My office sits across the main
square in town from the Gilman House above the old general store building,
which these days is a 7/11. The original structure was refurbished in the ‘80s
and the old second storey was leased out as office spaces and studios, probably
a more profitable concern for the franchise as the sales downstairs are notably
low. Any supermarket where the staff are set to work dusting the Doritos
packets can’t be doing a roaring trade.
Behind the shop there’s a car-park
for staff and deliveries. Against the back wall of the building stand two
dumpsters: I discovered early on in my tenancy that, by rolling one of these along
a short distance, I could reach up to the ledge of my office window and haul
myself up and in without being seen by anyone loitering near my front door.
Getting down was a simple matter of a hang-and-drop, but either way, my covert
comings and goings offered an interesting mystery for anyone wanting to keep
tabs on my movements.
I slid the window open and rolled
over the sill, landing catlike on the carpet on the balls of my feet. Inside,
all seemed as I had left it a couple of days ago: desk across from the door to
the outer office, swivel chair, line of five filing cabinets, only two of which
had any contents, and a big old stuffed leather armchair which I had souvenired
from the Waite mansion after the fire. I padded across to the wall behind the
desk and took down the framed print of dogs playing snooker: set into the faux wood-panelling behind it was my
safe. I began busily spinning the dial. Once opened I lifted out the stack of
notes in its calico bag and the Desert Eagle .50, wrapped in its cleaning rags,
and set them down on the desk.
A match popped and flared into
life. Across the room, something dark and sinuous uncoiled its way from out of
the shadowed armchair. The cigarette lit, smoke breezed outwards and a clawed
black hand tapped a lazy tattoo on the leather.
‘You’re gonna have to change the
combination on that thing, shamus,’ purred a velvet voice.
‘Remora,’ I said standing up. ‘To
what do I owe the pleasure?’
She stood up slowly and drifted
across the carpet until she stood on the other side of the desk from me. She
leant her hip on the edge of it and puffed smoke back over her shoulder.
‘Well, a girl doesn’t like to
wait too long for an invitation,’ she said.
I straightened up, then pulled
open the desk drawer. I hauled the bottle of bourbon and two shot glasses out
from where they’d been filled under “A” for easy access, and plonked them down
on the blotter.
‘Sorry,’ I growled, ‘but it’s
been kind of a busy night.’ I handed her a glass and her gaze lingered long on
mine before she knocked it back.
‘So I heard,’ she said.
I downed my shot and then topped
us up once more. ‘You seem to hear a lot of things,’ I mused, ‘for someone who
only just got into town.’
She smiled her pointed smile. ‘A
girl’s gotta look out for herself,’ she said, ‘keep an ear to the ground and
all that...’
I vaulted the desk, sending
bottle and glasses flying. I grabbed Remora by her upper arms and leaned into
her, forcing her back over the desktop. Her head threw back as she gasped,
surprised, and beneath all that pale, inviting skin, I could feel solid steel.
My gaze fell down across her throat to the nest of swelling curves and
collarbones below: lying there, I saw something glittery and silver, a pendant
of three interlocked crescent moons, throbbing lightly against her pulse. I
raised my head locking my gaze with hers.
‘Of course,’ I said. I pushed
away from her and took a step backwards. ‘You’re working for the Esoteric Order
of Dagon. You’re an enforcer; an exotic, trained to do their dirty work. What
are you exactly? A siren?’
She straightened up, pouting, a
dangerous light building in her eyes. The claws at the tips of the webs on her
mermaid’s tail, bit slowly into the carpet, leaving a ring of radiating
scratches.
‘Some call us that...’ she said.
‘I had a feeling I might be
running into someone like you...’
‘Oh?’ she said feigning
uninterest. ‘How’s that?’
‘A little old lady with a pack of
cards said we might meet. So what are you intending to do now?’ I asked, ‘now
that you’ve cornered me in my lair?’
She scratched idly on the desktop
with one claw. ‘My orders are to bring you in, to answer for the death of Abner
Gilman.’
‘Huh.’ I fished in my pocket for
my cigarettes and lit one up. ‘And if I told you that I wasn’t the one who shot
him?’
‘I don’t get to make those kinds
of decisions,’ she said, ‘I just follow orders.’
Suddenly, all of that pent-up
steel erupted, and she launched herself across the room at me, claws spread
wide and tentacles flailing. I barely had enough time to dodge sideways,
throwing the armchair into her path. As I bounced off the wall and ricocheted
behind the desk, splinters of leather and wood went flying. I stood up pointing
the gun, partially unwrapped from its cloth cocoon. A clawed black hand smacked
it from my grasp raking red lines through my skin. I raised an arm to shield my
eyes and several iron tentacles coiled about my wrist. A hissing maw of needle
teeth descended towards my throat.
‘Nuts to that!’ I muttered, and
belted her in the head with my telephone. A meaty crunch was my reward. She
backed off.
I lurched upwards and threw
myself at the door. I managed one step, before she wrapped me up like
lightning, in that scaly black tail of hers. I fell against the wall like a
mummy, left partially completed by a ‘down tools’ order. I struggled to keep
myself upright, as she climbed up her coils towards my face once more. Her eyes
glowed deadly in the low light and any remnant of the sultry songstress facade
which she cultivated had vanished like a cement kimono into the ocean depths.
‘Die!’ she hissed and her coils
tightened inexorably, trying to squeeze the life out of me. It was like being
gift-wrapped by an iron girder, the pressure making my bones start to ache. My
blood began to ring in my ears.
‘Seriously?’ I said, and
head-butted her sharply in the face. She dropped to the floor with a grunt.
‘That’s a rookie move, tryin’ to
crush me to death,’ I said picking her up by her tail and one arm.
‘Our muscles
are bred to survive the deeps, sweetheart, and you obviously ain’t got the
oomph in that department.’
So saying, I threw her through the
window into the car-park below.
Before the ringing shards of
glass had settled, I scooped up my gun and cash and was out the door. I paused to look
back and winced at the damage that I would have to be clearing up sometime.
Then I locked the door carefully and got the hell out...
To Be Continued...
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