04.10.08
Idiom.
Panic is blind, and Terror is mortal, and if you have an iron will you can kill the faeries.
Jazz Night.
Hell, March 13, 1919
“One badly injured man is found by his brothers half out of bed, pinned by the body of his dead wife. He dies waiting for the police.
“Another man is found injured by a man delivering bread; his mistress, found injured, dies a few days later after fingering her husband for the crime.
“A pregnant woman is found injured in her home; she survives and gives birth to a healthy baby.
“A girl wakes in the night to see a tall, thin man in black standing over her bed. She screams, and her badly injured uncle tells her to call police, then dies. The girl is uninjured.
“A woman is found injured, clutching her dead two-year-old daughter, with her dead husband on the floor behind her. She recovers and accuses her rescuers of the crime.” Ezra put down the papers. “What, precisely, is going on here, Joe?”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d find out for me, Ezra.”
Esteemed Mortal:
In the darkness, the lights of the city were ghostly, wavering things. Ezra turned the key to his rented house, humming to himself. Locking the door securely behind him, he paced the ground floor, breathing in the remnants of scent left from the dying day.
“The Axeman,” the werewolf murmured, moving to the small kitchen. “He wants me to find him the damn Axeman.” He turned on the stove, warming up the cold coffee he’d brewed before his visit to the station. “Why me?”
“You are the most highly decorated paranormal crimes detective in the state, you know.”
Ezra spun to face the intruder, coffeepot in one hand, pistol in the other.
Darius blinked at him. “I doubt the coffee would do me much damage. You already know the gun won’t. Besides, you can’t tell me you didn’t know I was in here.”
Ezra pocketed the pistol and reached for a mug in one smooth motion. “Coffee?”
“Only if you’re not throwing it at me.”
They have never caught me and they never will.
“So, all these people were attacked with an ax, and moreover, each family was attacked with their own ax.”
“So far as we know.”
“The only other sign of foul play is a panel chiseled out on the victims’ back doors, each too small for a person to enter through, and each situated in such a way that unlocking the door through the panel would be impossible.”
“Yes.”
“No footprints or fingerprints were found.”
“No.”
“We have precisely one eyewitness – a young girl woken from a sound sleep. All she saw was a tall, dark-clothed male figure who fled when she screamed. Curiously, she says that he was light on his feet, and that ‘it seemed as if he had wings’.”
Ezra leveled his pistol at Darius’ head. “We’re being watched.”
They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth.
Darius ducked; Ezra fired. Glass fell; something dark fell with it.
“There goes your window. Your landlord will be pleased.”
“Shut up, Darius.” Ezra scuttled over to the window, gun still extended. The vampire followed him.
Both men blinked; Ezra stood up, looking out the window into the moonlit darkness. “Nothing.”
Darius’ gray eyes glazed over. “There was blood.”
“I know; I smell it.”
“You hit something.”
“I know.”
“Where did it go?”
Ezra ran his fingers lightly over the jagged remnant of the window. “He flew away.” He could feel the heavy weight of Darius’ stare on his back. “We didn’t see him, but he did. It fits, doesn’t it?”
“Through that?” Darius pointed at the hole in the window. It was far too small for any man to pass through.
“Of course. It enters the houses, doesn’t it?”
I am not a human being, but a spirit and a fell demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.
“What is it?” Darius asked, carefully tipping the broken glass into the trash can.
“Don’t know.”
Ezra wandered off down the hallway; Darius followed. They stopped at the back door.
“Chiseled open; just like all the victims.” Darius ran his hand over the missing space.
“That’s how it got in, then.”
“But…?”
“It was intact when I entered. I didn’t hear it being chiseled out, did you?”
The vampire shook his head. “No.”
Ezra pulled open a nearby closet. “Your hearing’s better than mine. I was humming to myself; I might have missed it. There’s no way you would have.”
“Why you, though?”
Ezra pulled out his shotgun. “Why not?”
When I see fit, I shall come again and claim other victims. I alone know who they shall be.
The two men sat at the kitchen table; Ezra’s shotgun lay between them.
“Planning on shooting it?”
Ezra nodded.
“Do you really think you can catch it?”
“He’ll be back.”
“Why? He’s never returned to the other victims, and fully a third of his intended victims have lived.”
“He’ll be back. He knows we’re on to him.”
“You switched pronouns again.”
“You switched the first time. Couldn’t you tell by the blood?”
“…No.”
“Neither could I. Something in his blood – anyway. There was a lingering scent on the back panel. He’s male, and I think I know what he is, too.”
“What is he, then?”
Ezra smiled; his razor-edged teeth glinted in the darkness. “A demon.”
I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with the blood and brains of him whom I have sent below to keep me company.
The sky was taking on the gray tint of very early morning. Finally, the two residents of the rental house were asleep.
The ax made just the faintest sound as it swung.
The demon grunted in surprise; the tall man who held his hand grinned, revealing long fangs.
“Wake up, Ezra,” Darius said.
Ezra glared up at the two figures standing over him. “Ah.”
“You were right. I don’t know how you knew he’d be back tonight, but here he is.”
“Yes. Now, what shall we do with him?” The werewolf reached for the shotgun propped by his bed.
The demon moved, and slid from Darius’ grip. Darius tried to grab the demon again, but the creature was gone.
Darius and Ezra looked at each other; Ezra got up. “Let’s get some breakfast. I can’t sleep after that.”
If you wish you may tell the police not to rile me. Of course I am a reasonable spirit.
Darius stared at his friend, who twitched at the stove as if he could feel it. Amused, Darius stared harder.
“Stop that,” Ezra snapped.
“What’s wrong, Ezra? You’re more edgy than usual.”
“I don’t know, Darius, why don’t you tell me? I was just attacked – twice – in my own house in the span of a night, and to make matters worse, the attacker is a demon who can move faster than any being I’ve ever dealt with. What would be wrong?”
“Don’t start. Something else is wrong, and you know it.”
Ezra scrambled the eggs with a truly unnecessary viciousness.
“Ezra?”
The chef’s knife in Ezra’s hand began hitting the cutting board hard enough to leave dents.
“How did you know that the Axeman would return last night?”
At that softly-voiced question, the werewolf seemed to deflate, but there was a disconcerting mania in his brown eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I just knew. It was like I’d read it in his scent, but scent doesn’t give that kind of information.” He turned to fully face his friend, and Darius was taken aback by the strangeness of his face. “That’s what worries me the most.”
I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigation in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to amuse not only me but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. But tell them to beware.
It was nearly noon; the silence was unbearable. Finally, Darius had had enough.
“Do you know what kind of demon he is?”
Ezra seemed to be struggling with himself. “Yes,” he ground out.
Darius’ gray eyes narrowed. “What is he, then?”
“I can’t tell you.” Strain was evident around Ezra’s eyes.
“Why not?”
“He won’t let me.”
“Ezra-”
“Darius. Just leave. There’s nothing you can do here.”
The uncomfortable silence descended again. Once again, it was Darius who broke it.
“Untrue.”
Ezra glared. Darius refused to glare back.
“I can kill you if he completes his hold on you.”
For the first time since his visit to the police station, Ezra relaxed.
Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman.
Night had fallen once again; once more, Darius and Ezra sat in the kitchen.
“Anything new?”
“No.”
“Any ideas?”
“For dealing with the demon? One – but it’ll have to wait for two days, and it may make things worse.”
Darius paused. Ezra’s head was bowed over his coffee mug; he refused to look up.
“Will he come back before then?”
“…Yes.”
I don’t think there is any need of such a warning, for I feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know how to keep away from all harm.
But nothing happened that night. Ezra padded out of his room, only to trip over the vampire sleeping in the hallway. Darius awoke long enough to give his friend a sleepy glare, then fell back asleep.
Amused and annoyed, Ezra half-dragged, half-carried his unconscious friend to the guest room, dropped him unceremoniously on the bed, then left.
Ten minutes and two cups of coffee later, a much more grateful Ezra returned to tuck his friend under the covers and pull the curtains, then went to put in a call to the police station.
It would be a late night.
Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night.
“One more night.”
“Hm?”
“One more night. That’s all I need.”
“Ah. For your plan, which may or may not work?”
“It’ll either work or make things much worse.”
“No in-between?”
Ezra was silent for a long moment. “Not that I can see.”
Darius leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “So, when you go werewolf on him, you’ll either what? Kill him or be killed?”
Ezra glared. “I’ll either kill him or give him the opening he needs to solidify his hold over me.”
It was Darius’ turn to pause. “Of course,” he said, unusually subdued. “He can’t kill you, can he?”
Ezra stared at his friend.
Darius smiled crookedly. “I’m slow, not stupid.”
At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship to the Angel of Death.
The fifteenth of March dawned; across the city, people roused themselves for work.
In a rented house with a taped-up window, two people were just going to sleep.
“I thought you said he’d show before then.”
“There’s still time, Darius.”
“He comes out during the day?”
“…Not usually. But he’ll make an exception.”
“Or he’s just toying with you.”
“Or that. Get some sleep. You’ll need it if it comes to killing.”
“If it comes to killing, I’d rather not be awake enough to remember it. I’ve had to kill too many friends already.”
Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to visit New Orleans again. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a proposition to you people. Here it is:
The sun was setting. Darius busied himself over the stove, trying not to burn the coffee. A muffled thud from the stairs caught his attention.
Something black flew at Darius as he emerged from the kitchen, and only his fast reflexes saved him from a nasty blow. The demon slid around the vampire and disappeared toward the back door.
Darius was already moving toward the stairs.
Ezra lay in a heap at the bottom, blood running down his face. As Darius watched, the gash on the werewolf’s temple sealed itself and scabbed over. Dazed, Ezra scrubbed at the blood with his shirtsleeve.
“Are you alright?” Darius asked.
Ezra waved his hand in a “so-so” gesture.
“Headache?”
Ezra nodded. Darius disappeared into the bathroom, reemerging with some medicine, which the werewolf took gratefully.
“Told you…”
“You did. But how will this affect your plan?”
“He’ll be back later. He knows what I’m planning to do; I’m counting on that. He’ll be back to try and claim me as his minion.” Ezra shot a wavering glare at his hovering friend.
Recognizing his cue, Darius replied, “Good luck with that.”
I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people.
The moon rose, full and bright. Ezra fiddled with the phonograph. “Fancy some jazz?”
Darius grimaced. “If you want.”
The werewolf grinned. “Don’t like it?”
“Not so much, but I don’t really mind it.”
Jazz riffs filled the air. Ezra returned to his chair, facing the risen
moon.
“When will you change?”
“When he shows.” Even as Ezra said it, his hands crept to his neck. Without so much as a flinch, Ezra drove his nails into his flesh.
Darius winced as the werewolf across the room peeled off his human flesh. Within moments, Ezra the human was replaced with Ezra the giant wolf – but this wolf had an unusually manic glint to his eyes.
As if at a prearranged signal, the demon fluttered out of the darkness.
One thing is certain and that is that some of those people who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.
Demon and werewolf leapt for each other; in the ensuing clash of teeth, claws, ax, and sinister darkness, Darius couldn’t see a thing. Even still, he fully intended to watch, but some half-buried instinct forced him to look aside.
Pieces of darkness were being flung across the room, torn off by Ezra’s powerful jaws. But they weren’t dead – they were creeping across the floor back toward the battle.
Darius turned back to the fight, then stepped back.
Only the demon stood before him, holding a bloody ax. Then the demon bulged, and a piece of darkness was flung aside, and Darius realized what he was seeing – the living darkness was wrapping itself around Ezra, pulling the werewolf inside the demon’s body.
Ice trickled down Darius’ spine, yet he remained where he was. Interfering now would be suicidal – and pointless. No vampire could kill an Ankou – especially not a rogue one, that might have no compunction about eating him.
I wonder if the Society keeps immigration files on graveyard demons, Darius wondered, trying to distract himself from his rising sense of dread. I’ll have to check sometime.
The fight spilled over into the hallway.
Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and as it is about time that I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse.
And then it was over. A bewildered werewolf, back in human form, sprawled on the floor. The demon hovered in the air, then settled to the ground. A broken ax fell from his grip with a clatter.
Without a word, the demon fled. The remaining pieces of darkness twitched and died, fading into the silvery night.
“What the hell was that?” Darius asked, kneeling next to his friend.
“He’s gone,” Ezra said.
“I see that.”
“No – he’s gone. Out of my head. I don’t know why,” Ezra snapped, forestalling any further questions with an unsteady glare.
As Darius led him up to his room, Ezra added, “And he was winning, too.”
The jazz still played downstairs.
Hoping that thou wilt publish this, and that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fantasy.
“So, Tuesday’s come and gone without incident,” Darius remarked half a week later. “Do you think he’s gone?”
“No. He’s still around. He may lay low for a while, though.”
“Why was he killing people?”
“He’d gone rogue. Most rogue Ankou are dispossessed – that is, they don’t die when they’re replaced, like they’re supposed to. They become a kind of zombi, but stranger and more vengeful.”
“Why did he let you go?”
“I don’t know.”
Darius paused. “You’re lying.”
“Weren’t you going back to Providence today?”
“Yes, and stop changing the subject.”
“Why did you come here, anyway?”
“I felt like visiting an old friend.”
Ezra shot Darius a wry, halfhearted glare. “Now who’s lying?”
The Axeman
Eight Months Later
Ezra pulled the letter from its envelope, unfolding it in one smooth motion.
Ezra,
You asked why I came down to the city back in March. It was for one simple reason – Society business. We suspected the supernatural nature of the Axeman, and I was sent to look into it. That’s the whole of it, but knowing your dislike for the Society, I chose not to tell you.
That is the whole of it.
Your friend,
Darius
“You damn liar,” Ezra murmured, crumpling the letter. He tossed it over his shoulder, and disappeared down the street.
Behind him, a rented house with a broken window burned. In the flames, bloody shadows writhed, though the entity that ruled them was long dead, exorcised with an ax to the head.
Inside the house, a different letter burned.
*****
Author’s Note:
The red italicized text is that of an actual letter sent to a New Orleans newspaper during the height of the Axeman murders.
The Axeman of New Orleans terrorized the city from May 22, 1918 to October 27, 1919. He killed or fatally injured eight people (3 women, 4 men, and 1 small girl), injured four more people (2 men and 2 women, one of whom was pregnant), and was seen by one girl and one woman, though neither could give very good descriptions.
The facts about the murders presented in this short story are accurate as of the time this story is set; after March 19, 1919 (the Tuesday referenced in the Axeman’s letter), the unreferenced events took place.
To this day, no one knows who the Axeman was, and no truly credible theories exist.
Yeva.
Yeva Kasabian was a pretty girl, with rich brown hair and big brown eyes and thick brown eyebrows that she hated, but the thought of plucking them gave her shivers. They apparently weren’t as repulsive to guys as she’d feared, seeing as how she’d never wanted for a date.
It was rather too bad, really, that the one guy she actually found interesting didn’t seem to find her interesting at all. Well, that’s not true. He did find her interesting, but they had different definitions of “interesting”.
But Yeva was much more than just pretty, and if the guy she crushed on just wanted to be friends, she could damn well be the best friend she could. And after a while, though she could never quite stop just looking at him, her crush faded enough that she could almost pretend she’d never really liked Jonathan that way after all.
***
Rumors are the breath of life in college as in high school, and Yeva had long grown indifferent to them. Hardly a week passed without her hearing some new one about her, or Jonathan, or her and Jonathan, and so when she first heard the rumor about Jonathan kissing Frank Almonaster somewhere on campus – the exact place changed with each gossip – she’d thought to dismiss it.
Except Jonathan wouldn’t quite look at her for the whole day. And it made a little too much sense. It certainly explained some things about Jonathan, and it maybe even explained the strange glitter in Frank’s eyes when Yeva caught him watching them.
Despite herself, Yeva shivered.
***
Yeva couldn’t stop thinking about Jonathan and Frank. She was somewhat used to thinking about Jonathan, but Frank…
Something about Frank had always disturbed her. No, frightened her, which was the real reason she still couldn’t sleep at three in the morning.
She wondered how anyone would even know if something were wrong with Jonathan. He’d always been withdrawn, skittish, half-feral, and extremely evasive about everything to do with himself. He’d always worn high-necked, long-sleeved shirts and long pants, no matter the weather.
He’d always, in his stilted, drop-the-bombshell-and-run manner, told her everything.
He hadn’t told her this. He hadn’t even been able to look at her, when she’d found out.
She didn’t like where her thoughts were leading her.
***
Yeva knew better than to corner Jonathan, but she also knew better than to beat around the bush. “Jonathan…”
He looked up at her, still not quite meeting her gaze.
Yeva took a deep breath and leaned back, resting her elbows on the step behind her. “What’s going on with you and Frank? I’m…” Worried, she would have finished, except that Jonathan’s strange eyes had finally, almost defiantly, raised to meet hers, and she knew she didn’t need to.
She also knew she was right to worry.
***
All she could think, afterwards, was that worry had left her too exhausted, and that sleep had betrayed her this once.
When Yeva woke to a hand over her mouth and almost her nose, a heavy weight across her body, and Frank Almonaster’s mad eyes not an inch from her own, she’d thought at first she was in the midst of a nightmare. But then she felt the tickle of a knife blade as he sliced off her nightgown, and she decided, nightmare or reality, that there was no way in hell she wasn’t going to put up a fight.
Frank was leaning on her in such a way that only one of her legs was pinned. She kicked out, feeling his knife bite deep into her hip.
“Nice try,” Frank grinned, moving to pin her more completely.
It was what Yeva had been waiting for. Before he’d settled completely, in that brief moment when Frank was off-balance, she slammed her head up, barely hearing the crunch of his nose over the sudden ringing in her ears.
Frank reared back, sitting on her knees. “Bitch,” he snarled wetly, gingerly probing his face.
He’d left her mouth free. And her hands.
Yeva grabbed the hand holding the knife with both of hers, knowing that there was no way in hell she could ever hope to beat Frank Almonaster in a test of strength, and bit down on his neck as hard as she could.
Frank screamed and reared back, battering at Yeva with his other hand. A chunk of flesh came loose in Yeva’s mouth and she spat it out, gagging, her vision swimming as Frank stopped flailing wildly and started directing blows to her temple.
Yeva lunged forward again, knowing she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.
Frank scrabbled back, and dropped the knife.
And Yeva’s hands were right there, and then Frank got his knife back, but not in the manner he’d hoped.
It takes a little bit of time for even a knife to the chest to kill someone, but all Frank had time for was a surprised look and one last blow to Yeva’s head.
***
Yeva wasn’t sure how long she’d sat there on her bloody bed, holding a piece of her nightgown to the wound in her hip and staring at Frank’s dead eyes, before she realized that her head and her leg and her teeth and all her other assorted ouches weren’t hurting anymore.
Someone touched her shoulder. She jerked around, wondering if she’d have time to go for the knife before this new intruder killed her.
Jonathan, deliberately looking only at Yeva’s face, handed her a clean robe and a damp washcloth. Yeva took them with hands that, she was distantly surprised to see, were shaking. Jonathan was saying something, and while Yeva could hear all the words, they seemed strangely absent of meaning. She shook her head dumbly, scrubbing at the blood on her face.
Jonathan’s hands were at her shoulders again, gently easing her off the bed. Yeva looked up at him, took in the way he blushed when the last tattered remnants of her nightgown fell off her, and felt mild surprise work its way through the haze of her mind.
Yeva kissed him.
She realized, distantly, that she still had some of Frank’s blood in her mouth, on her teeth, but it didn’t seem to be bothering Jonathan, so she decided not to let it bother her.
Jonathan pushed her back. “This is really not a good idea,” he said, and the words made sense to Yeva this time.
“Sweet of you to care,” she said, and her voice sounded a little odd to her. “I don’t.” She pushed him back against the nearest wall and kissed him again.
One of Jonathan’s broad hands gripped her chin. He brought his face down, almost too close, and stared into her eyes with his own weird ones. A long time, or a short time, later, he let go.
This time, when Yeva kissed him, he didn’t try to stop her.
***
Jonathan was as awkward after sex as Yeva had expected, but he was kind enough not to jump straight into his clothes and leave. Instead, he just fidgeted and blushed every time he caught Yeva looking at him, which was a lot.
Yeva skimmed a hand over a bruise that looked weeks old, but that she knew was only made hours ago. Jonathan jumped. “You must have loved him quite a bit to put up with this,” she said quietly.
Jonathan held very still and examined Yeva from the corner of his eye. Finally, he said, “I loved him enough to kill him once.”
“When he first went mad.” She could, in some way, understand that.
“After he first really lost it. After he disappeared for a week, and I went looking for him and found him stalking a couple of high-schoolers.”
Yeva shuddered.
“He hated me, and sometimes I think he almost loved me,” Jonathan continued, not looking at anything but the blood spatter on the walls. “He couldn’t kill me, whatever he did, which in some way made him feel both secure around and resentful of me. He could do whatever he liked to me, but he couldn’t kill me, and it was the killing that really excited him.”
“Hmm.” Yeva rubbed slow, comforting circles on Jonathan’s back. Something turned over and went click! in the back of her mind. “You say you killed him once?”
Jonathan was giving her that sidelong look again. “Yes.”
“And he came back.”
“Yes.”
“Will he-”
“Most likely. But it took a while last time, and you pinned him to the floor, which will make it harder, and may even keep him down for good.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“I think you have enough time to lose him before he comes back.”
Ever since the wildfire had swept through back home, devastating the small town where she’d grown up, Yeva had kept a bag ready, with passport, money, clothes, and anything else she’d need if she had to leave in a hurry. She pulled it out from under her bed, then got up and headed for her closet, then went to get clean.
***
Yeva half-expected Jonathan to be gone when she returned, but he was perched, fully dressed, on the side of her bed overlooking Frank’s body. He raised one eyebrow at her, and poked a finger through a spot on his shirt that was now missing a button. Yeva grinned.
She retrieved her bag and checked its contents, rummaging in her nightstand for her wallet and house keys.
“I called around while you were showering,” Jonathan said. “There’s a direct flight to Italy leaving in four hours, and you now have a seat reserved. Boarding pass is waiting at the desk, the lady said.”
Yeva’d always wanted to visit Italy. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, Yeva.”
She reached over and squeezed his hand, then kissed the tip of his nose. He blinked. “I know,” she said. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
***
Yeva ended up sending him more than one, from all the places she ended up visiting. She’d been cautious with her money, at first, but after she’d ended up losing a long-distance phone argument over the abnormally high balance in her account, she’d decided she might as well put the money to good use.
Jonathan never did give her a straight answer about where the money came from, except to insist, emphatically, that he’d gotten it legally and was by no means bankrupting himself. There’d been some other cryptic statements about old money, bequests from his father, and the value of castles on obscure waterways, but nothing that made much sense to Yeva.
Jonathan told her even less about the whereabouts of Frank Almonaster, except to repeatedly reassure her that Frank could not ever find her. Yeva was not terribly reassured until her old landlord’s lawyer tracked her down in India and questioned her about the fire at her old home. She’d asked Jonathan about it later, much more sharply than she’d intended, and he’d said that it was the only thing he could think of that might keep Frank dead, and that he’d even poured caustic substances down the pipes to scour out any last traces of Frank’s blood.
He said he’d seen no sign of Frank since then, but Yeva suspected he wasn’t telling her everything.
***
Less than a year passed before Yeva and Jonathan met face-to-face again, in a hospital in Australia.
“Meet your son,” she said, passing him a tiny bundle.
***
If there was one thing Jonathan hated, it was traveling. It had taken almost a solid month of persuasion on Yeva’s part to get him to come out to see her at all, and she’d only succeeded by uttering the magic word “hospital”. In a fit of mischievousness, she hadn’t told him why she was going in, and even now, a week later, she still found herself giggling at the shell-shocked look on his face when he looked at their child.
Adrian, named for an uncle he’d never meet. Their son.
Yeva giggled again, and Jonathan looked up from watching Adrian sleep. “What?”
“You look so parental.” Yeva grinned.
“You could have told me,” Jonathan grumbled, for the hundredth time.
“I should have,” Yeva agreed, also for the hundredth time.
Jonathan looked back down at their son. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Yeva said. “We could get married.”
Something flashed through Jonathan’s eyes as he not-quite-looked at her. “I’m not exactly marriage material.”
Yeva shrugged. “Then I can come back and find a place to stay, and you can see your son whenever you like.”
There was that flash again. “Yeva…”
“I knew you weren’t telling me something. Almonaster’s back, isn’t he?”
“Not … exactly.”
“Jonathan.”
“I managed to bind him so he can’t kill my family, though he twisted it to mean blood family, so marrying you won’t save you from him. I wish it did.”
“So he is back.”
Jonathan shook his head. “Not in the way you mean. Not physically.”
Yeva sighed explosively.
“He hasn’t been able to find you; you move around too much. And you like it – being a world traveler appeals to you.”
Yeva drifted over to the crib. “Yes. It does.”
Jonathan came up behind her and tentatively wrapped his arms around her. She pulled them tighter, rubbing her thumb over the knuckles of his hand. She knew what she needed to do.
“You take him,” she said. Jonathan hissed softly in her ear and pulled her tighter.
Yeva turned in his arms to face him. “You said yourself that Almonaster’s unable to hurt him. You like stability. I don’t. And you need someone in your life to care about, and if it can’t be me, it should be Adrian.”
“Yeva…”
“And I can always swing by to visit. And besides,” she reached up to cup his face, “you’re the only one of us qualified to help him deal with his more … inhuman traits.”
Jonathan jerked back, and Yeva let him go. “The eyes only give away the game to anyone who’s seen a mermaid, but Jonathan, the teeth are a pretty good tell.” Yeva turned back to the crib.
It took a few minutes for Jonathan to drift over. He leaned over to tickle Adrian’s belly, conveniently avoiding Yeva’s eyes. “Okay.”
The Bread You Break.
“There’s something special about food,” Lia said, throwing some peas in the pot.
“There is?” Teleika asked. She leaned across the counter, trying to read the cookbook upside-down.
“Yes,” Lia said, gently nudging her daughter out of the way. She checked the stove, then turned back to Teleika. “All food is sacred.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. It’s sacred just by being food, and eating food, any food, just by yourself is inherently a sacred act.”
“Whether you know it or no.” Teleika fidgeted with a loose bread recipe.
“Just so.” The pot bubbled, and Lia moved to stir it.
“And if you eat it with someone else, is it more sacred?” Teleika asked.
“Sort of. It’s more like it’s sacred for two reasons.” Lia looked at her daughter expectantly.
“Well, because food and eating are sacred. But what’s the other reason?”
Lia grinned. “Because community is also inherently sacred. Come on, soup’s ready.”
Teleika sat for a moment, watching her mother take the soup out to the others, then carefully slid the loose recipe in her pocket before jumping off the stool and joining her family.
Frank.
Adrian can hear someone coming up the steps to the bookshop, but it’s the jangle of worldstrings across his skin that’s important. Before the man outside can enter, Adrian slides off his glasses and bends over a book.
The bell chimes, and Adrian looks up. The strings tell him that the person in front of him is a man, killed twice, resurrected twice, psychopathic. Adrian slides his glasses back on, and the figure resolves into that of a man, tall, dark-haired, clean-shaven, fortyish in appearance though possibly not in age, hazel- and mad-eyed.
“Can I help you?” Adrian says in his best disinterested-storeclerk voice.
The man smirks. “Just looking,” he says, gliding off into the stacks.
Adrian knows that the man isn’t looking at the books, so Adrian turns back to the book in front of him.
“So you do need the glasses to read,” the man says from right behind Adrian, and Adrian has to forcibly suppress his startle reflex, because the strings gave him no warning.
The man’s arms wrap around Adrian from behind, and sitting at the counter as he is, he’s effectively pinned. “Nice ploy, though, taking them off to read the worldstrings when I entered.” There is unnerving glee in the man’s voice. “What did you see?”
“That you can’t hurt me,” Adrian says, his voice bored. Very slowly, he shifts his grip on his cane.
The man pulls the cane from Adrian’s grip and throws it across the store. “And we are in Arkham, where there are a hundred ways to break such a tabu.”
“And yet you haven’t.”
The man moves to press up against Adrian and bends down to whisper intimately in his ear. “You’re like the best and worst of your parents, distilled.” The man’s breath is hot against Adrian’s neck. “Your mother’s human beauty. Your father’s coloring. Your mother’s self-possession. Your father’s otherworldliness.” The man’s hands slide almost possessively across Adrian’s body, and though he fights down a shudder, he knows the man can feel how erratically his heart is beating.
Abruptly, those hands still, and the man presses even closer. His lips brushing Adrian’s ear with each syllable, he whispers, “Your mother’s bitch nature … your father’s masochism.”
A beat. Two.
In a voice of nothing but boredom and ice, in a tone so flat it must have had a level taken to it, Adrian says, “You didn’t answer my question.”
Another beat.
“I just got into town,” Frank Almonaster says breezily before releasing Adrian and heading out the door. He is enough of a bastard to pile on the insult with a jaunty wave.
Adrian slips out his switchblade and begins to sharpen it. He can retrieve his cane later.
Encounter With the Emperor.
Usually, when Maboroshi went still, he faded into the background. This time, though, he seemed to grow more distinct from the shadows – and Heizhan could sense why. Maboroshi was terrified.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor of White Castle, and Maboroshi stiffened. Heizhan casually tucked his hand into his sleeve, brushing his fingers along the hilt of his knife. Anyone who could scare Maboroshi had to be dangerous.
The Emperor of the Shadowlands rounded the corner and stopped, wearing a smile Heizhan once saw on his own face as he butchered a woman in front of her mirror. For long moment after long moment, no one said anything.
Heizhan twitched violently, palming his knife. As the Emperor’s cold indigo eyes slid over to Heizhan, Maboroshi stepped back behind the green-eyed man. One small hand slid something into Heizhan’s pocket; Heizhan could feel the gray man shaking.
Something in Heizhan snapped, and he slashed at the Emperor – who had seen the killing blankness slide over Heizhan’s face and dodged. A gloved hand swung up to grab Heizhan’s wrist -
- And passed right through it. The Emperor turned slowly toward Maboroshi, who was already dragging the stunned Heizhan through the stone wall behind them.
They emerged in a dim storage room. Heizhan, having managed to collect his wits, reached into his pocket and removed a small stone tablet. Incised on it were some symbols he couldn’t read; they shimmered with an almost-light at his touch.
“What is this?” asked the General.
Maboroshi was still shaking. “A variant on a ward. For intangibility rather than repelling. It’s about the only thing I still remember from my bard training.”
Heizhan extended the tablet to Maboroshi, who was staring blankly at the wall they’d just walked through. Heizhan sighed and placed the tablet on a nearby crate. “How many of these do you have?”
“Only the one,” said Maboroshi, still not looking at him.
A niggling suspicion entered Heizhan’s mind. “But you walked through the wall, too.”
Maboroshi seemed to find the wall utterly fascinating. He didn’t reply.
“Maboroshi?”
“You know he ordered me executed as a traitor.”
“Yes.”
Maboroshi closed his eyes, leaning up against another crate. “Who says he failed?”
Heizhan’s breath left him in a rush. After a moment’s fight with his lungs, he managed to say, “But you bleed.”
Maboroshi turned to look at Heizhan for the first time since his uncle had walked down the hallway. “There is more than one kind of ghost, Heizhan.”
The General and the Killer.
The last thing Lia heard before being knocked unconscious was a cheerful “Hello, General” in a sarcastic voice she’d hoped never to hear again.
The first thing Lia saw when she woke up was Heizhan sitting on a pile of rubble, grinning at her. The second thing she noticed was that he wasn’t actually holding a knife this time.
“Couldn’t find a decent kitchen?” Lia asked, raising one eyebrow.
“You’re clearly okay, if you’re making snide comments about my cutlery. I was starting to think I’d hit you too hard.”
“How long did you intend to knock me out for?”
Heizhan shrugged. “Long enough for me to drag you out of that cellar. I got you out in ten minutes, but you’ve been out for two hours.” He eyed her for a moment, then handed her a small bottle. Lia took it gingerly. “It’s pain medicine,” Heizhan said, looking hurt, as Lia sniffed the contents.
Lia eyed him, shrugged, and downed the dose. Her headache vanished, though some dizziness remained. “And which apothecary brewed this up for you?”
“None of them. I made it myself.” Heizhan grinned again at Lia’s look. “Did you think I was always a mad serial killer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe so, but it doesn’t pay the bills. And before you ask, I didn’t poison anyone.”
“Really.”
“Too boring,” the killer commented. Lia grinned.
“Why are you being so helpful?” the General asked after a moment. “They let you out so you’d turn on us, you know.” She watched Heizhan, her gold eyes sharp.
“I know.”
Lia waited. Three, two, one…
“It’s my country, dammit. I’d kill myself before I’d kill on the command of some terrorists.”
There it is, Lia thought. The pride of the Anunnaki.
Out loud, Annwn’s General said, “And on my command?”
Heizhan looked her over, dark eyes serious, then grinned.
The Killer.
Nathan had just enough time to register the presence of another person in the room before a strong hand clamped across his mouth and slammed him into the wall. The point of a boning knife glittered somewhere in the vicinity of his right eye.
No one had ever said Heizhan wasn’t good. In fact, that was the whole problem.
“Ordinarily, I’d torment you with some painfully witty comments, but today I feel like making an exception,” the killer said, adjusting his grip on his knife.
Nathan’s blow connected with Heizhan’s ribs right as Heizhan swung the knife. The sharp point tore across Nathan’s face, but Nathan’s punch had done its job – it had knocked his attacker’s knife off-target.
Heizhan swung again, wildly this time. Nathan broke free of the other man’s grip and struck out with all his formidable strength; something cracked in Heizhan’s shoulder, and the boning knife clattered to the floor. Heizhan staggered back a step, his right arm limp.
“Damn you,” he spat, eyes wild.
It was just as Nathan had thought – Heizhan had been counting on blinding him with that first slash. But Nathan’s resistance had thrown him off – and now the killer was losing what little self-control he’d managed to hold on to.
Heizhan’s face took on a peculiar blankness. He removed a paring knife from one pocket and dove for Nathan’s throat.
What is it with the cooking knives? Nathan wondered, awkwardly dodging Heizhan’s attack. Without missing a beat, Heizhan reversed the knife and stabbed downwards.
A strong dark hand clamped around Heizhan’s wrist, crushing it effortlessly; the paring knife joined the boning knife on the floor. Heizhan looked like he was strongly considering the odds of successfully biting out Nathan’s throat, but he remained still as Nathan’s other hand wrapped around his throat.
They remained like that, serial killer and almost-victim, until the others came. Pale hands roughly yanked Heizhan away; face set, Ekion dragged the criminal out the door. Lia watched them go, extending a hand to her son. Nathan took it; she pulled him to his feet, then hung on to him as he swayed.
“I’m taking you to Jetta,” she said, stooping to pick up the fallen knives. “You need to get that wound seen to.”
Nathan attempted a nod, then stopped as his head spun. Lia let go of his arm and slid her arm around his shoulders.
“Let’s go,” she said. They left the room without a backward glance.
Heizhan Thinks.
I.
If I didn’t know for certain he was still alive, I would have thought Maboroshi was a ghost. But no, I’ve felt the strong pulse that beats in his wrist, and I’ve seen the warm red blood that spills from him when he is cut. Still, though…
He is so gray. He fades into the background just by existing. Of course, part of that is his coloring and his choice of clothing – nothing melds with shadows quite like gray.
He’s the only person I’ve ever met whose personality can be described by a color, though. He fades away mentally, as well. When he’s not actually interacting with someone, he’s just not there. It’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.
I want so badly to kill him, but Nathan would disapprove.
II.
Ekion is a simple, straightforward sort. He’s a guardsman – Nathan’s guardsman, at that – and he does his job quickly and effectively. There’s nothing more to him than that.
At least, that’s what everyone thinks.
It takes a peculiar sort of genius to be so simple; Teleika, from what I’ve seen of her, has some of that talent herself. But Ekion’s genius lies in his directness – he says what is on his mind, he does what he decides to do, and manages to put the most complex plots to shame at the same time.
Fortunately for us both, we will never cross each other. He is the kind of person I would have to kill, otherwise.
III.
He is, quite probably, the only person alive who would appoint his would-be killer to a government position. Not that I really wanted it, but Nathan was rather persuasive (if you consider a knife to the eye persuasive).
I still don’t know why he chose me for the job. I certainly don’t know how he got the Council to approve my appointment. You can’t threaten that many people at once. (Well, you can, but only if you want to end up on a one-way trip to the Phantom Islands.)
The thing that still amazes me is that the people I’m now commanding (the people I’m responsible for – curse him) actually listen to me.
Nathan says that they recognize an able commander when they see one. I think he’s optimistic.
Ekion says I remind them of my predecessor. I wonder what General Thaziazhsta did, that I remind people of her…
Lost in the Woods.
The first time Marion got lost in the King’s Forest, someone knocked her out and left her on the doorstep of the local abbey.
The second time she got lost, someone knocked her out and left her at the sheriff’s house.
The third time Marion got lost, someone tried to knock her out and failed, because she’d taken to wearing a sturdy iron helm on her trips through the Forest. Still, whoever had hit her had struck her with sufficient force to dent the helm, and Marion’s head was ringing in a rather unpleasant way.
She turned as swiftly as she was able (and was privately proud of her lack of wobble), but no one was there. Marion hmpfed and turned back in the direction she’d been traveling, pausing only briefly to lift her helm and rub her aching head.
Had she not been expecting it, the second blow might have connected. Reacting with that peculiar speed born of acute irritation, Marion spun and flung her helm at her attacker with all her might.
It connected – the muffled curse told her that much – but Marion still couldn’t see her would-be assailant. Then something blinked in the shadow of a tree, and Marion realized she could just barely make out a man-shaped outline in the bushes. Without thinking, Marion stepped towards the figure.
The tree branches shifted, and a shaft of sunlight hit the bushes, revealing a man whose brown skin and hair seemed tinged with green. Marion blinked; she’d heard the rumors of faerie folk in the woods, but they were always friend-of-a-friend stories, and so she had dismissed them.
The man, who had darted back into the shadows the minute the sunlight hit his face, paused. After a moment’s consideration, he walked towards Marion, extending her helm. “This is yours, I believe.”
Marion took back her battered helm and stuck it back on her head. “Thank you.” She looked at the stranger for a long moment. “I apologize for clobbering you with it.”
The man grinned. “It’s not quite the proper use for armor, is it? Well, then, I apologize for trying to knock you out, and for knocking you out before.”
Marion glared up at him. “That was you? Why?”
“You seem like a sensible woman, save for your penchant for getting lost. Guess.”
“You didn’t want me to see you.” It wasn’t a question. After a moment, Marion shrugged. “I can understand that, I suppose, although thanks to you, my mother now thinks I’m getting drunk at wild parties every night.”
The stranger laughed; Marion grinned, then asked, “What are you going to do with me now that I have seen you?”
“Give you directions back to your home, I guess. Like I said, you seem like a sensible woman. I do not think I have to worry about you.”
Marion nodded, and took his offered hand. “What’s your name, anyways?”
“Rob. And you are Lady Marion.”
Marion nodded again. The two walked in a companionable silence until they reached the road through the Forest.
“Here you are, Lady.”
“Thank you.”
Rob stared at her for a moment longer, then with the sudden motion of a wild animal, turned and vanished into the woods. Marion stared after him, bemused.
“So that’s the Forest’s resident thief,” she murmured, keeping diligently to the road.
