by J. P. Rice
“Little funky in here. Let’s open some windows,” I said, and we popped open a couple of windows in the living room.
“It’s not that bad, you baby.” The Morrigan smirked. I’d almost forgotten she was the Goddess of Death.
I went into the kitchen. The smell wasn’t as strong in there. Still a sloppy mess, though. Titania landed next to me and walked under the table, looking for clues.
“Come check this out,” the Morrigan called from the bedroom.
I walked through the small living room, entered the bedroom and gasped. A man had been hanged in the center of the room. The noose dangled only a few feet from the ceiling. He had either been hanged naked or his clothes had been removed after he’d died. The tall man’s toes scraped the floor as he swung gently back and forth, occasionally spinning in a circle. The overpowering funk from the body caused me to gag and back out of the room.
It differed from most dead human bodies I’d sniffed before. Either he wasn’t human, or I’d never encountered a body at this stage of putrefaction.
This stuff didn’t bother the Morrigan, who strolled leisurely out of the room. She asked, “So what do you think?”
“Let me catch myself so we can go back in and check out the tattoos Hades mentioned.” I pulled my shirt sleeve out through my coat and held it over my nose. In a nasally tone, I said, “All right. Let’s go back in.”
We entered the room again, and I located the tattoo on his right biceps. Oh, and there was one on his other arm too. I held my breath and moved in close. Even on a dead body, I could tell that the tattoos were new because of the raw skin around them.
Both matching tattoos had the cursive words, Dank Artistry, with the symbol in the middle. There was a big problem though. “You see this,” I said to the Morrigan pointing at the tattoo.
She squinted and said, “That is not the right symbol. No crossbones.”
I backed away from the body and said, “It looks like whoever killed him, also tattooed him and then went the extra step to make sure he was naked so that everyone would see his tats. He doesn’t look like Lee Majors, but we found our fall guy.”
The Morrigan gestured to the door, and I followed her into the living room. She commented, “It looks like this John Jenkins got in over his head.”
“You can see right through this staged suicide too, right?” I asked and dropped to my hands and knees.
The Morrigan cleared her throat and spit on the floor. As I searched under the couch, she said, “Seems like people always kill themselves right after they find out some juicy information. Strange how that works. I guess we should look around for the dagger, but I’m pretty sure that’s why this guy lost his life.”
I wanted to include my new friend, so I suggested, “Titania, why don’t you check trash cans? Let’s see if these murderers left us any clues to go on.”
“You got it.” Titania zipped into the kitchen.
The Morrigan closed one window and stopped the arctic blast. “I can use the Raven’s eye that I embedded in you to run a check on fingerprints. I’d bet their prints are all over this guy’s clothes. We just need to find them and then scan them through the raven’s eye.”
I shifted my vision to another dimension so that I could detect fingerprints on the body. Pinching my nostrils, I entered the room again. Much to my surprise, I couldn’t find a single fingerprint, not only on the body, but anywhere in the entire room.
I went back out to the living room and stared at his coffee table. Completely clean. That meant the professional killers had cleansed the entire apartment before leaving. I gave up on tracking down fingerprints and searched the apartment for other clues.
I ripped the cushions off the couch. “Bingo.”
“What?” the Morrigan asked, pulling her head out of the closet.
I held up three used death cards, and the Morrigan’s eyes widened with interest. “Well, well, well.”
I handed them to the Morrigan and noticed another one jammed in the fold under the armrest. I plucked it out and tears filled my eyes. With a trembling hand, I held up my father’s death card.
Never the comforting one, the Morrigan slapped me on the back and said, “We’ll get the bastard responsible.”
It was best not to dwell on his death right now. “What if it’s a her?”
“Girls can be bastards too. Don’t be sexist.”
“I was aiming for the opposite.” We searched around more, and I found floor plans for a laboratory used for producing the death cards. “This is obviously fake too.”
The Morrigan agreed, “John Jenkins was the fall guy, no doubt about it. The people responsible are trying to make us think that it was just this guy working alone. Then they’re trying to make the cops think that it was someone mixed up with the demons. Maybe this isn’t just a couple of two-bit practitioners, because they’ve covered several angles.”
I pointed out, “They didn’t think about the future. If these crimes keep happening, ole Johnny, can’t be the perpetrator considering he’s dead. So either the framers stop the killings or it kind of blows their cover.”
“I still can’t find much to go on. It looks like we really need to dig into John Jenkins’ past and find out who he was rolling with,” she said, searching behind the couch. She popped her head back out. “He’s got the fake Dank Artistry tattoos, but I don’t think for a second that this is a Red Cavern operation.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Those tattoos are fresh and make for the perfect alibi for the cops to call him a devil worshipper. Too bad nobody expected two old salts to be on the trail.”
The Morrigan smiled wide, always comfortable around the dead. “Bloodhounds ain’t got shit on a couple of blackbirds like us.”
I argued, “I’m more of a scarlet dragon than a blackbird.”
“You can be both. Both are predatory creatures. Just like us.”
I agreed with her to avoid an argument and we went back to combing the area for clues. The killer or killers had done a good job covering their tracks. The assisted suicide was obvious, but they hadn’t left a single fingerprint or evidence for us to go on.
I was ready to give up when Titania zoomed into the room with a little piece of paper.
“I think I may have found something worthy,” she announced and flew over to me. She extended the little ticket, and I took it from her.
The Morrigan moved in closer and looked over my shoulder. It was a pawnshop ticket. I pulled it closer to our eyes and read the words.
Bam Bam Bigelow Pawn
3210 Bigelow Boulevard
Item # 213741
Locker # 4439
Processed by Jake Fletcher
I flipped it over and it had $22 Loan written in black Sharpie.
I turned to the Morrigan. “What could this possibly be for?”
“One big-mouth dagger, I would assume. Perhaps he knew the walls were closing in and got rid of the item that could get him killed. Gareth isn’t really anything special without the talking. His two ruby eyes hold the only value and they aren’t worth much. $22 sounds about right for what more or less amounts to a kitchen knife with two tiny gems. Probably just loaned out the value of the rubies.”
Titania flew right in front of our faces and hovered. “Exactly. That’s exactly what I was going to say. She just beat me to it.” Titania always wanted to be in the middle of everything.
I looked around at the trashed apartment, and said, “We should hurry. Who knows how safe it is in a pawnshop?”
“I was going to say that, too,” Titania added as we left the murder scene.
Apparently, John Jenkins knew some heavy hitters were on his trail. I surmised that he had tried to hide the dagger at the pawnshop, basically burying it out in the open. It would be sitting right in the middle of the city under everyone’s noses.
That left one problem. Eventually, if John didn’t pay back the loan, the pawnshop owners would sell the item. I guessed he was banking on the fact that t
he knife didn’t appear valuable enough to warrant prime real estate in the main display cases. In all likelihood, the pawnshop owner would pluck out those rubies to sell separately and toss the worthless dagger.
WE CRUISED ACROSS TOWN and parked in the lot behind the Bam Bam Bigelow Pawn shop. I turned to Titania in the backseat. “You wait here. I wish it was different.”
Pittsburgh had started accepting more supernatural life than I’d expected, but creatures that resembled insects were in constant danger of being swatted.
She lowered her head. “I understand.”
There were several cars in the lot and most of them looked abandoned. The rusty ones appeared as though they hadn’t been driven in a while and only two vehicles seemed operable. The beat-up cars had several inches of snow on the hoods, windshields and roofs, but I could see the rusted bodies. It appeared the pawnshop bought junkers and tried to fix them up.
The Morrigan and I got out of the car and hustled around the building to the front door. Shivering, I opened the door and passed through the security sensor that released a pleasing tone. It did the same for the Morrigan. If it only knew.
The security guard lifted his chin sharply with the ‘what’s up signal’ as we passed him and walked up to the glass display cases with an employee standing behind them. I peeked back at the security guard with short blond hair.
He was a mountain of a man, tall and husky, but certainly no match for the Morrigan or me. He grabbed the giant headphones around his neck. I heard music coming from them as he lifted them over his ears and adjusted them for comfort. Then he closed his eyes and bobbed his head.
Quite the lackadaisical security guard considering death herself was looming just eight feet away. I focused on the employee behind the counter, who was inspecting a silver ring. He was wearing a set of glasses in the form of headgear with a single eye magnifier on it.
The man took the eyewear off and set it on the glass counter. He looked up at us with a big smile of crooked teeth and said, “How can I help yinz lovely ladies on this frosty day?”
People had called the Morrigan and I many things in our day. Lovely or lady was never one of them. I grinned at the man and said, “We’re here to pay off a loan and pick up an item.”
I grabbed the ticket out of my pocket and set it on the counter. The employee picked it up and squinted, holding the ticket an inch from his eyes. He quickly got frustrated and riffled through his back pocket. He produced an eye-glass case, opened it and put on the pair of spectacles.
He read the ticket again, and said, “Are you making a payment or paying the whole thing off?”
“We’re going to pay it all so we can take the item back,” I answered.
“Looks like that’s gonna be, $22,” he said, walking toward the cash register at the end of the counter.
As I walked down to meet him, I opened my purse and grabbed a twenty and a ten. I slapped the money down on the counter and said, “Keep the change.” I was a generous tipper.
“Well now. That there’s much appreciated. I just gotta run into the back and grab this out of the locker,” he said, shaking the ticket right under his chin. “Be right back.”
The gentleman went into the back and I waited impatiently to talk to this dagger. All we had to do now was shake down Gareth and find out who was behind this operation. If we hurried, we could be done by week’s end and I could concentrate on ending the werewolf-vampire war. Everything was falling into place.
The employee screamed from the back, “Thief. Help. Call the cops.”
The Morrigan and I wasted no time and hopped over the counter. I looked back and saw the security guard with his eyes closed, bobbing his head. We hauled ass into the back and encountered a maze-like room of storage lockers for the pawned items.
The man screamed again, “Holy shit. Are you Bigfoot? Why are you stealing that knife? It’s worthless.”
I tried to follow the man’s voice but kept running into dead ends in this pawn shop labyrinth.
I snaked around the dull yellow lockers and came out to an open area on the other side of the storage facility. The employee was lying face down on the ground. I looked ahead, and the back door slammed shut. Not wasting any time, I hopped over the employee and reached the back door a few seconds later.
I pushed down on the flat knob and kicked open the door. With the Morrigan right on my heels, I searched around the parking lot for the culprit. The Morrigan pointed to some fresh tracks in the snow that appeared to belong to Sasquatch.
A track of giant, three-toed footprints led to the left. Like a men’s size 25. I didn’t see the monstrosity anywhere as my head jerked left and right. Were the prints a decoy? I hadn’t seen the creature before the door slammed shut. A foul odor that resembled feces hung in the winter air and gave me an idea.
I ran over to my Jeep and opened the door. Titania flew out, and asked, “What’s the word, hummingbird? Everything all right?”
“I need you to see if you can smell or hear anything in the vicinity. Specifically, a big stinky monster,” I instructed.
“Anything for my best friend,” she announced and darted off. She flew over to a pile of shoveled snow taller than me.
Titania zipped back over to us. She whispered, “Something is hiding under that pile of snow.”
The three of us stalked carefully toward the pile. As we got closer, I heard heavy breathing. Without warning, chunks of compact snow showered up from the pile and into the air. A large figure materialized in front of me.
I took a few steps back and eyeballed what had to be an eight-foot creature covered in brown fur. The best way to describe it was a cross between Bigfoot and Chewbacca. The beast growled and raised his hands above his head, the magic dagger clutched in his huge right hand.
“I’ll take care of this,” the Morrigan said and turned to one of the junker cars in the lot. Using telekinesis, she picked up the rusty vehicle and sent it hurtling toward the hirsute creature. Nimble as a dancer, he moved three steps to his right and did a front somersault to avoid the car. The vehicle cratered into the earth and crumpled like an accordion.
The Morrigan picked up a rusty station wagon, and as it floated in the air, she waited for Bigfoot to make a move. He crouched down and got on the front of his feet, ready to dodge the next offering. The car levitated about ten feet above the ground as the Morrigan decided how to launch her attack.
Without warning, the car flew across the lot, the front grill screaming toward Bigfoot. From the crouched position he jumped and launched himself about fifteen feet in the air. The car flew under him, smashing into the snow and tearing apart the earth. Two tires fell off the vehicle and one rolled harmlessly across the lot, leaving a track in the snow.
Bigfoot landed and stood up straight, waving the knife in front of his chest, mocking us. I planned to set his pretty coat afire and see how he liked that.
I went to call on fire when the Morrigan said, “Close your ears. I’m going to blast him.”
I jammed my fingers into my ear canals, not needing to be told twice. Titania flew over to a pile of snow and buried her head into it. Worried that plugging my ears wasn’t enough, I cast a sound shield around myself for extra protection. I turned to the Morrigan as her lips parted.
I couldn’t hear her wail, but I felt the Song of the Dead as it rippled by, prodding the outside of my sound shield. As if the snow had been picked up by a tornado, it flew in the opposite direction, away from the Morrigan. The sound reached Bigfoot’s thick coat, ripping the hair from his body. It started with small patches, then bigger ones, and I realized this wasn’t a natural creature.
Under the brown hair was a silver substance that appeared to be metal. As more hair flew off the creature, it was either a robot or a person inside a metal superhero suit. The Morrigan’s keening should have busted that suit into a million pieces by now. It appeared to be reinforced with something out of this world.
Bigfoot didn’t drop the knife from the immense amo
unt of pressure coming at him. I called it a he, but without breasts or a penis, there could be a woman inside that metal suit. Or was it a robot?
The Morrigan waved her hand around to get my attention. I removed my fingers from my ears and dissolved the sound shield. “What?”
“Let’s set this asshole on fire,” the Morrigan said, frustrated that someone could withstand one of her powerful attacks.
The enormous metal creature raised his head to the sky and whistled a pleasing melody into the air.
Ignoring the sound, I immediately conjured a fireball into my right hand. “With pleasure.”
The metal hand moved from the handle of the dagger to the top of the blade. He moved the knife down next to his knee and his hand sprang upward in a flash. Gareth flew up into the air, rotating end over end, his two ruby eyes gleaming.
“What the hell?” I shouted as the dagger flew higher in the sky.
I threw my fireball into the ground and sprinted toward Bigfoot. That dagger eventually had to come down. As I approached, the metal man had his chin raised, admiring his handiwork. I jumped at him and thrust my foot forward, the sole of my boot connecting with the middle of the chest.
The impact didn’t even dent the material, but it caused the thing to fall backward. I inclined my head to locate the dagger again. The knife appeared to have reached its apex and had started to fall back down. I planned to snatch it out of the air, then get some answers out of the hairless Bigfoot.
A flash of golden light streaked into my peripheral. A large bird I couldn’t identify swooped down and snatched the dagger in its beak. As I looked closer, it was a drone disguised as a golden bird. The drone darted away with Gareth in its mouth, and I turned to the Morrigan.
“Use your birds,” I told her, and conjured two more fireballs. In an act of desperation, I zinged both fireballs, one after the other at the winged drone. The flying object darted left and right, easily avoiding my streaking fireballs.
The Morrigan whistled and within a few seconds, a murder of squawking crows appeared in the sky above. She whistled again, and they took off at a smart pace, chasing after the golden bird. A few crows closed in, but that only caused the golden bird to speed up and increase its lead.
