Bloody Banquet Page 19

“What does that have to do with how your brothers are dealing with me?”

  “You can only walk into so many ambushes and booby traps before you start to see them everywhere. Andres in particular tends to outthink himself. They spent hours going through your house looking for traps. When none were found, Andres probably decided that it was just because you didn’t keep anything valuable there, and even then, he had Jayr approach you alone, so that if you had some enchantment they had been unable to detect, you would only be able to kill one of them. Your business, on the other hand, is a thousand times more defensible. It’s in a permanent structure with multiple levels. My brothers weren’t willing to approach it until they had a better idea what sort of person you are and what kinds of resources are at your disposal.”

  “Cautious to an extreme,” I murmured.

  “To an extent their paranoia makes sense. Anyone who has a key and understands what it does and who wants it, will go to extraordinary means to protect it. It just happens that you don’t have a key.”

  “Well, that’s an unexpected advantage.”

  “It’s not exactly an advantage. It means that it will take them longer to get to you, but good luck catching them by surprise. And surprise would be helpful. Make no mistake, Jayr, Abydos, and Eryx are dangerous men, but it’s Talus and Andres who keep me up at night. If you ever find yourself facing them, run.”

  I groaned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Too many names! I’m trying a use a mnemonic device to remember all of you, but you just keep on adding names to the mix! There’s Orrin, who might be Okay. I was remembering the professional wrestler was Andres the Giant, so Andres and the giant wasn’t a problem. Then I found out the giant’s name and was using: Jayr is Jumbo and made of Jaguars to remember him. So, that was three, and I was pretty proud of myself. Then what do you do? You throw Abydos and Eryx. For Abydos it wasn’t hard, I just remember Abydos has A Body, Dos. But Eryx? I’ve got nothing for him. Now I’ve got to remember Tallow… Toilet….”

  “Talus.”

  “Right, Talus. Fucking Talus, who I’ve never even seen, and I’ve got to remember his name?”

  Orrin tilted his head and stared at me in amusement. “That’s what’s bothering you? All the names involved?”

  I sighed. “Of course not. Having people who want me dead? That bothers me. Knowing that the only way to save my skin is to put a lot more people in danger? That bothers me. But just because the shit has hit the fan doesn’t mean I can’t take a moment to be annoyed about having to memorize a half a dozen new names! Especially weird ass names like Talus and Abydos and… and… and fucking Orrin!”

  “For what it’s worth, Andres is probably the only one who actually knows your name. The rest of my brothers don’t bother keeping track of anyone who isn’t likely to be around for another century or two.”

  I took that in. “Good to know, I guess.” We walked on a ways before stopping in front of another grave.

  “Christina Harper.” Orrin read, solemnly. “Died young.”

  I nodded. “It was a car accident. Her father was still in a coma when they buried her.”

  “What was it like for you? Burying a child?”

  I shrugged. “Sad. Which is strange for me. Most of the time when I bury someone I feel… nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing important. A little pride for a job well done, a little annoyance that I’ve just embalmed some perfectly good meat. Maybe a touch of sadness if there’s a tragic story behind it. But with a child I feel… gutted. But I don’t know why. It’s just a meat suit. We wear it, and when we’re done with it, we throw it away. Why does it matter whose meat suit I’m burying?”

  “It’s not the suit that we mourn. It’s the wasted potential.” Orrin sighed. “It’s probably hard to understand the feeling if you’ve never had a child of your own, but when you look at a child what you really see is hope. A possibility, however remote, that the future might hold more than the same mistakes we’ve been making for the past ten thousand years. That somebody might actually pay attention and get things right for once.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Orrin shrugged.

  We stared at the grave for a few moments.

  “So are your brothers going to show up anytime soon?” I asked after a bit.

  “Is that why you came out here? To lure them out?”

  I nodded, patting the sword I had hidden under my jacket. “Last time they jumped me when I was unarmed. I figured that if I timed things right, I might be able to take one or two of them down before they know what’s happening.

  Orrin chuckled. “Good luck with that. They aren’t stupid, you know. Going to a lonely place and putting yourself in the open pretty much screams ‘ambush.’ Although, if they knew that your idea of catching them off guard was to bring a sword, they might have gone after you on general principle.”

  I sighed. “Really? They’re not coming at all?”

  “No.” Orrin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They’re too busy searching your business.”

  “What!?”

  Orrin nodded. “Yep. There’s a viewing going on there right now, and several of my brothers are taking the opportunity to get a feel for the place, see if they can find any traps, maybe do a quick search for places where you might hide the key.”

  “Son of a bitch!” I turned and raced for the car.

  “Do you really want to confront them in the middle of a viewing!?” Orrin called after me.

  I ignored him. Not because he was wrong, but because the beast in my gut was howling. They were invading my space. MINE!

  Chapter 12

  Fortunately, the drive back to the funeral home was long enough for me to get my head on straight.

  These assholes were cautious. They hadn’t gone in until they were sure that I would be out for a while, and that a number of other people would be visiting. If I did have magical safeguards, I’d have to have some of them down during the viewing.

  Of course, whoever was inside the building would be busy searching it. The chimeras would have somebody outside watching for me. If I just went charging in, whoever was inside would hear about it in plenty of time to get ready for me.

  I made a gingerly approach, with my window rolled down, sniffing for the scout.

  There was plenty to smell.

  Eryx, the lizard man, had been through the area, along with someone else. I’d caught a whiff of him before but hadn’t been able to really examine the scent until now.

  I’d known there was something peculiar about him, even by the standards of chimeras, but I hadn’t been able to put a finger on why his scent was so very, very wrong.

  The problem, I now understood, was that of scale. I’d detected odors similar to his often. I’d go so far as to say every day of my life. But it had always been subtle traces. And I’d never really paid attention to it before. After all, how important is it to keep track of which insects are in your area?

  But if the average insect’s scent was the ripple of a pebble tossed into the ocean, what I detected now was a tidal wave.

  I grimaced. Fantastic. One of the two I hadn’t met, who also happened to be one of the two that Orrin considered the most dangerous.

  I needed to think, to plan, to learn more. And I couldn’t do that by circling the block endlessly.

  My business was located at the corner of an intersection between one of the major thoroughfares of the city, and a little three lane road that had a couple of minor businesses on either side, between entrances to small residential neighborhoods.

  Directly across the three-lane road from me was a Quick Pho U fast food place.

  It wasn’t the most popular fast food place in town; a lot of people were dubious about the prospect of ordering soup for the road. But Quick Pho U were extraordinarily fast, mostly because they just made a couple giant bowls of soup in the morning and refilled them slowly throughout the day. And their soup was supposed to be pretty good. Oh, and a lot of h
igh school students and college students got a kick out of the logo, which was the word ‘pho’ in front of a giant ‘q,’ which led to the nickname ‘pho-q.’ Pronounced ‘fuh-kyu.’

  I turned into their lot and got in line at the drive through.

  The bad news was that, between my poor eyesight, the number of cars in my parking lot, and the size and design of my lot, the odds of me spotting Eryx, wherever he was watching from, were slim.

  But I would get a few minutes to think. And staring at my business while I thought didn’t hurt.

  There were three entrances into my building. The front entrance was for customers, I usually used the side entrance, and there was the back entrance, which was technically two entrances, one regular door and the bay door. But they were right beside each other so I counted them as one.

  There was no way for one person to watch all three at once. At best, you could position yourself at one corner of the property and watch two of them.

  It was possible that they had a second watcher set up somewhere. Someone I hadn’t smelled. It just didn’t seem likely.

  Of course, from either corner you would have a pretty good view of the entire parking lot, so as long as they knew what my truck looked like they’d see me coming.

  I’d reached the speaker, so I quickly ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. A dollar sixty-five for a baby sized cup of meatless pho. So, hot water, basically. I pulled two ones out of my wallet and advanced in line, contemplating my next move.

  The property directly behind my building was a vacant lot. Past that was an apartment complex.

  I pulled up to the window and exchanged my cash for the soup, which I downed in a quick gulp before I pulled away from the window.

  Turning onto the smaller road, I passed my business and drove into the apartment complex.

  I tested the air as I circled through the parking lot, and when I was certain that the only monster in the area, besides myself, was a gargoyle living in apartment 8C, I parked at the furthest available spot from my business.

  The searing blade tucked under my jacket, and the sledgehammer up my sleeve, I walked across the property, across the vacant lot, and up to the brick wall that stood between the vacant lot and the back of my building.

  On the other side of the wall, the land dipped steeply, leading up to my bay doors.

  I glanced around to make certain that nobody was watching, then leapt up, grabbing on to the top of the wall with my left hand, the one not hanging on to the sledge hammer, and pulled myself over.

  I landed directly on a wet, slick patch of grass and my feet slipped out from under me. I rolled down the incline and landed roughly on the pavement.

  “Ow!” I grumbled as I pulled myself to my feet.

  The searing blade, thankfully, had remained sheathed and done nothing worse than give me a couple of bruises.

  The sledgehammer, on the other hand, had slipped out of my grip and smacked the crap out of my knee.

  I grimaced as I limped to the door, pulled my key out, and let myself in.

  I could tell at a sniff that the insect chimera was in the building, but he hadn’t been through this area, so I didn’t have a trail to follow.

  The injured knee healed itself before I’d crossed the room to the stairs, and I was able to jog up, quickly and quietly.

  Upstairs, I headed towards the front of the building, stopping in surprise as I turned a corner and saw a familiar face greeting the mourners.

  After she’d given her condolences to a grieving couple and pointed their son towards the restroom, I approached quietly.

  “What are you doing here, Trish?”

  Patricia glanced up and smiled at me. “Hey, Mr. Walter.”

  “I thought you were going home after you finished cleaning up.”

  “I was, but Percy asked if I was up for doing some front work, and I was like ‘hell yes.’ So, he told me to just stand here and greet people who came in and to show them where the bathrooms are if they asked. Actually, it’s kind of boring, I thought front work would be, like, active and talking to people and stuff, but mostly I’ve just been standing around.”

  I groaned and rubbed my face.

  Technically, greeting people politely and pointing out the bathroom was nine tenths of the job, at least. That wasn’t my problem.

  My problems were twofold: one, if Tricia was dealing with this, that meant that Percy was out there somewhere, being Percy. And two, Trish was still wearing the clothes she’d had when I picked her up from the grocery store. Worn, torn jeans, a tight t-shirt advertising some band I’d never heard of, and half a dozen bracelets. I’d seen worse looks on kids these days… hell, I’d seen worse looks on her. But even if it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, it wasn’t good either. Not for a viewing. People expected a certain decorum and reverence at a viewing. The least Percy could’ve done was lend her a shirt and jacket. Should I stay here? Take over and fix Percy’s mess?

  I sniffed.

  The chimera had been through. In the last few minutes in fact. And it had gone… down the stairwell.

  I winced. “Did you see anybody go through that door?”

  “No sir. Nobody. But, I mean, I had to help a couple older folks to their seats, and I had to go the bathroom once, so I could’ve missed something.”

  “Any chance you know where Percy went?”

  Trish thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Sorry, no. He just said he had to run an errand for you.”

  I groaned.

  “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were headed out for the day?”

  “So did I. Look, just do me a favor, make sure nobody else heads downstairs after me, okay?”

  “Sure.” Trish furrowed her brow at me in concern. “You want me to come with?”

  I shook my head. “No. No matter what you hear, don’t go down there.”

  She blinked and looked me over, noticing, suddenly, the head of the sledge hammer that I had up my sleeve.

  “Oh!”

  I crossed the lobby, pausing to nod politely at a couple coming in for the viewing, then opened the door and headed downstairs.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the trail turned left into the prep room. I tried to move quietly, but the man inside was smiling calmly at me as I entered.

  He was small, maybe a few inches taller than five feet. He had blonde hair, and smooth skin. The only description I could really think of for him was ‘beautiful.’

  The tinted goggles he wore detracted a bit from his appearance, but not terribly.

  “You must be the shiteater I’ve been hearing so much about.”

  I winced. “I really hate it when people call me that.”

  The blonde shrugged, obviously less than concerned with my feelings on the matter. He nodded towards my desk, where he had laid out Orrin’s photographs, Jayr’s knives, brass knuckles, and ring, and the coins I’d gotten from both men. “It looks like you’re starting a little collection here. Of course, the pieces I’m most interested don’t appear to be present.”

  “The key and the notebook.”

  “You could save yourself a lot of time and pain if you tell me where they are.”

  I grinned. “You’re assuming that I know.”

  “I certainly hope that you know. It would be a shame for Andres to waste his prodigious talents on you, only to find out that we’ve been misinformed.”

  I sighed. “Yes, that would be a shame. So, if you’re not Andres, you must be Tartyrus. No, crap. Tall one? Talus! That’s it.”

  The small man gave me a shallow bow. “In the flesh.”

  “Talus, insects.” I thought about it for a moment, then sighed and shook my head. “Nope, no mnemonics come to mind.”

  The little man gave me a questioning look.

  I shook my head at the implied question and moved on. “Tell me, doesn’t it ever bother you guys that Andres sends you into places that he doesn’t want to go? Jayr to my trailer, lizard boy to Orrin’s apartment
, you here. I mean, I get the chain of command, but he’s kind of treating you like cannon fodder, don’t you think?”

  The blonde chuckled. “Going to turn us against each other? You’re not the first person to try it.”

  “I suppose not. But honestly, why do you do it? I’d think that after a few hundred years it would get a little old, taking orders from the same person.”

  “You’d be wrong. Following someone for a couple years can get old. Once you’ve put in a couple of decades it’s pretty much habit. After a few hundred years, it’s tattooed into your brain. He says the word, and we obey. We are extensions of his will. It isn’t just something we do, it’s who we are.”

  I grimaced. “That kind of makes sense. All right, so no turning you against each other. Although… how did Orrin break out?”

  Talus’s expression shifted to one of mourning. “Orrin. He was never really like the rest of us. He should never have been a legionnaire. He should have been a scholar, or a senator.” He sighed. “But it doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters is whether you hand over the key and the notebook, or whether I drag you from this place.”

  When no witty rejoinders came immediately to mind, I settled for letting my sledgehammer drop out of my sleeve, catching the handle just before it hit the ground.

  Talus nodded. “So be it.”

  He pulled his goggles off, dropping them onto my desk.

  His eyes bulged from their sockets, fat little domes with a dozen facets in each. Though the structure was that of a compound eye, each facet appeared to contain within it an iris and a pupil.

  His lips peeled back, away from his face, and his mouth seemed to contort as two long, thick fangs, both dripping with what I could smell to be the deadly venom of some rather exotic spiders, slid into view.

  He pulled off his jacket and four large, translucent wings unfurled from his back and began vibrating so quickly that entire room seemed to be humming.

  Meanwhile, without his appearing to touch it, the lower section of his shirt pulled upwards and two long, thin limbs stretched out. Their edges looking sharp and severe, and the tiny digits at the ends of them rubbed together eagerly.