Uncanny Collateral

by Brian McClellan

  Chapter 8

  I got a call from Nadine the next afternoon while I sat at a Cracker Barrel, having a late lunch. “Alek,” I answered.

  “How are you feeling today, hun?” Nadine asked.

  “Like I got hit by a car, funny enough,” I answered flatly. My troll blood let me shrug off a lot of damage, but everything ached badly, and that headache was still floating around the back of my skull. I wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep it off for a few days, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  “You should go to the doctor. Get some oxy.”

  “I don’t have time for that shit.” I’d taken a triple dose of aspirin, and it would have to be enough. I couldn’t afford to be foggy-headed this week.

  “I can get you a little weed if you need it.”

  “It’s never done jack for me.”

  “Sorry, hun. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I appreciate it, Nadine. What’s up?”

  I heard her tapping something out on her keyboard. “Have you checked your email today?” she asked.

  “Not for a few hours. I’ve been hitting up a few more informants to try to dig up more leads.”

  “Anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, you’ll get there. Your buddy over at OtherOps has sent you an ID on one of those dead imps. He cc’d me on the email to make sure you got it.”

  I took the phone away from my ear long enough to check. “Yup, it’s there. I appreciate it. Did LuciCorp give you any more information on Judith?”

  “They just sent over her file. I’m going to comb through it today and tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.” I hung up and opened the email from Justin. All it said was heads up, but it had two PDF attachments. They turned out to be a pair of dossiers. The first was of the dead imp—his name, known associates, known addresses, and a list of misdemeanors he’d been attached to over the last fifteen years. The second dossier was far more interesting because it belonged to the dead imp’s brother, who was, according to OtherOps’ information, still alive and well and living in a group home for imps out in Ashtabula County.

  Ugh, Maggie said as I paid my bill and headed out to my rented Prius. I hate Ashtabula—trailer parks and meth houses as far as the eye can see.

  I like it, I told her. The old reapers used to take me out to a little fair there every so often when I went on ride-alongs as a kid. I wonder if that place is still around. I loved the bumper cars.

  Ashtabula is the armpit of Ohio, Maggie insisted.

  I grinned. Ohio has a lot of armpits, and we love them all.

  I hopped on the freeway and drove east, soon lost in my own thoughts as I tried to unravel this thing Ferryman had brought me into. Imps tend to work in family units, so the dead imp’s brother seemed like a pretty good shot at picking up a lead. Even if he wasn’t directly involved in what his brother was doing, he’d definitely have some idea what it was. If I couldn’t make him talk, I’d drag him back to Kappie, who would be far more interested in throwing one of his underlings to the wolves than getting involved with my clients.

  I still couldn’t fathom what kind of creature would think it wise to steal from the Lords of Hell. The human who rented the warehouse in the flats might be my best bet. Humans were always more unpredictable than any of the Other, and I could think of few Other with the guts or stupidity to try and cheat Death. Those that were… well, most of them were gods, or beings way above my pay grade. Assuming it was a human, how rich or powerful did they have to be to hire imps out from underneath the nose of the local imp king? Maybe, I decided, this culprit was a half-breed like me.

  I pulled myself out of my thoughts as my GPS led me down a long, single-lane drive in a town called North Kingsville. It was about an hour since I’d received the call from Nadine. I came to a stop thirty yards from an old beat-up plastic mailbox marked with the address I’d been given and looked across the overgrown lawn to a run-down bungalow with ancient, post–World War II wooden siding and a moss-covered roof. A thick forest surrounded the yard, and opposite the house was an overgrown farmer’s field.

  I felt Maggie’s presence in the ring—a slight warmth that indicated she was alert and examining our surroundings with apt attention. Strangely, she did not comment as I got out of the car and stood next to it. I watched for any sign of movement. The front door of the house was open, and there were five rusted old cars and trucks parked in the grass in front. I couldn’t hear any noise or see any sign of life. I didn’t need Maggie to tell me something was wrong.

  I got my shoulder holster and Glock out of my endless wallet and put them on before walking slowly toward the mailbox.

  Despite the disrepair of the place, there were many signs of occupancy. Besides the cars by the drive, grass was trampled by tire tracks all along the drive and yard, as if they’d recently thrown a big house party here. I smelled smoke and soon caught sight of the smoldering remains of a bonfire around the other side of the house.

  It didn’t take long to catch the smell of ammonia on the breeze. I took a handkerchief out of my endless wallet and tied it around my face. Meth house, I told Maggie. It’s probably one of Kappie’s. He owns dozens around Cleveland.

  There’s nothing alive inside that house. It wasn’t just the words Maggie used that brought me to a standstill, but the tone in which she said them. They were whispered angrily, with a slight hiss like a cornered cat. My tusks began to emerge on their own, and I had to force them back down, painfully, through my tender gums.

  What do you mean? I asked her.

  I mean that house if full of corpses, Maggie replied. Something isn’t right here. You should go. Now.

  I raised my eyebrows. I was a little beat up from yesterday, but Maggie knew better than anyone that I could take care of myself in a scrap. My heart began to hammer. Is there danger? I asked.

  Yes.

  What is it?

  I don’t know. You should go.

  Despite Maggie’s warnings, I inched closer. There could be answers in this house—answers worth a little risk. Heart hammering, I drew my Glock, holding it at the ready, and rounded the mailbox. Maggie remained silent. I could feel her uncertainty like a weight in the pit of my stomach. I crossed the caved-in porch carefully and looked through the doorway.

  The door wasn’t just open; it had been ripped from its hinges and lay inside the dimly lit front room. Ammonia made my eyes water as I squinted at the inside and caught my first whiff of death. With a deep breath, I hopped a broken porch plank and stepped inside. Something squelched beneath my boots, and it took me a few moments to realize that the ratty old carpet was literally soaked with blood. I froze in my tracks and took in the scene.

  The living room was covered in the pieces of what had once been six or seven imps. A head sat in the center of the room as if carefully placed there to watch for intruders. It was surrounded by arms, legs, and bits of flesh and innards literally strewn about the place like confetti. The blood spatter across the walls was so thick that at first I thought it had been painted on. I gagged, swallowed bile, and forced myself across the squishing carpet.

  The kitchen had another two dead imps inside. These appeared more or less intact. One had been disemboweled from behind as he’d tried to flee toward the back door, and the other had his throat torn out. He still held an unfired shotgun in his stiff hands. Broken glass, metal plates, and single-burner cooktops covered the entire kitchen—the shattered remnants of a rather extensive meth lab. The back door was also open, its ripped screen door creaking in the breeze.

  Look down. Maggie told me.

  I looked at my feet to see a single enormous footprint. It was at least eighteen inches long and six inches wide. One big pad and three little ones, along with four toes and the scratches of big talons, were distinctly outlined by the blood. The footprint was clearly pointed tow
ard the door, as if whatever made it had killed these last two imps as an afterthought as it leapt into the night.

  Werewolf? Maggie asked.

  Possibly, I told her, sniffing for the telltale scent of wet dog. I couldn’t get anything over the ammonia burn in my nostrils. I went back into the other room and checked a torso. Bite marks covered the shoulder and stomach. Whatever had been here very clearly gnawed on the poor bastards. No self-respecting werewolf I know about would eat imp meat, not even in a fury. It would have to be starving. Maybe a wendigo?

  They usually don’t come this far south. And they wouldn’t eat imp, either. Not when there’s plenty of isolated houses around here where they could grab a fresh human.

  I did a quick circuit of the house, using my phone to take pictures of the carnage in the living room and kitchen and three more bodies I found in the back bedroom. I stepped outside and allowed myself a moment to dry heave into the bushes before dialing a number.

  “Yeah?” a voice answered.

  “Justin,” I said. “That address you sent me this morning? I just got here. Something very big and angry got here before me and killed everyone in the house. Send a team out here right away. And no, I’m not going to wait. I’m getting the hell out of here before whatever it is decides to come back for a snack.” I hung up and went around the side of the house.

  You’re definitely getting out of here, right? Maggie asked.

  In a moment, I said. I told myself that the dread in my stomach was just from seeing those corpses. There wasn’t anything in these woods but me and the dead, and nobody would be here from OtherOps for at least forty minutes. I needed to look around. I walked the perimeter of the yard quickly, hoping to find more evidence of whatever had done this. Strangely, I found nothing—no more bloody prints, and not even any bent grass or broken branches from something large blundering into the underbrush.

  I checked each of the cars. None seemed damaged or disturbed in any way. One still had the keys in the ignition and the driver’s-side door open, as though an imp had stopped by to grab something from the house and been caught in the butchery.

  I circled the house two more times before heading over to the remnants of the bonfire. It was a pile of ash perhaps seven feet across, with small refuse and twigs still half burned around the edges. The head of a child’s doll lay nearby, with a matching foot among the remaining trash. I picked up a stick and poked around in the ash, wondering if this bonfire had happened before or after the deaths of the imps.

  Alek.

  What is it? I replied.

  Time to go.

  Is OtherOps here already? I tilted my head, listening for the sound of a car, and then realized Maggie was whispering again.

  No. We’re being watched.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I casually got to my feet, Glock still gripped in one hand, and circled the bonfire while glancing cautiously toward the tree line. Human? Maybe a neighbor?

  Definitely not. Whatever it is, my sorcery slides right past it.

  I swallowed hard and resisted the urge to run toward my car. I may be a tough son of a bitch, but I had no interest in tangling with something that could mow through this many imps without, apparently, missing a beat. I took a deep breath. Can you give me a location?

  No. Just leave. She sounded genuinely worried. She might be a powerful Other, but she was trapped on my finger, and I was mostly human.

  I took a few steps toward the car when something caught my eye—a glint among the ashes of the bonfire. I knelt quickly, reaching into the warm ash, and plucked out a small mirror. I forgot my fear immediately and began sifting through the ash. Within moments I had three more mirrors in my hands.

  I fled toward the car, and didn’t even breathe until I was back on the interstate. The mirrors lay on the passenger seat. I couldn’t stop glancing at them or my rearview mirror.

  We aren’t being followed, Maggie informed me.

  Any idea what that was back there? I asked. A cold sweat trickled down the small of my back.

  The killer, or whatever, was watching us?

  Either. Both.

  No on both accounts.

  Maggie is very good at knowing things. It’s what jinn do. The fact that she couldn’t pinpoint the creature we were dealing with made me more nervous than the bodies.

  Are those mirrors what I think they are? she asked.

  Soul mirrors, I confirmed. Those imps were definitely working the same job as the ones we killed downtown.

  They’re working for someone else right under Kappie’s nose.

  I lifted one of the mirrors, taking my eyes off the road long enough to get a good, long look at it. Unless I was mistaken, this mirror had an occupant: one of Ferryman’s missing souls. And I was willing to bet that whoever was employing the imps also had them killed to cover his tracks.

  Chapter 9

  I sat in my office in the Valkyrie building later that night, long after everyone else had gone home. I leaned back in my chair, feet on my desk, flipping though the soul mirrors that I’d recovered from that bonfire. To the casual observer—even to someone who knew a lot about the Other—these were just a couple of handheld mirrors. They could have come from a car or a discarded child’s play set or a makeup box. I doubted that half the people at OtherOps would have given them a second glance. Whoever had thrown them in that fire had known enough to want to destroy them but had not known that soul mirrors are next to impossible to break. A bonfire certainly wouldn’t crack them.

  I set the mirrors on my desk and picked up my phone, scanning through the hundreds of pictures I’d taken over the last few days. Most of them were different angles of dead imps. I moved through them quickly until I got to a number of pictures I’d taken of Judith Pyke. I zoomed in on her emaciated face and thought over our conversation. Hopefully she’d already left town, ahead of whoever or whatever was trying to clean up loose ends. After a few moments, I exited out of the pictures and searched through my wallet until I found Ferryman’s business card.

  I turned it over, looking at the mirror on the back, and then set the card facedown on the table in front of me. I pressed three fingers against the glass.

  The world crinkled around me, and I immediately found myself standing in murky darkness. I’d been through enough stepping mirrors that I didn’t stumble upon arriving in this new place. I tried to get my bearings, failed, and cleared my throat.

  A light winked into existence a few yards to my left. It came from a bedside-style reading lamp clamped to a card table, at which Ferryman sat regarding a game of solitaire laid out in front of him. He clutched a cigarette between his fingers. Ferryman didn’t seem to notice my presence, so I walked over to join him, my boots echoing like I was walking across a blackened gymnasium at night.

  “Is this your place?” I asked. My voice whispered back at me, more like a mocking mimic than an echo.

  “It is,” Ferryman answered.

  “Is it really a good idea to hand out business cards that have a stepping mirror directly to Death’s realm?”

  Ferryman put a jack on a queen and leaned back, giving me a distracted look. “You don’t think I can control who uses my stepping mirror?”

  “Fair point.” I rounded the table to stand in front of Ferryman, briefly wondering what Death’s realm would look like if I shone a flashlight through the darkness. It was probably filled with skulls or spirits or something equally macabre—either that, or endless nothing. I thought of the description he’d given of himself doing paperwork for the dead. Maybe filing cabinets? I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  You there? I nudged Maggie.

  No, she said. I’m hiding.

  Come on. You’re being a huge scaredy cat lately.

  That’s because we’re getting mixed up in things out of our league. You can wander into Death’s realm if you’d l
ike, but you should have left me at the office.

  Yes, because I can just slip your ring off whenever I want, remember?

  “I assume you’re here because you have a status update?” Ferryman asked. “Your clients are getting antsy about this whole thing, you know.”

  I snorted at both him and Maggie. “It’s been what, five days? And I’m pretty sure you’re my client. The fact that you’re a middleman for the Lords of Hell has little to do with our business arrangement.”

  “Me, them—it doesn’t matter all that much, does it?” Ferryman gave me a sallow smile.

  “If you’re so worried, you should have come forward earlier.”

  Would you please stop being sassy with Death? Maggie grumbled.

  “I didn’t know about it earlier,” Ferryman claimed.

  I thought about Judith Pyke. “I’m pretty sure you’re lying.”

  Jesus Christ, Alek!

  Ferryman finally turned his attention entirely away from his card game and scowled at me. “Now, why would that be in my best interest?”

  “Because there’s something going on that you’d rather not tell me, even in confidence. But I’m neck-deep in your investigation. Time to fess up.” Ferryman glared hard at me, unresponsive. Once the silence had gone on long enough to be awkward, I removed the soul mirrors from my pocket and tossed them on the card table. “Do these have souls in them?”

  Ferryman inhaled sharply. He picked up one of the mirrors and held it under his reading light. He checked the next mirror, then the next. “Five of the missing souls,” he proclaimed, setting them to one side. “I am pleased.”

  “If you’re pleased, tell me what’s going on.”

  Ferryman’s eyes narrowed.

  “I did the math,” I continued. “That soul on top of the stack? I pulled that out of a woman named Judith Pyke. It had been sold to her secondhand by a group of imps. Having it in her body was killing her—fast. As far as I can tell, the imps planned on taking the soul back from her when she was too weak to fight them. They kill her, sell the soul to another poor sap, and the cycle continues. A way to make money in the mortal realm with otherwise useless souls, right?”