Darkness Calls

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “Ah,” he said, around a mouthful of hot dog and peanuts. “My Lady.”

  His tone was surprisingly elegant. I tilted my head, searching his gaze. “Someone said you were looking for me?”

  “Across eternity,” he replied, wiping his mouth with his tie. “And eternity has become now. Lovely how that works, is it not?”

  Zee rippled between my breasts, struggling in his dreams. I hesitated. “Who are you?”

  “You may call me Mr. King. Mr. Erl King, if you will.” The man heaved himself off the bench, bits of peanut falling to the floor. Ketchup still smudged the side of his mouth, and he held out one hand for me to shake. His palm looked greasy, sticky and red. He smelled like onion and nuts.

  I did not take his proffered hand. His smile widened, though it was tight-lipped, without a hint of teeth. He let his hand linger between us for a moment longer, then dropped it into his pocket. I thought, Gun, but what he pulled out was a wax parcel, which he quickly unwrapped to reveal a small pizza pocket. It looked cold, but he clamped down his jaws upon the soft crust, and red sauce flowed around his mouth like blood.

  Mr. King closed his eyes, sighing as he chewed. I stood, watching him. Waiting. Waiting for something to break. He was ready to break, though there was nothing brittle about him. Just a load of dynamite stuck in a dam. Fuse lit.

  “Well,” he said finally, around a mouthful of pizza. “This was most pleasant.”

  And like that, he turned on his heel and shuffled away, toward the front door—parts of his body wiggling in opposite directions, as though those insects I imagined still fought to be free. I stared, and followed.

  Mr. King was already outside when I caught up. I did not touch his shoulder, but matched his pace so that we walked down the steps, side by side. I said, “You had a reason for coming here.”

  He glanced sideways at me and poked the last of the pizza pocket into his mouth. Chewing did not stop him from speaking, which was a wet, red, and messy affair. “Merely to see how things stand, to remind myself that worlds may change, but some things stay the same. Like you.”

  Again, he wiped his mouth with his tie and stopped to look me square in the eyes. He was quite short and had to gaze up, teetering as he did on his toes. I did not move under his scrutiny, not even to blink—as though that would reveal some insufferable weakness. Instead, I studied him in turn, forcing myself to stay calm even as my heart began to race. Zee shuddered against my skin; all the boys did. Fighting to wake. Hate curling in their dreams.

  Gross little man, I thought, suddenly. Do not touch me.

  His tongue slipped over his lips, licking them. Hungry, piggish eyes blinked once, slow and drowsy. The scent of onions suddenly reminded me of blood, and it was too easy to imagine that the stains around his mouth had little to do with tomato sauce.

  Mr. King pulled a piece of red licorice from his pants pocket and jammed it halfway into his mouth. Again, without another word he turned and walked away, accompanied by the sound of his teeth smashing candy.

  I stood, watching him go. Then followed. This time from a distance. I let a Dumpster come between us, just for a moment, but when I rounded the corner, the man had disappeared. Gone clean away, on a street that was empty except for two parked cars in the distance, and a ramshackle line of chain-link fences so battered the next rainstorm might bring them down.

  I checked the inside of the Dumpster, but Mr. King had not stashed himself inside. He was gone. Into thin air. Except for the scent of onions.

  I stood very still, thinking about that, and after a minute got some young company. Both of us stayed quiet, until finally I lied. “He didn’t seem to want anything.”

  Byron replied, “Men like him always want something. Some just take longer to get around to it. Depending on how much they think they’ll have to pay.” He glanced at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Or how hard they sense you’ll fight not to give them what they want.”

  “Byron,” I said.

  “But sometimes,” he continued, whispering. “Sometimes a fight is what turns them on.”

  CHAPTER 5

  I lived above the homeless shelter with Grant. His loft was accessible via a private outer door and one long staircase—steep for a man who could hardly walk without a cane. He said it was good exercise. Whatever.

  The door stood open at the top of the stairs. Golden sunlight raced through immense windows, chasing the floors with heat. I entered the apartment and felt washed in warmth, steeped in light like dry tea leaves dropped in miracle water. Expanding, growing, shedding flavors—becoming more, and more, myself. Bookshelves lined the walls, crowding paintings and hanging masks, while a grand piano held court in the corner, along with guitars and a table heavy with half-made flutes. My own belongings were there: my mother’s trunk, her leather jacket, hanging on the arm of the couch.

  I loved this place. Made me feel safe, in ways I had forgotten since my mother’s death. I was an impossible woman to hurt. A hard woman to kill. But that did not mean I had ever felt safe: safe in the heart, safe in spirit. Not for a long time.

  Flute music floated from the spare bedroom, swelling high and sweet. Peer Gynt, I thought. My mother had taken me, years ago, to see James Galway perform—and while I could not say that Grant was the man’s equal in technique, the soft power in each of his notes carried so true and pure it was as if every breath pulled me close, easing the sores in my soul.

  And yet, I was immune to his power. Zee and the boys were, as well. I had found no one else who could resist him. Demons could possess, overpower—but not affect the human soul, or consciousness. Those were simply buried. Grant had no such boundaries. He could rearrange the colors of the spirit to make something new.

  Which he did, regularly, in bits and pieces. Healing broken hearts, mending mental fissures. Small and profound acts that sent people away better, more capable, more hopeful.

  My mother, my grandmother—every woman in my bloodline—would have killed him for the things he could do. For what he could make demons—and humans—do. His potential was dangerous. His potential terrified.

  But no worse than mine.

  Mary was with Grant. Sitting on the edge of the bed with her eyes closed and spine straight—ankles crossed demurely. Her hands rested in her lap. I could not see her palm. Grant sat opposite her, near the door, his golden Muramatsu flute pressed to his lips. He nodded when he saw me, and a moment later the melody faded. Mary did not stir, and I had to look close to make certain she breathed.

  Grant slid his flute into the case slung across his back; like sheathing a sword, which he did with reverence and appropriate seriousness. I grabbed his hand and pulled him from the chair. He was pale, with faint shadows under his eyes. I had seen that sick weariness on his face more often than not. He told me that using his gift did not tire him, but I had a feeling he had been hedging the truth.

  He took his cane and limped from the room. Mary remained unmoving, as though in a trance. I closed the door behind us.

  “She show you her hand?” I asked.

  Grant rubbed the back of his neck. “I went looking for you in the basement. She could hardly contain herself.”

  “Had she seen your mother’s necklace before?”

  “No.” A grim smile touched his mouth. “Funny how that works.”

  Hilarious. I was in stitches. “She give you any explanation?”

  “She mentioned the Labyrinth.” Grant limped toward the bedroom, and I saw through the open door a small carry-on suitcase on the bed. I followed him, watching how his knuckles turned white around the cane, and listened to the hard pound of wood against wood, which was louder than usual. “She started sobbing. I brought her up here to see if I could calm her down enough to talk. So far, nothing.”

  Grant stood in front of the bed, gazing down at the suitcase as if it were a live snake. I said, “You can still change your mind.”

  “I need to do this,” he replied heavily.

  “Not just for Ross.”
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  He glanced at me. “I left the Church in a bad way. Forced out. I wasn’t ready. I believed in my calling. Like being married to someone you love with all your heart, then waking up one morning to find them looking at you like you’re filth, the most disgusting thing that ever crawled. Destroyed me. Then I got better. But seeing Cribari again, hearing about Ross . . .”

  I stripped off my gloves. Took his hand. “You still have issues, man.”

  “A few,” he said wryly, and turned over my palm, staring at the glittering veins of organic metal that wound through the scales and flattened claws of my tattoos. Red eyes glittered from my palm, staring at Grant, and a faint purr of pleasure rumbled against my skin. Grant kissed my hand.

  “I’m not sorry they kicked you out,” I said quietly, heart aching for him. “But I’m selfish.”

  He smiled, and squeezed my hand with that gentle strength, which always made my eyes burn at the most unexpected moments. Like now.

  Grant said, “I’m worried about leaving you, Maxine. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  “Told you, I’m coming along.”

  “You haven’t said how.”

  “I think you know.

  He gave me a long, steady look. “And you’re sure?”

  “Grant,” I said quietly. “I’ve never had answers. I just do what has to be done. Same as you.”

  “Same as me,” he murmured, and then: “You need me. You need someone to watch your back.”

  “Trust me, I’m covered.”

  “Ha,” he said. “You’re afraid. Ever since this morning, you’ve been afraid.”

  “No.”

  Grant’s fingers tightened. “Bad liar.”

  I shoved his hand away. “Don’t look at me.”

  He grabbed me again, but this time it was a fistful of my hair. It did not hurt, but the way he did it, the intensity of his gaze, shocked me into stillness.

  “I love you,” he said, dragging me so tight against him I could hardly breathe. “You’re an easy woman to love, Maxine, but you’re a hard one to be around. Because of this. Because the world hurts you, and I can’t stop it. Because I know . . . I know we won’t have fifty years. Maybe not even twenty, or ten, or one.” Grant leaned in, and I felt swallowed by the pain in his eyes; a mirror to mine, that I had never voiced, never dared say out loud.

  “You’re going to leave me,” he whispered. “By choice, or by death. And maybe . . . maybe you’ll leave someone behind. Someone we’ll make together. But you’ll still be gone, and you don’t know . . . you don’t understand—”

  I placed my hand over his mouth before he could say another word. I understood. I knew. I had been the one left behind.

  I said, “We have time.”

  Grant closed his eyes. “I want time. But I want something more, Maxine. I want to protect you. I want you to let me help you. Because I’m not going to let you die. When the boys leave you—when they abandon you for your daughter—I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to say good-bye. Not like that. You’re not going to be like the others in your family. I want you to die an old woman, with me. In our bed. In my arms. Your heart’s going to give out, Maxine, but it’ll be when you’re ready. And not because a demon put a bullet in your brain.”

  I stared, stricken. No idea I cried until I blinked, and tears rolled down my cheeks. I started to wipe them away, but Grant kissed my face, and his thumb brushed my skin, and my heart pounded so hard I could not breathe.

  “Maxine,” he murmured, in my ear. “Don’t cry.”

  Don’t die. Not before me, I replied silently; and sniffed hard, rubbing my nose. “You go. I’ll be there. We’ll take care of this together.”

  He hesitated. “You thought it was a trap.”

  “Still do. So go, or don’t—but not because you’re worried about me. Otherwise, you’ll always wonder. You’ll regret. And regrets . . . can turn to resentment.” I forced a smile, trying to be light. “You talk about wanting me all old and wrinkly, but let’s try to get there without you wishing you’d done things different.”

  Grant shook his head. His cheeks were flushed, the skin around his throat mottled. Eyes bloodshot. He swept my hair from my face, his palm lingering over my temple, where I had been shot. Whether he touched me there on purpose, or by accident, I could not tell—but the heat of his hand was a comfort.

  “Stubborn,” he said. “If something happens?”

  “I’m hard to kill,” I replied dryly. “You’re just flesh and bone. Frankly, I’m more worried about you.”

  “I feel obligated to remind you that I am a grown man, and not without some ability to take care of myself.”

  “You’re very capable.”

  A bemused smile touched his mouth. “Say it like you mean it.”

  “I mean it,” I said. “Any of those priests even sniff at you wrong, you fuck them over until they see Jesus.”

  Grant laughed quietly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Behind us, the bedroom door creaked open. Mary walked out, but her eyes were still closed. She moved upon her toes like a dancer, and the poodles of her shapeless dress swirled around her pale, hairy, sinewy legs. She never opened her eyes, but I thought she must be looking at us through her lashes, because she took an unerring path directly toward us, and stopped only an arm’s length away.

  She reached out. Grant took her hand. I hesitated, and then did the same, gingerly. Trying to be gentle. I was not good at healing. I had no gift for setting things right. Just tearing apart. Hunting for the good kill.

  She made a low, grunting noise, and her voice slurred from her chest, deep and slow as fat molasses.

  “Grant,” she murmured. “You’re going to die.”

  I froze. “Mary.”

  But the old woman said nothing else. We stared at her, and I felt sick to my stomach, sick to death. Proclamations of doom were nothing new, but there was something in the way Mary voiced the words that felt worse than a promise, as though there was truth in her insanity, a taste of some fate that had already come to pass—only, I had not yet realized it.

  “Well,” Grant muttered. “I feel good about this trip.”

  I drove him to the airport. SeaTac smelled like gas, stale air, and despair—all poured into a concrete bunker. Not much different from prison.

  I stayed long enough to see him through security. Cribari had already left on a different flight. I was glad Grant wouldn’t have to sit next to the creep, but that was cold comfort.

  It was raining again when I left the airport. Low clouds, gray as old socks. I kept the window down. Tina Turner burned through the radio. I jacked up the volume as she wailed about not needing another hero. Mad Max, I thought. Loner, man with no mission but survival. Still managing to be a cop and do-gooder, even in the apocalypse. My mother had made me watch those movies. She said he was a good role model. I honestly could not disagree.

  I did not drive back to the Coop. I needed to think, but we had left Mary in the apartment, and I had nowhere else to go. The Mustang was as much my home as any other: shelter, mobility, music—better than four walls, any day. And yet, for one moment I felt as lonely as I had in years; home-sick, for something I could not name. In some ways, it had been easier without people in my life. I had gotten used to it after my mother’s death. I’d had no expectations. I had forgotten the difference.

  I thought of Grant sitting alone in the airport, traveling to help a man who had betrayed him—and squeezed the steering wheel until Raw and Aaz seemed ready to pop from my knuckles. I had to strip off my gloves. The leather felt too tight, as though I were suffocating through my hands.

  Tattoos glittered in the dull morning light. I flexed my fingers, and suffered the rubbing heat of the iron armor covering my ring finger. The metal had chameleon qualities; earlier, before dawn, its surface had been bright as a mirror; silver, sharp, and keen. Now, though, it had faded dark and soft as my skin, and was etched with scales and roses, resembling the boys, or the lines of a labyrinth. The armor
seemed to draw in light, blending with my tattoos until it was difficult to see where one began and the other left off. I could almost pretend the armor did not exist, so sweetly did it rest around my finger—like a cocoon, seeping through the boys as though the metal had settled roots made of silk and fire into my bones.

  Sometimes, like now, I wondered if the armor was my finger, if it had evolved so without me realizing it, and that perhaps I was becoming some archaic medieval cyborg. I had used everything short of a chain saw to remove the damn thing, and nothing had worked. I had been told it would come off only at my death—and I believed it now. Yet another legacy. Another mystery. An object that fulfilled the desires of its bearer, but with a price.

  The armor had once been much smaller, little more than a ring.

  It had stopped raining. The streets were slick. I drove into downtown Seattle and ended up at Pike Place Market. It was not entirely a conscious choice. I was attracted to areas where the prison veil was thin, and the market—caught between land and sea—was thinnest of them all. Things got loose on a regular basis, though only from the first level of the veil, which housed the rats and cockroaches of the demonic race—those zombie-makers, which had crawled to the top of the food chain in the absence of their stronger brothers and sisters. When the prison failed, when their powerful brethren locked in the outer rings were let loose, those parasite bastards were going to suffer as much as humans. Not that I felt sorry for them.

  I parked the Mustang on the north side of Pike Place Market and took a long walk. Just one of the crowd. I searched for dark auras, but found nothing on the crowded cobble-stone street except humans dressed for a Northwest winter: fleece, jeans, those damn ugly sandals and wool socks, with umbrellas and hoods and baseballs caps to ward off the intermittent rain. Expressions grim and tired as the storm clouds hovering overhead. No one looked happy. But then, this was Seattle. Putting on a dour face was practically part of the wardrobe.

  Mr. King filled my mind. I remembered his voice, wet and smacking with half-chewed food, and Byron was suddenly in my thoughts, as well.