The Dark Remains

by Mark Anthony

  Grace turned the corner, and the back of her neck prickled: the sensation of being watched again. She glanced down at the parking lot—

  —and her forehead tightened in a frown. It was nearly dark now, but in the light drizzled by a single streetlamp she could see that the door of the black sedan hung open. So Stewart hadn’t been content to just sit and watch her. An indignation rose within her. Didn’t they know what she had been through, what she had survived? Who were they to watch her like this?

  By force of will, her anger cooled. They’re just doing their jobs, Grace. Why don’t you make it a little easier for them by getting back to your room?

  Cinder-block walls and painted doors slipped by.

  She was nearly there when she heard it: a low, snuffling-grunting sound. It reminded her of a dog, its nose stuck in something ripe. The sound emanated from the mouth of a dim passage that cut through this block of rooms, leading to a set of stairs on the back side of the motel. She paused before the opening, peered inside.

  The first thing she saw were the shoes, toes up, their polished leather outlines glowing in the green light of an EXIT sign. They were large shoes, expensive-looking. She cocked her head, trying to understand what it was she was seeing. Then the fluorescent bulb overhead let out a staccato burst of light, and in the momentary strobe Grace saw everything.

  The Seeker operative—Stewart, given his size—lay on his back, big hands splayed against the cement. A pool of blood slowly crept outward, and something spindly and hairy crouched over him, eating loudly out of the wet pit where his face had been.

  A foul scent washed over Grace, metallic but sweet. The ice bucket slipped from numb fingers and clattered to the walkway. One cube slid toward the creature, coming to a rest next to its long foot. It let out a snort and looked up, its short, wrinkled muzzle dripping. Bits of tissue flecked the matted black hair that covered its torso. For a moment Grace gazed into pale eyes that were far too large for the low, pointed head into which they were set. Then the thing blinked—a dull expression, sated—and bent back over its prey, cradling the dead man’s head in long, curving arms as it feasted.

  32.

  Doors blurred past Grace with horrible slowness as she ran—three, four, five. Her fingers fumbled against the knob, then she was inside. She pulled the door shut, scrabbled like an animal for the dead bolt, slid it into place, then stumbled back. The edge of the bed caught her behind the knees, and she fell onto it.

  Travis stepped from the bathroom, two chipped glasses in his hands, each filled halfway with scotch. “Did you get the ice?”

  She looked up at him, licked her lips. “I think we’re in trouble.”

  He stared at her. Then he set down the glasses, moved to the window, peered out.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” Her hands twisted the cigarette-burned bedspread into knots. “There’s something out there. A thing. It’s … it’s eating Stewart.”

  He turned around, the blood draining from his face. “Did you say eating him?”

  Grace gave a stiff nod.

  “Shit, that’s bad.”

  That was an understatement on any world. He moved to the bed, sat, and put his arm around her. It was stronger than she would have guessed, harder.

  “What is it, Grace? What’s out there?”

  It was difficult to breathe. She forced herself to fill her lungs slowly, knowing she was hyperventilating. Adrenaline buzzed in her brain, screaming at her in an ancient, wordless tongue to flee. But there was nowhere to go. Be a scientist, Grace. Don’t feel—just describe.

  “I don’t know what it was. It was big, almost as big as me. Thin, elongated limbs, and fur. No, not fur—hair. Long, black hair on its body.”

  “Was it a feydrim?”

  Grace thought of the gray, spindly creature that had once attacked her in her chamber in Calavere. In a way, there was a similarity between the feydrim and this creature. Both appeared twisted, malformed. But this thing was different. Stronger, more brutish. And its eyes: tilted, clever.

  “No, it wasn’t a feydrim. It was … something else. Simian in a way. What do we do?”

  “The radio. Get the radio.”

  Grace grabbed the slim walkie-talkie off the nightstand. She pressed a button, held the unit to her ear. “Erics,” she hissed. “Erics, can you hear me?” Static popped and crackled. “Erics, come in. We need you.” Still no answer. Grace threw down the radio. “Where the hell is he?”

  “There,” Travis said.

  He was peering through the gap in the curtains again. Grace hurried next to him.

  “Look,” Travis said. “Down in the parking lot.”

  It took her eyes a long moment to find what he was seeing: a bulky, broad-shouldered form stood beside Stewart’s black sedan. Then the form looked up, and she saw his face in a stray beam from the streetlamp. Erics. His head moved from side to side. He was searching—for Stewart, no doubt.

  Up here, Grace wanted to scream. She started to push aside the curtain, to wave frantically to him.

  She halted in mid-action. From the darkness beyond the streetlamp, shadows appeared. There were two of them this time. They hunched low to the asphalt, using both arms and legs to propel themselves forward in a swift lope. Erics saw them, reached inside his suit coat, drew out a gun.

  He was too slow. The first of the creatures struck him, and the gun flew from his hand. Erics was a large and phenomenally strong man; the thing threw him backward into the open door of the car like a small child. It clambered in after him. The second creature followed. Grace couldn’t see through the tinted windows, but she knew what was happening all the same. For a moment Erics’s flailing legs stuck out the car door, then they were drawn inside. The car rocked violently.

  Grace felt sour vomit rise in her throat. The car grew still. The struggle was over; they were feeding.

  “The Seekers,” she said. “We’ve got to call the Seekers.”

  Travis was already reaching for the phone. He cradled the receiver next to his ear and started to dial. Then, quietly, he put the phone back down.

  “It’s dead.”

  So, there would be no calling the Seekers. And the radios were short-range only, designed to reach the receivers in Stewart’s and Erics’s cars. They were on their own.

  But who had cut the phone lines to the hotel? The creatures out there seemed clever, yes, but in a hungry, animal sort of way. Were they intelligent enough to know the threat of phones, to open a metal box, to pull the right wires? Somehow she doubted it.

  “I think they have help,” she said. “I think whoever sent them is here as well.”

  Travis nodded. “Maybe they—”

  Both ceased motion, speech. It was faint but audible: the slap of long, naked feet against cement. The sound stopped. Then came a low whuffling. It was outside their door.

  The curtain. It was parted an inch, and the lamp on the nightstand was on. Grace wanted to reach for the curtain, to jerk it shut, but Travis held her with frightened eyes. The whuffling grew louder. There was a wet snort—

  —then the footpads again, moving away, until at last they were gone.

  Grace forced her lungs to expel air. It didn’t know which room they were hiding in.

  “We have to get out of here,” Travis said. “It’s only a matter of time until they figure out which room we’re in.”

  Grace wanted to disagree but couldn’t. Whatever those things were, they would keep searching until they found what they had come for. She pictured the way the creatures had dragged Erics into the car. A door would pose no barrier to them. But out there, she and Travis would be exposed. In the dark, their human eyes would be no match for the large, pale orbs of the creatures.

  Travis swore. “I just wish we knew how many of them are out there.”

  But there was a way. Before she could lose what remained of her nerve, Grace shut her eyes. She tensed, then reached out with the Touch.

  Instantly it was
there: the shadow. Memories clawed at her, demanding that she relive them again and again. Owls flew through the darkness, their cries melding with sounds of despair. White hands reached from the gloom, and the old fear flooded her. But there was a new danger, one more present—if not less potent. She let the memory of flames come, as it always did in the end, let it burn the visions of the orphanage away. Then the shadow was behind her—not gone; it would never be gone—but she could see beyond it.

  The Weirding was weak here, so woefully forlorn and weak. She had only a moment, no more, to grasp the threads, then it all fell apart in her hands.

  It was enough. Grace’s eyes flew open.

  “They’re everywhere. All around the motel. I can feel them … like wounds in the night.”

  But there was more. She had felt something else. Another presence. Or was it presences, Grace? They were different than the dark blots she knew to be the creatures, gleaming gold, but she had only glimpsed them—it?—fleetingly, if at all. She tried to reach the Weirding again, but it was no use. The shadow blocked her way now, it would not be brushed aside so easily this time.

  Travis’s voice was ragged, the hope draining from his face. “How many, Grace?”

  “I can’t be sure. I was only able to touch the Weirding for a moment. But I’d say five, six. Maybe more.”

  He nodded, the set of his jaw grim. She knew the conclusion he had made; she had reached it herself. That time in her room in Calavere, working together, she and Travis had just barely managed to kill a single feydrim. What hope did they have against a half dozen creatures that were as strong and as bloodthirsty?

  Grace raised a hand. “Travis, what about your—”

  “It’s no use, Grace. Not here.” He crossed his arms over his black T-shirt. “I think this world has forgotten the meaning of runes.”

  Silence. Shouldn’t there have been the sounds of voices coming through the thin walls, the noise of cars in the parking lot? Travis paced to the window.

  “It’s so still. I don’t see anything moving out there.”

  “Maybe they’ve left,” Grace said. “Maybe this is our chance, before they come back.”

  In a minute they were ready. Travis dug his stiletto from a drawer and gripped it in his right hand. Grace drew her own knife out of the sheath in her boot; the blade seemed pitifully small, but she would take it over nothing. She tightened her damp fingers around the hilt. Their plan was simple; it was all their fevered brains could come up with. Make it to the parking lot and get Erics’s gun. If they made it that far, they could recalculate. They pressed themselves against the door, listening. Nothing. Travis reached for the knob, started to turn it.

  Crimson light welled forth, staining the air like blood. Grace stared.

  “Your knife, Travis. It’s glowing.”

  The red gem set into the hilt of his dagger shone with a fiery, pulsing light. He opened his mouth to speak.

  Whatever words he uttered were drowned out by the sound of shattering glass as the room’s window exploded inward. The thing hurtled inside, a coiled ball of fury. It landed on the nearest bed, turned, and unfurled itself. Large, colorless eyes blinked once, then focused. It ducked its pointed head, almost as if bowing to them, then its mouth yawned open, baring teeth as jagged as the broken glass still tumbling to the carpet. Talons extended from curved fingers and toes, shredding the mattress.

  Grace pressed against the warmth beside her. “Travis …”

  He started to lift his stiletto, but there was no point. With a shrill, eerily human shriek, the creature stretched out its arms and sprang.

  The air in front of Grace blurred, folded. Something gold flashed, and the creature’s trajectory abruptly changed. It flew sideways, long arms flailing wildly, then screamed as it struck the wall. The creature’s body broke cheap paneling and splintered wood as it hurtled into the adjacent room.

  Air rippled like water, and a woman stood in what had been empty space a half second before. She was tall and golden-eyed. Her hair was dark, close-cropped, and her sinuous body was covered in sleek black leather.

  Before either Grace or Travis could speak, the woman lifted her arms, ready. The creature roared through the gap in the wall, back into the room. Large splinters of wood protruded from its flesh, and blood matted its fur. However, the thing seemed not to notice. Shrieking, it lunged for the woman.

  Long arms closed on thin air. She was gone.

  No, not gone.

  The creature jerked its snout around. The woman in black stood behind it now. A smile slashed across her fierce, beautiful face, and a spiked boot kicked out, contacting the thing’s face.

  A wet, crunching sound. Grace knew the sound of shattering bones when she heard it.

  Silent this time, the creature sailed back through the open window. Then there came the wet thud of something striking the pavement below.

  Once again the air blurred, and now the woman stood before Travis and Grace, regarding them with solemn gold eyes.

  How the hell did you do that? Grace wanted to say. But it was Travis who spoke first.

  “You.” His voice was barely a croak. “I’ve seen you before, watching me. Who are you?”

  The woman rested her hands against her hips. She wasn’t even sweating.

  “I’m your only hope,” she said.

  33.

  “Now what?”

  Grace peered past the shredded remains of the curtain, into the night outside. Chill autumn air poured through the broken window, but Travis hardly felt it. He was already numb as he gazed at the woman who stood in the center of the room, legs apart, stance ready. She was sharply beautiful, her gold eyes set above proud, coppery cheekbones. But it was not her beauty that held Travis’s gaze. She carried no gun, no knife. All the same, she was deadly. And she had been following him.

  “You cannot stay here,” the woman said. “The others will have heard the sound of battle, and the scent of blood will lead them. You must follow me.” Her English was perfect, yet richly stilted, as if studied too well and practiced too carefully.

  Grace turned from the window. “Why should we follow you?” Her tone was not accusing. She was simply a scientist, looking for facts on which to base a conclusion.

  The woman knelt, touched a pool of blood soaking into the shag carpet, and stood again, her hand now wet and red.

  “Because if you stay here, in five minutes this is all that will remain of you.”

  Grace nodded and said nothing. The woman moved for the door, her motions sleek, prowling.

  “No.” Travis was surprised at the metal in his voice. “That’s not good enough. How are we supposed to trust you? You’ve been following me for days, spying on me, and now you just pop into view like some black-leather Barbara Eden and expect us to follow. We don’t even know who you are.”

  “My name is Vani. Now you know.” Then the door opened, and she was gone into the night.

  Grace started after her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Travis said.

  She met his gaze, her expression hard. “Trying my damnedest to stay alive.”

  Grace stepped out the door. Travis glanced at the stiletto still clutched in his hand. The gem in the hilt was dimmer than before, but a faint, bloody light still shone deep in its heart. He swore softly, then followed the others outside.

  He saw Grace standing not far away, at the head of the staircase that led down to the parking lot. Someone had switched off the fluorescent lights above the walkway, and the motel was silent, except for—somewhere—the muffled barking of a dog. There was no sign of Vani.

  “Where is she?” he whispered.

  Grace gazed into the gloom. “I don’t know. She was here a second ago, and then …”

  Great. She had led them into danger, exposed them, then ditched them. Maybe saving them back in the room had all been part of her plot to get them out here.

  “You know, I really don’t think I—”

  —like her much, Tra
vis was going to say. Instead, his words ended in a hiss as the air beside him undulated. She stepped from between two folds of shadow, her garb blending seamlessly with the night.

  “Where were you?” he demanded. “And how did you—?”

  She held up a hand, silencing him with a sharp motion. “You must not question me, Travis Wilder. There is no time for it. These stairs are not safe. This way.” She moved along the second-floor walkway.

  Travis frowned at Grace. “Congenial, isn’t she?”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that.” A grin cut across Grace’s visage, thin but wry in the cast-off cityglow. “Then again, nice girls don’t kick hairy mutant ass like she does. I’m sticking with her.”

  Travis couldn’t argue with that logic. He reached out, found Grace’s hand, and her fingers curled around his. Together they moved along the walkway, following the half-blurred shadow they knew to be Vani.

  They caught up with her in the dim breezeway that cut from the front to the back of the motel. Something lumpy lay on the floor, half-blocking the passage. Only as Vani stepped lightly over the thing did he realize it was a man. His face was completely gone, but Travis recognized the blond crew cut, the big hands. Stewart.

  He swore softly, too stunned to be sick. Grace tugged his hand. Together they edged around the corpse, trying not to slip in the slowly congealing blood.

  They halted at the head of another staircase. It led down to a narrow parking area behind the motel, lit only by secondhand neon from the twenty-four-hour restaurant on the other side of the back fence. Vani halted, gazing with eyes that seemed to glow faintly in the darkness.

  “What are we doing?” Travis croaked.

  “We will move swiftly toward your Seeker’s vehicle. There, near the fence, do you see it? You must remain close to me at all moments.”

  “Do you know the Seekers then?” Grace asked.

  “I have watched them, yes.”

  “And do they know about you?”

  “I should think not.”