Wahanket’s jaw snapped shut rigidly and a yellow glow roiled to life in the hollow eye sockets of the brittle skull. It wasn’t a sunny light—more like the luminescence of a creeping cave creature. Dim, flickering, and cold. I could hear a buzz vibrating his throat—it could’ve been the rattle of petrified vocal cords or a plague of enraged locusts swarming from within the hollow cavity of his chest. I didn’t have the slightest urge to know which.
“What have you brought me, Pan?” came the displeased rasp. “Where are your offerings? Lest I find you most unworthy, lay them before me.”
“Offerings, eh? Once again, I steer the subject back to dusty, unused genitals.” Goodfellow’s heel kicked the crate and the beam of his flashlight danced over my face mockingly.
“Shut the fuck up, Loman,” I snapped. I’d used the name for him from the beginning. Although Goodfellow was a much better salesman than Willy Loman had ever been, it was a good name for him…mostly because it pissed him off. Much, say, as he was pissing me off now.
“We are here for a reason,” Niko reminded us both, his patience a little less than it had been in the restaurant. “And I’m sure that Wahanket has better things to do than entertain us. So let us move things along. Now.”
“Fine, fine. I would think regular vampire nookie would mellow you out, but apparently not,” Robin mumbled as he doffed the strap of his shoulder and dug the “offering” out of its black leather case. It was a laptop, the very latest with all the bells, whistles, and technophile crap that you could possibly want. That’s what Wahanket was, the puck had said, a technophile of the highest order. If it was bright, shiny, and it plugged in, then he wanted it, and thanks to the seekers of his info, had it. “The latest and the greatest, O Son of the Sun. Its RAM is as plentiful as the waters of the Nile,” he promised, flashing that blinding salesman smile. Pure shark. No bark, all bite.
Greedy claws snatched it up and began to examine it. “Ahhh, how can one worship gold and jewels when the knowledge within this makes you unto a god?”
“Yeah, that’s great,” I said dismissively. “Enjoy. So, what do you know about Sawney Beane? Ate a lot of people, was supposed to be dead. He was upstairs, now he’s not. What’s going on?”
“Sawney Beane.” The seething eye sockets looked up from the computer. “Six hundred and eighty-seven humans consumed. For a Redcap, mildly impressive. But reconstituting from bone and ash…ah. That is quite impressive indeed. Pity there were no security guards between him and the way out or it could have been six hundred and eighty-nine. Crawling back from one’s molecular shore must create a prodigious appetite.” The fragments of teeth clicked together. “Unbelievably prodigious.”
I had a feeling he was speaking from personal experience…personal hunger. “It was him, then?” Niko verified. “Sawney has returned?”
“Yessss.” The wheeze carried with it a scent that drifted across the space…it was full of desert heat and spice. It sounded pleasant; it wasn’t. It was repugnant, floating over dry rot and out of the empty carapace of a long-dead cockroach. The cockroach might still be walking and talking, but there was nothing in there but the stink of death. Stuff it to the brim with all the myrrh and fucking oregano you wanted; it wasn’t going to change a thing. Dead was dead.
“Sawney is gone and Sawney is here and soon things will become more interesting in this city of gloom.” Ligaments stretched and popped to accommodate the predatory gape of jaw. “Exceedingly more interesting.”
Bodies in trees, dead girls with empty eyes and mouthfuls snatched from their flesh—if that was interesting, I could do without it.
4
We survived the mummy without a scratch. When dealing with an informant of Goodfellow’s, that was an accomplishment. Robin knew pretty much everyone, and when you cast a net that wide, you’re going to scoop up some crazies, some killers, and, if you were really lucky, a happy combo of the two. Compared to that crowd, Wahanket was practically serving up supper down at the Mission. He hadn’t tried to mutilate, kill, or eat us. In my book, that made him good people. Creepy, dead, weird as hell with the hat, and not too fragrant, but good people all the same. Granted, he seemed anxious to see what havoc Sawney was going to wreak, but, hell, he was a monster, and for a monster, that was serious restraint.
It didn’t make me any less glad to show him my backside. There’s only so much talk of genital stealing you can hear before, damn, it’s time to go. And this basement…there was something about it. If you stood still and closed your eyes, New York would fade away. There would be low guttural chanting, a choking lack of air, and the desperate scrape of fingernails against bloody desert stone. Wahanket had made this place his own, and it wasn’t a place where I wanted to spend a lot of time. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
We were three rooms away from the stairs when Niko and Robin stopped simultaneously with weapons drawn. That’s when I heard it too: the faintest unidentifiable rustle. I might not know what it was, but I did know what it wasn’t—it wasn’t human. There was no aftershave, no shampoo or soap, no wool or synthetics—no people smell at all. Not fresh anyway. There were thousands of other smells down here…animal, plant, mineral. Some strong, some not, and no way to tell which was packed away in a box and which was out and moving around.
With the hundreds of crates, it was close quarters for my gun and I drew my knife. It wasn’t a sword, but at twelve jagged inches it was close enough. “Is the flashlight just a special effect,” I asked Robin, “or do the lights work down here?”
“In this section, no. Wahanket disables them on a routine basis.” Goodfellow had placed the flashlight on a dust-coated, empty display case and cautiously stepped away from it to keep from giving away his position in the darkness. Niko moved several steps in the other direction, and using his free hand on the top edge, vaulted onto a five-foot-tall crate.
And he immediately came crashing back down under several hundred pounds of scales and surging muscle. For one brief second, I saw the snapping of dinosaur-sized jaws, the flare of orange eyes in the glow of the stationary flashlight. I saw a yellowed ivory grin.
Then reality slid into place, and I slid with it, sinking my blade into the eye of the writhing monstrosity on top of Niko. Not a dinosaur—hell, the Met didn’t even have dinosaurs—but something just as horrific in its own right. It was a serpent, the size of a man and half again as long, with the powerful legs and feet of a jungle cat. The inky black of its underbelly was spotted with the palest finger smudges of gold, and it blended into the darkness so efficiently that once it flowed off Niko, it disappeared instantly. But first, there was the grate of its bony eye socket against my knife as it ripped its massive head off the blade, the twist of a heavy tail that slammed me against a crate several feet away, and a steam-whistle screech that had my ears ringing.
“Caliban?”
I could see only the faintest smear above me, a pale oval to go with Robin’s distant call of my name. I blinked. It didn’t improve things any. If anything, it made things worse. Orange, black, gold—a hurricane rush, and then the oval and the voice were gone. It was just me and the darkness. Shit. I tried rolling over. Once, twice, three times was the charm. Three times was also a faceful of floor, but it was still progress. I managed to get my hands under me and push up. I was halfway there when a hand under my arm boosted me the rest of the way.
Nik. I steadied myself with a hand on his shoulder, then pulled it back when I felt the wet warmth. “Shit. You okay?”
“It’s not mine. Have some faith, little brother.” He’d vanished under something that could’ve been a baby T. rex, showed up dripping with blood, and I was supposed to have faith. I looked at my hand briefly before wiping it on my jeans. It was hard to tell with only the reflected glow of the flashlight, but the liquid on my skin looked pale gold, not red. That, more than Niko’s denial, halted the twist in my gut.
“Where’s Robin?” My knife was at the base of the crate I’d impacted and I moved
to retrieve it.
“I think it took him.” He was already moving, following spatters of the monster’s blood, and I came up hard on his heels. We were silent from that moment on. It would probably hear us coming nonetheless, but we didn’t have to make it easy for it…because we would find it. We would get Goodfellow back. This was nothing compared to the shit we’d all gone through together. A big lizard—a pissed-off giant gecko. So what? Hell, Robin would make a belt out of it by the time we caught up.
Boxes and boxes, a labyrinth of them every which way I turned. I clipped several as we ran. We’d left the flashlight behind. It would give us away quicker than my nose would. There was some light now—small emergency lights up in the corner juncture of ceiling and wall. Hank hadn’t gotten to these yet, but they were dim enough to do more harm than good. They created impenetrable pits of black shadow that looked as thick and sticky as tar and just as capable of sucking us into suffocating depths. They’d make good places for a serpent to hide and wait for its next meal to wander by.
Or to leave what was left of its last one.
I saw his sword then, lying on the floor half in and half out of the shadow. Robin didn’t treat his weapons with the reverence Niko did, but neither did he discard them carelessly like trash. “Niko?” I said grimly.
“I see it.” He disappeared into the blackness to investigate, and I kept following the blood. As I passed a stagecoach, fake trees, and a massive stuffed bear, the spatters turned into an unbroken trail.
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” I muttered as I careened around a corner into the next room, slipped, and nearly fell in a lake of lizard fluid. It stretched almost seven feet across and was still flowing sluggishly from the belly of the serpent. Minute tremors ran under the scaled hide, but it lay on its side with its mouth open and unmoving. The remaining eye stared at nothing as a putrid stench began to seep from the hundreds of slices that bisected the stomach.
There were leaves in the blood, courtesy of the fake trees stored nearby. A bright and artificial green, they floated serenely on the golden surface. It was a bizarrely peaceful and strangely beautiful scene, and I hovered warily on the edge of it. “Robin?” The serpent was still alive…dying, yeah, but there was life in it yet. And it only took an ounce of life to make a ton of murderous purpose capable of impossible vengeance. No one likes to go out alone, not even snakes. “Goodfellow?” He was there somewhere. Had to be. What could possibly kill that smug, vain, irritating son of a bitch? “Robin, where the fuck are—”
“Here.”
He slipped out of the night forest of fake trees to my right. Like Niko, he was covered in blood that wasn’t his own. It stained his expensive clothes, slicked the equally expensive haircut, and coated the blade he carried. He’d lost the one, but he had others—which was why he’d lived so long and why he was still here right now. “Christ.” I scowled instantly, shoving the relief down. “I thought your worthless ass was a footnote. Ancient history.”
“From a sirrush?” He sluiced a handful of yellow fluid from his face and slung it to the floor. If that hand shook, he would claim it was from exertion. Considering how many slashes had been needed to take down the lizard, it might even be the truth. “Do you mock me? On my best day, I could take on an entire nest of them and barely work up a sweat. I might even have time to squeeze in a margarita and massage, happy ending of course.”
He was still talking, but I’d stopped listening. It wasn’t only monster blood after all. There was red mixed in with the gold. Puck red. “Robin?”
Stopping in midsentence, he met my gaze and followed it to the red staining his shirt and pants. “Ah. Yes.” His sword dropped from his hand as he swayed slightly. “Not exactly as gentle as a cat with her kitten, was it?”
It had carried him away, either in a clawed grip or in its massive mouth. Definitely not gentle. I didn’t carry the first aid supplies Niko did, and I wasn’t as good with them either. I took Goodfellow’s arm to keep him upright and turned my head to call for my brother. I didn’t get the opportunity.
Impossible vengeance, and here it came.
Goodfellow had called it a sirrush. That sounded like something that could fly. This one didn’t have wings, so in reality it couldn’t. But it soared through the air regardless. With the same grace and power as a spring-propelled cougar, it catapulted toward us. I only had the time to get the impression of a kaleidoscope of teeth, claws, and scales before it was on us. The wounded can be dangerous—the dying can be almost invincible. There was no time for a blade. No time for a gun. There was time for only one thing.
I built the gateway. In the past, I’d created them several feet away…made for walking through. This one I built around us. I’d never done that before. I’d barely built a handful of gates in my life, and trying something new wasn’t the brightest thing to do. It was the boldest, though, and bold was all that could save us now. Gray light outlined us, a tarnished and tainted silver glimmer. I felt the turn in my stomach, the burn at the base of my skull, the twist of reality, and then we were one room back. Behind Niko. And ahead of him came the sound of the sirrush slamming into the wall where we had been standing a fraction of a second ago.
“Skata,” Robin gurgled at my side before he hit the floor. I would’ve held him up, if I could’ve stayed up myself. As the gateway popped out of existence, I went down as well. While Goodfellow fell flat, I managed to stop my descent at my knees. My head was a tight ball of agony and my face felt warm and wet. I swiped at it and came away with a blood-coated hand. I’d learned some control over the traveling several months ago when facing down George’s and Niko’s kidnapper, but I hadn’t made a gate since. It didn’t come as easily as I remembered…not that it had been easy before, but it hadn’t hurt. It had nauseated and terrified but it hadn’t hurt. It hurt now.
I felt the warmth at my ears too. From nose and ears, I was apparently a faucet and that couldn’t be good. “Cal.” I looked up from my dripping hand to see Niko’s face before mine. It was a little blurry—not quite double vision, but almost. The sirrush was blurry as well…blurry, enraged, and coming toward us. A little more slowly now, but still coming.
Niko heard it before I had a chance to open my mouth to warn him. Flashing a hand under my jacket, he pulled my gun, whirled, and fired. Two shots careened off the skull, but seven more went through the remaining eye with exquisite precision. Niko wasn’t particularly fond of guns—he felt they lacked grace and technique—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good with one. If it could kill, Niko knew how to use it and use it well. The sirrush went down when the bullets hit, and this time it stayed down.
My weapon was reholstered smoothly, and Niko continued calmly. “You’re a mess.”
There was no arguing with that. “Yeah,” I verified, and wiped at my face again, this time using my sleeve. Leather wasn’t good at sopping up blood and I could feel it smear things to a much worse degree. “Robin’s worse.” A sick groan from the floor confirmed it.
“Don’t do that again.” The puck curled on his side and gave a nasty dry heave. Apparently, it was less his wounds and more a profound case of motion sickness. “Don’t ever, ever do that again.”
“Right. Being eaten would’ve been better. What was I thinking?” My knees decided enough was enough and I sat hard on my ass. Dropping my head in my hands, I clenched my fingers at my temples and aimed a muffled query at Niko. “Tylenol? Aspirin? Morphine?”
“Head?” I felt his fingers below my ears, checking the flow of blood. I didn’t nod. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that would feel like, but it wouldn’t be pleasant. Luckily, Niko didn’t need the confirmation. While one hand rested lightly on the back of my neck, he used the other to pull out his cell phone. Within seconds he was informing Sangrida Odinsdóttir that she had a dead sirrush in her basement as well as two wounded warriors and he would appreciate whatever help she could offer that fell short of a trip to Valhalla.
A half hour later we were back at Nik
o’s and my apartment courtesy of Sangrida’s private car. By that time, Goodfellow could walk, more or less, and I’d stopped bleeding. The headache hadn’t eased any, though, and I let Niko lead me along as I covered my eyes with my hand. The thin glow of the hallway light was suddenly a hundred times worse than staring directly at the sun, and it felt like molten lava pouring directly into my eyes to fry my brain with laser thoroughness.
Inside our place, Niko steered me to the couch, pulled the blinds, and turned off the lights. “I’ll dress Robin’s wounds in my bedroom. Rest.”
As a sign of how truly miserable he felt, Goodfellow didn’t have a word, rapaciously sexual or otherwise, to say about being in Niko’s bedroom. Fifteen minutes later Nik was back to settle onto the couch beside me. I’d slid and slouched down enough that my head rested against the back of the sofa and my legs sprawled wide. “Robin?” I asked, turning my head cautiously to look at him.
“It wasn’t as bad as it appeared at first glance. Several penetrating claw wounds to his arms and legs, but they’re fairly clean. No ripping. I believe traveling with you through your gateway affected him more. Pucks don’t take well to it is my guess.” He handed me a wet washcloth for my face. I’d cleaned it up as best I could in the car using the front of my shirt…just enough to get me into our building without people stopping to donate money to the axe-maniac survivor fund.