by Rob Thurman
“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to shoot it,” Niko said, “or were thinking of giving it a piggyback ride instead.”
I rolled my eyes. “Asshole. There’s no pleasing you.” I nudged the legs with my foot as the head went under water. “I think I should’ve used the Glock.”
“It would’ve been more convenient for questioning purposes,” Nik pointed out with mild exasperation as he dipped his hand under the water, grabbed the neck, and lifted the head up out of the water. “We would like to have a word with you, if you’re not too occupied at the moment.”
The head whipped back and forth, arms moved in jerky disjointed movements, the upper torso dripped fluid. Been seeing a lot of that lately. It was getting boring. “I can question the bottom half if you want, but unless it can do sign language with its toes, I think I’m out of luck.”
An even more exasperated gray glance hit me, then turned back to the revenant. “Where is Sawney?” The gurgling turned to a scream, then a wheezing laugh. “Traveler.”
There was another gurgle as the head went back under the water. Niko sighed as he held it under. “I’m a patient man, but this is all getting to be rather annoying.” Corpse gray hands clawed at Niko’s arms. He ignored them. “And if you can’t use your explosive rounds responsibly, I’ll have to take them away.”
“It could’ve been Sawney,” I defended. “I can’t smell shit down here. Okay, that’s not technically true. I can smell shit down here, but it really is sh…”
The gaze narrowed and I holstered the Eagle without finishing. “Yeah, anyway, he’s looking a little more cooperative now,” I said, nodding toward floating arms and a lack of air bubbles.
The head was jerked back up and shaken briskly by the neck. Water gushed from its mouth and over its chest. “Now”—Niko’s fingers tightened around the neck—“you’re obviously going to die. Regenerating is not much of an option for you, missing one-third of your body. However.” He smiled, and even I felt the ice creep down my spine at the sight of it. “You can die now or you can die later. I think you’d much prefer now.”
“Human.” The word bubbled through the blood and water. “Worthless meat. I don’t fear you.”
That was all revenant there. A little bit arrogant and a whole lot stupid. He went back under. “I doubt that he knows anything,” Niko said absently as he tossed me his light and used his other hand to draw his shorter sword—the tanto blade. “If he did, Sawney wouldn’t have let him fall behind.”
“Maybe the revenants are showing some more will now,” I offered, catching the flashlight and holding it on the revenant. “They’re not that bright and they’ve got an attention span…” I waggled my other hand back and forth.
“Much like yours, you mean,” Niko suggested.
I glared but went on. “Sawney’s feeding them some good stuff right now, but I doubt they’re much into planning their future. He might be losing some of his control.”
“Hmm. Interesting thought. Let us see.”
It took a while.
I didn’t think it was so much loyalty for Sawney as a hatred of humans. It’d be like a big-eyed lamb coming out of a field, kicking my ass, and making me its bitch. Revenant arrogance just couldn’t believe it or give in to it. Not for a long time. Freddy and some friends showed up now and again to carry chunks of newly found fish food away in their mouths.
When it did talk, and with Niko it really was only a matter of time, it didn’t have much to say. Yes, they’d taken the patients through here. We knew that. They were already dead when they’d been dropped into the water. It was the best that could be hoped for. As for the sewers and Sawney, it didn’t know. Didn’t know if he planned to stay or go. Didn’t know if this was home or just another look at curb appeal.
It had wandered off from the others with a piece of flesh to gnaw on, gotten full and sleepy, and never followed the others on. Revenants were the same as people. There were smart ones (relatively), average ones, and there was this guy. Dumb as a fucking rock. But to give it credit—posthumous, but credit all the same—even a smart revenant might not be on to whatever Sawney was up to. That twisted brain—he would give an Auphe a run for its money. Murder, mayhem, and madness, and that was just what he saw in his rearview mirror. What was ahead, I don’t think any of us could know.
But when we came back to the sewers we might just find out.
18
The next morning—actually, the next sunup. Sunup is not morning. It’s hell and not fit for any human being, but Niko, having ascended to a higher plane of existence beyond simple things like time, wasn’t human when it came to exercise. He dragged my ass out of bed and off we were to run a thousand laps around Washington Square Park. Okay, maybe not a thousand, but it felt like it. Washington Square Park was the nearest park to our apartment, but it was not a very big park and we had to run a lot of laps for Niko to feel like we’d gotten a good workout.
There would always be things we couldn’t outrun: vampires, the wolves…Delilah would catch me in five seconds easy, but Niko made damn sure I could outrun things like revenants. He ran me at least once a day; morning, afternoon, night—it varied. He ran all three times, which made him faster than me and less likely to have his lungs turn inside out. Good for him. Me? If I could’ve figured out a way to get out of the one run, I would’ve. That’s why I had a gun. Shooting is easy; running with Niko was hard. He always ran me into the ground, until I was soaked in sweat and couldn’t take another step without my legs folding beneath me to dump me on the ground. Because that was real life for us—running to save it.
I still hated it.
After that and a shower, Niko and I sat in the kitchen and tried to figure things out regarding Goodfellow. Finding Sawney was something we were leaving to the end of the discussion, friend before foe and a better subject than dwelling on the Psychiatric Center slaughter.
Niko started by grilling me on the guy who’d shot Robin. He grilled me yesterday after the attack, but between my job at the bar, hoping Robin didn’t grope him when he took in ice packs, and the killings at the Psychiatric Center, we’d been a little busy for a repeat grilling. He was hoping I’d remember something new and I did.
“Black hair and dark eyes. Skin a little darker than yours. What I think was some kind of Arabic accent. Faint, though. And he kept saying his task was done. That he was honored to die.” Well, he got his wish there. “He also called Robin a betrayer. He didn’t get into any specifics there. Wouldn’t say if he was alone or not and I gave him plenty of reason to speak up.” And I wasn’t sorry for one damn bit of it. “Oh, wait. Hell, there is something else. The son of a bitch used some fancy move to throw me off of him—one that you’ve definitely never taught me,” I said before popping the tab on the Coke and taking a swig.
“Holding out on me, Cyrano?”
He frowned. “A move I’ve never shown you? Describe it.” He had some soy, rice-powder, mud-colored drink he was nursing. He’d long ago learned not to offer me one. It was all I could do to keep my own down watching him drink his.
I got up and went ahead to illustrate the move a few times from the floor. He helped by assuming my role, straddling me with a finger pointed under my chin. Finally when he was satisfied, I returned to my chair. “Hmm. And an Arabic accent, you said.” Niko moved over to the groaning bookshelf against the living room wall and scanned the contents. He chose a book, sat, and thumbed through it. After a few minutes of reading, he said with satisfaction, “Varzesh-e Pahlavani. An ancient form of Iranian martial arts, although in those days it would’ve been called Persian arts. It’s well over two thousand years old.”
“The accent, Persia, and Robin definitely twitched when you mentioned Babylon a few days ago.” I wrung a note from the metal of the can. “I think we have a location pinned down.” It was all right, this. Just me and Niko—like back in the old days. Research, learning crap I didn’t care about, practicing obscure moves. Yeah, the old days…the days b
efore I had to worry about an obstinate car salesman who couldn’t be bothered to worry about himself.
Damn it.
Within seconds Nik was back with another book. Under his breath he was muttering names…Tammuz, Utukku. I drank my Coke and let it drift in one ear and out the other. When he hit on something, he would let me know. He didn’t. Sighing, he closed the book. “We’ll have to push Robin on it again, but now for Sawney.” His eyes darkened to match the grim curl of his lips. “I think I have something.”
“Yeah?” I said, surprised. “What?”
“I called the TA who shares the office with me while you were showering. I wanted her to pick up more classes for me until this is done. She had news.”
“Good or bad?”
“Bad.” He replaced the book on the shelf. “But informative. Students are disappearing at Columbia. Several. It hasn’t hit the papers in a big way yet as they are students. Prone to wandering off after parties and not showing up for a day or two. But Shannon said she heard these students were reliable, not the kind to take off without telling someone.”
“That could be anyone. Could be your average serial killer.” I knocked the salt and pepper shakers together. “Sawney’s not the only predator around.”
“True. But I have a feeling about this. There’s something about Columbia I can’t put my finger on. Something I think I read once and have forgotten. We need to look into this.”
“More so than the sewers?” I said skeptically and rapped the shakers again. I was equally skeptical that Niko forgot anything he ever read, but it was possible. He had a lot of information crammed in that head. “It’s a college,” I went on. “I doubt he’s shacking up in the dorms.”
He took the clanking shakers out of my hand and put them out of reach. “Trust me, and it’ll certainly take less time than roaming more miles of sewers.”
There was no doubt Niko was hell on wheels when it came to tracking and finding predators. That we hadn’t found this one yet bugged the hell out of him…he’d gone from Zen to ice-cold and that didn’t spell well for Sawney. “We’ll need some sort of in. The police might not be there in full force, but the students will be on edge. Faculty too. I’m too young to pass for a cop.” Although it’d be easy enough to get the fake ID. We’d been getting it since I was sixteen and Niko eighteen. Any Rom worth his salt could find a way easy enough and we had. Our clan might not accept us thanks to my Auphe half, but Sophia knew the tricks. And from watching her all those years we knew them too. “And you’re too…” I shrugged.
“Too what?”
“Hell, you’re like a James Bond villain. Cool, collected, lethal, and not a donut in sight. No one would buy you as a cop either.” Besides, even though at twenty-two he could pass for twenty-six or twenty-seven easy, that was still too young for him to be convincing as a plainclothes detective. And his chin-length hair would immediately brand him as an imposter if he were in a uniform.
He snorted. “When I start drinking my soy-milk shaken, not stirred, then we’ll talk. As for an in, if there is one, Promise will know.”
And she did. Between her rich dead husbands and being a vampire, Promise was prominent on the social/charitable and nonhuman scene. If it was a fat, feebleminded rich guy you needed or a man-starved socialite, she just had to pick up a phone. The supernatural world was a little trickier to navigate because of trust issues, alliances, and creatures that didn’t think there was a damn thing wrong with murder. But in the end she came through for us.
A long ride uptown on the A train later, we were at Columbia Presbyterian talking with a Japanese healing entity, O-Kuni-Nushi, known to his oblivious human colleagues as Ken Nushi, doctor and special seminar instructor for the premed upperclassmen at Columbia University.
A healing spirit, more powerful than a human healer by far, would’ve come in handy not so long ago, but he didn’t know Promise at the time and vice versa. He knew of someone who knew someone who knew someone and so on. As it turned out, he could still do us a favor. First, he was actually willing to pay us. Second, he was able to confirm the students were missing and the college was more concerned than the cops were at this point.
“You are correct. Two students have disappeared on campus over the past two days, also a maintenance man.” Behind his desk, Dr. Nushi steepled long, thin fingers, two of which were banded with jade rings. One was white, one red. He had a face that was oddly monkeylike—large ears, black hair in a widow’s peak, broad nose, and soulful eyes. Even more oddly, indifferent student that I was, I happened to remember a mythology lesson from years before. In the Japanese mythos, monkeys were thought to bring good fortune. If you needed a doctor, good fortune would be a nice bonus along with a cheerful bedside manner.
“I cannot say what has taken them,” Dr. Nushi continued. “But there is something here. A predator, human or not, I can’t say. But there is a stillness…an air….” He looked at me, then opened his hands in a “who knows?” gesture. I had an air about me too, he seemed to think, but he remained silent on that subject. Luckily. Niko cared for comments about my Auphe heritage even less than I did. “I cannot put a finger on it,” he said, “but I know. Death is here. A good physician recognizes it. This is walking, talking Death and it is using our campus as a feeding ground. Human or non, I want it gone. This is a place of knowledge, not death. But I didn’t know what to do with the police saying we must wait forty-eight hours. I didn’t know who to contact, not until Mrs. Nottinger called with the offer of your services.” He nodded his head toward Promise.
“Sawney Beane.” Niko had bowed to Dr. Nushi before he’d taken a seat. Now, in black on black, he sat straight in the deep blue brocade chair with face impassive. “It may be the one we’re looking for hunts here now. It may be, as you say, a human. Either way, we will look into it.” He looked at Promise, then back at me. “The tunnels and sewers might not be to his liking. He’ll no doubt have several prospects going at one time, trying to find the best possible location for his true home. Once he settles on one he’ll stay there, but I don’t think he has yet. He could be hunting here and taking his victims back to whichever location he’s trying out now. Whichever cave.”
“If that is true, you will certainly be more help than the police,” Nushi said.
“The police aren’t here, then?” Promise asked. We knew they wouldn’t find Sawney, if he was hunting here, but if they were patrolling the campus in force, they could make things difficult for our investigation. There should’ve already been rampant speculation about a serial killer with as many bodies as Sawney was leaving around.
But the thing was, bodies weren’t being left around. We’d seen that, having checked the paper for several days after finding the bodies in the trees. There’d been nothing until the slayings at the mental institute. No stories on the ones in the trees or on the various body parts floating in the tunnels that could’ve been stumbled across by the construction crews. Mysteries. We had too much on our plate already, but it was something we’d need to come back to—eventually. Right now…it could wait, but we’d look into it. Maybe in a few weeks…or months. After Sawny, a vacation was the only thing I wanted, not mysteries.
“They are peripherally involved, but as I said, the students are adults legally, as well as is the maintenance man, and it has not yet been two days. They are investigating, but as there are no signs of foul play as of yet…” He spread his hands wider, then placed them on the desk. “They are certainly not here in force.” The brown eyes sought out us all one by one. “This is my home, but I am no warrior. Mrs. Nottinger has said you are for hire. I will pay whatever you require to take care of this situation before it worsens.”
Someone was actually going to pay us to risk our lives. Hot damn. It made horrific, near-death experiences a shade less annoying. I shoved my hand into the pocket of my black leather jacket and fingered a well-worn rip. I’d given Delilah my good one, but I liked this one too. I couldn’t replace it; it was a classic, but I did ne
ed to replace the Glock, and explosive rounds for the Eagle didn’t come cheap.
“Results will not necessarily be immediate. We will do our best, but Sawney is a one-creature slaughterhouse, quite literally,” Niko cautioned. “And if the killer is human, the police would probably find him before we did.”
“Then your best is all that I can ask.” Dr. Nushi bowed. Nik bowed. And the meeting was mostly over. Except for Promise politely but firmly asking for Nushi’s home address for billing purposes. She flashed a bit of fang in either strong incentive or flirtatious behavior. With vampires it was hard to tell. As the tips of Nushi’s large ears flushed pink, I went with flirtatious.
We were given false student ID that would pass anywhere on either campus if we were stopped for any reason. Although I couldn’t imagine why we would be. I looked the twenty-year-old punk-ass kid that I was. Niko, twenty-two, looked twenty-six, and could pass for a grad student or the TA that he was easily enough. Promise…Promise had an ageless quality, but no one would stop her because they thought she was a serial killer.
One student had disappeared on the way to French class, one while doing laundry in the basement of one of the dorms, and the maintenance man was a mystery. He’d gone out on a call, but taken the documentation with him. No one confessed to putting in a request and no one knew where he’d gone.
We separated to cover the most ground, mingling among the potential meals and looking for dead bodies and/or monsters. I took a map. Niko navigated by either the stars or his innate sense of place on the planet. It was past seven and dark; Promise carried her cloak over one arm and drifted. Two seconds later I’d lost sight of her. She knew how to move. I only knew the direction she’d vanished by the turning of male heads and one or two female ones.
I looked down at the map, considered it for a second, and then wadded it up to toss it into the nearest trash can. It wouldn’t help me find Sawney. Smelling him would and thinking like him would. I wasn’t entirely happy with the fact that I thought each would be an identical exertion. I’d been a happy-go-lucky maniac myself for over a week once. It wasn’t difficult at all to remember the curve and slide of that particular thought pattern. Far too easy, in fact. One jump and you were on the ride, whizzing along with the wind cackling like insane laughter in your ears.
