by Tanya Huff
Fortunately, Vicki is a better shot than I am. When I was in the reserves, we were given a Browning 9mm with ten rounds in the magazine and pointed at a row of targets. The target to my left had eleven holes in it. You do the math.
And okay, I admit it. I used the fantasy “pounding on things and yelling gets the job done” trope. Point in my favour: at least the pounding and yelling didn’t replace actual CPR.
NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO
“I overheard a couple of uniforms talking today.”
Her head pillowed on Mike’s shoulder, palm of her right hand resting over his heart, Vicki made a non-committal hmm.
“There’s been some vandalism in Mount Pleasant Cemetery the last couple of nights.”
She tapped her fingers on sweat-damp skin to the rhythm of the rain against the window, wrapping it around the steady bass of his heartbeat. “You don’t say.”
Mike closed his hand around hers, stopping the movement. “Someone dug a small fire pit on a grave and cremated a mouse. The officers responding found wax residue on the gravestone, chalk marks on the grass, and evidence of at least four people.”
“Uh huh.” Vicki rose up on her left elbow so that she could see Mike’s expression. He seemed to be completely serious. Although the pale spill of streetlight around the edges of the blind provided insufficient illumination for him to see her in turn, his eyes were locked on her face, waiting for her to draw her own conclusions.
“You think some idiot’s trying to call up a demon.”
“I think it’s possible.”
“And you think I should…?”
He shrugged, a minimum movement of one shoulder. “I think we should check it out.”
“We?”
His fingers tightened, thumb moving down to stroke the scar on her wrist. “I don’t want you there alone.”
She had a matching scar on the other wrist, a pair of thin white lines against pale skin, a reminder written in flesh of a demon nearly unleashed on the city by her blood. But that had been years ago, when Vicki Nelson, ex-police detective, not-particularly-successful private investigator, had only just discovered that creatures out of nightmare were real.
“Things have changed.” Turning her hand in his, she stroked in turn the puncture wound on his wrist, already healing even though it had been less than an hour since she’d fed. “I’m pretty sure vampire trumps wannabe sorcerer.” When he didn’t answer, merely continued to look up at her, brown eyes serious, she sighed. “Fine. A vampire and an exceedingly macho police detective definitely trumps wannabe sorcerer. Worst case scenario, it won’t be much of a demon if all they’re sacrificing is a mouse. We’ll check it out tomorrow night.”
Dark brows rose. “Why tomorrow? It’s barely midnight.”
“And it’s pouring rain. They won’t be able to keep their fire lit.”
“So tonight…”
Vicki grinned, tugged her hand free, and moved it lower on his body. “Well, if you’re so set on not sleeping, I’m sure we’ll think of something to do.”
*
Mike Celluci had spent most of his career in Violent Crimes. One night, back before the change, when alcohol had still been able to breach the barriers Vicki kept around her more philosophical side, she’d called the men and women who worked homicide the last advocates of the dead—bringing justice if not peace. Over the last few years Mike had learned that, on occasion, the dead were quite capable of advocating for themselves. That knowledge had added a whole new dimension to walking in graveyards at night.
By day, Mount Pleasant Cemetery was a green oasis in the centre of Toronto, the dead sharing their real estate with a steady stream of people looking for a respite from the press of the city. At night, when shadows pooled in the hollows and under the trees and clustered around the hundreds of headstones, the dead seemed less willing to share.
“Isn’t this romantic.” Vicki tucked her hand in the crook of Mike’s elbow and leaned toward him with exaggerated enthusiasm. “You, me, midnight, a graveyard. Too bad we don’t have a picnic.” She grinned up at him, fingers tightening over his pulse. “Oh, wait…”
Mike snorted and shook his head, but he understood her mood. It had been too long since they’d worked a case together. And okay, a cremated mouse and some wax residue wasn’t exactly a case, but it was more than they’d had for a while.
He tugged her off the path, following the landmarks from the original police report. “It was this way.”
As they moved further from the lines of asphalt and the circles of light that barely touched the grass, Vicki took the lead.
“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked. With no moonlight, no starlight, and, more importantly, his flashlight off so as not to give away their position, he stayed close.
“I can smell the wet ash from their fire. The candle wax.” She frowned. “Smells like gardenia.”
And then she froze.
Mike froze with her. “Vicki?”
“Burning blood. This way.”
He knew she was holding back so he could match her pace, his hand wrapped around her elbow as he ran full out, trusting her to steer him around any obstacle. They headed into the older part of the cemetery, where ornate mausoleums housed the elite of the early 1900s. Clutching at her outstretched arm as she suddenly stopped, he nearly fell, finding his balance at the last minute. They were close enough together, he could see her turning in place, head cocked.
“There.” A mausoleum set off a little from the rest. “I hear four heartbeats.”
Not for the first time, he wished she could return to the force. They had a canine unit, they had mounted unit, they had a mountain bike unit for Christ’s sake, why not a bloodsucking undead unit? Her abilities were wasted within the narrow focus of her PI’s license.
He could see a flicker of light through the grille in the mausoleum’s door as they moved closer.
Teenagers. Peering carefully through the ornate ironwork, Mike could see four—three watching the fourth as she chanted over the smoking contents of a stainless-steel mixing bowl set between the four white candles burning on the marble crypt in the centre of the mausoleum. A triple circle about six feet in diameter had been drawn in what looked like sidewalk chalk on the back wall—a blue ring, then a red ring, then a white ring. In the centre of the innermost circle was a complex scrawl of loops and angles.
Mike knew better than to equate youth with an absence of threat, but nothing about the kids looked dangerous. Two of them—a thin, white female and a tall, East Indian male—were all but bouncing out of their black high-tops. One of them—white male, shortest of the four—stood with his shoulders hunched and hands shoved into his hoodie’s pockets, looking a little scared. The body language of the girl doing the chanting suggested she wasn’t going to accept failure as an option.
He glanced down at Vicki and mouthed, “Demon?”
She shrugged and lifted her head to murmur, “I have no idea,” against his ear.
Whatever it was they were doing, they hadn’t done it yet. Teenagers, he could handle. Demons…
He could handle demons, but he’d rather not.
Pushing his coat back to expose the badge on his belt, he pushed open the door. “Tell me,” he snapped in his best voice-of-authority, “that you’re not raising the dead because that never turns out well.”
The scared boy made a sound Mike was pretty sure he’d deny later. The other two froze in place, mouths open. The chanting girl stopped chanting and turned—white female, pierced eyebrow, pierced lower lip. She had what looked like a silver fish-knife in one hand and an impressive scowl for someone her age. This close, he doubted any of them were over fifteen.
“Ren!” Scared boy took a step toward her. “It’s the cops.”
“I can see that.” She shoved a fall of black and white striped hair back off her face. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done!”
“What’s done?” Vicki asked.
Mike hadn’t seen Vicki move, so h
e was damned sure Ren hadn’t. In all fairness, he had to admire her nerve—if he hadn’t been watching her, he wouldn’t have seen the flinch as she turned to find Vicki smiling at her from about ten centimetres away.
“The ritual.”
“I don’t see a demon.” Vicki peered into the bowl. “Unless it’s a very small demon. Another mouse,” she added, glancing over at Mike.
“Demons.” The bouncing boy rolled his eyes. “As if.”
“That’s so last millennium,” the girl beside him snorted.
Ren’s gaze skittered off Vicki’s face, but with the Hunter so close to the surface, Mike gave her points for the attempt. “If you must know,” she said as pride won out over a preference to keep the adults in the dark. “I’ve opened a portal.”
“A portal?” Mike repeated, glancing around the mausoleum.
“Might be a very small portal,” Vicki offered.
All four teenagers looked over at the circles chalked on the rear wall.
“It takes time!” Ren said defensively. She set the knife down forcefully enough that the metal rang against the stone then moved around the crypt so that nothing stood between her and the wall.
Given that Vicki made no move to stop her, Mike figured the odds of the portal opening were small.
“Come on.” Ren beckoned to the others. “We need to be ready.”
“But Ren, they’re cops!” the scared boy protested, hanging back as the other two joined her.
“Their laws have no relevance here.”
Mike sighed. The last things he wanted to do was spend the night arguing with teenagers. “Okay, guys, I get that you’re bored and looking for some excitement, but at the very least this is trespassing. Let’s just pack things up, promise to take up hobbies that don’t involve graveyards, and we’ll see you get home.”
Ren ignored him. Spearing the scared boy with an imperious gaze, she snapped, “Cameron!”
The scared boy ran to join the others just as the centre of the chalked circle flared white then black then cleared to show a dark sky filled with stars too orange to be familiar. Mike thought he saw the dark silhouettes of buildings and was certain he could smell rotting meat.
“We are so out of here,” Ren sneered as she stepped back through the circle pulling Cameron with her. An instant later, Vicki stood holding the black and silver hoodie of the unnamed girl as the other two followed.
Almost immediately, someone began to scream.
Cameron.
The circle started to close. The first fifteen centimetres in from the white chalk line already returned to grubby stone and flaking mortar.
Mike knew what Vicki was going to do before she did it. As he charged around the crypt—to stop her, to join her, he had no idea—she shot him a look that said half a dozen things he didn’t want to consider too closely and dove through a hole no more than a metre across. Then half a metre. He couldn’t follow.
All four kids were screaming now.
Vicki was stronger, faster, and damned hard to kill, but in another world she might be no more of a threat than Cameron was.
Barely a handspan of portal remained. Mike snapped his extra clip off his belt, threw it and his weapon as hard as he could into the dark, then stood staring at a blank stone wall.
The silence was so complete he could hear the candles flickering on the crypt behind him.
*
Vicki had no idea what the hell she was facing. It looked a bit like The Swamp Thing, only a phosphorescing grey, with three large yellowing fangs about ten centimetres long—two on the top, one on the bottom across a wobbling lip from a jagged stub. It was big—three, three and a half metres high although it was hard to tell for certain given that it rested its weight on the knuckles of one clawed hand as it stuffed bits of Cameron into its mouth. The other three teenagers crouched among the rubble at the base of a crumbling wall and screamed.
Moonlight and starlight reflected off the pale stone of the ruins, denying them the merciful buffer of full darkness. There was light enough to see their friend die.
The scent of Cameron’s blood pulled the Hunger up. Although Vicki drew her lips back off her teeth and shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, she held her position. She could do nothing for Cameron.
If the creature was willing to move on, she’d let it.
It wasn’t.
The kids realized that the same time she did.
On the bright side, as it lurched toward them, ramped-up terror stopped the screaming.
It roared and swatted at her too slowly to connect as she raced up the closest pile of rubble. When the rubble ended, she launched herself onto its shoulders, wrapping both hands around its head.
Her fingers sank deep into rubbery flesh, but got a grip on the bone beneath as she twisted. Back home, bipedal meant a spine and a spinal column, but she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Nothing cracked.
It wrapped a hand around her leg.
Snarling, she wrapped her hand in turn around one of the upper fangs, snapping it off at the base and jabbing it deep into the creature’s neck as it yanked her off its shoulders. The flesh parted like tofu wrapped in rubber, and it cut its own throat.
Just before she hit the ground, Vicki realized that the orange fluid spilling from the gash was not what she knew as blood.
One problem at a time! She rolled with the impact and bounced up onto her feet, ready for round two.
Rising up to its full height, throat gaping, it staggered back a step. Cameron’s leg fell from lax fingers. It wobbled in place for a moment, then it collapsed with an entirely unsatisfactory squelch.
Under normal circumstances, Vicki’d make sure it was dead, but nothing about this even approached normal so she turned instead to check on the kids. Heads down, huddled close and weeping, all three still cowered at the base of the wall. Stepping toward them, she kicked something that skittered across the uneven pavement.
The 19-round magazine for a Glock 17.
Mike’s scent clung to it.
A heartbeat later she had the Glock in her hand. He hadn’t been able to follow her through the contracting portal so he’d…
Which was when it hit her.
Even through the nearly overpowering scent of Cameron’s blood, Vicki knew exactly where she’d first touched the ground in this new world. There was no sign of the portal.
No way to get…
The air currents against her cheek changed. She threw herself down and to the side as an enormous flock of black, featherless birds dropped out of the sky—those that could landing on the fallen creature, the rest circling, waiting for their chance to feed.
Scavengers. With curved raptor beaks, they ripped off chunks of flesh, fighting challengers for their place on the corpse with the bone spurs on the tips of their pterodactyl-like wings. About a dozen fought over the pieces of Cameron.
They weren’t particularly large, but there was one hell of a lot of them.
A shriek of pain brought her back up onto her feet and racing toward the kids. Denied their place at the feast, a few of the birds were making a try for fresher meat, wheeling and diving and easily avoiding Ren’s flailing arms. Vicki could smell fresh blood. One of the kids had taken a hit.
Twisting her head just far enough to avoid a bone spur ghosting past her cheek, she grabbed the attacking bird out of the air, crushed it, tossed it aside. And then another. And then she was standing over the kids, with blood that wasn’t blood dripping from her hands, teeth bared, killing anything that came close enough.
After a few moments, nothing did.
Recognizing a predator, those scavengers not feeding pulled back to circle over the corpse.
Ren screamed when Vicki turned toward her.
“Be quiet!” Vicki snapped, giving thanks for the whole Prince of Darkness thing when Ren gave one last terrified hiccup and fell silent. Considering the welcome they’d already had, the odds were very good screaming would not attract bunnies and unicorns. “Now do wh
atever it is you have to do to get us the hell out of here.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Open the portal that’ll take us home.” Vicki gave her points for looking in the right direction, but given Ren’s rising panic, didn’t wait for a response. “You can’t, can you?” She kept her tone matter-of-fact, used it to smack the panic back down, didn’t let her own need to scream out denial show. “Not from this side.”
“We weren’t going to go back.” Ren waved a trembling hand at the corpse and the scavengers and the sky of red stars. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
“Yeah, well, surprise.” A scavenger with more appetite than survival instinct tried to take a piece out of the top of her head, and Vicki crushed it almost absently, wiping her hand on her jeans as she watched the circling birds. Some of them were flying fairly high. They’d be visible as silhouettes against the night to anyone—or anything—with halfway decent vision. It reminded her of lying on the sofa with Mike, soaking up his warmth, and watching the National Geographic channel…
“They’re going to draw other scavengers. The way vultures do. Maybe other predators. We have to find cover.”
“How do you know that?”
“Animal Planet.”
“But you’re a…” Even though she was clearly fine with poking holes into other realities, Ren couldn’t seem to say it.
This was neither the time nor the place for denial.
“Vampire. Nightwalker. Member of the bloodsucking undead.” Vicki frowned, trying to remember the rest and coming up blank. Three would have to do. “I have cable. And I’m your best bet if you want to survive this little adventure.” Hand on the girl’s shoulder, Vicki could feel her trembling, but whether it was from Cameron’s grizzly death or the proximity to one of Humanity’s ancient terrors there was no way to be sure. Unfortunately, Vicki had no time for kindness that didn’t involve keeping these three kids alive.
No time to give into fear of her own.
She studied the area, for the first time able to look beyond the immediate need to kill. This wasn’t the night she knew. The portal had opened on a broad street that looked a bit like University Avenue by way of a hell dimension, the paving cracked and buckled. The closest stone buildings were ruins, but some offered more shelter than others. The solidest of the lot was on the other side of the corpse—not worth the risk—but about two hundred meters away, where the road began a long sweeping arc to the left, was a structure that still had a second and third floor even though the actual roof was long gone. Better still, it looked as the though the colonnaded entrance had partially collapsed leaving an opening too small to admit Cameron’s killer—or more specifically, under the circumstances, its friends and family.
