Daniel Abraham - Unclean Spirits

I pulled out, found my way onto Speer heading northeast, and tuned the radio to a country station before I realized that I had forgotten my coffee at the cafeteria and also that I didn’t know how to get home from here. I just tried to keep my mind on driving until I reached Colfax, turned left, and passed the University of Colorado on my right. Then I knew more or less where I was. I did a U-turn at Eighth Street and headed home.

It was a little past noon now, the temperature rising up into the nineties. The air smelled like gasoline and tar. The traffic was thick but not slow, and it seemed to take all my attention just to keep up with it. My body seemed to know better than I did what needed to be done. I let reflex take over, and I was a little surprised under half an hour later to find myself pulling up to the brick house. Eric’s house. My house. The windowless van was on the street, the black sports car in the carport. The lawn looked thirsty. I wondered when I was supposed to have watered it.

I walked in the front door and dropped my keys on the side table. Ex came out from the kitchen, a shotgun held at half ready, like he didn’t know whether to expect a friend or an assault team. Which was probably reasonable. We stared at each other for a long moment. He seemed tired. His white-blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail tied with a strip of leather. His black shirt was torn at the cuffs. He looked angry, but not with me.

He looked haunted.

It happened on his watch, I thought to myself. He did his best, and this is what came of it. Poor little tomato.

I took his hand without realizing I was going to. He looked surprised for a second, then squeezed my hand gently. He started to say something, stopped, and looked down.

It’s all right, I wanted to say. Except that it wasn’t.

“How is he?” Ex asked.

“Stable,” I said. “Just not in there.”

“It’s the fucking Voice of the Abyss,” Midian rasped from behind Ex. “If he hadn’t done that bullshit with the dog, he’d have held it together. You know. Maybe.”

Midian sat at the table. His shirt was off, and a bandage wrapped his wasted belly. Blood dark as India ink was soaking through.

“I thought Coin was supposed to be vulnerable,” I said.

“He was,” Midian said with a grimace. “Fucker was barely able to ignore everything we threw at him and cripple us before he went back inside.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” I asked.

“What do you want to hear, kid?” Midian said. The gravel and whiskey voice seemed almost compassionate. “We took our shot. It didn’t work out.”

“Where’s Chogyi Jake?” I asked, a sudden stab of panic hitting me.

“Meditating,” Ex said. “He’s okay. I think he’s okay.”

“So what the fuck happened?”

“We made some assumptions,” Ex said.

“And?”

“And it turned out Coin was a little more paranoid than we thought. He was protected. Personally protected, not just by the wards they had on-site,” Ex said. “From what we can tell, he was ready for exactly the forms we were using. He suckered us.”

“Meaning someone ratted us out,” Midian said. “My guess? Eric may have spilled a couple of beans on his way down.”

“And now their initiation rite’s done, so they aren’t tied up with that anymore. Coin has a couple hundred of his people free to act against us. And he’s not locked to any particular location, so we don’t know where he is,” Ex said. He sounded tired. “We knew it was a risk.”

My shock was starting to wear thin, numbness giving way to something less gentle.

“Actually,” I said, “I’m pretty sure ‘Oh, and we might all die’ wasn’t part of the discussion when I was in the room. I thought you guys knew what you were doing.”

“Well,” Midian said, his voice sharp and grating, “maybe you should have spent a little more time planning and a little less playing at the mall and getting your ashes hauled.”

“Stop it,” Ex snapped, but it was too late by then. Midian was rising to his feet, one bone-thin hand pointing toward me. His lips drew back from the blackened teeth, and his voice buzzed with anger and physical pain.

“Look, kid, I don’t care if you want to candy-ass your way through life. You’ve got the cash. Do what you want. You want to take over Eric’s plans and then let everyone else do the work because they’re older than you are and they’ve got cocks? Fine with me. No trouble. But I’ve got a half a liter of crap leaking out of me right now that should have stayed inside, and I’m not in the mood to hear you bitch that the plan you couldn’t be bothered to make for yourself didn’t work out.”

“I said stop it,” Ex said, stepping between me and Midian’s accusing fingers.

“I don’t need that shit,” I yelled. “I just got back from the hospital. Aubrey could have died because of this. He might be dying right now. You don’t know.”

“I knew Eric Heller, kid. I worked with him. He was hard-fucking-core,” Midian went on. “You lost a man. That’s normal. Wouldn’t even have slowed Eric down, but you’re about as hard as fucking marshmallow, aren’t you? You want my advice? Get your sad ass out of here. Go hang out at Cabo or whatever you people do. Coin’ll track you down. He’ll kill you. But at least you won’t be in my fucking way.”

The sound of Ex chambering a shotgun round silenced us both. He had the barrel leveled at Midian’s face. The vampire seemed to notice the gun for the first time, yellow eyes going wide, then narrow.

“I’m going to ask you to sit down,” Ex said. “I’m not going to ask twice.”

Midian sank back into his chair, sneering but silent. Ex followed his descent with the gun. I leaned against the counter, arms crossed like I was hugging myself. I hated the tears tracking down my cheeks. They felt like traitors. Ex didn’t look back. It was only the shift in his shoulders and the gentle tone of voice that showed he was talking to me.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done differently.”

“She could have pulled the trigger,” Midian said. “Or didn’t you notice that you and the smiling professor were the only ones who actually fired a round?”

In the silence that followed, I watched Ex’s back go stiff, the angle of his head move half a degree as he considered this. I wondered if Midian was right. If I’d fired, maybe it would have overwhelmed Coin’s defenses. I closed my eyes, and I could feel the metal curve of the trigger against my protesting finger.

“Resisting the urge toward violence isn’t a bad thing,” Chogyi Jake said. I opened my eyes. He’d changed from the blue robe into a simple white T-shirt and blue jeans. His skin had an ashen tone that worried me, but his smile was the same as ever. “The question remains, what are we going to do now?”

“I think we’re still safe if we stay inside the house,” Ex said, not lowering the gun. “Eric’s wards kept them away from here when they were searching before the ceremony.”

“The Invisible College is stronger now. How long do you think the wards will hold?” Chogyi Jake asked, leaning on the counter beside me. I could feel the warmth coming from his skin, and the smell of fresh soap.

“We can prop them up. But no, not long,” Ex admitted. “We have to go to ground. Stay where the Invisible College can’t find us until things blow over. I’ve been thinking about it. It makes the most sense to split up. Jayne’s got the resources to get out of the country, and Eric’s sure to have some other places as protected as this one. It’s just a question of finding which one.”

“And you?” Chogyi asked.

“I’ve got some ideas,” Ex said.

“And Aubrey?” I asked. My voice was shaking a little, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. “Aubrey isn’t going anywhere the way he is now. Even if we got the hospital to discharge him.”