Iron Night

by M. L. Brennan

  The past four months were apparently forgotten as Matt broke off his hug and I began struggling for air.

  “Matt,” I wheezed, “You’re here.” It wasn’t my most insightful commentary ever, but my brain was struggling after being cut off from its supply of sweet, sweet oxygen.

  “Of course I’m here, Fort,” Matt snapped. “One minute I’m photographing some pharmacist getting her extramarital freak on and the next I hear over my police radio that there’s a body of a young male at your address?” He smacked me upside the head hard enough for me to yelp, then immediately dropped his hand to squeeze my shoulder tightly. “Call me, for Christ’s sake. I think I lost five years off my life during the drive over here.” His dark eyes were darting over me, cataloging my state of nondeadness, and there was a residual tightness to his jaw that sent a spark of shame through me.

  I squeezed the hand that still rested on my shoulder, relieved despite everything that was going on at the proof that beneath his suspicions of me he still cared. I hadn’t realized until now just how much that had been hurting over the summer. “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it on a lot of levels.

  Matt cleared his throat, dropped his hand, and stepped back. Clearly we were back to being Men. Behind him the door cop, who had been shifting his weight awkwardly, gave up and headed back to his post, apparently deciding that we were clearly too well acquainted for him to toss Matt out. Or, more likely, ask the guy who outweighed him and clearly lifted a lot of weights to leave—politely. “So, what happened,” Matt asked, glancing around the room with a professionally cool expression.

  I told him what I’d told the police—waking up suddenly, investigating the sound, finding Gage. I could see Matt’s eyes narrow as he listened, and I knew when the wheels started turning in his head. He shifted away from me, and I felt a pang as the reprieve and return to our old relationship ended. He’d been suspicious of me since Amy Grann had unintentionally implicated me to him, and now my roommate was dead. I could see him connecting some dots.

  “I’ll check this out,” he said, and all I could do was nod as he slipped into Gage’s bedroom, currently cluttered with police and crime-scene personnel. I didn’t follow. I didn’t want to see any of that again. I just sat on the sofa in a pair of worn flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt so old and ratty that I’d had to retire it from day use, and watched as people moved around the apartment.

  One of Madeline’s lawyers arrived soon after that, a no-nonsense looking woman in her late forties. I don’t know if she lived in Providence or had just happened to be in town, but from the looks of it she had interrupted a pretty fancy date. I’m sure she didn’t mind, of course. Billable hours and all that. The boss cop (either he or one of his superiors was apparently angling for some kind of bonus attention from Madeline) had already been doing a good job making sure no one went near my room, but the lawyer took over from there, fussing over me briefly, then stepping back to hover expensively at a distance, glaring at anyone in a uniform who even glanced in my direction.

  Suzume slipped into all of this chaos with surprising unobtrusiveness for a woman whose preferred spot was the center of attention. Saying nothing, which was a shock in itself, she sat down next to me on the sofa and squeezed my leg once. I shot her a grateful look, and after that we just sat there, neither speaking, as everything swirled in motion around us.

  After almost two hours, a long gurney with a black body bag was wheeled out the door. I glanced away, but there was no way to forget any of what I’d seen tonight.

  Matt walked up to me. He’d never taken off his jacket, something I’d noticed with the rest of the people in my apartment. He fit in with these people, I realized. Not that I should’ve been surprised—after all, he’d been a cop for years. But I was so used to seeing him working on stuff alone, with only me for the occasional help with a stakeout, that it was weird seeing him in a crowd. That’s where he was meant to be, I reflected. With his own kind.

  He glanced over at Suzume, who for once took a hint and cleared out, muttering something about hitting the bathroom. She didn’t go there, of course. Just walked over to stand in the kitchen and fuss with a cupboard. Far enough to give the illusion of privacy, but I was quite aware that her exceptional hearing was trained completely on our conversation.

  Matt hunkered down a little, putting us on the same level. I gave a brief nod to the attorney, who had automatically started over to hurry him away from me, and she stopped, though there was an unhappy look on her face. Maybe she got a bonus for every person she blocked from talking with me.

  “They’ve picked up everything they can from the scene,” Matt said. His voice was soft, but his eyes were very alert, darting over me, taking in everything about me. It reminded me again that I was on a high wire, and one false step could get Matt killed. My family had a very low tolerance for humans poking too close to unsavory truths. “I’m going to head out as well. I have a few friends in the department; might be able to call in a few favors.”

  I nodded. “Do you think you’ll be able to get any information?” I asked.

  He smiled grimly, less of a smile than a baring of his teeth. “I’m planning on it. Copies of everything I can get a hold of. After all, evidence has a way of getting lost around your family.”

  I didn’t bother to try to deny it—a few calls from my brother or mother and files had a way of ending up in a shredder. “Can you tell me what you find?” Nothing short of a straightjacket would stop Matt once he started poking around. Better if I kept tabs on him, I figured. Besides, it wasn’t a vampire killing, I reminded myself. If Matt got involved, there was nothing here that should bring him in contact with my family. Madeline ran her territory with an iron fist—there wasn’t anyone living here in the supernatural community who would risk her wrath or my sister’s version of enforcement by doing something like this near me. Chivalry had been confident enough of that on the phone that he wasn’t even going to come out tomorrow to check up on me—that had to count for more than my own suspicions.

  His salt-and-pepper eyebrows went up sharply. I’d surprised him. He gave me another of those considering, uncomfortably astute looks, then gave a quick nod and leaned closer, dropping his voice so that I was the only one who could hear. “There’s a lot that only the lab can tell,” he said quietly, “but your friend was killed somewhere else. If he’d been killed here, that room would’ve looked like a slaughterhouse, and it didn’t. The only blood they’ve been able to pick up looks like it had dried on the body, then got rubbed off onto the floor. He lost almost all of his blood wherever it was that they killed him, and he’d been dead for a while before they moved him, judging by the rigor. Between the broken window and a few smudges that a uniform found, the working theory is that he was carried up the fire escape. Your friend isn’t small—it would’ve taken two people to carry him. They broke the window to open it, threw him inside, and left. There are people waking up all of the neighbors right now, but so far it looks like no one saw anything.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and meant it.

  Matt looked me over again. “This wasn’t casual violence, Fort,” he said, and I could hear the undercurrent in his voice. “There’s a lot of damage here, and nothing that could’ve been accidental. Did your roommate have any enemies?”

  I shook my head. “Gage was a good guy.”

  Matt waited, and I knew what he wanted to ask me about. Any enemies I might have who would’ve done this. I wished that I could’ve been honest with him, but the last time I’d told the truth about what I was, my sister had slaughtered my foster parents in front of me. I stayed quiet, and after a minute of intense staring Matt’s lip gave a small curl that I’d seen a thousand times before when he was frustrated about something, and he walked out.

  When he left I let out a deep breath that I’d barely been conscious of holding. I’d spent a lot of time in the past few months doing my best to ignore the
situation I was in with Matt. Having him here, seeing his newfound suspicion of me, was hard.

  A hand dropped on my shoulder, and I looked up to see Suzume back at my side. I waited for the onset of questions about Matt, but again she surprised me when all she said was “Pack an overnight bag, Fort. We’re getting out of here.”

  • • •

  In our odd little friendship, I’d never seen Suzume’s place before. But after loading me into her slick little Audi Coupé, that was where she took me.

  I wasn’t certain what to expect, but I didn’t feel like talking, so we drove in silence completely across the city, from my nice little apartment in the aptly named College Hill section of Providence to the Silver Lake neighborhood. Silver Lake had its good sections and its bad sections, and it actually bordered Cranston, where my foster parents had lived. Suzume turned into an area filled with tidy little one-story houses that looked like they had all been built in the fifties. One thing I noticed was the significant increase in the greenery. All of the houses had at least a small yard, and most had a few trees in addition. We pulled into the driveway next to a small duplex. Judging by the position of the fences, the property extended about two feet beyond the driveway and the house, but looking out across it I could see nothing but darkness—definitely an unusual experience even in the more residential areas of the city.

  I glanced around, then asked, “Are we near the park?”

  The interior light came on as Suzume turned off the motor, so I could see her nod. “Yeah. The house is right up against one of the forested areas of the Neutaconkanut.”

  It was a grim night, but I managed a small smile as we both got out of the car. The Neutaconkanut Hill park was eighty-eight acres of mostly undisturbed forest and a few walking trails. Deer ran freely, and every once in a while there would be rumors about black bears. “I bet no one thinks twice about seeing a fox run through the neighborhood, then.”

  Suzume had walked ahead of me to unlock the door, but she tossed me a grin over her shoulder. “Definitely one of the perks of the place. You wouldn’t believe what I had to pay, but it was worth it. My neighbor is in her nineties, and my cousins keep leaving competing bids in her mailbox. They’re terrified that she’ll leave it to one of her kids when she dies and they won’t be able to get their hands on it.”

  “Would you want to live next door to your cousins?” I asked.

  Suzume shrugged. “It’s good to have family around. Besides, I’ve already talked the old woman’s son into agreeing to sell it to me when she goes. Then I can make my cousins get into a bidding war with me, and I know how high they’ll be willing to go.”

  We walked inside, and I had to raise my eyebrows. As the outside had suggested, it was a small house. Someone had remodeled, opening things up, and my first impression was a long main room that combined the living room and kitchen. There were three doors on the left-hand side of the room that I could see led to two bedrooms and a bathroom between, but Suzume’s style of decorating had a heavy hand of whimsy, and I paused for a moment to take it all in.

  The walls were a pale green, and silver leaves the size of my palm had been painted on them with no discernable pattern. The ceiling was blue, with painted fluffy clouds, something I’d seen before in some Newport mansions. The kitchen was extremely modern, with granite countertops and all the stainless-steel appliances that someone could wish for, but the cabinets had been liberally strewn with little white Christmas lights. There was a pair of comfortable-looking sofas set up around the television, both upholstered in bright red corduroy. At least a dozen pet beds of varying bold colors were strewn about, and there were enough throw pillows to build a working fort. An actual carousel horse was standing in the corner, painted black with gold flowers in its mane. Framed pictures were hung everywhere, containing everything from a really beautiful inked anime-style picture of a girl changing into a swarm of butterflies to a poster of, of all things, the periodic table. It was busy and energetic, the kind of room that I imagined would be hard to spend a lazy day watching TV in.

  “It’s nice,” I managed. “Do either of those couches fold out?”

  “Not the reaction I usually get,” Suzume said, giving me a thoughtful look. “I’d better give you some recovery time before I start making jokes about sleeping arrangements.”

  “I’d really appreciate that,” I said honestly.

  Suzume led me to one of the bedrooms and waved me in. I looked around, a bit surprised. It was a big change from the main room. Decorated in restrained tones of white and chocolate brown, it looked like nothing so much as a moderately expensive hotel room. Even the bed looked like a hotel bed—a standard double covered in pristine white sheets and elegant decorative pillows with a neatly folded blanket at the bottom that perfectly matched the color of the walls and looked like no human had ever slept in it.

  “I hadn’t known you had a guest room,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Normally as a good hostess I would give you my room, since my bed is queen-size, but I thought you’d like something with boring décor, rather than awesome.”

  I considered what the main room looked like and couldn’t argue with her reasoning. As I put my duffel bag on a chair, Suzume pulled down the covers for me. I glanced over, and she patted the bed, giving me an encouraging smile.

  I shook my head. I was beyond exhausted but . . . “I don’t think I can sleep right now,” I said. The thought of lying in that inviting bed and having nothing to distract me from what had been done to Gage made me shudder.

  “Give me one second,” Suzume said, and was out the door before I could stop her. I could hear her banging around in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets like she was looking for something. I shook my head a little and walked around the room. There were only two pictures in it, both framed black-and-whites. One was of a fox with two kits, and the other was clearly of Suzume as a young girl, maybe eight or nine, standing with another girl her own age who was too similar to be anything other than her twin sister, and an older woman who stood with a hand on each of their shoulders.

  Suzume walked back in, holding a glass of pale green liquid that reminded me of Gage’s energy drink. I gestured to the picture to distract myself. “Your family?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Both pictures. Me, my sister, Keiko, and our mom.”

  I looked over at the fox photo. “Oh, so that’s—”

  “Yeah, that’s us. I have a color version in another room, and you can see our fur. My mother’s fur was dark red, almost cinnamon. Really pretty. Keiko’s is the same.” She handed me the glass. “Here, this will help you sleep.”

  “No, I’m fine.” I tried to pass it back, but she pushed it into my hands insistently.

  “Seriously, you’re not going to do yourself any good by staying up and brooding. There’s plenty of time for that after the sun rises. Drink it.”

  I looked down. The color had been a bit concerning at first, but up close it looked basically like the flavored water that my ex-girlfriend Beth had really liked. An exploratory sniff didn’t reveal anything except a slightly sugary smell, so I took a cautious drink. The first sip didn’t kill me—it tasted a little sweeter than I usually liked, but not bad—and Suze gave me an expectant look, so I shrugged and put the rest of it back.

  I handed her the empty glass. “That’s kind of licorice-y,” I said. “Was it some weird kind of lemonade or something?”

  “Nope, just absinthe,” Suzume said calmly.

  My jaw dropped. “What?” I sputtered.

  “It’s medicinal.”

  “It makes people go insane!”

  “Please,” she scoffed. “You barely had any.”

  I sat down heavily on the bed and dropped my head into my hands. “I’m pretty sure it’s illegal, Suze.”

  “Not since 2007,” she said in that blithe tone. “Stop being such a baby.”

&nb
sp; “I’m never drinking anything you hand me again. And I cannot believe you didn’t tell me!”

  “You didn’t ask.” She tugged my shoulder until I was sitting in the middle of the bed. “Get comfortable. Absinthe will sneak up you.”

  “All I could taste was sugar and licorice. You don’t seriously expect that I’m about to pass out, do you?”

  “With the night you’ve had, plus a drink that is twenty-five percent alcohol?” Suzume asked. “Yeah, I do.”

  That was the last thing I remembered, except for the feeling of Suzume pulling off my sneakers and settling the sheet over me. I didn’t dream at all.

  • • •

  I was woken up suddenly again, this time by the sounds of a woman shrieking less than a foot from my ear. The sun was streaming in the windows now, so I’d been asleep for hours, but I felt bleary and disoriented, and it took me a few seconds to remember where I was and what had happened.

  Standing over the bed was a woman who looked a lot like Suzume, but with a shorter and sleeker haircut, and she looked pissed as hell. She had one of those tiny purses that women carry in the evening, and she was winding her arm back in a way that made it clear that she was about to start smacking me with it.

  Suzume appeared in the doorway, dressed in a pair of flannel sleep pants and a tank top, her long hair still rumpled from bed. She looked completely calm, though I noticed that she had a rather sizable knife in her left hand. She noticed me looking at the knife, and a moment later her hand was empty. I blinked, but couldn’t figure out how she’d managed it.

  “You’re yelling like a bear who just found Goldilocks, Keiko,” she said to the woman. “Calm down.”

  Keiko lowered her arm and glared at her sister. “I’m out for one damn night and you sublet my freaking room?”

  “Oh, this is your room?” I said. “I’m so sorry. I thought this was the guest room.”