21. Nicholas
Nicholas
This area of Boston reeks.
It’s desperation and survival. It’s hunger and longing and lust.
The scents spin in my head, and my mouth waters at the coppery undertone of fresh blood roping it all together. A haze hangs in the air overhead as if someone turned on the sprinklers.
I lope across the street toward a narrow structure tucked between a pawnshop with a perpetual closed sign and a liquor store. Wrought iron vines, discolored with age, frame the doorway, and dirt-encrusted jars line the stoop.
Stubs of candles have burned down to pools at the bottoms, and if one inspects too closely, they’ll highlight the green tint of ghost flames.
The embers gutter without wind. Inside, a faint piano refrain thrums.
Mortals walk past and see a leaning door, a condemned building held together with police tape.
Supernaturals mark the candle flare and how the door creaks open without a hand to guide it.
The alley is colder than those around it where the mist from the veil seeps through the cracks in the cobblestone. Between Beacon Hill and the Common, along the tread of North End brick, you’ll find gas lamps flickering.
And following the scent of wax and damp, stone and iron, you’ll encounter The Fenlight.
This particular bar is famous for its zero point, its neutrality. Bloodletters, dark Fae—as though Wren’s king needs a better way to market himself—giants and creatures from history congregate within the battered walls.
I push inside and shrug deeper into my trench coat.
Wards keep people from the street from wandering in. For the most part.
Occasionally a wayward soul stumbles through the doors, front or back, and never goes out again. It’s the way of life in places like these; little pockets of darkness pop up in every major city.
Boston happens to be the closest and the largest nexus point, one of the thinnest parts of the great tree.
All kinds of things find their way here as easily as stepping out of a car.
A chain-smoking bloodletter at the door nods to me on my way inside. The Fenlight is a nod to Boston’s marshes and ghost lights, welcoming me with open arms.
Here, the regulars have no names. Only debts.
Here, rickety furniture holds up stronger beasts than it looks like it can bear. My boots stick to the floor, and the lighting comes from sconces holding flameless fire. They cast no shadow, only dull cones of amber light up to a charred ceiling.
Monsters hide in the corners and alcoves. Monsters like me. For once, my gums aren’t aching and my stomach isn’t quite as empty.
I bump into a selkie nursing a whisky sour. She flashes me green teeth and goes back to digging superstitious nonsense into the surface of the black bar with a claw
“Silver, I told you not to show your face here unless you had a bag of cash over your shoulder. And you're not exactly Santa fucking Claus.” Maeve MacCallan’s voice slices, Boston-bred and sharp as a blade.
She brushes fingers to the barrel of the revolver tucked beneath the bar, the iron bullets for spectacle and pain.
She took over the place after the previous owner, a lich, vanished under peculiar circumstances. He’s buried in the catacombs below Fenlight.
The floorboards creak like they remember the cadence of every new footstep or stride. Candlelight and piano music older than memory cast odd shadows on Maeve’s face.
I dig my hand into my pocket and throw the coins at her. “Keep the change, love. I always pay my debts.”
She glares at them. “This isn’t a bag.”
“Thicker than the average doubloon,” I reply. “Test it. You’ll see.”
Her scowl fixes in its usual position, erasing some of her unnatural loveliness. The creature beneath the glamour is as old as I am, another relic from a time long gone. Slowly she gathers the money and the coins disappear in the palm of her hand.
“No trouble,” she warns. “I’m mean it. You drain another vamp on my territory, and we’re going to have a problem.”
She doesn’t blink before sliding the bar’s signature drink, the Widow’s Breath, toward a necromancer. He swaps grave dirt for currency and demolishes the liquor, smoky absinthe with a single drip of ghost light, in two gulps.
Fallen angels play pool with each other. Shifters wearing their human faces throw darts until the richness of whiskey wafts off them.
Someone has to have some answers.
Someone, a relic from the past like me, like Maeve, will know why the cycle has sped.
A few humans mill around with death in their aura, enough of it to fool the wards and scatter the salt boundaries.
Maeve sends a decanter of blood toward me along with a shot glass that narrowly misses the edge of the bar. “Help yourself.”
The bar itself is carved from a single piece of black walnut cleaved by lightning and sealed with blood magic to keep violence out. Or so she thinks.
Fights have a way of birthing themselves despite precautions.
“You’re trying to extort me.” I drag in a breath. “I know what this kind of premium product costs.”
It’s fresh. Virginal.
Why?
Why toss generosity in my face now? My eyes narrow. She holds them a second longer than comfortable then pivots and spits.
“You’re busier than usual,” I call after her, my mouth watering.
“Tourists.” She grinds the word through her teeth.
The veil is thinning. More and more newcomers find their way through the thin places and while they always end up here, why now?
I pour a shot of blood and sip it down, refilling the glass. “Any from Asgard?”
Maeve pauses. “You know better than to ask.”
“And you know how much I fucking hate it when someone withholds answers from me.”
She twists to stare over her shoulder. “Don’t you think I would have called you? If I’d seen any Asgardians in here?”
I shrug, my gut tightening with the next shot. “No.”
Maeve fancies herself an opportunist instead of a snitch. But any who pass through her doors understand. She wants a bag of coins? It’s the only way to shift her loyalties.
Any deals we might have brokered in the past are only as good as my willingness to keep paying her.
“How about any of the Queen’s bloodletters?”
She lifts her hands. “Look, Silver, they don’t come here. Freelancers only.” Her smile flashes, gums as black as the bar. “They don’t get in my way, and I don’t get in theirs.”
I drum my fingers on wood. “Tourists, huh?”
One upside to the influx of bodies—at least I’ll have plenty of fresh perspectives. Surely somebody can shed some fucking clarity on Audra’s visions. A bystander might have heard if the Norns are moving. Or not.
The decanter of blood rests in place, the selkie side eying it. Dirty stubs of candles drip down from scones of twisted metal and bone. Ash and dust darken the lines. Velvet wallpaper boasts claw marks, dark enough to eat the light.
Across from the pool tables, the piano plays itself. Shelves of liquor gleam, filled with whatever the paying customer needs.
“Make sure you behave yourself. And down the whole thing so you don’t lose control.” Maeve hisses out the warning knowing I’ll hear her.
I choke the neck of the decanter.
Fabric shifts.
A flash of white skin and pale lips solidifies at the corner of my vision, and I reflexively turn to the opposite direction, heading for the fallen angels.
If Moraine is here with the rest of her crew, there’s no way I’ll be able to evade her for long.
The angels know nothing. Fallen by label, by choice. They chose to jump and have been cut off from their heaven. The necromancer is too focused on the next wave of death sweeping the area to give heed to the whisper.
After pinpointing several potential sources and finding no answers, I settle into a corner. No one has an answer for me.
The local color won’t be of any help. Regulars have their own seats, which they pay to keep with blood and chaos. At least from here I command a decent view of the handful of assholes squeezed into a single room.
“You look at though you’ve seen a ghost, old friend.” Luca, the bouncer from the door, approaches long after midnight.
He eyes the decanter in my hand, the virginal lifeblood pooling, half empty. I hand it off to him without hesitation.
“I’m searching for one. That’s worse than being confronted,” I growl.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something nebulous. Answers.”
“To?” he presses.
“Visions. Prophecies.”
Luca downs the drink and smacks his lips. “Ah.”
“Exactly.”
Luca is a relatively new turn, changed in the early 1800s and retired from politics the moment his immortal life began. He considers himself an old world vampire and dresses in a black shirt and waistcoat, a row of beads in his pocket with the crucifix ripped off the rosary.
Elegant, deadly, hungry. Not one of the queen’s.
“You’re asking for a lot, Nicholas. You know this place is a cesspool.”
How can it not be with a sign over the bar boasting No Cum, No Curses, No Cannibalism.
“Which is why I’m here,” I reply.
The more time passes, the antsier my insides, and the sharper the sensation of pinching in my spine. I have to get back to Helene.
“There was talk...” Luca begins.
My attention snaps toward him. “Go on.”
He holds up his hands for mercy. “It’s only gossip.”
“Your clarification isn’t necessary.”
“Movement. In the old ones. Beings rising that have been dormant for long,” he whispers.
I know better than most that dormancy is a lie. They might keep their interactions to a minimum but there is always movement, a watchful eye and a heavy hand.
“Where did you hear it? Maeve said no Asgardians—” I start.
He waves me quiet. “Not them. But if the gossip proves true, the specific types of beings rising may interest you.”
Claws curve my fingers. Any entities crawling free from history may be drawn to Helene. It’s inevitable.
Balls on the pool table clack together, and one of the angels lets out a whoop of delight. The fallen are like rats with wings, but they are two of the only creatures in this place who are older than I am.
Exhaustion hits with the weight of an anvil strike.