by Linda Welch
“I’m Rain.”
“River.”
“Have you ever thought it odd you don’t have real names?” Verity comments.
I scowl at her. “Huh? We have real names.”
The cabbie looks at Verity in the rearview mirror. “Whadya say, lady?”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Only Verity can see us. The guy eyeballs her a few more seconds, shrugs one shoulder and returns his gaze to the road ahead. I guess cab drivers in New York are used to all kinds of weird fares.
Verity continues: “I chose the word poorly. I mean your names are not conventional first names. Castle, Rain, River. They are nouns, and you don’t have last names.”
Not counting this new kid, I know three wraiths besides Castle. Twig and Craft live in Fairlane and are silversmiths; Castle and I got our silver blades from them. Beach, the guy who found Castle Upside, lived in Gettaholt till a year ago. He moved up near the Jonquils. Like me, he takes care of monsters.
“You’re right.” Trust a vampire to spin my brain into overload with a careless observation.
River nods at Verity but speaks to me. “She and the others really are vampires.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” Verity says in a tone of bored stoicism. “Yes, we were once human. Yes, we died and returned to life with enhanced strength, speed and intelligence.”
I cough into my fist.
“And intelligence,” she repeats with a warning look at me. “We don’t kill people and drain their blood, an occasional sip suffices. We don’t run around haphazardly killing and infecting humans; we have no need or desire to swell our ranks. If we do decide to bring another into the fold, the candidate is rigorously screened and we ensure he or she does not embrace their new lifestyle before they know exactly what to expect.
“We don’t require food, but we like the taste, smell and texture, so often indulge.”
“Of course it goes right through them,” I add.
“Not immediately.” Verity gives me another pointed look for bringing up something so indelicate. “Religious artifacts and holy water don’t bother us, and thankfully, we do have reflections. As you’ve seen, we can be disabled but are very hard to kill. We avoid sunlight due to a type of photosensitivity.”
“Which is why they prefer the night.” I put in. “A bright yellow sun is too harsh, gives them nasty sunburn and believe me, a peeling vampire is not pretty.”
Verity’s glare tells me she is so not amused.
I could add a few facts, such as humans are happy to let a vampire chomp on them because - I’m told - it’s better than sex. And they should never be underestimated. Although on the surface they are more civilized than their Upside image leads one to believe, they can be brutal.
“What was that all about?” River asks me.
“That?”
“With the other vampires.”
“Nothing you need to know,” Verity says brusquely.
He helped us, so refusing to tell him what he was party to is hardly fair, but I’m grateful Verity spoke up. It would be one hell of an explanation once we got into it.
Strain shows on Verity’s face now as her gaze darts to the streets as often as mine. “Driver,” she says in a higher voice, “can’t you go any faster?”
The wheels will leave the ground if we go faster. We were speeding before, now we roar along way over the limit and the driver’s eyes, constantly flickering between Verity and the streets, show more white than is natural. He must think his fare is a psycho and is well and truly freaked out.
River’s not as proficient at keeping it all together as I thought. A trace of hysteria thins his voice. “What about us, Rain? Are we dead? Are we spirits?”
“Spirits don’t whomp vampire asses,” Verity chortles, pulling the cabby’s now panicked gaze to her again. She frowns at the rearview mirror till he looks away.
The cab screeches to the curb in a familiar street. Verity is thrown forward and back as the taxi judders. The engine stalls.
Verity winks at me. “You go ahead, I’ll pay the driver.” She opens the door and scoots from the car.
River and I tumble out. “Come on,” I tell him.
He pushes whisper-fine black hair off his forehead. It flops down again. “Where are we going?”
“Verity and I are going home.” I don’t know how to proceed and dread beginning the process of describing an entire new world to him, or explaining how everything works, how we work. It will be easier to do when we’re Downside. “We’re safe there.”
I trot across the street, River tagging behind. Verity leans so far in the cab window, her torso is inside. We wait on the far sidewalk.
River looks around. “Where’s home?”
I look up at the dark buildings which fringe the street, along at the intersection where traffic hums past, down at the hot sidewalk. It’s going to blow your mind, kid. “Downside.”
His brows draw together. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“No.” I shake my head slightly. “You won’t have.” Hells, I may as well jump right in at the deep end. “Dreams and nightmares live Downside, creatures which don’t belong up here. And people like you and me.”
He studies me for a moment. “So this place is a … what, a facility for… .” He doesn’t know what to ask.
“For crazies?” I snort. “Some of them are. But, no, not an institution. It’s another part of the world.”
His eyes reflect a range of emotions. He doesn’t understand. How could he?
Castle soothed me and sat with me for hours while I picked his brains. I didn’t understand most of what he said until I got Downside, but trusted him enough to come with him. But I don’t have time to baby River through the learning process. Gervaise Greché and his gang will be here any second.
I take River’s hand. He doesn’t expect the increase in mass and lets out an oof, his entire face a grimace.
“You feel real, don’t you. The same as when you fought those vampires and touching them forced you to flesh out. It works with us, too,” I say in a rush. “But Downside, we don’t need the touch of a vampire or each other to be one-hundred percent. We manipulate our bodies. We are fully formed, not spectral. People see us, talk to us. We sleep, and eat, and earn a living. Downside, we’re real.” I release his hand. “Want to come?”
He hunches inside his coat and watches me from beneath lowered lids, but doesn’t speak at first. Frowning, he clamps his teeth on his lower lip, then says, “I think I belong here.”
A low growl creeps up my throat. Trust me to get an obstinate guy, not one who is happy to come with me, no questions asked. Nope, my find decides to be difficult.
I’d leave him, except I will never forgive myself, and end up coming back to make sure he’s all right and ask him to change his mind. My tone is harsh. “If you stay, nothing changes. You’ll always be exactly as you are now. You don’t fit. What are you here? Nothing.”
“And I’ll be someone Downside?”
“You’ll be what you make of yourself.” I glance at Verity; she’s taking too long. Time is running out.
A screech of rubber on pavement and a car careens around the corner and down the road toward us. Verity pulls out of the cab and runs across the street. “Go, go, go!”
The Greché are here.
Another car roars from the opposite direction. Glaring headlights make me squint.
“We’re out of time,” I hiss at River. “Come with us or don’t. Up to you.”
Verity and I hurry past him to the alley’s mouth. She licks her teeth; her tongue flicks the side of her mouth.
“You didn’t!”
“I needed a boost and he’s happy with his tip,” she pouts.
The cabby isn’t visible behind the windscreen but I know he’s in there, slumped on the seat, pleasantly dazed and likely wearing a huge smile.
“Honestly, darling, what’s he going to do? Tell his cab
driver friends a fare grew teeth and bit him, and it was the most erotic experience of his life?”
“He may well do that. The days when humans kept quiet about the supernatural for fear others would think they have a screw loose are long gone.”
“I suppose I could have let him chase us into the shadows, screaming we had not paid him, alerting the neighborhood?”
Vampires seldom consider long-term consequences. Although they were once human, they soon forget how the human brain processes information. To Verity, what she did to the cabby is insignificant in the scheme of things, but it may affect his life in ways we can’t imagine.
The alley is impossibly long; shadow blurs the far end into darkness through which nothing is visible.
Is River following? My pace lags. A gut-deep compulsion makes me want to knock him down and drag him by his heels if that’s what it takes. Did Castle feel the same when he found me Upside, a need to take me Downside because I belong there?
“Where are you going?” River asks from behind. Good, he’s coming.
“This takes us Downside.” I don’t look back. “And before you ask, a strong enchantment protects the entrance from most humans, they see a dark uninviting alley they don’t want to explore.”
“Most?”
“A human comes through occasionally, someone with madness or old magic running through their veins.”
“Which are we? I don’t think I have magic and I hope I’m not mad.”
“I said human. We fall into the category of those who don’t belong Upside.”
“You think we’re not human?”
“I don’t know what we are. Humans do live Downside and we’re not like them.”
He slings a look at Verity as he comes abreast. “And vampires are in both places.”
“One clan lives Upside, and you may have noticed they are right on our tails, so let’s move!”
I hold out my hand. Nostrils flaring as he draws in a deep breath, he momentarily closes his eyes. When he opens them, he latches onto me. Our fingers lace, his palm fills mine solidly. He shudders and his long strong fingers fold on mine.
“So the vampires can get in?”
“Yep.” I break into a trot. “They went Downside and brought Verity up.”
Verity disappears into the midnight pall. Seeing her fade out, River tries to hang back.
I tow him along, which is like trying to drag a mule. “Come on! Nothing bad is in here, nothing can hurt us.” Of course plenty can hurt us when we reach Downside, but I shall tell him that later.
I lead him into the shadow. Verity clacks along ahead of us.
“What is this?” he whispers as his hand clenches.
“I told you, it takes us Downside, we call it the bridge. Hurry! It allows the Greché access, but the Station Master won’t. But we have to get to him.”
Nothing relieves the darkness, not a glimmer of light, but we can’t go wrong. Whichever direction we take, we will end up facing the solid door illuminated by the small overhead orange light, which strangely is unseen until one reaches it.
I pull on his hand again until we’re running. I can’t hear anything coming after us but it means nothing. Vampires can move soundlessly, unless they wear honking great heels like Verity’s.
“So though this … passage or whatever it is … decides to let certain people Downside, you can keep them out?”
Not personally, but I know what he means. “At some point we decided we should control who comes in so a powerful magic was put in place. Nowadays, it’s to keep people in more than out. There are Downsiders who would like nothing better than get Upside and ply their trade; dealers, slavers, monsters. But yeah, it works both ways.”
Before The Station, the strange and wonderful found their own way down and adapted to life Downside, but that was long ago. Newcomers are rare nowadays. I don’t believe the Station Master keeps out those who really belong. And wraiths … two have come in the last forty years, Castle and me, and we didn’t find our own way, we were discovered Upside and brought to where we belong.
“Manhattan is Upside?”
“The world up there, it’s all Upside.”
We are suddenly at the door, the light in its metal bracket a vaguely rectangular outline. I strain to detect movement in the passage as we stop walking.
“But this,” River turns and indicates the darkness at our backs with his free hand, “goes to Manhattan.”
I uneasily eye the door - what in Hades is taking so long! “It takes us wherever we want. You just have to picture it in your mind.”
“Then why didn’t you have it zap you into the Greché mansion?”
“The magic isn’t that specific.” I take the picture postcards from my pocket and fan them out in my hand. “I used these. I went to Beijing, Madrid, London and Victoria before Manhattan.”
“What happens when you bring in a newbie?” Verity asks,
“First he gets legal. After that, up to him.”
The wood door shifts with a groan. “I’ll take you to City Hall to get registered, then home,” I tell River.
Castle sponsored me. He was my guarantor. Had I done anything stupid, it would have been on his shoulders. I can’t ditch River once he’s registered. I’ll have to take him under my wing, be responsible for him, as Castle was for me.
Dammit.
River’s brows peak in consternation. “Registered?”
“You need someplace to live. You need electricity. You need to eat. So you need a job. Nobody engages an unregistered citizen.”
“I don’t have any ID.”
“No worries. Newcomers are like newborns, you’re not expected to provide Upside identification.”
Verity moves past as the metal bars ascend. “Here we go.”
I release River’s hand and he winces; these rapid changes in mass are difficult for a newbie. He walks with me into The Station, the doors grind shut. The familiar sensation of flesh adjusting to the Downside environment shudders through me. River throws me a startled look. “Easy.” I say. “Everything’s fine.”
The new Station Master has come from his office to greet us in person, or rather, greet Verity.
He produces a half-bow. “Madame! I take great pleasure in welcoming you home.”
“The Greché are on our heels,” she tells him in clipped tones with a glance back.
“They will not breach the doors, Madame,” he reassures.
“Do you wager your life on it?” she asks coldly.
His Adams Apple bobbles as he swallows. “I do.”
“Good.” The single word is uttered sharp enough to cut metal, or a Station Master’s throat. Nose in the air, she sweeps past him into The Station. “Call Alain Sauvageau. He’ll send a car.”
She turns to us. “Do you need a ride? Oh, that’s right, you two are off to City Hall. I’ll have your recompense delivered to your apartment.” She has to keep up appearances - vampires are the haughtiest bunch in public and can’t be seen having friendly chitchat with an insignificant half-life - but out of the Station Master’s sight, she winks at me and I twitch an eyebrow back at her.
Which reminds me Alain did more than chitchat when he saw me off.
Verity heads for the exit as the Station Master tells one of the guards to phone Alain. He smiles at me and calls another guard over. “Please escort Miss Rain and her companion to City Hall.”
To say I’m gob-smacked doesn’t describe it. Does this mean I’m no longer a nonentity in the Station Master’s eyes? What a simple kiss can do is amazing when delivered by Alain Sauvageau.
We fall in behind the guard and follow him from The Station. River digs in his heels as a blast of noise and aromas assault him. His gaze shoots upward. “The sky. It’s red!”
I don’t look up. “Why, so it is. Come on.”
“But - ”
I grit my teeth. “Look, a lot Downside will be alien to you and you have to just accept some aspects of life. Like a red sky.”
“What is this place? Another dimension?”
“No. The average Upsider sees the world as a big ball of dirt but there are many unseen layers. Downside is part of Earth, but hidden. Some call it Earth’s backside.”
“You said something about magic and spells.”
I heft an internal sigh. “Our lore says magic holds Downside together, and I know magic wielders can pull it from the ether to power their spells, I’ve seen it done. We’ll talk about it later.” As he opens his mouth I hold up my hand, palm out. “Later! Okay?”
He nods, and is soon distracted. His head zips here and there as we follow the guard across the street to City Hall. I’m aware of his height, the fine black hair which slithers over his shoulders as his head moves, the amethyst glint in his dark eyes.
We pause to let a centaur and her foal pass in front. River’s eyes look twice their former size. “Whoa!”
The centaur’s shapely female torso rises from where a horse’s neck and head would be and she is a dominatrix. Large, dark, pierced nipples joined by three silver chains jut from cutouts in her black leather bra. Silver spikes decorate a black leather belt and armbands. Black lines her sea-green eyes and glosses her full lips. Her hair is pulled atop her head, sleek and shining like a golden cap; from there it cascades down her back. And she holds a black leather whip curled in one hand.
Uh oh. A couple of minutes Downside and he puts his foot in his mouth, not to mention risk life and limb. Telling a centaur to whoa is like calling a fairy Tinkerbell.
She stops mid-trot and narrows her eyes at River. Her foal skitters behind her rump and peeks around it. “What did you say, half-life?”
I try to defuse the situation. “He didn’t mean it like that. It was an exclamation.”
“What? You’ve never seen a centaur before?” Peering at River, she clops a few sideways steps nearer.
“No, Ma’am,” River says. “I’m new here.”
She slaps the whip into her other hand. “As if we need more of your kind in Gettaholt.”
Powerful muscles flex as her heavy cloven hooves strike sparks from the pavement. With a sneer and flick of her braided tail, she canters onward.