Darkness Calls (2 page)

“Hunter—” Archie began, but I didn’t let him finish. I knew everything he was going to say. I had heard it thousands of times since my mother’s murder, and thousands of times before that, as well.

I was going to die. I was never going to reach old age. The world was going to end.

All of which was true. But, whatever. His voice hurt my head. His sour scent, hot and prickly, made me want to vomit. I was tired, and cold all the way through to my soul, and there was a girl who had lost her life tonight for no good reason. She had suffered a bad death—and only because the parasite possessing this man had wanted to feed on her pain. I did not even know her name. No ID, no nothing. Lost forever.

Not the only one, either. The world was a big place. Too many predators: human, zombie, or otherwise. And just one of me. Nomad, born and bred, who had settled in this city longer than any other. Abandoning all others, so I could have some semblance of a normal life.

I ground my palm even harder against Archie’s brow, and exhaled a soft hiss of words: sibilant and ancient, a focused tongue that made my skin tingle, and my hand burn. Archie’s breath rattled, and he strained upward as his aura swelled, trying to escape me.

No such luck. The demon was young. Easy to exorcise. I drew it out, watching the passage of its wraithlike body churn through the human’s open mouth like poisoned smoke. Archie went limp. Raw and Aaz released his legs, while Dek and Mal slithered off my shoulders, winding down my arms to be near my hands. Their tiny claws pricked my skin like kneading cats, and their soft, high-pitched hum of Bon Jovi’s “Social Disease” filled the air.

When the last trail of the parasite’s writhing body was free of the human man, I held it in my hand with that soft, shrieking darkness spilling through my fingers, and felt a cold bite in my skin, like a glove of frozen nettles. Zee stepped over Archie’s still body, and the others extended their razor-tipped claws.

I gave them the demon. I did not watch them eat it.

I knelt by Archie and checked his pulse. Strong, steady. His eyelids fluttered, but he stayed unconscious, and I backed away quickly, rubbing my sweaty palms on my jeans. I had no way of knowing what this man had been like before being possessed, though I guessed he hadn’t been the happy type. Stable, mentally robust people did not get possessed by demons. Too much work. No cracks to exploit.

But this man, Archie Limbaud, would wake up a murderer—and never know it. Demons left no memories in human minds. Just chaos, ruined lives. Friends and family who would never look at you the same way.

“Maxine,” Zee rasped, rubbing his mouth with the back of his sharp hand. “Sun coming.”

I knew. I could feel the sun, somewhere beyond the black skies and rain, slowly creeping up on the cloud-hidden horizon. I had minutes at most.

“Pay phone,” I said to Zee, and he snapped his claws at Raw and Aaz, who were prowling the edges of the dark lot, slipping in and out of shadows. Both of them loped close, graceful as wolves, and whispered in Zee’s ears. Zee cocked his head, listening; and after a moment, pointed.

I said nothing. Just walked away from Archie. I did not rush. I did not look back. I held the handle of the switchblade and slid it into my hair. Listened to metal crunch as Mal chewed and swallowed. I could have left it. Evidence.

But I wanted the man to have a second chance. I wanted him to wake up, confused and amnesiac, but without the burden of murder. No one deserved that—even though there was a small part of me that felt like his hands were dirty. Dirty as mine. I could not stop rubbing my palms against my wet jeans. Felt as though Archie Limbaud’s stink was all over me.

Early morning continued to be quiet, the drizzling mist softening the streets and rough, broken edges, and I drank in the cold air, savoring the chill of wet hair curled against my flushed cheeks. The boys moved through the shadows, invisible except for brief glimpses of their red eyes. I kept wiping my hands and thinking about the dead girl. And my mother. She had warned me before she died. She had warned me it would be like this. Always, victims. Victims, everywhere. And me, never fast enough. Always playing catch-up.

I found a pay phone two blocks away. Battered relic, covered in graffiti. I dialed 911 and left a brief message with the operator—teenager dead, murdered, several blocks south of Safeco Field—and hung up. Wiped off my prints, then remembered I could have worn my gloves. I was still rattled, not thinking straight. I wanted to go back to the dead girl and wait with her body—as if that would make a difference. Ease, somehow, the pain and loneliness of her murder.

Instead, I kept walking, taking a westerly route away from the rail yards, toward Chinatown. I saw no one but caught glimpses of headlights crossing distant intersections. The rumble of the trains seemed louder. The air tasted sharper, and suddenly electric, as though a city full of alarms had just gone off and I was feeling the pulse of thousands of eyes opening at once. In my ear, Dek and Mal began humming more Bon Jovi. “Have a Nice Day.”

“You, too,” I said hoarsely, reaching into my hair to scratch their necks. “See you tonight.”

I stopped in the shadows, well off the street, and the rest of the boys slipped free of the darkness to gather close, hugging my legs, running their cheeks against my knees. The boys liked to be tucked in. I slid my knuckles against their warm jaws and savored the rumble of purrs. Their skin steamed in the rain.

Zee peered up at me and tugged on my hand until I knelt before him. Very carefully, he cradled my face between his claws, searching my eyes with a sad compassion that made my throat burn.

“Maxine,” he rasped gently. “Sweet Maxine. Be your heart at ease.”

We had seconds, nothing more. I kissed my fingers and pressed them against his bony brow. I thought of my mother again and caught myself in heartache. She had said good night to the boys like this, for all the years they were hers. I could not stop thinking of her tonight.

“Dream,” I whispered. “Sleep tigh—”

I never finished. I got shot in the head.

Just like that. Right temple. Not much sound. The impact shuddered through my entire body, every sensation magnified with excruciating clarity as the bullet drilled into my skull—the inexorable pressure of a small round object, crushing my life. I could feel it. I could
feel
it. My brain was going to explode like a watermelon. I had no time to be afraid.

But in that moment—that split second between life and death, the sun touched the horizon somewhere beyond the clouds—

—and the boys disappeared into my skin.

The bullet ricocheted, the impact spinning me like a rag doll. I fell on my hands and knees, and stayed there, stunned and frozen. I could still feel the punch of the shot—the sensation so visceral I would not have been surprised to reach up and find the bullet grinding a path into my skull.

I touched my head, just to be sure. Found hair and unbroken skin. No blood. My entire right arm trembled, and a dull, throbbing ache spread from my sinuses to my temple, all the way through to the base of my skull. My heart pounded so hard I could barely breathe. All I could see was pavement and my hands.

My transformed hands. My skin had been pale and smooth only moments before, but tattoos now covered every inch: obsidian roping shadows, scales and silver muscle shining with subtle veins of organic metal. My fingernails shimmered like black pearls, hard enough to dig a hole through solid rock. Red eyes stared from the backs of my wrists. Raw and Aaz. I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing, and felt five corresponding tugs against my skin. Demons, inhabiting my flesh. Minds and hearts and dreams, bound to my life until I died.

My friends, my family. My dangerous boys.

Somewhere distant I heard police sirens wailing. My 911 call, coming this way. I had to get up. I tried, and fell. Gritted my teeth and dug my nails into the concrete. Tried again.

This time I managed to stand. I started walking, stumbling, but did not go down. My head pounded. I bent over once, still moving—afraid to stop—gagging uncontrollably. Felt like my stomach was going to peel right up through my throat, but instead of making my head hurt worse, the pain eased.

I touched my right temple with a trembling hand, savoring the smooth, unbroken skin. Momentarily in awe that I still lived.

I had been shot before. Frequently. All over. Never felt a thing. Bullets bounced off me during the day. A nuclear bomb could hit me in daylight, and I would survive—without a scratch. Might be a different story at night, when the boys peeled off my body, but I never underestimated their ability to keep me alive.

But no one—no one—had ever had the foresight—or the balls—to try killing me in that moment between night and day, caught in transition between mortal and immortal.

Near-perfect timing. Any earlier, and the boys would have killed the shooter before the bullet could be fired. Any later, and I would have been invulnerable. Which was exactly the case. Saved by a fraction of a second.

Too damn close. I scanned the shadows but saw nothing except for warehouses and dark windows, and the glitter of downtown Seattle to the north, all the lights of the city frozen like the unwavering pose of fireflies. Nothing unordi nary. No shooter, waving a flag. But I felt watched. Someone, somewhere, out there in the darkness. Long range, or else the boys would have felt their presence well before the attack.

Zombie,
I thought. Had to be. No one else who knew what I was would try to hurt me.

“You almost died,” I said out loud, needing to hear the words, to hear myself—as though I required some proof of life. Maxine Kiss. Almost taken out, just like my mother—with a bullet through the brain.

A zombie had killed her. But that was different.

It had been her time to die.

CHAPTER 2

I
T took me thirty minutes to return to the Coop. The walk did me good. By the time I reached the rear door of the homeless shelter’s kitchen, I had stopped shaking, stopped suffering those gulps of weakness in my knees and hands. But I still felt the bullet, pushing into my head. Nor could I dismiss my absolute certainty that whoever had shot me knew exactly where I lived. Which meant they probably knew who I cared about.

Nightfall could not come soon enough.

The sky had lightened, revealing a canvas of clouds. Still gloomy out. Raining harder. I remained bone-dry. Even when asleep, the boys had a knack for consuming things, and all the water that had been dragging down my clothes and hair was no exception—absorbed within minutes of dawn, and now within seconds of hitting me. I only hoped no one thought too hard about how I managed to stay dry when everyone else coming inside looked as though they had been dunked in a pickle barrel.

That was the problem with secrets. There was always something to trip you up. Especially if you stayed too long in one place.

The Coop took up an entire block; a jumble of warehouses that had been renovated and linked together to form a center for the homeless that provided temporary shelter, meals, and a host of other services. Corporate and private donations funded some of it, but not enough to name rooms after anyone or hand out gold stars. Almost all the bills were paid for by one man, Grant Cooperon—and he preferred it that way. There was no such thing as a price on autonomy.

Seagulls hovered, screaming. The loading dock was crammed with vans, white and unmarked. The shelter had a system of sending out vehicles in the middle of the night, scouring local bakeries and grocery stores for day-old food that might otherwise be thrown out. Doughnuts and bread were a popular castoff, though I passed several giant crates of oranges being wheeled in through the back. One of the new volunteers, a young woman with blond dreadlocks sticking out of her striped hemp cap, staggered in front of me under the weight of several gallons of milk, piled high in her arms.

I snagged two of them—nodded brusquely at her startled yelp of thanks—and kept walking. My leather gloves were back on, hiding my hands, and my long-sleeved navy turtleneck hid the rest of my upper body. I had a limited wardrobe. With some exceptions, I never let anyone see my tattoos. Raised too many questions, too many possible problems. The boys, after all, disappeared from my skin at sunset—and never slept in the same place twice.

I could feel them all over me—beneath my hair, between my toes—in unmentionable places. My face was the only area the boys did not regularly protect, their one concession to my vanity, although a small trace of a tattooed body curled from my hairline, just below my ear against my jaw: a wink of dark scales, a silver glimmer of Dek’s tail. Just large enough to cover my only scar.

The kitchen was hopping. Crazy clocks shaped like cats covered butter yellow walls, and a dozen calendars were tacked up, surrounding a white erase board where the day’s jobs were written—and that someone kept decorating with pictures of flowers. Grease sizzled, overwhelming the air with the scents of bacon and eggs, and a radio crackled; some deep voice dispensing the weather report in a vaguely ironic tone: rain, rain, and more rain, with a break tonight—maybe—and a shot at viewing the moon. All around me, a mostly female crew of yuppies and hippies bumped hips—a clash of pearls and hemp, cashmere and fleece, loafers and Birkenstocks—creating an earthy, irreverent vibe that was, nonetheless, just slightly pretentious. Seattle had that way about it.

I hovered for a moment, soaking it all in—listening to laughter and shouts; the bang of pans, the squeal of rubber soles on the tile floor. Industrious noises, folks getting things done. I liked that. It was homey. Refreshingly normal. I had no sense of temperature during the day, but the sounds of good living made me warm on the inside in ways the sun never would—regardless of the weather.

This is what you’re fighting for,
I told myself.
All the lovely moments of the world.