Right after you killed me.
Crixus’s voice echoed through my head. You shouldn’t encourage him, Doctor. He’s gone on with this Tato Mens business long enough.
Sirens wailed in the distance as more and more residents came out of the building to gawk at the ball of blackening metal and flame.
“I’m afraid they’ve been in your apartment as well,” Flick continued. “That mess in your closet looked like their handiwork as sure as my name is Felicitous Firecratch McWhiskeybottom.”
His invective lacked the resonance a person with only one name and/or personality might be able to conjure.
Crixus raised an eyebrow at me.
“Actually, Flick, I think that was a result of flooding upstairs,” I said.
“And who do you think it was turned on the water?” he asked, peering up at me.
“It could have been a broken pipe, don’t you think?”
“Well if was, then they broke it,” Flick said sagely. “They’re doing things like all the time, they are. Breaking pipes, stealing socks, moving furniture in the middle of the night so you’re like to stub your toe. Drinking the last bit of milk, hiding your keys, dropping your cell phone in the toilet, and so on.”
“I’m sorry. Am the only one who doesn’t know what the hell you guys are talking about?” Liam asked.
“Why, only the vilest creatures ever to crawl out of the mud!” Flick said. “Foul, dirty things. Always sneaking around, acting the maggot. Wear nothing over their potato bodies but a sack made of burlap. Hair like a porcupine’s arse, filthy fingers, and not more than a dozen teeth among them! They’re after me gold, the dirty buggers.”
Liam looked at Crixus who covertly circled his finger around his ear.
“Don’t you think blowing up a car is a little stretch for these guys?” Liam asked.
“I certainly do not. They’re getting worse all the time, the little piss pots.”
Cartwheeling red and blue lights marked the arrival of the first police officers. A screaming fire engine followed them into the parking lot.
“I guess I better get down there and talk to them,” I said.
“I’m coming with you,” Liam replied.
“Me too,” Crixus added.
“Actually,” I said, turning to Crixus, “it would really help me out if you could camp up here and make sure no more friends join us for the evening.”
His jaw hardened as Liam opened the door for me. “I can do that.”
When we had made our way down the stairs and headed across the crowded parking lot, Crixus called down from the balcony. “Hey, Doctor!”
I looked up at the broad body silhouetted against the railing, the streetlights reflected in the falling drizzle creating a glowing mandorla around his sandy hair. “Yes?”
“Don’t forget about our deal.” His white teeth shone in the dark like the last earthly smile given to prey.
As if I could.
*****
About an hour later, bone-weary and soaked to the skin with chilly rain, I trudged up the stairs.
Liam, to his credit, stuck around through the fire trucks hosing down the ruins of my vehicle and listened as I reviewed details time and again for the officers filling out the police report. He had even cleaned the rainwater from my glasses with a dry patch of T-shirt under his coat only to repeat the process minutes later. All this, and he didn’t once pull his gun on anyone.
We found Crixus sprawled out on the couch, flipping through channels and making his way through a bag of chips.
“Hey!” I said, looking at the freshly vacuumed carpet, blessedly free of green leprechaun vomit, crumbs, and everything else it had been littered with only an hour ago. “Everything’s clean.”
“Magic,” he replied.
The pile of my ruined laundry had vanished as well. “What happened to my clothes?”
“Back in your closet. You get any decent channels on this thing?”
“The Food Network,” I reported. “There are also some great documentaries on the History Channel.”
He looked up at me from the couch with sleepy eyes and paused to lick salt from his fingers. “Doctor, I am the history channel.”
I swallowed a sudden excess of saliva as a ripple of warmth lodged itself between my hipbones.
“You got anything to drink?” Liam asked. “I could use something about now.”
“I used to,” I said. “Flick’s friends cleaned me out.” A quick scan of the apartment revealed it as being leprechaun free. “Where’s Flick?”
“Sleeping in your sock drawer. And there’s beer in the fridge,” Crixus said.
I sent Crixus a questioning look. “Since when?”
“Magic,” he repeated.
An appreciative whistle came from the kitchen as Liam considered the refrigerator’s contents. “I wouldn’t have figured you for a bratwurst girl,” he said.
“That’s because I’m not. I’m vegan.”
“Mostly,” Crixus added.
“For a vegan, you sure as hell have a lot of meat in here.”
I walked over to the kitchen and peered over his shoulder into the fridge. It had been restocked all right, but with an assortment of food so salty, fatty, and processed I was afraid I might get gout just by proximity. “Where are my heirloom organic pears?” I asked.
“Had to make room for the beer,” Crixus answered.
Liam withdrew a beer and offered it to me.
“I’ll pass,” I said.
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged, lined the cap up with the counter’s edge, and hit it with his palm, sending it clattering into the sink. Liam brought the bottle to his lips and chugged.
Watching the muscles under the dark stubble covering Liam’s throat work produced a similar sensation to Crixus’s earlier declaration.
“Well, I think I’ve had far too much fun for one day,” I said. “I think I’m going to bed.”
“Shotgun!” Crixus and Liam shouted in unison.
Sandwich? my brain suggested. Seeing the instant grin on Crixus’s face, I followed this with No! I didn’t mean to think that.
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Crixus suggested inside my head.
“No! Absolutely not,” I said, answering aloud. “You two will have to decide who gets the couch and who gets the floor. The bed is mine.”
“Pretty big bed to sleep in alone,” Liam said.
My patience was waning as quickly as my resolve. “Should we draw straws for who gets to share it? Loser gets to listen?”
“No!” they answered together again.
“There you have it. Goodnight, boys.” I kicked off my heels, padded into my bedroom, and closed the door behind me.
Tiptoeing over to the dresser, I noticed the drawer opposite the one raided earlier open a crack. Inside, Flick had snuggled down into my sock like it was a sleeping bag, its mate rolled up under his head for a pillow. I recognized the rush of oxytocin for precisely what it was, my body’s chemical response to a smaller organism needing my care.
I took one of the cloth handkerchiefs I kept folded in the corner next to the pantyhose and shook it out, sliding it over him like a second blanket.
True to Crixus’s word, my clothes were neatly hung back in my closet. A sniff test yielded the scent of laundry detergent. My suits had been pressed, my slacks creased, and my shoes polished.
Even the ceiling had been repaired.
Magic indeed.
Though I would have killed for a shower, I couldn’t bring myself to strip the skin with Liam and Crixus sharing my roof. Instead, I slid into a warm nightgown and grabbed a pair of fresh panties from the refolded rows in my drawer.
My down comforter had returned to its previous immaculate state and smelled faintly of bleach as I slid between the sheets. In the only part of this day that felt normal, I pulled my glasses off, set them on the nightstand, and turned on my white noise machine. Sleep covered my brain in an endless, shifting twilight.
I was out.
*****
Silvery moonlight soaked through my eyelids. Someone had opened the blinds.
Flick stood on the pillow opposite mine, sunken like a man in a snowdrift.
“Flick?” I mumbled, deep sleep making my tongue heavy. “What are you doing?”
“Would you have a look at that moon,” he sighed.
I sat up and slid on my glasses, turning myself around to squint at the window next to my bed. The clouds of earlier this evening had cleared away. The stars shone from unmuted crystalline fractals in a sky washed cleaned by rain, the moon sitting among them like the center solitaire in an unfathomably large setting.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“And a good thing too,” Flick replied.
“Why is that?” I drew my legs into my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees.
“Skies like this keep a body going. The world can be an awful ugly place sometimes. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you’re bound to see it firsthand.” His weary smile barely managed to find his eyes.
“About how long is that?” I asked.
“Can’t hardly remember,” he said settling himself down on the pillow. “I’ve lived through more wars than you have years. That much I can tell you.”
“Wars?”
“Oh yes, lass,” Flick said. “You didn’t think leprechauns just sat around counting bucketfuls of gold at the end of the rainbow, did you?”
Maybe a little. “I admit I don’t exactly understand what leprechauns have to do with war.”
“Ever heard the expression ‘luck was on our side?’”
I nodded. “I’m familiar, yes.”
“Any time you humans get ta fightin’ for too long, we have to pick a side and make them lucky enough to win.” Flick’s eyes glazed over as his gaze turned inward toward some projection of the past. “Problem is, in choosing a side to help win, you’re also choosing a side to lose. It can’t be avoided.”
His heavy words and their accompanying implications found a place to rest on my sternum. “That’s a lot for someone to take on,” I said.
“It is,” he agreed. “But that’s what we do. That’s what I do. Choose life for some and death for others. And I have to watch that suffering, and know I caused it. And there has been suffering.” A heartbreaking sigh heaved from his small chest. “Lots of it. There aren’t stars enough in the heavens to number the creatures I’ve seen slaughtered. Men. Women. Children. Beasts large and small.”
At last we had come to it. The trauma that had fractured poor Flick’s mind.
“I’ll bet your mates make that burden a little easier to carry,” I said, watching his face for signs of recognition. “Saint Patrick. The kelpie. Sweeney. Sometimes it can be nice to have someone else look after things for a while.”
“Indeed it is, lass.” He nodded slowly.
The coming terrain was delicate, and I ventured forth carefully. “Flick, have you ever talked to anyone about all the things you’ve seen? Sometimes that can help too.”
“Only me mates,” he answered, tapping his head. “The ones in here.”
“And do you think they would be okay with you talking to someone else?” I asked.
“Aye. I suppose they would. But who would want to hear such ugly things?” The pain in his luminous green eyes as they searched my face caused an acute ache in my chest.
“I would,” I said. “In fact, I would like it if you came to see me every week. You and your mates of course. Maybe after a while, they would be okay with talking to me too.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Positive,” I said.
“Well, I’ll be a rat’s knackers!” he shouted, leaping and clicking the heels of his pointy green shoes together. “Thank you, lass! Crixus was right about you, at least.”
“Me? What did he say about me?”
“Well, we stopped to hide a small windfall in a cemetery nearby on our way to see you. And while we were there, Crixus mentioned that he was taking us to the kindest, loveliest doctor in all the world.”
A small slick of pleasure eased the ache still lingering in my heart. “He said that?”
“Aye. That, and we were supposed to make ourselves scarce so he could get into your knickers.”
I shook my head, not entirely managing to work up the anger I knew this statement should cause.
“Goodnight, Flick. Try to get some sleep. I have the feeling we’ll both need it tomorrow.”
I glanced at the blue numbers on the nightstand next to my bed before removing my glasses.
4:38 a.m.
Fifteen hours and twenty-two minutes left.
*****
“I have eleven hours to live and you really think I should spend eight of them seeing clients?” I sat in the leather chair behind my desk and watched Liam pace the length of my office. On the other side of my door, Crixus sat at Julie’s desk, looking at her hot pink office supplies as if they might latch onto him like leeches.
I had felt a momentary rush of relief when she called in sick that morning, as our plan required Crixus to be stationed on the outside of my office while Liam patrolled the inside. And while I trusted Julie’s intentions, her ability to resist Crixus in practical application was suspect—his powers of persuasion were as formidable as the broad back I had accidentally seen shirtless earlier this morning.
After resisting the urge to launch myself at him like a bespectacled canon ball, I made a mental note to draw up a showering schedule next time I had a sleepover party with a hit man, a demigod, and a leprechaun.
The last of these had built himself a protective fort out of books on the credenza, insisting that Tato Mens were allergic to reading. Judging by the small, sonorous snore coming from the structure, Jacques Lacan’s heavy tome on psychosexual development might just send the Tato Mens into a sleep coma by proximity before they had the chance to do much damage.
“I told you,” Liam said, pausing to examine my collection of framed diplomas like a spectator at an art gallery. “Ronan Molloy has probably been watching you for a weeks. He knows your routines.”
Ronan Molloy. The name alone had been enough to drive a spike of fear into my skull. According to Liam, the Westie assassin and all-around thug had a scorecard of hits as thick as Webster’s dictionary.
The unabridged version.
Thinking of a man like that haunting my steps unobserved had me wondering what else I had failed to see. “Right,” I said. “But if he knows my routines, shouldn’t we do something to throw him off?”
“That’s precisely what we are doing,” Liam explained. “He’s planning on finding you here, but isn’t counting on finding me. I’ve got my network watching him. When he makes a move, I’ll know.”
“If your network is aware of him, wouldn’t his network be aware of you?” I asked.
A strange smile slid across Liam’s face. “He’s good. I’m better.”
“So assuming all of this goes according to plan, and he shows up and tries to kill me. What happens then?”
“I kill him first.” The words sounded no different on Liam’s lips than “I think I’ll have the salad,” or “could you pick up some toothpaste on your way home?”
My stomach lurched at the thought of watching a man be shot to death. My office made into a crime scene. Blood and bone on the walls and floor. “Liam, I don’t think I can be part of this.”
“What other choice do you have?”
I scrambled for a tenable alternative. “You know how these things work. Couldn’t you reason with him? Or subdue him while I called the police?”
A derisive snort escaped Liam. “The only reason he understands is found at the business end of a gun barrel. If the cops actually managed to pick him up, he would be out in about three hours and right back on your doorstep, only a little more pissed off. The guy’s Teflon. Never been convicted of so much as a speeding ticket.”
“How is that possible?” Even I had
managed to rack up a few moving violations in my dark criminal past.
“I told you. He’s good. But I’m better. A quick double tap and—”
“Stop! I can’t hear this.” My heart had relinquished its usual position in favor of climbing up my esophagus, choking off oxygen to my lungs. “The body—the blood—I can’t—” Pinwheels burst at the edges of my vision and I closed my eyes against a disorienting wave of nausea.
“Easy,” Liam said, coming around behind me. He spun my chair to face him and tucked my head between my knees. “Breathe.” His hand was warm and heavy on the back of my neck as my hair fell around my face.
I was grateful for the curtain as the first tears fell. “I can’t let you do this. Especially not in my office. This is a place where people come to get help. To heal—”
“Whoa. Hold up there. You didn’t think I was going to do it here, did you?”
I glanced up at him over the rims of my glasses, feeling foolish. “What? No. Of course not. It’s just—”
“Jesus, lady. Given me a little credit, would you? I’ll take him to a nice remote location and cut hi—”
“For God’s sake, don’t tell me!” I interrupted, hating myself for the relief I felt. “But if you kill him, there will be another one. And another after that. They’ll never stop.”
Any lingering traces of lightness in his features ossified into grim resolution. “Neither will I. I have a bullet for every man they want to send me. In the meantime, we’ll figure out who’s dragging you into all this, and why.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, preparing myself for the question we both knew had to be asked, if not answered. “Why are you doing this?”
What he said wasn’t half as telling as where he looked: anywhere but my eyes. “Everyone needs a hobby,” he said. “And no one would respect a hit man who knits.”
The sound that came from me was something between a gasp and a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
His expression mirrored one I had seen when I had asked him about his last name. This was Liam’s defensive face. “What?” he questioned. “What’s wrong with knitting? Keeps your fingers limber and strong,” he said, looking down at the hand cupping my knee. The callus on his index finger landed about where it might grip a trigger.
Unlucky: The Case Files of Dr. Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist Page 7