Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Part 19

Antja shook her head as though she'd heard him anyway. "I can't run anymore."

It was, he thought dimly, a more interesting death than he would have imagined for himself. That didn't make it any less annoying.

The shriek of wet rubber reverberated through the garage, followed by an engine's growl. The creature's blind heads swung round as headlights carved away the shadows. For an instant they paused, backlit by the glare; then they melted like tar and dissolved.

A familiar glossy, storm-grey car screeched to a stop in front of Antja and Lailah slid out of the driver's side. Relief dizzied him- or maybe that was only hypoxia.

"Are you all right?" she called. A pale face watched them through the tinted gla.s.s of the pa.s.senger window. "Then let's get out of here before they come back."

"Liz-" Alex wheezed, even as Antja let out a strangled breath and whispered, "Oh G.o.d, Rainer." She pressed her blistered hand to her mouth and left a smear of blood and fluid behind.

"You'll be safer with us," Lailah said. Alex wasn't sure when they'd become an 'us', but he was in no condition to argue.

"She's right," Alex said, surprising himself. "You're hurt." Each word was more effort than the last. The world felt disconnected and far away.

Her eyes were black holes in the pallor of her face. "I can't." She brushed her fingers over his; his nails were shadowed lilac grey with cyanosis. "Take Liz and go."

The last thing he saw before he fainted was her back fading into the gloom.

"I DON'T KNOW what else to do," Rainer said. Whether he spoke to himself or to the empty sh.e.l.l in the hospital bed, he wasn't sure.

He paced in front of the window, his shoes squeaking faintly on the tiles. Watery shadows rippled across the floor, and rainlight rinsed the room dull and grey. Only the bed lamp burned against the gloom. Its yellow glow lent warmth and color to Blake's face, but it was an illusion-the truth was wan and cold and brittle.

Rainer hadn't been here since he'd arranged for the private room. He'd told himself he didn't want to draw attention to Blake, that his time was better spent finding a solution. In truth the sick knot in his chest whenever he looked at Blake was too much to endure. Even now his eyes strayed to the window more often than not.

Cowardice. He had to live with his actions. He forced himself to turn, to take the three strides to the bedside. He didn't take Blake's hand or touch his hollow cheek, though his fingers itched to do so. An uninvited caress might be more than Blake could forgive him, after everything else.

Machines dripped nourishment into him, but it wasn't enough; the arches of Blake's temples pressed sharp through papery skin, and Rainer could count the rings of his larynx. There were enchantments of stasis he could learn, ways to preserve the flesh beyond these tubes and wires-like Sleeping Beauty, or Brynhild in the fire-but without consciousness to reunite with the body, all they could do was prolong this cold unlife.

"I don't know what to do," he said again. Maybe Liz could accomplish what he couldn't, if he hadn't frightened her away last night. She wasn't bound by his oaths. Or protected by them.

He trained his eyes on Blake again, curling his fingers around the bed rail until his knuckles blanched. He teased Antja about her Catholic childhood, but he knew a cilice when he used one on himself.

"I am trying," he said softly. "Please believe that. And I'm sorry."

With that he turned away, his quarter hour of courage spent, and fled the hospital and its weight of grief and misery.

WHEN HE PULLED into the narrow parking lot behind the gallery and turned off the car, it was all he could do not to lean his head on the steering wheel and weep. He couldn't go on like this, but his oaths weren't the sort to be forsworn. He had to find a way to serve that let him sleep at night. Would the King let him join a hermitage?

Rain snaked cold through his hair as he stepped out of the car. Only an hour past noon, but the alley was dark as dusk. His skin tightened as he hit the alarm b.u.t.ton, fingers tingling. He paused, cupping the keys as he listened, but all he heard was the drum and rush of water. He shook his head, sending moisture trickling past his collar. Now wasn't the time to start jumping at shadows. His shoes splashed across flooded blacktop, the cuffs of his trousers slapping against leather.

The streetlamp that lit the parking lot buzzed and sputtered, sending shadows writhing along the walls. Some writhed more than others.

Rainer spun, following a black flicker at the edge of his vision. The sour taste of nerves coated his tongue as he murmured a warding spell. There-a ripple in the dark, gone as soon as he saw it. Clawed feet splashed and sc.r.a.ped on wet cement, but when he turned toward the sound it vanished.

The creature struck as the last syllable of the spell left his lips. The charm slowed its claws but couldn't stop them; instead of ripping his heart out with one strike it merely shredded his left shoulder. He fell, too stunned to cry out as he sprawled hard on the ground. Cold soaked his back. Heat soaked his chest. Rain stung his face as he struggled to breathe.

Two of them, identical. The darkness between stars made flesh. Whip-sharp tails lashed as they approached. Rainer scrambled backwards on three limbs, heels slipping in puddles, right palm scoring against asphalt. Warmth trickled down his left sleeve, cooling quickly. His arm was dead weight.

He had to focus, but the black shapes were mesmerizing as they closed on him, slow and playful as cats. Rainer stumbled toward the back stairs and fell on the lowest step. His blood swirled away in the rain, taking his strength with it. His own magic slipped fickle through his fingers. Drawing a painful breath, he reached deeper, for the power of the King.

It burned. Burned and froze the life from him. Blood thickened and slowed, sluggish as tar. He felt the darkness seeping across his eyes and fought the urge to retch.

The shadow-beasts paused, blind heads dipping as if they could sense the changes. As they tensed to strike, Rainer called the fire.

Smokeless yellow flame engulfed them, washing the alley black and gold. Alien flesh sizzled and popped. Fire was one of the few things that could hurt them, they'd discovered at the cabin. Too late to save anyone that night, but now he had the chance to repay his friends' deaths. The monsters staggered, leaking sparks and blood black as oil. Rain evaporated with a steaming hiss, but they made no sound at all as they burned.

Burned, but didn't stop their relentless approach. Black spots swam in front of Rainer's eyes. He'd lost too much blood.

And by the time they reached Vancouver, he'd actually thought he wouldn't end up dead in an alley. He tried to laugh and sobbed instead.

The back door flew open with a shriek and clang as his vision darkened. Antja called his name. Everything sounded dull and far away.

Silver light flared around him. A ward, hardly more to these creatures than a spider web, but it bought him a few more seconds. Time for Antja to grab his coat and haul him up the stairs. He screamed at the jolt, and the sound of his own pain was the last thing he heard.

16.

p.r.i.c.ks & Spindles

ALEX WOKE CRAMPED and stiff, his neck crooked at a painful angle. And cold-he couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been cold. His mouth was sour with sleep, dry and bitter with the lingering grit of albuterol. The air smelled of smoke.

He sat up straight in an uncomfortable chair, his shoes scuffing against wood. His memory was a distorted muddle of images: Antja's fire; Lailah leaning over him, pressing his inhaler into his mouth; a car the color of smoke; a familiar drive through twisting roads; Liz limp in Lailah's arms. He couldn't fit the pieces into a coherent whole.

He stood and stretched aching limbs. His neck popped loudly as he rolled his head. A blanket fell away from his legs, pooling on the floor. Movement triggered coughing, which set his head to throbbing in turn. He leaned against the chair until the spasm pa.s.sed, closing his eyes against the pain in head and chest. His eyes ached and he groped for his gla.s.ses, only to remember that they were gone. Lost in the alley, and he hadn't thought to pack his extra pair.

The curtains were drawn, leaving the room around him a dim blur of warm-toned wallpaper and wooden furniture, the ceiling half-timbered in a way that might intend to be rustic. He hoped the bed was more comfortable than the chair-Liz lay there, lily-pale in the gloom. Her skin was cool when he took her hand, her pulse a slow and patient rhythm. He pinched the back of her wrist and watched blood return to whitened flesh, but between her pallor and the poor light, he couldn't tell if it took longer than it should.

Alex turned toward the window, stumbling over the edge of a carpet in the dark, and pulled aside the drapes. Light streamed in, weak and pale as skimmed milk between the shadows of snowdusted evergreens, but still enough to make him wince. Slanting afternoon light-they'd been here at least a day. At least a day, and Liz still slept like some spindle-p.r.i.c.ked princess.

"I hope you're not planning to sleep a hundred years," he murmured, bending down to brush her dry lips with his. Not prince enough.

Their luggage lay piled beside the door, and that was some comfort at least. Whatever new vicissitudes the day had in store, he could face them with clean teeth and clothes.

The door opened into a corridor, and he realized why so many things seemed familiar. The floor plan was nearly identical to Rainer's cabin. And that was where they must be, if he hadn't hallucinated what he could remember of the drive yesterday-back at Carroll Cove. The realization did very little to comfort him.

Smells drifted through the chilly air: smoke, coffee, toast. His stomach rumbled. He couldn't remember when he'd last eaten; the s.p.a.ce between his ribs and spine felt hollowed out. But the foul taste in his mouth was worse than hunger, and he followed his memory of Rainer's cabin down the hall to the bathroom.

The hot water gave out too soon, but the steam lasted long enough to loosen ropes of slime in his lungs. He brushed his teeth, coughed up ribbons of dark phlegm, and brushed them again. His chest felt as if he'd been kicked and sat on and kicked some more. His face was stripped to skin and bone, eyes sunken and cheeks mottled with fever. His hands shook as he turned off the taps.

Maybe it was for the best that Liz was unconscious; he could never convince her that he wasn't as sick as he looked.

When he emerged, cleaner and warmer and layered in scarves and sweaters, music drifted from the front of the house. Something bright and poppy, incongruous against the grey chill and yesterday's half-remembered horrors. He followed the sound and smell of food down the hall.

A fire burned in the front room, and the blinds were open to a view of the cove. Lailah stood in the little kitchen, cracking eggs into a skillet. She'd abandoned the trench coat, and wore a black tank top and faded cargo pants, her hair twisted up in a sloppy clip. An ancient portable CD player sat on the counter, and she hummed along with the song. For a moment she seemed like a different person than the woman Alex had met in the cemetery; then she turned and he saw the outline of the holster at the small of her back. Her humming stopped when she saw him, and she reached out to turn down the music.

"Do you want breakfast?" she asked, scrambling the sizzling eggs.

Alex squinted at his watch. "At two in the afternoon?"

"It's the first meal of the day, isn't it? There's coffee." She gestured with one sharp elbow to a metal carafe on the counter while sliding chopped vegetables into the eggs.

"Thank you." The domesticity of it all was nearly as unnerving as guns and monsters.

He poured a mug and sat down at the table, letting the heat of the cup soak through his hands. A moment later Lailah slid a plate of toast and omelette in front of him.

"How's your friend?"

Alex frowned as he reached for the b.u.t.ter. "The same. What happened to the-" He broke off. There were no words that didn't sound ridiculous in the light of day.

"To the monsters?"

He started as a shadow stirred on the couch, sat up and resolved itself into a young woman. Blurry as a Degas sketch across the room, long black hair and sallow olive skin that would brown in the sun, dark clothes that didn't fit her. He remembered her vaguely from the funeral, and from their flight from the hotel. He thought her name was Rae.

"They're still out there," she continued, gesturing vaguely toward the windows. "Waiting." She sat down, but didn't touch the food Lailah pa.s.sed her.

"Waiting for what?" Alex sc.r.a.ped b.u.t.ter over bread. The smell of peppers and mushrooms made his mouth water, until he looked an instant too long at a glistening thread of white veining the eggs. He reached for his coffee and tried not to cough. "What are they?"

"Hunters." Lailah sat next to Rae. "They're after maniacs. And now, apparently, you."

Alex ignored her expectantly c.o.c.ked eyebrow. "Why haven't they come in?" He blinked against the memory of the black shapes bursting into the hotel, reached for the salt to cover his flinch.

"They can't. Not without an invitation. Hotels are too public- the rules don't apply there. And I know a few wards." Her eyes narrowed and flickered toward Rae. "You should eat. Both of you."

"I'm not hungry," Rae said, while Alex took a bite of toast. Her fingers fretted ceaselessly at the weave of her sweater.

"Food keeps your body working. The better your body works, the closer it keeps your soul."

They exchanged a conversation in a shadowed glance. Finally Rae s.n.a.t.c.hed a piece of toast off Lailah's plate and took a deliberate bite.

Alex picked at his food, but the texture of anything but dry toast threatened nausea. He knew the fatigue and dizziness that weighed on him, knew them all too well. He needed sensible things like rest and fluids and warmth if he didn't want a hospital visit of his own. But he had left sense far behind.

The CD ended and silence settled over them once more. Lailah stacked her empty dishes in the sink. Alex caught her glancing more than once at the windows, and the still expanse of trees and water beyond.

"What are we doing out here?" he asked.

"It's remote," she said, drying her hands on a towel. "Not as many innocent bystanders if there's trouble. I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't crowding all of you into my apartment." She flashed a lopsided smile. "Don't worry-we made sure the owners are out of town. Let's check on your friend."

Alex followed her down the hall, Rae padding behind them on silent bare feet. Liz hadn't moved. The rise and fall of her chest was invisible beneath the blankets; only the faint, infrequent twitch of her eyelids showed she lived. He bit back a protest as Rae sat on the edge of the bed and touched her face.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked instead.

"She's gone," Rae said softly. "She opened the door and now she's on the other side." Quiet envy filled her voice, and he thought of the maenad and shuddered.

"Can you do anything?"

"I tried to do what she's done, but it didn't work." Rae glanced at Lailah; the other woman shook her head sharply. "Without that... I don't know."

"I'm so b.l.o.o.d.y sick of hearing that lately." Alex raked his hands through his still-damp hair, wincing at the tender pain in his skull. "She can't last like this. She needs fluids, IVs..."

Lailah nodded, her thin mouth hooking down. "You'll do what you have to. But a hospital won't be any safer than that hotel room-invitation doesn't apply there, either."

She turned away before Alex could think of a reply. Rae trailed behind her, quiet as a shadow.

ALEX SAT BESIDE Liz for the rest of the afternoon. He wet her lips and triple-checked the warmth of the blankets and applied fresh ointment and bandages to her swollen hand, in between flipping through his thumb-worn copy of Foucault's Pendulum without reading a word.

The light died and the chill deepened. He knew he ought to turn on the lamp, find a blanket, find a place to sleep that wouldn't murder his neck, but the longer he sat the stronger his la.s.situde grew. If he kept perfectly still he could breathe-any movement might wake the terrible, tearing cough. The book slipped from numb fingers and he let it lie. Just a short rest, and then he would move...

He woke to voices and icy hands. Or maybe it was only that he was burning. He startled, and the spasm he'd feared threatened to rip his chest apart.

"Wake up," Lailah said, for what might have been the second or third time. She brushed the hair back from his face and pried one eyelid back. In his feverish confusion, Alex thought her eyes gleamed in the shadows, pupils glowing like an animal's.

"He's sick," Rae said, leaning close behind her. "I can see it inside him."

"Wonderful."

Lailah looped an arm around Alex's waist and hauled him out of the chair. His head lolled against her shoulder, but he had no strength to spend on dignity. She half dragged, half carried him into the living room and laid him out on the couch, then shoved them both closer to the fire. The dying flames washed the room red and h.e.l.lish, cast capering shadows across the ceiling. He closed his eyes against the sight, and opened them again to find Rae piling him with blankets while Lailah forced his head up and pressed a cup to his lips. The warmth of tea was welcome, but the first sip made him cough again. This time the salt-slime taste of phlegm was tinged with sour metal.

"Do you still think we don't need a hospital?" he asked, and regretted the effort.

Lailah snorted. "I didn't think you'd go so far to prove me wrong." She slid a pillow under his head and set the cup on the floor in easy reach. Not that he had the strength to lift it. "Just remember-if I take you to a doctor, it will mean leaving Liz alone."

It was a guilt trip worthy of his mother. He would have laughed, but all that came up was more mucus. "Well played," he whispered, and let his head fall.

If she replied, he wasn't awake to hear it.

RAE FOUND LAILAH in the bedroom late that night, sitting crosslegged on the bed and frowning at her phone. The light from the tiny screen washed her face cold and grey. She didn't look up as Rae eased the door shut behind her.

"What's wrong?"

"Besides the terrible service out here?" Lailah raised her head, her face twisted into an inhuman grimace in the shadows and pixel-light. "Rabia is reading me the riot act. There's trouble in the city, the kind I'm supposed to clean up."

"But you're stuck here with the strays." She sank onto the edge of the bed.

Another grimace. This one might have been a smile in a former life. "Someone has to look after you. Them." She encompa.s.sed the rest of the house in a gesture. "And it won't hurt Rabia to do her own d.a.m.ned wetwork for a change."

"Why do you do it?"