Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

"Eve," said the new arrival, "let's not have this pathetic animal running loose, all right? But make it fast. I owe it that much, at least, for being my hound, for leading me to you."

The voice was warm and low, and yet a blast of frigid air churned up from the place where the ghost of Dr. Leonard Graves appeared.

Eve smiled. "Of course, Leonard. A pleasure to see you, as always."

She tore the vampire from his grasp and raked her claws across its throat, nearly severing its head from its neck. There was a moment where the thing's flesh crackled like damp wood in a fire, and then it exploded in a blast of cinder and ash, its dying embers drifting down to the carpeted entryway like gray snow.

"That rocked!" Danny Ferrick said, only to have his mother shush him, her tension obvious even in that simple utterance. A package of cigarettes had appeared in her hands and she was tapping one out.

"So how is it out there?" Eve asked, as Dr. Graves drifted into the house. "As bad as we think?"

The ghost glanced around the living room, frowned as he noted Julia and Danny, and then paused just inside the doorway, apparently not wishing to cause the woman even more of a fright. "I wish I could put your fears at ease," he said, turning to gaze out into the night of swirling red fog. "But I've never been much of a liar."

"Oh, Jesus. I'm in Hell," Julia Ferrick muttered to herself. The pack of Winston Lights seemed to explode, showering cigarettes onto the floor. She started to shake, as though she was going to fall apart entirely.

"No, hey. Julia, listen. Listen to me. It's all right," Clay said.

Eve turned to find him shooting her a dark look and at first she did not understand. Then she became aware of her talons. She nodded slowly, willing her hands to resume their normal shape, their elegant human form. She strode across the room to Julia and held up both hands. The woman stared at her, shaking her head, mouthing some denial or other.

"Mom, didn't you hear him? It's okay," Danny said, trying to reassure her.

Eve felt sorry for the kid. But none of them could afford to have the mother fall apart. They didn't have the luxury of looking out for her at the moment. "Julia. Hey, Julia!" Eve snapped.

The woman's eyes went wide, her nostrils flaring, and she glared at Eve.

"We're a motley crew, aren't we?" Eve said, almost succeeding in keeping the amusement out of her voice. Almost, but not quite. "Yeah. A motley crew. You've picked up enough already that none of this is a surprise to you. Conan Doyle's a sorcerer. A mage, we say. Clay's a shapeshifter, but that's only the easy explanation for that. The same way 'vampire' is a convenient way to describe me. You won't believe me, but trust me when I tell you the rest of my story would fuck you up much worse than that one word. Dr. Graves, here," she said, hooking a thumb to point out the new arrival, the tasty-looking man with dark bronze skin that seemed translucent at times. "He's a ghost. But he's a friend. May be hard for you to take, but we're the good guys. We're on your side. Deal with reality, or don't. Up to you."

Julia did not look up at first, and Danny was at her side. "Mom?"

Then the woman actually laughed. It was a dry, sort of unhinged little chuckle, but it was something. "A ghost," she said. "He'd have to be. I remember my father telling me stories about Dr. Graves when I was a little girl." Her gaze shifted toward Graves. "You were his hero."

The specter nodded once. "I'm honored."

"Honored," Julia said. She closed her eyes and shook her head. Then she dropped to her knees and began to collect her cigarettes. Danny got down and helped her, concern and regret in his eyes. When he handed her several of them, Julia sat back on her legs and looked up at Graves again, her hands full of cigarettes. Her eyes seemed somehow clearer than before.

"You're honored," she said, gazing at Dr. Graves. Then she looked around at the rest of them and dropped all the cigarettes but one, which she tapped nervously against her thigh. "What a circus. I should have rented a tent. You're all monsters, then, right? All of you, monsters of one kind or another. My son… my son is a demon. Or something like that. But whatever you are… I know you don't mean me any harm. I know you're trying to stop this…" she gestured toward the window, where the crimson fog had begun to glow, just slightly.

"Just tell me what I can do to help." Julia climbed to her feet, taking a long breath. She put a hand on Danny's shoulder and then glanced at the others again, holding up her lone salvaged cigarette. "And please, for God's sake, somebody get me a light."

Eve had to hand it to the woman. She'd seen stronger people reduced to dribbling idiots over lesser things than this.

Pleased that they weren't going to have to deal with Julia Ferrick losing her mind, Eve turned to the ghost. "All right, Leonard. Tell us something we don't know."

Dr. Graves had a quiet dignity that seemed to make them all stand a bit straighter. "The townhouse has been overrun with — "

"Know it," Eve interrupted.

The ghost scowled. "A sorceress of unimaginable power — "

"Know that, too. Her name is Morrigan and she's blood kin to our own Ceridwen."

The air around the ghost became increasingly colder as his annoyance grew. "Perhaps you should be filling me in as to what's going on."

"Is that all you have?" Eve asked him.

"Are you aware that the souls of the dead are being pulled back to their remains, that they're being driven from their graves, and all of them seem to be drawn toward the same location in the city?"

"Finally," she said. "Something I didn't already know."

"Nor did I," said a voice from the depths of the night, from the folds of the bloody mist.

"Jesus Christ, what now?" Julia whispered.

Two figures emerged from the fog, stepping in through the door. Arthur Conan Doyle glanced around the room approvingly. Lady Ceridwen, elemental sorceress of the Fey, gave them each an icy stare. Eve admired her cloak, but the pants were completely without style. Ethereally beautiful she might have been, but her fashion sense was for shit. Earth tones, blues and greens, no patterns, nothing especially bright. No sophistication at all. But what pissed Eve off was that Ceridwen was still stunning, no matter what.

"Excellent, you're all accounted for," Conan Doyle said.

"Nice to see you're still amongst the living," Eve replied. She shot an amused glance at Graves. "No offense."

"None taken."

Conan Doyle stepped further into the living room, the stoic Ceridwen at his side. "It appears that the situation is most dire," he said gravely, making eye contact with them each in turn.

"Now let us set the wheels in motion to effect a remedy, as swiftly as we're able."

The lights were out, now. The fog had stolen them.

The Ferrick woman had been kind enough to allow him the use of her home office for his ruminations. Conan Doyle sat in the darkness upon her black leather chair and attempted to relax, letting his mind wander. It was times such as this, when the tensions were high, that Arthur Conan Doyle felt the effects of his nearly century and a half of life. His back ached, and his bones creaked with only the slightest of movements, and he wondered quite seriously if he still had the inner strength to deal with problems of this magnitude.

His agents — his menagerie as he liked to call them — had seemed to breathe a sigh of relief upon his arrival, so he kept his doubts and fears to himself. He would do as he had always done. In the midst of chaos, he would find the skeins of order, and attempt to weave them together once more.

This was the first time since early that morning that he'd had a chance to sit and collect his thoughts. In his mind he catalogued the date he and his agents had gathered. Nothing was too small or inconsequential. He analyzed the events of the previous days, considered the entire history of Sweetblood the Mage, and how Conan Doyle himself had come to dedicate himself to a search for his former mentor. The incident in New York, when he had failed to procure the amber-encased body of the mage, was a moment he examined thoroughly. Conan Doyle replayed every conversation, reviewed every action, but no matter how he tried, a discernable pattern had yet to emerge.