Gambit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  The clay map shifts; its hash marks darken and fade, replaced by new ones on a zoomed-in scale. Maybe this thing is worth more than I thought. “He’s on the move,” I tell Ersatz, whose hot breath mists in the cold rain as it escapes my backpack’s open zipper like a hidden chimney.

  “You need directions to somewhere?” asks a passing pedestrian from beneath his roomy black umbrella.

  “Depends. Is this the Giving Hands Homeless Shelter?”

  The man wrinkles his mouth. “Used to be. Been closed for a couple years now.”

  “So they’re no longer in business.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  He nods and continues on his way.

  I step over the curbside river and cross the street, scrubbing a clean spot in the front window with my coat sleeve so I can look inside. A big dorm room cluttered with the debris of its past inhabitants opens onto a wide hallway leading into darkness. “Everything’s closed on Sundays except the places no one wants to go,” I observe. “Or the places without funding, as the case may be.”

  I pocket my cell and slap the side of my backpack to summon its draconic resident. “Ready?”

  “Perhaps we should use the side entrance,” Ersatz suggests.

  I round the building’s corner, passing a dumpster on my way to the access door. Ersatz climbs out of my backpack with a yawn and leaps from my shoulder to the door, where he slithers around the knob and casts a spell. A tongue of dark energy curls from his mouth and funnels through the keyhole, filling the empty space like an extension of his own body. He caresses the tumblers into place with the deftness of a seasoned pianist. The lock clicks, and the handle turns.

  “This strengthens my theory that you’ve been keeping all the coolest spells from me,” I point out.

  “Still just a theory, is it?” he says with a wink.

  I draw my gun and sidle up to the door. “We can talk about all the spells you owe me later. Hop on.”

  A wall of damp, musty air hits me as I enter. A corridor takes me past a staircase, kitchen, and laundry room, ending in the huge common sleeping area where rows of rust-spotted bunkbeds stand in various states of disrepair. There must be at least eighty beds in here, including the stacks of mattresses piled in corners and the crudely built enclosures arranged throughout the room like forts at a children’s sleepover party. Storage boxes, plywood boards, and plastic sheeting have been affixed to several of the structures, giving it the feel of a derelict shantytown. If no one’s living here now, someone has been recently.

  The subtle gray glow of an overcast sky filters through the narrow grime-smeared windows along two adjacent sides of the room. I rack the Glock’s slide. The metallic cha-chunk might as well be a bomb blast, the way it disturbs the silence.

  “If there’s anyone in here,” I shout, “come out now. I don’t want to hurt you.” But if you happen to be wearing a skin-suit made of Arden Savage, I will.

  No answer.

  Setting my backpack down beside the wall, I scan the room for signs of life. I consider consulting Calyxto’s clay dish, but my gun is taking up both hands at the moment, and I’m not anxious to get caught unawares. I enter the stacks with Ersatz draped over my shoulders, gun held at my hip in a close-firing position. Bunks crowd in like the walls of a maze, obstructing my views and confining me in cramped dark spaces where items of imperceptible nature litter the floor.

  Every step breeds new fear; around every corner and behind every obstacle lies the dread of things unseen. Soon I’ve lost sight of the hallway behind me. The shantytown structures choke out the window light, and I’m shrouded in gloom. A noise, subtle as shifting fabric, reaches me from nearby.

  “Why are you breathing so hard?” Ersatz whispers.

  “Shut up. I’m nervous.”

  “You smell like sweat.”

  “That’s probably because I’m—”

  A weight crashes down on my back, driving me to my knees. I twist my shoulder to throw off the burden, but a bony forearm bars my throat and hangs on. Two rigid knots—knees, I’m certain—dig into my spine and push me into the fetal position. I reach back and touch a nest of matted hair, brittle and dry as summer straw. I grab a handful and yank while bucking my hips, a second attempt to shrug off my assailant. It’s no good. The forearm tightens around my neck.

  Ersatz sinks his teeth into flesh and exhales. A warm orange light draws shadows on the speckled gray concrete and bathes me in prickling heat. My assailant growls in pain and rolls away, withdrawing the arm from around my neck. I pounce, closing my fingers around a slender throat and pushing the muzzle of my gun against the forehead of an old woman.

  She’s aged and desiccated, her clothes thick with an unwashed smell. She gnashes her teeth and snarls at me, indifferent to the gun resting against her temple. When she speaks, her words are in the same jagged language as Arden’s poltergeist. She rakes her overgrown fingernails down my arm to cut deep gouges in the skin. I cry out in pain and backhand her across the face with my gun.

  Her head snaps straight with robotic quickness, as though she felt nothing. She speaks her dark words despite the blood trickling down her cheek and the purple bruise rising around the wound. I duck a swing aimed at my face and thump her on the skull with the butt of my pistol.

  I’m not the sort of guy who goes around punching old ladies in the face. Unless they deserve it. You know how in the movies you can tell someone’s possessed by their eyes? This is kind of like that. Her eyes aren’t pure black, or glowing red, or anything too obvious. It’s subtler than that—a vile sort of malice. The kind that makes you shiver because you know you’ve witnessed an otherworldly presence mortal man was never meant to behold. And when that presence looks at me, it doesn’t like what it sees.

  She screeches, piercing the air loud enough to make me wince. My first assumption is that she’s experiencing a delayed reaction to my pistol whip, except she looks more frustrated than hurt. The screech changes pitch, and I come to understand it isn’t a cry of pain at all. It’s a call.

  Movement all around me. Footsteps shuffling across the concrete floor. Mattress springs squeaking. They’ll be on me in seconds. There isn’t time to think about mercy; only to consider what it’s going to take to get out of this alive.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, straightening the muzzle against the old woman’s forehead and squeezing off a round.

  Her head bounces off the concrete and rolls to one side, a gruesome portrait on a painted background. A wisp of steam escapes the entry wound. Then I’m on my feet running, Ersatz scuttling after me. When a disheveled man in fingerless gloves and cracked goggles jumps out from behind the next bunk and utters a wordless bellow, I shoot him in the mouth.

  The others are close now. Converging.

  Ersatz scrabbles up my pant leg and climbs my coat. There are a number of spells I could try to cast, but my mind blanks under the stress and I’m forced to fall back on instinct, turning through the darkness to fire at each vague noise and shadow. The closeness of the room muffles the gunshots to dry pops. I wonder if anyone outside can hear them above the rain and traffic.

  Next I know the magazine is empty. I drop it and jam in a new one, then rack the slide and spin toward a nearby sound, only to be blasted off my feet by a bearded battering ram in camouflage pants. He tackles me into a blue plastic shopping cart piled high with bulky garbage bags. The wheels stick, and we topple over.

  The camo-wearing tramp is slamming his fists into my face and chest as we land amidst flying plastic bundles of musty clothing and household goods. He’s in his late forties and still muscular from his time in the service, tattoos peeking out beneath the sleeves of his shabby brown t-shirt. My legs are draped over the shopping cart while the rest of me sinks into the sea of plastic bags, a drowning sensation I can’t escape while he’s whaling on me.

  I attempt to bring the gun around and find it’s no longer in my hand. I’m torn betwe
en feeling for it on the floor and shielding myself from the barrage of fists slamming into me. He’s growling as he hits me, reciting the same dark words as the others.

  An old gray-haired man joins in on the assault, driving a skeletal fist into my nose to free a warm flow of blood down the side of my face. They’re going to beat me to death. They’re literally going to punch me until I die. The thought would be absurd enough to make me laugh if it weren’t so terrifying.

  The ex-military man raises his hands above his head, lacing his fingers together to form a single large fist. Before he can strike, golden light explodes behind him and his head erupts in a laurel of flame.

  “Get the gun,” Ersatz shouts from the shopping cart upon which he stands.

  “Where—” I try to say. I choke on post-nasal blood before I can finish, and the word comes out damp and muddy.

  “Beneath the bag. Beside your right hand.”

  I reach under the bag. Nothing there but bare floor. Then my fingers slide over the warm polymer frame of my weapon. I lift the gun and pull the trigger an instant before the gray-haired man knocks my arm away. The ill-aimed bullet travels through the veteran’s abdomen and grazes my right thigh before plunking into the plastic shopping cart.

  I grit my teeth and scream. The vet crashes down on top of me, head on fire and abdominal muscles torn. The good news is the older guy is now beating on him instead of me. The bad news is he weighs a ton. The other bad news is the vet’s hands are clamped around my throat, and my gun’s stuck beneath him, and my back is pressed to the concrete floor while the garbage bags fall in around me. All these things together are seriously hampering my air supply.

  The vet’s hair burns away to cinders. With my good leg, I knee him in the tailbone and plant a heel on the edge of the shopping cart. Ersatz takes the opportunity to scamper across my leg and leap onto the veteran’s back before I kick the shopping cart away.

  I slide my gun hand free and put a bullet through the older man’s chin. A beluga blowhole opens in the top of his head. The vet’s grip is still snug around my throat, even with Ersatz chewing on his spine and clawing at his back. I lower the gun and put two quick rounds through the side of his head.

  I inhale a deep gasping breath as his hands go limp, only to have the air crushed out of me when his lifeless bulk crashes down. I shove him aside and drag myself away from the mess of blood and plastic and smoking flesh. A lady in a floral-patterned babushka hobbles toward me. I raise my weapon. She hisses and chants, undeterred by my threat of violence.

  “Wherever you came from,” I tell the creature inside her, “here’s your ticket back.”

  The shot resounds. The woman’s head snaps back in a crimson spray, and she falls.

  I limp to the nearest bunk bed and test the top bunk before pulling myself onto the latticework of squeaky metal links. From a sitting position I can look out over the room and watch for movement. Why didn’t I do this before? Because I feel more like a sitting duck up here than a death-dealing vigilante. Sure, I know how to handle a gun, but I’ve never shot anyone before.

  A shadow moves past one of the narrow windows. I take aim, but it’s gone before I can get a good look. “Where are you?” I scream. “Come here and get some, you filth.”

  One of the bunks along the edge of the room trembles as something bumps into it. A figure darts into the hallway. It’s a man, and this is no homeless guy. It’s Arden Savage.

  I send a pair of bullets after him, but they strike the wall as he spins around the corner into the stairwell and disappears from sight. Oh no you don’t, you bastard.

  “He’s headed upstairs,” I tell Ersatz as I hop down and start after him. My right pant leg is sticking to my thigh, the denim stained dark. I’m not letting anything stop me now, though. Not when I’m so close.

  “Cade. Slow down,” Ersatz warns. “You mustn’t exert yourself with a wound like that. We should get you to a hospital.”

  “I’m not going to any hospital. I just murdered half a dozen people.”

  “You didn’t murder them. They were already dead.”

  I stop. “What are you talking about?”

  “These people became haunted the same way Arden did; poltergeists occupied their corpses shortly after their deaths. It’s a well-known truth of the supernatural—demons are only capable of possessing the living, while poltergeists can only possess the dead. In both cases, killing the host banishes the spirit.”

  “Even if the host was dead to begin with?”

  He nods.

  “Okay, so I’m only kind of a murderer. I’m still not going to the hospital.” No sooner have I said this than the nick in my leg begins to throb with the rhythm of my heartbeat. I limp through the shantytown maze, ignoring the strength draining out of me. Soon my blood is resounding in my ears, growing louder with every labored pulse.

  I make it to the hallway before I start seeing spots. My vision and hearing tunnel out. The room spins away as my legs fold beneath me, and my sight goes dark.

  Chapter 16

  When I was a kid, things were simple. I thought more about growing up than growing old. My biggest worry was fitting in at school, my biggest fear the imaginary monsters in my closet.

  Then the blinders came off.

  My dad vanished, Ersatz showed up, and I learned the monsters I feared weren’t imaginary. At the tender age of eight I was thrust toward a new enlightenment, and I’ve never been the same since. In a way it forced me to grow up faster than most kids. Ersatz sheltered me from everything—love, danger, travel, friendship—Quim being the only exception to the latter. Sometimes I resent both Ersatz and my father for those lost years; the ones most kids spend obsessing over crushes and peer pressure and popularity. I spent them learning magic and being taught to fear the dangers all around me.

  Ersatz urged me not to involve my mother in my newfound awareness. My father had tried and failed to open her eyes, though he’d been dealing with his own lost memories from the otherside. I ignored my dragon’s advice and plowed ahead, but to no avail.

  Mom never took to the idea of magic and the supernatural. She, like millions of others, was too comfortable in her everyday life to endure the inconvenience. There was always an explanation; always an excuse. I was a troubled kid suffering from delusions triggered by the traumatic and sudden loss of my father. That was how she, and eventually the psychiatrists she sent me to, rationalized my behavior.

  So I stopped. Tired of useless counseling sessions and over-prescribed medications, I gave in and told her it was all in my head. I never again tried to convince her of the truth, and on the day she died my only regret was putting her through the stress of believing she’d had a crackpot for a son.

  I wake up in a dark room, and it’s not the one I fainted in. It looks familiar, though, and the air is laced with the sharp scent of a citrus cleaning solution I know rather well. I’m lying on soft couch cushions, and I can feel the sterile white sheets against my bare skin. There’s cotton shoved up my nose and a big thick bandage over my inner thigh, both of which are throbbing. When I move, everything is sore.

  It only takes me a few seconds to determine where I am. Felita Skaargil’s apartment. I lift my head to look around, but drop it back onto the pillow in a surge of pain.

  “Hey. You’re up.” A lamp chain clinks on across the room. Ms. Skaargil rises from a tufted club chair and sets her book on the end table before coming over. She feels my forehead, first with her palm, then with the back of her hand. “How do you feel?”

  “Awful. How did you find me?”

  “I called her.” It’s Ersatz, lounging on the back of the couch above me.

  I groan. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you call Quim?”

  “You try digging a cell phone out of someone’s pants pocket with your snout and dialing a number without opposable thumbs and let me know if you still want to be picky.”

  “I think you’re going to be okay,” says Felita. “You don’t have a fever, a
nd there’s no infection.”

  “Is my nose broken?”

  “Yeah, but not bad. Trust me, I’ve seen worse. Hell, I’ve caused worse.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a second. Where’s my stuff?”

  “Don’t worry, I grabbed your backpack, your gun, your clay dish. All of it. Ersatz made sure. I hope you weren’t too attached to those clothes, though. I had to cut them off you so I could check for injuries.”

  I lift the sheets to stare at myself. “You saw me naked?”

  She frowns. “I didn’t enjoy it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “It’s not that, it’s just… I’m not supposed to flash my customers. That’s what you told Jim Lennox I did, isn’t it?”

  “Look, I’m really sorry about that, Cade. I told you, I want to make up for it. Ersatz told me a little about what’s going on.”

  I look up at my dragon and groan.

  “It’s alright,” Felita says. “It’s not like my closets are skeleton-free. I’d like to hear your story, if you’re up to talking about it.”

  “It’s a long one.”

  She sits on the coffee table and glances at her wrist as if she’s wearing a watch. “Well, look what we have here—all the time in the world.”

  “What time is it? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “It’s three a.m. Monday morning. I don’t work nights.”

  “You do work a lot, though.”

  “Oh, come on,” she says. “You didn’t honestly think I spent sixty hours a week behind a desk in an air-conditioned high-rise, did you? Knowing I’m… what I am?”

  “My best friend is a shifter, and he spends all his time behind a computer screen.”

  “I swear, if I hear one more person try to tell me lycanthropy is the same thing as shapechanging, I’m going to scream.”