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Souls of the Night
107.
"Miss S. The jeep behind us is flashing its lights," the driver provided by her newest client announced with that unpleasant Russian accent she usually only knew from bad movies. She looked up from her laptop, where she had already jotted down her notes for the new project, squirmed in the passenger seat and peered through the tinted rear windows at the car driving behind them. She grinned as she recognized the passengers. "Pull over at the next opportunity, Dimitri, I know them."
"My name is Diniyar."
"Uh-huh," she returned, flipping her computer shut and tucking it into her carry-on bag.
"Are they friends of yours?" asked her Russian nanny for the next few weeks, and she shook her head, still smiling.
"They're more like enemies that I inherited. But I kind of like them. A motley crew."
When he pulled over, already close to the airport area, the Russian looked again intensely in the rearview mirror. Then, when he saw what was getting out - not on the driver's side but on the passenger side - his hand was instantly on the gun. But the young woman next to him, who had seemed strange to him from minute one when she got into his car without him being able to say why, squeezed his shoulder. He turned around and a smile showed on her face that looked like a predator baring its teeth. The woman was not ugly. In fact, she was quite pleasant to look at, even if a bit tall. Her well-proportioned face with long wavy chestnut curls did not match her business portfolio. But behind the blue eyes sparkled madness- and not even particularly well hidden.
"Just sit tight. No weapons. Dvorjak," she said tersely, and he couldn't help but obey, even though he was the man.
"My name is Diniyar," he said with bone dry mouth, but by then she had already gotten out and was walking towards the unusual couple from the jeep.
"Hello Enya," Elisa said, putting her own hand on her hip where her holster hung.
At that, Enya laughed and spread her arms.
"Hello, chief. Hi, Derek. It's been ages since we've seen each other."
"We don't feel in the mood for hugs," said Derek Maza, one of Anton Sevarius' earlier but better creations. The first time she'd seen him she'd literally peed her pants then. Now she had more practice in controlling her emotions and especially her bodily excretions. She could now read others - both humans and non-humans - better. And she knew how to irritate others, even scare them. Not that she had time for that right now. She lowered her arms but kept smiling. "Let's walk a bit- Boris in the car has KGB ears like a rabbit." She walked past the human woman and the monster man and knew they were following her. They were not yet on the airport grounds; there was no lighting here except that of the jeep. Cars drove by sporadically. Nevertheless, high above her, she heard an unmistakable flapping of wings. Unmistakable? Unique? Probably not. If anything, then double-ique. And since it was not her "foster child" because he had to grow into his wings again, it was Goliath. Almost pitch-dark - a human with a weapon and a monster in his back. Another one in the air. Anyone else would be afraid. Enya wasn't.
"You have tickets to Russia. What are you going to do there?" asked Elisa and she turned around and spoke the truth as she always did because she had never understood the meaning of lies that didn't directly harm her.
"The new president is crazy about mammoths like the old one was crazy about tigers. I'm advising the scientists on that. They want to impregnate elephants - boring stuff."
"Illegal stuff."
"It's Russia. I'm surprised they don't want super soldiers - currently. And who pays makes the rules," Enya said, shrugging her shoulders.
The mutant narrowed his eyes and growled. His human sister was more struck by another part of the sentence.
"There is no new president."
"Not officially. The state apparatus is working on it. The old one got carried away with the Ukraine thing. But you didn't get that from me." She raised a finger to her lips conspiratorially.
That was too much information on a matter they both found unpleasant, and that's why no one went into it anymore.
"And you'll leave the other two alone?"
"Well, somebody's got to bring home the bacon. They're big boys. Well- more or less. And they're clan."
"Abnormal," Derek muttered, and Enya grinned. THAT really wasn't an insult to her. It described her perfectly since the day she was "born".
"Everything will remain calm. We're all being as good as we can be. And I'm sure if one of the boys hatches some diabolical plan, you'll be one of the first to know- probably before me, Elisa. How are two and three?
Elisa's eyes narrowed. "They have names. Enya. They've always had names. And they're none of your business."
"Yeah, I guess that's true. It was just a courtesy too- I try to do it every once in a while but it usually backfires."
"We'd have a few questions."
"If I have answers."
"Rather unlikely but we'll try anything."
"So no genetic questions." Enya leaned against the guardrail and looked from Elisa to Derek. And both seemed unsure how to begin. She could almost just see their silhouettes - but perplexity seemed to rise from them like smoke. Elisa finally addressed the crux of the matter- which in itself was a clue.
"Would it be possible - biologically - for someone to spontaneously combust over and over again without burning oneself on it?" began Elisa with the professional determination of a police chief. But the very fact that she had brought it up first was an indication that the problem involved one of Elisa's cases, or more likely someone in the Gargoyle's circle. Very interesting but really not her area of expertise. Although the idea seemed lucrative. Perhaps the Russians were interested in a small army of private firebugs? Like the American plans in World War II to release bats with incendiary devices over Japan and then set off the incendiary devices during the day when all the animals were hiding in the enemy's wooden houses. While Enya was thinking, she was buying time by asking questions that should have no relevance to the matter at hand.
"Spontaneous combustion? Who is the person involved?"
"A young man," Derek stated, which, after all, narrowed it down to just a few billion people.
"Interest personal or professional?" Derek folded his arms where Elisa did not. The man had supposedly once been a police officer. He didn't have his body language well under control for that, had probably been out of the business too long.
"Human or gargoyle?" she asked, and when she got no answer:
"Artificial or born?"poked Enya further, and the siblings exchanged glances in the darkness.
But Enya shrugged. "Even if artificial - since I wasn't entrusted with creating it, it can't possibly be a permanently functional specimen..."
"That's definitely where the arrogant Sevarius DNA comes in." Remembering old pain, the black figure in front of her snarled. Eyes glowed white and Enya saw delicate electric threads dancing across its fur peeking from pant legs and shirt sleeves. As if such a pretty threat did anything with her.
"I don't presume to be as brilliant as my father," she admitted. "But he did, after all, call me his most successful failure before I shut down his machines-so I don't feel attacked, don't worry. Regarding the question. Officially, there is no SHC - that is, Spontaneous Human Combustion. But the cases reported are always fatal, and the heat generated reduces the affected cadaver to a pile of calcined ash within minutes-something eight hours in a crematorium at 1100 degrees won't do so residue-free.
"It's called corpse - thats the fitting word," Elisa remarked, and Enya waved it off, otherwise ignoring her.
"Other less drastic and deadly cases are usually called fire inclination, and those cases can almost always be explained. Dropped cigarettes, improperly stored fuel, batteries forgotten in a pants pocket that rub together and the battery acid gets hot, sparks that fly from heaters or fireplaces. Can any of that explain what happened to your "friend"?"
"That would only explain a fraction of the cases", Elisa said.
"Is the fire coming from inside?" asked Enya, crossing her arms.
Hesitation. Then a "Yes."from the chief.
"Can this young man control the fire? Do objects near him start to burn just by looking at them?" Enya grinned at the absurdity of the questions that wouldn't have even crossed the lips of other serious scientists. But she had never been a serious scientist. Her clients didn't expect her to be. They wanted madness and that one moved outside the usual tracks. And she could do that. Her name was all the publicity she needed. So she had no problem with absurd questions. Because she thought in absurd ways, people came to her. Normally that would cost a lot of money. But for the two in front of her, she made an exception. Whether Elisa still had the bite wound from her on her lower leg?
"Not that we know of. With the control ... he can probably get the fire flowing back into him ... uhh faster if he does breathing exercises or calms down."
"So his emotions or stress amplify the outbursts and he can weaken them at will. But so far no pyrokinesis. Fascinating. I'd have to see the young man sometime," she admitted.
"Like we'd let you near him," her father's creation growled. In a way, he was her brother. But it might break Enya's neck to point it out to Derek, and although her body didn't mean much to her, she still needed him, so she kept quiet about it.
"I'll be back in a few weeks. I could take a look at him under supervision," she offered and although Elisa's posture wasn't as tense as her brother's, Enya saw her silhouette shake her head. "We don't have that much time."
"I thought the fire he was producing wouldn't harm him," Enya said, pondering what other circumstances might be costing such a subject "time." Perhaps - spontaneous combustion as an overstimulation of neurological electrical pathways? But then why fire and not electricity as in mutants? They had electric eel DNA but what animal burned without hurting itself? She couldn't think of a single one. And what animal could stand fire? She knew such a thing only from the plant kingdom where a seedling germinated only after it had been exposed to a forest fire.
Everyone cringed as the Russian in the front car pressed the horn to remind Enya of the time.
She pushed off the guardrail.
"Your phenomenon doesn't seem to be anything science could help with. And if you do find a doctor, I'd be happy to exchange ideas with him, since he's either a talented lying charlatan or vastly superior to me - which I don't think he is. Whatever the other side effects are that you don't want to tell me about - it is undeniable that even such an extraordinary body that can burn without apparent injuries must draw energy from somewhere. The fire could perhaps be a symptom of a soon collapsing organism. Or, on the contrary, the energy that makes the fire break out of his body could be the fuel of a new kind of organism - and the flames themselves are only a waste product. Like a self-sustaining system. In that case, he MUST burn. My professional recommendation - let him burn and see where it leads. And I have to catch my plane now. Bye!" she shouted looking up without being able to see anything in the darkness.
She left Elisa and Derek Maza (as well as Goliath) behind and got back into the car. When they had already driven off, she saw a large figure land on the jeep in the rearview mirror. The matter was pretty clear, Enya speculated. Elisa Maza had not taken her brother with her because HE was involved in the case, but because SHE - Enya - had been sought out and Elisa had hoped the panther man could make her more fearful and thus more compliant. But she was not the same as she was then. Enya suspected that the problem did not concern someone from Elisa's professional sphere. This was supported by Derek's folded arms when asked if they needed the information for professional or private purposes. Finally, the fact that Goliath had been nearby. Here probably a Gargoyle had a very special problem. She leaned back in the passenger seat and sighed longingly, which earned her a sideways glance from Drubinec. A problem that bothered the Manhattan clan was so much more interesting than watching Russians sink up to their shoulders in elephant cunts to fertilize them. But job was job. Most of the time the answers came to her on their own.
.
.
Nashville got sick to his stomach every time he saw it. Not that he'd been there many times before, or that Heather did this regularly. Not even someone like her did this for fun. Only when she had an important question. Like last year when the Rubinstein dachshund she had befriended in the park had suddenly been run over. But dead was dead. That was the only rule there was in this respect. Dead was dead. Maybe that's why her request had more luck now. But even if Nashville loved his sister - yes, he loved this small, greedy, sometimes more garg-dog than gargoyle, hyperactive, loud and SO annoying monster like crazy - when she did her "thing" as she called it he wanted to crawl into a corner. Not very manly and gargoyle-like. But he got the pox when he saw her like that.
For everyone else invisible energy currents, which she tapped and stirred up to submerge but which as a side effect gave him enormous goose bumps that he felt like such a bird himself. Those white eyeballs - not glowing red like normal for a girl but really turned back in their sockets that you couldn't see the irises. This different lifeless hue that her skin then took on. That sound she made in her self-induced trance-like, semi-comatose state that sounded EXACTLY like that groaning sound of the ghost in The Grudge. Nervously, Nash kneaded his hands, which stuck in thick rubber gloves, and the ridiculous squeaking sound hardly made it any better. And did it have to be so dark in here except for the candles in the room and the small desk lamp next to him? He hated ghost movies. And that his little sister was poking around in these realms he hated even more.
Then he saw a spot of color on her almost gray skin. A drop of blood running from her nose. Her eyes fluttered and apparently strained, this croaking from her throat became louder. He jumped up and into the summoning circle without touching the salt rim and yanked Heather up. The breeze of his wings as he whirled around extinguished the flames of the candles and instantly Heather woke up, gasping for air as if she were resurfacing after a dive through the pool. Now protected from her power again, Nash pressed her against him and felt her heart pounding violently in her chest. Or was it his own heart? Her eyes rolled forward again and the first thing she said - agonized and breathless - was a complaint.
"Why did you pull me out?!"
"Because you nearly choked, dammit! You got a nosebleed. I almost shit my wings."
"I almost had it!"
"Three times Heather! Three times you've tried it now. He's not answering."
"I'll try again!"
"If he doesn't respond to three requests in a row why should he the fourth time!"
She kicked in his arms, but more powerless than anything else. "Maybe he can help us."
"Heather, you tried. It's not your fault Oberon's children do whatever they want."
Why won't he answer me," Heather whimpered, clutching exhaustedly at Nashville's T-shirt. He sighed and cradled her a little. He didn't want to say what he was thinking. It could be that Heather's contact in the Otherworld was simply annoyed that the Egg - which had been rescued back then - was now ringing through every few years - which, to an immortal, must seem almost like stalking - to discuss some petty mortal stuff. Maybe that's why he just shut down and turned a deaf ear. The other option - that he was in Avalon and there might be no contact - for whatever reason, was equally discouraging.
"I'm sure the others will find a solution or a clue," he tried to reassure the child.
"What if they don't? I love Nate so much."
"I'd miss that joke of a gargoyle, too," Nashville admitted quietly. "But don't tell anyone I said that, okay, monster? Now let's scrape the salt off the floor."
"Can't I try again?"
"Maybe again tomorrow. And not again three times in a row."
Spoiler alert: I LOVE Enya- she will get a supporting role in the third book of Souls of the Night. And in the prequel, which I'm already planning to write, the subplot will focus on her.
And in this prequel it will also be explained what Heather is doing and why she does/can do this horror shit. (Has anyone assumed anything like that from her yet? I don't think so! Wuhahaha.)
Thanks for reading, Q.T.