Under the Gun

by Hannah Jayne

  “Isn’t that called the Internet?”

  I rolled my eyes and pointed. “There! Between the trees. That’s the road.”

  Alex squinted. “It’s unpaved.”

  “He warned me it was rural.”

  “How does this guy know anything living this far out from society?” Alex asked as branches flopped against the hood and windows of the SUV.

  The dirt road wound another hundred feet through weeping trees and waist-high weeds, then opened onto a clearing. Or what would have been a clearing if it hadn’t been packed with discarded car parts, pieces of old furniture, and the remains of a VW Bus.

  “Are you sure this is it?”

  I looked at Alex. “Do you see any other houses around here?”

  “I’m not sure. There’s so much crap out here. Maybe the other houses exploded.”

  I flashed an uncertain smile. “Vampire night clubs, bald-headed biker pixies, and now”—I waved toward the remarkable graveyard of crap—“this.”

  “Can’t say it’s never an adventure with you, Lawson.”

  I undid my seat belt. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  The car lurched to a stop between the remains of a bus and a selection of rusting movie theatre chairs. “Do you think the car will be okay here?”

  “Not sure. That bus will either eat or mate with the SUV.”

  “Again, never a dull moment.”

  I pushed open the car door and looked at the house skeptically. There were piles of general crap all around it with weeds shooting out in the few bare spots in between. The roof was puckered in places and set at a weird angle, and stacks of shingles not yet tacked down were used to weight a cheery red checked tablecloth over what I surmised were holes. I was fairly certain the mounds of crap were holding the whole place up and as far as finding the secret to clearing Sampson here—well, let’s just say I didn’t have much hope.

  We made our way through the maze of dead car parts and thistle weeds to a porch equally loaded with all manner of junk—most of it shoved into ancient Target bags and molding cardboard boxes—and knocked on the front door.

  “Who’s there?” came a gruff voice from the depths of the house.

  “Um, my name is Sophie Lawson. Are you Mort Laney?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  I looked at Alex, who hid his obnoxious half smile behind his palm. “Still Sophie Lawson.”

  “Who sent you?”

  I paused, feeling heat in my cheeks while Alex studied me. “Underworld Detection Agency.”

  Silence.

  “Mr. Laney?” I knocked again and the door creaked open a half-inch under my fist. I poked my head into the house, then recoiled. “Holy crap,” I whispered to Alex.

  Alex brushed up against me, his lips at my ear, his eyes wide as he stared over my shoulder into the house. “Now we know how he knows everything,” he said. “He has everything.”

  “Laney, we’re coming in.”

  The door only opened about twelve inches and I had to suck in my stomach and shimmy to get myself through it. When I did, I ended up at the bulbous end of a makeshift walkway, lined with eyebrow-high stacks of newspapers, a mountain of dusty National Geographics, and a precarious stack of water-less fish tanks filled with lightbulbs and naked Barbie dolls.

  I took a tentative step, my sneaker crashing down on an army of food wrappers. I leaned back against Alex and dropped my voice to a low whisper. “Are you packing?”

  “Packing?”

  “Your gun!” I hissed.

  “Yes, Cagney, I’m packing. But what the hell good is it going to do in here? One shot’ll ricochet off the tower of 1970s Tupperware and get me straight between the eyes. Or do you think his collection of Princess Diana commemorative plates will block a bullet?”

  I thought back to my own apartment that was likely being swallowed by cardboard boxes, packing peanuts, and whatever was on the QVC Power Hour as we spoke. “You don’t have to be so snarky.”

  Note to self: Cut up Nina’s credit cards ASAP.

  “Don’t you touch my Princess Diana plates! You chip even one of them and I’m suing!” Laney yelled.

  “Because the only thing better than a hoarder is a litigious hoarder,” Alex whispered.

  “Mr. Laney, we—we come in peace. We just want to ask you some questions,” I said, doing my best to skirt a suitcase stuffed with dusty VHS tapes. “I’m from the Underworld Detection Agency. You know, in San Francisco? I was told you might have some information on Feng and Xian Du. Or on a murder.” My shoulder brushed against what was either a wig or a dip-dyed possum. My skin started to crawl. I paused and tucked my hands into my pockets, feeling Mort Laney’s National Park of Shit closing in on me. “A murderer.”

  Alex and I paused when we heard the slight shuffle of movement coming from the back end of the house. “What did you say your name was?”

  I sighed. “Sophie Lawson.”

  More shuffling. More crinkling. Then a bad, white-blond comb-over appeared between twin towers of molding books.

  Mort Laney.

  He had the roundest head I’d ever seen, despite the oblong comb-over, and ears that stuck out like doorknobs on either side of his skull. I felt my hand slyly smooth my own hair, tug at my ears in an attempt to make certain I hadn’t sprouted what could only be an unholy combination of demon and human. Mort pushed up a pair of heavy, black-rimmed Coke-bottle glasses that immediately slid right back down his bulbous red nose as he squinted at us. I saw his eyes flit to Alex, sweep over his mountain of junk, and then come to rest on me.

  He licked paper-thin lips and stared at me for an uncomfortably long time.

  “You look just like him,” he whispered.

  “Mr. Laney?” I asked.

  “Mort. Please call me Mort.” Mort pushed a liver-spotted hand through a fort of floral foam and pointed. “Come through there, please. And be careful! You break anything and I’m—”

  “Suing, right,” Alex finished.

  I looked over my shoulder at Alex, who shrugged, then followed me along the narrow pathway that Mort pointed to.

  I paused when Mort’s wormhole of stuff opened up to a surprisingly pristine—and open—kitchen.

  “Whoa,” Alex whispered, peering over my shoulder, then back over his at the army of crap. “It’s like we hoarded our way back in time.”

  Mort’s pristine kitchen may have been free of additional matter, but it was firmly entrenched in 1973. I blinked at the avocado-colored appliances, at the chrome-and-Formica dining table where Mort sat, fingers laced together, glasses pushed up high on his nose.

  “Hello, Mr.—Mort,” I said, when I was finally able to see the man. “My name is Sophie and this is Alex.”

  Mort stood, stepped forward, and shook my hand, nodding. The smile on his face was serene, but his eyes were darting, carefully examining my face and hair. I felt the immediate need to check myself for boogers or broccoli teeth—or to hide my private bits behind the laundry basket filled with beheaded Cabbage Patch Kids.

  “It’s uncanny, really.” Mort was still shaking my hand and I yanked it back, keeping my smile kind and fixed.

  “Thanks so much for seeing us,” I said, sitting down quickly.

  “And you are?” Mort looked up at Alex as if seeing him for the first time.

  “Just a friend,” Alex said, casting a sly glance at me, and pulling out a chair for himself. “Just along for the ride.”

  Note to self: Dismantle Alex, leave parts strewn about in hoarder’s graveyard, I thought as he licked his lips, enjoying Mort’s ogling far too much.

  “Ah, that’s better, isn’t it?” Mort said. “Please, sit. May I get you some tea?” He jumped up before we had a chance to answer and clinked around the kitchen, gathering mugs and tea bags, then finally sitting down again.

  “Now, why did you say you came here? Not that I mind.” Again the darting eyes, then the gaze that settled a bit too comfortably on me.

  I cleared my thr
oat. “Well, Mr.—Mort, I was wondering if you might have some information. Uh, Dixon—Dixon Andrade—said you knew about all sorts of things.” I raised my eyebrows, drew out the word “things.”

  “Dixon?” Mort frowned, tapping one gnarled finger against his stubbled chin. “He’s running the Underworld Detection Agency now, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Look.” Alex leaned back in his chair. “There have been some murders in San Francisco—a double homicide, and a single, two nights apart. It looks rather heinous and Ms. Lawson here”—he eyed me, and his cool-cop routine was giving me a migraine—“thought that maybe you’d have some information on the type of demon that could be responsible for the kind of destruction that we saw with this case.”

  Mort bobbed his head, seeming to consider. “You didn’t have anything listed at the Agency?” he asked, slick little tongue pushing across his bottom lip.

  I glanced at Alex. “We’re working on some things.”

  “She also thought you might know if something new was in the area, or if the Du sisters had a new contract.”

  Mort’s eyebrows went up. “The Du sisters? Feng and Xian?”

  Alex glanced at me, a smug look of satisfaction in his cobalt eyes that shot a cold wave of nervousness through me.

  “Something new in the area”—Does Alex know about Sampson?

  The look on Alex’s face—now one eyebrow cocked, lips pursed, just slightly upturned—told me everything.

  He was playing me.

  I shot him a silent death glare, then did my best to look at Mort, unaffected. “Right,” I said simply.

  “Now, why are you two together?” Mort asked.

  I started. “Uh—excuse me?”

  “You two.” Mort pointed. “Why are you together?” He blinked at Alex. “You don’t work at the Underworld.” His eyes raked over Alex and I felt the urge to gloat now that Alex had been eyeball-raped by Mort. “You can’t.”

  I watched as Mort straightened his glasses, leaning toward Alex. He licked his lips again and smiled. “I never seen one ’a you before.”

  “One of who?”

  Mort’s eyes slid between us, murky behind the thick lenses of his glasses. He drew a circle an inch above his head and pantomimed the imaginary halo falling to the table ground. “You know.”

  I felt my eyes widen. Usually, I was the one the nutters could pick out at fifty paces. They didn’t often know that I was the Vessel, but beginning in the second grade with Nancy Nottingham’s relentless taunts, people were always able to zero in on my different-ness. Not a single person—demon, dead, or dead again—had ever been able to pick up on Alex’s angelic state, fallen or otherwise. It felt good to be the “other” for once.

  Mort grinned again, this time showing a row of crooked, corn-yellow teeth. “Neat.”

  We were silent for a moment before Mort repeated, “So why you two?”

  “Carpool lane,” I said quickly, before Alex could shrug off the angel thing and scare Mort off with his police department badge. “There was traffic and I wanted to use the carpool lane so my friend Alex came along. So, you mentioned Feng and Xian?”

  “You did,” Mort said, resting his hands on the tabletop.

  “Right. I was hoping you could tell me something about their current contracts. Or projects. Or”—I bit my lip—“conquests.” I looked around again and scooched to the edge of my chair, unsure if Sampson’s written-on-wolf-hide contract was lurking somewhere around here, somewhere between the crap and other crap. The idea grossed me out more than the naked Barbies did.

  Mort continued grinning at me with his weird, serene smile. “Is that all you want to know about?”

  My heart started to thud and I felt Alex’s eyes on me, challenging me. “For starters.”

  A sliver of pink tongue darted out between Mort’s pressed lips and he stood up, walking to the edge of the kitchen and poking into a particularly hairy-looking stack of books and paperwork. “I’m sure I have some information that may be of help to you around here somewhere. You know the Du family hunts werewolves, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, pushing my chair back. “But who sets them up?”

  Mort’s fingers continued walking through the heap of papers. “Most of the charges they take on their own accord. Like vigilantes, I guess. Not supposed to, I know, but they do. But occasionally, if someone has a problem with a particular wolf, they will go to the Du family directly.”

  “Anyone can do that?” I asked.

  Mort looked at me and shrugged. “Anyone, I suppose. I don’t see exactly what I’m looking for here.” His milky eyes flicked over me and set on Alex. “You look tall. Would you mind helping me for just a second? I fear the book I need might be tucked back here”—Mort gestured blindly over his shoulder—“and rather high.”

  I looked at Alex imploringly and he pasted on a genteel smile. “I’d be happy to help you, Mort,” Alex said to him. And then, to me, “If I get tetanus out here, it’s on your shoulders.”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic,” I hissed back. “You’re immortal.”

  While Mort and Alex disappeared behind a wall of wrapping paper and eyeglass frames, I stood up and did my best to poke gently—and safely—around Mort’s treasures. I could hear Alex and Mort crunching through the back hallway, could hear Mort shove items aside and instruct Alex where to walk. Knowing that Alex was probably wincing his way between a museum of Tab cans and plastic tubs of cat litter made me immensely happy.

  I was eye to eye with a taxidermied owl when Mort stepped back into the kitchen.

  “Where’s Alex?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid there are a few more books than I expected. Your friend is awfully nice, helping get down the ones we need.” He smiled at me and again, did that longer-than-comfortable stare. “So you’re Sophie Lawson.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Mort took a small step closer to me and my hackles started to rise. I looked over his shoulder, cocking my head to listen for Alex, but all I could hear was the humming of Mort’s teakettle and the shuffling of his feet as he took another small step toward me.

  “Your glasses fell over,” I said.

  “What’s that, hon?”

  I pointed. “The eyeglasses and the wrapping paper. They must have fallen over.”

  Mort’s smile didn’t falter. “It’s fine. You.” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “You, you, you.”

  “Mort?”

  “I know all about you, Sophie Lawson.” His eyes flashed and his grin went wider, pushing up his apple cheeks. “Half-breed. Kind of like me.”

  I took a tentative step back, leveling my foot on a pile of greeting cards. “Kind of.”

  “But so much more interesting.”

  “Alex?” Fear rose in my voice as sweat pricked out over my hairline.

  Where is he?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mort. I think you’re just as interesting as I am. Half-breed. We’re like family.” I tried a friendly smile, tried my best to tamp down the anxiety that was clawing at my gut.

  Everything shifted when Mort opened his mouth.

  “My father’s not the devil,” he said.

  The room started to spin when the teakettle hissed. I felt the weight of everything—Mort’s statement, his ridiculous hoard—pressing against my chest and suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

  I tried to answer Mort. I opened my mouth and heard the beginnings of a protest, but it curdled into a scream when Mort’s arm went up and I saw the cool steel of the scissors he was clutching.

  “He’ll pay dearly. He’ll pay so dearly for you.”

  I jerked and the scissors sliced down beside me, a hairbreadth from my ear.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” My quick sidestep had dislodged a heap of magazines that put a good foot between Mort and me. I kicked and clawed at the garbage and he stabbed at me. “Alex!” I screamed, “Alex!”

  In between the aching thud of my
heart I heard Alex’s muffled yell.

  “He’s checking out a book for you, sweetie,” Mort said with unbridled glee. “My library is a bit unorganized, so he might be a while.”

  I lost my footing and tumbled forward; Mort grabbed me by my hair and I saw my own eyes reflected in the silver blade of the scissors as he raised them up again. Adrenaline raced through me, filling me with heat and fire, and I dove, feeling another cool slice as Mort’s blade missed my face. His fingers lost their grip and slid through my hair, over my shoulder. His hand grasped desperately for me.

  “Augh!” Mort slammed his fist down one more time and a pin prick of pain in my calf exploded into a thousand needles. I gaped at the scissors sticking straight out of my pant leg and a wave of nausea crashed over me as my jeans soaked up the blood.

  My half-second pause gave Mort enough time to grab my leg with his other hand and pull me toward him. I could feel his fingertips digging through the heavy material of my jeans and I flopped desperately, trying to get a hold of something that would stop my slide. I discarded handfuls of yogurt cartons and showered him with mail as Mort kept pulling. I kicked at him but he barely flinched.

  “What the hell are you?” I huffed, after landing a heel to his forehead.

  “It’s not what I am,” Mort said, grabbing another fistful of my pant leg. “It’s what you are.”

  I howled when he went for the scissors again, gripping the handle and wobbling the blade back and forth to get it out of my leg. The pain was phenomenal and I was hit with another wave of nausea, a crash of blinding pain.

  “Lawson!” Alex’s voice was closer now. “Where are you?”

  “Kitchen!” I wailed

  The crack of the gunshot was so surprising that Mort lost his bloody grip on the scissors and they flopped from the wound, disappearing in the sea of muck. My fingers found something heavy and solid and I gripped it, threw my entire weight into pulling it over my head and cracking it dead center on Mort’s forehead as he lunged for me.

  The stuffed owl made an impressive thud, its talons slicing from the top of Mort’s head all the way through his eyebrow. Mort howled and clapped a hand over his forehead, the blood spattering between his fingers. He sputtered and stepped backward and I surged forward, clobbering him one more time with the bird, then throwing my entire body weight at him. He flopped onto his butt and I cleared him, gritting my teeth against the groaning ache in my calf.