Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (10 page)

“A suspicious accident?”

“Not at all.” Gunther leaned back, closed his eyes. “Nothing even remotely suspicious about him. Everybody loves him as far as I can tell.”

Gunther yawned mightily. Keith waited for him to continue. He did not. A minute later Keith said, “You can take the bed if you want, Heartman.”

Gunther complied, lurched up out of the chair, and flopped onto the bed limp as a side of salmon slapping down onto a chopping board.

Thinking that he should persevere, but tempted beyond all reasonable measure, Keith made it ten more minutes before joining Gunther on the ugly bedspread, then between the freshly changed hotel sheets.

Approximately five hours later, at 3:06, PPB called them out to take a look at a foot.

The foot in question had been found lodged under some fallen wood near an observation point in the Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area. The foot was pale as wax. It had four toes—all of them very long. Each greasy white digit ended in a horn-like yellow talon. The most striking feature of the foot, though, was its NIAD vampire-identification bracelet looping the burned and slimy ankle stump.

“We called this cuff into the office and they gave us your number,” the police officer said. “I would have called the department of wildlife myself. Since it doesn’t look like a human foot.”

“It’s not a human foot.” Keith knew he stated the obvious but felt the need to say something. “Don’t worry, I’ve got the gear to take care of it.”

“Who found this?” Gunther asked.

“And ornithology professor from PSU. He was trying to set up in a blind before sunrise to observe the waterfowl when he ran across it. We sent him home. We wouldn’t have called you except for the cuff.”

“It’s no problem,” Gunther said.

“Do you mind if I ask what that thing is?”

“It’s an animal limb. We’ll know more about it after it goes to the lab in San Francisco.” Keith opened up a lightproof bag and prepared to remove the evidence from the scene. They’d need to buy some dry ice on the way back to the hotel to keep it fresh during shipping.

“It doesn’t really look like any kind of animal around here,” the officer remarked. “I’ve hunted here all my life, you know.”

Gunther stepped smoothly between them. “I strongly suspect that this is part of a highly endangered animal.”

“Endangered animal?”

“Yes, the Argentinean four-toed sloth. Have you ever heard if it?”

“No. I’ve seen a sloth in Costa Rica before, but never heard of the Argentinean one.”

“Well, until recently, they were considered extinct. I’m actually collecting money for habitat preservation right now. Do you think you’d be interested in helping with a donation? Anything at all would be appreciated.”

The officer demurred, claiming to have left his wallet in the car, and sidled away.

“What would you have done if he’d given you money?”

“That guy? It was never a possibility,” Gunther said, smiling.

Keith crouched down. The stench of decay filled his nostrils. He gloved up and gingerly picked up the limb. After wiping the goo away he read out the serial number on the tracking cuff while Gunther typed it into the database, via his phone.

“Janice Sounder,” Gunther pronounced. “No surprise there. The question is—is the rest of Janice alive somewhere?”

“I don’t think so.” Keith finished bagging the foot, then poked at the ground with his pen. Though footprints and rain marred the scene, traces of ash remained. “I think she burned here.”

“Wouldn’t there be clothes left behind? Or remnants anyway?”

“Only if she was wearing them.” Keith beckoned the PPB liaison forward. “You say the foot was found in the woodpile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was any of the wood around it burned?”

“Yes, sir. We have those in evidence. We’re testing them for traces of accelerant. We did find some metal as well. Some fragments of silver and also a piece of metal we think might have been a wedding ring, sir.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It was gold and about the right shape.”

Driving up the road, Keith could see a small procession of nondescript black SUVs approaching. The forensic team had arrived, probably via some sort of portal. Through his NIAD glasses, he could see the faint blue tracers still clinging to them.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose we need to go turn this over to the team.”

By the time they’d relinquished Janice’s foot to the Irregulars forensic team and signed all the requisite papers, it was seven a.m. Keith was hungry and on the delirious level of fatigue. He pulled into an old-school donut shop called the Tulip Bakery, glanced over to Gunther, and said, “You want to go in or should I just get a dozen and head back to the hotel?”

Gunther leaned back in his seat, eyes closed. “I trust you.”

Tulip Bakery turned out to have the sort of donuts he remembered from his childhood back east. No coffee-milk, in fact, and no coffee at all. He got an assortment of cakes and raised and a couple of maple bars. He set the box in Gunther’s lap—the other man didn’t open his eyes but held the box instinctively as Keith pulled out of the parking lot, heading back to downtown.

“Okay, so we’ve got the butchery venue and we’ve got one dead vampire who was supposed to have gone to Boise but never made it.” Keith rubbed his face, not relishing the drive back. “There is no reason to believe that these two occurrences are connected except for proximity.”

Gunther reclined his seat. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they are.”

“All right.”

“What if Janice was somehow connected to the killings—maybe not as a killer, but as a purchaser of blood?”

“Why kill her then?” Keith asked.

“Maybe she wanted out. Maybe she was blackmailing the real killer.”

“I don’t know. The Sounders have been here for a hundred and forty-five years without a single incident,” Gunther pointed out.

“Okay, let’s go at it from another angle. Who was Janice meeting in Boise?”

“A vampire named Silas DuPree. According to our office there he hasn’t even left his house for the last fifteen years.” Gunther cracked an eye long enough to paw a coconut twist out of the donut box.

“How does Silas survive?”

“Blood delivered weekly by courier.” Gunther took a bite of his donut. “He’s basically a shut-in.”

“Where does he get the money for the home delivery bloodmobile?”

“He wrote a series of romance novels featuring sexy reclusive loners. Before that he performed on stage, but that would have been in the pre-electricity era.” Gunther inhaled at least half his donut in one massive bite. “Damn, these are good. Any coffee?”

“There’s some cold stuff from yesterday in the cupholder if you don’t mind my backwash.”

Gunther looked like he might make some sort of droll remark, then seemed to think the better of it. He slugged back Keith’s leftover black with two sugars, then fished around in his pocket for his cigarettes.

They turned and were heading straight into the rising sun. Keith scowled. More than likely this was the last sight that Janice Sounder had seen. “Did our office actually send an agent to speak with DuPree or did they just check the computer tracking system?”

“I don’t know.” Apparently reinvigorated by fried dough, Gunther adjusted his seat back to alert passenger position. “Are you thinking that he’s not really there?”

“I’m thinking that a vampire can survive losing a foot, no matter how it gets removed.”

“That’s true,” Gunther said. “And speaking of surviving losing a foot, we’ve also just seen that a foot can survive losing a vampire.”

“What’s your point?”

“It’s really convenient that we should find Janice’s ankle cuff still attached to her foot. I think she might have deliberately shoved her foot out of the sunlight when she knew that she was going to die.”

“It’s not like the sunlight would have destroyed the cuff. We would have found that eventually via the GPS tracking.”

“But what would that have looked like? Just a ring of plastic. It’s nothing that anyone would call the police over,” Gunther said. “Someone needs to contact Janice’s friend in Boise directly.”

“I’d like to do it myself.”

“That’s just what I was thinking. I’ll call for air transport.” Gunther applied himself to locating his phone.

While Keith focused on staying awake so as not to kill them both in a tragic car wreck, Gunther spent the next few minutes arranging for a plane to take them from Portland to Boise. “A NIAD plane can take us at four and bring us back tonight.”

Keith nodded.

Gunther finished off his donut, then paused thoughtfully. “That was pretty good. Could have used some hot sauce though.”

“I could use a nap and shower.”

To Keith it seemed inevitable that they would end up having sex again. They were both too exhausted to feel inhibited and also pumped up on half a dozen donuts each. It felt natural in the surreal, sugary morning to invite Gunther into his room, then into his shower, then finally into his bed.

Afterward, Gunther lay next to him, his chest heaving. Keith stared up at the hotel ceiling for a few minutes, catching his breath.

Gunther said, “Want something to drink?”

“Anything that contains alcohol.”

Gunther rose, opened the refrigerator. The chill and artificial light flowed out across Keith’s damp skin and silhouetted Gunther’s perfect body as he grabbed a beer and twisted the cap off. He handed it to Keith, then delved back into the refrigerator. From inside the door, he chose a bottle of Dave’s Insanity Sauce, unscrewed the top, then tipped his head back and chugged the entire thing, ending with a satisfied sigh.

He climbed back into the bed and pressed his lips against Keith’s cheek.

Keith lay awake as Gunther fell into a doze, feeling the slight warmth of pure capsaicin left behind in the shape of a kiss and wondering what the hell he was going to do now.

Chapter Nine

For the first time in two years, Keith dreamed about his old restaurant. He had thought that he would dream about it more than he did. It was as though even his subconscious mind remained too wounded to venture back into his own kitchen.

He knew he was in a dream. The department had trained him in lucid dreaming, trances, and astral projections as part of his basic course. But knowing one is in a dream and being able to control that dream world remained two different activities.

He stood behind the long, old-fashioned counter, regarding his sole customer, who sat drinking coffee and reading the paper. A snow goblin. A creature of made of angular bone with smoldering red slits for eyes. The goblin turned a page of paper, took a sip of coffee, and then shook a few dashes of hot pepper sauce into the liquid. He said, “I think we should check out that film festival.”

“Can’t. I’m working.”

The goblin folded the paper shut and said, “Not everything is about food, you know.”

“To me it is. This is my whole life. It’s everything I know.” He became aware of the fact that he hadn’t finished his prep work for the dinner rush. Customers would be coming in hungry and wanting to be fed. Shadows moved outside his restaurant’s front window, some stopping to read the menu posted there. Somewhere in the background he could hear the sound of the dishwasher playing reggae and clanking dishes together. He had to get to work. Keith went to pick up his chef’s knife from the cutting board, but he couldn’t find it. Instead his mage pistol sat atop a neatly folded bar towel. How could he have left it sitting out? He lifted it and slid it into the holster under his left shoulder. The goblin, Gunther, glanced up.

“You look good wearing that,” he remarked, tapping a cigarette out of a pack. “It suits you.”

He felt a slight bump, then a hand on his knee. The restaurant dissolved. He opened his eyes to see the inside of a plane cabin. The private plane used by agents on assignment. Gunther sat across from him, leaning forward, shaking his knee slightly.

“We’re touching down,” he said.

Outside Keith could see the flat expanse of the Boise airport. The evening sky had gone the color of cantaloupe and cured ham, tinged at the edges with lavender. A Provençal-flavored sky, Keith thought.

“I was dreaming,” he said blearily.

“Was it prophetic?”

“No, just a normal dream.” Keith shifted in his seat to pull on his coat. “You were in it though.”

“Was I?” Gunther sat back, apparently pleased by this information.

“You were made of bone.”

“How did I look?”

Keith thought of telling him. Frightening. Strange. The shape of his nightmares. Instead he said, “Good…You looked good.”

***

As was standard, a government car was waiting for them—a big one. Keith had never been to Idaho before. As far as he could tell everything had been made to accommodate at least a family of six. Especially the cars. Or rather, the SUVs. They crowded the roads and lined up in neat rows in the ample parking lots.