Irregulars, page 40
“Yeah, same here.” Henry remembered his childhood dog better than any of his surviving relations. “So you grew up in the city?”
“Yeah. My dad and I moved here when I was seven and I’ve lived in the Bay Area ever since.” Jason supplied the answer with a telling kind of tension in his voice. This was painful for him, Henry thought.
“Never wanted to travel?”
“I don’t know.” Jason relaxed a little. “San Francisco’s familiar. I like that.” He took a bite of his burrito, effectively evading further questions. And Henry decided to let it go for now.
He sampled his Mongolian cheesesteak. His silver tongue drew in far more of the slaughterhouse from the succulent meat than Henry would have liked to swallow. That was always a problem with fresh food, traces of memory persisted in the flesh.
Beside him, Jason ate like a neat machine. Even after he’d finished his food Jason’s furtive gaze flickered over other men’s meals.
“You want these fries?” Henry offered. It wasn’t his habit to let other people eat off his plate, but he’d never cared that much for the common french fry.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Have ’em.” Henry pushed the fries to Jason and watched in fascination as Jason drenched them in hot sauce and disappeared them like so many gangland snitches going into the East River.
Either the guy had a tapeworm for a dietician or he was half starving. In that, he reminded Henry a little of Frank but not so much that it hurt. They’d all been hungry young men back in the day.
“Can I ask you a question?” Jason glanced up at him from over the rim of his glasses. Henry wondered just what he saw.
“Sure, you can ask anything you like,” Henry replied.
Jason smiled slightly at his response.
“But you might not answer, right?”
Henry shrugged.
“Well, either way,” Jason replied. “There was something kind of fluttering in your coat pocket earlier. I’ve been wondering what it was all morning.”
“Can’t you see it?” Henry lowered his voice. “If you take the glasses off?”
“Not through your coat,” Jason responded as if Henry were dense. “I don’t have X-ray vision.”
“Good to know.” True sight was so rare that not even Henry knew exactly how far it extended and, as a rule, those who possessed it—and didn’t go crazy—generally kept the limits of their vision secret to protect the value of their services. Jason seemed oddly sane and forthcoming.
“So what is it?” Jason took a swig of his coffee. “The thing in your pocket.”
“It’s the remains of a little girl’s heart,” Henry replied. Jason blanched and set his coffee down.
“Why do you have…that?”
“Because she was murdered to create a curse. She died so alone and so terrified that her heart became a grasping, poisonous little thing.” Henry kept his tone neutral and low. “She needs be carried and kept company before her terror will fade and let her pass through the shade lands.”
Henry considered showing Jason the tiny cinder that remained of her. The girl would probably have liked to be held by someone as gentle as Jason. But Henry wasn’t sure of just how terrible her visage would be to Jason.
“Gunther mentioned the shade lands earlier. He said you could watch me from there, didn’t he?” Jason kept his voice low. “You never told me what they were.”
Henry frowned. All around them the clatter and rumble of more earthly pursuits rose and fell. Two construction workers debated their fantasy football picks. A scrawny Asian boy tried to convince the plump white girl next to him to come clubbing with him later tonight. And over it all the cooks at the grill kept up a steady stream of conversation and bursts of song as they shouted along with the classic rock drifting down from decades-old speakers.
And here was this fresh young man sitting beside him, so obvious in his longing both to know the truth and also to belong to a warm, mundane, human existence.
But the truth could change everything in this little sanctuary. It would make this diner—this whole city for that matter—seem like a world of happy insects frolicking on a fallen leaf as it drifted over the surface of an immense sea.
“Is it bad?” Jason asked quietly and Henry realized that the truth had to come out because it wouldn’t do anyone any good to keep it hidden. But it didn’t need to be grandiose. The hungry dead and the voracious darkness that held them weren’t Jason’s concern.
“The first thing you should know is that there are lots of other realms. The guys up in the labs like to call them infinite dimensional planes, but as far as I’m concerned they’re realms. Some are very small, others vast enough to contain countless worlds folded up within them. Some are nearly too far to reach, others sit right on top of our own. Irregulars deal with interactions between the populaces of those other realms and our own earthly realm.”
Jason nodded.
“I sort of got that idea with all the talk about faeries and the work being done in those offices.” Jason had the good sense to keep his voice down but not to draw attention by whispering. Nothing was quite so suspicious as the sound of whispers.
“Yes, but it’s not all just faeries, and not all of what we think of as faeries are the same race. The sidhe alone make up a solid fifty different tribes. Infinite worlds of infinite variation and all that, you know.”
“I…I think so.” Jason nodded. “So, these shade lands?”
“It’s not a realm where anything lives. It’s the place of the restless dead. The hungry dead,” Henry replied quickly. He hunted there, spent years at a time in those murky depths, but he didn’t like to talk about the place all that much. “The shade lands lie just under the skin of all living worlds. When you see a ghost here, its spirit is trapped in the shade lands and usually trying to break back through to the living world because of something unfinished, something it needs or fears or loves that it’s still holding on to, even in death.”
Jason was very quiet for a few moments.
“Are there a lot of ghosts?” he asked at last.
“Fewer than you’d think, if you believe in them,” Henry answered. “A lot more than you’d expect if you don’t.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“It’s the best I can give.” Henry shrugged. “It’s not like they fill out census forms. And the shade lands aren’t a clear, bright place. They’re murky and filled with currents like the deep sea. They stretch infinitely out as far as death reaches.”
Jason nodded, but he wasn’t looking at Henry. He hardly seemed to be listening to him.
“If someone was murdered…violently, would he end up trapped there? Would he still be suffering?” The anxiety in Jason’s expression was obvious.
“No. Not necessarily.” Henry wondered just who Jason had lost. The father he’d mentioned earlier or the mother that he didn’t mention at all? From the way his face drained of color Henry guessed that it had been someone close to him and the end had been very ugly. “The vast majority of souls pass through the shade lands, no matter how they died. It’s generally when magic is involved that they remain. But most streak through instantly. Like shooting stars.” Sometimes they even made the gray darkness seem beautiful.
“My dad was murdered…” Jason looked away from Henry, down into his coffee cup. For an uncomfortable moment Henry feared that the young man might cry, but to Henry’s relief he pulled himself together. “He was torn apart by monsters—snow goblins. And I just need to know if he could be trapped in those shade lands?”
“How long ago was this?” Henry asked.
“Seventeen years.” Jason’s gaze remained on the dark liquid in his cup. “He suffered…”
It didn’t take a mathematical genius to figure out that Jason would have just been a child when his father had been murdered, and it sounded like he’d witnessed it.
“No. Your dad’s not trapped. See, unless they’re political refugees, snow goblins only come to the earthly realm as mercenaries, not magicians. They can be brutal, but they don’t bind souls or break them with torture,” Henry assured him. “Whatever your old man suffered, it ended with his life. By now he’s been reborn. More than likely he’s kicking up trouble as a surly teen somewhere.”
Jason at last lifted his gaze to meet Henry’s. He was a plain young man, but there was something so hopeful and relieved in his expression that he seemed rather handsome at the moment.
Henry felt loathe to ruin Jason’s happiness, but the fact that his father had been murdered by snow goblins didn’t bode well for Jason himself. While a few of their clans lived as political refugees, most served the powerful rulers of other unearthly realms. And a man didn’t make an enemy of any of them by accident.
“What did your father do?” Henry asked.
“He was a musician. He could play pretty much anything with strings.” Jason answered this easily and with more than a hint of pride. “My mom too. She played the flute and the mandolin. I still remember the songs she taught me.”
“Yeah?” Henry encouraged Jason to go on. Smiling and animated, the young man took on a charming appeal.
“‘Suite Romantique’, ‘Syrinx’, ‘Carmen Fantasie’, ‘The Stone Of Fal’—”
“Stone of Fal?” Henry knew the name well enough but was surprised that Jason did.
“Yeah, I think it’s Irish or something.”
Sidhe actually, Henry thought but he didn’t say so. “So what’s it about?” Henry inquired.
“According to the ballad the Stone of Fal must be possessed only by the high king of where-ever-it-is.” Jason cracked a shy smile. “So when a usurper murders the rightful king and rapes the king’s daughter, the princess steals the stone from the usurper’s bedroom before he can claim the throne.”
“Yeah?” Henry asked. “And how does that work out for her?”
“Kind of weird and sad. Most old ballads are like that,” Jason replied, at ease with his subject. “According to the song, the only way that the princess can hide the stone is to swallow it. When she gives birth to the usurper’s child, the stone is in him. But the usurper, fearing the princess’s child will have a legitimate claim to the throne, hurls the child into the sea and thus loses the stone forever…It’s pretty dark, but the tune is really beautiful and the chorus is fun to sing.”
“That’s the case with a lot of those old songs,” Henry commented, but his thoughts were on the ancient magics hidden so often in music. Sidhe in general—and the Tuatha Dé Dannan in particular—favored spells woven through simple melodies. Supposedly one of those songs—a cheery tune that unleashed a merciless slaughter—had stripped them of their humanity and gotten them banished to an underworld by a band of Milesian magicians. “Are you and your mother still in touch?”
“No. She left us when I was seven…” Jason looked a little sad but not as anguished as Henry had expected. “Dad always said that she was a free spirit who couldn’t be kept in one place. She had to go, but at least she left us with each other so we wouldn’t miss her so much. That’s what my dad said anyway. He was sort of a sap, really, but a good guy. I guess my mom’s probably in Timbuktu playing guitar with Tuareg nomads or something by now.”
Henry nodded. He wondered if she might not be even farther away.
Seven years would have been more than enough time to bind a truly immense magic to a child’s bones. That, added to the seventeen years that had passed since, would have placed Jason’s birth right around the time of the revolts against the Tuatha Dé Dannan regent, Greine the Usurper, as many called him. Greine still maintained rule over the Tuatha Dé Dannan Islands, but the theft of the Stone of Fal had prevented him from claiming both the title of high king and the power the stone conferred.
The thief had never been discovered as far as Henry knew.
“Do you recall much about your mother?” Henry tried to make the question sound casual.
“Her first name was Fionn…but I don’t think I ever heard her maiden name. I just called her Mom. She had bright red hair and long hands.” Jason spread his own fingers and smiled a little wryly. “I think I inherited her hands. I’d like to think I inherited some of her musical skill as well. She played beautifully.”
“So you share your parents’ disposition for music?”
“Yep.” Jason smiled. “Both sides of the family. No getting away from it.”
“Are you any good?” Henry asked.
“I think so.” Jason flushed slightly.
“Maybe you can play something for me? What’s your instrument of choice?”
Jason colored a little more, but Henry was certain why.
“I’m pretty good with most any musical instrument. I like woodwinds best. I have a fife that belonged to my mother that I’ve written a few melodies for.”
He took another drink of his coffee. “It’s really old-fashioned music, though. You probably won’t like it.”
“Nah, I’m pretty old-fashioned myself,” Henry replied. “My socks are the most modern things I own and they date back to 1962.”
Jason cracked a grin at that but then cocked his head thoughtfully and studied Henry, his dark eyes peering over the rims of his glasses.
“You can’t be that old—” Jason went silent mid-question as his gaze jumped to something behind Henry. He gripped his coffee cup tightly and the pink flush drained from his face.
Henry glanced back but only saw the three big men in bike leathers pushing their way into the diner. He glanced back to Jason, who was still staring at the men from over the edges of his glasses. He looked terrified.
“What’s wrong?” Henry asked quickly.
“Goblins,” Jason whispered. “They’re staring straight at me and they don’t look happy about what they’re seeing…”
“Don’t look at them,” Henry ordered, but it was already too late.
The men shouldered past the startled young cashier, intent upon Jason. Henry noted that the bald guy in the lead looked like he was packing a pistol. The bruiser on his left was shorter and thicker, while the thug to his right stood a head taller and sported a thick black beard.
Very briefly, Henry considered the number of bystanders and the tight confines of the diner. The fastest way to get out would be through the plate glass window at the front of the diner. But it would mean risking Jason being cut all to hell and Henry would also have to turn his back to an armed attacker. He hated being shot in the back.
He dropped his hands into his coat pockets. His fingers brushed over his flask, a piece of chalk, and then found the smooth surface of his switchblade.
“Jason Shamir, you want to keep breathing, you come with us,” the bald guy snarled as he drew alongside them. Jason kept his head down, his eyes fixed on the coffee cup that he gripped with trembling hands.
“Who exactly are you?” Henry asked.
“Fuck off, revenant. Or we’ll put you in a grave for good.” The bald guy snorted like an enraged bull.
Up close Henry tasted the black magic on his breath and smelled his hidden goblin body. All three of these guys had been transformed very recently and they still wore their human flesh like ill-fitting suit coats. Chances were, they weren’t yet familiar with their new bodies’ weaknesses.
The shorter goblin reached for Jason, and to Henry’s surprise, Jason slammed his coffee mug into the goblin’s face, knocking the guy back a step. The bald goblin went for his gun.
So much for buying a little time with small talk.
Henry bounded forward before either of the other two goblins could lay their hands on Jason. His switchblade glinted like it was grinning as it sliced through the tall goblin’s carotid artery and jugular. Blood sprayed and the goblin stumbled, then fell, bleeding out across the floor.
Henry saw the gun muzzle flash and felt a bullet punch into his chest. The impact kicked the breath from his lungs but didn’t slow his momentum. Behind him, one of the cafe windows exploded as the bullet tore free of his body and shattered the glass.
Henry’s switchblade flipped from his fingers and sank to the hilt into the bald goblin’s right eye. Henry jerked the blade free and the goblin shrieked like a baby in a fire. It crumpled back into a booth, convulsing.
Henry staggered for the third goblin, but it grasped Jason by the throat. Jason clawed at its thick fingers, but his pale face was already darkened to an alarming violet.
“Just let up a little there and I won’t hurt you.” Henry held up his hands for the goblin to see as he quickly folded his knife closed.
Distantly, Henry was aware of the people around them staring in horror. The cashier shouted into her cell phone for help. One of the cooks gripped a cleaver, his expression caught between determination and confusion. Henry’s own strength ebbed, but he fought to remain in the living world for a few minutes more.
The wet heat of blood seeped down his shirtfront as a deep pain spread through his chest. It wasn’t really any better than being shot in the back, come to think of it.
“You don’t want to kill him.” Henry had to concentrate to get the words out. Already the Lost Mist was rising off him like steam; very soon the shade lands would reclaim him. “Just let Jason go. We can work all this out without anyone else getting hurt.”
“Fuck that,” the bulky goblin spat. “The runt’s better dead than back in the tyrant’s hands.” His meaty fingers clenched tighter around Jason’s throat. Jason jerked against the goblin’s grasp, but his strength was obviously fading in the grip of suffocation.
Better dead it was, then.
Henry lunged forward and grasped both Jason and the goblin. He pulled them through the broken window and down into the dark murk of the shade lands.
***
The goblin let out a shocked cry as it was wrenched from the living world. Jason thrashed against Henry like an eel submerged in alcohol.
A hazy, dank atmosphere enfolded them and the diner faded to shadows. As they sank deeper into the depths all sign of the living world disappeared. A twilight gloom surrounded them and black currents swirled over their bodies like rafts of rotting kelp. Jason shuddered reflexively at the contact. The goblin choked and coughed as its lungs rejected the deathly air, but it didn’t release Jason.
