Monty's Apartment

The last place Monty had been seen was at his apartment, which made it the first stop in my investigation. I decided to bring Sara with me on this trip. While I usually dislike having clients look over my shoulder as I work, she was pulling double duty as a key witness, and I wanted to see what information I could draw out of her. She was enthusiastic about getting to leave the house, but I had to wonder how long that enthusiasm would last.

It turns out it lasted until she saw my car. Now, let me say from the start that I love my car. It has gotten me through many tough times. But I can’t deny that it is an ugly piece of junk. I think it was originally a Volkswagen, but so many parts and pieces have been replaced that now it’s more of a metal Frankenstein-esque abomination. Sara seemed to go into shock when she saw it. That shock was quickly replaced by disgust, which gave way to fear as it dawned on her she would have to ride in it. To her credit, she didn’t complain. She sucked it up and sat in the passenger seat like a good girl.

Three hours later, we were in Chicago, parked on the street in front of the apartment. Another lousy, grey, and cold day, which didn’t do any favors to the look of the old buildings around us. I didn’t remember any of the trip, but I was expecting that. For Sara it came as a surprise. The only thing that stopped her from jumping out of the seat was her seatbelt.

“What just happened?” She said with a panicked squeak.

“We drove to Chicago.” I calmly replied. I pointed at the apartment in front of us. “That’s the place Monty lived?”

“But, but, how did we get here?” Her voice rose higher as she stammered with confusion.

“I’m guessing we drove here.” I kept my voice level as I spoke to Sara. “But we can’t remember any of the trip. It’s how the house protects its location; anyone who visits it forgets its location once they leave.”

“You mean I just forgot the whole trip? It’s just gone? I just lost…” She quickly glanced at the car’s clock, “three hours of my life?”

“Check inside the glove box.” I said.

She was skeptical, but looked inside anyways. Among the mess of trash that had accumulated in there over the years was a slim black notebook. Without any prompting from me, Sara opened it up and began flipping through the pages.

“This is… a journal of the drive here?” She said.

I nodded. “I probably told you to start writing stuff down once we got on the road. This is why you need to keep a record of everything.”

It was obvious that Sara wanted to keep studying that notebook, but we had things to do. She could read back at the house. Monty’s apartment complex was an old, ugly, and brown thing. With the weather as cold as it was, no one was outside. If it weren’t for the lights behind a few closed blinds, you could think the whole place was abandoned.

I didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary outside in the cold, and dashed from the car to the apartment. Sara took her time walking; I guess living here builds up a natural immunity to frostbite. She also didn’t seem to mind the decrepit condition of the building, but I guess being a college student builds up a natural immunity to being bothered by cockroaches. Once she joined me by Monty’s unit, she tried unlocking the door.

“Key doesn’t work?” I asked when I saw the surprise on her face as she worked the lock.

“No, it’s… it’s already unlocked.”

Red warning flags shot up in my head, and I gently nudged Sara away from the door. With a steady caution, I turned the handle and looked inside.

“Your boyfriend not really the cleaning type?” I dryly said after looking at the room. I don’t think Sara heard me. The moment she’d seen what was on the other side of the door, her jaw dropped.

It was a small apartment, with one room taking on the jobs of living room, kitchen, and dining room. Even in the best of times the mishmash of furniture and deteriorating wallpaper wouldn’t have looked appealing. This was not the best of times. Someone had gone through the room and methodically trashed every inch of it. I’ve seen my fair share of ransacked rooms, and this one was up there among the worst. Someone had really set their mind to wrecking this place in every way they could imagine. They’d even torn a couch in two, which must have been impressive to see.

All this passed through the back of my head while I focused on the most urgent issue: was the culprit still here? Apart from the steady rhythm of the faucet dripping into a half-filled sink, there was no sound. And the food that had been thrown from the fridge had started to rot, meaning the attack hadn’t happened today. Unless this was an extremely patient vandal, they had probably left.

“Why would someone do this?” Sara quietly said as we closed the door behind us.

“Part of a cover up. Creating a big mess makes it harder to find evidence of what they actually were doing, especially if they stole something. We wouldn’t be able to tell what’s missing.” I said.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s too deliberate for blind destruction.” I told Sara, a little annoyed at her questioning my expertise. “If they were just smashing stuff, they’d only have thrown open the fridge and dumped everything out. They wouldn’t open each individual TV dinner and scatter their contents all over the room. This was thought through.”

Sara looked around, taking in that information. “If this was a cover up, what were they trying to hide?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” I said. “No cover up is perfect. It’s human nature to make mistakes.”

I’d said that with confidence, but as I picked through the shattered glass and torn furniture, that assurance wavered. There was too much to piece through, and I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to find. “Was Monty’s family well off?” I asked Sara.

The question caught her off guard. “What? I mean… well… why do you ask?”

“The furniture in here. If you look beyond the mess, it’s very nice. Much nicer than I’d expect to find in a place like this. And it’s all fairly new, so I doubt he bought it at a thrift store. Which means Monty either was bringing in more money than his apartment would lead you to believe, or he had someone help support him. I guessed family since it seemed to be the most likely explanation.”

Sara rolled her eyes a little; she probably thought I was showing off. “Yeah, his parents are pretty rich. They don’t get along with Monty, though.”

“They got along well enough to buy him a couch.” I think Sara had a comeback to that, but I ignored her. Still hadn’t found anything. As I scanned the room for a third time, something poking out from under a flipped chair. When I dug it out, I was disappointed to realize it was just a painting. Not even a proper painting; one of those abstract modern ones. Lots of oranges and blues that blended together in some places. It might have been a picture of a person. Or maybe a fire? Possibly some kind of fish. Is this the kind of thing that universities are teaching kids these days?

“Oh, I remember that.” Sara said. “That was one Monty and I worked on together.”

“You can paint?” I said with surprise.

Sara looked at me like I was an idiot. “I was attending an art college, you know.”

“Right. Of course.” Not important, anyways. This was getting frustrating. And the faucet’s dripping was getting on my nerves. Each little drip felt like a hammer on my school. Usually I can ignore insignificant details like that, but I couldn’t let that sound go. Fed up with it, I tried to turn off the faucet, but no matter what I did with the knob the water kept slowly dripping out.

“Let’s check the other rooms.” I said. “Which door’s the bedroom?”

Sara led me to a door just down the hall to the left. The door was locked, but Sara had a copy of the key. I’m not entirely sure what I expected to see inside, but it hadn’t been gallons of blood. There was blood all over the small bed in the corner, and splattered across the walls. Sara covered her mouth in horror, and looked like she might scream. I put a hand on her shoulder and firmly said, “Stay calm. It’s not real.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “It’s not real?” She said, her relief clear. “That’s fake blood?”

“What? Oh, no, the blood’s probably real. But it doesn’t splatter like that when someone’s killed. This looks like someone just threw a few buckets of blood around the room to make it look gruesome.”

Sara’s grip loosened, but she kept her hand on mine. “And of course you’re the expert on blood splatters now?” She said with a touch of snark.

“I’ve seen a few homicide scenes in this job. Now let’s get looking. I want to see why someone tried to make us think your boyfriend got killed.”

Once again, my confident words didn’t hold up once I started looking. While the culprit’s attempts to hide the existence of a cover up were clumsy, the cover up itself was unusually well done. The amount of damage done to the apartment made it impossible to determine what they had been doing or looking for, and I couldn’t find any signs that hinted at the identity of the culprit. I usually don’t put much faith in obvious clues like muddy footprints or hair caught in the door, but after half an hour searching without results I was really wishing for one. And that dripping sound would just not go away.

I stopped and thought about that. The noise should have gotten quieter since we left the kitchen, but I could still clearly hear it. There had to be another source. I looked around the room until my eyes settled on Sara. She’d stayed in the back of the room to let me work; maybe I should have been a little suspicious that she hadn’t made any smart remarks to me in so long. As I watched her, I realized her lips were moving slightly, making a dripping noise.

“Sara?” I said, uncertain if she would respond.

“Yes? Drip, drip, drip….” She wasn’t saying “drip,” she was somehow making the exact same sound that the faucet had.

“Why are you making that noise?”

“What noise? Drip, drip….”

I told Sara to stay still and then shined a flashlight in her eyes. Her eyes followed the light, but her pupils were dilated. When I touched her forehead her skin was cold and clammy. “We’re leaving right now.” I said after finishing my check.

Sara didn’t seem to register what I’d said at first. When she did, her voice was slightly slurred. “What, did you find something?”

“Maybe. I just need to grab a few things before we leave to make sure.”

On our way out, I collected a sample of the water coming from the faucet. After analyzing it and comparing it to the sample I have of Sara’s tears, I can confirm that there was a significant amount of Ichor in the water.

I still stand by my statement that it’s human nature to make mistakes.

But I don’t think what we’re dealing with here is human.

Exploring the House

Last night I dreamt that I was lying in bed. Exciting, I know. I couldn’t remember why, but I felt incredibly exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that seeps into every part of you, to the point where even thinking feels strenuous. Someone in my dream was knocking at the door and calling for me. I wanted to answer them, but couldn’t gather the will to get out of bed. As their calls grew more concerned, I noticed the sound of water near me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the room slowly filling with water. I wondered if I should be worried, but I was just too tired to feel afraid. And so I laid there as the water rose, until it had completely submerged me.

I woke up as Matthew opened the door to my room. “Hey, Sara, I’ve been knocking for five minutes!” He said. “Rosa says it’s time to wake up.”

Ah yes, “Time to wake up.” That, along with “Time to go to sleep,” are two of the most tyrannical mandates that Rosa has put on me. If god had meant for man to go to bed at 10, then he wouldn’t have made midnight so interesting. Along with controlling when I can and can’t sleep, Rosa’s also had a tight leash on what I eat. The food she serves isn’t bad, it’s just… boringly healthy. I would murder for a double decker cheeseburger. Or a crate of French fries. Or maybe just give me a gallon of grease, I’ll drink the whole thing in one go.

Maybe I shouldn’t complain too much. I am getting free room and board, after all, which is a definite improvement from before. Well, I’m still going to complain a lot, but at least I can acknowledge the nice stuff. Like this new bedroom. Twice the size of my old room, and without the strange mold and smells that I had in my apartment! Got a nice window view of the gardens around this place. Well, I say “nice view,” but so far it’s been a really cloudy and foggy view. I don’t think I’ve seen the sun once since coming here. But hey, the garden’s nice. Got topiaries and shrubberies and shit.

So far I feel like I’ve been coping pretty well with the change.  The hardest part has been adapting to this house. I don’t even think it’s right to call it a house. It’s more like five completely different architects all had their own idea of what kind of building they were making and they just jammed together all their projects without any regard for how much sense the arrangement made. That creepy void room I woke up in? There’s an entire hallway of those called the “Quarantine Wing.” It really looks like someone just ripped a hallway out of an old hospital and put it there. Then you walk to the end of the Quarantine Wing, open the door, and suddenly you’re in the most stereotypical old rich person mansion you can imagine. Then there was one time I took a wrong turn while lost and for a few rooms I was in some kind of old fashioned wooden hunting cabin before I found my way back to the mansion.

Yeah, I get lost here. A lot. But more on that later.

So the big mansion part is called the “Living Areas,” ‘cause that’s the part actually fit for human habitation. My new bedroom’s there, conveniently placed only a short walk from the kitchen. Which would be a much happier arrangement were it not for the scheduled diet I have, but you take what you get I suppose. At least I’ve been able to make it feel like a home, after Matthew brought all my stuff from my apartment.

Oh yeah, Matthew? Great guy. I think I’d have spent a lot longer freaking out if he hadn’t been here to help me adapt. He seems to be some kind of odd jobs handyman around the place. I asked him about that, and all he told me was that he helps Rosa take care of the house. Trying to dig any further than that was useless, since he claims he doesn’t remember anything before waking up here one day.

I met the fourth and last member of this household while I was exploring some rooms I hadn’t been in. I know Rosa doesn’t like me wandering around the place, but she just has to learn to deal with it. Not like I can go very far; most of the doors here are locked anyways. But back on topic, Sphynx and I were wandering through a room in the wood cabin sections of the house, looked like some kind of reading room, when I realized someone else was in there with me. They had been dusting the bookshelves that ran along the walls so quietly I hadn’t even noticed them at first. It was another woman, maybe a few years older than me, with short blond hair and wearing a weirdly stereotypical maid uniform. Frills, skirt, apron, headdress, everything. She hadn’t reacted to me entering, so I cautiously said, “Um… hello?” to catch her attention.

The look she gave me was…. I’ve never seen anyone look at me with such pure hatred before. If looks could kill, then the one she gave me would have reduced me to dust. I was stunned into silence as I tried to think if there was something I needed to apologize for to get her to stop glaring at me. Sphynx, who had been walking behind me for most of my journey, trotted over to the maid and sat down next to her feet. She scowled at him with the same anger she had shown me, and reached down towards his neck. I almost shouted for her to stop, but all the woman did was begin to gently scratch him. Sphynx purred happily as he rubbed against her legs, and I felt some of my concern fading away. “So… do you like cats?” I hazarded to say.

Once again she silently looked at me with that expression of pure rage. “Sorry!” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to, I mean, I’m sorry for… um… sorry?”

I heard Rosa’s voice behind me as she entered the room. “Stop scaring the kid, Joyce.”

I was wrong to call the woman’s expression “pure rage” or “hatred” before. The way she had looked at me was friendly compared to the raw loathing she looked at Rosa with. It looked as if she wanted nothing more than to strangle Rosa to death with her own hands.

In spite of this, Rosa remained nonplussed. “She do anything to you?” She said to me as she lit up a cigarette.

“No,” I said, keeping my eyes on Joyce. “She’s just been… quiet?”

“Yeah, she does that. Joyce, show Sara why you don’t talk.”

Joyce ripped her eyes off Rosa to look at me. Then she opened her mouth, wide enough for me to see in. It was filled with thin metal wires that crisscrossed her mouth, and were sewn into every part of it, from her teeth, her gums, and even her tongue. “You may close your mouth now.” Rosa said, and Joyce snapped her mouth shut. “Now get back to work.” Joyce did a sharp about face, and resumed dusting the shelves.

“Sorry you had to meet Joyce like that. She’s not a people person.” Rosa said, acting as though Joyce wasn’t still in the room with us.

“It’s alright. Sphynx likes her. Um… what… happened to her?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I had to ask.

“About how sick are you of hearing ‘I don’t remember’ as an answer?”

I crossed my arms and frowned at that. “It is starting to grate on me a tad.”

“Well get used to it, because that’s your answer here as well.” Rosa took a puff on her cigarette and glanced at Joyce with bored curiosity. “I don’t remember a thing about who Joyce is or why she’s here. All I know is that she does everything I tell her to and she really doesn’t like me.”

“And you’ve never tried to remember why that is?” Because to me that sounded like the kind of big mystery you’d want to unravel.

“No.” Rosa said with certainty. “Nothing good ever comes from digging into the past. Now let’s get you back to your room. It’s easy to get lost out here.”

And that kinda sums up my first few days here. It’s actually felt more like a weird vacation than being quarantined due to magical poisons. And wasn’t wandering around a mysterious house looking for mysteries a childhood fantasy for all of us? I just wonder how long it’ll take before being stuck indoors drives me crazy and I start crawling through the walls like a ratman.

Sara's Job

You’ve all read Sara’s post. You know I have a new ward to deal with. It may not seem so from what she said, but she’s been surprisingly cooperative. There has been, of course, some conflict between us on certain issues, but she’s been remarkably accepting of the supernatural. Most people think I’m delusional when I explain Ichor to them, but she’s soaked it all in with only a sensible amount of skepticism. The majority of her complaints have been about the rules I’m making her follow.

In the spirit of honesty I will admit that I haven’t told her everything about Ichor. But my goal is keeping her alive, not turning her into an expert on the subject. She knows as much as she needs to know to survive. I’ve additionally had to explain the job Catty gave me to keep an eye on her, since she was reasonably suspicious about why I was suddenly willing to work for free. The way I see it, the amount Catty’s paying me more than covers the cost of taking on this additional job. I’m not sure what she thinks about a creepy person in a mask wanting me to follow her, but her feelings on that really aren’t my problem.

Right now I have a fairly heavy case load, but I set aside what time I could to interview her about this job she wanted me for. We had to conduct that interview in the dining room; not where I’d have liked, but I wanted to stick to rooms Sara was familiar with. I don’t want her to get lost in this labyrinth of a house. The dining room’s a real old fashioned looking place. Almost as if it was lifted directly from the set of a TV period piece about Edwardian nobility. I’m always a little worried that whenever I sit on those chairs they’re going to shatter from old age. At least the paintings are pretty, although a bit heavy on the “dead old white guys” side. Sara was already seated at the dining table when I arrived; a long mahogany piece of furniture with enough ornate carvings to qualify as a piece of art itself.

But before I could get to business, there was an elephant in the room that needed addressing. “So….” I warily said to Sara as I sat down opposite from her at the table. “I see Matthew brought this cat of yours here.”

Now I want to say from the start that I don’t hate cats. I’d just rather keep them far away from me. My opinion of the species wasn’t helped by the fact that this was easily the ugliest cat I had ever seen. A fat, hairless creature with oversized ears and scar tissue covering the spot where its left eye should have been. Sara was coddling the creature while it stared at me with the kind of smug contempt that only a cat can have. “Yes, he did!” Sara cheerily replied. “I was so happy to wake up and see little Sphynx again! He also brought back most of my things from my apartment. Matthew’s been really great at setting me up here.”

“Yes… he certainly is a great helper….” I weakly said as I tried to ignore the oversized rat meowing at me. “Let’s just get right to the point. What’s this job you were interested in hiring me for?”

Sara stopped petting Sphynx as her face grew solemn. “My… my boyfriend disappeared last month. The police haven’t been able to find anything. I was hoping that… that you might be able to find him.”

I tried to hide my annoyance, but I don’t think I succeeded very well. That kind of job seemed far too mundane for my attention. “And you’re sure he didn’t just run off with another girl?”

That got Sara upset. “I know it wasn’t that! There was all this, like weird magic shit happening around him before he vanished!”

“Doesn’t change anything. You’d be amazed how many fools run off because they think they have a shot at making out with the Boogeyman.”

Sara didn’t rise to that bait. All I got as a reply was her narrowing her eyes and staring at me in anger. I figured I should back down. “Fine, alright, let’s assume he’s not off somewhere trying to smooch a ghost. Tell me what you know.”

What she knew wasn’t really that much. Sara had mostly been a spectator to the events leading up to this case. The boyfriend’s name is “Nathaniel Montalvo,” or just Monty for short. Sara showed me a picture of him on her phone. A bit on the short side, with a round face that makes him look a few years younger than the 21 Sara says he is. Light brown skin, possibly Hispanic or at least some Hispanic ancestry. His hair’s cut short and bleached white. Shouldn’t be too hard to spot in a crowd. Over the course of October, he repeatedly told Sara that he felt as though he was being followed, and she says she heard strange noises at night when she stayed at his apartment. During November he started showing increasingly paranoid behavior. The involvement of the supernatural became obvious on November 27th, when Sara says a fire broke out in his apartment. Despite witnesses seeing the fire consume an entire floor of the building, nothing was burned. However, Monty had vanished. Two days later he called Sara to tell her that he was alive, but she was not to try and look for him. Never one to listen to good advice, she ignored that and has been spending the month since then seeking any clues towards his location.

After Sara finished her story, I had to get the obvious out of the way. “You know,” I said, “if he says you shouldn’t try to find him, you probably would be better off not trying to find him.”

She tried to give me another glare, but that fell apart when tears started running down her face. “I’m just… I’m just worried about him. He was so scared of whatever was following him, and then he’s just vanished! I don’t even know if he’s still alive!” She held Sphynx closer to her, and the cat gently patted her face. I gave her a moment before speaking.

“This may sound strange, but I need to collect some of your tears.”

A sob turned into a disbelieving laugh. “W-what?” Sara said with surprise.

“I need to check toxicity levels.” I didn’t wait for her reply before I pulled a sample tube from my coat and held it to her eye to let a few drops fall in. I couldn’t collect much more; my strange behavior seemed to have stopped her crying. I used the opportunity to push ahead with my questions. “Do you cry often?”

“No….” Sara softly said as she rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know what came over me, I just… suddenly….”

Emotional swings and changes in behavior. I made a mental note to keep an eye on that. “I’d recommend letting yourself cry more often. It can help stabilize your mood.”

Sara seemed to find that advice amusing. “Sure thing doc, I’ll be sure to cry every day.”

“I’m serious.” I said calmly. “The tears get rid of chemicals which cause stress.”

“Oh? You an expert on crying now? Got lots of experience with it?”

I wonder if that was supposed to be biting sarcasm, but I couldn’t help but find it funny. I shook my head ruefully in response.

“I don’t get stressed.”

Introducing the Wonderful Sara Valentine

Sara Valentine here. I bet all you readers are filled with confusion and bewilderment at the fact that I’m making a post on this blog. Well settle down and learn some damn patience, it will all be explained soon.

I remember talking to Rosa outside the bar. And then it’s just a big black spot, until I found myself waking up on the third most uncomfortable bed I have ever slept in. The depressing thing about that is it was still softer than my apartment bed, which is holding strong to its second place position. When I woke up Rosa was hovering over me like someone who has heard of personal space, but just doesn’t think it applies at all to them. She didn’t even give me a chance to get over my waking grogginess before she started bombarding me with stupid questions about how many fingers she was holding up.

As anyone else would in this situation, I replied to that with a good old “Where the hell am I?”

Rosa kept insisting I count her damn fingers, so I did. Far from ending things, this just encouraged her to put me through more trials, making me say my full name, asking me to recite the alphabet, flashing a light in my eyes, and so on. Only once she was finally satisfied did she back off and let me ask what was going on.

“You were poisoned.”

I was wait what now

Ignoring my rising anxiety, Rosa continued to explain in an annoyingly calm and analytical tone. “You collapsed while talking to me last night. From my examination, you’re showing early signs of Ichor consumption. Looks like three days since the infection.”

“Wait, infection? I thought you said poison!” I was probably sounding a lot ruder than I intended, but in my defense, I was close to panicking there.

She wasn’t impressed by my concern. “If you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to sedate you.” She said with annoyance. That was not what I needed to hear to calm me down. The opposite of what I needed to hear, really. I started freaking out even more, tried to shove Rosa away, and someone had to hold me down and stab me with a needle.

After another period of blackness, I woke up in that bed again. I was… a little less freaked out this time, now that I knew what to expect. I actually made the effort to look around at this room I was in, instead of jumping straight to panicking. It was very… white. White wallpaper. White carpet. White sheets on the bed I was in. Hospital white, none of that “vanilla white” nonsense. Old inner city kind of hospital white. No windows, and the only piece of furniture was the bed I was laying in. Going for the creepy void room look, I see.

Rosa was giving me some space this time, and was leaning against the wall to my left while chewing on an unlit cigarette. Someone else was to my right: a black man in a loosely fit tie-dye shirt and with red-tipped dreads. His smile was sympathetic, but I couldn’t help but feel concerned about the syringe he was holding.

All right, quick check. Still have all my limbs. No one seems like they’re planning to hurt me at the moment. Time to find out what’s going on.

Rosa rolled the cigarette around in her mouth and said with a hint of impatience, “Are you going to fall apart on me again?”

“That depends,” I replied sarcastically, “are you going to tell me you stole my kidneys?”

“No. I’m going to tell you that you don’t have very long to live.” She said with the same clinical apathy as before.

“Right right, that poison stuff.”

Rosa took the cigarette out of her mouth and stared at me critically. “You don’t seem to be taking this entirely seriously.” She said.

I shrugged, but she was right. The whole situation was so strange that it had taken on something like a fuzzy, dream-like atmosphere. “Give it to me straight, doc.” I said. “How long to I have left?”

Rosa stared at me a few moments longer, but she didn’t seem to find whatever she was looking for in my face. “On your own? A few weeks, at most. Under my watch, several months. Possibly years if you follow what I say and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Seems like a pretty shitty poison if it can take years to kill me. Why not just use arsenic? I hear that’s much more effective.”

Rosa started to say something, but stopped and thought for a few seconds. She seemed to be struggling to find the words to explain this to me. “What you consumed is known as Ichor. Well, I guess it’s more popular these days to call it Eat, but I never understood why kids want to call it such a dumb name. Anyways, Ichor isn’t some mundane poison. It’s more… supernatural. Rather than attacking the body, it attacks the personality. Kind of.”

“The poison… is going to attack my personality?”

“From a certain point of view, yes.”

I’m not sure if my expression could have conveyed how incredulous I felt hearing that. I looked to the other man in the room to see if maybe he could explain things better, but he just shrugged and lightheartedly said, “Don’t look at me, she’s supposed to be the expert.”

“Thank you, Matthew.” Rosa said sourly. “It might make more sense for me to say that Ichor attacks the mind.”

“Wait,” I cut in, “isn’t the mind a part of the….”

“Not the physical mind.” Rosa said. “If you could cut open the head of an Ichor victim and look at their brain, it would seem the same as the brain of a healthy individual. But it will still kill you. It deadens the personality of its victims, until they turn into borderline lifeless husks with no trace of their original self, even as the body continues to survive.”

Oh well that sounded absolutely lovely. A poison that can’t even be bothered to kill me properly and just leaves me without any personality. Arsenic really was sounding like a preferable choice. “So how do I survive this?”

“You don’t. But there are certain things you can do to delay the effects of Ichor. If I keep you here under my observation, I can ensure you remain in the proper environment for fighting the infection, and control its spread.”

I frowned at hearing that. “Ah, yes. Stay here. Well, the thing is….” I tried to smile, but it didn’t come out very well. “You two seem like absolutely wonderful people, but I have things I need to do. Like a job. And a roommate who needs me to pay my part of the rent. And a cat that needs to be fed. Doctor’s appointments, weekly movie night with friends, you know, that kind of stuff.”

I’m assuming by Rosa’s expression that she didn’t know that kind of stuff. “You’d rather die than miss out on… movie night?”

“I’ve got things going on in my life! You’re giving me a choice between still having that life for a while, or spending the rest of my time being observed and ordered around by you! I’m not going to end up some invalid who just lies in a hospital bed for years!”

That came out a lot stronger than I’d intended. Rosa gave me another of those analytical stares, and then said, “That sounded like you have some personal issues with that.”

“Shut up.” I grumbled. “Just let me go home.”

“I’ll take on the case you wanted to hire me for.”

The nonchalance with which she said that blew out my contentiousness like a cold gust. “You… you will?” I stuttered out.

“Yes. Completely pro bono.”

I was left completely speechless there. After she turned me down at work, I’d given up hope, but now….

“I’ll give you some time to think over it.” She said. “But you should at least stay here a few days to recover from your collapse. I’ll handle anything you need taken care of in the meanwhile. Just give me your answer when you’re ready.”

And that’s how I’ve ended up in this weird place. Haven’t left the bed yet; in spite of all my contrarianism, I’m still feeling weak from earlier. And I really have been given a lot to think about.

As for this blog here? There’s apparently a lot of rules for living at Rosa’s place. Number one rule: Everything needs to be recorded. She claims that “Memory works strangely in this house,” so you have to log anything important down so you don’t forget it. I thought that was weird, but hey, I figured I could just post stuff on my Tumblr and that’d be that. Well, no, Rosa got mad at that suggestion. She doesn’t want anything about this place going through some channel she can’t filter. So for now, if I want to put up anything online, it has to be through this blog. I mean, really, Blogger? Who uses this site anymore? Old people, that’s who. Old people who rant about magic poison that’s going to somehow turn me into a normie.

Old Cases

The possibility that I had met Sara before kept poking at my mind, so I dug through my old case files to find the log on the incident she’d mentioned. It took far longer to search through all those boxes of old papers than it should have. The biggest reason I’ve switched over to this online format is so that I can have a computer organize things for me, instead of relying on my traditional method of throwing everything into the closest available box.

Just like she’d said, it had been a case involving the Black Dog. I’d been hired by the man who owned the land the bar was on; apparently he was a tad upset about this giant beast stalking the place at night and scaring away customers. He wasn’t concerned about why the Dog was there, he just needed it to leave.

The way I described Murphy’s in the log, it was just as much a dump a year ago as it is now. There had been six people inside that night, including Sara. Just like she’d said, her hair had been green back then. I’d felt a thick air of fear amongst them all the moment I’d entered. They’d all seen the monster waiting outside. The Black Dog wasn’t even trying to hide its presence.

I gave the briefest explanation I could. Big supernatural thing outside, I know more about this than any of you, do what I say and things will probably be alright for most of you. I phrased it more diplomatically back then, of course. The next step was questioning everyone inside the bar. It took over an hour of me interrogating everyone before I figured out which one was the Black Dog’s target. After that, it was just a matter of convincing him that his best chance for survival was to slip out the back door and run for it.

I doubt he made it five feet before the Dog got him. But I was being paid to get the Dog to leave, not to save any victims. Once the Dog got who it came for, there was no reason for it to stick around, and I could collect my paycheck. Besides, Black Dog victims have a tendency towards stubbornly refusing to be rescued.

Reading about that case brought to mind another forgotten memory. Not really a memory, but the absence of a memory that had a similar shape in my mind to this one. I went searching through more boxes until I found the log I was looking for. This one was one of the oldest papers I had stored away. When I saw how yellow the pages were getting, I was worried that it would tear apart when I picked it up. This was one of the first jobs I had ever taken.

The client had been the mayor of a small city in the Midwest. He’d been followed by the Black Dog for a month, and had hired me to deal with it. Being the naïve greenhorn I was at the time, I gave him what I thought was an easy solution: come clean with all your secrets. The Black Dog holds power over people through their secrets and the weight of the emotions they give them. I figured all he needed to do to break that hold was stop treating whatever secrets he had like such a big deal. After all, I assumed that none of them could be worse than the threat of death.

He’d called me a fraud and demanded his money back. When I refused, I was thrown out the building. Three days later, the news reported that the mayor had died in mysterious circumstances. I suppose he thought his secrets were more important than avoiding death. I’m not sure I can understand his choice. Letting other people find out about some dark secret is far better than dying.

Then again, not all secrets are things we hide from others. I think we all have something in our past we try to keep secret from ourselves.

And I can understand why someone would choose death over confronting those.

Murphy's Bar

It took me a while to find the place Catty’s directions wanted me to go. What he’d neglected to mention was that the bar Sara worked at wasn’t on the street itself, but was a tiny hole in the wall kind of place located in an alleyway behind the address he’d given me. I spent over half an hour wandering around the Chicago streets at night in the freezing cold because of that. Thanks, Catty.

The sign above the doorway claimed the place was called “Murphy’s.” Well, not really; the paint on the sign had been so washed away that it really said “M ph  s,” but I’m assuming there was supposed to be a u, r, and y in there. The bar was fairly empty. Only three customers inside, counting myself, and neither of the other two seemed like the sociable sort. I could see why people would avoid this place. Calling it decrepit would be elevating it to a status it doesn’t deserve. The décor looked like someone had just scattered the cheapest furniture they could get from a garbage dump all over the ground, and I spent a good chunk of my time there being distracted by the concern that the cracks on the walls were a sign of serious structural problems. Sara was behind the bar, halfheartedly watching some old 80s movie on a small cracked TV hanging from the wall. Her face lit up as I sat down.

“Hello!” She said, clearly happy to see a new customer in this place. “What can I get you?”

Through chattering teeth, I managed to say, “Something warm.”

“I can whip you up an Irish coffee, if that alright?” She said.

“Irish what?”

“Hot coffee, Irish whiskey, and sugar mixed together.”

At the time, that sounded like the most heavenly drink that had ever been imagined. “Yes. That.” I got out as I tried rubbing some life back into my freezing hands.

Sara got out a glass and started mixing my drink. “Have you come in here before? You look familiar.” She said, looking over my face with curiosity.

Thankfully my attempts at warming myself gave an excuse to avoid answering her question immediately. With that bought time, I desperately tried digging through the remnants of my memory. Had I been here before? It’s possible, but I couldn’t find any recollection of it.

“I remember now!” She said as she gave me my drink. “You helped us out when we had that big magical dog monster stalking the building last year.”

“Right, that.” I said vaguely as I picked up the glass and savored the warmth of it on my hands. I was really wishing I could access my case files there, because I had no idea what she was talking about. To buy some time, I started drinking. The heat from it was like drinking pure, wonderful fire. Even with the whiskey, I managed to finish the whole thing much faster than I’d planned.

“You probably don’t remember me from that.” Sara said. “My hair was green back then.”

Perfect! “Yes, that must be it.” I said, grabbing onto that lifeline and trying not to show too much relief at the excuse. “What have you been up to since then?”

We made small talk for a while. I think Sara was happy to have a customer who wasn’t determined to drink in stubborn solitary silence. That was fortunate for me, as it made it easier to guide the conversation along. I found out quite a lot about Ms. Sara Valentine. She’d been a student at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but had dropped out two years ago to work as a bartender. She hasn’t been in touch with her family since high school. Bartending wasn’t a job she’d ever dreamed of doing, but once she’d started she found she enjoyed it. She has a boyfriend who’s still enrolled at SAIC, focusing on traditional painting. She’s been trying out a new hair color every year for the past four years, but she thinks she’s going to stick with dark blue.

I like it when people talk a lot about themselves. They’re too busy to ask any questions about me.

During a lull in the conversation, I said, “Sorry, I need to head out for a smoke. I’ll be back in a minute.” It wasn’t a lie. There have been a few times where I’ve tried going without cigarettes while at work. All I ever got out of that was feeling sick and miserable.

“I was just about to take my break.” Sara said. “I’ll be out right after you.”

There was a slight trace of assertiveness in that statement that hadn’t been in the conversation before. I suspected that she wanted to discuss something beyond casual small talk. I may have followed that line of thought further, but at that moment I stepped outside and was punched in the face by the cold. Metaphorically. Oh, the sacrifices we make for tobacco. At least my drink had given me enough warmth that I could pull out my pack of cheap cigarettes without dropping them everywhere. Matches were another issue entirely, though. The first one I lit blew out in seconds. With the second I almost got it to my cigarette before it blew out as well.

“Need a light?” Sara had just come out, wearing a heavy coat and holding a lighter. I accepted the offer without a word and gratefully inhaled.

Sara pulled out a cigarette for herself and lit it up. “Those things will kill you.” I said in dry jest.

“Whatever you say mom.” Sara said as she took a long drag. “You know, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen use matches for a light. What’s up with that?”

“You need an ID to buy a lighter.” I tried waving the question off.

“Oh yes, I’m sure someone as youthful as you gets carded all the time.” She replied back quickly. I feel as if I should have been mad about that, but I can’t get upset at someone who’s that fast with the comebacks.

Both of us stood against the alley wall, enjoying the moment. Sara broke the peace by hesitantly saying “So… are you still doing that… weird supernatural job kind of deal thing?”

I could already predict where this conversation was going. “Yes,” I replied guardedly.

“Can you….”

I cut her off before she went any farther. “I charge $3,000 upfront, and an additional $200 for every hour I work on a case.”

Her face fell as she heard that. “Do you….”

“I don’t offer discounts. I sometimes will accept goods and services of equitable value in lieu of cash, but I doubt you have anything like that.”

That statement seemed to kill any trace of optimism that she might have had walking out here. I did feel bad for her. People don’t try to hire me for things they don’t think are important. But I can’t go risking my life without some kind of compensation. If I ran off doing every charity job that came up, I’d either be destitute or lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Probably both. At least Sara seemed to be taking it better than other people I’ve dealt with. She looked at the ground dejectedly, and said, “Well, it was worth a shot. I guess I’ll just….” Her words started to slur together and then trail off, and her cigarette fell from her fingers.

Then she collapsed onto the ground.

What Do I See When I Look in the Mirror?

I see an old woman who really needs to get more sleep.

They say you’re only as old as you feel. If that’s the case, I must be somewhere around 200. I look like I’m likely in my forties, but I couldn’t give you a more accurate number. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know. Hair’s going grey, wrinkles starting to show up, and my voice sounds exactly like what you’d expect from someone who’s lived for years in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Lately I’ve been trying to see if it’s possible for a human being to replace sleep with lots of coffee. Judging by the heavy bags under my eyes, it’s not working.

My sense of fashion isn’t much to brag about. Even calling it “fashion” may be selling it too hard. I like my clothes boring and nondescript. The only thing I have that stands out is an old khaki trench coat, and I hate it precisely because of that. I’d have thrown it away long ago if it wasn’t the only comfortable coat I’ve got.

Ah, I'm just kidding about all that.

I don't own any mirrors.