Differently Morphous

by Yahtzee Croshaw

  “Hewwo,” said the first fluidic.

  “We’re fwuidics,” said the other.

  A ripple of subdued titters ran through the audience.

  “This is Aawon-Byhagthn,” continued the red fluidic.

  “They’re wike us but diffewent,” said the other.

  “Pwease tweat them wike oo tweat us,” they said in unison.

  With that, the two fluidics shuffled back through the curtain. Some experimental soul in the audience started warily clapping, and for want of a better suggestion, the other journalists joined in for another smatter of baffled applause.

  Backstage, Nita gestured to Aaron-Byhagthn, then went back to rubbing her temples.

  67

  As Alison reached the archway at the bottom of the basement stairs, she heard voices drifting over from the dungeons. She stopped at the corner and listened.

  “Lemurs communicate entirely in rhyming couplets.” That was the voice of Doctor Diablerie, slightly slurred with what could have been pain.

  “What is your name?” said Elizabeth.

  “Heraldry originated on the planet Mars,” replied Diablerie.

  “Your name! Who are you? Where did you come from?” Elizabeth’s voice was slightly edging on angry, which probably meant that she was blisteringly furious.

  “Tweed blazers are a tasty, vegetarian alternative to kangaroo meat.”

  The thud of Elizabeth’s walking stick did a few circuits of Diablerie’s cell. “Ten years ago. The week the shadow came down. Where were you? What were you doing?”

  “The Hand of Merlin was founded in 1969 to celebrate the golden jubilee of King Wobblenob.”

  “Do oo think I should use a diffewent name?” asked Shgshthx, appearing beside Alison’s ankle.

  “Sh!” replied Alison, dropping to a crouch and hovering a silencing hand over Shgshthx’s mass. The voices from Diablerie’s cell went quiet.

  “It would be wess confusing,” said Shgshthx, oblivious. “When I am being an indiwidual. I think I would wike to be cawed Dennis.”

  “You might as well come out, Alison,” called Elizabeth tiredly.

  Alison did so, bowing her head in shame and coming to the open doorway of Diablerie’s cell.

  Diablerie was sitting on the bed with his upper body slumped back so that his head rested against the wall. His neck lolled loosely, and his gaze appeared to be fixed on the ceiling light. Elizabeth stood in the center of the room, looking to Alison with polite inquiry.

  Alison glanced from her to Diablerie, then back to her again, and finally to the briefcase that lay open on the little desk at the back of the room. There was a small cluster of medicine ampoules and a syringe. “Have you . . .”

  “Sodium Pentothal,” said Elizabeth flatly.

  “Truth drug?” asked Alison, after a brief consultation with her memory banks.

  “Indeed. He has responded by reciting blatantly untrue facts. His idea of defiance.”

  “Sea slugs grow in bread bins,” added Diablerie, lolling his head left to look Alison directly in the eye. There was a pleading in his gaze that made her feel ill.

  “But why?” she asked.

  Elizabeth sat down on the chair beside the desk, leaning on her cane with both hands. “Why? He’s the prime suspect for the fluidic killings. I have no more patience for his . . . attempts at obfuscation.”

  Alison drew in a long breath, then let it all out in a sudden puff, squaring her shoulders as she did so. “I don’t think he is the Fluidic Killer,” she said, focusing on getting it out one word at a time.

  A single eyebrow bobbed uncertainly on Elizabeth’s face. “You said that he confessed that he was.”

  Alison looked down. “Shgshthx. Could you tell her what you said to me?”

  Shgshthx, still at Alison’s heel, puffed up the center of his mass proudly. “I would wike to be cawed Dennis.”

  “I meant about the Fluidic Killer,” said Alison, eyes closed.

  “Oh! Yesh. We know oo it is. It’s Shgshthx.”

  “The fluidics seem to think it’s one of their own.” Alison pointed to the bed. “Is that the person you’re talking about, Shgshthx?”

  Shgshthx flexed in thought. “Nope. That’s Mr. Diabwewee. Isn’t it?”

  “You said you saw the killer at the second crime scene, Alison,” said Elizabeth coldly. “Surely you can remember whether or not they possessed arms and legs.”

  “I don’t know what to make of that either. But Shgshthx saw the killer too, through the fluidic telepathy, and if he says Diablerie isn’t the one . . .” She left the implications hanging.

  “The Swordkeeper of the Ministry of Occultism is required to have a scuba-diving license,” offered Diablerie.

  Elizabeth tapped her walking cane in a slow rhythm. “There is also the matter of your stolen credit card. No one but Diablerie could have taken it that day.”

  This was the big one. Alison closed her eyes, balled up all the anxiety that churned in her belly, and envisioned throwing it up her throat and out of her mouth. “I know what happened to my credit card. I know who stole it. They didn’t steal it. I gave it to them.”

  “To whom?”

  “Jessica. Weatherby. I found her right after we found Aaron, but I gave her my card and let her go.” A tense silence dragged on long enough that she felt moved to break it up. “I felt bad for her. Having to go back to the prison school. I’m sorry.”

  “Jessica Weatherby made those purchases,” said Elizabeth, mostly to herself as she concluded that this made sense in a way that previous explanations did not.

  “B-but she’s not the killer either,” Jessica hastened to add. “She leaked the card details online. Anyone could have them.”

  Elizabeth had lowered her head to the point that she was almost resting her chin on her hands. “Anyone?”

  “Yes.” Parts of Alison were starting to ache from her having been bracing them for too long.

  Elizabeth looked up. “Anyone could include Doctor Diablerie, could it not?”

  “Erm. Yes, but . . . you don’t have to . . .”

  “Arkin, perhaps I have taken too casual a tone with you so far,” said Elizabeth, getting to her feet. “As my agent you are of course encouraged to express your concerns, but your leeway has run out. Do not withhold information from me again. Do not question me again. I am now ordering you to return upstairs and forget everything you have seen and heard here.”

  “Marmite is harvested from the tear ducts of chimney sweeps,” said Diablerie.

  Alison caught his gaze again, and a realization seared across her mind as if he had transmitted it telepathically. This isn’t about the fluidic killings.

  There came a loud thundering of heavy feet on the steps. Once again, the noise of Anderson’s arrival preceded him by a considerable distance. “All right,” he shouted. “Who the hell’s down here? Do you think when I said, ‘I want everyone being visible,’ I meant, ‘visible to people with x-ray specs’ . . .” Anderson tailed off the moment he entered the room, and his voice switched smoothly from a jovial bellow to a furious one. “What in the name of buggery-blistered buttocks is he doing here?!”

  Elizabeth calmly followed his pointing finger. “He was captured on the grounds a couple of days ago. I didn’t want to risk moving him without the resources to prevent an escape attempt.”

  “Oh! Of course!” squawked Anderson, his throat becoming a small volcano of foaming spittle. “Sensible! Almost as sensible as keeping the sodding Fluidic Killer within spitting distance of half the country’s fluidics! At a press event to show how safe we’re keeping the sodding things!”

  “The first sign of a telepathy power is the ability to communicate with aquarium goldfish,” said Diablerie, breaking the tension slightly.

  “I apologize for not keeping you fully up to date,” conceded Elizabeth. “I was concerned it may have upset you. With evidently good reason.”

  Anderson drew his chest back in and began to pace the room, his hand
s clenching and unclenching as if using invisible grip strengtheners. “Yeah. Unfortunately what I want to know and what I need to know don’t overlap much. I don’t want to have to bug you, Liz. Costs a lot of money to keep a scary van parked outside someone’s house. But I’m starting to think I might need to.”

  “Any reason you’re still here, Arkin?” said Elizabeth, making an aside glance.

  “Sorry,” mumbled Alison, turning to leave.

  “Excessive sweating is a low-level sign of magical infusion and considered of little importance,” said Diablerie.

  Alison turned back around at double speed. “What did he say?!”

  Elizabeth reeled at this flagrant breach of lackey etiquette. “I beg your pardon?”

  “About sweating. That wasn’t true?”

  “Of course not,” said Elizabeth. “It—”

  “Hey! I’m trying to dish out a bollocking here!” said Anderson, red faced. “Piss off and make tea. Just keep making tea until I tell you to stop.”

  Alison left at full speed, Shgshthx following at maximum wobble.

  68

  Aaron-Byhagthn stood just behind the stage curtains as Nita nervously brushed the shoulders of his suit jacket one more time. “You have an idea what you’re going to say?” she said. “Who you are, what life has been like for you . . .”

  “We have an idea,” said Aaron-Byhagthn, staring straight ahead.

  Nita wasn’t reassured. “And you’re not just going to . . .”

  “. . . Not just going to say the things you just said.” He caught her eye. “It’ll be fine, Dr. Pavani. Relax.”

  “I’m relaxed,” she lied. “Good luck.” As they passed through the curtains, she offered a grimace and two sets of crossed fingers to Jessica, who didn’t look up from her phone.

  Aaron-Byhagthn stepped into center stage, not looking away from the crowd as they raised the microphone to mouth level. There was a scattered symphony of clicks and flashes as the photographers did their duty, while the rest of the audience disguised their instinctive revulsion with uncomfortable shifting and subtle coughs.

  “I am Aaron Weatherby,” he began, both his voices taking a sad, thoughtful tone. “And I am Byhagthn. I am both, and I am neither. We are Aaron-Byhagthn. We exist because two minds chose it to be so. Perhaps we all have that in common, at least.”

  The audience was silent, each member waiting for someone else to decide how they were supposed to be reacting.

  “We know what you think of us,” continued Aaron-Byhagthn dreamily, one tentacle idly stroking the top of the mike stand. “You look at us, and you see an alien creature taking over the body of an impressionable young man, deleting his mind. We don’t fully understand our nature ourselves, but there are some things that we am certain of. We know Aaron is still here. Because Aaron can think in ways that Byhagthn cannot. Thoughts of wonder, of sadness. Of joy.”

  He turned his gaze upwards. “When we remember Byhagthn’s world, the cold brilliance of the formless colors arcing across space, it is Aaron who feels wonder. It is Aaron’s sadness, when we think of the eternal conflicts of the Ancients, the reasons for their animosity long forgotten, and how pointless it all seems from the safety of our existence here. And through Aaron, Byhagthn knows joy. Joy at the simplest things of this earthly realm. Like the unquestioned love between a brother and sister.”

  At the back of the seating section, standing in the buffer zone between the journalists and the students, Victor Casin made an unimpressed little puff, audible only to Adam Hesketh. “I wish he’d lay it on a bit thicker. My heart’s only grown two sizes so far.”

  “Sh!” hissed Adam. “Don’t tell me you’re not finding this interesting.”

  “Yeah, I could’ve gotten possessed and then I could’ve started doing Beat poetry as well. Once Ifrig was done burning everyone.”

  “Less of the muttering,” said Richard Danvers, sliding neatly into the space between the two agents. He kept his gaze trained on the stage as he spoke through the sides of his mouth. “Everything fine out here?”

  “All quiet so far,” said Victor.

  “Oh, except, we did run into Mike Badger,” whispered Adam quickly.

  Danvers boggled. “Where?”

  “Just here, before the show. I don’t see him now.”

  “I’ll look around. Keep this quiet and be prepared for anything.” He began to awkwardly sidle away. “Badger. Jesus. Did you deliberately tell me this now because you knew I wouldn’t be able to shout?”

  69

  Alison burst into the kitchen at full sprint, making Archibald Brooke-Stodgeley freeze, with a cup of tea in his hand and a biscuit pressed guiltily to his lips. She grabbed the edge of the preparation table for want of an emergency brake. “Whozessivesweatimean?!” she blasted out urgently.

  Archibald’s lips moved uncertainly around the edge of the biscuit for a moment before he lowered it. “What are you trying to say, my dear?”

  Alison took a deep breath, waved a hand in a rhythmic motion for a few seconds, then tried again. “What does excessive sweating mean?”

  “Alison, why don’t you take a seat and calm down? I’m sure whatever is distressing you—”

  She pulled out the chair beside Archibald with a loud scrape and plonked herself down with a violence she would be feeling in her tailbone for the rest of the week. “Please. What does it mean when someone sweats too much?”

  He looked around, an embarrassed smile threatening to cross his face. “That they’re anxious? Or embarking upon strenuous exercise?” He made a mollifying gesture as her head dropped in exasperation. “Oh, I see. You meant in a magical context. Well, supernatural sweating is a top-priority infusion signal.”

  Alison brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Seriously?”

  “Oh, yes. If a person is sweating to the point of implausibility, in that they’re producing more sweat than their body should realistically be able to produce, then that’s manifestation. Creating something from nothing. One of the most powerful categories of infusion.”

  “Seriously?” repeated Alison, unable to think of a better response.

  “Well, I’m sure it’s being created from something.” Archibald scratched his head. “It’s probably drawing matter from the ether or from subatomic particles or some such. Actually, there’s a wizard in Zurich who did an experiment—”

  “But it’s just sweating,” said Alison weakly.

  Archibald frowned at her blank expression, then tutted tolerantly. “Oh dear. We’ve gotten the usual wrong idea about magic infusions, haven’t we? It’s not like there’s a lottery machine in the sky handing out specific powers like in your X-Men comics. Infusions are an evolving thing.” He repositioned in his chair to put himself in professorial mode, chubby hands pressed together to wave around and thrust for emphasis. “These odd restrictions that infusion powers seem to have. Like that Casin fellow only being able to create fire. Most of them are psychosomatic. With the right training and conditioning, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to freeze things as well, or create electrical charges. It’s all energy manipulation.”

  Alison considered the possible results of Victor having that level of power to play with and shuddered. “I see.”

  “Course, retraining gets harder the older you get,” continued Archibald, sensing her line of thinking. “I assume fire happened to be the first trick he figured out, so he fixated on it. Built too many pathways in his brain by now. It’d probably take years for him to pick that apart.”

  Alison stared into space. “I had no idea. They never told me this at the school. Here, I mean.”

  “Mm. Infusion control is very much secondary-school turf,” said Archibald, nodding. “The obvious next stage for a supernatural sweater would be water elementalism. But again, with training, that can become any power from the manifestation spectrum. If what they’re producing is actually sweat, chemically speaking, then they could also manifest everything else that makes up sweat, like—” />
  The realization sank from Alison’s throat and landed in her bowels with a clang. It swung back and forth like a pendulum that dug into the sides of her gut with her every thudding heartbeat. “Salt,” she concluded, sweating quite copiously herself.

  70

  When Alison returned to the backstage area, Aaron-Byhagthn was still onstage, describing Byhagthn’s colorful memories of the Ethereal Realm to an enraptured audience. To Alison’s partial relief, Jessica was still there, waiting near the curtains with eyes on phone.

  Elizabeth and Anderson had risen from the basement and were watching the speech through the small gap in the curtains. Both stood with arms folded and lips pursed, like a couple refusing to talk after an argument. Nita Pavani stood stiffly between them, hands before her mouth as if in prayer, eyes glued to Aaron-Byhagthn. The three of them resembled a statue of a Christian martyr between two Easter Island heads.

  Alison confirmed that Shgshthx was still hanging around the door to the basement stairs, relishing his independence, then crept up to the group. “Where are the other fluidics?” she whispered.

  “Green room,” muttered Anderson.

  “Some litter was laid out in the entrance hall for them to eat,” elaborated Elizabeth. “They’re there with Wollstone now.”

  Alison glanced back at Jessica, who still hadn’t moved. Reassured, she inwardly chanted the words casual friendly not suspicious in her head as she made the long, terrifying walk across the room. “Jessica?”

  She glanced up. Her usual blank look was now, to Alison, the emotionless stare of a ruthless killer. “Hm?”

  “Could I borrow you for a moment?” Alison put one hand on her hip in an attempt to stop them nervously jiggling from side to side. “I just need to talk about something. In private.”

  Jessica glanced towards the stage curtains. Aaron-Byhagthn’s powers of speech seemed to have momentarily faltered, perhaps running low on Ethereal Realm anecdotes. “I think we’re supposed to get reunited soon . . .”