Hold The Dark m-3

by Frank Tuttle

  Tears ran suddenly down her face. She rushed around my desk and gave me a single fierce hug. Then she was bawling and out the door, leaving her bag and her dead owl and a fresh-brewed hex-paper charm-the one I’d asked for-behind.

  I didn’t follow. I left the cloth-wrapped shell on my desk. I gathered my things, found my coat and put Mama’s charm in the pocket. I took my black hat off the hook where Darla had hung it, and I put it on.

  A storm blew up, an hour after dark. Cold winds blew, and cold rains fell. It felt like spring had given up, and handed the streets back over to winter.

  I listened for the count of bells amid the thunder. Found that I’d idly taken the huldra up within my hand. Still cold, even through the cloth, I found it comforting to hold, and the vague patterns on the shell drew my eye.

  I thought of Darla, thought of Martha, thought of the rain-swept streets. But mostly, I thought about fires. Fires and blades and shouts, rising in the night.

  The huldra stirred in my hand. I started and heard, faint behind the blow and beat of the storm, the Big Bell clang out Curfew.

  I rose, donned my coat, slipped the huldra in a pocket. I put out a handful of jerky for Three-leg Cat, thought about it for a minute and upended the tin on the floor beside my desk.

  And then I turned and sought out the alley on Regent Street, the one that gave me a clear view of Innigot’s Alehouse. And I waited in the storm, and I watched through the rain. I saw the Thin Man come, saw him open Innigot’s door and dart inside.

  I tore Mama’s charm. I pushed aside the huldra’s cloth and took it in my bare hand, and something dark and hungry blossomed in the depths of my soul.

  “Martha Hoobin,” I said. “It’s time to come home.”

  I crossed the street, and opened Innigot’s door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Innigot himself turned to face me. I knew the man, and he knew me, just another occasional Curfew-breaker out for a brew.

  That’s what he thought, at first. But the longer he looked, the more troubled his grizzled old face became.

  I grinned. He blanched and toddled off toward the back. I swept my gaze across the taproom, in search of my Thin Man.

  As was any curfew-breaking alehouse, Innigot’s was dark. There were three candles guttering along the bar, flickering just bright enough to show drunks the way to more beer without making it obvious the place was open in flagrant defiance of the Curfew. Half a dozen hunched forms nursed beers at four tables. All watched me, without turning their faces toward me.

  Save one. I blinked, the huldra shook and then the candle-lit room was as bright as noon. I saw him plain, though he sat in the back, in a corner barely touched by the light.

  I smiled. As one, the other five men in the room rose, wove and heeled-and-toed it for the door. They left hats. They left coats. They left it all, and I let them go.

  The Thin Man saw. He watched me come for him, tried to meet my eyes, tried to convince himself he wasn’t afraid, that something hadn’t gone horribly wrong. I could see though, see the fear rising through him, as easily as I saw the silver buckles on his fancy shoes, or the swan-shaped silver clasp that held his cloak closed at his throat.

  The huldra stirred again in my hand. And as I walked, it showed me things.

  You know those skull-face carvings at the right-hand gatepost of Orthodox cemeteries? Looks like a skull-until you see the skull is merely folds in the robe of the Angel Aaran, and part of his outstretched hands.

  That’s what it was like, as I walked. I saw stains on the warped planks of Innigot’s floor, and an instant later I saw that they were old blood, blood spilled while three men had held a fourth down and cut him. Blood spilled while Innigot had stood calmly ten feet away, wiping down his dirty glasses with a filthy rag.

  I heard shouts in the wind, cries for mercy-sounds that had been there all along, for anyone who knew how to listen.

  And so when I looked down upon the Thin Man, I saw his fear, plain as a bucket of sun. He looked up at me with cold brown eyes and a face that betrayed neither guilt nor shame. But he saw something in me, something in my eyes, something that chilled him to the bone.

  I laughed. “Well, well.” I stopped, pulled a chair around, sat beside him at his wobbly table. “Come to talk about combs, have we?”

  He nodded, licked his lips and swallowed. “I brought all the rest. I have the other seven, right here.”

  He reached beneath his chair, reached for a paper bag. I didn’t follow his hand with my eyes, didn’t need to see. I knew the bag was full of silver combs, just as he’d said. Each was a sibling to Martha’s.

  I snatched his hand back, put it down flat on the table, withdrew my own hand.

  “I don’t want them.”

  “I’ll tell you where they came from.”

  The huldra showed me words near his lips.

  “You got them from a young man named Tenny Hanks. He stole them from his father, who runs an import shop on Vanth. Tenny was a weedhead. You gave him ten crowns, and he smoked that right up and killed himself the next day trying to rob an ogre.” I smiled in triumph. “Isn’t that right?”

  He opened his mouth, shut it, tried to decide if he could knock me down and make for the door.

  I let him see my eyes. He began to shake.

  “I never wanted the combs. All that was a lie. Just like you feared. No, it’s the girls I want to talk about. You know the girls. The special ones. The ones you fed to your vampire friends.”

  He choked back a shout, tried to bolt. I shoved him back, surprised at how easily he gave way to my touch.

  “I know it all,” I said. He tried to look away, but I held his gaze, let the huldra show me more. “I know about the priest. I know about the halfdead. I know you help them, because they let you watch.” I pulled him closer, laughed when he wriggled and whimpered. “You made a mistake, taking Martha Hoobin. She was no whore, and you knew it. What would your halfdead friends say, if they knew you meant to feed them a rich man’s sister?”

  He gobbled and clawed. I tightened my grip.

  “They’d have your head, they would. Poor stubborn Miss Hoobin. She preferred her Balptist verse to the mouthings of your Church, and you decided you’d make her pay. What better way to educate her in the mercies of your Church than to feed her to a room of halfdead, you miserable little swine. Isn’t that right?”

  “I’ll tell you,” he said, gasping around my grasp. I had him by the throat, one-handed. He grappled and clawed but couldn’t dislodge my grip. “I’ll tell you where they are. Tell you where the halfdead are.”

  I laughed. The sound of it was strange, more thunder than voice.

  “Oh, you shall indeed. Do you think that will save you?”

  “You want to know, don’t you?”

  I laughed again.

  “I know already.” The huldra whispered again, telling me what was ready to leap from the Thin Man’s panicked lips.

  “Below another old warehouse. On Santos. Three blocks from here. They’ve gathered there, already. The party begins in an hour. Have I missed anything?”

  He coughed and wheezed, began to turn purple. “You…swore. You…swore…you wouldn’t…harm.”

  “Did I now?”

  I let go. He fell limp down on the table, threw up, lifted his face, sputtering and spewing.

  I saw, without turning, the door open behind me. I saw Ethel Hoobin march inside, and his brothers, and then dozens more. All bore weapons. Ethel and his brothers bore short lengths of chain, each bearing a fresh-sharpened hook at the end.

  “Mustn’t break a promise,” I whispered to him. “I shall do you no harm.” I backed away. Let him see the New People, let him read the murder written plain on their hard wet faces.

  “Pity that these gentlemen are parties to no such oath. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘pound of flesh’? It’s a quaint country saying. Comes from those chains, and those hooks. I’m sure you can imagine the rest. And if not, well, you’ll see,
soon enough.”

  I turned from him. Ethel Hoobin met my gaze, though many would not.

  “Has he my Martha?”

  “He has. He took her.”

  Behind me, the Thin Man let out a ruckus. Men rushed forward and blows sounded. He yelped and went quiet.

  “Do you know where?”

  I told Ethel where. I told him to finish his business. I would wait outside, and we would go and get Martha.

  He nodded, and the way parted. As the Thin Man began to sob and beg, I left Innigot’s.

  It was still raining outside. The huldra showed me a hidden thing, and I brushed the rain away and set out for Santos Street, through a night made as bright as day.

  The huldra whispered. I listened. I knew I would have no need of Evis and his friends, or Ethel and his. The blood I meant to spill lay ahead, and I could not be troubled to wait.

  So I walked. Each step took me farther, each breath made me stronger, each whisper of the huldra left me taller, let me see more than I’d seen an instant before. I heard music in the storm, heard voices in the wind, saw wonders and terrors in each flicker of far-off lightning.

  Soon, I realized I was no longer looking at walls and doors, but looking down on rooftops and rain-swept streets. I towered above it all, my every step that of a giant, my footfalls the very thunder. I laughed, and the skies split with a terrible bright light. I saw hidden forms twist and dance in the shadows.

  Below and behind me, shapes scurried, darting from here to there. Some were dark and swift and seemed at times to fly, while some were slow and steady-Evis, I recalled, as if from an old and distant memory. Avalante. Evis and his soldiers, and the New People keeping carefully apart from each other, antlike in my wake.

  I realized I could reach down and crush them, stamp them out like insects. The huldra knew, would show me how. Strange memories rose and fell, of doing just such a thing many times before. Other images followed-faces in the dark, a tower on a hill, fire raining from a wounded crimson sky.

  “No,” I said, my voice booming. “It is true I spoke my name. Even so, I shall have no other.”

  I wasn’t sure why I said those words. But the huldra knew. It turned me back toward the warehouse on Santos, and soon I could see down upon it, even see the cold dark figures huddled unknowing within.

  The huldra knew my wishes. I shrank, until I faced a door. I let loose my hold upon the rain, let it beat down over me, let it sting my face and my mouth with its acrid taste of bitter ashes.

  I put forth my hand. Knock twice fast, twice slow, twice fast again, whispered the huldra.

  I obeyed. In a moment, I heard the creak of a bar being lifted, and when I tried the door again it opened.

  I stepped inside, let the rain and the dark and the huldra blur my form into a simulacra of the Thin Man’s.

  I stood in a dark foyer. Wood floor. Wood walls. Ten by ten, maybe, with a single second door set in the wall facing the one through which I’d entered. No candles burned, but I saw.

  Saw a halfdead before me. He wore no House insignia, but the huldra told me a name. Mercross, oldest and worst of all the dark Houses.

  I didn’t care. Because I saw something else, there in the dark. Faint, but unmistakable, and utterly and forever unforgivable.

  He bore the mark of blood, rich and red about his hands, about his mouth. He’d washed, but I could see. Darla’s blood, perhaps. My Darla’s blood.

  I made a sound, something between a shout and a growl.

  An instant of confusion, when he saw I wasn’t the same man he’d admitted. Another instant to raise his pale hands toward me, to open his mouth, to leap.

  An instant too long. That which had blossomed in my soul, back in the alley on Regent Street, took root, fed by rage and fury, fed by the blood lingering on his lips.

  I caught him up. Caught him and stilled his cries and let him flop like a fresh-caught trout in my hands. I let him see my eyes. Let him see his fate, mirrored within.

  “You die for what you did. You die for her.”

  I pulled him apart. Easily. I pulled, twisted and tore and did not stop until he was a twitching red ruin. I smeared what was left upon the walls.

  When I was done, I took hold of the far door and pulled it from its hinges.

  “Come and be judged,” I said, and my voice rang out like an Angel’s. “Come and face the hand of wrath!”

  Shapes flew. Harsh voices cried out.

  I squeezed myself through the tiny door, and my Darla had her vengeance at last.

  Some time later, I became aware.

  Aware of voices, furtive footfalls and the glare of torches and lanterns.

  The sounds rang hollow, in a large and empty room. I blinked, and the dark fled, and I saw.

  It had been a warehouse. Tall bare walls, high flat ceiling, warped plank floor. Windows all boarded, doors all barred, though attempts had been made to pull down the bars from within.

  Few such attempts had succeeded.

  Carnage lay about me. Blood-thin and black-covered nearly every surface. The odd arm or leg completed the grim decor.

  I coughed, tasted blood and wiped my face.

  My hand came away red.

  I scrambled to my feet. Torchlight flowed through a broken door, and a man stepped through, saw me, shouted and stepped quickly back.

  The man darted back through, half a dozen of his fellows and a pair of halfdead on his heels. The halfdead trained crossbows upon me, would have fired had not another pale form appeared and shouted them down.

  I spat, and the spittle was red. My head spun, and my vision was alternately clear or shadowed. My ears rang, and when I moved I felt as if my limbs were the wrong size, the wrong shape.

  A voice called out, half familiar.

  “Finder?”

  I knew a finder, once, it seemed. What had been his name?

  “Mister Markhat?”

  I took a breath, nodded.

  “Are you injured?”

  Evis stepped forward, waved his men to follow. The New People came as well.

  The crossbow-bolts shone strange, in the flickers between light and dark.

  I tried to speak, failed. Tried to recall how I’d come to be in the midst of such horror-

  — and it all came flooding back to me, and my hand closed around the huldra, and my eyes were suddenly accustomed to the dark once again.

  Evis and his men came ahead, their eyes darting to and fro, from limb to bloodstain and back to me.

  “I see you found the nest,” said Evis, carefully.

  “I found those I sought. They shall trouble us no more.”

  Evis nodded, halted. “No, it seems they shall not.” He turned, spoke to his fellows, and one went darting off.

  “Miss Hoobin,” he said. “Have you perhaps seen her?”

  “I did not yet seek her out.” I cast my new senses down, turned them to the floor, and what might lie beneath.

  “She awaits us below. She is not alone. I shall tend to them, as well.”

  “No,” said Evis, and I turned sharp upon him. “Please. Let us. Would you deny the brothers Hoobin their due, now that you have had yours?”

  “I will do as I wish.” My voice took on hints of thunder. “None shall deter me.”

  “None will seek to deter you,” said Evis. “But might we beg of you this boon?”

  Ethel and his brothers came rushing inside, along with a gang of twenty or so winded New People. Many bore cuts and bruises. I gathered the only fighting hadn’t been within the bloody walls I faced.

  I laughed. “Come. I shall watch then. It will amuse me.”

  I caught hold of the trap door recently cut into the floor. Caught hold of it from where I stood, and blasted it from its hidden frame, all without moving.

  Evis nodded, snapped instructions to his men and motioned for Ethel and his to follow.

  They swarmed off, into the deeper dark. I followed, my pace leisurely, no longer troubled by the blood that ran down my fa
ce.

  It was nearly over by the time I descended the makeshift stair. Two halfdead and a trio of humans. The halfdead fell first, shot by Evis’s faintly glowing crossbow bolts-I could see plain the spell caught in the bolts, a simple thing of light and heat-and a fusillade of blows from a furious New People mob.

  Evis gathered the humans in a corner. Ethel stepped forward, blade raised, and asked them where his sister was.

  I knew. I made my way easily through the dark, came to a heavy door, opened it.

  A raving, bloodied halfdead flew shrieking to meet me. I caught it, too, and would have crushed it, save it began to cry, a woman’s high sobs.

  I brought it out, into the sudden ring of light cast by Ethel’s torch.

  Ethel bellowed, would have hacked the captive priests apart had I not silenced him with a shout.

  “This is not your sister.”

  “Ameel Cant,” said Evis, elbowing his way through the crowd. He eyed her critically, pointed toward a small room behind the one I’d just opened. “If you please?”

  I cast her into it and slammed the door. She beat and flailed upon it, her cries long and high and anguished.

  A bar leaned by the door. I picked it up, dropped it in the holds, crossed the room, flung open the next door and stepped inside.

  And there she was.

  Martha Hoobin, backed into the furthest corner of the tiny stinking room, glaring up at me with those sky-blue Hoobin eyes.

  “You’ll nare lay a hand on me, ye cat-eyed devil.” She’d torn a post from the bed that was the room’s sole piece of furniture and scraped one end sharp. She held the point steady and level with my gut.

  Even there, in the dark, through eyes no longer entirely my own, I could see a bit of Ethel in the set of Martha’s jaw, in the way she held her eyes boring straight into mine. There were other similarities-the long narrow shape of the nose, the coal-black hair, the cheekbones that caught the faint light of approaching torches behind-but while Martha was obviously a Hoobin, she’d inherited none of her brothers’ massive big-boned frames. She was tiny-perhaps half Ethel’s height, maybe half a hand taller than Mama-almost Elfishly so, in the seeming fragility of her limbs, in the long fingers, in the nearly luminous blue of her eyes.