Laura Gilman - Heart of Briar

“Off the bus, now!” Black Nails sounded worried suddenly, and that scared her all over again, although she couldn’t have said why. The bogeyman of my enemy is still a bogeyman?

The one with the messed-up face had already pulled the yellow cord that called for a stop, and the bus driver was jockeying through traffic to pull to the side at the end of the next block, even as she was being yanked toward the exit.

“What are you— No!” She finally pulled away, drawing breath to scream, when Hoodie-guy glanced at the back of the bus and swore. Jan couldn’t help herself; she looked, too. The bus jolted again, there was another shrieking noise underneath, as if the bus had run over something sharp and metallic. Then the metal floor buckled once, twisting weirdly, as if it was melting. The old man stared at it, then looked away, and Jan wondered if she were hallucinating...except the guys hauling her out kept looking back, worried, too, hands flat against the door, waiting for the bus to stop so they could get out.

“What is—” she started to ask, about to pull herself loose from their grip and tell the bus driver something was wrong, when the floor buckled one last time, and something shoved its way through, a long arm with small fingers, skin the gray-white of old bread streaked with mold, stretching as though to grab at whatever rested above.

Right where she would have been sitting.

Suddenly, getting off the bus seemed like a damn good idea.

The hand sank below the metal again, the fingers creeping around the opening, as though searching for something. Or someone.

“Off,” Black Nails said, and with a shove from behind, they were out, even before the bus had come to a stop, and the three of them were standing on the street. “Keep moving,” he said, and pulled her forward, away from the curb. “Don’t look back.”

Jan felt her chest clench and grabbed her inhaler out of her pack, even as they walked too quickly for her comfort. “What...what was that?”

The other one, the one with the snout, answered. “A turncoat.”

“A what?” Her fingers curled around her inhaler, and she took a hit from it, feeling her chest ease slightly.

“A—” He growled, and this time it was a definite growl, the skin on her arms pricking again with goose bumps. “There’s no time, now. They’ll figure out we’re gone in a minute: we have to get you somewhere safe.”

“But...the others on the bus...” Jan waved her free hand vaguely back at the street. “We can’t just—”

“Once you’re gone, it’ll leave, too. The damage will be blamed on metal fatigue, or something. Worry about yourself, not them!”

“Where did we leave the truck?” Black Nails asked.

“Down there, back in town, a couple—five blocks.” They switched direction, walking too fast, almost dragging Jan between them. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the bus was out of sight; was whatever had broken through still on the bus right now? Or were these guys right, had it left, was it after them?

“What the hell is a turncoat? And who the hell are you? And where is Tyler?” Jan’s usual tolerance had taken a hard blow today, and she wasn’t the most patient of people even on a good day. But this...this was beyond enough. She coughed and then, despite the inhaler, started to wheeze.

“I need to sit down,” she told them.

She must have looked as bad as she felt, because they swung around and plunked her onto a bench in the Green, away from the inevitable gaggle of teenagers hanging around the fountain. She bent over and tried to calm down, waiting for it to pass.

“You okay?” Black Nails asked.

“Stupid question,” Hoodie-guy snapped.

“No, I’ll be okay.” She was able to speak, and her chest was starting to ease, now that she’d stopped moving.

Black Nails sat down next to her while Hoodie-guy prowled back and forth, clearly looking for...something. His gaze flickered everywhere, the nervous energy pouring off him, just like it did Tyler when he was wound up by an idea.

His nerves got on her nerves, which were already ragged, and she wished that she had something heavy to throw at him, to make him stop pacing like that.

Black Nails tried to take her hand again, but she pulled away and glared at him, horrified to feel hot tears prickling in her eyes. She rubbed the heels of her hands against her jeans, hard, trying to drive the tears away.

“I swear, tell me now or I’m gone.” She didn’t care about Tyler. She didn’t. But that thing on the bus.... “What the hell was that, on the bus?” she asked again.

“Turncoats. They’re...” Black Nails hesitated. “They’re rooting for the ones who took your leman, they want to prevent you from rescuing him. They will do anything to ensure that—and the easiest way is for you to...”

“Die.” The growl was back. Hoodie-guy stood in front of them, his hands fisted on his hips, and scowled. Not at her, Jan noted, but at the other man. “If you’re too delicate to tell her, I will. They’ll catch her and tear her apart and eat her for good measure. They’ve always liked human meat.”

“AJ...”

Jan latched on to one word out of all that. “Human? What do you mean...”

“Of all the moon-washed idiocies...we don’t have time for this.” The one called AJ reached up and pushed his hoodie back. “Human. You. Not us.”

Not a monobrow. Not a misshapen nose. This close and clear there was no denying that it was a real muzzle, short but obvious, with the jaw hinged oddly, coarse dark hair overrunning what would have been a hairline to trace down to the end of his nose. Round dark eyes set too far back stared at her, waiting for her reaction. Not red, but she thought they would glow in firelight, a bright, dancing red. Like a wolf’s.

She stared, and then turned to the other man, studying him more carefully. He looked human. Face normal, if a little long to be attractive, and his hair was a neck-length tousle of black that a supermodel might have longed for. The right number of fingers and limbs, his skin tone normal for someone who was maybe Indian or South American, she thought, even as a part of her brain shrieked run, you idiot, run!

“No,” he said, his voice still silky-smooth and soothing, his hands taking hers between them, holding her still. “I’m not human, either.”

She jerked her hands away and tried to stand up, but they had her effectively trapped. She should have listened to her gut, back on the bus, she should run, she should scream...but she didn’t.

Her heart raced, but her mind was oddly clear. Or maybe she’d gone into hysteria already, and this was what being crazy felt like.

She’d stared down muzzle-boy—AJ—once already. That memory gave her just enough courage to ask again, “And that thing under the bus...it wasn’t human, either.” She had known that already. Mostly. Guessed it, at least, even if she hadn’t let herself acknowledge the insanity of it.

“Gnomes,” he said. “Nasty little bastards, all teeth and greed.”

“Gnomes.” All right, then. “And Tyler? He’s been taken, you said. By...”

“Not by us, or ours,” AJ said. He watched her carefully, not the staring contest of before, but cautious, judging. “Our enemies. Yours now, too.”

“This is a joke, right? Tyler set this whole thing up. That’s some kind of costume—a good one, you got me, but the joke’s over.” She looked between them, shaking her head. “Is this being filmed? ’Cause it’s not funny anymore and there’s no way in hell I’m going to sign any kind of release form for you to use the footage. And Ty’s still a shit for pulling this.”

AJ growled again. “For pity’s sake, Martin, you show her.”

“Me?” Black Nails sounded...worried?