Cash disappeared for a minute and returned with five glasses. More whiskey.
“What did the big guy wear?”
The three men and Maggie knocked back their glasses. There was collective grimacing and clearing of throats. I sipped mine a bit. Like drinking fire spiced with crushed glass.
“A cloak,” Toby offered.
“Like this?” I fingered my own long plain dark gray affair. Most fighters wore cloaks. Used properly, the cloak could confuse the attacker by obscuring your movements. It could shield, smother, and kill. It doubled as a blanket in a pinch for the person or for the mule. Unfortunately it also made a dramatic fashion statement and was easy to make. Every two-bit bravo had one.
“His was one of those hooded cloaks, long and brown. And torn up at the bottom,” Toby said.
“Did you get a look at his face?”
Toby shook his head. “He kept the hood on the whole time. Didn’t see the face or the hair.”
Great. I was looking for the proverbial “guy in a cloak.” He was as elusive as the legendary “white truck” had been when cars still filled the roadways. All sorts of crazy driving accidents had been blamed on the mysterious white truck, just as all sorts of random crimes had been perpetrated by “some guy in a cloak” with his hood pulled over his face.
Toby cleared his throat again. “Like I said, I didn’t see his face. I saw his hands, though—they were dark. About this color.” He nodded at the whiskey in my glass. “He came in, stood at the bar, sized up the crowd for a while, and then came up next to Joshua. They said a few words.”
“Did you hear what he said?”
“I did,” Cash said. “He whispered. He said, ‘Do you want to be a god? I have room for two more.’ ”
Oh boy. “What did Joshua say?”
Cash’s eyes were mournful. “He said, ‘Hell yeah.’ And then the man punched him off his feet and the whole place went to hell.”
Hell yeah. Famous last words. Some guy sidles up to you in a bar and offers you godhood. And you say yes. Dumb. Over thirty years had passed since the Shift. By now every moron should know to watch their mouth and not accept bargains with random strangers, because when you said yes to magic, your word was binding, whether you meant it or not. A life wasted. All I could do now was to find the killer and punish him. Just once I would’ve liked to be there before this sort of shit happened so I could nip it in the bud.
“That’s when all the shapeshifters left,” Maggie said.
“That’s right.” Cash nodded. “They ran out of here like their tails were on fire.”
“These shapeshifters, do they come often?”
“Once a week for about a year now,” Cash said.
“They drink a lot?”
“One beer each,” Maggie said. “They don’t drink much, but they don’t cause any trouble either. They just sit by themselves in the corner and eat barrels of peanuts. We started charging them for it. They don’t seem to care. I think they all work together, because they come in at the same time.”
In times of trouble, shapeshifters snapped into an us-versus-them mentality. The world fractured into Pack and Not Pack. They would fight to the death for one of their own or to protect their territory. This was their hangout, their place. They should have waded into this fight, and in this case, the Pack Law would be on their side. Instead they took off. Odd. Maybe Curran had come up with some new order forbidding fights. No, that didn’t make sense either. They were shapeshifters, not nuns. If they didn’t blow their steam off once in a while, they’d self-destruct. Curran knew that better than anyone.
I filed this tidbit to puzzle over in the future. Right now the guy in the cloak was my primary concern.
Joshua was killed for a specific purpose. The guy had gone through a lot of trouble, starting a fight, busting walls, arranging Joshua to impersonate a human butterfly, and infecting him. It was unlikely he’d done it just for kicks, which meant he had some sort of a plan and he wouldn’t stop until he followed through with it. Nothing good could possibly come from a plan that involved turning a man into a syphilis incubator.
“We run a quiet tavern,” Maggie said. “Usually guys don’t want to fight here. They just want to get a drink, shoot some pool, and go home. If there is a fight brewing, they’ll talk shit for a while and wait for Toby and Vik to break them up. But this . . . I’ve never seen anything like this. That man threw one punch, and the whole crowd exploded. People were screaming and fighting, and growling like wild animals.”
I looked at Vik. “Did you fight?”
“I did.”
“And you?” I turned to Toby.
“Yeah.”
I glanced to Cash. He nodded. I could tell by their faces they weren’t proud of it. The bouncers were paid to keep a cool head, and Cash was the owner.
“Why did you fight?”
They stared at me.
“I was mad,” Vik offered. “Real mad.”
“Angry,” Toby said.
“Why?”
“Hell if I know.” Vik shrugged.
Interesting. “How long did the fight last?”
“Forever,” Toby said.
“About ten minutes,” Maggie answered.
That’s a long time for a fight. Most bar fights were over in a couple of minutes. “Did it get worse with time?”
She nodded.
“Did anybody see Joshua die?”
“It was all a blur,” Toby said. “I remember hitting somebody’s head against the wall and . . . I don’t even know why I did it. It’s like I couldn’t stop.”
“I saw it.” Maggie hugged herself. “The fight broke out.
Joshua was in the middle of it. He was a big man and he knew what he was doing. I was screaming for them to stop fighting. I was afraid they’d bust up the place. Nobody listened to me. Joshua was mowing people down with his fists and then that man grabbed him and they hit the wall. The man dragged Joshua to the pole, grabbed a crowbar, and stabbed. Joshua was wriggling on the crowbar like a fish. That bastard put his hand on Joshua’s face. A red light flashed and then he walked away. I saw Joshua’s eyes. He was gone.”
This just got better and better.
Maggie hugged herself. Cash put his hand on her shoulder. Neither said anything but I watched the haunted expression ease from Maggie’s face, as if she drew strength from him.
One day I’d find someone to lean on as well. It just wouldn’t be Curran. And I really had to stop thinking about him, because it hurt.
“Did you see any part of the man during the fight? Anything at all?”
Maggie shook her head. “Just the cloak.”
Biohazard’s techs would’ve taken statements before they let the brawlers go. I’d bet a chocolate bar nobody had gotten a look at the John Doe in the cloak.
A ten-minute fight, fifty eyewitnesses, and no description. That had to be some kind of record.
“Okay.” I sighed. “What about the critter in the cellar? What do we know about it?”
“Big,” Vik said. “Hairy. Big teeth.” He held his hands apart, demonstrating teeth with his fingers. “He was like the spawn of hell.”
“How did this spawn get into the cellar?”
The smaller bouncer shrugged. “I was trying to make my way to the bar, where the shotgun was, and then some asswipe hits me with a pool cue and I take a tumble down this stair and hit my head a bit. Once the room stops spinning, I try to get up and I see this huge thing coming down. Wicked fangs, eyes glowing. I’m thinking I was done for. It jumps right over me and into the cellar. I slam the door shut and that’s that.”
“Did anybody see this beast come in with the man who killed Joshua?”
Nobody said anything. I took it as a no.
“Did it try to get out?”
Both bouncers shook their head.
I rose to my feet and pulled Slayer from my back sheath. The opaque saber caught the blue light of feylanterns. A light mother-of-pearl shimmer ran along the blade. Everybody took a step back.
“Lock the door behind me,” I told them.
“What if you don’t come out?” Maggie asked.
“I’ll come out.” I unlatched the heavy wooden door, opened it, and ducked inside.
Darkness mugged me. I waited, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.
The cellar lay quiet, steeped in shadows and the thick odor of hops and liquor. Dark curves of large beer kegs defined a narrow path. I moved forward, ready to dodge at any second. My back and knees hurt. The last thing I wanted was something big with teeth the size of Vik’s fingers jumping at me from above.
Nothing but moonlight, crawling through the narrow slit of a high window to my right.
A black shadow stirred against the far wall.
“Hi there.” I shifted my stance.
A low throaty whine answered me. A very plaintive whine, followed by heavy wet panting.
I took another step and paused. No flash of teeth. No glowing eyes.
My nose caught a whiff of fur. Interesting.
I put a bit of excitement in my voice. “Here, boy!”