Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection

by D. N. Erikson

  “Just wait.” Anything to keep this conversation going. My shoulder blades already howled in pain, torn to shreds. I didn’t want the remaining ligaments to suffer the same fate. “I’ll make a deal.”

  “I cannot trust you.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because it hurts up here.” I winced, the skin around my eyes bunching up until I couldn’t see. I didn’t have to try very hard to sell the effect. It was really a matter of giving into the pain.

  “I know.” Instead of taking the offer, Albin twisted the wheel a semi-turn. A searing spasm shot through both arms, like molten lead rushing through a blacksmith’s forge. Images raced through the empty air, curses springing from my dry lips.

  Albin released the wheel, the chains slackening. The pain dialed down from a ten to a nine-five.

  It was like heaven.

  Sweating and still mumbling curses, I didn’t see Albin approach. Werewolves were always smooth, anyway. Up close, I could smell the wolf in him, that animal musk suggesting a wild streak. Different morals. A willingness to do things men would not.

  Although, come to think of it, I think it was man who created this method of torture.

  “You didn’t even hear the deal,” I said, forcing each word out with the last of my energy.

  I could feel his gaze trace over the wounds on my chest. Blood seeped down the long gashes, dripping to the floor.

  It was difficult to distinguish my heartbeat from the call of the moon. The werewolf lust wrapped itself around the beat like a snake twisting about its prey.

  “This is your final chance, demon.”

  “I’ll pledge loyalty,” I said. “If you agree to stay away from the dog. And the woman.”

  A carnivorous grin came across his features. “The girl will join you at midnight.”

  I roared, shaking the chains and ignoring the pain. “Son of a—”

  He punched me in the cheek, anger quickly replaced by unfathomable pain. “Kneel, Kalos.”

  “You need a lesson in leverage, Albin.” I spit in his face. “I’ll never answer to you.”

  That wasn’t true.

  Unless I pissed him off enough to kill me in the next few minutes.

  With an unnerving cool, he withdrew a handkerchief from his britches and wiped his face. Not the reaction I’d expect from a werewolf. They were more like dogs than humans, driven by whims and instinct rather than logic.

  He should’ve been at my throat. Had he not been snarling and throwing himself at the territorial barrier in Liberty Printworks, more animal than man?

  But, like me, he seemed capable—on occasion—of subverting some of his more…maladaptive urges. After returning the cloth to his back pocket and loosening his shoulders, Albin stared at me.

  Then he unleashed a bone-crushing punch into my gut. All the air in the room disappeared, leaving me gasping for oxygen. Another blow landed, then another, the assault continuing until I thought my insides would be turned to the consistency of bone meal.

  So much for subverting one’s nature.

  Albin landed a final blow, the hair on his arms bristling like stiff, gray fur. Blood sprayed from my open mouth, landing across his face. He gave me a wicked smile, not bothering to clean it off this time. His fingers clenched and unclenched, the veins wriggling like eels snapping through a brisk current.

  “That’s all?” I could only moan the words and give the weakest of laughs.

  “That is only the start, demon.” He unbuttoned his cotton shirt, tossing it into a corner of the dirty cellar. An empty cask rustled as the fabric fluttered on top of it. “Unless you do as I ask.”

  “Firus ignitus,” I said, drawing energy from the room. A sad spark—not even a flame—clicked through the air, like when someone used flint but didn’t understand how to strike it correctly.

  Albin laughed, the noxious sound reverberating across the tight space. Under normal circumstances I would be angered, but I was too tired, too injured to be upset. In the end, Isabella Kronos would get me—by proxy. Nonetheless, it felt like a win for her and Marrack.

  “Your resilience is impressive, demon. For a man.”

  “I’m glad you approve.”

  “That is why she left you,” Albin said. “You are a half-blood. Too mortal to survive our many realms.”

  “Come here and say that a little closer.”

  He put his face up to mine. I could see the changes already occurring, the skin altering in shade, the muscles rippling. A voice in my head whispered master. Despite my protestations, I would pledge fealty without question once the transformation was complete. This was all merely a display of power.

  His breath was hot as he said, “You are a—”

  I jerked forward, every muscle in my body screaming for me to be still. Despite the searing pain, I got my teeth around his ear, biting down hard. I tore at the weak flesh, swinging back with a mouthful of foul blood.

  This time, I spit the chunk at his face, and he howled. His hands were at my throat before I could react, the strong fingers crushing my windpipe.

  There was no semblance of a man left in his eyes. Gray hair sprung from the backs of his palms, fangs from between his lips. He growled, his grip tightening as a werewolf’s strength grew within him. Soon he would snap my neck like a feeble branch.

  My death came in slow motion, his hands twisting my neck like a corkscrew in a bottle of fine wine. I wondered if I would hear the pop, the life force cracking under the weight of an immovable force.

  But I heard a bark. Smaller, less throaty—wimpy, really, in comparison to the monstrous growl vibrating through Albin’s entire being. It was like the voice of an angel, though. Or a single black-and-white border collie, tumbling down the stairs in a blur.

  Argos leapt at the alpha werewolf. Albin reached back and smacked him from the air with a well-timed blow, sending the dog careening against the wooden wheel. The chains tightened, and I screamed. The wheel continued to creak along.

  “Turn the goddamn thing off,” I yelled over Albin’s roar and Argos’ whimpers and the footsteps of someone else coming down the stairs.

  “Hey. Over here.” Female voice. Ruby, strangely confident in the face of certain death—unless this was all a wishful fever dream. As my tendons were pulled every which way, I looked up, trying to concentrate on anything but the prospect of my arms being ripped clean off.

  A flintlock revolver flashed on the stairs. Albin raced forward. The gun fired once, hitting him in the chest. Powdery smoke flooded the room. Still the werewolf staggered forward. I hope she loaded it with silver bullets, I thought, as another boom shook the enclosed space.

  Albin took the second shot in semi-stride, the gray fur on his lean back standing on end. Blood glistened on the ground behind him as he marched onward.

  He leapt toward Ruby.

  The wheel spun another notch.

  The pistol clicked empty.

  And then the whole miserable world disappeared.

  13

  Ruby

  There are many strange moments in one’s life. Perhaps the strangest is experiencing the cusp between life and death. Not knowing if you are alive, really, at all.

  I could feel the werewolf’s sharp jaws digging into my leg. Dead, from the little bit of slack running through the tense, muscular jowls. The saber ran right through his throat, ending his life where the silver bullets had been unsuccessful.

  But I did not know where his blood ended and mine began.

  His fur stank of wilderness and arousal. Not sexual, but a lust for flesh and blood. I understood this because I felt the same sensation—the pull of the moon calling me. With quivering hands, I reached down and touched Albin’s jaw. The soft, black lip stuck against my fingers, and I recoiled. His face was frozen in a manic sneer, as if he had told some joke and was the only one who understood the consequences.

  “Argos?” My voice was thready, uncertain. I tried to prop myself up on the
stairs, but the werewolf’s weight prevented me from moving far. Peering out through the rotting banister, I saw the demon—Kalos, I had to remind myself, as my head swum—hanging from chains wrought of rusted iron. What sounded like an unoiled print press groaned mightily in the background.

  The links rattled, and Kalos suddenly shot awake, screaming as if he had been branded. Quick as the horrible noise came, it ended, the demon—half-demon—falling into the kind embrace of unconsciousness.

  I blinked, and for a moment there were two of him. How had we arrived here? How had I gotten hurt again so soon? How had I not died? These were strange questions that I could not answer immediately. The answers came slowly, in scraps.

  The potion Argos had created with Kalos’ blood had led us here, to this Philadelphia butcher shop. An appropriate venue for a torture chamber, if there ever was one. Two men lay dead upstairs. Perhaps more were on the way. I had been hurt because I needed the werewolf’s teeth and blood to cure my own bite.

  And I had not died because of the strange power bubbling within my veins. Another of Argos’ creations.

  Using the last of the potion’s borrowed strength, I pushed against the dead werewolf. It felt as if I were pressing against a wall of chiseled stone. But gravity took care of the job with a little help from me, and his limp body tumbled down the stairs with a gangly looseness that made me shiver.

  I pushed my fingers down my leg, starting at the thigh, terrified of what I would find. Around the knee, my skin became slick with blood. Two finger-lengths farther, and I reached a deep, flowing puncture as if a blacksmith had driven a nail through the flesh.

  My fingernail disappeared within the wound for a brief moment until pain overtook my curiosity. Panting and blinking back tears, I pulled my exploratory finger away. One thought bubbled to the top of my addled mind, clear as anything.

  Slashes and cuts could be treated by a standard doctor.

  But a bite...two bites…

  I tried to drag myself semi-upright, but the railing buckled from my weight. The pistol skittered off my lap and tumbled to the dirt floor below. I collapsed against the stairs, a brutal wave of pain searing through my calf. My mind begged me to simply lie down and black out.

  Die, even.

  “Is…that you Ruby?” The faintest tail thump sounded from some unseen part of the cellar.

  With dry lips I responded, “The wheel.”

  The dog’s quiet footsteps padded against the dirt floor in an irregular, limping gait. I tried to find him in the dim light. It wasn’t until Argos appeared near the wheel, which controlled the stretching device, that I knew he was even real.

  His black-and-white snout was bloodied from where the wolf had smacked him. He surveyed the device, assessing how to stop it.

  “I need your help, Ruby.”

  I searched the expanse dividing us. He might as well have requested I journey to California. “I can’t.”

  The wheel completed another notch, causing the chains to shake. Kalos again awoke, screaming incoherent threats to invisible foes. One of his bones clearly cracked, the snap ringing in my ears.

  This is your life, now, Rebecca. You have chosen to consort with demons. And so you must learn to accept the consequences.

  It came in my father’s voice, from deep within. Not scolding, but a cool assessment of the truth. He had always been a voice of reason. Printing translations of Aristotle and Seneca, Montaigne and Voltaire.

  There is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.

  Then again, Hamlet died in the end.

  Tears streaming down my cheeks, leg useless, I rose to a half-crouch, leaning heavily upon the crumbling brick wall for support. In this fashion, one painful step at a time, I made my way down to the cellar floor. After tripping over the corpse, I crawled the rest of the way to Argos, the dirt stinging in the bite at my leg.

  He rose, leaning his neck out, his snout extended toward me in that way dogs do when they sniff something curious.

  “You have been bitten again.”

  “Just a scratch,” I said. But I couldn’t sell the lie, the way I almost hiccupped each word out. There was something within me—the poison from the beast’s fangs coursing through my bloodstream.

  Argos stared at me, his wet nose only inches from mine. I thought he would lick my face, but instead he said, “You must brace against it. Counter clockwise.”

  “How long?” The wheel was only a foot away, but the job seemed impossible.

  “Until the inertia stops.”

  “You’ve read Newton?” A tiny smile flickered at the edge of my lips.

  “I’m not an idiot.” The border collie’s chest puffed out and he gave me a sharp nod.

  I planted my knuckles against the dust, feeling the scratch of small rocks, the wet of the wolf’s blood. Then I pushed, almost collapsing into the wheel. Steadying myself at the last moment, I grabbed hold of the handle.

  Feeling like a ship’s captain steering away from the storm, I applied gentle pressure, straining against the mechanism’s momentum. The screech of poorly maintained gears indicated that I was on the right track. The system shuddered to a halt.

  I breathed heavily, unable to look at the result of my hard work. Presumably, though, the demon had been saved.

  Then I heard some horrible words from Argos.

  “Okay, now can you start turning it?”

  “No.” The words came from numb lips. But I found my arms complying, starting to wrench the wheel in the other direction, letting the half-demon down from his chains.

  I turned forever.

  Or I didn’t turn the wheel at all.

  Fatigue and blood loss overcame me, blurring the delineation of time. The chains rattled. Someone lifted me up, out of the cellar. Back into the light. A foul taste on my lips, that smelled like blood.

  And then a strange experience, one like my soul itself had been ripped from my body.

  Flying through the air on a breeze, looking down at the city from above. Plummeting into the ground, back into the darkness.

  Screaming to be let out, but only being dragged farther into the pits of hell.

  14

  A firm but gentle hand touched my head, and I sprung awake. The room was fashioned of gray stone, square and utilitarian. A rough blanket of wool scratched against my bare skin. A man holding a lantern, the only light in the room, stepped back, his brow furrowed.

  I seemed to be alive, but the situation was…off. Anxiety gnawed at the fringes of my psyche.

  But the only question I could come up with is, “Why am I naked?”

  “There are those who might call you reborn.” My host shrugged. I could see from the way he moved, even in the relative darkness, that his body contained a latent power. It was not so much the build, which was average and unimposing—particularly after my battle with Albin. But his posture contained the energy of a coiled snake, restrained but ready to strike.

  “And what would you call it?” When I licked my dry lips, I still tasted the foulness of blood. Memories tugged at the edge of my mind, attempting to emerge from the depths.

  “Others would say you were given a second chance.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “Most are more optimistic than I.” He set the lantern down. His footsteps wandered away from me, into the darkness. Still in the same room. “Because I would call this a place worse than hell.”

  I wanted to say something brave and witty, but all I managed was a whiny, “But it can’t be hell.”

  “Welcome to the Weald.” The sound died in the room, and for the first time I realized the entire world was quiet. Absolutely still, completely unmoving. The sensation was so foreign and unreal as to fill me with existential dread. Although, in the distance, I swore I heard the pants of some large beast.

  “The Weald?”

  “The Weald of Centurions,” the man said. “I am Galleron. I shall be your commander.”

  “Commander?”
/>   “You have more questions than I am wont to answer from a trainee.” He returned to my side of the room and picked up the lantern. When it swung by his face, I caught sight of serious-looking eyes. Ones that foreshadowed what would lay in store for me.

  “Can I have one more?” I sounded like a child begging for one more bedtime story. Except anything that this Galleron could tell me would likely induce nightmares, rather than fitful slumber.

  “So long as you don’t expect an answer.”

  “Why?”

  I watched the areas around his eyes crease. Finally, he said, “Not all beings are meant for the Underworld. Most mortals and creatures of essence merely die, their souls evaporating into nonexistence. But a few are ferried to the Underworld to continue their journey. And there are those who, upon reaching the Underworld, are deemed incompatible with a life of eternity on the River Styx.”

  “I’m not good enough for the Underworld?”

  What almost passed for a smile crinkled the corner of his lips. “Or perhaps your skills are of more use in another realm.”

  “And what might those be?”

  “You’re a hunter, Rebecca Callaway. A killer.” Galleron walked away, bringing the lantern with him. The faint orange glow illuminated the outline of a winding medieval stairwell descending into blackness. “And that will serve you well in this realm of bones.” There was a lengthy pause, the lack of noise maddening. “And perhaps beyond.”

  Galleron disappeared, his footsteps swallowed by silence.

  I snaked my hands from beneath the scratchy blanket, staring at them in the pitch dark.

  “I’m not a killer,” I whispered.

  But even I wasn’t convinced that this was true.

  15

  Lines.

  All the centurions were in two orderly lines, marching in eternal lockstep. I received the privilege of merely watching for the first week, from the window at the top of the guard tower. The Weald of Centurions had a strange light that permeated the ether during the “day,” shining not from the sky but from somewhere within. Energy merely floating through the air.