Scratch Lines

by Elizabeth Blake

  “Cheers.”

  * * *

  Knocks cracked on the door and I flinched. Who would be at my door so early? I set down my coffee mug and pulled a pistol.

  “Yoo-hooo! Kaidlyn? Are you awake? Yoo-hoo! Dear!”

  Zelda. Holstering the gun, I checked the peephole and unbolted the door.

  “Awfully early,” I said.

  She swept past me with a platter of cinnamon rolls.

  “But you're welcome any time, of course.” I followed her like she was the pied piper.

  “I heard the most distressing news.” Her worried expression didn't match her cheerful pink dress. “I checked the newsfeed for my horoscope, as I do every morning but especially as the full moon nears. What I read was absolutely miserable. I couldn't imagine! Anyway, I don't know if you read the horoscopes, do you? Well, imagine my concern when I realized that this week will be the worst ever. Not for me, though. My horoscope was all sunshine and daffodils. Yours, however, contained some very bad news. I—”

  “Is that cream cheese icing?”

  “What? Icing?” She looked at the platter. “Oh, yes, of course. I was so unsettled that I couldn't stop baking. There's a mountain of food next door. Naturally, you'll have to help me eat it.”

  “Then the horoscope is wrong; this is a very good day. Coffee?”

  “I don't think I can bear caffeine right now. My little heart will explode.”

  “Zelda, everything is fine.” And horoscopes mean jack shit.

  “I've got to go make a protection charm. Wait for me? It'll take about an hour. You're not in a hurry, are you? Of course you aren't. Stay right there. I'll be back.” She scurried out the door, leaving me with an entire platter full of sweet buns. Don't mind if I do.

  She poked her head back in.

  “Don't touch anything dangerous. No knives. Definitely no knives.” Zelda shivered and slammed the door.

  The warning gave me the willies, but two of her cinnamon buns calmed me down. Sugar had become my drug of choice and I loved self-medicating. I plopped on the couch to watch the news, which frustrated the crap out of me.

  I smelled something burning.

  Did I leave something in the oven? Ha! As if I ever turn it on.

  Had I popped some bread into my rickety toaster?

  Nope.

  Concern set in. Something was burning.

  I went to the window.

  A cross the size of a street sign stood on my front yard, ablaze and going up quick. I had shoved a priest, so someone burned a cross. I never understood why a person would burn a symbol of their god to signify that god's displeasure. Wouldn't that piss off the guy in the sky? Were they hoping to draw lightning bolts?

  Speaking of, maybe I should put out the goddamn flames before my house caught fire.

  Zelda ran out with a pitcher of lemonade and dumped it on the cross. It sizzled and smelled like lemon drops, but the fire smoldered on.

  “Oh, dear,” she said.

  “Next time you read my horoscope and see bad portent, kindly keep it to yourself,” I snipped, going for the garden hose.

  After I reduced the burning cross to soggy cinder, it occurred to me I lived in a gated community. Either someone let in the fanatic or one of my friendly neighbors did the deed. How convenient that Mr. Spears recently pointed cameras at my yard.

  I stomped across the street and knocked on Mr. Spears' door. He grudgingly answered but didn't remove the security chain. His bloated cheek and bulbous nose appeared in the crack. He was an elephant of a man with a mouse's temperament. I gave him a sweet, professional smile.

  “Good morning, Mr. Spears.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Since you ask, I happened to notice you have lovely security cameras. New, aren't they? I'd like to take a look at the footage from earlier today.”

  “You can't.”

  “Right. Let's try this.” I pulled my badge. “I'm gonna need to see the footage from earlier today.”

  “You can't see—I mean, it was off most of today, so I can't show you anything.”

  “Off? But I can see from here that the red light is on. Just there, on the camera, is a blinking red light.”

  “It was broken.”

  “Broken.”

  “Yes.”

  I stared at his fat, quivering eyes. “That's unfortunate. When did it break?”

  “About six o'clock this morning.”

  “Too bad. How disappointing. New equipment and all. Would you be willing to swear, in a court of law under danger of perjury, that your cameras were broken at six o'clock this morning?”

  “Yes.” He sniffed, gaining courage. Bastard.

  “Very good, sir.” I put the badge away. “Have a lovely day.”

  “You, too,” he had the nerve to say before he closed the door.

  Fat ass.

  A statue of Kokopelli sat on the porch. The joyful figure flaunted his flute, and I swear it smirked. I picked it up, hoisted the thing like a sledge, and brought it down on the camera in the corner. The camera snapped with a spray of plastic and dangled heavily from the wires. I smashed it once more with the fertility god. In the interest of being thorough, I turned and smashed the other two cameras.

  Mr. and Mrs. Spears stared through the window, gawking like open-mouthed sheep.

  “You're right,” I said. “The cameras are definitely broken.”

  I put the Kokopelli back, dusted his face, and mimicked his smile.

  I sauntered back to my yard to discard the cross cinders. When I noticed the Spears family loitering in the window, undoubtedly talking about me, I waved in a neighborly fashion.

  Chapter 8

  I stomped into the office.

  “Rookie on deck,” Keats said. “Enlistment sent a replacement for Vincent.”

  “Oh. Yea.”

  “His scores are good.” He handed me a report of the rookie's shooting stats. My eyebrows rose.

  “Not bad. Better than mine. Let's see what his aim look like with a full-grown mutt bearing down on him. We both know what a difference that makes. What flavor is he? Purist? God-nut? Boy Scout? Sociopath?”

  “You are so offensive.”

  “So I've been told.” I flipped a few pages into the report and saw a pic of the rookie, a Hispanic man reminiscent of a fashion model. Young. Wore a silver Devoted cross. I groaned. “God-nut.”

  Keats scowled, a cloud setting on his cherub face.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Someone burned a cross in my yard this morning. I'm a bit pissy.”

  “Again?”

  “Life sucks, then we die.”

  “Have you tried being less offensive?”

  I raised my arms. “Why is everyone so eager to blame the victim?”

  Sarakas arrived with Yvonne and a compact male. Alas, Rookie was prettier in person.

  “This is our new teammate, Oracio Gracie.”

  “Rosco,” he said, holding out his hand to shake mine. A cocky grin dominated his face as his eyes went up and down my legs. Up again. Back down. I had decent legs, since I was six feet tall. Plus, I ran a lot. Still, ogling my legs was bad form.

  I shook the hand. It was clunky with gold bands, warm. Perfumed. Seriously? I didn't like him. No good reason, I just didn't.

  “Nice scores,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Nice shirt,” I lied.

  “Thanks. It's puce.”

  Who wears puce? Who knows what the hell the color even looks like? I ignored him and put on my vest.

  “You're prettier in person,” Rosco said, eying me. I shrugged into a baggy sweatshirt. With rough jeans and knit hat, I wasn't a pinup. My scars had final say on the issue.

  “Stow it.” Sarakas gave a cheesy grin. “She only flirts with death.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Where are you from?” Keats said.

  “New Mexico,” Rosco said.

  Stupid chit-chat.

  “I'm hungry,” I whined.

&nb
sp; “It's a few hours until lunch,” Sarakas said.

  “Who are you, my dietician?”

  He winked. Sarakas and I went to my truck and began to tour the town. Watching. Waiting. With the full moon coming, we didn’t have to wait long. Dispatch buzzed in my ear like a mosquito.

  “A mutt has been sighted at Verde Hills Apartments in sector six, and the animal is still in the area. The incident reportedly occurred around complex B,” Daisy said. “The resident lives with her granddaughter.”

  I felt bad about the old lady, but distracting the mutt with a warm chunk of tender meat might buy us time to save the kid. Mixed blessing, I guess.

  Sarakas and I entered the neat courtyard. Thick rounds of torn turf showed where the mutt postured to leap. A shattered railing marked its landing one floor up. A crumpled wall revealed the decimated apartment.

  It was quiet.

  The worst of the action had already happened. Sarakas and I scurried up the stairs and held ourselves flat against the building. Sloppy eating sounds rustled by my ears: organic fibers tearing, fresh meat sloshing around a big mouth, and a crisp snip here and there when teeth struck bone. Growls of contentment.

  Andreas tipped his chin and covered me as I rounded the busted wall, stayed low, and peeked at the mutt.

  The animal bent over its meal, enjoying its food. Off-white fur like yellowed paper. I couldn't see the back of its head. Its spine was too deep beneath the bulk of its hindquarters. I didn't have a kill shot. I waited until Sarakas was posted beside me to open fire.

  The enormous beast roared and turned. Opened a wide crimson gullet and howled at us from three meters away. The Jericho surged rhythmically as I squeezed the trigger again and again. Thunder echoed in my ears. The mutt, bloodied with chest wounds, bunched to spring.

  My gun jammed.

  The animal was airborne. Soaring. Straight at us.

  Shit.

  Sarakas and I hit the deck in unison, rolling out of the way. The mutt tumbled over the railing and down into the grassy square. Sarakas replaced a mag and I prepared to clear the jammed gun. We heard thumping.

  Pounding footsteps.

  Sarakas and I shared an incredulous look. We scrambled away from the railing. I dropped the plugged weapon and pulled a reserve. The blood-speckled mutt sprung from the ground and landed on the walkway.

  Sort of. Hind paws scrambled and scraped. Pieces of cement crumbled away. Its teeth snapped near Sarakas' ankle. My pulse jammed in my throat, choking me. A horror story played in my head where Sarakas was bitten, pulled down into the yard, and killed on impact or by mutt bite.

  I fired into the beast's neck, below the hinge of the jaw, trying to find its spine through the meat. I screamed while I pulled the trigger, but I couldn't hear myself over the sound of blaring weapons and a roaring animal. The raging mutt had tunnel vision, and all it saw was my partner dangling like a juicy steak.

  Sarakas scooted back and the mutt clawed after him, digging ridges into the cement, shoulders heaving as it struggled to get its heavy hindquarters onto the walkway.

  My gun clicked empty. Dropped the mag, replaced it, and resumed firing.

  The entry wounds offered festive gluts of blood but nothing fatal until I hit an artery. Blood poured.

  Monster finally took its focus from Sarakas and paid attention to me. Snapped at my leg. Its jagged teeth and torn chest bore evidence of Sarakas' silver. It met my gaze and I shot it above the snout.

  I shot it three more times and finally penetrated its skull.

  It howled, and blood-soaked saliva splattered on my boots. It slipped over the edge like a leviathan sinking back into the ocean. Landed with a thump.

  I struggled to one knee, changed the mag, and peered over the edge.

  The mutt wriggled and struggled on the ground, trying to get limbs under its bulk, trying to fight the blood loss. I aimed. Like shooting a fish in a barrel. Silver drove it down at last, busted its throat, tore its skull open, and spread brain matter over the lantanas like butter on hot corn.

  With that much broken noggin all over the place, it was dependably dead.

  “Andreas, are you alive?”

  “Seem to be.”

  The blood on his pants didn't belong to him. He stood and shook off debris.

  I sighed.

  Tactical reload. My fingers felt like cold salami. I holstered the Jericho.

  Grumpy because my other gun had failed to eject a casing, I collected the delinquent weapon. Tapped the magazine, pushed the slide, swiped the chamber, dropped the ugly bullet, and fired once into the mutt's skull. Worked fine.

  Bad girl, I told the weapon and holstered it. I assessed my torn jeans and a skinned knee. Not bad.

  “He was mad,” Sarakas said, catching his breath. “Don’t often see a mutt jump like that. Good vertical.”

  “Properly motivated, I guess.”

  We wandered back into the apartment. The grandmother was long gone, the spark of life eaten along with her spleen. Nothing we could do for her. The apartment complex was eerily quiet. I didn't see hide nor blood of the missing child.

  After a moment, kittenish sounds came from the laundry area. Sarakas popped the door on the clothes dryer. There sat the toddler with wet cheeks and snot running down her face. Her chubby hands pressed over her ears. She looked at us, saw that we weren't the big bad wolf, and wailed. Full volume, a sound far too big for her tiny body, a howl of need and terror. I cringed and stepped back. She cried more aggressively, cherub body heaving.

  “Are you gonna help her out?” Sarakas shouted over the sound.

  Nope. No incentive to do that. “Maybe she shouldn't be moved. For her own sake. We could leave her in there until the police come.”

  “Jesus, Durant. Are you ever going to get over the kid-thing?”

  “Nope.” No incentive to do that, either. And I shouldn't have to simply because I'm a girl.

  “The new CPS law says we can't leave minors until they're under the care of a primary guardian or a state rep. Come here, sweetheart.” He helped the child from the machine. Now she had a sympathetic ear and shrieked all the louder.

  “You're alright,” I told her. “It's over. You can stop bawling.”

  He raised his eyes to heaven and shoved the girl into my hands. Sobs wracked her miniscule body. Sarakas went outside to speak with dispatch and the child cried louder in his absence. How the hell did she generate such volume? Why didn't she stop? I examined her plump, little limbs: no blood, no broken bones, nothing wrong. She couldn't even see the dismembered smear of her grandmother on the floor.

  “Shhh,” I cooed, as gentle as I could, thinking maternal-type thoughts about lullabies and sugar cookies. She cried all over my shirt and clawed me with her miniature hands.

  I'll give you something to cry about, I thought. Not my words.

  I tried to put the child down, but she wouldn't stand. Her legs collapsed like cooked spaghetti, forcing me to bear her weight. Dang it. “Sarakas!”

  He came back and laughed as I tried to wrangle a toddler onto her feet.

  “Wanna help me out?”

  “Nope,” he chimed.

  “Godda—dang, Sarakas! This isn't funny. I'm scarring this kid for life. Do you want that on your conscience?”

  “Tell you what, Kaid. This is your one free pass. I'll handle this child and you deal with the next, regardless of age, emotional condition, or the discomfort it causes you.”

  “Deal,” I promised. “Just make it stop.”

  He accepted the child and cradled her in a magic hug. She stopped squealing like a stuck pig and simmered down to quiet sobs.

  “I hate you,” I told him. He chucked, covered the girl's eyes with his hands, and took her away from the dead bodies. When her wailing dissipated, I could breathe again. I wanted a drink. Needed one. Instead, I lingered on the balcony where I could keep an eye on granny's body as well as the fallen mutt.

  Disconcerting how I was more comfortable with dead bodies than a li
ving, breathing child. I'm sure a psychiatrist would have fun with that info, but it wasn't something I'd lose sleep over.

  A taco sounded really good right now.

  Agent Winters arrived to gather the mutt body which was already shrinking into a dusty, torn human corpse. I gave a peppy salute that rubbed him the wrong way and left. Our other coroner, Umberto, was en route for the human remains.

  “Let's get lunch,” I said, as I got in the truck. Sarakas sat in the back of the extended cab, holding the kid. “Oh, hey, no. Uh-uh. Give her to a uniform.”

  “Can't,” he said. “We have to see her into the custody of an appropriate agent.”

  “Who is that?”

  “For this particular youngster, a grief counselor who specializes in childhood trauma, a Dr. Blythe.” He was reading from his phone. “And a CPS case worker named Adler will take it from there. I think I've met him before. Regardless, we're heading downtown before getting any lunch.”

  I narrowed my eyes, but he was unaffected. I turned my gaze to the kid who was happily tugging on Sarakas' shirt and investigating his pockets. His eyes brightened with amusement at her pick-pocket antics. She didn't look nearly as distraught as she had twenty minutes ago.

  “What's your name?” I said.

  “De-desa,” she blubbered.

  “Deesa?”

  “Theresa,” Sarakas translated. She chewed on the end of his phone. “Isn't she cute?”

  I grunted and started the truck.

  “Drive carefully,” he said.

  “Whatever.”

  Arriving at the doctor’s office should have been the end of it. I slow down, we dump the kid on the curb and go for tacos. Of course, I knew it wouldn't happen that way. Theresa slumbered in Sarakas' big, capable arms as I parked. She didn't wake even as he got out of the truck and carried her inside. In the bright waiting room, toys were strewn all about, but no one played. Downtrodden parents and irritable children sat in chairs, alternately pestering each other. The collective mood carried a bleak, slightly annoyed tone.

  I went to the receptionist and knocked on her window. She didn't look up from her phone book. No one reads the phone book. In fact, I think the world stopped making those a long time ago. I rapped harder on the glass. As she lowered the massive volume, she revealed a smut novel hidden inside.