Downside Rain: Downside book one (3 page)

“They
better not,” he grumbles. He circles the pile of dirt, broken paving and ghoul.
“I count four.”

“One
escaped. It’ll head for the nursery.”

Naked,
we prowl the room.

“Found
it,” Castle announces from the far side of the mound.

I
join him where he bends over looking at a hole on the far side; low to the
ground, we’ll have to crawl through.

His
naked butt stares me in the face. I can’t resist landing a solid smack with the
flat of my hand. “Suit up, bro, or are you gonna underwhelm them with your
masculinity?”

He
shoots upright, or as upright as he can get in the confining space. “Ow, that
stung!”

Heading
for my gear, I speak over my shoulder. “I hope so or I’ll think I’m losing my
touch.”

I
go back to the tunnel for my stuff, pull on panties, T-shirt, coat and climb
into the leather pants, and sit on the floor to pull on my boots. Castle is
dressed and waiting by the time my weapons are secured.

I
eye the entrance to the next tunnel, which may take us to a ghoul nursery and
ghouls determined to protect their young. Castle shoves me in the back. I step
aside and make an elaborate bow. “Uh uh. After you.”

He
growls as he gets down on hands and knees and pokes his sword through the hole;
he jabs the air before his head and shoulder follow. “All clear. It’s a short
one.”

I
follow him through to a tunnel too low even for me. We duck walk along. I would
feel ridiculous were I not so tense.

We
scoot through the next hole fast, popping out the other side with swords
pointing ahead. A dozen or so milky-white, teardrop-shaped bags hang from roots
in the dirt ceiling. They pulse and writhe with fetal movement as baby ghouls
shift in their amniotic sacs. Three females and one male ghoul are between us
and their young, the females replicas of the males except for their four little
teats.

Oh
goodie, two each.

Nope,
I get one. Three head for Castle and a female comes at me.

My
ghoul rocks back on her heels, forward on the balls of her feet, which means she’s
primed to pounce. I pounce first, my sword cutting an arc. The stupid creature
raises her arm to fend off the blade and it carves through her wrist and
thunks
into her neck. Her eyes bulge. She falls down shrieking, an eerie wail. With
the blade lodged between neck and shoulder, she pulls me down with her. Cussing,
I wrench it back and forth, trying to work it free.

Castle’s
feet shuffle behind me, the sound of metal impacting flesh.

As
I stomp one foot on the ghoul’s chest for leverage and try to dislodge my
sword, the smallest male jumps on my back, making me stagger forward. Breath
oofs
from my lungs, fangs graze my neck. I flex my wrist and a blade drops from my
sleeve into my hand, and I swing it back to stab the ghoul in his side. He
yelps but doesn’t drop off. Blood sheets my fingers. I drop every ounce of flesh,
shift to the side, pull myself together and roll, snapping the long obsidian dagger
from the ground as I smoothly come back to my feet.

My
disappearing/reappearing act doesn’t divert the ghoul. He stoops and jerks the
sword from the female’s neck. Sticky brown blood oozes from her wounds.

I
spare a glance for Castle. One ghoul lies on the ground and he dances with the
other. The blighter is fast and not as stupid as the others, she stays out of
range of Castle’s long blade.

Nearly
too late, I sway aside as my own sword cuts down at me, lunge at the ghoul and
jab the knife through tough hide into his belly. He snarls, backhands me and I soar
backward, land on a stumble, stagger, face already stinging. He rushes at me
swinging before I regain my balance. I shed flesh again and reform close to the
ghoul as the tip of the sword thunks the dirt floor.

Before
he can heft the sword, I grab his shoulders and head-butt him in the face,
which makes him stagger and my head ring. His grip slackens, I wrench the sword
from his hand and slide back.

And
impale him as he dives in.

The
ghoul is all over me as I support his weight. I shove him off with a heave. He
slides off the blade, limbs limp, eyes dimming. I turn to Castle.

He
leans on his sword, watching me. “That’s the problem with ghouls, they don’t
last.”

I
plop on my backside, head hanging over raised knees. “Five more minutes and I’d
call it a good time.”

Castle
grins, wipes a bloody smear off his face with the back of his sleeve and joins me
on the floor. “I don’t know another woman who likes to take her clothes off as
often as you.”

I
snuff a chuckle. “You don’t know another woman who likes to take her clothes
off, period.”

I’m
exhausted, sapped from carrying full flesh for so long. The energy expended on
fighting the ghouls leaves me pretty much depleted and in need of a moment to
recharge.

“There
must be an easier way to make a living,” Castle groans.

“Point
me at it.”

Crawling
to my clothes, I dress and arm before lumbering to my feet, to face the nursery
and what it contains.

Ghouls
can’t be trained or rehabilitated. If not disposed of, these little embryonic
beasts will grow to be big beasts with a taste for flesh, dead or alive. We don’t
kill children, no matter what shape they take, but these baby monsters won’t
survive to punch through their sacs. We’ll find the nearest public phone, call
the City and let them take care of it.

Monsters
don’t get a second chance Downside and some don’t get a first.

The
phone wakes me. Face down on the bed, I pull a pillow over my head and hold it
there with both hands. The gods-awful jangling changes to a muffled
brrrrp
.
It rings ten more times before the answering machine picks up. Someone really
wants to talk to me. I lift one corner of the pillow.

“Rain?”
Clide says. “He wants you, darling. That means now.”

I
sit up and throw the pillow at the phone as the line goes dead, and miss. I
don’t want the hassle of buying a new machine so am glad I didn’t knock it off
the counter.

Clide
is Alain Sauvageau’s lieutenant and I’m supposed to get my butt over there
pronto.

I
first met Alain when Castle introduced me and we discussed an assignment. He
had a sense of age about him which made me feel young and naïve. After a dozen
or so jobs, he asked for me alone. At first, I put it down to Castle’s flagrant
contempt for a man who closely associates with vampires. Nobody likes to be
openly sneered at. Castle detests vampires because their ability to force
physicality on a wraith gives them an advantage over us. I have no problem with
them. So far, only the Peralta vampires have touched me when I go to their
compound to see Alain, and they are performing their duty.

Knowing
by then Alain’s reputation as a bad man to cross, I didn’t object to the solo
meetings because I became concerned he would snap and hurt Castle. I saw how close
he came a couple of times. Alain smoothly made our meetings a social occasion
before we got to the business transaction; we talked, dined a few times and I
eventually relaxed in his company. Then something changed. He started to hit on
me.

Alain
makes me feel alive as nobody and nothing else does. He means something to me,
and I don’t want to feel this way, not for a man famous throughout Gettaholt
for his numerous affairs and jilted lovers. He is a love ‘em and leave ‘em guy.
I can never be anything more than another woman he hooks up with for a while,
then drops. And I wouldn’t be one of the beauties he parades around Gettaholt.
Oh no. Being seen with a wraith won’t enhance his reputation; ours would be a
clandestine affair.

Reconciling
his reputation with the man I know on a personal level in the privacy of his
home is difficult when I’m with him.  But I know better; he’s merciless and
often cruel to those who stand in his way. I imagine he is as pitiless to
castoff lovers. Becoming involved with him will end with me hurting, so I won’t
give him the kind of relationship he wants. I try to distance myself.

As
well as sending assignments our way, we keep our ears and eyes open for what
may interest Alain. Being inconspicuous when we want to does have advantages. We
hear what people would not speak of openly if they knew we listened. Some of it
is of use to him, some he dismisses, but he pays for the information
nonetheless. It must be why he wants me now, one of those times he’s decided to
pay us - or rather, me - personally instead of sending the money with Clide. I
don’t want to go, this meeting is his excuse to be alone with me again, but I
never say no to money. I suppose I should get it over with.

Crawling
from a mess of blankets, I head for the bathroom, eyes half-closed, mouth
tasting like yesterday’s leftovers. Sure, I can lose flesh and nighttime sweat
along with it, but I enjoy standing under a pounding deluge of water, soaping up
and rinsing off.

I
do fade out to rid my hair of moisture. Rubbing it dry takes too long when my stomach
gnaws at my backbone. I need breakfast.

Squatting
in front of the cubes, I look over clean clothing options. Two T-shirts. Two pairs
of jeans. A pile of dirty clothes draw my reluctant gaze. A trip to the
cleaners is in order, or I can talk Castle into letting me use his washer and
dryer.

Castle
has been Downside for forty years, time enough to become established and
accumulate lots of junk. I don’t envy him the house with all those big rooms or
the stuff in them, but I wouldn’t say no to a washer and dryer were my apartment
equipped for them.

The
doorbell rings.

Unbelievable.
I rarely receive phone calls, and not counting clients’ couriers, Castle has been
my lone visitor in the five years I’ve lived in this apartment. And it is
not
Castle’s rapid-fire bam-bam-bam.

I
slouch to the door and look through the peephole. A tall ugly elf with one
notched ear and short red-gold hair waits outside the door, chin raised, looking
at the peephole over his crooked nose.

I
press the intercom. “Hello?”

“Rain?”

“That’s
me.”

His
head tips to one side. “May I come in?”

I
snort. “No. I’m not seeing anyone right this minute.” Sure, I’ll let him in so
he can eyeball my naked body. I wouldn’t let an elf in anyway. “How can I help
you?”

His
brows peak at my amused tone. “I have your fee from Bermstead.” He waves a
small brown envelope.

Why
did the custodian hire an elf courier? In fact, an elf working as a messenger
is plain weird. He must be seriously
Maybe he’s
down
on his luck, and the custodian
is
in his dotage.

“Push
it under the door.” The crack at the bottom is big enough to let in mice, an
envelope won’t be a problem.

He
bends, disappearing from sight and a corner of the envelope scrapes beneath the
door. I use my toes to pull it inside.

His
face reappears in the peephole. “You can give your report to me.”

“Castle
handles that.” I frown. We barely finished the job, why the gods-awful rush?

He
gives me a jerky nod and makes for the staircase.

Come
to think of it, why is Bermstead paying us
before
we hand in our report?

I
shrug - that’s Castle’s department, not my worry.

I
wrestle into a washed-out pink T-shirt, clean panties, black denim jeans and
the last pair of clean socks. Pushing my feet into black boots, I zip them up,
stand and stamp to settle them properly.

Tearing
open the envelope, I ruffle the bills. I’ll take Castle’s share to him later,
along with my dirty clothes.

The
top floor of Alain Sauvageau’s house looks over the carved stone walls of the
Peralta family compound. The double doors are solid wood, with a smaller door
in one and a hatch through which visitors are thoroughly perused by one of his
henchmen. Or henchvamp?

Apart
from his bodyguards who have rooms in Alain’s house, the vampires live in four
large buildings behind the walls. Similar to the mansion, these structures are
of gray stone slabs into which weird and wonderful designs have been chiseled.
Doors and windows surrounded by heavy lintels are inset. Eaves and downspouts
are particularly ornate.

I
once mocked the heavy ornate architecture and Alain said he likes it. Alain is
all about drama.

A
tall male vampire with a heavy brow lets me into the compound. That vampires
are pallid and beautiful is a fallacy. Their skin tones vary depending on their
ethnicity before they were turned, and a family considers a prospect’s
character rather than their physical appearance when swelling their ranks. With
his long arms, shaggy hair and massive rounded shoulders, George could pass for
a gorilla in a suit.

He
nods and points at a leather bucket by the door. I divest myself of blades and
toss them in.

A
kind of chill surrounds a vampire, which isn’t unpleasant on a warm day,
particularly when one wears leather which tends to trap the heat. George’s
touch on my shoulder is not as welcome; I become solid and heavy in a flash as flesh
bulks me.

Only
the touch of a wraith or a vampire can force full flesh, I think because
vampires began as dead humans, as I may have.

The
impulse to fade out fights with the vampire’s compulsion. I have no control
over a single molecule. My body pulses unpleasantly as his hands touch,
release, touch, release. The contractions caused by flesh rapidly solidifying
and as rapidly dispersing make me nauseous and I ache, as though my body is a
single spasming muscle. A tiny relieved sigh escapes me when his hands drop.

Vampires
breathe once a minute on average and it’s just my luck to get the full glory of
George’s breath in my face. “Ew, George! You’ve been eating garlic.” My eyes
water.

Vampire
mythology is amusing. Why should garlic repel and hurt vampires? Because it
stinks? Ha! Slivers of raw beef marinated in garlic is a vampire favorite, they
suck out the bloody juices and discard the meat.

The
big vampire grins and deliberately huffs in my face. I make another noise of
disgust. He waves me into the compound.

I
tap my teeth with an index finger. “You got something there.”

Gargoyles
perch on the eaves; they make marvelous watchdogs. One shrieks an obscenity and
I give it the universal finger as I reach the covered porch. I shouldn’t
irritate the little monsters. An annoyed gargoyle will spit, or worse. Gargoyle
piss stinks so bad you forget to breathe.

George
is picking at his teeth with a fingernail.

Capucine
opens the door before I can lift and release the heavy knocker. “Oh, here you
are,” she says in a voice like a yawn, as if she isn’t waiting for me. Vampires
can communicate silently when they want to and I’m sure George alerted her when
I approached the compound.

She
looks like a fashion plate, but Capucine is Muscle, one of Alain’s bodyguards. I
trail after her tall swaying figure along a paneled corridor. Her high heels
click on the marble floor, curling ash-blond hair swishes over her back with
each exaggerated hip roll. Capucine doesn’t care for me and the feeling is
mutual. Her disdain for wraiths is palpable, as overt as her distaste for
humans. Unless she’s sucking on them.

The
place reminds me of a monastery, narrow passageways with high ceilings, cool
and slightly musty. We pass a door recessed in a high arched lintel; a piano
tinkles from within. Another door stands open, allowing me to look into a
library of dark paneled walls and deep plush carpets, floor-to-ceiling shelves
holding leather-jacketed books. Did any come from Upside? One of these days I
shall ask Alain to let me spend an hour or two in his library.

Capucine
leads me left along another corridor into a vast empty hall, the high ceiling
lost in shadow. Man-high candelabra circle the place but the candles are unlit.

She
pushes open a door at the far end of the hall. I have to squeeze past her and the
doorframe to cross the threshold. She closes the door forcefully, leaving me
alone with Alain in his study.

With
two-feet-thick walls, Alain’s home is always cold, so the fire crackling and
spitting in the small marble fireplace provides welcoming warmth. Light and
shadows dance over the dark wood-paneled walls. A gold glow radiates from tall
candelabra in each corner of the room. Alain could turn on the electric lights,
but . . . drama.

He
lolls on a brown leather sofa, one leg draped over the arm, the other bare foot
on an ancient faded carpet which covers most of the floor. A book lies open in
his lap. He wears a silk robe in gold-trimmed burgundy loosely belted at the
waist, and how he lounges reveals a long lean leg with bulging calf and a wide
V of smooth naked chest. He’s a handsome man: olive-skin, dimpled chin, full
bottom lip and moss agate eyes. His short sable-brown hair is brushed back and
unruly on top, and a little stubble mottles his chin and wide jaw.

Great-grandmothers
speak of girlhood crushes on young Alain Sauvageau. Now they are caricatures of
their youth with brittle bones and crepe-paper skin, yet Alain looks no older
than his mid-thirties. He can’t be human. If I ever figure out what he is, I
will be the first. Rumors abound. Some say he’s a djinn so ancient he managed
to gather flesh into a human form. Advocates quote Arabic mythology which says
some djinns feed on human blood to support this theory, and this is why he surrounds
himself with vampires with whom he has an affinity, and if he is that type of
djinn he can share their snacks. Some believe he’s an Immortal and long-lived
vampires are a natural choice of companion, people he won’t lose after too
brief a time.

I
think a man surrounded by vampire bodyguards has powerful enemies.

His
voice is beautiful, husky yet melodic. I can’t pin down his accent, as if it is
an amalgamation of many, and his words curve around each other in an odd way. “Rain,
my little half-life.”

If
one thing stokes my ire, it’s being called little. I slouch on the doorframe
with one leg cocked over the other. “I’m here, what do you want?”

“Is
this how you greet a man who drowns in your eyes?” His leg slithers off the sofa’s
arm and he comes to his feet in an impossibly smooth, liquid movement. The book
lands on its spine on the carpet. He saunters to me, the robe sliding over his
legs, flashing those smooth thighs and solid calves.

I
try to push from the wall but he is already on me, leaning over with one
forearm braced on the paneling, the other hand on the wall beside my waist,
effectively trapping me. His fingers whisper down my cheek. “So soft.”