by Jim Butcher
A dog barked in the distance. Her shoulders tightened, and Jessica’s anxiety sharpened in response. It could have been nothing, but her old hunting instincts knew better. “Mask, please.”
Hob handed her a surgical mask, despite the fact that his hands had been occupied with his meal a second before. Julia tightened the mask over her nose and mouth, then opened a pouch of brown powder.
Shard had enough of a connection to Terrence Chapel to trigger Julia’s wards. She felt them surge to life, felt him rip them into dust. Moments later, glass shattered from the building’s main entrance. That would be Shard forcing his way inside. Julia’s skin began to glow. “Stay with me, Jessie,” she whispered. “I’ll keep you safe.” One way or another.
Her door splintered inward. Julia swung her open pouch, spreading a brown cloud through the air. Light spun from her hands, turning the cloud into a vortex and funneling it at Shard’s face.
He had been prepared for an attack, but not like this. Cinnamon swirled into his mouth and lungs. He doubled over, coughing uncontrollably. Julia snatched a syringe and jumped forward. One dose of Etorphine, and he would be out within seconds.
Shard’s second soul smashed the syringe from her hand. The assault that followed was like nothing Julia had ever felt. There was no subtlety, no technique, nothing but hammer blows smashing at her and Jessica both.
She recognized her mistake as she rolled across the floor, trying to evade the worst of the attack. Unlike her and Jessica, Shard’s physical body—Darren’s body—was little more than a vessel. It was Anthony who was in control. Anything short of killing the host body would have little effect.
Hob swung a lamp at Shard’s head. “Fight this, ye rotted sack of sheep balls!”
A glowing arm destroyed the lamp and tossed Hob against the wall.
Jessica shielded Julia from the next blow. The attack’s power cracked the floorboards below. Someone screamed from another apartment, but Julia couldn’t spare any worry for the neighbors.
Jessica struggled to break free, to fight and kill. Sparks spat from their hands. Jessica’s madness dragged at them both like an undertow.
Julia picked up a thicker syringe, one she had hoped not to need. There was one other way to deliver a drug to Shard. Flesh and spirit were bound together, and her souls had touched Shard’s once before. If she injected herself while they were entangled the way they’d been at the bridge, the drug should affect them both.
“I’m sorry, sister,” she whispered. Death would be quick and relatively painless. Jessica would be at peace, and they would be free of Terrence Chapel’s control. She readied the syringe. They weren’t likely to get a clear shot at Shard, but she could achieve the same thing by lowering Jessica’s guard long enough for his soul to strike through their heart.
A Doberman snarled and jumped through her doorway, lunging for Shard’s leg. The Dog King followed, leaping like a madman onto Shard’s back. Both were thrown aside with hardly an effort.
“Stay out!” Julia shouted.
Instead, more dogs rushed into her apartment. Nor were they alone. A harvester wrapped its dark arms around Shard, who screamed in pain. A fey creature called a moonblood scampered upside down across the ceiling and dropped onto Shard’s head, all teeth and claws and snarls. More beings from Detroit’s supernatural underworld crowded into her apartment, adding their strength to the battle.
Julia smelled burning flesh. Shard looked to be on fire, so hard was his second soul fighting. The harvester stumbled back, its dark cloak smoking. Two dogs fell and didn’t move. A hunchbacked woman cried out as energy blackened her chest.
Stay with me, Jessica. Julia tossed the syringe aside and extended her spirit arms into the melee. She gripped Shard’s legs and reached deeper.
Shard was double-souled, and that meant something of Darren still survived, trapped within his own body. She called silently, searching for that second life. He had to be here, beneath the hate and the rage.
Shard’s hands wrapped around her neck and began to burn. Shadows crept through her eyes. She continued to search, lending her strength—their strength. We don’t have to kill him. Help me save them. Help me heal what our father did to them.
Slowly, Jessica stopped fighting and added her strength to Julia’s.
Shard tried to pull back. He hadn’t been expecting a battle from within. His grip around her throat loosened, but Julia only held tighter.
I’ve got him, said Jessica.
Together they gathered what was left of Darren, a snarled knot of guilt and pain, helpless to stop his brother’s rampage. They shared their strength and pulled at Anthony’s soul, dragging him back. Shard screamed and raged and fought, but he couldn’t overpower three of them together. Shard collapsed to the floor, and Julia pulled herself free.
“It’s all right,” she shouted. “It’s over. Let him go.”
The others backed away, wary and ready to resume the attack at the slightest provocation. But there was no need.
Shard lay in a trembling ball. Julia could see multiple bruises and bite marks, a dislocated shoulder, and a badly broken ankle. “Darren?”
He opened his eyes and tried to speak, but he was shaking too hard. He managed a small nod.
“Hob, he’s injured. I need my things.”
He raised a stubby middle finger in her direction, but limped away to gather her supplies.
Julia looked around in confusion. Never had her apartment been so full. “I don’t understand. How . . . Where did you all come from?”
“My pack has been busy.” The Dog King sounded smug. Or as smug as one could sound with a black eye and several missing teeth. “This place, the things you do, they matter to a lot of people, Julia. We thought it was worth protecting.”
Holy men and creatures of darkness, blood magic and angels, all together in her home. Now that the immediate danger had passed, they were eyeing one another with wariness and, in some cases, outright hatred, but they respected her truce. It occurred to her that this might be the first time so many enemies had come together in . . . not peace, exactly, but a common cause.
“Thank you.” Looking them over more carefully, she called out, “Hob, I’ll also need holy water, fresh clay, a pint of pig’s blood, and a lot more bandages.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hold yer ass.”
“What of Terrence Chapel?” asked the Dog King.
“He thought he could turn me into a killer.” Her lips quirked slightly. “He failed. Twice now.” She touched Shard—Darren—and tried to calm him the way she did her sister. “He invested years of his life in us, and years more in Shard. Maybe he’ll be wise enough not to waste a third attempt.”
“Yeah, right,” Hob shouted. “And maybe my dick will turn all it fucks to gold!”
Julia shrugged. “If he creates another double-souled hunter, we’ll try to heal that one, too.”
Is he all right? Jessica said. Did we save him?
Tears filled Julia’s eyes. In all the years since she’d driven the knife into Jessica’s stomach, all the years she’d spent trying to reach her and help her heal, tonight was the first time she’d heard her sister’s voice. The first time she’d felt the company of her sister instead of the hunter. The first time both of them had truly been at peace.
Yes. I think we did.
BAGGAGE
by Erik Scott de Bie
Thump. Thump, thump, wham.
The heavy bag jangled on its chain, swinging back and forth with the force of that last kick. I danced back and shook out my hands and legs. My right shin burned a little, but in a good way. I threw in a few more for good measure, making the bag shake as I kicked it over and over: one, two, three, four. My body was a tight, cycling machine.
My one and only friend, Andre—head bartender at my bar and a great guy whose heart I’d have broken by now if he weren’t gay—
had been badgering me for weeks to join a gym. “I’m worried about you, V,” he’d said. “You’ve been low. Lower than usual.”
“So cardio’s the answer?” I asked between shots of whiskey. “Free weights? Maybe you want me to try CrossFit.”
He made a face, then extended a laminated membership card across the bar. Puget Sound Body. “It’s a fight gym—just around the block,” he said. “I signed you up for a month.”
“Aw, you shouldn’t have,” I said. “Really.”
But I went anyway, because I’m not an asshole. And just then, after kicking the bag ten times in a row, the gym seemed like not such a bad idea after all.
Also, with my water bottle full of whiskey, I felt really loose and comfy.
I should back up. I’m Vivienne Cain, aka Lady Vengeance (fear powers—it’s a whole thing), former demon-possessed supervillain turned edgy it-girl superhero turned fugitive from vigilante justice. It’s not a part of my life I talk about much, partly because so many people are trying to find me and kill me, and partly because, well . . . I kicked the bag an eleventh time, savoring the crunch my shin made against the leather.
The late hours worked particularly well for high-functioning alcoholic night owls like myself. Stuck on the cusp between being a legit fight gym and a gym meant to cater to a twenty-four/seven fitness crowd, Puget Sound Body couldn’t decide exactly which way to go, so it tried to be everything to everyone. It had lots of bags and lots of hours, a bunch of shiny new weight machines, and not many customers. Practically no one showed up at PSB at night. At most I could expect the occasional drunk frat boy posse (probably coming from my bar, no less) or the same homeless guy looking for a bathroom a couple of times a week.
I shared the lonely stretch between one and three a.m. with the girl up at the front desk, a twenty-something plugged into earbuds and reading. Nicole, I think her name was. We had exchanged maybe a dozen words over the past week, and she seemed nice enough. I didn’t mind her aura, either: a lot of people that age give off a cloying optimism, a sour narcissism, or a dull indifference to the world. Nicole, on the other hand, seemed positive but not deluded, tough but not hardened. Ambitious but grounded. Good kid.
There was darkness in her, too, but hey—join the club.
I focused on my combinations, launching a series of jabs punctuated with crosses and hooks. As I fought, I felt violent power resonating in the walls, and I went with the flow.
As a fight gym, PSB felt light and fierce, its younger clientele gradually adding to an undercurrent of angry passion that fueled a heady, powerful rush. Like a ring on fight night just before the audience gets there, the gym crackled at night with anticipation of glorious violence. PSB hadn’t been open long enough for all that hope and power to crumble into desperation for results and despair when they didn’t materialize. Older gyms become sweaty dens of regret, the walls constantly saturated with years’ worth of tears of frustration and pain.
For an empathic projector like me, such places hold deep wells of power I can tap into. I metabolize all sorts of emotions: anger, lust, fear—especially fear. With my powers, I could beat the snot out of Rocky Balboa in any practice ring, let alone surrounded by thousands of screaming fans. I mean, assuming he was real and I wasn’t stone drunk basically all the time. The booze keeps my powers from functioning out of control.
It was exactly that—my constant inebriation buffer—that blinded me to the demon at first. Somewhere after my legs started to burn from all the kicking, I recognized a note of deeper darkness among the ambient gym rage. Not something a human could produce, and I’d known some pretty dark motherfuckers in my day. Been one, in fact. The demon hadn’t attacked, but I could feel it watching. Waiting.
“Oh, you wanna play, huh?” I asked in a whisper. “I’m game.”
I felt the guy before I saw him. Even before the door opened, I heard the discordant cymbal of hungry lust among the relentless thundering drumroll of the gym. The answering spike of anxiety from Nicole is what got my attention, though. We can suppress our fear—convince ourselves to ignore it—but it doesn’t go away. Was the demon in him? Maybe. I shed my black bag gloves down to my purple wraps, took a hit off my whiskey bottle, and headed over, unwrapping as I went.
There he was: muscle-headed type, leaning on the desk, biceps flexed, greasy smile on his thick face. He was that guy, the one who made sure to work out next to women in the gym to show off his muscles, who talked too long to any female staffer at the front desk, or lurked outside yoga classes, doing curls. You know that guy.
“No classes after six p.m., Steve,” Nicole said as I approached. She knew him and liked him about as much as I did. “We have classes tomorrow, though. Like, boxing? Kickboxing?”
“How ’bout your Zumba class?” Steve asked. “You know I like watching your moves.”
Definitely that guy.
Nicole’s anger spiked, and I felt more than saw her getting ready to punch the asshole.
Time to intervene.
A little flicker of power and the room darkened. The gym felt colder, like the heater cut out, and the lights dimmed a couple of notches. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed and died with a disconsolate sigh, then winked back on, flickering. It cast strange shadows across Steve’s suddenly pale face. Nicole’s wide eyes looked around for the source of the disturbance.
“Hey,” I said as I unwound the wrap around my right hand. “This guy bothering you?”
They both stared, momentarily at a loss. I’m not all that intimidating on my own—just a former goth girl, twenty years past the makeup—but with a little bit of fear channeled into the right theatrics, I can give trained killers pause. I could handle one maybe-possessed douche-bag bodybuilder. I couldn’t tell, so I had to poke him. See if the demon came out.
“This . . .” Steve shrugged off the glamour. Good for him. His eyes narrowed, and I could see him thinking up an appropriate insult. “This doesn’t concern you, bitch. Step off.”
Charming. Couldn’t identify my ethnicity, so the prick went with the one-slur-fits-all.
I started uncoiling the second wrap, not being as delicate about it as the first. The wraps served two purposes: one, purple is my favorite color that isn’t black, and two, since that was the only spot of color on me—black clothes, black hair, et cetera—it kept his focus on my hands.
“She said no, dude,” I said. “Walk away.”
I realized I wanted him to make a move. Stupid, but the booze had kicked in, and I was a damn romantic at heart. Damsel in distress and all that shit. Plus, y’know, possible demon.
Steve stepped up, towering a foot over my less-than-commanding five-six. Mistake one.
“Or what?” he asked. “You gonna make me?”
He met my merlot red eyes like I was a little puppy he could stare down. Strike two.
“Maybe,” I said. “You gonna make me make you?”
He grabbed my bare upper arm with his grubby fingers, clenching tight. Three.
My power boiled up all on its own—no will, no direction, no objection—and coursed up his arm to hit him right between the eyes. Steve drew up to his full height, as though stabbed with a cattle prod. His pupils went huge and I saw white all the way around the thin rings of iris. His hands shook and his breath came in rapid spurts.
Fear powers are a bitch.
He threw a lazy right hook—more to drive me away than hurt me—but it still counted. I ducked under his arm, caught him around the torso, and pulled him over me and to the floor. Hard. I felt as much as heard ribs crack in his thick chest and kept thinking, Shoulda done more core. At least there was a mat. Unfortunately, that also meant Steve was just a human: no demon involved.
I stood up shakily. Nicole stared at me like I’d lost my mind, and maybe I had. Shit. Normal people aren’t just supposed to judo-throw each other. Another night, another fuckup.
&nb
sp; Without a word, I left Steve mewling on the floor and walked out. Only when I got to my bike did I realize I hadn’t grabbed my gloves, bottle, or duffel—which had the keys in it.
“Screwed that pooch, V,” I said to myself. “Good for fucking you.”
And just like that, I was no longer alone.
Oh, right. Demon.
There’s nothing magical about intuition. Your body picks up on something that your mind can’t quite process. It might be a particular observation you don’t consciously see, a faint smell, or a subtle change in air pressure. When your body reacts to something, it’s almost always right. Getting your mind involved is bad, because it gives you a chance to talk yourself out of it. The trick is to trust your instincts, particularly when you’ve honed them over more than twenty years of fighting superheroes and/or supervillains.
(I’m complicated.)
My body knew there was something behind me, and I went with it. The alley gave me some advantages: enclosed space, privacy, and a moderate level of fear energy. We invest alleys with anxiety and uneasiness, as though violence is more likely there than in our own homes. I powered up and turned, arms wide in challenge.
“Come at me, demon,” I said.
Something skittered in the darkness on more legs than any animal, and I tried to get a sense of its aura. It felt dark and numb, the way demons always do. They don’t have the same emotions humans do, making them hard to read or digest. Good thing I had years of practice. I could taste its tinny desire and the spicy ambition that drove it. It was a social and political climber looking to make a name out of Lady Vengeance, Lord Azazel’s favorite mortal.
“I know you’re there,” I said, breathing through the swirling murk of its resonance. “I know you’re watching. Just show yourself already.”
The darkness stirred, and I sensed a cold, precise focus, almost like determination.
The back door to the gym banged open and I whirled, ready for a fight. Then I felt the bright stab of worry and caution from the newcomer and eased back.