Grim Tidings (4 page)

I heard a creak behind me, a rusty hinge bending, and before I could turn, my skull exploded into a thousand pieces of glass. I was knocked out so fast I didn't even feel myself fall.

I was immobile
when I came to, and I really hoped it wasn't because I'd had my brains bashed hard enough to paralyze me. I moved my arms and legs, feeling hard leather straps holding me down, cold metal under my back and aching head. I thrashed against the restraints and managed to bruise my wrists and ankles for my trouble. Of all the places you want to find yourself tied down, a Nazi hospital isn't top of anyone's list.

“Quiet.” The voice came from beyond my field of vision, which admittedly was about as crisp and clear as a dirty windshield on a rainy night. Everything was blurry, and every time I tried to move my eyes my vision slipped sideways.

“Ungh,” I said to the invisible voice.

“Please,” it replied. “I apologize for the pain but you must be quiet.”

I lay back against the cold table, feeling my heart thudding. “I hate to break it to you, but if your plan is to torture me quietly that's not going to work out.”

“Nothing could be further from my mind,” the voice said. It was male, clipped dry syllables that came from somewhere in this neck of the woods, but not the immediate neighborhood. Not a German. Maybe a neighbor.

“Then why all this?” I said. Raising my head up felt like somebody had taken a hammer to the side of my skull, but I did it all the
same. A face swam into view. He was painfully thin, sallow in the dim light, black hair swept back from a high forehead. He looked down at me without blinking.

“I thought you were a German at first,” he said, indicating my uniform. “Then I thought you might be sick.”

“Sick like I'm covered in blood and chasing folks looking for more?” I asked. He grimaced.

“I'm sorry I hit you,” he said. “You are an American?”

“Born and raised,” I said, relaxing into the dizzy waves bearing me up. Born and raised and died and was born again as a monster was just long-winded.

He moved away and came back to put a cold cloth across my forehead, then undid all his good work by shining a light into my eyes. It felt like being sliced across the face with a butcher knife. “Jesus!” I snapped. “Do you mind?”

“You have a concussion,” he said.

“You really are Sherlock Holmes,” I sighed. “What did you hit me with?”

“A bedpan.”

I glared at him. “Better and better.”

He leaned over me to unbuckle my straps. He was wearing a plain white shirt, not the ragged pajamas most of the prisoners in the camp had to make do with, but it was ancient, yellow at the armpits and collar. His pants weren't any better, worn at the knees and so filthy they were stiff. “Are you a POW?” he asked. “I have not met any female GIs. The men they keep far away, in a satellite camp with the Russians.”

“I'm not a prisoner,” I said.

“Then you are a spy,” he said, nodding to himself. “And you could not have chosen a worse time to slip inside these fences.”

“And what about you?” I said, sitting up and feeling the back of my head. It was tender and a little bloody, but I was basically whole.

“I am a doctor,” he said. “They brought me here and made me assist the staff with procedures.” He held up his hands, turning the long fingers this way and that. “There are few skilled surgeons in the camps. Most are at the front lines or sitting on their fat asses in Berlin, ducking bombs and drinking tea.”

Something crashed out in the hall, and I watched the doctor's whole body get taut. “Are we safe in here?” I said.

“For now,” he murmured. “Until they find a way to open that door.”

“And ‘they' would be . . . ?” I lifted an eyebrow. He sighed, running water over his hands and forearms to get rid of the speckles of what I assumed was my blood.

“One of the reasons I was brought here.”

I saw the plain tattoo just above his wrist bone, spidery letters and numbers inked out in a hurry. My head pounded again. “Where's your family?”

“Gone,” he said. “Except for my daughter. We sent her to England ahead of the invasion. I have not seen her in four years.” He turned away, wiping his hands on the same cloth he'd pressed on me.

“And they force you to operate on people?” I said, looking back at the door. From somewhere beyond the flat metal painted with bubbling white paint I heard a shrill scream, cut short like the voice's owner had run into a wall.

“Oh no.” The doctor let out a small laugh, bitter as hemlock. “I only assist, clean up, occasionally perform autopsies. The Wehrmacht would never let a filthy
Juden
put his hands on them, especially if those held a scalpel.”

“I'm Ava,” I said impulsively, sticking out my own hand. I usually made a point to stay away from people at all costs, but I had a feeling that without this guy I was pretty much lunch meat anyway.

“Jacob,” he said. “Dr. Jacob Gottlieb.”

“Where are you from?” I said. I slid off the table and tried standing. The ground rolled under me, but soft swells, like I was on the deck of an ocean liner. I could handle it. I'd had more trouble walking after a long night of bourbon sours and cheap cigarettes than from Jacob's little Babe Ruth impression with my head.

“Krakow,” he said. “I was a chief surgeon. Youngest at my hospital.”

“Tennessee,” I said. “I was a bootlegger's apprentice. My grandmother was very proud.”

Jacob gave that dry laugh again. “Won't she be worried about you, here among the enemy?”

“She's dead,” I said. “And she never worried much when she wasn't.”

We both jumped when someone banged on the door, and kept banging. Not the frantic, hungry pounding of the nurse but the desperate hammering of a person whose brain was still working and was running on sheer terror.

I glanced at Jacob, who'd grabbed up his bedpan again. “We don't have to open the door.”

His jaw knotted and I waited. I wasn't particularly inclined to
open up to whoever was out there. If they were running around free, chances were they weren't in the same boat as Jacob but were wearing this uniform voluntarily.

“Jacob,” I said as the banging increased, a man's voice pleading in German to be let in. “Really. I'm happy to leave us locked up tight.”

He sighed and lowered the bedpan. “I can't. No matter how much they've taken from me here I'm still a doctor.”

He pulled back the bolt and spun the handle. I waited, looking into the blackness as the door swung open.

THE MIDWEST

NOW

I came to with the cold water snap of fear, my animal brain driving me into consciousness whether I liked it or not. It was dark, the kind of deep velvety black you only find in a windowless room. I took in a damp, slightly musty scent like an old wool blanket over my face, and the almost claustrophobic warmth, and did the mental math that arrived at
basement.
Old, too, judging from the thump and grind of a boiler heating things to sweat lodge levels.

My arms were suspended over my head, wrists wrapped in some kind of chain. The chain forced me to stand on tiptoe, soles of my boots rasping against the concrete as I struggled for purchase.

“Leo?” I whispered. My throat was hot and close from disuse. My head pounded, and even though it was dark, lazy white pinwheels spun in front of my eyes. I shut them again and fought a hot spurt of vomit trying to climb its way out of my stomach.

A light snapped on, one of those big caged bulbs that buzz and snap like a hive of bees. It didn't do my head any favors, but if they were watching me at least I'd get some answers.

The boiler room door swung open and a man in a suit stepped it. He didn't wear a suit the way Leo did, all black, understated, thin tie, jacket just a little wrinkled at the edges because he was comfortable in it. This guy wore his blue wool blend with pinstripes and gold cuff links the way some guys wear a gold chain with a bunch of diamonds—to show off.

I'd known a lot of guys like him, and I'd hated every last one of them.

“Comfortable?” the man asked, and when he smiled I figured out why my stomach was churning from more than the ketamine hangover. He was a reaper. Same plastic smile, same too-perfect face, same hair that looked like a cheap wig.

“I'm fantastic,” I said, rattling the chain with my numb arms. “How did you know this was my favorite stress position?”

“I apologize,” he said. “But until we've figured out a few things you understand we have to be careful.”

“I understand nothing,” I said, “including where I am, who you are, or who told you that tie was a flattering color.”

He touched the bright blue and gold striped silk reflexively, and favored me with a look like he'd just smelled garbage on a hot day. “Gary always said you were a handful.”

“Gary's dead,” I snapped. “You here to get payback? If you are
can you just go ahead with the waterboarding and the car batteries or whatever and save the preamble?”

While we'd been having our chat I'd been testing out the chains. They were stronger than I was, and wrapped around an I-beam that was equally strong. The room was empty except for a few old desks and chairs piled in a corner and a grimy safety poster dated 1967 hanging next to the huge round hatch that led to the innards of the boiler.

“I'm not supposed to do anything but talk to you,” the reaper said. He tilted his head slightly. “I'm Owen. Can we clear up a few things?”

“Where's Leo?” I said, trying to keep my feet on the floor.

“Careful,” Owen said, indicating a ring of black dust around my prison with a shiny patent leather shoe. “Those are black iron shavings.”

I sighed. “That supposed to mean something?”

A smile chased over his thin mouth before he straightened his tie again. “I forgot that Gary liked to keep his dogs . . . insulated, shall we say.” He toed the pile with his other foot. “Black iron shavings repel hellhounds and other types that were, shall we say, formerly human. Stay in your electric fence and we won't have a problem.”

“Oh, you already have a problem,” I said, rattling the chain for good measure. “Bigger than you know.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Owen said.

“Why am I here?” I said. “
Where
am I?”

“You're at Headquarters,” Owen said, and the way his slick Trust-Me-I'm-Important voice dropped I could hear the capital
H.
“Minneapolis. As to why, you know why. You and that fellow you
ride with have been making some big claims. Claims you have no business making, and it's my job to get to the bottom of all this nonsense.”

I shut my eyes and inhaled, the smell in the air almost making me choke. “I'm not the one that's been saying anything. This isn't Leo's fault either.”

Owen reached up and patted my face. I thought about biting him. “It's adorable that you're defending him. He hasn't been nearly that complimentary about you. In fact, he's barely spoken.”

He went to the door and opened it, showing me a glimpse of dank hallway. From far away, wavering through the low-ceilinged corridors, I heard a scream. Owen cocked his head. “Looks like he's got something to say now, though. Think about what I've said, dog, and you may save yourself some pain.”

“You need to let me go,” I blurted. “You don't know what's going on here and you're gonna make things really bad.”

“Good doggy,” Owen said grinning as he pulled the door shut. “Stay.”

“Come on,” I breathed as I was plunged into the dark again. “Stupid bastard,” I said to nothing as I tugged hard at the chain. Owen was like all the reapers—arrogant enough to think nothing could hurt them and dumb enough to believe that was actually true.

I wrapped one fist around the chain and took a deep breath. Even though I was what you'd call durable, I was hardly invincible, and this part always sucked. I held my breath and jammed the base of my left thumb hard against the chain, pushing until I saw stars and the joint popped out of true. I bit down hard as I folded my thumb under my other four fingers and slid the whole mess
free of the chain. I bent double as I pushed my thumb back where it should be and managed to only let out a tiny, ladylike scream.

And then I did it with my other hand.

I didn't move any further, since I didn't want to get shocked to shit by some magical fire line that Gary had never bothered to tell me about. I tried to quiet myself, to think like Leo. He'd know what to do if he was in this room, and not somewhere down the hall getting screams yanked out of him one fingernail at a time.

He wouldn't panic, because Leo never panicked. He never showed fear. I took a shaky breath and made myself stand up and work the cramps out of my arms and back from being hung up in the chain. I didn't need Leo to save me. I'd survived this long, survived Lilith, survived Gary. I could get us both out of here.

If I could just get past this damn barrier.

“Watching you try to think is painful,” a voice said, and a small flame flared in the dark, sparking the end of a cigarette. Uriel exhaled and approached the line, grinning at me.

“It took you fucking long enough,” I snapped, massaging my thumbs. Uriel glanced up and the light came back on, casting its sickly, gout-colored light. It did nothing to diminish the glow that always seemed to wrap around the angel, even in the darkest, most filthy places on Earth.

“Looks like you and I have more to talk about,” he said, gesturing with his cigarette.

“Yeah,” I said. “Like you're an angel who smokes.”

“I like smoking,” Uriel said. “It helps with the smell in places like this. As to this little tableau, I don't think you want that idiot with the bad tie knowing you have an angel in your pocket. I'm only here because I need you to not die until our business is complete.”

“I can take care of Owen,” I said. “But I can't get out of this room, so how about you flap your wings and turn around three times or whatever it is you do and break this spell?”

Uriel laughed and then reached into the inside pocket of his suit, tossing me a lighter. “Ava, these reapers have been cut off from the Pit for over a century, thanks to Lilith and your old buddy Gary. Do you really think if you could repel hellhounds with something you can find on the floor of a metal shop nobody would know about it?”

I hung my head, glad the angel couldn't see my face turn red. Uriel watched me step over the line of iron filings on the floor and smiled approvingly. “What's the lighter for?” I asked. He exhaled smoke from his nose and smiled.

“Consider it divine intervention.”

The lightbulb hissed again and Uriel was gone. I tested the door, which wasn't locked. That was reapers for you—so convinced they were better than the hounds they didn't even bother to think we could figure out doorknobs.

I stepped out into the hallway, easing the doors shut with a soft click. No reason to make myself an even easier target for Owen and his buddies.

The screaming had stopped, and I felt a twist in my stomach. I didn't know if Leo
could
be dead again, and I didn't want to find out.

Thick metal doors like what I'd been locked behind were recessed into even thicker walls as the hall went on, each door marked with the symbol for a fallout shelter, the yellow faded to almost white. Knocking steam pipes ran along the ceiling over my head and water swished through thin copper lines, like I was
inside some kind of vast circulatory system, the belly of a living, breathing beast.

Footsteps rang out and I shrank myself into one of the doorways, hunching up against the cement. A female reaper wearing a deep red dress and shoes with heels sharp enough to puncture whatever neck she was standing on opened the next door, giving me a brief glimpse of a white-tiled shower room, at least four more reapers milling around, and a figure strapped into a chair in the middle of the floor. Leo's shirt had been pulled open to show a swath of his heavily tattooed chest, and his face was swollen and bruised on one side.

I fell back again as the door slammed shut. How the hell was I supposed to take out five reapers in an enclosed space? I'd barely managed to get the jump on Gary, and I'd had help. I'd also had fangs and claws on my side and that wasn't happening while I was running on no sleep and had what felt like a gallon of horse tranquilizer working its way out of my system.

I wanted to punch the door I was standing against, but breaking my fist wouldn't help me, or Leo. I squeezed Uriel's lighter hard enough to leave an imprint on my palm, letting the sting even me out and make me focus. The door was marked
BUILDING MANAGER
, and I tried it. This place was ancient, but maybe there would at least be a broom handle or something in there I could arm myself with, since the reapers had taken everything from my knife to my hairbrush.

The office was just as dusty and gross as the rest of the basement, but the rusted metal shelves were a treasure trove for a hellhound disarmed and down on her luck. I swept the ancient lightbulbs and a stack of nudie mags off the shelves as I fumbled through the tool
kit. I grabbed the longest screwdriver and shoved it up my sleeve and tucked a box cutter in my back pocket. An old metal thermos sat next to the toolbox and I grabbed it and an armload of sloshing chemical bottles.

People are scared of reapers and things like them. It's a survival instinct as old as walking upright—steer clear of the things in the dark. They're hungry and strong and they can't be hurt. But if you're already in the dark, if you have to live there too, you learn that monsters can bleed just like the rest of us.

I stepped out of the building manager's office, holding the thermos in one hand and Uriel's lighter in the other. I carried the rusty bucket I'd found in the corner, flipped it over, and stood on it, flicking the wheel until a flame sprouted. Holding it to the star-shaped head of the sprinkler, I really hoped that the city of Minneapolis was on top of their fire safety inspections.

For a sick heartbeat, nothing happened. Then I was rewarded with a spurt of water in my face and the tired honking of a fire alarm somewhere on an upper floor of whatever Cold War rock pile I was in.

The first reaper to come out the door was a pudgy guy in a polo shirt and jeans. He could have been someone's dad on the way to pick them up from practice, except for the dead-eyed fury on his face. I slipped the screwdriver from my sleeve and popped him on the bridge of the nose with the handle as he lunged at me. While he was moaning and grabbing at his crushed face I flipped the screwdriver around and jammed it into his shoulder, slipping it under the collarbone and taking his arm out of commission when I hit the tendon.

Dad Reaper's buddy was fast on his heels, and I grabbed up the
bucket as the water streamed around us, swinging it in a wide arc. He threw up an arm to block me, but the water pooling around our feet made him slip and I didn't miss again. The rusty metal left a nasty gash in his temple. “Hope you got your shots,” I muttered as I shoved open the door to the shower room. “Leo, hold your breath!” I shouted into the chaos inside, and then tossed the thermos at the feet of a trio of shocked reapers.

Stick around for almost a century, and you learn a lot. Like how some of the most noxious stuff on earth can be mixed up with just a few household cleaners. The woman in the dress came first, choking and swiping at her eyes and mouth as she stumbled into the hall. Greasy fingers of smoke warred with the sprinklers in the hall. I pulled up the rag I'd found in the building manager's office around my nose and mouth and dove into the mess inside the shower room.

Leo was sitting with his chin tucked against his chest, trying not to breathe. His eyes were watering and the line around his lips was turning white. I pulled out the box cutter and sliced at the thick layer of tape holding his wrists and ankles in place. It was getting hard for me to see now, and every time I tried to breathe it felt like a small but very angry horse kicking me in the chest.

“What did you do?” Leo wheezed as I helped him up. He leaned on me hard as we stumbled through the gathering water toward a blurry red square that I really hoped was an exit sign.

“Saved your ass,” I said as we shouldered through a heavy door and into a blast of air that was both breathable and so cold I felt the sweat and sprinkler water on my face crystallize. “You're welcome, by the way.” Outside, we both collapsed in a dirty snowbank. Gotta love Minneapolis in the dead of winter. Cars swept by
in two fast lanes throwing up sand and more snow. We were in one of those industrial wastelands where nothing except warehouses, strip clubs, and bodegas stays in business. One of each sat across the street, complimentary neon offering a place to get a payday advance and a gaggle of
XXX GIRLS
to blow it on.