Tooth and Nail

by Chris Underwood

  With a small “Oh,” Lilian released the nail atop Eventide’s head. She toppled slowly to the side, putting a hand out to slow her fall.

  “Lilian,” I said as I reached her side, keeping her from hitting the ground. “Are you all right?”

  “I…I…” She blinked a few times before focusing on me. Her face was pale and drawn. Darkness still swam in the corners of her eyes, slowly fading. “There was someone…someone else. Someone alive.”

  “I know. I know. I should’ve—” I grunted and fought down the sick feeling in my stomach. “Are you okay? I need to—”

  “Go.” She dragged a hand across her face, then took a deep breath and looked at me. “Go.”

  I hesitated. But Lilian was tough. Hell, she was damn near invincible. I grabbed her hand, squeezed, and stood.

  “Sonja,” I said, turning. But the basement was empty. Lockhart had left without a sound. I knew where she was going.

  I barreled up the stairs and along wide, marble-lined hallways. The mansion felt emptier than it had the last time I was here. Colder.

  I burst through an open doorway and came skidding to a halt.

  The first thing that hit me was the sharp stink of vomit. It was almost enough to make me retch in sympathy.

  Lockhart had beat me here, of course. She stood beside the king-sized bed. With two fingers, she lightly touched the throat of the woman lying motionless in the bed.

  The white duvet was stained with a pool of fresh vomit. Rachel, Selene Eventide’s swain, lay tangled in the covers, her eyes closed. Her skin shone with sweat. She was pale, gray.

  I licked my lips, taking a step closer. “Is she…?”

  “She’s alive.” Lockhart’s voice was cold. “Barely.”

  The knot in my gut pulled tighter. Tight enough that I could barely breathe. I steadied myself against a large set of black wooden drawers.

  A stupid mistake. I should’ve seen it. Should’ve realized. But I didn’t. I was so focused on getting the truth, I didn’t even think about it.

  Rachel still bore a bond to Eventide. Even now, after Eventide’s death. Rachel was Selene Eventide’s swain. Eventide had fed from her over months and years, and in doing so had created a connection so strong that not even death could break it.

  When Lilian had used her magic to spark Eventide’s brain, she hadn’t just reinterpreted the dead vampire’s final moments, her final thoughts. She’d reawakened that bond between slave and master. She’d unwittingly pumped her own brand of death magic through that bond, like poison delivered through an IV drip.

  I’d felt that magic before. Just a touch of it, just for an instant. That cold, dark void of nothingness, of rot and decay and death.

  Rachel had suffered that for nearly a minute before we pulled the plug.

  What would that do to a person? I could see how close Rachel had come to slipping beyond the veil. Maybe she still would.

  If she made it to dawn, maybe she’d be okay. Sunlight would help.

  But there were many long hours between now and sunrise. A long time for her to linger in the darkness.

  It wasn’t Lilian’s fault. She didn’t know. She didn’t have the whole picture. I did. I just hadn’t looked. I just hadn’t stopped to think.

  “Let me look at her.” I began to approach the bed. “I might be able to—”

  “You’ve done enough, don’t you think?” Lockhart snapped.

  I stopped, swallowed. “I’ll call Early. He can help her.”

  Lockhart turned to me and shook her head slowly. “I’ve had enough of cunning men for tonight. My people can handle it from here.”

  “But—”

  “Take your friend and go home, Mr. Turner. Get some sleep. You’ll need it.” She turned back to Rachel. “Return here tomorrow evening so we may escort you to the duel.”

  I stood in place for several seconds, staring at Lockhart’s back, and at Rachel curled beneath the tangled sheets.

  I can fix this. I have to fix this.

  But Lockhart was right. I’d done enough.

  Tightening my hands into fists, I turned and left the bedroom.

  Lilian was sitting up by the time I returned to the basement. She was sipping from a bottle of juice she must have brought from home. She still looked tired, but some of the color had come back to her face.

  “Want some, boss?”

  She offered the bottle to me. I shook my head.

  “Did you get anything useful?” She nodded toward Eventide’s severed head. “We blew a couple of fuses, but I think I can get us up and running again within the hour if you want to try again.”

  “We’re not trying again,” I said. “Let’s pack up. We’re going home.”

  She frowned and studied my face closely. “What is it? What happened?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “Something went wrong. That…that other presence I felt—”

  “Lilian,” I said quietly. “Please.”

  She stared hard at me a moment longer. Then, with a nod, she pulled herself to her feet.

  We packed her equipment away in silence. When we were done, we left Eventide’s head and body where they lay.

  24

  I drove Lilian back to Alcaraz’s estate. On the way, I explained what had happened with Rachel.

  Lilian was mad at herself. Furious, really. “I knew the numbers didn’t add up,” she kept saying. “I knew it.”

  But in my heart, I knew I bore the responsibility. I was the one who’d asked Lilian to come and do this. I was the one who hadn’t bothered to consider the consequences. I hadn’t thought through the risks. Even when Lilian had mentioned that something was off, I hadn’t really listened.

  I was just tired, I tried to tell myself. I was sleep-deprived and still recovering from my poisoning. It was no surprise I hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  I wondered if that would be any consolation for Rachel—assuming she survived the night.

  Most of all I dreaded Nolan’s reaction. He’d been hesitant to help me get my hands on Eventide’s corpse, but he’d gone to bat for me, convinced Lockhart to give it a shot. And now Rachel, his friend, the woman he’d tried so hard to help after Eventide’s death, was paying the price.

  “Ozzy,” Lilian said. “Ozzy!”

  I blinked, dragging myself out of the mire of guilt. I realized we were parked outside Alcaraz’s front gate. I didn’t remember the last few minutes of the drive. Maybe I really was too tired for any of this.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Zoned out for a second. What were you saying?”

  “I asked you what’s next. You need me for something? For the investigation?”

  The duel, a voice inside me said. Tell her about the duel, you idiot.

  “Ozzy?” Lilian said.

  I shook my head. “Not right now. Let me think things through a little. Work out what the next step is.” I paused. “I’ll call you.”

  “Make sure you do.” She got out of the van and unloaded her box from the back. With her hand on the door, she stopped and looked at me. “I know tonight was a shit show, but right up until we nearly killed someone, I was enjoying myself. You know, us working together again.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, offering her a smile. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Talk to you soon, big guy. Call me, huh?”

  “You got it, Slim.”

  She gave me one last look, then shut the passenger door and heaved the huge black box over her shoulder. I watched until she passed through the gate that guarded the entrance to Alcaraz’s large estate. Turning back, she offered me one last wave. I waved back, though I doubted she could see me through the glare of the headlights. Then she turned and headed up the path to the old house, until her shadow finally disappeared into the darkness.

  I turned on the radio for comfort on the drive home. For a couple of minutes I tried to find some music to take my mind off things, but every station I found just set my teeth on edge. In the end, I just tuned
in to Falls Radio, the town’s local talk radio station. I was greeted instantly with my sister’s voice.

  Alice, my only sister, worked as an announcer for the station’s late night program. Her show mostly consisted of local lunatics calling in to discuss conspiracy theories and regale the show’s listeners with tall tales about werewolves they’d seen while driving home drunk.

  I’d tuned in halfway through one such story, where an old lady was claiming that the Loch Ness Monster—or some close relative—had somehow made it into the rivers around Lost Falls. Now Nessie was making a nuisance of herself by irritating the frogs and making them croak extra loud outside the caller’s window every night.

  I zoned out, retreating back into my own thoughts. Putting aside my guilt at what had happened to Rachel, I tried to think through what Eventide had said in the few seconds Lilian had been able to spark her brain. It had seemed like gibberish, but there had to be something there, some grain of truth.

  It was hard to say for sure, but it seemed like she’d been reliving the last few moments of her life. When she’d died, those moments were fixed in her brain, like an insect that’d been snap-frozen alive.

  She’d been searching for something. That much was clear. Was that what she was doing in Doyle’s Reach?

  I frowned to myself as a thought struck me. Had she been searching the potion seller’s trailer?

  In her ramblings she’d mentioned something about a standing invitation. Vampires generally needed an invitation to enter a person’s residence—the emotional energy that builds up in the walls of an occupied home creates a barrier to certain magically-sensitive creatures. But if the potion seller was a friend to the vampires, as Lockhart had said, then it was certainly possible that he’d granted Eventide leave to enter his trailer as she wished.

  It would also explain why there were no muddy, ogre-sized footprints inside the trailer. Maybe it hadn’t been One-tusk who had broken in. It was Eventide.

  So she’d gone there, looking for something. Maybe she was in a hurry and couldn’t wait for the potion seller to return. Or maybe she’d intentionally gone while he was out.

  And then what? Had One-tusk shown up as well? That couldn’t be a coincidence. Was he searching for the same thing as Eventide? Maybe they’d run into each other, and a fight had broken out between them.

  Eventide had mentioned One-tusk by name. She recognized him. She knew him. Was that because her role as enforcer meant she kept tabs on possible threats to the vampires—threats like One-tusk? Or was there some history between them?

  And where did the assassin come in? He’d been there, at Doyle’s Reach. As Eventide’s bodyguard, maybe? Had something made her fear for her life so much she decided to hire backup? Not a swain or another vampire, either—a goblin.

  It didn’t seem to fit with the picture of Eventide I’d been given by Lockhart and others. They’d described a lone wolf, someone who could be counted on to get the job done alone. Someone fearless.

  But there had been fear in her voice, there at the end. I’d heard it myself.

  Whatever was going on, though, it clearly wasn’t over. The goblin was still active, even after Eventide’s death. The fact that he hadn’t gone back to Whitworth’s trailer made me think whatever Eventide had been looking for wasn’t there. So where was it?

  I was deep in my thoughts when something on the radio caught my attention. Alice had finally gotten the Loch Ness Monster lady off the line and was now talking to a guy with a two-packs-a-day smoker’s rasp. I turned up the volume.

  “…telling you, these guys were as big as houses. Five of ’em I counted, maybe six. I didn’t get a good look, but some of ’em had guns, I saw that much. You shoulda seen ’em move, though. Like ghosts, they was. Just moving through the woods like they was nothing. Quick, but totally silent.”

  “Fascinating,” Alice said in her radio voice—a near-whisper that was almost the complete opposite of her normal booming tone.

  “And before anyone out there starts saying I’m crazy, I know what I saw. Those weren’t men. I know what men look like, and those weren’t men.”

  “Of course, Thomas. We all know the woods of this town hold many strange and dangerous creatures. I hope you didn’t put yourself in any danger. And you said they were carrying something, didn’t you?”

  “That I did. It was…this’ll sound nuts…it was like a coffin.”

  “A coffin?”

  “Yeah, you heard. Now, I didn’t get a good look at it. They was moving so fast, and I wasn’t close enough to see ’em properly. By the time I thought to take a photo they was long gone. It just made me think of a coffin, that’s all. I think I know what they were, though.”

  “Please enlighten us,” Alice said.

  “Soldiers,” he said in a low voice. “Soldiers in experimental exo-suits. Maybe ours, maybe Chinese, maybe Russians. But I tell you what: we all need to be on guard. I already called the cops, but they didn’t want to hear it.”

  The man lapsed into an extended rant about the police state which Alice tried and failed to cut off. I turned the volume down again.

  Hell. It was pure dumb luck the man didn’t understand what he’d really seen: a band of unglamoured ogres disappearing back into the woods, spiriting away the vampire Leon Adler, still locked in his coffin.

  Next time, we might not be so lucky. Next time, someone might snap a photo. And then we were all screwed.

  The ogres’ attack on Adler had been stupid and reckless. And if the war kicked off in earnest, this wouldn’t be the last reckless action. There could be firefights, ambushes, maybe even attacks on vampires that lived in more populated areas. There wouldn’t be any hiding that.

  And I still had nothing to point me to the truth of what had happened at Doyle’s Reach. Nothing concrete. As much as I hated to admit it, maybe Lockhart was right. Maybe this stupid duel was the only thing that would buy us enough time to finish the investigation.

  I just hoped it didn’t cost me my life.

  There was a light on at Early’s house when I got home. I parked and checked Early’s back door. The tracking potion for the vodyanoy was gone. For a few seconds I stared up at the light in the upstairs bedroom window, then I turned and made my way across the property toward my cabin.

  The ground was still spongy from all the rain the other night. I walked slowly, careful not to slip. Clouds slid across the moon, so the only light came from Early’s window behind me. It cast a dim yellow glow across the lawn, causing my shadow to stretch out in front of me. As I approached my front door I fished in my pocket for my keys.

  I sensed, rather than saw, movement off to my right. I glanced up from my keys and saw a shadow at the corner of my cabin. It was coming right for me.

  With my heart in my throat, I tugged my revolver from my pocket and pointed it at the approaching shadow.

  “There’s silver in the chamber,” I said, “so it’ll hurt no matter what you are.”

  The shadow stopped in place. With a soft chuckle, it brought a hand to its face. It was holding something.

  I thumbed back the hammer. “Stop.”

  There was a click. A flashlight beam snapped on beneath the figure’s chin, casting light and deep shadows across his narrow, pointed face.

  Large, sunken eyes shone yellow in the flashlight beam. His long nose carved a crooked path out from his face, and pointed ears stretched up from amid a tangle of dark, greasy hair. He grinned up at me, revealing pointed yellow teeth.

  “Boo,” Rodetk said.

  25

  “I could’ve shot you,” I said, sliding a beer across the table to Rodetk. “I’m still considering it.”

  The goblin curled long fingers around the neck of the bottle. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

  Friend. I glanced at the scar tissue that ran over one of his high cheekbones. A scar I’d given him. That had been a long time ago. We’d both been different people then. Just kids, really. Vicious kids stuck on opposite
sides.

  We’d put that behind us. Well, I had, anyway. I hoped Rodetk had too. We’d been forced to work together a while back to stop a powerful witch from wiping out the local population of goblins. In the face of all that, our past wasn’t such a big deal.

  “You could’ve given me some warning, at least,” I said.

  He gestured to himself. He was wearing a button-down shirt that was too loose for his bony frame. “Look at me, Turner. What was I supposed to do? Hang out under a spotlight? I kind of stand out.”

  “You could’ve glamoured yourself.”

  “And who’s going to pay for that? You?”

  I grunted. He had a point.

  I cracked open my own beer and dropped heavily into the chair opposite Rodetk. He held out his bottle, and after a moment’s hesitation I clinked my beer against his.

  The goblin gave me another sharp-toothed grin and took a swig. With a satisfied sigh, he leaned back in the chair and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Don’t get beer like this beneath the mountain,” he said, eying the bottle. “Not on my salary, anyway.”

  “How are the Mines? Haven’t heard much since the sorcerer died.”

  “It’s better than it was,” Rodetk said. “Couldn’t have been much worse. The Lord in the Deep is making his own decisions again, at least, rather than regurgitating whatever sorcerous commands Likho poured into his ears. Which means he’s now about as good as your average politician.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Ah, it’s all right. The big bastard restored the council’s power and reformed the Guard. Got myself a job again. Promotion, even. You’re talking to Captain Rodetk, now.”

  “Congrats.” I held out my beer and we clinked bottles again. “How’s that working out for you?”

  “Oh, you know. Every day’s a party.” He shook his head. “There’s been a lot of instability ever since the sorcerer got dusted. A lot of groups wanting a piece of the pie. Spent a year just cracking enough heads to get things half under control.”