by K. L. Hiers
“Gotta tell me where I’m going, love,” Grell reminded him as he went higher. “Kind of a big mountain.”
“Right! Uh….” Ted closed his eyes and tried to focus. “It’s… eh….”
“Higher,” Graham’s voice urged. “Around that ledge up there… that’s where the darkness is….”
“Yeah, what he said!”
“Can’t hear your little dead friend, love!” Grell groaned.
“Sorry!” Ted grimaced. “Go a little higher, and it’s around that ledge up there!”
Claws scrambling against the mountainside, Grell fought his way to the ledge and pulled himself up with a loud wheeze. “Ugh. I’ve been watching far too much television. I’m out of shape.”
In front of them now was a large opening that led into a dark cave. The sound of the ocean seemed louder up here as it echoed off the stone, and it filled Ted with undeniable dread.
“Think you’re in the right kinda shape to fight a murdering fish dude?” Ted asked as he slid off Grell’s back and stood beside him as they both peered into the cave.
“And still fuck you stupid after,” Grell huffed, his tail flicking sharply. “Hmmph.”
“So, are we waiting for the guards or…?”
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“What could possibly be down there and how I’d be much happier facing whatever it is had I been able to enjoy a nice hot breakfast.”
“Ah, come on!” Ted scratched behind Grell’s ears. “My big, tough kitty monster! You can totally take whatever we run into. We got this, right?”
Grell did not look amused. “You know what else would have been good this morning? Sex! Hot primal sex would have been good.”
“Was that supposed to be before or after breakfast?” Ted drawled. “I can’t keep track of your bitching.”
“Easy enough to catch up. Reach down here between my legs and it’ll give you a hell of a place to start.”
Ted started laughing, unable to resist Grell’s sly grin. It made his heart feel light, and he could push his worries aside for a few precious moments.
“There’s that smile,” Grell purred, wrapping his tail around Ted’s waist for a gentle squeeze. “Even without breakfast and steaming sex, I suppose this morning hasn’t been entirely wasted just to see that.”
“We are about to finally confront Visseract and make me a free man, yeah?” Ted grinned bashfully. “It ain’t been wasted yet.”
“I meant that I still got to spend it with you, even though I wasn’t inside of you.”
“Creep.” Ted reached up to cradle the sides of Grell’s face and planted a kiss firmly on his wet nose.
“What was that for?” Grell blinked.
“For the smile.” Ted clapped his hands together. “So. We ready?”
“Just stay behind me, love.” Grell walked forward and lifted his head. Immediately, the cave lit up from little cracks in the rock so they could travel safely.
Ted stayed a few steps behind Grell, being mindful of his tail as they went along. He couldn’t shake his weird feeling of unease, but he knew this was where they were supposed to be.
He could sense that they were descending, going deeper into the mountain with every step, and the cave soon opened up into a mammoth cavern. Grell’s lights were so high above their head now that they looked like stars, and Ted couldn’t see shit.
Stumbling, he caught himself on Grell’s tail. “Fuck, sorry!” He blushed as it curled around him, helping him stand. “Thanks.”
“Stay close and be careful,” Grell said quietly, skillfully padding over the rocky floor. “I can smell something…. We’re getting close.”
Ted caught a whiff, something faint but familiar. He knew that scent. “Death.”
The end of the cavern shuttered into a small grotto, and Grell created more lights so they could see better. There was a small camp set up here, and a large collapsed figure was stretched out across a pallet.
It was the corpse of Humble Visseract, discolored with foamy purge crusted around his mouth. There was a bottle in his hand, empty, and three broken vials at the end of his tail. A rolled-up scroll was neatly resting by his head.
“Oh, what the fuck!” Ted groaned. He stomped his feet, crossing his arms and refusing to come any closer. “Nope, nope, nope! I’m not going anywhere near that fuckin’ dead dude! Not getting charged for this one too!”
“Damn.” Grell moved forward and sniffed at the bottle in Visseract’s hand. He hissed and drew back, saying, “Poison. Eldress milk.” He batted at the scroll, using his paws to open it up.
“What is it?”
“My sincerest apologies for all the trouble,” Grell began to read out loud, “but consider this my confession. I murdered Mire and Silas both for conspiring against my clan and threatening our honor. They plotted to cheat us out of our sacred magic, blah, blah, blah, I’m a murdering twat, blah, blah, blah, I chose to die by my own hand, blah, blah.” He lifted his paw, and the scroll rolled back up. “Bloody hell.”
“Does it mean I’m fuckin’ innocent now?” Ted asked bluntly. “Because I’ll take that for two hundred, Alex.”
“No sign of the bones,” Grell said, a hint of disappointment hunching his shoulders, “but these vials are interesting.” He leaned down to get a whiff and hissed, “These are the tears!”
“Wait, as in, the Tears of Big Head Honcho God?”
“Yes,” Grell replied urgently. “These vials were filled with the tears of Great Azaethoth himself.”
“What does that smell like?”
“Imagine a really very old book, but you know it could put your insides on your outsides if you messed with it.”
“Got it.”
“This means Silas was right about the Kindress being involved,” Grell said, snorting and rubbing at his nose. “Someone, most likely that fiend Gronoch, must have found where the tears are kept and intended to use them against the Kindress.”
“Like, do what we say or we’ll sprinkle your daddy’s tears on you?”
“Something like that.”
The entire cavern lit up, and a pack of Asra were filtering in behind them.
“Ah, the cavalry has arrived!” Grell chirped, turning around to greet them. “Thank you all for coming, and no, we don’t validate parking.”
Ted recognized one as the guard who was constantly barging in, and he watched as he bowed down before Grell.
“Your Highness,” the guard with the worst timing in the world said, “we came as quickly as we could! We followed the beacon you left us, but….” He managed to look embarrassed.
“Let me guess,” Grell mused, his tail swishing. “You were afraid that you were going to portal in here and find me and the prisoner in the swing of carnal passions again?”
“Uh… yes, Your Highness.” The guard cringed. “I was concerned that was a possibility.”
“Very possible, thank you for your discretion.”
“I thought it best if we took the long way from the beach and made sure that now was an appropriate time to….” His eyes found Visseract, and he gasped. “Humble Visseract is dead?”
“Looks that way,” Grell replied. “You’re welcome to poke him with a stick if you’d like to make sure….” He squinted. “What is your name?”
“Haveras Mozzie, Your Highness.”
“Well, Mozzie, I suppose we are to assume he took his own life after murdering Silas and Mire, based on the little love note he left us.”
Mozzie looked at Ted. “Does this mean the prisoner is free?”
“Not quite, though the trial tonight will most certainly find him innocent now,” Grell said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “I suppose we’ll have to find a new prosecutor since this one is dead and all.”
“Right away, Your Highness,” Mozzie said. “Shall we let the Vulgorans know that their heir is dead?”
“Go on,” Grell huffed, waving a paw.
While Grell continued to give ou
t orders to the guards, Ted crept a little closer to the body. He didn’t know why, but something just wasn’t sitting right with him. All of this seemed wrong.
He crouched down, peering at Visseract’s clawed hand holding the bottle. Not all of his fingers were fully wrapped around it, and upon further inspection, it seemed as if it had been wedged in his hand. Even the way he was stretched out on the pallet was off. Ted could see purplish discolorations on Visseract’s body, but it was on the side facing up and not the one he was lying on.
“What’s wrong, love?” Grell asked, padding over to Ted’s side. “Thought you’d be cheering. You’re going to be a free man as soon as I can rouse the court.”
“This isn’t right,” Ted said quietly. “I don’t think this is a suicide.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know what the rate of rigor mortis is for fish people, but I’m pretty sure that bottle was placed in his hand after he was already dead,” Ted replied. “With humans, two things can happen after death. They either go limp until rigor starts to set in on its own a few hours later, or they’re already in what we call instant rigor.
“They go rigid immediately. We see it with people who die really suddenly and usually real bad. Like, when someone shoots themselves and their hand will be frozen like they’re still pulling the trigger, bad.”
“And our dear Visseract here?”
“Well, if he went into instant rigor, his hand should be clamped all around that bottle, and it’s not,” Ted said. “If he went all limp after he died, it should have just fallen out of his hand with the way he’s stretched out. And that’s the other thing.
“The discolorations you see? We call that livor mortis. After someone dies, all their blood starts to settle because of gravity. Somebody is on their back, it’ll settle there and turn it that same purple color. They die on their face, blood goes there and makes their face purple, get it?”
“But all of Visseract’s purple bits are upright,” Grell pointed out, eyeing the corpse with a frown.
“Exactly,” Ted said. “It’s like he died laying on that side, hung out for a while, and someone came back and moved him to set all of this up. That kinda discoloration can take hours to show up. He might have already been dead when Silas was killed. And I mean, come on, that suicide note is totally bogus.”
“While that may be true, it does mean you’ll be found innocent of all murder charges,” Grell said with a short huff. “If I had to guess, Gronoch came through here and finished Visseract off to hide his mess. He already got what he came for, right?”
“The bones?”
“Mmhm. Now he’s just tying up loose ends, and I have no interest in telling my court that a god was here,” Grell went on. “Three deaths have been enough of a headache. Don’t want to worry about a damn war too.”
“So that’s it?” Ted huffed. “We let a god get away with murder? A god who might be using Head Honcho God’s tears to do bad stuff with that star baby?”
“Or we go to war against Zebulon,” Grell replied impatiently.
“Didn’t you guys beat their butts before? You won your big rebellion, right?” Ted was trying to keep his voice down, and he threw his hands up in frustration. “Come on!”
“Barely,” Grell said with a somber smile. “Sorry if I’m not thirsting to drag my people into a bloody battle against the gods. I’m more worried about entombing two of them.”
“It’s time for that now?”
“The case is closed,” Grell said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
“Don’t we have to wait for the court to make their super official ruling?” Ted smirked.
“Justice has been served because I say it’s been served, and oh, wait, I’m king. Now the dead can go to rest, thank you, you cheeky little ass. That’s my decision as king of the Asra and Xenon.”
“Yes, your Most Royal Highness.”
Grell rolled his eyes. “Without my son here, it’s going to be a righteous pain in the ass.”
“You know, I could help you,” Ted offered, glancing back to see the Asra porting in and out. The crowd here was growing, and he could see some of the Vulgorans beginning to arrive.
“I can imagine many helpful things for you to do,” Grell said with his usual snark. “Rub my back, alphabetize my audio cassettes, braid my hair all pretty, or perhaps another scorching round of coitus?”
“I do kinda move bodies for a living,” Ted said dryly.
“And then what would you suggest, Tedward of Aeon?” Grell batted his eyes.
“We take a quick little trip back to my work in the land of Aeon for some of my equipment and I help you out?” Ted suggested. He nodded to the ever-growing crowd. “Looks like it’s gonna get real cozy in here soon.”
Grell seemed to be thinking it over, and he made a sour face when one of the Vulgorans started screaming and flailing its tail at the sight of Visseract’s body. “Ugh, and very noisy it seems. Yes, fuck it, let’s go.”
Chapter 12.
THE WORLD turned, Ted’s stomach lurched, and they were standing in the middle of downtown Archersville. It was early morning, traffic was bustling by, horns were honking, and no one seemed to have noticed that two men had magically appeared out of thin air.
The sun hurt his eyes, and Ted squinted as he waited for them to adjust. He missed the soft twilight of Xenon immediately, not to mention how much quieter it was there.
“Damn, it’s bright here,” Grell complained, snapping his fingers and creating a pair of slick red-tinted shades to put on. They matched the crimson-and-black velvet suit he was now wearing. “Mm, much better. Where to, love?”
“It’s two blocks down and then over by the post office—” Everything moved again, and Ted now found himself standing in the lobby of the funeral home he worked in.
Kitty was here, frozen in place by the front desk and reaching to pick up the phone that was actively ringing. Two older men were walking out of a visitation room but were also still as statues.
“What the hell did you do?” Ted demanded.
“I’m the damn king of the Asra.” Grell rolled his eyes. “I stopped time here for a minute. Nifty trick I picked up from a Faedra in a game of cards. They’re all fine, I promise, but it’s probably best they don’t know we’re borrowing their things, eh?”
“Right,” Ted said, reaching out to touch Kitty’s arm. She was warm, but it was still bothering him to see her so motionless.
They hadn’t been close, but he would miss their late-night chats when they were out on removals. He didn’t miss them enough to hurry back here to his miserable job anytime soon, and it gave him pause when he realized there really wasn’t anything here that he would miss that badly.
It wasn’t just the job that had been miserable—Ted’s entire life had been dismal. His only real friend was his roommate, he saw such terrible things, ghosts bothered him constantly, and he’d been so very lonely.
Xenon had seemed strange when he’d first arrived, but he was already longing to return. It was quiet there, and he missed the soft purple glow. He liked being with Grell more than he was ready to admit, and he couldn’t imagine coming back to Archersville now. The city was too bright, too busy, and there wasn’t anything here left for him.
The world of Xenon, on the other hand, was full of promise, potential, and….
“Are we gonna get going, or am I just going to stand here and stare at you?” Grell asked. “Not that I mind looking at you, but I enjoy it much more when you’re naked.”
A very sarcastic and perverted kitty-monster king, who Ted would rather be with than spend another moment here.
“On it.” Ted took off into the back of the funeral home to the garage. He grabbed two oversized body bags, a portable stretcher, and a box of gloves. Arms full, he turned back to Grell. “Okay, we’re good!”
Grell put his hand on Ted’s shoulder, and Ted was certain he was going to throw up from the intense vertigo that came with portaling. Bac
k at court, Ted dropped the supplies and took a deep breath. Breathing in the smell of Mire definitely didn’t help his nausea.
“Ugh, okay, no more of that for a little while, please.”
“Sorry,” Grell said, offering a sympathetic smile. “Well, what now, Mr. Funeral Home Man?”
“I guess you don’t care about gloves, huh?” Ted smirked as he slid a pair on.
“Nope.”
“Okay, then.” Ted unzipped the thick body bag, explaining, “We’re each gonna get on either side of him. You roll him to you so I can stuff the bag under him. And then I roll him to me so you can pull it out halfway, and just like that, he’s in the bag.”
“Or option B,” Grell said, snapping his fingers and magically stuffing Mire into the body bag.
“That works too.” Ted grabbed the zipper and sealed it up. He was careful to avoid the dried blood on the floor and stood up, saying, “Okay. To the pits?”
“Sure your little stomach can take it?” Grell teased.
“Eat a dick. Let’s go.”
Getting Mire into his new slot was going to be especially difficult because it was at least six feet off the ground, his body probably weighed at least a ton, and Grell cheerfully explained that the actual entombment had to be performed by hand.
No magic.
Grell turned into his cat form, shrank down to fit inside the hole, and dragged the end of the body bag up using his teeth, with Ted struggling to help push up from below and praying to any god that might be listening that Grell didn’t drop Mire on top of him.
Grell kept shrinking and pulling until they were able to position Mire all the way into the slot. Even at such a diminutive size, Grell’s strength was incredible. He then simply crawled back out, resumed his normal size, and removed the body bag with a snap of his fingers.
Going to retrieve Silas was easier, definitely less messy, and her slot in the pit wall was right on the bottom. Grell was quiet as they worked, pushing her into her final resting place with only a small sigh. He looked down to the archway that led into the older section of the pits, but he said nothing.