2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  Harry's grey eyes flickered with a brief light. “I do miss the song of a different time, the romance of old Europe, the foggy, gas-lit streets of London's east end, the clatter of horse and carriage on cobblestones. But do I wish we'd first met in a dusty bone depository?” He chuckled. “Goodness, my pet, how dreadful is your imagination. You see, Dr. Edgar, what I now enjoy in my current companion.”

  Harry rose, freeing another cigarette from the mysterious case engraved with JB. “If you will kindly excuse me, it seems a jolly night for a stroll. Might I suggest early to bed, early to rise, darling? We would not want you cantankerous for work tomorrow.”

  I waited for the cool eddy of Harry's presence to join him after he left the room

  Declan said unhappily, “Well, that wasn't entirely fruitless, I guess.”

  As much as I disliked the idea of Declan's work, I felt sorry for him; I knew what it was like when Harry started playing games, manipulating, creating false hopes for the pure joy of dashing them.

  “You already have some answers,” I said, “or at least, you seem to know what questions to ask.”

  “Few answers, sadly. There are hardly any remaining witnesses to such things as the crypt plague years and the early formation of the Dreppenstedt line.”

  The Blue Sense yawned open, and I drew it up and up, awaking all the little nerve endings under my palms, but I could not feel Declan; he was every bit a mystery to my empathic Talent as Batten was. I took my gloves off and drummed my bare fingers on my knees, watching his hands, his stubby fingers only inches from me on my left, fidgeting with a loose thread on the couch.

  “And those who do remain are difficult to contact,” I finished the thought, seeing his problem, while my hands longed to reach out and grab him and try to Grope out the source of his conflicted feelings.

  “Finding them is impossible,” Declan said soberly. “Or if they live in the open, they are too dangerous to approach. How many humans sojourn up the Bitter Pass?”

  That was the second time this evening I'd heard that phrase, what I figured as a place name. Was this the secret island to the far north where the eldest of the revenant race had their kingdom? Was it the waterway? Was it a pathway? A metaphor for the change?

  He continued, “In the interest of science, and of history, I put it to you: isn't it worthwhile for me to try?”

  But that wasn't what he meant at all, and thanks only to the expression on his face I knew it was close but not exact: he did want to know about the Dreppenstedt line, but there was something nebulous about his need. I needed to Grope him directly to pin it down, but I doubted he'd tolerate me putting my bare hands on him. Maybe I could brush him all accidental-like?

  Something slippery slithered behind the mask of his sincerity, and for the first time, I realized Dr. Declan Edgar really didn't care about taking my job. All he cared about was his anthropology project, but something false lurked there, too. He was hiding something else about his underlying motive. I thought about the journal left by Harry's first DaySitter. What would Marie-Pierrette think of Declan Edgar's requests? I mentally scanned her canons for one that applied to keeping secrets, but didn't find one.

  Declan's voice became wistful. “Who might his eyes have seen? Who must his hands have touched, that we cannot?”

  Not what, but who, my brain offered up. Who has Harry touched, that's what Declan really wants to know. Touched, or Touched? But why? “I don't think you'll like what you find.”

  “He's your life partner.” His gaze was intense, like his words meant something more than I could fathom. “Do you think he's all that bad?”

  “I think Harry, like all members of his kind, has a past best forgotten. I'm positive that's how he'll say it, too.”

  “I'd also like to know about you, Dr. Baranuik. If I understood your relationship with Harry better, I might understand Harry's own nature. For instance, his maker, Prince Dreppenstedt, is often described as a friend of Caligula, and having the very same eyes as the maniac.”

  I said dryly, “A word of warning: don't compare Harry's maker to a maniac. Harry'll chew your face off. Save you from having to shave.”

  “One source has said that all those in the Dreppenstedt line also share his spirit, that of the chasseur inepuisable, the Inexhaustible Hunter. Is that true of Harry?”

  “Harry doesn't hunt.”

  Declan's face got hard. “I wasn't talking about wildlife.”

  My voice got harder. “Neither was I, Dr. Edgar.”

  He changed tacks. “At the mortal age of twenty-eight, young Guy Harrick was said to wallow in praise, an unabashed fop, known at court for his shameless exploits and drunken debauchery, an unrepentant flatterer of women both single and married. Do you have any insight on that?”

  The idea of a living, warm-bodied and hot-blooded mortal Harry brazenly bedding dozens of women to their mewling delight was unfathomable, because all I had ever known was a cool, distant creature. When a new image, the image of Harry as a swaggering sexpot, finally formed in my brain, it was so vivid and life-altering that my whole body reacted; it made me absolutely sick to my stomach. My revenant's mortal sex life was a subject for Harry to broach, not me, because I sure didn't want to speculate.

  Okay, some parts of me really, really wanted to speculate. And do field research. And compile copious notes. The kind of notes that would end up in one of those implausibly-phrased faux-confessional letters in a trashy magazine. The thought of Harry as a creature of lust, a sexual Mister Hyde to his meticulously buttoned-up Doctor Jekyll both thrilled and terrified me. What would being pursued by that version of Harry be like? It made getting chased by Hood through the forest seem like an innocent game of tag in a sun-dappled meadow, and dark parts of me throbbed rejoicefully at the notion.

  I sputtered, “Where do you get this garbage?”

  “I will have answers, Marnie. I must. Let me ask you something else, then. Was Harry in England when King Henry VIII walked a barefoot pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham to lay a ruby necklace in offering in 1511, in thanks for Prince Henry's birth?”

  “I see you way too much, already.” I sighed wearily. “I need an assistant like a slug needs a hammer.”

  “A yes or no would suffice,” Declan prompted.

  I rubbed my forehead to clear my irritation. “Why would Harry be there, and why the hell would it matter where he was in 1511? That was more than five hundred years ago.” I did some quick math. “Impossible, in fact, since Harry wasn't born until 1574, remember?”

  “So he says.” Declan didn't look convinced. “It matters because Prince Henry died weeks later.”

  “And?”

  “It's a matter of history that one of Henry's nursemaids saw, and I quote ‘a suffering moldering shade hovering over wee Henry's bassinet’ only days before he died.”

  “And you think that was Harry? Problems of timing aside, that's superstitious nonsense.”

  “Yes, superstitious nonsense, like belief in revenants. And psychics. And ghouls. And a round earth rotating around a sun in a universe full of galaxies.”

  I sighed wearily. “Driven little bugger, aren't you? Listen. If you came at him from a different angle, there's a small chance that you might get some answers.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If there's one thing I know about Harry, it's this: if you tickle his ego enough, he'd probably have no choice but to talk about himself. You're not the only one who thinks Harry is fascinating; he'd agree with you. He's endlessly amused with his own self. I only know what he's chosen to share with me.”

  “That's a fair bit more than he's chosen to share with me.” There was more bitterness in his tone than there should have been, and it made me uncomfortable.

  “He shared it all with me in confidence. Unless he gives me the go-ahead, I can't, and won't, help you.”

  “Will you speak to him for me?”

  I wasn't so sure I wanted to share Harry's stories; some of them were my s
ecrets, too. I was privileged to know this junk, and a bit jealous to keep it that way. But I had curiosity of my own, too.

  “For posterity's sake, Dr. Baranuik. Help me to know him.”

  “I thought I told you,” I sighed long and low. “Don't call me doctor.”

  Declan sat back and pulled his hands away from mine, into his lap. “Whatever happened to this Gregori Nazaire fellow that Harry mentioned?”

  “He's on top of the fridge. I staked him myself.” I said. “Got his ash up my nose. I sneezed him. There are probably dried-up boogers in the cookie jar with his remains.” I still felt a twinge of remorse for having destroyed Gregori, but I was wrung-out and sick of trying to figure out what the hell Declan was after.

  “That's so disturbing that I don't even know how to respond.” Point: Marnie. He looked at the fire. “Time for me to turn in. Call me if you or your brother need me. I hope to be more help to you in the morning.”

  I couldn't promise the same, but gave him a nod and a tired smile as he left, his iPad tucked under his arm, his doctor's bag bumping against his hip.

  CHAPTER 21

  DEALING WITH A PSYCHIC and expecting instant, clear results is akin to tossing your investigation into an old well and hoping the answer will float. Psychic investigations are a morass of disillusionment; the Blue Sense's dark and grimy pathways are not always subject to my command. Interpreting what I get isn't easy, either; emotions aren't logical, don't necessarily match the situation, and don't follow a rigid timeline. Someone could have remembered a feeling and applied it to the wrong stimuli, tainting the trace left behind. Luckily, I'm also a scientist, so when magic fails, I have my brains to fall back on. When all that fails, I just watch porn and eat peanut brittle; don't tell me I don't have backup plans.

  That being said, there came a point at around midnight when I realized wrestling Bigfoot for a heavyweight belt might have been easier than trying to find reliable information about gut-gobbling revenants online; all I found were tips on how to kick ass in massively multiplayer online games — helpful, but not relevant — comics, old myths, new myths, a couple well-researched but unsuitable articles about Haitian Vodou, and a glut of information about revenants culled from the annals of fiction by people who insisted it was still hip to call them “vamps”. Near the end, I was stuck sifting through gobs of science fiction, and, worse still, fiction pretending to be science. Wading through this tripe was only slightly better than thinking about Wesley, with his horrible melted face and palpable pain. So I abandoned the internet; in the wired world's opinion, there was no such thing as a revenant that ate people parts. Now, I had my journals and old texts from school, but not a single solid lead. As far as the preternatural biology community was concerned, a revenant wasn't usually responsible for this degree of organ consumption.

  I wanted to feel relieved. I didn't.

  I'd left the back door propped open so I could listen to the night sounds under the scratchy company of an old Simon and Garfunkel record; I felt the need to replay “I Am a Rock” over and over tonight. Probably, the agents in the cabin next door were sick of hearing it, but I found it soothing (“Hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no one and no one touches me…”). Sure, it was a pain to have to get up and re-seat the needle every few minutes, but it wasn't like I was doing anything interrupting was going to screw up, either.

  A splash caught my ear, the perfect excuse to take an unscheduled break from melancholy and fruitless searching. A quick hunt led me to the dock, where Harry was treading water, nude in the moonlight, most of him discreetly underwater. He swept wet sandy blond hair back from his eyes with one hand, exposing the chiseled spread of his chest. He wasn't a sexy side of beef like Batten was; Harry was lithe and sculpted like a gymnast, and had the yoga inversion moves to attest to his physique's capabilities.

  It had been weeks since he'd touched me, not even an accidental brush during feeding. Sometimes, I considered his “infernal influence” excuse for not sleeping with me often to be a pile of crap, and that he just liked to see how crazy he could drive me. Not surprisingly, the answer was somewhere north of “very”.

  “You shouldn't be swimming.” I stage-whispered. “It's dangerous. Chapel said there could be something in the water.”

  “I'm suitably terrified,” Harry said indulgently. “I will take up quaking in fright shortly, if it would please you, my angel.”

  “Come out of there,” I urged. “A guy was gutted the other night. Also, there could still be Priors around.”

  “Take off your clothing.” It was the furthest thing from a request.

  “You must have clocked your head on the dock. What if someone sees me?” Dear Lady above, what if Batten looks out the cottage window? My mouth went dry and my stomach fluttered in about six different directions, half of which seemed to be trying to quail in abashed fear, and the others were solidly in favor of giving Harry and Batten something to think lascivious things about.

  “The undergarments as well,” he said as though he hadn't heard me. I glanced over at the neighbor's yard and he answered my thought. “Agent Batten is possibly asleep at this hour.”

  “I wasn't thinking about him,” I lied; pointless to fib to a creature who knew the signs instantly, but it sounded good. “Harry, believe it or not, I'm not in the mood for this. I've had a shit day.”

  “It may get worse if you continue to circumvent my will.”

  “What about the innards-sucking monster? What if it chomps us?”

  “Hmm, yes,” was his casual reply. “I won't let anything touch you but me.” Something dark was doing the rumba in his eyes, but through the Bond I felt no arousal, no desire. “Come, come, loiter-pegs, don't lollygag. I have something to show you.”

  “The gitchies stay on.”

  “By my troth, I have never known you to deny me your nakedness.” There was the barest hint of teasing in his voice, but with it, no warmth whatsoever.

  I double checked to make sure no one else was around, then slipped my shirt over my head. “You know, in the name of science and history, posterity even, maybe you should consider Declan's project and let him interview you for real.”

  “It's ‘Declan' now, is it?” He watched me undress without expression. “Making friends, are we?”

  “God, I hope not,” I grumbled. “Who the hell wants one of those?”

  I lifted one side of my butt and then the other to wriggle out of my panties, cautious of slivers from the old, weathered dock, and then hesitated, scanning the flat black surface of the water for suspicious movement. My imagination played tricks on me while my logic took a dive. Science attempted to soothe me — Come on, Baranuik, what could possibly be in there? — but my gut told me in no uncertain terms, Be afraid. Ripples became indications of danger rather than the natural brush of fish and wind, and I felt watched, as if the lake itself had gained a dark intellect.

  “Come to me, my pet,” Harry said. “Nothing will harm you. Do you doubt my ability to protect you?”

  Again, there was a disturbing lack of warmth in his voice. Where usually even his irritation was tinged with benevolence, there was nothing. I slid into the cool water, drawing in a gasp at how chilly it still was, even though it was August. Shaw's Fist is one of those spring-fed lakes in the Rockies that never warm up. How Harry was tolerating the temperature without a good feed heating his sluggish veins was beyond me.

  Cutting a naked swath through the dark, moonlit water, Harry glided up next to me. Water is really the only place I'm graceful; I'd taken swimming lessons before I could walk, and a body of water affords me the rare opportunity to be agile. I hauled in a deep breath and dove swiftly beneath the surface, reveling in the freedom of movement and taking full advantage of the situation to glimpse Harry's manhood, naked and pale against the dark depths. When I came up for a breath, his eyes were stern and narrowed. He offered a hand to me, dripping fingertips splayed.

  “Come, my sprightly sparrow, I wish to show you somet
hing.”

  I swallowed hard. “I'm not sure I should. You're overtired and you haven't fed. I'm gettin’ a weird vibe.”

  His voice was iron. “Then perhaps it would be in your best interest not to vex me further, DaySitter.”

  “Is this the part where you do the Villain's Soliloquy, outlining all your nefarious deeds, and then try to drown me while the scary music plays?”

  He made a grab for me, and I shouldn't have flinched, because the surprise in my eyes exasperated him. He hauled me through the water up against his slippery skin, holding me with a hard arm. “You should know me better than all that.”

  “I was joking.” Sort of. “I know you wouldn't hurt me, Harry.”

  “Take a deep breath, then,” he advised, his face blank. He'd walled-off from me. Even skin to skin, I floundered through our Bond and couldn't pin down what he was feeling. Our Bond had been broken once before through some desperate but careless magic on my part, but we'd done things (delicious, sexy things, my brain reminded me) to repair the damage, and I'd hoped it had healed. Evidently, there were still cracks, crannies, and blind spots. Or maybe I'd simply never be able to read Harry as completely as he was able to me.

  I took a deep, noisy breath and held it while he pulled me down through dark water barely lit by the moon. Under the water, bits and blobs and tiny writhing things filtered past my view, but a big movement caught my eye, a deeper black slash against the lightless gloom, something wrapped in a slick length of chain that jutted up from the yawning depths. I squinted as we closed in on its position, though we had to get pretty close before the silt lightened enough to see clearly.

  It was an algae-covered duffel bag. Realization made my eyes spread wide in the cold depths of the lake. Wresting my hand from Harry's grip, I stroked for the surface. My lungs threatened to burst, tightly jerking in my chest for air while my heart drummed. I kicked, thrashed, and shot upward with the rising bubbles from my nose, bare hands skimming out in front of me until the dock's slick piling, with all its human impressions long washed away, broke my cresting forward movement. Each imperfection in the wood was a solid reminder that I was indeed still alive.