Ink and Shadows (9 page)

“Yeah, I know it’s a wraith. I’ve been doing this for a while, Cooties,” Ari snarled, noticing the trail of blood on his car. “Lying bastards always leave a mess. And didn’t I tell you to stay in the car?”

“He wanted to pass along some information about a disturbance,” Mal said, jerking his head in the wraith’s direction. “And he wasn’t lying.”

“What did you trade? They always want something.” Ari ducked around the Volvo’s squared-down front, trying to find the wraith’s location amid the confusion of frightened mortals. Another hydrant nearby burst open from the overloaded water pressure, shorn bolts shattering through the windowpane of a used book store.

The air shimmered around its body, and the Veil thinned around its massive frame, then broke, allowing the wraith to pass into the real world. Howling, its roar shook the Mustang’s windows. Coiling its powerful body, it struck out at the guard, its solidifying talons raking open the man’s shoulder.

“Shit twice! Damn thing is out of the Veil,” Ari growled “We need to kill it, and here I am stuck with you.”

In the distance, sirens wailed, and blue-and-red lights bounced off buildings in the distance. The
creature’s dark shape hovered over the fallen man, his body too still for Ari’s liking. Slavering at the man’s
torso, the wraith sniffed carefully, nosing the mortal aside. The creature’s nose passed through the man’s
flesh, and streaks of sticky black caught on the mortal’s skin. Strings of gummy pitch snapped off the
wraith’s muzzle, wriggling tendrils slithering back into the man’s torso.

“How did you know I traded something?” Mal wondered if he should attempt to pull the man free
from the wraith’s attention. A large section of the hydrant’s base rocked on its edge near the man’s head,
blood beginning to pool from the slashes across his throat. Mal watched as the redcap furtively shuffled
from behind a nearby shrub to the dubious safety of a column, the redcap’s tongue working
hungrily at his lips.

“They don’t give anything away for free and usually give you something you can find out
yourself.” Ari fixed a pointed glare at Mal. “I’m asking you again, what did you trade? Nothing from my
car, right?”

“No, he was happy with the towel I used to sop up the blood I was going to get all over your precious carpet,” Mal snapped back. “I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“You fucking idiot.” Ari’s fist clenched, and he told himself not to crack open Mal’s skull. Death warned him off the last time he’d struck Mal into unconsciousness. “You gave him your blood?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. I wasn’t using it anymore. I was done bleeding out. Didn’t have any plans to put it back in me, being dried and all.” Mal got up onto his knees, feeling each pebble under his shins. “It wasn’t a lot of blood. How much could he have gotten from it?”

“A dried towel can be soaked with water to bring the blood back up, and there was a lot of your blood on that rag.” Ari cursed the younger Horseman’s foolishness. “Shit, why didn’t you just stab a seraphim, pull out its wings, and give him those as well?”

“You know, I’m getting kind of tired of you thinking I know everything.” A hedge went flying, sections of sidewalk being ripped up by the creature’s claws, the water pipes below bursting as the shadow came into contact with the cold iron. The sirens drew nearer, and the shadow fed off the chaotic emotions streaming from the frightened crowd. “Besides, how much power do I have? I’m Pestilence, remember? You’re always telling me I’m the least of the Horsemen.”

“Quit your whining, Pest. That thing is tearing this place and those humans apart.” Ari spotted the wraith. “Come on. Guess you’re better than nothing.”

Stepping into the main parking lot, the wraith crouched down and inhaled deeply, tracking something on the ground. The creature turned its massive head, following the scent, then with a sharp jolt, scrambled past the crowds and broke into a full run. Ari swore as the wraith tore past them. “Come on, it’s moving. Let’s follow it.”

“Do you think that’s smart?” Mal protested as Ari manhandled him into the Mustang. “Okay, so it’s probably what Death would want us to do, but—”

“Shut up!” Ari cut him off, gunning the engine and pulling out of the space, barely dropping the transmission into drive before barreling out of the driveway. He handled the drifting end of the Mustang with a skilled ease, strong hands gripping the steering wheel. One of the back tires jumped the curb, giving the car a little bump as they hit the pavement and roared onto the street.

“Again, thinking this isn’t the wisest thing to do.” Mal grabbed at the molded armrest. “You think
you can keep up with that wraith in this?”

“If I can’t keep up with a wraith in this Mustang, I’ll eat Death’s Vanquish.”

“You might be doing that anyway when he sees what happened to his car,” Mal retorted, closing his eyes as they squealed around a slow-moving minivan. “You’re going to kill us. Sometimes I think you like seeing how far you can take things just to see if you can kill me and blame it on something else.”

“You know, for someone who is immortal, you sure spend a lot of time complaining that you’re
going to die.” A motorcycle cut in front of the careening Ford. Ari slammed on his brakes and
downshifted, zipping through a tiny space between two lumbering trucks. “Now let me drive. Unless you
see that thing, then tell me where the hell it went.”

“I think it went down that street.” Mal pointed down a tight, curvy bend, lawn signs spotting the grass ponds bravely growing between lengths of sidewalk. “Either that or they’re making VWs a lot uglier these days.”

“Let’s see if we can catch up with it.” Ari pressed down on the gas, cutting the corner sharply. “It might lead us to where the Veil started thinning.”

“How much thinner can it get? That thing came through it,” Mal squeaked, slamming against the
passenger door as Ari made another tight turn. “It just closes back up, right? Doesn’t a tear just close
back up?”

“It’s supposed to. Sometimes it doesn’t. Then shit happens.” Ari slowed down, eyes scanning the area for the wraith. Spotting a quick-moving shadow cast on a building’s exterior, he hurried the Mustang along. “One of the crazies behind the store—”

“Don’t call them that, Ari,” Mal muttered.

“So the crazy guy I ran into told me he’s been seeing things walk through. Small things like spirits and bogeys, but still, that’s not a good thing.” Ari swore as another car cut in front of his path. “Where small things can come through, eventually bigger things can. That’s never been a good thing in the past. Don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’m worried that one over there came through uninvited. If it did, then we’re fucked.”

“You think a wraith that big came through without being summoned?” Mal’s throat suddenly felt dry.

“No. Shit, maybe,” Ari replied, jerking the wheel to the side to avoid a trash can lying in the street. “I think the Veil weakening isn’t what someone wanted. If someone wanted to bring something over, something
big over, it would be stretched in one spot just long enough for that something to cross over. Then it
would snap back. A summoning is just a breach. It wouldn’t thin the Veil. This is wrong.”

“Someone bringing a wraith over isn’t wrong?” Mal shouted as he spotted the canine-like creature pawing at the base of a streetlamp, canting its head as it tracked a scent. “What can be much more wrong than that?’

“A lot of things can be called from the Veil, but they can be controlled. Maybe not by us but controlled by someone,” Ari said. “If nasty, big things can just walk through, this place is going to go to shit and fast. Those things don’t kill easy when they’re behind the Veil. Nearly impossible if they’ve crossed over.”

He’d half listened to Death and Ari talk about the past, of enormous creatures formed from the shadows and feeding off entire towns before they could be killed. “This isn’t anything but bad, then?”

“Very bad,” Ari agreed. “Now let’s find out where that damned monster is going.”

T
HE
CREATURE
plunged for him, curving past his shoulder and slamming into the wood paneling behind him. Chilled, he shivered, a frost pouring over his right arm where the form touched him. His shoulder ached where its minute nails dug into his skin. Pulling up the sleeve of his shirt, he blew on the welts bubbling up, furrows of blisters running from his chest and over his forearm.

All around him, the room churned, once pitch-black shadows now separating into distinct shades
of blue and gray amid swirls of dusky red. Eyes formed in the crevices of the walls, following the lines of
the paneling, painted sienna highways for blinking orbs. Sometimes a nose would push outward, bending
the fake wood around the protuberance, nostrils flaring as they sniffed at the air. Just the hint of a face,
the side of a jaw or a cheekbone, dimpled with gouges that leaked more shadow. Fingers started to
press at the cracks, forcing sharpened talons into the room, then snapping back, not quite strong enough
to push through.

Kismet hooked his hands over the edge of the uneven mattress and stared at the blossoming world in his room. Thin shades of people carried on through the walls, some glancing his way and marking his presence before disappearing. He almost fell from the bed, found his balance, then headed to the door.

The cold air outside made him shiver, chilling the moistness of his sweat under his thin T-shirt. Wrapping his arms tight about his thin chest, Kismet stood still, drinking in the changes in the world he saw laid out in front of him.

The moon hung low over the far-off hills, poking in and out of a string of clouds. The neighbors
were still on the walkway, their voices a scream of noise under a curtain. Kismet could no longer make
out what they were saying or if they were doing any talking at all, their mouths moving in a rapid shushed
whisper. Luis, a man Kismet knew rarely raised his voice, screamed soundlessly at his girlfriend. The heat of her anger was tempered only slightly by the irrational craziness set into the lines of her face, and she
faced Luis to give him a piece of her mind.

“Hey!” Kismet rubbed at his arms, trying to get the chill out of his skin. “You guys okay? Luis, maybe you guys need to take a walk.”

The woman struck at her boyfriend’s face, the silent slap leaving an angry red mark over his whiskered cheek. Luis’s mouth turned ugly, shouting back in a silent roar. She responded, eyes filling with fear when Luis stepped closer, body tense with fury. Her hands raised, a gold bracelet glittering on her wrist, she tried to push Luis away. Stronger and heavier, he didn’t budge and shoved her back into the cinder-block wall.

Kismet moved forward a step, then stopped. A child-shaped curling smoke floated between the
couple, growing brighter with each second, its face visible as it turned about in the air. Almond-shaped
black eyes, lacking whites, wrapped about its triangular face, its features growing stronger with each
breath that buffeted its body. Sharp teeth curled over its lips, a thin slash of menace above a pointed chin.
The thing spotted Kismet, alarm widening its mouth into an
O
. It moved forward, as if to intercept him, then
skidded to a stop, its spindly arms flailing back hastily as a shadow loomed behind the young man.

Luis grabbed at the woman, digging into her arms with his hands and yanking her against the building’s side. Her mouth contorted in a noiseless scream, she tore at his face, burned red-painted fingernails raking into his cheek. They took no notice of the pale young man standing near them.

A hot wind burst on Kismet’s shoulders, warming the chill from his body. It carried with it a faint odor of decay. While the heat was strangely welcome, Kismet had a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t like what was behind him. The smoky wraith took one last inhalation of the argument and plunged down into the shadows at Luis’s feet, disappearing into the black.

“God, what the hell is going on?” He wanted to turn around. To be honest with himself, he wanted to walk back into his room and shut the door behind him. “Look behind you, Kiz. Can’t be anything worse than what’s in front of you.”

The heat was growing, and Kismet reluctantly twisted around, then immediately regretted it.

A doglike creature stood a few feet from him, massive feet spread apart to support its wide body. Panting, it ducked its head and sniffed hard at him, drool foaming along its folded-over lips.

Its head was nearly as big as Kismet’s, a thick fur spottily spread over its skull, pointed ears
flopping down to the sides. Kismet could make out its shoulders rising up behind it, its body sloping down
to its narrow hips. Its nails clicked and caught on the artificial turf laid out along the
walkway’s edge, making a soft snicking noise as it walked.

“Oh, fuck me,” he whispered under his breath, his panic rising in short bursts along his torso. The monster swallowed, its throat working its neck’s strong muscles, its chest rippling with the effort.

Wrinkled brindle skin, spotted and flaking, covered its flanks, strands of wispy hair clustered on its hip bones. Its eyes glowed as it approached, and its rank smell assaulted Kismet’s nose.

When the creature came closer, Kismet stepped back, his foot hitting the walkway and catching
on the turf. Caught on the uneven edge, he went down to his knees, the plastic faux grass skinning his
palms. The violent motion wrenched his already touchy stomach, and he retched, choking on his own
vomit as he tried to get back up onto his feet to run. Wanting to disappear like the smoke thing he’d seen,
Kismet twisted onto his back, prepared to kick out at the monster.