by Virdi, R. R
“What?” Ortiz asked in confusion.
“We’re going shopping,” I replied.
“For…. what?” she asked hesitantly.
“Cigarettes,” I answered.
“You’ve lost me,” Ortiz replied.
“I’ve got a theory that needs testing,” I said as I put the car back in gear and took off, searching for the nearest store.
Chapter Fifteen
“Thank you,” I snarled in sardonic tone, snatching the carton of cigarettes from the cashiers hand, swiping Norman’s credit card back as well. I stormed out of the shop leaving a bewildered attendant and Ortiz behind.
“You know,” Ortiz said, panting after having caught up with me, “you really have a way with people Norman.”
I turned to face Ortiz, “five dollars!” I exclaimed, “you ought a charged him with extortion!”
Ortiz simply shrugged, “hey, free enterprise, what can you do?”
“Punch him in his squirrelly little face and take the one cigarette I needed,” I muttered angrily below my breath. “I mean seriously? When did a pack of cigarettes become more expensive the oil?” I growled.
“Yeah,” I Ortiz said with a sigh, “a real people person,” she added sarcastically.
“People suck,” I replied flatly.
Ortiz decided not to comment, she quietly followed me to the Bronco and clambered into the passenger side whilst I started the gargantuan beast up.
I started heading towards the museum, mulling things over in my head, like how I would confront the Ifrit and what I would do if things got real dicey.
Ortiz decided that this of course was the best time for her to break my concentration with an unnecessary question, “so, these cigarettes are important why, again?”
Smartassery always served me well in the past, so I replied as such; I took my right hand off the wheel and waggled it in a spooky manner. “Trade secrets,” I replied in a mock serious whisper, going so far as to hold a finger to my lips and whisper, “shhh,” afterwards.
This elicited a sigh of resignation from Ortiz who responded with, “fine, keep your mystery mojo crap to yourself.”
“Thank you, I will,” I said cheerily.
Ortiz didn’t respond immediately, she plopped her purse down on her lap, unzipping it and reaching inside. She pulled out several loose rounds and began inserting them into her diminutive revolver, that’s when she started talking, “Oh Norman?” she said in an eerily calm tone considering what she was doing.
“Uh….yeah,” I answered a bit uncertainly, my eyes wandering from the road to her revolver and back, creepy way to have a conversation with a guy.
“Just wanted to let you know,” she said very sweetly, a bit too sweetly, “that if you keep something from me that results in another fiasco like the Elemental thing—” she continued.
Ooooh boy, I knew where this was heading.
“You’re the next person I am going to shoot,” she finished, still speaking in an all too sweet and nice tone.
I admit, that caused me to convulse a bit, yes a little shiver ran down the back of Vincent Graves. Women can do that to a guy… especially when holding a gun and threatening to shoot you.
That’s when it occurred to me that the only experience I could recall where I had spent time with a woman of late, was the one going on right now…sitting in a car with a woman threatening me with her hand cannon.
I needed a new life.
Anyways, when threatened by a woman with a gun, always resort to smartassery and or changing the subject, like so.
I gave Ortiz a bewildered look and asked, “you keep loose ammo and revolver hangin’ around in your purse?”
She shrugged nonchalantly, “a girl’s got to keep three things in her purse, mascara, concealer and lipstick.” She rattled off in quick succession.
I rolled my eyes and replied, “none of those are a deadly weapon,”
She ignored my quip and continued, “a tampon—”
“Woah kay!” I said, nearly throwing my hands up at that revelation, “too much info there.”
She shook her head, “men,” she scoffed mildly before continuing, “compact mirror, wallet, I.D, keys, emergency twenty dollar bill,” she said with no sign of stopping.
It was at this point I began holding up some fingers, trying to figure out what equated to three in her head, she didn’t care, she kept on going while I was silently keeping count.
“Cell phone, mints, a small pack of tissues and a back up gun,” she finished.
“Uh Ortiz, maybe you and I have a different understanding of number three, but ah, um, them’s a helluva lot more than three things in your purse.” I explained.
She looked at me like I was the insane one when she spoke, “the lipstick, concealer, mascara and mirror count as one thing,” she said like it obvious.
“Oh yeah, of course,” I replied, taking on a tone of mock understanding.
“Emergency make up kit,” she explained.
I rolled my eyes, “and the other hundred and fifty?”
She shrugged, “split them into two more emergency sets,” she answered.
I shook my head; of course, it’s so simple, a bazillion items in a women’s purse equals three…
Suddenly I had remembered one of the items she was carrying, “wait,” I said suddenly, “did you say lipstick?” I asked in pleasant surprise.
I must’ve looked really happy and strangely so because a slightly confused look crossed her face when she answered, “uh…yes,” she replied, giving me an oblique look.
It was all we had at the moment and it just could work.
“Is there a particular reason you’re so interested in my lipstick, Norman?” she asked hesitantly.
“Huh?” I replied, coming back out of my thoughts, “oh yes and no,” I answered ambiguously.
“First the cigarettes and now you’re gunning for my lipstick,” she muttered quietly, “you going to tell me why or is this another weird magic thing?”
“Weird magic thing,” I smiled, waggling my fingers in a spooky manner.
I could see her bristle in her seat, the non-answer I gave her got under her skin, she was definitely not accustomed to not knowing things. It made sense though; her job was to investigate, to ferret out answers, not knowing something could really rankle a person.
Welcome to a day in my world Ortiz, I thought. Hell, I never got the answers upfront when I asked and I suspected Church always had them…
I heard her exhale in frustration before she decided to speak again, “so Norman,” she said, getting my attention.
“Uh yeah?”
“What have we got in store for us when we get there?” she asked a bit apprehensively. I could see her tightening her grip on the undersized yet definitely not underpowered revolver, her eyes were wide but not with fear, uncertainty, yes.
Sure, I couldn’t tell her everything, though God knows I wanted too. I couldn’t tell her anything I wasn’t certain of; it could put her in more danger, like letting her know my plans for the lipstick. Yes I know, lipstick isn’t inherently dangerous but if she knew what I possibly planned for it, she might take it upon herself to do it and that could’ve put her in danger.
But I could tell her about the dangers posed by the Ifrit, well the ones she wasn’t already aware of, like its ability to enthrall a bunch of exceedingly dangerous monsters. Oh, and the ability to grant wishes and then have you killed from wherever in the world, it doesn’t even have to be remotely near you, once you deal, you’re essentially dead.
“Alright then,” I began, pursing lips as I thought about what exactly to say. “Well, you already know about it being able set a bunch of supernatural hitmen after us.”
She nodded simply.
“It can also bend reality to a certain degree,” I explained, “and—”
“Just how much exactly can it bend reality?” Interjected Ortiz.
I inhaled sharply, thinking the question over as I really wasn
’t sure myself, “well I don’t honestly know.” I answered honestly.
“Gee, what a wonderful source of information you are,” she snorted lightheartedly.
“Hey!” I exclaimed indignantly, “I can’t have all the answers, I’ve never dealt with an Ifrit before!”
“Well what do think?” she asked, “based on what you have seen and dealt with, Norman.”
“Hmm,” I pondered aloud, “well, at the very least I know that has the ability to affect reality enough to sick a frickin’ tiger on me.”
“About that,” started Ortiz, “how exactly did all of that happen, you still haven’t explained it all, you just blamed it on the Ifrit.”
“You know that Golden Tiger restaurant?” I asked.
“…Yes,” Ortiz answered hesitantly, not exactly sure of what I was getting at. “I’ve been there before,” she added, “nice place.”
“Ever notice those little tiger statues outside?”
She nodded.
“One of those was our rampaging tiger,” I explained.
“That’s…a joke…right?” she asked in disbelief.
“After everything you’ve seen, seriously?” I replied.
“Right, of course,” she muttered sullenly to herself. She began chewing on her lip again; I knew she was thinking of something so I kept on driving, remaining silent until she decided to share her thoughts. “So, we know it can mess with reality on a fairly significant scale,” she said, “enough to bring an inanimate object to life.”
“Then there are the wishes,” I chimed.
“What about them?” Ortiz said curiously.
“Well, think about it, they are massive alterations of reality aren’t they, in granting a wish, an Ifrit’s rewriting a person’s life, that’s a major perversion of reality.”
“Yeah,” she said, pausing for a moment before continuing, “like being a janitor one instant and a multimillionaire the next.”
“Exactly.”
“So we might not even be able to put up a fight? Is that what you’re saying Norman?” she asked.
It was a possibility and one that we had to be prepared for, “it could go down that way Ortiz, I mean whoever let the Ifrit out could just wish us dead.”
“Then why haven’t they?”
“I think they have, a lot,” I answered.
“The wraith and elemental you mean,” she replied, catching on to what I meant.
“Yeah, my guess is that it can’t just poof us away or something, atleast when we’re this far away.” I told her, what I didn’t say however was how it had almost ripped my soul out of Norman’s body, that was excruciating, so much so that I blacked out. It gave me a sense of just how powerful the Ifrit was, it didn’t even need to physically interact with me, it could just pull me from existence, or it tried to anyways.
Somehow Church had prevented that, he never bothered to explain how either, I was beginning to get a sense of how Ortiz must’ve been feeling when I didn’t explain things to her.
“So….” She began slowly, “how exactly do we stop it if it can all of that?”
I slowed the Bronco down and pulled to a complete stop, I turned and reached back into the rear seats, retrieving the silver stoker.
“We’re going to use a fire poker…on a creature that can bend reality?” Ortiz asked incredulously.
“I told you,” I said firmly, trying to give my words some more weight so they sank in, “silver hurts a lot of things in the paranormal world.”
“And…this,” she began slowly, “can hurt or kill the Ifrit?”
“Not like this, no,” I answered her.
“Then what good is—” she started saying before my actions caught her attention.
I had taken the fire poker and held it firmly in my right hand whilst placing the very sharp barb at the far left side of my left palm. It hurt like hell when I slid it towards my other hand, the barb first lightly grazing the skin and then digging in as I applied pressure. Soon, there was a long narrow gash across my palm, blood quickly beginning to well and seep down the end.
“What are you doing?!” exclaimed Ortiz.
I winced before speaking, compared to everything else I had undergone recently, the pain wasn’t excruciating but it was still an annoyance of sorts. Think about it, getting punched hurts far more than a paper cut, but a paper cut still hurts doesn’t it? Those suckers are really annoying, that’s what this was, a big honkin’ paper cut.
“Like I said before, silver hurts many things, to hurt the Ifrit, well it needed something extra.” I told her.
“Blood! You need to use blood?!” she asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, blood holds a lot of power in the supernatural world,” I explained, not telling her the whole truth however. Gnosis said the blood of a victim would work; the janitor was obviously out on the account of not having access to his body. Plus, he’d be all dry and starting to get corpsey…not sure if that’s the medical term for it. And then Marsha was out because…well there was no way I was going to mutilate her body to get some blood, there was a bit of poetic justice though in bleeding her to put a hurting on the Ifrit. I couldn’t do it however, I just couldn’t, what I could though was bleed myself. Norman was a victim and one who I had a damn good amount of access to, since I had the ability to regenerate any body I inhabited, it made sense to use his blood. I was a walking armory of sorts… except for the fact that every drop came at the cost of causing myself pain.
Does that make me a masochist?
I had to leave Ortiz ignorant of the victim part, that would have been a little too much to handle for her, a bit too overwhelming, not to mention the fact we were about to walk in to the proverbial lion’s den. I didn’t need to get her confused and all worked up before that, so I left out a few details, it was for her own mental good.
I began slowly sliding my bleeding palm across the upper portions of the fire stoker, coating every inch of the weapon like top in Norman’s blood.
Ortiz visibly shuddered at the action, she had been through a lot of truly terrifying stuff recently but I guess self-mutilation always gives a person the hibbie jibbies.
Every time I slid my lacerated palm across the metal work, it stung, it stung a helluva lot but I bared it. Oh I grunted a bit, that was expected though, it was uncomfortable having the metal slide and rub against the sliced flesh, preventing it from trying to seal up.
“Are…you okay Norman?” she asked softly, her hand reaching out to gently grab my right wrist, the one holding the stoker.
Rather quietly, I grasped the pronged side of the fire stoker, sharp pain lanced through already injured hand as part of the prong nicked the already torn flesh. I grimaced through it and handed Ortiz the stoker, giving it to her by the handle, the side not coated in blood.
“Are you alright?” Ortiz repeated.
I winced once again, my hand had a slight burning sensation, I had an overwhelming desire to itch it but instead I replied, “that’ll keep you safe, you can hurt the Ifrit with it.”
“Thank you Norman,” she responded gently, “now,” she added a great deal more firmly, “are. You. All. Right?”
“Peachy,” I replied rather casually, the shallow long cut hurt but it was nothing to get angry over, rather play it down to nothing then have Ortiz concerned about an insignificant cut.
“Okay then,” she said with a simple nod, hefting the silver fire stoker calmly. “Will this really work?”
I shrugged to let her know I wasn’t completely sure, “that’s what I was told by my source and before you ask, yes I trust them.”
Her hands tightened around the base of the shaft, I knew she was going to keep a death grip on the thing, after all she had been through, she wasn’t going to let go of something that could wallop the Ifrit.
I exhaled heavily to clear my head and psyche myself up for what were about to go get ourselves involved with. My hands wrapped around the steering wheel and I slipped the vehicle out of neutral when Ortiz re
ached over to grab my now semi bloody hand. The blood that had welled up in my palm before had now dried and caked up, all that was left was a darkened reddish line with a layer of thin crusty blood.
“Is…is that going to heal like what, well, is that going to do whatever you did to get better from your fall out the hotel window?” Ortiz asked uncertainly, clearly still a bit perplexed as to what I could do and recover from.
“Yeah, quicker too,” I answered, gently removing my hand from her soft grasp and placing it back on the wheel. “Let’s get going again huh?” I asked softly.
She gave a silent nod of agreement.
I pulled the lumbering vehicle away from the curb and we continued onto the museum and the confrontation I was beginning to dread for Ortiz’s sake.
Chapter Sixteen
A familiar sight greeted me as I pulled the Bronco into the west parking lot of the museum. I parked right besides a pastel yellow Lamborghini Miura, Norman’s ill-gotten Miura I meant, an estimated seven-figure car that came at the cost of his father’s life.
There was a bit of rustling in the vehicle, Ortiz was fidgeting a bit, looking uncomfortable. Her face was a mask of apprehension, now that we were finally here and about to try and kill the Ifrit, it must’ve been unnerving. I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze, “you’ll be fine Ortiz, I promise,” I said softly and as matter of factly as I could. I wanted there to be no doubt in her mind that she would come out of this ok.
She closed her eyes and murmured something unintelligible to herself before turning to address me, “yeah Norman, just promise me something else too.”
“What?” I asked.
“That you really, truly are going to come clean about everything—”
“Ortiz, you know I can’t,” I interrupted, my voice sounding more like a plea, a plea to tell her to drop it.
“Everything you can,” she finished, “I know there are some things you just can’t talk about, not yet anyways.”
I nodded a silent agreement.
“So, please,” she pleaded, “if I’m getting involved in this crazy world, I really need to know more.”
