A Grim Situation

by Whit McClendon

  That’s when things got interesting.

  The detectives began to turn, and there was a bright flash. They dropped to the floor like rag dolls, either dead or unconscious. Standing behind them was a young woman we hadn’t seen before. Her hands were raised, palms out, and a grim smile was on her lips.

  “Hey, who the hell is that?” Ariana paused the video and ran the tiny cursor on the screen around the newcomer’s face, then looked at me for answers. Unfortunately, I had none.

  “No idea. She’s unknown to me. But I’m pretty sure she’s up to no good.”

  “Did she just kill those detectives? That bitch!” She unpaused the video, and we watched the woman search the unmoving figures. Then she stood, turned, and walked out the front door, locking it behind her. Moments later, the detectives’ car pulled around the corner of the house and drove onto the grass between the camera and the swimming pool. “What’s she doing?”

  Again, I had no answers. I just watched. The woman exited the car and reentered the house, stepping carefully through the window I’d broken. Once inside, she walked briskly out of view into another part of the house. We kept watching and were rewarded a few minutes later by the sight of her coming back into the scene with an armful of what looked like leather belts and other odd items. She knelt next to the detectives and began to bind them. “They must still be alive. She’s shackling them.”

  Ariana leaned forward and squinted as the woman pulled Avery into a sitting position to continue her work. “Is that…? Ewww! That’s bondage gear!”

  “Indeed,” I agreed, and then looked at her quizzically. “Why are you acting repulsed? They’re just restraints.”

  “Most people nowadays don’t have restraints lying around, Kane,” she explained. “Those are for, um, sex stuff.”

  I blinked at her and took that in. Then I shrugged. Such intimate practices were ancient history to the Faerie, so much so that I’d nearly forgotten about them. I was just surprised that humans had finally figured it out. I shook my head and turned my attention back to the screen. “Regardless, she’s binding them well. She must have used a spell to render them unconscious, and now she’s taking them elsewhere.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’m sure that someone will come looking for Diana Thornwall soon enough. Whomever she is, she can’t leave witnesses. But I’m surprised that she hasn’t killed them yet. Look, now she’s dragging them to the car.”

  The next few minutes were quite illuminating. The young woman with the short brown hair was obviously the sorceress we’d been searching for. Once she got the two detectives situated, she went back and finished off some particularly nasty business in the house before heading back to the car. The portal she created was quite impressive, and it took less than a minute for her to drive the car into the sheet of scarlet energy, disappearing as if they’d gone into a tunnel in thin air. The reddish glow of energy vanished, and the yard fell still. We watched for a few minutes more to see if anything else happened, but the video showed nothing. Ariana clicked a button and the screen’s timestamp snapped back to the current time, and all was still quiet.

  Ariana stared at the screen, then skillfully clicked her mouse until an image of the woman appeared. She scanned through the footage until she found the clearest view of her face, then froze the video. A few more clicks and she was running a search with the captured image.

  “Bingo,” she announced with a flourish, “you’re looking at Tanya Thornwall. That’s Diana’s daughter. Socialite, businesswoman, and wannabe Instagram influencer.” Ariana swiveled in her chair to face me and folded her arms. “Oh, and I’m pretty sure she’s our murderer sorceress. How do we take her down?”

  I stared at the images of our target on the monitor. She was a comely woman, fit and pretty. But it was in her eyes that I found what I was looking for. I’d seen that same darkness, that same madness, in so many pairs of eyes over the centuries. They had all died at my hands…all save one: Elias Bress. Anger surfaced at the thought of the man that had almost sacrificed me on an altar in his penthouse suite. I’ll have to remedy that the first chance I get, I thought, then shook it off. I’d get him, too, eventually. In the meantime, I resolved to make Tanya Thornwall pay for what she’d done. With her life.

  “We need to find out where she went. Where she took those detectives.” I said, “As far as we know, they’re still alive.” I nodded toward the image of the Thornwall’s back yard. “If I lay hands on those stones, I might be able to get something from them.”

  Ariana nodded slowly. “Want me to drive you?”

  “No,” I replied, “I need to move. Make sure my body is working as it should.” I was feeling itchy inside, and a good run would go a long way towards putting me back to rights. Besides, I could run cross-country and make it there faster than the Jeep could navigate all the traffic stops, even at this time of night when traffic was light.

  Ariana opened a drawer and pulled out a phone. She turned it on and tapped at the screen a few times, then handed it to me. “Ok, look, when you get there, take pictures of the stones. Get every angle you can, then send them to me. I can research them over the internet. Maybe I can find something. And if there’s trouble, I can track the phone and come find you.”

  I held the phone on my palm and stared at her. She might as well have been speaking Swahili to me. When I didn’t respond, she got the hint and took the phone out of my hand so she could instruct me. It took a few minutes, but when she was done, I had a rudimentary understanding of how to use the thing. I sighed. Now she’d gone and done it…I knew how to use a smartphone.

  *****

  The night air felt cool on my face as I ran, and I reveled in the sensation of movement. My body had finally healed itself, the pain of the gunshot wounds had faded, and I ran at top speed just because I could. Much of the land I crossed was open fields, and I had to watch for the barbed wire fences that separated the arbitrary boundaries between what the humans considered their own property. I didn’t care about that. None of the Fae did. We recognize our own territories, and defend them ferociously, but we hold the humans’ borders in contempt. We go where we choose.

  Once I hit the outskirts of Katy, I dimmed myself. No sense in ending up on YouTube, even though the likelihood of anyone recording me was remote at that time of night. I dodged through yards, crossed deserted streets, and jumped fences as I let my innate sense of direction guide me back to the Thornwall estate. I can always tell where I’ve been, a skill that’s helped me many times over the centuries. I slowed down as I approached the Thornwall place, for even though it was supposed to be safe, it wasn’t a time for throwing caution to the wind. I reached out with my magick as I walked up to the back fence where we had previously parked the Jeep, but all was quiet.

  I vaulted the fence and crouched next to the tree’s wide trunk. I scanned the branches above me and I picked out the camera Ariana had left there. I grinned. That had been a great move on her part. I hadn’t even seen her do it.

  Nothing had changed from the last time I’d been here, except the curtains had been pulled through the broken window by the breeze. I moved towards the back porch, listening carefully to be sure I was alone. No one was there. I could still feel the fading echoes of the dark magick that had been in play earlier, grating on my senses like annoying, out-of-tune music in the air.

  I’ve heard it said that there’s no evil magick or good magick, that it’s how you use it that counts. That’s bullshit. Well, mostly. The raw earth-power that magick comes from is neutral in the same way electricity is neutral. But where electricity feels the same powering a lamp or shocking someone to death, magick is different. It takes intent and will to make it work. Focus and emotion. Whatever a sorcerer creates retains the attitude of its creator, the feel of his or her emotions. Evil magick feels just like you think it might: oily, creepy, and thick. A sense of dread accompanies such uses of power. It can even make ordinary humans feel goosebumps when they get near it. Good magi
ck feels bright, airy, and warm. Humans might feel happy, or empowered when they drift close to a place where a lot of good magick was used. Either way, when someone gathers and releases a huge amount of power for good or ill, it leaves a mark.

  The two stones in the yard, squat and ugly lumps, absolutely reeked of the same ill wizardry that had brought the demon to kill Diana Thornwall. Once I was sure I was alone, I stalked towards them, hoping I could find something to tell us where they had originated.

  As I approached, they both flared a bright scarlet, and I backed off. An alarm? I thought. Other than the faint echoes of the night’s previous castings, I hadn’t felt a thing. It had to be something else.

  The glow brightened, and a thin line of energy emerged from the top of each stone, growing taller and curving towards the other as it lengthened. I stepped off to one side and hid myself behind one of the columns that held up the porch roof. It appeared that the portal was reforming, and if that were the case, something was probably going to come out of it. I flexed my claws in anticipation. Finally, I thought, a chance to have some fun.

  When the arc of energy connected, a scarlet curtain of power descended from it. I couldn’t see the far side of it, but that’s where the three demons emerged. All three were shorter than me, but thicker through the shoulders and more muscular. Their skin was mottled white and grey, and looked to be stretched too tightly over their bulky muscles. They were bald, with no ears that I could see, though their yellow eyes were overlarge and slitted like a viper’s. Their nostrils were little more than slits as well, but their mouths were more canine, snouts pushing forward with far too many sharp teeth to be reasonable. Their three fingers ended in long claws, sharp and dangerous. I cracked my neck in each direction, limbering up for the fight that was only seconds away. Then I saw something that made me pause.

  One of the demons carried a tarp under one arm and a big plastic carrier filled with cleaning supplies in the other. At second glance, I noticed another demon had an empty bucket filled with sponges and a long-handled scrub brush. OK, that’s not something even I see every day, I thought.

  I decided to wait. I just had to see what they were up to. Keeping the column between myself and the demons, I watched them make their way into the house by way of the back porch. They moved carefully through the broken glass from the window I’d shattered earlier, and the lead demon pointed to it and gurgled something at the second in line, who nodded in response. They let themselves in, and I heard some general scuffling inside. Before I could decide what to do next, one of the demons came back out on the porch with a dustpan and broom and started sweeping up the glass. I leaned over as far as I dared and got a glimpse inside the house only to see the other two demons rapidly cleaning the bloodstains out of the carpet. Something that I guessed to be Diana Thornwall’s body was now rolled up in the tarp and set off to one side while the demons did their speedy work.

  I thought about the situation. Obviously, Tanya Thornwall was cleaning up her mess. Which would also erase the signs of my and Ariana’s presence. Finally, something helpful! But no way was I going to let them take Diana’s body with them. By all accounts, the woman had been an innocent, and there are far too many things a sorceress could do with a dead body if she were deranged or evil enough. And Tanya seemed to fit that bill pretty well, seeing as how she called up a Gray Beast to kill her own mother. I refused to let her get Diana’s corpse, too.

  The sweeping demon finished his chore with unnatural speed, then laid the broom aside and disappeared around the corner of the house. Moments later, it reappeared, carrying a large piece of plywood. In one hand, it also held a hammer, and several nails were clamped carefully between its thin lips. With admirable efficiency, it nailed the board in place, covering the broken window.

  The wind shifted as it finished, and it stopped suddenly. I froze in place, keeping myself behind the column on the porch. I flexed my knees just a bit, gathering myself in case I needed to fight. It slowly turned its ugly face in my direction, but its gaze never landed directly on me. It snuffled the air with big, wet sniffs, and paused as it assessed. Then with a surprisingly human shrug, it turned and reentered the house to join its brethren. Good, I thought. I love a good fight. I needed the exercise. But I wanted them all out here so they wouldn’t hole up in the house. That wouldn’t keep me out for long, but it would be troublesome.

  I edged away from the column so I could get a better view and saw the three creatures flitting about inside the room, scrubbing, cleaning, putting things back in order. It looked downright tidy in there, except for the rolled up bundle off to one side. I moved over to the side of the house, where I could see the back door, but still stay out of sight until I chose to attack. From there, I could see the working side of the portal, which looked like what it was: a doorway to another place. I crept a few feet away from my hiding spot so I could see it better.

  Beyond the threshold of scarlet energy, the grass became patchy and sparse, allowing the stony red soil to show through. A waist-high, spindly armed plant caught my attention. It bristled with thorns, and I could see small buds on its arms, probably flowers closed for the night. Farther away, I saw another cactus plant with thick, spiny paddles that lay closer to the ground. Definitely desert. But where? I realized that somewhere on the other side, I’d find Tanya. And I could end her.

  I took another step towards the gate, intending to go through it, but then I stopped. When it closed behind me, I’d be cut off completely from Ariana, and I quickly decided to stay put. Just as quickly, I frowned at the choice I’d just made. I’d handled this sort of thing on my own for centuries without help. The most expedient plan was obviously for me to hustle through the portal, track the demons back to their lair, and kill the sorceress when she revealed herself. Simple, just the way I like it. I’d find my way back here eventually. So why don’t I do that? I thought. I could just leave her behind; that’s what I’ve always done.

  The vision hit me with force enough to steal my breath. I’d seen it before, and it made no more sense this time than it did the last time the Goddess had seen fit to send it. Ariana appeared in my mind’s eye, bleeding and bruised, wearing her battered tactical gear. We stood back to back, she and I, both ready to fight. The short sword in her right hand already had blood dripping from its razor edge, and I had the impression it wanted more. Ariana held her left hand overhead, and whatever she held in it was ablaze with power, glowing so brightly that it hurt to see. The object cast a searing circle of light that illuminated a horde of demonic creatures at its edge, dwellers of the deepest Etherworld. They growled hungrily at us, their fangs and claws gnashing and clicking in anticipation. I knew from experience that our flesh would taste sweet to them. Ariana screamed in defiance at the oncoming demons, and I heard myself screaming along with her. My eyes glowed silver as I prepared to fling myself into battle, no longer hiding my true self behind a glamour. This time, I could see my own blood seeping from a score of wounds, even as I raised one of my clawed hands to strike the first demon within reach.

  The vision ended abruptly, as it always did. I staggered from the force of the sending. Man, when the Goddess sends me a message, she doesn’t play around. My head throbbed, and I put one hand to my forehead as I slowed my breathing down. OK, OK, I replied to the Goddess I served, I won’t leave Ariana. I got no answer, but then, I didn’t need one. The vision was message enough. I backed away from the portal just as the back door opened.

  The demons filed out of the house, the first holding the door open for the other two, then falling in behind them as the door swung closed. The first had the plastic carrier of cleaning supplies in one hand. Its other arm was wrapped around a bundle of wood I recognized as debris from the table I’d been thrown into earlier. The second carried the rolled-up tarp on its shoulder, presumably Diana Thornwall’s body. The third held nothing, and I knew I had to take him out first. The trio marched around the swimming pool towards the glowing portal in the grass on its far side, a
nd I gathered myself to spring at the last in line. In seconds, they passed right by, still unaware of my presence. That would cost them.

  Decapitating a demon isn’t the quietest thing you can do. The moment I wrenched his head from his neck, the others turned to see what was going on, just as I knew they would. I kicked the still-twitching, headless body at them to increase their confusion, and hurled the scowling head at the farthest demon for good measure. They stumbled. Capitalizing on their surprise, I lashed out and grabbed the end of the rolled-up tarp. With a yank, I snatched it from the second demon and backed away with the long bundle in my arms. Diana had been a small woman but felt oddly light in my arms. I laid her down beside the house, where the demons would have to get past me to get her.

  The demons recovered quickly, as I knew they would. They crouched and hissed at me, then the farthest turned and threw the cleaners and the wood into the portal, or mostly so, as much of the wood scattered on the grass at its feet. With its hands free, it displayed its claws. Yeah, right, I’ve got those too, I thought. The two creatures began sidling away from each other, obviously thinking to come at me from both sides. The one on my right lunged at me, and I focused on him, dodging and counterattacking as I maneuvered it between me and his buddy. Only one of them could attack me at a time that way, and I knew I could kill them easily one-on-one. The demon swiped at me again, but kept back just out of my range, snarling its hatred of my kind.