Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection

by D. N. Erikson

  But, really, Harcourt was the train: the immovable force hurtling through space and time, ready to plow through every obstacle in its path. And the cops, at the eleventh hour, had decided that they were gonna get the hell out of our way.

  So they’d parted the sea just in time, piling on top of each other to avoid our speeding cruiser.

  I glanced over the seat, through the metal spider web of the cage separating us from the backseat, not quite believing it. The cars that hadn’t been damaged in the last-second retreat were spinning their wheels, trying to catch up.

  But we had a head start—and their spirits were broken. The chase was half-hearted at best. A couple high-speed exits and turns later, and we were headed down I-15, next stop Las Vegas.

  The ride continued in merciful silence, Harcourt’s lead foot still pushing the cruiser to an uncomfortable speed. Eventually—but only because the fuel gauge was flashing practically red—he pulled off at a rest stop.

  The cruiser groaned a sigh of relief after being pushed well beyond its comfort zone for the better part of an hour. When I stepped out onto the hot asphalt, the stillness almost made me dizzy. I swallowed, realizing my throat was as dry as the cracked desert.

  “You are getting acclimated to the chaos, dear Ruby,” Harcourt said, smoothing out the rumples in his suit. He still managed to look fashionable, despite the bloodstains running down the lapels. Those were from when I’d jammed the shotgun down his throat.

  I brushed the thought aside. “Get some snacks, jackass.”

  He turned on his heel. “Oh, this will be fun.”

  A little voice screamed I’ve had enough fun. Another hour with Harcourt playing wheelman was going to end in a trail of broken fenders and bodies. I grabbed the shotgun from the passenger’s seat and raced up behind the Fae as he trotted toward the convenience store. Yes, it was the middle of the day. There were at least half a dozen other cars here.

  I could give a shit.

  Avoiding the security cameras, I got in position behind Harcourt and connected.

  His knees crumpled like he’d been slugged by a prizefighter. The other customers getting gas looked around, searching for the source of the odd noise. When they finally settled on me and took in the entire picture—the shotgun, the man lying on the ground— there were a lot of screams.

  Time for some crowd control.

  I racked the shotgun and aimed it in the sky, finger hovering over the trigger.

  “Please, be quiet.”

  Someone gunned their car, slamming into a concrete pylon a few yards away. The blue sedan’s wheels spun helplessly as the driver continued his futile escape.

  “And please,” I said, nodding to the idiot, “don’t do that. But feel free to leave.”

  Didn’t have to ask anyone twice. The gas station quickly became a ghost town. I grabbed Harcourt’s body and tugged him back to the cruiser. By the time I had him in the trunk and was looking around, the place was abandoned.

  Even the guy in the ruined sedan was nowhere to be found.

  The attendant emerged from the convenience shack, his appearance accompanied by the requisite store bell jingle.

  I waved as I slammed the trunk.

  “I’m gonna need twenty gallons on pump five.”

  “They all left without paying,” he said in a daze. “That comes out of my check.”

  “Life’s hard,” I said, throwing the shotgun against my shoulder. His eyes bugged out from his skull as I strode closer. “Let’s ring this transaction up.”

  “You can have anything you want. Just don’t hurt me. I have a—I don’t know, I was thinking about getting a cat.” His skinny, trembling arms were raised high in the air.

  I waved him off and stared at the flickering display for beer. “You wouldn’t happen to sell duct tape, would you?”

  “Oh God, I don’t have any money. Just take what’s in the register. You won’t get anything for kidnapping me.”

  I glanced back at the greasy-haired kid wearing a cap with the gas station’s logo on it. “Do you really think I came here for you?”

  His brow furrowed, acne bunching up around his chin. “Now, hey, wait a minute.”

  I tapped the shotgun against my palm. “I’m on the clock here.”

  “You don’t want me?”

  “I doubt even your mom wants to see you again,” I said. We looked at one another. His arms were still up, but they were no longer trembling.

  “Well fuck you, bitch.” The words came with a snarl.

  I gave him a tired grin. “It’s just that kind of day, isn’t it?” Banging came from the cruiser as Harcourt awakened from his short nap. Hope he liked the heat. The trunk would be getting mighty toasty during the ride to Vegas.

  The station attendant growled some other curses under his breath as he headed back into the store. This time, the bells sounded lonely and defiant. Impossible, I know, but that was the truth.

  He tapped on the glass to indicate that pump five was in business.

  I filled the tank, accompanied by the rhythmic sounds of Harcourt’s protests. Finally, when I was finished, I hung up the hose and opened the trunk.

  His tarnished copper eyes stared at me in wild defiance. “This is not the agreement, love.”

  “Embrace the chaos.”

  “There is nothing but boredom in this black hole.”

  “Think of it as serendipity.” I could practically see the joy drain from his youthful face. The Fae didn’t age well, but it seemed that I was aging him quicker than even genetics dictated.

  “I will not.”

  “Then think of it as my boot up your ass.” I raised the shotgun, threatening to put his lights out again. He quivered, holding his arms over his face. Ah, so even the wild Harcourt had weaknesses. “And I hope it tastes real good.”

  Who knew he feared something as simple as boredom?

  The door’s bell rattled once more, the attendant calling, “I have the tape.”

  “Bring it over,” I said, reaching into the trunk.

  “What are you doing?” Harcourt’s voice was frantic as I rifled through his pockets. My fingers came away with a credit card and a tattered envelope. His fingers flailed through the dry, dusty air, reaching for the envelope. I smacked it away.

  He bit me in return, his little Faerie wings tearing a hole in his suit as they unfurled. They fluttered, like he was trying to take flight.

  Blood trickling down my forearm, I punched him twice in the face, breaking his nose. The light flickered out of his eyes, his wings disappearing into the torn fabric.

  Behind me, I heard, “You are a crazy bitch who does some crazy shit.”

  “That’s me,” I said, turning around to smile at my greasy-haired friend.

  “I put a couple waters in there. So, uh, the guy—the monster—doesn’t die.” The kid was caught in that awkward place between guilt, anger, and fear. It manifested in a sort of teenage indifference that was probably his most natural affectation.

  I took the plastic bag. “Good stuff, kid.”

  “You gonna kill whatever that thing is?”

  I gave the clerk a look. “Why, you looking for a new club to join?”

  His eyes grew wide. “No. I mean, I just wanted to know.”

  I could see the kid really wanted to know what the hell I had in the trunk. I wasn’t gonna tell him, and no one would believe the wild-ass theories of someone who smelled like the inside of a head shop. The supernatural remained in the shadows for a damn good reason: it kept us alive, and out of conflict with humans.

  Whenever we waltzed out into the open, there would be a reckoning. You could count on that.

  And I wasn’t going to be responsible for bringing the shitstorm down on all our heads.

  “You’re a weird dude,” I said, tossing the waters into the trunk. They bounced off Harcourt’s chest, but the Fae didn’t move.

  Those were some good punches. I had the bloody knuckles to prove it.

  I fished in my
pocket and pulled out what cash I had. Putting Harcourt’s card on top, I offered the stack to the clerk.

  He looked at the bills and card like they were radioactive.

  “Better than covering it out of your own check, right?”

  The kid thought it over for a second and then shrugged, taking the peace offering. He began to walk away, then stopped. “Why the hell are you doing all this, anyway?”

  “Because I don’t have a choice,” I said, tasting the bitter grit of the words on my tongue.

  I held up the roll of duct tape and found the edge. I bound Harcourt’s hands and feet before I got back on the road. He squirmed a little toward the end, half-wakening from the ass kicking I’d bestowed upon him.

  I’d have done a lot more than that, but, you know, Blood Oaths.

  They made everything a complicated pain in the ass.

  17

  I tried to sort out the puzzle pieces as I drove. It was the first time I’d had peace and quiet for what seemed like ages. Of course, that was an illusion—it’d been an hour of chaos, maybe two. But that was a lifetime of excitement for most.

  Just ask the hostages who had partaken in Harcourt’s battle royale.

  I tried the radio, but at some point during the high-speed chase the cruiser’s antenna had snapped off. So it was just me and the road. I kept to a comfortable—by the standards of the day, at least—ninety. I cut in front of a large pickup truck, earning a calamitous honk for my efforts. Then he realized I was a cop, and the noise vanished into the dry, blue air.

  I didn’t want to spend any more time with Harcourt than necessary. Defensive driving had transformed into borderline psychotic aggression.

  Maybe the Fae had rubbed off on me already.

  My lip curled at the thought, and I returned to my previous ruminations. The time for not giving a shit about everyone’s motives had passed right after I’d run a gauntlet of LAPD semi-automatic pistol fire.

  Here was what I could gather about the situation.

  Harcourt Leblanc had been thrown out of the Fae Plains, barred reentry by the Fae Prince via traditional mechanisms. Today’s behavior had been either a chance temper tantrum—or a way of drawing out parties capable of returning him home via alternative means.

  Such as yours truly.

  Elegant in its simplicity, although the collateral damage was high.

  Harcourt might have even dangled himself as bait for a few weeks, eating at Le Petit Bleu each day at the same time. The routine must have bored him almost into death.

  But it had drawn the eager eye of Murphy, Benedict and Associates. They were quite eager to put Harcourt six feet under. But while I’d been fuzzy on their motives at the day’s start, now everything was coming into crystal focus.

  They were all working for the Fae Prince: Murphy, the deceased Benedict and Gordie Jones, and Captain Kennett. Murphy’s law firm wasn’t so much a group of attorneys as it was a group of fixers. Eliminating supernatural problems for high roller clients.

  Kind of like what I did—except mine was more a solo gig. Or a partnership, since Pearl handled the bookings. But Murphy was going big-time, corporatizing with expense accounts, company cars and the whole shebang.

  I wondered what a decent man like Captain Kennett was doing on the payroll.

  I didn’t know who currently was on the throne, since Fae didn’t tend to live that long—and the Prince had a remarkably short life expectancy. Coups and political skullduggery abounded.

  Whoever was ruling over the cesspool that was the Fae Plains, though, one thing was clear: mere banishment wasn’t enough. He was breaking their rules, traversing worlds to exact punishment on Harcourt.

  You see, despite their trashy, gossipy, dump of a Realm, the Fae government didn’t believe in capital punishment for their own kind. Even a Fae caught doing heinous things—and I was quite certain that Harcourt’s crimes were heinous—could only be sent away, never to return.

  It made me wonder what old Harcourt had done to the poor bastard.

  Didn’t matter. I had my own problems. We’d hit Vegas in plenty of time. The twenty-four hours part of the contract didn’t bother me.

  What concerned me was pushing Harcourt over the threshold.

  Letting him go.

  My peaceful reflection was finally interrupted by a howling scream. I hadn’t taped Harcourt’s mouth shut, for fear that he would suffocate. The primal screams erupting from the trunk suggested that had been an egregious oversight.

  Because death might have been preferable to the racket.

  I tried accelerating, to no avail. Harcourt just screamed louder, his yells matching the increased RPMs with astounding speed.

  With a big sigh, I let off the accelerator.

  It was gonna be a long, shitty trip.

  18

  The casino’s overheads flickered, like there’d been a sudden power surge. But this wasn’t a harbinger of a police raid or some other disturbance.

  The Realm Rift was just located in that much of a shithole.

  I had to get to the sub-basement money vault. Because, of course, nothing could ever be easy.

  “I can’t walk, love.” Harcourt’s hair was askew, face streaked with blood from my various assaults. I’d removed the tape from his hands, but bound his thighs together, since I could hide the duct tape beneath his suit. As a result, he waddled like a man who had to go to the bathroom very badly.

  No one even noticed. We were in a smoke-filled, back alley joint where hope went to die. If anything, it made us blend into the players hooked up to oxygen tanks, still smoking cigarettes as they yanked one-arm bandits.

  Maybe they were embracing chaos in their own way.

  Every television screen in the rundown, off-strip casino replayed the scene from Le Petit Bleu. The one I’d had a reluctant starring role in.

  Then again, if I hadn’t shown up, everyone would’ve died.

  Ruby Callaway, humanitarian. Doubtful the cops or the public would see it that way.

  They had to catch me on camera, first, though.

  Aside from the ancient televisions, every three feet we were met with an advertisement for the Golden Tiger. Which was the casino we were in—but apparently they had to consistently remind their patrons of this fact. And entice them to gamble with $100 first-play betting matches.

  Realm Rifts were a real crapshoot. The one in the Northwest District was in SeaTac International Airport. Clean, scented with coffee and trimmed in stainless steel.

  But after the long day, this suited me fine. Just get the bastard into the tunnel, take him to the Fae Plains, and shoot him in the head once we crossed the line.

  Then lie low, make sure the media didn’t catch wind of my identity, and apologize to Pearl before she could chew my ass out.

  It was all a good plan, until Harcourt yelled to the closest security guard, “I’m the man from television!”

  I grimaced, having left the shotgun out in the car. Couldn’t exactly waltz around downtown Vegas open-carrying, and I was fresh out of wards. Sure, I could’ve made a call to a local warlock, but that would’ve meant more time spent in Harcourt’s company.

  Through gritted teeth, I said, “Shut up.” I spotted my reflection in a nearby slot machine, eyes beginning to glow red at the edges. This man had a way of pissing me off like few before him could.

  Deal with enough jackasses over two hundred years, and one was bound to outstrip the others.

  Instead of obeying, Harcourt shrieked as we went by the food court, “You see, I am the man from the television!”

  I glanced over my shoulder. The security guard was following us, walkie nestled between his fat, stubbly chin and rent-a-cop polo. His hairy hands were reaching for his belt, which was never a good sign.

  I fished in my boot for the switchblade, which I’d kept since signing the contract. But it was hard to keep tabs on Harcourt and arm myself simultaneously. I managed, but it slowed us down, which gave the rent-a-cop more time to catch up.r />
  “Your entrails are gonna be dripping on those expensive shoes,” I said, my lips touching Harcourt’s bloodied ear. “And I’ll drag you across the threshold to the Fae Plains by your small intestine.”

  This earned me a patented quarter-grin. “See, dear Ruby? You will embrace the chaos yet.”

  “I’ll embrace nothing from you, asshole.” I spotted two guards weaving through the craps tables about twenty yards away. Everyone had to be a hero. Then again, with the TVs all broadcasting Harcourt’s deranged mug with a promise of a reward, I couldn’t blame them.

  Trying to get paid had gotten me into this mess, too.

  “They’re coming for us.” Harcourt couldn’t contain his glee as he waddled forward. I gripped the unopened switchblade in my palm tighter as the guards made a very clear cut our way. Ready to face us head on. They weren’t playing around.

  Then again, what did we look like? A woman leading a small, well-battered man in a three-piece suit. What kind of trouble could we cause?

  They should’ve watched the news a little closer.

  Five yards out, I saw the stun batons. They snapped out with the type of menacing crack that might intimidate a less optimistic girl. But I hadn’t trained in the woods for all those years with Pearl to be taken down by a couple sad schlubs.

  “They’re joining the chaos, dear—”

  Harcourt’s words disappeared as I shoved him into the guard on the left. The police academy reject stumbled from the unexpected impact. They tumbled down a short set of carpeted stairs leading into a blackjack pit.

  “Ma’am, you’re going to need to come with us,” the second guard said, without too much confidence. His eyes couldn’t resist darting toward his fallen comrade. I unfurled the switchblade with a deft movement and sliced him across the baton hand.

  He yelped like a wounded dog, blood streaming down his skin as he clutched his fingers.

  “Oh, it’s not that big of a deal,” I said, kneeing him in the chest to make sure he stayed down. “A couple stitches.”