was counting.
“Seeing?”
He looked up at that, a little surprised by the challenge in the question. “Dinner. Unless you need me for something else.”
“No, not tonight.”
“You wanted me to find out what she knows. That’s all this is.”
“Make sure that’s all it is.” Challenge had become warning although he didn’t think he’d let any of his conflicted feelings show in his voice. “You do your job.You find out what you need to know, and you get out.”
“You make her sound like a war zone.”
Kalynchuk’s lip curled. “We don’t know that she isn’t.”
—
“Tight jeans, low-cut white tank top, pink ballet-wrap sweater.” Sprawled out on the bed, Charlie watched Allie finish dressing and frowned. “Okay, you’re clearly going for mildly sexy, given the boob and ass combo, but completely harmless. How tall is he?”
“Tall enough.” Allie slid her feet into a pair of pink plaid Chucks, the only flats she had with her.
“How tall?” Charlie demanded.
“Five ten. Maybe.”
“Fuck a duck, I’ve got boots taller than that.”
“Well, if I was short like you, it wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”
“I gave you that extra inch, babe. Felt sorry for the chubby thing you had going in junior high.” She sat up and wrapped her arms around her bare knees. “You really like him?”
Because it was Charlie asking, Allie actually gave it some thought as she twisted her hair up and clipped it. “Yeah,” she said, after a minute. “I really like him.”
“You going to bang him?”
“Not tonight.”
“Why not? And please don’t tell me it’s because Michael’s here, because if you do, I’ll barf, I swear.”
“It has nothing to do with Michael,” Allie snorted, dusting bronzer over her cheeks, blending the freckles in a bit.
Charlie’s turn to think for a moment. “Weirdly, I believe you.”
“Tonight’s still about Gran.”
“Yeah, okay, allegedly dead grandmother equals death of verbal foreplay. No pre-game show, no game.”
“Fortunately, tomorrow is another day.” Allie leaned down and kissed the top of Charlie’s head. “I think you need more sleep.”
—
Graham drove a four-wheel drive pickup, dark blue under the grime, with a black cab over the truck bed. “It’s not very glamorous,” he admitted, pulling out from the store and right into an illegal U-turn across 9th, “but it’s paid for.”
“It’s just like home,” Allie told him, braced against the movement. “My family lives twenty-two kilometers outside a bustling metropolis of about four thousand people, so pickups are the default method of transportation.”
“Your grandmother left, looking for something a little more exciting?”
“She may have gone a bit wild,” Allie allowed, grinning at him. “Because there’s nothing more exciting than spri… cat saucers and yoyos.” He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a white shirt with a narrow blue stripe. And on his feet…
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for cowboy boots.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“I am.” She frowned as he turned north on 1st Street, suddenly realizing why things looked so familiar. “That’s interesting. We’re going back along the route the cabbie used to bring me in from the airport.”
Graham turned his attention off traffic long enough to shoot an incredulous look across the cab. “He drove through downtown?”
Her grin broadened at the indignation in his voice. “It’s okay. I knew I was getting hosed.”
“Did you report him?”
“I didn’t care that much, and I got to see something more than the ex pressway. That’s a win.” She relaxed a little when Graham turned onto 3rd. Twice over exactly the same route would have been more than coincidence. Turned out their destination was just west of 3rd and 6th. Allie peered north up 6th as they crossed it, her attention still drawn to something in the block north of 2nd.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s…” Eye widening, she noticed the name of the restaurant they were parking in front of. “Buchanan’s? You own a restaurant?”
He laughed. “Happy coincidence, but it is why I came here the first time. Wanted to see what the western branch of the family was up to. Well, that and The Western Star’s office isn’t far.”
It looked as though he’d have come around and opened the truck door for her, but Allie was out and on the sidewalk before he got the chance. “Seems like the western branch of the family is doing fairly well,” she said as he joined her. The restaurant was a square brick building with large windows running along the two open sides. “Chop House and Whiskey Bar?”
“It’s kind of a shrine to malt whiskey; they’ve got over 200 brands behind the bar. But the food’s amazing, too,” he added as Allie’s eyebrows rose. “They’re known for the best bacon cheeseburger in the city, but tonight, because it’s your first dinner out in Calgary, I thought we’d go straight for the clichй and a nice thick cut of Alberta beef.”
Allie bit her tongue and reminded herself that Graham was actually from Quebec.
—
“I feel like I ate an entire cow. Just flapped down and carried it up into the mountains and gorged myself. I’ll have to spend the next two days digesting.”
Graham laughed as he unlocked the passenger door. “Kind of more than I needed to know, Allie.”
“Just add it to all those background details you got for your story.” He hadn’t asked the kind of questions that would have required lies-and honestly, who would-so most of the details were even accurate. A few memories of Gran. Some funny similarities between the back rooms at the ROM and the Emporium. Stories about growing up surrounded by cousins she couldn’t get him to share. Every time she tried to get more information about his family, the question just seemed to slide sideways and end up somewhere else. She wondered what it was sliding off of.
“Background’s important,” he told her, stepping back to give her room. “I believe in thorough researching.”
It had definitely been more of a date than an interrogation. She hadn’t ha
d to charm him once. Her cheeks actually hurt from smiling. “Clearly.”
“Are you cold?”
At nearly nine thirty the temperature had dropped, but it was the contrast between the cool night air and the warmth against the small of her back where Graham’s right hand rested that had caused the shiver. “I’ll be fine once I’m in the truck.”
Except the cab of the truck smelled too much like Graham to allow her to dial back her reaction. Like leather and a bit like apples and a little like steak sauce and a lot like male with a hint of something she thought she should recognize. It was a scent she definitely knew. Sharp. Not clean but clearing…
“Allie?” He’d paused, seat belt half on and stared at her, wearing an expression that suggested a little more than she’d intended had shown on her face. “Should I take you home now?”
She considered saying, Let’s head back to your place and get naked instead. Didn’t. It wasn’t so much talking about Gran that had damped her interest as knowing that however it had turned out, the evening had begun as part of Graham doing his job. Without knowing exactly why, she wanted more. So she sighed, and did up her seat belt, and said, “Please.”
They were back on 9th just crossing 6th Street when Graham’s phone rang.“It’s my boss, I have to get it. Technically, I’m working right now.”
“Since the paper paid for dinner.”
“Yeah.”
“Better answer, then.”
He shifted the phone to his left hand and flicked it open. “What?”
Allie could hear a low rumble from the other end but no actual words.
“Fuck.You’re serious? No, you’re right, that’s not something you’d joke about. But won’t that attract…” Given the length of the pause after the interruption, it seemed like he was getting an earful. “Okay. Right. Actually…” He peered out the window. “… I’m almost at the parking lot.Yes, she is. Because we just finished dinner. Is there time to…? No.” The fingers of his right hand tightened around the wheel. “I said no.”
“You have to do something for work,” Allie guessed as he closed the phone and shoved it back into his pocket. “Something at Fort Calgary.” She waved a hand toward the dark, empty area that delineated the parking lot on the north side of the road. “And your boss isn’t happy I’m still with you.”
“Good call.” Deftly finding the hole between a transport and a sedan the size of a two-bedroom apartment, he crossed the westbound lane and maneuvered his truck up the dark, curved driveway leading toward the fort. “Someone reported screaming teenagers. My boss thinks that sounds like a story, and since I’m right here…”
“I’ll go with you,” Allie offered. “I could watch you work.”
“I could work better if you waited here.” His smile was a pale curve in the shadows. “You’d be a distraction.”
With the engine off, Allie could hear the truth in his words, so she gave him some back. “I don’t want to get in your way.”
“Good. Thank you.” He leaned back in before he shut the door. “I won’t be long.”
“And I won’t be staying here,” Allie told his shoulder through the glass as he turned toward the back of the truck. “How convenient that I didn’t tell you I would.” She rubbed a hand over the hair rising on the back of her neck. Graham could check out the screaming teenagers. She needed to find whatever it was that was making them scream.
Something thudded behind her.
Twisting around, she peered through the back window into the box. Although she could see a lighter rectangle where Graham had opened the tailgate, she couldn’t actually see what he was doing. What would a reporter need from the back of a truck?
Then the tailgate was slammed shut and she saw the beam of a high-powered flashlight paint the trees edging the parking lot with a circle of light. It would, she allowed, be difficult to write about something he couldn’t see. Leaning past the steering wheel, she watched his back in the mirror until he merged into the darkness, then traced charms onto both eyelids to boost her night sight before she opened the truck door.
Tried to open the truck door.
It wasn’t locked, but when she pushed against it, something pushed back. It seemed like the something making teenagers scream wanted her to stay in the truck.
Yeah. Like that was going to happen. She wet her fingertip, and traced a charm onto the curve of black plastic under the window. Before it could dry, she popped the latch and kicked out with both feet. Hinges shrieked a protest as the door slammed open.
Allie waited until she was certain nothing had been attracted by the noise, then closed the door and ran toward the strongest feeling of this is very wrong.
Very, very wrong, she amended after a moment, staring down at the gate into the fort and the creature struggling through it. It wasn’t so much that it had too many arms as that its body shape suggested it shouldn’t have arms at all. All four eyes were small and red and in the center of what had to be a face, a large beak snapped open and closed within a writhing mass of tentacles.
Extrapolating emotions from writhing tentacles had to be inexact, but it looked pissed. Really pissed. And a bit confused. A combination of arm waving and the way the deep fuchsia skin wrinkled over the eye ridges suggested a distinct what the fuck reaction to… something.
It took her a moment to realize why it wasn’t roaring or snarling or making any noise at all beyond a wet squelching sound as it tried to force moist appendages between the log posts. It was trapped and essentially helpless. Until it had forced its way through, noise would draw attention. Predators. Although if there was something around bigger and badder…
Idiot. She snapped a picture with her phone. The dragons.
About to head down to the gate and suggest moving backward as an option if it couldn’t move forward-get the emphasis right and Shoo! Go home! worked on anything from stray dogs to evangelical proselytizers-Allie jerked back as an impact crater opened between the two clusters of eyes and black blood sprayed out the back of a vaguely triangular head. It swayed, began to fall, clutched desperately at the posts, and turned to dust.
Whoever had pulled the trigger had known where to put the kill shot. They’d either hunted squelching, fuchsia, tentacled visitors from the UnderRealm before or had access to one heck of a bestiary. Not to mention that given all the writhing around in the dark, hitting the exact spot necessary made the gunman scarily good at what he did.
Odds that there were two gunmen in Calgary loading Blessed rounds?
Slim.
Joe was sleeping at the store from now on.
Then, from down by the river, came the scream of a teenage girl at horror movie timbre, and the feeling of wrong shifted toward it.
Graham was out there looking for screaming teenagers. Whoever had shot the creature jammed in the gate was, no doubt, looking for whatever was making the teenager scream. Smart money went down on a second creature. Or, technically, a first creature.
Part of her wanted to go after Graham, make sure he was all right, to not trust his safety to an unknown shooter who had already threatened one of hers. But…
As long as both the teenagers and the creature were covered by Graham and the shooter, Allie knew responsibility lay with the gate. Or, more specifically, closing it before anything else slithered through. Dragons were one thing-they were canny enough she could ignore them right up until they ate one of her cousins-but tentacle-mouthed, multi-armed pink things were something else again. Although she had no idea exactly what else again.
—
The creature trapped in the gate looked like a Slohath demon. It wasn’t, unless they came in more variations than he cared to consider, but there were enough similarities for him to chance the head shot. Kill one of these things with a Blessed round, and they died clean. Kill one with a regular round and there was fuck of a mess to clean up. Injure one and… well, there was no incentive to get a second shot off fast and aimed right like a pissed-off Hellspawn.
He w
ent to ground in the dubious cover of a clump of dog willow and pointed his weapon toward the riverbank.
The second creature-technically the first, he amended-looked a little like a bear. Fur, claws, the whole running-on-four-legs, rising-onto-two-legs thing. But it was bigger. A lot bigger, if the pair of teenagers standing frozen in fear were any indication.
Hard to hear it growling over the sound of the river, but he could feel the rumble in blood and bone. His hindbrain suggested getting the hell out of Dodge. He told it to shut the fuck up.
No idea where the heart or brain was, but if it was bipedal, it had a spine.
His finger curled around the trigger.
Saw barbed spikes lift out of the fur along the creature’s forelegs.
Felt the breeze on his cheek.
Fuck! He was upwind!
He threw himself to the right. Too late to care about the noise as the dog willow snapped and broke under his weight. Felt the impact of the first thrown spike as it buried itself in the dirt by his hip. The second missed by a slightly larger margin-he’d moved closer to the thing, not farther away. A sudden, bitter smell that caught in the back of his throat suggested poison. While the third spike was in the air, he took his shot.
The creature was still turning. The first round caught it where head met shoulders. The second, about a centimeter up. No way of telling which killed it, they hit so close together.
Silver eyes gleamed over double fangs maybe twenty centimeters long.
It held its shape for a heartbeat, then the breeze caught the dust and spread it out over the river.
—
The space between the posts smelled like yogurt long past its best before date seasoned heavily with cumin. The air felt damp, oily against exposed skin. Allie wondered where she’d end up if she walked through although she wasn’t curious enough to actually try it. That kind of curious was just a short walk from totally bugfuck crazy.
A lack of hysteria about sudden disappearances suggested the opening to the UnderRealm only happened while the fort was closed. Something so convenient couldn’t be an accidental opening but had to have been deliberately constructed.