by Levi Black
“Because I miss him.”
“You would trade your world for time with him?”
I let all of my weariness and frustration out in a long sigh. “I’ve been through too much shit not to at this point.” I raise the soul gem. “Give me your word and I will take it. Ring for soul gem, even steven swapsies.”
He studies me for a long moment before sheathing Oathbreaker in his belt, reaching over, and slipping the ring off his red right hand. “Even steven swapsies,” he intones solemnly.
We move closer, like two blind dogs who smell the same marrowbone, both of us holding out the thing the other wants.
Close enough, we reach at the same time and I pluck the ring from his fingers the same time he takes the soul gem from mine.
I move back immediately, making distance.
The Man in Black looks down at me, brows knit together over deep cave eyes.
“What?” I say.
“I did not expect that to go as we agreed.”
“I trusted you.”
“Even after all the treachery?”
“You still don’t lie.”
“This is true.”
I feel like I am far enough away. “You have your things; now piss off.”
“You were my favorite Acolyte, Charlotte Tristan Moore.”
“You were a shitty mentor.”
“Now you are just being obstinate.”
I shrug and make a shooing motion with my hands.
The Man in Black touches his brow with the fingertips of his red right hand in salute, a sly, shark-toothed smile on his mouth. “Fare thee well.”
And like that, in a swirl of magick and brimstone, he is gone.
64
DANIEL SCREAMS.
Javier lies across him as the bed rattles on the cobblestones. I move quickly, wrapping his flailing arm under mine and pulling his hand up. The ring slips over his finger like it wants to go there.
It seats against his knuckle with an audible crack! as the gem in it lights up like it has gone radioactive.
Daniel goes limp, every ounce of tension just gone.
Is he…?
“Javier, move! Let me see!” I shove him off Daniel, searching with my eyes and feeling with my hands.
I almost fall to my knees with relief to find he is still breathing.
“It’s okay, Charlie; it’s cool,” Javier says.
The ring begins to dim and the gold band melts, flowing into the skin on the back of Daniel’s hand; the emerald stutters in and out of existence, each stutter sinking it a fraction into Daniel’s fingers.
After a few minutes, it disappears.
Daniel lies on the bed. He looks as if he is just sleeping.
God, please let him just be sleeping.
Something bumps my hip and the coat trills in my head. I look down and the skinhound is there, looking up with his one eye tilted toward me.
I drop to a crouch and put my hands on the sides of his slick skull. I stroke him like a real dog, ignoring the feeling of my fingers skipping over little bunches of muscles, slipping through the viscous fluid that coats the skinhound from nose to tail. As I pet him I murmur to him, “Good boy. You guarded him, gooooood boy.” His jaw full of bone-cracking teeth opens and his tongue lolls out as he begins panting.
He looks so much like a real dog it yanks a sharp laugh from me that hurts my chest when it comes.
“Hey, Charlie, where’s Ash?”
The question makes me sigh. I try to keep my voice even, but there’s an edge to it. “She’s not coming.”
Javier takes the news with a nod. “Is she…?” He lets it trail off.
“No.” But she should be.
“So—”
I cut him off. “If you ever see her again, run. Don’t trust her.”
Hands up. “Okay, okay, jeez.”
I need to move.
Time is passing and I need to do what I need to do before I lose my nerve.
I do not want to do what I need to do.
Goddammit.
I give the skinhound a gentle push away and stand. Looking around, I find Mylendor crouched beside the King in Yellow. Walking over to them, my feet feel like they are encased in lead.
As I draw near, Mylendor looks at me warily.
“How is he?” I ask.
“Weak, but he is eternal; he will recover.”
Hastur looks like a scarecrow made of sticks and burlap. His yellow robe is tattered, ragged, and torn, and most of his wings lie scattered in pieces on the ground around us. I squat down in front of him. His skin has gone from creamy jaundice to full neon daffodil, so yellow it nearly hurts to look at him. His lips tremble, pulled thin across his mouth, and his eyes are so sunken into his triangular skull that the lazy one doesn’t even roll, just lies in its socket staring at me as if I’m not there.
“That true, Ramblin’ Wreck? You still a god up in there?”
He tries to speak, his mouth moving but no sound coming. He shifts in Mylendor’s arms and the one cicada wing chimes out all forlorn and empty. A tongue the colour of recycled paper licks his too-thin lips as he finds his voice. “Did you set her free?”
“Yeah, she’s not held captive anymore.”
His smile is weak but there. “Good. Well done, my good and faithful—”
“Stop,” I say. “Your servant is the one holding you. I was your patsy.”
“I had no choice. You should know that. He was my puppeteer.”
“They were your strings to pull.”
He nods assent.
“Do you still have that bracelet?”
He lifts his arm. There on his wrist dangles the bracelet. “It gave him enough control to defeat me.”
“You two aren’t equals,” I say as I reach out and pull the bracelet off his arm and drop it into one of the coat’s pockets. “If you were, he wouldn’t have been able to control you at all.”
“Equal enough that he would have left me be.”
I stand; the coat helps. “Mylendor.”
She purrs in response.
“You two are lovers?”
“Yesss,” she hisses.
“Must suck to hear him still ask about the other woman.”
“Doesn’t matter. I am his. I would die for him, kill for him, love for him.” Her wide eyes almost spin in their sockets.
“Do you remember your offer if I saved him?”
“That I would be your servant?”
“Yeah. Was that bullshit?”
“I meant it.”
Here we go.
The coat burbles along the back of my skull.
“Hey, Hastur.”
He looks up at me, leaning back on Mylendor. The dumb bitch wraps her arms around him even tighter and begins licking the side of his neck with a tongue too long to fit inside her mouth. “Yes?”
“If it were your free will, would you have done anything differently?”
It takes him a long moment to answer. “No, not for you.”
“Thought so.”
The coat flares out around me, opening across my chest as my hand sinks into its depths and comes out with Ephraim’s shotgun. I can feel the heat of the hellfire in the chamber through the Mark on my hand as I pull it clear.
I drop the slide into my other hand and pull the trigger.
65
THE GOUT OF balefire obliterates both of their heads, just shears them off the necks underneath.
I rack the slide, then drop the shotgun back into the coat locked and loaded.
I hear Javier yelling something, but it’s muffled and distant, my ears shut from the blast I just fired.
I’m ignoring him anyway, I have to do this before I change my mind.
The bodies slide sideways, still wrapped around each other. I drop to my knees beside them and the coat puts the Aqedah in my hand the second it slips into the pocket. A handful of that ratty yellow robe lets me pull Hastur’s body closer.
The skinhound is there, across the body from
me, watching as he noses the body of the dead god. Wisps of smoke come off the charred flesh at the stump of the neck. The skinhound licks it experimentally.
He whuffs and jumps back like a real dog with a snout full of pepper.
“Good boy,” I say.
The Aqedah goes into Hastur’s chest just as easy as it has gone into everything else. I pull it down, slicing hard, making a big opening. I push up the sleeve of the coat, take a deep breath, and shove my hand inside.
It’s like shoving my hand in a deep vat of moist compost.
There isn’t any structure; it’s just mealy, mushy stuff that feels like dirt. Occasionally there is a hard spot that brushes against my arm, but mostly it’s just cool moistness.
Come on. You all have one.
The side of my hand knocks against something hard and round.
Gotcha.
The thing rolls over my wrist when I try to grab it, swinging like a pendulum. It takes a few grabs to get it. Once I do I drag it out.
As the stuff inside Hastur that coats my arm hits the air it liquifies and runs rivulets down my arm.
Ugh.
The thing I pull out is a white sphere. Thin lines, like hairline cracks, swirl around the surface. I feel it pulse in my hand, laden with a slow thudding power.
The soul gem of the King in Yellow.
“Charlie.”
It’s Javier’s voice.
“Charlie, he’s awake.”
Wait.
Daniel.
I pocket the soul gem and stand, shaking the ichor of Hastur (say that three times fast) off my arm. The skinhound bumps me before I can take a step.
I push back with my thigh and he bumps me harder.
I look down at him.
The coat sings and I get it.
“You’re with me?” I ask the vivisected canine by my side.
He answers with a yip.
All right then.
I move over to Javier and Daniel, who is sitting up on the bed now. He’s thin, so thin, compared to how he looked before, but his eyes are bright and clear.
“Hey, Charlie,” he says. Damn, his little crooked smile gets me.
“Hey.”
He moves his head, looking around pointedly. “Seems like some weird shit has happened.”
“More than I’d like.”
He nods and his bangs fall over his eyes. He blows them up out of the way. “You look good.”
“Baby”—it feels right calling him that—“I look terrible.”
“Well, yeah, but it seems like a million years since I’ve seen you.”
“You’ve been away for a while.”
“Not a million years, I hope.”
“No, not that long.”
“Good.” He smiles a little again and takes a deep breath. “I’m still pretty tired.”
“You can rest.” Oh god. “Javier will watch over you.”
“Javier?” he asks.
Javier moves around beside me. “Hey, Daniel.”
“Hey. Okay.” He squints at Javier. “I don’t know you, do I?”
“No, esse, but we cool.”
Daniel looks at me.
“You two are cool,” I assure him.
Daniel nods. “Solid.”
I take a deep breath. This is hard. Getting harder.
“You did it,” Daniel says.
“Did what?”
“Won.”
Fuck.
He looks at my face. “What is it?”
“I have to go.”
“It’s not over?”
“No.” Not by a long shot.
He pushes to stand. The bed rolls a little and Javier catches it before it gets away. The movement makes Daniel’s hospital gown rise and I look up at his eyes before it gets too high.
I’m not ready for anything like that.
And I have to go.
“Daniel…”
“Let’s go,” he says.
“You can’t. I’m sending you with Javier.”
“Dammit, Charlie,” he says.
I put my hand on his chest and he stops. I reach over and touch Javier on his arm.
“I love you, Daniel; that’s why I have to try and stop him.”
“Let me…”
“Javier, take care of him.”
“Okay, chica.” Javier grins.
Daniel grabs the coat. Tears roll down his face. “Charlie, I love you; I just got you back; don’t do this.”
“I love you.” Over my shoulder I say to the skinhound, “Stay.”
Now.
The coat furls around the three of us, wrapping us tightly as I pick my place and wish. The remnants of Ashtoreth’s essence bubble up from inside me and we slide sideways across space, protected by the coat.
The moment we hit linoleum the coat opens and I smell that hospital smell. The room looks the same and it’s empty, which is good. Daniel and Javier stagger a few steps away as the coat opens. Daniel turns, looking at me with an expression that cuts me to the core.
“Don’t go,” he says.
I take one last long look at him, memorizing every detail that I can, as the coat closes around me. One wish and I’m moving back to Carcosa.
The skinhound waits where I left him.
“Ready to go?” I ask him.
He bounces his skull up and down in what looks like a nod. I crouch, draping the coat over him and pulling him close. My chest is tight, but I keep moving, keep working, to keep from crying.
The bracelet that was on Hastur’s wrist is in my right hand. I spit on the Mark there, the body fluid really kicking the magick into gear. The torc tightens around my throat as I trace the Man in Black, the one who owned this jewelry he used to control Hastur. The line stretches far, far away, pulled as thin as a strand of spider silk.
But it is still attached.
I find him, a crimson pinprick on the velvet of the universe.
The coat singsongs around it.
Yes, it’s a long way. You can stay; you don’t have to go; just give me my weapons.
The song in my brain turns harsh, scouring around the edges of my brainpan, and I hear that it won’t abandon me.
And fuck me for thinking it would.
Okay, okay, sheesh.
I reach in and take hold of the Hastur gem, letting its smooth surface fill my palm. The power in it throbs, making the bones of my wrist ache.
I hope it’s enough as I fixate on the Man in Black and make my wish.
If not we will be stranded somewhere in the middle of the universe.
I take a deep breath and begin to draw in the power of the gem, making my magick go bubbly and acidic in my veins.
Get ready you red-handed son of a bitch, ’cause here I come.
TOR BOOKS BY LEVI BLACK
Red Right Hand
Black Goat Blues
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LEVI BLACK lives in Metro Atlanta with his wife and an array of toys, books, records, and comics. He’s been weird his whole life and is almost as scary as he looks.
Visit him at https://leviblackbooks.wordpress.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Tor Book by Levi Black
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BLACK GOAT BLUES
Copyright © 2017 by James R. Tuck
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Cliff Nielsen
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-8250-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-8761-9 (ebook)
eISBN 9781466887619
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