Bad Blood

by David Bussell

  ‘The night he was taken, I need you to tell me what you saw.’

  The ghost ran a tongue around her gums as though she were hunting for scraps of trapped meat. ‘So difficult to be sure. Memories fall away, and smash together, make new memories that aren’t memories at all.’

  ‘Please, just try.’

  She stroked her scraggly chin. ‘You’d just had your ninth birthday, I remember that. Your parents had gone to the flat next door to return a cake tin the neighbours had given them. Stopped for a drink and a chat. You were both here, you and James, in this room.’

  ‘Yeah, I already know all this,’ I cut in, trying not to sound frustrated, but very much feeling it. ‘Tell me what you remember about the abduction.’

  ‘I’m a long time dead, Erin,’ she replied, her voice coming out chipped, like an old mug, ‘walking alone, alone, alone, from room to room, an endless trudge. So much lost to me. So much more I can’t understand.’

  ‘Just tell me what you remember,’ I implored.

  She pointed to the corner of the room. ‘You were over there, curled up on a chair reading one of your books. Yes! I can see you there now. You fell asleep. You looked so happy.’

  I’d have been a lot less happy if I’d have known a dead person was spying on me.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then… something came? I think. To the window. I heard a snuffling sound, grunting, like something eating from a trough.’

  Pig man.

  I tried to get her to focus. ‘What else?’

  ‘Erin? Is that you? My, how you’ve grown!’

  ‘Tell me what happened!’

  The old woman’s eyes returned to mine. ‘The pig, it grabbed James from his cot. Picked him up with its little trotters and stuffed him under its arm like a football. I tried to stop it, tried to get him to put James back, but I didn’t know how to do the things I can do now. I couldn’t make myself seen, couldn’t throw stuff about.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I woke you up.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I couldn’t pick things up yet, but I managed to knock the book you were reading out of your hand,’ the ghost laughed in delight at the memory. ‘The effort it took, though, I thought I might burst. Can a ghost burst?’

  ‘You did that?’ I asked, putting the pieces together. ‘So I didn’t just nod off and drop the book? You woke me up?’

  ‘I had to. A man cut my throat, did I tell you? Crept in here, into this room, and ran a blade across my neck. I can still feel the cold metal, biting into me,’ she said, tracing the wound with one transparent finger. ‘What if the pig had come back for you? Stuck you in the neck. A home haunted twice over. No, no, no…’

  I went to the window and stared out at the back lawn behind the estate. The once-mowed grass had gone to seed and was choked with waist-high weeds. Sat among them was a half-inflated red football from a game long since abandoned. The red ball reminded me of the glowing sphere that James had floated away inside of. The sphere that I’d chased down impossible streets, down non-existent alleyways until… until… until...

  ‘And just what do we have here, wandering these hidden streets?’ asked Carlisle.

  That was it. Shadows and eyes and my little brother sailing away on the wind.

  ‘Did you see him?’ I asked, still looking out of the window. ‘The man with the burning red eyes?’

  ‘The last thing I ever tasted was my own blood, filling my mouth.’

  ‘Focus!’ I said, clapping my hands together. ‘Red-Eyed Man, did you see him?’ The ghost looked at me as if, for a moment, she’d forgotten I was there. ‘Did you see him or not?’

  ‘I don’t know what he was, but that was no man, Erin. He wasn’t like you. Wasn’t like me. Wasn’t human. Wasn’t a ghost. Wasn’t. Never was. Never could be.’

  I nodded and turned back to her. ‘I didn’t get your name,’ I said.

  ‘It’s…’ Her face creased as she searched for the word. ‘Ruby. That’s it. My name is Ruby.’

  ‘Thank you, Ruby.’

  ‘If Karl Malten calls, tell him to run, I think my dad knows about his intentions. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Okay, Ruby, I will.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied as she faded from view.

  I took one last look at the dank, empty crib, then shuddered and got the hell out of there.

  5

  I was making my way back to my car when I heard a voice call out to me.

  ‘Banks.’

  I stopped and peered at the figure sat on the bonnet of my Porsche (technically Kirklander’s Porsche, but let’s not get hung up on that). He was huddled in a trench coat and wore a trilby pulled low.

  ‘Do I know you, mate?’

  He sat forward and lifted his head to look at me, and what a head it was: leathery skin furrowed with deep wrinkles, a squashed, bulldog nose, and a mouthful of tiny, pointed teeth. He was an eaves, a race of Uncanny creatures that acted like couriers, but not couriers of goods, couriers of information. Secrets, half-truths, outright lies, an eaves heard them all, and if they hadn’t, one of their clan would have.

  I flopped down on the bonnet beside him, figuring one more dent in the beaten-up motor wasn’t going to hurt the thing.

  ‘I heard you wanted to talk,’ said the eaves.

  ‘You heard right,’ I replied, stretching out my legs and wrapping my arms around my torso for warmth.

  While I already had Cupid doing some recon for me, he was hardly Brighton’s premier communications network. Cupes might be able to throw out a line and reel something back, but it was just as likely to be an old boot as a fish. No, for the real hot goss you needed an eaves, an entire network of snoops, stretching right across the Uncanny Kingdom, that passed info from one eaves to the next. They had their grubby mitts in every pie, which was why I’d put the word out that I was seeking their services. Their knowledge was much more in-depth than their competitors. Ran far deeper. And that’s what I was after. Not where someone might be hiding, not a simple fact or two, no, I was after more than that. The only problem was… well, you’ll see...

  ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve,’ hissed the eaves, his lips rolled back to expose a set of teeth that could whittle a two-by-four into a toothpick.

  ‘Easy there, pal, I wouldn’t want to have to stick my boot up an old man.’

  He grunted and turned away from me. ‘Why did you want to talk?’

  ‘Because I need some deep skinny on someone, and from what little I’ve heard so far, he’s employed a lot of eaves over the decades.’

  ‘More like centuries.’

  I blinked in surprise. ‘You know who I’m talking about?’

  ‘We heard about your face-to-face with Carlisle. Doesn’t take a genius to work out who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Might not be him.’

  ‘It is though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  The eaves stood. ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Fine, relax, it’s Carlisle. Happy now?’

  He grimaced. ‘I only came here to tell you that you’ll get no help from us. The eaves of Brighton do not assist the tattoo bitch.’

  I smiled. ‘Oh, you’ve given me a nickname, have you? I like it. The Tattoo Bitch. Yeah, I can work with that.’

  I deserved it, really. See, I’d sort of helped a maniac with a grudge find one of their hidden dens a while back. That was taboo enough, but then… well, he’d kind of ended up killing about five of them. I mean, what was I supposed to have done in that situation? Turned down all the money he was offering? It’s not like I knew he was going to kill them. Well, maybe I sort of knew, but not completely. Anyway, that had got me blackballed by the eaves community, and was the main reason, really, why I used Cupid.

  I showed the eaves my puppy dog face. ‘Look, that was unfortunate, but I think you owe me at least one favour, don’t you?’

  He bristled, his arse dropping back down on the car bonnet.
‘How the hell do you figure that?’

  ‘I helped you find him, didn’t I? The bloke who wiped out your friends? If it wasn’t for me, you’d never have had your revenge.’

  The eaves stared at me, eyes agog. ‘You seriously expect me to give you credit for pointing my people to the person that you set on us in the first place?’

  ‘Okay, I see the point you’re making, but the thing is... um, I forget where I was going with that now...’

  The eaves pushed his stubby nose into mine. ‘The only reason you’re not already dead is because of the help your friend Parker has given our kind over the years.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, Parker the do-gooder, the bloke’s a bloody angel. Now can you please get off his dick for five seconds so we can carry on our negotiation?’

  ‘Negotiation?’ the eaves snorted. ‘You’re out of your mind. We’re not helping you.’

  ‘Oh, I know where I was going now!’ I said, snapping my fingers. ‘Ha. I did it for free, that was it. I led you to the crazy killer guy, and I didn’t ask for a penny in return because I’m such a big-hearted soul.’

  ‘You’re lying. Parker said you only helped us because he made you.’

  ‘Is anyone else starting to dislike this Parker bloke? Look, regardless of all that, I helped you. I made amends, or whatever bollocks it is people say. So now you’ll help me. Just this once.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. Suit yourself, that’s totally, totally fine. Although it would be a shame if anyone else you’ve shared incriminating information about should find their way to one of your dens. Isn’t that right?’

  The eaves hissed at me again, fury etched across his gremlin face.

  ‘Hey, I said it would be a shame, didn’t I? Jesus.’

  He stood and popped his collar, staring out to the horizon. ‘This one time. One time only. One of my kin will be in touch to tell you everything he knows about Carlisle.’

  ‘Scout’s honour?’

  ‘We will be in touch.’

  ‘Missing you already.’

  He looked down at my grinning face. ‘One day you will get what’s coming to you, Erin Banks.’

  ‘Oh, most definitely.’

  The eaves scowled and stalked away into the night.

  6

  Vasily Alimov.

  His was the name at the top of the hit list the Galoffis’ gave me, and since I’m not a person to overcomplicate things, the first of the suspects I planned on looking into.

  The Alimovs were Russian mob, originally hailing from St. Petersburg. Here in Brighton, they were known as one of the Galoffi family’s main rivals, or known to me at least. The Alimovs weren’t Uncanny like their incestuous counterparts, but they were monsters in their own right, known for dipping their enemies feet-first in barrels of sulphuric acid and turning them into stew. Which I imagine stings a fair bit.

  But in order to interrogate Vasily Alimov and find out if he was connected to the kidnap of the Galoffi kid (not to mention my brother), I had a problem to solve: How to get in a room with the head of an international crime syndicate? The guy was frighteningly well-insulated, and spent most of his time either sat behind bulletproof glass, surrounded by armed guards, or both. Getting to him wasn’t going to be easy.

  I’d spent the day well and done some digging though, and learned that Vasily Alimov had a taste for kink. Not your mum’s kink either—none of that vanilla, Fifty Shades shit—I’m talking real filth. The kind of filth that people don’t give out for free. The kind you have to order off a menu. What Alimov’s particular fetish was I didn’t know, but I had my suspicions. If the Galoffis were drawing a line between this guy and their missing kid, I could join the dots too, no matter how little I cared to see the picture.

  Something I’d learned about Alimov was that he liked to frequent an establishment called The Pink Pearl. The Pearl, as it was mostly known, was a members only bordello. I won’t tell you where to find the place because I don’t intend to give it any free publicity, not that the club’s proprietor was crying out for any more business. Folks waited weeks for an appointment at The Pearl, member or not. The place is a choose-your-own-monster brothel where Johns get to bang the Uncanny creature (or creatures) of their choice. There’s something for everyone there, a creature for every taste. They’ve got the whole smorgasbord: sirens, demons, skinwalkers, fey, you name it. Someone once told me they even had a stable out back for a centaur. The mind boggles.

  As you might expect, the Pink Pearl looked perfectly innocent from the outside. This was a place people visited in private, a place to indulge their sickest fantasies, not to blog about and take selfies of. Discretion was key, which is why the exterior of the building needed to blend in. To be invisible.

  The sun had bowed out for the day, letting its peach and salmon light give way to the sick, chalky glow of the city’s street lamps. I was sat outside the Pearl in the Porsche, low in the driver’s seat, eyes fixed on the club’s back door. Though that particular entrance was no doubt a choice access point for many of the establishment’s clients (carnally-speaking), the building’s actual back door was strictly staff only. Which was precisely why I was staking it out.

  I heard a click-click of high heels and caught a flicker of movement in my rear view. A young woman was heading in the direction of the club's back entrance wheeling a small suitcase. She was alone, freshly scrubbed and good-looking. The kind of good-looking that would have any man who saw her pitching a tent in his trousers.

  She was about to walk by my car when I leaned over and popped the passenger door. ‘Get in.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ she replied in a thick Eastern European accent that I couldn’t quite place, possibly Romanian.

  ‘You wanna make some money?’ I asked.

  I know. The poor girl hadn’t even clocked in for the day and she was already getting propositioned.

  ‘No thanks,’ she replied, ‘I already have job.’ She kept walking, almost to the back door now.

  ‘Let me put it another way: how would you like to get paid for doing absolutely nothing?’

  That got her attention. She turned and strolled back to my car, click-clack-click. ‘You have two minutes.’ She climbed into the passenger seat and folded her arms. ‘Well?’

  The woman was pale-skinned and immaculately put together, her dark, glossy hair fixed in place with a side barrette. Despite being sat in a stranger’s car, she was a core of self-assured calm.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

  She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Anastasia.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Anastasia.’ I produced a couple of fifties from my wallet. She went to snatch them but I whipped the notes back. ‘I need to talk to a man named Vasily Alimov. You know him?’

  She snorted. ‘What do you want with this pig?’

  ‘Just a conversation, that’s all. A nice little chit-chat.’

  She shook her head at me. ‘Give me break. You want him as sugar daddy, that is truth.’

  ‘Okay, you’ve got me,’ I said, rolling with it. ‘Girl’s gotta pay the bills, am I right?’

  ‘You do not look like working girl.’ I took that as a compliment. ‘Most, like me, are very good with the clothes and the make-up and the nice smelling hair.’

  Okay, so not exactly a compliment.

  ‘That’s why I need a sugar daddy to help me out,’ I said.

  ‘Help from Vasily Alimov?’ She tilted her head to laugh, and as she did I saw a swarm of bats tattooed on her neck. ‘Good luck, my friend. Many have tried and none are any richer.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ I asked. ‘Is he not into women then?’

  ‘Only kind of.’

  I was about to ask what she meant by that when she unzipped her carry case and produced what looked like a set of dentures. These weren’t regular artificial teeth though, the canines were far too long.

  ‘Fangs? Are you saying he’s into vampires?’

  ‘I vant to suck your blood!’ she crowed, laying her a
ccent on trowel-thick.

  So, vamps were his thing, eh? It didn’t fit with my kiddie fiddler angle, but I still couldn’t rule him out as a suspect. Not until I heard it from him.

  ‘I always thought the Pearl served up real Uncannies,’ I said, ‘not normals playing dress-up.’

  She shrugged. ‘This is only what they say. The men know no better, and even if they did, they are hardly going to call police and complain about it.’

  That made sense. Hard to imagine one of the club’s Johns suing the joint for false advertising.

  ‘I thought I was paying to fuck a ghost but it was just some chick in a bed sheet, your honour!’

  ‘Could I borrow those?’ I asked, pointing at the fangs.

  She laughed again; a brittle, musical sound, like tinkling fragments of broken mirror. ‘I move to London on weekend for career in event management. You want to play vampire and suck that pig, be my guest.’ I really hoped she meant “suck” in the Dracula sense. Really hoped. ‘You better have more money for me though. Pig pays well.’

  I dug around in my wallet for some extra cash and found none. ‘This is all I have.’

  Anastasia smiled, reached into her carry case, and produced an electronic card reader. ‘Card, please.’

  I’ll give her this, the woman was efficient.

  The total she tapped into the device was eye-wateringly high, but the Galoffis had deep pockets, and I was happy to add the additional fee to my invoice (even if this was one of the stranger items I’d end up scribbling on an expense form).

  Having completed our transaction, Anastasia handed over the false teeth. ‘Here. The pleasure is all mine,’ she said, somewhat ominously.

  Leaning over, I checked my reflection in the car’s rear view mirror. I was pasty, but not undead pasty. ‘You got any makeup to go with that?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I also have shampoo.’

  It took all of my restraint not to punch that skank in the tit.

  Sneaking into a brothel dressed as a hooker so I could spend some time with a sexual deviant was an item I definitely didn’t remember pinning to my vision board, but life turns out funny sometimes, doesn't it?