Downside Rain: Downside book one (12 page)

I
don’t speak as we walk through the trees to a log cabin which blends into the
terrain, and Castle has disappeared. Feet have beaten coiling dirt paths. Smoke
wisps from three chimneys and disperses among overhead foliage. It all looks
rustic but not picturesque. Men and women on the porch watch with hostile eyes.

The
cabin is huge, easily the size of Alain’s mansion and stretches back into the
trees. The shifter pack lives together as one big family.

Castle
reappears. “Brace yourself,” he says with a distinct twinkle in his eyes.

The
twinkle gives me hope I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life. I follow
one of my escorts up the steps, the other comes behind. Old wood creaks as we
traverse the porch. The smell of roasting meat wafts through an open window.

The
man in lead opens the door and ushers me inside.

The
huge high-ceilinged room is constructed of rough-hewn logs, with a staircase up
to another floor and three doors and an open passage leading deeper into the
house. Mismatched armchairs are everywhere, and big pillows and beanbags
scatter the floor. A long wooden table and four bench seats perch near the
stairs. The room is functional but nothing more; there are no pictures,
knickknacks or personal items.

The
room might seem yet bigger if not for the eleven naked men who lounge on the
furniture. I heard that although shifters wear clothes in public, they like to
relax and be themselves in their homes. However, I didn’t know
relaxing
means going buck naked, and being presented with the reality is something else.
I don’t know where to look, but everywhere my gaze drifts it lands on a superb
male body. Castle sniggers in the background.

Were
my ego out of proportion to my size, I could conclude my delightful company
makes two young men semi-erect but I’m sure it has more to do with the tension
in the room.

“You
may leave us, Christo, Malchali,” Val says quietly, sounding very much
not
amused.

Blood
suffuses their faces and other parts wilt as Val stares at them. They shuffle
to their feet and leave through a door in the rear wall.

Val
says. “They are still cubs.”

He
sits on the edge of an armchair with his legs apart and the biggest penis I
have ever seen dangling between them. Not that I’ve seen many penises, but I
have a good idea of the average length and girth, and Val is massive. His testicles
are also huge. It makes sense, when you know his animal side. His skin is dark
and he’s hugely muscled. There’s not a clean line on his body, he bulges
everywhere. His face is broad, with huge brown eyes fringed with long dark lashes.

“Now
we know why he wears a toga in public,” Castle says. “You’d never stuff that in
a pair of pants.”

I’m
too nervous to laugh.

Val
has a low, gruff voice. “We were about to dine. Will you join us?”

I
clasp my hands behind my back. “Thanks, but I’m good.” Asking me to eat with
them is a good sign, they wouldn’t invite an enemy to dine, and my refusal is
not impolite. So far, so good.

“Very
well. How can we help you?”

“A
shifter tried to kill me.”

Silence
stretches. Has everyone except me stopped breathing?

Val
leans in, one arm draped over a knee. “You are mistaken.”

“I
don’t make mistakes where my life is concerned.” I struggle to keep my voice
steady and not erupt in anger. “He put his teeth in my shoulder and neck. I got
into a building and he followed me inside. Rampaged through apartments
terrifying the occupants and causing I don’t know how much damage. I’m sure your
contacts in the constabulary can verify the reports.”

Val
regards me, then his narrowed eyes glance at a young brown-haired shifter and
he jerks his chin at the passage. The shifter pushes up from his seat and
hurries through the room.

They
wait. The room buzzes with conversation exchanged in low voices. I should be
able to understand them, but among themselves shifters talk in a language which
is a mixture of words and sounds.

Castle
prowls the room and starts up the staircase, but pauses on the steps as the
shifter returns. The guy goes to Val, speaks low in his ear and retakes his
chair.

“What
she says is true,” Val announces to the room at large. “According to police statements
from residents, an intruder shifted between human male and feline form. But,”
he continues, switching his gaze to me, “I guarantee he is not one of mine.”

“A
rogue?”

“There
are no rogues in my territory.”

“Your
territory doesn’t include the city.”

Val
leans back. “True. But we would know were an outsider in the area.” He flashes
big square teeth. “A shifter thing.”

“But
you agree a shifter attacked me.”

“No.
We agree what
seems
to be one of the dual-natured ran amok through a
city building.”

I’m
at a loss. If it wasn’t one of Val’s pack, where did the shifter come from? Why
did it attack me? Val is positive the guy is not one of his, and is reluctant
to admit he was indeed a shifter.

Voices
outside, calling out what sounds like a challenge. The shifters who are sitting
spring to their feet. Val takes two steps to the door before it crashes open. A
streak of tawny fury bounds at me.

A
huge black haunch knocks me aside and I land on my hip.

Val,
in his bull form, towers over the cat. He lowers his great head, curved horns touching
the floor, and snorts through his nostrils.

The
cat bats at Val’s horns. It paces and cries, trying to go past him to reach me.
Val tosses his head and the next snort flattens the cat’s facial fur.

The
other shifters look poised to change. The air is thick with musk which
overwhelms the cooking smells. The cat rolls its head and spits; Val lowers his
horns again and his right forehoof gouges shavings from the wood floor.

The
cat sinks to its belly, tail threshing back and forth, and snarls.

Val
morphs back to his human form, so fast he’s no more than a shimmer of hide and
horn before the muscle-bound man stands over the cat. His face is dark with
rage. “Delamore,” he bellows.

The
cat writhes, and a man lies on the floor in his place. He quickly surges to his
knees and hurls his hand at me. His voice is anguished. “She killed Layna
before my eyes!”

He
tries to leap upright but is buried in a mountain of naked male flesh as the
other shifters, excluding Val, leap on him. Two of them pull him up so he
kneels with arms forced behind his back. Throwing back his head, he yells as
tears stream down his face. I distinguish the words
Layna
, and
dead
.
What else he says is lost in unintelligible gabble.

“Get
Layna,” Val says. A tall, slim shifter hurries to the rear of the cabin.

Delamore
hangs his head and sobs. “Layna.”

His
anguish is a spectral hand clenched around my heart. I believe him. He saw me
kill the woman he loves. We share an uncanny bond formed by watching those we
deeply care for die, helpless to prevent it. Pity and sympathy wash away anger
and fear. I want to offer words of comfort but dare not go near him, and I
doubt he’ll hear me anyway; grief and the savage need to avenge his love grips
him.

“Do
you know what’s going on, Rain?” Castle asks, followed by, “Don’t reply, you’ll
look stupid talking to nothing.” As he has countless times before, he links his
hands behind his back and paces. “Seems to me the puma thinks you killed Layna,
whoever Layna is. But we know you didn’t and Val has sent for Layna.” He twirls
to face me. “The question is, my little cupcake, why would he believe, honestly
believe, he saw you kill Layna?”

A
spell.
The shifter is spelled.

Wiping
her hands on a towel, a honey-haired young woman rushes into the room. Muscles
roll beneath her smooth naked skin and I know I wouldn’t want to go up against
this one in a fight. Although flour dappling her cheek and chin indicate she’s
baking, the pack females are the hunters.

She
drops the towel, bends at the waist and takes Delamore’s face between her
palms, forcing him to look up at her. “Del, what is it?”

I
hold my breath. The shifters are tense and static mixes with the musky scent.
Silence pools around them.

“You
are dead,” Delamore finally says in a small, lost voice.

“No,
my dear. Can you not feel me?”

His
hands hesitantly settle over Layna’s, his voice breaks on the word. “Layna?”

He
slumps forward, his cheek on her belly and she wraps her arms around his head.
“I’m whole. No one hurt me, Del.”

“But
I saw,” he says huskily.

Val
is back in his chair, hands clasped on the arms. “What did you see, Delamore?”

Layna
moves her hands to Delamore’s shoulders so he can speak. “We were leaving
Gettaholt. She came from the deepest, darkest shadow.” His gaze finds me and
his voice turns guttural; his shoulders shake.

“But
you went alone to the city,” Layna says. “I have been here all day.”

“She
gutted Layna!” Delamore says as if he doesn’t hear her.

Her
fingers dig into his flesh. “No, Del. I’m here, with you.”

“You
did not sense the wraith’s approach?” Val asks.

Delamore
shakes his head against Layna’s stomach.

“And
you did not think it strange?” Val’s brows come together to form a single hairy
bar. “What then?”

“I
chased her through the streets. She tried to escape to a roof and I went after
her. She disappeared, but I knew she went into the building. I followed. I
almost had her. I sensed her near, a wall away, but she used her wraith magic
to elude me. I had to leave when the police came. I returned to Layna but her
body had gone.”

Val
asks, “When you saw the wraith kill Layna, were you alone in the vicinity? Did
you hear a voice or voices?”

Delamore
murmurs, “No,” before burying his face in Layna’s belly.

“Take
him to your room,” Val tells Layna as he heaves up from the chair. “Do not
leave him.”

Layna
gives him a quizzical frown. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I
mean, not for an instant, until the magic fades. Your presence proves to him what
happened was an illusion. You must be with him, to show him what
is
, or
he will go after the wraith again.”

“How
long will it take?” I ask.

“Not
long. Opposed by logic, the spell’s strength is already waning. As long as he
sees and feels Layna, Delamore knows he was tricked. Left to himself, it would
overpower him again before it runs its course.”

“Come,
my love.” Layna pulls Delamore to his feet. He lets her lead him up the
staircase.

When
they are out of sight, Val growls, “I will find whoever did this and kill
them.”

“Not
if I find them first.”

“Fair
enough. But we can help each other. Are you willing to share what you discover,
if anything?”

“I
am. You’ll do the same?”

His
smile makes my stomach roil. Should Val find the culprit first, he will be a
long time dying.

As
well as physically weary, I’m worn out from expounding by the time Castle and I
arrive at my apartment building. The hellion, the shifter, Castle’s murder?
Who? Why? I can’t think straight anymore.

“The
hellion was sent for us,” Castle muses.

“Obviously.
You can’t call forth a hellion on a whim.”

“Hey,
let me finish! But the shifter, maybe it was opportunity. They see a
potentially dangerous shifter nearby and throw a spell at him.”

“Which
means I’m being watched?” My shoulders slump. “Great.”

We
stop outside my building. “I’d better go in. Hope River’s asleep, or how am I
going to explain this?” I tug at the sweat shirt with both hands.

“You’ll
come up with something.”

“Have
to.” I push my hair off my forehead. “See you tomorrow?”

Castle
reaches out to me; his hand falls. “I’ll be here.”

“Will
you?”

“Always.”

Warmth
envelops me. Firm arms embrace me. Taut flesh cocoons me. Gentle, steady breathing
lifts the muscles of River’s chest against my spine. I should disentangle but am
too comfortable. I crack an eye; the dark-pomegranate-red of night still hangs
over the rooftops. I go to sleep again.

I
wake spooned to a hot body with a hard butt. I don’t remember switching
positions during the night, we must have moved in our sleep. Shuffling back, I
put a few inches between us. River loses flesh but doesn’t rouse.

Rubbing
my thumbs in the corners of my eyes, I ease from the bed, kneel at a cube and
select a gray button-up shirt, black jeans and the requisite underwear, and go
in the bathroom for the morning routine of brushing teeth, so on and so forth.
River is sitting up in bed when I come out dressed. He pinches his waist with
thumb and forefinger as though gauging how much flesh he carries. Blue, white
and red neon from the Maddox Market sign across the street flashes on his pale
skin, spattering him with rainbow colors. His eyes dart to me, wary as a
cornered animal.

I
speak softly. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“Great.
How long?”

“About
eleven hours.” Did he wake and find me gone? I wait, but he says nothing so I
guess he slept the night through.

He’s
all taut lean muscle and sleek flesh. Dark eyes with a hint of purple glimmer
behind tendrils of fine black hair. Remembering how he felt in my arms last
night, I’m glad embarrassment doesn’t give me red cheeks. I know, because I
checked in a mirror the first time it happened.

“I
slept, even like this.”

I
smile. “We should talk about the ways you can control your body.”

“We
should,” he agrees, angling his head, brushing one hand down the other arm.
“Rain, look, I just noticed it.”

The
scar on his upper arm. I squat next to him and pass a finger over it. He
twitches at the touch.

“Looks
like you were cut.” Every wound I receive disappears when I drop flesh, yet a
small jagged scar always decorates my shoulder, and three holes in each
earlobe, as if I once wore earrings. The scar and tiny holes were with me when I
woke Upside, along with my name and clothes.

Castle
got his ear pierced last year and wore a black diamond stud. The first time he
shed flesh, he spent ten minutes scrabbling on hands and knees trying to find
the thing in a filthy basement, only to discover the hole in his ear had closed
up.

“This
looks old. You already had it when you woke Upside, and the tats.” My fingers
smooth over his scar. He doesn’t flinch this time.

I
pull down my shirt’s shoulder to reveal the small blemish. “I’ve always had
this. I figure I got it before. I’ve been cut, bitten and burned since I came
Downside, but the wounds disappear when I entirely shed flesh and there are no
scars. But this one is always here.”

His
brow creases “Entirely shed?”

I
sit back on my heels. “Lesson number one: You know we increase body mass when you
and I touch, or are touched by a vampire, but we can do it to ourselves without
external compulsion. As we are now, we don’t have the weight of full flesh, but
we can manipulate our mass in different ways. I lose enough to become lighter if
I want or have to move fast. If I need more mass for something strenuous, I pull
it in. And completely shedding it is like . . . disappearing, except we don’t
really.” I want to reassure him with a touch. It seems a natural thing to do,
as if we are humans who touch casually, not wraiths who avoid contact because we
don’t want to force flesh on each other.

I
tell him we can disperse the components of our bodies and restore them to a
condition of unity. But I can’t describe the physical process or explain why we
can do it, and experience tells me everyone wants to know why, about
everything.  River looks totally at sea. I speak a language he doesn’t
understand.

“We
can go through solid objects.” I dip my chin and smile. “Though, there are
disadvantages. A neat trick when you want to escape trouble, but you lose what
you’re wearing and carrying and you’re blind. You can move, but you’re walking
in the dark.”

He
studies me intently. “Show me.”

My
head jerks back. “I said we lose what we’re wearing!”

“Right.”
He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Prove it.”

I
burst out laughing and he gives me a sidelong smirk.

I
wasn’t going to do this yet but smart-ass needs a demonstration. I walk to the
bathroom door and through it.

When
I come from the bathroom wearing the oversized T-shirt I slept in, River is right
outside standing over my small pile of clothes. His eyes are wide as I walk
past to the bed and plop down on it.

“Guess
you’re a believer now?”

He
joins me and sits down heavily. “What
are
we, Rain? In Manhattan, we are
ghosts as far as everyone is concerned. Were we dead there?”

I
have asked myself the question too many times to count. “I do have a theory,
but remember it’s a theory. We were alive Upside. We died, but for some reason
didn’t pass on to where the dead go. We stayed there as phantoms. But Downside magic
makes us real.”

“Why?
How?”

I
lift my shoulders. “How the magic works isn’t a science we can investigate.”

“Okay.”
He jiggles one fisted hand as if shaking dice, indicating frustration with
something he can do nothing about. “What about others like us and vampires
making us solid against our will?”

“Think
about it. Wraiths and vampires are the only entities who. . . .” I make my eyes
big and voice hollow, “.
. . .returned from a true death.”

He
doesn’t smile, so I guess a manic cackle will be wasted on him.

“Nothing
else can affect us?”

“Not
that I know of.”

We
don’t recall anything before we are
born
Upside, yet something remains
in the psyche. I knew I’d hate rare meat, like red wine, adore raw brown sugar
in coffee. And I got a sick sensation in my stomach when Castle and I were
Upside in Dallas and approached an alley. I couldn’t go down there. Where did
it all come from, if not a former life?

River
says, “Or were we
created
like this and the knowledge planted in our
heads?”

“Why
would anyone want to make something like us, what use are we Upside? Do you
mean by a deity or by science?”

“I
suppose neither option is logical.”

“Nothing
about us is logical. I’d strike out science. Castle has been - ” Pretending
Castle isn’t here will give me heartburn. “Castle was Downside forty years and he
told me Pine, over in Maltemore, has been here ninety. I expect there are
wraiths who are older. Not only is that an awful long science experiment, could
the technology have existed a century ago?” I flip one hand. “Anyway, it’s too
fantastical.”

He
snorts out a small laugh and cocks his thumb at the window and street beyond.
“And that isn’t?”

“You
have a point.” I grin and scratch behind my ear. He still can’t believe half of
what he sees out there.

“But
we were visible to the vampires in Manhattan.” River leans back on one elbow. “We
became real for the vampires but nobody else saw us. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I
wonder if Upside humans don’t perceive us because in their reality we are
impossible? They can’t, or refuse to, acknowledge what can’t exist.”

“But
they see the vampires, though they don’t know what they are. Why them and not
us?”

His
questions begin to irritate me again; it feels as if every other word is
why?
I don’t have answers and hashing it over is pointless. “Living Downside is
about accepting life as it is, not trying to find a reason for everything.”

“But
I’m talking about Manhattan.”

“You’re
not in Manhattan.” With a glare, I hop up, cross to the sink and pick up the
kettle. And remember I don’t have tea.

“Does
it bother you, that maybe you were human and are. . . .” he sweeps a hand down
his body, “. . . .like this?”

I
grimace. “I was like you when I first came Downside, looking for answers,
obsessing. I had ideas: bribe a vampire to go Upside with me, have them use
library computers to research, and make inquiries if necessary. But life got in
the way and what I may have been lost its relevance. I go with I am what I am.
All my memories are of the person I am now, who is
not
human.”

He
mulls it over and I hope he’ll give me a break, but he hasn’t finished. “You
said it’s a ‘
neat trick’
when we have to escape trouble. Plenty of call
for that, is there?”

I
sigh, and silently beg the gods for patience. “Our nature makes us uniquely
suited for specific work and it can be dangerous.”

“Like
rescuing Verity?”

“Uh
huh, but mostly I rid the city of undesirable elements, creatures which should
be elsewhere. Sometimes they don’t want to leave, they fight back.”

“You
work for the vampires?”

“I
work for anyone who pays me, providing the job is legal.”

Blessed
silence, but all too brief. He breaks it by asking, “Who’s Castle?”

The
kettle clangs on the stovetop. My shoulder muscles are so stiff, they hurt. My tone
is flat. “He was my partner. He’s dead.”

I’m
grateful he doesn’t ask for more. I can’t talk about Castle’s death yet, not to
a stranger, and that Castle has returned in a spectral form doesn’t alter anything.
He still died horribly.

“How
old were you when you came here?”

I
give River a weary look; he doesn’t get it. “I could say three days old,
because Castle found and brought me down three days after I woke. But whatever
we were before, if we existed before, we’re not human so everything your brain
tells you about the human lifespan, forget it. Our bodies don’t age like a
human body. I’m exactly the same as the day I arrived Downside.”

His
mouth is open and he closes it with a snap. “I’ll always look like this?”

“You’ll
look and
be
like this for most of your life,” I correct. “We get tired, sweat,
feel the heat and chill, hunger, thirst, but we don’t get sick.”

He
hunches over, arms folded on thighs. “But we do die.”

“Nothing
lives forever. Like humans, our natural lifespan is ninety to a hundred years.”

An
uncomfortable silence surrounds us. When his gaze suddenly zips to mine, I know
he’s made the connection. I told him Castle is dead and wasn’t Downside long
enough to die of natural causes.

I
speak before he can ask about Castle. Not that our death is something I relish
talking about, but he deserves to know. “We’re like this until near the end
when everything goes downhill. Our organs start shutting down and compared to a
human’s the aging process is accelerated, but not instant; we have some
warning.”

To
indicate this particular lesson is over, I jump up and point at the bathroom. “I
bet you’d like to shower. Go ahead.”

Obviously
irritated by the not so subtle diversion, he gives me a look, hisses air
through clenched teeth and shakes his head. But he takes the hint and goes in
the bathroom. The shower runs.

I
search for something to put on my feet. Did I throw out my old boots with the
cracked heel? Gods
damn
whoever took my other boots, along with my
clothes and weapons. I don’t lack knives but the leather coat and boots were broken
in and comfortable.

River
needs clothes and a toothbrush. He needs basic hygiene products. What do men
use? I’ll have to break into my stash under the floorboard to replace the
leather coat, boots, clothes and weapons I lost last night and get a few
necessities for River. Although Castle’s grave wiped out half my savings, I
have enough left to go shopping. I snort to myself - had I known he’d come
back, I could have buried him under a bush and saved the expense.

“I’m
gone two minutes and you already replaced me,” Castle says.

I
choke on a gasp and spin. Hands joined behind his back, Castle is near the
window. He rocks on his heels. “Hello, chickadee.”

His
gaze drifts down my torso. “Still stylish, I see.” His chin juts. “That’s my
shirt! You sleep in my old shirt?”

I
sink on the side of the bed. “You left it here. Why, do you want it back?”

“Oh
ha.”

“Have
you been watching all the time? I mean, can you hide from me?”

“Don’t
think so. I listened outside the door.” His gaze goes to the bathroom door.
“You slept with him?”

My
jaw drops. “We shared the same bed but nothing happened, not that it’s any of
your business.”

“You
can drop the indignation, sugarplum.”

I’m
piqued. “He was scared to fall asleep. You did the same with me,” I huff.