Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(15)
Author: Kim Harrison

I felt the beginnings of a smile come over my face. Honestly, Pierce was a ghost and too old for me even if he was alive. At least twenty-four, I’d guess from the look at him. All of him.

I flushed as I recalled his short stature, firmly muscled and lean, like a small horse used to hard labor. Glancing up, I was embarrassed to see Pierce as red as I felt, carefully holding his coat closed.

"If the year is nineteen ninety-nine, I’ve made a die of it for nearly a hundred and forty-seven years," he said to the floor.

Poor man, I thought in pity. Everyone he knew was probably gone or so old they wouldn’t remember him. "How did you die?" I asked, curious.

Pierce’s gaze met mine, and I shivered at the intensity. "I’m a witch, as much as you," he whispered, though Robbie and I had been shouting about spells for the last five minutes. But before the Turn, being labeled a witch could get you killed.

"You were caught?" I said, scooting to the edge of the bus seat as we swung onto a slick, steep road, captivated by his air of secrecy. "Before the Turn? What did they do to you?"

Pierce tilted his head to give himself a dangerous air. "A murder most powerful. I’d have no mind to tell you if you’re of a frail constitution, but I was bricked into the ground while breath still moved in my lungs. Buried alive with an angelic guard ready to smite me down should I dare to emerge."

"You were murdered!" I said, feeling a quiver of fear.

Robbie chuckled, and I thwacked his knee. "Shut up," I said, then winced at Pierce’s aghast look. If he’d been dead for a hundred and forty years, I’d probably just cursed like a sailor.

"Sorry," I said, then braced myself when the bus swayed to a stop. More people filed on, the last being an angry, unhappy woman with more of those fliers. She talked to the bus driver for a moment, and he grumbled something before waving her on and letting the air out of the brakes. Leaning back, he shut his eyes as the woman taped a laminated flier to the floor in the aisle, and two more to the ceiling.

"Take a flier," she demanded as she worked her way to the back of the bus. "Sarah’s been missing for two days. She’s a sweet little girl. Have you seen her?"

Only on every TV station, I thought as I shook my head and accepted the purple paper. I glanced down as she handed one to Robbie and Pierce. The picture was different from the last one. The glow of birthday candles was in the foreground and a pile of presents in the back, blurry and out of focus. Sarah was smiling, full of life, and the thought of her alone, lost in the snow, was only slightly more tolerable than the thought of what someone sick enough to steal her might be using her for.

I couldn’t look anymore. The woman had gotten off through the back door to hit the next bus, and I jammed the flier in my pocket with the first one as the bus lurched into traffic.

"I know who has her," Pierce said, his hushed, excited voice pulling my attention to him. The lights of oncoming traffic shone on him, lighting his fervent, kind of scary expression.

"Driver!" he shouted, standing, and I pressed into the seat, alarmed. "Stop the carriage!"

Everyone looked at us, most of them laughing. "Sit down!" Robbie gave him a gentle shove, and Pierce fell back, coat flying open for a second. "You’re going to get us kicked off."

"I know where she’s been taken!" he exclaimed, and I glanced at the passengers, worried. The driver, though, already thought he was drunk, and everyone else was snickering about the peep show.

"Lower your voice," Robbie said, shifting to sit beside him. "People will think you’re crazy."

Pierce visibly caught his next words and closed his coat tighter. "He has her," he said, shaking the paper at Robbie. "The man, that . . . beast that murdered me to death. The very creature I was charged to bring to midnight justice. He’s taken another."

I could tell my eyes were round, but Robbie wasn’t impressed. "It’s been almost two hundred years."

"Which means little to the blood-lusting, foul spawn from hell," Pierce said, and my breath caught. Vampire. He was talking about a vampire. A dead one. Crap, if a vampire had her, then she was really in trouble.

"You were trying to tag a vampire?" I said, awed. "You must be good!" Even the I.S. didn’t send witches after vampires.

Pierce’s expression blanked and he looked away. "Not good enough, I allow. I was there on my own hook with the belief that pride and moral outrage would sustain me. The spawn has an unholy mind for young girls, which I expect he satisfied without reprisal for decades until he abducted a girl of high standing and her parents engaged my . . . midnight services."

Robbie scoffed, but I stared. Figuring out what Pierce was saying was fascinating.

Seeing Robbie’s disinterest, Pierce focused on me. "This child," he said, looking at the paper, "is the image of his preferred prey. I confronted him with his culpability, but he is as clever as a Philadelphian lawyer, and to pile on the agony, he informed the constables of my liability and claimed knowledge of the signs."

Pierce’s eyes dropped, and I felt a twinge of fear for the history I’d missed by a mere generation. Liability was a mixed-company term for witch-when being one could get you killed. I suspected spawn was pre-Turn for vampire. Midnight services was probably code for detective or possibly an early Inderlander cop. Philadelphian lawyer was self-explanatory.

"Truly I was a witch," he said softly, "and I could say no different. The girl he murdered directly to protect his name. That it was so fast was a grace, her fair white body found in solstice snow and wept over. She could no more speak to save me than a stick. That I showed signs of liability about my person and belongs made my words of no account. They rowed me up Salt River all night for their enjoyment until being buried alive in blasphemed ground was a blessing. This," he said, shaking the paper, "is the same black spawn. He has taken another child, and if I don’t stop him, he will foul her soul by sunrise. To stand idle would be an outrage against all nature."

I stared at him, impressed. "Wow."

Robbie crossed his arms over his chest. "Kind of poetic, isn’t he?"

Pierce frowned, looking at Robbie with a dark expression.

"I think he’s telling the truth," I said, trying to help, but the small man looked even more affronted.

"What would I gain from a falsehood?" he said. "This is the same sweet innocence looking at me from my memory. That damned spawn survived where I didn’t, but being dead myself, mayhap I can serve justice now. I expect I have only to sunup. The charm will be spent by then, and I’ll return to purgatory. If I can save her, perhaps I can save my soul."