Hold The Dark: A Markhat story by Frank Tuttle

came pretty close, just after midnight. Maybe that’s what you saw.”
    She shook her head. “I reckon not. Something still ain’t right about all this, boy. I oughtn’t to be seeing some things I see, and ought to see things I don’t. We got a sayin’ in Pot Lockney—it’s them things under the water what makes the river wild. Somethin’s messing up my sight on this. You reckon you know what it might be?”
    I shook my head. I had suspicions, but they weren’t for anyone but Evis to hear.
    “I don’t know, Mama, but I will tell you this. The Houses are mixed up in this, somehow.”
    She snorted. “Figured that.”
    “Maybe not that way. At least not all of them.” I gave her just enough of the night’s festivities to steer the Watch and the Hoobins toward Avalante, should I have a fatal boating accident in the next few days.
    None of that helped her state of agitation. “Running around after Curfew with vampires?” she shouted. “Boy, have you hit your fool head?”
    I had to agree, at least partly. But I’d lived. Thanks partly to Evis, who was probably pacing anxiously in a well-appointed crypt across the river.
    “Look, Mama, I’ve got to go. But there’s something you can do. For me. Maybe for Martha.”
    She gave me a sideways look, nodded.
    “I’ll need a hex. A paper hex. Something I can tear. Something you’ll know I’ve torn, just as soon as I’ve torn it. From twenty, thirty blocks away. Can you do that?”
    She frowned. “I reckon.”
    “Good. And I’ll need you to talk to Ethel. I need you to tell him we may need men to get Martha. Men who’ll break Curfew. Men who’ll fight. Men who’ll keep their mouths shut.”
    “How many?”
    “All you can get.” I was hoping for fifty.
    Mama nodded. “You think you know where Martha Hoobin is?”
    “Not yet. But when I find out, we won’t have much time. She’s got maybe four days left. That’s all.” A thought struck me, and I held up my hand to silence Mama’s unspoken question. “Humor me, Mama. What’s special about the night four days from now?”
    She frowned. “Special what?”
    “I mean is it some old rite of spring or solstice or something. Is there going to be an eclipse? Will the skies turn blood red and rain frogs—that kind of thing?”
    “Nothing special about it at all. It’s Thursday. There’s a new moon. Might rain.”
    “That’s it,” I said, aloud. “New moon. No moon. Darkest night of the month.”
    Vampire picnic day.
    Mama saw, and the same thought occurred to her.
    “Damn, boy,” she piped. “I done told you I seen death! Death on your name. Death on your blood. Don’t none of that mean nothin’ to you?”
    I rose. “It does. But look again. You see me telling Ethel Hoobin I quit? You see me leaving Martha Hoobin at the mercy of those who have her? You see me just walking away?”
    She gathered her bag. She rose, and she was crying when she hit the door.
    I sat. “Whippoorwills,” I said, to my empty chair. “There aren’t any whippoorwills in Rannit. Haven’t been in years.”
    None sang. Ogres huffed and doors began to open and slam outside and old Mr. Bull’s broom started its daily scritch-scritch on his pitiful small stoop. Rannit came to life, sans portents and whippoorwills, vampires and doomsayers.
    I listened for a while and then got up, combed my hair and headed across town to speak with Evis about corpses, new moons and ensorcelled silver combs.
     
    I hadn’t even hailed a cab when a sleek black carriage pulled up to the curb before me. The driver tipped his tall black hat, all fresh-scrubbed smiles and shiny black boots with silver buckles and a just-picked yellow daisy in his topcoat buttonhole.
    “Good morning, sir,” he said, to me. “I believe you have an appointment with the House this morning.”
    I agreed I most likely did. I opened the door and clambered inside. A short time later we were across the River and through the tall iron gates of House