Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1)

by Gavin Masters

  Lucky us. Of course, you left out “really sexy” vampire hunter. Ah, le swoon…

  I shrugged. “Two heads are better than one, right?”

  “Apparently,” Vikki replied.

  “I love it,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “But you're cheating a bit, aren't you? You've still got your uniform on underneath.”

  “Technically I'm on duty tonight,” she said sheepishly. “So I still have to be functional.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “But that doesn't mean we can't still have fun, right?”

  “Right!”

  “Hey!” came a shout from a crowd of people.

  Within moments, Vikki, Raven and I found ourselves surrounded by a bunch of youths, mostly male, but with a female or two, some teens and some twenty-somethings. One boy looked a bit younger than that—maybe about twelve or thirteen—with that awkward line of hair where a mustache would shortly begin sprouting. I couldn't be sure, but the group seemed to smell a bit like wet dog…

  “Dude!” said one stocky youth. “Not okay.”

  “What?” I said, looking to Vikki for guidance.

  Vikki just rolled her eyes.

  “That's really offensive man,” said another youth with a unibrow.

  “What?” I said.

  “As an actual werewolf, I'm offended by your lack of cultural sensitivity.”

  “Yeah,” said another. “You're new to this community. You should learn some respect.”

  “Now, now, guys,” interjected Vikki. “Let's not get carried away. Gavin doesn't mean anything by this.”

  “How can you stand for this, Officer Valliant?” said the first youth. “Look what he's doing!”

  “He's disturbing the peace,” added the second.

  “We're werewolves,” said one of the girls. “That's our culture.”

  “That's our culture Not a costume!” said the first youth, the apparent pack leader.

  All the youths began chanting like picketers. Except apparently they were picketing me.

  “Our culture…not a costume…our culture, not a costume!”

  I took my mask off, and the gloves.

  “I'm sorry guys. Really, I meant no disrespect. I had no idea—”

  “And you,” the apparent pack leader said, turning to Raven. “My girlfriend's a green-skinned witch, and I find that offensive.”

  My sister looked wounded.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, looking down. “I never meant to—”

  I noticed a few of them were just about floored with laughter. And Vikki, shaking her head and smiling, looked decidedly unconcerned that things would escalate.

  “You're not actually offended are you?” I said.

  “Of course not, dude,” said the first youth.

  “We're just fucking with you,” said the second.

  “God damn it, guys,” I said. “I really thought we'd just committed some kind of faux pas.”

  “They know that,” said Vikki. “It's a hazing ritual for them. They single out the new guys in town every year.”

  “Yeah man,” said the pack leader. “We do this to everybody.”

  “So…you're not really offended that I'm wearing the mask of your people?”

  “Nah, seriously dude, no worries.”

  “Actually,” said a female in the group, “I'm kinda flattered you chose team werewolf.”

  “Team werewolf?”

  “It's an ongoing competitive game they play with the vampires,” said Vikki. “They're always keen to see if more people dress as werewolves or vampires.”

  “Well…werewolves obviously,” I said. “I mean, they're clearly way sexier.”

  “See? That's what I say,” said the girl. “I like this one, Officer Valliant. He's a keeper.”

  “He sure is, isn't he?” Vikki said, almost as though she really was admiring me.

  I didn't know what to say. Was I reading this situation right? Was Vikki maybe suggesting something to me, or was I just misreading her small-town friendliness?

  “You're one of the community now, guys,” said one youth.

  “One of us…one of us…” they all began chanting, while circling us.

  Before we knew it, they'd dispersed back into the crowd to harass other people.

  “Are they drunk?” I asked.

  “No, they're…they're pretty much always like this. With their dog-like need for attention.”

  “Fascinating…” I said.

  “Hey cuties,” came another familiar voice.

  I turned and saw Steve, the handsome devil from dispatch. He was dressed like—and I'm not trying to be homophobic when I say this—an honest-to-god fairy. Like an actual fairy, complete with a star wand, a sequin-covered dress, a brunette wig and a silver tiara. He looked super-duper-gay—which I'll say again, I'm totally cool with—in his own handsome, devilish way.

  “Witch and Wolf-man, huh?” he said. “Classic! I love it.”

  “And um…” I pointed, not sure what to say.

  “Don't you recognize me? I'm the good fairy.” He turned to Raven. “We match in a way.”

  “Um…yeah…” she said. “In a way…”

  Then, what I can only describe as a super-duper hot black girl in her twenties approached us. She was dressed like a Spartan warrior, complete with the wrap-around sandals and a painted shield and spear. And the bare midriff which showed off her perfectly toned abs was almost hypnotic. She was so hot, she might have caused me to momentarily forget all about my crush on Vikki.

  But then I looked back at Vikki.

  Nah. I still could barely tear my eyes away from Vikki. God, those hypnotic, heterochromatic eyes. And that disarming smile.

  “Hey Steve,” said the sultry Spartan, in an alluring tone.

  Must be a close friend of his, I thought. Maybe I could get an introduction to this hot—

  Steve turned. His face lit up like he'd just seen the love of his life, and he French-kissed the hot black Spartan. Right on the mouth. In a definitively non-homosexual way. And the kiss lasted far longer than was comfortable for any of the rest of us. Finally, they pulled away from each other.

  “Well, my lady awaits! Ta-ta, cuties!”

  The lovers left, arm-in-arm.

  I watched after them as they went. The girl's sexy midriff and shapely posterior swayed hypnotically as they strode away.

  I think what appalled me most about it was how certain I'd been that Steve was gay. And I hate being wrong. God damn it!

  “Gross,” I muttered in disgust.

  Raven also looked a little weirded out, though I suspect for a different reason. Raven has always been a bit squeamish when it comes to public displays of affection.

  Vikki looked at us both and then burst into laughter.

  “What?” I said.

  “It's just the look on both your faces.”

  “How is that…that fabulous, handsome devil over there not gay?” I asked. “Stop laughing. I'm serious. My brain is so confused right now.”

  “Gavin, you live in a town of full of monsters and that confuses you?”

  “Well…yeah…I mean…even the few things I think I do know…I guess I don't.”

  “You'll get used to it,” Vikki said. “Eventually.”

  At about that time, Raven saw a couple of girls I recognized from her class. And they seemed to be calling her over.

  Raven gave me a sheepish look.

  “Well, go on,” I said.

  Reluctantly, Raven nodded, and joined the gaggle of girls.

  “Well, would you look at that,” I said. “Looks like even Raven's made some friends.”

  “Come on,” said Vikki. “I challenge you to a game of Hogan's Alley. Loser buys drinks after. Non-alcoholic of course. I'm duty.”

  “You're on,” I said with a smirk. “But I think you'll be sorry.”

  We stepped up to the shooting gallery with the 'Hogan's Alley' sign above it.

  Vikki took up the ri
fle first, and began crack-shooting bottles. I don't know what I expected exactly. I mean, she's a cop after all. She got eight out of ten shots, which received accolades from the others standing around us, who were getting maybe three out of ten on their luckier streaks.

  “Beat that,” said Vikki

  She handed me the pellet rifle.

  I took aim and then fired a first shot.

  I missed of course.

  “Oh, try again kid,” said the straw-hat-wearing pig-man running the gallery.

  I couldn't tell if he was a real pig-man, or if he was just wearing a very realistic pig costume.

  “She's good,” I said sheepishly, extending my thumb to Vikki.

  This got a number of laughs from the crowd of people standing around watching.

  Then I smiled to myself. “Showtime.”

  I spun the rifle around with a flourish. Then I began taking crack shots like crazy, breaking nine bottles with the remaining nine shots. I spun the rifle around again like a sword, and then blew on the end of the rifle for emphasis.

  I handed the rifle back to the pig-faced gallery owner.

  He just took it and stared blankly back at me, pig-mouth agape.

  I looked around and saw gaping mouths and blank stares.

  “Yippie ki-yay, bitches!” I said.

  This got the laugh I wanted from everyone. Including Vikki.

  “Motherfucker,” she said.

  “What did you just call me?”

  She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at me.

  “That's the line, remember?” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  Vikki just smiled and shook her head, her eyes dancing in an enigmatic way.

  “What?” I said.

  “What did you say you studied again?”

  “My major was psychology,” I said.

  “And what was your minor in? Ass-kicking?”

  This got a little chuckle from me. “English lit.”

  She nodded. “I might have guessed. Okay. But where'd you learn to shoot like that?”

  “You do know my dad is a policeman, right?”

  “Sure I do,” she replied. “But I'm a policeman too. Or…you know. Policewoman. So you're going to have to do better than that.”

  I nodded. “Dad used to take me to the shooting gallery once a week for years. I've got a one-armed sister to protect, after all.”

  “Show-off,” she said. “Well, I'm never going to underestimate you again.”

  “So you're buying, huh?”

  “I guess so…”

  We sat down at the small bar set up in the middle of the square. I got a coffee, Vikki got a tea.

  We chatted awhile. Just a platonic guy and girl shooting the shit.

  Okay…platonic my ass. I want to kiss this petty girl so badly.

  When Vikki took out her wallet to pay, I couldn't help but notice a small photograph inside it. It was of a dark haired girl. She looked to be maybe in her teens.

  “Who's that?” I asked.

  “Who's what?” she replied.

  I nodded to her wallet. “Sorry…in your wallet I mean. The girl. Photo looks pretty recent and she's too young to be your mother. And you're too young to be her mother. Sister? Cousin?”

  “Oh,” she said, looking a bit crestfallen. “She's…she's um…”

  The change of mood hit me too, and I suddenly felt stupid for asking. It was just my curiosity about her getting the best of me. Things had been going so well, too…

  Stupid, Gavin. Stupid, stupid.

  “Stephanie,” Vikki said, looking sullen. “She was my friend. She…she wasn't my sister, but…she was. In a way. You know?”

  I nodded. I wanted to ask what happened to her. But this was supposed to be a celebration, damn it! I realized I didn't want to waste my victory drink opening old wounds.

  “Wow, look at that guy's costume,” I said, hoping the transition wasn't too contrived.

  I gave a nod to a middle-aged Asian man sitting at the end of the bar having a drink of what must have been sake. I couldn't be sure, but given the samurai armor and sword in a sheath, sake somehow seemed like the appropriate drink for him.

  “I love the costume, dude,” I said to him.

  The samurai looked up from his drink at me and blinked. He squinted at me, then rubbed his eyes and looked again.

  “Gyabin-chan?” he said, squinting in apparent recognition.

  I halted.

  Had this guy just used my name? How would this guy know my name? Or did everyone?

  “Gyabin Masutaa-chan!” he shouted triumphantly.

  Yup. The samurai definitely knows my name.

  The gruff samurai rushed over to me and pulled me into a tight, vice-like bear-hug.

  Jesus this guy was strong! And the splint-mail armor he wore—definitely felt authentic.

  He let go, and I could breathe again, but he kept hold of my wrist and held it up like I was some kind of prize fighter.

  “Chūi min'na! Gyabin Masutaa wa kochira! Kare wa ichiban taimu woria desu!”

  Then the armor-clad psycho palmed another cup of sake, and raised it to me.

  “Kanpai!”

  He drank it, let out a belch, followed by a guttural belly laugh, and went out to the crowd, dancing like a madman.

  I looked back at Vikki, whose spirits seemed to have lifted, and she was laughing again.

  “Okay,” I said. “What was that about?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “I think he's drunk.”

  “Who is that?”

  “That's Genjuro Takeda. The rice farmer I told you about at the precinct.”

  “Oh,” I said in realization.

  I remembered she'd mentioned a time traveler who got stranded here from the seventeenth century, and who now farms and teaches bushido. Because really, what else would he want to do in the twenty-first century?

  “So that guy's…that's the guy from seventeenth century Japan? I just talked to an actual, honest-to-god time-traveling samurai?”

  “That you did,” she said.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “How did he know my name?”

  She just shook her head. “Small town?”

  “But he…he acted like he knew me.”

  “Maybe he does.”

  I shook my head. “I've never seen him before in my life.”

  She just smiled. “Yet.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean yet?”

  She just burst into laughter.

  I opened my mouth to ask what was so funny, but I wondered if my brain could really handle it right now. So I just peered into the throng of people dancing, laughing and cavorting at the festival. An awful lot of them seemed to be dressed in leather fetish bondage gear.

  “There's a lot of fetish wear here,” I remarked.

  “There's a lot of werewolves and vampires here,” she said, as though it explained everything. “And incubi and succubi. This shouldn't surprise you.”

  “I guess not,” I said, smiling and shaking my head. “Gimme time. I'll get there.”

  I kept looking at the throng of people. There were honest-to-god, six-inch tall fairies fluttering around, mingling with everyone.

  And on the subject of fairies, it seemed Steve and his hot female Spartan girlfriend were onstage now, singing a duet.

  “They're actually really talented,” I remarked, impressed. “Must be all those years in dispatch.”

  The corner of Vikki's mouth turned up into an enigmatic smile.

  Vikki and I listened to the dashing Devil-fairy and his sexy Spartan sweetheart finish their duet, sipping our hot drinks. The festival was loud, but there was so much I wanted to ask Vikki about. Did she have a boyfriend? What was all this business—this thing Sheriff Porter mentioned—about things happening to people who get involved with her? What happened to that girl in her wallet? What was with the golden heart pendant Vikki wore around her neck…?

  Ask about the pendant then, stupid.<
br />
  “I like your pendant,” I said.

  “What?” she said, drawing attention to the fact we were emerged in a cacophony of partying voices.

  “Your pendant,” I said, louder, pointing around my own neck to clarify. “I like it. Part of your costume?”

  “It was my mother's,” she said.

  She looked sad again.

  Stupid, stupid, Gavin! You've made Vikki sad again!

  But wait…what was with her carrying all this sadness around with her like that? I mean, she didn't look sad most of the time. Honestly, Vikki seemed to be one of the most genuinely happy people in Bordertown. But maybe that was just my perception.

  I didn't have to ask of course. I had only to reach for the Star of David around my own neck as my answer. Or to think about my sister's arm-stump. Maybe, in a way, we all can't help but carry around our sadness with us. Perhaps not wanting to—or not able to—fully let go.

  “I'm sorry.” I said.

  “Sorry for what?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don't know yet.”

  Vikki squinted, then smiled at me.

  She opened her mouth as if to say something, but before she could, that handsome devil, Steve, was getting her attention from the stage, now that his duet was over.

  “How about a song from the lovely Vikki Valliant?”

  For a moment, which I believe only I saw, Vikki tried to hide her face. I think she wasn't into it. But then she took a swig of tea and seemed to drink those woes away.

  “Come on, Vikki, get up here!” said Steve.

  Vikki begrudgingly smiled and then rolled her eyes.

  “Sorry,” she said. “He does this every year. He'll just keep calling me up until I go…”

  “Come on, Vikki…I've got all ni—iiight…”

  Vikki rolled her eyes at me again, then got up.

  “Don't go anywhere,” she said.

  “And miss this?” I said. “You wish!”

  She smiled, blushing a little. “I'll be back.”

  Vikki went onstage and discussed something quietly with Steve while covering the microphone with her palm. They must have agreed on a song, because the music started. It didn't take long for me to recognize the riffs.

  It was David Bowie's The Power of the Babe, of all things. She was singing the lead, and Steve and the Spartan were doing the background vocals.

  “No way!” I shouted. “Wooo!”