Lethal Control, page 16
part #3 of The DuPage Parish Mysteries Series
“For the drama,” I said. “And so we can make up.”
“We don’t have to fight to have sex.”
“You’re missing the point: it’s not just sex. It’s make up sex. And everybody knows make up sex—”
Dag grabbed my arm, yanking me back a step.
Then I saw the body.
It was a man, white, in a dark windbreaker that had flapped open to expose the gun holstered at his waist. He looked like he’d fallen mid-step. I crouched, trying to make out the rise and fall of his body. He was breathing—slow, deep breaths.
I stood, glanced at Dag, and shrugged.
He tilted his head the way we had come.
I pointed at the house. When he shook his head, I pointed again, more emphatically, and took a step. He caught my arm, but he let me shake him off.
We’d gone twenty yards, the smell of cypress and moss and soft earth filling the darkness, when he whispered, “Something is seriously wrong, E. We need to fall back and regroup.”
“Yeah, something is wrong. That means we need to figure out what’s going on and get Reb out of here.”
“Eli—”
“This is an opportunity.”
Dag opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, cheers erupted from the back of the house. My brain decoded: male voices, raucous, drunk, with a high-voltage excitement that raised the hair on the back of my neck. We traded a look, and then Dag quickened his pace, passing me as he rerouted us to follow the side of the house.
As we made our way toward the back, I caught a whiff of something—something musky in the dark, like overheated animals, and charcoal and sizzling meat, and a metallic tang at the back of my throat. Other sounds filtered through the trees: the hub of voices, men talking over each other, shouts and calls of encouragement and dismay. Then a dog yelped, the sound cracking the night, and my stomach dropped.
Face dark, Dag shook his head.
The closer we got, the louder the sounds became: the snap of teeth, furious snarls, whimpering that faded under a fresh outburst of growls. Another dog yelped, the sound rising until it cut off suddenly. The wind shook the trees again. I was so cold the tips of my fingers ached; I could almost see it inside my head, the cold, the deep blue of a glacier’s heart, ice compacted under its own weight until it had the kind of mass that could trap light.
When we came around the back of the house, the trees ended in a sharp line, and a wide, well-kept lawn unrolled in front of us. On that wide expanse of close-cropped grass, someone had built a ring out of cypress boards and thick posts, the sides waist-high on an average man. Men crowded around the wooden ring, leaning over the boards, jostling their neighbor for a better look, slapping each other on the backs, shouting, laughing, calling out contradicting suggestions. A dog howled, and another cheer went up. They held longneck beers and highball glasses, and the smell of their sweat and whiskey and lime mixed with the hot-animal stink.
As men shifted and moved, I could see into the ring. Reb faced off with four massive dogs. Reb was still the skinny blond boy I’d seen before, although now his Red Man t-shirt hung from him in shreds, exposing the slender musculature of arms and chest, and his cut-offs were rusty with blood. His arms had been bitten to hell—deep puncture wounds and jagged tears where, I imagined, the dogs had held on as he tried to shake them off. Finally, my gaze moved to his face, and for a moment, I thought he’d painted his mouth like a clown. Then I realized that gore ringed his lips, and my stomach turned.
The dogs surrounding him were the only explanation I needed. They were big dogs, almost completely white except for the occasional black spot on their heads—powerfully built, and tall enough that if they lifted their muzzles, they could probably clear the cypress boards. One’s flank was soaked with blood; another had a dark cowl of it around its neck. A fifth dog lay on the floor of the ring, panting heavily. As I watched, one of the standing dogs lunged, and Reb spun toward it, growling. The dog pulled back, but one of its packmates darted forward, and Reb pivoted to club it on the side of the head. The dog whimpered and drew back. They took turns like that, darting forward, probing for weakness. It was obvious that, whatever advantage Reb had, he had either used it up or was hesitant to draw on it now.
“Why hasn’t he changed?” Dag said under his breath, and I shook my head.
I scanned the crowd, trying to decide the next approach. Men clumped up, shouting odds, passing chits and cash back and forth. Others lined up for chow at the row of massive stainless-steel barbeque grills, where men in white jackets served sausage links and steak and chicken. Some men drank and chatted, oblivious to the fight. And others, like Joey Jaws, were glued to the ring.
He’d changed clothes since the last time I saw him, and he wore an expensive-looking sweater and chinos and leather derbies that had to be hand made. He was leaning into the ring, his face purple as he screamed at Reb to attack. It was obvious that Joey thought he’d gotten snookered on this deal. In one hand, he waved a cattle prod, and from time to time he waved it like he meant to stretch into the ring and use it. He didn’t, though; I didn’t think even Joey was that stupid.
Then, of course, he proved me wrong.
He forced his way along the side of the ring, still screaming, oblivious to the men he jostled out of his path. To judge by their faces, those men didn’t like Joey much more than I did, but they were too afraid of him to say anything. When he approached the cluster of dogs and men, Joey got up on tiptoes, trying to reach over the dogs so that he could get Reb with the prod.
Instead, the movement startled one of the big, white dogs. It spun toward Joey, jaws snapping, and launched itself at him. Joey brought the prod down like a club, stunning the dog. It landed hard, its shoulder thudding against the side of the ring. Joey flailed at it with the prod—not using the tool to shock, but swinging it like a stick. The dog cowered against the cypress boards, still disoriented. And then, with a shriek, Joey tossed the cattle prod down, leaned over the side of the ring, and bit the dog on the throat.
The dog yelped and tried to tear away, and Joey tried to hang on. Joey got in another bite, savagely twisting his head, and then the dog ripped free of his grip. Blood jetted from its neck, and when Joey straightened, scarlet stained his face and neck and sweater. Even from a distance, the white dog hairs stuck in the blood were visible, like the delicate hatch-work of an artist. The dog took a few stumbling steps, and then it collapsed.
Everyone had gone silent. The only sound was the hiss of meat on the coals and what felt like the subterranean, collective heartbeat of a terrified crowd.
Joey screamed. It seemed to go on forever, and men inched back from him, grabbing each other. The scream cut off, and Joey whirled toward Reb.
“The wolf,” he shouted. His teeth had a red film on them, and it looked like more dog hair fuzzed them. “I want the wolf. Give me the wolf!”
Reb stared back, his face blank. Then he twisted between the closest dogs, darted forward, and grabbed the cattle prod. He stuck it into Joey’s neck, and Joey started to dance. He made a funny noise, almost like he liked it, the kind of exaggerated moan I’d heard people do when they got a massage. A dark cloud of urine bloomed across the front of his chinos. His legs jerked, and then some sort of internal safety in the prod must have cut the current. Joey dropped.
The silence seemed to breathe with the sound of insects. Joey’s guests stared. They looked unable to move.
Then someone started to laugh. It was a woman’s voice, and it had a whiskey-and-cigar tumbling roughness to it. Everyone turned to look—well, everyone except Joey—as Nelda Pie stepped through the French doors on the back of Dauphin House.
She was white, and although I didn’t know her real age, she looked like she’d blitzed past forty, with her peroxide bouffant hair and her fleshy face striped with Avon’s latest and greatest. Tonight, she wore black short shorts with a pink arrow on each leg swooping dramatically toward her crotch, with a white tube top under a flannel shirt. She’d painted her nails black, and that was new; maybe she’d read it in Cosmo. “Ten spooky looks to get ready for Halloween.”
Still laughing, she came toward the ring. Men parted for her, stumbling out of her path, staring like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Maybe they couldn’t; I’d encountered her before, and I couldn’t believe it. When she reached the ring, she glanced around, and the weight of her gaze was enough to make every man on the lawn step back again. It also gave me a bonus view of her ass, where pink letters on the short shorts said simply, FUNK.
Her laughter cut off, and she said, “All right, Rebellion. Fun and games are over; time to come home.”
Reb stared at her. He was breathing hard. Blood from the bite wounds on one hand snaked down the cattle prod; on his other hand, it dripped from his fingers. He’d lost one of the Timberlands, I could see now, and his bare foot was lacerated and caked with dust.
“Did you hear me?”
“You cunt.” The words were slurred, but they popped the tension in the air. I could feel it even from our hiding place, a sting in my face like Joey had reached out and slapped me. He clung to the cypress boards, barely holding himself up. “This piece of shit isn’t anything special. You tricked me.” The words had a wounded childishness to them. “Get the fuck off my property.”
“Oh, Rebellion is real special,” Nelda Pie said. “He just needs the right motivation. Isn’t that so—” She cut off, and then her head swiveled to look straight toward the trees where Dag and I were hiding. A grin broke out, threatening to send all that Avon crumbling. “Well, well, well. The thing in the grass.” That was what she had called the hashok the first time I had spoken to her. “Come on out, half-breed. Let me see you.”
Dag’s eyes cut toward me. Neither of us moved.
“I said come out here.” With an exasperated noise, Nelda Pie crooked a finger.
The silver dime around my neck went cold against my chest. Dag grunted and rocked forward, as though someone were trying to pull him off his feet, but he stayed where he was. I could feel the force of whatever she’d done dragging on me too. After a moment, the feeling faded. Dag let out a soft noise, and he settled back onto his heels.
“Have it your way,” Nelda Pie said. “You can watch. Maybe you’ll learn something about what happens to half-breeds who don’t have the right care. If you beg real pretty, maybe I’ll even help you before the thing in the grass eats its way through you.”
Joey fumbled a gun out from the back of his chinos. “I said get the fuck off—”
His arm made a snapping noise, and then it jerked sideways, as though it had been yanked to the side. Joey screamed.
“They call you Joey Jaws,” Nelda Pie said as though making small talk. Joey’s other arm made that same awful cracking noise, and Joey screamed again. “But it’s not about the teeth, is it? What do you think, Joey? How’d you like me to give you what you always wanted? Kalfu is not a kind master, but he owes me. I found him weak, starving, kept alive by that fool Le Doux, by prayers that old women mumbled in plank shacks. Kalfu can be grateful.” Something was changing. The electric lights shone as brightly as ever, but darkness gathered around Nelda Pie. I had a sense of tremendous space, of a vast consciousness brushing mine: a shadow dancing in fire, the off-center corners of the universe on clockwork wheels, a taste of a frozen fever. “Let me give you,” Nelda Pie said, “Kalfu’s gift.”
Joey Jaws arched his back until I thought it was going to snap, and then he began to scream. And scream. And scream.
Nelda Pie started to laugh.
The crowd broke; men turned and ran. But out of the shadows, dark forms sprinted to intercept them. I caught only glimpses of them: things that were no longer man or beast but something in-between. A man with the horns of a ram on his head crashed into a man in a tweed jacket. A woman in what my brain catalogued as steampunk gear, some kind of Victorian coat with enormous brass buttons, ended at the waist, and below her, eight furry spider legs carried her into the fray. A man with half his face covered in scales breathed fire. A woman with hands two times the size they should have been caught a fleeing partygoer by the arm and ripped it off at the shoulder.
Dag grabbed my wrist, but I said, “We have to get Reb.”
I broke Dag’s hold and sprinted across the lawn.
Reb had turned away from Nelda Pie, and now he was running toward the far end of the ring. The dogs were running with him, trying to escape the thing that came after Reb. It wasn’t clear whether it had been a man or a woman to begin with; I could see elements of what I thought were a great ape—the bulk and fur, the width of its shoulders, the massive arms—but it had leathery hide in places too, as though suffering from mange. It must have been moving almost twice as fast as Reb, quickly closing the distance between them. One of the dogs turned, snarling, and the creature struck out. The blow sent the dog flying across the ring; it hit the cypress boards with a crunch, slid to the ground, and lay still.
I cut across the lawn at an angle, trying to intercept the creature before it caught up with Reb. The cold fire of the hashok’s venom was awake now, working its way through me—a pleasant numbness spreading through my gut and chest, working its way down my limbs. Instead of making me feel slow or leaden, it made every movement easy—almost effortless. My world began to narrow. The ape-thing loped after Reb, its jaw hanging open to expose its teeth. I wondered what noises it would make when I took its jaws in my hands and ripped its face apart.
A gun fired, and I glanced around. Nelda Pie was staring grimly at me and Dag, following us with the barrel of a dainty, nickel-plated revolver. She’d missed because we were too far away, and the accuracy dropped to nothing on those things. But she only had to get lucky once.
I turned back toward the ape-thing, and two things happened: a fist flew toward my face, and I realized Nelda Pie had meant to distract me.
Dropping to the ground saved my life. The punch carved the air just over my head; I could hear the sound of it, the force of its passage shredding a path through the night. Then I landed on the lawn and rolled. I knocked up against the ape-thing’s feet and then kept rolling past it. Above me, I heard more shots—much closer this time, and in a steady bang-bang-bang that I recognized as control and discipline and training. In other words, Dag. The ape-thing shrieked, and then Dag let out a shout.
When I tumbled to a stop on the lawn, I lay for a moment, blinking up into the sheen of electric lights. Distantly, Dag grunted, and the ape-thing bellowed. I got myself up. Another shot rang out, but this one was farther off—Nelda Pie’s peashooter. Something was wrong with my leg, and although it didn’t hurt because of the icy river of the hashok’s venom, I couldn’t put my full weight on it. I turned in a circle, trying to orient myself. Reb and a man I didn’t recognize were struggling at the door of the carriage house. The spider-woman was climbing the side of Dauphin House, dragging a white lady with her. Then—Dag.
He was favoring one shoulder, and he’d lost his gun. A bloody rash opened one side of his face from temple to jaw. The ape-thing was closing in on him and swung lazily—it had a trace of contempt—and Dag staggered backward, barely avoiding the blow.
I hobbled toward the dogfighting ring. When I reached the closest post, I ripped it out of the ground. The bottom was still set in a tube of concrete, which was nice. You could do more damage with concrete.
I turned around as Dag tried to dodge another punch. He wasn’t fast enough this time. The ape-thing’s punch caught him, barely making contact at all, but it still knocked Dag off his feet. He tried to scoot back, but he couldn’t use one arm, and that slowed him. The ape-thing took a step after him. It was hard to read its expression from behind, but something about the body language suggested glee.
On my first swing, the chunk of concrete at the end of the post caved in the ape-thing’s skull. It tottered. I swung again, and the back of its head flattened, shards of bone white where they cut their way free from the mess of dark hair and hide.
Nelda Pie screamed.
I hit the ape-thing again, the sound soft and spattering now, and it collapsed.
Dag stared up at me.
A part of me wondered if his head would sound like rotten fruit when it split open.
“Eli?” he said. “E? Can you hear me?”
I could hear him. It was very fucking annoying to hear him, the way his voice buzzed at the back of my head, the distressed sound of a fly caught in pitch. I didn’t want to hear him. I wanted to hear the music, the screams, the dying noises of men being pulled apart and gutted and eaten alive. I spun away from him.
Reb and the man were still struggling at the door. Between the injuries Reb had sustained and the man’s panic, they seemed to be evenly matched, both of them clawing and pulling at each other, both of them determined to take refuge in the carriage house.
Reb. That thought was hazy in my head, but it was there. Reb.
I cocked the post over my shoulder and started toward the carriage house. Reb. It was hard to think; even my head seemed frozen, my thoughts crystalline and sharp and clear and totally still. I had to keep Reb safe.
Reb noticed me first, glancing over his shoulder and then rearing back. Something cast a blue light across his face, washing out the color in his cheeks, turning the blood around his mouth black. Whatever Reb saw made him forget the door. He pressed back against the carriage house, sidling along the wall.
This movement must have caught the man’s attention because he shot a look back and then froze.
I brought the post up like a club.
Something caught my shoulder, spinning me, and I stared into Dag’s face. His eyes were wide.
“Eli, what are you doing?”
Shrugging him off, I turned back. I had to kill this man, the one who wanted to hurt Reb. I already knew what it would feel like: the resistance of bone, and then the splintering aftershock, the jellied surrender of brain and tissue. My mouth was wet for it.
