half-lich 02 - void weaver (2 page)

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “That’s two fifty.”

The garbage man went to reach for his pocket and then his eyes went wide. His coveralls didn’t
have
any pockets. “Oh shoot,” he said, and he laughed at himself—a real high-pitched giggle more appropriate for a little girl than a grown man. “Left my wallet in the truck. I’ll just go get it.”

“No,” Raegan said, having immediately decided that it would take longer for him to retrieve his wallet and pay her than it would for her to simply pay the two fifty out of her own pocket and call it a night. “It’s on the house… since you’ve given me a little dance.”

The garbage man smiled again, a big, wide, wolfish grin. “That’s real kind of you. I’m going to come back here tomorrow night and make sure to plant a nice, crisp, twenty on your lap for being so kind.”

“You really don’t have to, it’s fine.”

“No, no. I insist. What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t repay such generosity? Too many bad things happen to good people these days, but I’m one of the good guys.”

“Wow, that’s… that’s really nice of you…”

Doug,” he said, “Name’s Douglas M Church. I’m sorry, I should’ve introduced myself a long time ago. I come here so often I just assume everyone knows my name by now.”

“Well, now I do.”

She looked up at the clock hanging sentry over the front door. Twelve fifteen had come and gone, and she hadn’t even started cleaning up yet. If she wasn’t out of here in ten minutes she’d miss her train, and a cab ride home would cost more than she had made here tonight. When her eyes fell back on Doug, he was grinning at her.

A cold shiver ran down the length of her spine, rooting her to the spot momentarily. The world swam in and out of focus as Doug mentioned something about having visited New Orleans a couple of years ago. Instinctively she reached, as subtly as she could, for the baseball bat beneath the counter and gripped the handle. But the moment passed, her mind righted itself—
what the fuck are you doing, Raegan?—
and she let the baseball bat go.

“I’m sorry,” Raegan said, “But I really need to close up. I have a train to catch and—”

“Say no more,” he said, laughing and putting one of his hands up. He stood and snatched the coffee from the counter. “This big mouth of mine could talk for hours.”

“That’s okay,” she said, following him to the door.

“Anyway, thanks for the coffee. I appreciate it. And I’ll be back tomorrow to keep my promise, don’t you worry.”

Raegan reached for the door handle and as she went to pull it realized that the music changed. Johnny Cash was no longer singing; instead she heard a woman’s voice humming some kind of soft, light, song. It felt almost like an operatic piece, but
since when do we have operas in the juke?
The record skipped, and when Raegan turned her head to open the glass door, the proximity of the—
monster—
woman standing on the other side of the glass made her jerk away and smack Doug’s coffee into his chest.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, more concerned with having possibly burned the poor man than the woman who had just given her a fright.

“Don’t worry about it,” Doug said, “These clothes will get into a lot more trouble before the night is over, believe me.”

The door twinkled open and the woman came in. Her blonde hair was frizzy and damp, her clothes were soaked, but she had an air of grace Raegan couldn’t ignore. The woman wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and smiled, but Raegan’s mind superimposed upon her the image she had seen from the other side of that door. The skin around the woman’s lips had been black, hadn’t it? Hadn’t she seen tiny black lines spreading out of the corners of her mouth?

“Hello,” said the woman who, despite how cold the air was and how wet she was, didn’t seem to be shivering. “It’s quite cold out there. Could I trouble you for a cup of coffee?”

“I—I’m sorry,” Raegan said, her voice shaking, “But we just closed.”

“Oh, now, don’t be like that Raegan,” Doug said, “This poor girl needs help. Why don’t you come inside and we’ll see about warming you up?”

The woman looked quizzically at Raegan and waited for an answer.

“I, no, I really can’t,” Raegan said, “I have to clean up and catch the train before the metro closes for the night.”

“I have a truck outside. I could give you a ride if you like?”

Her mouth was starting to dry up, and she could feel the steadily increasing speed of her own heart. Catching a ride with a stranger wasn’t exactly her idea of being responsible, but then wasn’t catching a cab the exact same thing? It wasn’t, she supposed. Cab drivers drove people around in exchange for money, and that—in itself—provided some level of security. Hopping into some random man’s garbage truck didn’t have that.

She scratched the back of her hand, sighed, and said “Okay. Come inside.”

Raegan was about to turn around and head for the counter when she realized the juke had stopped playing again. She headed toward it instead of going for the counter, pulled her key out of the machine, and shut it down. A moment later, when she was about to reach the counter, she heard the music start playing. She stopped walking, held onto the counter for support, and turned her head slowly, listening to each floaty note as it touched her ears and wormed its way into her heart. But the jukebox was dark.

“Something wrong?” Doug asked. He had gotten up and was stretching his back.

“Do you hear that?” Raegan asked.

“Hear what?”

“The music.”

Doug turned his head and looked at the jukebox. He turned back to Raegan and shrugged. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe you just got the music in you.”

“Maybe…”

“Anyway, let me know when you’re ready to roll. I’ll be in the truck.”

“Sure…” Raegan said, trailing off. Her eyes were starting to sag. Doug said something else, but he sounded like he was underwater. She couldn’t hear anything now, in fact, except for the song.
What is that song?

Her hand slipped, her knees gave, and she hit the ground.
She was aware, in the same way a dreamer is aware of anything, of the blonde woman fast approaching and kneeling beside her. She took Raegan’s hand and squeezed it.

“Everything’s going to be alright,” the blonde woman said, only Raegan heard that with her mind and not her ears.

“Everything… alright…” Raegan repeated, almost dreamily.

Slowly, almost as if to kiss her, Helena bowed over Raegan’s face. The blonde woman smiled, and when she smiled, the same black veins Raegan had thought she had earlier seen surrounding the woman’s mouth reappeared. Helena’s eyes became bright blue headlights on a dark road. Raegan tried to turn her head to shield herself from the brightness—too much, too much—but the effort she made was too weak. In a moment, she felt a set of lips press against hers.

They were cold lips, but Raegan surrendered to the song playing on the juke and in her mind, to the kiss, and to Helena. In the moment of transfer, when Nyx’s dark energy passed between mouths like a breath of shadow, Raegan’s mind took her back to the first time she had ever been kissed by a boy named Carter Higgs when she was fourteen years old.

When Raegan opened her eyes again, it wasn’t as Raegan at all, but as Nyx. The Raegan that had poured coffee a few minutes ago was gone; banished to a place where she would forever re-live the moment of her first kiss.

Nyx cricked her neck. She brushed her new, dark hair out of her face and checked herself out in the mirror across the counter. A smile swept across her full lips. This vessel would do. It would not last, she knew. Maybe she had a couple of days. But it would do, at least for now.

She turned around, stepped over Helena’s dead body which now lay slack mouthed on the floor, and walked across the diner to where Doug was standing. He had watched the whole thing, but he wasn’t scared. She didn’t expect him to be. He had, after all, ensured the girl stayed in the diner just a little longer. He had done well.

“Hello Doug,” Nyx said.

He nodded and smiled. “It’s really you.”

“It is as I said it would be.”

“I’m so glad you’re here. This is something like a dream.”

“For me also.” She planted a kiss on Doug’s cheek, and he blushed like a fourteen-year-old boy. “Thank you for your help.”

“Don’t mention it. Hell, you know I would do anything for you.”

“Good… because we have more work to do.”

Nyx opened the diner door and the bell above it tinkled. She looked over her shoulder at the diner, at Helena, and then at Doug.

“What do we do with her?” he asked.

“Leave her,” she said, “This isn’t our problem anymore.”

Doug nodded and followed her outside. “Anywhere you want me to take you?”

Nyx closed her eyes, breathed deep of the night air, and when she opened her eyes again they were a misty grey, where before they had been brown. She gave him an address—Raegan’s address—and said, “Take me to her house.”

“Any particular reason? The cops will come looking for her when they find this body.”

“I suspect they will, but I’m still hungry, and this girl has a mother who is not long for this earth.”

CHAPTER 1

One Week Later

Something is chasing me. I can hear it, the click-clacking of… something. Nails? Whatever it is sounds metallic. These objects scrape against each other and my stomach goes cold every time the awful sound touches my ears. My heart doesn’t stop pounding. It can’t. I need the adrenaline if I want to get away, but it’s dark in the movie theatre and I’m running out of places to hide. The auditorium is the only place I can turn into, so I do, and it follows, whistling a happy tune as it goes. I know what the objects it’s carrying are, now. I don’t need to see them.

They’re scalpels, and if he catches me, he’ll cut me open again.

The sound of grumbling thunder rolling overhead dragged Alice out of a deep but restless sleep. When the dream slipped away like morning mist, Alice grabbed her phone from the bedside table and looked at the time. Seven in the evening had come and gone. She had laid her head down for a nap with the intention of only resting for half an hour, but had somehow managed to sleep for three. The thunder rolled off into the distance in a series of cascading explosions of sound. Alice rubbed her eyes, unlocked her phone, and updated herself on what was going on.

No calls, no messages, and no emails except for the usual garbage she didn’t care for. The silence in the house suggested Dustin wasn’t around and Isaac… the last time she had seen Isaac had been in the Greek exhibit at the Ashwood Imperial Museum. He had kissed her on the forehead and told her,
promised
her, everything would be okay. And she had believed him. She had allowed herself to be ushered along the staff corridor, through a hidden door nestled between the male and female restrooms, and into a car where Emily and Nate were waiting.

She thought he would have been right behind her, and for what seemed like forever she had waited in that car, hoping to see the door she had just come out of open up again. But then Dustin’s phone buzzed. He read the message, then started the engine and told her they had to leave. She was about to throw some questions at him when her own phone buzzed inside her pocket with a message from Isaac.

“
Whatever you do, don’t try to help me
.”

“What the fuck?” she had said aloud.

Dustin had told her not to worry about it, that he just needed to answer a couple of questions. Standard procedure when this kind of thing goes down. Isaac would be back in no time. But then there was the text message. “
Whatever you do, don’t try to help me
.” It seemed pretty final, more like a full stop than a comma. By the time the car had peeled out of a back alley and into the harshly lit city streets of Ashwood proper, Alice knew he wouldn’t be joining them that night.

She was right.

The big security guard assistant drove Alice to her place so she could gather some things, only with her body being in as much pain as it was in, the task fell to Nate and Emily to do her a favor and grab a couple changes of clothes out of her bedroom. They were happy to do it and promised they, too, would be doing something similar soon enough. In the back seat of Dustin’s car, they had decided to get out of Ashwood and go someplace else. Maybe Seattle, or San Francisco; didn’t matter which as long as it was on the other coast.

She wondered how they were doing now.

When the grogginess of waking disappeared, Alice rose, with a little effort, from the bed and immediately transitioned into a series of stretches. Her back still complained about the pain, but not as much as it had the morning after the night at the museum. Partly this was thanks to the exercising, but mostly it had to do with the strange
infusions
she had been drinking.

Isaac had promised she would have help with her injuries. She thought he meant he would be sending someone over, a mage skilled at the arts of healing, maybe. What she had found instead, though, was a box of specially made coffee beans which would apparently speed the healing process. It tasted like earth and milk, but after a couple of cups she didn’t mind the taste much, and she had to admit moving around was starting to feel a whole lot easier.

She also didn’t much mind the safe house she had been brought to. From her upstairs bedroom window, she could see the twinkling lights of the city off in the distance, skyscrapers standing tall above a sea of trees. Where exactly she was, she didn’t know. Somewhere south, she supposed, given she could see the Ashwood International Airport towers from here. But she also supposed it was a good thing she didn’t know where she was. If she didn’t know where she was, then neither did
Nyx
.

Alice had been cooped up in here for a week with strict instructions not to leave under any circumstances. The place was stocked with food and Dustin came around at least once a day with fresh fruit, vegetables, and—if she asked for it—takeout. He also went back to her place occasionally and fed her cat; something she truly was grateful for. But how long was she expected to stay here? She had heard nothing from Isaac, and Dustin didn’t know any more than she did.