Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  I didn’t have my own bathroom. Hence the chamber pot. I picked it up and opened the door to the waiting room and almost bumped into a woman. She was standing there, caught out, like she’d just changed her mind about knocking but hadn’t gotten away fast enough.

  It was Linda Rosemary.

  She was wrapped up in the same set of sensible clothes she’d been wearing the other night: red overcoat, houndstooth scarf and a black, woolen beret off to one side. The first time I’d seen her, it was night and she was covered in snow. I hadn’t noticed how tired and broken everything was. On her hands she wore thick, black gloves that favored warmth over dexterity, and there was a flush in her cheeks that complimented the mist coming out of her mouth. Her eyes fell on the cold block of ice I was holding out between us.

  “You making coffee?”

  I lifted up the pot, attempting to hide the contents.

  “Yesterday’s. It’s gone bad.”

  She wrinkled up her nose. “Smells like piss.”

  My embarrassed smile revealed the truth in her statement. We both stood there for a second with awkward expressions stuck on our faces.

  “You… want to come in?”

  She took a long, painful beat. Her eyes wandered from my face to the chamber pot to the office behind me. My bed was still down from the wall, unmade. There were dirty glasses on the desk and a trail of ants passing crumbs across the floor. I’m not sure what they’d found because I hadn’t had a meal at home in weeks.

  Linda stood rigid with indecision, like when you try to feed a wild animal from your fingers and it has to fight against all its natural instincts if it wants to take the food. Eventually she said, “What the hell,” to herself and stepped inside.

  She limped a little as she entered, then wiped down the clients’ chair with a handkerchief. I ran around behind her, stuffing dirty underwear and tissues into my pockets.

  “After the other night,” she said, “I asked around—”

  “One moment.”

  The Angel door was behind my desk. A remnant of the old days when the world was magic and a few lucky souls might arrive at your house by a set of wings instead of the stairs. I pulled it open and the wind hit me in the face like a hired goon collecting on a loan. I put the chamber pot out on the porch, wiped my hands on my coat and closed the door again. When I turned around, Linda’s face was full of regret.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I rarely have guests so early.”

  She pulled a pocket watch out of her overcoat.

  “But it’s—”

  “I’m sure it is. How’s the leg?”

  “Stitched up like a sailcloth. How’s your face?”

  “I think there’s still some of it stuck under your fingernails. Isn’t it fashionable to file those things down?”

  She unwrapped the scarf from around her neck.

  “I detest that custom. Werecats only trim their claws when they’re around other species. My ancestors made their home in the icy hills of Weir. We had our own kingdom. Our own rules. Now that the Coda killed all that, I’ve been forced to come here.”

  I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering. Her skin was smooth, and every movement she made was graceful. Her teeth, though she barely showed them, all seemed to be accounted for.

  “If you don’t mind me saying, Miss Rosemary, you came out of the Coda pretty darn well.”

  It wasn’t exactly a compliment and, from her expression, she didn’t take it as one.

  “My sister died halfway through the transformation with her brain trying to be two different sizes at once. My father’s face was inside out. He lived for a week, silent, being fed through a straw till something in him snapped. There were twenty of us in our house. I cared for all of them, for as long as I could, till I was the only one left. I walked away from my home and eventually ended up here. I know that I’m one of the lucky ones, Mr Phillips, but I’m sorry if you don’t find me jumping for joy.”

  There was a long pause as she let her story sink in to my thick skull. Outside, the wind picked up. The chamber pot scraped along the porch and slid off. A few seconds later, there was a clang down below and someone shouted a few obscenities to the sky.

  Her expression never changed. When all was quiet, she continued.

  “After the other night, I asked around about you. Heard some interesting stories.”

  “Really? Nobody has ever accused me of being interesting.”

  Not exactly true. The story of the Human who escaped the walls of Weatherly to join the Opus does have a few exciting moments. Not quite as juicy as the sequel, when that same kid handed the most prized magical secrets over to the Human Army. Then there’s the big finale, when the Humans used those secrets to drain the world of magic.

  “I’ve been trying to work out what it is you do,” she said. “You’re not a detective. Not a bodyguard. Then someone told me that you investigate rumors of returning magic.”

  I flinched.

  “I don’t know who told you that, but they’re wrong.”

  That rumor wasn’t just wrong, it was dangerous. Everybody knew that the magic was over and there wasn’t any way to bring it back. My job might be a strange one, but I certainly didn’t go around selling pipe dreams to dying creatures like she’d tried to do with the Unicorn horn.

  “Apparently you found a Vampire a few months ago,” she continued. “A professor who managed to find his strength again.”

  I wanted to lie, but the shock on my face had already given me away. Nobody was supposed to know about Professor Rye, the Vampire who turned himself into a monster, and nobody was supposed to come knocking at my door looking for answers.

  “Not exactly.”

  “I heard that the Vampire found a way to turn back the clock. He unlocked his old power and you’re the one who tracked him down and discovered how he did it. You know a secret that the rest of the world would kill for,” she put her hands on my desk, tapping her claws against the woodwork, “and I want to know what it is.”

  My body tensed. The determined look on her face had hardened and, I have to admit, she scared me.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”

  We stared each other down and I hoped I wasn’t going to have to fight her. Then, I realized that it wasn’t hostility in her eyes. Not quite. It was something closer to desperation.

  “I’m not here to cause you problems, Mr Phillips. I’m here to hire you. Whatever you know. Whatever you found out. I want you to use that information to make me strong again.”

  I sat back in my chair, happy that I didn’t have to fight off a vengeful feline, but stumped about how to explain myself.

  “Miss Rosemary, that’s not what I do.”

  “Well, why the hell not? What are you saving up all your energy for? Helping little old Elven ladies cross the street? I want to be whole again, and I don’t know who else I can ask for help.”

  I growled into my mouth and shook my head.

  “It wasn’t magic that came back into the Vamp. It was something else. He gave in to the same temptation you’re feeling right now, and it destroyed him. I hate this new world as much as you do, but there’s no going back. You got out of it better than most. Hold onto that, and be thankful.”

  She curled her fingertips, scraping eight little lines into the desktop, then lifted one hand up to her face.

  “This isn’t me. Your kind killed me. Everything I was and everything I had. I am not this person. In this place.” She looked around, disgusted with where she’d found herself. “What even is this place?” A tear rolled down her cheek and the trail it left behind turned to ice. “You don’t understand anything, Mr Phillips. Not a thing.”

  I tried to bite my tongue but after years of exercise it had learned to fight back.

  “I know the magic isn’t coming back. I know that when people try, it gets them killed. Move on, Miss Rosemary. Find something else to look forward to.”

  She looked like she was about to rip out my throat.
Back in the old days, perhaps she would have. My soft Human flesh wouldn’t have stood a chance against a Lycum like her. But that strength was gone. It had vanished the moment the sacred river turned to glass. Instead, she picked up her scarf, got to her feet and walked to the door.

  She looked at the sign that was painted on the window: Man for Hire. She read it out loud to herself, rolling the words around inside her flushed cheeks.

  “Man,” she said, wrinkling up her nose. “I see what you’re going for. You’re a Human. You’re male. I’m sure it made sense to you. But look at how you live. Listen to the way you talk.” She didn’t bother turning to look at me, she just stared at the pane of glass and tried to break it with her eyes. “You’re a boy, Fetch Phillips. A stupid boy, playing with things that aren’t yours. Put them down before you hurt yourself.”

  Then she was gone.

  I looked for a bottle to wash her words out of my head. What did she know? She just wanted to be strong and she hated me for standing in her way. What was I supposed to do? Lie to her? Pretend I could go out on some quest and come back with magic that would make her whole? It was impossible. The magic was gone and the sooner we all accepted that, the better.

  Ring.

  I picked up the phone and heard the weary voice of Sergeant Richie Kites. There was some kind of commotion happening behind him, but he kept his words to a whisper.

  “Fetch, can you get over to the Bluebird Lounge, up on Canvas Street? Simms wants your opinion on something.”

  That was a first. Usually the cops tried to kick me out of crime scenes, not call me over so I could take a peek.

  “Sure. Why the invitation?”

  Richie whispered into the receiver. “We got a dead guy here with a hole in his head, and it wasn’t done with any weapon we know about. I don’t know what to tell you, Fetch. To me, it looks like magic.”

  3

  I was having the kind of day that wasn’t supposed to happen. Beautiful women didn’t come knocking at my door before noon, cops didn’t call me up to ask my opinion, and nobody blasted anyone else with any kind of magic. Not anymore.

  The Bluebird Lounge was a Human-only members’ club on Canvas Street in the inner west; a two-story granite building without any signage out front.

  The entire Sunder City Police Department was crowded around the entrance. Usually, you were lucky to see more than a couple of cops at a crime scene. In our new, dark world, even murder had become mundane. So it was strange that these police were acting all excited instead of sad and half-asleep. Again and again, this day was different.

  Sergeant Richie Kites stood by himself, leaning against the granite. His heavy Half-Ogre body looked like it could push the whole place over.

  “What’s going on, Rich? You cops so lonely you have to travel in one giant pack these days?”

  He shook his head, obviously annoyed by the crowd.

  “When they heard the story, every asshole made an excuse to come on down and take a peek. Come inside. You’ll see why.”

  Richie led the way, waving off another cop who tried to protest my arrival.

  “He’s got clearance. Special request from Simms.”

  I was just as confused as the cop but I tried not to show it. Some part of me suspected I was being lured into a trap and they were all about to force my hand onto a murder weapon and frame me for the crime. That seemed more likely than them asking me for help.

  The walls inside the Bluebird were covered in wooden tiles with white marble inlay. It was a warren of narrow hallways that led to small, private rooms for two to six people. Everybody was whispering. The staff, cops and other “specialists” hovered in alcoves already working on the rumors that would soon take to the streets. The crowd was bigger at the end of the hall and I followed Richie into the room that was getting the most attention.

  The booth could barely accommodate two velvet seats and a square, black marble table. There was one empty glass and another half-full, held by the man sitting on the other side. He was impeccably dressed in a three-piece woolen suit with a blue cravat and pocket square. His fingers, wrists and neck were wrapped in garish gold jewelry. His hair was plastered back with shiny product and his eyebrows were groomed into narrow arcs. He must have been quite handsome before someone opened up his face.

  One of his cheeks was ripped apart, revealing the bottom row of teeth all the way back to the molars. His fingers were curled in tight hooks, one hand around the glass, the other at his side. The blood had pooled on his jacket above his collar bone, overflowed, and cascaded down his chest. His eyes were open, frozen in shock, and the whites were red and wet.

  He was only a dead man. Far from the first, and unlikely to be the last. Even so, there was something peculiar about him. Something more unsettling than the blood or the ripped flesh or the rigor mortis. I was still trying to work out what it was when I heard a voice that sizzled like water hitting hot coals.

  “It happened in an instant,” said Detective Simms as she sidled up behind me. “Look at the shock on his face. He didn’t even let go of his drink.”

  She was right. Death, as we know it now, is slow. You get sick or too old or too cold, then you cling onto life for as long as you can until the darkness takes you away. Maybe someone beats you in an alley or you get stabbed in the gut and stumble around till your heart stops singing, but even then, you have time to take it in. This guy looked like he was halfway through a story when a bomb went off at the back of his throat.

  It was just as she said: instant.

  Detective Simms was rugged up in a thick coat, wide-brimmed hat and black scarf. It was the same outfit she wore all year round. Her yellow Reptilian eyes poked out from the dark material and, for a change, they weren’t filled with disdain and loathing. Instead, they were asking me for answers.

  “Anything you’ve seen before?”

  I looked down at the cold body and then back to her, still confused about the whole situation and why I’d been brought in to share my non-existent expertise.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  The Detective came in close.

  “Fetch, we know what you’re doing.”

  “Really? Could you tell me?”

  “You’re looking for ways to bring the magic back.”

  “I don’t know who’s been—”

  “Shhh. We’ll talk about that another time. For now, I just want to know what kind of magic could have killed this guy in this way.”

  There was no point arguing. Not here. And the answer was obvious: no kind of magic, because there is no magic and everybody knows that. But, since my role had been explained so clearly, it would have been rude for me not to play along.

  First, I focused on the face. That’s where the story was being told. His mouth was open in two ways. First, at the front, the way you’d expect it to. Four teeth were missing. Two at the top and two at the bottom. The closest ones to the gap were all pushed back suggesting that the blast had gone into his mouth from the front. The second opening was through his cheek, jaw and even some of his neck. His lips were still together on the left side but the cheek was shredded, hanging open, and the back of his throat was a muddled mass of flesh.

  Blood was splattered on the back wall like a celebration. A light spray covered all corners of the room but the reddest spot was right behind his head. There was blood on the table too. Less. Like he’d sneezed it out.

  So, what happened?

  I drew up a little mental checklist and tried to tick things off. Could it have been done with a weapon? Not a blade; the wound was too much of a mess. Anyone wielding a blunt weapon, like a baton or blackjack, would have brought it down on his head or the side of his face, not stabbed it through his mouth. Besides, it would have needed to be fired from a ballista to do this kind of damage.

  I ran my mind through all the creatures I knew; those that had claws and talons, horns and tusks. I suppose it would be possible to strike quickly, so that your victim never saw it coming, but
you’d need more than sharp fingernails to blow open a man’s face.

  A projectile? There was no bolt or arrow to be seen and, again, it was too messy. Besides, if the person you’re drinking with pulls a crossbow out their pocket, you’d have to be tougher than a Dragon’s dentist not to let go of your cocktail glass.

  I got inches away from the horror-show and saw that part of the victim’s collar was black and broken. Burned. On the table, between the blood and cutlery, there was a spattering of fine gray powder. Ash.

  “Did either of them have a pipe?” I asked Simms.

  “Can’t smoke in here. The host would have known.”

  My list was getting frustratingly short. The only thing left was the impossible. So, I said the thing I knew they wanted me to say.

  “Somebody summoned fire.”

  Simms nodded to confirm that she’d come to the same conclusion, but her expression told me something else. She was shocked, yes. She was scared. But beneath all of that, she was excited. In her old, golden snake-eyes, I saw the giddy expectation of a young girl ready for adventure.

  That terrified me more than anything.

  “Let’s find somewhere quiet for a chat,” she said.

  We went into another room, away from prying eyes and ears. Simms sat in a booth, I sat opposite, and Richie stood in the doorway to keep watch.

  The Detective unwrapped her scarf and let it fall over her shoulders. Her lips were cracked. The bottom one was bleeding and she licked it with the tip of her forked tongue. Usually, Simms was rigid with authority and impatience. Today, she sat back in the booth and picked at the edge of the table as if she was waiting for an idea to fall into her head. Eventually, I was the one to get the conversation started.

  “Who is he?”

  Her head snapped up like I’d woken her out of a dream.

  “Lance Niles,” she said. “New to the city. He’s been sniffing around town, buying up property and making friends. Nobody knows much about him but he has plenty of money and already owns a lot of land.”

  That explained the jewelry on the corpse. Since the Coda, not many locals go around wearing polished stones or expensive suits.