Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

Clay watched as Eve whispered something to Danny that he could not hear. Then she led the demon boy off into the thick fog. Just before it would have obscured his view of her completely, she glanced back at him.

"Meet you on the inside," she said.

He nodded. The two of them had certainly had their share of conflict, but it was always reassuring to have her around. She was the only thing on the face of the Earth that was as old as he was. Or nearly so, at least.

Now he glanced at Dr. Graves. The ghost hovered above the street, and he was strangely reminded of the balloons of cartoon characters that were pulled down the streets of New York on Thanksgiving Day. For all of his eternity spent on this world, Clay loved the little things, the odd little details that had become such a part of humanity. Parades, for instance. He loved parades. He hoped the world survived so that he could see more of them.

Graves started toward Conan Doyle's townhouse, and Clay set off after him, swift and sure, his boots all but silent on the cobblestones. The ghost paused beside the old house.

"So, we start from the bottom and work our way up," Clay said.

The ghost nodded and began to sink into the street.

"Hey, what are you…"

"I'll meet you there," he said, just before his head disappeared into the ground. Then the ghost was gone, leaving him alone in the street.

"Son of a bitch," Clay muttered, closing his eyes and thinking of a form he would need to take in order to get into the basement. He hated to be the last one into a fight, and he wondered, as he began to change, if the ghost somehow was aware of that.

Clay doubled in size, his body becoming powerful and squat. He was now covered in a fine, shiny fur, his domed head nestled firmly between brawny shoulders. Lifting his short, muscular arms, he looked down upon the four railroad-spike claws that adorned each paw.

The creature he mimicked was not a mole and not a bear. It was not anything human eyes had ever seen. For though the Creator had put upon the Earth a great many wondrous things, there were beasts he had imagined with his Clay, but then abandoned. Things no one in the world had ever seen. Unless they had seen Clay in action.

Happy with the shape, he dropped to his bony knees and began to dig, the claws making short work of the cobblestoned street and layers of heavy stone beneath. It took him no time at all to burrow a tunnel down under Louisburg Square, through a wall of brick, and into one of the sewers that ran below the townhouses.

The air in the sewer was thick with gases other than oxygen — most likely a mixture of nitrogen, natural gas and methane — and he altered his lungs so that he could breathe down there. His vision in this shape was poor, but his sense of smell was heightened to the extreme. Clay could smell the distinctive scent of the Night People.

He loped down the partially flooded passage, splashing through the filth until the aroma of the enemy was so strong that he knew he must be just beneath them. Clay dug into the wall, beginning a new passage that would take him into the basement of Conan Doyle's townhouse.

Moments later he exploded up through the concrete floor into the room. His poor eyes located the drifting, translucent shape of Dr. Graves floating in the air.

"Thanks for waiting," Clay rasped as he shifted back to his human form.

Now that his vision had returned to normal, he saw that Graves was focused on one particular corner of the room. At the same time, he noticed the stink in the basement, a smell he had become all too familiar with of late. He had been so focused on the Corca Duibhne, he had all but completely overlooked it. But in the cellar, it was overpowering. Choking.

The smell of blood.

"Good God," Clay whispered as he looked upon the bodies stacked up against the wall like cordwood, and others hanging by their ankles from hooks on the ceiling. "What is going on here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Graves asked him. "They're storing food. Using the basement as a larder."

Danny's eyes had become accustomed to the fog.

Bizarro, he thought, following close behind Eve as she made her way down one of the small alleys between the homes on Beacon Hill. It unnerved him, in a way, that he could make out the shapes of things through the thick, roiling mist. His vision was changing along with the rest of him, adapting to his environment. Which made him wonder what other surprises his body had in store for him.

He could make out a small wooden fence at the end of the alley ahead of them and was about to point it out, when Eve quickened her pace, vaulting over the obstruction with ease and grace. Danny clambered over the fence as quickly as he could, fearful that his companion would leave him behind. He landed in the small yard on the other side in a crouch, his new eyes scanning the fog.

"Keep up, slowpoke," he heard her say, her voice carried on the breeze and swirling with the mist. He caught sight of her fluttering coattails as she went over another fence across the yard. It was sort of a shame that she'd put the coat on at all. The top she had on was nicely clingy and he liked to watch her move. Even with the coat, he could appreciate her… but without it…

Chill. Keep your mind on staying alive. Danny bounded across the small patch of grass, tensing the muscles in his legs as prepared to scale the next obstacle. The power in his jump took him by surprise and his arms pinwheeled as he tried to keep his balance while hurtling through the air. He cleared the fence with feet to spare and landed on all fours, unable to prevent the smile from blossoming across his face. Danny immediately thought of Mr. Davis, the track and field coach at his high school, and how the man would have shit his pants if he'd ever seen any of his track team make a jump like that.

"Decent," Eve said, leaning against a brick building.

"Where are we now?" he asked, rising to join her. They appeared to be in another small yard.

"We're at the back of Conan Doyle's place. Figured we'd get less attention if we got to the roof from the back."

Danny stepped back, looking skyward, up the rear wall of building. Though no taller than four stories, the top of the townhouse disappeared into the crimson mist.

"And we get up there how, exactly?"

Eve pressed herself flat against the building, sinking her long fingernails into the mortar between the bricks. "Silly rabbit," she chided, beginning to climb. "As if there was any other way."

The way she crawled up the wall, Eve reminded him of some kind of lizard, barely making a sound other than the faint scrape of claw upon brick.

"Wait," he hissed, on the verge of panic. He didn't want to be left alone. Danny desperately wanted to be included, to belong. For the first time in oh so very long he felt as though he were part of something; that he truly mattered. He did not want that feeling to end.

Eve stopped midway, and maneuvered her body around so she could look down at him.

Not a lizard, he thought. A spider. She reminded him of a really big spider.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

He couldn't believe she was asking the question. "I can't do that," he told her, growing angry.

Eve righted herself and began to climb again. "Bet you didn't think you could make a six foot leap over a fence either," she said as she disappeared into the mist.

She was right about that, he decided, approaching the wall and doing as he had watched her do. Danny placed his hands against cool brick, digging his fingernails — no, they were claws; his fingernails had fallen out months ago — between the bricks, as Eve had done. He attempted to pull his weight upward.

And succeeded.

Much to his shock and surprise, Danny was climbing the wall. Would you look at this, he wanted to scream, increasing his pace to catch up with Eve.