by P. N. Elrod
It was a forlorn little cry, and he almost stopped.
But his work wasn’t done. He sped up, heels jabbing the hardwood, and crunched through the remainder of the vase in the hall.
Outside, the cool, rainy air was a balm to his burning cheeks. He made it to the Cadillac, dropped into the driver’s seat, and was gone before she could come out in her yard and start yelling. Not that he thought she would—Mrs. King wasn’t the type.
But if she did come out, he wasn’t sure his resolve would hold. There was a suspicious blurring in his eyes, and Rookwood wasn’t sure how much more he could hate what he was about to do—or himself.
The house crouched, one window glowing gold. Someone was up late, probably sitting in the kitchen. He didn’t get close enough to look.
Rain flirted down, kissed the leaves of trees planted when this housing development was put in. It touched the wide sidewalks, drenched the thirsty lawns, dripped from eaves, and gurgled in gutters. There was no drone of traffic as there was in the city, just the sea-sound of the city in the distance and the occasional rolling breaker of tires on wet asphalt closer.
The rain didn’t matter. He stood or crouched easily, moving only enough to keep himself flexible. The night breathed, full of damp dreaming.
The neighbors had both had dinner. Someone brought garbage out across the street behind him. But the widow’s house stood, closed and self-contained as the woman herself.
Rookwood waited. She’d come home before dusk, in a silver SUV, and didn’t open the garage but carried plastic and paper bags inside with her shoulders up, hurrying. Since then, just the light in the kitchen, mocking the gathering and fallen night.
Lights turned off in the houses around hers. A dog yapped a few yards away until someone yelled, “Max, get in here!” A series of happy yips, then a door closing and more silence.
The neighborhood prepared itself for sleep. Rookwood lifted the flask to his mouth, took another swallow of the red stuff. The problem wasn’t with it being cold or the flat copper tang to it.
The problem was how good this pale substitute tasted. And how good he could imagine it coming straight from the vein.
His nape tickled. He eased farther back into the shadows, melding with them, his pulse and breathing smoothing out into an imperceptible hum under the ambient nighttime noise. Quiet as a mole in a hole.
It had taken him two months to get his pulse under control. It was worth the work.
The widow’s house was like a sore tooth. His gaze kept drifting across it. What was she doing in there? What had she brought home? Had she made any phone calls?
Do your job, Rookwood. He was barely breathing under the dripping fringes of some kind of evergreen. He almost stopped blinking, his pulse struggling with the iron grip of training, instinct whispering that it would be soon, very soon.
He still almost missed it. A shadow flitted over the roof, a quick, lizardlike movement. A faint tinkle of glass breaking, almost lost under the rush of rain, half swallowed by the cloak of fetid silence suddenly drawn choking close around the white walls and green shutters.
He moved. Slippery, squishing grass underfoot, getting up a good head of speed. Spatters of rain broke against his face. The UV in one hand, its light stuttering on as his thumb flicked, the gun in the other, he streaked for the French doors with only a slight squelching sound betraying his position.
And hit, hard, the glass shivering away in fragments and long swords. The noise was incredible, a crashing through the silence the Thing had pulled close around the entire house, and he saw the short white blond hair, the blue eyes, the expensive business suit, in flashes before Rookwood’s gun spoke and Chisholm’s arm flicked, throwing Amelia King across the kitchen and into the wall as though she weighed less than nothing. She slid down the wall in a queer boneless way, leaving a huge dent behind, and the hot red fury bubbled up under Rookwood’s skin.
The Thirst screamed as he hit the Thing with a bone-crunching thud. Fell, his head clipping the tiled counter, and the gun tracked the Thing as it loomed over him, snarling. Five bullets, their sound blurring into and over one another. The UV slashed across Chisholm’s face. Smoke burst free.
He looked again into the face of the Thing that had made him, and its mad blue gaze dug into the inside of his skull. It bent down, its snarl ripping across violated air, and he saw a thick, broken wooden dowel protruding from its chest.
I didn’t do that. Confusion fought with the Thirst, and instinct jerked his hand with the UV up again. Smoke boiled through the kitchen, bubbling black flesh rising. At night, when they dropped their shield of humanity, the light hurt them. During the day, they never dropped that mask. Maybe it was a survival mechanism—
“I wondered what happened to you.” Chisholm’s voice, a rich baritone. He reached up, plucked the wood from his flesh with clawed fingers. The mask of humanity was back over the face of the Thing that glutted itself on suffering, and if not for the stripes of bubbling black tissue across his chiseled features, you wouldn’t guess he was a terror as ancient as darkness itself. “Baited a little trap, did we, Rook?” Chisholm dropped the sharpened dowel. It clattered on the floor.
Rookwood raised the gun, the Thirst screaming inside his veins. Kill kill kill! it yelled, pushed, screeched. Kill it, kill it now!
“How’s Fann?” he croaked through a dry-burning throat. “Legs grown back yet?”
Amelia King moaned shapelessly. Rookwood forced himself to stare up at Chisholm. Steady. Pick your shot. Four bullets left. Didn’t hit him, worse fucking luck.
“Your ridiculous little crusade.” Chisholm sighed. He was popular in a courtroom, in a nightclub, with the ladies. Courtly, even.
But the ones who wouldn’t be missed knew what he really was. The trouble was, they didn’t know until too late—and they couldn’t tell anyone from beyond the grave.
Nobody except Rookwood.
Rookwood’s hand tightened. Chisholm smiled. It was a gentle, paternal smile, the fangs curving down to dimple his chin, the black-charred stripe across his face tingeing with red at the edges as it healed. Fann was the oldest, Briggs was the most adept at using people—but Chisholm was the most dangerous. And now Rookwood had him right in his sights.
“It’s not too late to belong to the night, Jeremy.” Again that soft, paternal tone. Patient. Loving. “All can be forgiven. I marked you because you’re one of us, deep down. You know it.”
He’s afraid. Of me. It was like a bath of ice water. “Fuck you,” Rookwood snarled, and squeezed the trigger.
The gun spoke. Chisholm moved with the inhuman speed of the damned—but not fast enough. The bullet tore into his chest, mushrooming, and a huge black blotch appeared.
The Thing’s scream shattered glass, and Rookwood fired again, hit it again. It scrabbled away, still screaming, and smashed through the ruin of the French doors, more glass shivering free.
Got him! Savage joy filled his chest. He struggled to his feet. The Thirst burned, plucked at him. Go now. Hunt him down. He’s bleeding bad.
He glanced over. Amelia King lay slumped against the wall, her glossy hair tangled and matted with bright blood. She was crumpled like a doll thrown carelessly by a child.
Go! Go and get him! He’ll go to ground, you can mark the spot and wait for dawn. Then you can put a stake through his fucking heart and cut off his head and be free.
Six months of training, three of lying in wait for just this chance. He’d just flushed the monster out of hiding, and now here he was hesitating.
Amelia King surprised him again. Her eyes opened. Her throat was smeared with blood, and she blinked, dazed.
Oh, goddammit. He bit her. I’d bet money on it. Probably not for the first time, either. But that dowel in his chest . . .
Rookwood surprised himself this time by reaching down. His hand closed around her shoulder—why had he dropped the gun? That was a fool’s move. “It’s okay.” The words cut through the Thirst. “You’re safe.”
<
br /> She scrabbled back from his touch. Drywall dust puffed down, snowdust in her hair and over her blood-spattered blue T-shirt. The blood was amazingly red, and his fangs slid free. The bones in his jaw crackled as he wrestled down the Thirst.
She gulped. “Bait.” It was the voice of a child caught in a nightmare. “You used me as bait.”
“I’m sorry.” Pale words for the guilt that twisted inside his ribs, tearing at tender tissue. “Amelia—”
“Molstein’s dead.” Sense came back into her eyes. She scrabbled back even farther, pressing herself against the wall, and clapped a hand to her bleeding neck. “They killed him. Last week before I came to you. I was bait for you, too.”
“I knew that,” he heard himself say. “Don’t worry about it.” It was too much to hope for, that one betrayal would balance the other. “Just stay here. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
She closed her eyes. Her throat worked as she swallowed. He supposed they should both be grateful she was bitten and halfway there. If she’d been safe and uncontaminated, she’d be broken inside. Bleeding to death internally. As it was, her pulse was strong and she looked all right. Pale, but all right.
“You tried to stake him.” Rookwood’s fingers fell away from her shoulder. “Right?”
“Dowels from the hardware store. Didn’t work.” She coughed, a lonely, tired sound.
Get after him. If he gets to a safe place, he’ll come back tomorrow night and kill her. He rose, scooping up his gun, and she sighed.
“Good fucking deal.” His tone was harsher than it needed to be, with the Thirst burning in his throat, spreading down his chest. “Next time use hawthorn. It’s the only thing that works well enough to immobilize them. Stay here, I’ll be back.”
He reloaded as he stepped out into the night. Wet wind slapped him in the face. Chisholm’s passage was a drift of reek against the damp, and Rookwood gathered himself. The last flask of red stuff burned against his lips; he swallowed as he ran. It scorched all the way down, and the Thirst snarled. It wanted him to go back and sink his teeth in the bleeding woman, put his mark on her throat instead of the other bleeding hole of contamination.
And there were other things he thought he’d left behind wanting to be done, too. No time for them, either. But maybe . . .
He finished gulping and stuffed the flask back in his pocket. The UV was out, and the gun, and he pulled on every inch of more-than-human speed he could gather.
Out here in suburbia, there were even parks. In the city, it would have been a chase across rooftops and through alleys, dodging crowds and sliding across neon. Here there were fences, covered swimming pools—in this wet, cold part of the country, they were ridiculous status symbols—and the freeway like a giant artery.
The reek was flagging by the time he got to the park. He had to double back twice, cutting across fences, struggling through wet underbrush, and cursing. If this were his part of city, he’d know every back alley and sight line, every potential hiding place.
As it was, he almost stepped straight across the little depression in a soccer field. The Thirst jerked him back just in time, avoiding the clawed hand that shot up out of the wet turf.
Brought to bay at last, Chisholm dropped all pretense of humanity. Gone was the smooth courtroom baritone, the neatly combed shock of glossy white hair, the waxen, charming smile. This was the Thing without its daylight mask, its canines long and razor sharp, black sludge dribbling down its chin, and the sodden rags of its expensive suit flapping as it climbed out of its death hole.
He hadn’t expected the Thing to have so much pep left. It was still bleeding heavily, the grass smoking as ichor splashed. It crouched, a glassy squeal rising from its foul, bleeding lips. The UV lashed across it, a whip of light. More thin black blood bubbled.
It hit him hard, a last desperate gambit, claws slicing in through cloth and flesh, tangling with his ribs. Agony roared through him, but he was prepared, months of fighting in dark corners and hunting around the edges boiling down to undeniable instinct that had jerked the hawthorn stake free and—
It thudded home. His aim was true.
Rookwood lay flat in the mud, the Thirst burning all through him like alcohol fumes. The stab wounds between his ribs ran with red agony. Chisholm’s body began to vaporize itself, shredding under the lash of water. Stinging needles of rain peppered both of them, living flesh and dead, rotting sludge. The silver had done its work, poisoning and breaking up the fabric of Chisholm’s ancient body. The hawthorn was doing the rest.
Rookwood coughed twice, rackingly. Spat to clear his mouth. The stake quivered in his numb hand.
It took two tries to heave himself up, shoving aside the rotting thing. The rain was a baptism as the Thirst retreated into its deep hole, snarling with each step. Hot blood trickled its fingers down his rib cage. Nothing vital hit. Or so he hoped.
Do it quick, just in case.
The stake was hissing, the wood twitching as what was left of the one who had bitten him jerked slightly. There might have been some life left in the disintegration, but the hawthorn immobilized it. Hate rose bright and sweet in Rookwood’s throat.
The kukri sang free of its sheath. The thing twitched.
“You bit the wrong cop, Chisholm.” His voice sounded strange even to himself. The soccer field was a long, flat dance floor, rain flinging itself down in needle streaks. He lined up the kukri. It flashed down in an arc of silver, and the head was hacked free. More twitching as nerve death took the body, and Rookwood tilted up his face to the rain.
It was over. Finally over.
Except it wasn’t. He wiped the water out of his eyes. Hot trickles had threaded his cheeks. They were different from the scorching trails of blood down his ribs, soaking into his jeans. They vanished under the intensifying rain, curtains of it suddenly pounding the field and his shoulders, slicking his hair down.
Amelia. I promised to go back.
He owed the widow an explanation, at least. And to tell her she was free.
But what if Fann’s bitten her, too?
He told himself not to worry about that just yet.
Rookwood cleaned off his kukri. The hawthorn stake slid free of the sludge of corruption, the slurry no longer even recognizably humanoid. The veil over the night retreated. And he felt like himself again for the first time in six goddamn years, since Chisholm had first handed him an envelope of cash and the whole dirty seduction had begun.
Yes, he owed her an explanation. And maybe something more.
The sob caught him by surprise. He bent over, his arms wrapped tight over his belly, the claw marks stinging as they slowly closed. Rookwood locked the sounds behind his tight-clenched teeth, hunched like an old man over the smear of rotting tissue killing the grass underneath it, open eyes staring sightlessly at the crystal gilding of rainwater on every surface.
It wasn’t crying, he told himself. It was relief. There was no weakness in relief.
But he did not believe it.
The widow’s house blazed with light in every window. As soon as he stepped through the ruin of the French doors again, he knew something was awry.
His boots crushed the carpeting in the master bedroom upstairs. Clothing was pulled out and scattered, a smudge of faintly tainted blood on a white coverlet. Her window faced south, blinds yanked up and scratch marks on the sash outside.
It must have been the very window her husband had bobbed outside, pleading to be let in. His wet skin chilled at the thought.
She wasn’t upstairs, or down, or even in the cellar, where the aroma of corruption lingered. The silver SUV was gone, and a mug lay shattered on the kitchen floor. It was a blue-glazed coffee cup, in pieces.
Shit. I told her to stay here! He checked the rooms again, but she was completely, utterly gone.
Any chance he had of breaking the office building downtown had vanished with her, too. Goddamn it. Her husband must have had a security pass and key codes, but his desk was open and she’d left
paper scattered on the floor. There went his chance to get the last of the bloodsuckers. Six months of work and an almost botched operation.
Well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have time.
Before he left, then, he turned off the lights. He stood for a few moments in her dark kitchen, looking at the imprint of her body on the broken wall. She was damn lucky to still be alive.
I was bait for you, too.
He hoped this wasn’t her last surprise.
He’d known Molstein was gone. There was nothing in the papers, but Rookwood still had a few contacts left on the force. His old partner had disappeared, last seen at midnight outside a deli on Thirty-fourth.
Two blocks away from Briggs, Fann, and Chisholm’s offices.
Rookwood went home and eyed the Scotch on his desk, put it away.
The Thirst retreated. It didn’t go away, but with Chisholm gone it didn’t taunt his every waking moment. He actually felt halfway decent and could hold down cooked steak and cheese again.
He needed a jolt of the red stuff once a week instead of every day. He prowled his office, and some of the widow’s money went for rent. He was in the clear.
Cases trickled in. A poltergeist on Seventh Street, a collection of dry cleaners being extorted by a gang of werewolves, a man looking for his vanished lover. The last case had nothing weird about it, straight-up breakup work. The lover didn’t want to be found, but Rookwood kept the money anyway.
He kept hearing her in the back of his head. I was bait for you. . . . You don’t understand, Mr. Rookwood. . . . Do they always scream like that? That glossy hair, and the way her lips pulled back from her teeth when she shot Briggs in the head.
It took another rainy night, cars shushing by outside his window and the bottle of Scotch singing from the drawer he’d hid it in, before he realized what her last surprise might be. The newspaper lay open on his desk, the local section barely glanced at before something caught his attention and he froze, staring at the black-and-white print:
“. . . since the closure of Briggs, Fann, and Chisholm early last month, after a fire that gutted their offices.”