her.
Kelsey shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter that it’s a chapel, but it does matter that it’s
He breathes deep, lets it out, and turns to face her. “Okay. What’s my job?”
“Sit on the dais and act, you know, murderable.”
“I’m the
She blinks. “Naturally. What did you think I needed you for?”
She turns away and walks the length of the sanctuary on both sides, checking the small brass relays hidden behind each pillar. No long antennas on these pentagonal brass contraptions—the Engineer didn’t build them for transmitting in this instance. What Kelsey needs is the opposite. She circles back to the dais and finds that the Engineer left the trigger on the podium, as promised. She picks it up, round and brass like a pocketwatch but singing with the power of glamour.
She says, “Not long now.”
“Oh. Great.” Novak flops down on the steps of the dais, elbows resting on knees. “I love this plan.”
She stares at him, perplexed. “How you feel about it isn’t relevant.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“The alternative is dying in an explosion of gore.”
“Look—I’m in, okay? But I don’t have to like it, is all.”
Not knowing what to say, Kelsey shrugs it off. Now is the time to focus. She springs up, gives the air two long strokes of her wings, and finds a perch atop the large pipe organ on the right side of the dais. The height and partial concealment give her a comfortable edge. She’s ready for it.
They wait.
It comes.
Slowly at first, like the howl of a distant hurricane, the city begins to moan. As the Old One approaches, the calm evaporates from the chapel walls and each stone seems to shiver in terror. Kelsey feels the tremor when the Old One’s fluid mass breaks like a wave against the outer wall. It leaks in through the cracks around the front doors, a black cloud thicker than firesmoke pouring into the air.
On the dais below, Novak shifts nervously. Kelsey stares down, willing him to hold his wits together until the Old One has been lured all the way inside. Stupid of her to plan a trap that hinges on a human’s help, but Novak stills himself and does not flee.
The Old One literally pulls itself together, black tendrils tucking in to form a sphere of darkness, and begins to glide down the central aisle. It pulses slightly, as if breathing, and the hideous eyes and teeth rise to the surface to gape hungrily at Novak.
When the Old One reaches the center of the chapel, Kelsey pushes off from her perch and snaps open her wings to glide down to the floor, landing in front of Novak. The stones of the chapel quail and shriek beneath the Old One, and she feels Novak’s fear, too, like a subsonic vibration. But when she serves the city, she has no fear of her own.
Kelsey kneels to place one palm on the smooth stone floor, the other hand still holding the trigger. She reaches out with her mind and draws in glamour from beyond the chapel, making herself seem larger, more ferocious. Fangs and claws to match the Old One’s, eyes that glow with citylight, wings growing spurred and enormous to fill the vaulted space. She shows off for the Old One, goading him to match her skill.
When the Old One rises to her challenge, though, it takes glamour from the immediate area of the chapel. She feels the tension as it draws in more power, as if the relays are springs and the Old One stretches them out to their limits. The web of glamour pulls taut, singing like instrument strings, and when the threads are stretched to the breaking point, Kelsey jams her thumb down on the trigger.
The glamour springs back toward the relays, lightning-quick with elastic tension, and the relays suck it down, devouring the power and storing it. Each relay becomes a point of negative pressure, the energy flow from the Old One firmly established. Mindlessly thirsty, the relays will not stop drinking until the Old One is drained.
The Old One screeches and writhes. Its eyes and teeth and limbs disappear first, then wisps of black cloud begin to siphon off and it gradually shrinks. The last few seconds are the worst, when the core being of the Old One rends in a dozen different directions, and the very air wants to shrink away from its ancient rage. Then, with a final rip, the relays devour it.
The walls sigh relief at its passage.
Novak stands shakily from the dais steps and walks over to Kelsey. “You saved my life again. That’s twice now. Thank you.” His eyes are too deep and grateful, with a puzzling lack of disgust.
“Well. Have a nice life,” she says and flees the chapel.
With luck, Duncan will never ask her to take on the horrid human-form again. No frailty, no confusion, no illusions of humanity. That is what she wants, yes, she’s certain. Never again.
Kelsey flies her rounds, starting at the lake and meandering westwards. The city has been quiet for days, but something is different in the air tonight. Something waits for her.
She lands on the steps in front of Rockefeller Chapel—next to Novak.
“What are you doing?” she says, dropping her cloak of glamour so he can see her.
He jumps at her sudden appearance. “Waiting for you. Took you long enough to show up.”
She blinks. “Our business here is done.”
“I got this case, see. I think it’s up your alley.”
The rush of hope and anxiety and desire catches her off-guard, echoes of human-form emotions nothing like the cool certainty of a grotesque’s mission.
Novak takes her silence as an invitation to continue. “Today I had a out behind the River North cineplex that was drained of blood. What do you think? Vampire?”
“There are no vampires in Chicago.”
“Well that begs the question—who
She hesitates. “I don’t work for you.”
“What about my supernaturally blood-free Jane Doe? You willing to work for her?”
Kelsey scowls, knowing he’s probably right. This case sounds as if it involves elements he is ill-equipped to deal with, elements that fall into her realm of experience. Her responsibility, even.
“I brought a coat, for when you’re wearing your other face.” Novak holds the spare coat out to her. “Come on. We can go someplace warm, review the details. And hey, maybe you could give food a second chance.”
Reluctantly, she takes the coat from him and lets her wings melt away before wrapping it around her shoulders. The night air chills her human hands, and she shoves them down into the pockets. It feels strangely good—the cold and the coat, the discomfort and the doubt. Maybe it’s okay to want this. Maybe her human-self is not a curse, after all.
As they make their way to Novak’s car, the sidewalk sighs approval at the touch of her bare human feet. The streetlights flicker their agreement when she passes beneath them. Startled, Kelsey realizes the city wants this of her.
And she always gives the city what it wants.
BLUE JOE
by Stephanie Burgis
Josef Anton Miklovic, Blue Joe, was twenty-one years old and playing the sax in a nightclub in Youngstown, Ohio, when he met his father for the first time.
Joe was on stage with his family band: Karl on keyboard, hunched and intense; Niko on drums, grinning his lopsided, dreamer’s grin; and Ivan, as smooth and polished as a Croatian Clark Gable, playing his shining trumpet like a peal up to heaven.
Smoke swirled across the tables, obscuring the waitresses in their Betty Boop outfits and the customers in their sharp suits, with dyed blondes on their arms. Ivan had hooked up with the son of a local mob boss to pull this
