Chapter 47 - Maybe Someday: Part I
9:45 pm - Tamsin and Bo's Apartment
Stumbling out from the elevator, Bo pressed her right hand against the deep cut wound on the side of her waist. She dragged her legs towards the door to her apartment while leaving a messy trail of blood behind her.
She raised her left hand, fisted it and banged on the door. The taste of blood was thick in the back of her throat, blocking the airflow.
The door was flung open, and she was pulled inside by a worried Tamsin.
The Valkyrie bit back all her curses and yells as she grabbed Bo's collar and pulled her closer to kiss her.
Bo grinned into the kiss and fed. Tamsin's Chi revitalized her, making her feel invincible again.
After she had stopped taking Chi, Tamsin checked Bo's wounds to make sure that she was no longer bleeding.
"You could have called me to pick you up," Tamsin hissed in a low voice.
"Blame the ogre gang," Bo replied breathlessly. "They kind smashed my phone before I-"
"Well you could at least have fed off some stranger so you wouldn't bleed for two miles," Tamsin pointed out.
"Trust me, Tamsin, I'd rather kiss the lips of Death than the only person that was available back there," Bo defended herself.
"That horrible, huh?" Tamsin hummed while taking Bo's stained clothes off her. She balled them and tossed them into a laundry bag beside the door.
Bo nodded while pulling all her face muscles to form a horrible face. She waved her fingers in front of her mouth, indicating that that person had nasty drools all over. That finally made her Valkyrie chuckle.
"Really, Bo, we've been through this," Tamsin grunted. "What if you passed out on your way home, hmm? What if I couldn't get to you on time?"
"Oh I could last for another couple of hours easily," Bo bragged.
Tamsin rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's get you a nice, hot shower before you leave a bloody ass print on our new couch, okay?"
Bo smiled and teased, "do I get tlc from my Valkyrie while I'm taking a shower?"
"You know very well that your Valkyrie don't do tlc," Tamsin told her as she carried her into the shower bridal style. "She likes it rough, with screams and begs and everything."
A happy shiver was all Bo could reply.
10:50 pm - Tamsin and Bo's Apartment
Letting out a few lazy giggles in the tub, Bo traced her finger along Tamsin's arms that were holding her from behind. She inhaled the warm steam and purred.
Tamsin placed some soft kisses on her shoulder, before she rested her chin on it.
"Can you imagine we are gonna get married in a few months?" Bo murmured. "I mean, married, married, wow."
"Is this the type of conversation where you are going to drop a few hints about you having cold feet and wanting to call off the wedding?" Tamsin teased as she tickled Bo on the side of her waist. The brunette laughed and squirmed, splashing water all over the bathroom floor.
"No, of course not," Bo said. "What I meant was...I can't believe it feels so...so...so normal, you know, sometimes I just feel like we've been married forever."
"Of course it feels that way. We've been living together for almost two years now. We jointly sign everything. We jointly own everything. We are each other's emergency contact. We share all kinds of family plans. We make plans together...Hell, a lot of people think that we are married already, like that client of yours, who finally stopped calling me Mrs. Dennis after I threatened to pull his tongue out and cut it."
Bo laughed again, and gave Tamsin a loud kiss on her forearm. When she had finally stopped giggling, she murmured, "so after the wedding everything's gonna be the same?"
"No," Tamsin put her wet hair behind her ear. "There are a lot of things that are gonna be different."
"Like what?"
"Legal...stuff, like...we can file tax returns as a married couple, and pay slightly less tax."
Bo frowned and turned to look at Tamsin. "We are not filing our tax together right now?"
"We can't, because we are not married yet," Tamsin drawled.
"Well, paying less tax, I like that," Bo shrugged. "What else?"
"There's also stuff like...making medical decisions for each other, social security benefits, health insurance coverage and...child custody stuff-shit I don't know, it's a pretty long list."
Bo nodded. "Well, I guess we should figure it out together someday, after the wedding."
She paused briefly, before she said, "I went to wedding gown shopping with Kenzi today, and I've picked my dress."
Tamsin smiled and pressed a kiss on Bo's hair. "Is it somewhere in our apartment? Should I shield my eyes when I go look for my clothes in the closet?"
"No," Bo chuckled. "It hasn't been tailored yet. When they finish working on it, it's gonna be kept at the shack. Kenzi's gonna keep an eye on it till the wedding day."
"Okay, well, I don't have to see it to know that you are gonna look absolutely gorgeous in it," Tamsin told Bo sincerely as she kissed the brunette's shoulder.
"Hey, that might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Bo pointed out.
"Really?" Tamsin raised her eyebrows. She leaned in and whispered to Bo,"wait till you hear all the nice things I say to you in bed tonight."
8:20 am - Tamsin and Bo's Apartment
Refusing to open her eyes, Tamsin squirmed under the sheets. When the sweetness in the air caught her attention, she sniffed curiously.
There was definitely the bittersweet scent of melted chocolate. Then, the thick, creamy smell of heated butter. The absolute sweetness of maple syrup, and the crisp freshness that had been squeezed out from citrus. From the hint of raspberry she knew it must be the blood orange she had bought yesterday.
It was a blend of the sweetest morning, making it impossible for her to stay in bed anymore.
She quickly got up and put on a navy sleep shirt, before she exited the bedroom.
Bo was cooking in the kitchen, with only a shirt on her. It barely covered her butt, and Tamsin didn't have to take a closer look to figure out that she had not wearing any underwear.
She snuck into the kitchen and caught Bo from behind. The brunette chuckled, almost dropping the spatula.
"I thought you were gonna meet some clients with Kenzi today," Tamsin said softly as she nuzzled Bo's ear. The smell of the freshly cooked chocolate chip pancakes made her purr.
"You know Kenzi. 8 am is way too early, and 11 am is about right for breakfast," Bo replied while putting the last cooked pancake in the plate.
"Hmmm..." Tamsin hummed as she lifted Bo and sat her down on the kitchen counter. She wedged in between the brunette's legs and raised her head. "Then I guess we have plenty of time for some morning sex. What do you think?"
"Do you even have to ask?" Bo murmured, throwing her head back when Tamsin's fingers brushed across her pussy.
10:30 am - Tamsin and Bo's Apartment
"Alright, I'm leaving," Bo announced while putting on her boots. "I'll probably be home around 5-ish. Do you need me to get you anything from the store on my way home?"
"No, I don't think I need anything from the store. Just make sure you don't come home bleeding to death again, okay?" Tamsin winked.
Bo chuckled and left, and Tamsin went back on doing her research for a case.
11:45 am - The Haunted House
Kenzi chanted something in mutters while dancing around in the kitchen. She waved a bundle of incense in the air, making the entire place smoky.
The owners of the house, an old couple, looked concerned. The man eventually turned to Bo and asked, "is this really going to work?"
"Y-yeah," Bo said while smiling. "This...cleansing ritual will...make the evil spirits go away."
"W-what kind of evil spirits do we have exactly?" The wife asked.
"It's a...ummm," Bo murmured as she took a glance at the dancing Kenzi. "It's-will you excuse me for a second cuz I think my colleague needs some help."
She rushed to Kenzi's side and held up a lit candle with her. "What exactly did you tell these people that they have here?" She asked in a whisper.
"Some evil spirit who absorbs their energy," Kenzi whispered back. "You know, since they said that they felt tired all the time."
"Are you sure that we don't need to look into this matter further?"
"Well I would if they mentioned anything like lights going out all the time, or things have been moved somehow, but all they said was that they felt tired all the time. Who doesn't?"
Bo raised her eyebrows and pointed at herself, and Kenzi rolled her eyes.
"Of course you don't, Bo-bo," the petite woman grunted. "You are engaged to, and is about to marry, a super energizer who makes you hop and run like that pink bunny in the commercial."
Bo chuckled quietly. "Okay then, let's just-"
"E-excuse me, miss," the old lady interrupted them. "After this ritual, I won't be seeing that crazy girl anymore, will I?"
Bo and Kenzi frowned at each other, before they both turned to the old lady and asked, "what crazy girl?"
"It's this young lady I saw in our backyard a couple of times," the old lady explained. "She looks quite disturbed."
"Wait, wait, you didn't mention any young lady before," Kenzi said.
"Well, I thought she was some neighbor's kid at first, but this morning when I saw her, I think her eyes were...bloody red," the old woman said. "And she was fast like lightening. One minute she was there, and the next she was gone. Could she be a...ghost?"
"Ghost? No, no I don't think so," Bo comforted her. "Don't worry, Ma'am, we'll figure it out."
12:30 pm - Outside the House
"What do you think?" Kenzi asked while standing on the old couple's driveway.
"I don't know. Let's ask around and see if anyone else has noticed anything unusual," Bo replied.
Kenzi nodded and looked around. When she saw a woman carrying a newborn out from a car two houses away, she playfully nudged Bo and asked, "so, when are you guys gonna have one of those, hmmm? And by one I mean a bunch of little mean cute cuties."
Bo chuckled, shaking her head. "I don't think it's gonna be any time soon. Tamsin and I are just perfectly happy with what we have and where we are at right now. And honestly, the idea of having a bunch of little screamers running around the house kinda freaks both of us out."
"But, they are so cute. I mean, look at those hair, and those little bitty fingers and toes and that cute yawn..."
"Yeah, it's called someone else's kid," Bo drawled. "You get to play with them for an hour, but their parents will have to take care of the mess they make everyday."
"Fine," Kenzi snorted. "Are you two ever gonna have any then?"
"Eventually, yeah," Bo replied. "When we are ready."
"I call godmother," Kenzi raised her hands.
"Kenz, you know it's gonna always be you, right?" Bo said as she held Kenzi's shoulders firmly. "You can't not be the godmother, whether you call it or not. Besides, who else could it be?"
"I don't know. What if Tamsin has some weird Valkybitch sisters who wants to be the godmother too?"
"Then they'll have to get in line," Bo assured her. "Let's go interview some people and close this case first, okay?"
3:20 pm - In The Community
After politely saying goodbye to the owners of a house in the community, Bo and Kenzi walked out.
"Well, I guess the crazy young lady is real," Kenzi commented while standing beside a van parking on the side of the road. She tilted her head at the house they had just interviewed and added, "they've seen her too."
"Mhm," Bo pondered while staring at the van's rear window where it had a row of family stickers: mom, dad, three older kids and two babies. "We've interviewed like how many families now? Like 20? 21? 4 of them said that they had seen a young girl wandering in their backyard or peeping through their windows either after nightfall or right before sunrise. They all gave the same description too. Dirty, kinda creepy, young, red eyes."
"Could she be a homeless person or something?" Kenzi suggested.
"Well, one of the families called the police before, and they came searching for the girl but found nothing," Bo murmured. "I don't know. I have a feeling that this case might be more complicated than we thought."
7:45 pm - Bo and Tamsin's Apartment
Sitting in the couch comfortably with a stack of case files on her lap, Tamsin reached for her mug on the coffee table without looking at it.
She raised the mug to her mouth, but paused and frowned at it because it was empty. She turned to look at Bo, and the brunette gave her a wide grin with her hot chocolate covered lips.
Tamsin rolled her eyes. "If you want some hot chocolate, you should have said so when I made mine," she drawled and went into the kitchen.
She threw her used mug into the sink and got two clean ones out from the cabinet. Then, she sat a small ball in the hot water and melted some chocolate chips in it while heating up the milk on the stove.
She scooped the melted chocolate into the mugs and poured the hot milk in. She added a pinch of sea salt, some Fae spice, a small amount of liquor and a handful of mini marshmallows into both cups. After sprinkling a layer of cocoa powder on top, she walked back to the couch with them, and handed one to Bo.
"Thanks," Bo mouthed with a big smile, and gave Tamsin a kiss on the lips.
Tamsin stretched her legs and put them on Bo's lap while enjoying her hot chocolate. Then, she lay down and rested her head on the armrest of the couch. She read some case files and played a silly game on her phone for a while, before she noticed that Bo was unusually quiet.
"I sense that my little succulette wants something from me, a little opinion on her case maybe?" She teased.
"Well, I guess I could use your opinion since we are not going anywhere anyway," Bo murmured.
"Alright, what is the case that you and Kenzi are working on?"
"It's this old couple. They came to us, saying that they were constantly feeling tired, going to the hospital more than usual and stuff. We didn't find anything abnormal in or near their house, so Kenzi decided to do a cleansing ritual."
"Ah, the cleansing ritual. It works for 99% of the time," Tamsin commented, "because out of a 100 haunted house case, only 1 is actually being haunted by someone."
"Well that was what we thought, until today," Bo explained. "The wife told us that she saw a crazy girl in her backyard a few times, so we went to interview the neighbors. Apparently she wasn't the only one who had seen that crazy young lady. One of the families actually called the police after having noticed a young girl looking through the window of their nursery room. The police, however, didn't find anything useful."
"Hmm…" Tamsin hummed while pondering. After a while, she asked, "have you checked the police records to see if there's any mentioning of any crazy young lady in that community for the past 5-10 years?"
"No," Bo shook her head. "You think that crazy girl has been haunting the neighborhood for that long?"
"I don't know," Tamsin shrugged. "Why do you check the records first and then we'll go from there?"
"I will, if you would log into the police database for me, officer," Bo said softly as she pinched Tamsin's nose.
Tamsin scrunched her nose and gave Bo's finger a sudden, gentle nibble. "Only if you ask very nicely."
11:02 pm - Bo and Tamsin's Apartment
"Huh," Bo hummed after reading the search results that she had just pulled out from the police database on her laptop.
"Huh?" Tamsin mimicked her tone teasingly.
"This is weird," Bo murmured. "I haven't found anything that mentioned the crazy girl in the past. There was only one recent police report and I assume it was from one of the neighbors who called the police."
"Okay…?"
"However, that old couple's house...there has been 4 deaths in there during the past 3 years."
"4 deaths in 3 years? Wow that house kills more frequently than most serial killers," Tamsin joked as she raised her head to take a look at the screen.
"Yeah, but they ruled out homicide for each death, because nobody found anything suspicious. Just heart failure," Bo murmured. "People just...found them dead in the house."
"Something's wrong with the house maybe," Tamsin concluded. "Could be a serial killer targeting the residents in that house."
"That doesn't make sense, Tamsin. Why would someone only kill who lives in a certain house?"
Tamsin shrugged. "Why you expect serial killers to make sense?"
Bo nodded while pondering that idea. Then she got up and got dressed. "I'm gonna go back to that community and examine that house again. I don't want to see either of them dead in their bed tomorrow morning or something. They are very nice people."
"I'll go with you. Just give me a sec," Tamsin told her as she quickly texted Dyson.
"I don't need you to protect me, Tamsin," Bo teased.
"I know," Tamsin told her, "but if you do have a serial killer, it's gonna be a pure police matter."
8:20 pm - The Haunted House
Tamsin and Bo stayed in the house while the couple stayed somewhere else. They had set up night vision cameras in and outside the house, and sat there monitoring for the entire day.
Dyson and Kenzi canvassed the entire area again, but found nothing suspicious.
The night had finally came, shrouding everything. Tamsin constantly checked the video feeds on her laptop while doing research on the deaths in the house. Bo monitored the backyard carefully
behind the blinds.
After a while, her eyes started to get tired. Her vision got less sharp, and everything started to blur. The entire back yard seemed to have reduced to a washed out scene where the reflection of the moonlight on the leaves was the only thing that she could notice.
She squinted her sore eyes and looked away momentarily. When she turned back, she frowned at the fluttering leaves in the nightwind. The long shadow cast on the ground seemed to have a peculiar shape. Was it there before? Or was it new?
Before she had figure it out, a petite female figure emerged out of the shadows of the trees.
"Psst," Bo whispered as she nudged Tamsin. The Valkyrie immediately stood up and took a look.
The female figure swiftly dashed towards the house they were in, and when she exposed herself under the moonlight for a brief moment, they caught a glimpse of her face.
It was a young girl's face, no more than 15 years old. She looked filthy, covered in mud and dirt. Her waist long, scraggly hair was carelessly tied together with a few strands of straw. The only thing she was wearing was a dress, and it looked like it was made from a trash bag with two smaller holes cut out to fit her arms in and a bigger one for her head.
She snuck under the window on the other side of the house like a preying feline, and raised herself on her toes. Her eyes glowed like two pigeon blood rubies. Then, she got down on her hands and knees and peeped through the small window to the basement.
Tamsin quietly unlatched the window and jumped outside. She dashed towards the girl while yelling, "freeze! Police!"
Spooked, the girl hissed at her, and fled towards the woods behind the house. Tamsin tried to catch her, but the girl leaped over her head, sprinted away on all fours and disappeared behind the trees.
Tamsin cursed and followed her, but after she made her way through the branches and the tall grass, the girl was long gone. There were nothing but a few green blue glowing spots left on the ground,like some sort of weird footprint.
8:50 pm - In The Backyard
After having gotten Tamsin's call, Dyson came by. He sniffed the backyard thoroughly, before he commented. "Definitely Fae, smells like mud and dirt, and…."
"What, Dyson?" Tamsin demanded
"I smell the dirt from graveyards," Dyson said as he bared his teeth. "I'm gonna look around."
Tamsin and Bo nodded at him, and he dashed into the woods.
"The dirt from graveyards? Do we have a walking corpse or something?" Bo frowned.
"No way. Walking corpses aren't nearly as fast," Tamsin shook her head.
"Or, it could be that you were being slow," Bo teased, and earned a big eye roll from the Valkyrie. She paused briefly, before she asked, "what is she then?"
Tamsin shook her head. "I'm not sure, but she seems to be very interested in this community. 4 families have seen her recently, but not the other residents. The houses she has visited are very scattered. She must be visiting them for a reason."
"And all of them have said that they caught her peeking through their windows..." Bo murmured. "She must be interested in something, something that those families have in common…."
She pondered as she paced in the backyard. When she was about to give up, a fussy baby's cry afar suddenly reminded her of something.
"Babies," she exclaimed as she squeezed Tamsin's hand. "Sticker on the rear window...nursery room, newborn carseats in the car...all those families who has seen her recently have newborn babies."
"Ummm..." Tamsin pointed at the old couple's house. "I don't think they have a newborn."
"No, I mean, all the other 4 families," Bo said. "Do you think it's just a coincidence?"
Tamsin bit her nail and murmured, "crazy, dirty look, the smell of graveyard dirt, bloody red eyes, green blue glow, and if she's really after the newborns...hmmm, I think I might know what she is."
"What is she, Tamsin?"
"She could be a Ubume. Yeah, she could totally be one, fits the description perfectly."
"What is a U...bume?" Bo asked, finding that name very much like a tongue twister.
"Ubume is the ghost of a birthing woman who died in childbirth," Tamsin explained. "They usually came out at night and take away newborns to raise as their own."
"But, my client don't have a newborn. Why does she come over to visit this house too?"
"I don't know," Tamsin said while texting Dyson, "but when we find her, I'm gonna ask her that question very nicely."
"Wait, so all the deaths in this house...it's her?"
"No," Tamsin shook her head. "Ubemes don't kill. The deaths in this house could be either be a coincidence, or...something else is doing that."
"So we have a ghost, and a serial killer. Great."
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: There are a few different folklore about Ubume. Some say that they'd trick people to hold their babies, which in fact are heavy stones and they'd get heavier and heavier till you couldn't hold it anymore. Other say that they'd look for human families with newborn babies and kidnap their kids because Ubume lost their own when they die. I used the latter because it works better with this story.
