Rune Awakening

by Genevra Black

  “I lost track of time. Family stuff.” She paused. “I usually wouldn’t take a second shift on a gig day, but I need the money.”

  Klein just raised their perfect platinum eyebrows and turned to hang up some martini glasses. They always had a way of prying details out of Edie without even saying a word.

  “My hamster’s sick, so I gotta take it to the vet.”

  “B’aww, poor guy. You better get moving, then. Mommy won’t be happy if her guests aren’t entertained.”

  Edie cringed at the thought of her totally cringe-worthy boss, and just nodded.

  It was true. On the surface, Scarlet was an okay person. She seemed quirky and interesting, even though her latter-day Elvira aesthetic was campy at best (obviously, considering she’d furnished and named Nocturnem) and offensive at worst (who the hell wore overcoats made of Victorian straitjackets?), but mostly it was harmless.

  However, once you spent enough time with her—like, say, if you worked for her—you got to see another side. She was cold as ice, unforgiving, mean just for the sake of it, and vindictive like nothing Edie had ever witnessed before. Her acrimoniousness never seemed to have any basis in reality, but it was all-compassing once her outer shell had been cracked. Nothing she said could be untainted.“Go kick ass,” Klein said, giving her a thumbs up with their right hand while they poured a shot of tequila with the other.

  Well, at least Klein seemed to think she’d do an okay job.

  Guitar case bumping against her leg, Edie parted the thick velvet curtains that led to the employees-only area. It was dark, the only light coming from two porthole windows on the kitchen doors directly in front of her and a dim red light toward the backstage area, down the hall to her left.

  The backstage area was small, lit with tiny red lamps so the performers could see where they were going. There was enough room to store some props and to change clothing if need be, but it wasn’t big enough to loiter in. It extended beyond into a weakly lit, mildewy maintenance room containing a washer and dryer, a couple of industrial sinks, and cleaning supplies.

  She made her way into the maintenance room and sat on the cement step in front of the washer and dryer. She didn’t want to be in the way of the tailcoat singer when he exited stage.

  Setting her guitar case next to her, she smoothed a hand over it—black leather with a little plaque inscribed with her name. It was the most expensive thing she owned. Dad had bought it along with her first bass guitar, a long time ago, but it didn’t have a scratch on it. When she wasn’t bumping into mannequins like an idiot, she took exceptional care of it.

  Thinking of her dad always got Edie wrapped up in her own head. She went through the motions of getting ready for her performance: looking over her set list without really reading it, taking out a compact to touch up her dark makeup. She was acutely aware of her dad’s slate eyes, his pointy nose and chin, and his round cheekbones looking back at her in the mirror.

  She was so distracted it took her a moment to notice that the mellow music drifting from the stage was no longer accompanied by the wailing tailcoat man. He retreated backstage, red-faced and dripping sweat, like a melting Robert Smith who was about to collapse and leave behind only flesh-goo and the remnants of his leather pants.

  That meant she was up soon. Alone. Without Mercy.

  Just because Edie wrote most of DYSMANTLE’s original songs didn’t mean she had the stage presence to carry a whole performance, but hopefully she’d do okay. Anyway, she couldn’t back out now. The rest of the band—the one that had performed with Melting Robert Smith, and that would now perform with her—was taking a break, but she only had a few minutes to prepare. Anxiety knotted in her stomach.

  It was almost enough to make her forget what was waiting for her at home.

  The crowd did not fill out. But by the time her set was over, there was a decent wave of customers for a weekday night, so she was stuck waiting tables. And, god help her, the night just kept getting weirder and weirder.

  It kind of made sense. If Edie was going to have a mental breakdown, of course it would come to a head at Nocturnem. The place didn’t really lend itself to positive thought. But she was starting to think the feeling that she was being watched was more than just her brain stress-cannibalizing itself.

  The past two hours, two of the guys she was waiting on had been making her nervous. They were definitely out of place. The first was a young, tan white guy probably around her age, with a shaved head, a beard, and a seriously beefy build. The second one was definitely creepier: pale and skinny, ginger, wearing a T-shirt that was way too big for him and rubbing his sweaty hands on the jeans sagging around his waist.

  They’d arrived about an hour into her shift and had been ordering drink after drink without ever seeming to get drunker, and plate after plate of tapas without slowing down. She’d had to stop serving them food when the kitchen closed for the night, and they’d only been more aggressive since then—rude when they spoke to her and not all that pleasant to the other patrons, either.

  Working here, Edie saw all types of weirdos and freaks, and got along just fine with most of them, but there was something different about these guys. They had an air about them that sent shivers up her spine. She had taken to retreating behind the bar whenever she could, just to be away from them. Now she sat near the ice bucket, with her knees drawn up to her chest, trying to distract herself with her phone.

  Klein didn’t seem to mind. They were quiet, moving to refill a drink, before they nodded over the bar. “Hey, those two creeps are looking around for you again.”

  “Great.”

  “I swear to god,” Klein said, leaning against the back of the bar, “if they step out of line with one of the other customers, I’m going to kick their asses.”

  “Don’t worry.” Edie held a breath, rose, and turned to the shelf behind the bar.

  There were a hundred bottles there, reflected in the diamond-shaped mirrors and twinkling in the dim light like a wall of stained glass. She grabbed a couple and prepared their drinks—the same whiskey cocktail they had ordered all night—trying to shake off their unwavering stares. When the drinks were finished, she headed toward their table, dragging her feet at the thought of another uncomfortable exchange with them.

  They were completely quiet as Edie served them their drinks. Then she straightened up and looked between them. “Uh ... is there anything else I can get for you guys?”

  They didn’t say anything, just stared at her.

  “Oookay. Just let me know.”

  She was starting to back away from them when the skinny one made a strange noise deep in his throat, a sort of rumbling. She couldn’t tell if it was a burp or a growl, but when she looked at him, his eyes were ... different than they had been. Something pale blue flashed in them, moved behind his glare like a living thing slithering through his skull.

  On stage, the bass and the beat of the drums seemed to deepen and slow, stirring up a strange energy between her and the man sitting in front of her.

  Her heart began to thunder. It was as if time slowed around them. The room was getting darker, the shadows cast by the eerie tree cutouts becoming longer, raking over her.

  A long, low note like a fog siren echoed in her mind, and in her peripheral vision she could have sworn she saw the other man at the table … change. Was it just a trick of the light, or was his skin suddenly bone-white?

  She jerked her head in his direction, but he looked as he had before. And with her gaze now broken from the other man, the yawning darkness subsided; the sounds of clinking glasses and the mellow beat of the music reached her again.

  She didn’t look at them. She couldn’t. Turning tightly, Edie walked past the bar without acknowledging Klein and threw back the maroon curtains that led to the employees-only area.

  She managed to make it to the adjacent wall before she sank down, clutching her head in her hands. Between this and what had happened the other night with Hervey, she was close to losing i
t. In fact, evidence would suggest she already had.

  On top of that, she still hadn’t told Mercy about her fish.

  The anxiety was just getting to her. That had to be it. She was exhausted and stressed, and she was starting to get confused.

  “You feeling okay?”

  She looked up to see Klein there, a full bottle of water in one hand and a somewhat concerned look on their face.

  After a moment of staring at them, she heaved herself to her feet. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just kind of stressed. And those guys aren’t really helping. But I’m okay.”

  She looked away when she noticed that Klein was looking her over with a little quirked eyebrow, like they could see right through her. She was suddenly certain that if she looked them directly in the eyes, she’d die—like they were one of those cursed paintings or something.

  Finally, they seemed to accept her answer. With a sigh, they said, “Listen, why don’t you go home early? Or at least go on your break.” They glanced at their wristwatch and thrust the water bottle into her hand with a pat. “You know what, your shift’s almost over, anyway.”

  She squeezed the bottle idly, trying to keep a flat, uninterested expression. Yep, totally fine. Nothing wrong at all. “You sure? You’d practically be alone.”

  Klein waved a hand. “Oh, phff. It’s not likely to get any busier. I can handle myself. Besides, you look like you haven’t slept in an age. Go! Before I change my mind,” they added teasingly.

  Edie dropped her act. The sooner she could get out of here, the better. Wordlessly, she darted backstage to grab her guitar.

  Chapter Four

  The next night brought another long shift, and it was around one in the morning when Edie finally started back home from Nocturnem. The past couple nights had been a blur of working and taking sleep where she could get it. Hervey wasn’t getting any better, and her run-in with those creeps the night before had her looking over her shoulder at every little noise.

  And noises really piled up when you lived in a city as big as Anster. She was a wreck.

  With the sun down, the pleasant, bright heat of the spring day was gone, and it was frigid as she walked, hugging herself around the middle to keep her broken zipper closed. Usually, Mercy and Drake would walk with her if they were free, but she was on her own tonight, and there were only so many groups of people she could follow before she got to her neighborhood. No city was exactly a safe haven, especially this late at night, and Edie didn’t live in the friendliest neighborhood in the whole world, but she’d never felt uneasy like she did now.

  She walked faster.

  Her apartment entrance didn’t face any main street; it was hidden a bit and could only be reached by an alley. The alley led into a yard that must have been a mews or garden a century earlier, when the building had been one big house, and to what had once been the back door.

  She lived at the end of a hallway with one other apartment, and that back door was the only way in; it had probably been the servant’s quarters at one point or something. It was a nice set-up if you wanted some privacy, but the illusion of isolation in a big city gave her the creeps. It was like her apartment existed in liminal space.

  Thinking about it as she walked alone unsettled her. She’d left behind the busy, taxi-filled streets, and her only thought was of getting home and locking the door.

  Dread settled in her gut. She walked faster.

  Something was not right. Beyond her paranoia, something was … wrong.

  The feeling reminded her of Hervey’s “episode,” as she’d taken to calling it. It had been almost exactly three days since it had happened, and that short moment of time lost still made her feel uneasy. She slept with the blankets pulled up around her head; she’d started sleeping with a fan on to drown out the undertone of voices that babbled at her if she listened to the silence hard enough. The more she listened, the louder the voices got, like they had noticed she could hear them.

  She couldn’t help but feel that what had happened with Hervey hadn’t been natural—and that the dead fish in Mercy’s room was her fault, too. The instinct didn’t make a lot of sense, but she couldn’t shake the guilt. Dad had always said to follow her instincts. Though, to be fair, he probably hadn’t meant, Yeah, definitely reasonable to assume the reason your animals are all dying and going into shock is because everything you touch dies.

  The feeling that she was just out of the reach of something—both in her subconscious and physically, there, on the street—made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and she trotted a little faster in the direction of her apartment.

  Eventually, she could see the building’s front stoop sitting tantalizingly close, just across a cement playground. Normally, she wouldn’t have cut through the playground—it was lined with pines on one side and got pretty dark near the trees—but she wanted to get inside as soon as possible.

  Just as she was reaching the far side, almost home free, something tore from the bushes behind her.

  She could hear an animal’s claws skitter, then a thud as it fell heavily to the ground behind her. A wave of heat and foul breath followed and hit her in the back. She stumbled, caught herself—and froze. Her instincts, if she could trust those, told her a large predator had just dropped behind her.

  But when she whipped around to face it, all she saw was the figure of a human man. He knelt on the ground as if to catch his breath, and a moment later, a second male figure sprinted through the bushes to meet him.

  “Get up, he’s coming!” the second man told the first urgently.

  As the two turned, she could see them more clearly—and she recognized them. The creeps from the bar, from yesterday.

  Edie watched them, heart rate flaring up. She couldn’t just turn and run. They would follow her, and her apartment was right there. No way she could lose them before she reached it.

  It was a second before the first one recognized her. Something passed between them; recognition, anger, fear all shone in his eyes as he studied her. It was how she imagined she would look at her worst enemy. She returned the look with nothing but confusion, taking a few steps back.

  The guy hoisted himself up with a little help from his ginger friend and muttered, “I held him up a mile or so back.” He tossed his head in Edie’s direction. “Look.”

  The ginger guy followed his motion and noticed Edie for the first time, which seemed odd. She was right there; she’d been standing there the entire time. His face reflected a range of emotions similar to those of his friend, but his eyes looked more frenzied, hungrier. Out of control.

  She didn’t know why, or how, but she knew they hated her.

  They were coming closer. In an instant, they both seemed taller, somehow, their eyes shadowed. And in that shadow, their faces ... changed.

  Their eyes darkened until only concentrated points of white light stared out at her, boring into her; a chattering sound like rattling bones rose with them as they became taller and thinner, their shadows lengthening and throwing her into darkness. Their limbs slimmed until they looked like the branches of dead trees; their faces were gaunt and ghastly, their complexions sun-starved.

  Edie was absolutely frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening, let alone choose between fight or flight. They weren’t men anymore. They were completely different creatures.

  Something dripped from a mouth lined with long, razor-sharp needles. It oozed along her shoulder, and she moved only her eyes to watch the fluid—pitted with air pockets and reeking of something terrible—glitter down her leather jacket.

  Oh, god. It was drool.

  She turned her eyes back to the things towering above her. They were morphing and changing and rasping.

  And then a third figure, glowing in the darkness, leapt over the bushes and touched down behind her.

  Chapter Five

  Whoever was behind her seized her by the arm and pulled her to the side. The quick movement caught her off guard, and she tripped over a curb, falling back o
nto the concrete and smacking the back of her skull.

  She didn’t know if it was because of a head injury or the adrenaline that shot through her, but it felt like a full minute and a half before she was able to pull herself upright, though it was probably only a few moments. Her vision spun, the scene in front of her a jumble of bright light and white limbs streaking across her field of vision; but even as things slowly came into focus, they still didn’t make much sense.

  The figure that had pulled her aside looked like a man, and, thankfully, wasn’t changing. He was tall and lean, with smooth, cool brown skin. Dark auburn hair was slicked back out of his face, and he was dressed in what appeared to be armor: light-colored leather, chainmail, and silvery-white plates glistened back at her like a beacon in the night.

  He was in a battle stance next to her fallen form, and as she stared, open-mouthed, he jerked forward like he was going to fling himself at the creatures.

  “Hey!” She flung out an arm and managed to catch his left hand.

  She got a better look at his face when he whirled to snap, “Get out of my way!” He had high cheekbones and narrow eyes—golden, brighter than she thought was humanly possible—with a long, downturned nose and a strong jaw.

  “What are you doing?” she croaked, refusing to release him.

  Even though he was clearly positioned to defend her, he looked at her with hatred so pure it sent a shiver down her spine. Something about him was dangerous; she could feel it like he was alerting a sixth sense.

  The monsters weren’t blinded by his arrival anymore; they were starting to scramble away.

  The glowing man wrenched himself from her grip with surprising strength. “I said get out of my way.”