by Linda Welch
Its eyes crinkle. “I’m a ghost.”
“And I’m a fairy godmother.”
It humphs. “You’re provoking me, girl. What happens to a wraith when he dies? Huh? Tell me that.”
My shoulders hunch. “I suppose he dies, period. Gone. Poof.” I bite my lower lip, hard. “I don’t want to talk about this. I already saw Castle die, he can’t come back. You are not him.”
It gestures toward the sky. “Why not? My point is, I’ve never personally known a wraith who passed on so I’ve nothing to go by, but I’m thinking this is what happens.”
I don’t understand and screw up my face. “Piss off!”
I start off again and it stays with me, moving sideways in a kind of hop and skip. “Think about it. We always figured we were Upside people who died. Right? If you’re dead, how can you die all over again? Maybe I’m what I was supposed to be Upside, a ghost.”
“But Downside? You’re making my head ache.”
“There you go again. You, you - it’s always about you.”
We approach the gate. Castle’s phantom faces front again, hands back in pockets as he saunters along.
I inhale through my teeth, hiss air back out. “Whatever your game is, I’m not buying into it. Take your illusion and shove it up your ass.”
“Nope.” It shakes its head. “Get it through your thick little skull. I am not an illusion, the only one talking with my voice is me.”
I glare at the ground.
Its tone perks. “Okay, how about this. Remember our first training session? What you saw? You barely got the words out, ‘Fuck me, is that a fucking unicorn?’”
A tiny piece of my brain tells me not to buy into it, but I don’t listen. In the early hours, Castle took me to a small south-side park where we could train. Trees were dark against the dark-red sky when an impossible, majestic creature stepped from them, a beautiful ethereal girl on her back, long white hair floating like thistledown, so pale her legs seemed to merge with the unicorn’s pale hide. A unicorn and her maiden. The sight stunned me, until Castle explained the unicorn was indeed absorbing the poor child into her body. I wanted to kill it. He said I didn’t have a hope in hell and the girl was a corpse. It was my first encounter with Downside horror disguised as beauty.
I know, without a doubt, “This is real, isn’t it?”
“Sure is, pumpkin.” He rubs his hands together. “Now that’s cleared up, down to business. You vowed to find my killer. I’m gonna help you.”
I stop in the middle of the path. “You don’t know who killed you?”
His chin pulls into his neck. “Masked man, Kimosabe.”
“A fat lot of good that is, smart ass.” How easily I fall into the old pattern, the verbal jousting. “But he’s a vampire, right?”
“I don’t know. I thought so at first, but I wanted to ‘cause I despise the bastards and … you know … one of us… ? If it’s any help, I think I smashed his nose when I broke free.”
“A vampire heals fast and… .” I lose the words and swallow hard.
“But it wasn’t long ago and healing takes a few days. You didn’t see a messed up vampire at the Peralta place?”
I start again in a small, strained voice. “You got away from him, Castle? Why didn’t you drop flesh?”
“Overconfidence?” His nose wrinkles. “Not everyone embraces the ultimate release like you do.”
I’d noticed that about Castle. He didn’t lose it all unless he had to, and waited until the last possible moment.
“It’s too much like death,” he adds.
My tone is bitter. “And this isn’t?”
“Learn from my mistakes, honeybun.”
The ache in my chest us almost too much to bear. I knocked on his door, yelled, and sat on the step for a while before going inside. Did my voice distract him for a few vital seconds, long enough for his killer to stick the blade in his neck? Would I have been able to save him if I’d gone in immediately? I can’t bring myself to ask.
I drop my gaze and nudge a pebble off the path with my toe. “Do you remember dying, Castle? Do you remember me there?”
“I was … frantic, but at the last I felt calm, at peace, at the same time kind of euphoric. You held my hand and cried all over it,” he says gently.
My heart is breaking all over again.
“Your face was the last thing I saw. It made me happy.”
“And then?”
“Nothing, until now, when I opened my eyes and saw you.”
I pause at the gate and look back over my shoulder. The patch of black earth stands out in the cemetery. It seems too small for Castle’s big body. I guess it couldn’t hold him.
Chapter Ten
“Either I’m insane, or you’re really here. And I know I’m not insane.”
“You better watch that.”
My gaze shoots to Castle’s face. “Watch what.”
“Talking to me in public. You know you’re rational but these fine folk will think otherwise.”
“Oh.” I glance back and spot a few pedestrians eyeing me doubtfully.
Castle faces a shop window as he brushes hair back from his ears. His hands hover. “Hell, I’m invisible.”
“You’re not. I see you.” I peer around his shoulder at my reflection in the glass, but don’t see Castle.
He palms his face. “Shit, Rain, what do I look like?”
“Well,” I begin, and hesitate.
His face contorts. “Tell me.”
“Well,” I say again, and catch my lower lip between my teeth.
“Give it to me straight.”
I lift one shoulder apologetically. “The red eyes kind of threw me at first. And the bones. But the innards are worse.”
“Holy hells.” He paces away, comes back. “How can you stand to look at me?”
I bite down real hard on my lip but mirth bubbles out anyway.
His brows crunch together. “You are so funny, trying to freak out a dead person. C’mon, what do I really look like?”
“You. You’re you, although not one hundred percent solid. When I look at you just so, there’s a vague impression of what’s behind you. If it’s any consolation, I don’t see you in the glass, either.”
We walk along a lane and come out the other end on the alley which cuts behind my building.
My lips twitch. Castle at my side, still with me, as if he didn’t die. My brain still tries to object every now and then but is fighting a losing battle.
“Rain! Nine o’clock!”
Like being pulled from a pleasant dream into nightmare, I go down under a mound of muscle, fur and fang before I can turn my head. Meaty breath is thick on the side of my face, incisors pierce my left shoulder. Claws rake my thighs. A scream tears from my throat but cuts off as all breath is expunged by the weight on my back.
I drop flesh and come back inches from where a large tawny cat savages my clothes.
Rolling up to my feet, I take off, but the cat brings me down on my face after a few steps. It crushes me to the ground. Fangs pierce the base of my neck and pull upward, lifting my upper body. The pain is awful. Like any big predator with prey, it will whip its head and break my neck.
I fade out again and propel toward the far side of the alley a second later, gathering flesh as I run. Desperation puts springs under my feet and I sprint faster than I ever have, heading for a set of metal rungs in the wall, a utility ladder leading to the roof.
I feel the beast lunge, and take a flying leap.
Teeth close on my foot as I hit the ladder. Crazy with desperation, dangling by my hands from a rung, I twist, gather full flesh and kick the cat’s sensitive nose with my other heel.
Miraculously, it lets go. I scuttle up the rungs to fifteen feet above the ground.
Down below, the cat rears on hind legs and roars. The sound reverberates in the alley. Heart banging double-time, I try to catch my breath. Heat radiates from the bricks at my back.
The cat is between me and my weapons. I have to
get around it somehow.
It stops yowling and bows over, seeming to fold into itself. I watch in horror as its body undulates and shimmers as if covered by a silver fog beneath which limbs contort - oh hell, a shifter; a young one or his change would be faster.
A slim, sinuous naked man with a shock of tawny hair looks up at me. Burning citrine-yellow eyes well with fury.
He grasps the first rung and hauls up.
“Through the wall,” Castle yells.
Through the wall. I should have done it in the first place, not climbed the stupid ladder, but fear made me light-headed. Swinging into the wall, I drop flesh. A second later, I hit a galvanized steel bucket, bounce on my butt and a mop hits me on the head. The bucket makes an unholy racket as it rolls over a tiled floor.
Castle stands in front of me with fingers to his lips.
Motionless, I barely breathe.
“I think we’re okay,” he says after a moment.
We are in a janitor’s closet and I remember the building is a self-service laundromat on the first floor with apartments above. “What the fuck happened? He’s a shifter!”
Castle goes through the motions of pounding his fist on his forehead. “I couldn’t do a damn thing to help you. Just about killed me. Again.”
“You helped.”
“What have you been up to while I was gone?”
“Nothing!” I brace my hands on the floor. “Nothing much. I can’t imagine this has anything to do with Verity and the Greché.”
“Doubtful, but … the hellion, my death?”
I make a noise of skepticism. Shifters don’t dabble in evil. Anyway, I can’t reflect on it now.
A racket pierces the depths of the closet. I concentrate, trying to sort out a confusion of sounds. Over the next two or three minutes, doors bang open, wood splinters, crockery smashes. Angry voices, a couple of screams.
The shifter is in the building and getting closer.
“He’s heading up,” Castle says. “Don’t panic.”
My voice hisses. “Don’t panic?” Easy for him to say. The shifter is in human form but retains his animal senses. Did he get my scent? Will he hear my heart pounding?
The small room is crammed with brooms, mops, buckets and two ladders. Rags, lightbulbs and detergent stack a shelf. I scramble upright, grab a spray bottle from the shelf and sniff. Ammonia. A squirt in the eyes will make any creature back off if only for a moment.
You’re not using your brain. Get it together. If he comes in here, the shifter won’t find me if I go through the wall. But for how long can we play tag through this building?
“Castle, can you take a look next door?”
He nods and blinks out, and I clamp my lips to contain a surprised gasp. That was eerie.
Castle is back in seconds. “Nobody home.”
“Good. You can warn me when the shifter gets near. I’ll slip into the next room.”
The noises are getting louder. “Sure,” Castle agrees. “Sounds like he’s searching every square inch of this place.”
The smell of cleaning chemicals tickles my nose. I squeeze it with two fingers to contain a sneeze which makes my nostrils sting.
The building is in an uproar. Children’s cries mix with the din. The shifter must be crazy to crash through the place like this. Someone will try to stop him.
I turn to the door. “I’m going out there, draw him off before anyone gets hurt.”
Castle opens his mouth as the door disintegrates in a hail of giant splinters which spray the closet like missiles. I drop flesh and fall through the wall. Yep, the shifter has my scent.
The apartment walls are so thin, the cat’s roar sounds as if it’s in the dark room with me. He’s back in feline form. More crashing noises, and the apartment door shudders from the thud of a large body. I crouch, tense, ready to go through the wall again.
“Holy hell,” from Castle.
“I’m going to make a run for it.”
“No, wait.” Castle holds up his hand. “The police are here.”
The cat keens. The door bursts open and impacts the wall. Glass and china ornaments fall from a shelf and shatter on the floor. I hurl myself through the wall, back into the closet, through there and into the next apartment.
This is a bedroom and muffled voices come from the next room. I ease over to a door cracked ajar and look through. An elderly white-haired desert troll holds an equally elderly female troll in his arms as they kneel behind a sofa.
Feet thunder. Voices bark. The police are in the building.
Back in the empty apartment, shaken, I squat with back braced on the wall, arms holding knees. The shifter is gone, so are the police.
“You’re sure he’s not hiding out there somewhere?”
Castle stands over me. “He took off up the stairs, through the attic and over the rooftops. Babe, you need to get out, too.”
I push up using one hand on the wall.
“Except there is one teensy problem: your gear is gone.”
“Great.” Not surprised, I roll my head and neck, making the vertebrae crack. Someone has a set of new clothes, and if they don’t want the knives, they will surface on the black market.
“You’ll have to take something from here.” Castle sweeps a hand at the bedroom. “Can’t have you walking naked through the city. Well, you can, and folk will probably appreciate it as much as I do.” He twitches both eyebrows and leers.
I won’t take anything fancy. Dresses and a man’s suit fill the small closet. So I pull open a dresser drawer and find a man’s blue sweat shirt and pair of track pants.
“What now?” I step into the pants. “It has my scent. It’ll find me.”
“What makes you think it isn’t over?”
Tying the drawstring, I meet his eyes. “Did you see his eyes? He didn’t just happen on me and decide he fancied a tasty wraith steak. It’s personal. He hates me. He’s not going to stop.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe he’s sick - do they get rabies? - or a bad case of mange can drive a cat crazy.”
“I know what I saw.” The pants are too big and baggy. I bend to roll up the hems. Donning the shirt, it hangs on me like a dress.
“Hm.” Castle swings around. “Let me think.”
“You do that,” I mutter as I roll up the sleeves.
“We go to Val,” Castle says, his back to me.
I can’t believe he said that. “A shifter attacked me and I should walk into their lair? Are you insane?”
He turns back. “Abnormal behavior for a shifter. If they believed you did something to warrant a death hunt, the entire clan would be after you with Val in the lead. The shifter acted alone.”
Running the idea through my head, I frown. Castle is right. Shifters live by pretty rigid rules. Threaten one, hurt one, you hurt the entire pack and all of them come after you. Another thing - no matter the provocation, shifters hunt discreetly. The pack leader wouldn’t give permission for a lone shifter to rampage through an apartment building, put innocent bystanders at risk and attract the attention of law enforcement.
But every rule can have an exception. “And if you’re wrong?”
“We stake out their place first. If it looks like your shifter acted under orders, we think again.”
“Agreed.” But getting through Gettaholt to the shifters’ territory with one of them mad for my blood worries me. I tug the sweater’s sleeve - if I have to dodge him like I did in the apartment, I shall walk into Valerianus Quintus’ house in my birthday suit.
Outside the building, I shed a few pounds of flesh and start jogging.
“We’re walking?” from Castle.
“My stylish new outfit didn’t come with cash for a cab.”
‘You know how easy I get blisters.”
“Castle, you didn’t get blisters when you were alive, you won’t get them now.”
The shifters’ autos and three motorcycles are lined up on a graveled flat outside the forest. Their home is accessible
only by foot.
I step over a line of white rocks onto a dirt path which goes into the forest. The Auld Wood covers one hundred and twenty acres. Dank and dripping from the last heavy rainfall, it smells of moist earth, rotting vegetation and mold. The path wends around trees, beds of tall soggy fern and deadfalls. The undergrowth becomes thicker, the trees closer together and fungi mottles the trunks. I look up and glimpse patches of sky through meshed branches.
They don’t make a sound. The first I know of the two shifters is when they step in either side of me.
“So much for staking out the place,” Castle murmurs in a singsong voice.
Both guys are near six-feet-tall and brawny, lightweight T-shirts hugging their chests and abdomens, jeans low on their hips and smoothed over muscular thighs. They are barefoot. Their dark hair is long and shaggy.
I know they smell my fear, see the perspiration which dots my brow and hairline, hear my breath hitch. But I can’t do anything about it. I can fade out and disappear into the forest, but this is their domain, they will find me, and running will make Val distrust my motives.
I don’t speak as we walk through the trees to a log cabin which blends into the terrain, and Castle has disappeared. Feet have beaten coiling dirt paths. Smoke wisps from three chimneys and disperses among overhead foliage. It all looks rustic but not picturesque. Men and women on the porch watch with hostile eyes.
The cabin is huge, easily the size of Alain’s mansion and stretches back into the trees. The shifter pack lives together as one big family.
Castle reappears. “Brace yourself,” he says with a distinct twinkle in his eyes.
The twinkle gives me hope I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life. I follow one of my escorts up the steps, the other comes behind. Old wood creaks as we traverse the porch. The smell of roasting meat wafts through an open window.
The man in lead opens the door and ushers me inside.
The huge high-ceilinged room is constructed of rough-hewn logs, with a staircase up to another floor and three doors and an open passage leading deeper into the house. Mismatched armchairs are everywhere, and big pillows and beanbags scatter the floor. A long wooden table and four bench seats perch near the stairs. The room is functional but nothing more; there are no pictures, knickknacks or personal items.
