by Rowan Casey
And it did. I was airborne, hanging by the straps of my shield, hurtling a few feet off the ground, watching the pavement roll beneath me. I saw the man’s head on that ridiculous body looking up at me and I let go, allowed my arm to slip through the leather.
I landed on his back, knocking him off his feet. I gained my footing and swung my sword back toward the creature’s ass in a swift circle. The blade buried itself into the base of its tail.
The sound it let out was so piercing, I thought I might pass out from what it was doing to my head. It bucked once, but I held onto the handle with both hands and I felt the thing’s body sag beneath me. The tail twitched, but seemed incapable of significant movement. I hadn’t chopped it off, but I had severed the spinal connection. Or something like that.
My eardrums had recovered enough for me to hear the pistol cock. It was Eight Ball. His boss’s clothes were still draped over one arm, but he was holding the pistol out with two hands. Pointing it at me.
Acting on instinct, I twisted the sword. The thing beneath me let out a yelp.
“Okay,” I heard the man’s head say, gasping, his lion body trembling. “That’s enough. Lamont, lower the gun.”
He—it, or whatever—seemed to be all but paralyzed, and in a lot of pain. I got the sense he was afraid that if I put much more pressure on the sword, the condition might become permanent.
“Tell him to put it on the ground and back away,” I said, giving just enough of a twist to my wrist for the meaning to come through.
The thing looked at Lamont and nodded, the human head bobbing curtly. Ol’ Eight Ball—I was going to miss calling him that—placed the pistol on the concrete ever-so-gently and started to back away.
“There,” Lion-Bug-Man said. “Just like you asked. Now, would you mind taking that damn sword out of my ass?”
“Not so fast. Why did you have your goons attack me?”
“You were asking questions. The owner doesn’t like people asking questions.”
“Who’s the owner?”
He didn’t answer right away, so I leaned some more weight onto the hilt.
“I am, okay! Jesus! That doesn’t exactly tickle, you know!”
“Then stop dicking with me. Answer the question.”
“Look, I know who you are, alright? I know why you’re here. You can’t stop it. None of you can.”
His words came out like a hiss, as if each breath behind them was a tire losing air.
“Answer the damn question, unless you want Lamont over there to be carrying this tail of yours around like a giant swim noodle.”
“Be careful, Sir Regis! You may have bested him, but the beast is still dangerous!”
I raised a hand, a subtle signal to Pip that I heard her. A moment passed, then another. The thing just crouched there, breathing, staring off toward a far wall.
“Well?” I said, pressing against the handle again.
“Because if they ever found out I let one of theirs get to you, they’d send me back! Christ! Stop doing that!”
I let the words float around in my head for a few seconds, giving them a chance to make sense. They didn’t.
“Who’s they?”
“Just loosen the damn sword, will you? The pain won’t even let me think straight.”
The look on his face, the clenched eyes, scrunched nose, bottom lip stretched back, told me he probably wasn’t lying. I gave the sword a soft tug in the other direction. I could feel the creature exhale beneath me.
“Who’s they?”
“Seriously? The Persephonites.” I didn’t react, which seemed to spark a reaction. “The Sirens? Are you telling me you didn’t even know?”
I took in a breath, replaying some of what Dante had said. Replaying what Veronica had said. And done.
“I know enough. Why does she want to ‘get to me’?”
“Who the hell knows? I had no idea who she was. What she was. She showed up to sing. I wasn’t here, or I’d have spotted her right away.”
“Let me get this straight. This… Siren shows up to sing at your bar to ‘get to me,’ but if the rest of them knew, they’d send you back to where you came from? So, just being the conscientious sort, you were going to kill me first?”
“You really don’t savvy any of this, do you? Yet you still think you can stop what’s coming?”
“I’m counting on an ‘A’ for effort.”
He let out a chuff of air, like a stifled laugh. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that education isn’t just about the grades?”
“Look out, Sir Regis! The tail!”
I saw it flick, a sort of flailing movement. It must have taken everything the creature had, but it managed to swing the business end around and hook its stinger against the blade, smacking it just hard enough to dislodge the sword from where it was wedged. The sharp edge ripped a chunk out of the stinger at impact, but not enough, I assumed, to take it out of commission. The sudden weight of the sword falling freely coupled with the movement of the thing on whose back I had been balancing caused me to topple. I landed on the pavement, my hip and shoulder taking the brunt of the fall. I rolled a few times and sprang to my feet. Thankfully, I didn’t let go of the sword.
The manticore was on his feet now, snarling. He had been biding his time, capitalizing on my mistake. I shouldn’t have let up on the blade. I’d allowed him to recover. Hell, for all I knew, he had magical healing abilities.
Those eyes burned into me. he was hot, no doubt about that. I glanced over at Lamont, who was moving forward, making his way toward the pistol. The fact he wasn’t sprinting for it was a testament to how unpredictable his boss must have been. He didn’t want to get anywhere near that tail.
As I watched it slash back and forth behind the thing, trying to work its way into a full range of motion, I can’t say I blamed him.
“You would never have been able to stop it,” the thing said, words bubbling out through a growl. “Not you, not the others. And now, you won’t even get a chance to tr—”
I didn’t give him the chance to finish. I bolted forward, plunging my sword deep into the center of his chest. The creature let out a short grunt, that man’s head staring down at the handle protruding from his breast plate. He raised a paw and meekly swiped at it before looking at me with surprised eyes and collapsing onto its side.
I watched him for a couple of beats then glanced over at Lamont. I was closer, and considerably quicker in the reflex department, so I was on top of the gun as fast as a finger snap. I snagged it off the ground, pointed it in his direction, but all I saw was his back as he hightailed it out toward the street, disappearing around the corner of the building.
The adrenaline wasted no time draining from my heart and limbs and leaving me feeling dead on my feet. My heartbeat jumped one last time, then slowed considerably. My arms were suddenly made of lead and my legs seemed to lack bones. The weight of the pistol tugged my arm down, dragging me to the concrete, so I dropped to a knee, overcome with the need to take a whole lot of breaths.
“Sir Regis!”
The voice wasn’t just in my earpiece anymore. I looked up to see her standing next to me, placing a hand under my arm to help me up. I didn’t exactly want to get up, but I was too tired to protest.
“Sir Regis!” she repeated. “Do you realize you are the first person in four hundred and twenty-seven years to slay both a dragon and a manticore in the same calendar day?”
“That’s great,” I said. I tried to stand, but failed to get adequate cooperation from my legs. It took a few tries before they decided to help out. “Maybe I can put that on my business card.”
Pip bobbed her head, uncertain and obviously taking me seriously. “We should probably leave, Sir Regis. Should I wipe that pistol for you? To remove your fingerprints, I mean? Isn’t that what they do on television?”
I looked at her, then at the gun, which flashed in the dim light as I turned it to get a better view.
It was a Colt. Forty-five caliber. Imm
aculate stainless steel with mother-of-pearl inlay grips on the wooden handle. There were ornate, florid designs scrolled in intricate patterns with solid gold inset lettering. I may not know guns, but I knew this one had to be worth a small fortune. Or maybe not so small.
“No.” I tucked the barrel inside my belt near the small of my back. It didn’t feel nearly as secure as they made it look on TV. “I think it might come in handy.”
“I don’t believe such a weapon will be effective against the forces you are likely to contend with.”
The side door opened just as my mouth did. A woman pushed through it, then short-stepped to a halt, almost losing her balance. Her hand shot to her mouth.
“Oh, my God!” she said. I recognized her as the waitress the bartender had talked to when I’d first walked in. The door swung shut behind her and she backed up into it, bent over, looking like she was going to cry or scream or puke, or maybe all three.
In my most authoritative voice, I said, “Veronica Gates. What did you know about her?”
She didn’t respond, just kept staring at the body. I suppose a lion with a man’s head and a scorpion’s tail wasn’t something she’d expected.
I snapped my fingers. “Hey! Veronica Gates?”
“Huh?” She looked at me like she hadn’t realized I was there until now. “What the hell is that?”
“Long story. Veronica Gates. What did you know about her?”
“What? Nothing! She came in one night to sing. Came in early, gave a demo for the night manager. Oh, my God! Is that Mr. Angelo’s head?”
“If it is, that’s Mr. Angelo. All of him. Look, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble if you hold back on me. Tell me what you know about her.”
“I…nothing! She was only here the one night. I never saw her before. If she hadn’t gotten arrested, I wouldn’t have ever remembered her name.”
“Why’d you send me out here? Earlier, when I asked about who hired the singers?”
She raised a pointed finger, aiming it at the body. She leaned back and turned away slightly, as if to compensate for her hand getting closer.
I glanced down, noticed that Angelo was a little less lion and a little more human. Hands instead of paws, a bare chest locked in an embrace of my sword. The rest of him was still furry, though, and that tail still made a sloppy loop on the pavement.
“What did he tell you?”
“That if anyone comes by asking questions, to let him know. That’s what Jimmy was doing, calling Mr. Angelo, in his office. He had him on speaker phone, told us to send you out here. He’d take care of the rest. He already knew you were here. Said you were a troublemaker, someone looking to cause problems.”
Hard to argue that one. I gave another look at the body. The hair was almost gone. He looked more like a hirsute man than a creature of lore. The tail, though, that was still there, but it seemed to be falling off. It occurred to me standing next to a dead body—two dead bodies, she just hadn’t noticed the other one yet—was not the best way to be found by the local constabulary. Especially not with my sword through the naked one’s chest.
“One more question. Does the name ‘Persephone’ mean anything to you?”
The woman shook her head, her stare stuck on her former boss. Then her eyes popped up to mine. “Wait, you mean, like the record label?”
“Record label?”
“PDR. Persephone Digital Recording, I think. Mister…Mister Angelo had dealings with them.”
“What kinds of dealings?”
“I’m not sure, they would just come by. He would call them ‘Persephone’s girls.’ Hey, shouldn’t there be other cops here by now?”
“They’re, uh, on the way.”
Unfortunately, I had a hunch I was right. I could hear a distant siren. I wasn’t sure if that counted as irony or not. I bent down and grabbed hold of the sword by its handle and pulled. It withdrew from the wound with a wet, sliding sound.
“Oh, God! Poor Mr. Angelo! Who would do something like this? Why?”
“Well, you saw what he looked like a moment ago.”
A pregnant pause. “What do you mean? All I saw was you pull that thing out of him. Oh, God! I can’t believe somebody murdered him like this.”
I felt a tug at my sleeve. “An enchantment, Sir Regis,” Pip whispered. “She can’t remember him as anything other than human. She probably doesn’t even remember sending you out here anymore. I would suggest we leave immediately.”
Some advice is hard to ignore. I stepped over to where my hat lay on the cement and picked it up. It took a few brushes with my hand and some prodding with my fist, but I got it back into an acceptable shape and set it on my head. It still fit. More or less.
Pip widened her eyes at me, gesturing with a tilt of her head for us to leave, and I nodded. I told the waitress we’d be in touch. From the pinch in her eyes and the set of her jaw I could tell she was looking at me with fresh scrutiny.
“Say,” she said. “You’re not a cop.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because…” She ran her eyes down to my shoes and back again. “You’re the guy that crazy gal you were asking about tried to kill. You were in here the night she sang.”
Another tug. “Sir Regis…”
The sirens were growing louder. “That was a while ago. You must have a good memory for faces.”
She let out a curt laugh through her nose, apparently forgetting all about the body for a moment. “It’s not your face. It’s the hat. I can’t believe I didn’t remember it earlier. We were joking about it for days.”
6
There are, I have no doubt, dead people who are more conscious than I was for the seven hours and change I slept after we got back to my office. When I finally woke—one eye determined to stick shut and my head feeling like it had been hollowed out and then refilled with heavier contents—Pip was kneeling in front of me, a mug of coffee in her hands. The aroma was prickly in my nose, but not at all unpleasant.
“Good morning, Sir Regis. I hope you feel refreshed from your much-deserved rest.”
I managed to sit and take the mug from her. I closed my eyes and let the steam rise in through my nostrils. I reminded myself that she was my squire and that therefore there was nothing sexist to feel guilty about. My squire made good coffee. Was that a crime?
“Thanks,” I said, just as the awkwardness set in. I was in my t-shirt and boxer briefs. Pip had changed clothes, albeit to a similar outfit of slightly different shading, but the question of whether she had been there all night started to claw into my thoughts. I couldn’t shake how strange it was to know so little about someone I was spending so much time with.
She handed me a short stack of paper, about five sheets.
“I used your computer. I hope you don’t mind.”
Mind. My computer was a desktop worth about a hundred bucks in parts. I think I paid three-fifty for it on ebay. And that was five years ago. Which made it just a tad less obsolete than a rotary phone.
It did, however, work. I couldn’t say that about everything in my life.
I set down the coffee and slid the pages one at a time from right to left. “What did you find?”
“These are all local colleges and museums that hosted presentations of some sort for Professor Kirk in the past year. I know it’s nothing more than speculation, but I thought it might be possible that he discussed the artifact with one or more of the staff? Maybe a curator? Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic, but It’s even possible he mentioned it during his talks.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea.” I stretched, aborting an attempt to stand as I became self-conscious of my underwear. Rather than reach for the blanket, I set the pages on my lap. “But I need to follow that trail from last night. Veronica went to that club because she knew I was going to be there. Sirens, that thing—what did you call it? A manticore? It’s obviously all connected. I need to find out how they knew and, more importantly, what made them target me.”
“No, no, of course not.” I scratched my head, mopped my face. “That was…good thinking.”
“It was because of the lateness of the appointment that I thought you might want to follow other leads. That’s why I researched the professor and came across some of his presentations.”
“It’s all good, Pip,” I said, retrieving the mug and taking a sip. I couldn’t decide which was more embarrassing, sitting in front of her in my form-fitting boxer-briefs or facing the fact she’d planned out my day better than I could have. I spread the pages on my lap, and picked up the top one. “All we have to do is figure out which place to hit up first.”
“If I may,” she said. “There is one that is only about three miles from here. That would be an efficient way to start.”
“No,” I said, holding up a page and rereading a section. “This is the one. We start here.”
“You found something! How exciting! What did you find?”
I turned the page around so she could see it. “This. Though, technically, you found it.”
“The Pacific Coast Museum of Military History. ‘A talk on the history and future of body armor in warfare.’ Why that one, Sir Regis?”
“Skip down to the end. Look at the sponsors.”
“The Antiquities Project, The York Foundation, The Alonzo Foundation… Oh, my! Sir Regis, you found a connection already!”
“You found it, I spotted it. Now we just have to see if it bears fruit.”
“That’s wonderful! When do we leave?”
“As soon as I down this coffee. And put on some pants. And maybe take a needle and thread to my poor hat.”
“Oh! I did that already, Sir Regis. It turns out the tear was clean.” She retrieved my fedora from the rickety coatrack in the corner and handed it to me. “All it took was a few stitches.”