Vengeance Moon

by Lee Roland

  “You’re hiding here. You haven’t talked to him.”

  “He would kill me on sight. I was the one who stood witness at the inquest for our slain brother. Aiakós wanted me to lie, but I would not. He is far stronger than I am.”

  “Wow.” An interesting story, but why was he telling me all of this? And could I trust him? How had he known where to find me to bring me here? Did he have Drows positioned near the Den, watching for me, waiting for me?

  Kyros laid a hand flat on the table. Why would a nonviolent race have claws? It seemed to work against the laws of nature . . . But I lived under the Earth Mother’s laws, the laws of this world. I realized things could work differently in other realms.

  “I am curious,” Kyros said. “What is the young prince to you? I see him with you. There is something there I don’t understand.”

  “Young prince? You mean Michael?”

  “Yes. It is not common for our race to mate with yours, and even more rare that such a mating would produce a child. Michael, were he in our world, would not be eligible to take the throne, but he would be a prince and most welcome.”

  “I’m not sure what Michael is to me. I’m still working that out.” I bit my lip, but I had to ask. “One of the Custos tried to kill him the other night.”

  “And almost killed you. The Custos of which you speak was named Azema. He was grieving. Aiakós hunts them, kills them for sport. He is a very efficient killer and he killed Azema’s mate. Azema saw Michael as an extension of Aiakós. It is a tragedy.”

  “I’m sorry I had to kill him. I couldn’t let him hurt Michael.”

  “I understand.”

  The young Beheras from the Dumpster bumped against my knee. He was as big as a St. Bernard. I laid a hand on his shoulder. “Who is this?”

  “Termins,” Kyros said.

  “How many of you are there? How do you survive?”

  “There is myself, eight adult Beheras, a young Beheras, six Custos, and ten Tektos.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot to feed. I believe I have two Tektos under my protection right now. There was a wound on one’s back. I did the best I could.”

  Kyros smiled. “I know. The others told me. The Tektos can be endearing—and infuriating. They are sentient, but have limited reasoning capability. Don’t worry too much about the wound. They are very hardy creatures.”

  His claws tapped lightly against the table. “As for survival, food is difficult. The Tektos eat rats, but it’s not a good diet. The Custos hunt over the marshland at night. Small things, but occasionally they catch a deer. The Beheras go into the swamps and gather plants, but there is little sustenance for them there. It will be worse when winter comes.”

  Since he seemed to be forthcoming, I had to ask. “This talisman that was misused to bring you here, can you use it to go home?”

  “Absolutely. At the proper time.”

  Of course. I knew the time: the summer solstice, two days from now. And the place . . .

  “The Zombie Zone,” I said quietly. “There’s a plaza there that forms a giant pentagram.” The place where Michael’s mother had sacrificed herself for Aiakós.

  “Yes, that is an Apex in this world. I have traveled between worlds many times. Even I can feel the correct hour approaching.”

  I had no way of verifying anything Kyros told me. No reason to trust him.

  “Thank you for telling me all this. Few people I’ve met here have given me straight answers. But why did you bring me here? Why share your history with me?”

  Kyros smiled. “You have shown kindness to us. We hope you can help us obtain food. We simply implore that you not tell Michael of us—or at least of me. I fear he will speak of us to Aiakós.”

  “Okay. Let me see if I can get some money.” Maybe I could get the Sisters to fork over some if I didn’t tell them what it was for.

  “I have what you consider currency.” He drew a wad of hundred-dollar bills out of his robe. He registered my shock. “I have seen how your people kill each other to obtain them. I recovered these from a man who came into the ruins. He had a young woman with him and he hurt her. I killed him. She ran away.”

  He killed him. So casual, so cool . . . or was it? I knew nothing of him other than what he had told me.

  “And you stole his money.”

  Kyros laughed softly. He might be no danger to me, but he was not totally benign. “Yes, and when others like him have come, I have done the same. They don’t come here very often anymore.”

  I accepted the money. Several thousand dollars, from the look of it. Must’ve been a lot of visitors in these parts before they were chased out. I could buy a lot of food with this. Not just vegetables, either.

  “I’ll get it delivered as soon as I can. Near dark. You’ll be able to get to it easily.”

  “Why should darkness matter?”

  “I was told the Drows . . . your people don’t come into the sunlight.”

  He shrugged. “You are misinformed. There are some that cannot bear the light. We go out in the dark only because we must hide, not because we don’t enjoy the sun. Your sun is not as bright as ours, but it is warm.”

  As I left with the money in hand, I thought about all that Kyros had shared with me. I needed to rethink my assumptions about the Drows. Perhaps the Sisters did not have all the answers.

  Chapter 27

  Termas escorted me until I could see River Street. Kyros told me how to tell them apart. There was an odd marking on the scales near the shoulder, individual as a name for all of them. I memorized all eight. I was respectful of the Custos, as I had killed one of their own, but cautious. It was difficult to get beyond the memory of pain. They seemed to understand.

  We had come north toward the bars, which were just letting out for the night. I emerged from the alley into a small crowd of the younger prostitutes. They stepped out of my way, backed up, and skipped away. I’d only startled them, though, and they quickly recovered.

  I walked north on River Street, back toward my apartment. Kyros and his Drows had offered me no harm, but I had no way of judging the truth of what I was told. I certainly had compassion for those I had interacted with personally. I cared for Spot and Grace, caught in a trap for snake food, and Termas, digging through Dumpsters to feed his child.

  No matter how much it hurt, I couldn’t help the Drows until I found the Portal. But what would I do with it? Return it to the Sisters and leave the Drows to suffer in a place they didn’t belong? I didn’t know.

  My new phone gave me the time. Two a.m. I picked up my pace. Tired and uncomfortable, I wanted to be inside, away from this street.

  “Madeline?” A voice came from a doorway.

  I stopped and was startled to see Riggs.

  “What are you doing here?” He stepped out onto the sidewalk. “I thought you were with Michael.”

  “I was for a while. I had something to do.”

  A boy erupted from the doorway behind him. “Hey, Father Riggs, can I . . .” He had seen me. “Sorry,” he said and slipped back through the door.

  “Father Riggs? You’re a priest?”

  “I was once. I fell from grace. Not pious enough, apparently. Or obedient.”

  I shrugged. “That’s okay. I’m not good at rules, either.”

  He grinned. “I’ve noticed. I try to get these kids off the street. Sometimes it works. Come in for a moment.” He gestured toward the door.

  I walked into a room full of light and laughter, laughter that died as soon as they saw me. Boys and girls, five of them, as young as those on the street outside. A dartboard hung on the wall and a well-worn pool table sat in the middle of the room.

  “This is Madeline,” Riggs said them. “She’s a friend of mine.”

  They didn’t speak, and their silence held until he led me toward a back room, an office. As he closed the door, the laughter picked back up behind us.

  “They’re wary. I keep this place as a sanctuary at night. Any runaway who wants to go home can co
me here and I arrange it. No one bothers us because of Michael. Michael will come protect us if we need it.” He gestured toward a chair in front of a shabby desk covered with papers. A rusty file cabinet sat against the wall. One drawer was partially open and cocked to the side as if defying anyone to close it. A crucifix decorated the wall behind the desk.

  I sat in the chair and it sank down an inch or so. “When do you sleep?” I knew he spent long hours at the Den.

  “When I can.”

  “No wonder you were grumpy when Hildy called you the morning I arrived.” I thought a minute. “But you did what Hildy told you to do. Why? Is she important to you?”

  This was a night for revelation. I basked in it.

  “Hildy, as well as Michael, provides me with money to keep this place going. Hildy asks—or orders—and I do my best to get what she wants. Hildy has helped many people. We are all grateful.”

  He was grateful. I wondered where she got the money. Unless she was trading in weapons or drugs, it didn’t come from the pawnshop.

  Riggs frowned. “But I’m more interested in why you’re down here and not with Michael. You should be together. You’d be good for him.”

  “It’s complicated, Riggs. I have something to do here and I don’t have time for a romance.”

  “And you’re afraid of it.” He smiled and his eyes glittered.

  I grinned. “Terrified.”

  “Have you considered that he might help you?”

  “Possibly. I’ve known him only a few days.”

  Riggs sighed and shook his head. “Years ago, in the church, we had a celebration of long-term marriages. Twenty couples married more than thirty years told their stories. Over half said they fell in love from the first moment they saw their partners. Could that not be true for you and him?”

  He reminded me of the first time I saw Michael. The first time he saw me, I was dying. “It doesn’t matter, Riggs. If I get involved with him, my mission here might not get done.”

  “You think that simply accepting love from a man will deter you from a goal?”

  “No, but the man himself might stop me. He’s controlling. It would be a constant battle if I give in.”

  “How much do you know about him?”

  “I met his father.”

  Riggs rubbed his hand across his mouth. “That creature is evil incarnate. He would destroy everything, a whole world, to get his way.”

  “He wants Michael to join him.”

  “Michael has confessed many things to me. I will not speak of them. But he is one who needs love desperately. True love, not the adoration of the masses. If he does not find it soon, he will fall to the only person—or thing—that even moderately cares. I believe Aiakós does love his son in many ways. But Aiakós will destroy him. Or at least the part that is human.”

  “And I’m supposed to be his salvation.” I didn’t like that. I had my own problems. And I wasn’t sure Michael wanted to be saved from anything.

  “I don’t know what you are supposed to be, Madeline. Beautiful women throw themselves at him constantly. You are what he wants.”

  I stood. “I don’t think I’m that strong.”

  “You don’t think you are beautiful, either.” He stood, too. “You are wrong. Simply and tragically wrong.”

  I left Riggs’s sanctuary with a lot to think about as I walked back to Harry’s. I wanted Michael as much as ever. I’d told Riggs I was terrified, and that was the truth. One of Lillian’s lectures came to mind. A Sister of Justice always faces and conquers her fears. It is a measure of her worth. How much was I worth?

  As I approached Harry’s, I could see Michael sitting in his Jag, waiting on me. It was exactly what I wanted.

  I opened the door and climbed in.

  Chapter 28

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “I wanted to go up, but the light was off. I thought you were sleeping.”

  “No. I’m not okay.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “I saw him. The man who killed my parents. I chased him, but he got away.” I’d say that much.

  “I see. And if you had caught him?”

  I didn’t speak. The notion that I had come here to kill a man seemed far away right now.

  “Can I do anything? Help you?”

  I remembered Riggs’s words. Would being with Michael deter me from catching my man? Certainly he had kicked me off track. Love? No, not yet. Desire? I’d take a chance on that.

  I slid my hand in his. “Take me home with you. I need a shower.”

  “You’re sure?” He hesitated. “I’ll take you to Étienne, if you want.”

  That pissed me off. “Why are you so jealous? If I wanted Étienne, I’d be with him, not wandering the damned streets of the Barrows.” I jerked my hand away, made a fist and pounded it on the seat rather than his hard head. How could someone so adored be so insecure? Was Riggs right? “I want you, Michael. I’m terrified of you.”

  “Will you tell me what frightens you? I’ve told you I’m in control when I change.”

  “It’s not that. I’ve already said it. I’m afraid you’ll own me. You’re so intense. If I relax, I could be overwhelmed.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  It didn’t take long to get to the Archangel. He drove around to the back, where a door slid up to let the Jag glide in. The interior lights came on in a large garage and he turned off the engine.

  I wanted to share everything I’d seen that night. I wanted to speak of Kyros, his uncle, the Beheras, the Custos, the Tektos, all new and wondrous—and terrifying—to me. But no matter how much I wanted to tell him, he was still a stranger. I simply couldn’t turn desire into that kind of trust. If I didn’t trust him to let me keep my freedom, how could I trust him to keep the secrets of Kyros and his kind? Their lives depended on it.

  Michael drew a deep breath. As if he could read my thoughts, he said, “Madeline, there are many things about me you don’t know. Some of them are pretty bad. When I was a child, my mother was in and out of institutions. She’d gone insane after she’d returned from the world where she met my father. We had no money. She’d have been better off in a regulated state facility, but her family wanted to keep her hidden in a squalid cell. They had no use for me or my older brother. We were both bastards of little significance.” He spoke with contempt—and hatred. I don’t know if it approached my compulsion, but he could probably empathize. He continued.

  “I knew I needed money. Fast. As soon as I turned eighteen, I tried to go to work. It was impossible. No one would hire me. My presence was too distracting. I did odd jobs, yard work, things like that. One day an older woman offered me a considerable bit of money for other services. After that, I found others like her. When one client ran out of money, I went on to the next. I was deeply ashamed, but I finally had enough to go to court and get custody of my mother from her family. The facility I placed her in wasn’t the best, but it was better. Things were good for a while. Then her illness began to take hold of my brother.” He stopped and breathed deeply. Whatever had happened to his brother had affected him profoundly.

  He leaned back against the headrest. “I went to New York. Much more money there. I worked as a very expensive, very private escort for very wealthy women. And men.”

  Michael laughed softly. It sounded more like irony than mirth. “I made good investments. Once I had enough money, I came back to Duivel and placed my mother in an expensive asylum, where she stayed until two years ago.”

  I shivered. I knew what came next. Part of Michael’s past disturbed me. I tried to keep my judgment in check. Michael had sold himself for his mother. I thought about my ruthless quest to avenge my parents. Perhaps her insanity and poverty had been a curse of a different kind for Michael.

  Michael sighed. “In some ways, I’m as chained to the Barrows as he . . . as Aiakós is. I can pass as human most of the time, but my true nature will show occasionally.” He gripped the steering wheel. “When I first came back to
the Barrows, the vice was incredible. Prostitution, sexual slavery, the Bastinados. There were eight gangs, then. They used the Barrows as a base to raid uptown.”

  “What happened to change things?”

  “I saw the possibilities. I killed most of the pimps along River Street and set up my own men as protection specialists for the girls, at a fee much smaller than the pimps’ ninety percent. I had managers at several houses. Uptown Duivel sent its rich and poor to me for sex and games. The backroom gambling made a good profit. Vice in the Barrows made me very wealthy. I slaughtered several Bastinado gangs.”

  “Slaughtered?” I swallowed hard. Demon, they called him. “Personally?”

  “Yes. Five, ten at a time.” He shrugged, as if he spoke of stepping on roaches. “You saw what I can do. It was brutal, but necessary. I . . .”

  I sat silent and waited for him to continue.

  “I will admit to you and no one else, I enjoyed it. Killing them. I suppose that is my father’s side of me.”

  My mind stopped there for an instant. Michael enjoyed killing. I couldn’t quite assimilate those words. I continued to listen in silence.

  “Because I enjoyed it, I stopped. About twelve years ago. Started making money in more legitimate ways. Then Cassandra came. Cass was erratic, unpredictable. But effective. She cut a path through vice in the Barrows like a bulldog on speed. Not intentionally or as effectively as I had, but nothing stood between her and a child.”

  “Did you tell Cassandra all of this?”

  “No. Cassandra never let me get that close.” The irony that filled his voice must have tasted bitter. It showed on his face.

  I had a happy childhood. I had deliberately planned and executed murder in my youth and spent the last six years as an acolyte to assassins. While I would not like to see Michael tear men apart, I had no doubt he could do it. I thought of the bus and the little boy’s burns. The Bastinado I’d savaged. There was a darkness inside Michael that mirrored the darkness in me. For now, I would accept him as he was.