Hold The Dark m-3

by Frank Tuttle

  I pushed myself back out of the way. Evis said something to the driver, and suddenly Sara and the other vampire scrambled inside.

  Evis popped his head in the door.

  “Bertram will take you home, Mr. Markhat,” he said. “You and I must speak tomorrow, the sooner the better.” He lifted his hand, cutting off my reply. “There is no time. You must not be seen here, and I must stay. Go. We talk tomorrow.”

  He shut the door, and the carriage rolled on.

  An awkward silence fell. Sara shifted and mumbled and pawed the air with her hands, as if caught in a deep and troubled sleep. Her companion held her close and tried to hold her hands and stroke her face and keep her from leaping out of her seat. He didn’t have enough hands, and even vampire-quick was nearly not quick enough, but he managed, somehow.

  She cried out, high and airy, and he began to speak to her, soothing and soft. And only then did it dawn on me-Sara and her companion were married.

  Had to be. Mister and Missus Halfdead. Death had done them, but they had yet to part. I’d missed the mannerisms before because I never imagined such pale cold creatures would bother with wives or sires.

  She cried out again, flailed the air with her hands. Three of the fingers on her right hand were broken, bent back double, touching the back of her palm.

  “Will she heal?”

  Sara’s husband-had to be-turned his eyes briefly upon me.

  He spoke. His accent wasn’t Rannish, and it was so thick it took me a moment to work out his words.

  “What do you care?”

  Sara’s broken fingers began to move, drawing themselves slowly back into their normal places. I could hear, faint over the rattle and clack of the carriage, the faint scraping and popping of small bones.

  “She saved my life. She fought for me.” I shrugged. “So did you. It matters.”

  He held her good hand while the broken fingers twitched and jerked.

  “She will recover,” he said, when it was done. Sara sagged like a rag doll, and her husband looked back toward her. “We fought for the House. Not for you.”

  “Then I thank the House,” I said.

  Sara expelled a final whimper, doubled her hands over the wound in her breast and nestled close to her mate.

  Light from a rare lit streetlamp washed through the open windows of the carriage. I saw a wetness in the male vampire’s yellow eyes, and I looked quickly away.

  After a while, Sara began to mumble again. She shared her husband’s accent, and she wasn’t speaking Kingdom, but the older tongue of the Church. I know maybe a dozen words of Church, so I wasn’t keeping up too well. But I didn’t need a priest-book to know halfdead Sara was mumbling ragged prayers.

  “Mercy, mercy, spare me, mercy.” Over and over again. And while she prayed, her fingers moved, reflexively rubbing a prayer coin that wasn’t there, wouldn’t ever be there again.

  Mercy, mercy. I wondered what old Father Molo would say, on hearing vampire prayers. I could almost see his red mask shaking, hear the fury and outrage in his tremulous old voice. Blasphemy, he’d shout. Blasphemy, and damnation quick to follow.

  Still, Sara prayed. She’d grappled fully with the thing we’d disturbed. She touched its flesh, perhaps tasted its blood. Was that the mercy for which she prayed? Was that the fate from which she begged to be spared?

  Life ends in death-perhaps half-life ends with the thing from the floor.

  So she prayed. I lowered my head and closed my eyes. For the first time since before the War, I mouthed Sara’s name and prayed for her too, all the long way back to Cambrit.

  I shucked my clothes right there in the street. I managed to salvage my socks and my shoes, but everything else went into a trash bin-even my old Army dress pants, which had withstood assaults of time and moths and weather and war, but wasn’t ever going to recover from a couple quarts of old dead blood and smeared-on bits of rot.

  Naked at my door. If the neighbors were watching I’d never hear the end of it. But I wasn’t done yet. Inside, I gathered my just filled washing urn, a cake of Mama’s flesh-eating lye soap and a rag destined to keep my britches company in the bin.

  Then, still nude, I stepped back outside and lathered up Mama’s soap and took the longest, most disgusting bath of my long and sordid life.

  I got lye soap in one eye and provided high amusement for a pair of passing ogres. I’ll probably go bald any day now from the caustic soap, but when I was done I was shivering and shaking and absolutely squeaky clean.

  Only then did I dress. Only then did I lock the door, open a warm bottle of Bottit’s and sit down to see if I’d shake.

  I didn’t. I didn’t sleep, not until nearly sunrise, but I didn’t have the shakes again.

  I even did some thinking. Came to some conclusions. Conclusions about Evis and Houses and why Avalante wanted Martha Hoobin home and safe and sound before anyone but finder Markhat discovered a mad, rotted halfdead napping in a shallow grave downtown.

  Three-leg Cat poked his head in the office but refused to come near me. I finally dozed off, still at my desk, to the sound of half a dozen dogs outside snarling and tearing at my blood-fouled clothes.

  Chapter Seven

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  I jumped, spilled warm beer and felt my head begin to throb.

  Mama’s voice rang out. She tried the latch, cussed and shoved hard at the door.

  I threw the bottle in the trash bucket and managed to get out of my chair and to the door before Mama broke it down.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said, fumbling with the latch. The daylight through my bubbled-glass door-pane was faint and yellow, more blush of dawn than actual morning.

  I yanked the door open. “Damn, Mama, it’s barely daylight-”

  She pushed her way in beside me. The look on her face-it’s never a good look, mind you-was worried and grim and if I didn’t know her better I’d say it was frantic.

  “Boy,” she said, huffing and puffing. “Boy, where you been?”

  I shut the door.

  “Right here sleeping. Why? Where’s the fire?”

  She fell heavily into my client’s chair, her hands tight around the neck of that big burlap sack she sometimes carries. Once she let a little snake crawl out of it and get loose on my desk. I’d told her to leave it at her place from then on.

  “You ain’t been here all night.” She opened the bag and started rummaging around inside it as she spoke, and I got that lifted-hair-on-the-back-of-my-neck feeling I’d always gotten when the Army sorcerer corps had aimed new hexes at us troops.

  “Whoa,” I said, harder and louder than I meant to. “You got mojo in that sack, Mama, you’d damn well better leave it there. I took hexes in the Army because I had to, and you’ve slipped a few on me because I didn’t see them coming. But hear this, Mama Hog. No hexes. Not today. Got it?”

  She clamped her jaw and met my stare. I could see her hands moving, see the beginning of a word form on her lips.

  Then she sagged and let out her breath.

  “Wouldn’t do no good anyhow.” She pulled her hands out of the bag and tied it shut with a scrap of twine. “Wouldn’t do no good.”

  When she looked back up at me, she had tears in her eyes.

  “Mama, I didn’t mean-”

  “Ain’t you, boy. Ain’t nothin’ you said. Ain’t nothin’ you done.”

  My head pounded. I took a deep breath and ran fingers through my hair, which was wild and stiff and probably bleached white from Mama’s soap.

  “What is it, then? What’s got you so upset?”

  “I seen something. Last night. I seen something bad.”

  “I thought your cards were clueless where Martha was concerned.”

  “Wasn’t about Martha.” She wiped her eyes and leaned close. “Was about you.”

  “Tell me.”

  She shook her head. “No, I can’t tell. Can’t tell ’cause I still can’t see real clear.” She shuffled in her seat, and I knew I’d
caught her in a lie.

  “Tell me what you can.”

  “Cards. Glass. Smoke. Bones. All come up death, boy. I called your name and a whippoorwill answered. I burned your hair and saw the ashes scatter. I caught blood on a silver needle and saw it turn toward your door.” She shivered, and her eyes looked tired. “Ain’t never seen all them things. Not the same night. And then, when I saw them dogs tearin’ at your clothes-well, I thought you was dead for sure.”

  “I’m not surprised. I came pretty close, just after midnight. Maybe that’s what you saw.”

  She shook her head. “I reckon not. Something still ain’t right about all this, boy. I oughtn’t to be seeing some things I see, and ought to see things I don’t. We got a sayin’ in Pot Lockney-it’s them things under the water what makes the river wild. Somethin’s messing up my sight on this. You reckon you know what it might be?”

  I shook my head. I had suspicions, but they weren’t for anyone but Evis to hear.

  “I don’t know, Mama, but I will tell you this. The Houses are mixed up in this, somehow.”

  She snorted. “Figured that.”

  “Maybe not that way. At least not all of them.” I gave her just enough of the night’s festivities to steer the Watch and the Hoobins toward Avalante, should I have a fatal boating accident in the next few days.

  None of that helped her state of agitation. “Running around after Curfew with vampires?” she shouted. “Boy, have you hit your fool head?”

  I had to agree, at least partly. But I’d lived. Thanks partly to Evis, who was probably pacing anxiously in a well-appointed crypt across the river.

  “Look, Mama, I’ve got to go. But there’s something you can do. For me. Maybe for Martha.”

  She gave me a sideways look, nodded.

  “I’ll need a hex. A paper hex. Something I can tear. Something you’ll know I’ve torn, just as soon as I’ve torn it. From twenty, thirty blocks away. Can you do that?”

  She frowned. “I reckon.”

  “Good. And I’ll need you to talk to Ethel. I need you to tell him we may need men to get Martha. Men who’ll break Curfew. Men who’ll fight. Men who’ll keep their mouths shut.”

  “How many?”

  “All you can get.” I was hoping for fifty.

  Mama nodded. “You think you know where Martha Hoobin is?”

  “Not yet. But when I find out, we won’t have much time. She’s got maybe four days left. That’s all.” A thought struck me, and I held up my hand to silence Mama’s unspoken question. “Humor me, Mama. What’s special about the night four days from now?”

  She frowned. “Special what?”

  “I mean is it some old rite of spring or solstice or something. Is there going to be an eclipse? Will the skies turn blood red and rain frogs-that kind of thing?”

  “Nothing special about it at all. It’s Thursday. There’s a new moon. Might rain.”

  “That’s it,” I said, aloud. “New moon. No moon. Darkest night of the month.”

  Vampire picnic day.

  Mama saw, and the same thought occurred to her.

  “Damn, boy,” she piped. “I done told you I seen death! Death on your name. Death on your blood. Don’t none of that mean nothin’ to you?”

  I rose. “It does. But look again. You see me telling Ethel Hoobin I quit? You see me leaving Martha Hoobin at the mercy of those who have her? You see me just walking away?”

  She gathered her bag. She rose, and she was crying when she hit the door.

  I sat. “Whippoorwills,” I said, to my empty chair. “There aren’t any whippoorwills in Rannit. Haven’t been in years.”

  None sang. Ogres huffed and doors began to open and slam outside and old Mr. Bull’s broom started its daily scritch-scritch on his pitiful small stoop. Rannit came to life, sans portents and whippoorwills, vampires and doomsayers.

  I listened for a while and then got up, combed my hair and headed across town to speak with Evis about corpses, new moons and ensorcelled silver combs.

  I hadn’t even hailed a cab when a sleek black carriage pulled up to the curb before me. The driver tipped his tall black hat, all fresh-scrubbed smiles and shiny black boots with silver buckles and a just-picked yellow daisy in his topcoat buttonhole.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said, to me. “I believe you have an appointment with the House this morning.”

  I agreed I most likely did. I opened the door and clambered inside. A short time later we were across the River and through the tall iron gates of House Avalante.

  I’d have been impressed, were I not so engrossed in my new aches and pains. My right eye still stung from Mama’s soap, and my hips were sore where Sara had snatched me up. So all I can recall is a maze of oak-paneled corridors and gold-plated lamp holders and mirrors set in silver frames. That, and the hush, and the constant strong smell of fireflowers.

  I was ushered through half a dozen lavish sitting rooms, each done in fussy pre-War Kingdom style, lace and claw-footed tables and tiny swooping dragons, each biting the tail of the last, carved along the door-frames. I was greeted by half a dozen human household staff, each one more polished and reserved than the last. By the time I was finally shown the anteroom outside Evis’s office, I’d guessed I’d met all the most trusted and highly placed of House Avalante’s daytime staff. Each one called me Mister Jones, and each knew they spoke a lie.

  I sat. A butler dusted a forty-candle candelabra and eyed me. I yawned at him. I’d worn my good coat and my new hat and he still lifted his eyebrows and bit back admonitions to keep my feet off the furniture.

  Yet another butler appeared, and at last I was presented to Evis. He was seated behind a massive ironwood desk, in a dimly lit forty-by-forty office with red-gold Gantish carpet covering the floor. Three of the walls were lined with cherry bookcases crammed with leather-bound books. The other wall held a glass case filled with curios and old swords and glittering spinning things I took to be sorcerous knick-knacks but couldn’t see well enough to identify. There were, of course, no windows. In fact, by my count of stairs, we were three stories underground.

  “Good morning, Mister Markhat,” said Evis. He signed a paper, blew the ink to dry it, and rose. “I trust you slept well?”

  I crossed to the empty chair at his desk. “Well enough. How’s Sara?”

  Evis motioned for me to sit, then seated himself as well.

  “She is recovering.” The room was dark. There was a small candle burning in each corner, but I still couldn’t read Evis’s expression. “I shall tell her you inquired.”

  I nodded. Evis reached into a pocket, found his dark glasses, put them on before whispering a word.

  Light flared, bright and white, from a pair of glass globes hung on silver chains from the ceiling.

  “For your comfort. By the way. Sara’s husband Victor wishes to extend to you his apologies. He fears his manner was brusque, in the carriage.”

  I shrugged. “He didn’t tear my head off and eat it. I thought we got along famously.”

  Evis grinned. “Nevertheless. We were all disturbed to distraction by what we discovered last night.”

  “Oh, we most certainly were. That was…let’s see…” I unfolded and consulted my list, picked out the tenth name. “Milly Balount, wasn’t it? Or maybe Allie Sands?”

  Evis nodded. “Allie Sands, we believe. Examination of the body revealed a tattoo, which matched one Miss Sands was said to possess.”

  “Allie Sands. She was number nine. Snatched just before the new moon three months ago.”

  “Indeed.” Somewhere, a clock ticked and tocked. Evis sighed. “How much do you know about halfdead physiology, Mister Markhat?”

  “Very little,” I replied. “I’m not sure anyone does.”

  Evis nodded, not in agreement but acknowledgment.

  “Miss Sands was bitten many times. We estimate that some eleven halfdead fed on her.”

  I stared. Halfdead usually hunt alone, that much I knew.

  “
Multiple bites result in the unfortunate condition you saw last night. To do such a thing is anathema, even to the oldest and most depraved of my kin. But it is not the first such attack we have discovered. I believe this is significant.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think. You stop me when I’m wrong.”

  “I shall.”

  I took a breath. “Someone-maybe one of the Houses, maybe not-decided that snacking on Curfew-breakers wasn’t good enough anymore. This person or persons has other tastes. Tastes that include young women, consumed without the fuss and bother of plying them with flowers or sneaking through their windows.”

  “We do neither,” said Evis. “But do go on.”

  “So, once a month, our hungry friend arranges to have a dinner party. Catered, if you will. Someone lures the main course into a carriage with a bauble, or a bribe. Did Miss Sands have a silver comb among her possessions perhaps?”

  “She did not. Though her somewhat avaricious business associates rifled her belongings before our agent arrived,” he said. “It is entirely possible such a comb was among her things.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She was chosen-like the rest-because she was young and pretty and she was a prostitute and no one would look hard when she turned up missing.” I made myself stare at those round black lenses. “How do you like my story so far?”

  “It lacks certain elements.” He didn’t smile. “But, sadly, the theme is generally correct.”

  “I’ll bet. So, once a month, and always in a different place, this industrious halfdead and several of his closest friends gather. They gather, and they wait. And at the appointed time-”

  “At the appointed time,” said Evis, interrupting, “a young woman is brought out. She is abused, slain and left in the state you observed last night. And that, Mister Markhat-that, we will not bear.”