Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection

by D. N. Erikson

  “Harcourt’s just an asshole,” I said. “Not toxic. At least not literally.”

  “The news.” He pointed at one of the old, decrepit sets hanging from the ceiling. Sure enough, the morning news team was all over the incident at the Golden Tiger. Potential chemical containment inside. Evacuated. And, of course, the latest news: an LVPD van had driven straight through the front door.

  I saw a replay of that from a chopper cam. It looked pretty lame from a thousand feet up.

  “You think Murphy poisoned the place?”

  “Murphy’s not an arms dealer,” Kennett said. And here I thought I was only going to hear bad news today. “He just called in a threat, and one of his cop buddies on the payroll must’ve pushed it up the chain to make it legit.”

  I saw him nervously finger his service weapon.

  “So we’re cool, then.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Kennett reached for one of Harcourt’s arms. “We should get moving.”

  I grabbed the other arm, beginning the slow trek through the casino. Harcourt murmured, spit dribbling down his bloodied chin, but was otherwise mercifully quiet. All told, this was shaping up to be an anti-climactic end to the festivities.

  No casino shootouts, complete with poker chips and cards flying through the air. Just a straight shot to the familiar concrete stairs leading into the belly of the Golden Tiger.

  I shot Kennett a look.

  “It’s too easy,” I said.

  “Don’t complain, Ruby,” he said with a grin. But the wisps told a different story than his cool demeanor suggested. We both knew this wasn’t right at all. Even the shittiest casino in Vegas didn’t shut down unless the apocalypse was incoming.

  Murphy was desperate, pulling one hell of a favor to clean things up. I guess my threat the night before had crawled deep into his brain.

  “Roll the dice, dear Ruby,” Harcourt said, somewhat groggily. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

  “I could spend my last hours with you.”

  He looked genuinely hurt, as if we’d generated some rapport through our shared experiences. It’s true that stories bond us, but no amount of car chases or near misses with Harcourt could have encouraged me to spend any more time with him than was necessary.

  Deep beneath the murky, crumbling concrete, I felt the pull of the Realm Rift.

  Wordlessly, I dragged Harcourt away from Kennett. This was my rodeo. I’d take lead. We hit the bottom of the stairs quicker than I remembered. But everything is exaggerated when you feel like you’re being led to the gallows.

  I peered down the hallway of flickering lights that passed by my former cell. The room was small and stale, the battered wooden desk looking lonely.

  “And here I figured you’d given up, love,” Harcourt said as I pushed him forward. “Most would have.”

  “I guess I’m a different kind of girl.” My eyes scanned the murk for movement. Nothing but a few squeaking, shapeless rats. Where was Chubbs’s quietly reassuring presence when you needed it? Kennett trailed behind, not saying anything. His shadow dipped near the lights because he had to duck.

  The hallway ended abruptly at a wide freight elevator, clearly designed to accommodate cash carts. I pressed the call button, and a rusty contraption groaned to life from the depths. The rickety nature of the elevator’s ascent suggested that the Golden Tiger wasn’t flush with capital. The cage opened with a sputtering heave, beckoning us inside.

  “After you, love,” Harcourt said.

  “In your dreams, asshole.” I kicked him in, sending him against the grating. It caused the entire thing to shake.

  Kennett raised his eyebrow as he passed, but had no comment.

  Nervous anxiety sluicing through my veins, I stepped inside the elevator last. It rattled after I pressed the down arrow, dropping into the abyss with rickety, less than comforting sounds.

  “There will be a grand finale,” Harcourt said. “It would be a disappointment for it to be absent.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said.

  “You can feel it, dear Ruby. I know you can.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Tell our mutual friend how Murphy operates, would you Captain Kennett?” Harcourt grinned and adjusted the cuffs of his ruined suit jacket. It was smudged with desert dust, blood, and oil, torn from his chaotic rampage through the western United States. He shrugged, the ripped fabric at the shoulders bunching up.

  “I suppose the captain doesn’t wish to share,” Harcourt said, a gleam in his tarnished copper eyes.

  Captain Kennett didn’t oblige with an answer. But the silence and sum total of the day’s events were somehow worse, exploding with negative possibility. Harcourt could be proud of one feather in his cap before I sent him into the great beyond: he was one of the only creatures ever to rattle me to the bone.

  It was a gift.

  One that would be extinguished as soon as we were through the Realm Rift.

  The elevator let out an exasperated rasp as it slowed to a stop. It shook to a halt, the cage opening to reveal another dimly lit room cast in concrete. The Golden Tiger’s architects could never be accused of being inspired. Two work lamps shone against a massive steel vault.

  Which was already open.

  I raised the shotgun, but Murphy stepped out from the door, holding a detonator.

  “You’ll want to be very careful where you step.” He wagged the detonator our way, brandishing it with detached menace. “And you’ll need to do exactly what I say.”

  “And if we don’t,” I said, gripping the shotgun tight, ready to put a round in Murphy’s skull.

  “Then there will be no need to run all over the world, Callaway,” Murphy said with grim determination. “Because you’ll cook right here, right now.”

  No one said a word.

  Not even Harcourt.

  23

  But I was tired of bluffs. Tired of Harcourt’s company. And tired of petty revenge schemes jerking me around like a puppet on a garroted string.

  Hands steady, I brought the combat shotgun up and aimed it right between Murphy’s eyes. He blinked, taken aback. There was the coward I knew: the hide-in-the-bathtub type. Controlling things from the ivory tower was easy.

  Getting your hands dirty to clean up the mess yourself was a whole different ball of wax.

  His neck bulged as he swallowed hard.

  “Put that down, Callaway. You got yourself in this situation.”

  “Yeah, I was a real asshole, not killing the hostages,” I said.

  “You had one job. A simple job.”

  “Push the button,” I said, daring Murphy to do it. There were at least half a dozen thugs behind him, heavily armed inside the vault. Without the bomb—or Harcourt at the forefront—it might be a reasonable fight.

  But shooting it out, given the circumstances, wouldn’t end in our favor.

  “I’d prefer a different solution.” Murphy looked warily at my gun. “Put down the damn shotgun.”

  “Blowing us up solves all your problems,” I said, refusing to comply with his request. “Except for one.”

  “And what would that be?” Murphy raised a bushy eyebrow, then a look of understanding spread across his face. “Ah, you’ve been talking to our friend Kennett.”

  “Not that,” I said. “There’s a reason you didn’t blow the elevator as soon as it started moving.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I think the Fae Prince wants Harcourt alive, now. After today, he wants to watch him suffer. Extra punishment.”

  Murphy’s head bobbed back and forth, like he was considering my proposal. I saw two of his fingers make a slight motion.

  One of his goons cocked a pistol and squeezed off two shots. I was on the ground with Harcourt, heart hammering, until I realized he wasn’t shooting at us. Kennett hit the rusty elevator with a thud, shaking the cage.

  I scrambled to my knees, dropping the combat shotgun. Kennett coughed and groaned, color draining from his
face as his lips moved in a whisper.

  “Murphy wants to become…Prince.”

  Kennett tried to say something else, but only a racking, bloody cough came out. I glanced up at Murphy, who hadn’t heard. I’d been wrong: this wasn’t about an extra bonus or a satisfied client. After today’s clusterfuck, Murphy had decided that his current business didn’t properly compensate him for the risks.

  Being a supernatural fixer was dangerous—and didn’t pay as well as royalty.

  I had to give a hat tip to Murphy for deciding to turn lemons into lemonade. Yesterday had started with his partner killed, me breaking our contract, and Harcourt thumbing his nose at the Fae Prince from afar.

  Hard to turn that fiasco into a stepping stone.

  But here I was, appearing like a guardian angel at just the right time. Ready to wipe all his problems away. Murphy would return Harcourt to the Fae Prince like a conquering hero—and then slip one in the Prince’s ribs during the debauched celebrations.

  I rose slowly from the ground, dragging Harcourt with me. Kennett groaned and coughed sporadically, blood seeping through his shirt. The wound didn’t look good.

  Murphy still clutched the detonator. “Come with me.”

  “You know that if I die, you’re not getting anywhere near that Realm Rift.”

  Murphy’s expression darkened. “I don’t think you hold the cards here, Callaway.”

  “I’m just telling you how it is.” I pushed Harcourt forward and walked slowly toward the vault. “So keep your guns aimed away, all right?”

  I could feel the Realm Rift beckoning to me. I wondered if the proprietors of the Golden Tiger knew what they were sitting on. The supernatural went deep into the shadows—but if the Mayor of Vegas was a shifter, who knew what the owners of this place might be?

  “You know, this isn’t how I expected things to go down, Ruby.” Murphy scratched his receding hairline with the detonator.

  “And how’d you see this gig playing out, Murph?”

  His lip curled at the nickname. I’d have to use that a few more times before I died. “Your reputation is bulletproof.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And yet, here we stand in the midst of a long series of unfortunate and epic fuck-ups.”

  “Epic is a little hyperbolic, wouldn’t you say, Murph?”

  “Don’t call me that.” He took a deep breath. “Just get me into the Fae Plains.”

  “Did you get yourself banned along with this jackass?” I took my hand and pressed it against Harcourt’s broken nose, giving his head a hard shove. The Fae moaned heavily.

  “I don’t want to go through the front door,” Murphy said. “I’m making a surprise visit.”

  I pretended like I didn’t know his true motives. “I’m sure everyone will be excited to see you, Murph. Life of the party.”

  Kennett groaned on the ground. It might have been a laugh. Hard to tell. Either way, it didn’t sound good.

  “Take off that silly mask.” Murphy’s face turned red. “There are no cameras down here.”

  “If you’d told me we were playing strip poker, I would have worn something just for you.” I ripped the ski mask off, hair sticking to my sweaty skin. I flung the damp fabric at Murphy as a toothless display of defiance.

  “Another time, perhaps.” Murphy gestured past his armed goons. “The Rift. Take me through.”

  While the shotgun was on the ground and useless, the Glock was still digging against my waistband. I walked normally, pushing Harcourt forward.

  “He doesn’t need to be breathing.” Murphy put the barrel of his pistol up against Harcourt’s head. “Better dead than alive.”

  “One minor thing that you forgot,” I said, wanting to strangle Harcourt as that patented quarter-grin crept across his face. “We’re bound by Blood Oath.”

  I could see the wisps around Murphy turn from a lustful pink—at the thought of being Fae Prince, and all the power it would entail—to a deep, angry red at the forgotten obstacle. He’d started counting his chickens already.

  But Harcourt was a wild card.

  A vein quivered beneath Murphy’s unbuttoned collar, his finger hovering over the trigger.

  If I had to be honest, I wasn’t scared. At this point, it might’ve been a mercy. I’d done my best to mitigate the damage caused by Harcourt. But I was getting bored with chaos. It had a certain repetitive banality that turned to formless mush in your mouth after the initial adrenaline wore off.

  “I thought that was a goddamn joke.” Murphy shook me. “Why would you bind yourself to him?”

  “Just to piss you off, Murph,” I said. “Fuck, you think that was my go-to move?”

  “If you weren’t going to die anyway, I’d be requesting a refund.” He snapped his neck toward the vault. “Then we’re all going into the Realm Rift.”

  “You see, I don’t really have a lot of incentive to help when you phrase things like that.”

  “Hope is the opiate of the masses,” Murphy said, like he’d just passed a freshman philosophy course.

  “Not mine.”

  Murphy pointed the pistol behind me. “But there is hope for Kennett.”

  I turned to Kennett, who was slowly bleeding out on the elevator floor. The flak jacket meant that he’d been hit low, in the thigh. Contrary to popular opinion, such wounds were not minor. Dying on the concrete was a serious possibility.

  Harcourt said in my ear, breath hot, “And so the clock descends to zero.”

  “Can’t wait.” I nodded to the armed men within the casino’s vault. Besides a few bars of gold and blocks of cash, the place was empty. The Golden Tiger wasn’t long for this world with this type of cash flow.

  The Rift called me to the back corner of the vault.

  “I need a sledgehammer.” I tapped the cracked tile with my boot.

  A burly man grunted, pushing me out of the way. Instead of a hammer, he aimed his automatic rifle at the ground, spraying it with bullets. After he was certain that he’d made the rest of us deaf, he backed away.

  Waving my hand through the dusty air, free arm still clutching Harcourt, I kicked at the shattered tile. I felt the familiar, rough wood of a Rift entrance. Reaching down, I pulled on the rope, feeling a whoosh come from inside the tunnel.

  “You both have to enter after me,” I said. “I’m not present, the Rift attacks you like a bad rash.”

  “If you’re screwing with me, Callaway—”

  “Don’t worry, Murph,” I said, first foot already on the ladder. “I got the message.”

  I reached the ground and whistled. Harcourt came down next, struggling down the ladder from the injuries he’d sustained in his quest for chaos.

  Murphy came last, pistol ready, landing in the dusty tunnel with a loud thud. I waited for his backup, but Murphy gestured us forward. Guess it would just be the three of us.

  “I don’t have all day, Callaway.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Murph,” I replied. “It’s not always what you wanted.”

  And off we went into the darkness, the way forward lit only by pockets of glowing essence scattered along the ground.

  24

  If Harcourt yearned for last minute chaos, he had to have been sorely disappointed when we reached the end of the Realm Rift. We might as well have been going for a stroll through a scenic park.

  Well, the stale air would’ve prevented that illusion from taking root. But the general sentiment remained: our journey had been placid and unexciting.

  The tunnel terminated at a worn wooden door that looked older than time itself. Murphy reached for the rusted steel pull handle.

  “And what the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

  “Taking what’s mine.” His muscles relaxed slightly.

  “I open the door, then this piece of shit goes through.” I jerked my thumb at Harcourt.

  “You’re both dead anyway,” Murphy said, jabbing the air with his pistol. “Who cares who goes first?”


  “Protocol,” I said, cryptically. I shifted so that the Glock wasn’t digging into my thigh. In the narrow tunnels, there hadn’t been an opportunity to drop Murphy. Harcourt was between the two of us, which meant I risked clipping the psychotic Fae.

  This was the first place we could stand in a manner other than single file.

  “Then open it up,” Murphy said, releasing the door’s rusted pull handle. I gave him a smug nod and then brushed him out of the way. “Get me out of this shithole.”

  To be honest, Murphy could step out into the Fae Plains without consequence. It was only stepping into the Realm Rift without a Realmfarer that unleashed the side effect of death. But seeing as how I was the only Realmfarer on site, no one could really question my expertise.

  “And so you will fulfill our Blood Oath, dear Ruby.” Harcourt’s voice sounded stuffed up and nasally. If I died, at least I’d gotten the opportunity to punch him in the face a couple times. That was worth something. “Well done.”

  “I don’t need your approval.” I gripped the rusted steel and pulled, but the old door didn’t budge. Trying again, this time throwing my entire weight into it, I felt the ancient hinges creak open. The aura of the Fae Plains seeped into the tunnel—foul, corrupt, and full of assholes.

  The perfect place for Harcourt. It was a wonder they threw him out.

  A dull sort of sunlight crept through the crack, growing into a lukewarm gray glow. Yellowed grass dotted the hills and valleys beyond the mountain where the Realm Rift opened.

  “After you, Harcourt,” Murphy said. “Hurry, now.”

  “I hope this is not how our story ends, love,” Harcourt said, giving me a wink. I felt a tightness release in my chest as he crossed the threshold and the Blood Oath dissolved. It might’ve been my imagination, but a little color returned to the gray world, too.

  I caught the door before it slammed shut.

  “Go, Ruby,” Murphy said, not one to waste time. I stepped forward. I wiped my brow. Well, it was now or never. Murphy was behind me in the tunnel, gun raised. As soon as I crossed the threshold, he’d put one in my spine or legs, then finish me off after crossing.