by A J Brahms
Inside were two dozen or so of the exact same cigar boxes Emmet gave me blood in. In the bottom of the box were the glass tubes with stoppers that fit the exact size of a cigar, making the individual containers perfect for transporting blood. I grabbed one of the containers and checked. Empty. Same with the others.
So… I guess this was where Emmet was getting his supplies. The idea gave me the creeps. I put everything back and checked the other boxes. Same thing. Cigar boxes, empty vials, none of them filled.
The other boxes, tin boxes, were filled with baggies filled with…herbs.
And not the smokeable kind. I read labels saying Ginseng, Rosemary, Bella Donna, etc. This guy was servicing a whole range of unconventional conventionals. Knowing this made the few instruments in the room make sense. A set of scales, a humidifier, measuring tools and in another drawer—
Whoa.
Syringes. A lot of them.
Well, that solved the problem of how he extracted blood. But were the donors voluntary? I doubted, given this man's surroundings, that they dropped by to donate a pint or two.
A small curtain covered a foot-wide gap between a shelf and the wall. I moved it and felt air come through. And the smell of blood. The curtain felt slimy and I recognized more magic. The fabric was spelled to keep the smell, and probably the other five senses, away. I shoved the curtain behind the shelf next to it to hold it back and stepped into the room. It was harder to see in here. There weren't any light sources for my eyes to use. Even Night Walkers can't see in a room totally devoid of light. As is the same for me. And my sight was significantly inferior to what Jed could see.
So I ducked back out into the lab, that was my word for it, and started rummaging through drawers. I was not about to enter a room I couldn't see into. No flashlight at first, but I did find a few bottles of Jedediah's favorite Scotch. The expensive stuff. Just…in a drawer. With two shot glasses.
One of the bottles was open so I pulled it out and checked it. Did Jed get his Scotch from this guy?
Hell, was every non-human in Atlanta buying from this guy?
I did find a maglite in another drawer and turned it on in the dark room. What I saw made me step back and bump into the shelf. The room… There were shackles hanging from the ceiling as well as bolted to the wall, and I stepped on a large chain on the floor. I examined a few of the hanging ones, remembering things I didn't want to remember. Things I'd decided I didn't need to remember.
My past made it possible for me to known which of these were for wrists, ankles and neck. I'd been intimately familiar with them for a while. In a much darker, blacker part of my long life.
I took pictures then, of everything. The lab room and this…whatever horror room this was. I documented all of it.
Running the light over the room again, I spotted a door in the corner. It was locked. So I made my way back through the house to the front, then gauged where the door might be and realized what I thought was a basement was actually a descent into the two additions I'd noticed when I approached. The S like buildings that ended at the dock.
The door I'd seen faced the dock. In the now darkness of late evening I carefully made it down the dock to the shack sitting on the edge. My phone went off and I nearly yelled out. I pulled it from my jacket pocketed and whispered, "Grainger," without even looking to see who was calling.
"Hey it's Luke."
Right. I'd left a message. I opened my mouth to tell him where I was and what I'd found, but he ran over me with some very disturbing news.
"They released Graybeard a few hours early. We weren't there. Julie and I are at a body drop in Mid-Town. Looks like one weird Voodoo thing. You know anything about Voodoo?"
Uhm…
"Greybeard's out?"
"Yeah." He paused. "Ren, where are you?"
Headlights on the other side of the tree line caught my attention.
"In a bit of trouble. Later."
Ten
I disconnected the phone as I made my way to the shack and hid in the shadows there. I couldn't actually see the car, just the lights. I heard voices even at this distance. Ghoul hearing. I also smelled something familiar. Was it a cologne? A perfume? Something that I'd smelled recently, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I watched as a couple of people came through the trees and into the house.
Oops…did I close the doors? Leave anything disturbed that they might notice? I assumed one of the two was indeed Mitchell Graybeard. The other? Maybe his lawyer. Either way, I needed to finish my investigation and get the hell out of there.
I continued on to the shack. The door wasn't locked so I stepped inside and stopped. A boat was tethered to the dock, inside the building and bobbed up and down with the water. From the looks of it, the thing was a speed boat of some kind. It was also partially covered, as if it hadn't been used in a while.
There were two refrigerators on the opposite end, beside a stack of red…bowling balls? I touched one to double check and found the three holes for fingers. But in the center of the hand hold someone had drilled in a metal eye, like a D-ring. Looking up at the walls I saw more chains, and just past the table, in the farthest corner was another cage.
As I approached the two refrigerators to find out, I heard voices and frantically looked for a place to hide. As a Ghoul I could mask myself from most predators. Other Ghouls definitely, which was how Mia managed to hide from me initially.
Night Walkers were different though. I could sense their blood. But Night Walkers, especially those who had never created or owned a Ghoul, couldn't really sense me. Jedediah could find me pretty easy. And as these two came closer, I sensed Night Walker. Was his lawyer one of the undead?
I also smelled…dirt.
Like, freshly turned Earth. Weird.
I decided the best place to hide would be in the boat. I leapt in, dove under the canvas covering it just as the door opened.
"You really should lock this, Mitchell. Anyone could just walk in here."
I knew that voice!
"Aw, who dah bloody 'ell is gonna come in 'ere? They all think I'm daft, anywayz." I assumed the accented one was Mitchell Graybeard. The smell of dirt was overwhelming. Was it the canvas?
I tried not to move my body as I adjusted my line of sight. I could see a tall man. Like…really tall. He had grey hair and a grey beard he'd braided in front with beads woven in. He sort of looked like the guy I'd seen on the news. And then again, he didn't. Was the image the public saw a type of glamor?
Really? Beads in a beard? A grey beard? And his name was Graybeard?
Who writes this stuff?
"I think you would have to be, given your chosen profession."
The oner of the second voice struck a match and in the flare I saw his face and silenced my heart, hoping the Night Walker didn't hear it.
It was Aubrey. Jedediah's right hand man.
Aubrey lit a lantern and soon the building was full of an eery yellow light. I knew Aubrey didn't need the light to see, and perhaps did this as a courtesy to Graybeard.
"So why meet in here?" Aubrey asked as he leaned against the table.
Graybeard went to the fridge and retrieved what looked like a beer before he answered. He wore a suit under all that grey hair. Ill fitted, but at least he was dressed presentably. This wasn't the man I'd see in the papers or on the TV. I assumed he'd used Faerie Glamor. "Think'n them G-men naught consider tapp'n this here piece of property."
"You can drop the speech pattern too. It's just me."
Graybeard cleared his throat. "Sorry. I've been playing the part so long I forgot."
Playing the part?
"What is it you need to tell me?" Graybeard asked
"It's the GT. You've got to get it back in the cage. I have buyers backordering and some of them have already paid for the product."
Graybeard set his beer down. "I already explained it to you—she got away. And she's smart. She's not going to let me grab her again, and if she gets that tether off and goes back ho
me—"
"The Mórrígan will remove you from existence. Yes, yes. You've told me this before."
"You might not be afraid of her, but I am."
"And that's why you started getting rid of your successes and got arrested." Aubrey sounded annoyed. "And now you've not only lost our best asset, but our distributors. I would remind you that if you don't get her back in her cage, your Mórrígan will be the least of your problems."
"I told you already, I haven't seen her. There's nothing I can do about that at this point."
"But GT Blood is the most profitable, by far."
"Aye. I thought I could synthesize it by using the others' brain fluids. But that didn't work either. And without the distributors, getting the Ancient's blood is going to prove difficult as well. She stole all I had left." He leaned on a refrigerator. "You ready to donate again?"
"I'm not happy to hear about the Ancient, Mitchell, but you have customers who have paid for that blood. Now, I suggest you suck it up and go siphon it off yourself. And as for my blood," he paused. "I think not. Not until you're not the center of the human world's attention."
"You're not afraid of the local law."
"No. But then their world can't touch me." Aubrey moved to the door. "It was stupid to kill Emmet like that. He was the best example of reversion you had."
Graybeard shook his head. "Couldn't be helped. He was too curious as to where I was getting Special Order Forty Two. He knew that's what cured him—he just didn't know where it came from. Had to keep the secret. That GT's the last of her kind. Can't have other Blood Dealers honing in on my enterprise."
Aubrey didn't say anything, then, "I think in a way you're right. I worried when I heard the city coroner was doing an autopsy, so when nothing came up, no mention of necrosis or even something odd about his blood," he shrugged. "His reversion to human was the real thing. Which means all five of the Night Walkers—"
"And that Ghoul, don't forget him."
"—were a success." Aubrey shook his head. "I haven't forgotten the Ghoul. Get the GT back in her cage in twenty-four hours, Mitchell. I have two trusted Walkers if you need them."
"No," He held up his hand. "You keep the blood suckers off my property and I'll get the business up and rolling again."
Aubrey paused at the door. "Have you found a new dealer? You're going to need a new face for the people. Most don't like dealing with a Troll."
"I have someone in mind."
"Good." Aubrey left the shack.
Troll?
Graybeard was a Troll. Maybe that explained the Earth smell.
I didn't know anything about Trolls. Except Internet Trolls. All I did know was that Trolls were Faerie because Jazz had talked about them a couple times. GT could only mean Ginny Greenteeth, and given I suspected she was a Faerie denizen as well, I could understand how not happy The Mórrígan would be if she found out her people were feeding on their own.
And no….I hadn't missed the part about the reversion of Vampire and Ghoul. I just didn't know what to think of it. A Greenteeth's blood could reverse Vampirism? Emmet had been a Night Walker? I mean, I'd always sensed something was a bit off about him. He worked the night shift, but that was probably because his clientele was up at those hours. Or it was old habit.
And I too had wondered if something would flag for Sheila during the autopsy, but she'd said nothing.
Because Emmet was human again.
And there had been a Ghoul.
Was this possible? I'd never heard of a cure for it, not in my long but short life. My Maker had made sure I believed I was as she made me and that it could never be changed. I could never go back to my old life. I could never see my nephews and nieces, or visit the graves of my parents because I was a Ghoul and everyone believed I was dead. Vanished. Missing.
For over fifty years.
Because I'd lost myself in my own thoughts I missed it when Graybeard left. Occam, ever present and perched on top of the roof, assured me it was all clear. I got out of the boat and back on the covered dock and started taking pictures again. And because this camera was a newer model, I uploaded everything to my cloud.
About two seconds before something shoved me from behind. It was a sharp pain and I didn't lose my footing where I stood by the boat. I did drop my camera and it bounced into the water. I looked down and saw a very large arrow head sticking out of my stomach. I was pretty sure it wasn't an actual arrow head and was reassured the moment something jerked me backward and the thing skewering me moved with it, taking me along.
I yelled out as I hit the side of the shack and dropped to the rotting wood. I realized too late I'd been harpooned. Harpoons were built to stay in their prey as they were dragged in to their doom. Occam screamed and I told her to go, to find Aberdeen before something very large loomed over me. It was grey and had glowing yellow eyes.
"Well, well, a new piece of bait. A reporter maybe?" Something moved over me and started searching my pockets. It found my wallet as I wrapped both my hands around the harpoon's shaft. It was slick with my blood but it was wood. It wouldn't kill me, but as long as it was inside of me, my body couldn't heal. It would try and most likely take up the last vestiges of the Night Walker blood I'd consumed.
And then, I would die.
"Renwick Grainger, photographer. So you work for a reporter. Well, let's see here," and the shadow wrenched my bag from me. I wasn't seeing as well as I had been and I wasn't sure if that was due to blood-loss or this thing, this Troll was producing a smothering darkness.
"Nice cameras." Splash.
Then three more splashes. I cried inside, happy I'd only brought the two newer, cheaper cameras, but knowing he'd also just chunked my mason jar full of Sacrament and salt.
He then tossed my bag but I didn't hear it splash. I tried moving but the wood through my middle made that awkward. Not to mention, painful.
Had I mentioned pain before?
Because THIS HURT!!
I heard the clink of chains, and something rolling across the floor. Graybeard squatted over me. I still couldn't get a good look at him, but I was pretty sure he wasn't the tall grey-haired man anymore, but something a bit more primal.
He clamped something metal and all too familiar around my neck and handcuffed my wrists behind me. Then he grabbed hold of the harpoon and snapped it in half just in front of my middle before he yanked it out the back. I nearly passed out from the pain and my subconscious begged to call my Ravens from the shadows. I stopped it, knowing to do that would take my last waking thoughts and decided to take my chances with getting out of this.
He picked me up like a sack of potatoes and tossed me into the back of the boat, on top of the canvas before he slipped into his human form and cranked the boat up. I lay on my side, bleeding as my body tried desperately to repair itself, burning up Night Walker blood at an alarming speed. I saw the metal collar around my neck was actually tethered to one of the bowling balls and I got a very, very bad feeling about where we were going.
Graybeard drove slow as if to avoid anyone hearing the boat as we made our way back to The Three Sisters. There he stopped the boat, picked me up and before I could get a good breath of air, tossed me in. The weight of the bowling ball made me sink like a stone. It wasn't the same as a concrete block, but I was pretty sure he used the red of the ball to pick it out of the water later once the victim was dead.
I could see the moon above me through the water but I didn't remember the sky clearing. Or maybe that was just my brain dying as I lost oxygen. Pressure built inside my lungs as I tried to thread my feet backward through my bound wrists. The bowling ball made it difficult to move so I maneuvered sideways and caught a glimpse of the boat's shadow above me. The water wasn't deep, but people could drown in a puddle.
My vision went dark as I strained not to let go of the air I had in my lungs, but the exertion of trying to bring my hands in front of me had drained me. I knew Occam wasn't close, and neither was Aberdeen. They were miles away still and a
s a Ghoul, I had to have oxygen. I was still human.
In a way.
Eventually the air bubbled out through my nose and lips and water made its way in. It burned and stung and I tried to cough but couldn't. My last thoughts were of Julie and being human again and making a family somewhere away from the crazy world my Maker had condemned me too.
Eleven
I didn't expect to wake up.
Nor did I expect to do it as explosively as I did. My throat and nose burned as water flooded out and I coughed and sputtered. I was on my hands and knees, somehow, and emptying everything I had out. Not only water, but raw meat and blood. I shook, violently, as I collapsed on my side and tired to see where I was.
Movements echoed and the ceiling flickered with light. Something cold touched my face and I jumped, but I saw the silhouette of a woman bending over me. "Ju-Julie?" Ugh. My voice sounded like Jeremiah Bullfrog.
She shook her head. "No. Try to steady your breathing."
Easier said than done. I was doing that weird hiccup thing I did when I was a kid and cried too hard, too fast. It was like I couldn't catch my breath. Something warm covered me and I tried not to see what it was. I'd encountered way too much crazy in the past twenty-four hours. And the whole dying thing really wrecked my day.
"That's better. You're calming. I need to know if you can drink something."
"D-d-drink?"
"Yes. You're bleeding too much and I can't stop it. It looks like your body is trying to heal it, so I'm assuming you are Vampire?"
"No." I shook my head and the shivering was sort of easing back. Sort of. "N-N-Not N-N-Night Walker."
"But I see your flesh is mending."
"G-G-Ghoul," I blurted out. Well why not? She knew about Vampires.
She clapped.
What the hell?
She clapped!
"How exciting. I have not met another of your kind since Leo. But I know this will help."