“Where is the gig again?” he asks, his arms around my waist.
The drug of happy disbelief has overcome my mind so strongly that I have to think really hard about the answer. “Private party just north of Jackson,” I recall at last. “Some people from a Mississippi blues society are honoring Slackjaw’s birthday. They’ve hired some of their local musicians, but are apparently over the moon at getting his old bass player to join them. I seem to be the only member of his former band who was available. I guess the other guys already had gigs.”
He frowns. “Do you know these folks?”
“My contact was somebody named Angeles. Look, I’ve played all over the world, and driven a good deal over it as well. I’m going to be fine. Jackson is always cool. The annual Jubilee Jam is huge, and turnout was always good at Hal and Mal’s whenever I played there, so I expect this to be a good crowd.”
He appears troubled, but can’t seem to put a finger on it. And I secretly feel similar apprehension, but I can’t pinpoint it either.
“This gig is an easy commute for me,” I continue to reassure him. “I’ve made the drive to Jackson so many times, I could almost do it with my eyes closed. Once I get over the Mississippi state line, I no longer have to stay in the right lane.” We step out of my apartment together and I lock up with my usual little obsessive compulsive doorknob check.
As I slide my bass into my hatchback, I savor the sight of his car parked next to mine, and the ensuing butterflies in my stomach rise in a cloud. He kisses me one final time, and I lean in with unabashed greed—I can’t get enough of those lips of his. “Be careful,” he murmurs.
“Fuck yo studio,” I reply in the same caressing tone. It is as close as we ever come to saying I love you and I love you too.
Off I go to a chilly late autumn sky, blasting the sounds of Crack the Sky from my stereo.
By the time I get to the Mississippi Welcome Center just over the state line, the lump in my stomach has returned. I had always imagined that winning the love of my life would result in the fabled “happily ever after” so common in fairy tales—which is why they are classified as fiction, of course. I hate the fact that I am still so insecure.
I’d tried to distract myself on the way, finding a little mom and pop antique store just off of the I-55. Nothing had interested me except for a tiny headless toy soldier made of lead, obviously forged before anyone cared about getting sued over lead poisoning. I thought it would be a perfect addition to my collection of discontinued deadly toys—including my lawn darts and Ice Bird Sno-Cone grater—and so I’d bought it for five dollars and tucked it into my jacket pocket.
But later with the endless stretches of pine trees lining the roads, I was having a hard time keeping my thoughts away from this former model who was my lover’s ex. And addicted to exercise at that, I reflect. I had been keeping myself in shape throughout my training, of course, but I will never be athletic. I have a poet’s body: meant to be venerated only after I am gone.
And now this looker had enough power to influence a sizable portion of the shifter population. My key to true love and belonging somewhere at last, tainted by this bitch. I shake myself. If I don’t get a grip and focus, I won’t be in good form for the gig tonight.
I roll into the parking lot and shut off my engine. In the privacy of my car, I permit myself a good, cathartic growl, lip lifted. Not even swearing makes me feel better. Then I remember my mother’s way of letting off steam by pretending to angrily call people by the names of counties and rivers of her native Mississippi, so I give it a try. “You Tishomingo Yalobusha Homochitto Buttahatchee!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “Issaquena Yockanookany Sucarnoochee!” It does, in fact, bring a smile to my face. I recall Sylvia and me gleefully trying this in grade school with parishes and rivers of Louisiana—we had gotten our mouths washed out with soap, especially over “Tangipahoa” and “Tchfuncte.” I let fly an undignified sigh before unbuckling and stepping out into the sunshine with an outwardly normal affect.
The Welcome Center might have some free coffee in the main building, amid their maps and pamphlets advertising points of interest: museums, symphonies, historical houses, and zoos. But the ladies room is my main priority, so I make my way down the unnecessarily labyrinthine walkway to the back of the site. Even after I reemerge I am still agitated, and need to let off a little steam. The grove of trees beyond makes for a good spot to discreetly jog off my frustrations, so I trot towards it, as far away from the parking lot as I can go.
I don’t hear any bees or hornets, so the sharp sting between my shoulder blades catches me completely by surprise. I reach back to swat the offending insect and dislodge a small dart instead. The sudden drowsiness that fells me to the ground is somehow less surprising. This is getting really old, is all I have time to think before I black out.
Pain in my joints—shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees—is what hits me as my eyes open. Having one’s wrists and ankles tied in the same position for what may have been hours will do that. I try to go bass to slip out of my bonds, but I can’t somehow, and the panic sets in. The large animal crate that confines me is just large enough for me to stretch out my back, although I wouldn’t have been able to stand up in it even with my limbs free. I feel the erratic vibrations of a moving vehicle carrying me somewhere. I clear my throat and the acoustics tell me that I’m in a van. Through a grid in the side of the crate, I can see weak sunlight trying to permeate the tinted windows.
And I’m not alone. There’s another woman in the crate with me. There is something familiar about her willow-thin body and her too-red hair, now dulling at the roots. Even as she rolls over to face me, I can’t quite believe that I am once again stuck with Naj Copperhead. By the look on her face, it’s obvious that the astonishment is mutual.
“Buzz? Oh, Buzz, I am so glad to see you!” she gushes, trying to smile. Tear streaks have cut furrows through the dirt on her face. She struggles to regain her charm. “I hope I didn’t insult you with my critique of your bass playing. Nothing personal, huh? I was just trying to help you. You’re like a sister to me, and we shifters have to stick together. Where do you think they are taking us?”
“Just shut up, Naj,” I growl.
Her eyes flick down to the scar on my lip, and she does indeed hold her tongue. I don’t even want to waste my energy with angry words. The only thing breaking our strained silence is the sound of tires on the road. I feel her eyes upon me, so I roll over to turn my back on her, drifting in and out of tranquilized stupor.
The light gradually fades as we are swept on a current of utter helplessness into the night. As the crate gets colder, I begin to wonder slightly about her silence. I am unable to tap into my wolf senses much, but my human eyes can still see that her skin is graying, and her stillness abnormal.
“Naj?” I call softly. She doesn’t move. “Hey, Naj!”
“Buzz …” she hisses with almost no air. “I’m … cold-blooded …”
Oh, fuck. I hate this bitch beyond fathoming, but I can’t in good conscience just let her die. I wiggle my way across the crate and press my body against hers. Her skin is morgue-frigid, and I don’t try to hide my shuddering.
I try again to shift, but nothing happens. Why can’t I become the wolf? I wonder. I could keep us both warm more effectively if I could go bass and let my fur do the insulating. Even still, my body heat is sufficient, and we eventually both fall into a hard, drugged sleep.
There’s no telling where we are or how long we have been imprisoned when the crate begins rocking and we are flung from side to side like pebbles inside a maraca. Cold sunlight blinds us as the latch opens and the crate tilts sharply down. Naj takes a hard jolt and pisses herself as she lands, but I manage to hold my aching bladder as we are dumped onto a dirt road like garbage. A gruff voice barks down at me, “Too bad your little friend thought she was going to get her halo without proper training. And you! Looks like you won’t be playing any Slackjaw tonight. Not that you ever were goi
ng to. You’re in the hands of the angels now.”
Angeles. Angels. Damn it! Incidents flash back to me: the drunken man who said I needed a guardian angel after the Pegs gig, and the gutter punks with their Angel Ministries cardboard box, Cal’s talk of halos and wings, and Gabriel, who fancied himself an angel with his name and his deluded beliefs that he was working for a greater good. But this man is certainly no angel. I try to glare at him, but my neck is so stiff that I can’t even turn my head.
Our captor hunkers down to my level and reveals himself to be a cold, beady-eyed man. He looks familiar, but I can’t put two and two together until he smiles and flashes his abundance of teeth. A new level of fear seizes me as he sneers, “You should have shown me some respect back at the Crescent City Brewhouse. You didn’t know who I was then, but you will certainly know me now. You will call me Azrael, since I am one of the Chimera’s many angels.” I am shocked to see how frightening this man is without the expensive suit barely concealing his true nature. The memory rushes back to me: Don’t you know who I am? And I had mocked him at my brewhouse gig that day.
His rough, stubby fingers fasten a thick silver collar around my neck. “This is for your own good,” he says sternly. “Only angels can keep you safe from sin. How can you feel secure knowing that the shifter intelligence is abbreviated S-I-N? But we are merciful to the sinners who convert.” I think of Sylvia and her dedication to helping others and remind myself, Angels and sinners are only names.
Refusing to answer, I feign weakness and pain, although I am now immune to silver. I can’t help wondering in the back of my mind how many hungry families that much precious metal could feed. Angeles unties my limbs, and a new pain stabs me as my joints finally move in the wake of prolonged immobility.
“You, doggie!” he shouts at me. “You can go mark those trees over there, since the boss doesn’t want you stinking up her nice complex.” A long rope leash is clipped to my collar, and I shamble off to the nearby grove.
All thoughts of danger momentarily desert me in the primal act of relieving myself. Still I think up a quick, desperate idea. I retrieve my pack phone from my pocket and hunch down, trying to dig without claws. What I lack in wolf skills I make up for in adrenaline fear, and I bury my phone six inches in the dirt. It still has a third of a charge, and I hope it’s enough for my pack to track me.
I carry this out just in the nick of time, as my captor returns and gives me a cursory pat-down—even though he assures me that no weapon could ever harm the boss. Satisfied at finding no large guns or knives, he grabs my leash and hitches it to the one holding Naj, who is collared at the ankle. He pulls a couple of armbands out of his jacket and tags us each on the left upper arm. Then comes a violent yank on our leashes again as if we are rebellious mules instead of drugged, hungry hostages. I try to close my ears to the harsh words he mutters like a mantra as he takes us to the edge of a densely wooded area.
We are dragged down a trail that is barely visible for all the trees obscuring the sunlight, but Naj and I are able to pick our way through it with our latent instincts. I am struck by the profound absence of birdsong and insect noise, as if everything is either dead or holding its breath. Amid the scents of pine and numerous plants that I don’t even recognize is the overwhelming stench of greed, fear, and anger. A tiny ramshackle cabin protruding from a large hill meets us at the end of the trail. It leans to one side, a wounded warrior of rural architecture. Only the hill, subtle and ominous as a burial mound, seems to keep it from collapsing.
I hear the click of a gun and feel cold metal against my temple. “See now, you will either pass the Chimera’s test or your brains are gonna decorate this wall. We can’t just drag any hostage in here. You have to get through the boss’ warding—like the way you lycans do it, but infinitely superior and impenetrable. See, this is a hidden world we have to step into, and you have to access these little dimensions sideways. If you can do it, maybe you will be worthy to be her guest.”
He pushes me against the wall. “Now unfocus your mind a little and make yourself flat. When you feel the next world forming around you, shape yourself to it, like a puzzle piece. You’ll feel yourself sort of snap into place. Wait just a little while, and you’ll know when it’s time to step out.”
I comply, feeling the surreal push and pull of nonphysical energies squeezing me into position. Forced through a thick energy. Three deep breaths later, I can move my fingers. I pull away from the wall and tear out of the shed … into a bright atrium.
CHAPTER
12
SPLITTER
The blond guard waiting for us introduces himself as Metatron as he collects us from Azrael. I am still trying to take in the nature of the atrium. There is light shining from windows across the top, but I can’t tell the direction of the sun. I glance at my watch and my blood runs cold as I watch the hands pivoting back and forth erratically, like two compass needles in a roomful of magnets. Azrael’s meaty hand darts out and grabs my wrist. With a flick of his knife he severs the leather strap on my timepiece. The second it falls to the floor, he crushes it under the heel of his boot. “You won’t be needing this ever again,” he sneers. “There is no time in this underworld. You can rot here for a hundred mortal years before your neighbors will begin to notice that your newspapers are piling up.”
This is a lie, that much is obvious. There’s enough of a palpable magnetic field that might trick a person into suspending disbelief, but this is no magic place. It is, however warded beyond fathoming. The energy trick itself has a strong scent of uniform overwhelm, like hundreds of creatures with only one scent. This is the scent of Brume, the Chimera. Many bodies, one mind.
Metatron looks at my armband, and says, “English? Very well, then.” I am American, of course, not English, but I say nothing. I don’t have time to wonder about this place as I am dragged through a side door and down a spiral ramp.
The cold humidity that envelops me is like the blood of something long dead. Not a good place to store instruments is my instinctive thought.
The corridor is little more than a tunnel with cells dug into the sides. There is the occasional ventilation grate cut into the ceiling, the overhead light creating shadows of the bars, like hollow rib cages. Weak electrical lights cast a greenish pallor over everything, illuminating the forms of things that may or may not be people.
All shifters, none of whom can change. I sense only this, nothing more. Even to my human nose, the acrid stench of piss, shit, blood, barf, and sweat sends tremors though me. Bodies, cramped like living meat in a slaughtering chute, dying from the inside out.
I thought I’d known fear before, but that was from quick, fleeting attacks or things that in hindsight were menial. Now I am truly terrified to the core of my being. I look back for Naj, but I am the only one being led to the cells. I can only guess that she was too weak to survive the transition into this underworld.
As I pass endless cells on either side of me, I hear a car wreck of voices in more languages than I can identify. The tunnel keeps going on indefinitely, as if expanded with need. I am finally brought to the last cell on the left and shoved in with more force than necessary. The iron gate that swings shut is almost a cliché.
There is another man in my cell. His deep-set, sad eyes are hollow and haunted. A mop of dark curls falls over his oversized ears. His long nose twitches as he sized me up, and he strokes his scraggly beard self consciously. He greets me softly in French and I suddenly get it. They labeled me “English” by language, not nationality. There must not be enough holding cells for each prisoner, so language groups are split up to prevent communication. We are in some labyrinth of Babel. But they must not have known that I am from southwest Louisiana, and had first begun learning French in nursery school. My command of the language is rusty, but I am relieved that I can communicate.
His name is Jean-Michel Lapin, he tells me. He is a biochemist, and being forced to research the many sets of DNA that the Chimera possesses, which n
ow number in the hundreds. Like me, he is unable to shift into his animal shape, and knows that he could probably dig us out if he could retain his rabbit form.
The door shrieks open again, and Azrael’s face leers into mine. “MacKinlay! You are to make an appearance! Don’t disappoint her—the Chimera is very curious to see how an ordinary lycan could survive a Naga bite. She may have … use for you!”
Lapin doesn’t meet my eyes as Azrael attaches a chain to my collar and leads me back out. The muffled voices of the other prisoners frighten me more than the prospect of what awaits me.
On the way over Azrael tells me that I am in the Chimera’s center of operation. After all the efforts by the shifter leaders to find the precise location of this hellish nest, the dramatic irony does not escape me. Light suddenly sears my eyes as I step out of the gloom into the foyer, and I clutch at my face in agony. Azrael does not wait for me to adjust to my new surroundings. Another rough shove to my back, and I am pushed into the royal hall.
The throne room is sparsely furnished but impressive. Columns spring up like fountains of white marble, or perhaps alabaster … I wouldn’t know. I am but a poor musician. The hall is lined with gothic arched windows, sturdy and commanding, but smoked glass reveals nothing to me of the outside world. An enormous single rafter crosses the upper half of the room, neatly dividing heaven and earth. An overhead oculus beams light down onto the empty dais, wide enough to hold three people. I don’t doubt that this is a deliberate form of intimidation, a way to cast a royal or divine illusion of my nemesis. I refuse to be awed, whatever it is I am about to face.
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