Bloodbath

by Stephanie Ahn

  He trails off into half-coherent stutters, wringing his hands. Then he sighs, putting his face in his hands. “Okay, fine. I wasn’t exactly… listening to everything the Powers lady was telling me. If I had been, maybe I would have taken the case, and then when Jenny came to me I might have already had information to work off of, and then maybe I’d have an actual lead by now. Maybe.” He works his jaw from side to side. “Look, I—I can’t go back to Tricia. I know I should, but I’ve already wasted so much of her time and got nothing to show for it. I can’t go back and ask for a second chance with empty hands. Can we please just work together on this? I’ll apologize to her face-to-face after we’ve found her kid, I swear on my life.”

  I shrug helplessly. “Hold yourself to your own promises, dude. I’m just here to do my job.”

  The click of the bathroom door opening, and a wet sniff—Dick jumps and slams the freezer door on my hand. The door bounces back open while I clutch my hand and spit curses, making Jenny blink perplexedly at both of us from the bathroom doorway.

  “Oh, um. Did something happen? Are you okay?” she says.

  “Yeah, I’m—” I grit my teeth, forcing myself to clench and flex my injured hand. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine. Little accident with the freezer door.” I narrow my eyes at Dick.

  Jenny puts a hand to her mouth. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, you’re here to help find David and you got hurt—sorry, here, there’s cupcakes in the freezer, you can each have one—”

  She sweeps around the kitchenette like a particularly athletic breeze, neatly extracting two frozen cupcakes from the freezer and rushing them over to a cabinet against the wall. She gets out two Tupperware containers—Tupperware containers shaped like cupcakes. Cupcake containers. Containers meant specifically for the storage of individual cupcakes. I stare in bafflement as she sticks one cupcake into each Tupperware, then holds them out to Dick and me.

  Dick immediately takes his. I slip mine into my coat, where it leaves a slight bulge.

  “Thanks, doll,” Dick says to Jenny, beaming. She beams back, albeit blearily.

  “Anything for a good friend,” she says.

  Dick’s face kind of twitches at that. Oh, Dick. You absolute dick. She has a fiancé.

  “I think we’re done looking around here,” he says, cheery smile a bit stiff on his lips. “Come on Henry—”

  “Harry.”

  “—Harry, I’ll show you the route David was supposed to take back home from work. Jenny, remember you can call me anytime, if you ever have a problem, any kind of emergency—”

  Something in my head slides, then clicks into place.

  Left for emergency. Back soon.

  -Joy

  I stand, frozen as my heart plunges into my stomach. Dick says something to me; I don’t hear it. The clean walls of the apartment seem to draw inward, turning the air thick and stale. I open my mouth, lick my dry lips.

  “I… I’ll be back,” I hear myself say.

  I swing around and run for the door.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Technomancy

  I call Joy’s phone over and over again on the way to her apartment. It rings forever and eventually goes to voicemail. I leave a message asking her to please call me, please let me know you’re okay as I take the stairs up to her apartment three at a time.

  It could be nothing, I tell myself. Just your brain making connections in the wrong places. It’s a trauma response. It happens. The past isn’t doomed to repeat itself. It’s nothing.

  The scribbled sign is still on her door. I nearly fall over in front of it, bracing myself on my knees as I try to catch my breath. My heart is trying to push itself up my throat with every beat. My midsection hurts, like I’m trying to throw up on an empty stomach. I jab the doorbell. There’s a muffled chime, and I press my ear to the pitch-black crack between the doorframe and the door. Nothing. No Joy-like grumbling, no footsteps muffled by plush carpets. Just… nothing.

  I glance furtively around me and see only the stark, impersonal hallway. I reach into my coat, still keeping my ears open for footsteps or opening doors, and pull out my set of dubiously mangled paperclips that I like to pretend are real lockpicks. I bend slightly, shadowing the lock with my form as I pick it by feel.

  One of the tumblers is being stubborn. I bend further, squinting even though I can’t see inside the damn lock anyway. It’s stuck, and my hands keep shaking and I can’t get the stupid homemade pick to stop skidding off the tumbler—wait. I think I’ve got it. Just stop shaking, steady, push up, right there…

  Click!

  “Hallelujah,” I mutter under my breath as I grab the handle.

  “Hello?” says a hushed voice.

  I whip around and shove myself backward against the doorknob. Even through my coat, the doorknob and protruding picks dig mercilessly into my back, where I apparently have another bruise. Gods fucking dammit, Lilith. I give a pained grin.

  “Uh. Hi.”

  The woman in front of me cocks her head like a puzzled golden retriever. She narrows her eyes at me through messy, silver blunt bangs, leaning forward—okay, maybe a drug-sniffing golden retriever. I keep up my innocent façade, cringing inwardly. She looks young, definitely younger than I am. She’s short in stature, like Joy, but unlike Joy she’s plump with full, apple-round cheeks and thickset legs. Her top half is draped in an oversized, mustard-yellow raincoat, but one of the sleeves is flapping empty; underneath, her arm is in a cast, held up by a sling over her shoulder. She’s also wearing a choker of some kind, made of colorful braided strings like a friendship bracelet.

  Suddenly her eyes widen, and her face lights up.

  “Oh, I know you! I’ve seen you come by here before!” There’s a childlike sense of Aha! shining through her eyes. Even when she’s excited, there’s a whispery rasp to her voice, like part of the volume is bleeding away through a rip in the fabric of reality. “Are you a client? Or Joy’s friend?”

  “Uh, a friend. Sometimes client. Mostly friend.”

  She grins at that—but then her lips twist to the side, and her brows knit together. “You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you? I’ve been calling and texting her all day but she won’t respond…”

  I shrug, using the movement to discreetly lean away from the doorknob. Sweet, blessed relief. “Same here, unfortunately. Hey, uh, how do you know her?”

  “I’m a client. Was a client, actually. She stopped taking money from me.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because I—” She goes silent for a moment, a bit of light fading from her eyes. Whatever it is, she shakes it off in a moment, sticking her hand out at the same time. “Anyway, I’m Nikki.”

  It’s too obvious a deflection to be suspicious. I’ll respect it for now. “Harry,” I respond, shaking her hand and giving what’s hopefully my most friendly smile. “So, what’s the reason you’re here?”

  “I always visit Joy on Fridays. Just to talk and stuff. I also feed her.” She holds up a plastic shopping bag. “You?”

  I fumble to get out my phone and show her the string of texts between Joy and me. She giggles at the picture of Joy threatening my wallet.

  “Yeah, that sounds like her,” Nikki laughs. She peeks around me at the door. “Is it open?”

  “Apparently.” I surreptitiously pocket the lockpicks as I turn around. I twist the door handle, and the door swings open. Something washes over Nikki’s face, turning its sandy brown hue green and sickly.

  “It shouldn’t open. Joy wouldn’t have forgotten to lock her door. Something—something’s wrong.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” The half-lie rolls easily off my tongue, and for a moment I question if I’m really a good person. I open the door all the way and step inside.

  There’s nothing immediately off about Joy’s apartment. It looks exactly as it did when I was last here, just messier. The curtains around her kitchenette and bedroom are open, revealing the pristine little domestic spaces that clash with t
he rest of the apartment’s interior.

  See? my brain chastises itself. Nothing wrong. Nothing’s wrong.

  Nikki comes in behind me, taking nervous, slight steps that make no sound. She tilts her head at the fairy tapestry on the wall. “Doesn’t Joy usually take that down when she’s out of town?” she says.

  “She does, actually. She either takes it with her or locks it in a trunk.” I study Nikki closely. “How did you know that?”

  “She went to Philly for some kind of convention two weeks back. Yarnfest Palooza or something. She left me her keys and asked me to water her plants.”

  I glance at the pots filled with green shoots and leaves by the windows, then back at the tapestry.

  “Huh. You’re right, that is strange. The note makes it sound like she’ll be gone a while, or at least that she doesn’t know when she’ll be back. But she left the tapestry on the wall…” I step forward, rounding the table where I sat less than a day ago.

  CRUNCH.

  I look down and see wickedly sharp, gleaming shards of glass curving out from beneath my feet. When I raise my shoe, smaller pieces are stuck to the sole. It’s like the moment all three pictures of a slot machine line up—Sound. Image. Sensation.

  The remains of a porcelain teapot crunch under my boots.

  I look up, because that’s what I’m supposed to do next. Because I’ve lived this before.

  Sheer curtains snap over the open windows, rippling the afternoon sunlight. Follow the streams of light, under the table. Black blood oozes, reaching out to me, an invitation. Come see, it says. Come see what’s left of her. I crawl on my hands and knees, glimpse the dull shine of a silk robe. Reach toward it—touch matted, coal black hair—

  “Isn’t that Joy’s crystal ball?”

  The memory takes its sweet time letting me go. I don’t know where I am. My eyes won’t focus; I don’t remember how to make them focus. I can’t feel the floor under my feet.

  The blurry image of Nikki’s face fills my vision. There’s a delay between when her lips move and when her voice reaches my ears. “…Hello? Oh crap—are you okay? Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

  Her arm, the one not in the cast, is hovering indecisively against mine. When I turn my palm over, it’s like I’m watching a movie in first person—but she flinches just as my fingertips graze her sleeve. That flinch is what gets me.

  “I’m fine,” I say, forcing the lie into truth. The walls are still spinning and my lungs ache with emptiness; I suck in a quick breath between my teeth. “I’m fine, don’t worry. I’m fine.”

  The memory laughs as it retreats.

  I shake my head quickly, grounding myself in the motion. I look up to see Nikki now at arm’s length, still looking concerned but seemingly unwilling to come closer. “You said your name is Harry, right?” she says, furrowing her brow. “Is that short for something?”

  “Yeah, Harrietta.”

  Something unreadable passes before her eyes. “Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god, oh my god—” She frantically unzips her huge raincoat and roots around an inner pocket, of which she has many, all seemingly slapped together on short notice with mismatched patches of colorfully patterned fabric. I feel a sort of kinship with her for that. She finds what she was looking for, a pale yellow Post-it note that’s been folded in half. The adhesive bit sticks to her fingers as she holds it out to me.

  “It’s from Joy,” she explains. “We were eating together a week ago when she had a vision. You know when her face gets all scrunched up and she starts listening to stuff you can’t hear?”

  “Uh—yeah, I know about that.” She knows about Joy’s magic? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Joy is as cautious as I am when it comes to keeping her abilities secret. As in, she’s not cautious at all.

  “So she was listening to something, and then she wrote this down and told me to give it to someone named Harrietta when I met them. Met you.”

  I take the Post-it from her, gingerly in case she flinches again, and finds a message written in Joy’s unmistakable scrawly handwriting.

  Check her phone. Now.

  “What does it say?” Nikki asks, tiptoeing to get a look.

  “I need to check your phone, apparently,” I say, showing her the note. “May I?”

  There’s a moment of paralyzed hesitation.

  “…Nikki?”

  “It’s important, I know. If Joy said so, it must be.” There’s that greenish tinge in her face again. She reaches into her coat, hesitates. “It’s just—look, about why Joy won’t let me pay her anymore—” Her lower lip trembles.

  “Hey,” I say as softly as I can, “it’s okay, it’s alright. Let’s sit down, okay?”

  I pull out one of the upholstered chairs at the round table for her, and she sinks into it. I take the seat opposite from her—belatedly, I realize it’s Joy’s usual seat, with her tapestry behind my head. The room looks different from this perspective. Joy’s perspective, I guess.

  Nikki pulls her stringy hair back from her face. “Sorry, I’m just—I’m not good with people looking through my stuff. It kind of brings back bad memories. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s perfectly fine. You just watched me freak out over a bad memory too. Do you… want to talk about it?” Nikki looks crestfallen. “It’s okay if you don’t want to,” I amend hastily.

  “No, it’s okay. It really is. It’s just… well… my last boyfriend, he was… he stole my stuff a lot. Looked through my texts and accused me of sleeping around, and—and—” Nikki is making little twitching gestures with her hand, like she’s trying to explain something she can’t wrap her words around. “…He’s the one who gave me this,” she finishes quietly, indicating her cast.

  Now it’s my turn to be crestfallen. “Oh man, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. It’s been almost seven weeks, and I’m getting the cast off on Monday. Can’t wait.” She smiles a little and weakly wiggles her fingers. “That’s what I meant, about not paying Joy anymore. I had a proper appointment the first time we met, but when she found out why I wanted her advice, she stopped charging me. She let me come over anytime, even in the middle of the night, and we talked more than I think I’ve ever talked with anyone in my life—but she never told me to leave him. I think she knew from experience it wouldn’t work.”

  I nod. I only know snippets of Joy’s childhood, but with the way she talks about her dad, its not hard to put the pieces together. “Are you still with him?”

  “Nah. The night my arm happened, I told him I was going to the hospital whether he liked it or not, ‘cause otherwise we wouldn’t make rent—I’m a comic artist, and I was making most of our money.” Her nose wrinkles. “Stupid freeloader. Anyway, he followed me to the hospital, but I slipped a note to a nurse asking her to call my family. Same nurse kept him distracted while two of my sisters dragged me out the door, and we stopped at my old apartment just long enough to pack my laptop and some clothes. I’m crashing at my sisters’ place now. He keeps sending gross messages to me online, but I really need my social media to get freelance gigs, so there’s not much I can do about that. I got back in contact with Joy. Got my life kinda-sorta back together… end of story, I guess.” She attempts a nonchalant shrug, but it comes out lopsided. She turns away slightly, avoiding my eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. I guess I’m just used to talking when I’m here. With Joy. She’s easy to talk to.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  We sit in silence for a bit. Nikki fidgets with her choker. I try not to be obtrusive. Eventually, she looks up.

  “Can I see the sticky note again?”

  I hand it to her. Her eyes scan its contents, going back and forth a few times. Then she reaches into one of her parka pockets.

  “If Joy says you need to check my phone, then you need to check my phone. And if she trusts you, I trust her, so I trust you too. I think.” She seems to be half talking to me, half reassuring herself. She holds out her phone. �
�Here.”

  I thank her and lay it flat on the table so she can see exactly what I’m doing. It’s housed in a practical thick rubber casing, but there’s a long, jagged crack running diagonally across the screen. I flip through her apps, check her calls and texts. She’s got a string of messages between herself and Joy that’s a week old; in it, Nikki asks Joy what she wants to eat for dinner. Joy reprimands her for trying to baby her, then promptly declares a craving for pupusas. I have to smile at that. But otherwise, nothing catches my eye.

  I push out my lower lip to one side and think, tapping the phone with my finger. “Hey, Nikki. You mind if I take this to a friend? She’s good with technology, and I think she can figure out what Joy wanted us to see.”

  “Oh, um, sure. Can I come with you?”

  “Yeah, yeah of course. It’s your phone.”

  We make our way out of the apartment, carefully avoiding the broken glass on the floor, then close the door behind us and walk side by side down the hall. Nikki turns to me.

  “What’s your friend’s name? Is she a witch like you?”

  “It’s kind of complicated, she—” My voice sticks in my throat. “Wait, I never told you I was a witch.”

  Nikki looks more embarrassed than anything. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were trying to hide it. Just, you’re Joy’s friend, you’re wearing a long black coat with a bunch of lumps in the pockets, you’re like, six feet tall, and you have that funky scar on your neck…”

  “Oh, right. I guess that might have given it away.” I can feel the tips of my ears turning bright pink. I face forward and stride on, trying to salvage at least a little grace from the situation. “But like I said, my friend—her name’s Isabella, and yeah, she’s a witch too. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

  ***

  “Izzy!” I shout as the apartment door slides open, grinning and throwing my arms up.

  “Harry,” Isabella replies, giving me a wry twist of her eyebrows. The expression is only enhanced by the high, sharp bridge of her nose leading down to narrow, pursed lips. She leans back in her wheelchair and raises the takeout food carton in her hand, opening her mouth to say something sarcastic—then she sees tiny Nikki beside me. She blinks, and breaks into a warm smile. “Hey there.” She turns back to me, and her face is droll again. “I assume you need my help with something electronic?”