“You have to promise me you won’t kill the men in that Yukon.”
Danny thought about it. “You saying that means you think I’ll want to kill someone in that Yukon.”
“You’ve more or less got it,” said Carlisle. “And you owe me.”
“How you figure?”
“Because you crashed the only other way we’ve got of getting to Chicago,” said Carlisle. “I’ve been punched in the face with an air bag, and I’m just too tired for this shit,” she said. “So here’s the way it’s going down. I’m getting in that Yukon over there,” and she yanked a thumb over her shoulder, “and I’m driving to Chicago. When I’m there, I’m going to look up Everard and that freak show Miles, and see what kind of trouble they’ve got themselves in to. Maybe save the world. Again. There’s a small chance I’ll also get laid, which is a thing that hasn’t happened since coming the fuck up here in the snow surrounded by fishermen and inbreds.” She paused for a breath. “The fishermen are also inbred.”
Danny nodded slowly. “That’s fair.”
“I don’t give a shit if it’s fair,” said Carlisle. “I need a burger and friends and I need to not be cold.”
“Can I ask why I would want to kill the men in that car?”
“It’s a truck,” said Carlisle absently. She coughed into the cold, wiped some more snow out of her eyes. “I’m pretty sure these guys are the ones we were running from before.”
“Pretty sure?”
“Tell you what,” said Carlisle. “You promise me you won’t kill them, and we can get in their nice warm truck and talk about it some more.”
∙ • ● • ∙
“There are different factions at play,” Ajay said. He craned his neck from the front passenger seat to look at Danny. “Not everyone’s playing by the rules.”
Carlisle frowned. “There are rules?”
Ajay laughed. “No.” He looked away from Danny, tried to crane around even further. Carlisle had chosen to sit behind him — if Danny had another freak out, this would provide some necessary distance.
Danny spoke up for the first time, the hint of anger — or is that fear? — in her voice. “Why won’t you just leave us alone?”
Ajay sobered. “We want to save the world.”
“World can save itself,” said Carlisle.
“You seen the news?” Ajay turned back forward. “The world needs all the help it can get. Have you heard of a man named Talin Moray?”
“He in the news? We’re a little out of touch up here,” said Carlisle. “Or is he from the same place you come from?”
“More or less,” said Ajay. “Except we are nothing alike.”
“You’re all the same,” said Danny. “You try to take my cub…” She cut herself off. “Sorry.”
Silence held for a few more beats. “So,” said Carlisle, as if nothing bad was about to happen. “How’d you find us?”
“Wasn’t looking for you,” said Ajay. “Different orders.”
“Orders, huh?” Carlisle leaned back in the darkness of the back seat. “You sure you’re not a soldier?”
“Nor a sailor.” There was an indeterminate shuffling from the front seat where Ajay sat. “But I did come here in a ship.”
“You keep saying that,” said Carlisle.
“I feel like an asshole,” said Danny.
“Mom!” said Adalia. Then, quieter, “Language.” Carlisle thought she could pick out the side of a smile on Adalia’s face, but it was hard to see in the dark of the back.
“I feel like an asshole,” said Danny, “because you two know each other and I don’t know why.”
“Talin Moray is why,” said Ajay, before Carlisle could step in front of that one. “Do you believe in magic?”
“Hey,” said the driver. “Boss, should you..?”
“No,” said Ajay. “Thomas here believes we should be operating under the strictest secrecy. I have a different view.”
“What view is that?” Carlisle saw that Danny’s body had leaned forward, something challenging in the set of her shoulders. She could feel it even in the dark.
“Hey,” said Carlisle. “I think we should all calm down.”
“I’m calm,” said Ajay.
“Me too,” said Thomas, from the driver’s seat.
“I’m not,” said Danny. “What’s going on?”
“You promised not to kill them,” said Carlisle.
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” said Danny, something anguished in her voice. “You people keep removing the choice from me.”
The Yukon juddered as it hit something in the road. Adalia cleared her throat, very deliberately. “I’m calm too. And I’m sure Mom is fine.”
“Sweetie—”
“Because she won’t want to crash another car,” said Adalia. “Right, Mom?”
“Right,” said Danny, after a moment. “That’s why I won’t kill them both and leave their bodies for the crows. Because we need a ride.”
Ajay turned his neck again to face Danny. “We didn’t come for you. Not at first.”
“You’re lying—”
“We came for the man named Valentine,” he said, calm and still as a pane of glass. “We came hunting the world’s bravest detective. We needed to find Valentine Everard, find out if he was a myth. He’d fallen off the world, as if he’d shifted sideways and just … moved on.”
“Who is this brave detective?” said Carlisle.
“The detective,” said Ajay, “had found the man named Valentine before. Their paths had crossed, linking them together like a chain that can’t be broken. The world was saved. And we need them to do it one more time.”
Silence, overlaid by the grumble of the Yukon as it nosed through the snow. Adalia leaned forward. “Ajay?”
“Yes, mistress?”
“Did your story … did it have a heroic little girl?”
Ajay laughed then, Thomas joining him from the front. It was a clean sound. “I’m sorry, mistress,” said Ajay, “but it did not. The spirits didn’t say anything about a girl, or her mother. We thought that … well, we thought that if Detective Carlisle wouldn’t come willingly, we might impress upon her companions.”
“At least you’re honest,” said Danny. “How’d that work out for you?”
“Not well at all,” said Ajay. “You see—”
“You were going to kidnap us?” said Adalia.
“Not exactly,” said Ajay. “We were going to … convince you.”
“With a taser,” said Danny.
“With the spirits,” said Ajay. “The taser was for our protection.”
“You’re full of shit,” said Danny.
“Language,” said Adalia, but there was something hesitant in her voice. “I don’t—”
“He’s not,” said Carlisle. Her stomach was tensed around that new feeling — or is it just so old you’ve forgotten it? “He’s not full of shit.”
“What, because he comes in to town with a quick smile and a good story? They tried to catch us, Carlisle. They tried to catch my little girl.” There was a tearing sound in the dark, followed by a snap. Danny held out the handle for the door she’d been gripping, the edges twisted and torn. “Sorry.”
“I’m—” said Ajay.
“He’s not full of shit,” said Carlisle, “because he knows.”
“What does he know, Melissa? What’s he got on you?”
Carlisle swallowed, then shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She sighed. “No one should know about it. Not anymore.”
Carlisle felt Adalia’s a hand on her arm — Adalia — and almost pulled away. Her skin wanted to run, remembering his touch, his breath, but … no. Carlisle wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. Least of all, not of him.
“I’m sorry,” said Ajay. “I … sometimes the spirits are unkind.”
“They’re not unkind,” said Danny. “They don’t fu—” a glance here in the dark that might have been at Adalia, “They don’t exist. I don’t believe in sp
ecial faeries or magic friends or gypsies of the woods.”
“And yet,” said Ajay, “you walk with the power of the Night at your side. It shrouds you, clings to you. I can smell it on you. You are changed, woman, and changed for the good of us all.”
Danny sat silent as a stone. Carlisle tried again. “Ajay?”
“Yes, Detective.”
“I’m not a Detective anymore,” she said. “I said that.”
“You are always what your God has made you,” he said. “The rest is between you and him.”
“Right,” she said. “The thing is, it’s shit like that, that makes you sound crazy. You know that?”
A soft noise from the front, somewhere between a snort and a laugh, as Thomas covered his mouth. Ajay shot his driver a look, and said, “Enough from you, Thomas.”
“The lady, she has a point,” he said. “I’ve always said you scare people.”
“I—”
“I’m not scared,” said Carlisle. “I’m confused. There’s a big difference.”
“What does it look like when you are scared?” said Thomas.
“It looks,” said Danny, leaning forward again, “like death. When she gets scared, I get angry.”
“Girl?” said Carlisle. “Now’s not really … you’re not helping, okay?”
“I’m not afraid of death,” said Ajay.
“Because you know where the dead go when they die,” said Carlisle.
“Yes,” said Ajay.
“That is why they think you are crazy,” said Thomas. “I’ve known you these ten years or more, and you still sound crazy to me.”
“She doesn’t think I’m crazy,” said Ajay. “She thinks I am her strong right arm.”
“Who is she?” said Danny.
“Yeah,” said Carlisle. “I think this is where I’m getting interested again.”
“She is my keeper, mother, my queen, my sister, and your salvation,” said Ajay.
“She sounds like Jesus,” said Adalia, “with a skirt.”
Ajay laughed. “No, little one,” he said. “Although she might talk with him, from time to time. Others, too. The L’wha—”
“Is this some voodoo shit?” said Danny.
“It is something,” said Ajay. “Vodou is everything, it is—”
“Whoa,” said Carlisle. “You’re going all crazy again.”
“You saw the spirits,” said Ajay.
“What does he mean?” said Danny.
“Yeah,” said Adalia. “What—”
“Kid,” said Carlisle, “maybe later.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to talk about what I saw,” said Carlisle, leaning forward and gripping Adalia’s hand in hers. “Not because you can’t hear it. No secrets between us, remember? I promised.”
“You did,” said Adalia.
“I don’t want to talk about it because I need to get it straight in my head. Do you know what I mean?”
Adalia looked down. “I get it.” She looked back up. “But I’m your friend too. I can help.”
Oh, kid, thought Carlisle, you don’t know how much you help just by saying things like that. Your Mom, she made a good one. But all she said was, “Sure. Maybe later, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m still not clear,” said Danny. “I’m not clear on why you’re here, why you needed my Valentine, and why we’re going to Chicago. Together.”
“Ah,” said Ajay. “That. Let me tell you a story.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The thing that called itself Talin Moray sat in a big leather chair. The chair crumbled under the weight of time, strips and tatters falling away, the sides ragged with age. It had been black, once, but now sat as a mix of murky gray and sad, pale stuffing. It had power, this chair. It had seen many things, bore witness to the acts that had made Talin what he was today. He kept it always, sending it across continents ahead of him wherever he went.
The wall behind him was covered in newspaper clippings, scrawled notes, blurry photos. Pieces of old twine walked between each piece, a story stitched broad that told of wondrous things. Miracles. Men and women saved from certain death. Whole gangs killed in a single night. There, an article told of a drug lord that had eluded the FBI for years had been found — very dead — in a room full of spent shell casings. Here and there, a story of a random innocent killed. Talin let his lips curl — there are no innocents. The photos were grainy, always shot at night, catching a glimpse of a single man as he ran back into whichever night had birthed him. Reports of survivors talked of a man who spoke little and did much, often from behind glowing yellow eyes.
Those eyes belonged to Talin now.
The photos and clippings were overlaid atop a map of the United States, a scraggly line of clues moving from coast to coast and back again. The twine ended here, in this city called after shikaakwa, where the Great Lakes and the power of the Chicago River met, and merged, feeding and nurturing each other. It wasn’t an old city as such things went, but rich in borrowed memory as people fought and traded and fucked at the water’s edge.
Hunt.
“Soon,” he said. He flipped the lid of the silver briefcase closed, the metal snapping at his fingers as it lapped shut. A wisp of smoke peeled from the side of it, caught in an eddy of air and was lost.
A man in front of him looked up. His black skin complemented the black of the weapon he held, a short machine pistol. It was perfect for loud, noisy work. Outdated. A relic of a time before this day.
Kill.
“I wasn’t talking to you, boy,” said Talin. He flexed his hands, marveling at the strength that flowed within him. All of this had been wasted, frittered away in this city at the edge of the water. “Is my driver ready?”
“Always,” said the man, his teeth bright and white in a savage smile. “Shall I—”
“No,” said Talin. Something else spoke with his lips. The feeling was strange, a snarl pulling at his teeth. I like this. The L’wha had never graced his presence, had always ridden that whore Raeni, but it had left him open for this other. This was a spirit of pure Night, a prize beyond measure. “I must … hunt.”
The smile on the man’s face faltered, his weapon half-raised at his side. “But—”
“I must hunt alone,” said Talin. “Leave me or die.”
The other man—
It defies us. It challenges.
—hesitated a moment, a single moment’s pause conveying a nuance of meaning across the distance that separated them. A few feet, a handful of steps was all it took for Talin to reach the man, push clawed fingers into his chest, and tear out the heart within. The other man’s eyes were wide with shock, the strength leaving him as he slipped backward. Something in the other man that wouldn’t let go of his useless life brought the machine pistol up as he fell back. A final spasm pulled at the trigger, a bark of sound and light and bright, hot—
It is not the metal that burns with the heat of the sun.
—fire tracking points across his chest and stomach. Talin took a step or two back, the other man’s heart falling from his hand, red gore falling with a noise like wet fabric hitting the ground. He looked down at the holes on his chest, pulling aside the worn and faded shirt he wore. The holes were stitching themselves closed, knitting together. He touched the brown of his skin with a hand, delighting in the smoothness of it. He looked at his fallen lieutenant, then laughed. A big, easy—
The fallen do not matter. We must hunt.
—sound, full of promise at what a new night would bring.
He spared a glance at the silver briefcase. He had almost all of this spirit of the Night. A fragment remained, something that had fallen free of his trap, and he had not survived this long through a love of loose ends.
∙ • ● • ∙
The altar was new, rich with red. It wasn’t the brown of old blood, but freshly anointed. It had been part of an expressway support, the big concrete block needing seven men to strain and heave to get it
here. Their blood had christened it, given the stone its first touch of power.
There were always more men.
Talin set a bowl of water down next to the knife. Here was temporary, good enough to hide him from any attention until he was ready to move to where the water met the sky, where the final reckoning would take place. Cages stood at his back, the keening of panicked animals loud around him. He loved the sound, this recognition of fate even in the lowest of creatures. The world was full of things set to be instruments for his will.
The salt fell in big, coarse chunks as he crumbled it into a pile. Smoke floated up around him, the tallow lamps burning with a smell as familiar to him as good white rum. He let his fingers find the bowl of ash, fine flakes of bone still held within. The ash was from men — if you wanted to command men, you needed the essence of men.
He turned to the cages, opening the wicker front of one and pulling out a chicken. The bird squawked and clucked, wings beating against his hand before the knife found its throat. Blood spattered against the pile of ash and salt, the smell of it mingling with the smoke of burning tallow. He breathed it in, then tossed the bird aside.
It is weak.
Another cage, this time a stoat, small and cunning. He needed its view of treachery to corrupt the hearts of men. Its blood added to the muddy mass on the altar. A third cage, an old tom cat, full of guile and pride. This one he slit down its length, ignoring its last frantic scrabbling at life as he pulled its innards clean and letting them rest atop the red, wet mass growing on the altar. The magic he made was fed by a strength he didn’t know he had, his power lifting up to a new scale that—
The force of the river’s fall.
—he hadn’t dared dream of. When he’d sought out the Night he’d known of the physical benefits, but that it would also lift up his inner power was delightful. He looked between the altar and the bodies cast to the side. There was still one thing missing. Snakes, of course.
Snakes, for their devious nature. Snakes, for the lies they told to Eve at the beginning of it all. Snakes, to make men kill their brothers, as Cain had done to Abel. Snakes, to make fathers kill their children, daughters to whore themselves to spite their mothers.
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