Night Life

by Caitlin Kittredge

  He stood at my look, but I waved him back and worked my hand through the jagged hole in the glass, sliding the old-fashioned bolt lock on Duncan's door free. I pulled my hand back, too fast. It caught the glass, and an L-shaped cut blossomed on my palm. I bit my lip and held in the pain. If Stephen or Duncan's little vampire brigade or any combination thereof was inside, it wouldn't do any good to let them know I was here before I was good and ready to do some butt kicking.

  The door shut behind me with a creak of old springs. The air inside Duncan's house was close, with an unpleasant undertone that was sharp and overwhelming at the same time. The thickness coated my throat, and I tried not to choke.

  A ruin of charred logs, but no fire in the sitting room fireplace. Piles of dishes in the kitchen sink and used paper plates filling the garbage. A soft buzzing of flies. I didn't check the downstairs bathroom but assumed the worst.

  Duncan's study, by contrast, was immaculate and covered with dust. The only paper on top of his enormous, mellow-varnished editor's desk was a copy of Stephen's arrest report. My signature sat at the bottom of the first page as the arresting officer, black and spindly.

  The circuit of downstairs led me back to the foyer and up a wide staircase. The air was warmer on the second floor, and even closer. Patches of dampness blossomed on the back of my shirt.

  A narrow hallway revealed three doors leading off. I pushed the first open and stepped back quickly, aiming the Colt in and covering all the corners. A guest bedroom. I couldn't imagine Alistair and Stephen going in for lavender prints, so Duncan's wife must have designed it before she died.

  The next door was Stephen's room, still decorated in the cranberry-and-gold Alder Bay Academy colors, with plaid wallpaper to match. A posed portrait of Stephen in his lacrosse uniform, poster-size, dominated the wall over the bed. Trophies marched across a bookcase that held few books. No wonder the kid was screwed up.

  The last door was at the end of the hall, leading to a large room that spanned the back half of the house. The smell was worse here, and when I touched the doorknob it was sticky.

  Something dark twisted in my gut. I did not, did not want to open that door.

  I closed my eyes, breathed out, and pushed the door open, aiming in blind with my gun. Nothing. No daemons and no monsters reaching out to grab at me.

  I opened my eyes. Then I screamed. I screamed for Dmitri and for the panic roiling itself upward to the forefront of my mind as I saw the three women's bodies spread-eagled on Alistair's bedroom floor, all of them mutilated, all of them dead.

  It seemed like hours but it was probably less than ten seconds before Dmitri kicked open the front door, bounded up the stairs, and grabbed me, pulling me away from the open door. "Hex me," he muttered when he looked inside.

  "Hoskins," I managed. "Hoskins said he needed seven."

  "This is fucked," Dmitri was muttering. "Just fucked."

  I pulled away from him and back into the room. Sigils were painted on all four walls, huge ones. They bore little resemblance to Stephen's, but they were still hideous, twisted images that made my forehead ache and my skin heat to look at them. Stare for too long and they seemed to twist and come alive, reaching out millions of bloody arms for me.

  The three women were lined up neatly on the floor, like logs. The cheap single mattress and bed frame, the only pieces of furniture in the room, were soaked in their blood.

  "Stay outside," I told Dmitri. "I just want to check the bodies." The women had no throats to feel, but I picked up each of their hands and found the squishy limpness of the several days' dead. Rigor mortis passes and the body become pliable, like a doll. Their faces were frozen, mostly in grimaces of bloody terror: three of the missing girls from the past year's unsolved cases.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered to each of them, closing their eyes. I searched the room for anything else I could use, but Duncan had removed all tools of his ritual and there was nothing left except dead girls.

  I sat on the edge of the blood-spattered mattress and put my head in my hands. I was too late. Stephen had been taken, Alistair—or whatever he was—had gotten away free and clear and with six sacrifices to his name, and all I had to show for it was a lost job, another crime scene, and Dmitri, who was watching me from the doorway with that penetrating green stare.

  "I've seen some things," he said. "But not like this."

  You and me both, I wanted to say, but that old Hardened Cop Pride wouldn't let me. "With Lilia, Marina, and Katya this is six."

  Dmitri frowned. "I'm not going to like what happens when he gets to lucky number seven, am I?"

  "Meggoth will be free to do whatever the Hex he wants."

  Dmitri passed a hand over his face. "Meggoth?"

  "One of the names of a daemon Alistair Duncan is after."

  He sighed. "Okay. How do we kill the fucker?"

  "You had to ask that, didn't you?" I sighed. The closed bedroom had to be close to eighty degrees, and the smell was awful. I was exhausted and shaking, but I stood up and put my gun in my waistband. I had to see it through, for Sunny and the dead girls, and maybe, if I was honest, for Dmitri and his blood debt to Lilia.

  From above my head, a ticking sounded.

  Dmitri's slouched frame snapped upright. "The hell was that?"

  I shushed him with a hand and redrew my gun. The small attic door across the room from me was firmly shut but not bolted. I carefully sidestepped the dead girls and drew it open.

  "Careful…," Dmitri whispered. I waved him off and flicked the light switch at the foot of the stairs. Nothing blazed to life. Heading alone into the darkened attic of a blood witch. Just what I live for.

  Unlike the rest of the comfortably antique house, the attic stairs were narrow and uncarpeted, with old square nails sticking out at odd angles, ready to snag the unwary foot.

  I felt around for my penlight, flashing on cobwebs and cardboard boxes labeled X-MAS, STEPHEN'S STUFF, and DIANE PROJECTS. Diane Duncan had been the wife. I wondered if she knew what Alistair had been up to. Some women found that sort of thing irresistible. Like being a rock groupie, with the slight chance you could be devoured by a summoned entity or used as a conduit in your witch's spells. Nice, innocent nonmagick blood was best for that sort of thing. Even better if you were a virgin.

  I sneezed hard into my sleeve. The attic was dark, dusty, and seemed utterly deserted. But I had not imagined the sound. I forced myself to take a quick sniff before the dust overwhelmed me again.

  A whimper came from the far corner. I smelled live human, and stepped closer. My light caught pale blond hair and a face smeared with blood.

  "Well, Stephen," I said, keeping my gun aimed. "You know how they say, We really have to stop meeting like this? In our case it should be, We really have to stop meeting with you covered in blood and me pointing a gun at you."

  "Go away," he rasped at me.

  "There's an original one," I said. "Got any more for me? Like the were did it? 'Cause that one was classic. Had me going for a good long time."

  "I told you," he whispered. "I told you it wasn't me."

  "And I believe you," I said, trying to be placating. I've never been very good at humoring people. I'd be terrible with suicides and hostage negotiation. Probably why I did so well in Homicide. The upset people were already dead.

  Stephen's wild eyes roved over me, and he drew himself into a tighter ball. "Get away from me!" he screamed. "He sees everything I do!"

  "If you're talking about Lockhart, he's not here right now. Nor is that escapee from the Cure's reunion tour Alistair sent to collect you. Just you and me, a couple of people talking."

  "You don't understand," said Stephen.

  "Then enlighten me," I said quietly. Behind me, the stairs creaked, and Dmitri made his presence known. He caught sight of Stephen and sucked in a breath.

  "Hex me."

  "The phase…," Stephen said. "I can't control it. He makes it come over me. He uses me. My father. He compelled me. I killed those gir
ls down there. The hooker in the alley. Marina…" He shuddered. "I can't… be this thing anymore. I won't"

  "Relax," I said. "Really. I promise that Alistair is not going to bother you again."

  Stephen laughed. It was a creepy sound, dry and strangled. "You can't protect me, Detective. But you're welcome to try." He uncurled his body and sat up, staring straight into the light. His pupils contracted until his eyes looked pure white. "It'll come. I feel it. You wait."

  "When did you find out your father was, er, magickally inclined?" I asked. As long as Stephen was up for crazy ramblings I could play along.

  "We're wasting our Hexed time," Dmitri murmured.

  "Shut up," I hissed.

  "A long time," said Stephen. "I went away up north, to school, and then he couldn't call my mark as easily. But my mother died, and he got me back. You know what he said to me, after the funeral? He gave that bitch what she had coming… coming …" His back arched and his features rippled, like a miniature earthquake on his skin. I took a step back.

  "Tried to warn you," Stephen moaned. "I tried, but he put it inside me and now I can never leave, I can never ever get it out…" His face twisted again and he screamed, a spasm passing through his body.

  "Get out," Stephen suddenly said, his eyes snapping back into focus. His voice was clear and scared, but human. I imagined this was how he had sounded before Alistair got the claws into him. "He needs one more. Get out now—!"

  It came before he could finish the sentence. I've phased countless times, but never seen it happen to another. Even so, I knew every muscle's pull, every agonizing stab of pain, the horrible, ecstatic molding and twisting of human into a were.

  Stephen's face elongated in the jaws and he dropped to all fours, twitching and bunching until hair sprouted and his bloody shirt and pants fell away.

  Dmitri grabbed my arm. "We need to get the Hex out of here."

  "Wait!" I demanded. I couldn't tear my eyes away from Stephen. He was fully phased now, but like no were I had ever seen. He resembled more the image of a were from the mind of someone who had never seen the real thing. A lantern jaw, short stubby ears, patchy gray coat, and a misshapen body with a bloated stomach. The one thing that stood out vividly were rows of pointed, two-inch teeth jutting from his jaw. A red tongue with no place to go lolled on one side of the mouth.

  The were raised its pinky-yellow eyes to mine and snarled, a wet sound. Black saliva oozed from between its misshapen teeth.

  "Luna," Dmitri hissed in my ear. "Back away. Don't make any sudden movements. You'll just piss it off."

  I was too scared to make the comment about Dmitri having a real talent for stating the obvious. He pulled hard on my arm and I slid backward a step, then another, feeling the cooler air from the downstairs tickle the back of my neck.

  In front of us, Stephen padded forward on feet with malformed toes and curling black claws that scraped the naked wood. "Keep going," Dmitri muttered. "Don't you dare stop, lady."

  The were-Stephen opened its mouth and roared. I jumped a yard out of my skin at the sound rattling around the small attic. Looking at its runny eyes, I saw an intelligence that while not human was far greater than any were I had encountered.

  Something other was watching us out of Stephen's eyes, and it didn't appreciate the fact that we were trying to skip out on it.

  I turned to Dmitri and met his eyes. "Run."

  To give him credit, Dmitri didn't argue with me. He just dropped my arm and bolted, clearing the stairs as I dove down behind him and slammed the attic door shut, fingers slippery with other people's blood fighting the deadbolt. Dmitri shoved me aside and rammed it home as the were-Stephen hit it from the other side. Wood shook and splinters popped out around the door frame.

  "Everything Hexed and holy," Dmitri panted as he braced his back against the door. "You ever see anything like that?"

  "Nothing I want to remember," I said. "Come on!"

  He shook his head. "You go. I'll hold it as long as I can."

  I reached out and grabbed Dmitri by the front of his jacket. "Don't be noble. This is really not the time."

  He tried to shake me off, snarling. Stephen hit the door again. "I'll take care of myself. Get away while you can."

  Men.

  I took a firmer hold on Dmitri and pulled him down to my level. "I am not a damsel in distress," I said. "And you are not my knight in shiny freaking armor. Got it?"

  He nodded after a long moment. "Got it."

  "Good. Run for your life."

  Even as Dmitri let go of the door and Stephen crashed through it, he still had the thoughtfulness to grab my hand.

  And they say chivalry is dead.

  We only made it to the hall before Stephen caught us, still snarling that wet, unnatural sound. I turned to face him, drawing the Colt out of reflex. Stephen tensed and sprang in a fluid motion surprising for his malformed body. He hit me square in the chest and I caromed into Dmitri, both of us going down in a heap. The Colt went over the banister and slid off to parts unknown.

  When my air came back and my vision resolved into something other than two spinning black circles, I was surprised not to see Stephen crouched over me, putting his huge teeth to good use.

  He went right over me, stepping on my chest with all four feet before he bounded down the stairs and out the door Dmitri had kicked in. Tires squealed as he crossed the street.

  I detangled myself from Dmitri and went after the were, arriving on the porch in time to see him disappear into the darkened park opposite the Duncans' house, yellow-pink eyes flashing before the trees swallowed him up.

  The front porch seemed as good a place as any to lean on my knees and suck in precious air, so I did. Dmitri joined me a few seconds later.

  "Shit!" he said, hitting the wall. "We lost him!"

  "And you're upset by this?" I asked. "Did you see the size of those teeth?"

  From a remote pocket in Dmitri's coat, a cell phone tone trilled. He and I both jumped. I smirked. "Never pegged you for a Barry Manilow fan."

  "Shut it," he told me before answering. He handed the phone over almost immediately. "It's your cousin."

  "You really need to get a new phone," said Sunny as soon as I said hello.

  "It's going to be a little hard to turn in a claim to my former department that says, under reason, Phone was melted by pure evil."

  "The lock to Marcus's spellbook is pretty elementary," said Sunny. "He really wasn't a very skillful witch. And his handwriting sucks."

  "How long before we know what it says?" I asked.

  "Not long," said Sunny. "I just need you to stop by the cottage and pick up a few things for the working."

  She rattled off a list. I kept my eyes to the shadows and watched for Stephen's return, but who was I kidding? He would run straight back to Alistair. Stephen was given no choice, just like I had no options. We were both driven by the phase, but as we pulled away from the Duncans' abattoir I hoped against hope that our destinations were different.

  Twenty-Three

  When we pulled up at the cottage, I smelled it on the gentle wind coming off the ocean, that burned, crisp smell that I had come to associate with pain and blood.

  I stopped Dmitri with a hand from opening the door. "Someone's here."

  He growled, shoulders rolling inside his jacket.

  "Shh!" I hissed, wishing with all my heart that I had the Colt in my hand. Not that it would do any good, but I had been trained to feel secure with a weapon. It would at least stop me from trembling.

  The door was still locked, and I gently turned the deadbolt and pushed it wide, springing back and peering into the dark sliver the door revealed. Dmitri, less than an inch away from me, sniffed. He smelled it, too.

  I looked back at him and jerked my head, indicating we were going inside. He nodded, knotty hands going into fists, as I eased the door open with my shoulder and rapidly swept the living room.

  The shadows were empty pools of blackness as far as my were eyes c
ould tell, and I relaxed a fraction, letting out a tiny breath. I took another step inside, Dmitri still just behind me.

  My attacker hit me from the side, where he'd been waiting behind the front door. It felt like a pipe, or a wrench, cold metal that burned where it impacted with my skull.

  As I went to my knees and lost my grip on the gun I placed the shocky, short-breathed feeling from when I had been shot. Silver.

  Over the throbbing in the back of my head, I rolled over to see my attacker, attired in the same mask and Windbreaker he'd worn days earlier, step in front of Dmitri. From my wonderful vantage point flat on the floor, I saw that I had landed in the center of a chalk circle.

  I'd been inside plenty of circles. The pentacle and the four corners of power are not pleasant, but at least symmetrical and ordinary. This was a circle inscribed with crude letters around the edge and ugly, curlicue wards of power radiating from the center. It made me itch just being inside, and when I tried to roll out I found I couldn't move. The edges of the circle flared as the wards took hold and pinned me prone.

  Dmitri made a move for the man in black, but he moved fluidly to the side and tossed a flat silver disk in Dmitri's path. The disk flashed and evaporated. Dmitri howled in pain as the light burned his sensitive eyes, dilated from the darkness, and lunged for my attacker once more before going to his knees, choking and spitting out blood.

  My attacker laughed. "Don't worry, Sandovsky. No permanent damage, just a simple talisman to prevent you from getting too upset." Dmitri folded on his side, breathing labored.

  He turned on me and removed his ski mask. "As for you, Detective Wilder… I'm afraid things are not so simple." He dropped the mask and smiled at me. "You shouldn't have come back here," Lockhart said. "I told you we see everything you do."

  He opened his jacket to reveal the brands I had seen so closely the night he came into my bedroom.

  "I knew it," I snarled. "I knew it since I saw you at Alistair's that night, when you let your glamour slip."

  "Very observant, Officer. And it did you such a service in the end, eh?" He got a chair from the dining room and set it inside the circle next to me, hauling me up by my T-shirt to face Dmitri. Setting me in the chair almost gently, he left the circle and ripped the phone out of the wall to tie Dmitri's hands.