Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Part 10

"I'm sure you can find something to interest me. Be creative." His voice dropped lower, until she felt it behind her sternum. "Think about it, Antja Michaela."

She expected him to vanish. Instead a sleek black car pulled up to the curb, the driver hidden behind tinted gla.s.s. The dark man stood, flicking a stray drop of water off his sleeve, and slid into the backseat.

Antja sat alone on the bench long after the car pulled away, shivering in the freezing rain, with the smell of incense and oranges clinging in her throat.

"we don't Have to do this," Alex said, watching Liz's reflection in the clouded bathroom mirror. She paused, comb slowing through her damp hair. Cosmetics lent color to her cheeks and eased the sunken shadows beneath her eyes, but he could guess from the careful way she moved how badly she needed rest.

"I do," she said at last. "For Blake, I have to go. If nothing else..." She trailed off.

He nodded. And if nothing else, he could go with her, despite the waiting sharp-toothed cold and the pain dragging at him. He couldn't remember when his head hadn't ached. He wished he had Liz's skill with makeup-the artifice of health might have been a useful placebo-but even in his undergrad theatre days, he'd never learned the trick of it.

Her eyes met his through the gla.s.s. "You don't have to go."

"Yes, I do." He turned away from the mirror and flipped open his suitcase to find a black shirt. He'd fallen asleep still twitching at shadows. He couldn't admit that to Liz, but neither was he about to leave her alone with Rainer and Antja.

He glanced back as he b.u.t.toned his sleeves and found her still watching him, agate eyes unreadable. He gave her a lopsided smile. "At least the weather's fitting."

THE PATHETIC FALLACY was still in effect when they joined the mourners on Capilano View's soggy green lawn. Haze swallowed the mountains, turned pine and cedars and bone-bare maples into towering grey specters. Umbrellas sprouted like black plastic flowers from the sod.

The grave was a scar of dark earth against the wet gra.s.s, the headstone nearly lost beneath swags of flowers and mementos. A young woman next to Rainer wept softly; another man looked as if he'd have flung himself onto the turned earth, but the mud would have ruined his coat. Others gathered opposite Rainer's group. Antja stood apart from all of them, wearing her rainsoaked clothes like a penitent's sackcloth. Alex wondered what the factions and divisions meant.

He shifted his grip on the umbrella, the patter of rain on plastic drowning the eulogy. Liz huddled close against him. At least she didn't go in for histrionics-he'd been the one to look after his mother at Great Aunt Kathryn's funeral, and he'd never seen such a case of the vapors. The Priors were more inclined to dramatics; the McLures tended to stoicism and bitter inebriation.

Someone else took a turn extolling Alain's virtues. Alex wished he felt a little grief, if only for Liz and Blake's sakes, but he suspected Alain might still be alive if he'd been more careful in his choice of friends. Unkind, but maybe not untrue.

If he had died in that hospital in Boston, the dry voice of his devil's advocate asked, did that mean he would have deserved it? Would Samantha have paid for his funeral?

He put an arm around Liz's shoulders. He knew better than to use a person as an amulet, but for the moment she was warm and solid and rea.s.suring. "Next time we're going to the Bahamas," he murmured, "or the south of France." She made a disapproving noise, but the corners of her eyes crinkled.

A moment later her gloved hand tightened on his elbow. "Look," she whispered.

He followed her gaze to a shadowed copse of evergreens, and the dark-coated figure half lost in their gloom.

"He should find a new routine," Alex muttered, trying to ignore the unpleasant sensation in his stomach. "Repet.i.tion is so dull."

Liz left the shelter of the umbrella, her boots leaving dark prints in the wet lawn as she started for the trees.

"What are you doing?" Alex fell in beside her, skirting the crowd. Everyone else was too focused on the eulogy to notice them.

Her chin lifted, dangerously stubborn. "Looking for answers." But before they had a chance to find any, the man vanished into shadows and mist. Liz's breath hissed through her teeth. "d.a.m.n."

Alex caught her arm when she would have kept going. It didn't take clairvoyance to see the danger in following a stranger into a dark wood. The wind gusted, whipping rain under the umbrella.

Antja looked up as they returned to the service. No artistry with waterproof makeup could hide her red, swollen eyes. "Someone you know?" she asked.

"No," Alex said. "We were hoping you might."

She shook her head. "Thank you for coming," she said after a moment. "I'm sorry about last night." Her gaze settled somewhere in the middle distance.

Sorry for what? he wanted to ask. That half-glimpsed black shape still haunted him. He could have written it off as a hallucination, but she had seen it too.

The last eulogy ended and the bereaved began to disperse. Some drifted in ones and twos across the grounds, but others stayed close to Rainer.

"Are you coming back to the gallery with us?" Rainer asked Antja, including Alex and Liz in the invitation with a tilt of his head. Mostly Liz-his eyes lingered on her a heartbeat too long, just enough to get Alex's hackles up.

Antja shook her head. "Maybe later."

Rainer frowned but finally nodded. His conspiracy of bedraggled ravens followed him toward the parking lot. What did you call a plurality of goths, anyway? A draggle? A misery?

"Come with us," Liz said. "Have something to drink and get out of the rain."

Antja's smile was bitter. "I seem to have come down with a case of martyrdom. It's the Catholic upbringing."

"You should consider C of E," Alex said. "We advocate tea and cake with the vicar and appropriate raingear."

She blinked, raindrops glittering on her lashes. Then she laughed-it brought color to her cheeks, but her humor dimmed quickly. "You're probably right. Even so, I'm afraid I'll pa.s.s. Thank you all the same." She crossed her arms and glanced toward the grave. "I need a moment alone."

"Not everyone wants to be rescued," Alex murmured as he and Liz started down the dirt path toward the parking lot.

Liz frowned and huddled deeper into her coat. Her skirt slapped against her boots as she walked. "That doesn't mean I shouldn't offer."

He glanced back as they reached the blacktop; through his fogging gla.s.ses Antja was a dark shape, nearly lost in the haze. Taillights flared as Rainer and his friends pulled away.

As Liz and Alex neared their car, three people melted out of the deepening gloom. Two men and a woman-no one from the service. One man walked with a pained shuffle like a stroke victim, while the other hunched and hugged himself. Over the rain and earth and wet asphalt, Alex smelled the rank sourness of unwashed flesh, and something else, cloying and sickly sweet.

The woman moved with a disturbing, disjointed grace. Dark hair streamed down her cheeks and shoulders, and her coat hung open over a slinky c.o.c.ktail dress. Her feet were bare and tar-black with mud. Liz stared at her and stiffened.

"Can we help you?" Alex asked, tightening his grip on the umbrella. Not much of a weapon. Pity he didn't have a steel-lined bowler to match.

"I know you," the woman whispered, her gla.s.sy black eyes locked on Liz. "The dreamer, the door-opener. I saw you on the threshold. The King let you in."

Alex slipped his free hand into his pocket for the keys, calculating the distance to the car. He risked a glance over his shoulder, but Antja was lost in the shadows. The rain was falling harder. Where the h.e.l.l was a Mountie when you needed one?

"I don't want in," Liz said, as if the woman made sense to her. "I just want to get my friend out."

The woman laughed. "Why would anyone want out? Haven't you seen him? You opened the door-open it for me. I need to be there."

Liz shook her head, hands clenching at her sides. Rain darkened her hair, plastered her bangs to her skin. "I can't. It's too much. My friend is drowning in there."

"He's with the King. Where we all should be. The maenads promised I would join their hunt."

She moved closer, stretching out a hand. Alex swallowed his rising gorge at the sight of her b.l.o.o.d.y, broken fingernails. He took a step toward Liz, but the shuffling man hissed and he recoiled.

The woman caught Liz's shoulder. "I can smell it on you. You have to take us there. They promised."

Liz shook her head, scattering rain. "I can't help you."

The woman grinned. "Don't you remember what happened to Orpheus, little girl?"

Alex shook off his stupor, thumbing the umbrella's catch and tugging it closed. Icy needles of rain stung his face and streaked his gla.s.ses. "Leave her alone."

The woman laughed. The shuffler lunged with animal speed. Alex swung, and the jolt of plastic against flesh jarred his arm all the way to the shoulder. The man ripped the umbrella out of his hand and knocked him sprawling to the flooded pavement.

Breath left in a painful rush. Over his ringing ears he heard Liz shout, but the world was a wash of rain and movement as his gla.s.ses slipped down his nose. He pushed himself up and saw the woman wrestling Liz to the ground. Then the shuffler was on him again, his face a waxen grey blur in the shadow of his hood as he seized Alex by his jacket and hauled him upright. His gla.s.ses tumbled to the asphalt. The man hissed again, and through the myopic haze his teeth looked sharper than they should.

Somewhere behind them, Antja shouted. Alex would have let out a grateful breath if he'd had any to spare. The shuffler glanced up, evaluating the new threat, and Alex kicked him. It would have been the euphemistic foul blow, but his aim was off and instead his foot connected with the man's knee. Cartilage crunched, but his attacker didn't let go.

Antja screamed.

He'd thought she was loud the night before, but that was nothing. The shuffler stumbled back, dropping Alex. The man opened his mouth in a moan, but Alex couldn't hear anything; his skull was unraveling at the seams. He would never have imagined her husky contralto could reach such a note, let alone hold it so long.

It stopped abruptly, choked off. Blood throbbed in Alex's ears and the world swayed beneath him. He could only sit, gravel sc.r.a.ping his palms and rain soaking his clothes. The shuffler shook himself like a dog, flinging water. Liz and the woman were still sprawled in a tangle of limbs. So where was the third- Alex turned, head throbbing, and saw the second man struggling with Antja, his hands locked around her throat. Not as efficacious a rescue as he'd hoped. He staggered up, swallowing bile. The sickly stench of their attackers clung to him, coated his tongue. How could he help anyone when he could barely stand?

Liz yelped in pain and his stomach turned over. He stumbled toward her, grabbed at the other woman, and took an elbow in the chest for his trouble. Asphalt scored his hand as he caught himself. Useless!

The air was too thick, too wet, and the pain in his head metastasized into something sharp and electric and blinding. Adrenaline coursed through him until he thought his skin would spark.

"Let her go!" The words hurt, like swallowing a too-large mouthful. His head rang with them.

The woman flung herself backwards off Liz, baring b.l.o.o.d.y teeth in a snarl. A shot cracked and Alex flinched. Well and truly deaf now, he spun toward the sound.

Antja's attacker had fallen. She stumbled away, clutching her throat. Alex knelt, groping for his gla.s.ses-not broken, thank G.o.d, only scratched and mud-splattered. The world snapped into focus again in time to see the man in the black coat walking toward them, a gun in his hand.

No, he realized. A woman. She held the gun in a steady, twohanded grip. In a film her coat would have billowed dramatically around her, but she was as drenched as the rest of them.

The muzzle flashed once, twice, before Alex could do more than flinch. Liz's attacker-the maenad-slumped to the ground.

"Everyone all right?" the woman asked. Her voice was harsh and distant through Alex's ringing ears.

For a moment he could only stare at the black gun. Then Liz made a soft hysterical sound and he scrambled to her side. Red scratches scored her cheek, dripping pink in the rain, and she cradled her left hand to her chest.

"Are you hurt?" He felt his mouth shape the words, but his voice was queer and not his own.

Liz looked up, her eyes wide and dark. "She bit me."

The maenad stirred, b.l.o.o.d.y hands scrabbling at the blacktop. Before she could rise, the gunwoman aimed and pulled the trigger again. Chunks of brain spewed like hamburger across the wet asphalt. Liz gasped, high and quick, and Alex choked down stomach acid. But when the corpse fell, baring the ruin of her once-pretty face, he couldn't control his stomach any longer. He stumbled away from Liz to vomit up his lunch.

"For f.u.c.k's sake!" He scrubbed sour spit off his mouth as he stood. "Was that necessary?"

The woman's smile was sharp and cold. "You tell me." She gestured toward Antja's attacker.

The man sat up, jerky marionette movements like some obscene Saint Vitus dance. Never mind the hole in his chest, the blood seeping across his shirt.

"What do you think is necessary?" the woman asked. The pistol was trained and steady in her hand, but she didn't fire.

Alex swallowed the foul taste in his mouth. "Call the police. Call an ambulance."

The man rose, a black stain spreading down his shirt and dripping from the hem. He touched the wound and stared at his b.l.o.o.d.y fingers, then turned and bolted for the trees with that impossible animal speed. The woman let him go.

Alex looked back at the shuffler, but he was down for good; the first shot had struck his head. A b.l.o.o.d.y halo like a think bubble dissolved in the rain.

Liz rose, shaking, and Alex helped her stand. Beneath mud and blood her face was pasty grey. "Who are you?"

The gun disappeared back into the woman's coat. She crouched and collected her spent sh.e.l.l casings, every motion quick and brutally efficient. "My name is Lailah." When the last flash of bra.s.s had vanished into her pockets, she knelt beside Antja. "Are you all right?"

Antja's throat was already bruising, and pink rivulets of blood trailed from a split lip. She drew a breath, but before she could speak Liz let out a startled exclamation.

The maenad was deflating. As they stared, her skin darkened from grey to green to plum-black and began to slough. Fluids oozed from her shattered face. The stench sent Alex staggering back, fighting not to retch again. Hair drifted free of her skull and crumbled; within moments all that remained was a greasy-grey ma.s.s deliquescing inside filthy clothes.

The same process was happening to the shuffler. Alex watched the necrotic mess leaking toward the car tires, and wondered how much extra the rental company would charge for that. Lailah turned her head and spat.

Alex fumbled for his inhaler. "What just happened?" he asked when he could draw a breath again.

"We should get out of here," Lailah said. "Someone will have heard the shots."

Half of Vancouver must have heard the shots-his ears still rang, and sound carried farther in the rain. "And then you'll tell us what the b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.k is going on?"

"We'll see." Lailah helped Antja to her feet, catching her when she stumbled. "Do any of you need a doctor?"

Antja shook her head and winced at the motion. "No. No hospitals." The words were an ugly croak.

Alex glanced down at Liz, but she didn't argue. Lailah nodded. "Where do you want to go?"

Antja took a step back. "Why would I go anywhere with you?"

"Come with us," Alex said before Lailah could respond. Antja studied him, perhaps as surprised by the offer as he was. Then she nodded.

ALEX OCCUPIED HIMSELF on the drive back to the hotel by cataloging symptoms of shock. Or acute stress reaction-whatever they were calling it these days. Whatever it was that happened after one was mugged and watched people get shot. People who melted.

Never mind that, he told himself as he led Liz and Antja to the room. And never mind his own icy hands and still-racing heart; they were all three wet to the skin and shaking with cold, but he wasn't injured. He kept himself busy to ignore his own nerves- dragging blankets off the bed, finding Liz a dry sweater and pressing one of his own shirts on Antja.

Lailah let herself in soon after. She'd stayed behind to clean up the remains, a task that didn't bear thinking of. Alex swallowed recriminations when he saw the first aid kit in her hand. For a time there was near-silence as Alex ransacked the kit and Lailah ignored Antja's protests and inspected her throat.

Liz hadn't spoken since they got in the car. Her pupils had shrunk to normal, but she stared at nothing, cradling her injured hand in her lap. Occasionally he caught her mouthing words to herself. The door. Open the door.

She understood what the madwoman had said to her. It meant something. What wasn't she telling him?

He couldn't worry about that now, but he could do something about her hand. Her glove was crusted in mud and blood, leather torn around the base of her thumb. She let him take her hand, but yelped and jerked as soon as he began to cut the glove away. She finally focused on him, and the relief was nearly nauseating.

"It will hurt less if you sit still," he said, because it was the easiest thing to say. His voice was beyond calm, nearly flat. Disa.s.sociation. Internalization. Intellectualization. Whatever got him through the night.

"Easy for you to say," she muttered, but let him take her hand again.

Dark flakes of blood and mud cracked and drifted to the floor as safety scissors chewed through leather. Liz's throat worked as she watched, and so did his. Grime etched the lines of her palm, and beneath the filth a double crescent of teeth marks sank deep into her heel of her hand. The bleeding had stopped, but the flesh was swollen and hot to the touch.

"Soap and water first," he said. He tossed the ruined glove into the trash bin, wishing for a sterile environment.

Liz nodded and rose, ignoring his attempts to help her off the couch. Stubborn or not, she moved clumsily, limbs jerky and out of sync. The aftermath of adrenaline-he'd shake himself to pieces given the chance. Not now. Not in front of strangers. When he heard water running, Alex poured himself a shot of Chartreuse. Maybe he could drown the reaction before it set in.