****
E’s apartment sat across the hall from mine, but the identical doors concealed much different interiors. My half-floor loft with the bedroom and the only bathroom in the place on the second floor seemed more modern than her boxy dining room in front of the kitchen, living room to the side, bedroom behind it, set up.
It helped that I bought the model furniture while she decorated sparsely, letting the open spaces define things instead of having things define the space. Tonight that was a blessing; the apartment buzzed with the chatter of almost two dozen people.
The birthday girl herself hugged us at the door and immediately grabbed at the package Jakob held. After my own hug, I got a beer from the fridge and wandered, finding my way out to E’s balcony. Where my apartment had a wall of windows, hers had only a sliding door. Thanks to the raging fire in her fireplace the door was open. I went outside to join the others who sought a quieter, cooler spot.
“Enjoying the view, Miss Mallory?” Bess asked, her English accent making her sound like someone’s nanny.
“It’ll do.” Seeing Bess reminded me of the run we’d gone on and the man we’d found dying at the end of it. “Done any running lately?”
“After the last one, I thought I should—” She stopped as a tall man grabbed her from behind and held her at least a foot off the ground. Bess wasn’t small; in fact she looked regal to me, all tall and thin, but the man behind her didn’t seem to flinch.
“Oy! Put me down,” she demanded.
“Not unless you kiss me first.”
“Not until you tell me who the hell you are!”
“Ah, now you’ve crushed my spirit. Don’t you remember me?” He dropped her down and I could see the laughter in his wide face.
“Aaron!” She screamed. A second later I pretended not to watch the two of them kissing their hello.
“Mallory, meet Aaron,” Bess said when she came up for air.
“Pleased,” I said with a wave, wondering how I could leave the side of the balcony to the two love birds.
“He’s our air witch. Bastard always ends up getting me off my feet.”
“Because you know you want to fly, come on, just a little Bess, just a—” He grabbed her waist again and flexed his knees. For a scary minute I thought he was going to take off but instead she kicked backward, breaking his hold to stand close to me.
“Another minute and you will be flying,” she threatened. His eyes widened in shock and I followed his gaze to see the stone balcony slowly open itself.
“Bess,” I squeaked, trying to get air into my lungs. I might have conquered my fear of heights but I wasn’t ready for her to make a hole in the stone balcony twelve stories above the street.
“Put it back, Bessie, you’re scaring her,” Aaron pointed out, and suddenly I liked him a great deal. “Besides, I promise to be good.” He spread his hands wide in a gesture of submission.
She looked at him and then at me, her eyes solid green. Slowly, all too slowly for me, the stone of the balcony sealed itself.
“You okay?” he asked me.
I nodded and caught my breath for a second before I said, “Yeah, but I’ll never think of earth witches as gentle again.”
I’d meant it to be a joke, but a man I didn’t know on the other side of the porch laughed louder than he should have.
“Gentle? Not any of these guys. Not even Daniel and it’s his nickname.”
An inarticulate “huh” was all I could manage.
“Trevor.” H held out his hand. I took it, surprised by the firm grip and the solid body behind it. He’d faded into the shadows despite his size, thanks to skills I didn’t have, aided by the deep ebony color of his skin. His body looked hard, not quite sculpted, but the body of a man who worked hard every day.
“Good to see you, man.” Aaron grabbed him in a fierce embrace, leaving me left out. It must have shown on my face because Trevor smiled back at me.
“Let me sum it up for you. These two, for all their bullshit games, were more than happy to suffocate or induce heart attacks.”
“Hey, it was a war,” Aaron defended himself.
“Exactly, what were we supposed to do when we ran out of bullets, huh?” Bess countered good-naturedly.
“Wait for the Marines?” he asked and the two of them burst out laughing.
“Is that you?” I asked.
Short but powerful, he reminded me of Lieutenant French, of a fighter. Of course, all of them had been but he looked it. If they were bad he had to have been much, much worse.
“It is indeed, Semper Fi, ma’am. I’m the lowly MP assigned to work with these malcontents. I’m not even a witch.”
“But you work with witches?”
“All the time, I even play with them when I get the chance.”
“Which hasn’t been lately, no one could find you. What have you been doing?” Bess asked.
“Missing you, baby,” he replied, smoothly avoiding her question.
I left the old friends alone to reminisce and went inside for a piece of cake.
****
I ate my piece of cake and did my best to fade into the periphery of the party. Jakob was chatting with E’s parents and I didn’t want to interrupt. They were older than me. E was older than me. E’s brother, who was only eighteen, was far too much younger than me. The party had me feeling out of place. I searched for Puss, the fabulous ginger-colored tom cat E insisted only liked people of quality.
I was curious to know how he would judge this group, especially since he had a habit of disappearing when there was no one worthy of his affection. After two loops of the apartment I found Puss snuggled up in Mark’s arms. The cat dozed completely unaware that Mark was an anti-social vampire, while Mark carried on some deep conversation with another guest I didn’t know. I nodded my hellos but didn’t bother to interrupt. I looked back at the balcony and saw it was abandoned. I headed out, hopeful for a minute alone.
I got it, a minute and a few more. The idea that E’s troop of soldiers killed using witchcraft nagged me but I couldn’t fathom why. I’d known it, or at least I should have; I’d seen Anna kill with fire and she wasn’t a solider, just an average witch. It made complete sense, and yet still bothered me.
“Penny for your thoughts.” Trevor appeared from the shadows again making me wonder if the balcony was his hiding place.
“Oh you don’t want to know. I was thinking about work.” The words popped out of my mouth without any logic behind them. I wasn’t thinking about work, I was thinking about witches and how they could kill people. That wasn’t work, right?
“What kind of work?”
“I’m a detective.”
“Homicide? Narcotics?”
“SIU.” His look told me he didn’t know the acronym so I spelled it out. “Supernatural Investigative Unit.”
He gave a low whistle. “Beats the hell out of my job. What kind of case are you pondering?”
“A homicide, I guess, one that’s gone on too long.” I got lost in my thoughts again and then realized I wasn’t holding up my end of the conversation. “What do you do?”
“Well, I used to be an MP, a detective, pretty much like you, but lately the corps doesn’t have a lot of use for me.” He sat down next to me on one of E’s patio chairs. “Can I tell you a secret?”
I shrugged, wondering what secret you would keep from people who fought and killed with you but tell someone you just met. He looked at me and then pushed up his sleeve. What should have been smooth black flesh was bisected with thin bands of silvery metal holding inch long segments of muscle.
“Composite tissue?” I asked. I’d read about how they could grow muscles, nerves, and skin to replace lost limbs. The science wasn’t perfect, though; they only functioned in thin sections, something about how the nerves connected. The metal bands made the connection stronger.
“The war is officially over, but it’s not really over. We were cleaning out an illegal trafficking center in the desert and
ran into a harpy. She took my arm off. I mean, just off. They found my hand a few hundred yards away. I spent six weeks with a hydro pack on a nub of bare bone and another six learning how to use this new stuff.”
“None of them know?”
He shook his head. “I can’t make up my mind to tell them about it. These guys, they’re all about strength, doing the impossible, never being afraid. I don’t want them to think of me as crippled.”
I looked inside at the party and could easily pick out the smaller group of soldiers from the rest. Something about how they carried themselves, about how they stood. Even E, who was maybe a hundred pounds, had a presence that stood out from the rest of the room.
“They are ferocious,” I said, seeing exactly what he meant.
He laughed. “The first time I saw them in a fight was the first time I felt helpless. It was amazing.”
“Tell me about it.” I’d been in a tough situation once with E; she made me feel all sorts of useless.
“They lay a hand on someone and the person starts coughing up their own water or fighting to breathe in a room full of air. Scary shit,” he admitted. “But I’m sure you see stuff like that every day.”
“And you didn’t? Being an MP can’t be all that different from my job.”
Trevor and I talked shop for at least an hour. I offered at least fifteen times to get him a job with the SIU, but he protested. While he was laughing and smiling about old times I could see his injuries scared him, throwing off his sense of self. It was too bad; he really knew his stuff. I promised myself I’d get his number from E later. If I had a choice in new hires to the department it would be more people like Trevor, not more people like Amadeus.
Jakob found me around midnight and I realized it was time to go. The party had dwindled down to E’s inner circle. They sat around the coffee table, relaxed in the way truly close old friends have, casually draped over each other, arms touching legs, body parts all mixed up. Ryan, who Mark had been talking to, was massaging Bess’ perfect foot, down the couch from him her head rested on Aaron’s lap.
They reminded me of the cliques I’d seen in high school, groups that dated each other so much they had all been lovers once. Maybe they had all been lovers once, somewhere between the fighting and bloodshed, or maybe the fighting and the bloodshed was enough. This group could have forged a friendship so strong that sex was a step down, making them closer than lovers.
Trevor followed us inside, and when E saw him she jumped up from the couch to squeal and hug him. This time when he was asked where he’d been he answered, “Collecting your presents,” and pointed to the table.
E left us to sit in front of the three boxes, eyeing them with glee. I noticed these were the ones from her friends, not Jakob’s present or Mark’s if he’d managed to get one. Intrigued, I wondered what they would have gotten her. The box on top was a small square, underneath it was a larger square, and at the bottom a rectangle at least three feet long.
“From you?” she asked him.
“From all of us,” he conceded.
“I can’t even imagine what all of you could agree on,” she marveled. Her fingers flew to the tiny box on the top but Daniel corrected her.
“Start with the bottom,” he said. In the flicker of the candles his blue eyes danced mischievously.
“It’d better not be a swimsuit,” E growled and all of them laughed in return. Her fear of water was somewhat legendary, but Daniel had been coaching her through swim lessons. I got updates on the lessons, how he had a pool in his basement small enough and shallow enough she could stand up and touch the sides. She still didn’t like it. She was conquering her fear though, and after the games out on the balcony I was more than impressed.
She untied the ribbon holding the three boxes together and then unstacked them. Pulling the rectangle in front of her, she lifted the lid slowly. A second later her eyes grew as a wide as saucers and a smile of pure joy broke on her face.
“Oh you guys, you totally shouldn’t have,” she cooed, pulling out a violin. The dark wood surface had been lacquered to a rosy brown color. The curves of the instrument were almost sensual.
“I didn’t know you played,” Jakob said softly. She answered him without ever taking her eyes off the rich dark wood.
“There was an old violin in the caves where we hid. I sort of taught myself.” She pulled it to her ear and plucked a string. Satisfied with its tone, she moved on to the others, talking and tuning at the same time. “It wasn’t easy but I had a lot of time. I got pretty good too. I mean as good as you can get without sheet music.”
“Open the second box then,” Bess commanded. E put the violin down reluctantly, and opened the second box revealing sheets of thin yellowing music stacked up.
“Wow, guys, really, thank you.” She sighed, fingering the thin vellum. I could see her lips move as she read the lyrics. E, tough as nails and always ready to fight, had tears in her eyes over her birthday present.
“Play us a song already. What was it Val used to say?” Aaron asked the room in general.
“Let’s leave him out of this, shall we?” Daniel’s voice carried a touch of an edge but E didn’t notice it. I looked at him, trying to understand the emotions on his face.
“Wait! No chin rest! All of this and you couldn’t get me a chin rest?” E did her best to sound put upon. “I guess I’ll take your undershirt again, Daniel.”
“The third box,” he replied with a smile.
Inside was a very neatly folded green undershirt, exactly the kind I would expect someone in the army to wear.
“But it doesn’t smell like gunpowder and sweat,” she complained, before he could say anything, she tucked the instrument under her chin. She played with her eyes closed, her short black hair revealing the long smooth line of her neck, looking vulnerable and strong at once.
The music started almost instantly, melancholy sounds drifting together, telling a story of regret. I didn’t know the name of the piece she played but like everyone else I leaned forward enthralled. Everyone else except Daniel; when I looked over at him he was leaning back in the chair, his eyes fixed on her face. It was obvious to anyone who looked how much he was in love with her.
****
The sound of E’s violin came through the wall we shared late into the night. Even as I drifted to sleep she was still playing, by then the music mixed with passionate magic. I hoped she played for Daniel, naked, the two of them having enjoyed their love, but I knew better.
I’d never seen E look at him that way. The romantic in me was a little sad at the idea but the cop in me was more interested in Trevor, something he had said, something in the whole conversation nagged at me. It held my attention until I realized it was Sunday, and not just any Sunday, but Superbowl Sunday. I squealed with glee, hopped out of bed and started the preparations.
I cleaned, grocery shopped, and organized a menu while Jakob slept. When he finally got up around two, we decided to open the windows. It was gray and cloudy out, a light mist falling in a way that said mud bowl to me but meant Jakob didn’t have to worry about a third-degree sun burn. I decided to leave the interior lights on; even with the shutters up the day was still dark. Two hours before kickoff and an hour before anyone was supposed to show up there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Simon looking chagrined.
“Hey you’re early!” I said with a smile.
“Early?” He looked perplexed.
“I’m having a party for the big game. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Uh, no, can I come in?” It was then I saw the regulation manila folder we kept reports and paperwork in. I groaned, but let him in anyway.
“I know you’ve gotten a bit of ribbing over the dog thing,” he started but I cut him off.
“A bit?”
“Okay, more than a bit. But I know you got yesterday off because of it too. So while it’s probably a long shot, would you be willing to look at some photos? It really does feel like Tiny is th
e only link to the representative’s attack.”
“I didn’t take any images from the dog.” I turned away from him to start on the cheese dip.
“I know, I know, but I’m up against a wall here, so would you just look?”
I started to tell him no, but a sudden burst of sympathy came to me. My case had been blocked a little while ago. Sure, I had some leads pick up this week but I could go back to being stuck any minute. Looking at photos wouldn’t kill me.
“Leave them on the counter,” I conceded and a second later my mind turned back to more important things. “So you gonna stay for the game?”
“Can’t. Sorry. Every year my church has a soup’bowl Sunday. We make soup from donated veggies and hand it out to the homeless.”
I frowned at him and his do-gooder ways.
“What? You know, we could use your help, Mallory.” The way he said the last made me positive he was reading me, using those spirit witch abilities to see how shocked I was someone would volunteer and miss the big game.
“Blasphemer! The only thing I’m doing today is what every American should be doing, watching the game.”
“You sure?” he teased on his way out the door.
“You’re lucky I don’t have something to throw at you,” I teased back.
Thankfully, the bulk of my friends weren’t as passionate about volunteering as Simon. They started arriving a few minutes late, as expected. Jakob must have let Lucas in; I found him near the food sort of hovering. Not wanting anyone at my party to feel as out of place as I had at E’s last night, I headed over to strike up a conversation.
“Simon was by?” Lucas asked the minute I got close enough. He was pointing at the folder sitting on my counter.
“He wants me to see if I recognize anyone from the er, construction site thing…”
“You mean the dog killer case?”
Blood, Dirt, and Lies Page 19