Salt and Iron (11 page)

Between the industrial garbage bins and the fleet SUVs and Rob’s brown pickup truck, there’s not much parking on the street. He parks about half a block down, slides out from behind the wheel, and grabs his bag from the back. There’s more salt in there of course, and a pouch of iron filings. And a crucifix, which is stupid and a little embarrassing, because even though he tries to be rational, he’s actually really superstitious.

He hesitates and climbs back into the cab and closes the door.
This is stupid
, he thinks. It is. Rob sidelined him. He’s going to be pissed if he bumps into James in a dark hallway, and he’s just as likely to stab someone on his team as a monster if the place is as decrepit inside as it looks from the outside.

Someone’s levered off the graffiti-covered plywood that used to cover the door, and it’s standing, nails out, beside the open door. Easy way in. He can’t just sit here and wait for them, or he might as well have stayed home. He chews his thumbnail down.

“Fuck it,” he whispers after a minute, and climbs out of the SUV and shoves the door shut with his hip and starts down the street toward the open door.

Suddenly people come boiling out of the building. It’s not monsters or witches making an escape, it’s the fucking team. Matthew comes first, panting, sweat covered. He doesn’t even see James, just turns, hands grabbing for Tim, who’s leaning hard on Steve. The side of Tim’s shirt is dark and shiny with blood, and his face is moon white.

“Jesus,” James whispers. He starts running. It’s only half a block, but it feels like it’s way too fucking far. They’re in a tight knot, and Rob is giving orders, moving around the fleet SUV, grabbing stuff. Things have gone wrong. Things have gone bad. Rob’s going right back in. Of course he is. Sam and Matthew look up at the same time and see him running toward them.

“What happened?” he shouts.

“Holy Christ, James,” Sam answers, “am I glad to see you.”

“Hey, get that door,” Matthew says, “Tim’s not gonna….” He doesn’t bother to say what’s going to or not going to happen, and James doesn’t need him to. He hurries over, pulls open the back door of the SUV, and Tim sags down on the floor there, and then lies back, panting. Matthew crawls in, groping for the first aid kit. Steve leans, panting, on the side.

“It’s okay,” Tim says softly. “Seriously, guys, it’s okay.”

“Naw, that’s a hospital trip,” Steve tells him. He wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “C’mon.”

James helps Tim up, into the cab. “What happened?”

Steve looks at him, mouth tight at the corners. “Could have used an extra person in there,” he says.

He drops a heavy hand on James’s shoulder and heads around to the driver’s side, and James turns back to the door where Therese’s standing now. Her face is a harlequin mask, half-blackened with blood that’s running from a gash up in her hair and half-whitened by the glare of the light of her phone.

People are missing.

James’s heart lurches in his chest. “Gabe,” he shouts. Therese looks up, staring at him. “Where’s Gabe? Benecio?”

Therese moves the phone from her face. She shakes her head at him.

“No,” James says. “
No
.” He pushes to get by her.

“You’re not going in. That thing just killed Benecio. It got Gabe, and Rob’s gone back for him. We’re getting Abraham, and you are not going in.”

“The hell I’m not. The
hell
I’m not.”

He shoves Therese. The only reason he can budge her is because she’s wounded, maybe worse than she looks. Therese goes stumbling back a couple of steps before she can catch herself, then grabs at James’s arm.

“Wait,” she says. “Just wait.”

James shoves her hard, but Therese’s got him now, holding on like a bulldog.

“
Wait
. Yuko’s on her way, and Abraham is coming. I….” She shakes her head slowly.

James realizes the blood’s still running, running into her eyes and into her ear and slicking her shirt.

“I can’t go back in. Just wait ’til Yuko gets here.”

He nods. “Okay,” he says. He relaxes the grip he had on her arm. “You’re hurt. Don’t stay for me. Go get looked at. I swear, I’ll wait.”

She nods. The edges of her face soften a little with relief.

“We’ll get them,” James adds softly. “Get to the hospital and get looked at. Trust me. We’ll bring them back.”

Therese nods. She lurches toward the SUV, and Steve jumps out and helps her into the cab. He pauses, looks at James.

“Where the hell were you anyway?” he asks.

“Rob threw me off the team,” James answers.

Steve doesn’t ask or speak. He just gets back into the SUV, and James watches him start it up and go. They turn the corner just as Yuko’s motorbike appears, coming the other way. She parks, slips off, drops her helmet by the side.

“You got gear?” she asks.

He hefts the bag.

She nods. “Good.”

ROB WAKES
in a room that’s all slab-built concrete, fifty feet high, the ceiling hung with pendulum lights buzzing out an orange-purple-green-white sort of light so strong there are no shadows on the floor, and the metal staircase that runs up one side of the building seems insubstantial, as if it’s been drawn there and doesn’t really exist in three-dimensional space at all.

There’s a crane hanging in the middle of the space, and there are two wheeled workbenches, a couple of bench stools. There’s a circle of white salt on the floor, and in that circle, a body. Rob’s heart lurches. It’s Gabe, lying there partially stripped, body discolored by bruises and raw patches on his shoulders, his buttocks, and his hips.

Rob pushes himself up and hears chains rattle. He looks at himself. His hands are bound in shackles attached to a chain that’s strung up through the hook of the crane some twenty feet above him. He climbs to his feet. The chain is heavy. The hook swings like a pendulum when he pulls it.

“Gabe,” he whispers, voice echoing in the soaring emptiness. “Gabe, wake up.”

But Gabe doesn’t stir. Rob looks around. He sees the crane controls hanging near the stairwell, easily fifty feet from him, and he doesn’t have to test to know the chain will never let him reach that far. But the workbenches are close, and the farther one has a selection of tools lying on it. He starts toward them, chain rattling as he moves, and he realizes that the top of the nearest bench has a small round ring and a key lying on it.

The benches are just outside his reach. Perfectly outside his reach. As if someone measured the chain and measured the length of his arm, and imagined the additional length of stretched-out muscles and desperation, and gauged it perfectly, because no matter how he twists his hands or tries to hook the bench with his foot, he’s too short by a couple of inches. A tease.

He retreats so there’s slack in the chain, then undoes his boots, works them off his feet, and tries to catch the workbench with his foot. He strains until the shackles are cutting into his wrists, and his joints are screaming and the blood is running freely from the skin that’s stretched to breaking. Can’t.

“
Oh, for fuck’s sake
!” he shouts.

Near him, Gabe groans softly. He turns and looks and sees how Gabe is shuddering awake, shoulders suddenly tightening up, head turning just a little.

“Gabe,” he says. No point in being quiet anymore, not since the shouting. “Gabe, man, you gotta wake up.”

Gabe blinks once, twice, then turns his head. He whispers, “Rob?” Gabe sits up and stares at him. “Oh shit. Oh shit, oh fuck, I didn’t know they got you too.”

“Yeah,” Rob says. “Yeah, c’mon, help me out. We gotta get out of here.”

“You….” Gabe pauses, turning, half crouching. He looks at Rob. “You still human?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just, there’s a key here. On the workbench.”

“Okay,” Gabe whispers back. He licks his lips and nods. “Okay.” He climbs to his feet and hesitates.

“Gabe, c’mon. I don’t know how much time we’ve got.”

Gabe nods again. He hauls in a deep breath and sets his jaw and pushes forward, pushing against something Rob can’t see, lips parted, teeth clenched, making a noise like a stifled scream, and Rob understands with horrible clarity. The salt. He’s pushing against the salt.

The world tilts under him. His lips are numb. He can’t speak. Gabe’s mouth opens, and he’s screaming, the palms of his hands blistering, breaking, then splitting, peeling, charring until his hands are cracked and blackened, and the salt on the floor skids around as if a wind disturbed it, and he’s left making gulping noises, sobbing noises, while Rob stands staring at him.

Gabe lurches forward. He walks stiff-legged, mouth open, panting, teeth bared, hands charred to his forearms, making those gulping, sobbing noises. He goes to the workbench and takes the key, and when he comes to Rob, Rob can smell the sweet smokiness of charred meat. When Gabe reaches for him, Rob jerks back. It’s automatic. He can’t stop himself.

“I’m sorry,” Gabe whispers.

He’s ducked his head, as if hiding, but Rob can see how his eyes are running, nose running, how a line of saliva is hanging from his mouth.

“They turned me. She. She turned me.”

“Gabe, please,” he whispers. “Please.” He’s thinking of Howls, and he’s thinking of Yuko, and how before he was ready to do what was right, but now… now he’s thinking of Gabe when he was small and boyish and endless trouble and wondering if that counts for anything, anything at all. They used to be friends; now they’re enemies. “Gabe, please.”

“I won’t,” he says, suddenly sharp-voiced and growling. “Never. I won’t. They said you wouldn’t come. She said I was a gift. She said that…. But you did come. It’s just….”

He stops talking, as if he can’t, as if the words have jammed in his throat. He fumbles with the iron chain, gasping at the touch as if it’s cold, or maybe it burns him. Sets the key in the lock and, grimacing and sobbing, he turns it. The shackles open, and Gabe twists away, going down to the concrete to cover his wounded arms with his body, as if he can protect them from the damage already done.

“Gabe,” Rob whispers. “Oh Jesus.”

He knows he ought to run, but he crouches. Gabe’s flesh is torn and bloodied. There are marks of misuse all over him, the bite marks and the bruises, the claw marks and the scratches.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore.”

Rob can’t bring himself to touch Gabe, not even his shoulder, not even to offer comfort. There are tools on the workbenches. There’s a hammer there. He could end this. “What do you want me to do?” Rob asks.

“You have to get out,” Gabe says. He’s sobbing. “You have to go.”

It’s stupid, he knows it. He knows this isn’t Gabe anymore; he knows it’s an unseelie who is wearing Gabe’s skin. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this unseelie just burned its hands to charcoal to free him from this place. It’s impossible to ignore that the monster has just done exactly what Gabriel Marquez would do.

“Okay,” he says. He steels himself, hand falling on Gabe’s shoulder to turn him to face him. His skin is fever-hot, dry as seasoned wood. “Come on,” Rob whispers. “Can you stand?”

“What?” Gabe whispers, staring, dumbfounded. His eyes aren’t right. The brown of his iris is like a splash of ink bleeding into the white. It’s hard to know where the color begins and ends. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re getting out.”

“No,” Gabe answers. His voice is broken; the words come tumbling out. It’s hard for Rob to understand him. “I have to stay. You have to go. Run. Get away before—”

He doesn’t get to say what Rob should flee before, because it happens. The door opens, and shapes boil out like maggots from the mouth of a corpse. Little creatures. Maybe they used to be rats and birds and cats and dogs. Now they’re just winged and twisted things with eyes and teeth all over them.

“Oh, for
fuck’s
sake
,” Rob whispers. “Can’t a guy catch a break?” He glances back at Gabe. “I think we’re boned, buddy.”

Gabe’s tear-streaked face shifts. He smiles a strained half smile and climbs to his feet, rising like a wave. “Pets,” he whispers. “These won’t turn you.”

He doesn’t ask how Gabe knows. He doesn’t want to have that kind of knowledge.

“Well, I guess that’s good?” Rob asks.

“They’ll kill you. I’m not going to let them.” He starts toward the creatures.

“You’re still hurt,” Rob shouts.

“You’re still human,” Gabe answers. His arms are almost brown again, the cracked and charred skin falling off him like old tree bark. “Stay behind me.”

Rob does.

WHATEVER IT
was that was in here, it’s gone. It’s just an old building now, a little run-down, fuzzy with dust, drafty and cold and smelling like the river.

But there’s a sound that both he and Yuko hear at the same time. First a
boom
, like something falling into a cavernous space.
Boom, boom, boom.
Then a noise comes up that isn’t the wind and isn’t industrial. A sound that means danger and pain and terror, a sound meant to warn or beg for help. It fists his stomach and drives his heart to running. He looks at her.

Yuko nods, mouth turned down hard, the movement short. He knows what she’s thinking. She’s thinking torture. She’s thinking body horror and the agonies designed to break a person and then put them back together wrong. It doesn’t need to be supernatural to be terrible.

They go together, Yuko moving on cat feet, so that all that James can hear are the ragged noises of his breath, his own imperfect footsteps. The screaming rises and falls without rhythm, sudden and startling as thunder every single time. Sometimes James thinks he can hear words, and sometimes they are only sounds.

Boom, boom
, again.

There’s a steel door with a metal-threaded window set into it. Yuko lays her head against the crack between the door and jamb and then peers through the window. She beckons him a little closer and points. He looks through the window.

Beyond there is a cavernous room that falls like a well beneath them. Concrete slab construction, and the sound is echoing up from something unseen far below. A set of metal stairs edged with a metal rail descends into a darkness lit by overhead industrial lamps that glow a weird combination of orange and purple-white.