Embracing the Shadows (2 page)

Holy crap, she was talking about the
blood-lusting hemo I put down in Colby Park. That guy was an Adept?
I could only guess that the powder she mentioned was cocaine,
heroin or uppers, and that Horn either personally sniffed it or
drank from someone who'd taken some. Yeah, she said "he didn't pay
attention" - the hemo probably drank from an addict who'd just
gotten a fix. What an idiot.

"I know you won't, Clara; you are very good
at keeping secrets," Viggo said. He turned, pulled a box from the
stack, and handed it to her. "I got you more notebooks, plus pens
with different colors of ink."

"Thank you, thank you!" she said with an
adolescent's joy. Clara was a supernatural being brought into the
night over eighty years ago, and she still had the mind of an
innocent girl. I felt sorry for her, being so fucked in the head
like that. And I still didn't know who Vivian was.

While Viggo pointed out some of the items to
Clara, Barnabus said to me, "It's good to see you up and about, Mr.
Beck. You and I should converse sometime; I'd imagine you have some
interesting accounts."

"Uh, yeah, sure, that'd be great. I'm staying
at the last place we met."

He smiled those piranha teeth at me and said,
"I'll keep that in mind," and then returned to his book.

At Viggo's gesture, I picked up the remaining
boxes and followed him the few steps to the violin player, who sat
on a padded barstool back in one corner. Dressed in only a gauzy
black gown, the woman was willowy and tall. Her long milky hair
hung straight, and her alabaster skin was riddled with wavy blue
veins . . . even throughout her long, smooth face. Unlike an
albino's pink eyes, hers were dark, sunken, and unblinking. I
didn't know if it was her ghostly looks or that she smelled like
death, but something about that violin-playing hemo reminded me of
screaming murder and it spooked the shit out of me.

"Again, Neva, that was a beautiful
composition," Viggo said as he took one of the few boxes left and
handed it to her. "Since I admittedly know nothing of violin bows,
here is a selection."

Holding her violin in one hand and accepting
the gift in the other, Neva bowed her head low to him. When she sat
straight again, she didn't say anything but had an expression that
could have been taken as gratitude. To me, though, it just looked
like a sad smile. But who cares; I wanted away from her.

Viggo and I moved on. There was an L-shaped
desk in the other corner stacked with a bank of over thirty small
video monitors. Sitting in front of the desk in a leather office
chair was an emaciated, dark-skinned cadaver staring at me with a
scowl. He was basically a skeleton with a thin layer of skin pulled
tightly over the bones, covered by a bathrobe and slippers. If he
wasn't giving me a 'fuck you' stare, I would have laughed at him.
But then I noticed the rips in his taut skin, like the one in his
cheek where I could see his molars grinding together. I didn't feel
like laughing anymore.

Before Viggo could say anything to him,
cadaver boy hissed, "What's your new toy still doing down here with
us, Stone? Your trigger-happy piece of shit has caused enough
trouble."

Weird, he just referred to my commander as
'Stone'. I wondered why Viggo would hide his true identity from
some of the hemos in his own faction. That I was aware of, the only
ones who knew who he really was were Ragna, Barnabus, and Clara.
Ragna had that sight Gift, so maybe she saw the truth. It could've
been the same for Barnabus and his creepy eye, although I wanted to
think that he was just cool enough to keep a secret. And if Viggo
didn't tell Clara the truth, I bet the mysterious Vivian did.

"We have already discussed this, Roach,"
Viggo replied. "I stand firm that my minion's reactions were
justified, especially when our most aggressive guard was
erroneously sent for an unnecessary task. But I would rather not
continue to point fingers. What's done is done, Brute is healing
well, and I have already fixed the stairs. Here," he held out a
large, light box, "a gesture of goodwill."

Roach slowly accepted the box and opened it.
"Hey, sodium bulbs," he said, apparently pleased despite his mood.
He then looked up at Viggo and said, "Thanks . . . and sorry about
being snappy. Other than the plants, Brute is usually my only
company, ya know?"

"I understand," Viggo said with a nod. "No
offense is taken. However, I expect a better attempt at civility if
you and my favored minion cross paths again." Hell fucking yes! I
was the favored minion!

Roach acknowledged the statement with a nod
and left it at that. Viggo and I turned to move on, and that's when
I noticed a hallway cut into the stone. It was between the desk
full of monitors and an aquarium table, leading back into darkness.
Roach saw me looking down that narrow corridor and said with a
smirk, "Go ahead. I dare ya." Viggo reached back and pulled me next
to him.

We moved a few steps over to the couch across
the room from Barnabus and Clara, where a small guy slouched with a
laptop on his beer belly. By the size of his high-top running shoes
propped up on a table, his feet were bigger than mine. He wore a
baggy jogging suit and a pageboy cap over his short hair. It was
tough to tell what color any of it was in the blue light. He had
normal features and a wide smile. The only thing odd about the guy
was the two-headed snake that slithered around on him. He ignored
it.

"Here you are, my cunning friend," Viggo said
to him, handing over the last box. "And I believe you had something
for me as well?"

"You betcha; I'm emailing it to you now." He
took the small box from Viggo without looking at it, tapped a
couple times on his keyboard, and then looked up at me. Still
grinning, he said, "Hangin' in there, kid?" He spoke with an
accent. It was different from Fletcher's, but not by much. I
guessed Irish.

"I'm doing alright, uh, sir." I called him
sir because I hadn't been instructed on how to address any of
Viggo's Deviant buddies that I hadn't met yet. If calling him by
that respectful title didn't work, I figured I'd be waking up on a
couch again and needing to heal.

The short hemo's grin widened with a chuckle.
He leaned to one side, looked past me, and said across the room to
Barnabus, "Check that out, he called me sir."

"If he only knew . . ." Barnabus replied
without looking up from his book.

"Leo," Viggo said, gesturing with an open
hand to the smiling hemo still reclined on the couch, "this is Mr.
Scanlon O'Shaughnessy. For various reasons, he uses the simple
moniker, 'Skin'."

What a weird nickname. I guess my opinion
showed on my face because Skin said, "Yeah, you heard right, kid.
You'll figure it out sooner or later." He slapped the cushion next
to him. "Have a seat and let me show ya my latest little piece of
work."

I looked to Viggo, who nodded. When I settled
in next to Skin, both heads of his snake hissed at me. Gently
brushing the mutant snake away, Skin turned the laptop my way. It
showed stills of a large and well-decorated bedroom, lit by a few
small lamps. On the king-sized bed was a fat, older guy wearing
only a t-shirt and socks. On top of him was a short-haired blonde
woman barely out of her teens; the only things she was wearing were
a garter belt and a smile.

"What we have here," Skin said, leaning
closer to me and clicking to another shot, "is a certain city
zoning administrator trying not to have a heart attack while his
wife is in Atlanta. He had no idea how the girl got in, but it
didn't take much persuading to let her stay a while. This fella has
been a bit of a stickler allowing permits for one or two industrial
sites up for reconstruction. Sites we might find useful, ya see.
Catching our old boy in flagrante should make him change his
mind."

"It was pretty stupid of him to have cameras
on in his bedroom," I commented. "And if he didn't bring that
prostitute home with him, then his security sucks."

"Yeah, well," Skin said, laughing, "she had a
little help getting in, and told a few finely crafted lies to, ah,
put him at ease. Oh, and those aren't his cameras. Nudge, nudge,
wink, wink, eh, kid?" As blackmail went, it looked airtight. That
fat old man screwed himself more than he did the whore. "Now look
at this," Skin went on, opening a different folder on the screen.
"Back on Valentine's Day, I got -"

"Perhaps some other time, Skin," Viggo said,
looming over us. "Mr. Beck and I need to move along before night
ends. We are coming into yet another season of long days, and we
shouldn't waste the precious little time available. Enjoy the discs
- I believe they will suffice."

I got up and stood next to Viggo while he
wished everyone a good evening. We left the chamber the same way as
how we came in. I didn't look down as we walked across the grate
flooring with the pack of whatever the hell they were down below
us. The metal door at the far end opened into a rough tunnel lit by
a hanging bare bulb. The short tunnel ended at another door, which
opened to the metal stairs where Brute attacked me. It was morbid,
but I had to look at my own bloodstains on the cave wall.

I followed Viggo into the long, curving
hemo-built tunnel. Halfway through, he stopped and said we would
void-walk back to my new place. Void-walking . . . Call me crazy,
but I was getting used to it.

DETAILS

"I imagine you have a number of questions,"
Viggo said as he sat back in an upstairs lounge chair. He had
allowed me time to go mix a strong drink beforehand; I sat across
from him and nursed it. "However, I should also meet with the
fledgling Mr. Horn, who is currently my guest."

"Yes sir, I figured as much," I said, and
then took a drink. That first gulp of Jack and Coke calmed any of
the residual jitters that still lingered.

"I will summarize information for now, and we
can speak more in depth soon. Now, to begin . . . this city's
faction of Deviants are quite eclectic, no? As you may have
guessed, my scion Clara's mind did not fare too well during the
infliction, but it is probable that she was unstable when she was
human. After being brought into the night, her mind truly
splintered. Vivian is an aspect of her own psyche; she is the
conduit of Clara's visions, whispering secrets and rarely coming to
the fore.

"The one named Neva does not or cannot speak.
She stays underground, and does not concern herself with the
machinations of the world above. The main reason for this is
because of the rare trait in her blood that we refer to as the
'taint of horror'. I'm sure you sensed it. The taint prohibits her
from most social interactions, although we fellow Deviants accept
her regardless. As a form of gratitude, she regales us with music
that stirs the soul.

"Roach, as you've unfortunately found out,"
Viggo continued with a deeper pitch to his voice, "has difficulty
concealing his emotions. He is a bitter, cynical type, although he
contributes generously to the faction coffers. Roach is a
businessman of sorts, and does not stray from his tight circle of
employees and contacts. Nor does he stray much from our
Deviant-made catacombs, infrequently venturing out to see the
stars. He is normally difficult to pity, although I sometimes
do."

So far, what he'd told me about his fellow
Deviants troubled me. I mean, they were all a far cry from stable,
and then add the fact that they were all immortals with
supernatural abilities. That kind of power in shaky hands was like
throwing shit in a room full of fans.

"Lastly," Viggo concluded, "was Mr.
O'Shaughnessy. I enjoyed seeing him again; he and I converse mostly
by electronic means. He doesn't travel underground often, so I took
the opportunity to talk with him at length while you slept. You
might say that Skin is in the extortion trade, but he most often
targets those who are already corrupt in some fashion. Because of
the nature of his 'craft', as he calls it, he is also a font of
information. And, if nothing else, he is entertaining."

"Yeah, I got that feeling when I met him,
sir," I said, stalling until I could politely form the question
that came to mind. "I, uh - I was wondering, sir . . . Well, a
while back, when I was kidnapped and kept in that museum, remember?
Anyway, there was this Adept minion named Sarah who thought there
were only five or six, uh, members in each faction. Including you,
I've met ten Deviants - Wayne makes eleven. So, was Sarah way off
count, or do you guys move around a lot so the number isn't
constant, or what?"

"There are the rare few in each faction who
have wanderlust, the Outsiders most of all. Most often, though, we
tend to be territorial . . . at least for a good length of time.
That, however, does not truly answer your question. In all honesty,
a number of Deviants have not introduced themselves to the Doyenne.
They are essentially trespassers, even if Le Meur is unaware of
their presence in her city. I am one of them, as are Clara, Neva
and Wayne." He stood and adjusted his coat. "When the timing is
right, I will introduce myself."

The way Viggo said that last part told me
that it wasn't going to be a festive occasion. I stood as well and
said, "Uh, yes sir, I'm sure you will. By the way, thanks for
taking me with you to . . . wherever we were. Other than having to
shoot a giant and being smashed into a wall, I hope I wasn't a pain
in your ass. I was honored to be there with you."

As a reply, Viggo patted me on the shoulder
and then walked past me. At the doorway of the lounge, he
half-turned and said, "Do not think I forgot you, Leo. I placed
your gift on the desk in your office downstairs while you were
preparing your beverage. I will contact you soon."

COMPUTER

After Viggo found a dark corner and left, I
finished off my drink and then made another to bring with me to the
office. Lying on the keyboard was an envelope. I moved it aside and
turned on the new computer. The basic set of programs had been set
to shortcuts, and the screensaver was the logo for USMC Force
Recon. Like I've said before, Viggo knew me too well.