Chapter Twelve
Irecovered my staff and blasting rod from Officer Kim. Then we said goodbye to Max, after Tripp asked after Peppermint the basset hound and Max assured him that the dog was healing well.
“That was good of you,” I told him as we started walking toward the parking garage. “Asking after the dog.”
Tripp looked discomfited. “Yeah, well. The dog helped me. You know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
“My mom wouldn’t let me have a dog. Said they smelled. Always wanted one though. Just … you know. Seemed like a lot of work.”
“They are,” I confirmed. “Most things worth having in your life are a lot of work, Tripp.”
He exhaled. “Yeah. And some of the things that ain’t are a lot of work too.”
“Choose your hard,” I said.
“What?”
“Life is hard, man. All of it. Nothing you can do will change that. But you can mostly choose what kind of hard stuff you want in it.”
He frowned. “Like what?”
I eyed him. Tripp was in good shape. At his age, that didn’t happen without effort, so I figured I could start simple. “Exercising and staying in shape is hard. Not exercising and staying in shape is hard too; it just takes longer to set in. But you can pick which kind of difficulty you want.”
“Huh,” he said.
“By the time you consider everything you’ve gone through, working for Marcone is hard.
Making an honest living is hard too. But they’re different kinds of hard.
You don’t spend time in the pen when you play it straight.
But there’s a lot of boring stuff, and most days, you’re making yourself do stuff you’d rather not do.
You get to choose which kind of hard you want. ”
“What about the easy life?”
“Maybe some people get that, sometimes, for a while. But people weren’t made for easy. We were made to work and scrap and struggle to make our lives into something better. We aren’t supposed to lie around, doing nothing, for very long. People who get away from that forward drive get weird fast.”
“Jesus,” Tripp said. “That’s depressing.”
“Nah,” I said. “You like working out, right?”
“I like having done it,” he said. “Sometimes, yeah, it’s fun.”
“Same thing. See, you and me, walking right now? You look like you’re looking for bad guys to come popping around every corner.”
“Yeah, I keep my eyes open,” Tripp said. “So do you. So what?”
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“How do I feel?” Tripp asked. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Think about it,” I said. “Tell me.”
He scowled and shrugged. “I’m walking. I’m still healthy. Having a talk, ain’t so bad.” He frowned a moment longer and said, “I don’t know. I kind of like it. Doing something to try to help the kids. Like maybe I’m not some kinda rat. You know?”
I swept the shadows with my gaze as we entered the parking garage and headed for the Blue Beetle.
“You know your life could be in danger. You’ve got to stay on the lookout for trouble.
But you’re doing something that you think is useful and better than you have before.
” I shrugged. “Sounds to me like you’re choosing a better kind of hard than you have in the past.”
“Huh,” he said thoughtfully. “Weird. Mostly, I don’t do stuff ’cause of how I feel.”
“You don’t want it to be the only reason you do things,” I said. “But for the big things, for the overall direction of your life? Being able to respect yourself and what you do is kind of important.”
“So far, the pay is for shit,” he said.
I barked out a laugh. “Yeah. Sometimes. But sometimes, it works out too. You know about rolling with the punches.”
“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “I do. I been poor. I like being flush better, but I can do both.”
“Look, Tripp,” I said. “We got off to a bad start. And I don’t know what kind of man you’re going to be.
Because you’re the only one who gets to choose that.
But believe me when I say you’re a stubborn bastard, and that can be a really good thing.
Figure out how to make that work for you, and you’ll do fine. ”
We got to the right row and started down the gloomy line of parked vehicles. Outside the garage, the sun was going down. Little enough light came in from outside. The interior lights were on and doing their usual bang-up job of providing not quite enough vision to feel safe.
Tripp frowned and looked up at me. “You really ain’t doing this for Marcone, are you?”
“Not especially,” I said. “Not at this point.”
“How come, then?” he asked.
“I’m a simple man,” I said. “I like helping kids. And you were kind to a dog.”
“That’s all it takes?” he asked.
“Oh, hell no,” I said. “But it’s a start.”
We were maybe twenty feet from the Blue Beetle when the hairs on the back of my neck went up and my stomach started squelching around the inside of my rib cage.
I drew my blasting rod and said, “Tripp, get behind me.”
There was a low, yowling growl, the kind of sound a cat makes when it’s warning another cat that there’s about to be trouble.
Then another.
And another.
And dozens more.
The sound echoed around the parking garage, bypassed my forebrain completely, and sent a cold chill rippling down my spine, joining with the sense of raw danger pounding through my instincts.
The Lurker had found us.
“Holy shit,” Tripp breathed thinly. He got behind me.
Footsteps sounded ahead of us, and Emilio appeared from behind a parked van.
He’d taken off the military jacket and was wearing fatigue pants and a white A-frame shirt.
He was scrawny, wiry, with a potbelly like a beach ball.
His face was fixed into a soulless smile, teeth showing.
His gums were so pale a pink, they were almost white.
“Dresden,” he said pleasantly. “And Mr. Gregory. I’ve been chasing you all over town.”
“That creep is Estevez’s guy,” Tripp said.
“I know,” I said tightly. I wasn’t sure how they’d found us, but maybe I’d underestimated either Emilio or the demon he served.
It didn’t really matter how he’d tracked us down—only that he had.
I couldn’t think of anything particularly clever to say, but maybe I could get him talking before the balloon went up. “Hi, Emilio. What can I do you for?”
“Give me Gregory, Dresden,” Emilio said. “And you get to live a while more.”
“Let me think about it a minute,” I said. “You managed to find him. I guess you’re not a slouch with magic.”
He showed me a couple more of his teeth. “I had ancient teachers.”
“Red Court vampires?” I guessed.
He inclined his head. “I was their slave. If the stories I’ve heard are true, I have you to thank for my freedom.”
“Gee,” I said. “You’re welcome.”
Emilio tittered. The cat yowls rose up in a weirdly not-quite-human echoing chorus around the sound. “It’s been years, and yet you still have no idea what you did that night, do you?”
“They tried to hurt someone under my protection,” I said. “Sometimes, I overreact. You should consider that for a minute, Emilio.”
His eyes opened wider and wider and he said, a little spittle running down his chin, “You aren’t speaking to Emilio.”
My stomach did a cold little roll.
Oh.
“You’re the Lurker in the Darkness,” I said quietly.
“Among many other names,” purred the demon from Emilio’s lips.
“And you work for a gangster?” I asked skeptically. “What’s Estevez pay you?”
“A means to an end,” the Lurker murmured.
There was a thrumming flutter of wings, and half a dozen crows sailed into the parking garage. One settled on either of Emilio’s skinny shoulders. They all focused on me with unnerving stillness and intent.
“What end?” I asked. “Seriously. I’m curious.”
“Your world,” the Lurker said. “So crowded. So connected. In the past, my spread would always have been held back by long, weary travel beneath the sun. By oceans. By mountains. By deserts.” The demon licked Emilio’s lips.
“Now one can travel the world in a day. I can go everywhere. I can be everything.”
“Sounds fun,” I drawled. I tilted my head, paying closer attention to my senses. “I’ve fought you before, haven’t I? You were inside the Ik’k’uox.”
“You remember. I’m flattered.” The Lurker rolled one of Emilio’s shoulders in a sensual movement.
“The Lords of Outer Night who encased my elder sibling bound me. Used me like an attack dog.” His wide, mismatched eyes grew furious.
“Limited me. Me!” It lifted Emilio’s face to the roof of the parking garage and howled in fury, and the cats and the crows screamed as well, sounds their throats should not have been able to make.
Adrenaline started spiking my system, and I felt Tripp flinch behind me.
I turned my head and growled, over my shoulder, “Get the keys out. Get ready.”
“F-for what?” he gasp-whispered.
“We’re going to run like hell.”
Emlio’s face came back down, flushed, the muscles in it contorting, changing the shapes of it to such a degree that he almost didn’t look human.
“But now,” the Lurker said, “I am free to drink blood once more. To sate my thirst. To spread and grow and make this world my own.”
“Okay, nutball,” I said. “Sure, you are.”
The Lurker gnashed Emilio’s teeth. “You doubt me?”
“I’ve heard this kind of delusional monologue before,” I said. “Like, a lot. And here I am standing.”
The demon laughed.
It made me want to scrape my eardrums until they burst.
“Indeed. You are formidable. And I will have you.”
Emilio doubled over, mouth spreading so wide that I heard his lower jaw dislocate with a hollow pop.
Black, spongy fluid flooded out of his mouth, an impossible volume of it, and as it did his swollen potbelly flattened, emptying, as the bloody-black fluid whipped about of its own accord, lengthening into a serpentine form, and came slithering toward me with uncanny speed.
As it did, the crows let out shrieks that should never have come from their throats and threw themselves forward.
And, from the shadows, cats, dozens and dozens of cats, came rushing toward us, fur patchy and molding and fallen away, eyes and tongues swollen to monstrous grotesquery, claws unnaturally long as they ran on stiffened legs.
“Tripp, go!” I screamed, lifted my blasting rod as I rushed forward toward the demon in its many forms, and screamed, “Fuego!”