by A. J. Aalto
Batten’s answer was a grunt, followed by another, and then a low moan. I did my best to once again ignore the sounds of feeding in the room, and the oppressive, palpable weight of so much infernal influence, fed by the Queen’s own nectar, adjusting to vigor and full health loomed like an invisible tsunami. I could sense the revenant power balance changing in a House that wasn’t even mine, between the ancient revenants' presence and Batten's Bond to Remy. The snap-spark of burnt sugar in the room was nearly suffocating. The souls in the air above flared hotly, and the wash of cold power from Alvar Hervi’s side of the room strengthened.
Batten’s eyes were the bright, eerie blue-green of Remy's, ringed with the gleaming chrome tint so familiar in House Dreppenstedt. He swallowed reflexively, and his jaws clenched and unclenched. They won’t hurt us, they won’t hurt us, I tried to convince myself. We freed them. We’re not their enemies. But I couldn’t entirely believe it. Revenants were only predictable until they got their blood up, and then any manner of atrocity was fair play with the undead. I knew it, they knew it, and by the slow, wary extension of Batten’s fangs, he knew it, too.
Hervi continued to feed noisily on Kill-Notch, and if I thought the sound of Aston’s feed had been disgusting, this was worse. Massive, eons-old fangs opened deep wounds from which Batten’s inky nectar flowed freely and sloppily into his sucking mouth. The Exile latched on for more. Batten cried out as fangs invaded again. They were either unable or unwilling to satisfy themselves without causing their volunteer pain.
As Batten howled in agony, head whipping back and forth, the door to the vault gave a massive thump. It creaked and groaned, shaking as if the boggles had learn to yank on it. I didn’t know where to look. Bang-clink-bang! Grit sifted down from the ceiling, showering my nearly bald scalp with grimy dirt. Something powerful was coming in, and no silver chains or wedged steel or mighty crosses were going to stop it. The burnt sugar smell was coming from all sides now, and the familiar skin-crawling sensation of telekinetic power was overwhelming.
“What the fuck is that?” Batten demanded, his voice strained.
My body shook in response to the climbing panic around me like a willow in a hurricane. I backed up until my butt pressed against the crucifix-laden door.
A chain-rattling thud on the opposite side almost made me wet myself as I screamed across the room, diving behind the tombs, and putting the undead and their sarcophagi between me and whatever was in the hallway. “Rotten Roy? Zorovar? Big, angry boggle? I don’t know!”
Batten’s voice was ragged. “Marnie, what’s going on out there?”
I met Batten’s eyes and put what he was feeling into words. “Something’s coming.”
Wham-ching! That something jerked at the vault door, rattling the cross-chains on our side. The smell of rum and beeswax swelled, mixed with fur and the warm scent of the Folkenflik skulk. I went to the door, swallowing hard, clutching my sweaty palms in fists. The scratch on my arm was throbbing hotly and making my sleeve sticky. If Rotten Roy is trying to get in, we’re in big trouble. I didn't like where that chain of supposition was leading, but I was helpless to stop sprinting along it.
I listened at the door, hearing scratches and growls. The memory of that giant, gem-coated Big-Ass Boggle eating the goblin came back, and I wondered if I was supposed to be dessert. I knew Batten would try and protect me, but I was less certain about the ancient dudes’ willingness, if not their ability.
“That’s not Roy,” I said to Batten, who was succumbing to the effects of heavy feeding and in no condition to hear me. I grabbed Batten’s stake from the floor and backed up to the very corner of the room and started assessing my other weapon options: flasks, tubes, needles, fists, knees, teeth, feet… magic. Shifting. Could I expel the spell I’d done to suppress the moon’s sway and shapeshift if my life depended on it? I ran out of time all at once.
When the vault cracked, hinges snapping, sending slivers of metal flying through the air. I swung the flashlight to the dim figures standing there, my eyes confused by open flames and many pairs of legs. I readied my arm to chuck my stake at them if I needed to. My vision adjusted to the shifting light.
The last thing I expected to see was Ludovic Nazaire with my brother and sisters, holding torches, tire irons, and stakes.
Forty-One
“Did someone order a mob of angry villagers?” Carrie asked.
“Holy shit!” Rowena cried, pointing her stake at the primeval revenant latched onto Batten’s wrist. “What the unholy frig are those things?”
“Shut up, both of you,” Wes ordered, then shoved them behind him. He reminded me of a sheepdog puppy learning to herd. His one good eye flashed that sickly wilted violet in the near-dark. “You’ve done your part. You scared off the boggles. Get back to the beach. Marnie, come on, let’s go.”
“I need to — ” I gestured at Kill-Notch.
“You need to do nothing, DaySitter,” Harry said, coming out from behind Wes with Ludovic Nazaire, removing his grey felt hat and tucking it under his arm. Mr. Nazaire moved deeper into the room, already rolling up one sleeve.
“Harry!” The name squeaked out of me. I could have wept. The sight of my Cold Company made my knees weak with relief. Even knowing Harry was no superhero, I was perfectly happy to allow myself a moment to pretend that he could fix anything and everything.
“You have done your part,” Harry said, “even against our wishes, and done it well. I will expect that you'll be wanting to deliver a victory speech over... brandy and scones, perhaps?”
“It's gonna take more than that and admitting I'm right to get you out of the dog house, dead guy,” I said with a goofy overwhelmed smile. “But it's a start.”
“Of course, my determined dove. Now, if it pleases you, will you kindly allow us to do our part? Thanks ever so.”
Uncertainly, I stepped protectively closer to Batten, who still had one elder latched onto his wrists, but Mark ground out, “Go, Marnie. We’ve got this.”
Claire shouted at me, “Gawd, stare much? Let’s go, dork.”
“We brought back-up,” Rena said, shifting her bulk sideways so I could see the crowd behind her. Some faces I didn’t recognize, a few I did.
My mouth fell open in disbelief, and my heart lurched. There were more Nazaires in the tunnel, Youngers I’d seen at Ludovic’s home. Ghazaros and his two undead blonde friends. Glen Strickland. A weak but apparently grateful Aston Sarokhanian, willing to face the music. Noticeably absent were Rotten Roy and Zorovar.
Leaning forward, Schenk motioned for me to step out of the vault, and though I was glad to see him, I hated that his mortal bod was surrounded by revenants on the edge of a feeding frenzy; knowing he was here got me moving as much as anything else had.
Rena swiped mud off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Gawd, it fuckin’ stinks in here.”
“Not my idea to bring them,” Wes admitted, pulling on my elbow. I let him push me along, and we hurried down the hallway against passing streams, revenants going into the vault, mortals coming out. “Malashock called Schenk, Schenk called North House, Mr. Merritt called Harry. Schenk said Nyquist had disturbed a boggle nest and you’d found the trail of the phantasms and needed extraction. Harry and I were in Virgil, visiting Mom. You know, fixing things? Except I think we fucked up again, because Harry rounded up four out of five sisters and brought them here.”
Carrie snorted. “Four out of five sisters say: Extraction! Ding ding.”
“Mom was not happy,” Wes said, “but Rena said it was ‘Baranuiks Against the World,’ and you're still a part of the Baranuik side. Go that way. I got something to do.” He turned back to join the rest of the dead guys in the vault. I opened my mouth to stop him, my breath catching with worry, but made fists and forced myself to shut up; he was part of the revenant crew, and he belonged in there with Harry and Glen Strickland, doing what needed to be done next.
Back on the pebble-strewn beach, the lake noisy in front of me, I sank to the g
round to gather my thoughts, listening to my sisters excitedly talk over one another about the boggles they’d seen and “those things” in the tomb. From the sound of it, none of them realized that everyone they'd formed a posse with were also “those things,” as they were well-fed, breathing, and totally passing for mortals if you didn't look too closely.
A long pair of legs in dark denim stopped near me, and I knew without looking up that it was Schenk coming back to check on me. He let out a noise of discomfort and got down on the ground beside me, removing a clean, white handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to me. “Whichever sister that was, she's right; it smells awfully foul in there. You good, Cinderblock?”
I unstuck the bloody tissue square from my forearm and pressed on my wound with the handkerchief. “Nyquist is a lycanthrope. Bat-type.”
“So I heard.” He nodded, letting me evade his initial question. “You knew all along?”
I nodded slightly as I gazed out at the dark, noisy lake. “Almost. Wasn’t my place to share his secret until he became a problem. If I thought he was a danger to you, I’d have said so.”
“I believe that,” he said amicably. “Nyquist have anything to do with Malashock’s phantasm?”
“No. He was taking gemstones out of the boggle preserve. Garnets. I think one of the species of boggle, the big one, grows them.”
“Was he taking them for scientific study, or…?”
I snort-laughed. “Doubt it. But his defense lawyer might consider that explanation as a way to side-step some prison time. I believe he started out genuinely interested in his geology and cryptobiology study. Lied about his nature to keep his employment status. Maybe temptation got the better of him or he got caught and had to strike a deal with Rotten Roy and Shakespeare. It could have happened to anyone, and had nothing to do with his being a lycanthrope. He's just another greedy dipshit who got caught.”
“Malashock said Nyquist pointed a weapon at you.”
“Meh,” I said. “He had a rough day.”
“Rough day or not, he’ll have to face weapons charges.”
“Sure. But I won’t hold it against him personally. I’ve seen and done worse than a little gun flailing, let me tell you.”
Schenk looked nonplussed, and I had a feeling a lecture from Rob Hood on firearms safety was in my future if he and Schenk compared notes. “Liv called me to come help you, then Nyquist said something I couldn’t hear, and she immediately took it back, told me they were coming back, told me to wait on the beach. I got a bad feeling while I was standing around, and called North House.”
One of the revenants was slipping away in the shadows behind Schenk, and I tracked him with my eyes as he stopped near all the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, beyond the trees. Aston, I guessed, checking on Sayomi.
“Thank you. That was a damned good call,” I said, despite the fact that my sisters were here and being used as boggle-whappers. I blamed Harry and Wes for that, not Schenk. “I guess Harry called in the rest of the cavalry?”
“Wasn’t me,” Schenk said, showing me his clear, empty hands in a gesture of innocence. He looked over his shoulder past the cluster of my sisters at the cave entrance. “Does all this seem unfinished to you?”
I’d had a gun shoved in my face, rescued Aston and Sayomi, run from snaggle-toothed, carnivorous boggles, had my vitality drained by old phantasms, and I’d watched Batten feed his oldest enemy and a pair of wizened up immortal geezers while we were trapped in their Chamber of Suckness, but... now that he mentioned it, it did feel unfinished. Everyone was accounted for except for Zorovar and Rotten Roy, and their respective DaySitters, Steve and Pascal, both of whom were definitely assholes in my book. They must have known the jig was up and bolted. Where are you, my shanty-humming frenemy?
“You and Malashock can go, now,” I told him.
“Lots of injured people here,” Schenk said.
“They’re undead, Longshanks,” I stage whispered. “You can’t help them unless you're gonna offer to be a short-lived juice box. They’re here to support each other.”
“And the other DaySitter?”
“Her companion is free, so he’ll make sure she recovers. Everything is going to be…” I looked over to the shape of Aston lingering by the ambulance and noticed Gunther Folkenflik had joined them. Aston’s pale hand rested fondly on Gunther’s ragged neck fur. “Well, I won’t say ‘okay,’ but it’ll be better now.”
“And what kind of legal mess are we looking at here,” Schenk started uncertainly.
“There have been breaches of a whole shitwhack of undead social niceties,” I said, remembering the first time I’d seen Malas Nazaire use his awesome telekinetic power to physically, forcibly translocate someone against their will to appear at Skulesdottir in front of the UnHallowed Throne. “There is no hiding from the long fang of the law, now that we've exposed them.” I thought about it a bit more. “I mean, there's the kidnapping and imprisonment and torture, and taking someone's blood without permission is probably some kind of crime.”
“So, does someone need to get st— ouch!”
I kicked his boot hard and gave him a frantic shut-up face before he could say staked. “We do not want to say any word that might sound threatening on this beach right now, Longshanks. You, the medics, and my very squishy human sisters are in the crosshairs, so let’s not get everyone killed tonight, okay? I’ve got a good thing going here. Zero deaths. That’s a win.”
It could have been a trick of the moonlight off the lake, but I thought he shifted and wilted a little, like he’d been looking forward to a rumble but was reluctantly accepting my advice. I was beginning to recognize the look.
Behind us, I heard a sharp laugh and glanced over to see Wes leading Batten out of the cave, Kill-Notch sagging against him, looking miserable about needing help but amused by something he’d seen out here.
“I recognize that look, too,” Batten told me wanly, pointing at Schenk’s grimace. “That’s the look you give me when I stop you from doing something you really, really shouldn't.”
“Did you just read my mind, Jerkface?” This time, it was Batten’s boot I kicked.
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “That’s the second time you’ve kicked a law enforcement officer tonight. You wanna spend some time in lock up?”
“You can’t do shit. You retired when you died. You're just an undead civilian asshole now.”
“Fairly confident that Constable Schenk would be overjoyed to slap you in cuffs and charge you with assault. Probably been daydreaming about it since the day you met.”
I glanced over Batten’s head to check Schenk’s reaction; he did a little lip pucker and shook his head to assure me that Batten didn’t know what he was talking about. “Took most of a week.”
“Hey!”
No doubt, Kill-Notch’s health and energy would rebound quickly enough, but for now, he seemed shrunken and sickened. My DaySitter urges double-teamed me with my traitorous libido, and I was barely able to keep myself from shoving my neck in his face.
Wes picked up on my thoughts and cast me a sharp look full of both warning and the urge to barf, and shook his head. Tempting Batten with a feed now would be one of the worst ideas ever. “We have some Shield at the house,” Wes snapped. “Oh my God, I sound like Mom refusing to stop for a Happy Meal.”
Schenk laid a massive hand on my shoulder and patted me twice. “If things go sideways, holler. I’ve got officers up and down the street, keeping the curious people back. I’d better go wrap things up. Get your arm looked at, eh?”
“If you promise to call that number if you're still having trouble sleeping. If that doesn’t work, call me, and Harry will fly back and help you out.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he promised with a nod.
I watched Schenk lumber off, noticing that my sisters parted for him and watched him go with curious eyes. I tried not to engage in any mischievous matchmaking fantasies, though I was sure that, of all my sisters, Carrie in parti
cular would delight in trying to get a rise out of the stoic officer. I wasn't going to put the bug in her ear unless Schenk did something to earn some torture.
Wes sensed my irritation about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Torches, and he brought Batten to flop in the sand on my other side. “I’m sorry, Marnie. Harry said they were necessary.”
“Our sisters don't know anything about monster fighting,” I whispered.
“Rena does this stuff up north at the mines. She’s always whackin’ gremlins, she says. She figured boggles would be the same way, and she was mostly right.”
“Mostly?”
“Hitting them with torches worked better than sticks.”
“Pretty sure nobody likes getting set on fire, dude.”
“And Claire is a good runner. Rowena insisted you were going to die horribly if you didn't have her to look after you. I think she was in favor, actually.”
“Self-centered and wrong as usual, but touching,” I said. “How many times have I only almost-died without her help?”
“She wasn't going to stay home once she heard,” Wes said, “so I gave up trying to talk her out of it.”
“And Carrie?” I asked. “Please tell me she didn't magic vagina any of the boggles. No, wait, tell me she did. The blackmail possibilities are too good.”
Wes smirked. “She wanted to get a look at Batten. She insists you promised to show her dick pics, but in lieu thereof, she was gonna check out his butt.”
The only sister missing was Margot, but she had the flu and wasn’t on speaking terms with the rest of us, so I wouldn’t take her absence personally.
Batten lifted his head. “Wait, what pics? I didn’t send you — ”
“I know,” I said. I tried not to sound disappointed when I reiterated, “Trust me, I know. It’s all in Carrie’s imagination, I swear.”
“Harry’s plan wasn’t all bad,” Wes said. “Ludovic is in there now, managing the needs of the elders.”
