Dead Man’s Hand

by John Joseph Adams

  “The door’s locked!” she shouted, all pretense of stealth abandoned.

  “Find a way to unlock it,” Jonathan snapped back, before turning, pulling the second pistol from his belt, and opening fire on the descending swarm.

  The first several Apraxis to dive toward him were greeted with bullets which shattered their fragile exoskeletons and sent them careening to the floor. The next wave veered off, choosing to attack from the sides instead. He shot three of them down. The fourth encountered a hastily-flicked knife as Fran caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. All the wasps they hit went down. But there were more—so many more—and their weapons were limited.

  The third wave paused in their attack, hovering overhead and moving in a complicated interweaving pattern, like a deck of cards being shuffled by a pair of skillful hands. Jonathan tried tracking them with his pistols, and found that he couldn’t keep a single wasp in his sights; they were moving too fast. He might hit one or more if he fired into the body of the swarm—they were tightly packed enough to make that possible—but he might also miss entirely, and bring the full weight of their wrath down on his head.

  “Frances, if you’re taking your time out of a misguided respect for the property of others, this is the time when you stop being considerate and start smashing things,” he said, out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m trying,” she hissed back.

  The swarm overhead was beginning to dip lower, still moving in that complicated, coordinated pattern. It was almost hypnotic in its way, like watching fire consume a log. Jonathan blinked, trying not to let himself be mesmerized by the swirling sea of wings and bodies. He didn’t dare look away. Looking away would be an invitation to the end.

  “Fran—”

  “Almost…” There was a loud splintering sound. “Got it!” Then the door was shoved open, and she was dragging him out into the night, away from the swarm. Fearing the escape of their prey, the Apraxis dove. Too late; Jonathan and Fran were already outside. The wasps pulled up short at the threshold of the station. Then they vanished back up into the rafters, leaving only the steady drone of wings to mark their presence.

  Jonathan, who had half-fallen against Fran, got back to his feet. “Well,” he said, re-holstering his pistols before removing his glasses and wiping them against the front of his shirt. “That was bracing.”

  “Is that normal for giant demon wasp things?” asked Fran. She moved to stand beside him. Her knives were already gone, vanished back into her clothing.

  “Not in the slightest. We should be dead now.” Jonathan replaced his glasses. “They won’t leave the building. Enough Apraxis to kill everyone in this town, and they’re hiding in a single defensible location.”

  “Meaning what?” asked Fran.

  The look Jonathan gave her then was enough to make her blood run cold. “Meaning there’s something out here that the Apraxis are afraid of.”

  “See, I was really worried that you were going to say that.” Fran looked back to the doorway. “Now what?”

  Jonathan didn’t have an immediate answer.

  * * *

  “Things don’t add up,” said Jonathan an hour later, as he sat on the edge of their shared bed, flipping one more time through his father’s notes. “Apraxis wasps depend on swarm intelligence. Collectively, they know everything that any of their victims knew. Depending on the size and complexity of the swarm, they can have the intelligence and memories of hundreds of humans. Swarms have even been known to exchange members when they were missing information that they thought might be beneficial.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Fran continued oiling her knives, testing their edges one by one before sliding them back into their sheaths.

  “A healthy Apraxis swarm isn’t afraid of anything, because the lives of individuals matter only when the swarm is reduced to the point where they risk losing vital information. This swarm is a… a collective. They’re not at risk of losing anything. So why would they refuse to leave the station?” He threw the notes down in disgust. “They have no natural predators. They have no known illnesses. Their behavior makes no sense.”

  “Now hold on there, Johnny. I think you’re missing something.”

  Jonathan looked toward her. “How so?”

  “When we met, you didn’t know that there were Questing Beasts in Arizona, and I didn’t know that there were talking mice in Michigan,” said Fran. “An’ neither one of us knew that there were little green snakes with wings living in Indiana.”

  “They’re a sub-species of coatl,” said Jonathan. His interjection lacked heat; he was already getting the distant look that meant he was considering the implications of her words.

  “Whatever they are, they’re little green snakes with wings that no one knew existed. So how about you stop saying the giant wasps have no natural predators, and tack on a weasely little ‘that we know of’? Then all we have to do is look around until we know what we have to shoot. Besides the several hundred giant death wasps.”

  “Frances Brown, you’re a genius.” Jonathan was suddenly on his feet and heading for the door, leaving Fran to blink bemusedly after him.

  “Was it something that I said?” she asked, of no one in particular.

  * * *

  Jonathan’s pounding brought Eleanor Smith to her bedroom door, the high collar of her dressing gown clutched tight around her neck. Her eyes widened when she saw him, and she stepped out into the hall, closing her door—but not before he could see the mound of gold chains and ore covering her mattress.

  “I don’t have time for pretty pretense or lying to you,” he said, cutting off her protests before they could begin. “I am here to find out what is upsetting the Apraxis hives and endangering lives in this town, including yours and your daughter’s. As I have no idea how to contact the local bogeyman community, any information I acquire will have to come from you. Now: when did this start?”

  Eleanor stared at him, open-mouthed, for several seconds. Then she lifted her head, took a breath, and said, “I’m sure I don’t have any idea what you’re—”

  “You’re a dragon princess,” he said. “Your species used to live symbiotically with the great dragons, until they became extinct. You’ve been hiding amongst the humans ever since. I’m not here to endanger you, but I’m not going to allow you to lie to me, either. There’s too much at stake.”

  “Mama?” Betty’s voice was sleepy. Her head appeared around the edge of the door as she rubbed at one wide blue eye with the heel of her hand. “Hello, Mr. Healy.”

  “Hello, Betty.” He looked back to Eleanor. “I know it’s got to be hard for you to be here without a Nest to help keep you safe. I truly have no intention of making things harder. But I need to know when the Apraxis started behaving like this.”

  “Go back to bed, Betty,” said Eleanor, and gave her daughter a gentle nudge back into the room. “I’ll be in soon.” She closed the door again. Her eyes all but spat fire as she said, “If you’re lying, I’ll see you hanged for casting aspersions on my character.”

  “Ma’am, unless Colorado is a strange state indeed, ‘the Widow Smith isn’t human’ is less casting aspersions and more a sign of insanity on my part. Still, I’d be grateful for anything you could tell us. We saw the swarm tonight, and it was…”

  “Bigger than you thought it’d be?” Eleanor chuckled mirthlessly. “If I had a penny for every man who’s ever said that—I’d still be running this boarding house. Where’d you leave your wife? I don’t want you people asking me questions more than once.”

  “She’s in our room,” said Jonathan. He wasn’t going to correct her about Fran not being his wife. Eleanor had just admitted she wasn’t human; he wasn’t going to make her cope with the idea of unmarried couples sharing a bed beneath her roof. Besides, he wasn’t sure how he was going to cope with that either, once the time for sleep arrived. “Come with me.”

  * * *

  Fran was cross-legged on the floor
when he returned to the room, with Eleanor close behind him. The mice were clustered in front of her in a semi-circle, apparently in the middle of a report. They froze when the door opened. When she saw the mice, Eleanor did the same.

  “There are vermin in my home,” she announced, in the calm, overly measured tone of a woman who was deciding how loudly it would be appropriate to scream.

  “They’re with us,” said Fran. “Mice, y’all say hello to Mrs. Smith. This is her place we’re staying at.”

  “HAIL, MRS. SMITH, OWNER OF THE PLACE!” piped the mice obligingly.

  Eleanor’s expression transformed from horror into simple disgust. “Oh,” she said. “They’re Aeslin mice.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jonathan, closing the door behind her as she finally stepped into the room. “We’re sorry we didn’t mention them when we were checking in, but I’m sure you can see where the topic would have been difficult to raise.”

  “I don’t allow pets anyhow,” said Eleanor. She folded her arms, looking from Jonathan to Fran. “You wanted to ask me about the wasps. So ask.”

  “My question is the same as it was before: when did this behavior begin? Apraxis swarms shouldn’t be moving this time of year, much less grouping together. There’s no recorded reason for this behavior.”

  “It started about three months ago,” said Eleanor. “There’d always been reports of large insects in the canyons and the hills, but they mostly didn’t bother you if you didn’t bother them. We had a few ranchers and prospectors go missing every year or so.” She didn’t need to say the words “no great loss”; her tone conveyed it for her. “Then the sightings started getting closer to town, and not long after that, folks started to disappear.”

  “And the more people vanished, the larger the swarms became,” ventured Jonathan.

  “You’d think, but it was almost the opposite for a while. It was like they were takin’ people just to keep their numbers up. We kept finding these bits of broken wing in the street. Something’s been killing them. Or was—it stopped a few weeks back. It hasn’t been safe to walk out alone since then.”

  “Thanks for stopping us from going out,” said Fran. “Or trying, anyway.”

  “I can’t stop the suicidal from doing what they will,” said Eleanor. “Anyway, the swarms started grouping together about then. I suppose it’s their way of defending themselves.”

  “No matter how good a predator is, it would have to be foolish to cross a swarm the size of the one we saw tonight,” Jonathan agreed. “Did anyone new arrive about the time the swarms changed their behavior?”

  “New people come and go all the time around these parts,” said Eleanor.

  “Anyone who stood out?” pressed Jonathan. “Maybe someone who asked questions that made you uncomfortable, or seemed overly interested in the wasps?”

  “You mean like the two of you?” asked Eleanor sweetly.

  “How about somebody who didn’t stand out,” said Fran, saving Jonathan from the need to come up with a response. “Was there anybody who showed up and did their best to keep a low profile? Maybe tried to stay out of sight?”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor. “Wait—no. Wait… I don’t know.” She blinked, looking perplexed. “Why don’t I know? I know everything that goes on around here. I make it my business to know. Why don’t I know?”

  “Mrs. Smith, take a deep breath and think back to when the wasps began to change their behavior,” said Jonathan. His voice was suddenly soothing. “What else changed around then? Anything at all, no matter how small it might seem, could tell us where we need to start looking.”

  “Well, there was a good barley crop. We had the harvest festivals about then, put out the usual offerings of offal and ground bone meal for the chupacabra and the black dogs in the hills. Betty started taking music lessons. I had a lodger who ran out without paying for his last two nights—”

  “Wait,” said Fran. “Back up a bit. Why didn’t Betty start music lessons until this past fall?”

  “There was no music teacher,” said Eleanor automatically. Then she paused, blinking. “But that can’t be right. Miss Heloise has been here for years.”

  “Except for the part where she wasn’t here before this past fall,” said Jonathan. He looked to Fran. “I suppose it’s time we go have a talk about music lessons, and why someone decided to lock us in the train station.”

  The mice cheered.

  * * *

  “Do dragon ladies have memory troubles?” asked Fran, as she and Jonathan walked down the main street toward the music teacher’s house.

  “Dragon princesses, and no,” said Jonathan. “They’re usually quite canny. They have to be, if they want to survive without the dragons to protect them.”

  “Never had a dragon to protect me,” said Fran. “I find a sufficient number of knives handles the situation nicely.”

  Jonathan smiled. “Yes, Fran, but you’re one of a kind.” He might have said more, had they not found themselves standing at their destination.

  Miss Heloise Tapper’s music studio was tucked into a storefront off the main street. From the light in the window overhead, she lived and worked in the same place. Jonathan produced a length of wire from inside his vest and bent over the lock. A moment later, the latch opened with a click, and he nudged the door open with the toe of his boot.

  “I love it when you break the law,” murmured Fran.

  “Shh,” Jonathan replied, and stepped inside, moving as quietly as possible. Fran followed. They automatically fanned out, putting a space of about three feet between their bodies. Then they stopped, both frowning as they tried to make sense of the empty room around them.

  Finally, Fran asked, “Shouldn’t there be some kind of… I don’t know… music stuff here?”

  “You’d think.” Jonathan touched his temple, looking perplexed. “This is very odd…”

  “Sweetheart?” Heloise Tapper’s voice was followed by the appearance of Heloise herself on the stairs. She was wearing a dressing gown, and looked ever-so-slightly rumpled, like she’d just gotten out of bed. “Did you catch the intruder?”

  Jonathan’s hand dropped away from his temple. His pistol was suddenly in his hand, aimed at a wide-eyed Fran. “Yes, dear,” he replied. He scowled at Fran. “You’d best be prepared to face constabulary justice, young woman.”

  “Oh, swell, she’s a mind-scrambler. You couldn’t have said somethin’ about that?” Fran’s own guns appeared in her hands, drawn almost too fast to follow. One was aimed at Jonathan; the other at Heloise, who looked startled, and not a little angry.

  “Young woman, you are being rude,” she snapped.

  “Don’t reckon so, but I’ll take that under advisement,” said Fran. “What in tarnation are you? Some kind of super-wasp? You’re prettier, but I don’t see as you’re any nicer. Now get the hell out of Johnny’s head, or it’s not going to end well for anybody in this room. Deep down, he knows that I’m the faster shot, no matter what you’ve done to him.”

  Heloise pressed a hand to her chest. “What makes you think I’ve done something?”

  “Because he’s holding a gun on me, and that’s not something my Johnny’d do.”

  “Ah.” Heloise dropped her hand, eyes narrowing. “Now the question is, why isn’t it working on you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe ’cause I’m too damn stubborn to be mind-scrambled.” Fran cocked back the hammer of the pistol aimed at Heloise. “Let him go.”

  “Make me,” Heloise snapped.

  “Suit yourself,” said Fran, and fired. Jonathan pulled his own trigger half a heartbeat later.

  Fran’s bullet flew clean and true, catching Heloise in the breast. It should have pierced her heart; it should have taken her down in an instant. Instead, the music teacher screeched wordless fury before turning and running up the stairs. Jonathan’s aim was a little less clean, perhaps because he didn’t actually want to kill Fran; his bullet hit her right shoulder, knocking her back a step. She shouted, br
inging both guns to bear on him.

  “Johnny, don’t you make me shoot you,” she half-begged. “I don’t want to shoot you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “You shot my wife,” he snarled.

  “What is it about this town and you and fake wives?” demanded Fran. “She’s not your fake wife, I am! You don’t have a wife, you idiot!”

  There was a flicker of confusion in Jonathan’s eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, shaking it off. “Heloise and I—”

  “Johnny, I love you.”

  Jonathan froze. “What?”

  “You think I stuck around your house for the past three years because I was bored? Any circus in this country’d be glad to have me, and your monster-hunting’s fun, but it ain’t everything. I stayed for you. I love you. Don’t you let some cheap Snow White-lookin’ bitch make all that work be for nothing.”

  “I…” Jonathan shook his head, like he was trying to get rid of something buzzing in his ear. “I…”

  “Aw, hell.” The buzzing wasn’t just in Jonathan’s ears: Fran could hear it too, and it was getting closer. “Hate to stop there, but think you can shake off your delusions long enough to play shooting gallery with me? I think we’re about to have company.”

  And the Apraxis burst through the window, cutting off all further conversation.

  * * *

  It was the sort of battle better described than lived through. Jonathan and Fran wound up backed against the wall, shooting down as many wasps as they could—Jonathan’s aim was better, Fran fired faster, and the swarm was packed so tightly that neither had the advantage—before the bullets ran out. Fran began flinging knives, while Jonathan looked frantically for an escape route.

  There was a single interior door. It might lead to a dead end. It was their only chance.

  “This way!” he shouted, and grabbed her hand, hauling her behind him as he ran. For her part, Fran was glad to go. The wasps were starting to get past her defenses, and their stingers burned like pokers when they pierced her skin.