by Lee Dignam
“I thought it had only happened to me.”
“Guess it got us both.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I gave up trying to figure them out a long time ago, around the time I stopped hunting.”
“So it’s true you’ve encountered them before? Pain Children?”
“It’s like I said last night; the surgeon wasn’t my first, only I didn’t know what they were when I first saw one of them.”
“But you’ve never come across Nyx, the thing that made them.”
“I don’t think I have.”
“Then if you want to take part in this hunt I have to fill you in on what I know. But first, I want you to teach me what you know.”
“What do you want to know?”
“So many things.”
Alice wanted to know, above all else, how it was that Cora had become a Half-Lich. She knew her own story, but if Cora had never come across Nyx, then what happened to her? How were their stories different? More importantly, are there more Half-Liches out there? How many more, and where are they all?
A short while after Alice had managed to attract a waitress’ attention, the waitress returned with a bottle of water as well as a bowl of warm nachos. Alice took a sip of her drink and enjoyed the warmth of the chips covered in melted cheese. She hadn’t realized how hungry she had been until she saw them, so she made sure to help herself.
“Alright,” Alice said, “First thing I wanna know is what you eat.”
“Eat?” Cora asked. “Oh,” she said when the realization hit her.
“Well, you handed Trapper to me and considering it’s a Void Weaver artifact I’m thinking you don’t have another one hanging around, so how do you do it now?”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t eat?”
Again Cora checked that no one was listening before going on to say, “I eat, I just do it differently now. No more souls.”
No more souls, Alice thought. That would be something. Eating souls was abhorrent, despite the rush it gave her. Even the soul of a madman was a pure thing, and the fact that she had to eat them in order to continue living as normal a life as she knew was something that always chipped away at her sense of morality. But if Cora knew a different way…
“You have to show me,” Alice said. “How do you do it?”
“I learned a long time ago that what we need to consume is a soul’s energy, and not the soul itself. I’d only ever eaten full souls until that point because they’re drawn to me, like moths to a flame. But I also learned I could stop them from slipping into my mouth and just… take a sip.”
“A sip?”
“Taste them, eat their residue—their footprints. Once I figured that out, I thought—if all I need is residue then I should be able to take it right out of the air, assuming I’m at a place where a lot of soul energy congregates. Places like—”
“Graveyards,” Alice said, with one eyebrow cocked. “You go to graveyards… and sip the energy there.”
“It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”
“You couldn’t have told me?”
“I didn’t find out about this until after I decided to stop hunting. I kinda had to learn how to stop eating full souls seeing as the only way for me to do it was to kill people, and I didn’t want to do that either. I just wanted a normal life.”
“I don’t want you thinking what you did was a good thing. Dropping Trapper and the Chest at my door, without filling me in on what I needed to know, was irresponsible and unfair.”
“I know. That’s why I want to help you. I want to help fix this mess you’re in—the mess we’re all in. When we’re done, when this is over, I’ll show you how to feed like I do. It only works when a body’s been freshly put in the ground, but in big cities that happens every day.”
“Fine,” Alice said, “Better late than never, right?”
Cora nodded and drank deep from her glass.
“Why did you stop hunting?” Alice asked.
“I couldn’t hunt anymore,” she said, not looking at Alice.
“Did… something happen to you?”
“Yeah, something did.”
Alice could sense the apprehension coming off Cora in great waves of repressed sadness. She couldn’t prod any further, but she didn’t have to. Cora had lost someone. This much was clear by the glint in her eyes, the sparkle that suggested the rise of hidden tears. A boyfriend? A husband? Maybe a son or daughter? The only point of reference Alice had was Alice, and considering she had turned her skills into a business as a bounty hunter the reference was probably entirely invalid.
Cora didn’t have the appearance of a mercenary, though it was clear by the definition in her legs and the confidence in her walk that she could fight, and had fought, many times before. Alice could also understand the desire to hang the camera up and take up a normal life. She had herself, after all, been ripped away from hers—stolen from a life that could have been and thrust into this world of nightmare creatures and overwhelming responsibility.
Alice took a sip of her drink. Cora did the same.
“Listen,” Alice said, “I didn’t just call you down here to talk.”
Cora’s eyes came back to rest on Alice. “You said you would call.”
“I know, but I didn’t know I was going to get attacked in my sleep. You too, by the sound of it.”
“I didn’t either.”
Alice paused. “We have to hunt it down and kill it.”
Cora nodded. “Yeah, we do.”
“If it has the power to get into our dreams, who knows what else it could do to us?”
“Or what it could do to other people.”
Alice’s arms began to prickle all over. She stared at the backs of her hands and flexed her fingers. “We stand more of a chance of killing it if we work together.”
“We still have to find it.”
“Didn’t you find it last night? How did you do that?”
“I didn’t know I was looking for it exactly. I just knew—”
Cora fell silent. “Knew what?” Alice asked.
Again Alice’s skin prickled. It was like pulses of goosebumps, one before, and one again now. She perked up and scanned the room. It was loud in here, and drinks and food were flowing freely from the kitchen and the bar. But Cora’s eyes weren’t inside the bar; she was looking outside. Alice turned her attention to the street again where a number of cars were stopped at a red light just across the road. Rain was hitting them hard and they all had their wipers on.
“Do you feel it?” Cora asked.
“I do,” Alice said, “What is it?”
Cora pressed her face against the glass and looked up at the dark clouds racing across the sky above. Alice looked up too, squinting to try and get a good look at the clouds when a black sedan came speeding from the other side of the street. Alice caught the car out of the corner of her eye, but by then it was too late.
The car was coming right at them.
CHAPTER 14
The Backseat
Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl as the wild sedan roared like a raging bull toward the side of the bar. Alice’s eyes widened when she caught the glint of chrome and finally saw the grill, the headlights, and the windshield.
Alice didn’t have time to slide out of the booth lengthwise and make a run for it. The car was coming, and it was going to strike. Instead she screamed for Cora to move, hoisted herself out of the seat, and in one quick movement threw herself over the backrest and into the booth immediately on the other side of hers. She hit the table hard and rolled across it, coming to a halt with her back against the seat opposite where she had been.
The car tore into the side of the bar and the wall imploded, sending a hail of splinters and glass flying in all directions. Before Alice heard the screams, she felt the push of the impact on the booths and the press of swelling wood and metal. She curled herself into a ball, making her body as small as possible, and felt the he
at of the car’s metal frame as it passed only inches away from her.
Screams filled the air. The engine stalled once the car had come to a complete halt, and the only sound Alice seemed to be able to focus on was the ticking of the car’s motor cooling down. The screams became background noise, a disjointed symphony of panic and terror. Finally, she opened her eyes and saw her own reflection in the car’s scratched side door. The car had pulled the bolted-down table in the middle of the booth right off the ground.
Alice swallowed, looked up and around, and once she decided it was safe to do so, wiggled out of the booth. The bar had cleared by the time she made it out and got to her feet. The air was thick with the wooden smell of destruction, but there wasn’t any smoke to speak of, no growing fire, either. But there was blood. She couldn’t see the blood, or the source, but she could smell it.
“Cora?” she said.
“Here,” came a reply. Cora rose from behind a pile of rubble. She was covered in dust and her hair was disheveled, but otherwise looked fine.
“Someone got hit.”
“I know. Can you see them?”
“No. Look around, I’m going to check the car.”
Cora nodded and padded around the rubble. Alice did the same, though she checked herself for unknown punctures or injuries. None. She had made it out of harm’s way by the skin of her teeth, and for that she was thankful. Her arm and back were throbbing dully, but the adrenaline was dancing an allegro with the painkillers, causing her to barely feel the pain.
Alice approached the car. The hood was covered in piles of broken wood, glass, and metal, and while the driver’s side door was blocked in against the booth she had been sitting at a moment ago, the passenger side door seemed clear. She made her way to it, carefully placing her hands where they wouldn’t get cut up or pierced by splinters, and peered inside.
The man sitting at the wheel was unconscious, his head pressed against the steering wheel and the deflated airbag, his hands loosely dangling by his side. Blood was trickling out of his nose. The windshield was cracked. Dust covered the interior of the car. She reached in through the open passenger-side window to try and touch the man in the driver’s seat, but then immediately recoiled.
The shadows in the backseat swirled, and suddenly the car lightened. Alice’s eyes went wide with alarm and her heart began to beat hard inside her chest. The interior of the car had been dark when she had first looked inside, but she hadn’t thought much of it. The car was, after all, indoors. But now that the darkness in the backseat had cleared, ambient, gray light from the outside was spilling in, and the difference was notable.
“What the fuck was that?” she said aloud.
“I found someone,” Cora said, “He’s hurt.”
Alice swallowed, reached into the car a second time, and grabbed the man’s wrist. She checked for a pulse and felt it beat weakly against her fingers. He was alive and didn’t have any immediate, visible injuries besides some cuts, scrapes, and a bloody nose. He may have been in immediate danger, though Alice wasn’t a doctor and had no way of knowing. She pulled her hand out of the car and looked around for Cora, who was crouched over a pile of shattered stools, blown-apart tables, and a dangling ceiling fan.
There was someone down there. Alice saw the top of a dark haired head covered in dust and blood poking out of the rubble. Her heart wrenched.
“Is he alive?” Alice asked.
“I think so,” Cora said, “But I don’t know how badly he’s hurt.”
“I’ll call for help. Wait here.”
Cora nodded. Alice turned around, fished her phone out of her pocket, and made her way through the rest of the bar, checking for injured patrons as she went. There were none. She could see them all standing under the shelter of an enclosed bus stop just outside. Some of them were on their phones, while others were crying and holding whoever they had come with, thankful to not have been hit by the lunatic in the car.
Though after what Alice had seen, she was starting to wonder if something had been distracting—or directly manipulating—the driver.
Alice reached the door in time to meet a frantic Isaac. His cheeks were flushed, he was wet and his hair was windswept; it looked like he had run all the way here from his apartment. She reached for his hands and held them, saying “I’m fine, I’m not hurt, but someone else is.”
“What happened here?” Isaac asked “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I am. Someone crashed into the bar with his car,” she said, dialing 911 and putting the phone to her ear. “A guy got hurt. I don’t know his name.”
“And Cora?”
“She’s with him. I need to call an ambulance.”
The phone rang, and was promptly answered by the operator. “911, what’s your emergency?” asked the voice on the other end. Alice filled the operator in as quickly as she could. The dispatcher said an ambulance would be there as soon as possible and to hold tight. Alice thanked her and hung up, and then turned to look at the crowd.
“Why the hell didn’t anybody call an ambulance?” she asked.
The people standing beneath the shelter looked at each other, asking the same question with their eyes. Some shrugged, others didn’t respond. It was like they were trapped in some kind of daze.
“No one?” Alice asked, frustration creeping into her voice.
“Alice!” Isaac tried again, this time louder.
She snapped around to face him now. “What?” she asked.
Isaac pulled her into the arched doorway to O’Rilley’s and spoke in a hushed tone. “I was already on my way here before the crash.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cameron called. He was going to come to my place but he’s diverted to the protest on Frederich Street. He told me the protest is turning into a riot.”
“That’s bad.”
“It’s worse. He says something doesn’t look right; it’s like he can see shadows swirling around and through the crowd.”
Alice’s stomach went cold. “I saw a shadow,” she said, “In the back of the man’s car. I’m sure I did.”
“Then we have to go. The three of us, we’re needed.”
“Isaac, we can’t just leave. Someone’s hurt in there, and we don’t know when the ambulance or the cops will get here.”
“There’s a bigger problem to deal with, Alice. We need to get to where Cameron is. If you’ve just verified what Cameron said, something even more disastrous could be about to take place.”
Alice glanced across from where she was and into the bar. She could see Cora hunched over the body buried beneath a small pile of rubble. With a quick hand gesture she told Isaac to wait where he was, and then she hurried into the bar, carefully—but briskly—moving around toppled tools, tables, and broken bottles. When she thought she was within earshot, she called out to Cora.
“How is he?” Alice asked.
“I don’t think he can move,” she said, “Is the ambulance coming?”
“It’s on its way. He just needs to hold on a little longer.”
“He doesn’t have long. I can see blood underneath him.”
Alice approached and knelt beside Cora, checking the man beneath the rubble. He was unconscious, and there was a line of deep red blood trailing a path across a face covered in dust. “We have to go with Isaac,” she said.
“No,” Cora said, “I’ll wait with him and keep him comfortable.”
“Something else is going down. Isaac doesn’t think this was an accident.”
“So it was deliberate?”
“I don’t know, but I need to find out. Stay with him; I’ll go with Isaac. You can catch up when the ambulance gets here”
“And if he dies?”
Alice pressed her lips together. “Do your best to keep him comfortable.”
Cora nodded. “Where will you be?”
“Frederich Street,” Alice said, already moving toward the door. “Where the protest was.”
When she got to Isaa
c he was standing in the open arch with his phone to his ear. He had been talking to Jim, but their conversation was already at an end by the time Alice got back to where he was standing. Isaac hung up and pocketed his phone.
“Jim is on his way,” he said, “But there’s gridlock out there. He’ll be a while.”
Alice nodded and turned to face the people on the sidewalk. “Anyone who is injured should wait for the ambulance to arrive,” she said. “Anyone who isn’t injured and who has all of their stuff should go home. And if anyone has any medical experience, there are two injured men in there who could use some help.”
A short woman with curly brown hair glanced up at the man who was with her, possibly her husband, and stepped forward. “I’m a nurse,” she said, “I carry some first aid stuff in my bag, too.”
Alice nodded and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “The rest of you, go home before the cops get here.”
Some of the people standing around slowly shuffled away, but others stayed behind. The nurse walked past Alice, with her husband by her side, and stepped into the bar. Alice and Isaac then ran down the street and found her Mustang in the private parking lot adjacent to Isaac’s apartment building. By the time they got inside, they were soaked through. Whatever, she thought. If all she had to worry about after this was a little water on her upholstery, she would count the day as a win.
“You’re going to have to help with the traffic,” Alice said.
Isaac nodded, pulled his right sleeve up exposing his magic bangle, and closed his eyes. The bangle began to glow. Alice peeled out of the parking lot and drove, the traffic parting ahead of them as they went.
CHAPTER 15
The Riot
By the time Alice pulled up at the end of Frederich Street in her Mustang, the crowd of protesters had multiplied tenfold. She had seen pictures of the protest from earlier, and there couldn’t have been more than a hundred people present in front of Precinct 8. Now it looked like the kind of crowd the old rock bands pull in when playing in big cities.
Three cop cars sat on this side of the street. There were six uniforms standing around—two of them directing traffic around the press of people spilling out of the closed-off street and into the active street. The other four officers, who were sporting riot shields and helmets, were standing around watching protesters as they joined the back of the crowd, and dealing with the slew of insults and taunts being hurled at them.