The Darkest Gate (13 page)

She pulled her dress over those gorgeous breasts again. It was like throwing a steel-clad door between them. “I will never have children,” Elise said. “Kopides don’t do that. And I’m never getting married, either.”

It was hardly the coldest thing she had ever said to him, but it still felt a little like getting punched below the belt. “If we don’t have a future, then what are we doing? What’s the point?”

“We have sex. We spend time together. Isn’t that good?”

“But what about a year from now? Five years?”

She fluffed the skirt out where it had become stuck in the thigh sheath. “I’ve told you what I think. You know what? I have things to do. You need to stay here and watch Betty.”

“Yeah, but where—?”

Before he could finish the question, Elise threw the remaining pieces of the daimarachnid’s body over her shoulder and went downstairs, leaving Anthony alone.

He tried to get comfortable on the couch, but it was strange being in James’s apartment. Everything smelled like sage and jasmine and someone else’s aftershave. It didn’t help that his feet hung off the edge and that he still had half an erection that was quickly losing all hope.

Pulling the sheets up to his chin, he tried not to imagine the shadows on the ceiling were demons oozing with black pus.

After a few minutes, he heard the chain of the punching bag rattle downstairs.

IX

E
lise called James’s
cell phone twice and hung up on the first ring both times. She glared at his name on her contact list.

He would want to know about Betty. He deserved to know what was going on. But every time she thought about his loafers at the side of the bed, lonely without the rest of his belongings, she found herself punching the off button again.

Before she could decide if she should try to call again, her phone rang. It was Stephanie on the other end.

“If you’re trying to reach James, that’s not the way to do it.” She sounded exasperated. “He’s at a rehearsal downtown and forgot his phone. All you’re doing is preventing me from getting enough sleep for my shift tonight.”

“Fine,” Elise said.

“Why did Betty leave the hospital early?”

She didn’t feel like explaining. The good doctor would have only taken it as another sign that she was a bad influence who shouldn’t be allowed around normal people. Instead, she turned her phone off.

Hanging up had never been so satisfying.

It was almost eleven, but Anthony and Betty were still sleeping. Her boyfriend was sprawled across the couch with his arms and legs hanging off the side. She stood over him with her arms folded as he slept. Marriage. Kids. Three months together, and he had never once made the mistake of mentioning “the future.” It left a foul taste in her mouth.

He didn’t even twitch as Elise banged around in search of clothes. She ended up donning one of Anthony’s shirts and the same jogging shorts she had been wearing the day before.

Her car smelled of brimstone, even though the body in the trunk was thoroughly wrapped in plastic. She yanked the air freshener off the mirror and tossed it in the back before parking in a garage downtown.

It wasn’t hard to find out which theater was holding their dress rehearsals. The show James was choreographing was a major production, so there were signs plastered all over the casino to advertise it. Even so, it took Elise a few minutes to navigate the gloomy floors of the casino. Like all businesses of its type, it was designed to trap tourists among the slot machines with black walls, mirrored ceilings, and confusing signs.

She slipped in the side door behind the box office. It was propped open with an empty water bottle.

The theater smelled like fresh paint and turpentine. Pieces of the set were in place while others were assembled near the orchestra pit by stagehands. She picked a seat in the back of the theater and sat down.

“One more time, from the top,” James said from the front row. He wore sweats and a shirt with the studio logo across the back.

When he gestured, a tech in the sound booth started the song again.

Elise watched the dancers, some of whom were in the bulkier pieces of their costumes, with mild bemusement. She had never been a big fan of casino shows. There was far too much glitter for her tastes.

“Having fun playing voyeur?”

David Nicholas had joined her. He draped himself over the chair at her side, reeking of cigarette smoke and filth. She tried to calm her jumping heart. She hadn’t felt his approach. “You’re here.”

“Where else would I be? Unless you finished the Night Hag’s to-do list and stuck that kopis six feet deep, I’m still on babysitting duty.”

“You won’t be much longer.”

“Good. Want a smoke?”

Elise curled her lip at the proffered cigarette. David Nicholas was even fleshier than before. His shoulders were broader, his jaw was squarer, and he was starting to look like a thug instead of a dying addict. “Has anything come near James yet?”

“Nah. Too bad, huh? Sure would make this a hell of a lot more fun. I can only watch this guy bone his girlfriend so many times before it gets boring.” At Elise’s glare, he gave a helpless shrug. “Gotta keep my eye on him. What if the doctor tried to stab him or something? Sure would be a shame if I missed it.”

“If anything happens to James, I will exorcise you to Hell. And then I’ll come down, find what remains of your corporeal body, and remove your skin with a rusty potato peeler.”

He clucked his tongue. “Naughty, naughty. Remember what the Night Hag said about playing nice.”

“Fuck playing nice. You and I both know we’ll settle this the instant our truce is over anyway.”

“Oh, yes.” David Nicholas bared his yellow teeth in a grin that stretched back to flash every molar. It was a coyote grin, inhuman and hungry. “We definitely will.”

“But your problem is with me. Don’t touch James.”

He laid a hand on his heart. “I wouldn’t
dream
of it.”

The music reached a crescendo. James walked onstage, clapping his hands to attract the attention of the dancers. He all but glided inches off the ground. Of all the things that brought him joy—magic and music and teaching his students—nothing made him radiate like being in his element.

Watching him gather the dancers made jealousy wash over Elise. There was a time he only smiled like that for her, like when they managed to save someone or won a vicious battle.

She realized she was staring and turned back to make a parting shot at David Nicholas, but there was only emptiness beside her. He wouldn’t be far away. Nightmares never were. “I mean it,” she whispered. “Don’t touch him.”

If the nightmare was listening, he didn’t reply.

Elise found a program left on one of the seats and scrawled a note in the margin:
Anthony and I are making a move against Mr. Black. I’ll call you when I’m done
. She didn’t bother signing it.

When the music played again, James stayed upstage to watch the chorus line. She sneaked up to his pile of towels and tucked the program at the bottom.

She didn’t stick around to watch anything else.

A
nthony and Elise
stopped at a taco truck to pick up dinner before getting gasoline at the corner station. He ate as she filled a half dozen red jugs and loaded them in the cargo area of the Jeep. They had moved the body of the daimarachnid nurse behind the seats, too, and covered it in sweaters and trash to make it look unremarkable.

Elise paid for their food and gas in cash. She grimaced at the last twenty in her wallet.

“I could pay for some of this,” he suggested.

She snapped her wallet shut. “Don’t worry about it.”

They headed north out of the city, beyond the last housing development and into hills filled with wild horses. Evening fell fast in the valleys beyond civilization. The sky caught fire in a desert sunset, striping a violet sky with pink clouds and tinting the sagebrush blue.

Elise spoke on her cell phone for a long time as she drove. Actually, she didn’t talk so much as listen, punctuating the conversation with an occasional, “Okay,” or “Fine.”

“Who was that?” Anthony asked when she hung up without saying goodbye.

“That was the people I’m working with on this raid. They were arranging to pick up the cargo.”

“And who is ‘they’?”

“A demonic overlord and her court of nightmares. Nobody important.”

Anthony couldn’t tell if she was joking.

She steered the Jeep off the road, navigating carefully around the largest of rocks. Night sank over them, and soon they could only see within the beam of the headlights.

When they reached the top of a hill overlooking a dry lake bed, she turned the Jeep off and double-checked her map.

“This is it,” she said, peering through binoculars to the playa below.

There were lights at the other end of the valley. Wind rustled through the hills, carrying the sweet smell of sagebrush past them. The desert had probably gotten up to well over a hundred degrees earlier in the day, but the wind was already beginning to cool, and he found himself shivering. “See anything?” he asked.

“The odds aren’t good,” Elise said, lowering the binoculars. She tucked a dagger into her belt at the small of her back. “Probably a dozen guys out there. One per pickup. No sign of the semi yet.”

“What’s the plan?”

“I want you to disable the trucks so they can’t get away with the shipment.”

He held out a hand for the binoculars, and Elise passed them over.

They had assembled a loading bay in the middle of the desert and lit it with a generator-powered floodlight. He could make out the fleet of trucks, but he wasn’t sure how Elise deduced the number of people.

“It’s going to take a while to disable them all. I have to get into each glove box and pull the fuse for the fuel pump relay.”

“My contact said the semi should be due in about…” She checked the map again. “Twenty minutes from now. We need to be in and out before they realize their trucks won’t start.”

“What if they see us?” Anthony asked.

She just looked at him. Shadows carved her face with deep crags and harsh lines. It was the face of someone who had gone against such odds before and come out alive. He felt immediately stupid for asking.

“We kill them,” she said.

Anthony nodded and swallowed hard.

Elise took a moment to roll her shoulders and touch her toes, going through the motions of stretching while Anthony refilled the gas tank for a quick getaway. He dumped the plastic-wrapped body down a ditch, which felt like it had been almost entirely dissolved by venom, then fit his shotgun into his back scabbard and gave her a thumbs up.

She ran, and he hurried to follow.

The desert rushed past him. Elise dodged around the sagebrush and rocks and he followed.
It’s just like our camping trip
, he told himself again, and he tried not think about their odds of coming back.

There was no subtlety in their run, no grace. The semi couldn’t get to the bay before they did.

When they drew within a hundred meters of the ring of light, Elise stopped. Anthony was breathing hard. He didn’t do nearly enough cardio to keep up. “You good?” she asked, and he nodded as he wheezed. “We’ll sneak around back.” Another nod.

The men talked loudly by the loading bay—something about bitches and liquor—and didn’t notice their approach. Elise and Anthony ran to the tall end of the loading bay.

She crouched behind it, pulled him down beside her, and peeked over the top of the wooden platform.

The pickups were parked in two neat rows. Most of the drivers talked and smoked in a cluster by the light, leaving the vehicles unattended. Why worry? They were hours from the city. “Fifteen guards,” she whispered. “They’re human. And armed.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she put a finger over his lips. Then she slid around the side of the loading bay, and he followed.

One man, a big guy with a tattoo of a kitten on his wrist, stood aloof from the others. Metal glinted under his untucked shirt. A gun. Great.

Elise pointed to the nearest truck. He crawled forward, keeping an eye on Kitten, and reached up to try the passenger door. It was unlocked. He reached in and opened the fuse box on the glove compartment. Removing the fuse for the fuel pump, he shut the door as quietly as possible and slipped back.

He showed her the number on the fuse. She moved for the next truck. Together, they worked their way up the lines. Each pickup drew them closer to Kitten and all the other men.

“My fucking wife just doesn’t get it,” one of the guards muttered. He offered a joint to the man next to him. “She’s gotten fat, sure, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love her. I don’t want anyone else.”

“Even Candi?” chuckled a third man with a Disturbed concert t-shirt.

“Candi. Mm hmm. I’d like to stick it in that bitch,” said the second, passing the joint back.

Anthony eased another door open and pulled the fuse. He took a quick count of how many he had in his pocket—five. Elise wasn’t far behind in the other row.

“Fuck Candi, man. No way some slut makes steak as good as my woman. I’d never trade that in.”

Only two vans between Anthony and Kitten. He searched for Elise amongst the other vehicles, but he couldn’t see her. He did, however, see a pair of approaching headlights on the horizon.

The semi.

“What are
you
?”

He jerked up just in time to see Kitten looming over the van, an arm braced on the open door. His muscles bulged with veins.

“Uh,” Anthony said in a stroke of brilliance.

Kitten clapped a hand on his shoulder and flung him into the crowd of drivers.

Shoulder met playa, and the breath rushed out of his body. Anthony groaned and rolled onto his knees. “What’s this? We got a visitor!” crowed Disturbed.

Someone kicked him in the ribs. It was like getting slammed by a sledgehammer, and it shot spikes of pain all the way into his groin.

He fell on his side again. Someone laughed a hyena laugh—a skinny man with a tattoo on his neck that said “Bad” in gothic letters—and he was echoed by others.