Downside Rain: Downside book one (10 page)

“What
is this?” he whispers as his hand clenches.

“I
told you, it takes us Downside, we call it the bridge. Hurry! It allows the Greché
access, but the Station Master won’t. But we have to get to him.”

Nothing
relieves the darkness, not a glimmer of light, but we can’t go wrong. Whichever
direction we take, we will end up facing the solid door illuminated by the small
overhead orange light, which strangely is unseen until one reaches it.

I
pull on his hand again until we’re running. I can’t hear anything coming after
us but it means nothing. Vampires can move soundlessly, unless they wear
honking great heels like Verity’s.

“So
though this . . . passage or whatever it is . . . decides to let certain people
Downside, you can keep them out?”

Not
personally, but I know what he means. “At some point we decided we should
control who comes in so a powerful magic was put in place. Nowadays, it’s to keep
people in more than out. There are Downsiders who would like nothing better
than get Upside and ply their trade; dealers, slavers, monsters. But yeah, it
works both ways.”

Before
The Station, the strange and wonderful found their own way down and adapted to
life Downside, but that was long ago. Newcomers are rare nowadays. I don’t
believe the Station Master keeps out those who really belong. And wraiths . . .
two have come in the last forty years, Castle and me, and we didn’t find our
own way, we were discovered Upside and brought to where we belong.

“Manhattan
is Upside?”

“The
world up there, it’s all Upside.”

We
are suddenly at the door, the light in its metal bracket a vaguely rectangular
outline. I strain to detect movement in the passage as we stop walking.

“But
this,” River turns and indicates the darkness at our backs with his free hand,
“goes to Manhattan.”

I
uneasily eye the door - what in Hades is taking so long! “It takes us wherever
we want. You just have to picture it in your mind.”

“Then
why didn’t you have it zap you into the Greché mansion?”

“The
magic isn’t that specific.” I take the picture postcards from my pocket and fan
them out in my hand. “I used these. I went to Beijing, Madrid, London and
Victoria before Manhattan.”

“What
happens when you bring in a newbie?” Verity asks,

“First
he gets legal. After that, up to him.”

The
wood door shifts with a groan. “I’ll take you to City Hall to get registered,
then home,” I tell River.

Castle
sponsored me. He was my guarantor. Had I done anything stupid, it would have
been on his shoulders. I can’t ditch River once he’s registered. I’ll have to
take him under my wing, be responsible for him, as Castle was for me.

Dammit.

River’s
brows peak in consternation. “Registered?”

“You
need someplace to live. You need electricity. You need to eat. So you need a
job. Nobody engages an unregistered citizen.”

“I
don’t have any ID.”

“No
worries. Newcomers are like newborns, you’re not expected to provide Upside identification.”

Verity
moves past as the metal bars ascend. “Here we go.”

I
release River’s hand and he winces; these rapid changes in mass are difficult
for a newbie. He walks with me into The Station, the doors grind shut. The
familiar sensation of flesh adjusting to the Downside environment shudders
through me. River throws me a startled look. “Easy.” I say. “Everything’s
fine.”

The
new Station Master has come from his office to greet us in person, or rather,
greet Verity.

He
produces a half-bow. “Madame! I take great pleasure in welcoming you home.”

“The
Greché are on our heels,” she tells him in clipped tones with a glance back.

“They
will not breach the doors, Madame,” he reassures.

“Do
you wager your life on it?” she asks coldly.

His
Adams Apple bobbles as he swallows. “I do.”

“Good.”
The single word is uttered sharp enough to cut metal, or a Station Master’s
throat. Nose in the air, she sweeps past him into The Station. “Call Alain
Sauvageau. He’ll send a car.”

She
turns to us. “Do you need a ride? Oh, that’s right, you two are off to City
Hall. I’ll have your recompense delivered to your apartment.” She has to keep
up appearances - vampires are the haughtiest bunch in public and can’t be seen
having friendly chitchat with an insignificant half-life - but out of the
Station Master’s sight, she winks at me and I twitch an eyebrow back at her.

Which
reminds me Alain did more than chitchat when he saw me off.

Verity
heads for the exit as the Station Master tells one of the guards to phone
Alain. He smiles at me and calls another guard over. “Please escort Miss Rain
and her companion to City Hall.”

To
say I’m gob-smacked doesn’t describe it. Does this mean I’m no longer a nonentity
in the Station Master’s eyes? What a simple kiss can do is amazing when delivered
by Alain Sauvageau.

We
fall in behind the guard and follow him from The Station. River digs in his
heels as a blast of noise and aromas assault him. His gaze shoots upward. “The
sky. It’s red!”

I
don’t look up. “Why, so it is. Come on.”

“But
- ”

I
grit my teeth. “Look, a lot Downside will be alien to you and you have to just
accept some aspects of life. Like a red sky.”

“What
is
this place? Another dimension?”

“No.
The average Upsider sees the world as a big ball of dirt but there are many
unseen layers. Downside is part of Earth, but hidden. Some call it Earth’s
backside.”

“You
said something about magic and spells.”

I
heft an internal sigh. “Our lore says magic holds Downside together, and I know
magic wielders can pull it from the ether to power their spells, I’ve seen it
done. We’ll talk about it later.” As he opens his mouth I hold up my hand, palm
out. “
Later!
Okay?”

He
nods, and is soon distracted. His head zips here and there as we follow the
guard across the street to City Hall. I’m aware of his height, the fine black
hair which slithers over his shoulders as his head moves, the amethyst glint in
his dark eyes.

We
pause to let a centaur and her foal pass in front. River’s eyes look twice
their former size. “Whoa!”

The
centaur’s shapely female torso rises from where a horse’s neck and head would
be and she is a dominatrix. Large, dark, pierced nipples joined by three silver
chains jut from cutouts in her black leather bra. Silver spikes decorate a
black leather belt and armbands. Black lines her sea-green eyes and glosses her
full lips. Her hair is pulled atop her head, sleek and shining like a golden
cap; from there it cascades down her back. And she holds a black leather whip
curled in one hand.

Uh
oh. A couple of minutes Downside and he puts his foot in his mouth, not to mention
risk life and limb. Telling a centaur to
whoa
is like calling a fairy
Tinkerbell.

She
stops mid-trot and narrows her eyes at River. Her foal skitters behind her rump
and peeks around it. “What did you say, half-life?”

I
try to defuse the situation. “He didn’t mean it like that. It was an
exclamation.”

“What?
You’ve never seen a centaur before?” Peering at River, she clops a few sideways
steps nearer.

“No,
Ma’am,” River says. “I’m new here.”

She
slaps the whip into her other hand. “As if we need more of your kind in
Gettaholt.”

Powerful
muscles flex as her heavy cloven hooves strike sparks from the pavement. With a
sneer and flick of her braided tail, she canters onward.

“Great.
You tell a centaur to
whoa
,” I remark with a scowl.

River
still tries to look everywhere at once. “It’s just . . . so much.”

“And
it would have been better to look her in the eyes, not stare at her boobs.”

The
guard takes us up the steps, through the huge double doors which are open and
into a big hall painted jade-green with a white and green tiled floor. Gettaholt
City’s seal adorns the ceiling as a plasterwork medallion. Marble columns that pretend
to support the ceiling are purely decorative. Nothing has changed since I came
here with Castle five years ago.

A
few people sit on long black plastic benches along the north wall. A clerk hunches
in a cubbyhole behind a waist-high counter.

We
swing left and down a corridor. The offices either side have no outside windows
but large glass panes look into the corridor. Clerks are busy at their desks,
on their phones, rooting in filing cabinets, chatting in muted voices.

River’s
steps drag and I’m not doing much better. I want my bed, I want sleep, but won’t
get either for hours.

~*~

Initially
disoriented after waking stretched out on a street-side bench, when he was able
to think coherently, River supposed that knowing but not remembering made him amnesic.

In
Manhattan, he walked beneath streetlights at night and knew how electricity
worked. He looked skyward at the yellow orb and knew the sun was approximately
152 million kilometers from Earth at aphelion and approximately 147 million
kilometers at perihelion. Staring through a store’s window at a line of
televisions showing people whose lips moved silently, he recognized one face as
Barack Obama who assumed the presidency of the United States of America on
January 20, 2009. Walking through a library, reading book spines, he knew
William Shakespeare was thought to have written Romeo and Juliet between 1594
and 1596 and Scene III began with Lady Capulet asking the Nurse: “Nurse,
where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.”

He
had no memory of reading Shakespeare’s books.

Packets
of bulbs on display inside a hardware store included snowdrops, one of the
first plants to blossom in early spring, the pure white velvet petals poking up
through whiter crystalline snow. Yet he didn’t recall seeing a snowdrop in
bloom.

He
could have learned the multitudinous facts which constantly barraged his brain as
other people do, state or private education, reading and research. Except he didn’t
recall reading a book, or going to school, or surfing the Internet. And he couldn’t
do any of those things. Opportunities for education are limited when your
fingers won’t turn a page or tap a keyboard. Not only had he lost all memory
prior to waking, his nervous system was majorly haywire.

He
knew McDonald’s Big Mac had two beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese
pickle onion on a toasted sesame seed bun, but didn’t recall tasting one. Only
later did he realize he didn’t crave food, or apparently require it.

If
he suffered from amnesia, he needed help. River tried to ask passersby for
directions to a hospital. At first he thought these people with the big city
mentality of minding their own business ignored him, until, exasperated, he
tried to touch someone and discovered he could not. His hands grasped at air
and didn’t quite make contact. Even after this, his mind refused to latch on to
the obvious, because the obvious was inconceivable. Then he noticed the way in
which people avoided him, not as though they
consciously
moved out of
the way, but as if some natural instinct made them slip aside.

River
wandered for weeks, until he walked past an old mansion. He brushed against a
man in the street and for the first time experienced the sensation of his body
bulking, making him solid and heavy. The brief contact was a shock, as if a
giant sledgehammer struck him dead center, and returning to a state of nothing
when they lost contact was as bad. A shoulder bumped his, and for an instant warm
air bathed his skin, breath rushed in his throat as he sharply inhaled and
plumed from his open mouth on the exhale. Stunned, he spun and found the man
looking at him.

The
guy’s upper lip lifted to reveal slim pointed teeth, and he went on his way.

River
loitered at the huge gothic house after that and tried to touch every person
who entered and exited. He didn’t get the same result until another,
similar-looking man, brushed against him as he left the building. But this man snarled
and lunged at River. River took off. The guy didn’t run, but followed
determinedly at a fast walk, and River had to lose him by dashing through several
stores and out the back exits. If this man made his flesh solid, could he
restrain him? River didn’t want to risk finding out.

He
waited near the house. Why did these men see and feel him and have an effect on
his body? Could he introduce himself to them, was it worth the risk? They were
the only people he had interacted with on a basic level; perhaps they could tell
him why, except they seemed more inclined to attack than linger for a chat.

Although
River woke to a bizarre world, he considered himself pragmatic. He could cope. He
could survive in this strange, lonely city, but do nothing more than survive.

He
knew so much, none of it from experience.

He
saw Rain and she was familiar to him. As if she were someone he once knew, but
so long ago he couldn’t quite remember in what context. Then he understood he
felt a different kind of recognition. They were alike, phantoms in the world of
the living.

So
small and fine boned. So black and white. She seemed very young and frail,
until he looked into her dark eyes. Her eyes held an age of sorrow.

He
knew about vampires, those fantastic creatures portrayed as villains or soulful
heroes in books and on the screen, but they weren’t real. He didn’t understand
the men he’d watched were vampires, until they went for Rain with fangs
extended.

Seeing
Rain fight, he knew the impression of fragility was deceptive.

He
didn’t really comprehend what she said of Downside. He followed her because the
vampires were closing in and he didn’t want to lose sight of her.

Now
he is Downside, learning the true meaning of bizarre. His pragmatism fails in
the task of accepting Downside as just another place. Everywhere he looks,
creatures which his mind says don’t exist mingle with human beings. Rain says many
more entities make Gettaholt City their home but are seldom seen; they prefer
to live cloaked in the shadows.

Downside
is wonderful, and magical, and perilous.

~*~

Rain
rattles down when we come out of City Hall. I wish I could walk between these
drops, and do what I haven’t done in years: hail a taxi. River and I are soaked
before he opens the rear door for us.

“That’s
it? My name and a photograph?” he says as we settle on the back seat.

“And
my guarantee.”

He
holds up one hand. “Not even fingerprints.”

After
a long silence, he adds, “I don’t have fingerprints.”

Familiar
streets flash past. Rain batters the side windows, the cab’s wipers
whump-whump-whump
more efficiently than in Castle’s old boneshaker of a car. The evening sky is a
furious black-red.

“All
we have at first is a name and a face.” I imagine kicking myself in the ass.
Well
done, Rain. Now tell him something else he already knows.
But the past
couple of days have sapped me and I know the questions are going to come fast
and furious soon enough.

His
eyes reflect suspicion and doubt and I want him to keep his mouth shut, just
for tonight. I’m so tired, from traveling Upside and retrieving Verity, and
everything that happened before.

The
cab stops outside my block. I have enough cash to pay the driver, though the
tip is mediocre. River and I slide out and head up the steps, into the small
hall and up the stairs to my apartment. I unlock the door and take him inside.
It feels warm and stale.

River
is still in the doorway.

“Coming?”

He
takes one step in and eyes the room. “Your place?”

Duh.
“My humble home.”

He
shuts the door and walks up to me. His fingers curl into fists. “Rain,” he says,
“why did you lie to me?”

His
tone and the accusation coming from thin air make my stomach lurch. I don’t
care to be loomed over, and if he shut the door to stop me escaping, he should
reconsider. My voice is cold. “I don’t lie. About what?”

“You
said we’d be
real
.” His hand shoots out. “Like this.”

I
flinch as his hand clamps on mine so tightly I feel the bone creak and flesh
slams into me.

Angry
to be handled this way, to be accused of deceit when I’ve done nothing but try
to help him, I breathe shallowly to calm a suddenly raging pulse and the
instinct to take him down. I can break his hold, but that he’s angry and
confused is not his fault. Five years ago I was where he is now.

I
do, however, give him an arctic look. “We
are
real, River, even when
we’re
not
like this. The Station Master saw you. The guard saw you, the
clerk at City Hall spoke to you. The Centaur gave you the evil eye.”

His
grip loosens, though I still feel the sinewy strength of his hand.

“Remember
the sensation when we entered The Station, as though all your muscles seized up,
then relaxed? That was your body instinctively adjusting to Downside.
This
,”
I squeeze his hand, “is not natural to us, not Downside. Full body mass tires
us, so we take it on only when we need to.”

I
drag my hand free and we return to a semi-fleshed state. “This is comfortable
and uses less energy.”

He
pulls air in through his nose and jerks his head as if flicking away cobwebs.
“Nothing you say makes sense.”

Don’t
I know it; not to a newcomer. My shoulders slump. “Believe me, I know what
you’re going through.”

I
have one thing in mind: bed. “Tomorrow. We’ll talk tomorrow. I don’t know about
you, but I need sleep.”

He
watches me head for the bathroom, confusion still etching his face. But should we
get into a discussion it will lead from one question to another, to another, ad
infinitum. I can’t take it; I’m dead on my feet.

Sitting
on the toilet, too tired to strip, a fast fade out and in leaves me still on
the toilet with boots and clothes jumbled around me. The damp jacket and pants
go over the shower rail, the shirt, socks and underwear stay crumpled on the
floor. I come from the bathroom carrying my blades, wearing an oversized
T-shirt which hangs to my knees.

Uncertainty
written all over his face, River still drips where I left him. Even his T-shirt
shirt is sopping.

“You’re
dry,” he observes as I stow my knives in the cube where I keep them.

“One
of the advantages of being able to manipulate flesh.” I rake at my hair.

“You
make us sound like meat.”

I
would laugh were I not so beat. “Everyone is meat.” I go to the bed. “I’m
turning in. You can share the bed if you want.” Lifting the blanket, I ease
beneath to lie on my side. The bed is small but can take two.

Sorrow
engulfs me. Castle shared this bed, this blanket wrapped his big body as we slept
in the aftermath.

River
still stands in the middle the room. His expression as he eyes the bed is
comical.

“Okay,
don’t. But stop dripping on my floor. Hang your stuff in the bathroom, it’ll be
dry by morning.”

He
returns my smile with a wavering one of his own before heading for the
bathroom.

I’m
nearly asleep when River leaves the bathroom wearing navy boxers and nothing
else, hair damp-dry and mussed from being toweled. At least his underwear is
dry.

I
thought he was skinny, but lean muscle coats his frame. He doesn’t have Castle’s
bulk but is by no means the weed I first took him for. He’ll turn heads in
better fitting clothes. Minimally clad, he turns mine. Upside people talk about
washboard abs but how many know what a washboard actually is? Downside folk still
use washboards and River could be a poster boy for washboard abs. Add wide
shoulders, chest a collage of flat muscle, arms, thighs and calves lean but
ropy and you have a sleek, beautifully defined body.

And
the ink is amazing, as if The Book of Kells in all its glowing metallic colors
has been inscribed from breastbone to wrists, over his torso back and front
until it disappears in the waistband of his boxers.

He
moves like a cat to the bed and lifts the blanket, rolls and puts his back to me.
With a mere inch or two separating us, he carefully tugs the cover over his
length. He can’t be comfortable, with one arm sticking from the bed and the
other straight along his side like a ruler. His body is rigid.

I’m
not comfortable, either, with him lying like a board.

“Go
to sleep.”

“I
thought I’d be able to here, but every time I try. . . .” He wraps one arm
around his chest as if trying to hold himself together.

I
was exhausted when Castle found me. I wanted to give in and sleep, but felt myself
slipping away each time I tried, as though my essence seeped through my pores. I
thought,
if I let go, I’ll lose myself and won’t come back
, so I stayed
awake and clung to what remained of me.

“You
just have to relax.”

A
tremor runs over his body. “I can’t.”

I
roll and shuffle till I face his back. My hand goes to his arm of its own
accord, hesitates, and settles on his skin. Our bodies firm. “We can sleep like
this, for tonight.”

His
skin is smooth until my drifting fingers catch on scar tissue.

I
stroke his arm up and down. “Go to sleep. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He
fights it, but his breathing evens out after a long half-hour and he slips into
exhausted sleep. He will be out for hours.