Changeling the Lost - Winter Masques.pdf
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Winter Masques
By Dawn Elliott
,
Ethan Skemp
,
John Snead and Chuck Wendig
Shell Game
So close. So close that he could taste it. All the hounds
of Day were baying like a brass band behind him and
ahead — around the corner, across the crumbling over-
pass — lay Night.
Veles made a last, wild dash down the road as the sun
broke the horizon behind him and he sprinted through
the dying shadows. He darted across the street to
a chorus of honking horns and squeal-
ing tires as morning commuters
slammed on their brakes and
cursed in Spanish and English
and Russian behind him.
He heard glass shat-
ter and yelling, and
still the dogs were
after him. He dared
one wild glance
back, seeing the cop-
per-hided Beasts,
their gold teeth
bared, leaping
from car to mov-
ing car — a gang of thugs
to mortal eyes but terrifying
monsters to Veles’s more re-
fined sight — and sweeping up
behind him like the sun at high noon.
With a wail, he put his back to them, ric-
ocheting off a lamppost as he swung around
the corner of SW 8th, and longed for wings. Alas,
wings weren’t his style.
The Beasts of the Sun took him down 20 feet from
Collos Ochos overpass. Twenty feet from treaty-sworn
refuge. The pile of them tumbled, Veles shrieking defi-
ance, into a newspaper kiosk before the Guardian of the
Found Path caught up to his fleet-footed hounds and
dragged Veles into the nearest alley. The iron sides of a
Dumpster rang like a gong as Doco, the Day patrol’s thug-
gish guardian, picked Veles up like a rag doll and flung
him into it. The lid crashed down, and he was in tempo-
rary, reeking darkness. Iron stung like poison against
his skin, and Veles struggled to his knees, pounding on
the sloped lid and cursing — in between his pleas — the
Day patrol, and everyone they knew. The iron broke his
curses, making them empty words. One of the Day patrol
pounded on the side, making the whole Dumpster ring
and Veles clutched his ears with a groan. The Dumpster
rattled, trash rustling around him as his captors be-
gan shoving it out of the alley and to some destination
Veles knew he wouldn’t like. He crouched on his knees
and fished out a tiny beetle carapace from the lining of
his ragged jacket and tucked it — grimacing at the bit-
ter taste — into his cheek. Then he waited, crooked teeth
bared, for opportunity.
They didn’t take him far, and consider-
ing the run-down neighborhood they
were in, Veles guessed his unlikely
carriage had been wheeled into
one of the many abandoned
warehouses. Warehouses
were good places to do bad
things, and Veles
knew that no mortal
law would trouble
themselves about any
overheard screams
around here. And
his allies in the
Night would not
cross Collos Ochos
overpass when the sun
was in the sky. His living,
and dying, would depend
on his wits and the followers
of the Sun. Perhaps he would throw
himself on their mercy. After all, wasn’t
the Day Court a shining symbol of justice and
forgiveness? Veles’s lips stretched in a thin smile. He’d
gamble on his own quick wits before he’d trust the Day
for anything besides a kick in the ass.
“— and look what the Easter Bunny brought us to-
day!” The lid flipped up, and blinded by the glare of morn-
ing sun, Veles was hauled up by his shirt collar by a hand
easily the size of his head. It was Doco, of course, smiling
that long, long smile and holding Veles off the floor with
those long, long arms. Veles fumbled in his jacket only to
be shaken viciously by Doco until he sagged, dizzy and
limp in Doco’s choking grip.
“Yeah and you can kiss my fuzzy tail,” Veles mum-
bled as his vision cleared again. He knew Doco, and the
Day Court’s top thug knew Veles, too. Not too well. That
was key. Just well enough to say… recognize each other.
Plus a jacket like Veles’s, the Wayward Path stitched on
the sleeve with the open pride that only a few of the Moon
Court risked, that drew watchful eyes of the Sun Court.
Veles knew that he was a little too cocky, but sometimes
were good places to do bad
back, seeing the cop-
overheard
Beasts,
ing car — a gang of thugs
to mortal eyes but terrifying
monsters to Veles’s more re-
fined sight — and sweeping up
behind him like the sun at high noon.
With a wail, he put his back to them, ric-
ocheting off a lamppost as he swung around
overpass when the sun
was in the sky. His living,
and dying, would depend
on his wits and the followers
of the Sun. Perhaps he would throw
himself on their mercy. After all, wasn’t
the Day Court a shining symbol of justice and
Introduction
the dying shadows. He darted across the street to
a chorus of honking horns and squeal-
ing tires as morning commuters
slammed on their brakes and
cursed in Spanish and English
and Russian behind him.
He heard glass shat-
They didn’t take him far, and consider-
ing the run-down neighborhood they
were in, Veles guessed his unlikely
carriage had been wheeled into
one of the many abandoned
warehouses.
that served him well. Not so well other times. The Beasts
that had brought Veles down circled the warehouse rest-
lessly, glancing over at Doco every now and then, to see if
they’d get a chance to sink their teeth into a little Night-
side flesh. Veles hung limply from Doco’s hand and tried
not too twitch too temptingly.
“Can’t a guy be a little late on curfew?” Veles whined,
dark gaze shifting from Doco to the rising light spilling
through the dusty warehouse windows, to the Beasts and
then to the long iron chain dangling from a second story
beam. The hook on the end was mottled red with what he
sincerely hoped was only rust. “A little drunk on good,
sun-loving wine, maybe a little lost?”
“I might be better convinced if it wasn’t the
Night Court’s spymaster wiggling in my
hands like…” Doco’s unexpect-
edly cultured voice trailed off
into a speculative hum. “A ten-
der spring lamb.”
When Doco
grinned at Veles, he
showed off every
tooth, all of them
filed to a point and
gleaming with good
care. Veles wondered
how long the Ogre
spent in front of
his mirror, brushing
and flossing and polishing
those gnashing teeth. Veles
couldn’t help his flinch. “I’m
tougher than I look,” he said.
Veles twisted suddenly, seizing
the moment that Doco looked complacent.
Veles’s shoulder joint popped as he slipped free
of his coat and Doco’s huge hands. He dropped to the floor
like oil, crunching down on the bug shell in his mouth,
then spat the crushed beetle onto the floor. The act was
hidden by sudden, inky clouds. Veles was scrambling for
the door and his knife, even as the goblin gloom welled
up like an sudden tide, drowning the morning sunlight,
stinging eyes and skin like biting gnats.
It more than stung the blessed idiots of the Sun Court.
“Damn the Night!” Doco bellowed like a sacrificial
bull and stomped blindly on the ground, like he was
crushing ants, cracking the concrete floor. Veles slipped
like an eel between the Captain’s legs, dashing for the
nearest hope of freedom under the cover of the false night
he’d thrown. The Beasts were baying, wailing as the false
midnight stung their senses and tarnished their polished
hides, but as Veles sprinted for escape, he outran his own
sheltering dark and two of the Beasts fell on him like
dogs on deer.
Veles screamed like a deer, too, when teeth and clawed
hands tore his leg from hip to ankle, shredding his cheap
polyester trousers and the skin beneath. He sprawled into
a skid that kicked up dust and trash, leaving a trail of thin
blood behind, then flipped onto his back like a beetle with
an ink-black blade in his hands. The darkness he’d con-
jured continued to spread; he and the Beasts skirmished
briefly in an unnatural twilight at the edge of the cloud. But,
weapon or not, Veles knew he’d do no walking out of here
— he couldn’t even stand. So he lashed out with his narrow
blade, tracing a line along the face of the nearest Beast, leav-
ing a rising red streak of blood behind. The Beast howled at
the pain, shaking away the blinding blood and snapping at
Veles as he tried to use the opening to dodge past
the changeling. Two feints later, and it was
too late. The dark had faded under the
growing sunlight, and Doco was
stomping over to the corner Veles
was crouched in. He curled
around his inadequate weap-
on and snarled.
“Not so clever for
the so-called Shad-
ow on the Wayward
Path.” Doco mused,
staring down at
Veles. He was hard-
ly rumpled, camel
hair coat smooth, tie
— with the pearly moun-
tain tie-tack — just slightly
askew. His eyes were still red
and weeping from the irritating
cloud though, as if he were crying
over the task ahead. For all that Doco was
a greedy-guts Ogre, he always dressed well, like
an oversize over-the-hill football player turned used car
salesman. Which was exactly what his mortal façade
was: selling second-rate cars to stupid, unseeing people.
Veles sneered, despite kneeling in a pool of his own
blood. His own mortal persona was less savory, and he had to
be nearly as wary of mortal law as he did of falling afoul of the
Day Court. But he’d chosen the life of a blackmailer over grov-
eling at the feet of fat soccer moms and mortal salarymen, ev-
ery time. But neither cars (unless there was a fast getaway just
waiting for him, along with a few allies with Kalashnikovs)
nor a few dirty pictures were going to save him now.
“Maybe because I’m not out and about to make trou-
ble!” Veles snarled in desperate exasperation. “Maybe be-
cause I was out bouncing my girl and maybe lost track of
the time and late to crawl back in my hole!”
“Maybe so,” Doco said. “Maybe not. We’ll visit that
question again, in good time. String him up!” The last to
the Beasts who closed in.
Veles’s knife work was more suited to back alleys and
sleeping throats than a half-dozen Lost with teeth like
daggers and the instincts of rabid wolves. But a cornered
rat doesn’t complain or beg, he snarls and snaps and uses
teeth and kicks and eye-gouges until he’s pinned down
with a knee in his back, his blade shattered on the ground
and the rumbling growl of a Beast in his ear. Hot breath
stirred Veles’s lank hair. “You shoulda brushed your teeth
this morning,” Veles gasped, just before the Beast slammed
Veles’s head against the concrete — Doco shouted angrily
at that bit of initiative — then dragged him over to the
hook dangling from the ceiling.
It cast a sharp shadow in the bright sunlight. Doco had
chosen well, exposure to the sunlight would add one more
misery to Veles’s really, very bad, terrible day. They bound his
wrists with plastic ties — popular with torturers everywhere
— then Doco lifted him like a doll and hung him on the hook.
Veles’ fingers immediately began to tingle as his circulation
was cut off, he twitched a couple of times, testing the bonds.
Too tight even for him. His glance fell on one of the Beasts, a
carnivorous-looking woman with a cruel gouge across her
forehead and her steady, predatory stare fixed on him. Veles
got the impression that third time would be the charm. If that
Beast caught him again, no yelling from the Sun Court’s cap-
tain would stop her from ripping out his guts. Doco wiped
Veles’s blood from his hands fastidiously with a handker-
chief. Veles found himself thinking that small mundane ges-
ture was more frightening than the sotto-voiced growls from
the Beasts around them.
“I hear tell that you’ve got no taste for iron,” Doco said.
He pulled a small travel case from his pocked, unzipped it
and drew out a wedge of dull iron. It was true iron, not steel,
and cold forged, kept from rusting only through Doco’s
tender care. Veles knew Doco’s tools, and he knew what the
Ogre could do with them, given time and inspiration. Doco
handled the little tool — a fragment from an antique plow
— with leather gloves and respect. Jokes aside, he fared no
better than Veles under the touch of cold iron.
Veles hissed in real panic. “Kill me, and you’ve got a
war on your hands!”
Doco smiled. “Who said anything about killing, little
man? A little mutilation might improve your looks any-
way. Do you want to start with the top or the bottom?”
Doco brushed the edge of the hand-sharpened blade
along Veles’s torn trousers. His blood smoked where it
touched.
“No, no, nonono!” Veles keened, arching and flapping
like a fish on the line. He’d not wanted to break so soon.
He’d hoped to carry this game a little further, but he’d
been promised — no cold iron. But here it was, someone
else hadn’t done their part of the job, and he hadn’t signed
up to be crippled. Nor could he afford to let the iron touch
his flesh — it would cut through false seemings and goblin
magics as easily as skin.
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