by Kevin Wright
Sid glanced up and hit the brakes. “Shit.” He glanced out the passenger window and at the bus driver, waving at him. Sid lowered the window.
“Hey, guy,” yelled the bus driver, “some dude’s up ahead on the side of the bridge with a gun! I’d just hang back here a bit, or bang a U-ey. Radioed my dispatcher to call the cops. Should be here in a minute.”
Sid shot him a thumbs-up and closed his window, edging up past the bus a bit to get a good look at the man with the gun. Suspicion had gnawed at him the instant the jumper’s description went over the air, and when he saw who the jumper was, it was confirmed.
“Damn.”
Pulling his shifter into reverse, he looked in his rear-view mirror. It was clear behind him. Clear all the way. His fingers tapped the steering wheel nervously, then hard, and then harder, until he was slamming it with his palms.
“Shit!” He popped the shifter into drive and pulled screeching past the bus.
“Car eighteen, what’s your ETA?” asked the dispatcher over the scanner.
“One minute,” answered the officer.
The taxicab screamed to a halt next to the sidewalk, and Sid rolled his window down. “Holy shit,” he said, looking at Peter, who stood there on the sidewalk screaming at the top of his lungs as smoke steamed slowly from his skin.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” screamed Peter.
“Hey, Pete, PETE!” Sid yelled. “What the fuck you doing?”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
“HEY PETE! WHAT THE—?”
“AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“GET IN THE FUCKING CAR!” Sid unlocked the passenger side door.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“Jesus Christ, Pete!” Sid slid out the passenger side door. “There’s kids watching!” He pointed at the busload of children down the road. They were all bunched at the windows, watching, pointing, screaming. Sid yanked open the rear passenger door. “Get in!”
Peter just kept on screaming.
“God Damn!” Sid ran to Peter. “Hey, watch the gun!” He grasped Peter by the back of his pants and pulled him stumbling backwards into the back seat of his cab.
“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Sid climbed over the seat and behind the wheel, popped it into drive and took off so fast the door slammed. The tires screeched as Sid hit a one-eighty and screamed off.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Sid raised the windows.
As he turned off the bridge, in his rear-view mirror, Sid saw blue lights at the other end of the bridge. He kept driving but slowed down as a police cruiser whizzed by him, and then another one.
“Car eighteen’s out, investigating,” one of the officers said over the scanner, followed almost immediately by car twenty-five and thirty-four.
“We got to hide, Pete.” Sid pulled down a side street and into a parking garage.
* * * *
“So what happened to Lord Brudnoy’s gorgeous silver collar?” Pearl looked around the table.
Salazar, his face held up only by his fist, propped on the table by his elbow above a puddle of drool, glanced up from the bottle cap he was spinning to entertain himself. These meetings were all the same. Start off raring to save the world, or Lord Brudnoy in this case, and end up arguing about fashion, bacon bits, or politics. Salazar grinned inwardly for a moment and then steadied his face. Deep breath. “Ahem, I entrusted the collar to Detective Winters,” he said. “Hope that was okay with y—”
As one they launched from their chairs, and the room was jungle thick with hostility, all directed at Salazar.
“To an outsider!”
“What gives you the right?”
“Dirty buggering—”
“I’ll cut off you’re—”
“Maggots! Maggots!”
“Easy people,” Salazar said, but the verbal onslaught raged on.
“You monkey lathering—”
“Your mother sucks—”
“Maggots! Maggots!”
“AAAhhhhrrg!” Salazar lifted his briefcase overhead as though to heave it at Chyme, who oozed under the table, but he froze. He blinked. “Sacrilege.” Salazar set his briefcase back on the table, petting it as though to regain its trust. The room was silent. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
“Now, Salazar, you had no right—”
“Shut it!” Salazar said. “Now, I have sat here for,” he looked at his broken watch, “four hours, and we have done nothing even remotely approaching constructive. What have we done, except vote on whether Lord Brudnoy is dead or alive? We have taken the work of the Almighty in our hands and dealt a hand of destiny to an honorable friend of many years. Who are we to callously vote on the life of another human being? Are we … are we gods?” Salazar pulled his lens-less glasses from his face and held them by his heart. His eyes glistened. “He was a werewolf, perhaps, but first and foremost, a man. A good man.” Salazar looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. A tear streamed down his cheek.
“YOU’RE the one who called for the vote,” said Lady Jay, “and YOU voted against him!”
“Exactly my point,” Salazar pointed with his glasses in hand, “exactly.”
“But that doesn’t answer my question!” said Pearl.
“Oh, the collar, eh?” Salazar said. “If Brudnoy’s alive, and someone wants to go get him, then by all means they should go. Especially if that person is not me. It stands to reason, that whoever goes after him should take the collar. That someone was not me, and so I gave it up, despite its immense sentimental value, to someone that was going after Him, if you follow? No, don’t … don’t thank me. I only do what I can and leave the rest to,” he gazed up at the ceiling as though cherubim flittered about, “the Almighty.”
“Salazar, Winters kills things,” Lady Jay said through gritted teeth. “What if he finds Lord Brudnoy and kills him? As a human, he wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“It was a risk,” Salazar nodded slowly as his gaze slid round the table, “but I was willing to take it.”
“So, the only chance Lord Brudnoy’s got is to be rescued by a homicidal madman?” asked Mungo Jerry.
“Precisely,” Salazar said.
“The plan does have its merits.” Mungo Jerry sat back.
“What merits?” Lady Jay asked. “That it keeps everyone out of harm’s way? That it raises apathy and indecision to an art form? That it foists our problems onto a party that neither cares for nor understands our own goals or way of life?”
“Well, yes,” Mungo Jerry said.
“Dear, dear, Lady Jay,” said Salazar, “whatever would you have us do? What could we possibly do?”
“We could go ourselves, or at the very least we could find someone else to go,” Lady Jay said. “Someone on our side. Someone who cares about life, who can hide, someone covert, to blend in, maybe, but fight, and fight well, when and if he has to. Someone who’ll bring him back.”
Salazar sat back and folded his arms. “Haven’t you heard, my dear? Rambo is dead.”
* * * *
“Hey, Pete,” Sid called out over his shoulder. “Pete? You okay? Pete?”
Peter stopped screaming. Stock-still he sat upright in the backseat of the taxi, his hands out straight in front of him, blistered, shaking, trying to touch nothing. His arms, like the rest of him, felt as though his skin had been scraped off with sandpaper and then singed with a blowtorch. Even just the movement of air caused a sharp intake between his pursed lips, stiffening his spine, “RRRRRRRRG!” Which caused more pain.
As the taxi entered the parking garage, and shade overtook him, it was ice-cold crystal water to a wilted, dying fern, replenishing him. With each turn, deeper and deeper down, Peter felt a little better, a little stronger, a little clearer.
He blinked. Still, he felt only pain, but less, perhaps, and that was something.
The mangle of screams and fire and hatred parted, and he was Peter once more. “Drive … drive deeper,” he said, lips cracking. He squeezed his eye
s shut and went rigid as salty tears burned down his face. “Drive down to hell, Sid, if you can.”
Sid drove, twisting and turning, round and round, down, always down, always darker, always deeper. Then they stopped.
“This is it.” Sid pulled the cab into a space, wrenching the shifter into park.
It was dark, and it was empty. Cold. A desolate alien planet. Old gray car corpses wasted away in row upon row, rust skeletons, far into the darkness.
Sid killed the engine.
The sounds of the streets were gone. There was only the flickering of an incandescent bulb and its incessant buzz, on and off, on and off, far in the distance.
They sat in the darkness.
Sid rolled down a window to air out the reek of charred flesh. “You look like shit.”
“Feel like shit.” Peter winced as the corner of his lip split like stale bread.
“What the hell were you doing?” Sid held out a handkerchief. “Here.”
“Doing?” Peter asked. “I … I was trying to kill myself.”
“Jesus, Pete, you even screw that, ulp!”
Like an adder, Peter’s hand shot out and grasped Sid by the throat, nearly pulling him into the back seat. “What the fuck do you care, huh? You, Rrrrg … goddamn lip, you ditched me last night. Had her, Sid, I had her … or would have. She went right out the front door. You’d’ve seen her go right past. Rrrrg … could have followed her. Found her. Found my dad…”
“Well Pete,” Sid clutched onto Peter’s wrist, “it’s an interesting—”
“RRRRrrrrrr…” Peter squeezed. The skin on his hand split open. Growling mad, Peter drew the hammer back on the gun in his right hand and aimed it at Sid’s trembling face. Do it. “Ought to just fucking kill you. You said you’d stay! My last connection to Pussywillow. Gone.”
“You don’t understand,” Sid said.
“I understand you screwed me,” Peter said. “I understand you’re a self-centered little prick, and you’ve got tiny fucking balls even for a midget. Why shouldn’t I kill you?”
“Cause you ain’t a killer, Pete, and you ain’t no vampire, yet,” Sid said, wrestling the hand around his throat. “Don’t you get it? That’s why you ain’t dead.
“You think vampires get sunburn, Pete?” Sid asked. “No way. A fucking ghoul steps out in the sun and, foom, he’s gone. Toast. Liquefied shmooze. You ain’t a vampire, and you ain’t no killer.”
“Pussywillow said I’m—”
“Pussywillow lied, ulp, to you, Pete.”
“What’s a couple hours difference?” Peter squeezed tighter. Sid’s face went red, then purple. “I’ll be one tonight. I already got the hunger, Sid. I can hear your heartbeat. Pounding, pounding. Fast right now.” He drew him close. “Your blood? I can smell it, Sid, pumping through your veins. And you know what?”
“It smells good, Pete, don’t it?” Sid said.
“Damn good,” Peter’s eyes shadowed over, “and I’m so fucking hungry, Sid. So fucking hungry.” Peter let go of Sid and shoved him back, repulsed. “Get out of here. Go. Now.”
“And what are you going to do?” Sid rubbed his neck, his color returning to normal.
“I’ll … I’ll just stay down here tonight.” Peter looked around. “I’ll go up tomorrow. Let the sun take me then. It’ll work tomorrow.” He shuddered at the thought of the sun on his body again, the blinding, the shining-burning searing his cracked blistered skin. Will you do it again? Now that you know? “Sid, where the hell are we?”
“You won’t do it, Pete, though,” Sid said, “not once you’re a bloodsucker, you won’t. You won’t want to. You’ll just want to eat. That’s all you’ll care about, feeding, killing.”
“No, I — I’ll do it.” Peter glanced down. “I will, I swear.”
“But what about your dad, Pete?” asked Sid. “You just going to give up on him, too?”
“Do you know the shit I’ve been through this week, Sid? Huh?” Peter asked. “I have done everything I could to help him, to save him. And I’ve failed every time. Every single time! I got nothing left. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where to start. No one will help me because everyone wants me dead. Everyone. What should I do? A door-to-door search? What if I turn before I find him? More death. And the people I care about’ll die first. No … no, at least I can stop that from happening, maybe. Maybe I won’t screw it up for once.”
“No, Pete, it’s just that—”
“Just leave, Sid.” Peter opened the car door. “Go while you still can. Drive to … go to someplace warm and sunny, with no vampires or demons or whatever. Where you can run wild, Sid, wild and free.”
“I’m gonna go, Pete,” Sid said, “and I’m gonna find your dad. You can come with me, or you can sit here in the dark touching yourself.”
“I can’t go outside, Sid,” Peter said. “My legs are burned, too, even though I left my pants on.”
“Good thing, too,” Sid said. “Kids on that bus were screwed up enough as it is. Might’ve put them over the edge. Besides, Pete, don’t worry, we ain’t going topside.”
“What? We going to crawl through the sewers?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Sid said.
“Okay, and where we going to start, Sid?” Peter asked. “You got some magical connections to my dad? Or to Pussywillow? Maybe you have a map in the glove box with an ‘X’ to mark them? Maybe there’s pirate treasure, too!”
Sid reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a crumpled map. Smoothing it out on the seat, he flicked a few crumbs off it. He pointed to a spot on it. “Here.” He held up the map. He took out a pen and made an ‘X.’
“Here, what?” Peter leaned forward.
“That’s the Craddock Slaughterhouse, in Sliggtown. Where I dropped Pussywillow off … last night.”
Chapter 40.
THE NEW GUY was freaking out … typical.
Nathaniel pressed his face between the steel bars and looked down the hallway. It was cages upon cages upon cages set into the walls, either way, as far as his straining eyes could see. The devil woman was not there, nor were the others. He adjusted his crooked legs, grunting. His head was clearer, at least, though his back still burned, muscles cramping and joints grinding. His legs were twisted.
Across the narrow hall, into the cage positioned directly across from him, he peered. There was a man in it now, though he could make out none of his features. He was freaking out, kicking the bars and swearing. Neither did much good.
“Hey, guy,” Nathaniel whispered. “Cool it, you’ll just bring trouble. Quiet.”
The man, wailing and kicking the bars, paused for a second and then started up again.
“Hey jackass, quit it!” Nathaniel whispered.
The man stopped again, looked out. His face was a shadow behind the bars. “Who said that?” His thick fingers wrapping around the rusty bars.
Nathaniel stuck a finger between the bars and waved. “Me. Sorry. Might as well relax, though,” Nathaniel said. “You tried. We all try. You won’t break them. Good steel. Solid steel.” Nathaniel adjusted his legs with a grunt. “Used to work steel. Metal. All kinds. You’ll just hurt yourself. Or worse.”
“Worse?” said the man. “Worse than what?”
“You’re still alive.” Nathaniel said. “Am I right?”
“Yeah, but I’m not supposed—”
“Rabid dogs don’t deserve this,” Nathaniel said, “but, I’m telling you, if you make a lot of noise and piss Her off, She’ll take you away.”
“Her?”
“Yeah, that broad who put us in here,” Nathaniel said. “All of us. Beautiful woman, really. Unnaturally so, I think. Comes down here once or twice a day and nabs someone. Takes them away.”
“Away?”
“Yeah … away,” Nathaniel said. “You’ll see her. She’ll drag some poor bastard by soon enough. He won’t come back. My advice? Be quiet and try not to be him.”
“Um, where does she take him?”
“Out of the dentist chair and into the proctologist’s office,” Nathaniel said.
“Proctol — proctorolo—”
“Forget it. No place good.”
They sat for a while, not speaking. The sound of a man whimpering and sobbing occasionally broke the mortuary silence.
“So, uh, how long you been in here for?” the man asked.
“Don’t know.” Nathaniel picked at his fingernails. “No clocks. No sunlight. No noise, except the dregs in the other cages. They’ve fed me eight … eight or nine times, I think. I’m not sure. I was a little out of it when they brought me in. Just ate a few hours ago, though. They’re pretty regular.”
“Must be awful,” said the man.
“It’s drugged,” Nathaniel said, “but it’s better than I was getting.”
* * * *
“You go,” Peter said. “This is your idea.”
“My idea, yeah,” Sid scoffed, “but I’m doing all this for you.”
“You’ve done this before.”
“No, I haven’t,” Sid said. “You don’t listen. I’ve heard about it.”
“But you lived down there.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t exactly belle of the ball, if you know what I mean. And now that I’m legit — well, besides, you’re the damn celebrity. You go first.”
“I’m not a celebrity.” Peter gazed with trepidation down the black hole that gaped at his feet. “And you know these people.”
“You’re the one who saved Brudnoy.” Sid stopped for a moment and looked around with fear. “Uh, LORD Brudnoy, that is. And you saved him. It’s been all over the street for practically a week, Pete. It’s a saga. You’re the man. A hero! So, you go first. People do it all the time. Really. Just make sure you land feet-first.”
“Why? What’s at the bottom?” Peter gazed down but try as he might, he could make nothing out in its depths.
“Hmmm, I thought you’d be able to see…”
“Well, I can’t. All’s I can see is some … shapes.”
“Shapes, huh? That’s not too vague.”
“Bite me. What’s down there?”
“A net,” Sid said.