Love is a Bloodhound

by Reid Astor

  He almost wouldn't object her being there, but it's his bed. And he’s her boss. "Faraday," he says, trying to sound authoritative but mostly just coming off drowsy. "Faraday, wake up."

  "Hnnghhh?" She moans, eyes flickering open. It takes a moment for her to realize, it seems, that she’s awake and in his bed, because for a moment she just stares right back at him.

  The realization crosses right across her face, her green eyes flying wide open as she whirls away from him with a terrified expression, tugging sheets with her. "B-boss," she whimpers, crawling backwards until her back hits the wall. "Mr. Baranov, oh my God, I'm sorry, I didn't know where else to go- I had the keys for the opening shift and- it was late, and- I-"

  And you crawled into my bed. Niklas gets to his feet, clutching the chair for support as his single eye screams in protest against the light coming into it. Ah, the hangover. Blyad. Blyad. Get back into bed. Ah, no, she’s there. Blyad. "This isn't appropriate. You could get me in trouble," he starts, voice thick, but stops himself at the look on her face.

  She looks frankly and honestly horrified at the idea of getting him in trouble. And he believes she feels it. He sighs, dropping his shoulders, and self-consciously adjusts his undershirt. Obviously, he tell himself. Think: at later than three in the morning, how desperate do you have to be to resort to breaking into your boss's place? "What's wrong?"

  "I- uh- ah-… College. College is out," she blurts, curling up into a ball and looking up at him with wide, green eyes. She observes literally everything all the time, Niklas thinks, like some kind of victim routing escape points. "It's fall break."

  He frowns, recalling how Viola always got when school holidays came around. She always got antsier, slower to respond to every order. He didn't quite know the details, and sometimes he honestly didn't want to.

  All he really understood was that she hated any sort of alcohol, down to the simple smell of it. She'd drag herself with bloody knees and elbows to the pharmacy four blocks down for betadine if it meant avoiding the isopropyl alcohol rub he kept in his bathroom. It’s none of his business what her home is like, so he doesn’t ask. "You should have told me in advance," he scolds, "I had no idea who you were and could have hurt you."

  She stares down, thoroughly cowed. "Sorry. I... I sort of didn't plan this out..."

  None of us did, he thinks, feeling slightly guilty for reprimanding her. “I… Makes sense,” he says, though he knows he may not be making sense at that very moment. The sheer pain of the light in his eye certainly doesn’t. Niklas shakes his head. "Blyad… My clothes will be loose on you, but help yourself to them if you need them," he says, turning round and snatching up a stray turtleneck from the drawer supporting his aged television. "And… the shower is straight ahead past the stairs. Go freshen up while I..." he gestures, awkwardly, with the shirt.

  A tiny voice in his head suggests, maybe Viola was trying to have a go at something else when she climbed into his bed while he was dead to the world- and he gives that thought a prompt kick in the ass and the full automatic lecture on professional relationships. Yes, she's only about six or seven years younger and that doesn't make much of a difference any more, but Viola is partway too scared to be honest about things like this with him. And frankly, that's just the way he likes it.

  The girl may or may not have mouthed a tiny 'thank you' on her way out; Niklas isn't paying attention because he's busy sticking away his mostly finished bottle of vodka in his minifridge before she sees. He grabs a bottle of cold water to wash down the dry bile-like taste sticking to the inner walls of his mouth like a bad memory.

  Dressed in his slacks and the common turtleneck, he trudges his way downstairs, trying not to think about what time it must be. It's sorely tempting just to go back to sleep, but he never could sleep very well with guests in the house.

  They take breakfast over the back kitchen counter, Niklas watching her reflection stutter across the metal surface as she takes shy nibbles at the wrap he's thrown together. Somewhere along the process she'd figured he was hungover and conjured up a sweet, merciful cup of Earl Grey to place beside him as he set their modest meal. No disapproving looks- just a pronounced one away from him, a little ‘I know’ glance. She never has to say that much.

  Viola's nineteen and hasn't really lived at home since she got the job with him. He's not sure entirely what the girl does to get by when the halls are closed, but he can count the times when she needed to stay over on a single hand. She's never imposed to ask more often.

  So, he resolves to himself, this must be something bad. In spite of all other things going on in the coffeeshop, he sets down the wrap and asks her, "Do you need somewhere to stay for a while?"

  She stares outright, like he's just asked her in the wrong language, and Niklas has no time to clarify or defend himself before his phone blasts ringtones into the air and sends a wave of nausea and irritation pounding through him.

  He doesn't look at caller ID- what’s the point, who else calls him? He just wonders what on God's green earth Svetlana could want when the pavement outside isn't even warm from the sun yet. "Baranov speaking."

  “Good morning." The voice on the other end is most definitely not Madam Morris'. Niklas jerks a little and slips off his chair, excusing himself from the table to head to the storage room. He feels safer conducting this call in the shade and the gentle smell of mildew there, among the boxes of supplies and the shelves of spares. "Lars told me to give you a call when I came up with something," he- no, she says.

  It's the detective with the bike. In spite of knowing she can't see him, he pushes his shoulders back and forces his face into an alert soberness. He creaks the door slightly closed. "On the... the thing Verdura asked, you're saying?"

  There's a soft, honeyed laugh as she figures out he's got company. "Yes, on that. I did the digging on Alexei Baranov and, well, all I see are signs pointing to a murder, or at least botched assault and manslaughter. Blunt trauma to the skull and ribs. He died from internal bleeding, took about forty minutes or so. They found him down an alley leading into the sea the next day. My colleagues would have followed up on this but not only were there no leads, but our Baranov was a complete nobody John Doe beyond his job. Empty apartment and everything."

  Then where did Lars get his loot? "And what happened to the remains?" Niklas surprises himself by asking. Murder. His father was murdered- he tests the thought on himself and feels a twinge of something. Regret? Possibly. More disdain.

  “Ah... they're cremated and gone. Lost in the system; they have to dispose of them somehow if they're not claimed."

  "I see."

  "Sorry," Ray sounds genuinely apologetic. “It's cold, as far as cases go, but even if it weren't I wouldn't exactly be in the position to chase it. But do you want a copy of the files while I have them on hand?"

  "...Yes. Please." And Niklas thinks, she and Lars must trust each other for her to do this kind of work. He wonders how or why that happened, and- thinking back on the man snorting a line in the front seat last night- decides that maybe he doesn't want to know.

  "I'll pass them to our mutual friend. Of course, if anyone asks, you didn't get them from me." There's a pause, and she takes an audible breath. "You're his son, aren't you? Baranov’s?"

  He doesn't say anything for a moment, shutting his eye and thinking that his question on the remains must have given him away. It makes him wonder what he would have done if he did get them, the remains. Get them buried beside his mother? Nothing about Alexei’s ephemera could tell him what he possibly could have wanted upon death. In a way, he doesn’t know the man at all even now. There are no letters, not a single word to be passed unto his eyes alone. Alexei has left him nothing but a history that gets uglier with every unraveled stitch. “He’s my father. What gave it away, our success, or our good citizenship?”

  Ray seems to understand. "You know, the son doesn't always have to carry the burdens of the father."

  He frowns. How strange it is, to hear
that. Family burdens are family burdens, and the cold, hard reality of who his father was somehow absolves him far better than the mystery and the wondering throughout his entire life. "In this case, not everyone seems to think so."

  On the other end, Ray laughs. "I can't help a lot without letting the higher ups on to me, but you never know. Sometimes you have more resources than you realize. Have a good day, Mr. Baranov."

  Niklas is left looking at his phone and the number upon it. Most likely, it was some public phone or skewed service he'd never be able to call back, but he does wonder about the woman and what she's said.

  With as much calmness as he can muster when he's tired to his bones and crime and fraud are becoming increments of his daily vocabulary, he returns to the backroom and lays eye on Viola. "What time is it?"

  She looks up from her wrap as if startled. "Just a bit after nine." And then, like she's offended him for no reason, she bows her head and blushes. It occurs to him that she was eavesdropping, but he doesn’t take it upon himself to care too much.

  He takes a seat and continued on his wrap, nibbling where he can and when his stomach isn't faintly lurching. "We don't have to open for a while. I hope you brought things to entertain yourself with."

  He wants to ask how long she thinks she'll be staying, but he feels like if he did at this point, she would get too terrified altogether and run off to live on the streets instead of facing him. If Viola's taught him anything, it's that even the most courteous and strong people only hear what they want to hear- and from her boss, she only hears condemnation.

  Viola, to her credit, nods earnestly. And Niklas just hopes she doesn't go for his crossword book to pass the hours- she's terrible at it, unfortunately, and that burns through the pages like nothing else. "I brought books," she says, and he's not sure if it's an offering or a response.

  He takes it as the latter and promptly says, "Good. I'll be upstairs if you need me." He realizes a little late that, by the beaten look on her face, it was actually the former. Awkwardly, he coughs, and slips off the chair to leave before either of them can get any more flustered.

  "Um-" her voice is tiny, barely audible even in the dead quiet of the pre-hours. "Um. I'm... I'm going to find a place to stay, maybe with a girlfriend of mine. I'll look around today and tomorrow when I'm done with my shift."

  "I see," he nods, though he kind of doesn't see. In an awkward attempt at solidarity, he pats her shoulder with extreme care, and draws back. "When I first hired you, you still would go home on the holiday. You look healthier now that you don't."

  The smile cracks on her face like it'd been waiting all along somewhere underneath all that shyness, but in a glimpse of a moment she's back to her old self, eyes down and the faintest laughter gone. If anything, she looks embarrassed. "Thank you," she whispers. "I'm sorry again for sneaking up on you in your sleep. That was not... Not professional, I just..."

  He winces, wondering just what somebody else would do in this situation. Hug her? Possibly hug her. Instead, he draws away, and says, "There is a spare room in the attic I use for storage. I will fix it up for you for as long as it's needed. I would… rather sleep alone."

  It feels like he's kicking her with those words, but Viola just nods. By the nonexistent change in her expression, Niklas takes to assuming he hasn't said the wrong thing. He turns away quickly, though, before he can change his mind.

  * * *

  When he dreams, he sees the world with both eyes, and it wavers with an unnatural quality he never can seem to catch. Or, if he does catch on, he grasps the meta-reality of the dreamscape like smoke that falls out of his fingers in the next moment.

  When he dreams, he usually wakes up in sweat.

  He catches her in the hallway, holding the birthday cake and looking more tired than ever. In the incandescent lamplight, the frosted letters are Kolya in Cyrillic- the candles haven't been lit yet, but he counts seven. Seven for seventeen.

  It's too late to sneak through to his room- her blue eyes fall on him, but she quickly looks away. He doesn't wonder why- there is blood on his shirt, too much of it, and there is a baseball bat still gripped tightly in his right hand. And if she gets too close she will smell the violence and alcohol on his breath. "You shouldn't have waited up on me, mama," he says.

  Anna shakes her head, a mannerism he got from her, as if shaking off the words and emotion. She paces towards the kitchen and slams the cake down on the counter. Niklas has no idea what she meant to do with it in the first place, hovering there halfway to the bathroom. Did she mean to throw it away? "I know I shouldn't have, but I did, and there's no changing that, is there?" she speaks quietly, as if something in the room might break if she raises her voice. And it kills him all the more that when Anna is hurt, she doesn't lash out at him, doesn't hurt anything- she just sits there and stares out with her big, age-lined eyes and looks like she's wondering why.

  The Anna he knows only turns to stone in the face of criminals and lowlives- and unfortunately, he's halfway there.

  "Should I sing you a song, hm, Kolyenka?" she says, sniffing away tears and staring down at the cake. "I waited here, I took off work thinking you would come home after school. I thought, mm... I thought you'd like it." She sighs. "I sat here and put on movie after movie, and I thought, oh well, we don't have to go to the restaurant- oh well, we don't have to see Mission Impossible, oh-"

  The tears glisten as they cast paths down her cheek, but she doesn't break down. Instead, she straightens up, looks him over with glistening eyes. In her frayed cotton gown and loose, almost white blond hair, she looks like an apparition- it's only the exhaustion in her frail shape and the red lining her eyes that brings her back on this earth. She says, “I’m sorry I left you alone all those hours long ago.” It’s nothing he remembers, these lines- these are things he only wishes she told him. “I’m sorry I let those people have you. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” And then she walks away, leaving him to look at the cake, watch it go stale.

  It was one of the first times she really gave up on him.

  He looks down on himself, and sees- he's not seventeen, he's twenty-six now, the blood hasn't left him, but the vision in his right side has. The world is narrower, more frightening in its unknown possibilities.

  The apartment is empty but for the birthday cake, white frosting, square shape.

  He calls after her, moving to the hall way to go down to her bedroom- but when he opens the bedroom door, he's in an alley.

  "I thought you'd never come."

  Lars' voice pricks his nerves. The man paces up beside him, careless, rhythmic and stalking.

  "I never said I wanted to."

  "You're right, you didn't. But you make a good dog, don’t you?" the man says, throwing his cigarette away and glancing up at the night sky. The thrum of the nightclub is there, under their feet, inviting them both to escape. Niklas realizes he still has his baseball bat from his teenage years, and it's still bent in all the wrong places. "A dog to the Russki gang. A dog to Svetlana. A dog to your own debt."

  "No," he says, gritting his teeth and advancing on the man, baseball bat ready. It would be so easy, so easy. Not his skull, just a line of ribs to send a message, perhaps an arm. But as he walks forward Lars walks back, more agile than he thinks.

  The gun is cold against his blindside temple. "That's dirty," he says, and then he doesn't have lips to say anything at all. Lars, he realizes, is gripping his shirt hard, pulling him in closer as the world sways around them.

  The sun flickers out like a glitch into disco lights.

  Lars, he realizes, kisses strong and hard and far rougher than any woman he remembers, slamming their hips together and pulling him down by his hair. "I've paid you enough," Niklas whispers in between the search for air, but the words are lost down the brightly-lit alleyway.

  When Lars leans back and extends his neck, a whispering wind runs through the alley and displaces wind and hair on his brow. His eyes dilate druggishly and he says, "I'll neve
r be done taking," and a thin trickle of black unfurls from his nose.

  They kiss again, and then Niklas is on his back, crushed against filthy concrete. And then he can't move and there is a gun in his mouth and Lars is undoing his pants. "Pay me," the man says, more beast now, as he enters. "I only want all of you," he says, "I only want to possess you. Pay us, Niklas Alexeivich-"

  And his voice changes, and the sky changes, and suddenly he changes inside of him to something darker and colder and he can't move, it's climbing further inside him and the sky is glitching frequent flashing waves of neon and-

  It cracks. Lars is there again, hand on his throat.

  They're in bed, somewhere quiet and stable and away from everything, and he's not moaning but breathing deep and hard and speaking another language, another accent, thrusting deeper inside him.