by A. J. Aalto
Batten’s jaw did what it always did when he wanted to throttle me or fuck me and could do neither. “It’s too explosive. You don’t know what’s going on down there.”
“Do you?”
“Intel has been difficult.”
Huh. Interesting. Living under the radar had stymied Kill-Notch more than he liked. “Then work with us. Let me bring you onto the team.”
His smile returned, but this time it was tainted with incredulity. A look of pure amazement crossed his face. “Looks like your intel sucks too.”
It was totally possible that my intel sucked, and sucked hard. I waited. Finally, he said, “You don’t know what she is, do you?”
“Malashock? RCMP-type. Federal cop. Monitoring immortals.” I waited for the other shoe to drop, and I could tell from his pause that it was going to be a Paris-during-fashion-week doozy.
“She’s got more kills under her belt than I do, Snickerdoodle,” he said. “Liv Malashock is a vampire hunter.”
I immediately pulled up my Agent Golden face, blank and non-reactive, while inside, I was full-on freaking out.
“Hashmarks up and down both arms. Hundreds of them. She looks like a fucking picket fence in shirtsleeves.” He grimaced at me, and I wondered if his opinion on that habit had changed, now that he could very well be someone’s tiny black kill tat. “Ever wonder why more revenants don’t live here?”
I had. Canada’s laws were less oppressive regarding the undead than they were stateside. Land was open and plentiful. Specialized medical care was available. The government was open to considering talks with an ambassador from Svikheimslending, even. Still, officially, fewer than a hundred revenants resided in Canada, and I was given to understand that Niagara held the bulk of them. “Has she always been hunting here?”
He shook his head slowly. “She cleared the west coast, most of it single-handedly. She soloed entire nests. The last was Coquitlam. Thirty revenants, one well-placed stake in the master. She has a knack for sniffing out hiding spots.”
I felt sick, and had no words. If national estimates were close, then thirty was nearly a quarter of the revenant population there at the time. And if she'd killed hundreds, that was well over half the population, wiped out by her hand. I shuddered.
“Heard she transferred here a few years back,” Batten said. “Probably with the same goal in mind.”
Oh, Dark Lady. His words rolled through me like a cold sludge in my veins. Thirty revenants, one stake. A whole bloodline, gone. I wondered which house it had been. Had anyone cared for the remains? What was done to support their DaySitters? Had they simply been left to suffer — sick, lonely, going mad? Had the local health care system just absorbed the aftermath, psychiatrists doing double duty? Had any of the DaySitters had the wherewithal to seek help from Gold-Drake & Cross, or travel beyond the Bitter Pass? I thought of Danika Sherlock, going slowly insane without her revenant companion, warped flat into a paper-thin sanity, a two-dimensional villain under her mother Ruby’s thumb.
“I can’t work with you, babe,” Batten said. “She’d try and stake me without blinking.”
Point: Batten. I remembered the way Malashock had said “them” in the Oh Yeah! on our first meeting. That at-war “them.” “But she hasn’t said a thing about Harry or Wes.”
“Why show her hand? She knows what you are. Think they’re not on her list? The minute she’s done with the phantasm-feeding revenant, Harry and Wes are probably next.”
“But she can’t,” I said, veins a frigid, hopping slush. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Warrants are still easy. Any time she wants, Malashock can kick down that door and dust them both.”
“She wouldn’t dare.” But that rang hollow. A vampire hunter. Working for the feds. Duh. I’d seen it already more times than I could count. Batten had pulled that exact same shit. Of course she’d stake them. And she’d have the law on her side. I’d have zero recourse. “I’ll send them home tonight.”
“You think Harry’s going to leave his beloved DaySitter here now that House Sarokhanian has had a whiff of you and your cop buddy?”
In his fervor, he’d slipped up. “Don’t say the S-name,” I said hard, tensing. “Say anything but. Say soul sucker. Say leech. You do not want to be overheard.”
“You need to go home with them,” he went on. “Keep everyone safe. It’s the smart thing to do.”
“You just want me out of your hair.” I felt my eyes narrow. Had Batten sent the mysterious invaders to my office and cabin in Ten Springs to draw me back home and out of his way?
“I absolutely want you gone, yes. But while you’re here, and determined to put yourself in danger…” His chain-mail glove rattled once more and I glanced down to see what he was offering me. A rowan wood stake, hand-whittled, its pale point fresh and raw. I didn’t want it. He growled low, took my gloved hand in his, and slapped the stake in it, folding my fingers around it meaningfully. I relented, sticking it carefully in the pocket of my jeans where it jutted out by my hip. He repeated, “But I want you gone.”
The House Bond reported two very different emotions coming from him, neither of which he was thrilled with: he was telling the truth but also not. He both wanted me here and didn’t. He wanted us here. Us. That was a shift. All of us. He wants Harry here. He’s scared. Batten turned abruptly and strode deeper into the trees, pausing to look back once.
I thought about Pascal, keeping tabs on me, and blurted, “Hey, Jerkface. Did you send someone to spy on me?”
“No.” That look back became speculative. “Be careful.”
“I am.”
“You’re not. Don’t fuck everything up, Snickerdoodle.”
“I don’t do that anymore.” I blinked away a hot prick of moisture.
He shook his head, tasting the lie. “Go home, babe.” He glanced up at the back bedroom window, where he must have seen something I didn’t, because he said, “Take her home,” to the night.
And then he was gone.
I rolled a glove off against my hip, slapping it to the grass, dug into my fanny pack and pulled out the pen that Pascal had left behind on the table. The pen wanted to yield nothing; I felt it resisting me, greedy of its secrets, as if obeying its owner’s wishes. I bore down it, squeezed hard, gritting my teeth, and stubbornly summoned more psi. The Blue Sense flashed a mere millisecond before the pen’s frigidity stabbed at my palm, so bitterly cold it burned. I hissed in pain and dropped it into the grass. It rolled and landed next to my glove and the mints that Batten had spilled.
Careful not to squeeze the stake from my pocket with my movement, I bent to pick up the pen gingerly with my other, still-gloved hand, and put it in my pack, zipping it safely inside. I glanced at my naked palm, looking for the first signs of frostbite, but the flesh was unscarred, smooth and pink. Something told me I would be lucky to make it out of whatever was going on similarly unscathed.
Mr. Merritt had a cup of tea at the ready when I finally turned and walked back into the house. It was still almost too hot to drink.
Thirteen
I may have driven to the meeting place on Municipal Beach the next night with a bit more speed than normal, my heavy foot made heavier by frustration. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the only things Batten had wanted to discuss were how soon I could leave and maybe doin’ the no-pants dance. As usual, he had either demanded my help, denied needing me, or played grab-ass. Okay, so I was into the grab-ass, but only as an unwilling passenger to my hormones in the presence of his annoying hotness.
He'd reverted to pushing me away again. If I examined it closely, I wondered if I wasn’t getting a bit tired of it. How long was it going to take to purge my desire for him? It shouldn’t be this hard, Marnie, was followed immediately by: Only Twue Wuv could be this crazy-making. I parked in the public lot near the beach, careful to switch my headlights off before the driveway, and went to turn the radio down, only to realize that I hadn’t even turned it on. I’d been too con
sumed with thoughts of Kill-Notch to notice the silence of my drive.
Batten was scared. He wanted Harry to stay. But not me. At least he cares about your safety, my traitor heart whispered, but I pushed that aside.
Maybe I deserved to be treated better. Maybe by someone else. Someone new. Maybe it was time to tell Batten to go fuck himself, once and for all. Maybe if he didn’t want to need me, I should walk away. Let him deal with his shit on his own. That was what he wanted, right?
He was scared. That alone made my guts shudder with worry for him, and a protective ache woke, one that was nearly as strong as the metaphysical hypervigilance I felt for my Cold Company. I missed the days when Mark Batten was a psychic null. The House Bond had put a nail in that coffin. Or pried the lid off it. Whatever.
If I gave in and left him alone, would he be pounding on my door, demanding my help again? Probably. Would I be able to ignore it? My heart said no, but my pride told me I should. My libido may or may not have fired off Roman Candles.
Worst of all, what if he didn’t return? What if I spent the rest of my life waiting? What if I was blinding myself to other opportunities because I was too busy obsessing about my toxic love-hate with Kill-Notch? My heart sank into a low, self-loathing rhythm. Fuck you. Fuck him. Fuck everything.
I zipped my parka, left the hearse, and strode across the sand in the direction of the water, glad the clouds were obstructing the moon’s waxing shine. The lake was a perfect spot to zone out and think about nothing, but it was also a place where my brain wouldn't shut up if something new was bouncing around in it. I sat down and stared at the water.
Malashock is a vampire hunter. Because of course she is. I should have known the minute I saw her. She's both Bizarro Me and She-Batten, head to toe, including the scowl. She hates monsters. Which means she has no clue what her buddy Nyquist is. That actually made me feel better. A bit smug, even. I resolved to let him play mundane human stoner as long as it was safe to do so. I’d enjoy watching the show. Unless he wolfs out and tries to eat us. Then I should probably protest.
And, while I was on the subject of protesting about puppy people, there was still Pascal and his know-everything act, which made me suspicious of just about everything about him. He’d waited until Malashock and Nyquist left, but that was no guarantee he didn’t work for Malashock. He’d seemed awfully interested in and informed about my revenants. Was Malashock using him as a cat's paw? Would she knowingly use a lycanthrope, since Nyquist had her snowed? And there was the matter of his frosty pen, which I hadn't taken for a second Grope yet.
I heard the soft thud of a car door closing behind me, but recognized the soft whiff of his cologne immediately. The jingle of keys and change in Schenk’s pockets preceded him as he made his way to my side. I didn’t turn around to look. The water of Lake Ontario was barely rippling, and the starlight made silver patterns on its surface.
“It’s getting late, Cinderblock,” he announced, staring out at the cloud-streaked moon looming over the lake. “Beach is closed after dark.”
“You’re here to shoo me, officer?” I felt my lips curl into a smirk. “Write me a ticket for loitering?”
“Nah. You’d only be a pain in the ass about it.” He studied the area, maybe looking for our undead pals from the other night. “Problems?”
It’s possible that a DaySitter is attacking my home base, or my ex wants me home enough to fake a break-in. That same undead and still annoyingly sexy ex-lover rejected my help and told me to bugger off. I have to see my unpleasant mother soon. I feel a prickly shape-shifting urge but may have pressed pause, and, while we're on the topic, a skeevy doctor wants to “cure” me. Nyquist isn’t mundane but I might be the only one who knows. Some other creep named Pascal is all up in my business and his pen nearly gave me frostbite. Malashock doesn’t like me, plus she’s a fucking vampire hunter. My brother’s maker is in danger. There’s an ogre in my cabin. And I think one of my socks is twisted funny inside my sneaker.
I craned way, way up at him, and shrugged. “No more than usual. How are you holding up?”
“Tired. Fine.” One massive shoulder jogged up. “Managing.”
“If you like, Harry agreed to help you sleep when you have a free night.”
He didn’t comment, and I wondered if he was having second thoughts about letting a revenant mess with his grey matter. “Insights about the cases?”
“I was just pondering about a side thing, here,” I said. “Nothing to do with sick citizens, or cheese, or boggles.” Probably. Maybe. “A cold case.”
“How cold?”
“More than fifteen years. Missing person, may have had his soul stolen. The dude’s spirit is likely trapped in a host. It’s a whole soul swap thing. I doubt I’ll ever figure it out, and it’s not my case to solve, but I’ve got to noodle around with it on the off-chance that something does go pop.”
Schenk nodded. “You realize I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s for the best, really.”
“I assumed so. Would you like help?”
“Let me talk it out? Throw things at the wall and see what goes splat?”
Schenk eased his long legs down until he was sitting in the sand beside me, and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “I can do splat.”
“How would I go about finding the host? I mean, it could be anyone, anywhere. I feel like they’re in this city, or they were, back when it happened. Even if they’re still in this city after fifteen years, there are like a million people in the region, if you count The Falls, and Buffalo, and maybe even Hamilton or up towards Toronto. There must be a way to narrow it down. Where would the Big Bad get the host to begin with?”
Schenk had no problem at all picking up the threads. “You’re talking about victim selection. Victim pool.”
I murmured, deep in thought. “Would it have been someone random crossing his path? Or does it make more sense that it would be someone he was familiar with?”
“If we’re talking one of your undead sorts, then would he pick another one of you for a victim? A DaySitter?”
I stared out at the dark water and thought about Aston Sarokhanian’s DaySitter, the very agile and annoying Sayomi Mochizuki, and her second, Gunther Folkenflik. I shifted my butt in the sand until it made a more comfortable divot. She hadn’t been Sarokhanian’s DaySitter back when Colonel Jack Batten stormed the nest and was taken, but had she met the previous one and swapped notes?
In Ireland, Sayomi had hinted as much, taunting Kill-Notch with details that no doubt tormented him. Would Sarokhanian have subjected his old DaySitter to being a host for a second soul? Most revenants took great care to ensure their DaySitter remained healthy, so it seemed unlikely.
“I don’t think a DaySitter would work.” I mulled it a bit more, thinking about how I would feel if Harry added a soul to my body. But I knew instinctively that he wouldn’t dream of it. “Not even covertly. I’d know something had changed immediately, through the Bond, even if it doesn't actually feel weird or hinky or however it feels to have somebody else's soul riding shotgun or, I dunno, bound with duct tape and stuffed in my trunk. I know when he’s hiding things. I don’t always know what, but I know when something has changed.” I pulled a snack-sized bag of potato chips out of my fanny pack and crunched on one, then dusted the salt off my fingertips on my jeans. “Plus, it's not exactly subtle; where there's a revenant powerful enough to pull that off, there's gonna be a DaySitter, so that's basically slapping a big bullseye on your own ass. He'd have to be desperate to do it that way.”
I paused, considering. “Also, the addition of the soul to the host would probably cause chronic fatigue and other health problems.” I wondered if there were any exceptions to that rule, and something tickled me, flashbacks to a baby food jar and a stolen soul and a hybrid zombie-vampire.
“Same as that phantasm feeding business?”
I nodded; it was the reverse, but still kind of the same. If the host of Colo
nel Jack’s soul was alive, it could be a Sarokhanian neighbor, but wasn’t likely a DaySitter. “Revenants like to keep their advocates safe, sane, and healthy so that they can do their job. A second soul would definitely fuck things up inside you.”
“If you were already sick, or wounded, would you notice the effects of the added soul burdening you?”
“You’d likely think your illness had progressed rapidly, leveling up the suck,” I said, nodding at his train of thought. Unless you were already dead. Or undead. Again, that tickle.
“So someone else, someone close by,” Schenk said.
“Close to the original nest at the time of the disappearance.”
“Who isn’t one of the DaySitters,” he added.
I made an affirmative noise. “But I have a feeling that the Big Bad would choose a host he saw often. So he could interact with them with impunity, or at least not raise any suspicions.”
“Like a serial killer revisiting a dump site.”
That struck me as both chilling and highly likely. “Yeah. The living host is his trophy and burial ground in one. He’s discarded his victim’s soul there, but he longs to revisit his crimes.”
“And to reassure himself that his crimes haven’t been unearthed,” he suggested.
“Ugh,” I said. “Yes.”
“So the host would be special to him. He would guard this host.”
“I think that’s very likely, yes.”
“Support the host financially?” he suggested.
I nodded slowly. “But not in any way that could easily be traced.”
“So, not a relative.”
“This revenant is too old to have living relatives that he’d keep in touch with,” I said. “If he had children before his turning, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, I doubt he’d have been in contact beyond that. Could be centuries. The only exceptions I've found are Declan Edgar, who isn’t mortal himself, and my brother, who is a special case — he’s too newly turned to have left his family behind yet, and I'm a DaySitter, so there's a certain degree of understanding and acceptance of what's up.”