Black City Demon

by Richard A. Knaak

  Eye will help you see. . . .

  I let him grant me his gaze, the better to search for any overlooked traces. Yet, even when the world turned emerald, I spotted nothing immediate. As a precaution, though, I checked under the bed and inside the closet. The absurdity of the situation made me feel like I’d fallen into a Chaplin comedy, but still I searched.

  Exhaling, I straightened. Only then did I see that the painting was slightly crooked—

  I heard a feminine laugh.

  The Saint George in the painting lunged at the dragon. The dragon roared and exhaled fire, something even the legends had forgotten. I ducked under the searing plume and charged.

  Cleolinda screamed. The cry distracted me. The dragon brought one huge paw down, knocking me to the ground. The clatter of metal against rock as I tried to roll away vied with his roar in an apparent attempt to deafen me.

  I was tired of this manling. Who was this presumptuous human who thought he could best me? I gave him some small credit for being nimble for one of his kind despite his metal shell. The metal shells always made me laugh; didn’t they realize that the metal only helped make their blood boil and their skin burn all that much easier?

  The female kept warning the manling. The fools had brought her as some sort of sacrifice to me. I liked that they had understood my supreme might, but she was hardly a morsel. She did bring me better food by living, though, so I let her stay chained by me while naive mortals like this tried to become champions—

  Pain! Pain! He hurt me! How? Such pain! I slashed out at him! I snapped at him! Where is he? How did he move so quickly and—

  Pain! More pain! He will pay! I will rip him into little shreds! I will scatter his innards over the landscape! I will save his skull to drink water from! I will—

  Nick!

  I will—

  Nick!

  I was in the bedroom. My hands were covered in shreds of some material. I was grateful to realize that it wasn’t flesh even though there were flakes of red in it. There were also flakes of gold and other colors, I finally noticed.

  Da Vinci’s painting lay strewn all over the floor. The frame had been shattered and the picture ripped into small bits. Unlike last time, there’d be no repairing the painting.

  Soft hands touched my cheeks. Claryce, anxious but determined, forced me to keep my eyes on her. I belatedly realized that I was looking at her through my own, not those of the dragon.

  “Nick! Keep looking at me! What happened to you?”

  Faint recollections of both fighting the dragon and being the dragon returned to me. I also remembered the feminine laugh. I was certain that it hadn’t been Claryce’s, and that meant only one other female.

  “It was her!” I snapped much too angrily at her. “Titania!” For once, I didn’t care if she heard my voice. “The grand queen of Feirie! She left a little prank!”

  “Nick! Calm down! You’re getting that look again!”

  I refocused on her. I saw the open concern, the deeper feelings behind it. . . .

  This time, the fury abated completely. There remained a bitterness toward the cause of it, though. Her Lady. Titania. When she’d recreated the house and the painting, she’d left some deeply hidden trace of her power in the latter. She knew what the painting meant to me. Now, with Oberon dead, evidently she thought that she could begin toying with me.

  I was beginning to regret I’d finished off Oberon. I didn’t know what his former mate had in mind, save seeking full control of the Gate. That boded ill.

  What also boded ill was my reaction. This latest episode of rage had been the worst thus far. I feared that if they continued, there wouldn’t be any difference between the dragon and me. We’d be one monstrous threat to those around us. . . .

  The dragon said nothing. I could barely sense his presence, as if he was as drained as I was.

  It occurred to me I still hadn’t reassured Claryce. I quickly nodded. “I’m all right. I’m me again.”

  “Let’s get out of this room,” she insisted.

  I didn’t argue. We returned to the table where I did my research. I saw that there were a number of files on the table now.

  Claryce led me to one of the chairs. “Sit. I’ll get something cold from the Kelvinator. I assume you’ve gotten around to refilling it.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the one in the safe house . . . just in case we have to go there?”

  “No.” I kept a hidden apartment over an empty establishment near the South Side, close to where Capone had some of his operations. However, things’d gotten pretty hot there during the fight with Oberon, so I hadn’t been back since.

  “In that case, I’m sleeping down here, too . . . until we know it is safe.”

  I remembered my encounter with Her Lady’s enforcer. I looked forward to our next meeting. Her Lady wanted to see me? I was more than happy to oblige now.

  Claryce vanished into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a dark bottle and a glass. “I hope this bottle of Bergo is good enough. I know I could do with something stronger than near beer or soda pop.”

  “It’ll do fine. Just don’t let Fetch see it. He’ll think I’ve been going to Berghoff’s without him.”

  She smiled, but the smile faded after she handed me the bottle. Claryce pointed at the files. “I think I’ve found something.”

  “Already?”

  “You keep very organized files. I could’ve used you at Delke.”

  “Probably paid better and certainly would’ve had more practical hours than I have now.” I set the Bergo down. “What is it?”

  “I went back to your clippings from 1893. The Chicago Times. The Morning Herald. Other papers before my time I’ve never heard of. Most are about the World’s Fair, but the last two . . . Well, look at the rest first.”

  Curious at what she meant, I quickly thumbed through the first batch, readily recalling things from that time. One clipping came close to reporting on the results of one of my hunts, but I chose not to mention that to Claryce.

  Then, I picked up the other clippings . . . and hesitated. There was a notation on the side in my handwriting that didn’t help matters, either. I’d marked the discovery of a body, vaguely noted by the police as female, but with peculiar characteristics. I dredged up the memory. What little I’d read indicated that, like Cortez’s unidentified corpse, the victim had been a Wyld of high caste.

  I understood Claryce’s curiosity, both because of the timing and my old notation, but there was little information other than the finding. I put down the first clipping and glanced at the second.

  It was about Claudette. It was about her murder.

  After I’d had the encounter at Saint Boniface, I’d wondered how she’d died, but hadn’t investigated. I could’ve blamed it on all that’d happened since, but the truth was I’d not wanted to know. Those incarnations I’d known had all died violently. Odd accidents or victims of either random crimes or due to becoming involved in my dark world.

  Claudette’d been found with her throat cut, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Whoever had done it had positioned her almost reverently, putting her hands over her heart in what seemed like prayer. In fact, she’d even been found holding her crucifix.

  “I came across it by accident. I thought you didn’t know about her.”

  “I didn’t . . . or didn’t make the connection. Maybe I didn’t want to. I generally cut out all murders . . . just as a precaution. I store them near the top by date in each file. . . .” Suddenly, I realized how uncaring I must’ve sounded to her. This wasn’t just any murder. It’d been hers.

  “Don’t grimace,” Claryce urged. “I understand. There’s no photo. You didn’t know I-I’d come back. This has nothing to do with you. You see that?”

  “To be honest, I don’t recall even cutting this out, and I usually have some memory.” I forced myself to read over the rest of the article. Claudette had been found three days before the writing. She’d had no identificatio
n, but had finally been identified by someone who knew her from where she went to church. In fact, it’d been her church that’d claimed her body for burial.

  No. Not just a church. A cathedral. The cathedral in Chicago.

  Holy Name Cathedral.

  I don’t believe in coincidence.

  “What is it? Did you remember something?”

  “No.” I knew I should’ve been going through the files, but instead I got up and headed straight to the telephone.

  “Who’re you calling? Nick! Tell me what this has to do with the article?”

  “Operator.” After she answered, I gave her the telephone number.

  Claryce’d heard the number before. “Why are you calling him?”

  Before I could explain, he answered. The telephone number I’d called didn’t officially exist in Holy Name. Only one person used it.

  “This is Kravayik. May the blessing of the Lord be upon you, Master Nicholas. How may I serve? Is it the card?”

  “No.” Fetch had a pretty good memory, but I knew Kravayik’s to be nearly perfect. He could recite the Bible by heart, and if asked a passage, he’d know it immediately. Thirty-odd years were like yesterday to him.

  “Kravayik. What drew you to Holy Name?”

  “It is the seat of the diocese! How closer to God could I be here in the city?”

  And I was supposed to be the saint. “Were you ever in Chicago before we met? You never made that clear.”

  Silence.

  “Kravayik?” I considered the phrasing that might best give me answers from him. “Tell me about Claudette Durand.”

  The phone clicked.

  He’d hung up.

  Kravayik had known Claryce’s previous incarnation . . . and, with his skills and background, had very possibly been her killer.

  CHAPTER 9

  I called back, but he didn’t answer. I would’ve left there and then for Holy Name, but the weather had worsened. Instead, Claryce and I returned to the files, but there was nothing else we could readily match to what was going on.

  Claryce again insisted on sleeping downstairs. I wasn’t sure that Her Lady might not’ve left another cute surprise, so I didn’t argue. She offered to share the couch, but I chose to stay in the chair by the table. I still remembered how the rage had taken me up there. Even if it’d been due to Her Lady, I still had my own regrets.

  Claryce drifted off soon after. I pretended to sleep until I knew she wouldn’t wake up easily, then headed to the kitchen and the door to the backyard.

  Fetch was there, just as I’d expected. “Shake yourself off. I don’t feel like mopping.”

  He sent a flurry of melted snow around the entrance, fortunately not getting too much in the kitchen. “Thank ye kindly, Master Nicholas. My dogs’re frozen!”

  “Well, wipe them on the rug, not track them on the wood.”

  He did the best he could, I supposed. Fetch was more nimble than any hound or wolf, but he still managed to leave a puddle. I was too distracted by everything that’d happened to care about cleaning up just yet.

  A thought occurred to me. “Fetch, were you ever in the mortal world before I met you?”

  “Nay! My first and only time was when she sent me to . . . you know.”

  “Kill me.” When he started to whine, I silenced him with a dismissive wave. “We’ve been through this. We’re . . . copacetic.”

  He wagged his tail with vigor. “Thank you ever for that, Master Nicholas! I still feel so bad for what I tried to do then!”

  “The wound healed.” Or rather, the dragon healed it. Of course, it’d taken longer for Fetch to recover from what I’d done to him. He could be grateful I’d used the blessed dagger instead of unleashing the dragon’s breath on him.

  Fetch finished shaking. His dark fur settled. One benefit he still had was that as a creature of Feirie, he could still manipulate his outer form a bit. He already looked nearly dry, something I couldn’t say about the kitchen floor where he stood.

  “Sorry, Master Nicholas. Let me try to clean it up. Please!”

  “What’re you going to do, lick it up?” When he gave me those pitiful eyes, I finally acquiesced. “Do what you can, but don’t take long. I’ve got some more questions for you. About Kravayik.”

  “As ye say.”

  Claryce still slept. I sat down and began looking through the files she hadn’t gotten to yet. Those involving the exposition caught my attention. Through the articles, I followed the progress of the World’s Fair as it finally got underway a year later than intended. It’d supposed to have been set for the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus, but some plans had proven too ambitious. The “White City” fell into that category, a vast set of plaster and cement facades placed over the nearby buildings, painted white, then enhanced by street lamps that gave them a false glow. What was supposed to look magnificent had, to many, looked not only very gaudy, but had contrasted so sharply with the grit of the city beyond that papers had sarcastically referred to the rest of Chicago, especially the more nefarious neighborhoods, as “the Black City.”

  The Black City. Now a more than apt name for a place where someone would build a chamber of horrors.

  Claryce shifted. I watched to see if she would wake up, then grabbed files from the years directly after the World’s Fair. Once again, I looked forward to the day when the calculating machines in some of the magazine stories would become so efficient that all these files could be stored on it. Until that happened, though, I had to rely on my memory and the system I’d designed over centuries to help me locate what I wanted quickly.

  I found the first clipping. Here, the chamber of horrors wasn’t called something so enchanting as a castle, but a hotel. That wasn’t what I was interested in, though. What I did want I found in the second paragraph.

  Dr. Henry H. Holmes.

  Also known as the Beast of Chicago.

  There was no image of Holmes, but there was a drawing of the infamous “hotel.” A three-story building with an awkward rounded appearance above the ground floor, but otherwise seemingly innocent. Inside, though, there were passages and trapdoors everywhere. There were hints in the article that Holmes had constantly switched builders to make certain no one but he knew the full details of the design.

  How many victims there’d been was a controversy in itself. Nine was the least I found listed, though there were names of only a couple. Neither of them were Claudette.

  I’d just started on another clipping when a slight sound in the kitchen made me wonder just what Fetch was up to. After rising quietly, I headed back and carefully peeked into the other room.

  What I saw nearly made me reach for Her Lady’s gift. Yes, Fetch was still at work, but not the Fetch with whom I was most familiar. This Fetch still wore a form akin to some combination of wolf and hound . . . but one just as comfortable on two legs as four.

  I’d only seen Fetch like this once in the recent past. The night of the Frost Moon, when the influence of Feirie had been at its greatest and Oberon’d tried to slay both the dragon and me. That same influence had granted Fetch a near return to the deadly creature he’d originally been. Even now, I could see the shortness of the muzzle, the twisting of the ears as they’d looked in Feirie.

  And the paws now more like hands, but hands with sharp claws for slashing.

  I recalled his attack on the Wyld in the storefront on Sixty-Third. At the time, I’d not paid too much mind to how Fetch’d looked. Now, though, I thought about the changes.

  With care, I stepped back. Clearing my throat, I waited a breath, then returned to the kitchen.

  Fetch stood on all fours, once more the almost-hound. He took a passive lick at a tiny drop of water by the outside door, then glanced up at me in all innocence.

  “Did as good as I could, Master Nicholas! All right as rain!”

  “That’s a little old for you. You mean it’s all jake or something, don’t you?”

  He wagged his tail vigorously, the innocent expressi
on remaining. “Yes, it’s all jake!”

  I pretended to inspect the area where he’d been working. “Pretty thorough. I couldn’t have done better by hand.”

  “Thank ye!”

  I considered confronting him, but held off. Thus far, he’d only used the transformations to help. I know that he’d briefly been seduced by Oberon with the thought of being able to again become the powerful predator he’d been, but Fetch’d turned down that opportunity in the end. He’d even turned down an offer by Her Lady to retake his place in the Court as one of her chief assassins.

  At least, I’d assumed he’d turned her down. Thinking of what’d happened upstairs, I now wondered.

  That made me think of another former servant of Her Lady. “Fetch. Did you know Kravayik when you served the Court?”

  He chuckled. “Master Nicholas, whatever ye think of me, I am hardly of the same caste! The blood of the High Ones flows in Kravayik. I . . . I was only useful.”

  “He’s better than you?”

  “I would fight him for ye or the mistress, but I would surely perish.”

  I nodded my appreciation. He sounded honest, but creatures of Feirie were born with the ability to lie well. Still, I liked to think I knew Fetch.

  If not . . .

  “You remember the World’s Fair, Fetch? Around three decades ago.”

  The tail wagged harder. “Oh, yes! Much hearty fare! The barrels were full of pickings! The floors a—”

  “Beyond the food, if you please. Are you sure you didn’t cross paths with Kravayik while we were on the hunt and forget to tell me? I won’t be angry if you say you did.”

  The tail abruptly ceased wagging. “But I’d not be telling ye the truth if I said I did!” The ears flattened. “Master Nicholas, if I’d crossed paths with Kravayik, I’d have warned ye! He hadn’t seen the light yet, as he’d say. He was still hers!”