Gettyson nodded and led us towards the back of the werehouse, into the stack of offices and labs that had been converted into living space. There was no need of worry, they were just rooms and hallways, dirty, poorly lit- and covered with graffiti.
I paused, staring at the dark, spray painted marks. Some of the lettering looked familiar, but they had little of the artistry and none of the movement of the tag that had killed Revenance. I shook my head, and descended the stairs into the depths of the werehouse dens.
Beneath a dim bulb in a damp hallway was a wall of bars with a steel mesh door, locked with a deadbolt. Immediately I could see that it would keep in an animal with just paws, but a human could put his hand through the bars and let himself out. Gettyson opened the lock with a snap and took us in to a small cell with a cot and chair. It was surprisingly cozy.
I laid Cinnamon down on the bed gently and arranged the blanket over her.
“If you have any clothes for her-”
“I’ll get some,” Gettyson said. “You needs to get a room like this.”
“We’re having it built,” I said, patting Cinnamon’s head. “In the new house.”
“Fine,” Gettyson said. “When… Cinnamon wakes, it would help me if you’d vacate. She knows how to let herself out, but the other residents won’t take too well if they finds you in here.”
“I’m all right, Mom,” Cinnamon said weakly, and I looked down to see her reach up and squeeze my hand. “It just had been so long. I’ll be all right. Someday, when I’m old enough to wrestle the beast myself, I won’t need these stupid rooms anyways.”
“You had me worried back there,” I said, tousling her hair.
“Afraid I was going to slit your throat?”
“No, afraid you’d step on your iPod,” I said, holding it out to her. “Safe and sound.”
Cinnamon took it from me, holding it to her chest like a teddy bear. “Safe and sound.”
It killed me to ask, but… ”Are you sure you’ll be safe with it if you turn?”
“It’s ‘change’,” Cinnamon said, pointing with one long finger at a cubbyhole beside the bed, “and there’s a change safe. Easy to drop in, hard to paw out.”
“All right,” I said. Clearly they’d thought this through better than I had. But still, it was terrible to think of my baby all alone here. “You know what? Fuck this. I’m going to stay-”
“No, Mom,” Cinnamon said. “Gettyson’s right. The others-they won’t like it.”
I smiled. “So scratch me, we’ll fix that right up.”
“Mommm!” Cinnamon said, sitting up in the bed. Immediately she winced and lay back down slowly, gingerly, like she was an old woman. “Don’t even joke-ow. Ow. Owsies. Don’t even joke about it. Lycanthropy sucks, I can tell you that.”
“Muscle spasms?” I guessed, helping her sink back into the bed and pulling the covers back up. “Want me to see if Gettyson has any aspirin?”
She cocked her head, ears flicking. “Ibuprofen’s better. He’s gettin’ it.”
I leaned back slowly. “Never underestimate a werekin’s hearing,” I murmured.
“Mom, ’s OK,” Cinnamon said, very softly. She was fading fast. “This was my room, this time of the month. Sometimes I just hangs here. You go. You do what you gots to. For Revy.”
I had been trying to forget my next unpleasant task. “I will,” I said, squeezing her hand. “You be safe, sweet-” But she was already snoring.
And she was right. I was putting it off. It was time to break the news to Calaphase.
Time to tell a vampire I’d failed to save his best friend.
Calaphase
I looked up to see Calaphase standing by the door, smiling closemouthed. “Gettyson’s right,” he said. “Cinnamon knows how to let herself out, but the other weres won’t want you back in the den unsupervised, and neither I nor Gettyson can hang here all night with you.”
I stared at the trim, rakish vampire, far upgraded from the goth-punk I’d first met. I avoided his eyes, and not just because he was a vampire: he reminded me of my failure.
“Right,” I said. I frowned. Calaphase had turned out quite decent for a vampire, but I didn’t know how he was going to take this. “Calaphase, can we take a little walk? There’s something I need to talk to you about-about Revenance.”
Calaphase’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared, but he kept his voice quiet. “Not here. Outside,” he whispered. Then he shook his head and hissed, exposing his fangs. “ Damnit. ”
I squeezed Cinnamon’s hand one more time and left.
Tully met us as we were leaving the cages. “Sir?” Tully said nervously.
“What is it?” Calaphase said, not pausing as he tromped up the stairs. “I’m busy.”
“They hit us again,” Tully said, backing up as Calaphase advanced. The young werewolf looked scared and really unhappy. “Right under my nose. I wants to tell Gettyson but-”
“I’ll tell him,” Calaphase said crisply. “Go clean it up.”
“Don’t you wants to see it?” Tully asked. “They hit us really good, I mean, pieced us-”
“No, I don’t want to see it,” Calaphase snarled, and Tully flinched. “I’m done with that. Buff it over. I’ll tell Gettyson you’re doing it. Maybe it will save you a beating.”
“Yes, sir,” Tully said, deflated.
“What was that about?” I asked, a bit nervously. I was dreading this conversation, and wanted to talk about anything else. “What does ‘pieced’ “Vandalism,” Calaphase said sharply. “You’d think no werekin would be fool enough to do it, and no human skilled enough. But they’ve hit us again and again.”
“You’re worried about vandalism?” I asked. “ Here? ”
Calaphase glared back at me, a blue glint in his eyes that was more than just anger: it was his vampire aura, bleeding out into the air. “You think this place should look more shitty?”
“No,” I said, ashamed. I was definitely dreading this conversation now.
We emerged into the barren cavern of the werehouse. The last time I was here, it had been filled to the rafters with drums and fires and sweaty werekin and presided over by the monstrous lord of the werehouse, the Bear King. Lord Buckhead, the ageless fae sprit behind the wild revelry of Atlanta’s eponymous party district, had stood as my guardian when, before the hungry eyes of the crowd, I dueled another tattooist for the right to ink a werewolf. And a young stray werecat girl followed me home… and had rarely left my side since.
Now, robbed of its heat and light, it just looked… decrepit. In the perverse gloom of the few shafts of twilight leaking in, even the huge metal throne of the Bear King lost its charm and looked like a pile of old Cadillac parts. Only the upper decks of the living quarters seemed the same: as before, they were filled with cold, inhuman eyes… staring, and waiting. I swallowed. Cinnamon could easily have been among those hungry eyes. Gettyson was checking a clipboard when he saw me, then jerked his hand, out! Not wanting to look back at those hungry eyes, I hurried to keep up with Calaphase. The vampire checked his pocket watch, then kicked the door open savagely, flinging it open onto the twilight with a tortured squeal of rusty hinges.
As I followed, Gettyson called after me. “Frost, I-go on, get it done, cub,” he said, idly cuffing Tully behind the ear as the boy walked past with a can of house paint. “I wants the whole thing wiped. Anyways, Frost, you did good bringing her here. We’ll take good care of her.”
“I’m sure you will,” I said, exchanging a sympathetic glance with Tully before following Calaphase out. Like the other werekin, his eyes were still hungry, but when not shrouded by fear and darkness, that glance looked less like hunger for flesh and more like longing for a normal life. I’d seen that look before. “But I’ll be back to be certain.”
The door screamed shut in a sudden gust of wind, and I was alone with a vampire underneath the darkening sky. Calaphase didn’t seem to notice the sudden cold; he just kept walking, heels cracking against the pavement as he led us away from the werehouse, out onto a tongue of concrete that jutted out over the lower level of the parking lot like a pier. I followed the vampire uncomfortably, not sure whether I was really scared of being alone with him at night, or just filled with willies over having once again to be bearer of the bad news.
“Tell me,” Calaphase said, staring into the distance, silhouetted against orange twilight.
I told him about Revy’s death-as many details as I thought he could bear.
“That’s… horrible,” Calaphase said at last, still staring into the distance.
“Yes, it was,” I said.
