Agent Bouwens and Lancelot encounter a fearsome foe in the ruins of Brooklyn. P.I. Ashley Chen hunts a serial killer. Iris Penner offers a captured demon to magics dealer Henry Crosscorde.
Eldritch Knight Deirdre Walck, a.k.a. Lancelot, and her partner, Avalon field agent Brian Bouwens, are captured during a secret mission to the ruins of Brooklyn.
Private Investigator and exorcist Ashley Chen, a free soul channeled by spirit guardian Iris Penner, sets a trap for an at-large serial killer.
Iris offers up a powerful demon captured by Rigan, the spirit of a Celtic goddess also channeled by Iris, to magics dealer and bondsman Henry Crosscorde.
__________
Written by Steve and Robin Pool
Voiced by Emily Woo Zeller, with Freya Kingsley as Rigan
Sound Design and Editing by DSS (Dissecting Sound & Soul). Sound effects provided by ZapSplat
Intro song “Plastic Stars” by Corey Distler https://soundcloud.com/deadmentalkingpdx
Outro song “Westend” by Buggie https://buggieclub.bandcamp.com https://soundcloud.com/buggieclub
Visit Sayonaraville on our website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Copyright (c) 2022 by Uncle Robot Media, LLC.
SAYONARAVILLE: MANHATTAN
EPISODE 1: SERIAL X KILLER
INTRO: The following series contains adult themes, strong language, violence, sexuality, and drug use. Listener discretion is advised.
[INTRO MUSIC "Plastic Stars" by Corey Distler]
Inside an abandoned, heavily-damaged brownstone within sight of the ravaged, partially-shattered Brooklyn Bridge, two Avalon field agents, a man and a woman, pistols drawn and at the ready, crouched together in the shadows. Only a block away, mercenaries with state-of-the-art body armor and hybrid magic-infused assault rifles conducted a house-to-house search for the two of them.
Inside the ruined home, rats and roaches -- heard and smelled but not seen -- skittered along endless mountains of debris and garbage. These vermin rarely showed themselves in the light anymore, mutated by chaos-warping magic. Outside, on the street, burnt-out shells of cars creaked whenever a strong gust of wind blew through. Trash rolled and flew through the air with no one to pick it up. Not since Armageddon had nearly ended the world twenty one years, five months, and two days earlier. The world had been saved, but Brooklyn hadn’t been so lucky. The eldritch shockwave had killed over 80 percent of the borough’s residents in a radiant pulse of heat and divine anger. The radiation-poisoning equivalent of toxic magic had pretty much taken care of everyone else who couldn’t evacuate before the week had ended. Brooklyn had become the newest, latest Chernobyl and, by international law, was off-limits to everyone.
That, of course, didn’t stop people from trying, especially criminal elements -- looters, cultists, militias, criminal syndicates, and the like. Most who made their way there were dead before the day was out, so law enforcement stopped bothering with them.
Except that there was now one group, backed by the Abramo crime family, who’d managed to build a safehouse to run a drug lab. Combining standard drugs like meth and heroin with magical mana energies harvested from radioactive debris, these new hybrids were incredibly appealing, increasing a person’s mana and magical potential exponentially. They were also extremely addictive and extremely dangerous.
Agent and Eldritch Knight Deirdre Walck, given the title of “Lancelot” by Merlin Baltimore himself, pulled out a packeted energy bar and shoved it in her mouth. Her partner, Brian Bouwens, not a Knight of the Circle but still a damn good agent and highly decorated soldier before he’d signed on with Avalon, grimaced. Whispering, he asked, “How can you eat that right now?”
Between chews, Deirdre replied, “What do you mean? Now’s the perfect time for this. I always eat a protein bar before a fight when I can.” She offered him a bite. He refused with a vigorous head shake.
Outside, one of the mercenaries hired by the drug dealers called out to his squad. Deirdre dropped the bar wrapper and brought her gun, an advanced magic-infused semi-automatic pistol, close to her chest and whispered, “Here they come.” Brian nodded as he held his own pistol at the ready.
Multiple rapid-fire bursts from fully automatic magicked rifles strafed hundreds of glowing bullets at the brownstone where the agents huddled. Everywhere the mystically-juiced bullets struck, hot, glowing radiant energy charred blackened rings around large impact holes, some beginning to smolder and ignite into flame. Deirdre and Brian flattened themselves as much as they could as the bullet storm began to shred the house around them.
“Fuck!” Dierdre looked to her partner. “We can’t stay here. They’re using incendiary rounds. This place will go up any minute.”
The crash of doors being forced echoed from the back of the house. There weren’t going to be any clear exits.
“Remind me, Lancey,” Brian shouted. “Why are we here again!?”
“C’mon, Bouwens! Don’t get cold feet now. These fuckers are spreading mana plague with their scary new product tainted with magic! They have to be stopped.”
“Right. Just being here is an international crime, not counting the bad shit they’re already doing. Of course, our being here is its own international incident, especially if we end up murdered. We should have waited for permission and backup before cracking this Hell-No-Don’t-Go Zone.”
In the middle of a deadly firefight, Dierdre couldn’t explain why that hadn’t been an option. Explanations and apologies -- maybe a court martial -- would have to wait. She closed her eyes and let her other senses reach out to the space beyond the wall they hid behind. Counting silently before opening her eyes, she announced, “There are more out back than out front. I’m going to give you cover while you crawl out the front door.”
“What!?”
“GO! NOW!” Deirdre screamed at her hesitating partner. In a flash, she had peeked through the window and rapid-fired three rounds.
POP! POP! POP!
One of the mercs fell from a hit to the chest, the second to a headshot. The third stumbled from a round to the side but still managed to stay upright.
“Shit!” Deirdre cried. “Watch out! The last one’s not down, Brian!”
The wounded merc called Deirdre a fucking bitch as he drew a bead on her and...
POP!
Brian, now out the door, dropped him with a magicked round that curved as it flew and zeroed in on the man’s face.
A group of mercs who’d busted through the back of the house charged Deirdre. Her pistol morphed into a glowing blade, and faster than the eye could follow, she cut into the group of hunters. With a huge, downward-slashing stroke, she ripped open one of the mercs and brought her blade back into the throat of the next. Being so close had neutralized their firepower advantage. Moments later, she was the only one standing.
A new line of bullets fired from further back in the room traced forward and strafed her, but the several direct hits became grazes as her mystical protection spells did their work.
“Coming out, Bri! Get ready to break for it!”
Brian screamed in response.
Deirdre raced through the front door, gun reloaded with a fresh clip, ready to cut down anyone who’d hurt her partner, and stopped dead in her tracks. Brian was flat on the ground, transfixed by half a dozen fallen power lines waving through the air like living tentacles. The rest of the mercs out front had been wrapped up. They began to scream as the thick, jagged copper wires burned the men with electrical discharges. Behind them, from the shadows, a two-story giant golem made of rusted trucks and scrap metal looked on in grim, silent approval.
At a super-trendy Astoria, Queens bar, Ashley Chen -- Ash to everyone she cared about, which as of tonight no longer included her cheating ex -- reached her tipping point for fun when she knocked over her not-quite-empty cocktail glass. After all the phones and bags on the table had been rescued and the drunken laughter had subsided, Ash declared to her MeetMe friends, “I’m really wasted. I gotta go pee and maybe puke.” Asked if she wanted company, she replied, “Naw, truth is, I’m really just gonna get some air.” And vape, which she didn’t want to admit.
Sitting at the end of the bar, a tall and handsome man who had been sizing Ash up all evening noted her departure.
No one who knew Mark David Mills would have ever guessed he was a demon-possessed serial killer. To his friends and colleagues, he practically walked on water -- clean-cut, smart, personable, charming, and gifted at just about everything. Partner before 30 all but guaranteed. A honey voice. Wavy black hair always smartly styled. Perfect fashion sense. Well read and well educated enough to be interesting without moralizing. Tall enough to impress without being imposing. The right balance between muscular and lean. And the straightest, whitest teeth you’d ever seen. He even had a beautifully-illustrated tattoo of two dragons circling each other like a strand of DNA on his right forearm, proof that he wasn’t just pretending to be cool.
He’d never lacked for attention from others, single or married. And his girlfriends had always been gorgeous -- he’d once even gone out with an Israeli supermodel. But for some reason, those dating relationships had never lasted very long. No one could explain why, not even Mark himself. Rumors floated, maybe unrevealed gender preferences or identity, but none was correct.
It was Mark’s secret that the fault of this fell entirely to the malevolent demon that had nested deep with him, a demon he knew only as “the Beast.” Its presence left him with an insatiable hunger to hurt others that, at times, had driven him to the edge of his sanity. Only when Mark had killed would the Beast grant him any peace. But lately, the Beast had become rather finicky, no longer finding satisfaction in just any victim. Older, broken lives in particular bored the Beast. They lacked true flavor and sat heavily on the palate. The Beast craved younger victims, those not yet spoiled by the harsh betrayals and quiet failures and banal mediocracies that typically shadowed a long life. It wanted the kind of younger victims that hung out at trendy bars. Younger victims like Ash.
Mark had spent most of the evening watching Ash’s table, even as he’d carried on continuous conversations with a succession of pretty women who’d come to flirt with him. He’d bought them drinks, charmed them with stories, listened to them with great patience, and taken their phone numbers before dismissing them with such charm that the women hadn’t even realized that they’d been rejected. Some later would talk or post about the handsome, rich guy they’d almost hooked up with. Of course, in their stories, they were always the ones who’d turned him down.
Mark had also been having another private, evening-long conversation with the brutal Beast. The Beast had snarled every time one of those “senseless bitches” had hit on Mark -- spindly, disgusting creatures devoid of any real substance or soul. Tonight, the Beast had decided it didn’t want to devour anyone but Ash. And the Beast had been growing impatient. Mark struggled to keep his cool.
He breathed a great sigh of relief when Ash finally stepped away from her table of friends and headed toward the back of the bar. Politely excusing himself from yet another cloying conversation partner, he followed Ash from a safe distance. When she stepped out the back exit after leaving the bathroom, Mark counted to ten before following her out. One of the women he’d been friendly with earlier crossed him and gave him a smile, but Mark shoved past without acknowledgement. Whatever insult she’d thrown his way went unheard.
In the alley, Mark paused before approaching. Up close, Ash was gorgeous, an exciting tribal-punk-hippie Asian knockout. Her shoulder length hair was dyed cobalt blue, and her eyes were pale blue for some reason. Maybe colored contacts. She wore a sleeveless tee-shirt with a suggestive and vaguely obscene Japanese-style graphic on the front, iron gray skinny jeans ripped in strategic, eye-catching places around her thighs and under the backside, and clunky sneakers that looked better than they probably felt. On her right arm, a Chinese character tattoo, likely some kind of affirmational or memorial shit, curved alongside an intricately designed gothic cross. An exquisite image of a white wing, probably representing an angel or something stupid, wrapped around her left forearm from wrist to elbow. Likely a Little Miss Church only on Sunday mornings. Definitely not on Saturday nights. His favorite kind. From her oversized bag, she pulled what looked to be a cigarette.
Mark extended an expensive silver lighter. Ash turned away and mumbled, “No thanks, this is an e-smoke.”
Before she could say anything else, he wrapped one hand firmly over her mouth. With the other, he half-lifted her by the scruff of her jacket. Moments later, both disappeared around the corner.
Mark had come prepared, had done this enough times to know how to get away with it. He’d zip-tied her hands behind her back and duct taped her mouth. He’d debated zip-tying her legs together, too, but decided that it might be fun to beat her a little if she tried to run. She twisted about on the ground as she panted. She was squirmy, the Beast happily noted. It hated weak women.
“Hi, I’m Mark. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”
Ash glared at him in silence.
“Samantha, you say? That’s a pretty name. I used to know someone else named Samantha.”
Ash’s gaze began darting back and forth. Good. She was doubtless starting to figure out how fucked she really was. Mark felt a thrill rush through him.
“Do you live around here, Samantha?”
Silence.
“Oh, yeah. I know that neighborhood. Isn’t there a really great raw food restaurant nearby? Oh, you don’t like raw food? Yeah, I guess it’s not for everyone. What kinds of food do you like?”
Mark went back-and-forth with himself like that until the Beast couldn’t stand it anymore. Shouting at him inside his head, it told him to just fucking kill the bitch already.
An old polaroid photograph flicked against Mark’s head. Looking down as it fell, he saw a pretty young woman, blonde and happy, glowing eyes and a bright smile. She looked somehow familiar. As he considered this, a terrible jolt of pain shot through his whole body. Even his teeth hurt.
“Hey, asshole, wake up.”
Mark felt a slap across his face. He opened his eyes and shook his head. Ash loomed over him. He was the one on the ground, zip-tied and gagged. In her right hand, she held a high-powered taser. In her left was a handful of photos.
He blinked several times and shook his head. He tried to say something, but it only came out as muffled noise.
Ash helped him out.
“How did I escape? That’s easy, Mark. You were so busy getting off on having subdued me that you didn’t notice me turning my hands palm side down when you zipped my wrists together. So easy to slip out of. Of course, I made sure yours weren’t when I cinched you up.
“Also, my name’s not Samantha. It’s Ash.” She flicked a photo of the pretty blonde into Mark’s face. “This is Samantha. Seriously, I don’t even resemble her. This girl’s White and obviously I’m not. Samantha’s family hired me to hunt your sorry ass down and end you, slowly if possible. But I told them that I don’t do that kind of justice. The right kind of justice is the best kind of justice -- you go to jail, they don’t, that sort of thing. So it’s your lucky day that I’m the one that got to you first. I also, by the way, happen to have another client who would be very interested in the spirit that is currently possessing you.”
The Beast screamed for him to do something, anything, but Mark just lay slumped against the wall, smiling. It looked like he was finally going to be rid of this monster. He was wrong.
The pale yellow light that marked the bar’s back entrance faded to a muted gray. Through her thin tee, Ash felt the air temperature drop as a damp chill replaced the warm summer humidity. A place that existed somewhere between life and death, reality and unreality -- The Overworld -- enveloped them as the Beast commandeered Mark and overwrote his body with its body. Here, no one would interfere.
As Mark’s arms swelled, the kevlar-reinforced plastic wrist zips snapped with loud cracks. Every muscle in his body, fueled by surging mana, distended and bulged. His clothing burst as he grew, in mere moments, by two feet and 600 pounds of muscle mass. His face bulged and drooped as his teeth sharpened into fangs and tusks. His skin bleached ashen white, and his hair and nails, now talons, blackened like pitch. Glowing coal-red eyes steamed, and contrails of smoke poured from his nostrils with each exhale. Faint screams and cries of his former victims gusted in the air. The pavement under his feet spoiled brown and gray with corruption and rot. True form revealed, the Beast roared at Ash, like a predator over a fresh kill.
Ash tensed as she felt the tidal shove of the demon’s rage and called out to the ether, “Demon! Not a spirit, Rigan! Switch, please!”
And she answered herself, in a different voice, “On it!”
Gray mist swirled around Ash and solidified into a figure in a black hoodie, hood up, and, over its face, a wooden mask carved like a crow’s head. Rigan, Ash’s Celtic demigod otherself, had arrived.
“Now we see the real warrior.” The demon was pleased.
“Fuck you. Ash is awesome in a fight. But she handles the ghosts, and I handle piece of shit fiends like you.”
Rigan began a rapid-fire chant in a very old form of Welsh. Indecipherable glowing runes encircled each of her hands. Then, they thrust out into the night, solidifying into glowing, razor-sharp arming swords.
Rigan was already in the air when the Beast’s clawed hand struck the pavement where she’d stood just a moment before. Her blades raked deep red lines across the Beast’s shoulders and back as she leapt over its blow. Severed pieces of corruption followed the arcs of Rigan’s strikes. Her swords drank them up as if they were honey mead.
The Beast cried in pain and cursed in Abyssal before belching forth a gout of hellfire. A large crow’s wing like a tower shield reached around Rigan’s back and blocked the flame. The intensity of the demon's fiery exhalation left her singed. This demon was a strong fucker. And fast.
The Beast seized Rigan and slammed her down hard enough to dent the asphalt. Rigan gasped and tasted blood as she blinked away the stars that ringed her sight. But before the Beast could hoist her up for a second impact, she dissipated into a curling column of silvery fog and flowed out of its grasp. Her hooded figure reformed, once again solid against Overworld’s harsh, flat fugue.
“Aah!” Rigan shook her head and cracked her back. “You’re going to pay for that, abyssal!” Swords at the ready, she waited for the Beast to make the next move.
The Beast curled a smile and laughed as it smelled the blood ooze in Rigan’s injured mouth.
With blinding speed, Rigan landed a solid kick to the beast’s face, breaking its nose. “Laugh or fight, bitch!? What’s it gonna be?”
Growling and wiping black blood from its face, the Beast crouched, the claws on its feet scoring the ground, and prepared to charge. The Beast was tired, pissed, and admittedly hurt -- that impetuous little bitch had actually bloodied it. Just one bite to remove her head would be enough. Fuck the rest of the body and the soul. The Beast didn’t want it anymore. Then he’d allow his host the rest of the evening alone to soak this shit off in the tub.
Something had bitten the Beast’s ankle before it could jump. Two, then three more nips. Looking around, the Beast could see four...now five...spectral crows, cawing as they flew out of a fog bank that hadn’t been there before, pecking at its legs and arms, actually devouring its flesh. More crows, more than it could now count, swarmed and began to overwhelm it. Struggling to fight them off, the Beast collapsed under the brutal flock attack.
“Make sure you pick up any leftover bits of mana. Don’t leave any behind.” Rigan called out orders to her ghostly crows. “Don’t want any of it possessing some alley cat or sewer rat.”
With the demon in pieces, imprisoned within a sealed phylactery of mist crows, Rigan and the unconscious, demon-purged Mark fell out of the Overworld and reappeared in the alley behind the bar. Knowing that Ash’s friends might be wondering where she was and possibly searching, Rigan became Ash again, crow mask and hoodie evaporating away.
Ash’s hands trembled -- an effect of the head injury from her long-dead husband decades ago -- and her body shook from nerves and fading adrenaline. Knees giving way, she slumped to the ground, huffing with gasping breaths until the golden feather in her unsteady hands began to glow, easing her -- a feather given to her by a sometimes ally, sometimes asshole archangel. Ash stood up, ready to finish the job.
She worked quickly to rebind and regag Mark, snapping and emailing photos of him subdued to Samantha’s parents. She then texted a contact at the NYPD to come and pick up this serial killing piece of shit.
Ash was right that her friends would come looking, but she’d prepared a bullshit story involving chasing a cute cat down the alley, complete with faked phone photos of said cat. They all laughed and promptly forgot about it, thanks to a little help from a surreptitious memory blur incantation.
Later that evening, soaking in the tub, Iris Penner, a somewhat notorious Manhattan heiress and Ash’s other otherself, called Henry Crosscorde, a close friend and dealer in things magical and supernatural.
“This demon, which that asshole Mark Mills lamely called ‘the Beast’, has to be at least Class 6. It was able to pull Rigan into the Overworld to fight, and it generated some really hot flames. It was also strong as shit. I think you should give me at least 50 grand for its capture.”
“You’re not being over-dramatic now, are you? You sound pretty chipper for someone just coming out of a demonic boss fight. How dangerous was it for you? Were you even really hurt?”
“Hey, my mouth was bleeding afterwards...Plus, that thing scorched the shirt that Miko brought back for me from Japan. I really like that shirt.”
“The weird black one? How can you even tell it’s burnt?”
“I can smell the smoke on it.”
“Everything probably smells like smoke to you. Be honest. You could probably smell the residue of some smoker’s cigarette addiction from fifty years ago.”
After a long pause, Iris replied, “Why are we arguing about this?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who brought up the whole smelling smoke thing. Tell you what...35 grand.”
“What!?! 35 grand? That’s bullshit. Do you know how long Ash has been working on this case?” Iris began to squint. “Why is everything so blurry? Oh, wait a sec.”
“What’s up?”
“I have to take these contacts out.”
“You don’t wear contacts.”
“No, but Ash does, when she’s not wearing glasses.”
“That is some weird method acting shit you got going on there, Iris. Also, what’s up with having a pseudonym to begin with? Nobody cares what the real you does.”
Iris scoffed. “You clearly don’t read the Post.”
“Whatever. It’s your life. Or Ash’s? Anyway, I don’t have any warrants that match the description of this demon. I don’t know who it is or what its real name is or what its bounty is worth, if it even has one yet. It's going to take time and effort to figure those things out. Meanwhile, it’s going to clutter up my shelves while not earning me profit.”
“It turned a very handsome man into a cold-blooded serial killer.”
“You assume much if you think that that’s what’s going to change my mind.” Henry took a deep breath. “40k. And you will include a picture of that very handsome man.”
“45, and I will throw in the picture -- one of the good ones Ash took before she beat him up. Just for you.”
“42.”
“43.5.”
“Deal. I know how important it is for you to win. Just give me a few days to work up a contract.”
“I do not have to win.”
“Says the society gal with absolutely nothing to prove who still moonlights as a vigilante superhero.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything...and just how am I being a vigilante? You make me sound like some kind of unstable comic book caped crusader with a big crazy stick up her butt. Which I’m definitely not. I’m just a private investigator and freelance exorcist who...”
“...Hunts down villains while wearing a mask.”
“God, when you say it like that, I do kinda sound like him.”
“You’ll never have to worry with me, oh darkened knight. I’ll always accept you as you are. Especially if you give me a ride in your Irismobile.”
“Can you see my extended middle finger on the screen right now?”
“Sorry, can’t look. I’m driving. So why do you wear it? The mask.”
“It’s Rigan’s mask. Not mine.”
“I don’t understand that one bit. Who’s Rigan again?”
“Rigan’s the tough one, just as Ash’s the smart one, and I’m the charming one.”
“‘Don’t ask, don't tell’ it is, then.”
Water sloshed around Iris as she set her phone down and stood to wrap herself in a towel. Hopping out of the bath and grabbing the phone, she asked, “So how do you suppose that Mark guy was able to hide a murderous demon from the mana sniffers and Avalon drones for as long as he did? It’s kind of scary to think that people out there can do that.”
“Fuck do I know about such things? You’d have to ask a subject matter expert.”
“You broker bounties on demons, Henry. How are you not a subject matter expert?”
“It’s like you said: I just issue the bounties on behalf of people and organizations way more important than me. I pay others to be my expertise. But, if you want, I can look into it and get back to you.”
“Maybe. Oh...yeah. There was one weird detail about the guy I just remembered. He had this tattoo...of, like, two dragons swirling around each other. Like a strand of DNA.”
“Wow. That actually sounds pretty cool. Did you get a pic of it?”
“I did.”
“Send it over and I’ll check into it and him, see what sort of weird shit this guy was part of. What he was doing to keep his demonic side concealed. How’d you find him, by the way?”
“Social media. Samantha, the daughter of the parents who’d hired Ash to find him, had posted a pic of him while he was still grooming her.”
“That’s not creepy at all. Cops and family didn’t catch that?”
“Strangely, no. Mark was smart about it, though, and broke things off with her long before he took her. Waited until she’d started seeing a new guy who could fill the role of main suspect. Clever and evil. Ash did look that other guy up and quickly checked him off the list of possibles. Too dumb and lazy to cover up a murder. He turned out to be just her type, too, of course. That’s what made Ash realize that it was Mark that didn’t fit. Not that Samantha wasn’t cute or anything -- she was very cute -- but he was way out of her league, in all categories. So Ash just put two and two together, and this time the math added up right. Confirmation bias, or maybe some weird cloaking magic, likely made the police and her family miss him completely. The one post of him, however, had mentioned where he’d worked. She seemed proud of dating somebody with a real job for once. So Ash staked out his office and followed him around to figure out where he lived and liked to hang out. Then Ash went to those places as attractive bait and waited for him to make a move.”
“Impressive detective work, Ms. Marple. A gold star for you. So, what’s next for Ash?”
“Ash, having experienced a difficult two days starting with a traumatic break up with her cheatin’ p.o.s. boyfriend, Henry..."
“Ever hear of the Bechdel test, Iris? Also, how exactly is it that I got dragged into your alias’s sordid fictional history?”
“A personal story’s not going to be that interesting to people who don’t know you so well if it's not at least a little sordid...so, anyway, her nearly being the latest kidnap victim of a depraved serial killer added to her tragic breakup and Ash is left more than a bit shaken up. She has decided to take a break from Queens and rest up back at her parents’ home in Woodstock, Vermont.”
“Are people actually from there?”
“Don’t ask snarky questions like that. Neither of us is in any position to judge.”
“What about the real you? What’s in store for Iris?”
“I really am heading back to my parents’ home in Manhattan...sorry, my home, since they passed. Sadly, I’m not going there to party. I’ve got to see the family lawyer AND the family accountant about a bunch of outstanding legal and money issues. First world problems I have no clue about solving. Being out of the family loop for 20 years didn’t help, either.”
“Wow. Sounds very challenging. It must be hard being rich and shit.”
“You’re rich, too. And while we’re on that, you could live in Manhattan if you wanted. We could be neighbors. I know of some units for sale in my building.”
“They’d never accept someone like me. Wasn’t born rich.”
“Are you trying to insinuate something?”
“Never, Love. Too scared to. So, anyway, if you find yourself jonesing for some action in the Big Apple, I do have a couple of open jobs over there.”
“Hmmm, maybe. Send me the deets.”
“Did you just say ‘deets’?”
“Bye, Henry. Give my love to Raul.” And with that, Iris hung up.
Henry pocketed his phone, grabbed his coat and bag, and stepped out of his car, making his way up to his apartment. He was late coming home, but Raul was always pretty understanding.
Stepping through the front door, Henry gasped just a bit. The lights were low and lit candles greeted him as he entered.
“Hello?”
There was no answer. Instead, a line of rose petals led down the hallway entrance and arced off towards the dining room. Henry made no attempt to conceal his smile as he dropped his things on the console table by the front door. Making his way in, he stopped to look at the collection of hanging family photos, especially those of Raul and him: trip photos, many showing Raul’s trim, muscular physique to great effect; date photos, those with friends and other couples and then the ones by themselves, the memories of which could still bring a flush of heat; holidays with a lot of celebrating and drinking and one particularly hot moment involving a passionate kiss that still made Henry’s mom avert her eyes whenever she entered their apartment; and, center-stage in the collection of photos, lovingly shot portraits from their wedding.
“Raul? Sorry for being late. Work went long today. Thank you for lighting candles and putting out rose petals. That was very sweet of you. Iris says ‘hi’, by the way.”
Stepping into the dining room, Henry felt a mixture of guilt and sadness. Raul had set the table with the good china, silver, and crystal. Two salad plates bore now wilted greens and a mixed assortment of room-temperature berries and goat cheese. Half-melted candles, no longer burning, dripped down the sides of the mercury glass candle holders that Henry had given to Raul on a recent anniversary. The antique record player in the living room was still spinning a record, though the arm with the needle, having played through the side, had returned to its rest.
“Dammit, I’m really feeling bad now.” Henry muttered. “Hey, Love, you back there?” It was odd that Raul hadn’t come out from wherever he was. It was too early to have gone to bed.
As Henry walked back towards the office and bedrooms, he noted that some of the red splotches on the wood floor didn’t seem to be rose petals. Was that...?
“Raul? Is everything okay? Why is there...?”
He couldn’t finish his question. Before him was a body, collapsed in a bloody heap, its rent torso in the maw of a great beast. Henry stood frozen in the bedroom doorway, oblivious to the blood pooling around his feet. What looked like a werewolf, a mass of fur and teeth and fangs shaped around a lupine figure, savaged Raul’s body. The bedroom window had been smashed. That’s where the beast must have climbed up...or down. It wore torn clothing that Henry thought he’d recognized -- belonging to one of the neighbors or maybe someone he’d seen at the gym. Before Henry could run...or scream...the beast turned towards him, baring its gore-soaked fangs.
[OUTRO SONG: "Westend" by Buggie]
Out of the back door of a spa a few blocks from the Long Island City barrier, a self-satisfied Daniel Flint strolled while everyone left alive inside screamed. He flicked blood off his arm as though it were lint, leaving no traces of the carnage he’d caused on his lunch break. This double dragon tattoo he’d recently gotten was working beautifully -- no one could tell that he was a werewolf or even track him down, leaving him free to hunt whenever without fear of ever getting caught. All he had to do to earn this new magicked ink from his benefactors was to kill a nosey businessman, probably a rival of those creepy twins, and the man’s husband. Daniel would have done that for free just for the hell of it.
A tall, skinny, out-of-place rich bastard in rich Manhattanite bastard clothes was passing on the street at that moment. Perfect opportunity to try the magic-hiding thing again.
“Hey!” Daniel shouted to the fancy man.
The man looked over, confused. “Me?”
“Yeah, hey, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry, I can’t stop. I have somewhere to be.”
Daniel could feel the flow of magic from his tattoo, and, feeling emboldened, decided to just snatch him in broad daylight. Would that work? With the cover his tattoo provided, would anyone notice? Not that it mattered. There weren’t any security drones close enough to stop him in time even if anyone saw. “Oh, you’re not going anywhere.” And faster than the eye could follow, Daniel lunged.
A piercing headache and a huge wave of vertigo forced him to the ground. Gagging and coughing, he struggled to stand. He turned his head and released a stream of vomit before shifting to his bestial form. His threats against the man emerged halfway before they became a wolf’s threatening snarl.
The man, unperturbed, now surrounded by floating eldritch protection sigils, chanted phrases in a dead, mostly forgotten language as he drew something in the air. A sphere of arcane energy pulsed out and filled the alleyway.
Daniel’s werewolf form didn’t understand any of the man’s magic, but he completely understood his body language, his posture, his sounds, and his smells -- this person was a serious threat who needed to be eliminated. The wolf Daniel lunged forward and raked at the man again with long, sharp claws.
Immediately he began to fall, tumbling head over heels. What should have been solid ground was now a terrifying hundred-foot drop. Daniel howled as he plummeted, then slammed hard into the side of a building that had become the ground. Bouncing and rolling off the edge of the building’s corner, Daniel fell again, though this time up instead of down before slamming into another building, then ricocheting to his left, then his right, then up, then down, like a rubber ball. Each strike cracked his nearly unbreakable bones, and he was left without breath. He passed through a blazing inferno and then a bone chilling blizzard. A high speed train knocked him tumbling sideways, impaling him onto the spire of an impossibly tall building. Once free, he fell up into a near frozen lake, the shock of icy water sucking the air from his lungs. He was drowning. Could a werewolf drown? He scrambled forwards as vine-choked branches from dead trees grabbed and clawed at him, and long spindly grasses from the bog entwined his arms and entangled his legs. The blast wave from a huge explosion that glowed like the sun blew him from his feet and down a rocky embankment as the superheated shockwave set his skin and fur ablaze. He struggled to climb up a pitch black, steeply sloped earthen tunnel, slipping backwards twice the distance he’d climbed. Creatures with fangs and stingers bit and stabbed all the way up. Lightning struck him twice. A monstrous bull eight feet at the shoulder charged. He slashed and bit feebly as it crushed his chest and sent him flying into a wall of silver-coated, cold-iron spear points. Blood poured from every spot in his body, and his vision grew black.
Curled on the ground in the alley, blood coming from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, Daniel the werewolf twitched and jerked a final time before going still.
The rich bastard Daniel had perceived, known to everyone in Manhattan as the Sorcerer of Midtown, dropped his phantasmal spell as he made a call.
“Hey, it’s Ty. So I found it. Or more like it found me. No, I put it down. It won’t be killing anyone else. Yeah. Yeah. Um, hey, so after you pick it up, can I come by to make a closer inspection of a tattoo on its arm? It’s got some weird and interesting magical properties that I’d like to check out.”
NEXT EPISODE: IMAGINARY FRIEND AND FOE
Written by Steve and Robin Pool. Copyright (c) 2022 by Uncle Robot Media, LLC