Four on the Floor, Part Fifteen - Steemit Exclusive Urban Fantasy

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Part Fifteen

“Holy shit.”

Zombies I can handle.

“Holy shit.”

Fae are new, and weird, but I can handle that.

“Holy. Shit.”

Gods. Even gods I can handle given enough time.

“Holy fucking shit.”

But someone else out there who’s like me? That can work magic and work with the dead? And they use it to do this? Someone like me did this?

I can’t handle that.

“Hey, A.J.?” A moment passes. “A.J.? Everything okay in there? Please don’t make me come in there. You’ve been quiet for a while and there’s a dead body and it’s definitely turned smell-wise and-“

“I’m okay.” I exhale hard. “And put the damned menthol gel under your nose. Jesus, fuck, I gave it to you for a reason.”

This fucker did this? What the fuck was the goddamned point?

“O-okay.”

Is this why Hades thought I was involved? Does he think I’m capable of this? Will I have to shoulder the blame for this?

No. I would never do anything like- I wouldn’t kill anyone and use them for whatever this was for. I wouldn’t bind someone into their own-

No, I just bind people into plastic skulls.

But that was different, Pumpkin was attacking me and I promised him afterward I would find his killer and-

And I haven’t done that, have I?

No, I’m trying. I want to fix this, and I can. I can-

“A.J.?”

“What?”

Val takes a step back, his hand on the hilt of his sword. I look behind me, and there’s nothing there, but when I look back at him, he’s still gripping it, beginning to draw it, and shaking.

“Y-your eyes.”

What? I take out my phone, flip the camera, look at the screen-

Those aren’t my eyes.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Those aren’t my eyes.

I scrambled back against the wall at some point, my phone next to the body. I had to be seeing things. I’m not evil. I’m not a killer. I’m not some dark sorcerer demon out of a bad zombie movie.

My eyes aren’t pure black.

They’re not. They’re not. I’m not like this. I’m not someone who does things like this.

“I’m a good person.”

I am. I am. I wouldn’t be trying to help if I was-

“Hey.” A handkerchief is dangled in front of me. “Hey, I’m sorry. You understand, right? Keth are… kind of scary for us. I was trying hard to remember that Keth are human that, I sort of forgot that you’re still human.”

I blink. “Val, I’m not really following… What?”

“Only humans are Keth, but-“ He shakes the handkerchief in front of me. “You’re crying, okay? Is it all right to ask why?”

“A necromancer did this.”

Val looks at the body, then at me. His mouth opens, and I can tell he’s on the verge of saying it. Of saying, “Like you?” He doesn’t, though, he knows better. I don’t like crying in front of other people. Not even Pumpkin. Especially not him.

“Why do you think they would do this? What’d they do?”

I take a breath. “They killed her, and bound her spirit to her body so she’d be in agony forever. Sick, sadistic fuck. And there’s some Sigil under her, and when I saw it, it was so… I’ve never felt so much hate, of wanting someone to die.”

“So he knew her, this isn’t just random.” I look up at him, take the handkerchief. “I mean, when a woman’s killed, the first place you look is the boyfriend, right? It’s probably a guy because… If that’s what he did that’s just vicious, you know?”

“We don’t know it was a guy.”

“Can you see a woman being that sadistic, A.J.? Really?”

I blink again. I won’t even dignify that with a response. That’s just… Wow.

“For now, we’ll maintain neutral terms until we know for sure, okay?” I get to my feet, slowly. “Let’s go, okay? I don’t want to be in this room any longer than I have to.”

Val shrugs. “You’ll get no argument from me on that, m’Lady.” He catches my glare. “It was meant as a term of respect! I… Fucking internet.” As he exits and heads for the stairs, I hear him grumbling, “Being polite and respectful doesn’t mean I’m expecting sex, fucking…”

I roll my eyes, but I follow out, whispering to myself that I’ll be okay, that I’m going to find out who it was that did this. I know it was a guy that killed her, she told me as much, but I can’t assume that the killer and the necromancer are the same person, though it’s not much of a logical stretch to get that far.

I can’t imagine how someone could get so pissed at someone that they’d not only kill them, but trap them in their corpse to suffer the pain of death for eternity. Please, God, don’t let the motive have been for something as asinine and cliched as suspected infidelity. I really want to believe that we as a species have evolved beyond that level of pettiness.

Then again, I don’t get on social media.

When I finally get to the bottom of the stairs and exit to the street, Val is on the other side frantically waving me over. At first, I have no idea why, until the reason becomes known.

Sirens. Police sirens.

‘Out here?’ is my first reaction, but I find my feet and dash across to Val before the sirens get too loud. We head to another vacant alley. Weird. Usually the zombies aren’t out right now. Where’d they go?

Val crouches behind a Dumpster, and I sigh and do the same. “Hiding, really?”

“Shh!”

“They’ll just drive by.”

They don’t. Two police cars and an ambulance pull up outside, the alleyway being dappled by flashes of red and blue light. When I peek around the Dumpster, I see that officers are heading in, guns drawn, but not looking too heightened, more like it’s a customary sweep. A courtesy for the EMTs so they can go up safely to the room and conclude that the woman’s likely dead until a coroner comes out to say, “Yep, she’s dead,” so that she can be taken away.

It’s a relief, honestly. I don’t know who called it in, but at least she’ll get a proper burial, maybe even a real murder investigation instead of a weird Goth girl poking around at leads. I really should have called it in the moment I sent her spirit on, but Hades showed up and interrupted that.

Could’ve called it in after that thought but-

Called it in.

My phone.

Oh fuck, my phone’s still on her body.