by D. R. Perry
This woman is not happy to see us. At her breast is pinned a green-backed cameo with a white urn in bas-relief. Her hands move through the air with the fingers pressed together as though she’s swimming in water instead of standing on land.
The overall effect has my brain so far back into my read-through of Shadows over Innsmouth, I almost fail to defend my group.
My sword comes up just in time, executing a block my muscles remember from college. Red blade clashes with sickly green magic, producing a shower of black motes that dust the mat in front of the door before vanishing.
“We’re here to talk.”
“You’re not invited.” The woman in gray holds her hands up again. “Begone, vampire, and take your Renfields with you.”
“They're here by their own volition. And that’s not how this works.” I sigh and shake my head.
“That’s not how any of this works.” Raven steps forward, hands on their hips. “We don’t need invitations and even if we did, this is technically my house. Step off, witch.”
“Hey!” Leora pouts.
“No offense, kid.”
“I can’t imagine why you’d say that.” The woman hasn’t set her gaze on Frankie yet. Which apparently he was counting on. “This house has been in my family for generations.”
“What a funny little coincidence. Mine, too.” Raven pushes past her and into the hall, sticking one of the post-its Frankie slipped them on the front of the woman’s dress. She freezes like a statue, one that blinks.
Leora tags along after Raven. Frankie follows her. The woman looks right through him, ignores his muttered “hello, Mother,” too. I bring up the rear, eliciting a glare that could wither an entire apple orchard.
“Gather the rest of your family.” I put on the old glad-handing face and voice that went with my stint selling Cutco door-to-door back in High School. “We’re here to tell you about something that’s going to change your lives.”
She either can’t or won’t answer. I follow my allies down the long hallway. One door near the back has that same sickly green light coming out from under it. Raven pushes through it and into the room. We enter, one by one, including the lady of the house who can apparently walk, at least.
Envy rears up and strikes me in the heart like a viper. This room is covered on every wall, from floor to ceiling, with books. There are too many for me to count even if I wanted to turn on vampire speed. I promise myself that somenight I’ll have a library like this. But I’ll come by it honestly, not from literally selling my family members to degenerate body-snatching Deep Ones.
Raven takes the most prominent seat, acting like they own the place. Which, apparently, is what they’re here to claim. I admire their audacity and the tactic definitely has at least the lady in gray off guard. She pulls a bracelet from one sleeve and blows on the whistle attached to it. The notes from it take me all the way back to our Middle School production of The Sound of Music and the whistle Captain VonTrapp blew to summon his all too obedient children.
Leora sits in one of the chairs, feet kicking the air as they dangle. But Frankie remains standing, behind and to my left. It’s a good position for a non-combatant expecting trouble so I let him stay there instead inviting him to sit down.
My saber’s still got that reddish glow, too. I keep it unsheathed for now. As strange as it seems in a room full of people with way more experience in supernatural affairs, I turn out to be the enforcer. Well, maybe I’m the only one with conventional combat training here. And sometimes, that makes all the difference when dealing with supernatural people used to relying on their powers to make up for lack of tactical prowess or even awareness.
One by one, more of the home’s residents file through the door. There’s a man who looks about the same age as the lady, though he’s dressed much more conventionally and his skin’s a healthier pink. And then there are two kids, a boy and a girl. They look to be in their early teens, like Leora. Only the boy looks at her though he doesn’t return her friendly wave. He spares a glance at Frankie, too, but the girl elbows him and he stops.
I figure this must be Levi, the brother Frankie mentioned last night. From the looks of things, the three of them are siblings. The girl next to him takes one look at my sword, then steps around Levi so he’s between me and her. I give her a smile and she shudders. Her hands light up with that same greenish glow that was around the woman’s when she attacked earlier.
“Cool it, kiddo.” I hold my free hand up, palm out. “We’re here to talk, not fight.”
“But you brought the Lamb back. And you’re a vampire. You’re not supposed to do that and you're not supposed to be here, either.”
“He’s here because I brought him.” Raven leans on the arm of their chair. “And believe me, I belong to the Pickering family.”
“You might have while you lived, which would entitle you to have a say in our household matters.” The man shakes his head, then reaches out and plucks the post-it off the woman’s dress. “The compulsion’s off you now, Mother. Let’s determine whether this vampire’s claim of family ties is true.”
“Thank you, Father.” She reaches down and clasps his hand for a brief squeeze. Do these two actually call each other Mother and Father. Weird. “I know we refused to talk to the lady vampire on our doorstep last night. She had no magic. But this one used some on me and may well have been a Pickering before getting turned.” She pulls a monocle from a pocket on her dress and hands it to the man. “Have a look.”
The man puts the glass to his right eye and shuts his left. After that, he nods. “Yes, you’re right, Mother. He’s Pickering, through and through.”
“It’s they, not he.” Raven bares their fangs. “I’m non-binary.”
“But old vampires are supposed to be traditional, not obsessed with all these new gender things.” The woman sticks her nose up so high in the air she could have gotten a nosebleed.
“Back in my mortal days, there were more than two genders.” Raven rolls their eyes. “So I am technically more traditional than you. But considering you’re family, I’ll let it slide this one time. Now, we need to have a talk about your Lamb, Frankie, and his future.”
I figured out what Raven’s playing at here and it’s a good plan. They’re pretending to be Whitby, as though their identities and fates were reversed back in the Middle Ages. With the post-its letting Raven do something that looks like magic, we might get away with this charade, too. But only if Whitby hasn’t been here and proven himself first.
“There is no future for him. It’s as it was since we became Pickerings and first came to our agreement with the Deep Ones.”
“No, it’s not.” Raven shakes their head. “My generation’s Lamb was cast into the waves but was returned, like your son. And you ought to embrace him because without him your contract would have broken.”
I can see where Raven’s going with this but if I can tell that their story includes some serious omissions, so can the odd couple. But before they can point that out, the Pickering girl speaks up.
“Yeah, why can’t he come back?” She finally stops glaring at me to look up at Mother, who is clearly the most powerful member in this family. “He’s not dead like you said he would be. And I’m sick of doing his share of the chores when I could be practicing my magical studies, Mother.”
“Mind your tongue, Sarah.” Mother clucks her tongue. “And that elder Lamb of ours may still be breathing but just look at those eyes. He's dead inside, you see. We must have angered the Deep Ones in some way if they returned him to the land and the light.”
“It’s not anger,” Raven says. “When one of their Lambs live, it’s because they’ve found him of particularly potent virility and intend to use him again.”
I blink. No wonder Raven went and got themselves turned at such a young looking age. I would too if I had fish people I wasn't attracted to all hot and bothered for my bod.
“This is what your brother told you?” Father’s peering at Raven throu
gh the monocle. I get the feeling this is an extremely dangerous game of choosing and using the correct words.
“Exactly that.”
Mother and Father Pickering give each other a set of matching looks that make me want to vomit in my mouth a little. It’d be cute and romantic if they were anyone else but these are people who pimped their own teenage son out to monsters so no. No sympathy here for them, at least not from me. But Frankie himself is another story. His brother and sister, too.
The three Pickering siblings practically simper. Which of course they do because this has been their lifelong example of what love is and all three of them probably aspire to something like it. Frankie’s only just started to get the idea that there are other ways to be. And a big part of the reason I’m here is to give him that chance. Now, I want the other two to have the same.
The tip of my sword lifted with these thoughts. Let’s call the motion accidentally on purpose. Raven sees my implied threat and immediately knows how to exploit it. That’s one brilliant vampire.
“Now that I’ve demonstrated who and what I am, it’s time to talk about renegotiating our family’s grossly outdated and patently unfair contract with the Deep Ones.” Raven stares directly at my raised blade until every pair of eyes in the room is on it, too. “I’m willing to fight alongside my allies for that right if necessary.”
“I think we agree you are part of our family,” says Mother.
“And you are the oldest of us,” Father continues.
“But we have no new advantage to negotiate with,” Mother finishes.
“You’ll have to trust me when I tell you I’ve got something they will want.”
“We can abide that if you include one of us in your negotiation process.”
“I’m not sure how either of you will survive in at the bottom of the ocean.” Raven leans back in the chair with a gleam in their eye that tells me this was an unexpected wrinkle.
“I can.” Mother pulls away the long collar on her dress, revealing a set of gills along each side of her neck under her ears.
“Very well, then.” Raven rises from their seat. “We will return after sunset on the day the new agreement is finished.”
Mother Pickering leads us through the door with Raven on her heels. I let Frankie and Leora go ahead of me. On her way out, Leora gives Levi a grin, pulling one of her lower eyelids down with a finger and sticking out her tongue. He snickers, a blush forming on his cheeks. Cute.
Not much is for the remainder of the evening.
There’s no way everyone will fit in my car. But Mother Pickering has a van. Raven practically orders her to let me drive but she’s cooperative enough now for me to think that was overkill, maybe. But I can’t blame Raven for laying it on thick. What happened inside the Pickering study feels like nothing short of a socially manipulated miracle. No wonder King DeCampo chose Raven as his Attaché.
And the entire meeting with the Pickerings only took forty minutes. We'll have time to chat with the King about everything we've managed before heading off to rescue Steph.
I drive us back into Providence and park the van in the shadows under a bridge near WaterPlace Park. It’s not far from where I caught Sparky at the beginning of all this mess, either. I get out alone, letting the others wait while I go back on foot to report to the King at the Blood Moot. As I walk, I try calling Maya but she’s not answering. I pocket the phone and do the secret knock. And there she is, at the door looking over her shoulder like all Hell has broken loose inside.
“Tino, we have to go.” Maya’s got a duffel filled with lumpy cargo inside it, slung across her body. I take a whiff. It’s weapons. So my guess about Hell was correct. Shitballs.
“What?”
“Shadow came out of the King’s back room and dropped like a rock. Dead sleep.”
“Holy shit!” It takes vamps either decades or loads of favor to get out of a long sleep like that. I try to go past her but she blocks me successfully. “Let me go in and help!”
“You can’t, Tino. And we have to go now. I’ll give you the whole story while we walk.”
I do what she says, more because I’m worried about someone hurting her if vampires are Raging back there than anything else. And, true to her word, she gives me an update. By holding my hand as we power-walk away from the building. It’s not as intense or as fun as the kissing earlier but I get the picture through Maya’s eyes. Literally.
I see Shadow appear from out of nowhere beside the King’s throne, hand over his heart. An iron rod sticks out of it. He topples to the floor, sprawling halfway on and off the dais. And I’m running on Maya's legs with a crowd of other vamps toward that door behind the throne.
Through the doorway, I make out three heaps of ash and a jumble of stakes. The air in the room smells thick and musty, like something ancient and wet was in there recently. The fire in the grate is out, the metal cover twisted and tossed aside. The King’s Lazakhar is entangled with Stephanie’s while Hargrove’s is nowhere to be seen.
Maya and I both know that the reason for Steph’s amulet being in that room isn’t because she’s dead. It’s because the King had it on him. But then, I see Maya's delicate brown hand reach down and snatch both amulets. I feel their combined weight in her hand and then her pocket. She hunches and elbows her way through the gathering crowd of vampires, trying not to make skin contact with any of them. She succeeds.
She pauses to listen to the jumble of voices while she tries to think of something to do with the Lazakhars. There’s got to be a place to hide them. But then, the last thing she wants to hear meets her ears.
“If you’re claiming the throne, Whitby, we need to do the Test of Ages on everyone here to make sure you’re the oldest.”
No. Maya knows it’s bad to be here for that test. Her thoughts grow distant and incoherent after that. I realize she’s hiding the reasons for her fear over this from me. I ease off a bit and give her thoughts some room by focusing on the memory’s physical surroundings.
Racing through the room is easy because it’s mostly empty now. But as Maya leaves, Peligro steps in her way.
“It’s dangerous to go alone.” He's holding a stuffed duffel bag in his arms, like it's a baby.
“No, Peligro. Not now.”
“Take this!” He pushes the duffel at her.
At the front door She hears the secret knock, opens the door, and I see my own face.
“Wow, Maya. Well, Raven and company are in the van. I bet they’re older than Whitby so no problems there.”
“Those two are the same age, actually.”
“Oh.” It figures. "They’re twins?"
“Yeah. The others will back Raven though. So whatever adventure we’re going on, protect that Attaché at all costs.”
“We?” I shake my head. “No, Maya. You shouldn’t get mixed up in this.”
“Don’t worry about me. Why do you think Whitby keeps me around?”
“Um, the telepathy thing.”
“No. I’m his muscle.”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Absolutely. Annie’s a gun bunny. Peligro’s psychic. Mrs. Kent’s a walking archive. And I sprout claws and spikes.”
“I can hardly believe it.”
“Well you will if things get bad enough for you to actually see it.” Maya chuckles but the sound cuts out like it was on a radio someone shut off. “Wait a minute. Was that your van?”
“What do you mean, was?”
And she’s right. The ex-van is sitting there in literal pieces. I don’t smell any blood, but that blackish slime is everywhere. And thanks to drinking Mrs. Kupala’s evidence sample, I know exactly what that stuff does. It looks like the Deep Ones decided to start their negotiations without me. Forcibly.
What a bunch of assholes.
***
I warn Maya not to touch the icky ooze. We follow the slime trail down a set of cobblestone steps until we get to the waterside. At a quarter to three in the morning, there aren’t any people
around this part of town. And the slime leads down the tunnel that Scott, Esther, and I went down while chasing sparky. I shake my head and snort.
“What?”
“It’s just, I was here last night. After a kid’s lost pet. And now, I’m chasing after monsters way above my paygrade.”
“Well, you take the good, you take the bad.”
“I guess that’s life.”
“Unlife.”
“Yeah. At least we’ve got weapons.”
“Hello?”
Maya and I look at each other, then all around, trying to figure out where that tiny creaky voice came from. And that’s when I notice what looks like a tent, left up way after WaterFire ended for the evening. I move in for a closer look and see that it’s actually thatched and made of wood and mortar. There are two windows with geraniums in boxes below them and a door which are all higher off the ground than I’d expect. The foundation's raised.
“Tino, look.” Maya’s pointing at the bottom of the structure. Well, not really. She’s pointing at its legs and feet.
Yeah, I said the little thatched house has legs and feet. Chicken ones, to be exact. I might not have read Sasquatch’s Baba Yaga article but I sure do remember the illustration. And guess what it is? Ding! You win a prize! It’s a cottage standing around on chicken legs.
The door’s open and I can see the light of a fire inside. Something’s cooking in a pot over that but all I smell is sandalwood. I step closer, trying to see the face of whoever called out to us. Could one of our friends have escaped into this strangely located Tiny House?
“Mister Crispo!” Leora’s head peeps out from one side of the door jamb.
“Leora! What happened?”
“She wants to talk to you.”
“She?”
Maya elbows me, then leans to whisper in my ear. “Baba Yaga.”
I whisper back. “Well that makes sense. Leora’s working for her.” I turn my head to speak to the kid. “Can you tell her I’m short on time?”
“She knows. Don’t worry. She says you’ll get where you need to be in time.”
