by Leod D. Fitz
I turned my attention back to the body. But before I could do more than dab on a bit of rouge, I caught a whiff of something familiar: a mixture of corruption, magic, and fish.
I whirled towards the door, hunching down and spreading my hands wide, my mouth stretching into a toothy, threatening grimace just as someone started opening it.
The figure in the doorway was anything but intimidating.
He was short. Maybe five inches past five feet, thin, with dull, brown hair and a prominent nose. If it weren't for his scent, and my previous encounters with those who shared it, I wouldn't have given him a second glance.
He raised his hands. “Easy, friend. I'm not looking for a fight.”
I let out a long, low hiss of warning.
“May I come in? I swear, I'm just here to talk.”
His voice was confident but respectful. It was the kind of tone I'd use with the crotchsniffers. It was almost offensive, until I realized that I was behaving rather like a crotchsniffer at the moment.
Swallowing my territorial nature, I forced myself to think reasonably for a moment. I backed slowly away from the door, allowing him to enter while maintaining a comfortable distance between us.
He moved into the room. “Sorry about this. Invading your space, I mean. I'd hoped to meet you on neutral ground. Unfortunately, after the events of last night I find myself in a bit of a bind. Would you be amenable to a temporary truce? Just for the duration of a conversation?”
I contemplated his proposal for a moment, my eyes straying, for a heartbeat, towards the door he'd entered.
“I came alone,” he assured me. “I suppose, in retrospect, I might have made all of this easier if I'd announced my entrance. I've just spent so long sneaking about, it's second nature to me now. I'm rather impressed that you noticed me when you did. It was my scent, wasn't it?”
I nodded, circling slowly around my guest until I reached the doorway. A long, slow sniff confirmed that nobody else was waiting in the hallway or the stairwell.
My visitor took a seat on one of my unoccupied metal gurneys.
I relaxed a bit, my mouth slipping back into something a bit more human.
“I'm Orrin, by the way,” he continued, “I'd tell you my last name, but I forgot it a couple centuries back.”
“Walter.” I grunted.
“Pleased to meet you, Walter.” He extended his hand.
I stayed where I was, hunched over, watching his every move. This was the second time in a week that I'd allowed myself to be surprised in my own domain. The dead bodies throughout the room might cover up the smell a bit, and the air conditioning helped masked their approach, but that was no excuse. If I'd been attentive, if I were more aware of my surroundings, this nonsense wouldn't happen.
I wasn't upset with Orrin. I was pissed off at myself.
“Anyhow.” Orrin lowered his hand. “I've found myself in a bit of a predicament. My hotel room recently got a little bit... burned. The hotel offered to comp me a room, though they are rather curious as to why two men apparently decided, quite independently, to break in at the same time. I turned them down, of course, staying in a hotel where two people have already found me seems... stupid.”
“And, what, you're hoping I'll let you borrow a room at my place?”
Orrin grimaced. “Hardly. Even if my brothers hadn't already found your trailer, somehow I don't think we'd make the best of roommates. No, I'll sort out my sleeping arrangements myself. The thing is, I really need to get that envelope back from you.”
I kept my expression carefully blank. “What envelope?”
“You know, the one with the photographs and notebook in it.”
“No idea what you're talking about. Maybe one of your brothers took it.”
Orrin shook his head. “Not a chance. And before you try, the fire never got big enough to completely consume it, either. I'd've found scraps. No, you took it, and I desperately need it back.”
How did he know his brother hadn't taken it? That was almost certainly what the man/snake had been looking for.
“Why do you need it?”
Orrin grimaced. “For one thing, I need to make certain it stays out of my brothers' hands.”
“Really? You didn't seem to do that great of a job of hiding it from them last night. What makes you think I'd be that much worse at hanging onto it?”
“I don't. But it isn't your responsibility. It's mine. Besides, it's useless to you.”
I grinned. “You're assuming I can’t read Greek.”
Orrin's left eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. It wasn't much, but it was enough to tell me I'd surprised him. He hadn't expected me to figure out what language it was written in so quickly.
“Whether or not you're capable of reading it, the contents of that notebook are of no value to you.”
“Maybe not, but they're obviously of value to your brothers. Maybe I should contact them, find out just how much it's worth.”
Orrin stood suddenly.
I took a step back, my jaw spreading, my hands bent into claws.
But Orrin wasn't attacking. Instead a look of terror and desperation covered his face. “No! Please! You can't do that. You can't make me responsible for that!”
Responsible for what, exactly? Sometimes pretending to know more than you actually did got people to tell you more than they would have otherwise. Other times you just ended up confused.
I sighed. “Relax, I've met two of your brothers and both of them tried to kill me. I'm not inclined to do them any favors.”
Relief flooded the chimera's face.
“That isn't to say that I won't make some kind of deal with them, eventually, but I'm not planning on doing anything rash. I need information.”
The small man considered that for several long seconds, his fingers drumming on the table beneath him. “That's trickier than you might think. There are things that I can't share. And there are things that are dangerous to know.”
He sounded old when he said that. Tired. He'd had this conversation before, more or less.
“You called them your brothers,” I said after a few moments of silence. “Why?”
“Because it's the closest name there is for what we are. We're bound together with so much history and so much blood that any other word seems inadequate.”
“But you're at odds. Why?”
Orrin's eyes glazed over as he peered back in time. “Because they're honoring their debt while I... battle the inevitable.”
I stared at him blankly. “What the hell does that even mean?”
The small man shook his head to clear it. “This wasn't a good idea. I should go.”
I shrugged. “That's your call.” For all my feigned disinterest, I found an odd sense of kinship towards the strange little man. He struck me somehow as... lonely. Lonely and tired. I could identify with that.
He headed for the door.
“I'll see you out.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I know the way.”
I smiled, toothily. “I want to be sure you actually leave.”
I stayed a few steps behind him up the stairs and all the way to the front door. Orrin turned to face me before he opened the door. “I hope you'll reconsider, Walter. I know you're upset, you've been put in a terrible situation, but I assure you, things are much more complicated, and much worse than you realize.”
“I'm sure they are,” I replied. “In my experience, things are always much worse than they seem. But giving my only leverage to someone who won't even tell me why they want it doesn't strike me as a good way to improve my prospects.”
Orrin sighed, pushed the door open, and walked out, passing a young woman wearing a backpack and an impressive array of earrings.
I caught the door and held it open, sniffing the air as the girl approached. “Hello Penny.”
The girl glowered as she pushed past me into the building. “Penny?”
I grimaced, thinking for a second. “Something with a P. I mostly just thi
nk of you as the babysitter who tried to kill me.”
“And you're the asshole who killed my mother.”
I couldn't argue with that. “Walter Keppler, for the record. And I wasn't expecting you for another... Two hours, maybe?”
The girl shrugged and scanned the building. “I cut some classes.”
“I had no idea you were so eager to see me,” I replied as I locked the door.
“What are you doing!” She took a step back, reaching into one of her pockets.
I raised an eyebrow, then glanced at the front door. “Oh, that. Sorry, nothing to do with you.” I stared out at the retreating back of Orrin. “I've just had too many unexpected visitors lately.”
The girl seemed to relax a little, but her hand stayed in her pocket, and her eyes remained fixed on my center of gravity, waiting for me to make a move.
I sighed and unlocked the door. “Look, I wasn't expecting you for a couple of hours, and I have a lot on my plate today. Is there any way you can come back later?”
She grimaced. “I'm not going back to school.”
“Yeah, frankly, I don't give a shit if you go play in the middle of the highway, I just need some time to finish my prep work.”
“And you can't talk while you do that?”
“I suppose I could,” I admitted. “But I'm working on a corpse. Most people don't consider that a boon to conversation.”
“Please,” the girl snorted. “My mother had me butchering pigs when I was barely big enough to hold a knife.”
I shrugged. “Fine, whatever.” I led the way back into the basement. “Just don't, you know, touch anything.”
I led the way down the stairs and to the prep room where I got back to work.
“It's Patricia,” she said after a bit. “Not Penny.”
I grunted in reply.
“I prefer Trish, though.”
Another grunt from me. Why had I agreed to talk to her while I worked? I liked to focus when I was working. I preferred to just immerse myself in what needed to be done.
“I was surprised when Ms. Neil said you wanted to see me,” she said after a few moments of silence.
“Yeah, well, I was pretty surprised when she came to visit me.” I countered.
“Yeah.” Trish sat down on one of the metal tables and stared across the room at me. “I don't really know why she did that.”
I glanced up. “Do you know why you agreed to meet me?”
The girl snorted. “Have you ever lived in a group home with a bunch of teenagers, Mr. Keppler?”
“No.”
“Well, if you did you'd know why.”
I sighed and went back to work. “You're not going to be there much longer, from what I hear.”
“Whatever. Look, we both know you don't give a shit about me. Why don't you just tell me what you really want?”
I sighed and set my brush down. “When you first tried to kill me you used some swords. Magic swords. They smelled like... there isn't really a word for it. They smelled like cold fire.”
“Yeah.” The girl stared at me. “The searing blades. What about them?”
“Any chance I can borrow one of them?”
The girl burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? Jesus, even if we weren’t, like, mortal enemies, you already broke one of them!”
I blinked. “Oh, right. I forgot about that. Well, can I borrow the other one?”
“No! Why would I let you borrow anything? You killed my mother. We’re like… blood enemies or something!”
I sighed and went back to my work. “Oh well. Worth a shot.”
The girl hopped off the table and started wandering around the room, opening up drawers and picking up pretty much everything in the room.
Apparently 'don't touch anything' had gone right over her head. Or maybe she was just trying to piss me off. Either way, I elected to ignore her.
“Why?” she asked suddenly.
“Huh?” I glanced up.
“Why do you want to borrow the sword?”
“What do you care?”
“I don't. I mean…” she shrugged and looked away from me, feigning disinterest. “I don't really care. I’m just bored.”
I went back to my work, giving her enough time to think that I wasn't going to reply at all, before I answered. “There are some monsters in town. They're tougher than what I usually deal with. I'd like to get my hands on something that might actually be able to kill them.”
“What kind of monsters?”
“Nothing you'd know about.”
The girl put her hands on her hips. “I've been killing monsters most of my life.”
“Vampires,” I corrected her. “You've been killing vampires.”
“Mostly vampires. I've killed other stuff, too. And mom was training me for some really scary shit.”
I rolled my eyes. “Somehow I doubt she ever prepped you for hunting down a chimera.”
She gave me a blank look. “A what-now?”
“Exactly.” I stepped away from the corpse on my slab, giving the cadaver a long look before I moved back in and grabbed another brush.
“What the hell is a chimera?”
“A chimera,” I replied in a disappointed tone which implied that I hadn't only recently found out the definition myself, “is a mythical creature made up of several different animals.”
“Wait, if it's mythical, that means it isn't real.”
I shrugged. “Fine, a creature presumed by many to be mythical.”
“Why do you want to kill a chimera?”
“I don't, particularly. But there are a few in town who want to kill me, so I thought I'd try to beat them to the punch.”
“And why do you need a magic sword to kill them?”
“They heal almost as fast as I do,” I explained. “Apparently, historically, the best way to kill one is to cut off something vital, then burn the wound closed so they can't regrow it.”
“Oh. That makes sense, I guess.”
I nodded. “I figured with one of those swords I could make the cut and cauterize it in one blow. I guess I'll just have to get a blow torch, or a mini-propane tank instead.”
“Yeah, that might work.”
The girl returned to the metal table and sat back down, staring at me.
I moved around the body, putting my back to the girl, but found, to my surprise, that having her quietly watching me while I worked was even more disconcerting than when she was blabbering.
“So, from what your social worker told me, it sounds like you're having a rough time of it,” I commented, in an effort to break the eerie silence.
The girl was quiet for a few seconds before responding softly. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Why?”
“I don't know. People are just... they're fucking assholes, is all.”
I couldn't really argue with that. “Given our last couple of encounters, I kind of thought you'd be able to handle that.”
“What? You think I should beat people up whenever they're mean to me?”
“Should? No. But I sort of expected that you would.”
“Well I don't. I'm not a psycho, you know.”
I heard a telltale squeaking from the table that told me the girl was swinging her feet. Probably meant she was nervous.
“So how are people assholes?” I asked, lacking anything more interesting
“You know, calling you names. Laughing at you behind your back, just because you don't know who the president is.”
The social worker was right: her mother really hadn't put much into Patricia's education.
“... and other stuff,” the girl murmured.
“Other stuff like what?”
“Just stuff.”
I couldn't think of anything else to talk about, so I kept my mouth shut and worked.
Her silence lasted less than a minute. “There's this boy at the home. He thinks he's big shit. He found out I was having trouble in school, and he said he could help me out.”
&nb
sp; “I take it his help wasn't very helpful.”
“No.”
I continued my work, half curious as to what the boy did, half hoping she wouldn't tell me.
“He made up a bunch of bullshit and told me I could impress everyone at school if I remembered all of it. Made me look like a complete idiot.”
“I see.”
“And when I told him how I'd never even kissed a boy, he told me that I needed to have sex as soon as possible. That, like, it was unhealthy not to have sex at least once a week.”
I felt a snort threatening to erupt, but managed to swallow it down just in time. I cleared my throat. “And you believed that?”
“Well, yeah. He'd just spent all weekend helping me memorize these 'facts' and giving me advice on how to make friends and everything. And I'd just spent, like, a whole month having people laugh at me for not knowing anything, and being stupid and shit. He was the first person who was actually, like, nice to me...”
The girl's voice started cracking. She was moments away from a full-blown meltdown.
I closed my eyes in frustration. A teenage girl was crying in my morgue. This was exactly the reason why I hadn't pursued a career in... well, anything associated with teenage girls.
“I made a complete FOOL out of myself at school! Then I went home, and found out he'd told EVERYONE how he'd gotten me in bed, and all the stuff we'd done, and everyone was LAUGHING at me!”
Oh, dear lord. How had high school drama found me this late in life?
“I just... I fucking hate them all!”
And how bad had this girl's life gotten that she even considered choosing me to confide in?
I searched for something appropriate to say. “You know... I don't remember you swearing this much back when you were trying to kill me.”
The girl sniffed. “Yeah. I guess everyone at the home swears so much, I just sort of picked it up.”
“Oh.”
“They all smoke there, too. I'd probably pick that up, too, if I wanted to spend any more time around any of them. Such assholes.”
I gnawed on my lip, wondering why I'd thought listening to the girl talk was better than working in awkward silence.
“So, did you have many friends growing up, Mr. Keppler?” she asked after a while, the quiver disappearing from her voice.
