Hush (Dragon Apocalypse) Read online

  The monkey child placed a foot on Infidel’s face as he struggled to twist the hammer away. Infidel responded by opening her mouth and sinking her pearly whites deep into Kid Blue’s heel. A shudder ran along my intangible spine. Biting the bare foot of someone who’d been walking around the docks of Commonground was the most reckless thing I’d ever seen Infidel do, and I’d watched her dive headfirst into the jaws of a dragon. But the tactic worked. Kid Blue shrieked as he let go of the hammer, dropping back down to the floor, where he landed on his outstretched hands and somersaulted back to his feet. Nimble little devil.

  The jaguar kid was no slouch either. With Kid Blue clear, Kid White sprang, flat-footed, from the floor to the bar, to the shelf of liquors behind it, then shot toward Infidel like an arrow, with a savage swing of his machete. The chiming of the booze bottles as he kicked off caused Infidel to look over her shoulder, and she spun in time to block the machete blow with the Gloryhammer. She jerked her knee up to connect solidly with the kid’s chin. The half-seed was stunned and fell hard, landing spine-first on the back of a wooden chair, his body folding backward at an acute angle that made me wince.

  Infidel pointed the hammer toward Hookhand. Her eyes were narrow slits of murder as she shot toward him. But in her rage she either didn’t notice or didn’t care that a slender tube of bamboo had appeared in his hand. He drew breath as he raised it to his lips. He blew so hard I thought his eye was going to pop out of his skull. A cloud of red powder caught Infidel right in the face as Hookhand dove to the side. Infidel gasped as she hit the cloud, then grunted as she slammed into the floor. Her armored shoulder took the brunt of the blow, but the impact was enough to topple chairs around the room. She bounced across the oak planks, losing her grip on the hammer. Her eyes were scrunched tightly together as she slid to a halt on her back.

  As a ghost, my senses are muted, but even my nostrils burned from the cayenne cloud that hung in the air. Infidel’s face was blood-red with the pepper. She tried to breathe, but her throat closed after the barest gasp. Even when she’d had impenetrable skin, she couldn’t have shrugged off an attack like this.

  Kid Blue, the monkey child, sprang across the room and landed on Infidel’s right hand, pinning it. Kids Black and Green followed suit, pinning her left arm and both legs, respectively. If she’d still been super-strong, she could have flicked them off like fleas. Now, her limbs trembled, but her weak spasms couldn’t shake them.

  The Gloryhammer hung in mid-air, where it had come to rest after bouncing off the floor. Hookhand snatched it with his good hand. His eye went wide as the hammer’s power filled him. He tilted back his head and laughed. “At last! At last!”

  His feet left the floor as he moved toward Infidel. “I’ve watched a lot of machetes bounce off that pretty head of yours,” he said. “I’ve long dreamed of seeing your brains splattered across these planks. Considerate of you to deliver the perfect tool to get the job done.”

  Hookhand continued to drift toward her, approaching at a speed fairly described as lackadaisical. Was he trying to prolong the moment? Was flight with the hammer harder than Infidel made it look? Or was Hookhand still afraid of her?

  “Hold her tight, boys,” he said, pausing a few arm-lengths away.

  “She’s weak as a kitten, boss,” said Kid Black, the dog-boy who trapped her left arm beneath his knee, as he ran his hairy knuckles through her hair. She twisted her head away from his fingers, unable to open her eyes. She’d started breathing again, rapid shallow spasms that had to be filling her lungs with fire. Sweat poured from her brow and bright red snot ran from both nostrils; I couldn’t tell if it was blood or cayenne. Any normal person would have been moved to either pity or revulsion by the sight, but Kid Black was staring at her with barely disguised lust. “Such pretty hair. So soft. So pretty, pretty soft.”

  “She won’t be soft when she catches her breath,” said Hookhand.

  “She’s weak now,” said Kid Black, stroking her chin, then tracing his fingers down the ivory arc of her throat. The top buttons of her armor were still undone. “Weak and helpless.”

  “Just like a dog,” snickered Kid Blue, the half-monkey. “Always looking for something to hump.”

  “I thought he was always looking for something to eat,” said Kid Green, the falcon-child.

  “She could be both,” said Kid Black, folding the top of the leather breast plate down to reveal her pale cleavage. He lowered his long narrow face to her throat and licked at her sweat.

  I screamed in my rage, my impotence to alter things in the living world stabbing at me like a knife.

  Hookhand held back, his eye a little glassy as he watched Kid Black run his hairy hand along the top of Infidel’s cleavage. Infidel’s face was already scrunched up as much as humanly possible, and pinned as she was I couldn’t tell if she was even aware of this assault.

  “Wake up!” I screamed, my ghost voice hauntingly silent in the room. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

  “Ow,” said Kid Black, yanking his hand away.

  “What?” asked Kid Green.

  “Something bit me.”

  “Wake... up...” My voice trailed off as I saw that the tick on Infidel’s breast had vanished.

  Kid Black put the edge of his hand into his mouth to gnaw at the tiny parasite digging into him.

  Then his head came apart.

  Menagerie could change shape faster than the eye could follow. His powers flowed from blood magic; his human form had been covered scalp to toe in tattoos inked with the blood of the animals they represented. He’d been able to switch between these forms instantly, and even vast differences in sizes hadn’t been a barrier to his magic. He’d been able to change from mouse to elephant as swiftly as he could between lion and tiger. I’d never before pondered what would happen if he’d entered a person’s mouth the size of a tick, then turned into a full-sized blood-hound. As it happened, Menagerie’s expanding body proved powerful enough to rip Kid Black’s skull open from the inside out.

  Kid Black flopped backward, his lower jaw missing, his upper jaw cracked open in such a way that I could see his brains. As his body hit the floor, his ghost was knocked loose. His spirit rose above his corporeal form, looking bewildered. Since dying, I’ve had the ability to see ghosts as they depart the mortal world, and occasionally to converse with them. I felt like saying something particularly nasty to this spirit. I know the dog-boy was poor street trash, a freak, never standing a chance at a normal life, but any pity I might have been able to summon had vanished the instant he started pawing my wife. Unable to summon sufficiently nasty curses from my normally abundant lexicon, I lifted my middle finger to his spirit as it flickered and faded.

  The hound dog that had sprung fully formed from Kid Black’s mouth growled as he faced Hookhand. Hookhand shook off his confusion about what he’d witnessed with remarkable speed, and swung the hammer overhead, aiming for the dog’s skull. The hound lunged forward, sinking his teeth into Hookhand’s groin as the hammer splintered the floorboards.

  Infidel’s eyes jerked open, bloodshot and brimming with tears. Her blurry gaze fixed on Kid Blue, who was pinning down her right forearm with both his hands. The monkey child had his eyes on Hookhand, probably wondering where he was going to swing the hammer next, and failed to notice Infidel’s left hand was now free.

  Infidel reached for the scabbard on her hip. A moment later, a dagger was hilt deep in the center of the monkey-child’s chest. He looked at her with sad eyes as he toppled over. His spirit stuck around no longer than the dog-boy’s.

  Infidel sat up, fixing her gaze on Kid Green, the half-seed falcon pinning her legs. Sweat from her brow washed a fresh flood of cayenne into her eyes and once more her lids scrunched shut as she gasped in pain. Kid Green leapt up, bringing his machete overhead two-handed, preparing to cleave her skull in half.

  Hookhand continued swinging the Gloryhammer wildly. A sledgehammer is a remarkably inappropriate instrument for removing a dog from one’s
crotch. It is, however, a surprisingly effective tool for bashing in the head of your own henchman, if you’re not careful. The hammer connected with the falcon child’s skull with a sound a watermelon might make after it was thrown off a roof. Kid Green’s machete flew into the air as he fell, lifeless.

  I watched with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as the tumbling machete fell toward Infidel’s blinded face. Then a huge, three-fingered hand flashed through the air and snatched the machete in mid-flight. It was Battle Ox. He turned with a snort toward Hookhand, who was floating now, using the power of the hammer as poorly as it could possibly be used, smashing furniture right and left with his all-powerful weapon as the hound dog between his legs twisted out of the path of every blow.

  With a swift, precise chop of the machete, Battle lopped off Hookhand’s remaining hand at the wrist. The hammer spun up to the chandelier, smashing the crystal, but Battle Ox’s thick hide protected him from the rain of shards.

  Hookhand wasn’t so lucky. A finger-length dart of glass sank into his remaining eye. He fell to the ground, crying in pain, until Battle brought his whimpering to an end. Hookhand’s ghost bubbled up from his corpse. Usually, spirits resembled the bodies that housed them, but Hookhand’s spirit was small and gnarled, a scarred, broken thing that stank of rot and despair. His pathetic yellow eyes fixed on me as his toothless mouth voiced my name. I lunged toward him and he shot downward, percolating through cracks in the floorboard, dragged to whatever hell awaited. The hound dog sensed that his opponent was no longer a threat and released his jaws. He loped back over toward Infidel.

  Battle ran back to the bar and snatched up a bottle of whiskey. He pulled off the stopper as he approached Infidel. The hound leapt into his path, hackles raised, snarling.

  “This is the only thing that’s going to wash off that pepper,” said Battle. “Water will make it burn worse.”

  “He’s right,” I said to Menagerie.

  The hound went silent as I spoke, then stepped aside.

  “Hold still,” said Battle as he knelt, taking Infidel’s chin in his massive hand. “This is going to feel worse for a minute, but it might save your eyes.”

  Infidel seemed to understand, growing calm as Battle tilted the bottle over her face, letting it come in a deluge that washed away most of the cayenne. He motioned for one of the bar maids to bring him a second bottle. The light in the room was dizzying as the Gloryhammer bounced around in the rafters, casting stark shadows. Battle’s eyes narrowed as he studied Infidel’s face. Infidel had a splinter of wood jammed into her cheek from her impact with the floor. A half dozen other small cuts speckled her face from where fragments of chandelier had hit her.

  He washed away the remaining pepper with most of the second bottle. A barmaid handed him a dishtowel, and he used it to wipe Infidel’s face. She sat up and grabbed the towel, taking control of cleaning the last of the cayenne from the creases around her eyes. She let out a long sigh as she forced her eyes open and looked down into the towel, flecked with blood.

  A few seconds of silence passed as she pulled the splinter from her cheek. It was, by any objective standard, a trivial wound. But I could tell from Infidel’s eyes that she understood that this splinter might be the most dangerous injury she’d ever received. Her secret was revealed. Given the speed rumors spread through the city, it was only a matter of hours before everyone learned she’d lost her powers.

  “I thought you couldn’t be cut,” Battle said.

  “You’ve seen me bleed before,” Infidel whispered, her voice weak from pain. “That assassin with the shadow blade. The right magic can break my skin.”

  “The floor ain’t magic,” he said. Battle put the whiskey bottle into her hands and helped her to her feet. A bare inch of fluid sloshed in the bottle. “Drink the rest of it.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “I might be pregnant. Maybe it’s an old wives tale that whiskey will hurt the baby, but I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Damn!” said Battle, shaking his horns. “She did it to me again!”

  “What?”

  “The Black Swan. She bet me you’d have a baby this year. I mean, Stagger’s dead. If he was still around, maybe, but I just can’t believe it otherwise. Who – ?”

  “Stagger’s the father,” said Infidel as she managed to stand on her own. Her eyes were bloodshot, but worked well enough that she spotted the Gloryhammer bouncing around in the rafters.

  “Help me grab that,” she said to Battle. “The Black Swan’s probably going to bill me for the damned chandelier. Better stop that thing before it floats behind the bar and takes out the inventory.”

  “Right,” said Battle, grabbing her by the hips and lifting her overhead. She stretched her fingers as far as she could, barely touching the shaft of the hammer, yet the barest touch was all she needed to regain control. It slid fully into her grasp and she floated to the floor.

  The hound dog came up to her and sat before her, its tongue hanging out.

  “Whose dog?” she asked.

  “Um, ain’t that Menagerie?” Battle asked. “I saw him leap out of what was left of Kid Black’s skull.”

  Infidel looked down at her chest, running her fingers along the red bump where the tick had once rested.

  “Menagerie?” she asked the dog.

  The dog said nothing. Menagerie had always been able to talk before, no matter what shape he’d worn.

  “Menagerie?” I said. The dog tilted its head in my general direction, but said nothing. There was intelligence in his eyes, but dog-level intelligence, none of the tactical genius that normally burned there.

  “We’d better get him to the Black Swan, fast,” said Battle Ox. “She’s working on the potion now.”

  “Riiiight,” said Infidel, sounding confused. “Right, the potion.”

  She placed the whiskey on the bar as she followed Battle. I wasn’t surprised she’d refused the drink. She hadn’t drank much before. It’s not so tough to give up something that you never enjoyed in the first place. But, I wondered, when Hookhand first showed up... were Infidel’s taunts meant to scare him off? Or was she trying to provoke him? This was her first fight since losing her powers. Had she chosen an opponent she’d routinely beaten in the past to test her new combat style with the hammer and armor? Imagining Infidel going the next nine months without a brawl was a lot tougher than imagining her going nine months without a drink. Once word got out that she was vulnerable, was there any place in the world she’d be safe?

  CHAPTER TWO

  OBSERVER OF DOOM

  INFIDEL LIMPED AS she followed Battle Ox down the hall to the Black Swan’s chamber. She was favoring the leg that had taken the bulk of the machete blows. The Immaculate Attire couldn’t be cut, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be hurt. A machete might not be able to break her skin, but it was still like being whacked with an iron bar. It couldn’t feel good.

  The last time I’d seen the Black Swan, she’d been nothing more than a skeleton. This hadn’t slowed the old witch down much. Her spirit continued to animate her bones, though without a throat she’d been reduced to ‘speaking’ by pointing to letters on a board. The Black Swan claimed that death was too trivial an obstacle to stand in the way of her great mission. She says she’s a time traveler, using her knowledge to accumulate wealth and power today so that she can prevent a ‘dragon apocalypse’ that she’s lived through in the future.

  I’m not sure I believe her. The Black Swan has a propensity for using manipulation and outright lies to gain the upper hand. But she’d also told us that Infidel would soon be pregnant, which seemed impossible at the time, since I was dead and Infidel wasn’t open-minded to new suitors. What we could never have imagined was that Infidel’s quest to kill Greatshadow would take her bodily into the spirit world, where we’d been able to reunite as the world’s most star-crossed lovers. It was certainly plausible that Infidel was pregnant now, since in the ghost realms my spirit had been as functional as my old material
body. On the other hand, when we left the spirit world together, Infidel had physically returned to the land of the breathing, while I’d faded back into ghosthood. If we’d conceived a daughter, as the Black Swan prophesied, would the unusual circumstances of her conception affect her?

  Menagerie followed closely behind Infidel, looking and acting like an ordinary bloodhound, sniffing the floor as he walked. Shaking off his tick form hadn’t repaired his mind. Was there any flicker of his humanity left? His loyalty toward Infidel was a hopeful sign. During the dragon hunt, Menagerie and Infidel had formed a friendship. Perhaps the dog retained some human memories.

  Battle pushed open the polished mahogany door to the Black Swan’s chamber. He motioned Infidel inside, but didn’t follow us. The room had changed dramatically in the last two weeks. Then, the walls had been covered with tapestries and filled with antique bedroom furnishings. The place had reeked of potpourri, a concentrated floral miasma that hadn’t quite masked the undercurrent of rot that hung in the air.

  Now, the walls had been stripped down to the bare wood, and every last stick of furniture had been removed. Freed of its clutter, the Black Swan’s chamber proved surprisingly spacious. My old sail boat could probably have fit in the space. At first glance, it looked as if someone might be testing that theory, since there was a white canvas sail covering the floor.

  In the center of this canvas was a small cloaked figure kneeling before an iron sculpture. The sculpture drew my eye first. It was a shapely woman, slightly larger than life. It was cast iron, black as soot, highly articulated, so that there was a separate plate for each rib of the torso. Both arms were finished, ending in delicately formed hands sporting long, slender fingers, though the sharpened steel nails provided a detail of menace to a work of art that would otherwise have been noteworthy for its beauty. The face was mostly done, with separate plates for each cheek and a small nose that sat above intricately jointed steel lips. The eyes were closed, and I noted the fine detail of the wire eyelashes. The top of the head wasn’t finished, and as I drifted around I noticed that the back of the head was open. Sitting in the cavity of the dark steel was a stark white skull.