by Linda Welch
The two stopped and eyed us expectantly.
Royal heaved to his feet. “Are you Rain?”
“I am. This is my partner, River.”
Royal helped Maggie to her feet. “I understand you take care of monsters.”
Rain continued up the stairs. “You came to the right place.”
Chris chose that moment to silently skim along the corridor. Rain and River stopped on the steps again. Rain’s hand went to her nape; River’s slid inside his leather coat. Both stood tightly poised.
“Chris is a friend.” Royal released Maggie’s hand. “This is Maggie. My name is Royal Mortensen.”
The pair shared a look and visibly relaxed.
Rain pushed her fingers through her damp hair. “Why don’t you come in and tell us how we can help?”
She waited for Royal and Maggie to move aside so she could get to the door, produced a key and unlocked it. After opening the door, she stepped aside and waved us in with one hand.
The apartment didn’t have much in the way of furniture: an old brown couch, the leather cracked like crazy paving, a small dinette table and two chairs near a kitchenette and a big yellow plastic chair shaped like an ice-cream scoop hung from the ceiling by a chain. A window looked out on the street; a door behind the kitchenette and another in the left wall.
Rain and River shucked off their leather coats. River tossed his to Rain and she disappeared through the door behind the kitchenette. She left the door open when she came out and I saw into a small bathroom. The coats hung from the shower rail to drip.
And I saw what she reached for when Chris returned; a rig of leather straps held a long scabbard on her back. A hilt poked from it. Rain unbuckled the rig and placed it on the kitchen counter.
From the size of the holster belted on River’s waist and the grip sticking from it, he carried a big pistol.
“The Station Master said guns don’t work,” Chris said.
River patted his holster. “Mine does.”
“Find a seat.” Rain went to the window looking over the street. She crossed her legs one over the other, folded her arms across her chest and leaned her spine on the window ledge. River joined her and adopted the same pose.
They puzzled me. Brother and sister? Why, despite the difference in height and facial features did they remind me of twins?
Chris and Royal remained on their feet. Maggie tried the yellow chair. It started revolving as she settled into it and her feet didn’t touch the floor to anchor herself.
“It’s a good thing this isn’t giving me motion sickness,” I told her.
“Yeah. Does ghost vomit wash out of clothes?” she replied unthinkingly.
“What did you say?” River asked.
“Ah,” Chris began. “She’s talking to. . . .” He threw a look at Royal.
“There are four of us,” Royal began bluntly, but hesitated to elaborate. “One of us is a. . . .”
Exasperated, Maggie shook her head. “One of us is a ghost. Right? Her name is Tiff. I’m her mouthpiece.”
“I am not a ghost,” I sighed.
River and Rain shot looks at each other.
“Seriously?” Rain asked, voice lilting with poorly suppressed hilarity.
If they didn’t believe us, they were worse than useless. Unsmiling, Maggie nodded. Tiny muscles ticked in Royal’s taut jaw and pulsed in his neck. Chris’ eyes turned icy.
River spluttered and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Rain tipped her head and grinned at the ceiling.
“Repeat after me,” I told Maggie. “What’s so damned funny?”
But she held her tongue when Royal more or less said it for me. He ground out the words. “I assure you, it is far from amusing.”
The two looked at us with sparkling eyes. Rain sobered. “No, it’s not but it is an incredible coincidence. You see, there are three of us. My partner Castle was murdered but his ghost walks.” She looked sideways at the couch. “Or lounges on my furniture, or tries to watch me in the shower. And do not pretend you don’t, Castle.”
I didn’t see any ghost. “I don’t see a ghost.”
“Me either,” Maggie said.
“Not surprising,” said Rain to Maggie after she spoke for me. “Why are your eyes closed?”
“As Maggie told you, Tiff speaks through her. When she closes her eyes, the words we hear are not hers,” Royal explained.
“I don’t see a ghost,” Maggie said for me again.
“Are ghosts something you normally see?” River asked.
“If the victim died violently, yes.”
“And did you see many as you came through Gettaholt?”
I frowned. “Not one.”
“This is a city of desperate people who’ll kill you for the contents of your pockets,” said Rain. “If the dead were visible to you, you’d see little else in Gettaholt.”
So I didn’t see the dead here. “Does everyone return as a ghost?”
“I don’t know. We only see dead wraiths.”
Wraiths? Castle was a wraith before he died? Myth says wraiths are shades of the dead, so how did her partner die if . . . he was already dead? Either the legends had it all wrong or Downside wraiths were different.
“You brought a dead woman with you.” Rain slid down the wall and sat with her knees to her chin; she folded her arms on them. “Has she something to do with what you need from us?”
I slipped away from Maggie, tried a few steps and found I could move freely. I went to Rain and looked closely at her. I thought she and River used makeup to enhance their Goth look, but her skin had pure, natural clarity and the black ringing her eyes came from thick black eyelashes, not paint. There was something elfin about her, a beautiful, delicate little woman.
“There is a man, Dagka Shan. A killer. He slew families: mothers, fathers, their children. He physically tore them apart. Tiff and I tracked him. With four of my brethren, we confronted him. He killed everyone but me and Tiff, and he severely wounded me. Tiff shot him, his people captured and incarcerated him.” Royal spoke carefully as if considering each word. He didn’t want to expand the story to a saga about Gelpha, Dark Cousins and Bel-Athaer.
He dipped his head and studied the floorboards as he continued. “They came here and now Shan is free. He arranged to have Tiff shot in the head, which put her in a coma and tore her spirit from her body. He is with a mage, Arthemy, who claims if we bring Tiff’s body he can return her spirit to it, but Shan demands we bring another, a boy. He says he wants to merely talk to young Lawrence but I disbelieve his motives.”
He looked up. “Although still a child, Lawrence rules a faraway kingdom. I dare not hand Lawrence to Shan, but Arthemy told us he will not restore Tiff if we do not bring Lawrence. Shan must be . . . stopped. But you must understand he is extremely powerful by human standards.”
“You want him killed,” River interrupted.
“Yes,” Royal admitted. “We were sent to you because you deal with monsters. Shan is the king of monsters.”
River tucked his thumbs in his belt. “We’re not vigilantes.”
“A lot of bad things call Gettaholt home,” Rain said. “Unless they mess with us, they’re none of our business. We’re not hired killers. We accept a commission only with evidence there’s a danger to Gettaholt’s citizens. Few beings by their nature earn an automatic death warrant.”
“Ghouls?” Chris said.
“They’re one.” Rain squeezed her lips together. She pffd out a breath. “Give us evidence Shan has taken lives, maybe we can help you.”
“I told you,” Royal said. “He murdered families, children. I can bring you the newspaper articles. If I must, I will raid FBI Headquarters and bring you their files.”
Surely he bluffed. He didn’t mean to break into FBI headquarters!
“Look, we’re not unfeeling. I’m sorry something so horrendous happened, I’m sorry for what those deaths must mean to family and friends. But from what you said, I gather you’re from Ups
ide. What has he done here to warrant a death sentence?”
Then I got it. “If people behave themselves Downside, they’re not condemned for something they did before they came here. It’s kind of as if our world is another jurisdiction and its laws don’t apply here.”
“Well, yeah,” Rain said as if she hadn’t thought of it that way.
Royal’s face might have been made of marble and his words came out clipped as he got to his feet. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
I harked back to what Angelina told us. “Wait. Angelina said to tell you she sent us. Does that make a difference?”
“And don’t forget the Station Master refused to let us pass because he wanted to keep Maggie out but Royal insisted she come with us. Then the door opened. Angelina thinks . . . well . . . she said. . . .” Chris tripped over the words before managing to spit it out, “Downside opened it.”
Rain twisted her neck to stare at Maggie. “Why keep you out?”
Royal replied, “We think because Maggie is human and we are not.”
Rain’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you?”
“We are Gelpha.”
Rain waited out the silence, then gave one of those shrugs meaning, okay, if you don’t want to tell us more, have it your own way.
“I doubt the Station Master wanted to turn Maggie away because she’s human. Humans do come, though rarely now. But they have stains on their souls. See what I mean? They’re bad people and a little or a lot crazy. They belong here more than they do Upside.”
“So the Station Master didn’t think Maggie should come in because she’s not a bad human?” I asked.
“Exactly.” She frowned, gaze dropping to her knees. “You should have said Angie sent you. She knows more than she’s saying; she always does.” She drummed her fingers on the floor. “You tried to bring a human woman Downside and the Station Master refused to let her in, but the door opened anyway.”
“How did you meet Angelina?” River asked.
“A friend came years ago,” said Chris.
“You didn’t have a problem leaving her?”
What an odd question.
“Why would we? She is an enchanting woman.”
“Sirens usually are.”
“You mean siren as in lure men to their death? Good grief!”
Siren, huh. Aren’t they supposed to sit on rocks in the sea, singing, enticing seamen to jump overboard? Or is that a Lorelei?
Rain said, “Not to their death but a lot of people leave her house with less of themselves.” She added in a mutter, “As River knows to his cost.”
River gave her a sour look, which Rain ignored.
Chris tucked his chin into his neck. “When I called her a siren, it was meant as flattery.”
“She must have got a kick out of that,” River said in a wry tone.
I snorted. “So you didn’t overpower her with your charm. She was reeling you in for a nibble.”
Chris threw a wounded look in Maggie’s direction after she spoke for me. “Her companion, Micah, said they are mers.”
“They are, but Angie’s also a siren. She enraptures a person and feeds off their energy.”
“Mermaids don’t have tails?” Maggie asked, disappointed.
“Not on land but yes, their tails form when they’re in water.”
“We felt her spell but it had little effect on Chris and I,” Royal said. “Maggie, on the other hand. . . .”
“Oh, shut up,” from Maggie, her eyes wide open.
Rain hid a grin behind her hand.
“When she said Felipe went to her willingly, she meant he didn’t succumb to her spell but they. . . .” I faltered. “He wanted an affair anyway,” I finished lamely.
“Poor Felipe,” said Chris. “What a thing to forget. Should we tell him?”
“Sure, if you have a cruel streak.”
His palm splayed on his chest. “How can you think anything but tenderness fills my heart?”
Why did I doubt his declaration had anything to do with Felipe?
Royal cut in grumpily. “Quite, but back to the reason she sent us here.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Angie must think Downside really needs you, and you need help. But why us when she could have referred you to one of half a dozen crews?” Rain said thoughtfully. “Angie and I had a falling out, we didn’t part on good terms.” She paused, toothing her upper lip.
“Shan wants the boy-king, or whatever he is,” she mused. Her brows lowered. “For the mage’s spell to work, he must have Tiff’s body and spirit. Well and good, you bring her body to Arthemy. But Shan wants the boy as payment. The mage won’t cast his spell if the boy isn’t there. Hence, the boy must make an appearance.” Her eyes sought River’s.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.
Rain tilted her head as her eyebrows lofted. She switched her arms to anchor one knee and stretched the other leg along the floor. “Probably. Sending them to us stinks of manipulation.”
“You sound as if you’re putting pieces together,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’d prefer not to say at the moment, but it bears looking into.” Rain braced her hands on the floor and slid her back up the wall. “Where can we find Arthemy?”
“We drove from The Station heading—” Royal stopped, started again. “I do not know east from west here, so say with The Station on our right we drove from there to the fifth street on the left. We then went through an intersection, and from there took the second street on our right, the next street right, ahead through an intersection, the next street on our left. Arthemy’s house is the third along, on the left.”
Good golly, he committed the drive to memory.
“Did you get that, you big galoot?” Rain looked at the sofa. She nodded. “Good. Can you take a look?”
There followed a one-sided conversation:
“I know what galoot means.”
“No, Castle, I do not think you’re a knuckle-dragging oaf. Playing you at your own game.”
“Fluffy bunny? Do I look anything like a fluffy bunny?”
“Oh. Fluff-buns. Yeah, so much better, Castle.”
“I dunno? What do you usually look for in a blood mage’s house?”
“Always a first for everything.”
“We’ll be waiting.”
She sounded crazy and a ghost partner was too outlandish to be believed.
What was I thinking? I partnered with two ghosts. Why did someone else partnering with a shade discombobulate me?
“He . . . um . . . likes to call me pet names,” said Rain.
Ah, the fluffy bunny thing. Better than some of the names Mel and Jack called me.
“I’ll talk to Angie,” Rain said.
River said, “You sure you want to?”
“One of us has to and better me than you.”
River swept his hair back from his forehead. “Don’t remind me again.”
“Did you and Angelina . . . ah. . . ?” Chris asked.
River’s gaze dropped. He rubbed his knee. “Not willingly.”
I smirked. Chris’ latest infatuation sure spread her charms around.
Rain got into the harness, settled the scabbard on her back and got her still damp leather coat from the bathroom. With a nod of farewell, she left by the front door.
“May as well make yourselves comfortable,” River said. “This’ll take time.”
Royal and Chris decided not to stand in the middle of the small room like a couple of tree stumps for as long as it took, and sat at the dinette table.
“Can I ask something about Downside?” Maggie said. “Me, not Tiff?”
River spread his fingers and flexed them. “Go ahead but be warned, Downside is a land of many ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ and few answers.”
Maggie looked at the window. “Out there, it’s red. It can’t be a sky, but if it’s a ceiling it’s incredibly high.” She offered a tiny, uncertain
smile. “And the rain . . . or water, why is there so much of it?”
River looked past Maggie at the window. “It is the sky. And we don’t have rain this frequently all year. Rivers and streams are salt water so rain is our pure source. The rainfall gives all we can use.” He grinned. “Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it.”
“How do you know it’s the sky? Has anyone been up there?”
“The angels told us.”
“Angels! There are angels?”
“There are.” River winked. “But I’d steer clear of them if I were you. They’re unpredictable creatures and can be spiteful.”
“You’re joshing me.” Maggie slid off the yellow chair and grabbed the sides. “Caverns, even huge one, don’t have skies and rainfall.”
“Cavern?” River made a face. “You’ve seen a fraction of one district in Gettaholt, it’s a big city and there are other cities this size and a heap of towns and villages, plus vast tracts of undeveloped land. We’ve been to the Far North, a mountain region of ice and snow; getting there took days by boat and car. You can’t fit Downside in a cavern.”
Having traveled the Ways, used the Gates and seen Bel-Athaer, you’d think I’d have an easier time accepting Downside. But the logical part of my brain still struggled to categorize this weird place and especially its inhabitants. Poor Maggie, who until today saw the world as a solid ball of dirt, must be at a loss.
River went to the counter, reached behind and produced squares of soft red material, cotton mop, bore brush, cleaning rod and a small tin can. He took everything to the table and spoke to Royal and Chris. “Do you mind? I need elbow room.”
With a sour look from Chris, he and Royal moved to the sofa.
River sat in the chair facing us, took his gun from the holster and began to clean it. “Rain and humidity play hell with it.”
It was a basic if heavy revolver. I stood behind River and watched him clean and lubricate the bore and action, and wipe the action with a cloth. He rubbed the rest of the gun with another cloth. All the time, his gaze rested on Chris and Royal.