The Mortal Bone

by Liu, Marjorie M.

  I heard other voices, then, from the other side of those broken windows. Two men: one stranger, one familiar.

  “Whoa,” said the stranger, as the baby continued to cry. “Jesus. What are you doing with that kid?”

  I recognized Horace’s rasping voice, each word deepening, growing harder, as he replied, “Fucking mind your own business, shitface.”

  I discovered a spot where old plywood had been smashed, revealing a dark hole that was big enough for me to crawl through. I moved fast, breathing through my mouth. It was hard to hear anything but the baby and my pounding heart.

  Keep crying, I thought, sweating. You’re still alive if you’re crying.

  I found myself in a dark hall stacked with dusty boxes. The air smelled like metal and urine. Footsteps scuffed an old layer of grime on the floor, and I followed the trail into a large room divided by concrete pillars. There was some light, but it was dim, streaming through dirty broken windows high up near the ceiling, almost thirty feet above us.

  Horace was in the corner of the room farthest from me. Back to the wall, facing in my direction, though I didn’t think he’d noticed me yet. No way to take him by surprise. Too much floor to cover. His demonic aura was thick and oily, heaving over itself in throbbing waves that reached like tentacles for the baby on the floor in front of him.

  Andrew was wrapped in a blanket, tiny fists waving as he cried. I couldn’t see him well, but he seemed unharmed.

  Standing a short distance away was another man. I could only see his back, but he was big, husky, with a long, ragged coat and crazy gray hair sticking out from under his hat. His hands were outstretched, his fingers dirty.

  “Put down that knife, man. Come on. Put down the knife and step back from the baby. Those two things don’t go together.”

  Horace gave him a weary look and turned his wrist—revealing a long knife in his hand.

  “You should have minded your own business,” he said, speaking in a voice that was heavy and resigned, and all the more chilling because of it.

  “I was,” replied the man. “I squat in this building. You made it my business by being a nutjob with a baby. Now walk away, before I hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?” repeated Horace, brow arched. “I’m going to kill you, stranger. I’m going to cut your tendons first, so you can’t run. Then I’ll cut out your tongue and gag you, so you can’t scream. When I’m done with that, I’ll cut the rest of you.”

  He pointed his blade at the man’s groin. “I’ll save the best for last.”

  The big guy straightened. “I’m not going to let you do anything to that baby.”

  I walked from the shadows, and the armor on my right hand glimmered as though burned with moonlight. Horace saw me and started to laugh.

  The other man turned and stepped sideways, frowning.

  “I’ve called the police,” I told him. “I need you to wait outside for them to arrive. I’ll take care of this.”

  The stranger gave me the same look a lot of big men did: like I was small, fragile, and couldn’t possibly handle myself.

  Which meant he ignored me, and turned back to face Horace, who was all flesh and shadow, and quiet thunder. That knife was still in his hand, pointed down at the baby. I didn’t know how fast I could move.

  “Hunter,” whispered Horace. “Maybe you should just walk away.”

  “Maybe you should,” I replied. “Otherwise, you’re mine.”

  “That line won’t work anymore.” Horace gave me a grim look. “You fucked us all, you know that? What were you thinking, breaking that last wall? Letting them loose?”

  “I was sabotaged,” I told him. “What’s your excuse for this shit?”

  Horace grimaced. “You are my excuse. Morals were fine when life was good, but with the Reapers free . . .” A shudder raced through him, and he closed his eyes. “We need to gorge ourselves now before the clans break from the prison. You thought it was bad before, Hunter . . . but every one of us demon parasites will be going hard for the sweet pain, as much as we can, as fast as we can. Before there’s nothing left.”

  The big man lunged toward the baby.

  I’d thought he might make a move—and so, apparently, had Horace. He lunged with incredible speed, slashing that knife through the air. The man cried out, clutching his eye. Blood poured between his fingers.

  I crossed the room in seconds and grappled for Horace’s knife. The armor flared white-hot over my hand, making the possessed man stumble back. Inside me, the darkness stirred, heavy with power.

  I shoved it down, ruthless, and kept after the demon—only realizing, moments later, that I also held a dagger in my right hand.

  The armor had transformed, giving me a blade: shorter than my forearm, made of the same silver metal, and light as air. A thin, delicate chain hung from the guard, connecting the blade to the armor. I was not as surprised as I should have been. The armor had shifted shape before, attuned to my needs—usually, in battle.

  “You still think you can murder my kind?” Horace snapped, eyeing that blade. “You’re nothing now, Hunter.”

  You are a Queen, whispered the darkness. And those beneath you must remember their place.

  I snarled, slashing at Horace. The demon’s host barely escaped the blow, but the tip of that blade caught a fragment of his raging aura, scarring it with a trail of light. He screamed, eyes widening in shock, and staggered back against the wall.

  “You’re nothing but a gutter rat,” I whispered. “A parasite. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  Horace struck me. I couldn’t evade him. I’d never had to be fast, just patient.

  He gored my shoulder with his knife, the tip of the blade sliding off bone until it hit my breast and sank in. I felt cold metal pierce my body—a distending, sliding sensation of parting flesh—followed by a bright, unexpected pain. The shock of being stabbed took my breath away.

  And then my primitive brain took over, and I grabbed Horace’s arm, holding him close with all my strength—his hand still gripping his knife. He tried to pull it out of my breast, but I wouldn’t let him. I thought I would pass out from the pain, but I gritted my teeth and focused, focused hard. I was staring at his eyes when I hacked my own blade across his aura, staring into eyes that flickered from rage to horror—horror becoming resignation as my weapon cut through the shadow of his life.

  Horace choked on a scream, stiffening beneath my hand.

  Behind me a gun fired.

  No impact. Just sound. I shoved Horace away from me, biting back a scream when his fingers slipped hard off the knife in my breast. I staggered, light-headed, blood rolling hot down my skin. I refused to look down, even when I grabbed the knife and pulled it out of my body in one hard yank. I should have been used to pain, dealing with the boys waking up every night—but dragging a knife out of my breast made me want to scream.

  No time, though. Three possessed humans walked in, from the hall where I had entered.

  Two men, one woman, with auras black as night and flecked with lightning. All were regulars at the shelter, Grant’s pet demons—and willing converts. I didn’t know their names.

  In each of their hands, a gun. Pointed at me.

  I looked for baby Andrew and found him a short distance away, sheltered in the arms of the big homeless man. Blood streamed down his face, but he was standing, trying not to draw attention to himself. Kind of like an elephant, lying low.

  I moved away from him and the baby, keeping the demons focused on me. I was sweating and dizzy, still holding Horace’s slick bloody knife. “Takes three of you to put a bullet in me? Only took one to kill my mother.”

  The woman glanced at Horace, who had slumped to the floor, unconscious. Fully human, no longer possessed. The parasite was dead. I had killed it. Whoever Horace had been before, he would wake up without his memories . . . and find himself accused of kidnapping a baby. His life, officially over. Again.

  In the distance, police sirens wailed.

  “
No hard feelings,” said the woman, as her demonic aura flickered. “We have to change with the times.”

  “Horace made a mistake with the baby,” said one of the men, tightening his grip on the gun. “He should have gone for you . . . last of the Kiss women. That means something.”

  I didn’t bother replying. My entire body throbbed with awful, gushing pain. Each breath, agony. No place to run. Big, empty room. A baby still crying.

  I flexed my right hand around the blade, and slipped into the void. One thought in my head. One focus as I drowned in that endless night.

  I fell back into the world—behind the three demons.

  My sword hit the woman’s demonic aura, burning through her shadow with a hiss. She screamed, dropping her gun and clutching her head. I swung at the man next to her—but my wound hurt like hell, slowing me down. He threw himself out of the way.

  The last man shot me in the back.

  I heard the blast—flinched—but the bullet did not hit.

  Instead, long coiled bodies draped around my neck, purring like steam engines. I turned to find Zee standing behind me, holding a bullet in his hand—and staring at the horrified demon with a look of pure snarling death. Raw and Aaz held down the other possessed man.

  “No one touches Maxine,” Zee hissed, and the rage that rolled off him carried an actual scent: hot as fried pepper, rancid as rotting meat. It seemed to coat the inside of my throat, and I coughed, eyes watering, forced to swallow hard in some vain attempt to ease that coarse sensation. It was hard to breathe.

  “Forgive me,” begged the demon, dropping the gun and getting down on his knees. “Please.”

  “No,” Zee rasped, and swiped his claws, knocking that possessed man’s head clean off his shoulders.

  It happened so fast. Blood spurted, gushing across the floor. I stared in shock, watching that demonic parasite flutter loose of its dead host, attempting in vain to escape.

  Only it couldn’t. It tried, a small dense mass of shadows straining to be free, but unable to break the bonds of its corpse host.

  Zee started to laugh: a chilling, unpleasant sound.

  “Your Mama bonded to us now,” he whispered, “and you bonded to her. Own you, cutter. Own your soul.”

  Zee wrapped his claws around that demonic cloud, and the shadow squeezed inward, within his fist.

  “Tell others,” he rasped. “Tell your mother. Maxine be ours. Touch her, like touching us. Hurt her, like hurting us.”

  Dek and Mal, sitting heavy on my shoulders, sighed in pleasure. Small rough tongues licked the backs of my ears, but that was no comfort.

  My boys had never killed a host. Not while on my watch. Hosts were innocent. They knew that. But this . . . what I had just seen . . .

  I heard a choked sound behind me: the big man, still holding the baby, his one good eye wide with horror. Swaying, tilting, pale. I held out my hands to him, my trembling hands. Dagger gone, absorbed. I didn’t know when that had happened, but the armor radiated a rich warmth that sank into my bones.

  “Oh, my God,” he whispered, staring at the decapitated man. And then he flinched. “God!”

  I looked over my shoulder. Raw and Aaz were tearing into the possessed man they had pinned. Crouched over his body like feeding wolves. His head was already gone, and so was one of his arms. Blood sprayed their bodies, spreading across the floor. Aaz raked a long claw down his back, opening up his spine. Raw laughed, reaching deep inside the body. I heard a sucking sound as he pulled out the man’s heart.

  I spun away, vomiting.

  The big man ran, taking the baby.

  I staggered after him, following the child’s cry. Outside, sirens. I pressed my hand over my breast, trying to staunch the blood and put pressure on the pain. Dek and Mal felt especially heavy.

  “Wait!” I croaked, but the man disappeared down a dark hall at the back of the shadowed room. Andrew’s wail echoed.

  Tears burned my eyes. I tried to run faster, desperate to catch up, but it was hard to breathe. My breast and shoulder felt like they were on fire, and the boys, the boys . . .

  The man clattered up a set of stairs. I groaned, following him, leaving streaks of blood on the steel rail as I pulled myself along.

  He turned on the landing, and let out a strangled shout.

  “No,” I gasped, pushing harder.

  I was afraid I’d find a corpse when I reached the man, but he was still standing—staring at Zee, Raw, and Aaz—who crouched on the stairs above him, bodies nearly lost in the shadows, their eyes glowing red.

  I stepped in front of the man, heart thudding in my throat, so breathless I could barely speak.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered raggedly, trying to get the man to look at me. “Sir, please.”

  His terror was profound, a quivering horror that seemed to shave years off his life. He still wasn’t looking at me, and I shrugged Dek and Mal off my shoulders, their rippling muscles gripping my arms as they dropped to the floor with quiet thuds.

  Rasping growls behind me. Deadly, hungry sounds. I forced myself to breathe, and edged closer to the man. Andrew cried, hiccuping on his sobs.

  “Hey,” I said in a gentle voice. “Hey.”

  The man finally looked at me, and the devastation in his eyes was almost more than I could bear.

  “I’m crazy,” he whispered.

  “Let me hold the baby,” I said.

  He stepped back, shuddering. “No. No, no. Behind you.”

  “I know,” I said. “Please, give me the baby.”

  His face crumpled with terror, and he tried to run back down the stairs. Raw and Aaz slipped from the shadows, blocking his path—and the man teetered, crying out. I grabbed his jacket, trying to steady him, but my touch only made things worse. He flailed in shock and terror, spinning around with his fist raised.

  Raw attacked.

  I shrieked at him, but it was too late—and he was not listening. The little demon took off the man’s left leg at the kneecap, and in the same breath grabbed his stump and yanked down. The man crashed, screaming, and I fought to reach the baby slipping from his arms.

  I tumbled on all fours, scrabbling and crawling. Raw reared high over the writhing man, sharp teeth bared in a hideous grin that bubbled with blood and strips of flesh.

  I threw myself on top of the man’s chest—and the baby—just as Raw’s claws raked down. I gasped as something hard hit my shoulder, but felt no pain except for the stab wound in my breast.

  Breathless, heart pounding, I peered over my shoulder.

  Dek had blocked the blow. Over him, Raw stared at me in horror. I was sure I had a similar look on my face.

  Aaz dragged his brother away. Zee took his place, staring down at me with grave, solemn eyes. Silence, between us all. Silence, except for the rasp and moan of the man beneath me and the quiet sob of a baby.

  I closed my eyes, swallowing my own sob.

  Slowly, carefully, I slid off the man. His chest hitched for air, like a wet hiccup. Blood gushed from his lower leg, flowing down the stairs. It was a terrible wound, accompanied by bone-deep lacerations across his thigh from where Raw had grabbed him.

  I eased the crying baby from his arms. Except for my blood on his blanket, he seemed fine. It was a miracle. I bowed over him with a trembling sigh. At the bottom of the stairs, just out of sight, I heard police radios crackle and the pound of feet. I hesitated, torn, and laid Andrew on the floor beside the man who had tried to save him.

  I tucked the blanket higher around the baby’s face, then peered down the stairwell.

  “Hey!” I cried, hoarse. “Help! There’s a baby up here!”

  Shouts. A flashlight beam pierced the shadows. I leaned against the wall, and pressed my armored fist against my brow. Around me, the boys gathered—quiet, and solemn. I heard the police running up the stairs.

  “You’re safe,” I whispered to the baby, but I was looking at the dying man beside him, whose eyes were mere slits as he stared at my face.

&n
bsp; I grabbed his jacket, and we slipped into the void.

  CHAPTER 15

  I left the man just inside an emergency room, listening to startled screams as I pushed him from the void onto the cold tile floor. I had never done that to another person, but it was instinctive, a moment when I hovered between this world and another—lost and found, half darkness and half light.

  Maybe people saw disembodied hands. Maybe they saw my face, peering from a window of darkness—maybe all that anyone noticed was the blood-soaked, dying man who fell into the hospital, out of thin air.

  Only a week ago, a day, I would never have done anything so public. So flamboyant. But the demons had been right. The rules were different now. Times were changing.

  Starting now.

  I left the man and closed the void.

  Next time, I stepped into the apartment. I staggered, clutching my breast, blood running slick over my fingers. I started to fall, and strong hands caught me.

  “Maxine,” murmured Zee.

  “Hey,” I whispered, hurting from more than a stab wound. Raw crawled on his belly toward us, claws curled under his hands, out of sight. Aaz was close behind, gaze torn between him and me, eyes big with worry. Dek and Mal slithered near, rough tongues scraping blood off my fingers.

  I sat down, exhausted. Now the boys seemed calm. Now, here. It was surreal. I felt as though I was losing my mind. I had seen the boys wild before, seen them kill in hideous ways. Not once had it bothered me.

  But this time had been different. Not just for what they’d done, but how.

  “You killed hosts,” I told them, hoarse. “Innocent hosts. You may have murdered a man who was trying to protect a baby. You know better. I know you do.”

  Raw looked away. Zee murmured, “Knowing not instinct. Instinct is hunger. Instinct is blood.”

  “No. If I hadn’t put myself between Raw and that baby . . .”

  I was unable to finish the sentence. It was too horrible to contemplate.

  Raw gave me such a mournful look my heart broke again. I had to breathe through gritted teeth, trying to control the terrible, awful pain radiating from my breast. It filled and consumed my entire body. My aching heart felt worse.