of bullets, books, and ectoplasm: a sorry, we're dead story.
of bullets, books, and ectoplasm: a sorry, we're dead story
(commissioned by allthelivesofme.)
virgil is stuck babysitting a hitwoman-turned-star-witness
in the days leading up to the trial for the infamous strop sisters.
meanwhile war takes on a case for a book collector plagued by a poltergeist.
and sometimes there's just no accounting for animal attraction. (5,901 words)
FEATURING:
Lupita Nyong'o as Daphne "The Howling Hyena" Parker
Liam Neeson as Fitzwilliam O'Brien
Idris Elba as Virgil Meriweather
Byung Hun Lee as Warrenwick Gam
Natalie Dormer as Nora Donovan
Dame Judi Dench as Octavia Strophades
Dame Helen Mirren as Alma Strophades
VIRGIL
I shifted in my chair. Snapped my newspaper open. Did my best to focus on the story above the fold, covering the upcoming trial against the infamous Strop Sisters-a media circus already being touted as The Trial of the Century-
(Funny, how many of those come along in a year.)
-when another sunflower seed ricocheted off my forehead.
“God damn it, Daphne!” I growled, glaring over my newspaper. “I swear-you do that one more time and I’m gonna save the Sisters the trouble and murder you myself.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said languidly, already sighting along another seed resting in her palm. Despite her crimson pencil skirt she had her legs slung over one arm of the couch, high-heeled feet swinging; she was utterly heedless of the wrinkles she was creasing into her fitted silk blouse. Then again, even wrinkles probably looked good on her.
“You just keep testing me and you’ll see why I got kicked out of every school.”
“Virgil,” War groaned from the desk, dropping his head onto the ledger spread open before him. “Please. Not tonight.”
“Your partner’s right-that was a fucking terrible pun, Virg.”
“And you’re in no position to be passing any kind of judgment on me, lady. I’m not the common criminal-”
“I’m hardly common,” she retorted, stretching until her back popped audibly. And for all that Daphne Parker was the current thorn in my side, she sure was fun to watch in motion. Slim with elegant lines and a regal profile that brought to mind the Egyptian art at the museum, she had skin even darker than mine and a stiletto smile she reserved for special occasions. Her step had natural slink in it and she possessed a killer sense of fashion.
Which was fitting, considering that’s exactly what she was: a killer.
Now, War and I have sometimes found ourselves mixed up in jobs of questionable legality. There have been times we’ve technically overstepped certain laws and circumnavigated the judicial system in order to get true justice for the victims. But it’s not as if we regularly hide guns for hire-no, I found myself stuck babysitting Daphne Parker because Tommy Tiller asked me to.
Detective Tiller is an old friend; one of those who have the right to call you up late one night and ask you for an awkward favor. Up to and including playing bodyguard to a hitwoman willing to turn state’s evidence on a couple of her old cohorts. Since I had a more than vested interest in seeing the Strop Sisters-aka the Harpy Hitwomen, aka Octavia and Alma Strophades-put away for life, I agreed without too much fuss. Didn’t hurt that Daphne Parker turned out to be so easy on the eyes.
But after a week of being stuck in close quarters with her, I was starting to think I had this job on hard terms; the dame may be nice to look at, but she was a devil and a half to live with. She had an unerring skill when it came to getting under a man’s skin, and I’ve hardly got the thinnest in town. Course, anybody’d go a little stir crazy after a week locked indoors, but this girl took it to a whole new level.
And anyway, it was a bit rich: me bodyguarding a hitwoman. I look impressive, and I do pack quite the punch when I’ve a mind to, but mostly I’m all growl and no bite. Daphne, on the other hand… Not the type to hesitate when it comes to pulling the trigger. If anyone can take care of themselves-course, when it comes to the police there are certain formalities that have to be observed. A witness for the prosecution has to be under guard, 24/7.
“Come Monday morning, I’ll walk you into that courthouse with a smile,” I promised through gritted teeth. “Until then-”
“Daphne, I’d really stop pushing it,” War spoke up in support. “He’s not above hog-tying and locking you in the supply closet.”
“As if I wouldn’t get out of that in two minutes flat,” she snorted. “God, I’m bored. What’s a girl got to do to get a little entertainment around here?”
“If you’re all that bored, why don’t you clean up the mess you made in the kitchen?” I suggested sweetly.
“I don’t see the point in cleaning kitchens. They’ll just be dirty again in three hours.”
“I can’t argue with that logic,” War admitted.
“You never even use the goddamned kitchen, War, so pipe down.” There was a heavy knock at the front door and I straightened eagerly. “Oh, thank God, a client. Daphne, if you would-other room, as we discussed.”
She muttered under her breath but climbed to her feet readily enough, slipping into the side room War sometimes used as a blackout bolt-hole. For not the first time, I wondered exactly what kind of deal she’d struck with Tiller. Perhaps he’d promised her a fresh start in a new town, with a new name and new bank account to match.
“Come on in,” I finally called once she’d closed the door behind her.
He didn’t so much walk as stagger in, clearly distraught. For a tall, broad-shouldered man, he moved with a strange timidity, hunched over as if to make himself smaller. His thinning hair, which must have once been dark and burnished with gold, was now liberally streaked with silver. The wire-rimmed glasses-one lens cracked-and tweed suit-freshly torn and ripped-combined with the leather loafers and bowtie gave him a curiously dusty, professorial air. He was worrying his hat in his hands; if he didn’t stop soon the brim would be shredded. And when his pale blue eyes fixed on me he straightened so quickly it was almost comical, nostrils flaring as he caught my scent.
The animal instincts were telling him to cover his weakness in the presence of another predator; it spoke of more spirit than I would have expected. If he was truly as cowed and broken as he looked, he would have merely bent his neck to me in submission.
“Looks like you’ve had some trouble,” I said conversationally, gesturing at the empty chair angled before the desk. “I’m Virgil Meriweather-this is my partner, Warrenwick Gam. Please. Have a seat and explain what brings you here.”
“Uh, well, me name’s Fitzwilliam O’Brien,” he began in a shaky, but distinctive, Irish lilt. “I run O’Brien Books, on Lake Street. Been there for several years now-never a spot of trouble. Keep mostly to meself. Well, last week I noticed a few things were off. Books moved from where I’d left ‘em. The tap in the washroom was turned on, and so were the lights. Two days ago I came in to find an entire bookcase shuffled about-entirely out of order, books shoved in so haphazardly some of the spines were cracked. Terrible, just terrible. Then tonight…”
“Yes?” War prodded, leaning forward.
“Things started flying about! One of me displays was tipped over. Glass broke and went everywhere! Books flapping through the air, loose pages falling to the floor. I hear this terrible laughter and then something starts pulling at me clothes. Ripping at me hair. A book hit me so hard in the face me glasses cracked!” He pointed an indignant finger at the lens in question. “I heard the binding snap, too, and that’s a tricky thing to repair, that is.” He seemed more affronted by the damage to his books than to his person.
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a poltergeist,” War said. “You say you’ve been at that location for several years?”
“Yes!” He nodded strenuously. “And like I said: nary a peep.”
“Do you have any enemies, Mr. O’Brien?”
“Nay. I keep meself to meself. All of the collectors what deal with me have been clients for years; nary a complaint amongst them. I’m positively rattled.”
“Hmm,” War said thoughtfully. “Could be a wandering spirit. Could be someone with a nasty sense of humor hired a ‘geist to plague you for a bit. Have you gotten any shady letters, calls, telegrams lately? Perhaps asking for money?”
“Well,” O’Brien blustered, “I can’t really say.”
“You can’t?”
“I’m notoriously bad at keeping up with me mail. There’s usually a two week pile of it by the door. I’d have to have a look-see-but I’m not going back whilst things are flying about like they were.”
“We have some experience with the spectrally-inclined,” War said. “And I’ve ways of checking their outbursts. Perhaps we should go back to your shop so I can have a look around and you can check your mail, Mr. O’Brien.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said eagerly, grabbing my coat off the back of my chair. I couldn’t give two hoots about rare books, but after so many days stuck in the same office space, I welcomed any change of scenery.
“Uh, I think I can handle this case, Virg,” War said dryly. “Besides, you’re needed here. Remember?”
I huffed as I dropped back into the chair, biting back my grumbling.
“Give me just one moment, Mr. O’Brien,” War said, ducking into the kitchen. Probably to down a quick glass of cow’s blood, to stave off any awkward cravings.
“So-make much money in the book biz?” I asked conversationally.
“It covers me needs,” he said primly. “…Do ye like being a detective, Mr. Meriweather?”
“Eh, it’s got its ups and its downs.”
“I think it’d be terrible dangerous. Far too exciting. Too much running and shouting and bullets,” he added with a slight shiver.
“Not a fan of physical exercise, Mr. O’Brien?”
“I don’t see the point in it,” he said simply. “I prefer a book and a quiet, sturdy chair.” I wondered, though: a man his size, with that build, the underlying muscle slowly turning to paunch… Perhaps Mr. Fitzwilliam O’Brien had been a very different man in his youth.
And if not, he’d be the first werelion I’d ever met who didn’t enjoy a good run now and then.
“Is there a reason why your friend’s hiding in the other room?” he added nonchalantly. Ah. Yes. Of course he would have heard through the door; and Daphne’s scent was all over the place by now. “Not on account of me, I hope. I’m nothing frightening.”
“Daphne, might as well come out and say hello,” I conceded. “Daphne’s just shy, Mr. O’Brien.”
She cracked the door open, peering out suspiciously. The way she was holding herself, I knew she was poised to leap away at the slimmest sign of a threat. Probably had a gun pressed against her leg, too, hidden behind the door-part of the terms for her testifying was that she wasn’t to touch another firearm, but I knew better. Didn’t matter how many times we patted her down: Daphne wasn’t about to go unarmed during such an uncertain time. She stared at the disheveled bookseller, sizing him up with a sniff that told her everything she needed to know. “Lion, eh?” she said. “Grew up down the street from a pack of you. Always gave us a hard time.”
“Old rivalries can be terrible things,” he conceded, nodding politely at her. I was beginning to think ‘terrible’ was his favorite word. “Especially when they stretch all the way back. I hardly fit the usual mold, I think ye’ll find.”
“Huh.” She stepped slowly into the room, one hand tucked up behind her back. “You look a mess.”
“Fitting, since I feel a mess. These are unusual circumstances. I hope ye won’t hold that against me. And ye look lovely, Miss…”
I blinked. He was flirting with her. The fussy, middle-aged-well, pantywaist, to be entirely honest-was actually trying to charm Daphne “The Howling Hyena” Parker.
It took some effort to keep my mouth from gaping open at the audacity.
For a long beat, she didn’t answer. Just stood staring at him. And then a grin slowly crept across her face. “I’m Daphne, Mr. O’Brien. Daphne Parker.”
“Please, call me Fitz.”
“Alright. Fitz.”
“Sorry, sorry,” War said, bustling back into the room and adjusting the collar of his coat. “Lead the way, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Will ye be here long, Miss Parker?” he asked at the door.
“Until Monday.”
“Then perhaps our paths will cross again.” He nodded at her with a crooked smile before putting on his creased hat and ducking through the door. A moment later the janky elevator down the hall whirred and screeched into life.
“Did I just see-”
“Do you know why I let you be my bodyguard, Virg?” she said sharply, cutting me off.
“My sterling reputation?”
“No-because I thought you were gorgeous. I thought I could have a little fun; play with a big kitty while I was hiding like a mouse. And then we actually started talking, and I realized two things: one, that that witch girlfriend of yours-”
“Maggie is hardly my girlfriend-”
“Oh, puh-lease. She’s got a ruby collar around your neck and you can’t even see it. Anyway, I knew she’d scratch my eyes out if I put the moves on you. And two, we didn’t click. I was hoping there’d be a spark, you know? A little fizzle of chemistry to tell me how good it’d be. I’ve always trusted my nose; it’s never led me astray. And it’s made it pretty clear that we? Just wouldn’t be a good fit. But him?” She pointed an enthusiastic finger at the door. “I think we could go places.”
“Really? Him? He dresses like a professor.”
“And you act like a clown. A girl can look past tweed. It’s just pure, basic animal attraction, Virg-no accounting for it, no questioning it. The nose just knows.”
WARRENWICK
As the cab pulled up to the curb, an elderly man at the back of the small crowd glanced over his shoulder to watch as we climbed out. “Hope you’re here to take care of this,” he said in a chastising way. “Word gets out that this sort of madness happens ‘round here, we’re bound to lose business. Property values’ll go down.”
“Yes, thank ye, Mr. Nakumura,” O’Brien rumbled, patting the old man’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t ye get back to your restaurant now?”
There were six others standing on the sidewalk peering through the front window of the shop with interest, watching as dozens of books flew about and crashed into one another. It struck me again how quickly things had changed in this town-it had only been a couple decades since preters had “come out of the crypt”, so to speak, but the city had taken it surprisingly in stride. Once upon a time the sight of poltergeist activity would have caused mass panic. Screaming in the streets. A full-fledged mob ready to burn the building down. And now there was just a handful of people, no doubt bored, curious pedestrians who had paused when the strangeness caught their eye. Just watching. No hysterics. No fear.
“Is it a spell gone haywire?” a woman with bouffant blonde curls asked. “I know this witch who runs a cleaning service; sometimes she forgets to cut off the magic and the broom sweeps grooves into the floors.”
“Nah, it’s a spook, right?” a boy interjected, snapping his bubblegum between his teeth. “Casper’s sore about something and takin’ it out on the books, yeah?”
“Something like that,” I said. “You all might want to clear off-we’re going in to have words with whoever it is, and they might get… dramatic.”
That got rid of them. It was one thing to watch things zoom around with a large plate of glass between them; another thing entirely if the glass shattered and things zoomed out into the street.
“D’ye have much experience with ghosts?” O’Brien asked nervously, hand closing around the door handle.
“Fair amount. Don’t worry-I know how to handle them.”
I strode through the door and let loose a piercing whistle. The spinning books froze abruptly. There was definitely a watchful presence now focused on me; it’s always a bit off-putting when you feel like there’re eyes on you but there aren’t any actual eyes involved. “Alright, pal,” I said in my best disappointed teacher voice. “You’ve had some fun. But it’s time to put the books down, apologize, and leave. Now.”
The suspended books fell to the floor with a clatter that made O’Brien wince as if in mortal agony. And then I felt cold hands close around my arms.
There was a brief interlude of strained silence until I coughed awkwardly. “…Sorry, pal, but if you’re trying to pick me up or throw me across the room to make a dramatic ‘statement’, you should just give up right now. It won’t work.”
The cold hands drew away. “Well, why the hell not?” a peeved voice demanded. It was reedy with a slight echo rounding it, as if the words were coming down a very long, damp tunnel.
“I’m undead,” I explained helpfully. “One foot in this world, one in the next. Which means certain things don’t have an affect on me. Time, for one. And spooks for another. Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s have a little chat. First off: what do I call you?”
“And what if I don’t feel like talking to you?” the voice sniffed.
I drew the small can I’d grabbed from the kitchen out of my coat pocket. “Then I salt the whole damn place and leave.”
The air got decidedly colder, the equivalent of a ghost fuming. “Fine. Call me Murphy.”
“I’m War, Murphy, and I’m here because you’ve been acting all manner of rude to my client, Mr. O’Brien. I’ve heard his side of the story-care to tell me yours?”
“Hmph.”
“Listen, I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this poltergeist gig, but you should probably know that your kind aren’t exempt from today’s laws. You can be brought up on legal charges, tried in a court of law, and even sentenced if found guilty. Willful destruction of property, trespassing, and assault are not minor charges, Murphy.”
The chair beside the desk swiveled out, creaking slightly as the specter sat down. If I focused enough, to the point where my eyes practically crossed, I could just make out a shimmering outline in the air, visible in the displacement of floating dust if nothing else. “Okay, okay: so I haven’t always been on my best behavior. So I may have pissed off a warlock a few years back, yeah? And this guy locks me up in a fucking vase-”
“Ah!” O’Brien exclaimed in sudden understanding, straightening from picking up the books scattered across the floor. “So that’s it!”
“What’s what?” I asked.
“I had this willow-patterned vase on a shelf-it was a gift from a friend a couple Christmases back-and a few days ago a customer accidentally knocked it over. Broke it into a hundred pieces. I counted it as a lost cause, swept up the shards, and dumped it in the wastepaper bin. And that’s when all of this madness started.”
“You try being locked up in a vase for years and years, see what it does to your disposition,” Murphy muttered. “You can’t fault a guy for venting some repressed emotions, can you? Flexing my muscles a bit?”
“Did ye have to flex them quite so destructively, though?” O’Brien lamented before I could open my mouth. “Some of these books took me years to find! Weeks to restore! Some of these are so rare there’s only a handful o’ them left in the world; how could ye treat them so callously?”
“Don’t see what all the fuss is about-bunch of doorstops and paperweights, in my opinion. Can’t understand why anyone’d get so bothered over some books.”
“Doorstops?” O’Brien spluttered, face turning red. “Paperweights? Books are-why, books are doors into entirely new worlds, boy-o! Books are time capsules-and windows into the future! Everything ye can dream and hope for and believe in can be found in a book. The written word is what elevates us above the animals, sets us apart. If ye don’t see that, ye just haven’t found the right book. Here, what do ye like? I can recommend something.”
The silence had a definite awkwardness about it. The chair creaked slightly, as if the spook had shifted uncomfortably.
“Come, come,” O’Brien urged relentlessly. “What are your interests? I’ve a knack for pairing the right book to the right reader-”
“Okay, so I can’t bloody read,” Murphy snapped. “Never had the time nor the patience for it. Dusty and boring. Too much else to do.”
“Well,” O’Brien said, undaunted. “Ye’ve got plenty of time now, aye? Not as if ye’ve got more pressing concerns-and I hear being dead focuses the mind a treat. Sure it won’t take ye too long to grasp the basics. I’d be more than happy to teach ye after hours. And in exchange-and to make amends for your outbursts-p’raps ye could tidy the shop a bit for me? Straighten and dust the shelves, fetch boxes, organize the mail, things of that caliber? I’ve been meaning to hire an assistant for some time…”
“Oh, so you’ll just make me your servant then?” Murphy grumbled.
“Either ye chip in now or I’ll take ye to court and sue ye for damages. That’d be within me rights, wouldn’t it, Mr. Gam?”
“Absolutely,” I said smartly, rather nonplussed by how quickly the tables had turned. I’d half-expected falling bookcase, novels flung into my face, and a heated spiritual tussle involving salt and cold iron to banish the ghost. Not calm negotiating and offers of tutoring. “Honestly, Murphy, I’d accept his terms. I don’t see how working in a bookshop could be all that exhausting-and an education isn’t something to turn your nose up at. A man knows his letters, he can get by just about anywhere. Anyway, if he takes you to court, the police’ll just bottle you up again until the trial. Do you really want to go through that again?”
“Fine, okay, it’s a deal,” the ghost said in a rush.
“Wonderful,” smiled O’Brien. He set a stack of books onto his paper-strewn desk. “Thanks so much for your assistance, Mr. Gam.” He opened his wallet and withdrew enough to cover an hour’s-worth of work, slapping the bills into my hand. “I’ll swing by your office tomorrow, if that’s okay with ye.”
“Uh, sure,” I said uncertainly. “But it looks like you’ve got everything handled-”
“Oh, no. I would just like to stop and visit your friend Daphne. If that won’t be a problem?”
“I don’t see why not-”
“Wonderful,” he repeated, straightening his bowtie. “Good evening, Mr. Gam.”
VIRGIL
I don’t care for trials. They’re little more than circus sideshows, stages the lawyers use for grandstanding performances to impress the journalists, and rarely end as satisfactorily as I’d wish. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to go back to the old way of dealing with criminals-people frown upon vigilante justice now, but when the alternative is seeing a murderer or rapist walk free thanks to some bungled red tape and a technicality…
There was even more press coverage than usual tonight. There was the freak factor, of course: preters were tried in courts of law just like normals, it just didn’t happen nearly as often, and a case this scandalous was rare. It was also common knowledge that the Strop Sisters had worked for every underworld heavy in the last four decades, so people were hoping for some dramatics on both sides of the gallery. Anything was possible tonight: from tearful outbursts to chilling death threats, from displays of supernatural fury to actual gunfire. The entire city would be listening on their radios, discussing the blow-by-blows from the prosecutor, eagerly anticipating the special edition of the newspaper that would hit the streets as soon as the verdict was declared.
I’d already said my piece, cool and calm under the lights and noisy focus of cameras. The defense attorney had tried to smear me as a thug-for-hire on par with the Strops, attempting to explain away their many attacks on me over the years as just territorial skirmishes between criminals at cross-purposes. But I’ve been handling weedy little pisspots like Attorney Chase since before he was in diapers, and I stuck to the unvarnished facts without rising to the bait. Tommy Tiller had flashed me an approving thumbs up as I returned to my seat in the first row.
War was sitting in the hot chair now, corroborating my story. And if I’d been cool, he was positively glacial. Few can manage distant aloofness like a vamp that’s been around for almost a thousand years.
“Listen,” War said firmly, cutting off Attorney Chase in mid-question. “These women have attacked me and my partner three times in the last decade. If we weren’t what we are, we’d have been permanently disabled, disfigured, or dead because of them. They’ve destroyed a good friend’s rather expensive cab, set fire to our office, and ruined three good suits apiece. We have seen them commit murder on two separate occasions with our own eyes. There is no way on Earth that you can frame this to make them innocent as woodland babes, or just a pair of elderly women trying to make the rent in a cruel world that’s unsympathetic to their gender or age. Alma and Octavia Stophades are vicious, cold-blooded killers who would gun a man down or slit a woman’s throat for money: that’s the hard and fast truth of it. Now please stop trying to paint them as something other than that, sit down, and let justice run its course.”
There was a momentary shocked silence before the cameras began flashing and the courtroom exploded in cheers, jeers, and everything in between. War stood up, straightened his jacket, and stepped down from the witness stand.
“Well done,” I murmured as he slid past me, sitting down in the vacant seat between me and Nora.
“I really hope they convict,” Nora said, slipping her hand under War’s arm. “The way they’re looking at you, I’ve the feeling you’ve just jumped to the top of their revenge list.”
I glanced over. The Strops sat ramrod stiff in their cage-and it was a literal cage; when you’re dealing with harpies it doesn’t pay to be careless-every white and iron-gray curl perfectly in place, their dark red lipstick immaculate and sharp green suits ironed smooth. If ‘glaring daggers’ had been more than a turn of phrase, War would have most certainly been pinned to his chair, the looks they’d leveled at him.
“Order! Order in the court!” Judge Mankowitz bellowed, banging his gavel against the wooden podium. “Call the final witness and let’s get this farce over with!”
“Thank you, Your Honor. I would like to call Miss Daphne Parker to the stand.”
She stood, ran a quick hand down the front of her modest white skirt to smooth out the creases, and started down the aisle. She walked confidently, calmly, but I could see the repressed tension still printed on her face. Daphne knew very well what she was about: she was lighting the match to burn her last bridge. After she stepped up to that chair, laid her hand on the Bible, and promised to tell the whole truth and nothing but, she was finished in this town. Her reputation, carefully crafted over the years, would be ruined. She was throwing away a very lucrative career, the respect of some very powerful people, and dozens of favors from people still indebted to her. And for what?
I’d asked her last night, after the besotted O’Brien had finally left-the schmuck had even brought her flowers, for Chrissake, and had gone away with a dopey grin on his face-what was in it for her. Why do this now?
“Well,” she’d said after a long pause. “Maybe I’ve lost the taste for blood. Maybe I got to where I was by accident; by making a lot of mistakes and bad choices. Maybe I never wanted to be a murderer. I was just born in a bad neighborhood, without any options, so I took the easiest one that would get me out of that neighborhood. But then I realized I’d traded one bad situation for another, moved from one ghetto to another with prettier wallpaper. But then there were bills to pay, and family to look out for, and I couldn’t deny that I had certain skills that lent themselves to a certain line of work.”
Then she’d sighed, leaned forward in her chair, and reached for the bottle of bourbon sitting at my elbow. She popped the lid off and took a swig straight from the bottle; luckily War wasn’t there to shout at her about it. “I’m not like the Strops, Virg,” she’d said after another pause. “They do what they do because they like it. Because they think it’s fun. I never thought it was fun. I’ve always pulled the trigger because I felt like I had to, not because I wanted to. And if I’m gonna quit and walk away from it all, might as well go out doing the right thing for once. I’m not deluded enough to think I’ll make that big of a difference, but what the hell-might as well try.”
As I watched her take the long walk, I had to admit: I felt for the dame. This was a hard step to take. But, I supposed, maybe it would’ve been harder not to take it. At the end of the day, if you can’t look at yourself in the mirror, then what’s the point?
Course, it’s better to see the end of the day at all.
When the man stepped into the aisle, I think I was half-expecting it. The Strops ain’t the type to leave any loose ends, and they knew Daphne Parker was the thread most likely to turn into a noose around their necks. I started to move as the gun was lifted, already out of my chair when the light first glinted across the barrel.
But I didn’t move fast enough-not faster than someone else, anyway.
There was a blur of tweed. He bowled her to the floor as the sharp crack of the gunshot resounded through the packed courtroom, the reverb blotted out by shrill screams as the audience went mad and ran for the doors. War was past me in the next blink, hand closing around the gun and twisting upwards so sharply the man didn’t have time enough to drop the weapon-his wrist simply snapped with a sickening crunch. Tiller and three other cops surrounded them, guns and voices raised.
Pushing aside a shrieking woman, I knelt beside Daphne, who was cradling her savior. “His shoulder,” she said quickly, pulling away the bloodied jacket. “It’s silver.”
The way O’Brien was shivering told me that. “Awfully brave of you, old man,” I said to him, tearing through his shirt with clawed fingertips to reveal the full extent of the injury. Smoke was curling up from the bullet wound. “Stupid as shit, of course, but brave. We get that bullet out and you’ll be good as new in a day or two.”
I felt Nora’s hand grip my shoulder. “Let me see, Virgil.” I promptly obliged her, shifting aside to give her room to kneel. Heedless of the blood, she pressed her hand against the wound. Instinctively, O’Brien bucked with a hiss and tried to pull away.
“Steady there,” I said, grabbing his arm and holding him firm. “You’re in the hands of a real angel now, O’Brien. You lucky cat.”
“Lucky, ha!” Daphne barked humorlessly. “He wouldn’t be in this mess at all if not for me-”
“Spare us the speech, Daphne. You didn’t make him jump in front of a bullet. That was all him-and his animal instincts. What were you saying about them the other day? No questioning them, no explaining them?”
Nora’s hand had begun to glow. A soft, golden light emanated from her fingers, soaking into O’Brien’s shoulder. The tight lines of pain across his face began to relax. His body went limp and a soft sigh escaped his lips as Nora lifted her hand. The wound was still there, but it no longer smoked or looked so red and livid. When she turned her hand upwards I saw the glint of the spent slug cupped in her palm.
“Wow,” Daphne breathed, impressed. “You guys must save a lot on health insurance with her around.”
There was a sudden angry screech of tortured metal. Every head swiveled around as the door to the cage containing the Strop Sisters peeled back under the pressure of talon-tipped hands.
“Oh no you fucking don’t!” a familiar voice muttered behind me.
Alma launched herself through the opening only to stop short with a harsh shriek of pain. War had done his super-speed vamp trick and caught her by one wing before she could get fully airborne. Even from my spot crouched on the floor, I could see how his fingertips had dug into the feathered ulna just above the joint. “If you struggle, I’ll rip it off,” he promised in a low voice.
“And if you move, Octavia, I’ll put a bullet through your forehead,” Tiller promised, backing my partner up. He had his gun leveled steadily at the Strop still poised in the doorway of the cage-she’d stopped just shy of pouncing on War, talons gripping the bars.
“I will have order in my court!” Judge Mankowitz shouted breathlessly, brushing down his black robes and trying to reclaim his dignity after diving behind the podium. “Detective, get the accused handcuffed immediately, and escort that gunman downstairs to the holding cells.”
“Are ye alright, Miss Parker?” O’Brien asked, coming back to his senses.
“Am I alright?” she laughed shortly. “You’re the one who just took a bullet!”
“When I tackled ye, ye hit the ground right sharply.”
“I’m just fine, Fitz-I like a good rough tumble now and then. And thanks for doing that. I’ll have to think up some fitting ways to repay you.”
“No need to repay me,” he blustered, face going red again for an entirely different reason.
“Oh, but it’ll be my pleasure,” she promised with a crooked smile. “Come on, let’s get you up and sorted. Have to find you a new jacket; though I must say the disheveled warrior look is a good one on you.”
I climbed to my feet, helped Daphne lug O’Brien onto his, and watched her fuss over him with a not-so-hidden smile. Give it another ten minutes and she’d have him practically purring with contentment.
“They’re a cute couple,” Nora commented, dropping the bullet into the evidence bag a cop held out. “A bit unexpected, maybe. But cute.”
“Well, you know what they say,” I said as a shrilly protesting Alma Strop was tightly chained and War stepped away brushing feathers from his sleeves. “No accounting for animal attraction.”
(commissioned by allthelivesofme.)
virgil is stuck babysitting a hitwoman-turned-star-witness
in the days leading up to the trial for the infamous strop sisters.
meanwhile war takes on a case for a book collector plagued by a poltergeist.
and sometimes there's just no accounting for animal attraction. (5,901 words)
FEATURING:
Lupita Nyong'o as Daphne "The Howling Hyena" Parker
Liam Neeson as Fitzwilliam O'Brien
Idris Elba as Virgil Meriweather
Byung Hun Lee as Warrenwick Gam
Natalie Dormer as Nora Donovan
Dame Judi Dench as Octavia Strophades
Dame Helen Mirren as Alma Strophades
VIRGIL
I shifted in my chair. Snapped my newspaper open. Did my best to focus on the story above the fold, covering the upcoming trial against the infamous Strop Sisters-a media circus already being touted as The Trial of the Century-
(Funny, how many of those come along in a year.)
-when another sunflower seed ricocheted off my forehead.
“God damn it, Daphne!” I growled, glaring over my newspaper. “I swear-you do that one more time and I’m gonna save the Sisters the trouble and murder you myself.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said languidly, already sighting along another seed resting in her palm. Despite her crimson pencil skirt she had her legs slung over one arm of the couch, high-heeled feet swinging; she was utterly heedless of the wrinkles she was creasing into her fitted silk blouse. Then again, even wrinkles probably looked good on her.
“You just keep testing me and you’ll see why I got kicked out of every school.”
“Virgil,” War groaned from the desk, dropping his head onto the ledger spread open before him. “Please. Not tonight.”
“Your partner’s right-that was a fucking terrible pun, Virg.”
“And you’re in no position to be passing any kind of judgment on me, lady. I’m not the common criminal-”
“I’m hardly common,” she retorted, stretching until her back popped audibly. And for all that Daphne Parker was the current thorn in my side, she sure was fun to watch in motion. Slim with elegant lines and a regal profile that brought to mind the Egyptian art at the museum, she had skin even darker than mine and a stiletto smile she reserved for special occasions. Her step had natural slink in it and she possessed a killer sense of fashion.
Which was fitting, considering that’s exactly what she was: a killer.
Now, War and I have sometimes found ourselves mixed up in jobs of questionable legality. There have been times we’ve technically overstepped certain laws and circumnavigated the judicial system in order to get true justice for the victims. But it’s not as if we regularly hide guns for hire-no, I found myself stuck babysitting Daphne Parker because Tommy Tiller asked me to.
Detective Tiller is an old friend; one of those who have the right to call you up late one night and ask you for an awkward favor. Up to and including playing bodyguard to a hitwoman willing to turn state’s evidence on a couple of her old cohorts. Since I had a more than vested interest in seeing the Strop Sisters-aka the Harpy Hitwomen, aka Octavia and Alma Strophades-put away for life, I agreed without too much fuss. Didn’t hurt that Daphne Parker turned out to be so easy on the eyes.
But after a week of being stuck in close quarters with her, I was starting to think I had this job on hard terms; the dame may be nice to look at, but she was a devil and a half to live with. She had an unerring skill when it came to getting under a man’s skin, and I’ve hardly got the thinnest in town. Course, anybody’d go a little stir crazy after a week locked indoors, but this girl took it to a whole new level.
And anyway, it was a bit rich: me bodyguarding a hitwoman. I look impressive, and I do pack quite the punch when I’ve a mind to, but mostly I’m all growl and no bite. Daphne, on the other hand… Not the type to hesitate when it comes to pulling the trigger. If anyone can take care of themselves-course, when it comes to the police there are certain formalities that have to be observed. A witness for the prosecution has to be under guard, 24/7.
“Come Monday morning, I’ll walk you into that courthouse with a smile,” I promised through gritted teeth. “Until then-”
“Daphne, I’d really stop pushing it,” War spoke up in support. “He’s not above hog-tying and locking you in the supply closet.”
“As if I wouldn’t get out of that in two minutes flat,” she snorted. “God, I’m bored. What’s a girl got to do to get a little entertainment around here?”
“If you’re all that bored, why don’t you clean up the mess you made in the kitchen?” I suggested sweetly.
“I don’t see the point in cleaning kitchens. They’ll just be dirty again in three hours.”
“I can’t argue with that logic,” War admitted.
“You never even use the goddamned kitchen, War, so pipe down.” There was a heavy knock at the front door and I straightened eagerly. “Oh, thank God, a client. Daphne, if you would-other room, as we discussed.”
She muttered under her breath but climbed to her feet readily enough, slipping into the side room War sometimes used as a blackout bolt-hole. For not the first time, I wondered exactly what kind of deal she’d struck with Tiller. Perhaps he’d promised her a fresh start in a new town, with a new name and new bank account to match.
“Come on in,” I finally called once she’d closed the door behind her.
He didn’t so much walk as stagger in, clearly distraught. For a tall, broad-shouldered man, he moved with a strange timidity, hunched over as if to make himself smaller. His thinning hair, which must have once been dark and burnished with gold, was now liberally streaked with silver. The wire-rimmed glasses-one lens cracked-and tweed suit-freshly torn and ripped-combined with the leather loafers and bowtie gave him a curiously dusty, professorial air. He was worrying his hat in his hands; if he didn’t stop soon the brim would be shredded. And when his pale blue eyes fixed on me he straightened so quickly it was almost comical, nostrils flaring as he caught my scent.
The animal instincts were telling him to cover his weakness in the presence of another predator; it spoke of more spirit than I would have expected. If he was truly as cowed and broken as he looked, he would have merely bent his neck to me in submission.
“Looks like you’ve had some trouble,” I said conversationally, gesturing at the empty chair angled before the desk. “I’m Virgil Meriweather-this is my partner, Warrenwick Gam. Please. Have a seat and explain what brings you here.”
“Uh, well, me name’s Fitzwilliam O’Brien,” he began in a shaky, but distinctive, Irish lilt. “I run O’Brien Books, on Lake Street. Been there for several years now-never a spot of trouble. Keep mostly to meself. Well, last week I noticed a few things were off. Books moved from where I’d left ‘em. The tap in the washroom was turned on, and so were the lights. Two days ago I came in to find an entire bookcase shuffled about-entirely out of order, books shoved in so haphazardly some of the spines were cracked. Terrible, just terrible. Then tonight…”
“Yes?” War prodded, leaning forward.
“Things started flying about! One of me displays was tipped over. Glass broke and went everywhere! Books flapping through the air, loose pages falling to the floor. I hear this terrible laughter and then something starts pulling at me clothes. Ripping at me hair. A book hit me so hard in the face me glasses cracked!” He pointed an indignant finger at the lens in question. “I heard the binding snap, too, and that’s a tricky thing to repair, that is.” He seemed more affronted by the damage to his books than to his person.
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a poltergeist,” War said. “You say you’ve been at that location for several years?”
“Yes!” He nodded strenuously. “And like I said: nary a peep.”
“Do you have any enemies, Mr. O’Brien?”
“Nay. I keep meself to meself. All of the collectors what deal with me have been clients for years; nary a complaint amongst them. I’m positively rattled.”
“Hmm,” War said thoughtfully. “Could be a wandering spirit. Could be someone with a nasty sense of humor hired a ‘geist to plague you for a bit. Have you gotten any shady letters, calls, telegrams lately? Perhaps asking for money?”
“Well,” O’Brien blustered, “I can’t really say.”
“You can’t?”
“I’m notoriously bad at keeping up with me mail. There’s usually a two week pile of it by the door. I’d have to have a look-see-but I’m not going back whilst things are flying about like they were.”
“We have some experience with the spectrally-inclined,” War said. “And I’ve ways of checking their outbursts. Perhaps we should go back to your shop so I can have a look around and you can check your mail, Mr. O’Brien.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said eagerly, grabbing my coat off the back of my chair. I couldn’t give two hoots about rare books, but after so many days stuck in the same office space, I welcomed any change of scenery.
“Uh, I think I can handle this case, Virg,” War said dryly. “Besides, you’re needed here. Remember?”
I huffed as I dropped back into the chair, biting back my grumbling.
“Give me just one moment, Mr. O’Brien,” War said, ducking into the kitchen. Probably to down a quick glass of cow’s blood, to stave off any awkward cravings.
“So-make much money in the book biz?” I asked conversationally.
“It covers me needs,” he said primly. “…Do ye like being a detective, Mr. Meriweather?”
“Eh, it’s got its ups and its downs.”
“I think it’d be terrible dangerous. Far too exciting. Too much running and shouting and bullets,” he added with a slight shiver.
“Not a fan of physical exercise, Mr. O’Brien?”
“I don’t see the point in it,” he said simply. “I prefer a book and a quiet, sturdy chair.” I wondered, though: a man his size, with that build, the underlying muscle slowly turning to paunch… Perhaps Mr. Fitzwilliam O’Brien had been a very different man in his youth.
And if not, he’d be the first werelion I’d ever met who didn’t enjoy a good run now and then.
“Is there a reason why your friend’s hiding in the other room?” he added nonchalantly. Ah. Yes. Of course he would have heard through the door; and Daphne’s scent was all over the place by now. “Not on account of me, I hope. I’m nothing frightening.”
“Daphne, might as well come out and say hello,” I conceded. “Daphne’s just shy, Mr. O’Brien.”
She cracked the door open, peering out suspiciously. The way she was holding herself, I knew she was poised to leap away at the slimmest sign of a threat. Probably had a gun pressed against her leg, too, hidden behind the door-part of the terms for her testifying was that she wasn’t to touch another firearm, but I knew better. Didn’t matter how many times we patted her down: Daphne wasn’t about to go unarmed during such an uncertain time. She stared at the disheveled bookseller, sizing him up with a sniff that told her everything she needed to know. “Lion, eh?” she said. “Grew up down the street from a pack of you. Always gave us a hard time.”
“Old rivalries can be terrible things,” he conceded, nodding politely at her. I was beginning to think ‘terrible’ was his favorite word. “Especially when they stretch all the way back. I hardly fit the usual mold, I think ye’ll find.”
“Huh.” She stepped slowly into the room, one hand tucked up behind her back. “You look a mess.”
“Fitting, since I feel a mess. These are unusual circumstances. I hope ye won’t hold that against me. And ye look lovely, Miss…”
I blinked. He was flirting with her. The fussy, middle-aged-well, pantywaist, to be entirely honest-was actually trying to charm Daphne “The Howling Hyena” Parker.
It took some effort to keep my mouth from gaping open at the audacity.
For a long beat, she didn’t answer. Just stood staring at him. And then a grin slowly crept across her face. “I’m Daphne, Mr. O’Brien. Daphne Parker.”
“Please, call me Fitz.”
“Alright. Fitz.”
“Sorry, sorry,” War said, bustling back into the room and adjusting the collar of his coat. “Lead the way, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Will ye be here long, Miss Parker?” he asked at the door.
“Until Monday.”
“Then perhaps our paths will cross again.” He nodded at her with a crooked smile before putting on his creased hat and ducking through the door. A moment later the janky elevator down the hall whirred and screeched into life.
“Did I just see-”
“Do you know why I let you be my bodyguard, Virg?” she said sharply, cutting me off.
“My sterling reputation?”
“No-because I thought you were gorgeous. I thought I could have a little fun; play with a big kitty while I was hiding like a mouse. And then we actually started talking, and I realized two things: one, that that witch girlfriend of yours-”
“Maggie is hardly my girlfriend-”
“Oh, puh-lease. She’s got a ruby collar around your neck and you can’t even see it. Anyway, I knew she’d scratch my eyes out if I put the moves on you. And two, we didn’t click. I was hoping there’d be a spark, you know? A little fizzle of chemistry to tell me how good it’d be. I’ve always trusted my nose; it’s never led me astray. And it’s made it pretty clear that we? Just wouldn’t be a good fit. But him?” She pointed an enthusiastic finger at the door. “I think we could go places.”
“Really? Him? He dresses like a professor.”
“And you act like a clown. A girl can look past tweed. It’s just pure, basic animal attraction, Virg-no accounting for it, no questioning it. The nose just knows.”
WARRENWICK
As the cab pulled up to the curb, an elderly man at the back of the small crowd glanced over his shoulder to watch as we climbed out. “Hope you’re here to take care of this,” he said in a chastising way. “Word gets out that this sort of madness happens ‘round here, we’re bound to lose business. Property values’ll go down.”
“Yes, thank ye, Mr. Nakumura,” O’Brien rumbled, patting the old man’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t ye get back to your restaurant now?”
There were six others standing on the sidewalk peering through the front window of the shop with interest, watching as dozens of books flew about and crashed into one another. It struck me again how quickly things had changed in this town-it had only been a couple decades since preters had “come out of the crypt”, so to speak, but the city had taken it surprisingly in stride. Once upon a time the sight of poltergeist activity would have caused mass panic. Screaming in the streets. A full-fledged mob ready to burn the building down. And now there was just a handful of people, no doubt bored, curious pedestrians who had paused when the strangeness caught their eye. Just watching. No hysterics. No fear.
“Is it a spell gone haywire?” a woman with bouffant blonde curls asked. “I know this witch who runs a cleaning service; sometimes she forgets to cut off the magic and the broom sweeps grooves into the floors.”
“Nah, it’s a spook, right?” a boy interjected, snapping his bubblegum between his teeth. “Casper’s sore about something and takin’ it out on the books, yeah?”
“Something like that,” I said. “You all might want to clear off-we’re going in to have words with whoever it is, and they might get… dramatic.”
That got rid of them. It was one thing to watch things zoom around with a large plate of glass between them; another thing entirely if the glass shattered and things zoomed out into the street.
“D’ye have much experience with ghosts?” O’Brien asked nervously, hand closing around the door handle.
“Fair amount. Don’t worry-I know how to handle them.”
I strode through the door and let loose a piercing whistle. The spinning books froze abruptly. There was definitely a watchful presence now focused on me; it’s always a bit off-putting when you feel like there’re eyes on you but there aren’t any actual eyes involved. “Alright, pal,” I said in my best disappointed teacher voice. “You’ve had some fun. But it’s time to put the books down, apologize, and leave. Now.”
The suspended books fell to the floor with a clatter that made O’Brien wince as if in mortal agony. And then I felt cold hands close around my arms.
There was a brief interlude of strained silence until I coughed awkwardly. “…Sorry, pal, but if you’re trying to pick me up or throw me across the room to make a dramatic ‘statement’, you should just give up right now. It won’t work.”
The cold hands drew away. “Well, why the hell not?” a peeved voice demanded. It was reedy with a slight echo rounding it, as if the words were coming down a very long, damp tunnel.
“I’m undead,” I explained helpfully. “One foot in this world, one in the next. Which means certain things don’t have an affect on me. Time, for one. And spooks for another. Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s have a little chat. First off: what do I call you?”
“And what if I don’t feel like talking to you?” the voice sniffed.
I drew the small can I’d grabbed from the kitchen out of my coat pocket. “Then I salt the whole damn place and leave.”
The air got decidedly colder, the equivalent of a ghost fuming. “Fine. Call me Murphy.”
“I’m War, Murphy, and I’m here because you’ve been acting all manner of rude to my client, Mr. O’Brien. I’ve heard his side of the story-care to tell me yours?”
“Hmph.”
“Listen, I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this poltergeist gig, but you should probably know that your kind aren’t exempt from today’s laws. You can be brought up on legal charges, tried in a court of law, and even sentenced if found guilty. Willful destruction of property, trespassing, and assault are not minor charges, Murphy.”
The chair beside the desk swiveled out, creaking slightly as the specter sat down. If I focused enough, to the point where my eyes practically crossed, I could just make out a shimmering outline in the air, visible in the displacement of floating dust if nothing else. “Okay, okay: so I haven’t always been on my best behavior. So I may have pissed off a warlock a few years back, yeah? And this guy locks me up in a fucking vase-”
“Ah!” O’Brien exclaimed in sudden understanding, straightening from picking up the books scattered across the floor. “So that’s it!”
“What’s what?” I asked.
“I had this willow-patterned vase on a shelf-it was a gift from a friend a couple Christmases back-and a few days ago a customer accidentally knocked it over. Broke it into a hundred pieces. I counted it as a lost cause, swept up the shards, and dumped it in the wastepaper bin. And that’s when all of this madness started.”
“You try being locked up in a vase for years and years, see what it does to your disposition,” Murphy muttered. “You can’t fault a guy for venting some repressed emotions, can you? Flexing my muscles a bit?”
“Did ye have to flex them quite so destructively, though?” O’Brien lamented before I could open my mouth. “Some of these books took me years to find! Weeks to restore! Some of these are so rare there’s only a handful o’ them left in the world; how could ye treat them so callously?”
“Don’t see what all the fuss is about-bunch of doorstops and paperweights, in my opinion. Can’t understand why anyone’d get so bothered over some books.”
“Doorstops?” O’Brien spluttered, face turning red. “Paperweights? Books are-why, books are doors into entirely new worlds, boy-o! Books are time capsules-and windows into the future! Everything ye can dream and hope for and believe in can be found in a book. The written word is what elevates us above the animals, sets us apart. If ye don’t see that, ye just haven’t found the right book. Here, what do ye like? I can recommend something.”
The silence had a definite awkwardness about it. The chair creaked slightly, as if the spook had shifted uncomfortably.
“Come, come,” O’Brien urged relentlessly. “What are your interests? I’ve a knack for pairing the right book to the right reader-”
“Okay, so I can’t bloody read,” Murphy snapped. “Never had the time nor the patience for it. Dusty and boring. Too much else to do.”
“Well,” O’Brien said, undaunted. “Ye’ve got plenty of time now, aye? Not as if ye’ve got more pressing concerns-and I hear being dead focuses the mind a treat. Sure it won’t take ye too long to grasp the basics. I’d be more than happy to teach ye after hours. And in exchange-and to make amends for your outbursts-p’raps ye could tidy the shop a bit for me? Straighten and dust the shelves, fetch boxes, organize the mail, things of that caliber? I’ve been meaning to hire an assistant for some time…”
“Oh, so you’ll just make me your servant then?” Murphy grumbled.
“Either ye chip in now or I’ll take ye to court and sue ye for damages. That’d be within me rights, wouldn’t it, Mr. Gam?”
“Absolutely,” I said smartly, rather nonplussed by how quickly the tables had turned. I’d half-expected falling bookcase, novels flung into my face, and a heated spiritual tussle involving salt and cold iron to banish the ghost. Not calm negotiating and offers of tutoring. “Honestly, Murphy, I’d accept his terms. I don’t see how working in a bookshop could be all that exhausting-and an education isn’t something to turn your nose up at. A man knows his letters, he can get by just about anywhere. Anyway, if he takes you to court, the police’ll just bottle you up again until the trial. Do you really want to go through that again?”
“Fine, okay, it’s a deal,” the ghost said in a rush.
“Wonderful,” smiled O’Brien. He set a stack of books onto his paper-strewn desk. “Thanks so much for your assistance, Mr. Gam.” He opened his wallet and withdrew enough to cover an hour’s-worth of work, slapping the bills into my hand. “I’ll swing by your office tomorrow, if that’s okay with ye.”
“Uh, sure,” I said uncertainly. “But it looks like you’ve got everything handled-”
“Oh, no. I would just like to stop and visit your friend Daphne. If that won’t be a problem?”
“I don’t see why not-”
“Wonderful,” he repeated, straightening his bowtie. “Good evening, Mr. Gam.”
VIRGIL
I don’t care for trials. They’re little more than circus sideshows, stages the lawyers use for grandstanding performances to impress the journalists, and rarely end as satisfactorily as I’d wish. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to go back to the old way of dealing with criminals-people frown upon vigilante justice now, but when the alternative is seeing a murderer or rapist walk free thanks to some bungled red tape and a technicality…
There was even more press coverage than usual tonight. There was the freak factor, of course: preters were tried in courts of law just like normals, it just didn’t happen nearly as often, and a case this scandalous was rare. It was also common knowledge that the Strop Sisters had worked for every underworld heavy in the last four decades, so people were hoping for some dramatics on both sides of the gallery. Anything was possible tonight: from tearful outbursts to chilling death threats, from displays of supernatural fury to actual gunfire. The entire city would be listening on their radios, discussing the blow-by-blows from the prosecutor, eagerly anticipating the special edition of the newspaper that would hit the streets as soon as the verdict was declared.
I’d already said my piece, cool and calm under the lights and noisy focus of cameras. The defense attorney had tried to smear me as a thug-for-hire on par with the Strops, attempting to explain away their many attacks on me over the years as just territorial skirmishes between criminals at cross-purposes. But I’ve been handling weedy little pisspots like Attorney Chase since before he was in diapers, and I stuck to the unvarnished facts without rising to the bait. Tommy Tiller had flashed me an approving thumbs up as I returned to my seat in the first row.
War was sitting in the hot chair now, corroborating my story. And if I’d been cool, he was positively glacial. Few can manage distant aloofness like a vamp that’s been around for almost a thousand years.
“Listen,” War said firmly, cutting off Attorney Chase in mid-question. “These women have attacked me and my partner three times in the last decade. If we weren’t what we are, we’d have been permanently disabled, disfigured, or dead because of them. They’ve destroyed a good friend’s rather expensive cab, set fire to our office, and ruined three good suits apiece. We have seen them commit murder on two separate occasions with our own eyes. There is no way on Earth that you can frame this to make them innocent as woodland babes, or just a pair of elderly women trying to make the rent in a cruel world that’s unsympathetic to their gender or age. Alma and Octavia Stophades are vicious, cold-blooded killers who would gun a man down or slit a woman’s throat for money: that’s the hard and fast truth of it. Now please stop trying to paint them as something other than that, sit down, and let justice run its course.”
There was a momentary shocked silence before the cameras began flashing and the courtroom exploded in cheers, jeers, and everything in between. War stood up, straightened his jacket, and stepped down from the witness stand.
“Well done,” I murmured as he slid past me, sitting down in the vacant seat between me and Nora.
“I really hope they convict,” Nora said, slipping her hand under War’s arm. “The way they’re looking at you, I’ve the feeling you’ve just jumped to the top of their revenge list.”
I glanced over. The Strops sat ramrod stiff in their cage-and it was a literal cage; when you’re dealing with harpies it doesn’t pay to be careless-every white and iron-gray curl perfectly in place, their dark red lipstick immaculate and sharp green suits ironed smooth. If ‘glaring daggers’ had been more than a turn of phrase, War would have most certainly been pinned to his chair, the looks they’d leveled at him.
“Order! Order in the court!” Judge Mankowitz bellowed, banging his gavel against the wooden podium. “Call the final witness and let’s get this farce over with!”
“Thank you, Your Honor. I would like to call Miss Daphne Parker to the stand.”
She stood, ran a quick hand down the front of her modest white skirt to smooth out the creases, and started down the aisle. She walked confidently, calmly, but I could see the repressed tension still printed on her face. Daphne knew very well what she was about: she was lighting the match to burn her last bridge. After she stepped up to that chair, laid her hand on the Bible, and promised to tell the whole truth and nothing but, she was finished in this town. Her reputation, carefully crafted over the years, would be ruined. She was throwing away a very lucrative career, the respect of some very powerful people, and dozens of favors from people still indebted to her. And for what?
I’d asked her last night, after the besotted O’Brien had finally left-the schmuck had even brought her flowers, for Chrissake, and had gone away with a dopey grin on his face-what was in it for her. Why do this now?
“Well,” she’d said after a long pause. “Maybe I’ve lost the taste for blood. Maybe I got to where I was by accident; by making a lot of mistakes and bad choices. Maybe I never wanted to be a murderer. I was just born in a bad neighborhood, without any options, so I took the easiest one that would get me out of that neighborhood. But then I realized I’d traded one bad situation for another, moved from one ghetto to another with prettier wallpaper. But then there were bills to pay, and family to look out for, and I couldn’t deny that I had certain skills that lent themselves to a certain line of work.”
Then she’d sighed, leaned forward in her chair, and reached for the bottle of bourbon sitting at my elbow. She popped the lid off and took a swig straight from the bottle; luckily War wasn’t there to shout at her about it. “I’m not like the Strops, Virg,” she’d said after another pause. “They do what they do because they like it. Because they think it’s fun. I never thought it was fun. I’ve always pulled the trigger because I felt like I had to, not because I wanted to. And if I’m gonna quit and walk away from it all, might as well go out doing the right thing for once. I’m not deluded enough to think I’ll make that big of a difference, but what the hell-might as well try.”
As I watched her take the long walk, I had to admit: I felt for the dame. This was a hard step to take. But, I supposed, maybe it would’ve been harder not to take it. At the end of the day, if you can’t look at yourself in the mirror, then what’s the point?
Course, it’s better to see the end of the day at all.
When the man stepped into the aisle, I think I was half-expecting it. The Strops ain’t the type to leave any loose ends, and they knew Daphne Parker was the thread most likely to turn into a noose around their necks. I started to move as the gun was lifted, already out of my chair when the light first glinted across the barrel.
But I didn’t move fast enough-not faster than someone else, anyway.
There was a blur of tweed. He bowled her to the floor as the sharp crack of the gunshot resounded through the packed courtroom, the reverb blotted out by shrill screams as the audience went mad and ran for the doors. War was past me in the next blink, hand closing around the gun and twisting upwards so sharply the man didn’t have time enough to drop the weapon-his wrist simply snapped with a sickening crunch. Tiller and three other cops surrounded them, guns and voices raised.
Pushing aside a shrieking woman, I knelt beside Daphne, who was cradling her savior. “His shoulder,” she said quickly, pulling away the bloodied jacket. “It’s silver.”
The way O’Brien was shivering told me that. “Awfully brave of you, old man,” I said to him, tearing through his shirt with clawed fingertips to reveal the full extent of the injury. Smoke was curling up from the bullet wound. “Stupid as shit, of course, but brave. We get that bullet out and you’ll be good as new in a day or two.”
I felt Nora’s hand grip my shoulder. “Let me see, Virgil.” I promptly obliged her, shifting aside to give her room to kneel. Heedless of the blood, she pressed her hand against the wound. Instinctively, O’Brien bucked with a hiss and tried to pull away.
“Steady there,” I said, grabbing his arm and holding him firm. “You’re in the hands of a real angel now, O’Brien. You lucky cat.”
“Lucky, ha!” Daphne barked humorlessly. “He wouldn’t be in this mess at all if not for me-”
“Spare us the speech, Daphne. You didn’t make him jump in front of a bullet. That was all him-and his animal instincts. What were you saying about them the other day? No questioning them, no explaining them?”
Nora’s hand had begun to glow. A soft, golden light emanated from her fingers, soaking into O’Brien’s shoulder. The tight lines of pain across his face began to relax. His body went limp and a soft sigh escaped his lips as Nora lifted her hand. The wound was still there, but it no longer smoked or looked so red and livid. When she turned her hand upwards I saw the glint of the spent slug cupped in her palm.
“Wow,” Daphne breathed, impressed. “You guys must save a lot on health insurance with her around.”
There was a sudden angry screech of tortured metal. Every head swiveled around as the door to the cage containing the Strop Sisters peeled back under the pressure of talon-tipped hands.
“Oh no you fucking don’t!” a familiar voice muttered behind me.
Alma launched herself through the opening only to stop short with a harsh shriek of pain. War had done his super-speed vamp trick and caught her by one wing before she could get fully airborne. Even from my spot crouched on the floor, I could see how his fingertips had dug into the feathered ulna just above the joint. “If you struggle, I’ll rip it off,” he promised in a low voice.
“And if you move, Octavia, I’ll put a bullet through your forehead,” Tiller promised, backing my partner up. He had his gun leveled steadily at the Strop still poised in the doorway of the cage-she’d stopped just shy of pouncing on War, talons gripping the bars.
“I will have order in my court!” Judge Mankowitz shouted breathlessly, brushing down his black robes and trying to reclaim his dignity after diving behind the podium. “Detective, get the accused handcuffed immediately, and escort that gunman downstairs to the holding cells.”
“Are ye alright, Miss Parker?” O’Brien asked, coming back to his senses.
“Am I alright?” she laughed shortly. “You’re the one who just took a bullet!”
“When I tackled ye, ye hit the ground right sharply.”
“I’m just fine, Fitz-I like a good rough tumble now and then. And thanks for doing that. I’ll have to think up some fitting ways to repay you.”
“No need to repay me,” he blustered, face going red again for an entirely different reason.
“Oh, but it’ll be my pleasure,” she promised with a crooked smile. “Come on, let’s get you up and sorted. Have to find you a new jacket; though I must say the disheveled warrior look is a good one on you.”
I climbed to my feet, helped Daphne lug O’Brien onto his, and watched her fuss over him with a not-so-hidden smile. Give it another ten minutes and she’d have him practically purring with contentment.
“They’re a cute couple,” Nora commented, dropping the bullet into the evidence bag a cop held out. “A bit unexpected, maybe. But cute.”
“Well, you know what they say,” I said as a shrilly protesting Alma Strop was tightly chained and War stepped away brushing feathers from his sleeves. “No accounting for animal attraction.”