Darkness Calls by Marjorie M. Liu

thin sweater. I had not dressed for snow, had not anticipated such a quick fall into night, somewhere else, where the temperature felt like true winter. Snow stung my palms, and a stiff breeze yanked against me like a chain of ice. Had the sun been up, I would have felt nothing of the cold, but my skin was vulnerable now. I was human again. Until dawn.
    “Maxine,” said Zee again, breath stirring hot against my cheek. I looked up. Met a solemn gaze, red as rubies buried in tumbled steel, steel that was skin the color of soot smeared with silver and veins of mercury.
    Raw and Aaz appeared: twins, little hunters. Steam drifted from the rakish spines of their wild hair, razor-sharp as the rest of their skin. Less than a minute upon waking, and they had already been busy. Metal flashed between Aaz’s claws. He held up a brace of knives. Small daggers sheathed in a custom shoulder holster. My mother’s weapons of choice, stored in her oak trunk back in Seattle. I was stupid not to have worn them earlier, but carrying those blades against my body felt like trespassing, sometimes. Or like I was too much of a kid again. Not grown-up enough to handle the sharp stuff.
    Raw slid around his brother, holding another of her belongings: a battered leather jacket and her gloves, the soft black leather laced with steel.
    Seeing her things made the tight knot in my heart unwind, just a little. I needed my mother right now. I needed to feel her around me. I planted quick kisses on Raw and Aaz, while Zee pushed close for a hug. Dek and Mal hummed a Bon Jovi classic: “I’ll Be There for You.”
    “My boys,” I whispered. “You wonderful boys.”
    Zee looked past me, dragging his claws through the snow. “Meddling Man.”
    I looked over my shoulder, but did not see Jack. There were no lights, except for the grace of the moon. I saw the bones of a broken, slumping Ferris wheel, and a battered merry-go-round that had been stripped of horses, leaving nothing but cracked mirrors and chipped wood. Collapsed tents had been abandoned in the dirt, and an iron cage stood with the door propped open. Nearby, torn apart, was half a crate with a clown’s face painted on the side, grinning from ear to ear. Felt like I was inside the corpse of a circus.
    “Find him,” I said to the boys, throat aching. “Now.” Zee snapped his claws. Raw and Aaz disappeared into the shadows, while Dek and Mal poked free of my hair, testing the air with their tongues. I scratched their heads, grateful for the warmth of their bodies, and began stumbling through the snow, shrugging on the shoulder holster and my mother’s coat. Zee loped ahead of me.
    Near the decaying remains of a battered wagon—wheels missing, wood siding ripped away and pocked with bullet holes—I heard the sounds of someone vomiting. I broke into a run.
    I found Jack on his knees in the snow. Suffered a rush to my head, a roar of blood in my ears. I skidded to his side, breathless. Raw and Aaz were already there, peering at Jack from beneath the wagon. Somewhere, somehow, they had found time to reach into another part of the world for a bag of popcorn and two Yankee baseball caps, which they wore at identical slants upon their heads. Punks.
    “Old Wolf,” I whispered, sliding behind the man. I wrapped my arms around his chest and drew him back against me, trying to share my warmth; to hold him; to assure myself he was alive. Alive, and still with me.
    My hand grazed the side of his face, and lingered. “You’re burning up.”
    He tried to bat me away, and slumped forward again in the snow to retch.
    “It’s nothing,” he said hoarsely, seconds later. “I’m not . . . made . . . for cutting space. In fact, I’m so ill equipped for this method of transportation I find it easier to pretend it doesn’t exist at all.”
    “Yes, well,” I muttered, snapping my fingers at Zee, who gave Raw and Aaz a dirty look before disappearing into the shadows. “I had no idea you were capable of .