Black Box Inc.

by Jake Bible

  “I’m a ghost now,” Travis said. “There’s a lot you missed. Sorry about that. They can explain.”

  “Fuck any more explanations! Everything was explained to me as this ghost guy made me get in that fucking box thing Chase made! Oh, I have had all the explanation I fucking need!”

  She moved closer to me, but Lassa still had one of her hands, which forced her to stop. Iris glared up at him until he let go, but I could see he was ready to get between us if he needed to. She smiled at me, the smile was not a pretty smile.

  “How about I explain something to you, Chase? Can I do that?”

  “Yeah, you bet,” I said, trying to sound accommodating. I sounded pitiful instead. “Explain away.”

  “Explain away,” she said under an angry breath. She breathed in and out of her nose, then sneered at me. “Smell that?”

  Despite all the bodily functions, and their odors, I had been subjected to, my nose hadn’t rebelled and run off, so I did happen to notice a specific tang in the air. Harper figured it out before I did, though.

  “Oh shit,” she said as she got down from the counter and walked over to the armchair, small end table, mattress, what looked like a camp cooler, two five-gallon plastic bottles of filtered water (one empty), a large bucket, and something else. “Is that what’s left of the original changeling body?”

  The tang in the air identified itself in my brain. I was smelling a corpse. A two-week-old corpse. Goddammit. Travis had thrown the changeling corpse in the box with Iris without wrapping it in anything.

  “Oh, shit,” Travis said and stopped playing with his new ghost form. “I honestly thought we’d be back sooner.”

  Two weeks. Two weeks with a corpse that was bloated and rotting and quickly went from filling the loft with an unpleasant tang to filling the loft with a gagging reek of death.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said and instinctively reached out for Iris’s hand, wanting to get her away from that smell of death right away.

  She punched me in the face, and I fell on my ass.

  “Okay, time to go,” Lassa said and picked up a screaming, thrashing, enraged Iris and carried her out of the loft.

  “What do we want to do about the mess?” Harper asked, the collar of her shirt pulled up over the bottom half of her face. “We can’t leave this here.”

  “We should call Willitz,” Sharon said, fishing her phone out of her pocket. “Iris is officially missing even though I explained to him she was in one of your boxes. He’ll want to know she’s back so he can close that part of the case.”

  “I’ll call him,” I said. “You guys take off. I’m the one he’ll want to talk to anyway. No need for your weekend to be ruined.”

  “Weekend?” Sharon asked. “You don’t think he’ll arrest you and keep you over the weekend, do you? I can’t see on what grounds.”

  “Well, until he gets a statement from Iris saying otherwise, he has a pretty good goddamn case for kidnapping,” I said.

  “Unlawful imprisonment,” Harper said. “You have to take someone somewhere for kidnapping.”

  “I took her to the Dim. Or put her there, at least.”

  “Maybe. I still think the charge will be unlawful imprisonment. Either way, I agree with you that he’s probably going to take you in until Iris gives him a statement.”

  I nodded toward the door and the far-off sounds of Iris still yelling as Lassa took her downstairs and out of the building.

  “My chances aren’t sounding good.”

  “I’ll call Teresa,” Sharon said. “She can add it to the bill.”

  “No, don’t,” I said. “I can take a night or two in a cell.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sharon said. “There is a reason we have lawyers.”

  “There’s also a reason I want to spend a night or two in a cell.”

  Harper patted me on the shoulder and walked to the door. She was gone without saying a word. Sharon stared at me. Harper understood. You don’t kill as many beings as she has and not take a timeout for some atonement.

  “Go on. Shar, I’ll be fine. Willitz will be raging pissed-off, but he’s always like that. I can handle him.” I shrugged. “And maybe he won’t take me in. That would be a lot of paperwork for the middle of the night.”

  Sharon’s mouth opened and closed a couple times before she finally busied herself with adjusting her wig, gave me a hug, and left to catch up with the others.

  I didn’t waste any time calling Willitz. The bloated, stinking corpse hurried my ass along. I was right, he was pissed off as hell, but I think because I woke him up more than because I was back in town and troubling him with my bullshit.

  Either way, he was at the loft with four state troopers behind him in less than thirty minutes. I waited for him on the sidewalk outside. I couldn’t take the smell. I warned him before we climbed the stairs to the loft, and I showed him everything, then told him what my last two weeks had been like.

  Willitz, like most detectives in law enforcement, was a natural born skeptic. I could see it in his eyes when he didn’t believe my story despite the fact I told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He had me go over the story twice more, mostly, I think, to force me to stand in that stinking loft and see if I would break and suddenly confess to a hundred other crimes he wanted to pin on me only because he disliked me so much.

  “I am taking you in,” he said when we were finally back outside in the fresh air. “I have to. There are holes in your story, but everything that I can follow up on will probably check out fine. You did put a woman in a box against her will and kept her there for two weeks. If I don’t arrest you, I’ll be fired.”

  “I get it. We all answer to someone, right?”

  “Who do you answer to?”

  I laughed. “I’ll let you know when I figure that out.”

  “God, I hate you,” Willitz said before ordering one of the troopers to slap some cuffs on me and take me in.

  I spent the entire weekend in a jail cell in county lockup. I had the cell to myself, which was nice of Willitz. He could have had me thrown in a general holding cell with the drunks and crackheads, but he gave me some space. I used that space and slept. I slept and slept and slept. I slept that weekend away.

  You’d think after two weeks in a semicoma I wouldn’t have needed the rest, but this was a post-Dim key in me, post-changeling leech on me, post-finding out that Travis was dead but not gone, post-getting beaten to hell by Iris sleep. I needed the rest more than I needed food.

  When Monday rolled around, Willitz showed his face and personally escorted me through the process of letting me go.

  “You talked to Iris?” I asked.

  “I talked to Ms. Penn, yes,” Willitz said. “She ain’t much of a fan of you, I can say that for sure, but she isn’t pressing charges.”

  That seemed to make him happy. I didn’t argue with him.

  “Listen, Lawter,” Willitz said outside on the sidewalk. The sky looked like the day was going to be a nice one. “I have a favor to ask.”

  I had no idea how to respond to that. If the late Ed McMahon had showed up with $10 million and was wearing a goddamn tutu, I would have been less surprised. Which must have shown on my face, because he rolled his eyes and grimaced.

  “Forget it.” He turned to go back inside. “Stay out of trouble, asshole. I’m tired of seeing your face.”

  “Hey, Willitz, hold on. What favor do you need?”

  “Never mind.”

  “No, come on, lay it on me.” He stared at me. “Seriously. What favor? Better ask me now because you may never get another chance, pal.”

  “I was thinking about that big box you made. You think you could do that again?”

  I thought about the size of the Dim trap I’d created for Lord
Beelzebub.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I can.”

  “How sure?”

  “Very.”

  “Good. That’s good.” He looked down at his feet. When he looked back up, he said, “What do you know about dragons?”

  I smiled. “You finally found them up in Mars Hill, huh?”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed.

  “You knew?”

  “You don’t work in the world I work in and not know when dragons are around.”

  “I do work in the world you work in, asshole. And I didn’t know that dragons were around.”

  “Right. Sorry. Bad choice of words. So, what’s the favor, exactly?”

  “You think you could make one of those boxes for us? One big enough to hold a dragon? Maybe two or three.”

  “There are six dragons up in Mars Hill. But I’m not sure why you’re worrying about them. They rarely come out of their lair.”

  “I’m not worried about those,” Willitz said and stopped. “Six?”

  “Six.”

  “Damn. But those don’t matter. There are three up in Canada that have my bosses on alert.”

  “Canada? I’m not going to Canada.”

  “No, you don’t need to. The Feds have a wyvern as an informant. He said that the three dragons have a beef with the dragons in Mars Hill and are talking shit about coming down here to settle some score. We can’t exactly go tell the six . . . Jesus Christ, six? We can’t go tell the six to leave. They’re dragons. They have no natural enemies except each other and can survive a nuclear blast.”

  “Sure.”

  “What?”

  “Sure. I’ll help trap the Canadian dragons when they get here. Give me a heads-up, if you can. I’d like a day to eat everything in sight first to keep up my energy. Three boxes that size won’t be easy.”

  “Well . . . shit. Thanks.”

  “That hurt to say, didn’t it?”

  “Fuck off.”

  He was gone back into the building before I could say anything else.

  I tilted my head to the sun and felt the warmth on my face. Maybe the day was going to be nice.

  31

  I WENT HOME, showered, changed, ate some cereal (all the cereal I had in my kitchen), then decided that I should head over to Mulkahey, Delaney, and Sullivan—Attorneys at Law and talk to Teresa about our bill and fetch the last Dim key related to our past few days of hell.

  First I tried calling Iris. She didn’t answer her cell phone, and she had no home phone that I knew of. So I called the restaurant and talked to the day manager. She said Iris would be taking a few days off before coming back to work because some asshole stuck her in a box for two weeks. Then she hung up on me.

  Next I wandered into the law firm at about noon and caught Teresa on her way out the door for lunch.

  “Mr. Lawter, it’s good to see you up and about,” she said. She glanced past me. “No Ms. Kyles to keep you safe?”

  “Gaining my independence,” I said as I opened my jacket and showed her the apocalypse blade I still had. The sergeant behind the county jail desk had handed it back to me with his fingertips. Not everyone was cool with the way life had changed in town.

  “Good for you, Mr. Lawter. Good for you,” Teresa said.

  “Mr. Lawter? What happened to Chase?”

  “We’re home and I think it’s best I separated myself from the events that transpired two weeks ago. The bar has opened an inquiry into my involvement and I need to maintain a professional distance.”

  “That’s too bad. I was hoping to talk a little about what all went down. Get your perspective.”

  “I think not,” she said and looked about the lobby until she found the wall clock. “Listen, I am in a hurry for a lunch meeting—”

  “Go ahead. I won’t keep you. I only wanted to make sure you were going to void that bill you sent Sharon.”

  “Void the bill?” She looked shocked and confused. “Why on earth would I do that?”

  “Well, with an inquiry from the bar, I’d hate for the facts to get confused if they ever came and spoke to me.”

  “Do not test me ever, Mr. Lawter.” She was calm, but I’d spent some time with her in battle. I could see she was ready to rip my head off. “The bill is perfectly adequate for the duties performed by myself and my firm.”

  “I guess.” I shrugged. “Oh, well. If you won’t void the bill out of the goodness of your heart, then maybe in exchange for these. I can only imagine the expenses they’d cost your firm if activated. Billable or not, what a mess.”

  I reached into my pocket and fished out the calling stones she’d given us during our adventure.

  She glared at me, looked back at the clock, glared at me some more, then sighed. She held out her hand. I placed the stones in her open palm. They disappeared in a flash of blue light.

  “I will have the billing department amend the bill.” She held up a finger. “To half of what was originally charged. Anything less would look improper and make my life harder than it already is.”

  “That’s great. Thanks.”

  “Are we done here?”

  “Sure. Except I need that Dim key that you got released from evidence. Your associates never gave it to Sharon despite that whole proprietary crap.”

  “They didn’t?”

  “No.” I knew she was well aware her firm still had possession. I could see it in those banshee eyes.

  “Well, I do not have to be here for that,” she said. “Flip!”

  The gnome appeared almost immediately by her side.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Lawter,” he said. “You are looking rested.”

  “A weekend in jail will do that,” I said.

  “A weekend in jail? No, no, I don’t want to know,” Teresa said. “I’m off to lunch. Flip, get him what he wants.”

  She left in a flurry of her glowing blue gown.

  I smiled down at Flip.

  “How’s things?” I asked.

  “Wonderful,” he said. “What may I fetch for you?”

  “There’s a Dim key I need back.”

  “Ah, yes, that.” He frowned. “Nasty piece of business, if you ask me. Not sure why you play with that stuff. I’ll be back shortly.”

  He was. I don’t know how gnomes get around, but they are goddamn fast, that’s for sure.

  He held out the evidence bag like it was a bag of dog poop.

  “I believe this is what you want.”

  “That’s the one.” I took the bag from him. “Thanks, Flip. And thanks for helping Sharon while we were gone.”

  “Anytime, Mr. Lawter.” He bowed. “May I assist you with anything else?”

  “That’ll do it. See ya later.”

  But I stopped when something hit me.

  “Uh, Flip?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lawter?”

  “Whatever happened to the ghoul driver we left back in the faerie dimension?”

  “Oh, he was returned after a little negotiation. Not quite true. There was a lot of negotiating. I do not expect us to do much business in the faerie dimension for a long while.”

  “Yeah, I bet. Good to know the guy made it back in one piece.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that . . .”

  “Yikes. Will you give Sharon his address? I’ll have a nice rancid deli tray sent over to him.”

  “Oh, he would appreciate that.” Someone called his name. “I have to go now. Are you sure you would not like an escort back to your office? Better safe than—”

  “I’m good, Flip, but thanks.”

  “All right, then. Well, must be going now. You have an excellent day.”

  “You too.”

  I left the firm and walked the few blocks
to the office. The day had only gotten better.

  “Hey,” I said as I came into the office.

  “Oh, Chase, I am so glad you are here,” Sharon said. “Did they treat you well in jail?”

  “I don’t think anyone gets treated well in jail, Shar. But they left me alone. I got some sleep.”

  “Yeah, because you needed more sleep,” Harper said, her boots up on her desk while she cleaned her fingernails with the tip of a knife.

  “You’d be surprised,” I said, then looked about. “Lassa?”

  “Crapper.”

  “Travis?”

  She shrugged. “Around, I guess. Not my job to keep track of shapeshifter ghosts.”

  “May I ask if he is going to be working with us?” Sharon said. “Since he does owe you two life debts now, perhaps, if his services were needed, they could be on the house. We still cannot afford another employee.”

  “I don’t know if he was looking for employment,” I said. “But I’ll talk to him when I see him. I have a feeling he’ll be hanging around Asheville for a while now.”