Nightlord: Orb

by Garon Whited

  That kind of killed the conversation for me. I mean, what do I say to that? Okay, “You’re welcome,” obviously, but seriously. Would he still be thanking me if he knew everything? He’s a minister, or a reverend, or some species of the religious persuasion. I doubt he’d have anything good to say about a blood-drinking fiend of darkness that haunts the night by preying on human beings.

  Hmm. That reminds me. I need to talk to Mary about why vampires exist, or if they even have a reason. Do the local bloodsuckers have some sort of creation myth?

  We minded the stand for the afternoon. The kids came back from school and came over to join us, but Gary got right back into a cab and buzzed away.

  “What gives?” I asked. Edgar explained that Gary’s father, Mark, had some sort of emergency. He didn’t have the details, but Susan sent Gary to the hospital to be with his dad, just in case.

  I didn’t like that, but I’m suspicious by nature.

  What with the weather and the slow day, Fred and I sent the kids home early. They were in kind of a depressed mood, anyway. Fred and I sorted out the few things we’d collected and he went home. Doubtless, Myrna would gloat over the wasted effort. Or maybe that’s unkind of me; I shouldn’t assume she’s like that. Maybe she’s really a nice person underneath it all, albeit with a few really annoying faults. We all have them. It’s not fair to think of her as a gloater until I catch her gloating.

  With a fire blazing away in the fireplace, I settled on the heaviest chair.

  Busy, Boss? Firebrand asked.

  “Not at the moment. Why? Assassins sneaking up the yard?”

  Not that I’ve noticed, but if those magi types show up, how would I tell?

  “Fair point. What’s on your mind?”

  First, the nosy person—Myrna?

  “Yes?”

  She’s been poking around. Came up to the door, rang the bell, and tried to peek in the windows. Walked all the way around the house, in fact. That porch puts the windows at an easy eye-level.

  “Any idea why?”

  She suspects you don’t live alone, Boss. She’s seen lights on and stuff at all hours and assumes you sleep.

  “Oh. Did she find anything?”

  Not that I noticed her noticing. She didn’t bother with the barn. If you let kids play in it, then there’s nothing worth seeing. That’s her theory.

  I understand Fred’s point of view on Myrna. I kind of understand Myrna’s neurosis, or quirk, or pathological need, or whatever it is. On the other well-taloned hand, I do not like having her nose around my house, much less pressed against my windows.

  Maybe I should get a dog.

  “Anything else?”

  Yeah. While you were talking with the lady corpse—

  “Mary.”

  Mary, right. She’s scared, Boss.

  “I’m not trying to be scary.”

  She’s scared of you anyway, but that’s not what I meant. You’re scary and exciting and she likes that. She’s more scared of her situation. She’s not used to relying on the hospitality of others. Something about being utterly helpless during the day and not knowing how your household is set up. She thinks you have mind-controlled servants roaming around the place and it creeps her out that she’s never seen them.

  Worse, for her, is she’s desperate to figure out how to get out of the social mess. Right now, her only hope is that whoever comes after you doesn’t deliberately go after her; it’s her only chance to survive.

  “My heart bleeds for her,” I observed. “On the other hand, she did put her life in jeopardy by warning me about the upcoming trouble. I suppose I can’t blame her if she regrets it now.”

  I wouldn’t say she regrets it so much as she worries about it. It excites her to be on an adventure, or in danger, or whatever it is. Something about her likes this. She’s unhappy she doesn’t see a way out of it. She also doesn’t want you to die, Boss. She likes you, in a frightened fashion, and being scared of you also excites her, like I said.

  “That’s kind of sad, actually.”

  Man of mystery, Boss. Nothing like a riddle in a mystery in an enigma, or something. Besides, she likes being scared.

  “She does?”

  She does and she knows it. She’s immortal and enjoys adventure. It keeps her from being bored, Boss.

  “I’m immortal and I’m not bored.”

  Have you looked at your so-called life, lately?

  “Maybe you have a point.”

  And an edge.

  “Ouch. I don’t suppose you have any ideas on how to deal with vampire society?”

  Cut them to pieces and burn the pieces until they give up or run out of vampires, Firebrand replied, without hesitation.

  “How about any helpful ideas?”

  That’s not helpful? Firebrand asked. It sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “It’s only helpful if we can surprise lots of them together at one time. If word gets around we’re picking off individuals or small groups, they’ll start using new tactics.”

  Well, that’s not fair.

  “Maybe not, but we have to assume they’ll cheat. They’re undead monsters, after all.”

  Good point. You can’t trust those bastards.

  “Meanwhile,” I went on, ignoring the comment, “I need to try and wake Mary.” I added more wood to the fire, building it up to a roar. “Don’t let the fire get out of hand,” I cautioned.

  I’m on it, Boss.

  I went downstairs and shook Mary a little. She lay there, limp as a corpse. I tried a number of small, painful things—bending a finger, pressing some nerve points, that sort of thing. No response. I even fetched a lighter and lightly burned the edge of her hand. No reaction, aside from a little singeing.

  Well, so much for that experiment. Daytime corpses seem to stay that way. I’ll try again after sunset and see if she can wake up early.

  Yep.

  After my sunset shower and change, I went downstairs and started trying to wake her. All it took was a little poking and prodding and she stirred.

  “Evening, sleepyhead,” I offered. “The sun has been down for a quarter of an hour and you’re still lying there, dead to the world. Come on. The night’s a-wasting!”

  She stretched and sat up, then unwrapped the towel from around her head. Long, pale-blonde hair tumbled down over her shoulders. The combination of the blonde hair, the blue eyes, and the athletic figure put me in mind of Scandinavian models, but without the eating disorders.

  “Nice,” I observed. “Is that the hairstyle you had at the moment you died?”

  “Yes. I figured longer hair can always be cut, but shorter hair requires a wig.” She shook her head, fluffed her hair, rang fingers through it. “It’s a fright when I first grow it out. Do you have a snack for me before I hit the bathroom?”

  “Right here.”

  She drank her breakfast and we tested another vial of rabbit blood. Still edible, apparently, but according to her, disgusting. I took her word for it. If the blood will crawl across the table to soak into my skin, it’s good enough for me. Ogre blood goes bad fairly quickly if you leave it in the corpse, I know that. On the other hand, I’ve drunk bloody juice from a package of frozen steaks. Refrigeration is key.

  While she was in the shower, I called Larry to find out what was up with Mark. He put me on the phone with Susan; she took the call from the hospital. Mark had suffered a fall, resulting in a severe blow to the head. That was all she knew.

  My suspicious nature was still ticking over. Hospital patients don’t spend much time wandering around. It was possible he was well enough to walk to the toilet instead of dealing with a catheter, but a slip and a fall? Hospitals hate that sort of thing. They even put perfectly healthy people in wheelchairs to take them out of the building. What were the odds Mark actually had an accident?

  Mary came out of the bathroom with her red dress again. Her hair was done differently, too. It still looked rather wild, but now it was an artistic wild instead of I-just-woke-u
p hair.

  “I’m going into the city to visit a sick friend,” I told her, “and find out who tried to kill him. Then I’m going on a murder spree or a rampage, depending. Want to come along?”

  “I wish you’d tell me these things before I pick my outfit,” she complained.

  “I just found out.”

  “Excuses.” She ran her fingers through her hair and frowned. “What’s the difference between a murder spree and a rampage?” she asked.

  “Scale.”

  “Let me change clothes.”

  We dressed in jeans, practical shoes, shirts, and light coats to keep the rain off. Mary put her hair in a ponytail and added a baseball cap to keep her hair mostly dry.

  There was little else to discover at the hospital. Mark was still unconscious in the ICU and likely to remain that way. I didn’t get much out of the staff, since I wasn’t a relative. Mary managed to wrangle some information out of a doctor by claiming to be Mark’s girlfriend. Mark had a bleed in his brain from the impact, which they fixed. The only question now was how much damage had been done to the brain. As for how Mark managed to hit his head, the doctor had no idea—or was instructed by the corporate lawyers to not say anything due to potential liability of the hospital.

  Mary and I sat in a waiting room, leaned against each other like a tired couple, and whispered.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “I suspect some unpleasant elements of organized crime want Mark to drop conveniently dead.”

  “Powers?”

  “I sincerely doubt Powers wants to have anything to do with this. In fact, I would bet hard money he recommended against it, if anyone asked his opinion.”

  “Powers’ boss?”

  “More likely. Thing is, I don’t know for certain this is anything more than an unfortunate accident. I need a few minutes alone with Mark to find out.”

  “He’s comatose and almost certainly brain damaged,” she pointed out.

  “I plan to pull his soul out, ask it, then put it back.”

  Mary didn’t argue it. She didn’t even ask if I was serious. She turned her head to stare at me for a few seconds, then nodded and moved on.

  “Okay. I can distract the nurses at the station. You walk by like you know exactly what you’re doing and they won’t pay any attention to you.”

  “Suits me.”

  Mary did her part in getting the nurses attention; semi-hysterical wives are good for that. I don’t even know what her story was, but it seemed effective. I ignored her and walked calmly by.

  Mark was well and truly out. At least hospitals in this time and place don’t beep constantly. The numbers didn’t mean much to me, aside from basic things like heartbeat and respiration.

  Gary was curled up in a chair, asleep. I touched him with a tendril, checking to see how tired he was. Pretty tired, but that was to be expected. His healing spell was still running and his father was gravely injured. Either one is tiring, but both are exhausting.

  Mark’s healing spell was only aimed at his burns. I added some power to it and told it to work on his brain, too, to get it back into shape. It would ramp up his natural healing process and expand on it. Things that wouldn’t heal naturally could do so; things that would heal with scars wouldn’t leave scars; things that would heal completely would heal faster.

  I wove tendrils all through him, felt out the shape of his soul, and stretched it a bit. That didn’t work too well on its own; I had to cobble together a magical matrix to help it. That took a while. Some of the bindings between the soul and the flesh were more fragile than I liked. I had to reinforce those at the same time I stretched them in order to get him to answer questions. Think of it as having his ghost sit up while his body didn’t. He never actually came out of his body. He became a little distant from it in spots, that’s all.

  I kept tendrils wrapped around his head, effectively blindfolding his spirit. I didn’t want him to see me like this. Come to that, I didn’t want him to see him like this.

  “Who did this?” I asked, softly, pulsing the question mentally down the strands.

  “What’s happening?”

  “You’re in the hospital and getting better. Now shut up and answer the question.”

  “It was Weaver and Russel,” he said. “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “I’m the Dark and you’re in the hospital. Where can I find these two and who do they work for?”

  Mark and I discussed matters for a bit. When I felt I had all the information, I put him back into his body, made sure he was tacked down inside it, and double-checked my healing spell. It really needed more power, but I didn’t have enough to charge it properly. With luck, it would let him recover enough to go home and regular therapy could take it from there.

  But I knew I’d come back to visit and add that little extra. I’m such a sucker for a happy ending.

  Walking out of ICU attracted a little attention, but nobody tried to stop me. Leaving isn’t nearly as likely to disturb patients. The staff wants you to leave; you’re one less person in the way.

  Mary and I regrouped in the lobby and walked out into the light, cold rain and gusty winds. Nobody was anywhere near us. Almost nobody was out on the street at all.

  “Find out what you wanted to know?” she asked, taking my arm and pressing close as we walked away.

  “I think so. Do you know any enforcers named Weaver or Russel?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “How about a mid-level boss named Tyrone?”

  “That name I know. He has a hand in most of the stolen merchandise in the city. I haven’t met him, but I’ve sold a few pricey things to people who work directly for him, I think. Powers is under him, I’m sure. I’m not sure what else he’s into.”

  “Want to burn his house down? Or do you want to watch?” I asked. The rain slowed to a drizzle as we walked.

  “Can it wait a day?” she asked.

  “I suppose, but why?”

  “If you’re going to be a hell of a distraction, I’d like to rob the place.”

  “I’m going to be the distraction from Hell,” I assured her, chuckling. “Guardian demon, remember?”

  “I bet Tyrone will. If he lives.”

  “No promises.”

  Mary and I went shopping. She knew what she wanted and where to get it. All I did was pay for it. Afterward, we swung by her bank and the all-night terminal there. She did some money-juggling. I’m not sure what, exactly, but it gave her some cash and put her balance into some other account, presumably covering her financial tracks. I don’t know what she did with the terminal or what instructions she gave. That’s modern finance for you—more complicated than Hohmann transfer orbits or calculating eclipses.

  “Any chance your relatives will trace you by the money?” I asked.

  “Oh, they’ll do that,” she assured me. “As long as I’m not at the bank when they show up, the best they can do is tell I’m still around town.”

  “Works for me.”

  We went to an all-night coffee place and Mary did some cybering. Aerial views of the neighborhood where Tyrone lived, his house and surrounding grounds, street views of the place, that sort of thing. Then we went for a drive down his street and around the neighborhood.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Nice wall, but it’s for show,” she told me. “The front gate is real, but aside from the guard on it, it’s not much. The whole outer perimeter is nothing but an elaborate tripwire, really. Having dogs and live guards on the grounds means they don’t have motion sensors outside. My feeling is the guards are muscle in suits, not professional security. The dogs aren’t a problem if you know what you’re doing.

  “The house itself,” she continued, “is trickier. There’s no telling what sort of security they have. But that’s part of what makes it fun.”

  “So, you have a plan?”

  “Yep. You’re going to like it.”

  “I am?” I asked, dubious.
>
  “Of course. Don’t you want to rescue me? It is your turn, you know.”

  “I suppose it is. Tell me more.”

  Friday, November 6th

  Mary put together her new housebreaking outfit. I sucked up all the power from another Stall and did some work with a scrying mirror and a sketchpad. She didn’t ask me how I got the layout of the house and the location of both safes. She took the notes, kissed my cheek, and told me I was the best accomplice she’d ever had.

  I’ve never been called that before.

  After sunrise, I went down to the local animal shelter to find myself a dog. This did not go well. I walked in the front, into the business office portion of the building, and I heard the rising wails and rattling cages in the back. I didn’t even get to talk to anyone; someone from the back burst into the front and demanded help—the cats were going crazy and the dogs were barking and everything was going to hell in a handbasket!

  I wandered back out. Hopefully, things calmed down. I guess cats really don’t like me. Shame about that. I don’t have anything against them. I suppose it goes with being a part-time undead. Once again, I am tragically understood.

  As a result, it took me most of the day to get a dog. I had to go cyberhunting for people trying to get rid of one. On the plus side, the dog I got came with shot records, chew toy, pet bed, the works. She was a mixed-breed of German shepherd and black Labrador, I think; she didn’t have a pedigree. She used to be the husband’s dog, but when the wife kicked him to the curb, it was time for the dog to go, too. Since his apartment didn’t allow dogs, it was a case of free-to-a-good-home.

  She didn’t like me a whole lot, at least to begin with. We sat down with Firebrand and had a nice, long talk. She still wasn’t too thrilled about being adopted by me, but meeting the Four-minus-one helped settle her in. They liked her instantly; she liked them. I think having a huge yard also helped. If I had to live in the house, too… well, that was acceptable.