Redeemer

by C. E. Murphy

  "So we'll find that pay phone. Stop looking at me like that, Rosie. This is the only smart thing to do. They find out you're involved in another death, and at the best, they'll be on you like a hawk, watching everything you do. What if you have to fight another demon? How can you do that with the cops watching?"

  "What if they find out anyways? This is all—this is real bad, Jean. What we're doing here, it's …" Rosie shook her head, but Jean barked laughter.

  "Which part of it? Hiding the evidence? Or demons trying to kill you? Demons managing to kill Ruby and all those other girls? I believed you anyway." Jean's fierce tones went thin. "Maybe because I wanted to, because maybe it's easier to accept a real true monster killed her than just some awful person. That'd almost be worse. So I believed you anyway. But seeing that thing, Rosie…What was it?"

  "I don't know. Some kind of screaming demon. Like you couldn't figure that out yourself," Rosie said softly. "I don't know. I'll ask Hank. The pay phone is up there."

  "Don't ask him on the phone!"

  Rosie gave Jean a withering look as she pulled the car over. Jean waved it off and sank back in the driver's seat to wait for Rosie to make the call.

  The nickel dropped with a clunk that reminded Rosie of the time clock at work. Tears sprang to her eyes again, and she gripped the phone's heavy black handset, staring wide-eyed down the street so the tears wouldn't fall. She'd just killed her second person in three days, but losing her dumb job made her cry. The whole world felt turned on end.

  The pleasant British accent that answered the phone didn't help that either. Rosie startled, almost dropping the handset, like she'd forgotten she'd even been making a phone call. The woman said, "Hello?" a second time before Rosie got her throat clear enough to say, "Hi, is Hank home?"

  Delight filled the woman's voice, just like it had last time. "I do like hearing a girl calling for him. Just a moment, I'll get him for you."

  "I'm not …" Rosie shaped the words more than said them, and sighed, pressing her forehead against the phone box's scarred surface. At this time of day, it hadn't heated up to sizzling yet, and the steel felt almost cool against her skin. It smelled like warm metal, though. Warm metal and too many hands touching it. Rosie straightened, repulsed enough that she didn't feel like crying anymore.

  "This is Hank."

  "Oh! Hank, thank gosh. It's Rosie. Rosie Ransom. I have to see you right away."

  "Rosie?" Surprise filled Hank's voice, although he tempered it right away. "I'm glad you called. I've been looking forward to hearing from you. What can I do for you?"

  Rosie frowned at the phone, astonished at how casual he sounded, then realized his mother might be nearby and eavesdropping. "I can't tell you on the phone, but it's an emergency. Can you meet me somewhere? Somewhere private?"

  Hank chuckled. "There's an offer a guy doesn't get every day. Sure. You could swing by here if you wanted to."

  "Are you sure? It's kind of a big mess."

  "No, it's fine, no trouble. Come on by. Let me give you directions. Got a pencil?"

  "No. Is it hard to get there?"

  "No, just come on up Lakeshore and turn at the marina. You'll see it. Got that?"

  "I guess I'll find another phone and call if I don't. We'll see you in a while." Rosie hung up as the operator blared that she would need to deposit another nickel soon, and got back in the car to rattle directions off to Jean before she forgot them.

  "Nice part of town," Jean breathed. Rosie nodded and rucked her shirt up to look at her ribs, which hardly hurt at all anymore. A faintly yellow stain, edged with green, made a block between her floating ribs, with no evidence of the black discoloration she expected to see rising. She prodded at the kidney she'd taken the hard kick in and winced but didn't get dizzy from pain. Jean glanced at her. "How's it look? Hospital first?"

  "No, I'm…fine?" Rosie twisted, keeping her shirt pulled up as she displayed her ribs and lower back to Jean. "Am I fine?"

  Jean glanced at her again, then over her shoulder to check traffic before pulling back onto the road. "Old bruising there, like you got hit really hard a week or ten days ago. Rosie, twenty minutes ago, you could hardly stand up."

  Rosie felt her back again, then peered down at her ribs a second time. "I know. That was real, right? I…I could hardly stand up." She kept feeling the bruises, tenderness vanishing under the pressure. "I think I'm healing really fast. Really fast. Holy bean, Jean. Hank didn't say anything about this!"

  "If you ever say ‘holy bean, Jean' again, Ro, I'll …" Jean shook her head, falling short on threats. "Count yourself lucky, I guess. You should be laid up for a week, with the beating you took."

  "I guess it'd be pretty crummy for a demon slayer to get so beat up, she couldn't fight back," Rosie whispered. "I guess that's not a problem."

  "Oh, you're a slayer now," Jean said with a faint smile. "Very impressive."

  "Redeemer sounds so…it sounds so…it sounds okay when someone else says it. It sounds silly to say it myself."

  "But ‘demon slayer' sounds okay?"

  Rosie blushed. "No, that sounds pretty silly too."

  "Besides," Jean said, more fiercely. "I slayed that one. You just…you just finished the job."

  "I don't know how you can slay something and need somebody else to finish the job," Rosie protested, but she nodded anyways. "You did. You saved me, Jean. Thank you."

  "You got Goode for me." Jean spoke in a near-snarl. "Call it even."

  Rosie nodded again and folded her knuckles against her mouth, looking out the window. Detroit looked hazy in the morning light, sunshine not yet able to burn it off, or more likely, coal dust from the factories hanging too heavily in the air for a clear day. Somehow days like that made the heat seem worse, but it hadn't rained in ages and the sky seemed yellower every time the sun rose. "They fired me," she said to the window, and Jean startled so hard the big Oldsmobile wavered on the road.

  "They what? Why?"

  "Having a killer on the floor is too frightening." Rosie kept pressing her knuckles against her mouth even though it muffled her words. It kept her from crying, too, which felt more important.

  Jean's silence drew out forever, until she finally said, "That's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm sorry, Ro. What're you gonna do? When does Rich come home?"

  Rosie let out a short cry, not a sob and not a shout but the worst parts of both of them, a sound too big to fit in her chest that hurt coming out. Jean flinched enough to hit the brakes and Rosie covered her face with her hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I don't know, Jean. I don't know when he's coming home and I don't know what I'm going to do but him coming home isn't the answer to that! I love him, I do, but I just—I just don't want that to be all I get or have or do in my life! I don't want to depend on a man. I love my life, Jean. I…loved it. And it's all gone now."

  Jean gave her a side-eyed glance. "You love him so much but you don't want to depend on a man. Are you in love with him, Ro, or do you just love him?"

  "I don't know that anymore either," Rosie said miserably. "I was in love like crazy when he left, Jean, but that was such a long time ago. Everything's different now. People change. They want different things than they used to. Don't they?"

  "Yeah." Jean slid another glance Rosie's way. "Rosie, don't get me wrong, but you're so determined to make it on your own and not have to rely on your solider coming home.…Are you the sporty type?"

  "The sporty type?" Rosie's eyebrows drew down. "Gosh, I don't know. I went to football games and things in high school and who doesn't follow the Tigers, but I don't really think so?"

  The corner of Jean's mouth quirked. "No, I guess not."

  "Are you? I guess you're pretty determined to get by without a soldier too."

  The car rolled to a stop at a sign as Jean put one hand over her mouth like she was trying to wipe away a smile. "Yeah. Yeah, Rosie. I'm the sporty type."

  "What teams do you like?"

  Jean burst out laughing and put the
car back into gear while Rosie blinked at her in astonishment. Jean glanced her way, laughed again, and turned her attention back to the road, still smiling. "I like the Tigers too, Ro. Who doesn't?"

  Rosie smiled uncertainly and Jean's own smile faded away into something sadder. "That's the first time I've laughed since Ruby died. I didn't think I would so fast. Thanks, Ro."

  "You're welcome," Rosie said, still uncertainly.

  Jean leaned over to squeeze her knee. "I mean it. Thanks. And I'm sorry I asked about Rich in regards to what you're going to do. I ought to know better than just about anybody what it's like to have people expect you're going to turn around and rely on a man when it's the last thing you want to do. You'll land on your feet, Rosie. I'm really sorry they fired you, that's just dumb, but you'll land on your feet. Wait, what road are we supposed to turn on?"

  "He just said the marina. Did you see a sign for it?" Rosie looked out the window, searching for landmarks.

  "Yeah, just another few minutes. I hope your new friend knows what to do."

  "He will," Rosie said with confidence born of having no other options. A minute later Jean turned the car down a tree-lined avenue, both of them glancing up in admiration before keeping an eye out for their next turn. It came later than Rosie expected, and the drive meandered a distance toward the water before a corner brought them up to a set of steel gates half again Rosie's height. A familiar, stylized V had been cut out of the gate bars, right at the center, so it would split in half when the gates opened to offer admission.

  Jean killed the engine and they both stared at the V until Jean found her voice. "Your boyfriend is Hank Vaughn?"

  "He's n…" After the breath of protest, Rosie didn't bother, just stared again, and finally smacked her head back against the headrest. "Son of a…He didn't…I didn't know, Jean, I swear I didn't kn…But he…Oh, that…Oooh!" She stomped her feet in the foot well, feeling like a kid who'd been tricked out of a treat. "He brought me up to the river on the Vaughn factory grounds on Friday night, well, Saturday morning, I guess, before I came to see you, and he said they knew him there and I thought it was because he was with the cops but oooh! The rat! That rat!"

  "Well, but didn't he tell you his last name? And you didn't put it all together?"

  "But he didn't! Detective Johnson just called him Hank and I never got his—oh, the gates are opening, oh, gosh, Jean, what do we do? I could kill him, I swear, Jean!"

  "Maybe he just wanted to get to know you without having the Vaughn family name hanging over it all." Jean started up the car again and they crept forward through the gates. "I mean, it's probably not every day he meets a nice girl who doesn't have a bunch of notions about what a Vaughn ought to be like and who also kills demons while she's off shift from the factory."

  "But I wouldn't have any idea what a Vaughn should be like!"

  "Yeah? What's Harrison Vaughn like?"

  "A womanizer," Rosie said promptly. "Smart and suave, rich as sin and doesn't care who he steps on to get what he wants. He gives enough to charity to look good but you can bet he's keeping millions more where nobody's looking."

  "Sure," Jean said with a brief smile. "No notions at all."

  "Well, but—but that's different! He's in the papers all the time!"

  "And if your dad was in the papers like that all the time?"

  Rosie muttered and gave Jean a brief, baleful look of understanding her point before they reached the house. It had to be three times the size of the place Rosie shared with five other girls, never mind the pretty little two-bedroom home she'd grown up in. Jean stopped the car again and they both gazed out its windshield, counting windows and balconies. "It's three stories tall," Rosie whispered, and Jean, obviously fighting off a sudden bout of giggles, grabbed Rosie's hand like it would help her stop laughing. The main building, at least, stood three stories tall: its two wings were only two stories, but the whole flat-roofed building gleamed white with black accents, beautifully imposing. Huge windows lined the wings, though on one side the second floor had doors that opened onto a broad deck kept safe by sharply decorative railing. The top of the main wing had the same kind of railing, suggesting a deck up there, too.

  The front door—doors, they were double and recessed under a pillared entryway with a curling facade—swung open and Hank Vaughn came out, looking fresh and handsome in a blue-and-yellow knit shirt and tan trousers. At home and informal, he didn't wear a hat, so his gold hair gleamed in the midday light, and he came down the three or four steps leading to the front door so easily it took Rosie a few seconds to realize he'd come down them in a way that favored his right knee but still looked fluid and flawless. The limp was more in evidence as he crossed to Jean's car, and his surprised gaze caught Rosie's through the windshield before she got out of the car. "You didn't tell me you were in company."

  "I said we would see you in a while. You remember Jean, right, Mister Vaughn? Jean-Marie Diaz?"

  An expression of pain flickered over Hank's face as she emphasized his name, but he smiled briefly for Jean. "Of course I do. I'm glad to see you out, Miss Diaz. How are you?"

  Jean shrugged one shoulder. "I wouldn't be here if Rosie didn't need me."

  Hank nodded. "And it seems both of you need me. What's wrong?" He glanced over his shoulder, smiling, then turned a much grimmer expression back on the girls. "My parents will want you to come in, and if you're not in quick, they'll come out here, so what is it?"

  "Are they watching?" Rosie asked in alarm.

  "I doubt it. We've had a visitor over the weekend and they're saying their goodbyes now, but he'll be out shortly and so will they. What is it, Miss Ransom?"

  "Show him, Jean."

  Jean got out of the car to open its trunk. Hank followed her, his forehead marked with a frown line that worsened as he got a look inside the trunk. "Good God. Close that. What happened?"

  "I got called to the factory, got fired, and got attacked by a screaming demon when I left. She said she'd been waiting for the Redeemer to come back and she'd be legendary for killing me." Rosie shuddered suddenly, the impact of that threat finally hitting her.

  "She beat the hell out of Rosie," Jean carried on, "and I came running and shoved the rebar through her chest and Rosie Redeemed her and we cleaned up—well, I did, because Rosie couldn't hardly move—and we called you. What is she?"

  "You cleaned up?"

  "I got the body into the car and rinsed down the ground. There were drains around, all the blood went into them, and the ground will be dry by now."

  Hank, sounding very English, said, "Well done, Miss Diaz," then passed his hand through his hair, ruffling the tidy golden cut. "We call her type ochim."

  "More Latin?" Rosie muttered.

  "Hebrew, actually. It means—well, it means doleful beast, but the root comes from a word that means crying or howling." Hank shifted his shoulders in something between embarrassment and a shrug as Rosie gazed at him in disbelief. "You asked, Miss Ransom. Are you all right?"

  "Fine," Rosie whispered. "I guess I healed right up. You know anyth—no, you don't, do you," she guessed from the way his eyebrows elevated again. "I'm going to have to learn everything about being a Redeemer the hard way, aren't I?"

  "Not if we can get what's going on in Detroit sorted and I'm able to request access to the full archives without betraying your presence here. Miss Diaz, I can…take care of this, but I'll have to borrow your car, which means we're going to have to concoct a reason for you to be lending it to me at noon on a Sunday. My parents are somewhat removed from the tedium of the working-class life, but I doubt either of them would think a mechanic is working on Sunday afternoon."

  "We could just be coming by to pick you up for lunch at the diner," Rosie pointed out. "You don't have to drive off mysteriously in Jean's car. We could all go."

  "Do you really want to go with me to dump a body, Miss Ransom?"

  "I thought the idea was to get you away from your parents without them suspecting why, Mr Vaughn. Wh
at we do once we're past your long, impressive driveway doesn't really matter, does it?"

  "You're mad at me, aren't you. Look, Rosie, it's just that people always—they expect things of me when I'm Harrison Vaughn, Jr. It's just…It's nice to be my own man once in a while."

  Beside Rosie, Jean caught her breath like she'd say I told you so, but Rosie snapped, "Just not so much of your own man that you don't take advantage of dropping by the Vaughn factories in the middle of the night for some quiet time by the river," over any chance Jean might have of making commentary.

  Hank's shoulders dropped. "Would you be less angry if I'd taken you somewhere that someone might overhear us?"

  "Detroit's a big city, Hank. There are a lot of quiet corners that don't include your daddy's property."

  "Fight about it later," Jean said quietly. "They're coming out. Everybody smile, kids!"

  Funnily enough, they did, all three of them, like suddenly they were best buddies. Jean pushed her hands into her pockets and leaned against the Oldsmobile's trunk, while Rosie folded her hands behind her back and smiled up at Hank, who grinned at both the girls like they'd just said something funny.

  A four-door Cadillac, its enormous engine rumbling deeply enough to shake the ground, pulled up the driveway as two men and a woman came down the steps outside the house. Rosie recognized all three of them: Harrison and Valentine Vaughn from the society pages, and the third man from somewhere she couldn't place. He was thick and tall, with a square-jawed, oily handsomeness that looked like he worked at it. His black hair shone with tonic and his olive skin looked sweaty in the early afternoon heat, even from a distance of several yards. He seemed too young to be jowly, but he carried it well, taking advantage of its hint of gravitas.

  The Vaughns looked straight out of the pictures, especially Mrs Vaughn, who wore her sunshine-blond hair in shoulder-length waves a decade out of style but perfect for her high cheekbones and long jaw. Her tailored day dress made her waist look spannable by two hands. Harrison Vaughn, taller and sandier-haired, had a nervous energy about him, suiting a strong build that reminded Rosie he'd been an amateur boxing champion in his youth. Rosie couldn't help looking between the son and his parents, seeing elements of both of them in him.