07. sorry, we're dead: a supernatural noir.
SORRY, WE’RE DEAD: a supernatural noir
featuring:
• Virgil Meriweather, a werepanther (Idris Elba). A sharp dresser with a broad sense of humor.
• Warrenwick Gam, a vampire (Byung Hun Lee). A bit of a curmudgeon and a dead shot with a Derringer.
• Abigail LaVeau, a zombie slayer (Berenice Marlohe). Definition of a femme fatale.
• Stevie, a cabbie (Sung Kang). One of the best getaway drivers in the city, with dreams of opening a restaurant.
• Marian Underwood, a cigarette girl at a gambling hall (Kelly Reilly). Has a thing for Warrenwick, and gladly passes on information to the pair of private eyes.
• Helene LaVeau, a damsel in distress …? (Eva Green). Abigail’s half-sister, who has been kidnapped by someone with a grudge against her slayer sister.
• Christian Beauclair, a bokor (Aldis Hodge). A new mobster on the scene who practices black Voodoo to eliminate the competition.
• Osulf Sørenson, a werewolf (Mads Mikkelsen). Beauclair’s right-hand man.
• Sean Maguire, a bartender (Ty Olsson). By day he’s a bare-knuckle boxer, by night the barkeep at Mac’s. A good man to have in your corner.
• San Pascualito, a death god (Clifton Collins Jr.). Leader of the gang known as the Bone Daddies, he’s more than your average thug. And let’s just say he doesn’t need any makeup to look skeletal…
• Jack Malone, a jazz musician (J. August Richards). The saxophonist in the band at Dante’s and Helene’s latest paramour. A hot-blooded and violent man who is obsessively in love with Helene.
• Maggie Belladonna, a witch (Ksenia Solo). Need your palm read? Want to communicate with the other side? Looking for a true love potion? Mags is your girl. But if you hate cats, you can go elsewhere.
• Nora Donovan, a (fallen?) angel (Natalie Dormer). A mysterious figure-War can’t be sure if she’s an angel sent to help him, or a devil sent to tempt him down the wrong path.
• Lily, a huli jing (Liu Yifei). Lu Tsu’s granddaughter.
• Lu Tsu, a huli jing (Victor Wong). A friend of War’s, he currently runs a dry cleaner’s shop-but in actuality he’s a nine-tailed huli jing who is beginning to see what’s approaching on the horizon…
After a good day’s sleep, I woke feeling much more philosophic about the world. So Mrs. Greene had stiffed me-so I’d have to cross my fingers and hope that another case fell in my lap soon, before the landlady threw my shit into the alley. Hey, at least it wasn’t raining.
First things first: I dropped off my undoubtedly ruined suit at the dry cleaner’s. The girl at the counter-petite and Chinese-visibly recoiled from the bag I dropped in front of her, eyes tearing up from the potency of the stench. “By the spirits! What is that?”
“Lurcher juice. Sorry.” I hunched my shoulders. “Your granddad in?”
“Yeah, just a second-Grandfather! Your friend’s here with a horrible bag!”
The best word to describe Lu Tsu was “wizened”. The man had wrinkles on his wrinkles. Vibrant streaks of white cut through the gray of his braid, and his pale skin looked like old parchment against the red and gold of his fitted robe. He always put me in mind of those porcelain lucky cats they sold in gimcrack stores, perpetually pleased and smiling at the world. Very little ever fazed Lu Tsu-not even gore-soaked suits.
“Mr. Gam, you are very hard on your clothes,” he said in Mandarin. “You need to marry a good washerwoman, to take care of them. I will not be here forever, you know. And I doubt anyone else could get such stains out of wool.”
“You always talk as if you’re on your deathbed,” I replied in the same tongue. “When we both know you’ll outlast this whole town. How are things?”
“Not so bad, not so good. Seems every corner has a laundry shop now. Too much competition.”
“I doubt anyone could truly compete with you, Lu Tsu.”
“Pah!” The old man waved dismissively, the gold tassel on his sleeve swinging hypnotically. “You know, Mr. Gam, if you are looking for a good wife, my Lily here is a very good girl. Very respectful. Not such a good cook, but then you wouldn’t mind that, would you?”
“Grandfather!” The girl had turned a violent shade of maroon. Even her nose was burning.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said with mock seriousness, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. “She’s awfully young, isn’t she?”
“She’s nineteen now! Plenty old enough to be married! Her grandmother was fifteen when we married.”
“But you know I’m a lot older than I look, Lu Tsu.”
“Ah, but she will age well. Last you a long time. You know how blessed my family is when it comes to longevity. And she will bring you luck-I think you need luck more than anything, Mr. Gam,” Lu Tsu said knowingly, nodding. “Luck to bring you money, luck to bring you work. You have always been good with the luck, Lily. Almost as good as your grandfather when it comes to the luck.”
“Grandfather, please stop,” the girl said firmly, turning away and rushing off between the hanging plastic bags. She was truly mortified-her grip on her human form had slackened with emotion, and I caught a glimpse of her russet tail flicking behind her.
“She has a crush on you,” Lu Tsu said when she had disappeared. “Thinks her grandfather is blind and senile in his old age, but I can see just as good as ever. And I am only half joking-she would make a man a very fine wife. And I know you well enough now, Mr. Gam, to know that you would treat a wife very well, for all of your strange habits.”
“Lu Tsu, I would love to take your granddaughter off your hands in exchange for free dry cleaning for the rest of my days, but I think today’s world mostly frowns upon using people for bartering.”
“You twist my intentions now-you know I am only trying to set Lily up with a good home for after I am gone.”
“And you should really stop talking as if you’re at death’s door. Now, about my suit. Think it can be salvaged?”
“Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully, poking at the wadded mess with one finger. “Difficult job. Very difficult. How soon do you need it back?”
“As soon as you’re able, but no especial rush, I suppose.”
“Give me three days. Zombie muck is always tricky.”
“And what will it run me?”
Lu Tsu’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “…How long have we known one another, Mr. Gam? A rough estimate?”
That required some serious addition. “Let’s see… I’d round it up to about one hundred and eighty years? Give or take a handful?”
“Yes, just thereabouts. And do you ever think it odd how often our paths have happened to cross?”
“Honestly? Not really. When you’ve lived as long as I have, been around the world so many times, you start to think it really is a small place after all. Why? You’re not going to say you’ve been stalking me for some nefarious purpose, are you?”
“I can’t recall you being this cynical before you became a detective,” Lu Tsu said, chuckling. “No, Mr. Gam. I do not have ulterior motives for you, unless you consider my attempts at matrimonial arrangements for my granddaughter. I am simply referring to the fact that it has been nine times now that we have found each other. Do you understand the significance of that number?”
“Not to be rude, but it seems like every number’s significant to you.”
“I do put a lot of faith into numbers, yes. But nine is a very magical number, Mr. Gam. A number associated with royalty and harmony and wisdom. Since the day you walked into this shop, I have had a suspicion that this particular time would be different from the others. I sense that a great change is coming, and you and I will both play parts in it. My foresight has gotten stronger these past few weeks-I can almost see what is before us.”
“…So I don’t have to pay until after this cataclysmic event?”
Lu Tsu laughed, a heartier laugh than would be expected from a man so small in build. The tassels on his robe bounced and swung like pendulums. “No, you don’t. I will clean your sad suit free of charge-just so long as you do me one favor.”
“If it’s marrying your granddaughter-”
“No, no, I shall not force her on you if you are so against being a husband.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Go to the Hyde Bridge in exactly two hours’ time. Stand on the east side of it, close to the middle of its span. And then follow your instincts. Simple enough?”
You didn’t get to be as old as I was without being suspicious of just about everything that moved. Used to be a time not so long ago when it seemed like every bush hid a mob of angry idiots carrying farming equipment and torches, baying for your undead hide and determined to have it off of you. And becoming a private eye had only honed those survival instincts even further. But Lu Tsu had always done right by me. There had been plenty of opportunities in the past when he could have had my head on a silver platter, to his own benefit. There were plenty of cruel huli jing out there, but Lu Tsu and his family had always been consistently kindhearted. I figured I owed him the benefit of the doubt after nearly two centuries.
“Alright. I’ll be there.”
“Good,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Now let me get to work on this monstrosity and see if I can make it worthy of that handsome face of yours.”
“Thanks, Lu Tsu.”
“Always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Gam.”