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Authors: C. Robert Cargill

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BOOK: Queen of the Dark Things
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“That's not funny.”

“It is to people.”

C
OLBY AND
G
OSSAMER
sat on the edge of the building's roof—one of the tallest in the city—looking out over the slowly drifting lights of distant traffic on the highway. There were no angels out tonight, not on the rooftops. They kept their distance now, their eyes narrow and trained, watching from blocks away before slinking off to conspire about how best to take back their rooftops. Below, the city slowly swelled with the overeager sober of the early night. It would be hours before it vomited them back out in a stumbling stream of swerving, giggling mess.

This place was familiar, sacred. It held wisdom that Colby tried in vain to tap into, with answers, it seemed, that could only be loosened by the tongues of angels.

“I hate it up here,” said Gossamer, warily peering over the edge.

“You don't hate it. Stop being dramatic.”

“I don't like it.”

“You're the one who wanted a walk.”

“Walk. Not a climb.”

“We took stairs.”

“You
climb
stairs. I don't like stairs. Medieval contraptions built for things with far longer legs. Maybe if there were an elevator—and a railing—I might like it up here. But there isn't and I don't.”

“Well, I like it. I had a really good talk up here once.”

“The one with the drunk?”

“The angel. Yeah.”

Gossamer growled a little. “That guy's a dick.”

“He's not a dick. We just don't see eye to eye anymore.”

“He's a dick. I don't like the way he and his friends treat you.”

“Maybe they have good reason. You don't remember that night,” said Colby.

“Don't be that guy. Not tonight, boss. I remember it well enough. You did what you did, what you had to do. We have to move on.”

“I'm trying. But everyone else wants to remind me.”

“Nobody makes you read the paper.”

“I should be able to read whatever paper I want.”

“Boss.”

“He was on the cover. They're all over town. What was I supposed to do?”

“Boss.”

“Shut up, Gossamer. You haven't soaked up enough dreamstuff to be smarter than me yet.”

“You don't have to be smart to know better than to read stuff that you know will piss you off.”

“Lots of people do it. Every day.”

“They're not smart either.”

“Maybe they want to be mad. Maybe they want to read the events of the day and feel somehow involved with them. Maybe they think being mad keeps them involved.”

“You think?”

Colby looked over at Gossamer, the dog's eyes big and brown, peering back at him with a mix of love and pity. “Shut up, dog.”

“Don't
dog
me. It's patronizing.”

“That's why I do it.”

“That's not what a good friend does.”

Colby grimaced, insulted. “What would you know about being a good friend?”

Gossamer straightened up proudly, showing off, his head high, his gaze regal, reddish fur blowing in the light breeze. “Man's best friend.”

“That joke is still not funny.”

“It is to dogs.”

“Sometimes I think you just say that. I don't think dogs tell jokes.”

“Are you kidding? Dogs love jokes. We're just not very funny.”

“That I believe.”

Then, at once, the rooftop darkened, dimming like someone had snuffed out a dozen candles. Colby sniffed the air. Something familiar. A hint of musk and despair drifting in.

“Bill?” he asked.

Bill the Shadow—his coat long and dark, his shadowy face hidden beneath the gloom of his wide-brimmed hat—slunk in from out of the night. The rooftop darkened further still, the ever-present cold murk that followed him settling in, filling the nooks and crannies with puddles of night. “Yup.”

Colby didn't turn around. “What are you doing up here?”

Bill sat down next to Colby, dangling his misty, insubstantial legs over the side of the building. “Not your rooftop,” he said, striking a match, lighting a cigarette. He cast the charred remains of the match away with a flick of the wrist, watched as it sailed down out of sight.

“I never said it was. I just thought . . .”

“What? That I hated you like everybody else?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Nah. Just wanted to give you your space. A night like that, well, it sticks with you. Wanted to make sure you had time to get your shit together.” He paused, staring out into the city. “Did you get your shit together?”

“No,” said Gossamer.

“My shit is together,” said Colby.

Bill nodded, peering at Colby from behind his cigarette. “I know you've got to have some hooch on you,” he said. “You always have good hooch on you.”

“Do I look like a liquor cabinet to you?”

“No. You look like a man who could use a drink with friends.”

Colby reached behind him into his backpack and, without looking, fished out a bottle of bourbon. He unscrewed the cap, taking a pull off the bottle. “Give me one of those smokes.”

“Deal.” Bill produced a cigarette from the back of his trench coat, swapping it for the bottle. He quickly looked it over, eyeing the label. “Aw, hell. This ain't bad, but it ain't the
good stuff
.”

Colby snapped his fingers, lighting a flame at the end of his thumb. He lit the cigarette then shook out the fire. “The good stuff always came from Old Scraps.”

Bill closed his eyes, nodding sadly, raising the bottle into the air. “To Scraps.” He took a drink and handed the bottle back to Colby.

Colby took another swig. “He was a hell of a bartender.”


Hell
of a bartender.”

Gossamer looked longingly up at Colby, whimpering a little.

“What?” asked Colby. “You hate bourbon.”

“I was promised beer.”

Colby rolled his eyes, passing the bottle back to Bill. He reached behind himself again, this time fishing out a cold bottle of beer and a dog bowl from the pack. With a quick twist he popped the bottle cap off, sloppily filling the bowl.

“Careful,” said Gossamer. “Pour it along the sides.”

“Maybe you should pour it,” said Colby.

“I don't like it foamy.”

Bill took another drink. “I see you two have become close. Is he your familiar now?”

Colby nodded. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Wait, you mean there's a name for this?” asked Gossamer.

“Yeah,” said Bill. “There is. Colby, you didn't explain any of this?”

Colby put the dog bowl in front of Gossamer, who immediately began lapping up the beer. “Some of it,” he said. “But he's still learning. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea about our relationship.”

Gossamer looked up from the bowl. “What's not to understand? We're best friends.”

“Exactly,” said Colby. “And that's how it's going to stay.”

Bill took a drag off his cigarette, exhaled, took another drink. “Okay.”

Colby looked over at Bill and shook his head silently. Bill took the hint.

The three sat quietly for a moment, Colby and Bill smoking, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the lights on the highway, Gossamer's incessant lapping the only sound. The night was humid, but cool, a breeze floating in off the lake. The stars were out, the moon's thin crescent waning, absent a cloud in the sky. It was beautiful.

“So why don't you hate me like everyone else?” asked Colby.

“I can't think of a good enough reason, I guess,” said Bill. “I mean, it's not like I think you're going to nuke me for hanging around like everyone else does. And, well, we've got a lot in common.”

“What do we have in common?”

Bill's gaze lingered for a second. “We're both monsters.” He took a long, deep drag off his cigarette, leaned his head back, and exhaled a slow, steady stream of smoke. “You see,” he said, still staring up at the stars, “I don't scare little kids. I don't murder chaste virgins caught out alone at night. I just feed on monsters. The soiled. The unclean. The deeper and darker the hate or fear or self-loathing there is, the more delicious the meal. Now you might look at some of the people I feed on and say that they didn't have coming what I did to them, but you couldn't for a moment argue that they were without sin, without fault. That the world ain't just a tiny bit better without them.”

“Yeah? And?”

“And your friend over there didn't just awaken on his own. This city doesn't have enough dreamstuff for that. Not anymore. You used the energy of a redcap.”

“You're gonna hold me to the death of a redcap?”

“I might,” said Bill.

“He crossed over the city limits. He knew the rules.”

“The rules you laid down. You murdered that redcap and you used the energy for your own ends.”

“I'm not a monster.”

“Monsters with purpose. That's what you told Yashar. Monsters with purpose.”

Colby took another drink. “Shit. I said that, didn't I?”

“You did. We're monsters, Colby. But you're one of the good ones. You mean well. You want to protect the innocent by devouring the unjust. You take that darkness on to yourself and you carry it with you day in and day out. I've been around a long time. I've seen my fair share of darkness. I've taken a lot of it on to myself.” He paused, lost in thought for a moment. “There's a reason you've never seen my face.”

Colby nodded, stabbing out his cigarette beside him on the ledge. “Well, if I'm gonna be a monster, I might as well surround myself with the best sort of them.”

Bill nodded. “You're goddamned right about that. Thanks to you, that's just about all that's left in this city.”

“I try.”

“It won't last. It never does.”

“As long as I'm here, it will.”

“No one lights a candle in the daytime, Colby. Men dream up their monsters for a reason.”

“So they can have windmills they feel good about tilting at?”

“Something like that,” said Bill, lighting up another cigarette with the end of the old one. “Why are you up here?”

Gossamer stopped lapping at the beer. “He was in the paper again.”

“Ewan?”

“Yeah,” said Colby.

“He's gone. No coming back from that.”

“You think I don't know that?”

“No, I think you believe that if you keep him in your heart, some piece of him will still live on.”

“Yeah. Maybe. What's wrong with that?”

“It's horseshit. The only thing that lives on is the part that makes everyone they left behind who they are. And right now all that's making you is miserable. The kid got a whole lot more life than he was destined to. Touched a lot more people than he ever would have. All that was you, not him. All that's left of him is a lead weight dragging you down.”

“I didn't come here for a lecture.”

“Yeah you did. You were just hoping it'd be from him and not me.” Bill pointed off into the night then formed a shadow puppet of a bird, flapping off, his hands actually vanishing into the dark as he did. “If that fucking angel had any real answers, he wouldn't have fallen and he wouldn't be drinking himself into a stupor. He's not going to forgive you, Colby. No one will. You shouldn't expect them to. You shouldn't want them to. And you don't need them to.”

Colby nodded, swallowing. “It's just that—”

“It's just what?”

“He's the closest I've ever come to talking to . . .”

“Talking to . . . ?”

“Talking to God.”

Bill shook his head, the light ever shying away from the features of his face, no matter the angle. “Shit. He's never talked to God. God doesn't talk to angels. Not for a long time. Why do you think so many of them jump?”

“I thought there would be answers, you know? When I was a kid.”

“There are answers. You just don't like them.”

“But there are always more questions.”

“Yeah. If there weren't, what the hell would be the point? You don't need more answers, Colby. You don't need approval. The only thing you need . . .” He trailed off, taking another pull from the bottle. “ . . . is to figure out where the hell Scraps was getting the good stuff. Because, seriously, this ain't cutting it.”

Colby reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, crumpled scrap of paper he'd been given by Carol Voss. Then he slowly unwound it, straightening the creases, staring at the number, letting his eyes glaze over as he drifted off in thought. “No. No, it's really not.”

C
HAPTER
6

O
N
D
ISBELIEF

A
N
EXCERPT
BY
D
R
. T
HADDEUS
R
AY
, P
H
.D.,
FROM
HIS
BOOK
T
HE
E
VERYTHING
Y
OU
C
ANNOT
S
EE

D
isbelief is perhaps the single greatest weapon in the arsenal of anyone trafficking in the arcane. Versatile, powerful, and, most important, final, it is a last resort meant only for when there is no other recourse but the permanent destruction of a thing. Against truly frightening, nigh immortal creatures, sometimes it is the only option. But it is neither clean, nor easy, nor sometimes even possible against certain beings. And it certainly isn't recommended except under the strictest and direst of circumstances.

Disbelief is, simply put, the art of reweaving the dreamstuff comprising one being into that of another, more harmless form—literally believing it to be something else. You can, with the right focus and understanding, convert a redcap into sunlight or an angel into a breeze. At advanced levels of understanding, one can even convert that dreamstuff into more useful constructs, fueling spells or creating new life. As most beings that can achieve some semblance of physicality actually contain elements and particles other than dreamstuff, there are often physical components left behind—manifesting as smells, feathers, or flower petals—often drawn together as side effects of the disbeliever's own imagination.

BOOK: Queen of the Dark Things
11.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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