Hammer of Darkness (Veil Knights Book 8)

by Rowan Casey

She looked at me. Her hand found the dog's head, and she scratched behind its ears. This time I knew the sonofabitch was smirking at me. "I do not have a direct line on the cortège," she said. "Rumors and smoke, shadows and mirrors, that's all anyone not already lost ever knows."

  "Ahh," I said, voice soft. "But that's where you do come in, Cynthia. For every bumbling tourist, for every honest hedge witch, or aspiring ceremonial practitioner who finds their way here, there is one of those who travels the path of the left hand, isn't there?" I let my tone cool. The time for reminiscence and nostalgia was over. "Give me one of those."

  "What if I give you a name and they refuse to help?" she asked. I could tell she'd caught the change in my manner. "What happens then?"

  "Give the name of someone you won't miss," I suggested.

  "I will," she said at last. The Rottweiler whined at the bitterness in her voice. I felt like doing the same. "But I'm doing it for Kay," she said. "Not for you and certainly not for goddamn Grimm."

  I nodded, a small part of me sad to realize how much distance had grown between us over the years.

  "I never thought anything else," I told her.

  Night in San Francisco.

  It was February, so rain fell. Neon light glittered luminescent off the oil sheen of puddles on the cobblestone. This part of the city was old, and I felt history seeping out its bones. It had seen it all; lies, murder, sex, slavery of every flavor, any and all sorted things mankind is capable of, had played out on these streets at one time or another. Were still playing out.

  The Uber driver pulled to the curb and killed the lights. We sat like that for a little while, the sound of the rain hitting the roof and splashing off the windshield forming a noir soundtrack inside the car.

  I was stalling; I'm not going to lie. I felt uncertain, out of my element and off my game. Grimm had to know that would be the case when he sent me, but I'd given up trying to figure Grimm out a long time ago because, flashy pay-per-view illusionist glamours aside, he was still the Merlin.

  And I was still the Knight he kept reserved for himself. I wasn't part of the Circle, part of the Round Table if you will. I existed outside that oval of courage and chaos, or alongside it anyway, separate but affiliated.

  If Grimm were God and needed Pharaoh's first born killed, I'd be the guy he sent. The fact that I didn't enjoy it made very little difference. One didn't serve at one's own leisure. One served at the pleasure of a liege. It's why they call it service and not vacation.

  I blinked, bringing myself back.

  The Street stood empty. It wasn't the height of tourist season and that, combined with the weather, made for an atmosphere of abandonment. It all seemed vaguely dystopian. This didn't mean the place would be empty. According to Cynthia, it was well known to locals, to the sort of crowd that sought out who I needed sought. It just meant there was less chance for innocent bystanders to get caught up if anything went down. Or for any help if I got in over my head.

  I smiled and, yes it was a little bitter. I paid and got out. I stood there in the rain, watching the door across the street as the vehicle pulled away. I hefted the weight of the briefcase, it was a Brioni, Italian leather, and would be ruined in the damp. In my present mood, I gave about two shits about that.

  The pistol in my shoulder rig was Italian, too. Now that I cared about.

  But what I cared about, or didn't care about, that was all elementary in the grand scheme of what occurred tonight. As I think I've said, what I like or don't like isn't what's important about what I do.

  I serve at the pleasure of the Merlin.

  As I noted, if the Merlin needs a green eyed Angel of Death, then that's what I would be, personal feelings duly noted and duly disregarded. Ditto if he needed someone to be a flesh-and-blood punching bag.

  I sighed, chastised myself for whining, and crossed the empty street, feeling like the last man on the planet.

  The stairwell leading down to the door stood in shadow, both dank and dark. The light set above it flickered on and off, leaving my vision in a sort of hallucinatory, Zebra-striped pattern of impressions. Each step I took felt like a descent into the underworld, moving farther and farther from reality.

  And so our hero enters the underworld having first refused the call to adventure, I thought. Benefits of a classical education. I speak Latin like a bastard, as well.

  The door was a heavy metal number, the kind used to seal off factories in the event of fire. It stood, implacable and black and ancient and scarred, a barrier to what lay beyond. It seemed to hold more in common with the portals used to trap prisoners or barricade bank vaults than it did with those designed to facilitate business.

  Set at eye level there was a white sign with a single word emblazoned in jet Algerian font: Private. Below it sat a small cyclopean eye of a peephole and a metal slot shuttered tight.

  "I'm starting to feel unwelcome," I muttered.

  I tried the big metal handle, the door didn't budge. I'm pretty strong. I tried again, this time in earnest. It still didn't budge.

  Part of me wanted to quit for the night. Just go back to the crappy rental, drink a Pendleton on ice and sleep away unpleasant memories. Then, in the morning, I'd go to the safety deposit box at the private investment bank, and collect the Semtex. I'd come back tomorrow night and slap a breaching charge up to the thing, blow it, and just stroll through, emerging from the smoke and falling debris with a cocky smile on my face.

  How do you like me now? I'd ask.

  Instead, I reached up with one hand and rapped my calloused, misshapen knuckles against the metal. I stepped back, holding the Brioni in front of me with both hands clasped on the handle. There was an MP7 submachine gun hidden inside, trigger attached to a button in the handle. Beneath my feet rainwater flowed like a mountain stream into a grate, only dark and dirty instead of clean and pure.

  Something moved down in the darkness, something much bigger than should have been there. I blinked. It was gone. I swallowed and resisted the urge to take a second step backward, so I stood atop concrete instead of the grate above the cistern.

  There was a sound of metal on metal, and the slot in the door opened. It revealed only black. I saw the barest impression of a human mouth in the dark. The voice that emerged was deep, Basso Profundo deep. It sounded nonplussed.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm here to see the show," I answered.

  "Password?"

  "Is this a speakeasy? In 1925? I don't know any goddamn password. I want to see Euryale sing. This is the place where she sings. She sings for people, in the lounge." I leaned forward a little bit and put some emphasis on my words. "I want to be one of the people in the lounge."

  There was a long moment of silence. I didn't know which way this was going to go. I imagined there were several options.

  The doorman slides the metal plate closed, and that's that. Or, in a slight variation, the doorman tells me which position I can fornicate with myself in and then slides the metal plate closed, and that's that. Or, less likely but still possible in my humble opinion, the grate under my feet snaps open like a trapdoor, and I fall into that dark, dirty water, and whatever the hell is swimming around down there get's dinner.

  Tonight was my night. I got the other, seemingly much, much less likely option; the metal plate slid shut without the doorman saying another word. But then I heard big, heavy bolts sliding open and I knew he was either going to come out and try kicking my ass personally, or he was going to let me in.

  The door swung open. The uncertain light of the flickering bulb didn't penetrate past the threshold, and the space beyond the doorframe remained a virtual maw of darkness. As George R.R. Martin wrote, The night is dark and filled with terrors, I thought. Again, classical education.

  I stepped forward and entered the dark.

  Chapter 4

  The door swung shut behind me.

  It was a substantial sound, like a ship hatch closing. I stood in a vestibule before a heavy hanging wall of velvet bla
ckout drapes. The doorman was a brick wall standing off to one side.

  I looked at him. He looked at me.

  He had the body of an NFL left tackle and the face of a bare-knuckle boxer. I amused myself for a moment with the notion of what a certain ex-MMA fighter of my acquaintance by the name of Jesse would do in this situation. Size him up like dinner, I thought.

  His eyes were small and shot with red, the sclera yellow as his teeth. White spittle gathered at the corners of his thick lips, and his incisors could have belonged to Cynthia's Rottweiler. His nose had the prerequisite lump high up on the bridge that announced it had been broken before. His ears were the chewed up cauliflowers you see on wrestlers, Olympic, not Professional.

  He and I shared a lot of physical traits. "You're a real piece of work, aren't you?" I said.

  He grinned. Most of his back teeth were gold. His tongue, big as a damn farm animal's, looked very pink in his mouth, like a hunk of raw steak sloshing around in there.

  I had no idea why I was baiting this guy. One, it wasn't professional, and two, it wasn't exactly smart. But I was nervous about what I was going to find behind that curtain, and when I get keyed up, I'm sometimes a real wise ass. Sue me. Only don't, because I'm also a lawyer.

  "It's customary to pay the guardian when you enter the underworld," I said. I handed him a fifty.

  "I appreciate someone with a grasp of classical education," he replied.

  His hand took the bill. I'm not tall, but I can palm a basketball with little trouble. This guy's hand dwarfed mine. His knuckles were so large it looked like he'd shoved dice under the skin at the top of his fingers. I got this sick feeling as adrenaline bled into my system that I was going to have to throw hands with this guy. Because, of course.

  This was why I was taking in every detail, I realized. I was sizing him up for a fight. So far, it didn't look great.

  When he spoke, it was in that same Brasso Profundo from earlier. "Enjoy your evening," he told me.

  Lifting up a big arm knotted with heavy muscle, he parted the blackout curtains and stepped out of my way. I nodded slightly and walked through the opening into the club. I stepped in and then, out of habit, to one side so that I didn't remain silhouetted against the light at my back. I stood for a moment, surveying the scene before me, trying to suss out what Cynthia had gotten me into.

  It was a nightclub. Not a spring break in Daytona, or Manhattan hotspot kind of nightclub, but the sort of subdued, upscale place you'd expect to find at the top of a Four Seasons. A place they played live jazz maybe and a Dirty Martini cost you thirty dollars. The floor was sunken, each table an island lit by little lamps designed not to put out much light. The place was full, not packed, but full, and the murmur of voices in intimate conversation whispered in soft, intimate hushes.

  My skin warmed as I entered, my runes doing their job.

  Across the main floor from me stood a full-service bar, a big mahogany monstrosity that had most likely been there since before Prohibition. Behind it was a subtly backlit arsenal of liquor bottles under a full-length mirror straight out of a bordello in a movie about antebellum New Orleans.

  Behind the bar, a beautiful blonde in white dress shirt and black pants poured drinks. Her hair was the brilliant, white-platinum you associate with Valkyries. I frowned and looked back at the floor to double check. Sure enough, all the wait staff was female too. The cocktail waitresses dressed more provocatively than the bartender and were a little younger, but the bartender was a queen and the girls serving drinks just ladies in waiting.

  Making a triangle out of the front door and the bar, stood the stage. It was a small, raised wooden dais with a grand piano on it, a single light from the ceiling shining down and forming a soft pool of illumination. My mouth ran dry as I looked at it.

  Please don't let it be, I thought. I was looking for fools who'd followed the sinister path of the left hand into danger, but I hadn't wanted it to be the same gods damned left-hand path I'd followed once, briefly. I knew what was at stake when I'd asked about cortège, but I'd expected to swim in the shallows, not drown out in the deep water.

  The hair on my arms stood up as I felt the residue of glamor seeping out of the piano. I'm in a bad, bad, place, I told myself. Then, of course, I am, Grimm didn't send me to any other kind. I skirted the edge of the common area and made my way to the bar.

  She saw me coming; I doubt she missed much and turned her eyes on me. They were cornflower blue, intensely brilliant in the subdued lighting, and I felt the hair on my arms lift again. Only this time I couldn't tell if it was a reaction to a glam, or if I was just responding to how ridiculously attractive she was.

  I do that, always have, responded to ridiculously attractive women, I mean.

  I guess that's not entirely honest. There was a time, once upon a time, if you will--when I had eyes for a single woman. A woman more beautiful than the legendary Guinevere, whose beauty destroyed the dream of Camelot. But after her loss, I went…well, let us say, ‘in another direction,' for awhile. Don't worry; I'm much better now. Mostly.

  "What can I get you?" she asked. Her accent was pure West Coast neutral, not a trace of Scandinavian highlight.

  "Pendleton, rocks," I said.

  I stood between two bar stools where the mirror's reflection let me unobtrusively scan the interior. There were no other patrons close by, so I rested the Brioni on the leather seat of an aristocratic-looking bar stool. She poured the drink, I slid a twenty and a ten across the bar and told her to keep the change.

  I looked down at the drink, letting the whiskey warm the ice just enough to melt a little into the amber liquor. I sipped, liking what I tasted. When I looked up from my drink, I found the bartender staring at me. Her eyes were so damn blue they actually drew your gaze away from her cleavage. This was no small feat.

  "I pour that ok?" she asked.

  I nodded. "Just the way I like it," I said. "With whiskey and ice and everything."

  She smiled. Yes, it was dazzling. "You here for the show?"

  Abruptly, I remembered who the hell I was. I don't forget myself because of curves and brilliant smiles or flirtatious banter. I don't fall for glamours, I saw through them. And so I looked at the woman, really looked at her.

  My blood ran cold as I saw no longer as-through-a-glass-darkly.

  "Absolutely," I heard myself say in a flat, declarative tone that would have done Cynthia proud. I did not meet those eyes again even one more time. A man could become lost in eyes like those. Very, very lost.

  The woman, if you want to call her that and, for myself, I decided "female" was close enough, saw I wasn't buying her shine anymore and she lost the smile.

  "She'll be out anytime now."

  I had been dismissed. Good luck getting a second drink promptly.

  Taking the Pendleton, I turned my back to her, once again surveying the crowd. This time I looked to see and everywhere I saw the cold, dead spaces where there should have been auras. Where there should have been souls. There was an equal amount of kine scattered among the shadows, but there were a whole lot of shadows. Kine being that quaint term the monsters use to describe their domesticated humans; part pet, part food.

  Out on the floor, the cocktail waitresses began fading into the background, and a hush slipped over the crowd. The patrons turned expectant eyes toward the stage and, not knowing what else to do, I did the same.

  The overhead light switched off, plunging the stage into darkness. There was a moment of raw fear where I almost pulled the Beretta and fought for the door, but it passed, and after several seconds the light switched back on.

  She stood there before the microphone, head down. The lady wore black. To those who knew, she was the Lady in Black.

  She drew every eye to her, as she would, as she always had, then she slowly lifted her head and began to sing. Her voice was every bit what I remembered. Husky but smooth, like expensive bourbon in the bottom of a Waterford tumbler.

  I ran my gaze over her thou
gh I'd memorized every inch of her a long time ago. Hair full, stylish but almost old fashioned, and Ravenwing Black. Big, dark eyes, full red lips. The couture Halston number of a gown was a seductive regal affair, like a European Duchess gone Bond-girl slutty. Cleavage, long legs, curvy hips. You know the laundry list by heart, but Jesus wept, when that list fits together so perfectly, it's enough to hurt your soul.

  If the bartender was a queen, then Euryale was, well, I'll say it; Euryale was a goddess. She sang like a siren, utterly captivating. The song was sad, broken heart stuff, you know the type, about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But a sledgehammer doesn't need nuance to crush your skull. Nothing can stop it once it gets going and, I knew from experience, her songs were like that. I know every man in the place who still had a soul felt like she was singing right to him. She stirred a dichotomy of reactions.

  She was sad; her heart broken, you wanted to comfort her, to make everything alright and show her she could love again. You wanted to rescue her, to be the hero. But there was another side as well, a darker urge that flowed just as intense. You also wanted to be the unfaithful, womanizing prick she was singing about, because any guy who leaves a woman like her broken hearted had to be one hell of a man. Who wouldn't like that power, that skill, that fuck-it-all attitude?

  I blinked. Slow and hard.

  When I did my heart sped up a little from the slow metronome beats of a sedated animal. I felt it then, the shiver down my spine, the lifting of those hairs along my arm as I got my adrenaline response. Her glamor was Fat Boy hitting Nagasaki. The runic tatts on my shoulder and back tingled as they kicked in.

  I gripped my glass so hard I was lucky it didn't shatter. Slowly, I relaxed my hand, eased breath out my nose, and forced an attitude of calm through my body. Somewhat awkwardly, I recognized that my crotch had been undergoing certain changes as well.

  I had seen her naked on my bed. Hair spread across the pillow, eyes laughing. At least as much as the eyes of a shark can show mirth. I gritted my teeth. I put a little hate in my heart. Hate for Grimm for putting me here and not telling me what I was walking into, hate for Euryale for being what she was.