Crimson Loom

The whistle died on my lips somewhere between the third and fourth note.

I'd been walking the deer trail that cuts through the pines behind the old ridge, the one that smells like wet moss and pine sap and something older underneath, and I wasn't paying attention. That's the truth of it. The moon sat fat and low over the treeline, throwing silver through the branches, and I was thinking about the card game I'd left in the village, the coins I'd won, the way that farmer's daughter had looked at me when I folded my hand and stood up. Stupid thoughts. Soft thoughts. The kind that get a hybrid killed.

They came out of the dark like they'd been grown there.

Six of them, maybe seven, I didn't count fast enough. Big shoulders. Cheap suits. The kind of faces that had been broken and put back together wrong. They formed a ring around me before I could get my wings unfolded, and I heard the click of at least three pistols.

"Evening, gentlemen," I said, because my mouth has never learned when to stay shut.

Nobody answered. The pines creaked overhead. Somewhere far off an owl asked a question and didn't wait for the reply.

Then the ring parted, and he stepped through.

I'm tall. I've always been tall, tall enough that doorframes are a problem and low ceilings are a personal enemy. But this one made me feel like a child at a funeral, looking up at the grown-ups and wondering what I was doing there.

He had to be close to seven feet. Maybe more. The bulk of him filled the space between two pines like a wall that had decided to walk. A black cape hung off his shoulders, red on the inside, and it moved in a wind that wasn't blowing. His fedora sat low, brim chewed up at the edges, shadowing everything above his jaw. I could see the glint underneath. Red. Not the red of a ruby or a taillight. The red of something that had been burning a long time.

A silver bat hung at his collar, catching the moonlight, and beneath it a red tie knotted tight against a black vest that curved over a chest I could've used as a door.

"Chance," he said.

My name in his mouth sounded like a verdict.

"You know me," I said. I kept my voice light. It's a trick I learned young. When you're scared, smile wider. When you're outnumbered, act like you brought the crowd.

"I know everyone who walks my woods." His voice was low and slow, like molasses poured over gravel. "You've been walking them three nights now. Whistling. Like you own them."

"Didn't know they were yours. No fence."

The goons shifted. One of them, a thick-necked fellow with a scar that split his eyebrow, took a half step toward me. The big one raised two fingers, barely a gesture, and the goon stopped like he'd hit a wall.

That told me everything I needed to know about who was in charge.

"My name is Mafioso," he said. "You'll remember it."

"I've heard it."

"Then you know what happens to people who hear it and don't run."

I laughed. I don't know why. It came out before I could stop it, bright and sharp in the cold air, and I watched his head tilt a fraction of an inch, the way a cat tilts its head at a bird that hasn't figured out it's already caught.

"I don't run much," I said. "Bad knees."

"You're a bat."

"Half. The other half's stubborn."

He stepped closer. I held my ground because backing up would've put me into the goon behind me, and I've never liked the idea of being handed off. Up close I could smell him. Old wood. Cigar smoke. Something metallic underneath, like a coin held too long in a hot hand. His beard was a shadow along his jaw, patchy on the chin, thicker at the throat, and his skin had that particular yellow to it, the same as mine, the same as everyone from where we come from. Robloxian yellow. Under the moonlight it looked like old parchment.

"You're not afraid," he said. Not a question.

"I'm terrified," I said. "I'm just good at hiding it. It's a gift."

"What do you want here?"

The honest answer was nothing. I wanted to pass through. I wanted to reach the coast by morning, find a boat, put some water between me and the mess I'd left behind in the last town. But you don't tell a man like that the truth. The truth is a handle, and handles are for grabbing.

"Passing through," I said. "Same as I told your boys. I didn't know the woods had a landlord."

"They do now."

"They didn't last month."

His mouth moved. It might have been a smile. It might have been something else wearing a smile's clothes.

"Things change," he said. "People arrive. People leave. Some of them leave in pieces."

The threat sat in the air between us, plain as a hand of cards laid face up on a table. I felt my wings twitch against my hips, the membrane tightening the way it does when I'm about to do something stupid. I made myself keep still.

Behind him, past the wall of his shoulders, I could see the mansion. I hadn't noticed it before, which was strange, because it was enormous. It rose out of the trees like it had grown there, all dark stone and tall windows, towers with pointed roofs, a style that belonged to a time I'd only seen in old photographs. Lights burned in a few of the windows, orange and warm, and smoke curled from three chimneys into the black sky.

It hadn't been there when I walked this trail two nights ago. I was sure of it. I'd have remembered a thing like that.

"You live there," I said.

"I do."

"It wasn't there before."

"No," he said. "It wasn't."

He let that sit. The goons watched me. The owl had gone quiet. I had the sudden, unwelcome feeling that the woods themselves were leaning in to listen.

"So what happens now?" I asked. "You kill me in the pines and leave me for the foxes? Or do we do this the civilized way?"

"The civilized way," he said, and this time I was sure it was a smile, because I saw the fangs, two of them, white and long and patient. "You come inside. You tell me what you're running from. And then I decide."

"Decide what?"

"Whether you leave."

I looked at the mansion. I looked at the ring of guns. I looked at him, this mountain of a man in a ruined hat, and I did the math the way I always do, quick and cold, and the math said I had one move and it wasn't a good one.

"Lead the way," I said.

He turned, cape swinging, and the goons parted to let him pass. I followed because there was nothing else to do, and because the thing I was running from was behind me, and sometimes forward is the only direction that doesn't have teeth.

The mansion doors opened before we reached them. Nobody touched them. They just swung wide, slow and silent, and the light poured out across the grass like it had been waiting.