Daughter of Danger: The Dark Avenger's Sidekick Book One (Moth & Cobweb 4)

by John C. Wright

  1. Hunting Blind

  Ami thought that whoever had sent the wolves to watch the hospital would wish to avoid both the attention of the humans and the attention of the elfs she had been told were the secret rulers of the world. Hence, the redcaps should be forced to act quickly, before either the power department, or the police, or whatever servants the elfs might send came to the scene. She assumed the owner of the dance studio, if no one else, would report the downed power line hissing in the alley behind the hospital.

  She was baffled when, about forty-five minutes later, four workmen in a Con-Ed truck arrived and set up yellow cones and tape around the area telling pedestrians to stay away.

  One man climbed the utility pole, shut off the power, and disconnected the damaged line. He inspected the transformer that had been splashed with fire. He marked the transformer with tape but left it in place. The damaged lines were wound onto a large wooden spool by a second man. The other two men stood smoking cigarettes, chatting, glancing from time to time at the dead wolves in the alley, and voicing quizzical bafflement but not actually being curious enough to go to look at them.

  There was a conversation over the radio in the truck. The four men stood around idly for quite some time. Later, a supervisor in a car arrived. The supervisor stared for a moment at the dead wolf in the transhcan and then at the other dead wolves. He spoke to another man, who made a note on a clipboard. They both shrugged. Then, they drove away, first the supervisor and then the men in the truck, leaving the wolves where they were.

  Ami wondered how often humans came across clear evidence that the world was stranger than any simple tale they had been told, but instead of questioning their simple tales, they doubted their eyes. She wondered darkly how much of the elfin dominion of men relied on men willingly acting just like the sheep the elfs held them to be.

  Like the sorrow that touched her at the mere mention of a mother, the burning anger—bright as a sword—that flashed in her spirit then was an echo of her forgotten life. At that moment, she knew she was not a mere bystander, nor was she a servant of the elfs, she was firmly on the side of the Sons of Adam and an enemy of their enemies.

  She set herself again to wait.

  2. Whelan and Phelan

  Ami cleared her mind of thought and her heart of desire. The chattering monkey-like thoughts of regret endlessly replaying her mistakes in memory were eventually quieted. Absurd and excessive doubts and fears came next, and then whispered thoughts of overconfidence, retaliation, revenge. Stillness and silence eventually prevailed. She waited. Somewhere far above the lights of the city, the cold stars turned.

  At midnight, two wolves came into view, moving furtively. One limped, putting no weight on his left hindleg. The other moved his head strangely, hesitantly. When he put his nose near the wolf in the trashcan and sniffed, the light from a passing car crossed his visage. He was blind. Both wore red caps on their narrow wolfish skulls. Both sported a white owl’s feather.

  The two wolves circled the area, noses to the ground.

  The blind one said, “The one we seek. She was here.”

  The lame one looked up. Ami knelt where she was, motionless as a shadow, as the wolfish yellow eyes peered upward. He said, “She sat in a bricked-up window and shot. Then leaped across the gap to the electrical box.”

  The blind one said, “We’ve already circled the building. She came out of the cathedral, crossed the roof, fought here, and went into the courtyard. There, the trail ends. Perhaps she flew up into the air.”

  The lame one said, “She cannot fly.”

  “Oh? Say so much to Ghid Goborchend, mighty in battle, whom she plashed like a tub of red ale across the roof next door.”

  “Winged Vengeance flies. Not the sidekick.”

  The blind one merely snorted in derision.

  The lame one said, “Whelan, come! Let us take the shapes and shadows of men, and find a way to the roof, and find the scent.”

  Ami, listening, knew that the wolves could not fail to find her if they did that. However, deep in her icy calm, she did not stir, but waited.

  The blind one said, “No, Phelan. Speak no folly. We would be nude, and you cannot walk. And what if she has conjured the mist and turned herself invisible?”

  The lame one said dubiously, “Perhaps we could catch her scent through the mist, by some good happenstance, or stumble on her.”

  “You think to find the unseen and hidden things by some good happenstance?” The blind one lowered his voice. “There are easier ways and darker powers. Thursday is not the sole voice which speaks for the Supreme Anarchists’ Council. What of Sunday?”

  The lame one, Phelan, shivered and crouched.

  The blind one, Whelan, sniffed. “What? You balk?”

  “I sold myself because I was promised rapine, murder, and revenge against the haughty Sons of Adam. My soul is dark enough! Will you go down a mineshaft ever deeper? There is no way back! I still want a life in the sunlight once again, once my debt is paid.”

  Whelan said, “My eyes are gone. Why should I fear the darkness now? You are as lost to the sunlight as I, but I see truth.”

  Phelan shook his head and growled.

  The blind one said, “No one wears the wolfpelt who has not killed wife or child, brother or best friend. Are you too fine and nice for our work now? A small ghost follows you, to be your judge on Judgment Day. How will you beg for mercy? Will you, perhaps, use the very same last words your little victim said in life? You mutter those words in your sleep. Do you hope to go to Paradise and sit at the feast table of the bridegroom, with all those you have wronged seated to either side, smiling, showing with pride the wounds you placed on them? Can you tolerate their forgiveness?”

  Phelan lowered his head, lower and lower, as he heard these words, until he was prone on the ground, whimpering. He rolled over and exposed his throat. He said, “Very well, Whelan. Tell me what to do.”

  3. Necromancy

  Whelan said, “Weave a circle thrice widdershins. Bow to the north, where Fenrir is chained. To the west, bow to Tigernmas, father of us all. To the south, bow to the Black Wolves of Krishna. To the east we look not: it is the dayspring and dawnlight, our foes. Say the secret words as you were taught, but chant them backward! Sunday’s servant must appear.”

  Phelan walked in three counterclockwise circles about the two of them, dragging his lame foot, and then crouched and lowered his head in three directions. The words he spoke were horrible and seemed to burn his tongue because he spat them and yowled.

  A spot of light appeared in the vacant lot. It was the color one sees when pushing a thumb into a closed eyelid, and it illuminated nothing. Slowly, it came closer. It came into the edge of the circle Phelan had traced on the ground, and there it stood.

  Whelan growled, “Not enough! Say it again!”

  Phelan whined, but complied, and spoke the words once more. He coughed, and blood was on his teeth.

  Now by the edge of the circle stood a king in black. His skin was pale as paper. On his breast was a white and leafless tree. The black crown on his head smoldered with heat. His eyes were pits, his mouth a wound. On a chain about his neck hung the hunting horn that had earlier called the pack of werewolves.

  “I am the shadow of the Hunter King. Who dares call me, I who know no rest, no ease, no peace?” His voice was less than an echo, less than a memory. Ami heard it in her head but not in her ear.

  Phelan crouched in fear, shivering, but Whelan, who could not see, said, “I speak with the voice and authority of Sunday of the Anarchists. In his name you are called. Where is the one we seek? Is she here?”

  The dark king said, “I was once as you are now, and I knew sun and sky and all the joys and pains of life. Soon, so soon, you shall be as I am, and my vengeance on you for this affront shall be fulfilled. Euhemerus Cobweb binds me, but a deeper chain binds him in turn, forged by his hand and fettered on his limbs, and soon the river of Hell shall claim him. Do not ask me to seek your p
rey, you who breathe the breath of life. It is unlawful.”

  Whelan said, “Anarchists defy all laws! Is she here? Is she nearby?”

  “Do not ask. The price is more than you can bear.”

  Whelan growled. “I do not want your pity, shadow of a dead man! Tell me! I charge and compel you by the name you carried in life! Le Maudit!”

  “Thrice I warn, and thrice the warning you refuse! Your fate is one you yourself, eyes wide open, choose.”

  The figure turned its empty eyes upward, and Ami felt the ring on her finger grow suddenly heavy. Her sense of calm was not disturbed.

  Its eyeless gaze passed over her.

  The apparition turned its empty gaze toward the wolves. “I see none here nor near, save you, whom now I very clearly see. The hour is at hand when you shall enter this dark realm of woe, and, as I am now to you, be subject thou to me.”

  There came a sudden wind down the alleyway, and rubbish and dust were thrown into the faces of the two wolves. Whelan stood still, but Phelan limped backward and stepped over the circle he had made.

  The dark king smiled cruelly and vanished like a snuffed candle.

  4. Ahemait the Devourer

  Phelan, the lame one, glared at Whelan and snarled. “You fool! You damned fool! To spare yourself the bother and pother of climbing a wall, you thought it would be easier and quicker to call the dead! He gave us nothing! All bargains with the dark are cheats!”

  Whelan said, “Silence, murderer! The shade of Le Maudit confirmed she is not nigh. There is no scent of elf or eft, one-legged Fomorian or six-fingered Nephilim, in this place. It is safe to call the rough, ungainly beast to clean the spoor away.”

  Both wolves trotted into the avenue, outside of Ami’s range of vision and howled.

  The churchbell in the cathedral next door tolled once; the peal rang out into the dark night air and echoed from the walls of the tall buildings all around. Ami wondered if this were some mistake. Surely an hour had not passed?

  She looked down. A man in a white robe with a dark hooded cloak over it was standing in the alley. His hair was white, and his goatee was black. On a thong around his neck hung a crucifix of silver and ivory. His head was bowed as if he were inspecting the ground where the dark king had been standing; or perhaps he was praying.

  The tap of nails on pavement came from the mouth of the alley. The two wolves came back around, one trotting and one limping. The man in the black hood was gone as if he had never been there.

  Behind the wolves, a large truck approached. Its headlamps were off. A man in a black leather biker’s jacket, smoking a cigarette, dismounted from the cab, and tossed two packages down, one before each wolf. He had the straight black hair, dark skin, and the harsh features of a Plains Indian. He wore no red cap, so perhaps he was human, but he had an owl’s feather braided in his hair.

  Phelan sniffed the package. “What’s this, Cheyenne?”

  The Cheyenne said, “Pants and shirt. You are helping. Stand up.”

  Whelan answered with a curse. The Cheyenne answered in turn by kicking the blind wolf in the ribs.

  The blind wolf swore and snarled at him. The man said, “Who has Thursday’s ear, dog? The name of Kuckunniwi is high among the Anarchists, and yours is lower than snake belly dirt! I did not have my butt kicked by a butt-naked frail chinky-chick and then sat licking my butt while my boss was tossed out a window into street pizza. Shut your yaps, whelps, and give thanks all is not worse for you. Thursday does not cotton to whiners and failures!”

  Phelan opened his jaws to say something back, but the Cheyenne kicked him in the head. “Stand up! Stand on two feet.”

  The two wolves transformed. It was horrible to see. Both writhed in pain, snapping and rolling on the ground, and their limbs snapped and stretched back into human shape. Fur and claws were forced down beneath the skin, and the wolves howled as if needles and knives tormented their hide and hands. The wolf skulls swelled and distorted, pulsing atrociously. A cracking and grinding sound came from their bubbling flesh, as if skull plates and bones were breaking and reknitting. Both wolves yowled as their knees joints were bent backward and reversed to become human knees. The howls turned into human screams and curses.

  The large truck now backed carefully up to put its tailgate across the alley mouth. The Cheyenne stood behind the truck and guided the driver with motions of his hand.

  The driver, a black man with earrings in both ears, emerged from the cab. He and the Cheyenne lowered the tailgate. Inside was some huge living thing whose breathing was like a diesel engine hissing a deep and endless bass note.

  The four men now took up long chains affixed to whatever it was in the truck. At the Cheyenne’s command, they all heaved.

  A huge creature, larger than a hippopotamus, came lumbering down the tailgate, shaking the truck on its shock absorbers with each step. Its skull was a flat, wide triangle, and the grin on the creature split its face all the way back to its tiny, round ears. Its head was more like that of a crocodile than any creature Ami could name. It throat was a pendant bag like the throat of a pelican. Its eyes were small and black and were surrounded by squinting rolls of fat. Short curved tusks protruded from the lower jaw. Its neck was a horseshoe of thick fur worn across its shoulders.

  Its body in the front was like that of a great hunting cat, and its forepaws were those of a lion. But its rear parts were bulky, squat, and rounded like a hippopotamus. The hindfeet were toeless stumps, and the tail was long and wide like the tail of a brontosaurus, and it was held high to counterbalance the massive spatulate head. Its hide before was covered with a mane of fur, but behind was rough and scabby, and clumps of bristles peeped here and there.

  The four men drove the huge beast out of the truck. It stomped awkwardly over to the corpses of the wolves. There, it lowered its wide, grinning head and squinted its piggy eyes in confusion, nostrils twitching. The Cheyenne cursed and struck the great beast with a goad, shouting commands. The vast mouth opened like the scoop of a steam shovel. The lower jaw was resting on the pavement, and the upper jaw tilted up to point at the rooftops. The men, moving quickly, crouched near the lipless jaws and shoved the corpse of the nearest wolf into the huge, red maw. It swallowed like a goose, by throwing its whole head backward while rearing up on stubby legs. And like a snake it did not chew, but brought the mass in its mouth down its throat whole .

  The second wolf corpse likewise was shoved down the gullet of the vast beast. When the third wolf corpse was being crammed down the throat of the beast, the driver made a misstep and got too close to the jaws, so he was caught in the monster’s teeth, and swallowed instead. His screams rang out from the creature’s distended throat sack while the Cheyenne cursed the driver bitterly and told him to die without so much noise. They made no attempt to rescue him but shoved the third wolf in after. The fourth wolf was pulled from the trashcan and thrust into the great beast’s mouth as well. The struggle here was hard and long, and the ungainly monster kept spitting out this final wolf because the body was a large as a pony.

  The beast spent a moment licking up bloodstains, and then, reluctantly, snapping nastily and kicking at the three men goading it, the monster let itself be driven back up the ramp into the truck.

  When Whelan and Phelan stepped toward the cab of the truck, the Cheyenne cursed and barred their way. “Thursday would have you recover the Ring of Mists. You saw the handmaiden of Winged Vengeance without her mask. She is a sidekick! A serving girl! Twice you had her in your jaws and twice she slipped between your teeth.”

  Whelan said, “The scent ends at the cathedral, which is a mighty stronghold of the enemy. Call the humans. Call the Sons of Adam, who can pass the thresholds uninvited, break the doors, and slay the priests. Are there no Norsemen? Are there no Paynim?”

  The Cheyenne struck the blind man sharply in the face. “Find her! Saturday of the Anarchists already prepares the Nautilus to sail! Four kings fall, and mere anarchy arises to consume the world! Our day i
s nigh, but your bungling delays it! Seek no rest until she is found!”

  From the cab of the truck, the Cheyenne drew out and threw down a wrapped bag of clothing, which burst open when it struck the pavement. It was the expensive skirt, blouse, and jacket Elfine had bought by fraud and loaned to Ami, which she had forgotten and left behind in the elevator.

  “Here is spoor!” said the Cheyenne. “It smells new. Find the shop that sold them, find who bought them and find where she lives. Start here and search the damned city block by block if you have to!”

  And with that, he climbed into the truck, and drove off.

  5. Seek No Rest

  Ami scowled beneath her mask at the sight of Whelan kneeling to sniff the outfit. The trail would lead back to the innocent girl Elfine had robbed.

  Phelan uttered a curse, staring after the departing taillights and rubbing his lame leg. “It seems, for all that, we will need to climb to the roof after all.” And he looked up, and his eyes just happened to rest on the spot where Ami was perched. The truck, as it was turning, turned on its headlights. They splashed against the opposite wall of the alley, and the bright reflection passed across her like the beam of a lighthouse. There she was: a dark and slender figure in a black cloak and grinning black fox mask.

  He opened his mouth to shout, and she threw a kunai into it. The throwing knife was a black seven-inch barb, weighted and streamlined for throwing. It struck him neatly in the open mouth. Blood and screams gushed from between his teeth, but no words. She threw throwing stars into his chest, drawing blood and roars.

  Whelan turned his head left and right, sniffing, knowing something was amiss but not what. He began to tear at his shirt. His teeth grew long, and his mouth and nose were pulled out of shape. The skin beneath was beginning to distort and darken and shoot forth clumps of hair.

  Phelan, whether from boldness or mindless ferocity, did not run away but frothed at the mouth, spitting blood, and he hopped quickly toward the alley wall, dragging his bad foot, and threw himself at it, fingers and toes seeking handholds and footholds to climb.