I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (41 page)

Halloween was just around the corner. That
would have meant something to Barry when he was younger. Now it was
pretty much just another day. Kids used to trick-or-treat around
here way back, when the towers first went up. These days, you
didn’t see kids in costumes around the Moses. Some years, one of
the local organizations ran a party for children in one of the rec
centers, but that had seemed to largely fall off with the arrival
of the Conyers boys.

It was sad, Barry thought, sad for the kids,
but sad for him too, because the sight of the little costumed
cowboys and princesses never failed to bring a smile to Barry’s
wrinkled face.

He was smiling to himself about that,
picturing the children in their costumes, when a figure limped into
view on the path, and spying such Barry had to wonder if Halloween
itself had indeed arrived early. The stranger paused under the
streetlamp in plain view. The cat’s dress was outlandish: what
looked like a men’s full length fur coat over a dark suit with wide
lapels; some kind of spats over dress shoes that shined in the
lamplight; the man’s head a mass of wet-looking jheri-curls. He
wore them little pince-nez glasses with purple lenses. One hand was
resting on the decorative wolf’s head handle of a walking cane.

The man paused under the streetlamp, not in
the least concerned should anyone see him. Cat dressed like that,
Barry considered, gonna get took for what he had. Where’d this guy
think he was? And where the hell he from? 1970?

The man raised his head and sniffed at the
air.

Thing was…despite his appearance, the guy
looked like…looked like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. And
the other thing, this cat was somehow both familiar and unknown to
Barry, kind of like he knew him from around somewhere, but maybe
didn’t actually
know
him personal-like.

Turning his head, the man’s nostrils flared
and relaxed, his nose working, searching something out. Like he
could smell it. Sniffing the air, Barry himself couldn’t detect
anything. He snuffled, clearing his nostrils, but still not a
thing, though now the man under the light was peering out into the
darkness around tower four, right towards where Barry sat.

Barry clenched his eyes shut, like he did
when he was a kid. Like he did when he was a kid in his room and he
thought there was a monster in the closet, like he did when he
thought if he couldn’t see the monster it couldn’t see him. He
waited and listened, shivering under his blanket, but not from the
chill.

When Barry opened his eyes, the man was
limping away, supporting himself on his cane. And that’s when Barry
recognized him—

But no, there was no way.

He knew what the cat looked like from the
television at the food pantry, from the posters on display in all
the music stores and bus shelters. He knew what the man would sound
like if he had talked to him, knew that from the radio. Thing was,
this guy was supposed to be laid up in the hospital. Cat had just
gotten shot up in an elevator last week, almost killed. What was he
doing down in the Moses?

Barry watched him go.

Watched Gangster Khan limp off into the
gloom, the tip of his cane tapping against the concrete path, the
rapper inhaling deeply and turning his head around to the side
where Barry could see his mouth. Growling, lips pulling back over
fangs and long, pointed eyeteeth. Looked more like a dog’s mouth
than a man’s to Barry from his vantage point.

The rapper faded into the night and was
gone.

Barry exhaled.

He knew what he’d just seen, but he didn’t
understand a bit of it.

Even though it was going to mean he’d be a
few minutes late, Jay stopped at the
Bloemenmarkt
and
perused the tulips. Tisiphone loved her her flowers. The variety at
the flower market this late in the fall wasn’t what it would be in
the spring, but there was still a decent selection. In the winter
they sold wooden tulips here.

That winter would be here soon enough, and
Jay thought maybe after it’d broken him and Tisiphy could head down
south to
Zuid
-
Holland
, maybe find a bed and breakfast
in Lisse, spend a night or two there, visit the Keukenhof Gardens.
She’d like that.

Jay made small talk with the vendor as his
tulips were wrapped, then continued along his way, pausing to let a
trolley pass on
Muntplein
, lighting a Moore, crossing the
under the Muntorren.

Tisiphone was waiting for him at their
favorite café a few blocks over, seated outside across from a man,
the man’s back to Jay as he approached. Large through the
shoulders, the guy’s t-shirt hung over his traps and deltoids.
Looked
like
…
couldn’t
be
. Jay smiled at
his love as he sat down beside her, “Hello, baby,” his suspicions
confirmed as he turned from his love to face the man, his smile
gone.

“
Mierda
…”

“Hi, Jay.” A greeting bereft of any warmth,
Boone barely glancing at Jay, his eyes on Tisiphone the whole time.
“Can’t you at least smoke a man’s cigarette?” Boone still didn’t
smile. “I already met your friend,” He winked at Tisiphone. “No
need to introduce us.”

Jay didn’t know what to say, so he asked,
“How you been Boone?”

“Oh, you know me, Jay.” Both of Boone’s hands
were under the table, out of sight. Tisiphy’s manicured hands
rested on the table top. “I’ve got a way of landing on my
feet.”

The waiter came over with Jay’s coffee.

“I heard about what happened,” Jay mentioned,
thanking the waiter and exhaling, reaching over to take Tisiphy’s
hand, squeezing it. He looked over at her, gazing at his woman,
struck as if for the first time by her beauty. “And I’m sorry. I
really am.”

The waiter had gone back inside the café.

Tisiphy’s eyes were red-rimmed and Jay knew
where this was headed. He let her hand go and sat back in his
chair.

Boone spoke to the woman. “Lot of people back
in New York interested in you.”

“That what you here about Boone?”

“Yeah,” Boone kept his eyes on the Fury,
running his tongue across his lower gum, spitting out of the side
of his mouth. “Something like that.”

A single drop of blood welled up from
Tisiphy’s eye, coursing down her cheek.

“That’s one of the problems with Boone,
baby,” Jay sipped his coffee, the drink strong, bitter, like
Espresso back in the States, “always been one of the problems with
Boone. He don’t respect the game.”

She turned faster than Jay had ever seen it
happen before, her form rising and transforming. One moment she’d
been an exquisite human female, seated there with eyes tearing
blood. Now her chair toppled to the sidewalk and she stood, changed
for the world to see: A canine body with the wings of a bird;
hissing serpents undulating in her hair; her eyes bleeding, red
streaking freely down her face. In one clawed hand she wielded a
whip of scorpions, the arthropods pinching their claws.

Passersby screamed, scattering in all
directions. Jay stared transfixed, his breath caught in his throat:
his woman magnificent, beautiful beyond words, his woman
ethereal—

Boom
!

Boone with the Anaconda from under the table,
firing from the waist—

Boom
!
Boom
!

—Boone rising from his seat, gripping his
gunhand with his free hand, steadying his arm, firing—

Boom
!
Boom
!

—Tisiphone rocking with each round, gouts of
herself tearing free with each impact, dying on her feet. Jay went
down on the ground beside her, his hands around hers, her red eyes
blank. Tables and chairs were upturned, the tulips scattered.

Jay sobbed, his body shaking.

Boone came around the table, standing over
them both. “So let me ask you, Jay.” The .44 at his side, one round
remaining in the chamber. “I’m gonna have to worry about you
now?”

Jay looked up at him defiantly, hatred in his
eyes. “You’re goddamn right.”

“Okay then.”

Boom
!

Boone left the café, dumping the empties from
the Anaconda, fishing the speedloader out of his cargo shorts
pocket, reloading on the walk, sirens in the distance. He stuffed
the .44 in his shorts, under his t-shirt, the barrel warm against
his skin. He turned down an alley and kept walking, not bothering
to hurry, not trying to draw attention to himself.

He looked back regretfully towards Muntplein
square. He’d have liked to have seen that tower one more time
before he left this town. Maybe later.

“May I offer you a ride?”

A late-model sedan had pulled up to him on
the street, its tinted window lowered. He recognized her at once,
the woman from the bridge.

“Hey.” Sirens wailed from the direction he’d
just left. “Sure, that’d be great.” She slid over on the back seat
as Boone got in her car.

The chauffer wore a suit and didn’t
acknowledge Boone. The car pulled away from the curb and into what
little traffic there was, slowing for the bikes.

“I believe there was just a shooting near the
Rembrandtplein,” she remarked off-handedly, just making
conversation.

“Oh yeah?” Boone fingered the leather
upholstery as he looked out the window. A little police car with
flashing lights shot by in the opposite direction. “Ain’t that
something.”

“Tell me,” she smiled at him, “Is that a
pistol in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

“That’s got to be the oldest line in the
book.” Boone turned to her, smiling. Give her an
A
for
effort. “But yeah,” he reached under his t-shirt and drew the
revolver. “This is a gun.” He held it up for her to see and she
raised an eyebrow, suitably impressed. He liked that she didn’t
seem scared. Right now Boone wanted one thing and one thing only:
to get his nut, to get laid. “And
am
I
glad to see
you.”

“May I?” She motioned to the revolver.

He handed it over to her. “It’s still warm.”
Boone noted the way she handled it, daintily, like she wasn’t used
to firearms. Christ, he hoped she didn’t handle his cock like that.
“You Americans,” she briefly puckered her lips, “and your fondness
for guns.”

Boone wasn’t worried about the woman or her
chauffer. They were going to take him where he wanted to go. First
he wanted to fuck.

He put his hand out for the .44 and she left
him hanging, the Anaconda in her own grip, all business now, the
revolver steady on him.

“What gives?” he asked, thinking maybe she
was fucking with him.

“I believe you knew my son.” She bared her
fangs.

As she sat in her kitchen, patiently waiting
for the call she knew would come, Olga Coyle stroked Leroi, the
feline lying on the table before her. The blinds were closed and
the shades drawn, the apartment cool and dark. She had a book in
front of her on the table, a hardcover mystery from the shelf in
her bedroom. She’d read it before and wasn’t expecting anything
new. It helped the time pass. Next to her, on the wall, the phone,
its cord hanging down to the floor.

Leroi purred.

Strewn around the apartment’s floors were
Lincoln Logs, Matchbox cars, wooden blocks with the letters of the
alphabet. She’d dug them out of the back of a closet, Billy’s and
Eddie’s toys when they were little. Outside on the street a car
horn honked.

Her son stood in place against the wall, in
the shadows between the refrigerator and the curio. She’d sewn his
head back on again. A mortar and pestel rested in the sink. They
were used to grind a herbal paste which was then smeared on Eddie’s
wounds. In the hopes that the wounds would heal, that his head
would stay in place.

Warrior brushed against her, Olga’s lower
legs exposed under her housedress, above her furry slippers.

In the shadows, Eddie awaited her
bidding.

The phone rang and Olga let it, brushing her
hand against Leroi, his eyes half-lidded, the big cat content.

She reached up and took the phone from the
wall, saying, “I believe you have something of mine.”

“If you want her back, you’ll…” Olga listened
to what they had to say, saying very little herself. Leroi opened
his eyes a bit to observe, still purring on the kitchen table. When
she hung up the phone, Olga turned in her chair to look over her
shoulder in the direction of her refrigerator and curio, to her
boy.

“Mommy’s going to need your help again soon,
Eddie,” she told the thing in the gloom. “Very soon.”

The wall at Kar Dap-Salam had held.

Its watch towers crumbled to rubble, smoke
wafting from its heights to a crimson sky, entire sections
demolished under Mazalan’s war catapults and various other siege
machines. Fires burned behind its arrow slits and embrasures, the
flames casting their eerie glow. The men of the Five Lands lay
strewn atop its walk, many with their weapons frozen in hand,
fallen in defense of their homelands.

Before the wall, a carpet of pierced and
broken bodies, Mazalan’s minions dispatched in their thousands.
Orcs and trolls melted in pools of steaming oil, sable riders and
their other-worldly mounts pierced through by arrow and spear.
Stepping through their fallen, avoiding the fires that continued to
burn, Mazalan’s army crept forward, towards the wall and the Five
Lands beyond. For all that had succumbed, many more came,
brandishing their swords and spears, clubs crafted from bone human
and otherwise. Bloodlust filled their eyes, black thoughts of
rapine and slaughter foremost in their minds.