by Leod D. Fitz
Two of the women glanced at each other. “We were waiting for you to wake up,” said the women who’d spoken before.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. “Oh, right. Of course you were.”
The women could have been sisters. They had the same general shape to their face and the same color eyes. The only physical distinctions which I noticed were a long scar along one woman’s jaw, and the fact that one of the women was rather taller than the other two.
“What do you want?”
The one with the scar replied, “Orrin left a message for you. He believes he has a lead on where his brothers are staying. You should be safe here for another day.”
I grimaced as I pulled myself out of the tub. “Safe for another day? When’s he coming back?”
“He didn’t say.”
I shook my head. “I can’t stay here. I have a business to run.” I squeezed past the maries and into the main room of the house.
“That would be unwise,” said the tallest of the group. “The chimeras are clever and brutal. If they find you, they will not hesitate to destroy you.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that last night.” I headed into the kitchenette. The refrigerator and freezer were both empty, but I found some grime in the sink which I spread on a moldy piece of bread from the trash and gobbled it up. Healing had taken a lot out of me. I needed to get some food into me. And the best place for that was work, which was where I needed to be anyway. “Look, I appreciate you guys watching out for me last night, I really do, but I’ve got some shit I need to take care of. And believe it or not, I can handle trouble, if it comes looking for me.”
The women glanced at each other. They looked displeased, but none of them said anything more to me, and they didn’t try to stop me as I headed out the door. They just stood, stock still, watching me.
God that was creepy.
My truck was still sitting where Orrin had left it the night before. The keys were inside. How the hell did he get around? To the best of my knowledge there weren’t any fish out there that could actually fly. In fact, most of the creatures that I’d smelled on him would find Colorado difficult to navigate.
I shook my head. A question for another time. I climbed into my truck and drove to work. In the parking lot, I picked up the faint scent of Eryx and two others. Orrin had been right. They’d been waiting for me. Thankfully, they were long gone now.
Percy was waiting for me. “Hey, boss. Where you been? I thought you were staying here at night?”
I ignored him and reviewed the schedule for today. We had a viewing in the afternoon. It was closed casket (which kind of made the whole viewing pointless, but that’s what the family wanted), so I just had to send the body upstairs and make sure the AV system was set up like the family wanted.
“We got a call a few minutes ago. There’s a body to pick up downtown.”
I grimaced. “All right, let me pull on my work clothes.”
Most funeral homes have a couple of people whose job it is to drive out and collect the bodies. I’m still deep enough in debt that I have a hard time affording the one employee… crap, the one and a half employees now... I would have to start coming up with some money for Patricia. I did some mental gymnastics. If I cut down on a couple basic expenses, and managed to get an extra corpse or two a month, I could probably make this work.
Funeral homes actually make pretty decent money, most of the time, but there were difficulties early on in my career. There are a variety of requirements to run a funeral home, and a variety of other suggestions associated with the career. In order to have a successful business, I needed to get a degree, buy a property, modify it to code, get inspections and… well, let’s just say that I had a lot of hoops to jump through.
Even that wouldn’t have slowed me down too much, except that there were certain… complications that came up.
Still, my business made more money than it lost. I knew that I’d work my way into the black, eventually.
But in the meantime, every penny that didn’t go to pay off my loan was a penny that would cost me a dollar down the line.
I changed into my pickup suit and Percy and I hopped into the van and headed to work.
I make a point of only ever using the van to pick up bodies. I’d been audited the year after I started my business, and the woman crunching my numbers had made it abundantly clear that if I used the things at work for anything other than work, the IRS would find out about it and get the appropriate taxes from me, even if they had to extract it from my rectum using a rake. So the van and the hearse were on lockdown.
I made a notation in the notebook on the dashboard identifying the day and time, where we were going and whose body we were going to collect.
Yes, even monsters fear the IRS.
Percy drove in silence for about half the way. “Your brother is going to have that test of his on Monday.”
“Uh huh.”
“He wants me at his place tomorrow to go over everything one more time. I think he’s got it all down, but he wants to make sure he aces the course.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyhow, I just wanted to make sure you knew I’ve been doing my part in all of this.”
I glanced over at Percy. “You want me to tell you that this makes us even? Is that it?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. No, I wouldn’t dream of assuming that.”
I snorted. “Good. Because we aren’t.”
Percy kept his mouth shut for a few minutes. “Say, Nicky was supposed to send somebody by with drugs at some point, right?”
I sighed. “Yeah. The guy came by yesterday morning.”
“Oh, great. Where are the drugs?”
“I flushed them.”
Percy jerked the wheel in surprise.
I cursed at him under my breath while he steadied us. “You flushed them? Please tell me you’re joking, boss!”
“I’m not. I told you, I don’t want drugs in my place. Ever. It’s too dangerous. If somebody finds out we have drugs there and starts digging around, we could find ourselves with real problems.”
“Boss, we’ve got real problems! Nicky is going to want his money! I mean, more than he already does. When he sends somebody by to collect it and we don’t have the money or the drugs, what do you think he’s going to do to us?”
I shrugged. “He’ll probably beat you to death.”
Percy shuddered. “Yeah, he probably will. But what are you going to do when he comes after you? Kill him? You’ll have to deal with the crotchsniffers then. I could have at least sold most of what he fronted us to the wolves and gotten him enough cash to keep him from breaking our kneecaps.”
I shook my head. “It would still be coming in through my place, Percy. That’s too much involvement. No, I’ll figure out a way to deal with Nicky and his crew. You just stay out of it.”
Percy opened his mouth to reply, then shut it and turned his attention back to the road.
The house we arrived at looked like shit from the outside. The grass was mostly dead; there were tree limbs in the yard that nobody had bothered moving. The whole place could have used a couple coats of paint, as well. Inside, I was unsurprised to find the smell of mold and decay. I was surprised, however, to smell magic.
It wasn’t thick, like what you’d find in the house of a real spellslinger. This was more like a subtle wafting. Like somebody had bowls of potpourri hidden around the house, except instead of dried flowers, these bowls had tiny magical trinkets in them.
Magical artifacts. Definitely. The deceased had collected them. I made a mental note to pass the information on to Simon and mother. If they ended up having an estate sale or donating his shit somewhere, mom and Simon would both love the opportunity to grab it up before one of the other magic users in town found out about it.
The body waiting for us was a bit tricky. He’d been a big man. Six foot eight, nearly five hundred pounds. It would’ve been easy enough for me to load him onto the gurney myself, but his girlfriend s
tayed in the room while we worked, which meant that we had to do it the normal way, with Percy and I each taking an end of the sheets and lifting him on. Percy just barely got his end on, and I had to center the man afterwards to be certain we wouldn’t have a spill on the way out to the vehicle.
It didn’t help that he had died in the basement of one of those houses built on a hill. We had the choice of taking him up through the living room, which had more than its fair share of breakable shit, or directly into the backyard, up a narrow staircase with a turn in the middle. Either way, we then had to head down some more cement stairs to get to the van. I chose the back route. It was harder, but we weren’t as likely to cause collateral damage that way.
Afterward I took a few moments to speak with the girlfriend about funeral arrangements. We made an appointment to speak further, and then I climbed into the vehicle and took off.
“Geez,” Percy said, once we’d pulled out of the driveway. “You’d think a fatass like that would at least try to lose some weight when he started developing health problems.”
I grimaced. “Actually, I think he was trying. You didn’t see the picture on his wall? He’s lost nearly a hundred pounds.”
“A hundred pounds? Fuck me, he must’ve been spherical.”
I sighed. “Whatever his health problems, it wasn’t being fat that killed him.”
Percy blinked and glanced over at me. “What do you mean? I thought the girlfriend said he’d been having heart problems?”
“Yeah, well, she failed to mention that she’d helped along his heart problems with a slow, steady poisoning.”
Percy raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding?”
I tapped the side of my nose. “The nose never lies.”
“Why did she do it?”
I blinked at my assistant. “How am I supposed to know that? I can smell the poison; I can’t smell her intent. Maybe she wanted the insurance money. Maybe she wanted some of the magical shit he was collecting. Maybe she thought he was cheating on her.”
Percy laughed. “Cheating on her? Who would he cheat with?”
I sighed. “Jesus, Percy, what part of ‘I don’t know’ is giving you trouble?”
Percy licked his lips, thoughtfully.
“Oh crap, what the hell are you going to do?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“You have that look on your face that you always get before you do something that I end up regretting.”
“No, I’m not— “
“Percy!”
He winced. “Fine, I was thinking… you know, maybe I could suggest that we knew what she did and that we were thinking about contacting the police? It might be a good way to get some of that extra cash that we kind of sort of really need right now?”
I shook my head. “Not a chance.”
“But— “
“Forget it. It isn’t our business. And I don’t want anyone wondering how we figured it out. Just let it go.”
“Come on, Walter, we need the fucking money!”
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
Percy sighed, but shut his mouth.
We backed up to the bay doors and unloaded the body. I took him to the prep room while Percy parked the van back in its spot. We liked to keep the bay area clear for when my other customers came by to drop bodies off. It was funny, but humans had no problem letting me into their homes to collect their dead ones, while supernatural creatures, who usually made life so much more difficult in every way they could, brought their dead bodies to me.
I headed up to the office to start in on the paperwork.
I’d just gotten started when the phone rang.
“Elysium Mortuary.”
“Mr. Walter?”
“Patricia?” I had completely forgotten about her. And now that I was thinking about her, I wasn't supposed to have to deal with her until Monday. Why did she sound frightened?
“I... I'm so sorry, but I need your help.”
She didn't strike me as the kind of person who usually went to people for help. And I hadn't realized that we had the kind of relationship that included such things.
I contemplated for a moment before replying, “Help with what, exactly?”
“Um. I'm kind of in some trouble. I... I got in a fight with one of those girls I told you about. In a store. The store manager told me to call in my parent or guardian. I think they're going to call the police.”
“I see. And instead of calling your foster mother or your case worker, you decided that I was the guy to call?”
“Please,” there was an edge of true desperation to her voice. “Please, I can't... I can't....”
I had no idea what she couldn't do, and from the sound of it, she wasn't that sure either. I weighed my options. I could just hang up the phone. Let the girl deal with it herself. Whatever happened, clearly she'd gotten into it on her own, if she wasn't capable of getting out of it on her own, that seemed like a whole lot of 'not my problem.'
But a part of me felt like I needed to help her. Where did that come from? This didn't involve me. The smart move was to walk away. The right move was to walk away.
On the other hand, I had somehow become a part of her life. If she continued making poor decisions, it seemed likely that sooner or later they would come crashing down on me. In that case, it made sense for me to try to handle this early on when her problems could be handled. When she might find it in herself to change her behavior.
Okay, I could get behind reasoning like that.
“Where are you?” I said at last.
Trish's directions led me to a small, chain grocery store.
Instead of taking the left into the hallway that led to the offices, I followed the scent of violence to the checkout lane.
There had been a little bit of blood, but not much. Probably a split lip, possibly a bloodied nose.
There weren't any police officers around, so apparently nobody had bothered calling it in.
I walked a little further into the store, following Patricia's trail. She'd come in, loitered around in front of the cash registers for a bit, then headed over to one of the coolers with cold drinks, grabbed one, and moved into the line where the violence had happened.
It wasn't particularly hard to build a story around the scenario. Something had happened during the school week that upset Patricia. She wanted to confront the girl about it, but hadn't been able to do it at school. But she knew where the girl worked. She'd showed up, stared at her enemy for a bit, then finally decided to grab a drink, go through the line, and confront the problem head on.
The other girl, in turn, had decided to respond with something that drove Patricia to violence. There were other possible scenarios, but from what little I knew about the girl, that seemed the most likely.
I grabbed a drink at random out of the cooler and headed to the open check lane next to the one where the fight had happened, taking a quick sniff of the cashier as I approached.
I didn't learn much, outside of the fact that she'd recently eaten a ham sandwich and a candy bar, and shortly before that performed fellatio.
“Hey, sweetie, find everything you needed?”
“Sure. Sure. Just getting my caffeine fix...” I glanced at her name tag. “Jenna.”
She scanned the item. “I hear that. Dollar twenty-five.”
I pulled out my billfold and glanced around. “Aren't there usually more cashiers out this time of day?”
Jenna sighed. “Usually. But one of the girls got sent home after she got in a fight with a customer.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow. “Sent home, not fired?”
Jenna made a face. “I know, right? The only reason she didn't get fired is she got the customer to throw the first punch. Honestly, though? I was close enough to hear them, and I would've punched the bitch out, too.”
I shook my head as I handed her two one dollar bills and waited for my change.
“Here you go. Have a nice day.”
“You
too.” I smiled at the girl, exited the lane, and headed towards the hallway that Patricia had given me directions to.
I knocked twice and a young man in a uniform that looked remarkably like that of a police officer, but read 'security,' opened the door for me and, when I introduced myself, he led me back to the manager's office.
Patricia was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, her hands wrapped around her knees which she'd pulled up defensively in front of her chest. Her eyes were red and puffy and she was breathing in stuttering sniffles.
The manager, a fat man who smelled of sex and microwaved burritos, looked up from glowering at her and gave me a stern look of disapproval. A small placard on the front of his desk bore the name 'Mr. Mount.'
“You're her father?”
Is that what she'd told him? I decided to skate around the question, turning my attention to Patricia instead. “Fighting? Again?”
“It isn't my fault! I swear she was--”
I held a hand up, cutting her off mid-sentence. “No.”
“But I swear--”
“NO!” I stared her down until she bit her lip and turned away.
I cleared my throat and politely seated myself across from the manager who was, by my estimation, getting entirely too much pleasure out of the situation. He glanced towards the doorway, where the guard was still standing. “I think we've got things under control here, Paul.”
“What exactly happened?” I asked Mr. Mount as the guard walked away.
“Your daughter came into my store, and, for no reason whatsoever, attacked one of my employees.”
Not entirely accurate, if the cashier I'd spoken to was to be believed, but I kept that to myself. There was no reason to raise the man's ire if I didn't have to. I pursed my lips in annoyance and looked towards Patricia. “I see.”
“According to the girl she attacked, this isn't the first antisocial behavior your child has been involved in. Are you aware of the trouble she's been getting into at school?”
“I have heard a bit about that.”
“And are you planning on doing something about it, or do you want to see her turn into a delinquent?”
Even given the situation, and the fact that Patricia was not my daughter, the challenge to my parenting made my hackles rise a bit. I forced them back down. “Please believe me when I say that Patricia and I are going to have a long and involved conversation about appropriate and inappropriate behavior, in very short order.”