Between Jobs Page 21

  I turned to give the detective a hand out of the bush, and he came up still looking a bit dizzy.

  “You all right?” I asked Zero, brushing twigs off the detective’s shoulders and pinching leaves out of his tightly curled hair.

  “Of course.” He didn’t need anyone’s help to climb out of the bush; he brushed himself off slowly, gazing at the house behind us in a considering sort of way. “Not bad,” he said.

  I turned around to see what he meant, and my mouth dropped open.

  “What the flaming heck!”

  The entire house was gone. Just…gone.

  In its place, the overgrown bushes of an empty yard sprawled over the fence and tried to take over the footpath as well, flowers and branches growing in wild abundance.

  “Dear me,” said Athelas. “It would seem that we managed to get out just in time. I wonder if the Family knew you were in there, Zero?”

  “I doubt it,” Zero said grimly. “They’d have tried harder, if they had.”

  “We’ve got some flamin’ bad timing lately,” I said, trying not to shiver at the lack of house. That was gunna bring a really cold breeze down from the mountain during winter, that hole in the street. “First that body melts, then some other bodies burn up, and then a hoard of locusts kills your bad guys just before you get there to question them.”

  “That’s a very good point,” said Zero. His voice was level and emotionless, but his eyes were twin chips of blue ice. “I would very much like to know who knows enough about our movements and enough about the Family to give them that kind of information. If I find out that it’s someone close to me—”

  JinYeong made a scornful sound and stalked across the road toward the house.

  “Stop!” said Detective Tuatu, hazily. “You’re all under arrest!”

  “Flamin’ heck!” I said, jumping. “Forgot you were there, detective. You can’t arrest ’em; there’s no crime scene. You can’t even get ’em for trespass—there’s nowhere to trespass.”

  “All of you!” he said, more forcefully. “You’re all under arrest!”

  “Perhaps it’s time to see if fae persuasion will do the trick,” suggested Athelas.

  “No,” said Zero, and hit the detective smartly on the side of the head.

  Detective Tuatu dropped like a stone. I grabbed him, staggering under his weight, but Zero plucked him effortlessly away from me, and said, “Lunch.”

  “What?”

  “Red meat, I should think,” Athelas said, nodding. “Will you take care of the detective, Zero, or shall I?”

  “I’ll do it,” said Zero, hefting the detective up on his shoulders like a lamb. “Potatoes, too. And I want gravy.”

  “Right,” I said, blinking. “You want spuds and steak for lunch. With gravy.”

  It was gunna be hard to think about cooking for my three psychos when I’d seen bodies and human locusts before lunch time—not to mention a house disappearing in front of my eyes.

  “And coffee,” said Zero consideringly.

  “You want me to make you coffee first?”

  “No.” Zero fished out a wallet from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “Have coffee somewhere, and buy the steak fresh. I don’t want to see you back at the house yet.”

  “Oh.” I took the wallet. “Okay. You’re not gunna kill him, are you?”

  Zero’s brows rose momentarily. “Of course not. I’m going to put him back at his desk.”

  “Make sure to get it with sugar,” Athelas said over his shoulder, as he started across the road. “You’re looking pale. I don’t think Zero wants to prop your limp body up against a wall.”

  “Go see if JinYeong needs help,” said Zero impatiently, and strode away down the street with the detective across his shoulders. I don’t know if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it was more likely that Zero ducked back Between as a way of shortening his journey, because he grew hazy and then disappeared altogether before the swell in the street would have hidden him from view.

  “Take your time, Pet,” Athelas called, waving carelessly at me. “There might be a thing or two to clean up at the house. Wash your face and make sure you buy a lot of steak, won’t you? If JinYeong has to clean, he’ll be very hungry.”

  What did they have to clean up? I wondered miserably, kicking at a few bits of gravel as I took the shortcut to my local Woollies. All the bad mess was across the road, and it was already gone for good. No more batty old dude, no more bodies.

  I sniffed a bit again, and shoved my hands in my pockets. There was a bit of devourer blood on my hoodie, but it wasn’t red enough to look like real blood.

  If there was mess at home, I should be cleaning it up. I was the pet. I wanted to clean.

  Hang on. Athelas said a thing or two to clean up, and that JinYeong would be hungry. Did that mean he expected someone to be at the house as well?

  “They better not get blood in the carpet,” I muttered to myself, sniffing one last time. Was that why Zero wanted me out of the way? He wanted me away from more blood and mess?

  I couldn’t help smiling at that, and the barista who was watching the counter smiled back at me as I walked through the door.

  I said, “Coffee please. One sugar, with milk.”

  I took it outside with me, feeling a bit more cheerful, and sat down in the sunlight with my feet on the struts underneath the table. Everything was too cold today.

  Maybe it was the thought of that poor old bloke dying alone, Between, without the human sun to keep him warm. Maybe the morgue-like frigidity of the body-filled rubbish bin had gotten into my bones. Whatever it was, it was hard to get warm again. Not that the rubbish bin was likely to be frigid anymore; I’d seen it on my way to the café, smoke and flames leaking from the edges of the battered lid.

  At least those changelings were gunna have a hard time.

  I wrapped my hands around my paper coffee cup and stretched out to take in the most of the sun, yawning until my eyes almost shut; and as I did so, a shadow fell over me.

  I opened my eyes, squinting up at the cause of the shadow, and nearly fell off my seat.

  The old bearded bloke was right there, his bushy beard sticking out more wildly than ever.

  “Oi!” I said. “You’re not dead!”

  “Aren’t I?” He patted his hands across his chest and down to his legs as if to make sure, but he was grinning.

  I was, too, if it came to that. The sneaky old duffer! He’d gotten away again!

  Hang on, though—was he the real batty man, or a changeling one who was under glamour? It didn’t make sense to put a changeling mad man out on the streets, but if the body back at the waystation really wasn’t him, who was it? More importantly, should I be telling Zero about it?

  He looked at me with crafty, beady eyes, and put a blackened finger up to his lips.

  “What, you don’t want me to tell?”

  He nodded, grinning another gappy grin at me.

  “All right,” I said. “But only this once.”

  “Thanks!” he said, and grabbed my coffee.

  “Oi!” I protested, but the old duffer was long gone, chortling his way between two shops. “Mucky thief,” I muttered, but I might still have been grinning. Unless there was a glamoured fae who knew the old bloke’s habit of pinching my coffee, it was really him.

  I could have bought myself another coffee—Zero was paying, after all—but it felt like the sunshine had warmed me enough not to need another one. That, or seeing the old bloke alive and as batty as ever in his spare holey shirt.

  I went to the butcher’s shop and Woollies, then went home. If Zero and the others weren’t finished cleaning up any mess around the house, they’d just have to make sure the kitchen was clear.

  The curtains were pulled when I got back, letting in the afternoon light. I saw them all through the glass, my three psychos; they were going back and forth through the living room and kitchen. Athelas had a thin, tidy bag on the table, which he was filling with neatly r
olled socks and folded blazers. As he did so, JinYeong removed his esky full of blood bags from the fridge, and brought it over to him with a request I couldn’t hear.

  On the other side of the table, Zero turned the umbrella sword over in the air, but I thought he looked a bit more dressed than usual. A moment later, it occurred to me that he was wearing all his weapons.

  Hang on. They were packing up? They were leaving? I had my house back to myself again?

  “Heck yes!” I said, but my voice didn’t sound quite right, and there was an empty sort of feeling in the pit of my stomach. I repositioned my plastic bags, shifting from foot to foot.

  Weird. I must have got used to having them around the house. It’s not like they were family, or something; they were all three of them killers. None of them cared about me, or humans, or anything that wasn’t fae.

  Except for Zero, who still cared enough about humans getting killed to investigate their deaths.

  I looked at him as he checked his weapons, and saw him put a thick, official piece of paper on the kitchen island, beneath the coffee tin. I swallowed against a tight, sore lump in my throat.

  He’d said he was going to sign my house over to me when they were done; that must be what the paper was. I actually had my house back properly—I owned it.

  Some of the tension left my shoulders.

  I had my house, so it was fine, right?

  Just it was a pain that Detective Tuatu knew where I lived now. I would have to be really careful about going in an out, now.

  That was definitely what was bothering me. It stayed as a small patch of ice at the bottom of my stomach, beneath the relief of having my own house back again—really owning it.

  I put my hand on the doorknob, not sure if I wanted to go in straight away. It hadn’t seemed like they had a lot of stuff, so how come the house suddenly looked so empty?

  It wasn’t like they had anything left to do here, right? The whole house they were investigating had disappeared somewhere I didn’t think I would ever fully understand, whether or not Athelas condescendingly explained it to me. They couldn’t even keep investigating from here.

  They were probably going back Behind, or Between, or wherever, while they waited for the next victim to drop.

  I wished I hadn’t had that coffee. It was dark and acidic at the back of my throat, making me cough and sniff.

  I kicked the toe of my boot against the curb, silently debating on whether I should go in, and jumped a mile when someone’s hand slapped down on my shoulder.

  I dropped my bags.

  “There you are!” said Detective Tuatu’s voice said, sharp and tight.

  “Police aren’t meant to assault the public,” I said, before I had time to think about it. I gasped a bit to get my breath back, and turned to face him. “I’m the public; what are you grabbing me for?”

  I could see his eyes now that I’d turned; they were wild and just slightly too wide.

  Uh oh. He wasn’t reacting well to his trip Between, was he?

  Or maybe it was the hit in the head.

  As if that was my fault! He was the one who had pushed his way in when he wasn’t wanted!

  He looked at me for a hazy moment or two more. Then he said, “You’re under arrest.”

  “Oi! What for?” I protested, as I was dragged away to his car by my collar. Ah man. My good steak was gunna go bad. “What did I do?”

  “We’ll discuss that,” he said, more grimly than wildly this time, “at the station.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I didn’t expect smell of the interview room: they look clean and air-conditioned on T.V. If I did expect to smell anything, it would have been the faint whiff of coffee on the cool air.

  There was more of a plasticky, antibacterial sort of smell to it, and it was icy. Was he making it colder on purpose?

  He left me in there to stew for about an hour, and I sat on the table, legs crossed beneath me. I’m usually polite enough not to put my feet on tabletops, but he was rude first. I put my chin in my palms and wondered gloomily what my three psychos were going to think when they found that steak on the doorstep.

  They probably wouldn’t care much. They were getting ready to leave, after all. One human more or less didn’t much matter to them.

  Detective Tuatu gave me a look as he came in but he didn’t tell me to get off the table, which was surprising. Okay, then. Not quite the normal arrest.

  He sat down, his face hard, and asked, “What are you to them?”

  “Ah,” I said, drawing out the syllable in understanding. “So that’s what this is. Thought I was being arrested for trespassing.”

  “Those three,” he said, his face harder, “What are you to them?”

  I sighed. “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re always asking the wrong questions. It’s a flamin’ bad habit.”

  “Just—”

  “I mean, okay, I’ll answer it; but it’s not going to help you. What am I to them? I dunno—a pet. Maybe a mascot, some days.”

  “A mascot?”

  I thought about it. “Nah, pet’s right. They mostly remember to feed me and sometimes they pat me on the head, but it’s not like they think I’m capable of rational thought. Not the kind of thinking they’re capable of, anyway. I’m something that trots around the house and curls up on the couch to sleep while they’re talking business.”

  “Their business,” the detective said eagerly, leaning forward. “What is their business? What do they do when they’re—”

  “Nope, sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t pay attention to their business. Couldn’t tell you a thing about it.”

  Plus there was an agreement I made not to chatter about them. I was gunna have my house back.

  No, I already had it back—my psychos were all off again.

  Funny how there was still that hollow, icy spot in my stomach. I didn’t feel as good as I should have felt about having my house back at this point. It was probably the detective’s fault for locking me up. It’s a bit hard to be joyful when you’re in the clink.

  “Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen you around town with them.”

  “Look, how long are you going to keep me here? I don’t remember you cautioning me. Am I really under arrest?”

  “You’re staying here until they come for you.”

  “Until they come for me?” I laughed, but that was somehow hollow as well. “Sorry, didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just…you actually think they’re going to come for me?”

  “I think so,” he said coolly. “Even if you are a—” he stopped and grimaced, “—a pet. People have a habit of being fond of their pets.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “People. They’re not really people, though, are they?”

  That brought him up short. He opened his mouth and shut it again. Rolled his lips together and back out again.

  “What do you mean, they’re not really people?”

  I grinned at him. He was sparring for time, because he knew exactly what I meant.

  “You know,” I said. “You’ve seen it. Isn’t that why you turned off the cameras and the microphone before you came in? You don’t want your mates to think you’re crazy.”

  “Who says I turned off the equipment?”

  “Didn’t you? Bet you did.”

  “You,” he said, breathing just a bit too fast, “need to be locked up in the psych ward.”

  “That’s rude.”

  “Vampires don’t exist.”

  “Didn’t say they did,” I said, leaning my elbows on my knees and propping my chin back on my palms. “Don’t think I even said the word vampire. That was you.”

  He was still breathing too fast, and it looked like his eyes could roll back in his head if he wasn’t careful. “Fae don’t exist either.”

  “I didn’t say anything about Fae,” I reminded him.

  He gave me a particularly steely look. “Not now. Earlier. When you dragged my drug-addled backside through that house—place—�
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  “Between,” I reminded him. “It’s called Hobart Between. You’re lucky you didn’t go into Hobart Behind. And you weren’t drugged—well, not exactly.”

  “Then what was all that?”

  “That?” I looked at him and suddenly I was grinning again. “That’s the truth. It’s what’s there all the time when you can’t see it.”

  “The truth?” He smiled bitterly. Look who’s taken a leaf out of my book. “Is that what they told you?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t really want to talk about my three psychos. They weren’t even my three psychos anymore. They were gone; packed up; off on another investigation.

  “They told me a bit. Mostly we just…I don’t know, end up there. Between, mostly. I don’t go Behind unless I’m with them. Not on purpose, anyway.”

  I probably shouldn’t have told him that much, but it wasn’t like he knew what to do with the information—unless he was a lot more knowledgeable than I thought he was. Not to mention a much better actor.

  “And Between is where the fairies live.”

  He was fairly dripping with sarcasm. Pretty good for a bloke I had to haul through Between with his eyes wide open and rolling whites.

  “Fae,” I said. “They don’t like being called fairies. They reckon it’s disrespectful or something. It’s not just fae, though; so far I’ve met fae, vampires, goblins, devourers and a couple of blokes with four arms. Well, I didn’t exactly meet them; they met Zero and JinYeong instead.”

  Detective Tuatu looked startled. Maybe I sounded too satisfied about that. He asked, “Where are the bodies?”

  “Dunno. Somewhere Between. Oh, wait; you don’t believe in Between anymore. Guess you won’t be finding the bodies.”

  “You realise I could hold you on suspicion as an accessory to murder after making a statement like that?”

  “Yeah? And what d’you want me to tell your officers when they interview me? That a fae and a vampire killed five four-armed men and left their bodies in a twilight realm known as Between, that borders Behind and the human world?”

  He shut his mouth, and this time I was the one who smiled, smugly. Now I knew why JinYeong does it so often. It felt good.