Nite Fire: Flash Point

by C. L. Schneider

  Not that he’d said so, or much else. After spitting out the address where the body was found, he’d firmly suggested I leave my car at home and ride with him. It hadn’t been an unreasonable proposal. We were headed to an area of the city where many believed simply parking was an invitation for theft. Though my ten year old ragtop was no more attractive than his modest sedan, I’d taken the man up on his chivalrous gesture. I assumed it meant he wanted to keep an eye on me. Then, I hoped he’d use opportunity to clear the air.

  He didn’t.

  Quiet as he drove, I followed his lead, and the deluge of a pre-dawn storm exploding on the windshield filled the silence. Accompanying it was the monotonous drone of news on the radio. We listened as the weatherman spouted off about the rash of late summer tornados in the South and earthquakes in the West like it was news. He spoke of the thunderstorm over our heads like we couldn’t see and hear it for ourselves.

  I’d tried to tune it out. To concentrate on more important matters, such as the dangerous spectacle my fellow lyrriken were making of themselves. What a piss-poor job I was doing stopping them had occupied a portion of my thoughts. So had trying to decide why everything had felt so off lately. For years, the lies had slipped out effortlessly, one after the other, their consequences melting like sugar on my tongue. Now, every one of them tasted bitter. My human skin felt tight, my duty to keep the truth restrictive. My ability to do so, in the wake of such flagrant abuses: downright impossible.

  Close to seeing the sun rise for the third day in a row, my weary mind had seemed incapable of conjuring any solutions to my problems. My head pulsed with the ache of too much adrenaline and not a damn thing to do with it. So I’d turned off the radio with a mumbled apology, leaned against the cool glass of the window, and drifted off to the sound of tires spinning on the wet pavement.

  It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes before I woke. Rain had stopped assaulting the windows but instead slid off at a more leisurely pace. Already out of the car, I’d spotted Creed talking with another detective. Silhouetted in red and blue lights, rain striping their features; I’d been unable to tell if my angry new partner was still angry. Either way, he’d let me sleep, and he’d left his umbrella on the driver’s seat for me.

  I understood then. It hadn’t been simply a ride or an umbrella. It was an apology. A lame one, I thought, as I crouched outside the cardboard box our latest victim called home. But Creed’s attempt was still more than I deserved. I’d been lying and trying to manipulate the man since we met. Still, I’d taken his gift and held the umbrella high as I left the car.

  “Excuse me, Miss?”

  I turned around. A plastic-covered SCPD officer was standing behind me. Hiding in his rain gear with head down and shoulders hunched, he said, “Dahlia Nite?”

  “Yes?”

  He glanced back at the mob on the far side of the barricade. It had grown larger since I left the car. The area was home to a decent number of displaced souls, and the murder of one of their own had brought them out like moths to a flame.

  “There’s a…gentleman in the crowd,” the officer said, with enough flavor to tell me he considered the man anything but. “He claims he has information about the victim, but says he’ll only talk to you.”

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “Henry.”

  I scanned the crowd. It only took a moment to find him, squashed up against one end of the wooden barrier. Long hair plastered to his head, he looked like a hunchback with his guitar on his back, tucked underneath his oversized coat. “You can let him through.”

  “All right.” The officer plodded off. As he splashed through the potholes with slumped shoulders and heavy strides, I glanced around at the lanes of boxes, shipping containers, lean-tos, and tents all lined up next to each other like row housing. It wasn’t attractive, but at least someone was putting the space to good use.

  A mile from the drawbridge, butting up against the old district, the lengthy strip of dry docks had been set for demolition years ago. Then the city ran out of money to finish the job. Wide and open, with towering walls full of nooks and crannies, and plenty of open space at the bottom, the Sentinel’s displaced population had made use of the city’s oversight for years. Known to be safer for the inhabitants than the shelters downtown, Henry claimed the crime rate was low because it wasn’t merely a place to stay. It was home.

  The officer moved the barricade aside, and Henry walked toward me. Embraced by the upturned collar of his jacket, his round face was distant and grim. There was a visible tension and nervousness in his posture. It lessened some as I grabbed the sleeve of his coat and pulled him under the umbrella with me.

  I gave him a friendly nudge. “You okay?”

  “Better than Jerry.” He gazed over at the victim’s legs, barely visible with the poncho-clad forensic team surrounding them.

  “You knew him?”

  “Everybody knew Jerry. He was that kind of guy.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “We played together a couple of nights ago. Everyone said he could sing like there’s no tomorrow. Guess there isn’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Henry.”

  “Don’t be. You didn’t do it.”

  Feeling like I owned at least part of the blame for my fellow lyrriken’s actions, I offered a sympathetic smile. “Is this where you live?”

  Henry thrust a thumb over his shoulder. “Next dock over.” Avoiding eye contact, he gave me a swift onceover. “So you’re police, huh?”

  “I’m not police, Henry. I’m a consultant.”

  “You don’t have a badge?”

  “Just a business card. Which means,” I lowered my voice. “I don’t have to report everything you tell me.”

  Not taking the bait, Henry’s gaze wandered. He rocked silently on his heels, in and out of the safety of the umbrella. I didn’t have time for him to decide if he could still trust me.

  “I can help,” I said. “But not unless you cooperate.”

  “I lied. I didn’t see anything.”

  “Then why won’t you look at me?”

  Like my words were strings dragging his head up, Henry lifted it slowly. He held my stare. I studied his. It was different. Troubled. Aware.

  That’s not good.

  Henry cleared his throat. “I didn’t see him die. I didn’t see who did it. But…”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s not like it used to be here, Dahl. It’s not safe. Not anymore. Things are happening here. Things are living here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know how it is. Some of us stay. Some of us come and go. There’s always change. Always new faces. But lately, the ones that come… They’re not right. They’re not normal. They try to hide and cover up. They’ve all got hats and coats, wigs, even gloves. But their shadows are wrong. They’re not…”

  “They’re not what, Henry?”

  “They’re not human.”

  I nodded, thoughtfully, like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb of shit in my lap.

  Looking past Henry, I scanned the crowd with far more scrutiny than last time. “Henry, do you see any of them now, these…non-humans?”

  He took a quick, offended step back. “You don’t believe me. You think I’m drunk or using? I know what’s real and what’s not!”

  “I wasn’t implying anything, Henry. You said they cover up. All I was asking is, if any of them are here now, in the crowd, pretending to be what they aren’t.”

  He relaxed as my question sunk in. “No. A few came to see the body when they heard Jerry’s neighbor screaming. But they scattered before the police came.”

  “Can you describe them? How they look without their disguises?”

  His feet shuffled, disturbing the widening puddle between us. “I don’t want to. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. If they find out… If they see me talking to you…”

  “It’s okay. We’re talking to everyone, remember?” I waited for him
to nod. “How many of these ‘things’ would you say are living here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Five?”

  He shrugged.

  “Ten?”

  “Dammit, Dahlia.” Full blown anger deepened his voice. “I. Don’t. Know.”

  I didn’t believe him. But I believed he was afraid. Fear was all over him, thick and black and dripping from his heels. I felt it, choking his beliefs and undermining his confidence. Enough that I knew Henry wasn’t just a witness. He’d encountered one of these ‘things’ personally, and it had left a deep impression.

  Yet, based on his description, whatever had moved into the Row was looking to be left alone. Our suspects, on the other hand, liked attention. “Have you noticed a thin girl with blue hair hanging around? Maybe with a man, full beard, dark hair…?”

  Disappointment weighed on his shoulders. “You don’t get it. These aren’t people.”

  “I get it, Henry. I do. But sometimes people can be monsters, too.”

  Eyeing me, he nodded like he understood. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. I was standing right in front of him and he still had no idea what I was. He had no idea what was under my skin.

  “If one of these monsters is responsible,” I said, “do you have any idea why? Is there anything about Jerry I should know? Any reason why you think he was targeted?”

  “A lot of guys here have a record. But Jerry was a good guy. He’d been on the streets for years, and unlike most of us here, he never stole a damn thing. He never got arrested. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I didn’t say he did.”

  “Jerry bunked over in my dock until a few days ago. He had a disagreement with one of the guys and said he was moving. Hadn’t seen him since.”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “I said disagreement, not fight. One of us didn’t do this. It was one of them.”

  I took a breath. I wasn’t used to Henry being so angry and skittish. “Let me talk to Detective Creed. He can put you some place safe until things calm down.”

  Hesitating, Henry glanced again at the remains of his friend. His one blind eye was unfocused. The other was twitching as he said, with barely-restrained panic, “There is no safe place. Not in the Sentinel. Not anymore.”

  I watched him walk off. I didn’t try to stop him or convince him he was wrong. Henry’s parting words were dramatic, but I imagined he’d earned them. It wasn’t every day a body was found burned in half.

  No, I thought with a grim frown, just every day this week.

  Fourteen

  “Come on Dahl. I know you can do more.”

  Gritting my teeth, I tried. As the bar rose, Sal’s eyebrows did too, like the gesture could somehow push the weight higher. A hopeful grin emerged beneath his bushy mustache as it moved another half inch. The ratio of gray to brown seemed to have increased in the last few weeks. I’ve come back just in time to see him grow old.

  They all get old, I thought. Get over it.

  But this was Sal. I’d known him his whole life.

  And in the blink of an eye he’d be gone.

  Melancholy obliterating my resolve, I sat the bar down with trembling arms and a weary shake of my head.

  “Guess last night was a rough one,” he teased.

  On my back, I stared out across the gym floor at the mats and bags, the stacks of weights, the men and women thinking they’re safe, thinking they know what’s wrong and dangerous in the world. “They’re all rough,” I replied.

  He grunted in disapproval. “I can tell. Wandering in at noon, dragging your ass through the door… You’ve got a ways to go, Dahl, if you’re trying to burn off last night’s poison.”

  “I wish that was it,” I said, thinking of the succession of dead bodies I’d found, saw, and touched in the last three days. So much had happened, so many had died.

  How is it only Monday?

  At least I still had days before I was due to meet Ronan, and that was a good thing. Seeing as I had nothing to tell him and nothing that would help. And he definitely needed help. Ronan was the last obvious loose end to Ella’s murder.

  Sal was watching me. He was waiting for an explanation for my uninspiring performance, but I couldn’t tell him about the crime scene. I couldn’t tell him how, after Detective Creed dropped me off at my apartment, I’d spent two hours comparing samples of human ash and faking a report on my analysis of a lyrriken claw. Or that I’d spent the next three on the couch, dozing, worried that anything deeper would take me somewhere I didn’t want to go.

  I didn’t have the strength for an elaborate lie, so I skirted the whole thing. “Cut me some slack, Sal. I’m already doing more than most of the serious lifters in here. I’m entitled to an off day once in a while.”

  “If only they knew what you were actually lifting.” I watched him upside down as he grabbed another one of my ‘special’ weights off the rack. He slid the disc on with a smile. “One more? For me?”

  “I’m already making them nervous.”

  “What you make them is jealous.” Sal picked up another weight for the other side. “Doesn’t stop them from wanting in your pants.”

  “You’re such a romantic.”

  Adjusting my grip, I tossed a contrary curl off my forehead and lifted the bar off the stand. “Damn… How much is this?”

  He glanced at the numbers on the disc. “It says—”

  “Bullshit,” I breathed.

  Muscles burning, I managed four more reps. I couldn’t do a fifth.

  I dropped the bar back on the stand, loud enough to make heads turn. I ignored them and sat up. “You’re enjoying this.”

  Sal threw me a water bottle. “Someone’s got to push you.”

  “Push, torture…same difference.” Arms quivering, I unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. “You would have been great in the Inquisition.”

  Eyes shining, he laughed. “My missed opportunity aside, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re off your game. Is it because of those bruises you’re pretending don’t hurt?”

  I glanced at the yellowish contusions decorating my arms. “They don’t.”

  “Then what is it? One of your nighttime activities get out of hand?”

  I stared at him a long moment, toying with the idea of laying it all out. If I were going to expose my true self to anyone, it should be Sal. I had no doubt he’d believe me. And his advice would be worth the uncomfortable moments my confession might bring. As I’d learned since returning to the city, and getting a chance to know him all over again, the man was a vault of wisdom.

  He would have made a kickass dragon, I thought, smiling to myself.

  Instead, Sal was a trainer, a gym rat through and through. Bulky, with his hair receding, the sleeves cut off his favorite sweatshirt, and tattoos decorating his biceps, Sal could have been plucked from the set of any boxing movie. His father, Frankie, had been cut from the same cloth.

  One of the first humans I could truly call a friend, Frankie was a fighting machine in his prime when we met; working his way across the local circuits—legal and illegal. Like most young men under twenty, he’d owned far more dreams than money. Yet it was never about making it big or getting rich. For Frankie, it was all about the fight. It didn’t matter how many times the doctor told him to slow down. His response was always the same: We could all stop moving tomorrow. So why stand still today?

  My friendship with Frankie kept me grounded and kept me in one place longer than any other. I was at the church when he got married. I was at the hospital when his son was born. I was standing beside him eight years later when he died from an aneurysm.

  At Frankie’s funeral, his son, Salvatore, asked me why I never changed. Why I never got sick or looked older. I knew right then I’d stayed too long. When he guessed I was a vampire, he was so excited by the prospect, I didn’t deny it. When he asked me to bring his father back, to make him a vampire too, I said no. He ran off, crying that he hated me.

 
And I felt it. I felt his grief, his pain, and anger, right on top of my own. Sal’s heartache at losing his father had been so acute, it opened the gates, and the emotions of the entire funeral had flooded in. The assault was nothing, though, compared to knowing I’d robbed a young boy of the only hope he had of saving his father.

  I left the city that night. It was a long time before I came back. When I finally did, I steered clear of Sal’s neighborhood. He was grown and had a family of his own. For him, my betrayal had been a lifetime ago. I saw no reason to open old wounds.

  This time, I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t sure he’d even remember me. It had been forty-five years since the funeral. But I walked in, and he didn’t even blink. There were faded black and whites of his father on the wall. I was in more than one, looking not much different than I did now.

  The pictures didn’t matter, though. Sal knew me right off. He thought he knew my secret, and it was one he’d kept all these years. He welcomed me without asking a single question. He didn’t want to know why I’d refused to raise his father from the dead, or why I’d vanished. We started talking and it was like I’d never left. We’d gone from reading comics to pounding beers like the forty plus years in between never happened.

  What I was didn’t matter to him, only who.

  “You’re a good friend, Sal,” I said warmly.

  “Now I know something’s wrong.” He sat on the bench beside me. “Spill it.”

  I drank more water, stalling. “I’m working with the police.”

  “That seems risky for someone like you.”

  I’m not what you think. “I may have to go away again.”

  “So soon?”

  “I don’t want to. But things have happened. And they’re not over yet. If I can’t keep a lid on them, if I can’t figure it out…”