Ian Tregillis - Something More Than Night

by Ian Tregillis

  The mugg I’d seen before. He was the dull little monkey I’d pegged for the job opening in the Choir, before his sister went and hurled herself under that train. I wondered how things might have been different now if I’d collared the hard boy. He couldn’t possibly have been more trouble than the little sister.

  The dish, I gathered, was a PI recipient my partner had taken under her wing. Talk about a mother-hen complex.

  Molly looked relieved to see me. That was a first, and it didn’t bode well.

  “What’s the score, angel?” I asked.

  “The Cherubim came for Anne.” She nodded toward the dish. “They were riding penitentes, just as you said.”

  Cherubim? I blinked. “Can’t help but notice you’re still in one piece.”

  “Barely.”

  “Where are they? Our friends with the hot faces.”

  “They’re gone. For now.”

  “What, they went for a powder?”

  “No,” she said. It wasn’t a boast and it wasn’t false modesty. She seemed too bushed for either. Weary as somebody who’d just fought two Cherubim to a standstill. Who, I wondered for the hundredth time, was this crazy dame?

  I whistled. “Not too shabby.” She swayed on her feet, like a tree in high winds. “You okay, kid?”

  She cast a glance at the moping couple. Were they an item? They shared a body language that fairly jangled with wariness when they looked at flametop.

  What had they witnessed? Had she shed her human disguise and given them an eyeful of the blazing form she’d unveiled in my hotel room? Well, they weren’t gibbering loons, and so far METATRON hadn’t reared its incorporeal head for another tongue lashing. Whatever she’d done here, flametop had managed to keep a lid on it.

  “I’m tired as hell,” said Molly. “I’m tired of all this shit.”

  “You look like you haven’t slept since Teapot Dome. Dangle, why don’t you. Take a breather.”

  “I can’t. Not yet. I need to check on the others.”

  “You can do that after you’ve caught some z’s.”

  She shook her head. Stubborn frail. “I need you to protect Anne until I return.”

  I could see she’d made up her mind. By now I knew the futility of arguing with her. I relented. She gathered a swirling eddy of dust in the cup of her hand, breathed on it, then blew it in my face. I inhaled knowledge of the dish’s home. Then she made the introductions.

  “Anne, this is Bayliss.”

  I tipped my hat. “How’s tricks?”

  The dish looked amused. Or confused. Maybe both. “Who is he?”

  “Bayliss is, um, sort of a coworker. I guess.”

  “I like to think of myself as a mentor. A font of wisdom and experience.”

  The dish—Anne—said, “You guys … work … together?”

  “Sort of,” said Molly.

  I said, “Partners in crime,” and winked. Mine is a charming wink. Anne thought so. It broke the ice.

  “Bayliss will take you home. He’s annoying, and he’s a sexist pig at times. Otherwise, he’s okay.”

  “Careful, doll. You’ll give me a big head.”

  Anne looked me over. Apparently finding the bus fare acceptable, she gave a little shrug. Then she jerked her head toward the cokie and raised her eyebrows. I don’t know what the question was, but Molly’s answer was, “Yeah.”

  Flametop spoke to me with a quiet fervor. “Do not leave her side. First sign of trouble, you bolt.” She started to glow again. “Keep her safe. Got it?”

  “Yes, I got it.”

  Molly said, “I’ll catch up quick as I can.”

  I offered my arm to the dish named Anne. “Let’s blow, sister.”

  * * *

  “I thought you were dead. I saw…” Martin’s sunken eyes overflowed with tears. “I’m so confused.”

  “Shhh, shhh.” Molly put her arms around him, careful that her halo didn’t burn him. “I know. You’re not crazy.” He hadn’t showered in a couple of days, but nothing dodgy laced the musky scent of his sweat. “Hey, you must have known I’d always watch over you. Right?”

  “Why didn’t you come to me? Call me? Send me a note?”

  “Because you saw me fall.” She hugged him tighter. “I thought the shock of seeing me again would be too much.”

  “You didn’t think being alone was worse?”

  “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

  He wiped the tears away, looked her up and down. “God, Moll. You look … you look like nothing happened.” He frowned. “What did happen?”

  She took his face in her hands. “That is a super long conversation. I promise we’ll have it. Soon. But not now.” She went up on her toes, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the forehead. It was a greeting and an apology, but not a benediction. “Love you, big brother.”

  He reached for her. “You can’t go now.”

  “Really, really have to.” She lifted Martin’s hand from her shoulder and gently pulled free. Anne was safe for the moment. But what of the others?

  “But you’ll come back? Promise me.”

  “I promise, you goon.” That made him smile. “But you can do something for me while I’m out.”

  “Yeah?” The look on Martin’s face was so earnest, so puppyish, she wanted to hug him again.

  “Get a job.” And then he was crying and laughing at the same time, because clearly, clearly, this really was his sister. Molly blew him a kiss and backed into the shadows.

  * * *

  Her hot little hand warmed the crook of my arm. A hummingbird pulse fluttered in the hollow of her throat. I had to put her at ease before she squiffed out; I’d never hear the end from flametop otherwise.

  “I’ll have you home in two shakes.” I laid a fingertip on the bridge of her eyeglasses. “Might want to close your eyes, though.” I wasn’t keen to watch this frail shoot her cookies.

  She closed her eyes. She opened her eyes.

  “Hold on,” she said. “Can we go anywhere at all?”

  “You hungry? I know a joint.”

  “Can we?”

  I sighed. “Our mutual friend’ll be doing figure eights if I don’t get you home sooner than later. She’ll blow a gasket if we lam off. Trust me, I’ve seen it.”

  This she met with a sly grin. I got the sense she was a fellow witness to flametop’s sharper edges. She fixed me with the moon eyes until I caved. Never let it be said I’m immune to the charms of a helpless skirt.

  “Okay, okay, just lay off, sister. One side trip. Let’s keep it snappy. And no funny business.”

  “I’ve never been to France,” she said.

  “I know just the place,” I said. “Hold tight.”

  * * *

  Molly went first to check on Thui Nguyen.

  The modest campus of her community college should have been full of students in the middle of the afternoon. It shouldn’t have been ringed with police cars, ambulances, and flashing lights. But it was. Hordes of tearful bystanders thronged the barricades of yellow tape. The scene reminded Molly of the night she died. She tasted blood on the air, and the shattered-jam-jar tingle of anxiety.

  Unseen and unheard, Molly drifted through the chaos, eavesdropping on the chatter between the cops and their incident commander. The campus was under lockdown. A student had stood up in the middle of a history lecture, whipped out a fléchette gun, and unzipped half a dozen classmates. Plus their instructor.

  Eyewitness accounts were sketchy, fragmentary, confused. He’d been a nice kid, they said. It just wasn’t like him at all, they said. All agreed, though, the shooter was a penitente.

  Molly didn’t realize she’d lost her concentration until a stranger put an arm around her, offered a shoulder to catch her tears. She used it.

  * * *

  We shared a paper bag of roasted walnuts on the bank of the Seine, watching the tour boats drift downstream while behind us the pealing of Notre Dame’s bourdon bell shook the island with an E-flat.

  She
leaned close, yelling to make herself heard over the ruckus. Her breath tickled my ear. “This is amazing!”

  “Aw, this is nothing. You should see this place on a winter’s night, with prayer and snow and soft candlelight.”

  She laughed. “Was that poetry?”

  “It rhymed.”

  Anne treated me to that smile again. She reached over and rummaged among the last walnuts. It was warm inside the bag. Our fingers touched.

  I glanced up at my pal the gargoyle. He stuck his tongue at me. I took it as encouragement.

  “I know a shop nearby. How are you for French wines?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t drink wine?”

  “Only on special occasions.”

  “Like this?”

  “Like this.”

  * * *

  Most days, Wendy Bavin took her lunch at one of the many shops just a few blocks from her downtown office. She was part of the lunchtime crowd that had threatened to overwhelm Molly on her first excursion to Chicago.

  Most days, she navigated the traffic without incident. Most days, an illegally modified car didn’t override the traffic signals and plow through a crosswalk.

  Today was not most days. Four people died, including Wendy Bavin. Nobody saw the driver.

  * * *

  “I mean it now. Enough horsing around.”

  My head spun. I’d forgotten just how much I enjoyed a good French red now and then. Anne did, too, judging from the unsteady rhythm of her shoes on the narrow stairs. She stumbled. I caught most of her, but fumbled the laughter. It cascaded down the stairs. The body and the laughter made a matching set, warm and soft.

  She coaxed her key into the lock on the third or fourth try. The lock was a good sport and didn’t make a peep about the scratches. The door eased inward when she slumped against it. I helped her to her feet before she wound up sprawled facedown halfway inside her digs.

  Anne collected her rumpled dignity like a milkmaid gathering her skirts. In a voice thick with wine and affected sobriety, she said, “I promise to lock the door behind me. You can listen for it.”

  “Sorry, doll. Flametop will give me another swift poke in the kisser if I let you out of my sight.”

  “Pffff.” She retreated, beckoned me to enter. I did. Ducky little place she had.

  I closed the door, tossed the dead bolt and the chain. “I’ll keep watch while you—”

  I didn’t finish because my back was pressed against the door and her lips were pressed against mine. Likewise that soft, warm body. The lips tasted of wine. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed a good French red now and then.

  We leaned against the door, chewing each other’s flushed faces. This jane was more fun than Violet. She knew how to get down to brass tacks. Knew how to use her tongue, too. I guess she also enjoyed a good French red now and then.

  * * *

  Another member of Santorelli’s parish died on the steps of a payday loan service. He’d been mugged, then stabbed, according to witnesses. His blood stained the sidewalk. Molly knew that if anybody bothered to investigate, they’d find a smattering of sterile blood mixed with the victim’s.

  * * *

  We graduated from necking to fumbling. But she was stewed to the hat. Maybe I was, too, but I’m no tomcat. Poor Bayliss, always tripping over his tattered pride.

  I took her by the elbows, gently pushed her away. She fixed me with a devilish grin, thinking that I was thinking about backing her into a mattress. Maybe I was. Ignoring the invitation in her coquettishly fluttered eyelashes, I shook my head.

  “Ease off, doll,” I said. “You’re piffled.”

  “What a gentleman.” Her tone spoke volumes about what she thought of gentlemen at that moment.

  “It’s a character flaw.”

  “Yeah, it is,” she said, and made for the bedroom. Alone. I imagined wisps of smoke eddying in her wake, wafting from the ashes of her ardor.

  * * *

  A smattering of random tragedies afflicted random strangers all on the same random afternoon. And there were no survivors. Before evening fell, all the people whose nightmares Molly had banished were dead.

  She had failed to protect them. All her effort for nothing. The moment she was too preoccupied to protect them … dead.

  * * *

  Night had wrestled with evening, and won, by the time flametop showed her coppery mop. She didn’t barge in by riding the shadows beneath the door. She knocked like a woman who’d been raised well. I tossed the lock and let her in.

  “They’re all dead,” she said. “Those bastards killed every goddamned one of them.”

  Her hair fluttered in the updraft from her rage. Floorboards darkened beneath her feet. She needed to take a breather before she torched the joint.

  “Take it easy, angel. Tell it to me straight.”

  But she didn’t. Instead, she looked around the ducky apartment. “Where’s Anne?”

  “Relax. Your hotcha librarian is sleeping one off.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I told her about our little misadventure, the walnuts and the wine and the fumbling. The more I spoke the more flametop looked fit to lay an egg, so I kept it short. The searing heiligenschein faded out. She sniffled hard enough to eject a tear.

  I said, “You’re looking glum, chum.” But she didn’t rise to the bait, so I asked, “You taking the night shift?”

  “Fine.” Faint, that voice, as though from a very deep well. Dames.

  I let myself out.

  * * *

  Molly spent the night sitting by the window, watching the empty street below. She had too many things to think about. Murders; conspiracies; the nature of reality. The way her misguided attempts to help those poor people had led to their deaths. But all she could picture was Anne and Bayliss pressed against the door with their faces mashed together. More than once she contemplated leaving, letting Anne fend for herself.

  Here Molly had thought she was the one keeping an unconscionable secret. What the fuck, Anne?

  Anne came tromping down from the bedroom loft about an hour after sunrise.

  “You’re back,” she said. It didn’t come with the slow, wide grin like the last time she awoke to find Molly there. She held the greeting at arm’s length. “That’s good. We need to have a long talk.”

  “Yeah, we do. How’d you enjoy Paris?”

  Anne frowned. “Huh?”

  “Bayliss told me about your side trip.”

  “Look. I just woke up, I didn’t have any dinner, and I haven’t had any coffee yet. And I was already hella confused when I went to bed. All I know is that one minute we were having lunch at the library and then the next minute we were in fucking Minneapolis,” Anne said. She shuffled to the kitchen, opened the coffeemaker, and flung yesterday’s grounds into the composter pail. “Oh, and then I met your brother. Who seems to believe that you died months ago.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Molly. “I guess neither one of us has been completely honest with the other.”

  Anne dropped the coffee carafe in the sink. “How dare you accuse me of lying.”

  “I don’t blame you for rethinking how you feel about me in light of yesterday. I honestly don’t. But throwing yourself at Bayliss? That’s a slap in the face.”

  “Wait. You think—eeeeew.”

  The disgust was genuine. So was Molly’s confusion. “You guys didn’t make out?”

  Anne’s face twisted up. “What? Jesus! Shit, no!”

  “He said—”

  “Where do you get off? I resent the implication that I don’t understand my own orientation.”

  “He said you went to Paris, where you guys got tipsy on wine. And that you made a heavy pass at him.”

  Anne looked ill. “Paris?” She shook her head. Her whole body. “Even if I did like boys, which I don’t, he’s like a hundred years old. And he smells weird. Like cigarettes mixed with rose petals and old books.”

 
Molly couldn’t understand what she was hearing. “But Bayliss said—”

  “I don’t care what he said. We came straight here. No Paris, no wine, no tonsil hockey. We sat here all afternoon and evening until I got so bored with his second-rate Philip Marlowe act that I went to bed.”

  This was the truth; Molly felt it in her bones. Anne didn’t go for men; Molly knew this. But Bayliss had been so matter of fact about it … What a strange thing to lie about. He must have made a pass at Anne, got shot down hard, and then lied to assuage his wounded chauvinist pride.

  Molly raised her hands, palm out. “Anne? I’m genuinely sorry. I apologize.”

  Anne finished with the coffeemaker. She crossed her arms, leaning against the counter while the machine gurgled.

  “Now that the important stuff is straightened out”—Molly winced—“I’d kinda like to know who those guys were and why we were running from them. But first, just out of curiosity, why does your brother think you’re dead?”

  Here it comes. Inhaled breath hissed through Molly’s teeth. “Promise not to freak out?”

  Anne blinked. Twice. Took a step back. “Oh my God.”

  Molly reached for her, but thought better of it because she couldn’t handle the sight of Anne flinching away again. “I’m still the person you met. I’m still the person I told you I was. I’m just … a little more than that.”

  Molly struggled but failed to find the words that would ease an incipient spiritual crisis. Anne stared at her for the space of several heartbeats. Finally, she breathed, “This is so fucking cool.”

  If she weren’t already dead, the whiplash might have killed Molly. “What?”

  “Are you kidding? This is the coolest thing in the world.” Anne paced, driven into motion by the steam pressure of ideas boiling within. “There is an afterlife, and it’s not my parents’ fucked-up homophobic cry-fest.” She paused. Frowned. “You’re not, like, a demon or something. Are you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Didn’t think so.” Anne scratched her chin. “Wow. Just, wow. So we really do continue after we die.”

  “Uh…”

  Molly didn’t want to talk or even think about that. She was the only human to continue after death, inevitably isolated from other people by the simple fact of death. The afterlife was a vacuum. A burst balloon. Thinking about it made her dizzy, so she didn’t. Not right now.