by EH Walter
Chapter 2: Bloody Men are like Bloody Buses
I blinked. Was I still asleep? A cold breeze coming through the window reassured me I was awake. I clung on to the windowsill to steady myself as I may have been conscious, but my head wasn't quite one hundred per cent yet. Especially since some weirdo had just asked for my help in dealing with fairies. Tinkerbell? The tooth fairy?
A car blared past and the strange little man jumped and skittered into the shadows again. A moment later his head peered out into the light, there were those strange little horn on his head again - they looked a little like those devil horns on a headband that you could buy in costume shops. Perhaps I had been asleep for two weeks and it was Halloween already, or this guy really just couldn't read a calendar.
He had a curious face, his twitching nose drew most of my attention - it was as if he was constantly sniffing the air. His face was a pale brown under the light and held a shiny glow.
"Can I come in?" he bleated, "the fairies, they have people everywhere. It's not safe."
"Hold on," I said, "Are you some kind of homophobe?"
"Huh?"
"All this talk of fairies, look - it's not very PC."
"But they're mean. Can I come in? If I stay out here any longer one of them will get me."
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna let some random stranger into my flat."
His shoulders curved in and he nibbled at his finger nails. "I was told you help people."
"Who told you that?"
"Your dad."
I grunted. Typical dad, trying to interfere with my life again. Through the years I had been the care-giver to many of his charity cases from taking in stray animals to feeding the homeless of Barnet. "What did he tell you?"
"He said you were the one I need, the one who could help me."
I sighed. "Okay, I'll buzz you in."
"What?" his eyebrows arched into a triangle.
I shook my head in despair. "Come to the door and I'll open it."
The man stood in my living room slash kitchen and looked around. Because it was a small flat I was uncomfortably close to him. He smelt of... berries. Berries and wood smoke. I had gestured to the sofa for him to sit down but he was too busy peering into every nook and cranny, handling all my photographs, books and knick knacks.
"This is it?" he asked, "I expected something... roomier."
"What did you expect - the Ritz?" I responded as I wrenched my mother's photograph out of his hands and reset it on the book shelf so she could look down at me again.
"Where am I going to sleep?"
"Whoa, hold it buddy. I haven't agreed to anything. I'm still not sure what you want."
"Protection."
"Look, you're going to have to sit down and explain this properly. It's the middle of the night and my brain is not exactly functioning at full capacity here."
He sat on the sofa closest to the window and bounced on it as if it was a new experience to him. A smile lit up his face and the anxiety disappeared for the first time. Then he put his hooves up on the coffee table. Yes - his hooves.
I reached for the Christmas bottle of Bailey's and an old bottle of Polish wine from the back of the cupboard, the only alcohol in the flat, and poured myself a mug full before sitting on the other sofa. I kept the bottles beside me so I could keep on topping myself up. The little man looked at me for a second as if about to ask me if I was going to share and then he saw the frown on my face and thought again.
"Start from the beginning." I commanded in my don't-give-me-any-shit voice.
He drummed his fingers together in thought. "I was born in..."
"No you clutz! The beginning of your trouble with... with the fairies." I almost choked on the word I felt so foolish saying it.
He pursed his lips together. Under the light of the living room I could see him much more clearly. His skin was the colour of London clay, his eyes a startling green and it looked like he had ringed them with black eyeliner. On his chin and above his lip was the faintest trace of a fluffy goatee beard. I hate goatee beards, I just don't get them - I mean, either grow a beard or don't.
"I... I'm in deep," he said, his voice wobbled, "and I didn't know where to turn. You see - it started with small things, stealing food and reclaiming teeth that hadn't been put under pillows - small stuff. They know your weaknesses those fairies - they know everything - they're everywhere!"
I smiled in what I hoped was a soothing-don't-knife-me-you-weirdo way. The warmth of the Bailey's flooding my system helped. I was definitely beginning to feel a little more mellow. "Okay," I said, "you were what - a flunky?"
"I don't know what a flunky is. I was their servant - that was a mistake, I didn't mean to enter indenture - but the fae are tricky, I always heard never enter into a bargain with a fairy and I should've listened! They get you on the smallest technicality."
"They sound like lawyers."
"I kept getting asked to do more and more complicated jobs, stuff I wasn't happy with but there was no way I could refuse, I was getting in deeper and deeper. I'm scared."
My throat produced something halfway between a cough and a laugh. "You're scared of fairies!"
His green eyes met mine and I was shocked by the terror within them. It almost shocked me sober. Almost.
"You don't understand," he went on, "if you want something done in my world, anything, you go to the fairies. They are the... fixers. They can get anything done. Except they don't like getting their hands dirty so they out-source the jobs. That and they have a few problems with modern technology."
Oh great, the fairy mafia.
"You did a job for them?" I asked shaking the last drops of Polish wine into my mug.
"Many jobs, but never before one so - dangerous. You see they've never had a client so powerful as this man. I didn't want to do it but I had no choice, they had me by the horns."
I glanced up at the aforementioned horns. Oh yes, they did seem to be rather attached to his head after all. I took another swig. Who cared if the guy had horns and hooves - we weren't all perfect after all! I had dated worse in my time - you wouldn't believe how much photos lie on Internet dating sites. "Go on."
"I did this job - I had no choice and... and it's all gone wrong. I wasn't meant to live. And now there's a hit out on me."
I'm not sure when I fell unconscious but I woke up on the sofa when the early morning sunshine fell across my face. I was twisted in on myself, my head resting on my hand and a pool of drool puddling on the arm of the sofa. Attractive. I blinked and tried to get up. I regretted it instantly - someone was playing a set of steel drums inside my head. The weird dreams of the night before tried to edge their way into my consciousness, but I wasn't really interested. I closed my eyes as a smell began to register on me. I sniffed. Eggs. Eggs and something...
Blearily I turned to the kitchen area of the living room slash kitchen and saw the man from my dream dressed in a cat apron holding a frying pan. My frying pan. My cat apron.
"Oh f..." I muttered.
"Breakfast" he said holding up the frying pan. Some kind of eggs had been made into an omelette. My basil and chilli plants had been left untouched but my peace lily looked as if it had gone ten rounds with an untamed kitten. Bits of the peace lily were now infused into the egg mixture.
My stomach felt like a swirling pit of cream curdled in alcohol - oh yes, that's right, so it should.
Memories of the previous night began to dribble back into my brain. If the subject of those memories had not been standing in my kitchen, wearing my apron and holding my frying pan aloft I would have thought them to be dreams.
My bloody father. It was his fault. He'd found me another of his charity cases. Except this one was a man with goat hooves, horns popping out between tufts of his wavy brown hair and seemed to think peace lilies were a food source.
"Do you want breakfast?" He asked.
I shook my head before I ran to the bathroom to evacua
te the alcoholic poison from my guts. Stomach empty and body showered I went to the bedroom to dress only to find the goat man had found somewhere to sleep last night after all - my bed. The bed looked like a dog had slept in it, it was trodden into an oval and littered with hair. The room even smelt like a stable. With an angry groan I pulled off the sheets, threw them onto the floor and bundled them up. I took the linen through to the living room slash kitchen some time later to see the man sitting on my sofa, hooves up on the coffee table and eating a plate of peace lily omelette. The television remote was in his hand and he was flicking through the television channels before settling on Jeremy Kyle.
"This is too much," I said throwing the linen down by the washing machine and reaching for my car keys.
"Whilst you're out," the goat man said without turning his head from Jeremy Kyle, "could you buy salt - I notice you don't have any."
"It's not healthy!" I muttered angrily before storming out and slamming the door behind me. I wanted to give my father a piece of my mind - saddling me with this weirdo. Unfortunately my father did not possess a mobile phone so I couldn't call him and shout at him. I didn't even know where he lived - he turned up in my life when he felt like it. Damn him!
I drove like a typical Londoner the short distance to Cockfosters, I wouldn't let anyone in and I sat right behind the other traffic. I was in a foul mood and needed space. Since my personal space, ie my flat, had been invaded my only other option was my office.
My mood wasn't improved when I was stuck in traffic alongside a bus. It wasn't the bus that was the problem, it was what was on it. A large banner poster was pasted across the side - a new film release, the second movie in an action trilogy. On the poster was a man in a white shirt, ripped to show his gleaming and muscular chest, holding a gun. A size zero blonde was curling up against his side, pouting out at all of London, her figure airbrushed into Barbie perfection. I hated her instantly and felt a jealousy that was irrational and no longer mine to feel.
It's a bit weird seeing your ex-boyfriend go past on the side of a red double-decker bus. He didn't need airbrushing to look good although it looked like they'd had a go anyway.
Jeremy Flynt, my erstwhile boyfriend and now a Hollywood star. Jeremy Flynt. Jez to me. Jiz to his friends when drunk. You could say Jez was the one person in my drama school cohort who really made it, although Sabrine did quite well with that recurring role as a druggie on Casualty. It really wasn't fair that you couldn't get over an ex because his face, gorgeous as it was, happened to be plastered everywhere. I hadn't dared watch the first film for the feelings it might dredge up, although there had been a period of one fortnight where it seemed like Film 4 was conspiring to make me watch it by showing it daily in different time slots.
I parked in the empty car park behind my office building, slammed the door and marched off. Then I realised I hadn't locked it and marched back to do so. It gave me enough time to calm down a little.
In the ground floor reception area a familiar figure was working his way across the floor.
"Alright Reggie?" I asked of the man operating the floor polisher. He ignored me. As usual. I never got one single word out of him and I'd never seen him do anything other than hoover and polish the floors. I tell you - we have the shiniest surfaces this side of the Strictly Come Dancing set.
As I entered the PI offices Rose's head peered out from behind a large pot plant, a pair of pruning shears were in her hand. With the other hand she picked up her glasses which dangled on a cord around her neck and pushed her glasses back on her nose. She stared at me.
"Any messages?" I asked as I sorted through the post which sat in a tray on her desk. Mostly bills and circulars by the looks of it.
"We're out of biscuits. I'll need to go and buy some. I've been waiting for you to come in so the phones wouldn't be unmanned."
"Yes," I said, "it wouldn't do to turn on the answer machine. It couldn't handle the weight of calls we get."
Sarcasm was wasted on Rose.
"I'll go get the biscuits then," she said as she picked up her coat and slid it on to her skinny frame, "any requests?"
"Bohemian Rhapsody?"
She blinked blankly. "Custard creams it is. I'll need some money."
I reached into my pocket for my purse and opened the coin section. Rose stared at me until I closed that and opened the note section. She was happy with a fiver. I suppose it was the least I could do - keep her in biscuits - it's not like I paid her a wage or anything and I didn't want to lose her to the Oxfam. Who else would I find who could turn my offices into a garden centre and deal with such a hefty weight of calls and filing?
In my office I got out a blank notebook and tried to record what the goat man had told me. I wrote everything I could think of in swirls across the page. The more I wrote the more I feared for my sanity. Seriously - the guy had hooves and horns? Fairies are real? I tried to eliminate the impossible - for in the words of the great Sherlock Holmes, whatever remained - however improbable - must be the truth. The problem was - fairies were impossible. I knew they were impossible, weird things like that just couldn't exist. However, despite that, there was a goat man staying in my flat and eating my peace lily. And no matter what - he had asked for my help.
I abandoned the offices and drove back to my flat. I had barely been gone forty minutes but that had been long enough for me to think clearly. I had to treat this man like any other client and deal with his case as I would any other. If he couldn't pay me, I'd sting my dad for it as it was his fault I'd gotten involved.
A strange sight met me as I re-entered my flat. The goat man had discovered the Wii fit and was engaged in an on-the-spot jog. The wii remote was tucked into his baggy black trousers and his hooves were wearing a bald spot into my carpet.
"Did you get the salt?" he asked mid-jog.
"Okay mister," I said, "sit down and listen."
He turned around and blinked. "Are you going to help me?"
"I'm going to take your case and treat it like any other."
He smiled and as he did so I realised he looked like a child, very young and innocent.
"Okay buddy sit down and let's start at the beginning - and no - I don't mean with your birth."
I slung my jacket on the back of the sofa and emptied my pockets, purse, keys and phone, onto the coffee table before sitting down. I reached for a pad of paper and a pen.
"Right - describe the people who you think have arranged for the hit on you."
"Well, they're not really people."
"For the sake of my sanity we're going to call them people - okay?" I pressed a curling corner of a sheet of paper flat with my thumb.
"Very well... they're little people - it's hard to tell what they really look like as they are given to enchantments and trickery. They can move through the air on wings, they look like dragonfly wings - but bigger. And they shimmer. Most people only notice them as a blur of light, they never see the true fairy and they are so rare these days many don't even see that."
"Rare?"
"You might call them an endangered species."
"Why?"
"They started dying out in the iron age." he said with a shrug as if it was a fact everyone knew.
"Why?"
He looked at me like I was an idiot. "Because of the iron, of course. They are allergic to iron."
I scribbled on my pad 'iron allergy'. "Okay, go on."
"The fairy who got me involved was called Ymir. He did me a favour when I was younger, but of course it wasn't a favour and I was too young to know better. His job is to lure people in with favours and then they are the slaves of the fae for life - there is no way out. The favour I owed him got sold on and being around fairies you get tricked into more things, before I knew it I owed debts to many of the fae. Then they started calling them in."
"What can you tell me about this Ymir?"
He scrunched up his nose. "He's little... an
d shiny... and his name is Ymir. And he's mean. Really mean."
I sighed. "How will they find you? Are you safe here?"
He shrugged and glanced nervously at the window. "I really do wish you'd bought that salt," he said, "I'd feel a lot safer."
"They don't like salt?"
"No, if you spill it or throw it at them they have to sit and count every grain - it's the only way to slow an attack. They really do have very vicious teeth you know."
I repressed a shiver. "Okay, I'll get some salt. Is there any way we can tell if they are coming?"
He shook his head. "They might have called in a favour, it could be anyone." He gave a little shiver and then a sob. He pulled his green kerchief off his neck and blew into it loudly, "I don't want to die!" he said plaintively, "I'm only young!"
Awkwardly I patted his hand. "There, there."
"I need a protector, a body guard. Will you find one for me?"
"A bodyguard?"
"There's only one type of creature that would never get involved with the fae, they hate them. Trolls. I need a troll."
Oh of course he did. A troll. I had to find him a troll. A troll!
Just then my phone rang on the coffee table. The goat man reached it before me and answered it before I could whip it out of his hand.
"Hello?" he bleated, nodded and then held it out to me, "it's for you."
Well, durr - it was my phone! I ripped it out of his hand and held it to my ear. "Hello," I said tersely, "Paranormal Investigations Leo speaking, how can I help you?"
"Leo?" said a voice like chocolate and I melted whilst simultaneously feeling as if I had been punched in the stomach.
"Oh, hello Jez," I said quietly.