Black City Demon

by Richard A. Knaak

  “All right. You can go now.”

  “Georgius—” He looked startled at my dismissal. I suppose he’d begun to think we were becoming chums again.

  “Nick,” I reminded him. “Always Nick to you. Remember?”

  The emperor looked exasperated. “I remember.”

  He vanished.

  “He’s gone,” Claryce remarked with a frown. “What was that, Nick? Why did you suddenly get cross with him?”

  “That doesn’t matter right now. What does is that from what Diocles said, whatever Holmes is up to is imminent.”

  “So, we should get on to West Sixty-Third, then.”

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  I didn’t know what to expect when we reached the site of Holmes’s old haunts, but what we did confront was a big disappointment. Nothing’d changed. The place where the Murder Castle’d been located looked exactly as it had last time.

  “Fetch, you smell anything?”

  He sniffed. “Some ripe rats.”

  Of course. “Anything you don’t count as food?”

  “Nay, Master Nicholas. Don’t know for nothing, sorry. I’ll keep searching.”

  “Yeah,” I responded, ignoring his tortured use of another bit of human slang.

  “There’s a car across the street,” Claryce whispered. “I know it. It belongs to Oliver Winston. He called the apartment that one time.”

  “What would he be doing here?”

  Claryce shrugged. “I suppose he’s here on Delke business. I’ve been turning over more and more to him.”

  There was a light on in the building where we’d first met Holmes as Alexander Bond. “Maybe we should stop in and see your friend.”

  “Oh, God! Nick! Do you think he might—that Holmes could have—”

  “I don’t know.” I slipped out of the Packard, my hand close to my coat.

  Claryce and Fetch got out from the other side. Fetch immediately trotted off toward the side of the building. Claryce stepped up next to me, her hand in the purse.

  We reached the door. I carefully tugged on it. It wasn’t locked. It also didn’t squeak as I pulled it open. Good.

  With Claryce right behind me, I entered the empty building. From the back, someone hummed.

  We were abruptly joined by a bespectacled man in his twenties. He wore a very dapper blue suit and spats on his shoes. He’d slicked his hair with oil that had a slight scent to it.

  “Claryce?” he blurted in a voice a bit on the high side.

  “Oliver. I didn’t expect to see you here. Did—did Dr. Bond make an offer?”

  He adjusted his round glasses. “Dr. Bond never called back. We might have a new prospect, so I thought I’d familiarize myself with the location. You’re no longer on this, you know. I tried to call, but you weren’t home.”

  “I understand. I only stopped by because I thought I left a book here.”

  “Well, I didn’t see anything, but if I do, I’ll be sure to send it to the address you gave us. Good-bye, Claryce.” Oliver turned around and headed into the back of the store.

  Not once had he paid any attention to me. “Pleasant fellow. Love to talk with him again.”

  She looked apologetic. “He’s really not a bad person. Just . . . ambitious.”

  “Looking to take your old position?”

  “Hmmph. More likely trying to take William’s position as soon as possible. I said ambitious.”

  Oliver let out a shriek.

  Despite my immediate dislike for the man, I didn’t hesitate to rush back. I already had Her Lady’s gift ready. There were ways of making Oliver forget anything I did, but first the man had to survive whatever was happening.

  As I entered the back, I caught sight of Oliver grasping at the air next to him as if some invisible escape door stood there. His gaze was fixed on a figure standing in the back doorway, a figure who at first looked like one of Moran’s gang. It was only when one stared close at the face beneath the checkered newsboy cap that the reason for Oliver’s scream became even more apparent.

  The goon’s aquiline features were decaying.

  His long nose hung slightly to the side, a ragged hole above one nostril. The right side of his lower lip had curled aside, revealing the teeth down to the blackening gums. A piece of dry flesh had begun peeling from the left cheek.

  “Gah . . . gah . . . gah . . .” Oliver eloquently managed as he stumbled back.

  The rotting goon took a step toward him. Behind the undead, the door shut of its own accord.

  One hand was already stretched out toward Claryce’s stunned coworker. The small finger dangled limply, and bits of flesh dropped from the index finger pointed at Oliver.

  “Don’t even think it!” I snarled, the sword flaring in response to the undead’s presence. I didn’t need it to tell me I faced Feirie energy here, not at all.

  The eyes—or the sockets, actually—appeared to look in my direction. Then, the jaw loosely moving, the walking cadaver rasped, “Sleeeeep.”

  Oliver collapsed.

  The ghoul and I confronted one another. He cocked his head—an act accompanied by a crackling sound—and uttered, “Gatekeeeepers . . .”

  The body was the missing hood from the car I’d come across. The voice, however, belonged to Her Lady’s enforcer, the thing I’d nicknamed Lon.

  I’d wondered where he’d gotten to, and now I knew. His predecessor’d used a bootlegger to move around in the human world for a short time. Unfortunately, it seemed that such use burned out the corpse faster. Even though it hadn’t been very long, the hood already looked several days dead, which made him no more use for the creature. I didn’t know if he’d intended on using Oliver for the same thing, but that didn’t matter at the moment. The more I stared at Lon, the more I realized I’d seen him in this guise elsewhere.

  I’d seen him in the car waiting for Barnaby.

  Yeah, I’d only made out an outline, but the cap and clothes matched what I’d seen and answered why Barnaby’s companion’d taken such measures to hide himself. If I’d made the connection between the Feir’hr Sein and the missing hood, I might have realized who was in the other car.

  Lon trudged forward. There wasn’t much use left in his host. In fact, with the second step, the refuse that’d once been one of Holmes’s puppets tumbled forward. As it did, the Feir’hr Sein peeled off the back.

  Gatekeepers . . . The murky figure floated above his ruined host. To my surprise, he then tipped his hooded head forward in what I realized was almost a bow.

  A bow to me.

  On a hunch, I pointed at the floor right before the body. “Kneel.”

  And he did. Reluctantly. Resentfully. But he did.

  Her Lady’s enforcer was my servant as well.

  I wasn’t sure why, although some possibilities came to mind. I didn’t think it had to do with the sword, but I wasn’t about to test that at the moment. Instead, I needed to verify something and verify it quickly. There was a reason why Lon’d been in this vicinity, and I knew that it had to do with Holmes.

  “You went to Barnaby, didn’t you?” I asked, not bothering to explain who I meant. He knew.

  Yesss. . . .

  “You don’t just show yourself to humans. You knew his link to the energies.” I purposely put the statement in Feirie terms, rather than say Barnaby’d dabbled in magic.

  Yesss . . . he repeated.

  “You probably warned him that his son was in danger if he stayed at Dunning and that you’d help. Am I right?”

  This time, he only nodded. I’d come to understand that the Feir’hr Sein were very good—and very relentless—at their tasks, but Lon had still surprised me. I had to believe that he’d not only taken over the hood completely, but had managed to absorb some of the man’s knowledge and skills. There weren’t too many cars in Feirie, so there’d been no way for Lon to learn to drive them, yet he evidently had driven fairly well when he’d followed Barnaby to me.

  That brought up the point of why he
’d risked discovery by me when I’d noticed the car behind the Packard. Knowing the Feirie folk as I did, I could imagine a bit of hubris. He’d known I wouldn’t think of one of his kind as a mere driver.

  He’d been right.

  But now I treaded into territory that might bring Her Lady’s gift back into play, territory that just stank of the way the powers of Feirie had no qualms about manipulating and betraying those they thought beneath them.

  “Nick, we can’t leave things like this here,” Claryce muttered.

  “I know . . . but our ghastly friend here’s still hiding things. I’ll bet he acted like he was working with me, but out of the goodness of his—well, whatever you have for a heart, eh, Lon?—he offered to help bring Joseph to the supposed safety that Barnaby thought he could give his son. Only, you knew not just that Barnaby couldn’t provide the protection he thought he could, but you took one more step in your duty to Her Lady, didn’t you?”

  The shadowy creature shifted. I swore I could see anxiety in his movements.

  I switched tactics for a moment. “You have to obey me, don’t you?”

  He didn’t give any indication that he had to, but then again, he didn’t deny it, which had more weight. Feirie folk did not like subservience to humans, and especially not to saints.

  “But you’ll do whatever you can to get around my interests without actually disobeying, isn’t that so?”

  I serve. . . .

  It was just the not-answer answer I expected. Now I pushed the point I’d been leading to. “And you’ll strive to fulfill Her Lady’s desires first and foremost.”

  I serve . . . the Feir’hr Sein repeated.

  “So you do. And in doing so, no problem with sacrificing a few humans by playing on their devotion to one another.” I let the point of the sword rise until it was in line with his midsection. “And then, while your stolen body was still fresh enough, you used it to let the Beast’s followers know just where they could find Joseph when they needed him.”

  The Feir’hr Sein hissed. I’d struck on it. Acting like he worked with me, he’d actually set things up so that Holmes could come after Joseph easier.

  I didn’t have to ask why. I knew. “You’re waiting for it to happen, whatever it entails. You’re waiting for the Beast to cast his spell because in his moment of triumph, he’ll also be his most vulnerable! Am I right? Doesn’t matter what might happen to a bunch of humans or even a few lesser Feirie. This is all about her, isn’t it? She’s been planning this betrayal all along! Why? So that she can better hunt down Lysander and other traitors? Is that it?”

  “Yes, that is it,” responded a voice from behind Claryce and me, a voice I’d been expecting. “And God help me, I aided in her treachery.”

  Purposely turning my back on Lon, I now aimed Her Lady’s gift at someone who at the moment I loathed even more than the queen of Feirie.

  “You better have a really, really good reason why I don’t run you through, Kravayik.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Kravayik didn’t wear the garments we generally saw him in when visiting Holy Name. Instead, he was dressed pretty much like the dead goon, even down to a brown newsboy cap. The collar of his coat was pulled up, and his hair hung loose enough to cleverly hide the fact that he had long ears as sharp as the tip of a sword.

  Anyone really looking close would have noticed those shifting features, those different eyes, but despite his conversion to the church, Kravayik still retained enough ability to keep his exact face shadowed just right.

  I wondered how well he’d do if I punched him really, really hard in the jaw.

  “You have every right to be furious, Master Nicholas. I continue to step far beyond my bounds, may the Lord forgive me.”

  “The Lord may forgive you, but I’m not so kind. I know you heard what I said to Lon here. You understand Her Lady’s plotting. She doesn’t care who gets killed so long as she has a chance to steal whatever power Holmes is gathering for her own. I’d think that’d be something you wouldn’t like.”

  His gaze shifted briefly to the Feir’hr Sein. “No, not at all.”

  I’d known him long enough to be able to read his murky face better than most. “What do you find so amusing?”

  “Why would I find anything about this amusing?”

  I gave it a moment’s thought, then jerked my thumb at Her Lady’s enforcer, who hovered impatiently over the corpse. “It was when I mentioned Lon here.”

  There it was again. A slight turning up of the corners of his mouth and a shift in his eyes.

  “Perhaps it is just that I also see the resemblance between the Feir’hr Sein and the great actor’s latest grotesque.”

  It was odd to hear Kravayik call Chaney’s Phantom “grotesque” as compared to the darker side of Feirie. Still, I knew there was more to it than that. “It’s because I named him. That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?”

  “No, Master Nicholas,” Fetch responded. Somewhere along the way, he’d slipped in quietly through the front. Although he stood behind Kravayik, it was clear that, at least for now, he didn’t see himself and Kravayik on the same side. “It wasn’t. Ye are not supposed to have the power to give such as that a moniker that sticks. That is not just power reserved for the highest of the Feirie Court, but impossible for any human.”

  “Any human,” Kravayik repeated quietly.

  “But he’ll still obey her, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” he answered, “and tie himself into knots worthy of Houdini doing it. You command him, but his allegiance is to her. Best to watch out for that.”

  “Says one who worked with him behind my back. What about that, Kravayik?”

  “I have my own ties to the Feir’hr Sein. She would not have gotten what she desired, not exactly.”

  Spoken like a true elf. I gave up on that. Right now, I didn’t like most of those I had to surround myself with as allies, but Holmes had to be stopped. “Why’re you back here? I know Holmes favors this area for some reason. His old haunts used to be across the street, but I haven’t found any clue. What about you?”

  Kravayik lost his humor. “Sadly, the trail fades here . . . as always.”

  “What about Lon? He see anything?”

  “Master Nicholas . . .” Fetch interrupted. “There’re torpedoes about.”

  “‘Torpedoes’? Did you and Lon know that, too?” I asked Kravayik.

  “No.” He reached into a pocket. I didn’t think he was looking for a comb, although with the old Kravayik—who seemed to be back—even a comb was a deadly instrument. “They must have just arrived.”

  “Yes, Master Kravayik! Saw them parking as I came around behind you.”

  “You did good. I did not sense you until you reached the doorway.”

  Fetch growled. Clearly he hadn’t actually been complimented and, already aware of my anger at Kravayik, was more than happy to side with me.

  “How many, Fetch?” I asked before things could deteriorate further.

  “Two hay burners. Five in each. The two pasty goons are with them.”

  “Know anything about the twins, Kravayik?”

  He swallowed. I’d never really seen him swallow like that. I didn’t find it encouraging. “No. Only that they are not of Feirie.”

  Things were just getting better and better. “Were they with Holmes back during the exposition?”

  “Yes.”

  Claryce couldn’t see it, but his eyes flickered to her. I remembered what’d supposedly happened to Claudette and began to wonder just what details Kravayik’d left out.

  “Nick!” Suddenly, Claryce had the revolver aimed at Lon. At the same time, she moved toward him.

  I spun around and found the Feir’hr Sein hovering nearer to the unconscious Oliver, the intention obvious. Unfortunately, Claryce now stood on the other side of her former coworker. She stared at the Feir’hr Sein without fear.

  Fetch roared. The Feir’hr Sein reared back as without warning a thing that had to have inspired
the original tales of werewolves reared up on two legs and challenged Her Lady’s enforcer with gleaming claws and sharp, sharp teeth. A fiery mane of fur crowned the head, which had a muzzle shorter than that of a hound and was slightly more human in design.

  “Ye’ll not touch the mistress!” Fetch roared at the Feir’hr Sein. “I’ve ripped apart your kind before! Ye know that!”

  I had to admit I expected the worst, but Lon paused. It wasn’t a pause I knew had anything to do with my control, because I’d been too dull to think to order the Feir’hr Sein back.

  I did that now. Lon retreated to his spot above the corpse.

  “Fetch . . .” I said slowly. “This is a side of you I haven’t seen since Feirie. How long?”

  He’d already begun shrinking to the form with which Claryce and I were more familiar. His expression truly matched that of a beaten dog. “Three days. Stronger each day.”

  The Frost Moon’s wake. If Fetch, who couldn’t even talk to anyone other than Kravayik or me, much less revert to his true Feirie form, now had full range of his power, I wondered just what Holmes’s ultimate spell would allow him to do.

  I asked Kravayik what he knew about that, but he shook his head. All he—or even Her Lady—had ever known had been that here was this human who’d learned how through the dark arts to draw power from the ultimate well of magic. He had succeeded enough to even put fear into the minds of the Feirie folk.

  “But what stopped him last time?” Claryce asked, still standing defensively near Oliver. We had to do something about him soon, but I was still deciding what.

  I liked her question. It was one that’d been bugging me for a while. “Well, Kravayik? Why didn’t Holmes succeed? It wasn’t just because he was discovered by the authorities, was it? It couldn’t be something that simple, could it?”

  “No. The Beast was able to draw the energies thanks to the wake, but he was only human. He could not contain them well enough. They nearly destroyed him . . . and almost tore apart the royal court in the process.”

  That surprised me. Her Lady’s Court had always struck me as something eternal, something capable of outlasting even Feirie’s ruler. “The Court, too. You were there, then, weren’t you? I mean exactly when it all came down.”