Slimy Underbelly

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Then poor Lurrm plunged beneath the surface, and a splurt of greenish red blood bubbled to the top. A glob of slime splattered the security camera lens, obscuring our view of the rest of the massacre....

  Police backup arrived fifteen minutes later. I had expected them sooner, given the state of the emergency, but they’d gotten lost in the fog.

  Unable to stay away after receiving that fateful phone call, Robin and Sheyenne also rushed to Recompose. Robin was even more furious and disgusted when we showed her the security camera footage. Sheyenne sobbed ghostly tears and drifted up against me in need of a reassuring hug. An air embrace was better than none at all.

  “Ah’Chulhu is behind this,” Robin said in a voice like broken glass. “We know that.”

  “But we can’t prove it,” McGoo said.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” I vowed. “No matter how deep we have to dig.”

  CHAPTER 36

  It was well past lunch by the time McGoo wrapped up at the crime scene. I had stayed to give him moral support, as well as detective support.

  He shook his head. “I was feeling pretty good about arresting the lawn gnome gang yesterday, but this . . .”

  “There’s never such a good day that it can’t get worse, McGoo.”

  “Oh, it started out bad enough,” he said, looking hard at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I felt a chill. “Is it Rhonda?”

  “She wrote again, said she’s reconsidering, not sure she wants me to meet my daughter. Says the girl has ‘issues’—but with Rhonda as her mother, what girl wouldn’t have issues? I’ve never known Rhonda to be particularly decisive . . . or rational, for that matter.” He seemed hurt, confused, flustered. “Oh, and she even asked how you were doing.”

  I felt another chill on top of the first one. “What did you say?”

  “That you were dead. But doing okay otherwise.”

  Robin and I ducked under the yellow crime scene tape on our way out, while Sheyenne just walked through it. Although the security camera footage left little room for doubt, Robin pondered the legal ramifications of whether C.H. could be used as a witness at trial, or whether the hand’s testimony would be merely hearsay, given that the disembodied hand had no discernible eyes. Or ears. Or voice.

  The fog had completely cleared, leaving the day bright and sunny, the sky a crystal blue of the sort that offends nocturnal creatures. To my dismay, Alastair Cumulus III was campaigning again, standing on a street corner with many leaflets but few supporters. He shouted, “This bright and sunny day brought to you by your next Wuwufo president. Enjoy!”

  “If you like that sort of thing,” muttered a vampire shopkeeper who scuttled along in the shadow of an awning. He ducked into a shop where he pulled down the shades for the comfort of his undead customers.

  The erudite weather wizard sighed. “One cannot please all constituents.” He raised his voice and rolled right into his campaign speech. “I promise to meet the needs of every citizen of the Quarter. Moist rain for the amphibians, dry heat for the mummies, regular periods of darkness for the vampires. I promise a night for every day, a black cloud for every silver lining.” Cumulus stroked his curled beard, and the strands sprang back into place, as if he had used a great deal of elastic mousse.

  At the moment, I saw no evidence of nefarious campaign shenanigans, but when Alastair Cumulus recognized me, I made a point of touching my eye and extending a finger toward him. I’ll be watching you. Frowning, he turned to address other members of the nonexistent crowd of supporters.

  Suddenly, the weathermancer’s face lit up with alarm as a loud rumble came down the street. I heard disgusted shouts from other unnaturals scrambling out of the way. Before the weather wizard could turn and flee for higher ground, a curling wave of runny brown sludge gushed down a side street and aimed directly at him. Cumulus flung up his hands and tried to work a spell, but it was too late.

  Like a battering ram, the soupy mudslide rolled over him, engulfed him, and spattered the nearby buildings. The wall of mud rolled to a halt on top of the weather wizard, leaving him flailing, coughing, and trying to extricate himself from the wet pile.

  Robin and I ran to help him. Alastair Cumulus III was insulted and filth encrusted. He smeared the brown residue from his eyes and beard, shook his sleeves so that more gobbets dripped on the street. “This . . . this . . . ewww!”

  It wasn’t the most eloquent campaign speech I had ever heard, but it was heartfelt.

  As the mud settled, a cheerful Thunder Dick sauntered up, whistling, as Robin and I hauled his rival out of the oozing mud. Beside him, his tuxedo cat gingerly minced around the wet mud. Morris/Maurice seemed unimpressed with the demonstration and annoyed by the mess.

  “That’ll teach you to go digging up dirt on me,” said Thunder Dick. He glowered at Alastair Cumulus III. “Maybe that’ll make you think twice before you try any more mudslinging.”

  “Mudslinging!” cried the foppish weather wizard. “I have done nothing but make my case to the voters. You’re an idiot and a buffoon!”

  “You’ve been releasing embarrassing details of my private life! You arranged to have those bad photos printed of me.”

  “You always take bad photos,” commented the cat, then licked an imagined speck of mud from his front paw.

  “I’m not responsible for that,” Cumulus insisted as he struggled out of the mud, then waved his hands to summon a sudden downpour. Warm rain drenched him and us, and it did manage to wash away much of the mud. “I have held back from using what my opposition research uncovered about your deviant sexual appetites, but now the gloves are off! It’s disgusting, and I think the electorate will find it just as disgusting as I do.”

  Thunder Dick was apoplectic. “You wouldn’t dare! I’ve always promised to win fair and square, and I’m not the only one who’ll cheat to do it. I’ve got dirt on you, too, Cumulus—I plan to release everything.”

  Robin, dripping and stained with mud, had finally reached the end of her patience. She wore a professional gray blazer and business skirt that would have looked frumpy on anyone else, but looked great on her. Now, though, her clothes were soaked with sewage and she had a smear of mud below her right eye.

  She put her hands on her hips, and her nostrils flared. “I’m fed up with both of you and tired of this childish, corrupt campaign—we all are. I don’t even know the size of the Wuwufo membership, but most of us can’t vote. Why should we care? This election is irrelevant to us.”

  Thunder Dick blinked, offended by his own attorney. “But weather is relevant to everyone.”

  Cumulus added, “It’s important to have fair and accurate weather forecasts.”

  “No one actually believes weather forecasts,” I pointed out.

  Robin didn’t often lose her temper, but now she was on a tear. “Thunder Dick hired us to look into the campaign shenanigans, and we did find plenty of corruption—from both of you!” She looked at me.

  I said, “We dug into your campaign finances, and we know about your backers. You’re both dirty.”

  “I’m not dirty.” Cumulus wrung out his freshly rinsed wizard robe.

  “He did it first,” said Thunder Dick.

  “He did it back.”

  “And so we witness the dignity of democracy,” I said.

  Robin’s anger had not diminished. “The voters will see that there’s no difference between the candidates. You’ve both caused too much pain, suffering, and climate change here in the Quarter. We know your secrets.”

  “What secrets?” asked the cat, looking worried.

  Robin looked from Thunder Dick to Alastair Cumulus III. “You’ve both been taking money under the table from the same source. Your campaigns are entirely funded by the weather forecasting networks.”

  CHAPTER 37

  The Unnatural Quarter has many seedy dens, festering neighborhoods, houses of worse-than-ill repute, neighborhoods where even monsters wouldn’t let their children play. But they all
pale in comparison with the central headquarters of the weather networks.

  Oddly enough, despite the blood feuds and the rancor displayed among the rival meteorologists, all four networks were housed in the same building, a cubical cinder-block structure with the name of a different network painted on each face, as well as—although we couldn’t see it from street level—the call sign of a weather radio station painted on the roof, where helicopters and broom-flying witches could land.

  Even during normal weather, Sheyenne often tuned to the different stations to compare prognostications, listening to the announcers claim ridiculously unrealistic accuracy percentages for their forecasts. (Such claims of success seemed no more accurate than their weather predictions.)

  After the constant inconvenience, turmoil, and disruptions caused by the Wuwufo campaign, Robin had had enough of the two rival weathermancers, enough of the turmoil, enough of the irrelevant election itself, and enough of the weather networks trying to buy the results.

  Her dark eyes were flashing and her jaw was set as we left the remnants of the mudslide, as well as the flustered and embarrassed Thunder Dick and Alastair Cumulus III.

  “We’re going to get to the root of this problem, Dan—and yank it out like a rotten tooth,” Robin said.

  I tried to think of a more meteorologically apt metaphor, but I experienced a severe imaginative drought. “Isn’t this a conflict of interest?” I asked as we approached the network building. “Thunder Dick is our client.”

  “He hired us to stop the nefarious campaign shenanigans. We’ve discovered the primary cause—and we’re going to make the shenanigans stop.” When Robin was on a crusade, I didn’t want to get in her way.

  Each side of the cinder-block building had an identical-looking entrance. I chose the door of the most extreme network, the one I least preferred to watch. If there was going to be a confrontation, I would rather do it with someone I didn’t like.

  As we entered the building, I wondered how the network offices would be segregated inside, and I was surprised to see that the interior was large and open like an airplane hangar. All four of the network doors opened into the same large common studio.

  Teams of weather prognosticators sat at long lunchroom tables, and a large map of the Quarter covered one wall. Two other forecasters—a vapid brunette who giggled too much and a blond-haired Ken-doll–wannabe—threw darts at the board and carefully noted their results. Others used shaker cups and poured dice on the table before rushing off to write their predictions. A roulette wheel clicked and clattered in the corner; the sections of the wheel were not painted red or black, but rather showed clouds, rain, snow, wind, sunshine, and even a total solar eclipse.

  “Exactly how I thought they made their predictions,” I said.

  On the other side of the studio, the rival meteorologists took turns filming their forecasts in front of a green screen, smiling and cheerful as they warned of stormy doom and gloom.

  Robin strode ahead of me, looking around. The brunette meteorologist saw us, which spoiled her aim, and the dart thunked on the bottom of the map. “Looks like temperatures are unexpectedly falling,” she said, then giggled at her joke. “Look, everybody! We have visitors.”

  Ken Doll flashed a radiant smile and waved at us. I remembered that I particularly loathed his show. Grinning in unison, he and the brunette came over to welcome us. “These are exciting times,” said the brunette. “Nothing more thrilling in a meteorologist’s life than the Wuwufo elections.”

  Robin frowned. “We’re investigating corruption and campaign finance irregularities. We can prove that the weather networks are in collusion, trying to influence the candidates. You’re attempting to benefit from the chaos.”

  “Of course we are,” said Ken Doll with a warm smile. “When the weather wizards are feuding, our forecast accuracy goes up to nearly one hundred percent.”

  “We’re always right,” said the brunette with yet another giggle, “so long as we stay vague on the timing and location of any particular weather event.”

  The hubbub in the room grew louder. A stoop-shouldered old man wearing purple latex dishwashing gloves hunched over a basin where he fondled and inspected entrails. A second meteorological soothsayer pulled up ropey intestines and compared them to the organs in his rival’s basin. “Oh, what tangled entrails we must cast, when we practice to forecast.”

  Seeing this, I said, “I’ve heard that meteorology and astrology are sister pseudosciences.”

  “And well-respected ones, too,” said Ken Doll with a vigorous nod.

  The old soothsayer stripped off his purple gloves, tossed them into the bucket, and came over to join the conversation. “That’s my forecast for today. Cloudy with a chance of clear, and a likelihood of additional weather events. We’ll see if I’m correct, or if I just have to say I’m correct. Nobody ever seems to go back and check.”

  “Most people can tell the difference between a blizzard and a dry spell,” I countered.

  The soothsayer gave a dismissive wave. “During Wuwufo campaigns, the difference is often no more than half an hour. It’ll settle down after the elections are over.” He sounded disappointed.

  All of the forecasters in the room sighed, as if we had just taken all the fun out of a party.

  “Campaign turbulence is good for ratings,” said the giggly brunette. “But accuracy is good, too. That’s why the forecasters chipped in to support both Thunder Dick and Alastair Cumulus III. We’ll have influence and lobbying privileges, no matter who wins.”

  “Wait, I thought we decided that Cumulus was going to win,” said Ken Doll.

  “Oh.” The brunette blinked, then giggled. “I forgot. Did we agree on that?”

  One of the prognosticators spun the predictive roulette wheel. “It was at the company barbecue, don’t you remember? The one that got rained out. We decided to put our muscle into sabotaging Thunder Dick’s campaign and bring him down in the polls.”

  Ken Doll looked at us with an apologetic smile. “Our campaign shenanigans aren’t really all that nefarious. Just standard procedure.”

  Though Robin was angry at both candidates, I felt I had to defend our client. “But why choose to destroy Thunder Dick? He’s likable enough, and it’s his dream to become Wuwufo president. What did he ever do to you?”

  “He does seem a decent fellow in small doses,” said the soothsayer. “Nothing against him personally, but he’s just not subtle enough, and a bit too dim to be easily manipulated. Alastair Cumulus the Third is already in our pockets. After he’s elected, we’ll submit pre-forecasts to him. As long as we keep up our support payments, he’ll create whichever weather front we desire.”

  “That’ll make our job easier,” said Ken Doll.

  “And more accurate,” giggled the brunette.

  “But the real reason that Thunder Dick has to lose is that we have an inside man on his campaign,” said the man at the roulette wheel, giving it another clattering spin. “We have tons more embarrassing stuff to release and a deep, dark secret from his past that hasn’t come out yet, but I doubt we’ll need it.”

  “Meteorologists do have some standards, you know,” said the soothsayer, who went over to help his rival pack away the fresh entrails in another bucket.

  Robin’s interest flared. “What inside man on Thunder Dick’s campaign staff?”

  I amended, “He doesn’t even have a campaign staff.” I felt a growing dread as the answer came to me, and I knew the poor weathermancer wasn’t going to like it. “It’s the cat, isn’t it?”

  With a giggle, the brunette confirmed my suspicions. “Of course. Maurice is doing everything he can to destroy Thunder Dick’s career.”

  CHAPTER 38

  As the sun set and the skies grew dark, crowds began heading out for nightlife in the Quarter. Robin and I left the cinder-block headquarters of the rival but identical weather networks, and I felt the weight of a gravestone on my chest, knowing we would have to tell Thunder Dick about th
e betrayal of his cat. He had hired us to investigate the campaign shenanigans, little knowing that his own familiar was responsible.

  I doubt he would be thrilled that we had solved the case, but you don’t always get to give the client good news.

  Robin and I reached the commercial district with cafes, a dance club called the Monster Mash (just another meat market), convenience stores, hookah dens, and an old-school gaming parlor where motionless videogame zombies stared slack-jawed at an ancient hypnotic game of Pong.

  On a corner stood a new Talbot & Knowles Blood Bar, one of the upscale boutique stores that had begun opening up around the Quarter. The interior had bright chrome fittings, sparkling black-and-white tile floors, and smiling hemoglobin baristas. Vampires sat around at outdoor tables; two were playing chess, others worked on their laptops. A chalkboard out front advertised a “Demise of co-owner special—B positive lattes, only $2.99 after 5 P.M.”

  I wondered how long it would be before Harry Talbot removed poor Fletcher’s name from the marquee and officially took over the company. Business had to go on, and the blood bars were certainly doing good trade, especially—from the looks of it—this boutique store.

  But it was a day for disasters, and Robin and I hadn’t gone far before the ground started trembling beneath our feet. The street rumbled, the buildings shook.

  People began screaming as cracks shattered the pavement, and the entire boutique blood bar began to collapse and sink below street level as the ground slumped into a crater. Vampire customers spilled their specialty blood drinks as they scrambled to evacuate. Hemoglobin baristas dove out the front as the large plate-glass windows shattered. Incongruously mellow jazz music wafted out from the store’s sound system.

  The upper floor of the two-story building slumped, and part of the wall broke and slid to one side, scattering bricks. I pulled Robin back to safety on the opposite sidewalk as the whole street opened up.