The Nimble Man (A Novel of the Menagerie) (23 page)

"It's possible," Squire said, jumping down off the
chair, drying his hands with a dishtowel.

Clay remained very quiet and still, positioning himself so
that he could watch Eve as she went to the door. None of them moved out of the
kitchen, however. Not yet. It took Julia only a moment to realize that Clay and
Squire had remained where they were as protection for her and Danny. Yet for
some reason, this made her even more frightened.

There came another thump, only this one was much more
violent, as if someone or. Heaven forbid, some
thing
was trying to get
inside.

"If it's the Jehovahs, tell 'em to screw!" Squire
yelled, and Eve slowly turned to fix him in a menacing stare.

"She doesn't like you very much, does she?" Danny
said to the little man.

"It's all a show," Squire told him. "She'd be
lost without me."

They all watched as Eve took hold of the knob, slowly turned
it, and pulled open the door. Something growled at her from within the shifting
red mist outside.

Then it erupted from the bloodstained night, bursting
through the doorway.

The vampire lurched into the Ferrick house, arms pinwheeling,
trying to regain its balance. It seemed more like the leech had been thrown
into the house than any focused attack. Not that Eve cared. The thing was
filth. She grabbed hold of the slavering, mad-eyed bloodbag and threw it to the
floor, then dropped upon it, placing one knee in the small of its back. She
grabbed a handful of filthy hair, yanking its head back toward her.

"Hey Julia, ever seen this asshole before?" she
asked as the leech screamed and thrashed beneath her.

The Ferrick woman emerged from the kitchen practically
hiding behind Clay. Squire and the demon boy came out after them. Julia shook
her head, staring wide-eyed at the vampire. She kept shaking, like at any
minute she was going to lose it completely.

"Watch her," Eve said, eyes narrowed, gesturing to
Clay. He nodded.

Eve focused on the leech again. Its stink filled her
nostrils.

"Goddamned vermin," she muttered as she twisted
its head around so she could look it in the eye. "So nobody invited you
inside. Must be hurting you pretty bad to be in here," she whispered in
its ear, leaning in close. "Breaking the rules and all." Eve felt the
bone structure within her hand begin to shift and change, fingers lengthening,
nails elongating. She didn't need a wooden stake to slay the vampires of the
world. Everything she required was at her fingertips.

Her fingers became long talons, their tips like razors. With
a flick of her wrist her claws could end a vampire's existence with dreadful
swiftness. Just one of the perks of being mother to them all.

Eve sliced a single talon across the leech's parchment-white
throat, slitting the skin and teasing out a slowly descending curtain of blood
that slid down its neck. She was careful not to get it on her clothes. This
whole crisis had already ruined one outfit, and though she didn't care much
about her pants, the top was nice. Expensive. And she'd never be able to get
bloodstains out of it.

"Mother's going to put you out of your misery,"
she whispered.

The vampire shrieked and bucked with such force that Eve was
thrown from its back. She rolled to her feet, snarling and cussing, but it was
already up and fleeing toward the still open door. Eve started after it. Its
speed was unnatural, but she was faster. Impossibly fast.

She stopped three feet from the door.

The filthy leech was trapped on the threshold of the house. It
was lifted off the ground by invisible hands and dangled there, hissing and
lashing out. But Eve could see the terror in its eyes. She arched an eyebrow in
curiosity, for it was not her that the leech was afraid of.

Beyond the door there was only the crimson fog, yet the
vampire hung there, several inches off of the floor, feet kicking as though it
actually needed to breathe. Slowly, a figure began to coalesce on the front
stoop of the Ferrick house. The eyes were first, dark and mysterious, like
tarnished copper pennies. Then handsome, angular features, and muscular arms. A
hand, clutching the vampire's throat.

"Eve," said the new arrival, "let's not have
this pathetic animal running loose, all right? But make it fast. I owe it that
much, at least, for being my hound, for leading me to you."

The voice was warm and low, and yet a blast of frigid air
churned up from the place where the ghost of Dr. Leonard Graves appeared.

Eve smiled. "Of course, Leonard. A pleasure to see you,
as always."

She tore the vampire from his grasp and raked her claws
across its throat, nearly severing its head from its neck. There was a moment
where the thing's flesh crackled like damp wood in a fire, and then it exploded
in a blast of cinder and ash, its dying embers drifting down to the carpeted
entryway like gray snow.

"That rocked!" Danny Ferrick said, only to have
his mother shush him, her tension obvious even in that simple utterance. A
package of cigarettes had appeared in her hands and she was tapping one out.

"So how is it out there?" Eve asked, as Dr. Graves
drifted into the house. "As bad as we think?"

The ghost glanced around the living room, frowned as he
noted Julia and Danny, and then paused just inside the doorway, apparently not
wishing to cause the woman even more of a fright. "I wish I could put your
fears at ease," he said, turning to gaze out into the night of swirling
red fog. "But I've never been much of a liar."

"Oh, Jesus. I'm in Hell," Julia Ferrick muttered
to herself. The pack of Winston Lights seemed to explode, showering cigarettes
onto the floor. She started to shake, as though she was going to fall apart
entirely.

"No, hey. Julia, listen. Listen to me. It's all right,"
Clay said.

Eve turned to find him shooting her a dark look and at first
she did not understand. Then she became aware of her talons. She nodded slowly,
willing her hands to resume their normal shape, their elegant human form. She
strode across the room to Julia and held up both hands. The woman stared at
her, shaking her head, mouthing some denial or other.

"Mom, didn't you hear him? It's okay," Danny said,
trying to reassure her.

Eve felt sorry for the kid. But none of them could afford to
have the mother fall apart. They didn't have the luxury of looking out for her
at the moment. "Julia. Hey, Julia!" Eve snapped.

The woman's eyes went wide, her nostrils flaring, and she
glared at Eve.

"We're a motley crew, aren't we?" Eve said, almost
succeeding in keeping the amusement out of her voice. Almost, but not quite. "Yeah.
A motley crew. You've picked up enough already that none of this is a surprise
to you. Conan Doyle's a sorcerer. A mage, we say. Clay's a shapeshifter, but
that's only the easy explanation for that. The same way 'vampire' is a
convenient way to describe me. You won't believe me, but trust me when I tell
you the rest of my story would fuck you up much worse than that one word. Dr.
Graves, here," she said, hooking a thumb to point out the new arrival, the
tasty-looking man with dark bronze skin that seemed translucent at times. "He's
a ghost. But he's a friend. May be hard for you to take, but we're the good
guys. We're on your side. Deal with reality, or don't. Up to you."

Julia did not look up at first, and Danny was at her side. "Mom?"

Then the woman actually laughed. It was a dry, sort of
unhinged little chuckle, but it was something. "A ghost," she said. "He'd
have to be. I remember my father telling me stories about Dr. Graves when I was
a little girl." Her gaze shifted toward Graves. "You were his hero."

The specter nodded once. "I'm honored."

"Honored," Julia said. She closed her eyes and
shook her head. Then she dropped to her knees and began to collect her
cigarettes. Danny got down and helped her, concern and regret in his eyes. When
he handed her several of them, Julia sat back on her legs and looked up at
Graves again, her hands full of cigarettes. Her eyes seemed somehow clearer
than before.

"You're honored," she said, gazing at Dr. Graves. Then
she looked around at the rest of them and dropped all the cigarettes but one,
which she tapped nervously against her thigh. "What a circus. I should
have rented a tent. You're all monsters, then, right? All of you, monsters of
one kind or another. My son . . . my son is a demon. Or something like that. But
whatever you are . . . I know you don't mean me any harm. I know you're trying
to stop this . . ." she gestured toward the window, where the crimson fog
had begun to glow, just slightly.

"Just tell me what I can do to help." Julia
climbed to her feet, taking a long breath. She put a hand on Danny's shoulder
and then glanced at the others again, holding up her lone salvaged cigarette. "And
please, for God's sake, somebody get me a light."

Eve had to hand it to the woman. She'd seen stronger people
reduced to dribbling idiots over lesser things than this.

Pleased that they weren't going to have to deal with Julia
Ferrick losing her mind, Eve turned to the ghost. "All right, Leonard. Tell
us something we don't know."

Dr. Graves had a quiet dignity that seemed to make them all
stand a bit straighter. "The townhouse has been overrun with —"

"Know it," Eve interrupted.

The ghost scowled. "A sorceress of unimaginable power —"

"Know that, too. Her name is Morrigan and she's blood
kin to our own Ceridwen."

The air around the ghost became increasingly colder as his
annoyance grew. "Perhaps you should be filling
me
in as to what's
going on."

"Is that all you have?" Eve asked him.

"Are you aware that the souls of the dead are being pulled
back to their remains, that they're being driven from their graves, and all of
them seem to be drawn toward the same location in the city?"

"Finally," she said. "Something I didn't
already know."

"Nor did I," said a voice from the depths of the
night, from the folds of the bloody mist.

"Jesus Christ, what now?" Julia whispered.

Two figures emerged from the fog, stepping in through the
door. Arthur Conan Doyle glanced around the room approvingly. Lady Ceridwen,
elemental sorceress of the Fey, gave them each an icy stare. Eve admired her
cloak, but the pants were completely without style. Ethereally beautiful she
might have been, but her fashion sense was for shit. Earth tones, blues and
greens, no patterns, nothing especially bright. No sophistication at all. But
what pissed Eve off was that Ceridwen was still stunning, no matter what.

"Excellent, you're all accounted for," Conan Doyle
said.

"Nice to see you're still amongst the living," Eve
replied. She shot an amused glance at Graves. "No offense."

"None taken."

Conan Doyle stepped further into the living room, the stoic
Ceridwen at his side. "It appears that the situation is most dire,"
he said gravely, making eye contact with them each in turn.

"Now let us set the wheels in motion to effect a
remedy, as swiftly as we're able."

The lights were out, now. The fog had stolen them.

The Ferrick woman had been kind enough to allow him the use
of her home office for his ruminations. Conan Doyle sat in the darkness upon
her black leather chair and attempted to relax, letting his mind wander. It was
times such as this, when the tensions were high, that Arthur Conan Doyle felt
the effects of his nearly century and a half of life. His back ached, and his
bones creaked with only the slightest of movements, and he wondered quite
seriously if he still had the inner strength to deal with problems of this
magnitude.

His agents — his
menagerie
as he liked to call
them — had seemed to breathe a sigh of relief upon his arrival, so he
kept his doubts and fears to himself. He would do as he had always done. In the
midst of chaos, he would find the skeins of order, and attempt to weave them
together once more.

This was the first time since early that morning that he'd
had a chance to sit and collect his thoughts. In his mind he catalogued the
date he and his agents had gathered. Nothing was too small or inconsequential. He
analyzed the events of the previous days, considered the entire history of
Sweetblood the Mage, and how Conan Doyle himself had come to dedicate himself
to a search for his former mentor. The incident in New York, when he had failed
to procure the amber-encased body of the mage, was a moment he examined
thoroughly. Conan Doyle replayed every conversation, reviewed every action, but
no matter how he tried, a discernable pattern had yet to emerge.

Frustrated, he rose from the chair and began to pace.
Is
this the time?
he wondered.
The time when all of my resources will prove
not enough, when my own ingenuity would result only in failure? Will this be
Reichenbach Falls, for me? How many years can one man fight the darkness before
the universe demands an accounting, before the pendulum must swung in the other
direction?

Conan Doyle pushed the thoughts from his mind; he was tired,
not having slept since the brief catnap he'd managed on the recent drive to New
York in pursuit of Sweetblood. He needed to sleep, but time was of the essence.
Rest could wait; he needed to think. He might not yet have a plan of action
that would halt the horrors going on in the streets. But that was because there
were still too many questions in his mind. He was going to need to find some
answers. His menagerie was depending on him. The world was depending on him.

"Think, blast you," he muttered beneath his breath
as he stared through the slats of the office window. Outside he could see
nothing, the world totally obscured by that red mist. His thoughts had become
like the whirling maelstrom left by Morrigan in place of the entrance from
Faerie to the world of his birth, fragments of information swirling furiously
about inside his mind.