Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Bad dreams?” she asked.

  He nodded, and his limbs quaked, but he still did not breathe. He fumbled at the hem of the blanket and pulled it a little tighter.

  Kim’s first instinct when confronted with a crying person, human or otherwise, was to offer a shoulder, but there was no good way to do that without physical contact, which he obviously would not accept. She sat on the edge of the bed and hugged her knees to her chest, pursing her lips.

  “You can stay in here tonight if you want. Just, I should probably mention that most girls don’t appreciate when guys sneak into bed with them uninvited. Just for future reference.” She felt like she should attach an appropriate threat to the end of that statement, something about how she and her friends would make him sorry if he turned toothy on her, but she was tired, and he was crying, and she didn’t really even need her wizard’s intuition to tell her that all he wanted was to know someone else was close by.

  “Hey,” she said again, softer. “Hey. Y’know... Not everyone who touches you is gonna leave marks.”

  She scrunched up on her side on the opposite end of the bed and hoped she didn’t straighten out and kick him in her sleep. She also hoped he didn’t wig out and chomp on her, and that neither Zeb nor Coyote ever, ever found out about this. She had almost drifted off when she heard the bed creak and felt the backs of cold fingers settle into the palm of her hand.

  * * *

  HE WAS GONE when she woke up. The electric blanket was smoking quietly in the corner, so she unplugged it and dumped it into the bathtub before it could burn a hole in the carpet, then went to check the couch. He wasn’t there, either. Vickie was watching cartoons, and Kim gave serious thought to reaming her out, but there was a more pressing matter.

  The apartment door was closed, but unlocked. She didn’t remember checking it before she went to bed, but locking it was a habit, and she was sure she would have at least bolted it after Zeb and Coyote had left. She belted on a bath robe, stuck Zeb’s revolver inside it, and pattered down the hallway and down the stairs.

  The building lobby was empty, thank God. She wasn’t sure what kind of explanation she could possibly have offered Mrs. Huston, but she knew that anything she could possibly shoot off the cuff would sound like a hasty lie, and hasty lies attract further attention. She tiptoed across the lobby and peered out the door.

  He was there, standing on the curb in the warm drizzle, watching the street sign like he was afraid it would come after him.

  “Hey,” Kim said. He didn’t turn around.

  She sighed and pulled her robe tighter and slumped out into the rain.

  “Whatcha doing?” she asked. She looked up at the street sign, just in case he was seeing something she wasn’t, but it looked the same as it always had.

  “Have to g-g-go b-back,” he said dimly. His eyes were unfocused. “Have to. B-but... which way?”

  She supposed that staring at street signs was better than wandering aimlessly through Austin. On the other hand, it was starting to look as though Coyote had been right.

  “Nope,” she told him. “Not going back.” And then, in case it occurred to him to try anyway: “Seriously, you could wander around forever and just wind up completely lost. Completely. And then you’d never find your way back, would you? No, you’d better stick with me.”

  He slumped, too fried to escape that questionable logic. “B-but how long? Am... Am I a p-p-prisoner?”

  Kim snorted at the completely rotten irony of that little conversation and grabbed his hand to pull him back inside. Her bathrobe was starting to get heavy with the rain. The contact seemed to jar him a little bit more awake, and he looked at her with all the wary mistrust he had given the street sign. Still, though he flinched and his arm tightened, he didn’t pull his hand away. Like a small child, he let her lead him back inside.

  “Did you remember anything?” Kim asked quietly. “Got a name, maybe?”

  “Rocky.”

  “No, that’s what I called you. And I was joking.”

  “I d-don’t know another.”

  Kim chose the elevator over the stairs, even though it was only one floor up, and stood dripping on the dusty industrial carpet while she waited for the door to ping open. She wanted to ask what had happened to him, what Duran had done, but the elevator was not the place for an instant replay of last night. Besides, if he had any dignity left, it might not survive another round of that.

  The door slid open and she pulled him inside. Water dripped from their clasped hands. It was wrong, the way he complied, the way he apologized, the way he sought comfort. The way his arm jerked every so often, like he thought she was going to shoot needles into his palm, or something. The way he didn’t bother to hide his fear, too willing to show weakness. It wasn’t the first time Kim had dealt with the skeeters. If this all went horribly south, it wouldn’t be the first time she had needed to kill one, either. She had even messed with a hurt one, once, and the arrogant bastard had accepted her assistance like it was his due, promised her equivalent reciprocity at some point in the future, and made a token attempt to strangle her before she broke his nose. This one was something else entirely.

  “Why do you have to go back?” she asked suddenly. She had a gut feeling that the answer wouldn’t be his own, that it would be something Duran had drilled into him, but she had an equally strong feeling that the answer was important. She opened the door to her apartment and brought him in after her.

  “Bastian k-keeps me safe.”

  The same thing he had said before, but it only took Kim a second to realize that it did not mean what she had thought.

  “Say it again? Please?”

  His forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “He – B-bastian. Sebastian keeps me safe.”

  Most of the undead living in the state of Texas were fairly decent – practical, pragmatic assholes who didn’t particularly care if they hurt people, but didn’t take much pleasure in it, either. They had figured out that killing was poor strategy, attracted too much attention and brought hunters down on them, so they saved homicide for special occasions like birthdays and weddings. They were evil, of course, but it was a mellow, quiet evil that knew it wouldn’t survive long if it made a scene. Sebastian Duran was a completely different ball of wax, the sort that had lived longer than his mind could take, was drunk on his own power, and wanted everyone in the world to feel it. There were plenty more like him, and they all probably had their own sob stories of tragedy that bred madness, stuff that was supposed to excuse their actions but really didn’t.

  But there were others, too. At least, there were hints. It was an insult they sometimes used. She had first heard it as uszkodzony, and after she had found the right people to ask and learned to spell it correctly, she had found out that it meant broken. Every so often, one of them spared a life, did something human and kind, and their reasons had nothing to do with strategy or manipulation. That one was uszkodzony, and Kim understood that it could sometimes take decades for their reputation to recover from it. But she had also heard the word spoken with odd significance, like it carried a capital letter. Then, it wasn’t used as an insult so much as a name. They. A group. Uszkodzone. Broken Ones. Like for them, it wasn’t an occasional thing, not a fluke. If Duran had caught something Broken, something actually good, he might have been right to feel threatened.

  “Who do you think is after you?” Kim asked as she shut the door. She tried to keep her voice neutral, casual, like it was a perfectly legitimate question.

  She could almost feel his frown, and she held her breath.

  His answer came out slow and filled with shame.

  “After... A-after... me? No, I... I... muh-mean...”

  “You mean you’re scared of hurting other people, humans, and if you’re beat up down in the dark, you can’t kill anyone. He makes you safe.”

  He nodded, staring at her as though she had stood up with a thunderclap and begun to prophesy.

  “All the... d-down there... Ther
e were... All d-d-dead...”

  “Mm. Possible, but I doubt it.”

  “What?”

  Kim sat on the cleaner end of the couch and folded her arms.

  “I don’t think they were yours. I mean, first of all, if he was keeping you from killing people, why would he chuck people down there for you to kill? Second, there were claw marks everywhere, so you did try to get out at least once. If you had fed, you would have been able to break out. I mean, the door didn’t keep me out, so I don’t see how it could keep you in. So you were dry when you got there, and you stayed dry the whole time you were down there. Also, dunno how recent a development this is, but you can’t feed on your own. Or do you think he fed you and then drained you back out again?”

  She shot a glance at the ridges of scar tissue at his throat and wrists, understanding perfectly well what they were and how cruel it was to point them out, but she thought it was kinder than letting him think himself a murderer. What she didn’t understand was how well his brain had been wiped clean. He hadn’t known.

  He raised his hand to look at the galaxy of shiny, pinkish dots that punctuated the web of veins from his wrist to his elbow. She saw his white skin go even whiter, goosebumps prickling across his chest as his belly contracted in the grip of a memory that hadn’t been buried well enough. She could see him lose his grip on the world as the flashback bit at him, and she caught him before he could fall straight into the television. Touching was bad, she knew, especially at that moment, but she held him still until the whimpering stopped, and then she held his hand and laid out a plan of action.

  Then she called Coyote.

  “Hey,” she said into the phone. “He’s with us, definitely. Just doesn’t know it yet. Come over, and bring Zeb. Also, I’m going to need some men’s clothes and a new electric blanket.”

  * * *

  COYOTE BROUGHT THE clothes and blanket. The jeans were too long, and the plain white t-shirt fit like a circus tent, but the vampire seemed more comfortable clothed than he had in wet pajama pants. He huddled under the blanket, turned up as hot as it would go, and visibly relaxed.

  Kim made note of that – she had never noticed that music tamed any savage beasts, but simple heat did a pretty good job. It seemed to act on him almost like a drug; he let his eyes close and leaned against the back of the couch and for a moment, looked almost content.

  Zeb and Coyote waited patiently in the kitchen while she got her guest calmed, clothed, and situated, then listened as she explained in a whisper what she had figured out. She wasn’t sure why she whispered, since there was nowhere in the apartment a vampire could fail to hear her, but it seemed more considerate.

  “He’s better today,” she finished. “He was pretty bad this morning, when he tried to leave, but he seems more... more there. Lucid. Not completely, but definitely more than yesterday. So I’m guessing that means he’s going to continue getting better, maybe remember some stuff. Unfortunately, I think that also means Duran didn’t forget about him.”

  Coyote shot a look at Zeb. He scrunched his face up and shook his head, making his braid sway.

  “You’re asking for a lot of faith, Kim,” he said. “And I think you’re giving an awful lot of faith without a whole lot of evidence. If there are any of those... Ooshkahjuhnee out there, they’re few and far between. Help him, by all means, but don’t you trust him as far as you can throw him.”

  He paused, huffed, and seemed to get it out of his system.

  “What makes you say Duran didn’t forget him down there?” he asked.

  Kim frowned and glanced into the living room.

  “Rocky’s been here less than twenty-four hours,” she said. “Less than twenty-four hours, and he’s getting better, starting to shake off whatever Duran did to him. It probably happened faster because he’s, y’know, not completely dry and not stuck in the dark in a pile of bodies. That’d help anyone’s mental state. But if this crap can wear off, it’s got to be reinforced occasionally. Thus, somebody’s got to come around and reinforce it.”

  “Ongoin’ effort,” Zeb agreed. “Gotta take energy to keep up somethin’ like that. So our little friend’s not just a throwaway toy.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt and looked very seriously at Kim.

  “Kimmy,” he said, “you mighta just ticked off the devil, takin’ away his favorite. He might be comin’ after you, now.”

  “Only if he can find me. I haven’t been conspicuous. And it could take him a few days anyway to find out that his doom dungeon got trashed. That’s plenty of time to get a hold of Tony and Edith and get them down here to finish this mess.”

  “So what’s the plan until then?”

  “Feed him again. He’s functional, but not strong. Weak body does a mind no favors, so he’ll hopefully get better faster if he’s at or near healthy. If he doesn’t, Coyote, I was hoping you could take a walk with him. If he is Broken or whatever, we need to find that out fast, because if he is, there’s no telling what they might do to him in Amarillo.”

  “Last resort only,” Coyote warned. “I’m not real keen on taking a walk with anyone Duran’s gotten to. Those sons of guns can set booby traps like no one’s business.”

  “Truth. So if he doesn’t remember anything useful, say, by tomorrow...”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it.” Coyote leaned heavily on his cane for a moment, then moved back into the living room. The others followed.

  The man on the couch turned his face toward them slowly and opened his eyes. The pupils were dilated, and the whites had begun to take a pinkish tinge of straining capillaries. As Kim watched, a vein burst, and a vivid red stain appeared in the corner of his left eye.

  “Again?” he whispered. He sounded more resigned than afraid.

  Kim nodded. She didn’t anticipate anything less unpleasant than the last time, but she also guessed that even being held down was better than starving. The vampire managed to hold still until everyone was situated, but his muscles gradually tensed until he began to jerk weakly. Kim held his head still and poked open a bag of plasma. She got seven of them in him before he managed to pull his arm out from under Coyote and dug claws into Zeb's jacket.

  They unhooked him while he twitched and apologized.

  “Better?” Kim asked.

  He nodded. He was starting to flesh out, looking less like a concentration camp survivor and more like someone getting over a bad flu. One finger traveled contemplatively down the scarred skin inside his forearm, then made a sharp move toward his thigh, quickly aborted. His Adam's apple jumped.

  “Thanks,” he said. He picked himself up and wriggled back under the electric blanket. The stained white of his eye had already faded.

  Coyote growled something unintelligible but definitely ungracious.

  “Call me if you need me tomorrow,” he said, and he grabbed his cane and left.

  Zeb sat on the end of the coffee table with his long legs tucked up underneath himself and popped a stick of gum into his mouth. He offered one to Kim, who took it, and one to the vampire, who declined. Then he grabbed at his jacket pocket, failed to find what he wanted, and cursed.

  “Son of a gun stole my keys,” he said with a snort. “Guess I'll be needin' a ride home.”

  The three of them piled into the El Camino, since Kim refused to trust Vickie with guard duty again. They stopped off along the way so that she could run into the supermarket and pick up some cheap men's sneakers, sweats, and a safety razor.

  Zeb twisted in his seat to study Rocky with a guarded expression.

  “He doesn't mean nothin' by it,” he said slowly. “Coyote. He said he'll help you, an' that means he will. He just doesn't want you to think he likes you or anything. Bein' perfectly honest, he was a lot worse to the last guy Kim dated. She ain't his daughter or anything, but close.”

  “I d-don't want t-to hurt her,” Rocky whispered, “b-b-b-but...”

  “Don't worry about it,” Zeb told him with a grin. “I hear you folks are big on self-preservation. So if
you hurt her, I'll kill you. Problem solved.”

  Rocky's expression wavered between terror and gratitude.

  “I... I know,” he agreed finally.

  “'Sides, you're assumin' you could get the jump on her in the first place. Believe you me, if you did catch her off guard, she'd still take part of you with her.”

  The door creaked open and Kim chucked a plastic shopping bag at Zeb as she slid into the cab.

  “You boys getting along?” she asked.

  Zeb only smiled.

  She threw the car into gear and squealed out of the parking lot.

  Zeb got out at a little butter-yellow bungalow with no yard and an empty driveway. His truck would come back eventually, he assured them, and hopefully Coyote would be in it. He laughed and slammed the door.

  Kim waved as she pulled away. The El Camino sputtered over a speed bump.

  “I want to make another stop real quick,” she said. “If that's okay with you. Do you think you're okay to be out and about for a few minutes?”

  He fumbled reluctantly with the laces of his new sneakers and muttered a half-hearted assent.

  “Just real quick,” she assured him, and she wove through traffic and swerved off down a side street to pull into a weed-choked parking lot behind a boxy cinderblock building. She climbed out of the car and motioned for Rocky to come with her as she passed through the revolving doors.

  The interior stopped him dead. His shoes squeaked on the polished concrete of the entryway, and he had to catch himself on Kim’s shoulder or else risk losing his balance.

  “Books,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Kim turned to see his gaunt face softened by an ecstatic smile, thought she might have seen tears in his eyes, and then he was gone. He moved faster than she would have expected from someone who walked at a zombie shuffle, but apparently the zombie was motivated. She followed him into the stacks, worried, but he had already begun to build himself a nest out of Agatha Christie.