Ten pages and halfway done. Oh god.
Ngk. So I've been working on this for quite a while. I also edited very poorly because I am completely overwhelmed by writing this much. This is Part One of Cynicide -- Arc Sarah. It needs like a real title I think.
Sarah never thought school could become a chore -- well, at least not science class -- But somewhere along the line, she'd been made the lab partner of the worst student in the class. The idea, apparently, was to compensate for her partner's idiocy with her excellence, dooming Sarah to endless tediousness in the process.
"Jenni," she said, trying to be patient and failing completely, "Jenni, that's not anaphase. That's not even anaphase a little bit."
"Wait," Jenni said, "I thought anaphase had the little things inside and then it went in two pieces."
"Broadly speaking? You just described all of cell division," Sarah said. She wondered if she could use a Bunsen burner to light Jenni's hair on fire, headband and all.
"So who are your older friends?" Jenni changed the subject without apparent breath or forethought.
"They're my only friends," Sarah said shortly. "Finish your worksheet."
"I'm your friend," Jenni pouted.
"No, you're -- " Sarah began, and stopped because Jenni looked like she was going to cry.
"Sarah... I'm your friend, right?" Sarah didn't say anything, and Jenni actually started to sniffle. "I don't want to be like this, but, but, it's just that -- sniff -- Britney hasn't come to class today, and -- sniff -- I don't know what's wrong with her, and I think maybe she's sick or avoiding me or something but I see her every day and I don't know what to do." She looked at Sarah with sorrowful eyes. "You're super-smart and stuff. I thought you could help me."
Sarah covered her eyes with her palms and groaned. "Have you called her?"
"Yes! She won't pick up!"
"Have you checked the class attendance record?"
"The -- "
"The teacher checks your name off every day. If they don't see you, they don't check you off, and you get an absence," Sarah explained, fairly sure that Jenni should know this even if she knew nothing else. "Your teachers have been doing it since middle school."
"... Oh," Jenni said. "So I can, like, see if she was here today?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Wow, that's smart."
Sarah broke her pencil by accident. "Glad. I. Could. Help."
Jenni popped up out of her seat, told the teacher she was going to the bathroom, and left. Five minutes later, she came back.
"Sarah?"
"What?"
"Britney, like, wasn't here today. Um, what do I do now?"
"I don't know," Sarah said, "Maybe she's dying and can't pick up the phone."
"Oh my God," Jenni said. "Do you think so? Oh my God that's awful! I have to go see her. Come with me."
"I can't," Sarah said, silently thanking the public schooling system. "We're in class."
"Don't be silly," Jenni said. "Come on, come on, hurry!"
She dragged Sarah from class with the strength that only an industrial-level shopper can muster. "Daddy?" she said into her cell phone, "Can you tell the principal that me and Sarah are going to be sick for the rest of the day? Thank you, Daddy. She's Sarah Challis. She's my best friend if Britney, like, dies. Love you, Daddy."
"Who's Britney?" Sarah asked. She didn't want to go with Jenni anywhere, for any reason, ever. But there was something about this that was -- weird, for want of a better word. Scientifically speaking, it required investigation. Why would Britney skip, or even stay out sick, without telling Jenni? Weren't they joined at the hip, and, failing that, the cell phone?
"She's just like my best friend in the entire world," Jenni said. "You've met her, I totally introduced you. She's tall and super-nice and she's dating the captain of the football team."
Sarah wouldn't know the captain of the football team if he tackled her into a locker, but the memory of Britney was bubbling up from beneath layers of repression like Dagon from the depths. Britney was tall, and her hair was blonde and curly, and she had big blue babydoll eyes, and she had a shirt that was pink and said "PINK" on it in huge, counterintuitive, black letters. Her toenails were painted, even in winter. She spent most of her time clasping her hands behind the small of her back and leaning backwards a little.
"Oh," Sarah said. "Oh, her."
"I knew you'd remember her," Jenni said, beaming. "People always do, especially boys, for some reason. She's sooo nice and helpful, I think that's why."
"Where does she live?" Sarah asked. Maybe if she was lucky it'd be close and they could get this over with. In her mind, she repeated a little mantra : This is for Science. This is for Science. This is for Science, and for my gut instinct that something here is wrong.
Mostly Science, though.
"She lives sorta far away, but it's okay, I have a car," Jenni said.
"You can drive?"
"Well... I failed my test. But my driver will totally take us wherever," Jenni explained.
Jenni's car was pink and enormous. Sarah prayed that nobody she knew (Okay, Shell) would see her. They would never, ever let it go. Jenni talked incessantly throughout the entire car ride there, which took nearly half an hour.
"So, Sarah, I really wanna hear about your friends. They were kind of weird, huh?"
"No," Sarah said bluntly.
"Ohmygosh that guy was so funny though," Jenni continued, oblivious.
Sarah was taken aback. "Who?"
"That guy who was loud. Does he joke around like that all the time?"
"Um," Sarah said. "Um, yes, you could say that he does it all the time."
Jenni giggled. "I was really surprised about you having college friends, though. You know they might try to take advantage of you, it's not safe for pretty girls like us."
Sarah coughed up the Coke she'd taken from Jenni's mini-bar. "They-- Pfft. No. And they're not in college, anyway."
"That's really sketchy," Jenni said, wrinkling her nose. "You should hang out with more people our age, you know?"
Sarah was fairly sure that kids her age were more of a liability than her friends, and said so.
"Well, whatever. You should at least come to my party next week," Jenni said. "It's my birthday."
"Sorry. I'm going to be busy."
"With what?"
"I have work," Sarah said, once again thanking her busy schedule. "Can't make it."
"You work?" Jenni said, wide-eyed. "Wow, you're so responsible. I'm so glad we're friends, Sarah. You're super cool." They pulled to a stop in front of a veritable mansion. "This is Britney's house!"
"Finally," Sarah groaned.
Jenni skipped up to the door and rang the doorbell. When nobody answered, she rang it again, then knocked. Sarah, who was curious now, was about to suggest they look in a window when the door opened abruptly. A policeman loomed over them. "We're cordoning this off," he said. "No reporters."
"I'm, like, not a reporter," Jenni said, "Why are you in Britney's house?"
Sarah, who was quicker on the draw, said, "Who died?"
A delighted squeal came from behind the policeman. "Jenni!"
Jenni squealed back. "Britney!"
"Who died?" Sarah insisted.
"Oh my gosh, you have to let them in," Britney told the policeman. "These are like my best friends in the entire world. They came here to comfort me. Oh my GOD JENNI you will not BELIEVE what happened!"
"Spill, come on, don't make me wait!"
Britney ticked the items off on her fingers. "Craig asked me to the dance. I totally picked out your birthday present. And -- okay, ready, this is like CRAZY -- someone killed Daddy."
"Oh my God," Sarah said. "Who?"
"Craig Wilkinson," Britney began.
"No! Who killed your father? Aren't you upset?"
"Of course I'm upset," Britney said, "But Daddy always said, he said, 'Princess, there's no use crying over spilled milk.' So it'd be a little silly to go and cry about this, wouldn't it? And anyway, how am I supposed to know who killed him?"
"Does he have any enemies?" Sarah asked.
"Daddy? He was so sweet! He called me his little princess."
"I'm not asking about that," Sarah said, trying to keep her temper. "I'm asking if he had any enemies."
"Let's go to my room," Britney said.
They did. It was an inexcusable shade of lavender-blue. There was a flatscreen TV on the wall across from her bed.
"I dunno if he had any enemies or whatever," she said, "Well, except for whoever killed him, I guess. Um... The police are supposed to be figuring it out, like on Law and Order." She turned on the TV. "So I guess they'll arrest whoever it was and everything will be fine."
"Don't change the channel!" Sarah said.
"I hate the news," Jenni whined.
"-- I'm standing outside the Westover mansion. We've received information from an informant who wishes to remain anonymous that a murder has taken place here. Jack Westover was a single father and one of the top twenty richest men in this region. His daughter, Britney, stands to inherit if he has indeed been killed. We're not being allowed access to the grounds, but -- " The reporter paused as the camera swung to focus on the policeman emerging from the gates "Someone's coming out. Sir! Sir, what can you tell us about -- "
Britney turned off the TV. "I don't like them very much," she said, in a tone that suggested not liking TV reporters was a deadly sin.
"Turn it back on," Sarah demanded. "I want to know what's going on."
Britney shrugged. "Why don't you go see for yourself? I don't really want to think about that kind of thing, it's majorly gross."
Sarah was taken aback, but why look a gift corpse in the mouth? She left Britney's room and hurried down the stairs before the girl could realize that this was a bad idea. She went down a hallway, past a kitchen, and through an open doorway, which was where she found the body.
The corpse was in the dining room. It had stained the Oriental rug an unpleasant shade of brown. Sarah didn't really need to sneak around -- the police hardly noticed her as long as she didn't speak to them directly or call too much attention to herself. Jack Westover had been a large man, and there was a lot of... rug-stain. Maybe he'd been a footballer when he was young, but at the time of his death he'd been jowly, with a large paunch to match. Sarah was used to dissections, but this was really something else. Britney, it became immediately apparent to her, hadn't killed her father. For one thing, she had no motive. Her father would have given her anything she wanted, that much was obvious, so she couldn't have wanted money. And Sarah doubted that Daddy's little princess was being abused. So -- Britney had no motive, and moreover, didn't have the skill. Sarah knew a few things about the body. She knew that whoever had killed Jack Westover, it hadn't been their first kill, and it had been deliberate. They couldn't have been a robber -- Jack's wallet was drooping out of his pants pocket.
So. Jack Westover may have been assassinated.
It was certainly food for thought.
Two policemen conversed a foot behind Sarah without noticing her. "No prints?"
"No, nothing. Nothing under the nails, no hair at the scene. No prints except for a few of Mr. Westover's. No weapon, either."
"Jesus. What are we looking at?"
"Well, the pattern is similar to that kill at the mall a few days back -- You remember the one. Victims had literally nothing in common, though. All we've got to go on is the crime scene. It could be a copycat, but there's no... flair to it. Psych says there's no reason for a copycat to spring up so quickly."
"So we're looking at one guy."
"Or girl, yeah. But one person, working alone. Businesslike about it, too."
Around that time, one of them noticed Sarah. "Hey, who are you?"
"I'm new," she said quickly. "DNA testing."
"Well, we don't have any. We find some, we'll call you."
"Great," she said, and hurried off. When she was out of sight once more, she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't expected them to notice her, but maybe policemen had to learn to notice. She went back upstairs. Jenni and Britney were watching MTV and chatting animatedly over the sounds of Rock of Love.
"Where'd you go, Sarah?" Jenni asked.
"Downstairs," she said vaguely. "Just looking around."
"Doesn't Britney have a nice house?"
"Yes," Sarah said distantly. She wasn't paying attention. She was thinking. "It's very nice. Britney, you were here when this happened, right?"
"When what happened?"
"When your father died. You were here, right?"
"Um," Britney said, "Well, like, no."
"It happened early in the morning, right? Around three? Where were you?"
"I went out with some friends," Britney explained. "I came back at like four. I completely blanked and set off the front door alarm, too. That's why the police came in the first place."
"What did you do when you saw him?"
"Well, I totally flipped, of course," Britney said. "And the police were already here, they said I couldn't go to school and I had to stay home, it sucked majorly."
"Britney, I think -- " Sarah steeled herself for what she was about to do "-- I think you should sleep over at Jenni's house for a while. It won't be safe here."
Jenni squealed. "Really?! Oh my God that'd be so much fun! And I'd feel so much safer with you there, Sarah."
"Great," Sarah said despondently. She was weighing the possibility of questioning Britney against the actual physical pain that talking to either of them caused her. She wasn't sure which would be the better logical choice, which was probably a bad sign. But Science... "Okay, but I have to work tonight and tomorrow night, so I won't be able to spend a lot of time with you two."
"That's fine!" Jenni said. "Oh wow, we're totally bonding."
Slowly but surely, Sarah began to envy Jack Westover.
***
They slept over at Jenni's house. It was as big as Britney's, but luckily wasn't too far from the bookshop. Sarah spent about an hour trying to get Britney to talk about the murder, but Britney and Jenny were both experts at abrupt topic-changes, and the night remained depressingly revelation-free until Sarah had to go to work.
Work was depressingly quiet. Rex couldn't stay awake for more than ten minutes at a time, and Sarah ended up staying much later than she'd intended to. She knew she'd be completely exhausted in school the next day, but Rex was her friend, and she felt in some way that xe deserved a break. Jamal showed up from some mysterious errand about halfway through and woke Rex up for a while with some incredibly strong tea. Sarah tried it and realized that she could, if she wanted to, probably work for another hour.
The tea was, in fact, the reason that she went back to Jenni's house instead of sleeping on the bookstore's couch. And it was the reason that, when she got back, she spent a minute checking in on the sleeping Britney and Jenni to make sure neither of them had been killed. She stepped quietly into Jenni's room and was greeted by a gust of chilly air. The window was open. Sarah went to close it --
Something red and sticky and altogether horrible pushed her away from the sill. She stifled a scream, every nightmare she'd ever had leaping up from the depths of her memory. There was a thing in the window, a thing that looked like a head, but not in the headless-horseman, Harry-Potter-ghost sense. This head had lungs swinging beneath it, hanging limp without a chest to support them, expanding and shrinking with the thing's breath. There was a heart, and beneath that a stomach, kidneys, liver, intestines, the entire system of a human's guts splayed out, floating unsupported and bloody in the moonlight. They moved of their own accord, almost like an octopus' tentacles. Some interior part of it -- She catalouged it, without thinking, as the major left ventricle -- had wrapped itself around her wrist and pushed her back at the waist. There was blood smeared across her shirt and up her arm. Sarah saw blood-matted blonde hair before her utter exhaustion and terror swept her up, and she passed out.
***
Sarah woke up the next day with a pounding, insistent headache. She sat bolt upright and looked down at her shirt, which was perfectly clean and the same one she'd worn to work. She was in a sleeping bag on Jenni's floor, which she didn't even remember climbing into.
"A dream," she muttered to herself. It had been horribly vivid, but Jamal's tea probably hadn't helped, and neither had the twenty hours of sleep she'd gotten in the last five days. She needed a rest, that was just the bottom line of all this. That she'd even thought a floating head could be anything but a dream should have been a major indicator that something wasn't right. Maybe school today wasn't a good idea.
"Sarah!" Jenni stood over her, fully dressed. "We let you sleep for a while, but it's almost time for school! Hurry up!"
Sarah clapped her hands over her ears -- Jenni's voice made her feel like her brain was trying to escape. "Ugh. I feel..."
"Aww, are you sick?" Jenni asked, looking genuinely concerned. "That's awful, you look terrible. Do you want to stay home? Daddy will call you out sick and my cook will bring you soup and you can watch TV."
"I shouldn't miss school," Sarah began, but when she tried to sit up her shoulders got heavier then they had any right to be and she fell back onto her pillow.
Britney popped up behind Jenni, the cheerful smile changing into a look of concern as soon as she saw Sarah. "Oh, you look awful. Are you sick? I hope I didn't catch it..."
"I'm not sick," Sarah insisted. "Just a little tired. I got home... late."
"You poor thing!" Britney exclaimed. "Just stay in bed and sleep. You totally deserve it. You work so hard in school and stuff, you need a day for just you."
Sarah had been unaware of how persuasive these girls could be when they wanted to, but it made sense. And honestly, she could hardly remember the laws of basic thermodynamics right now. Everything was obscured by the soggy grey fog of exhaustion. She gave up and closed her eyes.
"I'll tell Daddy you're staying in," Jenni said in an exaggerated whisper. Both of them tiptoed out of the room, which Sarah categorized as utterly unneccesary even in her exhausted state.
"Jenni, what should I call your -- " Sarah began, but they had already gone. She couldn't open her eyes all the way anymore, and she was asleep again within seconds. When she woke up again several hours later, the house was dead quiet. Outside, the sun was bright and high in the sky, a welcome respite from the rain they'd been having. Sarah stood up and realized abruptly that she was starving. She went down the stairs, amazed that she remembered the layout of Jenni's house, and located the kitchen. A man in a white apron was smoking a cigarette out the window, but as soon as he caught sight of her he dropped it and smiled at her. "Miss Challis, correct? I am the cook here. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."
Sarah was slightly taken aback. "I just came down to get something to eat," she said. "You shouldn't bother."
"Ah, the mistress mentioned you were sick. Soup? Tea? Toast, perhaps?"
"I'm not sick," Sarah said.
"Then maybe an omelet?"
"I don't want to, um, impose."
"Please," the cook said, "This is my job! An omelet, then? With some red peppers and cheese?"
The thought of it made Sarah's mouth water. "If it's really not..."
"It's no trouble," he assured her. "Please, sit. If you'd like to watch television, the screen is over there." Sarah realized that this was an opportunity to watch the news uninterrupted and pounced on the remote. She flipped through channels until she spotted a likely-looking report.
"-- Westover, who died yesterday around two in the morning, according to a police estimate. His daughter and only heir, originally a prime suspect, was abruptly dropped around noon yesterday. Police claim she was not physically capable of committing the murder. We've received intelligence that she's currently staying with a friend. Police assure us that they are closing in on the suspect as we speak, and that this criminal will not be allowed to roam our streets for long."
Sarah turned it off. "Police assure us," she snorted. "They don't have a suspect."
The cook raised an eyebrow. "You're a sharp little girl, aren't you?"
"Maybe," Sarah, who was sharp enough not to admit to it, said.
He laughed. "I'm James."
"Sarah."
"It's nice to meet you, Sarah," James said. "Here's your omelet."
Sarah tried it and was completely unsurprised when it was delicious. As if Jenni's father would hire anyone sub-par.
She tried very hard to remember what she could about the crime scene. She wondered if there was any way to get back in the house, what possible entrances there were, how the killer came and went without setting off an alarm. Anyone that rich had to have an alarm. She thought, briefly, about Sherlock Holmes and the act of observation.
Sarah looked around the kitchen one more time. Then she opened the door to the left of the one she'd come in through. It opened on a dining room. There was a doorway on the wall of the dining room that was opposite the kitchen. It all struck her as very familiar. She had a hypothesis -- a hunch, as Rex might say -- and now it was time to back it up with some good, solid chemical reaction.
"James?" she asked. "How long have Britney and Jenni been friends?"
"Since they were babies, I believe," he said. "Their fathers are business partners, so they grew up together."
"Oh. What did Mr. Westover do?"
"He was just a businessman," James said, too casually.
"What business?"
"I don't ask about things like that."
Of course you don't, Sarah thought grimly. She had a lot of experience in not mattering. She knew one of the fundamentals of keeping any position was simply not asking. If James wouldn't help her, well, she'd just have to figure it out herself.
***
"-- And I'm completely sure the two houses have the same layout, but that doesn't change the fact that there's no way into the room!" Sarah explained. She'd been investigating, testing windows and checking doors, for hours.
"Yes, it's annoying when you discover a perfectly good conspiracy and it doesn't amount to anything," Rex agreed. "Maybe they had the same builder. An evil builder."
"Maybe," Sarah said doubtfully. "But it's just too -- " She stopped. She'd almost said that it was too perfect to not tie in, which was stupid and entirely unscientific. This wasn't some kind of story. "I'm sure there's a connection between the men," she said. "And I thought I could figure out the point of entry to the room, but there's no way in there without tripping an alarm, and all the alarms at Westover's house were active that night. Britney tripped one coming home from a late night out."
Rex, who had fallen asleep mid-sentence, had no real input to offer. Sarah sighed and woke hir up long enough to relocate hir to a couch. She was going to have to stay late again. Rex wouldn't be up to doing much, and Jamal had been out all day. Well, they were her friends, and it wouldn't be that bad. She reshelved the books Rex had been using as a pillow -- Vampires of Malaysia and The Power of Pentagrams -- and settled in for a late, long shift.
She spent the next few hours cleaning up, organizing, making sales to the few late-night customers who showed up, and wondering about the ring Jamal had given her. Two hours after even her overtime had ended, she remembered that she had a test tomorrow. "Goodnight," she mumbled to Rex's sleeping form as she grabbed her key.
There were footsteps in the street. "Jamal?" she asked with some trepidation. Who else could it be at this time of night, really? But she couldn't see who it was, and this wasn't the safest city.
"Sarah Challis," the person said. The voice sounded feminine, and there was a suggestion of curves beneath the dark cloak the figure wore. Definitely not Jamal, then.
"Stop," Sarah said, trying to be commanding, "I don't want any trouble. Get away from me."
"Of course you don't," the woman said. Sarah knew that voice, tried to place it and couldn't. "But you're going to get it, because you didn't listen when I told you to stay out of matters too big for you to understand." Her hand dipped into the pocket of the robes and came out with a cloth that smelled strongly of trichloromethane.
Sarah remembered then who the voice belonged to, who the woman was. "But you're," she said, before the world went soft and spun around. She fell into darkness.
Sarah woke up behind a shelf. Jamal was standing over her, looking more furious than she'd ever seen him. He helped her up and propelled her gently towards the front of the shop. She felt dazed and sleepy, almost hungover. Why was everyone in the shop? Why did they look so nervous? And she'd certainly never seen Shell quite that angry before. Jamal had a new tension to his voice as he said, "I'll get there. But first, did any one of you see Rex?"
***
Sarah spent the rest of the day in a bit of a daze. She couldn't go to school. This was because of several things, but mostly these:
1) Rex had killed people and was probably going to continue doing so
2) People were going to try to kill Rex
3) Shell was a cat
4) Vampire genocide, really?
It was culture shock to the most extreme degree, and put some past events in an unpleasant light. And despite all of it, she couldn't stop thinking about one thing. The police officers at the Westover mansion had said that the kill pattern was in line with a string of recent murders. They'd been committed by the same person. And Sarah had no idea where Rex had been two nights ago at three AM.
That didn't mean it had been Rex who killed Jack Westover, though. For one thing, Jamal had said Rex probably retained some subconcious memories of hir other state. Xe might have suggested a route into the mansion. Rex's perplexity over the murder meant that there were no memories of the killing. Probably.
It wasn't that Sarah was denying the possibility, really. But, well, she knew Britney. She'd seen Jack's dead body. She didn't want Rex to have done it, because that would mean that Rex had killed an actual person whose family she knew, and that was somehow worse than reading about it in the paper. But she also couldn't just let it lie. She was a scientest, goddammit, and she was going to see this through to the end. And because she was a scientest, she went to look at the books Rex had been reading before everything went strange. Xe'd been reading them just before xe went to sleep, and that was supposed to be the time when your subconcious came out to play, wasn't it?
She found the books. They didn't exactly seem helpful -- Who would write an entire book on the vampires in Malaysia? -- but she opened them anyway. At first she tried looking at the table of contents, thinking maybe she'd find something relevant there, but there was nothing that seemed immediately relevant. She read a few pages of Vampires of Malaysia, flipped a few pages forward, repeated.
Then she stopped. Flipped back a few pages. Stared in open-mouthed amazement at the huge two-page illustration on pages 124-125. And she went to find Jamal, because science wasn't going to cover this one.
Sarah never thought school could become a chore -- well, at least not science class -- But somewhere along the line, she'd been made the lab partner of the worst student in the class. The idea, apparently, was to compensate for her partner's idiocy with her excellence, dooming Sarah to endless tediousness in the process.
"Jenni," she said, trying to be patient and failing completely, "Jenni, that's not anaphase. That's not even anaphase a little bit."
"Wait," Jenni said, "I thought anaphase had the little things inside and then it went in two pieces."
"Broadly speaking? You just described all of cell division," Sarah said. She wondered if she could use a Bunsen burner to light Jenni's hair on fire, headband and all.
"So who are your older friends?" Jenni changed the subject without apparent breath or forethought.
"They're my only friends," Sarah said shortly. "Finish your worksheet."
"I'm your friend," Jenni pouted.
"No, you're -- " Sarah began, and stopped because Jenni looked like she was going to cry.
"Sarah... I'm your friend, right?" Sarah didn't say anything, and Jenni actually started to sniffle. "I don't want to be like this, but, but, it's just that -- sniff -- Britney hasn't come to class today, and -- sniff -- I don't know what's wrong with her, and I think maybe she's sick or avoiding me or something but I see her every day and I don't know what to do." She looked at Sarah with sorrowful eyes. "You're super-smart and stuff. I thought you could help me."
Sarah covered her eyes with her palms and groaned. "Have you called her?"
"Yes! She won't pick up!"
"Have you checked the class attendance record?"
"The -- "
"The teacher checks your name off every day. If they don't see you, they don't check you off, and you get an absence," Sarah explained, fairly sure that Jenni should know this even if she knew nothing else. "Your teachers have been doing it since middle school."
"... Oh," Jenni said. "So I can, like, see if she was here today?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Wow, that's smart."
Sarah broke her pencil by accident. "Glad. I. Could. Help."
Jenni popped up out of her seat, told the teacher she was going to the bathroom, and left. Five minutes later, she came back.
"Sarah?"
"What?"
"Britney, like, wasn't here today. Um, what do I do now?"
"I don't know," Sarah said, "Maybe she's dying and can't pick up the phone."
"Oh my God," Jenni said. "Do you think so? Oh my God that's awful! I have to go see her. Come with me."
"I can't," Sarah said, silently thanking the public schooling system. "We're in class."
"Don't be silly," Jenni said. "Come on, come on, hurry!"
She dragged Sarah from class with the strength that only an industrial-level shopper can muster. "Daddy?" she said into her cell phone, "Can you tell the principal that me and Sarah are going to be sick for the rest of the day? Thank you, Daddy. She's Sarah Challis. She's my best friend if Britney, like, dies. Love you, Daddy."
"Who's Britney?" Sarah asked. She didn't want to go with Jenni anywhere, for any reason, ever. But there was something about this that was -- weird, for want of a better word. Scientifically speaking, it required investigation. Why would Britney skip, or even stay out sick, without telling Jenni? Weren't they joined at the hip, and, failing that, the cell phone?
"She's just like my best friend in the entire world," Jenni said. "You've met her, I totally introduced you. She's tall and super-nice and she's dating the captain of the football team."
Sarah wouldn't know the captain of the football team if he tackled her into a locker, but the memory of Britney was bubbling up from beneath layers of repression like Dagon from the depths. Britney was tall, and her hair was blonde and curly, and she had big blue babydoll eyes, and she had a shirt that was pink and said "PINK" on it in huge, counterintuitive, black letters. Her toenails were painted, even in winter. She spent most of her time clasping her hands behind the small of her back and leaning backwards a little.
"Oh," Sarah said. "Oh, her."
"I knew you'd remember her," Jenni said, beaming. "People always do, especially boys, for some reason. She's sooo nice and helpful, I think that's why."
"Where does she live?" Sarah asked. Maybe if she was lucky it'd be close and they could get this over with. In her mind, she repeated a little mantra : This is for Science. This is for Science. This is for Science, and for my gut instinct that something here is wrong.
Mostly Science, though.
"She lives sorta far away, but it's okay, I have a car," Jenni said.
"You can drive?"
"Well... I failed my test. But my driver will totally take us wherever," Jenni explained.
Jenni's car was pink and enormous. Sarah prayed that nobody she knew (Okay, Shell) would see her. They would never, ever let it go. Jenni talked incessantly throughout the entire car ride there, which took nearly half an hour.
"So, Sarah, I really wanna hear about your friends. They were kind of weird, huh?"
"No," Sarah said bluntly.
"Ohmygosh that guy was so funny though," Jenni continued, oblivious.
Sarah was taken aback. "Who?"
"That guy who was loud. Does he joke around like that all the time?"
"Um," Sarah said. "Um, yes, you could say that he does it all the time."
Jenni giggled. "I was really surprised about you having college friends, though. You know they might try to take advantage of you, it's not safe for pretty girls like us."
Sarah coughed up the Coke she'd taken from Jenni's mini-bar. "They-- Pfft. No. And they're not in college, anyway."
"That's really sketchy," Jenni said, wrinkling her nose. "You should hang out with more people our age, you know?"
Sarah was fairly sure that kids her age were more of a liability than her friends, and said so.
"Well, whatever. You should at least come to my party next week," Jenni said. "It's my birthday."
"Sorry. I'm going to be busy."
"With what?"
"I have work," Sarah said, once again thanking her busy schedule. "Can't make it."
"You work?" Jenni said, wide-eyed. "Wow, you're so responsible. I'm so glad we're friends, Sarah. You're super cool." They pulled to a stop in front of a veritable mansion. "This is Britney's house!"
"Finally," Sarah groaned.
Jenni skipped up to the door and rang the doorbell. When nobody answered, she rang it again, then knocked. Sarah, who was curious now, was about to suggest they look in a window when the door opened abruptly. A policeman loomed over them. "We're cordoning this off," he said. "No reporters."
"I'm, like, not a reporter," Jenni said, "Why are you in Britney's house?"
Sarah, who was quicker on the draw, said, "Who died?"
A delighted squeal came from behind the policeman. "Jenni!"
Jenni squealed back. "Britney!"
"Who died?" Sarah insisted.
"Oh my gosh, you have to let them in," Britney told the policeman. "These are like my best friends in the entire world. They came here to comfort me. Oh my GOD JENNI you will not BELIEVE what happened!"
"Spill, come on, don't make me wait!"
Britney ticked the items off on her fingers. "Craig asked me to the dance. I totally picked out your birthday present. And -- okay, ready, this is like CRAZY -- someone killed Daddy."
"Oh my God," Sarah said. "Who?"
"Craig Wilkinson," Britney began.
"No! Who killed your father? Aren't you upset?"
"Of course I'm upset," Britney said, "But Daddy always said, he said, 'Princess, there's no use crying over spilled milk.' So it'd be a little silly to go and cry about this, wouldn't it? And anyway, how am I supposed to know who killed him?"
"Does he have any enemies?" Sarah asked.
"Daddy? He was so sweet! He called me his little princess."
"I'm not asking about that," Sarah said, trying to keep her temper. "I'm asking if he had any enemies."
"Let's go to my room," Britney said.
They did. It was an inexcusable shade of lavender-blue. There was a flatscreen TV on the wall across from her bed.
"I dunno if he had any enemies or whatever," she said, "Well, except for whoever killed him, I guess. Um... The police are supposed to be figuring it out, like on Law and Order." She turned on the TV. "So I guess they'll arrest whoever it was and everything will be fine."
"Don't change the channel!" Sarah said.
"I hate the news," Jenni whined.
"-- I'm standing outside the Westover mansion. We've received information from an informant who wishes to remain anonymous that a murder has taken place here. Jack Westover was a single father and one of the top twenty richest men in this region. His daughter, Britney, stands to inherit if he has indeed been killed. We're not being allowed access to the grounds, but -- " The reporter paused as the camera swung to focus on the policeman emerging from the gates "Someone's coming out. Sir! Sir, what can you tell us about -- "
Britney turned off the TV. "I don't like them very much," she said, in a tone that suggested not liking TV reporters was a deadly sin.
"Turn it back on," Sarah demanded. "I want to know what's going on."
Britney shrugged. "Why don't you go see for yourself? I don't really want to think about that kind of thing, it's majorly gross."
Sarah was taken aback, but why look a gift corpse in the mouth? She left Britney's room and hurried down the stairs before the girl could realize that this was a bad idea. She went down a hallway, past a kitchen, and through an open doorway, which was where she found the body.
The corpse was in the dining room. It had stained the Oriental rug an unpleasant shade of brown. Sarah didn't really need to sneak around -- the police hardly noticed her as long as she didn't speak to them directly or call too much attention to herself. Jack Westover had been a large man, and there was a lot of... rug-stain. Maybe he'd been a footballer when he was young, but at the time of his death he'd been jowly, with a large paunch to match. Sarah was used to dissections, but this was really something else. Britney, it became immediately apparent to her, hadn't killed her father. For one thing, she had no motive. Her father would have given her anything she wanted, that much was obvious, so she couldn't have wanted money. And Sarah doubted that Daddy's little princess was being abused. So -- Britney had no motive, and moreover, didn't have the skill. Sarah knew a few things about the body. She knew that whoever had killed Jack Westover, it hadn't been their first kill, and it had been deliberate. They couldn't have been a robber -- Jack's wallet was drooping out of his pants pocket.
So. Jack Westover may have been assassinated.
It was certainly food for thought.
Two policemen conversed a foot behind Sarah without noticing her. "No prints?"
"No, nothing. Nothing under the nails, no hair at the scene. No prints except for a few of Mr. Westover's. No weapon, either."
"Jesus. What are we looking at?"
"Well, the pattern is similar to that kill at the mall a few days back -- You remember the one. Victims had literally nothing in common, though. All we've got to go on is the crime scene. It could be a copycat, but there's no... flair to it. Psych says there's no reason for a copycat to spring up so quickly."
"So we're looking at one guy."
"Or girl, yeah. But one person, working alone. Businesslike about it, too."
Around that time, one of them noticed Sarah. "Hey, who are you?"
"I'm new," she said quickly. "DNA testing."
"Well, we don't have any. We find some, we'll call you."
"Great," she said, and hurried off. When she was out of sight once more, she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't expected them to notice her, but maybe policemen had to learn to notice. She went back upstairs. Jenni and Britney were watching MTV and chatting animatedly over the sounds of Rock of Love.
"Where'd you go, Sarah?" Jenni asked.
"Downstairs," she said vaguely. "Just looking around."
"Doesn't Britney have a nice house?"
"Yes," Sarah said distantly. She wasn't paying attention. She was thinking. "It's very nice. Britney, you were here when this happened, right?"
"When what happened?"
"When your father died. You were here, right?"
"Um," Britney said, "Well, like, no."
"It happened early in the morning, right? Around three? Where were you?"
"I went out with some friends," Britney explained. "I came back at like four. I completely blanked and set off the front door alarm, too. That's why the police came in the first place."
"What did you do when you saw him?"
"Well, I totally flipped, of course," Britney said. "And the police were already here, they said I couldn't go to school and I had to stay home, it sucked majorly."
"Britney, I think -- " Sarah steeled herself for what she was about to do "-- I think you should sleep over at Jenni's house for a while. It won't be safe here."
Jenni squealed. "Really?! Oh my God that'd be so much fun! And I'd feel so much safer with you there, Sarah."
"Great," Sarah said despondently. She was weighing the possibility of questioning Britney against the actual physical pain that talking to either of them caused her. She wasn't sure which would be the better logical choice, which was probably a bad sign. But Science... "Okay, but I have to work tonight and tomorrow night, so I won't be able to spend a lot of time with you two."
"That's fine!" Jenni said. "Oh wow, we're totally bonding."
Slowly but surely, Sarah began to envy Jack Westover.
***
They slept over at Jenni's house. It was as big as Britney's, but luckily wasn't too far from the bookshop. Sarah spent about an hour trying to get Britney to talk about the murder, but Britney and Jenny were both experts at abrupt topic-changes, and the night remained depressingly revelation-free until Sarah had to go to work.
Work was depressingly quiet. Rex couldn't stay awake for more than ten minutes at a time, and Sarah ended up staying much later than she'd intended to. She knew she'd be completely exhausted in school the next day, but Rex was her friend, and she felt in some way that xe deserved a break. Jamal showed up from some mysterious errand about halfway through and woke Rex up for a while with some incredibly strong tea. Sarah tried it and realized that she could, if she wanted to, probably work for another hour.
The tea was, in fact, the reason that she went back to Jenni's house instead of sleeping on the bookstore's couch. And it was the reason that, when she got back, she spent a minute checking in on the sleeping Britney and Jenni to make sure neither of them had been killed. She stepped quietly into Jenni's room and was greeted by a gust of chilly air. The window was open. Sarah went to close it --
Something red and sticky and altogether horrible pushed her away from the sill. She stifled a scream, every nightmare she'd ever had leaping up from the depths of her memory. There was a thing in the window, a thing that looked like a head, but not in the headless-horseman, Harry-Potter-ghost sense. This head had lungs swinging beneath it, hanging limp without a chest to support them, expanding and shrinking with the thing's breath. There was a heart, and beneath that a stomach, kidneys, liver, intestines, the entire system of a human's guts splayed out, floating unsupported and bloody in the moonlight. They moved of their own accord, almost like an octopus' tentacles. Some interior part of it -- She catalouged it, without thinking, as the major left ventricle -- had wrapped itself around her wrist and pushed her back at the waist. There was blood smeared across her shirt and up her arm. Sarah saw blood-matted blonde hair before her utter exhaustion and terror swept her up, and she passed out.
***
Sarah woke up the next day with a pounding, insistent headache. She sat bolt upright and looked down at her shirt, which was perfectly clean and the same one she'd worn to work. She was in a sleeping bag on Jenni's floor, which she didn't even remember climbing into.
"A dream," she muttered to herself. It had been horribly vivid, but Jamal's tea probably hadn't helped, and neither had the twenty hours of sleep she'd gotten in the last five days. She needed a rest, that was just the bottom line of all this. That she'd even thought a floating head could be anything but a dream should have been a major indicator that something wasn't right. Maybe school today wasn't a good idea.
"Sarah!" Jenni stood over her, fully dressed. "We let you sleep for a while, but it's almost time for school! Hurry up!"
Sarah clapped her hands over her ears -- Jenni's voice made her feel like her brain was trying to escape. "Ugh. I feel..."
"Aww, are you sick?" Jenni asked, looking genuinely concerned. "That's awful, you look terrible. Do you want to stay home? Daddy will call you out sick and my cook will bring you soup and you can watch TV."
"I shouldn't miss school," Sarah began, but when she tried to sit up her shoulders got heavier then they had any right to be and she fell back onto her pillow.
Britney popped up behind Jenni, the cheerful smile changing into a look of concern as soon as she saw Sarah. "Oh, you look awful. Are you sick? I hope I didn't catch it..."
"I'm not sick," Sarah insisted. "Just a little tired. I got home... late."
"You poor thing!" Britney exclaimed. "Just stay in bed and sleep. You totally deserve it. You work so hard in school and stuff, you need a day for just you."
Sarah had been unaware of how persuasive these girls could be when they wanted to, but it made sense. And honestly, she could hardly remember the laws of basic thermodynamics right now. Everything was obscured by the soggy grey fog of exhaustion. She gave up and closed her eyes.
"I'll tell Daddy you're staying in," Jenni said in an exaggerated whisper. Both of them tiptoed out of the room, which Sarah categorized as utterly unneccesary even in her exhausted state.
"Jenni, what should I call your -- " Sarah began, but they had already gone. She couldn't open her eyes all the way anymore, and she was asleep again within seconds. When she woke up again several hours later, the house was dead quiet. Outside, the sun was bright and high in the sky, a welcome respite from the rain they'd been having. Sarah stood up and realized abruptly that she was starving. She went down the stairs, amazed that she remembered the layout of Jenni's house, and located the kitchen. A man in a white apron was smoking a cigarette out the window, but as soon as he caught sight of her he dropped it and smiled at her. "Miss Challis, correct? I am the cook here. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."
Sarah was slightly taken aback. "I just came down to get something to eat," she said. "You shouldn't bother."
"Ah, the mistress mentioned you were sick. Soup? Tea? Toast, perhaps?"
"I'm not sick," Sarah said.
"Then maybe an omelet?"
"I don't want to, um, impose."
"Please," the cook said, "This is my job! An omelet, then? With some red peppers and cheese?"
The thought of it made Sarah's mouth water. "If it's really not..."
"It's no trouble," he assured her. "Please, sit. If you'd like to watch television, the screen is over there." Sarah realized that this was an opportunity to watch the news uninterrupted and pounced on the remote. She flipped through channels until she spotted a likely-looking report.
"-- Westover, who died yesterday around two in the morning, according to a police estimate. His daughter and only heir, originally a prime suspect, was abruptly dropped around noon yesterday. Police claim she was not physically capable of committing the murder. We've received intelligence that she's currently staying with a friend. Police assure us that they are closing in on the suspect as we speak, and that this criminal will not be allowed to roam our streets for long."
Sarah turned it off. "Police assure us," she snorted. "They don't have a suspect."
The cook raised an eyebrow. "You're a sharp little girl, aren't you?"
"Maybe," Sarah, who was sharp enough not to admit to it, said.
He laughed. "I'm James."
"Sarah."
"It's nice to meet you, Sarah," James said. "Here's your omelet."
Sarah tried it and was completely unsurprised when it was delicious. As if Jenni's father would hire anyone sub-par.
She tried very hard to remember what she could about the crime scene. She wondered if there was any way to get back in the house, what possible entrances there were, how the killer came and went without setting off an alarm. Anyone that rich had to have an alarm. She thought, briefly, about Sherlock Holmes and the act of observation.
Sarah looked around the kitchen one more time. Then she opened the door to the left of the one she'd come in through. It opened on a dining room. There was a doorway on the wall of the dining room that was opposite the kitchen. It all struck her as very familiar. She had a hypothesis -- a hunch, as Rex might say -- and now it was time to back it up with some good, solid chemical reaction.
"James?" she asked. "How long have Britney and Jenni been friends?"
"Since they were babies, I believe," he said. "Their fathers are business partners, so they grew up together."
"Oh. What did Mr. Westover do?"
"He was just a businessman," James said, too casually.
"What business?"
"I don't ask about things like that."
Of course you don't, Sarah thought grimly. She had a lot of experience in not mattering. She knew one of the fundamentals of keeping any position was simply not asking. If James wouldn't help her, well, she'd just have to figure it out herself.
***
"-- And I'm completely sure the two houses have the same layout, but that doesn't change the fact that there's no way into the room!" Sarah explained. She'd been investigating, testing windows and checking doors, for hours.
"Yes, it's annoying when you discover a perfectly good conspiracy and it doesn't amount to anything," Rex agreed. "Maybe they had the same builder. An evil builder."
"Maybe," Sarah said doubtfully. "But it's just too -- " She stopped. She'd almost said that it was too perfect to not tie in, which was stupid and entirely unscientific. This wasn't some kind of story. "I'm sure there's a connection between the men," she said. "And I thought I could figure out the point of entry to the room, but there's no way in there without tripping an alarm, and all the alarms at Westover's house were active that night. Britney tripped one coming home from a late night out."
Rex, who had fallen asleep mid-sentence, had no real input to offer. Sarah sighed and woke hir up long enough to relocate hir to a couch. She was going to have to stay late again. Rex wouldn't be up to doing much, and Jamal had been out all day. Well, they were her friends, and it wouldn't be that bad. She reshelved the books Rex had been using as a pillow -- Vampires of Malaysia and The Power of Pentagrams -- and settled in for a late, long shift.
She spent the next few hours cleaning up, organizing, making sales to the few late-night customers who showed up, and wondering about the ring Jamal had given her. Two hours after even her overtime had ended, she remembered that she had a test tomorrow. "Goodnight," she mumbled to Rex's sleeping form as she grabbed her key.
There were footsteps in the street. "Jamal?" she asked with some trepidation. Who else could it be at this time of night, really? But she couldn't see who it was, and this wasn't the safest city.
"Sarah Challis," the person said. The voice sounded feminine, and there was a suggestion of curves beneath the dark cloak the figure wore. Definitely not Jamal, then.
"Stop," Sarah said, trying to be commanding, "I don't want any trouble. Get away from me."
"Of course you don't," the woman said. Sarah knew that voice, tried to place it and couldn't. "But you're going to get it, because you didn't listen when I told you to stay out of matters too big for you to understand." Her hand dipped into the pocket of the robes and came out with a cloth that smelled strongly of trichloromethane.
Sarah remembered then who the voice belonged to, who the woman was. "But you're," she said, before the world went soft and spun around. She fell into darkness.
Sarah woke up behind a shelf. Jamal was standing over her, looking more furious than she'd ever seen him. He helped her up and propelled her gently towards the front of the shop. She felt dazed and sleepy, almost hungover. Why was everyone in the shop? Why did they look so nervous? And she'd certainly never seen Shell quite that angry before. Jamal had a new tension to his voice as he said, "I'll get there. But first, did any one of you see Rex?"
***
Sarah spent the rest of the day in a bit of a daze. She couldn't go to school. This was because of several things, but mostly these:
1) Rex had killed people and was probably going to continue doing so
2) People were going to try to kill Rex
3) Shell was a cat
4) Vampire genocide, really?
It was culture shock to the most extreme degree, and put some past events in an unpleasant light. And despite all of it, she couldn't stop thinking about one thing. The police officers at the Westover mansion had said that the kill pattern was in line with a string of recent murders. They'd been committed by the same person. And Sarah had no idea where Rex had been two nights ago at three AM.
That didn't mean it had been Rex who killed Jack Westover, though. For one thing, Jamal had said Rex probably retained some subconcious memories of hir other state. Xe might have suggested a route into the mansion. Rex's perplexity over the murder meant that there were no memories of the killing. Probably.
It wasn't that Sarah was denying the possibility, really. But, well, she knew Britney. She'd seen Jack's dead body. She didn't want Rex to have done it, because that would mean that Rex had killed an actual person whose family she knew, and that was somehow worse than reading about it in the paper. But she also couldn't just let it lie. She was a scientest, goddammit, and she was going to see this through to the end. And because she was a scientest, she went to look at the books Rex had been reading before everything went strange. Xe'd been reading them just before xe went to sleep, and that was supposed to be the time when your subconcious came out to play, wasn't it?
She found the books. They didn't exactly seem helpful -- Who would write an entire book on the vampires in Malaysia? -- but she opened them anyway. At first she tried looking at the table of contents, thinking maybe she'd find something relevant there, but there was nothing that seemed immediately relevant. She read a few pages of Vampires of Malaysia, flipped a few pages forward, repeated.
Then she stopped. Flipped back a few pages. Stared in open-mouthed amazement at the huge two-page illustration on pages 124-125. And she went to find Jamal, because science wasn't going to cover this one.