Dreams of Shreds and Tatters

by Amanda Downum

  His hand closed on her elbow, hot as a brand in the chill of the painting’s shadow. “How do you know?”

  “I dream of him. Every night since your accident.” She caught whispers from across the room; they were making a scene. For once she didn’t care. Her skin tingled, but not just with nerves— she felt her masks peeling away.

  Rainer’s face sharpened. His grip on her arm tightened, and she braced herself. Then he released her and took a hasty step back, straightening his jacket convulsively. The sudden raw need in his face eased into polite curiosity.

  They both paused for breath; the air between them tasted of ozone. Rainer’s throat worked.

  Before either of them could speak, they heard the first scream.

  8

  Terrible Angels

  AS ALEX FOLLOWED Antja through the gallery, he wished more of the work would catch his interest. He wasn’t curmudgeon enough to deny the talent on display, but his knowledge of art dropped sharply after the Gothic, and he didn’t think anyone here wanted to talk iconography or Marian devotion. Even worse, they’d wandered into a room dominated by heavy sexual symbolism. If he wanted genitalia in art, he’d crack open an anthropology textbook. He sighed under his breath as they passed a statue of a woman and serpent entwined.

  “How much longer do you have?” Antja asked dryly.

  Alex looked up from the reflection of the track lighting on his wingtips. “Excuse me?”

  “Until you die of boredom. It looks like a terminal case.”

  He snorted. “Am I that transparent? So much for my dreams of the stage.” He was being rude, and it wasn’t her fault—under other circumstances he would likely have found her charming company. But his lungs were still unhappy, and talking only made it worse.

  Her dark eyes slitted in amusement. Amethysts glittered in wire cages as she cocked her head. “Let me guess. Coming here tonight wasn’t your idea?”

  “I couldn’t make Liz come alone.” Though he hadn’t seen her in nearly an hour. He looked down at his empty champagne flute. Was this his third, or fourth? He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the combination of alcohol and Antja’s perfume left him lightheaded. A headache tightened slowly around his temples.

  Antja’s smile faded. “No. I’m not really in the mood for it either. Not after—” She made a vague gesture. “Would you like another drink, at least?”

  He swallowed the lingering metallic taste of champagne. “Do you have anything less bubbly? Like scotch?”

  “Of course. I’ll be right back.”

  He scanned the crowd for Liz’s red dress, but saw nothing. He should find her. They could come back on Monday during the public showing, when there might be fewer people, less brittle laughter and forced witticisms. Instead he found a bench in a corner and slumped, elbows on his knees. The polished tiles threw back the light, and he squinted against the glare. His headache eased when he tugged the elastic band out of his hair, but not enough. What the hell were they looking for, anyway?

  The room in front of him was lined with ribs like flying buttresses. Peering over the tops of his glasses, Alex had the unsettling feeling that he’d been swallowed by Jonah’s whale.

  A woman wandered past, her eyes glassy and unfocused, tongue flickering wet across her lips. Was that mania? Maybe he should ask for a sample. In the interest of informed judgment, of course.

  Footsteps and voices approached. Antja and a man, their conversation low and serious.

  “—losing his grip, and you know it,” the man said. “He’s a disaster waiting to happen, whether it’s the police or your monsters.”

  Antja’s voice could have cut glass. “You don’t need to stay if it worries you so.”

  “You’re the one who should leave. He lost three of his artists in one night, not to mention his protégé. Do you think you’ll end up any better?”

  They paused at the corner. The man was blond and sleek, his voice veined with smugness under the veneer of concern. Antja stared at him, her face an ice sculpture, a glass of amber liquid in her hand. Neither of them noticed Alex.

  “And where would I go, Stephen?” Anger made her accent stronger, deepening her rich contralto.

  “I’m sure you could find someone else to appreciate you.”

  She gave him a disdainful laugh. “Someone like a backbiting street-corner pusher? Or one of your gangster friends?”

  Stephen’s smile chilled. “At least I wouldn’t throw you over for the first pretty boy with a sob story who wanders by.”

  A second of frozen silence followed, before Antja flung the contents of the glass full in his face. Ice rattled against the floor.

  Stephen wiped his eyes with a steady hand. “Sorry. Did I touch a nerve?”

  “Get out,” she spat. “You can’t buy your welcome here any longer.”

  “Whatever you say. Just remember, when everything’s burning down around your ears, that I offered to help.” He turned, dripping, and stalked away.

  Antja looked up and caught Alex’s gaze. She drew a sharp breath, then started to laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said, setting the empty glass on the bench. “I seem to have spilled your drink.” Her shoulders shook and the stones of her necklace threw off sparks. “It was the cheap stuff, anyway.”

  Alex arched an eyebrow. “As long as it went to a good cause.”

  She laughed again, low and rich. “Believe me, that was an excellent cause.” She tried to school her expression, but her eyes were bright. “We have better scotch upstairs, if you’d like. I think I could use some too.”

  It was better than anything else he could think of, besides finding Liz and getting the hell out of there. “Why not?”

  Antja led him through an emergency exit in the corner. Winter chill coiled in the stairwell, and darkness puddled beyond the reach of the white LEDs on the landings. Her heels echoed on the concrete steps as she climbed. Her dress left her back bare, and muscles shifted under smooth skin with each step; fabric shimmered with the sway of her hips. Her perfume trailed behind her, poppy and narcissus and bitter myrrh.

  Perhaps this was an adventure better had sober.

  As they neared the top floor, they heard a soft scratching noise. Antja stopped, and Alex nearly collided with her. His hand closed over the cold iron railing.

  Shadows gathered at the top of the stairs, black and liquid. As he watched, a shape coalesced from the gloom. A man, tall and gaunt. Then it moved, and it wasn’t a man at all. Cold air gusted over them as the shadows flared. Alex couldn’t move, only stare, trying to make sense of what he saw. Lean limbs, tenebrous wings, a faceless horned head snaking toward him...

  Antja screamed and the darkness shattered. Alex clapped his hands over his ears, certain his eardrums would rupture. The thing on the stairs retreated from the onslaught of sound.

  She spun, grabbing Alex’s arm as she pushed past, dragging him down the stairs. In the aftermath of her shriek, an ocean-rush echoed in his ears. The exit sign writhed like red snakes. The door opened and the flood of light washed his vision white.

  Antja released him in her haste, and his head and stomach churned too badly for him to follow. He groped his way down the wall to the bench and sank onto the cool plastic, cradling his head in his hands. If the monster wanted to eat him, it could damn well come and find him.

  No, not a monster. A trick of the shadows. Too much to drink—

  His vision darkened from white to grey and back to color, and no shadow-creatures appeared. Eventually his ears stopped ringing, and he heard the approach of high-heeled footsteps. He looked up to a crimson blur that resolved itself into Liz when he blinked.

  “What happened?” she asked, crouching in front of him.

  His eyes burned, a bruised and bloodshot ache. “I’m not sure.” He winced at the slur in his words.

  Liz frowned. “We should leave.”

  “That sounds like a wonderful idea.” He let her pull him up and throw an arm around his waist. As much as he despised leaning on
anyone, he doubted he could make it down the hall without help. The room spun, and Liz was the warm stationary center of the universe. A crowd had gathered, and their whispers rippled behind them.

  Rainer intercepted them by the main stairs. “Are you leaving already? Antja had a bit of a fright, but everything is fine.” The wild look in his eyes belied the reassurance.

  “Alex isn’t feeling well,” Liz said, cutting off his own less tactful reply. “We need to go.” With that, she dragged him down the stairs and into the frozen night.

  “wHat Happened?” liz asked again when the gallery doors swung shut behind them. All the smokers had fled, and they were alone on the sidewalk.

  Alex shook his head, wincing as movement sent pain dancing across his frontal lobe. A car roared by, rattling with bass. Headlights flashed against the inside of his glasses and he winced again. “I don’t know.”

  “How much did you have to drink?” The glow from the windows warmed her pale face and etched the creases of her frown sharp and black.

  He tried to glare, but couldn’t muster much force behind it. “Not that much.” He considered calling a cab, but maybe the biting air would clear his head. He’d be damned if that much cheap champagne would deprive him of his faculties. He started walking, hunched against the cold, eyes on the icy pavement. His ears still rang from Antja’s scream, and he felt as though he were about to give birth to Athena.

  Wind whistled beneath them as they crossed the bridge. Liz glanced down at the black water and swiftly looked away. Traffic rushed past, spraying slush from tires.

  “Antja said something about monsters,” Liz said. Alex shuddered and tried to blame the cold. Whether it’s the police or your monsters. He’d imagined something much more metaphorical.

  “There was... something there. But I don’t know what.” He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and clenched his jaw. At least the pain and cold helped strip away the alcohol haze.

  One foot slipped on ice and Liz twined her arm through his to steady him. He shortened his stride to match hers, trying not to think of the indignity of it all, or the tightness in his chest.

  Wind gusted and something whooshed over their heads. Liz froze, fingers digging into his arm. Alex shuddered again and his chest spasmed. They stood frozen for a moment, searching the sky, but whatever it was didn’t return.

  “A gull,” Liz murmured.

  “Just a gull.” He tried not to think of black wings in the darkness. Friday night partiers crowded Granville Street, swirling in and out of bars and clubs. Music leaked through doorways, drums and pounding bass in sync with the throb in Alex’s head. Neon bled across the night, ignis fatuus to guide Hell’s revelers.

  When they turned onto the hotel’s cross street, Alex paused and leaned against a lamp pole. His fingers tightened around his inhaler until plastic creaked. Liz stood close, shielding him from the worst of the wind. “Are you all right?” Her tone was softer this time.

  Chemical sweetness filled his mouth as he took a hit, settled heavy in his lungs. Then came the rush of expansion and he sucked in a long cold breath. “I will be.”

  The alchemy of alcohol and albuterol left him tingling, thrumming with nerves. Paranoia, he thought, when the sensation of being watched slid down his back. But Liz tensed with it, too, eyes narrowing as she peered down the sidewalk.

  “What is it?” he asked. Moisture streaked his glasses, filling his vision with shattered rainbows.

  “I’ve seen that person before.”

  Alex wiped his lenses on his scarf. He slipped them on in time to catch a glimpse of a figure in a long black coat vanishing into the crowd. Something familiar about the cut of that coat, the fall of dark hair—

  “Where?”

  “When I was out with Antja.”

  “I’ve seen him too.”

  Her chin lifted. “Coincidence? Apophenia?”

  “I won’t discount it. But three times in as many days makes me wonder, all the same.”

  The crowd moved past them, a too-bright glitter of sequins and laughter. When they were gone, so was the man. Liz’s cold fingers tightened around Alex’s.

  “Let’s get off the street.”

  He wasn’t inclined to argue.

  HOURS LATER, AFTER the guests had departed and the last congealing canapés been disposed of, Rainer circled the loft above the gallery one more time. Three in the morning, said the clock on the wall. Three hours since he’d locked the doors and dimmed the lights, all spent searching every inch of the gallery. None of his wards had been disturbed. Nothing had entered his apartment, or the connecting loft, he was certain.

  “Are you sure?” he asked again. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet.

  “I know what I saw.” Antja sat curled on the couch with a blanket around her shoulders. She no longer trembled, but her face was pale and hollow-eyed. Her upswept hair had wilted, long dark coils trailing over her shoulders, still glittering with pins.

  He looked in all the corners, switching on lamps to dispel the shadows. Nothing crouched in the narrow kitchen, or lurked behind the screen that separated the bed from the rest of the loft. He brushed his knuckles across the top of the safe that sat beside the bed, concealed by a drape of black silk. The spells of protection that sealed it more surely than any lock thrummed against his skin; the books had not been touched.

  But just because nothing had come inside didn’t mean nothing had tried. Easy to ward private places, homes, but the gallery below was open to the public—the rules of invitation and consent didn’t apply. The monsters could have slipped in downstairs, or through in-between spaces like the stairwells.

  They’d entered the cabin easily enough. Had someone let them in? A door or window left ajar by accident? By malice?

  Rainer completed his circuit and turned back to Antja. She cradled a coffee mug between her hands, watching him with red-rimmed eyes. He dragged a hand through his tousled hair. Vancouver should have been an end to running, to jumping at shadows.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, and her voice was small and fragile. It had been so long, he realized, since he’d seen her without her careful masks. When had she started wearing them for him?

  Leather creaked softly as he sat beside her. He draped an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t know, liebchen.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. He’d forgotten how comforting her warmth was, how familiar. But it wasn’t her face he saw anymore when he closed his eyes. No wonder she wore masks. She deserved better.

  Blake deserved better, too. Robert and Gemma had been due more—they hadn’t even been buried. God only knew what the jackals did with the bodies they disposed of for their exorbitant fees. At least Alain would have a grave.

  “You have to do something,” Antja said, pulling away. “Stephen and his friends are watching, waiting for their chance. He wants you out of his way.”

  He sighed. “I know.” Like many younger cities in the new world, Vancouver lacked entrenched magical orders, but had plenty of squabbling young cabals. Rainer had needed allies when he arrived in the city, and fell in with Stephen York’s faction. It had turned out to be a poor decision.

  Let him try, he wanted to say. He wanted to wash his hands of all of it: the scheming and intrigue and petty hedonism of mages, the wheedling and flattering and grueling finances of the gallery. But it wasn’t that simple. He’d invested too much to simply walk away. He’d cut his losses in Berlin and fled, but he knew how lucky he and Antja were to have survived that.

  “Do you think—” He paused. The thought had circled in the back of his mind ever since the failed investment, but he hadn’t yet spoken it aloud. “Do you think he was responsible?”

  Antja frowned into the bottom of her mug as if she could scry the answer there. “No,” she said at last, not looking up. “I don’t. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try something else.”

  “I’ll deal with it,” he promised. “One way or another.”

&n
bsp; She began to speak, but her breath caught sharply. Rainer leapt to his feet, otherwise senses screaming. The lights went out; porcelain shattered on the floor.

  A draft rushed past him, tugging at his untucked shirt. An instant later a tremble like a silent thunderclap shook the room. His guts twisted as the fabric of the world tore open. But his wards were silent; he had invited this.

  Rainer dropped to one knee, turning his eyes to the floor. Antja whimpered. The temperature dropped hard and fast and his eardrums popped with the change in pressure. The smell of wine and honey and roses flooded the room.

  :You summoned us: A polyphonic voice—one high and piping, one the swell and throb of organs, the third shivering inside his skull. The overlap set his teeth on edge.

  Three days ago, he thought, even as he shuddered. He bit his tongue. Some things weren’t meant to be admonished. His eyes adjusted swiftly to the dark, but he didn’t look up. Whether they came as the voice of the King or as his wrath, his messengers were never easy to behold.

  Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

  “I have questions.” His teeth chattered, and his breath frosted in the air.

  :About your failed ritual: Sinew creaked as its wings extended. Mushroom-colored undersides rippled, mottled with dark veins. The top thumb-joint nearly brushed the rafters.

  “Yes.” Rainer swallowed, his throat painfully dry. “We were attacked.”

  The angel paced on crooked legs, clawed feet gouging the floor. Its tail lashed the air with a rattle of bone. Rainer raised his eyes and tried to follow its path, but light and shadow twisted away from its lean frame. It bruised the world with its presence.

  :Beings from the dark places in the lands of dream. They serve our master’s enemies:

  “What do they want?”

  The creature turned its long head and Rainer couldn’t meet its eyes. :To destroy you: He didn’t think he imagined the chiding note in its voices. :It is no light matter to summon us, Chosen:

  “What about—” His voice broke on Blake’s name. “What about the supplicant? He lives, but his soul isn’t with his flesh, and I can’t find him.” If what Liz had said was true—