A slim young man dressed in jeans and a bulky hoodie towered over him, fingers wrapped around his neck, veins on the back of his hands bulging.
‘You conned me,’ he cried, spittle flying as he screamed into the attendant’s big, moony face. His voice was thick with menace but gilded with class. Whoever he was, he grew up a long way from the gutter. ‘This is your fault,’ he barked, tightening his grip further still. ‘Do you get that? This is on you.’
The red-faced attendant fought back, pounding his fists against his attacker’s chest. When that didn’t work, he slipped a hand into the pocket of his waistcoat, pulled a switchblade, and plunged it into the man’s belly.
It happened so fast. There was no chance to intervene. One second we were rounding a corner to where the sinks were, the next, a man had a knife sticking out of his guts. He staggered back a couple of steps and turned to us with watery eyes.
Watery violet eyes.
‘Help me,’ he gasped.
‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘That’s our guy.’
Not only had we tracked down the dealer, by a total fluke we’d cornered the suspect too, hand in the cookie jar, right up to his frigging elbow.
‘Both of you on the ground, right now,’ Stronge hollered, pulling a Taser (the hand-held, whack ‘em and zap ‘em variety).
The dealer did as he was told, but the perp stayed upright, clutching his stomach. I could hardly blame him, either—that floor was grim, and he was wearing an open wound.
Stronge was about to repeat her demand when the toilet door burst open and we swivelled around to see a trio of bouncers pouring in, all of them dressed in black, each sporting thick arms and raw knuckles.
Seemed we were right about the security in this place being dirty.
Chapter Six: The Hard Stuff
From that point, things went downhill faster than a greased bobsled.
Stronge was pulling her badge and preparing to identify herself when the girl going at it in the toilet stall kicked open the door and legged it, knocking the detective’s ID from her hand and sending it rafting through the sludge below. The bloke she was knocking boots with was quick to follow, accidentally hoofing the wallet under the door of a separate cubicle as he bolted from the bathroom, tackle flying in the wind.
Stronge got as far as saying, ‘Stand down, I’m an off—’ before the wind was knocked from her lungs by the man in the hoodie, who—despite being wounded—barged into her from behind and slipped between the bouncers, disappearing into the belly of the club.
Again, Stronge attempted to let security know that she was an officer of the law, and again her words were cut short, swallowed up by the din coming through the toilet door. The only message the bouncers received was that an armed woman was making trouble in their establishment, and that message was received loud and clear. The three of them closed in on Stronge and Frank, but despite the numbers, I knew they could take care of themselves. Priority one was apprehending the suspect.
‘Go,’ Stronge ordered, and I didn’t need telling twice.
I phased through the wall of meatheads and gave swift pursuit. Back in the club, I caught a glimpse of the man in the hoodie, peeling out like a scalded cat. He cast a look over his shoulder and saw me emerging from the body of an overweight woman wearing nothing but a couple of bits of strategically-placed Gaffa tape. We locked eyes. Whatever this bloke was, he could see ghosts, which meant he could most likely damage them, too. I wasn’t about to let that slow me down, though.
I cut through the crowd like a knife, closing the distance between us, gaining ground. He wasn’t going to make it to the stairs before I was on top of him, least of all with a gut wound, but he didn’t need to. From the waistband of his jeans he pulled a pistol, no doubt the same one he’d used to plug my client. He levelled the gun at me and its metal flashed under the frantic pulse of a strobe light. For a moment I thought he was about to waste a bullet on an apparition, but he had other ideas.
Crack.
A shot rang out, spitting red and blowing a hole through the mirror ball above. Chaos reigned as glass showered the dancefloor and panicking clubbers caught sight of the weapon. A surge of sweaty bodies made a stampede for the exit, breaking my sightline to the suspect. By the time a gap I could see through appeared, the man in the hoodie had evaporated.
But all was not lost. Using the power of translocation, I could take a shortcut to the club’s front door, cutting him off at the pass. Emphasis there on the word “could”, because for some reason my disappearing trick short-circuited, leaving me right where I was standing. I tried again but remained rooted to the spot. What the hell?
So I went after the perp the old-fashioned way, bounding up the stairs two steps at a time, but when I arrived in the lobby I saw he’d already cut and run. No sign of him on the street outside and no one around to tell me which way he took off. I looked for a blood trail but the spots he left ended at the coat check area. A clothes hanger lay discarded on the counter, suggesting he’d grabbed a garment on his way out—a scarf maybe—and used it as a makeshift bandage.
The suspect was in the wind. Instead of letting him bleed out on a filthy toilet floor—which you might consider a fitting end for a murderer—I’d inadvertently allowed him to escape and most likely saved his life. Not my best work, I think you’ll agree.
‘Fuck,’ I cried, taking a swing at a lamp post and meeting zero resistance.
Still pissing blood but regaining some degree of restraint, I remembered my colleagues, last seen doing battle with three security guards in the men’s facilities. I raced back downstairs, across the crushed remains of the mirror ball, and saw the door to the gents explode outwards. The bouncers toppled out like bowled skittles and Frank came after them, chin tucked into his chest like a charging bull. The doormen staggered to their feet to collect their senses and were quickly joined by two more meatheads with the smell of blood in their nostrils. The music was switched off, leaving behind a brittle, ominous silence. For the last time, Stronge attempted to assert her credentials, but the ship had well and truly sailed by this point. The archangel Gabriel could have flown down bearing a scroll from God Himself and this lopsided ruckus would still have gone ahead.
Time to even the odds. I took a run at the burliest of the bouncers (the one with the topknot we met at the door) and went to take possession of his body. Instead of fusing with the bloke’s corporeal form and seizing control of his walnut brain, I met him like a brick wall and made friends with the floor. First translocation failed me, now it seemed my possession powers were on the fritz. Something was seriously wrong, but there was no time to run an MOT. For now, I’d have to hope it was a temporary glitch and make do with the classics.
Time to take a ride in the Frank tank.
I stepped into Frank and the two of us became one. It was only once I’d taken a seat in the back of his mind that I realised what I’d done: taken control of a physical form. How was it that I was able to jump into Frank’s skull but not the other guy’s? Was it strength of will on the bouncer’s part, or was it something else? Merging with Frank was something I didn’t even have to think about at this point, like shrugging on a comfy old jacket. With a stranger there was more to it; I had to force my way in and kick them out of the driver’s seat. With Frank, I called shotgun and the two of us shared the wheel. Maybe that’s why I could possess him, because he was a willing participant. Because Frank knows that we complement each other. Together, me and him are what you might call a Gestalt entity: greater than the sum of our parts. He provides the muscle and I add a little extra mind.
Speaking of which…
One of the bouncers came steaming at me, all wide like an angry pufferfish. Rather than tackle him head-on, I employed a bit of savvy, used Frank’s gorilla strength to wrench a stripper pole from its moorings, and gave the bouncer a bloody good hiding with it. He kissed the ground goodnight and sent some teeth spinning across the dancefloor.
I rounded on the next mus
cle Mary in line. ‘Come on then, you got the sprouts for it?’
He dithered, but one of his colleagues decided to take the plunge. Stronge gave him a taste of her Taser and sent him down with a few more volts than he needed. I was about to thank her for the assist when a third bouncer snuck up from behind and laid a real peach on me. The pain ricocheted off my high teeth, but it wasn’t enough to turn my lights out. I swung my makeshift quarterstaff in a wide half-moon, sweeping my attacker’s legs out from under him and leaving him on his ear.
The next guy I was ready for. He threw a hefty dig, but I backed up a step, leaving his fist tugging air. Before he could follow up with a left, I swung the pole down at the top of his skull, dropping him to his knees like a James Brown closer.
Topknot was the last man standing, but he’d seen enough.
‘Fuck this,’ he said, and turned tail.
Apparently, his salary didn’t justify the cost of taking this thing all the way, so he toddled off and took his poncy haircut with him.
Chapter Seven: Low-Lifes and No-Lifes
It was just us white hats left in the game now, or at least that’s what I thought before I heard a pitiful moan on the other side of the dancefloor and saw someone splayed out across the ruins of a busted chair. I took him for a bouncer at first, coming to from his drubbing, but when we approached the groaning figure we found the bulb-headed dealer, curled up foetal style and gripping his leg. He was obviously in a good deal of distress. Closer examination revealed that the lower portion of his right leg was broken.
‘What happened to you?’ I asked.
He didn't answer, but he didn’t need to. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he’d been sucked under the tide of escaping revellers and trampled.
The suspect was gone, but we got what we came for. Maybe this evening wasn’t going to be a total wash-out after all.
I peeled away from Frank, stepping out of him like a hermit crab vacating its shell.
‘Do us a favour, Frank, go shut the door upstairs and make sure we don’t get any visitors.’
Frank nodded and ambled away, but the dealer’s eyes stayed on me. Something wasn’t right with this feller. Either he had the Sight or he wasn’t human, and with his oddly-proportioned body and skin the colour of rancid lard, something told me it wasn’t the first one.
I dropped to my haunches, hooked a thumb under his top lip, and peeled it back.
‘Frank was right,’ I said, beckoning Stronge closer.
She took a knee and examined my find. The dealer’s teeth had been blunted, filed down to stumps so he could pass for human.
‘He’s an eaves after all,’ said Stronge.
The filed-down teeth explained why the police blotter didn’t say anything about him packing a set of piranha fangs.
‘Well, what have you got to say for yourself?’ I asked him.
He let go of his leg and held his hands out in front of him, fingers twitching like a gunslinger in a spaghetti western.
‘What is that?’ asked Stronge, stiffening and drawing back. ‘Is he casting a spell?’
I cocked my head to get a better look. ‘No, that’s not magic. That’s sign language.’
‘You know sign language?’
I cut her some eyes. ‘I can read ancient Aramaic. Why wouldn’t I know a bit of Makaton?’
Stronge’s shoulders hitched in a fair enough way. ‘So what’s he saying?’
‘Right now he’s saying he needs a hospital, which adds up.’
Stronge nodded and slid a hand into her gilet, searching for her phone.
‘Put it away, will you?’ I said. ‘We’ve got questions to ask before the ambo gets here.’
‘Look at him. He needs medical—’
‘I’ve got this, okay?’
Stronge’s lips turned paper-thin. ‘Go on then, get it over with.’
I returned my attention to the eaves and showed him some signs of my own. After a bit of broken back and forth, I determined that he did what he did—dealing drugs—because he wasn’t able to do much else. He was deaf. An eaves trades gossip for magic, which they need the same way most people need food, and when you’re born without a working set of ears, gossip ain’t easy to come by. You need to find some other way to earn your fill. It’s do or die for a deaf eaves, and this one chose do.
I hadn’t even asked him about the suspect yet, but I’d already learned our man had magic at his disposal. That was a start. I wondered what else I could turn up if I gave the thumbscrews a twist.
Who is the man with the purple eyes? I signed.
The eaves didn’t reply. It seemed he’d suddenly developed a bad case of finger cramp.
I was considering my next move when Stronge cut in.
‘Why don’t you just possess him and get some answers that way?’
It was a fair question. Just because I couldn’t make it work with that bouncer didn’t mean I couldn’t feather a nest in this guy. Except, as it turns out, it did. I tried to infiltrate him, but his body was a closed shop. My disembodied spirit and his mortal form collided like two positively-charged magnets, repelling each other and bouncing in opposite directions.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Stronge, seeing the face I was making.
‘Having a bit of trouble with the old mind-over-matter right now.’
‘But you managed with Fran—’
‘Yeah, I know.’
I turned back to the squirming eaves and gave him a no-nonsense stare. ‘Are you gonna tell me what I need to know or am I going to have to start snapping fingers?’ I asked, mouthing it in such a way that even a blind person could have followed along.
Stronge raised a concern. ‘Given that sign language is his only way of talking, is that such a good idea?’
Honestly. Everyone’s a critic these days.
‘Fine.’ I stood up and raised a foot. ‘Last chance, Sonny Jim. Speak now or forever hold your peace.’
He returned a two-fingered salute that required no translation, so I ground a heel into his injured leg. The eaves’ mouth fell open and a scream punched out of his throat.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ cried Stronge.
‘Just a spot of light torture.’
She placed herself between me and the eaves; a symbolic gesture, really, given that I could go through her like a bulldozer through a cobweb.
‘I’m police, you idiot. I can’t be part of this, and definitely not in this climate.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry, that was wrong,’ I said, showing her my hands. ‘We should just kill him.’
I drew my claw hammer and raised it high, lining up a swing at the eaves’ knee.
That got him talking.
Signing so fast that I had to ask him to slow it down, the eaves told us what he knew about our guy. It turned out to be very little. Apparently, this was only the second time he’d had dealings with the man in the hoodie. The first time, he bought a wrap and paid on the spot, no problem. The second time—tonight—he came in raving about being sold a bad dose and trying to strangle him. The eaves told me that was bullshit, that the ‘clad he sold was primo, uncut stuff. I told him I wasn’t interested in his Yelp score.
What did he mean when he said it was your fault? I asked, remembering the overheated conversation in the toilets.
The eaves said he didn’t know. That the guy probably did something he regretted and wanted to make it someone else’s fault.
What is he? I asked, And where do I find him?
The eaves told me he had no idea what he was or where he was, and I believed him. If he knew more he’d have coughed it up the second he saw that hammer bearing down on him.
‘What’s he saying?’ asked Stronge, uncomfortable with my methods but eager to hear what I’d extracted.
‘Not a lot,’ I admitted.
Stronge was beginning to look as fed up as I did. ‘If he doesn’t have an ID on the killer, get him to tell you some more about the drug he’s slinging. If we know what the per
p’s getting out of it, we might be able to use that to build a profile.’
It was worth a shot. The eaves’ knee was the size of a ripe watermelon now, and I had a feeling he’d say just about anything to be left alone.
What does ironclad do? I asked.
The eaves explained that the drug got its users amped up; made them feel invulnerable, removed all sense of fear. In the head of someone high on the stuff, they could never die. Big whoop, I thought. Being everlasting was my day-to-day, but I didn’t go around slotting escorts.
What’s it made of? I asked.
He signed back, fingers going nineteen to the dozen. You don’t know? It’s Uncanny. Made of fairies.
I learned that ‘clad was the latest strain of a drug that first started doing the rounds in Brighton. I’d heard barside rumours about the stuff making its way from the coast to the city, and it seemed this was the proof. The drug’s active component was ground-up fairy brains, the kind belonging to the rotten little toe rags that swarm the sewers beneath most major cities, especially this one. I also learned that the eaves really, really wanted to pay a visit to the hospital, and since I’d exhausted my line of questioning, I saw no reason to keep him. A quick catch-up with Stronge and she made the 999 call.
Okay, so here’s what we’d learned so far: the person we were after was three things:
A spell-slinger
someone who got high on fairy dust
and someone who definitely wasn’t shy about offering customer feedback.
That really didn’t give us much to go on. I was about ready to call this bust… well, a bust, but then Frank showed up with something in his hand.
‘What have you got there?’
He unfurled his mitt to reveal a smartphone. He gave it a sniff.
I smiled. ‘Is this what I think it is?’
He bobbed his head.
‘Good boy,’ I said, laying a slap on his back.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Stronge, as baffled as she was aggravated.
Deadly Departed: A Supernatural Thriller (Fletcher & Fletcher, Paranormal Investigators Book 2) Page 5