Between Shifts

by W. R. Gingell

  A voice said, “Tuatu. Sir? I’ll be back in the office in about an hour.”

  I felt a grin spread over my face. Where was he? It sounded like he was just on the other side of the wall. I went back to the gateway I’d just passed and poked my head into the park.

  Yep. There he was; up ahead. He crossed the street as I watched, his voice carrying faintly to me, and went up a smaller side street.

  “Beauty!” I said, dodging across the road after him. I was probably being a bit more noticeable now, but it wasn’t like the detective had seen me. The streets were narrower and twistier here, too; high up in North Hobart, that’s what happens—the streets get narrower and twistier, and the houses get higher and skinnier.

  I must have scarpered down one too many of the streets without paying attention, following the sound of Detective Tuatu’s voice, because by the time I could see him properly again, I was well and truly lost.

  At least I could see him, now, though. He was on the other side of a residential wall that came to my knees and had an overgrown hedge for the remaining privacy, and as I stopped behind the last bit of hedge, I saw him open the gate.

  Hang on. Where the heck were we?

  I loitered behind the bushes and watched him follow the path around the other side of the house.

  “Dodgy,” I said to myself, shaking my head.

  Maybe the dryad agreed; I was pretty sure I felt a tendril or a root wrap around my pinky finger. I left the hedge behind and flicked my legs over the brick wall, one after the other, and covered the front lawn at a trot. There was no sign of the detective when I peeked around the corner of the house, but when I drew back, wondering whether to follow him or wait outside the fence, someone reached around to grab the front of my hoodie and shoved me against the brickwork.

  “Got you!” said Detective Tuatu, his voice thick with satisfaction.

  Then he saw it was me.

  He was still gaping when I kicked him in the shin. He let go pretty quick, clutching at the shin I’d kicked, and said, “Ow ow ow!”

  “Serves you right for grabbing me!” I said indignantly.

  “You were following me!”

  “Yeah, but not on purpose.”

  Detective Tuatu glared at me, still clutching his shin. “How do you follow someone accidentally?!”

  “What are you having a half day for, anyway?”

  “I’m not having a half day, I’m going home for lunch. This is my house.”

  “Oh.” I looked across at the brick stairway and made off for it. “What are we having?”

  The detective scrambled belatedly after me. “We?”

  “Haven’t had lunch yet,” I explained, trotting up the stairs before he could think to stop me. “And we gotta talk about the case.”

  “We?”

  “You already said that. You leave your door unlocked all the time?”

  “Of course I don’t leave my door unlocked!’

  I let go of the door handle and the door swung inward, sweeping lightly above the thin carpet. “Yeah?”

  With one hand, Detective Tuatu dragged me back by the hood; his gun was in the other, pointed into the empty, shadowy recess of the hall.

  “Bit jumpy, aren’t you?” I said, but I said it quietly. I was pretty sure Aussie cops weren’t supposed to go around pointing their guns at empty houses, even if the doors were unlocked. And apart from when he was facing my three psychos, I didn’t think the detective was someone who was normally twitchy.

  “Looks like I’ve already had a visit from Upper Management,” he said, stepping up lightly into the house. “I want to make sure no one’s left me a reminder about not poking my nose in where it’s not meant to be. Stay behind me.”

  “Who’s Upper Management?” I asked. Zero was the only one who could tell me to stay behind him and expect to be obeyed, but for the time being I stayed behind Detective Tuatu anyway. No point being dead before I needed to be.

  “The boss’ boss’ boss,” said Tuatu.

  He wasn’t trying to keep quiet, which made me think he preferred to scare off anyone in the house rather than engage them. Why?

  “Why did you come to see me?” he asked. “Zero said you’re not taking on the case—he said it’s not the sort of case they like to look at.”

  “I reckon they haven’t been paying enough attention, then,” I said, following close behind him as he flicked the handle on one of the doors in the hall and kicked it open. “’Cos I’m pretty sure it’s exactly the kind of case they’d be interested in.”

  Detective Tuatu put his head through the door and twitched it left and right, then went on to the next door.

  “Good thing your place is so small,” I said as I followed him further up the hall. There were only two small bedrooms, a tiny sitting room instead of a lounge, an even smaller bathroom, and a kitchen-dining sort of place that was poky and old and cute.

  “It’s called cosy,” he said. He holstered his gun again, at last satisfied, and turned back to me. “Have your lot been here poking around?”

  “What, just because you were poking around at their—at my place? Why would they? They said they weren’t taking the case, remember?”

  “Hm.”

  I looked around the tiny kitchen, taking in the rust-spotted kitchen sink and the warped window glass that faced out on a tangled old garden. “S’pose you call this ye olde world instead of run down, too.”

  The detective struggled with a grin and almost managed to win. He said, “If you want me to feed you, that’s not the way to go about it.”

  He ducked down into one of his cupboards anyway, scrabbling for something that must not get much use, and I took the time that his back was turned to try and extricate my pinky from the clutches of the dryad.

  When I pulled my hand partway out of my pocket there was a gentle glow of light, and the slight twist of pressure around my finger loosened.

  That was interesting. Why was the dryad glowing again? Protection and wisdom, Zero had said, and maybe it would be protection and wisdom if it was ever planted and grew, but right now I was pretty sure it was still a nightlight.

  “You trying to protect me?” I asked it softly.

  “Who are you talking to?” asked Detective Tuatu, from the recesses of the cupboard.

  “Myself,” I said. As far as it went, it was true. It wasn’t like the dryad could talk back—at least, not that I knew.

  “There’s a surprise,” the detective muttered, as he stood up again. When he turned around there was flour on one of his cuffs, and a ratty old pack of instant coffee in one of his hands. He checked the electric jug and then snapped it shut again and switched it on. “Don’t you have any friends?”

  “I’ve got you,” I said, with an insincere smile.

  “And that reminds me—why am I making you coffee?”

  “’Cos I’m the one who’s trying to make sure those three work with you,” I said,

  “He said they weren’t interested.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said.

  I didn’t really know why I was pushing it with Zero—not exactly, I mean. It could have been sheer stubbornness, or the hope that he would actually help a human again, despite what he was always saying—or maybe it was just a dogged determination to make the three of them do something they said they weren’t going to do.

  Mostly I think it was the certainty that Zero was more human than he pretended, and that someone or something needed to remind him of that. More, it didn’t feel like something I could let go—not when the three of them could do so much to help. Athelas might say that there was no responsibility that came with their power, but I was pretty sure he was wrong. And when it came to Zero and Zero’s humanity, I was even more sure he was wrong.

  I was also certain that this particular case went straight back to Behind, and I didn’t think Behindkind should be allowed to make trouble in the human world without someone to grab them by the collar.

  “I’ve only got baked beans an
d toast,” said the detective, passing me a cup of coffee. “Spaghetti, too, maybe, but it’s all tinned.”

  “Suits me!” I said, gleefully accepting the coffee. It was nice to wrap my hands around a coffee I hadn’t had to make. I took a sip, slurping loudly, and said, “Not bad, for a tea-drinker.”

  I looked up just in time to see Detective Tuatu roll his eyes. Well, he made that quick flick of the eyes toward the ceiling, anyway.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Spaghetti or beans?”

  “Spaghetti,” I said. “Want me to butter the toast?”

  “No. Just stay there where I can see you.”

  “You’re not a very trusting person, are you?”

  “Not where you’re concerned,” said the detective. He put two slices of bread that might or might not have been mouldy quickly into the toaster, and said, “I suppose you’ll one day explain to me exactly what happened that day at the station?”

  “Probably not,” I said, deciding that brutal honesty was the best course. “You prob’ly don’t want to know. Want some advice, though?”

  “Oh, why not?”

  “Keep wearing that necklace of yours,” I advised. He’d been wearing it since I knew him—a gift from his grandma, who told him to wear it all the time—and even if correlation wasn’t causation, my three psychos didn’t seem to be able to put him under their Behindkind influence. I was betting it was that necklace. “’Specially if you’re gunna be poking around in cases like this.”

  Detective Tuatu stopped, a piece of toast pinched between his fingers. “What do you know about my necklace?”

  “Nothing,” I told him, regretting the urge that had made me mention it. “Oi. You said there had been more of these cases. What cases?”

  “You’re not very good at the sharing part of information sharing, are you?” muttered the detective, buttering toast that was just a bit too black. He slid a half-empty tin of spaghetti across the bench at me, cold from the fridge and uncovered.

  “Trying to burn out the mould?” I asked, but I took the plate from him anyway and peered doubtfully at the tin of spaghetti. The bits of spaghetti closer to the top were dry and stuck to the sides of the tin, but the rest looked all right; just a bit watery. I stirred it with the butter knife and tipped it out onto my toast.

  I’d eaten worse.

  “Why do you want those three to help, anyway?” asked Detective Tuatu, pinching the knife back from me and stirring his baked bean tin.

  “’Cos stuff like this should be stopped,” I said briefly. “And ’cos they can stop it, if they’ll do it.”

  “Will they do it?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m working on,” I explained. “So what’s the go?”

  “It’s like I said on the day: there have been four other cases like this, all of them were found either close by this particular supermarket location, or were staff members there, all of them involved at least one body part being gnawed off, and all of them were moved from an initial scene to be dumped where we found them. Even the bloodwork is similar—there’s an abnormality there in each of the profiles that we can’t identify. It’s similar to rabies but it isn’t rabies. The sort of thing that would kill someone pretty quickly without having to worry about them being ripped apart first.”

  “Wait, they were all gunna die anyway?” I scowled. JinYeong and his weird little eye trick had definitely found out something about the blood that he hadn’t shared. He hadn’t been telling me—or Zero—everything. There was a Behindkind link, I knew it.

  “The lab thinks so.”

  “And it’s the same thing they’ve all got?”

  “As far as we could tell. Some were worse than the others. I saw the reports before Upper Management shut down the investigations. It was something the lab had never seen before, but they said it would have killed each of the victims within a month.”

  “How come that supermarket?”

  The detective shrugged. Around a mouthful of beans and toast, he said, “Don’t know. Could be someone who works there killing people. Could be someone trying to implicate someone who work there.”

  “Who were the people who died? You said they were mostly employees who died.”

  “All but one. A tramp died nearby.”

  “I’ve heard of dangerous workplaces, but that’s just mad,” I said. “Oi. Your Upper Management—reckon they were trying to keep you away from the murders, or the supermarket?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But it doesn’t much matter. Whether someone’s targeting the shop, or whether there’s something going on at the shop, I’ll probably only be able to investigate for another day or two at most. They’re already putting pressure on me to close it as an animal killing, and if I stall much longer, they’ll pass it off to someone else and give me punishment duties.”

  “Cops aren’t meant to be dodgy,” I said, frowning. “You should look into that.”

  “I’ll do that when I’m feeling particularly tired of living,” said the detective, grinning a bit. He took another mouthful of beans and toast before he said, “I would have thought you knew a bit too much to still think the police force is the pinnacle of human goodness.”

  “I didn’t say I thought they weren’t dodgy,” I snapped. “I said they shouldn’t be dodgy. All right. Leave it with me.”

  That made his mouth quirk up again, like I’d said something funny. “Thanks,” he said. “You going now?”

  “Yeah; they’ll wonder where I am if I stay out too much longer.”

  “You know that’s not healthy, right? Living as someone’s pet?”

  “Dunno,” I said. He’d seen Between, but I’d seen Behind, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to stop seeing it. More importantly, Behindkind probably weren’t going to stop seeing me, even if I stopped seeing them. “I reckon it’s pretty good for my health, staying alive. But that’s just me. Catch ya.”

  Zero was back when I got home. I knew it before I got into the house, just like I’d known when I woke up that they were home again. It was interesting and a bit weird, and I stopped on the top step to decide exactly how I knew it.

  I was still trying to figure out if it was something to do with the house or with me, when the door opened.

  “Hi,” I said to Zero, stuffing my other hand back into my pocket to disguise the bump made by the dryad.

  He stared down at me for a minute as if he was trying to decide what to say, and at last asked, “Why are you standing on the step?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “But Athelas thinks I might be sulking, if that helps.”

  “Why?”

  “Dunno,” I said again. “Ask Athelas; it’s his story.”

  “Are you—are you coming in?”

  “Might as well, since I’m here,” I said cheerfully. “You lot want coffee and biscuits?”

  Zero said, “Yes,” in a baffled kind of way and moved aside to let me in. “And an early dinner. We’ll be going out afterward.”

  “Me too?”

  There was silence behind me as Zero closed the door and thought about it. When I got to the kitchen, he padded around to the other side of the kitchen island and said, “You’ll come too. Next time tell me before you go out.”

  Rats. Didn’t look like I was going to get the chance to take the dryad back up to my bedroom before making tea and coffee. “You weren’t here,” I told him, filling the kettle.

  “That’s why I gave you the phone,” said Zero; and his eyes were already on me when I turned back around.

  “Oh yeah. Forgot about that.” I could have said that Athelas had told me it was okay to go out, but I wasn’t sure how tattling affected the balance, and I didn’t think I was ready to find out just yet. “Are we doing that recharge thing tonight? Even JinYeong?”

  “It’s not recharging. And JinYeong doesn’t need to do it.”

  “Athelas said—”

  “Athelas said it in a way that you would understand.”

  That made me stop with the tea
spoon halfway to the pot. “Yeah? I don’t understand that, either.”

  “It means that Athelas, for whatever reason of his own, wanted you to understand what we were saying.”

  I blinked at him a bit, and dumped the tea into the pot. “Yeah, no; I understand that. But I don’t know why he wants me to understand.”

  “Neither do I,” said Zero. His face was still as emotionless as always, but there was a thoughtful note to his voice that made me think he was telling the truth, and that he was confused about it, too. “Try not to understand too much of what Athelas says.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” said Zero, and the ice was back in his eyes, “it’s very dangerous for you to learn too much. Don’t forget that fae can remove memories, Pet.”

  I was just uneasy enough to nearly blurt out a bad joke about not forgetting stuff when I’d had my memories removed, but I managed to stop myself in time. Instead, I nodded and showed him the zip the lip mime.

  That must have satisfied him, because he went away into the living room where JinYeong was lounging on my favourite lounge, taking up too much of it as usual. There was no sign of Athelas, but by the time I brought in the tray, a brief waft of air cooled my neck in passing as he slipped past me to sit in his favourite chair.

  I passed Zero his coffee, frowning. Had Athelas been out, too? Where had he been?

  I don’t know if Zero wondered the same thing—maybe he already knew—but all he said to Athelas was, “I’ve found a spot. We’ll go tonight.”

  “Very well,” said Athelas, taking his tea. “Pet, it seems churlish to mention, but must you wear your hood up in the house?”

  I shrugged the hood down, and it brushed the stray pieces of hair away from my forehead with it. “It was a bit nippy on the way home.”

  I plopped down on the couch beside JinYeong, causing him to hastily back away at the threat of spilt coffee on his perfectly pressed trousers, and thrust the mug at him.

  “Here.”

  JinYeong made a faint expression of disgust and said something at Zero that was definitely a complaint.