Vor der Kaserne,
Vor dem grossen Tor,
Stand eine Laterne
Und steht sie noch davor.
So woll’n wir uns da wiederseh’n,
Bei der Laterne woll’n wir steh’n,
Wie einst, Lili Marleen.
I finished with her, “Wie einst, Lili Marleen.” The song was very simple, about a soldier meeting his girl every night under the street lamp in front of an army post gate. It had been absurdly popular throughout the Forties, with guys in uniform on both sides of the line. The version I knew and liked best was by Marlene Dietrich, but there were dozens of others. I hadn’t heard or thought about it in decades.
I grinned. It’s good to have someone who’s lived through all the years and events you’ve lived through yourself. I hadn’t realized how lonely it can be, outliving everyone you know. I shuddered to think how it must be for Surica, who was a couple of centuries older than I was.
We never found a trace of Xopher, not that night. I wondered what—or who—he’d been eating and why we weren’t finding any drained bodies. He was being uncharacteristically discreet in his dining habits.
I didn’t like it.
When we got back home, Surica went upstairs. I stopped for a moment in my office to get the shotgun from a cabinet and take it upstairs with me. I didn’t notice the dark form in the far corner of the room until it spoke, “You didn’t expect me back quite so soon, did you?”
Surica chose that moment to come in from the hall door to the kitchen.
The voice from the shadows was unmistakable, but the rest was a big question mark, even when he moved into the light. Xopher—Deabru—was dressed, from head to toe, in a sort of body stocking, made of some very tightly knit black material that fit every contour of his body. Even the face, head, and hands were covered, and if you were to describe the garment as some kind of bandage, you wouldn’t be far wrong.
He was also wearing dark, round goggles—like welding glasses—over his eyes. God alone knew what they looked like by now; Surica had shot them to pieces. Here and there areas of the surface of the suit glistened, where his movements apparently reopened his wounds. Blood and serum seeped into the fabric covering them until they closed again. He smelled like a freshly-opened grave. The creature also wore a wide-brimmed fedora, a long, khaki-colored overcoat, and black shoes.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” I told him conversationally. I’d been beating my brains for days, trying to decide what to say when this moment finally came. It might not matter, but it also might give us the only advantage we had. I stood beside my desk, my ugly Remington shotgun leaning against it. I told him, “I started getting ready for you the hour after you ran away. I’m ready now. So are my friends.”
“Ran away?” Somehow, although I was taller, the apparition seemed to loom over me. “You wouldn’t give me what I wanted, Mr. Gifford, even though what little I asked of you was comparatively simple and easy.”
“I tried to tell you,” I protested. “I have no idea—”
“Enough, human! It doesn’t matter any more. You and your friends felt justified attacking me. You injured and thwarted me. Now your little blood-bitch will die as slowly and painfully as I can contrive, while you are forced to watch, after which I will end you the same way.”
Xopher took an unexpectedly deep step forward, seized Surica by the wrist, and swung an arm up and backward to deliver her a disabling blow. Not like herself at all, she shrank back, cowering. I felt my fangs erupt again—he seemed to have that effect on me—as I leapt for the monster’s throat with clawed hands. Weakened as he was, he was still too fast for me. I took the fist and forearm he’d meant for Surica, which knocked me across the room, where I bounced off one corner of the desk, slid along the hardwood floor, and fetched up against a big bookcase that teetered, spilled books, and fell over on me.
He swept Surica up and crushed her throat his powerful grip.
Before he could hurt her, though, she hit him so hard beneath the ribs that her little fist sank into his body to the spine. Stunned, he grunted in agony and staggered backward. As he threw Surica from him, I grabbed up the Remington 12 gauge from the floor where it had fallen and shot him, neither hearing the blast nor feeling the recoil which can ordinarily bring tears to my eyes. The deadly cargo of fine silver chain impacted Xopher’s body, wrapping itself around him, cutting into his dark knitted clothing, burning its way through his smoldering flesh.
I worked the slide. A second and third shot ripped him nearly in half. As he fell, his enraged screams and bellows rattled the windows, indescribable and thoroughly non-human. As for me, I didn’t stop shooting until the gun was empty and Xopher was a pile of fine, gray ash.
Surica threw herself, sobbing, into my arms.
32: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”—Woody Allen
Nobody slept much the rest of that night.
We never found out how Xopher had gotten into the house. Anton and Priscilla, Quinn and Quyen, had all been occupied with separate tasks that evening but were in the house again before we got there. Your friendly neighborhood Chief of Detectives had been going from motel to motel, checking registries. Anton was discovering that individuals were absolutely delighted to give him answers when he asked the right way, and that the mother of his children made a pretty damned good partner.
The Kowalskis had stayed in, soaring the thermals of cyberspace, looking for answers in their own way. Once the ruckus had begun in my office—poor Surica had come down to see if I was ever coming to bed; it’s very flattering—they’d all piled up in the doors, waving guns around like a bad Republic western, including Priscilla with her derringer.
Then it was time to clean up the mess.
Contrary to popular belief, the adult human body is only about 70 percent water. Uncle Smedley’s “ashes” that we bring home from the funeral home aren’t ashes at all, but dried and pulverized bone—about four pounds’ worth. First they burn you and then they grind you up.
In the words of the immortal Durante, “It’s humiliatin’.” When our top sergeant in basic training had growled, “You guys wanna live forever?” I’d always answered “Hell, yes I do!”, at least under my breath.
There was nothing like ground bone to Xopher, otherwise known as Deabru. Raising the room’s temperature by at least 20 degrees in the process, he’d turned into something resembling what you’ll find in the bottom of your barbecue grill at the end of the summer, and the hardwood floor in my office would never quite be the same. I vacuumed every bit of it up—there was an awful lot of it—and took the bag to the county landfill myself, where I risked arrest by being there at night and scattering the fine gray powder to the eternal Front Range wind.
Surica came with me, but she didn’t offer to help. She watched me do it without expression on her face, but I had an idea what she was feeling.
Free.
Table of Contents
SWEETER THAN WINE
THE TRAVELER: CHARLESTON
1: BORN EVERY MINUTE
2: DANCING IN THE DARK
THE TRAVELER: ATLANTA, GEORGIA
3: ACCIDENTAL TRUTH
4: UNETHICAL ALTRUISM
THE TRAVELER: MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
5: “ALLONS ENFANTS...”
6: SHOTS IN THE DARK
THE TRAVELER: TULSA, OKLAHOMA
7: COJONES
8: NIGHT MOVES
THE TRAVELER: WICHITA, KANSAS
9: FRIENDS IN NEED
10: IS IT SAFE?
THE TRAVELER: LEOTI, KANSAS
11: THE LOST PICCOLO
THE TRAVELER: COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
12: DINNER IN A DUNGEON
13: PRISONER OF HISTORY
14: DARKNESS AND DEATH
15: DEABRU
16: COUNCIL OF WAR
17: FACE RECOGNITION
18: LIFE GOES ON
19: A LITTLE KNIFE MUSIC
20: BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND
21: DANGER FOR LUNCH
22: AN EVENING AT HOME
23: SOMETHING WICKED
24: SUSPICION
25: THE GOLD STANDARD
26: FACIAL RECOGNITION
27: HIGH NOON AT DUSK
28: DESPERATE MEASURES
29: THE SILVER STANDARD
30: IF YOU WOULD HAVE PEACE...
31: DEEP AS THE MARROW
32: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
L. Neil Smith, Sweeter Than Wine
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