Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files)

by A. J. Aalto

  I whispered, “Tell me there’s not half a revenant in that bag.”

  “Such a fuss you make,” he said. “You have already met our guest-to-be, Krystof Duchoslav, no middle name. Please do get on with it. I’m certain our medic friends would like to flee as soon as possible.” I opened my mouth to argue and Harry cut me off, prompting, “Krystof Duchoslav, you are…?”

  “Yes, I know how it goes,” I snapped. “What do you suggest we do with him?”

  “Wesley will care for Mr. Duchoslav during his recovery from this terrible incident,” Harry scolded, as though I were suggesting we dump him out back in the lake to sink or swim. “It will take your brother’s mind off his own injury.”

  “I—it’s just…” I floundered, and finally settled on, “Krystof Duchoslav, you are welcome in my home.”

  “Very nice, ducky.” Harry turned on the medics suddenly, who flinched at his eye-blurring speed. “Gentlemen, if you will kindly follow me into the basement.”

  Both paramedics stalled, and the Blue Sense opened to reveal a quiver of uncertainty tilting toward perfectly normal mortal fear. I’m sure that was Harry’s intention, and from the amused twinkle in his eye, he was enjoying toying with them. Harry stroked the kitten’s fuzzy belly and swept past me with a wink, Oxfords padding linoleum softly, leaving a lemony waft of 4711 cologne in his wake.

  I waved the paramedics in with a smile. “It’s okay, he’s just teasing; he won’t hurt you,” I assured them. “Thank you for bringing Mr. Duchoslav to Marnie’s All Night Vamp Camp cum Blood and Breakfast. I promise I almost never get people killed.” The Blue Sense reported that the humor wasn’t working. I spread my gloved hands as if to say no-weapons-for-realsies, although I’m sure it wasn’t me making them wary. “If it makes you feel safer, the guy at my kitchen table who looks like he’s auditioning for a porn reboot of Magnum P.I. is actually an FBI agent and vampire hunter.”

  The glaring blond in the rear got impatient and shoved the stretcher forward, bumping the guy who still wouldn’t look at me. Once in motion, they didn’t slow down. They hauled the stretcher past me into the pantry, where the door to Harry’s basement bedchamber was, and while they clattered down the stairs, pausing to lift the stretcher higher, and I returned to the kitchen to stare down Batten.

  He smirked around the mouth of his beer bottle, not bothering to hide his amusement.

  “Don’t even say a word,” I warned him. “I want to hear no words coming out of your blurt-hole right now, Pornstache McFucknoodle.”

  He shrugged mutely, but his smile grew. He drank, smacked his lips with satisfaction, and put the second bottle down next to his empty. He was silent through the exodus of men from the cellar. Ever the psychic null for me, he gave away no hints of his feelings, but I didn’t need any psychic Talents to pick up how hilarious he thought this development was. Apparently, I was running a hospice for wounded dead guys. Agent de Cabrera would encourage me to see the positives. I took a second to scrounge for some positivity. I came up with tax break for turning half my cabin into a mortuary and I certainly won’t be lonely at night, and gave myself two points for effort.

  “My heavens, Mr. Batten,” Harry exclaimed upon returning. “Firstly, I’ll thank you to remove that valise of murder and mayhem from my nice, clean table.” He stroked the cat’s belly then indicated with the same elegant brush of his hand at Batten’s hunting kit and his mustache. “Secondly, this follicular mockery of masculinity absolutely must not stand.”

  “I’ve been telling him it looks ridiculous,” I said, reclaiming my seat. I needed some espresso and a cookie, but no longer had the energy to fetch either. “Short of that, I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Nake the blade, Dearheart,” Harry advised, his solemnity negated somewhat by the subsequent diddling with Bobcat’s air-paddling paws, “and your agent shall pay the healsfang for his transgressions.”

  “Totally what I was planning next.” I nodded. “What does it mean?”

  “Never you mind. There is too much on the line here to entrust it to the likes of you. I’ll play the scaredevil for you, shall I?”

  I shifted my squint from Harry to Batten uncertainly. “Are we still talking about Batten’s face?”

  Harry huffed his displeasure at me.

  “Harry, your upper lip!”

  His pale hand flew to it.

  “Dear God, man, it’s not stiff!” I teased.

  “My cherub, I am an Englishman,” he chided, setting the kitten down. “Stiffness is not hard to come by.”

  “Too many jokes,” I choked, clutching the edge of the table. “Must…resist…”

  Harry touched my hair as he passed me on his way to the espresso machine, and gave me a gentle pat. A push of his tolerant sarcasm licked at me through the Bond. “Oh, how your comedy does share the bite of the Silver Maiden, my goose. Ripping good stuff.”

  I shrugged. “It was the best I could do this late.”

  “Should you require additional caffeine by cock-shut time, it is certainly not occasioned by any sort of neglect on my part.” When I opened my mouth to comment on cock-shut, he placed a single finger to his lips and shook his head. “Nevertheless, I shall be pleased to attend your needs whilst you explain this tomfoolery to me. Why is there a scruffy-lipped jingle-brains sitting at my kitchen table with murder in his gaze?”

  “Why is there a badly wounded revenant in my basement?” I volleyed.

  “Mr. Duchoslav lives without a DaySitter, love. Would you have me leave him to the ministrations of the sun?” Harry’s voice softened. “We may find that it would have been a kinder fate, in the end, to let him cast a final shadow, but your good sheriff said that you insisted quite fixedly upon saving Mr. Duchoslav, if possible. Only, I wonder if that was before you thought the life-saving might inconvenience you.”

  The worm of guilt squirmed in my belly; there wasn’t any reply I could give that wouldn’t make me sound like a total jerk, and Harry knew it.

  “Observe, won’t you, Mr. Batten, the generosity of my companion. A genuine angel of mercy,” Harry declared with satisfaction, and I knew the matter had been settled. Duchoslav was here until he recovered, or didn’t. “Now, kindly explain this situation.” Harry aimed a finicky grimace at Batten. “Shruff and cinders, it’s enough to curl one’s liver.”

  Batten looked at me for a translation. I mouthed curl one’s liver? with a baffled shrug.

  “The PCU is on forced vacation, Harry. As you can see,” I shook a leather-gloved thumb at Kill-Notch’s wild shirt and hairy mouth. “Batten’s more vacated than I am.”

  Harry’s thrice-pierced eyebrow inquired for him while he whisked the cinnamon duster from the cupboard and pulled fresh espresso into my demitasse cup. While Batten tucked his kit under his chair, I gave Harry a brief and fairly defensive explanation of Assistant Director Johnston’s concerns and the investigation of Internal Affairs, which degenerated quickly into F-bombs and enthusiastic arm-waving, with a moistly vigorous raspberry as an exclamation point. Batten and Harry exchanged a quiet moment of barely tolerant eye contact, during which they came to some agreement.

  “She has no idea how broken she is, does she?” Batten asked Harry.

  “Yes, I do,” I shot back.

  “One might suggest that it is her absolute lack of self-awareness which provides the comic fodder,” Harry said, placing the newly-filled mug in my hand.

  “I’m agreeing with a vampire,” Batten said, casually dropping the V-word again and helping himself to yet another beer. “There’s a first time for everything.” He tipped the beer toward Harry, who put one hand up to refuse the offer.

  “Thank you, no.” His eyes shifted subtly from cashmere grey to chrome and he eyeballed my throat. “I prefer a warmer libation.”

  Batten took his seat with a thud and a wince.

  “Don’t taunt the vampire hunter, Harry,” I said. “We were all getting along so nicely.”

  “Do forgive my behavior, Mr. Batte
n. How ungentlemanly of me,” he said without a trace of sincerity. “Now, dearest chickadee, I trust you had the opportunity to conclude your romantic pursuits to a satisfactory end?”

  I froze, wide-eyed, with my espresso at my mouth, and when I tried to answer it came out as, “Erp.”

  Batten cut his stormy blue eyes at me. Was it my imagination, or were they twinkling? “A date?” One corner of his lips twitched. “With a man?”

  I mumbled something to Harry about it being cut short, but he shushed me and leaned bodily toward Batten to report his gossip in an eager, conspiratorial rush.

  “Not a man. A lawyer.”

  Batten choked on his beer and had to put the bottle down to wipe foam off his retina-injuring Hawaiian shirt.

  Harry agreed with Batten’s unspoken assessment with a curt nod. “A solicitor,” he repeated. “Bezonter me! Who could have imagined a bootless jackleg sporting ivory at my darling minion over oysters?”

  “Bootless jackleg?” Batten said, looking at me for translation.

  I shrugged and added, “Sporting ivory?” to our mutual need-to-know list. I thought that might be a dick joke, but Binswanger hadn't been sporting anything elephantine as far as I'd been able to spot, except for his ego.

  “A lawyer,” Harry huffed again, in no mood to fill us in. “Which of course renders him unsuitable to kiss a whore, never mind my precious DaySitter.”

  “Harry!”

  “I cry you mercy, my love,” Harry said, working himself into a true drama king froth that really belonged on stage. “Oh, tell me that you did not allow him to press his poisonous lips to my pet’s sweet honey bud.”

  “Whoa! That better mean ‘mouth’, buster.”

  “My Own,” he said, clutching at his chest, where there was no beating heart to ache. “I could not bear the thought.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, letting my scowl answer for me. Through the Bond, I felt only Harry’s glee; confident in his role as my forever companion, he wasn’t the tiniest bit jealous, and was, in fact, delighted with the opportunity to tease me while baiting Batten. My Cold Company knew the lawyer wouldn’t last. He was allowing what he no doubt considered a harmless, dead-end dalliance until it was time to pounce and end it, like a tiger putting a gimpy antelope out of its misery with a final crunch.

  “A dreadful man,” Harry continued, “with all the warmth and sensitivity of a crocodile. I swear he files his teeth to points.”

  “He does not,” I cried. “Dick’s very clever. If not for him, I might have had to buy Le Pique Consolidated a brand new excavator.”

  Batten’s upper lip curled. “Not Binswanger?”

  “I do not question your need for good legal counsel on a continuous basis, my doe, no indeed,” Harry talked over him vehemently, “but why you thought it necessary to share lunch with such a man is beyond me. Can you understand it, Mr. Batten, truly?”

  Batten’s brow sank and he looked like he was lost in thought for a moment, staring directly at Harry. Harry looked back benignly, monitoring Batten’s shifting moods with an immortal’s experience and an empathic revenant’s effortless probing. I wished I could read Batten as easily as Harry did, but as always, Batten was a null for my psychic Talents. I wondered if Batten could feel the press of Harry’s mind upon his; if he could, he didn’t let it show.

  Finally, Batten inquired, “How’s his wardrobe outside of court?”

  “I prefer yours,” Harry replied, “and that includes today’s vulgar approach to fashion.”

  “That bad, huh?” Batten’s dark eyes glinted. “Good looking?”

  Harry drew an unnecessary breath, held it while he examined the ceiling as though the answer was written there, and then puffed out. “Not especially, no.”

  I stewed in my seat, wishing I could Stooge-clonk their heads together like Moe. “Looks aren’t everything,” I said, knowing it would go unheard.

  “Finances?” Batten asked.

  “Not unhealthy,” Harry admitted. “Six figures.”

  “Personality?”

  “Perfectly appalling. Of course, we must allow that there is the slimmest of possibilities that, being no jobbernowl, he is just the draught-horse capable of bearing this senticous burden,” Harry noted, tipping his head toward me to indicate something.

  “Who’s a what, now?” I demanded.

  Batten leaned his chair back and balanced it on two legs. “Full name?”

  “Richard Alexander Binswanger,” Harry said with distaste. “Dickie.”

  Batten met my gaze. “I’ll run him through the system.”

  “No you won’t, chucklehead!” I said, slapping the table.

  They did a fair job of keeping straight faces until the table slap. Their in-unison giggles at the apparently hilarious state of my dating life were a vast improvement over their mutual animosity of the past, but it was still damn annoying, coming, as it was, at my expense.

  The land line rang in the living room, and I swung out of my chair eager to be away from them, taking my hot espresso with me.

  Unfortunately, both chuckleheads followed.

  CHAPTER 3

  I SNATCHED THE phone up. “Marnie Baranuik, UnBio; you trap ‘em, we zap ‘em.”

  The person on the other end of the line wasted no time reacting to what I had said. He began smoothly, “Sorry, I won’t take up much of your time, Ms. Baranuik. My name is Constable Patrick Schenk, and I’m calling from Niagara—”

  “Home?” I nearly dropped my cup, but managed to set it on the coffee table before curling up on the couch. Then I pulled off my gloves and tossed them beside the cup. “You’re calling from home? Wow, hi. How’s the weather? I hear it’s been brutal. Early blizzards?”

  “I just have a few questions for you regarding Britney Wyatt.”

  Right to business, not a small talk kind of guy. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I know that name.”

  “She had your business card in her wallet.”

  “I have business cards?” I thought about it, glancing up at Harry, who was settling his lithe form into his favorite chair beside the wood stove with a graceful sweep. Harry nodded. “Wait, I did have business cards about ten years ago, when I worked for myself, but I can’t imagine anyone would still have one.”

  “She didn’t call you?”

  “No, sorry. The number on it probably isn’t even in service.”

  “It isn’t,” he confirmed.

  “If you’re looking through her wallet, is it safe to assume she’s missing? Dead? Incarcerated?” I watched Batten crouch in front of the wood stove to start building a fire. His ass looked absurdly delicious and I did my best to pretend not to see it. “Did she get frustrated by an asshole and shoot him in his jerky jerkface?”

  A throat-clear. “Erm, no.”

  “How about his butt?” I asked. “Did she shoot him in the butt?”

  “Sorry, Ms. Baranuik, I thought you were psychic.”

  “I’m not the kind of psychic who can pull answers out of the ether,” I said, and though I’d heard the skeptical tone slip into his voice, the Blue Sense did not report any malice. “Distant event viewing is the work of a clairvoyant, a Watcher. Unless they’re looking at the future. That’s a precognitive, a Seer.”

  “What kind of psychic are you?”

  “The kind that does not mess up FBI investigations by blowing stuff up.” I shot Batten a look that he ignored; over the phone, I was met with doubtful silence. “I’m dual-Talented. Firstly, I am a clairempath, a Feeler. That means I can tell how people are feeling, even the stuff they try to hide. I’m also psychometric, which is a fancy word for someone capable of token-object reading, getting vibes and visions off inanimate objects.” A Groper, to those in the psychic circuit, but we Gropers didn’t like our slang to leave the office, for obvious reasons.

  I could hear a distant taptaptap, rhythmic, wood-on-metal. Constable Schenk cleared his throat, and there was the sound of paper flipping. I felt the weight of Harry’s focus, and
knew he was hearing every word with his preternaturally acute ears.

  “Any idea why she’d want to consult you?” Schenk asked. “What Ms. Wyatt might want to discuss with you?”

  “No. I’d be useless long distance,” I admitted, noting Batten’s lip twitch into a smirk; I glared at the side of his face, daring him to comment. “I’d have to see this person in the flesh to help her with anything.”

  “I see. Not a 1-900 psychic help line, eh?”

  I let that go because it lacked undertones of nastiness. “People used to get my help on missing persons cases, constable. Sometimes they’d mail me objects to touch, and once in a while I’d get impressions off the items that would be helpful. Maybe she’s looking for someone?”

  “Did you work independently for very long?”

  “Not hardly. Long enough to get some cheap business cards, register with the government for tax purposes, and set up a phone number. Then I closed up shop to go work for Gold-Drake & Cross,” I said, suspecting he already knew this. “So what happened with this Britney chick?”

  Schenk hesitated, and I didn’t expect him to answer. In my experience when cops are focused on harvesting and filtering your answers, they rarely share their own. I was accustomed to Mark “Info-Hoarding” Batten never sharing a thing with me that he didn’t have to.

  Schenk surprised me. “You said you’re from the Niagara region, yes?” When I made an affirmative murmur, he said, “She went into the Welland Canal last night at Lock One and didn’t come up.”

  The idea chilled me instantly. Harry looked up sharply with his own immediate discomfort and pushed a dollop of reassurance through the Bond. “It’s November,” I said. “The canal would be freezing cold.”

  I heard more tapping. Taptaptap.

  “The canal is dangerous,” I continued. “My mum always said that there were whirlpools near the bottom that would suck you down and hold you there while you drowned.”

  Schenk made a non-committal noise. “Not the best place for a swim on a winter night, no.”