Touched

by A. J. Aalto

  “I know someone,” Harry suggested, “who knows quite a lot about the subject, if you require private tutoring.”

  No, I mouthed at him across the room, biting the word off. Harry smiled placidly.

  Batten stood. “It's nearly seven. We're due at the morgue for the post at eight. The pathologist is putting this case at the head of the line.”

  Chapel put his laptop in its case and clicked his pen closed. “Will you two be all right tonight if we go? We may be a few hours.”

  “Of course.” There was a cracked sunglass lens in my underpants and I was very aware of its jagged edge. “I've got my Cold Company for protection.”

  “When we get back we'll discuss our next move.” Batten looked at me when he said it. I boggled, struggling to comprehend this massive shift in Batten's attitude. Did he actually have faith in me? Since when?

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “The Davis funeral. I want you front and center with me and the family, if it's ok with them. The more eye-catching you are, the better.”

  “And by eye-catching you mean…”

  Harry supplied, “Jaw-dropping, delectable, sumptuous?”

  I gaped at them both. “You want me to hike my skirt up in shameless self-promotion?”

  Batten's eyes took on a salacious heat I hadn't seen in a while. “Hell, yes.”

  “I meant, for the case.”

  He just smiled.

  “Harry?” I said

  Harry swirled the dregs of his meal in his goblet. “This was bound to happen, ducky,” he answered enigmatically.

  “Just get out there and draw attention,” Chapel agreed reluctantly. “We'll be sure to nab her the second she sticks her neck out, Marnie. It's risky, but…”

  “Piffle.” Harry swung his one leg on the arm of the chair and smirked. “I shall of course be in attendance at the viewing if not the church service. How successful do you think someone would be if they tried to cross me to get to my DaySitter, Agent Chapel?”

  He seemed to mean something else, and his gaze towards the Fed was solemn, intense. It may have been my imagination, but the temperature in the room seemed to plummet ten degrees further, until an arctic brand of tension crackled like glacier movement under the ticking of Harry's grandfather clock. It sounded like a warning, and dialed Chapel immediately to uncomfortable. While Batten put on his coat, Chapel touched his necktie and looked at Harry's centuries-old portrait above the mantel, then sharply away.

  “I think your DaySitter has in you an invaluable weapon, Lord Dreppenstedt, if she chose to use you.”

  The revenant's answering gaze was inscrutable.

  Chapel said, “We'll be back after nine.”

  Then they were gone, and I was left scratching my head.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “You look tired,” Harry said. “Come lay your head upon my shoulder.”

  “I need to jot down all these impressions before I forget them. My memory doesn't seem to be working well lately. If I could get some sleep…”

  “You memory will work better when you're safely tucked into my arms, ducky.”

  I cocked my head at him. His lips were blue.

  Grandma Vi had passed along a journal in her will, one that had followed all of Harry's DaySitters like an owner's manual. It had been started by his first, a young woman named Marie-Pierrette D'Elissalde. I couldn't pronounce Marie-Pierrette with the proper French accent, or not without sounding like my tongue was tied in a knot and shoved down my throat, so I'd long ago taken to calling her Mary-Perry, something Harry barely tolerated. Mary-Perry had made rules for all those who might follow her, suggestions we all followed. Each DaySitter but me had added their own touch to the journal, and Vi was no exception.

  Second Cannon from Marie-Pierrette's journal was a biggie, and it strummed in my head: a warm vampire is a fair and gentle companion. When she'd written this, vampire was the accepted term, though it was about as cringe-worthy for me to read this as it was to read the N-word in my grandfather's old Jokes and Quips For Every Occasion book. Scrawled beneath this advice in my grandmother's flowery handwriting, an unusual opinion: always keep your Cold Company comfortable. So far, it was as Harry would put it, “spot-on”.

  Notes forgotten, I went to his chair with a blanket and curled up in his lap. He trembled once, violently. “Jesus, Harry. When you're ready for a nice warm feed…” I reminded him. He shook his head, running his fingers through my shorn hair. I wondered what he was thinking. “Harry, if a DaySitter were to leave their Cold Company, would that revenant go nuts?”

  “Don't go, my only love,” he said quietly, closing his eyes and putting his chin on top of my head.

  “I'm not going anywhere,” I said with the “duh” heavily implied. “I'm just thinking out loud.”

  “There is so much that we still do not understand about undeath, but there does seem to be a myriad of mental health issues tied to the dissolution of the Bond. I would venture a guess and say yes, separation from one's living DaySitter could cause a revenant to become quite mad, and go rogue. T' would be a perilous state of affairs.” He moved the blanket to cover his knees. “You speak now of Mr. Jeremiah Prost, one presumes?”

  “The one that got away,” I mused. “I can't be around Batten and not think of my last day on the case, watching him turn, seeing the gun, not understanding it, feeling the bullets.”

  “I imagine being in your society does always remind Agent Batten of that dreadful day as well. He certainly projects a measure of sadness when he sees you, more than an ounce of loss, of regret.”

  “You feel Batten?” I blinked with surprise. “Empathically?”

  “Queen Anne's dead.” He said it quickly as he did sometimes, QueenAnnesdead. “I feel everyone.”

  “I can't feel him at all.”

  “He is a null for you, a neutral.” He brushed a pale hand through the air. “This is a human failing. No revenant has a null. Would that it were; it is dreadfully uncomfortable for me to be in his society.”

  “Did Jeremiah have a DaySitter who left him, or died?” I wondered. “How would we find out?”

  “I thought we were finished with Mr. Prost. Do you imagine his crimes could be linked to Danika Sherlock in some way?”

  “I don't know, I wish I'd kept my files,” I said under my breath. “It was stupid to burn them.” And all because I'd written along the margins explicit sex notes about my romp with Batten, and couldn't bear to look at them.

  Harry rubbed his hand up and down along his arm, an old throwback human habit; he had no circulation to stir into warmth under that skin.

  “Why does this matter to you, my darling? What she did in the past is not in the least relevant. ‘Tis enough to know that Ms. Sherlock is a violent sociopath who needs to be stopped.”

  “You're not telling me anything new, Harry. She stabbed me repeatedly, of course she's a psycho.”

  “I did not say psychopath, ducky. I said sociopath.”

  “Same diff.”

  “Do be serious, pet. To get rid of her, you must find her. To find her, you must understand her. Ms. Sherlock's pattern is nothing new. It is the stuff of human history: scare people and grab power. Sociopaths have been doing this since caveman brain overlapped animal brain overlapped lizard brain.”

  “You lost me.”

  “You might find that does not entirely surprise me.”

  I knocked him in the chest with my knuckles. “I know a certain smarty-pants revenant who'll be pretty hungry by morning if he doesn't drop the attitude.”

  “Your mighty fist is formidable, dearheart.” He managed a straight face. “I must of course submit to your will.”

  We enjoyed one another's companionable silence for a stretch. My head was starting to whirl and a throbbing at my lower back reminded me that it was almost time to take my painkillers.

  “I think you need to put this nuisance out of your mind for a while.” Harry touched my hair again, played absently with the jagged
edges. “We should pick out your outfit for the funeral.”

  “What's to pick out? It's a funeral, I'm not going to wear a tutu. Black pants, black shirt, gun, black jacket, black shoes.”

  Harry's soft chuckle tickled my ear. “Agent Batten believes Ms. Sherlock will be watching, and that you should be gorgeous enough to make her lash out in spiteful passion.”

  Gorgeous? “Baring a miracle, I don't see that happening.”

  “Short skirt, fitted shirt, tailored jacket, high heels, push-up brassier. Lots of leg, lots of cleavage.”

  “It's winter,” I protested. “Harry, it's a kid's funeral! You're both off your rockers if you think I'm showing skin.”

  “Surely, if Agent Batten recommended the short skirt, its sole purpose serves to solve the case.” He hid the sarcasm by smiling against the back of my head. “I am quite certain I have something suitable for you in my wardrobe. Of course, when weighing one's haute couture options, one must always consider the collections of Jean Paul Gaultier. You'll be pleased to know I have several new frocks for you to try.”

  “I told you to stop buying clothes I'll never wear.” I gave him a pinch on the forearm. “Besides, what would Chapel think?”

  “In my experience, men who are surprised into a state of arousal by a pleasurable sight or sensation are rarely critical of its source.”

  I lifted my head from his chest to study him, feeling that he meant more. His expression revealed little. “Is that so?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” he confirmed. A dark, wicked light blazed through his eyes, though to what he was confessing was still a mystery to me.

  “I need to go outside and set up a ward,” I said. “So no one can bust in here without us knowing about it.”

  “You will not go outside without your gloves, surely?”

  I went to my coat and patted my pockets and found no gloves. I didn't remember anyone removing my lambskin gloves when I “fainted”, or where I'd left my pink calfskin ones. No matter, I had gloves everywhere.

  I went into the office and opened the cabinet on the east wall, frowning at the obvious lack of a certain hat box. “Harry, did you take back a hat box from the office cupboard?”

  “In your bedroom.”

  I passed through the dimly lit kitchen and into the small bedroom that was tucked between living room and bathroom. I'd never liked the two bedrooms upstairs with their tiny connecting bathroom, their steeply sloping claustrophobic ceilings and round windows like glaring Cyclops eyes tucked into the eaves. The bedroom off the kitchen was far more cheerful, with its Irish lace curtains and pastel rag rug, and much closer to my espresso maker. As a bonus, on the other side of the kitchen was the pantry, and within the pantry's packed shelves was a discrete and narrow cellar door. In an emergency, it was ten running steps across kitchen and pantry, and twelve precipitous stairs down to the safety of Harry's casket. He'd made me practice this drill a hundred thousand times since we moved in.

  I laid flat on my abdomen to peer under the bed, cautious of my belly wounds. The pain was much better than it had been earlier. Being around Harry's palpable energy was definitely speeding my healing, and whenever I did feel the jarring tug of pain, somehow it was whisked away. I had too much on my mind to wonder why. I was just glad it was working out that way.

  The jar of newt eyes was near the back wall. “You hid my bits and pieces.”

  “You took my hat box,” Harry parried.

  “Well, I figured you didn't…” I glanced up at him, read his pursed lips as though they had words written across them. “Harry, may I please borrow the empty hat box in your closet?”

  “Of course, my angel. I shall fetch it directly.”

  I rolled my eyes into the underside of my bed. “Why did you move my newt bits here? They were okay in the cabinet.”

  “I wasn't sure your agents wouldn't snoop, or understand why you'd need such things.” His face was carefully blank. “To be honest, I am not sure I understand the need, either. Using animal body parts does not seem like white magic.”

  “Well, it's not black magic.”

  He blinked once, pointedly.

  “It might be sort of… off-white?” I amended.

  “And the people who removed the eyes from the newts?”

  “Oh that's bad mojo on them,” I said emphatically. At the downward tilt of the corners of his mouth I said, “They did it, not me. I've never hurt an animal, dead or alive. You know I wouldn't.”

  “You simply must be more careful, my love.”

  “Said the demon descendent.”

  “My point exactly. Your soul is still very much up for grabs. Furthermore, I have an abiding faith that my own soul is not irredeemable. I am intimately linked to the infernal by my immortality, and you, my darling one, are intimately and forever linked to me.” Something passed over his face then, a shadow of an emotion I didn't have a name for. If our Bond wasn't bungled, I could have plucked it out of him easily, but as it was I had to take a wild stab at it and call it regret. “How easy it would be for a woman of your class to slide from murky demimonde to the downright forsaken, and take me sliding with you.”

  “I meant to use them for good, not evil. I found an online supplier. After the order went through, I thought it was pretty paranoid to think I'd ever need such a thing. Now I'm glad I bought them, they're exactly what I need.”

  He trailed a finger over my nightstand and then lifted his pale fingertip to examine the dust. “You did not use your usual supplier?”

  “Thrice Around The Circle wouldn't have anything like this.”

  “That should have been your first clue that it was a foul deed.” He looked angry now, my dusty room forgotten. “You purchased them online, with no earthly idea of what caliber of person might be behind the site.”

  I saw his point. “I get it. Seventh Cannon: know whom you're dealing with.” Harry inclined his head, waiting for me to expand on the thought. It irritated me. “But Harry, you don't understand: the person or people I'm defending us from don't play by fucking rules, they don't respect laws and don't adhere to cannons. They're not confined to using one type of magic or another. They've got the universe to hurl at me. Am I just supposed to—”

  “Yes,” he said crisply, drawing himself straight, his eyes daring me to argue.

  “You don't even know what I was—”

  “Yes.”

  “Stop that.” I returned to my stomach, dragged the jar forward. The lid gave my bare hands a tentative tug at the Blue Sense. I blocked whatever vision or linkage was starting to form; I really didn't need to know about the people who touched this jar, pre-delivery. I stayed on my knees to rummage through my night stand drawer for gloves. There weren't any.

  I peered at the clear liquid bobbing with eyes, pretty much the last thing in the world I wanted to be touching. The punctured one lay on the bottom, a deflated and inverted blob, a piece of onion-thin tissue floating like mermaid hair in the alcohol. I remembered I had the other one in my jeans pocket still, probably dried-stuck to the fabric by now. I'd have to send for a credit to my account.

  “Harry? I can't find any of my gloves. Did you move them someplace?”

  Apprehension flashed across his face. “No, my love. You have pairs in your bedroom, in the office, in the hall stand…”

  “Gone. All of them.”

  “Mais c'est impossible. You have near thirty pair at last count.”

  “I just had some on, before I fainted. They were with me when I was at the mailbox, on my hands. The lambskin ones with the extra-fuzzy lining.” I double-checked the pocket of my parka and found only an old menthol cough drop in a crinkly wrapper. “They were just in the living room, on the coffee table, I'm sure I took them off while I was on the phone with Carrie.”

  “The only people to be in this house since then were your agents,” Harry said. “Perhaps we should check the bedrooms upstairs, where they have stored their overnight bags.”

  “Why would Jerkface take my gloves
?” I frowned, outright discounting the possibility of Chapel taking them. “If he thought they needed them for evidence or something, he would have just said, ‘Yo, give me those’ or something equally pushy and moronic.”

  “One would certainly expect so.” His troubled face scanned the kitchen with concern.

  “Besides, I just had some. Two pair. Lambskin and the pink ones.”

  “It would be a mistake to ignore this. I fear it indicates a larger problem.”

  Great. Just what I needed: more problems. “I don't have time for this. The sun is practically gone. I need to do this warding spell before full dark.”

  I collected some items from the office (nail polish, dried legumes, tiny mirrored discs, Liquid Paper corrector fluid) and swept the jar up, cradling it between my elbow and belly, careful not to let it touch my bare hands. I could open the lid, and block what I didn't need or want to see, but not for more than a moment. The Blue Sense was much too strong to be ignored for long.

  Kicking the front door shut with the sole of my navy Ked, I stopped short to stare at the front gate and its fluttering yellow tape.

  TWENTY-TWO

  It had taken a therapist from Gold-Drake & Cross to point out that I had gone from one extreme to the other, where my attitude towards death was concerned, following the shooting in Buffalo. One minute, death was the sheltering care of my Cold Company, the strength that lay beside me on nights that I needed not to be alone, loyal and protective, radiating strength. It was the elegant creature with enormous intuition who fed from my veins and spoke in soft, posh cadence in my ear. Death wasn't a scary thing. Death was just Harry, resting in proper morning dress, or charming in a shadbelly coat, astute and quirky. My Harry, intelligent and witty, using his big words like abstemious and frigorific. My Harry, splendidly-groomed and smelling fantastic.