“What did you just say?” I blinked at Irish as whoever it was approached through the darkness, from the back yard. The shadow felt him out as he stumbled along in the dark and returned a verdict of “skinny teenager.”

“I know who it is.” Irish nodded towards the slagged car like that should mean something. “And believe me, he’s harmless.”

“Got a thing, Mama. Gotta go.” Michael stuffed his phone in his pocket, heading towards us. “Hey, an X-Files fan,” he said, grinning at Irish. “That was my favorite fucking show! I was so pissed when it went off the air. Mama had to stop me going to Fox and executing some motherfuckers.”

I couldn’t help staring. A vampire nerd? Was that even possible? A young man’s voice called out of the shadows, “Hey, it’s the Irish Inquisition! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see you, but I am!” The newcomer almost tripped over a broken wooden strut, nearly dropping a tattered old knapsack. He added, in a high-pitched, terrible accent, “Nobody expects the Irish Inquisition!”

“Firefly beat the shit out of X-Files,” I said absently, squinting out into the darkness as Irish’s mystery friend came towards us. I couldn’t see anything, of course, but my shadow was out there. I could feel him, taste him, just fine. He was a tall young man, bald, and drenched in enough Old Spice to be sickening. Still, it chased the flavor of Brant’s rancid corpse out of my mouth for a second, so that was something. He had one hand out for balance as he picked his way over the rubble, and in the other he carried a tattered knapsack.

“Never saw that one.” Micheal followed my gaze out into the darkness. Unlike me, he could probably see that far in the dark just fine. “Who’s the kid?”

“Lawrence. Larry,” Irish corrected himself, rubbing that spot between his eyes like he had a headache. “Calls himself The Truth.”

I did slow scan back to the spray-painted tag on the burned car.

“Oh, you should totally check it out. Best writing in a sci-fi since, like, ever!” The kid breached the edge of the light, waving at us with a wide smile. He was maybe twenty years old, and made of knees and elbows. He was tall, not quite six feet, but close, and fashionably skinny in that annoying hipster kind of way. His bald head was smooth and shiny, with skin the color of milk chocolate. He wore big black sunglasses, too. No wonder he was stumbling all over the place out there. He wore a very nice black leather jacket, the kind that looks like a suit jacket, over a tight vintage Space Invaders tee shirt, and black girl’s jeans, which looked painted on. I could just about read the dates on the quarters in his pocket. I instantly regretted that thought, and had to force the shadow to stop – she was already moving to check his pockets. His clothes were about an inch too short in the sleeves and pants legs, showing off incredibly bony wrists and argyle socks sticking out of his bowling shoes.

“’The Truth?’” I turned my baffled expression on Irish, who only gave a slight shake of his head.

“You’ve heard of me!” The kid – Larry, apparently – broke out into a big, ridiculously pleased grin.

“Well, yeah, just now,” I began, and Irish cut me off with “What’re ye even doing here, Larry?”

“Dell sent me here.” Larry joined us, standing next to Irish and – as far as I could tell, what with the sunglasses – eying me up and down. “Told me to double check the place and keep an eye out in case the creature came back here.”

“Wait, Dell? Pardell?” I stuffed my gun back in the holster as Irish shot me a surprised look.

“Ye know Pardell?”

“Yeah, I’ve known him for years,” I said, staring at Irish. “The better question here is ‘You know Pardell?’”

“Sure, met him not long after I was stationed here.”

Mikey raised a hand. “I don’t know Pardell. Is this important? Only Mama’s still waiting.” We all looked his way, and he shrugged, buttoning his shirt back up, though he left his tie loose. “She hates waiting.”

I turned back to Irish, not wanting to let this go just yet. “Wait, wait. So you’ve known Pardell for years, and never killed him.”

“Why would I? He’s harmless, isn’t he?” Irish kicked at a piece of broken glass on the ground. “Couldn’t see killin’ a kid over talkin’ to his cat, could I? Jaysis, Alice, what did ye take me for?”

The thing that got me was that Irish actually sounded a little hurt over the implied accusation. I ran a hand through my hair, shaking my head in amazement. “Oh, I don’t know…” I tossed my hands up, exasperated. “I had this weird idea you were some kind of homicidal religious fanatic. Probably had something to do with the part where you threatened to kill me every time I bumped into you.”

“Aw, hell, he does that to everyone. That’s how you know he likes you,” said Larry, hands in his pockets. His eyes were hidden by those ridiculous big oblong sunglasses, but he was grinning at me.

“And who the fuck are you?” I demanded.

“I’m Larry Gray,” he said, holding his hands out. The effect was spoiled by the way he didn’t take his hands out of his jacket pockets. Purple satin lining, which I felt said all about him that I needed to know. “Most people call me ‘The Truth,’” he added.

“No, most people really don’t,” Irish sighed, looking a bit pained.

I stared at Irish, and then at Larry, and then at Michael for good measure, just in case he was catching on to something I’d missed. He looked a little annoyed, and was frowning at Irish.

“How come he never threatened to kill me?” Michael said as I turned back to Larry, who stood beaming at the rest of us, looking pleased as punch for some reason.

The shadow had by now satisfied her curiosity about him. He was breathing, so probably not a vampire. Also, he was circumcised, had eighteen dollars and seventy-one cents in his pockets, liked to use aftershave as a shower substitute, and had a pimple on his shoulderblade.

“So, what’s your deal? Why would Irish threaten to kill you? What, are you a practitioner? Were-hamster? Human?”

“Half-human, yeah.” Larry grinned wider, and executed a little bow at me. “Half alien. On my dad’s side.”

“Half alien.” I turned to look back at the gang sign. “Alien? Your mom got knocked up by a, a… what do they call ‘em? Greys?”

“Well, ah, no.” Larry’s grin faded a bit, taking on a slightly embarrassed cast. “My dad was abducted. You, ah, know.”

I blinked at Larry, completely at a loss, until Irish finally said, “Can ye get that ring, yet?”

“What?” I started, and checked in with the shadow. “Yeah, actually. Jesus.” I turned and headed towards a pile of junk, Irish following. “He is not half alien,” I hissed at Irish as I knelt and reached back into the rubble, to where the shadow had shoved the ring. “I can tell, you know, mostly because they don’t exist!”

“Of course he isn’t,” Irish agreed, keeping his voice low. Behind us, Michael said, “So, half alien, huh? What’s that get you?”

Larry responded with “My alien physiology has granted me many benefits.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, sure. I can eat like a pig, and I never gain weight. There’s my staggeringly powerful intellect, too. Also, I can smell magnetic fields.”

“No shit.” The vampire sounded impressed, God help us. “What’s that like?”

“Minty.”

“He’s fucking insane, is what he is,” I whispered at Irish, shaking my head as I backed out of the wreckage, bloody ring in hand.

“Aye, but we don’t like t’ tell him.” I glanced up at Irish, who wore a mix of vague embarrassment and discomfort on his face. “He just wanted so badly to be something,” he said, waving one hand aimlessly. “He’s one’ve them that knows. He’s seen the world clear since he was a child, and it made him a little…”

“Crazy.”

“I was going to say ‘fragile.’”

“Say what you want. That kid thinks his dad had an alien butt-baby.” I shook my head in utter disbelief, squatting there leaning against a stack of wooden pallets.

“‘That kid’ doesn’t know his dad!” Irish’s voice took on a sterner tone, and I looked back up at him again, to see him giving me a reproving glare. “He was raised by his mother. His father left when he was young. And then he grew up, seein’ all this bloody mess, didn’t he? Saw a bloody werewolf in the playground of his school, and nobody else remembered it the next day. But he knew what he’d seen, even if nobody else knew it was real. And it happened again and again, over the years. Poor kid. Would either’ve us done any better in his place?” He crouched down to look me in the face.

“Speak for yourself. I did all right,” I said, with a little snort.

“What d’ye mean by that?”

“I grew up with her in my head.” I cocked an eyebrow at him, watched his eyes widen as he realized what I was saying.

“Alice, when did this happen to you?” He put a knee down in the dirt, staring at me like I’d just grown an extra head.

I shrugged. “They found me on a beach in Texas. League City, actually. Doctors said I was ten or twelve. I don’t remember anything before that. She’s always been there.”

“Ye said years, but…” his voice trailed off, and there was something a little like horror in his eyes. It made me uncomfortable. “I thought you meant… not that many years,” he finished, a little lame.

“Yeah. Well. That many years.” I put a smile on because the way he was looking at me made me want to squirm and look away. “So anyway, pardon me if I haven’t got a lot of sympathy. Not our best trait.”

“Dear God,” he breathed. “That explains a lot. Ye never were a normal person, were ye? Not ever.”

“Oh, bite me. By the way, you said ‘we don’t like to tell him,’ and don’t think I didn’t notice. What’d you mean by that?”

Irish looked away, and stood up. “A few people I know. Dell, some others. What about the ring?”

“Who, exactly?” I put my eyebrows up, waiting.

Irish met my eyes, for a long steady moment, reddening a bit, then, “Ah, fine. A handful of others. Like Dell. Like you. The ones I didn’t think deserved t’ die.”

I tsked at him. “I’m wounded. And here I thought I was special.”

“Really?” he asked, an amused glint in his eyes.

“No, not really.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “I just assumed that was how you guys did things. Makes sense, doesn’t it?” I paused, looking up as Michael approached, Larry following along in his wake. “Get some spies and informants together, use them to find out who’s doing what where. I figured that was just standard operating procedure.”

Irish frowned. “No, it’s not. Probably should be, though, and I said as much when Tanner visited a time or two. It…” he sighed. “It didn’t go over well, and I never told him I’d done more than theorize about it.”

“You find what you’re after or what? Clock’s ticking.” Michael crouched, plucking the ring from my palm. “Looks like Benny’s, all right.”

“This one belonged to Devon Brant.” I took it away from him with a sharp look. “We’re done here.” I stood up, brushing off my jeans. “Let’s go.”

“What about me?” We all turned to look at Larry, who stood watching us, brow wrinkled in concern. “Not to complain – much – but I’ve been out here for three hours, and there really isn’t anything going on. What should I do?”

“Ah,” Irish said, and Michael and I looked at him to answer. “What did Dell send you out here for?”

“Oh. Well, he said I should come have another look at the place. I might spot something no one else did. You know.” He tapped his temple. “My advanced intellect. I don’t like to brag,” he said to Michael and I. “Makes the humans feel bad.”

“Right. I feel terrible.” I nodded. Irish shot me a hard look. I gave him big innocent eyes back. “Well, did you find anything?”

Instead of a sheepish ‘no,’ Larry nodded vigorously. “There’s two empty bags of road salt not far over that way,” he said, pointing toward where Benny had been pinned. “Little early for that, I thought, so I poked around. Somebody had been making circles with it. Had some black candles stuck in, too. I’d say whoever the monster came here looking for, was expecting trouble. Trying to protect themselves. Didn’t do too well, though. Looks like they got pinned to the wall over yonder.”

“Benny knew it was coming?” Michael scowled.

Larry nodded, and those big sunglasses of his looked eerily like big eyes. His bald head did look pretty big, too. “Half the salt circle stuff was buried when the shelves came down, but it doesn’t match the stuff people use for summoning. All defense. I think a group of people were involved with summoning the monster, and they lost control of it. Dell and the others have been all over town, taking care of the mutants this thing leaves in its wake. The pattern doesn’t look like a search, and it’s already passed up on a lot of places it could hide.” He pulled out a smartphone, and started poking at the screen while he talked. “I plotted out all the locations on a Google map.”

I looked from Larry to Irish, and he held up a hand for me to keep quiet. Larry was poking at his phone and bouncing up and down on his heels, and I couldn’t shake the sudden thought that if he’d had a tail, he’d be wagging up a storm. “Rabbi Loewe sent me some pictures from the locations, too. Gruesome stuff. And there’s a pattern there, too. The Monster always makes a big entrance, but when it leaves, it’s like it just fades away. Until the next time, at the next location, where again it’s ‘Hulk Smash’ on the way in, and ‘Way of the Ninja’ on the way out. I’d say it’s hunting, and the people it’s after know it. Some of them have been hiding. One of the places hit was a crack-house. Only casualty was a guy in a suit, can you believe it? I Googled the guy’s name after Dell got his wallet, and he owns a big construction company. No way that was a regular hangout of his. I’d say he was getting blitzed and waiting for the end.”

I revised my estimate of Larry’s intelligence up a notch or two. I reminded myself that ‘crazy’ didn’t mean ‘stupid.’ “Wait,” I said, “Dell’s been taking on the corruptions?”

“Alone?” Irish asked, incredulously.

“No, Soo Lin is with him. The Rabbi, too, sometimes.”

“Ah. Okay, then.”

“Who’s Soo Lin? Who’s the Rabbi? Goddammit, how many of you are working on this?” I asked. “Who else in the Irish’s Little Helpers Club?”

Larry looked at Irish, sheepishly. “Only a few, really. We tried to get Willy Pete and some of his friends, but he’s in the hospital.”

“What?” Irish looked like he’d been gut-punched, and I smacked my forehead. “Right, I left him with Cat. I did mention that, right?”

“No, ye bloody didn’t!”

“Who’s Cat?” Larry asked, beaming again. “And is she really a cat? Like, a cat-girl? That’d be so cool!”

“Larry! What happened to Pete?” Irish demanded, obviously fighting the impulse to shake the skinny little geek.

“He said some nutty girl stole a teddy bear from your place and stabbed him. I thought you knew?”

Michael cleared his throat. “Not that this isn’t fascinating, what with me not knowing what the fuck you guys are talking about, but Mama’s only gonna get angrier. Also, I got blood on me that ain’t mine, it’s after dark, and there’s a good chance the Eldest might smell it. I’d like to get someplace with more guns. Let’s go.”

Larry pointed at the blood spatters on Mikey’s shirt. “You’ve been killing vampires? I miss all the fun. Overhand strike to the chest, edged instrument?”

Michael glanced at his watch, smiling. “Lucky guess. All right, you can come, too.”

“I can?”

“He can?” I asked.

“I like this kid. Besides, he seems a lot smarter than either of you two, and that might come in handy. Probably his enhanced alien brain.”

“I get to go!” Larry did a little dance, and gave Mikey a high-five. The vampire didn’t leave him hanging, either. “Where are we going?” Larry added.

My mouth fell open as Michael marched past us, leading Larry back towards his car. “To meet my Mama, soon-to-be the most powerful vampire in Detroit. She’s gonna love you!”

I shot a sideways glance at Irish. “That’s hardly fair. I was killing a pack of Cujos, and you were killing Jada. We didn’t have time to go hunting up salt circles! I can’t believe… What?” Irish was glaring at me.

“Ye left Pete with an angry Inquisitor – with my daughter – and didn’t think that bore mentionin’?”

“It was a little busy, what with the trying not to die and getting attacked every fifteen minutes!” I tossed my hands up. “Fuck, man. It was Pete’s idea. He ran interference so I had time to pull a quick fade.”

“And what’s this ‘stole a teddy bear’ shite?”

Michael gave a sharp whistle. “C’mon, goddammit!”

“How am I supposed to know about teddy –” I stopped dead, smacking my forehead. “The dog!” I grabbed Irish’s arm. “Come on,” I said, tugging him along as I followed after Mikey and Larry. “He means the stuffed dog. The burned one you had in that chest thingie by your bed.”

Irish’s face went bright red. “You went through my things?” Irish snarled. He was either furious, or blushing.

“Just a little. Pay attention – she didn’t take a teddy bear, she took that dog. She recognized it, and she took it.” Irish stopped this time, staring at me with a guarded expression. I tugged at his arm. “Come on. Mikey will shoot at us to hurry us up. But I’ll bet Cat had some real interesting questions for Tanner when she caught up with him. You’re welcome.”

We ducked out through the fence and hustled across the street while Irish thought that over, finding Al smoking a cigarette in the driver’s seat and waiting for us. Michael was already ducking into the car to sit in the passenger’s seat, and Larry was letting himself into the back seat. Fantastic. We caught up, and Irish pushed me into the car before I could start an argument about who was sitting next to the kid who showered in Old Spice.

“Finally,” Michael muttered as Al pulled out.

“So I’m feeling a little left out. How come you didn’t invite me into the club? Who’s this Soo Lin? And what was the other one? Rabbi somebody?” I nudged Irish. “What’s up with that?”

“We hang out,” Larry answered, beating Irish to the punch. “Y’know, like a club.”

“Really?” I flicked another sideways glance at Irish, who was finding the scenery outside his window intensely interesting. “So how’d that get started?”

“Oh, Irish introduced me to everyone. Well, he introduced me to Soo Lin, and she’s a really sweet lady, you know, for a half-dragon –”

“Whoa, hang on,” I snapped, shifting to glare at Irish. “You know a fucking half-dragon and didn’t say? What breed?”

Irish gave me a startled look. “What d’ye mean, what ‘breed?’”

“Jesus!” I started counting off breeds on my fingers. “Arctic, highlands, feathered serpent, celestial, what?” Irish stared at me, confused, and I shifted to look at Larry. “Does she breathe fire?”

“A little, yeah. Green. She does –”

I turned back to Irish. “That’s a celestial dragon, and Christ, man, do you have any idea what dragonfire goes for on the open market these days? And you know one? I’ve been paying outrageous import fees!”

“How am I supposed to know –” Irish stopped himself, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I’m arguin’ about this.”

“Wait, dragons exist?” Michael turned in his seat to watch us.

“Of course dragons exist, said the witch to the vampire,” I sneered, crossing my arms and treating Irish to a good, hard look. “And you spared the fire-breathing half-dragon… and me…”

“And the alien,” Larry cut in, helpfully.

“Yes, let’s not forget the alien, thank you, Truth!”

“The Truth.”

“Shut up, The Truth.”

“There’s no need to be rude to Larry,” Irish sniffed, adjusting his sword in the cramped confines of the backseat. “He can’t help the way he was born.”

“What, and Jada could? How many of the victims in that sketch collection of yours could help it?”

Larry put a tentative hand on my shoulder, and I had to resist the urge to elbow him, hard. “A lot of them could help what they did with it. A lot of them were dangerous. Irish spared us because we didn’t deserve… well, we didn’t earn it. Like he did with you.”

“Sure, and why are you so angry about this?” Irish snapped. “You want to talk about who’s been keepin’ secrets, do ye? Because I think I’m goin’ to win this argument, Alice.”

I opened my mouth to snap back at him, and it abruptly occurred to me that I was still keeping secrets. We hadn’t exactly gotten into that whole non-soul-having situation that had me stealing them from other people occasionally. I shut my mouth, grinding my teeth. Irish was being remarkably accommodating about the shadow, but I had the sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t approve of my little necessary evils.

“Sure you would,” I snorted, turning back to Larry. “Oh, go on, go on. My bad for interrupting. So, you met Soo Lin…” I waved for Larry to continue. Much to my annoyance, he looked past me to Irish for permission. Irish must have nodded, because Larry hesitantly continued.

“Yeah, I did. I’d followed Irish when he went to see her, so –”

“You followed him?” I put an eyebrow up. “What, and he didn’t know?”

“Oh, I knew,” Irish muttered, shaking his head.

“I’d bumped into him earlier. Purely by coincidence.”

“The hell ye did! Little bas –” Irish cut himself off and rephrased, “He showed remarkable initiative and ingenuity in keepin’ up with me.”

Michael grinned. “He followed you! I like this kid.”

Irish was wearing his annoyed expression, the one that put the tired little line between his eyebrows. I was pretty familiar with that one, because I saw it a lot. Despite it, there was a gleam in his eyes, like no matter how much Larry irritated him, he couldn’t help but be impressed.

“So he went to see this Soo Lin, and you followed him, and he ended up having to introduce you,” I said.

“Yeah. Well, we got to talking, and like I said, we were both doing the same thing. So I said to Irish, you know, if you have other people doing this, then we should all be working together and coordinating. We could cover more ground that way, and cross-check our information. I made up a database, too, so we could keep track of what was going on and where. I keep it on Google Docs, so everyone can just add things as they go, and I can put it all together.” Larry leaned past me to look at Irish. “Then I print it off and give it to him, because someone doesn’t use email.”

“Yeah, his VCR is still blinking twelve, too.” I shook my head.

“Hey, don’t feel bad,” Michael said in Irish’s direction. “I’m pretty sure DVD is a fad.”

“Grand,” Irish growled.

“Yeah, so how come I wasn’t invited into this little gang of yours?” I twisted to look at Irish, frowning.

“Me too.” Michael straightened up. “Gussie only finds me work every other month or so. I gotta say, I’m bored off my ass most nights.”

“Ye didn’t strike me as the joinin’ type,” Irish said to me, and leveled a stern finger at Michael. “And hell no.”

“But –”

“That would be so cool!” Larry squealed.

“Yeah, but I ought to have at least got the chance to tell you no,” I pointed out, ignoring both Larry and Michael. “I’m a little offended, here.”

“Oh, sure, ye want to come meet everyone then? Should I give ‘em yer number?” Sarcasm dripped off Irish’s words as he rolled his eyes.

“Fuck no. Jesus, why would I want to do that?” I tossed my hands up.

“She’d probably rather hang out with the Bedknobs and Broomsticks set, anyway.” Larry’s tone took a turn for the snide. “They’re cooler than us.”

“Why the hell would I talk to them?” I snorted. “Christ, that’s practically asking for trouble.”

“Yeah? Who do you hang out with, then?” Larry challenged, bristling, just like every teenager I’d ever known who knew they weren’t good enough to hang out with the ‘cool kids.’

“I don’t hang out with anyone,” I snipped, refusing to lower myself to the ‘who’s clique was better’ argument with some crazy kid who thought he was half space alien.

“What, nobody?” Larry asked, after a quiet pause. I glanced at him, then around the car, and realized everyone, including Al, was looking at me. “Like, nobody?”

“Uh,” I began. “I go to the bar sometimes,” I rallied, and even to me, it sounded pathetic.

“Shit,” Larry said, softly, patting my knee. “No wonder you’re so grouchy. You must be the lonliest person I’ve ever met! And this is coming from me.” The skinny little space-case took off his goofy sunglasses, and looked at me with big, sad, brown eyes. “I never fit in anywhere. Thanks to my funky DNA, I graduated when I was like, ten. College sucks when you’re only twelve, you know that? But I finally found some other strange types, and they get it! They know what it’s like to be different, you know? You should totally hang out with us.”

“Awwww!” wailed Mikey. “Now I really wanna join! Come on, Irishman, whattya say?”

In my head, the shadow registered confusion. How could I be lonely? I had her. Always.

Yup. That was comforting.

“We’re here,” our driver said, as politely and diplomatically as he could in that long, awkward silence. Al parked the sedan, and I was never happier to get out of a car in my life.

Table of Contents / Chapter Thirty-Three >>

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Black Alice © Marci Sischo and James Agle | All rights reserved.
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