In Truth and Claw (A Mick Oberon Job #4)

by Ari Marmell

  The lovely perfume of the alleyway vanished beneath a thick blanket of pungent rot. I spun, hand under my coat.

  “Varujan.” No way this was coincidence, not even for us Fae. “I don’t much like bein’ tailed.”

  “Pleasant evening, Oberon.” Ignoring my complaint, the corpse stepped out into the dull yellow light of a nearby streetlamp. It didn’t make him any prettier.

  “It’s morning. Dawn’s in a couple hours.”

  That ugly rictus smile again. “It is dark. This is evening enough for me.”

  “Swell. What parta ‘get the hell outta my town before I put you under it’ was too tough for you to understand?”

  “I understand all this. You do not understand that we must cooperate in this matter.”

  “I don’t fuckin’ think so. Especially since it’s been a couple days, and three brand spankin’ new stiffs, since we talked. You gonna try and tell me you still ain’t fed? That none of those bodies were your doin’?”

  “I will not try to tell you such things, no. But only one. We all do as we must, Oberon.”

  I had the L&G in my fist before I even thought about it. “Yeah, we do. For instance, I made you a promise, and I ‘must’ keep it. All over you.”

  “I understand.” But he was already fadin’ away, turning into mist again. “You will wish you had my assistance tonight. Maybe after this you listen.” The last was a whisper, echoing between the brick walls, and he was gone.

  Dammit! I was gonna have to be quicker next time, put Varujan down before he had a chance to—why hadn’t the smell of decay vanished when he did?

  I dove for the pavement, hard, but I didn’t have quite enough swift to pull it off. Something sharp and painful and ugly, like an infection given form, raked across a shoulder blade, sending me skidding through the grease and gods-knew-what-else, to fetch up against a broken wooden pallet. My wand went skittering, because that woulda just made it too easy, wouldn’t it?

  And for a second, all I could think was Not another coat! Nuts to buyin’ in bulk, I oughta buy stock…

  I scrambled upright, hissing in pain as something feverish raced through the wound and across my already blood-streaked back. I drew the old leaf-bladed sword and dropped into a fighting stance I hadn’t assumed in centuries, but was still etched into my muscle memory like the Commandments in stone.

  The vampire hissed back, unfortunately not in pain. About the width of a nickel shorter’n me, I think it mighta been female at one point, though between the sunken flesh and patchy hair, tattered rags and old bloodstains, I honestly couldn’t say for sure. No wonder Franky’d had trouble.

  “Okay, ghoul o’ mine. You as chatty as your pal Varujan, or we just gonna get right to the—?”

  It lunged, moaning some kinda awful, dirt-gargling rasp. Fine, then.

  I met it halfway, blade spinning. Given how bad I was already stiffening up, I’m pretty proud of landing the first clean shot. It leaped away, howling, clutching an arm with the opposite paw. A watery black soup—almost a photo negative of fresh pus—oozed from the cut.

  Didn’t slow for long, though. It came right back at me, put me on my heels, and it was all I could do to keep it at bay. On a good day, I’d have plenty of swift to match it, but with that gash in my back, I wasn’t exactly running with a full team in harness.

  Sword and jagged nails flew, and we circled around each other best as the cramped confines of the alley allowed. Every move was agony, but I ignored it. I had no choice.

  I got in a few more cuts, wet the blade with more of that grotesque drainage, but nothin’ near as deep or as telling as the first. Meanwhile, my arms were startin’ to resemble the side of a cat’s favorite sofa. Trickles of blood ran over my fingers, threatened to make my grip on the sword dangerously slick.

  This vampire wasn’t dumb, either. At one point I suddenly fell back, movin’ to make a grab for the fallen wand. It jumped, nearly flew, over my head with a screech worse than the braking of the L, stuck briefly to the wall, and landed between me and my goal.

  Fuck.

  I tumbled to somethin’ else, too, somethin’ that didn’t make me feel any better about my situation. All the little wounds on my arms? They weren’t there because my arms were all the vampire could reach. Its stance, the angle of its strikes… It was trying to hurt me, not rub me out.

  I hadn’t a clue as to why, but it sure couldn’t mean anything good.

  Would I have been a goner if it’d meant to kill me? Wish I could say. Maybe I was doin’ well enough to cling to this immortal coil, or maybe not. Ain’t the sorta thing I enjoy not knowing, either, but there it is.

  The dancing and circling and striking and defending and just generally struggling not to be shredded into aes sidhe confetti dragged on for… well, probably just a minute or two, but it sure seemed to be forever. And comin’ from someone old as me, that’s sayin’ a lot.

  But I knew I hadda make a move, somethin’ the nosferatu didn’t expect, or this wasn’t gonna end well. So I fell back again, this time away from the L&G. It followed, of course, but not as quickly; it didn’t figure it had any reason to rush. Until my foot came down right on the spot where I’d fallen when this whole mess started.

  I made a sudden lunge, just enough to startle it and drive it back, buy me an extra second. Then I reached down to the pallet I’d smacked up against earlier and snapped off a jagged length of wood.

  Its dry yellow peepers went wide as it saw what I’d done, watched as I switched hands to hold the sword in my left, the stake in my right.

  I don’t guess it was having fun anymore.

  You can kill a vampire with a sword, sure, but only if you behead the thing and destroy the body afterward. Possible, but not easy, especially if you’re too slow to get inside its guard like I was that night.

  Stake through the pump, though? Not as simple as it sounds, but quicker’n easier than the alternative.

  It hiss-screeched at me one last time—just hadda get the last word in, I suppose—and then, same as Varujan’d done, faded away into mist and vanished into the early morning darkness.

  Leaving me a bloody, agonized lump that wasn’t gonna accomplish squat hangin’ around here—or anywhere else, tonight. I sheathed my sword, collected my wand, and started my long and aching journey back home.

  * * *

  I think the most painful part of the trip was the constant jumping at every bump and clatter, the efforts to watch every direction at once—kept tuggin’ at the open wounds. I couldn’t help it, though. The vampire had meant to hurt me, and it’d succeeded.

  But I still didn’t know why. Which meant it coulda been a setup for absolutely anything.

  Which meant I hadda be wary for absolutely anything.

  Staggered off the train, staggered a couple blocks to Mr. Soucek’s building, staggered down the stairs. Starting to become second nature, staggering. The whole way, nobody’d so much as given me a dirty look—or any look, other’n the occasional gawker who noticed the big bloody rents in my flogger—let alone started anything. On the other hand, I’d damn near given myself a permanent crick in my neck tryin’ to pull an owl act the whole way, so maybe I’da been better off if someone had just taken a poke at me.

  Slowed up as I was, it took me over an hour to get home, even though the mornin’ crowds hadn’t really built up yet, and my back and arms weren’t feeling any more pleasant when I reached my office than they’d been in the alley. If anything, the burning was gettin’ even more feverish.

  I’d known it was comin’. Unnatural wounds like these, they weren’t gonna heal up near as quick as any mundane injury. Me expecting it didn’t do jack to make it any less painful, though. I needed time and rest, and…

  And judgin’ by the fact that the horn started ringing off the wall the literal minute I fumbled my key into the office door, I wasn’t gonna have an easy time catchin’ either.

  I near ignored it. Probably woulda, if I’d taken time to mull it over. Last th
ing I needed right now, on top of everything else, was the discomfort of puttin’ that diabolical contraption to my ear. Still, I answered. I could tell you that was because I was worried it might be somethin’ urgent, given how many plates I had in the air. But the fact of it is, my noodle wasn’t workin’ quite right, and all I could think was I gotta shut the goddamn thing up!

  “’Lo?”

  “Hello, Mick? It’s Bianca.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

  “I see.” Silence, then, “Fino wanted you to know, he doesn’t think Saul Fleischer’s your man. He’s out of town right now, and has been for weeks. New York. Something about a meeting with the Five Families.”

  “Good. Great. Thanks. Good.” She was still on the line, though. “Anythin’ else?”

  “I just… Well, we haven’t heard from you, and we wanted to see if you’d learned anything.”

  I nodded, even though I meant no, and even though it ain’t as though she could see me anyway. “About what?”

  “Um. The Unseelie? Watching our house? Their possible interest in our daughter?”

  “Oh, right.” I nodded again, or maybe shook my head. I dunno. I did something involving my neck. “Yes. Yeah. No.”

  “Mick? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I told the carpet. Then I wondered why I was yammering into the carpet and not the blower. Then I decided I didn’t care and went to sleep.

  * * *

  So again, bein’ entirely square with you, I hadn’t handled that well.

  No, I don’t mean the damn phone call, though I pretty obviously didn’t handle that too neat, either. I mean the undead Broderick I’d been handed.

  Vampire wounds are a nasty business, but I coulda mitigated some of it. Coulda dosed myself up with luck and a touch of ambient magic, taken the edge off ’em. But I was so outta it in the alley, between the injuries and all the questions racin’ around in my noggin, that I hadn’t thought of it until I was on the train. The pain made it hard to concentrate—too hard for me to be near as subtle as normal. I wasn’t about to perform any obvious hocus-pocus in fronta witnesses; I’d decided I could put up with it until I’d gotten to my place. And then… well, maybe if I hadn’t been interrupted, I’da had a chance to deal with it before my body took it outta my hands.

  Point is, I’d been off my game, bad. Still was, some, when I woke up. Which is why…

  No. I’ll get to it.

  When I woke up, first thing I saw was a ceiling. Real fascinatin’, right? ’Cept of course that I’d been peepers-deep in carpeting when I went night-night. And this sure wasn’t the ceiling of my office, or anywhere else I recognized. (Though, to be fair, I dunno that I would recognize too many ceilings. Just ain’t my area of study.)

  Place didn’t feel or smell familiar, either, though I recognized a few scents. Alcohol, milk, and the Ottatis among ’em.

  Goddamn it, they didn’t!

  I turned to get a slant on the room, and sure enough, they had.

  I was laid out on the sofa of a pretty swanky living room. Handful of over-cushioned chairs and a small table stood nearby, and all of ’em—including the cushions under me— were pretty new. A radio, also young enough that I doubt it’d ever belted out more’n a hundred tunes or so, huddled in the far corner. I could feel even at this distance that it was not only off, but unplugged, which I appreciated. A few just-starting-to-wilt flowers here, a colorful curtain-tie there, and some newly hung crucifixes added a touch of home.

  We were in an apartment, not a house. Even if I hadn’t been able to tell that by the tiny sliver of view permitted by the curtains and the autumn rain, I’da known just from the weight of the walls and the general feel of the room.

  The whole Ottati family was gathered around me; Adalina paced while the others sat, Fino with a drink in his mitt, Bianca clickin’ beads of her rosary, Celia with a book unread in her lap.

  “Mick!” Guess she’d seen my eyelids flutter open. Adalina was at my side in an instant, on one knee beside the sofa, glass of milk held out in offering.

  “Better be,” I said, “or we’re all gonna be confused. Slow down, doll.” I forced myself to sit up, tried to pretend that didn’t make my back—my bandaged back, I realized as I felt the tugging—scream like it was being sawed in half. Only when I was up and sure that I wasn’t about to topple over did I take the glass, tossing it back in a few quick swallows.

  “Thanks,” I told her, and then looked over her head at the others. “Fino?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you completely outta your head?”

  “Good to see you, too.”

  “We talked about this! We—”

  Bianca leaned forward, her beads falling silent. “We didn’t know what else to do. You stopped talking, I heard you hit the floor…”

  “So you drove straight to my place, where anybody coulda shadowed you back!”

  “I know how to shake a fuckin’ tail,” Fino said. “We weren’t gonna just fuckin’ leave you, capisce? And with you not even bein’ human, it ain’t like we coulda just dropped you at a hospital.”

  I took a deep breath—to show them I was tryin’ to calm down, since that don’t come natural to me. “I get that. I even appreciate it. But I didn’t wanna know where you were holed up!”

  “You still don’t. You weren’t exactly alert on the way here. And yes, I’ve fuckin’ thought about the trip back. We’ll, I dunno, blindfold you or somethin’.”

  “I’m a detective, Fino. Even knowing you’re in an apartment, what floor you’re on, I could—”

  “Mick, you can be a real fuckin’ stronzo, ya know that? I ain’t an idiot. I got a handful of properties all over this town, under fake names and fake businesses. Trust me, I don’t wanna be found, nobody’s fuckin’ finding me. Not the law, not the North Side Gang. Not even you.”

  I figured he was underestimating me, but hell with it. I was already here, and while I was startin’ to improve some, I still hurt way too bad for me to wanna argue it. So I just nodded. “All right. Fair. And thank you.”

  “You know, as many enemies as Goswythe made,” Celia said suddenly, “you’ve been beaten up in two years more often than he ever was in sixteen.”

  I stared at her. Her tone, her expression, even her damn aura… I honestly couldn’t say if she was just makin’ an observation or takin’ a shot at me.

  And I was a little startled, to boot. I’d almost forgotten she was there. She never actually seemed to have much to say when I was around.

  Her parents were lookin’ about as puzzled as I felt, and Adalina’s jaw was twitchin’, so I said, “We all gotta have our hobbies.”

  She tossed me a shallow smile that couldn’ta said “I’m humoring you” more clearly if she’d tattooed it on her lips, and didn’t comment any further.

  “Any chance you could bring me a little more hair of the cow, sweetheart?” I asked Adalina, to keep her from blowin’ her wig at her sister.

  “Of course.” The glass was full and in my fist almost immediately.

  “So what happened, Mick?” Bianca asked, after I’d taken a quick slug. The question had been floatin’ in the air since I woke up. Guess I oughta be impressed they’d been patient long as they had.

  Fino was nodding in response to his wife. “I’ve seen you beat up, but never fuckin’ wounds like that!”

  “Heh. You shoulda seen me when I got shot in the head earlier this year.” Then, before they could ask, I went into it. They deserved some answers—especially since I had none for ’em regarding their own problems—and I figured there was no harm in it.

  What the fuck did I know, right?

  So they got the story, about Áebinn and her premonitions, about the vampires and their connection to the murders. Even told ’em that I didn’t see any obvious way this could all be tied up with the Unseelie staking ’em out, or any danger to Adalina, but I couldn’t swear they were unrelated, either.

  It was Adalina who asked, voice sm
all and frightened. “Who do you think is doing all this? What do they want?”

  And gods help me, I answered.

  I told you, I was hurtin’. I was still out of it. I had a million things I was tryin’ to keep track of, to put together and get straight in my head.

  That’s not a justification, it’s an explanation. I’m tellin’ you how I could make such a fool move, but I ain’t tryin’ to excuse it. It can’t be excused.

  Maybe, someday, I can at least forgive myself for it, for everything it led to.

  “Can’t be sure,” I said, “but I’m figurin’ Orsola’s still my best bet.”

  I didn’t even realize what I’d just blurted out until I felt the air drain from the room, saw the expressions on all four mugs starin’ down at me.

  Aw, fuck.

  “What are you sayin’, Oberon?” Fino asked, barely more’n a whisper.

  I opened my yap to claim I was still disoriented, that I’d misspoken, hadn’t meant to say her name. Opened, and shut it again.

  They weren’t gonna buy it, not a one of ’em. I didn’t have to taste a lick of their emotions to know it. All lyin’ to ’em would accomplish was to make things worse.

  I don’t think I slumped down into the sofa, but I sure felt as though I should.

  “I think your mama’s alive, Fino. You remember I was tryin’ to track down Goswythe, make sure he wasn’t gonna come after Celia or any of you? The trail led me to Orsola’s grave. The bones in her coffin are the phouka’s, not hers.”

  Celia gasped, a rush of mixed shock and relief, but the others scarcely noticed.

  “You dug her up?” Fino carefully put his drink on the table. The golden liquid was still sloshing, his grip’d been shaking so bad.

  “It wasn’t her, Fino.”

  “But it coulda been. And you never said a word.”

  I gotta tell you, for a guy who ran as hot as he did, the fact he was bein’ so quiet, that he hadn’t thrown in a single “fuck,” was a scary sign.

  “I wasn’t sure that—”

  “When?”

  Goddamn it, I’d really hoped it wouldn’t occur to him to ask me that.

  “Fino, you gotta understand—”