Counting costs, p.3
Counting Costs, page 3
part #3 of Supernatural Vigilante Society Series
I set that up for tomorrow night because it’s getting late and I’m tired. Frankie’s yawning on the other end of the line so it’s a good call for the both of us. I should get a good day’s rest. And somehow find time to do Stephanie's reading.
I put on my pajamas and settle into my comfy chair to read as much as I can before heading to bed. But I don’t get much past The Burial of the Dead before I zonk out right there in the chair. That’s why I got a comfy one, of course. For falling asleep during Stephanie’s boring homework assignments.
When my alarm goes off the next evening, it’s clear I slept later than intended. If I don’t leave soon, I’ll be late to meet Frankie. After changing into some normal clothes and slathering on the greasepaint I wear to keep from looking like the invisible man in mirrors, I focus on collecting the paperwork, my notebook, and the slim volume of T. S. Eliot’s poetry. What would I do without my friends, anyway? Exact details are unclear but I don't need to be a rocket surgeon to realize I'd be absolutely screwed without them.
My office is on the second floor of a shabby old converted mill which stands at the border between Cranston and Providence, near Roger Williams Park. The window gives a lovely view of the parking lot, which is practically empty in the middle of the week. Most of the other tenants have bands and they practice on weekends.
Because of this, the hallways are uncharacteristically quiet tonight, though I can still hear the sound of a bass guitar, it's player plucking and slapping out notes on the other side of the building. I can't place the song this particular bassline is from, but whatever it is, it's putting a spring in my step.
I'm bopping there outside the door, sticking the key in the lock, turning the knob. A deep and raspy voice sounds behind me, one I should have expected. But I don't like expecting creepy dudes who shake me down for money. I manage not to jump but it's a near thing. Instead, I turn around with my heel in the door, propping it open while blocking the view inside.
"Your rent’s due." The man speaking does so around a cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth. He's always got one lit up even indoors where that's mostly banned and generally frowned upon. He's also got his hand out, the nicotine-stained fingers sticking up like the legs of a dead spider. Yeah, my landlord gives me the creeps. He should, he’s in the Caprice’s Mafia.
And the night I made the rental agreement here, he killed a guy. He'd be in jail, but the only reason I know he’s a murderer is because of my vampire senses. There's no evidence for me to point the police at. But I'll get him someday, for sure. I'm willing to bet he's done way more than the crime Scott and I supernaturally witnessed. So for now, I give the man what he wants.
"Sure, just a sec." I put my keys in my front pocket and reach for my back pocket. But my wallet's not there. Because of course it isn't. I stop and try to remember when the last time I paid rent was. Maybe I don’t owe, this asshole could be hustling me. My memory sucks, and so does my luck, apparently.
"Hey, Tino!" It's Frankie, walking up behind my sleazy land/crimelord.
"Hey buddy!" I don't quite meet his gaze, mostly because I feel like a complete idiot right about now.
But Frankie is one perceptive dude, almost uncannily so. Living as a nonmagical guy in a family of magicians practically makes observation a survival skill. He takes out his own wallet, attached to his front belt loop by a chain, opens it, and fishes out two fifty-dollar bills.
"I got it this time." My pal hands the money over to the piece of shit landlord, a wide plastic grin on his face. I realize Frankie likes this guy about as much as I do. Which is not at all. Yeah, you know this already but trust me, it bears repeating.
Like I said, Frankie notices almost as many details as I do. Even though he wasn't in this building the night of the murder, he can tell there's no love lost in this hallway. It reminds me of how some people trust their dogs to make character judgments. Great. My friend thinks of me fondly like a golden retriever. And I'm not even a werewolf.
"Have a good practice." The landlord turns his back, stuffing the bills in his pocket and flicking a plug of ash in our general direction as he goes. I can’t tell whether the rasp in his throat afterward is a laugh or a cough, but I let it and him go because I can't even with him right now.
I push the door open and gesture with my hand for Frankie to walk in ahead of me. He does. And I follow, closing and locking the door behind me. Once I hear the landlord's footsteps reach the bottom of the stairwell down the hall, I speak.
"Thanks Frankie." I shrug. "Got no idea where my wallet is."
"That sucks." Frankie shakes his head, then leans against my desk and raps his knuckles against it. “Have you looked in here?”
“Nah.” I open the top drawer and there it is. “Woah, dude. Thanks!” I'd suspect him of teleporting it in there but Frankie's got no powers at all. And he won't unless someone turns him, which probably won't happen. There are rules about that.
“No problem.”
"No, I mean it. You’re a Godsend.” I take the wallet out and stuff it in my back pocket. “The last thing I need is to make a million phone calls over a lost wallet."
"So where's this paperwork nightmare you need help to get through?" He eyes the stack of stuff I’m carrying.
"Right here." I drop the folder full of paper in the middle of my desk where it lands with a hollow thud. My notebook and the T. S. Eliot chapbook topple off it to one side. "It's like the size of the entire Harry Potter series."
"I don't know." Frankie paces toward my desk, eyeballing the stack. "It can't be as exciting as a series about a magical school. More like Dianetics, only way bigger."
"Hey, thanks for coming out to help me with this."
"It's the least I can do." Frankie grins, which looks good on him. When I met him a week ago, he was on the verge of suicide. And now, even if he's not completely okay, at least he's functioning. I pause to have a listen to his heartbeat. It's a little elevated but not enough for him to be hiding some kind of panic mode. Good.
"So what do you think I should do?" I flipped to the page about addresses and home visits that stumped Stephanie.
"Hmmm." His eyes move from left to right as he reads the text and peruses the blank spaces on the page. "This is something like what I have to fill out for Sarah and Levi."
"Oh. Too bad you didn't bring yours over, we could have worked on them together." Like I said, Frankie and his sister and brother are orphans. But at least they’re related, and he's a legal adult.
"I did." Frankie fishes a few folded up pieces of paper out of his back pocket. When he opens them, I see that it’s approximately four pages out of this gigantic mountain I've got in front of me.
I do just about the only reasonable thing possible in a situation like this. I laugh. I laugh so hard and for so long that if I were still mortal, my sides would hurt. But undead people don't have that problem. Thank God for small favors, right?
Frankie is wiping tears from the corner of his eyes he bends down to pick up the paperwork he dropped. That's another cool thing about Frankie; we've got the same morbid sense of humor. Or maybe he’s an empath. No, I’m wrong on both counts. The strain around his eyes and how he’s laughing too loud tell me it's more than that. Coupled with that heart rate elevation, I guess at some sort of nervousness. Maybe anxiety? The least I can do is reassure him.
"Hey Frankie, I just want to say I'm so glad you decided to stick around. You know, in spite of everything."
His eyes widen, eyebrows trying to hide against his hairline. I shocked him, and I wonder for maybe two breaths whether I've made a mistake. But after he blinks, I realize it's what he needed to hear. Maybe it's a little too soon, but in this case that's got to be better than too late.
"I will never think you're anything but a great guy, Valentino Crispo."
It’s not the first time he’s said something like this. And I know he means it, too. We stand staring at each other, the air between us holding an energy that's familiar yet baffling at the same time. It's like being outside during the moments between thunder and lightning. Something's charging the air and you know that once it passes that exact energy will vanish forever. But I'm not sure what to do with it and neither is Frankie.
The edges of the paper in his hand crumple slightly, I'm not sure whether from nervous reflex or as some sort of grounding method. Grounding is probably a good guess. Yeah, let’s go with that. I pick up the residence page walk over to Frankie and hold my next to his. We compare them, like college kids from two different sections of the same course going over notes.
"Huh, it's exactly the same." Frankie scratches his head. "I guess I get the short form because I'm trying to get custody of my siblings."
"Yeah, I've got no line of relation between me and Leora. So I'm not sure whether I'll even get a shot at keeping my promise to Baba Yaga." I shake my head.
"Do you even know what happens to vampires if they can keep their word?" Frankie asks with a wince.
"No I don't, but it’s got to be the opposite of fun." I sigh. "Especially if I end up failing a witch whose primary magic is fire."
"You sure do have a talent for understatement, Tino."
"Yup." I shrug. "Well, this sucks."
"I got an idea, but you might not like it." Frankie isn't looking me in the eye, but I can't figure out why. So far all our interaction has been more straightforward than anything else since I've been turned. I decide not to overthink it or pry.
"Lay it on me."
"I don't think either of us really stand a chance on our applications." Frankie fidgets with the papers in his hand. "I mean, I don't have a job even though I've got this great big house. Mother and Father had me listed on the deed but there’s no fund in my name like there is for Levi and Sarah.”
He doesn’t mention the fact that his parents planned on his death at the hands of the Deep Ones they promised him to. Neither do I. Frankie's the only one with the right to broach that topic. He clears his throat. “And you have no house but you've got an income and a sterling reputation."
"Yeah, hence the whole idea that making this foster application sucks."
"Well, together we look a lot better, as far as these things go." He reaches up to tug on the collar of his T-shirt. "So maybe, instead of just you or just me filling these out, we should both apply."
"It makes a lot of sense, Frankie. But how do we do that?"
“Easy peasy.” Frankie’s laugh is high-pitched, nervous. His finger trembles as he places it next to a line labeled spouse or domestic partner. "This right here."
The poor guy’s heartbeat has got to be at least one hundred beats per minute at this point. And now I understand. I'd have a hard time looking my relatively new friend in the eye if I were about to suggest we pretend to be a couple in order to fill out legally binding paperwork. It's like the plot of Will and Grace, only completely different. You know, because there are kids involved. And I’m a freaking vampire. But he’s right.
"Do you really think they'll buy it?"
"We won't know unless we try."
"Good point."
Frankie stands there, almost as unmoving as a vampire even though he's definitely not one. He's got some stake in this, one I don't understand. Is there something I'm forgetting about him? I am and I know it. Some crucial and personal piece of information I should remember. I can’t check through my notebook either, not while he’s right in front of me, trembling like a leaf. But it seems like he's hanging on my response for whatever reason. I need to do something.
And that's why I lean over my giant stack of paperwork, pick up a pen, and write the name Francis Pickering in black ink in the blank beside spouse or domestic partner. I mean, what the Hell, right? My mother already thinks I’m gay because of all the vamp stuff I’ve got to hide from her. Why not let Gina Paolucci think the same thing?
The change in Frankie is immediate. His heart rate declines to a more normal seventy beats per minute and he lets go of a breath he may not have been conscious of holding in. His grip on the papers in his hand eases. And instead of a military worthy posture, he falls back into the broken hip stance I usually see him assume.
"So, we will finish all of this together." I flashed him a smile, and even though there was more than a little bit of fang in it Frankie smiles back. Well, that’s what I get for running out the door without drinking my breakfast. I head to the mini fridge behind the shoji screen I bought off a surly alchemist and grab a bag of blood.
"I'd better tell Raven." Frankie shakes his head. "They've got their hands full with DeCampo and Maya staying in the basement."
"Oh boy." I roll my eyes and tug the tubing on the blood bag. "Because I'm, like, Raven's favorite person, of course."
"Cool it with the sarcasm." Frankie chuckles. "They may not make it obvious to you, but I can tell Raven regards you pretty highly."
"Wow." I blink. "Okay. That's the last thing I expected to hear, but I guess I should be flattered." I wrinkle my nose and bite down on the tubing, opening its sealed end to use like a straw. Plastic pretty much tastes like dirt to vampires, which makes sense. It’s made from dead dinosaurs, after all. Eew.
"I'm not sure why you're surprised.” He shrugs. “I mean, you only gave them their family back, and let them right centuries old wrongs against same."
"You've got such a point it could cut through metal." I smirk.
We laugh again, this time with less falling paper. The energy between us has changed to something less ominous but still somehow electric. I think maybe there was a point this evening where I could have become an enemy of the entire Pickering family. I can't pinpoint when it was or how it would have gone down, but it doesn't matter. It's been avoided, right? I can breathe easy. Figuratively, of course.
There's nothing so satisfying as solving a problem you didn't realize you had. We still have to fill out mountains of forms, which might take us most of the night. But that's only one hurdle jumped over with ease in my quest to obtain guardianship of Leora Kupala.
The cagey Caprice family is a whole different story.
We’re just about done with the paperwork and it's almost two in the morning. A key rattles in the lock and the door opens, revealing Esther Solomon. She's my other partner in this PI business, but definitely not teenage and most certainly not a werewolf. Esther's an alchemist. And besides the fact that she’s an adult, I've got no idea how old she is. But Frankie does. She's his niece.
Magician families are weird. By some strange accident of birth, Esther’s uncle is younger than her. Apparently, this sort of thing happens all the time. Magical families are said to be less like family trees and more like family wreaths. At least I’ve never heard of one being his own grandpa. Yet.
"I thought I'd find a couple of assholes fucking around down here." Esther leaves a glittering green residue of some magical substance on the doorknob. It’s sort of like the color of her casting energy only more translucent. Most people can’t see it and I've only caught fleeting hints of it before. I’m not sure whether seeing magic energy is something any vampire can just do or just my own special abilityh. Our powers vary so maybe this is the start of another rare talent for yours truly. Joy.
"Wipe that off geez." I shake my head and point at the doorknob. "The last thing we want is some client sneezing for five hours, or feeling like they need to go off on a wild goose chase because your last concoction gets all over their hands." Which happened before when Maury accidentally on purpose drank one of Esther's concoctions. But that's another story.
"For fuck’s sake. You think some desperate asshole is going to walk in here looking for help right now?" Esther ignores my request and closes the door behind her without locking it. "Nobody's up or out in the middle of the week at this fucking hour except for you two sons of bitches."
"Don't be so sure." I shrug. "I mean, you’re around. And vampires like me, and who knows what else."
"You're full of shit Tino." Esther laughs. Well she lets out what passes for a laugh in her book, anyway. The alchemist is like two parts whiskey and one part irony, shaken not stirred. “Like a fucking waste treatment plant.”
"Yeah but I'm so much fun." I roll my eyes.
"He's got a point you know." Frankie smile is almost manic, but not quite. He still feels a little awkward around his niece, which makes sense since she broke serious rules to show him how alchemical gadgets work. Pretty much anyone who does can use a finished potion or device. But that all turned out okay in the end, so it shouldn’t be a big deal anymore.
"Fucking point or not, this is a goddamn fucking place of business." Esther saunters toward her desk and pulls open the bottom drawer. The item she grabs clanks and sloshes. "We make money working here and shit."
"Been one of those nights, huh?" I jerk my chin at the bottle of amber liquid she's produced.
"You could say that." Esther pats the satchel hanging at her hip. "Should finish the damn cure for Killarney’s man this weekend. Still got my ongoing research, which drives me batshit crazy."
"Oh." Frankie looks down at his hands, studying his bitten fingernails. "That."
"What research?" I know nearly nothing about the part of Esther's past that doesn't involve Frankie. Eventually I'd like to find out, but she never talks about it and clams up when I ask. I cross my fingers under my desk, hoping for a change in the trend.
"Nothing that's any of your motherfucking business, fangface." Esther sits in the shabby chair at her desk. She leans back, placing her combat booted heels on its surface. The tilt of her head and the soft gaze she gives me before glaring at the bottle cancels out the harshness of her vocabulary.
“Open says me.” She snaps her fingers.
Exactly like magic because that’s what she’s using, the screw on the bottle of liquor comes off. More mundanely, the neck of the bottle meets her lips and Esther Solomon guzzles at least five gulps of pure whiskey without even taking a breath. I wonder where the signs and sigils that power her alchemy are on that fifth of Maker’s Mark. All the magic alchemists can do are prepared in advance but I don’t see any inscribed spellwork, powder, or potion that might be levitating that bottle. Maybe it’s under the label but how she got it on there, I’ll never know.
