3rd Body: Just try to keep your head (Book 1 in the 2nd Darc Murders Collection)

by Carolyn McCray

  Mala frowned. “I can see how it might feel that way, but sometimes…” She trailed off, and then spoke in a quieter voice, like she wasn’t talking to Carly any more. “It just doesn’t sound like…” Mala glanced at Janey, then stopped talking completely.

  They were talking about when Janey’s mom died. Carly’s mom too, but Janey hadn’t known about Carly then. Maybe if she had, it would have been different.

  But did Janey want it to be different? That was a weird thing. If Carly had been around, Janey might not have spent as much time with Darc or Trey. Wouldn’t have met Mala. Wouldn’t have this whole new family.

  But the sound of Carly’s voice sounded like her old home. Made her think about being Caitlyn, instead of Janey.

  It made her feel strange inside.

  Popeye told her that was just because she’d had too many marshmallows in her hot chocolate, but he was just jealous because he didn’t get any. Silly bear.

  Carly popped the rest of the second sandwich into her mouth. After chugging down the rest of her cocoa, she swallowed and brushed her hands off on her pants.

  Mala smiled and cleared her throat. Sometime she would do that when she was nervous.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

  Mala sat up straight in her chair and used her happy voice. It was the one that she sometimes used with Janey when it was late and Janey didn’t want to go to bed.

  Maybe Carly didn’t want to go to bed, either. Or maybe it was something else. What would make Mala irritated and nervous all at the same time? Usually that was just when something bad was happening with Janey.

  But nothing bad was happening here, was it?

  Popeye snickered and told her just to wait. Carly was probably a cannibal and was going to eat Janey in the middle of the night. Janey stuck her tongue out at her bear. Sometimes he was so naughty.

  “No,” Carly answered, as soon as she’d cleared out her mouth of all the food. “I’m way full.” She grunted out something else that sort of sounded like thanks.

  “You’re staying here tonight,” Mala said, and her voice sounded like she was trying to swallow and talk at the same time.

  Carly got a stubborn look on her face. “I told you. I got a place.”

  But Mala shook her head. “I don’t care. It’s late and the streets aren’t safe at night. You stay here tonight. I’ll make you up a bed in the guest room.”

  The girl opened her mouth, looking like she was about to argue, when she caught sight of Janey again. Janey smiled at her, hoping that she’d listen to Mala.

  Maybe it worked, because all she said was, “Whatever.”

  Janey’s smile stretched out to cover her whole face. She had a sister.

  And that sister was sleeping in the same house as Janey.

  Popeye groaned, but Janey just ignored him.

  * * *

  Unerwartet.

  Unexpected.

  Developments like these were always so irritating to deal with. Part of the challenge of being human was to exert control on a world that resisted it. On lesser creatures that resented the lash, the harness, the rat’s maze.

  And there were always those Menschen who over-identified with those lesser creatures. That screamed cruelty when men and women, bona fide humans, would use the beasts of this world to further learning. To advance knowledge.

  Intellectual expansion.

  It was a menschlich thing. A human thing. Tiere would try to expand through offspring. Pop out enough little animals, and maybe it could have some influence beyond its death. Spread its seed widely enough, and it could evade the emptiness of the void.

  But offspring could fail. They could all be wiped out in a pestilence, or during a time of scarcity. Attack by predators.

  Wissen besteht ewig.

  Knowledge is eternal.

  And that was something that humans seemed to understand on a deep level. There was no escape from Tod, from death, other than that of knowledge. The awareness that a part of one’s self would live past the apparent end, in the information that had been passed along to the rest of the human race.

  The printing press had been one of the quantum leaps forward. One of those pivotal moments in human history, when the ability to pass along learning expanded exponentially. Things had changed so much in that time.

  The Gutenberg Bible. Perhaps a waste to have that be the first major book printed in the West with movable type. But a great accomplishment, nonetheless.

  And now, with computers and the Internet… The knowledge base of humanity was expanding at an unprecedented speed.

  Yet somehow, the beasts among them managed to use those tools to merely further their own bestial desires. And they were seducing the humans away. Intelligent children, clearly the offspring of humans, would sully themselves with lower creatures.

  Animals that attempted to pass as human were lamentable. Humans that regressed to their bestial natures were far worse.

  The boys had been a tragedy.

  For so long, they had stood as beacons of what the next generation of humans could become. And yet they had chosen to regress to their bestial selves, mimicking the behavior of the animals with which they had surrounded themselves.

  They had given up on their humanity.

  Traurig. Sad. So very, very sad.

  And now the latest prey had slipped the noose prepared for it. The partner was human. Of that there could be no doubt. But in a moment where that human nature should have been expressed, it had not been.

  The animal was now holed up somewhere other than where it should be. That had not been part of the plan.

  It was fine. Humans dealt with unexpected change. They adapted. Learned from the experience.

  Animals just reacted.

  But the partner was a concern. If he couldn’t manage to overcome the animal instincts that seemed to be taking over, an adjustment might need to be made.

  It would be a shame to lose such a prime example of shining humanity. But worse sacrifices had been made in the course of human history.

  History. Geschichte. That was another human creation. A tracking of where we have been and where we are going. For all its subjective failings, history was another way in which humans had lifted themselves from the mud.

  One could only hope that the partner would do the same.

  CHAPTER 5

  Trey drove back to his apartment, Maggie tucked safely away at the nearest Hampton Inn. Those hotels were Trey’s absolute favorite. For a pretty cheap place to stay, they had the softest beds and the best breakfast buffets in existence.

  Although at this point, it was looking like Trey’s night was just beginning.

  He’d been able to get out of a full-on tryst with Mags by claiming performance anxiety, but that excuse was going to wear thin pretty quick. Thing was, it wasn’t far off the mark right now. Things were all skeewampus.

  A fire? And one that looked like it had been set on purpose, at that?

  Someone was coming after Trey personally. Under normal circumstances, Trey was pretty easy going, but now whoever this was had not only threatened him, they’d threatened Maggie, too. And since she was on stork watch, that counted double.

  Trey had always thought when the aliens came that they’d be friendly. Or that at least before they ate everybody, that they’d fatten them up, like in that one freaky episode of the old Twilight Zone.

  Man, that had been terrifying. Trey hadn’t been able to sleep for a week after watching that one.

  Watching old shows was something that he was always trying to get Janey to do with him. He’d gotten her hooked on Danny Kaye movies. The Court Jester and White Christmas were now two of her favorites. But one episode of Twilight Zone and she’d shaken her head a violent no from that time forward every time he brought it up.

  Thing was, as far as Trey could tell, it wasn’t that she was scared. Janey just seemed bored while she was watching them. How on earth could that be possible? That show was a mind trip.
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  Thinking of Janey, Trey realized that neither she nor Mala had any clue about all the stuff that had gone down tonight. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was just past ten. A little late to drop by, but maybe a call would be okay? He still had a few extra minutes left on the clock before Darc would consider him AWOL.

  Pulling off on the side of the road, Trey shot Mala a quick text to make sure she was still awake. Seconds later, his phone sounded with Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” Mala’s ringtone.

  “Sorry to contact you so late…” Trey began, but Mala immediately stepped in, her voice sounding strange over the wireless connection.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she answered. “I wasn’t even close to being in bed yet. In fact, I’m glad you called. A lot’s happened over here since you guys went out to that crime scene.”

  “Ah… yeah. Us too. That’s why I’m calling.”

  There was a pause. “Listen. It’s kind of too much to explain over the phone. Can you drop by?”

  Trey checked his watch. Five minutes left until the hour was up. Twenty until the hour-fifteen he’d thrown out there right at the last. That was doable.

  Besides, it would give Darc more of a chance to come down off his sugar high. The last thing in the world Trey wanted to do was catch the end of one of those suckers. Not. Good.

  “I’m close. Be there in two.”

  Seemed like things were nuts on all sides tonight. Maybe it was aliens after all. It seemed like the kind of thing they might do.

  * * *

  Janey wasn’t asleep. Not even close.

  So when she heard Trey’s voice in the apartment, she threw on some clothes, scooped up Popeye, and crept out into the living room. Mala wouldn’t be thrilled that she was out of bed, but Trey always loved to see her. That would probably keep her out of too much trouble.

  Probably.

  Popeye growled that they were going to get in trouble. That was weird. Usually he was the one telling her to do stuff she wasn’t supposed to. What was that all about?

  There was a low mumbling about not getting ice cream if they got caught. He loved ice cream.

  Silly bear. It wasn’t like he ever got any.

  He muttered something about that being rude and stopped talking. Thank heaven. Sometimes that bear of hers was such a pain.

  Trey was busy talking, saying that he and Darc had gotten shot at and that there had been a fire back at his apartment. It also sounded like he said something about aliens, but that couldn’t have been right. Maybe it was just a joke. From Mala’s laugh that she then swallowed, Janey couldn’t tell for sure.

  Peeking around the corner, she caught sight of Trey, who looked over and spotted her as well. “Janey! Heya, shrimp. C’mere.” He held out his arms, and she ran over and gave him a big hug. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

  “Yes, she should,” Mala uttered, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Janey ducked her head, but the colored lines in her head crossed and sparked, telling her that Mala was mostly faking being mad. The sound of her voice was off just a little bit, and there was some twitching around her mouth the lines of light in Janey’s mind pointed out that seemed to say that she was less angry than she was trying not to laugh.

  Janey looked up at Trey and grinned. He winked back at her.

  “How much did you hear?” he asked. Janey shrugged, and Trey chuckled. “That much, huh?”

  “So, where are you and Maggie going to sleep?” Mala interjected.

  “Well, I got her set up at the Hampton over on 5th. Should be fine for right now.”

  Mala clucked her tongue. It was something she did when she was irritated. The swirls of color traced around her face, picking up on tiny clues there.

  Yep. Irritated.

  Popeye muttered that it didn’t take a genius to figure that out. Janey ignored him.

  “Why didn’t Darc offer to let you stay with him?” Mala asked.

  “Um…” Trey uttered. “Have you met your boyfriend? Besides, it’s a little weird with the whole used-to-be-married thing.”

  “Please,” she scoffed. “You two have gotten past that whole thing. I’m not saying it’s ever going to be completely normal, but this is ridiculous. You need a place to stay, and a hotel is not going to cut it.” She glanced around the apartment. “I’d offer to have you stay here, but--”

  “No, it’s fine. Really, Mala. We’re okay.”

  At that point, Carly crept out into the light. Her hair was a bit tousled, but the rays of color that Janey could watch surrounding her eyes told Janey that her older sister hadn’t been asleep yet.

  Trey caught sight of her and did a double take. It was funny. Like in some of the shows on the Disney channel that Janey sometimes watched when she wasn’t studying how to be a detective. That was usually when Mala had taken her computer time away because she said that little girls shouldn’t be spending so much time on the Internet.

  “Wha…? Who…? You…” Trey pointed at Carly, and then swung his finger over to Janey and then back again. “This… wow. You two…”

  “They’re sisters,” Mala said. “Carly, meet Detective Trey Keane. Trey, this is Carly.”

  “You called the cops on me?” Carla said, her face going all hard like it had earlier. “I’m outta here. You can’t lock me up. I didn’t do nothing.”

  “Hey, whoa there, chickadee,” Trey said, holding his hands up. “No one’s locking you up.” Then he looked back at Mala. “Sisters? Wow.” He seemed to think about something for a minute. “No, I don’t think aliens could have done this. Unless…” His head swiveled back to Carly. “Some kind of cloning experiment or something?”

  “What the hell is he talking about?” Carly demanded of Mala. “Is he a head case? Wait. You’re a shrink, right? Is that what’s going on? Is he really a cop at all?”

  Mala shook her head, but Trey stepped in. “I’m not crazy. Well, most of the time. There’s lots of evidence that can support the theory of extra…” He waved his hand in front of his face. “Never mind about that. But I am a cop… detective, actually… and no, I’m not here to bring you in.” He glanced over at Mala, seeming to look for confirmation. Mala gave him a little nod.

  This was so much more fun than lying in bed trying to fall asleep.

  Mala stared around at the group and sighed. “Well, it looks like no one’s going to get any sleep around here anyway, so…” She turned back to Trey. “I’ll follow you out to the crime scene.”

  Trey started to protest, but Mala held up a finger to cut him off. Janey had noticed that when Mala did that, the only one who ever kept going was Darc.

  Popeye said something snotty about how that was because Darc was a stupid head. Janey “accidentally” bonked his head against the sofa. He complained, but the sofa was soft, so she knew he was being a big baby.

  Mala sniffed. “It sounds like you and Darc have stumbled on another part of this bigger puzzle. You’re going to want me there to profile for you. Plus, I can talk to Darc about you and Maggie staying at his place.” She glanced over at Carly and seemed to debate something internally for a moment. “Do you want to come out to a crime scene?”

  “Wait. You’re serious?” Carly pursed her lips. “I thought that was a joke.”

  “No joke,” Trey said. “So how about it?”

  “You’re taking a little girl…” Carly pointed at Janey, “… to a crime scene? In the middle of the night?”

  “Er…” Troy said, his normal smile gone.

  “I’m pretty screwed up, and even I know that’s a bad idea.” Janey’s sister crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the two grown-ups.

  Janey looked around the room. Both Mala and Trey had funny expressions on their faces. The trails of light and color said they were embarrassed.

  But why would they be? Janey belonged out there. And so did they.

  Carly just didn’t understand, so maybe someone needed to show her. So Janey walked over to her sister and reached up t
o pull down her crossed arms. Once they were down by Carly’s side, Janey took one of them and began pulling her toward the door.

  For a moment, Carly resisted, but then she looked down and saw the smile on Janey’s face.

  Janey’s sister shrugged, but as the pathways of color traced around her lips and eyes, they seemed to say that she was scared. Scared and excited. The scared Janey understood. Sometimes crime stuff was scary. But the excited part, that was weird. Why would someone not want anyone else to know that they were excited?

  Popeye muttered that it was a teenager thing, and Janey was surprised to realize that he had said something pretty smart. Maybe it was a teenager thing.

  As for Janey, she was thrilled. She had a new sister, and she was going out to a crime scene.

  This night couldn’t get any better.

  * * *

  The hyper-processing brought on by the sugar Darc had consumed was beginning to fade. It was always with a sense of loss that Darc embraced the lowered level of consciousness that came on at the end of the effect of the added glucose rushing about his circulatory system.

  Trey always called it a sugar crash, but that was not a holistic description of the physiological process that was occurring on a molecular level inside of Darc’ body. The added levels of short-term energy were fuel to the bands of logic that whirled and spun about in Darc’s mind. Consuming candy generally led to stronger, faster conclusions in Darc’s work.

  For some reason, however, none of Darc’s coworkers seemed to appreciate his higher level of functioning. Even now, as he scanned the crowd of firefighters and crime scene techs, there were more than a few of them staring back at him that appeared to be… was that expression indicative of anger or digestive track issues?

  At that moment, Trey’s Land Rover pulled into a parking space on the side of the road. Darc glanced at his watch. His partner was past the hour deadline he had set, but underneath the longer timeframe he had mentioned just prior to hurrying away with Maggie in tow.

  That was a topic Darc should take up with him. But as he moved toward his partner, Darc noticed another car arriving. Mala’s.

  Why was she here? The threads of logic swirled in, tracking Trey’s likely path from the Hampton Inn, which was Trey’s favorite and relatively close. The most probable trail lay in close proximity to Mala’s apartment.