I'm sure Peter Jackson will find more work.
Now, with the last of the Hobbit movies unleashed upon us and being readily consumed, we are free to take the time to reflect. I'll assume by now that you've either read the books or have familiarized yourself with the material. From this point on, though, I'll speak freely.
You've been warned.
Picking up where The Desolation of Smaug had left us, we were treated to the final flight of His Resplendence, Smaug the Magnificent. Inappropriately or not, I laughed my ass off watching him blaze a path from one end of Laketown to the other in a single pass. Frankly, though, those barrel-riders were asking for it. If they didn't want to be targets for the dragon, they shouldn't have lived within sight of Lonely Mountain. There was a town outside Erebore, sitting on Smaug's doorstep. If they weren't going to live over the horizon under aerial camouflage, they might as well have lived out there. They could've chatted up the old fellow over the years, offered up some cattle...
Oh, well, hindsight. Laketown had no chance. The next best move would've been moving into...Smaug's doorstep. Outer Erebore? Whichever you like. Anyway, move in and tell anyone who comes in response to Smaug's death that he's still alive. "Shhh...His fearsome majesty has just gone back inside to sleep." Maybe they could even get through Thorin's gold fever and get the dwarves to make some convincing grumbling sounds.
Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not out to squelch the story. Good stories come from bad choices, so the characters have to be allowed at least a few. Too much logic has people moving out of haunted houses as soon as the walls start to bleed and where's your movie then? Using logic to avert a war doesn't get you The Battle of Five Armies.
Were we entertained? Damn straight. If you liked the other dozen-plus hours of barefoot hobbits, staff-wielding wizards, and sword-swinging fighters, then you've already seen this one at least once.
What did we learn? Always bet on the fifth army--the last ones to show up to a fight always have an edge; air-dropped cave bears rock; as in Star Wars, armor isn't always as useful as you might think it's going to be; Billy Connolly just can't help being funny; and as every installment has shown us, Elf-fu will jack a sucker up--Legolas, bitch!
Once again, well done. Certainly better than time spent on another bit of tripe from Hollywood's rom-com division.
Showing posts with label wizard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wizard. Show all posts
Monday, December 29, 2014
Sunday, August 26, 2012
16754--Once Upon a Time...
KNIGHT IN THE CITY(to continue...)
Tuesday night in The City meant something different to almost everyone who chose to make a life in Magick. The City was alive with a special energy that she almost felt she could feed upon. Just walking down the sidewalks could bring a euphoria that was only surpassed by performing. She made the momentary mistake of letting her mind wander to thoughts of music and magic, not noticing the pack of drooling ghoul spawn until they had her surrounded. It was really the horrid stench of death and urine that got her attention first. As she tried not to gag, Robin began to turn cautiously. Her instincts told her she wanted to keep eyes on their leader, but she had to see through the ragged clothes, discolored flesh and unkempt hair to pick that individual out from the group.
Stupid, walking off down a dark street like you’re back home. The young girl was new to town, but she knew better than to expect help from strangers even if any had been around. The City could be unforgiving to those who failed to learn and respect its hazards. It had its seductive beauties, but those usually hid dangerous thorns or, in this case, stained teeth and sharp fingernails. Robin noticed the tattered jackets each of the shambling figures wore, marking them as a street gang, The Night Dragons.
That’s what I need right now, she thought, a knight to deal with the dragons. She knew full well, though, that she had never even heard of The City being so accommodating. Being rampant with magic was one thing, but that just made it more interesting than being back in Texas. No one ever promised the place handed out wishes.
“So, are you just out to keep a girl on her toes,” she prodded, “or is one of you actually after the first bite?”
“Yummmymmm,” the one to her left snarled as it reached out with a filthy hand.
Robin knew there were a lot of things she did not know about ghouls, but she knew had drawn out the leader.
“Back off!” Robin commanded, holding out a shiny metal object that flared at the ghoul with a blinding cascade of light.
Cruel, hungry leering changed to cowering fear as the gang members shielded their eyes and withdrew from the brilliance. Seeing the positive result, Robin’s resolve strengthened and the magical glow intensified. In accordance with the laws of affinity, the dark creatures recoiled even further in search of the safety of shadows. Then, the light began to flicker and fade, revealing the arcane object she held to be a large harmonica.
“Uh-oh,” she said, shaking the instrument as the ghoul swarm began to growl with renewed boldness. “Come on, baby, mama needs that mojo.”
Robin began to tense as the lead ghoul began to move cautiously toward her again. Another flash of light, even brighter than the last, manifested from thin air. The crash of thunder filled every ear and a sudden swirl of air carried the heady scent of…horse. As Robin’s vision cleared, astonishment washed over her face at the sight before her. She looked up at a white stallion that stood on the sidewalk with an armored man astride it. He looked back with stern gray eyes. For just a moment, she thought she saw confusion in those eyes, but it was quickly replaced with strength and resolve enough to make her own worry fade. Then, she saw the shining yard of steel he held in his right hand, matched by a crystalline sword in his left. Each of the blades glowed with an eldritch light, the metal one crimson and the other violet.
“Nay, beast!” the knight commanded, his strong right arm swinging the crimson blade at the ghoul swarm’s leader. “You’ll threaten no one further!”
Blood sprayed from the ghoul’s opened neck as he fell. The others screeched and ran off into the night as Robin’s knight turned his steed.
“You are safe now, maiden,” he assured her as he looked all around them. “The vile creatures are fled. Tell me, what grand city is this? Have you seen any sign of a wizard?”
“What?” she asked. “You want a wizard?”
“No, but I have denied one a prize,” he told her. “That means he will likely be in search of me.”
“So you want to find him first?”
“Aye.”
“Well, this is The City. If you’re in search of a wizard, this is the place to find one. With you being all tall, dark and hero,” she said, trying not to let herself gush overmuch at the handsome horse rider, “he must be a pretty bad guy.”
“I knew him but a day. The gnawing at my gut tells me, though, that he is likely as foul a one as ever I have known.”
“Well, since The City’s delivering wishes tonight,” she said, “maybe I can help you, too. Y’know, return the favor?”
“You wished for my presence in this strange land?” he asked. “Are you a sorceress?”
“Me? No,” she assured him. “I sing and play some music. In fact, you showed up at a great time. After three months of busting my ass to make a go in this town, I’ve got my first big show with my band tonight.”
“I…congratulate you?”
“Thanks,” she said, chuckling at his uncertainty. “Look, you seem confused and a little lost.”
“I am very lost. This land is wholly unknown to me,” he said, sheathing the crimson sword, “with stranger sights than I am used to seeing when this sober.”
“Well, from what little I do know about living here,” she said, “in my moment of need, I may well have wished you here. Lord knows I needed the help. Whatever the case, I pay my debts and helping a fellow human in need is the least I can do.”
“I am Slade, fair maiden,” he told her, reaching out a hand and pulling her up to sit behind him. “Your sense of honor is appreciated.”
“Thanks, stud. Robin,” she said. “Robin Elektra.”
“Well met. Where do we go?” he asked.
“Ride straight on,” she directed, ignoring the nervous quiver in her belly as she slid her arms about his thick waist. “My bandmates know a lot more about magic than I do. They can probably answer some questions before we go onstage.”
“Good,” he said, starting the horse along the sidewalk. “One of you can explain to me these strange carts with flashing eyes.”
“Those are cars,” Robin said.
“They use magic to move without horses?” he asked. “Magic to light their fire?”
“No. Well, actually, some of them might,” she said as she remembered where she was. “Magic use is very common here.”
“Of course it is,” he sneered. “My luck holds true.”
“It sounds like you have no love for magic.”
“You could not speak words more true,” he said.
“Yet you have a magic sword,” she observed. “Two, in fact.”
“By duty, not by choice,” he said. “In truth, they began as one. Struggling to protect it from the dark wizard’s magic, I believe, has sundered it in twain. In like fashion, I have been delivered into your midst.”
“Turn down that alley,” she directed. “Fascinating tale. If I lived anywhere else, I’d say you were crazy. Instead, though, we’ll see if we can get you sorted out.”
“Where magic is involved,” he said, “I remain skeptical as to the outcome of anything but a stout drink.”
"Well, my noble knight," Robin smiled, "I may yet be able to brighten your evening."
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
16736--Once Upon a Time...
HAVE SWORD, WILL DRINK
(the story continues...)
Most believed the land was named Sweetriver because of the abundance of fresh water that flowed freely through it. A few others knew that King Brian had named the land after a noble maiden he was trying to impress. Her name was River. She had rejected his favor years earlier, but the name stuck and he had never dared tell the stern woman he had ended up marrying. It was just as well. The land was full of rivers, after all. Some of the people who knew all those things also knew that King Brian was actually only a duke, Duke Brian the Black, but he remained secretly hopeful. Ambition also had the added bonus of keeping him away from home and the “charms” of the duchess.
One of Marenswaith’s more popular revenue-generating enterprises was the Rutting Stag Tavern. It was late in the afternoon when the tavern’s doorstep was darkened by a black-cloaked stranger who stood out even among the usual odd assortment of those passing through from day-to-day. Inside the poorly lit tavern, the middle-aged man pushed through the sweaty masses as though searching for someone in particular. Finally, he approached a table in a corner of the room. A broad-shouldered man sat behind a tankard of mead with his back to the wall.
“Is this you?” the new arrival asked, dropping a small piece of hand-lettered parchment on the table.
Gulping down another mouthful of his drink, the armored man shifted his eyes up to the stranger and then back to the table. He set his tankard down and picked up the parchment.
“No,” he said. “I am me. This is advertising.”
“Perhaps not the best money spent,” the stranger said, “given the state of local literacy.”
“And yet here we are.”
“Indeed. ‘Have sword. Will travel.’ The horse head stands for chivalry?”
“Did you come here to ask me stupid questions or interrupt my drinking?”
“You serve this realm as a knight?” the stranger asked.
“I am a free-lance. It keeps me out of politics,” the warrior said. “You are an idiot in search of a village?”
“They say you are called Slade,” the stranger said.
“They talk too much,” the warrior said, waving his tankard in the air, “and you are boring me. Barmaid! Mead!”
“Your reputation has spread far, Slade,” the older man went on. “I am in need of a man like you.”
“If you want one like me, go elsewhere,” Slade said. “If you want me--”
“I do,” the stranger said, dropping several gold coins and a square-cut ruby on the table.
“I like a man who backs up his words,” Slade said, scooping up the coins and the gem. “You just bought yourself…a chair.”
“Fair enough,” the stranger said, sitting down across from the warrior.
“What is the job and what is your name?”
“I have been called by many names in my long life.”
“No doubt, but you should share one you like,” Slade told him, “before I choose one you do not.”
“Locke will do,” the older man said.
“And what do you want from me?”
“Your help.”
“Obviously,” Slade said, “but your rental on my patience is running out, so talk faster. You having problems with tyrants? Barbarians? Giants? Demons? A dragon? Some damsel in a dress giving you a hard time? Speak, man.”
“I need you to claim Justice,” Locke said.
“I am willing to fight for that,” Slade said. “It is noble and--”
“Not the concept, mutton-head,” Locke said. “Justice is the name of a sword.”
“Oh, of course,” Slade said, picking up his fresh tankard of mead as the server flashed a smile and sped away with his empty tankard. “I’ve already got a sword.”
“Ah, but this one is a very special sword,” the elder man said. “This is a unique treasure, said to have been crafted by the ancient goddess Ishtar for the warrior king Gilgamesh.”
“Gilgamesh?” Slade echoed. “Doesn’t sound like a king from around here.”
“Mesopotamia. Babylon,” Locke replied. “Centuries ago, before the Holy Land was the Holy Land, he ruled the people of Uruk with a firm hand. The goddess pursued him. He spurned her advances, though, so she cast his gift beyond the horizon and dispatched the Bull of Heaven to punish him.”
“Women, huh?” Slade laughed, lifting his mead for another gulp.
“She was a goddess of love, sex and war.”
“Yeah, women,” Slade said. “I have met them.”
“As you say,” Locke said, laughing with him. “Now, you may or may not be aware that Duke Brian has certain…aspirations.”
“I hear things,” Slade said. “Some say he wants to sit in a bigger chair, be the man people answer to rather than one of the people.”
“Unless you’re the man in charge, you’re just another one of the masses,” Locke said. “Exactly so, but with the sword of a legendary king in hand, even a pagan one, drawing followers and laying claim to the throne should come with ease.”
“And he can’t get the support of his own knights to go after it himself?” Slade asked.
“A wise question, sir,” Locke said. “A man of power and ambition must choose carefully those he would trust. This must be done discreetly and quickly. While the weapon has remained hidden for many years, others do seek it. It is whispered that among the contenders may even be a dark wizard.”
“A wizard?” Slade asked, slamming his tankard to the table.
“So it is said,” Locke told him, “and of great power.”
“Damn.”
“You have a problem with wizards, warrior?”
“They raise the hairs on my neck and boil my blood.”
“You fear them.”
“No,” he said before gulping down the remainder of his mead. “They just complicate simple things for the rest of us, especially the stupid ones. If I never see a fool with a glowing rock again in my life--”
“Regardless,” Locke said, “this needs to be done.”
“Maybe some other time,” Slade said. “I’m not done drinking.”
“It would not do for another to find the sword,” Locke said. “You are noble and pure of spirit.”
“And not finished drinking,” Slade said. “That means I’m not leaving.”
“Understand that with a sword forged by gods,” Locke explained, “that the wizard, to name but one, might unleash unspeakable evils upon the world.”
“Truly?”
“Indeed.”
“What sorts of evils?” Slade asked.
“I cannot tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It is unspeakable,” Locke reminded him. “Pay attention.”
Slade muttered something obscene under his breath as he contemplated the bottom of his empty tankard.
“This job will be worth enough to buy your own tavern,” Locke told him. “If you like, afterward we can even find you some damsel whose maidenly virtue needs rescuing.”
“Magic,” Slade grumbled. “I have yet to see the sun rise on a day that ran smooth when magic was involved.”
“Well--”
“Magic…bah! From here on, drinks are on you. Barmaid!” Slade called out.
Two more tankards of mead and four hours later, Locke had led Slade deep into the moonlit night. Far from Marenswaith and the Rutting Stag, weary steeds carried the two men through a little traveled region of unspoiled forest. The journey had not been made in the best of spirits
“Are we there yet?” Slade asked, wriggling in his saddle.
“Nearly,” Locke said, looking at the stars. “One would think I rode with a child.”
“At best,” Slade said, “one only rents mead. If we’re going to be going much further--”
“Very well,” Locke said, pointing through the trees to an inviting glade ahead. “We can dismount there.”
“Most tranquil,” Slade said, dismounting as his horse walked into the tall, moonlit grass.
Slade patted the shoulder of his mount as it lowered its head to the lush emerald grass. Locke rode to Slade’s side, also stopping in the moonlight. The forest clearing almost seemed to glow, basked in the moon’s silvery luminescence guided down from the starry Heavens.
“What now?” Slade asked, raising his arms and stretching his back.
“You go there,” Locke told him, pointing across the clearing.
With his gaze following Locke’s direction, Slade looked at the towering trees where the forest began again. Keen warrior eyes squinted into the shadows to see a barely visible rocky hillside behind the line of trees.
“Why?” Slade asked.
“Walk straight on and you will see the mouth of a cave,” Locke explained. “If the stars have been read correctly, you will find Justice within.”
“Right,” Slade said with a sigh as he turned to walk off.
“Wait,” Locke called out.
“What now?” the fighter asked impatiently.
“There may be tests,” the elder man warned, walking to him with a flickering oil lamp. “And you will need to see where you are going.”
“Thanks,” Slade said, “but I am no scholar. What manner of tests? What are you talking about?”
“Possible challenges to confirm the nobility of your spirit,” Locke said.
“Neither am I a noble,” Slade said. “I am not even in service to one.”
“Yes, I know,” Locke said. “If all that was needed was some brute to bash things, I could have found a hundred other men.”
“I wish you had.”
“Better than that,” Locke told him, “devoid of wealth or status, you are a good man, a noble paladin. This…goodness in you is what will carry you through to the prize. Did I not tell you all this before?”
“You talk a great deal,” Slade said. “Who listens?”
Locke sighed as Slade rolled his eyes and resumed his walk into the dark.
With the lamp held high beside him, Slade stalked cautiously into the silence of the deep cave. Layered beneath mail, cloth and padding, he could still feel his arm hairs bristling. He moved forward through the unknown darkness that seemed determined to swallow the light of his lamp. As the warrior concentrated on the careful placement of his feet, he realized he could hear a soft sound. What he could discern was barely above a whisper, but musical. As he strained to confirm what he was hearing and from where, he saw a light dispelling the stygian blackness ahead of him. A feeling of confident certainty rose within him and the brave fighter pressed forward at a quickened pace.
Slade stepped into the strange light and it flared suddenly. He rubbed his eyes and as they adjusted he realized he was in a large chamber. The walls were alabaster and gold. Piles of gold coins and sparkling jewels littered the floor. Scantily clad maidens danced around him, beckoning him forward. Other maids carried platters of rich foods, the likes of which he had only ever heard tales. His head swam in the scent of a heady perfume as blondes, brunettes and redheads brushed past him dressed as though they were entertaining a sultan. The serving girls began to arrange the food on a large table and pour wine into a large goblet. Again, slender arms and fingers gestured for him to come to the table.
“Come, Slade,” a woman’s voice spoke. “Claim your reward. You are a great warrior, more deserving than any other.”
“I am?” he asked, trying to make sense of things through his clouded senses.
“Live as a king,” the voice enticed. “Feast to your fill. Bed the women of your dreams. Recline in luxury.”
“What? No…I …I have to…I am helping…” Slade spoke, struggling to focus.
“No such foolishness,” Locke said, walking past Slade and around the dancing girls. “If they say you should be king, then be king. Others have had their time. With all the wealth here, we can raise armies in your name and crush your enemies. Who do you want to go after first?”
“Who?”
“Yes, who shall we crush first?” Locke asked him. “Who has earned your righteous wrath, my lord?”
“Lord?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Slade said. “This is…all wrong.”
“What is wrong?” the woman’s voice asked.
“All of it,” Slade said. “All of this. I am…no king. I help…people.”
“You help people?” the voice asked.
“Yes,” Slade said, “even when it puts a pain in my bloody ass.”
“Very well, then,” the woman said.
Locke vanished. The scantily clad women shimmered and faded away. The feast and the treasures, every last bit of opulence, was gone as though it had never been.
“What magic is this?” Slade asked, watching the beautiful chamber return to its actual appearance. “I am…still in the cave.”
“Yes,” the woman’s voice confirmed, “you never left it. You have been tested by the enemies of man and found to be of suitable strength.”
The glow illuminating the rocky cavern changed, expanding to reveal an ornate sword floating freely above the ground. Aside from its general form as a sword, the weapon was unlike any Slade had ever seen in his lifetime. Its warm glow was like a beacon, drawing him toward it. Even without touching it, he could not help but marvel at its sublime workmanship. The sword had a two-handed handle that had no pommel and appeared to be wrapped in velvet and a golden thread. The hilt had the form of a crescent moon and an intricate silver inlay. The blade itself was the most curious part: a three-foot fusion of metal and some kind of clear crystal. He had handled many weapons in his time, but he could not even begin to guess at the manner of this one’s creation. The dazzling double-edged blade was an embodiment of opposing forces cast in flawless balance. Its light made his mail shirt sparkle.
“It is beautiful,” Slade said.
“Before you take hold of the Sword of Divine Might,” the disembodied voice said, “know this--”
“It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?” Slade asked.
“Do not take this lightly, paladin.”
“Then speak, spirit,” Slade said. “Who are you? What would you have of me?”
“The name I once had is unimportant,” came the response. “Merely know that when you claim this instrument of the gods--”
“Justice.”
“No, the Sword of Divine might,” the spirit said. “Pay attention.”
“I was told--”
“You would believe a stranger over my word?”
“Well, in all fairness,” Slade said, “I’ve just met you, too.”
“You may dispense justice with it if you wish,” the spirit said. “The Sword of Divine Might will support you in any cause in which you truly believe, but only in a cause in which you believe.”
“Alright.”
“When you claim it, your life will be forever changed.”
“Is it going to hurt or not?”
“Not…much.”
“Swell,” Slade grumbled. “That’s what my barber said.”
“Be true, paladin.”
“Wait,” Slade said. “What’s it like…in the next world?”
“I cannot tell you that,” the voice said.
“Why not?”
“Rules,” the spirit replied. “Don’t make that face. You have no frame of reference to understand, anyway.”
“I barely understood that sentence,” Slade said.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” the spirit said.
“What of…Gwendolyn?”
“She is at peace.”
“Thank you, spirit.”
“Is that all?”
“My brother?” Slade asked.
“He says you can forget the money you owed him.”
“That does not sound like him.”
“Death can change a heart,” the spirit explained.
“I guess so.”
“I must depart,” the spirit said. “Fare thee well, paladin.”
Silently, Slade looked upon the glistening sword. His skin tingled as he reached out for the handle. Steeling himself against what he anticipated would be excruciating pain, the seasoned warrior grabbed the enchanted weapon. There was a shock and a blinding flash of light, heat and cold ran through him together. He was certain he felt the ground shake beneath him.
The light faded and, as his vision cleared, Slade realized that he stood once more beside his horse. Moonlight shone down on him and soft grass was beneath his feet. Slade took a deep breath and exhaled.
“Locke,” he said.
“Slade! You have the sword,” Locke said, watching Slade mount his steed again.
“Yes,” Slade said, admiring the unearthly weapon as he settled back into the saddle, “and it did not hurt nearly as half as much as I thought it would.”
“Quickly, give it to me,” Locke said. “We must depart this place.”
“Wait, I…”
Slade paused, more out of reflex than choice. His steel-gray eyes studied the figure before him. In the face of the man he knew as Locke, he saw something else. More importantly, he saw someone else, someone dark and malevolent with blood-red eyes seated in deep sockets. Slade sensed the near-tangible presence of evil and it began to dawn upon him that he had only begun to see clearly.
“Deceiver!” Slade challenged, leveling the point of the magic sword at Locke.
“Quiet, fool,” came the response, Locke holding forth a glowing gem. “Give me the sword or I will be your death.”
“Damn,” Slade said, feeling his neck hairs bristling. “Magic.”
“Do not try my patience, paladin,” Locke warned. “Surrender the sword.”
“I never surrender, lying wizard,” Slade said. “You’ll have to come and take it and I do not believe you can.”
The wizard roared angrily as luminous tendrils of magic energy lashed out from the gem in his hand. Slade could barely hold his horse steady as he fought the eldritch forces trying to wrest the sword from his grip. As hard as the wizard could pull, though, Slade held fast with all his considerable might. Suddenly, there was a hissing and crackling between the two men, followed by a flash of light.
After several seconds, Locke managed to clear his vision. He quickly realized that he and his horse were alone in the glade. Producing a clear crystal from a pouch on his belt, the wizard held it toward the smoldering grass where Slade’s horse had last stood and concentrated. The crystal glowed softly and, after several seconds, Locke held it up to peer into its light. The glow grew stronger until the crystal crumbled to dust in his hands. Locke sighed.
“Damn,” he growled. “The paladin was right. Sometimes, magic sucks.”
Foiled and frustrated, Locke adjusted the dark cloak on his shoulders and rode off into the night.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
16480--Similarities to Persons Living or Dead (Ch. 10)
Happy Thursday. To help keep my own feet to the fire, I'm using Thursday as my public accountability day. That means, posting a bit of coherently creative output for you to read and feedback on every week. If I perform according to my own intent, what I put here will be available as a whole elsewhere at the same time or shortly after appearing here.
Similarities to Persons Living or Dead is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series. Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it. For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.
Similarities to Persons Living or Dead is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series. Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it. For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.
SIMILARITIES TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD
Chapter 10
Harmony was right when she said that Corvus needed further scrutiny. What she needed, though was a break from looking over her shoulder and maybe even some sleep if she could get it. I took Harmony back to my apartment. Letting Berlin babysit her had to be better than following me onto unknown turf.
My new assistant was adjusting my recently acquired and emptied treasure box on a small pedestal on the far side of the living room. So far, though, the box had seemed to be more of a treasure than the curious contents.
“What happened in here?” I asked as Harmony and I took off our private eye hats and peeled off our private eye trench coats (all standard issue, of course).
“She’s been cleaning, Brick,” Harmony said. “Remember? We talked about this.”
“I don’t think I like it,” I sneered. “It looks…unnatural.”
“Do you have any more souvenirs, Brick?” Jonni asked.
“Souvenirs?” I parroted. “Is that what you think that box is? That thing’s been nothing but a pain in my ass for days. What makes you think I want to keep it around?” I was reminded of the warm plastic square I had in my pocket. My hand drifted there to make sure it was still where I’d put it. It was, which meant it still hadn’t incinerated me and I still had to figure out what to do with it. I sighed. “We got the…whatever it is out of it and we don’t need the stupid box anymore.”
“It’s like a trophy from your adventures,” she said. “It makes a nice decoration. If you have some others, I can rework the whole living room around them. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“She wants a ‘yes’, doesn’t she?” I asked Harmony.
“Brick Stone,” Harmony scowled, “you be nice. She’s trying hard for you.”
“She’s trying alright,” I said. “She’s very trying.”
“Do you think this would look better closed or open?” Jonni asked, stepping up to the leather-trimmed box and quickly opening its lid. “Wha--?”
“I think it would look better out in the alley,” I said. “If there’s anything here that I’ve had more than a week, it’s because it got pulled out of the remains of the war zone that my last apartment turned into. Thanks for the happy memory, though.”
“What’s the matter, Jonni?” Harmony asked, starting to walk toward her.
I was just starting to notice that she was standing still and staring into the box, almost frozen and slack-jawed. She had a more puzzled look than usual on her face.
“I thought you said that this thing was empty,” Jonni said, “and your little card was the only thing--”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked. “Are you saying there’s something else in there? No way! It was empty!”
“Let me see,” Harmony said, craning her neck to see past the box lid as she moved around the furniture.
“Is that a…cooler?” Harmony asked.
“Looks like,” Jonni said, reaching out a hand to it. Before I could say anything to stop her, she lifted the lid on the plastic cooler to find, “It’s full of flats of eggs.”
“Green eggs,” Harmony said.
“Well, there’s something you don’t see everyday,” Jonni said. “You know, unless you’re Dr. Seuss.”
“Sounds like something I don’t need to see any day,” I said, walking their way.
“Hand me that glass, would you please?” Jonni asked Harmony as the curious blonde picked up an egg about the shade of broccoli.
Harmony grabbed the tumbler from my squarish dining table behind them and took a couple of hurried steps to hold it out to Jonni. Jonni promptly cracked the eggshell on the rim of the glass and opened the egg over it. The contents of the shell flowed down from her hand as normally as I could’ve expected from any normal egg. In the case of the egg dropping into the glass before us, though, the "white" was mint green and the yolk was deep forest green.
“Wow,” Harmony said, taking a step back with her eyes fixed on the glass.
“This does not bode well,” I said, pulling the idiot plastic card from my pocket. “Where’d those things come from?” I asked it.
>Where’d what come from?
“The green eggs,” I said.
>What green eggs?
I should’ve known better. I honestly didn’t know why I had bothered.
“Oooh, I have got to cook some of these up!” Jonni said with a sudden burst of excitement. She grabbed at the sides of the cooler and lifted it out of the box, looking to me and asking, “Do you have any ham?”
“OK, I don’t think I like where this is going,” I told her, but apparently I was the only one still listening to me. The box lid fell shut again, jostled by Jonni as she dragged the cooler out of the box.
“I’ll be in the kitchen!” Jonni called out as she turned and hurried off.
“I am not eating that!” Confident in my practiced skills of observation, I was certain I’d have noticed the presence of a cooler that nearly filled the box. It wasn’t in there before.
I didn’t notice until too late that Harmony had set the glass back on the table and turned back to the box. She was opening it again before I could ask, “What the Hell?”
“Oh, Brick, look,” Harmony said with awe, reaching in and gently picking up what looked like a small spice rack.
“That’s not looking,” I said. “That’s touching. When did you lose your mind?”
“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked, whispering as she gazed at the several small vials of a faintly glowing turquoise liquid, each stopped by a cork.
“Beautiful? What is it?” I asked. “Never mind. Set it down.” I looked back into the box. Thankfully, there was nothing el…No, there was a small piece of paper. I picked it up and read, “Love Potion: Do not use in combination with prescription medications, country music, or peanut butter."
“Really?” Harmony asked. “Oh, lord! It smells awful!”
“Wha--“ I looked to see that she had removed one of the corks as a noxious odor, similar to burning hog fat, assaulted my nose. “Oh, my--Why did you open it?” I asked as the bottle started to glow brighter, bubble and shake. “Never mind!” I said, taking the vial from her and putting it back in its space on the rack. I quickly picked up the whole rack, put it back into the box and slammed the lid shut. We took a couple of steps back as the box shuddered. Then, I noticed the smell was gone and all was quiet. I could smell eggs cooking in what had been alleged to be my kitchen.
Feeling that the box seemed safe enough to approach, I considered dropping it out my window. Instead, I lifted the lid to see what had happened. For just a second, it felt almost like I was experiencing that moment when one cautiously lifts the seat of a gurgling toilet to see if it was going to overflow.
“Well?" Harmony asked.
“Weird," I said, fully lifting the lid. “It looks like a map." I had joined the others in Crazytown, obviously. Maybe the map could help me find my way back.
“Is that leather?" Harmony asked, feeling the map as I picked it up to examine.
“Yeah, it’s the skin from something alright,” I said. “Where do you suppose…Ausparlous is?”
“Never heard of it,” she said, pointing at the lower right corner of the map, “but it looks like G.X. Horace managed to find it in 1937.”
“Indeed,” I said, continuing to look over the map of the unknown land. A large arrow pointed upward on the right side of the map, reading "Great Western Shaft to the Upper World." “Hmm…underground, maybe,” I said, handing Harmony the three-foot by two-foot piece of leather. I noticed a ball in the box. I picked up a metal sphere, about the size of a softball, perfectly round and seamless. I wasn’t sure what the metal was, but the surface was smooth, a little cool and had a slight purple tint. From inside, I could hear a rattling sound, as if something smaller was contained within the hollow sphere.
“Hollow?” Harmony asked.
“Sounds like,” I said. “Aha! Another note.” Within the crate was a small piece of wrinkled note paper. Scrawled in faded black ink, it appeared to be part of someone's notes: "...has proven resistant to the steam drill, as well. I held it against the thing until it broke down, but not a scratch is upon it. Tomorrow, must try the hydraulic press... Can any force reveal the contents?"
“Oooh,” Harmony said, grabbing at the metal ball and shaking it. “Spooky weird.”
“We got lucky,“ I said as I closed the box. “There’s obviously a lot more to this box than we thought.”
“Listen to you. You just always expect the worst!“ Harmony said, flipping the box lid back open. “Nothing bad has happ--”
I tried to stop her, but even though I pulled her away from the box, she still managed to get the lid open. I pulled her back just as a hail of arrows came flying out of the box and up into the ceiling. We could hear the sounds of battle--shouting and screaming and crashing metal--from inside the box.
“OK,” Harmony said, “I stand corrected. Does that sound like it’s getting louder to you, Brick?”
“Seriously?” I asked, peeking over the edge of the box top. I actually wasn‘t surprised when I seemed to be looking down on an active battlefield rather than seeing the interior of an empty box. “Like we haven’t been shot at enough today?”
“Sorry,” Harmony said.
I side-stepped around the box and reached out to knock the lid shut. Then, grabbing a blanket from the couch, I opened it and threw it over the box. “No more playing with the box,” I said. “Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Harmony said softly.
Jonni returned from the kitchen with a plate and a fork, already eating as she hurried into a seat at the dining table.
“Berlin! No more messing with the box,” I said. She looked at me curiously, one of her cheeks puffed with food as she chewed. I pointed up at the ceiling. She looked up at the cluster of arrows.
“Got it, boss,” she said, resuming her chewing. “These are great, by the way. Oh, you’re out of ham.”
“Thanks for the update,” I said. “Can we get back to work?”
“Sure,” Jonni said. “Say, where’d you disappear to before?”
“I think I caught a timeslip when some insistent acquaintances magicked me away for a pointless meeting,” I explained. “They were actually interested in this stupid box.”
“Somebody else is after our eggs?” Jonni asked. “We can’t just let them have them! They‘re ours!”
“I’m not sure they knew about the eggs,” I told her. “From my experience, they’re much heartier eaters than that.”
“Who are these people?” she asked.
“They wouldn’t give their names,“ I said. “They were rakaraka…or something.”
“What?”
“A talking tiger-guy, well, two this time,” I explained.
“A what?” Harmony asked.
“You heard me. He was in a red silk kimono and smoking a pipe.”
“A rakshasa? Two rakshasas? You should stay away from those, Brick,” Jonni insisted. “They’re deadly. You have to know that.”
“You’re telling me? You ever seen them eat?”
“They’re cunning and evil and really tough to kill.”
“Well, so far, they’ve only tried to talk me to death,” I told them. “Oh, and they were with this dwarf wizard, Tillmaren.”
“Tillmaren? They were with Tillmaren?” Jonni asked, getting agitated again. “You met Tillmaren?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You know him? He‘s somebody special?”
“Who?” Jonni asked. “Just kidding. No,” she said, “I don’t know him, but I’ve heard of him. He‘s a powerful wizard.”
“And they want the box,” Harmony said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess they do.”
“With Tillmaren involved, boss,“ Jonni said, “you may want to consider giving them what they want.”
“I’ll make a note,” I said. “It goes on the back burner for now, though. I’ve got some other bushes to beat first. Make sure she gets some rest.”
“So thoughtful,” Jonni said with an admiring smile. “A good man with such a great heart.”
“Berlin!”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Jonni said, continuing to work on her plate of green eggs. “Don’t forget the ham.”
My new assistant was adjusting my recently acquired and emptied treasure box on a small pedestal on the far side of the living room. So far, though, the box had seemed to be more of a treasure than the curious contents.
“What happened in here?” I asked as Harmony and I took off our private eye hats and peeled off our private eye trench coats (all standard issue, of course).
“She’s been cleaning, Brick,” Harmony said. “Remember? We talked about this.”
“I don’t think I like it,” I sneered. “It looks…unnatural.”
“Do you have any more souvenirs, Brick?” Jonni asked.
“Souvenirs?” I parroted. “Is that what you think that box is? That thing’s been nothing but a pain in my ass for days. What makes you think I want to keep it around?” I was reminded of the warm plastic square I had in my pocket. My hand drifted there to make sure it was still where I’d put it. It was, which meant it still hadn’t incinerated me and I still had to figure out what to do with it. I sighed. “We got the…whatever it is out of it and we don’t need the stupid box anymore.”
“It’s like a trophy from your adventures,” she said. “It makes a nice decoration. If you have some others, I can rework the whole living room around them. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“She wants a ‘yes’, doesn’t she?” I asked Harmony.
“Brick Stone,” Harmony scowled, “you be nice. She’s trying hard for you.”
“She’s trying alright,” I said. “She’s very trying.”
“Do you think this would look better closed or open?” Jonni asked, stepping up to the leather-trimmed box and quickly opening its lid. “Wha--?”
“I think it would look better out in the alley,” I said. “If there’s anything here that I’ve had more than a week, it’s because it got pulled out of the remains of the war zone that my last apartment turned into. Thanks for the happy memory, though.”
“What’s the matter, Jonni?” Harmony asked, starting to walk toward her.
I was just starting to notice that she was standing still and staring into the box, almost frozen and slack-jawed. She had a more puzzled look than usual on her face.
“I thought you said that this thing was empty,” Jonni said, “and your little card was the only thing--”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked. “Are you saying there’s something else in there? No way! It was empty!”
“Let me see,” Harmony said, craning her neck to see past the box lid as she moved around the furniture.
“Is that a…cooler?” Harmony asked.
“Looks like,” Jonni said, reaching out a hand to it. Before I could say anything to stop her, she lifted the lid on the plastic cooler to find, “It’s full of flats of eggs.”
“Green eggs,” Harmony said.
“Well, there’s something you don’t see everyday,” Jonni said. “You know, unless you’re Dr. Seuss.”
“Sounds like something I don’t need to see any day,” I said, walking their way.
“Hand me that glass, would you please?” Jonni asked Harmony as the curious blonde picked up an egg about the shade of broccoli.
Harmony grabbed the tumbler from my squarish dining table behind them and took a couple of hurried steps to hold it out to Jonni. Jonni promptly cracked the eggshell on the rim of the glass and opened the egg over it. The contents of the shell flowed down from her hand as normally as I could’ve expected from any normal egg. In the case of the egg dropping into the glass before us, though, the "white" was mint green and the yolk was deep forest green.
“Wow,” Harmony said, taking a step back with her eyes fixed on the glass.
“This does not bode well,” I said, pulling the idiot plastic card from my pocket. “Where’d those things come from?” I asked it.
>Where’d what come from?
“The green eggs,” I said.
>What green eggs?
I should’ve known better. I honestly didn’t know why I had bothered.
“Oooh, I have got to cook some of these up!” Jonni said with a sudden burst of excitement. She grabbed at the sides of the cooler and lifted it out of the box, looking to me and asking, “Do you have any ham?”
“OK, I don’t think I like where this is going,” I told her, but apparently I was the only one still listening to me. The box lid fell shut again, jostled by Jonni as she dragged the cooler out of the box.
“I’ll be in the kitchen!” Jonni called out as she turned and hurried off.
“I am not eating that!” Confident in my practiced skills of observation, I was certain I’d have noticed the presence of a cooler that nearly filled the box. It wasn’t in there before.
I didn’t notice until too late that Harmony had set the glass back on the table and turned back to the box. She was opening it again before I could ask, “What the Hell?”
“Oh, Brick, look,” Harmony said with awe, reaching in and gently picking up what looked like a small spice rack.
“That’s not looking,” I said. “That’s touching. When did you lose your mind?”
“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked, whispering as she gazed at the several small vials of a faintly glowing turquoise liquid, each stopped by a cork.
“Beautiful? What is it?” I asked. “Never mind. Set it down.” I looked back into the box. Thankfully, there was nothing el…No, there was a small piece of paper. I picked it up and read, “Love Potion: Do not use in combination with prescription medications, country music, or peanut butter."
“Really?” Harmony asked. “Oh, lord! It smells awful!”
“Wha--“ I looked to see that she had removed one of the corks as a noxious odor, similar to burning hog fat, assaulted my nose. “Oh, my--Why did you open it?” I asked as the bottle started to glow brighter, bubble and shake. “Never mind!” I said, taking the vial from her and putting it back in its space on the rack. I quickly picked up the whole rack, put it back into the box and slammed the lid shut. We took a couple of steps back as the box shuddered. Then, I noticed the smell was gone and all was quiet. I could smell eggs cooking in what had been alleged to be my kitchen.
Feeling that the box seemed safe enough to approach, I considered dropping it out my window. Instead, I lifted the lid to see what had happened. For just a second, it felt almost like I was experiencing that moment when one cautiously lifts the seat of a gurgling toilet to see if it was going to overflow.
“Well?" Harmony asked.
“Weird," I said, fully lifting the lid. “It looks like a map." I had joined the others in Crazytown, obviously. Maybe the map could help me find my way back.
“Is that leather?" Harmony asked, feeling the map as I picked it up to examine.
“Yeah, it’s the skin from something alright,” I said. “Where do you suppose…Ausparlous is?”
“Never heard of it,” she said, pointing at the lower right corner of the map, “but it looks like G.X. Horace managed to find it in 1937.”
“Indeed,” I said, continuing to look over the map of the unknown land. A large arrow pointed upward on the right side of the map, reading "Great Western Shaft to the Upper World." “Hmm…underground, maybe,” I said, handing Harmony the three-foot by two-foot piece of leather. I noticed a ball in the box. I picked up a metal sphere, about the size of a softball, perfectly round and seamless. I wasn’t sure what the metal was, but the surface was smooth, a little cool and had a slight purple tint. From inside, I could hear a rattling sound, as if something smaller was contained within the hollow sphere.
“Hollow?” Harmony asked.
“Sounds like,” I said. “Aha! Another note.” Within the crate was a small piece of wrinkled note paper. Scrawled in faded black ink, it appeared to be part of someone's notes: "...has proven resistant to the steam drill, as well. I held it against the thing until it broke down, but not a scratch is upon it. Tomorrow, must try the hydraulic press... Can any force reveal the contents?"
“Oooh,” Harmony said, grabbing at the metal ball and shaking it. “Spooky weird.”
“We got lucky,“ I said as I closed the box. “There’s obviously a lot more to this box than we thought.”
“Listen to you. You just always expect the worst!“ Harmony said, flipping the box lid back open. “Nothing bad has happ--”
I tried to stop her, but even though I pulled her away from the box, she still managed to get the lid open. I pulled her back just as a hail of arrows came flying out of the box and up into the ceiling. We could hear the sounds of battle--shouting and screaming and crashing metal--from inside the box.
“OK,” Harmony said, “I stand corrected. Does that sound like it’s getting louder to you, Brick?”
“Seriously?” I asked, peeking over the edge of the box top. I actually wasn‘t surprised when I seemed to be looking down on an active battlefield rather than seeing the interior of an empty box. “Like we haven’t been shot at enough today?”
“Sorry,” Harmony said.
I side-stepped around the box and reached out to knock the lid shut. Then, grabbing a blanket from the couch, I opened it and threw it over the box. “No more playing with the box,” I said. “Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Harmony said softly.
Jonni returned from the kitchen with a plate and a fork, already eating as she hurried into a seat at the dining table.
“Berlin! No more messing with the box,” I said. She looked at me curiously, one of her cheeks puffed with food as she chewed. I pointed up at the ceiling. She looked up at the cluster of arrows.
“Got it, boss,” she said, resuming her chewing. “These are great, by the way. Oh, you’re out of ham.”
“Thanks for the update,” I said. “Can we get back to work?”
“Sure,” Jonni said. “Say, where’d you disappear to before?”
“I think I caught a timeslip when some insistent acquaintances magicked me away for a pointless meeting,” I explained. “They were actually interested in this stupid box.”
“Somebody else is after our eggs?” Jonni asked. “We can’t just let them have them! They‘re ours!”
“I’m not sure they knew about the eggs,” I told her. “From my experience, they’re much heartier eaters than that.”
“Who are these people?” she asked.
“They wouldn’t give their names,“ I said. “They were rakaraka…or something.”
“What?”
“A talking tiger-guy, well, two this time,” I explained.
“A what?” Harmony asked.
“You heard me. He was in a red silk kimono and smoking a pipe.”
“A rakshasa? Two rakshasas? You should stay away from those, Brick,” Jonni insisted. “They’re deadly. You have to know that.”
“You’re telling me? You ever seen them eat?”
“They’re cunning and evil and really tough to kill.”
“Well, so far, they’ve only tried to talk me to death,” I told them. “Oh, and they were with this dwarf wizard, Tillmaren.”
“Tillmaren? They were with Tillmaren?” Jonni asked, getting agitated again. “You met Tillmaren?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You know him? He‘s somebody special?”
“Who?” Jonni asked. “Just kidding. No,” she said, “I don’t know him, but I’ve heard of him. He‘s a powerful wizard.”
“And they want the box,” Harmony said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess they do.”
“With Tillmaren involved, boss,“ Jonni said, “you may want to consider giving them what they want.”
“I’ll make a note,” I said. “It goes on the back burner for now, though. I’ve got some other bushes to beat first. Make sure she gets some rest.”
“So thoughtful,” Jonni said with an admiring smile. “A good man with such a great heart.”
“Berlin!”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Jonni said, continuing to work on her plate of green eggs. “Don’t forget the ham.”
Thursday, November 10, 2011
16466--Similarities to Persons Living or Dead (Ch. 8)
Happy Thursday. To help keep my own feet to the fire, I'm using Thursday as my public accountability day. That means, posting a bit of coherently creative output for you to read and feedback on every week. If I perform according to my own intent, what I put here will be available as a whole elsewhere at the same time or shortly after appearing here.Similarities to Persons Living or Dead is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series. Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it. For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.
The afternoon sun was shining down, hot and bright. The warm Bermuda sands were thick with bikini-clad tanned flesh, lounging in the heat. I was on a yacht, about fifty yards offshore, lounging on one of the deck chairs. A platinum blonde came up from below deck in a bikini I could almost see through and wasn’t covering very much anyway. Her long, silky hair danced in the warm breeze. Her body was a dizzying balance of fitness and curves. As she walked closer, her hips snaking from side to side with each step, I noticed she had a pitcher of some fruity drink in one hand and two bottles of sun tan lotion in the other. I could see I was going to need a whole bottle of lotion just for those legs. Then, she smiled and I didn’t notice anything else at all…until a door slammed.
I was awake. As I sat up slowly and lifted my private eye hat (standard issue) off my eyes, I saw that I was in my office. Damn. I realized the fingers of my left hand were tangled up in a slender gold chain. I looked in my hand and saw I was holding an amethyst heart. Whitney’s amethyst. Wasn’t I just dreaming about--?
“I’m back, Brick,” Jonni sang out with what I was coming to realize was a characteristic and possibly disturbing perkiness.
“And with such an entrance,” Harmony said.
“Swell,” I said. “Did I miss anything?”
“All quiet here,” Harmony said.
In front of me on my desk, the delicate pinging sounded again as the chatty plastic prize tried to get my attention. I looked at the gray screen.
“Is it saying something, Brick?” Harmony asked.
>Dream has been successfully recorded.
>Ready for replay in user-selectable format, described in text or archived for later retrieval.
“Oooh, I wanna see,” Jonni said excitedly, hurrying around my desk.
“You’re too young,” I said. “We’ll just archive that until I can figure out how to erase stuff.”
“Oh, poop!” Jonni said indignantly. “You been jewelry shopping? Or is that a clue? Looks fancy. Is it old and pricey?”
“Don’t worry about it,“ I said, shoving the pendant back into my shirt pocket.
“You do know that it’s glowi--”
“Didn’t I send you out for information?”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Jonni said. “Information I‘ve got.”
“Hallelujah. Spill it.”
“Well, we were hitting dead ends. We’ve still got nothing on SOC yet and it was looking pretty bleak with the pictures, too,“ she said, handing me a week-old newspaper, “until I found this one.”
“You found a newspaper in a newspaper building?” Harmony asked.
“How proud your parents must be,” I said.
“Just look at the picture on page 6, Grumpy,” Jonni said. “Her name is Sheila Taylor and she was found dead in her townhouse just over a week ago.”
“Ironic,” I said.
“How so?” Jonni asked.
“These photos of her,” I said. “These two were meeting in a cemetery.”
“Oooh, spooky,” Jonni said.
“So Mr. Taylor was the client that hired Lew for his last case,” Harmony began, “and Sheila Taylor was the wife he was following?”
“Well, she is in these photos with a guy we’ll assume wasn’t the client and, thus, not Mr. Taylor,” I said. “You find anything on him?”
“Sure did,” Jonni said, grabbing a doughnut. “His name’s Alex Gold.”
“Anything more than a name?” Harmony asked.
“That’s the funny part,” Jonni said.
“Make me laugh, blondie,” I told her.
“He’s dead, too.”
“OK, so Mrs. Taylor starts sneaking out on Mr. Taylor to spend time with Mr. Gold,” I said. “Mr. Taylor gets suspicious and gets Lew Manning to follow her around and get pictures. Mr. Taylor finds out what his Mrs. is up to and sends her and her friend off to wherever people go when they’re done with their bodies. Now Mr. is hunting Harmony down to recover any evidence that might link him to the whole sordid affair. Another mystery solved and the crowd goes freaking wild.”
“Except that there have been multiple people chasing me, Brick,” Harmony said. “It’s been days and I’m not sure if he’s even one of them. It looks like they have something to do with these SOC cards, though.”
“Well, maybe he’s part of a coven or something that’s getting messages through the cards,” I said. “There’s something supernatural going on when they’re going to keep coming at us through the hail of bullets, which reminds me: I’ve got to pick up a new order of bullets. If the husband’s still loose and looking for our Miss Storm, then we’ll assume the police didn’t see fit to detain him in connection with his wife’s demise. Maybe if we could check out Gold’s body, we could get something more on him. Where’d they find him, Jonni? How’d he die?”
“In a big, loud, fiery car wreck…three years ago,” Jonni told us.
“Yet he’s alive in pictures taken this month,” I said. “So, either those are fake, his death was faked, or someone was after some benefit derived from Gold still being above ground and hanging with Mrs. Taylor.”
“Which could also be a reanimation or an actor,” Harmony said.
“Notice how I‘m not laughing,” I said. “I remember this guy I had to track down once who used a magical disguise. It was one of those fake glasses, rubber nose and mustache things…but enchanted. It was the…Mantle of Proteus!”
“You think this might be that?” Harmony asked.
“Nah, it was unique as far as I know,” I said. “I was just reminding myself of how little amusement I usually get from magic. This is obviously going to take a little extra time. And apparently some leg work. And probably more bullets.”
“Sorry, boss,” Jonni said. “I didn’t mean to make things more complicated.”
“Story of my life. Excuse me a moment, ladies. I need to visit the euphemism. I‘ll try to resist the urge to flush this thing and be right back.” I slid the plastic square into my pocket as I stood, wondering if it might not put me out of my misery quickly. I tossed my private eye hat (standard issue) and private eye trench coat (standard issue) onto my desk and headed for the bathroom door in the corner of the room.
As I closed the door behind myself and reflexively reached for the light switch, I realized that the switch wasn’t where my hand usually found it. Or maybe it was as I slowly came to realize that the dimly lit room I was in wasn’t my bathroom, which meant that I was the one out of place. I saw a shelf a few feet away with a curious-looking statue on it. Walking toward it, I saw that it was three odd little men, carved from stone and squatting back-to-back-to-back. It didn’t look too comfy and…each one had a third eye in its forehead. There was a note taped to the shelf that read: Store for further study. Next to the statue were a lot of other random items that I guessed fell into the same category. There was a lead fountain pen, a crystal rabbit, an open pocket watch that was running backwards--
“We meet again, Mr. Stone,” a gravelly voice said from behind me.
I turned to see what appeared to be a tiger, walking upright and wearing a silk robe. I‘d been on this ride before. “How’ve you been, Tony? Still keeping the laughter in the slaughterhouse?” I asked the talking, pipe-smoking tiger.
“Tip-top, old chap. Flattered that you remember me.”
“You’re tough to forget, Tony.”
“To be sure,” he said. “I wanted you to meet some of my associates in the Cult--”
“--That Collects Weird Stuff, so you brought me to your…storeroom. I think I get it.”
“Admittedly, inauspicious,” Tony said, “but the Hall of Sacred Mysteries is reserved for devotees of our faith.”
“Like your friend there,” I said, giving a nod to the black-robed tiger behind him.
“Indeed. She is another of my tribe,” Tony said, “and Tillmaren,” he continued, drawing my attention to the dwarf at my knee who was holding a gnarled wooden staff that stood just taller than my waist.
“Good day, Mr. Stone,” the bearded dwarf said, bowing formally in his white and red robe. “I am the exalted wizard Tillmaren. If you’ve something for me to sign, I’ll give you an autograph at half-price, but do try to restrain yourself from fawning. It’s terribly undignified and quickly grows tiresome.”
“I…left my autograph book in my coat,” I said. “Darn. Next time.”
“Next time it will be full price,” Tillmaren warned.
“Mr. Stone,” Tony said, “you’ve opened the box.”
“Yeah, how--?”
“Tillmaren’s spells--”
“Divination is but a trifle for the great Tillmaren!” the dwarf proclaimed.
“Open,” Tony said, “it was traceable.”
“Right,” I said. “Alarms went off and you pulled me in. Swell. I hate to burst your bubble, but all that was in it was this.” I pulled the plastic square from my pocket and held it up to show them. It began to ping again.
>No, please!
>Don’t leave me here!
>Don’t leave me with them!
>Anywhere but here!
Well, how about that? I wasn‘t even going to try to guess. “Usually, when I get a lame prize out of a box, there’s at least cereal,“ I told them.
“You got that from the box?” the second tiger asked with a slightly higher gravelly voice than Tony.
“Right,” I responded.
“That’s all that came from it? Nothing else?” Tillmaren asked. “No casualties?”
“Hard to believe, I know,” I said. “I had to take a second look, too.” They started to talk in hushed tones amongst themselves. “I haven’t quite figured out what to make of it yet,” I offered. “It hasn’t shown me what makes it as dangerous as it’s supposed to be yet.” The mumbling grew more agitated and arms were waved. I saw Tony’s eyes glance my way.
I wasn’t sure I hadn’t overplayed my hand. Having sprung the secret surprise from the elusive treasure box, and shown them that I had it on me, they could have easily decided that I’d outlived my usefulness. They were probably debating what to do with the little plastic card, how many pieces to chop me into and whether I‘d go best with white or red wine.
“Mr. Stone,” Tony said, “you should go now.”
Tillmaren tapped the floor with his staff and a door began to creak open in what had appeared to be a dark wall. A bit of light showed through from beyond, displaying the outline of my exit.
“That’s it, huh?” I asked, watching the threesome extremely carefully.
“We’ll be in touch,” Tony said. “We have…issues of import to consider.”
“OK, then,” I said, heading for the door. “Enjoy your weird stuff. Thanks for having me over.” Stepping through the door, I really didn’t know where I was heading, but I figured it had to be a step up.
The door closed behind me as I stepped back into my office. Harmony was sitting at the newly revealed desk and suddenly noticed that I had returned. It looked like she had opened up a box of my old case files and was reading through a stack of them. “A little light reading?”
“Brick!” she blurted my name sharply, jumping a little bit in the chair. She was obviously startled. Then, I noticed her fidgeting with the pen in her hand.
“What’re you doing?” I asked, walking toward the desk for a closer look. “You find something interesting?”
“I-I…Well, I…”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I ran out of paper clips.”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked her, my eyes scanning the desk top. “There’s a pile right there. It looks like there are boxes of them.”
She grabbed at the little pile of twisted steel bits and lifted a bunch of them off the desk high enough to show me that they had been chained together. “You were gone and Jonni left and I was starting to get anxious waiting and…and…I started chaining them.”
“Till you ran out.”
“Yeah,” she said, “and then I had to find something else.”
“Did you consider unchaining them, perhaps?” I asked.
“That’s not the way it works, Brick,” she said, giving me a look that said I clearly didn’t understand the situation. “I started looking for things to read and I was trying really hard not to start tearing the paper into little pieces--”
“Thanks,” I said. “I remember the diner.”
“--but I kept noticing…the holes…”
“Holes?” I asked, looking at the page in front of her where I saw what she had been writing or, more accurately, scribbling. The page was still readable, but there was definitely a lot more ink on it than there was ever intended to be.
“In the letters,” she explained. “Next thing I knew, I had a pen and I was filling in all the holes. Every ‘O’, ‘P’, ‘R’--”
“I get it. I get it,” I assured her. “You OK?”
“Now, I guess. Where’ve you been?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how to answer that,” I said. “Somebody wanted a meeting.”
“You disappeared,” she said, walking toward me.
“Only for a few minutes.”
“No, you disappeared. I checked the bathroom.”
“Say, where’s Berlin?”
“In Germany,” she said. “Is that important?”
“Only to residents, I’d imagine. I meant, my new secretary. Where is she?”
“Oh, she went on to get started on your apartment,” Harmony said. “You’ve been gone over an hour. I was starting to get worried.”
“I must’ve hit a timeslip,” I said, “and I still need to pee.”
“Well…”
“Yeah, I’m not even trying this door again today,” I said. “It’s obviously not working right. I’ll wait for the next one.”
“OK,” Harmony said. “What’s our next move?”
“We go make some other people worry,” I told her. I tapped at the plastic square. It pinged back at me.
>Is it safe?
“Is it ever?” I asked it back. “File a reminder: we’re going to have a talk later.”
I shoved it back in my pocket as Harmony and I went for our hats and coats.
SIMILARITIES TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD
Chapter 8
The afternoon sun was shining down, hot and bright. The warm Bermuda sands were thick with bikini-clad tanned flesh, lounging in the heat. I was on a yacht, about fifty yards offshore, lounging on one of the deck chairs. A platinum blonde came up from below deck in a bikini I could almost see through and wasn’t covering very much anyway. Her long, silky hair danced in the warm breeze. Her body was a dizzying balance of fitness and curves. As she walked closer, her hips snaking from side to side with each step, I noticed she had a pitcher of some fruity drink in one hand and two bottles of sun tan lotion in the other. I could see I was going to need a whole bottle of lotion just for those legs. Then, she smiled and I didn’t notice anything else at all…until a door slammed.
I was awake. As I sat up slowly and lifted my private eye hat (standard issue) off my eyes, I saw that I was in my office. Damn. I realized the fingers of my left hand were tangled up in a slender gold chain. I looked in my hand and saw I was holding an amethyst heart. Whitney’s amethyst. Wasn’t I just dreaming about--?
“I’m back, Brick,” Jonni sang out with what I was coming to realize was a characteristic and possibly disturbing perkiness.
“And with such an entrance,” Harmony said.
“Swell,” I said. “Did I miss anything?”
“All quiet here,” Harmony said.
In front of me on my desk, the delicate pinging sounded again as the chatty plastic prize tried to get my attention. I looked at the gray screen.
“Is it saying something, Brick?” Harmony asked.
>Dream has been successfully recorded.
>Ready for replay in user-selectable format, described in text or archived for later retrieval.
“Oooh, I wanna see,” Jonni said excitedly, hurrying around my desk.
“You’re too young,” I said. “We’ll just archive that until I can figure out how to erase stuff.”
“Oh, poop!” Jonni said indignantly. “You been jewelry shopping? Or is that a clue? Looks fancy. Is it old and pricey?”
“Don’t worry about it,“ I said, shoving the pendant back into my shirt pocket.
“You do know that it’s glowi--”
“Didn’t I send you out for information?”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Jonni said. “Information I‘ve got.”
“Hallelujah. Spill it.”
“Well, we were hitting dead ends. We’ve still got nothing on SOC yet and it was looking pretty bleak with the pictures, too,“ she said, handing me a week-old newspaper, “until I found this one.”
“You found a newspaper in a newspaper building?” Harmony asked.
“How proud your parents must be,” I said.
“Just look at the picture on page 6, Grumpy,” Jonni said. “Her name is Sheila Taylor and she was found dead in her townhouse just over a week ago.”
“Ironic,” I said.
“How so?” Jonni asked.
“These photos of her,” I said. “These two were meeting in a cemetery.”
“Oooh, spooky,” Jonni said.
“So Mr. Taylor was the client that hired Lew for his last case,” Harmony began, “and Sheila Taylor was the wife he was following?”
“Well, she is in these photos with a guy we’ll assume wasn’t the client and, thus, not Mr. Taylor,” I said. “You find anything on him?”
“Sure did,” Jonni said, grabbing a doughnut. “His name’s Alex Gold.”
“Anything more than a name?” Harmony asked.
“That’s the funny part,” Jonni said.
“Make me laugh, blondie,” I told her.
“He’s dead, too.”
“OK, so Mrs. Taylor starts sneaking out on Mr. Taylor to spend time with Mr. Gold,” I said. “Mr. Taylor gets suspicious and gets Lew Manning to follow her around and get pictures. Mr. Taylor finds out what his Mrs. is up to and sends her and her friend off to wherever people go when they’re done with their bodies. Now Mr. is hunting Harmony down to recover any evidence that might link him to the whole sordid affair. Another mystery solved and the crowd goes freaking wild.”
“Except that there have been multiple people chasing me, Brick,” Harmony said. “It’s been days and I’m not sure if he’s even one of them. It looks like they have something to do with these SOC cards, though.”
“Well, maybe he’s part of a coven or something that’s getting messages through the cards,” I said. “There’s something supernatural going on when they’re going to keep coming at us through the hail of bullets, which reminds me: I’ve got to pick up a new order of bullets. If the husband’s still loose and looking for our Miss Storm, then we’ll assume the police didn’t see fit to detain him in connection with his wife’s demise. Maybe if we could check out Gold’s body, we could get something more on him. Where’d they find him, Jonni? How’d he die?”
“In a big, loud, fiery car wreck…three years ago,” Jonni told us.
“Yet he’s alive in pictures taken this month,” I said. “So, either those are fake, his death was faked, or someone was after some benefit derived from Gold still being above ground and hanging with Mrs. Taylor.”
“Which could also be a reanimation or an actor,” Harmony said.
“Notice how I‘m not laughing,” I said. “I remember this guy I had to track down once who used a magical disguise. It was one of those fake glasses, rubber nose and mustache things…but enchanted. It was the…Mantle of Proteus!”
“You think this might be that?” Harmony asked.
“Nah, it was unique as far as I know,” I said. “I was just reminding myself of how little amusement I usually get from magic. This is obviously going to take a little extra time. And apparently some leg work. And probably more bullets.”
“Sorry, boss,” Jonni said. “I didn’t mean to make things more complicated.”
“Story of my life. Excuse me a moment, ladies. I need to visit the euphemism. I‘ll try to resist the urge to flush this thing and be right back.” I slid the plastic square into my pocket as I stood, wondering if it might not put me out of my misery quickly. I tossed my private eye hat (standard issue) and private eye trench coat (standard issue) onto my desk and headed for the bathroom door in the corner of the room.
As I closed the door behind myself and reflexively reached for the light switch, I realized that the switch wasn’t where my hand usually found it. Or maybe it was as I slowly came to realize that the dimly lit room I was in wasn’t my bathroom, which meant that I was the one out of place. I saw a shelf a few feet away with a curious-looking statue on it. Walking toward it, I saw that it was three odd little men, carved from stone and squatting back-to-back-to-back. It didn’t look too comfy and…each one had a third eye in its forehead. There was a note taped to the shelf that read: Store for further study. Next to the statue were a lot of other random items that I guessed fell into the same category. There was a lead fountain pen, a crystal rabbit, an open pocket watch that was running backwards--
“We meet again, Mr. Stone,” a gravelly voice said from behind me.
I turned to see what appeared to be a tiger, walking upright and wearing a silk robe. I‘d been on this ride before. “How’ve you been, Tony? Still keeping the laughter in the slaughterhouse?” I asked the talking, pipe-smoking tiger.
“Tip-top, old chap. Flattered that you remember me.”
“You’re tough to forget, Tony.”
“To be sure,” he said. “I wanted you to meet some of my associates in the Cult--”
“--That Collects Weird Stuff, so you brought me to your…storeroom. I think I get it.”
“Admittedly, inauspicious,” Tony said, “but the Hall of Sacred Mysteries is reserved for devotees of our faith.”
“Like your friend there,” I said, giving a nod to the black-robed tiger behind him.
“Indeed. She is another of my tribe,” Tony said, “and Tillmaren,” he continued, drawing my attention to the dwarf at my knee who was holding a gnarled wooden staff that stood just taller than my waist.
“Good day, Mr. Stone,” the bearded dwarf said, bowing formally in his white and red robe. “I am the exalted wizard Tillmaren. If you’ve something for me to sign, I’ll give you an autograph at half-price, but do try to restrain yourself from fawning. It’s terribly undignified and quickly grows tiresome.”
“I…left my autograph book in my coat,” I said. “Darn. Next time.”
“Next time it will be full price,” Tillmaren warned.
“Mr. Stone,” Tony said, “you’ve opened the box.”
“Yeah, how--?”
“Tillmaren’s spells--”
“Divination is but a trifle for the great Tillmaren!” the dwarf proclaimed.
“Open,” Tony said, “it was traceable.”
“Right,” I said. “Alarms went off and you pulled me in. Swell. I hate to burst your bubble, but all that was in it was this.” I pulled the plastic square from my pocket and held it up to show them. It began to ping again.
>No, please!
>Don’t leave me here!
>Don’t leave me with them!
>Anywhere but here!
Well, how about that? I wasn‘t even going to try to guess. “Usually, when I get a lame prize out of a box, there’s at least cereal,“ I told them.
“You got that from the box?” the second tiger asked with a slightly higher gravelly voice than Tony.
“Right,” I responded.
“That’s all that came from it? Nothing else?” Tillmaren asked. “No casualties?”
“Hard to believe, I know,” I said. “I had to take a second look, too.” They started to talk in hushed tones amongst themselves. “I haven’t quite figured out what to make of it yet,” I offered. “It hasn’t shown me what makes it as dangerous as it’s supposed to be yet.” The mumbling grew more agitated and arms were waved. I saw Tony’s eyes glance my way.
I wasn’t sure I hadn’t overplayed my hand. Having sprung the secret surprise from the elusive treasure box, and shown them that I had it on me, they could have easily decided that I’d outlived my usefulness. They were probably debating what to do with the little plastic card, how many pieces to chop me into and whether I‘d go best with white or red wine.
“Mr. Stone,” Tony said, “you should go now.”
Tillmaren tapped the floor with his staff and a door began to creak open in what had appeared to be a dark wall. A bit of light showed through from beyond, displaying the outline of my exit.
“That’s it, huh?” I asked, watching the threesome extremely carefully.
“We’ll be in touch,” Tony said. “We have…issues of import to consider.”
“OK, then,” I said, heading for the door. “Enjoy your weird stuff. Thanks for having me over.” Stepping through the door, I really didn’t know where I was heading, but I figured it had to be a step up.
The door closed behind me as I stepped back into my office. Harmony was sitting at the newly revealed desk and suddenly noticed that I had returned. It looked like she had opened up a box of my old case files and was reading through a stack of them. “A little light reading?”
“Brick!” she blurted my name sharply, jumping a little bit in the chair. She was obviously startled. Then, I noticed her fidgeting with the pen in her hand.
“What’re you doing?” I asked, walking toward the desk for a closer look. “You find something interesting?”
“I-I…Well, I…”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I ran out of paper clips.”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked her, my eyes scanning the desk top. “There’s a pile right there. It looks like there are boxes of them.”
She grabbed at the little pile of twisted steel bits and lifted a bunch of them off the desk high enough to show me that they had been chained together. “You were gone and Jonni left and I was starting to get anxious waiting and…and…I started chaining them.”
“Till you ran out.”
“Yeah,” she said, “and then I had to find something else.”
“Did you consider unchaining them, perhaps?” I asked.
“That’s not the way it works, Brick,” she said, giving me a look that said I clearly didn’t understand the situation. “I started looking for things to read and I was trying really hard not to start tearing the paper into little pieces--”
“Thanks,” I said. “I remember the diner.”
“--but I kept noticing…the holes…”
“Holes?” I asked, looking at the page in front of her where I saw what she had been writing or, more accurately, scribbling. The page was still readable, but there was definitely a lot more ink on it than there was ever intended to be.
“In the letters,” she explained. “Next thing I knew, I had a pen and I was filling in all the holes. Every ‘O’, ‘P’, ‘R’--”
“I get it. I get it,” I assured her. “You OK?”
“Now, I guess. Where’ve you been?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how to answer that,” I said. “Somebody wanted a meeting.”
“You disappeared,” she said, walking toward me.
“Only for a few minutes.”
“No, you disappeared. I checked the bathroom.”
“Say, where’s Berlin?”
“In Germany,” she said. “Is that important?”
“Only to residents, I’d imagine. I meant, my new secretary. Where is she?”
“Oh, she went on to get started on your apartment,” Harmony said. “You’ve been gone over an hour. I was starting to get worried.”
“I must’ve hit a timeslip,” I said, “and I still need to pee.”
“Well…”
“Yeah, I’m not even trying this door again today,” I said. “It’s obviously not working right. I’ll wait for the next one.”
“OK,” Harmony said. “What’s our next move?”
“We go make some other people worry,” I told her. I tapped at the plastic square. It pinged back at me.
>Is it safe?
“Is it ever?” I asked it back. “File a reminder: we’re going to have a talk later.”
I shoved it back in my pocket as Harmony and I went for our hats and coats.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
16370--In Warm Blood (Ch. 8)
Happy Thursday. To help keep my own feet to the fire, I'm using Thursday as my public accountability day. That means, posting a bit of coherently creative output for you to read and feedback on every week. If I perform according to my own intent, what I put here will be available as a whole elsewhere at the same time or shortly after appearing here.
In Warm Blood is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series. Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it. For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.
“Well, Heaven?” Overknight probed of the very pale, vaguely Asian woman. “Anything to report?”
“Please, we’ve just met,” the morgue attendant said, coldness in her voice and her dark eyes.
I didn’t usually find the pretense of such formality lurking under pink-striped hair. People in clerical positions using customer needs to squeeze extra respect out of a situation, though, that I found a lot. She wasn’t picking up a bribe for doing her job, so I figured it was no big deal to give in on the formality thing.
“Our apologies, Miss Lee,” I said. “We’re really trying to put some pieces of a case together.”
“I understand,” the morgue attendant said from behind her clipboard. “It’s really a simple concept: you have your job and I have mine. At this point, mine is to say that I can‘t help you.”
“We really need to view that body,” Overknight insisted.
“And I can’t help you with that,” Lee firmly told us again.
“What’s the problem?” I asked her. ’Is there some form we need to fill out or--?”
“I can’t show you the body because it’s not here,” she explained. “It never was. I have a Jack Morgan, but no Heather. I’m even out of Jane Does.”
“You’re sure she’s dead?” Lee asked. “Lotsa folks in this town aren’t as dead as some folks think they are.”
“True,” I conceded, “the body counts do get a little tricky from time to time, but I put this one down myself. She wasn’t moving again under her own power.”
“Anyone else you might want to see that you think could help?” Lee asked.
“You got a weasel-looking guy named Grayson?” I asked Miss Lee.
“Yeah, he’s full of holes,” Lee said.
“That’s the one,” I confirmed. “We don’t need to see him. Glad he’s here, though.”
“But not as glad as if we could see the other,” Overknight said.
“Well, they should’ve all come in together,” I explained.
“So you’re maintaining that her absence means either someone carried her off or magicked her off?” Overknight asked.
“Pretty much, yeah.,” I replied. “I do know how to put holes in people.”
“Great,” morgue girl said, “are we done playing cher chez la femme here?”
“Here, yes,” I answered. “Thanks for your time, Miss Lee.”
“You may call me ‘Heaven’,” she said, sliding a business card into my shirt pocket. “I saw you in the newspapers. It looked like you’re into some wild stuff. You should call me.”
I sighed. It was like being haunted by myself.
“I might have a lead,” Homer said, coming into the morgue’s examining room.
“Do tell,” Overknight said.
“I just got off the phone with a friend over at Central Records,” Homer said. “We were having an informative chat about…the other lead…your sniper.”
“Stark White. Great,” I said. “We should talk about that in the car.”
In Warm Blood is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series. Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it. For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.
IN WARM BLOOD
Chapter 8
I was almost starting to enjoy having been saddled with an entourage, probably because my escorts had become distinctively useful. Without them I would’ve had to bribe my way into the morgue or wait till Monday to check on Heather Morgan’s body. On top of that, I wouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get access to the medical examiner’s report and, if that ended up being inconclusive, any of the findings of the supplemental examinations that were determined to be warranted. How hard it would be to get the supplemental reports could depend on a lot of factors, from the weather to the time of the month or what kind of mood any of the examiners (psychic, alchemist, wizard) happened to be in that day. I probably wouldn’t even have to bribe the night morgue attendant, who I was pretty sure was one of the undead vampire minions of the medical examiner. It was almost refreshing to have the kiddie cops removing obstacles rather than being obstacles.“Well, Heaven?” Overknight probed of the very pale, vaguely Asian woman. “Anything to report?”
“Please, we’ve just met,” the morgue attendant said, coldness in her voice and her dark eyes.
I didn’t usually find the pretense of such formality lurking under pink-striped hair. People in clerical positions using customer needs to squeeze extra respect out of a situation, though, that I found a lot. She wasn’t picking up a bribe for doing her job, so I figured it was no big deal to give in on the formality thing.
“Our apologies, Miss Lee,” I said. “We’re really trying to put some pieces of a case together.”
“I understand,” the morgue attendant said from behind her clipboard. “It’s really a simple concept: you have your job and I have mine. At this point, mine is to say that I can‘t help you.”
“We really need to view that body,” Overknight insisted.
“And I can’t help you with that,” Lee firmly told us again.
“What’s the problem?” I asked her. ’Is there some form we need to fill out or--?”
“I can’t show you the body because it’s not here,” she explained. “It never was. I have a Jack Morgan, but no Heather. I’m even out of Jane Does.”
“You’re sure she’s dead?” Lee asked. “Lotsa folks in this town aren’t as dead as some folks think they are.”
“True,” I conceded, “the body counts do get a little tricky from time to time, but I put this one down myself. She wasn’t moving again under her own power.”
“Anyone else you might want to see that you think could help?” Lee asked.
“You got a weasel-looking guy named Grayson?” I asked Miss Lee.
“Yeah, he’s full of holes,” Lee said.
“That’s the one,” I confirmed. “We don’t need to see him. Glad he’s here, though.”
“But not as glad as if we could see the other,” Overknight said.
“Well, they should’ve all come in together,” I explained.
“So you’re maintaining that her absence means either someone carried her off or magicked her off?” Overknight asked.
“Pretty much, yeah.,” I replied. “I do know how to put holes in people.”
“Great,” morgue girl said, “are we done playing cher chez la femme here?”
“Here, yes,” I answered. “Thanks for your time, Miss Lee.”
“You may call me ‘Heaven’,” she said, sliding a business card into my shirt pocket. “I saw you in the newspapers. It looked like you’re into some wild stuff. You should call me.”
I sighed. It was like being haunted by myself.
“I might have a lead,” Homer said, coming into the morgue’s examining room.
“Do tell,” Overknight said.
“I just got off the phone with a friend over at Central Records,” Homer said. “We were having an informative chat about…the other lead…your sniper.”
“Stark White. Great,” I said. “We should talk about that in the car.”
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