Black City Saint

by Richard A. Knaak

  “How long ago?”

  “Just before the first light of day!”

  Not too long, but long enough. They could be far away. “But why take Fetch?”

  “I don’t know! Hurry!” She pointed south. “That way.”

  It was vaguely in the direction of the address I had. I took one more glance at the sheet, then stuffed it into my pocket.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  In answer, I pulled out the dagger and set the point at her throat.

  Not at all to my surprise, Claryce only smiled at me, even though, despite what she really was, the dagger would’ve made her very dead if I chose to use it.

  “Where is she?” I demanded, in my most even voice possible.

  She put a hand to my cheek, a cool hand that I should’ve realized had stayed too cool to be human. “Claryce” gave me a pout worthy of Clara Bow as she cooed, “She has missed the Gatekeeper . . . it has been a long, long time since he came to her . . .”

  I managed to repress a shudder. “Claryce” wasn’t just talking about someone else. She was referring to herself in the third person . . . just as Her Lady always did.

  Burn her! Burn her! my constant companion roared in my head. His reaction—so ardent after our last couple of days of relative peace with each other—surprised me even more than Her Lady sitting beside me.

  No . . . my response was both to him and in regard to the thing wearing Claryce’s form. This wasn’t Her Lady; this was some puppet with mortal traces in it. Living, but not a thinking creature. In Feirie, they were called changelings.

  At that moment, I didn’t care whether it was a puppet or Her Lady herself. I batted her hand away. “Where is she? How long have you been plotting this?” My eyes narrowed as the answer to the second question immediately came to me. “You’ve always known . . . or at least suspected! Since that night! You expected Oberon to survive!”

  Her Lady might’ve been viewing me from the Court in Feirie, but her changeling evinced a very real twitch of fear. Names were both power and fear in her realm and no name was still feared more than his.

  She recovered quickly, though. The smile returned, the smile that was in no manner Claryce’s. “Your little one sleeps, Gatekeeper . . . She only needed her semblance for a little while . . . to deal with him.”

  It was even more frustrating trying to keep track of Her Lady’s use of the third person while at the same time she spoke about another female, Claryce. I’d had enough of Feirie nuances and Feirie games. I kept the point close to her throat.

  “This may not be able to kill you—though I’m pretty sure the same can’t be said for your changeling here—but it can give you some pain. I want Claryce now.”

  It was a bluff, and unfortunately, she knew it. “Dear Gatekeeper . . . we must be going . . . all is in place . . .” The changeling put her hand on the one holding the dagger. “She will sleep until we finish with him.”

  I had no choice. I got the Packard going. We raced toward the direction she’d indicated. It wasn’t exactly toward the address I’d planned to head and that bothered me. Her Lady might’ve been a master plotter, but she’d learned at the feet of the most insidious.

  At the next intersection, I turned left. A milk truck steered onto the sidewalk to avoid me, bottles spilling out the back.

  The changeling’s expression showed a distinct lack of amusement. “Gatekeeper . . .”

  I didn’t answer her. We were only a few blocks away from the address. I wasn’t sure how Oberon was tied to the original donor, but if he was it fit his twisted humor. Maybe he’d had his human puppet donate the armor so it’d be in a safe place until the right time or maybe he’d left it there in plain sight wondering if I’d ever find out about it.

  The Packard suddenly turned a different direction than I’d intended. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it to steer where I wanted. I glared at her, but she only stared ahead.

  There were oddly few autos on our path back to where she wanted us to go. Moreover, there were many odd, distinctive shadows about the vicinity. I didn’t need the dragon’s eyes to know that they were elements of Feirie. It spoke again how long and thoroughly Her Lady had worked to devise all this.

  And yet, I still couldn’t help thinking she’d assumed too much.

  “Here.”

  No sooner had she spoken than the Packard stopped. The changeling slipped out of the car in one fluid and very surreal motion. I jumped out the other side, the dagger back in my coat and my hand now near where I kept Her Lady’s gift.

  That brought a side glance and a sly smile to the false Claryce’s face. I pretended not to notice, instead reaching out to the dragon to let me see with his eyes.

  He was hesitant, more so than I would’ve expected. I urged him again and he relented. The world shifted . . . and the Feirie shadows deepened. In their depths, I sensed hungers of varying kind, but all set in service to Her Lady.

  For the first time, I began to wonder if maybe Oberon’d overplayed his hand. No one knew him better than Her Lady. No one.

  The changeling gestured with her left hand . . . and the shadows began to converge. We were in a warehouse district, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but still made me wonder.

  “Gatekeeper . . .” She pointed at a long, iron door. I knew why. Even though Her Lady actually physically existed in Feirie, the power of iron was such to her that she’d still feel discomfort. It probably wasn’t that much in this case, but I suspected that she wanted her entire concentration available.

  I stepped in front of the door, than looked back. It didn’t come as a shock that the changeling was nowhere to be seen, nor that the shadows were looming closer. Or that there was no one else in sight, for that matter. She’d considered everything, it seemed.

  And since she hadn’t given me any further commands, I assumed Her Lady wanted me to do as I thought.

  Give me a hand, I demanded.

  He didn’t hesitate that much this time, probably because we were already caught between Oberon and Her Lady and he wanted to survive, even if only as a part of me. I felt the urge to let him take over completely, but fought that down. I only needed what I’d asked for.

  And with that hand, I ripped open the door.

  I let the hand revert to normal as I jumped in. By the time I was past the entrance, I already had Her Lady’s gift drawn.

  From the other side, the changeling walked through the brick wall. At the same time, shadows flowed in from all sides.

  But, in a scene I found too familiar, there was nothing in sight except a single figure standing in the center of the room. He certainly wasn’t Oberon, unless Oberon had switched forms. That the exiled lord of Feirie would choose a grimy hoodlum over the elegant guise of William Delke didn’t make sense, though.

  “Stand before me, my love,” Her Lady uttered through the changeling, for one of the few times since I’d met her not speaking of herself in the third person. “Come and feel my caress . . .”

  “No!” But my shout went unheeded. Her Lady still sensed Oberon’s presence, just as he intended. I could see the darkness that represented her swelling power fill her side of the building, even as her servants, waiting for this moment for over fifty years, drew near from the other.

  As they did, though, the figure raised its head, so that whoever stood before it could see the face clearly. By that time, I already knew that it’d be a face I vaguely knew.

  I stared at the twisted face of the goon who’d been spying on the barrelhouse near the old millinery. His mouth gaped, and he didn’t have eyes anymore. Just two hollows that went on and on if you looked into them too long.

  Her Lady’s sentinel had found Oberon . . . or Oberon had found him. It didn’t matter which. There wasn’t much left of the thing, nothing that could be said to be sane even by the standards of Feirie.

  Too arrogant to listen to me, Her Lady acted through the changeling. Her power draped over the lone figure . . . and through it the changeling�
��and Her Lady—were snared by something inside the sentinel that held them tight.

  And at that moment, other shadows moved. Shadows vaguely resembling men. Men with tommies.

  Tommies aimed at both me and Her Lady’s changeling.

  CHAPTER 19

  The same wicked sounds I’d heard the shadow guns make filled the room. Each time they struck one of Her Lady’s servants, that shadow burned away. I ducked low as one aimed at me. I still remembered what those shots had done in the Delke house and wasn’t keen on finding out what they’d do to my body.

  A shrill scream that Claryce could never have uttered, even in her greatest agony, drowned out all other sounds. Out of the six gunners I counted, three were focused on the changeling. I couldn’t imagine the extent of the pain Her Lady might be feeling, but her changeling already looked as if someone had literally punched holes in her. There was no blood, just holes. Black ones like what was left of the eyes of the sentinel.

  My left arm suddenly stung. A glance showed me that I’d just barely been grazed. Even then, the pain continued to spread and it was all I could do to move the limb.

  I rolled away as one shadow took aim again. None of the gunners were near enough for me to cut, and even then I wasn’t sure if that’d accomplish what it had the last time. Oberon had set this trap for Her Lady and the sword’d been fashioned by her. Still, I had one hope, assuming that I could make it there.

  The shadow gunners continued to fire away. They crept along the walls, distorting as they turned. We hadn’t passed any autos in the vicinity, which meant that Oberon had managed to increase the distance of this particular spell.

  I grunted as another shot seared my calf. The wound made me roll to the side and away from my target. The changeling’s scream continued unabated.

  I turned my roll into a squat and then a leap toward the center of the room. That brought me face-to-face again with the sentinel and his human shell. I brought Her Lady’s gift up.

  One stroke severed the top half of the long-dead thug.

  There was no blood. I’d not expected any. He’d been dead the moment the sentinel’d taken him. Any life fluids had been used by the sentinel to keep him strong. The only problem was, they hadn’t kept him strong enough. Oberon had probably known all along that he’d be sent by Her Lady to hunt her former husband and master down.

  But I hadn’t cut the corpse in half to save the sentinel any more suffering. There’d been almost as little of him left as there was the human he’d taken. Oberon’d no doubt tortured him very well. No, I’d cut the body in half for the simple reason that it was the only hope of also cutting the link to whatever kept Her Lady snared.

  It worked. The changeling’s scream immediately halted. Unfortunately, I had no time to see just how badly ruined it might be, for at that moment two more of the shadow gunners found interest in me. I raised Her Lady’s gift and tried to decide which one was nearest—

  That shadow vanished. The one next to it disappeared a second later.

  The rest of the gunners vanished right after that.

  I was left alone, the surviving shadow folk serving Her Lady also having retreated. I didn’t even need to look to see that the changeling was gone, too. That stirred a combination of fury and fear in me. Her Lady had never actually given me a solid promise that she’d release Claryce from whatever slumber she’d put her in.

  The only trace of the entire trap was the dried husk I’d cut in two. Since there was nothing to tie it to me, I left it where it was and headed back to the Packard. I had only one hope, and that hope relied on me finding a phone.

  There was no pay phone nearby, but I found a jazz club about two miles south where the music was still going strong. The flappers and their daddies had danced away the night, unaware just how precarious life in Chicago really was right now.

  The bleary-eyed bouncer wasn’t keen on letting me in, “needing the telephone” likely an excuse he heard every evening. I gave him a brief glimpse of the dragon’s gaze, just enough to make him probably wonder whether the dope he’d likely been smoking had been tainted.

  I borrowed the telephone by the equally exhausted hat check girl and dialed the house. I expected nothing and so was pretty surprised when I heard her voice.

  “Nick! Thank God! Where did you go to? I just woke up and found both you and Fetch missing!”

  I didn’t like what I needed to tell her, but I told her nevertheless. “Claryce . . . I need you to leave the house. I know you might not want to—”

  “‘Not want to’? Nick, I don’t know why you brought me back here in the first place!”

  She didn’t remember demanding to go back. Now I understood just how long she’d been under Her Lady’s influence. I suspected that the unlamented sentinel had had some part in that. I’d not cared for the thing before, and this made me even less sorry it’d died. I only wished it’d taken Oberon with it.

  “Never mind,” I said. I gave her a street address. “Find a cabbie there. You know the address of the safe house. Go.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be there shortly.” I hoped she’d believe the lie.

  “All right . . . but hurry.”

  After she hung up, I decided to make one more call. Dialing Cortez’s precinct, I tried for the good detective a second time.

  “Cortez?” It was the first sergeant I’d spoken with. He chuckled, not caring if I might be a friend of the detective. I didn’t care; the dragon’s magic enabled me to use a little influence on him, make him answer what he might not always answer. “He’s chasin’ spooks down south. Some dago hooch place. Don’t know when he’s gettin’ back.”

  Something bothered me. Pretending knowledge, I mentioned a particular address, adding, “I gave him the tip. He’s down there this morning? Not tonight?”

  “Got a call it was now or never. Is this Dog? Listen Dog, you know better—”

  I hung up, not because I wanted him to think I was this snitch, but because he’d verified what I feared. Cortez was on his way to break up the barrelhouse right by where I’d sent Claryce. It might’ve been coincidence, but nothing thus far had been.

  The Packard was too slow. I knew that Claryce would be there long before me. Cortez probably already was.

  Let me give you wings . . .

  I nearly took the offer, but it was one thing to do so in the dead of night, another to agree to it in daylight. I grimly climbed back into the Packard and sped off, hoping that the morning traffic wouldn’t thicken before I got to the barrelhouse.

  Oberon continued to control the game. He’d forced Her Lady to move during the light, when her power was weaker. She’d thought she’d been clever to bring her own shadows with her in order to strengthen her link with her changeling, but she’d only done as her former master had intended. After all, while Her Lady could make some adaptations to the light, Oberon had forced himself to dwell in it for more than fifty years.

  I shuddered to think that perhaps part of his immunity came from the human skin he wore to disguise himself. There’d probably been an actual Delke somewhere down the family line, or maybe Oberon had let each generation procreate before he’d taken over the patriarch of that time. Either ghoulish way, Oberon had been thorough.

  I still had no idea where Fetch was. The fact that he’d vanished only shortly before the changeling had come to me made me wonder if Her Lady had offered him a trip back home in return for serving her here. I wasn’t sure if that boded well. Part of her offer might still be contingent on removing me once she was sure Oberon was really dead this time. We were supposed to have a truce after that last incident, but I now wondered if the truce had only come about because she’d realized I made a good pawn to move against him.

  There was no point in finding another pay phone; Claryce wouldn’t be near a telephone until—if and when—she reached the safe house. Someday, I hoped there’d be two-way radios able to be used in every auto, but for now I had to have patience. It was somethin
g I should’ve learned centuries ago, but I was still trying.

  I neared the safe house with growing concern that had nothing to do with Claryce. If Cortez was chasing down the barrelhouse, he was doing it with very little assistance. I hadn’t spotted a single cop or car, and from what I knew of such raids there should’ve been some by now.

  It was so quiet, in fact, that I was able to get around to the back of the safe house and park the Packard without a problem. I had hopes that Claryce was already inside, but I didn’t dare call out until I got upstairs.

  Unfortunately, the quarters were empty. There was no note, which meant she probably hadn’t even arrived here. She’d been nearer to the safe house than I’d been; she should’ve gotten here before me.

  I heard an auto drive up. Keeping to the side, I peered out the front window in time to see two black roadsters. Even before he stepped out, I knew one of the passengers would be Doolin.

  He kept his hands deep in the pockets of an oversized coat. I had what I thought was a perfect theory as to why Doolin kept those hands hidden until he pulled out one clutching a heavy heater. He waved the automatic at the four other hoods accompanying him, indicating that they should go around to the back of the distillery.

  I had a bad feeling about Detective Cortez’s tip. It wasn’t the first time someone had tricked a cop into a place where he could be rubbed out. That Doolin was here told me that Oberon knew of Cortez’s tenuous but real ties to me. Unlike what’d happened with Claryce, though, I didn’t think that Doolin was here to question the good detective. Cortez was going to be another example to me of just how much Oberon controlled everything.

  Part of me wanted to wait for Claryce and get her away from here, while the other knew I couldn’t leave Cortez to Doolin and his friends. As Doolin’s mob spread around the barrelhouse, I hurried down from the second story and out.

  Hand near Her Lady’s gift, I circled around to where I’d previously encountered the spy and Her Lady’s sentinel. That gave me a view of the back door to the place, where Doolin and another man were already entering.