Bone Realm

by D. N. Erikson

  “If all he has to do is follow the bread crumbs—”

  “He’s constable. So there’s that, too.”

  “Meaning?” I knew where this was headed, but I still didn’t want to admit it.

  “On the list of positives, paperwork.” Argos scratched at the ground with his paw. “Buys us time.”

  “I’m assuming I don’t want to hear the negatives.”

  “That mortal Kal turned to ash? Let’s just say there’s going to be a lot of pressure to find the arsonist responsible.”

  “A demon hunt?”

  “Wouldn’t be our first,” Argos said. “And he’s only half-demon, so you can spare a little sanctimony, print shop apprentice.”

  “Owner,” I said, hands forming into fists.

  “Former owner, really,” Argos said, looking at the horizon with a wistful gaze.

  Out here, in the late summer moonlight, breeze rustling through the trees, it seemed impossible to think anything could ever burn. It shook my resolve enough to consider other options, as bad as they might be.

  “I have an aunt in Boston,” I said, turning toward the rough-looking road. “I wish you the best of luck with your endeavors.”

  “That didn’t sound terribly sincere, Rebecca.”

  “Forgive me for not being nicer to the creatures of darkness who ruined my life.”

  With little more than the clothes on my back, I began marching through the waist-high grass field. Little footsteps pattered behind me. I picked up the pace, and the gait matched mine.

  “Surely word will reach Boston,” Argos said, cutting in front of me so quickly that I almost pitched forward and fell. “Rebecca Callaway as you knew her is dead.”

  Argos didn’t say it cruelly. More as if he was reading a signpost along the road, indicating where a wagon was to turn off. I felt my knees wobble, but determined not to look like a fool, I kept walking.

  “I’m not listening.”

  “He’ll die.”

  “He’s immortal!” The words came out much louder than I wanted, booming across the empty field like a cannon shot. I clasped both of my hands over my mouth, as if that would do some good. Argos trotted in front of me and sat down, tall grass rustling.

  “In most ways, yes,” Argos said. “As am I. But I don’t believe I would survive a dip in a blacksmith’s smelter. There are clear limits.”

  “We could always find out,” I muttered.

  “My hearing is quite good, as you might suspect.”

  “The point stands.”

  His pointy ears flattened against his head, and he looked as if he was also considering running off. But some loyalty kept him rooted to the ground despite his fear. Being lead dog was not his normal station in life, but with his friend in dire need, he would assume the mantle.

  “Need I remind you of the demon-wolf?” Argos said. “Although the current literature can hardly be considered robust, you’d have to agree that such a creature is—”

  “The literature would be more robust if you hadn’t burned it all.”

  “Yes, and we would all look lovely lying dead next to your precious books. Life is about compromise, Rebecca.”

  I stared deep into his brown eyes. They hid a human yearning that indicated the words were not merely empty.

  “Ruby.” My old name and life were ruined. The new one came in a flash—the faintest of ties to the past, but far enough away to be someone completely new. Rebecca went to church on Sundays, dressed in her dull black garments. Never standing out, ink stains beneath her fingertips. Yearned for the adventures she read in books.

  I reached into the apron and dug out the coins. They felt heavy in my palm. With my free hand, I tore off the apron and hurled it into the air. It fluttered a few yards before being swallowed by the tall stalks of grass.

  Ruby consorted with demons—and their annoying, if brilliant, pets. She had an edge, an allure. Lived the adventures, even if they killed her.

  I gulped about that last part.

  “Who the hell is Ruby?” Argos said. “You still trying to visit your aunt? Look—”

  “Ruby Callaway,” I said, slipping into the name like a well-worn shirt. Or a familiar lover. Not that I knew anything about those at the time. “It’s me.”

  Argos cocked his head in that way dogs do, then said, “Whoever you are, I hope you’re up for what comes next.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked, trying to sound bold.

  “That’s simple,” Argos replied with a quivering voice. “We need to kill one of the most powerful werewolves in the world.” There was a long pause. “Before he kills us.”

  6

  I didn’t know much, but I harbored a keen suspicion that killing an ancient werewolf would be hard work. Particularly when the polite and charismatic constable also had the backing of an angry mob of townsfolk eager to exact justice on a murderer.

  “Just focus, Ruby,” I said, repeating the mantra—and the new name—over and over, hoping to imprint my new personality through sheer force of will.

  In the back of the stalls, buried beneath the stale hay, I located Woden’s Spear. Argos had insisted this was our only chance of killing the wolf. It looked heavy, based on its construction, but had a surprisingly even balance in my hands.

  Which still wouldn’t help all that much.

  I jabbed the weapon at the sagging stall doors and it almost slipped from my sweaty palms.

  “You could hurt yourself,” Kalos said, his voice thin and weak.

  “Or maybe I’ll just hurt you.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  Gripping the spear tightly, I marched toward him. “You might want to reconsider, given your current condition.”

  “Albin’s been searching for that spear for over a thousand years,” Kalos said, his eyes calm, even though I had the weapon’s sharp point aimed at his head. “I don’t intend for you to just hand it to him.”

  “And yet, you’re the one who poked the hornet’s nest,” I said, poking at the air above him for illustrative effect.

  “The wolf would have realized I had the spear eventually,” Kalos said, his face ashen. “And he’s been sniffing around other things as well. Trying to free old associates.” He muttered the rest of the words, but I heard the names Marrack and Isabella.

  They meant little to me, other than that Kalos clearly hated them more than the wolf.

  “So you were being proactive,” I said. “Great plan.”

  “In retrospect,” he said, glancing at the herb-smeared wound on his chest, “I’ve planned better.”

  “I’d need to see evidence before I believe that.”

  “Getting pretty bold for a print shop girl.”

  My ears flushed hot, and the spear wavered. “I’m helping you, remember?”

  “A partnership of mutual convenience,” Kalos said, grunting as he propped himself up against the rotting wood. The gash still dripped blood, albeit slowly. “Don’t pretend otherwise.”

  I wanted to be angry, but he was so sad and sick looking that it proved difficult. And, for a demon, he wasn’t bad. In many ways, he’d saved my life. Albin had visited all the better apothecaries and tortured them for information.

  If Kalos hadn’t been in my shop, I’d be dead.

  If I hadn’t broken Father’s rule, I would have been dead.

  “Ruby,” I whispered, making the name more real. Boldness had saved my life once…

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” I flipped the well-balanced spear over, catching it before it dropped on his head. “So Woden as in the Norse god?”

  “Something like that,” Kalos said. “I’ll show you.”

  His mischievous eyes beckoned me closer. Suddenly my boldness left, replaced with a different mantra: demon. My numb legs shuffled closer, into the stall’s
corner.

  He gave me a bemused grin and pressed his hand into mine against the spear. His skin was surprisingly warm, but not burning hot. I wasn’t sure what I expected. My mind spun, forgetting that I had touched him earlier without incident.

  Streams of energy pulsated around the spear. “It’s the essence.”

  “You’re not casting a spell on me, are you?” I said, looking into his eyes as the wood lit up with a firefly glow.

  “Spells aren’t really my thing.” He removed his hand from mine, and the light died away. Kalos dug into his leather jacket and flashed a flintlock pistol. “Guns draw less attention.”

  “Never thought I’d hear that.” I took the pistol and examined the design. It looked nothing like the normal flintlocks I’d seen diagrammed in the books printed in the shop. This firearm had two fat barrels attached to a short body.

  The half-demon, noting my confusion, said, “Two shots before you need to reload.” He squinted with one eye and brought his hand up, miming a gun.

  “I understand how it works.” He took a pouch of munition and powder and shoved them into my hand. I shook out the canvas and saw the bullets glint silver. “I’m not a killer.”

  “That’s the nice thing about starting over, Miss Callaway,” Kalos said, his eyelids drooping. “You get to be anyone you want to be.”

  I heard the word Ruby slip from his lips as he slumped against the barn’s wall, the old boards groaning. For some reason, I liked it when he said the name. It made me buzz with possibility, excitement. Probably because Miss Callaway sounded like a schoolteacher.

  After a lifetime of reading, I kind of liked my new life.

  Even if I didn’t know the first damn thing about being a werewolf huntress.

  Hopefully I was a quicker study than the last time I inherited a job.

  Otherwise, come tomorrow, we’d all be dead.

  7

  Argos and I left in the morning, just as the sun crept over the distant trees. I heard the dog muttering Ruby in different tones and dialects as we walked along the overgrown path. Woden’s Spear grew heavy by my side, the flintlock pistol tapping against my breastbone with each stride.

  One step.

  Thump.

  Next step.

  Thump.

  And so the rhythm went, leaving me wondering if the composition would end with a wound like Kalos’.

  “Stop,” Argos said, lifting his black-and-white snout into the air. “We’ll divert the trail here.”

  I rubbed the cracked blood off my fingertips, readjusting the other piece of cargo I’d received that morning: a calfskin pouch of demon blood. With it, we could redirect the blood trail to a place of our choosing.

  Where we would lie in ambush, spear sharpened and ready to stick Albin like a boar.

  The blood sloshed inside the leather as I set the container down. The dog stood over a noticeable patch of stained grass. One of the many places Kalos had fallen as I’d helped him over the last two miles.

  “You’re sure this is far enough from the barn?” I glanced back through the dense weeds lining the path. As we’d returned closer to Philadelphia, the roadway itself had grown more manageable. But the underbrush at its sides remained wild and dense, blocking any view of what might lay beyond.

  Three miles from the city, and already in a world reclaimed by the wilderness.

  “It’ll have to be,” Argos said, sniffing the container’s lip. “Time is of the…essence.”

  He shook his head and groaned at his own bad joke before heading off perpendicular to the path. Nettles and thorns scratched at my dress as I followed, dribbling the blood behind us.

  “Not so much,” he said with a snarl. “We can’t get more.”

  “Well, we could.”

  He let out his best menacing growl in response, and I tipped the pouch a little more upright, slowing the fall to a drizzle. Every few steps I would lift it up completely before continuing the pour.

  It’s amazing how long a quart-sized container lasts under careful rationing. By the time the calfskin pouch I was shaking the last drops from its bottom folds, my face was covered in welts from what must have been miles of shrubbery.

  Light emerged on the opposite side of the forest, shining through the dense pines.

  I pointed. “I’m not going crazy.”

  “To the best of my knowledge, no,” Argos said, a quizzical tenor in his voice.

  “So you see the shop?” The general store stood a stone’s throw away through the trees, facing another, better-maintained road into the city. Puzzles and gears clicked in my head. With supplies, we could formulate a better plan than Argos waiting as bait and me pouncing with the spear from above as the wolf closed in.

  Sometimes reading books comes in handy.

  “I do not believe it’s a mirage.” The dog took a few steps forward. “It appears we traveled further than expected.”

  “You’re the one who insisted on that.”

  “And look at the benefits,” Argos said, puffing out his chest like he’d planned it all along. He threw his head over his shoulder and looked back, as if to say coming?

  I wrinkled my nose and dutifully traipsed behind him, happy to be free from the forest. When we popped out on the road—grass ground down to dust from all the traffic—I made a mental note of our path.

  The dog was too busy thinking himself a tactical genius of Napoleonic proportions. Too bad we hadn’t even scored a victory yet, let alone won the war.

  All we’d done thus far was flee.

  His claws pitter-pattered against the sturdy wooden stairs. He waited by the entrance, tail wagging steadily.

  “Let me do the talking,” I said as I reached for the handle.

  “Do you ever let anyone else?”

  I stuck out my tongue and swung the heavy oak open, narrowly missing the tip of his nose. The smell of dried meats, oats and burlap hit my nose as I entered the shop.

  A woman, not old but not young, either, glanced up from the counter. Spectacles dangled from a worn chain around her neck. She gave me a nonplussed once-over but no greeting, returning to the crinkled newspaper spread out before her.

  “Is it okay if my dog comes in, ma’am?” I asked.

  She didn’t look up. “Depends, really.”

  “On what?”

  “I don’t want him talkin’ and scaring the shit out of my customers.”

  I stared at her, mouth agape, frozen in place before a wooden display rack of cured jerky. My mouth wrinkled and twisted, but I couldn’t find a good retort, so I just looked stupidly ahead until she sighed.

  “Goodness, child, I’m trying to read here.”

  Finally I said, “But there’s no one else here.”

  “Well shit, you’re more perceptive than I thought.” When she shook her head, the spectacles waved back and forth like a pendulum. “And by that I mean essence help us all.”

  Argos growled on the other side of the door, asking to be let in. I shuffled over and obliged, the border collie shooting through the narrowest of cracks. His ears were on end.

  “This is what happens when I let you do the talking,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” the shopkeeper said. “You’re both idiots. Might as well be carrying signs with big old targets on your back.”

  The dog barked twice and the woman waved him off.

  “This one, though,” the woman said, giving me a throwaway glance, “She has potential. If she doesn’t stab herself with that damn spear.”

  I glanced down at the wooden shaft. “How’d you know?”

  “I’d be a terrible Seer if I didn’t notice the essence and aura trails you lot are giving off. Might as well be a signal fire smoking in the distance.” She rustled the paper and finally gave us her full attention. “Speaking of which.”

  Her fac
e assumed an even sterner expression. I wanted to jump into one of the massive sacks of grain and hide beneath the dried kernels.

  Instead I said, “That’s why we came.”

  “For supplies,” the woman strode out from behind the counter. Somehow, she seemed shorter. “To interrupt Pearl’s reading and bring a werewolf sniffing around her place of business.”

  “Uh, well, we didn’t know you were, um, what you were.”

  “Of course not.” Pearl ran her hands through her tangled black hair, grumbling to herself. “That would be setting expectations far too high.”

  She disappeared into a back area separated only by thin strands of fabric. I heard her rustle and root around, sounding like a cook preparing dinner. Argos and I shared a glance but said nothing. Her rebukes had shamed us both into temporary silence.

  Two minutes later, Pearl emerged with a large iron trap, its teeth glittering with menacing glee. She threw it down on the counter. The iron almost seemed capable of shaking the sturdy structure to its foundations.

  “For your werewolf problem. Set it in the woods like so.” She fearlessly opened up the jaws until there was a click. “Don’t put your hand in it.” Pearl looked down at the ground. “Or paw.”

  Then, without warning, she picked up a nearby stick and pressed the center. The teeth closed with terminal velocity, snapping shut with a sound loud enough to crush my bones through vibration alone.

  “It’s something,” Pearl said, giving me a nod as I recovered.

  “But how’d you know—”

  “About the wolf?” Pearl walked around the other end of the counter. “Same way I know your name is Ruby.”

  Magical intuition. That would be nice to have.

  Any powers would be nice to have. Although she had said, in the beginning, that I had…potential. Which was death by faint praise, if I’d ever heard it.

  I propped the spear against the counter and reached over to pick up the steel trap.

  “And just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I thought you’re helping us.”