by Brandon Getz
Auntie Hand’s wooden claw whirred as it reached for the wolfman’s arm. A smooth, cold finger ran along the lines of a binding tattoo. Lars’ hackles raised; he felt the wolf snarl inside him. He ripped his arm away.
“Buy me a drink first.”
The witch’s fangs showed. “I wouldn’t pay much attention to hallucinations in the armpit of space-time, beast. A lot of nonsense and hoodoo in there. Nothing but a bad dream.”
“This,” Lars muttered, “coming from a vampire space witch from another dimension.”
“I’m an arch-hexsmith,” she said, raising her scarred arm to her mouth. “I don’t dither in nonsense.”
When the arm met her lips, she bared rows of razor teeth and bit deep into the flesh. Black blood bubbled at the corners of her mouth. Lars was horrified—the witch had finally snapped, like a coyote in a bear trap. She spat into the sand and held her bleeding arm toward the wall. Blood coiled out of the wound, rising as rope, up and up to the lowest drainpipe. As the bloodrope drained her veins, the witch faltered, and Lars had to grab her shoulder to keep her from toppling into the dunes. This time she didn’t protest. The rope was almost up to the leaking pipe, and Hand’s galaxy eyes were dimming, rolling back.
“Stop,” he said. “You’re gonna drain out like a tapped keg.”
“If we’re here when the tide comes,” she said weakly, “the serpents—” A cough interrupted her thought. As the fit subsided, she growled, “I’ve come too far and lived too long to be lunch for some pond snake.”
The bloodrope latched to the mouth of the pipe, and Auntie Hand gripped it with her clockwork hand. “Hold on,” she said. Around her feet, in the sand, a circle of blood pooled and congealed, then began to lift from the ground, dripping sand and blood while holding the witch in the air.
“Didn’t know you vamps could do that,” Lars said. “Woulda been useful for Jay to pop us on one of these back in Canal City.”
“Little bug still has a lot to learn,” the witch said. “She’s too focused on kicking and swinging knives around like some circus performer.” She paused, breathing deeply. “Well, step on, I can’t hold this all night.”
Lars grabbed the witch’s clockwork hand and stepped onto the disc. It was weird, the weight of him sinking slightly into the surface of blood. Witch blood. Steadying himself, he expected a jolt from the old prosthesis but it only felt like wood, a slight vibration in the fingers as the sprockets whirred. The disc lifted, and Lars felt the ground fall away beneath them, the wall rising, the white eyes of lookingweed following their ascent, tentacles seeming to reach, Auntie Hand sucking the rope of blood back into her arm as it pulled them closer and closer to the dark and waiting drain.
Chapter XLIII
Lars stood at the edge of the wide pipe, feet ankle deep in stagnant water. Below, black ocean crawled across the beach, washing over the red web of lookingweed. The sea was lousy with serpents—a whole legion of them, he could see now. Writhing through each other, on top of themselves, as much a part of the tide as the water itself.
“You said the weed was watching us,” Lars said finally. “What’s that mean?”
Auntie Hand was leaning against the pipe’s wall, breathing heavily. The wound on her arm was already closing, the last of her blood sucking back into her veins, roiling out of the much.
“There’s so much of it now,” she said. “I used to use it in the castle gardens. An eye or two near each entrance, to keep them safe. You can see through it if you know the hex. Eyes everywhere.” She moved the fingers of her wooden hand, watching the brass gears turn. “Didn’t help much, of course. When the revolution swept through. They knew about the weed, and you saw—a pointed stick, a well-placed boot, and no more looking. But I saw them. I knew they were coming, the peasant army, legion of slaves. Nothing in this world or any other had blood enough to stop them. After the guards were slaughtered, they broke through my bloodwalls. Slashed my ropes. They were swimming in blood by the time they reached the princess. And as I broke the breach and pushed her through, I made sure they choked on it.”
“Jeezus . . .” Lars said. “So it’s like a security camera?”
Hand sighed—sounding a little like a growl. “It’s not here by accident. The city is watching. Someone knows we’re here. If they know that hex, they might know others. I wasn’t the only hexsmith on this world.”
The water had reached the foot of the wall. It rose steadily, waves and serpents crashing against the stone.
“You ready to websling to the next pipe up?” Lars asked. “In five minutes, we’re gonna be ass-deep in sea monster.”
The witch struggled to her feet. She leaned too hard on the driftwood. Even if she could manage another blood disc and rope, Lars thought, who’s to say she wouldn’t drop dead in the middle of the climb and drop them both into the infested sea? He dropped to his stomach and leaned over the edge of the pipe. Wind whipped at his beard, howled in his ears. A node of lookingweed clung to a patch of wall just below. Its eye was watching the tide.
He held out his hand in a gesture of fuckoffitude. The clouded eye glanced up through its ring of tentacles. Creepy fucking eyeballs, and somebody spying on them via botanical witchcraft, about to watch them die? That annoyed him more than the death tide.
The water was halfway up to the drainpipe. He could make out the razor scales on the skins of the serpents, the batwing fins. As they writhed, their heads stayed hidden in the dark surf. He could only imagine how many teeth were in those mouths.
Lars saw Auntie Hand lean again on her cane, turned to look at the trio of moons hanging over the black sea. He was beat and ravenous and his bones ached from his last wolf-out. But the lunar light felt like the kiss of the gods, and he felt his veins surging. Fuck it, what choice did he have? The tunnel was all darkness—no telling how far they’d wander blind before they found safety. Guaranteed the tide would get them first. Auntie Hand was all out of hex juice. The wolf was their only hope. Maybe he could claw his way up the wall, Hand lashed to his back. It was a shitty plan, but he couldn’t think of another one. As his hands began to twitch, he heard the hissing of serpents growing louder beneath them, the crashing of waves. No way was Lars Breaxface, Werewolf in Space, going down without swinging. A high wave crashed below, spraying into the tunnel. The dark, skeletal fins were close enough to spit on. And he did—hulking, growling, the beast in gray fur, he spat on the nearest serpent just to show them that he could.
Well, Budge, he thought, readying his claws, looks like your prophecy is bullshit. Bullshit . . . from a minotaur. He had to laugh.
Chapter XLIV
The sea broke beneath him, and up out of the black water snaked the face of nightmares. Its great circular maw twisted open, teeth upon razor teeth in infinite peristaltic intervals down the holes of their throats. From mouth to asshole, the serpents were meat grinders. The mouth, big enough to swallow a bus, bore toward him in a spray of brine. His right claw clenched into a beast-fist. The serpent’s shadow over him, long and writhing. Teeth reaching for him like each one was hungry. Too bad the snake had no eyes—motherfucker didn’t even see it coming:
Full-bore wolfman uppercut, straight to the serpent’s chin.
The meat-grinder mouth kicked back, an alien shriek piercing the hollow of the drainage pipe. Its echo rang in Lars’ super-hearing ears, but he didn’t care—he’d just sucker-punched a sea monster. Achievement unlocked. His hand throbbed, but only for a moment. Pale goop oozed from a crack in the serpent’s hard skin, splashing all over the drainpipe as it whipped its head and shrieked again. The froth of waves lapped at the tunnel’s edge. Behind the wailing serpent, two more, mouths churning. The tunnel darkened with their shadows. Lars hunched on his haunches, ready to spring. Seawater boiled. All three serpents lunged.
Lars leapt. He stepped on the cracked lip of the snake he’d punched, kicked off over the gaping grind-mouth, and dug both claws into its blind face. The other two snakes twisted and gnashed at their broth
er. Pale ooze rained as their teeth tore snakeflesh. Too quickly—they were cutting through to where Lars was swinging from his claw-grip, slipping on serpent blood. He hadn’t thought of Step Two in his Punch a Monster plan—he didn’t think he’d make it that far. He could see the ocean beyond the tail of the dying serpent, and in its dark waters more fins, more teeth. The two mouths were drilling closer, the dying serpent disappearing into their throats. Then suddenly they weren’t. More snake shrieks, echoes. The dead serpent fell, Lars stuck to its face with both claws, and there in the stinking water stood Auntie Hand with both fists around bloodropes pulling straight from their wounds, and the serpents wailing and writhing as they choked on their own blood. Lars pulled his claws from the dead snake’s flesh and gave the witch two big, bloody thumbs up.
Three dead serpents. Water up to the witch’s knees. More monsters gnashing at the tails of their fallen brothers.
“Round two?” Lars croaked. The witch’s eyes flashed, and she managed a sneer—but she still looked faded, drained. Blood leaked lazily from her wrinkled arms. Over the noise and violence of the monsters and the tide, Lars heard something mechanical. The rumble and whoosh of an engine—and then a shadow fell over the tails of the dead serpents.
As it grew, the shadow took the shape of a very large tree.
Hot Cosmic Christ, Lars thought. Old Frank to the rescue.
Frank was hanging by a couple of nylon cables from the belly of an aircraft that looked like the bastard child of a scarab beetle and a Cylon. Lars turned, full wolf and covered in goop, to the old witch. “Our ride’s here.”
Frank swung toward the pipe, the wind in his foliage shaking loose leaves into the rising waves. His smattering of eyes, bloodshot and sallow, lost all of the dullness they had when the tremuloid was boozing—Frank was stone sober and determined. The tree reached with several branches, but he was too far out. The aircraft hovered as near to the wall as it dared. Serpents, bursting from surf, gnashed at Frank and fell again.
Lars had an idea. He gripped the fin of the chin-punched snake and shouted down to the Hand, “Come on.” They didn’t have much time. Tide was rising; the witch had to swim. Lars wrenched the big fin from the serpent’s back with a sound like leather pants ripping in the ass, and pale blood sprayed. He ran the length of the serpentine corpse, Auntie Hand somewhere behind him, but she was on her own. He’d saved her ass enough already. Far as he could tell, Jay’s mission of vengeance didn’t require a half-dead witch, and he wasn’t about to die without getting paid. When he reached the tail, Lars held the fin high—and lunged.
The fin caught the sea wind. The werewolf was up, gliding. Over the infested waters, wide mouths and frothing surf. Then he was choking—wet rope around his face, in his mouth like a bridle, tasting of brine and death and still smelling of the insides of serpents’ veins. He felt the witch’s knees on his back and hard, wooden fingers grip the fur at his nape. On the fin, they glided, Frank’s branches reaching, serpents rising for the airborne prey. It was only their idiot bloodlust that saved Lars and Hand from getting chomped, ground, and swallowed—serpent wrestled upon serpent, each dragging the others back down into the waves. Lars caught one of Frank’s limbs, dropped the fin, and dug in with both claws. He’d apologize for it later, with a whole keg. He wasn’t about to take any chances now. The scarab aircraft jerked skyward, and Lars held on as the ocean dropped away until all he could make out was its darkness—and then they were over the wall, the city sprawling lambent and baroque and alive for as far as he could see.
Chapter XLV
The city was a neon Mordor. Ornate, jagged towers twisted up from the streets like stalagmites, lights flashing red, purple, blue, the skyline broken randomly with garish mirrored pyramids and the occasional belching smokestack. The sky buzzed with the movement of scarab craft, graffiti-marred zeppelins, and quick winged creatures. Clouds of white lightning danced in the air, electric, changing shape to mimic everything that passed by. Below, the avenues and alleyways bent and re-met according to alien logic—not a single roadway in the city seemed straight—and on the streets, in swarms, were people. Jay’s people. The alien vampires of the Negaverse. The masses she wanted the werewolf to massacre.
The scarab hovered over a platform jutting from one of the stalagmite towers, allowing Frank, Lars, and the Hand to disentangle from its belly before setting down on the concrete pad. Wind whipped at the trio, high up as they were, and over the smog stink of the engine, the air was still coastal—sticky, briny—but beyond that the smells were urban and grit, industry and living things clustered dense in the city’s sprawl. Lars bent on all fours and shook snake blood off him like a wet dog. Nearby, one of the lightning clouds floated, zapped itself vaguely into werewolf shape. Lars couldn’t tell whether the cloud was sentient or just some bizarre weather phenomenon, but it felt like mocking just the same. He shook his head, and his body, still feasting on the planet’s triple moonlight, began grudgingly to snap back into human form.
Auntie Hand looked half zombie, unsteady without her scavenged bit of driftwood. Serpent blood clung to her robes, and the wounds on her arms were slow to heal. Frank eyed her nervously, a branch never far from the old witch. The tremuloid had fresh wounds on his trunk, and not just the claw marks from Lars. Frank, too, had seen battle since falling through the breach.
“Frank,” Lars said, “where’s Jay?” If Frank had been with her, the smell of her had already washed away. Still, he had to ask. Their fearless princess was AWOL.
The big tree did his best approximation of a shrug. His eyes burned fierce and melancholy.
A hydraulic whoosh emanated from the scarab’s cockpit, and the pilot climbed out with gusto. He unsnapped a helmet that looked like some ancient gasmask, and beneath he was smiling.
“Holy Devil’s Tits,” he shouted, “fucking aliens, man! Fighting fucking sea serpents!” The pilot was, of course, Jay’s species, and his fangs glowed white when he smiled. Where Jay’s head-tendrils hung over her shoulder like dreads, his were mohawked and tattooed with intricate designs. His eyes were hidden behind circular brass-rimmed pilot goggles, and his body was long and sinewy under a set of fitted black coveralls. The pale skin on his face was scarred like Jay and Hand’s but, Lars noticed, mottled with bluish blotches in no particular pattern. As he neared them, the pilot rolled up his sleeves to show the scars on his arms.
“Real fucking aliens,” he said. He looked at them then down at his arms. “Shit, man, sorry—habit. Bet only granny over there can read the name. Everybody calls me Patches.”
“Lars,” said the wolfman. At least the collar translators still worked in this dimension. “The houseplant’s Frank.”
Auntie Hand kept her arms covered under her bangled robes. Still, Patches seemed to be reading her face, the brand under her throat.
“Sheeeit, lady.” Patches whistled and shook his head. “Sheeeit. You, like, a ghost or something? Hasn’t been anybody with that name in, like, two hundred years.”
“Something,” the witch said, “like a ghost.”
“Man, it was dumb luck I was out there,” Patches said, “just going for a ride to clear my head, you know? Watch the tide come up, contemplate the ephemeral nature of existence and all that shit. Then the ICA beams me out a distress call—the weeds are looking at a weird tree stuck in some rocks and a hairy dude and an old lady shimmying up to the wall. Says they all just tumbled out of a portal in space-time. I’m thinking, Devil’s Tits, right? I go out to meditate with the tide and come face-to-face with disruptions in the fabric of the universe? Heavy, you know? Pick up the big guy just as he’s choking a serpent to death then come get you guys just in time—you gotta watch those sea worms. You saw those teeth, right? Wicked.”
Another scarab soared close overhead, followed by a flock of spider-like birds the color of corpses. Lars said, “Look, thanks for the save—we were ten seconds to fucked out there. But did you see anybody else? A chick like you, purple tendrils, big sword on her b
ack?”
“Nah, dude, nobody like that. ICA only reported you three.” From some pocket in his coveralls, Patches pulled a long, curved pipe and lit it with a small torch. “Real fucking aliens . . . Probably need to register with the Council Authority as transdimensional refugees. They’ll want your passport, grandma, that whole drill.” He inhaled, held it, then exhaled rings of green smoke. “Course, you all might be arrested, being illegal aliens. Whole Federation’s antsy. What are you, anyway, some kind of death-badger? This fucking tree, too, get a load of that guy. Looks like he fought a lumberjack and lost.”
Frank sagged. One of his branches looked like it was going to swing.
“Frank,” Lars said, “the guy saved our asses.”
Patches was chugging on his pipe again. Auntie Hand seemed lost in the sight of the city. Her eyes were wide, almost horrified, behind her red lenses.
“I wouldn’t worry, my dudes,” Patches went on. “We had this alien come through a few years back, looked like something straight out of the ocean cities, squeaky little guy. Now that fucking dude is famous—he’s like the richest guy on the planet. Lives right here in Imperium, too.”
“Cosmic Christ . . .” Lars muttered. “What’s this guy’s name?” A few years back? It had only been a couple of days since the jump out the airlock, even with the subspace detours they’d taken.
“Arcturus,” said Patches as green smoke curled from his pale lips. “The Fish Man.”
“Can you take us there? To the Fish Man?” Lars said. “I got a hunch he can help us find our friend. Probably whip us up a princess-seeking dildo that flies on ghost farts.”
“Yo, you know about the Emporium? Guy’s got all the toys.” Patches was re-lighting the pipe. He shrugged. “I don’t know if I can do that, dude. ICA’s gotta be waiting on a report. Probably best if I take you to them, let the Authority process you and all that. Coast Guard’ll find your missing sword chick. If the serpents leave anything.”