by Jessica King
Ivy stood above the dead body of the King. He was covered in blood and dirt, and her arms flailed as she tried to wipe his blood off of her.
Ivy screamed at his dead body, heat building against her face behind the restriction of her mask. She screamed at the hands that had killed her mother. That had killed so many people. That had shot her partner. That had tried to shoot her. He was the reason over two thousand people had died in recent weeks. The reason the Kingsmen had almost gotten a foothold in Europe. She screamed at him again and kicked at the dirt to avoid the urge to kick him. He wasn’t there anymore. He wouldn’t feel it.
Ivy reached into her pocket and pulled out her own business card. They were meant to give them to people if they wanted to see her bodycam footage after she’d arrested them, but this felt like the most important use of her personal card she could imagine. She threw it down, and it settled on his stomach. She dug her heel into the dirt and ran back to Vince.
Vince, who claimed he’d never felt better despite the paleness of pain in his face and the purple bruise forming on his hip, was being helped up by another officer, and masked EMTs were moving Loraine, whose real name was Cleo according to the driver’s license they’d found. She was in bad shape, but she’d be okay.
Lindsey filmed Ivy but didn’t ask any questions, which she nearly thanked the other woman for. Instead, she got footage of Ivy sitting on the apartment steps, her elbows on her knees and her head bowed forward. Exhausted and quietly crying.
+++
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 7:45 p.m.
Ivy was still in her police gear when her father joined her at her mother’s headstone. She told him to stand away from her, so they ended up standing in front of two stranger’s graves instead of her mother’s. But she was worried she might have some leftover virus germs from traveling and didn’t want to risk getting too close.
Ivy sometimes felt guilty when she returned to visit her mother. When she was young, visiting her mother’s grave had been a weekly ritual, and oftentimes she was the enforcer of that ritual. Instead, she’d clutched to the pink binder of “clues” she believed would lead her to her mother’s killer and threw a tantrum if he wanted to skip a week of visiting the graveyard.
She’d called him in the car, still doused in waves of adrenaline.
“You found him?”
“I killed him,” she said.
She didn’t discuss the more gruesome parts of her job often, especially with her father and Sandra. There were pieces of police work that made normal civilians squeamish.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, and they stared at her name on the headstone. Bethany Hart 1975—2005 Beloved Mother and Wife. It wasn’t much of a line, Ivy thought. She’d begun thinking so when she was early in her teen years. Her headstone only told people who she was to other people. Surely, her mother had been much more than that title.
She once taped a piece of paper to the headstone that she had covered in facts about her mother. Her job, the sports she played in high school, her favorite color, her favorite foods, and movies and songs. It still hadn’t seemed like enough to really summarize who she’d been, but it was at least closer. The paper had been ripped off by the wind shortly after because when she’d returned a week later, it was long gone, and she was left trying to scrape off a stuck piece of tape from the polished stone, apologizing under her breath about probably leaving a scratch on it.
“Were you scared?” her father asked. “To kill him?”
“No,” she said. It sounded cold, but a horrible piece of her had been happy to see him dead. His face would be passed around the internet, a weak, vulnerable man just like anyone else. It’d likely take some time, but the following would die out without an ordained number two to take over.
Her father cleared his throat, and she laced her fingers together. How did he feel hearing that his only daughter had no problem pulling the trigger on a living human being?
“Thank you,” he finally said. His voice wobbled, balancing at the edge of a cliff.
“Yeah,” Ivy said. Her voice was breathless, lost in a gust of wind. As if the weather had known what today would bring, it was one of the few cloudy days in California, turning the sky a bleak white gray.
“Sandra has dinner,” he said. “Do you want to come? You can sit in the living room if you’re worried about spacing.”
“I got some stuff at home,” she lied. She knew Sandra would try to cheer her up after a day of confronting and killing her mother’s murderer, and she didn’t feel she had enough light left in her for the day to pretend that it was working. Her father nodded and left, his business suit a slash of darkness against the light gray of the sky.
When his car had rolled out of sight, she sat down. She wasn’t sure if that was allowed in graveyards, but she was also a cop, so it was unlikely anyone would say anything. She let her shoulders drop and wondered if she looked like a gravestone herself, her shoulders slumped, her head dropped, looking at the ground. Her fingers picked at the grass childishly, and she broke the grass apart into tiny pieces of green. The smell of the freshly broken blades and the sticky feeling it left on her fingers grounded her.
She didn’t have to whisper things to the gravestone like some people might. She used to talk to the headstone like maybe it would warm for yes and get cold for no, but as she got older, she realized such things didn’t happen. Instead, she imagined the adrenaline leaking out of her skin and fingertips, running into the ground like water.
Finally, safe for the first time since she’d found her name on the website. Drained of energy and the need to push forward and exhausted from travel and time difference, she fell asleep sitting cross-legged on the ground, her elbows perched on the grass in front of her.
When she woke, it was to a bright light shining in the dark of night. She’d managed to fall onto her side, one half of her covered in grass, a piece of her hair tangled in a twig.
“How did I know I’d find you here?” said Vince, who plopped onto the ground next to her, as though sitting in graveyards was a normal activity of his.
“You should sit ten feet away,” Ivy said, her mask uncomfortable and hot from wearing it for so long.
“Eh, I got a mask, and I mean, I guess we’ll know in five minutes if one of us gets the other sick.”
It was a fair point. If anyone was sick, they knew in the approximate five minutes it took to feel the symptoms.
“Sup, Mrs. H,” Vince said, nodding toward the gravestone. Apparently, Vince was one of those people who still took to talking to gravestones. “You okay?” he asked Ivy.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m good.”
Vince nodded. “You chose a weird place for a nap.”
She shoved him and allowed herself to laugh beneath the mask. “I’m starving,” she said.
“I have takeout in the car,” Vince said. “Restaurants are only doing takeout now. They’re scared to let people in.”
“That’s insane,” Ivy said, returning to pick at the patch of grass she’d nearly destroyed earlier.
“In-N-Out still has milkshakes, so I think we’ll make it.”
Ivy stood, her body tired and aching, and stretched. She checked her phone. She’d missed a call from Cassiopeia and clicked the button to return the call.
“Hello?”
“Cassiopeia, did you call?”
“Yes,” she said. She hesitated. “I have something to tell you about someone you have in custody?” she said it like a question.
“I’m not far from you,” Ivy said. “Vince and I will come to yours.”
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 9:45 p.m.
Ivy stepped over a cat and found a large fish tank that had not been at the old house, as well as a new, rather large and exotic-looking lizard and a chinchilla.
“More gifts from the Prophetess followers?” Vince asked, poking a finger through one of the wire gaps in the chinchilla’s cage. It appeared entirely uninterested in Vince.
Cassiope
ia huffed out a sigh. “Ugh, yes,” she said. Several Prophetess followers who wanted to be part of the L.A. coven were under a misguided impression that they were supposed to give their “magical mentor” a gift of a live animal, landing Cassiopeia with a slew of new pets. “Are either you interested in adopting a lizard?” she asked. “He’s the only one who freaks me out,” she said. “I’m looking for good homes for all of them.”
Ivy laughed. “I’m afraid I’m a dog person.”
Cassiopeia nodded. “If they’d all been cats, I don’t think I’d be having this problem.”
She led them to the kitchen and offered them each a glass of lemonade. “So, what did you mean on the phone?” Ivy asked. Considering the fact that they’d all been together for longer than five minutes, Ivy and Vince decided they were okay to take off the masks long enough to drink their lemonade.
Cassiopeia nodded. “Right. So, Jeremiah Ethan is not a Kingsmen,” she said.
Ivy set down her glass too loudly on the counter. “Sorry?”
Cassiopeia smiled a bit at her shock. “Exactly. Ah, he was helping us?” she said it like her words were questions, but she nodded along with her statements. “At first he didn’t like witches, but he found out his mother was in a witching line and would be killed. When he had the chance to be a ‘Kingsman’ and run the site,” she said, putting air quotes around Kingsman, “he used that as a way to suppress the recruiting algorithm. There were only two or three Kingsmen running around instead of hundreds.”
Vince pointed at Cassiopeia as if to expand on her point. “There was a sudden explosion of new Kingsmen after we put him away.”
Ivy shook her head. “But he pled guilty.”
“Because he didn’t want to end up like Lee Patterson.”
Ivy blinked. Blinked again. Lee Patterson had been killed in prison. “He pled guilty, so Wilkins wouldn’t know he was acting as a double agent?” Ivy shook her head. “I’m sorry, but you can see how this might seem a bit weird?” she said, unable to find a better word for it. “He said some horrible things about the witches.”
Cassiopeia nodded. “Like I said, he didn’t like witches. He protected them because of his mother.”
“Crazy,” Vince said.
“I guess he put up the act the entire time because—”
“No one knew who the King was,” Cassiopeia said, finishing Ivy’s sentence. “Yeah. But now, since he’s gone, maybe you could help me get an appeal on his case. We can tell everything to a judge? I have all the emails we’ve sent since we met up the first time.”
Ivy nodded. “Let’s go take a look at those.” Ivy’s phone rang. “Hey, Chief,” she said. Her eyes went wide, and she looked up at Vince. “We have to go, Cassiopeia,” she said. “Can we get those emails, um, forwarded to us?”
“Sure,” Cassiopeia said, pulling the word out long and flat. Vince raised her eyes, and Ivy avoided the urge to pull the mask over her face and scare Cassiopeia.
“I’ll tell you in the car.”
+++
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 9:50 p.m.
It didn’t take long for the news to spread, even to his jail cell. Jeremiah Ethan began to cry when he heard the King was dead. He’d been a middle-aged psychology professor. He would never have guessed it, even as his mind flashed back to his novice attempts at identifying the man in what had just been weeks but seemed like ages ago.
He was told he had a visitor. He never had a visitor.
His heart pounded as he walked to the front and saw his mother on the other side of one of the telephones. He picked it up, and his mother tilted her head.
“Your lawyer got in contact with me.” She was a thin woman who had gotten thinner with a gray-blonde bob. She tugged at a piece of it. “He had me talk to your friend. She told me that you aren’t… That you didn’t…” she trailed off. “I’m sorry I thought you did those terrible things.”
Jeremiah couldn’t help the hysterical laugh as he looked down at the table beneath his elbows and shook his head. He clutched the receiver, a lifeline. “I did plead guilty,” he said. “And I still did bad things.”
His mother paused, and he looked up to see her crying. “She told me why you did all those things,” she said. “Because I’m on some horrible website that said I’m some woman named Deborah Brady.”
Jeremiah didn’t care if his mother pulled a magic wand out of her purse right then. He would have done it all over again. He tried to get words out.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Anytime,” he said. She laughed on the other end, and it was a wonderful sound. “I see you’re still sporting the tiger print.” His mother had a unique style that was both extravagant and business appropriate. At the moment, she was sporting a tiger-striped button-down and a sparkling gold necklace.
“Pink,” he said. “Pink? With tiger?”
“I love it,” she said, smiling.
He grinned. “When do I get out of here?”
It would be soon.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 10:02 p.m.
The chief of police blinked at David.
“You created RAUVI?” he asked. David wished he could see the man’s face, which was hidden behind the mask his creation had caused the chief to wear in the first place.
“Yes.” David gave the chief a brief spiel about his position with Gray Technologies, and the biological weapon he’d been tasked with creating. “I only created DB1307 to disable armies temporarily. It’s only supposed to be lethal to a small number of the people it contacts if any.”
“So, you created RAUVI-1?”
David pointed at him. “Yes, and I got ahold of a sample of RAUVI-2 since Gray is trying to help find an antidote, and…” he shook his head. He knew it sounded insane. Apocalyptic. His mind flashed to a certain section of his daughter’s bookshelf covered in dark covers and intense fonts and shines. “There’s no way RAUVI-2 could have naturally evolved from my original product, not this fast at least, without some help from a biological engineer.”
The chief, Marks as his nametag said, tilted his head. “So,” David said. “I think there’s someone out there who mutated it purposefully for reasons that are nefarious?”
Chief Marks started typing at his computer. “I’m down quite a few officers because of this RAUVI thing,” he said, gruffly. “But I’ve got two detectives I’ll get on it right away.”
David nodded, waiting. Was he going to be arrested? Killed on sight for doing such a horrible thing to the world?
Chief Marks looked at him, raising his eyebrows as if to ask, “Anything else?”
David stood, tucking his chair in carefully, still looking around him. “I’ll be working on a vaccine in the meantime.”
“We will be in touch if we need more information,” Chief Marks said, already dialing his phone. “Thank you, Doctor.”
David’s head bobbled, and he nearly ran out of the police department.
+++
Received: Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 9:39 p.m.
Robbie: Meet at the old playground?
Cameron: Nah, man.
Robbie: Please? I’m freaking out with this virus stuff.
Cameron: You have it?
Robbie: Don’t think so. Family has it, though. I don’t know what to do.
+++
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 10:14 p.m.
Cameron had decided to avoid the old neighborhood for a while, lay low, hopefully, fall out of the gang without too much fallback. He was new. But Robbie had a special hold on his heart, it was his way, as he’d always been since they were young. He had that type of pull.
Robbie was sitting in one of the few still-working swings. Most of them had been broken since he’d been young, the various attempts at homemade fixes still visible: pieces of frayed strings and no longer sticky duct tape and shoelaces.
“You good?” Cameron asked. His feet crunched across the mixture of faded gravel and sand. He leaned against the pole
of the swing set, and Robbie’s feet dragged against the ground in the pit made from thousands of running starts and too-hard stops.
“Dunno, Cammie.” he looked up. His eyes were rimmed with red, and Cameron couldn’t tell if it was from crying, smoking, drinking, or some combination. “Tried to open the door and the whole family locked me out, telling me to get away for two days, see if they get better.”
Cameron ran a hand across his face. “Do you know which strand it is?”
Robbie shook his head. He held out a joint. “You missed Broadway. You want some?”
Cameron shook his head. “You sure?” he asked, gesturing around the open air of the playground. “Little out in the open for that, isn’t it?”
Robbie shrugged. “Police are busy with this virus craze.” He looked at Cameron, his eyes wide. Cameron staggered back. Robbie coughed. It was a hard, hacking cough that took him too quickly.
“Robbie?” Cameron asked.
Robbie shook his head and waved Cameron away. “Broadway said he thought he had allergies!”
It was at that moment, Cameron and Robbie’s phones lit up at the same time.
Don’t visit. Think I got RAUVI.
Robbie started to whimper again, and Cameron went to move toward him, but Robbie held up a warning hand. “Don’t man. Get out. Get out of here!”
A second ago, he was about to invite Robbie to stay at his house. “Are you—”
“I’ll manage, dude,” Robbie said, waving his hand at Cameron to leave. “You gotta leave, bro.”
Cameron nodded, turning on a heel. He’d barely gotten onto the highway when the first cough started. He turned up the radio, which was no help to drown out the sounds of his coughing or to tell him anything about which strand he might have, even though it seemed every station that wasn’t playing music was talking about RAUVI.
“That’s the problem with it, Steve. Both strains look so similar, a lot of people feel like they might be waiting to die at home, so they’re going out, spending their last two days in the sun. But that’s getting other people, whether it’s the first or second strain.”