by Virdi, R. R
“You plan on making a habit out of this?” I asked surprised.
She looked away for a moment, staring out the Bronco’s window at nothing, a long lost sort of stare. I knew what she was really doing was getting lost in a series of important thoughts; I remained respectfully silent, which is fairly hard for me to do.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do after this,” she said, breaking the silence, “but after seeing all of this, what actually happens, I don’t know if I can just sit by and let it happen and not get involved.” Her voice became firmer as she spoke; by the end of her sentence her words were steel like.
Wow, here was a woman thrust blindly into the supernatural world and she just went through a boatload and she still wanted to keep going. Honestly, I felt a bit ashamed at the moment, I didn’t show it or say anything to her about it but I did. I had been doing this for so long, bouncing from one body to the next, one case to another that I had begun to lose touch. Somewhere along the line, I think I stopped caring as much about the people, people who should’ve been the priority, lives to be saved.
No, somewhere down the road I became too fixated on the monsters, the supernatural predators who preyed on people and I was obsessed with killing them. Ortiz reminded me of what I was really supposed to be doing; I couldn’t look her in the eyes at the moment so I turned to look at my knees.
“Norman,” she whispered, drawing my attention back to her and away from my borrowed kneecaps.
“Yeah,” I replied hoarsely, I didn’t know how to respond at the moment, those thoughts of where I’d gone wrong were still heavy on my mind.
“Promise me,” was all she said.
“I promise,” I replied, “I promise to tell you whatever I can when all of this is done, I swear it for whatever that’s worth to you.”
Her response made me feel even more ashamed, “a lot Norman, a lot,” she said steadfastly.
After all the dishonest things I said in front of her, she still had faith in my word, she still had some level of trust in me. There was a nauseating sensation churning its way around my stomach and I hated it. I had to force myself to put my thoughts and feelings aside for the moment, this wasn’t the time to get lost in my head or feel guilty. I picked up both of my journals, holding them tightly and turning to ask Ortiz, “you ready?”
Her grip tightened around the fire stoker and in the other hand, her fingers clasped around the handle of her little ear-assaulting revolver. She looked at me all steely eyed and when she spoke, the tone was all courage and iron, “ready.”
I exhaled and mentally prepared myself for whatever possible things we would be facing, “alrighty then,” I said as I swung the Bronco’s door open and hopped out.
Ortiz let out a low whistle of appreciation as she walked by the Lamborghini.
“Like it?” I asked with a smile.
“Yours?” she asked with wide eye surprise.
“You didn’t think I walked here everyday did you?” I replied, I couldn’t tell her that it was mine flat out, Ortiz seemed to be a human lie detector and she would catch that lie outright. The car was Norman’s, well his fathers and I couldn’t tell her that I got the car from Norman who I was inhabiting and happened to get the car when his father died because Norman decided that he wanted the car… Awkward.
“You really like your non answers Norman,” she said with a hint of a smile.
I waggled my hands in a so so gesture.
She let out a small snort and laugh as I opened the door of the Lamborghini and fell into it, the seats were low and Norman was pretty tall, there was no graceful way of entering. I leaned over and opened its glove box, inserting my journals into for safekeeping. After climbing back out, I saw that Ortiz was giving me a quizzical look, one eyebrow arched and posing me a silent question.
“Safekeeping for my journals,” I said, answering her silently posed question, “figured it’d be better to keep ‘em in there until we’re done. Plus, chances are we’ll probably be leaving in that, what with your car all blown up—”
“Thanks to you,” She said a bit edgily.
“Blame the Elemental,” I replied, “and like I was saying, we can’t exactly continue driving a stolen Bronco.”
She didn’t say much; she just scoffed softly, “of course,” and proceeded towards the nearest entrance.
Jogging after her I silently prayed that the museum doors I had unlocked on my last visit were still open. I had visited the place after normal operating hours yesterday, it was the next day but still before opening, early morning or late night, whatever.
Ortiz brought out her lock picking kit once we got up to the doors, I quickly cut her off, drawing a suspicious glance from her.
“What are you doing Norman?”
I didn’t respond, reaching out, I took the handle and pulled gently, “come on,” I whispered. The door opened.
“Yes!” I said triumphantly and a bit too loudly, eliciting a shut the hell up punch from Ortiz in my shoulder. “Right sorry…yes,” I whispered.
Ortiz shot me a reproachful look, shaking her head in disapproval as she brushed past me and entered the museum. I quietly slipped in right behind her.
We walked for a few moments in silence, traversing the corridor as quietly as we could, trying to make little to no noise. We passed signs for the massive theater used to play all sorts of documentary films and such, everything was disconcertingly quiet, I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched. It’s spooky being in a museum after hours, remains of massive creatures everywhere and yet they gave off the vibes that they were watching you. Ortiz’s eyes were darting everywhere; she seemed to be in a hyperaware state, trying to take in everything around her.
I reached out to gently grab her shoulder in a reassuring gesture; apparently it was the wrong thing to do because she was seriously on edge.
“Damnit Norman!” she hissed, “you scared the hell out of me,” she said, sounding reproachful.
“Hey!” I hissed back rather defensively, “I was just trying to calm you down, you looked spooked.”
“I was spooked….I am spooked,” she replied harshly.
I threw up both hands in a placating gesture, hoping she would stop trying to verbally slay me and focus on helping me find and gank the Ifrit. It worked, soon we wear back to walking the corridors in eerie silence, the only sounds were those of our footsteps clacking across the polished stone floor.
We were drawing near the guard’s desk when I picked up on an overwhelming and all too familiar smell. It was acrid and there was a hint of heat to the smell, it stung and overpowered my nostrils, my eyes watered. There was a coppery smell to it, like the burnt residue from fireworks, it was foul, it was a fustercluck of disgusting. As we drew nearer, there was a tinge of sulfurous odor as well.
“Oh my God,” whispered a mortified Ortiz, her hands flying to her mouth, whether in shock or to prevent her from vomiting, I’m not really sure. Probably both, the stench was unbearable this close.
“Damn,” I muttered, leaning over closer to examine the charred corpse that lay furled up on the museum floor. I knew that this was the source of the smell before even seeing the body, you never get the smell of burning flesh out of your mind and sadly it’s something I’ve smelt before. It’s heavy and thick, it’s almost a taste more than anything, it’s leathery, it’s overpowering and just plain noxious.
I couldn’t get a good look at the body from in front of the desk; the body was curled, well more like shriveled up on the ground behind the guard desk. I walked around it, holding my breath as I approached, the stench growing unbelievably stronger the closer I got. I knelt besides the body, my eyes were really watering at this point, this was a recently immolated person, there was a fair bit of heat radiating from the body. The ground around the poor guy had scorch marks.
A sharp pang pierced my skull; a flash of images, sounds and more quickly ran through my mind. I knew this person, or rather, Norman knew him. “Rick,” I said gloo
mily, “sorry,” I whispered in a solemn tone. Rick had been an idiot sure, maybe even a bit of a prick but he didn’t deserve this. His body lay there in an odd position, like someone huddled up with their blanket when they sleep, his hands close to his chest like he was trying to curl up and away from the flames.
“Ackh,” I gagged, it was getting hard to breath, even through my mouth at this point, there’s a reason burning flesh is one of the worst smells in the world. You’d think it’d smell like some sort of cooking meat, you’re wrong. Meat is processed, bled, most of it is skinless and it certainly isn’t full of iron rich blood, living working organs, hair and nails. All those things burning in tandem give off a series of horrible smells that mix to form an olfactory assault. When hair and nails burn, they release a smell like sulfur, which is terrible on it’s own. Add to that the burning of bacteria filled organs like the intestines and such, you get methane, the gas responsible for horrendous flatulence and according to some scientists, global warming.
So you can imagine what it was like to be this close to a burnt body that was still somewhat hot, odors still fuming out of it.
“Norman,” Ortiz croaked, her voice was a bit rough; the smell was really getting to her. “That looks like it was done by—”
“No,” I said firmly, cutting her off. I knew what Ortiz was hinting at, she was afraid of the Elemental coming back. It wasn’t, this was the work of the Ifrit, it was here, hell it had never left the museum. “It did this Ortiz, not the Elemental, that’s gone,” I tried to say as definitively as possible, I didn’t want to leave any doubt in Ortiz’s mind that the Elemental was done for.
She closed her eyes tightly, I could see them watering, I guessed it was the smell and that she was overwhelmed by Rick’s death. “How?” she asked in that same rough dry voice.
Instead of responding to Ortiz’s question right away, I rose and beckoned for her to follow me, leading her a good bit away from Rick’s charred body. I gave her a moment to collect herself; I didn’t need that long to recover, I’ve unfortunately dealt with this before. A few good deep breaths were enough for me to forget about it, forget, not stop smelling it however. The smell of burnt flesh and hair clings to your nose, literally, small particulate matter stays there.
There was a guttural sound of someone forcibly trying to clear their throat, that or gagging, followed by a loud clatter and clang that nearly made me jump out of Norman’s skin. Ortiz was doubled up and clutching her stomach, her revolver still in her hand, the silver fire stoker had slipped from her grasp and caused the clatter I had heard.
I gently placed my now healed left hand on her back, slowly and calmly rubbing her back, “you okay there?” I asked as sympathetically as I could.
There were a few heavy coughs but then she gingerly righted herself, “yeah,” she said, still sounding a bit rough. She began to kneel down in order to pick up the fire stoker but I held up a hand, motioning for her to stop.
She had almost just thrown up; I wasn’t going to make the lady bend back over to pick up a silver pointy stick. I was going to be a gentleman and do it for her.
I dropped to one knee and retrieved the fallen fire stoker, handing it to Ortiz by the clean side I hadn’t bloodied earlier. Fortunately the blood had dried by now but still, you can’t hand a lady a bloody…well anything really.
“Thanks,” she said a bit shakily, “so what happened back there to that man?”
“The Ifrit, that’s what,” I growled.
“Why? Do you think he knew something?”
“No,” I said angrily, “he didn’t know anything—”
“Then why?” interjected Ortiz.
“He’s a message…to me,” I said bitterly, “a message that I’m getting close and that I need to lay off.”
Ortiz lifted the fire stoker to her chest; her knuckles were going white from how tightly she was gripping it, “like hell we’re going to lay off!” she snarled.
“Damn straight,” I agreed, leading the way as we walked towards the warehouse like section of the museum, the place where I had first encountered Marsha. The poor girl had just been transferred here, she didn’t deserve any of this, now she was dead, dead in part due to my ineptitude, I wasn’t going to let that one go.
“Norman, you okay?” Ortiz had a sixth sense it seemed on reading people; she could obviously tell I was distraught about something.
“Yeah, no, sort of,” I replied.
“Wow, another non answer, you love making a habit out of this,” she quipped.
“I was thinking about Marsha,” I answered.
“Oh,” she said simply, pausing for a long while before adding, “you feel responsible in someway, don’t you?”
“How can I not?” I replied a bit edgily, that was unfair however, Ortiz didn’t deserve the brunt of my anger, I needed to direct that at the Ifrit.
“Did you do everything you possibly could to try and save her?” she asked in a strangely neutral voice, it was devoid of almost any tone.
“You know I did,” I said somberly, “hell, you were there Ortiz.”
“I know,” she said softly, “and I know you did.”
“So, what’s your point?” I asked testily
“My point,” she said firmly, “is that you’re not responsible for her death, my point Norman, is that you did everything you did to save her.”
“But—” I began before Ortiz waved me off with an aggressive swipe of her hand.
“Honestly,” she muttered under her breath fiercely, “what is it with men, it’s not hard to understand Norman. You. Are. Not. Responsible!” she with fiery resolution, hell she made me believe it, she made me believe it.
I never really noticed the kind of person Ortiz truly was until that moment, she was the extraordinary kind, the kind you don’t meet everyday and the kind you stick up for and with when things get rough. And I knew that she was the kind of person that would stick up and by you when things got supernaturally rough.
“Yeah, thanks Ortiz,” I said with a cough, trying to mask any sentimentality, I’m a monster killer, I’m not a sentimental mush bag…
Ortiz let out a rather loud snort, “don’t get all emotional on me Norman, men have about a difficult time with that just like they do with…well everything thing.” She said with a chuckle.
“Emotional, me?” I exclaimed in mock outrage, “I do seem to remember you turning into a little girl every time—”
“Ass,” she muttered lightly as she punched my arm…again!
“Ow,” I said, rubbing my recently pummeled arm.
“Oh stop whining you wimp.”
“You throw a good punch Ortiz, but seriously,” I paused for a moment, trying to get the words out and really mean it, “thanks, for Marsha I mean.”
“No problem.” She replied.
“Just wanted to say it is all, what, with the possibility that we might become incinerated pretty soon.” I remarked.
“Look at you, Mr. Positive,” she said sardonically.
“Hey! I am positive…. positive we’re going to be immolated,” I replied.
She shook her head and let out a small laugh, “seriously, you’re hopeless.”
I merely shrugged, didn’t know how to reply to that so I kept on walking towards the hall at the end of the warehouse section we were in.
“You still didn’t explain how the Ifrit was able to do that,” Ortiz said, “that looked more like the,” she cut off, suppressing a shudder.
“The Elemental,” I finished for her, “I know.”
“So?” she asked.
“So it wasn’t, the things dead—”
“But?” she interrupted.
“But…” I began slowly, “my contact only reaffirmed what I already knew, like I told you back in the janitors place.”
“Yeah I remember, Ifrits are old spirits of fire and smoke or something, right?” she asked.
“Try ancient, damn near beginning of time, it’s kind of like the great great grandc
estor to the Elemental.” I explained. “The Elemental is like a sparkler compared to the Ifrit which is like a mortar.” I added.
“You have a heck of a way of getting a girl’s confidence up you know that?” Ortiz muttered.
“Sorry,” I replied halfheartedly.
“Don’t be sorry Norman,” she replied, “just tell me we can do this,” she said in a soft plea like tone.
“Uh what?” I replied, caught off guard a bit by the request.
“Tell. Me. We. Can. Do. This.” she said in a very slow, soft and yet firm voice.
“We can do this Ortiz, we’ll come out fine.” I said as firmly as I could, it was hard though, I didn’t know if it was true. It certainly wasn’t a lie, it was possible but it didn’t seem likely. Still, I didn’t see the point in not saying a few kind and motivating words that she had asked to hear. Hell, it might’ve been that hearing those words would’ve pushed her to make sure she’d make it out of there fine.
Ortiz exhaled heavily, it was one of relief, “thanks,” she said, standing a little bit straighter, a bit more confidently.
“Uh, no problem Ortiz.” I responded.
“I just really hope this thing works,” she said, sending the fire stoker through a few practice swings as we continued walking.
“So do I,” I muttered under my breath, too quietly for her to hear. I had just told her things would be all right, no need to start causing her to doubt me or weapon I had given her.
We had cleared the warehouse and most of the hall; walking towards the room I had been in earlier. I signaled to Ortiz with a nod of my head, “that door.”
She replied with a nod of acknowledgment.
“You ready?” I asked in a hushed whisper.
Nod.
I gently twisted the handle as quietly as I could, unlocking the door and then put all my weight into it, causing the door to fly open and confront the duo behind all of this.
Chapter Seventeen
I didn’t exactly get the badass reaction I was hoping to get as I burst into the room. Neither of the two people who were there seemed the least bit perturbed about my entrance, but then, why would they?