Soul Shock, page 6
Victoria laughed, “Our moon goddess, we should have a pamphlet. Regardless, we hope you can get the help your daughter needs.” She nudged me. “Wanna get your stuff?”
With a nod, I gathered my bag and went outside to wait for the ambulance’s arrival. I rescued the girl’s phone from Secret. She’d unlocked it somehow, and was playing a cat hotel game. Within two more minutes the ambulance arrived; I chatted briefly with the paramedic to let her know the situation. The girl would probably come out of it on her own, but we let the parents discuss that with the paramedics that were actually on duty. We invited the crows and coyotes to the deer and headed home.
A good hunt, a good night, despite the heat.
9
When my alarm went off, I wished my good night had included far more sleep. Neither human nor wolf me enjoyed using their time ‘out’ for sleep; the result was I didn’t get nearly enough. Sleeping usually defaulted to one or another. Sleeping in a mid-form only worked when the two halves of my soul were roughly in balance. Which didn’t happen too often. I cursed when I opened my eyes to fingers instead of paws, meaning that the end of my shift today might be hairy. Neither Victoria nor Secret stirred as I went through a human morning routine and put on my EMT uniform.
“Actually getting back on the bus today?” Cindy greeted me as I came downstairs.
Cindy also wore her uniform, but instead of deep navy, hers was black. Everything she’d worn since the morning after I’d wedded her to Rey became black as soon as she put it on. She had her button shirt partially open, displaying the pulsing red gem that nestled comfortably in her cleavage. Still, despite the fact that she and Victoria shared a color palette, nobody would accuse Cindy of being Gothic. In her house, she oozed a soft domesticity coupled with a sly edge. Of anyone in the house, she’d changed the most in the last six months. Still tall, but that uniform now hugged hips that swaggered as if they swung a tail behind them, and her chest buttons strained to contain her bosom. She’d hosted a party last week for her trans meetup and I heard the jealousy in a few of her friend’s voices as they spoke about her winning the hormone lottery.
I was pretty sure that Cindy’s transition had far more to do with Rey’s heart than any medication. The house smelled as if the Fox Fey had never left. Never sacrificed herself for the city to become the god who slumbered and grew in the new downtown garden. As I ate a cold breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and bacon strips, Cindy deftly cut up a chicken breast using a ceramic knife. Steel had slowly disappeared from the kitchen, plastic mixing bowls sat in the drying rack while the pots and pans that hung over the counter were now copper. She mixed the cubed chicken with butter and herbs before placing it in a small pet bowl.
“Breakfast time!” she sang out as she placed the bowl down on the floor. Immediately the pet flap on the back door swung open and five fox kits entered the house one after another. So small that two of them might add up to Secret’s cat form. They paused, staring warily in my direction. “It’s alright,” Cindy cooed, “Abby’s going to stay right over there. Right?”
I crossed my arms and stayed put. These kits never let me get close enough to get a good sniff. They’d been hanging around since a few weeks after Rey’s death and didn’t seem to get bigger. Natural foxes would have grown up by now, but Cindy had made it clear that they were not a topic of conversation. “That’s between Rey and me,” was all she would say. I worried for my friend. She smelled so happy, though, wrapped in an embrace of the Fox Fey’s magic. We all benefited from it; no one could find our house if they intended harm, and Cindy’s remodeling projects proceeded swiftly. Still, I feared there would be a point where foxes and wolves couldn’t live under the same roof together.
The fox kits finished their meat swiftly and filed back out of the house. Cindy opened the fridge and pulled out a plastic-wrapped plate. “If you’re going to chat with the Murphys, bring this over to them.”
Shortbread cookies in the shape of paws were arranged in concentric circles on the platter and I had to laugh. “Oh that’s real subtle.”
“Subtle as a brick. Just like you,” she said with a sly wink. “Go take them over and hurry back so we can get to work on time.”
“Be right back, then.” I headed out the door, waiting until I was off the property to give the cookies a clandestine sniff. Flour, sugar and eggs, no glamour, just a hint of Cindy and Rey’s combined scents.
Despite the sunshine, it was still hella early, but this new family had younger kids, so I was willing to bet on them being up. I slipped on a pair of sunglasses as I walked up the newly landscaped path to their front door.
“Doorbell, Daddy!” I heard a young voice shriek and then giggle in response to the chime.
An exhausted-looking man opened the door with a suspicious squint as he looked me up and down. “Can I help you?”
I presented the plate of cookies. “Hi, I’m Abby. Just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.”
That got me a smile as he took the plate. “Name’s Henry. Thank you very much. The kids will enjoy these. If you’ll excuse me.” He made to step back inside.
“Just a minute. We still have to discuss the rules,” I said, keeping my smile as friendly as I could manage.
His expression soured. “The rules? There’s no HOA.”
“Oh, nothing like that; the rules just save everybody time and heartbreak.” His brow furrowed so I continued on. “No camera, security or otherwise with a view of the street. If you need emergency services, be sure you request CRF or medical services. PPD won’t respond to this neighborhood. And the big one, never walk around after dark with a loaded firearm. If there’s something life, death, or serious injury, you can text me.”
His skepticism gave way to confusion. “What kind of rules are those? Whose rules? Do I look like somebody who’s going to be running around with guns in the middle of the night?”
“No, sir. These are rules to keep everyone who lives here safe. Everyone. See you around, Henry. I gotta go to work.” I turned and let him stare at my back as I walked back out to the sidewalk. He’d talk to his new neighbors about me and my rules which I had started explicitly informing each new arrival about two months ago. I didn’t stop residents from snapping pictures of us through windows but I didn’t want any automated method of tracking our nightly movements. Test the firearm rule and if I recognized their scent they got a single warning. Otherwise, Secret got a fresh heart. So far only one drunken nut job had needed a warning, so things were working. Also someone had posted yellow signs that depicted a grinning wolf on a crosswalk. They read: Werewolf Crossing, F Around and Find Out.
I didn’t know who had put them up, but they did make me feel appreciated.
“Abby!” An older, jowled man called my name from his porch. His house’s roof had become a mossy garden, and you didn’t need a wolf’s nose to know its structure was more rot than good wood. However, he sat next to a freshly painted blue door that Cindy and I had installed last month. I had ripped the original off its hinges.
I waved, “You’re up early, Chuck.”
“Eeeh. Back’s tired of sleep, but I got to see the sunrise.” He raised a coffee cup to me. “Want a cup of Jo?”
“Sorry, no time this morning, got a shift.” I patted my uniform. “You doing okay? Takin’ your meds? I don’t want to break another door.”
“Yeah, yeah. Next you can go through the damn roof. I could use a new one of them.” He laughed a loud guffaw before going into a coughing fit. He pounded his chest before it passed. “Ahem,” he concluded.
“Not replacing your roof, Chuck, no matter how many times I gotta drag your ass to the hospital.” The old man had been the first of our medical emergency hunts.
He gave me a gap-toothed grin, “Eeeh, worth a shot. You and your missus take care.”
“We’ll do that.” With a smile I continued back to the house, Cindy made me run to catch her car.
10
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Cliff commented as Cindy and I came through the open garage of the firehouse. He stood stiffly, wearing a pair of lavender slacks and a loose black button-down shirt while the fey sword and its red scabbard hung at his waist. The shirt almost hid the bulk of the bandages beneath it.
“Which one of us you calling a cat?” Cindy asked with a smile that I remembered being on Rey’s face.
“Heh, I’ll let you two scratch that out. I can shuffle Julia back over to Doc if you want to go out together.”
“Sure,” I said before Cindy could suggest otherwise.
“Great. Get the gear and get on out.” He made a few strokes on his pad and winked.
“Hey, not so fast,” I objected. “How are you feeling? Sorry I didn’t check up on you yesterday. Wasn’t in a talking mood, you know?”
“Unless you wanted to be serenaded,” Cindy quipped, tossing her head back to mime a howl.
Cliff laughed and shook his head, “It burns like a son of a bitch. Not bad during the day, but trying to sleep is a literal nightmare. But it’s fine. I’ll survive. Now’s not the greatest time to catch up.” A nod guided my gaze toward the office window. Sophie sat at one of the computers, the lenses of her glasses shining with the white of the screen.
I quickly stepped so Cliff blocked my line of sight to her and closer to him. “Wow, she’s here and you’re not shouting at each other.”
“That storm’s a-coming, as my granddad used to say.” He sighed.
Inching a little closer, I swallowed down a lump in my throat that had suddenly appeared. “Hey. So…”
One eyebrow raised, and he eyed me with suspicion. “Sooo?”
“My aunt, she’s invited us to a big, fancy ball at the Rose Garden next week.” Sudden butterflies in my stomach made me pause. “Want to come with me?”
He blinked, “Can Victoria not make it?”
“Oh no, she’s coming, but she’s going to schmooze with the moneyed folks. I could use a bit of backup facing whatever my Aunt’s got planned,” I said.
“What do you mean, ‘your Aunt’s plan’?”
“No idea, but she’s hinting she’ll set the dog catchers on me if I don’t show.” I forced a laugh. “Can’t always avoid city politics, but I enjoy having backup.”
He glanced around as if he were being watched, “Abby, are you asking me out on a date, or do you really need help?”
“Yes?” I grinned up at him. “Just think about it.”
A smile warmed his face. “I’ll think about it. Mostly how to tell mum without her blowing a gasket. Now get out there and do your job.”
“Going!” I hurried away from him to rejoin Cindy.
As soon as we were safely within the ambulance, she tutted at me. “What the hell was that? A junior asking a senior to a dance?”
“That’s what it felt like.” I laughed, it was almost a giggle. “Trying a new tack, do it more traditional, dating and stuff. Might help him sell it to his Mom and less like forcing a marriage at first kiss.”
“You know, if you need a baby daddy that badly, I know a few women who might fit the bill. That way Victoria might like them, too,” she said with a mischievous leer.
Baby daddy? The word hit me like a slap. I glared at Cindy, “It’s not that!” Even as my imagination pictured a pair of dark-furred pups following me through a forest. “Not entirely that,” I amended, feeling my cheeks heat. “I’ve been crushing on Cliff since before… all of this.”
“I know.” Cindy started the ambulance. “Come to think of it, he hasn’t dated anyone as long as I’ve known him. Might be ace.”
“Or his mother drives them all off,” I said, crossing my arms and pointedly looking out the window. Could she be right? I really hoped not. Cliff didn’t strike me as aromantic, but what the hell did I know? I thought I was straight before locking lips with the Queen of Winter, and dismissed her as an exception to my normal rules until Victoria.
“Could be…” Cindy mused.
I reached for a change in subject, “You ever going to tell me about the fox kits who are living in the garden?”
Instantly her shoulders hunched in a defensive posture. “No. That’s between me and Rey.”
That killed the conversation for a while and we roamed downtown on our normal cruising circuit, but I knew I’d hit a nerve when the ambulance circled Rey’s resting place three times. A tower of flowering ivy in the center of what would be a twisting hedge maze once the plants grew a bit more. All the signage had been completely overgrown, leaving all the branding to the various booths that crowded the sidewalk. “Cuttings from the Miracle Garden!” one declared, another, “Join the Society of the Green-Tailed Lady.” The one with the simple two word question had a crowd this morning, “Need healing?”
The rot still lingered in west Portland; that was Andrew Millar’s legacy. Foul mushrooms that sprouted from the corpses of those killed that night, and other places where I could smell grief. Graveyards sported scorched scars where they attempted to burn the mushroom out before it released spores. The damn things still rooted themselves in a lung or two, but the doctors prescribed a walk around the Lady’s Garden, and the coughing disappeared. The Society claimed their patron could cure all manner of ills, but it took far more effort than a stroll. I believed them; no fragment of Rey would offer that for free. On the other side of the street stood a variety of street sellers, selling trinkets, fortunes and drugs. You needed the blessing of the Lady to set up shop on her side, whether creeping vines drove you off, or Society members with cudgels, made no difference.
Either way, scorching temperatures or no, Portland was in full swing on this street. A small protest demanded the release of a political prisoner on the corner; across from them a group of men angrily berated passersby to repent because the end times were here. Tourists pointed their phones at everything. Looking at this spot in downtown you’d never guess that the city had lost nearly ten percent of its population six months ago. After the Dead Night, which between the rot and the undead’s appetites, had killed upwards of five thousand people, twenty times that number had fled. City officials panicked, fearing financial ruin on top of the damage caused by several buildings that had literally been tossed into the street. National media denounced the city as an uncontrollable wasteland, and the president sent the national guard to establish order. They found very little disorder to control.
A funny thing happened, though. Portland had been enduring a slow decline for half a decade, and the crash in real estate reversed itself in a week. There was a new breed of migrant than the traditional Silicon Valley refugees of the tens and twenties. A younger cohort had rolled in, swelling the ranks of the coffee shops and restaurants. I can pick them out when they enter my bus. I can’t put my nose on precisely what is different from the local disaffected early twenties kids, but I can always tell, if they’re conscious and talking. They take one look at me and my eyes, then blurt out a hundred different stories. Some had a nightmare that drove them here, others a dream, and others tell me they witnessed something impossible and now can’t bring themselves to leave. I wonder if it’s not just the Dead and the Fey who hunger for the crossroads but select humans as well. Drawn to magic like moths to an open flame, unaware.
Things were happening beyond what I could sense. Something about the scent of the Lady’s garden struck me as off, but I hadn’t been able to articulate what it was. Beyond her, that vampire remains at large. I see a double-barreled mosquito bite every couple weeks. Victoria had attempted to hunt the damn thing down a few times now, but we’ve never found any blood suckers. Either they don’t have a scent or they can smell us coming from a mile off. Aunt Sheryl’s been watching everyone in city hall for bite marks or sudden scarf usage, but no sign of sudden undead influence.
The only dead I’d actually scented in the last month was Mrs. Weatherby; her rotting stink was anything but subtle. Sometimes a homeless client will whisper something about Grandmother Maggot and I know that’s Mrs. Weatherby.
Today a call took us to the one neighborhood that hadn’t recovered from the panicked flight. The Golden Heights have never been a loud neighborhood, but now it’s eerily quiet. Many of the rich folks who moved out haven’t sold their properties, so the large-to-massive homes stand empty. The most frequent human scent is the sweat of the gardeners that tend the lawns and the roses. Only one out of four buildings show any sign of habitation. Those who stayed had some sort of link to the city that couldn’t easily be broken.
Such as the house the call had originated from. A fine brown-and-tan manor with manicured red roses the size of an infant’s head, which I remembered from an event my Aunt had dragged me to once. Half the upper windows were broken, and the lawn was scattered with expensive-looking debris. A man hunched on the front stoop, arms crossed as he rocked back and forth in the manner of a shell-shocked child. He didn’t look at us as we pulled up to the curb.
Cindy and I shared a wary glance.
“Wife kicked him out?” she offered.
I scanned the objects that had been thoroughly yeeted from the house. Paintings, a MacBook, a few cat-sized statues, books, a dresser drawer and its collection of black socks. “Maybe?” I concluded as I popped open the door.
The thick, humid air delivered a slap to my face and the copper tang of blood to my nostrils. I paused, sampling the air; it had a scent I couldn’t identify, like a stale cobweb.
“Sir?” Cindy called out to the man; she was lead on this call. “Can you hear me?”
The man stopped his rocking and stared at us with the expression of a dog that knew he’d done something he wasn’t supposed to. His hands fell into his lap, revealing bloody spots on his white shirt where he had been gripping it.
“Did you call 911, sir?” Cindy asked as I came around the front of the ambulance.
