The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2014 Edition

by Paula Guran [editor]

  DARVULIA:

  You think I don’t see you? You think I can’t smell you?

  (pause)

  You’ve no right claim left on me. I’ve passed my debt to the Báthory woman. I’ve prepared her for you. Now, leave me be, spirit. Do not trouble me this night or any other.

  The fire flares blue again, and Darvulia lowers her head, no longer gazing into the darkness.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  EXT. ČACHTICE CASTLE HILL. NIGHT.

  The full moon shines down on Csejte. The castle is dark. There’s no light in any of its windows.

  CUT TO:

  The gypsy girl’s unmarked grave. But much of the earth that filled the hole now lies heaped about the edges, as if someone has hastily exhumed the corpse. Or as if the dead girl might have dug her way out. The ground is white with snow and frost, and sparkles beneath the moon.

  CUT TO:

  EXT. BALCONY OUTSIDE COUNTESS’ BEDCHAMBER. NIGHT.

  The owl that watched Ujváry János bury the girl is perched on the stone balustrade. The doors to the balcony have been left standing open. Draperies billow in the freezing wind.

  CLOSE UP:

  Owl’s round face. It blinks several times, and the bird’s eyes flash an iridescent red-gold.

  The Countess sits in her bedchamber, in that enormous chair with its six savage feet. A wolf pelt lies draped across her lap, emptied of its wolf. Like a dragon, the Countess breathes steam. She holds a wooden cross in her shaking hands.

  “Tell the cats to come to me,” she says, uttering the prayer hardly above a whisper. There is no need to raise her voice; all gods and angels must surely have good ears. “And hasten them,” she continues, “to bite the hearts of my enemies and all who would do me harm. Let them rip to pieces and bite again and again the heart of my foes. And guard Erzsébet from all evil. O Quam Misericors est Deus, Pius et Justus.”

  Elizabeth was raised a Calvinist, and her devout mother, Anna, saw that she attended a fine Protestant school in Erdöd. She was taught mathematics and learned to write and speak Greek, German, Slovak, and Latin. She learned Latin prayers against the demons and the night.

  “O Quam Misericors est Deus. Justus et Paciens,” she whispers, though she’s shivering so badly that her teeth have begun to chatter and the words no longer come easily. They fall from her lips like stones. Or rotten fruit. Or lies. She cringes in her chair, and gazes intently towards the billowing, diaphanous drapes and the night and balcony beyond them. A shadow slips into the room, moving across the floor like spilled oil. The drapes part as if they have a will all their own (they were pulled to the sides with hooks and nylon fishing line, you’ve read), and the gypsy girl steps into the room. She is entirely nude, and her tawny body and black hair are caked with the earth of her abandoned grave. There are feathers caught in her hair, and a few drift from her shoulders to lie on the floor at her feet. She is bathed in moonlight, as cliché as that may sound. She has the iridescent eyes of an owl. The girl’s face is the very picture of sorrow.

  “Why did you bury me, Mother?”

  “You were dead . . . ”

  The girl takes a step nearer the Countess. “I was so cold down there. You cannot ever imagine anything even half so cold as the deadlands.”

  The Countess clutches her wood cross. She is shaking, near tears. “You cannot be here. I said the prayers Anna taught me.”

  The girl has moved very near the chair now. She is close enough that she could reach out and stroke Elizabeth’s pale cheek, if she wished to do so.

  “The cats aren’t coming, Mother. Her prayer was no more than any other prayer. Just pretty words against that which has never had cause to fear pretty words.”

  “The cats aren’t coming,” the Countess whispers, and the cross slips from her fingers.

  The gypsy child reaches out and strokes Elizabeth’s pale cheek. The girl’s short nails are broken and caked with dirt. “It doesn’t matter, Mother, because I’m here. What need have you of cats, when your daughter has come to keep you safe?”

  The Countess looks up at the girl, who seems to have grown four or five inches taller since entering the room. “You are my daughter?” Elizabeth asks, the question a mouthful of fog.

  “I am,” the girl replies, kneeling to gently kiss the Countess’ right cheek. “I have many mothers, as I have many daughters of my own. I watch over them all. I hold them to me and keep them safe.”

  “I’ve lost my mind,” the Countess whispers. “long, long ago, I lost my mind.” She hesitantly raises her left hand, brushing back the girl’s filthy, matted hair, dislodging another feather. The Countess looks like an old woman. All traces of the youth she clung to with such ferocity have left her face, and her eyes have grown cloudy. “I am a madwoman.”

  “It makes no difference,” the gypsy girl replies.

  “Anna lied to me.”

  “Let that go, Mother. Let it all go. There are things I would show you. Wondrous things.”

  “I thought she loved me.”

  “She is a sorceress, Mother, and an inconstant lover. But I am true. And you’ll need no other’s love but mine.”

  The movie’s score has dwindled to a slow smattering of piano notes, a bow drawn slowly, nimbly across the string of a cello. A hint of flute.

  The Countess whispers, “I called to the King of Cats.”

  The girl answers, “Cats rarely ever come when called. And certainly not ninety all at once.”

  And the brown girl leans forward, her lips pressed to the pale Countess’ right ear. Whatever she says, it’s nothing you can make out from your seat, from your side of the silver mirror. The gypsy girl kisses the Countess on the forehead.

  “I’m so very tired.”

  “Shhhhh, Mother. I know. It’s okay. You can rest now.”

  The Countess asks, “Who are you?”

  “I am the peace at the end of all things.”

  EXT. COURTYARD BELOW COUNTESS’ BALCONY. MORNING.

  The body of Elizabeth Báthory lies shattered on the flagstones, her face and clothes a mask of frozen blood. Fresh snow is falling on her corpse. A number of noisy crows surround the body. No music now, only the wind and the birds.

  FADE TO BLACK:

  ROLL CREDITS.

  THE END.

  As always, you don’t leave your seat until the credits are finished and the curtain has swept shut again, hiding the screen from view. As always, you’ve made no notes, preferring to rely on your memories.

  You follow the aisle to the auditorium doors and step out into the almost deserted lobby. The lights seem painfully bright. You hurry to the restroom. When you’re finished, you wash your hands, dry them, then spend almost an entire minute staring at your face in the mirror above the sink.

  Outside, it’s started to rain, and you wish you’d brought an umbrella.

  The New York Times recently hailed Caitlín R. Kiernan as “one of our essential writers of dark fiction.” Her novels include The Red Tree (nominated for the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy awards) and The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the Bram Stoker Award, nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Mythopoeic awards). To date, her short fiction has been collected in thirteen volumes, most recently Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One), and The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories. Currently, she’s writing the graphic novel series Alabaster for Dark Horse Comics and working on her next novel, Cherry Bomb.

  She knew to look the Forests straight on. She knew the surveyors

  were wrong. There was a predator out there. The Forest itself was one . . .

  SHADOWS FOR SILENCE IN THE FORESTS OF HELL

  Brandon Sanderson

  “The one you have to watch for is the White Fox,” Daggon said, sipping his beer. “They say he shook hands with the Evil itself, that he visited the Fallen World and came back with strange powers. He can kind
le fire on even the deepest of nights, and no shade will dare come for his soul. Yes, the White Fox. Meanest bastard in these parts for sure. Pray he doesn’t set his eyes on you, friend. If he does, you’re dead.”

  Daggon’s drinking companion had a neck like a slender wine bottle and a head like a potato stuck sideways on the top. He squeaked as he spoke, a Lastport accent, voice echoing in the eaves of the waystop’s common room. “Why . . . why would he set his eyes on me?”

  “That depends, friend,” Daggon said, looking about as a few overdressed merchants sauntered in. They wore black coats, ruffled lace poking out the front, and the tall-topped, wide-brimmed hats of fortfolk. They wouldn’t last two weeks out here, in the Forests.

  “It depends?” Daggon’s dining companion prompted. “It depends on what?”

  “On a lot of things, friend. The White Fox is a bounty hunter, you know. What crimes have you committed? What have you done?”

  “Nothing.” That squeak was like a rusty wheel.

  “Nothing? Men don’t come out into the Forests to do ‘nothing,’ friend.”

  His companion glanced from side to side. He’d given his name as Earnest. But, then, Daggon had given his name as Amity. Names didn’t mean a whole lot in the Forests. Or maybe they meant everything. The right ones, that was.

  Earnest leaned back, scrunching down that fishing-pole neck of his, as if trying to disappear into his beer. He’d bite. People liked hearing about the White Fox, and Daggon considered himself an expert. At least, he was an expert at telling stories to get ratty men like Earnest to pay for his drinks.

  I’ll give him some time to stew, Daggon thought, smiling to himself. Let him worry. Earnest would pry him for more information in a bit.

  While he waited, Daggon leaned back, surveying the room. The merchants were making a nuisance of themselves, calling for food, saying they meant to be on their way in an hour. That proved them to be fools. Traveling at night in the Forests? Good homesteader stock would do it. Men like these, though . . . they’d probably take less than an hour to violate one of the Simple Rules and bring the shades upon them. Daggon put the idiots out of his mind.

  That fellow in the corner, though . . . dressed all in brown, still wearing his hat despite being indoors. That fellow looked truly dangerous. I wonder if it’s him, Daggon thought. So far as he knew, nobody had ever seen the White Fox and lived. Ten years, over a hundred bounties turned in. Surely someone knew his name. The authorities in the forts paid him the bounties, after all.

  The waystop’s owner, Madam Silence, passed by the table and deposited Daggon’s meal with an unceremonious thump. Scowling, she topped off his beer, spilling a sudsy dribble onto his hand, before limping off. She was a stout woman. Tough. Everyone in the Forests was tough. The ones that survived, at least.

  He’d learned that a scowl from Silence was just her way of saying hello. She’d given him an extra helping of venison; she often did that. He liked to think that she had a fondness for him. Maybe someday . . .

  Don’t be a fool, he thought to himself, as he dug into the heavily gravied food. Better to marry a stone than Silence Montane. A stone showed more affection. Likely, she gave him the extra slice because she recognized the value of a repeat customer. Fewer and fewer people came this way lately. Too many shades. And then, there was Chesterton. Nasty business, that.

  “So . . . he’s a bounty hunter, this Fox?” The man who called himself Earnest seemed to be sweating.

  Daggon smiled. Hooked right good, this one was. “He’s not just a bounty hunter. He’s the bounty hunter. Though, the White Fox doesn’t go for the small timers—and no offense, friend, but you seem pretty small time.”

  His friend grew more nervous. What had he done? “But,” the man stammered, “he wouldn’t come for me—er, pretending I’d done something, of course—anyway, he wouldn’t come in here, would he? I mean, Madam Silence’s waystop, it’s protected. Everyone knows that. Shade of her dead husband lurks here. I had a cousin who saw it, I did.”

  “The White Fox doesn’t fear shades,” Daggon said, leaning in. “Now, mind you, I don’t think he’d risk coming in here—but not because of some shade. Everyone knows this is neutral ground. You’ve got to have some safe places, even in the Forests. But . . . ”

  Daggon smiled at Silence as she passed him by on the way to the kitchens again. This time she didn’t scowl at him. He was getting through to her for certain.

  “But?” Earnest squeaked.

  “Well . . . ” Daggon said. “I could tell you a few things about how the White Fox takes men, but you see, my beer is nearly empty. A shame. I think you’d be very interested in how the White Fox caught Makepeace Hapshire. Great story, that.”

  Earnest squeaked for Silence to bring another beer, though she bustled into the kitchen and didn’t hear. Daggon frowned, but Earnest put a coin on the side of the table, indicating he’d like a refill when Silence or her daughter returned. That would do. Daggon smiled to himself and launched into the story.

  Silence Montane closed the door to the common room, then turned and pressed her back against it. She tried to still her racing heart by breathing in and out. Had she made any obvious signs? Did they know she’d recognized them?

  William Ann passed by, wiping her hands on a cloth. “Mother?” the young woman asked, pausing. “Mother, are you—”

  “Fetch the book. Quickly, child!”

  William Ann’s face went pale, then she hurried into the back pantry. Silence clutched her apron to still her nerves, then joined William Ann as the girl came out of the pantry with a thick, leather satchel. White flour dusted its cover and spine from the hiding place.

  Silence took the satchel and opened it on the high kitchen counter, revealing a collection of loose-leaf papers. Most had faces drawn on them. As Silence rifled through the pages, William Ann moved to look through the peephole back into the common room.

  For a few moments, the only sound to accompany Silence’s thumping heart was that of hastily turned pages.

  “It’s the man with the long neck, isn’t it?” William Ann asked. “I remember his face from one of the bounties.”

  “That’s just Lamentation Winebare, a petty horse thief. He’s barely worth two measures of silver.”

  “Who, then? The man in the back, with the hat?”

  Silence shook her head, finding a sequence of pages at the bottom of her pile. She inspected the drawings. God Beyond, she thought. I can’t decide if I want it to be them, or not. At least her hands had stopped shaking.

  William Ann scurried back and craned her neck over Silence’s shoulder. At fourteen, the girl was already taller than her mother. A fine thing to suffer, a child taller than you. Though William Ann grumbled about being awkward and lanky, her slender build foreshadowed a beauty to come. She took after her father.

  “Oh, God Beyond,” William Ann said, raising a hand to her mouth. “You mean—”

  “Chesterton Divide,” Silence said. The shape of the chin, the look in the eyes . . . they were the same. “He walked right into our hands, with four of his men.” The bounty on those five would be enough to pay her supply needs for a year. Maybe two.

  Her eyes flickered to the words below the pictures, printed in harsh, bold letters. Extremely dangerous. Wanted for murder, rape, extortion. And, of course, there was the big one at the end: And assassination.

  Silence had always wondered if Chesterton and his men had intended to kill the governor of the most powerful city on this continent, or if it had it been an accident. A simple robbery gone wrong. Either way, Chesterton understood what he’d done. Before the incident, he had been a common—if accomplished—highway bandit.

  Now he was something greater, something far more dangerous. Chesterton knew that if he were captured, there would be no mercy, no quarter. Lastport had painted Chesterton as an anarchist, a menace, and a psychopath.

  Chesterton had no reason to hold back. So he didn’t.

  Oh, God Beyond, Silence th
ought, looking at the continuing list of his crimes on the next page.

  Beside her, William Ann whispered the words to herself. “He’s out there?” she asked. “But where?”

  “The merchants,” Silence said.

  “What?” William Ann rushed back to the peephole. The wood there—indeed, all around the kitchen—had been scrubbed so hard that it had been bleached white. Sebruki had been cleaning again.

  “I can’t see it,” William Ann said.

  “Look closer.” Silence hadn’t seen it at first either, even though she spent each night with the book, memorizing its faces.

  A few moments later, William Ann gasped, raising her hand to her mouth. “That seems so foolish of him. Why is he going about perfectly visible like this? Even in disguise.”

  “Everyone will remember just another band of fool merchants from the fort who thought they could brave the Forests. It’s a clever disguise. When they vanish from the paths in a few days, it will be assumed—if anyone cares to wonder—that the shades got them. Besides, this way Chesterton can travel quickly and in the open, visiting waystops and listening for information.”

  Was this how Chesterton discovered good targets to hit? Had they come through her waystop before? The thought made her stomach turn. She had fed criminals many times; some were regulars. Every man was probably a criminal out in the Forests, if only for ignoring taxes imposed by the fortfolk.

  Chesterton and his men were different. She didn’t need the list of crimes to know what they were capable of doing.

  “Where’s Sebruki?” Silence said.

  William Ann shook herself, as if coming out of a stupor. “She’s feeding the pigs. Shadows! You don’t think they’d recognize her, do you?”

  “No,” Silence said. “I’m worried she’ll recognize them.” Sebruki might only be eight, but she could be shockingly—disturbingly—observant.

  Silence closed the book of bounties. She rested her fingers on its leather.