High Voltage

by Karen Marie Moning

  Fallon bustled into the library then with Enyo and four Adepts, buckets of soapy water, trash bags, and cloths.

  We soldiered up and began cleaning the remains from the walls and floor in grim silence.

  * * *

  π

  I took the long, circuitous way home, knowing I’d only sit, staring, playing Bridget’s death through my mind, seeing images of the bits and pieces of her being reassembled into a bloody whole that could never be made whole again.

  There were many things I should do, as dusk took my city.

  At the moment I was sitting on my idling bike in the empty lot above Chester’s nightclub. The rubble littering the pavement was hauled off years ago by the Dublin Cleanup Crew, leaving only a fractured concrete surface with deep jagged cracks and a heavily warded trapdoor.

  Not, however, too heavily warded for me, and besides I’d found the back way in two years ago.

  That was the night I’d discovered, locked in a storage room deep beneath the club, a small printing press and reams and reams of paper. I also found the initials RKS at the bottom of a pile of legal documents, granting Ryodan title to properties all over Dublin. I’d entertained myself endlessly trying to guess his last name. Depending on my mood, they’d ranged from exotic and sexy to absurd.

  How many dragons had the man launched into my sky for me, trying to keep me too busy to get myself killed? The Dublin Daily was once the bane of my existence, occupying hours of my time, inspiring me to write smarter, try harder, take myself more seriously. It, and WeCare, which I sometimes suspected he’d created as well, had kept me fighting faceless entities rather than racing out into the streets seeking more tangible, deadly foes.

  “Come back already,” I muttered at the empty lot.

  I missed him and the simple way he saw me, without any filters. I missed feeling the way I felt around him. He was gasoline to my fire, matches to my dynamite. He’d enjoyed my fire, my dynamite. And, whether I’d liked it or not—and most of the time I hadn’t—he’d kept me from blowing myself or too many others up with it.

  Life wasn’t the same without him around. Although I love my city, my life, Dublin without the Nine, without Mac and Barrons, is a Big Top Circus without a single lion, tiger, or bear. Not even elephants. Just chimps, clowns, and sheep. Oodles and oodles of sheep. And snakes—those are the Fae. I used to like being the only superhero in town. I’m so over that.

  Countless were the times I’d considered calling him on my cellphone.

  Countless were the times I’d shoved it back in my pocket, accepting his absence for what it was: a desire to be somewhere else that was not with me. The man who’d launched my dragons didn’t care enough to call or text me a single time in over two years to see how I was doing.

  Or if I was even still alive. Leaving was one thing. Never checking in was unforgivable.

  “Rot in purgatory, Ryodan,” I growled as I put my bike in gear.

  * * *

  π

  Shaz and I have code names for our many residences. I doubt I need them. I suspect he can find me anywhere, anytime he wants, and thinks it’s funny to humor me by pretending to read the notes I scrawl telling him where I am.

  Before I’d left this morning, I’d scribbled the word “Sanctuary” across the bedroom wall in Sharpie. An enemy would have no idea what it meant. Shazam would know he’d find me in the penthouse flat that occupied the top floor of a building on the north side of the River Liffey. I prefer to live up high, with a clear view of my city below. On those rare occasions I’m not patrolling at night, I love to sit on the fire escape, beyond the tall arched windows that line the wall floor to ceiling, and watch the river slide by, the lights twinkling like fallen stars in the streets.

  Sanctuary is a study in grays and blacks and whites, the most colorless of my abodes. I crave its Spartan elegance when something’s bothering me, eschewing the distracting brightness of the world to think surrounded by soothing monotones.

  I dislike doing anything uniform or predictable that might allow an enemy to track me, yet a risky number of my residences are penthouses, as they afford tall windows and vaulted ceilings. I accept the liability in exchange for space, room to breathe, and a place to burn off restless energy. In Sanctuary’s enormous living room that’s void of all furniture, on a polished black floor that I can see my own reflection in, facing a wall of windows, with a line of fire burning behind glass at my back, on hard nights in my chronic town I dance like I once danced on another world, beneath three full moons, abandoned to a song only I can hear. I dance to get it all out, the emotion that builds up inside me. I dance until, exhausted, often weeping, I sleep.

  My kitchen is a sleek modern affair of quartz, chrome, and black marble floors. Those floors spill throughout the entire flat, and are easy to mop blood from. Usually when I seek Sanctuary, I’m bleeding.

  Tonight there was no blood, just an arm as black as my floors.

  Shazam was sprawled fatly across the ivory island, occupying half of it, tearing flesh off the skull of—

  “Is that a pig?” I said disbelievingly. “You ate an entire pig?” From the amount of blood staining the counters, dripping down the sides, and the size of the hooves he’d left uneaten, it was a full-grown pig, too.

  Shrugging, he said nothing, only studied a distant space in the air and licked innocently at a paw, tail twitching with audible thumps against the quartz.

  “Good grief. You might have at least saved me a flank of bacon,” I groused as I rummaged in the pantry for a can of coconut milk and a couple of protein shakes. My stomach was queasy but I needed energy. During our time together in the Silvers, Shazam had often hunted for me, and I’d hacked the flanks off more animals than I could count, filleted and roasted them over a fire. I might seem a bit barbaric to the rest of the world. The world seems barbaric to me.

  I tossed back the coconut milk, followed by the protein shakes, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand then turned to find Shazam standing, back arched like a horseshoe, porcupine bristles ridging his spine, lips drawn back in a silent snarl as he stared down the long ebony-floored hallway that, after a right turn into a small foyer, led to the front door. Anytime he does that, a chill ices my spine. He’s never wrong. My Hel-Cat’s hearing and sense of smell is more acute than mine. It’s kept us alive on many occasions, both in Dublin and as we wandered hostile planets in the Silvers.

  When he freezes, I freeze. And prepare.

  Still, anything that might come through a door doesn’t worry me overmuch. The truly dangerous things don’t need doors.

  Shazam tipped his regal shaggy head to look at me. Violet eyes lingered on my left arm, moved up to the shoulder, then to my face. Whiskers trembling, he whispered, “It’s changed again.”

  “Is something at the door?” I whispered back.

  “Yes. Are you all right, Yi-yi? Does it hurt?” he fretted.

  I shook my head. Only the things I’d done with it hurt. My heart ached. A part of it would ache eternally for Bridget. I’d cut a good person’s life short. Some people try to pay for their mistakes by punishing themselves. I don’t. Not only doesn’t it undo the mistake you made, it turns you into a nonproductive liability, and makes everyone who has to put up with you miserable. The way I see it, if you screw up you have two choices: kill yourself or try harder.

  His luminous eyes grew dewy. “Make the black skin go away. Tell it to leave. It’s hurting your heart, Yi-yi.”

  I considered that, eyes darting back to the long hall leading to the door. Faint but there, a wet snuffling, a scraping against the threshold. I considered my arm, the terrible power it held. The sword I needed to protect. The world I’d chosen to guard. Assuming it were possible, would I do it? Turn my back on power I might use for good, if I could learn to control it?

  I didn’t find what was happening to me a terrible thin
g. I found my lack of understanding and inability to control it the problem; one I intended to quickly remedy.

  Shazam knows me well. I’m unguarded around my quixotic, unconditionally loving friend, my normally shuttered gaze open, expressive.

  “Oh, Yi-yi,” he whispered, tears filling his eyes. “You wouldn’t unchoose it if you could. You want it.”

  I did. I inclined my head and smiled faintly. He smiled back, albeit tearfully. It’s strange to see Shazam smile, thin lips peeling back from sharp fangs, curving up into his cheeks. It always reminds me of something but it’s proved an elusive memory.

  A volley of thuds hit the front door and I heard it splinter with a thunderous crash.

  Shazam vanished, leaving me alone to face it.

  I rolled my eyes at the half-stripped bloody skull on the island. “Coward,” I muttered as I closed my fingers on the hilt of my sword and began to pad stealthily down the long hallway toward the door.

  Demons dreaming, breathe in, breathe in, I’m coming back again

  I’VE FACED MANY MONSTERS in my life, in Dublin and on countless worlds in the Silvers. I’ve battled on planets of endless night, and scorching desert worlds with multiple suns. I survived by detaching from everything I know, think, and feel and engaging fully in the fight. Some say I’ve done unspeakable things. I disagree. I’ve simply done things I don’t like to speak about and they wouldn’t like to hear.

  I could hear it, down the hallway, around a corner, in the foyer near the guest bath (as if I ever had guests), but even without the labored panting of its breath that hitched infrequently on a chilling, snakelike rattle, or the ponderous impact against the floor of whatever appendages on which it prowled (from the sound, my intruder weighed a good four to five hundred pounds), I could feel it.

  It had presence.

  Massive, dark and hungry. Not Fae.

  Staggering power. Familiar in some way, yet…not. I cocked my head and opened my senses, siphoning energy off that deep inner lake from which sidhe-seers draw power—those of us descended from the six ancient Irish Houses mutated eons ago by the addition of the Unseelie King’s blood—but the vast, dark expanse had nothing to offer me. No rune, ward, or gift of foresight to help me discern what lay ahead.

  My hand itched relentlessly, as if allergic welts were sprouting beneath my skin. Gritting my teeth against the distraction, I began to pad forward again.

  A grunt was followed by a long, guttural groan and a wet snuffle. There was a dull thump, as if my enemy had stumbled against the wall.

  Good, a weakness: it was clumsy. Some of my most lethal foes had possessed enormous strength but moved with such heaviness of limb, I’d danced around them as they’d died.

  I bent and drew a six-inch military knife from my boot with my left hand, releasing the switchblade with a nearly inaudible snick. Since I hadn’t blown up my bike when I’d grasped the handlebars on the way back to Dublin, I figured I was safe wielding a weapon. Apparently, I only blew up living things. Lovely. Still, I wasn’t willing to put my sword in that dangerous hand, so I was going to be fighting handicapped. I eased the long gleaming sword free with my right hand and crept forward again.

  There was another softer grunt that ended on a slobbering sigh and sounded…pained?

  Was my enemy already injured? Perfect. I could end it fast. I had more important things to do tonight. I knew my left arm was deadly—bare flesh to bare flesh—but I needed to know if, wrapped in layers of clothing, that killing touch was neutralized. If so, the solution was simple: sleeve and glove up. I needed to hunt tonight, and not a blasted animal. I required a human to test my theory.

  Sounds of a heavy body moving on…I listened intently…four feet, followed by another thud then the console table in my foyer crashing to the floor, taking vases and a crystal lamp with it.

  Followed by a long, shuddering groan of agony. A ragged exhale.

  Then silence.

  Two possibilities: it was either a trick to lure me near, sucker me into believing my enemy wounded and helpless; or a massively powerful creature had, for reasons unknown, come to my flat to die and was going to wreck my furniture in the process. Sanctuary was the only flat I’d furnished myself, and the truest reflection of my taste. Bloody hell, as if there wasn’t already enough blood in my kitchen to clean up!

  Often on distant worlds I’d been so exhausted from prior battles, I’d learned not to rush into future ones. Waiting frequently yielded more information, or goaded an increasingly bored enemy into rash action.

  I leaned back against the wall and bided my time. Three minutes passed, then five. I could still feel its presence but it hadn’t made a single move. I listened to faint, irregular, shallow breaths and counted between them. The thing, whatever it was, breathed once every two minutes or so.

  By ten minutes I was bored out of my skull and had decided it was definitely option two. Something was dying or dead in my foyer and I was growing increasingly chafed by the thought of it bleeding out on my floors, staining the grout and probably soaking into my walls. I hate cleaning. It’s something I can’t do in the slipstream. I have to slow-mo Joe around my flats and dust and mop like everyone else. Blood on grout takes bleach and a scrub brush. Bleach on marble is a bad idea.

  Peeling away from the wall, I glided soundlessly forward. When I reached the corner, I inhaled deeply and ducked my head several feet lower in case unfriendly fire was coming, focused hard (isolating a single part of my body is difficult, if I’m not careful I can sprain every tendon and ligament attached to that part), put myself in freeze-frame from the neck up, snatched a hasty look and retreated.

  Then, rubbernecking wildly, I did a double take.

  “Oh, shit!” I exploded.

  An enormous black-skinned beast was collapsed on the floor of my foyer and, from the looks of it, was dying!

  It was one of the Nine.

  I couldn’t believe one of the immortals had finally surfaced in Dublin for the first time in years and, holy hell, I’d been crouching around the corner listening to him die!

  I scanned the creature for identifying features but found none. As beasts, I can’t tell them apart. I’m not sure anyone could. Was this Barrons? Did that mean Mac was injured? Ryodan, Lor, or one of the others? What was wrong with him?

  I approached with care. Before I’d met Shazam Silverside, I’d had to trap my own kills. I hate killing animals but I had to eat. One night I’d caught a beautiful llama-like creature in a trap I designed for a small boar. By the time I’d found it, it was mortally injured but still alive, and nearly insane with hunger, pain, and fear. I’d wept while I battled its great, thrashing hooves to get close enough to slit its throat and end its suffering.

  The beast on the floor reminded me of that half-mad creature, tormented past endurance. I paused half a dozen paces away. He didn’t weigh anywhere near the four to five hundred pounds I’d thought. Perhaps he once had but now his ribs were sharp-edged razors beneath a black hide. Nine feet tall, dangerously thin, sprawled on his side, stomach caved in, barely breathing, he weighed maybe three hundred pounds. I’d thought he was heavier because it sounded like he’d been nearly collapsing with each step.

  His face was sharp-planed, primitive with a ridged forehead and a tangle of long dark hair. Three sets of lethal horns flanked his enormous head, with the rear set curving toward his back. Deadly fangs as long as my fingers protruded from a mouth limned with spittle and foam.

  As I inched closer he dragged his head from the floor to gaze at me.

  I froze.

  Burning crimson eyes with vertical pupils locked with mine, and I jerked from the sheer intensity of his gaze. When he unhinged impossibly large jaws and growled, revealing long sharp fangs, I nearly inched backward, despite his weakened condition. Even dying, he saturated the foyer with fury, hunger, madness.

  I said,
“I know you’re one of the Nine. You came to me for a reason. Let me help you.” I could see no wounds on this side of his body. Would he roll over for me? Would he let me touch him; was he strong enough to stop me if I tried? Holy composite, rational, perfect square numbers, one of the Nine was finally back! Kaleidoscopic colors gushed back into my world again with the force of an unchecked fire hydrant.

  The beast growled again but tapered off to a whimpering moan as he dropped his head to the floor with an audible crack of bone on tile.

  My eyes narrowed. Five days in a cage. Five days my mother didn’t come home to feed me. I’d collapsed the same way. Although she’d wept as she finally fed me, her tears hadn’t moved me like they used to. My hands fisted. I can’t stand to see anyone starved, helpless.

  “I’ll be back with food,” I said, although I doubted he understood me. His gaze was dimming, his head lolled to the side, eyes closing, then a single one snapped back open and a flash of crimson fire tracked me as I left.

  Thanks to Shazam, my flats are amply stocked with meat. He hunts only once a day but he’s incessantly hungry, binge-eating like a bottomless black hole. I get him pig blood from the butcher on Parnell Street; keep some frozen, some thawed. That’s another reason I don’t have guests. The contents of my fridge are difficult to explain.

  I grabbed a container of blood and a package of ground beef, a bowl from one of the shelves, and dumped it together then hurried back to the beast. He didn’t move a muscle as I approached this time so I placed the bowl near his head and waited for him to slide one of his massive appendages with long cruel talons around the bowl. Though his nostrils flared slightly and he exhaled with a low, rattling sound, he made no move for the food. He was too weak.