Noir Fatale

by Larry Correia

  I helped the redhead to the back room, where the big baking prep table lay empty and shining. I eased the door closed, hoping that no local rogues would sneak in and rob the till. Doubtful. The Iron Hand guards would be coming to check things out. Even in Remnar’s Underhalls, four dead is enough to have the constabulary show up eventually. You didn’t want to be caught thieving by the Iron Hand, who were selected for muscularity and sadism.

  “I hope this doesn’t splash back on you, Professor. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “Just Orman is fine. The Irons know me. I’m a licensed necro, all my papers in order.” My voice sounded assured, but you just never knew. I’d find out by how many guards they sent over. More than three, and I’d have good reason to worry.

  “A few minutes ago, I didn’t have much hope left.” She smiled. It hinted at a lot of things, but it came and went so quickly that it felt like an illusion, something you doubted you’d really seen.

  “Remnar isn’t known for kindness. People get burnt down to ashes every day. No one’s ever figured a way to make it stop.”

  She reached out, covering my hand with her own. Her touch felt so warm. “Maybe it’s not all bad, Just Orman.”

  I knew trouble when I saw it. I couldn’t seem to do anything but get closer. “Since we’ll be questioned, maybe I should know your name. We should have our stories straight when they arrive, or this’ll look like something worse than it was.”

  “Call me Kariel. Or Kara, since we have a certain bond now.”

  A certain bond. All the dark powers preserve me. I’d never seen trouble like her.

  ✧ ✧ ✧

  Varduk, the Iron Hand captain, listened to the end of my story about the attack. I’d mostly given him the truth, where it suited me. Telling the whole truth is for suckers.

  “You don’t know why they attacked?” He hooked his thumb at the pile of bones, shoes, and armor where the bodies had been. I caught him shivering when he thought about how I’d stripped the bones.

  I shrugged. “It happened in a moment. They didn’t say a word. Just kicked down the door and attacked.”

  “Any enemies? Jilted lovers? Rivals in the necro business?”

  “I’m not the guy who makes enemies. My tenant who lives upstairs is always in some kind of trouble though. You might know him. Lex Custos?”

  Varduk made a face. “That guy. He has enemies everywhere. I should talk to him.”

  “He’s out of town.”

  The hobgoblin shook his head. “Figures. Looks like you might have caught some of the backlash for all his…antics.”

  I hunched, putting my hands in my pockets. “Yeah, could be.” Lex was a Bonded Agent of the city and could do all kinds of strongarm work and investigation on retainer. Mostly, though, he drank himself half stupid and lamented losing his job as a detective in the Falcon’s Eye, the most respected constables in Remnar’s richest district.

  I put on the “I’m just a meek shopkeeper” expression, though it was a tough sell with four dead on my ledger for that morning. “Is there anything else you need from me? I need to start getting the shop cleaned up and arrange for someone to fix the window and the door.”

  Varduk gave me a come-along gesture with his chin and I walked out onto the street. I met eyes with Kara, who sat at the back table and answered questions from another cop. She flashed a smile and all the fight went out of him. She’d be fine.

  We hooked into an alley. My eyes pierced the gloom. No one else lingered back here. They weren’t going to try and grab me up. Good for me. Good for them, because I wouldn’t have gone quietly.

  “That girl,” Varduk started. A tall hobgoblin, he touched the pointed black beard at his chin before continuing. “You should watch out around her.”

  I stiffened. “Why? What do you know about Kara?”

  He shook his head. “I know enough, just seeing her once.”

  I stepped closer, not even sure why a flare of anger kindled in my chest. “What do you mean by that?”

  Varduk smiled ruefully, not giving any ground. “Even guys like you aren’t immune to…well, you saw her. That’s not what I’m saying though. She ain’t afraid of you, and that’s the biggest giveaway.”

  “Afraid of me? I’m a baker,” I said, gesturing at my apron.

  “Not what you look like, Orman Orphesias. What you are. What you do after the shop is shut. Tell me she shivered and looked away when you put the black across their eyes, and I’ll tell you you’re safe.”

  I remembered that look. The look women only give the good guys and the suckers. The look that told me I was her favorite person in town, that the shadow crown and the horns of hell didn’t frighten her.

  “Yeah. Beautiful woman who stares straight into your eyes when you kill? Those are some deep waters, my friend. That’s all I’ll say.”

  He turned, walking back in the direction of the nearest district station. I shook my head, doing my best to dismiss all he’d implied. By the time I came back to the shop, it was down to Kara and me.

  “They rough you up?” I asked. Clearly, they hadn’t, as her dress still hung perfect and pristine across her shoulders. No shadow of a bruise, no hair out of place. Like none of this had ever happened. I really took her in for a few heartbeats. Not just the improbable perfection. Everything. She wasn’t human. She probably carried Fey blood, but asking about that seemed like a rude thing to do.

  Kara suddenly loomed close to me, her hand on my cheek. “I’m fine. They didn’t…threaten you, did they? I couldn’t stand it if whatever I brought to your doorstep put you in danger.” She shook her head. “Again, I guess.” So close, her delicate scent revealed itself. Crushed flowers. Jasmine and a hint of sweet orange. Below that, something earthy, like the remnants of an old hardwood fire.

  I hadn’t gotten beyond her nearness, the warmth of her palm against my cheek. I do okay with the ladies, but they always want either one side or the other. The pleasant guy behind the counter or the warlock who can summon up the powers of the black force domain. When they see both, it seems to always chase them away. Kara? I could see her taking in the paradox without a single hitch. What could I say in the face of that kind of acceptance?

  “I’m going to go. I don’t want to see you hurt, Orman. What you did today, though, I’ll never forget.” She surprised me. With more strength than I expected, she brought my face down to hers, kissing me gently. “Thank you. Remnar has at least one hero on its hands.”

  She turned and walked out of my shop, lost in the press of the darkened street of a subterranean city built on the bones of an ancient demon civilization. Kara disappeared into the night that never lifted, and I stood there, mute as a stone pillar.

  ✧ ✧ ✧

  You can’t just stand there being lovesick. Not as a small business owner. Not as a licensed necro for the city of Remnar. I shook it off and started scrubbing at the stains in the floor, the sad faces of the spirits in the room watching me. They weren’t going to leave on their own power. It would be up to me to show them the way. A warlock’s work goes on and on.

  I went and got the black chalk and the dust of rusted coffin nails. In a moment of inspiration, I grabbed an empty quill and poked it into my arm, filling it with blood. Small ritual wounds? Part of the gig. You get inured to it.

  The female orc’s spirit hung there, blood red in the air. The agony of her death filled her, shaking her ghost like wind against sailcloth. She recoiled from me when I came near. Usually, spirits and haunts come toward me like an old friend.

  But when you kill them, it’s different. It has to be, I guess.

  “I can’t hurt you now,” I told her. Which was a lie, but she didn’t know that. “Let me take that pain away. One less thing to carry into the void. I don’t have anything against any of you. You did what you did, and I did what I did. It’s the law of the city. Whatever gets you through, whatever it takes.”

  That seemed to settle her down. All of them stopped retreating fr
om me. I produced the quill and said the abyssal spell that draws pain into the blood and binds it. The orc’s spirit went from crimson to the same washed-out gray of the other three, who’d died cleaner.

  “There. That’s a little better, isn’t it?”

  Not that she’d answer. If I didn’t kill them, they’d sometimes have a lot to say, but these ghosts stood there, mute as I’d been when the woman of my dreams walked away. I took a breath and knelt again.

  There’s a mystical name for the portal into the spirit realms that I made with the black chalk and rusted iron. Some dark wizards and eldritch tinkerers love to throw that lingo around, but I just call it the door in the floor.

  Like a corpse draws flies, the door draws all the ghosts and lingering spirits in the nearby vicinity. It’s a service I can perform. For a fee, of course. The elves and Fey, especially, seem to like it better when there aren’t a lot of unquiet dead hanging around.

  One by one, the four attackers from that morning gave themselves to the door, dragged down to the Grand Necropolis, where Skolle would sort them and send them to their final reward. I had some thoughts about where these four would end up. Paid killers didn’t tend to fare well at the far end of the road.

  Only bones and broken armor remained. I’d sell the armor and use the bones. I’d go on. I’d try to forget the day ever happened.

  ✧ ✧ ✧

  “She’ll come back,” Sebastian said. An elf, he stood taller than I, all fine bones and boringly flawless skin. A stalwart regular, he always floated in after the rush, stayed an hour, and had interesting, enigmatic things to say. I suspected he was a deposed king or a former spy.

  “I don’t know,” I told Sebastian. “Why would she?”

  A slow smile bloomed on his features, putting the lie to all that nobility one would normally ascribe to an urbane elf gentleman.

  “You killed for her. You threw yourself between her and death. That sort of thing makes an impression. Just remember though—that’s how it started. When she comes back, your window is the least of what might get broken.”

  I sighed. “I guess I’m a sucker, because I want to say that I’d take that risk. For her…yeah. Maybe I’d stick my neck out.”

  He took his second cup of darkbrew and gave me a little toast. “And she knows that.”

  “Maybe I’m losing my edge. This thing, being down in the mouth about a woman, isn’t normal for me.” I pretended to clean, just rubbing a cloth back and forth on the counter to have something to do.

  “No matter how tough you are, you always fall for someone. Or something, I guess. If you don’t, maybe that’s the real tragedy in life.”

  “The tragedy? I could have said something, anything, and she might have stayed. No, I just stood there. Like a sap.”

  Sebastian handed me his empty cup. “Like I said. She’ll come back. Blood always buys another trip around the ring.”

  The shop door opened. A group of dwarves came in, calling for their midmorning ale. “Blood usually just buys more blood,” I said, mostly to myself.

  ✧ ✧ ✧

  The CLOSED sign had been up for an hour, the chairs upended on the tabletops and the floor dusted clean. The street outside whispered through the shaded window and shuttered door, no more than the simple noises of the Underhalls that we never notice.

  But the back door eased open. Was that the slightest hint of a footstep on the hard floor of the kitchen? That caught me, strange as daylight underground. I reached beneath the counter, wrapping my fingers around the orc’s flanged mace. Somehow, I’d grown used to it, attached. The one that didn’t quite kill me.

  I expanded my glamour to make my steps silent, edging closer to the back door. Right shoulder against the wall, I gripped the weapon and waited. I heard the intruder’s breath.

  Helltouched, I can see in the dark, and only a single lamp burned in the back. Shadows danced in over the half door between the public area and the kitchen, strange and misshapen.

  The half door opened, and my muscles tensed. “Orman?” a female voice asked. Her voice. Kara.

  I nearly dropped the mace. My body relaxed, the weapon held by my leg now, breath finally returning to my lungs. “You could have knocked on the window. The closed sign doesn’t apply to you.”

  I didn’t think about how that would sound, coming out of the dark and from behind her shoulder. She spun, her eyes snapped wide, just picking up the light of the distant lamp as she searched for me.

  Her hand went to her chest. She stood very still, the prettiest of the shadows in the dark. No scolding, no shrieking, just a moment of forced calm. That kind of control? You can’t buy that, can’t earn it reading a book. That strength is paid for with tough years with no one but yourself to trust. Something in my heart clenched just watching her.

  She scanned me, and I could tell her vision pierced the dark, at least a little. “You just about fed me a mouthful of that mace, didn’t you?”

  I reached out, setting it on the countertop with a thud. “I came closer than I wanted to. I didn’t think you’d ever come back, especially not creeping in like a thief.”

  “If they saw…if they knew I’d doubled back, even once, it’d be all over for me.”

  Her whole body shook, the resolve that clenched her jaw and hardened her eyes weakening. I stepped closer.

  “I’m all alone, Orman. I didn’t know where else to turn.”

  She grabbed my hand, squeezing so hard, her eyes bright as candles up close. The way my arms went around her shoulders felt like that’s where they’d always belonged. She nestled against me without the slightest resistance. “You’re here. I’ve got you. Everything’s fine.”

  The words sounded like I believed them. Maybe I did.

  ✧ ✧ ✧

  So warm. Anyone I’d ever held this way, their bodies felt cool against my own. Helltouched isn’t just the horns and obsidian eyes. It goes down to the bones and sinew, into the hot cauldron of your blood. I can reach into fire unharmed. Disease and poison burn away in my veins like ice hitting a hot stove. Certain churches, I can’t get past the front door.

  But Kara’s heat hadn’t been illusion before. Her cheek against my shoulder, her hands at the small of my back—they baked through my shirt. What did that? Sanguivore Fey? I didn’t smell blood on her. I couldn’t keep my mind on it. The silent trust of her body against me in the dark spun all thoughts away. Her heart and breath quieted. Was that me? Was that the safety of having me close?

  “What are you into?” I asked, voice just loud enough to reach her ear.

  “You probably shouldn’t know. It’s my weight to carry. I’ve been trying, but things went so bad. I had nowhere else to turn. Everything I’d built up over these years, and they burned it down in a night. These clothes are all I have left.”

  “Who’s trying to hurt you, Kara?” I moved my palm against her back. No silk dress this time, just a rough-spun tunic over wool trousers and soldier’s boots. Not even her clothes, I didn’t believe. Maybe a part of a disguise, or simply stolen. It didn’t matter. Her kind of beauty didn’t need any adornment.

  “I…got away from a place where these villains were holding me like a prisoner. My whole life, they held me captive, but I got away. It took them a long time to find me, but they know I’m here. At first, maybe they were trying to bring me back, but I’ve found out too much now. They need to kill me before I get my chance.”

  My head spun. It took me a minute to even decide what question to ask. “How long have we got before they track you here?”

  “I think I lost them, but they were close. All around.” She squeezed me harder, the strength of her arms locked against me almost painful.

  “All right. We’re getting out of here.”

  “If we go out there, they’ll find us. They’re on the street, searching. I don’t know how many hunters they sent, but too many to fight.”

  “Fighting’s not my first choice, sweetness. Much as I don’t want to ask, I need you to let
go for a minute.”

  Her hands slipped free. I ignored the sudden rush of want burning at her absence. I centered myself and spoke out the guttural words of a spell, concentrating on my left hand. My fingernails grew and thickened into claws, then talons. Maybe clever wizards knew how to do this stuff a more graceful way. A way that didn’t send agony crashing through their system as the magic ripped them and remade them. Not me.

  Kara’s teeth clicked together. She touched her own fingertips but didn’t say anything.

  I reached out, clawing at the surface of the air. Bleeding through the wounds in the fabric of the world, I gathered the insubstantial stuff of darkness itself. I painted it across us, until we were merely shapes. Speaking the words to heal the rift, my own voice sounded like wind whistling down a long tunnel.

  My left hand returned to normal, a process equally as painful as the transformation. Blood dripped to the boards. I forced the hand into a fist, sweat breaking on my face. Not that anyone could see beneath the shroud of gloom.

  “Come on.” I took her hand, and we stole upstairs, through a hidden door at the back of Lex’s broom closet, and out onto the roof. We floated from roof to roof until we were out of the nearby vicinity, then dropped down to street level, taking narrow, winding alleys back to my apartment.

  “We should be safe here,” I whispered.

  Inside the courtyard, I dismissed the darkness.

  That’s when they attacked.

  Six robed figures rushed out of my neighbor’s door, the yellow witchlight from the courtyard lamps glistening on their swords. I smelled dwarf blood: Berek, my neighbor’s. I pushed Kara behind me and stepped closer to them.

  “My flesh the doorway, my blood the road, my bones the bridge of death,” I spoke, casting a spell I’d never imagined I’d need. I made no effort to evade them, standing with my arms held out, like they were old friends. The hooded figures struck as one. The agony of six swords cleaving into me made anything else I’d ever felt pale in comparison.