by D. R. Perry
So that leaves me alone with the unluckiest man alive. Maybe. I mean, if you've read as many of the Dresden Files books as I have, you might beg to differ on the question of who’s the guy with the worst fortune.
Helping a partially levitated and functionally drunk man up three flights of stairs is harder than it sounds. Okay, maybe it's exactly as hard as it sounds if you know anything about floating objects and wrangling almost unconscious people.
Frankie bumps into the banister, the wall, the light fixtures, the ceiling, and the door to one of the second floor apartments. I freeze, afraid the occupant will wake up and be angry about a seemingly drunk man knocking on his door at zero dark thirty in the morning. I pick up the pace. If we're both gone before that happens, he won't have anyone to complain to.
I maneuver Esther's wayward uncle to my apartment door but it's much trickier getting him inside. Well, it's unlocking and opening the door without him putting his eye out by floating into the wall sconce or all the way up to the vaulted ceiling that's really the problem. The last thing I want to do is use the powder on myself. As I fumble with my keys one-handed, an unexpected solution to all my navigation problems presents itself.
My door opens.
I don't freak out because coming home to an uninvited guest in the apartment I call The Belfry isn't unusual. At least not for me. There's only one person it could possibly be at this hour, anyway.
"Hullo Tino."
"A little help would be nice, Stephanie."
"Hmm. No thank you." She steps aside. Again, I'm not surprised.
Stephanie is the opposite of helpful as a general matter of course when it comes to anything physical. Has been for the entire two months I've known her. She's single-handedly responsible for most of my own personal issues, beginning with the fact that I'm a vampire. As the one who turned me, she has the right to enter my house without an invitation. Technically she owns everything in it, including me. Yes, this is true even though a couple of weeks ago I got my status as a full member of vampire society in a bizarre Trial ceremony thing I don’t have time to explain right now.
Did I just say she wasn’t helpful at all? I’m wrong. She’s got a pot of blood on and I’m thirsting like woah. Fortunately for me, Frankie smells about as appetizing as a piece of paper which is to say not one bit. He doesn’t have a foul odor but what I can smell of the blood pumping through his veins reminds me of reptiles or maybe even fish. Vampires get the most out of blood from mammals. Or maybe marsupials, too. I have no way of knowing but if I ever make friends with an Aussie vamp and hear first-hand stories about being able to live off drop bears and kangaroos, I’ll be sure to let you know first thing.
Anyway, while thinking about vampires in the land down under, I managed to wrangle my hinky house guest into the cozy chair reserved for my incurable reading habit. Which Stephanie happens to share. This gives me a small dollop of satisfaction because I can tell Stephanie was sitting in it just before she opened the door. As I repeat the gestures Esther used to make Frankie stop floating, I notice the book sitting on the side-table beside the lamp. she’s got it marked about halfway through.
It’s Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft.
The idea of that one creeps me out so much I’ve never actually read it. Why she’s got it out is a mystery I won’t bother trying to solve. Everything my sire does is cryptic, which makes sense on account of us being born in different millennia. I head straight to the kitchen for some blood from the coffee maker, past where Steph sits at the dinky breakfast table that still takes up too much room in here. Yeah, it’s a studio apartment. Luckily, my bed’s in the closet with a light-blocking curtain where the double folding doors used to be, so at least I get some privacy and extra safety from the sun.
As I pour warmed blood into my second favorite mug (she’s drinking out of my favorite one, of course), I sigh and shake my head. Last month, the book Steph had me wrapped up in like melon slices in prosciutto was The Scarlet Pimpernel. I ended up confronting and stopping a masked assassin. If she’s currently recommending horror by Lovecraft, I don’t want to ask what she thinks might be in store.
Still, there’s nothing better to do, so why not have a chat about a classic of the horror genre?
But she doesn’t give me the chance.
“Why are you storing that in here?” Stephanie’s eyebrow isn’t in any danger of touching the ceiling but that’s got more to do with how she’s five foot nothing than how far it’s migrated up her forehead.
“Um, what?” I can’t even imagine what she’s talking about. The Belfry isn’t a storage unit, and I didn’t bring anything in with me.
“That.” She points at Frankie. I realize she's engaging in dehumanizing speech and calling him a thing. Uncool.
“Oh, he’s just Esther’s uncle.” I shrug. “You know, my magician friend with the cussing and the alchemy.”
“Is that all she told you?” Stephanie makes a clucking sound. "Oh Tino. You're so naive."
“Yeah well she’s got no reason to lie.” I’m not in the mood to hear one of my friends trash another, especially when they haven’t even met.
Stephanie turns her head, looking at the wall for half a moment. She doesn’t do anything so juvenile as rolling her eyes or as crass as snorting. She’s been classy with a capital C the entire time I’ve known her. Well, except for the part where she referred to a down-on-his-luck human being as a thing just now. But that should only serve to make me pay attention. Any time my sire does something outside the realm of normal for her, it’s been followed by some serious shit going down.
“Okay so Esther’s exactly as trustworthy to me as I am to her.” I lean back and take a long gulp from the blood in my cup. “Which is like, almost microscopic.”
“Microscopically.” There’s good old normal Stephanie again. Correcting my grammar. “And that’s why you ought to be extremely careful in your dealings with her.” She wrinkles her nose. “I’ll bet young master Fitzpatrick has as much apprehension about that thing as I do.”
“You know, he’s got a name.” I emphasize the pronoun. It’s not right to talk about a human being like they aren't one.
“That’s all part of its appearance.” Stephanie’s giving me the fishiest eye that ever resembled a fish.
“Look, Frankie was staggering around the studio building like a drunk, trying to ask his niece for help. According to Scott, it's not alcohol, it's magic. So somebody hurt the guy. And Esther's doing alchemy for a case we’re on so I’m watching him until she’s done. That’s all.”
“Hmm. I suppose you are a product of your time and generation.” Stephanie turns her head and looks at me out of the corner of one eye. At least the gaze doesn’t come down her nose. “My comments stand, regardless of what you might think about their delivery.”
“Do they have anything to do with your reading material?” I glance at Shadows Over Innsmouth and then back at her face again.
“Astute, Valentino.” She grins.
“So, what are we looking at here?” I set my cup on the table, figuring she can’t be giving me a hint that’s literally about fish people. But I’ve heard the book has more subtle themes. “Cults of personality? Mass hysteria?”
“What happened last time I recommended a good book to you?”
“Um, I had to read it? And take notes.” I lean back in my chair. “It helped me figure out what to do, in the end.”
She drains her cup, then stands. “I’ve got no stomach to stay and chat while—” She snaps her fingers, as though searching for the something other than the right word she doesn't want to use even though nothing else in the English language fits Frankie. For once, she fails. “He remains. Please contact me when you’ve no longer got this houseguest.”
My sire leaves without another word. Also without even putting my favorite cup into the sink. And she had the nerve to complain about the dude who’s asleep. Except he’s not sleeping. Not anymore.
Frankie hasn’t moved
his body, only opened his eyes. It’s a bit creepy, the way they follow me. Well, no. That’s not really true because this reminds me of Scooby Doo and other cheesy horror or mystery shows with the goofy paintings that have people hiding behind them. And I’m a vampire so I’ve got no reason to get creeped out by something so campy. It's supposed to be other people getting creeped out by me.
As much as I try to do something constructive with the biological changes that make me into a monster, I still am one. Only technically because I still feel guilty and say sorry when I screw up. But anyway, being a monster means that when it comes to dealing with potentially dangerous humans, I’m allowed to act totally fearless. I've really got to start owning that.
“So Frankie,” I say. “What the fuck is up with you, man?”
He doesn’t reply or even blink. But his mouth drops open and he lets out the most heinous croaking belch I’ve ever heard or smelled in either of my lives. It’s as though with one eructation, he turned the atmosphere in my apartment into a fish market operating in late afternoon during the hottest day of the year.
I wrinkle my nose. My eyes would water, too, but since I’m a vampire, that doesn’t happen so much. “Let’s get you into the bathroom, buddy. Can you stand?”
“Tryin’.” His feet are on the floor but when he tries putting weight on them the rest of his body threatens to follow the bottom of him down.
I get an arm under the poor unsteady guy and remember that tendency Frankie has to be off-balance. It’s puzzling as all get out, too. How does he function if he has no center of gravity? And who ever heard of a human who defies the laws of physics this way. Or at least seems to. I’m not well-versed on the scientific kind of laws, just the kind police enforce. Maybe it has something to do with what happened to him, the bad mojo. Or the smell. Or both.
One good thing about living in a studio apartment is that it takes only a handful of steps to get from one side of it to the other. Frankie’s in the bathroom before I can lose my balance too and tumble us both on to the floor. Once he’s in there, the man does the most natural thing in the world for a human.
He drops trou.
I turn away because it’s a dick move to stare at a dude while he’s on the can. And also out of a sense of superstition. Last month, my unlife-threatening troubles began with a man in distress while on the john. Supernatural creatures don’t generally believe in coincidences.
Even though I give the guy a little privacy that bad luck feeling has overruled any ideas I might have had about walking out and shutting the door. This means my ears get a front-and-center listening experience as he does his business.
My inside voice doesn’t break free with any of those thoughts, thank goodness. When Frankie’s done, I hear a flush and a rustle of clothes. Thinking it’s safe to face him again, I do. But as it turns out that’s a bad idea.
Frankie’s in the altogether. By that I mean, he’s wearing his birthday suit. Catching a breeze around his knees. Bare-ass naked. His clothes sit in a sad and faded black heap. I look only at his face because the last thing I want to see is Esther’s uncle’s skinny backside.
I’m about to exit stage left, but he groans in genuine pain. His hand is on the side of the shower and his eyes are wide with some sort of hurt and red-rimmed with an impending deluge of utter misery. And that’s when I see them. The marks and the other stuff on his body, things that don’t make sense.
And that’s why I do everything in my power to stop my naturally inquisitive mind from going down any dark paths. Instead, I let my body act, reaching out to turn the shower on and draw the curtain after the poor young man gets in. I pick up his discarded clothes and leave the bathroom because no matter where I go in my apartment, I’m still close by in case he falls down or whatever. I’m fast enough to get in and help him, even by vampire standards. Turns out I’m speedier than all of my vamp peers and even some of the elders.
As I bag his shirt, pants, shorts, and socks in a large evidence sack, my brain turns back on now that Frankie’s busy in the shower. It’s easier to think about what’s so horribly wrong with him now that I don’t have to look at it. He’s in rough shape and it has nothing at all to do with inebriation from alcohol. At least that’s what I gather, so I sit on my bed trying to take stock of everything I saw.
Half-inch cuts covered most of the poor guy’s belly, upper thighs, stripes across his back, and some of his chest. A slimy glistening substance either covered or oozed out of them, deep purple where blood should have made a ruddy tint. That's probably what was in his hair, the stuff I mistook for gel. The indigo slime almost completely covered Frankie across his groin. Gunmetal gray scales clung to that, some sticking either into or out of his flesh. And all of this clung to his body without much smearing even through the clothes and his misadventures in the studio and on the way here.
Snagging my notebook out of my nightstand, I jot all of that down. Since I’m so new to the idea that anything other than regular people even exist, this is stuff I’ll have to look into with those in the know. But I think I understand now why everyone’s flipping out about poor Frankie. And I’m not likely to get far unless I can find some friendlier sources.
Whatever left him such a mess is a type of creature so universally reviled, both vampires and werewolves are reluctant to even speak words describing or naming it. Either that or there's some sort of compulsion. Or maybe a little of both. Out of my three closest supernatural contacts, only Esther seems remotely tolerant. And she still kicked her own uncle out of her working space the moment she had the chance.
So, I either need to chat up a magician who’s not busy cooking up spells, or a vampire with less prejudice against even the victims of whatever the slime-covered scale monster is. I grab my phone and send out a text. It’s getting near dawn so I don’t expect a response. But that’s fine by me. I don’t want to ask directly about Frankie’s trauma while he’s here recovering from it, probably phrasing both stupid and upsetting questions in the process.
I put the notebook away and my phone on the charger. Then, I rummage through my dresser and the coat closet, trying to find a change of clothes for the supernatural rape victim trying to get clean again in my shower. At least he’s leaner than I am so everything should fit. Once I have a shirt, gym shorts, boxers, and socks set on the bathroom vanity, I sit down to drink more of the heated blood from the coffee maker.
It’s going to be a long day.
The first thing I do when Frankie emerges from the bathroom, fully dressed in a t-shirt and my now totally useless gym shorts, is offer him my bed so he can catch some winks. Instead, he lowers himself into the seat across from me at the little breakfast table, rubs his eyes, and mumbles something about not wanting to owe a vampire because he knows we trade in favors.
“Look, Frankie.” I set the cup down and lean on the table, striking my best good-cop pose. “The whole fangs and blood gig is new to me but I’m an experienced investigator. I’m in business with my partners for plain old cash to help people like you, no vague future favors required.”
“People like me?”
“Yeah. Folks who are just going about their business and get caught in a supernatural shit-show.”
Frankie puts his hands on the table, palm up. On his left wrist are a web of scars; horizontal, vertical, diagonal. A semicolon, stark black, is inked over the convergence of the attempts he survived. He takes a deep breath, hanging his head. Tears rain on the table’s green faux marbleized veneer.
“Been caught my whole life.”
I’m silent, unable to think of something comforting to say. Part of this comes from the fact that I had a good life coming up as a regular mortal kid. The other part is straight out of Catholic dogma. Suicide’s a mortal sin and I can’t imagine any good Catholic attempting it once, let alone as many times as there are scars on Frankie’s wrist.
But he’s Esther’s uncle. That means he’s probably Jewish like her. I’m not well-versed on the nature of sin accordi
ng to the older faith, but that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that I stop making assumptions about Frankie’s situation and just give him the space to speak. Or breathe, cry, or scream if he has to.
I burn blood, using my vampiric speed to nab the box of Kleenex Scott left on the kitchen counter last time he was over. Once they’re on the table next to Frankie, I gulp down the remainder of the warm blood in my mug. I’m going to need a refill now but wait until he reaches out with one trembling hand to ease a tissue past the plastic barrier on top of the box.
Papery rustles echo in my ears as I carry my cup back to the coffee maker. The slow, deliberate action gives him time to compose himself with relative privacy. I pour the last of the warmed blood into the mug, then get a new bag from the fridge along with a bottle of water, another one of Scott’s recent additions.
This whole situation must have me more shaken up than I expected it to because I almost pour the water in the carafe instead of my bagged blood. Once I correct the impending mistake, I sit back down. When I place the water within Frankie’s reach, his left hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist.
“There’s nothing to investigate.” He looks up, amber eyes gleaming from above his hook nose and under his mop of freshly washed jet curls. He reminds me of my best friend, Maury Weintraub, about ten years ago. I realize Frankie isn't much older than Scott, not some strung-out guy in his late twenties. More like of age to enlist in the Army but not to buy a beer.
I don’t ask him for clarification or try to nay say him. Instead, I go with the hunch that comes at me from that fleeting moment of recognition. Some people need prompting, structure, interrogation. But my instinct tells me Frankie isn’t one of those. He just needs a chance to say his piece, something I’ve got the suspicion he hasn’t had for most of his life.
