by Dyrk Ashton
Maybe it is time to do something else, he considers. It’s been on his mind of late. He’s known too well in this business, by too many people. They’ll begin to wonder, if they haven’t already.
Kabir pushes through the heavy double doors to the private section of the parking garage reserved for talent. In the car port near the exit to the alley, two personal security guards in suit and tie, and a driver, lean against a stretch limo.
The taller bodyguard, Hansen, sees him first. “Hey Kabir. Sorry, man. We were just gonna haul his ass out until he said he knew ya.”
Kabir grunts in reply. Hansen’s young and not real competent but nice enough.
“We asked him to wait in the alley,” the shorter bodyguard, Spelling, adds. Kabir’s worked with Spelling for years. He’s an ass but good at his job. “Just a little bitty dude. Fucking weird, though. Creeps me out.”
“Wearing like three coats,” says Hansen.
“And sunglasses.”
“Definitely has a thing for sunglasses.”
“And smells like shit.”
“Nasty.”
“Real nasty.”
Kabir rounds the limo and heads to the exit.
The limo driver watches him go. “Strong silent type, huh?”
“I think he invented it,” says Spelling with a grin. “Did I tell ya the guy’s a legend?”
Kabir squeezes past the gate arm into the alley and takes a deep breath of the cool wet air, inhaling the familiar scent of dirty water and diesel fuel. Ah, Detroit. He checks the sky, a flat gray haze dimly infused with the light of the city, and the position of the blurry blot of a moon. Just after midnight. Colored beams of searchlights slice the thick atmosphere. The vibratory beat of the music can still be heard from inside.
The alley where Kabir stands runs between buildings alongside the concert hall. Access to the main street is a block up to the right where a key card is required to open the ten feet high gate topped with razor wire. Not the kind of climb the homeless usually tackle. Like Rosen said, the bum could have been sleeping in the trash. Right now there’s no sign of him. To Kabir’s left the drive ends at an adjoining building and turns right into a blind alley. Kabir heads that way. This guy was probably a roady some time ago or an alcoholic door man, maybe a washed up junky musician. Or it could be Kabir doesn’t know him at all. Anyway, he’ll get this straightened out and get back to work in short order.
Kabir’s mind wanders back to his previous line of thought. Maybe he could take some time off. He’ll find another job eventually. Always does. Have to change his identity, give up his most recent name. The one he took in honor of his mother’s side of the family. No big deal. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before. Maybe he’ll go someplace remote and just relax. He used to travel for work. That got too risky, increasing the chance of running into people he once knew too soon. Unlike some of the others of his kind, he can only alter his appearance so much. But a chance to see the world again would be nice.
A genuine smile spreads across his ordinarily stony face. That’s what I’ll do. See some old friends, visit family. Hell, I might even see if I can track down Father.
He rounds the corner to the blind alley, lost in thought, then slows as he hears a male voice singing a nursery rhyme, high, soft and angelic:
“Oh, the Incy, Wincy Spider,
Climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain,
And washed the spider out.
Out came the sun,
And dried up all the rain,
And the Incy Wincy Spider,
Climbed up the spout again.”
A foul odor reaches Kabir. The voice becomes creaky and discordant.
“Here, kitty kitty.”
Kabir balks. His mind grapples with the vaguely familiar scent and voice. Ahead of him to the right are two dumpsters against the wall. Beyond them the alley is blocked by a chain-link fence topped with coiled razor wire like the gate out front. There are usually plenty of lights back here, high on the walls. All are now broken but one back in the main alley, striking inky shadows. There’s no sign of anyone.
Kabir stalks forward cautiously, makes out the shape of a figure crouched in the darkness between the dumpsters. It stands slowly to no more than five and a half feet tall, but Kabir’s skin prickles and the hair on the back of his neck and all down his back bristles straight.
This is the “homeless man” who knew Kabir’s name--or at least what Hansen and Spelling saw as a homeless man. In that form it wouldn’t be the least bit menacing. What Kabir sees is no vagrant, however, but the creature’s true form, its Trueface. And it sees Kabir’s.
Kabir reproaches himself harshly--how could he have let his guard down?! His guard! It’s been so very long. He’s gotten soft.
“Max...” the name passes Kabir’s lips as an exclamation of deepest loathing.
Max hunches low to the ground. “Hello, Zadkiel.” He chortles. “My apologies. I mean, Kabir.”
Kabir has never fled from anything only to save himself. Now, faced with this little homeless man, he considers it for the first time in his very long life. But he knows, running will not save him. Not from Maskim Xul. And it’s always better to go down fighting. Always.
It leaps.
* * *
In the garage by the limo, Hansen, Spelling and the driver are jolted by a roar so inhuman and ghastly they question whether they heard it at all. Spelling tries his radio, calling for Kabir. No response. Hansen and the limo driver stand frozen in place, but Spelling heads straight for the back of the car. “Open the trunk!”
It takes a moment for the command to register before the driver fumbles the keys out of his pocket and hits the button to pop the trunk.
Spelling snatches two shotguns from a case inside and shoves one in Hansen’s hands. “Come on.” He calls on the radio for Rosen to send police as he and Hansen approach the back of the alley, then pulls a small flashlight from his belt.
Hansen’s having difficulty differentiating between the muffled pulse of the music from the concert and his own pounding heartbeat.
They round the corner with shotguns raised.
No sign of Kabir or struggle. Just scattered rubbish. They move carefully to the front of the dumpsters, shotguns at the ready. The space between them is clear. Spelling checks inside. Empty. He tries Kabir on the radio again and hears a tinny squeak at his feet. He nudges a moldy piece of newspaper with his shoe, uncovering a coiled, shiny object. He trains his light on it and crouches.
“Shit.”
It’s Kabir’s earpiece. The squeaking sound they heard was Spelling’s own voice. He pulls the paper away and sees something else. He hands the flashlight to Hansen, reaches into his breast pocket, retrieves a pair of latex gloves, the kind security employees carry in case they need to search someone.
“Is that a bone?” Hansen asks.
Spelling picks the thing up, hefts it, finding it surprisingly heavy. Six inches long, ivory white, serrated along one edge and tapered to a deadly point. He tips it up in the light. Bits of meat and tendrils of nerve hang from the wider end, dripping blood.
“Dude, I think it’s a tooth.”
CHAPTER TWO
Flowers & Figs
Sixty miles south of Detroit, blue-silver moonlight bathes slate rooftops of aging Victorian and Edwardian homes in the Old West End, a neighborhood near downtown Toledo, Ohio. Neglected maples and oaks line streets of cracked asphalt like weary crooked sentinels, nudging up worn flagstone sidewalks with their roots--which doesn’t help Fiona Megan Patterson because she’s clumsy, and tonight she’s mad as hell.
It’s just after midnight and Fi is walking home. The walk of shame. Or at least it would be if she’d actually had sex tonight. Fi will be 18 in a month and after countless nights of wistful yearning she thought tonight would be the night--her first time.
It started out well enough, an impromptu date after work with the quiet yet affable, disheveled but incredibly hand
some Zeke Prisco, a guy who works at St. Augustine’s Hospital where she has an internship. They had a pleasant dinner, then retired to his small but cozy (in a bohemian sort of way) attic apartment. A couple glasses of wine helped her relax. They made out on the couch, and when she thought the moment was right, buzzing with anticipation at the heat and tingling thrill of his closeness, she took off her shirt. Half naked and vulnerable, she leaned in for another kiss--but he pulled away and started mumbling about the time, that it was late and they both had to work tomorrow. She was too embarrassed to argue. She tugged her shirt back on (backwards, so she had to awkwardly spin it around). He offered to walk her home, insisted when she declined, but she insisted right back.
Possible explanations whirl through her mind. Maybe Zeke was even more nervous than she was. But he’s been with a zillion girls, has to have been! Why not me?! Maybe he was worried because he’s older, 22, and she’s legally underage. Maybe the bottle and a half of wine he put away all by himself rendered him incapable of doing the deed. It could be he just doesn’t like her that way. Or, Fi groans inwardly, I’m not pretty enough...
She tucks her thumbs in the straps of her backpack and scowls at the sidewalk. What am I so upset about, anyway?, she scolds herself. She and Zeke have only been out a couple of times, and it isn’t like she’s looking for a serious relationship. Who has time for that?!
Sure, Zeke’s ridiculously good looking. And talented. When he plays the guitar, everybody melts. That’s what he does at the hospital for extra money while he’s in college, play for the old folks. He actually went to Julliard on a scholarship right out of high school, though he dropped out halfway through first year to take care of his foster mother when she was diagnosed with cancer (he is definitely sweet), and never went back after she passed away.
An uncanny feeling she’s being watched suddenly creeps over her. She halts, glances behind her, scrutinizes shadows of trees and shrubs, between parked cars and homes on both sides of the street, listens to the sounds of distant traffic, leaves shuffling in the breeze, the yowl of cats brawling down the block. Then she looks up and catches sight of the brightest full moon she’s ever seen. It stalks her from beyond the trees as she proceeds along the sidewalk, peeking around maple branches, sneaking behind curtains of red-brown oak leaves. Like a bright white donut hole stuck splat in black pudding, she muses in momentary distraction, with a corona of powdered sugar. The shadows it casts are jet black with edges crisp as the late September air and fallen leaves that crunch underfoot. She breathes in the clean leafy scent of autumn. It smells wonderful, but does nothing to improve her mood. She almost trips over the crappy sidewalk--again. Dammit!
So here she is, frustrated, bewildered, ashamed, more than a little pissed off, and now she has to go home and face her Uncle Edgar. He expected her shortly after 8 PM when she got off work, but she couldn’t bring herself to call and let him know she’d be late and hear the disappointment in his voice, thinly veiled by his ever-present and infuriating stoicism, so she sent him a text. He didn’t respond, but that’s no surprise. She doesn’t think he knows how to read a text, let alone send one, though she’s shown him how at least a dozen times. She guesses he’s somewhere in his sixties or seventies (he’ll never tell), but it isn’t his age that makes him technologically averse--it’s his inability to accept change--his steadfast, quintessential Englishness.
Normally Edgar goes to bed at precisely 9 PM, but tonight he’ll be waiting up, sitting in the living room (the “parlor,” as he calls it), reading by candlelight like he always does, no matter how many times she’s told him it’ll ruin his eyes. And he’ll be reading the Bible, in Latin or Greek, no less.
She approaches the dilapidated building that slouches at the back of her uncle’s corner property. It was once a carriage house, back when the house was built in the early 1900s, then used as a garage. Now it’s collapsed in the middle and leaning in on itself from both ends. It has a melancholic feel of abandonment, but that’s precisely why it was one of her favorite places to hide away in, read, and indulge childhood fantasies when she was younger, having been more than a little melancholic herself much of the time after her mother died.
She’s just past the building and angling off the sidewalk to the back yard when the sound of footsteps running up behind her causes her to whip around in alarm.
“Fi!”
She recognizes the voice, and in the light of the moon and a nearby streetlamp, the handsome features and slim figure of a young man dressed in jeans and button down shirt under a denim jacket. “Zeke?”
“Fi! Yeah, hey!” He doubles over, breathing hard and clutching at a stitch in his side.
“What are you doing here?”
“Whew! I need to get more exercise,” he gasps. “Ugh... and not drink so much wine.” He swallows hard and his eyes go wide. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he points in an indication for her to wait, then bolts to the corner of the carriage house and pukes.
Fi looks on in disbelief. “Zeke, are you alright?”
“Oh yeah, no worries,” he gulps, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Much better now. Sorry about that.”
He combs his fingers through his hair--dark brown, wavy and full, long enough to flow down over his collar. Once. Twice. A habit that never fails to make Fi catch her breath. Even now, it’s almost enough to make her forget he totally rejected her less than an hour ago and just barfed on her uncle’s garage.
“I’m glad I caught you before you got home,” he says, then nods over her shoulder. “Is that your house?”
Fi turns to view the narrow yard with its withering lilac bushes, untrimmed forsythia hedge along the sidewalk, and uneven stone walkway that leads from the carriage house to the back of the hulking three-story Edwardian home with flaking blue paint.
“Yeah,” she answers. “My uncle’s house.”
“I guess I caught you just in time.” He offers a small smile. “I thought I was going to have to knock on every door in the neighborhood.”
Fi grimaces. This is awkward enough, but Zeke showing up at the door would have been worse. She hasn’t told Edgar about him, and hadn’t planned to anytime soon.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
Again with the fingers through the hair. “I just couldn’t leave things the way we left it. The way I left it.”
When Fi finds herself in tense situations, she goes into default mode--hide her true feelings, smooth things over. This definitely qualifies. “It’s fine, Zeke, really.”
“No, Fi, it’s not.” He takes a step closer--and freezes at the sound of a low menacing growl.
An enormous dog stalks from the shadows of the hedge, hackles up, head held low, teeth bared in a vicious snarl, eyes gleaming with predatory intent. Zeke’s skin goes tight and clammy.
“Mol!” The dog halts. Fi has one hand on her hip while pointing at the beast with the other. “What are you doing out here?”
Warm relief floods over Zeke, but he remains very still. “That’s your dog?”
“My uncle’s dog,” Fi corrects.
“You told me he was big, but, Jesus...”
“Some of the largest breeds can reach 250 pounds.” Fi winces, feeling like she’s just channeled her uncle. Edgar’s always quick with a random fact--especially when you don’t ask for it--drawn from his seemingly unlimited supply of eccentric knowledge. She finishes the statement as if in apology. “He’s only 210.”
“Only...” Zeke responds. He studies the dog. Thick and incredibly muscular, with longish golden-brown hair and a giant pit-bullish head. “Maul. That’s appropriate. I’ll bet he can do some ‘mauling.’”
“It’s M.o.l., not M.a.u.l.”
“Oh! Like Molossus, the ancient Greek war dogs? Cool!”
Mol tilts his massive head inquisitively.
Fi smirks. Of course Zeke knows that sort of thing. In addition to being good-looking, talented and sweet, he’s smart, too. After his foster mother died, he spent three months in
South America doing volunteer work, just to get away and clear his head, then another three in Africa (so he’s handsome, talented, sweet, smart, and a humanitarian). When he returned he went back to school and has almost completed a general studies degree with concentrations in history, literature and philosophy already. He’ll graduate after Spring semester and has a chance at an assistantship for grad school at Harvard, of all places. He’d wanted to go for their Folklore and Mythology undergrad but he couldn’t afford it, just like he never could have gone to Julliard without a scholarship, but now there’s a competition he’s been taking part in and the winner will have their tuition and fees paid for. As a finalist, he has to deliver a paper at a conference in Atlanta on Tuesday. Some kind of comparative analysis of Korean and Norse mythologies. He told her “the similarities are striking for such distant and disparate cultures, so I’m proposing they share certain mythemes that go back much further than anyone previously considered”--and at that point he quit explaining because Fi’s eyes had glazed over. Whether it was because of the subject matter or that she was mesmerized by his pretty face, she wasn’t sure. Probably both. His goal is a PhD in Philology, whatever that is. He’d be taking classes in classical archaeology, classical philosophy, and ancient history. And mythology, of course. Mythology is Zeke’s thing. He and Edgar would probably get along great, Fi thinks, considering their shared interest in all things old and irrelevant. Another reason not to introduce them.
“The Molossus are extinct, though,” Zeke continues, still watching Mol. “He looks kind of like a Great Pyrenees, but... some kind of Mastiff mix?”
“He’s a mutt.”
Now Mol tilts at her.
“Am I safe?” Zeke asks. “I mean, is he dangerous?”
Fi snorts, “Mol?” She pats her thigh. “Here Mol! Come on boy!” The dog grunts and sits in the grass. Fi shrugs. “He isn’t overly friendly, but he’s a big baby.” Mol groans and lies down with his head on his paws. “I think he’s still mad at me for riding him around like a pony when I was little.” Fi snaps her fingers and points at the house. “Mol! You get home, right now!” He pays no attention, rolling his big brown eyes to gaze at Zeke instead. Fi huffs, “Like I said, he’s my uncle’s dog.”