by Jim Butcher
Children, on the other hand . . . Children were always an issue. Because kids didn’t understand why they couldn’t make friends with the little boy down the block who just happened to have weirdly pink skin and fingers that were missing a joint or two. Kids wanted to play tag, and didn’t understand fear of the unknown—not the way adults did. Everything was unknown to a child, and so they accepted what they didn’t understand much more quickly, and embraced with much less restraint.
It didn’t help that most bogeyman households had cable. Bogeyman children learned to see human children as friends they just hadn’t met yet, which sometimes led to situations like this one.
I slid on the sides of my feet down the short embankment leading to the storm drain, all too aware of the four teenage boys who were on the sidewalk behind me, watching me go. I didn’t look back. When I reached the flat ground at the bottom of the embankment, I stood up a little straighter and walked forward, into the open mouth of the tunnel.
The light cut off almost immediately. It was the middle of the night, after all, and the streetlights weren’t designed to shine into the bowels of the Earth. Not for the first time, I wished my kidnappers had been willing to return my cell phone. Antimony had to be frantic by now . . . assuming she’d even noticed that I was gone. Her team had won, and I didn’t always stick around for the after party, especially when I’d just gone through a painful breakup. She might think I was just fine.
“I need better cousins,” I muttered, and walked onward into the dark.
Bogeymen like to live underground when they can. It affords them a lot of advantages. Humans tend toward claustrophobia, which makes them reluctant to follow shadowy figures into dark tunnels. Bogeymen, on the other hand, tend toward agoraphobia, and sometimes freak out if forced to stand in the middle of a grassy field. It’s a perfect balance. But living underground doesn’t mean living in squalor. Anyone with a nose would have known that this wasn’t really a storm drain. It smelled of damp metal and clean dirt and nothing worse—no mold or decay or waste products. The local human homeless probably slept down here occasionally and found themselves gently encouraged to seek shelter elsewhere, before the signs of their presence were scrubbed away.
I walked deeper, and smiled as the urge to turn back began to bubble in the recesses of my mind. This was careful, meticulous work, doing its best to convince me that this whole enterprise had been a terrible mistake. Succubus work, in other words, probably performed in concert with one of the local hidebehinds. Nobody binds a simple illusion or telepathic command to a static charm like a hidebehind. Which would be a terrible slogan for a business, all things considered.
The feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be here just kept getting stronger as I kept pushing onward, until I reached a dead end, my fingers brushing against hard-packed earth in front of me. “Nice,” I murmured, and closed my eyes and walked into the wall—
—only to slam face-first into the same thing my hand had encountered. The dead end was not an illusion. I stepped backward, rubbing my nose, and tripped over a bump in the tunnel floor. I spun to my right, reaching out to catch myself—
—and fell as the tunnel wall proved to be an illusion. “Oh, come on!” I protested. I had been dumped into a second, wider tunnel, lit by dimly glowing bulbs that hung like party lights from hooks on the ceiling. It was a little bit like stepping onto a circus midway after the show had closed, all soft illumination and the faint, sweet smell of sawdust.
If anyone heard my exclamation, they didn’t come to see what I was doing there. I picked myself up, dusted the tunnel dirt and sawdust off my knees, and started walking away from the false wall.
Little by little, the sounds of life drifted out to meet me. Voices raised in greeting or argument; laughter; a brief, sharp burst of an argument. By the time the voices began to form actual words, I was moving with quick assurance.
That assurance died when I came around a corner and found myself facing what looked like an underground parking garage crossed with a flea market, and packed with bogeymen, almost all of whom had turned to wait for my arrival. They were tall, oddly jointed people with grayish skin and pale eyes. That was where their uniformity ended. Some were fat and some were thin; most had dark hair, but a few were blond, and one had shockingly red curls that held their color even in the dim light that the community favored. Most were wearing human-style clothing. Add a hoodie, and they could pass unnoticed among the population of Portland. That was the point.
“Uh, hi,” I said. I knew bogeymen in passing, but I didn’t know any well enough that I could really call them my friends. More like “acquaintances in shared persecution.” I cleared my throat and continued anyway. “My name’s Elsie Harrington? I’m Ted Harrington’s daughter? I was wondering if I could speak to somebody in charge?”
“If you’re Ted’s daughter, that means you’re also Jane Price’s daughter,” called a voice from the back of the crowd. “How do we know this isn’t a trap?”
“Um, well, I’m not armed, for a start, which is basically proof that I’m not here as a Price,” I said. “Also, I’m alone. Also, I’m a succubus, so if the Prices had gone back to being killers instead of conservationists, I’d be seeking sanctuary right about now. I’m here because Angie’s brother is worried about her. He asked me to come find her.” The part about him kidnapping me seemed like it was better left unsaid, at least for right now. I had already come into these people’s home without permission. I didn’t need to kick the beehive.
“Angie?” One of the bogeymen stepped forward. She was wearing a red dress in a traditional bogeyman cut, tight around the collarbone and flowing otherwise, allowing her hyperflexible limbs the space to move. Her hair, the color of dust over granite, was looped into an ornate braid atop her head. She must have been one of their leaders. Only the people in charge of a community held to the old fashions, because only the people in charge were never required to go among humans and try to pass. “There’s no one here by that name, Lilu. You have come to the wrong place.”
“Maybe there’s no one who’s supposed to be here, but she’s here,” I said, trying not to flinch at her use of the proper name for my species. Male Lilu are incubi and female Lilu are succubi, and it’s an insult to call any individual by the singular species name. I don’t know why. It’s just the way things have always been. “Her brother saw her go into the storm drain with one of your children, and he sent me to get her back. He’s worried about her.”
The bogeyman leader bristled. “Are you calling us child thieves?” she demanded.
“No, I’m saying that one of yours decided to invite a friend over for dinner but forgot to get permission from her parents first,” I said. “Look. Right now, it’s one teenage boy who saw his sister go underground with a stranger, and one succubus in your living room asking for that sister back. If I don’t succeed, who knows what that kid is going to send down here next?” Belatedly, it occurred to me that if the boys had known how to find monster hunters, they could have cut out the middleman and sent them down here directly, instead of messing around with me. I wondered whether it was the teenage tendency toward baroque planning, or whether they had understood that sending a bunch of professional killers into a bogeyman community would have been like killing a spider with a machine gun: unfair in the extreme.
The bogeyman leader narrowed her eyes. “You’re threatening us?”
“Uh, not so much, if you actually listen to the words I’m saying and not to the script you think I should be following. I am saying that I am the easy option. Give me the little girl, and I’ll walk away from here, and you can have a nice, long chat about stranger danger and why we don’t invite humans over for slumber parties, okay?” I held out my hands, showing that they were empty. “It’s after midnight. Humans aren’t nocturnal. Come on, just give the kid back, and we’ll call it good.”
“I didn’t mean to.” This voice was soft, a
nd sweet, and distinctly prepubescent. The adult bogeymen shuffled to the sides, turning toward the speaker: a little bogeyman girl, her curly black hair in pigtails, her grayish skin made up with human cosmetics in that garish way that only appeals to little girls playing dress-up. She looked miserable. “Angie and me were playing, is all. And then her parents said it was time for her to go to bed, but they hadn’t seen me, and I said that it wasn’t bedtime where I lived, and she said, ‘Okay, let’s go,’ and I’m sorry, I didn’t think anybody would notice that she wasn’t there anymore. . . .”
Fat tears were starting to slide down the little girl’s cheeks, cutting paths through the dime-store blush she had slathered on. It made me want to hug her and teach her about doing her colors, all at the same time. I cleared my throat, forcing both urges down.
“So, see, she is here,” I said. “Where’s Angie, honey?”
The little girl sniffled and said, “She fell asleep. I guess maybe it was her bedtime after all.”
I looked at the bogeyman who seemed to be in charge, raising an eyebrow and waiting for her to say something. She looked at me, and her face was a sea of rage, sorrow, and simple, mundane regret. She didn’t like that this had happened on her watch; she liked even less that I was right.
“I’ll bring you the girl,” she said finally. “I’m going to tell your father you came down here.”
“To retrieve a human child who had been kidnapped, even if it was by accident, so that you wouldn’t get into trouble with your neighbors? Yeah, he’ll be real pissed at me. Be sure to tell him how you called me ‘Lilu,’ okay? Because, hell, maybe he’ll buy me a new car.” I folded my arms. “The girl?”
“Wait here,” said the bogeyman leader. She turned away, and the little girl in the wrong shade of blush followed her.
I felt no triumph, no rush of victory.
There was no victory here.
Angie’s brother and his friends had been waiting for me when I emerged from the storm drain, a sleeping little girl in a sundress and a feather boa cradled in my arms. The relief on their faces had been palpable—as had the calculation.
“No,” I had said, holding Angie close, refusing to give her up until they understood. “You made me a promise, remember? You’re going to keep it.”
“Or what?” asked one of them.
“You don’t want to know,” I’d replied. “Now somebody get my purse from wherever you stashed it. I need to call a cab.”
The last I’d seen of them, they had been retreating into the house, a sleepy Angie walking between them. I felt a little bad for her. She had made a friend, and she was never going to see that friend again. The bogeymen were already sealing off the entrance I’d used to get to them; they wouldn’t move their community, but they’d make damn sure they stayed secret.
But that was for later, when there was time to regret. I had taken the cab back to the warehouse, where my car was still parked at the back of the lot. A half dozen messages from Antimony blinked on my cell phone, waiting to be answered or acknowledged. It was late enough that the after parties had all broken up or moved on, and I hadn’t seen a single living soul as I drove the familiar route across town.
Raising my hand, I hammered on the closed apartment door until my knuckles ached, and then I hammered some more, just to get my point across. Someone shouted from inside. I knocked harder.
The door was wrenched open, and there was Carlotta—lovely Carlotta, with the lips I had kissed so many times—snarling, “It’s three in the fucking morning, you—”
She stopped herself when she saw me, going pale. I looked at her wearily.
“You dumped me because I’m not human,” I said, no preamble, no softening the blow. “Did you really have to tell your sister about me? You promised me you wouldn’t.”
“Elsie . . .” she began, and stopped, clearly unsure how to continue.
“She told her kid, Carly. She told her kid, and he told his friends, and they hired some mercenary assholes to shoot me full of aconite because they needed a demon. I know we’re not dating anymore, but damn.”
“I didn’t think she’d talk about it,” said Carlotta weakly. “This is a lot to put on my shoulders, Elsie.”
“You mean my survival? Yeah, it is.” I stepped closer, seeing the way she flinched when I entered her personal space and hating it. Still, I forced my voice to stay level and cold as I said, “My life is more important than your bigotry, Carlotta. You want to talk about what a shit girlfriend I was? Fine. But you gave me your word you’d keep our secrets, and you’re going to do it. If you don’t, I am not going to make any promises about your safety. Do you understand?”
To my surprise, she laughed. “This is why we had to break up,” she said bitterly. “Because my safety matters more to me than your secrets.”
“Keep my secrets, and you’ll have nothing to worry about,” I shot back. “You get one shitty ex moment. This was yours. Now prove that I was right to love you.” I turned on my heel and stalked away before she could say anything else.
I made it back to my car before I started to cry. I buckled myself in and kept crying, until the tears ran out. And then I checked my mascara—waterproof for the win—started the engine, and drove myself home. I would answer Antimony’s texts later. Right now, I wanted a gallon of ice cream, my own bed, and late-night cartoons on Adult Swim.
Sometimes all we can do is have a sleepover with ourselves.
IF WISHES WERE
by Tanya Huff
Vicki had always hated the smell of hospitals—the smell of cleansers so overpowering that the trained police officer part of her wondered what they were hiding, while the antisocial, easily annoyed part wondered why they couldn’t use scent-free products. Nor was she fond of fluorescent lighting, the horrible pale green paint they clearly bought in bulk, and the staff cutbacks that meant nurses were working their asses off to cover the basics and, as a result, were barely maintaining a white-knuckled grip on civility.
Bottom line: she hated hospitals for the same reason everyone else did. If she was in a hospital, it meant one of two things. She’d been hurt. Or someone she loved had been hurt.
She didn’t get hurt anymore. Not in ways modern medicine would understand. Not since she’d had to choose between changing and death. Not since she’d lost everything in her old life but Mike.
She listened to his heartbeat and told herself he’d be fine.
“It’s creepy when you hang around and watch me sleep.”
“Tough.” There was enough light for her to see him and not nearly enough for him to see her, but he always knew when she was there. Moving out of the shadows to the side of Mike’s bed, she wrapped her fingers gently around his right hand, careful not to disturb the cannula. Most of the damage was on the left—arm broken in two places, collarbone broken in one, three cracked ribs, multiple cuts from broken glass, and impressive bruising for those impressed by that sort of thing. “Besides, it’s not like you’re providing anything else to watch.”
“Excuse me for being boring.” He cleared his throat, and she offered him a drink; laid the straw against his bottom lip and studied him while he swallowed. He had a purpling bruise on his cheek, but his body had absorbed enough of the impact that by the time his head had hit, he’d gotten away with only a concussion. “How are you feeling?”
Pushing the straw away with his tongue, he snorted. “Like I went out a second-floor window and hit a Buick.”
“You hit a Toyota.”
“Buick’s funnier.”
The plastic cup shattered in her hand.
“Not ready to joke about it?” he asked as she knelt to wipe up the water with a handful of tissues.
Not ever. The aluminum bar running along the lower edge of the bed buckled in her grip. “Do you remember anything?” she asked as she stood.
“No more than I did yesterday.
”
“So SFA.” The wet tissues hit the garbage with a dismissive splat.
“Pretty much.”
The doctors called it retrograde post-traumatic amnesia. Pointed out that it was relatively common in cases of moderate to severe concussion. Offered a not even remotely reassuring number of recovery statistics involving hockey players.
He remembered going to Scarborough to question a witness. After a non-illuminating interview, he and Dave Graham, his partner, had gone into a Second Cup for a coffee, where Dave had run into one of his exes. As Dave and Cynthia caught up, Mike had taken his coffee outside to enjoy the spring sun. Someone had screamed. Mike had yelled at Dave to call it in, and he’d run toward the sound. The next thing he remembered was waking up in hospital.
Dave remembered Mike flying out the second-floor window in a shower of glass, clearing the sidewalk, and landing on the roof of a parked sedan. Police found the apartment empty of both the tenant, Amy Shaw, and of anyone who could toss a six-foot-three, heavily muscled police detective out a window. Shaw, at five-two and barely a hundred pounds, according to the neighbors, was considered more a witness than a suspect.
“You going to whammy me?”
Vicki raised a brow at Mike’s question. “Whammy?”
“The vampire mind-meld.”
“You’re on the good drugs, aren’t you?”
He ignored her. “I know—you promised to never whammy me, but, as I want the name of the jackass who threw me out a window, I’m asking.”
“You have a concussion. I’m not playing with your brain while it’s bruised.”
“Vicki . . .”
“No.” She slid back into the shadows as a nurse came into the room, and returned to Mike’s side after the woman left. “You should listen to the scary lady, Detective Celluci, and get some sleep. I’m going to go have a look at the apartment.”