Through the grey, p.1
Through the Grey, page 1
THROUGH THE GREY
KAT RICHARDSON
For the Greystalkers, Daywalkers, Talents, and Friends old and new.
CONTENTS
Introduction
By Charlaine Harris
1. Reindeer Games
2. Shatter
3. Single-Edged
4. Chemotherapy
5. Cutlass
6. Drafty
7. Heart’s Desire
8. The Hollow Hounds
9. The Third Death of the Little Clay Dog
10. Peacock in Hell
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Falstaff Books
Friends of Falstaff
INTRODUCTION
BY CHARLAINE HARRIS
I've known Kat Richardson for a long time. My admiration for her work has never flagged. Kat's novels were a great contribution to the field of urban fantasy. Her frequent protagonist Harper Blaine is one of the admirable heroes of the field: brave, determined, confident. You'll meet Harper again in these pages, and other characters who are equally as interesting. Reading over these collected stories, I was reminded that Kat is simply a good writer. Not only are her people complicated and imperfect and therefore real, her stories are told with intelligence and the persistent twists and turns of irony that are unique to Richardson. I enjoyed reading her collected work so much that I am sure you will, too.
* * *
Charlaine Harris is the worldwide best-selling author of the Sookie Stackhouse urban fantasy series, the Midnight, Texas novels, the Aurora Teagarden mysteries, and the Gunnie Rose series. Her work has been adapted into multiple television shows and movies, including the HBO hit series True Blood.
1
REINDEER GAMES
It was in a dark and dingy bar, far from the North Pole and obscured from the city’s self-knowledge by a veil of shame and hopelessness. I just came in to use the phone–honest.
I sidled in, keeping a hand on my bag, and leaned on the bar, trying to attract the bartender’s attention. The place was so dark that, at first, I didn’t realize the patron next to me was a deer. A reindeer, in fact. He had a large, red nose, which resembled a Christmas light-bulb. It wasn’t lit, but he sure was. He was knocking back what appeared to be his fifth or sixth glass of Old St. Nick–rot-gut whiskey I wouldn’t pour for a junkyard dog.
He looked at me and began to talk, which would have surprised me, if I could have been further surprised after seeing a large ruminant sitting on a bar stool in a low-life bar. Now, I’m not in the habit of listening to sob stories in drinking establishments, but as I tried to attract the bartender, the deer began to tell his tale. I sat myself down and listened as he rambled on. Here’s what he told me:
I see you’re lookin’ at my nose. Yeah, it’s big and red, and yeah, I’m a drunk, but that ain’t why it’s red. It’s the other way around, see? I’m a drunk ’cause of my nose. See, long ago I was a sleek, young buck with a nice, little, furry-flapped nose like every other reindeer. Surprises you, don’t it? Yep, I’m a reindeer. Used to run for the Big Guy–y’know: Santa Claus.
But let me tell you, it ain’t all fun and reindeer games up at the North Pole. No, siree-bob! Let me begin at the beginning. See, when I was just a young buck, Santa’s Elves came around to all the herds, recruiting. Had a bunch of nice flyers and it sounded real good. Easy hours, only one performance a year, educational benefits, room and board, health care and retirement benefits. Now, let me tell ya, when you’re wandering the frozen tundra, that sounds like easy street. So, I signed up.
For a while, I was just a second-stringer. Hangin’ around, hoping for my big break. I used to talk to all of the other reindeer, trying to get pointers, but some of them were kind of stand-offish. Then, I got my chance: Charlie retired. Never heard of Charlie? Well, you’d have called him Rudolph. See, the team has positions for each name and when you take the job, well, you become the name. You didn’t really think they were the same deer, did you? Reindeer don’t live that long. It’s kind of like Ronald Mac Donald. So, y’know, everybody’s been replaced a time or two. And some of ’em–well, you wouldn’t believe what they’re really like.
Let me tell ya, it’s rough up there; nothing but wall-to-wall guys, except for Vixen. You could have called her a lot worse than that. But, really, can you blame her? The only girl deer in a herd of eight guys? Not that she had anything to do with Prancer and Dancer, ’cause those two were getting along just fine together, if you know what I mean.
And the elves, man, let me tell you! What a bunch. They used to wear these little pointy-toed shoes until that movie came out. Y’know: Lord of the Rings? Then they all got uppity and started wearing long hair and soft-soled boots so you couldn’t hear ’em sneaking up on ya. Used to frighten the hay out of us, and then laugh like crazy. Nasty.
But, so, anyway, back to Charlie. See, when Charlie retired, Santa needed a new Rudolph and I wanted to make the first string so bad, I didn’t care about the surgery. It was all gonna be OK, right? I mean, the healthcare was gonna take care of it and I was gonna be Santa’s Number-One Deer. I was gonna be in gravy and I might even get into Vixen’s stall, if you catch my drift. Gravy: boy, there’s irony for ya.
So I get the surgery and everything’s going pretty good. Heck, I even went for the high-tech, laser-pointer nose option. Every year we get a nice card from Charlie from some exotic place like Madagascar, or whatever. “Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.” Yeah…
Then, one year, things have been going OK, when I get sick. So I go to call in, but I can’t remember the back office number. So I call the main number. And what do I get? I get Santa’s phone tree! And what do I hear?
“To speak to Santa, press one; to speak to an elf, press two; to order venison products, please stay on the line…”
Venison products!
And suddenly it all falls into place for me. I mean, why didn’t I see it before? I mean, this is the frickin’ North Pole, fer cryin’ out loud! How does a guy running a business on his own manage to weigh three-hundred pounds in that kind of weather without a supermarket nearby? Let me tell you, it sure ain’t his wife’s cooking. That woman could burn water. He puts away a lot of milk and cookies every Christmas, but it sure ain’t enough to keep up that bulk all year. Hell, no!
But every year, somebody “retires.” Somebody like Charlie. I was walkin’ around in a dead guy’s nose! “Wish you were here…” Yeah, more like “wish you were a hero sandwich!”
I needed to get out, but I was too sick to crawl. It was two days to Christmas and I was in deep kimchee. I knew Santa’s dirty secret. And I knew I’d be the next Rudolph to “retire”. I lay low and tried to build up my strength.
But on Christmas Eve, the worst happened: there was a knock at the door and when I opened it, I could barely see Santa for the fog that had socked us in like poisoned cotton candy.
And y’know what he says to me? Yeah, I can see it in your face: you know. He says, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
I know what I should have done. I know what the smart thing would have been, but I panicked. All I could see was that smiling, jolly old elf, fat and happy on roast leg of Charlie!
“Fuck you, Fat-Man!” I screamed and I ran for the back door!
I was out and across the field, into the woods and gone in five seconds flat. But I knew they’d be coming after me: the Elves! The elves with their silent boots and long streaming hair and bows!
Bows, I tell ya! I should have realized it earlier. They all had bows, just like that elf in Lord of the Rings–what’s his name? Leg-o-lamb? That’s how they got Charlie! Silently, in the night…
But, my nose was shining like a beacon, that treacherous, traitorous nose! The nose I thought was gonna make my fortune was leading my death right to me! So I ran for the nearest bar and in it I found Blitzen. And he was really Blitzed. I called him a sissy and he took a swing at me and he smacked me right in the kisser. He broke my nose and I thanked him, but the Elves were already on to the place and coming through the door, so I made with the flying trick and sailed on out of there.
With my broken nose, I couldn’t see in the fog, but neither could they and I managed to get away.
Eventually, I found a surgeon who was willing to fix my nose so it would never light up again, but it was never going to be a nice, furry reindeer nose again. I’d have to move south, where the air was warm enough to breathe. I started moving, selling my services to petting zoos, then moving on, whenever the Elves started breathing down my neck.
And I’ve been moving on ever since.
I don’t know how much farther I can run, though. It’s been a long time. I’ve been from the North Pole to the South, been to Africa and South America and every little island you can think of, but they keep on coming: the Assassin-Elves. Someday, someday soon, my luck’s gonna run out. Then I’ll be just another string of venison sausage in Old St. Nick’s larder. But at least I’ll have told the world the truth about Santa’s little sweat shop. I’ll die a free deer.
And he tossed back the last of his drink and staggered unsteadily for the back door. He looked back just once and said, “Remember me. Remember Charlie.” Then he was gone with an eerie clatter of hooves as he ascended into a cloudy sky, running like… well, like a deer.
When I left the bar, a man came up to me. He was tall and thin and his long, silver-blond hair hung down his back like a shimmering curtain from under a dark fedora. He wore dark gla sses and a long, black coat. He stopped me and flashed a picture.
“Ma’am, have you seen this deer?”
“No, sir,” I replied. “No deer around here. It’s still hunting season.”
He glared at me suspiciously, then turned away. I could see the bulge of his bow under his jacket.
I don’t know what became of that deer, or if he wasn’t just half-crazy with drink, but every time I think of that night in that bar I say a little prayer for him.
“Run, run, Rudolph.”
2
SHATTER
A slab of thick, cool glass lay on a patch of weedy gravel, slightly canted up by a rock under one corner. The piece was almost two inches thick, a rectangle the size of a large tea tray. Greg trod on it as they strolled across the field, the sole of his boot slipping a bit on the smooth surface.
He swore and stumbled a little, putting one hand out to catch his balance. A bit of rusted wire, wrapped loosely around a post, sliced into his palm.
“Crap,” he spat, sucking on the cut.
Liss stepped over the glass and peered at him. “Tetanus.”
Greg swallowed blood and frowned at her. “Yeah, right. Nothing a wide-spectrum antibiotic won't drop in its tracks.”
Liss rolled her eyes. “Tough guy…”
“Tough as they come.” Greg looked down at his hand, gave it a flick and then ignored the oozing wound.
“When you're in your right mind.”
“Yeah, I know. I'm a freakin' head case.” He looked around the empty field. The remains of a low, crude fence marched across the scrubby ground at an angle, cutting the open area into two uneven triangles.
He remembered the field from old wartime video. The fence, thigh-high, of posts and razor-wire had been concealed in the tall grass that grew here, then. A man-trap, the barrier stopped the lines of fleeing refugees, tearing living flesh from the first to meet it, until it became a visible barrier of blood and horror. Those immediately behind recoiled, slowed and became targets for the advancing troops. The tough and the desperate used the living and dying bodies of their comrades as stepping stones and fled. Those too horrified to go forward fell beside the fence and rose no more.
Except as ghosts in the imagination, as memories in computer-minds, displayed with agonizing clarity on viewscreens in school rooms, in small displays of personal items like tiny shrines in the cubicles most called home, in the voices of the extremely aged. Unreal to someone Greg's age, or even to Liss, ten years his senior. It was their grandparents' war. Their own was not to be fought in a realm of bullet-torn meat and wet red earth, but of mindspace and memory and whispering electrons.
Greg stared out at it, measuring the regular placement of the posts with his gaze, sweeping the field for anything interesting, anything that he could focus his mind on. Liss started to walk away from him, into the field, parallel to the fence. Greg stood his ground and watched her, crossing his arms over his chest, his fist clenched over the cut. One drop of blood slipped from his hand and painted a blade of grass at his feet.
Liss’s long, dark dress billowed in the breeze. It seemed like such an impractical garment, but she'd insisted on wearing it. It covered her legs and clung to them as she walked. He'd seen her body in much more detail, but he couldn't help staring at the way the wind molded the fabric to her, making these legs, defined by the rush of fresh air and smoke-colored fiber, different from the legs she normally wore.
She walked out into the field of a thousand metallic sparkles, head down so her hair swept over her face, stripes of premature gray and white looking like tears in the dark fabric of it. She crouched down and touched something just above the ground.
“This is where my grandfather died,” she called back. “Or at least, where they found him. The tag has the right number on it.”
Greg took a few stiff steps toward her. Another drop of blood fell unnoticed in his path. “He's on the wrong side of the fence, isn't he?” He did not care about her answer, he only wanted her to keep talking. The breeze moaning over the barbed wire was beginning to sound like distant sobbing.
“He went over the fence like the refugees did and then one of his own shot him in the back.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated, rising to her feet. “I don't know. My grandmother never said.”
“Wouldn't the Army database say?”
“I've never bothered to look.” She turned toward him.
“You don't want to know?”
“It doesn't matter. He died here, like a thousand others. That's enough for me.” She shook her hair out of her face and started toward him again. “You don't like this place, do you?”
“Who would?”
She stopped in front of him and smiled up at his scowl. “I do, kind of. It's a living memory. Alone of many buried, it remains. And it's quiet here.”
“Quiet… Not for me. It's an empty field where two hundred soldiers with guns slaughtered eleven hundred people who only wanted to run away.”
“It's that, too. See, one thing can have several faces. Depends on where you're standing and what you're looking for as to what you'll see.”
“I see a sterile field watered with blood.” The singing of the wire fence crept along his spine.
“And for the same reason that, when you look in a mirror, you see a monster, while I see a man.”
“I am a monster, Liss. I’m useful, and you can dress me up and make me behave, but it's just a nice act, not the truth.”
“The truth is sometimes not what you think.” She walked past him. He turned, hoping they were leaving, and followed her, but she stopped beside the heavy glass.
“Look at it,” she said, pointing down. “It seems solid, unmoving, hard, but did you know glass is actually a liquid? It never stops flowing, glacially slow. Come down here and look at it.” She knelt down, her dress a dark pool around her.
Reluctant, he stooped and looked at the massive, heavy, glass slab. It was so thick it was dark green from the impurities. It glinted slightly as the sun struck it between the shadows of their bodies. The color made it seem that it must be icy to the touch. He started to extend his injured hand, then stopped. Vibrating discomfort down his back gave him pause and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“They say you can reshape glass over time by forcing it to flow where you want it,” Liss said. “It flows so slowly, yet, it does move. You could drive a nail through it without shattering it if you were just patient enough You're like this glass, Greg.” She reached out and took his hand, pressing his palm against the smooth surface of the slab. Her hand rested, warm, over his. “Strong, hard, pacific, but ultimately brittle when struck hard enough.”
The glass went cold beneath his hand and he pulled away, shuddering a little, leaving a smear of blood on the surface. He stood up, suddenly, and Liss had to catch herself to keep from falling over.
“I'm not like that. It's an illusion, a facade. I'm like them, out there: the ghosts who only look like humans,” he snapped, sweeping one hand back toward the remains of the fence. “But, inside, they aren't humans. They're hollow at best; at worst, monsters, like me.”
Frustrated, lashed by the weeping of the wind, he glared at her and strode away. She tried to scramble after him, but the force of his inner turmoil drove him too quickly for her to catch up.
It raged, boiling in him. He wanted to scream, like a broken pipe venting steam. Distilled fury pumped through him alongside his blood and he felt plucked by its discordant fingers. His sleep had been ungentle, its images still walked with him, gibbering and dancing worship-rings around him like demon children. He was the god of nightmares.
He tried keeping his distance from others; there was no distance to be had, here. He stared at the schematic on the viewscreen before him, but his gaze darted from the crisp lines as if repelled, searching for relief from phantom horrors hanging like a gore-spattered curtain between his eyes and the world around him.
