Urban Allies: Ten Brand-New Collaborative Stories

by Joseph Nassise

  FIVE

  What the hell was taking Walker so long?

  The sun had set and night had fallen across the woods and still there was no sign of him. Laura crouched low in the undergrowth, wondering what her move here ought to be. She was only supposed to rescue the jerk, not back him up on some kind of mission of vindication. Sure, she felt bad for the other people in the motel—she was a ghost junkie herself. Maybe she would have come back for them later, once she had Jack somewhere safe.

  Yeah. She would have. She would have done exactly what Walker had chosen to do, she knew. She just would have been smarter about it.

  She peered through the darkness, trying to get a better look at the shack. Somebody really wanted to protect it. Typically even somebody who knew what they were doing would paint a single hex sign on the eaves of a barn or a house, and that would be enough. This shack was protected from every possible direction. Whoever had done that—and presumably, whoever had collected the ghostskins and put them up in the motel rooms—wasn’t just some amateur witchbilly.

  They were the real deal.

  Walker might already be dead if he’d tried to break into that shack. Hex signs could protect, but they could also cast powerful curses on anyone who tried to interfere with them. They could turn your bones to custard, or dry up all the blood in your body.

  She couldn’t wait any longer.

  Moving as carefully and as quietly as she could, Laura moved to the shack, looking for any way inside that wouldn’t trigger one of the hex signs. She knew it couldn’t be that easy, and it wasn’t. She saw no sign of Walker, nor did she sense anything moving inside the shack. She fought back a strong urge to grunt in frustration.

  Then the shack began to rumble.

  She backed away, expecting a legion of hexenmeisters to burst from the hoary hex-laced wood, but there was nothing.

  The rumbling continued, but it wasn’t like something magical. This was something mechanical. She stepped to the right as she tried to figure out what it could be. In the dark she almost missed the cave entrance—probably the entrance to an old worked-out coal mine—but a flash of light clued her in and when she went to investigate she nearly stumbled into the trap herself.

  Walker stood perfectly still in the middle of the cave mouth, bathed in a waterfall of light, facing away from her. Not moving so much as a muscle. He looked like a man who’d stepped on a land mine and knew that if he lifted his foot again, it would go off.

  Then she noticed something strange. There was a breeze blowing out of the cave, cool air from inside the earth. It ruffled her clothes. But Walker’s hair wasn’t moving at all, as if it was held down with a whole bottle of Aqua Net.

  She looked around him, knowing there had to be a trap. When she saw the hex sign glowing from the projector embedded in the ceiling, she swore under her breath. It was a simple repeating geometric pattern of snowflakes being projected into space, freezing anyone within its grasp in place. If it was strong enough, it might stop his heart, too. But if she tried to touch him, if she tried to save him, she would get stuck in the same hex.

  There was no time to think about what to do next. She found a wooden crate that was half-rotten; it must have been back here a long time. With her foot she broke off a piece of it about two and a half feet long, mostly just a worm-eaten plank.

  She wound up like it was a baseball bat and smacked him across the back of his knees. But it did nothing other than shatter the rotten board. She went and found another one, this one a little stouter. She hit him hard enough in the legs that the board cracked. But it also caused Walker to stumble and fall backward, out of the hex sign’s influence.

  He gasped for breath and she then realized he would have suffocated if she hadn’t broken him free. He crawled toward her on the ground, avoiding the nimbus of hexed light, his apparent need to curse her out overwhelmed by his need for oxygen.

  She crouched down next to him and checked his eyes. His pupils were huge, but then again, it was dark in the cave. That about exhausted her knowledge of how to check somebody for brain damage. “Can you talk?” she asked. “Can you get up?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, still wheezing. He pulled himself up to his feet, hobbling on a game leg, and stared at her. “You didn’t have to hit me so hard.”

  “Yes I did,” she snarled. “I told you not to mess with this shit. Now, can we please get out of here? Before one of us gets killed by your stupidity?”

  He bridled at that, but, good. Maybe if she got him pissed off enough he would actually start thinking. Then he opened his mouth and proved her theory wrong. “Not,” he said, between heavy breaths, “until we . . . finish this.”

  She sighed in exasperation. She couldn’t just leave him here, as much as she might want to. The voice on the phone, the one that sent her on this mission, had made that very clear. She needed to save this guy or she was going back to prison.

  So she took her time getting out of the cave. Letting him stagger after her. When she reached the cave mouth she stopped and looked out into the night, making sure nobody had noticed them stumbling around.

  Too bad somebody had.

  Blue light filtered through the trees, and her first thought was that dawn must be breaking, even though it was hours away. Hadn’t it just been twilight? Then the light moved and she saw it had the shape of a man. She glanced over and saw the door of the hex-protected shed standing wide open, the sound of the generator louder and no longer muffled. She had no doubt that she was looking at the manager of the motel, the hexenmeister, to use the technical term, who had skinned all those ghosts. Who had nearly killed Walker.

  Not that his identity was immediately discernible. He was dressed in a suit that covered him from head to toe, a suit made of ghostskin. Dozens of skins, in fact, held together with loose stitches of coarse black thread. Like a patchwork doll.

  A hell of a lot more dangerous, though, than any doll.

  “Jack,” she whispered. “Jack, maybe you should just run.”

  He was still doubled over, with his hand rubbing the back of his leg where she’d struck it. He managed to give her another one of his nasty looks.

  He had no idea what was about to happen to them.

  It was hardly the first time since she’d left prison that Laura wished she still owned a gun. Ghostskins weren’t bulletproof. Even though she’d told Walker they wouldn’t do any good, if she got close with this asshole, she might be able to shoot him, getting past his protective suit.

  She thought desperately, trying to figure a way out of this, even as the flickering blue man came closer. Unfortunately, before she’d come up with anything, Walker decided to act.

  He grabbed her shoulder and held it for support for a few brief seconds, then pushed past her—maybe he thought he was going to protect her—and shouted out, “Hey! You, fucker—you’ve got a lot to answer for.” Then he rushed forward in a crouch that a hundred terrorists had probably witnessed right before they’d gone on to meet their maker. Only the hexenmeister was a terrorist of a different sort and no US Navy SEAL, no matter how tough, could go against him unarmed.

  “No!” Laura shouted, but it was no use. She chased after him—then came up short.

  “Caxton?”

  “Laura?”

  “Is that you, pumpkin?”

  “Ms. Caxton?”

  “Trooper? Were we in a car accident or something?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut but she couldn’t keep out the voices. They were all around her, close enough that it felt like she could reach out and touch them. Every person she’d ever betrayed, or failed, or disappointed. Old bosses. Old lovers. Cops she’d gotten killed in her crusade against the vampires. Innocent civilians—kids—who’d died because she had been a few seconds too late.

  “Laura?” Deanna asked. Deanna, who’d killed herself because Laura couldn’t see how bad her depression had gotten. Deanna, who came back as a vampire.

  “Baby,” her mother said, coughing up her last
breath.

  “Laura, we need to talk,” her father said.

  “Caxton. Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  That last voice—she couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face the memories that came with hearing it again. She forced herself to open her eyes, to look around.

  The night was blue with them. Bright enough to hurt her eyes. They stood between the trees. Some right at her shoulder. Others farther away, gesturing for her to come to them. Not just spectral hands, not disembodied voices. They were there, as real as life.

  “Jen, please, honey. Stop this.” This time it was a real voice. One that wasn’t just in her head. Walker was pleading with somebody, somebody Laura couldn’t see.

  It wasn’t that you thought they were real—you knew, the whole time, that it was just an illusion. Psychic nonsense pulled out of your head and shown to you like a movie of somebody you couldn’t bear to see. Somebody you couldn’t let go.

  The thing was that knowing the truth of it didn’t help much.

  “Walker,” she shouted. “Walker, stick with me! We have to—we have to—”

  “Pumpkin. It’s my birthday. Why won’t you come kiss me?”

  “Hey, gorgeous. Long time no see!”

  “Baby. Baby, just look at me. Just talk to me.”

  They pressed in close around her. Reached for her with cold, flickering blue hands. She pushed through them.

  She had to stop the hexenmeister. She might not be a cop anymore, but she still went looking for the bad guys who broke the rules.

  She lashed out at the ghosts, all around her, punching and kicking, and yet they weren’t there—when she should have connected they were just . . . somewhere else, effortlessly escaping her, taunting her. Mocking her.

  “Laura.”

  “Laura.”

  “Laura . . .”

  “Caxton. Thought I taught you better than this.”

  And there he was. Not the motel manager, not Walker. It was Jameson Arkeley. The man who’d taught her everything she knew about fighting vampires. The man who’d turned himself into a vampire to save her.

  The man she’d thrown down a crack in the earth, into a burning coal seam.

  She saw his jowly face, his long coat. His hands, cracked and scarred from a lifetime of fighting. His dead fish eyes that stared right through you. Judged you before you even had a chance to defend yourself.

  He’d been a good man, once. They’d even loved each other, in a certain way. Then that stopped.

  “No!” she screamed. “No, you bastard!” and before she could even think about what she was doing she swung her hand out, her fingers curled like claws. She knew what would happen, that he would just dance backward, recede every time she got close.

  But this time it didn’t happen that way.

  Her fingers found something soft and yielding and then it tore, it tore away as she completed her swing. Arkeley’s face ripped right off and he was still standing there in his coat, with his old hands but his face was different.

  It wasn’t blue. It didn’t flicker.

  She’d found the manager, torn through his ghostskin suit and revealed his true face. Watery eyes, soft chin with a fringe of beard. He looked scared.

  “Trooper, I wish I didn’t have to say this.”

  “You’re off the team.”

  “I did this because I knew you couldn’t finish things yourself. You’re not strong enough.”

  Arkeley again, Arkeley all around her. Dozens of him. Fangs growing from between his lips. His iron-colored hair falling from his head, cascading down across his face. His skin losing all color, but his eyes burning red, red, so red and he was lunging for her, his mouth opening wide enough to tear out her throat, he was going to drink her blood, steal her life—

  Walker was next to her, suddenly, and his massive arm was up, moving. She saw it in slow motion. His hand was flat as a blade, moving past her, smashing into the hexenmeister’s face. She saw the sorcerer’s cheek ripple with the impact, saw blood spurt from his nose.

  The bastard fell hard to the ground. She dropped down next to him, tore open the flickering blue suit he wore. It had to be there, had to be—

  “I was just using you as bait.”

  “You’re weak. You’re too vulnerable to their lies.”

  “You’re never going to be a fighter. You’re soft.”

  Arkeley, again. Cutting her with his words. Looking deep inside her, finding where she was softest. Attacking her there. Her doubts, her insecurities. Her sure and certain knowledge that she’d never be good enough. Never be a real cop, like him.

  “Shut up,” Walker shouted next to her ear. “Just shut up!” He placed a hand over the manager’s mouth and nose, causing him to kick as he began to suffocate.

  Laura had to find it. She had to find the focus. If you were going to summon ghosts like this, you needed a way to control them. To keep them from sucking you in. There had to be some hex against them . . .

  There! Around the manager’s wrist—a bracelet of woven threads, with little bone charms hanging from it. Carved knucklebones and vertebrae from a small animal. That had to be it. She yanked it off the man’s arm and jumped up, holding it over her head. She spoke the words, the spell Patience Polder had taught her once, words that made her lips bleed, that made her throat sore. Witchbilly words.

  The ghosts all turned to stare at her in horror, pleading. But their words were gone, she’d forbade them to speak. Their hands went next, their faces. The blue light streaked away into the wind, twisting and evaporating like toxic smoke.

  And then they were gone.

  Just Laura, and Jack, and the goddamned motel manager, struggling to breathe, albeit weakly now, lying on his back dressed in a patchwork suit of dead skin. Soon the skin began to dry out, shrivel. Fall away.

  She looked over at Jack.

  “They’re gone,” she told him. “All of them. Don’t.”

  He ignored her. Pain, agony, confusion, and dread, battling across his face.

  She grabbed his wrist and tried to pull it away from the manager’s mouth. “Don’t, Jack. It’s done.”

  He turned to her and didn’t seem to see her at first. Then his eyes cleared. He glanced down at his hand and jerked it away in shock. He staggered to his feet. He ran his hands through his hair and across his face.

  “Jack, it’s done. They won’t be bothering us again.”

  But he was already running toward the cave, toward the last flicker of blue light in there. Several ghostskins still hung from the walls of the cave, lingering there, still clutching to this world, just a little. They would be gone in a minute along with all the others in the motel.

  SIX

  “Remember what I said,” Laura told Walker, two days later, as she drove him up to the top of a ridge, a place so far back in the woods there weren’t even any power lines. “These are good guys. The witchbillies don’t hurt anybody. They just want to be left alone.”

  “Sure,” he grunted. Jack felt like he needed a shower. He needed to soap out the inside of his head. Like the worst hangover he’d ever had. Jen—Jen was gone. He knew that now. She’d been gone since that moment the Wild Hunt had taken her at Stonehenge.

  Sometimes when he closed his eyes he still heard her voice. Not her ghost. Just memories. That was normal, right? To remember the good times?

  After he’d had one last word with the ghostskins in the cave and watched them rot away, he and Laura dragged the other guests out of the motel. It hadn’t been too hard—once Laura had found the focus, the spell she’d used to disperse the ghosts had destroyed all the ghostskins in the motel rooms as well. The men and women in those rooms could barely walk. Some of them were so lost to the ghosts that they cried like babies as they were led away, sent home to their families.

  None of them fought.

  All of them held their shame closely, a shame Jack knew intimately.

  Now there was just one last thread to tie up.

  They pulled up
in front of a big farmhouse that might have been two hundred years old. The paint on the slatted wood was new, though, and there were flowers lining the path to the door. The two of them got out of the car and headed up the walk.

  A girl came out of the house, dressed all in white, her wrists and even her throat covered. Jack was a little surprised she wasn’t wearing a bonnet. She gave him a smile that felt just plain wrong, though it was warm enough.

  “You’ll never forgive yourself,” the girl told Jack. Not like she was giving him advice. It was just a statement of fact. “For all the good you do. All the people you save. You’ll never truly be at peace. I’m sorry.”

  Her smile didn’t change.

  Jack shook his head, unwilling to accept her proclamation. “Do I know you?”

  Behind him Laura laughed. “Jack Walker, meet Patience Polder. I’d say you get used to it, but I’d be lying. She’s got a gift.”

  “Whatever.” Jack opened the trunk of the car. The motel manager—wearing street clothes now—was in there, tied up and gagged. Jack had almost killed him back at the cave entrance. It had been close. Even afterward, he’d considered meting out the justice no governmental system would be able to replicate.

  But Laura had other ideas.

  “He’s one of ours,” Patience Polder said, with a nod. “Hello, Alvin.” The girl went over to the trunk and reached down, touching the manager’s face. To Jack, she said, “My father taught him how to skin ghosts. The skill was never supposed to be used this way.” She loosened the gag. “Tell me, Alvin. Tell me why you did it.”

  She said it as if she knew already. As if she just wanted to hear it from his mouth.

  “Money.” His voice was raw. “That’s all. I was sick of being poor.”

  Patience Polder nodded. Turned back to Jack and Laura. “We take a vow when we learn the old ways. Never to profit from suffering, only to aid and comfort. He broke that promise.”

  Jack had taken a similar vow and understood. “What are you going to do with him?”