Night Rising

by Chris Marie Green

  Don’t even comment, Dawn thought. It wasn’t like they were trying to get into the Viper Room, so she’d let the wardrobe pass—especially after Breisi shoved herself into a shoulder holster and then a lightweight black jacket.

  Dawn kept staring at where the jacket was covering Breisi’s gun. A real gun loaded with real ammunition, no doubt.

  Kiko undid his seat belt and strapped himself into his own rig and light jacket. “Breisi’s the good cop. I’m the unpredictable one, like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon.”

  Dawn tried not to freak out any more than she was already doing. “This should be fascinating.”

  Kiko stood on the floorboard, and even he had to duck. He swept his arms out dramatically, dismissing any hurt feelings from Dawn’s wrist snatch.

  “You’re in good hands,” he said. “We have trained with the best. It’s all in the acting.”

  Shit. “So she’s one, too. An actor?”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  Dawn held back all her opinions about what a joke actors were, especially ones who thought they could do their own stunts…and carry their own guns.

  “Breisi is also a thespian in her day hours,” Kiko added. “Up until a year ago, she was on Bandito.”

  “What’s that?”

  Kiko pulled a superior look out of his arsenal. “Bandito? It’s only the most popular Mexican soap ever. Breisi was a virgin who got gunned down before the Bandito could ravish her.”

  No wonder she had such attitude. Lack of sex would sure make Dawn testy, too.

  He lowered his voice. “She got written off because they said thirty-one-year-olds make bad ingénues. Ouch. I’m twenty-seven, myself, and I’m scared that I’ll get the shaft when I reach the big—”

  Breisi had obviously been listening. “Kik, could you maybe tell her about my last Pap smear, too, since you’re spilling my whole life?”

  “Sorry.” Kiko opened his door and climbed out.

  Dawn followed suit, marveling that a loquacious little person and a teddy-bear-shirt-wearing grump were the ones who’d been appointed to find Frank. She’d already talked to the police about his disappearance, but hadn’t been assured by their blasé tone that they were invested in finding him. Maybe she’d call again later tonight, now that there was officially no hope left.

  Everyone shut their doors quietly. A dog barked in the near distance, mingling with the wind, making the night seem that much more unfriendly.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Dawn asked, “how did my dad fit into a…”whacked out“…place like Limpet and Associates?”

  Breisi tucked her thumbs into her belt loops and looked off into the bushes. Leaves rustled, dancing to an eerie song.

  “Mr. Frank Madison was our best PR man,” Kiko said, his voice still hushed. “He was good at taking people into his confidence, and he could fight, too. Real good, and believe me, that’s a nice skill to have handy in this job.”

  As the bushes rattled, Breisi opened her jacket and slid her hand into a pants pocket at the same time, like she was tuned in to a frequency Dawn couldn’t hear. But Kiko was looking at Dawn like she should already know what kind of life her dad led.

  She didn’t. From what Dawn knew of Frank, he was a good-time guy, a former bar bouncer who’d managed to charm his way into Eva Claremont’s pants one vulnerable night. The scandal had rocked the tabloids because this was before Madonna got busy with her personal trainer and made the whole star-falls-for-normal-mortal trend “the thing.”

  “Yo, Kiko.” It was Breisi. She’d gone stiff, one hand poised near her gun, the other near a pants pocket as she watched the bushes. “Be prepared.”

  Spurred by her sharp tone, he immediately turned into Serious Kiko and stuck a hand in an open cargo pants pocket. There was a bulge there, something Dawn hadn’t gotten a bead on before.

  “Wasn’t expecting this,” he muttered.

  Both of the PIs were focused on the strangely silent foliage. When had the rustling stopped?

  Slowly, Dawn dragged her gaze there, too.

  Three pairs of red eyes were staring, blinking.

  Waiting.

  Holy…

  “Here,” Breisi whispered.

  Dawn felt something solid, steely, nudge her left hand. She opened her fingers and grabbed whatever the other woman was giving her. It didn’t feel like a gun or a knife, items Dawn had been trained to use.

  “And stop looking into their eyes,” Kiko added. “Rule of thumb in this business? It’s never a good idea to do that.”

  She followed his advice and glanced just above their steady red gazes. Were they guard dogs? Had Marla Pennybaker gotten defensive about them coming over to see her husband and set the hounds loose on them? Maybe looking into their eyes sent some kind of predatory message that would rile them up.

  Dogs. Okay, she could handle this. She’d dealt with canine actors before.

  Dawn raised the object she was gripping, ready and willing to fend them off.

  But when she saw what Breisi had given her, she froze.

  A silver crucifix.

  And as one of the creatures moved forward, to the edge of the darkness, she realized that these sure as hell weren’t dogs they were facing.

  Five

  The Damned

  Even before Dawn could choke out a question—What are these things?—Bresi shoved what was clearly a gun, a .45-caliber revolver, into Dawn’s right hand.

  “Listen, you must hold up the crucifix, cover me with the gun—you’ve been trained to use it, si?—and don’t you bleeping move from that spot…”

  Her voice trailed off, and Dawn had the bad feeling that Breisi was hightailing it back to the SUV, deserting them. When she heard a door pop open, her fears were confirmed. But then it sounded like Breisi was rooting around in that back storage area. For what? Shit! She’d left Dawn standing all alone with Kiko, who’d thrust out his own crucifix and gun and…

  The red eyes were getting closer, framed by the hint of pale faces outlined in the darkness.

  Damn it, what was she doing here again?

  Dawn’s gun and crucifix started shaking in her hands.

  Gradually, moonlight revealed three black-clad creatures hunching out of the trees, moving in a way she’d never imagined possible. It was like they were wildly palpitating heartbeats, stopping and starting in a fluttering stalking motion that iced her blood. More out of panic than anything else, Dawn pushed her crucifix at them, corrected her grip on the revolver.

  Closer. Dear Lord…

  Even bent over, they were hulking, like jittering shadows looming against a pale wall. Their skin was white and shot through with blue veins, their heads hairless, their hands shriveled into sharp claws. When they hissed at the crucifixes—a throaty whistle that rose above the wind—a peek of dull gray caught the faint light: fangs. Iron, sharpened to points.

  Dawn’s legs wobbled, but she stood, damned if she would back down from anything—even a…whatever these were.

  Just cowboy up, she told herself. Just do it.

  Surprisingly, Kiko didn’t seem to be much affected. He took a cool step toward them, brandishing his weapons. “Talk to us before we mess you up.”

  Talk?

  Dawn’s head scrambled into itself, dizzy cuts of nightmare flashes. Not real, she kept thinking. Make-up, prosthetics, fake movie monsters…

  As Kiko took another step forward, the things cringed and shrieked at his crucifix. It was like the silver symbols provided some sort of force field, pushing the creatures back.

  Dawn imitated him, emphasizing her own crucifix. In the background, she heard Breisi’s feet hit the ground running.

  Kiko was mere yards away from the things now. “Not a chatty crowd? Fine. If you’re capable, just tell me why you’re here, that’s all.”

  That’s when Dawn did something stupid.

  Out of habit, a split second of forgetfulness, she looked one of them in the eyes.

  Red fire, sucking her in.
/>   She dropped her crucifix, helpless.

  Kiko and Breisi yelled something at the same moment, but she had no idea what they were saying. She just knew that she wanted to jump into the fire, wanted to end it all because everything was so, so hopeless.

  Her dad was missing; she was a pariah in the movie industry; she was a loser…

  Unable to stop herself, she raised her gun, wanting to point it at her head, wanting to fill all the empty spaces inside of her with lead and peace. Wanting—

  A million jagged shards through her mind—the memory of this evening in The Voice’s office…fighting off the personal intrusion…struggling to get back her body, her mind…

  Get out of my head, you asshole.

  With a determined cry, Dawn jerked her gaze away, feeling her sanity rush back. Separating from the eyes had been like tearing away from an umbilical cord that had given her dark serenity and direction, even for a muddled instant.

  Stumbling backward, she sucked in a choking breath, focusing back on reality with sharp, growing horror.

  Wouldn’t you know it? The creatures had backup plans.

  Without missing a beat, the things all turned their backs at the same time, and that’s when Dawn, even in her fluster, noticed a detail she’d missed from the frontal view.

  Tails. Long, barbed, whip-fast.

  One tail whooshed out to knock the crucifix from Kiko’s hand. The others sang through the air, propelling the remaining two creatures skyward into stop-and-start-motion flight.

  One barreled toward Breisi, who was aiming what looked like a crossbow at it.

  And the other was zooming toward Dawn.

  Tunnel vision swirled around her, blocking out everything but the next second and then the one after that—thuds of time that sped by much too quickly, bringing the monsters with them. Instinctively, she bent her knees and aimed the gun at her own attack creature. But she was too slow.

  It’d already doubled its tail back, then sliced it through the air in a stuttering, whistling arc that blurred her sight. Before Dawn could process the motion, it had swept her legs out from under her, a stinging shock of agony cutting through her jeans and to the flesh of one of her calves, the force of its tail-snap crashing her to the ground. Her gun went flying out of her hand.

  For a stunned second, Dawn saw something blinking at her from the black sky.

  Stars. Those are called stars, and you’re on your back looking at them, you idiot….

  A swooping sound forced her to spring to a crouch, just as she’d been trained to do. Her leg was smarting, but there was no chance to think about that as a long tail flashed at her. Dawn ducked, glanced madly around for her gun, spied it about three feet away. She was vaguely aware of Kiko and Breisi tangling with the other two things, but that was white noise.

  All Dawn could register was that she needed to survive, needed to overcome the thumping blood in her veins, the fast-forward zoom of a fight she didn’t know if she could handle since it wasn’t choreographed move by move.

  Without glancing at the creature, she knew deep in her gut that it had caught sight of her gun, too. An endless moment passed as Dawn felt the thing crouching on the ground, staring at her, daring her to go for her weapon.

  Ga-gump, ga-gump…

  Her heartbeat darted around each chopping catch of breath. Don’t look at it, she kept thinking. Don’t you dare look at that thing again. Its gaze is like your crucifix….

  Damn it, she had to get that revolver. Had to—

  A drawn-out hiss reminded her that her enemy was only a few feet away.

  Get it before it gets you!

  Adrenaline bursting, she sprang toward the weapon, ears full of that whipping tail’s scream. But before she could get to the gun, the creature flew right next to it, landing on all fours, challenging her.

  Fear speared through Dawn’s belly: these things could fly with the propulsion of their tails. They could hurt her with the barbed end of them. And those fangs…those long, sharp iron fangs…

  With a flash of white, the creature spit at her.

  Swallowing a shocked grunt, she dodged to the side, but not before the stream of moisture hit her arm with a sizzling burn.

  “Ahhh!”Dawn darted away from another expectoration, while the spit ate away at her flesh. She gritted her teeth to keep from yelling again as she scrambled out of the monster’s present range. Just in front of her, grass crackled, charred from the fluids.

  “Dawn—duck and cover!”

  Breisi’s voice. Like a good stunt person, Dawn followed directions, obeying her gut instinct as well as Breisi, because when you felt fear marching its cold little feet up your spine, you didn’t think twice about getting out of the way.

  Heaving herself to the ground, she flattened her body, catching a glimpse of Breisi rising up behind the creature, just to its left. The woman was aiming that crossbow, and after doing a double take, Dawn realized that, instead of an arrow, it was loaded with a circle of silver blades, almost like a very long, wide-toothed electric saw.

  As the creature straightened up and, sensing a new presence, cocked its head toward Breisi, the woman pulled the trigger.

  The blades exploded out of the bow in a flash of sparks, whizzing through the air with a high squeal of friction.

  Swick!

  Frantically, Dawn used her feet to gain purchase on the ground and launch herself away as the thing’s head popped off, serrated by the flying blades. Blood showered outward, barely missing Dawn as she rolled to safety, just in case the blood burned, too.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw that the creature’s headless body was still on alert, claws outstretched and frozen in its last moments. Then, with almost beautiful ease, the black clothing sucked into itself, the body losing form and disappearing.

  Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa…

  The babbling litany continued in her head as she grabbed the revolver and bolted to her feet, ignoring her boiling wounds. She was just doing a job, right? Another day, another dollar. Nothing but a gig on Quentin Tarantino’s set being catapulted through windows and beaten to a pulp by sadists while collecting higher pay adjustments for the stunt’s difficulty. She could take it. Screw these freakin’ mothers, she wasn’t going to be deadweight to Kiko and Breisi.

  The lies kept her sane—for now.

  Breisi was already working on wrenching her circle of blades from the tree trunk where it’d embedded itself. Dawn also noticed that the first creature Breisi had been fighting wasn’t around anymore.

  Instead of asking what had happened to it—Dawn could kind of assume that Breisi had the superhero rah-rah to have taken it out already—she ran over to retrieve her crucifix, then search out Kiko.

  She found him slowly moving among the trees, flashing his crucifix and gun like he really was a cop, except the crucifix made one odd badge. Without even looking, he motioned for Dawn to be quiet and still. He’d “read” her coming, she knew, but she wasn’t in the mood to kick his butt for it. Not right now.

  Using his chin, he gestured to the trees. Panting, Dawn took that to mean that a creature had whirred up to the treetops with its tail, probably to escape Breisi’s death machine.

  As the wind moaned past her body, a branch snapped somewhere to the left. Leaves shook to their right. Dawn took one direction while Kiko took the other.

  Fake, she thought again. All of this is what you’re used to handling on the job. No sweat.

  Snap, went another branch in the near distance.

  Pop, went another, in back of them this time.

  Waiting, waiting…Dawn wanted to scream. She felt the creature’s eyes all over her, cold chills that reminded her exactly who the prey was.

  But just as she was about to impulsively fire a bullet into the trees and beat the creature out of them, the thing took the initiative, whipping out of a bank of leaves right above them, its body shivering with that creepy stop-motion.

  Its barbed tail whished past Dawn’s face as she
bent backward, barely avoiding its branding sting, even though it did smack her crucifix out of her grip. Expertly she recovered, twisted her body, spun around, and landed a kick to what felt like its head. In one smooth move, she brought her gun around, finally ready for more action.

  The force of her kick had jammed it to the ground, but it wasn’t helpless. Far from it. With its tail, it had engaged Kiko in taunting combat, wrapping its length around his gun arm and slamming the small guy to the ground as Kiko struggled to regain his balance.

  And, lucky her, Dawn got the claws and teeth. The creature bent at the knees, biting at her, trying to scratch the crap out of her face. She dodged it, avoiding more injury only by virtue of her constant training. Vigilant practice had allowed her to read an opponent’s intentions—a skill that wasn’t tested nearly enough in all her staged fights.

  Adrenalized, she rose to the challenge, getting more confident every time she eluded the creature’s snapping teeth and flailing claws.

  Swipe, feint. Bite, dodge.

  Finally, Dawn snapped her gun up to its face, avoiding eye contact this time.

  “Heart!” Kiko said. “Aim for the heart!”

  She targeted.

  From behind, Kiko yelled as the creature’s tail flung him away, sending the psychic crashing against a tree. Then, without pause, the tail curved around, zinging and vibrating toward Dawn as her finger squeezed the trigger, and she dropped toward the ground.

  The creature only beat her by a millisecond.

  The tail smacked against her arm, sending her and the gun flying just as the shot rang out. Dawn ate dirt, but, by some miracle, found herself face to silver with her crucifix.

  With a balls-out yell, she grabbed it and rolled to her back. The tail came flying toward her, the end gleaming like the barbs had somehow grown. She thrust up the crucifix, meeting the tail with it, pressing it against the creature, hearing a wheeze of steam as the pale flesh met its comeuppance.

  The thing threw back its head and let out a tortured shriek.

  Meanwhile, Kiko calmly stepped in front of it, raised his own gun, then fired into its heart.