The Nightmare Detective

by K Childs

  The room was large and the tiles were cool under my toes. I relieved my bladder.

  I washed up then found the bathtub.

  An hour later I was clean and just as sore. Soaking my eyes in the water helped a little, but not enough.

  My muscles felt like they had been sewn back together; judging by the ugly stitches and red marks all over my stomach and face, that wasn’t an exaggeration.

  I looked hideous. The biggest wound cut across my eyes and bridge of my nose- my eyelids had tiny stitches and my nose was swollen and purple from healing. My left eye barely closed. The flesh was angry red. My right cheek had been stitched closed as well. My stomach received the worst of it; she’d gutted me, and the wound was livid.

  Walking, sitting, every action or tensing of the muscles in my stomach hurt.

  It must have taken a bloody miracle of Animancy to put me back together again.

  I threw a robe over my nakedness before I came back out and lay sedately in the bed this time.

  Darrien hadn’t moved. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  He sat down on the corner of the bed, offering me some soup.

  I let him feed it to me because simply leaving the bed had exhausted me. I was out of steam. After a while I lay back, not wanting to over-eat. “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “She slashed my eyes out. I didn’t see much after that.” I waved at the red, angry scars all over my face. Every muscle in my forehead hurt.

  “Both of you were still, barely moving. Ben came running into the dining room—he must have retrieved Hardigan’s sword. He struck her with it. It… it was a good blow. She died quickly.”

  There was regret in his voice. I wasn’t sure he’d loved her, but he’d liked Mary.

  Liked her enough maybe he would have married her over Elizabeth; who was I to say?

  “Mary was a monster, Darrien.”

  “I made her that way.”

  I looked down at his hands, not sure what to say. “You do have a certain… effect on women.” It seemed to me, that she might well have become enraged at some other imagined slight.

  He chuckled darkly. “I know.”

  “No, I mean… more than that.” I waved a hand, searching for the right words. “Perhaps it’s your ancestry, but I feel it too. You speak, and every part of me wants to believe you. You smile, and I want to smile too. Elizabeth waited for you for ten years, convinced that it would happen. No one is that patient. Your mother is obsessed with you. So was Mary.”

  “What about you?”

  “I think if I spend too much time around you, it would affect me too.”

  “I can’t always control it, Rose.” At least he acknowledged what strange compulsion he had over women.

  “What Mary did is on her.” Falling for a man shouldn’t make you murderous. A fascinating man the Duke was, but neither his fiancé, nor however many other conquests he’d had over the years, had left a trail of bodies in their wake.

  “I would like to see more of you.”

  It seemed particularly unsafe to see too much of Darrien.

  “I’m exhausted. Please, I need to rest.”

  “I won’t go far.”

  He left.

  I slept again and stayed put in the Dreamscape. I woke after a few hours; a doctor had come to check on me and so had Chief Inspector Caudroy. The doctor gave me drugs. The good kind. The doctor placed a pill in a chute, pushed a button, and the pill pulverized. He poured a glass of apple juice and dumped the powdered pill into the drink.

  The Chief sat down. “Beaumont.”

  “Chief Inspector,” I greeted him. I downed my medicine with a small shudder.

  “I’m glad to see you in one piece, Detective.”

  “Glad to be in one piece.”

  The doctor snorted. “Lucky, is more like it.”

  “The Duke gave the Agency an official thanks for our work on the case. You’ve got an award sitting on your desk back at the station,” Caudroy said.

  “I will be welcome back in the station?”

  Caudroy nodded.

  “Glad that I didn’t get thrown under the bus this time, sir.”

  “There’s always next time, Beaumont,” he quipped.

  I hoped he was joking.

  Ian handed me some forms, statements and reports I hadn’t finished. “While you’re away from the office, you might as well do something useful.”

  I was pleased not to be losing my job at least. I was rather good at it.

  Sleepiness tugged at me, but the doctor was still looming over me when the Chief left. “You’re going to be scarred for life, young lady.”

  “I saw the damage in the mirror.”

  “Animancy kept you alive, but I doubt anyone will be able to reduce these welts.”

  “Give me a few weeks,” the Duke said. He leaned against the door, preening much like a cat.

  I hissed and pulled my sheets over my naked feet. “A woman ought to be alone when consulting with a doctor, Darrien.”

  “Even Your Grace won’t fix these scars that fast.” The old man shook his head. “But what do I know, I’m just a doctor who’s been patching people up for forty years. Go ahead and burn your Anima out trying.”

  The doctor left.

  Darrien looked at me. “I swear, I’ll restore your face, Rose.”

  “It’s just a face, Darrien. I’m happy to be breathing.”

  He shook his head and left.

  I wondered if being repulsive would be the true breaking point for him. The man did like a pretty lady. I was no longer that.

  I spent a day in bed, eating soup and demurring.

  Darrien didn’t interrupt again.

  I wanted him to.

  The next morning, I departed the Duke’s suites and returned to my own bed. Mrs. Davies made a fuss about me, and that was nice. It was nice to be fussed over.

  By the time I was up and walking again, Charlie’s had mother stopped by to pick up a few mementos of her daughter. I cleaned out Charlie’s room. Most of the clothing had been left for me.

  I walked with a limp, and the scars were rather prominent around my face. The skin was ugly, uneven, and one eye was a little milky. I expected I was lucky to have vision back at all. A good Animancer might be able to reduce the scars and the swelling.

  The question was, did I want him to?

  Monday Morning, the phone rang.

  Mrs. Davies had made coddled eggs and ham with pickled relish. She made the relish herself. I suspected I was to miss breakfast.

  I answered the phone and shooed Mrs. Davies off. “Detective Inspector Beaumont here.”

  “Beaumont, I’m sending you to Glasgow.” Caudroy didn’t sound happy.

  “What’s in Glasgow?” I asked.

  “Vampires.”

  That was never good.

  “What about Puttick?”

  “Puttick hasn’t caught that damn Lideric yet. I need a closer on this. You’re it.” There was a barked rush to his orders.

  “I’ll need an hour to pack, sir.”

  “Understood. I’ll book train tickets.”

  I hung up and eyed off the breakfast Mrs. Davies had prepared. I could probably spare time and eat breakfast.

  Vampires were a problem. It had to be a confirmed report, or the Chief wouldn’t send me there on such short notice. I had two-weeks of recovery to get through and I was only one week in.

  I sat down under her pleased eye and picked up the knife and fork.

  The doorbell rang.

  Mrs. Davies scurried to get it.

  “Rose, dearie,” she called.

  I took a sip of tea, shaking my head.

  Darrien Montagu stood in the hall, crushing his hat in his hands. It was raining outside, and water dripped from the hem of his cape.

  I hadn’t seen him in almost six days.

  I’d started to thi
nk it would be the last of him.

  “What if I want you to spend too much time with me?” he said.

  “Darrien, the problem with magic like that, it only goes one way.” I waved Mrs. Davies away. “How could any woman know if you loved her? I am sure that is what began to eat at Mary as well. Obsession isn’t a good magic.”

  He touched my face. “Let me stay around then.”

  “Around a scarred face like this?”

  “The wounds don’t bother me, Rose.”

  “I won’t put up with you philandering. I’ll dump you in a heartbeat if I find you in the bed of another woman.”

  “Rose, when I’m around you, I don’t want any other woman.”

  “Did you say as much to Mary while you were promising yourself to Elizabeth?”

  “No. Damnit Rose, yes or no?”

  “Your mother would kill me.”

  “We can elope.” Panic ate at his tone.

  He had a wild look in his eyes.

  I knew he was trouble when he first showed up in the office. Now here he was, standing on my doorstep, telling me something ridiculous.

  Every inch of my body vibrated with an urge to say no. Every ounce of my being begged me that this man was wrong, that he was no good.

  I was fooling myself. All I felt was lust, all he had was a pretty face—and in a year or two, that would fade, and I’d be stuck with a no-good liar.

  How long would his disregard for my wounds last? I couldn’t walk down the street without people staring in shock at the scars.

  His mother had warned me away from him, maybe not for my good, but certainly she wasn’t wrong—we weren’t a match.

  I stared at him out of working eyes and knew he’d been the one holding my body together while other people ran to get doctors. I knew Animancy pains must have laced through him, but he’d held me alive. For days. Who knew how long until the injuries hadn’t been life-threatening.

  I might not heal the scars.

  My father would tell me that this rich idiot would use me up and spit me out. I’d be giving up my reputation as a virtuous woman if I was social with him and Darrien decided to call it off.

  I had no guarantees here.

  My lips fluttered. My body felt strangely light.

  “Shut up and kiss me. Damn you, Darrien Montagu.”

  He smiled, that bright, terrible smile of his.

  His arms wrapped around my waist and he kissed me, long, deep, needfully.

  It was a good kiss. I’d never had one like it.

  We stood in that hall, rain from his hat dampening my hair, my breakfast getting cold and Mrs. Davies spying on us from the kitchen. Not an inch of it mattered. He tasted like coffee and eggs. He smelled like damp wool and steam-engine fuel. His chin was rough, and the shadow of a beard scratched against my bottom lip.

  A small laugh bubbled in my chest before I pulled back, cursing. “You ought to know I’ve got to go sort out some vampires in Glasgow today.”

  “I’ll book a ticket.”

  ~The End.

  By day, Kristy works as an IT Project Coordinator. She wanted to be a fairy princess when she grew up but sadly discovered that the job was no longer on the market. Instead, she embarked on a career to at least write about princesses in castles and grand adventures. She lives in Canberra, Australia, with an abundance of old comics and cute anime figurines. She fell in love with anime so much, she spent 9 years learning Japanese through High School and University.

  By night, Kristy is a hippy and foodie, enjoying the life of a city-bred lady and trying all the latest restaurants and foodie crazes she can. She is most at home throwing money around in a handcrafts market, eating gourmet chocolate, discussing the various ramen recipes between restaurants and browsing second-hand bookstores for undiscovered gems. She is a consummate spinster and lover of animals, but has yet to receive a crazy cat lady starter kit.