Darkness Calls

by Marjorie M. Liu

  CHAPTER 12

  WHEN I was sixteen, a man in Mexico threatened to kill me. He put cold steel to my neck and asked my mother for money. I could still remember the acrid scent of his sweat, the nervous quiver in his voice. Not a bad man, just a coward looking for an easy way out. He let me go as soon as he saw the cash.

  My mother never let go of anything.

  She sliced open the major artery near his groin. His blood sprayed everywhere; in the dust and cobblestones, on my shoes. His screams were terrible. He begged us for help. He told us he had children.

  My mother left him to die and forced me to do the same. I hated her for that. Not because she saved me, but because she had no mercy. She had turned me into a murderer simply by my own inaction, and it sickened my heart. I did not want to kill. Not even in self-defense. I did not want to be like her.

  I told my mother that. I told her, and all she did was smile sadly, and brush back my hair, and dab at my bleeding throat with small, careful fingers.

  Trouble follows us, she said. No way to stop it, baby. You just deal with the hand, and play the cards, good and bad.

  Don’t be afraid of mistakes. You’ll make them.

  Don’t be afraid of yourself. Because you will be, sometimes.

  Just have a little faith. Game isn’t over until you’re dead.

  Took me years to figure out what that had to do with letting a mugger bleed to death. Sometimes I still wasn’t certain. But the best I could figure, after all this time, was that she had known my self-righteousness would be worth shit after she died. That even if I didn’t end up like her, I was going to be a close approximation. I would kill. I would be ruthless. It was inevitable, given our destiny, what we had been born to do.

  And she was telling me, even then, in her own way, that it was all right. Trouble would follow me, but however I dealt with it, whoever I turned out to be . . . it was okay. I was okay.

  Only, that was wrong. Nothing was okay.

  And I never would be.

  WE threw tablecloths and towels over the bodies. I covered Mr. King by myself, studying that lifeless face, pale in death, and empty.

  Worse than the demons, I thought. Demons I understood. Demonic parasites inhabited bodies because they fed off the distinctive energy of pain. But this possession had been for nothing except pleasure. Just a skin to take a ride in. A long, hard murder: first, of the person; and then, the flesh.

  My jeans were ruined, soaked in blood. I could feel it on my thighs. Killy had been wearing less, and was worse off after having scrambled across the floor. Both of us, red and stinking.

  Zee brought me a new pair out of the shadows, denim stiff and dark. Tags still attached. He did so while the other woman was upstairs, changing, washing. She had witnessed the boys in action—no way around it—but I did not see any reason to continue pushing their existence in her face.

  Raw and Aaz prowled the bar, sniffing the floor and dead bodies, taking long drags from the whiskey bottles they carried. Dek and Mal were uncharacteristically silent—as was Zee, though I saw him confer with the twins. Heads bowed, making scratches in the floor. The spikes embedded in their spines flexed in agitation.

  I stood naked in front of Grant from the waist down, holding perfectly still while he sat in a chair and took a hot rag to my legs. I would have done it myself, but he had insisted. Face pale, stifling coughs. He washed off my backside and thighs, cleaning away the bloodstains that had come through my jeans. His hands were gentle. I ran my fingers through his hair as he worked.

  “You’re sick,” I told him. “You need to rest.”

  “I’m fine,” he said roughly. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Easy to love, hard to be around,” I whispered. “You keep spitting up blood, and I’ll start saying the same thing about you.”

  Grant’s fingers dug painfully into the backs of my thighs. He closed his eyes, kissing the inside of my wrist, and rested his head against my stomach. His breath warmed my hip.

  “Just the way I like it,” he said quietly.

  Tears burned my eyes. “Even after watching me stab a man in the forehead? You’ve never seen me kill, Grant.”

  “You forget what I see.” He gazed up at me, and there was a compassion in his eyes that I had forgotten could exist—forgiveness, unconditional and stern. “I know you, Maxine. You can’t make me run.”

  I lowered myself into his lap, kissing his mouth. I tasted salt, tasted him, and he rocked me closer, his hands buried in my hair, skimming over Dek and Mal, who purred softly.

  “Love you,” he breathed, pressing his lips against my ear. “Don’t you forget it.”

  Never, I thought, heart straining; my body too small for the river inside me; too small for what needed to be done.

  Grant helped me dress. My hands stopped shaking by the time I buttoned up, but I knew if I sat down again, I would not get up, not for a long time.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” I mumbled. “Jack told me that this Avatar would be cautious of us. You and I can kill his kind. Permanently.”

  Grant did not question the idea that he could murder. “So we lost an opportunity. He’s gone now, in another body.”

  Bitterness flooded me. Pure, raw disappointment. I sucked down a deep breath, head pounding, adrenaline fading. “Maybe that was the point. Sometimes you have to risk your life to test a theory. He was testing us.”

  “Was that all?” Grant said grimly, glancing around the bar. “Maxine, about Jack—”

  “I’m ready,” Killy said, appearing from the hall. She was dressed in black tights and fuzzy black boots, a long black sweater draped over her slender frame. An enormous black purse hung from her shoulder. Far cry from Hooker-Cowgirl-Barbie. She was pale, and did not glance once at the blood or bodies. Just kept her gaze straight, fixed on the front door and us.

  We left fast. It was even darker outside with the lights in the bar sign turned off. The girls who had greeted us were gone. I had not checked the faces of the bodies left inside, but I hoped they were safe. Killy locked the doors and glanced up and down the street. She turned right. Grant and I followed.

  She said, “Sorry, but I’m done. You’re on your own.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Train station. I’ll head north to Beijing, and from there I can disappear into Mongolia and Russia. Someone is going to find those dead people. I don’t want to be in the country when that happens.”

  “I have questions,” I said. “It won’t take long.”

  “Already took long enough.” Killy ran a shaking a hand through her hair. “Goddamn it. Ask. But we keep moving. We can’t stop for anything.”

  “Father Lawrence,” I said. “Do you know anything about the order he’s part of?”

  She shook her head. “It’s old; that’s all. Got some quirks, a fascination with labyrinths. And you. I picked that up loud and clear lately, whenever I was around him. You’re the reason it exists.”

  Grant struggled to keep up, his cane clicking loudly on the sidewalk. “For what purpose?”

  “To watch the Hunter.” She quickened her pace, and looked at me. “To watch you. I don’t know much else, except there are demons involved. Not like . . . not like what we left in there. Something different.” Killy shuddered, lurching to a stop as her hands flew up to her mouth. She stifled a quick, gagging cough. I stood back, watching with cold sympathy. I could still taste my own vomit.

  “I didn’t expect him,” she whispered hoarsely, when her nausea had passed. “I knew something bad was coming, but I’ve dealt with bad. He was . . . something else.”

  Avatar. Grafter. Conniver. Jack’s voice rumbled through my head, and my heart lurched painfully. Jack. He had Jack. My grandfather.

  Could be a trick, I told myself. The old man might still be free. Somewhere, anywhere, lost in the world. I could not stomach the alternative.

  “You need to be careful,” I told her. “He’s not really dead.”

  Sh
e gave me a sharp look. “I know. I felt him leave.”

  “Killy,” Grant said gently, saying her name with a melody in his voice, a rumble that sent a powerful shiver through my bones. I frowned at him, concerned for his strength. Killy frowned at him, as well, but for a different reason, I suspected. She did not protest when he said her name again, though, this time with an even stronger twist.

  I watched her eyes change. Sharp, but not so lost to fear. Tension drained from her shoulders. Her breathing eased. I envied that.

  Until she punched Grant.

  Or tried to. I saw it coming. Grabbed her wrist and used her momentum to swing her around and down to one knee. She spat on my boot.

  “Calm down,” I said.

  She stopped struggling. “I told him not to spell me.”

  Grant appeared unmoved, but I knew him better than that. His knuckles were white around the cane. “I was trying to help. Make it easier.”

  “Don’t want it easy.” Killy gave him a baleful look, and I finally released her. She stood awkwardly, rubbing her wrist. “Don’t want myself . . . changed from who I am. Not even a little. I’ve done the drug thing. Honey, you’re the same easy fix.”

  Dek trilled a low warning in my ear. I turned. Raw was across the street, hugging an awning above a closed clothing shop, while Aaz crouched in the bushes near the intersection ahead of us. Zee hunched directly behind Killy, lost partially in the shadows of a parked car. Red eyes bright and cold. He gestured with his claws, holding up one of them.

  Killy went still. Grant tilted his head, as though listening. Very slowly I said, “We’re going to have company soon.”

  Soon, like now. The street had been quiet and empty—no traffic, no people out—but I heard a low rumble, the groan of old brakes, and a small car rolled around the intersection, headlights off. It was a cab, small and blue. It drove toward us, very slowly, and came to a loud and painful stop beside us.

  The window was rolled down. A zombie sat behind the wheel. Aura thundering. His human body was young and Chinese, sporting a Mohawk, earrings, and a pinky nail that was so long it curved under. The night was cool, but sweat covered his brow, rolling down the sides of his face. He looked at me like I was covered in live grenades, set to explode in three-two-one—but he gave Grant a once-over that was disturbingly intimate. Killy, he ignored.

  “You need a ride,” he said, in perfect English.

  “Says who?” I asked.

  The zombie flipped me the middle finger. “Rex.”

  “You switched bodies,” Grant said disapprovingly. “What happened?”

  “My Queen,” replied the zombie sharply. Blocks away, up the street, headlights suddenly blazed. Car engines roared.

  Killy said, “Oh, shit.”

  “A ride sounds great,” Grant said, and opened the back door. He grabbed Killy’s arm and shoved her inside. I made him go next. The zombie hit the accelerator before I was entirely inside, and Grant grabbed the back of my jeans, hauling me over his lap. The back door was still open. I managed to reach out and close it—at the same moment we got rammed in the bumper.

  I slammed forward into the plastic barrier. Mal coiled over my forehead at the last second, cushioning me. We were hit again, and brakes squealed. I looked through the back window and watched the car veer off the road and crash through the display glass of a clothing shop. Dek and Mal cheered.

  Another car accelerated toward us. Rex wiped sweat out of his eyes and muttered, “You have to kill that Avatar skinner. Do it fast. That’s the message from my Queen.”

  “Old news,” I replied, thinking of that lost opportunity—and then hit the side door as the zombie cut a sharp right into an intersection. Grant’s cane almost took out my eye as he and Killy slid into me.

  “No,” said Rex, looking at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes were dark, full of fear. “You don’t understand. You cannot let that skinner leave this world. You cannot let him kill you.”

  “Seems you’d want that.”

  Rex slammed his fist against the dashboard. “Fuck you. Fuck your bloodline. Fuck us all. If the skinner takes your life, Hunter, the prison veil will come down. The higher echelons of the demon army will go free, and my Queen and our caste will be enslaved, again. You think I went to so much trouble just to give you a fucking ride? This mind is strong. I’m going to be kicked out in less than a minute.”

  I stared, certain I had heard him wrong. “What the hell do you mean?”

  Rex trembled, but clamped his mouth shut. Grant reached around the plastic barrier, and grabbed the zombie’s stolen shoulder. “The Avatar must be working from a central location. Do you know where?”

  Rex shook his head. “You can’t let the skinner take you, either.”

  “Why does he want me?”

  The zombie glanced back at him, aura thundering. “That’s a story older than my kind, and I don’t know it. But you have the stink of the Labyrinth in your blood, something not of this world, and that’s something I never wanted to tell you.”

  Two cars veered into the road ahead of us, blocking both lanes. Rex swore, slamming on the brakes. Behind us, more tires squealed. Two black Audis veered into the sidewalks, and Zee crashed through the windshield, rolling like a tumbleweed. But the road was now empty.

  “Reverse!” I shouted. “Put the car in reverse!”

  Rex switched gears and accelerated backward. He was a lousy driver. We weaved across both lanes, nearly hitting one of the crashed cars. I glimpsed two little bodies tumbling out of the stalled Audis. Aaz held a child’s baseball bat. Dek and Mal, deep in my hair, sang “Blaze of Glory.”

  Amen, I thought, and grabbed Grant’s arm. Behind us, more headlights. Accelerating toward us. No room on the sidewalks to go around, and no side streets. Ahead, the cars that had blocked the road were also coming fast. We were boxed in.

  Rex slammed his knuckles against his brow, still trying to steer the cab with his other hand. He was not watching the road. “I can’t hold this body much longer.”

  Zee appeared between my feet and grabbed my right hand. I ignored Killy’s gasp, and stared into his red-glowing eyes. Raw and Aaz slipped from the shadows, as well, clambering over Grant.

  “Maxine,” Zee rasped. “Time to go.”

  His claws squeezed. Rex shouted, and the world faded—into the abyss, swallowed down a throat of pure darkness. My right hand burned, and a terrible hunger filled my heart.

  Make us safe, I thought.

  Light burned the backs of my eyes. Light, inside the abyss.

  I lost time. I lost myself. My innards tumbled into somersaults, and when I opened my eyes, I was somewhere else.

  Alone.

  I rolled over on my back. It was night. Tree branches waved gently above my head, and I saw starlight. I could hardly feel my body. Felt like I was floating inside my skin.

  I heard a baby crying. Soft wails, filling the night. I began to sit up, and realized that Zee and the boys were hard on my skin—tattoos again.

  That was not right. I had to be dreaming.

  So, I treated it like a dream. I had no choice. I thought about Grant and home, and even Rex and Byron, but nothing happened. Trees surrounded me. The baby kept crying.

  I walked. My feet did not touch the ground. As in a dream, I skimmed the earth, and pushed through the forest that grew around me tall and thick and far apart, with their leaves of autumn withered and faded. A softness filled me as I moved, a warmth that wrapped around my heart, dulling fear and love, and anger. I was a ghost, and only the baby’s agonized wails had hooks—compelling me, sinking me.

  I walked, and soon after, found the baby. Swaddled in soft cloth, resting in a pile of dried leaves. Small, pale, with chubby, strong limbs. Less than a year old, I thought.

  She was not alone.

  Zee was with her. All the boys were gathered close, muscles gliding beneath their skin, which was moonlit-clad, soft as liquid obsidian. They were peering at the infant, whose cries were agonizing, spir
it-rending. Shocked me to see them. They did not appear to notice me.

  There was a hole in the ground behind them. A woman lay inside, covered in small purple wildflowers and seashells—things that could not have been native to the forest where I stood—but that had been placed with such care around and across her body, I thought she must have loved them very much in life.

  She looked like me, but all of us Hunters looked alike. Pale skin, black hair, fine features. She had been washed and dressed in clean white robes, but there was a ragged cut across her throat, so deep I wondered if she had almost lost her head.

  Raw and Aaz kept glancing over their shoulders at the woman. Every time they did, low, grunting cries would escape their throats, and their claws would rake across their bellies, shedding sparks. Dek and Mal hung from their necks, making mewling sounds, but Zee had eyes only for the baby.

  He picked her up, ever so carefully, and cradled her to his chest. His bristly hair was slicked back, close to his skull, and he closed his eyes, whispering soft words. The baby did not stop sobbing, and the boys began to sing: a high, soft song, without words, the melody simple and gentle. Their voices were eerie and choral, echoing as though the trees were the walls of a church, and the night sky a black glass roof of stars. My heart, which had begun to ache, quieted even as the baby quieted, and a hush fell, something deeper than silence, as the boys closed their mouths and bowed their heads: wolves, praying; demons, grieving.

  Dek and Mal slid across Zee’s body, and I watched as they used themselves to create a living harness that held the baby snug to the demon’s barrel-shaped chest. Long, warm bodies, crisscrossed and safe. Zee clasped her to him, as well—and with his free hand helped Raw and Aaz push dirt over the woman in the grave.

  Hunter. My ancestor. Somewhere lost in history, murdered well before her time. The boys would never have abandoned that woman before her child was able to feed herself.

  I thought of the bullet that had been shot at my head. Franco and his gun. A cut to the throat was more intimate. The woman had known her attacker—or perhaps more than one person had held her down. Probably killed at sunset. The boys—especially Dek and Mal—would never have let anyone close enough for that killing blow.