Slayer

by Karen Koehler

  "Father?" he said and then realized his mouth hadn't moved at all.

  Stone Man...Man of Stone and Ice...come into the dark with me, to the place where truth is brewed.

  The face lowered and nudged his head back. Sean complied. This wasn't like that time with Slim Jim. What had he to fear from someone who loved him so much, so fiercely? He felt a cold white kiss on his mouth more exquisite than death or the best kill. And again the kiss, on his throat this time, burning cold, stealing his breath and his words away. He gripped something enormous and smothering above him, heard it sing to his soul in languages far older than mankind. Father, he said, I don't understand.

  Understand--he has betrayed me, rejected me. He lives still and he has proven himself unworthy to stand in my stead. He will be my Judas and he will try and take my head--

  No!

  --but you, Stone Man--you can be the one promised me, the Chosen of my fold. You can carry the mantle of Covenmaster after me...if you so choose.

  Sean felt his heart throb and send blood like a delicate offering past the nursing lips of his master. The Dominato. The Dominato! Righteous horrorshow, man! He wanted so to rise up from his bed and embrace the Father, whisper words of feral love into his hair, all the secrets of his broken heart, but strong hands held him in check. He whimpered and writhed with joy and terror, triumph and frustration.

  Be still, beloved, commanded the Father.

  The face smiled. So white it was, with eyes so impossibly dark, like deep waters at midnight, and the mouth red now, painted, slathered like a beast after a bloody kill. Sean kissed away all the red. The flesh of the creature was all delicate crystal with veins of fire weaving beneath and a rune stone for a heart, a heart that beat in unholy defiance of its own existence, its own unnatural power.

  Power.

  Power freely offered.

  Power for the taking.

  Sean twined his fingers in the slithering, shifting mass of white hair and raised himself slowly up to the offering of power, his mouth creaking open and spiderwebbed with saliva to receive the gift of Communion, this share of power...power never to be hurt again, never pinched and struck like a stupid little boy again...the power of the earth in all its truths and its lies, its fire and darkness...

  The face pulled back and his teeth clacked shut on nothing but thin air. Sean wept with the unfairness of it all. He heard laughter like dropping crystals. Not yet, spoke the Father. First you must prove yourself to me. First you must prove your heart is pure, your spirit that of a warrior.

  How?

  You know how, mein Sohn.

  Sean stopped crying and his mouth became the graceful cradle of the moon, a moon full of blood and laughter. He giggled. I'll wear his scalp as my battle helmet, Father, he vowed. His skull will crown your altar.

  The Father smiled. Do this, Stone Man, and you will drink from the fount of eternal Amadeus and you will know his power forevermore.

  Sean giggled again.

  The world was full of monsters, Edna Filmore was convinced of it. They'd cut you and take your things and your body and then leave you bleeding in the dark.

  In the half-light of the subway car, Edna shifted her packages around under her seat so her legs could brush them and she could know they were there. Her grandchild sat on the shredded vinyl seat beside her, her legs drawn up under her as if she was sitting safely in her bedroom and not here in the belly of this steel worm shooting blindly through its dark tunnel.

  Roxy wasn't frightened; she was studying the paperbacks she'd bought at Borders with a scowling concentration. Edna could see the cover of the one she had now--a grinning skull with worms through its teeth like dental floss. Disgusting stuff. Really, she didn't know why her daughter-in-law Marilyn let Roxy read all that crap about vampires and werewolves and God only knew what else. It was her son Brady's fault, Edna decided, for marrying that nitwit Marilyn in the first place.

  The sub lurched and one of the violet florescent lights decided to catch and hold, buzzing like a nest of irate wasps. The dark pulled itself into its corners and Edna could see, really see now. And somehow that made it all the worse. She figured she'd rather be cut in the dark where at least she couldn't see the instrument or the dirty face of madness above it. She reached for Roxy, tugged her close by the sleeve of her denim coat.

  "Gram," she whined.

  "You shut up. Come here."

  Lord, she hated the sub. She wished they'd been more careful with their money and had had enough for a cab. She wished she hadn't had the damnable pride not to call Brady for a ride home. It was awful. She could smell hell, the soot and dirt, the hot sweat and electricity and the ozone. The workers behind the bleary windows wore Glo-red coveralls like devils or prisoners and were busy clicking maintenance coils together, handling the great vacuums snails hungry for asbestos milk or banging the rails back into obedience like tommyknockers tapping with their last strength through eternity for the rescue that would never come. Horrible, all of it. Evil as a book cover.

  And it was worse inside. The temperamental lighting illuminated placecards and ancient posters, left when the money ran out and there was no one to buy the space or no one to care. Ovaltine. Beeswax. Jergen's. Skipping, smiling girls. Pigtailed girls cradled on the moon and swinging from the stars. Ancient girls faded to thin, gaunt ghosts and forced to look out with absurd gaiety on a changing world, a changing people.

  And the people. Men in watchcaps and coats of burst nylon, women in machine-get faux fur, fake coats for protection against a real world, coats held together by surviving buttons or twine or only sheer luck. Nothing at all like the tailored fashions of the fifties that even the lowest class owned. Even the perfume of caste was different: bad colognes and hair oils and the cloying stench of newspaper blankets. Cheap whiskeys and the dank smell of fear, distrust.

  Edna watched it all. It was late and the brave ones slept. Mostly they watched or pretended to read, or read, pretending to watch. She didn't meet any of their eyes. Especially not the eyes of the character across the aisle from them with the black coat and long hair and the eyes that looked funny under the florescent lights. The kid in the seat behind her and Roxy, the one with the skull tattoo on one cheek and the concert T-shirt, stood up under a moment's inspiration and pelted the character's shoulder with a wadded-up mass of soggy brown paper bag. "Yo, Count Dracula, man, you're out early tonight!"

  No one laughed. They looked away into laps which cradled newspaper and those that did not. The kid sat down, sulky and disappointed with the general appeal.

  But Edna had no sympathy for the character. He was an idiot. He had boarded two stations back with his young woman, yet now he sat alone. His girl was at the back, curled up on a seat and asleep, it looked like, all wrapped up in her leather jacket. She was a lovely young thing, like Snow White in the books Roxy used to read before she got into all that horror crap. And she was alone. Who'd leave their kid unattended in this hellhole of a city? Edna's hand bunched around Roxy's sleeve, despite the agony of her arthritis. A fool would, that's who.

  The car jerked, screamed. Steam frosted their window in an intricate, lacy web. Edna heard Roxy's muffled curse as she lost her armful of books. Edna got up. "We're getting off."

  Roxy fumbled with her books. "Wait, Gram, one got under the seat."

  Edna waited impatiently, plastic package handles biting into her forearm, as Roxy squirmed under the seat. "Don't go touching anything under there," Edna cautioned. "God knows what's under there."

  The car was emptying and taking on, bodies against bodies, apologetic, not meaning to touch. Tattoo lurched against Edna's shoulder as he passed, either pushed from behind or just feeling her pockets.

  "Roxy."

  "In a minute, Gram!"

  The character was standing inches from her, Edna saw, watching the surge of take-ons from his dark height. Almost as if he were anticipating something. Or someone. When his eyes narrowed on the last of the take-ons, Edna looked.

&nb
sp; Trouble.

  The blonde man was slickly casual to board. Man? Boy, really. He had skin like a Greek statue. You didn't see too many young people with perfect complexions like that. It shone like ice where it poked out of his smooth, flared-collared leather coat. Wraparound Ray-Bans hid the top half of his face and the bottom half was a mass of white grinning teeth filed to deadly points. A vicious joker's mouth. Bones chittered out of his overpunctured earlobes and trickled along his neck like meatless fingers.

  "Roxy, let's go!" Edna pulled her grandchild up.

  "But I didn't get--"

  "Never mind." Edna drew Roxy under her arm and turned around.

  The man, the tall one, filled the aisle in front of them. >From behind, Edna had a perfect view of the mangled mass of leather coat hanging from his shoulders and the glistening, greasy witch's hair tumbling to his waist.

  The blonde man made of leather and steel came abreast with the witch-man, their shoulders nearly touching. They faced opposite, and yet their heads turned at exactly the same instant, eyes sidling to meet. It made Edna think of a secret agents' rendezvous in a spy thriller, or maybe something from one of those disgusting modern movies, just before the two enemy punks disembowel each other with stilettos.

  Edna pulled her grandchild close and held her breath.

  The blonde man pushed his shades down his nose; his silvery eyes glittering like steel stars. "Hey there, jelly bean," he said by way of some kind of greeting.

  The man who looked like a witch said, "Stone Man."

  Blondie sneered, "You a dead man."

  "I know that, Einstein. So are you."

  "Cute, real cute, man. You gonna go down, man--you and your bitch and your fuckin' mouth too, man. You got that?"

  "Whatever you want, you obsolete little punk. When I'm finished here, we'll have it anywhere you want it."

  Blondie grinned with his mouthful of Halloween teeth. "I want it right here, fuckface."

  The witch's hair actually bristled, spiking like dangerous quills; his mouth was suddenly deep with teeth. "Draw that thing here, Stone, and I'll shove the blunt end of it up your ass."

  Blondie's grin melted away into a soundless snarl.

  "You wouldn't, though."

  "Sure I would."

  "No. You wouldn't."

  "Why wouldn't I?"

  "Because you're outnumbered, Stone." The witch smiled and took Blondie by the wrist as Blondie gasped and tossed his head right, left, right. Snow White, magically summoned, stood at Blondie's other side, her hand knotted around his wrist. And though she looked like no more than a child of seventeen years of age, Blondie's arm seemed to be locked in place, as if what held to him had a grip of pure iron.

  "Lemme go!" Blondie shouted.

  The witch only nodded at Snow White. She smiled. Together they began to crank Blondie's arms against his spine in solid wrestling-winning chickenwings.

  Blondie snarled. His face was full of the light of pain. "Let go of me!"

  "No," said the witch.

  Roxy gasped in Edna's hold. "Way cool, Gram!" her little voice scorched Edna's cheek. "Vampires!" Edna only held to her grandchild, hated the sub, this city, her own helplessness. Between them were mashed Roxy's horrible novels. Roxy laughed. "It's just like in the books..."

  "Let me go! Get your red bitch off me! Let go! Let GOOOO!"

  Blondie thrashed, but he was powerless to break their combined grip on his arms. "Keep it up, punkface," the witch rasped as he cranked the boy's arms an inch further, "and we'll be sending you home to the Father sans arms."

  "Eat yourself!"

  The witch and Snow White cranked Blondie's arms an agonizing unnatural inch farther. Blondie began to made a sound like a duck being stoned to death.

  "Say `uncle'," chided Snow White.

  "Eat each other!"

  Another inch. Bones began to squeal alarmingly. "UNCLE, UNCLE, UNCLE...!" wailed Blondie.

  They let up a little. Blondie gasped and sagged between his two tormentors. Snow White dabbed playfully at the shining track of drool on his chin. "Good boy," she said. Then her touch turned wicked and she gripped his chin in her long black lacquered fingernails. "You are a good boy, aren't you?" A trickle of blood ran from Blondie's chin, gaining strength when Snow White forcefully nodded his head. "I do hope so. You don't want to know what I do to bad boys."

  Yet it was the witch that Blondie turned frenzied eyes on. "He wants you, man, and you better know it! He wants your fuckin' head bad, man!"

  The witch sighed. "Really, Stone? Thank you for that enlightenment. What would I do without him, Sister Teresa?"

  "I honestly don't know, my knight."

  "Reeeal bad, man!" Blondie's shades were askew; his hair was crazy; he looked utterly possessed. "And I'm gonna get it for him, man! I ain't no turdface no more! I'm a big man now! You lookin' at the next Covenmaster, man!"

  The witch shook his head. "Good God, I know Amadeus is mad, but I didn't know he was just plain stupid."

  Blondie's eyes bulged in mindless rage.

  The iron worm whistled alarmingly and the witch tipped his chin at Snow White. "Would you do the honor of disarming the big man here, Sister Teresa?"

  "Of course, my knight."

  Edna expected a stiletto, a Buck knife at most. Not this. Snow White passed the narrow body of steel to the witch. Not a toy, Edna could see that. Not a prop, either. The commuters' eyes turned down respectfully, inward or into laps, in steeled expectation of the blood and screams which must come, making themselves cold and prepared for it.

  Blondie only screamed laughter, his tongue lolling like a rabid dog. "Go on, jelly bean, go for it! Go on, man, because, man, you ain't gonna get a second take!"

  The witch's eyes narrowed to bloody slits. He forced Blondie down into his seat.

  "Wassamatta with you, man?" Blondie screamed as his shiny empty eyes rolled up to meet those of the witch. "You fuckin' chickenshit or sumpin'? COME ON, MAN! DO IT, MAN! DO IT!"

  But the witch only leveled the sword at Blondie's throat, the tip caressing his collarbone, narrow blue ice catching the light of the florescents above. "I want you to live, big man," said the witch, his voice huge and uncoiling in this small place. "Live, Stone. Live to bring the Father this message: tell him Debra is coming back, and tell him she's mad as all hell and she's going to kick his ass all over Creation. Tell him that, big man."

  Like a kid, Blondie stuck out his tongue.

  "Big man," whispered the witch, "the Coven's going down and you're going down with it." He stepped back gracefully, almost catlike, a dance, the sword pointing at the punk's heart, his eyes unwavering, cold. "And by the way--do yourself the courtesy of staying on this car until the next station, Stone, or I'll be sending your empty, brainless skull back to Amadeus in a box."

  Blondie hissed like a vampire in one of Roxy's books.

  Then Snow White pulled the witch down onto the platform with her and promptly slammed closed the sub door.

  Blondie slouched in his seat, seething like a bemused brat. He began to methodically ravish his fingernails, snarling at anyone who dared meet his gaze.

  In a moment the car would snort and pick itself up along the line, burrowing into darkness. Edna sat down and pulled Roxy to her. She realized it was too late, the line already whining, the worm awakening. They would ride it to the next station and there they would get off, escape this underworld of sword-wielding maniacs and call Brady to come get then. Anything but to be buried alive here any longer with the mad and the monstrous.

  Blondie snarled in his seat and lapped at his bloodied fingertips.

  God, the world was full of monsters, Edna Filmore was convinced of it, utterly convinced.

  Down here, no one looked twice at them, even when they stopped in the middle of the terminal and turned to study the wall together. All white tile like some universal latrine. The dull little lights burned ineffectually high overhead, and under them Teresa began a ritual dance of hands across the hard scales
of the tiling.

  Alek touched the wall further up. "Nothing here."

  "Give me the map."

  He pulled it out of his coat and let her take it and spread it against the wall. She traced a penline with her painted fingertip. She shook her head, tossed her long loose hair back. "We are not yet there, caro."

  "Far?"

  "Not very," she said, rerolling the map.

  The white tunnel ebbed downward and came out in a maze of corridors pitched in darkness under their mostly broken lighting. Here the emptiness lay like a spell, and though there were still posters, the walls were in fact made up mostly of arcane gang graffiti. At the foot of a dead escalator, as frozen as a dinosaur made of metal bones, they stopped.

  "Here," Teresa said.

  "There's nothing here." Alek stared at the flank of mocking white wall.

  Teresa unrolled the map once more, studied it. "Byron," she whispered, "what the fuck were you on...oh hell."

  "What?"

  "We're not at the right elevation. Too high. There must be another floor."

  "There is no other floor. This is the sub for God's sake."

  "Collapse and surface deposits then." She looked up scrupulously. "There must have been a quake."

  He touched the wall as if he could know by touch if the Chronicle rested there beneath the mortar and rock. "This is useless. Let's go."

  "I want to know the story," she complained.

  "There's no one to ask."

  "We'll ask him."

  Her cattishly aglow eyes cut through the darkness to a corner bench and its token hobo, his overstuffed shopping cart at his side, his folded blankets of newspaper on the floor, ready for use against the night's subterranean chill. All of it like a Rockwell piece turned dark.

  "Don't," Alek told her, suddenly and completely afraid. "You can't."

  "Of course I can," she said. "Don't you know? Old men and young girls." She moved purposely toward the hobo and Alek followed dutifully behind, armed with words that disappeared when the hobo folded down the comics page he was reading and eyed them both. Alek saw a scraggle-bearded mouth part in surprise at the pale, beautiful little doll-like woman watching him in her soft black halo of tangled hair and china-white face.