Debris & Detritus

by Robin D. Owens

  “So . . . clean stuff. Stuff that we’re not going to sell. How again is this a store?”

  “Feel free to leave.”

  Food. Privacy. Money. For that, she could put up with almost any amount of crazy. Even this.

  “And try not to be stupid.”

  Crazy did not have to include insults. But still. She bit her tongue.

  “Okay, got it. Clean. Don’t sell. Do I leave it all jumbled like this?”

  He looked around again and sighed.

  “You can try to straighten up. Not that it’s going to do any good. And don’t touch the weapons. For any reason. Under penalty of death.”

  She’d smiled and offered him her hand. “Deal.”

  Smiling always drove them crazy in the group homes.

  That was three weeks ago. Now Miranda stood, straightening up the cupboard next to the bay window, the one which housed all of the pieces of a knight’s armor, wondering (not for the first time) why anyone would think used armor would sell. It was tarnished and bent, and she was afraid that the brown stains might have been blood.

  The sword started screeching another tune. She could not imagine that it could have managed to sound worse, but it did.

  “Oh, for the love of all that’s holy,” she muttered in the sword’s general direction, “Have you no pride? The least you could do is try to mimic an actual song, if you’re going to torment a body.”

  The shrieking grew, making Miranda’s bright red curly hair stand nearly on end, and she moved near the sword, careful not to touch it, and shook the velvet-lined saxophone case where it was lying, in all its ugly glory—why something that plain was in a fancy velvet case was beyond her, but maybe it was a sales tactic—and it screamed louder still.

  “Hush!”

  And then, in the blink of the next second, the front door . . . vaporized. Or seemed to, and there was someone standing there, someone in a horrible looking costume—complete with demon horns and two spare heads. It wasn’t Mardi Gras or anywhere near Halloween, which gave her pause, until she realized that someone had very likely meandered in when they were looking for a private costume party.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, cringing as the sword seemed to bray and cry. Maybe the person couldn’t hear it—maybe it was all in her head—because he didn’t seem concerned about the noise. He didn’t answer, and he hadn’t looked fully at her. At least, not that she could tell. She was pretty certain the center head was the real one—though the costume eyes on the other two heads seemed to rove around the room. She silently awarded points for a Very Good Costume, even by New Orleans’ standards.

  “Sir?” she guessed, wishing for the first time Griff would show up and deal with this customer. He’d made the last one cry and run back out in five minutes flat. “Do you need something in particular?”

  The man turned to her. One face held what she might have termed a quizzical expression, only the head had tilted forward at a 90-degree angle to the body, and a tongue had slithered out, tasting the air, snake-like. “Great, uh, look. Is that a from a movie filming around here?” she asked, and he took a step toward her.

  Fear flashed all over Miranda, a sudden freeze of icy cold racing up her spine, and without thinking, her hand closed . . . and the hilt of the sword was somehow in her palm.

  The screaming stopped, and a song—something Miranda knew in her bones—came welling up from the soles of her feet, through the bone and flesh and steel blade of the sword. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel . . . alone. The music washed over her and seemed to cloak her, like a cape, and she couldn’t tell if the costumed customer could hear the music, but he paused, as if concerned.

  She chanced a glance around, hoping for Griff, and saw, instead, at least a dozen little . . . gremlins. Goblins. All manner of creatures. All frozen, shocked at the sight of her holding the sword. All of their mouths hung open, paused there as if she wouldn’t see them if they didn’t move.

  One blinked.

  The elf, who now held something that looked eerily like a small hand grenade.

  “You!” she pointed the sword at the elf, who blushed but tried vainly to pretend he didn’t notice her. “I see you.”

  “All hail,” the customer whispered, sarcasm dripping from every word, wrenching back her attention, his gravelly voice a rasping sound that shivered her every nerve, “The Queen of Dragons. The Griffon thought to hide you here. How clever.”

  She looked around just to be sure there wasn’t some statue he might have been referring to.

  “Hi,” she said, thinking he might have gotten another step closer when she’d glanced away. “My name is Miranda. I work here. I dust, mostly. There aren’t really many customers. Could I interest you in that cauldron over there? It looks like it would go with your costume. Really great look, by the way. What movie are you here for?”

  One of the other heads cocked, like he found her puzzling, and really, that was one autonomous head too many.

  “He thinks to disguise you,” the guy said.

  So the cauldron wasn’t the way to go. “We have a sale on elf statues,” she suggested, pointing at the row of elf statues which seemed to have grown to a couple of dozen in the last few minutes, all of whom looked aghast and affronted at her spontaneous offer.

  She was absolutely certain she’d never dusted more than three at any given point. “Just this morning, in fact. 50% off. They’re really cute. And they will bring you good luck.”

  “Has your keeper left you?” the guy wondered, tongues now slithering out of the two non-speaking heads. “Does he think to fool us? We will not be swayed from our path, Queen of Dragons. You will never reign again.”

  And he moved, slicing across the air with talons Miranda had not fully seen but had leapt backward from on pure instinct. She raised the sword in defense, something that would have made absolutely no sense to her ten minutes earlier.

  And it SANG as lightning sizzled along its edge and it seemed to throb with music. Angry music.

  “Ohhhh,” she marveled, pointing at the sword with her left hand, “I don’t think it likes you. I think you need to leave.”

  The man—or creature, she had about given up hope that there was something normal at work here—sprang forward, claws out. She blocked with the sword again, but apparently, she’d waved it, too, and off went one of the hands, green blood spurting as it rolled across the floor.

  Miranda had enough time to think:

  “Ewwww!”

  “Oops!”

  “Sorry?”

  Before the creature regrouped and came at her, green blood spraying the walls, the elves (who all ran, screw this pretending we don’t see you thing). One elf was slimed with blood and ignited! Three goblins grabbed a nearby tapestry, probably expensive, and started beating him with it to put out the flames. Or they had some interpersonal issues.

  The demon spun, spraying more blood everywhere and then his freaking hand regenerated, and now?

  Now he looked pissed off.

  “Ohmygod, run!” she yelled to the other . . . elves and goblins and gremlins, holy crap, meds were looking pretty good right about now, because clearly, she was losing her mind, trying to fight off an acid-bleeding demon in a Used Goods store that didn’t even freaking sell anything.

  Swinging a sword? Not nearly as easy as they make it look on TV. She missed the demon (twice), the sword was screaming out of tune, and she lopped off the arm of a statue (dear God, let that one actually be a statue) like cutting through butter, but she was losing ground and fast. The store just wasn’t very big, with that many aisles to run down, and the demon seemed to be . . . growing.

  “Low pay my freckled ass,” she muttered, wondering if there was a hazard pay clause in the form that Griff had made her fill out.

  The sword screamed a warning, and she ducked just in time, cornered now, and something large and fast whooshed into view between her and the demon—

  The air exploded.

  Somethi
ng with giant black wings swooped down in front of her, and she flew backward, landing with a hard crack as the demon’s three heads rolled one way, and his body started bubbling as it fell into a chaise longue that was definitely going to have to be reupholstered now.

  Blech. She had not even had caffeine yet.

  The massive wings expanded and stretched, blocking her view of the body. Idle thoughts like police, jail, accessory to murder, maybe I can plead insanity as a defense ricocheted in what was left of her mind as the immense . . . person’s . . . wings continued to stretch, practically touching each wall, they were so tremendous. They shook, shivering, almost vibrating and then suddenly: calm.

  The calm was far, far creepier.

  Miranda scrambled to her hands and knees and up to her feet, heading for the back door. Not again. No way. She was out of there.

  The huge beast landed in front of her, and the floor trembled under the impact.

  The midnight-black wings folded back in, lying flat, and she heard Griff’s voice, somehow lower and scarier, though how that was possible, she did not know.

  “I told you, Miranda, do not touch the weapons.”

  Griff has wings? Holy shit!

  “I swear, that was not my idea. It was the sword’s. It just showed up in my hand when creepy three-headed guy came at me.”

  Griff turned then, and Miranda nearly went dead at the sight: he was beautiful, terrifyingly so. Everything in her screamed run, he will kill you and the sword hummed a loud, hostile chord in her head.

  “Shut up,” she told the sword. Then she saw the anger flame in Griff’s eyes and she backed up a step. “Um, not you. The sword. It won’t shut up. It’s really really annoying. Here—take it. I’m sorry I touched it.”

  Griff glared at the sword as if he’d like nothing better than to hoist it into outer space.

  “I didn’t mean to touch it, honest. It kept screaming.” She looked down at it. “I think it was lonely. I mean, the singing was a tip-off, and that was bad enough, but the screaming was just a bridge too far.”

  “It’s singing to you.” He was clearly unhappy about that. So was Miranda because obviously, she was the only one it could torment. She’d like to share that little fortune with him, the way he glared at her, like this was somehow her fault.

  “Where was it?” he asked, like this was a trick question.

  “What do you mean, where was it? In the window, where you put it. In the velvet case.”

  She wanted to add duh, but thought it best not to push the angry guy with the wings who just killed a demon.

  “The saxophone,” he said, to himself, disgusted, which made absolutely zero sense. “Sonofabitch.”

  “Am I fired?”

  He frowned, grim and resolute. “No.”

  She was unexpectedly and quite unreasonably relieved.

  “Now we are at war. And unfortunately for you, you’re the leader.”

  “I quit!”

  Miranda could have sworn actual steam wafted from his nostrils.

  She backed up another step and set the sword down on its velvet box.

  As soon as her hand let go, a crashing wave of wrongness flooded her, and the sword screamed so loudly, she thought for a moment her eardrums would shatter. She touched it, and it paused, quiet, waiting for her to decide what to do next.

  “Back away from it,” Griff said, the weight of authority in his voice so strong, it practically had a gravitational pull.

  And yet. She couldn’t quit touching the sword. She wanted it. Badly. She’d never actually wanted anything, besides food, a place to sleep safely, a shower, and she wouldn’t say no to some shiny jewelry (she looked fondly over at the pristinely clean jewelry case), but the sword? Belonged to her.

  “I don’t know why it’s screaming when I set it down.” She picked it up again. “Does it have an off switch?” she asked her boss. It must have some sort of electronic proximity gizmo, and she searched the hilt. She hadn’t remembered the hilt being quite that ornate, and quite that shiny of a silver, or why she’d thought it was ugly before. “Was this a film prop? Because they did a pretty good job. I don’t see any ‘Made in China’ stamp, either.”

  She looked up to see Griff had covered his face with his hands, as if he needed to keep them busy to keep from strangling her. It was that distinctive strangling vibe that made her take another step back and look away.

  “Anyway, if you’ll show me how to turn it off, and give me my wages, and by the way, an extra two weeks severance would not be at all out of order here. I’m sure there’s a ton of OSHA violations I could report.”

  Griff roared and the glass shook, things fell, lots of little elf and goblin and gremlin faces peeked out of hiding spots and then snapped right back out of sight again.

  “Oh, you know, on second thought, I’ll just leave leave. Um, real quick. I’ll go get my clothes and violin.”

  She peeked up at him again. The wings had disappeared. But his typical I’m so exasperated with you, I could squash you expression was firmly locked in place, only now that she knew what he was—she laughed wildly in her own head—the expression looked far less annoyed and far more murderous than she’d realized before.

  He just killed someone. Three feet away from you. Get out!

  The body and the heads were gone. The elves and gremlins and goblins or whatever they were, were now out of their hidey holes, and all pretending to be frozen in different positions.

  “Um . . . what happened to the body?”

  “The portal absorbed it,” Lt. Birnbaum replied from the counter as if that was a perfectly rational thing to happen. She squinted at him, and he doffed his little hat. “The store—Ma’am, as it’s called here.”

  “That’s enough, Michael,” Griff snapped, and she peered back up at him. “As you can plainly see, there are more things here going on than you understand. Unfortunately for you, I’m not allowed to explain them.”

  “There are rules, but you can’t tell me? Why not?”

  “Cursed,” said the elf with the grenade—and really, was that a real grenade? That couldn’t be a good thing. Should she take it from him?

  Griff flicked a small motion toward the elf, and he was frozen—unable to speak or move for real.

  “We can hint,” Mr. Birnbaum stated, rather argumentatively, she thought. “But we cannot explain. To do so brings on ramifications. You must learn and grow on your own, and if you don’t, you die.”

  “Wait, what? I quit already. I don’t have to keep following rules, although if you ask me, telling someone they’ll die if they don’t is just a little harsh. I’m sure there’s some sort of harassment code against that . . . ” she saw Griff’s glare and her voice got smaller, “um, somewhere.” For heaven’s sakes, she was arguing with a statue and something that had wings. Maybe he’d drugged her food. That had to be it.

  “Look, I’ll just set this down . . . ” And she tried to set down the sword again, but it screamed so loudly, the glass in the windows cracked, “or maybe not. How much does it cost? I think it’s lonely. I’ll just buy this with whatever’s left of my paycheck after room and board and I’ll be on my way. Not dying today, though, thank you for the job, and, um, place to stay when I needed it.”

  “You need to learn,” Griff ground out as if it was painful for him to talk to her. “You are untutored, unaware of what is going on, and unable to defend yourself.” He buckled to one knee, as if fighting against some sort of torture as he pushed out the rest of the words. “Take the sword, at least. If you call me, I will come. But know this . . . if you call me, you are committed.”

  Huh. I’d have to be committed to call you.

  “Do you have a scabbard? I can’t exactly walk around the Quarter with a sword.”

  “It will . . . disguise . . . itself,” Griff ground out, going down on another knee, one hand braced against the floor. She could see his shudders, his muscles knotting and flexing and rolling and wow, did that look . . . awful. It made her sto
mach flip, and her knees felt gooey with fear.

  “Go!” he yelled, and she ran for her things in the upstairs apartment, grabbed her little stash of money, her violin, her clothes, and not having a clue what to do with the sword, stuck it in her belt, then hightailed it back down to the store. Griff had gone somewhere else again, and all the little elves were frozen, all the little thingamabobs were still and quiet and not the least bit suspicious. Mr. Birnbaum was back in his shaving box, looking forlorn as usual, and there was absolutely no reason to stay.

  It broke her heart.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered, and not a single sound whispered back. “Be well.”

  When she stepped outside into the heat of the summer in the Quarter, the Used Goods store wavered and disappeared. She glanced down, and the sword had become a bright purple parasol, its hilt now a curved handle, its blade now frilly and sparkly where it lay at her thigh.

  “That cannot be a good thing,” she thought, as the crowds dodged around her, not a soul seemingly surprised that she had materialized out of a wall where no door now existed.

  On the upper balcony of the Used Goods store, if you’d been able to see it, (and it’s not your fault that you cannot; there are things at work here you are yet to understand), two men reclined in beautiful chairs, a lovely tea service set between them. One, Debris, who was the more practical of the two, sipped his mint tea with a frown on his unlined face. He was ancient, though he looked as dapper as any young fifty-year-old might, and he was quite proud of that fact. You could see his confidence in the cut of his seersucker suit, the sweet bow tie, the white chinos, and the high polish of his two-toned shoes.

  Detritus was practically slovenly in comparison, in his too-currently-popular shredded jeans, tattoos covering whatever he felt like should be covered today, long hair wadded in a leather tie, falling out haphazardly, with some of it tucked behind his ear. He ignored the tea and drank beer, instead, and though he looked more like a thirty-something rocker who’d lived a very hard life, he was actually slightly older than Detritis, by a century or two. Possibly more, though no one had ever gotten the truth out of them, least of all Griff.