by Chris Dolley
“Coming where?”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Susan was not laughing. Neither was Brenda. She’d just remembered. Her mother’s birthday party! How could she have forgotten?
“Consider this your ten hour warning,” continued Susan. “Dinner’s at eight and we’re expecting you at seven.”
Brenda shifted her voice a notch or two into the sick register – aiming for weak with a suggestion of hoarse.
“I’m not feeling too well. There was a bug going through school last week. I thought I’d escaped it, but ... you know what these bugs are like.”
“You’re not getting out of this, Brenda. When’s the last time you saw Mom?”
“I’m three hours away, Sue. It’s a long drive.”
“Emily lives in Hawaii, but she visits Aunt Donna three times a year.”
Cousin Emily again. Weren’t their any matricides in Susan’s circle? Where was Lizzie Borden when you needed her?
“It’s a long drive, Susan. I’m really not feeling good, and I don’t want to give you all my cold.”
“Bullshit! You haven’t got a cold. And why don’t you stay for a few days. Mom would love to see you.”
Brenda closed her eyes. What could she say? There was no way she’d stay overnight at her mother’s. She’d find bars on her bedroom window and wake up to a team of deprogrammers sitting at the breakfast table. It’s for your own good, Brenda. We’ve sat on the sidelines far too long. You’re a vibrant, intelligent woman who’s wasting her life. You had a career, a husband ... and now look at you! Living on your own in a dead-end job. You’ve got to snap out of it, my girl. You’re not getting any younger.
“I’ll see,” she said.
Susan sighed. One of her big sister exasperated sighs. “Oh, you’re coming, Brenda. If you’re not here by seven we’re moving the party to your house.”
They would too. And if Brenda didn’t open the door, they’d set up camp on the lawn.
Susan hung up before Brenda could prevaricate further. She was probably on the phone to Mom already.
Brenda slumped into the nearest chair. What was she going to do? She couldn’t not go to her mother’s and yet ... if Brian didn’t recover pretty damn soon, how could she? Her mother would have a fit. How could you have plastic surgery and not tell me? Your own mother!
Brenda’s head found her hands. Could she feign an accident? Hide her nose under a bandage? It might work. With a sports bra and a lot of tape she might be able to hide her boobs. She’d find something loose and voluminous to wear. And she’d have her giant eighties hair cut and dyed back to its original brunette.
Could she have her hair cut and dyed? She knew nothing about magic, but she’d seen The Fly. Did shapeshifting work on the same principles? Had that extra hair come from the skin and bone shaved off her nose? Would she be cutting and dyeing her nose?
Her head sunk deeper into her hands. If she dyed her hair, she’d have a shiny black nose for the rest of her life.
Brenda waited until she’d had breakfast and two cups of strong coffee before she tried to wake Brian. As curious as she was to find out about Brian Trafford and gene therapy, she also wanted him fully rested. She needed him to change her back.
“Brian? Are you awake?”
No answer. She gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
A singed eyelid fluttered. “What?” he said sleepily.
“Are you ... feeling better?”
“I feel terrible.”
“Will you have your powers back by this evening?”
He tried to shrug and screwed his face up in pain.
“Is there anything I can get you? Granola? Chocolate?”
“Hot sweet tea. Three sugars. No, make that four. And biscuits.”
She fetched the tea and cookies, wondering how to frame the next series of questions. Perhaps he’d be more malleable on a sugar high?
She let him drink half a cup before broaching the question. “Who’s Brian Trafford?”
He took another sip of tea. A long sip. “Who?”
“You know,” said Brenda. “The man you were Googling last night. The Brit who had the gene therapy.”
“Ah, him. I met him once. He had a face I thought I could use. Nondescript and instantly forgettable. Ideal for our line of work.”
“So why were you Googling him last night?”
“I wasn’t. I thought maybe Abbiati had gene therapy, and that page came up.”
“Why do you think Abbiati had gene therapy?”
Another attempted shrug, another grimace, another long sip of tea. “A hunch. We demons are always having them. Sometimes they’re spot on, sometimes not.”
Brenda didn’t believe a word of it. But she wasn’t sure if she should press him. He could turn her into a frog if she annoyed him. A frog with eighties hair and a large chest.
Maybe it would be safer to try again later – slip it casually into conversation when he was being less guarded. In the meantime...
“I talked to Sacrifice last night.”
That got his full attention. No long pauses while he sipped his tea or nibbled on a cookie. He wanted to know everything, interrupting frequently with a question or an observation.
“Summon her now,” he said when she’d finished.
“Why?”
“I can help. I ... I have some power back. Not much, but ... enough to alter a picture. If you get Sacrifice back I can do a photofit. And if we get a picture of Daddy....”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
“Are you sure you’re up to it? It won’t knock you back or anything?”
“It’ll hurt, but ... it has to be done. Chances are he’s got another girl. The longer we delay, the worse it’ll be for her.”
He tried to get up, leaning forward, grimacing. Brenda noticed he was using his left arm – not very well, and it collapsed under the strain of trying to push himself up from the chair. But at least he could move it.
“Do you need any help?”
“We need pictures. Lots of them. And I need to be close ... when you talk to Sacrifice ... so I can alter the faces.”
She helped him onto the sofa, then went searching for magazines. She’d need a good selection of faces. Old, young, tall, short, fat and slim. Though not too young – if Daddy was active thirteen years ago he’d have to be at least thirty. Unless he started young. She’d play it safe and collect the largest cross-section she could find. Best not to overtax Brian if she could help it. He had to be awake, fit, and fully functional by seven that evening.
She tore pictures from women’s magazines, TV guides, and newspapers. She combed her bookshelves for suitable covers, pausing for a moment’s contemplation of how she’d feel if Daddy turned out to look like Fabio. And she grabbed the pictures of Frank Cassini and Bruno Abbiati – just in case.
Then she looked at Brian – the chargrilled, skeletal, naked corpse sitting on the sofa. Would one look at him send Sacrifice screaming back to the astral plane? She decided not to take the risk and turned the sofa round so that its back was facing the bookcase.
Now came the hit-and-miss part – summoning Sacrifice.
She sat on the floor next to the sofa and spread the pictures out over the carpet. She closed her eyes, flexed her arms and fingers, took a deep breath. Then cleared her mind, wiping away any negative thoughts. This was going to work. She’d done it before, she could do it again. Even with the added pressure of an audience and a young life at stake.
Backtrack that thought – too negative – there was no extra pressure. She was a medium. Ghosts came to her all the time. This was merely an extension of a natural process. A request for a specific spirit to step forward and be heard.
She formed an image in her mind – imagining the boundary between the real and spirit world to be wafer thin. Imagining it as a membrane stretched tight like a drum skin that could take sound and amplify it ten, twenty, thirty-fold. She touched her lips to the membrane and whispered. Sacrifice.
She called again and again, the name resonating through the spirit world like a siren call. Sacrifice. I need you here. Come to me now.
She added her voice to the summons. “Sacrifice. I summon you. Appear before me now!”
Silence. She tried again, imagining the membrane ripped in two, pushing her mind through the gap, shouting Sacrifice’s name at the top of her voice. Sacrifice! I summon thee!
“I’m here.”
Brenda opened her eyes. The girl was standing some six feet away, her eyes cast down, her hands clasped in front of her. She was nine or ten this time. Another Mary Alice Cassini lookalike. Small and waif-like with hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed for days or professionally cut for years. Her clothes looked clean, though. Blue jeans and a green top.
“What’s your name?” Brenda asked.
“Sacrifice.”
Her voice was thin and small. And the resemblance between her and Mary Alice was uncanny. Did Daddy have to comb several cities to find the ‘right’ girl? Was that why no one had made the connection? Every abduction occurred in different states?
“Do you go to school?”
“No.”
“Does your bedroom have a window?”
A shake of the head.
That was enough of the preliminaries, now Brenda had to get her to identify Daddy before she faded away.
“Can you see these pictures on the floor?” she asked.
The girl hesitated. She looked reluctant to move her eyes away from the floor by her feet.
Brenda pushed the pictures closer, reaching out and sliding one, two, three across the carpet towards Sacrifice’s feet.
“You see the pictures now?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s play a game then. Let’s see if we can find a picture of Daddy. Can you see him down there?”
The girl didn’t just shake her head, she shook her body, swinging from her knees, suddenly looking far younger than the nine or ten physical years her height suggested.
Brenda pushed the remaining pictures closer.
“What about these? Is he here?”
The girl took her time, leaning theatrically from the waist to peer down at the ones furthest away.
“No.”
“Which one looks the most like him?”
Another long pause as Sacrifice scrutinized each picture in turn. Some she returned to.
“That one,” she said pointing to a picture of an almost bald Sean Connery from a few years ago, with a greying goatee beard. Picking Sean Connery was bad enough, but thank God it wasn’t Fabio.
Brenda picked up the picture. “How could we make him look more like Daddy?” She asked Sacrifice. “Change his hair?”
“Daddy has no hair. Only a beard.”
“Is the beard like this? Or is there more of it? Or less?”
“Like that.”
“And the same color?”
“Yes.”
She turned to Brian. “Lose the hair. The beard’s fine, but the rest goes.”
Brian took the picture, held it in both hands and concentrated. His hands shook with the effort. “Done,” he said handing it back.
They continued in that vein. Brenda asking Sacrifice if the shape of the nose was right, the eyes, the jaw line, the outline of the face. Brian made the alterations, his blackened forehead glistening. Sometimes he had to stop mid-shift and rest. Sometimes he had to curl up in a ball, head in hands.
“Are you sure you can continue?” Brenda asked him. “The likeness must be pretty close as it is.”
“No,” he said, his teeth clenched. “Got to get it right.”
“What’s the matter with him?” asked Sacrifice, leaning to her right to peer towards Brian, but showing no inclination to move any further from her spot by the television.
“He has a bad headache,” said Brenda.
“Daddy gets those. They make him angry.”
Brenda shivered. She could imagine – in graphic detail. From his picture, Daddy was a thickset version of Sean Connery – probably six foot plus and approaching two hundred and fifty pounds. Sacrifice was a waif-like nine-year-old. It would be terrifying.
“I don’t like it when Daddy gets angry.”
“No, I don’t expect you do. But Daddy’s not angry at the moment. See, look at his picture. He’s not angry at all, is he?”
The girl shook her head, but didn’t look convinced. She looked afraid. The thought of an angry Daddy had unsettled her.
Brenda tried to press on and finish the photofit before she lost the girl completely.
“What about his eyes? Do they look like Daddy’s eyes? Or should they be closer together? Or larger?”
“Don’t know.”
“Close your eyes and think, Sacrifice. Think about a time when Daddy was happy. And you were ... happy.”
Brenda could feel she was digging herself into a very large and inappropriate hole, but felt powerless to avoid it. How do you try and lead a girl, who’s been locked up and murdered by a sadistic pervert, to a safe place in her past where she could think calmly and describe her abductor? For all Brenda knew, Daddy smiled most when he was torturing her.
Brenda persevered, giving Sacrifice time when she felt she needed it, and pressing when she thought she could take the risk. It was slow and painstaking work. But, together, they refined the picture, adjusting Daddy’s eyes and nose, and thickening his lips.
Then Sacrifice began to fade.
Brenda slipped into panic mode. Think of a question! Quick! She’s going!
“What year is it?” she asked.
Sacrifice was barely visible. Her mouth moved, but her answer – if it was an answer – was too quiet too discern. It was more like a sigh.
And then she was gone.
Brenda’s annoyance was short-lived. She had a picture. Anyone as sick as Daddy had to have a record. Or have been noticed. Even if he’d never been convicted, his name would appear in reports as a person of interest. His face would be in the FBI database. It had to be!
And she could find it today. In the next hour if she was quick. The desk sergeant downtown knew her from yesterday. He’d let her access the FBI computer. All she’d have to do was input the picture and out would come Daddy’s name and address.
Reality lobbed a brick in Brenda’s direction. The desk sergeant wouldn’t recognize her, because yesterday she’d had a different face.
Brenda dropped her head, then raised it to look at Brian who was staring vacantly into space.
“Brian? Brian! Can you change me back? Just the nose. I’ll disguise the rest. I need to get into the FBI computer.”
He stared at her through hooded eyes. He looked exhausted. He hadn’t said a word since Sacrifice left. And, maybe she was imagining it, but for someone char-grilled black, he looked surprisingly pale.
“Can’t,” he said. “Living flesh too hard. Paper easier.”
“Paper?”
He held out a shaking hand. “Fetch paper. Those pictures.”
He pointed a shaky finger at the magazine pages on the floor. She collected them up and handed them to him.
He screwed the pages up between both hands. Then smoothed them together, rubbing the flat of his right hand over his left. All the time he stared at Brenda intently. It was unsettling.
“You’ll need a password too,” he said. “It’s inside.”
Then his head rolled back and he passed out, dropping what looked like a black wallet from his hands.
Brenda bent down and picked it up. As she did so, a scrap of paper fell out. She picked that up too. It had an agent number and a password scrawled on it. Then she opened the wallet and found an FBI badge with her picture and ... a new name. Agent Jane Marple.
Chapter Twenty
Agent Marple was ready. She had ID. She had two pictures – one of Daddy, and one of Mary Alice, so she could search for other victims. And she had a plan. She’d tell the desk sergeant she was a colleague of the FBI agent who’d requested acc
ess to their computer yesterday. A plan which sounded much better when she left out the names Mulder and Marple. The desk sergeant had already picked up on Agent Mulder, would Agent Marple tweak his curiosity enough to call FBI headquarters?
Brenda convinced herself it wouldn’t. Miss Marple was unassuming and in her seventies. Agent Marple was a thirtysomething blonde with a distracting chest.
And, on the subject of distraction, should she wear that dress to complete the effect? On the plus side, it was difficult to call Quantico if your eyeballs had been burnt out at the roots. But on the minus side...
No, she’d wear a T-shirt. A tight T-shirt. Not that she had a choice since her unasked-for augmentation.
Ten minutes later, Jane Marple – in tight jeans, T-shirt and enough hair to cover a small planet – sashayed out the door. And looked at her 1999 Ford Contour and thought...
What if they recognize my car from yesterday? Shouldn’t I drive something else to keep my cover?
You thought nothing of the kind! tattled the inner Brenda. You just want an excuse to drive the Jaguar.
Brenda turned longing eyes towards the garage door. It wouldn’t be her driving the Jaguar. It would be Agent Marple...
Are you completely mad? You want to drive a stolen car to a police station! And, oh, what about the forged FBI badge? Do you want to draw attention to yourself?
Agent Marple sighed. The Ford Contour it was. She climbed inside and drove away.
The same desk sergeant was on duty as the previous day. Agent Marple smiled, walked confidently over and flicked open her badge.
“I believe my colleague was here yesterday. Agent Mulder?”
“Yes,” said the desk sergeant, carefully checking Agent Marple’s chest against its picture.
“I need access to a computer terminal, too. This case is moving fast and I need to run a suspect’s picture through the system now.”
“Really?” he said, his eyes moving up to her face before being waylaid by her hair.
“I’m undercover,” said Brenda feeling the need to explain her eighties look.
What as? A time-travelling trollop?
Brenda ignored her repressed inner self and furnished the sergeant with a confident smile. And a request.