Shadowed Souls

by Jim Butcher

  “Right. Bugger.”

  Redmayne unslung the pack and rummaged through it until he found a sharp bit of armor scale. He handed it over to Peacock and cast a nervous glance toward the hellspawn. “Just nick the edge and tear it out. That’ll have to do.”

  Peacock winced. “That’s gonna hurt.”

  “No doubt.”

  She’d been able to hear him from a long distance before she’d found him. “We’d better be ready to jump,” she said.

  “Put your back to the cleft—that’ll be easiest.”

  She turned, and the portal leaked a cold wind along her shoulders. Redmayne gripped his pack with both hands, squeezed his eyes shut, and grimaced in anticipation. He was silent as she sliced the edge of the Liminal Map free and caught it in her fingers. She yanked.

  Redmayne shrieked, arching in agony.

  The hellspawn turned as a body and raced toward them, raising a clatter on the iron ground like a hailstorm. Something roared and Peacock shot a glance toward it. Clouds seemed to boil both overhead and across the searing plain. Monstrous faces resolved from the fiery sky and rushed into shape as they fell upon the two fugitives. Lords and hellspawn by the hundreds.

  She threw herself back against the portal.

  It resisted.

  “Shit. Redmayne—”

  He lurched forward, the pack falling into her lap as he bowed over her and thrust his hands into the rift. Blood spattered and ran onto her face. Amid the howls of incoming hellborn, she could barely hear him spit out a word that shook the rock face behind her.

  They fell though the portal and the screams of Hell’s fury cut short in suffocating silence. Redmayne twisted and caught one hand in the closing portal.

  Limbo was a luminous gray nothingness. Two streaks of light—one red, one gold—showed in Peacock’s vision as she glanced side to side.

  “D’you hear that?” Redmayne asked.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  Redmayne flickered as he crouched beside the thin red line. “Bloody hell. Fiore, you bastard,” he whispered. His voice was hoarse and trembling.

  “Holy crap, Redmayne,” Peacock muttered. “What are you doing?”

  “Bleeding and holding on.”

  She reached for the infernal rocks in Redmayne’s pack. “You’re not gonna heal like you do in Hell.”

  “Don’t!” He slapped her hand aside. “We’ve only got minutes before we’re back in the lion’s den. Could you put a finger here? Any one will do perfectly fine.”

  Peacock flipped him the bird, and he shoved her hand into the fiery light. It burned against her flesh and seemed to gnaw on her digit.

  “For the love of everything, don’t move,” Redmayne said. “Open your suit and give me one of your blades.”

  “Over your dead body.”

  Redmayne snorted. “Later, mate. Look, I know these are the worst of circumstances, but you have got to trust me. Fiore’s a right bastard, and he doesn’t mean either of us any good. You don’t imagine he’s dragging me back to play tiddlywinks, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then listen. Back in the day, I didn’t just work with Fiore; I was his boss. The ambitious little prick didn’t like that, and had plans to put me under his boot same as you are. We needed a necromancer and I couldn’t get rid of him, so I damned m’self, and took a hard way down so he couldn’t drag me back by blood and fire. With my funny talent, you can imagine how that would have gone. Fiore wants to make this homecoming hurt, and I’ve a mind to deny him that pleasure, but Limbo’s the only place my plan can work. Straight truth: I need you or we’re neither one of us coming up for air. So, what’s it gonna be? Time’s almost up.”

  She grinned, and Redmayne shivered at the sight. “Oh, I’m in.”

  The carmine light whirled away and she tumbled through the nothing. They were torn apart, tossed, and spat out.

  Peacock lurched into a smoking cavern and sprawled on the floor. Both her knives, the map, and the pack’s contents were scattered around her, but Redmayne was gone. She yanked up her suit zipper and gathered the junk Redmayne had collected. She didn’t even consider running—there was nowhere to go that Fiore couldn’t follow, except Hell itself, and she wasn’t ready to return to that venue just yet. She had other things to do.

  She hiked out and found a retrieval team waiting for her in the fuming bowl of a West Virginia hillside—another unending coal-mine fire. And there was Redmayne, held by two goons, bound in silver and still wounded. Pallor turned his dark skin gray where it wasn’t abraded or lacerated scarlet, and he was so gaunt he looked ready to shatter. But he snarled and fought every attempt to stanch his wounds until his captors gave up and left him to bleed.

  “Hurt much?” she muttered, keeping clear of him.

  “Like hell.”

  They were delivered to Fiore’s office. Their escort had already patted her down and confiscated her knives as well as the pack. At least he didn’t make me undress, the creep. He marched them to the desk where Fiore stood, handed over the pack, and left. The soundproof door shushed closed behind him.

  Fiore smiled. “Nice job, Em—bit slow, but no harm done.” He turned his attention to Redmayne. “Welcome back, Lennie.”

  “Fiore, you blackhearted, murdering sod.” He didn’t even sound angry.

  “Oh, come on, Redmayne. You were never really director material, talent or not. And it was so good of you to—”

  Peacock stepped between them. “You shot me, you son of a bitch.” She whipped one hand out for his throat.

  Fiore grabbed her wrist and wrenched her hand aside. “I always knew you’d get wise.” Fiore glanced at Redmayne. “Did you tell her?”

  Redmayne scoffed weakly. The wound on his chest was still oozing blood. “After my time, mate. Think she couldn’t figure it out herself, you silly, fat bastard?”

  Peacock jerked her arm against Fiore’s hold and he yanked her farther sideways with a snarl. She propelled herself into the motion, jumping and sliding onto the desktop to ram her near foot into Fiore’s gut. He dropped his grip, and she rolled off with a gratuitous kick toward his face as she passed. Fiore reeled back and shook his head clear.

  The pack fell and spilled rocks and bits of black armor across the rug. Peacock dove and snatched the sharp bit of scale she’d used on Redmayne.

  Fiore took a step and kicked her in the side, rolling her hard against the wall.

  Peacock flipped and used her legs to thrust herself upright. Fiore closed the distance, and she slashed at him, back to the wall.

  He snatched for her hand and caught her forearm, crushing his weight against her. He rammed her into the plaster. “Temper, temper, Emily,” Fiore murmured. “I figured I’d have to scrub you soon, but with Lennie back, I won’t miss you that much.”

  He started muttering under his breath. She felt like she was unraveling around the edges, but the necromancer would have to cut her throat to finish it, and right now his hands were busy. She rammed a knee upward. It was feeble, but enough to cut off his breath for a moment. C’mon, Redmayne. . . .

  “You set this up from the beginning, you rat bastard,” she snapped. “Hired me, killed me, drew me back up so you could run me. You sent me to Hell for your own amusement—”

  From his knees, Redmayne heaved his bound weight upward against the desk, and it rocked into Fiore’s back.

  Fiore twisted a furious glare over his shoulder as Redmayne staggered. Peacock seized the opening and slashed Fiore with the sharp bit of armor. It grazed his ear. Fiore whipped around, snapping Peacock’s wrist with the motion. The blade dragged down her cheek as he flung her toward Redmayne.

  Peacock ducked into a ball, and her cut cheek slapped hard into the bleeding wound on Redmayne’s chest.

  Redmayne vanished and Peacock collapsed to the floor in his place.

&n
bsp; Fiore strode over and dragged Peacock to her feet. He held her by the throat and shook her as she hung stiffly from his hands.

  “Lennie!” Fiore shouted. He glared around the room. “Come out! You know how I’ll kill her, and you don’t want to watch that.”

  There was a rough hiss near Fiore’s back, and Peacock choked in his grip. She muttered, “You can fucking try, mate, but it’ll be a bloody good trick when she’s behind you.”

  Peacock’s appearance melted away and revealed Redmayne snarling in Fiore’s grip.

  Less than a foot from Fiore’s spine, Peacock herself, her leathers unzipped to the waist, yanked a long needle of the hell lord’s claw from a slit in the skin below her breast. She jabbed it an inch into her boss’s back.

  Fiore twitched and dropped Redmayne. A black cloud erupted from the floor beneath Fiore and engulfed him. The dark smoke swirled and writhed to his screams, binding him within its coil, then flowed away again like ink down a drain and dragged the necromancer with it. Only an echo and the stink of hot iron lingered to mark their passage.

  The air was thick and still with anticipation. Then the desk groaned and toppled. Peacock jumped back from it with a startled hiss.

  Then she laughed and flopped down next to Redmayne in the soundproof silence. Fiore’s guys knew better than to interrupt while he was working, so she could afford a moment to catch her breath. She picked up a hell-baked stone and crushed it in her grip so she could rub the dust into her broken wrist and scatter the rest onto Redmayne’s chest. Blood ran down her cheek from the cut she’d put there, but she ignored it. “Well. I wasn’t sure about that hell lord’s claw, but it seemed to work. Where do you suppose it sent Fiore?”

  “You can’t guess from the reek? I’d lay odds he’s having a natter with the original owner about now.”

  “Aww . . . and I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

  Her wrist straightened with a sound like popcorn exploding. “Ow,” she yelped. She shook out her hand and wiggled her fingers, then zipped her suit closed, and helped Redmayne into a sitting position. “I have never been so glad for stupid men. The guy who frisked me was too busy copping a feel to notice that damned needle.”

  “To be fair, it was rather small, and you’ve got some nasty scars to hide it under,” Redmayne replied, and squirmed. “Could you get these shackles off me? Right irritating, they are.”

  Peacock pulled a couple of picks from the seams of her leathers and started on the lock.

  Redmayne watched her work. “I’d not count him out entirely yet. Necromancers don’t just walk back out of Hell, but he’s still alive down there until something kills him, and he’ll be looking for a way out.”

  “Like you did?” she said, opening up the restraints.

  “Ta,” he said, rubbing at his arms and wrists. “Nah. I started by looking for a way in, but I’d never been to Hell and I had to guess a lot and go on theory. Then I had to find the right liminal point and make sure I had someone I could trust to get rid of my remains. Had to figure out exactly how black and which shade of damnation my soul had to wear to land in exactly the right place. Had to leave bits of intrigue behind that only I could solve for him. I knew he’d have to send someone for me eventually. Bit of luck it was you.”

  “Luck?”

  Redmayne nodded self-consciously. “Yeah. I didn’t have much of a plan for when I got out. It was chatting you up made it come together, but Fiore laid the ground himself. If he hadn’t bent you over, you’d have had no cause to throw in with me.”

  Peacock gave him a cynical look. “You had no plan at all? You didn’t know I was coming, didn’t trick me into attracting that lord’s attention so you could get its claw?”

  “Maybe the claw, I did. The rest was mostly the happenstance of you being you and saving my arse. I’m not so bleeding clever, or I’d have come up with some way to avoid the whole thing. At the time, we couldn’t run the Directory without a necromancer, and Thaumaturge in Chief didn’t have the kind of power that Fiore’s built up since then. And I’m not good at killing people—all that—”

  “All that blood,” Peacock finished. “You’re a twisty bit of work, Redmayne. I’m still wondering what happens to me now that Fiore’s gone. I’m surprised I haven’t dropped dead already. And how much better off are you? I mean, technically you’re—what?—some kind of hellspawn now?”

  Redmayne shrugged and grimaced. “Well, hellborn, yeah—bit of an affinity after walking out. This body looks the same as what Fiore murdered—or it will when I’m not portal-sick—but I’m not sure yet on the functional details of living in this world in flesh created in Hell.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “I guess.” Redmayne gave her a crooked smile. “Think I can get me old job back?”

  Peacock started scavenging in the wreckage for weapons. “I’m willing to help you try.”

  EYE OF NEWT

  A Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I., Adventure

  Kevin J. Anderson

  I

  The afternoon got a lot more interesting when the one-eyed lizard guy stumbled into our offices, begging for protection.

  At Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations, even on quiet days, there’s always paperwork to do, files to close out, dead cases to resurrect or just bury for good. I’m a detective—a zombie detective. I can throw a mean punch and stand up to the ugliest, foulest-smelling demon, but paperwork has never been my forte. That’s why I have an office assistant, Sheyenne. She’s a ghost, and she’s also my girlfriend. It doesn’t matter that we intermingle our work lives and our personal lives, since neither of us is alive anyway.

  Sheyenne had been realphabetizing files while I looked over cases I had recently wrapped up, some in more dramatic fashion than others, a few even verging on “end of the world” dramatic, so it’s a good thing I’m skilled at my job. In studying the files, I wasn’t looking for mistakes; just reviewing my greatest hits and wishing we had another case to work on at the moment.

  My lawyer partner, Robin Deyer, was in court, prosecuting a case of cemeterial fraud and incompetence—an underclass-action suit against a tombstone engraver who had committed far too many misspellings. Now that zombies were rising frequently from the grave, the formerly silent customers noticed the typos on their headstones, and a group had hired Robin to sue for damages on their behalf.

  That left just Sheyenne and me in the offices. We had a dinner date planned for that evening, but we hadn’t settled on a restaurant yet. It was mainly an excuse for us to be together, all form and no sustenance, since I rarely ate anyway and a ghost didn’t eat at all.

  In the meantime, as she flitted from one file cabinet to another, Sheyenne watched a small TV tuned to a local cable channel that covered the Stone-Cold Monster Cook-off, which was taking place downtown in the Unnatural Quarter. A variety of skilled chefs competed in the daylong event; the crowds were getting larger now that the cook-off was down to three finalists. Sheyenne watched the unnatural chefs go about their extravagant preparations with enough pots, pans, and utensils to equip an inhuman army. She jotted down a recipe suggested by the loud, green-skinned Ragin’ Cajun Mage, just in case she ever got around to cooking.

  Then the office door crashed open, which was all the more remarkable because the creature that barged in was barely three feet tall. A scrawny lizard man with speckled brown skin, one yellow eye, and gauze and surgical tape covering where the other eye should have been.

  “I need your help!” he said, in a phlegmy, hissy voice. “Are you Dan Shamble? You’ve got to help me!”

  “It’s Chambeaux,” I corrected him as I came out of my office to greet him. I moved stiffly on joints that were still recovering from rigor mortis.

  Sheyenne is usually very professional, but she cried out in delight when she saw him. “Oh, aren’t you cute! Look, Beaux—he’s from the car-insurance commercials.”<
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  After stumbling inside, the lizard man slammed the door behind him with surprising strength. “That’s a gecko,” he snapped. His long tongue flicked in and out. “I’m a newt. There’s a difference.”

  “Sorry if I offended you.” She drifted forward to meet him. “Come in, sir. You’re safe here.”

  I made sure my .38 was in its hip holster, just in case the lizard man was being imminently pursued, but when no slavering, eye-stealing monsters charged after him, I figured we had enough time for a normal client-intake meeting. “Tell me what’s going on, Mr., uh, Newt.”

  “My name is Geck.” That must have been embarrassing for a guy who was too often confused for a humorous gecko insurance spokesman. “There’s a hit out on me, and I was attacked last night.”

  “Who, exactly, is out to get you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know! I didn’t think I had any enemies. I mean, I’m a warm and fuzzy guy . . . as far as an amphibian can be.”

  In the conference room, I had to bring him a booster chair so he could see over the edge of the table. If Robin were here, she would have been taking copious notes on a yellow legal pad, but I just sat and listened. The one-eyed newt didn’t seem at all bothered by the bullet hole in the center of my forehead or my gray pallor. “Tell us your story, Geck.”

  He licked his lips. “I’m walking home, minding my own business, whistling to myself, and then . . .” He shuddered. “Suddenly, I get accosted by two big thugs: a rock monster and a clay golem. ‘Get him! He’s the one we’ve got a contract out on,’ says the rock monster. And the golem says, ‘Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.’

  “And they grab me. Because it’s a cool night, I’m a little lethargic. If I’d been sunning myself on a hot rock, I could’ve scurried out of their grasp, but I was too slow. They grab me, slam me up against the brick wall of an alley, then . . . they take out a long spoon.” He shuddered again, sobbed. “They scoop out my eye, quick as you please, and pop it in a glass bottle. The golem holds me while the rock monster just laughs! ‘We’d get twice as much if we took your other eye, too,’ he says. ‘You better watch yourself.’ Then the golem says, ‘He won’t be watching much of anything now. Come on, we got what we need.’”