by Bryan Fields
Light filled the theatre, as bright as sunshine, but it wasn’t from our sun. All around us, a new world took shape. Two suns were rising in a violet sky, illuminating castles floating on clouds, mountains covered with crimson grass, and redwood-sized trees with leaves of gold. Rainbow-colored arcs reached across the sky, glittering like diamonds against the dark morning sky. The planet had rings…
It was only a few seconds, but when the light faded, the rabbit was gone, and so were the tears of sorrow. Nobody knew exactly what it was we had seen, but everyone agreed it was someplace else. Someplace better, happier, and more wonderful than the world we knew.
In a whisper, I asked Rose “Was that…home?”
Rose nodded. “It was an illusion. Just pretty lights, but yes, that’s what home looks like. You said you wanted to do something for Manya, so I did something.”
“You didn’t actually change Sharon’s afterlife, right?”
“Even my people can’t do that.” Her brow furrowed. “Was what I did acceptable?”
I kissed her and stroked her hair. “That’ll do, Dragon. That’ll do.”
Chapter Eight
A Well-Laid Plan
Time counts, and keeps counting, and what we think is behind us one day is only waiting to bite us in the ass the next. At the first MDSFS meeting after Sharon’s funeral, Miriam met us in the parking lot. “I thought I should warn you that Randall’s suspension is up. He’s back.”
“Son-of-a-bitch.” I shook my head. “Let’s hope he does something right off the bat so we can expel him.”
“I could expel him,” Rose offered. “I’d just have to eat him first.”
“You’d be doing the world a favor,” Miriam said. “But I don’t think even fava beans and a nice Chianti would make him palatable.”
Rose got a speculative look in her eyes. “I suppose I could tenderize him with a large hammer first.”
I patted Rose on the back and gave Miriam an apologetic smile. “She’s been feeling a little peckish, so after the meeting we’re going to Lookout Mountain Pizza to do their Fourteener challenge. Why don’t you join us?”
“Normally, taking that challenge is a waste of money, but after what you did with those turkey legs… Sure, if you’re buying. There will definitely be enough to go around.” Miriam nodded. “I’ll meet you there. Anyway, Rose I wanted to warn you that Randall will try to run into you so he can rub his arm across your boobs. He knows he’s not supposed to do that shit but he still tries it if you’re new.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Rose said. “I still think I should eat him, but I’ll wait for the pizzas.”
We went inside and took our seats. Sharon’s absence was a gaping wound that had yet to heal, and Manya’s absence made it sting that much more. Manya’s parents had bought out Sharon’s interest in the house, and they were going through getting everything stored. For now the house would be maintained by a property manager, until Manya decided what to do with it. Soon she would be back in Mumbai, healing and working on becoming a mother. It didn’t make the loss any easier to bear.
And sure enough, Randall tried his crap in the first five minutes. Rose caught his wrist and held him at arm’s length. “Do that again,” she growled. “I would love to have a reason to maim you.” He tried to pull away, but she kept her grip on his wrist. Her brow furrowed and she leaned forward to sniff his ring, a garish silver thing set with a big lump of gold-veined turquoise. He tried to pull away again. This time, she let him go. He retreated back to his seat on the far side of the room.
Rose sat down next to me and whispered, “His ring smells like Sharon. Her blood is on it.”
I forced myself not to look at him. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. It’s her scent. I’d bet my hoard on it.”
Randall was a world-class jerk, but that didn’t make him a murderer. Blood, though… I looked over at Randall, sitting against the wall away from everyone else, and thought about how Sharon had died. Randall caught my gaze and tried to get into a tough-guy stare down. I saw something in his eyes as he stared back, and felt a shift in my chest. My blood went cold and I had no difficulty picturing Randall standing over Sharon’s mutilated body.
“All right then.” I tapped Miriam on the shoulder and whispered, “You and Rose need to take Miranda to the loo, right now.” Miranda was a Denver motorcycle cop. She was small and dark, with a classic Greek complexion. She might not look like someone with trophies in kickboxing and mixed martial arts, but trying to touch her in anger was something like sticking your hand in a blender. The irony of her name has not escaped her, and she has long since adopted her own version of a “Miranda warning” for persistent jokesters. She was out of uniform right now, but I knew her gear and gun were in the duffle bag next to her.
Miriam raised an eyebrow. “Does Miranda need to be on duty or off?”
“On.” I looked over at Rose, then back to Miriam. “I also need you to keep an open mind about what Rose has to say. Just know that I trust what she says with my life, no matter how strange it sounds. If you have any questions when she’s finished, we’ll explain over pizza.”
Miriam didn’t move. “The truth,” she said.
I gave her a slow nod. “If that’s what it takes.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” She snagged Rose, then caught Miranda’s eye and mimed clicking a radio handset. Miranda picked up her duffle and followed Rose out of the room.
I tried not to look at Randall, but the idea that he could have murdered Sharon and then be sitting here surrounded by her friends enraged and disgusted me. Thankfully, Roger had some game-related stuff to talk to me about. I let him keep me busy until the girls returned.
“Miranda will come with us and eat pizza. She can’t do anything yet,” Rose whispered. “I’m not sure she believes me, and my sense of smell wouldn’t be enough evidence anyway. She has to have something solid before she can arrest him. But I can still kill him.”
“No, you can’t,” I said. “Sharon’s murder would remain unsolved. It would be an open wound for her parents and for Manya. We need to think of something else. Maybe the pizza will help.”
We sat through the meeting only half paying attention. I stepped outside at the first break to call our order in to the restaurant. Baking two fourteen-pound pizzas can take a while, so giving the cook some notice seemed like a good idea. Randall walked past me and drove off, but even seeing him leave didn’t make me feel any better.
After the meeting, Miranda and Miriam followed us to the restaurant. I assured them I was paying for the pizzas and that they didn’t have to eat any more than they wanted to. This might be an eating challenge, but we had a ringer on our side.
The rules of the challenge are simple. Two people have one hour to eat an entire fourteen-pound pizza, crust and all. No leaving the table and no throwing up. If you can do it, you win a hundred bucks and get your photo up on the wall. Fail and you have to pay fifty bucks for the pie. Even with ordering two pies, I was pretty sure we were going to succeed.
While we were waiting for the pies to come out, Miranda got things rolling. “Rose, back in the bathroom you said you weren’t Human, and that you would prove it once we got here. The only reason I’m here is that Miriam said she believes you were telling the truth. Convince me.”
Rose opened her mouth, revealing canines that would give a vampire wood, surrounded by the curved, backward-tilted fangs of a T-Rex.
Miranda jumped back, grabbing at her hip for the pistol she wasn’t wearing. “Holy Mother of God,” she whispered. She leaned forward and touched her fingers to Rose’s teeth. She pulled her fingers back, then reached in again and tried tugging on the front row of fangs. They didn’t move. Rose’s tongue, skinny and forked like a snake’s, slid out of her mouth and caressed Miranda’s hand. Miranda yanked her hand back as though burned. “Eww! Yuck! Put that away! That’s just nasty!”
Rose closed her mouth and blinked. She gave Miranda a Cheshi
re Cat grin, showing a mouthful of normal teeth. “Was that enough, or do you need more proof?”
Miriam punched me in the shoulder. “I knew she had changed! I was right, and you were just messing with me! I should have nailed your punk ass after she ate all those turkey legs.” She punched me again, just to drive home the point. For an overgrown gnome, she hits hard.
I rubbed my shoulder. “If this hadn’t come up, we wouldn’t have said anything. Rose wanted to just kill Randall out of hand and make sure no one ever found the body. I’m the one insisting we let the authorities handle it, and that means trusting the two of you with the fact that Rose isn’t Human. A fact which, I must stress, cannot go any further than this table. We are trusting you two with Rose’s life because I believe you’re both worthy of that trust.”
“I think we know that,” Miriam said. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to have a living specimen of non-terrestrial biology sitting next to you and not be able to ask questions or gather even the most basic data?”
“I don’t mind asking questions,” Miranda said. “So, where’s your ship? Do you use warp drive, or hyperspace jumps, or, like, snort spice and fold space? And why are you here? Did you crash? Are you scouting us out? Oh! Are you gathering information on Earth as a prelude to first contact?”
Rose looked blank. “I don’t know what any of that means.” She looked at me for a moment and her eyes lit up. “You mean a ship like in a movie? I don’t need one to fly. No one can take the sky from me.”
The waitress arrived with our pizzas, suspending the conversation. We Humans took single slices and Rose took the rest. One slice might not sound like a lot for a hungry person, but each slice was just over a pound. Rose swallowed hers in two bites, and downed two more while Miriam and Miranda stared.
Miranda asked, “Where the hell are you putting all that?”
Rose laughed. “I’m bigger on the inside.”
“Now that is something I really didn’t need to know,” Miranda muttered. Her brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled up as she asked, “Um, you’re not a giant roach running around in someone else’s skin, are you? Please tell me you’re not.”
Rose shook her head. “Oh, yuck, no. I’m not a bug, and this is my body. I promise. There’s just more to me than what you see here.”
“Aha. Perception filter. Gotcha.” Miranda went back to eating and Rose didn’t disillusion her.
With twenty minutes left on the clock, Rose was halfway finished with the second pie and had already cleaned up what was left of our slices. Miranda had been taking notes on a legal pad when she jumped up and ran down a server, asking to use a phone that wasn’t in public. The server refused until Miranda flashed her badge. When she returned, she was smiling.
“I think we’re in business. I talked to Scott Hanson, the lead detective on Sharon’s case, and told him I’d been approached with a possible lead in her case. He thinks we can get a search warrant. I didn’t mention your sense of smell or any of the rest of this stuff. I told him you’re a psychic who gets vibrations off things. Memories, emotional events, stuff like that.”
Rose scowled at her. “I know what psychometry is. Object reading is a basic tool of thaumaturgical forensics back home. Emotions leave imprints on places and things, binding criminal and victim together. Strong emotions bind with death trauma to create ghosts, not just haunting places, but weapons and personal possessions.”
“Even better! You already know the lingo. We’ll do a lineup of objects and have you pick out the ones belonging to Sharon. The probability of you picking four objects out of twenty with no errors is supposed to be one in a hundred fifty thousand or so. If you can do that, we have a good chance to convince a judge to grant a search warrant to test the ring for DNA. If the blood you smelled is still there, we’ve got him. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know when to be down at the crime lab.”
“We’ll be there.” Rose scooped the last handful of mushrooms out of the pie plate and downed them. The staff and the other patrons clapped and cheered for us as Rose held up the empty plates for all to see. The manager looked poleaxed, but he processed my refund and handed out our two hundred buck prize, along with T-shirts for all four of us. We said our goodbyes and headed for home.
Rose yawned and stretched, halfway ready to drop into a food coma. As I merged onto I-25, she asked, “Can we get ice cream? We have the money, and I want des-errkh!” Her voice caught. I turned. Randall was behind Rose, one hand gripping her forehead and the other holding a straight razor to her throat.
Chapter Nine
Blood for Blood
Given enough time to prepare, Rose could protect herself from most threats. If something did manage to get through her armor, she could still heal from anything but a mortal wound. Her armor was down, and I was pretty sure a slit throat would do it. I didn’t want to find out.
Randall should have been excited, even gloating, but his expression was the same morose look he always had. “You forgot to check the back seat, dumbass.” Even while threatening a beautiful woman’s life, his voice was a dull monotone.
Shit. I took a quick look at Rose. Her eyes were wide and she was trembling hard. Armoring up causes a momentary rush of energy through her skin that feels like a mild electric shock. She couldn’t risk it while he had the razor at her throat, since the pulse might make his hand jerk. I tried to stay calm and think reassuring thoughts at her.
I had to keep Randall talking. “Yeah, you got me there. How did you get in the car? I’m sure I locked it.”
“I open car doors for people all the time. I’m a mall cop, remember? I followed you all over the mall after you sold those gold coins and you didn’t pay any attention to me.” He shifted the razor against Rose’s throat, almost drawing blood. “Bet you’re paying attention now.”
“I certainly am. What are you going to do with us?”
He chuckled. “Spoilers. Just keep driving north.”
“You’re the boss.”
Randall snuffled and cleared his throat. “This is all your fault, you know. I recognized those coins you were selling. Gold dealers around the world have been cashing them out for decades, and the people turning them in have been noticed. Fifty years ago nobody was able to put together their appearances on a global scale, but these days? There are tons of web pages about them. I was paying attention to everything you said, hoping I’d catch something about where the coins came from. That’s why I was paying attention to you tonight. Bet you didn’t know I can read lips, did you? I saw her talking about Sharon’s blood on my ring and I knew I had to do something. So, here we are.”
He patted his fingers against Rose’s forehead. “I didn’t catch how you found out about the blood, not that it matters. Even if the other two say anything, by the time the cops try to search my ring it’ll be shiny and clean. There won’t be any other evidence found, either. I’m not stupid. Too bad, so sad.”
“Not that it matters,” Rose said, “But I smelled her blood on your ring. You can’t wash away your guilt.”
Randall snorted. “What makes you think I feel guilty? It was her fault all this happened. Now why don’t you skip the games and just tell me how you figured it out?”
I almost made my move right then, but we hit the construction zone between Santa Fe and 6th Avenue. I had to slow down and focus on not hitting anyone. The lanes were too close, too crowded here. I tapped the GPS and brought up the current traffic map. The Mousetrap–the interchange with I-70 just north of downtown Denver–was clean and green. I had to keep him talking.
Once we passed 6th Avenue and the end of the construction zone I turned my attention back to Randall. “Why did you kill Sharon? She was one of the few people who didn’t want to kick you out. She actually advocated for you.”
“I, uh, I didn’t mean to. Like I said, it was her fault. I still want to know how you figured it out, though.” Randall sniffed and wiped his nose on his arm, taking the razor away from Rose’s throat in the process.
I opened the utility box between the seats and handed him a tissue. While he was blowing his nose, Rose closed her eyes. I felt her skin change as she armored up.
He finished blowing his nose and put the razor back at Rose’s throat. “You might as well tell me how you figured it out. Keeping it a secret won’t help you any.”
Rose stared straight ahead. “Go fish,” she muttered.
I glanced at Rose and focused on our emotional link. She was stronger than he was, bulletproof, and capable of using mind control spells on him. Why didn’t she just take him out?
Rose raised her eyebrow at me. I shook my head in return. No, it wouldn’t satisfy me if she just ended the threat. I looked at Randall in the mirror and felt a calm resolve. His ass was mine. Keeping my left hand out of Randall’s line of sight, I turned on the video camera in my cell phone.
I cleared my throat. “So, Randall, you say you killed Sharon by accident? According to the news it was kind of brutal for an accident.”
“It was an accident,” he snapped. “I hit a rabbit driving home from work. It was still alive, but I didn’t know what to do. I called her because she, you know, knows about rabbits.” He snuffled some more and grabbed another tissue.
While he was distracted, I switched off the traction control. “So you arranged to meet. What happened then?”
“The rabbit was dead when she got there. I tried to apologize, but she got angry. The rabbit was screaming at me while I drove. I couldn’t take it, so I slit its throat. She got mad and started calling me stupid. She said that having Asperger’s was no excuse for bad behaviors. I got mad at her for that.”
I passed him the box of tissues as we went under Speer. I moved to the left, praying the HOV lanes were open tonight. “She didn’t mean it as an insult,” I told him. Wrong thing to say.