“Whoa!” I put both hands up and dropped back a step.
Polrowski unleashed his magic in a flash of brilliant white light that made my subtle strands and pools of darkness stand out all around us in stark relief. His spell hit me like a freight train, and the ground came quietly up behind me. For as much as that had hurt, it seemed like it should have been loud. The onslaught had come in silence, though, and I found myself staring dizzily up at the clouds up above. I struggled to pull a breath into my lungs while my shield belt fizzed and popped sparks in a hazy aura all around me that stank of ozone.
“Hey, look, fireworks,” I wheezed to no-one in particular.
Polrowski appeared over me. “You’re pretty tough,” he said, with some admiration. “I knew you did good work, but I really didn’t think that dinky little shield would take a shot like that.”
The shadows around us were rippling, flowing, dancing in the light breeze. She was agitated, eager. Rain drops bounced off my face and I wondered why she wasn’t attacking this guy?
“You should deactivate the shield, Alice,” he said, with the most annoyingly gentle smile. “I’m going to try again, a little harder this time, and I don’t want the shield to cook you.”
My shadow could have swallowed Polrowski’s magic like a sorority girl doing shots, but she hadn’t. I could feel her watching, considering. Polrowski had a whole lot more power than I did, but his control over it was sloppy. All that light was just wasted magic, and it indicated to her that his will was weaker than mine – and she liked that. He wasn’t ready for her, and she liked that, too. If he could take her from me, she might go willingly. She liked her odds of taking him over. Then she’d have a stronger host, and one that would be easier to consume.
Separating an outlander from their human can be tricky, depending on the outlander, but it’s nowhere near impossible. And the shadow was waiting to see if I could hold him off, if I could hold my territory. If I could hold on to her. Bitch.
“Let’s talk about this,” I croaked. “I kind of like her. She saves me hundreds on my air conditioning bill in the summer.”
“What?” Polrowski frowned down at me. “What are you babbling about?”
“The whole thing where she ate my soul was a little annoying, but I got over that years ago,” I went on, getting an elbow under me, and rucking my bracelet down a bit so I could get my fingers around another glass bead.
“Years ago? I summoned it yesterday.” Polrowski stared down at me, studying me like I was a tricky math problem he’d screwed up somewhere. “Wait, it did what, now?”
I waved my other hand like this wasn’t important. “Well, you know, she had to make room.” Polrowski obliged me by glancing at the hand I was waving while I twisted the bead off my bracelet with my other one. “I don’t hold it against her. She didn’t know any better. Did you say yesterday?”
“Did you hit your head?” Polrowski demanded.
“Only once or twice.” I raised an eyebrow up at him. “All right. Maybe three times. It’s been a busy night.”
He rubbed his chin, all the humor having left him. He looked angry, and confused, and a nimbus of light was starting to shine all around him. He was wearing an ugly ring with a large red stone, and it caught the light, shining like a baleful crimson eye. He was thinking hard, but it made his concentration slip, and he was leaking magic again, little flares of light spinning away off his aura, dancing and dissipating in the air like tiny galaxies. “Look, just shut up and hold still, all right?”
“You must be new at this.” I shook my head disgustedly as I lifted my hand and popped the bead. Gale force winds shrieked away from me, sending him up into the air, and in the back of my head, the shadow’s voice bubbled and danced in an approximation of laughter. I raised my arm sharply, twisted my wrist, and brought my arm down again, hard, shifting the direction of the gale-force wind while it lasted. Polrowski shot earthward and landed with a solid thud and a wet crunch just short of the pointy, iron fence.
Dammit. I was hoping to impale him.
I shoved myself up, shaky and wobbly and aching.
Polrowski lay in a heap by the fence, and even from where I stood, I could see his head cocked at an unpleasant angle. Broken neck. That’d do. I could turn him over to the Knights, and they wouldn’t be asking him any questions. I frowned. This was too easy.
I walked up to him and failed to be surprised when I saw him blinking up at me. Of course he wasn’t dead. That would be too convenient. “You broke it, you bitch!” he snarled. His hands twitched, feet spasming out a quick staccato. “I liked this one, too.”
I drew my gun. His arm shot out and flailed, and then I did manage some surprise as he got his hand slapped up against his face. “Holy shit, are you moving?” I demanded, and glanced at my gun.
The Void Rounds cost almost eighteen thousand dollars apiece to make, to say nothing of the months of work for just a single round. Polrowski’s neck made an awful grinding sound as he managed to push his head around and line it up more or less straight. Facing me. “Jesus, man.” I decided this guy was worth the money. He was too scary to live. I stepped well back, lined up the shot, and pulled the trigger.
Polrowski’s eyes lit up white, and my gun jammed.
We both glanced at my gun, now. Polrowski was grinning. I was not.
Also, his eyes were smoking. I could smell burning meat.
“Be right with you, Alice,” he said, his voice grating, like he was speaking around a throatful of, oh, I don’t know, shattered vertebrae, maybe. “Just give me a minute to slip into something a little less dead, m’kay?”
My eyes were wide. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just wait over here,” I said, and then turned and ran like hell. My shadow raced ahead of me in sharp relief, as the night behind me flared with incandescent light. She felt incredibly proud of me, and a little touched that I’d make the effort to defend her. Yeah, okay, I could go with that. Sure, I’d miss her terribly after she ate her new host and fed and grew until the universe went dark. I’d be so lonely, yep.
I vaulted the fence, something I’d probably regret when the adrenaline wore off, and sprinted across the street. My ribs and my left leg ached and throbbed while I cut down an alley between a convenience store and a gas station. Times like this I wished Detroit wasn’t so damn big. I’d read once that you could put Manhattan, Boston, and San Francisco inside the Detroit city limits and have room left over, and I believed it. The whole town was a sprawl. Built in the automobile age, and designed to mock pedestrians – and it meant that running anywhere on foot was a joke. I’d be exposed no matter where I went – there was just too much room between buildings and neighborhoods. Too many open lots and wide, empty streets.
I ducked into someone’s yard, jogging right, scooting through a broken fence, and cut across another yard, stumbling out onto a side street I didn’t recognize. The shadow watched my footing and numbed my injuries and I held my ribs, not that it helped much. I paused, sheltering from the rain under a maple, light headed and dizzy.
I had to keep moving. Inquisitor Cat wouldn’t be out of the game forever, and she wasn’t going to let up. She’d be following me. And Don Polrowski… or whatever had been using his body… he wasn’t done with me either. I continued down the street, ducking through yards and sticking to the shadows. Polrowski had said he’d had a tough time tracking me, right? And I knew I was hard to scry. Hopefully that was holding. But Cat had been able to home in on me somehow, and it had sure sounded like Polrowski had been able to make me come to him. That was an unsettling thought.
The houses were packed tight here, yards tidy enough, which meant I was in a nicer neighborhood again. I passed a few empty houses and considered ducking into one of them, but what I really needed was a phone and transportation. And ammunition. Lots more ammunition. I was running low, and it was looking like it was going to be one of those nights.
I broke out onto another street and found a corner. I was at Picadilly and Chippewa. Fat lot of good that was. I had no idea where Picadilly and Chippewa were, but I could see more lights ahead, so I headed that way, walking now. Spots were dancing in my vision when I finally stopped next to a big old cinder block building calling itself the Liquor Palace.
I felt sick and dizzy. Concussion? Seemed likely. I had been pretty well battered even before Polrowski had slammed my own shield into my face.
There was a payphone in the parking lot, under the store’s overhang. I leaned against it, and patted myself down, finding my cigarettes battered but serviceable. I was across the street from O’Quin’s Shrimp House, which rang a bell in my head. I think I ate there once. I lit a mangled cigarette.
I tapped one of my rings against the coin slot, and a pair of illusory quarters plunked into the phone. Mastery of the secrets of the mystic arts means you don’t have to carry spare change. Behold my power, mortals, and despair.
I let my fingers dial my house line number while I willed my breathing to steady and my head to stop throbbing. It didn’t help a lot, but I felt better for making the effort. Calls to me went to my cell or my voicemail – the house phone was for Gene.
He picked up on the twelfth ring, and greeted me with silence. Zombi though he is, he could have grunted or moaned or something, but he never did over the phone. One of his quirks. “Hey, Gene. Busy night, and I have work for you. The car was involved in an accident, over by Woodlawn cemetery – it might still be there, or it might be in impound. Either way, I need you to go collect it. Also, I need more gear. Bring the yellow emergency kit… and the blue one. Also…” My head was still throbbing. I took a deep drag of my smoke and shrugged. “You know what? Just bring everything. All of it. I’ll meet you at Bushie’s, okay? But I have… an errand or two, so I don’t know when I’ll be there. Just get it all over there, and if I’m not there wait for me. Got that?”
He hung up. That meant he got it. Good zombi, that man. Okay, then. What was next?
Owen, I thought. I had permission from Tyler to get in and see Owen, and that was definitely at the top of my to-do list. If anyone in Detroit would have any useful answers, it would be Owen. And, I had a culprit for summoning the rampaging hollowman. The other rampaging hollowman, I corrected myself. Not that I’d gotten up to much rampaging lately.
But wait. How was I supposed to turn Polrowski in, without getting myself in trouble? And how did he know me? It wasn’t just that he knew my name. He’d acted like he’d actually known me. But I’ve never met the guy before. Oh, and he knew I was hosting an outsider, though he seemed confused about which outsider. So, yeah, probably a better idea to hand him over post-mortem.
And the Ordermen. Mustn’t forget my new BFF Cat and her spooky priest buddy. They were out to kill me… and Irish. A smile started a slow crawl across my face.
But if I got to Irish first and warned him, he’d owe me. He’d owe me big. Then maybe I could get some real help with the hollowman. And Polrowski. And Duane and/or Gianna.
And when all that was sorted out, I could arrange to had Irish to the Knights, and they’d be sorted out, too. Oh, yeah, I liked this idea. The shadow liked it, too – the idea of siccing Irish on our enemies and sacrificing him afterward was a pure win/win.
The trick was finding Irish before the Ordermen did. I tapped the ring again, and dialed the number for Bushie’s. If anyone could track him down fast, it would be her. The phone rang, and I wished I still had my phone. Then I could just do a Google search or two on my own. That’s probably what Honey would be doing, the bitch. And here was me, paying her a few hundred bucks so she could do a Google search for me, or look something … up … in …
The phone book. Like the one dangling from the pay phone.
“Bushie’s Bar and Grill –”
I hung the phone up and grabbed the phone book, flipping it open to the H’s, thinking to myself, No way. There must be a hundred Robin Hayes in the phone book.
There were three.
“You gotta be shitting me.” Two of them were pretty far out in the ‘burbs, but one of them was only a few miles away. Huh. I ripped the page out of the phone book stuffed it in my jacket pocket.
Okay, next up, transport. I glanced around. There were two cars parked in the Liquor Palace’s parking lot, but the big front windows looked right out on them. There were four cars parked over at O’Quin’s, including one around the corner from the building, out of the parking lot lights where no one would see me “borrowing” it. Good enough.
I crossed the street, twisting a silver ring on my right hand to warm it up. It had a fiery white opal on it, into which I’d burned a black skull with two crossed keys underneath. I pressed it against the lock on the battered old Chevy Malibu, and heard the lock open. I slipped into the car and checked for airbags.
Just in case.
My skeleton keyring started the ignition, too, and after a second to check the phone book page and figure out my bearings, I took off for the only nearby address. I know, it was a longshot, but dammit, I was due a break. And after the smug look on his face after he’d tracked down my shop, I was really, really hoping he’d be home when I walked in that front door.
The rain picked up as I drove. The Malibu needed new wipers in the worst way. I lit another cigarette as I zipped back up Eight Mile, listening to the transmission groan and complain. The brakes were screechy, too. I slowed down as I turned on John R Road, squinting at street signs as I cruised along. The shadow found a stash of turkey jerky in the glove box, and I helped myself. My body needed fuel in the worst way. I was aiming for Dequindre Road, and finally stumbled across it, squinting in confusion as I sped through industrial parks full of trucking depots and parts shops. I eyed address numbers until they led me into Ackles Mobile Court.
“This can’t be right,” I muttered as I circled through the mobile park, looking for the right trailer. People who owned them preferred to say ‘mobile home’ but really, who did they think they were fooling? Most of these weren’t even double-wides.
The park was tidy enough, if run down, several trailers sitting empty, but still kept up. The lawns were mowed, and the trailers were in good repair for their age. I parked my borrowed car outside a skinny old white trailer with numbers matching the ones from the phone book. I flicked my cigarette away as I eyed the place. No driveway, because those lots were bigger and cost more. Most of the homes on this lane just had street parking. I got out of the car, not quite willing to believe it, but not willing to leave just yet.
The shadow drifted through the darkness, poking around, as I looked the trailer over. It was dark. No one home? Maybe Irish had gone to bed? I stuffed my hand in my pocket to grab my phone and check the time, and cursed when I remembered it was still in the Barracuda. Dammit. I glanced around. Was this even the right place? If it was, man, Irish needed a raise.
The shadow shared a chilled shudder with me as she found traces of Irish’s scent around the trailer, and I put my eyebrows up.
Really? I shook my head. I’d always pictured him as the log-cabin kind of guy. Someplace with a big garage full of weapons and explosives, with a shooting range out back, maybe. Or a concrete bunker under a parking garage. Yeah, I could see that. This? No way.
She also reported a lot of wiring winding their way up the light poles in each trailer’s yard. I craned my head, looking up at the big fluorescent lamps that lit the place up, but couldn’t see anything. The shadow climbed up, following the wires, and sent back the feel of little boxes with lenses. Security cameras, and lots of them. Best not to look too suspicious, then.
The neighboring trailer on the right was dark, too, but there was a FOR RENT sign in the front window. I approached the front door of, apparently, Irish’s trailer, wincing as I went up the steps and my leg complained about it.
I knocked as the shadow flowed through the crack under the door, wary and frightened, but obeying my order. The living room was empty, but this place was Irish’s all right. The shadow could taste him. I knocked again, eying the door. It had seen better days. There were a nice collection of bondo-patched bullet holes in the metal. As the shadow explored further, I was startled to realize I was standing on a trapdoor. The porch concealed a pit, with iron spikes in the bottom. Spikes and soot, which boded poorly for whatever had fallen in there last time.
Okay, now I was willing to believe Irish lived here.
Table of Contents / Chapter Twenty >>
Black Alice by Marci Sischo and James Agle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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