Queen of the Dark Things (39 page)

Bill skulked quietly in the dense mist, his mouth yawning wide, more fog pouring into the streets by the second. Then came the flutter of wings, like an entire flock taking flight at once, their wing beats trailing off into the sky. There were no more scuffs or scuttles, no twitters or chitters. It sounded as if the streets were empty, fog drifting alone, transformers overhead buzzing loudly on their poles from the moisture. It was clear to Bill, however, that this was far from the end of his ordeal.

That's when the thunder rumbled directly overhead.

The wind kicked up and thick drops of rain began to pound the pavement. A stiff gust blew, wiping the fog away from the street like a drawn curtain. And there, standing dead center, stood a tall, time-ravaged man, on fire from top to bottom, flames licking the air around him. The Holocaust Man.

“Hello, Bill,” said the demon, his voice deeper and more menacing than Bill imagined.

“I'm getting the distinct impression that this isn't about me,” said Bill.

Amy shook his head, smiling a lipless grin, teeth charred black. Spatters of rain slopped steadily around them.

“I don't have a dog in this fight, and if I don't have a dog in this fight, why are we here?”

“Because you do have a dog in this fight,” said Amy. “And that dog thinks he can get the better of us. He doesn't want to kill the girl. He has to; he just doesn't know it yet.”

“So he's supposed to think that she did this.”

“He will think she did this.”

“That's a pretty shitty reason to die.”

“They're all shit reasons to die, Bill, in the end.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

The rain stopped, the clouds bursting away, falling to earth in the shape of crows. They soared down, landing on buildings, lampposts, and awnings, watching like a circle of schoolkids, cheering with squawks and caws. Bill looked around at the mess he found himself in. Amy tapped his foot impatiently, the tinny, hollow sound echoing through the empty streets.

“I thought you lot had lost all these,” said Bill.

“Most. Not all. The rumors of the Queen's utter domination of her lands are just that.”

“Well, I reckon you know that I won't go down easy.”

“It wouldn't look real if you did.”

Bill nodded, turning into a blob of shadow, flinging himself at Amy faster than Amy could react, bowling him over, knocking him to the ground. Re-forming, Bill towered above him, punching him in the face over and over, a foot on his chest to keep him down, his fists sizzling against the flames.

Amy reached out, grasping wildly for Bill.

Bill grabbed both sides of Amy's face, grabbing him by the ears, staring deep into his eyes, Bill's foot still standing right on top of him, mouth wide to swallow his soul. But nothing came. He breathed deeper, trying to suck something out of the man beneath him, but there was nothing there. Just a hollow shell brimming with hate. The Holocaust Man stared back at Bill, deep into the dark recesses of the boggart.

“What the hell?” mumbled Bill.

Amy flared up, blazing as if he'd been doused suddenly with gasoline, burning away the shadows surrounding Bill. The boggart was entirely illuminated. There was no flesh that Bill concealed in his darkness; he was entirely hollow, his features floating in what was ordinarily murk. Now he was naked, small bits of face and hands suspended in the air by forces unseen.

Amy laughed. “I see you for what you are, Bill. And there's nothing to you after all.” Then the Holocaust Man exploded.

Bill was blasted backward, far across the street, slamming against a building some two stories up. He fell immediately to the ground, face-first, weakened, trying to re-form his shadows.

Bill coughed, spitting a bit of his soul out like phlegm, then rolled over on his back.

Amy's fires died down and he looked once again like he had. He hopped to his feet, almost skipping on his way over to Bill. “It's a shame it had to be like this,” he said. “But it did have to be like this. Sometimes the friends we keep are the source of our own undoing.”

He plunged a fiery fist into Bill's chest, incinerating his insides.

Bill looked up at the clear sky, the clouds having cleared away with the kutji, the stars starting to grow fuzzy. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and put it in his mouth before fumbling with the lighter. His fingers were fading and the Zippo clanged behind his ear as it slipped out of them.

Amy leaned down, touching the end of the cigarette with a single smoldering finger.

Bill inhaled deeply, lighting it, then exhaled without pulling the butt from his lips, and died, the cigarette going limp over his chin.

Crows descended, the murder flooding the corpse, picking at the shadows with their shiny black beaks. They tore him away in chunks, swallowing Bill bit by bit as the shadows around him began to fade, light creeping in from streetlamps. Within seconds he was gone. Only his coat, hat, and lighter remained.

C
HAPTER
52

W
INTER
OF
D
ISCONTENT

W
inter in Austin is brown and yellow, white being something most Texans only dream of. In the odd years, when the rains run long and heavy, late into the season, the grass and trees will stay green well into December. But even then the cold snaps come to chase the green away. The trees turn yellow first, then brown up slowly over the course of weeks. The grass goes yellow almost right away.

Winter is heralded by the day the first strong winds come and wipe the trees of all their leaves over the course of a single night. Then, from that point on, it becomes the long, lingering, earth-tone trod toward springtime, the nights chilly and crisp, but rarely cold enough to matter. The days are just slightly warmer. Winter. In all its sudden, spectacular glory.

It was winter again, and Colby Stevens felt the way the city looked. Haggard, raw, tired, stripped bare. All the mistakes, the worn cracked surface, exposed, covered in prickly stubble. Just a few nights before, it was a nice, brisk autumn. Now the city was in its winter slumber, ugly as it got.

He stood before the smoldering remains of the Cursed and the Damned and he felt his heart breaking. Yellow tape marked the area off that, along with swollen puddles, stood as the only proof the fire department had been there. Moments before, he thought he'd had it all figured out, that he was thinking steps ahead of everyone, that he was somehow playing their game better than they could. And now his arrogance was out in the open and he wondered just how deep in trouble he had really gotten himself this time.

Seere stood behind him, his expression almost as solemn as Colby's. “There's no one in there.”

“I know,” said Colby, unable to feel the spirits of his friends, dead or otherwise. “Do you know where they are?”

“Your friends?”

“Yes.”

“I do.”

“Are they all right?”

“They appear to be.”

“Take me there.”

C
OLBY HOPPED OFF
the back of the horse and onto the street in front of his house.

“Call for me,” said Seere, “and I'll take you to the next of your appointments.”

Colby looked up to thank him, but he was already gone, horse and all. He took a deep breath and made his way quickly into the house.

Yashar sat on the couch. He looked up at Colby, unmoving, crestfallen.

“What the hell did you do, Colby?” he asked.

“Where's Gossamer?”

“He's under the bed. He won't come out.”

Colby whistled.

Gossamer shot out from the bedroom, rounded the corner, and charged Colby, tail wagging, nuzzling between both of his legs. “Boss!” he said, ecstatic. “You're home.”

“What happened?”

Gossamer and Yashar exchanged looks, neither wanting to be the one to say it.

“It was kutji,” said Yashar. “A swarm of them.”

“I tried to be a good dog. Tried to protect Yashar. But there were too many of them.”

“It's okay, Goss. You did good. What's important is that you're both okay.”

“They got the bar,” said Yashar.

“I saw.”

“That's not the worst of it.”

“How could it get any worse?”

“Bill,” said Yashar. “They killed Bill the Shadow.”

Colby's heart dropped into his stomach, his jaw following soon after. His blood ran cold and it became progressively harder to breathe. He wanted to throw up. “How?”

“They tore him apart. There wasn't much left.”

“Are you sure he's—”

Yashar reached beside him on the couch, pulling from it Bill's coat and hat. “Yes.”

Colby walked over, took the coat and hat into his hands, eyes misting as he examined them. He knew every fold, every contour. There was no dreamstuff left here, only djang—the etched-in power of who he was. “These are burned,” he said, chalky black residue wiping off onto his hands.

“So was the bar,” said Yashar.

“They're sending a message,” said Gossamer.

“I shouldn't have left.”

“No,” said Yashar. “You shouldn't have. Did you at least find what you were looking for?”

Colby nodded. “I did.”

“And?”

“I know what she's doing. Why she's coming for me.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We're going to find her and we're going to kill her for this.”

“Are you sure?” asked Yashar.

“Very.”

“You know you'll have to do it without me, right?”

Colby glared at him. “I thought we were in this together.”

“No,” said Yashar condescendingly. “We're not. Not this time.”

“What is that even supposed to mean? Are you pissed at
me
?”

“No. It's the ring, Colby. It doesn't only affect the Seventy-two. It affects us all. Every last demon and djinn. If I go near her, I'm as good as hers, and if she turns that ring on me—”

“You'd be her slave,” said Colby, voice drowning in understanding.

“That's not what scares me,” said Yashar. “We're all somebody's slave, whether we want to think about it like that or not. I've been through worse than serving someone like her. What scares me is that she might force me to kill you. Or you me.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Yeah. Are you ready to have that fight? Because I'm not.”

“You can't come,” said Colby. “For both our sakes.”

“No, I can't. You're on your own for this one.”

“No he's not,” said Gossamer.

Colby smiled weakly, scratching his friend behind the ears. “Thanks, Goss.”

“I'm serious.”

“Not this time, I'm afraid. You need to stay here with Yashar.”

“No,” said Gossamer. “Don't stay me.”

“Goss, this is really—”

“No. Not this time, boss. I'm coming with you.”

“We don't have time for this.”

“Then just do it.”

“Do what?” asked Colby.

“Make me your familiar. Once and for all.”

Yashar and Colby exchanged troubled glances. “You don't know what you're asking. What that involves.”

“Yes I do, and I don't care. I'm not just your dog anymore. And I'm tired of being just half a thing. Make me the whole thing. Take me the rest of the way. I want to be your familiar.”

Colby petted Gossamer, scratching his graying cheek, looking down at him sadly. “If we do this, our souls will be inextricably linked. We'll never be able to—”

“I've heard the sales pitch already. From Yashar. I'm in. Let's do this thing.”

“I don't know,” said Yashar. “These things, they don't always end so well.”

“If anything were to happen to me . . . ,” said Colby.

Gossamer rubbed the top of his head against Colby's thigh and looked up at him with solemn, deadly serious eyes. “Colby, the only way anyone is ever going to kill you is if I'm already dead. Just do the thing and say the goddamned words already.”

Colby hesitated for a second, mulling it over. “I love you, Gossamer.”

“I love you too, boss.”

Colby lowered a hand onto Gossamer's mane, rubbing his fingers through his golden red coat. He began mumbling, cursing in arcane languages, focusing every last bit of dreamstuff he could from as far as three city blocks away. The two began to glow, a dark sickly green pulsing underneath their skin. Then the sound of thunder and the nauseating wobble of the universe contracting and expanding around them.

Gossamer felt suddenly ill, every inch of his body tingling, his insides jumbling as if he was strapped into a disintegrating Tilt-A-Whirl held together by duct tape and loose nuts.

“Just breathe,” said Colby. “You've got to breathe through it.”

“It feels awful.”

“It'll pass. Focus.”

The pulsing grew to a crescendo, a kaleidoscopic torrent of color wheeling about them. They both winced in pain, a surge like a hundred thousand volts streaming through their souls. And then it stopped and the colors faded away.

Gossamer looked around, freaking out, suddenly very anxious. “What the—? What the hell is going on?” His mind was filled with thoughts, images, complex structures he didn't understand. The air buzzed lightly around him, like it was swarming with gnats. There were colors to the world he never knew existed. His soul felt like it was on fire.

“Relax,” said Colby. “You need a few moments to adjust.”

“Adjust to what? What the hell is going on inside my head?”

“Your new perceptions. My perceptions. My thoughts. This is what I was talking about. It's going to take a little getting used to.”

“No shit. This is . . . this is fucking weird.”

“Yes. We're linked for good now. We can think to each other over distances, see and hear and feel what the other can feel, hear, and see. And I can work dreamstuff through you. It'll take awhile for us to work the kinks out, but we'll make it work. But first, I need you to focus. Find a single thought, one thing you can see in your head, and just focus on that.”