In retrospect, the shield belt was a bad design. For one thing, there was no kinetic cushion from the inside of the shield. Hence, the broken ribs from the spider-woman Corruption who slammed me through that wall and the injuries from the car accident. For another, it had that area threshold so I could touch things, so if someone got too close, the belt didn’t work. And since I didn’t want to be lugging around an external power source, the belt was designed to draw off my own resources, the theory being I could replenish those at need.
Unless, you know, I was dead on my feet from broken ribs and several close-quarters beatings.
I spun, and the bullet hit me hard and just like that, I was down.
The television shows never show you how goddam loud gunfire is. In the low-roofed enclosure of the bar, that shot sounded like the Hammer of God slamming down, and I wondered if that would be the last thing I ever heard. I crossed my mind that I was still thinking, so I probably wasn’t dead.
I lay on the sticky black rubber mat on the floor, clutching my side. I felt wet heat trickling through my fingers. The shadow was howling in my head, and for a moment, I thought that was why I couldn’t hear anything. Then I realized my ears were ringing, and I couldn’t hear anything because the gunfire had driven me deaf.
Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt much. My heartbeat wasn’t even very fast. Was this what shock felt like?
Honey was grabbing at my hands. I flicked a glance up at her. Her eye was narrow, dark, a mix of angry and scared, and her mouth was a thin, straight line. She was digging at my hands, pulling them away from my side. I let go, so she could have a look. She pulled my jacket out of the way and dragged my shirt up, and her jaw dropped, eye widening.
Yeah. Had to be bad.
She looked at me, her mouth moving, but all I could hear was a high-pitched whine, and my shadow gibbering wordlessly as it writhed in my gut. I shook my head, and Honey did something at my side. I couldn’t feel it, but a second later she was holding a misshapen bullet in front of my nose. “The hell?” I think I said, and I shifted a little, so I could look for myself.
Irish had hit me in the side with the broken ribs. Hitching my shirt higher and carefully twisting and craning my neck, I saw my blackened skin had cracked. Like glass. No, my bad, like ice. The bullet had chipped a big chunk out of the skin, and a little blood was seeping through the cracks, and the chip itself was a big, meaty-looking hole, dark and withered and desiccated.
Freezer burnt. Jesus Christ. Even as I watched, the seepage slowed, and the blood was freezing into a layer of crimson ice over the dead, blackened flesh. Wow, that was attractive. I tsked, wondering how the fuck I was going to get this fixed, and pulled my clothes back down.
“– did you do, Alice?” I looked back up at Honey. Her voice was dull and flat and distant, but I could hear her.
“Dunno,” I managed, rolling over so I could push myself up. My arms wobbled, and Honey had to help me up. My knees felt hot and watery. I leaned on the bar for support, wondering if I was actually going to die. I could feel the shadow’s anxiety, a horrific urgency keening in my head, like she was screaming Do something, idiot!
She wasn’t afraid of the injuries, not like I thought she should be. I don’t know how much she actually understands about having a body, and the need to keep it in fair shape. No, instead she was beside herself in terror because the Irishman was trying to kill us at last, and I still couldn’t understand what it was about him that was so frightening to her. He’d only used a bullet, for shit’s sake, and we’d dealt with those before. I’d probably have been in hysterics just from the overflow of her fear, if it weren’t for the state of shock I was apparently enjoying. Good stuff, shock.
Gene had Irish by the wrist with one hand, his other hand wrapped around the gun. He’d forced Irish’s arm up towards the ceiling, and judging by the rictus of pain on Irish’s face, Gene was squeezing.
“You better let him have the gun,” I said, my own voice dull and flat. “He’ll break your wrist if you don’t.”
“How could ye do it to him?” Irish demanded, still struggling despite my perfectly reasonable advice. Gene rocked as Irish punched him in the bread basket, but that didn’t stop the zombi any.
“No point hitting him. Zombis don’t feel pain.”
“Irish, let it go!” Honey yelled, keeping a wary eye on me. “He’s gonna fuckin’ kill you!”
I frowned, eyebrows pinching together. “He is not,” I groused. “Not unless I tell him to, and I haven’t said shit.” Gene slowly but surely twisted the gun out of Irish’s grip, then dropped his wrist, tucking the gun into his London Fog. He raised one hand and wagged a reproving finger at Irish.
Zombis are strong as gorillas, but I thought back to Irish going toe-to-toe with Jada a few hours ago. Come to think of it, those three regular Joes had been kicking his ass a few minutes ago. I turned to the glass shelves and relieved Honey of a bottle of Bushmills and tumbler.
I took both around the bar to a table, because I needed to sit down. I fell into the chair, Irish glaring at me the whole way as he rubbed his wrist. I wrestled with the cap, got the bottle open, and poured a big glass of good whiskey. I lit a cigarette, and gestured at Irish with it.
“I do good work.” I sipped the whiskey. It was warm all the way down. “But I have a hard time believing I did such a good job my zombi managed to disarm an Orderman.”
“You… ” Irish had to look away from me, but that meant looking at Gene. He rolled his gaze heavenward, before turning back to me. “Your own husband. How could ye do it?” Irish stalked towards me, and Gene shadowed him, shaking his head. “Have ye no soul at all?”
I quirked a smile at that. “That’s not Gene. Gene died.” I shifted in the chair, trying to get comfortable, and couldn’t manage it. I could still feel blood trickling down my side, soaking my jeans. It cooled as it ran. I stood and shrugged – carefully – out of my coat, and in the silence, I could hear my skin crackling. Irish had stopped approaching, though my shadow’s wails of despair didn’t let up. Gene took up a position beside me, watching the bigger man with empty, patient eyes, and I patted his shoulder affectionately.
“Gene died of a heart attack. It sucks, doesn’t it? A man like Gene dying of a fucking heart attack. It was the last way he would have wanted to go.” I pulled the knife out of Gene’s throat, and inspected the hole. I’d have to pack it with resin, I decided, so the tissues wouldn’t fray inside every time he turned his head. The outside I could seal with some of that leather-repair goop I got from that infomercial. “He always figured some monster would punch his ticket, and he was fine with that. Going down fighting the good fight, and all that. Instead, it was a goddamn blockage.” I brushed his hair back out of his eyes, and looked at his face, remembering the way he looked when the skin wasn’t dry and desiccated, when his eyes had been a clear blue devoid of cataracts.
“It was fast. He was dead before he hit the floor.” I remembered the dull thump of his body hitting the bedroom floor. One second it was Hey, Allie, my arm hurts, and the next, thud. I remembered staring down at him, mouth hanging open in surprise, as his eyes glazed over. He was gone before I could even think of doing anything. “Damn shame, too,” I added as I docked my cigarette in the ash tray.
Honey dragged a chair around by my side and sat down. “Most people bury their dead husbands, Alice,” she said in a bland tone as she set down two more tumblers and poured out a splash of whiskey for herself.
“It was just…” I shrugged, looking at the floor, trying to find the words. “I didn’t… it was so quick. I just…”
“Didn’t want to let him go,” Honey supplied for me.
I sat down next to her, more carefully this time, nodding. Irish was glaring at me, his fists opening and closing as his gaze went back and forth between Gene and I. “God, the house was quiet. It took months to get him back on his feet.” Long hours in the shop. I’d hardly done any other business. I blinked at the whiskey and risked a deeper breath, wincing as my ribs made me pay for it. “Of course, it’s still pretty quiet,” I added, shaking the mood off. “Zombis – not big on conversation. The point is, Irish, he shouldn’t have been able to get that gun away from you. Speaking of which, Gene?” I held my hand out, and Gene gave me the gun. I set it on the table, and pushed it in Irish’s direction.
“You’re sick.” Irish growled at me.
“I think it’s sweet,” Honey said, though she wasn’t smiling. “Creepy? Shit, yeah. But sweet. You ain’t right, girl.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I did bury the first one.” Honey shot a startled look at me and I waved her off. “Oh, I killed him first. Jesus. And he had it coming,” I snapped, leveling a sharp finger at Irish before he could say anything. “Wife-beating piece of shit,” I said to Honey, by way of explanation.
“He hit you?” Her mouth fell open, eyebrows up.
“Just the once.” I grinned, and Honey shivered. “Anyway,” I said, before the conversation could get away from me again, “about the other Inquisitor –”
“So, wait.” Honey frowned. “Gene’s your second husband, then?”
“Third.” Irish’s stare was driving my shadow fucking insane. I was still comfortably numbed against her panic, and the whiskey was helping, but the psychic noise was distracting. I jabbed a finger at Irish, and jerked it toward the other chair at the table. “And would you sit down and stop giving me the shit eye?” I plucked my cigarette from the ashtray with a sigh. “Like I was saying, this other gal –”
“What happened to the second one?”
“Dillon?” I glanced at Honey, exasperated. “Last time I heard from him he was in California. He travels a lot, though.”
“But he’s alive, right?” Honey arced her eyebrow at me.
“Of course he is. What do you take me for?”
“You’re a witch,” Irish growled.
“We got a divorce. A friendly divorce.” I paused, remembering our hotel stay after the court date. “Very friendly,” I added to Honey with a wicked little smirk that she didn’t quite manage to return. I hit my cigarette and glanced up at Irish, who was still scowling at me from across the table. “And hey, speaking of marriages, maybe it’s your turn to share with the class.”
“He’s married?” Honey twisted to look up at Irish.
“Widowed,” I said, at the same time as Irish said, “No.”
We both stared at each other for a moment. The silence stretched out thin and tight as we glared at each other, Irish’s eyes dark and angry and a lot more sober than they had been fifteen minutes ago.
“I found your house,” I said into the silence.
“I know.” Irish’s tone was cold, tightly controlled, face flushed and stony. I suddenly recalled his sketch of me, in his living room, and my heart gave a little double-beat. He’d drawn that scene, even before it had happened. And he had the audacity to stand there accusing me of being creepy? “You went through my things. My sketchbooks.”
“Yeah, I did. I ran into Petey, too.” I flicked ash, making myself stare Irish down. I could feel the shadow go still and curl into a frightened, hopeless knot in my head. When I brought it back to my lips, my fingers were shaking, and I couldn’t feel them very well. Was I dying? Was the shadow giving up because we were fading away? It didn’t feel like that, though. She felt… wary. Like she was being watched…
Irish slammed his fist down on the table, making the bottle jump. “Aye, and what of it?” Irish challenged. His shoulders were set tight, jaw clenched. He was furious. Good for him. I tried to work up some anger to give back to him, but I couldn’t. I felt tired. Done. I wondered if I should be worrying about that.
“Petey?” Honey glanced at the two of us, mouth pursed. “Willie Pete? Isn’t he in Nebraska?”
“Nah, fuck Nebraska. Willie Pete’s been back in town for a while, and he’s Irish’s fucking landlord.” I took the last hit off my cigarette and crushed it out, lifting my glass. Gene stared at me, and turned to face back toward Irish, crossing his arms. “That’s how Irish knew to come asking for me. Petey told him all about this witch he knew who could help him out.” I glanced over at Honey. Her eye had gone narrow and chilly. “He was hunting me when he came around asking you to arrange a meeting.”
“You fucker,” Honey spat into the silence. “You fucking lied to me! You asshole.”
“I did. And I’m–”
“Doesn’t matter.” I cut them off with a sharp wave that sloshed the whiskey around in my glass. “That was months ago, and I doubt he’s gonna kill me now.” I lifted the glass and drained it in three big swallows, setting it down as whiskey burned my throat and warmed my belly and made my head spin pleasantly for a moment. “What happened to your wife? And the kid?”
“That’s none’ve yer fucking business, you –”
“Because I did go through your stuff. Found that sketch you did of me, the one of me finding that sketch of me. That was… distracting. But the drawings you made of your family, those were the best ones.” I stood up and stretched, shedding a small clattering of crimson ice shards when I moved. “What happened? I guessed a house fire.”
Irish looked away, but that put him eye to eye with Gene, who stared at him without blinking. Irish met that empty gaze for a long moment, while Honey put her feet up on the table, arranging her skirt and settling back, fascinated.
“Bad wiring,” he rasped, finally dropping his gaze to the floor and taking a seat. His voice was clipped, hard, face carved with deep lines of anger around his eyes, his mouth. “The house burned while I was out.”
“Hunting.”
“That lot hunts,” he snapped, scathing, waving a hand at Gene. “I do the Lord’s work. ‘Hunting’ implies a kind of sport. What I do is no game. No contest.”
“Did,” I corrected, tone mild. “You’re fired.”
Irish jerked his head up, pure hate in his face. I thought for a moment he was going to launch himself right over the table at me, and I raised my eyebrows and opened my arms, silently daring him to try it. The shadow was stunned at that, and I could feel her wondering if I was trying to get killed. Even Honey gave me an open-mouthed look of disbelief.
“Aye. Did.” Irish conceded, looking away.
“Bad wiring, eh?” I tapped another cigarette out of my pack, twirled it in my fingers. “Is that the lie Tanner told you?”
“What?” Irish sat back, thunderstruck. I’d finally cracked that shell of disbelief of his, apparently. “Where did you hear that name?”
“From him. We talked earlier tonight.”
“Bullshit.”
Honey shook her head, and poured herself another couple of fingers. “I doubt it, big guy. He was here, too. Asking about you.”
“After we talked, he decided to send his new Inquisitor to deal with me. She and I had a fight over at Woodlawn. That’s when I schooled her in some dirty fighting and stole her steering wheel.”
Irish had paled, but now he shook his head, his brows furrowed again. “There is no way you’d survive if that were true.”
I took a sharp breath. I had just about had it with that attitude of his. Okay, then. No more subtlety.
I pulled my shirt up and completely off, throwing it to one side and walking right up to Irish. The cracks had spread, and the shadow had done what she could to freeze the wounds shut. But that made me brittle, and every time I’d moved I’d cracked some more meat and she’d had to freeze some more. Dark streaks of bloody furrows were spread across my stomach and hip, and my disrobing had caused the whole spiderweb network of them to leak again.
“Does it look like I survived? Does it? Cause it looks to me like I’m fucked, Irish. It looks to me like she left me dead, and it’s all I can do to hold it off for a while.” Honey gasped, and Irish about fell out of his chair in his haste to get away from the horrid sight of my pale skin streaked with frost and blood and necrosis. “She’s an inquisitor, all right, and I only got away because I cheated and because somebody scarier than me showed up. But I got a real good look at her, Irish. Up close and fucking personal, especially when she was cracking my fucking head against the ground!”
Gene shambled off, as I walked up to Irish, poking him in the chest as he backed away. “After that, I went to your place to fucking warn you, you idiot! She’d said you were next, and I had to warn you! Happy? Are you glad your little pet witch is so well domesticated that I ran to warn you before I took the time to lick my wounds?” He reached the bar and fetched up short, arms held awkwardly at his sides, and I leaned in close, my bra brushing his torn coat as I snarled up into his face. “And while I was there, I looked through your stuff. I saw the drawings you made of your kid. Your little girl. And you know what? I recognized her. I’d seen her before.”
“You… what?” he stammered. “When did you…?”
I pushed him, making him rock back against the bar. “Shit, man, it wasn’t hard! It’d only been about twenty or thirty minutes! She’s the Inquisitor who’d just finished kicking my ass!”
The room fell silent, and I backed away from Irish, breathing hard. Gene held my jacket out to me, and I took it and nodded thanks at him. I suddenly felt a little awkward standing around the bar in my favorite red push-up bra. “Allow me to sum up,” I said, pouring on the sarcasm as heavy as I could. “Your daughter’s not dead, and the guy who told you she was just brought her back into town to fucking kill you! Now can you stop with the ‘that’s not true’ bullshit and just fucking accept that I might know what I’m talking about, here?”
“Oh my God,” Honey said softly, staring at me as I gingerly slipped into the jacket.
Irish was looking at me, but his eyes were wide and horrified, and I don’t know if he was actually seeing me. “Caitlin?” he whispered.
“Cat.” I said, walking over to the table to retrieve my smokes. I shook out another cigarette and fumbled with the lighter with fingers that didn’t want to respond correctly. “She goes by Cat.”
“That’s the most fucked-up thing I think I’ve ever heard,” Honey said, rubbing her arms as her words plumed in the air in front of her. She stood up, glancing through to the other room. “Hey, did someone leave a window open or something?”
I shook my head. “Feels fine to me.”
“I’m freezing.” And sure enough, I could see goosebumps rising on her skin.
I frowned, looking over at Gene. “Hey. Is it cold?”
He gave me his patented blank look, and Honey stood up, too, rubbing her arms. Every breath she took fogged in the air. None of mine did, of course. I was half-frozen already, and I wondered if my shadow was leeching heat from the room. No… she was still a knot of horrified dread, gathered in my abdomen and trying to keep us among the living.
“I don’t always feel cold, sorry –” A bottle sailed off the shelf, missing Irish’s head by inches, and crashed into the wall.
“Hey!” Honey exclaimed. “What the –”
Two more bottles leaped from the shelves and shot through the air like missiles. Irish hit the deck and I followed his example, feeling skin split and seep and ignoring it. One bottle smashed into Gene’s back and he turned, ponderous, as the other flew by Honey and broke the window.
“Fuck!” She dropped to her knees, throwing her arms over her head.
“Alice, stop that!” Irish shouted, moving behind the bar as half a dozen billiard balls and assorted ashtrays took flight. “What the hell are you doing?” Honey and I scurried over to join him, and a wooden coaster bounced off my head as we went.
“Oh, sure, blame the witch,” I muttered. “Look, it’s not me!”
“Then what is it?” Honey cried, as a bowl of peanuts exploded into a hailstorm that pelted us all.
“How should I know?”
“Dammit,” Irish moved to lean over Honey and I as more bottles exploded. He let out a hiss of pain, eyes scrunched tight as shards of glass flew like bullets.
“Alice! The fuck?” Honey yelled over the noise of glass crashing, and more solid bangs and thuds as heavier things started flying.
“I don’t know!” I shouted back. Wait – “Did it get cold all of a sudden? Really fast?”
“Yes!” Irish told me, and I glanced up, just as Gene shuffled around the bar to stand over us, providing a little more cover. Irish let out a relieved breath, a trickle of blood slipping out of his hairline to trail down his face. He wiped at it. “The temperature just dropped like a fuckin’ rock – how’d ye not notice that?”
“Geists!” I flinched as more glass showered us, and something slammed into the front of the bar, making the whole thing tremble. “Shit!” Geists weren’t proper ghosts, they were more like an echo of a personality. It was a drawback of the stronger magic density these days, that they formed so much more easily than they used to. They were basically constructs of magic and emotion, energy with memories, and they were a pain in the ass.
“Geists? Poltergeists?”
“That’s one kind. Do something!” I shoved at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Irish flinched as a beer mug ricocheted off his knee, and spread his arms at me. “What am I goin’ to do? Shoot the bar?” The bar rocked again, and I heard something slam against the far wall at the same time.
“No shooting my bar!” Honey squealed from the shelter of the sink well under the bar.
“Alice? I know you’re in here.” It was a man’s voice, and I froze, staring up at Irish’s worried face. I didn’t recognize the voice. “Your car is out front. Also, I think I can taste you. Come out, come out.”
“What are you going to do?” I hissed at Irish, dumbstruck. “I don’t fucking know, do an exorcism or something! That’s what you guys do, isn’t it?”
“There you are!” The unfamiliar voice called. “Behind the bar?”
I risked a peek up over the bar. The air was full of glass shards, chair legs, ashtrays, and silverware. Anything that wasn’t nailed down was flying, and the furniture was crawling around the room, some of it on the walls and ceiling. The noise was deafening, a resonating hum-and-clicking drone that seemed to come from everywhere. I could barely hear the stranger’s voice, but he was easy to spot. He stood in the middle of the room, in the eye of the storm, a tall, thin man with a narrow, handsome face, dark hair graying at the temples. He was wearing a tailored coat and a silk scarf, and I’d never seen him before in my life.
He stood perfectly at ease, one hand in his coat pocket, the other holding my glass of whiskey. As I watched, he rescued my cigarette from the table just before the table shuddered and streaked towards us.
Gene put his hand on the top of my head and pushed me back down. The table smashed into the bar, and a cloud of wooden debris joined the glass-storm in the air. Gene grunted from the floor, and the sound was just slightly annoyed.
I slapped Irish’s arm. “Exorcism! Get a move on, man!”
“Can’t,” Irish said, shaking his head as the zombi behind us began to get up.
“This can end any time you want,” the man called. “I’m just here for you, Alice. This’ll only take a moment, and I can be on my way before your friends get hurt.”
“Can’t?” I hissed at him as Gene took up his position over us again.
“I’d have been along sooner, but it took forever to find this body.”
My heart stopped. The mystery stranger from the cemetery. “Fuck.”
“Who the hell is it?” Honey asked, tugging at my pantleg.
“Although, now that I think of it, I was a bit annoyed when you killed that body.” The man’s voice was thoughtful. “I suppose I do owe you one for that. Only one of your friends will pay for that. Final offer.”
“Remember I said somebody scarier than me showed up, and saved me from Cat? Well, this is him.” I poked Irish. “What do you mean, ‘can’t?’” His expression was tight, the look in his eyes strained.
“I think the woman will suffer. Yes, the whore in the eyepatch. I’ll probably start by taking her other eye, but I might change my mind if you come out, Alice.”
We both glanced over at Honey, who smacked my arm. “You heard him! Get out there, woman!”
“Oh, thanks,” I snarled, and shifted on my knees to glare at Irish.
“I told you,” he said. “They fired me. I’m excommunicated.” He stared at my blank expression. “Cut off from God, Alice. I’m barred from Heaven for all time, and cast out.”
“But –”
The mirror and shelves exploded, Honey screamed, and we flattened ourselves as a jagged rain fell down on us. Irish gave a sharp cry of pain, and I felt myself peppered, hot little spikes stabbing the backs of my legs and arms.
“Ow,” Irish held a hand to the back of his head, eyes scrunched shut.
“You don’t – you can’t – I mean, you can’t do anything? Like, no superpowers?” I stared at him as he pulled his hand from his head. It came away bloody.
“No. Just me.” He opened his eyes, hissing the words between gritted teeth.
“This is dreadfully boring,” the mystery man announced.
“Alice!” Honey grabbed me, shaking me in desperation. “We gotta get out of here!”
“You mean you’re…?”
“Fuckin’ harmless, aye,” Irish said with a bitter little grin. “Well, I have a gun or two.”
The shadow twitched, perking up with a little trill, nearly a purr.
“Oh.” I blinked.
“Alice!” Honey shook me, shouting in my ear to be heard over the noise of the whirlwind picking up out there.
The shadow stretched in my whole body and uncoiled herself with a silky little growl. She was starving. She was always starving, but now it came with a triumphant, exultant sensation of relief. It was expansive, rushing over me, and I giggled, giddy with her relief. The air was full of power, and with Irish declawed there was nothing stopping her. She sighed in pure bliss, and we laughed out loud as one.
“Yer laughing at me? I tell you I’m damned, and you think it’s funny?”
I shook my head, laughing, and patted his arm.
“Oh, fuck, she’s lost it,” Honey moaned. “We’re gonna die.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” I managed, swallowing down the giggles as my shadow spilled into the dim bar, bringing me the shape of the massing storm of shrapnel swirling and howling only feet away and the room dimmed. “Remember how I called him scarier than me? I lied. I got this.”
“Time’s up,” the mystery man called. “Kill both her friends. Then maybe she’ll be more cooperative.” I stood up, and the storm of debris hesitated, poised in the air like a jagged cloud of cobras, ready to strike. “Ah, there you are!” He smiled, and nodded a courteous hello to me. “I just need what you have, Alice. I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt.”
I snapped my fingers, grinning, and the bar went black.
Table of Contents / Chapter Twenty-Four >>
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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