Semper Fidelis
Chapter 3
I pulled up at home and even before I had turned the engine off the door to my parent's house swung open and my younger brother Daniel stormed out to face me with his ever present sidekick Matthew in tow. Daniel is seventeen, two years younger than me, and I do not think he has ever forgiven my parents for not being first born. Matthew is fifteen and generally looks up to his brother more so than me placing the balance of power between us on a precarious perch. But that only is when I am willing to entertain a challenge. At the moment I was emotionally and physically exhausted from the ordeal with a very short fuse. And Daniel, of course was holding the matches.
I should be fair and put this difference between Daniel and me in context. We were probably as diametrically opposed as two siblings could be. The whole athlete and popularity thing was just not for me. Daniel however, who just turned seventeen and started his senior year of high school this fall, was a shoe in for the best athlete award of his class. His life was seemingly devoted first and foremost to sports. Whatever the team sport of the season the school was promoting, Daniel was best among his classmates and respectable among his peers city-wide throughout Chicago. I'd say that part of me was proud of him, but being that he is my younger brother that is not allowed under the universally established guidelines.
His second and possibly only other actual talent of note was metal shop. His shop teacher's praise amounted to that Daniel had a natural flair for this skill set every bit as strong as his athletic ability. It was a near certainty that the rest of my brother's life would focus upon one of these two areas. Sports of course would be his first choice but I was happy to see that unlike so many others with such dreams he had something to fall back upon. Metal working, though it paid less, would provide steady work and like my magic was probably genetically passed down also.
For you sexists out there it probably is important that you know he inherited this talent from my mother and not my father. The things she can do with a hammer and anvil would remove those snickering smiles you are probably wearing right now. I bet there are not five women alive today who have created their own set of chainmail from scratch. But I guess being fair, my clan is not exactly what an outsider would call a normal American family if they knew all our secrets.
But with the two notable exceptions of shop and physical education, all the other areas of school had been challenging to Daniel. He was only going to make it across that graduation stage next summer because of the monumental support of some very devoted teachers and tutors who squeaked him through his required classes.
I remember it took the brightest mathematical brains in our school six months to get Daniel to accept that algebra used letters instead of numbers to solve problems. That concept was still a sore subject with him more than two years later and one that I made sure to use to get a dig in with whenever my brother got too high on himself, which for a seventeen year old captain of the football team type of guy is pretty much all the time. Nothing brought super athlete Daniel down to reality faster in front of his admiring fans while telling his story of hitting the winning homerun as me asking "Hey Daniel…what does X equal?"
So you do not get the wrong idea, while I may be a bit sarcastic and hard on my brother for being one of those lucky individuals who succeed in living the high school dream, I did actually love the guy, and even admitted it to myself occasionally but of course never out loud to him. In fairness also he rarely had an excess of kind words for me either because that is just the type of relationship we shared.
Since my own 'skills' had become known to my family, Daniel and I had grown a bit more apart because we just did not know how to deal with each other anymore. Even with my dad's 'other job' what I was capable of was beyond his comprehension and so as much as he could he denied it; and when that did not work he avoided me.
Daniel dreamed of living the normal American life and I knew that because of my 'gift' I had been forever that possibility. There is no such thing as peaceful obscurity when the White Council is watching your every move ready to evoke a death sentence. So Daniel set himself up as a Ken Doll look and act alike and I was…well let's just say until some twisted toy company comes out with Goth Wizard Barbie there really is not a comparable doll to describe me. And I pity the poor five year old girl who gets one of those for her birthday!
Oh, and before I forget it, my brother has been dating Jenny Mercer for about two years now. So yeah, I guess Daniel and I do have a few unresolved issues between us. And of course all of this decided to come to a head moments after I pulled into the driveway.
"Where the hell have you been?" Daniel demanded just seconds after I cracked the door but before I was even able to get a foot on the ground. He compounded this by literally yanking the door open further and ripping it from my grip in the process.
"Daniel your language!" Father Forthill scolded from the open doorway of the house. He was holding little Harry, named after my wizard master since he had helped save the baby's life along with my mother's on the night he was born. Mom still says she was hopped up on pain medication and that dad had named him but I was not buying that for a moment. It made me happy he was awake yet resting comfortably in the priest's arms and neither of them seemed eager to come all the way outside. It was nice to see someone was exhibiting some common sense for a cold November night in Chicago.
"It's not about my language father." Daniel shot back making my eyes widen in surprise and telling me just how much he was worried. In fairness I blame myself because I had not thought to call home and mom certainly was not of the mindset to remember that either until we knew dad was safely out of surgery. Therefore I was willing to excuse his outburst as a venting of his personal anxiety.
I started to stand. "Relax little brother." I said trying to use familiar terms to ease his mind. The problem with that is Daniel had about four inches of height on me after his last growth spurt and another hundred pounds or so of muscle. Yeah the combination of metal shop and sports will do that to you. Oh and Daniel hates when I refer to him as little brother so all in all my natural reaction sort of backfired on me.
"Don't push me Molly!" He warned and puffed himself up as I reached my feet and had to tilt my head just slightly to look him almost in the eyes. Sometime I hate a soulgaze ability.
I stepped around my car door and closed it, tugging the handle from his hand but never turning away from him. Mathew stood a few steps away and from my peripheral vision appeared ready to step in and hold his brother back if things got much worse. Since Mathew nearly worshipped Daniel my oldest brother was unlikely to turn on him so it made a good deterrent.
"Look Daniel you need to relax." I tried not to sound condescending but he was too far gone to recognize that.
"Don't tell me what to do Molly." He shot back without giving me a chance to finish. "Just because you feel it is okay to run out on your family responsibilities do not begin to presume the rest of us feel that way." He said nearly spitting in my face. "Dad is in the hospital and mom is with him. I'm here taking care of the family. But you are off running around." And then he got right up into my face.
For just a moment I thought about taking up that challenge he was offering. I'm not a particularly big fan of testosterone when used for stupid purposes, which in a seventeen year old boy seems to be the only way it is used. The image of laying one of my aikido moves on Daniel to back him up and teach him that confrontation might not always be the best course floated delightfully in my mind. And while my hands clenched defensively, my mind held me back and I forced myself to relax.
"Daniel I have been at the hospital with mom for the last day or so." I said quietly, dare I say even meekly, and calmly. "They just got dad out of surgery about an hour ago and it looks like he is probably going to make it." I said erasing his worst fears in one fell swoop. He was a bit taken aback and even gave me a little space though it was probably not conscious.
"Once I knew mom would be okay to leave alone at the hospital I came home to tell you all it was going to be okay." I said. "I need to eat something, take a quick shower, change clothes and get back to the hospital so mom will feel comfortable coming home and not leaving dad alone."
Wow the calm and meek approach actually stunned him. Oh I guess this is the time to inform you that if I choose to in certain situations, like um now for example, I can give off a slight passive burst of magic that nudges people's emotions in the direction I try to take them. It is not mind control. That is strictly forbidden by the Laws of Magic and the very reason I am under the Doom right now. Instead it is more like the way advertisers use pretty girls to help sell things. Only of course I use magic. Now I just needed to close the sale with Daniel.
"We are going to have to stick together as a family if we are going to make it through this." I said turning the emotional knife back on him as I raised my hand and placed it gently on his shoulder for full effect. I could see Father Forthill nodding in approval at me and little Harry smiling. Even Mathew seemed a little less confident in the abject worship of his brother.
The boy who would be king suddenly shook off my subtle attack and looked around and found himself usurped by his older sister once more. He had nothing to directly accuse me of that would not make him look even worse so he just stepped back away from me and went for a different tack. I could see the defiance in his eyes saying the game between us was not over with just yet. Maybe the aikido would have been a better choice after all.
"You can go play nurse all you want but with dad not only down but in the hospital we are going to need money just to survive." Daniel said loudly for his whole audience to hear. "Looks like it's now up to me to step up and take care of things." He nodded at me and then turned around and marched back into the house with his head held high.
Mathew hesitated and looked at me and Father Forthill, not certain just what to do in this conflict of loyalty versus what he had observed. Thankfully Father Forthill settled this for him.
"Mathew please go tell your brother I am leaving and I need to speak with him before I do." He said and using this as the tie breaking vote he ran off eager to do this. That just left me and my priest.
I walked up to the steps and opened my arms and little Harry nearly leapt from the father and to me wrapping me tightly in a bear hug. I fought back tears as I realized how much I needed this, someone to shower me in unconditional love just the way I had been doing so for my mother. My own shakes would probably start soon so I needed to get Harry to bed and hopefully be alone in the shower before anyone noticed them.
"Thank you father…" I began but he raised his hand and cut me off before I could finish.
"It is my duty Molly so I require no thanks." He said. "I need to like you just go home and clean up. I should be back here by six in the morning or so to get the kids off to school and let you go relieve your mother." I had totally forgotten about school. I merely nodded at Father Forthill as the three of us stepped inside and closed the door. I can't begin to say how happy I was for the heat in the house. The heater on my car was not working right, of course, and convertibles are not known for their ability to act like greenhouses in the middle of winter.
"Be careful with Daniel." Father Forthill whispered. "He is not taking this crisis well and will undoubtedly say things he will later regret." He explained. "It will therefore be up to you to ensure he does not burn any bridges between eh two of you that cannot be repaired later." I merely nodded and decided to the extent possible I would limit my interactions with Daniel and try not to rile him up more. I even made a silent promise not to ask him to help Mathew with his algebra homework.
"I will have a talk with him before I go." He said.
"Thank you Father." I said above his earlier objections. "I am going to put Harry to bed and then try to get cleaned up and rest. If I am not awake when you get here please make sure I get up. For some reason my alarm clocks always seem to break."
"I will Molly." He promised and I turned to go. "You should know your family is in my prayers, especially you." He said as I trudged up the stairs. I figured the way my night was going he was going to say something about me needed to have faith but thankfully he didn't. I guess it was not necessary if you already have an archangel telling you this.
By the top of the steps little Harry's eyes were getting heavy so I brought him to his room and dressed him in his warm pajamas that still has the footie pieces; perfect for cold tile floors in winter. I filled his cup of water next to the bed and then tucked him tightly under the covers and kissed him on the head making sure to stay away from his nightlight which would probably burn out if I stared at it too long. Then I turned to leave.
"Molly?" Harry said sleepily.
"Yes rug rat?" That was my pet name for him.
"I made you a picture over on my table." He said. His table was actually and old school desk mom had picked up at a garage sale and that each of us kids had successively used. It still had my initials carved into one corner from a ballpoint pen and way too much time on my hands. It was also where mom had made Harry sit, just like all of us before him, and learn lessons even before he had begun school.
I picked up the picture and looked at it. It was a coloring book drawing from the story of Rumplestiltskin and had the little gnome weaving straw into gold while the girl who would become princess watched him. Harry had been almost Picasso-like in his choice of colors for the room, the straw, and the gnome, but the princess he had colored wearing clothes much like the uniforms all girls wore to our school. Most importantly the princess's hair had been colored white; undoubtedly to match my own. It was a touching sentiment from a sprout of a child.
"Thank you Harry." I said softly expecting only to hear him snore in response.
"You're welcome Molly." He said sleepily. "You will make it right. You are my hero."
I raced to the shower as my shakes began, stopping only long enough to proudly tack the picture onto the wall above me bed.
Over the next ten days things improved some and also fell into a regular pattern for my family. Dad was moved into recovery but they expected it might be three weeks before he was released from the hospital. Mom therefore would bundle the kids off to school and then go stay down at the hospital with dad for the day. I would come down and relieve her around three in the afternoon so she could get home and make dinner and ensure everyone's homework got done. Then when visiting hours ended at eight I was sent on my way after kissing my dad on the forehead as he slept.
From the hospital I'd do a quick run by Harry's place. My studies were put on hold but I'd still practice some of my basics of calling up magic and control so my skills did not atrophy. I even continued to try and open the three doors in my mind as Hisha had shown me but as I was not actually casting many spells I did not use any of my mana, merely allowed it to infuse and warm me.
Harry was out and about again on some sort of business. Part of me suspected he was still feeling guilty and was either avoiding me as a means of not thinking about my dad, or more likely he had immersed himself into something to take his mind off of it. Karrin told me he had been busy with Luccio on Warden business but a flash in her eye made me suspect there was a twinge of underlying jealousy there. And it's not like Karrin was incorrect here. It did not take a matchmaker to see that Anastasia Luccio, former leader of the Wardens for the past century and now sporting a twenty-something's body, was totally wrong for him.
Even though he had not asked me to do it I shifted my schedule to come by and check out his place before going to the hospital. This way I could make sure Mouse and Mister got out and had food and water in their bowls. Then I'd come back at night after my shift with dad and do the same all over again. Harry did not leave me any notes but I suspected he was stopping by now and then. Of course I could not tell for sure since he keeps his place so ridiculously clean for a single straight guy that it makes one wonder.
The first letter from our insurance company arrived at our home a week exactly after dad came out of surgery. Luckily I was home and got the mail rather than my mother or they might have had to put a second bed in the room for her as well so she could recover from her stroke after seeing it. Let's put it this way, the amount was enough for a full year of tuition at a local community college, to include books. And the less than good news was since the injuries were attributed to gunshots and was therefore only covered if my dad made a formal report to the police of being a victim the insurance company was not going to cover these costs.
To actually make a police statement would require my dad to tell them about a group of demons who live in thirty pieces of silver or simply to lie; so you might as well understand it was not going to happen. Karrin Murphy of the Special Investigations branch had handled the investigation because hospitals were required to inform the police for gunshot wounds. Thankfully that would close the investigation from the police involvement side, but the report would not provide the answer the insurance company needed to pay out a claim. Karrin's ethics about police work were equally as strong as my father's about all parts of life in general.
Thankfully I had the money, in diamonds, but that would not be a big problem for me. And since it was not due for another two weeks it more than gave me time to convert them to cash and make the payment while ensuring my mom was none the wiser. If nothing was ever heard she would assume the insurance company had paid the bills.
I tried to slip the bill into my backpack but of course it was one of those moments when Daniel just happened to be watching what I was doing. My initial exclamation of "What the &%^$" when I saw the amount probably had peaked his interest to see what I was looking at.
"What are you hiding?" He demanded driving me nuts with his bossy attitude toward me again. Someone was going to have to remind him who was the elder among us. My choices were I could say nothing and just try to ignore the situation but he'd probably only use that as an excuse to challenge me further so I held the letter out to him so he could see for himself.
"Don't worry about it Daniel…" I started to say that I would take care of it but I really did not want to have to explain how I was able to do that. He had enough trouble with Molly the Wizard that the idea of Molly the God-Killer probably would be more than he could deal with. While he annoyed me, as all brothers are wont to do, he was still my brother and I did not want to strain that relationship any further.
"No Molly." He said folding up the bill. "You don't worry about it." He replied with a smug and superior smile. "I will take care of this." He said with a smile that put me on edge. But before I could challenge him on it he said he had to go to his new job, one he had been working at for a week now, and that I should get to the hospital and take over watch from mom. He grabbed his coat and left while pulling his cell phone out of his pocket to better ignore me. I thought to go after him and find out what he was talking about but he changed my mind quickly.
"Hey Jenny, this is Daniel." I heard him say. "How about giving me a ride in your new car? I'll pick up dinner and gas if you can drop me by work." Yeah, following him out was not happening. Well it was not like I did not have other means at my disposal to figure things out what with being a nosy sister and all with access to magic.
I headed upstairs to my room and found that Harry had left me another coloring book drawing colored in for me. It looks like he had chosen a picture from a different book this time. Instead of being a princess, this time he had colored me in as Snow White, though if I recall that referred to her skin and not her hair like he had depicted. It was also the picture where she takes a bite of the poisoned apple which is not the most flattering comparison but I was prepared to let him slide on that one. But once again at the bottom he had written 'For Molly, you are my hero. You will make it all better." Yep this was another one for the wall.
I hung around for ten minutes or so until I heard Jenny's car pull up and then drive off. By looking at the clock knowing I was a bit rushed for time if I was going to make it to Harry's before the hospital I went right into Daniel's room and to the closet where I knew he kept his hidden secrets.
Off to the side of his closet was an old footlocker dad had picked up for him when he was a boy scout and was in the phase of thinking he might join the Marine Corps when he graduated. While my brother is tough enough, after talking to a Marine who had just come back from boot camp was enough to change his mind. Daniel liked to sleep in whenever possible and basic training was not going to let him do that. So the locker was pushed off to the side to make room for his sports gear, which from the smell of it had not seen mom's washing machine in a week or two at least. What it is about teenage boys that allows them to stink on command I will never understand.
The footlocker now was where Daniel kept his stash of contraband. I know because after a certain age we all had such a place. Of course I had kept mine out in a secret panel in the tree house out back because I knew mom liked to snoop through my things and I could not remember her ever climbing up into the tree house.
I pulled the chest out and found Daniel had upgraded to adding a lock. Normally that would be a fairly decent deterrent against siblings and even delay parents in some cases but your average snooping sister with access to magic meant this was trivial at best. If you remember those old commercials of how a sniper shoots through a padlock but the lock does not open? Yeah well magic provides more versatility than a mere bullet.
I merely focused my will and gathered a little bit of power and pictured the lock opening in my mind before I called out 'Solvos' causing the lock to open in my hands. The locker was mostly empty, having a few love notes from Jenny, plus a teddy bear she had bought him that he dare not display yet dare not throw out. There were also half a dozen adult magazines that my mother would kill him for if she found them. I decided to save this little bit of information as a get out of jail free card for dealing with Daniel in the future. I also decided not to tell him that Ms. November on the cover was actually a White Court vampire by the looks of her because he really did not seem to like this type of information intruding in his 'normal' world.
In between these two stacks I found what I was looking for. There were three employment letters, two rejections from local machine shops, but an acceptance letter from Highpelt Steel Works. I scanned this letter quickly and found out Daniel was accepted as an apprentice Ferrier, whatever the hell that was, and had a start date of a week ago, which coincided nicely with the timeline of when he had said he started working. I tore off the return address label and was closing the lid when something fell to the bottom.
I opened it back up and saw a gold coin, in fact it looked to be a really old gold coin, like the ones pirates used to plunder. Where the hell it had come from I had no idea, but as I looked closer at the lid I saw Daniel had created a false face to the chest that had shifted slightly when I opened it or that had been cause by inadvertently by my spell of opening. I slid the false panel all the way open and saw almost two dozen such coins taped to the top. If they were real, which I was pretty sure they were, then he had thousands of dollars in gold, not even accounting for if they were collector's items. I did not know what an apprentice Ferrier made per week, but this seemed highly unlikely. It looks like Daniel and I need to have a talk later.
I put the other coin back and returned the footlocker to its original condition. I hoped Harry was home so I could ask him what a Ferrier was before I confronted my brother.
He was not home and there was no sign he had been since last night when I was here because the dog and cat foods were just as I had left them and their water bowls were empty. I took care of food and water first, letting Mister out to go prowl and then taking Mouse for a stroll around the block to reacquaint himself with the various lampposts and whatever messages other nearby dogs left behind.
That done I brought him back in, checked to see if Harry had read or added anything to my note, he had not, and then grabbed a can of coke from the fridge on my way out. I had almost made it to the door when the telephone began to ring.
"Hello?" I said. Okay Molly, whatever you do, do NOT say you are Harry Dresden! I repeated this mantra to myself for the past six months every time I answered the telephone at his place and it seemed to be working so far. But I knew from experience one slip could be serious trouble.
"Harry?" The familiar voice on the other side of the line asked. "This is Butters."
Butters was Harry's doctor friend. Well actually he was a thirty-something nearsighted and balding pathologist who did autopsies on some pretty scary things and loved to talk about them. When not at work he dressed up in a one-man band costume and loved to perform polka live for everyone's entertainment. Thankfully he sounded like he had gotten over his recent depression at losing the polka challenge for the fifth straight year or so at Chicago's Oktoberfest. Did I mention with all these qualities going for him Butters was still single? Yes, I do not understand that either.
"Butters this is Molly." I said stressing that final word to ensure if any rogue pagan goddesses were listening that I did not inadvertently lead them on. "Harry is not home right now. I'm not sure when he will be. Do you want me to leave him a message you called?"
"Ummm." He said and then paused. I mean he paused for a really long time so that if it were not for his breathing, sort of a wheezing sound, I might have thought we had been disconnected.
Finally he spoke up again. "By law I have to inform the CDC within twenty-four hours if I encounter a death I cannot explain." He told me. "I have a feeling this is related to something 'spooky' so I would prefer not to make this call if I do not have to."
I remembered that Harry told me Butters had once been locked up for psychological observation after doing an autopsy on some Red Court vampires when he reported the bodies were human-like but definitely not human. I could see why he would be reluctant to go down that particular path again. And of course he had helped Harry out countless times both professionally with investigations and medically with things like removing pesky bullets that somehow got lodged in his body so that meant there was an existing debt of friendship between the two of them.
Harry would move Heaven and Earth to help a friend, I know this from personal experience, so I sort of felt it was up to me to do what I could for the guy in Harry's absence. This did not mean I would get involved in another investigation or adventure. I would merely take a look at whatever had Butters spooked and render my professional wizardly opinion on the subject and hoped that closed the case.
"What time do you have to call CDC?" I asked.
"By the book I have to call at seven tomorrow morning." Butters replied. "They check the receipt records on weird cases like this and the feds love to run a city morgue through the wringer if we step outside of protocol." I could see why he wanted help.
"Tell you what Butters, if it can wait until nine o'clock tonight I will swing by and see if I can provide you any answers." I offered. "If I can't help then you lost nothing but time. Will that work for you?" Personally I had no desire to stare at a corpse but if it helped a friend, or at least the friend of a friend, then I would accept the burden of remembering not to eat anything tonight and do what Harry would have done if he were here.
"That would be great Molly." He said. "I have two other procedures that I have to finish up and type up the reports between now and then." His mood seemed slightly better. "I will leave your name with the desk officer and tell him you are my date bringing me a later dinner. It's illegal for civilians to be in here but the security folks understand spouses and girlfriends and such stopping by and turn a blind eye."
That though brought some rather disturbing images to mind; not the lease of which was the chance of someone thinking I was dating Butters. It was enough to make my stomach rebel but I swallowed it down. "Okay Butters that will work for me." God I should be an actress. "I will see you at about nine." He thanked me again and hung up and I headed for the door noting that with a little luck I'd still make it to the hospital on time.
Ha, this is one of those moments where fate actually worked for me and I did arrive in time to changeover with mom. In the past ten days her inner fire had come back slowly and she looked more and more like the woman I had respected, and feared, growing up. The strain of sorrow had added a few new lines to her face, but the dark circles under her eyes were gone, and she actually was reading a book aloud, correction the Bible, while she waited for me to show up. My dad appeared either at rest with his eyes closed or asleep.
"How is he doing mom?" I asked as I came in through the door. I was thankful my dad was off the respirator and other than an IV drip nothing else was hooked up to him. This meant I could sit closer rather than across the room like I had been forced to for the first few days.
"He was awake earlier taking to the doctor and asking when he could go home." She answered shaking her head in feigned exasperation but I could see she was happy to think of back in our house soon.
"What did the doctor say?"
"He said if your father continues to show this level of remarkable progress then maybe after this weekend." She could not completely hide the smile from her face. "But the doctor also said he had to relax as much as possible so I have been reading to your father so he could sleep peacefully. I expect you to ensure he does as well."
Leave it to my mom to literally stake out her territory and take over in any environment once she got past the initial fear. I do not care who they are, the average alpha male has nothing on Charity Carpenter.
"I will make sure after he has his dinner that he goes straight back to sleep." I promised to keep her concern pointed in any direction except toward me. Plus it is not like I promised too much. Dad's dinner consisted of jello since his internal organs had all been damaged and could not take the stress of eating anything heavier. The jello's purpose was only to keep his digestive system working while his body healed. All his real nutrients came through the IV tubes that were changed out every eight hours.
Mom gave me her perfunctory kiss on the cheek as she left, something I did not mind since it made her feel better, and headed home to deal with my siblings. At fifteen Mathew's leadership ability was severely challenged when everyone older than him was away from home and responsibility devolved to him. Father Forthill found a new reason nearly every day to stop by and wait for my mom to get home. Yesterday's excuse was to drop off a flier that my mom 'really needed to see.' I looked later and realized it was an announcement that Friday night bingo would still take place on the day after Thanksgiving. Yep, if that did not require a three hour wait for direct face-to-face communication with my mother I did not know what would.
It took no more than five minutes after my mother had left before my dad's eyes opened and he turned to find me sitting beside him. "Hello Princess." Dad said to me using a nickname that I had not heard in many years.
"Hiya Daddy." I said smiling back at him.
"I was just dreaming of that day when I took your training wheels off and taught you to ride your bike."
"I was thinking about that the other day too." While I found that weird it was also oddly comforting that a day so special to me was equally important to him.
"You really were not all that coordinated." He said with a laugh. I felt a bit surprised by this but I could see with the familiar twinkle in his eyes that he was merely teasing me.
"That seems funny coming from the man in the hospital bed." I said in response and he laughed even harder.
We chatted about nothing in particular for the next ten minutes or so. I preferred the light conversation because I certainly did not want to talk about medical bills or gold doubloons at that moment. So it was my father who surprised me by bringing up an awkward subject.
"How is your sword practice going?" He asked me out of the blue. He had seen me in my gi going to aikido class but I had never shown him my sword or talked about it at home or to anyone other than Karrin.
"Um…fine." I said awkwardly not wanting to say more than I had to.
"I saw it in the back of your car one day after work." He explained. "I figure if I do not ask you why you have it then you have no reason to lie right?" He smiled. I merely nodded my head.
"Why don't you bring it up to the room and you can show me what you have learned." He offered.
"Into the hospital?"
"Sure why not?" He replied. "We will close the door so no one notices and it can be our secret." I knew that when he said 'our secret' he merely meant until mom asked the appropriate question. At that point it would no longer be a secret of any kind since my dad would not lie.
I pondered the idea and came up with a dozen reasons why not to do as he requested, including jail and my mother getting angry, which of the two the second was the far worse. But he was not so easily swayed from his course. "You know…" He smiled. "I know a thing or two about handling a sword. I might be able to offer you some pointers." Yep that sold it. I was off and back to the room inside of ten minutes and dad was just finishing up his jello, lime was the offered flavor of the night, so I knew from the previous week we had an hour or so before the orderlies would return for the tray.
I wheeled his bed over slightly and pushed the chair back against the wall to give myself a little room and drew the wooden sword. Then I assumed the on guard pose that Karrin had taught me. Once he smiled and nodded for me to continue, in a series of slow and deliberate steps I showed him all the various moves I had been taught before gradually speeding them up to the pace Karrin and I sparred at.
My dad smiled and offered words of praise when I did something he liked and small 'suggestions' for improvement on other areas. The latter were usually phrased as part of learn from his mistakes presentation, such as I should hold the point of my blade just a little higher because it combat a fighter can use gravity to help bring it down in a hurry, but the same forces slows down a blade from rising into a needed parry.
I won't say I was quite as tired as I was normally when sparring with Murphy, but my muscles certainly acknowledged they had received a workout by the time my demonstration was done. Dad also looked tired from this and I felt a little guilty about keeping him awake when mom had specifically told me not to. He saw this and gave me that unconditional loving smile I had seen throughout my life.
"I'm going back to sleep Princess." He said with a yawn that was certainly not faked. "Why don't you call it an early night and go take some time for yourself." He said.
I started to protest but he raised a finger, a whole hand likely too much for the moment. "Molly I will sleep better if I know you are not sitting here hovering over me for every snore I make."
I chuckled. "Well you do make a lot of odd bodily noises when you sleep." I said.
"Blame the jello."
I laughed and gave him a kiss on the forehead and as a good and dutiful daughter, well on very rare moments I was at least, I did exactly what my father asked of me. On the way out I stopped at the cafeteria only long enough to pick up a sandwich for Butters and some granola for me to eat if I was still hungry after he showed me whatever it was down there at the morgue that had him so spooked.
Thankfully traffic was not too bad and parking never seemed to be a problem at the morgue. You will note I refused to make any reference to the old joke about people dying to get here. Even necromancers have decided that joke should rest in peace. See I can be witty about death when I want to be. God it's hard being a beautiful, perky wizard apprentice but I try!
I strolled up to the morgue. Yeah I know they call it the Forensic Institute just like janitors are custodial engineer and stewardess are flight attendants. I really do not think changing the name actually endears any of these subjects to any additional respect, but if you want to believe it yourself who am I to shatter your illusions?
Harry comes out here a lot. Thankfully I have only been here a few times, and even then I tried to stay in the car as often as possible. This time though there was only me so I lifted my chin, and took a few deep breaths of air that did not smell of death or formaldehyde and strolled up into the reception area. Yeah, the idea of calling it a reception area in a morgue never quite seemed the correct thing to me either.
Because it was after hours I had to ring the buzzer to get the guard's attention. I had my girlfriend story all prepared though I have to say it was not a role I was looking forward to. Ah the life of a wizard apprentice is never a simple one.
"May I help you?" A voice asked that was surprisingly feminine rather than the normal male voices of the guards I had heard before.
"Um I am here to see Butters." I said. Damn what a stupid time to suddenly realize that I could not recall his first name! So much for the whole girlfriend story I figured.
The door buzzed anyway and I pulled it open. I guess the guard figured the chance of two women coming to see Butters was even more remote than my inability to use his first name, whatever it was, so she gave me the benefit of the doubt.
In Greek mythology there are stories about a race of warrior women known as the amazons who were the equal to the greatest male warriors of the time. At first glance I had no doubt that security specialist, not rent-a-cop, Crystal Davidson was a direct descendent from that noble lineage.
She stood six foot six and weighed two hundred pounds of pure muscle yet still maintained a feminine figure to boot. Her dark mocha skin and shining eyes seemed enticing even as her size was intimidating. She also was looking at me rather skeptically.
"You are Butter's girlfriend?" She asked noting both my age and that I likely did not appear to be the type attracted to thirty-something, balding, polka players who moonlighted by performing autopsies.
Did I mention I occasionally have an evil streak? Yeah, it strikes me at the oddest times; like now for example. I began to project a feeling of reassurance as I answered her.
"Well I do not know if girlfriend is the correct term." I said. "I am just using him for sex because I had to know for myself if the old wives tales about polka players is true." Had it not been for the magic I'm certain this story would have failed right there before it ever began. Having that particular unique ability as a backstop though kept me in the ballpark even though the skepticism did not leave her face.
"Okay, I'm from East St. Louis originally so it's not like we had any polka music where I grew up, so how about you enlighten me on this wives tale, girl to girl?" She smiled but I could just sense a little bit of intrigue, because it was a story so absurd it had to be true.
"Oh yeah." I said excited. "Up here in Chicago all the girls know if you are looking for a hot experience you go for a polka player." I explained. "They get that ooompah beat going in time with things and all you see are pink lights and fireworks in your mind."
I had her. She was literally stunning with nothing to say until finally. "You are kidding me right?"
Some more magical feelings of trust with just a hint of lust and I continued. "I wish I were." I said. "But between you and me I came here tonight to break it off with him though."
"Why?" The fish asked with the hook in her mouth.
"His stamina." I said. "It's just too much for me. I end up exhausted the next day so I can barely think straight, much less walk."
I could tell she was in serious contemplation so I pushed a little further. "Hey, it may get a little emotional for him after I'm gone." I explained. "He might want someone to talk to. Are you seeing anyone? I would not want them to get jealous if he finds out you were talking to a polka guy."
Her mind was off on a tangent and she answered without thinking. "No I was dating a second stringer from the Chicago Bears up until the season began. The coach made him break up with me because he too was having trouble walking and was too exhausted after we would spend the night together."
"Huh." I said. "Sounds like you and Butters were made for each other." I smiled. "Can I bring him his lunch and get the tough part over with?" I asked politely trying hard not to smile.
"Sure honey, go ahead." She said reaching into her purse before touching up her lipstick.
I strode down the hall calling his name and Butters poked his head out of one of the examination rooms near the end of the corridor and waved me forward. The fact that I was over an hour early did not seem to faze him at all so he led me to examination room three. I know it was examination room three because that is what it said on the door.
Normally the table in the center would have a sheet covered lump a foot or more in height that anyone would be able to understand was a body even without closer examination. This time though the sheet was nearly flat, rising at most six inches above the table in some places and much less in others. Having been alerted by Butter's thoughts this was something 'spooky' I prepared myself for anything, or at least I thought I did.
He pulled back the sheet and I saw, well I really did not know what it was I saw at first. Then slowly my brain made sense of what my eyes were telling it was laying there in front of me.
It was a human body, or at least had been at some time in the past. Now it appeared to be a bag of human skin, still stretched out, and containing all the bones in the body. However, everything else, muscle, sinew, blood, all of it was gone. It literally was just skin and bones.
"What in the…" Enough Hail Marys from Father Forthill had taught me to refrain from finishing that sentence in some cases. I did so in this one but just barely. The oddest thing I noted is that the skin of the victim showed no signs of damage whatsoever. I mean I figured it was possible to remove the skin from an animal or a person and then the bones put them back inside, but I figured you would have to see signs of the cutting and stitching. There was none of that in this case.
What I was seeing was also not anything I had ever heard of in my lessons with Harry. My mind went right to vampire, but none of the three courts I knew of sucked everything out of a body. This was something entirely different. I reached out a finger and touched the skin, feeling at once that it had the consistency of old leather.
"Can you tell me anything about this?" Butters asked hopefully.
"I do not know what exactly did it." I said. "But you are right. It certainly was something spooky." I agreed.
I sat and looked at the body for a while longer trying to come up with anything but my knowledge base was relatively light in the whole 'it eats the out the inside of humans without leaving a mark on the skin; category. "Have you found anything odd?" I asked getting a raised eyebrow for my efforts. "Okay odder?"
"I have not begun the actual autopsy." He admitted. "I wanted Harry to see the body before I did any damage. I do not even have an identity on the victim. I'm going to have to inflate the fingers with a silicone gel just to get them back into shape to take prints. Between that and dental records I hope to know who this was and then maybe how this happened."
"Okay, since I got here early I'm going to run back by Harry's place and see if I can find anything in his books on this." I said.
"Okay, since you say it's spooky I'm not calling CDC." He seemed relieved by this. "But I need to know anything you get as soon as possible in case I get questions."
"Not a problem." I replied. "Should I call you here?"
"Yeah, it's not like I have a hot date or anything." He said still looking at the body.
"Actually Butters, I think you should know that your security guard Crystal likes you." I said over my shoulder as I headed out the door leaving him a bit baffled and confused in my wake.