Downside Rain: Downside book one

by Linda Welch

  “Do it,” Calla brusquely tells the elf.

  And River. How did he worm his way into my heart in just a few days? What will he do now? He’s all alone. When we touch, you make me whole. A lean face, soft dark hair, amethyst eyes.

  The elf grins widely as he approaches. But he stops and looks past me, the smile sliding off his face, his gaze becoming sharp.

  Phaedra’s head jerks toward the window.

  A distant noise sings in my ears, a high piercing note.

  Spider web cracks trace over the big glass window. Everything is noise, a dazzling black flare. A huge dark body bursts through in a blizzard of powdered glass. As it alights, another dark shape rolls over the floor and comes upright.

  The room glitters as if coated with crushed diamonds.

  The dark one unfurls from a crouch and rises, opening leathery wings, casting a shadow which smothers the sparkle. It is a huge, grotesquely muscular demon, naked and definitely male. Black as old polished ebony, veins and sinews like rope push up through horribly scarred skin. His wings are the color of coal which bleeds to dark nacre and wicked fighting spurs curve from heels and elbows. The red fires of hell writhe in slanted black eyes with no pupil as he looks down at me, yet no sulfur stink emanates from him.

  River, tall and dark in his long leather coat, takes in the tableau. Me, wilting in the chair. Wool, tied to me. The elf with a long bloody knife in his hand. Phaedra lifting her hands as her mouth opens on a spell.

  The demon lets forth a deep, threatening, rumbling note which resonates through me. Phaedra hesitates.

  The elf drops the knife and tries to run. River’s pistol booms. The elf’s left cheek and part of his jaw disintegrate in a shower of blood, bone and gristle. He looks surprised. Another boom, and a crater punches in his forehead. His eyes are empty as he crumples.

  The demon’s fire-mad eyes turn back to me. His gaze rests on Wool.

  Trying to break free, Wool wrenches at the bonds but my flesh holds him as his holds mine. He can’t escape what flares in the demon’s eyes. Like angels, demons know everything.

  Gently, delicately, an iridescent wingtip dips and slices Wool’s throat. I turn my head as hot blood spatters my cheek and body, and look away until Wool stops thrashing.

  I gulp a sob. Wool’s death should have been mine, my revenge on Castle’s killer. The demon took it from me.

  “An eye for an eye,” Castle says.

  Phaedra spits out a word, too late. A wing sharp as a blade sweeps down and takes her head from her shoulders. Blood geysers from the stump. Her body, suspended, writhes and jerks as dark shapes burst from her neck. The hellkind which gave her power are breaking free. Amorphous gray shapes like wind-born smoke, they careen around the room before shrieking through the broken window. Phaedra falls in a heap on the floor, one outstretched hand near her severed head as if trying to reach it.

  River’s boots crunch on glass as his long legs take him to Calla. Fury works over his face, muscles in his jaw twitch as the big pistol’s muzzle presses to her forehead.

  Calla flinches, but her panicked gaze calms and she visibly relaxes. She is going to die. A bullet to the head, a quick death, will be a mercy.

  Calla doesn’t deserve mercy.

  “No,” I whisper.

  Eyes dark with fury, River throws a glance at me over his shoulder. He looks back at Calla as his finger tightens on the trigger.

  “Mine,” I moan. The demon killed Wool, but Calla Blayne will die by my hand. Ultimately, she’s responsible for Castle’s murder.

  River’s face contorts, his hand shakes with barely maintained control. He angles the barrel to point at the ceiling.

  The demon stands before me where dead flesh tethers me to the chair, and folds to his knees. His shadow curls around me. I flinch, but he reaches for the ropes which tie me to Wool and slices them with a long talon.

  I pitch off the chair into darkness. All is silence, peace. I want to stay in the darkness where nothing can hurt me ever again.

  “Rain?” River says.

  I’m on my knees, free, wallowing in relief akin to ecstasy. I swivel to look at the chair, the plastic ties still on the arms and legs, the blood on the seat and plastic-covered floor, pass my hands down my flanks, then my face. I’m whole again, unharmed, unblemished.

  Brow creased, I look up at the demon, still on his knees by the chair. The expressionless face tells me nothing and yet… . His eyes are like coals backed by burning embers, and for a moment I imagine pure human emotion looks out from behind them.

  He presents his hand, and fearing the touch of his flesh I hesitantly extend mine. His fingers unfurl to reveal a glittering, multifaceted crystal tear dark as my obsidian knives.

  Comprehension widens my eyes. I pluck the tear, hot from the demon’s skin. He has given me a death worthy of Calla Blayne, more terrible than a knife or River’s gun.

  He’s gone from me in two smooth paces and stands over Calla with wings furled threateningly overhead.

  With Blayne under the demon’s terrible regard, River relinquishes his post and comes to me. When he reaches out, I take his hand and press his palm to my cheek before he changes his mind.

  In a quiet moment amid chaos, he gathers me to his chest and rests his chin on my hair. When I step from his arms, he takes off his coat and drapes it over my shoulders.

  I sweep the elf’s knife from the floor as I pass beneath the demon’s wing. Calla and I are so close, I inhale her natural earthy perfume as I stand before her feeling dangerously calm.

  She tenses; her eyes are on the knife. “Are you going to torture me, Rain?”

  I look at her pityingly. “No.”

  She smiles in a supercilious manner. “The police?”

  “Sorry. I kill monsters.”

  I look into her eyes for five long seconds. She would lose that smile if she knew what I hold.

  I flip the knife and smash her mouth with the pommel. Her lips gape apart, and as she tries to cough out blood and a broken tooth I grasp her lower jaw and pop the demon’s tear down her throat.

  I do more than step back - I backpedal across the room.

  The panic in her eyes lifts hair all over my body. She begins to tremble; it grows worse until she shakes, arms and wrists flopping bonelessly.

  Ground to a powder, a sprinkle of angel’s tear fed to an unsuspecting victim reacts with stomach acid and eats a person’s insides. It is a long, terrible, excruciatingly painful way to die. And if you force a whole tear down someone’s throat… . I figured a demon’s tear is as lethal, why else would he give it to me, and I’m right.

  The demon’s wings clash; he looks upward and roars.

  Patches of skin on Calla’s bare arms, neck and face become translucent. Her skin writhes and bubbles. Her clothes smoke and char black, pieces burst into flame and crumble to ash.

  With a long, drawn-out howl, she crashes around the room and bounces off the table. She ends up slapped against the wall.

  And she smolders, a pulsing woman-shaped coal. Her limbs thrash. She tries to scream but gurgles instead, her mouth sets in an agonized rictus grin.

  All sounds cease as the fire eats her from inside out. Calla is dead yet still on her feet. Small shreds of charred material are all that remain of her clothes. Her hair is gone; her beautiful eyes cloud, bulge and become gelatinous as they cook in her skull. The glowing red of burning embers lines the cracks of her black fissured skin.

  The air reeks of burned meat.

  We stand together near the crematorium and watch smoke billow into the red sky. A mountain of ash and cinders rise on the bluff where Calla Blayne’s mansion stood. The police can sift through it for as long as they please, they will find nothing. No bodies, no blood, no evidence of any kind. All has been reduced to ash by the demon’s rage.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Nice job,” the faun says. “Thorough.”

  My gaze remains on the smoldering pyre. “You told Calla we … I was here.”r />
  From the corner of my eye, I see him twitch one shoulder. “She paid me to tell her if you came around asking questions. A little extra to keep body and soul together. A custodian’s salary don’t amount to much.” He rubs thumb against finger. “Speaking of which.”

  I smile thinly. “I don’t think so. You won’t snitch on us.”

  I look up to where the demon circles. “My friend knows everything. You don’t want me to send him after you,” I bluff.

  A snort wafts his thin beard. “Fair enough.” He trots back to the crematorium.

  I won’t kill him. He’s just an old man, doing business Downside style.

  Black wings clash, the demon cries out and wheels away.

  “Incredible,” Castle remarks.

  “Did you know it could shoot laser beams from its eyes?” from River.

  “Demonfire,” Castle corrects.

  “Looked like laser beams,” says River.

  My gaze slants to him. “How did you meet up with a demon and get him to help me?”

  He watches the demon, a black bolt in the red sky. “I knew you were in trouble but nothing else. I remembered what you said about the angel knowing everything, so I went to the shrine. I asked where you were, what happened to you. It tried to tell me. It burbled on about towers and graves. I didn’t understand - how could I? I got angry and yelled at it.”

  “You yelled at the angel?”

  “It knew you needed help and did nothing,” he says sheepishly.

  “It can’t save everyone,” Castle says. “And its conscience won’t let it choose who to help and who to ignore. It’s not a god.”

  Castle doesn’t know how the angel’s mind works, what it feels, what motivates it, if anything. Nobody does. The rough edge to his voice tells me he remembers his own time of need, when the angel did not come. He’s making excuses for the sorry thing.

  “So I left. Next I know, that thing had me. Didn’t see it coming. One minute I’m walking through town, the next miles up in the sky. It spoke to me,” River taps his head, “inside my head. Said we were coming to get you.”

  Why did he help me? I don’t imagine he happened to be cruising over Gettaholt, saw me and thought, oh, look, a poor little mortal in trouble. I’ll just drop down and help her out and pick up a passenger on the way. Someone sent him. And I’m not sure he is a demon. Big, black, ugly, wings and flaming eyes, but no stink. Demons always stink. Demons don’t help people.

  I decide against saying anything to Castle and River. There are no answers and chewing on it will drive us all crazy. Wondering about the demon will bother me for a long time.

  I blink out of a reverie of flame-drenched eyes and search the sky again, but the demon is long gone. “I didn’t thank him.”

  I touch River’s sleeve. “And you. Thank you.”

  And had Castle not penetrated the mush Angelina made of River’s mind… . “Thanks, Castle.”

  “Don’t mention it, babe.”

  I step nearer to River. “Castle told me you got away from Angelina.”

  He doesn’t immediately reply and furiously concentrates on the path ahead with brows drawn together when I peek at him.

  “Yes,” he says, pauses, continues. “When what he tried to tell me finally got through, I shed flesh, all of it, and got out of there.”

  A smile stretches my mouth. “You finally did it?”

  “Finally.” He darts a look at me. “Like you said, I needed the right motivation.”

  My predicament provided the needed stimulus, when a demon trying to eat him didn’t. I’m horrified to feel my chin wobbling. “And now?”

  “Now I’m a regular invisible man.” River grins. “When I want to be.”

  Rain patters down. I look back at the huge ash mound. A few good downpours will make it a pile of gray goop. Good luck to anyone raking through that.

  “Are we done?” Castle asks. “’Cause we should be going.”

  “Is chit-chatting with dead people a regular thing here?” River asks me. “He’s freaking me out.”

  Castle grins. “It’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it.”

  I poke River’s arm. “You’ll get used to him.”

  “We’re stuck with him?” River says with a sly look at Castle.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Hey!” Castle points at himself. “Right here!”

  We hurry from the bluff, Castle on my right, River to my left. Despite what River said, Castle’s manifestation doesn’t appear to disconcert him. I suppose a ghost isn’t a big deal with all he’s seen since coming Downside.

  “Will Wool come back as a ghost?” I wonder.

  “If he does, he better keep his distance,” from Castle.

  “Or what?” River asks.

  “Or… .” Castle’s voice trails off. He scowls. “Damned if I know. I came back when you needed me, but does anyone need or even want Wool? He doesn’t have a grave I can hang around but maybe I’ll come here sometime. If he does return, we’ll see if a couple of ghosts can go mano a mano.”

  Do all wraiths return from the dead; would I have? Would Castle have sent River to where Calla put my body, to call me back?

  “Now are we going to the police?” River asks.

  “The police are not our friends,” Castle says.

  I walk faster. “We do not want to be implicated in this.”

  “Even if we got that old faun to tell us where the bodies are, we’ve no proof Blayne had them murdered,” says Castle.

  The rain stops falling. Overblown roses fill an urn at the head of a small burial mound; their heavy perfume hangs in the humid air. Although they’re red, they remind me of Castle’s grave and the lonely rose I stuck in the dirt. If I believed in the gods and that they are responsible for giving Castle back to me, I’d drop to my knees right here.

  The open gate is ahead. River’s voice is somber as he asks, “Why did she kill those people?”

  Contempt tinges my voice. “Greed, pure and simple. Hyde found out she had sticky fingers and planned to expose her, so she got rid of him and his wife.” I go on to explain how Castle and I stumbled into the middle of it.

  Music tinkles from River’s coat pocket.

  He takes the shiny black phone from his pocket and puts it to his ear. “Hello?”

  He holds it out to me. “Eshmey Grout, for you.”

  I stare at the thing like it will leap from his hands and bite me. We don’t have mobile telephones Downside for a reason: they don’t work, neither digital nor analog.

  “Should I take a message?”

  Speechless, Castle and I gape as River speaks into the phone. “Uh huh,” he says after listening for a moment. “I’ll tell her. She’ll call you back.”

  The phone goes back in his pocket. “She says a hag is killing her livestock. I said you’ll call her. Her number’s in the address book.”

  Castle’s mouth still hangs open.

  “How could… ? How can… ?” I can’t begin to ask the right questions.

  “I know, there isn’t a service for mobiles, but I thought it could be useful linked to your home phone and programmed to forward calls.” River lifts one shoulder.

  “You can’t do that,” Castle finally manages to say. “You can’t,” he makes a slashing motion in the air, “program!”

  “You don’t understand,” I splutter. “It may turn on and off and you can play games, but there are no providers, no networks. That call is … impossible.”

  River grins. “Tell it to Mrs. Grout.”

  Castle scoots to catch up with me. “Rain, he has magic.”

  “River? Magic?” I scoff.

  “Magic messes with Upside stuff like weapons and electronics. River’s magic somehow overrides it.”

  “Nah,” says River. “I linked the thing to your home-phone. Simple.”

  Castle and I exchange a look. He dips his head toward one shoulder. I widen my eyes.

  We walk on. Hmm. Can we use River’s gift to our advan
tage? It’s something to consider. We should experiment and establish exactly what he can do, and to what.

  I have a thought. “Magic must be how you neutralized Angie’s spell.”

  “I don’t have magic,” River says through his teeth. “If anything counteracted her magic, it was my hands around her throat.”

  Hells. “Did you - ?”

  “I just frightened her.”

  I’m relieved. Angie is on my shit list but I don’t want her dead.

  “I was thinking,” Castle says, “I can still watch your back. We are still a team, right? You’re not gonna kick me out because I’m dead.”

  “No, Castle,” I say, ending on an exaggerated sigh. “We’re still a team.”

  “What next?” River asks.

  “We have a long walk ahead of us.” And we’ll take the back streets, making the trek longer. A cab will keep a record of our ride so calling one is out of the question.

  A dwarf couple holding hands walks toward us. We fall silent as they pass but they don’t notice us. From the looks in their eyes, they see only each other. It makes me smile.

  “You might want to tell Sauvageau you’re safe,” Castle says.

  I eye him quizzically. “Alain?”

  “The kid asked for his help, remember?”

  “Before I thought of going to the angel,” River says as though the words are forced from him. His hands plunge into his deep pockets. “You watched me?” he asks Castle.

  “Sure,” Castle says with a shrug.

  I should talk to Alain and let him know I’m safe, and I’ll enjoy saying he’s wrong about River.

  “I’ll go - ” I begin, but River’s amethyst eyes pierce me and make the words jam in my throat.

  I swallow. What is with him? I try to hold his gaze but he averts his face.

  “Does that thing work both ways?” Castle asks. “Can we call anyone who has a regular phone?”

  River jerks his head.

  Castle beams at me. “There you go.”

  River takes the phone from his pocket and slaps it in my hand. “Here.”

  Oookay. I study the phone, stab the tiny buttons and put it to my ear.