Ink and Shadows (18 page)

“Shit, suppose I’m dead?” His chest tightened, choking the breath from his lungs. Kismet tried not to stare at the windows, keeping his head down and eyes on the sidewalk. “I definitely don’t feel dead. If I was dead, wouldn’t I have been able to touch Chase?

“Come on, Kiz.” Shoving the face of the woman from his thoughts, he tried to shake off the dread. “You’ve seen crap like this all of your life. Dead people don’t take showers or steal clothes out of a dryer. Get real. Just get home and fix yourself up.”

He found his way to the C Street trolley stop, looking out for any transit cops that might have noticed he didn’t have a ticket. Not paying much attention to the people around him, he jerked when an old man bumped into him.

Pungent, the old man’s scent wafted from his clothes, a chemical rot of cologne and skin oils. He reached out and grabbed handfuls of Kismet’s T-shirt, pulling the collar nearly down to the young man’s chest. His yellowed teeth poked up sporadically from his pale gums, a bottom stump jiggled by his moving tongue.

The man was a talker, mouth moving and unrecognizable bits of conversation tumbling past his rotted teeth. Stepping to the side, Kismet avoided eye contact for a moment, and then the man grabbed at his wrist. The man turned, caught still and firm as he stood fast against Kismet’s struggles. Kismet tried harder to get free, twisting away from the man’s grip.

“Let go.” Grabbing at the man’s wrist, Kismet pulled, unable to work loose. The man’s flesh gave slightly under Kismet’s fingers, spongy and yielding. Glancing down, he gulped at the shadowy forearm emerging from the man’s sleeve. “Holy fucking shit!”

A gnarled stump connected to the ethereal appendage poked out of the end of the shirt’s sleeve, its cuff folded up above the man’s elbow. A dirty, yellowed slipover sock covered the appendage, violent pink flesh showing through the gaping holes on the wrapping’s end. The smoke arm was attached to the stump, voracious tendrils chewing on the tender skin, weeping drops of pink water dripping onto the cement sidewalk. Crooked teeth poked out of the shadowed end, pushing and gnawing farther up the man’s flesh arm, the shadowy appendage scraping down in an uncontrollable slide with each gulping bite of the maw as it tried to consume more of the homeless man than it could hold on to.

“Just take it off. Someone, please.” The man’s bleary eyes were sticky with pain, tears running around the raw pink edges of his lids. “They cut it off, but it just doesn’t go away. Please. Help me. Stop the pain. It just hurts so much.”

“God, I’m sorry. No, I can’t help you.” Kismet staggered, suddenly released when the man’s arm
spasmed, the shadow struggling upward to regain ground it lost during its slide down the tortured flesh.

Catching himself before the blue line trolley edged to a stop, Kismet hopped away from the yellow warning curb. His itchiness flared, shoulder blades aching, his bones weeping with the pain. A trolley slid around the curb, brakes jerking the line of bright red cars to a stop. Kismet yanked himself away from the old man, leaping up the stairs of the car behind another passenger.

By the time Kismet reached the corner of University and College, he was shaking from the addiction demanding to be fed, his stomach churning. Wrapping his clammy hands over his abdomen, Kismet retched, heaving up several mouthfuls of water mingled with bile. Burning, he swallowed, trying to get rid of the taste of his guts. Stumbling, he ducked into the coolness of the alleyway he’d scored at before. The space was empty, a lingering scent of piss clinging to the graffiti-sprayed walls.

An ache traveled from his chest down to his groin, kicking him hard when he tried to step up onto the curb. Thighs cramping, he tumbled down onto his knees, tearing a rip in the leg of his jeans. Palms hurting, Kismet crouched on all fours, head down. Panting, his vision blurred, the sidewalk bending up toward his face. The motel’s pale blue roof was just beyond the stone wall blocking off the alleyway.

Rolling off the street, Kismet stood, using the wall to hold himself up.

“Shit, not even a couple of blocks.” He inhaled, smelling the exhaust of passing cars. “Just around the wall.

“God, this fucking hurts.” Pins poked up through his hair, rubbing over his scalp. Scratching at his temples, Kismet tried to convince his body to hold out just a little while longer, not to shut down until he was able to get inside. He turned into the alley and made it down the walkway, heading to the front of the motel, to his room. “Just a bit more. Hold it together, man. It’ll be there. It’s going to be where you left it. Enough to get this off you.”

Kismet heard Carl before he saw him, the man’s loud voice carrying through the courtyard.

Yellow police tape hung from the chain-link fence lining the end of the parking lot next to the alley, a futile attempt to keep people from driving through the back way and cutting through the motel’s property to reach the street.

Sections of the grimy links were scalloped where drivers tried to cut the corner and struck the low curb, careening into the barely visible barrier. A slip of the bright, sunny ribbon flapped, black letters warning bystanders off, its end jagged.

The door next to Kismet’s room was still splattered with a spray of dried blood, dark brown blooms crackled over the worn paint. Someone had already tried to wash the wall clean. Deep crevices in the plaster were thick with gore, faint whiffs of fatty oils and organ meats covered with the sharpness of bleach.

Carl was berating someone on his cell phone. From the sounds of things, the conversation wasn’t going well for Carl, his voice straining with the effort of shouting. Kismet approached cautiously, realizing he had no way of getting into his place. In his stupor, he’d left his keys inside, probably still on the dresser next to his wallet.

The manager’s face turned to him, eyes watching the traffic bundled up near the intersection.
Kismet nodded at the man, astonished when Carl turned away, continuing his conversation
without acknowledging Kismet standing not more than a few feet away from him.

“Carl.” Kismet strolled closer, barely ducking Carl’s fist as the man gestured, making a point to whomever he was talking to on the phone. “Shit, man. You almost hit me!”

Carl moved toward the end of the walkway, brushing up against Kismet’s shoulder. Irritated, Kismet opened his mouth, anger rising. The world bubbled, tightening around him. Time dragged down on his body, a plastic-wrapping sensation elongating his words. The feeling made him sick, tugging at the back of his head and threatening to snap him back a few steps. Forcing out his words, Kismet tried to shake off the creeping tingle.

“Carl, I need to get in. I left my key.” It hurt to speak. Air spiked in his lungs, and Carl jumped in surprise, whirling about to stare at Kismet. The effort to keep his mouth working tired him, and Kismet shivered, the familiar cold chewing into his guts and thighs. “Can I get you to open my door?”

“Hey.” The manager drawled out the word, shock turning to a wide smile. “How you doing, kid? Where’d you go last night?”

“Just needed to get away from what happened, I guess.” Kismet’s hands instinctively reached for his forearms, rubbing at the insistent buzzing on his skin. He didn’t want to talk to Carl, however decent he was being at the moment.

“Can you let me in?” Kismet stilled his arms, keeping his voice calm.

“Sure, not a problem.” Carl grabbed at the huge ring of keys dangling from his belt loop. Normally he would have played at fitting every key into the lock. Kismet was surprised when he opened the door on the first turn, the knob twisting. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Kismet slid into the welcoming darkness, shutting the door behind him. Resting his head back, he took a deep breath to calm himself, trying to tamp the shivers down long enough to reach the kit lying in full view on the floor. Chest heaving with every breath, Kismet fell to the carpet, reaching for the small packet of latex tucked into the pocket of his kit, each movement painfully precise in case he dropped a grain of heroin.

Outside, Carl hung up on who he’d been talking to, a deafening quiet smile curved over his florid face. He pulled out the linen card he’d tucked into his shirt pocket, then dialed the number on it.

“Hello? This is Carl down at Casa de Mar.” He turned the rectangle over in his fingers, playing at the rumpled corner. Tucking the end into the space between his front teeth, he picked at the remnants of his lunch, then sucked at the paper left behind. “Your boy just came back. … Uh-huh, I let him in. … Nope.” Carl paced down to the end of the walk, stepping around the dark splotches on the artificial turf. “I didn’t tell him nothing. That druggie doesn’t know I talked to anyone. I can tell you this, give him a couple of minutes, and he’ll be flying. Take your time. He ain’t going anywhere for a while.”

M
AL
WOKE
to the sound of a pounding fist on his bedroom door. Blinking in the darkness, he pulled
a discarded towel off his alarm clock, its dull red numbers telling him he’d only been asleep for six
hours. Stumbling out of his bed, he caught his foot on something hard, hand groping for something to put
on his naked body. After shouting at the knocker at the door to wait, he found a pair of sweatpants with
its legs too knotted to pull on and tightly held them in front of his waist.

“What?” He opened the door, then stared down at the watery image of a pale face and a shock of black hair. “Min?” Everything swam out of focus, partly from the sleep still clinging to his eyes but mostly from his poor vision. His glasses were back on his nightstand, probably buried between stacks of books by now. He could barely make out a bobbing black hedgehog perched on sheets of hard plaster, the dimple of a nose among the blur.

“Go grab some clothes.” She wrinkled her nose. “But get a bath first. You reek. Your human’s run off, and he’s pissed.”

“He’s what?” Mal tasted his breath on his teeth. “Kismet’s pissed?”

“Death is pissed. As in mad… not drunk,” Min repeated slowly, knocking on Mal’s bare chest. “Kismet? Are you talking about that damned thief you dragged in here half-dead then raided the dryer for my clothes? Who the hell names their kid Kismet?”

“He took your clothes?” Mal stammered, trying to sort through the fuzz in his brain. “Why did he take your clothes?”

“Probably wouldn’t have if you didn’t wear the same size clothes as a little boy. In fact, if it weren’t
for those pebbles you tuck under your shirt, Min, I would swear you were a boy most of the time,” Ari said. Tugging on the fringe of hair near her ear, Ari grinned. “Maybe if you grew your hair out, people
wouldn’t be making that mistake.”

Mal blinked. All he could see was a slight jerk of the tall man’s head and the possibility of Min’s finger waving in Ari’s face. The gesture was followed by a thump of a fist hitting Ari’s shoulder, his laughter soon joined by hers.

The two Horsemen wrestled with one another verbally, Min finally crying off when Ari hooked one arm around her neck and twisted her against him, holding her tight.

“Let go.” Her teeth flashed, grabbing at a piece of his chest, his shirt wet from her mouth. Ari released her, rubbing dramatically at the spot, Min rolling her eyes at him. “Please. I know you. You’re more excited than hurt.”

“Meh.” Ari poked at her nose, tweaking the end with a twist of his fingers. “My heart beats for only one Horseman.”

“Definitely not me.” Min poked back, finding the ticklish spot between his ribs. “Speaking of Death, he’ll have our heads if we don’t head back upstairs. He’s in a foul mood. Well, for him, it’s a foul mood. It’s hard to tell.”

“Not hard to tell at all. He’s a bit pissed off,” Ari replied. “Get upstairs as soon as you can, Pest. We’re going to have to go find that pet of yours.”

“Yesterday all you guys wanted to do was get rid of him,” Mal reminded them, grumpily rubbing at his tousled hair. The news of Kismet’s flight bothered him, making his chest ache. “Now he’s gone, and you want him back?”

“Death wants the kid back. He thinks the boy might have something to do with the Veil thinning.” Ari grinned at Mal’s nearly nude body, a salacious smile plastered on his face. “When I told him about the wraith this morning, he got very quiet. His mood got worse by the time I got to the kid. Then he went straight to inferno when he started sniffing around the boy’s clothes. He says something big happened to the kid. We’ll talk about it upstairs.”

“You should have told him about this crap last night, Ari,” Min scolded lightly. “He would have done something about the kid then, and we wouldn’t have to be playing needle in a haystack today.”

“Shi was dead on his feet,” Ari responded sharply, his voice hard. “I wasn’t going to do that to him. I figured the kid and the wraith could wait until he got some sleep. How the hell was I supposed to know the boy was going to leave? He couldn’t even stay conscious for longer than a minute. All of a sudden he can cut and run?”

“I’m surprised we still have silverware. Probably jacked some of the electronics in the living room. I think everything else was locked behind closed doors. Ari, it would serve you right if you go in your room and it’s stripped. Probably called his friends on your cell phone, and they cleaned the place out while you were trying to spoon Death in his sleep,” Min scoffed, turning her back on Mal and heading upstairs to the main floor. “I’m going to check if there’s anything else missing besides my clothes.”

“She’s furious. He probably took her favorite shroud,” Ari said, watching Min bound up the stairs. “I checked my room. I don’t see anything missing. My wallet’s sitting out with money in it. That’s all there.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know he would leave.” Mal sagged against the frame, rubbing at his forehead.

“What?” Ari asked. “You expected the street rat you brought in half-dead and nursed back to health was going to stick around in the morning? Come on, Cooties, you can’t be that naïve. He’s practically feral.”