She winced, because it was true. “Look, Dad, I don’t need money.” Then she hesitated, because that was a lie, and her mother had taught her not to lie. “Well, I mean, actually I do, but I don’t need your money.”
“Sure.” He sounded bored. “How much?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve got a deadline tomorrow and I need to make this quick. How much do you need?”
Sunny was horrified that he wasn’t listening to her. “Dad, there’s a serial killer that I have to assume has your name and address. You need to listen to me on this. Get out of your apartment. Go to Homer. I’ve gotta find this guy before he kills again.”
“And for some reason he’s too dangerous for you to inform the Dome Police.” Her father actually sounded bored.
“Yes !” Sunny cried, infuriated.
“Why?”
“Because he’s…” She hesitated, trying to figure out how to make it believable.
“Will two thousand do it?”
Sunny blinked. “Huh?”
“Two thousand dollars. To get you to leave me alone while I finish this report.”
Sunny was a little stunned, wondering what had happened to her father to make him such an asshole, when all of her memories had been happy ones with him. Then she remembered: Mom had been permanently locked out of Alyeska as a Canadian conspirator when the borders went down during the war and their mother had been staying in Canada with her friend Rachel. The day Dad had gotten the news, he’d stopped smiling, and he hadn’t been the same since.
“Dad, you’re in danger.”
Her father heaved an enormous sigh. “Three thousand?”
Three thousand dollars could keep her in housing for three months while she tried to get back on her feet with the Dome Commission. It took all of her willpower to say, “No, Dad. I’m honestly, sincerely calling about your welfare. I think this guy’s gonna come after you.”
“I’m not giving you four thousand dollars, Sunny.”
Sunny squinted at the phone for a long moment, then hung up. She figured that would startle him more than anything else.
It did. When her father called back, he sounded almost cowed. “I listened to your voicemail,” he muttered. “Did you really get hooked up with a serial killer?”
“Yes ,” Sunny said, in utter relief. “And I think he’s coming to your place next. Can you just do me a favor and grab your stuff and head to an all-night coffee shop or something? Seriously, he could hurt you real bad, Dad, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“And why haven’t you told the Dome Police?”
“This guy’s smarter than them,” Sunny said. “They can’t catch him.”
“But you can, I take it.” His disbelief was returning.
Sunny grimaced, wondering how he had guessed. “Look, Dad, I honestly think I’m the only one who can get this guy.”
Her father was silent a moment before he said, “I underestimated you once, Sunny, and you ended up zip-tying a young man to a cliff.”
“You said that’s what he deserved!” Sunny snapped. She’d eagerly taken her dad to the cliff overlooking the Matanuska River to lop off Gary’s balls the next day, only to find her father wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea as he had initially let on.
“Exactly.” Her father sighed, deeply. “Look, as long as this so-called serial killer isn’t another Gary or some other poor schmuck—as long as he’s actually murdered people—then you have my blessing.”
Sunny was stunned. “I do?”
“I always said your talents were wasted on ambulances,” her father said.
Sunny narrowed her eyes. “You said I’d make an excellent criminal.”
“It takes a criminal to catch a criminal,” he said matter-of-factly.
Sunny wasn’t sure how to respond to that. More than anything, it hurt that her father honestly thought she naturally belonged to the low-life underbelly of the city he loved. “I’m not a criminal.”
“Yet.”
She twitched at the word. “What is it with you and Daphne?! So I stole a couple EpiPens. Big deal! If I hadn’t, I would’ve died, okay?!”
“So you have been thieving.” Like he approved. Like he goddamn approved .
Sunny was getting so angry it hurt to breathe. “Dad, what am I supposed to think when you’re telling your little girl she’d make a good criminal?”
“Seems a natural evolution of your skillset. Intellect, a disregard for established rules or other peoples’ personal property, the ability to be totally forgotten in the blink of an eye…”
Sunny hung up. She wasn’t sure what had happened to her father after the separation, but he’d lost the…love…she remembered. Almost like he had gone a hundred percent intellectual, solidly logic and reason, leaving nothing to emotion.
A robot.
She sent him a simple text: Get out of there in the next thirty minutes if you want to live, because he’s coming for you, then put her phone away.
Then, because she was too fueled by adrenaline to even think about sleeping, she drove Tommy’s Chevy to the local pet store and waited in the parking lot for it to open. As she waited, she looked up invertebrates and how to kill them. Copper was, surprisingly, a pretty simple solution. It would take submersion, however, and as far as she knew, Dortez was only submerging himself in his private pool in interdimensional Bag of Holding inside Arielle Westerly’s luxury apartment.
Which meant she’d have to go back there and dump a few gallons of copper solution into his pool. She went inside Pet-Alaska when it opened at 9:00 am. Since she’d been forced to abandon her burger and her stomach was carving its way through her spine, she first stopped at the snack machine, and put two and a half dollars into it before she spotted the OUT OF ORDER sign. Then, frustrated, she tried in vain to get her money back before she gave up, went inside, and found an employee.
“Your machine just ate the last of my spare cash,” she growled.
The employee winced. “Yeah, uh, it’ll do that. Sorry. There’s a sign.” He pointed at the two-inch-by-two-inch Post-It note for her convenience.
When it was clear that the employee wasn’t going to rectify the situation and pull spare change out of his till to hand to her, Sunny reluctantly abandoned her breakfast money and trundled deeper into the store, muttering. She grabbed as much copper medication as she could get, filling up a cart with it. She waited until the curious pet store employees looked the other way, and walked out with it. By her estimates of adding up all the little bottles, she had managed to get almost three gallons. Enough, the packages claimed, for killing half the invertebrates in the Pacific Ocean, or pretty damn close.
She didn’t want to leave it to chance, though, so she came up with a Plan B, as well.
At 10:00 am exactly, she parked in the no-parking zone at the front door of a sporting goods store, walked inside, grabbed a cart, and immediately started throwing things into it. Anything that she thought could even be the slightest bit useful, from bear traps to climbing gear to harpoons.
Then she went to the gun counter and got the guy to let her hold a shotgun. Then she got him to look away, tucked it under the bottom of her cart, and repeated the process until she had three guns, ammo, and the key to unlock them.
Then, her cart laden with a few hundred pounds of stolen goods, Sunny walked out the front door, promising herself that she would bring it all back later. As she was unloading her ‘purchases’ on top of her own belongings into the bed of Tommy’s truck, a security guard came hustling out of the front doors.
“Ma’am, you didn’t pay for those!”
Sunny frowned. “Sure I did! Ask my boyfriend. He’s the guy with the ski mask at the cash register.” She gestured behind the guard. The man turned. Then, finding himself staring at the outside of the building of his work, the man seemed to shake himself, dazed, and wandered back inside.
Sunny finished loading the pickup and drove away. She knew it would probably be on the afternoon
news—Brazen Bandit Makes Off With Thousands in Stolen Goods From Local Sportmaster—but by this time, she didn’t care.
Her next stop was inside the North Dome at a cosmetic surgery office. The building was ten stories tall and looked to be big enough to employ dozens of doctors. She parked out front, watched the wealthy clientele come and go. Not a single dusty or calloused outdomer amongst them.
Looking down at herself, still wearing the same bloodstained, grungy clothes, Sunny knew she wasn’t going to fit in. She also didn’t care. She jumped out of the Chevy and approached the building.
Immediately, a doorman in a suit stopped her. “I’m sorry, miss, this establishment is for paying patrons only, not those on government health stipends.”
“Oh, okay. Hey, I just wanted to warn you about the moose over there.”
The doorman looked. Sunny stepped past him and into the polished black marble entryway of Alyeska’s most prestigious medical facility.
As soon as she saw Sunny, the receptionist made a face. “I’m sorry, but this establishment—”
“Holy shit, that’s the biggest spider I’ve ever seen!”
The receptionist jumped and turned, and Sunny walked past the front desk.
On the fourth floor, after bypassing a dozen doctors, nurses, and technicians in the same way, she found herself in the medicine storage closet, where she helped herself to several boxes of Botox powder and another box of syringes. Outside the medicine room, a worried nurse saw her and stopped her.
“What are you doing with all that Botox?” the concerned citizen said.
“I’m going to go kill something with it. Would you look over there, please?” The woman did, and Sunny moved on.
She carried her prizes out with the same impunity, though she was stopped at least a dozen times by uneasy medical personnel before she made it back to the Chevy.
It was actually her visit to a veterinary clinic that Sunny dreaded. She knew from nine years as an EMT that Dimethyl Sulfoxide was used extensively in medicine—especially in drug patches—to facilitate the absorption of chemicals through the skin. When she searched the internet for a bulk source, she found that the compound was sold in large quantities to horse enthusiasts…or veterinary clinics. Since there weren’t a lot of horses left in Alaska, she skipped the pet store and went straight back across the E. Banks Bridge to an outdome vet.
Before she entered, however, she sat in the truck and tried to calm her breathing.
They’re just dogs. If they attack me, the people in there will stop them , she thought. And then a nagging, But what if they forget they’re trying to help me?
She used to love dogs. Friendly, loyal beasts, full of love for their people…
Not anymore. She might be the only person in the history of the world who was almost killed by a pack of Chihuahuas, and she had the scars to prove it.
Chihuahuas, Labradors, huskies, maremmas… It didn’t matter how big or how sweet the animals were to other people—to Sunny, they were like rabid demonspawn with their only goal that of ripping out her throat.
Sunny saw a man escorting a young male Rottweiler through the parking lot, and she ducked before the beast saw her. She heard it slow and whine in her direction before its owner jerked its collar, giving Sunny goosebumps all over as she remembered the last time she’d been attacked. She’d had to administer her own stitches because the ER docs had been so distracted.
Great , she thought, peeking over the dash just in time to see the Rottweiler enter the building. Just great.
She waited another two hours, watching things like Pomeranians, terriers, and sheepdogs come and go. Pomeranians and sheepdogs she could handle. Rottweilers, she could not.
The dog, however, remained stubbornly inside the veterinary clinic like a bad turd, well after everything else in the clinic had been discharged and gone home. Sunny tapped her hands on the steering wheel, trying to determine if she should go somewhere else. Desperate, she called the clinic.
“Mat-Su Pet and Vet,” the woman said on the other end.
Sunny swallowed down her nervousness and said, “Hey, I saw a Rottweiler go into that building a few hours ago and I have this serious phobia of Rottweilers and I was just wondering if you’re gonna be discharging him any time soon?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Let me check.” The woman was gone a couple minutes before she said, “Yeah, he’s here for a grooming. Probably another hour or so.”
“Is he contained?” Sunny asked. “In a cage or something?”
“All our dogs are contained, miss,” the woman on the other end said soothingly. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
When people said that, in regards to dogs, around Sunny , it was a sure bet she did need to worry, and the dog was going to try to eat her.
“I just have to come in for something real quick,” Sunny said. “If you could please make sure he’s in a cage, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Sure, miss.” The phone went dead a few minutes, then there was a shuffle as it was picked up again. “Yep, he’s contained.”
“In a cage?” Sunny insisted.
“Miss, I assure you he’s fine. Come on inside. I’ll meet you at the door.”
At the front of the building, the door opened and a woman in pink and floral scrubs with a phone to her ear spotted her before Sunny could duck out of sight again. Massive breasts bouncing, the woman raised a flabby arm and waved Sunny inside.
Sunny grimaced and considered driving away. Instead, biting down that bad feeling, she unlatched the door and, after a quick scan of the parking lot, hurriedly jumped from the truck and jogged to the front door.
“Titan’s been here for five hours ,” the woman in scrubs cried, hanging up her phone. “Have you been sitting out there for five hours ?”
Sunny didn’t want to talk about it. “Do you have Dimethyl Sulfoxide?”
The woman gave her an odd look and went back behind the counter. “Tell me again what you’re looking for?”
“Dimethyl Sulfoxide. I’ve got a herd of arthritic horses and I need a ton of it.”
“Well let me see.” The woman searched her system, then nodded. “Sure do. Looks like we got seven sixteen-ounce bottles in stock, and eleven eight-ouncers. How much you looking for?”
“All of it, please,” Sunny said. Her eyes flickered to the door marked GROOMING and she realized she could hear dog toenails on the concrete beyond.
When the lady started to get up, Sunny quickly said, “And can you have someone else go get it for you? I’m so terrified right now I need someone to stay with me.”
The woman’s face softened. “Sure.” She picked up the phone and called one of the techs. Into the phone, she said, “Hey Cassie? Go get all the Dimethyl Sulfoxide from the shelves and bring it to the front desk. This young lady out here has some sick horses.” There was a brief pause as the woman listened, then she said, “Dimethyl Sulfoxide. Thank you!” She hung up the phone and smiled kindly at Sunny. “There. See?”
“Thanks,” Sunny managed, glancing again at the grooming door. She was developing a cold sweat.
A couple minutes later, a girl in scrubs came out of the back room with a shopping bag of white bottles. “This enough? I left a couple for the vet.”
“Yes, fine, whatever.” Sunny couldn’t think. All she could hear was the sound of the Rottweiler panting in the other room.
“Would you like to pay with cash or credit?” The woman set the bag of bottles on the counter.
“Cash,” Sunny said, grabbing the bag. “How much?” She was distracted by the whining in the Grooming room.
“Let me see…” The front desk clerk opened the bag and counted the bottles, then did a quick calculation on her computer. “Not too much. Looks like ninety-two seventy-two.” She didn’t hand the bag over to Sunny, however. “We prefer small bills, but we can take anything up to a fifty.” She waited expectantly, bag handles gripped in her pudgy hand.
Sunny, who didn’t have ca
sh, nonetheless made a show of reaching into her wallet and being surprised by not having cash. She pulled a card that she knew wouldn’t work. “Jeez. Can you try this, instead?” She started to hand it across the counter.
More toenail clicks as a big dog padded around behind the Grooming door, shaking water from his hide. He’s off the leash , Sunny thought, mortified.
Her horror must have shown, because the woman’s gaze followed Sunny’s and she smiled. “Don’t worry, sweetie. He’s on a leash.”
“You said he was in a cage !”
It was the woman’s turn to get indignant. “I never said that. I said he was contained .” A patronizing smile came over the woman’s face. “Let me show you something, sweetie.” She put the bag up on the counter, got up, and went over to the door marked Grooming.
“No, don’—” Sunny cried.
The woman confidently rapped her knuckles against the door. “See? Contain—”
A young, pony-tailed girl in scrubs on the other side of the door opened it, a big, goofy-looking Rottweiler rubbing up against her leg, happily grinning and panting like any other dog that had just been allowed to leave the bathtub. “Yes?” she asked the front desk woman. From behind her leg, the grinning Rottweiler made eye contact with Sunny.
The Rottweiler stopped grinning. His ears came up. His whole muscular body went tense.
In that one, horrible moment, Sunny looked Death in the eye. She grabbed the bag of chemicals at the same time the Rottweiler lunged through the door, shoving both women off their feet in the process, a raging ball of teeth and flying saliva.
It was the concrete that saved her. As Sunny’s boots gripped the floor and allowed her to make it to the door in under a couple seconds, the hard, smooth surface gave the dog no purchase, so the more he scrabbled to reach her, the slower he went.
Hearing his toenails scrape at the concrete like a wood chipper, Sunny ran out the front door and yanked the glass door closed behind her.
The dog hit it a second later, spiderwebbing the glass with his forehead.
“Shit!” Sunny cried, falling onto her ass in the parking lot. The beast hit the glass again, shattering it in another spot. “Shit, shit!” He was a raging froth of uncontrolled fury, and that old primate prey instinct made it difficult for Sunny to tear her eyes off him long enough to pick up the spilled bottles of Dimethyl Sulfoxide.
Sunny with a Chance of Monsters: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (Sunny Day, Paranormal Badass) Page 20