by Linda Welch
“Ready?”
No, I’m not. The police will hammer at me before I can gather myself together. I don’t know whether I can take it. I want time to myself, to grieve, to wrap my mind around what happened. I want to fade out and go far away. But I could never come back. I nod at Alain.
He gazes at me, eyes hot with concern, takes my face in his hands and kisses my cheek. He’s gone in a heartbeat, the heat of his lips still warm on my cool skin.
I turn my eyes to Castle and notice how rigidly his knees are pulled to his chest. The crimson pool is smooth, no evidence I sat there. His blood has not started to congeal yet. My gaze travels over him, every part of the body which was Castle.
Where did he go? What happens to wraiths when they die? I once thought we began as humans living Upside, who died and became wraiths, but how can anyone die twice?
My pulse leaps in my throat each time a flashbulb pops.
The dwarf sergeant’s gray beard is neatly clipped to a hair below his chin and his midnight-blue uniform has the appearance of material washed so many times it is wearing thin. He stares across the table as though his eyes alone can break secrets from me. The small beady eyes are not impressive, though the rest of him is formidable. No one Downside makes the mistake of thinking a small dwarf body equals weakness. Punch a dwarf, you break your hand, and you don’t want a dwarf to punch you.
He’s made me sit facing the living room so I can’t avoid seeing the constable snap pictures, the other constable rifle through drawers and the cupboard, Castle curled in his pool of blood.
“What did you do when you found the body?” he asks for the fourth time.
My voice is monotone, dull, weary from repetition. “I think I went into shock. I lost track of time. When I … came to myself, I heard sirens.”
“Whoever killed him forced the flesh and stabbed him, and held him till he bled out. Only another wraith can do that.”
My lips make a thin line. “Or a vampire.”
There will be panic should people believe vampires are attacking and killing citizens. I stare at my clenched hands and smile sourly. But we’re not people, no one will care if vampires kill wraiths.
He puts his hands together on the table and says nothing more. The minutes tick by. With every light in the living room on, the scene is all stark detail. The police photographer unclips his flash attachment and squats to pack it and the camera in a leather case. Two men carrying a gurney come from the hall; they wear rubber boots and gloves and plastic coveralls. Lights flash through the curtained window from the street.
“A vampire wouldn’t waste the blood,” the dwarf says.
I don’t know what to think. I hope he’s right because if vampires are targeting wraiths, they can wipe us out. At the same time, the thought that one of our own killed Castle makes gorge rise in my throat.
I heard the constables whispering; they are questioning Castle’s neighbors. Old Jessy, with his more than neighborly eye on the street, didn’t spot anyone during the hour before I arrived, but that means nothing. A vampire could have come over the rooftops and through the attic window which I know has a damaged latch, and a wraith could enter and leave the house unseen.
“You can go,” the constable says. “We know where to find you, and don’t think of passing the city limits.”
I blink uncertainly, get up with the help of the table and leave through the kitchen. I go home.
Chapter Six
Alive yesterday and already in the ground. There is no procession, no service. No priest speaks at Castle’s grave. I kneel in the damp grass and lay my palm on the dirt.
“I have a job. I’d cancel, but I can’t.” Verity is being prepared for sacrifice, she can’t wait. “But I swear, when I’m finished I’ll find out who did this to you, and they’ll pay. I’ll see to it personally.”
I paid half my savings for the plot so Castle has a place in which to sleep the endless sleep. I suspect Alain or Angelina put a word in the right ear, or I wouldn’t have got this tiny rectangle squashed against an ancient elm and wild rose bushes in the old crowded North Gettaholt Cemetery, eight blocks from home. I’ll get a headstone one day. What do you put on a headstone for a person who has no date of birth and one name?
Getting to my feet, I rub my hands on my coat. A big bunch of yellow roses and white baby’s breath in a copper urn adorn the next grave over. I snag a rose and take it back to Castle’s plot. The dead won’t mind.
I stick the rose stem in the dirt. “There. Don’t say I never give you anything.” I try to smile, but can’t.
Two gremlins chat as they wait to cross the street. One laughs at something the other says. Three dwarf girls with heads together giggle. A bare-chested satyr wearing black satin pants grins at the human woman on his arm. I’m so angry, I dig my nails in my palms till they hurt. I want to swing back and yell at them. How dare they enjoy life so godsdamn fucking much when Castle is dead. The world goes on as though he were never here, as if he weren’t an important part of it. It isn’t fair.
My fingers find the permit in my pocket. Five cardboard squares fill the other pocket. Maybe I need this, a job to take my mind off Castle, how he died, that I couldn’t help him.
The police backed off some when they found fingerprints on the stiletto. My fingertips are smooth, no ridges, so although I could have held the blade and left no trace, the prints prove someone else handled it. The prints don’t match any in police records. And there is the question of who tipped off the police? They wouldn’t tell me anything, but must know the voice was not mine.
That my permit to go Upside arrived this morning testifies to Alain’s influence, and surely money changed hands.
The Station is on the corner of Fort and Tremayne, kitty corner from City Hall. Security is always tight, but today four city militiamen stand outside the brick building either side of the arched doorway.
So does Alain.
My steps falter. I don’t expect him. What does he want?
A dove-gray wool overcoat hangs open to reveal a blue silk shirt and dark-gray trousers and he wears tinted spectacles. He has not seen me yet as he strides up and down outside the entrance. Clide and another vampire wait off to one side, hands clasped behind their backs, legs apart and they constantly scan passersby.
They move to front Alain as I push through the crowd to cross the street, and relax when they recognize me.
Alain’s head turns in my direction, but he could be looking at anyone or no one. You don’t realize how much you learn from a person’s eyes, what you can read in them, until they are hidden from you. Their facial muscles may move in a smile or frown but their thoughts are indecipherable without those eyes. Alain in dark glasses makes me uncomfortable.
He doesn’t speak when I reach him so I don’t, either. He rotates and walks with me through the doorway. The militia move aside, they don’t ask for identification. The vampires follow.
The two additional militiamen inside the foyer and four flanking the Station Master’s office are overkill; such conscientiousness is a little too late now the damage is already done. The Deputy Station Master steps in front of us. He smiles apologetically at Alain as he holds out his hand for my permit. He scans it, comparing my face with the picture on the permit, moves aside and waves us on. In the brick hall, two Station guards who hold sabers stand either side of an arched doorway blocked by a heavy wood door behind another made of steel bars. They are more than two high-security doors; magic is woven into them. Off to the side, the Station Master who controls the doors sits in his office behind shatterproof glass reinforced with steel mesh.
The Station is the one place Downside where two aspects of the world meet and must be protected at all costs. The Station Master holds Downside’s security in his hands. Yet this man’s predecessor allowed the Greché to take Verity and left with them.
I march over and hold the permit up to the window. The Station Master studies it before his eyes flick to my face. He jogs his head at th
e doors.
Alain removes his shades and glowers at the man. “I wanted to ensure your departure goes smoothly,” he tells me as he eyes the Station Master unpleasantly.
As if this man had anything to do with Verity’s kidnapping.
Did he come to make sure I don’t chicken out? “I’ll be fine.”
I suck in a breath as the iron bars inch up and the wood door slides sideways into the wall.
Alain says, “Don’t let it consume you.”
“What?”
His voice pitches low. “Everything about you speaks of it: your eyes, your voice, your posture. Grief.”
Is it that obvious?
I have let sorrow numb me. If Alain knows it, so do others. I must look weak, as though I’ve lost my edge. I need to pull myself together.
I push my feelings into a small hard knot I will try to ignore till I find who killed Castle. I will let it out then, and it will destroy them.
“Sorry!” I snap. “I’ve never lost anyone before. I’ll do better next time.”
He takes my face in his hands and speaks in a warning undertone, “Don’t fight me,” and his lips briefly press on mine before I can pull free.
Stunned, I can’t immediately move. He kissed me in public.
His hands release me. His lips tick up. “Take care, Rain.”
Brow creased, I hold his gaze for a moment, then walk beneath the lintel. The doors shudder shut behind me with alarming finality. No going back. Still frowning, I linger beneath the small orange light. Alain Sauvageau, one of the most powerful men in Gettaholt, publicly displayed affection for me. He sent a clear message that I’m important to him. Word will spread.
He’s trying to protect me.
Well, be that as it may, he can’t protect me Upside. I’m on my own. I take a picture postcard from my pocket. Staring at it, I murmur, “Victoria,” and walk into the shadow.
Chapter Seven
I walked the bridge five times: London, Victoria, Beijing and Madrid. Now my gaze drifts over the Manhattan skyline. If Verity is not here, the Greché didn’t take her to one of their strongholds. She is elsewhere in the world, lost to us.
Each time I crossed the bridge, I looked at the orange lamp outside The Station’s door longingly, wanting to go through, back to Downside. Fear is a heaviness inside punctuated by the erratic beating of my heart. I was not frightened when I walked Upside with Castle. He never feared and I trusted him to lead me home. Now, alone, I feel as if my right arm has been cut away. And a piece of my heart with it.
Being Upside, where different rules govern wraiths, is surreal. We are ghosts, or something which parodies them. We keep what is on our body when we emerge Upside - in my case clothes, weapons, the permit, postcards and a handful of coins - but lack the substance to manipulate them. I can’t open my coat or grasp a knife. And we are stuck like this, unable to shed flesh, nor let it fill us.
People sense something unnatural is abroad. Their gaze drifts over and away, as if at a fleeting distraction, a flicker at the edge of their vision which turns out to be nothing. As though their eyes play tricks on them.
Yet even here where we don’t exist to the human population the touch of another wraith or a vampire makes us solid, real. The anomaly could validate my theory there is an uncanny connection between wraiths and vampires because both were once dead. After all, both wraiths and vampire families began their lives Upside. But the mind can fracture when pondering conundrums like this, so I try not to deliberate.
The compulsion to run back to the shadows and Downside increases the longer I remain. At times it becomes a throb in the back of my skull. Upside is too wide open. Of the millions who live in New York City, over one million of them call Manhattan home, and I am alone.
I will be home soon if Verity is not in the Greché Manhattan stronghold. I saw nothing to indicate she was ever at the other four houses. I don’t want to tell Alain I failed. I imagine him stripped of the urbane façade, rage filling his eyes and distorting his face.
He told me about the marriage ceremony, a wedding of the blood, not of two people. As many Greché as possibly can will drain Verity, taking her fresh red blood to swell their thin veins.
My gaze is tugged to a boy who leans on the wall across the street. A Goth boy, looking at the café behind me. His straight black hair is unevenly chopped halfway down his neck, strands curve over his cheeks, wisp over his forehead and eyes with amethyst in their dark depths. Black hair, pale skin, like me. Tall, lanky, the black calf-length leather coat, baggy gray T-shirt and black leather pants hang slack on him. His face is gaunt with hollows beneath his cheekbones and long thick lashes fringe half-lowered eyes.
He is beautiful.
A sense of regret worms through me, that I can’t be there, with him, leaning against the wall at his side, watching the world go by.
I give myself a mental shake and move along the sidewalk.
The city bakes this evening. Most pedestrians wear lightweight clothing and sandals, and those who must wear more formal attire for their employment look hot and irritable. Commuters who stop for coffee as they head home after work crowd the cafe. A few merchants are already closing their doors and rolling metal grills down their storefronts. A man dumps a stack of newspapers on the sidewalk in front of a kiosk. The air smells of dust, baked brick and gasoline.
I turn down an alley lined with backdoors and dumpsters. At the end, on the far side of another street, the vampires’ mansion towers, a gothic fortress.
Vampires. I see Castle’s blank eyes, the stiletto in his neck. Vampires killed him. They stuck him, and held him so he couldn’t lose flesh. Held him until it was too late. I want to spit the nasty taste from my mouth.
I refuse to believe a wraith killed him. It had to be a vampire. Alain grilling every vampire in his enclave and sending feelers out to the other vampire families is part of our deal, the money plus whatever information he can glean while I’m Upside. I need to know who killed Castle.
I need to kill them.
I pause in the alley’s shadows to look over the mansion. The magnificent architecture reminds me of Downside, a gray marble structure of five floors, the entrance guarded by manticore mounted on pillars where the steps climb from the sidewalk. Balconies face the street on the second and third floors and crenellations surround the copper roof. Gargoyles look down, but like the manticore they are made of stone.
I could walk through the walls were I really a ghost, but no such luck. I can’t risk trying to scale the wall which faces the street. Vampires don’t like to venture abroad this early, but on the off chance one does emerge, he might spot me before I get up there. Unlike the humans, Upside vampires can see us, although as vague forms.
The adjacent brownstone apartment block looks promising. It must have a back exit, a backyard or a rear alley.
Someone put a spray cap on a fire hydrant between the mansion and brownstone; half-naked kids shriek in the jetting water, but they don’t detect me as I cross the street through water which feels like a breeze on my skin, and walk up three steps to the entrance. The entryway has a keypad and the door is shut.
Damn. I can’t enter until a resident goes in or comes out but can’t wait indefinitely for one to turn up. Old glass lamps either side of the entrance already glow and dim light seeps through the door’s glass pane. The sun balances on the rooftops. Night will fall soon, a dangerous time to sneak inside the Upside vampires’ lair. I need another way into their house.
I’m in luck. An elderly man with shaved head and ponderous chins slogs up the steps, punches the keypad, opens the door after it clicks and walks inside. I cling to his heels. He turns left in the long narrow hall and climbs a staircase. I continue on in search of a rear entrance.
More apartments occupy the rear, the exit is at the end of a passage which leads north then east. And what do you know, a battered chair keeps the door open. I step outside onto an elevated brick patio. The garden beyond is small and mostly grass excep
t for wilting plants bordering the wall. Plastic and wood patio furniture huddles in the middle. The eight-foot wall separates this garden from its neighbors to the north and south and an alley on the east side.
Scaling the north wall is easy, I weigh so little, practically floating up.
Apart from a few desiccated shrubs at the base of the wall, large slate slabs pave the vampires’ backyard. Huge, empty ornamental urns perch at each corner and a dry fountain is dead center. The former occupants must have installed the motion-activated lights on the house walls above the porch and two windows, but they lack bulbs. The Greché don’t want light as bright as day splashing them when they come outside. I pull up the last few inches, flatten my length along the wall, roll over and slide down. Hugging the shadows, I creep to the backdoor.
Great. The door is shut and I may wait in vain for a servant to come outside.
Some of the upper windows are open to let in the cooler evening air, probably for the benefit of human servants. How convenient is that? Pushing off with my soles, I rise up the wall, guided by my fingers in cracks between bricks, alert to the possibility an early-rising vampire might look from a window. Although the likelihood they will look down the vertical surface is slight, I have learned to be cautious.
A narrow ledge along the wall’s width skirts below the balconies and windows on every floor above ground level. I skim along it. What will happen should I fall? Stands to reason if I don’t have substance, I can’t be hurt. But I won’t experiment.
Curtains are pulled back to let in the waning light. The first window looks into an office equipped with ancient oak furnishings and modern devices. The second window is to a bedroom, the third also. They must be for human servants. Yes, they have servants, humans addicted to vampire blood, not employees. The vampires probably rest below ground during the daylight hours. I rise to the next floor with one hand on an old drainpipe.
After easing over the balcony’s elaborate iron railing, I peer through double glass doors into a huge ballroom which stretches the full width of the house. Two dazzling crystal chandelier throw light on the glossy oak floor and make silverware, china and glass sparkle as human servants position it on a long table clad in cream damask cloth. The servants look formal in white: trousers, jackets with long tails, vests and shoes. A string quartet is setting up on a small stage in the corner. At the far end, where the wall faces the avenue, a big glass punch bowl sits on a small table. Other humans move chairs from the edges of the room to the tables. They seem to be preparing for a formal banquet.