by Matt Wallace
She’s also starkly aware of how close he’s standing to her.
“I’m doing good,” she tells him. “I promise.”
Dorsky nods. “That’s good. Like I said—”
“You were worried. And you did say it. That time.”
Somewhere between some of those words, and Nikki isn’t even sure which, Dorsky begins kissing her, and when she’s finished with her last sentence, she finds she’s kissing him back. His hands close against her ample hips and half-urge, half-lift her up onto the countertop behind her.
Jett clears her throat delicately.
When that doesn’t pierce their lust bubble, she clears her throat like a forty-year-old trucker who smokes five packs a day.
Nikki snaps back to reality with a start, pushing Dorsky away and blinking rapidly.
“Oh my god no please why no,” she babbles as she spots Jett watching them. “This is so incredibly absolutely totally not what it even kind of looks like I swear I swear I swear . . .”
“It’s kind of what it looks like,” Dorsky insists.
Nikki wedges a knee between them and wriggles her foot against his lower abdomen, using it to shove the towering sous chef away from her. She slides off the counter and begins frantically straightening and smoothing her chef’s smock.
“Listen, Jett—” she begins.
“Nikki, it is your kitchen, it is your business,” Jett assures her. “I apologize for interrupting.”
“You were not interrupting anything!” Nikki insists again.
“Kinda were,” Dorsky reiterates, only to be punched in the shoulder.
“Do either of you know where Byron is?” Jett asks. “I haven’t seen him all day, and I can’t raise him on any of his numbers.”
Nikki frowns in immediate concern. “No, Jett, I haven’t seen Chef Luck since yesterday.”
Dorsky shrugs. “Chef probably needed some personal time. Can’t blame him, things being the way they have lately.”
“It’s not like him not to check in with me, Tag, especially with things being the way they are lately.”
“You know, Lena didn’t come in yesterday, and she’s not here today, either,” Nikki points out. “I tried calling her last night, but she didn’t pick up. She hasn’t been sleeping since . . . well, since Darren’s been gone, so I’d hoped she finally just crashed.”
It’s Jett’s turn to frown in concern. “I do not care for this pattern.”
“They’re both cool, I’m sure,” Dorsky insists. “We could all use some time off.”
“I hope you’re right,” Nikki says.
“Why don’t you ask ol’ Boosh where they’re at?” Dorsky suggests, referring to Boosha, Sin du Jour’s resident sage and arcane food taste tester. “That old broad always seems to know what’s happening or has happened or, like, is going to happen. It’s freaky.”
Jett furrows her brow in contemplation. “That . . . is actually a surprisingly useful and helpful suggestion, especially coming from you. Thank you, Tag.”
Dorsky looks back at Nikki and grins as he says, pointedly, “I’m growing as a person. It’s my new thing.”
Nikki rolls her eyes, but she’s also smiling.
“Whatever, dude.”
“Well, then,” Jett says, awkwardly clapping her hands in front of her. “I’ll leave the two of you to your . . . work.”
She turns on her stiletto heel and clacks away from the pastry kitchen’s open arch.
Jett reappears a moment later.
“I am so sorry for this,” she says, “but I just have to say it. Please, please do not have intercourse in this kitchen. It is so incredibly unsanitary, but more than that, the health code violations and liability issues alone—”
“Jett!” Nikki exclaims, her embarrassment verging on outright horror.
“Lady, you keep zombies pent up in the storeroom,” Dorsky reminds her.
Jett’s eye widen in offense. “I employ a living-impaired workforce, Tag, and they are perfectly sterile, I assure you.”
“Jett, I love you, but please go away now,” Nikki implores.
“Right, yes,” Jett says reproachfully. “I apologize. I am just . . . me, I guess. Have a good day.”
She leaves them and the pastry kitchen behind, her six-inch Louboutin heels carrying her ever precariously but fashionably through the corridors of Sin du Jour until she reaches Boosha’s ramshackle, cluttered apothecary/library. She finds the door open, as it always is. She also finds the not - quite - human - yet - not - quite - distinctly - anything - else woman inside, as Boosha always is.
She’s hunkered over her lectern, examining the steadily crumbling pages of one of her ancient volumes. Her cloud of white hair obscures most of her green-tinted face.
“May I enter, Boosha?”
“Of course, fancy lady,” Boosha answers in her thoroughly unrecognizable accent.
Jett clacks a few feet inside the door, frankly terrified to disturb anything in the overstuffed closet of a room lest she cause an avalanche.
“Have you seen Byron?” she asks. “He hasn’t come in today, and he always lets me know when he’ll be absent during office hours.”
“Bronko gone,” Boosha states plainly.
“I am aware of that, Boosha,” Jett replies patiently. “Is he at home, do you know?”
Boosha shakes her head. “Bronko gone-gone, far away. Not here no more.”
Jett blinks in surprise, her mind taking a moment to catch up to the implications of the old woman’s words.
“Boosha . . . where has he gone?”
“Taken,” Boosha corrects her. “Cannot say where or by who. Do not know.”
Jett’s voice rises in shock and alarm. “Bronko’s been taken?”
Boosha nods emphatically, head still buried in her ancient tome.
“Lena, too,” she confirms.
“Wait . . . wait . . . Bronko and Lena have been taken? If that’s true, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I tell you,” Boosha reminds her impatiently.
“Because I came in here and asked! Why didn’t you come get someone? Why aren’t you more concerned?”
Boosha waves a hand at her. “They will be back.”
“They will?” Jett asks, no less confused.
“Yes.”
“I . . . okay, then. Fine. Thank you.”
She turns and walks back out through the open door.
“One will not,” Boosha mutters.
Jett stops, turning around. She clacks her heels back inside the apothecary.
“What did you say, Boosha?”
“They will be back, Bronko and Lena, but one will not come back.”
“Which . . . one, Boosha?” Jett asks. Then, more urgently: “Do you know who? Who are you talking about? Who won’t be back?”
Boosha again shakes her head emphatically. “Cannot say. Only know one will not come back.”
Something in those words chills Jett to her ordinarily unshakeable core.
This time when she turns to leave, Jett reaches down and yanks off both of her heels so that she can run.
THE FUTURE IN THIRTY MINUTES OR LESS
Ritter spots the dried blood spatter on the floor within five seconds of entering Lena and Darren’s apartment.
“Is it hers?” Marcus asks, standing over Ritter, who is crouching down to examine the stain.
“How could I possibly know that?” he fires back, irritated in that way only his brother can make him.
“The apartment’s clear!” Cindy announces, emerging from the hallway a moment later and securing her tactical tomahawk to its tie-down rig on her hip.
Hara follows her past the living room to join the brothers in the foyer. Moon is unusually absent from the group, having told them, shockingly, he had alchemy lessons to attend with Ryland.
“No signs of a struggle,” Cindy says. “Not to sound all beat - cop - at - the - beginning - of - a - Law - and - Order-episode and whatnot.”
“Somebody
cleaned up after a struggle,” Ritter insists. “They just missed a spot. Bronko was here, too.”
“How do you know that?” Marcus asks.
“I can still smell his aftershave. It’s faint, but it’s here next to the blood, like he was rolling around on the floor.”
“You would’ve made a helluva detective, my brother. So, what, they were taken together, or . . .”
“No,” Cindy says to Marcus. “Jett told me Lena didn’t come in yesterday and Bronko was all worried. Then Bronko didn’t come in today, and Jett or nobody can get ahold of him. That’s when I called y’all.”
Marcus nods, seeing the whole picture now. “So, Bronko came looking for her, and whoever or whatever took this Lena chick took him, too.”
“Don’t talk about her like she’s a stranger,” Ritter instructs him.
“Didn’t mean anything by it, bro. What’s our next move?”
Cindy’s expression is grim. “They could be anywhere in the fucking world by now, if they’re even alive. We got nothin’.”
Hara grunts his agreement.
Ritter thinks for a moment and then takes out his phone. “Who’s got cash on them?”
“A few bucks,” Cindy says.
Hara removes a gold horse-head money clip from his pocket and holds it up. There’s a thick fold of bills held in the horse’s jaw.
Marcus shrugs. “I’m tapped, bro.”
“Shocking.”
“What are you doing?” Cindy asks as he begins dialing.
“I’m ordering a pizza,” Ritter answers in that bland way of his that makes it impossible to discern whether he’s joking or not.
Her eyes widen. “This seem like the time to eat to you?”
“I’m hungry,” Marcus offers.
“Just wait,” Ritter bids them, listening to the other end of the line ring.
“Yeah,” he says to whoever answers. “I’d like to order the deluxe special.”
He gives them Lena and Darren’s address and ends the call. Twenty-eight minutes and one in-depth discussion between Cindy and Marcus about how much better The Matrix would’ve been if Brandon Lee had lived to star in it later, there’s a knock at the door and Ritter answers it. The rest of them, particularly Cindy, are eager to see who has come calling at his request, crowding in front of the couch in the living room for a clear view.
If anyone besides Ritter was expecting to see a clown standing in the hallway holding a pizza box, his painted face pierced dozens of times through the ears and nose with silver rings and studs, none of them shows it.
In fact, even Hara, who generally has one expression for all occasions, looks confused.
The deliveryman’s face is white with blue and grey diamond shapes over his eyes and mouth, clashing with his classically bulbous red rubber nose, although it does match his oversized clown shoes. A spiky black wig covers his head, and his clown suit is also gleaming silver with diamond-blue ruffle and highlights.
The pizza box propped up on his white-gloved hand bears the logo of a Papa Augie’s Pizzeria, which is a stopwatch in the shape of a pizza pie.
“Hey, Tommy,” Ritter greets the man.
“Hey, Ritt. You order a deluxe special?”
“I did, yeah.”
When he speaks, they can all see that the delivery clown’s teeth have been filed into sharp, wicked-looking fangs.
“Come on in,” Ritter bids him.
Tommy walks inside, his banana boat shoes smacking loudly against the hardwood floors. He drops the pizza box none too gently down on the dining table near the kitchenette. Pulling out a chair, he plops down on it tiredly and leans back with a sigh.
“Long day?” Ritter asks him.
“Dude, you don’t even know. Pop’s slowing down. My brother up and quit the business, got himself a fucking nine hundred number or something. It’s hard times for divining in Italian-inspired food items.”
“Well, it was a rarified trade to begin with,” Ritter observes, his patience wearing thin.
“True dat,” Tommy begrudgingly admits, nodding. “So, what do you need? A reading? Past? Future?”
“Present. I need a locate.”
“Ah, of course!” Tommy laughs. “Everybody is so damn practical these days. No nuance in our customer base, you know? No appreciation of what’s come before or what’s to come. It’s all ‘Find my deadbeat husband.’ ‘Tell me if my girlfriend’s at that motherfucker Andre’s house again.’ I’ll tell ya, man—”
“Tommy, seriously,” Ritter cuts him off.
“Right. Sorry. What do you have?”
Ritter takes out the vial and holds its red flecks up to the light. “Blood.”
“Groovy.”
Tommy leans across the table and pulls the pizza box toward him. Rubbing the gloved fingertips of his hands together, he carefully flips open the lid, revealing the contents beneath.
They all lean over the table, and Cindy immediately turns away in horror, throwing an arm across her face. Marcus’s mouth fills with air as if he may vomit, and even Hara is forced to frown.
Rather than pepperoni or sausage or mushrooms, the “pizza” is topped with a healthy amount of tiny eyeballs, insects of half a dozen varieties, dead leaves, and small, fetid organs.
“What is that, a sushi pizza?” Cindy asks in open disgust.
“I could totally go for sushi,” Marcus says.
“It’s our deluxe divining pie,” Tommy informs them. “Give me the blood.”
Ritter hands him the vial, and Tommy uncaps it, holding it directly above the center of the “pizza.”
Cindy is dubious and completely uninterested in hiding it. “You’re telling us sprinkling some dried blood on that culinary monstrosity is going to let you find our friend anywhere in the world?”
“This world, other worlds, yeah,” Tommy answers without emotion.
“Bullshit,” Cindy says.
Tommy looks up at her, wearily. “Lady, who’s the psychic pizza-delivering clown here, you or me?”
Cindy is suddenly at a loss.
“I . . . I mean, you are, clearly” is all she can say to that.
“Thank you.”
Ritter quickly stifles a small smile, shaking his head just so.
Tommy gently sprinkles the dried blood flakes on the pizza. As soon as the first speck touches the surface of the pie, the entire circular object seems to spring to life. The cheese begins bubbling. The inert bugs begin crawling. The organs pulse anew. Even the eyes seem to focus.
It is very, very disturbing.
Tommy waits while the rest of them try not to look away. Both Cindy and Marcus fail.
Less than a minute later, the activity ceases, but those seconds will last a lifetime for most.
“All righty, then,” Tommy says, producing a pizza cutter from the pocket of his suit.
“Wait! You’re not gonna—” Cindy begins, and stops as he slices into the pie.
“Respect the psychic pizza-delivering clown suit, lady,” Tommy reiterates, carving out a wedge of divining pizza.
He takes up the slice in his gloved hand and flashes them all a smile full of spears.
“Kids, don’t try this at home,” he warns, and bites off a large section of the slice.
Cindy nearly retches watching him chew, but what happens in the next moment thankfully distracts her. Tommy’s body seizes, going stiff as a board against the chair. His eyes roll back in his painted face. The whites of them turn into black pools.
“Is he cool?” Marcus asks.
Ritter only nods.
The episode lasts for thirty more seconds, and when Tommy’s body unlocks and the color returns to his eyes, he begins hacking up bits of pizza.
Amidst the convulsions, he groans a series of numbers.
“What’s that?” Cindy asks.
Ritter is already typing the numbers into his phone. “Latitude and longitude,” he explains.
They all wait, watching Ritter.
In the next moment,
his expression becomes as dark as any of them has ever seen.
“Where?” Marcus asks.
Instead of answering, Ritter looks down at Tommy. “Was it her? A girl? A young woman, mid-twenties, dark hair?”
Tommy nods.
“And you’re sure?” he asks, although it’s clear he doesn’t want Tommy to be sure.
The psychic clown nods again. “You called me, dude.”
Cindy is ready to start yelling. “Ritter, where is she?”
“Cuba,” he says. “Guantanamo.”
“Like . . . Guantanamo-Guantanamo?” Cindy asks.
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit,” Marcus says. “But that means—”
“Gluttony Bay,” Ritter finishes for him. “It has to be.”
Cindy remains lost. “What in the hell is Gluttony Bay?”
“I’ll explain on the way, but we need to go now,” Ritter tells her.
“Yo!” Tommy interrupts. “Somebody owes me three grand, plus tip.”
“Three fucking grand?” Cindy practically explodes.
“Plus tip,” Tommy confirms.
She looks at Ritter in sheer disbelief.
“I keep telling you, Cin,” Ritter says, “Magic is never free. Everybody pony up and pay the man.”
TONIGHT’S SPECIAL
Lena follows Luciana Monrovio through the corridors of Gluttony Bay. Along the wall to her left, EMPLOYEES ONLY is painted in six-foot-tall red letters. To her right, floor-to-ceiling picture windows look out onto the black water of the bay in the evening.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks the neon-green succubus.
“It’s time to go to work!” Monrovio informs her brightly.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Her tone remains sterile and pleasant, but there’s a crack of impatience somewhere in it. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Lena stops. “I’m not walking another step until you tell me what the fuck is happening.”
Monrovio’s hand is around her throat before Lena even registers movement. Her fingers are like knives and her grip is a steel collar. She lifts Lena a foot off the ground with that single hand, holding her there easily. Lena bats futilely at Monrovio’s arm, gripping the sleeve of her suit to pry it loose, but it’s useless.
“You listen to me, you little bitch,” Luciana hisses at her as she squeezes the breath from Lena’s neck. “You and your band of misfits have embarrassed me for the last time. And I do mean the last time. You don’t want to walk? Fine. I’ll break both of your fucking legs and drag you by that dehydrated rat’s nest you call hair. Do you understand me?”
