Blood and Silver - 04

by James R. Tuck

The Were-lion stared at me. Pride clashed with prudence on his face, making his dark features twist sourly. I stared at him. I don’t know what my face looked like. My old friend rage was bubbling under the surface of my skin. He gathered himself and turned toward the door. The woman with him did not move. She stood and seethed. His arm flashed out, pushing her toward the door as she glared at us. They were almost there when I whistled. The shrill sound cut through the air, getting his attention. He turned toward me. My finger stretched out, pointing at the body on the bar.

  “Leave with what you came with. We don’t take out other people’s trash here.”

  3

  The Comet growled at me, motor low and angry, crackling through the exhaust pipes. I wasn’t driving her like I usually did. Normally, I am from the “drive it like you stole it” school of driving. Pedal to the metal, balls out, ninety to nothing kind of driving. The Comet is a hot rod. She eats asphalt like a fat kid at a cake buffet. It’s what she was made to do. Right now, though, she was an ambulance.

  Sophia was stretched across the backseat, blankets wadded around her frail form to keep her as still as possible. Air pulled through her muzzle in ragged fits, hitching and jerking as the breath drew in. As her lungs filled you could see knuckle-shaped lumps of broken ribs jutting up through her skin. The breath would leave her in a long wheeze, pushing thinly through her throat. The end of it always snagged, drawing short and spurting out wet and choked. It took longer than it should to draw another one in.

  I was worried about her condition but didn’t want to make it worse by driving recklessly.

  I had changed my shirt and jeans while Kat had bundled her up. My other ones had been filthy from the dirt and blood, as well as torn by Werewolf claws. I had also added the other Colt .45. Both of them hung openly against my new T-shirt, which read, “GOT SILVER BULLETS?”

  Kat sat next to me. She had insisted on coming. Tiff stayed behind to shower away blood splatter, and Father Mulcahy would mop up and get ready for the evening opening of the club. I didn’t mind since Kat was the one who knew how to get to Larson’s. She was alternating between looking out the window and turning to keep an eye on Sophia. Her thick blond ponytail swayed as she turned to and fro.

  She wasn’t talking other than giving directions and making comforting noises to Sophia, so I reached over and turned the music up a touch. A cocksure guitar riff soared up over the rumble of the motor calling out the sweet sound of Chicago’s South Side. Muddy Waters sang about how he was a “Hoochie-Coochie Man” and he was gonna work his mojo and his black cat bone. That one-in-a-million voice coaxing some sweet young thing into believing all the claims he made. I settled into the rhythm of driving and let him sing and play me away into a memory.

  It was my first year of hunting monsters. I was new and raw, still figuring out how to do it right. A little girl was missing, gone without a trace from the woods not far from her school. Taken from a field trip with a group of people between one eyeblink and another. No one knew how she had disappeared so quickly.

  Search parties were formed. They brought in bloodhounds. Dogs trained to fearlessly trail a scent. Never giving up until they found its source. Relentless and unswerving no matter how dangerous their prey.

  They had all huddled together, shaking and pissing themselves, refusing to move or search.

  Her father had contacted me. He had been given my name by one of the investigators on the scene. I had already developed a reputation for handling weird crimes and cases. He had begged me, eyes burning like raw red wounds in his face, to find his daughter if I could. His hand shook as he gave me a picture of her, taken the day she disappeared to document her first field trip while in school.

  Kaylee Ann Dobbs had been missing for eight hours. She was a cute little girl, about six years old with a mop of unruly ash-blond hair, brown eyes that sparkled even in the picture, and a dash of light freckles across her delicate little nose. She was smiling in the picture, holding a brown paper bag lunch and wearing a pink paisley sundress. He fell to his knees in front of me. Please bring her back, no matter what you have to do. I’ll give you anything.

  My family had been taken less than nine months earlier.

  My daughter had a dash of freckles across her nose too.

  I took the damn case.

  After a lot of work and more than a little luck, I picked up a trail the bloodhounds couldn’t have followed. At the site of the disappearance there was an energy that my ability to sense the supernatural picked up on. It made my stomach draw into a dull gnaw of hunger. Itchiness crawled over my skin and when I scratched, it was hot to the touch.

  Following the energy, I tracked it to a house on the edge of the forest. It sat in one of the ’hoods that hang on the outskirts of the city. It was a squatty little crack house in a run-down ghetto. Despair rode the air currents, tainting the atmosphere. Sad vinyl siding sagged on the outside over stubby azalea bushes with flowers curled brown from crackhead piss. The windows were covered with plywood like it was waiting for a hurricane that would never come.

  The houses around it were just as depressing. Ramshackle government housing; all the same drab gray siding and rickety states of disrepair. Yards that were more dirt than grass, and cars that didn’t run sitting beside SUVs with gleaming rims. One neighboring house had burned to the ground. Nothing left but a cracked foundation and the charred stumps that used to be the bones of a home.

  Sad figures shuffled in and out of the crack house as I watched. They used to be people, before the crack burned them out, turning them into husks of humanity. They would look up at a camera that was mounted above the steel door, then someone inside would buzz them through.

  It was a bad scene. Lots of civilians. Lots of witnesses. A nasty part of town that I stuck out in like a sore thumb and I was alone, without backup. Every bit of logic said to come back later, better prepared.

  Kaylee Ann Dobbs had been missing for eleven hours.

  I stepped out of the Comet and the air slapped me with a buzz of something not natural. Back then I hadn’t yet learned how to pull in my power. I couldn’t tamp it down or put it away. It was like an open nerve, raw and swollen and sore to the touch. Like the hole in your tooth that you just can’t keep your tongue out of. It hurts and makes you shiver, the pain tremoring, leaving that funny feeling deep below your belly button, but you just can’t leave it alone. Impressions assaulted me from the house. The same impressions I’d found in the woods but on steroids.

  Or crack.

  The feel of something fever hot and aching with dull hunger. My skin began to itch and my stomach growled at me.

  Reaching inside, my hand closed on my Mossberg 500 shotgun. It had an eight-round tube, loaded with steel-core Mini-missile slugs for the first four rounds and silver-plated buckshot in the back half. Six extra shells of silver shot were strapped to the stock, standing out green against the black. The front of the barrel was capped by a breaching shroud, a jagged tube of steel, designed to grip doors to hold the barrel steady as a lock was blown away. A Desert Eagle .357 rode under my left arm, snug in its shoulder holster, pushed tight against my arm by the Kevlar vest I had strapped to me. Yes, I was hunting something supernatural, but crack houses and gun-toting drug dealers go hand in hand like . . . well, like crack houses and gun-toting drug dealers. I wasn’t taking chances on getting shot by some low-life piece of scum. A compact Glock .40 caliber snugged into the small of my back as a backup gun.

  Before I closed the car door, I grabbed a rag out of the floorboard that I used to check the oil in the Comet. Maintenance is better than repair, my dad used to say before he left this shitty world. I stuffed the oily rag into my back pocket and wiped my hand off on my jeans so I wouldn’t compromise my grip on the shotgun.

  Locked and loaded, I crossed the street. Moving quickly, my eyes scanned the broken asphalt for anything that might trip me. The tread of my boot ground against tiny shards of glass that glittered underfoot—busted bottles and shattered cra
ck pipes. The fever-hot hunger my power sensed thickened with each step, gelling around me, coagulating into something to wade through. I had one boot on the bottom step when a woman came around the corner of the house, dragging a stick-thin child behind her.

  We stopped, staring at each other. Her hair jutted out around a bobble head on a scrawny neck. Scabs covered her cheeks and arms. Some were thick as oatmeal. Some were picked away and dug into by dirty, broken fingernails so that the flesh showed bright pink. The sores were stark against ashy, bitter chocolate skin. Yellow, phlegmy eyes rolled at me inside sockets that sunk into the bones of her skull.

  The girl she had by the arm was as thin as her mother, but from being undernourished, not corroded away by drugs. She looked to be about twice Kaylee’s age. Black hair was pulled tight in cornrows and capped off with a rainbow of tiny plastic clips. She was barefoot despite the broken glass that littered the ground. Big brown eyes watched me carefully.

  The woman couldn’t stand still. Her shoulders and neck kept moving back and forth and side to side. She looked like a cobra somebody had jumped up on methamphetamines. Her lips were crusted with something white and flaky that cracked when she talked. I could hardly understand her through the mouthful of stubs she had. Crack had eaten most of her teeth into stumps that hung black to her pink gums.

  “What you doin’ here wid dat big-ass gun, whiteboy?”

  My left hand pulled out the picture Kaylee’s father had given me. I held it toward her. “Looking for this little girl. You seen her?”

  She closed one rheumy eye as she leaned forward and looked at the picture. “Why you think she’d be in this neighborhood?”

  “I just do. Have you seen her?”

  Her head swiveled. She squinted, one bulging eye looking up the steps to the house. “You think she’s in dat house?”

  I nodded.

  “Muddafucka!” She turned and shook the little girl at the end of her arm. The girl flopped around but didn’t make any noise. “You hear dat? McMahon done got himself a little white girl, he ain’t gonna want you! Now what am I gunna do? I gots to get my fix.”

  I stepped closer to her. The nerve under my eye started twitching, throbbing hard enough to make my eyelid flutter. The skin on my hands felt swollen, my palms itched with the desire to clench into fists. “Start by letting her go and knocking that shit off.”

  She turned on me,her voice rising. “You tellin’ me how to raise my own child? Who da’ hell you think you is?” She was making too much noise. She was going to draw attention to us in any second.

  My fingers shot out, closing on the greasy skin at the back of her neck. I yanked her close. She smelled bad. Like she hadn’t washed in a week or maybe she’d had a shit sandwich for breakfast. “Who is McMahon?”

  “He da’ crackman! Dis his house you at.”

  “What does he want with a little girl?”

  Both her hands clasped on my arm. I stared at her broken fingernails. There was blood dried on the ones where she had been scratching and picking at herself. Something gross was caked under her middle finger, some unidentifiable chunk hanging against the splintered nail. She wasn’t fighting, just holding on and staring at me sullenly. At least she had let her daughter go. The girl stood there, watching us. The crackhead’s eyes narrowed as she studied me.

  “What kinda cop are you?”

  I jerked her close, making her look in my eyes. “Do I look like a fucking cop?” I shook her like she had shaken the little girl earlier. Corroded stumps of teeth clacked together. “Answer the question.”

  “He likes dat. He give a big fat rock if you bring a girl for him. Ever’body know dat!”

  My blood ran cold. The anger that had heated my skin dropped like a stone, congealing in my stomach and curdling. I had to shove her away to keep from breaking her neck. “Get out of my sight.” Words stuck to my clenched teeth. “Leave the girl. Run away.”

  She stared at me sullenly. “What you give me for her?” She hopped from foot to foot, arms bouncing at her side like chicken wings. “I gotta get sump’thin.”

  I raised the shotgun and pointed it at her head. “I’ll give you your worthless, miserable life. Now get the hell away from me.”

  I watched her over the top of the shotgun barrel. I watched her draw in a breath. I watched her rotten mouth open. A flake tumbled away from her chapped lips, leaving a pink square uncovered.

  “WHITEBOY WID A GUN! WHITE BOY WID A—”

  The back of my hand flew off the gun, whipping around and smacking her on the cheekbone. There was no resistance as she dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks. The girl watched her fall and then turned big intelligent eyes up toward me.

  I knelt down beside her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I know.” Wide brown eyes blinked at me. “You said you were here to save that girl.”

  “I am.”

  She thought about it for a moment. Her tiny forehead furrowed as she pondered. “Could you save me, too, mister?”

  My heart twisted, drawing my chest tight. “What’s your name, sweetie?” My throat was tight as I asked.

  “Mary.”

  I pointed at the Comet. “You see that car over there, across the street?” She nodded earnestly, her eyes following my finger. I pulled out the keys, separated out the door key, and handed them to her. “Go wait in the car. Lock the doors and lay down in the backseat. Stay there no matter what happens outside the car or how much noise you hear and I will come back for you when I am done.”

  “Are you really going to come back?” That little face held a lifetime of disappointment. Broken promises filled her eyes.

  I smiled at her. “I have to. You have the keys to my car.” I softly put my hand on the top of her head. “Go on now, Mary. I’ll be done soon.” She watched me for a second. She looked down at the keys in her hand and then back up to me. Turning, she took one step toward the car, then spun and threw her thin arms around my neck in a hug. She squeezed with all she had, let go, and then ran to the car. I watched her, wiping hot wetness from my eyes. The car door closed behind her and I heard the click of the lock. With a deep breath I stood, stepped over the crackhead mother, and walked up the steps.

  Pulling out the oily rag, I smeared it over the camera lens, turning it into a greasy blind eye. For extra measure, I tossed the rag over the camera. It draped and hung, covering me from sight. My fingers swiped down my denim-clad thigh to wipe away the oil again and then closed on the slide of the shotgun.

  The door was steel. It opened to the inside and was secured with a giant dead bolt. I shoved the breeching shroud just above the lock, leaning into it. Steel met steel in a soft clang. The barrel was aimed down toward the lock, stock pressed securely into my shoulder.

  One deep breath in. Hold. Release.

  Pull the trigger.

  The end of the shotgun exploded, shooting fire out through the tiny gaps between door and shroud. I rocked back through my knees. Taking the kick of the gun. Absorbing it. Pushing back toward the door. The world closed down around the blast, my ears gone silent behind the roar.

  The lead-covered steel ball blasted through the lock. Shoving metal apart. Ripping a tunnel through. I pivoted left, jacked the slide, squeezed the trigger, and blasted another round through. Pivot right. Jack the slide. Pull the trigger. Absorb the shock.

  The lock was gone. Smashed to smithereens. A fist-sized hole glared out at me.

  Spinning to the side of the door, my fingers pulled extra rounds off the stock and shoved them into the breach. With the gun fully loaded again, I turned to the door, leaned back, and planted a size thirteen boot beside the doorknob. The steel door flew in, smashing against a crackhead holding a pistol. The skinny man yelled out in pain and grabbed his arm that held a gun. I shouldered in, twisted, and slammed the stock of my gun across the side of his head, right across the temple. He bowled over into the wall, dropping the pistol, and crumpling into a heap. My fingers flicked on the light mounted to th
e tactical rail. A halogen beam cut through dim shadows as I started walking down the unlit hallway.

  The hall was narrow and short. Walls closed in toward me, made dingy by a sickly sweet haze of crack-pipe smoke that hung in the air. I tried to breathe shallow and keep as much of that poison out of my lungs as possible. That shit is corrosive, which is why crackheads have train wrecks for smiles. The crack smoke erodes enamel and dissolves the tooth. A lot of crackheads suck the pipe the same way, time after time putting it in the same place as they smoke. Those crackheads will have a perfect hole eaten through their smile like it was etched in acid.

  Trash carpeted the floor. Paper, bottles, rotten food, discarded clothing. It all lay on the floor in piles and heaps, kicked to the side, shoved against the baseboards. I stepped carefully, sweeping the light back and forth. Inside the house, the hot itch was almost unbearable, so choking that the back of my throat was dry and scratchy. My stomach gurgled, roiling around on itself.

  My hearing was clearing up, sounds coming back to me. Yelling. Screaming. I kept moving, clearing the first room by the door quickly. It was empty except for filthy broken-down couches occupied by filthy broken-down people. Most of them stared at me, openmouthed. Two were so far gone they didn’t wake up, dead asleep or just dead, wasted away again in Crack-a-ritaville. One stared at me while still holding a small butane lighter to the glass tube stuck between desiccated lips, held by corroded teeth.

  They were no threat; I moved on.

  Noise came from the end of the hall, where it turned to the rest of the house. Moving quickly, I closed the gap. Two gangbangers rounded the corner. Pants sagging, shirts three sizes too big, with bandannas noosed around their heads and arms full of jailhouse ink, they raised cheap pistols at me. Spinning on my foot, my back slammed into the wall as I pushed out of their line of fire.

  Time shrank, wrapping us in a bubble. The one in front jerked his finger on the trigger, spitting death into the space I was just in. He held the cheap semiautomatic sideways, playing a video game in his head. The slide convulsed back, hot shell casings flying to plink him in the face. My shoulders flexed, bouncing me off the wall. Three giant strides put me right up in his face. The shotgun swung up over my head.Pushing off the ground,the top of my boot tightened across my instep. I rose up and drove the butt of the gun into the top of his skull. The shock jolted to my shoulders as I bashed him to the floor. His knees went out as he dropped, both legs going into a split. He slumped to the ground, face thudding into the litter-strewn hallway. I let the momentum spin me around as I landed. The shotgun swung down, pointing at the second gangbanger’s face.