“Let me do this for you,” Cara said. I took a step back when Cara flashed into her full size and started gathering the Magrasnetto in her arms. She managed all of it with her left arm and picked up the staff with her right hand, leaving the second fairy bottle alone on the counter. Her wings trembled as she moved. I wasn’t sure if she was shaking from the effort of creating the bottles, but it seemed like a safe bet.
“Go home,” she said. “Come back tomorrow night. I’m going to pay a friend a visit.” Her face hardened as reality folded around her in a flash of white light and, oh so briefly, I glimpsed the dark star fields of infinity. Then she was gone.
“Well?” I said as I looked at Foster. “Ready to go sleep?”
Foster glanced toward the back room and the grandfather clock with an obvious expression of longing. He sighed and his face hardened as he turned back to me. “I have a vampire to kill, Damian. Colin was a good friend.”
“I rather thought you might say that.” I picked up an old brown bowler Frank had given me not too long ago and plopped it on my head. “Let’s go hunting.”
Foster snorted and stared at my head. “Yeah, you’re all ready to inspire fear and distress in the undead. I can tell.”
I grinned.
“Be careful, love,” Aideen said.
Foster kissed her lightly, pulled his sword from the wood, and sheathed it. He placed his hand on the center rune of the dark bottle beside him and it snapped into a size small enough to slide easily into the pouch on his hip. I offered him the other as well.
“Keep the bottle, Damian,” Aideen said, waving me away from Foster. “You have a use for it now.”
I shivered at the thought, but slid the bottle into my pocket anyway. “Aren’t you coming?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Colin was Foster’s friend. Vengeance is his duty alone.”
“Ah, is it alright if I drive, then, or does that conflict with duty?”
She and Foster both laughed.
“Yes,” Aideen said. “I’m sure tradition can withstand the presence of one lowly necromancer.”
“Lowly?” I said sharply.
Zola laughed and made her way to the back room. “I’ll be here with Aideen if you need me, boy.”
Aideen smiled and launched herself after Zola as Foster and I left. I turned and locked the door to the shop once we were outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Can I ask you something a little, well, uncomfortable, Foster?” I said as I walked toward Vicky. The old car sat on the cobblestone street, as silent and brooding as the fairy hovering at my shoulder.
Foster nodded once.
“Why would Colin’s death distract a vampire?” I said.
“You don’t know?” Foster’s eyes widened and his wings slowed down, causing him to list away from me.
I paused with my key in Vicky’s door and cocked an eyebrow.
“Right, why else would you ask?” He blew out a tiny breath and swooped in through the open window. “Fairies are pure fae, you know that, right?” he said as I sat down and buckled my seatbelt. “And I mean fae as in ley line energy, not Fae as in Sidhe.”
“Yeah, Zola’s told me a little bit about it, and I’ve read a few references to it, but I never really gave it much thought.” I backed out of the parking space and started the short but bumpy trip to the highway.
“Don’t feel bad. We never really give it much thought either until one of us dies.” Foster jumped up on the dashboard, hung his legs over the edge, and rubbed his eyes as I pulled onto Fifth Street. He sighed and said, “It’s pretty horrible. Not the kind of thing I’ll ever get used to. The body gets dissolved into the nearest ley line.”
“Ouch.”
“It’s worse than it sounds,” he said in a low voice.
“Really?”
He nodded. “I’ve only seen it a few times in battle, and some of our elders.” He moved his hands like he was kneading dough and said, “The skin and wings get pulled from every direction at once, stretching to grotesque lengths.” I could see him shiver out of the corner of my eye. “Then it all gives way, and you can actually hear their substance rip apart. The muscles bulge, and the blood, and organs, and …” he stopped and shook his head. “It’s horrible until the end. Once the body is torn apart and spread out, the entire being just breaks down into a dull rainbow of light and flows away into the nearest line. Much like our waste is absorbed back into the lines.”
“Like poo?” I said seriously.
Foster smiled, just a little. “You didn’t think we had indoor plumbing in your clock, did you?”
I laughed and shook my head. “I never really thought about it.”
“Death is a violent end for all Fae, even those of us who pass on in our sleep.”
I glanced at Foster. “So that’s how Colin’s death could have distracted the vampire?”
“Yes, because Colin would have died at his
proelium
size, not what you see of me now,” he said as he gestured at his own diminished wingspan. “There’s also some debate as to whether or not the dying feel their body being torn apart. Some scream, some don’t.”
I thought about a human being like that, shredded and disemboweled before they lit up like a snowy Christmas tree. The thought of being able to
feel
it as it happened? I grimaced. Envisioning a small fairy was bad enough, I couldn’t even imagine the mess a seven-foot-plus body would make.
“Fuck that, Foster.”
He snorted. “Yes, I think you win with the whole roasting on a funeral pyre or dying and slowly rotting away thing.”
“Never thought I’d agree with a comment like that, but you are absolutely right.”
Foster’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Where are we going to find the vampire?” I said. I didn’t see any reason to specify which vampire.
“If I know my bloodsuckers, he’s going to come for Karen again.”
“Really?”
“Yes, and it won’t matter who gets in his way. He’ll be too excited about the game.” Foster spat the word game, disgust obvious in his voice, as he rubbed his right hand over the lower edge of his wings. “Where does she work?”
“I think she works at Chesterfield Mall,” I said.
“That’s where we’ll find him.” Foster’s eyes narrowed and his fingers drummed on the hilt of his sword.
We pulled onto Highway 40 from Highway 94, headed toward the Chesterfield Valley. Once it had been nothing more than a flood plain. Now it was a thriving shopping center, miles long, with everything from Wal-Mart to a Lamborghini dealership. Only problem is, it’s still a flood plain.
Foster was silent until we crossed the bridge over the Missouri River. He pointed out the window toward a small island.
“Is that Howell Island?” he said.
“Yeah, I think so.” It was a decent-sized island in the middle of the river, normally covered in trees and green leaves at this time of year, but I couldn’t really tell in the dying sunlight.
“That’s about the thinnest disguise I’ve ever heard of,” he said as he waved his hand in a sharp dismissal. “The Midwest wolves of war are based there.” He paused again.
I kept my eyes on the road as my heart accelerated a few beats.
“Did you know that?” Foster said.
“Nope.” I glanced at Foster as I signaled to change lanes and let a semi pass.
“Do you know what the wolves are?”
I shrugged. “Something like the critters in my shop that keep putting holes in my leg? Only not green?”
Foster laughed outright. He gasped for air and barked out another series of laughs. After I was sure there had to be tears pouring down his face, he caught his breath and quieted down. “Thanks, Damian, I needed that.”
“It wasn’t that funny.”
“It does give quite a visual, though.”
I smiled. “Wolves of war, huh?”
“Yes, not the kind of bear you want to poke with a stick.”
I grinned. “There’s no such thing as a bear you don’t poke with a stick.”
Foster shook his head. “They’re shapeshifters, Damian, werewolves.”
I almost drove Vicky into the triangle of yellow barrels at the exit to Clarkson Road. There was a high-pitched scream beside me just before I remembered to slam on the brakes and yank on the wheel as the car slowed down. I gaped at Foster. “Um, what did you say?”
He was screaming again. “I said you almost hit the highway impact attenuation devices!”
“The what?”
“The barrels! The big fucking yellow barrels!”
“Oh.” I said as I flexed my hand on the wheel. “Well, you just told me shapeshifters are living ten miles from my store, from my home. That kind of has an impact on a person.”
“Why?”
“Shapeshifters aren’t supposed to exist anymore,” I said in a flat voice.
“You necromancers are an odd bunch. Zombie horde? No problem. Going to the mall to kill a vampire? No problem. A pack of werewolves lives in my city? The world is bloody ending!”
“A
what?!”
I concentrated on the road and managed not to curb Vicky.
“A pack, the Saint Louis pack.”
I blinked and shook my head. “Are you just screwing with me?”
Foster laughed again. “No, I will swear by my sword I am not. Carter only lives about three minutes from the shop, just off Fifth Street. He’s been in our store a few times.”
I felt my eyebrows reach for the sky. “No more surprises before we find the vampire that attacked Karen. Good god man, werewolves?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Foster bobbed through the air in the front seat as I pulled around the outer circle of Chesterfield Mall. We passed the movie theater and a few restaurants in the broad building before we came to the Dillard’s entrance on the east side. As we made it further around the circle, the small parking garage came into view on the north side of the mall. I do mean small, it only held about fifteen or twenty vehicles. This late, only employee cars were in the lot.
“Something will be out of place,” Foster said.
I nodded and turned up the center lane of the parking lot that led to the garage. BMWs, Mercedes, Cadillacs, and a few mid-priced but very nice sedans lined the lot. There was only one car that didn’t fit in with the rather affluent area.
“There,” Foster said as I drew the same conclusion.
Just outside the entrance to the parking garage was a battered blue van. Vampires Suck was spray painted in dripping red letters across the side of the behemoth.
“Subtle,” I muttered. “I almost missed that one.”
I parked Vicky several spaces away from the van. I hoped it would be far enough away if things got nasty. Foster was silent in the dead air, the only sound a tiny squeak of leather as his hand flexed around his sword’s hilt.
“There’re cameras in the garage, I’m guessing.”
“Not for long,” he said.
I opened the door and Foster shot out ahead of me. A small shower of sparks lit up one corner of the garage in a burst of light before Foster came back to my side. He swooped close and flashed into his full-sized form as he sheathed his sword. My eyes wandered around, wondering what people might think if they saw a seven-foot fairy walking around in Chesterfield Mall. A second later, I smacked my forehead.
“They can’t see you.”
“Of course not,” he said. He let out a low chuckle and grinned. “You wanted me to take out the cameras for both of us, not just you?”
“Yeah,” I said as I rolled my eyes, “it’s easy to forget normal people can’t see you.” I glanced up at Foster. He grinned again, stretched his wings, and stepped toward the van. His hand returned to the sheathed sword as he braced himself with legs spread and knees bent. With a twist at his waist, the sword screamed out of the scabbard and sparked through the van’s rear doors in one quick slash. The lock was rendered useless.
Foster sheathed his sword and stood up straight. “You have your bottle?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he said as he patted his in the belt on the left side of his waist. He pulled the handle on the right door. The half of the door below the slash swung open.
“Neat trick,” I said. My hand was firmly wrapped around the pepperbox concealed under my left arm.
He smiled and pulled the top half open, and then I could see inside. I hadn’t fully registered what I was looking at before I turned around and puked all over the landscaping.
“Shit,” was all Foster said.
Pieces of bodies were hanging from the ceiling on meat hooks, gently swaying from Foster breaking the doors apart. Hands and feet, legs, heads, and more layered the ceiling and the walls and the floor. A pile of limbs was stacked in what looked like a copper fire pit. Intestines were draped above the windows like gory valences.
It took me a minute to look again. “Christ, is Karen in there?” I said in a weak whisper.
Foster shrugged. “I don’t know what she looks like, but I don’t think the van would still be here if she was.” I cringed as Foster stepped inside the mobile slaughterhouse.
“Damian, I think there are wards in here.”
I took a deep breath and stuck my head in the van, shivering as I realized the floor I’d just put my hand on had been upholstered in skin. Foster pointed to the wall with a three-layered circle enclosing dozens of runes. I focused my Sight and grimaced as the area around the runes started pulsing with a sickly black and red energy. “Demon wards,” I muttered. “Wonderful.”
“No, no no no no no,” Foster hissed as he bent down to the floor.
I didn’t even want to ask, but “What is it?” came out of my mouth anyway.
“Not just vampires,” Foster said. “Humans, and there’s a—,” his voice hitched, “Nudd be damned, there’s a fucking kid in here!”
My heart sank. I watched Foster pull a little arm out of a pile of detritus and his head whipped around to me. I could see the rage behind the tears in his eyes as he closed his hand around the little fingers and laid the tiny piece of a life on the floor. “Get back,” he growled.
I did, and fast.
Foster’s howl shattered the night. It grew into a scream as his body began to glow. Swirls of orange and red flickered into being around him, spinning faster and growing thicker as he called on the wild fae. A swirling sphere of color like the storm clouds of Jupiter swallowed the van and Foster with it. The entire scene burst into a nova of flame and I closed my eyes against the light, the blast of heat hitting me like a desert wind. Foster’s scream fell silent. I heard his sword slide out of its sheath as he stepped from the smoke and flame. His body and wings were covered in soot, but no burns marred his flesh.