Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection

by D. N. Erikson

  Reaching the back door, I took a deep breath.

  Then I flung the flimsy wood open and swiveled inside, hinges snapping shut behind me. Everything within Le Petit Bleu was still and dark, like a wake. The sudden decrease in temperature made me shiver, a drafty jet of arctic air shooting from a nearby floor vent.

  The kitchen’s lights were off, but a few gray beams filtered through a large window covered in newspaper. That was clearly Harcourt’s doing—to prevent sniper fire—because the aesthetic didn’t mesh with the glimmering appliances. They were polished enough that they could have been stolen from the set of a cooking show.

  A row of at least two dozen burners took up the nearest wall, broken up by an industrial-sized sink. Everything was pristine and untouched, as if Le Petit Bleu had never been used.

  Hell, maybe this was the set of a cooking show.

  I edged forward, boots silent, and heard a rattle beyond the massive center island. A dark hallway led away to an unseen main dining area. Pulse rising, I stopped, aiming down the shotgun’s mounted sights.

  No movement.

  My pulse throbbed as I held my breath, listening to the crinkle of fabric rubbing against the floor.

  I said, in a growling whisper, “Don’t move.” In the dim stillness, my voice might as well have been a gunshot. Whoever was on the other side of the island must’ve thought so, at least, because they slammed their body against the metal with a great, ringing echo resembling a cymbal crash.

  Using the noise for cover, I quickly slipped around the island, ready to send Harcourt to meet his maker.

  Instead, I found a young woman in a server’s uniform, her hands shaking, a strand of rope hanging from one wrist. Her mascara ran down her angular cheekbones. She refused to look at me, keeping her eyes bunched tightly shut.

  “Who are you?” I said in the same growling whisper.

  “I—I just work here. It’s horrible. So horrible.” She began to babble.

  I tried reading her with my intuition, but Harcourt must’ve installed some dampening wards on-site. A few straggling wisps flashed different colors at random, like a smashed computer screen displaying an error message.

  “Where’s Harcourt?” I asked, peering toward the only hallway.

  A shaky finger pointed into the midday dimness. “He’s…he’s…”

  Her lip quivered, and she bit down hard, like she was trying to keep herself from crying. Never one for hugging widows and orphans, I stood there, shotgun still aimed at the floor. Other than her halting breaths, silence reigned supreme.

  But the bang a minute ago had likely been loud enough to get Harcourt’s attention. And maybe he’d come looking for his lost little lamb. So I kept one eye on the hallway.

  “What the hell did you get me into, Murphy?” I said, looking at the terrified waitress.

  “M-Murphy?”

  “Not you,” I said.

  “The guy upstairs, he’s been saying that name over and over.” The waitress finally opened one eye. Satisfied I wasn’t a monster ready to eat her, she opened the other one, too. “Fucking Murphy.”

  “Not sure I follow.”

  “That’s what he’s been saying.”

  “Anything else?” I asked, unimpressed by this intel.

  She gave me a steely look. Eyes watering, she said, “Something about Faeries.”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to surmise if she knew about Faeries, or thought they were something from the whimsical land of Disney. Unfortunately for humans, there were misconceptions about such things due to erroneous mass media portrayals.

  The Fae were assholes, insufferable gossips, and—in the worst case scenario, such as the one I was currently living—prone to sudden bouts of extreme psychosis. Although Harcourt sounded like his own type of crazy.

  “What about Faeries?” I asked.

  “I don’t know! The guy’s on drugs or something! Wants to go back to Faerie land.”

  “The Fae Plains?” I asked.

  Her brow furrowed. “Yeah. Who the hell are you? Can I see a badge or something? You’re with the police, right?” Her voice grew louder, more hysterical. If only my mentor Pearl had included grief counseling during our many years spent training. That would have come in handy.

  “Something like that,” I said, one eye still locked warily on the hallway. “How many are up there?”

  “Just him.”

  “I meant hostages.”

  She swallowed and nodded, trying to regain her bearings. “I was too scared to count. It’s awful. Oh my God, it’s awful.”

  I caught a whiff of something vaguely fruity on her breath. It set off alarm bells in my mind, and I took a step back.

  “What’d he have you drink?” I was suddenly suspicious. How had this waitress escaped? That seemed like an odd bit of serendipitous luck. “What’d it smell like?”

  “That’s a weird question.”

  “It can save lives.”

  “A-all right.” She closed her eyes and took what currently qualified as a deep breath. “I’m the only one who drank it.”

  “The smell.”

  “It smelled like—apples. Cinnamon. And something a little bitter, like—”

  “Grapefruit?” I asked, my stomach turning over. Deep within the belly of Le Petit Bleu, I could’ve sworn I heard an unchained, smooth laugh. Or maybe it was just my intuition screaming for me to find cover.

  I dove over the island, crashing to the tiled ground. My bare elbows scraped across the grout as I curled into a ball. A puff of flame shot up, bathing the room in a white heat. And then, just like that, the waitress was gone.

  This time, I did hear the laugh, along with a distant challenge from upstairs.

  “Welcome to my little gauntlet, love. May the best person win.”

  So much for no loss of life.

  I was disappointing everyone today.

  And, as I looked around the kitchen, smoke rising from the server’s ashes, I had little expectation that things were going to improve.

  7

  Of course, a bad fruit cocktail hadn’t made the unfortunate waitress suddenly light up like a California forest in July. Even the most skilled of sorcerers would have a hell of a time coaxing a self-immolation pyre out of fruits and spices.

  Rather, the fruity aroma was the signature of a particularly nasty liquid explosive concocted by the Fae. The exact ingredients were a species secret, and largely unpronounceable to mortal tongues, but the end result was something that smelled like bitter apple pie.

  Just with a hell of a lot more of a kick.

  Hopefully, the server was right, and she was the only one who had been forced to drink it. Otherwise, the LAPD was going to have a messy clean-up—and PR nightmare—on its hands.

  I yanked a dish towel from the oven’s handle and wiped the blood from my raw elbows. Unlike in the movies, diving from harm was hardly a painless endeavor. I flung the bloody towel on the floor, grabbed the shotgun and stepped over the smoldering ashes.

  Clutching the gun tight, I pressed onward into the hallway.

  “Yes, yes, come closer, love.”

  My head jerked backward, toward Harcourt’s aristocratic voice. But I found only a flat, thin wall speaker. Normally used for piping in classical music or hip jazz, Harcourt had hijacked it in the name of anarchy.

  A blinking security camera sat above it, tracking my movements.

  I swung the shotgun’s stock, and glass, plastic, and drywall rained down upon the carpet. Harcourt’s laugh crackled and died as the ruined electronics shut down. Satisfied, I turned my gaze forward once more and continued down the long hallway.

  The pastel gray walls gave everything a macabre feel. I still didn’t know what Harcourt had in store for the rest of the hostages; the waitress’s fuse had expired before that information had come to light.

  Then again, the hostages weren’t my problem. True, Captain Kennett wanted them returned safe and sound. But Murphy wasn’t paying for a humanitarian operation.
He wanted Harcourt in a body bag. Depending on how the next hour unfolded, that could mean saving lives—or a lot of collateral damage.

  I’d cross that moral bridge later.

  I pressed against the wall, feeling my ashy sweat scrape against the cool plaster. I listened for sounds of movement in the dining room. There were some muffled grunts from outside, but they were too muted to be close.

  Harcourt’s wards enshrouding Le Petit Bleu likely included sound-dispersion. Whatever atrocities were being committed upstairs would be hidden from prying ears. Harcourt had no interest in a dialogue with the outside world. Instead, he yearned for others to come play within his labyrinth of horrors. That was the only reason I could see for not just warding the restaurant off entirely, but preventing anyone from entering at all.

  Lucky me. I got to be the first contestant in his sick game.

  Silent as a fox trotting through winter snow, I slipped out from the hallway into the main dining room. Le Petit Bleu wasn’t cozy, but it wasn’t massive, either. This room branched off into a bar area—and a spiral stairwell in the corner leading upstairs.

  Much like the kitchen, the dining room’s windows were covered in newspaper. The gray light gave the white tablecloths and fine dishware a checkered appearance, like everything was covered in a layer of apocalyptic dust. A brass chandelier near the entrance twinkled sadly. That was an illusion, of course, but the ambiance fit.

  Chaos was sweeping through, and it left a frothy, violent wake.

  Slipping past the untouched tables, I surveyed the room, on full alert. It’s funny how the absence of movement can be more disconcerting than a kinetic gunfight. Even the stillest life was full of subtle motion. Its absence was evidence of great disturbance.

  As if to confirm, Harcourt’s voice—unamplified—came snaking down the spiral stairs like a wraith.

  “Have you reached the first obstacle, yet, love? Consider it our official introduction.”

  I wanted to yell back, to what?, but psychos reveled in self-indulgence. Instead, I scanned the room for security cameras, making sure Harcourt didn’t still have eyes on me. Then I made my way through the open doorway to the adjacent bar area.

  Trotting past a gleaming shelf of crystal glassware holding expensive liquors, I found myself in a bar stripped of its furniture. Smashed lumber and twisted metal littered the fringes. Divots peppered the walls, spotting the gray paint a chalky white.

  In the center, however, was the real pièce de résistance. As if sensing my curiosity, Harcourt screamed down the stairs, his voice filled with fishtailing joy, “Have you seen it yet? A thing of beauty.”

  Staring at the familiar person, I said without much enthusiasm, “It’s something, all right.”

  The guy removed his shades and threw back his gel-slick hair. He gestured to the empty chair without getting up.

  I aimed and fired at his head.

  But the shells just went straight through him.

  “I guess this means you’re not a reporter,” I said.

  “Hey, babe, don’t look so confused,” he said. “It’s all gonna be all right.”

  “That so?”

  “If you can answer three questions.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  He twirled the shades between his fingers. “Think about all those people upstairs, Callaway.”

  I took a seat and forced a smile, a jagged shiver running down my body. “Well, then, try your best.”

  The slick-haired man grinned and said, “Good. Because it’s time to find out how much chaos you’re willing to cause today.”

  8

  Waylon, as I’d learn his name was, wiped a thin strand of gel away from his oily forehead, those jungle cat eyes still fixated on me. The chair scraped ominously against the bare floor as he rose from his seat. Unlike the tables in the dining room, Waylon—or someone else—had seen fit to strip this one of its tablecloth. The wood gleamed in the shadowy light.

  “You’ve considered what I’ve said, babe?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Waylon tapped his finger against the shades, which made a hollow clicking sound. I wondered if, like his body, bullets would pass through those, too.

  “You’re calling the shots, Callaway.” He cracked his lean, wiry neck and loosened his shoulders. Glad at least one of us was at ease. Despite my training, I was having a hard time sitting still. The swirl of bizarre elements gnawed at me.

  You see a lot of weird shit as a bounty hunter.

  But, in the end, most of it made sense. Even when it had supernatural fingerprints stamped all over it, the motivations were generally familiar. Greed, power, lust. Every creature ran on the same basic instincts.

  Deviations from baser motives caused complications. And now I had this albatross of a gig from Murphy: a dead cop, a telepath for a police captain, and my mark turning people into Roman candles for no goddamn reason other than his own amusement. Half of LA in gridlock, and for what?

  As far as I could tell, nothing. Although there was a scrap of information hiding in what the waitress had told me: Harcourt wanting to return to the Fae Plains. And fucking Murphy.

  “What do you get out of all this, Waylon?” I asked. My knowledge of Shades was limited. They were confined to the Underworld, answering directly to the Ferryman of the River Styx. Coming up to Earth was a big deal—and a rarity.

  After that, my intel ran dry.

  Waylon snapped his fingers and cleared his throat. “Have you seen the Underworld, Callaway?”

  “What, didn’t like the scenery?”

  “I decided to locate who was responsible for some of the unfortunate souls trickling down to us.” Waylon continued staring at me. “And I found a kindred spirit.”

  “So you’re Harcourt’s lapdog.”

  “I’m a gatekeeper,” Waylon said. “A referee in his little game. Shall we play, babe?”

  I stifled a gag and said, “I can’t wait for the first question.”

  Waylon ran his hands through his slick black hair and smiled, his lips twisting. “You won’t need that to answer.”

  I followed his eyes to the shotgun in my hands. “I’ll keep it close, all the same.”

  “As you wish.” Waylon loosened the top button of his collared shirt. “The end of summer is hot, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Is that question one?” I wondered how long it would be until the cops tried to breach the doors.

  “Can you transport others via the Realm Rifts?”

  My hair would’ve stood on end, had it not been sweat-slicked to the nape of my neck. I took a beat to answer, still maintaining my defiant grimace. But really, I was searching for a response.

  “I should remind you, Callaway, that innocents’ lives hang in the balance.”

  “You see a badge?” I replied hotly.

  “Nothing but a nice rack.” Waylon shot me a smarmy smirk. “But you won’t let them die.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “The leaders of the Underworld maintain files on those who escape. As best they can, at least. You’re a hard woman to track. But what little they’ve gleaned is to ensure future Weald candidates don’t have the same insubordinate tendencies.”

  I stared Waylon down, doing my best to broadcast a blank look.

  Back in 1812, I’d almost died from an alpha werewolf bite. Or maybe I had died. Those in the Underworld had deemed the cocktail of elements swirling in my blood—and my temperament—a perfect fit for the Weald of Centurions, where an army of Realmfarers guarded the gate to Agonia.

  A Realm far worse than Hell.

  Sentry duty wasn’t for me, though, and with the help of Galleron—the leader of the Centurions—I’d escaped. And thus my illustrious career as a supernatural bounty hunter had begun, back in 1879.

  “You mean when I escaped the Weald.” People didn’t escape. I’d been the only one.

  “We’re straying from the central topic,” Waylon said, that smirk still on his young face.
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  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes what, exactly?”

  “I can transport others through the Realm Rifts.” I let the words hover in the ruined room. “If they stick close.”

  “Very well,” Waylon said, leaning over to place his elbows on the table. It rocked gently, which surprised me. I must’ve noticeably recoiled, because he nodded. “Our bodies are very confusing to everyone above ground.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Two more questions, babe.”

  If I could’ve shot the lecherous fuck, I would have. But Shades were a tricky sort to kill. I’d have to research that when I got out of Le Petit Bleu.

  If I survived.

  Waylon cleared his throat with some dramatic flair and said, “Where’s the nearest Realm Rift?”

  “I’d have to check a map,” I said, lying. Another thing Pearl had me memorize: every Realm Rift on the globe. I rarely used them, but they were good for escaping law enforcement or evading a pissed off creature with a sizable weight advantage.

  “Records, Callaway. I did read the Underworld’s logs before Harcourt called upon me.”

  “If you know so damn much, why bother asking?”

  “Because the third question is still up in the air,” Waylon said. “Consider this your application interview.”

  “It’s in Sin City.”

  “Las Vegas?”

  “The one and only,” I said, dying to get away from the Shade. Suddenly the sparse bar felt claustrophobic, like a tomb, what with how the meager light barely trickled in from the covered windows in the adjoining room. “Why, you got somewhere you want to go?”

  “My ticket home is punched, Callaway.” Waylon stood and put on his shades, readjusting his hair once more. “But Harcourt’s, well, you see…”

  That smile again, the kind that made you want to shower just from being in the same room.

  I pieced together the third question all on my own.

  “You want me to take him through the Realm Rift. To the Fae Plains.”

  “Otherwise, the good citizens of Los Angeles, well…” Waylon made a horizontal slicing motion across his throat. “It’ll be very dramatic, I assure you.”