The Night Sheriff, page 26
“Polina here is easy.” Vandy has very sensibly covered her mouth, but the witch’s eyes are on me now, silently pleading. “Polina is afraid of death. There. Did you see how that spiked there? This is a very common fear, and you might think it’s the best one to start with, but it is so easy, that you really should go beyond it.”
I lean in and address Polina directly. “You see, Grand Witches are not really afraid of death, per se. She has seen far too much of that, haven’t you, my dear? No, Polina is afraid of what is waiting for her after death, and well she should be.” And yes, the fears of what must await her take shape and they are very rich indeed. Vandy eagerly reaches out and snaps at them, and the witch struggles in her grip. It’s quite adorable, but—
“If I may,” I murmur. I step in and begin to enfold her fields within mine. Vandy rears back with a snarl and shakes me off. I can feel her attempting to harm me, but the combination of inexperience and extreme hunger neutralize her efforts. I back off. Of course she’s still too traumatized to allow me to get too close. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“It will not happen again.”
Thus, I stand back and merely watch. It is very frustrating. I see what she is doing wrong, but on the other hand, I had no one to teach me and I did not starve, so I bite my lip and wait.
There is a bit of trial and error, but she gets it eventually, and bites down just so. Beneath her hand, Polina screams and her eyes roll upward into her head. My word, the girl is a natural. A bit too enthusiastic, in my opinion, but it is her first time, and the change will have left her ravenous. This particular fear is so deep and all-consuming that even from where I am, I am easily able to siphon off some of the ancillary fears and regrets that come boiling off the witch without interfering with Vandy’s meal. I catch her eye, and I can see that she is aware of what I am doing … and the pleasure to be found while feeding so suffuses her that she does not mind. I have never dined together with someone. I can see why it is such a popular bonding experience.
All too soon the witch goes limp. Her soul makes a frantic last-second effort to escape, startling Vandy, but I ensnare it and present it to her for examination. A witch’s soul tends to be different from other souls, and Polina remains textbook to the last. Hers is an old soul. One of those that has gone around again and again and again enough times that it thought it could game the system, as it were. I point out features of interest, and Vandy is an excellent student. Polina’s soul’s efforts to escape become ever more frantic.
“So what do we do with them?” Vandy asks.
“Normally we just release them. We could even release Polina here and give her a sporting chance.” From within my grasp, the soul begs for freedom. I close my metaphorical grip a little tighter.
“However, she hurt you.” I shrug. “And myself, and in cases like this, I have found it best to make an example.”
A rough voice from behind us chuckles, causing Vandy to almost fall over from where she is kneeling. “And I honor and appreciate you for this, Tovarishch.”
We turn, and Vandy gasps at the sight of an ancient black bear, easily ten feet tall, even though he is still on all fours. He is wearing an eye patch. I had been expecting the old fellow, and politely bow, as does he.
“Vandy, this is the late Madame Polina Urakhov’s familiar.” We had met once and had a very convivial conversation during a particularly portentous eclipse in Krakow.
The bear sits with a grunt. “Is true. Was very rough job. Will not be sorry to see it end. My little Polina was a very busy girl.” He scratches his belly with huge black claws as he frankly examines Vandy. “So you are new Dehazzaki? There has never been two of you in the world at the same time before. A new thing.” He grins. “Sometimes a new thing is good. Sometimes it is bad. But at least this one will be interesting I think.”
A light dawns. “You told Polina about me. About my weaknesses.”
The bear actually looks embarrassed. “Is true. But she wanted the knowledge, and giving her knowledge was part of the job. Until recently she was not willing to pay the price to get it.
“Was not easy to find, but everything is written down somewhere. Am not proud of this; you always treated her with respect, and she did not reciprocate. I, for one, will acknowledge her sins against you and, as her Familiar, declare the accounts now balanced.”
“Thank you.”
He shrugs. “She was very desperate to avoid Grandfather Death, and I wanted to help her. It was all I ever wanted to do, but …” He gave a great sigh that caused him to slump. “But she never listened to my advice. Even when it went against our Master’s interests.”
Vandy tentatively raised a finger. “Your … Master?”
The bear raised a paw. “Don’t worry about me, little Dehazzaki, the Master, he expects us to plot and scheme against him. It makes our failure all the sweeter.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “He is a total dick.”
He is silent for a long moment and then gestures to the soul in my hand and sighs. “But now we must be off. He will be waiting, and we have very far to go.”
I extend my hand, and the bear delicately plucks Polina’s essence from my grasp with the tips of his claws. “Hello, my little girl. You never listened to me, and now? Now it is too late.” With that he opened his jaws, wide, wider, impossibly wide and stuffed the frantically straining soul within, before closing them with a wet snap. He then clambered slowly to his feet and bows to us one last time. “I doubt we will meet again,” he says with a shrug, and then pads silently off into the night.
Bone Cat leaps off my shoulder and hollers after him. “Don’t forget to chew!”
Vandy looks at me. “How many other monster women who want to kill you are out there?”
“At the moment, I believe you’re the only one left.” I clap my hands. “But enough dawdling! We still have Herr Zoiden to deal with.”
Vandy gasps and looks around. “Oh, he took off while we were … feeding.”
I held up a finger. “True. But the way he took off will take him the long way around to the exit.” I extend my hand. “An excellent chance to learn how to hunt.” Vandy stares at my hand, and then steps back.
“I … I can’t.” She shakes her head. “What you did to me. I don’t want to touch you anymore.” I drop my hand.
Oh, there is much I could say, but Vandy is an intelligent girl. It is not logic that is at work here. “I understand,” I say gently. “And afterwards, you will be free to do as you wish, but for tonight, at least, please allow me to teach you what you need.”
She stares down at the ground and balls her fists, but then a thought suddenly hits her, and the look she gives me allows me to hope. “Can I fly?”
“Fly?” I laugh. “Flying is the least of what we can do.” And this time, when I extend my hand, she takes it. Reluctantly, but firmly. I glance towards Bone Cat. I will teach her to hunt properly, but our remaining time is short enough that I will not eschew a little help.
Bone Cat closes his eyes. “The Sorcerer’s Breakfast ride.” And we are off.
Herr Zoiden provides a better hunt than I had foreseen. He has learned how to dampen his emotions. His mother’s training, no doubt. He makes excellent use of cover, knows how to double back, and can move in complete silence. In fact, he actually makes it past the gate.
But then he allows himself to succumb to an inclination to gloat, while I hang helpless just within the boundary. Thus, it is so very satisfactory when Vandy stoops and takes him like an eagle taking a hare. It is very well done, and she graciously drags him back inside, where we have another lovely, shared breakfast.
We then have a final exercise. As I float overhead, Vandy tracks down the late Madam Polina’s scalpel-wielding assistant all by herself. It’s a very good first solo assignment, as he appears to be slightly concussed, but there is no denying that she does an excellent job, and even manages to snag the fellow’s spirit before it can fly free. The girl has the knack, and no mistake.
I then escort her to the offices. A quick search shows that Herr Zoiden did, in fact, send all of the employees home. Ah, hubris. We slip into the late Mr. Donovan’s office, and using the backdoor codes that I installed a decade ago (I really do try to keep up on these things), send out a mass email under the imprimatur of the Head of Park Security-Night Division (which if you go by the Last Man Standing rule, I technically am), informing the new security staff that they are all fired.
I then send a note to HR telling them that they will have to refill those positions rather quickly. I strongly recommend that they work with the AAAApex Employment Agency. I also send out an emergency notification that we need night watchmen pulled from the corporate offices and nearby hotels immediately, because, at the moment, the park is deserted.
Before these worthies show up, we stow the bodies, I explain to Vandy that the peculiar feeling she is getting when facing the East is indicative that the sun is soon to rise, and that we must hide.
She sits abruptly, and actually cries for a bit. I can understand, even after all this time. Losing the Sun is perhaps the most difficult thing creatures like us have to face in the beginning. It is deeply ingrained in humanity that the sunshine represents purity, light, and safety from the things of the night. It is very hard to accept that you will never see the sun again, nor walk in its light, and that you are now one of the things that it is protecting humanity from.
And then, still slightly overstuffed, we stroll together down Main Street, past the closed shops and arcades. “What happens now?”
“I have a few resting places that have not been found. I will show you one”—I raise a finger before she can speak—“and then I shall go to another, and we shall sleep.”
“I meant tomorrow.”
“I know. But we have done as much as we can tonight. A lot has happened. As for everything else, we shall have to deal with that as we go. Remember, if nothing else, you now have time.” She nods and we say nothing more. I think about offering her my arm, but quickly quash the impulse.
When we come to the resting place I have selected for her, she gives me a skeptical look, and I can understand her reluctance. It is the pedestal that supports the statue of Mr. Bartholomew and Preston Platypus. An art deco façade of polished jasper and brass that appears quite solid, but it is, like so much of the rest of the park, hollow within. I have to teach her how to dematerialize while still retaining enough cohesion that she can flow through the small grate I had placed there when the pedestal was laid, but as in everything, she grasps the idea quickly, and she vanishes within. Shortly, I hear her close the light-blocking hatch.
I then head to my own chosen spot. I could fly, the repeated meals have done wonders as regards to my injuries, but I am still a bit sore, and chose to walk. Plus, there is enough time that I can indulge my need to talk. Of course, it’s only Bone Cat, but he’s better than nothing.
“Wow. Worst first date ever, boss.”
—Or so I’d foolishly assumed. “It was what I had to do. The only thing I cared about was keeping her alive.”
“Did you?”
An annoyingly germane question. I’m not actually sure if I—we—count as a species of undead, or if we are merely differently alive. “We can still talk to her without having to use a Ouija board, so I will consider this a win.”
We came to tonight’s resting place. I don’t care for this one as much, as it’s located under one of the roller coasters, but today, I believe I will be able to sleep through anything.
As I settle in, I feel Bone Cat curl up in the crook of my arm. I am almost asleep, when he murmurs, “You know, I still don’t get it. If he wasn’t that Wendigo shitheel, then what did happen to Mortimer Zenon?”
My last cogent thought is: That is a very good question.
Chapter Twelve
When we awake the next evening, Vandy complains of being a bit stiff. I assure her that this has nothing to do with sleeping underneath a statue but is due more to all of the physiological changes she went through yesterday. Mentally, she will also still be coming to terms with becoming an apex predator, and the restrictions that will apply to her.
It is obvious that Vandy still hates me for what I did to her. She tolerates my presence, because she is intelligent enough to realize that I still have things to teach her, but it is an ongoing struggle for her to stay civil. In a day or two, a week at the most, I expect she will strike out on her own. I hope I can teach her enough before that happens. I wish we could discuss it, but I doubt there will be enough time before she leaves.
Neither of us is particularly hungry, what with yesterday’s feast, so I try to ameliorate the annoyance she is feeling by showing her some of the more outré aspects of Zenonland, things that even the most rabid devotees of the park never suspected. This certainly puts her in a better mood.
After the park closes, we head towards the offices. Vandy would prefer to fly, but she’s new to it, and would fly from dusk to dawn if she could. I explain that continuing to mingle with people is important, especially people we would see every day, like the employees of the Night Shift. There is no denying that we are different from humanity, but as long as we can act normal, most people won’t allow themselves to see just how different we are. Vandy has an advantage in that her true form is still identical to what it was when she was still one hundred percent human. It will be a century or two before she will have to rely upon glamours to walk safely amongst them as I do.
As far as park-related gossip goes, the employees today are spoilt for choice. There were a number of things that we were not able to clean up before we had to retire, and thus the Morning Crew found themselves presented with a few exciting challenges, such as unexplained bullet holes, swathes of steel netting, and discarded weapons. The local police were called in, but there really was nothing else to find.
The park managers had been frantic, as it appeared that the entire security force that had recently been hired through questionable methods, had just as summarily been fired sometime last night.
But the employees here are professionals and in its own way, this is show business, and so people fill in where they must, and the job gets done. Meanwhile, pleading phone calls to former staff and employment agencies were made and with only a half an hour’s delay, the gates are opened, and the show goes on.
Many, many people want to talk to Herr Zoiden about the hirings and the firings and a number of other irregularities as well. But it appears that the new CEO is missing, and the remainder of the board are acting as if they had awakened from some sort of dream. They are falling over each other to declare that other members must have voted him in, as they certainly would not have, and apparently both the SEC as well as the FBI have taken an interest and paid them the first of no doubt many visits.
While I am sure that their recent actions in this regard were the direct result of the late Madam Urakhov’s influence, the general consensus seems to be that upper management was overdue for a bit of legal scrutiny.
Herr Zoiden’s replacement has not yet been selected, obviously, but the smart money says that it will be my old friend, Mr. Shulman, who had already been recalled to the states after Mr. Donovan’s death. I actually have a rather large chunk of Zenon stock in my portfolio, thanks to Cormangwöld. I usually don’t activate my proxies, but, in this case, I will cheerfully throw them behind Mr. Shulman. I know I can work with him, and it will be a pleasure to see him again.
Vandy does very well, overall. She has a few rough moments dealing with crowds, but I know when to remove her to more remote locations so that she can recover. The only time she breaks down is when we stroll past her old pin kiosk. When she failed to report for work, someone else was slotted into that particular position without fuss, and as far as this tiny portion of the world is concerned, it is as if she had never been. She sits atop the Mountain of Madness and has herself a good cry, and I am relieved and pleasantly surprised when she rejoins me of her own volition.
Afterwards we sit at an empty table, a plate of untouched beignets between us, and she makes a list of the things she will have to deal with. We discuss whether she should keep her apartment, and how she will renew her driver’s license, and should she go back to school, and what will she tell her family, and she begins to truly comprehend the thousand and one things that are different now, and that will stay different forever.
I give her Miss Dawkson’s contact information and explain how she can help. I feel a great sadness, because I desperately wish to help her more than I will be able to. While I certainly had no mentor when I made the transformation so many years ago, it is a fundamentally different world now. Monitored, interconnected, and wired to an extent that would have been inconceivable even a century ago.
Vandy may be a child of this age, but for creatures like us, the interconnected nature of the times changes everything. So much of what we do is best done under cover of the darkness, away from the eyes of an uncomprehending humanity. My time here was a great gift. As Mr. Mortimer had predicted, it gave me a chance to learn, while being safely cocooned from the everyday world. Ideally, Vandy should stay here as well, learning how to deal with the world from a place of safety, but I know that it is too soon for her to able to stand being so close to me. Soon enough, she will leave. Possibly tonight.
Thus I make an effort to make the last chore of the evening, the disposal of the bodies, as magical as possible. Besides, we have other business to settle as well. First, of course, we invade the Lost Temple. While we progress, I explain to Vandy what happened. We are occasionally interrupted by a bit of minor seismic activity, and a few ghostly illusions attempt to scare us off, but all too soon we are standing before the main altar.
I fully expect that I will have to invoke the old god, drag him out of hiding by his ethereal ear, as it were, but Xochemilchic surprises me. There is a burst of thunder, and he manifests before us. No illusion this, he is here, battered looking, and his feathers a bit threadbare. But he straightens up and regards us with a roll and snap of his faded blue wings.
