Under the Bones

by Kory M. Shrum

  “Get in the water.”

  “Fuck you!” His whole arm shook as he cradled his bleeding hand against his chest.

  She shot him in the shoulder, four inches above his heart. He cried out, collapsing to one knee.

  “If I have to ask you again, Ricky. I’m going to shoot you in the face.”

  And she would. She didn’t like talking and if she had to, she wouldn’t waste the energy on a man like this.

  The furious man stumbled to his feet. He considered diving for the gun again. She saw the desire written all over his face. One smile from her lips, a silent I dare you convinced him otherwise.

  Instead he dove for the water. His leather jacket slapped at the surface. The image of it reminded her of Angelo Martinelli, the night she killed him. He’d swam away from her too, his jacket also floating on the water’s surface.

  She stooped to pick up the two bullet casings before tucking his gun into her waistband and diving into the water after him.

  When he saw her coming, he turned to face her, probably believing he had the upper hand now. This only excited her. Her pulse jumped in her throat. She caught up to him in a few, long strokes, her hands seizing wet fabric of his jeans beneath the water.

  He grabbed a handful of her hair. Pain bloomed through her skull. No matter. She had her arms and legs around him. A python’s grip as she pulled him down.

  And down.

  Until the nighttime waters turned red, became a different lake in a different place. Then she pushed off his body and launched herself up.

  She broke the surface first. The red patina stretched out endlessly before her. The white mountains in the distance. The strange yellow sky overhead holding not one, but two swollen moons. A black forest with short trees and heart-shaped leaves. Incongruous colors that were so different than those of her home world.

  La Loon.

  No matter what waterway she entered in her world—be it a river, an ocean, a bathtub—La Loon with its eternal dusk was the only destination.

  Ricky surfaced behind her, screaming. He kicked and flailed in the water, no doubt drawing every predator within a mile to its shore.

  She swam toward the beach in slow, controlled movements. Not panicked. Not like prey. Each easy stroke was an act of self-control. And should she find herself jerked under by some creature, that was what her knife was for.

  But she wasn’t attacked. The silty bottom rose beneath her like a partially submerged boat ramp. Each step elevated her out of the water until she reached the shore. She stood there dripping wet, watching Ricky flail in the water.

  “What the fuck? What the fuck?” He paddled tight circles. He seemed unwilling to swim toward the shore. Instead he gaped at the moons, at the water, at the mountains.

  Had she looked so bewildered the first time she’d fallen through and broke the surface of Blood Lake? No doubt. But she’d been a child.

  “Keep screaming and you’ll be eaten,” she called to him, enjoying his wide panicked eyes. She could put a bullet in him here, spray his brains across the water’s surface. Watch the little creatures bob up to gobble the bits the way fish often did in their tanks. And even if she did nothing, he would exhaust himself soon enough. He couldn’t tread water for long in that leather coat and boots.

  Something flashed in her periphery and she pulled her bowie knife without pause.

  A monstrous black face broke through the trees and screeched. A mouth opened wide showing no less than four or five rows of long teeth the color of puss. A large white tongue lolled in its mouth, and the interior cheeks puffed, which always made Lou think of the cottonmouth snakes she’d seen as a child, hiking the woods with her father.

  The first time she’d seen this creature it had tried to eat her. Bit clean through her shoulder and tore the muscles there. She’d survived only because she’d fallen backward into the water, the creature still astride her.

  Since then, they’d reached an understanding. This beast might have the same black-scaled, white-mouthed coloring of a cottonmouth, but she was no snake.

  She had six legs with talons, curved nails that dug into the earth as she walked. Between the toes was webbing, no doubt useful in the lake spreading out before her.

  “You could eat him,” Lou told the creature. “But I don’t think he’s going to come out.”

  She lowered the knife.

  “Come up here, Ricky. Someone wants to meet you. Don’t be an asshole.”

  Ricky, who’d been gaping at the mountains, pivoted toward shore and saw the beast. Nothing short of abject terror seized him. Screaming as if he were being boiled alive, he paddled with all his might away from the shore, toward those white mountains in the distance.

  As if he’d ever reach it.

  With an excited purr, the scaly creature slid off the bank into the water after him. Her long, graceful body skimmed the surface, the contracting muscles propelling her forward in a smooth glide.

  I guess she does look like a snake, Lou thought, grinning.

  “Don’t run, Ricky,” she called out. “You’ll only excite her.”

  6

  Nico stood bare-chested in front of the bathroom mirror. Splattered blood had dried into his chest hair, matting the coarse strands together. He met his eyes, a dark amber and took a deep breath. For good measure, he wrapped his hand around the sink basin. With his other, he slipped a thin blade into the puckered wound below his left collarbone.

  Metal scraped metal.

  Gritting his teeth, he dug deep then flicked upward, dislodging the bullet from its hole. It hit the basin with a fresh splatter of bright blood. It rolled toward the drain, resting on top of the silver grate.

  Her eyes burned in his mind. That slender neck he wanted to wrap his hand around.

  So she was real.

  He’d heard the stories.

  Before he’d moved against Konstantine, he’d learned all he could about his “brother.” He’d heard of the woman. But he hadn’t believed she was real. That Konstantine was stupid enough to devote himself to a woman—of course. He was soft the way his father had been soft.

  But it had been the way the Ravengers spoke of her, as if she wasn’t really a woman at all.

  She’s a ghost. A strega. A demon.

  Konstantine sold his soul to her and she made him invincible.

  Tutte cazzate. Nico didn’t believe a word of it. Men could be superstitious fools.

  They made her immortal. Untouchable. A creature who couldn’t be reasoned with or bought. Coerced or demurred.

  She comes for your soul and she eats it.

  That he believed.

  He’d seen her with his own eyes. Her stare had been cold and unforgiving. There was no woman on the planet who had that look about her. Like she would have blown out his brains and licked the skull cap clean.

  But he saw the truth tonight—along with the horror.

  Not only was she a monster, but the beautiful beast did, for whatever reason, serve Konstantine.

  He had a monster—but she wasn’t immortal.

  She hadn’t used teeth and claws to tear his men apart. She’d used guns. And he’d seen the way she fell back when he put a bullet in her chest. The vest saved her life. And how lucky he’d been wearing one himself.

  No, she wasn’t immortal. She was only a very dangerous woman with a very powerful gift.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Sì?” Nico said.

  “The men are restless, sir.”

  They would be. Their master has disappeared and while he was certain he held most of the dissenters at bay with his own small army, he had to bring order. He needed to calm them, push them into line.

  “Gather them in the nave. I’ll be out in a moment.”

  The footsteps trailed away.

  He thought of the bright bathroom with its blessed light, and the twisting, dim corridors that stood between him and the nave.

  He met the wide dark eyes of the man in the mirror. He laughed. One
firefight, and he’d become terrified of shadows.

  That wouldn’t do.

  This empire was his birthright. And his chance to seize it was at hand. He wouldn’t let a thousand bloodthirsty she-demons keep him from it.

  He ran a hand over his shaved head, fingering the new cut she’d given him.

  He straightened, running a wet cloth over his bloodied chest. He stuffed the bullet wound with a wad of cotton, no time for suturing now, and pulled on his bloodied shirt.

  Let them see the damage.

  The blood crusted under his fingernails and the cut across his face, where her bullet had kissed the bone. The oozing sockets.

  Let them see that he was ready to pay any price.

  Reloading his guns, he slipped them into their holsters. Every movement made his lungs constrict with pain. No matter. He could lick his wounds when he was alone. Now was not the time for it.

  He stepped out of the bathroom into the darkness. His heart sped up, his eyes darting to the corners, ready for any movement beside his father’s old bookshelves, the fireplace where the hearth burned. Flame flickered across the desk and chairs, the stone floors. The shadows danced, seemingly alive.

  He didn’t linger.

  He stepped through the great wooden doors and found his personal guard waiting at attention.

  They fell into step behind him as he took the lead, up the stairwell to the church above.

  Voices murmured through the open space.

  The pews had been righted, but wooden splinters sat clinging to the red carpet of the center aisle.

  When they saw him, all their eyes fixed on him. The conversation died.

  “Where is Konstantine?” someone called.

  Nico’s right guard put a bullet between that man’s eyes. Brains splattered onto the men closest to him as the body hit the floor like a sack of flour. A mist of blood hung in air where his head had been.

  Nico waited for the commotion to settle, for the men to stop cowering in the pews like scared children. Then he spoke.

  “You’ve heard the stories about his strega,” Nico said. “She came to claim him. Spirited him away earlier tonight. I don’t think he will be back.”

  He saw the hate in their eyes. There was a great deal of loyalty to that traitorous bastard. This didn’t matter. He would win them over in time. For now, he would settle for obedience. And if they wouldn’t obey, well, he had a plan for that too.

  Uneasiness shifted through the masses. The soft murmuring began again.

  “And why would you want him?” Nico asked. “She preys on you. She’s plucked so many of our own men from the streets and he has done nothing to protect you. He lets her take your lives, sacrifices you like little children to a hungry demon.”

  Every eye was fixed upon him.

  “Is that what you want? To fear the darkness? To live each day, dreading the coming night?”

  Murmurs of dissent rose.

  “I can offer you more. And why shouldn’t I be the one?” he said. “My father, our beloved Padre wanted to name me his successor, but he feared Konstantine and the strega.”

  Some outrage burst from the pews. The guard on his left raised their guns but Nico waved them down.

  “You don’t believe me? You think Padre preferred that traitor to his own flesh and blood? Does that sound like the Padre you knew?”

  Confusion rippled through the crowd.

  “Konstantine is not who you think he is. He uses you only as a means to an end and will betray you, if you give him the chance. He is a Martinelli. Old World power. And we do not need him.”

  Someone cheered. A few clapped.

  Most sat silent.

  Maybe he hadn’t sold the idea, but he had sowed the seeds of doubt. That was well enough. The rest would come in time. When he dumped the bodies of Konstantine and his strega at their feet, they would have no choice but to bow to their new king.

  7

  Lou stared down at the man in her bed. A man. In her bed. The idea itself made her itch for her gun. She supposed it was only fair. Hadn’t she slipped into his bed all those nights ago?

  She had tried leaving Konstantine on the floor but the pressure from the hardwood made his wounds seep. She considered dumping him on the couch, but if he bled on it, she would be forced to scrub at the purple suede, more effort than she was willing to invest.

  The bed at least was soft enough to cradle his wounds without pulling them open, and also easier to clean. Sheets could be washed—or burned—much easier than couch cushions.

  And she’d be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t curious.

  Is this what it had been like for him?

  When he woke one night twelve years ago to find a girl in his bed?

  She tried to imagine herself as that girl. Her hair had been long, nearly to her waist. His room had been full of moonlight, as her apartment was now.

  How long had he stood there, thighs pressed to the side of the mattress staring down at her? That’s what she remembered seeing when she woke up.

  A looming boy, his hand reaching toward her cheek. When his fingers had brushed her, she’d shot up, realizing she wasn’t dreaming.

  Despite the extra lights, all their precautions, she’d slipped in her sleep anyway.

  She remembered how he’d stepped back when she’d gasped. Held up his hands in apologetic reassurance. The soft Italian rolling like a song from between his lips. Such an innocent boyish face. And he was a boy then. None of the sharp angles and battered flesh he was now. He’d grown just as hard over the years as she had.

  And what had she thought the first time she’d seen Konstantine the man?

  She thought her compass was only bringing her to another target. Another hit. She expected another quick, efficient kill.

  But when the bathroom door had finally opened, there he was. His hair in his eyes. Green eyes widened at the sight of her pointed gun. She’d recognized those eyes immediately. Even before she registered the scruffy jaw. His bare chest and a tattoo snaking up one bicep. A crow and crossbones tattoo that now shone in the moonlight from her open window. As he lay turned away from her, his back swelling with each rhythmic breath.

  Why him? Why did her compass keep throwing them together?

  “I can’t stay here,” she said. As if he were awake and needed her excuse.

  She grabbed the Browning off the coverlet and stepped into the closet before he could wake to the sound of her voice.

  At first she only stood in the dark, slapping the gun against her thigh. Anywhere, she told the darkness. Take me anywhere.

  Instead of directing the compass as she often did, following some predetermined pull, she let go.

  She let go and fell backwards through the dark.

  Cold tile pressed into her back. A metal bar running the length of one wall appeared under her sweaty palm.

  A strip of light spilled from the space between door and jamb, cutting across a porcelain toilet.

  A bathroom then. Another bathroom. So often Lou’s world felt as if were made up of bathrooms and closets. Like stop signs on every corner. A common thoroughfare.

  “Louie?” a voice called.

  Her heart faltered in her chest, her empty hand tightening on the metal bar. And she knew in that instant where she’d gone.

  More betrayal. Could her compass even be trusted at all anymore? This is what she got for loosening her grip on its reins. For being stupid enough to trust the wild horse galloping within her.

  “Lou?”

  She stepped into the doorway and stopped breathing.

  Lucy lay in the hospital bed. Her blue eyes shone wide in her gaunt face. The clear breathing tube in her nose matched the tubes running from her bruised left arm. Machines clicked on and off. That smell…that horrible smell. Acrid and sour.

  Not coming from her aunt exactly, but the hospital itself. As if it were a living, breathing creature and they were huddled in its bowels, soaking in its stench.

  It took
her a moment to recognize it as the scent of death. It was so unlike the death she knew. Violent death that bloomed like night jasmine, opening its petals to the full moon. That scent was fruit dashed against the kitchen floor. Fragrant decay burst open.

  This was a death she didn’t know. Seeing the different side of someone you thought you knew well. Shocking and in its own way, more terrifying than anything she’d faced on the other side of her gun.

  “Please don’t go,” Lucy said. Her voice cracking with the effort.

  She tried to sit up.

  “Stop. Just stop,” Lou begged her. “Let me help you.”

  This seemed to settle the woman. Lou lifted her gently, flinching at her aunt’s hiss of pain. This close she could smell the scalp. The medicine oozing from the pores in her skin.

  Lucy’s hand clamped onto hers. It was so cold. As cold as any number of the corpses she’d heaped onto the shores of La Loon.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Lucy said, her breath labored.

  Lou couldn’t return the compliment. Not because she didn’t have tremendous bittersweet love for the woman dying before her, but because her aunt looked horrible. There was nothing nice about what she was seeing. She was death personified. A mummy that someone had dressed up as her aunt.

  “Has King been keeping you company?” Lou asked.

  The idea that her aunt could’ve been alone in this bed, trapped in this place…

  “He comes every day.” Her blue eyes searched Lou’s face. “You have blood on you.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  Her aunt gurgled. Choking. Then Lou realized it was laughter.

  “What a relief,” her aunt said with a wry smile.

  Lou wanted to sit down. Her shaking legs threatening to buckle under her.

  Her aunt’s hand tightened on her own, probably mistaking the movement for an early departure. “I’m sorry I got sick.”

  “Don’t say that. It isn’t like you could help it.”

  Lucy’s soft smile vanished. “I want you to promise me something.”

  Here it is, Lou thought. The command to stop killing. The final bargain between us.

  She missed their old arguments. When her aunt began with gentle encouragement, before devolving to guilt-tripping and outright demands. At least then they’d been on equal ground. This was like fighting a child. Like pointing her gun at a dog in the street.