by Kenny Soward
“You’re awake. Good. We’ve got a few more blocks to go, and the ghoulkine are getting closer.” Selix pulled out a small pack and hoisted it. “I stashed this stuff here when we first came to Earth. Got safe spots all over the city. Drugs. Water. Other assorted goodies.” Her smile glowed in the darkness.
Lonnie shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.” Faint words. Whispers. If he talked any louder he’d break into another fit of coughing. He stared ahead. “I dreamed again.”
Selix dropped the pack and knelt in front of him. “Oh, yeah? A good one?”
“It was about the runecraft. My hands,” Lonnie held them up weakly. "The Master."
“Yes, you dreamed of Oru.”
“Oru," Lonnie's mind spun with the sound of the old woman's name.
“You always talked about her, but we never met. She was tough on you as a kid, you said.”
Lonnie chuckled. "Tough isn't the word. Is she dead?”
Selix shrugged. “I don’t know. What did she say in your memory?”
Lonnie shook his head, fighting through the pain. “I was young again. I’d just failed my first test. Completely forgot my training. Paid for it, too.” Lonnie ran his hands along his forearms, remembering the cuts. “Master Oru said I was the weakest of my family, but the strongest, too. What did that mean?”
“Sounds pretty fucking cryptic to me,” Selix laughed.
“I think I can call my power now. I remember the runes. The sweeps. Well, a few of them, anyway. I’ve been doing it without even noticing. Saved my ass in Rose Park.”
“I can’t help you there. I know nothing of runecraft. But you were good. That's how you beat me.”
"Beat you?"
"Yeah, that's how we met. We fought first, made up later." Selix smiled crooked.
Lonnie squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them. "I don't remember that. But—” Lonnie stopped to swallow.
“Yeah?”
“You were on a stage. You sang a perfect song.” Lonnie remembered Selix's scorching eyes. Both in his memory and here in the alcove, too. One set of Selix eyes superimposed over another.
“Oh yeah.”
Lonnie’s lip curled, voice rising above a whisper. “Why are you here? Why...still with me?”
Her expression went blank for a moment, then the crooked smile returned. With a shrug, she said, “I didn’t like you, at first. But then I fell in love. Long story short.”
"You were beautiful.”
Selix laughed. “I cleaned up good.”
“Still are beautiful. Thank you.”
“For what?” She read his face, eyes expectant.
“For the memories. Back home and here. Even the m-magicked ones.” Lonnie covered his mouth with his fingers and coughed. His hand fell away sticky with blood. “They were g-good ones.”
Selix reached up and touched his temple. His cheek. Wiped the red off his chin. “Hey, you okay?” When Lonnie didn’t respond, when he slumped and let his head droop, Selix’s eyes grew wide.
“Shit, Lonnie. Shit!” She stood up, paced to the other end of the alcove, and came back. Her face was fragile with worry, then changed to grim determination.
Lonnie's vision wavered.
“I’m going to try something,” she said. “Isn’t exactly healing. I can’t heal. But I think I can help.”
Lonnie frowned. “Selix, I-I’m done. Leave m-me be.”
“No.”
Lonnie drifted, thinking of home again. This time, his sister. They were older, indicated by his sister’s choice in clothing more than anything. No longer the sack-covered little girl playing trap games, but a young woman now. Hair dyed a mixture of reds and grays framing her face. She wore the embroidered leather armor of a Princess of Hell, daggers at her hips, her own shadescreamer guards looming nearby. Those same pearl pink eyes that never showed affection boring into him. Thin lips whispered the word, "brother," sending a chill up his spine.
Selix grasped Lonnie's shoulders. Shook him.
“Lonnie. Wake the fuck up!”
Lonnie’s eyes snapped open, tears welling. “I loved my sister once. What happened?” He started to cough but was too weak.
Selix studied his face in silence, mouth pursed. She knelt and held his chin. "Forget her for a minute. Kiss me.”
Lonnie nodded. A kiss. Yes, that sounded better than thinking of his sister. Better than thinking of the pain.
Selix drew close. Pressed in, filling his nose with the scents of stale sweat and cinnamon. Her hand cupped the back of his greasy head and pulled him forward. Pressed her chapped lips against his.
A final kiss.
But Selix’s tongue violated the innocent moment, forcing itself into his mouth rudely, causing Lonnie to jerk away. But Selix clutched his head, locking their mouths tight. Pressure. Air, or some force, opened him, ballooning his cheeks. His throat. His lungs. The pain was intense, rabid, threatening to burst his insides.
Eyes wide, he gripped Selix’s shoulders, a scream locked in his chest.
The pressure changed direction, becoming a pulling sensation. The fluid in his lungs rose. Up and up, filling his throat and cheeks, flowing out through is mouth and into Selix’s in one big swoosh.
Terrified, Lonnie fought. Squeezed her shoulders hard. Tried to shove her away. Drew back his fist to hit her.
Selix released Lonnie with a smack of breaking suction. She leaned over, turned her head, and blew a huge spray of blood onto the cement next to the HVAC unit. It kept coming, two or three more gouts of it splashing on the ground.
Lonnie coughed mercilessly for a minute, eyes watering in pain, the metallic flavor of copper awash in his throat and sinuses. Blood ran out his nose. Down his chin. He leaned to his right, elbow on knee as red drool drained from his lips.
Unable to help himself, he sucked in a huge breath.
A full breath of air.
The discomfort in his chest remained, that aching-as-fuck-all pain. But the air. It was nothing short of glorious.
They sat in silence for several moments, both exhausted. Lonnie glared at Selix and waited for her to look up. When she did, her eyes were dull and weary. Mouth a bloody frown.
“Asshole,” he said, coughing and spitting.
Selix gave a weak smile. “You’re welcome.” She stood, peered up the street as ghoulkine howled in glee at having picked up their scent once more.
They were close.
“All right,” she said, wiping Lonnie’s blood off her lips and chin. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 9
“We’re not going to make it.”
The ghoulkine closed in as the two approached the Roebling Bridge from the north. Lonnie heard the beasts gaining. They howled with urgency, wolfish as they neared. Had they killed Crash and the sisters?
“Shut up. We run until we hear their claws on the pavement.”
Lonnie nodded and tried to remember if he still had his gun. Yes, someone had tucked it into his waistband after pulling him from beneath the shattered car back in Rose Park, but he didn’t know how many bullets he had left. Not enough, probably. He was too busy clinging to Selix to check.
He threw his eyes toward the old bridge. More commonly called the Suspension Bridge, it spanned the Ohio River between Covington and Cincinnati, with two massive sandstone towers supporting a blue steel deck between them, drawn up with wound wire cables as thick as Lonnie’s arm. They were just three hundred yards from the northern approach.
Lonnie hadn’t had many reasons to be down this way in the past few years, had only seen the bridge a half dozen times up close, but it was a phenomenal structure.
“C’mon, pick up the pace.” Selix’s words squeezed through drawn lips, voice tinged with panic.
Lonnie focused on making headway. It was a stumbling lurch now, his left foot dragging as he leaned even harder on Selix’s frail shoulders. He grabbed his pant leg to swing his left side along. Selix bent under his weight, gasping and straining.
“C’mon, Lonni
e, damn it.”
I’m trying, he wanted to say, but didn’t want to waste the breath.
Ghoulkine cried out, and Lonnie swore he heard the sound of claws skittering across the pavement. “Selix—”
“Not yet.”
They hurried down Vine Street and crossed an overpass spanning the expressway. It was deserted this late, just a few cars edging through, and they couldn’t have been more alone. Lonnie would have given one of his busted lungs to be back amongst the drunk club goers, the beer throwers, and the fights. He’d take being spit on, cursed at, or whatever, over being hunted in darkness.
Vine Street split the city’s two stadiums and turned in to Roebling Way. The bridge was just ahead. An old monolith surrounded by the new. Parking lots sprawled on either side, and the street lights hummed with electric.
And a sudden snarl.
A gurgling, liquid-razor sound behind them.
Glancing right, Lonnie saw shadows bounding toward them, draining light from everything like ink leaking across a page.
The bridge was so damn close, but their tedious pace stretched the distance to miles. They passed a roundabout and labored up the northern approach, sticking to the sidewalk. The bridge was painted blue, from its wires and spires to the metal beams supported by the sandstone towers.
It did, at that moment, assume a god-like ominousness. A castle fortress standing real against unreal things. An old, grizzled guard unafraid of shadows and darkness. Untroubled by ghoulkine and hex muses and hoarbeasts.
Selix angled them toward the pedestrian walk.
“Almost there, Lonnie. Keep it up. Keep it—”
Lonnie heard ragged panting and a sudden burst of claws on concrete right before something plowed into them. He stumbled, tripped, and sprawled on the pavement, cracking his chin on the ground. His chest and head both now threatening to split open, Lonnie lifted himself up, searching for Selix.
“Crawl, Lonnie. Go! Get to the bridge!”
Snarls fought with Selix’s strange singing, followed by a surprised yip. Lonnie rolled onto his back with a pained grunt. His eyes widened at what he saw.
Selix looked small in front of the drooling, crouching ghoulkine. She was holding up one finger, keeping the tufted menace at bay. It shot forward, reaching with claws to grab her. Selix danced away, her tired legs still agile.
“Stop! Don’t make me love you.” Selix commanded the beast through the lyrics and, to Lonnie’s surprise, the ghoulkine stopped cold, frozen in mid lunge. Selix touched one of the extended claws with the tip of her finger. Red flames burst across the ghoulkine’s skin. Electric red sparks shot along its arm and smoked its fur. It gave a piteous yowl and jerked back. Two wide, white eyes glared at Selix between its folded arms.
“You make me do what I don’t want to do.” Selix sang as she stared down the cowering thing. “I do those things because I love you.” She moved around, gyrating her hips to the left, kicking out with her right boot, and then working it back in the other direction. Just like she’d done at Rose Park.
And that song. Another Top 40 tune he would have normally hated, now the greatest goddamn song on the planet.
The ghoulkine uncoiled itself, not as wounded by Selix’s magic as it thought. It slunk forward more carefully, eyes hungry and unafraid. Jagged, quivering lips ripped into a leer as it unraveled to its full height, rising to tower above the diminutive woman.
Selix wagged her finger at it. “Oh no, boy, you can’t be takin’ no more from me.”
The ghoulkine snarled and rushed at her. Selix stepped to meet it, weaving a quick and complex pattern of red fire in the air with her fingers. Symbols like math, or the letters of some ancient language both familiar and alien to Lonnie. The beast slammed into the wall of writing, knocking Selix back and sending washes of hot flame in every direction.
Lonnie winced against the heat and burning fur.
The barrier Selix had erected, whatever it was, held. The ghoulkine fell to the ground in a fit of claws and snarls and slither-tongued curses.
Selix pressed forward, drove it back with more air scribbles even as it lashed at her.
“Go!” Selix shouted to Lonnie, but it wasn’t her command that moved him. It was the encroachment of several more of the longish forms, five or six, each rising on their spindly hind legs as they chose their victims. Two angled in his direction, and Selix backed up to get even with him so he'd fall under her protection. If he didn’t move, he’d be caught alone with the beasts.
The sound of screeching tires reached his ears. He glanced up to see a van plowing toward them across the overpass.
Lonnie flipped onto his stomach. Crawled, hand-over-fist, to the blue grating thirty feet away. His fingers gripped the pavement, pulling, scraping off bits of skin and nail. He kicked his right knee up and dragged himself along the concrete.
Twenty feet.
The things were right behind him. Their hot, rotten breath on his neck.
He had to get to the bridge. The blue grating meant safety.
Tires squealed and a crash split the air, followed by more howls from the ghoulkine.
Machine guns rattled the sky.
Five feet now. So close.
Something wrapped around his left ankle. Squeezed. Held him dead to the spot and no amount of pulling helped. Lonnie slid onto his right side and gaped at the thing holding him. The ghoulkine’s talons were so long and curved they could have encircled his thigh. Its blunted snout grinned.
“Fuck you, bitch," Lonnie said, paltry words in the beast's grip.
Deciding it had the grand prize of this chase, the ghoulkine dragged Lonnie to the rail, intent on carrying him over and off into the night. Lonnie’s panic grew, blood turning cold. He was too dazed to get away. Couldn't get the gun out of his waistband. Couldn't even kick the fucking thing. And he was weak, so tired.
Several bullets pinged off the steel rail just as the beast was about to climb it with Lonnie in its grasp. It jerked back, whipping its head around to hiss at whoever had shot at it.
The gunfire shattered Lonnie’s panic. Something clicked inside his brain. That weird instinct kicked up again, that ping pong of energy that had caused him to move with such speed in the fight at Rose Park. Lonnie stopped crawling. Brought his hands together, brushing his left over his right in a swift motion, as if wiping off a sheen of water.
His arm cramped. No, not a cramp, but a tension, an electric seizure from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers. He stared his fingertips, red and shaking, as the ghoulkine adjusted its grip on him and started over the rail. The sudden realization hit him that if he didn't release the energy soon, it would blow his hand to pieces.
Lonnie twisted. Thrust his free hand back at the ghoulkine, fingers splayed, willing the power out. Tried to aim it, or something to that effect. But it remained within him, still building.
And then he remembered. This particular move required two sweeps. One to build the energy. Another to release it.
But his other arm was trapped beneath him.
He twisted and turned to free it, but the angle was wrong. He kicked at the ghoulkine, cursed as the pain in his fingers grew to an agonizing level. The ghoulkine winced against a second hail of bullets and let go of Lonnie's ankle, shifting its grip to get a better handle on its cursing prey.
That's all Lonnie needed.
He rolled, threw his arm up, and brushed his left hand over the back of his right. A dark line rose beneath his skin and raced over the knuckle of his index finger. The power stored in his arm released into the ghoulkine with a white crack, crushing the thing against the rail, nearly sending it over and into the river.
Lonnie flipped and crawled, slapping one arm over the other on the cool cement.
He covered the distance the ghoulkine had dragged him.
Then five feet to the grate.
Then two.
“Lonnie, man! Keep goin’, my friend!”
Lonnie nodded at Crash’s encouragement, strugg
led the last bit, but made it onto the blue steel grate, kicking with his legs when his fingers slipped on the slick metal. “I’m here,” he said, his voice small. “I did it.”
He rolled over as Crash slammed into the ghoulkine he’d just power shot. They wrestled for a minute, but Crash’s hands were quick, and soon he had the thing’s arms wrapped up in a wrestler's hold. The man’s muscles bulged across his back, splitting his shirt as he lifted the towering, seven-foot tall beast over his head. It twisted in his grasp, clawing and snapping at him.
Crash tossed the fucker over the rail.
Selix was there, hands around his waist and lifting him to his feet. The scent of cinders rolled off her. He leaned on her once more as she threw her other arm over the bridge’s rail to support them both.
Selix's face was blood splattered, eyes were half glazed with exhaustion.
Light chuckles danced on the flutter of wings, heavy boots landing on the steel grating.
“We're in the nick of time again, sister. You’d think he would learn to take care of himself someday, huh?” Ingrid’s unmistakable accent belayed her teasing tone.
Elsa drew beside Lonnie, tousling his hair and knocking him off balance. “This makes how many things Lons owes us?”
“Too many to count right now.”
“Hey, I—” Lonnie stopped speaking for fear of antagonizing the pain in his chest.
“Oh,” Elsa said. “Does a cat have your tongue, Lons?”
“Does a hole in the lung count?” Selix’s question was a command for Elsa to shut her mouth.
Crash picked up on the urgency. “Come on people. We must get to the other side.”
“Here, let me.” Elsa got beneath Lonnie’s arm, taking Selix’s place even as Ingrid drew the dragon voice away. Elsa was hard as a nail, but he caught her softened expression. An iota of care? Respect? Pity?
Together, they hobbled up the grade, Elsa’s AR15 clattering where she’d slung it over her other shoulder.
A quarter way up the ascent and Lonnie got a whiff of the river's perfume, a cool breeze rising to meet his nose; dirt and mud and things drudged up from the bottom. But it was still a good smell. Much better than ghoulkine manginess.
