Dark and Stormy Knights

by P. N. Elord

  The place was decked out like the North Pole had puked on it, Skamar thought, making her way to the food court. It was there, claimed the newspapers, that a Caucasian man had approached the counter of McGee’s Muffin Shop, ordered a lemon-poppyseed pastry, warmed, before yanking the owner’s daughter, Lilly, from behind the counter. Some eyewitnesses claimed he’d then leapt a glass balustrade to drop thirty feet before disappearing, and the police hadn’t been able to decide whether they should ignore those onlookers altogether or look at them most closely.

  So the muffin shop, now considered a crime scene, was cordoned off and dark, and mothers of young children steered their offspring from the storefront as if abduction were an infectious disease. Therefore Skamar hadn’t long to wait for an opportunity to leap the counter and disappear into the back room.

  The giant stainless-steel mixers were clean, the counter-tops wiped. It was orderly for a place so abruptly deserted. Yet beneath the scents of flour and sugar—and a particularly noticeable half-open tub of hardening blueberry muffin batter—Skamar still recognized human. The most obvious one smelled of whittled wood, a signatory male scent, though one laced with peppery shock. Skamar dismissed it and ferreted out the other, one as faint as soft, boiled ginger. That had to be Lilly’s.

  Shutting her eyes, Skamar memorized the hooks and nuances in order to track the girl later. When the door handle next to her began to twist, she jerked back to awareness and thought briefly of bolting back over the counter . . . but why give the mortals another far-fetched story? Besides, the ID cards Zoe had provided included one for a licensed P.I. She’d just tell the shop owner that one of the other families had hired her. Any man desperate to find his missing daughter wouldn’t question that.

  Yet it wasn’t the owner who flicked on the lights and startled at the sight of her. Skamar was dumbfounded, too. Of all people, her annoying neighbor was the last she expected to see.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked in as unfriendly a voice as she’d ever heard. As if he had a right to question her.

  Skamar flashed her license. “I should ask you the same.”

  “Brass trumps paper.” Vaughn flashed his badge. “Now answer the question.”

  “A cop?” was all she said, letting her arm fall. “You have a job?”

  “You can complete actual sentences?”

  Her eyes hardened, but so did his. This was a different Vaughn from the one who undressed her with his gaze each time she passed his balcony. This one was a cool opponent, and perversely she liked it. She also thought she could use it.

  “You’re the lead detective, then?” she asked, gaining a mere perfunctory nod. “I was hired by the Brundage family to find their daughter. Maybe we could work together?”

  That flat cop’s gaze met the suggestion as enthusiastically as a cat met water. Yes, Skamar thought. She liked this Vaughn very much. “Does that mean you have something useful to add to the investigation, or would I be the only one contributing to this working relationship?”

  “I’ve just started,” she admitted with a tilt of her head. “But I’m good, dogged . . . and I was born to hunt the people who do this.”

  He didn’t answer immediately, frowning as he looked around and then shuddering as his eyes fell on the bin of batter. The odd moment passed quickly, though. “You mean the monsters.”

  She smiled briefly. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Eyes narrowed, Vaughn considered her a moment longer, then offered up his own thin smile. “The third victim was abducted while sleeping. I’m headed to her house now if you want to come along.”

  Skamar nodded her thanks, so relieved he’d agreed that she didn’t worry too much about why. Maybe he was suspicious and wanted to keep her close. Maybe it was another way to angle in for that damn cup of coffee. Whatever, Skamar thought, following Vaughn from the shop. She’d find a way to work it to her advantage. And the unusual step of working with a mortal might prove a good tactic. Busting through the Tulpa’s defenses via his front door hadn’t produced results, but maybe she could slip through the back this way. If she was really lucky, she might even catch him sleeping.

  They were allowed into Debi Truby’s bedroom by parents so grief-stricken, they looked like the walking dead. Skamar had never scented so sharp an anguish before, and she wondered how such a little person could be so firmly anchored in a family that her absence set them all adrift. Debi’s father floated inconsequentially from room to room, and her mother looked as though she’d been yanked up at the root.

  Meanwhile, this new Vaughn pointed out that there was no sign of struggle, forced entry, or unfamiliar fingerprints, which told Skamar little in the way of anything new. She confirmed that Debi was exactly Ashlyn’s age and that her youthful scent was impossible to distinguish from an initiate’s. That’s why the Shadows were casting such a wide net. They’d probably hold the girls until they started menses, returning them, memories erased, once it was clear they weren’t Ashlyn. Then again, they might just kill them.

  But puberty varied from child to child, so Skamar couldn’t help wondering how many years Debi’s parents would have to walk the world in panicked despair. Or how many families would be fractured this way before the Shadows ended their search.

  The unknown clearly bothered Vaughn as well. As they drove to the second crime scene, a schoolyard, he gnawed on his fingernails, gaze distant.

  “These are crimes of opportunity,” he finally said out of nowhere. “These girls aren’t stalked. That’s usually a solo endeavor, and I’m certain there’s more than one person in on this. Maybe a cult . . . yet there’s no ritual, no social connection. Just similar looks.”

  “And their birthdays,” Skamar added. He was so earnest that she felt compelled to help. She didn’t have a lot, but she knew that much. “They’re all born within months of each other.”

  Vaughn frowned, made a note of it on his pad while driving, then sighed as he pulled into the school front’s horseshoe drive. They slipped through a narrow opening in the fence, where they stared out over the blacktop. Skamar could almost hear the echo of children’s laughter in the darkening yard.

  “Why’s this so personal to you?” The question earned her a sharp look, but she only inched closer, genuinely curious about what she was scenting. It was an old emotion, dry but still cloying, like the cold ash of incense. “Don’t take offense. I’m good at reading people. These cases are touching you in a way others haven’t.”

  Vaughn’s gaze locked on the gently swaying tetherballs, and his jaw clenched. “Remember when you were a kid, around nine or so, and you started playing chase with the opposite sex? It was both terrifying and exhilarating . . . though you didn’t really know why.”

  Since she’d had no childhood to speak of, Skamar’s nod was a lie.

  “The first girl I let catch me was named Anna. She had long brown hair and always wore those plastic barrettes. You know, the ones with bunnies on them? She smelled like blueberry gum, and I can still remember her laugh when she pressed her lips to my cheek. She said she wanted to taste my freckles. Then she raced off, left me standing with my mind in a full buzz.”

  Skamar said nothing, mesmerized by the idea of this man as a freckle-faced boy and knowing now why he’d gone so still in the bakery. Blueberries.

  “She was taken the next year from in front of her house. Nobody ever saw her again, not alive, and I would stare at her empty desk every day, remembering how she looked hunched over her work, hoping she’d just walk in the classroom, wearing those plastic barrettes, maybe say that she had just gotten lost.”

  He looked down, biting the inside of his mouth, then back up at the sky, lost in his memories.

  “That summer I went to the library, got permission to use the microfiche, and found her school picture alongside her obituary. I looked at that image staring back at me, and I swear I could fucking smell the blueberries.”

  Skamar swallowed hard. “So it’s a quest for you? Like tho
se medieval knights, fighting to protect the innocent?”

  Zoe’s mind had been filled with those stories. She loved them, which was ironic because a former superhero shouldn’t wish to be saved by someone else. But Zoe had. She’d longed for it even while taking steps to save herself.

  “Don’t joke about this.” Vaughn pushed away from the fence.

  “I’m not,” Skamar replied, placing a hand on his arm to stop him, forcing him to look her in the eyes. She slid her fingertips down his arm, then led his to the scarred divots in her wrists. “I—I could have used a knight once myself.”

  Vaughn froze before that hard expression fractured. Then he gave her destroyed arms a gentle squeeze, and Skamar sucked in a surprised breath. She’d revealed the scars for his sake, to show that bad things happened and it was impossible for him, a mere cop, to be everywhere at once. But the dizziness that shot through her was surprising . . . and it was also unwanted. Okay, so his story about a girl who’d died long ago touched her. But she couldn’t let his softheartedness do the same. That would be dangerous for them both.

  “Do you have plans tonight?” he suddenly asked, still holding her wrists.

  The question had Skamar blinking twice. She pulled away, but Vaughn’s grip tightened. “I’m not asking for a date. We can’t patrol the whole damn city at once, but we can be in the most likely places these girls are targeted. The Festival of Lights is tonight, and there’ll be an enormous teen presence. The Jameson Brothers are playing at eight.”

  Skamar remained silent, having no idea who the Jameson Brothers were.

  “We’ll stand out less if we go together,” Vaughn explained under her steady gaze. “Follow the girls who most fit the profile and see if anyone else is doing the same.”

  She frowned. It was a long shot, though no more remote than canvassing the entire valley in hopes of stumbling upon some random abduction. “How many teens did you say will be there?”

  “A few hundred. All screaming and giggling, probably at the top of their lungs.”

  Skamar winced, and the teasing man she first knew, the one who visually undressed her from over his balcony wall, showed his face. Odd, but this time she almost didn’t mind. “C’mon,” he said, “you were a teen once. You remember what it’s like.”

  Skamar had never been a teen and remembered nothing of the sort—not giggling with friends, not chasing boys in the schoolyard, not even blueberry gum and plastic barrettes. But she did remember hanging from a lightning rod like a sacrificial offering, and she was willing to try anything she could to reconcile that. “I’ll be at your place at six.”

  The Festival of Lights was a month-long event, and while the first three weeks were a cacophonous celebration of family, the last one—and the last night in particular—belonged wholly to the valley’s teen population. It was held outdoors, on a refurbished ranch, because despite the carols being sung about sleigh bells and winter wonderlands, December in Vegas was relatively mild. The cold weather wouldn’t really strike until the new year, so the light jackets and festive scarves were mostly for fashion’s sake.

  After excusing himself, Vaughn momentarily left Skamar in front of a faux North Pole, where a Santa smelling of peppermint and vodka was taking pictures with groups of girls too old be sitting on his lap. Skamar took the opportunity to scan the crowd without being watched by Vaughn or burdened by making small talk. She was still in search mode when he returned with a pastry, which she glanced at as if it were an alien life form.

  “We’re here to work,” she said, crossing her arms.

  “We’re here to blend,” he corrected, nudging her with something called a churro. She studied the stick of fried dough and cinnamon sugar, twisting it in her hand before taking a tentative bite. The warmth, the sugar, and the surprising cream-filled center had her eyes winging wide, and she looked up to find Vaughn watching her with a soft, amused gaze. It wasn’t the knowing look he shot her from behind his apartment balcony or the hard glaze that assessed her work. It was new, and when he reached up to wipe sugar from her lips, she found she couldn’t hold it and dropped her head.

  Then he surprised her yet again. The steam from the coffee cup he’d been hiding warmed her face, and she jerked back, causing his amusement to turn into full-fledged laughter. “I told you we were going to share a cup of coffee, sunshine.”

  His cockiness made laughter well in her, too, so she reached for the cup, muttering as she brought it to her mouth. “Stop calling me that.”

  “What should I call you, then?” he said, angling again for her name.

  She only narrowed her eyes, but when he linked her arm through his, she didn’t pull away. His size gave the illusion that he was the stronger of them, she reasoned, and his body heat and the low rumble of his voice were a relatively pleasant duet accompanying an unpleasant task.

  So they walked arm in arm, threading through enough teens that the hormones practically flattened the air molecules. As Vaughn had predicted, most were giggling girls, clustered and texting, hair-tossing and bouncing with more energy than twelve-week-old puppies. At one point, a piercing chorus of squeals went up so close to Skamar that her eyes actually crossed. But the uniformity in scent made it simple to ferret out the aberrant one . . . and it was one Skamar knew well.

  “What is it?” Vaughn asked, feeling her stiffen. He followed her gaze to a man standing near the fence, a protective arm draped over the shoulders of a glassy-eyed girl. Her head was hidden beneath a thick brown ski cap, and their coloring was so alike that anyone who didn’t know better would take him for her father.

  The ability to change shape and form was so convenient, Skamar thought, stepping forward. Too bad for the Tulpa that his black slush aura was always the same.

  “It’s Debi,” she whispered. The Tulpa was obviously using the girl as cover while he canvassed the crowd for another victim. He knew, then, that she wasn’t the one. And if the Tulpa was attending to the matter personally, Zoe was right. He was hunting their granddaughter.

  “I see him.” Vaughn spoke too loudly. The Tulpa’s gaze rolled as though his head were riveted to his shoulders. He noted and dismissed Vaughn, and fastened his attention on Skamar. With a twitch of his lips, he angled the girl away, and they headed in tandem toward the main stage.

  “Break up,” she ordered Vaughn, but he was already pushing through the tight pods of pubescent girls, all seemingly on a mission to slow him down. The warm-up band had just taken stage, and the singer yelled for everyone to raise their hands. Amid the excited screaming, the Tulpa lifted his own hand as he turned to grin at Skamar. Then he slipped around a vendor’s stall sparkling with lights and ornaments and disappeared.

  Skamar knew the Tulpa was expending more energy than usual on this new physical form and was further limited by having to drag along a mortal. This knowledge—along with the phantom smell of blueberries and the memory of Debi’s shell-shocked parents—had Skamar zigzagging like a speed skater through the tightly packed crowd. If she got to him before he found a solitary spot, she could separate him from the girl . . . and take a shot at doing the same with his life.

  A small clearing on the asphalt lot and a large burst of speed put her within arm’s reach. Being forced to drag Debi along unobserved had slowed him significantly. Perhaps he should have held on to his strength, she thought wryly. Yet he dodged when Skamar leapt, elongating creepily to slide behind a wall of portable toilets. Laughter greeted Skamar even before she whipped around the corner . . . as did a harsh, unmistakably canine growl. Yet halting abruptly, she saw no one but the Tulpa, now pulling Debi into an unyielding headlock. The girl didn’t protest or even blink, though her face was quickly turning red.

  “Let her go.”

  “Since when do you care about anyone or anything but my demise?” His dark eyes, fastened on her face, had gone as black as his aura.

  “I care about many things,” Skamar lied, inching forward. “Not that I’d turn down the opportunity for a little payback.
”

  “Still sore about that little crucifixion prank?” The features on his face shifted, shimmered, then resolidified. Despite his pleasant tone, he was expending a lot of energy. “It was a lark, I was just having a bit of fun. It would be so much more convenient if you just got over it.”

  Skamar took a step forward, testing him. “I’m not here to make life easier on you.”

  “Another way that we’re shockingly alike.” He whistled, and the ground next to Skamar’s feet moved.

  She jumped at the sight of a greyhound, slight and wiry . . . and completely translucent. It glistened now that it was moving, undulating in pearly waves like all doppelgängers. Greys weren’t known for their aggressive natures, but canine wardens loathed anyone connected with the Light. And as Skamar had been created in the mind of a former agent of Light, she was certainly that. The dog snarled, baring teeth as long as crystalline spikes, its mouth bubbling with opalescent saliva.

  She had time only to think how clever it was to create a warden doppelgänger before the Tulpa spoke. “Bandit . . . kill.”

  And he named his creature right in front of Skamar, the same way she’d been named and afforded additional power . . . and with the same effect. The beast’s body was instantly inked, and it lunged at Skamar with a speed only she possessed.

  “Motherfucker!” A bullet followed Vaughn’s cry, fired so close that Skamar’s ears rang with the aftershocks. It entered the newly created hound, and the creature yelped . . . then grew a good three inches all around. However, the interruption gave Skamar the opening she needed, and she leapt at Bandit while yelling at Vaughn to hold his fire.

  The dog’s gaping mouth was level with her face, and Skamar shoved her hands inside of it to yank the impossibly sharp incisors in opposite directions. Bandit yelped as she ripped apart its hard palate. Then she bit into the hound’s neck, jerked her head, and tore out its larynx. She kept ripping with her teeth, literally consuming half of the animal—and its magic—because the only way to kill a tulpa, even a canine one, was to turn its own magic against it. Thus only another tulpa could do that.