The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge (28 page)

It couldn’t have been a dream, she thought. It was all so real. The nightmare chase through a Dickensian rookery, the psycho with the giggle, the daemon—oh, Goddess, she had made a bargain with a daemon! What had she agreed to? Her thoughts went round like clothes in a tumble drier.

Her Jimmy Choos stood beside the bed, unmarked. Why weren’t they ruined? It couldn’t have all been a nightmare, could it?

Like many crooks, Rosalynne had a high capacity for optimistic self-delusion. Deep down she knew that truth was what you believed it to be and the events of the night before were already fading. She jumped out of bed and pulled on a wrap. Light streamed in when she threw back the curtains. Her bedside clock showed that it was almost midday. She went into the bathroom and ran the hot tap. She squirted a generous portion of Foxy Lady body oil into the steaming water, savoring the rich scent of musk and jasmine.

Rosalynne flashed back, hanging over bubbling urine. She couldn’t get her breath. She gripped the bath with both hands until her knuckles whitened. Slowly, she got her breathing under control. She had not had a panic attack for months. When each breath was slow and deep she straightened up. She should take more care of herself. This wasn’t good.

Rosalynne examined herself in the mirror. Maybe she was putting on a little weight? Henry had put too much tonic water in her gin. That thought reminded her of the Blind Beggar and the daemon. She dismissed the heretical memory. Maybe it was all a nightmare, or some sort of magical attack from an enemy too gutless to take her on face to face? That made sense.

Rosalynne slipped the wrap off her shoulders to make a more intimate examination. Her reflection had a smudge on her left breast. She rubbed a hand over the blemish, but it didn’t come off. She looked down, lifting her breast. It wasn’t a smudge; it was a tattoo, a tattoo of a gargoyle with stubby wings and a single horn on its nose. She pulled the gown around her body.

“Oh, bugger!” Rosalynne said, softly. She had a daemon mark, what Aleister Crowley called the Mark of the Beast. At one time, you could get burnt just for having such a thing. The clergy believed it signified a pact with the devil or one of his minions. The clergy were not entirely deluded.

Rosalynne took a deep breath.

“Oh sodding bugger,” she said, sincerity making up for lack of imagination.

She slid her wrap open and checked the gargoyle again. It turned its head to look up at her and winked. She felt a pull as if an invisible rope was tugging at her stomach. The contractions built up in waves, like giving birth. It ended in one almighty wrench that felt like she was being pulled inside out, like a rubber glove.

Rosalynne felt the resumption of the panic attack. She bent over on the bath to catch her breath. Someone goosed her. She jumped, squeaking indignantly, panic attack forgotten. The daemon, in his mister tall, dark and handsome form, leaned against the wall. He wore the same sardonic smile. She licked her lips.

“I’m your pathway to this world. That’s what you wanted from me. You couldn’t get in without having a native familiar. How long did I sign up for?” she asked.

“Only the standard short contract for a thousand days. A witch’s life isn’t worth more,” it replied.

“Three years,” she said, doing a rough calculation.

“One thousand Black Citadel days,” said the daemon, smugly. “About fifty London years, I fancy.”

“What!” Rosalynne said. “Fifty years as a door.”

“Not just a door, beautiful witch, although that is a useful attribute,” said the daemon. “I own you body and soul for the duration of the contract, the most beautiful, valuable jewel in my collection.”

Rosalynne didn’t like the way it lingered on the word “body” and pulled her wrap tighter.

“You set it all up to ensnare me. You planned everything,” she said.

“Down to the last detail, beauty,” the daemon said. “I ran you like a rat in a maze.”

“But how could you know that I would use high-energy magic against Karla in the Beggar?” Rosalynne asked. “That opened the door for you. Without that, you couldn’t have got into the pub in the first place. You couldn’t have known that Jameson would search for me there, unless . . .”

She looked at the grinning daemon with dawning comprehension. “Unless Henry tipped them off and set the whole thing up.”

“You get there in the end, beauty,” the daemon said. “Henry owed me a favor and you had pissed him off once too often.”

“But I could have been killed,” Rosalynne said.

The daemon shrugged. “You wouldn’t have been much use to me if you couldn’t look after yourself. Henry reckoned you were a survivor, completely amoral and ruthless. I think he likes you. He wants to borrow you but I don’t share my possessions. Well, not unless I get a really good offer.”

The daemon advanced on her. Rosalynne retreated step by step until she was against the wall. It stepped in really close and kissed her on the lips. She tried to punch but it held her wrists. It was incredibly strong. It pushed her arms over her head and pinned them against the wall with one hand, pushing her wrap open with the other.

She kicked between its legs but it was quick, as fast as Karla. It turned its thigh and she bruised her knee on hard-packed muscle. It stroked the underside of her breast and kissed her again.

“The most beautiful, valuable jewel in my collection,” it repeated, almost fondly.

It caressed her breast. When its thumb rubbed over the daemon mark, waves of pleasure rippled up and down her body. Her knees turned to jelly. It let go of her arms and she draped them around its neck.

“Bastard,” she said.

It was naked. How had that happened? She offered no resistance when strong hands parted her thighs. He slid into her and she surrendered to him, collapsing on his hard, masculine body.

“You bastard,” she repeated, in case he hadn’t got the message first time around. She kissed him savagely.

“What a beauty,” he said, when she came up for air.

* * *

Rosalynne lay back in her bath listening to the hiss of popping bubbles. She ached all over, a satisfied, fulfilled sort of ache, like one got at the end of a successful gym session. The bastard had enjoyed her body, thoroughly.

She had difficulty sorting her emotions out. She had never surrendered completely to a man, never given anyone that power over her. It was wonderful and terrifying, all at the same time. She had given herself to a daemon, not a man. Was that better or worse? She couldn’t decide. He owned her body and soul, for the next fifty years. Then there was the matter of Henry and what retribution she could deliver for his treachery. Bastards, all men were bastards.

The Commission wouldn’t give up until they had a body. The name on her flat’s lease was an alias but, sooner or later, they would find her. Rosalynne blinked back tears; her beautiful flat was her home, her refuge, and she didn’t want to leave. She had worked so hard for it. It just was not fair. She always had to run.

Rosalynne looked down at the gargoyle mark on her breast. It winked at her suggestively, and she felt the tug of her magical connection with her daemon, her owner. Bastard!

She would have to flee. She had no chance against the Commission’s enforcers. She played back her encounter with them in her mind. Jameson was dangerous but Karla was bloody terrifying.

She remembered the possessive way Karla had looked at Jameson and a new idea occurred to her, an odd and interesting idea. Her daemon was very pleased with his new possession. How would her daemon, her very powerful daemon, react to a threat against his beautiful witch?

Rosalynne had spent her whole life in the shadows hiding, running when she couldn’t hide. Maybe she did not have to hide anymore? There was more than one sort of power. It remained to be seen who owned whom.

A slow grin spread across her face. The gargoyle on her breast winked at her and she winked back. She lowered herself deeper into the bath water, blowing bubbles while making plans.

After all, beauty is a witch.

JOHN LAMBSHEAD
was born in Cornwall in the 50s in the seaside resort of Newquay. He was educated in London at Brunel University and worked as a British Museum research scientist until his recent semiretirement, publishing many scientific papers. He has always had a second life, storyboarding computer games and writing radio plays, popular military history, and, latterly, fantasy. His first novel,
Lucy’s Blade
, was published by Baen in 2006. He is married with two grown-up daughters.

He supplied these notes about his story:

“Beauty is a Witch” is a story about London, East London, the industrial city east of London Town and north of the Thames, that dates back to Medieval times. This is the city unvisited by the tourist. It has been the home of poverty, criminality, and depravity on an unimaginable scale. East London names like Jack the Ripper (1888) and the Kray Twins, leaders of Britain’s most feared organized crime syndicate in the 1960s, still resonate in popular culture. It is the traditional entry point for immigrant waves to the UK. Huguenot, Irish, Jews, Lebanese, Turks have all lived there and left their mark. The current newcomers are Bangladeshi.

There is a real Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel, but you will find it quite unlike my entirely fictional description. The original blind beggar was Henry de Montfort, son of Simon de Montfort who set up the first elected parliament in Europe. Legend has it that Henry was blinded at the battle of Evesham and wandered as a beggar until he reached Bethnal Green, where he begged on the old Roman road. He was befriended by a baroness with whom he had a child, Besse—who gave her name to Besse Road. Booth launched the Salvation Army outside the Blind Beggar, and Ronnie Kray really did shoot George Cornell to death in the bar. Cornell was associated with the rival South London Richardson crime syndicate—the torture gang.

East London is now home to gleaming towers of chrome and glass, the largest financial center in the world. They still gamble there, but now with trillions of dollars rather than a handful of gold sovereigns. The girls still ply the oldest trade, but the modern belle de jours charge three hundred pounds an hour and the cost of a luxury hotel room and taxi. It’s a far cry from the penny knee-trembler in a dirty alley. Cocaine has replaced gin as life’s little helper. Criminals still flourish but they use computers rather than razors.

Old East London is still there, if you know where to look: a plaque on a modern building, or a piece of wall that survived both the Blitz and Heseltine’s bulldozers. If you look carefully out of the corner of your eye, as the sun drops over the Thames into Kent, you may catch the shadow of a top hat and cane or a trilby and pistol. If you are really fortunate you might see a blind beggar on the Roman road. If you do, give him a couple of pounds—for luck.

THE LONG DARK NIGHT
OF DIEGO CHAN

MARK L. VAN NAME

“Sam’s gone over,” the first line of the text message said.

“You said you’d help if it ever came to this,” the second continued.

“It has.”

“Barbara.”

Diego Chan kept running but reversed direction and headed back to the Super 8 that was passing for home this week. His legs carried him easily, his heart beat a steady rhythm, and his muscles moved smoothly and with power. He brushed the sweat from his eyes and thumbed a response, “Okay.” He sent it on its way through the three redirectors that would mask its origins before it reached her.

He pulled up the tracking display on his phone: five miles out, a hair over seven minutes a mile so far, over thirty-five minutes to make it back. Not good enough. He pushed harder but not so hard that anyone would notice. That wouldn’t buy him much time, but if she was right, the clock had started ticking a while ago.

The morning sun was still coming into its own when he reached the motel thirty-one minutes later.

* * *

“I can’t believe he chose this,” Barbara said. “He was sick, real sick—pancreatic cancer—and he knew he was probably going to die, but he had decided to fight it. He’d been at it for two months.”

Chan froze. Sam hadn’t contacted him. Once, Sam would have told him anything that mattered. That was a long time ago, though. A long time.

“Did you hear me?” she said.

“Yes.” Chan moved the phone to his right hand and resumed toweling himself dry. “Did he file new paperwork?”

“No,” she said. “What you have is all there is. That’s part of why I’m sure. The rest is . . .” she paused, “you know, he’s just too strong. Even sick.” She paused again as her voice caught. “If he did decide he wanted to change, he’d talk to me first. I know he would.”

“Yes,” Chan said. “He would.” He put the phone back in his left hand as he began to dress. “Why do you think this happened, that one of them took him?”

“He’d mentioned approaches from some guy, Matt something, somebody he said you both knew from a long time ago. Said the guy had heard about his cancer and wouldn’t give up. Asked him to come to a club he owned.”

Yeah, a long time, as far back as Chan had memories, all the way to the first foster home. When Matt had decided to make the move, Chan hadn’t liked it, but Matt had done it straight, filed the paperwork, gone over, what, maybe six years ago now.

“When?” Chan said.

“I can’t be sure,” she said, “but they usually leave the restaurant about one, sometimes two, so after that.” Her voice trailed off. “He’s never come home later than three. Never.”

From anyone else, Chan would have considered this an overreaction, encouraged them to wait a day for the missing person to show up, but not Barbara. Sam was never late and kept every appointment.

Chan checked the time: 7:00 a.m. here in Raleigh, 4:00 in San Francisco. Sam leaves no earlier than one, no later than two, so roughly a two- to three-hour window from when he left work to now. Matt would play it smart, ask to talk to Sam, lure him over, maybe spend an hour doing all of that. One to two hours already ticked off. Twenty-two he could reasonably count on, twenty-three if he was lucky.