The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [79]
As Jones struggled to his feet, staggered and regained his footing,
Mayda pulled himself toward the door on his belly. Almost casually, Jones walked to him, stood over him, and pointed the small black gun. Mayda rolled over to scream up at him and bullets drove the scream back into his throat. Jones shot out both eyes, and bullets punched in his nose and smashed his teeth, so that the face remaining looked to Jones like Edgar's with its simple black holes for features.
The gun had clicked empty. He let it drop, stepped over Mayda's body, over Brett's body further on, and then stopped before the door, snuffing his ski hat over the flames of his skull. But before he opened the door, he changed his mind and returned to the plush, vast parlor just for a moment.
It was an hour to dawn when Magnesium Jones reached the house of Edgar Allan Jones on the Obsidian Street Overpass.
Edgar croaked in delight to see him, until the withered being saw the look on the taller culture's face. It took Jones's arm, and helped him as he stooped to enter the tiny black-painted shack.
"You're hurt!" Edgar cried, supporting Jones as he lowered himself into a small rickety chair at a table in the center of the room. Aside from shelves, there was little else. No bed. A radio played music like the cries of whales in reverse, and a kettle was steaming on a battery-pack hot plate.
"I have something for you," Jones said, his voice a wheeze, one of his lungs deflated in the cradle of his ribs. "A Christmas present."
"I have to get help. I'll go out...stop a car in the street," Edgar went on.
Jones caught its arm before Edgar could reach the door. He smiled at the creature. "I'd like a cup of tea," he said.
For several moments Edgar stared at the man, gouged features unreadable. Then, in slow motion, head blurring, it turned and went to the hot plate and steaming kettle.
While Edgar's back was turned, Jones reached into his long black coat, now soaked heavy with his blood, and from a pouch in its lining withdrew a sculpture carved from opalescent crystal. It was a fierce Ramon warrior, bringing his lance to bear. He placed it on the table quietly, so that the stunted clone would be surprised when it turned back around.
And while he waited for Edgar to turn around with his tea, Jones stripped off his ski hat and lowered his fiery brow onto one arm on the table. Closed his eyes to rest.
Yes, he would just rest a little while...until his friend finally turned around.
The Lizard of Ooze
JAY LAKE
IT’S A CITY IN A GREAT, DEEP HOLE, Ooze is, a pit black as any mine. Roads, buildings and towers cling to the walls like children trapped at the bottom of a well. Sunlight leaks in at the top, a little, a few hours a day, and darkness fills the rest, down to the monster-haunted depths.
I live between the light and darkness. I hunt what doesn't belong on our laddered stairs and narrow, pit-girdling streets. I am a Shadow of the Shadow stirps, a quiet brotherhood no better defined than smoke, no easier caught than steam.
Ooze is among the darkest of the Dark Towns, those cities hidden within the blank spaces of the map. For all that good Kentucky blue-grass grows far above our heads we may as well be worms in a cave.
Which suits me fine, pale as I am.
I was sidling along one of the streets of the Mycotic Level one night, leaning past the outflung beams of the growing trays, when I heard shouting from somewhere above me, perhaps the fifth or sixth lad-derway descending from the Seats of Ease, which are the next higher level.
Quickly I scuttled up a side-ladder. Shouting is not common in Ooze ― echoes have a way of reaching far into the inky depths and returning in the mouths of strange creatures that then must be Shadow-hunted. Lives can be lost, and the bounties due to my stirps are never cheap.
The Seats of Ease are great banks of limestone panels