The Iron Hunt

by Marjorie M. Liu

  More like I wanted to run screaming for the hills and never look back.

  “Ten thousand years of peace.” Edik stared at his withered hands. “The prison has been our blessing.”

  I exhaled slowly. Tried to act cool, dispassionate, but inside, my gut roiled, and my muscles felt hacked with chills. I wanted to pull some covers over my head. Go find a tall mountain and hide in a cave. I wanted to call Edik a liar and a fool and pretend I was a normal woman, a blind woman, a deaf woman—a happy, ignorant, breezy woman.

  I stared out the car window. Caught my distorted reflection: pale skin, dark hair. I wondered what it felt like to be possessed and not realize it, to have someone living inside your head, manipulating your mind until your body was nothing but a tool.

  I felt like a tool. Like I was about to be used.

  Zee and the others scooted close, resting their heads in my lap. I rubbed their razor hair and watched Edik’s face, his aura. He had met my mother and survived. I wanted to know how, but I did not ask. I was becoming afraid of answers.

  “What does Blood Mama expect me to do?” I asked carefully, never once doubting what he had told me was true. His aura could not lie. He had meant every word. Something bad was coming. Something had arrived.

  “Blood Mama did not say,” he replied smoothly. “But as you are the Hunter, and better suited than most to killing my kind, you might consider the possibility that she expects you to continue what you are best at.”

  My mouth crooked. “I could start with you.”

  He pushed his glasses up his nose, an effortlessly normal gesture, given the appallingly abnormal circumstances. “Hunter, I am the least of your concerns. This is the end of the world.”

  “And you’re still holding something back.”

  He hesitated. “My Queen had another message.”

  I waited a beat. “And?”

  He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “It is for them.”

  I stared. Raw stopped picking his nose, and Aaz sat up from my lap. Zee leaned forward, his scales cutting leather. Even Dek and Mal slid from my hair, their tails tightening around my throat as Raw reached back to stroke their soft heads. I slid the ginger ale into a cup holder and said nothing.

  Edik looked at the boys. Sweat beaded on his brow, and his feet shifted against the limo carpet. Zee stretched close. Watching him felt like the first blush of a hurricane. He curled when he moved, pulsed and glided and shimmered like wet silk woven from mercury threads, quicksilver and deadly. All of them, the same: mouths made for death, merciless, without conscience. Splice together every predator, steal from the past and present and future of some murderous natural world—borrow from the unholy—and if you wrapped that up into a sharp tight package, you might find a shadow, a glimpse, of what they were.

  My boys. My deadly little boys.

  The old human host swallowed hard. He pressed his lips to Zee’s pointed ear. Razor hairs brushed the zombie’s face, slicing his pale wrinkled skin like a hot knife through butter. Zee could have controlled that. But only two people were allowed to touch him without consequences.

  Edik bled profusely, but except for a quiver in his bottom lip, he showed no pain. Nor did he did speak long. Zee pulled back, red eyes shuttered, and the others crowded close, huddled like a churning mass of obsidian and knives. The little demon whispered to his brothers in their native tongue. I kept my mouth shut.

  The zombie tapped the dividing glass, and the limo slowed. I glanced out the window and saw a chain-link fence, the outline of distant cargo ships.

  Edik pulled a cell phone from the inner pocket of his jacket. He tossed it to me. “I will call you with the boy’s location.”

  “The other children?”

  “They scattered from the alley of their own free will. I promise you that, Hunter.”

  I met Zee’s gaze. “And our business? Blood Mama’s concerns?”

  Edik’s jaw tightened. “Watch yourself.”

  Not the answer I wanted to hear. I pushed open the limo door, slid out, and paused. “Russian Mafia, Edik?”

  His eyebrow twitched. “This and that.”

  I held his gaze. “Keep your business away from children. ”

  “If I do not?”

  “The boys have your scent now.”

  I slammed the door. The limo pulled away. I watched taillights flash and hardly had the energy to think about what had just happened. But I did, and there was no comfort. Only questions, confusion, and the utter certainty that I was totally screwed.

  The phone rang. I answered, and Edik said, “Go east to the parking lot and find the white van.”

  He hung up. I let Aaz eat the phone.

  The old warehouse district was wasted and empty like a pile of bones. Night did not hide the scars. I saw floodlights in the distance, shining over the docks. Behind me, battered factories and broken glass, some bodies tucked into nooks, trying to huddle against the cold breeze that wound around my face. My hair was still damp from the early rain, and the sidewalk was rough. Patches of scrappy grass pushed up through the concrete. I heard the freeway, and the sounds of construction and night work at the ship-yard.

  I also saw the parking lot, half a block down.

  I ran. The boys stayed close, loping alongside me, dancing between shadows. Zee reached up and took my hand. I gently squeezed his claws. He blinked out. By the time I reached the small crusty parking lot, he was already perched atop a white van parked near a ragged billboard covered by a peeling advertisement for Starbucks. There were very few cars in the lot. There was little of anything in the neighborhood.

  “Is he in there?” I called up to Zee.

  He nodded, surveying the area like a sentry on the watchtower. “Little pea, little pod.”

  I glanced at Raw, and he winked into the shadows. A moment later, the back doors swung open. I saw a mattress, and the boy. He was unconscious. Wrists and feet bound.

  Raw sidled close and carefully cut the bindings. Hesitated, then trailed one claw down the boy’s dirty cheek. Raw could cut through steel with his hands. He could make stone bleed. But the boy remained unharmed.

  “Raw,” I said, and the little demon glanced at me. His eyes were mournful. Gave me a shock. I had never seen such emotion in his face. Not since my mother died.

  Zee appeared. He stared at his brother, then the boy.

  “Ah,” he murmured.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Sicily,” he replied, and patted Raw on the back. I had no idea what that meant, but it was clear the boy reminded the demons of someone. And it was not a good memory.

  I leaned over the boy, smoothing back his dark hair. He looked younger with his face relaxed. He smelled sickly sweet, like chloroform.

  But he was alive.

  I slowly exhaled, and got out my cell phone.

  CHAPTER 4

  GRANT arrived in ten minutes. He drove his old Jeep, which had been rigged to accommodate his bad leg. Pulled up, opened the door, and reached out with one long arm to grab me close for a rough hug. He smelled like cinnamon and sunlight, warm as a fire in winter. Grant was always warm.

  His flute was in the passenger seat. Weapon of choice. He let go of me and reached behind for his cane, then limped to the back of the van. I followed him. Heard his breath hiss.

  “The boy saw Badelt,” I said.

  “That’s why he’s here?”

  “Hard to say. But he was used as a shield for a zombie. ”

  “Tell me,” he said, and I had to take a moment. Not because the story was hard. Went deeper than that.

  Grant would never understand what it meant to me, to stand with another human being who knew me, all of me, and have a simple question asked with such casual expectant intimacy. No one could appreciate, except the boys, just how alone I had been, all those years. How alone I had thought I would be, for my entire life.

  Or how important these small moments were. How much I loved them.

  I explained what happened. Includin
g Edik’s message. Grant caught my wrist, his eyes dark, thoughtful. “You okay?”

  “No,” I said, and crawled into the van. I carefully hauled the teen into the cool night air and slung him over my shoulder. He was light for his age, and I was stronger than women my size. Most men, too. I had to be in order to handle the weight of the boys. They were dense, and their bodies weighed the same, whether flesh or tattoo.

  The teen remained unconscious. I slid him into the Jeep. Grant glanced around to see if anyone was watching us, but it was just Zee and the others scouting the edge of the parking lot. Eating broken glass. In the distance I saw headlights. My face was wet. Rain.

  Grant shut the back door. “Is the boy still in danger?”

  “I don’t know.” I hesitated, thinking of the girl with brass knuckles. “This is my fault.”

  “No. Badelt, what happened to this child—”

  “—wouldn’t be an issue if I had still been on the move.”

  He said nothing. Just looked down between us, the long fingers of his left hand twitching, like he was playing the piano or flute, thinking and seeing in melody. Which was the literal truth.

  Grant had a neurological condition. Synesthesia. When he played music, heard voices—any sound at all, from the clatter of a pan to the song of a bird—he saw color. Color in people, too, regardless of what sounds they made. Reflections of souls and spirits, the essence of a human heart, mirrored in shades of light and energy. Auras, singing.

  And when Grant sang back . . . things happened.

  He touched the ends of my hair, delicately. The sensation, the sight, ran warmth down my spine, into my heart. I craved that heat.

  “Sweet heart,” he murmured, and I could hear and see the separation in those words, because he wrote me notes like that, offhand scribbles when he wanted to remind me of something, or when he woke up first in the morning. My sweet heart. My heart.

  Not sweet enough. I pressed my forehead against his shoulder, savoring the hard strength of his hand creeping up my waist beneath my jacket. I was so tired. Grant pushed back my hair to kiss my ear, and scratched under Mal’s chin. Dek purred.

  We got into the car. Grant drove. The boys sat at my feet, resting their bony cheeks on my knees as I stroked their heads. Zee crawled into my lap and closed his eyes. I cradled him like a child. He stuck his thumb in his mouth. Someone needed to watch Yogi Bear tonight.

  “I found Badelt’s office,” Grant said. “It’s in Chinatown. ”

  I leaned my head against the cold window. “Did you call?”

  “I got an answering machine. Then I went in person. No one was there. Or at least, no one who wanted to answer the door.”

  I nodded, threading my fingers deeper into Zee’s hair. I would have to check it out. Men like Badelt did not stay in business without some kind of organization. There would be payment records, names, and numbers. Maybe an appointment book. Something that would lead to the person who had given him my name.

  It was important. Too few humans had ever heard of me for it not to be. Not that I was invisible. I had bank accounts, a house in Texas. Apartments in Chicago and New York City. Lawyers in San Francisco and London who handled the various trusts and estates passed down from mother to daughter over the past five centuries, a process begun by an Italian Hunter, a noblewoman by marriage, who had understood that guarding the prison veil was not a call to poverty.

  I had a different name on the paperwork, though. Not Maxine Kiss. Maxine Kiss had never existed for anyone but my mother and the boys. Some zombies. Grant.

  Living off the grid. A paper trail would have felt like a cage.

  Not that it had kept me safe from the Seattle Police Department.

  Grant pulled in to the parking lot outside the homeless shelter, and we sat with the engine ticking, rain pattering against the glass. He glanced down at Zee and tickled the demon’s belly. He was the only other person who could. “What was the message? What did Blood Mama tell you?”

  His tone was gentle, but strained. He had his own issues with Blood Mama: her attempted possession, how she had almost killed him just to weaken his mind. No other demon could have done it. Grant was too strong.

  But the memory kept me up some nights. Grant was a good man. He would make a terrifying monster.

  Aaz and Raw twitched. Dek and Mal stopped purring. Zee turned his face away, burying his head in my stomach. “No. Private.”

  Grant frowned. I shook my head. If the boys had made up their minds, nothing would change them. Scared me, though. All of it. Building in my gut, the same awful sensation that had crawled through me earlier, but without the pain. I did not like mysteries. Especially when they involved me. Too much about my life, my bloodline, was already a question mark.

  The teen made a small sound. I reached for his hand. Grant whispered, “Come on. Let’s get him in.”

  Inside, home. Grant lived above the shelter: three adjoining warehouses bought years ago with money inherited from his father. Local and national newspapers published regular stories about the place, though I suspected that had less to do with raising awareness, and more with the fact that the reporters were women and Grant was dead hot. And a former priest. Some chicks dug that.

  Green grass and young oaks covered the grounds, along with winding sidewalks and small benches illuminated by old-fashioned pewter lanterns. There was a garden, part of which had been converted from an adjoining lot. Some of the homeless regulars had green thumbs. Grant let them work their magic. No flowers blooming this time of year, but the roses had just been pruned, and the smaller, native plants nestled in the transplanted roots of evergreen and cedar were green and lush. Less than an acre, but an oasis, sheltered in the city with a hush.

  Grant moved fast with his cane. Kept his flute tucked under his arm and clipped up a short path that cut through the southern corner of the garden. The boys slid between shadows. The damp air smelled cold and sweet. I heard glass break some distance away, and drunken shouts. Bad night for someone else.

  Grant had a private entrance to his apartment. He unlocked the door, and I walked past him, carrying the boy up the stairs. A lot of stairs. Grant said it kept him in shape, helped his balance. I thought he was a masochist.

  The apartment took up the entire upper floor of the southern warehouse. Good views of the city, soft wood floors, brick walls, and miles of bookshelves. Other things, too: a motorcycle, a grand piano, my mother’s battered oak chest of journals and other artifacts. Lights were on, and the air was golden and warm. I glanced at Grant as he limped up the final steps, his breathing slightly rushed, and he pointed to the spare bedroom near the kitchen.

  No one had used the room in the two months I had lived here. Grant did not have many visitors; fewer now, I supposed, since my arrival. Zee and the others would have made it difficult for guests, even if the boys stayed out of sight.

  The spare bedroom was just that, though: spare, almost empty except for a bed and nightstand, and a battered oak wardrobe that had been bought from an antique shop. Grant pulled back the covers. I laid the boy down and took off his shoes. He did not respond, or make another sound.

  “He’s hurt. In his heart.” Grant leaned hard on his cane, staring at the teen. His left hand made a fluttering motion. “Something is . . . off.”

  “Good or bad?”

  Grant’s frown deepened. “He’s not going to go looking for the kitchen knives. But he might run. He’s not going to trust us.”

  “Some psychic you are.” I lightly punched his arm. “I could have told you that.”

  A smile flitted across his mouth. “I can try to heal him. Or at least take away some of the fear.”

  “Not yet. Not unless you think he’s going to hurt himself or someone else.”

  “He won’t.” Grant pointed at the boy’s chest. “He’s got a soft spot, right there. I wish you could see it, Maxine. It’s a light, pulsing, above his heart.”

  I wished I could see it, too. “Means good things, I assume.
”

  “Means there’s hope,” he said quietly. “Means he’s a good kid, deep down.”

  I had thought as much. “I need to check Badelt’s office. ”

  Grant said nothing, not right away. Just regarded me with that silence I had come to think of as another kind of music, his quiet voice. A faint smile touched his mouth. “You’ve got that soft spot, too, Maxine.”

  I looked down. “Probably the size of a pin.”

  “Try the sun,” he said. “Bigger and better than the sun.”

  Heat flooded my face. He bent and kissed my cheek. “I’ll stay with the boy. Just in case he wakes up.”

  I rubbed my hand against my thigh, still thinking about his words, how he affected me with them. “Try not to let him get away.”

  “Don’t let this bum leg fool you.”

  “Like greased lightning,” I said, trying to smile, and failing. I peered up into his face, wanting to ask him if everything would be okay, if we would survive even past the end of the world, but that was stupid and sentimental, and saying it out loud would have frightened me. I wanted to be here, in the moment, and not worry about the future. Because even if Edik was wrong, and the veil remained until my death, I was still going to die. Everything ended. Nothing lasted forever.

  “Better go,” Grant said. “Before you scare me into keeping you here.”

  I hesitated. “I’m that obvious?”

  “You can’t hide your soul, Maxine. Not from me.” His gaze grew strained. “Go. Call if you need help. Keep the boys close.”

  Close, or death. No alternative, not in my life.

  Not in theirs, either.

  I missed the Mustang, but it was—hopefully—still parked by the university, and the Jeep had a good engine. Little hands appeared from the shadows by my knees to fuss with the radio. The boys found the eighties station. Whitesnake wailed, then rocked into AC/DC. Dek and Mal boogied, the tips of their tails thudding against my collarbone. I drove fast.

  I reached Chinatown in ten minutes and found the address Grant had given me. It was a small brick building crammed between the glowing neon lights of a crowded noodle place that had red Chinese characters emblazoned on the steam-clouded front window; while on the other side, pounding with loud music, was a movie rental shop plastered with international posters, yellowing with age.