“Capitalize this,” I say, hurling the photo to the floor. The glass pane in the frame shatters on impact.
Storming past Carionette, I sweep around the counter at the rear of the shop and heave open the door to the back room.
What I see in the back makes my stomach churn and my petals wilt. Though I knew what to expect as soon as I spotted the Red Boy, the sight of such perversion is still hard to take.
On one side of the workbench, a translucent plastic bin brims with deep crimson petals. More of the petals are scattered over the bench, each a graceful curl from lip to cup.
And on the center of the bench...
“Rain, sun, wind, and earth,” I say softly, making the sign of the cross over myself to ward off the evil in this place.
On the center of the bench, half-finished, is a replica of a face...the face of a rose, assembled from the same crimson petals. As if that were not bad enough...
I can tell from the texture and scent that the petals are real. This mask is being glue-gunned together with petals from someone with a rose for a head.
Someone like me.
“Let me explain!” says Carionette as she charges into the room. “These are all castoffs purchased from donor plants!”
“As if I care where you got the petals,” I say, turning to face her. “As if you don’t know that the true crime here is the manufacture of rose-head masks.” I step toward her, emitting one of my special ester vapors. This one is designed to instill terror in whoever inhales it.
“B-but this is a special commission,” says Carionette. I can tell from the way her petals flicker that my ester is taking effect. “It’s a death mask for a rose-head whose face was t-terribly damaged in the accident that k-killed him.”
I continue to move closer. Carionette remains frozen in place. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that story before?” I say slowly.
Then, I pounce, throwing her back against the wall and pinning her arms to the plaster with my palm-thorns.
Chub has finally managed to flipper into the doorway, and I say to him, “Partner Man-Head? What is the penalty for making, distributing, or wearing rose-masks?”
“Everyone knows that,” says Chub. “Death by lethal injection of herbicide.”
“Mandatory death penalty,” I say, pressing my petals to within inches of Carionette’s rhododendron-head. “But you never know, Miss Carionette. Maybe, if you tell me everything I want to know, I’ll cut you some slack.”
“W-what do you w-want to know?” says Carionette.
“A name and address,” I say. “Who ordered this mask?”
*****
I am surrounded by roses who are not roses.
Men and women dance under the flashing colored lights in the warehouse, and at first glance, everyone appears to have a rose-head. A closer look, however, reveals that every rose is a mask, and behind every mask are petals of white or gold or pink or purple or orange.
There must be at least a hundred people who look like roses in the warehouse, and the only one among them who is an actual rose-head is yours truly.
And I’d thought seeing the rose mask in progress at Fleshlovers had been sickening. This twisted masquerave, in violation of the most sacrosanct of our laws and moral codes, is off the charts when it comes to sick-making.
Masking oneself as a daffodil or petunia is one thing. Lower species are fair game when it comes to dress-up.
But the rose is sacred. The rose is most beautiful. The rose is above all others.
And imitation of the rose is forbidden.
Under other circumstances, I would call in a strike force and fumigate this noxious den of pretenders...but my job tonight requires different tactics. Forcing down my revulsion with great effort, I circle the dance floor in search of the man described by Miss Carionette.
Fortunately, my authentic rose-head enables me to blend in as I explore, though I am certain no one around me imagines that a true rose is among them. Chub waits outside; there was no way that mashed-potato man-head could have entered this exclusive “roses-only” event.
It doesn’t take me long to locate my target. He is seven feet tall and wears the only black rose mask in the place. His name is Carotid Aficionado, and according to Carionette, he is the man who ordered the rose-head mask she was making in the back room at Fleshlovers.
He is also the organizer and host of this nightmarish masquerave.
Carotid stands by the bar at the back of the room, a rose-masked woman on either arm. His scent puffs at me like clouds of smoke from a fire--powerful, capricious, and arrogant.
As I draw near, he turns his attention to me. I wisp out a scent of my own, designed to project non-threatening respect.
“Mr. Aficionado?” I say in flower-speak. “May I have a moment of your time?”
The fragrance of his voice is just as abrasive as his personal scent. Even muted by the rose mask, the
flutter-talk of his petals is loud with hyperconfidence. “What’ll you pay me for it?” he says, and the ladies on his arms giggle behind their masks.
“I can’t afford to pay you what it’s worth,” I say humbly (though I want to snap his head off). “How about you make it on the house and call it your good deed for the day?”
Carotid chuckles and nods. “Just so you don’t take more than I’m willing to give. I don’t tolerate anyone stealing from me.”
“It’s about Gravelina Scalding,” I say. “She’s out of the picture.”
“Is that so?” says Carotid.
“My name is Rooted Capsule,” I say, “and I’d like to offer my services.”
“Outstanding,” says Carotid. “The question is, can you measure up to dear Gravelina?”
“Let’s find out,” I say. “Give me a chance.”
Carotid sheds his chippies like the sleeves of silk pajamas and rests a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve talked me into it, Cappy,” he says, then gestures at a guy wearing a yellow rose-mask behind the bar. The guy runs up metal stairs to an elevated booth, and a minute later, the pulsing music cuts out. The dancers stop moving all at once.
Instantly, my guard goes up, as I realize that the whole scene has just gone bad.
One of Carotid’s men hands him a microphone. As he flower-speaks, his flutters and scent are amplified and cast out over the crowd, nice and loud.
“Hello, roses!” says Carotid, and the mob on the dance floor flutter-roars and applauds. The obscenity of it, of all these low-growing species wearing rosy masks and cheering as he calls them roses, makes my toe maws snap angrily in my shoes.
“Are the stamens of your rose-heads heavy with pollen, guys?” says Carotid. The rough, insistent flutters of male flowers charge the air. “Ladies, are your pistils crying out to be dusted with hot, surging pollen?” The room ripples with a wave of lighter fluttering as the women chime in. “Then it’s your lucky night!”
I try to slide away from Carotid, but he keeps a tight grip on my shoulder. Undesirable outcomes are hurtling toward me, and I have no weapon to blow or cut or spray my way out of here.
But I do have a man-head up my sleeve, and how sweet is that? Smoothly, I drop my hand in my pocket and press the button on the secret weapon I call the Chub Signal, otherwise known as a pager.
As Carotid pushes me forward into the hands of two goons, I take heart that any minute now there’ll be fire in the hole.
“Gravelina can’t be with us tonight,” says Carotid, at which the crowd rustles with disappointment. “But your Uncle Carotid won’t let you down! Put your hands together for our very special guest, Rooted Capsule!”
Everyone but me and the goons claps wildly.
“Nobody leaves a Carotid party unfertilized!” says Carotid, and then he spins around like a rock star and punches an index finger toward the elevated DJ booth. “Hit it, Goomie! Make it a love song!”
The guy in the booth scratches a record on the turntable three times, then lets it spin. A hip-hop version of “Flight of the
Bumblebee” explodes from the amps.
One goon holds me while another raises a mask toward my face. The mask is a rounded cone striped gold and black, covered with fuzzy bristles...an instantly recognizable icon of sensuality and lifegiving for every greenblooded blossomer.
It’s a replica of the ass-end of a bee. Now I know why Gravelina Scalding had so many pollen samples on her.
Like Gravelina, I’m meant to go person to person and rub my masked snout in their flower-heads, picking up pollen from the males and smearing it on the pistils of the females. This is not just a masquerave, it’s a pollination orgy...and I’m “it.”
At least, that’s what’s in store for me until the roar of an engine fast approaches outside and the doors of the warehouse blow in like autumn leaves in a wind-gust.
Thankfully, in addition to drinking, there are two other things that slow-moving Chub Man-Head does fast, and one of them’s driving.
The other is evident as the machine gun turrets on the roof and hood of his squad car burst to life. Chub might take a half-hour to flipper across a room, but he’s a speed demon when it comes to shooting people to death.
Chub’s guns chew up the crowd with deafening, random fury, filling the air with plumes of green and red syrup. Rose masks fly apart like feather pillows, petals of red and pink and yellow and white spraying outward as if magnetically repelled from the depraved scum who wear them.
As the crowd scatters in a panic, I haul up a leg and kick back hard into the shin of the guy who’s holding me. His petals and scent flare with pain, and he loosens his grip just enough for me to tear my arms free.
When the other goon, the one who was going to put the bee mask on me, charges, I dive at him with palm thorns extended. My thorns slide into his chest like meat thermometers into a roast, and then I drag them downward, gashing him open. Red and green fluid pours out like wine, and the goon drops away...just in time for me to spin around and finish off the first guy.
Goon One barrels at me with steaming petals and fists clenched like he’s squeezing mice to death in them. To the sweet sound of Chub’s blazing gunnery, I swirl my yellow suit-coat off and whip it over the goon’s head bullfighter-style. While he wrestles with the coat, I drive a knee-thorn into his belly and slash him open with joy in my hearts. His guts smack the dance floor before he does, so it’s a job well done.
All the while, the gunfire rages, and dancers pelt the floor like hailstones. One of the few people left standing is Carotid, who runs out the back door without his arm candy chippies.
Weirdly enough, when I chase him down and pin him to the alley wall with my thorns, he doesn’t look the slightest bit rattled. I tear the black rose-mask off his red carnation-head, and he just stares at me like I’m no more threatening than a pizza delivery guy.
“Alone at last,” he says. “Let the games begin.”
“What do you know about the Pruner?” I say, twisting my thorns deeper into his flesh with much satisfaction.
Carotid laughs, the multitude of fine red petals in his bloom fluttering with delight. “What’s a Pruner, pray tell?” he says.
I hoist him away from the wall and slam him back hard against the bricks. “Drawing a blank?” I say. “Fortunately for you, I’m an expert at shaking loose blocked memories.”
“Unfortunately for you, I’m a card-carrying masochist,” says Carotid. “In fact, I’m having a party in my mind with you right this minute.”
“Tell me what you know!” I say, enraged by the smartass answers. I feel like my wife and kids are watching, disappointed that I am failing again to find their killer. By now, I am ready to do just about anything for just one lead that will point me toward the Pruner.
Actually, I have a pretty good idea that killing Carotid on the spot will make me feel better, too...but I hold back.
Instead, I spike Carotid’s thigh with my longest knee thorn, then slowly drag it downward, opening a furrow in the meat of his leg.
He stiffens, and I know I’ve finally hurt him. “The drama is completely unnecessary,” he says. “All you had to do was say ‘pretty please with sugar on top.’”
I hesitate, glowering up at him. “Tell me what you know about the Pruner,” I say...and then, grudgingly, I give the vermin almost what he wants. “Pretty please.”
“Come on now,” he says. “Give your daddy some sugar.”
“With sugar on top,” I say, jamming every thorn deeper to drain some of the sweetness from his freaky little victory.
Carotid leans down close enough for me to hear and smell his whisper. “I’ll do better than tell you,” he says. “Uncle Carotid will show you.”
*****
As Carotid leads me among the wildflowers in their foul-smelling camp, I am yet again overcome by disgust.
I have been here before, in this sordid domain of rootless scum, when duty called me to quell a disturbance or show the cop flag when they had murdered one of their own. Each visit filled me with a superstrong urge to raze the place with a bulldozer and pulverize everyone here.
These people of the streets and shadows huddle around barrels of burning compost and squat in makeshift tents of trash bags and scavenged cardboard and plastic sheeting. They dress in stinking rags infested with parasites and water themselves from stagnant puddles. The adults shuffle drunkenly and the screaming children scramble through the mud like animals, filthy and unsupervised.
It is like a vision of the end of the world. It is what happens when people abandon the rule of law and the time-tested virtues of civilization.
And it is only one of many such camps festering in the heart of this fair city and too many others across the land. I am ashamed that we allow such places to exist without plowing them under or blowing them up.
“You said the Pruner would be here,” I say to Carotid, stroking the grip of the automatic handgun in the
right-hand pocket of my lemon-yellow suit jacket. “So where is he?” Next, I stroke the grip of the gun in my left-hand pocket, too.
“I spy, with my little eye,” says Carotid, “the certain someone you’re dying to meet. Over there!” Flinging out an arm, he points a skinny finger dead ahead.
Looking where he indicates, I see two dandelion-headed people sitting on the ground by a campfire in front of a ragged bedsheet tent. One is a full-grown man, cooking something in a tin can, and the other is a little girl, maybe eight years old.
“That’s the Pruner?” I say, tightening my grip on the guns in my pockets.
“Seek and ye shall find, dear Cappy,” says Carotid. “Or would you rather call it a night? I can’t say I blame you for being a little timid.”
“Move it or lose it,” I say, giving him a shove forward. “Introduce me to this madman.”
Carotid starts toward the dandelion-heads. “You say ‘madman,’ I say ‘to-mah-toe,’” he says.
I follow without answering, my nerves vibrating like overcharged power lines. All I see ahead is a grubby
yuck-man cooking dinner with a sooty waif...but the shadow of the Pruner looms oilslick black, and my man-head backup is parked a block away.
As we draw up on the man and the little girl, I catch a big whiff of sweet and sour stench that makes me want to turn away. Body odor mixed with raw sewage and dandelion scent sticky with sickness.
The dandelion-heads look up as we approach, and Carotid gives them a jaunty wave. “Hello to you!” he says. “You’re about to meet someone terribly annoying, and I apologize in advance. His name is Inspector Firstbreath Glisten.”
I flash Carotid a look because he somehow knows my real name even though I never let it slip. It is now that I realize that this scoundrel is playing a deeper game than I imagined.
“Inspector,” says Carotid, extending a hand toward the dandelion-heads by the fire. “You wanted to meet the Pruner. Allow me to introduce Gristle Skinbone and his daughter, Medium.”
I nod, which is as far as I’ll go with pleasantries given the circumstances. Gristle nods
back and wisps out amid the stench a scent with a touch of courtesy and a bucketful of thinly disguised contempt.
In that moment, I have no trouble at all believing that this scabby scat is responsible for the murder of my family. His rancid odor leaves no room for doubt that he is capable of far, far worse than raising a child in this squalid cesspit.
More than anything, I want to kill him. My fingers twist like snakes around the guns in my pockets.
I barely manage to restrain myself. “All those murders,” I say to Gristle, thinking of my dead sweet wife and seedlings in particular. “Why did you do it?”
Carotid loops an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. “‘Scuse me, Mr. Jumpy-to-Conclusions,” he says, “but what makes you think I was only talking about him?”
Confused, I look to the wilted little girl in the dancing firelight. “You must still think we’re playing a game,” I say, “if you’re trying to tell me she’s the Pruner.”
Carotid moves so close his petals brush up against mine. “What gave you the idea there’s only one Pruner?” he says, the scent of his voice thick-sweet with wicked amusement.
“Tell him, honey,” he says to little Medium. “Tell him what you did to the pretty rose-head. Tell him how you won your medal.”
Medium touches a tarnished silver disk pinned to her stained and putrid sweater. “Okay,” she says timidly. “Daddy and I met the rose-man walking in the park. I told him a joke while Daddy hit him with a stick and knocked him down.”
Medium hesitates, and Carotid coaxes her to tell the rest, sweetie.
“Then Daddy and I cut him up with clippers,” says Medium. “I just did the small stuff on account of I’m small.”
“And you won yourself a medal, didn’t you?” says Carotid.
Medium nods shyly, fingering the disk on her sweater.
“What do you say to the nice man, honey?” says Gristle.
“Thank you for the medal, Uncle Carotid,” says Medium.
6 Fantasy Stories Page 10